LOCAL NEWS

OPEC, RUSSIA IN TOP-LEVEL CRISIS TALKS

MOSCOW — Russia and OPEC held their highest-level talks ever on Wednesday, with President Dmitry Medvedev meeting Secretary-General Abdallah Salem al-Badri to discuss the volatile oil market amid a Kremlin push for broader cooperation with foreign energy producers.

ANIMAL LOVERS CLAIM SHELTER MANAGERS WILL ABUSE DOGS

Volunteers from the St. Petersburg stray dog shelter Rzhevka are sending out an SOS now that the animal home is being taken over by new administrators who the activists say are allegedly responsible for running a “Buchenwald”-style concentration camp for dogs.

NATIONAL NEWS

DONORS OFFER GEORGIA $4.5 MILLION IN AID

BRUSSELS — International donors pledged a higher-than-expected $4.55 billion Wednesday to help Georgia recover from its war with Russia, and Washington called it an extraordinary sign of solidarity at a time of financial turmoil.

The European Commission said the sum pledged at a one-day conference in Brussels included $3.

YABLOKO MAKES NEW HQ APPEAL

The local branch of the liberal party Yabloko, evicted from its headquarters in central St. Petersburg, has appealed to local residents for help funding the renovation of their new home as the democrats desperately struggle to raise money.

LOCAL BUSINESS

CITY SEES INCREASING NUMBER OF DOMESTIC TOURISTS

This summer, the flow of tourists visiting St. Petersburg increased by 5-10 percent, mainly due to a larger number of Russian tourists.

The summer was a successful period for local tourism companies working with incoming tourists, according to the vice president of the Russian Tourism Industry Union (RST), Sergei Korneyev.

IN BRIEF

Integra Applies for Loan

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Integra Group, Russia’s first London-listed oilfield services provider, applied for $300 million in loans through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to refinance debt and purchase equipment.

OPINION

Russia’s Top Economist Needs to Face Reality

On Friday, the government reported that growth in gross domestic product for September slowed to 0.4 percent. On Monday, however, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia, Brazil, India and China “will remain the locomotive of the world economic growth for the next few years.”

On Sept. 3, I wrote in this column, “A sudden zero growth would not be surprising, and leaders like Putin are not prepared to face reality.

CULTURE

KEYS TO SUCCESS

Learning to play the piano was originally anti-stress therapy for blind Incan musician Hwaen Ch’uqi but his talent has made him a recognized globe-trotting performer, most recently the winner of a special prize at the Second International Sviatoslav Richter Piano Competition in Moscow in June.

Friday sees Ch’uqi appear at the Shostakovich Philharmonic in a program of Haydn’s Piano Sonata E major, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Franck’s Prelude, Choral and Fugue H minor and his own piece “Loss.

SHOCK TACTICS

A slap in the face of St. Petersburg’s conservative theater scene takes place Friday at the Priyut Komedianta Theater with a new production of British author Mark Ravenhill’s notorious 1996 play “Shopping and F**king.

PURPLE REIGN

As Deep Purple arrives in town this week on its 40th Anniversary Tour, their former bassist and background vocalist also comes to St. Petersburg to perform a separate show at a smaller venue. Glenn Hughes played with British veteran hard-rockers for a few years in the 1970s but remains linked to the band in the Russian imagination.

ONE FOR THE ROAD

Tucked away towards the end of Bolshoi Prospekt on Vasilievsky Ostrov is the restaurant and bar Grossen Strasse, which is German for “big road” (i.e. bolshoi prospekt).