It was all smiles Thursday at an Anglo-Russian news conference in the State Duma, except for one slightly awkward question -- where were the Liberal Democrats?


Three Conservative and two Labour Members of Parliament from the British House of Commons were visiting their fellow parliament as emissaries from an independent project called the Moscow-London Foundation, setting up links between Britain and Russia.


But Alexander Vengerovsky, Vladimir Zhirinovsky's chief lieutenant in the Russian Liberal Democratic Party, who was billed to turn up, did not materialize.


"He's in the Kremlin at the moment," explained businessman-turned-politician Artyom Tarasov, who was playing host to the MPs, adding that Vengerovsky was meeting the president and no snub was intended.


Also absent were any members of the British Liberal Democratic Party. The party, which has nothing in common with its Russian namesake is a resolutely middle-of-the-road grouping, full of people usually anxious not to offend. But the other MPs said that no one had taken up an invitation to join the delegation.


Harold Ellotson, the Russian-speaking head of the delegation, said they were in Moscow to strike up informal contacts with Russian deputies and that included people like Vengerovsky.


"It gives us an opportunity to have a dialogue with people who may be quite dubious about talking to the West," he said.


John Hutton, one of the Labour MPs, said that the British Foreign Office liked to control official British visits to Moscow. The MPs were not comfortable with that and had decided to form an unofficial delegation.


In the spirit of informality he said the five were going to try out "a couple of nightclubs" later on Thursday night to get a more informed view of the new Russia.