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MOSCOW — Six years after handing over the reins of power to a then-little known Vladimir Putin, a chipper-looking Boris Yeltsin was due to return to the Kremlin on Wednesday to celebrate his 75th birthday with an invited 250 guests, including his former counterparts U.S. President Bill Clinton and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Crime in the police force grew dramatically in 2005, with nearly 50 percent more crimes recorded and one-third more officers held responsible for crimes, Interfax cited the Interior Ministry’s Internal Security Department as saying Tuesday. The figures included 156 police officers in the North Caucasus who were found to have cooperated with rebels or even participated in terrorist attacks, the department said in a statement. |
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MOSCOW — British Ambassador Anthony Brenton on Tuesday rejected allegations that Britain had improperly funded Russian nongovernmental organizations, and insisted that Britain would continue funding NGOs in the face of a spy scandal that President Vladimir Putin has said justifies restricting them. |
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MOSCOW — Russiatoday.com, a U.S.-based English-language news portal, said it has been asked by Russia Today television to prove that it has authorization from the Russian government to use the word “Russia” in its name. The web site said in a statement that the request had come from Sergei Frolov, the general director of RIA-Novosti, the state news agency that set up Russia Today. |
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The number of privately-owned cinemas in St. Petersburg might double over 2006 as the city’s government plans to pass more then twenty run-down venues into the hands of private investors. Following a reform of the state cinema network, only eight cinemas may remain state-owned: two so-called “festival” ones — Avrora and Rodina — and six childrens’ cinemas, Igor Odushko, the press secretary of the city’s Culture Committee said Thursday. |
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The construction of a federal road between the Ust-Luga port in Leningrad Oblast and the city of Novgorod is awaiting government approval, Kommersant reported Wednesday, citing an official source. |
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One of president Vladimir Putin’s ex-advisors has expressed doubts over the growth of the country’s economy. Speaking at Rosbalt on Tuesday, Andrei Illarionov, president of the Institute for Economic Analysis, issued a report claiming to prove that Russia’s economy is heading towards stagnation. |
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MOSCOW — Stricken oil firm Yukos said it had paid a large part of its back tax bills and expected oil output to rebound from a current nadir, giving it hope of rising from the ashes — if the Kremlin lets it. |
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MOSCOW — Raiffeisen Bank said Wednesday it had signed a deal worth $550 million to buy Impexbank, making the Austrian bank the largest foreign lender in the country. Raiffeisen, which already dominates many Central and Eastern European markets, now aims to increase its share of the growing Russian retail market through the deal. |
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Tuesday saw the repeat of a curious phenomenon: The president of the United States and the president of the Russian Federation each took to the stage to talk about his country’s condition. The two events in many ways are different: George W. Bush’s State of the Union address is highly scripted, in front of the Congress and all the key figures in the U. |
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When two explosions last month shut down the main pipeline delivering natural gas from Russia to Georgia, the last vestiges of dialogue between the two countries were destroyed. |
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 A well-known figure on St. Petersburg’s nightlife scene, Aileen Exeter of City Bar, is parting ways with the popular expat hangout she established nearly 10 years ago. This weekend sees a series of parties that the American bar-owner described as the “big hurrah” for City Bar. |
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A new clarinet concerto by St. Petersburg-based British conductor Peter Dyson that premiers at the Kolonny Hall of Herzen Pedagogical University on Sunday has been inspired by the plight of the city’s homeless people “Conversations and Observations: Reflections of a Homeless Newspaper Seller in Winter” is drawn from Dyson’s memories and observations of local homeless people who have been hit by cars, left without help, selling magazines on the street or wandering through the snow barefoot. |
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Popular Russian bands Splean and BI-2 have refused to take part in a concert called “Russia Without Fascism, War and Violence,” due to take place in Moscow on Feb. 14, Gazeta newspaper reported. Alexander Ponomaryov, who manages both bands, explained that he sees taking part in a concert promoted by human rights groups and opposition parties SPS and Yabloko as “unethical,” according to Gazeta. |
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An anthology of literature by winners of the independent Andrei Bely Prize was presented to the reading public this week. A few days before Christmas 1978, about 15 people gathered in the Leningrad apartment of art critic Yury Novikov to inaugurate the newly minted Andrei Bely Literary Prize, which consisted of three items: an apple, a bottle of vodka (first shots for laureates), and three rubles. |
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Cursed land or untouched paradise? Two decades after the Chernobyl disaster transformed dozens of communities into ghost towns, a book by Mary Mycio assesses the damage. The appearance last fall of “Wormwood Forest,” Mary Mycio’s absorbing book about Chernobyl, coincided with the release of a controversial report by several agencies of the United Nations and the governments of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus on the environmental and health effects of the 1986 nuclear disaster. |
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Morkovka 32 Bolshoi Prospekt, Petrograd Side. Tel. 233 9635 Menu in Russian only. All major credit cards accepted. Open from midday to midnight. Dinner for two without alcohol 1,750 rubles ($ 62. |
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JOHANNESBURG — Eight cell phones, $160,000, and a good idea — could this be the future of state-of-the--art film-making? South African director Aryan Kaganof thinks so. And to prove it, he made SMS Sugar Man, which is billed as the world’s first feature film shot entirely on mobile phones. SMS Sugar Man was filmed on eight phone cameras over 11 days with three main characters for less than $160,000. |
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DETROIT, Michigan — When the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks meet in Super Bowl XL on Sunday it will be a clash of American styles and cultures, blue collar verses white collar. Computer nerds verses steel workers. Lining up at one end of Ford Field will be the Seahawks, the team with trendy teal uniforms from the rainy north west famous for gourmet coffee and home for billionaire computer geeks. |
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KIEV — Ukraine’s government has no intention of interfering in a row pitting retired boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko against veteran officials of the country’s boxing federation, it said on Tuesday. |
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MOSCOW — Half a century ago this week, the Soviet Union, appearing in its first Winter Olympics, won all its games in a 10-team ice hockey tournament to clinch the gold medal. Viktor Shuvalov, the only member of that 1956 team still alive today, clearly recalls the success at the Cortina d’Ampezzo Games in Italy. |
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Issues Archive