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Fish from the River Neva contain high concentrations of poisonous substances, including arsenic and polychlorobiphenyl, one of the 12 most dangerous organic pollutants, according to recent research carried out by the international environmental pressure group Greenpeace. The research also revealed that the levels of copper in the city’s main waterway exceeded the norm by 73 times, and levels of manganese by 26 times. Dmitry Artamonov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Greenpeace, said that the level of public awareness about environmental issues and, in particular, water pollution, remains low as pollution in the waterways of the Neva Delta worsens. Greenpeace is this week launching a monitoring and awareness program that would involve sending its own patrol boat along the Neva with crews taking water samples, documenting illegal discharge sites and publicizing the results among city residents. |
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SCHOOL’S OUT!
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Spectators watch a ship sailing down the River Neva as part of the ‘Crimson Sails’ highschool graduation celebrations on Saturday. The event also featured a firework spectacular and salute. |
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MOSCOW — Dozens of ultranationalists armed with metal poles and broken bottles attacked people from the Caucasus and Central Asia at two squares near the Kremlin and a third location Friday night, raising fears of an escalation in ethnic violence. One ethnic Armenian was hospitalized with stab wounds and 42 people were detained in the clashes, city police said.
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A controversial 400-meter skyscraper to be built for energy giant Gazprom in St. Petersburg’s Malaya Okhta, a district neighboring downtown, could be scaled down or moved further away from the historic city center, after the ambitious plan from Russia’s richest company encountered fierce resistance from city’s Planning Council. |
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MOSCOW — Moscow next week introduces a city-wide label to identify GM-free foods, a move ecologists hail as ground-breaking but which foreign producers say is complex and costly. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Alexander Bastrykin, named Friday as the head of a new investigative committee in the Prosecutor General’s Office, said he would place a priority on investigations into the murders of Alexander Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya. Bastrykin, a deputy prosecutor general and former classmate of President Vladimir Putin, was appointed by the Federation Council to head up the new semiautonomous agency, which is taking over the current investigative powers of prosecutors. Senators confirmed Bastrykin by a 137-0 vote with two abstentions. The investigative committee’s first order of business will be to look into the poisoning death of Litvinenko, a former security services officer, in London last November, Bastrykin said after the vote. |
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A LOT OF HOT AIR
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Hot air balloons taking part in the opening of the Hot Air Balloon World Cup at the Catherine Palace in Pushkin on Thursday evening. A total of 45 air balloons were launched in the event. |
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin has asked the City Duma to confirm Mayor Yury Luzhkov for another four years, the Kremlin web site said Friday. The City Duma — dominated by United Russia deputies — is expected to approve the nomination at a special meeting Wednesday. Luzhkov, 70, will give a speech and answer questions at the meeting, before the deputies retire to vote, Interfax reported.
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MOSCOW — A police officer has been detained on suspicion of tapping telephone calls and selling the transcripts of the conversations, police said Friday. A second officer has resigned in connection with the case, city police spokesman Yevgeny Gildeyev said. |
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MOSCOW — A total of 271 foreign workers constructing the long-awaited Sheremetevo-3 airport terminal have been hospitalized with food poisoning after eating a meal of fried potatoes and ground meat, prosecutors said. |
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia would lift a ban on imports of Moldovan wine, which had dealt a blow to the country’s economy. After a meeting at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow with Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, Putin emphasized a thaw in the chilly relations between the leaders. |
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Spy Suspect Gets Home MOSCOW (SPT) — Vladimir Vozhzhov, the space agency official arrested by Austrian police on spy charges, is back in Russia, the Russian Embassy in Vienna said Friday. |
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Reax security agency has launched a national project for unifying medium-sized security agencies across Russia. At the moment the chain operates in three regions. By the end of the year the company expects to sign franchise agreements in 14 cities with populations over million people. |
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Ingosstrakh insurance company increased net profit over twofold last year compared to 2005 up to 1.9 billion rubles ($73 million). Insurance premiums accounted for 34. |
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State utility Unified Energy System, which is being broken up and privatized by next July, has cemented plans to maintain control over the power sector from the grave. The Economic Development and Trade Ministry will be put in charge of policing the new owners of the companies spun off from UES after it ceases to exist. |
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The market finally doled out some wisdom last week to a Russian firm going public: If your head swells up too big, you won’t fit through the door. The company had no choice but to listen. |
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Pertsovsky Renaissance MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Renaissance Capital Group named Alexander Pertsovsky to lead its investment banking business. Pertsovsky will oversee mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt and derivatives in Renaissance Capital’s main markets, including Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Moscow-based brokerage said in an e-mailed statement Monday. |
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ANGARSK — The country has about 850,000 tons of uranium in reserves and resources and more than 1 million tons if joint ventures abroad are included, Federal Atomic Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko said Friday. |
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MOSCOW — Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said Friday criminal businesses and money laundering posed a threat to the country’s economic development and announced the creation of a special anti-corruption unit that will soon be set up within his office, Interfax reported. “Money laundering conducted through the conclusion of deals and financial operations allows organized-crime groups to infiltrate the legal economy and even carry out illicit activities by producing new schemes for it,” Chaika said at a meeting of law enforcement chiefs. The anti-corruption unit would draw on experience from similar units in Spain, Chaika said. “It wasn’t incidental that I went on a recent trip to Spain,” Interfax quoted Chaika as saying. |
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 The number of charitable organizations has exploded in recent times — each has its own history and that is often predetermined by a number of particular events. |
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The North West region of Russia, with St. Petersburg at its center, is set to become the test ground for new forms of direct inter-regional cross-border agreements between Russia and the EU that it is hoped will boost trade and investment between the two economic blocs. |
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ROME — Gazprom and Italian oil firm Eni unveiled a plan Saturday for a big new pipeline to take Russian gas under the Black Sea to Europe, undermining an earlier plan to extend a Turkish route. |
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MOSCOW — Gazprom bought TNK-BP’s stake in the troubled Kovykta gas field for a knockdown price Friday in a landmark deal that ends years of wrangling over BP’s flagship project in Russia. The buyout underlines the Kremlin’s determination to consign foreign oil firms to the role of secondary partners in the country’s energy sector. |
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MOSCOW — Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Gazprom, will raise its stake in a joint venture with U.S. oil major Chevron to 75 percent later this year, Interfax reported Friday. |
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St. Petersburg largest bank, PSB, or Industry and Construction Bank, no longer exists. The end had already been predicted when the state-owned giant Vneshtorgbank, or VTB, purchased 75 percent plus three shares of the bank in late 2005. It became obvious when VTB president Andrei Kostin said that his bank was going to acquire PSB. |
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In May, the State Duma approved the government’s three-year budget for 2008 to 2010 on first reading. This type of planning is designed to increase the predictability of budgetary and tax policies, decrease the risk of influence of factors like political jockeying ahead of the presidential election in 2008, and to provide a clear understanding of the government’s intentions. |
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One of the reforms touted by President Vladimir Putin when he came to office was “deregulation”: decreasing the administrative burden on small and medium-size businesses. But despite the fact that this was clearly needed, it soon became apparent that success on this front was unlikely. The main task — to decrease the role of bureaucrats and ease the lot of private entrepreneurs — soon seemed to run counter to a broader policy of increasing the state’s role in the economy. |
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 A brouhaha began brewing in the Arctic a couple of weeks ago, as the Norwegian public was buffeted with news of a new scientific study pointing to nuclear dangers at an old Russian naval base located on the Kola Peninsula, about 50 kilometers from the Norwegian border. |
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What surprised me about Alexander Litvinenko’s poisoning is how many of my American friends in New York, generally so ignorant of Russia, have taken the trouble to learn about the case. |
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The formation of a foundation aimed at going global to fight intolerance has sent shock waves through ethnic minority groups because the key figures behind the international institution, which was founded in St. Petersburg last month, have questionable histories on the exact topic they are supposed to address. |
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 BAGHDAD — Saddam Hussein’s cousin, widely known as “Chemical Ali,” was sentenced on Sunday to hang for masterminding a genocidal military campaign that used poison gas against Iraq’s Kurds in the 1980s. Ali Hassan al-Majeed, looking frail and wearing traditional Arab robes, stood silently as the judge read the verdict. |
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 BARCELONA, Spain — French striker Thierry Henry was set to be officially unveiled as a Barcelona player on Monday as he finalizes his transfer from English Premiership side Arsenal. The 29-year-old underwent medical tests on Monday morning before he was due to be formally presented to the public at the Nou Camp wearing Barcelona’s dark blue and red jersey for the first time. |
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MOSCOW — Zenit St. Petersburg scored a nervy 4-3 victory over lowly Spartak Nalchik on Sunday to move to the top of the Russian premier league. Russian internationals Vladislav Radimov and Alexander Anyukov scored two late goals to break a 2-2 deadlock and although Nalchik pulled one back in added time, Dick Advocaat’s team held on for their sixth win from 14 games. |
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INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — Tyson Gay could’ve sworn he heard heavy breathing coming up on him as he flew down the home stretch. So Gay’s fear mode kicked in and he moved even faster. As it turned out, the heavy breathing was only coming from himself. No one else was even close as Gay completed an impressive sprint double by running the second-fastest 200 meters ever Sunday on the final day of the U. |
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