The Moscow Times

A young man stops to ask an old woman the time. Offering him her clock, the young man replies, "There are no hands here." The old woman, consulting the blank clock face tells him "It's now a quarter to three."

Inside the movie theater in central Moscow, about 50 twenty-somethings watch a private premiere of a documentary. The final scene sees the Moscow graffiti group SNO Crew tagging their name high up on an advertising board overlooking Red Square. The police look on helpless.

Listings of cultural events being held in Moscow this week.

The apartment-museum of Russian-born writer and Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Brodsky may open in St. Petersburg as a joint cultural project between Russia and the United States.

In Mindaugas Karbauskis' production of Alexander Ostrovsky's "Talents and Admirers" at the Mayakovsky Theater a man who has devoted his life and love to theater often tinkles a small, high-pitched bell.

Voting has already begun in the presidential election in Moscow, in one coffee chain at least, which allows drinkers to publicly declare their presidential preference before the March 4 election. Instead of a white slip, the ballot paper is in the form of cinnamon powder sieved onto your drink.

Grandiose is the best one-word description I can come up with for the Bolshoi Theater's partly new production of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet "Sleeping Beauty" that premiered in mid-November at the theater's newly reopened Main Stage.

David Remnick says he has been lucky — "preposterously lucky" — twice in his professional life: once when he was posted to Moscow in 1988 as a correspondent for The Washington Post and once when he was made editor of The New Yorker magazine.

Shona McGrahan arrived in Russia in 2003 and learnt of Action for Russia's Children, or ARC, at a meeting of the British Women's Club.

This week, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lined up their teams of celebrity supporters for the presidential race, with pop star Alla Pugachyova still staunchly behind Prokhorov, even if she called him a "wimp" in his love life.

Horror film aficionados can wrap themselves in the dark night of a festival this weekend as a gathering of foreign stars comes to Moscow for the Kaplya, or Drop, horror film festival aimed at boosting the local fright movie industry.

Cran the Intern looked at me askance. "What did you say?" she asked.

"Two in Your House" is the latest political act mounted by the folks who tirelessly bring us slices of theatricalized contemporary life at Teatr.doc.

More than 154,000 Siege of Leningrad survivors living in St. Petersburg will celebrate the 68th anniversary of the full liberation of the city on Friday, Jan. 27. Events dedicated to the anniversary will, as usual, be held around the city.

Once as highly regarded as cosmonauts, ballerinas and nuclear scientists, Russian circus stars have wowed generations.

In celebration of the 253rd birthday of Robert Burns, Scottish Muscovites and those with Celtic longings will attend the St. Andrew Society's Burns Supper at the Marriott Royal Aurora on Saturday.