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In response to a spate of thefts and robberies against foreign visitors this month, City Hall has said it will install security cameras in crime hot spots, including several central metro stations. A 24-hour police telephone hotline to help foreign victims of crime is to be established next year. Ulvi Strelchuk, deputy head of the justice and law enforcement committee, said Wednesday the cameras will be installed where thefts and pickpocketing are worst. Strelchuk, who was speaking at a meeting of the city branch of the Russian Travel Industry Union, or RST, said part of the crime-prevention plan foresees language training for police officers, but said resources are limited. “There is an obvious shortage of police staff in the city, but the local government has no legal authority over law enforcement,” Strelchuk said. |
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GAME FOR A LAUGH
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Chef Mikhail Ponomaryov of St. Petersburg’s Hunter’s Club restaurant poses with a gun at the Zolotaya Kulina cooking contest held on Wednesday at the Grand Hotel. |
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Previously unpublished erotic passages that where cut out of the first edition of “Gulliver’s Travels” in 1726 are being released in Russia this week, a St. Petersburg publisher says. Neonilla Samukhina, head of the city’s Soitology Institute, has previously published illustrated works on sex in the office, outdoor sex and a prize-winning edition of the Decameron.
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 Pyotr Semenenko, 59, the general director of St. Petersburg’s Kirovsky Zavod, one of Russia’s largest defense plants, died early Wednesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi after falling from the 15th floor of a local sanatorium. Semenenko was one of the richest men in St. Petersburg with Forbes magazine estimating his wealth at $95 million, according to media reports. |
All photos from issue.
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Russian and Swedish field engineers have started to clear mines remaining from World War II from Tyuters Island near Kronstadt in the Gulf of Finland, the Emergency Situations Ministry reported Wednesday. The work is being done to prepare the island to be a part of the Ingermanland Nature Reserve, which is to include several islands in the gulf. |
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Russia may launch production of its own vaccine against bird flu as soon as this fall. The vaccine would be used to combat the flu, which has recently been detected in Siberia. |
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Russians Check Latvia RIGA (AFP) — A Russian military plane on Thursday overflew Latvia to monitor the Baltic state’s military infrastructure, a spokesman for the Latvian armed forces said. “The Russian military plane landed this week in Latvia in the framework of the OSCE Open Skies program. It will fly in Latvia’s air space only Thursday,” said Uldis Davidovs, a spokesman of the Latvian National Armed force. |
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U.S. light-emitting diodes producer Lamina Ceramics is in negotiations with St. Petersburg company Dobraya Energiya for the local company to become its main distributor in Russia and CIS, Delovoi Peterburg reported Tuesday. Agreement for a term of five years will be signed soon. |
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Trade Surplus Rises MOSCOW (SPT) — Russia’s trade surplus grew 52 percent to $57.9 billion in the first half of the year, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing the Central Bank. |
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Finnish constructor Lemcon Ltd. of the LemminkÊinen Group has signed a design and build contract with Swedish retailer IKEA concerning the construction of the MEGA family shopping center in the Leningrad Oblast. The contract value is about 92 million euros, Lemcon said Tuesday in a statement. |
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Neva Tunnel Tender ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Hall’s committee for street management and improvement has called a tender on car tunnels under Neva river that are to be built by 2008, Interfax reported Wednesday. |
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It is already obvious that the second half of 2005 will unfold under the banner of bustling faux modernization. And we have only the Kremlin’s enemies to thank for this wide-ranging imitation. If the Orange Revolution hadn’t happened in Ukraine, the Kremlin would never have set up a way to pass on power to an anointed successor. |
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The rescue of seven sailors from a stricken mini-submarine on Sunday was a clear sign that Russia had learned from some of the mistakes it made when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank five years ago. |
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The flight from Arkhangelsk in Russia’s Far North to the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea takes just 40 minutes, a deceptively quick trip to one of the most sacrosanct and tragic corners of Russia. But the intricately patterned enormity of the northern seascape below, the abrasive landing, and the stark silhouette of the ancient monastery, which materializes as soon as one gets off the airplane, signal both apprehension and rare splendor, the twin hallmarks of human experience on these islands throughout history. The trip, organized for a group of Scandinavian and Russian journalists by Barents Press International in co-operation with the Nordic Journalist Center, included a two-day stay on the island and extensive excursions to outlying areas. A mid-summer visit disguises the place’s forbidding climate. |
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Father Iosif, the head of the monastery on the Sovoletsky Islands in the Far North. The desolate islands were used as a prison in imperial and Soviet Russia. |
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The border town of Vyborg, 120 kilometers from St. Petersburg on the road to Helsinki, throws open a “Window to Europe” this weekend with the commencement of a film festival under that name. The 13th “Window To Europe” International Film Festival opens Friday to showcase more than 50 fiction, documentary and animation works competing for prizes in various categories.
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Platforma, which took a holiday last month, will reopen on Tuesday. The next concert at the venue will be by TransLit, the Amsterdam-based Russian avant-rock duo on Wednesday. TransLit, which also appears at JFC Jazz Club on Tuesday, is best-known for its collaboration with Auktsyon’s Leonid Fyodorov, who has recently released the band’s debut album, “Literali,” on his Ulitka label. |
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An exhibition of portraits by a distinguished Russian-born photographer reveals a preoccupation with human liberty. Thought-provoking and captivating portraits of political leaders and cultural luminaries by St. |
 Back in the 1980s, Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then called, was seen as the capital of Russian rock. Two decades later, local alternative bands are still in high demand in Moscow and the rest of Russia, according to Artyom Kopylov, the head of the city’s leading alt-rock label Kapkan Records. |
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The first thing that impresses you about Schwabski Domik is its size — it’s a restaurant and a bistro and a pub in one. There is a spacious sitting area outside for summer evenings, and several dining halls inside. |
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Pakistan Tests Missile ISLAMABAD (Reuters) — Pakistan successfully tested on Thursday a nuclear-capable, ground-launched cruise missile, which has a range of 500 km, a military spokesman said. Pakistan reached an agreement last week with nuclear armed rival India to inform each other about missile tests but military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the agreement did not cover the cruise missile, called “Babur. |
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CSKA Up to 2nd ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — CSKA Moscow gained a 2-0 Russian Premier League victory at cross-city rival Torpedo on Wednesday night. Midfielder Rolan Gusev grabbed the first after 12 minutes with an accurate strike into the left-hand corner. Then in the 54th, Croatian striker Ivitsa Olych angled the ball into the far corner from inside the box after being put through after CSKA’s Brazilian midfield playmaker Carvalho split the defense. |
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