Into dust Residents of Kriusha village, in the western Russian region of Ryazan, search through the remains of their charred homes

Five weeks after wildfires began spreading through forests in central and western parts of the country, Russia is still burning.

MOSCOW: Chinese engineers are coming to the rescue of the Russian electricity sector under a five-year expansion plan that will rival the efforts of Lenin and Stalin to electrify the Soviet Union. An estimated 41,000 megawatts of new generating capacity is expected by 2011, much of it powered by coal rather than natural gas. This goal is way out of reach for Russian machine builders and even threatens to swamp the order books of global companies like General Electric and Siemens.