Kaliningradoblast administrator Yuri Matochkin told Moscow radio August 21that he was in no hurry to sign a federative agreement with Moscow.The agreement's current form, he said, does not take into accountthe specific features of the non-contiguous Russian region. Estonian Government Plan to License Media Stirs... MORE

Tatarstan's councilof ministers has called on residents to turn in any illegal weapons;those who do so will be exempt from prosecution and will be paidfor what they hand in, Pravda reported August 17. Somewill receive as much as ten times the republic's minimum monthlywage. Security... MORE

The acting chief of the Federal Security Servicein Buryatia said that he and his colleagues had to increase controlover arms dumps during the Chechen conflict because ever morepeople were trying to steal weapons, Pogranichnik Zabaikalyareported June 26. Kaliningrad in No Hurry to Sign Accord with... MORE

The aviationworks at the far eastern Russian city of Komsomol'sk-na-Amurehas stopped producing SU-27 interceptor jets and begun to producetram cars for local sale, Dal'niy vostok reported July16-22. This conversion project now employs some 500 people.

Althoughresidence permits are supposed to be a thing of the past, thosehoping to become Muscovites will have to pay 50 percent more beginningSeptember to register themselves in the Russian capital, Trudreported August 17. A family of three, for example, will haveto pay 18 million rubles... MORE

Italian policehave placed an ad in a Buryat newspaper for information on thewhereabouts of a mafia kingpin who officials think may have fledthere from Italy two years ago, Vechernyaya Moskva reportedAugust 19.

TheSiberian Academy of Sciences has found that on average, everySiberian citizen including the aged and children consumes a bottleof strong spirits every day, Vechernyaya Moskva reportedAugust 19. Not surprisingly in the last 18 months, the academyreported, more than 15,000 people died there from the effectsof... MORE

With these words,Andrei Nechayev, the president of the Russian State Finance Corporation,characterized the current situation in Russia to Ostankino televisionAugust 20. Nechayev said the state was doing so in three ways:by its own efforts to grab wealth, by its unwillingness to standas an arbiter among... MORE

The Russian governmentplans to support the rapidly growing small business sector, Moskovskayapravda reported August 18. According to one estimate, smalland medium-sized businesses engaged in the shadow economy nowaccount for up to 20 percent of the country's GDP. Some 1,038,000small enterprises now operate in Russia legally,... MORE

Themilitary newspaper Krasnaya zvezda complained August 18that the Russian government had failed to provide appropriatesocial security legislation or support for soldiers involved withChernobyl. More than 47,000 servicemen in the Moscow militarydistrict alone either participated in the cleanup after the 1986accident at Chernobyl or stayed for... MORE