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 MOSCOW — First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, anointed by President Vladimir Putin in December as his favored successor, met with the family of the 100,000th child born in Moscow in 2007 in a visit that had all the trappings of a campaign event. Political analysts said the visit, which was covered on all of the national news, was aimed at reinforcing the idea that social issues will be the top priority for the man almost sure to be the country’s next president. The recipients of the visit were the parents of Alexei Grigoryev, one of 11 babies born in the early evening of Dec. 26, each of whom was designated the 100,000th child born in Moscow in 2007 and awarded a special medal by the City Hall. Medvedev’s spokespeople would not comment on why the Grigoryevs, Svetlana and Dmitry, both graduates of Moscow State University, had been chosen for the visit. |
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HELLO DOLLY!
Toby Melville / Reuters
Model Natalia Vodianova poses with giant Russian dolls to launch the Russian Winter Festival in Central London on Thursday. The festival will run until Sunday. |
 St. Petersburg’s Kalininsky district civil court ruled Wednesday that Russia’s first professional heavyweight boxing champion Nikolai Valuyev damaged the health of a security guard at the Spartak sports complex and ordered the 7-foot, 1-inch-tall so-called “Beast from the East” to pay 130,000 rubles ($5,320) in compensation. Valuyev must pay 100,000 rubles in “moral damages” to the guard, Yury Sergeyev, and 30,000 rubles in fines, Interfax reported.
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LOS ANGELES — In the secretive world of movie spy James Bond, the “Bond girl” for the new installment in the movie series had been top secret, but Bond’s backers said this week that Ukrainian bombshell Olga Kurylenko is the actress. Columbia Pictures, the film studio behind the popular movies about the British secret agent, said Monday that Kurylenko, 28, has been cast in one of the most coveted roles in the movies — 007’s sidekick for the still untitled Bond flick. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Dmitry Medvedev first tapped the Kremlin’s chief of staff to run his national presidential campaign. Now he is signing up governors to campaign for him in their regions. St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, Moscow First Deputy Mayor Vladimir Resin and Samara Governor Vladimir Artyakov are among the regional leaders who have agreed to head Medvedev’s regional campaign headquarters, Vedomosti reported Wednesday, citing sources in the local administrations and United Russia. Communist spokesman Pavel Shcherbakov criticized the development as a blatant abuse of Kremlin powers for electoral purposes. |
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Performers operating puppets at the St. Petersburg Festival of Vertep Theater Troupes at the Russian Ethnographic Museum. The festival of traditional Russian puppetry ends on Saturday. |
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MOSCOW — A 40-year-old man killed two friends with an ax in the Chita region after finding them preparing to cook his dog for a meal, prosecutors said Wednesday. Alexander Yermilov found the friends dismembering his Great Dane, named Baikal, upon returning to his home in the village of Natsigun on the night of Dec. 14, the Chita.ru news agency reported Wednesday, citing the regional branch of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
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MOSCOW — British packaging firm Rexam said Wednesday that anti-monopoly authorities had given it the go-ahead to buy Rostar, a unit of Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element, in a deal that would give it a commanding position in the country’s beverage-can market. |
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More than 300 slot machine halls have stopped operating in St. Petersburg since Jan. 1, according to local officials, as regional legislation now prohibits the existence of such halls in the city. |
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Oil Production Up ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Russia increased its oil production by 2.3 percent last year compared to figures from 2006, and oil export increased by 3.7 percent, while gas production decreased by 0.5 percent, Interfax reported Wednesday. In 2007, Russia produced 491,481 million tons of oil, and gas production amounted to 653,109 billion cubic meters. |
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 It was a cross between Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary” with plenty of Soviet grayness thrown in. A drunken Moscow doctor woke up in an airport and took a taxi to an apartment identical to his own – the same proletarian street name, the same porch, the same doorlock, the same closets – but, as it took him 50 minutes of screen time to realize, the apartment was in Leningrad, and its owner was a willowy blonde with relationship issues. |
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Tsinik, or Cynic, the popular downtown hangout aimed at students and expats, has closed after its rental agreement was not renewed by a city government committee in charge of the building where the bar was located. |
 BEIJING – After endless controversy about its design during the long period of its construction, China’s Grand National Theater opened last September to little fanfare except for some reports in the international press. Located next to the Great Hall of the People, this imposing, eye-catching egg-shaped structure blends in quite harmoniously with the overall style of Tiananmen Square. |
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Il Ponte // 12 Kirochnaya Ulitsa. Tel: 336 5858 // ilponte@ilponte.ru // Open daily from 12 p.m. through 11 p.m. // All major credit cards excepted // Dinner for two and two glasses of wine: 3,270 rubles ($130) Italian food is nothing new or novel to St. |
 In a new spirit of austerity and cutbacks, RusAl head Oleg Deripaska treated his colleagues and friends not to a Tanzanian goat apiece, but to the nearest thing for an oligarch: a New Year concert whose star, Rihanna, only charged $500,000. George Michael, who sang for Vladimir Potanin last year for a reported $3.3 million, wouldn’t even get out of a Ritz-Carlton featherbed for that. Still, she’ll learn. |
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 On a show like “The Wire,” policemen and criminals belong to competitive organizations locked in uneasy, permanent coexistence. In “We Own the Night,” James Gray’s operatic new film, the police and drug dealers are imagined as warring tribes in a fight to the death. |
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 LONDON — Sam Allardyce became the latest example of Premier League impatience on Wednesday when he “parted company” with Newcastle United after half a season with the club. Allardyce becomes the eighth Premier League manager to leave this season and Newcastle’s fourth in four years. |
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LOS ANGELES — The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced Wednesday it will delay next week’s scheduled Mitchell Report hearing featuring witnesses Roger Clemens and his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, until Feb. |
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SYDNEY — World number one Justine Henin set up a dream final against second-ranked Svetlana Kuznetsova after beating Ana Ivanovic at the Sydney International on Thursday. Henin booked her place in the final with a 6-2 2-6 6-4 win over the fourth-ranked Serb while St. |
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Ak Bars Wins in Riga ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Ak Bars Kazan won the IIHF Continental Cup in Riga with 6-2 win over HK Riga 2000 in Riga on Sunday. |
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