Peter the great played with my balls, Russia

Here is a little summary of Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spaceship to be prepared for launch, Russia

A Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft is set on its launch pad on the Baikonur cosmodrome Oct. 10, 2008. U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott, Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov and U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke are scheduled to fly to the International Space Station on Oct. 12, 2008.
The Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft is set on its launch pad on Baikonur cosmodrome Oct. 10, 2008. U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott, Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov and U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke are scheduled to fly to the International Space Station on Oct. 12, 2008.

Russians go to bottom of deepest lake

Russian explorers plunged to the bottom of the world's deepest lake Tuesday in a show of Moscow's resurgent ambitions to set new records in science.

The MIR-2 submarine is lowered into the waters of Siberia's Lake Baikal during a test-run of a diving expedition July 24, 2008.

The mission to the depths of Siberia's Lake Baikal is led by Artur Chilingarov, a scientist and Kremlin-backed member of parliament who was part of an earlier mission to the North Pole that sparked criticism in the West.

Tucked away in the remote hills of south-east Siberia where Russia borders China and Mongolia, Lake Baikal, the world's deepest and oldest lake, is home to some of the world's rarest types of fish and other water-life.

The mission's twin submersibles, used last year to plant a Russian flag on the North Pole seabed, slipped into the choppy waters just after dawn and descended 1,680 meters to the lake's deepest point, setting a world record for freshwater submersion.

Each of the bright-red Mir-1 and Mir-2 craft carried three scientists. Chilingarov was with reporters who watched from a mission-control point on a nearby platform.

Russian officials hailed the five-hour expedition, due to take seabed samples and document Baikal's unique flora and fauna, as a new chapter in Russian science. "This is a world record," Interfax news agency quoted one of the expedition's organisers as saying.