Boris Orlov at the Museum of Modern Art The exhibition “The Earthly Host and the Heavenly Host” by Boris Orlov, which opened at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (branch on Ermolaevsky Lane), confirms: the plastic tradition today is a treasure trove, a living resource of ideas, meanings and meanings. She is not a servant of ideologies, she valorizes and justifies them.

European banks continue to lose billions While US financial authorities are trying to reassure the world community that they are doing everything to prevent a recession , the largest European banks continue to lose billions of dollars due to the mortgage crisis. On Friday it became known that the fourth largest bank in France, Natixis, wrote off 0.8 billion euros ($1.2 billion) due to investments in subprime securities.

Vladimir Putin held his last press conference as head of state with Russian and foreign journalists. It turned out that the president is generally pleased with himself and plans to work as prime minister for as long as Dmitry Medvedev will be president. If the people allow it, of course, he made a reservation. Foreign media, which regularly and with interest attend such events, concluded from these words that Mr. Putin will continue to rule the country from behind the back of the next president.

Armenia is ready for the elections of a new president Today in Armenia is a “day of silence” before the presidential elections : election campaigning, like in many other countries, stops on voting day. The campaign, which was much more dynamic than the elections to the national assembly, ended last weekend with two grand rallies in Yerevan, attended by supporters of the two leading candidates.

He was a very good person. No, of course, he was a good artist, very musical - and he got into the Taganka Theater because he had musical abilities, and he and Anatoly Vasilyev, then also a student at the Shchukin School, and now an outstanding director, wrote songs for the play “Kind the man from Szechwan" - and then his life was certainly connected with the theater, and with music, and with cinema, although he never played anything truly epoch-making.

Heads of the Federal Migration Service advise not to chase a biometric passport The leaders of the Federal Migration Service, who have long advertised the advantages of biometric documents, are now forced to promote old-style international passports. Apparently, a change in direction in explanatory work with compatriots occurred after the service realized: the units where the new type of IDs are issued, with electronic storage media, are simply not coping with the influx of Russians .

The Russian military caught the US trying to test anti-satellite weapons Following the idea of ​​placing the third position area of ​​the American missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic , which became a stumbling block in relations between Russia and the United States, another reason for disagreement between the two powers has appeared.

On February 16, North Korea celebrated the birthday of the country's leader Kim Jong Il. Anyone who knows the DPRK well and has arrived there after a fairly long break cannot help but notice certain changes that have recently occurred both in everyday life and in the mood of North Koreans. Unlike the crisis of the 90s, when hopelessness was visible in people’s eyes, today there is timid optimism and hope for an improvement in life.

More than 80 people were killed yesterday by a bomb explosion near the city of Kandahar in the province of the same name in southern Afghanistan. The number of victims was increased by the fire of the police, who fired at a crowd of people after the explosion. “The Taliban were no longer there when they started shooting,” an eyewitness to the tragedy told reporters. Among those killed was the head of the provincial security forces, Abdul Hakim Jan.

Barack Obama saves other people's sons from Iraq The situation in Iraq is still an integral part of the election struggle in the United States. According to a Gallop poll published recently, when choosing a presidential candidate, Americans will primarily be guided by his ability to resolve the Iraqi issue. Iraq is a key issue in Democratic Senator Barack Obama's campaign program.

Viktor Yushchenko does not want to let Yulia Tymoshenko attend negotiations in Moscow The hardware confrontation between the President and Prime Minister of Ukraine on the issue of conducting gas negotiations with Russia continues . Viktor Yushchenko, who managed to get Yulia Tymoshenko's first planned visit to Moscow canceled in January, and last week he was in the Kremlin solving Ukraine's gas problems, clearly does not want to let the initiative slip from his hands.

The clubs were explained the new principles of life In one of the boarding houses near Moscow, located near Mytishchi, a meeting was held between the general managers of the hockey super league teams and the management of the new hockey league, which is still called the KHL. There were no disputes or discussions typical of such forums. The new bosses told us what rules they would have to live by next season, and club representatives threw their caps into the air with joy.

Kosovo Parliament adopted declaration of independence Yesterday there was one more self-proclaimed state in the world. The Assembly of Kosovo adopted an act of independence . It declared the Serbian region with a population of about two million people to be an “independent, democratic and sovereign state.” Following this, Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci appealed to the international community to recognize the newborn state.

The US Congress ordered intelligence to reveal secrets President George W. Bush will veto the 2008 budget bill for the US intelligence community if it continues to require congressmen to provide them with data on secret programs of US intelligence agencies to overthrow governments abroad. White House press secretary Tony Fratto announced this the other day, explaining that the idea of ​​a veto was suggested to Bush by his advisers.

Alexander Bashlachev as a justification for Russian rock On that February evening in 1988, everyone was traveling to St. Petersburg - at the station I ran into Ryzhenko and Tsoi, and in St. Petersburg Butusov was walking towards us. It was impossible to breathe in the rock club in the evening watching Rubinstein. Everyone was silent or singing. BG sang “Black Raven”, Butusov - “Diamond Roads”, Shevchuk... I don’t remember what Shevchuk sang. I remember how he cried.