Video - Russian choir of 4,335 performs in St. Petersburg with aim of setting world record, Русский хор из 4335 выступает в Санкт-Петербурге.

Russian choir of 4,335 performs in St. Petersburg with aim of setting world record, Русский хор из 4335 выступает в Санкт-Петербурге.(EG).ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - More than 4,000 Russian singers have performed outdoors in St. Petersburg with the aim of setting a world record for the largest choir.

The 4,335 singers of all ages and from nearly all of the city's professional and amateur choirs sang from the steps of St. Isaac's Cathedral before thousands of spectators under an intermittent rain.

The spectators, who closed their umbrellas with the start of Sunday's performance, sang along during the one-hour concert.

The 14 songs performed included some of the most popular and patriotic songs of Russia and the Soviet Union, including a hymn celebrating the country's victory in World War II.Read and see (Video) the story here, more here.

Moscow Wants to Make anti-gay law Law Federal.

Moscow Wants to Make anti-gay law Law Federal.(MN).Deputies of the Moscow City Duma discussing the creation of an anti-gay law similar to the one in St. Petersburg have decided to broaden its scope to ban all kinds of "sexual propaganda," and they said they plan to push the initiative on the federal level. City Duma Speaker Vladimir Platonov proposed the idea and stressed its importance during a round table meeting attended by representatives of regions where laws restricting homosexual propaganda among minors have already been enacted. But the legislation would also ban the spread of materials of a heterosexual nature. Representatives of parental organizations said the law was not aimed at people of non-traditional sexual orientation, but a necessary step to protect children from information that would produce psychological harm, a news release about the discussion on the City Duma website said. Platonov was adamant about the need to protect children's rights. "If we talk about the simple writing of the law, it would be possible to limit distribution of the material and harvest already-existing experience," he said, adding that it would be possible to just "take up a pen and write the same law accepted by four subjects of the Federation," the news release said. Platonov also said it was necessary to "address to the Federation Council in order to prepare a good federal legislative initiative that would protect minors from all the negative information." One demonstrator stood outside the City Duma in a one-man picket to protest the discussion, holding a sign reading "Stop homophobic crooks! Moscow is behind us," Moskovksy Komsomolets reported. Gay rights activists said Tuesday they are planning a parade for May 27 to protest the advance of anti-homosexual legislation in Russia. "Notification of the event will be filed and submitted to the capital's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, in mid-May,” founder of the Moscow Gay Pride movement Nikolai Alekseyev told Interfax. “The main theme will be the legislative bans on gay propaganda in Russia," he said. The parade is also timed to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the abolition of criminal prosecution for engaging in homosexual relations, Alekseev said.Hmmm......In 2007 Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II called homosexuality an “illness” and attacked what he called “homosexual propaganda” influencing young people during an address to the council’s parliamentary assembly.He said homosexuality was “an illness and a distortion of the human personality” comparable to kleptomania.Read the full story here.

Hunt for Legendary Amber Room to Begin Again in Germany.(RN).The governor of Germany’s Nobitz municipality Hendrik Labe announced plans to search for the legendary Amber Room, looted by Nazi Germany during the World War II, in a local forest, the Bild newspaper said on Tuesday. Labe said the search would be conducted on the border between the eastern German states of Thuringia and Saxony. Digging is due to begin this spring. He sited research by amateur historian Thomas Kuschel, who collected wintesses' statements about the last days of the war. He also conducted a geoelectric sounding of the area, which revealed cavities measuring 70 by 40 meters deep in the ground. “I’m sure we will eventually find something here,” Bild quoted Kuschel as saying.
Labe is not the first German official to announce a search for the legendary treasure, housed at the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg and looted during WWII by Nazi Germany. It was brought to Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) and its further whereabouts were lost in the chaos at the end of the war in 1945. The Amber Room is also being searched for by Heinz-Peter Haustein, the mayor of Deutschneudorf in Saxony. The search is being conducted in an abandoned copper mine in the Ore mountains, where a radar screening revealed a large amount of metal, believed to be too dense for copper.The Amber Room is the 18th century chamber of amber panels, which was given by Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I to Russia's Peter the Great as a gift in 1716. The six-ton treasure, dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world," is decorated with pure amber panels, mirrors and precious stones. Only two small elements of the room's decoration were eventually rediscovered and returned to Russia. A partial replica of the Amber Room has been recreated according to available blueprints at Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg.Read the full story here.More on the Amber room here.