Above the desk of the director of the National School of Beauty of Belarus, Olga Serezhnikova, is a large portrait of President Lukashenko, on the side is a large plaster coat of arms, in the corner there is a large red-white-green flag on a staff. State paraphernalia, as well as dark solid furniture, she inherited from her predecessor. Olga doesn't like the furniture very much, so the school office is going to be renovated.

What is a “vignette of a false essence”, I once understood when I opened the pseudo-boyar menu in the alarus restaurant. Gogulki in the corners and capital letters in the style of Khokhloma painting invariably precede daily cabbage soup and hunting cutlets. Actually, at this point it would be possible to finish acquainting the reader with the content and design of the book by 28-year-old member of the Public Chamber Alexei Chadayev “Putin.

Russian parliamentarians who visited Tbilisi last week said that they clearly felt the “smell of war” there. The Newsweek correspondent, who does not have such a sensitive smell, came to the capital of Georgia hostile to us after them and did not feel anything. On Rustaveli Avenue, cars were buzzing in a traffic jam, at the parliament building, which had just been ultimately demanding the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from South Ossetia, two police officers were bored.

On the Day of the Defender of the Fatherland in the Kremlin, a concert will be given, perhaps, the most patriotic group of the country - Lyube. They say the favorite group of the head of state. Rehearsals are held in the conference hall of the military hospital on the outskirts of Moscow. The situation is appropriate: on the walls - portraits of military leaders. The correspondent of the Russian Newsweek, Artem Vernidub, spoke about Vladimir Putin, patriotism, army and hazing.

Army | Union of the cross and plowshare Last week, senior army officials proposed to revive two institutes of guardians of morality in the Armed Forces at once - chaplains and lower-level political officers. Thus, the military reacted to all the high-profile scandals of recent times related to manifestations of army hazing. The main one was the tragic case of an ordinary Chelyabinsk tank school Alexei Sychev, who lost both legs as a result of bullying colleagues.

This year it will be ten years since the Rozhkov family—Afanasy, Nadya and their three sons—made a forced march along the route Dushanbe-Moscow-Paris. They stopped in Moscow to get a French visa—“there was nowhere to live, nothing to live on, and nothing—we didn’t even have warm clothes,” and Russia denied them refugee status. Then, in 1996, we did not need repatriates. Now the Rojkoff family doesn't need Russia.

Dear reader! "The Tale of Cheap Housing" - because in life it only becomes more expensive. “Catching a tenant” is not only an occupation of unscrupulous construction companies that collected money from equity holders. This, apparently, is generally a dream of affordable apartments: they were promised (each family - a separate one) by 2000, now there are grandiose plans for 2010.

For the skating of Svetlana Zhurova, the Olympic champion in the run of 500 meters, it was a real star hour. In her honor in the Russian house in Turin, a salute died out, and she, looking like the tears of happiness, went to a press conference. There, the words did not let her say gallant men. The owner of the house was the first to take the floor - the head of the company "Boszo Di Chilji" Mikhail Kusnirovich. He talked about the traditions of Russian sports.

The designer and host of the program “Remove this Immediately” Tasha Strogai almost never wore dresses. He says, and could not imagine before that she would wear them just like that - without trousers. And now he sews himself two feminine dresses. True, Tasha admits, she is not ready for shoes yet - she will wear with boots. And slowly but surely working on yourself. In the new season “Spring-summer 2006”, the catwalks and shops will flood dresses, hats, elbow gloves and high heels-spilles.

On Saturday evening, the winners of the gold and silver bears at the Berlinale 2006 became known. For the first time in history, in order to preserve the intrigue, their names were announced not during the day, at a press conference of the jury (which was headed by Charlotte Rampling), but directly at the official ceremony, as they do in the cunning Cannes. This text was written before the end of competitive screenings. Perhaps the festival had something in store for the end.

Volga farmer Sergei Pavlovich Chikov openly calls himself a drug addict. True, the object of his addiction does not fall under the law on combating drugs: “My drug is self-grown grain, sunflowers.” The pastoral views of the spring fields have such a strong therapeutic effect that in the rest of the year Chikov patiently endures the “withdrawal”. Typical problems torment the modern peasant: for example, the growing costs of fuel and fertilizers.

More than 500 public organizations from various regions have agreed to fight nationalism, xenophobia and religious strife under the banner of United Russia. The Novgorod region provided thirteen participants: here is the All-Russian Voluntary Society of Motorists, and the Center for the Prevention of Drug Addiction, and the non-profit partnership "Provincial Credit Commonwealth", and the Regional Consumer Union. Even the blind signed.