The Russian National Orchestra was founded by eminent Russian pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev in 1990. RNO For the eighth year in a row, the Russian National Orchestra, one of the country’s very finest symphonic ensembles, inaugurates the classical music concert season with its Grand Festival, which runs from this evening until September 26.

Things could get a lot harder for the activists at “Dissernet,” which has exposed surprising instances of plagiarism in the dissertations of some of Russia's top politicians. Education officials in the federal government have reportedly developed draft legislation that would make it possible to revoke a person's academic doctorate only after a copyright ruling by a court has come into effect.

The environmentalist organization Greenpeace says a group of Cossacks earlier today refused to allow its volunteer firefighters to assist state emergency workers in the southern region of Kuban, where a major blaze threatens internationally protected estuaries. The ecologists reportedly extinguished several fires in the Krasnodar region on Sept. 7, but they were ejected from their cabin before dawn the next day.

Russian lawmakers say they will introduce legislation by the end of the year that would criminalize doping in sports, the TASS news agency reported on Thursday. The decision was reached during talks between Russia’s Olympic Committee (ROC) and the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Craig Reedie. Russian sports have endured a turbulent summer, dominated by an ongoing doping scandal.

Katerina Lobanova In the space of a month, Russia was shocked by several violentsuicides involving terminally ill patients. In a small town in Siberia, an elderly man placed an explosivedevice in his mouth and detonated it. In a Moscow region town, a mandied after blowing himself up with a homemade bomb. In the southernKrasnodar region, a man was reported to have shot himself with ahomemade gun. Another man was found dead in his Moscow apartment:Police concluded he had also committed suicide.

This year's Cosmoscow art fair will be held in Gostiny Dvor, a historic former indoor marketplace near Kitai-Gorod. Cosmoscow Russia’s only international contemporary art fair opens its doors at Gostiny Dvor on Friday. Now in its fourth year, Cosmoscow is out to prove that contemporary art in Russia’s is not only vibrant and creative, but also collectable.

Peggy Marco / Pixabay The Finance Ministry has proposed weakeningcurrency control over transactions involving Russians’ foreign bankaccounts, according to Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev. Thesite www.regulation.gov.ru posted a notice about the draft legislation, although the text of thebill is still in committee. Violations of currency regulations currently carrya fine of 75 percent of the sum involved for the first offense, and100 percent thereafter.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Seth Wenig / AP PalestinianAuthorit yPresident Mahmoud Abbas mayhave been a KGB agent, the New York Times newspaper reported Wednesday . A1983 document from a British archive makes onereference to Abbas, identifying him by the code name “Mole” and“ KGB agent.” The document provides no information on how, where or whenhe was recruited bythe Soviet intelligence agency.

Sokolovsky! / YouTube A court in Yekaterinburg ruled on Saturday to arrest a young manfor playing Pokémon Go in one of the city’s Russian Orthodox cathedrals and posting a video about it on YouTube. Ruslan Sokolovsky, 22, made the video because, he said, he wasannoyed to learn, from a state-run television channel, that playingPokémon Go in a church might carry a penalty of half a millionrubles or up to three years in jail.

State leaders take part in a group photo session for the G20 Summit held at the Hangzhou International Expo Center in Hangzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang province, Sept. 4, 2016. Ng Han Guan / AP The G20 meeting in China was a milestone in internationalrelations. Until only recently, world leaders were certain that theglobal economy and increased connectivity had helped stabilize anddefine the new world order.