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St. Petersburg police this week rejected a request to assist in establishing and staffing several central police stations to help foreigners, saying that that would be “pointless.” The request was made by the Northwest branch of the Russian Tourism Industry Union, or RST. The union and others have been calling on police higher-ups to take more action against a spate of crimes by organized criminals and low-ranking police officers against foreigners, which is tainting the city’s image. To add insult to injury, foreign crime victims struggle to find police stations, complain that officers don’t speak any languages other than Russian, and that the law enforcement officers are reluctant to record their crimes. Many foreigners are only in the city for a short visit and if robbed have to devote much of their time afterward to the pursuit of official documents. |
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TSARIST CHARM
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A sculpture reclines in an Italianate garden at the newly reopened Tsaritsa’s pavilion in Peterhof. The Tsaritsa’s and Olga’s pavilions were gifts from Tsar Nicholas I to his wife and daughter. |
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VLADIKAVKAZ — A 10-year-old boy described how a female terrorist threatened to kill children hiding cell phones, and a teenage boy recalled through tears how he urinated into a bottle so younger children could drink. The children testified Thursday at the trial of Nurpasha Kulayev, the only surviving suspect who participated in the seizure of the Beslan school on Sept.
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St. Petersburg’s Charter Court, the last legislative body independent of City Hall, has suspended its activities because three of its seven judges have filed resignation letters, local media reported Wednesday. Judges Olga Gerasina, Natalya Gutsan and Alexei Liverovsky tendered their resignations on Aug. |
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St. Petersburg’s Agency of Journalistic Investigations is to the get the rights to publish the MK v Pitere weekly, Interfax reported Thursday quoting Andrei Konstantinov, head of the agency. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin’s picks for the Public Chamber, originally proclaimed as a civil society watchdog, so far include Kremlin-friendly figures such as theater director Alexander Kalyagin, Ekspert magazine editor Valery Fadeyev and champion gymnast Alina Kabayeva. |
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Police were still looking Thursday for the occupants of a car who beat two students with a baseball bat, leading to the death of one of the students. They were also investigating how a teenager who had been sniffing petrol was set alight, but had no comment on progress when asked to comment. |
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Heineken’s Price Known MOSCOW (Reuters) — Dutch brewer Heineken paid $560 million for Ivan Taranov brewery, Interfax news agency quoted Vladimir Tebelyov, general director of PIT holding, which owns Ivan Taranov, as saying Thursday. Under the terms of the deal, Heineken bought Ivan Taranov’s three breweries in Kaliningrad, Novotroitsk and Khagarovsk. |
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Russia will use profits from exported energy to upgrade its own aging power utilities network. Dmitry Mashkovstev, head of cable operator Baltenergo, said Thursday that money from exporting electricity to Finland via a planned underwater transmission cable may be invested in the construction of a 1. |
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MOSCOW — Cosmetics and perfume retailer Arbat Prestige is set to buy St. Petersburg’s famed Yeliseyevsky store, Yury Shcherbakov, vice president of Yeliseyevsky owner Parnas-M, said Wednesday. Parnas-M is in the final negotiation stages with Arbat Prestige for 940 square meters of Yeliseyevsky’s retail space on Nevsky Prospekt, Shcherbakov said. |
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After investing about $38 million in two city commercial real estate projects, Torgovy Dvor construction firm said Wednesday it will convert part of Prospekt Bolshevikov metro station into a 7,000 square meter retail center. |
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‘Fake’ Rice Seized ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — More than 63 tons of contraband rice has been seized by the authorities in the Leningrad Oblast, the press service of the department for economic protection said Thursday, Interfax reported. The seized rice worth 1 million rubles ($35,700) was found in a secret Oblast warehouse, the agency said. |
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To foreigners visiting Russia for the first time, I usually recommend making a stopover in Amsterdam. Holland, I explain to them, was Peter the Great’s model for modern Russia. True, the attempt to turn his subjects into the Dutch was one of the emperor’s least successful undertakings. |
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A passion for cars, especially for luxury ones, is a widespread phenomenon with top officials. Millions of dollars from the state budget are spent every year providing officials with new vehicles equipped with accessories that make their lives more comfortable and better. |
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 In the 1970s, poet and singer Patti Smith helped to reinvent rock music, alongside such New York new wave/punk peers as Television, Talking Heads, Blondie and the Ramones, who played at the now legendary music club CBGB’s. Her 1975 album “Horses,” with John Cale as producer and a cover photo by Robert Mapplethorpe, has been listed among rock’s best ever albums. |
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Sweden’s Jay-Jay Johanson headlines a party called the “Last Stereo of The Summer” on Friday, promoted by the team behind the popular Stereoleto festival. |
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The Baltic Sea Festival, which finished in Stockholm last weekend, lived up to its name — literally: some of its diverse classical concerts were performed on the waves of the Baltic Sea itself. Begun in August 2003 as a joint effort between Finnish-born conductor and music director of Los-Angeles Philharmonic Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Mariinsky Theater’s artistic director Valery Gergiev and the director of Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen Michael Tyden, the festival has a wide reach both musically and geographically. |
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Back in 2001, Grigory Lyubomirov directed Russia’s first reality show, “Behind Glass” (Za Steklom). Now he plans a new series that he calls “the next step in the development of reality television. |
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LUCERNE, Switzerland — Helicopters ferried food to an Alpine resort Thursday and plucked people from roofs in the capital Berne as flood-ravaged Switzerland braced itself for more rain. In Romania, one of the countries worst hit by the downpours that lashed parts of central Europe earlier this week, the death toll from flooding rose by six, to 31 Thursday, with another three people missing, including a 4-year-old girl. |
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JERUSALEM — Violence erupted in Jerusalem and the West Bank on Wednesday just as Israeli and Palestinian leaders said plans were taking shape for a peaceful handover of the Gaza Strip next month. |
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Georgian Gets Earache TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Villagers in Georgia beat up an electric company employee and bit one of his ears off after he threatened to shut their power off for nonpayment, police in the former Soviet republic said Tuesday. The attack occurred Monday in Kvemo Arkvani, about 90 kilometers southeast of Tbilisi, when regional utility worker Elshad Tagimov told some residents he was going to turn off their electricity because they were late in paying their bills, regional police officer Temur Maisuradze said. |
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Latvia captain Vitalijs Astafjevs confirmed and then withdrew his accusations that players and team officials were offered bribes to throw last week’s World Cup qualifier against Russia. Astafjevs blamed the scandal on a reporter from Sporta Avize, Itar-Tass reported Wednesday. |
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MONACO — European soccer’s governing body is increasingly concerned that criminals may be using football to launder money either by buying into clubs or gambling on match results. |
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Issues Archive