Doomsday kits go on sale in Siberia as 'end of the world' looms...

Shops in the Siberian city have started selling 'Doomsday Kits' amid claims based on a Maya prophesy that the end of the world is scheduled on 21 December 2012. It includes badges with a space left to put you name and age -  perhaps to assist recognition in another world?

In the kit are medications like bandages, activated charcoal (against food poisoning), validol (a heart drug) and Valeriana (sedative drops or pills).

Other essentials include a package of buckwheat grain (a favourite Russian grain for  porridges and garnishes) and a tin of preserved fish.

Most important perhaps is  and a little bottle of vodka. 

Also in the kit is a notepad to record your impressions of the world's end, a pencil, candles, matches box, soap and string. 

Salesmen say that they are ready to post the kit anywhere in the world - for some 890 roubles (minus delivery fee), which is £17,88 or $28,66. 

Opinion polls say one in ten Americans worry whether they will live past 21 December, while it is unclear how many Russians are fearful of an  apocalypse possible involving a collision with a rogue planet.

Many Mayan experts insist that predictions of the world ending are a modern hoax and the calendar did not predict such a catastrophe next month. 

Mainstream academics around the world reject it as mumbo jumbo psuedoscience. The Maya calendar, which is made up different cycles of day counts, does not end this year. Rather, one cycle of 144,000 days (394 years) ends and the next cycle begins.