A brief look at the stories making headlines in the Russian-language press

The Hundred Days is indelibly associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Thousand Days with John F. Kennedy.

Lately all kinds of people -- leading stock market analysts, specialists on internal arrangements within the Kremlin and people who simply like to talk about the unfairness of the privatization carried out in this country -- have found themselves an interesting topic for discussion: compensation payments.

Russian foreign policy seems to grow more aggressive with each week that President Vladimir Putin serves as chairman of the G8, which consists of seven rich industrial democracies and his own resource-exporting autocracy.

Last week as Vladimir Putin was awarding medals to deputies in the State Duma, he especially thanked them for ceasing their ""theatrical governmental activities.""

The world's preservation community came to Moscow last week to pay homage to Russia's crumbling modernist architecture and called on the government to ensure that it be preserved -- especially the Melnikov House, a modernist masterpiece just off the Arbat.

WTO Entry Next Year Russia will gain $8 billion to $10 billion per year from WTO membership, the country's chief trade negotiator said, Interfax reported Monday. The figure is the ""additional amount"" the country will gain from better access to overseas markets and by carrying out obligatory reforms, the negotiator, Maxim Medvedkov, told the news service. Russia will probably join the trade group next year, he said. (Bloomberg) Vyugin on Reserves LONDON -- Any move to lower the share of dollars and increase the euro component in Russia's foreign currency reserves will be a ""smooth and gradual"" process rather than a ""sharp"" change, said Oleg Vyugin, head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets and a former Central Bank head. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Friday that his colleagues around the world were concerned that the dollar's ""instability"" in recent years was hurting its credibility as a reserve currency.