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Governor Valentina Matviyenko's first year in office has been like "building a railway track" on bumpy ground in its efforts to bring St. Petersburg closer to European living standards, she said Friday. The track has gone past the dilapidated yards in the city, past the multi-million dollar debts left by the previous city government and around the communal services reform, which appears to be quite difficult to achieve, Matviyenko said at a briefing. |
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GROZNY - Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev remains on the loose even after the Beslan tragedy thanks to old friends, police corruption, and a military that needs him as an excuse to continue the war in Chechnya, former acquaintances and law enforcement officials said. |
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Many of the 120 students of St. Petersburg's five leading universities who have just won Vladimir Potanin scholarships, say they want to spend the year-long grant of $70 a month on additional academic activities. "I consider this money an acknowledgement of my achievements," said Pavel Durov, 20, a fourth-year philology student from St. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - The nationalist Rodina party created an upset in Sakhalin on Sunday, coming out ahead of the pro-Kremlin United Russia in elections to the island's regional legislature. United Russia, however, topped the party vote in two other regions, Irkutsk and the republic of Marii-El. |
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The Mariinsky Theater has announced the dates of the first three concerts in series of memorial performances that are to raise funds for the former hostages of Beslan School No. |
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Reactor Shut Down ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Reactor No. 1 at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Station, or LAES, was shut down when its emergency security system signaled an alarm on Sunday night. The security system went on during one of the tests of the reactor after the block's recent modernization, said Sergei Averyanov, spokesman for LAES, located in Sosnovy Bor outside St. |
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MOSCOW- The buzz in liberal circles these days is that President Vladimir Putin's far-reaching political reform plans could help him retain power after his second and final term ends in 2008. |
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A reporter who covered Chechnya for The Associated Press and Radio Liberty for several years was unable to cover its presidential election after the Federal Security Service confiscated his passport four days before the Aug. 29 vote. Yuri Bagrov was notified Sept. |
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MOSCOW - The pro-Kremlin Unity party began raking in millions of dollars in 2001 under a Saddam Hussein-approved oil scheme aimed at currying political favor, a CIA report shows. |
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MOSCOW - A Federation Council bill to give the Kremlin the right to hire and fire judges would become the last nail in the coffin of Russia's already weak judiciary system, said two former senior judges who say they lost their posts after refusing to obey informal orders from the executive branch of government. The bill, which was overwhelmingly approved by Federation Council senators last month, is likely to prompt a number of judges to quit, former Moscow City Court judges Sergei Pashin and Olga Kudeshkina said. They said that even now there is little place for honest judges in courtrooms - judges face pressure from their superiors, who are appointed by presidential decree, and are more concerned about keeping their jobs than defending justice. |
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 The St. Petersburg International Women's Club means many different things to its many different members. To some, it's a social club, a place to meet other English-speaking women with similar interests; to others it's a support network, providing a wealth of advice for foreign women experiencing the sometimes difficult transition to the Russian culture and lifestyle; and still to others, it serves as a organization raising money for the city's various charitable organizations. |
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City government has decided to break off an agreement it made with oil major Lukoil to allocate the company land plots for gas stations. The move does not, however, mean Smolny has stopped seeking "strategic agreements" with other large investors as Gazprom, Rosneft, Vneshtorgbank and Moscow hotel industry players look to expand their operations in the city. |
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The Talgo train will come into service along the Berlin-St. Petersburg route in May 2005. The tourist orientated train service will run a Berlin-Kalinningrad-Vilnus-Riga-Tallinn-St. |
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Cartoon Rights Debated ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Continuing his fight for intellectual property rights to Masyanya cartoon character, the creator Oleg Kuvayev will sue the Muz-TV television channel. "The suit is signed and is currently being edited by lawyers," said Gali Shvedkovskaya, Kuvayev's projects producer to Interfax on Monday. "Muz-TV has been informed in writing several times about the necessity to stop the program 'Visiting Masyanya,' since the contract that formed Muz-TV's deal with [defendant] has been found illegal by the Moscow Arbitration Court on May 7," Shvedkovskaya said. She has also said the channel's representatives have insisted on meeting with Kuvayev personally but have postponed the meeting three times already, without giving any explanation. |
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 MOSCOW - The Natural Resources Ministry gave Yukos a three-month stay of execution, late last week. The company has three months to rectify tax payments at its core production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, or face losing key production licenses. |
 Russian Railways on Friday gave final approval to a project that will offer cargo shippers a shorter route between Asia and Europe and boost container volumes on the underused Trans-Siberian Railroad. The board of the state-owned rail monopoly approved the creation of a $16 million tie-up with Vladivostok-based Far Eastern Shipping Co. |
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Drug-Named Ice Cream ROSTOV-ON-DON (AP) - Whatever happened to chocolate, vanilla and strawberry? A court in southern Russia has banned the sale of Ukrainian ice cream that hit the shelves under names alluding to drugs, such as Your Hemp Dose and Poppy Fun, a regional drug control official said Friday. |
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Innovation and competitiveness are the two main priorities for Baltic Sea region development, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, the former Danish foreign minister and the chairman of Baltic Development Forum said as his concluding remarks at the 6th Baltic Development Summit. |
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Princess Vera Obolensky oozes French charm yet enthralls with Russian spirituality. The director of the St. Petersburg branch of French travel company CGTT Voyages speaks fluent Russian but with a subtle French accent. |
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Investments ranging from $500,000 to $10 million were sought out by small and medium-sized Russian businesses gathered from 25 regions of the country at the Fifth Annual Russian Venture Fair held in St. Petersburg last week. Attended by representatives of various investment funds, accounting and legal consultants, and government officials, the fair showcased 70 companies with innovative projects in the aerospace technology, biotechnology, IT and other hi-tech fields considered by experts to be 'the new Klondike' in the venture or high-risk investment world. |
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Instead of the "dictatorship of the law" we were promised during the post-Yeltsin hangover, we are witnessing the formation of a "dictatorship of mediocrity," a symbiosis of liberal fundamentalists and siloviki as simple as the gastrointestinal tract that is digesting Russia's petrodollars and the country along with them. |
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What can St. Petersburgers entitled to privileges expect next year when the federal reform, known as the monetization of privileges, comes into force? The St. |
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TORONTO - Russia stepped closer to a starring role in Formula One on Friday with the announcement of a new team backed by a St. Petersburg-born businessman to compete from 2006. But while the cars will be built by Italian manufacturer Dallara, frequent winners of the landmark Indy 500 in the United States, the backers of Midland F1 are unfamiliar faces new to motorsport. |
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Issues Archive