Let's start with the weirdest news first this week: Russia wants to build a tunnel to Alaska.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the tunnel would be the world's longest and would run under the Bering Strait. Why build a tunnel that far off the beaten path? To create a quicker way to move oil, natural gas and electricity from Siberia to the U.S. The report says the tunnel would take 10 to 15 years to complete.

Next in line, Boris Berezovsky. The Russian oligarch--who is one of the country's 53 billionaires--admitted, undoubtedly unwisely, to planning a revolution to overthrow the Russian government. You can guess what happened next. The Guardian reported Monday that the Russian prosecutor general asked Britain, where Berezovsky makes his home, to hand him over for prosecution.

Freedom of expression in Russia was also at the center of a declaration by the European Union. The BBC reported on Monday that the EU called on Russia to respect freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. On Saturday, April 14, 9,000 police and paramilitary troopers turned out in Moscow to curtail a demonstration by 2,000 supporters of opposition parties, including Gary Kasparov. News reports this morning said the chess champ was questioned for four hours today by Russia's state security service.

Whether or not Russia ever builds a tunnel to move oil and natural gas from the Russian Far East to America, it is clear that more of those natural resources will be in Russian hands. This week, Russia's Gazprom formally took control of the so-called Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project at that island's northern edge According to the Associated Press, the $7.45 billion deal by Gazprom, which has close ties to the Kremlin, cuts in half the stakes of the project's early developers, Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi.

Can't or won't, that's the question. A Russian nuclear power plant contractor said it cannot complete work on an Iranian plant this year. No new deadline was set for the Bushehr project. The two sides have been squabbling over money as other countries have been putting pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Even as the Virginia Tech massacre was unfolding in the U.S., the Associated Press reported that a Moscow university ordered its foreign students to stay in their dormitories for three days because of fears of xenophobia and racism. Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy asked students to keep a low profile on Thursday, Friday and Saturday because today is the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday. A human rights group cited in the story notes that some 22 people have been killed in hate crimes in Russia this year and more than 130 have been injured.

The New York Times carried a report on Monday that the Russian government is preparing to allow hunters to shoot polar bears. The move is an attempt to stem poaching and to curb incursions by the bears, which have been forced out of their habitat by global warming.

And finally, Russian runner Lidiya Grigoryeva won the Boston Marathon on Monday.