It’s no secret that Russians disproportionately adore the New Year. At least we used to, back in Brezhnev’s early ’80s, when it was the only truly private holiday aside from one’s birthday: intimate, all-inclusive, apolitical, non-denominational.

With financial crisis in Russia in full swing, we thought it would be fun to check on Sergey Rodionov, the eccentric Russian oligarch who financed a Taschen book in which his wife is photographed naked with other men, women, and, as we recall, animals.

Here they are, for the first time ever—the most typical Russian faces, a real pair of average physiognomy, courtesy of a racially-nervous little study we dug up for your amusement. Bonus: 250 most Russian last names.

Historically, Russians have glorified breasts and now the fascination is starting to sublimate into official, online, boobs-related ventures. Let us introduce two projects, which fill the computer screens of most Russians with tits on daily basis.

To premiere our new video section, here's a Russian video-reportage about policeman Eugene who's been raising his daughters to perform dangerous stunts, lovingly subtitled by RUSSIA! Watch the circus-man without a circus as he throws darts at his daughters, has them walk on swords and broken glass, and assaults them fire and daggers. It's kind of sweet, actually.

Russian Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics Alina Kabaeva, who was rumored to have an affair with President Vladimir Putin, gave birth to son in Moscow earlier this week. Russian media kept conspicuously quiet about Kabaeva's pregnancy and personal life.

Roman Abramovich has a problem, a gambling problem. His girlfriend, 26 year-old socialite Dasha Zhukova, gave him hell for it so he simply moved his habit online, to the "Everest Room." And then, last week, he lost a yacht in a poker game. Reportedly.

Breaking news from Polit.ru. The headline: “Moscow lacks 100 public toilets.” Our response: juvenile snickering. But, unlike us, Moscow’s sanitary technicians are taking the issue very seriously. In fact— wait, Moscow has sanitary technicians?

Perhaps the best thing about being an oligarch – if you have any money left, that is – is the ability to hire your own partisan (Russian for “guerrilla”) army. And Mikhail Prokhorov, now the richest man in Russia by sheer luck, may have just such an army.

Aw. If it isn’t little Privatizatsia ("Privatization") and darling Viagra, two Russian newborns who stand almost no chance of leading happy childhoods thanks to the names bestowed upon them by their loving parents. In Soviet times, it was not unusual to have a friend named Stalina or an enemy named Ninel (read it backwards for a “come on” moment). In fact, early Bolsheviks were suckers for “Red Baptisms” which branded miserable young souls with names like Melor (acronym for “Marx Engels Lenin October Revolution”). Today, the Moscow registry office notes an increase in modern equivalents of politicized or otherwise attention-getting monikers. Patriotism is stimulus for a name like Kosmos ("Space"), of course, but there’s also the idea that a child named for a prescription boner drug will stand out next to a ho-hum Volodya or Katya, and profit for it. Might as well just name the kid “Opportunist” and be done with it.

Russian first lady Svetlana Medvedeva has been named the most successful businesswoman in Russia, according to a poll conducted by a shadowy organization called the Institute of Politics and Business. And if that weren't eyebrow-raising enough, now we find out that the "first dogs" — two English setters named Joly and Daniel — just claimed first-place titles at the Eurasia-2009 dog show in Moscow. Meanwhile, Aldu, the Medvedevs' golden retriever, won a silver. Only silver? Aldu, you've let us all down.

The fabled communal apartment, or kommunalka, is seeing its dying days in Moscow. Last year alone brought the liquidation of 3,000 communal apartments, with dwellers dispatched to private apartments by government initiative. By 2014, in the midst of the financial crisis, the Russian government promises to fund an additional two-stage breakup of communal apartments in the city center. For comparison, 1997 data showed 151,000 functioning kommunalkas in Moscow; this year that number is 58,000.

Turns out there’s another February holiday that gives us reason to be depressed: It’s called Native Language Day, and it came and went on the 21st. Created by the United Nations a decade ago, the holiday was observed this year with the release of UNESCO’s Atlas of Languages in Danger, a work whose findings on Russia are being heralded as “disturbing” by researchers and members of the media alike. Linguists, brace yourselves for what follows.

In an otherwise alarming report about Internet crimes, this hilarious bit of information from news site Lenta.ru: at present, there’s no porn of any kind on Belarusian Internet servers. That's right, zero porn. This according to officials from the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs, who claim instead that the majority of Internet porn comes from countries like the United States. Ironclad logic here: the U.S. has a lot of porn, so we must have none. If this is some sort of New Cold War strategy, we’re not sure to whose advantage it’s working.

So, the other day BoingBoing featured a link to a seemingly harmless blog called rolcats.com. The site's author purports to be offering translations of images he takes from a Russian lolcat site called kotomatrix.ru. The twist is that they're not real translations at all, but an excuse to make Cold War jokes about Marxism and the KGB. BoingBoing seemed to get that it's a hoax, but in the past few days we've received queries about the site's authenticity from friends who aren't stupid. So let's put an end to the madness! After the jump, a real Russian lolcat caption for the photo seen above.