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Russia – Holland 2009

On 19 June 2009 a bi-lingual, colour supplement to The Moscow Times will be published. The “Russia-Holland” supplement is an annual business publication, devoted to the partnership between Russian and Dutch companies.

This year the magazine is timed to coincide with the most glorious event in the cultural co-operation between the two countries for the last decade – the opening of Hermitage Amsterdam. The unique exhibition centre will be opened on the 19 June by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev.



Saturday, July 04, 2009 Updated at 03 July 2009 20:27 Moscow Time.

The Moscow Times » Issue 2167 » Space

Pranks Show Lighter Side of Mir

23 March 2001By Simon Saradzhyan / The Moscow Times

Working in an old tin can 300 kilometers above the Earth is serious business, but even so the occupants of the Mir space station have shared a few lighthearted moments during the ship's 15-year life.

The fun times were not all inspired by the videos and bottles of brandy sent up to help the cosmonauts and astronauts unwind after a day of grind aboard the station, which was to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean on Friday morning.

Between experiments, the crew played jokes on newcomers and even on unsuspecting people back on Earth.

One favorite prank was tapping on the station's window to knock off space dust. With the sun's rays brightly illuminating the particles of dust and no background to judge their size, the cosmonauts easily tricked newcomers into believing that nothing less than UFOs were slowly passing by.

Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov managed to chat to a truck driver on a road in South Africa as he flew hundreds of kilometers overhead in 1992.

Krikalyov sneaked an amateur radio onboard Mir and used it to establish a link with the truck driver, who was heading to Kimberley.

Click here to read our special report on Russia's New Space Age.The unsuspecting driver thought it was one of his colleagues driving on a nearby road and called Krikalyov a prankster when the cosmonaut said was he was heading for America via India and China.

Despite Krikalyov's efforts to explain that he was actually talking from high above, the South African refused to believe the cosmonaut. The driver rogered "See you in Kapstadt," as he signed off.

Such pranks, however, were arguably dwarfed by a joke that cosmonaut Alexei Leonov pulled on a crewmate in a two-man spacecraft that was a predecessor to Mir.

Leonov's comrade accidentally locked himself in a compartment. He spent several minutes banging on the locked door and shouting, only to hear Leonov finally murmur: "Who's there?" recalls Russian space agency spokesman Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko.

When the Mir crew ran out of alcohol reserves, they would often go on "treasure-seeking" expeditions for more, tearing down interior panels to find bottles hidden by previous crews, said Alexander Poleshchuk, who spent six months on board Mir in 1993.

"Sometimes we would bump into a bottle of cognac. What a joy it was," Poleshchuk said in a recent interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.

But unlike cosmonauts — who for luck urinate on the back tire of the bus that takes them to the launch pad — the officials who command them from Mission Control near Moscow prefer to remain "serious" and "concentrated," said Viktor Blagov, Mir's deputy control chief.

"No, we don't do anything like that on our control panels," Blagov added, laughing.