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On a sunny May day Andrei, 25, proposed on one knee to Svetlana, 24. He gave her a bouquet of flowers and he made his proposal in a romantic restaurant. It was an unforgettable moment of happiness for both young people, who declined to reveal their last names. |
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MOSCOW - The Meshchansky District Court on Tuesday convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced them both to nine years in a prison camp, ending the biggest trial in the country's post-Soviet history. |
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Leaders of the St. Petersburg Citizens' Resistance, an umbrella group for two dozen city NGOs and opposition movements, said Thursday the city government and law enforcement agencies are arbitrary in their treatment of them and media who cover their events. |
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MOSCOW - The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by the Communist Party against a Central Election Commission ruling that 17 out of 19 questions submitted by the party for a referendum were unconstitutional. |
All photos from issue.
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The City Prosecutor's Office has again refused to open a criminal case for inciting ethnic or religious intolerance over anti-Semitic articles printed in two city newspapers, Za Russkoye Delo and Rus Pravoslavnaya. In a written explanation of the refusal, deputy city prosecutor Alexander Korsunov declared that the derogatory term "zhid," or Yid, does not denote adherents of a specific religion. |
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Almost no passport controls have been made of travelers entering Russia from Finland where frontier guards began an 11-day strike on Tuesday. Senior officers have replaced the strikers at eight of the crossing points on the Finnish-Russian border. |
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Ammunition on Plane MOSCOW (SPT) - Police have detained an assistant of a Liberal Democratic Party State Duma deputy, who tried to carry ammunition on board a plane at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport on Sunday Yury Kuznetsov, assistant to LDPR deputy Sergei Abeltsev, tried to carry on cartridges for a TT pistol and a shell for a grenade launcher, Interfax reported Thursday. |
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LONDON - Russia's biggest steelmaker Evraz Group made a quiet London debut on Thursday after raising $422 million in an initial public offering (IPO) that valued the steel and mining group at $5.1 billion. Evraz ranks among the world's top 15 steelmakers and joins a wave of Russian firms listing in London, after telecoms group Sistema raised $1. |
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The government said foreign companies seeking to extract minerals in the country should find local partners, acting to ensure that domestic producers control development of the country's biggest oil, gas and metals fields. |
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MOSCOW - Global coffee behemoth Starbucks is planning expansion into Russia after quietly opening its first outlet in Moscow last week. The company has been eyeing the capital's expanding coffee culture for years but is entangled in a legal dispute with a local firm claiming ownership of the Starbucks trademark in Russia. |
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IT to Weigh In at 10% MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia's information technology industry will account for 10 percent of gross domestic product by 2008, double its current share, the Economy Ministry said in its mid-term forecast Thursday, Interfax reported. |
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MOSCOW - Svenska Handelsbanken, one of Scandinavia's leading banks, has announced Tuesday the start of operations in Russia, the latest in a string of foreign lenders to enter the market. Handelsbanken's Moscow subsidiary, the first in Russia by a Scandinavian bank, will have charter capital of 45 million euros ($55. |
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ST. PETERSBURG/MOSCOW - The Cabinet approved an 11 percent hike in spending this year to pay for social services even as officials are under orders to curtail the runaway inflation. |
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InBev subsidiary Sun Interbrew is on the verge of buying St. Petersburg-based Tinkoff brewery, Kommersant business daily reported Thursday. Sun Interbrew has already signed a preliminary agreement to buy Tinkoff and is now finalizing the acquisition details, anonymous sources close to the deal told the paper. |
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After being sentenced to nine years in prison, former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky has finally become an important Russian politician. This has been his dream for a long time, apparently. His verbose public musings on liberalism and the deteriorating national infrastructure had already attracted notice several years ago. |
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Can orphans be exploited for political gain? You bet they can. In fact, it's a sure thing. The champions of orphans score political points while those who abuse them are regarded as evil incarnate. |
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 Since launching its first list in 2002, Hesperus Press has acquired an enviable name in British publishing for its adventurous editorial policy and the attention it lavishes on each of its graceful volumes. Specializing in short works by major writers of the past, mainly from Western Europe, Hesperus has also earned praise for the high standard of its translations. |
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After Brian Eno's visit last week, another alumnus of the influential British band Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, was due in St. |
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Sakura 12 Griboyedov Canal. Tel. 315 9474, 315 7391 Open from noon until 11pm. Menu in Russian and English Dinner for two with sake 1,120 rubles. ($40). You know a good Japanese restaurant by its tuna. This fish has become almost an icon in Japan, and can sell for as much as $100 a piece in Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, the country's biggest seafood bazaar. The Japanese will turn into die-hard travelers to discover a place with quality maguro sashimi (raw tuna steak). Luckily, a man in St. Petersburg need only travel as far as a sideroad off Nevsky Prospekt. There is almost a rule against dining at a place situated on a main city thoroughfare. |
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 A new production of Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," which opened the Stars of the White Nights festival at the Mariinsky Theater last Friday is literal, universal and replete with claustrophobia. |
 Africans from the continent and the surrounding islands gathered in St. Petersburg last week to encourage Russians to explore the bright side of the traditionally derogated "Dark Continent." It took the rhythm of drums and a chorus of voices typical of Africa's many languages and cultural diversity to help counter Russian stereotypes of Africa as a continent only of poverty, hunger, disease and war on Africa Day (May 25) when a colorful display of traditional arts and artifacts, and even a fashion show, were held in St. |
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 Chumbawumba is a punk band that does not really play punk rock. The British band combines, amazingly, anarchist ideas and pop harmonies and cites The Beatles as an influence. |
 A new album by British music legend Brian Eno, to be released in Russia a week before the rest of the world on Monday, ends with a controversial new song written from the point of view of a Palestinian suicide bomber. Eno, presenting his forthcoming solo album at the Russian Museum's Marble Palace last Saturday, said "Bone Bomb" was inspired by a newspaper story about a Palestinian girl who becomes a suicide bomber. |
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PARIS - Justine Henin-Hardenne moved smoothly into the French Open final with an impressive 6-2 6-3 win over Russian Nadia Petrova on Thursday. The Belgian former world No. 1, gunning for her second title at Roland Garros, looked in ominously good form as she clinched victory against her error-strewn opponent in just 68 minutes. |
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