Новости из прошлого на английском языке. Выпуск 4 - Анна Пигарёва 2 стр.

Court Marshals to Seize Puppies Over Debt

Court marshals have threatened to take what is most precious from a pensioner who has failed to pay a debt  her three Shar Pei pedigree puppies, they said Friday. The pensioner, whom court marshals did not identify, owes 350,000 rubles ($11,330) to an individual in her hometown in the Kamchatka region in the Far East. «If she does not fulfill her obligations within 10 days, the puppies will be sold by the Federal Agency for State Property Management,» the marshals said in a statement on their site, FSSPrus.ru.

In Kamchatka, Shar Pei puppies fetch 15,000 rubles ($485) each, news reports said. But the marshals said they would try sell them for 5,000 rubles to attract more potential buyers. They said the famously wrinkled Shar Pei puppies have been allowed for the time being to remain with the pensioner, who breeds them as her sole source of income because she has no property.6

Foster Child Survives Flight Inside Landing Gear

A 17-year-old foster child survived a 50-minute flight hidden in a planes landing gear in Siberia, investigators said Tuesday.

The stowaway crawled into a space above the wheel of the An-24 turboprop operated by Angara Airlines at an airfield in the town of Kirensk on Saturday, the Investigative Committee said in a statement. Television reports said he survived the 50-minute flight to Irkutsk in just a light coat, despite temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius. Investigators said the stowaway had fled a center for foster children, and the TV reports said he had robbed a nearby store before climbing inside the plane.The teen, identified as Roman Sorokovikov by Komsomolskaya Pravda, was being treated for frostbite.

In 2007, the body of a man was found near the runway of Moscows Domodedovo Airport. Officials said he had fallen when the landing gear was deployed. Just before that incident a young man from Perm flew into Moscow in another planes landing gear niche. He survived the flight but was hospitalized with severe hypothermia.7

Chernomyrdin Is Laid to Rest

President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin paid their respects to veteran politician Viktor Chernomyrdin, who was buried at Moscows Novodevichy Cemetery on Friday. The political tandem praised Chernomyrdins efforts to stabilize society during post-Soviet reforms.

The longest serving prime minister in post-Soviet Russia, Chernomyrdin died on Wednesday at the age of 72. «The sentiment in society was hard He did everything he could to calm society and at the same time solve urgent economic problems,» Medvedev said during the state-organized funeral.

The ceremony was aired live on the state-owned Vesti 24 news channel. Chernomyrdin played a decisive role in supporting former President Boris Yeltsin during some of the darkest moments of the 1990s, negotiating for the lives of hundreds of hostages with a Chechen warlord and even holding the reins of power while Yeltsin underwent heart surgery in 1996. The former mechanic also will go down in history for his creation of Gazprom, which holds 17 percent of the worlds natural gas reserves. The gas behemoth is by far the Kremlins most powerful economic tool in its global political plays. At Novodevichy Cemetery, Chernomyrdin was buried next to his wife of nearly 50 years, who had died in March. Russian media, citing medical officials, reported that he had died from a heart attack.8

Luzhkov Says His Family Not Safe in Moscow

Luzhkov Says His Family Not Safe in Moscow

Former Mayor Yury Luzhkov said he has sent his daughters to study in Britain because he feels unsafe in Russia. In an interview with Britains Sunday Telegraph, Luzhkov said he and his billionaire wife, Yelena Baturina, had «very serious grounds» to worry about their safety. «There is hatred out there. And if that hatred is all-consuming and the aim is to get at the family then the weakest link is the children. We are afraid to leave them here in Russia,» he was quoted as saying. Luzhkov added that he and Baturina decided to send their daughters, Yelena, 18, and Olga, 16, to London «for four to six years,» first to study English and then to enroll in an undisclosed university. He said the two girls had already left Moscow State University and were living in a house that the family rents in West London.

Moscow police said Monday that they were unaware of any threats against Luzhkovs children. «We ask Luzhkov to tell us if any such facts exist. We are ready to start a rigorous investigation,» police spokesman Viktor Biryukov told RIA-Novosti.

Luzhkovs comments followed media speculation that he was planning to move abroad after President Dmitry Medvedev fired him on Sept. 28 for «loss of confidence.» Luzhkov said that while the decision to send his daughters abroad had been difficult, he had no plans to leave the country. «I am a Muscovite, I was born in Moscow, I am a patriot of my country, and it will be difficult to get rid of me. Why should I leave? Especially since it could be a gift for those in power who hate me,» he said.

«Luzhkovs talk about threats probably reflected his wifes business interests,» said Alexei Mukhin, director of the Center for Political Information. «Luzhkov has now become useful for Baturina by being seen as a democratic leader,» he said. Baturina, who has been accused of amassing a billion-dollar fortune by skimming the citys lucrative real estate deals while her husband was mayor for 18 years, has vehemently denied media reports that she is selling her company, Inteko, or moving assets abroad. Luzhkov, however, accused «businessmen close to the Kremlin» of initiating a campaign to take away the company. «They have already been to my wifes firm,» he said, adding that Inteko was «a tasty delicacy.» He did not name anybody. Inteko last week denied a report that Baturina and Luzhkov were negotiating with billionaire Senator Suleiman Kerimov to sell the firm. Kerimov is seen as close to the government.9