Andy Potts

Tough love for activists and lesbians 

A vigil marking the third anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya's killing on October 7 brought the Russian government under fire after a prominent campaigning journalist was banned from visiting Moscow.

Jean-François Julliard, the general secretary of Reporters Without Borders, was unable to take part in a news conference to commemorate the Novaya Gazeta reporter's death after he was denied a visa.

Politkovskaya's children said the government's decision was "stupid" and "politically motivated", Britain's Guardian newspaper reported.

"I think Reporters Without Borders is not an organisation you need to be afraid of," said Ilya Politkovsky. Politkovskaya's daughter, Vera, said the decision and the refusal to admit fellow Reporters without Frontiers member Elsa Vidal, was "absolutely not understandable".

Politkovskaya, a campaigning journalist noted for her work in Chechnya, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building.

Kadyrov wins lawsuit

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov was reportedly "satisfied" after a court ordered Oleg Orlov, chairman of the Memorial human rights group, to retract his claim that the leader was behind the death of rights activist Natalya Estemirova, RIA Novosti said.

But Memorial and Orlov were ordered to pay a combined total of just 70,000 roubles ($2,300) in damages, far short of the 10 million roubles demanded in the original lawsuit.

Orlov, who plans to appeal the verdict, has been nominated in the European Parliament for the Sakharov Prize for his human rights work.

He and two colleagues, Lyudmila Alexeyeva and Sergei Kovalyov, are backed by the Green block in the EU assembly, Euractiv.com reported.

Lesbians go to Canada

Controversial couple Irina Fet and Irina Shipitko have been officially denied permission to get married in Moscow, RIA Novosti reported.

The pair hoped to pave the way for same-sex weddings in Russia by taking their case to court after a registry office refused marry them.

Registrars and judges agreed that a marriage is a union between a man and a woman, though the couple had argued that nothing in the Russian Constitution or Family Code banned gay weddings.

The couple now intend to wed in Canada later this month - and will then press to have their foreign marriage legally recognised back home.

Yaponchik dies

Notorious gangster Vyacheslav Ivankov, aka Yaponchik, died last week from complications following a sniper attack on him on July 28, RIA Novosti reported.

He was shot in the stomach as he left the Thai Elephant restaurant on Khoroshevskoye Shosse, where he had reportedly been resolving a drug-related row. He remained in hospital and underwent several operations.

Shaman blessing

Shamans in Chukotka have pledged to protect the unborn child of Roman Abramovich, former governor of the remote Arctic province.

The billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club is due to become a father for the sixth time later this year, and tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that the shamans gathered to call upon the spirit world to protect his partner, Daria Zhukova, who is seven months pregnant.

Regional elections held

Russia voted on Sunday in regional elections, with the authorities saying everything went smoothly and the opposition claiming there were numerous violations.

The elections were held in 76 out of 83 Russian regions, including the North Caucasus republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia, which held their first municipal elections since Soviet times.

Preliminary results for the Moscow City Duma gave United Russia 66 per cent of the votes, with the Communists second with 13 per cent. Yabloko and other parties failed to pass the 10 per cent threshold required for representation.

Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin claimed to have evidence of ballot-stuffing and other violations, and said he was preparing to send his evidence to prosecutors.

In volatile Dagestan, several polling stations failed to open on time, causing tensions to rise.

Voter turnout was particularly high in Chechnya, where 69 per cent of residents had cast their ballots by

4 pm, while only 23.5 per cent of Moscow residents had shown up by this time.

The final results were set to be announced on October 15 or 16.

Good week for ...

Soviet nostalgia

American magazine Newsweek published a table of figures showing a range of areas where life in Russia had got worse since the collapse of the USSR. From life expectancy to

divorce rates, hospital closures to alcohol abuse, it presented a list of 11 stats where things haven't improved over the past two decades. But conservative website Fox Nation pounced on the "out of touch" survey, pointing out that "despite the fact that 20 million people were murdered in Soviet Russia ... the magazine did not ask: Are more people being sent to the gulag or murdered now?"

Bad week for ...

Fowl play

Three women in the Krasnodar region were caught red-handed as they wolfed down a grilled chicken in the aisles of their local supermarket. As the trio fled the store they were stopped - and cops discovered that their total haul was more than mere poultry. New shoes, underwear and cosmetics completed the heist, Interfax reported.