In 2007-10, the Radisson Royal Hotel, Moscow (formerly the Hotel Ukraina) underwent a $300 million transformation from Soviet behemoth to internationally branded luxury hotel. Now the hotel is rebuilding its training system to bring customer service up to world-class levels, with a "Russian twist."

Emerging economies like Russia have long been the bane of industries dependent on intellectual property rights, such as the software industry. Sixty-five percent of software in Russia is stolen, Bloomberg reported last year. The country's accession to the WTO, however, has already resulted in important steps to more effectively enforce intellectual property rights, said Michael Malloy, head of the intellectual property and technology practice at DLA Piper in Russia.

Not everyone is happy that Russia will likely join the World Trade Organization this summer, and a referendum drive is under way to question the country's accession. Many Russia-based lawyers, however, welcome the nation's entry into the WTO.

Russia has been widely touted as the world's most deadly place to fly after a series of air crashes. The Russian aviation industry faces another pressing issue that may eventually compound safety problems – a shortage of personnel, especially pilots.

Russia’s space industry may be languishing after a series of failed launches, but space rock is on the rise here, if this weekend’s Astral 2 music festival is any indication.

Michael "The Miz" Mizanin entered the news conference the same way he enters the ring. Dressed to the nines in a tailored suit, the wrestler strode into the room at the Hotel National to a canned recording of his catchphrase, "Awesome!" strutted down the aisle and stopped to smirk at the cameras, arms spread wide like a 19th-century showman.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Wednesday's boxing match at Crocus City Hall will be between ex-world champions Roy Jones, Jr. and Kostya Tszyu. The two legendary boxers are listed first on the fight bill, and their faces grace the event posters all over town.

The Moscow Times is covering Saturday's rallies in Moscow. The first event of the day, an opposition march, is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. local time.

Over 100,000 demonstrators took to the bitterly cold streets of Moscow on Saturday to rally at competing events both for and against longtime leader Vladimir Putin.

Entrepreneur Victor Bostan is on a mission to put Moldova on the map as a wine producer.

When Suede plays Moscow this Sunday, it will be the legendary Britpop band's first show in Moscow, as well as its last concert ever. Again.

Picture the Moscow hotel market as an upside-down pyramid. There are the five-star luxury hotels — at the top. And there is Moscow's lone budget hotel — at the bottom. But this pyramid is now righting itself, as mid-market and budget offerings ramp up.

Despite 61 years and travel to 100 countries under his belt, John Davies exudes energy and enthusiasm as he bounces along in the back of a bus from a conference in Kazan to a local high school — never mind the back-to-back flights.

The plot for Friday's headlining fight at Megasport Sports Palace could be straight out of "Rocky IV": An aging American champion comes to Moscow to face a younger Russian fighter who has just brutally defeated another American great.

The trickling of wine into barrels at Mikheil Natsvlishvili's farm and vineyard in Georgia has lately been competing with another liquid sound — the churning of water through turbines.

Google has become a classroom tool in Tatarstan as the republic, already ranked by Forbes as Russia’s best region for business, invests heavily in digital technologies for its schools in hopes of becoming the best region for education as well.

When Anastasia Bikineyeva took a recruiter job at AstraZeneca earlier this year, it was a new position both for her and for the Russian arm of the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant.

In many Russian folk tales, a man is raised from the dead after he is doused in waters. For the lifeblood of the Russian economy — oil and gas — it will be just as important to invigorate the service and equipment sector.

Timofei Mozgov, at 7 foot 1 and 250 pounds, is a man hard to ignore, but until a night in New York earlier this year he was a virtual no-name in the National Basketball Association, a rookie center from Russia who had fallen out of the Knicks starting lineup early in the season.

Drawing tourists to the city of Kaliningrad is getting serious attention from the region's government, and the history of the area is helping.

Kaliningrad’s Baltik-Ekspo is not your standard business exhibition center. The only major conference center in the region's capital city, it is comprised of white tents in the middle of a muddy patch of grass.

The 2011 World Figure Skating Championships are arriving in Moscow with the sweet taste of the successful bid to host — and the bitter aftertaste of the tragic events that made it possible.

How can you do 2 1/2 years of work in one month? That was the question before a working group of Russian officials after the International Skating Union announced that Moscow would replace disaster-beset Japan as host of the 2011 World Figure Skating Championships.

When a combination of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster upended Japan's plans to host the 2011 World Figure Skating Championships, a Japanese-born skater who competes for Russia was touched in more ways than one.

Russian business schools continue to start executive programs: The most recent addition is the Graduate School of Corporate Management's offering, which will start this spring. Educators and analysts told The Moscow Times that the quality of Russian EMBA programs has improved sharply.

If Ostozhenka is for fat cats and Arbat is for eclectics, then Chistiye Prudy is for nostalgics. A neighborhood northeast of the Kremlin, it has a dual market of both spartan housing and luxurious living.

On a drizzly Friday afternoon, the Russian Railways train to Warsaw steams impatiently in its berth at Moscow's Belorussky Station. A few would-be travelers roam the platform, hoping to find an extra ticket on the sold-out train.

Yekaterina Degtyaryova, director of software marketing at Hewlett-Packard Russia, says companies' hands are tied when booking a conference in Moscow.

Twenty years ago, Russia’s only true rock martyr died in a car crash at the age of 27. Viktor Tsoi, lead singer of the rock band Kino, left behind a brooding series of songs that still remain deeply popular among new generations.

In David Burliuk's ""Hudson,"" a view of the New York City skyline seems to fly apart into ribbons of image and memory like a fleeting dream.