On November 19, Literaturnaya Gazeta published an interview with Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, dedicated to the search for a national idea (note that the newspaper did not give any indication that the hero of the interview was an active participant in the Duma election campaign). We admit that this is the most intelligible of all the pre-election materials of the "Party of Life - Party of the Revival of Russia" bloc. Probably, S.

In January 2003, the Newsletter of the Revolutionary Contact Association (RKO) published - without attribution - an article "Conversations about Orthodoxy" . According to V.A. Lavrova, supported by the appeal of the deputy of the State Duma of the third convocation V.I. Zorkaltsev, the Prosecutor General's Office checked this publication for any calls for inciting inter-religious hatred. 2003 V.I. As a result of the check, as on December 19 , Zorkaltsev, Deputy Prosecutor General V.V.

In Pskov, the monument to St. Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga by Vyacheslav Klykov was damaged: two of the twelve figures of Pskov saints on the bas-relief of the monument were damaged. According to the head of the Research and Production Center for the Protection and Use of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Pskov Region, Vasily Musiychuk, acts of vandalism may be repeated.

On December 5, MK published an interview with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, accompanied by a touching remark: “Doing an election interview with anyone is of little interest to a journalist. But Luzhkov, as he was, will remain the mayor. with him there is no by definition "... In particular, one of the subheadings of the interview was the question of the situation with the Tuzla spit and relations with Ukraine in general. In response to this, Yu.

As of January 9, the DUM of Dagestan registered 3,200 Muslims wishing to go on the Hajj. , which publishes these data The information channel Islam.Ru , also notes that "out of all Russian pilgrims, the share of Dagestan in recent years has been about two-thirds." All in all, this year, according to "Interfax" , five and a half thousand Muslims will go on pilgrimage from Russia.

On December 4, one of the editorials of the Rossiya newspaper criticized the strengthening of police measures in the United States, in particular, the inclusion in the database of DNA samples of suspects whose guilt was not proven. The editors draw parallels with the practice of the KGB of the USSR and express fears that "in the name of fighting crime and protecting national security, the basis of the American [highlighted by us - ed.

In December 2003, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church replaced the manager of the affairs of the MP: instead of Metropolitan Sergius of Voronezh, Archbishop Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk was appointed to this post, who had previously been the first deputy chairman of the DECR MP, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad. Another deputy of Metropolitan Kirill, Archimandrite Mark (Golovkov), became vicar of the Moscow diocese.

On November 21, Moskovsky Komsomolets published an interview with Andrei Vavilov, a senator from the Penza region, in which, in particular, full support was expressed for the state's position in the Yukos case. Moreover, he not only expresses his approval of the "Yukos case", but specifically focuses on the fact that he expressed this approval more than once and did not change his position.

In an article published on the website "Civil Club" (which relatively rarely refers to the topic of religion), Yuri Ammosov discusses the reasons for the relatively weak influence of the ROC in modern Russian society and suggests possible ways to modernize the Church. Aleksey Chadaev objects to this "Protestant" approach. Yu. Ammosov notes that both in Russia and in Western countries the number of "practicing believers" is extremely small.

The New Year's issue of Literaturnaya Gazeta published an article by Andrey Nuikin, a literary critic and publicist, former "foreman of perestroika", dedicated to the next anniversary of the signing of the Belovezhskaya Accords, which formalized the collapse of the Soviet Union. The leitmotif of the publication is the unresolved numerous problems associated with the formation of sovereign states, and its possible consequences.

It is no secret that the program statements of the majority of parties and blocs participating in the parliamentary election campaign were not distinguished by intelligibility and concreteness. Against this background, the pre-election program of the Great Russia-Eurasian Union bloc (leaders P. Borodin, R. Aushev and A.-V. Niyazov), presented as an author's article by the head of the bloc's election headquarters, Vladimir Bauer, looked all the brighter against this background.

On December 8, 2003, among the letters of Izvestia readers, the opinion of the war veteran L.I. Lopatnikov regarding the annual celebrations in honor of the Battle of Moscow in 1941 was published. veterans was held in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

In the pre-New Year issue of the Literaturnaya Gazeta, an interview was published with the writer Andrey Parshev, author of the bestseller Why Russia is Not America, which actually develops the theory expressed by Sergei Lopatnikov in Moskovsky Komsomolets. A.

On November 27, 2003, Alexander Tsipko published an article called "Cutting Down Democracy", which expressed doubts about the possibility and necessity of any opposition to Vladimir Putin and his political course. A. Tsipko builds his construction on the fact that, in his opinion, until 2003 there was neither a democratic regime nor a multi-party system in Russia.

The 10th anniversary of the adoption of the modern Russian constitution and the results of the parliamentary elections that took place shortly before this again intensified the debate about the need and possibility of changing the Basic Law of the country. The starting point of the discussion was President Putin's statement at a meeting with representatives of the Federal Assembly on 9 December. "It's time to stop all talk about the need to change the Constitution.