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It has been seven and a half years since Galina Starovoitova, a liberal State Duma Deputy, who was often described as the conscience of Russian democracy, was gunned down on the stairwell of her building on Nov. 20, 1998.
To mark the anniversary of her birthday — Starovoitova would have turned 60 on Wednesday — the late politician was honored with a monument erected on a green courtyard at the intersection of Suvorovsky Prospekt and Ulitsa Moiseyenko in central St. Petersburg.
Designed by sculptor Arkady Yastrebenetsky, the monument comprises a pillar with a relief depicting Starovoitova’s profile and an inscription giving details of the politician’s life and achievements. |
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SHIP AHOY!
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Guests leaving the recently completed Teatralny Bridge tanker following its handing over ceremony to Sovkomflot on Wednesday. On the same day, Sovkomflot signed contracts worth more than $350 million with the Admiralty Wharfs, builder of the Teatralny Bridge, for five new tankers. |
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Russia’s secondary education students have one of the lowest performance rates in mathematics and reading comprehension compared with students from most European countries, according to an international report published Monday.
The main aim of the new study from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, or OECD, which tested 15-year-olds in 41 countries in mathematics, reading comprehension, science and problem-solving skills, was to determine how well children from immigrant families integrate into society through education.
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All photos from issue.
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Editor’s note: This is the first of two reports about the energy implications for Russia of the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.
MOSCOW — If ever there were a sign of a diplomatic breakdown, this seemed to be it: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejecting a European proposal before it had even been made. |
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MOSCOW — More minors are breaking the law, and their crimes are growing crueler, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told Duma deputies on Wednesday.
Nurgaliyev said that last year, 150,000 youths under 16 committed crimes, including 1,200 murders, 3,300 assaults and 18,000 robberies. |
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One of the world’s largest lock producers, Finnish company Abloy, has announced that it will significantly expand its dealership network in Russia over the coming years. Last year Abloy sales in Russia increased by 30 percent up to five million euros ($6 million), as opposed to 17 percent net growth in worldwide sales. |
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ST. PETERSBURG — The owner of the country’s two largest military shipyards has said the government wants to acquire both firms, and local media said on Wednesday that state arms trader Rosoboronexport was in talks to buy them. |
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Passazh Sold
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Divieto Limited, a company registered in Egypt and linked with Moscow-based developer Shalva Chigirinsky, has acquired the Passazh department store for $50.5 million, Vedomosti reported Thursday.
15 companies took part in Wednesday’s auction to buy the building from the St. |
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As part of its strategy to create the largest multimedia firm in Russia, AFK Sistema this week started construction of a film production studio in St. Petersburg. |
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MOSCOW — Many companies in Russia live like there is no tomorrow and pay little attention to contingency planning and cost reduction, a new study by KPMG suggests.
Because the current economic situation is so favorable and companies here are generally more profitable than their Western counterparts, many do not bother to have contingency plans — leaving themselves vulnerable to sudden economic changes, Tony Thompson, head of advisory at KPMG’s Moscow office and one of the authors of the study, said in presenting the report Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW — Executives at Raiffesen International, one of the leading foreign banks in Russia, predicted Wednesday that Western financial institutions would snap up Russian banks in the next year or so to take advantage of the rapid growth in consumer banking here. |
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Anyone who has lived and worked in Russia will recognize the lack of trust referred to by President Vladimir Putin in his state-of-the-nation address last week: “I note that one of the most significant traits of our internal political life is the low level of trust of citizens towards specific institutions of government and big business. |
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In his annual address, President Vladimir Putin proposed a way to resolve the country’s demographic crisis: give mothers 1,500 rubles ($56) per month for the first child and 3,000 rubles a month plus 250,000 rubles in “maternal capital” for the second. |
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 Speed is both midwife and temptress of literary comedy. To achieve lightness, prose must skate rather than amble, dart and not brood. It must be swift. And yet comedy that is nothing but speed and excess risks becoming frivolous. At its literary best comedy is promiscuous and open, but scored throughout with real human pain. |
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MOSCOW — Repressed by the Soviet Union, feted by Nobel judges, glammed up by Hollywood — “Doctor Zhivago” is one of Russia’s stand-out 20th-century novels. |
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New York-based composer and saxophonist John Zorn will come to the city with his band Painkiller this week.
Zorn, 52, originally started the band, which combines experimental jazz and death metal, in 1991 with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Mick Harris, formerly of Napalm Death and Scorn. |
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Innovative pianist Karol Beffa in concert at the Hermitage Theater.
If you have ever wanted to hear original musical interpretations of visual art, say Kazimir Malevich’s futurist masterpiece “The Black Square” or portraits in sound of literary chracters such as Charles Dickens’ Mr. |
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The Third Nordic Music Festival is in full swing.
The Third Nordic Music Festival — running through May 28 this year — thrives on the edges of both high brow and street-level entertainment.
This time round, the event juxtaposes a performance of the Violinkonzert by Finnish-born Paris-based composer Kaja Saariaho at the Hermitage Theater (May 28, 7 p.m.) with a concert of the amateur “Logreglukor Reykjavikur,” the Icelandic Policemen Choir at the State Cappella courtyard (Tuesday, 4 p.m.). Predictably, there will also be performances of works by Jean Sibelius and Edvard Grieg.
The festival was established in 2004 by Swedish conductor Kristofer Wahlander, who is artistic director and principal conductor of the St. |
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 A new bar named after Fidel Castro looks set to become a popular hangout.
Fidel, the new bar that musician Anton Belyankin is opening this week, is likely to repeat the extraordinary success of Datscha, the local favorite with expats, the artsy crowd and students that he co-founded two years earlier. |
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The economic expansion and growing political influence of China and India is a benefit, not a threat to American leadership and the global system, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Wednesday a day after China sentenced a journalist to a 12 year prison term. |
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CANNES, France — Cannes Film Festival got off to a glittering start Wednesday with a galaxy of stars led by the cast of “The Da Vinci Code” bringing Hollywood razzle-dazzle to the French resort. |
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Brazil Killings
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — The body count grew in South America’s largest city Wednesday as police — who lost 41 comrades in gang attacks — killed 22 more suspected criminals. Authorities said little about the latest deaths, generating criticism from rights groups.
Police did not identify any of those they killed, say where they were killed or in what circumstances, Sao Paulo’s leading newspapers reported Wednesday. |
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NEW YORK — Drew Gooden took a pass from LeBron James and sank the winning basket with 27 seconds left to lift the Cleveland Cavaliers to a stunning 86-84 victory over the Detroit Pistons in Auburn Hills on Wednesday.
James scored 32 points and had five rebounds and five assists, including his pass under the basket to Gooden, who converted to give Cleveland a 3-2 lead over the Eastern Conference champions in the best-of-seven semi-final series. |
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FC Zenit St. Petersburg drew with Rostov Na Donu 1-1 Wednesday at Petrovsky Stadium in the Russian Premier League and missed a crucial opportunity to turn around a disappointing start to the season. |
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Dynamo St. Petersburg fell under the spell of Khimki from the Moscow Oblast in the last two games of their semifinal series in the Russian Basketball League and will now have to win the last two games in order to advance to the final.
Khimki now leads the series 2-1 and only had to win in front of its crowd late Thursday in order to progress to the final. |
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FC Zenit St. Petersburg drew with Rostov Na Donu 1-1 Wednesday at Petrovsky Stadium in the Russian Premier League and missed a crucial opportunity to turn around a disappointing start to the season. |
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LONDON — Ten-man Arsenal’s gallant 2-1 defeat by Barcelona in a controversial Champions League final was lamented by the British media on Thursday.
“So Brave, So Close” was the back page headline in the tabloid Daily Express, while the front page of The Guardian sports section read “Valiant Arsenal fall at the last”. |
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PONTEDERA, Italy — Germany’s Jan Ullrich won the 50-km individual time trial stage of the Giro d’Italia around Pontedera on Thursday and hereby answered the criticism that has been plaguing him throughout the spring that he is overweight and totally unfit. |
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Issues Archive