The latest news proves that something is up with the Pacific Fleet’s fire-extinguishing mixture, even after the Nerpa tragedy. A criminal case has just been sent to court against the head of the Pacific Fleet’s chemical laboratory for technical management, charged with trying to receive a bribe for committing knowingly illegal actions...

An Internet poll gave him a resounding victory in the Greenpeace-organised Enemy of Baikal competition; the Golden Tick award went to the prime minister for winning the competition. To mark Putin’s triumph, scuba divers planted a commemorative sign on the bottom of Lake Baikal right next to the Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant’s (BPPP) waste-discharge pipe. Greenpeace says that the banner, listing off the competition’s three finalists, was put up “with the hope that the prime minister, having himself already dove to the bottom of Baikal, would halt the plant’s operations and dive down to remove the banner”...

...stumbled upon by an Avtorevue magazine expedition to the Altai area

"A lad in a private security guard uniform was standing in front of a steel cable slung across the road.

What do you mean? There is the road. Beyond the steel cable was a strip of excellent asphalt with freshly painted markings; a villa could be glimpsed in the middle of the valley and, a little closer, a helicopter pad, outbuildings and railway flats for builders. No walls or fences, no signs forbidding entry. We can’t drive? OK, we’ll walk. The guard became fidgety: you can’t walk either, this is private property..."

A massive scandal has broken out in Moscow. Several days before the start of the new school year, directors of dozens of Moscow schools (we have confirmed information about forty) received an odd directive: sack all their catering personnel and dismantle all the equipment. The reason was that the tender to provide school meals had been won by a company called Сonсord, but its triumph turned out to be a failure...

The Filippov family alone has contributed sixty-one years to defending their country. The father, Alexander Filippov, fought in the Second World War from 1938 to 1945. Antonina, the mother, defended Moscow’s skies for three years. Yuri,...

You have remained far away from Russia for all these years, yet your voice is still heard. You left because you found it difficult to live there. In your opinion, what has changed in Russia over these years? I would like to make a few...

Some of the German photos are in colour, while almost none of ours are. But the point is not the technical differences, it’s something else. The Germans posed for pictures more during the war than our soldiers. There are photos of...

Activists from the Internet community of the Blue Buckets Society have launched a regular column in Novaya Gazeta. The first series is the story of the technologies and people that led to the group’s emergence and how it turned into a real...

In the first part we learned:- when and how Somali fishermen became pirates - why the arrival of warships at the Somali coast did nothing but make the problem worse, as an increase in the number of highjackings has occurred and the first...

In mid-July 1945, a special train departed from Moscow for Berlin. It carried passenger No.1, Joseph Stalin, to the Potsdam Conference. Among his retinue was Internal Affairs Commissar Beria. Unprecedented security measures were taken...

Over the three hours I spent in the village of Pugachevo, there were four explosions at the nearby military arsenal, which it appeared had already burned down. The local residents with whom I was speaking at that moment didn’t even turn...

On 2 June, the day when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived in Abkhazia for the funeral of President Sergei Bagapsh, two Georgians from Gali, Tamara Beniya and Abesalom Chkhetiya, were arrested on the Zugdidi-Senaki highway...

For the third day, the country has anxiously been following another man-made disaster. In the early hours on Friday (3 June) morning, military warehouse 102 caught fire in Udmurtia for currently unknown reasons and shells began exploding....

The detonation of ammunition in the Udmurtia village of Pugachyovo is the fifteenth tragedy of its kind to take place in Russia since 23 May 2008. Before this fateful day, military ammunition depots had been silent for 963 days as of 3...

At a meeting with members of the Mothers of Beslan organisation, Susanna Dudiyeva and Elvira Tuayeva, President Dmitry Medvedev admitted that “neither administrative, nor legal implications were made” after one of the world’s most terrible...