On the most festive night of the year open-air merrymaking will be taking place on Vasiliesky Slope by the Red Square and in the central squares – Tverskaya, Teatralnaya and Lubyanskaya – from 10 pm to 1 am.

The City Planning Council of Tomsk has declaimed against construction of an administrative building with parking lots on the site of merchant Khromov’s estate, where the monastic cell of the Elder Fyodor Kuzmich used to be.

The exhibition dedicated to Sergei Diaghilev and the 100th anniversary of the famous ballet Russian Seasons arranged by him in Paris will open in Tretyakov Gallery in autumn 2009.

Exhibition of the Old Believers’ art has been open in Benois Wing of the Russian Museum, Petersburg.

Archeologists stand up against the planned development of a site of one of the most ancient settlements in Moscow – the former Spas Settlement in the North-West of the city.

On the threshold of New Year, on 29 December the 20th Ice Sculpture Festival “Vugovei 2009” will open in the Botanic Garden.

Monument to Peter the First in Lipetsk City has been dressed into a New Year fancy costume.

President of Russian Academy of Arts Zurab Tsereteli has sculptured a composition “Battle of Poltava”.

Deputies of the City Council of Bender have approved of the local community’s offer to set up a monument to the poet, singer and songwriter Alexander Vertinsky.

Museum of Cinema in Moscow will be located in a new gigantic pedestal of the sculpture "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman" after it is restored and returned to its historical place.