Moscow is home to the largest number of billionaires and in Russia, there are nearly 100 billionaires. Due to recent economic developments and the drop in oil prices, the oligarchs, who rose to prominence under Gorbachev, have lost a combined total of $200 billion. Help is here.
posted by gman on Oct 30, 2008 - 21 comments

With the potential 'crisis' with Russia, Georgia, Europe et al, the BBC tries to imagine what a new Cold War would be like starting with a tour of the budding Moscow tourist attraction called the Confrontation Cold War Museum. Sold off in an auction last year, the underground bunker now belongs to a private company that plans to turn it into an entertainment complex with a museum about the Cold War, a restaurant and even a spa. But it is already possible to hold fashion shows around the 600-meter-long network of bare, cavernous tunnels.
posted by infini on Aug 31, 2008 - 6 comments

As Moscow changes, so does its population of stray dogs. During Soviet times, Moscow's stray dogs foraged for food and avoided humans, since there wasn't much to be gained from begging. As the city became increasingly affluent, the dogs' behavior changed radically. Some recent adaptations include passive subway begging, observing stoplights, and a food scam called the "come-from-behind ambush." The stray dogs, whose population is estimated at 26,000, have even ceased some of their interpack warfare. Observe the Moscow subway dog here. [more inside]
posted by Afroblanco on May 29, 2008 - 26 comments

Something about the library inspires one to jump.
posted by phrontist on Apr 1, 2008 - 33 comments

Russos takes photos of Moscow Metro construction. Also of a half-abandoned river port, a cool bridge being put together, and an old underground nuclear submarine base. But mostly of the Metro, behind the scenes. (Don't ask me how he gets access.) [more inside]
posted by parudox on Dec 6, 2007 - 4 comments

Buildings that never were: Unrealized Moscow - grand scale architectural projects from the mid 1930s to the early 1950s.
posted by iconomy on Jun 22, 2005 - 21 comments

Vladimir Aniskin, by day a farm equipment researcher (pdf), makes gorgeous Faberge-like creations, haunting and whimsical metaphors of war and peace, and more in extreme miniature. Moscow reporters have entered him in a competition (Russian-language page) for the strangest hobby practiced in Russia. Via the ever-brilliant aldaily.com.
posted by By The Grace of God on Dec 8, 2004 - 7 comments

You may owe your life to this man If it weren't for Stanislav Petrov, many or even most of us reading this might be dead now - or never born, for the teens among us. At least according to this article, and the other links above.
posted by ramakrishna on Sep 5, 2004 - 34 comments

Gunmen hold about 700 hostage in Moscow theater Gunfire has been heard from a Moscow theatre where about 20 armed gunmen are reported to be holding the audience, believed to be about 700 people, hostage. More: Muslim members of the audience ... were also allowed to leave, Interfax said.
posted by falameufilho on Oct 23, 2002 - 58 comments

Matt Taibbi, co-founder of the eXile, Moscow's most caustic and painfully funny newspaper, has relocated to Buffalo, NY (?) to work his journalistic mojo there. That is, if he's not arrested over this editorial.
posted by GriffX on Jun 17, 2002 - 10 comments

TV out in Moscow, due to fire in landmark tower. So, am I just too much of an old Cold Warrior, or is anyone else a bit twitchily nervous that after the TV press hammered Russian President Vladimir Putin over his handling of the Kursk disaster, now the TV just happens to be knocked out? Oh, and that Putin is saying how this incident shows that the whole economy needs more "security"? Hmm...
posted by aurelian on Aug 28, 2000 - 3 comments