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Finnish and Karelian scientists are worried by the Karelian regional government's plans to resume construction of the Beloporozhskaya hydro-electric station, which would flood architectural monuments. Construction of the power plant was frozen in the 1980s because of a lack of funding. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Monday urged tax authorities to stop interfering with businesses and demanded legislation that would set in stone which areas are open for foreign investment. |
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MOSCOW- President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia must develop as a free democratic nation, but in a subtle warning against popular uprisings, he vowed to crack down on any "illegal" unrest. Putin, speaking in his annual state of the nation address, also issued a rebuke to Western leaders who have accused the Kremlin of stalling or backtracking on democratic reforms, saying the country itself will decide how quickly to usher in democracy and what form that democracy will take. |
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MOSCOW - Liberals offered a withering assessment of President Vladimir Putin's expressions of commitment to democracy Monday, calling them "empty words," and said his scrapping of direct gubernatorial elections was to blame for the "bureaucracy's excessive powers. |
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Tick-Bite Season Starts ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Eighty tick-bite victims have been registered in St. Petersburg this month, Interfax reported Friday quoting medics from a local infection hospital. Alexei Yakovlev, head of Botkin hospital, said these were the first tick bite cases this year, but no cases of infection have been registered yet, because the incubation period is three weeks. |
All photos from issue.
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 The British Consulate-General in St. Petersburg has produced a pamphlet warning tourists about pickpockets and street gangs who prey on visitors and advising how to avoid them. The consulate has printed a first run of 2,500 copies of the pamphlet, which can be obtained free from the consulate or from selected hotels. |
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The procedure for obtaining a U.S. visa northwest Russia changed Monday with a new agent, different fees, and a requirement that passports, not photocopies, be submitted with the application. |
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U.S. President George W. Bush's entourage have booked out the ferry Finnjet for his visa to Riga early next month, delaying the start of the ferry's service to St. Petersburg, Kommersant reported Thursday The ferry will resume its service to between St. |
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MOSCOW - Prosecutors are investigating the possible role of a Rodina aide in an attack last month on Unified Energy Systems chief Anatoly Chubais, news reports said Sunday. |
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On April 14, 2005 St. Petersburg International Business Association for North-Western Russia (SPIBA) held its Annual Meeting and Awards
Ceremony 2004 in Ballroom "Krysha" Grand Hotel Europe. The Meeting gathered leaders of most SPIBA member companies, members of the Advisory Board for SPIBA, SPIBA friends and partners. |
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From the bow and arrow to nuclear technology, the world's greatest inventions have often been double-edged swords. Mobile phones are no exception. Whether a resident or a visitor, it is impossible not to notice the multitude of mobile phones in St. |
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Rollback of Drug Law MOSCOW (SPT) - The Cabinet on Thursday agreed to roll back legislation passed last year that significantly softened penalties for minor drug offenses, Interfax reported. The change approved Thursday would remove the concept of an "average single dose" from the Criminal Code, because it is too difficult to define the amount of such a dose for different drugs, Justice Minister Yury Chaika said. |
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HELSINKI - Finnish and Russian experts clashed at a seminar on World War II, especially over the view that both the Soviet Union and Germany share blame for the start of the war, the Helsingin Sanomat reported Friday. |
 MOSCOW - A group of influential United Russia politicians last Tuesday called for the party to adopt a more liberal platform in what appeared to be a move sanctioned by the Kremlin to form a liberal faction that could sideline existing liberal parties. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin could well stay in power beyond 2008 or have a loyal figurehead succeed him if the opposition does not unite to challenge him, liberal leaders said at a conference on democracy Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW - Two days after a group of United Russia politicians unveiled plans last Tuesday to form a liberal wing within the party, a group of the party's State Duma deputies said they were setting up a left wing in what appeared to be a Kremlin-inspired effort to dominate the whole political landscape. |
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Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Port holding is expected this week to sign an investment agreement to build a $300 million commercial port in the town of Lomonosov. The port, planned to ease the congestion of shipping containers at northwest cargo terminals, will handle 1 million teu (twenty foot container units) a year, reports news agency Nevastroika. |
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Siemens will soon offer third-generation, or 3G, mobile telephone services to a limited business client base, the head of the company's telco arm in Russia said last week. |
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Toyota is set to announce Tuesday the construction of an assembly plant in St. Petersburg, making it the first Japanese automaker to build a factory in Russia. Tokuichi Uranishi, senior managing director with Toyota, is scheduled to make the announcement together with Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref and City Governor Valentina Matviyenko, the ministry and automaker said. |
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Fur Sale Raises $20M ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Sales at last week's Soyuzpushnina international pelt auction in St. Petersburg raised $20 million, 60 percent more than in the April auction last year, Soyuzpushnina said in a statement Friday. |
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Oil Firms Questioned MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service asked the country's major oil companies Monday for information on fuel price increases, demanding to know the reason for the rises. The government agency said it had requested information from LUKoil, Sibneft, Surgutneftegaz, TNK-BP, Yukos, Rosneft, Tatneft, Alyans, Bashneft and Slavneft. |
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Over 200 people representing interests of citizens of Vasilyevsky Island have publicly resisted the $500 million Sea Facade project aimed at developing the city's coastline. |
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In contrast to its name, the city's No. 1 riverboat tour operator, Russian Cruises, has spiced up its ships with something of the exotic for the new season. The operator has decked out five vessels and their crews in Oriental, Italian, Russian, African and high-tech styles to make river trips more exciting, the company said at a news conference last week. |
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Divizion became the first mobile retail chain in Russia to enter into mobile telephony as a virtual operator, hoping to emulate the success of Virgin Mobile in the U. |
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Julie Andrews once sang that the hills are alive with the sound of music. But with the advent of the mobile phone it is not only the hills, but also the streets, highways and byways that are filled with the ringtones and chattering of the connected masses. |
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It's official: High oil prices are here to stay. Any doubts on this point were laid to rest when the government decided on April 7 to raise the cutoff oil price above which surplus revenues are channeled into the stabilization fund from $20 to $27 per barrel. |
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Russians learn at an early age that the radio, television, the steam engine and the light bulb were invented in Russia. Whether or not these facts are historically true, one thing is acknowledged: these inventions were first patented in other countries. The debate is interesting, not only from an historical perspective, but because it illustrates a couple of interesting points regarding the lack of confidence in the laws protecting intellectual property (IP). |
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Vladimir Nabokov, American writer, born April 23, 1899, in St. Petersburg, Russia It was a matter of fierce pride for any Bolshevik: "Russians read more than any other people on earth." Which in turn was a matter of bewilderment for any number of Western economists and management consultants who could not help noting that hypothetical and literary concepts have a far greater hold on people than practical ones. |
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Not long before entrepreneurs last week protested outside City Hall against the reform of city transport and the elimination of kiosks at transport stops, there was a small fire at Moscow's television tower at Ostankino. |
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With fresh indictments this month, the UN oil-for-food scandal took an unexpected turn into the Labyrinth - the tangled skein of war profiteering and state terrorism that has seen the Bush Family's lust for blood money emerge in three of the darkest criminal episodes in modern American history: Iran-Contra, Iraqgate and the BCCI affair. |
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Wayne Rooney and Wes Brown lifted Manchester United to a 2-1 victory against Newcastle in the English Premier League on Sunday. The win kept United in touch with Arsenal in the race for second. United is one point behind second-place Arsenal, which hosts Tottenham on Monday. |
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MOSCOW - Viktor Kozlov netted a goal and set up two more Sunday as Russia beat Sweden 5-2 to win its first Euro Hockey Tour title. Russia took the title 7-3 on aggregate, having won the first game of a two-game final 2-1 in Stockholm on Friday. |
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Issues Archive