The beginning of June announced its tough character from the first days. The high-altitude trough that formed over the European territory of Russia opened the way for southern cyclones. Cold air from northern latitudes, descending along its western branch, meets Mediterranean air, which is almost hot. In the zone of the frontal section of these dissimilar air masses, cyclones form.

Railway workers attracted the attention of the FAS The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) saw in the activities of Russian Railways OJSC (RZD) an intention to monopolize timber transportation. Yesterday, the FAS considered the case of the preferences that Russian Railways provided to Transles LLC, which was created last year.

Nadal won his 57th match in a row on clay It's time for the quarterfinals at the French Open in Paris. Today in the women's singles tournament at this stage Dinara Safina and the winner of the US Open 2004 Svetlana Kuznetsova will meet. Already the fourth Russian derby at this year's Roland Garros promises to be extremely interesting.

The Moscow Footlights festival is true to its traditions The first days of the “Moscow Footlights” (and it is already ending before the weekend, today at the Pushkin Theater the last evening given to the Canadians, the Dutch and the owners - the “Russian Chamber Ballet “Moscow”) confirmed the already established reputation of a regularly occurring fest. Patchwork quilt. Vinaigrette. Goodwill Games. Well, let's say it's more fanciful: fusion.

“Kinotavr” started no worse than the Cannes Film Festival The Sunday show that accompanied the official opening ceremony of the seventeenth Kinotavr festival was bright, short and mysterious. Between the protocol-required announcements, greetings and presentation of an honorary prize to Stanislav Govorukhin, Zemfira, Sasha Rakhmankova (a singer with a very high “electric” voice) and a group of Romanian gypsies sang fieryly.

Mark Ravenhill on the Moscow stage The festival of contemporary British drama taking place in Moscow (from 3 to 11 June) beautifully ends the season, which, as those who are not indifferent to the subject remember, began with the domestic festival “New Drama”. This is an unusual phenomenon for the Russian stage: it is not in our traditions for a twenty-year-old man to write a play about how unpleasant the world around him is, and for it to be immediately staged in the capital’s theater.

The Federation Council is gradually recognizing itself as a chamber of “werewolves” On June 3, Chairman of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov sent to the parliament of Kalmykia a proposal for the early termination of the powers of Senator Levon Chakhmakhchyan. This is already the fifth senator who has an almost 100% chance of losing his seat over the past month.

Crimea separated from Kyiv on the issue of NATO The situation in Crimea is getting worse. Despite President Yushchenko's decree ordering the start of preparations for the Sea Breeze 2006 and Tight Knot 2006 exercises, the Presidium of the Crimean Parliament yesterday declared that it was inappropriate to conduct them.

Aliyev and Kocharyan met in vain In Bucharest on June 4-5, the next round of negotiations between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan took place on the issue of resolving the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group (MG). The formal reason for the meeting was the participation of the presidents in the Black Sea Forum for Dialogue and Partnership. The presidents met at the Polish Embassy. On Sunday evening they talked for more than three hours.

An alien bear with bad heredity is terrorizing Bavaria Just one illegal migrant, regularly sneaking into German territory from Italy or Austria, has not only caused heated debate between liberal “greens” and conservatives, but has also frightened the rural population of an entire federal state. The alien that caused half the country to panic was a brown bear that appeared in the Bavarian Alps for the first time in 170 years.

Events. Doctor Zhivago is a wonderful work, if not the best, shown on television in the last few years. Alexander Proshkin and Yuri Arabov, translating Boris Pasternak's novel into film language, created an independent powerful work. And Oleg Menshikov, in my opinion, played his best role here. Oleg Yankovsky is beyond praise! Chulpan Khamatova is good. All the other acting works are wonderful too.

Former Japanese Trade Minister Yoshiaki Murakami caught using insider information Scandals related to the large Japanese Internet company Livedoor Co continue. As you know, in January, searches were carried out in the office of this company, the company was accused of falsifying reports and forging financial documents of subsidiaries, its vice president Hideaki Noguchi committed suicide, and president Takafumi Hori was arrested. This then caused a serious crisis on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The Russian men's team took sixth place The World Chess Olympiad, which ended in Turin, Italy, did not bring any special sensations. The issue of the championship of the Armenian national team was removed from the agenda already in the eleventh round, when the team defeated the hitherto invincible Czech team with a score of 3:1, while its closest competitors China and Russia scored only 1.5 points in their matches.

Chronicle of sporting events The European Youth Football Championship has ended in Portugal. In the final match of the tournament, the Dutch team defeated the Ukrainian team - 3:0. The first two goals were scored by Dutchman Huntelaar in the 11th and 43rd minutes. And Hofs scored the third goal against the Ukrainians during the referee's stoppage time.

Events. Felix Razumovsky’s program “Who are we?”, dedicated to the Polish uprising of 1830-1831, after which Pushkin wrote the famous “Slanderers of Russia” (Culture). “My Silver Ball” by Vitaly Vulf about the brilliant actor Sergei Martinson (“Russia”). Author's program by Anatoly Smelyansky “Mikhail Bulgakov. Black Snow" ("Culture"). Documentary film “Reflection.