Anna Chapman's first television interview (one hour talk show video)

Anna Chapman, the almost stereotypical "Bond girl”, accused of spying for the Russian government appeared on Russian talk show “Пусть говорят” (Let Them Talk). The 60 minutes episode “Let them talk. New Year with a girl of the year” was dedicated to Anna Chapman and featured her mother, sister, grandmother, school teachers, friends and her first love.

Watch online "Let them talk. New Year with a girl of the year"
Anna Chapman full video (1 hour,  Russian language)

Anna Chapman also starred in a parody of a popular Soviet spy film.

Anna Chapman, June 2010. Photo via wikimedia

Anna Vasil’yevna Chapman (Russian: А́нна Васи́льевна Ча́пман; born Anna Vasil’yevna Kushchyenko Russian: А́нна Васи́льевна Кущенко; February 23, 1982) is a Russian national, who while living in New York, United States was arrested along with nine others on June 27, 2010, on suspicion of working for the Illegals Program spy ring under the Russian Federation's external intelligence agency, the SVR (Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki). Chapman pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. Attorney General, and was deported back to Russia on July 8, 2010, as part of the 2010 Russia–United States Prisoner Swap.

Chapman was born Anna Vasil’yevna Kushchyenko in Volgograd, according to US authorities, and her father was employed in the Russian embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. According to Chapman's British ex-husband, her father, Vasily Kushchenko, was also a senior KGB official, although this is unsubstantiated.Biography

London: 2001-2006

Chapman moved to London in 2000/1, working at NetJets, Barclays Bank and allegedly at a few other companies for brief periods.

She met Alex Chapman at a London Docklands rave party in 2001 and they married shortly thereafter in Moscow; as a result she gained dual Russian-British citizenship, and a British passport. After Anna was arrested in New York, Alex engaged media publicist Max Clifford, and sold his story to The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

New York: 2006-2010

She took up residence at 20 Exchange Place, one block from Wall Street in Manhattan's Financial District.Alex has stated that Anna told him the enterprise was continually in the red for the first couple of years, and then suddenly in 2009, she had as many as 50 employees and a successful business. Her LinkedIn social networking site profile identified her as CEO of PropertyFinder LLC, a website selling real estate internationally.

She is reported to have been dating Michel Bittan, a prominent New York restaurant owner. She later described her time in the US with the Charles Dickens quote, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times".

International exchange

After being formally charged, Chapman and nine other detainees became part of a spy swap deal between the US and Russia, the biggest of its kind since 1986. The 10 Russian agents returned to Russia via a chartered jet that landed at Vienna International Airport, where the swap occurred on the morning of July 8. The Russian jet returned to Moscow's Domodedovo airport, where after landing the 10 spies were kept away from local and international press.

Russia: 2010-incumbent

Late December 2010 Chapman was appointed to the public council of Young Guard of United Russia. According to the organization she "will be engaged in educating young people".

Media coverage and popular reaction

After her arrest by the FBI for her involvement with the Illegals Program, Chapman gained overnight minor celebrity status while under custody. The media dubbed her the "flame-haired beauty", "femme fatale", "the modern day Bond girl" and "the stunning SoHo spy". Photos of Chapman taken from her Facebook profile appeared on the web, and several videos of her were uploaded to Youtube.
Magazines and blogs detailed her fashion style and dress sense, while tabloids displayed her action figure dolls. Chapman was described by local media in New York as a regular of exclusive bars and restaurants. US Vice-President Joe Biden, when jokingly asked by Jay Leno on NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno, "Do we have any spies that hot?", replied in a mock serious tone, "Let me be clear. It was not my idea to send her back."

According to the news agency Interfax, effective 1 October 2010 Chapman is employed as an adviser on investment and innovation issues to the President of FundserviceBank, a Moscow bank that handles payments on behalf of state- and private-sector enterprises in the Russian aerospace industry.

Source: wiki
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PM Putin sings 'Blueberry Hill' and plays piano to raise cash for children's charity

Vladimir Putin official portrait

www.kremlin.ru [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

St Petersburg played host to a number of celebrities from all around the world but the one that stood out was not an actor or a singer. It was Russia's very own Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He even got a standing ovation.








Full video of Vladimir Putin playing the piano and singing "Blueberry Hill". The Russian prime minister is used to taking to the stage, but this time it was not for one of his speeches. Vladimir Putin made his audience sit up and take note, as he sang at a charity fundraiser. The reception at an ice stadium in St. Petersburg was dedicated to fighting children's cancer. International celebrities including Kevin Costner, Gerard Depardieu, Mickey Rourke, Sharon Stone, Kurt Russell, Vincent Cassel, Monica Belucci, Ornella Muti, Goldie Hawn and many others attended the benefit concert. Many of the stars are actively involved in charity work which draws needed attention to children's oncological and ophthalmological diseases. When the hostess approached Putin's table and asked him to sing for the audience, his immediate reaction was "are you kidding me?" But the hostess was determined to get the prime minister on the mic and reminded him about the songs he sang with the Russian sleeper agents extradited from the US last summer. Putin attempted to evade the proposal by saying that the singing she was referring to had come from the heart. However, after seeing the pictures of ill children shown to the audience on the big screen, he took to the stage. "Like the majority of people I cannot -- but do like to sing and to play -- so you'll have to rough it," he warned as he sat at the piano and played the beginning of Blueberry Hill. The tune was immediately caught by Maceo Parker's jazz band. The prime minister then took the mic and sang it in English himself. Putin returned to the piano to sing in Russian "From What the Homeland Starts" -- the song he sang with the exposed Russian agents. The audience loved his performance and showed their appreciation with a standing ovation and applause. Many recorded the one man show on their mobile phones. On December 1, Putin confessed to US chat show host Larry King that he does study some songs in English with his language tutor. When the concert was over Putin took Sharon Stone by the arm and together with other guests they went on stage to sing a Russian song about cosmonauts, "Grass Near Home".
-RT


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Tennis star Maria Sharapova, Los Angeles Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic engaged to be married

By Associated Press / October 22, 2010

Chance Yeh/PatrickMcMullan.com/Sipa Press/Newscom

Los Angeles Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic says he's engaged to marry Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova.

"We are engaged and are both really happy," Vujacic said Thursday night before the Lakers' exhibition game against Golden State. "It's good and now we can focus on other things."

The agent for three-time Grand Slam champion Sharapova confirmed the news in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Vujacic said he proposed on the one-year anniversary of their first meeting at a friend's barbecue.

"It's was probably old school," Vujacic said. "I had to do it like a gentlemen."


The Slovenian guard returned to action Thursday, a week after getting a concussion when teammate Lamar Odom accidentally elbowed him in the face during practice. Vujacic averaged 2.8 points and 1.2 rebounds in 67 games for the Lakers last season, his sixth with the club.

Sharapova won her first major title at Wimbledon in 2004, when she was 17. She went on to win the 2006 U.S. Open and 2008 Australian Open and also reached No. 1 in the WTA rankings.

After shoulder surgery and an elbow injury forced her to miss time the past two seasons, Sharapova is currently ranked 18th.

Maria Sharapova holds the women's US Open trophy at the tennis tournament in New York in 2006. Sharapova defeated Belgium's Justine Henin-Hardenne 6-4, 6-4.

Mike Segar/Reuters

via csmonitor, sports.sohu

The Hobbit: Official Cast (Facts and Photos)

Warner Bros./ New Line have announced that Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Rob Kazinsky, Aidan Turner, Graham McTavish, John Callen, Stephen Hunter, Mark Hadlow and Peter Hambleton have officially joined the cast of THE HOBBIT.

According to the studio, Freeman is confirmed as Bilbo Baggins, the hero of the story. Richard Armitage is set to play Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the Company of Dwarves which sets off to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from a thieving dragon.

Aidan Turner (“Being Human”) and Rob Kazinsky (TVs “EastEnders”) will play Kili and Fili; Graham McTavish is Dwalin; John Callen is Oin; Stephen Hunter is Bombur; Mark Hadlow is Dori; and Peter Hambleton stars as Gloin.


Bilbo Baggins: Martin John C. Freeman (born 8 September 1971) is an English actor. He is known for his roles as Tim Canterbury in the BBC's Golden Globe-winning comedy The Office (2001-2003), Arthur Dent in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), and Dr. John Watson in Sherlock (2010).

Here come the hot dwarves!

Thorin Oakenshield: Richard Armitage (born 22 August 1971) is an English actor. He is known for his roles as Lucas North in Spooks (2002), Steven in Frozen (2005), Percy Courtney in Miss Marie Lloyd (2007) and Guy of Gisbourne in Robin Hood (2006-2009).

Kili: Aidan Turner (born 19 June 1983) is an Irish film and television actor.
He is perhaps most notable for playing a vampire, John Mitchell, in Being Human (since 2009), a drama-comedy television series first aired on BBC Three, a United Kingdom television network.

Fili: Robert Kazinsky (born Robert John Appleby; 18 November 1983) is an English actor and model. He is best known for his appearance as Casper Rose in Sky One drama Dream Team in 2005/2006 and Sean Slater in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders from 2006 to 2009.

Sources: wiki, thehollywoodnews

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Moscow (video)

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Moscow subway




Arnold Schwarzenegger on Red Square

Related story:

Schwarzenegger arrives in Moscow, trades tweets with Medvedev and rides Moscow subway

The female version of Jared Leto from Russia

Jared look: Russian girl Helena (Елена) brilliantly transforms herself into Jared Leto (30 Seconds to Mars) right before your very eyes. Jared himself appreciated this video and tweeted about it on his Twitter.
Her video 'Jared Look' has been featured by Youtube and Facebook: 'Would you want to look like Jared Leto? In a stunning transformation, this girl turns herself into an exact replica of the actor/musician.'

selfoblivion Jared Leto cosplay: No warning sign, no alibi

selfoblivion Jared Leto cosplay: Eyes that see into infinity

selfoblivion Jared Leto cosplay: Were you ever a dreamer?

selfoblivion Jared Leto cosplay: Until you believe

selfoblivion Jared Leto and Gerard Way

cosplay: Jared and Gerard

selfoblivion photo: Misterious light

Helena also cosplays other characters. You can see her works on selfoblivion.deviantart.com