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Living City, the local non-governmental organization that delivered a list of recently demolished historic buildings to City Hall late last month, has announced it is putting together an exhibition to demonstrate the scale of the historic center’s destruction under Governor Valentina Matviyenko. “St. Petersburg is being destroyed, but the administration does not want to admit it at all and tries to hush it up, one way or another,” said Dmitry Vorobyov, an activist with Living City, by phone on Sunday. “It’s the normal policy of the administration to turn everything inside out. |
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A marching band takes part in the Victory Day Parade by Palace Square on Friday. For photo essay, see page 16. |
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Food prices in Russia are expected to rise steadily now that a temporary price freeze on “basic essentials — such as milk, flour and oil — has been lifted since May 1. Both analysts and businessmen forecast a drastic rise in inflation. The government froze the price of some sorts of white and black bread, milk, kefir, vegetable oil, and eggs in October last year when prices suddenly went up.
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Britain cancelled visa fees for soccer fans traveling to Manchester this week to attend the UEFA Cup final in which the St. Petersburg soccer club Zenit faces off with Scotland’s Glasgow Rangers. The match at the City of Manchester Stadium on Wednesday is Zenit’s first European final. William Elliott, the British Consul General in St. |
All photos from issue.
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Vladimir Ignatenko, 55, electrician: I noticed how the prices for food went up. About eight months ago, I used to spend only 200 rubles [$8.10] when I stopped by a grocery store to buy the most essential food, and now I have to spend 500 rubles [$20] on the same items. That is — I pay more than twice as much for food now. |
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The city is set to host Architectural Dialogue 2008, an international forum and exhibition of architecture and design, whose sponsors include City Hall’s committee for investment and strategic projects. The event will take place from May 23 to June 1 at the Popov Museum of Communications. The forum will include a series of lectures and masterclasses given by representatives from leading design and architecture firms, as well as an international conference devoted to architecture and an exhibition of architectural projects. The forum’s participants will examine the most relevant and controversial issues faced by modern architecture — urban construction, education in the field of architecture and design, the investment climate and copyright issues. |
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 A new DHL terminal opened in St. Petersburg on Wednesday to handle the rapidly growing volume of DHL customers in the North West region of Russia. The new terminal, located on Pyaty Predportovy Proezd in close proximity to Pulkovo airport, will serve as a central sorting, processing and transit facility for international and domestic shipments in St. |
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MOSCOW — A Rosneft subsidiary filed new claims against TGK-11 in a Moscow court on Wednesday, saying the vote to create the utility was invalid because the shareholders’ ballots were miscounted. The claim came as a surprise after Anatoly Chubais, CEO of Unified Energy System, TGK-11’s parent company, said last month that then-First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had stepped in to mediate the dispute between the state-owned companies. |
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Bottler Profits Increase MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co., the world’s second-largest bottler of Coke beverages, said first-quarter profit rose 11 percent, driven by sales growth in Russia and eastern Europe. |
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More than 70,000 visitors, including traders, bibliophiles and book market professionals, visited the Third St. Petersburg International Book Fair at the Lenexpo exhibition complex on April 24-27. The fair’s Soviet-style slogan, “Time to read!,” reminded visitors of the legacy of the Soviet reading culture, in which it was claimed that the nation had the greatest number of readers in the world. |
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MOSCOW — A government plan to differentiate gasoline excise taxes based on fuel quality will raise the tax burden for the country’s oil companies, benefiting only a few firms owning sophisticated refineries, analysts said. |
 With 122 students successfully completing their studies at the campuses of high-ranking western universities in Qatar last week, the country saw the preliminary results of its new national development program. During the next 10-20 years, this petro-state hopes to become an economy based on knowledge and innovation. |
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 President Dmitry Medvedev has a very Russian surname, one derived from one of the more prominent symbols of Russia — the medved, or bear. Bears have served as the heroes of fairy tales, fables, proverbs and anecdotes, and they are depicted on the coat of arms of many Russian cities. |
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Who is Mr. Putin? Until 2003, he was a leader who could have made Russia a truly great country if he followed through on his liberal economic program. But he had one weakness. |
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May 9 marked the 63rd anniversary of Victory Day, the day that Stalin set aside to commemorate the end of the World War II in Europe. The fighting had ended by May 5, and the Western allies accepted Germany’s surrender three days later. But the Soviet Union opted to recognize the following day. Victory Day, as its name suggests, was intended originally to celebrate the Soviet victory over fascism. |
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 Every morning, Vadim Voyevodin performed the same ritual: Bending over almost parallel to the ground, he lifted the baby onto his back, slung a towel around his son and knotted the edges around his chest. The little boy remained pressed close to his father’s body throughout the day as he cleaned the house or cooked. |
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CRAWFORD — President George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna was married on Saturday evening to Henry Hager, the son of the Virginia Republican Party chairman, in front of more than 200 family members and close friends. The 26-year-old teacher and author, wearing a white Oscar de la Renta dress, and Hager, wearing a suit, were married around sundown before a limestone altar with a giant cross erected on Bush’s 647-hectare ranch. The wedding was a private affair with no press in attendance, but information dribbled out over the past few weeks, including the decor for the evening — landscape colors: green, lavender and blue — and the live entertainment for the reception: Super T. Jenna Bush’s twin sister, Barbara, served as the maid of honor, and Hager’s brother Jack was the best man, according to the White House. |
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MAYORS MEET
/ Reuters
London’s new Mayor Boris Johnson (l) poses with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg during a meeting at City Hall in London on Friday. |
 YANGON — Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta on Sunday in search of food, water and medicine but aid workers said thousands of them would die if emergency supplies do not get through soon. Buddhist temples and schools in towns on the outskirts of the storm’s trail of destruction are now makeshift refugee centers for women, children and the elderly — some of the 1.
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LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown was dealt a further blow on Sunday when former deputy prime minister John Prescott disclosed he had urged Tony Blair to sack Brown when he was chancellor. In memoirs serialized in The Sunday Times, Prescott described the tempestuous relationship between the two men in the years before Blair stood down last June, and said the prime minister had been scared to act against Brown. |
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ISTANBUL — Ferrari’s Felipe Massa won the Turkish Grand Prix from pole position for the third year in a row on Sunday after tyre concerns slowed Lewis Hamilton’s challenge. The Brazilian took the chequered flag 3.7 seconds ahead of the 23-year-old McLaren driver, who ran most of the race on the harder tyres and had to make three pitstops compared to his rivals’ two. It was Massa’s seventh win in Formula One, at the anti-clockwise track where he took his first in 2006, and his second in five races this season. Ferrari’s world champion Kimi Raikkonen saw his overall lead trimmed to seven points from nine after finishing a close third. The Finn, the only driver to score points in every race this season, now has 35 to Massa and Hamilton’s 28. |
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 HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Eric Staal scored four goals and Martin St. Louis chipped in with five assists to lift Canada to a crushing 10-1 win over Germany and a place in the world championship quarterfinals. |
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PARIS — Bordeaux coach Laurent Blanc is confident his side have what it takes to claim their first French league crown in nine years at the expense of champions Lyon as both won their penultimate games on Saturday to ensure the title race will be decided on the final day of competition. Blanc’s side maintained their title push with a 2-0 win against Sochaux as Lyon, the six-time consecutive champions, emerged 1-0 winners from their home encounter with Nancy, who are fighting to retain third place. However, the display from Alain Perrin’s champions, who needed a 62nd-minute own goal from Andre Luiz Silva to ensure victory, is likely to give Bordeaux renewed hope that Auxerre can cause an upset against Lyon in Burgundy next week. |
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 LONDON — Chelsea manager Avram Grant said Didier Drogba as well as John Terry had picked up injuries on Sunday, 10 days before they play Manchester United in the Champions League final. |
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BERLIN — Dinara Safina of Russia fought back from a set down for the third time in the tournament to win the German Open on Sunday with a 3-6 6-2 6-2 victory over seventh-seeded compatriot Yelena Dementieva. The 22-year-old Safina came from behind to beat world number one Justine Henin and eight-times grand slam winner Serena Williams en route to the final, where she captured her sixth career singles title. |
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SYDNEY — Australian athletes at this year's Beijing Olympics have been told they will be free to express their opinions on any issues, including Tibet and China's human rights record. |
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Record-Breaking Walk CHEBOKSARY, Russia (AP) — Denis Nizhegorodov set a world record in the men’s 50-kilometer race walk at a World Cup meet Sunday, shaving 1 minute, 34 seconds off the old mark.The Russian finished in 3 hours, 34 minutes, 13 seconds at a course along the banks of the Volga river. |
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 The St. Petersburg Times celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. Lloyd Donaldson was one of the founders of The St. Petersburg Press, which was later renamed The St. Petersburg Times. Here he writes about the early days of the newspaper. Incidents and memorable moments were never far apart for the journalists who staffed The St. |
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1993 On May 11, The St. Petersburg Press — later to be renamed The St. Petersburg Times — brought out its first issue. St. Petersburg People Vote for Independent City Republic Status, read the issue’s top headline for a story written by Konstantin Borisov. |
 Robert Coalson was editor-in-chief at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001. Here he writes about the newspaper’s coverage of the event and his time at The St. Petersburg Times. Like just about everyone else on Earth, I remember where I was when I first heard about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. |
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