Russian

Washington -- As the final tallies of the Russian parliamentary elections trickle in, the surprise victory of the populist nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky Liberal Democratic Party emerged as the most important result after the adoption of the constitution.The message it has sent will dominate strategies and actions among the Russian political class for at least the next few months.Societies undergoing a rapid political, economic and social change are bound to reach reflexively for the certitude and comfort of simple but firmly stated solutions.

Paris -- A serious and underestimated aspect of what goes on in the Balkans and in Russia is the rise of pan-Slavism. The Russian authorities have recently made known their increasing uneasiness about the potential political consequences in Russia any Western military intervention against the Serbs in Yugoslavia. The Russian prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, last week formally made known Russia's opposition to any Western military measures against Serbia.There are some extreme figures in Russia who already demand active Russian intervention on Serbia's side.

MOSCOW -- The killing of a leading Russian central banker probably was related to his work, which involved closing banks engaged in illegal activities such as money-laundering, authorities said yesterday. Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov, who was shot Wednesday night and died early yesterday morning, led an effort that revoked the licenses of 44 banks this year. He was widely viewed at home and abroad as a particularly intelligent and honest figure among top Russian civil servants, and his death is considered a serious blow to efforts to combat corruption.

They came from Mariy-El to Maryland. And they share one important word that crosses both languages: "agribusiness."It was one of only two recognizable words in a stream of Russian dialogue as President Vladislav Zotin described the link between his country, the republic of Mariy-El in the Russian Federation, and Maryland.Mr. Zotin and a dozen other Mariyan and Russian officials and entrepreneurs made a Carroll County egg farm their first stop in a weeklong tour of Maryland.The other word that stood out to an American listener was "perestroika," the new mood of openness and change in government in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Are the Russians taking this capitalism thing a little too far?John Pappas doesn't think so. The Mission Viejo, Calif., businessman has turned 15 years of business contacts in Russia into a venture that must have Vladimir I. Lenin turning in his glass-domed coffin, at least when people aren't looking.Mr. Pappas just completed his first year of arranging perhaps the most unusual tours in the world -- 10-day trips to Russia that include visits to Red Square, the Kremlin and an hourlong flight in a Soviet military aircraft.

In Vienna, Steve Hanke had a colleague with his teeth all gone. The year was 1978, and the colleague was Russian. His teeth went away during a series of lengthy imprisonments in Siberian labor camps. His crime? He was an economist who kept suggesting there were a few problems with the Marxist system.The memory of the man with no teeth came back to Dr. Hanke three days ago, in a room at Johns Hopkins University. Hanke teaches applied economics there, when he's not hopping around the globe advising foreign governments on how to embrace capitalism.

MOSCOW -- Now comes the time of fevers.A hot, shimmering, half-dreaming mood stalks through Moscow, never a crystalline place in the best of times. Aches and sadness follow.Bred in some distant Asiatic land, the flu has hit hard this year. In Russian they still call it the "grippe," that old-fashioned word that calls to mind grandmothers and strange concoctions on the stove.In January, 96,514 cases of flu were reported to the Moscow Center for Sanitary and Epidemic Supervision. If February can come up with 35,186 cases more, then it can be called an epidemic.

LONDON -- British authorities formally classified the recent poisoning death of a dissident former Russian spy as a murder case yesterday, changing it from a suspicious death. Alexander Litvinenko is believed to have been poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, probably on Nov. 1, a day when he met with several people in London. British and Russian investigators questioned one of those people, Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun, at a Moscow hospital yesterday, where he was apparently undergoing checks for radiation.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- President Bush launched four days of diplomacy here yesterday by showing support for democracy activists, honoring World War II defenders of this city and dining with President Vladimir V. Putin on the eve of a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized countries. Bush told the activists that he preferred to raise concerns about democracy in Russia with Putin privately, rather than criticize his "friend" publicly. But in a gesture that clearly implied criticism of the Kremlin, the deputy chairwoman of imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Open Russia Foundation was seated next to Bush.

KIEV, Ukraine -- In an election upset that could change Ukraine's relations both with the West and with Moscow, voters here have turned out incumbent President Leonid M. Kravchuk and replaced him with Leonid D. Kuchma, a pro-Russian former factory manager and prime minister.The election underscored the deep split between east and west Ukraine, a stark reality in a 30-month-old nation that possesses a giant military, a still-considerable nuclear arsenal and a huge identity crisis.In Lviv, in the nationalist west, Mr. Kravchuk won by 93.7 percent to 3.9 percent, according to unofficial results reported yesterday.