LOCAL NEWS

MEDVEDEV, MERKEL MEET FOR TALKS IN CITY

As relations between Russia and Germany have cooled as a result of the conflict in South Ossetia, President Dmitry Medvedev and Chancellor Angela Merkel made conciliatory statements at an international conference in St. Petersburg this week.

The talks in St. Petersburg where the two leaders attended the annual Peterburgsky Dialog political forum was their fourth meeting since Medvedev took office in May.

The previous meeting between the politicians took place in August in Sochi at the height of the rapidly escalating crisis in South Ossetia

The conflict in South Ossetia took center stage at this week’s conference and subsequent talks between Medvedev and Merkel.

ST. PETERSBURG HONORS PETER THE GREAT’S SCOTTISH DOCTOR

A memorial plaque in honor of Scottish natural scientist Robert Erskine (1677-1718), the founder of the legendary Kunstkamera, the city’s first museum renowned for its unique collection of curiosities, was opened Thursday at the Lazarevsky burial-vault of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.

The ceremony was attended by the Edinburgh’s Lord Provost George Grubb, who is currently on an official visit to St.

NATIONAL NEWS

GAY FESTIVAL HIT BY FIRE INSPECTION

Two popular local nightclubs are facing closure after they agreed to hold a gay and lesbian film festival on their premises. The Place and Sochi, two venues popular with students, the art crowd and expats, were targets of unscheduled fire safety inspections on the eve of the festival’s opening and were in the process shut down for breaking the fire code.

Side by Side, the first LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) film festival in St. Petersburg, featuring an international schedule of 17 feature films and five short film programs as well as personal appearances by a number of international filmmakers, was due to open at The Place and Sochi, on Thursday.

OFFICIAL CLAMPS DOWN ON ANTI-DRAFT EVENT

The youth wing of the democratic party Yabloko said it will pursue legal action against a district administration official for stopping its members from displaying the party’s flags at a protest on Wednesday against military conscription.

In Brief

City Center Power Cut

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — More than 20,000 locals in two districts in central St. Petersburg were left without electricity after a short circuit at the station at 48 Moika Embankment on Thursday afternoon.

At least 60 apartment buildings in the Admiralteisky district and 30 residential buildings in Tselntralny district were affected by the accident.

LOCAL BUSINESS

BANK UNVEILS MEASURES

The Central Bank on Wednesday announced a series of measures aimed at shoring up liquidity and helping to cope with the effects of the ongoing financial crisis.

Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said the turmoil in the country’s financial markets had been localized but that liquidity problems created in its wake could last for another 15 months.

ANALYSTS FEAR GOVERNMENT’S BAILOUT SOLUTION NOT ENOUGH

MOSCOW — Despite the bank bailout package swiftly introduced by the government, many Russian banks will face liquidity pressures and falling profitability as access to credit stays limited and rising rates lead to fewer loans and more defaults, banking analysts said Wednesday.

OPINION

TAKING THE ELEPHANT OUT OF THE ROOM

Using the country’s financial reserves to boost liquidity in the financial system is a very sensible use of money in this period of extreme uncertainty and risk. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s announcement earlier this week that $50 billion of additional funding will be made available through the Development Bank, also known as Vneshekonombank, to help banks and other companies refinance their foreign debt obligations, adds to the sizeable amount of cash already made available to the banking system in recent weeks.

A BLOOD FEUD MADE TO ORDER

Like many others, I was shocked when news agencies first announced last Wednesday that Sulim Yamadayev, the former commander of Chechnya’s Vostok Battalion, had been murdered in Moscow.

CULTURE

GONE, AND MOSTLY FORGOTTEN

Hindsight — especially historical — is twenty-twenty. Knowing what we do today, we can easily forget the glittering promise that communism held out to a world gripped by poverty and high unemployment in the 1930s: food for all, a worker’s paradise.

In “The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia,” documentary filmmaker Tim Tzouliadis takes us on the sorrowful but engaging journey of the thousands of Americans who were first let down by the American dream, only to perish in the Soviet nightmare.

BORIS YEFIMOV (1900-2008)

Boris Yefimov, an eminent Soviet political cartoonist who once personally took Josef Stalin’s orders on how to depict U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, died in Moscow on Wednesday, just two days after President Dmitry Medvedev congratulated him on his 108th birthday.

ART ATTACK

Entering Daria Zhukova’s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture before its opening late last month was like entering a vault. A security guard with a walkie-talkie at the gate alerted the others at the entrance, just 10 meters away, that a visitor was approaching.

SUNNY DELIGHTS

Mango Cafe // 50 Furshtatskaya Ulitsa // Tel.: 272 5329 // Open 9 a.m. through 10 p.m. // Dinner for two: 1,220 rubles ($50)

Gray umbrellas on the wet streets of St.