Remembrance of Odd Things Past

O.K., so the ruble fell, oil spilled, and Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland. But some of the most unforgettable stories from Russia were also some of the most absurd. Herewith, a salute to the year's most ridiculously memorable events.


If the cup fits, wear it. Russian-British relations hit a low point this fall when a band of dieting Brits decided to send the used bras and panties they could no longer fill with their newly trimmed figures to Russia -- where, they assumed, their full-figured Russian sisters would jump at the chance to snatch up their used undies. The well-meaning women even consulted the Russian Embassy in Moscow about how to distribute the goods without inciting a riot. Their offer was declined, with strained politeness, by Russian officials.


A Revolutionary Way to Handle a Monthly Cycle. Cash flow a problem? Not for the Yarensky logging company. With no money in the till and a line of burly lumberjacks expecting to be paid, the Arkhangelsk company resorted to some creative financing by paying its workers in tampons. It is a rare lumberjack, indeed, who is worth his weight in feminine hygiene products.


Could you please pass the tank of sour cream? Everyone needs something to work for, so the workers at the Tsaritsino meat processing plant chopped and kneaded their way to immortality this summer with a record-breaking meter-long pelmen crammed with no less than 134 kilos of beef -- the perfect midday snack for a crowd of 30,000.


They'll need more than a pickle to wash this down. Okay, so maybe he ruffled a few feathers when he threatened to shoot Governor Boris Nemtsov's aides in Nizhny Novgorod. But Vladimir Zhirinovsky took a step toward political reconciliation this month when he treated fellow Duma members to his own vodka -- complete with a likeness of the man himself on the bottle's label.


You do the crime, you do the time -- in Parliament. Jail or the Duma: Which would you choose? It didn't take MMM mastermind Sergei Mavrodi long to figure out that he would rather wear pin stripes than prison bars. So what if he had to lie about boosting the value of MMM shares to his impoverished throng of loyal investors to get elected? They may have left the voting booths empty-handed, but they learned a valuable lesson about empty campaign promises.


No, not that button. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that cutting off the power to Russia's command post for strategic rocket forces might not be such a good idea. But that's what an unsuspecting clerk at Mosenergo did this September when the command post fell a bit behind in its electricity payments. The home to Russia's nuclear arsenal was without power for over an hour, shifting to a reserve generator to maintain control over the country's intercontinental ballistic missiles.


Is that a dinosaur limb or is he just happy to see us? A group of scientists in Russia's far north went off the charts in the "Was My Face Red!" category when they called international attention to a rare beast with a strange protruding limb they found washed up along the cost of Cape Nemetsky this October. Their cries of "dinosaur" attracted the interest of Murmansk marine biologists, who set out to identify the decaying wonder -- a beached sperm whale. And the limb? The whale's meter-long penis.


Could you pull over by that tree for a moment? Ashamed of those embarrassing paw prints left behind on newly upholstered cars? Treat yourself and treat Rover to a ride in zootaksi, a service started this year by Sergei Ustinov, who has been caught out in the rain more than once with his Great Dane.


For slightly more than people fares, Sergei and his fleet drive their furry clients to the vet, the dacha, the occasional dog show. Reptiles and birds are also welcome.