LOCAL NEWS

MOSCOW AUTHORITIES START RAZING MARKET

MOSCOW — City authorities on Tuesday began demolishing the sprawling Cherkizovsky Market, which was closed in June over sanitary and safety violations amid a broader crackdown on smuggling.

The once-bustling, 300-hectare bazaar was deserted except for several photographers and reporters, a few guards and several migrants helping clean out the market, who said they were not former vendors.

Earlier this summer, the complex in eastern Moscow employed tens of thousands of migrants, but only a few dozen were there Tuesday. Some managed to find jobs elsewhere in the city, but many have left for home amid signs that City Hall wants them gone.

INGUSH DEATH TOLL RISES

MOSCOW — The death toll in the suicide bombing of an Ingush police station grew to 21 on Tuesday and could reach 30 as hopes dwindle for finding nine missing police officers alive.

Thirty-five people remained hospitalized in Ingushetia’s main hospital, and nine who suffered more serious injuries were flown to Moscow for treatment, officials said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack Monday in which a GAZelle van packed with explosives rammed into the gates of the police station in Nazran, Ingushetia’s main city.

Bombed Monument Dismantled

Representatives of the Communists of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast political organization gathered at the monument to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin by the Finland Railway Station on Wednesday to protect it from being dismantled.

The organization’s press service called on local residents to join them in their attempt “to defend the monument and not to let capitalists steal the main monument to Lenin from working people.

NATIONAL NEWS

MISSILE MAKER OFFERS FIX TO SHIELD DISPUTE

ZHUKOVSKY, Moscow Region — Aeroflot will be the official carrier of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, pledging $100 million in money and services between 2009 and 2016, Aeroflot head Vitaly Savelyev said Wednesday at the MAKS-2009 air salon.

Sochi Olympic Committee president Dmitry Chernyshenko said at a signing ceremony that Aeroflot won the tender, “leaving competitors far behind” with a bid that beat “practically all Russian and some foreign airlines” that participated.

COMMUNISTS RAIDED

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Law enforcement agencies seized computers during a raid on the offices of the Communists of Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast late Tuesday night.

IN BRIEF

Kremlin Instruder

MOSCOW (SPT) — A man was under psychological observation at a hospital after he pulled up at the Kremlin gates in a Zhiguli car at 6:20 a.m. Wednesday and announced that he was a special services officer arriving for a meeting with a government official.

MINISTRY SEEKS TO BUY GOLD-DECORATED BED

MOSCOW — The Interior Ministry is looking to spend 24.4 million rubles ($764,000) on new furniture, including a bedroom suite decorated with pure gold, according to publicly available documents.

Sberbank Staff Embezzle $180M

MOSCOW — A group of Sberbank employees has defrauded the company of more than $180 million, which was issued in fraudulent loans from a Moscow branch, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday.

In another high-profile bust, the ministry announced that it had uncovered corruption in the Moscow city government’s construction committee — a success attributed to a special unit created on the orders of President Dmitry Medvedev.

LOCAL BUSINESS

DAM DISASTER MAY CAUSE ELECTRICITY PRICES TO RISE

Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Wednesday that electricity prices will have to increase after a disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant knocked out a quarter of RusHydro’s power production.

At least 17 died and57 were missing as of Thursday after the turbine room flooded at the Sayano-Shushenskaya power station Monday.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN CITY PLUMMETS

The volume of foreign investment into St. Petersburg’s economy fell to $1.4 billion from January to June — 35 percent less than the same period last year, Kommersant daily reported Thursday.

Plans Unveiled for Oil Terminal at Ust Luga

Transneft presented its plans for the construction of an oil shipment terminal for the Baltic Pipe System-2 (BTS) at Ust Luga port to the government of the Leningrad Oblast on Tuesday.

The terminal will receive oil from the main BTS oil pipeline and store and ship it to sea oil tankers, the press service of the regional Economic Development and Investment Committee said, Interfax reported.

OPINION

SAVING THE WORLD OVER A GOBLET OF BORDEAUX

It is the dog days of summer in France. The country has shut down for traditional August vacations, and the Russian colonies de vacances in the Departement of Landes, between Bordeaux and Biarritz, on France’s southwest seacoast, are doing a brisk business.

THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO OF THE ARCTIC SEA

The Arctic Sea turned up just as suddenly as it disappeared, and Russian officials acknowledged Tuesday that they had known the cargo ship’s location and fate for several days.

CULTURE

HIGHS AND LOWS

The Mariinsky troupe returns home this week after a challenging three-week tour to London where the renowned company saw it all, from thunderous applause to scathing criticism, from sour grimaces to reverence and recognition.

The emotional range of the tour’s reception was staggering.

WORD’S WORTH

Ñìåñèòåëü: faucet

No one can accuse me of not doing my part to help Russia in her hour of need. The only solution to a crisis, as everybody knows, is to spend your way out of it.

DOWNSIZING

If you are sitting in a traffic jam, you may have noticed that you are being overtaken by young men going at a speed that your car hasn’t hit during rush hour for years.

They might not quite be Rome, but Moscow and St. Petersburg are seeing a scooter boom and in turn a scooter-crash boom, riders in Russia’s two biggest cities say.

GEORGIAN GEM

A recent mention on the Internet of Rustaveli — a newly opened restaurant on the Moika, just round the corner from the expat haunt that is The Other Side — led to a brief squall of debate among St.