2002 in Russia
# 2002 in Russia

Events from the year 2002 in Russia.

## Incumbents

* President: Vladimir Putin
* Prime Minister: Mikhail Kasyanov

## Events

* 21 January – Commercial television station TV6 closed down by the Russian government.
* 8 February–24 February – Russia competes at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, United States, and wins 5 gold, 4 silver and 4 bronze medals.
* 4 March – Good Night, Little Ones! airs its first episode on its current home, Telekanal Rossiya, still airing on the VGTRK today.
* 12 May – An accident at the Baikonur Cosmodrome kills eight people and destroys a Buran spacecraft.
* 1 July – Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 from Moscow to Barcelona in Spain collides with DHL Flight 611 over Überlingen, Germany with 71 fatalities, mostly Russians.
* 25 September – Vitim event: a large meteorite crashes in the Vitim River basin in Siberia.
* 23 October – Moscow theater hostage crisis: 40 Chechen separatists seize a theatre in Moscow taking 850 hostages.
* 26 October – Moscow theater hostage crisis: Russian special forces storm the theatre killing the Chechens and over 100 hostages.
* 1 December – Turbomilk, a graphic design company is founded in Samara.

## Notable births

* 16 April – Dayana Kirillova, singer

## Notable deaths

* 8 January – Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1916)
* 10 March - Natalia Derzhavina, actress (born 1942)
* 19 September – Sergei Bodrov Jr., actor (born 1971)
