Here’s an interesting piece from last week’s LA Times. Apparently if you want to buy something fake, Russia is now the place to go. And we’re not talking just about phony Rolexes here--Russia has become perhaps the world’s leading source of counterfeit just about anything, including diplomas, pharmaceuticals (as many as 12% of which in Russia are estimated to be phony), paintings, and doctoral dissertations (Putin’s own was heavily plagiarized, it turns out).

The most interesting, though, are the fake vacations being offered by one Moscow travel agency. For $500 this firm will provide you with "ersatz ticket stubs, hotel receipts, photos with clients’ images superimposed on famous landmarks, a few souvenirs for living room shelves"--making it appear to all the world that you really visited some exotic locale.