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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.



Thursday, January 08, 2009 Updated at 31 December 2008 22:36 Moscow Time.

The Moscow Times » Issue 3836 » Crime Watch

Dispute in Mens' Bathroom Line Leads to Brawl

06 February 2008By Carl Schreck / Staff WriterIn any club or restaurant where the alcohol is flowing freely, it's usually patrons of the fair sex who are forced to suffer long lines for the bathroom.

But it was an argument between two men over first dibs on a toilet that led to a nasty brawl outside a local cafe, police said Tuesday.

Five people were briefly hospitalized -- one after being shot with a pellet gun -- after customers at the cafe Dionis in southwestern Moscow began brawling outside the cafe at around 11 p.m. Sunday, police spokeswoman Marina Molokova said.

The incident began when two men, who were drinking with separate groups of friends, began arguing over who would use the bathroom first at the cafe on Ulitsa Miklukho-Maklaya, near the Belyayevo metro station, Molokova said.

"The security guard forced them to go outside to settle the matter," she said.

The two men left the cafe, after which one of them called his father, who lived nearby, Molokova said. After the man's 48-year-old father arrived, a fight broke out between the two groups of friends, who had been drinking heavily and had followed the two men outside, Molokova said.

At some point during the fight, the father opened fire from a Makarych pistol loaded with rubber pellets and struck the man who argued with his son over the bathroom, Molokova said.

"He got angry after seeing that someone was hurting his son," she said.

Police arrived at the scene shortly thereafter and questioned the brawlers and witnesses.

Molokova could not say immediately how many people participated in the fight, only that five people -- including the man who got shot -- were treated for various minor injuries and subsequently released.

Police have classified the incident as hooliganism, which is punishable by up to five years in prison, but no one had been charged as of Tuesday.