Cheetah Anyone?

If you want to communicate that you've arrived, some of your options are to drive a Ferrari, move to the Côte d'Azur, or perhaps walk around with an exotic animal, say a cheetah.

Or you can build a 67-story headquarters that resembles ... well ... it's obvious what Gazprom's new headquarters resembles.

Russia's Gazprom -- the world's biggest natural gas supplier, the breaker of nations, the scourge of Europe -- is erecting the building, designed by the U.K. architects RMJM, in St. Petersburg.

Can the Hermitage compete? UNESCO, the United Nations cultural arm, has complained that the building, well, diverges from the rest of the three-century-old city. But the city administration is aptly pugnacious. UNESCO "only came to our city because they smelled gas,” said Vera Dementyeva, who heads the city's Committee for the Preservation of Historical Monuments.