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A concert that drew nationalists was raided by an unknown law enforcement agency in St. Petersburg on Friday, while an anti-Nazi concert was targeted by the police in Moscow on Saturday. Dozens of masked and camouflaged men stormed the Arctica music club in St. Petersburg soon after 8 p.m. on Friday, when the Moscow-based neopaganist folk metal band Arkona was 40 minutes into its show, switching off the equipment and turning on the lights in the concert room. Around 400 fans, who paid 300-400 rubles ($8.40-$11.20) per ticket, were ordered to stand by the wall and then spent hours waiting as the officers interrogated them, taking the fingerprints of everybody present as well as photographing them, members of the public who were in the club at the time said. Arkona is a popular group among Russian nationalists, although the band claims in interviews that it is not political. |
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A REAL GEM
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Exhibits, including an imaginative portrait of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made from semi-precious stones, at the Junwex 2009 jewelry exhibition which ended on Sunday at the Lenexpo center. |
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Staff at the Pushkin Apartment Museum in St. Petersburg expect a historical sensation if a scientific analysis proves that the museum’s sofa is the one on which the famed 19th-century Russian poet and author died in 1837. Alexander Pushkin died in St. Petersburg on Feb. 10, 1837, at the age of 37, as the result of a duel with the French-born Georges Dantes.
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The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has made a first crucial step toward breaking the ice between Washington and Moscow, winning carefully worded approval from the Russian government. Vice President Joe Biden told an annual security conference in Munich this weekend that relations with Russia would be given a new start, signaling a break with the presidency of George W. |
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BELEK, Turkey — Russia manager Guus Hiddink has hit back at Zenit St Petersburg coach Dick Advocaat for complaining about his club’s players being called up for a national team training camp. |
All photos from issue.
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 Opposition leaders accused Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday of wasting billions of dollars in public funds and said he was the country’s main obstacle to coping with the global financial crisis. At a news briefing largely ignored by state media, two former deputy ministers and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov said the government had lied about the country’s economic problems and laid out their alternative strategy. |
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Undercover pro-Kremlin agents have worked in opposition groups across Russia to provide the presidential administration with information on opposition activists and rallies, a self-described handler said Thursday. |
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Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has denied that the prime minister attended a private concert by an ABBA tribute band. But members of the Bjorn Again band gave plenty of details and said they recognized Putin at the Jan. 22 gig on the shores of Lake Valdai. The revelations that Putin could be a closet ABBA fan run counter to his traditional strongman image. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied on Friday that Putin attended any such party on or around Jan. 22, adding, “Neither Mr. Putin nor his apparatus ordered any band of this kind.” “I have no doubt that he likes some music of ABBA,” Peskov said. “But he simply wasn’t there.” ABBA was one of the best-loved foreign bands during Soviet times, and the Swedish quartet even traveled to Moscow to perform in the Kremlin. |
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 Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Friday that Russia would allow the United States to resume the shipment of nonlethal military supplies for Afghanistan across its territory, a vital link in an alternative route to Pakistani roads threatened by militant attacks. |
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TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia’s foreign minister accused Russia on Friday of sending more than two dozen fighter jets to a base in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. Russian and Abkhaz officials denied the claim. Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze said 27 jets are now at the former Soviet airfield at Gudauta, which he said was a flagrant violation of a 1999 treaty on conventional forces in Europe. |
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 Russia’s inflation rate rose in January for the first time in five months as the weakening ruble pushed up the cost of imports and planned tariff increases raised utility costs, the State Statistics Service said Thursday. The annual rate rose to 13.4 percent from 13. |
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The cosmetics chain Rive Gauche plans to open its biggest store yet in the middle of this month, covering an area of 1,417 square meters, part of which will be occupied by a beauty salon. |
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The union leader of General Motors’ auto factory in St. Petersburg was beaten by two unidentified men on Sunday, RIA Novosti reported, citing the official. Yevgeny Ivanov was attacked at around 2.30 p.m. near his apartment in Kolpino, just outside the city, according to the state news agency, which cited him. |
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The Central Bank warned bankers on Friday against betting on any further ruble weakness, concluding a week when, for the first time in months, it did not have to intervene to support the currency. |
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Ukraine Deficit Talks MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s Finance Ministry said it held talks with Ukraine on lending $5 billion to help cover Ukraine’s budget deficit. Ukraine hasn’t officially asked either the Russian Finance Ministry or the government for a loan, the Finance Ministry said in an emailed statement Monday. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko didn’t authorize the talks, his spokeswoman said in a statement on the presidential web site on Monday. Rating Agencies Vetted MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the Finance Ministry will now manage accreditation of Russian rating agencies, Interfax reported. |
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 AvtoVAZ said in a statement late Friday that it was stopping its conveyors indefinitely, despite comments earlier in the day from the company’s president that supply problems would not force a halt to production. |
 Since September, Moscow traders have had to put up with 30 trading freezes on the MICEX and have watched the exchange lose 52 percent of its value, while the RTS has fallen by 69 percent. Now they’ve just about had enough. One trader from Troika Dialog stood up at a panel on market regulation last week at the investment bank’s annual Russia Forum and demanded changes from the CEOs of both Russian exchanges: MICEX’s Alexei Rybnikov and RTS’s Roman Goryunov. |
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Russia, the world’s largest tea importer, will increase purchases by up to 5 percent this year as consumers shun more expensive beverages to better cope with the economic slowdown, an industry lobby group said on Monday. |
 State-run banks may co-manage toxic assets they get from borrowers who default on loans, the Kremlin’s top economic aide, Arkady Dvorkovich, said in an interview Friday. Dvorkovich also said the government might cover this year’s budget deficit with bonds worth “a few hundred billion rubles” and suggested that Russia would recover from the crisis earlier than other countries. |
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 During his election campaign, U.S. President Barack Obama promised to shift the focus of his Middle East policy from Iraq to Afghanistan. There is a good reason for this. Operation Enduring Freedom, the official name for the U.S. contribution to the campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan, brought a quick military victory in that country, but it failed to establish lasting peace. |
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Russia is pursuing its strategy of “energy equals power” on three fronts: Europe, Central Asia and the Arctic Circle. The first two are closely linked. |
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LONDON – Manchester United hammered out a statement of intent to their title rivals as the champions returned to the top of the Premier League with a 1-0 win at West Ham on Sunday. Sir Alex Ferguson’s side had arrived in east London in second place after Liverpool’s late 3-2 fightback at Portsmouth 24 hours earlier. But United showed they have no intention of relinquishing their crown as Ryan Giggs’ second half goal sent them two points clear of Rafael Benitez’s second placed side. By the time Liverpool are next in action that lead will have extended to five points if United win their game in hand against Fulham on February 18. The Old Trafford outfit are beginning to have the look of champions again and this was the kind of obdurate display that has become their hallmark this season. |
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 Defending champions Russia wrapped up a 5-0 thrashing of China to book a Fed Cup semi-final against Italy in a repeat of the 2007 final after the Italians dispatched France in Orleans. |
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Issues Archive