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In one of the largest-ever Russian property deals, British luxury hospitality chain Orient-Express Hotels has snapped up a 93.5 percent stake in St. Petersburg's historic Grand Hotel Europe for about $100 million. "We feel the competitive situation is good" because it is one of only two top hotels in the city, Simon Sherwood, president of Orient-Express Hotels, said in a statement, referring to Rocco Forte-managed luxury hotel Astoria. |
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The murder of a Vietnamese student in downtown St. Petersburg down in October has been solved and those responsible, members of a skinhead group, have been arrested, the city prosecutor's office aid Wednesday. |
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Kidnapping is the biggest human-rights problem in Chechnya, the republic's acting ombudsman Lyoma Khasuyev said Thursday in the St. Petersburg suburb of Pushkin. "Kidnappings are committed by both sides: the fighters and the federal special services, including Chechen policemen," Khasuyev said at a news conference about a training program for the staff of the Chechen Ombudsman in Pushkin this week. |
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A controversial statue of World War II Allied leaders Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt will be unveiled in front of the Livada Palace in the Crimea, the Ukraine, on May 9, sculptor Zurab Tsereteli said in St. |
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An Israeli businessman was kidnapped in downtown St. Petersburg in broad daylight Wednesday, the city police reported. "He was pushed into a car parked on Nevsky Prospekt at about 10 a.m. and driven away, according to statements by witnesses," city police spokesman Pavel Rayevsky said Thursday in a telephone interview. |
All photos from issue.
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St. Petersburg's Citizens' Resistance movement on Wednesday resumed its picket at Channel 5's live-to-air studio on Malaya Sadovaya Ulitsa and of the head office at the channel on Ulitsa Chepygina in protest at allegedly biased reporting by the city-owned television station, Yabloko said Thursday. A discussion with representatives of City Hall's media committee on Tuesday failed to make any breakthroughs on the movement's demands. Although the movement suspended the protest Thursday after being promised a meeting with the channel's management, the activists said they had no intention of backing down. "We continue to demand live broadcast time for the opposition and objective coverage of activities of the parties and movements that are in opposition to City Hall and the measures they undertake," Yabloko spokesman Alexander Shurshev said Thursday in a telephone interview. |
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 The new head of City Hall's culture committee, actor Nikolai Burov, is giving up his role as a cowardly and corrupt post office manager in Gogol's "The Government Inspector. |
 A Korean corporation plans to invest about $100 million into the building of an oil shale processing plant in the Leningrad Oblast. Under an intentions agreement signed Tuesday, the corporation also has the further possibility of buying a controlling share package in the local shale quarry. |
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Russia will lift the ban on imports of flowers and certain plants from the Netherlands from Tuesday. The country's experts are expect to fly to the Netherlands late this week to examine plant storage conditions, the Agriculture Ministry confirmed Wednesday, RIA Novosti said. |
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Peterstar, the St. Petersburg-based telecommunications company, announced its purchase of Kaliningrad regional operator Telecom Zapadnoye Parahodstvo (TZP). This counted as the company's seventh expansion move since the start of 2004. Peterstar would not disclose the price of the acquisition due to an agreement with TZP, but did state that it will finance the deal directly, the company's press office said Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW - Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin on Wednesday set out to investors the government's plans to shake up the Federal Tax Service, which is being reformed after high-profile tax cases have hammered confidence in economic policy. The tax authorities played a key role in the battle for Yukos and have sent more potentially-damaging signals to investors with claims against VimpelCom and Japan Tobacco Inc. |
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If the era of Mikhail Gorbachev will be remembered for anti-alcohol campaigns and perestroika, and Boris Yeltsin's administration for elections and privatization, then perhaps President Vladimir Putin's regime will be remembered mostly for its war on terror. |
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I wonder if St. Petersburg City Hall is brave enough to let the foreign company that plans to get into the cleaning business this year serve as an example to local providers of communal services. |
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 Comic book art, virtually an unknown genre in Russia, has for the last three weeks been in the spotlight at the mediathéque information center of the French Institute with the exhibition SPb.Nouvelles Graphiques, a display that showcases the work of four comic book artists based in St. |
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R.E.M's management has disagreed with local promoters who claimed that the band's stadium concert could still have taken place despite serious delays, if the band had made concessions. |
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Okay, I have to admit it: I am absolutely addicted to Italian cuisine - pizza, lasagna, and pasta of all kinds. When it comes to la cuisina italiana I seem to have an insatiable appetite. So when I discovered a little Italian restaurant opposite Vladimirsky Sobor my heart jumped for joy. |
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The famously eccentric and reclusive empire builder Howard Hughes was born alone and died alone, the two times in his life when he was no different from anyone else. |
 A big mirror is the last thing a person who just climbed out of pile of garbage wants to see, but it is definitely necessary to look at your reflection to check how much you need to clean yourself before you face the world. This is exactly what could be said of the Russian society brightly reflected in the new movie Russkoye (It's Russian) which was released in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. Russian habits do not bring happiness, the movie's slogan screams from the screen. |
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 The most moving moment at Saturday's concert by Larisa Dolina and the Igor Butman Big Band at the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall came midway through the second half when, after a quite lovely rendition of "Georgia on My Mind," Dolina dedicated the song to the memory of the late, great Ray Charles. |
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A scene from the Mariinsky Theater's production of Tchaikovsky's opera The Enchantress. Pyotr Tchaikovsky, arguably Russia's most popular composer, is being celebrated with a festival of his work at the Mariinsky Theater. The event, which kicks off Saturday with David Poutney's production of "The Enchantress," runs through Feb. 20 and features over two dozen performances of Tchaikovsky's operas, ballets and chamber music. The Mariinsky's artistic director, Valery Gergiev makes just one appearance during the festival, to conduct "The Enchantress" on the opening night. Tchaikovsky is deeply connected to the Mariinsky: six out of his nine operas and two of his three ballets had their premieres at the theater. |
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 Renato Bertelli's "Head of Mussolini," an iconographic 1933 sculpture that likens the Italian dictator to a two-faced Janus, is one of the highlights of the new exhibition of Italian modern art at the State Hermitage Museum. |
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HP Ousts Fiorina SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co. on Wednesday ousted Chairman and Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, the architect of a controversial $19 billion merger with Compaq Computer that never produced the results she promised. Chief Financial Officer Robert Wayman, who was named as interim chief executive, said HP did not plan to split the company up, but that the board would not be "closed-minded" on strategy changes once it locates a new CEO. |
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