I've heard that bribes have become a way of life in Russia. Is this true? – Daniel Forbes, Los Angeles

Unfortunately, it is. Every year, an estimated $37.5 billion is spent on bribes. This is about equal to the state's annual budget revenue. To enter institutions of higher education, people pay $449 million in bribes. So-called free medical care costs about $600 million. The traffic police pocket $368 million and the courts $274 million. Bribes are especially widespread among businessmen – 82 percent give bribes. Bribes, it seems, have become part of our life. They say it's like giving a friend a birthday present.

Tell me something about Tupolev. Did tsarist Russia produce airplanes? – Jim Thompson, San Francisco

Aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev died in 1972. He was jailed during Stalin's repressions in 1938 and released three years later, when World War II began. I guess they needed him as an aircraft designer. Tupolev designed 45 planes, 20 of which went into serial production. He designed the famous Tu-114, which in its time was the world's largest passenger plane. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev flew to the United States on it in 1959. The Tu-114 could seat 220 passengers, 40 more than any other plane in the world at that time. It had an elevator inside and a 48-seat restaurant. It was equipped with four 12,000-horsepower turboprop engines and could fly at a speed of 800 km per hour, very close to the speed of sound. Finally, Tupolev designed the Tu-104, the first jet airliner to fly regular flights.

Even though tsarist Russia was a country where the majority of people were illiterate, it produced some excellent planes. You've heard of Igor Sikorsky. He worked in Russia before World War I and made the famous four-engine bomber, the Ilya Muromets, which had no equal anywhere. It could lift almost 10 tons of ordnance and was armed with three to seven machine guns, with a crew of eight. Russia held first place in heavy planes.

Why has Red Square not been renamed? – Lester Brown, London

The name Red Square predates the Soviet Union by three centuries. In old Russian, the word "krasnaya," or "red," meant "beautiful." And beautiful it is. It was first mentioned in 15th-century chronicles. In 1945, the Victory Parade was held there to celebrate the triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II, in which we lost 27 million lives. To the roll of drums, our soldiers threw at the foot of the grandstand 200 enemy standards captured by Soviet troops. In 1961, we celebrated on Red Square the first manned space flight, by Yury Gagarin.

The square is huge, almost 700 meters long and 130 meters wide. At one end is St. Basil's Cathedral, erected by Ivan the Terrible to celebrate his victory over the Tatars. In my opinion, it is the most beautiful church in the world, with its many cupolas, of different sizes and colors, forming an ensemble.

Opposite the cathedral is a statue to Minin, the elder of Nizhny Novgorod, and Prince Pozharsky. Under the leadership of these two heroes of the 1612 War of Liberation, the people's volunteers drove the Polish invaders out of Moscow and upheld the independence of the Russian state. On the square stands the beautiful Spassky clock tower and the striking State History Museum.

Do people in Kaliningrad feel isolated? – Hugh Powers, Dublin

The Kaliningrad region is actually an enclave, separated from the rest of Russia. It borders Lithuania and Poland. We got it from Germany after the war. Its population is about 1 million. The standard of living is 1.4 times lower than in the rest of Russia, due to the isolation of the local market from the rest of the country.

The Kaliningrad region has 90 percent of the world's amber. It has oil on its territory, as well as brown coal and peat. Its ports do not freeze in winter. Per capita production is just two-thirds of that of the country as a whole, while investment is just half the national average.

Do people in Kaliningrad feel isolated? No doubt they do. Residents have trouble visiting relatives and friends on the Russian "mainland," and vice versa. They must pass through border posts and need visas. The near future will show whether we can ease the situation by setting up a corridor between the enclave and Russia, once Poland and Lithuania are admitted to the European Union.

(E-mail Joe Adamov at: editor@russiajournal.com.)