SAY WHAT YOU WILL about Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but the man knows how to throw a party. For his 48th birthday, "probably the last before I return this nation to its historic greatness," as he put it that night, Russia's most compelling–and notorious– politician invited everybody from President Boris Yeltsin to a czarist honor guard in full battle dress to celebrate with him at Moscow's grandly decaying Budapest Restaurant. Read more »