[Weird Russia] News roundup

• Beer-drinking, smoking chimp sent to rehab in Kazan- "The beer and cigarettes were ruining him. He would pester passers-by for booze." (Thanks, Tom!)

• Self-described "inventor" Viktor Petrik, friend of Putin's United Russia, has invented a filtration system which he claims will turn radioactive waste into drinking water. (Funny, as a St. Petersburg resident Petrik should have realized that radioactive waste already comes out of the tap...)

• U.S. officials returned a Tsarist-era pendant to Moscow which had been stolen by a couple working at the Hermitage museum in St. Pete and later surfaced on an online U.S. auction site.