Russia

== =Jen Blanco, storyteller= =Jill Jennings, news reporter= =Karri Miszler, anthropologist= =Jenny Collins, cartoonist=

= = =Country profile: Russia= Europe News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/default.stm Income from vast natural resources, above all oil and gas, have helped Russia overcome the economic collapse of 1998. The state-run gas monopoly Gazprom is the world's largest producer and exporter, and supplies a growing share of Europe's needs. Economic strength has allowed Vladimir Putin to enhance state control over political institutions and the media, buoyed by extensive public support for his policies as prime minister, president and now prime minister again. Spanning 11 time zones, Russia is the largest country on earth in terms of surface area, although large tracts in the north and east are inhospitable and sparsely populated. Another source of irritation between Russia and the US is Moscow's role in Iran's nuclear energy programme. Russia agreed in 2005 to supply fuel for Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor and has been reluctant to support the imposition of UN sanctions on Iran. Russia's economic power lies in its key natural resources - oil and gas. The energy giant Gazprom is controversially close to the Russian state and critics say it is little more than an economic and political tool of the Kremlin. At a time of increased concern over energy security, Moscow has more than once reminded the rest of the world of the power it wields as a major energy supplier. In 2006, it cut gas to Ukraine after a row between the countries, a move that also affected the supply of gas to Western Europe
 * Russia emerged from a decade of post-Soviet economic and political turmoil to reassert itself as a world power.**
 * Irritations between Russia and the United States**

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**The Story of "Morozko"**
**[|resume services]**

Once there lived an old widower and his daughter. In due time, the man remarried to an older woman who had a daughter herself from a previous marriage. The woman doted on her own daughter, praising her at every opportunity, but she despised her stepdaughter. She found fault with everything the girl did and made her work long and hard all day long. One day the old woman made up her mind to get rid of the stepdaughter once and for all. She ordered her husband: "Take her somewhere so that my eyes no longer have to see her, so that my ears no longer have to hear her. And don't take her to some relative's house. Take her into the biting cold of the forest and leave her there."

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