You know it as a day for chocolate-covered cherries, bright pink roses, embraces in the park and perhaps even beautifully wrapped gifts of edible panties. But where to go?

If the thought of Valentine's Day fills you with distaste and loathing, then the British Council's Contemporary British Writers' Tour may be just what you need this month.

Valery Dudakov, art collector and general director of Moscow's New Hermitage Gallery speaks with The Moscow Times about art collecting in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.

Buxome blondes in purple leather bodysuits and young hackers trying to protect their country from foreign cyber enemies are just a few of the characters who populate the fantasy world of the comic books featured at the exhibit of Russian comic books.

The one-day trip to Leo Tolstoy's family estate at Yasnaya Polyana makes for a perfect getaway from Moscow -- a pleasant mix of comfort, speed and literary history.

As a founding proponent and leading member of Moscow Conceptualism, Rubinstein turned international Conceptualism of the 1960s and 1970s, into a major Russian literary movement.

Happy Nirvana Day! Seeing as Feb. 8th is indeed a Buddhist holiday I thought I'd celebrate by offering you a contemplation-conducive beverage.

A decade or so ago, February 14 was just another day on the calendar in Moscow. Indeed, if Muscovites were at all familiar with the Western tradition of celebrating St. Valentine's Day, they connected the day of lovers with March 8, International Women's Day. The candy, the flowers. It was a reasonable mistake.

Nina Chusova is starting small but if I were a betting man, I would lay down money she will be doing big things soon.

Located in an old pre-Revolutionary building, Carré Blanc oozes understated elegance and bustles with the city's moneyed professionals.

My uncle, a prosperous attorney with offices in several countries, still doesn't completely grasp the sometimes baffling, always obscure Moscow meanings of the words ""prestigious"" and ""elite"" -- as they are defined by local club owners. ""Here's a little prestige for you,"" he teased, before offering me the keys to his Mercedes as we prepared to set out last Saturday on one of our regular weekend club crawls (the joke was a reference to the fact that a similar car is often necessary to get past the face control at several of the more exclusive local clubs). Although my uncle -- a celebrity in certain circles who has suffered through more than his share of ribbing about his past as a regular on the Manhattan clubbing circuit -- is no newcomer to the idea of face control, he finds ridiculous the notion that the price of his shoes or the make of his car will determine whether or not he's admitted to a club.

With little fanfare, Governor Gray Davis turned down appeals for a death-row reprieve and sent the Black Needle of American jurisprudence into Stephen Wayne Anderson's veins.

Director Peter Jackson completed filming on the trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's ""The Lord of the Rings"" in a mind-bogglingly brief, precedent-setting 274 days of financial worries, bad weather and, in Jackson's words, ""insanity."" He submitted this account to The New York Times.

This city, already rich in museums and art galleries, got a new mini-gallery last week: an exhibit of commemorative plaques, T-shirts and expensive gewgaws from Enron Corp. At a coffee bar.