Glamorous Russian women Anna Chapman took part in an erotic photo shoot for Russia’s most popular men’s magazine.

Maxim magazine has released a promotional trailer of the issue which features Russian women Anna Chapman flaunting g-strings and a pistol.

As the magazine’s website states, in addition to the lascivious photo shoot the “mysterious debutante in [Maxim’s] list of Russia’s 100 sexiest women” also talked about “men, flirting and her future plans.”

The full video is available at the official Maxim website from October 21. The full interview with Russian women Anna Chapman and the revealing photo session can be found in the issue due to be published on October 22.

Former UK spymaster to decide case of Russian woman

Katya Zatuliveter, a Russian woman accused of spying in the UK, is fighting attempts to deport her from the country in a court where one of the panel judges is a former MI5 boss.

­She denies all charges of espionage at an appeal before a special immigration commission, but the 26 year-old did admit to having an affair with her former employer, the MP Mike Hancock.

The MP himself eventually announced on Wednesday that he was stepping down from the House of Commons Defence Committee. Getting mired increasingly deeper in the spy scandal, Hancock said he started to feel his position was untenable.

The question the trial in the UK is trying to answer is whether Zatuliveter was spying for Russian intelligence services while working in the Houses of Parliament as a researcher.

Russian woman Zatuliveter strongly denies espionage charges and has pleaded not guilty. However, her relationship with MP Mike Hancock remains the key issue.

It emerged that she had been having an affair with him from 2006 to 2010, shortly before her arrest on suspicion of espionage.

Although Hancock was not a prominent MP, he still had access to sensitive documents as a member of a defence select committee and a former chairman of the all-party Russia committee, from which he was ousted for excessively pro-Russian views.

The Home Office representative claimed Russian woman Katya Zatuliveter was used as a ‘honey trap’, targeting Hancock for his access to sensitive documents and his vulnerability over extra-marital indiscretions.

The case is being heard by three judges, one of whom is Sir Stephen Lander, the former director-general of the MI5 security service, which might suggest a conflict of interest in the case.

Zatuliveter’s layers have already contested this point, asking how a former head of a British security service could remain impartial. This objection has already been dismissed by the High Court judge chairing the panel.

You can read Russian woman Katya Zatuliveter’s own blog on RT.

Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer, told RT that politics might determine the decision on Russian woman Zatuliveter deportation.

“I think any decision made on her deportation will probably be done in some sort of a political backroom deal, because, of course, there has been friction between Russia and the UK,” she said. “If the UK deems it to be something they could use to embarrass Russia, they might as well deport – whatever the facts are to this case.”

Static, Tragic and Narrow: What’s To Be Done About Russian Documentary?

In 2010, filmmaker Olga Stefanova left her Moscow apartment to spend a year at Russia’s Bellingshausen polar station documenting the lives of 15 men who live there.

Thousands of miles away, Yulia Panasenko knocked on the door of her neighbor who was suffering from cancer that transformed her from a chic Russian woman to a skeleton clothed in yellowish skin. Panasenko let the camera run defiantly on.

The results of these persistent preoccupations—Stefanova’s “The Wintering” and Panasenko’s “Outro”—were part of the 12th annual Flahertiana Documentary FestivalOctober 11-17 in the Russian city of Perm, where the two films participated in the international competition with 15 non-Russian documentaries.

Festival president Pavel Petchenkin has mixed feelings about films like these. While they’re heartfelt projects, they illustrate one element of the troubling situation currently faced by contemporary Russian documentary.

“Men see that it is not possible to make a career in Russian documentary as it is today,” he says. “So they seek out other sectors. Then we see a few directors, mostly young women working in documentary with virtually no budget. They buy a cheap camera and invest all their time in their projects.

“It causes a certain type of film that makes the span of Russian documentary pretty narrow.”

Occasionally, there were experimental and internationally oriented films, such as Sergey Lintsov’s “Factories of Imagination,” about the international trend to transform abandoned factories into cultural centers. However, many of the Russian docs that screened at Flahertiana were often technically flawed films created with nearly obsolete equipment. Topics included the cancer-suffering woman, abandoned children and a grief study: Tragic human destinies, brutally portrayed as only Russians can do them.

Russian Bolshoi Theatre re-opened on Friday after a lavish renovation that took six years, cost $700 million and revived a revered cultural symbol scarred by centuries of use and abuse.

Politicians, billionaires, film directors and fashion designers of the Russian elite strolled the red carpet leading up to the cream-coloured, eight-columned ballet and opera house that began life as a pet project by Empress Catherine the Great who founded it in 1776, the year the United States was born.

“The Bolshoi is one of our greatest national brands so we are all celebrating the opening of the main building of the Bolshoi theatre,” a black tie-clad Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on the grand stage.

Medvedev paid tribute to all those involved in restoring gilded lustre to a building that has been a physical witness to the rule of Tsars, their brutal overthrow in the Bolshevik revolution, two world wars, the rise of the Soviet state, the collapse of communism and Russian latest resurgence in a capitalist world.

“I would like to thank all those who took part in the rebirth of our miracle, our great national brand – the Bolshoi Theatre,” he told guests including Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian ballet legend Maya Plisetskaya, seated under a six-metre chandelier.

He then took a seat in a gold-lined box where tsars and Soviet leaders sat for performances.

About 100 musicians and opera singers in orange and white hard hats and workmen’s overalls then took to the stage, where they burst into song performing “Slavsya” by the Russian 19th century composer Mikhail Glinka.

Outside, Kremlin guards clad in charcoal grey wool overcoats encircled a Bolshoi all lit up in blue and gold.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is also expected to attend the much-anticipated event, which Russian art enthusiasts hope will cement Moscow’s position as the arbiter of the classics.

The theatre, which has survived three fires, bombing in World War Two and was at one time perched above an underground river, has been restored to its opulent Tsarist beginnings, covered in gold leaf, and had cutting-edge acoustics added.

After years of neglect and heavy use during Soviet times, the theatre was closed in 2005 for restoration. The Bolshoi Ballet troupe continued performing on the neighbouring, but smaller New stage.

Friday’s opening show will feature top dancers such as Svetlana Zakharova and Maria Alexandrova, as well as guest opera singers including France’s Natalie Dessay and Lithuanian soprano Violeta Urmana.

Performances included pieces by Russian composers Alexander Borodin, Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev.

Moscow city centre streets were grid-locked after security was beefed up to allow the 2,000 guests in for a thoroughly Russian evening, which is being broadcast live in Russia, Europe and the United States and live on video website Youtube.

Italian actress Monica Bellucci, swathed in diamonds and dressed in a strapless crimson dress, joined Russian officials as they crowded into the theatre, lined with plush red chairs that have been tested for sound-absorption.

Rare pine wood applied to the walls also helps improve the quality of the sound, which has won praise from leading opera singers, and even two of the nearest stations of Moscow’s sprawling metro will be soundproofed.

The Bolshoi had world-class acoustics before the Communist era, when sound-reflecting gold was scraped off and stolen and the hollow cylinder underneath the orchestra, thought to be impractical, was filled with cement.

The rigid Soviet-era seats were replaced with fewer, wider and more comfortable ones, cutting the number of seats for the main stage to 1,720 from 2,200.

But not everyone was pleased with the grand revamp. The Bolshoi’s principal dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze has repeatedly told local media the old theatre’s interior has been replaced with even cheaper material.

Russian Bolshoi Theater reopens after six-year restoration

The Russian Bolshoi Theater, one of the main landmarks of the Russian capital and a symbol of Russian culture, reopened Friday after six years of reconstruction with a gala concert attended by members of the Russian and international beau monde.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were among the guests for Friday’s performance at Russia’s main ballet and opera house.

“It’s a very happy day for our country,” Medvedev said from the stage before the concert. “Our country is big, but the number of such uniting symbols, national treasures – what we call national brands – is very limited. And the Russian Bolshoi Theater is one of our greatest national brands.”

The Russian Bolshoi Theater, built in 1825, closed for reconstruction in 2005. The reconstruction was initially scheduled for completion in 2008, but the project has been marred by repeated delays as well as a misappropriation scandal.

“I am sure that what has been done here will serve generations of our citizens, all those who like the Russian Bolshoi Theater, for long years,” Medvedev said Friday.

The Russian government spent 21 billion rubles ($681 million) on the restoration, which involved more than 3,600 designers, builders and engineers.

Friday’s gala concert began with a performance reproducing the restoration work. Artists dressed in builders’ uniforms and helmets performed the final scene from Mikhail Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar opera.

The acoustics have been improved significantly. The renovated theater has a back stage, extra foyers and cafeterias, and underground premises for storing stage decorations. The work has created an extra 50,000 sq meters of space in the building