Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is preparing to rule for a third term and a fourth... “How I love him! Look how much I love him!” Yaritsa Blanco tears open the box, pulls out a Hugo Chavez doll in camouflage and a red paratrooper cap by the legs and noisily kisses it on the face, chest and below the army belt. Yaritsa sells this product in the seaside town of Higerote.

On a dark night, after midnight, six unknown young people no older than 22 entered an unlit apartment near the Kremlin. A month later, almost everyone knew their names (Zhanna, Dan, Margo, Max, Sasha and Olya), their characters and habits. And popular expressions (“to lower below the plinth”) and favorite words (“I am in shock”) were repeated even by such different characters as the head of the Islamic Committee, Heydar Dzhemal, and the then Chief Rabbi of Russia, Adolf Shayevich.

Istanbul pharmacist Ozan saw the Bible two years ago at a book fair, read it and decided to become a Christian. I went to different churches, but chose the Orthodox one - the courtyard of the Athos monastery of St. Panteleimon. He says that it was not he who chose Orthodoxy, but it was his: “I can’t explain why I was drawn here. You have to ask God." Now Ozan goes to the only Russian-speaking parish in all of Istanbul almost every Saturday and Sunday.

"Remember: only launch an internet browser and a sound editor, nothing else!" - one of the best programmers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) instructed me and left me alone with the computer. The former head of the famous MIT Media Lab, and now the head of the technical part of the UN project OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Walter Bender, probably forgot about the peculiarities of journalistic work, which is based on a heightened sense of curiosity.