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Construction of a high-speed toll road between St. Petersburg and Moscow, one of about 20 such roads planned nationwide, is due to start next year. The road between Russia's two capitals will be one of the first projects in a transport-route modernization program that will run until 2025, which was approved by the federal government this week. |
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MOSCOW - Yury Lodkin, the Communist governor of the traditionally red Bryansk region, is not only saluting President Vladimir Putin's plan to strengthen his grip on the country by nominating regional leaders but calling the proposed change "fantastic. |
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MOSCOW - People who privately sell and swap airline tickets - like the person who helped two suspected suicide bombers board the planes that crashed almost simultaneously last month - are still out in full force in airports, and a bribe of as little as 500 rubles ($17.10) can get anybody on board a domestic flight, according to airline officials and media reports. |
All photos from issue.
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Alarms for Schools ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Alarm buttons will be installed in all the city schools before January 2005, Interfax reported Tuesday quoting Governor Valentina Matviyenko. The buttons, which will allow schools to alert law enforcement officers that something is wrong, will cost the city budget 12 million rubles ($411,000). |
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The directors of the musical "Nord-Ost" are suing St. Petersburg's Music Hall theater in the Moscow Arbitration Court for 10 million rubles ($345,000) in damages after the musical was canceled in St. |
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An international festival highlighting contemporary drama opens Friday, showcasing cutting-edge plays largely centered upon Russia's most painful and sensitive issues: terrorism, totalitarianism, corruption, alcoholism, drug addiction, migration and social inequality. |
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The Legislative Assembly has voted not to bother Nikolai Vinnichenko with a request to explain why he resigned as city prosecutor with just four members of the Democratic faction saying they wanted to know. |
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 MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin sent Gazprom shares soaring this week by indicating he backed ending the long-derided dual trading system for the gas giant's shares. Putin gave Gazprom the go ahead to acquire the government's last major oil company on Tuesday while simultaneously lifting an eight-year ban on foreign ownership of the gas monopoly's local shares. |
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MOSCOW - Capital flight from Russia this year may exceed government estimates by as much as two times, a leading economist said Wednesday. Following the legal assault on Yukos, a mini-banking crisis and a spate of terrorist attacks, capital flight could hit $17 billion this year, said Tatyana Monegen, director of the Moscow-based Institute for the Legal Protection of Property and Entrepreneurship. |
 The city's residents may have lower incomes than their compatriots in Moscow, but most Moscow restaurants and cafe chains do not lower their prices when they open up in St. Petersburg. There are around 30 Moscow restaurant and cafe chains operating in Russia's northern capital, according to Rashid Magdeyev, the director general of the Association of Restauranteurs. |
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The growth of commercial real estate, fair property valuation and the legal and financial questions associated with entering the city's real estate market were all discussed at the Real Estate Market in St. |
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Wal-Mart for SPB ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - American hyper-market chain Wal-Mart plans to open a store in St. Petersburg, Interfax quoted the head of the city economic development committee as saying Wednesday. Wal-Mart, with an annual revenue of over $270 billion, plans to open a hyper-market in 2005, he said. |
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In response to the recent wave of terrorist attacks that has stunned Russia, President Vladimir Putin on Monday announced a package of sweeping government reforms that will bolster the authoritarian direction of Russia's political development. Putin proposed a fundamental restructuring of the entire executive branch, making it far more rigid and centralized than before. |
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Only a blind person could have failed to notice that in the last four years Russia has slowly but surely been turning into a state that is like a parody of the Soviet Union. |
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 A controversial new film documenting the last hours of the life of Adolf Hitler that opened in cinemas across Germany on Thursday has already sparked an international debate about how the Nazi dictator should be portrayed on film. "Der Untergang," (to be released in English as "Downfall") was shot in St. |
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Nick Cave, the all-time Russian favorite for his black clothes and dark songs will return to St. Petersburg to perform what he calls a solo concert. |
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An old proverb says that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and I'm convinced the same holds true when it comes to discovering the heart of a foreign country. Food constitutes the most sensitive and important expression of a national culture and it is often the culinary side of a country that attracts foreign guests. |
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For a German native with a Chinese wife and a penchant for Thai food, an international career as an executive chef seems logical. Michael Roehr, appointed as chef at the Corinthia Nevskij Palace Hotel in March 2004, says that the profession is what he has wanted to do even since adolescence. |
 The Fall, the longest surviving British post-punk band, hailed as a British institution and absolute classic band, is making its long-awaited live debut in Russia. The band, which has influenced generations of rock bands from Nirvana to The Strokes, will perform two concerts at the 16 Tons club in Moscow this weekend. The Fall is touring following the release of its most recent LP, the acclaimed "The Real New Fall Album (Formerly 'Country on the Click')," first released in Britain in October 2003, then reworked for June's US release. |
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 He is a giant of Canadian art, but Tom Thomson is hardly known outside Canada. But since last Friday the State Hermitage Museum has given the landscape painter pride of place in the Alexander Hall in its first major exhibition of a Canadian artist. |
 Sweden is a country where the king drives himself to work, where mothers get 80 percent of their salary during maternity leave, where everyone speaks English, and where women are almost exclusively all beautiful. Those are the four things that really impress a newcomer to this lovely country. Sweden's pearl is the country's capital - Stockholm. |
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Britons Seized in Iraq BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three British nationals, believed to be civilians, were snatched by gunmen from a house in central Baghdad early on Thursday, Iraq's Interior Ministry said. The men were staying at a house in the al-Mansur district of western Baghdad, a wealthy neighborhood where many foreign businessmen and contractors live if they are not staying in the heavily defended Green Zone. |
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St. Petersburg's FC Zenit was due to play Belgrade's FK Crvena Zvezda in the UEFA Cup first round Thursday night at Petrovsky Stadium. Zenit are currently top of the Russian Premier League 21 games into the season. |
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PORTO, Portugal - Reigning European Champion Porto saw its players booed off by fans at the end of a frustrating 0-0 draw against CSKA Moscow as the Portuguese team began the defense of its trophy Tuesday. Porto dominated much of the game, but the team was unable to find a way through the stubborn CSKA defense, with goalkeeper Igor Akinfeyev having an outstanding game. |
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ROME - Italian football was again in the dock with AS Roma facing heavy punishment from the sport's European governing body UEFA after a Swedish referee was hit by an object thrown from the crowd. |
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Issues Archive