Residents are asked to vote for this in a referendum An initiative group has been created in Omsk to hold a referendum on the purchase and sale of land. This was reported to your correspondent by Alexander Kushnarev, chairman of the regional election commission, where the necessary documents have already been transferred.

Giving the Russian economy market status is a practically resolved issue. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov announced this yesterday after the first round of negotiations in Washington. According to him, the US administration has taken concrete steps in this direction, and in two to four months the end will be drawn.

As the ITAR-TASS agency reported yesterday, the mayor of the city of Saransk, Ivan Nenyukov, ordered administration employees to attend the theater without fail. The mayor has a decisive attitude towards possible refuseniks: “At first you’ll have to force them.” But in general, Nenyukov is optimistic about the prospects for enlightening Russian bureaucrats: “They’ll get used to it.

America will fight against the rest of the world On February 1-2, Los Angeles will host a traditional star weekend, during which its main event will take place - the 52nd NHL All Stars match. It will be the fifth time in history that the teams of North America and the rest of the world will meet. The latter will feature seven of our stars.

Russian Presidential Prize laureates announced The list of new winners of the Presidential Prize of the Russian Federation brilliantly confirms the version of the complete identity of “state” and “independent” awards ( see notes on the tenth anniversary of the Triumph Prize - Vremya Novostey, January 29 ).

Officials are trying to define borders in Moscow It seems that the Moscow authorities cannot escape from starting to share city land with the Russian authorities. In January, the federal law “On the delimitation of state ownership of land” came into force. In pursuance of this law, according to the Vremya Novostei newspaper, a conciliation commission made up of officials from the Federal Ministry of Property and the Moscow government has been working day and night since the beginning of January.

The first matches of the 1/8 finals of the men's Korac Cup and women's Ronchetti Cup took place. Russian teams won three victories in four games. Women's clubs achieved 100% results. Vologda "Chevakata" on their site prevailed over the Israeli "Maccabi" (Raanana) - 89:79. The center of the Russian national team, Maria Kalmykova, distinguished herself for the hosts, scoring 30 points and making 15 rebounds.

Our Lady of Kazan may bring the Pope to Moscow The Vatican is once again initiating negotiations with the Russian Orthodox Church on the transfer of the famous icon of the Kazan Mother of God. The other day, the head of the Catholic Church, John Paul II, received representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate - Metropolitan Pitirim of Volokolamsk and Yurievsk and Bishop Hilarion. And he told his “colleagues” that he would like to personally meet with Patriarch Alexy II and return the icon to him.

Bovkun kept his chair without going to work Last night, the missing bankruptcy manager of Promstroibank (PSB), Vladimir Bovkun, finally showed up. His appearance could not have come at a better time. The meeting of the bank's creditors, at which it was planned to approve the resignation of Mr. Bovkun, did not take place due to a court ban on the claim of a private depositor.

The arbitration confirmed the right of St. Petersburg to its own networks The appeal panel of the Arbitration Court for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region rejected yesterday the claim of the Office of the Prosecutor General for the Northwestern Federal District to cancel the order of St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev, according to which in the spring of 2001 OJSC St. Petersburg Electric Networks (SPbES) was created with 100% city participation.

Big money is circulating there too The scandalous case of ambulance workers in the Polish city of Lodz, who entered into a conspiracy with funeral service companies, promises to be very lengthy. The connection between health workers and funeral homes, to which they supplied information about deceased patients for a substantial fee, turned out to be not only a regional phenomenon. Investigative measures are being carried out in almost all major cities in Poland.

This year's first major "military" emergency occurred yesterday afternoon in Chukotka - at the remote Wellen border post, a contract sergeant shot four fellow soldiers. While the details of the tragedy are unknown, due to the remoteness, communication with this outpost is maintained only by radio.

Kadannikov was left alone Yesterday's board of directors of AvtoVAZ brought a sensation. As a result, the president and general director of the automobile plant, Alexei Nikolaev, and his first deputy, Nikolai Lyachenkov, left their positions. Several vice presidents also resigned. Experts interviewed by the Vremya Novostei newspaper believe that the personnel moves of AvtoVAZ management are aimed at increasing the manageability of the enterprise and, as a result, its attractiveness to investors.

In Rostov-on-Don, on the Walk of Fame of the largest cemetery in Europe, yesterday they buried Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant General Mikhail Rudchenko, who died in Chechnya as a result of the explosion of an Mi-8 helicopter. They said goodbye to the chief policeman of the Southern Federal District for two days: first in Moscow, then on the Don.

A batch of radioactive waste delivered to Moscow waste processing plant No. 2 was detained on Wednesday by police officers and the NPO Radon. When examining three trucks, specialists recorded increased background radiation. About 60 kg of medical materials contaminated with drugs based on iodine-131 and technetium-99m were found in them. The maximum dose of gamma radiation was more than 3 thousand microroentgens per hour, which is 150 times higher than the permissible norm.