According to the law that comes into effect today at 12:00 AM, all Russian casinos are supposed to close. The antivice plan introduced by Vladimir Putin allows casinos and slot machines to operate only in four regions of Russia, attempting to create the US-style gambling zones. As of today, neither of the zones is ready to host casinos. The delays were caused by lack of government financing and interest from real estate developers, hit by the financial crisis. However, the government has denied repeated pleas from the gambling industry to push back the July 1 deadline.

We'd like to join the end-of-the-year lists party and bring you a peculiar interactive list of the top Russian news stories of 2009. That is, the list that shows what the people in Russia thought were the top news stories. Oh, wait! The list shows what the Russian media said and what the people in Russia thought were the main stories.

Vitaly Ginzburg, a physics genius, whose career spanned 7 decades and included development of the hydrogen bomb warheads as well as the work on superconductivity, for which he shared a Nobel prize in 2003, died this week.