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MOSCOW — The Foreign Ministry’s decision not to extend the accreditation of ABC television journalists appears to be meant as a reminder to all foreign journalists not to cross a line when writing about Chechnya and especially rebel leaders. But it is unlikely to change foreign media coverage about Russia or even have much effect on ABC. Journalists, including Russian nationals employed by foreign media organizations, cannot work legally in Russia without accreditation. The Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that this was the violation committed by Andrei Babitsky, the journalist with Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who interviewed warlord Shamil Basayev in Chechnya in June. A ministry official said Babitsky was required by law to obtain two forms of accreditation: one from the Foreign Ministry and the other from the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for areas that are designated as zones of counterterrorism operations, Interfax reported. |
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TAKE IT EASY
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A taxi driver in central St. Petersburg takes a nap and tries to stay cool under a magazine named “Leisure.” Temperatures are set to dip in coming days and showers are forecast for the weekend. |
 A German woman was killed and 22 people were hospitalized after a bus crashed with a garbage truck at a notorious accident blackspot near St. Petersburg on Thursday morning. Earlier, eleven people, including six German citizens, died in another crash between a bus and a Volvo truck on the road between Kurgan and Chelyabinsk in south central Russia. At least 23 people were hospitalized as a result of the crash, Interfax reported.
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A St. Petersburg inventor won a court case against German industrial giant Siemens on Tuesday this week, in which he claimed that the company used his invention in its mobile phones. Victor Petrov originally went to court in 2003 claiming that Siemens uses a method of forming psycho-emotional conditions — in other words, smiley-face icons — in its telephones, which he said he invented in 1999. |
All photos from issue.
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Law students from 14 European countries are in St. Petersburg to take part in the annual meeting of the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) that convened Wednesday and runs through Sunday. “This is the first ELSA meeting organized in Russia and opens the new era of ELSA in Russia,” Oksana Bebko, president of ELSA St. Petersburg and the organizer of the meeting, said Thursday. ELSA is the world’s largest independent, non-political and non-profit law student association with more than 25,000 members — students and recent graduates who are interested in law and have demonstrated commitment to international issues. ELSA operates through local groups in more than 200 universities in 37 European countries. |
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Vladimir Filonov / The St. Petersburg Times
The Grand Service Express to St. Petersburg was launched in Moscow on Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW — The Grand Express, Russia’s first privately owned and operated luxury passenger train, was launched Wednesday, offering a daily overnight service between St. Petersburg and Moscow. A one-way ticket starts at 3,150 rubles ($110) to travel in a shared sleeping compartment, after which prices are for a private space. The most expensive ticket costs 12,500 rubles ($437) for a compartment with an en-suite bathroom, DVD player and Internet access.
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Notorious Moscow-based sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, who is frequently slammed for the elephantine scale of his works, announced this week he has developed a concept for a park in St. Petersburg and has even produced several dozen sculptures to fill it with. |
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With the fifth anniversary of the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk to be marked next week, a group of St. Petersburg marine explorers have cast doubt on the official explanation for the loss of the vessel and its 118-member crew in the Barents Sea “[The Barents Sea] is a traditional undersea graveyard left unattended,” said retired captain Yury Alexandrov, head of the Polar Convoy organization that conducted a ten-day expedition, Northern Convoy 2005, last month. |
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Overhauling Oil Taxes MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — The government will unveil proposals to overhaul taxes on the oil industry by Oct. 1, Interfax reported, citing Economy Minister German Gref. Officials have agreed to lower taxes for some companies to stimulate development of certain fields and will invite oil executives to discuss the plan, Gref said, Interfax reported. |
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In preparation for next June’s G8 summit that will take place in the city, the federal government has allocated nearly 3 billion rubles ($105 million) for the reconstruction of St. |
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Finning producer Nokian Tyres is starting to feel quite at home in Russia. The country accounted for 14 percent of Nokian’s global sales and this year will become the tire-maker’s biggest customer overtaking the firm’s native Finland, said Andrei Pantyukhov, general director of Nokian Tyres Russia. |
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Belarus to Use Baltic LONDON (Bloomberg) — Belarus Railways plans to start this month transporting crude oil from Russia to Baltic Sea ports to allow exporters to increase shipments amid high oil prices. |
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In the early 1960s, when I was about 6 years old, my nanny took me to stay with her cousins in the town of Kostroma. The news of a Muscovite visitor spread quickly around the neighborhood, so that when I was sent down to play in the courtyard, I found myself surrounded by a sizeable group of local kids. |
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While having fun in Zelenogorsk last weekend, my friends from Canada, the U.S. and Britain came up with an idea for a new game that could be played by pedestrians on the streets of St. |
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A sparkling rendition of Rossini’s 1825 opera “Il Viaggio a Reims” saluted the finale of the Mariinsky Theater’s 222nd season Saturday like a triumphant glass of champagne. The opera’s festive yet naughty spirit is at its apogee when performed in Alain Maratrat’s lively new interpretation of this splendid party-piece. The staging is unconventional and spactacular, using the full scope of the Mariinsky’s auditorium. Glamorous guests traveling to the coronation of the French king Charles X ooze excitement and anticipation and hurry to the Golden Lily Hotel, the setting for the opera, over a high platform bisecting the stalls. |
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/ The St. Petersburg Times
Mariinsky tenor Daniil Shtoda in the role of General Libenskov in “Il Viaggio a Reims,” which rounded off the theater’s 222nd season on Saturday. |
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A British booking agency that worked on two Russian concerts by the band Chumbawamba that were abruptly canceled said this week that the Russian promoter was responsible for losses incurred have not been paid to either the agency and the band. Chumbawamba was due to perform in Moscow and St. Petersburg in early June. The British anarcho-pop band was to headline a festival also featuring Germany’s 17 Hippies and Romania’s Spitalul de Urgenta to launch StarZ, which was planned as a large new venue in Moscow linked to the popular St.
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An upcoming single from Supergrass (out on Aug. 8) is called “St. Petersburg.” “Set sail for St. Petersburg/Making use of my time/Cos in three days I’ll be out of here/And it’s not a day too soon,” croon the veteran Brit-pop band. The single features a picture of The Bronze Horseman, the city’s most obvious icon, on its cover. |
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MOSCOW — In a parking garage in eastern Moscow, two levels underground, a group of graffiti artists were hard at work recently, putting the finishing touches on their designs. |
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Artists sometimes consider staying demonstratively apathetic and detached when it comes to politics. Nothing could be further from the case with the founders of the Baltic Sea Festival starting Tuesday with classical concerts in Tallinn (Estonia), Gdansk (Poland), Helsinki (Finland) and Stockholm (Sweden), as well as on ferries traveling in between these towns. |
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MOSCOW — Janos Koos sounds a bit uncertain as he sings the words of Chuck Berry: “My baby does the hanky panky, yeah.” The Hungarian vocalist recorded the song at Melodiya in 1970, a year when the authorities were cracking down on music that didn’t fit the official format. |
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Pompei 15/17 Ulitsa Rubinshteina Tel: 571 2551 Open daily for lunch and dinner Menu in Italian, Russian and English. Cash payment only. Dinner for two with wine approximately 2,000 rubles ($70.00) By Michael Coppejans Special to The St. Petersburg Times Pompei — the word itself brings up visions of destruction and a frozen image of the Roman past in Italy. |
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