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A powerful hurricane hit the city and the Northwestern region of Russia in the early hours of Sunday morning, causing a series of accidents and leaving nearly 90,000 people in 1,500 villages and small towns without electricity. More than 30,000 people in 250 villages in the Leningrad Oblast remained without electricity on Monday, while the local branch of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry was busy repairing the networks. No fatalities were registered during the hurricane. The Leningrad Oblast authorities reported that five parachutists, who went sky-diving shortly after 3 p.m. on Sunday went missing. The Emergency Situations Ministry, however, later issued a statement claiming that there had been only one missing parachutist who had subsequently been found alive and unharmed. |
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FLAGGED DOWN
Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters
A parachute jumper with a Russian national flag prepares to fall into the water during the InterAeroKom International Exhibition of Civil Aviation and Aeronautics in St. Petersburg on Sunday. On Sunday Russia will celebrate Russian State Flag Day. |
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MOSCOW — The government on Friday conceded that bread prices have risen across Russia and unleashed the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service on “market participants” who used the drought as an excuse to inflate prices by as much as 20 percent. Containing inflation to the official forecast of 6 percent to 7 percent for this year — which would be an all-time low for Russia — had been a main government goal.
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 A FIFA Inspection Group arrived to St. Petersburg on Monday to begin its assessment of the Russian bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022. The group is to visit the four proposed Russian host cities, namely St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan and Sochi. |
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Zenit Ends Streak ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Local soccer team Zenit FC ended its winning streak at 8 successive wins on Saturday, drawing 1:1 with Dinamo Moscow. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW — Russia has 83 regions, but not every regional boss enjoys the same title. For most, the title is “governor,” but for others it might be “president,” “mayor,” “government chairman” or simply “head.” Life could get a lot simpler — or complicated, depending on whom you ask — after Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov announced last week that he no longer wanted to be known as president and suggested a common title for all regional leaders. |
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Democrats, who took part in the vigil to protect the Lensoviet, the then mainly democratic city parliament during the failed coup of Aug. 19, 1991, said they would gather on St. |
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Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Russian authorities of putting pressure on him ahead of a bid to seek re-election and blamed them for his failure to recognize Georgia’s separatist regions as independent states, Reuters reported. Lukashenko, long at odds with the West but lately quarreling with Moscow, also said he wanted better ties with the United States. |
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MOSCOW — Russia has certified engines for its Sukhoi Superjet 100 planes, bringing the first deliveries of the much-delayed aircraft a step closer, engine producer Saturn announced Friday, Reuters reported. |
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MOSCOW — Veteran human rights campaigner Lev Ponomaryov was rushed to the hospital after being detained at an unsanctioned opposition rally against Mayor Yury Luzhkov. Ponomaryov, 68, said doctors had diagnosed him with high blood pressure and hooked him up to an intravenous drip after admitting him Thursday evening, Interfax reported. He had expected to remain in the hospital for 10 days, but told The Moscow Times on Sunday that he was feeling much better and hoped to return home Monday. Ponomaryov, chairman of the For Human Rights movement, was a co-organizer of the “Day of Wrath” rally, during which demonstrators accused Luzhkov of being responsible for the capital’s unpreparedness for this summer’s record heat wave and demanded his resignation. |
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 SUMELA MONASTERY, Turkey — Orthodox Christians held the first Divine Liturgy in almost 90 years at an ancient monastery on the side of a Turkish mountain on Sunday, after the government allowed worship there in a gesture toward religious minorities, Reuters reported. |
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MOSCOW — The Agriculture Ministry said Friday that it would lift a ban on poultry imports for more than three-quarters of U.S. facilities now blocked, acknowledging that the plants satisfy its requirements for meat treatment and production processing. |
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MOSCOW — Sibuglemet owner Anatoly Skurov and State Duma Deputy Zelimkhan Mutsoyev bought stakes in Silvinit, the country’s biggest potash producer, a person familiar with the sale said Friday, Reuters reported. |
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Rosneft Output MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Rosneft plans to increase oil output to 133 million tons by 2015, vice president Mikhail Stavsky said Saturday, Interfax reported. Production will rise from a planned 118.7 million tons in 2011, Stavsky said in Khanty-Mansiisk, the agency re- ported. |
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MOSCOW — The government is planning to transform Siberia from a raw-materials backwater into a comfortable place to live and do business through the development of high-tech industries, science and tourism, but officials have yet to put a price tag on the project. |
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MOSCOW — The Russian authorities have essentially given up on their plan to move all gambling to four remote zones, and Azov-City, the only one now functioning, might be eliminated in favor of Black Sea resort Anapa, Vedomosti has learned. Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachyov raised the question of whether it made sense for Azov-City to remain in its current location on the border of the Rostov and Krasnodar regions, sources in several companies linked to the gambling industry told Vedomosti. |
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MOSCOW — Well-known firms are competing for the right to design the upcoming innovation city in Skolkovo, including several that are doing the design work for the 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vladivostok. |
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Russians like Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for boosting Moscow’s image abroad and improving living standards, but fault him for not fighting corruption or reining in billionaires, according to a new survey, Reuters reported. The poll by the independent Levada Center found that Putin’s overall ratings remained broadly positive. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said Putin was doing a good job or would do a good job sorting out Russia’s problems, down from 63 percent a year earlier. When asked in detail about Putin’s achievements and failings, a more nuanced picture emerged. On the positive side, 23 percent credited Putin with “strengthening Russia’s relations with the West,” and 20 percent praised him for improving living standards. |
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 MOSCOW — Residents of the Veshnyaki neighborhood in southeast Moscow were in for a surprise last month when the radiators in their apartments started heating at full blast while it was nearly 40 degrees Celsius outside. |
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MOSCOW — The Economic Development Ministry has proposed a large-scale advertising campaign to help turn Moscow into an international financial center, including a dedicated Internet portal, work with Russian nationals abroad and more emphasis on “success stories. |
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MOSCOW — The Russian version of Google on Tuesday launched a test version of its new service allowing drivers to monitor traffic conditions in Moscow and St. |
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MOSCOW — The government set the starting price for the Trebs and Titov oil fields at 18.2 billion rubles ($603 million), but the winning bidder will have to sell 15 percent of the fields’ crude on an exchange and refine 42 percent in Russia. Analysts said the conditions for the sale, published last Tuesday by the Federal Subsoil Resource Use Agency, would make the project less attractive to potential investors. |
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 For over a month, Moscow has been boiling in heat that has approached and sometimes surpassed 40 degrees Celsius, along with heavy, sticky, eye-burning smog. Carbon monoxide levels have reached crisis levels, at six times the maximum acceptable concentration. |
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As short-story author Sergei Dovlatov would have written, my characteristic trait is that I have the unfortunate habit of showing up at the theater only after the actors have taken their final bows. |
Temp: -1°C clear 
Issues Archive