Today, a Moscow court issued an arrest warrant for Igor Popov, the deputy to the artistic director of the venerable, historical, mythical Moscow Art Theater, founded by Constantin Stanislavski in 1898 and home, once upon a time, to Anton Chekhov and Mikhail Bulgakov.

I knew it. That popular music-channel hip-hop show promoting “a healthy lifestyle” was not for realisies, but was instead a propaganda ploy.

So for months now I’ve been watching this show when I go the gym here in Moscow. It runs on Muz-TV, the Russian MTV-analog, and it’s called “Battle for Respect: Start Today!”

In Moscow, Halloween is celebrated by exactly 4% of Russians and is usually a holiday for going to clubs while dressed in a ridiculous fashion, which is basically a holiday for people who would spend their Saturday nights going to clubs while dressed in a ridiculous fashion anyway.

It’s Vladimir Putin’s 57th birthday today! The patriarch called to congratulate the prime minister, as did Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, affectionately known as “Europe’s last dictator.” Even dissidents marked the occasion. Nezavisimaya Gazeta published a mocking ode (“I love you so tenderly and so sincerely.") wishing the prime minister would trade up titles, from “prime minister” to “God.”

Like a gracious host who somehow anticipates your every need before you even think to have it, the Ritz-Carlton, Moscow has gone out of its way to make its guest, Barack Obama, feel loved and welcome during his first visit to Russia as President of the United States. Over the weekend, the hotel issued a lyrical press release detailing the Martha Stewart-esque details of its so-called “The Dessert-Cocktail Summit.”

Roman Abramovich has a problem, a gambling problem. His girlfriend, 26 year-old socialite Dasha Zhukova, gave him hell for it so he simply moved his habit online, to the "Everest Room." And then, last week, he lost a yacht in a poker game. Reportedly.

Exciting news for Russian Interneters! Tomorrow, your president, Dmitry Medvedev, will join LiveJournal, the MySpace-like blog platform that took Russia by storm in the early part of this century and has yet to let go. Starting tomorrow, the President – the President! – will mingle in your lowly mingling places and discuss with you your silly thoughts on politics! On the Internet! The President!

Perhaps the best thing about being an oligarch – if you have any money left, that is – is the ability to hire your own partisan (Russian for “guerrilla”) army. And Mikhail Prokhorov, now the richest man in Russia by sheer luck, may have just such an army.

Early this morning, Moscow-based New York Times correspondent C.J. Chivers was detained by the South Ossetian KGB as he tried to cross into Mogabruni, an Ossetian village on the border with Georgia, which claims its territory.

There is one place in Russia where democracy is alive and well, and that place is Sochi, the Black Sea resort-town of yore that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics.