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Hitler did not want to capture besieged Leningrad during World War II, but intended to starve its citizens to death, a new book by a German historian says. St. Petersburg was known as Leningrad during the war. Released in Germany this summer, the book “Das Belagerte Leningrad” by JÚrg Ganzenmßller challenges the Soviet view of the Siege of Leningrad that the city was not taken because of heroic resistance by citizens and the Red Army. That view still dominates in Russia today. Ganzenmßller set out to provide an unbiased and balanced picture of the genocide committed against the people of Leningrad, saying that German silence over the horrors committed in its name and Soviet propaganda have distorted the reality about the siege. |
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LEGS AKIMBO
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Competitors in the Bubble Baba Challenge struggle to hold on to their flotation devices - inflatable sex dolls - in the Vuoksa River near the Finnish border on Saturday. The event, which is in its third year, attracted competitors and their families for a day of thrills and laughter. |
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St. Petersburg historians are divided over a new book that rejects the Soviet portrayal of the Siege of Leningrad as a heroic defensive battle. In his book, “Das Belagerte Leningrad,” German historian JÚrg Ganzenmßller says the view is wrong because Hitler did not want to capture the city, but he did want to starve its population to death.
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin confirmed Monday that he would meet mothers who lost their children in the Beslan hostage seizure, satisfying a demand first made by the bereaved mothers almost a year ago. His words confirmed comments by the Beslan Mothers Committee, which said Sunday that Putin had suggested a Kremlin meeting on Friday — mid-way through the anniversary of last year’s Sept. |
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MOSCOW — Former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov returned to work in Moscow on Monday after a long holiday in Europe, dashing rumors he might stay abroad while prosecutors investigate his purchase of a luxury villa. |
All photos from issue.
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Andrei Savelyev, a leader of the Rodina faction in the State Duma, has asked the St. Petersburg Prosecutor General’s Office to open a defamation case against human rights campaigner Ruslan Linkov. Linkov, the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Democratic Russia party, said Friday that the deputy told the office that an article Linkov wrote in June contained untruths about him. The article, which was printed by several media outlets, including The St. Petersburg Times, said that Russia was in danger or lurching toward radical nationalism. It named Savelyev as the author and editor of nationalistic publications. |
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LIVE BAIT
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Roadside sellers offering potatoes, milk products, cabbages and worms for sale about 100 kilometers north of St. Petersburg near where the Bubble Baba Challenge was held Saturday. The worms are for anglers. |
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Gulya, a one-year-old snow leopard, who had a difficult start to life after her mother rejected her at birth, is to stay another year in St. Petersburg’s Leningrad Zoo before being sent to Kazan as a gift from the city. A winged snow leopard is the symbol of Kazan and appears on the city’s coat of arms, so it was fitting that St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko signed over Gulya to Kazan when it celebrated its 1000th anniversary last week.
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HELSINKI — Finland’s Agriculture Ministry said Saturday that Europe was not yet suffering the highly pathogenic strain of bird flu that has killed people in Asia after the country discovered a possible outbreak in seagulls. “Increased surveillance shows it very clearly, we do not have in Europe the dangerous H5N1 avian influenza affecting Asia at present,” Matti Aho, chief veterinary officer of Finland, said in a statement on the ministry’s web site. |
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More Non-City Students ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The portion of students from outside St. Petersburg that have been accepted by St. Petersburg universities and institutes this year 2005 has grown to 50 percent from 49 percent last year, Interfax reported Friday quoting City Hall. |
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MOSCOW — As Ekho Moskvy radio turned 15 last week, the country’s most prominent independent-minded station was inundated with plaudits for its professionalism and dedication to freedom of speech from across the political spectrum. “Ekho Moskvy fulfills the function of the only objective radio station that says what is really happening in the country,” said Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Extreme Journalism. |
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Just eight months after completing another year of slow sales, Jaguar may be the latest foreign brand to cash in on Russia’s love for international cars. The number of official Jaguar dealerships in Russia has rapidly escalated, from three in 2004 to seven, while still more are waiting in line for official status. In St. Petersburg alone, local media reported that three companies are applying to Jaguar Land Rover Russia for official status, to add to the existing two dealerships operating in the city. |
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/ For The St. Petersburg Times
The U.K. carmaker has worked hard to step up sales in Russia's growing car market. |
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin asked Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Monday to let gas giant Gazprom invest more heavily in Italy as it prepares to expand in Europe’s liberalizing gas markets. “It is in our interest that our companies, including Gazprom, are allowed to invest extra money in Italy’s energy sector, including in gas distribution network,” RIA Novosti news agency quoted Putin as saying.
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Possibly the world’s most eco-friendly fish processing plant will start construction in the Leningrad Oblast this fall. A local company, Laplandia-Gatchina, will invest over 80 percent of the $12 million project budget into special ecological solutions that will accompany the Gatchina district factory, the oblast’s press service said Friday. |
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Grain Forecasts Up ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) — The Agriculture Ministry maintained on Monday its forecast for this year’s grain crop at 76-78 million tons, close to last year’s 78 million, although some analysts say the crop may be larger. |
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MOSCOW — A controversial bill that the State Duma is set to pass after it reconvenes next month would prohibit doctors from prescribing specific, brand-name drugs. Supporters of the measure, which passed a first reading in July, say that requiring doctors to use the international nonproprietary name, or INN, instead of a drug’s brand name would cut consumers’ pharmacy bills. |
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MOSCOW — State holding Rosneftegaz has agreed terms with its bankers on a record $7.5 billion syndicated loan, which its board should approve this week, Interfax reported Monday. |
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Few of Malibu Foods’ customers will be aware that the taco on the plate in front of them is not just your average, run-of-the-mill fast food snack. The recipes are in fact based on genuine Mexican cooking, passed down for generations in the family of owner Adam Campos, who together with business partners Sergei Nikitin and Steve Wachtel, decided to bring a taste of Mexico to the plates of St. |
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MOSCOW — Aeroflot is negotiating a temporary lease of Western long-haul jets to make up for a shortfall in capacity after the Transportation Ministry grounded the country’s fleet of Ilyushin 96-300s for safety reasons last week. |
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ZHUKOVSKY, Moscow Region — Irkut Corp., the manufacturer of Sukhoi fighter jets, will supply components to Airbus for its new A350 passenger liner, the two companies said this month. The lucrative contract was among a number of deals sealed at the Seventh Moscow Aviation and Space Show, MAKS 2005, including the first order for a Russian Regional Jet and an order by Jordan for two Ilyushin transport planes. |
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Mobiles Change Tack MOSCOW (SPT) — Russia’s largest mobile phone retailer, Euroset, plans to start directly importing phones before the end of 2005, company spokes-woman Tatyana Guliayeva said Thursday. |
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Russia will raise oil export duty by a quarter in October following a rise in global prices, further boosting its ability to repay foreign debt but tilting the economics of exports in favor of refined products. Record high export duties in recent months have prompted Russian firms to limit crude exports and refine more oil to sell gasoline at home and export more products, as they are subject to lower duties. |
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CNPC All Smiles MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — China National Petroleum Corp. received congratulatory messages from senior Kazakhstan officials for its plan to buy PetroKazakhstan, signaling eventual completion of the deal, the Asian Wall Street Journal said. |
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State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov has apparently been spending a lot of time recently with former Federation Council Senator Valery Goreglyad, either as part of a small group or one on one. But don’t get the wrong idea. The men are meeting to discuss professional matters, though naturally they can’t help but have friendly feelings toward one another. |
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Russia’s once-mighty civil aviation industry is starting to recover from a post-Soviet slump with the planned launch of the Russian Regional Jet. But it will take more than one new plane to transform its fortunes. |
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Russia’s chairmanship of the next meeting of the Group of Eight in St. Petersburg raises a rather awkward dilemma. While this prestigious position requires Russia to show global leadership, many observers wonder how Russia can deliver on its global promises if the quality of its domestic institutions is closer to the standards of states that survive on foreign aid rather than its G8 peers. |
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From 1.5 million to 2 million St. Petersburgers drive out to their dachas in the Leningrad Oblast every summer. The oblast government seems to think that these holidaymakers are merely a headache because of the huge amount of trash they produce and their demand for medical and other services. |
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In his inaugural speech last January, President George W. Bush repeatedly invoked images of unbridled, ravaging destruction as the emblem of his crusade for “freedom.” Fire was his symbol, his word of power, his incantation of holy war. Mirroring the rhetoric of his fundamentalist enemies, Bush moved the conflict from the political to the spiritual, from the outer world to the inner soul, claiming that he had lit “a fire in the minds of men. |
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MOSCOW — It wasn’t an easy way to find a nice spot for a country home, but it worked. During the Nazi assault on Moscow, three Soviet airmen were shot down 40 kilometers north of the city. After parachuting to safety, they hiked out through a riverside forest of birch, pine and fir and rejoined the fight. |
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WARSAW — Poland’s leading conservative presidential candidate Lech Kaczynski wants to complete the Solidarity revolution which successfully toppled communism in Poland but failed to bring social justice, he said Sunday. Kaczynski, locked in a three way race for the presidential palace ahead of the Oct. |
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JAKARTA — The British embassy in Indonesia was evacuated Monday after a suspicious item was mailed to the mission, but police said it was only a personal package that contained a disc player and biscuits. |
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HOUSTON, Texas — U.S. Gulf of Mexico energy companies were contemplating their worst fears Sunday as Hurricane Katrina, a potentially catastrophic storm, charged through offshore production areas toward southeast Louisiana. At least 42 percent of daily Gulf of Mexico oil production, 20 percent of its daily natural gas output and 8. |
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Diets Don’t Prolong Life WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Starving, officially known as caloric restriction, may make worms and mice live up to 50 percent longer but it will not help humans live super-long lives, two biologists argued Sunday. |
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NEW YORK — Andy Roddick is not happy playing second fiddle to anyone, especially at his home grand slam. So it is no surprise the American bristles at the suggestion that the runners-up cheque is the best he can aim for with Roger Federer in the Flushing Meadows singles. |
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MOSCOW — Fifth seed Marat Safin has withdrawn from the U.S. Open which started Monday because the knee injury which sidelined the Russian for seven weeks earlier this year is still troubling him. |
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FC Zenit St. Petersburg beat Krylya Sovietov Samara in a 4-1 rout Sunday at Petrovsky Stadium to claim second place in the Premier League. First half goals by Alexander Anyukov and Igor Denisov put the visitors on the defensive but Zenit pressed its advantage in the 56th minute with a goal from Olexander Spivak. |
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Issues Archive