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The Moscow Times Moscow Guide – Winter 2008

Since the middle of autumn one of the most important topics of discussion, could only be … no, not the financial crisis… New Year! The winter issue of The Moscow Times Moscow Guide is entirely devoted to New Years celebrations. Seven great ideas for celebrating the “Night of Nights” will help readers finalise their plans and choose how and where to party, give fresh ideas and lots of practical advice.

And don’t forget – problems will come by themselves, but happiness and luck need an invitation. That why the more cheerful and light-hearted your celebration of the coming holiday is, the happier and more successful 2009 will be for you.

The Crisis: Signs of a Kremlin Fearful Of Unrest
Sociologist Yevgeny Gontmakher has painted a disturbing picture of what might emerge from the financial crisis, forecasting continued unemployment, huge protests and spreading violence.

Market Matters: Huge Grain Harvest No Boon for Farmers
This year Russia is enjoying the biggest grain harvest it has ever seen -- and farmers couldn't be more worried.



Tuesday, January 06, 2009 Updated at 31 December 2008 22:36 Moscow Time.

The Moscow Times » Issue 4002 » News

Politkovskaya Case Hits Court

03 October 2008The Prosecutor General's office has completed its investigation into the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and sent the case to court, Interfax reported Thursday.

Politkovskaya, an award-winning reporter for the Novaya Gazeta, was one of the strongest critics in the media of the Kremlin's handling of the conflict in Chechnya. She was gunned down in the entrance of her apartment building in central Moscow in October 2006.

It was not immediately clear Thursday which court will hear the case.

The Investigative Committee, a semiautonomous agency within the General Prosecutor's Office, has already charged three men with Politkovskaya's murder. Two of them are ethnic Chechens, brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, and the other is a former operative in the anti-organized crime unit of the Moscow City Police Department, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov.

Investigators suspect Rustam Makhmudov, also a Chechen, who has yet to be apprehended, of acting as the triggerman in the killing and are looking for a number of other people suspected of helping plan and organize the murder.

Pavel Ryaguzov, a lieutenant colonel in the Federal Security Service, was arrested last year in connection with the crime but has been cleared.

He remains in custody awaiting trial along with Khadzhikurbanov on charges of abuse of authority, said Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin, Interfax reported.

Politkovskaya was murdered on the birthday of then-President Vladimir Putin, whom she criticized fiercely in many of her articles.

After her death, the Russian authorities came under intense fire from the international media and human rights groups.

The authorities have fired back, with an Investigative Committee official accusing exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky of being behind the murder. Berezovsky has denied any involvement.