LOCAL NEWS

OPPOSITION FINDS LOCAL POLL HARD GOING

The opposition Yabloko Democratic Party on Thursday published a list of the candidates it supports in Sunday’s municipal elections that includes a number of Communists.

The Yabloko list comprises 71 candidates among the 3,611 seats up for grabs in 27 municipal districts (from a total of 108) in the poll.

“There are even several Communists [on the list], who have joined the coalition with the [preservationist pressure group] Protect Vasilyevsky Ostrov and Yabloko,” Yabloko’s spokesman Alexander Shurshev said by phone on Thursday.

Because many oppositionists were barred from registering as candidates by the authorities under various pretexts, there will mostly be pro-Kremlin candidates standing, with the Kremlin-backed United Russia party fronted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dominating in almost all municipal districts.

EXPERTS UNVEIL PROGRAM FOR HEALTHY, AFFORDABLE NUTRITION

As the global financial crisis shows little sign of abating, the Russian Nutrition Research Institute and Russian Consumers’ Watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, have developed a new “economical” nutrition program for different age groups of the population.

The recommendations in the new program, titled Cheap Healthy Nutrition, are billed as “healthy, tasty, well-balanced and affordable for low-income groups.

In Brief

Jewelry Store Robbed

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Unknown armed criminals robbed a jewelry store of goods worth more than five million rubles ($140,000) in St. Petersburg on Tuesday night.

Three men stormed into a ‘585’ chain store on Grazhdansky Prospekt, threatened the saleswomen with a gun, and stole 21 stands of jewelry and accessories, Interfax reported.

NATIONAL NEWS

Estonian Given 12 Years For Passing Secrets to Moscow

TALLINN, Estonia — An Estonian court convicted a former top security official of treason Wednesday for passing domestic and NATO secrets to Russia, the Baltic country’s biggest espionage scandal since the Cold War.

Herman Simm, the former head of security at the Estonian Defense Ministry, was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison in a trial that was kept secret until the verdict was announced Wednesday.

LOCAL BUSINESS

500,000 WORKERS TO LOSE JOBS

The number of Russians set to lose their jobs amid the global financial crisis has reached half a million, jumping tenfold in less than four months, according to data released by the Health and Social Development Ministry.

The figures demonstrate how deeply the economic turmoil has penetrated into the real economy, affecting not only financial professionals, as was largely the case in October, but everyone from store clerks to construction workers.

As of Feb. 18, the Health and Social Development Ministry had classified 496,600 workers as “due for redundancy” — meaning job cuts notified to the government but not yet enacted.

Wages and real disposable income are also plummeting, while wages owed to workers have almost tripled since last year, government data showed.

OLIMPSTROI DOESN’T NEED STATE FUNDING

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said Tuesday that state corporation Olimpstroi would not need state funding in 2009 and that most of the previously allocated money would be returned to the federal budget.

THIRD OF ARMS MAKERS FACE BANKRUPTCY

One-third of Russia’s weapons makers are on the verge of bankruptcy, and the industry is seeking Western loans because domestic credit is impossibly expensive, Russian Technologies head Sergei Chemezov said Wednesday.

“The financial and economic condition of only 36 percent of strategic organizations in the military industrial complex can be seen as stable,” Chemezov told lawmakers.

SOCHI COMMITTEE INVITES BIDS FROM AIRLINES AND INSURERS

The Sochi Organizing Committee said Wednesday that it had created two new sponsorship categories — for an insurer and an airline — and that it sent bid invitations to Russia’s largest players in each sector.

In Brief

Glavstroi-SPB Sold

ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov bought the St. Petersburg-based unit of fellow billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s builder Glavstroi, Vedomosti reported, citing a person it didn’t identify.

Glavstroi-SPB is developing four property projects in St. Petersburg for a combined 6 million square meters (65 million square feet) that need about 200 billion rubles ($5.

OPINION

RUSSIA IS MUCH SMARTER THIS TIME

Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong loved to say, “The world’s two superpowers, the Soviet Union and United States, collide and collude, and the more they collide, the more they collude.” By all accounts, Mao’s interpretation of relations between Moscow and Washington is still relevant today under Barack Obama’s presidency.

AMNESIA AND NEGLIGENCE IN POLITKOVSKAYA CASE

Last week, a jury acquitted three defendants in the murder trial of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The newspaper’s deputy editor Sergei Sokolov said, “We insist that the defendants were guilty.

CULTURE

ONEGIN ONLINE

On Tuesday, the Alexandriinsky Theater will host the eagerly anticipated world premiere of local choreographer Boris Eifman’s new ballet, “Onegin. Online,” based on Alexander Pushkin’s classic novel in verse “Yevgeny Onegin.”

The performance will be the only one in the city in the near future.

CHERNOV'S CHOICE

The Kremlin has grown strangely susceptible to pop music in the past few weeks. Earlier this month, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied claims that Bjorn Again, a London-based ABBA tribute band, put on a secret show for the prime minister.

A THOUSAND BUDDHAS

The vast region of Central Asia, stretching from the Caspian Sea to central China, has always been one of the most mysterious and tempting corners of the world. It is this huge territory that became known as the Silk Road — an extensive network of trade routes between East and West that lured merchants with the fat profits to be made.

BELLA ITALIA

Don’t be put off by the troika of intimidating giants guarding the entrance to Francesco, nor by the large poster advertising this weekend’s Mixed Martial Arts competition (bare fist fighting, no rules) just behind them.