A group of leading Russian human rights activists has sent a letter to President-elect Vladimir Putin asking him not to allow the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Aleksy II, to participate in the May 7 presidential inauguration. When... MORE

Russians celebrated Orthodox Easter on Sunday, among them President-elect Vladimir Putin, who attended a service at the Isaakiev Cathedral in his hometown of St. Petersburg. In Moscow, several thousand people participated in services at the Bogoyavlensky, or Epiphany, Cathedral. Among those in attendance were First... MORE

CIS Executive Secretary Yuri Yarov announced on April 27 that the CIS summit, which had been due in April, has twice been postponed and that it is now tentatively scheduled for June 21, subject to some further negotiations. Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin had announced at... MORE

Estonia's financial markets are among the most developed in the post-communist world. This is apparent in the low interest rates now charged by Estonian banks: The 3-month Talibid interest rate was, as of mid-April, down to 4.33 percent. By contrast, interest rates on bank credits... MORE

Russia's 1998 financial crisis caused foreign trade to plummet in all three Baltic states. The loss of the Russian market hurt exports, but the sharp declines in domestic spending engineered by the Estonian and Latvian governments meant that imports declined even more sharply in both... MORE

Armenia's Prime Minister Aram Sarkisian headed a governmental delegation to Moscow on a "working visit" on April 27-29. The unusually extended visit was Sarkisian's second since last December. Flanking him was the defense minister, Lieutenant-General Vagharshak Harutiunian, foremost supporter of the Russian line in foreign... MORE

An air of mystery has surrounded the unannounced visit to Belgrade this week by Russia's and China's UN ambassadors. Reports out of the Yugoslav capital said that Sergei Lavrov and Shen Guofeng had arrived in Belgrade on Wednesday (April 26) without having earlier informed the... MORE

Land reform was one of Boris Yeltsin's ambitions, but he did not achieve it. Russia's Communist-dominated Duma baulked, in particular, at passing a Land Code providing private owners with the right to freely dispose of agricultural land. President-elect Vladimir Putin should not have such problems... MORE

New directives issued by the Russian government to regulate the adoption of Russian children by foreign nationals has resulted in general dismay. The regulations are already in force but are not yet widely accessible to the public. There are reports that prospective foreign adoptive parents... MORE

Ten Russian soldiers were killed April 26 when Chechen rebels attacked a search-and-rescue unit in the town of Serzhen-Yurt, at the entrance of the Vedeno Gorge in southern Chechnya. According to General Valeria Manilov, first deputy chief of the Russian armed forces' general staff, the... MORE