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MOSCOW — Nikita Mikhalkov, the Oscar-winning film director and a monarchist with close ties to the ruling elite, set the political classes chattering Wednesday with the release of a nearly 10,000-word political manifesto promoting “enlightened conservatism.” The document, written in a flowery language and titled “Right and Truth,” attacks Western-styled democracy in an indirect dig at President Dmitry Medvedev, but stops short of outright condemning the capitalist reforms of the past two decades. “Euphoria of liberal democracy has come to an end. Now it is time to do the job,” Mikhalkov said in the manifesto, copies of which were provided to “state leaders,” Ekho Moskvy radio reported. |
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Titian’s ‘Madonna and Child with St. Catherine and a Rabbit’ on display at the State Hermitage Museum on Tuesday. The work is currently on loan from Paris’s Louvre as part of the ‘Masterpieces from the World’s Museums in the Hermitage’ exhibition, which runs through Dec. 12. |
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MOSCOW — The commercial shipbuilding industry is in dire straits — with a shrinking fleet and little domestic manufacturing — and requires $12.8 billion in investment over the next 10 years to maintain the country’s fishing fleet, the government said Wednesday. Less than 10 percent of newly purchased fishing ships were made domestically, and the government plans to continue to look outside the country to shore up the fleet.
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that the country needs to start thinking seriously about energy efficiency in the housing sector and promised that he would deal with governors who are “irresponsible” in delaying installation of modern utility metering equipment. |
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A senior St. Petersburg statistics official said Tuesday that 99 percent of the city’s residents took part in this year’s census, despite widespread reports of apathy and even hostility toward the nationwide headcount. |
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Teacher Beaten in Class ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A St. Petersburg schoolteacher was beaten by a man in front of a group of first graders in School No. 339 during class on Wednesday, Interfax reported Thursday. “The man, an unauthorized representative of one of the first graders, burst into the group’s classroom during an extended day session, proceeding to knock over the young teacher and kick her on the ground repeatedly,” Nadezhda Spiridonova, head of the Nevsky district department of education, was cited by Interfax as saying. |
All photos from issue.
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The police officer under investigation for beating up and insulting protesters at an unsanctioned rally held on July 31 in defense of freedom of assembly denies all the charges, the victims said this week. Svetlana Pavlushina and Eduard Balagurov, who were beaten and harassed by the officer, later identified as Vadim Boiko, were called in by investigators for a face-to-face meeting with Boiko on Monday. Pavlushina can be seen in videos and photographs being dragged by her hair by the officer at the rally. Balagurov has said that he was beaten by Boiko when he tried to defend Pavlushina. Photographs of Balagurov’s beaten face and body covered with bruises had previously been submitted to the investigators. |
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 MOSCOW — Jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Wednesday that an embezzlement case against him was “utter rubbish” and urged that it be thrown it out as he made an impassioned, three-hour closing statement in his second trial. |
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MOSCOW — Famished bears in northern Russia have resorted to digging up graves in cemeteries — and reportedly eating at least one body — after a scorching summer destroyed their natural food sources of forest berries and mushrooms, officials said Thursday. The brown bears’ grisly habit is forcing locals in the Arctic Circle region of Komi to mount 24-hour patrols, protecting their families and livestock with the concern that the bears might get a taste for fresher human flesh, said Pyotr Lobanov, a regional spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry. |
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MOSCOW — Russia and Ukraine initialed a new oil transit agreement Wednesday as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin hailed a blossoming of trade between the neighbors since President Viktor Yanukovych’s election in February. “I hate to disappoint you [reporters], but we’ve initialed an agreement on the transit of oil,” Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said at a news conference in Kiev, Interfax reported. |
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MOSCOW — The government plans to levy a customs duty on devices that only support the Global Positioning System navigation standard, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday, calling the measure “motivation. |
 The St. Petersburg City Administration will consider plans for the authorization of surveying works by the Agency for the Reconstruction and Development of Apraksin Dvor (ARDAD) on an 11-hectare plot on Moskovskoye Shosse, in the southern outskirts of the city, for the development of wholesale and retail shopping facilities. |
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MOSCOW — The government will unveil coal deposits that Russian companies will develop using $6 billion in Chinese loans by the year’s end, Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky said Monday. |
 MOSCOW — Despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s efforts to fight corruption, the country remains firmly rooted in the bottom league of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, which was released Tuesday. Russia made it only to 154th place on the 178-country survey, scoring evenly with nine other countries ranging from Cambodia to Tajikistan that scored 2.1 points from a possible 10. The result was the worst among the Group of 20 nations, with the next-worst performing member Indonesia in 110th place, making Russia the most corrupt major economy. |
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 MOSCOW — One of the co-owners of Metalloinvest, Vasily Anisimov, may sell his share of the company, and if the deal goes through, the entrepreneur could make about $4 billion. |
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‘Mikhalkov’s Hotel’ MOSCOW (SPT) — Construction work in downtown Moscow, where a developer linked to famed film director Nikita Mikhalkov was building a seven-story hotel, was suspended Wednesday and equipment was being removed from the site, Interfax reported. Local residents have stormed the site several times since Friday to stop the ongoing construction, which they say endangers their nearby 19th-century houses. |
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 Throughout October, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has personally met with potential foreign investors to calm their fears about doing business in Russia. He has described Russia as an enormous market awaiting money and technology from developed countries. |
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Any government that is accountable to the people dedicates a substantial amount of time analyzing and reporting on its actions and mistakes. Visitors to the U. |
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 Opera singer Emilia Marty oozes so much enigma and drama that men fall at her feet after one glance, regardless of their age. It is not so much her stunning looks that they find attractive, or even her beautiful voice; it is what one of her admirers describes as “a terrible secret” and “a sense of danger.” His compliments begin to make sense when the audience discovers that the heroine is 337 years old. The story of the never-aging singer is at the heart of Leos Janacek’s opera, “The Makropulos Affair,” which saw its premiere at the Mariinsky Theater last Friday. The creative force behind the production was renowned British director Graham Vick, who runs the Birmingham Opera Theater and has a wealth of experience in both opera and drama. |
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A choir takes part in the Nevsky Choir Ensembles festival at the Cappella. This year, the festival celebrates Georgy Sviridov’s 95th anniversary. See listings for concert schedule. |
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Âêëþ÷àòü: to turn on, include, insert I know we’re heading into the long Moscow winter when I have every light on in the apartment at noon and it’s still dark and gloomy. So I turn stuff on — the lights, the radio, the television — anything to cheer things up. The Russian verb pair for turning stuff on is âêëþ÷àòü/âêëþ÷èòü. Âêëþ÷è ìîòîð! (Turn on the engine!) It’s also the verb to use when plugging things in.
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 An exhibition calling for the ethical treatment of animals opens in the city Sunday on the eve of World Vegan Day, an annual event celebrated on Nov. 1 by vegans around the world. The event will be held at V-Club, a focal point for the city’s small vegan population that opened back in August. |
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“Oh great, Mexican food!” said my Russian friend when I told her we would be going to a Cuban restaurant. Having mulled over that comment and the geographical distance between Russia and the Caribbean for a few hours, I was fully expecting a Mariachi band and a plate of tacos by the time we got to O! Cuba. |
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 MENTAWAI ISLANDS, Indonesia — Rescuers searching islands ravaged by a tsunami off western Indonesia raised the death toll to 343 Thursday as more bodies were found and said the number is likely to climb higher because hundreds of missing people may have been swept away. |
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MIREBALAIS, Haiti — UN investigators took samples of foul-smelling waste trickling behind a Nepalese peacekeeping base toward an infected river system on Wednesday, following persistent accusations that excrement from the newly arrived unit caused the cholera epidemic that has sickened more than 4,000 people in the earthquake-ravaged nation. |
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Former President Nestor Kirchner, who steered Argentina out of crisis and political instability with a leftist populism that thrilled the poor and exasperated the wealthy, died suddenly of a heart attack Wednesday with his wife, President Cristina Fernandez, by his side. |
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MOGADISHU, Somalia — An Islamic group that controls much of southern Somalia executed two girls by firing squad, and hundreds of residents of a town were forced to view the spectacle. |
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Issues Archive