On January 27, within the framework of the XII International Christmas Educational Readings, the Russian Ministry of Education hosted a conference "Studying Orthodox Culture in a Secular School", reports the Sedmitsa.ru website . The conference, in addition to employees of the ministry, was attended by representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Moscow Mayor's Office, educational authorities of Moscow, St.

January 21 "Literaturnaya gazeta" published an interview with a historian, author of the program "Who are we?" (TV channel "Culture") Felix Razumovsky, who talks about the "crisis of self-identification" of modern Russia. Without engaging in polemics with F. Razumovsky, we will only note that, in our opinion, in some cases, his theses are disputable, and examples are doubtful (in particular, the example of Nizhny Novgorod democracy, which, in F.

On January 20, 2004, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee, "Communists, back." In it, M. Margelov tries to prove that the results of the last parliamentary campaign testify that the communist influence is finished not only in the state sphere, but also among the masses. He reproaches "relic institutions like the OSCE" (! - ed.

In December 2003 Literaturnaya Gazeta published an interview with writer Valentin Lavrov. The reason for it was the publication of another book by V. Lavrov, dedicated to Yevno Azef, who, according to the author, is "a noble man ... and even a patriot" (journalist's wording - ed. ). In addition to the attempt to rehabilitate Yevno Azef (cf.

On the eve of the economic forum in Davos, Izvestiya published a keynote article by Andrey Kostin, chairman of the board of Vneshtorgbank, in which he shares his vision of the country's economic prospects. The article is frankly pre-election in nature and is a panegyric to the current President of Russia V. Putin.

In November 2003, Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov, after loud statements in the case of M. Khodorkovsky (that, alas, he cannot give more than ten years to the head of Yukos, and that "those who are not yet , should think about what they are doing in the end" ) took the initiative to review the place of the Central Bank in the economic system of Russia.

The discussion about the possibility and necessity of changing the Constitution of the Russian Federation, started by Gennady Raikov, was continued in a number of media outlets. Virtually no one supported the theses proposed by Gennady Raikov.

Independently of each other, a number of newspapers published articles that, in our opinion, are capable of initiating a discussion about the existence of an ideological justification for the "new conservatism." In addition to Felix Razumovsky's article on the "crisis of groundlessness" and "the need for self-knowledge", this group includes several remarks that are not even independent articles.

January 31 - February 1, Yekaterinburg is to host a winter congress of the Ural communities of Jehovah's Witnesses.

On January 28, deputies of the Saratov Regional Duma approved amendments to the law "On the introduction of a tax on the property of organizations in the territory of the Saratov region." Under these amendments, all local religious organizations are exempt from property tax. The amount of the benefits provided, according to the report of the Ministry of Taxes and Taxes for the Saratov region, is 300 thousand rubles. Sources The church received tax breaks // Saratov GTRK. 2004. January 28.