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Although the unfolding economic crisis has led to a decline in profits for hotel operators and travel agencies worldwide, local tourism industry experts say St. Petersburg tour operators are safe and local residents continue to book vacations abroad. “Unlike Moscow, where dozens of tour operators have recently found themselves on the verge of going bankrupt, the local travel industry is expected to withstand the blow,” said Sergei Korneyev, head of the North-Western branch of the Russian Toursim Industry Union (RST). “Most of the St. Petersburg agencies depend on two airlines, with one of them, GTK Rossija being a state enterprise, and the second one, Aeroflot, a strong veteran player. |
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GOLDEN MOMENT
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Olga and Alexander Sokolovsky celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary at a special event marking 50th and 60th wedding anniversaries organized by the City Administration. Both survived the Siege of Leningrad, before meeting just after the war and marrying in June of 1948. |
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MOSCOW — Executives at two of the country’s largest oil producers said Wednesday that output would fall next year if prices remain low and the state doesn’t provide further tax cuts, in a sign the financial crisis has put the energy industry on edge. LUKoil vice president Leonid Fedun went so far as to say Russia should join OPEC to help buttress global prices, which have crashed to levels that jeopardize investment.
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The European Union will discuss resuming partnership talks with Moscow at a summit next month, EU President France said Tuesday after holding talks with Russia that one diplomat described as “prickly.” Russia’s military thrust into Georgia in August overshadowed the talks between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and an EU delegation headed by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. |
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MOSCOW — Russia is well-equipped to withstand the financial crisis, and foreign investors are not jumping ship, British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said Wednesday as he wrapped up a four-day visit that showed significant improvement in London’s troubled ties with Moscow. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — A jury on Tuesday found banker Alexei Frenkel guilty of ordering the 2006 killing of central banker Andrei Kozlov after an eight-month trial mired in scandal. The verdict apparently came as a surprise to Frenkel, who smiled and waved to waiting relatives right before the verdict was announced. He also ordered a taxi to take him home, state television reported. After 5 1/2 hours of deliberations, the Moscow City Court jury convicted Frenkel and six other suspects in connection with Kozlov’s contract-style murder, which sent shockwaves through the financial community. Kozlov, first deputy head of the Central Bank, had led a campaign against money laundering and stripped hundreds of banks of their licenses, including four banks linked to Frenkel, prosecutors said Tuesday. |
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 MOSCOW — Two Jesuit priests were found beaten to death in an apartment just meters away from Moscow police headquarters, investigators said Wednesday. Otto Messmer, 47, a Russian citizen and top Jesuit figure in Russia, and Victor Betancourt, a 42-year-old Ecuadorian citizen, were found dead with battered skulls at 10 p. |
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MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao agreed to build an oil pipeline to China and signed off on a raft of other agreements Tuesday. The leaders also discussed ways to jointly counter the global financial crisis, just three weeks before leaders from Russia, China and other countries gather for an emergency summit in Washington to grapple with the same problem. |
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The chairman of St. Petersburg’s budget and finances committee, Vladimir Barkanov, told Interfax on Thursday that the city’s participation in the controversial Okhta Center skyscraper project would be reviewed as part of amendments to the city’s 2009 budget necessitated by the global financial crisis. “Firstly, we are postponing the project’s financing for the first half of the year until the project’s budget documentation is ready. Secondly, negotiations are currently being held between the St. Petersburg government and Gazprom about changes to the project’s financing,” Barkanov told Interfax. The evening before, Barkanov told STO television channel that “the city was confident that the construction project would be realized,” Interfax reported. |
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MAIDEN VOYAGE
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
The newly-built “Mikhail Ulyanov” Arctic oil tanker, named in honor of the Soviet actor, built for Sovkomflot and due to be launched on Friday. |
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In the biggest state bailout yet, United Company RusAl will receive $4.5 billion to refinance a Western loan coming due this week, news reports said late Wednesday. Vneshekonombank announced earlier in the day that it had approved nearly $10 billion in loans to help companies refinance their foreign debts, meaning that the funds for RusAl would represent almost half of that amount.
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Bank Deposits Down MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russians will withdraw more money from banks this month compared with September, Interfax reported, citing Mikhail Zadornov, chief of lender VTB-24, VTB Group’s retail unit. Personal deposits declined 1.5 percent in September and will fall more than that in October, the Moscow-based news service quoted Zadornov as saying Thursday. |
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 The Kremlin still frowns on the use of the word “crisis” to describe Russia’s financial markets. But no such taboo exists in the United States. As the election campaign enters its final days, Democratic front-runner Barack Obama appears to understand the seriousness of the situation. |
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When there is a financial crisis in any country, it is usually bad for the ruling party but good for the opposition. In this regard, Russia’s crisis promises to become an economic disaster on a grand scale. |
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 Michael Nyman, the distinguished British composer of such film soundtracks as “The Draughtsman’s Contract” (1982) and “The Piano” (1993) performs in St. Petersburg on Sunday with the Michael Nyman Band and Marie Angel. Nyman’s distinctive reworking of complex Baroque themes and minimalist, rhythmic scores have earned him a solid following since the 1970s, and he was recently made Commander of the British Empire, one of the U. |
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 Michael Nyman, the distinguished British composer of such film soundtracks as “The Draughtsman’s Contract” (1982) and “The Piano” (1993) performs in St. |
 Rodion Shchedrin, one of the most acclaimed Russian composers, is obviously winning the heart of Valery Gergiev, the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater. The Second New Horizons festival opened Thursday with a performance by the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra of the second act of Shchedrin’s opera “Lolita” (as well as Olivier Messiaen’s “L’Ascention” and Pierre Boulez’s “Four Notations”) conducted by Gergiev. |
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If angels really exist, they surely love to play harmonies and sleep on soft clouds that melt like cotton candy under the sunshine of southern Italy. Not accidentally, the symbol of restaurant Solntse (Sun) is an angel playing a trumpet. |
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Issues Archive