A lot of western companies announced investments in Russia this week, and there was one more bit of bad news on the adoption front: According to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, accreditations of all U.S. adoption agencies operating in Russia have expired.

Cisco announced on Tuesday that it is looking for opportunities to invest some venture capital in Russia and said it had made its first Russian investment in an e-commerce company called Ozon. The network equipment maker did not put dollar amounts on either move.

MarketWatch, crediting the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, said Wednesday that PepsiCo is planning to build a $100 million factory in in southern Russia to make Frito-Lay potato chips. The plant will be located in the Rostov region.

Also slated for that region: a new Radisson hotel in Rostov-on-Don. A trade publication for the hospitality industry said Rezidor Hotel Group will open a Radisson Style Hotel by the end of 2007. The hotel, which is adjacent to the Volga-Don river cruises passenger port, will feature 81 guestrooms, a restaurant and a bar. Rezidor is a hotel company based in Belgium.

And U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez was in Moscow this week, ostensibly to talk about Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization. But what made the news was the former Kellogg CEO's comment that the United States expects Russia to treat U.S. companies doing business there fairly--including PricewaterhouseCoopers. Moscow city tax officials have accused the auditing firm of helping Yukos, the now bankrupt Russian energy company, evade taxes. PwC stands to lose its operating license in Russia.

Outside the world of business, there was the reconciliation of the Russian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The latter was organized after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and is based in New York City. Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated church officials on their efforts to resolve their differences.

On the entertainment front, the Rolling Stones announced a concert in St. Petersburg in July. The rockers were supposed to have played in Petya last year, but the gig was cancelled after Keith Richards fell out of a palm tree while vacationing in Fiji.

And tomorrow, Saturday, April 7, a Russian rocket will put a man who made billions designing software for Microsoft into space. Charles Simonyi will ride on a Soyuz TMA-10 with two Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station, courtesy of the space tourism company Space Adventures. The launch date has great significance to Russian space buffs: As I noted in an earlier post, April 7 is the anniversary of the world's first space flight, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Simonyi will return to earth on April 20.