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MOSCOW — German carmaker Daimler paid more than 3 million euros ($4 million) in bribes to Russian government officials, largely to secure the sale of cars to the police and Federal Guard Service, the agency that provides transportation for Russian and visiting dignitaries, the U.S. Justice Department said in a lawsuit. The maker of the Mercedes sedans favored by top officials “made improper payments at the request of Russian government officials or their designees in order to secure business from Russian government customers” between 2000 and 2005, when government purchases comprised 5 percent of all sales in Russia, the Justice Department said in the lawsuit filed Tuesday. |
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SITTING PRETTY
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Sunbathers relax on the beach in front of the Peter and Paul Fortress on Thursday. Temperatures are set to soar to highs of 9 deg. Celsius over the weekend, although rain, snow and sleet are predicted. Clocks go forward by an hour early on Sunday morning. |
 MOSCOW — While the dust is still settling over the recent firing of two IKEA managers amid corruption claims, the former head of the Swedish furniture giant’s Russian operations has packaged his love and hate for Russia in a new book. But Lennart Dahlgren, who stepped down in 2006 after setting up the first IKEA stores in Russia, holds no apparent grudge against the country, where he jumped through bureaucratic hoops, faced threats and trod a fine line between IKEA’s stringent ethics and Russia’s “chaotic reality.
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Moscow oppositional politicians filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court in St. Petersburg on Wednesday against what they say is an “unconstitutional” law on public assembly. Speaking at a press conference, author Eduard Limonov, whose National-Bolshevik Party (NBP) was banned in 2007, and Left Front’s Konstantin Kosyakin argued that the law violates the Constitution and makes it easy for the authorities to ban any public rally they find inappropriate. |
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MOSCOW — A Siberian hacker who streamed a pornographic film on an electronic billboard in central Moscow in January has been sentenced to five years in prison for selling marijuana, Life News reported Wednesday. |
All photos from issue.
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 “I have got everything I need,” was the response Grigory Perelman, the reclusive St. Petersburg mathematician who was this month been awarded the prestigious $1 million Millienium Prize by the U.S.-based Clay Mathematics Institute for solving the Poincare conjecture, threw at reporters through the closed door of his humble apartment in the southern part of the city. |
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MOSCOW — A bizarre fight between the main pro-Kremlin parties returned to the political stage Wednesday when United Russia officials accused A Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov of conducting a “frenzied campaign” against the ruling party. |
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A party scheduled for Sunday in the Astoria Hotel’s Winter Garden may create something of a diplomatic coup. Titled “Cafe Oriental,” it promises “a dazzling cabaret program in the alluring spirit of the Orient,” with tunes performed by Russian, Polish, German, British, Argentinian, Australian, Slovenian and Turkish artists — most of them amateurs and half of them professional diplomats. |
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MOSCOW — Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev called on the public Wednesday to help draft legislation to replace a 1991 law on the police, which he blamed in part for the corruption surrounding his agency. |
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MOSCOW — Russia’s economy will see a robust recovery in 2010, but unemployment will remain high, the World Bank said Wednesday. Unemployment is expected to stay at about 9 percent in the first quarter of 2010, “with some improvement throughout the year, mostly a result of higher seasonal employment,” the bank said in a report. The government should have done more to stimulate job growth through employment programs during the economic crisis, particularly those aimed at stimulating the startup of small and medium-sized businesses, said Zhelko Bogetich, World Bank economist and country coordinator for Russia. |
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WATERWORLD
Simon Eliasson / The St. Petersburg Times
As the snow melts, flooding the St. Petersburg’s streets, sales of rubber boots have rocketed in the city. Fashion experts are predicting that inflatable dinghies will be the next must-have item. |
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St. Petersburg presented the latest results of its five-year program for the development of tourism and reconstruction of the city’s international airport at the ITB Berlin travel trade show earlier this month. City Hall is paying a lot of attention to the issue of security for tourists, said Marianna Ordzhonikidze, head of the tourism department of the city’s Committee for Investments and Strategic Projects.
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 Her art made Ingmar Bergman cry, and she gave autographs to Liz Taylor on her own used pointe shoes. She was nicknamed the “Stradivarius of dance,” and what she did on stage was referred to as “the Makarova miracle.” This week the legendary ?migr? ballerina Natalya Makarova is making a pilgrimage to her hometown as an honorary guest of the Ninth International Ballet Festival Dance Open, which opens at the Mikhailovsky Theater on March 28. |
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There is something rotten in the kingdom of rock and roll. The Jam! Showbiz reported this week that Iggy Pop vowed to stop stagediving after none of the audience bothered to catch him at a recent concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. |
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For some, their name is synonymous with mystery, political intrigue and conspiracy theories. For others, they are tied to morality, learning and creativity. They are brothers in a secret society, bonded by esoteric knowledge and a coded language of rituals, symbols and signs. |
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The Balkan peninsula and the countries bordering the Mediterranean are sadly the subject of certain prejudices related to their lack of politeness and tidiness, the quality of their gastronomy and the restaurant service. |
 HONG KONG — For the final weekend of this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival, the Mariinsky Opera will open its short tour on Friday under the baton of Maestro Valery Gergiev with Benjamin Britten’s opera “The Turn of the Screw.” On Sunday, Gergiev will star again on the closing night of the Festival conducting the Mariinsky Orchestra in another concert. Last Saturday, the Festival also presented the Mariinsky Ballet returning for a third tour to Hong Kong. |
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 LOS ANGELES — Currently “hot” in Hollywood, following a Best Director win at this year’s Oscars for a tense Iraq war drama, “The Hurt Locker,” 58-year old Kathryn Bigelow has strong links with Russia, and St. |
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Issues Archive