Communist hardliners staged a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev 20 years ago, and the Soviet Union collapsed soon afterwards. Previously unknown documents, which SPIEGEL has obtained, show just how desperate the last Soviet leader was as he fought to retain power -- and how he begged Germany for money to save his country.

It’s a well-known fact that Russia has got a movie piracy problem. As a positive counter-action, Soviet/Russian production company Mosfilm recently announced a partnership with YouTube, unleashing tons of films for full, free, legal streaming on their online channel. Many are subtitled, and five new films will be added each week. For Western cinephiles, this is a prime opportunity to broaden horizons and venture into the lands of Soviet horror and banned silent film. For nostalgic expats, it’s a great chance to chortle and coo over “Shurik” and his Soviet-era leading man charms, i.e. black-framed glasses and a knack for time-machines. Here are a few suggestions for the weekend ahead for five types of movie watchers.

The great Trans Siberian Railway, the pride of Russia, goes across two continents, 12 regions and 87 cities. The joint project of Google and the Russian Railways lets you take a trip along the famous route and see Baikal, Khekhtsirsky range, Barguzin mountains, Yenisei river and many other picturesque places of Russia without leaving your house. During the trip, you can enjoy Russian classic literature, brilliant images and fascinating stories about the most attractive sites on the route. Let's go!

Yarynich is talking about Russia's doomsday machine. That's right, an actual doomsday device—a real, functioning version of the ultimate weapon, always presumed to exist only as a fantasy of apocalypse-obsessed science fiction writers and paranoid über-hawks. The thing that historian Lewis Mumford called "the central symbol of this scientifically organized nightmare of mass extermination." Turns out Yarynich, a 30-year veteran of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff, helped build one.

The internet agency Kavkaz Centre provides reporting of events in the Islamic world, the Caucasus, and Russia. One of Kavkaz Centre's chief objectives is to report events in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria connected to the Russian military aggression against the CRI. Besides we also provide international news agencies with news-letters, background information and assistance in making independent journalistic work in Caucasus.

Russia's most powerful business lobby moved to clamp down on Skype and its peers this week, telling lawmakers that the Internet phone services are a threat to Russian businesses and to national security.

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"Without government restrictions, IP telephony causes certain concerns about security," the lobby's press release said. "Most of the service operators working in Russia, such as Skype and Icq, are foreign. It is therefore necessary to protect the native companies in this sector and so forth."

By wildly overstating its claims on many countries, the US has undermined its credibility and confirmed criticisms that the report lacks reliability or objective analysis.

Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States are squabbling over much of the Arctic seabed and Denmark has called them together for talks in its self-governing province to avert a free-for-all for the region's resources.

Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States are at odds over 1.2 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles) of Arctic seabed which could possibly hold 25% of the world's oil and gas.

The macaques will be the first to experience the radiation that poses a big risk to astronauts - or Russian cosmonauts - on any flight to the Red Planet.