A Russian company has installed 33 vending machines across Moscow, including in the mayor’s office, that dispense glass jars and tin cans of red salmon roe.

This is a less-pricey version of the caviar, that Russians spread on toast and drink with sparkling wine for special events.

But those looking for the black sturgeon varieties — such as Beluga, Ossetra, and Sevruga — won’t find it in vending machines.

Black sturgeon caviar harvesting is limited to about 9 tons a year as many varieties have been hunted to near-extinction.

Fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier on Friday achieved a long-held dream by presenting his first haute couture collection in Russia at a Moscow railway station.

Gaultier said he was delighted to use the Kazansky railway terminus, one of Moscow’s three main rail stations, as the backdrop for his fashion collection, saying it was an invitation to a journey. “And my collection is a journey”.

“One of my dreams in Paris was to do a show in the restaurant at Gare de Lyon” he said, referring to the railway station’s belle epoque Train Bleu restaurant.

A Soviet-era landmark in the center of Moscow has reopened as a luxury hotel after a three-year renovation.

The former Hotel Ukraina was known as one of the “Seven Sisters,” an iconic set of skyscrapers built under Stalin between 1947 and 1953 to rival the structures springing up in capitalist cities such as New York.

Built in an elaborate gothic style with a “wedding-cake” construction and spires, they were intended to symbolize Soviet power and achievement.

Paris is the most expensive city to live in according to the latest survey from Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company to The Economist.

The survey assesses the cost of living by comparing housing, food, clothing, transport and utility bills and the like in 132 cities around the world.

The study is aimed at helping companies calculate allowances for executives and their families being sent overseas.

Tokyo comes second, up from sixth place a year ago. The fall in Russia’s currency against the dollar has made Moscow cheaper than it once was.

Artist Mark Evans is known for his incredible leather etchings and his increasing fame has led to an amazing commision.

He has been asked by a Russian billionaire to create what will be the world’s most expensive wallpaper.

At $23 700 per sq meter the project will cost a total of $2.84 million for Mark to wallpaper two rooms in the billionaire’s huge house in Moscow.

Hotel prices fell by an average of 14 percent globally in 2009, according to figures released March 2 by Hotels.com.

Around the world, hotel prices now cost four percent less than they did in 2004, says the most recent edition of the firm’s Hotel Price Index (HPI).

Every continent posted a drop in prices, with Latin America the worst affected — a fall of 21 percent year on year.

Asia fell by 16 percent, North America by 14 percent and Europe by 13 percent.

Moscow, formerly the world’s most expensive city for hotels, posted the largest fall, with a staggering 41 percent wiped off the average price of a room.