There is no shortage of train tickets for Muscovites This year's holiday season has not been an "emergency" for those who want to travel to the resort by train. In any case, that’s what the railway workers themselves say. “The situation is difficult, but not catastrophic,” Oleg Prokhorov, head of the passenger service of the Moscow Railway, said at a press conference yesterday. Already in June, railway workers appointed 14 additional trains to the “hottest” destinations: Adler, Anapa, Crimea.

The cabinet is dissatisfied with the appetite of large oil companies A scandal in a noble family: the peaceful course of the tax revolution may be disrupted by the head of the Tax Code on the mineral extraction tax. As the Vremya Novostey newspaper learned from sources in the White House, the new tax in the form modified by the Duma members was no longer liked by several departments at once - each for its own reasons.

The founding congress of the Fatherland and Unity union will be held in Moscow on July 12. The decision was made at the coordination council of the two organizations held yesterday.

Winner of the Berlin Golden Bear 2001 on Moscow screens Patrice Chéreau's Intimate was advertised as "the most shocking film of the year." However, its scandalousness, as it turned out, is quite traditional and predictable and fits into the current European canons, set by Lars von Trier and Catherine Breillat.

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office agreed to suspend the criminal case against the famous businessman Mikhail Zhivilo, who is accused of preparing an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev. The head of the Prosecutor General's Office for supervision over the implementation of the federal security law, Vladimir Titov, confirmed the validity of this decision made on Thursday by an investigator from the FSB Directorate for the Novosibirsk Region.

After January's Davos, which turned out to be perhaps the most disastrous for Russia in all years, the just concluded European economic summit in Salzburg marked a clear turn for the better. At the final meeting of the forum, Neville Isdell, Coca-Cola's vice president for Europe, even stated the need for common efforts to urgently correct the image of Russia, which is much worse than the actual situation in the country.

The participants in the most high-profile money laundering case will be free while they await their verdict. Most of the defendants in the scandalous case of laundering half a billion dollars by the offshore Cassaf-bank, which is now being considered in the Moscow City Court, were recently released from custody. Cassaf-bank cashier Alexander Tikhomirov, as well as two former tellers of this bank, Agris Freifalts and Agnis Liepins, were released.

Vladimir Putin yesterday discussed Russia’s energy strategy until 2020 and the concept of the gas market with Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko and Gazprom Chairman of the Board Alexei Miller. Mr.

Kyiv is in no hurry to let Russian electricity flow into Europe A delegation from RAO UES of Russia visited Kyiv, which intended to agree on the conditions for resuming the parallel operation of the energy systems of the two countries. This is provided for in a memorandum signed back in February during a meeting in Dnepropetrovsk between Presidents Putin and Kuchma.

Last year's amnesty, timed to coincide with the 55th anniversary of the Victory, has been outlawed. The Constitutional Court came to the conclusion that the State Duma, which adopted the amnesty resolution, did not have the right to pardon repeat offenders and those who committed serious crimes, and certainly it was impossible to later reverse its decision. The amnesty announced in May last year is perhaps the most scandalous act of its kind in recent years.

The State Duma will today consider in the second reading a new law on licensing certain types of activities - the most important in the package for de-bureaucratization of the economy developed by the government. A source in the leadership of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the department responsible for passing the law through parliament, is confident that by the end of the spring session the law will be adopted in three readings.

The general director of the Rostov combine harvester plant "Rostselmash" Sergei Lebedev recently announced that on October 15 the board of directors will determine the parameters for the additional issue of shares of the enterprise. As a result of this issue, the main shareholder of the plant, the capital's CJSC New Sodrugestvo, should receive a controlling stake in Rostselmash. So far, New Commonwealth structures own 40% of the Rostov combine harvester plant.

The development program for the region “South of Russia” was adopted The North Caucasus is beginning to turn, as the hero of the film “Prisoner of the Caucasus” said, into “a real granary, health resort and forge of Russia.” The federal program “South of Russia” adopted yesterday by the government is designed for the period until 2006 and is designed to help the region become irresistibly attractive to local residents, tourists and investors by this date.

TagAZ is ready to assemble anything, just not Zhiguli. The Taganrog Automobile Plant (owned by the Doninvest financial and industrial group), the favorite brainchild of Rostov Governor Vladimir Chub, has begun serial assembly of South Korean Hyundai cars. According to the governor, 350 cars will roll off the assembly line in July, and 3,500 by the end of the year. The agreement with Hyundai provides for the annual assembly of 10 thousand foreign cars, and since 2003 - 20 thousand.

Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vittorio de Sica To go down in cinema history, the Italian Vittorio de Sica would have had enough of his acting work. Already in the late 20s, he was the leading hero-lover of Italian theaters, and managed to star in dozens of unassuming comedies.