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MOSCOW — Russia and the United States have uncovered a cocaine trade scheme involving a high-profile Russian impresario eager to set up business in Moscow’s expensive night clubs, Russia’s top drugs control officer said Monday. Russians sprang into action after U.S. officials tipped them off about a 30-year-old Moscow man looking to buy cocaine wholesale in the United States, Viktor Ivanov, head of the Russian anti-narcotics agency, told reporters. The announcement comes less than a week after a Russian pilot was arrested in Liberia on suspicion of smuggling South American cocaine into the U.S. and extradited to New York, drawing Moscow’s condemnation for the arrest. Russian officials arrested the man and his three accomplices Thursday when they allegedly received a 10-kilogram cocaine shipment in St. |
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NAVAL GAZING
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A girl looks out from the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island at the military vessels on the Neva River taking part in the Navy Day celebrations on Sunday. |
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Environmentalists who traveled by bike along the Baltic coast earlier this month have slammed Russia’s environmental policy, drawing unfavorable comparisons with that of its neighboring Baltic countries. The group of environmentalists spent two weeks traveling by bike along the Baltic coast through Russia, Lithuania and Poland with the purpose of creating a map of pollution black spots and campaigning against environmental pollution resulting from industrial projects.
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 MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he has sung Soviet-era patriotic songs with the 10 spies deported from the United States and knows the identities of those who betrayed them. Putin described his meeting with the spies during a trip to Ukraine, where he also rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and sought to bolster Russian-Ukrainian relations. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Former handset mogul Yevgeny Chichvarkin has appealed to the country’s top investigator to open a criminal case into the death of his mother. Chichvarkin’s lawyer Vladimir Zherebyonkov said Monday that he had filed the request on his client’s behalf with Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin. Chichvarkin lives in London and faces criminal charges at home in connection with his activities when he owned cell phone retailer Yevroset. Chichvarkin’s mother, Lyudmila Chichvarkina, 60, was found dead in her Moscow apartment in April. In June, the Investigative Committee ruled out murder and said the death was caused by heart disease. |
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MAKING A SPLASH
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A polar bear dives into the cooling waters of its pool at the Leningrad Zoo. Monday saw record highs of 34.2 deg. Celsius. Temperatures may reach 35 degrees later in the week. |
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MOSCOW — In a two-pronged crackdown against corruption, the Kremlin has presented a new ethics code for officials — complete with fashion tips — and a waiting period for state employees who want to work at the organizations they used to supervise. But anti-corruption analysts dismissed both measures as empty bureaucratic stunts that would do little to encourage officials and citizens to start fighting corruption.
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 As temperature records are broken and city residents turn to the wealth of bodies of water offered by the so-called “Venice of the North” in attempts to stay cool, a recent inspection showed that only one of St. Petersburg’s 26 beaches is officially safe to swim from. |
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MOSCOW — When Italian police raided a luxury yacht earlier this month, they were searching for Russian criminals. But instead they found several senior Russian officials, including a man who in leaked video footage closely resembles Saratov Governor Pavel Ipatov. |
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MOSCOW — Vladimir Batrakov, 45, a retired military officer, enrolled in courses on how to be an Orthodox youth leader because he was disappointed with the lack of young people in church. After receiving his diploma in mid-July, he started to work full-time at a Moscow church, where he is supposed to advise young people on religious issues and organize Orthodox youth rallies and other activities. |
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MOSCOW — Prosecutors have opened a criminal case against a Scientology center in the town of Shchyolkovo, 13 kilometers northeast of Moscow, on charges of inciting hatred, punishable with up to five years in prison. |
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Russia has frozen financial aid for Moldova’s breakaway Transdnestr, saying the main bank of the pro-Moscow region had used the funds in money laundering schemes, Reuters reported. The financial aid, provided by Moscow since 2008, stopped flowing last spring when Russia transferred 414 million rubles ($13.63 million) for the first half of 2010, Reuters reported, quoting from an article printed in the Kommersant newspaper on Friday. The cash is used to supplement the tiny pensions of the local elderly population. Monthly local payments of $15 to each of the region’s 137,000 pensioners are popularly known as “Putinka” after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. |
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 The World Court’s opinion that Kosovo’s unilateral secession from Serbia was not illegal will send a chill through other countries that have restive minorities keen to follow Kosovo’s example. |
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 The Petersburg retail chains Lenta and Okay made respective profits of 348 million rubles ($11.5 million) and 1.8 billion rubles ($60 million) last year. The revenue of the local retail chain Okay increased in 2009 by 31.6 percent compared to 2008 up to 67.9 billion rubles ($2.2 billion), according to information from SPARK Interfax. Revenue at Lenta increased by 10.6 percent compared to 2008 up to 58.8 billion rubles ($1.9 billion). These indexes are established according to Russian accounting standards, and do not correspond to internal company standards, said a Lenta representative. In March, the chain’s shareholders confirmed 2009 revenue of 55. |
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UNITED FRONT
/ Reuters
President Medvedev and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi posing in front of ‘The Last Supper’ on Friday in Milan. Berlusconi reiterated his support for visa-free travel between Russia and the EU. |
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New Holland Savior? MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich may finance the New Holland property development in St. Petersburg’s historic city center, Kommersant reported, without citing anyone. The project, designed by British architect Norman Foster, was abandoned by former billionaire Shalva Chigirinsky after Russia’s record stock market rout in 2008, the Moscow-based newspaper said.
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 MOSCOW — VTB-Leasing on Thursday signed an agreement with Orenburgskaya Burovaya Kompania, or OBK, to deliver six of its oil-drilling rigs for lease, a VTB spokesperson said. The state bank’s leasing unit purchased 30 ZJ50DBS rigs in July 2007 from the Cyprus-registered firm Clusseter Ltd., rather than from their manufacturer, Sichuan Honghua Petroleum Equipment. The company planned to lease them to the firm Well Drilling Corporation under a contract valued at $456. |
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 MOSCOW — In its first full year of operations, Arkady Rotenberg’s contracting business managed to become the industry’s second-largest player by revenue, thanks in large part to its contracts with state-run Gazprom, Vedomosti has learned. |
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 Those who had hoped that President Dmitry Medvedev would lead Russia to a more democratic, Western-friendly future have experienced a roller coaster of emotions recently. They were uplifted by a speech Medvedev gave before Russia’s ambassadors two weeks ago in which he spoke of the need for “modernization alliances” with the United States and other Western countries. |
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A well-known writer in Russia is never a mere celebrity, a storyteller or a best-selling wordsmith. He — and sometimes even she — is a moral compass, a political force and even a prophet. |
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Issues Archive