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 Thousands of people blocked the traffic on St. Petersburg's main thoroughfares on Saturday and Sunday to protest against a federal law that replaces entitlements to free or discounted services with cash. Although the government said last year that no one would lose out, the protesters, most of them pensioners, say the cash provided falls far short of covering what they lost. |
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St. Petersburg lived up to its name as the "cradle of revolutions" at the weekend as huge protests blocked city streets with unauthorized meetings while President Vladimir Putin was visiting his hometown. |
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St. Petersburg students, including former members of the pro-Kremlin student organization, Idushchiye Vmeste, or Walking Together, have established a new movement called Idushchiye Bez Putina, or Walking Without Putin. The group says it has about a hundred supporters who got together to oppose the government's plans to make students serve in the army, fare hikes for public transportation, the loss of discounts for World War II veterans, the war in Chechnya and the cancellation of gubernatorial elections. |
All photos from issue.
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President Vladimir Putin on Friday showed some readiness to negotiate Germany's pursuit of the return of cultural objects removed by the Soviets at the end of World War II. Speaking after a meeting with German president Horst Koehler in St. Petersburg to mark the end of a two-year German-Russian cultural exchange, Putin described the so-called tropy art as a sensitive issue. |
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Workers who took part in the cleanup of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and who resumed a hunger strike last week have started experiencing serious health problems. |
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The new managers of St. Petersburg's Music Hall are negotiating for the musical Nord-Ost to be peformed on its stage after the musical was rejected in scandalous circumstances last year. If negotiations are successful the musical's directors will drop a 10-million ruble ($358,000) law suit against the hall for breaching an agreement to stage Nord-Ost in the hall in September and October, Interfax quoted the theater director Alexander Platunov as saying Thursday. |
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African Student Beaten ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A student from Cameroon was severely beaten at the weekend and was taken to the Mariinskaya hospital for treatment, Interfax reported Monday. |
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 Businesses operating in Russia that are used to setting prices for their goods and services in hard currency - "y.e." according to the Russian acronym for conditional units - will from this week no longer be able to do so after a new law on protecting consumer rights came into force. |
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The St. Petersburg budget for 2004 showed a 1 billion ruble ($35 million) surplus, according to end-of-year results presented by City Hall officials on Friday. |
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Kempinski Buys Hotel ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The city sold its Pulkovskaya hotel shares to the hotel managing company Kempinski Group for 511.3 billion rubles ($18 million) on Sunday, Interfax reported. Kempinski used its minority shareholder's privilege right of purchase to buy the shares before the package would be auctioned off by the city's property committee. |
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MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov is backing a plan to cut value added tax to 13 percent from 18 percent as the government seeks to lift fading economic growth, Vedomosti reported Friday. |
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MOSCOW - The EBRD is preparing to file a lawsuit in a Swiss court that accuses Roman Abramovich's Runicom SA of forging documents and splurging on luxury yachts and beauty treatments for Abramovich's wife while refusing to pay back a debt to the bank, according to an investigative documentary that will air on the BBC later this week. The years-long legal battle between Swiss-based Runicom SA, which once handled oil trade for Sibneft, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is back in the spotlight after BBC Two television announced that it would examine the affair on "Sweeney Investigates" on Thursday. The lawsuit and allegations of forgery are among new issues that will be raised in the broadcast, the BBC said. |
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 The transferal of the offices of several state businesses to a St. Petersburg address, development of industrial zones and the decentralization of business districts - the market trends which developed in 2004 - have realtors predicting that real-estate will continue to be the most dynamically growing sector of the local economy. |
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City Preys On School ST. PETERSBURG (Vedomosti) - Lack of sites for construction in the city led to authorities last week suggesting the site of a local school for the new offices of Transneft. The state oil company has been looking to set up a branch in the city to regulate its Baltic pipe systems, but has been stumped to find suitable office space, said Sergei Grigoriyev, vice president of Transneft. |
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St. Petersburg
 Temp: -2°C overcast Humidity: 93% Wind: S at 4 mph 08/04
-5 | 1 | 09/04
-4 | 0 | 10/04
-2 | 0 | 11/04
-1 | 0 |
Currency rate
| USD | | 31.6207 | | -0.0996 | | EUR | | 40.8413 | | 0.1378 |
Central Bank rates on 06.04.2013
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