After 7 rounds have been completed, 4 players are tied at the top of the leaderboard in the Russian Championship. Now, they will have to face each other in critical round 8:
Malakhov, Vladimir 5 – Inarkiev, Ernesto 5
Vitiugov, Nikita 5 – Tomashevsky, Evgeny 5
Right behind them are 9 players with 4.5 points:
Khismatullin, Denis 4.5 – Dreev, Alexey 4.5
Landa, Konstantin 4.5 – Timofeev, Artyom 4.5
Kobalia, Mikhail 4.5 – Grigoriants, Sergey 4.5
Khalifman, Alexander 4.5 – Lastin, Alexander 4.5
Bocharov, Dmitry 4.5 – Najer, Evgeniy 4
The top Russian woman is Alexandra Kosteniuk with 2 points.
Here is the official website. 
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
“After 7 rounds have been completed, 4 players are tied at the top of the leaderboard in the Russian Championship. Now, they will have to face each other in critical round 8:
Malakhov, Vladimir 5 – Inarkiev, Ernesto 5
Vitiugov, Nikita 5 – Tomashevsky, Evgeny 5″
Or maybe not – a 9-move draw can hardly be called facing each other!
Kosteniuk is performing very well in this championship. Go Sasha!