LOCAL NEWS

RUDE SHOCK FOR INGUSH COUPLE AT BORDER

Grozny-born Timur Dakhkilgov and his wife Lida got a rude shock last week when they were denied entry to Finland.

The couple is ethnically Ingush. Timur Dakhkilgov was detained for three months and beaten on unfounded suspicions that he was involved in the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings.

FINNS WORRIED BY APPLICANTS WHO SAY THEY LOST PASSPORTS

A spate of Russian citizens applying for Finnish visas with brand-new passports, claiming that their old passports were lost, is worrying the Finnish Consulate in St.

Spate of Pneumonia Investigated

Leningrad Military District prosecutors on Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into why at least 22 soldiers in a Leningrad Oblast military unit have caught pneumonia in the last two months.

The soldiers were mostly first-year conscripts who served in a construction unit near the town of Sosnovy Bor, 100 kilometers southwest of St.

NATIONAL NEWS

FEDERAL THREAT TO AX RECALCITRANT ASSEMBLY

Federal authorities have threatened to disband the city's Legislative Assembly after it failed to pass amendments to the City Charter on Wednesday.

The federal government says the amendments would bring the liberal charter, which is a form of constitution for the city, into line with the new law that enables President Vladimir Putin to appoint the heads of regional administrations, which came into force at the end of last year.

STUDENTS TO SIMULATE THE UNITED NATIONS

About 100 university students from different countries will spend the next week in the city attending a model United Nations run by the St. Petersburg-based International Youth Diplomacy League in the international relations faculty of St.

LOCAL BUSINESS

NURGALIYEV: CROOKS RUN 500 KEY ENTERPRISES

MOSCOW - At least 500 large enterprises in key economic sectors are under the control of organized crime, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told the Federation Council on Wednesday.

"Organized crime has infiltrated most key sectors of the country's economy," Nurgaliyev said, Interfax reported.

LUKOIL'S EXPANSION SPREADS TO FINLAND

LUKoil took its gas station chain expansion from St. Petersburg to Finland this week, acquiring controlling stakes in two Finnish gas and oil companies for $160 million, the company said Wednesday.

ROAD TUNNEL TO GO UNDER NEVA

The answer to the city's increasing traffic congestion problems could be an ambitious tunnel project running under the Neva River, city officials said Wednesday.

City governor Valentina Matviyenko has approved the start of work on constructing a road tunnel that will connect the northern and downtown parts of St.

IN BRIEF

Yukos a Bit Involved

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's crippled oil firm Yukos said in a statement late on Wednesday its employees were only "marginally" implicated in a money laundering probe launched by the Spanish authorities.

OPINION

AKAYEV FACED DIVIDED OPPOSITION

Better not be too soft on your opposition. Or so must think the leaders of the countries bordering Kyrgyzstan, which is in the grips of revolution - or, depending on your view, of thugs.

Some have called this revolution sparked by disputed elections the "Tulip Revolution," after Georgia's Rose Revolution and Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

SOVIET ICICLES AND RED TAPE

This winter the St. Petersburg city government introduced a new invention to protect residents from falling icicles, which kill or seriously injure several people in the city each year.

CULTURE

BIG SCANDAL AT THE BOLSHOI

New operas by Russian and Soviet composers once played a prominent part in the repertoire of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. But nearly 26 years have passed since the theater last produced an operatic world premiere. On Wednesday, the long drought finally ended with the staging of "Rosenthal's Children," a work fresh from the pens of St.

CHERNOV'S CHOICE

A concert by Julee Cruise was packed Platforma last Saturday, but the singer's invitation-only, V.I.P. event at the upscale restaurant Moskva scheduled for the preceding night failed to happen, as Cruise arrived in St.

THE PROMISED LAND

The restaurant LeChaim is making a cautious entry onto the city's dining scene. On the night we visited, the place appeared to be open, in that a greeter met us with a smile and a waiter seated us promptly and professionally. However, we were then told the restaurant isn't yet "officially" open.

DOING THE WRONG THING

In his angry new comedy, She Hate Me, Spike Lee carries his political exasperation beyond outrage into chaos. The carelessness with which he hurls his feelings about hot-button topics onto the screen is the filmmaking equivalent of last-ditch marketing: grab everything in sight, roll it up into a big messy mud ball, and hurl it against the wall, hoping that something sticks.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Catching the pulsating and exciting atmosphere of St. Petersburg's nightlife is the idea behind a new art installation, wittily called Hostages of the Black Square.

The work, by the Finnish artist and photographer Sami Hyrskylahti, opened last Friday at the Museum of Forensic Medicine at the State Medical Mechnikov Academy.

Hyrskylahti is himself something of a night owl and says the energy of St.

TAKING FLIGHT

The depth and intensity of its performances contrast with the regulated minimalism of the staging in Mariusz Trelinski's interpretation of Giacomo Puccini's 1904 "Madame Butterfly," which premiered at the Mariinsky Theater on Tuesday.

Crossroads of nations

Our train jolted slightly and began to slow and I knew that we had nearly arrived. The babushka who was seated next to us crammed her granddaughter's picture books and toys into her heavy bag and hurriedly began to wrap her thick woolen scarf around her neck. "Nadezhda, won't you come here," she called the little whirlwind who ran along the corridor.

WORLD

SPORTS WATCH

Shevchenko Ruled Out

KIEV, (Reuters) - Ukraine captain Andriy Shevchenko, still recovering after fracturing a cheekbone last month, has been ruled out of next week's World Cup qualifier at home against Denmark.

"Andriy will not be able to help us out against the Danes," spokesman for the Ukrainian Football Federation (UFF) Valery Nikonenko said on Thursday.