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Local media are corrupt and most newspapers are packed with planted stories and hidden advertising, according to research by political science students at Herzen Pedagogical University, who presented their results this month at the Regional Press Institute.
Following an internship at the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, a group of fifth-year-students completed a report analyzing the coverage of a series of significant political events in the local newspapers. The publications date from March to November 2005 and deal with high profile, controversial subjects such as City Hall’s conflicts with the St. Petersburg Charter Court and the Baltic Pearl construction project. |
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MAKING WAVES
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A boat carrying tourists along the Moika River on Tuesday. Officials announced this week that for security reasons vessels would be banned from the Neva River and sections of the Gulf of Finland during the G8 summit scheduled to take place in the city on July 15-17. |
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The Rolling Stones has postponed its one-off Russian concert which had been scheduled to take place on June 13 in St. Petersburg while guitarist Keith Richards recovers from a head injury sustained when he reportedly fell out of a coconut tree, the band announced Wednesday.
According to the statement posted on the veteran rockers’ official web site, the first 15 shows of the European leg of the band’s current A Bigger Bang World Tour have now been postponed, and that part of the tour will not start until July.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Wednesday named honorary citizen of St. Petersburg, beating the writer and former dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the honor.
The Legislative Assembly in the president’s birthplace said 42 of its 47 deputies had voted for the President in a secret ballot. |
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A deputy governor in the South Urals has been charged with abuse of office for illegal purchase of art, RIA Novosti reported local prosecutors as saying Thursday. |
All photos from issue.
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Five men detained last week for possible ties to the killing of an African student are being charged with killing a prominent racial issues expert, city prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev said Wednesday at a news conference at the City Prosecutor’s Office.
The suspects, members of the Mad Crowd group, are thought to have taken part in the June 2004 fatal shooting of Nikolai Girenko, 64, as revenge for Girenko’s testimony in court against another extremist group, Schultz-88, the prosecutor said. |
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MOSCOW — The State Duma gave initial approval on Wednesday to a bill that would punish government ministers for saying “dollar” when they could have used the word “ruble” instead. |
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WASHINGTON — The head of Russia’s atomic energy agency said he hoped for a “major breakthrough” on the Iranian nuclear dispute when major powers were scheduled to meet in London on Wednesday, but a U.S. official said that more talks may be needed to reach agreement.
By the time the meeting ended Wednesday, there was no formal word on the state of progress. |
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Finnair Cargo has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with the St. Petersburg-based Transsphere group, providing it with airfreight business in the Northwest region and across Russia, the companies announced Tuesday at a press conference.
Transsphere has been providing freight forwarding services to Russian companies since 1996. |
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Construction Loan
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Amsterdam Trade Bank N.V., a subsidiary of Alfa-Bank, granted a $12 million loan to LenSpetsSmu construction company to finance projects in St. |
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ST. PETERSBURG — Russia has raised the share of euros in its growing central bank reserves, a top central banker said on Thursday, confirming Moscow’s cooling to the dollar as a dependable store of value.
The announcement by central bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev came after Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia would keep its $71. |
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MOSCOW — Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref told a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the country’s small businesses were suffocated by pressure from underpaid, bribe-hungry police. |
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With the ever increasing price of health and dental care in the west, as well as the reluctance of many insurance companies to pay for the full cost of treatment, more and more people from the Americas, Europe, and Scandinavia are taking advantages of the cost savings of “Medical Tourism”.
In short “Medical Tourism” is the practice of going abroad for quality health care provided at a significantly lower price, often times combining treatment with a vacation. |
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Every couple of years, another item is added to the number of documents you have to hand to the traffic police if you are pulled over. It used to be your license and registration. Then people stopped leaving their technical-inspection cards on the windshield for fear they would get stolen and started handing them out the window as well. |
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Now in its seventh year, the well-established Summer Literary Seminars event branches out to include a Russian-language workshop.
In 1999, Russian-born writer Mikhail Iossel founded the Summer Literary Seminars (SLS) in St. Petersburg. In just seven years, SLS has achieved the status of one of the most prestigious literary seminars in the world, bringing to St. |
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Now that the Rolling Stones has postponed the first 15 shows of the European leg of its A Bigger Bang Tour, including Russia’s one-off concert in St. Petersburg (see article, page 1), an ongoing war between promoters appears to have broken out. |
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The rake is making good progress at the State Hermitage Museum with its recently opened exhibition “Hogarth, Hockney and Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress.”
Inspired by a famous narrative series of paintings from the 18th century, the show includes engravings by its orginator William Hogarth and by contemporary artist David Hockney (from the Hermitage and the British Council collections respectively) on the same theme. |
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Rising classical music stars who have just broken through but haven’t yet filled their concert diaries for years to come are coming to St. Petersburg to perform at the the 11th International Musical Olympus Festival this week. |
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Once-exiled author Yury Galperin talks about his work and the new Russia.
Russian writer Yury Galperin, the author of “Bridge Across the Lethe,” “Russian Variant” and “Playing Blues,” whose works were banned for publication for many years in Russia, has lived in Switzerland for 27 years. However, he likes to come to visit his native St. |
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LONDON — Amelie Mauresmo, Nadia Petrova and Martina Hingis were unlikely to have been at the top of anyone’s list of likely French Open champions six months ago.
Mauresmo was a perennial underachiever at the grand slams, Petrova floated on the women’s tour as the forgotten Russian and Hingis had barely competed on a tennis court in three years. |
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PARIS — World No. 1 Roger Federer has said it is too early for him to even consider a possible showdown with defending champion Rafael Nadal at the French Open. |
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NEW YORK — Boris Diaw scored the winning basket with 0.5 seconds on the clock as the Phoenix Suns drew first blood in the Western Conference finals with a 121-118 road victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday.
Diaw had a career-high 34 points and his winning shot came 4. |
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PLAN DE CORONES, Italy — Italian Leonardo Piepoli won his second stage of this year’s Tour of Italy when capturing the 17th stage, which was cut short due to heavy snow falls. |
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HARTFORD, Connecticut — The United States have never fared especially well against European competition, so there is reason for anxiety as the World Cup looms.
Fourteen European nations are in the finals, and the U.S. are drawn in Group E with the Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana.
“I learned from the 2002 World Cup that you can’t worry about the draw,” U. |
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