Vladimir Putin won with an advantage unprecedented in Russia The incumbent president won with an overwhelming advantage, unprecedented in the modern history of Russia. However, the absence of any full-fledged rivals for Vladimir Putin should not serve as a basis for discrediting the institution of elections. This freedom, which we received not so long ago, has already been seriously discredited. Moreover, we honestly admit that this did not happen in the last four years.

Private companies are content with the minimum For the third month now, Russians have had the opportunity to enjoy the first fruits of the pension reform. At the end of last year, 42 million future retirees could entrust the funded portion of their future pension to a private management company. However, the main stage of the most important reform was so crumpled that today even its immediate implementers cannot say at what stage it is. By the way, many of them have already changed jobs.

"Silver" by Dmitry Lobkov looks like little consolation The World Championships at individual distances, which ended in Seoul, brought the Russian team only one silver medal, which was won by Dmitry Lobkov at a distance of 500 meters. The forecast of the President of the Skating Union Vladimir Komarov that the Russian team can count on two medals - Dmitry Lobkov and Evgeny Lalenkov in the "one and a half" - was half justified.

The winner of the vote in Spain will only be determined today Yesterday's parliamentary elections in Spain, marred the day before by bloody terrorist attacks, determined the name of the new chairman of the government, since the leader of the winning party becomes prime minister in this country. Official data will only be available today, and preliminary results, summed up late yesterday evening by independent agencies, were full of contradictions.

The Center for Alternative Vote Counting at the House of Journalists, a stronghold of opposition presidential candidates Sergei Glazyev and Irina Khakamada, began informing the public about the election progress at 7 p.m. Glazyev and Khakamada, accompanied by member of the Moscow City Election Commission Natalya Borodina and head of the Glazyev headquarters Yana Dubeykovskaya, came out to the journalists and spoke about the violations recorded so far. According to Ms.

Russian Cezanne artists are shown in Monaco Sixty-six works from eleven regional museums, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum and nine paintings from a private collection made up the exhibition “Jack of Diamonds”: from Cezanne to the avant-garde.” The sensational nature of the event, firstly, is that never before have the works of Russian Cezanne artists from the Jack of Diamonds association been exhibited in such a volume, and secondly, the exhibition in a tiny European country was

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On containers and oil Less than two months have passed since the president of Russian Railways OJSC Gennady Fadeev reported to the public on the company’s work for the first three months of its existence, and last Friday he already presented a new report - based on the results of the work of five months. And although Mr.

The heads of the central banks of Belarus and Russia hope that the transition to a single currency will take place, as planned, from January 1, 2005. “The deadline of January 1, 2005 is still realistic. There is time to sign documents and ratify them. Although there is little time,” noted Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia Sergei Ignatiev at a recent press conference in Minsk.

Local authorities fought for turnout as best they could If we characterize the voting process in the presidential election, then, perhaps, the best description for it would be the word “calm.” Even in Chechnya there were no special incidents. True, on Sunday morning, explosions occurred near two polling stations in the village of Sernovodskaya in the Sunzhensky district of Chechnya. The bombs went off immediately after the opening of the sites, at intervals of five minutes.

Rosneft will build the largest transshipment terminal not only for itself Rosneft has announced its intention to build the largest oil terminal in Russia among oil-producing concerns (not counting the Transneft ports in Primorsk and Novorossiysk). The state-owned company, which produced only 19.4 million tons of raw materials in 2003, decided to build an oil export complex with a capacity of as much as 30 million tons in the Leningrad region, on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland.

"Yabloko" Artemyev wants to split companies and break up mega-mergers Igor Artemyev, recently appointed chief overseer of fair competition with the rank of head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), held an “introductory” press conference on Friday. Mr. Aryemev was quite cautious in answering specific questions, but showed ambitions in the area of ​​antitrust strategy. FAS was created on the basis of the Ministry of Antimonopoly Policy and Entrepreneurship Support, which was headed by St.

David Beckham's wife Victoria categorically refused to live in this city after the terrorist attacks in Madrid. Thus, Real is already preparing to part with the England midfielder. “We, of course, do not want to lose such a player, but if he finds it impossible to stay in Madrid, we are ready to terminate our contract. However, Beckham’s new club will have to pay a large penalty,” a confidential source at the Royal club told the Evening Standard.

The MNF will also be led by a native of the president’s homeland Instead of Gennady Bukaev, the Russian tax authorities will be led by Anatoly Serdyukov, another native of St. Petersburg in the federal government. The proposed appointment was announced yesterday by Gennady Yezhov, press secretary of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. Since February 20 of this year, Mr.

Switzerland legalizes absinthe after a century of prohibition In Europe, one of the longest anti-alcohol campaigns in the history of the Old World has ended. The Swiss government recently finally passed a law lifting the ban on absinthe. Now the sale and production of this legendary wormwood liqueur in this Alpine confederation will be allowed, and the consumption of absinthe will be considered not a mild drug addiction, but banal everyday drunkenness.