One of the challenges of publishing this magazine is figuring out how to respond to current events. Like Beslan.

I flipped a page in the copy of Business Week I was reading. Time stood still. Space tilted.

There is a vein of gold running through this issue of Russian Life.

Only about 10-20% of magazines launched in the U.S. survive longer than five years, so 500 issues over 48 years is a fairly impressive achievement.

In March, Russian citizens will renew the mandate of President Vladimir Putin for another four years. At least that is what the polls tell us to expect.

Just how important is Russia in the world?

Russia can truly be proud of the wilderness areas it has preserved. But cordoning off these areas is one thing. Securing them for the future is another thing altogether.

As this issue was going to press, our American media was focused on the so far fruitless effort to find Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq.

In my childhood, I spent every school vacation in Leningrad. Our closest family members lived there.

For forty years, in the era of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, Russia did all it could to force a wedge between the US and its European allies. Now Putin wants to do everything he can to keep the alliance together.

How does a bimonthly magazine on Russian culture, history and society respond to a gruesome act of terrorism?

Mikhail Ivanov, our editor for the past seven years, has decided to move on to new challenges and opportunities.