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St. Petersburg tourist authorities plan by the summer of 2006 to have created a special police task force, which will consist of students recruited to help foreign visitors to the city. “They will be students of St. Petersburg universities who know foreign languages. We plan that they will work at the major sights around the city that are most popular among foreign tourists,” said Alexander Prokhorenko, head of the city’s Tourism and Foreign Affairs Committee, on Monday, Interfax said. The students will be equipped with special uniforms and communications devices. Foreign tourists will be able to turn to these volunteer policemen to report crimes or for general information. |
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/ Reuters
A TV grab from RTR television shows security forces taking up position in Nalchik on Thursday during an attack that Chechen militants have claimed responsibility for. |
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Local citizens using the new trash cans set up in the city, designed to allow recyclable materials to be separated, have been told that their efforts have largely been in vain. This year, several hundred containers for separate waste collection were installed around the city as an experiment initiated by Greenpeace with the support of the local administration.
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MOSCOW — More than 1 million teachers, doctors and other state-paid workers took to the streets nationwide Wednesday to demand significantly higher salaries, and one nurse said she wished a government official would be admitted to her hospital to see firsthand the care afforded to patients. Some 2,500 protesters gathered on Gorbaty Bridge near the White House at about 4 p. |
All photos from issue.
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Plans to turn Palace Square into the main venue of the new international Golden Angel film festival were approved by Governor Valentina Matvieyenko this week, but debate continues to heat up around the controversial project. The idea of holding a major international film festival on the city’s central square towards the end of July 2006, is the brainchild of filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky and producer Mark Rudinshtein, who proposed it in July. |
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St. Petersburg’s Jewish community has been alarmed by an act of vandalism at the city’s Jewish cemetery, and a number of attacks on the local Jewish restaurant Shalom in the past week. |
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MOSCOW — A suspect has been detained in an attack that killed an 18-year-old Peruvian student and seriously injured two others in Voronezh this week, the region’s prosecutor said Wednesday. “There is one detainee,” Prosecutor Alexander Ponomaryov said, Interfax reported. “There are also a number of people who we are working with and checking their connection to the crime. |
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St. Petersburg-based Meatland Logistics & Distribution said Wednesday it will open a nationwide chain of meat logistics centers by 2010 as part of the company’s goal to become the country’s first federal multi-logistics operator. Industry insiders said the move showed the emergence of a “legalized” meat market in Russia. |
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Forcing private firms to raise staff wages will be made the city’s top social and economic priority, the head of the committee for economic development, industrial policy and trade, said this week. |
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Russia is expected to see a $9 billion net capital outflow in 2005 despite a recent flood of hot money into the country in apparent anticipation of ruble strengthening, Central Bank Governor Sergei Ignatyev said Thursday. “Recently we’ve noticed an inflow of short-term capital via the banking sector. |
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WSJ Shrinks Page Size NEW YORK (NYT) — The Wall Street Journal, which is reducing its international editions to tabloid size later this month, announced yesterday that it was shrinking the width of its U. |
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MOSCOW — The number of Russians living in poverty fell to under 13 million in 2002 from over 30 million in 1999, as the country’s poorest citizens benefited from the country’s oil-propelled economic growth, according to a new World Bank report released on Thursday. |
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BUDAPEST — Russian banker Megdet Rahimkulov is the richest person in Hungary, according to a report published Wednesday. Rahimkulov’s fortune was estimated at 83 billion forints ($398 million) in a publication on Hungary’s richest people launched by the daily newspaper Nepszabadsag. |
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The reshuffled Ukrainian government is at risk of getting torn both ways internationally. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is more anxious than ever for validation of his Western course by an EU membership offer, but this is nowhere in sight. Moscow is abuzz with talk of a swing back its way: Ukrainian party leaders, Orange as well as Blue, are competing for the pro-Russian vote and vying for Kremlin approval; the new prime minister, Yuriy Yekhanurov, was born in Russia and is inclined to reconcile. |
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President Vladimir Putin hailed an agreement on visas reached at last week’s European Union-Russia summit as a step toward visa-free travel. The agreement will make it easier for certain categories of Russian citizens, including students, academics, journalists and businesspeople, to obtain visas to 11 of the EU’s 25 member countries. |
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 BONN, Germany — Next year’s Beethoven Festival in Bonn will take Russia as its theme in a move that reflects growing German interest in Russia’s contribution to the world of classical music. German opera theaters are including more Russian operas in their playbills, with daring contemporary Russian directors in mind, and more German conductors are considering ground-breaking programs juxtaposing Russian and German symphonic music. |
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Think about Russian peasants and you can hardly help depressing images coming to mind. You are likely to envisage pale, skinny, emaciated men in shabby clothes, looking as if they have been carrying a heavy burden for a long time. |
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Pop vocalist Phil Collins, being brought by a Moscow bank to Russia this week, made news last month by hitting back at Oasis for what the U.K. paper The Daily Mirror described as a “decade of insults from Gallagher brothers Noel and Liam.” The paper quoted Noel Gallagher as saying “People f***ing hate c***s like Phil Collins — and if they don’t, they f***ing should.” The quote came during British general election in 1997 when Labour Party supporter Gallagher warned that Collins would return from his tax exile in Switzerland if the Conservative Party won. Eight years later, Collins reacted. According to The Daily Mirror, Collins described the Gallaghers as “horrible,” “rude” and “not as talented as they think they are” when appeared on BBC2’s comedy show Room 101 in September. |
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 Tony Levin, the long-time bassist with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson, has also worked on many seminal rock albums by such artists as Lou Reed, Paul Simon and John Lennon. |
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VALENCIA, Spain — A hint of how St. Petersburg could enhance its profile as an opera Mecca came from Spain’s third city last weekend. On Saturday, Europe’s newest — and largest — opera house, Valencia’s Palau de les Arts, held its inaugural concert in the presence of Queen Sofia of Spain. The completion of the futuristic new opera house is the final stage in an enormous science and culture park designed by Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava that local politicians hope will add the name of Valencia to the list of must-see cultural destinations. |
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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE SEOUL — The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that it was just a matter of time before a global bird flu epidemic broke out, with disastrous results which would dwarf the impact from SARS. “Considering the current situation, it seems to be a matter of time before a flu pandemic takes place,” WHO director general Lee Jong-Wook told Yonhap news agency. |
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Russia woke up on Thursday with a soccer-related hangover following another disappointing showing in a World Cup qualifying campaign. “Auf Wiedersehen!” splashed popular daily, Sovietsky Sport, on its front-page after Russia failed to reach next year’s finals in Germany following a 0-0 draw against Slovakia in Bratislava in their final qualifier on Wednesday. |
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The 7th St. Petersburg Squash Open, the most prestigious squash tournament in Russia, is being held in St. Petersburg on Friday through Sunday. During the three days of the tournament 75 participants from Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Croatia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Finland and Ireland will compete at the Hypersquash Sporting club courts. |
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