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Two geese that died in St. Petersburg this month did not die of bird flu as widely reported, scientists have said. Tests for avian influenza at St. Petersburg’s zoo following the death of the geese proved negative, the zoo’s scientific secretary Galina Afanasiyeva said Thursday in a telephone interview. |
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Celebrating the New Year in a foreign country is becoming increasingly popular among Petersburgers, but those who purchased their trips instead of settling their debts might have to stay at home for this festive season, according to the city’s branch of the Federal Service of Bailiffs. |
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MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday blasted Western leaders for criticizing President Vladimir Putin to score points at home and contain Russian power. Speaking at his traditional, end-of-the-year news conference, Lavrov stressed that Russia’s resurgence to the status of global player would continue and defended Russian policy in the former Soviet Union. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW — Billionaire mogul Roman Abramovich on Wednesday asked President Vladimir Putin for permission to resign as governor of the polar Chukotka region. Abramovich, the richest man from Russia, believes he has done everything he can to help the barren peninsula, said his spokesman, John Mann. |
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MOSCOW — HIV activists are accusing the Health and Social Development Ministry of endangering the lives of tens of thousands of infected Russians by altering the list of anti-retroviral drugs the government plans to buy next year. |
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MOSCOW — A bill that would close most casinos and slot-machine halls in the country — including Moscow and St. Petersburg — cleared a third and final reading Wednesday in the State Duma. To become law, the bill still needs the approval of the Federation Council and of President Vladimir Putin, who submitted the draft in October. |
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A new Russian oil terminal is to be built in the Leningrad Oblast by the end of 2008, developer Northwest Alliance announced at a press conference on Tuesday. The company said that it had completed the exploration phase of the $40 million project and had begun planning the sea terminal on a 1,254 hectare site near the village of Vistino in Kingisepp region on the south coast of the Finnish Gulf. |
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MOSCOW — Russia agreed Tuesday to keep European Union meat flowing into the country after long threatening to ban imports from the trade bloc — at the expense of two soon-to-be EU members. |
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MOSCOW — IK Abros, an affiliate of Bank Rossiya, which has ties to President Vladimir Putin, has bought a stake in Ren-TV. While it is unclear how many shares Abros has acquired, the stake was big enough to get Abros representative Lyubov Sovershayeva the chairmanship of Ren-TV’s board of directors. |
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MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday approved the 2007 budget, which assumes world oil prices will remain high in an election year and foresees a 25 percent spending increase, the Kremlin said. |
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MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russians will spend $30 billion on cars this year, triple the amount five years ago. Russians are expected to buy 2 million cars this year, spending as much as $30 billion, according to preliminary estimates by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. |
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MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Rosneft does not plan to sell more shares to the public because it does not need the money and has not begun assessing Yukos’ assets, Interfax reported Tuesday, citing company CEO Sergei Bogdanchikov. |
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MOSCOW (REUTERS) — The world’s top nickel producer, Norilsk Nickel, said Tuesday that two issues of its shares had been consolidated to ease investors’ dealings in its stock. “We initiated the consolidation because the circulation of two share issues had caused difficulties for market players,” the company quoted head of investor relations Dmitry Usanov as saying in a statement. |
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MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Net capital inflow into the country may exceed $30 billion this year, Interfax said, citing Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov. |
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Shell is due to sell half of its 55 percent stake in Sakhalin-2 to Gazprom for cash, a source close to the talks said Wednesday, in an imminent deal that looks likely to be a significant setback to the oil major. The project’s three shareholders will each give up one-half of their holdings to hand Gazprom a controlling stake, the source said, citing part of the proposed deal finalized last week. Project operator Shell would then have a stake of 27.5 percent, while Mitsui would reduce its stake to 12.5 percent from 25 percent and Mitsubishi to 10 percent from 20 percent. Gazprom would need just 50 percent plus one share to take control. Shell has long been angling for an asset swap with Gazprom, and would be dealt a harsh blow if forced to settle for cash only, analysts said. |
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 MOSCOW — UniCredit’s Eastern European arm, Bank Austria, is to buy Aton brokerage for $424 million, Bank Austria said Wednesday. The acquisition will include the equity, fixed-income and corporate-finance divisions of Aton Capital Group, Milan-based UniCredit said in a stock exchange statement Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW — While Russia offered concessions Wednesday in its gas pricing standoff with Belarus and Moldova, which may soothe Europe’s fears that it could again face reduced gas supplies in the middle of winter, it appeared determined to pursue its hard line with Georgia. |
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MOSCOW — The high pace of the ruble’s real appreciation is the main flop of the country’s economic policy in 2006, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in an interview published Tuesday. |
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 Last month, President Vladimir Putin and his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, were due to meet on the margins of the CIS summit in Minsk. They exchanged a few words but never sat down for a serious talk. Meanwhile, relations between Georgia and Russia continue to be in a danger zone. |
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Not long ago, a high-ranking Kremlin official admitted to close associates that the country’s main goal in 2007 would be to “correct Russia’s image abroad at least a little bit. |
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 One is 23 years old and from Dresden. The other is 80 years old and from St. Petersburg. Together they have formed an unusual bond that stretches across nations and generations. When director Erik Lemke was looking for the subject of the film he was making as part of his studies in documentary cinema at the St. |
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If leopard-skin print had a spiritual home, it would probably be the Kremlin Palace concert hall, an endearingly unfashionable place where middle-aged people go to watch middle-aged singers whom they have seen on television. |
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A mostly geriatric crowd of about 500 fellow travelers gathered Tuesday evening at the Moscow Electric Lamp Factory’s House of Culture to honor Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s 100th birthday. The evening featured Soviet propaganda — a 1976 film documenting the achievements of the Soviet leader that included applause-inducing footage of Brezhnev with cosmonaut Yury Gagarin — and speeches by Communist stalwarts Yegor Ligachyov and Gennady Zyuganov. |
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Artwork belonging to the Russian Avant-Garde movement of the early 20th century has acquired another residence in St. Petersburg — and one far more authentic than, for example, the Russian Museum. |
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The amazing clarity of images of some of France’s signature architectural landscapes — Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, Tuileries Palace and Gardens, Royal Palace — dating from the second half of 19th century, can be admired at a new exhibition at the National Center of Photography. |
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Philip Sington’s solo fiction debut, “Zoia’s Gold,” arrives cloaked in an aura of obsession. A co-author of six successful thrillers under the pseudonym Patrick Lynch, Sington digs deep into the documents left behind by Zoia Korvin-Krukovsky — last-known survivor of the Romanov court, femme fatale, emigre artist. |
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This year, the parish of the St. Catherine’s Roman Catholic Church is having the Christmas midnight mass at midnight for the first time in its modern history. Dec. 25 is not an official state holiday in Russia, where the Orthodox calendar puts Christmas on Jan. |
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Not many fine diners in search of authentic French cuisine wander to the end of Bolshaya Konyushennaya, where swaggering teenagers loiter outside Mod Club on Konyushennaya Ploshchad and the stench of Tsar Nicholas II’s adjoining stables still lingers. |
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PARIS — A French television reporter managed to smuggle explosive material and knives onto American and French passenger planes apparently revealing serious flaws in security at French airports. Appearing in a documentary made for state television due to be aired on Friday, the reporter has raised fresh questions about French air safety after accusations last month that it was too easy to gain access to aircraft at Paris’ main airport. |
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Issues Archive