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A key part of the St. Petersburg Flood Protection Barrier was completed on schedule on Wednesday with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin welcoming the inauguration of the barrier’s shipping canal. The first vessel to sail through the canal was the “Georg Ots,” a ferry en route to Kaliningrad. The construction of the Flood Protection Barrier — arguably the largest construction project in Europe during the past five years — has dragged on for nearly three decades. Work on the structure began in 1978 but construction was suspended in 1987 after a series of mass protests, with environmental activists saying that it would cause catastrophic environmental damage to the Neva Delta and the Gulf of Finland, which would ultimately turn into a swamp. |
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SHINING CROSS
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A cross measuring 9.2 meters by 3.3 meters that cost 2.2 million rubles ($84,000) to make is raised onto the cupola of St. Petersburg’s Trinity Cathedral on Thursday. The cathedral’s main cupola was destroyed by fire in 2006. Restoration work is due to be completed by May 2009. |
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KARALETI, Georgia — Russia pulled back its troops on Wednesday from buffer zones it set up on Georgian territory during a summer war, but Georgia demanded it take further steps before a deadline of Friday. The Russian Defense Ministry said troops had removed all six of their checkpoints in the buffer zone around Georgia’s rebel province of South Ossetia, ahead of the Friday deadline stipulated by a French-brokered cease-fire deal.
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MOSCOW — As a wave of grim news swept in from global markets Monday, the MICEX halted trading a record three times, while the RTS shut down twice. The day still ended in a bloodbath, with both indexes plummeting about 19 percent. But you wouldn’t know that from watching the evening news. Instead of reports about the markets’ losses, the three main television channels — state-controlled Channel One, Rossia and NTV — showed billionaire Mikhail Fridman telling President Dmitry Medvedev that the global financial meltdown offered new opportunities for Russian companies abroad. |
All photos from issue.
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St. Petersburg opposition leader Olga Kurnosova was on her way home Thursday after being released from what she called “unlawful” detention for carrying a can of caviar in the city of Astrakhan in southern Russia. Kurnosova, the St. Petersburg head of The United Civil Front, had been detained in Astrakhan, a city on the Caspian Sea, after going there to work with an organizational committee preparing for a conference of Astrakhan democrats. After spending nearly two days in custody, Kursonova was allowed leave the city and was on a plane about to depart for Moscow, when she was contacted by mobile phone on Thursday. “The investigation is still under way,” Kurnosova said. |
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 More than one hundred people came to mourn Anna Politkovskaya, the political journalist murdered in Moscow two years ago, on the second anniversary of her death, even though a memorial meeting had been banned by the St. |
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee — The U.S. presidential candidates assailed Russia in their latest debate, with Democrat Barack Obama saying Moscow had engaged in “evil” behavior and Republican John McCain saying it was “maybe” an evil empire. In Tuesday’s debate, the two candidates were asked the barbed question, “Do you think that Russia under Vladimir Putin is an evil empire?” and were asked to reply “yes” or “no. |
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 The firm Sovetnik, controlled by Mikhail Mirilashvili, plans to build a second building of the Pik shopping center on Sennaya Ploshchad. Experts do not expect that the project will be short of tenants or shoppers. The city’s Committee for Town-planning and Architecture (KGA) passed a regulation on Sept. |
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MOSCOW — The country’s state railways and diamond monopolies on Wednesday stepped in to jointly buy 90 percent of KIT Finance, three weeks after the investment bank defaulted on its debt obligations amid the country’s stock market crash. |
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Factory’s Fate Unclear ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Magna International may abandon a plan to build a $50 million car-parts factory in St. Petersburg, Vedomosti reported, citing unidentified consultants and municipal officials with knowledge of the matter. The Canadian company may scrap the project because of increasing construction costs and insufficient demand for components from carmakers, the Moscow-based newspaper said. |
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 The current Kremlin team exemplifies an American saying: They were born on third base but believe they hit a triple. After a decade of record oil prices, Russian leaders became convinced that their enlightened policies turned Russia into a robust economic power on par with the Group of Seven. |
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Last weekend marked the 15th anniversary of former President Boris Yeltsin’s siege of the renegade White House. Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire on opposition lawmakers holed up inside and for troops to flush them out. |
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 Xiu Xiu (pronounced “shoe shoe”), a California-based dark experimental pop band notorious for its frequent lineup changes, has built a reputation for making unusual and memorable songs outside the mainstream after it was formed around singer, guitarist and songwriter Jamie Stewart in 2000. |
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The two venues whose schedules were thrown into chaos by the authorities for daring to host a gay film festival have reopened and are now functioning as usual. |
 Timur Novikov was an avant garde artist and the spiritual leader of the St. Petersburg art scene before his death in 2002. Now he is a tourist attraction. Airline S7 and collector Pierre Brochet launched a program of “art tourism” late last month with a trip from Moscow to Novikov’s hometown. “People are now looking for new emotions, new reasons to travel, new contacts, new friends,” said Brochet, a French citizen living in Moscow who began collecting Russian art almost 20 years ago. |
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 MOSCOW — Russia’s latest blockbuster film hopes to woo big foreign audiences with an epic tale of doomed love set amid the chaos of the Russian Civil War; its politics conveniently chime with a Kremlin-sponsored mood of patriotism. |
 PARIS — Karl Lagerfeld recreated the facade of Chanel’s headquarters at 31 rue Cambon as the backdrop for his summer show for the house in the Grand Palais gallery last Friday. He even emblazoned the address on some of the new season’s handbags, going one step further than the logo, in what will surely prove a shrewd marketing ploy. The global winds of recession may be blowing but the mood on the catwalk was buoyant: after all, Chanel suits are confidence-boosting and can always be written down as an investment. |
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 A ritual action takes place in a spacious dance hall. A group of barefoot people follow the instructions of their leader very attentively. They repeat his movements and ask the spirits to give them energy. |
 LOS ANGELES, California — In his tough San Bernardino neighborhood, Matthew Leonardi doesn’t talk much of his graceful pirouettes or evenings spent dancing with girls in pink tutus. He’s not ashamed; he just doesn’t need the grief. And the tights are completely off-limits. “When they first told me I had to wear tights, I said, ‘Women wear tights’,” the lanky 14-year-old said. His mother, Valerie, had a ready response: “Superman wears tights. |
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 Young film directors, actors and cinematographers from all over the world will attend St. Petersburg’s first international youth film festival that started Thursday and runs through Sunday (Oct. |
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Chin Chin Cafe Mytninskaya Nab., 3 // Tel: 232 1042 // Open daily from noon until midnight // Menu in English and Russian // Mastercard and Visa accepted // Dinner for two with alcohol 2,470 rubles ($94) What you won’t find at the Asian fusion restaurant Chin Chin Cafe are your typical Russian tastes or service. Original Asian-themed flavors are served by a pleasant wait staff to the St. Petersburg sophistiquees, who come here as much for the fresh food as for the refined ambience and exemplary service. Music, lighting, and decor create the perfect setting for Chin Chin Cafe’s degustative delights. The lighting is soft without being too dark while candles illuminate diners’ faces as they lounge in stylish, comfortable chairs to admire the muted greens and light browns of the exposed hardwoods of Chin Chin’s interior. |
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 The first season of Channel One’s reality show, “The Last Hero,” hasn’t aired yet, but it made headlines last week after two disgruntled contestants told Ekho Moskvy radio station exactly why they walked out of the show. |
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WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies conclude in a draft report that Afghanistan is in a downward spiral and they doubt whether the Kabul government can stem the Taliban’s rise, The New York Times reported on Thursday. The classified report says corruption inside President Hamid Karzai’s government and an increase in attacks by militants operating from Pakistan have accelerated the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan, the Times said, citing U. |
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 BERLIN — Germany will be without first choice goalkeeper Robert Enke for Saturday’s World Cup qualifying match against Russia after the Hanover player broke a wrist bone in training. The German football federation (DFB) said on Thursday that Enke had sustained the injury during a closed doors training session on Wednesday afternoon. |
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MOSCOW — Ana Ivanovic became the second high-profile player to tumble out of the Kremlin Cup in two days after losing to Dominika Cibulkova 3-6 6-2 7-6 on Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW — Intent on challenging the pre-eminence of America’s National Hockey League (NHL), hockey powerhouse Russia has established a rival organisation — the Continental Hockey League (KHL) — uniting 24 clubs from four countries. The question now, say devotees of the sport, is whether the upstart will give the august NHL a run for its money. |
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