|
|
|
|
One in five residents of St. Petersburg say they have been tortured or physically abused by the police or other law enforcement officers at least once in their lives, a new survey has revealed. The troubling statistic emerged in a new report by a group of experts from the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Committee Against Torture, a non-governmental organization based in Nizhny Novgorod with branches in six regions of Russia including Chechnya. The report, which aimed to establish the scale and range of torture used by Russia’s law enforcement authorities, was presented to local media on Monday in the St. Petersburg headquarters of Memorial, a human rights group. Researchers questioned more than 5,500 people in six regions of Russia, including St. |
|
A HEAVENLY TREAT
Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters
Visitors look at 1:100 scale model of the Peter and Paul Fortress made of bitter chocolate during the Interfood 2007 exhibition at LenExpo on Wednesday. |
|
Three conscripts that were reported missing since Sunday from a military unit stationed near St. Petersburg were found and detained by a military patrol on Wednesday, the army said on Thursday. “The military prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal case into their desertion, and the recruits are currently being interrogated by investigators,” Lieutenant General Viktor Ostashko told reporters.
|
|
MOSCOW — The government may soon have to eliminate all exemptions from military service in order to maintain the armed forces at full strength as the number of draft-age men continues to decline, activists said Wednesday. “2011 will be a bust in terms of conscription,” military affairs journalist Alexander Golts said at the presentation of a report on conscription prepared last year by the interregional Soldiers’ Mothers movement — which is distinct from the Union of Soldiers’ Mothers’ Committees — and 23 other nongovernmental organizations, Interfax reported. |
|
MOSCOW — Plans to build a memorial to the 333 hostages killed three years ago in the Beslan school attack have sparked a conflict between Christians and Muslims in the region. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — A television producer has been arrested after he accepted $20,000 not to air an embarrassing report about the top executive at a state-owned company, police said Wednesday. The producer, Alexei Osipov, 41, was arrested in a sting operation on Friday at a restaurant in northern Moscow, said Ruslan Shikhmagomedov, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry’s department to fight organized crime and terrorism. Shikhmagomedov refused to identify the executive, saying only that he headed a major state-owned enterprise. Osipov has been charged with extortion and could face up to seven years behind bars if convicted. |
|
FLYING THE FLAG
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Zenit St. Petersburg Soccer Club fans support their team during its 2-1 defeat against Spartak Moskva on Wednesday, following its 3-1 defeat by the same team earlier in the week. |
 LONDON — Businessman Boris Berezovsky set up a $500,000 foundation in honor of Alexander Litvinenko on Tuesday and called on investigators to do more to find out who killed the former security officer. Flanked by Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, Berezovsky said the foundation would seek compensation for all those contaminated by polonium-210, the radioactive material that killed Litvinenko, as well as campaigning for justice in the case.
|
|
|
|
 In honor of the 10th anniversary of the St. Petersburg chapter, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, Andrew Somers, visited the Northern Capital last week and found a few moments to tell The St. Petersburg Times of his experiences fighting for the rights of Western companies. |
|
MOSCOW — Italy’s Eni and Enel became the first foreign companies to scoop up the remains of Yukos on Wednesday, casting the winning bid at a bankruptcy auction before promptly announcing plans to pass on the bulk of the assets to Gazprom. |
|
MOSCOW — The German-Russian consortium planning the Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea said Wednesday that it would consider altering the route after countries around the sea expressed concern over the environment. Some Baltic Sea states say the $6. |
|
St. Petersburg’s very first IMAX cinema will open April 26 in the KinoStar?City entertainment center.? The five-story high IMAX screen will be inaugurated with a showing of Spiderman III, the entrepreneurs and investors behind the project said Tuesday at a press conference. |
|
|
|
 Europe has long been neglecting the new strategic threats arising from missile proliferation. For some years now, the international community has been devoting a great deal of attention to the Iranian nuclear program. Germany has been playing an active role in the efforts of the international community to dissuade Iran from pursuing its nuclear plans. |
|
It occurred soon after reports that the Vostok battalion, a pro-Moscow unit in Chechnya comprised of local recruits, was engaged in a 2005 ethnic cleansing raid in the predominantly ethnic Avar village of Borozdinovskaya. |
|
|
|
 VLADIKAVKAZ, North Caucasus —Snipers manned roofs here and battles broke out regularly on the city’s streets in 1991. The terrorist attack on the school in Beslan in 2003 took place just 15 minutes down the road. The conflict in Chechnya continues to rage to the north, while tensions along the Russian-Georgian border to the south also hang in the air. |
|
Sonic Youth are to appear live in Russia — and that includes in St. Petersburg — the band announced last week. The New York-based band comes to the city after an 18-year hiatus; its first visit came during a strange, low-profile U. |
 With his new play based on Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” (1835), which premieres at the Alexandrinsky Theater on Tuesday, renowned director Andrei Moguchy hopes to bring to life the absurd world of Mirgorod, the fictional Ukrainian village where the fable is set. By bringing “Ivans” to the stage, Moguchy, a founder of the Formal Theater and the holder of a number of awards from Russian and international festivals — the latest was the Grand Prix at the BITEF International Theater Festival in Belgrade in March — shows that he is not willing to rest on his laurels and continues to break new ground. |
|
 On April 30 next year, Lenfilm, Russia’s oldest movie studio, will celebrate its 90th anniversary. However, the director of “Lights in the Stage,” an upcoming film about the St. |
 To get to the new and promising club called The Place, launched last Saturday with a show by the British cabaret-folk-punk band Nigel Burch and the Flea-Pit Orchestra, from Baltiiskaya Metro on the muddy Obvodny Kanal, visitors have to cross an urban wasteland. |
|
The popular image of Catherine the Great, a portly nymphomaniac cursed with flatulence and venereal disease, has overshadowed her unique place in Russian history. |
|
Ivan Dulin is the only gay milling machine operator in the world. But that may be one too many, judging from a kerfuffle reported in Komsomolskaya Pravda this week. The character from a television sketch show called “Our Russia” has had to switch jobs after metalworkers in Chelyabinsk got hot under their blue collars. |
|
Looking for a place to eat next time you head to Moscow?
A monthly look at a selection of restaurants in the capital. Rybnoye Mesto 1/15 Krasnokholmskaya Nab. |
 With “Bobby,” Emilio Estevez, writer and director (as well as one of a huge ensemble of actors), sets himself a large and honorable task. It is important to appreciate this in spite of his movie’s evident shortcomings. Intentions do count for something, and Estevez’s seem to me entirely admirable. He tries, by means of the familiar technique of weaving together story lines connected only by coincidences of time and place, to produce a feeling of collective life. |
|
|
|
 LONDON — The 15 British military personnel freed by Iran after a two-week diplomatic stand-off arrived back in England on Thursday to cheers and to questions about the incident and its implications. As flight BA6634 from Tehran touched down at London’s Heathrow Airport at 12:02 p.m. local time, the group burst into applause. |
|
|
|
|
ATLANTA — The Washington Capitals came here needing two points to match last year’s modest total. And while amassing 70 points may not sound too difficult — 11 teams have 100 or more — it was an important plateau for Coach Glen Hanlon and his players. Alex Ovechkin, Boyd Gordon and Brent Johnson made sure the team reached that goal Wednesday night at Philips Arena. Ovechkin scored twice, Gordon had a goal and an assist, and Johnson was steady in the Capitals’ wild, 3-2 victory over the Southeast Division-leading Atlanta Thrashers. It was Washington’s first victory on the road in 10 games. “We had some small goals, and getting to 70 points or above was one of them,” captain Chris Clark said. |
|
 ROME — Manchester United fans and Italian police clashed during the halftime break at the Champions League quarter-final with AS Roma which Manchester United lost 2-1 on Wednesday. |
 ST JOHN’S, Antigua — Sri Lanka pulled off a dramatic two-run World Cup victory over England after young batsman Ravi Bopara was dismissed off the last ball having almost snatched the Super Eights game on Wednesday. Sri Lanka fast bowler Dilhara Fernando bowled Bopara with three runs needed off the final delivery to leave England stranded on 233 for eight chasing Sri Lanka’s 235 all out. |
|
AUGUSTA, Georgia — Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have dominated talk in the build-up to this week’s Masters with fans relishing a possible head-to-head between the Augusta National specialists. |
|
LONDON — Kimi Raikkonen’s hopes of following up his triumphant Ferrari debut with another win in Malaysia this weekend could be dented before qualifying has even started. The Finn fears his car’s engine was damaged in the Australian season-opener and could need replacing, a change that would incur a 10-place penalty on the starting grid for the second round of the Formula One season. |
Temp: -2°C moderate or heavy snow showers
Issues Archive