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Boris Kustodiev's "Merchant's Wife at Tea" is the takeoff point for a discourse on revolution, nobility and fine food, in this case Rogaliki - Walnut Crescents.

In which we explode yet another myth. The Washington-Moscow Hotline does not employ glowing red telephones and is actually very rarely used. Yet it is still a fascinating institution, one apparently designed to sidestep common human shortcomings.

Few trips anywhere in the world rival the Trans-Siberian Railway. A six-day, seven-night, 9250 kilometer-long trip across the girth of the world’s largest country, it is also, as novelist Peter Aleshkovsky found, a trip into Russia’s past.

Baron Peter Shafirov was a little-known hero of Russian diplomacy who also happened to be a Jew converted to Orthodoxy. He helped guide statecraft under Peter the Great, was richly rewarded and, later, soundly vilified, his in-and-out-of-favor career reflecting the tumultuous times in which he lived.

The mountainous, remote region of Tuva tends to be known for just two things:?postage stamps and throat singing. We take up the latter in our visit with four internationally renowned throat singers from Tuva, to find out what makes them tick... and sing.

Readers comment and correct.

When it comes to bogeymen, China, Cuba, even North Korea can't hold a candle to old Mother Russia. This week, as tempers flared and theatrical protests abounded around health care, a woman offered this irrational take on proposed reforms at a town hall meeting ...

Verbatim text of an online interview with Rashit Yahin. Mr. Yahin was born in 1936, was educated in Moscow as an engineer and worked from 1978 to 1990 on construction of BAM. From 1990 to 1994 he worked as head of the tourism department in the Severobaikalsk Railway Department of BAM. In December 1994, he suffered a stroke that paralyzed his right side. He now is largely confined to a wheelchair, but that has not stopped him working. He actively works to promote tourism to the Baikal region and arranges private and independent travel there (see end of article for contact info). The interview is presented in its entirely, without any redactions or corrections.

Four years ago, in August 2005, then Senator Barack Obama was detained for three hours at a Siberian airport. Obama, with Senator Dick Lugar, was on a US delegation touring nuclear warhead storage and disposal sites. Russian border guards insisted on searching the delegation's plane. The senators refused...

Background information and text of the 1988 treaty between the U.S. and Soviet Union regarding ICBM and SLBM launches.

President Obama gave a nice tribute to Russian culture in his speech to Moscow college students.