Ilya Chukalin said at a press conference that the amount of funding allocated for presidential grants could be increased / Alexander Shcherbak / TASS The CEO of the new Presidential Grants Fund, Ilya Chukalin, said at a press conference on Thursday that the amount of funding allocated for presidential grants could be increased from 4.3 billion to 7 billion rubles this year.

Following an inspection of the Hermitage, a commission from the Ministry of Culture banned the museum from selling books about “museum sales” in the 1920s and 1930s. This was written on Facebook by the museum’s senior researcher, Alexey Larionov. Fontanka.ru’s sources reported that the authorities’ claims were related to the processing of permission to publish after the documents about the sales had been classified.

See also: PHOTO: Gas attack in Syria American intelligence services intercepted conversations between Syrian military and chemical weapons experts, CNN reports, citing sources. According to the channel, the talks included discussions of an attack being prepared in Idlib. "The US had no advance knowledge of the planned attack, the official stressed.

April 13, 2017, 00:48 / Business Exclusively by subscription United Continental's capitalization fell by almost $700 million per day The reason is a scandal on board the United Airlines holding company Alexander Vorobyov The capitalization of United Continental Holdings fell by almost $700 million in one day after a scandal on board the holding's United Airlines / David J.

April 12, 2017, 23:30 / Economics It was decided to postpone the discussion of the tax maneuver They will return to it when the entire reform program is ready Elizaveta Bazanova Olga Kuvshinova Margarita Papchenkova Alexandra Prokopenko The government weighed the pros and cons of the maneuver under the 22% VAT and 22% insurance premiums scheme and decided that now is not the time / Photoxpress The tax maneuver - increasing VAT to 22% and reducing insurance premiums to 22% - will not be discussed

In the play "Inquiry", the audience is first given copies of the play to read independently, and then asked to read it aloud, passing a stack of sheets around the circle / goldenmask.ru An important, though almost unnoticed, incident occurred at the Golden Mask festival, which proves how great the potential of the theatre as a kind of social laboratory is. At the chamber performance of the Khabarovsk Youth Theatre, “The Inquiry,” two dozen spectators staged a real riot against the actors.

US President Donald Trump, who said during the election campaign that NATO was an obsolete organization, has once again made the North Atlantic alliance relevant. "I said it was obsolete. It is no longer obsolete," Reuters quotes Trump as saying following talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump noted that the alliance is adapting to a broader mission of countering Islamic militants and thanked them for supporting their actions in Syria.

If current oil prices remain the same, the Russian currency will weaken to approximately 62 rubles. per dollar by the end of 2017, said Minister of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin during a speech at a government meeting in Gorki. If oil prices drop to $40 per barrel by the end of the year, then, according to the basic forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development, the ruble will weaken to 68 rubles. per dollar, he noted.

Life style Poster for the weekend: Easter, Fast and Furious 8, Spartak - Zenit and Treasures of Nukus Vedomosti recommends where to go and what to see 04/14/2017 Universal Pictures International Switzerland “Fast and Furious 8” is being released in cinemas, about which there has been so much talk about the postponement. ... Alexander Demyanchuk/TASS The central game of the 23rd round of the Russian football championship is the Spartak derby ...

The European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to pay 2,955,000 euros in compensation and 88,000 euros in legal costs to the relatives of those killed during the Beslan school siege. This decision in the case “Tagaeva and others v. Russia” was made on April 13. 409 people sued the state, including former hostages and relatives of dead and wounded hostages. The court confirmed the plaintiffs' view that Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights was violated in their regard.

Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky is dissatisfied with how budget funds are spent on cinema and proposes introducing new efficiency criteria for the largest film companies, several producers said. For every 100 rubles that the largest film companies irrevocably receive from the budget, they must bring at least one spectator to the cinema, the minister insists.

Channel One does not consider it possible to broadcast Eurovision / Komsomolskaya Pravda / PhotoXPress Channel One does not consider it possible to broadcast Eurovision, since the organizer of this music competition was unable to ensure the participation of a Russian contestant, the television company reported.

US-led coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian denied Damascus' claims that its planes carried out strikes near the city of Deir ez-Zor on Wednesday. "The official spokesperson saw the SANA news agency reports that coalition aircraft carried out strikes near Deir ez-Zor on Wednesday. This is not true! This is again deliberate disinformation!" the official spokesperson for Operation Resolute Support wrote on his Twitter account on Thursday.

The results of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Russia should not be expected anytime soon, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the day after the talks. At least the parties "agreed to establish a dialogue on a number of important issues," he noted. As Interfax reports , he said that after the final joint press conference, he and the Secretary of State informally discussed what opportunities there are for bringing the two countries' positions closer together.

April 13, 2017, 18:20 / Personal account The maximum rate on deposits of the largest banks fell to a historical low Since the crisis of December 2014, it has already decreased by half Lyudmila Koval The indicator was at a historical minimum for the entire period of calculations since July 2009 / Maxim Stulov / Vedomosti Now the Central Bank calculates this indicator based on the deposit rates of Sberbank, VTB 24 , VTB Bank of Moscow , Raiffeisenbank, Gazprombank, B&N Bank, Alfa Bank , FC