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At least 75 visitors to the city’s Waterville aqua park were poisoned by chlorine in the water on Wednesday, the city’s Emergency Service said. Fifteen were hospitalized, and the attraction was temporarily closed. Among the hospitalized were 13 children and two adults. They felt burning in their eyes and throats, and itching of the skin. By 3 p.m. on Thursday, 162 people, including 129 children, who had visited the swimming complex near the Pribaltiiskaya Park Inn on Vasilyevsky Island had sought medical attention, Interfax reported, referring to information provided by the city’s ambulance service. At least 38 of those people, including 27 children, were taken to a hospital. |
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RIDER ON THE STORM
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
The Bronze Horseman statue experiences the full force of the snowstorm that raged in St. Petersburg and the Lenoblast on Tuesday and Wednesday. Meanwhile, don’t forget that in the early morning on Sunday the clocks go back by an hour for summer. |
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Violations of the right to life and other fundamental human rights have become a routine in St. Petersburg, argues the city’s Human Rights Council, in its first analytical report released this week. “Recruits get beaten to death by senior conscripts in the army; inmates are tortured by the staff in prisons; antifascists and non-Slavs are stabbed to death in the streets of St.
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MOSCOW — British Ambassador Anthony Brenton will leave his post in September, when his four-year assignment is set to end, a British Embassy spokesman said Wednesday. “Normal procedures dictate that when his term expires he will leave his post,” the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. |
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MOSCOW — Russian president-elect Dmitry Medvedev ordered anti-corruption steps to protect small businesses on Thursday, a first sign he is serious about fighting the endemic graft economists say is hampering growth. |
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MOSCOW — The head of the liberal Yabloko party’s Penza region branch was charged with extortion Wednesday for purportedly trying to blackmail the governor. Penza’s Leninsky District Court ordered Oleg Kochkin, Yabloko’s top official in the region and publisher of the independent weekly newspaper Lyubimaya Gazeta, to remain in custody during the investigation, regional court official Marina Shcheglova said by telephone Wednesday evening. |
All photos from issue.
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Changes to visa procedures for visitors to the U.K. have led to delays of up to two months and have begun to reduce the number of Russian tourists making the trip there, Moscow tour operators say, although The St. Petersburg Times has learned that visa applications made through the British Consulate in St. Petersburg tend to be dealt with more quickly than they are through the British Embassy in the capital. The new rules mean that a tourist wishing to visit the U.K. needs to fill out an online visa application after which an appointment to attend a visa center is arranged where the applicant will give biometric data, operators say. The application is then considered by visa authorities. |
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 A large group of anti-Nazi youth activists walked down Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, in an unsanctioned march protesting neo-Nazi violence in memory of a murdered activist this week. |
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 The Finnish retailer SOK plans to open and develop its Prisma supermarkets in St. Petersburg until it occupies 15-17 percent of the local retail market by opening about 20 supermarkets over the next five years. “We think there are still areas in St. Petersburg where supermarkets can be opened in the city center and hypermarkets in the suburbs,” Antti Sippola, vice-president of SOK Corporation, said Thursday at a press conference. |
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New Bukvoyed Store ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The St. Petersburg bookstore chain Bukvoyed will open a new store Saturday, the company said Wednesday in a statement. |
 More Russians are putting aside savings now than during the last few years, according to a poll conducted by the Russian Center for Public Opinion (VTsIOM). Half of the respondents stated that they spend their entire income on living expenses and save nothing, as opposed to 60 percent in 2005. “During the last two years more Russians have found opportunities to put aside savings. |
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 The next administration, with Dmitry Medvedev as president and Vladimir Putin remaining at the helm as prime minister, may evolve into something different from Putin’s current rule. But the expectations of liberalization that Medvedev’s rhetoric and non-KGB background might have raised in some circles are wishful thinking. |
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Whenever something bad happens to a Russian child who was adopted by parents from the United States, Russian television is bound to show it as the leading story. |
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 Punk-cabaret favorites The Tiger Lillies, who performed in Russia in June, return with two new albums. “Love and War,” an unlikely tribute to 16th century composer Claudio Monteverdi, was released last year, while “7 Deadly Sins,” the band’s 21st album, with each song devoted to one particular vice, came out earlier this month. The band’s entire career has been covered in The Tiger Lillies Book that contains the lyrics to 282 songs and 340 photographs, mostly previously unpublished. |
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 A local anti-fascist movement marched against neo-Nazi violence this week, marking the ninth day since the death of an anti-fascist in Moscow. Alexei Krylov, who lived in Noginsk, a town near Moscow, was attacked and stabbed by 15 neo-Nazis when he was walking with three other young men and a young woman, to a punk concert at Art Garbage club. |
 MOSCOW — Igor Volodin believes vodka is no more harmful than chocolate. He is proud to be the first Russian to produce the spirit in a special women’s version, designed to be sipped with salad after a workout in the gym. Touted as a glamour product for upwardly mobile women in booming Russia, Damskaya or “Ladies” vodka worries doctors, who fear a fresh wave of female alcoholics in a country already suffering one of the world’s worst drink problems. |
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 Alexander Sokurov’s “Alexandra” — a film of startling originality and beauty — feels like a communiqué from another time, another place, anywhere but here. |
 When Rebecca Roberts, a 26-year-old Australian lawyer, moved to Moscow for work, she did not know what to expect. Like many new arrivals, she was both amused and confused by the nightclubs, the girls, the money and the haircuts. But then she saw an article in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper recommending a blog about Russia’s nightlife, “Moscow Doesn’t Believe In Tears. |
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Glyanets (Gloss) // 17 Nevsky Prospekt. Tel: 315 2315 // Open daily from 12 p.m. until 2 a.m. // Menu in English and Russian // Dinner for two without alcohol: 2,280 rubles ($90) Glyanets (Gloss) is the new and suitably swanky inhabitant of the courtyard of the stunning Stroganoff Palace on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and the Moika River. |
 About a dozen political and social organizations have joined the arts establishment in organizing the 10-day Third International “Time to Live” Film Forum of Social Films to be held in St. Petersburg starting Friday. It will include contests and retrospective shows of films from such directors as Jean Roche of France, Michael Lee of the U. |
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HARARE — President Robert Mugabe accused the West of driving Zimbabwe towards misery as a result of sanctions as the contest to rule the ailing former British colony entered the final stretch. In his most outspoken attack to date on the former colonial power and the United States, Mugabe said they were responsible for the chronic problems which are now afflicting the health service in a country where even bandages and painkillers are scarce and where from where most doctors have emigrated. |
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CHARLEVILLE-MEZIERES, France — A French husband and wife who have confessed to hunting for virgins in a 15-year killing spree went on trial Thursday for the kidnap, rape and murder of seven young women and girls. |
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GREENSBORO, N.C. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday sought to quell concerns over anti-American remarks by his former pastor, saying people are paying too much attention to a small number of “stupid” comments. Obama gave a sweeping speech on race last week in which he condemned incendiary remarks by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but the words of the former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago continue to dog the candidate. |
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PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that he cannot rule out the possibility he might boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics if China continues its crackdown in Tibet. An official from France’s state television company said the broadcaster would likely boycott the games if coverage was censored, and the European Union, United States, Australia and Canada urged China to show restraint as it tries to quell continuing unrest in its Tibetan areas. Asked whether he supported a boycott, Sarkozy said he could “not close the door to any possibility.” A spokesman for the president said Sarkozy was referring to a possible snub of the Aug. |
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 NAPIER, New Zealand — Monty Panesar spun England to a crushing 121-run victory as New Zealand went down despite a late flourish by teenager Tim Southee in the third and deciding cricket Test on Wednesday. |
Temp: -2°C moderate or heavy snow showers
Issues Archive