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 MOSCOW — Former Yevroset chairman Yevgeny Chichvarkin, who left the country in December and has not returned, is being sought by investigators in connection with allegations of smuggling, kidnapping and extortion. The Yevroset founder’s whereabouts are currently unknown, and speculation is swirling that he will remain abroad permanently given the possibility of arrest in Russia. |
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About 4,000 people gathered near the village of Nikolskoye outside St. Petersburg on Sunday to watch a reenactment of the battle that led to the breaking of the Siege of Leningrad during World War II. |
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KHARTOUM, Sudan — Russia is planning to step up its diplomatic involvement in African issues including Sudan’s Darfur crisis, Mikhail Margelov, head of the Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee, said Sunday. “Russia is back in Africa,” Margelov, appointed as Russia’s envoy to Sudan in December, told reporters at the start of a six-day visit to Sudan. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Senior clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church selected three nominees on Sunday to stand in a vote for the first new patriarch since the Soviet collapse. Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, acting head of the Russian Orthodox Church since the death of Patriarch Alexy II last month and widely seen as a modernizer, received 97 of the total 197 votes cast by the council of bishops. Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk had 32 votes, while Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk had 16 votes, church officials said. The patriarch will be chosen at a separate gathering starting Tuesday. |
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HAUER YOU?
Alexander Èelenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Dutch actor Rutger Hauer in St. Petersburg on Monday announcing his involvement in a new Russian film, "The Fifth Execution," to be directed by Alexander Yakovenko and co-starring Fedor Emelianenko. |
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Police detained five people in St. Petersburg on Sunday as a group of anarchists and left-wing activists held a so-called Conformists’ March. As Kremlin-backed party United Russia prepared a national demonstration in support of the Russian government’s measures to tackle the economic crisis, around 50 oppositionist activists held a rally only using pro-government slogans in an absurdist show of exaggerated loyalty.
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 MOSCOW — When a helicopter carrying senior government officials crashed into a remote Altai mountainside earlier this month, killing several passengers, the accident appeared to be nothing more than a tragic loss of life. But photographs snapped at the crash site have thrown a spotlight on what conservationists say is a disturbingly popular pastime among the country’s political and business elite: the expensive sport of poaching from helicopters. |
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MOSCOW — Vneshekonombank will take over Hungary’s flag carrier Malev within days, officials said over the weekend, marking the state-owned bank’s second major foreign acquisition this month and providing a boost to Aeroflot, which might run the airline. The takeover was necessary because Malev’s main shareholder, Boris Abramovich, former owner of the bankrupt AirUnion airline, failed to fulfill the obligations he took in acquiring his 49 percent stake in the airline in February 2007, Hungarian Finance Minister Janos Veres said Saturday. “The steps taken since the privatization have not been adequate to ensure the future of the airline,” Veres said at a news conference in Budapest. |
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 Registered unemployment is growing, but it is the hidden unemployment in St. Petersburg and the northwest region that is the real cause for concern, according to local employment analysts. |
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KIEV — Ukraine needs new talks to improve the terms of last week’s gas agreement with Russia, a senior aide to President Viktor Yushchenko said Friday, raising fears of new gas supply disruptions to Europe. The deal, reached by Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, came as a relief for Europe after a two-week cutoff in Russian gas supplies, but it exposed rifts in Ukraine’s leadership. |
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Ukrainian Deficit KIEV (Bloomberg) — Ukraine’s current-account deficit totaled $12.3 billion in 2008 as imports outpaced exports in the former Soviet republic, central bank First Deputy Central Bank Governor Anatoliy Shapovalov said Monday. |
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 The fact that Russia is supposedly bad doesn’t make the United States better — or better off — at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, when it is mistrusted by the world and is bogged down by two wars and a severe economic crisis. In this environment, is Russia a threat to the United States? Unlikely, but branding it as a dictatorship revives the old fears and diverts attention from the immense problems Washington faces today. |
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And here we are again discussing business issues, still unable to avoid the influence of the crisis. Despite the word being repeated about a thousand times a day by the media like some kind of mantra, no one really knows how long it will last and how hard it will hit the Russian economy. |
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MOSCOW — Russia is joining the race to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022, a senior official in the Russian Football Association (RFU) said on Friday. “Yesterday we sent an official letter to FIFA informing them of our intentions to bid for the World Cup in 2018 or 2022,” RFU general director Alexei Sorokin told Reuters. |
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 It seems that nothing can persuade those used to leading a comfortable lifestyle to make cutbacks in their usual way of life. Even the current crisis is not having a major influence on the luxury hotels segment, and new elite hotels are planning to open their doors in the city during the next two years. “Among the most ambitious projects is the establishment of the Four Seasons five-star hotel on Voznesensky Prospekt. |
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 Data and statistics from the last few years show that Russian travel insurance is often inadequate, credit and debit cards are the most popular methods of payment for Russian travelers, and the number of incoming tourists to St. |
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The tourism industry has not been left untouched by the global financial crisis, which has led to a reduced demand for package holidays in Russia. In December, travel agency sales were down almost 50 percent. Turnover in the tourism sector in the last quarter of 2008 was at least 30 percent less than in the same period in 2007, and in December revenues fell by 50 percent, according to Vadim Lezhnin, advisor to the president of Intourist. In a best-case scenario, travel company revenues will fall by 30 percent compared to 2007, estimated Igor Beltyukov, president of Capital Tours. Sergei Khokhlov, commercial director of West Travel tourism agency, said that in the final quarter of 2008, the company’s revenues decreased by 20 percent compared to 2007. |
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 In spite of the expected drop in the number of passengers as a result of negative market trends, Russian and foreign airlines operating in Russia reported excellent results last year. |
 St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport’s plan to become an international hub by 2025 — in 16 years — has not changed despite the current global financial crisis. To achieve this goal, much at Pulkovo has to be changed, since the airport does not currently meet modern international standards. A general redevelopment project was drawn up in 2006. |
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Issues Archive