The Moscow Times

"Mayakovsky Goes for Sugar" at the Mayakovsky Theater is small but noteworthy. It is a rare example of an experiment at the feisty, deep-fringe Teatr.doc having a direct impact on the life of an established Moscow playhouse.

The International Women's Club gives Muscovites the chance to be transported to a Venetian carnival for the night Friday at their 16th annual Embassies of the World Dinner and Ball.

Listings of cultural events being held in Moscow this week.

Perhaps I am too close to today's topic to be believed. You are hereby forewarned that I attended the premiere of Vitaly Melnikov's new movie "The Admirer" in St. Petersburg last week not as a reporter for The Moscow Times, but as the husband of actress Oksana Mysina.

The rooftops of St. Petersburg are an iconic element of 21st-century sightseeing in the city. In addition to climbing up the towers of the Smolny or St. Isaac's cathedrals, informal rooftop tours have become popular, while for adventurous diners, romantic dinners for two on a rooftop overlooking the city center can be arranged.

A play lost but not quite. A musical score quartered and plundered. Three great names in the Russian arts — Alexander Pushkin, Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Tairov — who were to have come together under a single marquee in 1937 but never quite did.

Elizabeth Sullivan is the chief operating officer of UBS, the mother of two children and also chairman of the board for the charity United Way of Russia. She answered questions about the charity work she and United Way are involved in.

With the presidential election only a few weeks away, a new exhibit of campaign materials at Moscow's State Public Historical Library sheds light on popular tactics used to appeal to voters.

This week, MTV Russia switched off the reality shows for an hour to teach the kids about politics with a chat show called "Gosdep," or "State Department," presented by blond it-girl and media personality Ksenia Sobchak.

With temperatures in Moscow predicted to plummet well below minus 20 degrees Celsius over the weekend, spare a thought for the city's bird population whose survival skills are being tested as the Russian winter starts to bite.

Whatever the Taganka Theater will look like from now on, it will not be what we are accustomed to. The break between the theater's founder Yury Lyubimov and his troupe last summer — leading to Lyubimov's resignation as artistic director — sent the playhouse off on a whole new trajectory.

Eldar's advert promised big things, a pair of magic glasses that could record your dreams while you sleep.

The legendary St. Petersburg cafe Stray Dog, once the haunt of Silver Age writers such as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Anna Akhmatova, is celebrating its centenary with a series of cultural events.

Opening a can of pungent preserved meat may bring back less than fond memories from childhood for some, but for one Moscow restaurant it is the basis for a new menu.

Pure evil reigns in Alexander Sokurov's new film "Faust," which won the Golden Lion at last year's Venice Film Festival and starts screening in Russian movie theaters on Feb. 9.

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."