PUTIN'S RUSSIA

Street racers dice with death 9 February 2003
Young Muscovites get their kicks by drag-racing souped-up cars through the capital's streets after midnight

Stags' blood bath draws tourists into wilderness 14 June 2003
Julius Strauss in the Altai mountains reports on a gory event for rich Russians

The girl who met death at her front door 20 February 2004
The stabbing of a nine-year-old Tajik child is the latest race-hate crime in Russia. But the police are not interested.

Polar thaw opens Arctic sea route 4 March 2004
As ice recedes, the North-East Passage could rival Suez

Secret at the Heart of Putin's Rise to Power 13 March 2004
In 1999 several apartment blocks were blown up in Russia. The Kremlin blamed Chechen terrorists, but no proper investigations were ever carried out.

Ice Maiden triggers mother of all disputes in Siberia 17 April 2004
Revolt is in the air over a mummified princess

Is this the price of challenging Putin's police? 30 July 2004
A 19-year-old student whose girlfriend was sexually harassed by Moscow policemen used the internet to compile a dossier of similar attacks on women in the Russian capital. Weeks later a man in military-style camouflage shot him in the head.

Waiting for death in Russia's Alcatraz 10 August 2004
The unbending and inhumane regime in Petak island prison crushes even the toughest inmates

Russia hankers after the old world order 20 November 2004
Putin mourns the Soviet Union and is aiming to regain superpower status using economic might

Russia's 'war on terror' tainted by brutality and corruption 21 May 2005
Under the guise of the War on Terror, Russian authorities are torturing and killing innocents