Corey Flintoff

The challenges include mild winter weather, high costs and residents who have lost their homes. But Russia says it will put on a great show when the 2014 Winter Olympics come to Sochi next February.

Don't mess with Soviet history, especially when it comes to World War II. That's the message coming from some hard-line Russian legislators who are angry with an opposition lawmaker who criticized Josef Stalin's World War II counterintelligence agency, SMERSH, and likened it to Adolf Hitler's Gestapo.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, saying it is important not to "lose momentum" in the effort to convene a peace conference on Syria. Ban was only the latest in a string of foreign dignitaries who have come to Russia, seeking Putin's blessing for such a conference, expected to be held in early June. There's a lot at stake. Russia has been a long-time supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and continues to supply weapons to his regime. U.S. officials have said lately that those weapons include advanced missile systems for attacking ships and airplanes. If Assad already has such weapons, they could pose a real threat to international efforts to impose a no-fly zone, to deliver supplies to the rebels, or to maintain a maritime embargo.

The actor accepted Russian citizenship in January after he denounced a proposed new tax on the rich in his native France. The Chechen connection is likely to rile human rights groups that have accused the president of the Russian republic of gross human rights violations. Depardieu will appear opposite Elizabeth Hurley in the first of the films.

Suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Dagestan in southern Russia twice in recent years, and investigators want to know whether that experience led him toward a radical and violent form of Islam.

Much has been made of the fact that the suspects in the Boston bombings are ethnic Chechens, with links to the volatile North Caucasus region of Russia. Russian reaction to the story, however, appears to be as complex as the region's turbulent history.

The already-frayed relations between the U.S. and Russia have unraveled even more over the past several days. Russia has published a list of 18 Americans who will be barred from entering the country because of their alleged involvement in human rights violations.

Semiprecious stones were the medium of choice for Vasily Konovalenko, a Soviet ballet set designer turned sculptor. His masterful workmanship captured Russian characters, from Cossacks and drunks to country folk and czarist henchmen. He fell afoul of the authorities and left Russia for the U.S. in the 1980s.

The United States and Russia have been at odds over human rights, Syria and even the adoption of Russian orphans by American families. But former U.S. envoys who met with officials in Moscow this week say they found "a willingness to explore ideas" and urged cooperation on economic and security issues.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is under attack these days — and is receiving no support from his erstwhile political partner, President Vladimir Putin. Though loyal and cautious, Medvedev became a magnet for the opposition, who sought an alternative to Putin. Now, observers say, it's only a matter of time before Medvedev is ousted.

A new law places the tag on human rights and other private groups that receive funding from abroad. In Russia, the label is nearly synonymous with "spy." Critics say the law is part of an effort by President Vladimir Putin to stifle dissent.

At most cafes, a customer buys a drink or food and stays as long as it takes to consume it. But a Russian entrepreneur is experimenting with ways to change that: At his Clockface Cafes, money buys time, and everything else — from drinks to snacks to art supplies and event space — is free.