Russia

Boris N. Yeltsin was a destroyer at a time when there was much that was in need of destruction - primarily the sclerotic and decrepit Soviet Union, where an entire tottering system was devoted to the ideology of nothing-makes-sense. He turned on his one-time comrades and, drawing upon deep and vocal public support, he stood up for Russia - and in doing so stood up as well for the other 14 Soviet republics - and thereby swept aside the U.S.S.R. His death yesterday at age 76, more than 15 years after the Soviet crackup, puts in relief one salient and dismal fact about Russia today: Mr. Yeltsin, the first democratically elected president in 1,000 years of Russian history, outlived the democracy he did more than anyone else to bring into being.

Here is Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the author of The Gulag Archipelago, the man who more than any other made the world understand the cruelty and senselessness of the Soviet prison camp system and, by extension, of the Soviet Union itself. Here is Mr. Solzhenitsyn, a former prisoner of the gulag, an exile in Vermont for many years, more recently a refusenik by choice when offered prizes by Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Boris N. Yeltsin - here he is accepting an award in June from President Vladimir V. Putin, whose career began in the organization that imprisoned the truth-seeking writer.

A woman stands holding up two loaves of Turkish bread. A little girl in a hot pink headscarf and yellow jeweled top smiles broadly. And a wall hanging of Mecca and Medina flashes on the screen as 14-year-old Myra Illysova explains, "It's a symbol of Muslims. Every Muslim house has one." The pictures provide glimpses of the lives of these Meskhetian Turk refugees from Russia, now high school students who belong to Baltimore City Community College's Refugee Youth Project. For the past four days, the 20 students have documented their lives and resettlement as part of a photo camp run by National Geographic, one of 10 camps across the world this year that focused on young refugee populations.

The speaker of the Russian State Duma, Boris Gryzlov, called former Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin a man "who did much to ensure the creation of our state" and "for the development of democracy in Russia." The head of the nation's energy monopoly, Anatoly Chubais, praised his role in taking the nation from "non-freedom to freedom." And the chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, called the nine years of Yeltsin's leadership "a breath of freedom for the country" and "his biggest achievement."

SOCHI, Russia -- The two-lane road from the old Soviet-style airport to the center of town has become an avenue of billboards showing men, women and children on skis and snowboards, riding chairlifts and chasing hockey pucks. On their faces is the promise of what might come to be in this city in southern Russia, and something Russians have historically had little experience with: hope. Dubbed the "Russian Riviera" - which, granted, is a bit of an embellishment - Sochi has palm trees and parasailing and a shoreline stretching dozens of miles along the temperate Black Sea coast.

WASHINGTON -- When Vice President Al Gore launched a special partnership with Russia's prime minister in 1993, the effort seemed full of promise and a perfect showcase for Gore's high-technology, futuristic vision.Tapping the talents of agency bosses and scientists, the two countries would cooperate on space, energy exploration, even public health -- projects seen as building blocks in a grand strategy of helping Russia discard its Communist past and grow into a free-market democracy.But as Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov arrives this week for the 11th meeting of their joint commission, the original promise has been all but overwhelmed by the problems facing Russia and strains in the relationship.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Once a week, Pavel Yakovlev gets a chance to be like other kids. Traveling to the outskirts of St. Petersburg, he dons a pair of black and white swim trunks and spends a half-hour splashing around the pool at the Obukhovitz Sports Complex near an old munitions plant."

THE WORST Y2K "millennium bug" scenario envisages nuclear missiles launching from their silos at midnight on Dec. 31. Fortunately, experts agree this scenario is so unlikely that it can be safely disregarded. However, the mistaken launch of missiles, caused by the combination of bad data from Y2K-related failures and a crisis scenario, is taken very seriously at the highest levels of U.S. government.To address this concern, the United States has been working with Russia, with an emphasis on maintaining the early-warning systems that detect the launch of missiles.

MOSCOW -- Russia's lower house of parliament passed a federal budget yesterday that calls for minuscule spending, by U.S. standards, but nonetheless left international lenders cold.The budget starkly testifies as to how far the former superpower has fallen in its difficult transition to a market economy. This year's $1.7 trillion U.S. budget dwarfs Russia's planned spending -- a mere $25 billion: Russia plans to spend in a year about what the United States will spend in an average five days.

MOSCOW -- There was champagne all around in the Kremlin yesterday, and though the official occasion was their Independence Day, Russians were clearly jubilant that their band of 200 paratroopers had stolen into Kosovo first, embarrassing mighty NATO and seizing important political ground.While the rest of the world was asking who ordered the troops in, wondering why the foreign minister appeared unaware of the order and trying to figure out just who was in charge of Russia, few hard questions were being publicly asked amid the general satisfaction here.

Alex Griffith doesn't remember it, but he lived the first year of his life at a Siberian hospital for abandoned children where the playground consisted of a single metal swing and an unkempt sandbox. Today, because of the efforts of the North Harford High School sophomore, the play area has slides, a climbing wall and dozens of other pieces, and has become a symbol of friendship and cooperation between two nations separated by an ocean and vastly different ideologies. Alex lived the first year of his life at a hospital for abandoned children in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

Swimming NBAC's Morris qualifies for U.S. team at worlds A strong U.S. nationals for North Baltimore Aquatic Club continued Saturday night, when 18-year-old Brennan Morris surprised everyone, including himself, by finishing second in the 1,500-meter freestyle, earning a spot on the United States team headed to the world championships in Rome in two weeks. Morris, who moved to Baltimore with his family three years ago from Lewisburg, Pa., lowered his career-best time by 20 seconds in the preliminaries Friday morning and then shaved an additional four seconds off that time in the final a day later, touching the wall in 15 minutes, 13.47 seconds.

WASHINGTON -- On his four previous foreign trips, President Barack Obama has been greeted by cheering crowds and smiling world leaders, a carefully crafted global introduction that emphasized listening, collaboration and cooperation. But expectations are rising for the president and, as he prepared to go abroad again on Sunday, the White House is resetting its goals. Now the idea is to cast Obama not just as a likable, inspirational figure but also as a tough-minded world leader. His first stop Monday will be a sure test.

MUNICH -Vice President Joe Biden held out an olive branch to Iran and Russia yesterday and reassured European allies that the Obama administration would treat them as equals but emphasized that "America will ask its partners to do more as well." In a major foreign policy address yesterday to an international security conference, Biden told an audience of world leaders that the White House was willing to engage the government in Tehran if it heeded calls to end its nuclear-weapons program and changed its policies in the Middle East.

MOSCOW - Shipments of Russian natural gas to Europe came to an abrupt halt yesterday in the middle of a winter cold spell. Russia accused neighboring Ukraine of shutting down pipelines that supply a fifth of the continent's gas, while Ukraine charged that Russia had halted all deliveries. The situation marked a sharp escalation of a politically charged fuel-price dispute that has renewed concern about Europe's dependence on Russian gas and Ukrainian pipelines. It followed a precipitous fall in shipments Tuesday, when more than a dozen countries reported a complete stop or major drops in supplies.

MOSCOW - Russia's natural gas monopoly drastically cut flows to Europe through Ukraine yesterday, sharpening fears of winter fuel shortages. Despite warnings from the European Union, a pricing dispute between Gazprom and Ukraine showed no signs of letting up. As the two sides traded accusations and blame, negotiations remained frozen for the sixth day. Bulgarian authorities said two-thirds of their natural gas supply had been cut off and consumption would...

Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President George W. Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that might have originated in Russia, posing unusual concern among commanders and potential implications for national security. Defense officials would not describe the extent of damage inflicted on military networks. But they said the attack struck hard at networks within U.S. Central Command, the headquarters that oversees U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and affected computers in combat zones.

MOSCOW - It's a truism that stable and friendly relations between two countries require each to look at a situation from the other's point of view. The recent tussle between Russia and the West over Georgia is a stark reminder of how the United States has fundamentally never understood Russia's point of view. The conventional view is that Russia in recent years has been pushing away from the West. But the reverse is more accurate. The Russia-Georgia conflict is a consequence of the West's "pushing away" of Russia.

State is striving to save infants The editorial "Why do so many die?" (Sept. 28) highlights a serious issue - Maryland's high infant mortality rate - but suggests that little is being done about it. Let me correct that misconception. This is a complex problem being tackled by numerous concerned organizations. For instance, the Perinatal Safety Culture Collaborative, led by the Maryland Patient Safety Center, with funding from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, has identified and implemented clinical practices to make births safer for babies and mothers.

TBILISI, Georgia - A new front has opened between Georgia and Russia, this one over which side was the aggressor whose military activities early last month ignited the lopsided five-day war. At issue is new inconclusive intelligence that paints a more complicated picture of the critical last hours before war broke out. Georgia has released intercepted telephone calls purporting to show that part of a Russian armored regiment crossed into South Ossetia...