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MOSCOW — A Moscow court has ordered a leading publishing house to pay an unprecedented 7.6 billion rubles ($249.6 million) in damages to a smaller rival for copyright infringement in a lawsuit that lawyers said highlights the shortcomings of Russia’s intellectual property rights laws. Effective enforcement of intellectual property rights is a key issue blocking Russia’s 17-year bid to enter the World Trade Organization. The Moscow Arbitration Court ruled Tuesday that Astrel, a subsidiary of AST, had violated a copyright held by the Terra publishing house by publishing books written by renowned science fiction writer Alexander Belyayev (1884-1942), whose novels “Amphibian Man” and “Professor Dowell’s Head” enjoyed immense popularity in Soviet times and still have a devoted following. |
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POWER SHOWER
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Varvara, a 31-year-old bear, is given a shower to help her cool down at the Leningrad Zoo on Thursday. Forecasters are predicting that temperatures will remain high for the rest of the week, although there will be increased risk of showers over the weekend. |
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MOSCOW — A daring terrorist attack on a hydropower station in the southern republic of Kabardino-Balkaria on Wednesday killed two police guards and stirred fears that Islamist militants, emboldened by a first success, might start pursuing other economic targets. The attack, which saw three to five gunmen break into the 25-megawatt station and plant five bombs on the premises, marks a milestone for Islamist militants, who have threatened to attack economic targets across Russia since at least 2009 but never before succeeded.
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Environmentalists from the local branch of the international pressure group Greenpeace are warning residents of the Moskovsky, Frunzensky, Kirovsky, Pushkinsky and Nevsky districts not to consume tap water during the next few days. The ecologists on Wednesday night identified a massive discharge of varnish and paint into the waters of Slavyanka River. |
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MOSCOW — The state will begin unloading grain from its stockpiles on Aug. 4 to help relief efforts in drought-stricken regions, Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said Wednesday, ending two years of stockpiling meant to support prices. |
 St. Petersburg will celebrate the annual Navy Day holiday on Sunday. A naval parade will open the celebrations, featuring 11 ships and boats belonging to the Leningrad and Baltiisk naval bases. Some of the vessels are new and have not been seen by the public before. |
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MOSCOW — Contractors must now prove that any Russian pornography used in fulfilling U.S. government orders was made without children. That’s the bizarre message that U. |
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Fatal Swan Lake ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A man drowned as a result of a swan attack in Riga, Interfax reported. Inese Veisa, a representative of the fire rescue department, told news agencies that the man was swimming with his pregnant wife not far from the island of Kundzinsala when a swan attacked his wife. |
All photos from issue.
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Okhta Center, the firm in charge of the construction of Gazprom’s controversial skyscraper in central St. Petersburg, has sent a letter to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee setting out its arguments in favor of the completion of the project. The international body had previously warned that St. Petersburg’s historic center could be struck off the World Heritage list if the skyscraper was built. “The historic center of St. Petersburg should be freed from business activities which are not characteristic for it. The transport flow and offices of many companies should be taken out of the historic center of the city,” the letter reads. Okhta Center also supplied UNESCO with a list of materials which it claims prove that the future construction is located outside the city’s historic center and will only affect the skyline of St. |
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PEACE IN PIECES
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
The Peace monument on Sennaya Ploshchad has developed cracks as a result of recent high temperatures. Pedestrians and drivers are being asked to keep a safe distance. |
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev expressed confidence Wednesday that a looming ban on Finnish meat and dairy goods would be lifted within two weeks and won support from Finland’s president for visa-free travel for Russians. Medvedev and Finnish President Tarja Halonen also discussed the rights of Russians living in Finland as they wrapped up a two-day visit in Naantali, a popular tourist town 14 kilometers west of Turku, and the Kremlin leader went swimming in the Gulf of Finland.
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MOSCOW — Investigators on Wednesday were looking for a donkey that parasailed over the Sea of Azov for 30 terrifying minutes last week. The donkey’s owner faces charges of animal abuse, which are punishable by up to two years in prison, but a veterinarian needs to examine the animal to confirm that it was hurt before the charges can be filed, RIA-Novosti reported, citing police. |
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City Hall will buy 50 cars worth up to 65 million rubles ($2.1 million) for members of St. Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly. Only the Toyota Camry corresponds to the requirements stipulated by the tender documentation. City Hall announced a tender this week for the purchase of 50 vehicles for the government company Smolninskoye. |
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MOSCOW — Sales of passenger cars may reach 1.6 million by the end of the year, making for an annual increase of 15 percent, according to a report released Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Kazakhstan’s Antitrust Agency suspended the approval it gave in 2008 for Russia’s Polyus Gold to acquire a controlling stake in KazakhGold Group, threatening Polyus’s plans for a U.K. share listing. “The Antitrust Agency decided to suspend the approval it had granted,” the watchdog said Wednesday on its web site. KazakhGold shareholders were due to vote July 27 for a so-called reverse takeover improving parent Polyus’s access to the London share market. Kazakh financial police began probing share dealings in KazakhGold on July 14 and the planned takeover may be delayed, Vedomosti said Thursday, citing unidentified officials. |
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 MOSCOW — The government has decided to continue charging a reduced transportation tax while raising excises on gasoline by 3 rubles (10 cents) per liter over the next three years, Vedomosti has learned. |
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MOSCOW — The number of unplanned inspections of businesses has significantly decreased since new rules went into effect limiting the regulatory burden on enterprises, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said Tuesday. In the first quarter of 2010, there were only 405,000 inspections carried out on small businesses, excluding those by tax authorities and law enforcement, Nabiullina said at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to comments posted on the government web site. |
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 The recent smooth exchange of spies between Russia and the United States appears to demonstrate that the “reset” in relations between the two countries has worked. But Russia has so far done little to reset its relations with Japan. This is a lost opportunity, given Russia’s need to modernize its economy. |
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Last Friday, the State Duma, just before it closed down for the summer recess, quickly passed a bill in a third reading allowing the Federal Security Service to issue warnings to people whose actions “create the conditions for a crime. |
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 Tequilajazzz’s recent announcement that St. Petersburg’s prime alt-rock band would split after 17 years has been a shock to fans, but not, according to frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov, to people who knew the band well. “My closest friends understand me very well and applaud me over this,” he said in an interview this week, revealing that the band, which appeared from the outside to be closely-knit, was in reality being torn apart by inner conflict. “Many say that it should have been done 15 years ago, and that’s true,” said Fyodorov, 44. “It was simply a hard moment then. It was a time when I singlehandedly posted our posters, bought [blank] tapes… “Nobody except my closest friends knows how it really was. |
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Young people sit on the fountain in the gardens in front of the Admiralty. The heat wave sweeping western Russia is forecasted to continue for at least the next week. |
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Ðàçâåä÷èê: an intelligence officer, prospector, scout, explorer I’m sure glad the “øïèîíñêèé ñêàíäàë” (“spy scandal”) is over and the Russians are home. I was tired of hearing myself mutter at the news. I mean, how many times can you say, “They weren’t charged with spying” in your kitchen before someone pays attention to you? And my friends were probably tired of my e-mail reminders to delete from their social media accounts any photos they wouldn’t want to see plastered on the front page of tabloids.
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 There are two words that have come to embody the mad, vodka-soaked, apocalyptic passions that rise up every so often in the heart of every Russophile: Gogol Bordello. The gypsy-punk freak show has the power to make the tamest wallflower dance like a madman, the strictest teetotaler douse himself in liquor, the sweetest orator shout obscenities from the rooftops. |
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In Soviet times, Metropole restaurant was one of the most fashionable places in the city. One of the few respectable places to dine that was not located inside a hotel, it was popular with Leningrad’s intelligentsia as well as with foreigners. |
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Issues Archive