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BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — If the Soviet Union ever had a Sun Belt like the United States, then this small Central Asian republic would definitely be part of it. The climate in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, offers moderately hot summers and mild winters. The city is nestled amid green pastures just in front of the towering snow-peaked Tian Shan Mountains. The sun brought some Russians to Kyrgyzstan during Soviet times. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin exiled many others here as well. But now some members of the dwindling ethnic Russian community are looking to leave after witnessing two violent uprisings in five years, the most recent last month when anti-government protests turned violent and police opened fire on demonstrators outside the presidential palace. |
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UNABRIDGED
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Police block the Troitsky Bridge on Thursday. The bridge was closed for repair works without warning on Wednesday night shortly after 9 p.m., creating havoc on the city’s roads. The authorities have promised that the bridge will be reopened on Sunday evening. |
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MOSCOW — A study conducted by the Interior Ministry a year after police Major Denis Yevsyukov went on a supermarket shooting rampage has found that he was not an isolated case and that nearly 10 percent of senior police officers have psychological problems that interfere with their duties. Law enforcement experts said the overall figure for unfit police officers was much higher, topping 20 percent, and urged the Kremlin to ramp up plans to reform the country’s notoriously corrupt police force.
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MOSCOW — A toxic fertilizer spill in Tuapse, Krasnodar region, has sparked unprecedented protests in the small seaside town, with locals venting their rage at development that they say is putting their lives and health in danger. About 3,000 residents of Tuapse, located just 110 kilometers north of Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, rallied in protest on Saturday. |
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, will attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June, a Kremlin aide said Thursday, lending some high-profile star power to the event. |
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MOSCOW — The U.S. Justice Department has given the Prosecutor General’s Office material about bribes given by carmaker Daimler — meaning that the office has no more excuses to refuse to investigate the case. Daimler has been accused of giving bribes to officials in 22 countries, including Russia, since 1998 in order to get state contracts. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev wants to swap his Mercedes Benz for a Russian-made car and has ordered his administration to examine the possibility of renewing the production of limousines at legendary Soviet carmaker ZiL. “There is a presidential order to explore this. … We are currently discussing this with factories, and I do not exclude that in the medium term we will again see old but modern ZiLs,” Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Presidential Property Department, said on Ekho Moskvy radio late Monday. Despite the government’s frantic efforts to save the country’s ailing car industry, Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — like much of the country’s political elite — use German-made limousines when being chauffeured to work. |
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OPEN SEASON
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Vladislav Piotrovsky (c), the head of St. Petersburg’s police force, conducts a review of his officers on Palace Square to open the tourist season. They were asked to be polite with foreign visitors. |
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MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ripped into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Wednesday, saying it was “incoherent” and open for manipulation. Addressing the State Duma, Lavrov complained that the OSCE allowed member states to interfere in one another’s domestic affairs by letting nongovernmental organizations set up field missions under the OSCE’s umbrella.
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MOSCOW — A Chelyabinsk driver who humiliated the local traffic police by filming them violating traffic rules was busted for driving without a license, a regional police spokesman said Tuesday. Chelyabinsk officers stopped the car driven by Vitaly Loboda on May 4 because their database indicated that it belonged to a driver with a revoked license, police spokesman Viktor Khairullin said by phone. Loboda, who lost his license for drunk driving, tried to flee, but the officers caught and detained him after a half-hour foot chase. A video of Loboda ordering a traffic police officer to show his documents and remove his police car from a pedestrian crossing appeared on YouTube in April. |
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 MOSCOW — The Cannes jury will get the chance to judge Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Burnt by the Sun 2” this Saturday, as the director attempts to repeat the international success of the original film, but many wonder what the international reaction will be after the film’s mauling at the box office and by the press in Russia. |
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MOSCOW — Russia’s leaders have finally rejected the Stalinist legacy in an outspoken and unanimous way. But the sharp ideological turn may just be an attempt to appease the West and may bear little influence on domestic policy, analysts said. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, previously wary of criticizing Josef Stalin, denounced the Soviet dictator’s regime during a visit last month to Katyn, the site of a Stalin-ordered massacre. |
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MOSCOW — “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day,” supermodel Linda Evangelista famously told Vogue back in 1990. But British supermodel Naomi Campbell will work for free, although she expects Muscovites to cough up 5,000 euros ($6,350), when she makes her debut in the city as hostess of her NEON charity event Monday. |
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MOSCOW — Sun InBev, a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch_InBev, is bringing Bud, the legendary American beer brand, to Russia in what will likely be an uphill battle on the sagging market. Bud will be a premium brand meeting the highest quality standards and will be produced domestically by Sun InBev, the company said in a statement Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW — The State Duma on Wednesday passed in a second reading a bill aimed at regulating state and municipal property privatizations. The new bill will allow banks and stock exchanges to sell federal property alongside the Federal Property Management Agency, which is currently the only entity authorized by the government, the Duma’s Property Committee said in a statement. |
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Protek to Invest ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Protek, the Russian drug company that raised $400 million in an intitial public offering last month, plans to spend half of that money on acquisitions, including to expand its Rigla chain of stores. Protek, which has wholesale and retail operations, is looking at acquiring assets in several regions of Russia, Chief Executive Officer Alexei Molchanov said at a conference in St. |
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 The Kremlin rarely approaches EU-Russia summits with much enthusiasm, but there are signs that this may change in anticipation of the next summit in Rostov-on-Don on May 31. Although this newfound willingness is far from voluntary — caused by a sharp shock provided by the global economic crisis — it is something we should welcome and build upon. |
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On the night of May 8-9 at the Raspadskaya coal mine in the town of Mezhdurechensk in the Kemerovo region, two huge explosions took the lives of 90 miners. |
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 Cycling around St. Petersburg may not be everyone’s dream. The risks are many and varied, ranging from relative irritants, such as protruding tramline rails and uneven roads, to unpleasant surprises, such as cigarette butts flicked casually out of car windows into passing cyclists’ laps, to the downright terrifying: aggressive and even on occasion seemingly homicidal car and lorry drivers. |
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Êàç¸ííûé: state- or company-owned, bureaucratic in style, banal, lacking individuality Years ago, I once spilled coffee on a rug in a Moscow office. I apologized, but the secretary brushed it off with a wave of her hand. |
 The stages of the city’s theaters and concert halls are once again preparing for the annual Musical Olympus international festival. The festival, which has been held every year since 1996, brings talented young musicians from all over the world who have recently won prizes at international competitions to perform in St. |
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The quaintly named Apple Street near the Sportivnaya metro holds a surprise at the end behind an unassuming fa?ade. From the street, all that is visible of Chernika are the rolled-up red window banners advertising borsch, and the menu outside the door. |
Temp: -1°C clear 
Issues Archive