Maxim Stulov / Vedomosti Higher numbers ofRussian borrowers repaying their loans early are causing banks'retail lending portfolios to stagnate. Russia's retail lendinghas remained stagnant in the first half of 2016 despite a concertedeffort by the country's banks. The Russian Central Bank reported thatprivate loan portfolios had decreased by 0.6 percent since Januarythis year, blaming the fall on the continuing decline of unsecuredconsumer lending.

Tuborg Green Jam Tuborg Green Jam Celebrating street culture Billed as “a festival from another angle,” Tuborg Green Jam is a celebration of the street music, art, sport, style and food young trendy things in Moscow are raving about. Special guests include outspoken American rapper Earl Sweatshirt and St. Petersburg musician BMB Spacekid. Feeling hungry after fighting your way to the front of the crowds?

The United States is calling on Russia and Ukraine to deescalate a "very dangerous situation" between the two countries, the Reuters news agency reported Thursday. Tensions flared between the two nations this week after Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Ukraine on Wednesday of preparing "terrorist acts" on the disputed Crimean peninsula.

Склад : warehouse, mindset In mynever-ending search for the most confusing aspects of the Russian language,I’ve stumbled across this: one word that means both a warehouse and a way ofthinking, and has a verb that can mean adding, making up, putting together orstoring. Pretty cool, right? The word is склад , which comes fromthe verb класть (toplace).

A Russian man hasclaimed that he was detained and beaten by police after speakingGerman in public, the Meduza news website reported Friday. Vyacheslav Popov,head of logistics at Kudrin Foundation thinktank, wrote on Facebookthat he was stopped by a policeman while talking German to a friendduring a phone call in central Moscow. He was taken to a localpolice station, where he was quizzed on his family's whereabouts and"why he was speaking a 'non-Russian language,'" Popovclaimed.

Summer in Moscow is the blissful season of trips to the dacha, fresh watermelon, and the unceasing sound of drilling from the city's never-ending barrage of roadworks. The Moscow's mayor's ambitious project to overhaul the streets of the capital has been time-consuming, expensive, and controversial: but finally, residents are starting to see some real results.

Russia could soon embrace lighter-than-air aircraft in an ambitious and expensive futuristic transportationproject to boost links across remote areas of the country, the Kommersant newspaper reported onFriday. The "United Eurasia" airships project is expected tocost more than $200 billion. The plans are hoped to connect European Russia with the PacificOcean, boost development in Russia’s most remote regions and motivate the Westto lift anti-Russia sanctions implemented over Ukrainian conflict.

Museum of Moscow The Museum of Moscow celebrates its 120th anniversary this year. In lieu of a party, Muscovites of all ages are invited to a jubilee exhibition which gathers together over 2,000 of the institution’s most significant objects, paintings and archaeological finds — many of which have never been exhibited to the public before.

The U.S. government is considering new sanctions against Moscow after the allegedly Russia-backed hack of Democratic Party computer systems last month, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Some 20,000 emails were leaked from Democratic National Convention (DNC) systems, embarrassing senior party figures and forcing chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign.

Aram Manukyan was among a group of armed men who captured a police compound in Yerevan. Anna Nemtsova / For MT Just a few weeks ago, Lilly Minasyan was dreaming of leaving her country for a better life in the West. In this, she was no different from other young,well-educated Armenians, who see their country’s population,economy and trust for government ebbing away. The 26-year-old says she was convinced nothing good lay in store for Armenia. But one day in late July changed everything.

Sergei Ivanov Reuters In an unexpected move, Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced Friday the head of the presidential administration Sergei Ivanov with Anton Vaino, a younger and less known official. Ivanov, thanking Putin for his praise of his work, commented that his four years and eight months in the role made him the longest-serving head of Russia’s presidential administration.

Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) has issued a formal warning to Moscow's Artplay Design Center over adverts featuring nudes from Renaissance artwork. An anonymous citizen complained to authorities about the "sexually explicit" advert, which shows a panel from Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, the Kommersant newspaper reported Friday.

Former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il Reuters A memorial plaque honoring North Korea's former leader Kim Jong Il was unveiled during an opening ceremony on Thursday in St. Petersburg, the Interfax news agency reported Friday. The plaque was installed in the city’s Kirov factory to mark the 15th anniversary of Kim-Jong-Il’s visit to Russia. "When the North Korean embassy contacted us and asked to install the memorial, we decided to fulfill the request," factory representatives said.

New Russian legislation could force messaging service providers to identify their users and delete messages containing illegal content, the Vedomosti newspaper reported Friday. Such a law would effectively end the rights of users to online anonymity. The legislation has been developed by Russia’s Media Communication Union (MCU), which represents Russia’s biggest service providers, three of which confirmed to Vedomosti that the project is currently under discussion.

Yulia Yefimova Michael Sohn Russian swimmer Yulia Yefimova has demanded an apology from her critics after winning her second silver medal at the Olympic Games. Yefimova has been repeatedly jeered and booed while competing at the Games after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) originally banned her from competing.