Luxury market rebounds

Top end apartment prices are starting to recover from last year's slump, according to figures from the DOKI agency.
Last month saw end of year pay-rises for many top managers fuel a leap of 3 to 7 per cent in the luxury and business class sector.

But economy-class rates remained largely unchanged, with three-room flats even falling slightly in cost, blamed on a traditional January lull.

Bills increased fastest for one-bed business class flats, which were up 7.2 per cent at 38,600 roubles on average.
There were also 24 per cent more people seeking business-class accommodation, RIA Novosti reported.

In economy class housing the average one-room apartment was available for 24,000 roubles a month, while a two-room flat costs 30,000. Rents for three-room places fell 1 per cent to 38,000.

Cheaper offices

Rental prices for offices are falling faster in Moscow than anywhere else in the world - but the city remains among the most expensive to rent business premises.
Office rents in 2009 tumbled by 50 per cent on average, according to research by Jones Lang LaSalle.

And that's a far bigger fall than second-placed Dublin (25 per cent ) or third-placed Madrid (24 per cent).

However, average annual rents of $700 per square metre make Moscow Europe's third priciest city for office space, behind only London ($1,300) and Paris ($1,000), while the Russian capital also had the second busiest rental market, with 802,000 square metres traded in 2009.

Laser plan scrapped

Sci-fi lovers will be disappointed to learn that laser beams are unlikely to be deployed to zap icicles from city roof-tops every winter, with scientists on the verge of finding a more prosaic solution to the perennial problem.

Instead the plan is for better insulation on roofs to stop icicles forming in the first place - and make properties more energy-efficient.

Scientists in St. Petersburg have rejected a suggestion from the city's mayor to investigate space age technology in favour of introducing better insulation.

They believe that heat from attic space melts snow which then refreezes as icicles on the edges of roofs.

Go East

Russian authorities are offering free plots of land to anyone who wants to move into the Far East or Baikal regions.

Up to 0.3 hectares per person is available in a bid to reverse years of migration from these remote regions.

The project is part of a regional development plan running until 2025, and Russian citizens who live in the area at the moment or who wish to move there can apply for the land to build a home.

But Svetlana, 31, who moved from Irkutsk to St. Petersburg in 2006, was not impressed by the plans. "I'd rather move to the nearest cemetery than go back there," she said.

The two regions have lost more than 1 million people since the break-up of the Soviet Union.