Although the wealthiest Russians are now making more money thanat any time in their lives, 80 percent of the Russian people nowface a declining standard of living, Samara's Moya gazetareported June 8. The paper said that the top 10 percent of thepopulation now received one-third... MORE

Duma laborcommittee chairman Sergei Kalashnikov and several of his colleaguesdenounced the government's plans to reform the country's pensionsystem, Segodnya reported August 23. Kalashnikov said hewas especially concerned that the basic pension was not keyedto be at least at the level of the estimated subsistence wageand... MORE

TheAmerican National Laboratories have paid for and helped to installa new security system at the Obninsk nuclear facility, Russiantelevision reported August 22. Russian officials said that thefacility was now completely protected against any break in fromthe outside. Butyrka Prison Prohibits Use of Tape Recorders.

Officialsat Moscow's Butyrka prison have banned the use of tape recordersby lawyers visiting their clients, Izvestiya reported August11. The jail authorities said that such devices could be usedto bring information in to the jail and thus violated the rightof the authorities to keep prisoners isolated.... MORE

Much ofthe paperwork concerning the location of nuclear materials inthe Soviet Union was lost when that country broke apart in 1991,Russian officials working in the area told Rossiya (no.27). The acknowledgment came as Russian journalists attemptedto evaluate claims by Chechen leader Shamil Basayev that he... MORE

The IntergovernmentalBank set up for international settlements within the Commonwealthof Independent States may soon be permitted to invest its assetsin the securities of the countries that provided the bank withits start-up capital, Segodnya reported August 23. Documentation on Nuclear Materials Lost in 1991.

More and more senior Russian officials and commentatorshave come to believe that Russia cannot transform itself directlyfrom totalitarianism to democracy but must pass through some formof authoritarianism, Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalevtold Moskovskiye novosti (no. 53). As a result, Kovalevsaid, there is less and... MORE

Miners on Sakhalin Island told Russian radio August 23 that theywould go on strike unless their back wages were paid. (One miningofficial told Russian television the same day that the coal enterpriseshad generally received payments from the government this yearbut could not pay miners because... MORE

The Russian Glasnost Fund said that the Russianauthorities have subjected 220 journalists trying to cover theconflict in Chechnya since December 1994 to various forms of persecution,Rossiya (no. 25) reported. Few of them have received anyredress for the illegal actions of the authorities, the paperadded. One... MORE

In the wake of the Citibank scandal in which a Russianhacker broke into the computers of the New York bank, Westernbanks are likely to demand that their Russian clients and partnersmeet far higher standards, Izvestiya suggested on August23. Coal Miners, Hydro Workers, and Metro Engineers... MORE