From humble beginnings, Merab Elashvili has built a sprawling restaurant network.

The recently opened second Bocconcino (pictured), located in the Vremena Goda shopping center on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, has brought in a new pizzaiolo to man the pizza oven. Abramo Fornari hails from Forte Dei Marmi and has worked in numerous restaurants across Tuscany.

Dubinin is not your typical beer restaurant. There are no tacky knickknacks strewn about the place, no fireplace in the corner. And the wait staff doesn't wear lederhosen or any other cutesy national costumes.

Some anniversaries go unmarked and are all the more significant for that. Maybe it was the excitement when President Vladimir Putin named First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as his successor, while Putin was named Time magazine's Person of the Year. At the same time, the 16th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union on Dec. 25 was neither mourned nor celebrated by public or pundits.

When I switch to Channel 14 on my television, all that is visible is a test signal. The station that used to broadcast there, Imedi, is in a self-imposed shutdown, a casualty of these long months of political crisis in Georgia. The flamboyant tycoon who founded Imedi is in virtual exile; he is wanted on charges of plotting a terrorist attack and a coup. If you are looking for a story of moral heroics with a reassuring conclusion, don't read on.

How should Americans explain to curious Russians the groundbreaking presidential candidacy of Illinois Senator Barack Obama? I'd say skip the lecture on caucuses and primaries and go straight to the candidate's three bullet points: change, hope and dreams.

The Foreign Ministry hinted Friday that the British Council's regional offices might be allowed to reopen if Britain resumed cooperation with the Federal Security Service and expressed a willingness to ease visa rules for Russians.

Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Saturday that the Interior and Justice ministries were conducting a coordinated campaign to prevent him from running for president.

An architect who killed a Swiss-based air traffic controller for a plane crash in which his wife and children died was appointed Friday to a senior government post in North Ossetia.

Opposition leaders accused prosecutors Friday of dragging their feet in the investigation into the killing of a National Bolshevik activist found unconscious hours after telephoning friends to say he was being followed by police.