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 Buildings in the center of St. Petersburg that the Bolsheviks confiscated should be given to descendants of the original owners, a round table was told last week. Representatives of the Russian Empire Union and the organization Our Heritage and Alexander Chuyev, a State Duma lawmaker, who has drafted a bill on restitution, took part. |
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Foreign diplomats working in St. Petersburg last week reached an agreement with city police to create a direct line of communication with local law enforcement management over improper police behavior and hate crimes that the police take no action on, representatives of foreign missions said. |
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MOSCOW - Three sparsely populated regions in Western Siberia have overwhelmingly agreed in a weekend referendum to merge to create Russia's second-largest region, according to preliminary poll results released Monday. The proposed unification of Krasnoyarsk, Taimyr and the Evenkia Autonomous District is in line with a Kremlin drive to consolidate its grip on the country and reduce the number of regions from the current 89, political analysts said. |
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State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova was assassinated for political motives, the state prosecutor says. Deputy city prosecutor Alexander Korsunov made this conclusion about the 1998 slaying of the liberal St. Petersburg deputy in a speech posted on his web site on Friday, Interfax reported. |
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Sex is the main factor for human development, says German erotic-art collector Hans-Jurgen Dopp, who is in St. Petersburg to give a lecture on erotic art on Wednesday. |
 MOSCOW - New youth movement Nashi, or Us, pledged to defend the policies of President Vladimir Putin against liberals, corrupt bureaucrats and fascists as it held its founding conference Friday. Nashi appears to be a Kremlin effort to help safeguard itself against a popular uprising. |
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MOSCOW - The State Duma on Friday gave its approval in the crucial second reading to legislation that would transform the lower house by ending the election of independent deputies and making it even more difficult for smaller parties to claim seats. |
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No Word on 'Spy' MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian diplomat was forced to leave Germany in December after German counter-intelligence and the CIA caught him buying military secrets, a German news magazine reported. No comment was available from the German government or the Russian embassy Monday on the Der Spiegel report. |
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MOSCOW - Public anger over the handling of last year's Beslan hostage-taking crisis might have been directed at the wrong officials, according to an investigative report published by Novaya Gazeta on Thursday. |
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MOSCOW - Members of the Oryol city legislature have appealed to the country's leaders to rehabilitate Josef Stalin, put up monuments to the Soviet dictator and name city streets after him. In their appeal to President Vladimir Putin, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, the signatories argued that it had never been proved that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of people during his rule. |
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Alexei says he was an irredeemable alcoholic until he met Marina. He gave up drinking after the Novosibirsk psychiatrist beat him on the buttocks with a flexible rod. |
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West Held to Blame MOSCOW (AP) - Mikhail Mar-gelov, a senior Russian lawmaker, accused the West on Thursday of being the driving force behind popular uprisings that have changed regimes in several former Soviet nations and warned that Russia's other allies in the region could face similar developments in the near future. |
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President Vladimir Putin has asked lawmakers to pass a bill that would institutionalize and broaden the de facto practice of recruiting Cossacks for service in Army and police units. |
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KOSTROMA - The legend of Ivan Susanin, the peasant who gave his life to save the first Romanov tsar, may stand or fall on the analysis of a skull found near the ancient Volga River city of Kostroma, where archeologists are claiming to have unearthed the hero's remains in a 17th-century graveyard. They hope to prove the skull is Susanin's and that he really did die a martyr's death to protect Mikhail Romanov from Polish invaders. |
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 As a marker of the strengthening economic ties with Russia, Austrian officials and businessmen launched last week a St. Petersburg chapter of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. Opening the chamber's 100th office together with the Austrian finance minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, the Russian president of the chamber Dr Christoph Leitl said the choice of location came naturally. |
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MOSCOW - Russia grew slightly wealthier, beating Romania but just falling short of Brazil, according to the World Bank's new World Economic Indicators annual report. |
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Two major city projects, the construction of a toll tunnel under the River Neva and a new soccer stadium have won final approval, Governor Valentina Matviyenko said. "By mid-2006 construction work [on the tunnel] will begin. The city government has taken the decision to start the project and we will not step back," Matviyenko said Sunday before a soccer match in the city. |
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Shift to Ruble Bonds MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia plans to nearly double ruble bond issuance in the next three years and freeze Eurobond offerings, a Finance Ministry official said Monday. |
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MOSCOW - Sibneft reportedly has settled a $1 billion back-tax claim by paying just $300 million, news that industry watchers welcomed on Monday as promising for other oil companies and for all investors jumpy about the tax authorities. No. 5 oil firm Sibneft, which is controlled by Chelsea soccer club owner and Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich, has managed to negotiate a two-thirds cut to its tax debt for 2000 and 2001, and it paid the $300 million some time ago, Vedomosti reported Monday, citing a source close to the company. |
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Although the total capitalization level of a Russian bank is often smaller than the capital of a sizeable international company, sponsorship and charity play an important role in their business activities, Northwest bank representatives said Monday. |
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Dixons to Buy Eldorado LONDON (Reuters) - Dixons Group has signed an option to buy Russian and Ukrainian retailer Eldorado Group by 2011 for a fixed $1.9 billion, the high street retailer said Friday. Chief Executive John Clare said in a statement the deal with Eldorado, which sells consumer electronics and domestic appliances and has an estimated 22 percent market share in Russia, was consistent with Dixons's growth strategy. "Russia is a market with enormous potential. Eldorado Group has a clear leadership position in the market ... and profitable growth," Clare said. Eldorado trades from 610 stores throughout Russia and Ukraine, 320 of which are operated by franchisees. |
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 Maria Chernobrovkina could be said to have played a Turkish gambit to reach her current position. Sacrificing an oriental languages degree as "youthful indulgence in exotica," the new head of the St. |
 MOSCOW - The State Hermitage Museum has unveiled design proposals for a multi-million dollar development of a new east wing that will continue the museum's expansion into premium real estate of St. Petersburg. Dmitry Amundts, a deputy culture minister, said the entire redevelopment project will cost $155 million, Izvestia reported. |
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A mammoth $40 million entertainment and shopping complex, called the Grand Canyon, will open at the city periphery by the end of the year. Promising a host of big name anchor tenants, including Moscow-based Cinema Park's first project on the St. |
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MOSCOW - With the opening of its first St. Petersburg store scheduled for late 2005, Kingfisher, Europe's largest home improvement retailer, is entering the Russian market it hopes to dominate in a few years' time. "Kingfisher wants to be a market leader for DIY goods in this country," said Peter Partma, the company's country manager for Russia. |
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The latest opinion polls show that a new fear is emerging among the Russian population that, more than 15 years after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain, a new wall is appearing between Russia and Europe. |
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The blocking of German electronics giant Siemens' intended purchase of Siloviye Mashiny, or Power Machines, highlights the prevalence of two trends in Russia: The country's leadership wants to keep tight control over key industries, and it is neither united nor fully behind President Vladimir Putin. Neither of these trends is entirely new, but the mixed signals arising from the Siemens-Power Machines saga are likely to raise the concerns of major foreign investors - namely, that a lack of clarity about the government's intentions is undermining its ability to achieve its stated goals. |
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Sixty years ago, on May 9, 1945, Russia rejoiced at the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. I was seven years old at the time. I remember how people came together on that day as they never would again. After the war, the world seemed to do everything possible to ensure that the horrors Nazi Germany had unleashed would not be repeated. |
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Governor Valentina Matviyenko formulated her credo in her annual address last month as "only an innovative style of management of the city will allow us to take several steps ahead at once on the path to modernization," and that therefore "our tactic is to make a breakthrough and not to idle along on a principle of step by step. |
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Issues Archive