The authors discuss the issue of what the world power centers are building nowadays: whether an order is being constructed or the chaos? To answer the question the authors consider infrastructures of usual, traditional type such as extraction and transportation, transportation communication lines as well as military political, economic infrastructures and infrastructures of the social control. The analysis demonstrates that the world power centers introduce greater chaos in all mentioned infrastructures. Under the guise of struggle against terrorism the world power centers bring various weapons (up to nuclear ones) in regions they are interested in; they are removing, part by part, the existing state structures under the pretext of «nations' right to self-determination» and human rights protection; by means of financial and credit system they are intensifying poverty and economic chaos that bring about the political instability. Infrastructures that are created, first of all, by the US are designated rather for managing chaos and not for ensuring an order. Creators of such «new world order» try to mystify the problem and conceal their real aims. In fact, they need the world chaos that is the symbol of the utmost, ultimate lack of freedom. Russia has to learn how top live in situation of chaos, to learn how to manage chaos in such a way that allows it to become in a order of a kind as it happened during realization of the «Red project». In the USSR the power of ideas charged the masses for implementation of great changes and helped to overwhelm fascism. Nowadays Russia is a test field for any forms of regress and Russia' entering into the «new world order» described above will mean that our national sovereignty and our historical future will be ended forever.

«…Ife», the para-poem performed in the end of April, 2004, at «Na doskakh» («On the planks») theater served as the cause for organization of the «roundtable». The chief of the creative center and the stage manager of the theater opened the discussion and indicated the problems to be discussed. Is the theater nowadays capable to create new forms of the social being? What phenomena, processes, events of modern Russia can and ought be reflected? What is the aim of such reflection? Can the theater form a new elite, identify a social stratum which has ability to unite itself and prevent the society from enthropy and disintegration? Social scientists, writers, lecturers of Moscow higher education institutions, librarians took part in the discussion.

Introduction of the Common State Exams (the Russian abbreviation for them is «ЕГЭ») is one of our principal «educational reforms». Its differences from the system of knowledge checking traditionally adopted in the USSR (and Russia) include the following characteristics: the school-leaving exams are combined with the entrance exams to a higher education institution (or, to be precise, to all higher education institutions simultaneously); questions are substituted for tests and an examiner is replaced with a computer. About 2 billion rubles are spent on introduction of the CSE since 2001. It is an amount comparable with the amount that presumably was lacking for devices, reagents, salaries and even for the simplest fire alarm systems and fire extinguishers in elementary and secondary schools. It should be added that the very concept of the CSE does not find support among scientists and educators. The article demonstrates the true nature of the Common State Examination on the specific discipline: basics of social sciences. It’s impossible to evaluate knowledge and abilities of youngsters on the grounds of such exam’s results. However, as the author thinks, it’s possible to evaluate knowledge and abilities — not of pupils but the «reformers» who invented and introduced the new system.

The article deals with the time reference point from which onwards ideological, cultural and civilizational confrontation of Russia and the West began. This confrontation found its expression in the propaganda myth about «Moskovia as the threat for the Christendom» which was invented in Renaissance Europe. The author connects emergence of the myth with the Livonian was (1558−1583) which was the first in the succession of wars Russia fought against a coalition of European states. «The Russian theme» for the first time became a subject of vigorous attempts of the Western intellectuals and politicians of Renaissance Europe to understand the phenomenon of Russia. In the process Russia was attributed with historical phobias generated due to internal European problems as well as by experience of Western communication with the East during the Crusades. In result the image of Russia established in the European propaganda literature poorly corresponded to the reality but it embraced many political and cultural phobias of Europeans. The image of Russia was invented in accordance with principle of «anti-world» modeling. Creators of this image tried to embody all «non-European» traits, that is everything barbarian, non-Christian, infernal. Many of phobias generated in Renaissance epoch are still effective assumptions of the policies of the West toward Russia. It should be emphasized that Europe needs such «anti-mirror»: it places its own sins in this «anti-mirror» without long thoughts whether the resulting picture corresponds to the reality or not. One of historical roles Russia performs in «West-East» system of civilizations is brought to the role of the «anti-world» without which Europe will not feel itself the supreme top of the global community.

The court environment of Nicolas II is the subject of intense attention of several generations of historians. There are many valuable sources on this span of the Russian history. Materials of the Provisional interrogative commission established by the Provisional government are among the most interesting among these sources. On the grounds of these materials the author traces influence of various country groups on the domestic and foreign policies of the last Russian emperor. The author considers several serious issues of the Nicolas II reign including the issue of Rasputin’s infiltration into the emperor’s closest circle and the issue of attempts to make a separate peace in the World War I.