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The three Baltic states are wary of attending Russia's 60th anniversary celebrations of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The Kremlin has invited international leaders to the Victory Day parade in Moscow in what it plans will be the highlight of this year's celebrations. |
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Although fears that this year's extended New Year holidays would result in a crime wave and a huge alcohol binge did not materialize, many St. Petersburg citizens say the break was too long. |
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The city's Legislative Assembly is to make its ninth attempt to elect a human rights ombudsman this month. The city has gone without an ombudsman for the past six years, because every time the post comes up for election the battle for it is very intense. Whoever claims the post can position themselves as the last surviving bastion of democracy in the city. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - The State Duma on Wednesday tentatively approved legislation that would allow authorities to deny a visa to foreigners who show disrespect toward Russia, are sick or use illegal drugs. The bill also envisages banning foreign cruise ship passengers from coming ashore unless they have visas, a move that St. |
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A group of St. Petersburg workers who helped to bring the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster under control resumed a hunger strike Wednesday that they broke off after a few days in December. |
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St. Petersburg policemen accidentally shot dead a driver who was tried to flee a police document check on Monday, NTV reported. The incident occurred in the city's Krasnogvardeisky district when officers of the police guard service stopped a Zhiguli car with no number plates. |
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Nenets region governor Vladimir Butov on Wednesday appealed a three-year suspended sentence issued by the city's Petrograd district court on Dec. 31. The court found Butov guilty of beating up a traffic policeman on April 11, 2003. |
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 MOSCOW - State-owned Pulkovo, the nation's No. 3 carrier, will cease to exist after it merges with smaller airline Rossiya later this year, government officials said Tuesday. Presidential Property Department spokesman Viktor Khrekov said by telephone that Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov late last month signed a resolution defining the new status of Rossiya, which carries the president and senior government officials, as well as commercial passengers. |
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The registration fee on imported goods has almost doubled following a government decree, passed in the last days of 2004. The decree, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov on Dec. |
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In an attempt to increase the number of its large and medium-sized business customers, Internet provider Web Plus has bought Teleport St. Petersburg, Interfax reported Wednesday. The St. Petersburg division of Web Plus, a 100 percent subsidiary of Telecominvest, swallowed up local telecommunication services provider Teleport to strengthen its market share of corporate telephony and network services said Web Plus general director Andrei Shirenko. "We plan to gain 15,000 new subscribers in 2005, and to increase substantially our number of large and medium-sized business customers," Shirenko said. Currently, Web Plus says user number of its dial-up internet via a modem totals hundreds of thousands, although there are only 7,000 subscribers to fast internet or ADSL lines, Interfax reported. |
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 MOSCOW - Brewers raised their glasses Tuesday after President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly vetoed a draft law that would have banned drinking beer in public. |
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MOSCOW - Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref has said he supports the privatization of both Rosneft and Yuganskneftegaz, in a move that appears to put him in opposition to the Kremlin's policy of greater state control over the oil industry. |
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MOSCOW - Yearly inflation fell slightly in 2004, but exceeded government forecasts, the State Statistics Service said Tuesday. Inflation was 11.7 percent in 2004 compared with 12 percent in 2003, but exceeded a government target of 8 percent to 10 percent. |
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Alcan to Build in Russia ST. PETERSBURG (Vedomosti) - Canadian firm Alcan will invest $55 million into the building of two packaging factories in Russia. Experts say Alcan can hope to win 30 percent of the country's packaging market, which is worth $125 in total, if it squeezes out imported packaging produce. |
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At a time when the Kremlin is becoming a closed box to even the most seasoned Russia watchers, one of the few administration insiders who has openly expressed his views is being punished for doing so. Andrei Illarionov has never been one to keep silent on matters he believes are important, seeing debate as one of the ways a society is informed about issues thought to be vital to economic growth. |
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Over the last six months, Russian politicians have been discussing Ukraine and its affairs so fervently that now I, as a Ukrainian politician and parliamentary deputy, have the perfect right to discuss Russian affairs. |
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Unless she has a death wish, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko shouldn't use public transportation. She would feel terrible if she gave a thought to St. Petersburg's 1.2 million pensioners, most of whom since Jan. 1 have been obliged to pay for public transportation, which was formerly free. |
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Ukraine has been a happening place since Ruslana, dressed as a warrior, won the Eurovision Song Contest earlier this year. Now that the Orange Revolution has put Ukraine squarely on the map, tour operators are expecting a boom this summer. Kiev, or Kyiv, as the Ukrainians say, is a gorgeous panorama of golden-domed churches. |
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The launch of "Huinya," the much-talked-about joint album by the local ska-punk band Leningrad and London cabaret trio The Tiger Lillies, is likely to be postponed again, according to the Moscow-based indie record company that is releasing the record in cooperation with Shnur'OK, Leningrad frontman Sergei Shnurov's own label. |
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It has become something of a cliche, put about by the British Council and others whose job it is to promote the United Kingdom's image abroad, that fish and chips is no longer Britain's national dish. Tireless pluggers of "Cool Britannia," the campaign initiated by Prime Minister Tony Blair to prove his predessor John Major wholly out of date when he said Britain is a "country of long shadows on county [cricket] grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist," would have you believe that fish and chips has gone the way of the Conservative Party (into oblivion) and has been replaced by curry. |
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 Miracles happen. A recent one might well have been a surprise free gig last week by Laetitia Sadier, the French frontwoman of the British band Stereolab that played a one-off local concert last July. |
 The visit of two foreign authors whose work is popular in Russia last month capped a literary year in St. Petersburg that saw deepening links with the European scene. Despite their wildly different writing styles, and lifestyles, the French writer Frederic Beigbeder and the Norwegian Erlend Loe brought to St. |
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Anna Netrebko stars as the passionate and poisoned Marfa in the Mariinsky Theater's new production of "The Tsar's Bride. The Mariinsky Theater's famous blue curtain rises and Grigory Gryaznoi, the mighty commander of Ivan the Terrible's feared bodyguards, the oprichniki, bemoans his unrequited love for young beauty Marfa Sobakina. |
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Boris Shtokolov was a member of the Mariinsky Theater from 1957 to 1989. Renowned Russian bass Boris Shtokolov, a leading soloist at the Mariinsky Theater from 1957 to 1989, died at St. Petersburg's Mechnikov Hospital on January 6. He was 74. The singer was buried at the Literatorskie Mostki, a memorial part of Volkovskoye cemetery, where some of the city's famous arts figures are laid to rest, on Tuesday. |
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Ohio Challenge Ends COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a challenge from voters to the presidential election in light of last week's certification of the electoral vote and the upcoming inauguration. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, a group of 37 voters, had moved Tuesday to drop the lawsuit, saying it is now moot. |
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St. Petersburg hockey team SKA failed to break their losing streak falling to top placed Dinamo Moscow 3-2 in overtime Wednesday night in Moscow. By forcing the game into overtime the struggling Petersburgers picked up their first point since Dec. |
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Love Leaves CSKA RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - CSKA Moscow forward Vagner Love says he is leaving the Russian club and has agreed terms with Corinthians in his native Brazil. "There's no way I'm going back to Russia," he said. "I'm fed up with the cold and I don't want my two-month-old son suffering in the Russian winter. |
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