Unable to find support at home, well-known Russian human rights and ecological activist Yevgenia Chirikova, who led the revolt in Moscow against the clear-cutting of the Khimki forest, is trying to get help in the U.S.

We have discovered a video on Youtube today which features Russian President Dmitry A. Medvedev showing of his dance moves. Mr. Medvedev obviously has not danced much since the 1980s. We won’t even try to make satirical comments -- just add that the song in the video is called “American boy”.

Today in Moscow, the judge apparently found the former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty in his second trial, according to the reports by Russian news agencies. However, the judge, Victor Danilkin, requested all media to leave the court room before the verdict has been formally announced.

Mikhail Gorbachev voiced his concern about the state of democracy in Russia in his New York Times op-ed, dedicated to the 25-year anniversary of Perestroika:

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

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.

Tipped off by recent snickering on LiveJournal over Medvedev's photography gallery on the presidential website, we've peaked in for a gander.

While speaking with foreign reporters, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dropped the strongest hint to date that he might be returning as president in 2012. "Me and Dmitry Medvedev (current Russian President - ed), we are of the same kind. We'll sit down and decide who will run for President in 2012," said Putin.

As the economic crisis deepens in Moscow, Kremlin is rolling up its sleeves to likely reshuffle local governments that are sinking further into debt and defaulting on loans and mortgages. Kremlin officials are angered by the misuse of the funds Moscow had allocated to the regions to quell their financial crisis.

2x2 Russian Cartoon television network censored one of the South Park episodes, editing out a scene where an American businessman calls up Vladimir Putin to ask his help in shipping a giant whale to the moon. This time, we see the logic behind the cut.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet head of state, responsible for the most reviled and admired political act of the 80's -- the prohibition -- called on national television for the government to limit production and sales of liquor. Russians are way to drunk, apparently. According to Gorbachev, the nation "is dying out because of alcohol." During the last Soviet years, alcohol production reached the unprecedented levels of 14 liters per person. In 2008, it reached 17 liters (4.5 gallons) per person.

Tomorrow, Mikhail Khodorkovsky will take part in a bizarre online interview. On his fifth birthday spent in prison, he will answer all Gazeta-reader submitted questions - nearly a thousand of them.

Keith Gessen, who was arrested in Sochi today, was released two hours later. Gessen's friend wrote in an email: "I just talked to him and he's fine. He was like "yeah I got arrested no big deal.'"

This afternoon, New Yorker contributor Keith Gessen was detained by OMON (Russian special forces unit) while he was covering the mayoral election in Sochi, the city which will be hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics. According to Gazeta.ru, Russian online newspaper, Gessen was researching a claim by one of the candidates of tempering with the voting ballots.

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.