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MOSCOW — A sense of relief seemed to pervade the halls of government over the weekend that a potentially embarrassing spy scandal with the United States was over and the two sides could get back to work on bolstering ties. But few Russian officials showed any enthusiasm about discussing the two-week affair. In a brief, three-sentence statement, the Foreign Ministry said the exchange of 10 Russian sleeper agents from the United States for four convicted spies from Russia “was carried out in the general context of improving Russian-U.S. relations.” The most hawkish commentators and policymakers largely backed away from their usual saber rattling. Nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky warned of a renewed Cold War but softened his remarks to explain that this would happen “not tomorrow, but maybe in five or 10 years. |
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FULL THROTTLE
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Powerboats compete in the Russian Grand Prix, a Formula 1 World Championship qualification event, on the Neva River on Sunday. The event was won by Finland’s Sami Selio of the Mad Croc team. Mad Croc helmsman Alex Carella took second place in the event. |
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Local preservationists moved the protest campaign against the controversial Stockmann Nevski Center project in St. Petersburg to Stockmann’s offices in Helsinki on Friday. The activists also called on the public to boycott the Stockmann Nevski Center, which is scheduled to open in November, on the grounds that construction has radically altered one of the city’s most treasured historic views.
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MOSCOW — The State Duma on Friday gave final approval to a presidential bill increasing prison terms for police officers who commit crimes, seemingly ignoring a request from President Dmitry Medvedev to expand the legislation to include all law enforcement officials. |
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MOSCOW — Russia has completed fewer than half of the Council of Europe’s recommendations on fighting corruption, though the Prosecutor General’s Office contended that some of the proposals could not be fulfilled, while others are still being readied. |
All photos from issue.
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The controversial self-styled scientist Viktor Petrik, who looks set to benefit from a multi-billion-dollar nationwide water purification program, has come under fire from the Consumer Rights Society, which is suing the inventor for what it calls “useless water filters.” Petrik, who is heavily backed by the United Russia party and its leader Boris Gryzlov but denounced by the Russian Academy of Sciences, runs the Golden Formula holding that produces water filters. When the St. Petersburg Consumer Rights Society tested the filters earlier this summer, the results were somewhat embarrassing for its manufacturer. |
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SUNSEEKERS
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Sunbathers relax on a man-made stretch of sand on Vasilyevsky Island that is part of the Marine Facade passenger port, with two cruise ships docked in the background. |
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MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reprimanded Aeroflot on Saturday for not purchasing enough Russian-made planes, telling the state-run carrier’s CEO that growing profits and dividends were not its only concern. The airline recently announced plans to purchase a combined 44 planes from Boeing and Airbus, compared with 30 of Sukhoi’s regional SuperJet, starting in 2016.
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MOSCOW — The State Duma took a step toward severely tightening the screws on public rallies Friday, passing a bill in a first reading that would ban people from organizing them if previously convicted of offenses as minor as speeding or riding a commuter train without a ticket. The bill, supported by 312 deputies out of 450, was criticized by Gennady Gudkov, a senior member of the A Just Russia party, as “foolish” and “aimed at hindering the organization of rallies and making them impossible.” The draft said no individual or legal body, including a political party, may organize a public gathering if convicted of an administrative offense. The list of administrative offenses includes speeding, traveling without a ticket and minor fire safety violations, as well as a broad range of offenses related to elections and organizing public gatherings. |
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 LAKE SELIGER, Tver Region — The summer camp on Lake Seliger used to be a private party for pro-Kremlin youth, but this year EU flags and a motley crew of foreign participants indicate that the times are changing. |
 Two of the four Russians expelled from the country in a historic spy swap are in a hotel somewhere outside London with no British visas, said the brother of one of them. Igor Sutyagin, an arms researcher, was still in prison clothes, without money or plans, pondering whether to remain in the country or return to his homeland, his brother Dmitry Sutyagin said. |
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GDP Could Rise 3% MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s gross domestic product may increase 3 percent this quarter from the same period last year as government spending bolsters industrial output, Renaissance Capital said. GDP may advance 0.9 percent from the second quarter, RenCap said in a report Monday, raising its previous forecast from 0.7 percent. “The main positive growth drivers appear to be related to a direct impact of the government’s efforts to reinvigorate the economy,” economists led by Alexei Moisseyev said in the report. Lukoil Signs Memo MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — ERG Renew and Lukoil said they signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in the market of renewable energy sources, focusing on the wind energy segment. |
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AMERICAN PSYCHO
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
John Malkovich (l) performs in the role of serial killer Jack Unterweger at a rehearsal for ‘The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer’ at the Mariinsky Concert Hall on Saturday. |
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MOSCOW — Russia’s 16 special economic zones have attracted 207 residents and 144.9 billion rubles ($4.7 billion) investment in the more than four years since they were created, the company tasked with developing them said Friday. The zones, created in 2005 to encourage investment and innovation, have fallen far short of the government’s expectations.
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MOSCOW — Zarubezhneft is looking to increase its cooperation with Vietnam, including boosting the crude reserves of their RusVietPetro joint venture, an executive for the Russian state oil producer said Sunday. “I hope that RusVietPetro’s recoverable reserves will far exceed 100 million [metric] tons,” Zarubezhneft first deputy chief executive Viktor Gorshenev said, Interfax reported. |
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MOSCOW — Vladimir Potanin’s Interros holding said Thursday that it would vote against dismissing Norilsk Nickel’s board of directors, calling fellow shareholder United Company RusAl a “destructive” force within Russia’s largest mining company. |
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MOSCOW — The government is looking to introduce a tax on several luxury items to help raise funds for the budget, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said Thursday. “We are making calculations, and within one week to ten days we will have specific suggestions regarding the list of items,” Nabiullina said, Interfax reported. “I don’t think the list will be very long,” she said. Russia currently has excise taxes on gasoline, alcohol and tobacco. The government is also discussing a possible increase of the gasoline excise tax to replace the transportation tax imposed on drivers. Faced with a budget deficit that reached 5.9 percent of gross domestic product last year, the government has been trying to cut spending and raise revenue to rein in this year’s shortfall. |
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 MOSCOW — Higher duties on imported cars that were set to expire Monday will now be in place until at least 2012 as part of Russia’s customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, leaving drivers to pay a major premium for foreign autos. |
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 Last week, Domashny channel started a new drama series about a group of three close women friends, called “Such an Ordinary Life.” The three women, Larisa, Stasya and Irina, met at school. Now aged 35 to 40, they all have children, although only one husband is still around. Larisa is a well-turned-out blonde who owns a beauty salon, while Stasya has picked up Parisian chic — but no visible means of support — from an unfortunate marriage to a Frenchman. |
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 Most analysts in the United States are praising U.S. President Barack Obama and the way his administration handled the spy swap. Many in Russia, by comparison, are blasting the Foreign Intelligence Service for an inept, clumsy spy operation that embarrassed their country. |
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It is tempting to regard the Russian spy scandal and the subsequent Cold War-style exchange involving more than a dozen prisoners from both sides on a tarmac in Vienna as an illustration of Karl Marx’s famous saying: “History repeats itself — first as tragedy, second as farce.” Indeed, the Russian “illegals” seem to have spied like characters in a third-rate spy novel, complete with invisible ink and hollowed-out nickels. |
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KAZAN — The chalk-white limestone walls of the Kazan Kremlin create a striking impression of the city as they rise dramatically from the bank of the Kazanka River, just before it converges with the mighty Volga. The Kremlin, dating from long before Ivan the Terrible ravaged and rebuilt the city in 1552, is not only the main tourist attraction in the city. |
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HAVANA — Fidel Castro is back. The aging revolutionary leader was due to appear Monday on Cuba’s key public affairs TV program, according to a front-page headline in the Communist-party newsletter Granma. It may be the most prominent appearance by the former president since he fell ill in 2006. Castro, 83, was set to discuss his concerns about the Middle East on the Mesa Redonda — or Round Table — a daily talk show about current events that is usually transmitted live on state media and seen across the island. |
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Issues Archive