The project Ulyanovsk Region as the Philatelic Capital of Russia 2008 has kicked off in Ulyanovsk. Governor Sergey Morozov has announced the beginning of the project realization.

Today the Moscow Chamber Musical Theatre presents the premiere of Vladimir Dashkevich opera Revizor (The Inspector General) after Gogol.

Tomorrow, December 22, will mark the 70th anniversary of the famous writer Eduard Uspensky, the creator of Cheburashka, Gena the Crocodile, Matroskin the Cat, Postman Pechkin, and other characters, the significance of which in Russia has gone far beyond the limits of childrens literature.

The Winter Palace of the Hermitage Museum welcomes visitors to the exhibition Numismatic Relics of Old Greece, Rome and Byzantium: from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.

The well-known monument to the national Russian heroes Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, set up in Red Square in 1818 will be for the first time restored.

English art lovers will not have the chance to see painting masterpieces from the four major Russian museums, since the British party turned unable to guarantee the return of the exposition to Russia.

On December 23 the major Russian New Years wizard Ded Moroz (Father Frost) will arrive in St. Petersburg and bring The Fire of Olympic Hopes with him in the framework of his New Year tour.

On December 20 the History Museum (Moscow) will see the opening of the exhibition of finds discovered at Borodino Field, the site where the decisive Battle of Borodino against Napoleonic invaders took place on September 7, 1812.

Archaeological excavations of the Big Palace in Tsaritsyno have been acknowledged among the major expeditions on a world scale.

Residents of Privolzhskoe Settlement of Tver Region have won a regional grant to create the Museum of Vipers.