Russia creates new economic bloc

RUSSIA, Belarus and Kazakhstan have decided to create a single economic area by 2012, after they set up a customs union due to be implemented next year.

Russians in fight over 'stolen' Stoli

A LEGAL custody battle over the marquee Russian vodka, Stolichnaya, has been put on ice for another three months pending settlement talks between the Russian Government and a multi-millionaire Russian tycoon who has fled to Switzerland. The Russian Government is taking on Spirits International, the company it believes stole the rights to the vodka, as part of its attempt to reclaim worldwide ownership of the trademark.

Crime, Punishment, And Aspot Of Cluedo In The Dacha

WHO KILLED STALIN? 8.30pm, ABC1: You! The boy in the green blazer! Out with it, laddie! If someone did indeed kill Joseph Stalin before the Grim Reaper could get to him, that person should be celebrated by the Russian people and the global community as a hero. Conventional wisdom has it that the repugnant old fiend pegged out from the effects of a stroke after a typical night's carousing in his dacha in March 1953. This doco attempts to ascertain whether any of those close to the Man of Steel at ...

Patriarch Plugged In To Power

PATRIARCH ALEKSY II RUSSIAN ORTHODOX LEADER 23-2-1929 - 5-12-2008

The Courage Of Individuals Is The Currency Of Our Freedom

I saw Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya speak at the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2006. She was direct and eloquent, and five months later, she was assassinated.

World Barracks For Barack

MANY politicians are more popular outside their own countries than at home. Mikhail Gorbachev is still lauded in the West as the architect of perestroika, the bringer of glasnost, the man who peacefully ended the Cold War. In Russia he was regarded as the man who spoke bad Russian who lost the empire.

From Russia With Drugs

Conrad Walters speaks to a star of an underworld film in the Russian Resurrection Film Festival.

Indian Grandmaster Outfoxes Russian For World Crown

Cricket-mad Indians have another sporting hero to rank with Tendulkar. Matt Wade reports from Delhi. Viswanathan Anand,

Kramnik Fights Back

Russian former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik fought back to win his first game

Russians Are Coming ... To Race To Hobart

ONE of the world's great adventurers, Russian Fedor Konyukhov, has entered this year's Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

The Russian Master

The Russian Master Ian Callinan Central Queensland University Press, $32.95

Curtin Scores Research Grant From Russian Giant

WESTERN Australia's Curtin University has beaten off competition from 100 universities and research centres to become an inaugural recipient of an aluminium research grant from Russian aluminium giant Rusal.

Injured Rodionova On The Mend For Open

IF THE world rankings remain as they are between now and the cut-off date for direct Australian Open entry, only Lleyton Hewitt, Chris Guccione, Casey Dellacqua, Sam Stosur and Anastasia Rodionova from the host nation will earn automatic passage into the main draw. For Rodionova, like Hewitt, there is now an added complication, as the Russian-born baseliner recovers from season-ending hip surgery.

Solzhenitsyn, Russia's Conscience, Linked Worlds

ALEKSANDR Solzhenitsyn, who has died aged 89, was a prolific novelist and memoirist, whose life's work, in the best traditions of Russian literature, transcended the realm of pure letters.

Russians And Chinese In Cape Lambert Deal

RUSSIAN steel group Evraz and China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) have teamed to develop the Cape Lambert iron ore project in Western Australia's Pilbara.

Vlad The Imperious: Tales Of A Russian Enforcer

MURDER BY NUMBERS IN PUTINLAND 8.30pm, SBS: It has been eight years since Vladimir Putin got his hands on Russia.

Dr Zhivago

Russian pre-revolutionary glamour maintains the rage, writes Nicole Bittar.

Making Indiana No Time For A Bad Hair Day

IT WAS not the sword-fighting. It was not the skin-tight fencing costume. And for Cate Blanchett, who plays a Soviet villain in the much-hyped Indiana Jones sequel, the hardest part of the role was not even the Russian accent. It was the pudding-bowl haircut.

Jackson Rebounds For Spartak

LAUREN Jackson, ineffective in Spartak Moscow's 90-71 loss to CSKA Moscow in the first of the best-of-five grand final of the Russian Superleague, rebounded in game two on Thursday to lead her team to a 93-78 win. The Australian had 34 points and 13 rebounds. Game three will be in Moscow this weekend. Spartak won the Euroleague last month, with Jackson most valuable player at the final four weekend. -- STEPHEN HOWELL

High-speed 'stupidity'

POLICE have branded two alarming cases of speeding in the Illawarra as "random acts of stupidity" that they likened to playing Russian roulette.