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The head of the St. Petersburg branch of the democratic party Yabloko looks set to challenge the party’s founding leader Grigory Yavlinsky in forthcoming leadership elections in Moscow on June 21. Yabloko holds such elections once every four years but Yavlinsky’s position has recently become vulnerable. Since December, after Yabloko failed to win a comeback to the State Duma after four years in the wilderness, Yavlinsky has been blamed from both fellow democratic and pro-Kremlin opponents who declared him a “political corpse.” The party’s St. Petersburg branch, headed by 35-year-old Maxim Reznik, has been calling for an overhaul of the party’s management and structure, including the introduction of several co-chairmen. |
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 This weekend’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum will be President Dmitry Medvedev’s first major international appearance, while Prime Minister Putin, the headline attraction in recent years, will be nowhere to be seen. |
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MOSCOW — The United States welcomed Russia’s endorsement of a Georgian peace plan for the breakaway Abkhazia region as “tremendous news”. But U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza placed the blame on Moscow for a series of steps he said had increased tension over the breakaway region, and he called on Moscow to reverse its measures. |
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Traffic Restrictions ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Road closures and parking restrictions will apply in the city center during this weekend’s Economic Forum, Interfax reported. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Federal authorities are scrutinizing the English-language tabloid The eXile to determine whether it has violated media laws, a step that could lead to the shutdown of the notorious biweekly. Mark Ames, editor and founder of The eXile, was scheduled to meet Thursday with inspectors from the Federal Service for Mass Media, Telecommunications and the Protection of Cultural Heritage, he said by telephone Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW — “Without a document, you’re an insect. With a document, you’re a person,” goes a Russian saying. A Supreme Court decision related to the country’s registration laws has generated hope among people who make their permanent residence at their dachas, but it seems unlikely that the court’s ruling will help most of these people escape the “nonperson” category anytime soon. |
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Almost a century after Tsarist-era spending came to an end, St. Petersburg is embarking on a new golden age. This time, Russia’s new energy wealth is funding $50 billion in infrastructure projects that will bring Peter the Great’s “Window on Europe” into the 21st century. By 2020, the city is to have an office tower taller than any in Europe today, a new international airport busier than any in Scandinavia today, and a cruise ship port with more berths than any cruise port of call in the world. To ease transportation bottlenecks, St. Petersburg is doubling the underground subway system and plans to build a 72-kilometer elevated rail system. |
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DRUM ROLL
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
The 12th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum opens Friday and is set to be bigger and more spectacular than ever before, both in terms of deals signed, attendance figures and entertainment. |
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While the speed with which new apartment blocks seem to mushroom on the outskirts of the city and the endless restoration of historic facades around the city center could give the impression that nowhere is developing faster than St. Petersburg, the city’s real estate market still lags far behind that of the capital, according to experts. “St. Petersburg is currently three to five years behind Moscow,” said Boris Moshensky, general director of Maris Properties in association with CB Richard Ellis.
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 MOSCOW — There may still be six years to go until the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, but officials are anxious to show that the Black Sea resort will not face the same criticisms as Moscow did last month, when the capital’s hotels struggled to cope with an influx of football fans for the Champions League final. |
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Russia has a dream of regaining the glory it lost overnight just under two decades ago when the Soviet empire over which it had reigned for 70 years fell apart. |
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The cost of holding the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which runs from Friday to Monday, amounts to 716 million rubles ($30 million), it was announced at a session of the event’s organization committee held at the end of last week. The organizer of the event, the non-commercial St. Petersburg International Economic Forum fund, was created last year by the Ministry for Economic Development, City Hall and the Mariinsky Theater. The subcontractors, due to receive 530 million rubles ($22.27 million) from the fund, were selected at the beginning of the year. They were selected on the basis of experience gained at previous forums, a representative of the fund’s press service said. |
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 Foreign and domestic investments in Russia showed a drastic decline at the beginning of 2008, according to Rosstat (the Russian Federal State Statistics Service). |
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As St. Petersburg braces itself for this weekend’s 12th International Economic Forum, its organizers are determined to make the event live up to its nickname of “a second Davos” amid the increased presence of the world’s leading politicians, economists and business tycoons who will gather to discuss the future and potential of Russia’s booming economy. |
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The budget for the St. Petersburg Economic Forum amounts to 700 million rubles ($29.4 million) according to the web site of City Hall’s Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade Committee. |
 One of the roundtables at the 12th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is dedicated to protecting intellectual property in Russia. This matter has become a crucial issue ever since Russia began the process of joining the World Trade Organization. |
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The South Korean carmaker Hyundai laid the first stone for the building of its plant near St. Petersburg on Thursday. St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said that “the laying of the first stone in the foundation of Hyundai — one of the leaders of the world’s motor-car construction — is a historical event in St. |
 The cultural program of the Economic Forum this year is no less eventful than the business program. Art, music and theater lovers will have a vast array of dazzling events to choose from and will almost certainly not have enough time to visit all the shows taking place during the forum this weekend. |
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Thirty-eight percent of Petersburgers are unaware that the International Economic Forum is taking place in the city this weekend, according to research by the Agency of Social Information (ASI), which conducted a telephone survey of 1,616 people in May. |
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 The West could be sleepwalking into a war on the European continent. Georgia, which burst into view with a moving display of democratic ambition during the Rose Revolution of 2003, is teetering on the brink of war with Russia over the separatist Georgian enclave of Abkhazia. |
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Georgia says Russia was planning to invade the Kodor Gorge during the early morning hours on May 9. Although the breakaway republic of Abkhazia considers the gorge a part of its territory, in the strict legal sense, the Kodor Gorge is Georgian territory and it is controlled by Tbilisi now. |
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Bob Dylan’s local concert drew between 4,000 and 5,000 fans on Tuesday, Kommersant reported. The number included fans who came in from Moscow and other Russian cities to see Dylan’s only Russian concert on the tour, as the legend was stopping in the city on his way from Helsinki to Tallinn. |
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Polovtsev Mansion // 52 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 571 5900. // www.polovtsev.restoran.ru // Open from noon through 11 p.m. // Dinner for two without alcohol 1,850 rubles ($75) Seen one palace, seen ’em all? St. |
 “Mongol” may fool you: It’s a foreign-language film, yes, but it has enough appeal to pull in the same fanboy audience that made “300” a huge hit. Russian director Sergei Bodrov’s Oscar-nominated movie about the early life of Genghis Khan is thoroughly exotic, utterly romantic, beautifully shot and features some of the bloodiest, most astounding battles ever put on screen. |
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PARIS — Roger Federer’s pursuit of an elusive French Open crown gathered momentum on Wednesday while Dinara Safina again tottered on the brink of elimination before salvaging her title dreams to reach the semi-finals. As Safina booked an all-Russian last-four date with fourth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, Federer overcame a slight hiccup to record a 2-6 6-2 6-3 6-4 win over Chilean Fernando Gonzalez. “To make four (semis) in a row (here) is a great accomplishment, but this year I’m obviously aiming for the title so I hope it’s not going to stop here,” said Federer, who is eyeing a third straight final with champion Rafael Nadal. Next up for world number one Federer will be local favorite Gael Monfils, who became the first Frenchman to reach the last four since Sebastien Grosjean in 2001 with a 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-1 win over Spanish fifth see David Ferrer. |
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 PITTSBURGH — The Detroit Red Wings clinched the Stanley Cup with a nailbiting 3-2 Game Six win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday. The Red Wings, who were just 35 seconds from securing the Cup in Game Five on Monday, shrugged off the disappointment of the home defeat and hung on to claim the best-of-seven series 4-2 and lift their fourth Cup in 11 years. |
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Russia Win Warm-Up BURGHAUSEN, Germany (Reuters) — Russia struck three second-half goals to beat Lithuania 4-1 in their final Euro 2008 warmup on Wednesday. The Russians, already without leading striker Pavel Pogrebnyak because of a knee injury, lost Alexei Berezutsky early in the game when the defender sustained a cut over his eye after being caught by an elbow. |
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