The Central Bank has proposed a set of criteria by which banks will be identified as significant players in the banking system and worthy of additional regulatory scrutiny. The initiative comes two weeks after the shutdown of mid-sized Master Bank, previously considered inviolable due to its scale, and actions by the financial regulator to deal with several failing small regional lenders, which has sparked talk of a crackdown within the banking sector.

Russian Railways has put a quarter of its 1.2 million staff on part-time work after a freeze on monopoly rates ordered by the government. Denis Abramov State-owned Russian Railways, the country's biggest employer, is putting more than a quarter of its staff on part-time work schedules after the government refused to allow the company to increase its regulated rates for next year.

Yelizaveta Boyarskaya, Valery Barinov and Alexander Taranzhin (left to right) in the new adaptation of Leskov. Ken Reynolds "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District," a 19th-century sketch by Nikolai Leskov, is arguably one of the harshest works in the Russian literary canon. Dmitry Shostakovich adapted it for the opera in 1932, but it is Leskov's original prose, written in 1865, that Kama Ginkas turned to for his latest production at the Theater Yunogo Zritelya.

In early November, the Russian government released its latest macroeconomic forecast. It could not have been an easy decision. Whereas President Vladimir Putin and his government campaigned in 2012 on a promise that the Russian economy would grow from 5 percent to 6 percent a year during his six-year term, the growth rate is now expected to average just 2.8 percent from 2013 to 2020.

State airline Aeroflot plans to sell up to 10 percent of its stock next year to boost liquidity and establish a value ahead of a future privatization, the company's director said. The sale, which would lift the volume of publicly traded stock as high as 16 percent, has received preliminary approvals but still awaits authorization by the Federal Property Management Agency, Aeroflot head Vitaly Savelyev told Bloomberg in an interview published Tuesday.

Georgia's Interior Ministry said Tuesday that its border police had detained three Iraqi citizens who were attempting to cross illegally into Russia. The three men "were trying to cross the Georgian-Russian border in the direction of Russia, bypassing the Kazbegi border checkpoint on Nov. 29," the ministry said in a statement. A criminal inquiry has been launched into the Iraqis' alleged attempt to illegally cross Georgia's state border.

Yota Devices chief Vladislav Martynov speaking at Wednesday’s presentation of his firm’s new smartphone. Vladimir Filonov Russian technology firm Yota Devices launched the world's first dual-screen mobile phone on Wednesday, breathing fresh air into the fast-growing and competitive smartphone market. The YotaPhone has two screens — a 4.3-inch touch screen with a familiar Android interface on the front and a curved Kindle-like electronic paper display on the reverse side.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (left) shaking hands with NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. BRUSSELS — At a meeting with NATO counterparts on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed NATO's response to recent protests in Ukraine and said last month's deal on Iran's nuclear program renders the need for missile defense in Europe obsolete.

Kommersant 1. Yegor Popov and Kirill Melnikov article headlined "Black Sea Fleet to be brought into Novorossiisk sea trade port" says that the state-run United Shipbuilding Company has suggested establishing a repair base of the Black Sea Fleet using the facilities of the Novorossiisk-based shipyard; pp 1, 9 (679 words). 2.

NOVO-OGARYOVO — President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday expressed his support for granting amnesty to perhaps tens of thousands of Russian prisoners in honor of the 20th anniversary of the country's constitution. "I agree with your proposals in general," Putin told the head of the Kremlin's Human Rights Council, which had suggested the amnesty.

The Central Stadium in Yekaterinburg, slated for extensive renovation before the 2018 World Cup. Vladimir Zadumin YEKATERINBURG — One of the stadiums for the 2018 World Cup has become embroiled in a political tussle after Yekaterinburg's mayor demanded a dramatic rethink of the plans for his city's arena.

Myrninerest is a new project by prolific musician David Tibet, known for his work in reviving the folk music genre. Over the past 30 years, musician, writer and poet David Tibet has made music with a host of collaborators, with albums like "Nature Unveiled" (1984), "Crooked Crosses for the Nodding God" (1989), "Thunder Perfect Mind" (1992) and "Black Ships Ate the Sky" (2006), representing just some of his more than 50 releases that have been described as hallucinatory, apocalyptic and esoteric.

A freerider kayaks a remote river. Konstantin Galat The term "freeriding" can be applied to outdoor sports ranging from skiing and snowboarding to mountain biking, and generally means going off the beaten track and into the wilderness. However, a new project sponsored by NTV aims to bring the sport back into public view.

Moscow police have detained a man suspected of shooting dead four people in the city, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Wednesday. Bodies with gunshot wounds were discovered Tuesday inside a carriage at a railway cargo terminal in northeast Moscow. Police found 16 shell casings and five bullets at the scene, investigators said. The suspect, who police identified only as being born in 1981, was arrested at his friend's apartment in Moscow, an unidentified investigator said.

The crowd on Kiev's main square on Sunday before the street protest erupted into violence. Ivan Bandura A Kiev city court has ruled that nine Ukrainian protesters suspected of provoking clashes with the police during street demonstrations should be jailed for two months ahead of their trial, the prosecutor's office said Wednesday. The nine people are accused of turning a street protest on Sunday into a massive riot, a spokeswoman for the Kiev prosecutor's office said, Interfax reported.