LOCAL NEWS

FINNISH GUARD'S STRIKE MAY CLOSE BORDER

Finnish frontier guards are threatening to go on strike and possibly stop road and rail traffic passing across the Russian-Finnish border for 11 days from May 31.

"Almost all our frontier guards at Russian-Finnish checkpoints will stop work to demand higher salaries and the protest a new wage system," Reijo Kortelainen, chairman of the labor union that represents most Finnish frontier guards, said Thursday in a telephone interview from Finland.

EU DISTANT DESPITE WILL IN PROVINCES

IMATRA, Finnish Karelia - While the development of relations between the Russian border town Svetogorsk in the Leningrad Oblast and its Finnish neighbor Imatra has been frozen for more than a decade, officials and citizens in both towns want closer contact, they said at a conference in Imatra on Tuesday.

Nations on Baltic Extend Nuclear Power Plans

Nations around the Baltic look set to continue operating nuclear power plants for many years despite Western fears about their safety.

The Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, or LAES, located in the settlement of Sosnovy Bor west of St. Petersburg operates reactors similar to the one involved in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

NATIONAL NEWS

PLEA TO REMOVE AMMO

Kronshtadt officials have called for the former fortress' ammunition dumps to be emptied after a woman died and four people were hospitalized with burns when fire broke out in an ammunition storage area Tuesday.

It took several hours to extinguish the fire, during which access was closed to the causeway to Kotlin Island where the city is located about 30 kilometers west of St.

IN BRIEF

Manevich Probe

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - An investigation into the assassination of former St. Petersburg's vice-governor Mikhail Manevich has been extended until Nov.

LOCAL BUSINESS

GAZPROM CEO MILLER SAYS RING FENCE TO END THIS YEAR

MOSCOW - Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Wednesday that there were no obstacles to liberalizing the gas giant's share market and that the process would be completed by the end of the year.

A perequisite for the long-awaited liberalization is for the state to take a controlling stake in Gazprom.

COURT TO MULL LACK OF WEB INFORMATION

A private citizen's complaint that not all government agencies having a web site is in violation of his constitutional right to information was upheld by the St.

BE INFORMED, HOTEL INVESTORS TOLD

A grasp of Russia's intricate legal and tax system, along with a presence of reliable local partners are among the key determinants of success for foreign investors in the city's hotel industry, according to a seminar held by the American Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

ONE LOT SALE FOR THE SEAPORT

A federal property committee decree stipulating the city and federal government sell their stakes in the St. Petersburg Sea Port in one lot was signed Thursday, Interfax reported.

City Growth Above Average

St. Petersburg's economic performance in the first quarter of this year shows that the city is developing faster than the rest of the country, said Vladimir Blank, head of City Hall's committee for economic development, industrial policy and trade.

Speaking at a conference Tuesday, Blank said that direct investment in the city increased by 6 percent, salaries rose by 6 percent and retail sales grew 17 percent compared to the first quarter of 2004.

OPINION

A ROAD MAP TO NOWHERE

The expected and the only outcome of the recent Russia-European Union summit was the endorsement of the road maps for Russia-EU cooperation in the spheres of external security, economy, justice and home affairs, and education and research, also known as the Four Common Spaces.

MEET THE BELARUSSIAN OPPOSITION

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko says there won't be any "banana revolutions'' in his country. But a hodgepodge of activists is hoping to prove him wrong.

CULTURE

ANOTHER DAY WITH ENO

Brian Eno, who spent six months in St. Petersburg in 1997, returns to the city for the live premiere of his latest collaboration with Algerian-born, Paris-based singer Rachid Taha. The British musician, producer and lecturer who contributed to Taha's 2004 album "Tekitoi?," has recently released an album with King Crimson's Robert Fripp.

CHERNOV'S CHOICE

Brian Eno returns to the city for the first time in seven and a half years to perform "Arabic rock" as a keyboard player and backing vocalist for Algerian-born, Paris-based singer Rachid Taha.

NAMELESS PLEASURES

NoName's interior is about as featureless as its name suggests. With just one medium-sized room, NoName is one of a new breed of trendy restaurants in the city, the design concept of which can be summed up by the maxim "less is more": chocolate brown, unadorned walls, white sofas, fancy unisex toilets, halogen lamps... you get the picture. Like the restaurants Imbir, Fasol, or Moskva, NoName attracts a well-dressed crowd of DJs, PR managers, art directors, businessmen and, of course, journalists.

I felt a little underdressed when we were greeted at the front door by a beautiful hostess in crushed velvet. I thought she might turn us away after glancing at our shabby clothes and muddy boots, but instead seated us right in the window, so that pedestrians might gaze up in awe at us - holey jeans, Turkish footwear and all.

NOUVEAU RICHES

Languid, sensual and curvy nymphs with flowers in their long streaming hair, exuberant lilies and magnolias, and other favorite Art Nouveau motifs can now be explored at the State Hermitage Museum's General Staff Building.

Try, try again

The courtly kitsch of Faberge jewelry fuses with the cartoonish monstrousness of animated ogre Shrek in the "The Magic Nut," a new ballet that premiered at the Mariinsky Theater on May 14.

Featuring sumptuous yet garish sets and costumes by Mikhail Shemyakin, the new ballet fails to break new ground in choreographic terms.

WORLD

IN BRIEF

Kylie Treated for Cancer

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Pop diva Kylie Minogue is undergoing medical tests in the Australian city of Melbourne in preparation for breast cancer surgery later this week, her management said in a statement Thursday.

Initial tests showed the cancer was confined to the breast.