The Central Bank is constantly purchasing, purchasing and selling and vice versa - this is their job.

Looking at the map of the Russian Federation, one can see a country covering mostly northern areas; today more than 70 percent of our territory is or can be referred to as northern, if not the Far North. We have a rather small warm Black sea strip in the South and - to tell the truth - quite a few regions with a hospitable warm climate.

In relations between the states ... the interests of the country should be correlated with the interests of other countries, and compromise is to be found when resolving the most complex issues.

I am convinced that international terrorism gave itself the goal of not allowing the re-election of Bush. The statement by bin Laden in the final stages of the pre-election campaign is the best confirmation of this.

Russia itself is a European country, and not just because our major political and economic centres are in Europe, but because Russian culture is primarily European culture.

Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory.

The UN platform was created precisely for this, to seek compromise, to communicate with one another. So it will definitely be nice if we make use of this platform.