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Governor Valentina Matviyenko appeared on television Wednesday answering questions from city residents using the short message service (SMS) function on their mobile phones in a novel experiment designed to bring her closer to the city she rules. The program, "Narodny Sovetnik" or "The People's Adviser" aired on Channel 5, the municipal television station, and City Hall has promised that the show will run weekly starting the second half of the month. |
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MOSCOW - As President Vladimir Putin lit a candle in memory of Beslan's dead in a chapel on Vorobyovy Gory, he never looked more alone. Standing in a corner of the almost empty church, his fists tightly clenched by his sides, Putin kept his gaze fixed solemnly down at the end of the most traumatic week of his presidency. |
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Police found explosives, detonators and a gun in the Progress cinema on Stachek Prospekt which was closed for renovation, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. Russia has been on a high state of alert following a wave of attacks blamed by authorities on Chechen separatists, but a St. Petersburg security source said several men arrested in connection with the find were most likely small-time criminals. |
All photos from issue.
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Sergei Zaitsev, the chief prosecutor of the Chuvashia region, who has a reputation as a no-nonsense fighter of corruption in the police, has been tipped to be the new St. Petersburg prosecutor, local media reported this week, citing anonymous city law enforcement sources. Zaitsev was reported to have recently visited the St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office to familiarize himself with its work. The current chief city prosecutor Nikolai Vinnichenko is reported to have resigned at the beginning of August, but there has been no official confirmation. The office has declined any comment on developments at this point. "We have a city prosecutor, Vinnichenko, who's on vacation until Sept. |
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 Hundreds of St. Petersburg residents went to Russian Red Cross collection points Thursday where gifts for the victims of Beslan are being received. "From early morning people have been bringing in all possible things for Beslan: new stationary, linen, toys, children's clothes, and even video tapes with cartoons," said Zinaida Kalimullina, who helps collect aid in the city's Central district. |
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Most Russians blame corruption and the unprofessionalism of the country's police and special forces as the main reason that terrorist acts have not been prevented, an opinion poll has found. However, only a few think it's the fault of the authorities, the survey said. |
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The doomed musical "Nord-Ost" will not now be performed in St. Petersburg between Sept. 24 and Oct. 24, its press-service announced, after a protracted dispute between its producers and City Hall. |
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Extradition Hearing ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The extradition of Pavel Stekhnovsky, who has been accused by the FSB of assisting in the assassination of the State Duma lawmaker Galina Starovoitova, is still under question after a court hearing in Brussels, representatives of the Belgian Justice ministry said Wednesday. |
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 MOSCOW - Staff Writer Computer programming may not be the first occupation that springs to mind when one imagines subsistence living in the Canadian wilderness, but that is exactly where Bart Higgins, a vice president of Russia's Auriga outsourcing company, began his career as a software engineer. |
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MOSCOW - In the aftermath of the Beslan tragedy, the country's most powerful business people said they are preparing a program to help stabilize the North Caucasus through economic development. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin has reiterated that he is against bankrupting Yukos but conceded that the state may take shares in the oil giant as payment for its mounting tax bills, participants in a recent meeting with Putin said Wednesday. "I don't want to bankrupt Yukos. It is the people in Yukos themselves who are raising this," Harvard University Professor Marshall Goldman cited Putin as saying. Goldman was a participant in the marathon 3 1/2-hour session the president held with Western academics and journalists Monday night at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. "Give me the names of the government officials who want to bankrupt Yukos and I'll fire them," Goldman cited Putin as saying in response to his question about whether there were officials seeking to bankrupt the company. |
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 An agreement on a two-step purchase deal was signed this week between the state-owned Vneshtorgbank and the St. Petersburg-based Promstroibank. According to an official announcement from Vneshtorgbank, or VTB, this week, the bank signed a memorandum which provides for its purchase of 25-percent stock share of Promstroibank, or PSB, by the end of September. |
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An unprecedented series of deadly terrorist attacks has destroyed the nation's image abroad as a safe travel destination, leading thousands of foreigners to cancel their vacation plans, travel agencies said Monday. "Before these terror attacks, Russia was considered one of the safest tourist destinations in the world, but this image has collapsed overnight," said Irina Tyurian, spokeswoman for the Russian Union of Tourism. |
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Lukoil invests in NW ST. PETERSBURG (Interfax) - Energy giant Lukoil plans to invest $13.5 million to develop its chain of gas stations in the Northwest region, said Lukoil Northwest deputy vice-president Valentina Zhurnko on Thursday at a press conference. |
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Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the hostage-taking in North Ossetia and its horrendous outcome and the capture of two French journalists in Iraq have shed new light on the challenges facing Islamist terrorism. In his 2001 pamphlet, "Knights under the Prophet's Banner," Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's ideologue, reminded his readers that the "jihadist vanguard" was always at risk of being isolated from the "Muslim masses. |
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Every day on my way to work for the last few weeks I have witnessed a disturbing picture. It happens when I glance at the top of the Legislative Assembly building, the Mariinsky Palace, located in St. |
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The Federal Security Service, or FSB, has taken power in Russia. A former intelligence officer runs the country. A former intelligence officer runs the Defense Ministry. A former intelligence officer runs the Interior Ministry. According to various estimates, siloviki make up 70 to 80 percent of the new Russian establishment. |
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 A trio of bestselling and critically acclaimed writers from Britain who are visiting St. Petersburg this week are revealing the secrets of their success. The program of events the visit has inspired, "Fashionable Reading," ends Friday, but Isabel Wolff, Dougie Brimson and Irvine Welsh have had an action-packed week of book-signings, readings, meetings with the readers and fellow writers, workshops for young authors and Internet chats. |
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Platforma, the art club co-owned by Moscow promoters, was launched the Russian style last week, with a sea of vodka and lots of traditional snacks such as pickled cucumbers. |
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The river-cruise is a staple of St. Petersburg summertime. Yet only one of the cruise boats combines the delicious Neva views with another, equally delectable, Petersburg trademark: fine dining. The New Island restaurant-ship, moored near Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge, departs four, times a day to cruise up the Neva and back over the course of a meal. |
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ï++Ï Ú@++Ï'++ÈÌ(o)È: a rude SOB, a bastard, a schmuck If the guy who nearly clips your car making a right turn from the left lane is a Ì++"ÎÂ^ (a pushy son of a gun), what do you call the guy who swerves into the oncoming lane - and then honks the horn and swears at you for not pulling over to let him use your lane? This, ladies and gentlemen, is a i++Ï. |
 At least two local drama theaters open new seasons this month with new leaders on board. The Bolshoi Drama Theater (BDT) opens its season on Friday with a new principal director, while the Komissarzhevskaya Drama Theater has invited a guest principal director - the first such appointment made in St. Petersburg's theater history. Both artists, however, are not new to their troupes. The BDT's Temur Chkheidze, who is responsible for a number of productions in the company's repertoire, was first offered the job of principal director of the company fourteen years ago, shortly after the death of Georgy Tovstonogov in 1990. |
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 HONG KONG - When artistic companies from St. Petersburg tour Asia, they often receive an enthusiastic welcome at the Hong Kong Cultural Center. In recent years the venue has hosted many major troupes. |
 Glamour, a giant in the world of women's glossy magazines, has launched a Russian edition. With an initial print-run of 300,000 and an aggressive $5 million ad blitz, the magazine, which hit newsstands for the first time last week, is aiming to gain a foothold in a market dominated by Cosmopolitan. Glossies, particularly those oriented toward young, urban female readers, have been among the best performers in a booming magazine market. |
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