It turns out that last week's reports of a deal between Germany's Lufthansa airlines and Russian transportation authorities to move the carrier's cargo operations to Siberia is not a done deal. According to Reuters, German officials are saying on Friday that Lufthansa's flyover rights have been extended to February while Russians and Germans work out a longer-term agreement. Just one big catch: The Russian side told Reuters they were only studying the proposal.

Maybe a sigh of relief at Ford... more

Russia's December 2 parliamentary election leads the news this week. Election officials certified 11 parties to vie for the elections while sharply limiting the number of foreign observers to watch the polling. There may not be much to watch: Most political analysts expect the United Russia list to win the bulk of the seats in the State Duma, which is the lower house of Russia's legislature. President Vladimir Putin announced on... more

Want something fun to do this morning if your agency is among the 46 that have not yet gotten accreditation to handle adoptions in Russia? Call Martin Renkiewicz and ask him why his agency is holding things up. No, this is not an overseas call. Mr. Renkiewicz's agency is right down in Washington, D.C.

Yes, you read that right. It looks as if the fault for the slow pace of accreditations lies not with Moscow, or with late post-placement reports, but with an obscure American bureaucracy that goes by the name of the U.S.... more

So, as I told you in part one of this post, the U.S. National Central Bureau of Interpol has stopped processing background checks on U.S. adoption agencies. Russia's Ministry of Justice needs this information to complete the accreditation of these agencies, so that they, in turn may complete the adoption of thousands of children now in Russian orphanages.

Now what?

One agency awaiting re-accreditation told me that the MoJ indicated that it would allow agencies to... more

Those of us who have been to Russia already know the drill. Your driver is taking you to the orphanage where the most stressful day of your life awaits, when the car is pulled over by the highway police. Oh, what now, you think. What piece of paperwork have I forgotten to bring?

But the stop has nothing to do with you and everything with what a group of Russian citizens are now saying is wrong with the nation's police force. The road cops are yanking your driver's car off the road purely and simply to extract a little cash. It happened to me once on each of the three trips... more

Jimmy Carter may be envious: One week after Russian President Vladimir Putin took complaints about inflation on a televised town hall-style show, Russia's top food companies agreed to a government plan to freeze prices. The store tab for bread, eggs, vegetable oil and sugar will be frozen through the end of January, along with the price of some cheese and milk products .The Kremlin called the producers' agreement voluntary, but some economists criticized the move as a return to Soviet policies. Then again, price freezes weren't... more

President Vladimir Putin spent three hours in front of the television cameras on Thursday, taking and answering questions from citizens on a wide range of economic, social and political issues. According to the official Russian government Web site, Putin answered more than 60 questions during the show, which came from people in Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh region, Arkhangelsk region, six other regions and Kazakhstan. The government site doesn't yet have the transcript posted, but promises one will... more

I've written before about how central potatoes are to the Russian diet. But there's one kind of potato that everybody wants to avoid, and that's a political hot potato. Which is why so many people in Russia are steamed up now over inflation.

The price of just about everything in Russia right now is rising, and at a pretty good clip to boot. According to the Moscow Times, milk prices have risen 16.5% over the last year, while butter is up more than 20%, vegetable oil has risen 17.1% and the cost of meat is... more

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates got an earful when they visited Moscow on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin again blasted America's plan to base a missile defense system in eastern Europe--this time with the TV cameras rolling and the American officials in the background. “Of course, we can some time in the future decide that some antimissile defense should be established somewhere on the moon,” The New York Times quoted... more

Ordinarily, I do everything I can to avoid printing rumors about what is or isn't happening with adoptions in Russia. There's enough of that kind of stuff floating around on the Internet and an unconfirmed rumor is just that, an unconfirmed rumor. And unconfirmed rumors drive people nuts.

But I've gotten e-mails from several of you recently asking when I think the next round of accreditations will be issued. The truth is, I don't know and probably no one in Russia does either, with the possible exception of Andrei Alexandrovich Fursenko, the minister of education, whose signature... more