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Just a year after St. Petersburg made international headlines as it celebrated its 300th anniversary, the city's budget for tourism industry development is on the verge of being completely eliminated in 2005. Viktor Pakhomkov, deputy head of the city government's tourism committee, said the tourism development program is already drastically underfunded this year and could be wiped entirely in next year. |
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MOSCOW - One of three cars intended for use in a series of terrorist attacks in Moscow may have been registered to the wife of a Chechen rebel, police said Monday. |
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HAMBURG, Germany - Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and former NTV general director Yevgeny Kiselyov last week lashed out at President Vladimir Putin for muzzling the free press and oppressing businesses. Speaking at the 6th annual Baltic Development Forum, Kasparov, chairman of Committee 2008 that was formed to back a liberal candidate in Russia's next presidential elections, began his speech by saying that in Russia "business is politics. |
All photos from issue.
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President Vladimir Putin's moves to strengthen his government after the recent wave of terrorist attacks are understandable, former U.S. vice president Al Gore said Friday. The U.S. leadership took similar measures in a similar situation, Gore, a former Democrat candidate for president, said in a reference to the Sept. |
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The Foreign Ministry says a shortage of suitable buildings is the reason why the German Consulate General in Kaliningrad has been unable to find permanent premises in the exclave. |
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Sestroretsk Birthday ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The St. Petersburg suburb of Sestroretsk celebrated it’s 290th birthday on Saturday. The anniversary was marked by festive entertainment, sports and cultural events. Sestroretsk was founded by Peter the Great in 1714. |
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MOSCOW - Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the Beslan hostage-taking and four other recent attacks and defiantly threatened to carry out more. |
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Ulyanovsk regional governor Vladimir Shamanov on Monday signed a pardon for Yury Budanov, a disgraced army officer who was serving a 10-year prison sentence for murdering a young Chechen woman in early 2000. Shamanov, whose troops gained a reputation for abuses against Chechnya's civilian population, was formerly Budanov's commander. |
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VILNIUS, Lithuania-Lithuania shut down on Saturday a Chechen separatist web site operating from the country and used by warlord Shamil Basayev to claim responsibility for the Beslan school siege. |
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American citizens in St. Petersburg should act now if they want their vote to count in the U.S. elections on Nov. 2, the U.S. Consulate General says. In many states, registration ends 30 days prior to elections, so would-be voters are encouraged to register immediately. However, people from more sophisticated states have more time. |
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St. Petersburg's investment climate and living standards are improving and the city government is eager to cooperate with foreign investors, city government officials said Friday. They were speaking at the International Forum on Russian Economic Development in St. Petersburg which focused on U.S.-Russian economic relations in informational technology and other investment spheres. Former U.S. vice presidential nominee Albert Gore was a speaker. Governor Valentina Matviyenko said she welcomes foreign investment in the city and vowed that St. Petersburgers will have a better standard of living by 2010. "By 2010, the living standard of St. |
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 The lack of a Russian chief negotiator has halted the work of an Estonian-Russian government commission for more than a year, according to the Estonian Foreign Minister Kristiina Ojuland. |
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The man behind the spectacular August 1998 collapse of one of the country's biggest savings banks SBS-Agro, Alexander Smolensky, is giving up his only remaining banking interest in Russia, Kommersant reported Thursday. Smolensky, who once famously told the Wall Street Journal foreign creditors deserved "dead donkey ears" for lending SBS-Agro money, is handing over his stake in Stolichnoye Kreditnoye Tovarischestvo (SKT) Bank to his nephew, board chairman Alexei Grigoriyev, the paper said. |
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Shipyard Stake Raised ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) - International Industrial Bank, Russia's fifth-largest bank by net profit last year, boosted its holding in shipbuilder Severnaya Verf to a majority stake. |
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MOSCOW - Yukos has decided to halt two-thirds of its oil exports to China, a company representative said Sunday, as the company grapples with a multibillion dollar tax claim that management says could push it into bankruptcy. The moves come as Yukos raises the stakes in its year-long legal battle with the authorities. |
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MOSCOW - French corporate powerhouses Total, Alcatel and Renault intend to expand in Russia, French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in Moscow on Friday, indicating President Vladimir Putin's tightening of political control and a yearlong probe of Yukos isn't deterring investment. |
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MOSCOW - Aeroflot forecasted $1.36 billion of targeted ticket sales this year, a $40 million increase, despite a drop by one-fifth in passengers on domestic carriers after terrorist attacks downed two airliners last month.. Thirty-two million dollars of the expected increase will come from additional sales, said commercial director Yevgeny Bachurin on Friday, and $8 million from lower commissions to travel agents. The downing of two Russian airliners in August, which killed 90 people, has hurt business badly, with traffic across the industry dropping 23 percent in Moscow in early September and 18 percent in Russia as a whole, Bachurin said. |
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 Wi-Fi Internet access may be one of the fastest growing Internet trends in western Europe, but in St. Petersburg it's been slow to catch on. Wi-Fi zones, or public wireless Internet access zones - hot-spots - first opened in St. |
 Cellphone users are getting younger, and teenagers are spending more on mobile phones every year. A recent study showed that this year, young people in Russia will spend from $1 billion to $1.6 billion on cellphones. This makes the youth market, which accounts for almost one-third of the mobile phone market, one of the most important target groups for cellphone providers. The study, which was conducted by Mobile Research Group - or MRG , said that youth spending on cellular communications grew by 80 percent in 2003, totaling $2. |
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 A range of new multi-functional cellphones has flooded the local market this summer. While convergence - or combining a range of media and communication functions into one device - has been a buzzword in the cellphone industry for years, there is now a wide range of choice for consumers in both new-generation cellphones and smart phones. |
 MOSCOW - The Central Bank has sold bonds for the first time in nearly three years in an attempt to soak up ruble liquidity as a way to reduce inflation. The Central Bank sold 34.5 billion rubles or $1.18 billion of the 50 billion rubles offered at an average yield of 1.75 percent. The bonds mature on Dec. |
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Editor, Have you noticed that terror attacks or high-profile assassinations tend to occur almost every day in Russia? Take Aug. 24: a bomb goes off at a bus stop in Moscow and two passenger aircraft crash almost simultaneously. All three accidents are believed by experts to be terror attacks. |
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Is there no solution to the nine-year-old Chechen bloodbath? President Vladimir Putin declares that the only acceptable outcome is the one he seeks to effect through a puppet government imposed on the dissident republic through rigged elections. |
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Whether Vladimir Putin's latest initiative of changing the system of electing governors conforms to the constitution or not is not that important. Putin has more than enough political might to keep the whole procedure of introducing a change within the law if need be. |
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By the time the dynastic manipulations of his family put Tiberius Caesar in power, the Roman Republic had long been a gutted carcass. Although the outward lineaments of state retained many of the old forms of popular government, behind these bones and tatters of hide there was nothing left but pestilent corruption and vicious court intrigue. |
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