Russian prodigies paid a visit to the U.S.

The young winners of the prestigious Debut prize were in the United States last week, on a hectic tour of New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. RBTH caught up with Russia’s youngest published authors at the New York Public Library.

Olga Slavnikova, a highly acclaimed writer in Russia, has become the country’s most visible and devoted mentor of young writers, primarily through the prestigious Debut prize she helped to establish. Slavnikova recently introduced four of her prodigies – Alisa Ganieva (2009), Irina Bogatyreva (2006), Igor Savelyev (2004) and Dmitry Biryukov (2005) to readers in the United States.

The tour commenced with a swank reception in a private home in the heart of Washington, D.C.’s trendy Adams Morgan district. Before heading to Boston, the quartet stopped in New York to read at the New York Public Library, known for its long tradition of support for Russian literature and writers.

Every year, according to Slavnikova, the Debut contest receives from 40,000 to 70,000 manuscripts. The four winners selected for the U.S. tour represent the diversity of Russia’s writers in terms of themes, interests and background.

Alisa Ganieva, of Dagestan, entered the competition under a male pseudonym, “Gulla Khirachev,” using words from her native Avar language, one of dozens of languages spoken in Dagestan. “Gulla” means “bullet” and “Khirachev” means “darling,” Alisa explained.

“Taking a man’s name was a trick, a literary device, because in today’s Dagestan girls are not allowed to move so freely around the city as men and boys, so written from a female perspective it would be strange,” she added. She also was seeking some disguise, and liberation, from her background as a critic. Her debut novel “Salam, Dalgat” about a young boy’s stream of consciousness while walking on the streets of Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala, caused a stir.

Writer Irina Bogatyreva has been influenced and inspired by the works of Gayto Gazdanov and Jack Kerouac. She writes about Russian hitch-hikers, basing her stories on her own experience. Bogatyreva grew up in the city of Ulyanovsk on the Volga River, where Vladimir Lenin was born and raised, then studied in Gorky’s Literature Institute.  The Debut award, which she received in 2006, changed her life, she said.

“After I received the Debut I felt like I had to write better,” she said. “And my first book got published only when it was short-listed for Debut. I’m not sure if it’s just a coincidence, but to me it certainly seemed connected,” she recalled. Like Kerouac’s characters, young Russians in Bogatyreva’s novels are existentialists who travel not just to see the country, but also to find themselves and their destiny.

The author said she receives a lot of feedback from older Americans, Baby Boomers who hitchhiked extensively in the 1970s. “I think, it’s very exciting for them to see how, decades later, something that was conceived in United States has its own life somewhere in the heart of Siberia,” Bogatyreva  said.

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Russian skiers win gold and silver.

Russian girls Maria Gushchina and Russian girls Polina Medvedeva have won ‘gold’ and ‘silver’ in an individual classic run race at the FIS Nordic Junior & U23 World Ski Championships in Turkish Erzurum.

Gushchina covered the distance of 10km in 29min 23.2sec. Medvedeva lost 26.7sec. to the winner.

Norwegian Martine Ek Hagen was third.

The Russian girls medals have been added to five other ones won by the Russian team  previously.

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Girl Model.

Little fun on the catwalk as Russian teenage would-be model hits Japan.

American documentary directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin have made a reputation with stories that study, as they describe it, “variations of truth and falseness”. Their latest, Girl Model, is just that, in spades. It tells the story of 13-year-old Russian teenage would-be model Nadya, plucked from the talent contests of Siberia to work in the potentially lucrative Japanese fashion market, where the premium is on youth.

That strong clash of cultures is enhanced by a distinction between sheer naivety – in Nadya’s expectations of what she will be doing – and the reality of an industry in which exploitation is all too often the name of the game. Redmon and Sabin evidently aren’t out to expose what they witnessed, just to illustrate – though the hints at murkier edges of the whole business are clear.

A sense of contradiction remains throughout the film, not least because of the character of their lead-in to the story, also called Ashley, in her time an American teenage model in Japan who has now turned scout looking for Russian hopefuls. We see home videos of her thoroughly miserable time a decade earlier modelling in Tokyo – and then her selling the experience to Russian girls in the provinces who are desperate for any route out into the wider world. Their unhappiness, loneliness and sense of being caught up in an anonymous system they don’t understand (literally, since they have little or no English, and no sign of a minder) will only repeat Ashley’s own past.

And that’s before we see Ashley in her own home environment – a starkly modern Connecticut house, devoid of any personal touches, except for a couple of naked plastic dolls who spookily seem to be some sort of child surrogate (there had been a third one, Ashley admits, before she pulled it to pieces). Or witness her hospital operation to have tumours removed, which again raises an issue of (absent) children. Vulnerability and coldness combine in her, as well as a need to control.

There’s more initial clarity in Nadya’s story. She’s from a village outside the Siberian town of Novosibirsk, its winter chill memorably depicted in the opening shots, and her family background seems a supportive one . There’s no sense that she is being pushed into a modelling career. If anything it’s the unreasonable level of trust shown by her parents that stands out, as they sign a contract in English and Japanese that they can’t understand (which includes clauses that allow almost any pretext to terminate the agreement at the discretion of the agency). The Russian intermediary in the process, a talent agent called Tigran, runs an outfit named after Noah, and sees his mission to save such young girls as a “religious matter”. His Japanese counterpart is nicknamed “Messiah”.

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Russian Court Reviews Baby Mix-Up Involving Muslim, Christian Parents.

A Russian court has begun to review the case of a hospital baby mix-up that led to a Russian Orthodox girl being raised by a Tajik Muslim family, and a Russian family raising a Tajik girl. The Russian girls were switched in a maternity ward in the town of Kopeisk in the Ural region, where they were born at the same time in December 1998. The two families have been raising the daughters since then. In the court case, the Russian mother, Yulia Belyaeva, is demanding full access to her biological daughter, saying she is concerned the girl is being raised according to Muslim traditions.

The Tajik father, Nemat Iskandarov, says the two families’ different customs and values have become a source of disagreements. “We don’t frequently go to cinema, our children don’t [excessively] spend time on the Internet, we don’t approve of short skirts, or girls playing with boys,” he says. “[Belyaeva] sees it as a problem that our girl doesn’t go to discos, and goes to an aqua park instead, and that she doesn’t have a boyfriend at this age.” Both Iskandarov and Belyaeva have told media that the girls would want to remain with the families who have been raising them.

The families found out about the mix-up last year, when Belyaeva’s ex-husband refused to pay alimonies, saying their dark-skinned daughter, Anya, looked nothing like him. A subsequent DNA test showed that Anya wasn’t related to the parents. Police traced the family’s biological daughter, Irina, who was being brought up by the Tajik family in the same town. The light-skinned Irina bears striking resemblance to her birth mother, while Anya shares her natural father’s dark features. However, both sets of the parents say that for a long time, it had never occurred to them before that they were raising somebody else’s child, despite the girls’ skin color.

The families sued their local hospital last year and were awarded financial compensation. They had initially decided that they would move to houses next to each other and later negotiate their differing traditions and the upbringing of the girls. The court hearing in Kopeisk will resume in March.

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I’m scared,” the girl says, “I want my choice to be based on love.” The doctor, his glasses perched on his nose, looks down at her reclined on a leather chair. “I understand you, it’s always scary the first time.” The doctor then points to a copy of “Time” magazine with Putin on the cover and says, “Trust is love.” Sweeping panpipes kick in, reminiscent of the “Titanic” theme tune, and the girl happily trots off to the polling station. The campaign ad from the youth group Nashi is the latest in a series of pro-Kremlin campaign videos that use sex to sell Putin’s candidacy ahead of the March 4 election. Last year, Putin’s Army of scantily clad women ripped off their clothes and lovingly unboxed Apple products. One time, the girls got together to make a chocolate cake for Putin. Or, with aesthetics borrowed from the car-washing scene in “Cool Hand Luke,” Putin’s girls strip off and get soapy.

The ads just get more and more bizarre. Before shaking hands with Putin, one Russian man decided that he would somehow transfer good vibes by fondling the breasts of 1,000 girls on the street. Many accepted the offer, many didn’t. And in what might be a metaphor for the end of innocence, in this video a teddy bear is ripped up and then — with pornographic predictability — all the ladies start catfighting and ripping off each other’s clothes. But the one that really takes the cake is the “Girls for Putin” music video, where at one point the singer pines for Putin while nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels. For some reason she also wants to be Putin’s dog, Connie, so she paints her face (as a dog). Then she drinks more whisky, plays air guitar with a baseball bat, strips, and spits on a smashed pumpkin.

Putin’s campaign managers are obviously hoping for a little of the George Clooney effect: the men want to be him; the women want to be with him. The campaigns are certainly slick and well-produced and closely ape the visual styles of both late-night glamour TV and pornography. Not only are they targeting the young, but specifically young urban professionals (all those power suits and gleaming gadgets). Those young urban professionals — riding high on the oil boom — once formed the bedrock of Putin’s support. But now much of that emboldened, entitled middle class has started to want more in terms of political rights. It’s no accident that this young, professional class is now a key component of Russia’s opposition, which has taken to the streets in recent months. Russia’s younger generation is also apathetic. In the 2007 parliamentary elections, one poll found that only one-fifth of 18-24 year olds would vote. The final turnout in 2007 was 64 percent. In this ad, a young man and woman canoodle in a polling booth. The message here isn’t just that voting for United Russia is sexy, but voting is sexy, period.

Such ads might also be partially aimed at an international audience rather than average Russians — tailor-made material for the likes of RT that show a lively, thriving RuNet, where opposition voices coexist with the regime’s girl fans. It all makes Obama Girl look rather tame.

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Julia Lipnitskaia leads ladies in Minsk.

Julia Lipnitskaia of Russia took a five-point lead in the Ladies short program at the 2012 ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships Friday in Minsk, Belarus.

USA’s Gracie Gold came in second, while defending champion Adelina Sotnikova from Russia had to settle for third place.

Julia Lipnitskaia was impressive with her precision and high-quality jumps and extraordinary flexible spins, and her triple toe-triple toe, triple Lutz, and double Axel were effortless.

The Junior Grand Prix (JGP) Final Champion earned 63.09 points, just below her season’s best.

“Today everything worked out for me,” said the 13-year-old. “I skated clean, and I enjoyed skating. I am pleased with my performance. I really wanted to be at this championship and I am very glad to be here. I didn’t really expect to be in first after the short program, but I am very happy about it.”

Gold had to skate seventh out of the 31 skaters and was the first to put out a triple-triple combo (triple flip-triple toe in her case). The toe was a little shaky, but she also landed the triple Lutz, a double Axel, and earned a level four for the three spins to score 58.00 points.

Though the 16-year-old is athletic and has powerful jumps, she lacks polish.

“I am happy with my overall performance,” said the U.S. Junior National Champion. “I got all the levels I had hoped for. The jumps could have been a bit cleaner, but they were still good.”

“It’s my first big international competition so I’m happy with what I did overall,” continued Gold. “It’s a pleasure to be here. I wasn’t sure if I would get to go and they chose me and just being here is a wonderful thing. Being in the top three is amazing. That wasn’t necessarily my goal, but now that I am, it is extremely exciting.”

Sotnikova went for a triple toe-triple toe combination, landed the triple Lutz and double Axel, but the change combination spin was a level one and merited 1.96 points only. The Russian National Champion scored 56.57 points.

“I am not completely satisfied with my performance today,” admitted the 15-year-old. “I missed the spins that I never missed, but I hope to make up for it in the free skating tomorrow and not to repeat my mistakes.”

“It is a little harder this year, because I was the champion last year and I wanted to confirm this result,” continued the reigning World Junior Champion said. “Today I made a mistake in the short program and I will try not to make any mistakes tomorrow so that I can move up, but the most important thing is to skate clean.”

Sotnikova confirmed that she will attempt her triple Lutz-triple loop combination in the free skate.

Skating to Scent of a Woman, Satoko Miyahara of Japan underrotated the flip in her combination with a triple toe, but put out a triple Lutz and three level-four spins. She came in fourth at 52.97 points.

“I had fun in my short program today and I am glad that I did all my jumps,”  the Japanese Junior National Champion said. “I was a little nervous and I’m a bit sad that the flip was underrotated.”

USA’s Christina Gao held it together in her short program to Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and hit a triple toe-triple toe, a triple Lutz (but got an edge call), and a double Axel, however, the flying sit spin garnered only a level one. The 16-year-old achieved a new season’s best with 52.66 points.

Gao was happy with her performance, but admitted that the Grand Prix season had a been a bit rough for her.

“It’s a learning season I think,” she explained. “I told myself ‘don’t worry about the score, the outcome’. So I’m just happy that I did what I did. I stayed on my feet and I landed everything. I lost some levels and I had to fight for some landings and they weren’t as smooth.”

“At the beginning of the season I wasn’t training very well at all,” Gao continued. “Now I started to train much better and I think I’m ready for the free skate.”

Zijun Li of China downgraded her planned triple toe-triple toe combo to a triple-double and also lost points on her Lutz due to an edge call to place sixth (51.74 points).

Korea’s Hae-Jin Kim opened her routine to Moonlight Sonata with a triple toe-triple toe, but stumbled out on her triple Lutz. She is currently ranked seventh (51.56 points).

Joshi Helgesson of Sweden turned in a clean program that included a triple Lutz and a triple Salchow-double toe, but she lacked speed. She finished eighth with 50.74 points.

Canadian Kaetlyn Osmond nailed a triple toe-triple toe, but doubled her planned triple Lutz to come in ninth (50.15 points).

Ziquan Zhao from China was one of the six girls to land a triple toe-triple toe combination and currently sits in 10th place (49.22 points).

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‘Mama Luba’ and ‘Uncle Misha’

The coolest election event was Prokhorov’s last campaign event held on Friday at the huge Olimpiyskiy sports complex.

Russian girls Natasha Mozgovaya, Moscow -  Polls predict that billionaire Michail Prokhorov will receive about 7% of the vote in Sunday’s elections. This election has seen some interesting tactics. Vladimir Putin’s billboards “Your vote is needed for victory,” without the candidate’s picture. Some eccentric TV ads, like those of nationalist candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, sitting in a sled with a donkey, promising that once he is elected, Russia will start moving forward again and will once again be identified with horses not donkeys. But the coolest was Prokhorov’s last campaign event held on Friday at the huge Olimpiyskiy sports complex.

With a laser beams, drums and flags reading “New president – new country,” and the audience holding Facebook-style “like!” signs, Prokhorov entered the stage wearing jeans, a white shirt, and a simple jacket. In a short speech, he told his audience that he had made his choice “to move to the future,” and asked them to join in and “build together a country that in 15 years, our kids will thank us for building the best country in the world.” All that is needed, he said, was that we “stop being afraid.” And if we do Russia can become a “European country.” In these elections, he promised “it all just begins.”

Then Russian girls from the pop band Serebro took the stage. The Hebrew speakers in the crowd, and there must have been some, (according to Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar there are about 100000 Israelis living in Moscow) were probably wondering why Prokhorov’s campaign logo, a stylized Russian “P”, was so similar to the Hebrew “Hei.” The Russian girls band in tiny leotards and high boots sang “Mama Luba, davai!” (“Mama Luba, let’s!”), later urging the crowd to sing “Uncle Misha, davai!”

Pop gave way to rock as Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine) and the former Israeli band B-2 preformed. Russian pop diva, Alla Pugacheva, Prokhorov’s supporter, sang “The tallest one.”

One of Prokhorov’s supporters, 42-year-old Natalia Visovin, told Haaretz she’s been following Prokhorov for 6 years. He caught her attention when she was starting her small textile business and was looking for role models.

“He is a generator of ideas,” she said with excitement. “People believe him and believe in him. If ballots aren’t falsified, I am sure there will be a second round and Prokhorov will win. Millions of people agree with me. Even if Putin wins, things have changed. The movement has begun and he won’t take us back to the Soviet times.

For 75 years, we lived in stagnation. We don’t want it anymore. We have the right to fulfill our ambitions, and Prokhorov can take us there.”

Prokhorov had already announced that after the elections he will establish his own political party and will seek to include some prominent civic leaders.

He is quite skeptical about the news that an attempt had been made on the life of Prime Minister Putin. “I am not a detective, so I can’t say if it’s true or not. But the timing makes me suspicious. It allegedly happened over two month ago, but we have only leant about now. It looks as if it was prepared by Putin’s campaign staff.”

He is asked over and over about the alleged arrangement he had with Putin, including reports alleging Putin personally asked him to run. Claims he denies.

“Dogs are barking and the caravan is moving.” Right now, he said, his team is preparing to follow and assess any wrongdoing during the voting and vote counting processes.

In response to questions posed by Haaretz about his views on the Middle East, he said he “vehemently objects to any military intervention in Syria,” as it will eliminate the any possibility of solving the crisis in a peacefully, fatally undermining trust. He also said that his guiding principle in foreign policy is putting Russia in the center and act according to its interests. However, he added that he’d see “relations with democratic regimes in the Middle East as strategic partnerships,” while relations with other regimes he will view as mere “trade relations.”

“Two million Russians live in the Middle East,” he said. “We need to strategically support our diaspora.”

He admitted at the press-conference one needs “nerves made of steel” to be involved in politics. What helps him keep his notable calm is his love for sports. “You come back home, exercise for two hours – and feel as if you were reborn.”

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‘Fairy-Tale Lives’ Fails to Live Up to Early Promise.

There is no getting around disappointment. It creeps into every pore and colors every direction in which you look.

I say this because last summer I attended a marvelous staged reading of Meg Miroshnik’s play “The Fairy-Tale Lives of Russian Girls” at the Playwright and Director Center. It was part of a workshop that brought four dramatists from the Yale University School of Drama to Moscow to watch their plays take shape in translation under the guidance of Russian directors.

“Fairy-Tale Lives” was the most successful of the bunch, although it was still a sketch. Director Ilya Shagalov took a lively, funny approach to Miroshnik’s tale about a Russian immigrant teenager whose mother decides to kick-start her daughter’s career by sending her back for a summer in Russia. It’s a place, mother says, where everybody’s a millionaire now because they all got their apartments for free.

As a result of this success, the theater asked Shagalov to return to work and make the play into a full-fledged show. Which is where the cliches start piling up: The best laid plans of mice and men; many a slip twixt cup and lip. In other words, what happened?

When I saw the new production performed I saw virtually nothing of what I saw last summer. Yes, the colorful costumes were still there. Yes, a live musical combo still sat off to one side. Yes, there were still some perky performances from the cast.

But the heart and soul of the play were gone.

There are a few reasons why this might have happened.

The sketch was performed in the theater’s cramped foyer filled to the brim with spectators and actors alike. The full production was moved to a regular stage, which is spacious, airy and cold. Cold is almost always bad in theater, an art form that has a love affair with heat.

Furthermore, Shagalov chose to ignore large chunks of Miroshnik’s text, leaving behind more or less the bare bones of the original incomplete sketch. The result is that the story provides no journey. Plain and simple, it feels incomplete. As though someone opens her mouth to speak then chooses not to instead. The end.

The story that transpires on stage runs more or less as follows.

Annie (Alexandra Revenko) has no desire to travel back to the land of her birth, but her mother will have nothing of that. She gives Annie a red fur hat to protect her against that cold, Russian summer weather and sends her on her way. After run-ins with a border guard and a crazy woman on the street, Annie finds herself sleeping on the floor of her preoccupied and indifferent Aunt Yaroslava (Olga Khokhlova). One day while taking out the trash, she meets the tough, enigmatic Masha (Olga Voronina) and they become friends. They talk, party a bit and realize they are from vastly different worlds.

These Russian girls, Annie comes to think, are more interested in fairy tales than real life. These American girls, thinks Masha, who is stuck in a bad marriage to a mean bear of a man, don’t know a thing about real life.

All of this goes nowhere exceedingly fast. Before we really learn anything about the characters, the trio of actresses is singing a Russian folk version of the Eagles’ hit song “Hotel California” and we are on our way out of the theater.

Rather than provide insight into the cliches that abound in the perceptions Americans and Russians have about one another, this production merely serves a few up then ends it all with a song.

Designer Olga Nikitina added precious little to the show’s visual aspect, aside from Annie’s yellow dress, the red hat and some fairy-tale Russian princess crowns. A portable metal rack is about the only significant prop — serving as everything from passport control at customs, to Auntie Yaroslava’s apartment. The rest is an empty stage that yawns at us cavernously.

This is all the more frustrating because there are some fine performances. Revenko is convincing as the simple, innocent, but thoughtful, Annie, while Voronina is a comic whirlwind in the many roles she takes on. She easily slips back and forth between the extremes of a frumpy tour leader and the sexy, let-it-all-hang-out Masha.

But in the end this production of ”The Fairy-Tale Lives of Russian Girls” is a cautionary tale. What starts out good doesn’t always end that way.

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Crazy Russian Girls Bakery does well at

Manchester competition.

Matt Littrell, co-owner of and master baker with Crazy Russian Girls Bakery, won the Sweet Competition for his Swiss Meringue dessert in the HotChocolate Society Oscar Party, which was held at the Wilburton Inn in Manchester on Sunday.

Crazy Russian Girls Bakery sent four chefs to the competition with four different entries. In addition to the winning entry mentioned above, Crazy Russian Girls co-owner and pastry chef Natasha Littrell made her Free Mr. Bates Cake with layers of chocolate sponge, hazelnut sponge cake, Bailey’s and praline ganache, praline mousse, topped with a Bailey’s Irish Cream truffle surrounded by a Belgian chocolate cage.

In the Savory category, CRG pastry chef Gene Rowley made a Chocolate Chipotle Chili in a Crazy Russian Girls bread bite with sour cream and cheddar. CRG chef Dwaine Stevens made a Chocolate Venison Roulade with goat cheese, feta, baby spinach, and ganache encrusted in a crunchy Black Russian rye and pistachio topping served with a classic French raspberry gastrique.

All four Crazy Russian Girls chefs live in Bennington.

Natasha Littrell explained in an email that the event originated in New York City a few years ago. The organizers have since moved to Vermont.

She said this was the first time they had been invited and only the second competition the chefs had participated in as a team. They prepared for three weeks for the competition. “Culinary

competitions are one of the best ways a chef or pastry chef can gain credentials and it also pushes a chef to the next skill level,” she wrote. “My staff worked really long hours and put their hearts into this competition. They worked as a team and we all helped each other with the design and production of each dish.”

“We’re very excited that we have won two competitions so far. We’re already discussing plans for our upcoming event in Burlington on April 26th which is part of the week long Vermont Restaurant Week,” she added. “The upcoming competition will be much more difficult as we will be competing with eight other chefs from around Vermont. We will also be critiqued on stage by the judges, which gives me a stomach ache just thinking about it. These events are the best way we can attract new customers to Bennington to visit our bakery.”

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Russian Court Rules Against Women Swapped at Birth.

A court in the Orenburg Region in the Urals on Wednesday denied moral compensation to two women who were accidentally swapped at a maternity hospital 37 years ago.

Natalya Arkhipova and Olga Buyanova were raised in Belyayevka village in the Orenburg Region. Village residents say they never resembled their parents.

The two women applied for compensation of around $100,000 to each after DNA analyses proved they were raised not by their biological parents.

The judge ruled the compensation can not be paid as laws stipulating moral damage compensation exist in Russia only from the mid-1990s.

“Therefore, civil legislation in force during the period mentioned in the lawsuit (1975) envisaged no compensation for moral damage. So, Arkhipova N.M. and Buanova O.V. have no right for the compensation,” the court’s press service said.It is unclear whether the two women will appeal the case in a higher court.

The women said they decided to file a lawsuit against the maternity ward after learning about a similar case in the Urals. The families of two girls, who were accidentally swapped at birth 12 years ago, won a lawsuit in a Chelyabinsk court.

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Two female scientists win Kovalevskaya Award.

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Don’t forget Catherine the Great.

In 2015, Queen Elizabeth II, who this year has been on the throne for over 60 years, will eclipse Queen Victoria as Britain’s longest reigning monarch — 63 years.

Her namesake , Elizabeth I, reigned for 44 years — 1558-1603 — and these three women were arguably the most effective monarchs in British history. It’s an argument for passing the Crown to the eldest child, male or female, and not to favor just the male heir. While the two Elizabeths and Victoria are testaments to the value of female monarchs, and as riveting as their individual stories are, there’s another European monarch even more extraordinary than the three British queens: Catherine the Great of Russia.

It’s a faulty comparison, since Catherine was an absolute monarch, or empress, and Victoria and Elizabeth II were constitutional monarchs whose influence was more subtle and guarded than Catherine’s raw power.

Our histories don’t delve in Europe or Russia, and tend to give barely a nod to the likes of Peter the Great, Frederick the Great, Catherine, Ivan the Terrible and such. Pity, because the drama and intrigue are chilling and, in cases, blood-curdling.

An argument can be made that Catherine was the greatest of Russian rulers — empress for 34 years, from 1762-1796. As empress, she sought to codify Russia’s laws imposed by Peter the Great who didn’t bother to write them done, but went on to the next reform, dragging feudal Russia by the scruff of its neck into in modern Europe.

His pride was building a Russian navy. Far-sighted, wise, ruthless.

One innovation by Peter was that the Tsar chose his successor, thus his daughter, Elizabeth succeeded him. Autocratic, with an unpredictable and impatient temperament, Empress Elizabeth, wanted her nephew Peter (Peter’s grandson) to succeed her to the throne, and to produce an heir so the line would continue.

Robert Massie, whose previous books on the Romanovs (Nicholas and Alexandra) and Peter the Great are must reading for those who want a poignant look at Russia’s evolvement, has now written an immensely readable book of Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.

Catherine was an obscure German princess, age 14, when Empress Elizabeth brought her to Russia to marry Peter and produce an heir. For 15 or so years Catherine had a hell of an uncomfortable life.

Peter was immature and besotted with things German (Prussia was Russia’s foe). He played with toy soldiers — even on his wedding night — and admired Frederick the Great. He paraded around in a German uniform, and had servants do military drill. He was mean, cowardly, a shriveled bully and despised things Russian.

Catherine saw his folly and became more Russian than German.

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The 24-year-old Russian woman, who was allegedly assaulted by the gun-wielding son of a BSP MLA from Uttar Pradesh on February 29 in her South Delhi house, is reportedly receiving threat calls and text messages on her mobile phone. The lawyers of the woman — Tatiana — who is employed as

an architect with a Gurgaon-based firm, claimed on Sunday that the Delhi Police budged under ‘some kind of pressure’ and did not book the accused under sterner sections of IPC. The lawyer also said that they would move the court in case the police failed to file stringent case against the accused.

“Despite the fact that the accused, Vivek Singh, barged into her house with a loaded gun and assaulted her before running away with her passport, credit cards and other documents. He forcibly held her captive for more than 15 to 20 minutes and continued to terrorise her. The police got away with filing mild Section 452 of IPC and 27 of Arms Act. She has a strong feeling that the police was functioning under some pressure,” said Gagan Chhabra, the counsel for the Russian girl, who hails from Samara in Russia.

Chhabra, who addressed media persons in the presence of Tatiana, today, said the Delhi police had refused to give a copy of the FIR to her. He said, “It was only after she engaged us and we managed to get the copy of the FIR on Friday. She has been receiving frequent threat calls as well as text messages on her phone to not pursue the case further. She under constant mental agony.”

Tatiana’s lawyer said that after the woman landed at the IGI airport on February 29 morning from Russia, the accused, who was known to her, called her up and offered to pick her up from the airport.

“As the relations between the two had turned sour, Tatiana refused his offer. As she reached home, Vivek barged into her house,” Chhabra added. Tatiana who knows a bit of Hindi, however, was asked to remain tightlipped.

A complaint in this regard had also been sent to the police commissioner and National Commission for Women.

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According to latest census data, the population of the largest landmass in the world dwindled by more than 2.2 million, while the number of females outnumber the men by almost 2-to-1. Should Russia’s bachelor class be held accountable?

The precipitous decline of the Russian population, which went from 145 million in 2002 to 142 million today, represents a 1.6 percent drop, or over 2 million people. Or to put the situation in more dramatic terms, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Latvia.

The reason for the reduction is known by demographers as “natural decrease,” which means that more people are dying than are being born. Pretty straightforward.

Meanwhile, according to the chief of Russian Statistics Service (Rosstat), Alexander Surinov, the population decline has occurred against a background of migration growth. In other words, if it were not for the influx of immigrants, Russia’s demographics picture would be even worse.

The Russian people census also revealed a disturbing differential between the sexes. There are 66.2 million men and 76.7 million women (46.3 percent and 53.7 percent respectively). The gap in comparison with 2002 increased slightly (then the ratio was 46.6 percent versus 53.4 percent).

As Surinov explained, this is related to the high rate of premature deaths of the males, which, we may surmise, may be at least partially due to the stress of maintaining more than one sexual dalliance at once (In Spain, for example, the authorities explained increased incidences of heart attacks among the male population as due to the stress of tending to their mistresses during Siesta time, as opposed to relaxing).

Welcome to Russia’s Playboy Mansion

If Russia were a nightclub, the management would probably be very happy. After all, the females outnumber the men by a ratio of almost two-to-one, while what’s left of the male clientele has more than enough money to burn on the raw essentials of a good time: alcohol, cigarettes, prophylactics against sexually transmittable diseases, and other associated paraphernalia.

The problem, of course, is that Russia is not a disco. It is a nuclear superpower, the largest country in the world, with a lot of Army boots to fill. Yet it hosts a population that ranks just ninth in the world, which is less than half the total amount of the United States with its 311 million diverse souls.

Meanwhile, if you reside in a large Russian city (like 73.7 percent of the population does), chances are it doesn’t seem like the population is declining precipitously. In fact, Moscow registered over 10 percent more people than eight years ago, with a population of 11.514 million. The second largest city – St Petersburg – is home to 4.818 million.

Meanwhile, the Russian capital, which continues to attract a horde of businessmen, is home to the greatest number of billionaires in the world.

“Despite all the squabbling between New York and London for bragging rights, neither is actually home to the largest number of billionaires,” wrote Forbes magazine. “That honor belongs to Moscow.”

The Russian capital is now home to 79 of Russia’s billionaires, more than any other city in the world.

“The number of billionaires in Russia grew to 101 from 62 last year,” Forbes said in its annual list of the world’s richest people, “and accounts for a third of Europe’s 300 billionaires, and 15 of the world’s 100 richest people, more than all the other so-called BRIC countries combined (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and more than Saudi Arabia.”

Needless to say, Russia is not hurting for cash, and the wealth is not just clustered around the mega-wealthy. Although the rich Russians cannot be expected to increase the population all by themselves (as much as they might want to try), the question remains: how does Russia translate all of that wealth into population growth?

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In 2000, Russia’s outspoken ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky proposed introducing polygamy as a way to get the country’s demographic crisis back to normal.

Yes, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party proposed Russia’s Family Code be amended so that the males could take up to five wives. More wives, Zhirinovsky reasoned, would translate into more babies, and thus increase Russia’s dwindling population.

Somehow, this sounds more like an attempt at increasing hedonism on the part of the male species, as opposed to a real effort to solve the problem. In fact, it sounds like a cynical attempt to turn Russia into the Playboy mansion, where men walk into sushi restaurants with an entire harem at their side.

Whatever the case may be, it has been proven by studies conducted in polygamous societies that a husband with several wives and many children, unless he is mega-wealthy, will be forced to spend more of his cash on inferior goods, thus his plentiful offspring will receive mediocre education and medical treatment.

After a brief debate in the Russian Duma, Zhirinovsky’s scheme was dismissed.

On a crucial side note, it has been reported that over one million abortions take place in Russia annually, which is also another area that needs to be investigated.

“Every year 1.2 million Russian women deliberately terminate pregnancy and 30,000 of them become sterile, many from the estimated 180,000 illegal abortions,” RIA Novosti reported one year ago. “Russian law permits abortions up to the 12th week of pregnancy. If the future mother is suffering from tuberculosis or mental illness she is permitted to terminate a pregnancy later than 12 weeks.”

The article added that some clinics even offered abortion discounts on International Women’s Day, a popular Russian holiday.

Meanwhile, the number of abortions in Russia is almost equal to the number of babies born every year. According to data provided by the Russian Health Ministry, in 2008 there were 1.7 million births in Russia and 1.2 million abortions.

Another incentive put forward by the federal government is to use non-cash “maternity capital” to pay for certain social services.

Use of maternity capital to pay mortgages must become the norm starting in 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in his annual address to the Federal Assembly.

“I believe that this norm must be permanent starting next year,” Medvedev said.

Maternity capital refers to a federal subsidy that is transferred to the Russian Federation Pension Fund budget in accordance with the Federal Law on Additional Measures of State Support for Families with Children, which came into force on January 1, 2007.

In 2006, former-President Putin put forward a suggestion to boost the birth rate in the country with the help of the so-called maternity allowance in the amount of 250,000 rubles (about $10,000).

“When a Russian women gives birth to her second child, she often loses her professional skills,” Putin said. “If the state shows concern about the national birth rate, it must support a Russian women who makes a decision to have a second child.”

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One little discussed reason for Russian population decline might be connected with the so-called “brain drain,” which sees people heading westward in search of employment opportunities. Although this trend is said to be tapering off as the Russian economy strengthens, it still seems to be having a drag on population growth.

I asked two young professional Russians for their opinions as to why their peers were leaving the country.

The first, Katia, a twenty-something fashion designer who said she personally knows “about a dozen girls” who took to their heels, said women are tired of trying to please “spoiled Russian playboys.”

“They are just tired of wasting their lives trying to pamper and please spoiled Russian playboys who are too indecisive and scared of making decisions ‘if they actually need it,’” she said. “Russian women just want to relax and feel like weak women again, which they think the foreign men, who are tired of their emancipated women, will provide.”

The other interviewee, Kirill, a computer programmer with a Russian startup, chose not to place too much emphasis on the “brain drain” theory, instead arguing that the Russians have a more of a “Swedish approach” to childrearing.

“In the Soviet times, people understood that the state would take care of their basic needs, so there was no need to have children who would take care of them in their old age,” he said.

Kirill added that even in Soviet times, the bulk of the population increases occurred not in Russia proper, but rather in the Central Asian republics.

“This trend is continuing today,” he said, “with Russians opting for fewer children.”

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Playboy model Maria Kozhevnikova defends Putin after winning parliament seat

A Playboy cover girl turned politician says she gets good vibes from embattled Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Siberian hottie Maria Kozhevnikova, a member of Putin’s United Russia party, defended her boss days after winning a seat in Russian parliament to represent Tomsk.

“I’ve seen Putin close up several times and I want to say that this man has very strong vibes,” she said, according to the Telegraph.

PHOTOS: STARS WHO POSE FOR PLAYBOY

“I’ve watched how people have changed when they got close to Putin, not because they are afraid, but because they feel a calm and strong confidence. Because of this, the West is afraid of him, and that is understandable.”

How close the 27-year-old blonde bombshell has gotten to Putin is a hot topic in Russia, where many believe she had an intimate relationship with the married leader — something both have denied.

But she does not deny that she is part of the Young Guard, a base of support for Putin. Like many young and attractive leaders of the movement, she moved up quickly and is fiercely loyal to the Russian leader. In an email to Reuters, she echoed his claims that the widespread protests in Russia against recent elections won by Putin’s party are funded by outside forces.

“A ’strong Russia’ cannot be controlled,” she told Reuters. “Mass rallies have never solved the people’s problems and answered their aspirations. The people were always just a weapon in the struggle for power.”

Kozhevnikova, who was on the cover of the Russian edition of Playboy, will take her seat in Parliament on Dec. 21.

“For me this is an absolutely big event in my life,” she said after winning the seat.

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So should Russia declare a national emergency, confiscate all the females’ passports, and close the exit gates? Or should Russia reintroduce tax legislation leftover from the Stalin period, which imposed a 6 percent “bachelor tax” on men between the ages of 25 to 50? Would it make a difference?

The so-called childlessness tax, or bachelor tax (incidentally, in 18 B.C. Julius Caesar introduced his own “bachelor tax” in an attempt to get Rome’s hedonistic aristocracy off the couch and into the bedroom), remained in force until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Ministry of Health and Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Health Protection Nikolai Gerasimenko proposed reinstating the tax in Russia in 2006.

Enforced from 1941–1990, the tax affected most childless men from 25 to 50 years of age (as well as most childless married women from 20 to 45 years of age). The tax docked 6 percent of the childless person’s wages, but it provided certain exceptions: those with children that died during World War II were exempt from the tax, as well as war heroes. Students were also excluded from the tax, and others whose earnings were meager. Individuals who were medically ineligible to give birth were also exempt to this tax.

It has been said that many single men fraudulently escaped the tax by providing fake medical documentation.

In 1991, the tax was changed to no longer apply to women, and in 1992, the tax was revoked due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

During the Soviet period, Russia had a higher fertility rate than it did in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union, prompting some Russian leaders to propose bringing back the tax on childlessness.

“It is about time we should think about [reintroducing] a childlessness tax. If you do not want to think about your social duty for your fatherland than you will have to pay for it,” Gerasimenko said.

Whether such a tax would jumpstart Russia’s demographic crisis is a difficult question, but at this point it certainly would not hurt to try.

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Politicians often reveal themselves as playboys. It’s a rare twist of fate when a siren who poses for Playboy tries her hand in politics. Playmate Maria Kozhevnikova has just done just that and joined the Russian State Duma.

­The 27-year-old  star of a popular Russian sitcom has become one of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party’s MPs. She describes it as “a big event” in her life.

The big-eyed Russian actress joins a long line of girls who’ve done glamour modelling and then entered government. Olympic champion gymnast Svetlana Khorkina posed for a glossy magazine stripped down to her underwear. United Russia deputy and Olympic champion speed skater Sventala Zhurova posed topless for GQ magazine, and Olympic champion gymnast turned politician Alina Kabaeva, is considered as one of the world’s sexiest members of parliament.

The newly-elected blond  Maria Kozhevnikova also has some Olympic roots. She’s the daughter of a Soviet ice hockey player Aleksandr Kozhevnikov who was twice an Olympic champion.

The versatile Maria Kozhevnikova sang with a band called Love Stories before launching a film career. To boost her popularity and show off her acting potential Kozhevnikova posed nude for Playboy, reportedly after splitting up with her boyfriend.

Maria Kozhevnikova promising political career started when she became a member of the Young Guard of United Russia, like the alleged spy Anna Chapman.

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The Nutcracker was choreographed by Lev Ivanov in 1892 for the Imperial Russian Ballet, with a score by Tchaikovsky. The piece was not well received; the story of an adolescent girl transported from a Christmas party into a dreamworld, the Kingdom of the Sweets, was thought unreasonably bizarre, and the ballet childish and tasteless. If this can now be viewed as a wrong-headed judgment, especially in the light of Tchaikovsky’s exquisite score and Ivanov’s enchanting set pieces, it’s certainly true that the work in its traditional form is structurally flawed. The basic problem is that Act 1 is all story, and Act 2 all dance. We start off identifying with Clara, the teenage heroine (she’s called Masha in Russia), only to see her reduced to the status of a spectator for the second half of the ballet.

When Matthew Bourne approached the piece in 1992, a century after that St Petersburg premiere, he identified another problem. That for most present-day audiences, the wealthy 19th-century household in which the first act is set was itself a fantasy, greatly reducing the potential impact of the dreamland. So he reworked the story, positioning it in a grim, Dickensian orphanage. This works wonderfully well. The juvenile inmates are all played by adults, and their quirks are expressed in the magnified body language of which Bourne is a master. Everyone is sexually and emotionally repressed, and Dr Dross (Daniel Wright) and his wife (Madelaine Brennan), who run the institution, are tyrants. They’re parents to the oleaginous Fritz (Dominic North on splendidly excessive form) and Sugar, danced with tooth-melting pertness by Ashley Shaw, while Clara (Hannah Vassallo, who recently played Baby in Dirty Dancing) is a soulful-eyed dreamer, given to drifty moves in an Isadora Duncan shift.

Dross, flavoured by Wright with sadistic and possibly paedophile tendencies, is a particularly vile figure, and there is a pathetic scene where the children ooh and aah over a miserable twig of a Christmas tree, and unwrap second-hand gifts, which are swiftly snatched back. These include the Nutcracker, a ventriloquist’s dummy whose creepiness is suddenly and horribly apparent when, in the person of Chris Trenfield, he comes to human-sized life. Cue the spectacular transformation of Anthony Ward’s set. Shedding his plastic hair and fixed grin, the Nutcracker is revealed as the orphanage boy Clara has long fancied. They dance a tender, exploratory duet as a corps of bare-chested men assume camp, muscle-macho poses behind them, and we are reminded that while love is always taken seriously in Bourne’s productions, sex is always ironised. This counterpoint of the sentimental and the subversive is central to Bourne’s vision, and he recalibrates it with every production. A cleverly imagined skating sequence ensues, all bobble hats and rosy cheeks, culminating in the snow scene without which, Bourne says, no production of Nutcracker is complete. During this, the Nutcracker dumps Clara like a stone and goes off with Sugar, leaving our heroine downcast on the frozen pond.

The love triangle is clearly intended to introduce tension and conflict into the piece’s second act. Bourne also sets Clara the problem of getting into Sweetieland, where Sugar and the Nutcracker’s wedding is to take place, without an invitation. Ultimately, neither device quite comes off, because when push comes to shove we don’t know enough about Clara to fully invest in her happiness. Like most Claras, she becomes a sidelined figure, and Sugar, for all her supposed awfulness, starts to look much more engaging. The duration of the display numbers is also an issue. The Sweetieland characters are all terrific when we first encounter them, from the flamenco-dancing Liquorice Allsorts (Tom Jackson Greaves and Liam Mower), whose jiggling bottoms are crying out for a slap (Katy Lowenhoff duly obliges), to Adam Maskell’s seedy Knickerbocker Glory, a drug-smoking gigolo with ice-cream hair whose stoned undulations Clara finds all too resistible. And then there are the ditzy Marshmallow Girls in their frou-frou frocks and the cheerfully yobbish Gobstoppers in their bike jackets and shining crash-helmets. All great creations, but as with all characters constructed around immediate visual impact, their effect diminishes with each appearance.

In the end it’s the old Act 2 problem: there’s too much music and too little narrative. Bourne is brilliant at the business of depicting character and telling stories through movement, and he deploys his ensembles with élan. But faced with the formal grandeur of music composed for classical pas de deux, he struggles. His version of the Sugar Plum sequence, which he gives to Sugar and the Nutcracker, is not a soaring dramatic and choreographic peak, but just another ground-level duet. In the production’s final moments, however, Bourne pulls all the threads together, delivering a typically elegant theatrical reverse. He knows where his duty lies, and Clara gets her man in time for Christmas.

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Wedding bells ring out for NZ celebrity

It’s the summer of celebrity weddings. Barely three weeks after star All Black Dan Carter married Honor Dillon, another All Black and two TV stars will walk down the aisle – in separate ceremonies.

World Cup winner Ali Williams and Casey Green will tie the knot in a secretive ceremony in Queenstown a couple of days after Christmas.

Williams, 30, is the third All Black to marry this summer after Carter and Jerome Kaino.

He has signed an exclusive deal with New Zealand Woman’s Weekly in a multiple-story deal estimated to be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

His bride-to-be, a dance instructor, said: “I’m not in any position to comment.”

Meanwhile, TVNZ weatherman Tamati Coffey is also marrying his longtime partner, Tim Smith, in the lead-up to the New Year.

Coffey is having a “My Big Fat Gay Wedding” theme at The Wharf, on Auckland’s North Shore, according to a source close to the couple.

“Apparently his bridesmaids are fighting about their outfits,” said the source.

Coffey tweeted to his legion of fans last week: “Fyi team. I’m on an early xmas. Got a gig at the end of this month that I need to put some effort into. So, not on air, but still tweeting!”

Celebrity agent Andy Haden, who represents Williams, was not keen to talk about the couple’s plans.

Guests have been given strict instructions not to take photographs.

Flowers will be supplied by Queenstown-based wedding florist The Flower Room, which specialises in vintage style bouquets.

Staff were tight-lipped when asked about details. “Yes, but I can’t comment on that, sorry. We have been given very strict instructions … I’m sorry.”

The couple had been together for seven years when Williams proposed to Green,
who grew up on the West Coast.

In a previous interview she told how she had hardly worn a dress before meeting Williams.

The guest list will include teammate and business partner Richie McCaw, who turned down a knighthood this week.

Queenstown wedding caterer Brent Makeham said those involved with celebrity weddings were usually made to sign confidentiality contracts.

“We circle the wagons when need be. Only a certain number of people know what’s happening. The staff just know there’s a wedding on and turn up. On the day they get a surprise,” he said.

“If we were [involved] I’d have to say no comment.”

Makeham’s company catered for the wedding of Andrew Hore, a teammate of William’s, three years ago.

“With Andrew, they wanted to keep it low key and they did. Wanaka’s that sort of place. It’s a small town and small towns can keep secrets. ”

Also getting married over summer is new 60 Minutes reporter Guyon Espiner, 40, the current TVNZ political editor, to Emma Wehipeihana, 26, in Golden Bay in February.

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Britney Spears’ Wedding: Intimate & Personal or Big Gala Event?

Is Britney Spears‘ wedding with Jason Trawick going to be personal and intimate or outlandish and highly celebratory? According to Sasha Souza, a celebrity wedding planner, Spears’ is on her third wedding and it is her choice whether she wants to have a big celebratory wedding or a small more personal wedding.

After all, even if it was Britney Spears fifth or sixth wedding shouldn’t she have the choice to choose what type of wedding she wants to have with Jason Trawick? Would anyone daresay that Spears should be forced into a more private wedding just because she has been married two times before?

And really, does Spears’ 55-hour Las Vegas wedding really count? The pop singer was probably quite intoxicated. Undoubtedly, Spears would like to forget that crazy night as well!

According to Souza, it would be best if Britney had a personal and intimate wedding with Jason. She likes the thought of the recently engaged couple having a “family-oriented” wedding to celebrate the blending of the two families.

She also likes the idea of Spears’ wedding bouquet being “a blend of their two favorite colors. It needs to be about the both of them.” Neat idea! Why does it always have to be about the bride? Of course, this is Britney Spears’ wedding everyone is talking about here. She is typically a show boater!

Will Britney Spears sing at her wedding? Souza doesn’t think it would be a good idea for Britney Spears to sing on her special day. The celebrity wedding planner thinks it’s best for the bride and groom to be ministered to by their guests. It is not about putting on a show. For Britney…it is!

Souza stated, “Weddings aren’t perfect. I try to make them as close to perfect as possible, but some brides put too much pressure on how the day goes. Britney should go with the flow and not put too much pressure on perfection. The wedding day is about celebrating a couple’s love and happiness, so hopefully she won’t get caught up in the little imperfections.”

Will Souza be Britney Spears‘ wedding planner? This remains to be seen. Do you think Spears and Trawick will opt for the big glamorous wedding or a smaller more intimate wedding? It appears Spears is making a big deal out of her engagement with the public viewing of her engagement ring coming tonight. So it looks like the public just might be in store for a big gala event. What do you think?

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Google crowns royal wedding as fastest-rising UK search of 2011

This article titled “Google crowns royal wedding as fastest-rising UK search of 2011″ was written by Charles Arthur, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 15th December 2011 00.01 UTC

A royal wedding, a briefly-wedded celebrity, a Twilight film and a TV series arguably in the twilight of its existence all topped the list of “fast-rising” searches in the UK, according to Googlelatest “Zeitgeist” lists.

Thus the royal wedding – and its principal star Kate Middleton (though not her sister Pippa) – rank highest in the new searches for this year collected by the search engine, which dominates search in this country. Second on the list was an object that didn’t exist: Apple’s fabled “iPhone 5″, expected all year long to be unveiled in June, then July, then August, then September, until the company finally in October unveiled … the iPhone 4S. The company also appears for its iPad 2 product, after the first version appeared in the top 10 last year.

The impact of video games on our lives is also clear: Fifa 12 and the online game Minecraft both appear in the new “rising searches”. Meanwhile Ryan Dunn, the Jackass star who died in a car crash, and the singers Adele, Rebecca Black and Ed Sheeran all appear – compared with the lone human appearance of Justin Bieber as a name among the new searches last year. (Bieber can rest easy: he has now crossed over to become one of the most searched-for news terms.)

Kim Kardashian, whose short-lived wedding made her news fodder everywhere, was the most searched-for celebrity in the UK. She was followed by Victoria Beckham, Harry Potter star Emma Watson, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, the ever-present Britney Spears, Megan Fox, Ricky Gervais (the only male on the list, apparently on the strength of his Golden Globes presenter spot), Jessica Jane and Angelina Jolie.

Among films, Breaking Dawn – one of the Twilight saga – set the pattern in which remakes ruled. It was the most searched-for new film, followed by a rash of franchise films: Final Destination 5, Mean Girls 2, True Grit (a remake), Conan The Barbarian (another remake), Scream 4, The Inbetweeners (an original UK film), Little Fockers (third in the franchise), Transformers 3, and Unstoppable – the only other original film on the list.

Meanwhile “X Factor 2011″ was the fastest-rising search, despite its sliding TV ratings compared with last year. After that came the Apprentice 2011, X Factor USA, and then NCIS, House, Glee, Thundercats, Big Brother, Supernatural and Smallville. It’s unclear if people searching for the US series names are trying to find download links or information about them; Google said it doesn’t have any insight into that.

For deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, the news that the top “what is…?” search was “what is AV” (answer: the alternative vote system the Liberal Democrats were proposing to replace first-past-the-post elections) will confirm why the referendum was lost: too few people could understand it without resorting to the internet. But they’re also – judging by the other “what is?” search terms – puzzled by sauteed shrimp (“what is scampi?”), underground fungus and/or chocolates (“what is truffle” [sic]), while also seeking to do some medical self-help (“what is piles”).

The squeeze on UK living standards is also apparent from the food searches, which this year are headed by Asda, recipes, Tesco, Sainsburys and pizza. Close behind those budget-conscious choices, and pointing to even tighter times ahead, are chicken, chocolate, Dominos (the pizza delivery company), Morrisons (supermarket chain) and Argos. Those compare with the same category for last year, which Google’s press release then showed as starting with Tesco and recipes, and then Asda, pizza, wine, Sainsburys, Jamie Oliver, Morrisons, cakes and curry.

Meanwhile the new “How to…” category indicates that the nation’s youth increasingly turns to the internet for advice on key tasks, some of which may be worrying in their naivete: the searches, in order, try to find out how to revise, snog, reference (as in learned papers), wallpaper, draw, sleep, flirt, geek (which turns out to be instructions on computer maintenance), pronounce and shuffle.

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Michelle Keegan: I haven’t even thought about my wedding

Coronation Street’ actress Michelle Keegan insists she hasn’t even thought about her impending wedding to Max George.

Michelle Keegan insists she hasn’t even thought about her impending wedding to Max George.

The ‘Coronation Street’ actress – who plays brunette bombshell Tina McIntyre in the ITV1 soap – got engaged to The Wanted hunk on her birthday this year, but won’t be rushing into a marriage in 2012 because the couple are just enjoying their engagement for the time being.

She said: “I don’t think we’ll get married next year. I think it will be just how it was this year; I’ll just really enjoy it, relax and see Max when I can and just have a nice year.

“We’re just happy being engaged at the moment. We’ve not planned anything. I’ve not really thought about it, to be honest.”

The 24-year-old beauty admitted she keeps changing her mind about what kind of nuptials she wants, and hasn’t even started trying on wedding dresses yet.

Michelle added in an interview with Star magazine: “I haven’t tried on any wedding dresses yet, so I don’t know. My friend got married this year and she said you know you’ve found the right dress as soon as you put it on. So when I do start to try things on, I think I’ll know.

“I keep changing my mind! Some days I think I would like a big do and then others I think I’d want something quiet.”

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