Andy Potts

Art therapy eases crisis ennui

‘Bored of the crisis'

After a bleak and depressing year, November's grey weather has proved the last straw for Russia's richest - and they're turning to a spot of retail therapy.

But while the rest of us fret over a few Christmas treats, the trinkets these guys have in mind are works of art.

A gleeful Alexis de Tiesenhausen, Russian art specialist at Christie's in London, told the Wall Street Journal of their Russian collection this week: "Russian collectors have grown bored of the crisis. We lost a few clients, but others have finally arrived."

Christie's expects to rake in $11.5 million from its Russian sales, while Sotheby's is anticipating $24.6 million. But both houses note a switch away from cutting edge contemporary artists - who can continue to suffer in the recession - and a new interest in pre-revolutionary tsarist opulence.

Among the luxury items going under the auctioneer's gavel are a set of Fabergé cigarette cases previously owned by a son of Tsar Alexander II.

Winter blues...

A new poll put the popularity of Russia's leaders Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin at an eight-month low - but United Russia deputy Sergei Markov blamed the weather for the news.

Support for Putin fell from a mid-October peak of 72 per cent to 65 per cent on November 22, while Medvedev rated 54 per cent approval, down from 62, according to a Public Opinion Foundation poll.

Markov shrugged off the report as a symptom of November's miserable weather, telling Reuters: "They'll get better again in May when the sun comes out."

But other analysts saw signs of cracks in Russia's political stability if the leadership found itself under a cloud.

Nikolai Petrov, of Moscow Carnegie Centre, said: "This is extremely serious for the government. In the absence of any stable political institutions, Putin's popularity is the foundation of the country's political stability."

Turning back the tide

A rejected Soviet-era scheme to reverse the flow of Siberia's rivers has been resurrected - at least in the mind of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, Vedomosti reported.

Environmental concerns scuppered a 1986 plan to use controlled atomic explosions to create canals channeling the Pechora River into the Volga and sending the Irtysh and Ob south to Central Asia.

But Luzhkov has revived the idea - which could cost up to $40 billion - despite the same environmental concerns as before.

And he hopes to sell 25 cubic kilometres of water a year - about half the Ob River's annual run-off - although current technology cannot prevent a high level of leakage from the canals.

Ein Reich, ein volk, ein Merc

Reports in Germany claim that a Russian billionaire has bagged an extra trophy from World War 2 - paying several million Euros for Adolf Hitler's original Mercedes.

The story in the tabloid paper Express quoted Dusseldorf vintage car-dealer Michael Froelich, who reportedly faced a moral dilemma after being asked to track down the fascist dictator's dark-blue 770 K model.

"I was really torn," he said. "After all, this was about the car of a horrible mass murderer."

However, according to AP, he found the car - perhaps encouraged by a fee somewhere between 4 million and 10 million euros from the unnamed Russian businessman.

Russia acknowledges faults in Magnitsky case Alexander Smirnov, the deputy director of the prison service, has acknowledged "visible violations" in the treatment of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in custody on November 16.

Smirnov was quoted in Russian media saying: " We are not going to minimise our guilt in any way - it is definitely there."

The investigative committee of the prosecutor general's office has started a probe on the orders of president Dmitry Medvedev.

Magnitsky, a lawyer, was arrested last year on tax evasion charges during an investigation into Hermitage Capital, a leading hedge fund.

Before his death he claimed he had been denied medical treatment for gallbladder stones, calculous cholecystitis and pancreatitis.

Honeytrap turns sour

It seemed like a classic sting - lift a photo of a pretty girl from social networking site vKontakte, create a tempting profile and send "Elya" out on the trail of Udmurtia's debt defaulters.

Lured by the prospect of a date with the fictitious flirty blonde, the suspects found that far from an evening of romance, they were in for a brief encounter with the bailiffs.

But police in the Russian region got a shock when the Moscow hairdresser whose picture they borrowed got in touch threatening legal action, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported.

Yana Kulikova is now suing for 5 million roubles ($168,000), claiming it could have wrecked her marriage if her husband had seen the cops' fake profile using her picture.

But a spokesman for Udmurtia's bailiffs felt Kulikova had little grounds for complaint after posting the images in the first place.

"After all, she put herself out there in such a way that we thought she wouldn't be against people marvelling over her physical traits," said press secretary Yekaterina Kuzmina.

Good week for ...

Watching Russia Today

English-language TV channel Russia Today has become one of the most popular foreign news suppliers to Washington DC, according to a survey by Nielsen Media Research. While the US

still turns to the BBC for overseas reporting, RT, a relative newcomer to the market, has already outstripped Al Jazeera English, Deutche Welle, France 24, Euronews and China's CCTV-9.

Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan welcome her channel's popularity among "the people who generally define American politics".

Siberian tigers

An endangered big cat which Vladimir Putin famously tagged with a tracking collar is alive and well - despite reports that she had dropped off the radar. A 2008 episode which saw Putin subdue a five-year-old female with a stun dart and help fit the tag to her neck gained worldwide publicity, but in September the tag fell silent, AP reported. The mystery had a happy ending when Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Itar-Tass the collar had been replaced and everything was fine.

Bad week for ...

Walking in the woods

A family row in Chelyabinsk cost a man his toes after he took cooling down a little too far, RIA Novosti reported. The man stormed off into the forests after arguing with his wife, only to become disorientated and lose his shoes. Three days later he stumbled onto a road and was rescued, showing symptoms of hypothermia and suffering severe frostbite in his feet.

Interplanetary tourism

Outer space is out of space, according to Sergei Krikalyov. He's the man in charge of flights to the International Space Station on Russia's Soyuz craft, and he warns that now the crew of the ISS has been doubled to six astronauts, there's no room for star tourists any more, AP reported. In October Guy Laliberte, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, became the seventh paying customer to enjoy a stellar holiday.

The week ahead

Dec. 1-12: Talks on military cooperation between the US joint chiefs of staff chairman Michael Mullen and the head of the Russian General Staff of the Armed Forces, Nikolai Makarov

Dec 1-2: World Congress of Compatriots to be held in the Column Hall of the Union House in Moscow. President Dmitry Medvedev expected to attend

Dec 1-5: Moscow holds UFOlogy seminars for UFO and air force specialists

Dec. 3: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to hold televised Q&A, Russian media report

Dec. 5: START (treaty) expires