Apple's iTunes music store could be making its debut in Russia's corner of the former Soviet Union at an exclusive event on Tuesday in the heart of Moscow.

TechCrunch reportedly received a copy of an invitation to the event sent out by a Russian PR representative for Apple.

Apple could debut the long-awaited Russian iTunes store at the event, which will take place Tuesday night at the GUM shopping center in Moscow's Red Square.

9to5Mac reported on Monday afternoon that songs had begun to appear in the iTunes app stores in Russia, Turkey and Lebanon, indicating that the full blown launch of iTunes music in those countries is likely imminent.

In addition, the apparent timing here lines up perfectly with Monday's news that the iPhone 5 will debut in Turkey as well as Russia on Dec. 14, as 9to5Mac pointed out.

Russians eager to get online

TechRadar has reached out to Apple to learn more about the launch of iTunes in Russia, but in the meantime let's have a brief history lesson.

Russia has a checkered past when it comes to the internet and connected technologies, but in recent years its citizens have proved eager to join the online revolution.

In 2008 Russians were the fastest-growing group of internet users in Europe, and recent figures from global investment group GP Bullhound reportedly indicate that Russian internet use has continued to increase since then.

But Wikipedia went dark for a day in Russia over the summer to protest internet censorship.

Specifically, Russian President Vladimir Putin was considering creating an online blacklist that would block Russians' access to sites the government deemed "extremist" or "inappropriate."

Oddly, Russian officials even allowed a domestic ad firm to trademark emoticons in 2009, demonstrating to some a fundamental lack of understanding of how the internet works.

:'(

According to TechCrunch, Russia is notorious for music piracy, though legitimate channels for digital downloads do exist there.

Regardless, an official iTunes storefront could help Apple penetrate the smartphone market in Russia, where Android is currently the top choice by a significant margin.

Apple's iTunes was originally scheduled to launch in Russia in October, but that date was reportedly pushed back to November, and then again to "someday, maybe."

So Tuesday's event could be another tease, or it could mark the official launch of the Russian iTunes store. Either way, we'll know in a day.

Crysis 3 was officially announced way back in April following a premature leak on EA’s Origin the week before. We already know a great deal about the title and the storyline at this point and Crytek even offered up some free alpha trial keys last month but one thing that has remained a mystery up until now was system specifications.

Gamers are no longer in the dark on this category as Crytek has revealed the minimum, recommended and high performance requirements for the PC version of Crysis 3. As you likely have already guessed, you’ll need a pretty beefy system in order to play the game with all of the eye candy enabled.

Rather than regurgitate the specifications for each category, they have been reproduced in full below as published on EA’s website.

Minimum system operating requirements for PC:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
• Dual core CPU
• 2GB Memory (3GB on Vista)
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel): Nvidia GTS 450, Intel Core2 Duo 2.4 Ghz (E6600)
• Example 2 (AMD): AMD Radeon HD5770, AMD Athlon64 X2 2.7 Ghz (5200+)

Recommended system requirements for PC:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
• Quad core CPU
• 4GB Memory
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel): Nvidia GTX 560, Intel Core i3-530
• Example 2 (AMD): AMD Radeon HD5870, AMD Phenom II X2 565

High performance system requirements for PC:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• Latest DirectX 11 graphics card
• Latest quad core CPU
• 8GB Memory
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel): Nvidia GTX 680, Intel Core i7-2600k
• Example 2 (AMD): AMD Radeon HD7970, AMD Bulldozer FX4150

Granted you already have a DirectX 11 graphics card, odds are that most gamers will at least be able to run the title with minimum graphics. A solid mid-range graphics card appears to be needed for the recommended class while a serious gaming system is likely the only thing that will run Crysis 3 at max settings.

The game is expected to launch in February 2013 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

AMD’s “Sea Islands” graphics card lineup is set to arrive as the Radeon HD 8000 series in the second quarter of 2013, according to supply chain sources talking to DigiTimes. The Taiwanese website says Southern Islands’s successor was originally scheduled to land by the end of the year, but was pushed back as AMD focuses on its ongoing business reorganization. Other reports had pegged the launch for Q1 next year, which would have been in line with this year’s retail launch of the Radeon HD 7970 in January.

There aren’t many details available at this point, besides the fact that the Radeon HD 8000 series will be based on the 28nm GCN 2.0 architecture (Graphics Core Next 2.0), which includes improvements to overall performance per watt as well as HSA (Heterogenous System Architecture) enhancements.

The single-GPU flagship HD 8970 is expected to arrive first followed by the HD 8950, codenamed Venus XT and Venus Pro, respectively. Later on in Q3 2013, Mars and Oland based cards are set to take the stage, covering the performance and mid-range segments in notebook and desktop markets. If previous releases are any indication we should be looking at 15 - 20% performance gains from one generation to the next.

While AMD’s next-generation graphics chips are still a few months away, it seems the company has already kicked off the HD 8000 label with a few rebranded mobile parts. Late last month a couple of retail listings cropped up for an Asus VivoBook U38DT with "Radeon HD 8550M" graphics -- likely a rebadged HD 7550M. Unsurprisingly, its main rival Nvidia appears to be recurring to the same tactics during the holiday shopping season, with a GeForce GT 730M-equipped Acer notebook showing up at a different online store.