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Purpose: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer mortality rates in Eastern Europe are among the highest in the world. Although diet is an important risk factor, traditional eating habits in this region have not yet been explored. This analysis assessed the relationship between traditional dietary pattern and mortality from all-causes, CVD and cancer in Eastern European cohorts. Methods: Data from the Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors in Eastern Europe prospective cohort were used, including participants from Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. Based on food frequency questionnaire data, we constructed an Eastern European diet score (EEDS) from nine food groups which can be considered as traditional in this region. The relationship between categorical (low, moderate, high) and continuous (range 0–18) EEDS and mortality was estimated with Cox-regression. Results: From 18,852 eligible participants, 2234 died during follow-up. In multivariable adjusted models, participants with high adherence to the traditional Eastern European diet had significantly higher risk of all-cause (HR 1.23; 95% CI 1.08–1.42) and CVD (1.34; 1.08–1.66) deaths compared to those with low adherence. The association with cancer mortality was only significant in Poland (high vs. low EEDS: 1.41; 1.00–1.98). From the specific EEDS components, high consumption of lard was significantly positively related to all three mortality outcomes, while preserved fruit and vegetable consumption showed consistent inverse associations. Conclusion: Our results suggest that traditional eating habits may contribute to the poor health status, particularly the high CVD mortality rates, of populations in Eastern Europe. Adequate public health nutritional interventions in this region are essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the determinants of temporary migration and the destination choices of migrants from a geopolitically important region in eastern Europe that borders Russia and the enlarged EU. We present empirical evidence from a novel survey simultaneously conducted in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, five countries that share a common institutional and linguistic heritage with Russia. Temporary migrants from eastern Europe are less well educated than non-migrants. While the least educated migrants head for Russia, the higher educated move to the EU and the best educated to overseas destinations. According to unique information on pre-migration training courses, a non-negligible fraction of eastern European migrants to the EU is well-equipped with language skills and qualifications. However, since many labour migrants suffer from occupational downgrading or skill waste in the destination, the EU seems to fail in fully benefiting from the potential of eastern European migration despite the geographic proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on an April 2010 conference in Moscow, Russia, held in honor of the birthday of Russian Marxist revolutionary, leader, and political philosopher Vladimir Lenin. The meeting featured television coverage and Eastern European participants' linked to the conference by the interactive Internet service Skype. The thematic focus of the conference was on Lenin's Marxist ideology and his legacy for contemporary times.

Recognizing that little is known about how men's and women's engagement in the off-the-books economy differs, this article reports the results of 313 face-to-face interviews with Moscow residents on their off-the-books work practices. Variations in the nature of off-the-books work undertaken by men and women are identified. While over two-thirds (66 percent) of men's off-thebooks work is conducted under market-oriented work relations primarily for the purpose of monetary gain, nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of women's off-the-books transactions are for friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, and for broader rationales than purely financial gain. The outcome is a call to recognize the heterogeneous work relations and motives in Moscow's offthe- books economy and its gendered character, and for further studies to be conducted in other former Soviet and East European economies and global regions so as to evaluate whether the multifarious and gendered nature of off-the-books work is more widely applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The findings presented here are based on ethnographic research and are concerned with subjective definitions of ethnic belonging of young Armenians in Krasnodar krai. It is demonstrated that Armenian ethnic identifications are not 'fixed' but rather entwined within a complex web of diverse cultural attachments, involving many 'routes' of translocation, dislocation and location. It was found that most of the research participants saw themselves as Armenian while drawing occasionally on cosmopolitanism as an identity resource. This enabled them to construct a sense of belonging both in terms of ethnicity and of multicultural location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the design and implementation of the first working master of public administration program in Russia. This program has been in existence at the Urals Academy of Public Administration (UAPA) in Yekaterinburg since 2001 and graduated its first class in 2003. The development of the program from 2001 through 2004 was aided by a U.S. State Department Newly Independent States Colleges and Universities Partnership Program (NISCUPP) grant. The article examines why public administration education is important to Russia and how UAPA is implementing innovative public administration education through its MPA program while also meeting the national standards for such education issued by the Russian Ministry of Education. At the current time, the Urals Academy is partnering with London Metropolitan University under a British government Russian-UK Partnerships in Higher Education (BRIDGE) grant to increase the number of students in the MPA program, to build faculty expertise further, and to prepare to meet the challenges of European integration as negotiated in the Bologna Process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper re-investigates the efficiency of the East European emerging markets of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Russia analyzed by Rockinger and Urga (2000, 2001) based on the data from September, 1995 through December, 2004. We propose a first-order autoregressive (AR (1)) type time varying parameter model with a non-stochastic linear time trend including the random walk (RW) type model as a special case. The observed data rejects the RW type model for the AR (1) type one. The markets exhibit dynamic efficiency for all the four countries in the sense that the linear time trend approaches to zero over time. The empirical result for the Russian markets differs from that of Rockinger and Urga (2000). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "crisis" in Soviet ethnography has to do not so much with the social conditions under which it operates as with the discipline itself. Self-satisfaction and intellectual isolationism are as much manifestations of this crisis as methodological diktat and political control. A broad modem redefinition of the discipline might help it to overcome its unattractive image and low status and reduce the risk of its marginalization. Steps in this direction might include a "repatriation" of ethnography through new emphasis on prolonged fieldwork, with a broadening of scientific interests, methodology, and conceptions of the genre of ethnographic writing and a change in direction away from the structures of power towards dialogue with the object of study, an ethnography of the scientific community, and a new interpretation of ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pentair has established a new strategic hub in Moscow, Russia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]