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MOSCOW — The Federal Court Marshals Service on Friday ordered the state to auction off Telenor’s 26.6 percent stake in VimpelCom, a move that the Norwegian telecoms company said made the possibility of losing the shares “quite realistic.” The auction was organized to cover a $1.7 billion fine that Telenor faces in Russia for blocking VimpelCom’s expansion into Ukraine after a little-known minority filed a lawsuit seeking damages. The news sent Telenor’s shares down 4 percent in Oslo on Friday, while VimpelCom’s New York-traded shares closed down 0.2 percent. Analysts said Friday’s decision appeared to be another attempt to make Telenor bow to the wishes of Mikhail Fridman’s Alfa Group, which owns 44 percent of VimpelCom. It remains to be seen, however, whether political leaders are willing to let the dispute harm investor sentiment, they said. |
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SETTING SAIL
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A specially decorated ship sails toward the Peter and Paul Fortress as a firework display takes place overhead on Saturday as part of the Alie Parusa (Crimson Sails) school-leavers’ celebration. |
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MOSCOW — The government’s first anti-crisis plan contained a staggering 55 points. Its second, signed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday, has just seven. Declaring the first anti-crisis plan nearly fulfilled, the government on Friday switched to a second package of measures to prepare for the “postcrisis” period by removing barriers to business, creating a powerful financial system and fulfilling the state’s social responsibilities.
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Record Collection ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A St. Petersburg man has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for owning the world’s largest collection of zithers, Interfax reported Friday. A panel of experts from the book of records has confirmed that the collection of 151 zithers belonging to Valery Bruntsev is the largest in the world, announced the steering committee of “Zither in Russia” on its web site, zither. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — A Georgian lieutenant said Friday that he had deserted his military unit and requested asylum in Russia because he feared renewed fighting between the two countries. Tbilisi ridiculed the announcement by Alik Bzhania, 35, and said the Russian military was trying to repair its image after a Russian soldier defected to Georgia in January. Bzhania, who joined Georgia’s Black Sea coast guard in October, said he fled his unit on the port of Poti on May 23 to avoid another outbreak of fighting. “[President] Mikheil Saakashvili intends to restart the war,” Bzhania said. “I don’t intend to fight against my brothers. |
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MANDALA
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Buddhist monks at the Datsan temple on Primorsky Prospekt on Saturday take part in a ceremoney for the destroying of the Mandala, an image of a guest house for the White Tara deity. |
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AMSTERDAM — Russia is ready to drastically cut its nuclear stockpiles in a new arms pact with the United States if Washington meets Moscow’s concerns over missile defense, President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday. “We are ready to reduce by several times the number of nuclear delivery vehicles in comparison with the START-1 pact,” Medvedev said at a news conference in Amsterdam.
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MOSCOW — A young Chechen man has been arrested and accused of shooting his sister to death in an honor killing, prosecutors said Saturday. The man has confessed to killing his sister Wednesday with multiple gunshots because of her “immoral behavior,” prosecutors said in a statement. |
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On Thursday, two journalists who were detained by the police in the city center last week and charged with using obscene language in public wrote to the City Prosecutor asking for action to be taken against both arresting officers and their colleagues who wrote up the reports at the police station. |
 Last September, a police raid on Moscow’s sprawling Cherkizovsky Market resulted in the confiscation of 6,000 containers of purportedly pirated and smuggled goods from China worth $2 billion — the biggest haul of contraband in Russia’s history. Yet there was little mention of the seizure until earlier this month, when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suddenly asked why the investigation was showing no results. |
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Before a feud broke out over dairy imports, Belarus had raised its quotas on milk exports to Russia by 40 percent, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday, hinting at the reason behind Russia’s decision to temporarily ban nearly all Belarussian milk. |
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Apartments Allocated ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — LSR Group, a St. Petersburg-based property developer, said it won a contract to sell 4. |
 State-controlled Rosneft drastically expanded the powers of its board of directors at its annual shareholders meeting Friday as it announced plans to increase output and develop a major new field. The government also voted to include Vladimir Bogdanov, chief of rival oil producer Surgutneftegaz, in Rosneft’s board. |
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 Western visitors to Russia are often struck by what seems to be Russians’ preoccupation with their health. Children are bundled up in hats and snowsuits even in temperatures approaching 20 degrees Celcius, and almost every family has a blood pressure reader and a thermometer at home, along with a cabinet full of medicine. |
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Back in the ’90s, it was not uncommon for foreigners who developed a health problem in St. Petersburg to go to nearby Finland for treatment, especially in emergencies and for surgery. |
 A team of four American cardiac experts made up of two surgeons, a cardiologist and a specialist nurse recently visited St. Petersburg on a week-long special mission organized by the Almazov Foundation for the Development of Medical Science and Education. From May 31 to June 5, Drs. Dennis Mello, John Heim and Thomas Young and nurse Jaime Grayson undertook a marathon of sophisticated heart operations on children from throughout Russia. |
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 If, when entering a Russian home or even an office, you are hit by the strong odor of raw garlic, it’s not necessarily because someone is cooking or eating garlic. |
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 State visits don’t usually influence world politics. But the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Moscow on July 6 to 8 might become an exception. Obama has a unique chance to tell the world what U.S. policy toward Russia will be under his administration. |
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Even the economic crisis with its salary cuts and threat of unemployment is incapable of forcing people to change their habits. Only 17 percent of Russians are ready to work in another town, even within their own region, in the event of their losing their jobs. |
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 AMSTERDAM — The past 10 days have shown impressive proactivity on the part of Russia’s foreign policy initiators. Diplomatic power was exercised at the CSTO gathering in Moscow on June 14, shoring up the regional security arrangements in the “near abroad,” then the June 15-16 BRIC meetings and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Yekaterinburg highlighted Russia’s position on the world stage. A follow-up bilateral meeting with the Chinese President focused on Russia’s economic power with the announced frame agreements amounting to $100 billion in trade. |
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 The St. Petersburg Children's Hospice is set to hold a charity exhibition of pictures by seriously ill children in St. Petersburg’s KGallery from June 25 to July 1. |
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Issues Archive