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SOCHI, Krasnodar Region — The Kremlin favorite won an overwhelming victory in the mayoral election in the Russian city hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics, an official said Monday, but the top opposition candidate claimed fraud and said he would challenge the result. With all the ballots from Sunday’s election in Sochi counted, acting Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov had 76.8 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results, elections commission spokeswoman Valentina Tkachyova said. Pakhomov is the candidate from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. Putin personally backed the Sochi Olympic bid and his reputation is riding on a successful Olympic Games in a city that must build most of the facilities during the global financial crisis. Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, a distant second with 13. |
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A WINTER GARDEN
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Two flautists play at the opening of the newly restored Winter Garden at the Marble Palace. A statue of Vladimir Lenin, which stood here during the Soviet era, has been removed. |
 MOSCOW — A U.S. court marshal delivered a court summons to Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin in Washington on Friday to testify in a case involving bankrupt oil company Yukos. “An unidentified person foisted some papers whose contents were unknown on the minister,” his spokesman Pavel Kuznetsov said Saturday, Interfax reported. The papers later turned out to be a notice from the U.
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MOSCOW — The Federal Security Service has published a detailed list of terrorist tactics and activities on its web site that it says are typical of recent attacks. But some critics say the document could serve as a how-to manual for would-be terrorists, telling them what they should focus on and what to avoid. |
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North Korea will stay away from international nuclear disarmament talks, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday after visiting the secretive state and pressing Pyongyang to return to the sputtering discussions. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday dismissed the country’s military intelligence chief, a veteran who opposed Kremlin plans for sweeping military reform. Medvedev signed a decree relieving General Valentin Korabelnikov, 63, of his post as director of the GRU, a Kremlin statement said. |
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ROME — U.S. and Russian arms negotiators held a “very productive” initial round of talks on Friday aimed at agreeing on a new treaty to curb nuclear weapons as part of a broader effort to improve relations. |
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TV Censorship? ST PETERSBURG (SPT) — Contrary to previous reports, the head of a local TV talk show will not be taken off the air after a conflict with a politician who appeared on the show, a TV station spokesperson said Monday. Tatiana Aleksandrova, who produces and presents the program “Peterburgsky Chas” (“The St. Petersburg Hour”) on Channel Five, will continue to carry out her regular duties, according to Channel 5 public affairs chief Larisa Konashenok, Interfax reported. Meanwhile, well-informed sources have been confirming Aleksandrova was taken off the air as of the end of last week, the report noted. The information service RIA-Novosti quoted Aleksandrova as saying on Monday that she has been temporarily taken off air. |
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 Animal rights activists blocked Sojuzpushnina’s Fur Palace in St. Petersburg on Sunday as Russia’s only organizer of fur auctions was about to start its 179th auction, with 170,000 skins of sable on offer. |
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MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his government were praised for their efforts to handle the financial crisis in a report approved by the State Duma on Friday despite unanimous opposition from all non-United Russia deputies. Deputies from the Communist Party, the Liberal Democrat Party and A Just Russia all criticized the resolution for lacking any criticism and offering unjustified praise of the government’s performance last year. |
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MOSCOW — The United Nations cautioned Friday that the government’s demographic policy would fall far short of its goal of stabilizing a rapid decrease in the country’s population, which could contract by 10 million to 20 million people over the next 16 years. |
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ROME — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met with the pope Monday on his first trip to Western Europe since the European Union lifted a travel ban imposed a decade ago over his dismal human rights record. Lukashenko, whom some in the West have called “Europe’s last dictator” because of his stifling of dissent, met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Apostolic Palace and later met the Vatican secretary of state. He was to dine Monday night with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, news reports said. The Vatican said talks were conducted in a “positive” climate. A statement said some “internal problems” were discussed, though it didn’t specify human rights. |
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 Faced with two worthy contenders for this year’s Best Production of Opera Award, the Golden Mask musical theater jury came up with the same sort of compromise it has often reached in the past, honoring just one with the award but indicating a close call by naming the individual who staged the other as Best Director in Opera. |
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MOSCOW — Alexander Pugachyov, the 23-year-old son of Senator Sergei Pugachyov, has been named general director of the French tabloid France-Soir, Agence France Presse reported Friday. The appointment made Alexander Pugachyov the second son of a Russian oligarch to take the reins of a struggling foreign newspaper this year. |
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The volume of mortgages taken out in the first quarter was eight times less that of the same period last year, and the total value of those taken out was 10 times less, the St. Petersburg Mortgage Agency (SPBIA) announced last week. Only banks that are partly state-owned remain on the market, along with Bank St. Petersburg. VTB 24 bank only issues allocated loans for buying existing residential real estate, said Tatyana Khobotova, head of mortgage lending at the bank’s St. Petersburg branch. Bank St. Petersburg, on the other hand, has stopped its program for issuing loans to buy existing property, said Pavel Filimonenok, deputy chairman of the bank’s board of directors, via the bank’s press service. |
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Up & Running / For The St. Petersburg Times
The ribbon is cut at the new Gestamp factory, Stadco, in Vsevolozhsk just outside St. Petersburg on Friday. The plant will make components for automobiles, including the Ford Focus model. |
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The economy plunged by 9.5 percent in the first three months of 2009 and might contract by 6 percent this year, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said Thursday, painting a bleaker picture than the government had previously forecast. The Economic Development Ministry is now reconsidering its forecast of a 2.2 percent drop in gross domestic product for 2009, Klepach said, calling a recent International Monetary Fund forecast of 6 percent “quite realistic,” Interfax reported.
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Russia Gets Sub Order MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia received a $1.8 billion order to build six submarines for Vietnam, Kommersant reported. The Kilo 636 subs were originally intended for Venezuela and will be built by St. Petersburg-based Admiralteyskiye Verfi, a subsidiary of state-owned United Shipbuilding Corp., the Russian newspaper reported, citing two unidentified people at government arms trader Rosoboronexport. Rosoboronexport broke a contract with Venezuela to supply the submarines after the April 18 meeting of the South American country’s president, Hugo Chavez, with U.S. President Barack Obama, Kommersant reported. Hyundai Needs Loan SEOUL (Bloomberg) — Hyundai Motor Co. |
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 Russia and Bulgaria will soon bridge differences over Sofia’s participation in a Moscow-backed pipeline project to bring gas to Europe and sign a final deal, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Saturday. |
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SOFIA, Bulgaria — European governments and gas consumers must back the Nabucco gas pipeline with cash and contracts now if Europe is to cut its reliance on Russian gas, an energy security conference heard Friday. The EU-backed 7.9 billion euro ($10.4 billion) project to pump gas from the Caspian region via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to Austria needs to quickly become a reality after years of squabbling over terms. |
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Russian steelmakers are nervously looking east, waiting to see what effect a series of deals hammered out in China will have on their own fortunes. Traditionally, on April 1, the start of China’s fiscal year, Russia’s steel producers hold negotiations with iron ore miners to work out the terms of their annual contracts. |
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MOSCOW — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday criticized NATO exercises which will take place in Georgia next month as harmful and said other countries should join Russia in boycotting them. NATO had invited Russia to send observers to the near month-long exercises that will involve 1,300 troops from NATO members and other countries. “Of course, Russia will not be participating and advises other countries against doing so,” Lavrov told a news conference. “We believe that these exercises, in the current environment, are harmful. Diplomatic links between Tbilisi and Moscow were cut after last August’s brief war over the breakaway region of South Ossetia and Russia’s subsequent recognition of the breakaway republic. |
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 KIEV — Ukraine on Sunday paid homage to victims of the Chernobyl catastrophe 23 years after the worst nuclear accident in history. “Today, we remember with profound sadness those heroes who fought against the nuclear storm and sacrificed themselves for us and our children,” President Viktor Yushchenko said in an address published by his press service. |
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MOSCOW — The military launched new counterterrorism operations in at least three districts of Chechnya on Friday, just over a week after it ended similar missions across the whole region, Interfax reported. Federal commanders reintroduced the security restrictions associated with counterterrorism operations in the Shali, Shatoi and Vedeno districts near the Caucasus Mountains in the region. |
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 In the same way that generals prepare by analyzing past wars, economists and politicians prepare by analyzing past economic crises. On the whole, this makes sense because we know what happened in the past, and we can analyze only what is known. Despite this preparation and analysis, nations continue to repeat the same blunders and have been hit repeatedly by the same economic crises over the past 100 years. |
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A friend recently sent me a RuTube link to two Soviet-era television documentaries by journalist Valentin Zorin, titled “America in the 1970s.” Perhaps because many Soviet Jews were already living in the United States — and writing home about American life — those programs were unusually sophisticated. |
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LONDON — Household pets have become the latest victims of the global slowdown, with the number abandoned rising by more than 50 percent in the past year, the RSPCA said on Monday. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals called for people to donate more time or money to help it support the thousands of extra animals across England and Wales that were dumped by their owners. |
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SAINT DENIS, Reunion — A cult leader jailed for sex attacks on children escaped in a helicopter from a prison on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion on Monday, the regional administration said. |
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MUNICH — Jurgen Klinsmann was on Monday sacked as head coach of Bayern Munich following a series of poor results, the defending Bundesliga champions announced. The 44-year-old only took charge in July 2008, but recent poor results have seen Bayern crash out of the Champions League after a 4-0 hammering at Barcelona while Saturday’s 1-0 defeat by Schalke leaves them third in the German league. |
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BERLIN — Dinara Safina celebrates her 23rd birthday on Monday determined to prove she deserves to be world number one despite never having won a Grand Slam title. |
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LONDON — Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said his side could beat “everybody” when they were at their best as he urged them to be fearless against Manchester United in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg clash at Old Trafford. The Gunners head into that match unbeaten in 20 games after Cesc Fabregas’s double - his first goals in six months - secured a 2-0 Premier League victory at home to relegation-threatened Middlesbrough here on Sunday. |
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