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MOSCOW — The State Duma took a major step Wednesday toward preventing children from being placed in foster families by abandoning a system that encouraged the placements. Ignoring two years of public opposition, the Duma passed in a crucial second reading legislation that redefines the functions of state social services and forbids other organizations from participating in the placement of orphaned and abandoned children in families. “I am extremely disappointed with this bill,” said Sergei Koloskov, a member of the Public Chamber and head of a nongovernmental organization that assists children with Down syndrome. “Russia has voted for bureaucrats, not for children. |
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EARLY OPENING
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
The bridges on the Neva River began opening and the waterway became navigable for shipping on Wednesday, 20 days earlier than planned, the Transport Ministry reported, due to relatively warm weather over the winter and the early completion of bridge repairs. |
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MOSCOW — Unified Energy System CEO Anatoly Chubais lashed out at state-controlled Rosneft on Wednesday, accusing the country’s largest oil company of “anti-government activities” and jeopardizing vital reforms to the country’s electricity sector. The comments by Chubais were related to a lawsuit filed in February by Rosneft subsidiary Neft-Aktiv over the formation of an electricity generating company, TGK-11, in the Omsk and Tomsk regions.
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The St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly has sent a petition to President Vladimir Putin asking the Russian leader to veto an amendment to a law that leaves young Russian priests torn between their duty as citizens and their religious beliefs. The measure, approved in February, removed the exemption from compulsory military service formerly given to Orthodox priests. |
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MOSCOW — Russian immigration red tape is so cumbersome that many Europeans are leaving rather than trying to comply, European Union embassies have told the government in the latest round in a visa dispute. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin and his successor Dmitry Medvedev told United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday that the UN was the only global body with the authority to resolve international disputes. Ban, for his part, congratulated Medvedev on his presidential election win and complimented Putin on his role in “governing this country to success.” The exchange of niceties could not, however, sugarcoat rifts between the Kremlin and the UN chief, analysts said. Ban’s openly pro-U.S. position has irked Russia, which supported his candidacy, as has what even he admitted was a long wait for his first official visit to Moscow. |
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GRUDGE MATCH
Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters
Bayer Leverkusen’s coach Michael Skibbes (c) watches his team during a training session at the Petrovsky Stadium on Thursday, prior to Thursday night’s UEFA Cup match against Zenit. |
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MOSCOW — Suspected international arms dealer Viktor Bout asked the Russian government for help in securing his release from a Thai prison where he faces trial on terror charges and possible extradition to the United States. In an open letter quoted by RIA news agency, Bout said: “I request to take measures for my release because I was detained and continue to be held in custody on fabricated charges.
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Wine Cellar Upgrade ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Konstantinovsky Palace, the official presidential residence near St. Petersburg, is spending 8 million rubles ($325,000) on its wine cellar, Fontanka.ru reported. Bottles of highly-priced vintage Chateau O’Brien, Chateau Angelus, Saint Emilion Grand Cru AOC, Chateau Figeac, and other wines will be purchased for the cellar. |
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Reksoft software development company has completed a tourism web site, Tourgenius.ru, the company said Tuesday in a statement. The new web site aims to become a comprehensive source of information for tourists and service providers in the tourism and hospitality industry. Tourgenius.ru contains information about traveling all over the world. The site’s administrators claim that as well as using the search engine, tourists can book trips online and the tickets and other documents will be delivered to them by agents. “Since it began operating, the web site has become one of the largest sources of information about travel and leisure for Russian audiences. |
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LAND AHOY!
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Construction work on the Sea Facade project, an artificial island being built off Vasilievsky Island. The reclaimed territory will house the new sea passenger port, a business center and apartments. |
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MOSCOW — This year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is drawing more attention than ever and will focus on creeping global economic isolationism and Russia’s long-term development, Economic Development and Trade Minister Elvira Nabiullina said Wednesday. All eyes will be on Dmitry Medvedev as he meets international investors for the first time as president during the June 6-8 event.
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MOSCOW — Ernst & Young, one of the world’s largest auditors, said Wednesday that it was contesting a multimillion-dollar back tax claim. Tax authorities asked the company to pay $16.5 million in back taxes in December, accusing it of funneling undeclared profits from its Russian operations to its Cyprus-based parent company in 2004, Kommersant reported. |
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Pulp Project Approved ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Ilim Group, Russia’s largest pulp and paper maker, received regional-government approval for a 9. |
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 Russia’s main argument against NATO enlargement is that it would threaten its security. That is nonsense, and Russia knows it. But the Kremlin has found that behaving like a spoiled child gets results: the right to influence developments in former Soviet countries. |
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The Kremlin has designed its power vertical in such a way that any public complaint against the government is considered a sign of disloyalty. Nonetheless, government authorities are complaining a lot these days. |
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 Jim Avignon, a Munich-born, New York-based painter, became a musician when he spotted a keyboard in the sales bin at a hardware store, right next to the cash register, and bought it immediately. That was in 1994 and that is how Neoangin, Avignon’s “one-man band” originated. |
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Ah, spring. The sound of birds chirping in the morn — What? What did you say? Can you speak a little louder? I can’t hear you! Hello?! Huh? Please speak up! Say what? Louder! This is life in my apartment these days. |
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The German Week in St. Petersburg, an annual program of events designed to highlight many aspects of German life, takes place this year from Monday through April 20. During the week, more than 70 events focused on economics, politics and culture will be held in the city. Among them are fashion shows and concerts of classical and modern pop music, photographic and architecture exhibitions, round tables and theater performances, presentations by German companies and a trade fair for young specialists, and even a football match between the young German and Russian teams. More than 52 companies and institutions support the German Week in St. Petersburg as its partners or sponsors this year. |
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 During most of the third program in the Kirov Ballet’s season at City Center — a quadruple bill of excerpts from late-19th-century ballets by Marius Petipa — an alarming question kept flashing into my mind: “Maybe I don’t like ballet after all?” Here were virtuoso episodes from “Le Corsaire” and “Don Quixote”; here was the “Diana and Acteon” pas de deux; here came salvo after salvo of audience applause. |
 Reading Russian poetry and aesthetic theory of the early Soviet period against the backdrop of the American poetry produced since then, one easily gets the feeling that a great deal of American paper could have been spared if these Russian texts had been available in English earlier. |
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MOSCOW — Interest in Russian art and Russian interest in fine art around the world is booming. Russia’s new super-rich want to re-connect to a pre-Soviet cultural heritage and have been using their vast fortunes to bring native art and the best of the rest of the world to the mother country for ownership or display. |
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Just a few doors down from the American Consulate and across the road from the well-known American-style food joint City Bar, the Brits have moved in. The Golden Pint Pub is an English pub that consists of two rooms, each holding around 30 people, with genuine pub-style upholstery and tables. The decor is perhaps the pub’s main attraction, with small old-fashioned leaflets from traditional English pubs splattered across the walls to make a collage. Thrown into this mixture is also the odd memorabilia framed photo of, for example, London black cabs bearing the registration plates “England” and “London.” Each room is also equipped with a large flat-screen television showing sports matches. |
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 If you like your contempt for humanity served overcooked and oozing fatty blobs of preening, lazy self-regard, you could not improve on Harold Pinter’s redo of the 1970 Anthony Shaffer play “Sleuth,” which Kenneth Branagh has used to remake the 1972 Joseph L. |
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SAN ANGELO, Texas — Authorities searching a remote polygamist compound for a 16-year-old girl who had claimed she was sexually abused discovered a bed inside a towering limestone temple and were told by a “confidential informant” that men used it to have sex with underage girls, according to a court document unsealed Wednesday. |
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LOS ANGELES — More than 100,000 air travelers across the nation wrestled with flight cancellations, long lines and ruined vacation plans Wednesday as American Airlines continued to ground planes for maintenance inspections and said more disruptions were coming in the days ahead. |
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 BELGRADE — Manchester United completed a 3-0 aggregate win over AS Roma on Wednesday to join Liverpool and Chelsea in the Champions league semifinals as the three English teams repeated last season’s success. They will be joined by 2006 winners Barcelona, who beat German side Schalke 04 by a single goal at home to secure a 2-0 aggregate victory after Ivorian midfielder Yaya Toure scored shortly before halftime. |
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BEIJING — Chinese authorities have detained 45 East Turkestan “terrorist” suspects, and foiled plots to carry out suicide bomb attacks and kidnap athletes to disrupt the Beijing Olympics, a police spokesman said on Thursday. |
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England coach Fabio Capello is confident he will be cleared of wrongdoing in Italian tax and court investigations, he said in an interview. Prosecutors in Turin said on Tuesday that a lengthy investigation into possible tax fraud by the 61-year-old had been extended to his wife and two adult sons. “If there was one thing that I’ve always said to my consultants, it was that I didn’t want to end up on the front page because of tax problems. |
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