William Frey, a researcher with the Brookings Institution, which has kept detailed records and analysis of the city's population since the storm, said his analysis of 2006 census data released this month shows that those inthe 25- to 35-year-old age range were least likely to be presentinthe city by July of last year.
It is not easy to pin down exact dates in a hazy age, but Western historians are probably right in marking off the period 1500 to thepresent as theage of European global predominance.
He thinks that the Pacific Ocean could become for present-day Russia what the Baltic Sea was for the country intheage of Peter the Great: a source of wealth and a gate to modernity.