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If BMW was the official car and Gazprom the official sponsor, then maybe a flying pig should have been the official metaphor for the 12th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. As the cracked voice of Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters rang out at Friday’s packed opening concert on Palace Square, a 10-meter-long inflatable pig rose up over the Hermitage and soared off across the city’s center. But flying pigs were not the only unlikely sight at this year’s relaxed forum, as the home of the proletarian revolution played host to business leaders from around the world — and their lavish parties. Beyond the conference halls, as the Neva River flowed by, the champagne, vodka, whiskey and cocktails flowed into ministers and businessmen. |
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 President Dmitry Medvedev took aim at the United States on Saturday, blaming it for the current global economic gloom, while positioning Russia as a key player in restoring confidence and stability. |
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St. Petersburg placed 85th out of the country’s 89 regions in a newly released rating by the Russian Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency. To award a position in the rating, the experts assessed a range of factors affecting the state of the environment, including air and water pollution, changing ecosystems, the production and treatment of industrial waste, environmental protection efforts, accountability by local business communities and the endangered status and extinction of animal species. |
All photos from issue.
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 St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko will ask the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to investigate increased room rates at the city’s hotels during the International Economic Forum, Interfax reported on Sunday. “Prices for hotel rooms grew to an unacceptable level, in my opinion. |
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The youth group Oborona held a protest last week at the offices of City Hall’s local Education Committee against what it claims is the existence of watchlists of students who dress as skinheads and emos that schools are passing to the police. |
 TBILISI, Georgia — Opposition lawmakers refused to take their seats in Georgia’s parliament Saturday, claiming that last month’s elections were rigged in favor of the ruling party. United Opposition alliance chief Levan Gochechiladaze cut up the ID card granting him a seat in the legislature at a small rally in front of the legislature. |
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Traffic Bribes ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Nearly half of all St. Petersburg drivers surveyed have bribed the traffic police, according to a survey by the insurance company Rossgosstrakh, more than in any other city in Russia. |
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Goldman Sachs warned on Sunday that Russian growth could soon slow to about 3 percent per year, far below Kremlin forecasts predicting the country will be one of the world’s top five economies by 2020. Jim O’Neill, head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs, presented a study at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum showing that growth would slow to 3.3 percent from 2010 to 2015 and to 2.9 percent from 2015 to 2020, much less than the 8.1 percent seen in 2007. Some officials seemed shocked by the figures, and Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said the numbers O’Neill had used were half current government forecasts. |
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 Gazprom wants to join a gas pipeline project in Alaska and has already made a proposal to BP and ConocoPhillips, its chief executive Alexei Miller said Saturday. |
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The government will up the fight against corruption with a special electronic property database allowing officials to see more easily what people own, Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov said Saturday. “There already is a database on what property people own, but we are talking about streamlining it to make it easier to use and see what people own by synchronizing what different agencies and ministries already have,” Konovalov said in an interview at the St. |
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Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin on Saturday called for better coordination between global financial institutions and said NATO should be consigned to history. |
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Investment May Triple ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Foreign direct investment in Russia, the world’s biggest energy supplier, will probably rise by a third this year to $60 billion, Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina said. Foreign direct investment was $45 billion last year, Nabiullina said Saturday at the St. |
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Renaissance Capital and Australia’s Macquarie Group on Saturday announced the establishment of the first major infrastructure fund for Russia and the CIS as the government plans investments of $1 trillion into upgrades of facilities such as ports, railways, roads and airports. |
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AirBaltic to Fly to Sochi ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Latvia’s airBaltic airline will start nonstop flights from Riga to Sochi later this month, Latvian Transport Minister Ainars Slesers said Saturday during a working meeting with Transportation Minister Igor Levitin, Interfax reported. The first flight to Sochi is scheduled for June 18. |
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WASHINGTON — With Hillary Clinton out of the U.S. presidential race, Democrats on Sunday began healing wounds from a bruising nominating contest and speculated about Barack Obama’s vice presidential choice. Obama, who clinched the Democratic presidential nomination last week, was off the campaign trail, preparing for a tour of the country in his race against the presumptive Republican candidate John McCain in November. |
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 KLAGENFURT, Austria — Polish-born forward Lukas Podolski struck twice to give Germany a 2-0 win over Poland on Sunday, ending their 12-year wait for a victory at the European Championship finals. Podolski tapped the ball into an empty net midway through the first half after Miroslav Klose, another Polish-born striker, burst through to set him up in the Group B game. |
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PARIS — In the end Roger Federer, like the incredulous crowd at Roland Garros, had no choice but to salute Rafael Nadal. The irrepressible Spaniard put a shell-shocked Federer firmly in his place with a brutal 6-1 6-3 6-0 demolition to complete the most lopsided French Open men’s final victory for 31 years. |
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NEUSTIFT, Austria — Russia’s chances of upsetting highly-fancied Spain in their Euro 2008 opener on Tuesday will be undermined by the absences of playmaker Andrei Arshavin and striker Pavel Pogrebnyak. Arshavin is suspended while Pogrebnyak has been ruled out of the tournament with a knee injury. |
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MONTREAL — Lewis Hamilton went from hero to zero on Sunday after crashing into Ferrari’s world champion Kimi Raikkonen in a bizarre pit-lane pile-up at the Canadian Grand Prix. |
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Issues Archive