Heading for the chop at auction

A Moscow cafe has taken a tongue-in-cheek view of some of Russia's richest men - popularly known as oligarchs - by moulding their heads out of chocolate.

According to Itar-Tass news agency, sculptor Yevgeny Vasilyev and pastry-cook Valentin Lezer came up with the idea to mark the fifth anniversary of the appearance of the word "oligarch" in the Russian political vocabulary.

Seven men are singled out for the chocolate treatment. They include Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the founder and former head of the troubled oil giant Yukos who is now in prison awaiting trial on tax charges and Boris Berezovsky, now a fugitive from Russian fraud charges who lives in London.

Others are Roman Abramovich, Mikhail Fridman, Vladimir Potanin, Anatoly Chubais and Oleg Deripaska.

No hard feelings

President Vladimir Putin makes no secret of his distaste for Russia's business "oligarchs", several of whom have come under fire from the Kremlin in recent months.

You may lead a sweet life, but you can be eaten at any time Oleg Nazarov Putin's chocolate portrait

But Mr Vasilyev said he had no hard feelings towards the men and just wanted to portray them as "ordinary people".

Exhibit organiser Oleg Nazarov drew a different moral. "You may lead a sweet life," he said, "but you can be eaten at any time."

The heads, each of which weighs nearly 4.5 kilos, will be on view at the Zazerkalje cafe on Moscow's Kutuzovsky Proskect for a month.

They will then be sold off at a Christmas charity auction to benefit children's orphanages.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.