LOCAL NEWS

CITY’S CLUBS BLACKLISTED FOLLOWING FIRE CHECKS

Twenty-six local nightclubs, cafes and restaurants were put on a blacklist by the Ministry of Emergency Situations due to fire safety regulations on Wednesday.

The nationwide campaign to inspect clubs and other venues was launched after a deadly fire at a nightclub in Perm. Caused by sparks from a firework show, the Dec. 5 fire left 149 dead and 80 injured, Interfax reported on Thursday.

“Unfettered freedom for nightclubs has ended — as well as for other entertainment businesses,” St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko was quoted by Interfax as saying on Dec. 8. She said every venue would go through a thorough fire safety check in the next six to eight weeks.

Mass violations have already been exposed as the prosecutor’s office and fire inspectorate conduct dozens of checks every day, but so far only 26 venues have been blacklisted by the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which posted a document titled “Black List of Nightclubs, Discos and Restaurants” on its local web site.

RETAIL BILL PASSES KEY HURDLE IN DUMA

MOSCOW — The State Duma on Wednesday passed in a key second reading a controversial law on retail trade that caused a rare split between the government and the Kremlin.

Retailers have said the bill, which was proposed by the government, will give unfair advantages to producers and suppliers and cause prices on many goods to rise.

The bill will come into force as early as Feb.

SAPSAN HIGH-SPEED TRAIN LAUNCHED

A new high-speed train, the Sapsan, was due to make its first journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg on Thursday evening.

From Friday, the trains will run between the two cities three times a day, leaving both cities at 6.45 a.m., 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. The morning and evening trips will take three hours and 45 minutes, while the afternoon train will take four hours and 45 minutes due to additional stops at Okulovka, Bologoye, Vyshny Volochyok and Tver, Russian Railways said.

IN BRIEF

Fire Kills Six

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Four adults and two children were killed in a fire that broke out in an apartment building on Ulitsa Kolokolnaya early Tuesday morning.

NATIONAL NEWS

ARCHITECT OF MARKET REFORMS YEGOR GAIDAR DIES, 53

MOSCOW — Yegor Gaidar, the mastermind of Russia’s transition to a free economy that began with painful price shocks in the early 1990s, died Wednesday at the age of 53.

Gaidar died of a blood clot at 3 a.m. as he was working on a new book at his home outside Moscow, said Yelena Lopatina, a spokeswoman for the Institute of Economy in Transition, a think tank that Gaidar established and headed.

TAX ON TOBACCO MAY BE QUADRUPLED

The State Duma may consider quadrupling tobacco excise instead of the 40 percent increase approved earlier, which could lead to the price of a packet of cigarettes doubling, Fontanka reported.

City’s Largest Private Festival Opens at Peterburgsky SKK

A four-day tea-drinking fiesta kicked off Thursday with the opening of the St. Petersburg Samovar festival, which features a vast number of tastings and tea ceremonies from Japan, China, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Latin America.

The festival’s central character, Samovar-Batyushka or “Old Man Samovar” — an imposing-looking 45-liter giant — was delivered to St.

LOCAL BUSINESS

In Brief

No Growth for Banking

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s banking sector faces “zero growth” in 2010, Alexander Turbanov, head of the Deposit Insurance Agency, said during a meeting of business leaders in Moscow on Thursday.

Nonperforming loans will remain a problem, albeit one banks can manage on their own using accumulated reserves, Turbanov said.

CULTURE

Big in Japan

An eye-catching feature of post-Soviet Russia was a proliferation of casinos and gaming palaces. But a new law aimed at moving gambling establishments away from cities into yet-to-be-built Las Vegas-style zones has meant the closure of these symbols of 1990s excess. As the world financial crisis bites, the premises of many former casinos have yet to find new tenants.