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 MOSCOW — Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted Monday of stealing oil from his own company and laundering the proceeds, a verdict likely to keep the oil tycoon who once challenged the power of Vladimir Putin behind bars for several more years. The unrelenting legal attack on Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, has come to define the country’s transformation under Putin. The outcome of the second trial exposes how little has changed under President Dmitry Medvedev despite his promises to strengthen the rule of law and make courts an independent branch of government. Putin, now prime minister, remains the more powerful leader. |
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MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A girl examines a nativity display at the St. Catherine’s Roman Catholic Church on Nevsky Prospekt on Christmas Eve, during the Christmas Mass. Hundreds of worshippers attended the event. |
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The Strategy 31 rally in defense of the right of assembly due on December 31 will go on despite being banned by City Hall, while those activists who are under investigation will be replaced by their wives or girlfriends, The Other Russia party’s local chair Andrei Dmitriyev said Monday. Dmitriyev, who has been charged with organizing activities of the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP), said taking part in an unauthorized rally would mean ending up in prison.
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Red Shovels, a spontaneously formed people’s movement, is on a mission to rescue the city from its snow siege. As the local authorities struggle to clear the city of snow and ice — without much success and amidst fierce criticism — a group of enthusiastic locals, armed with red plastic shovels, are determined to succeed. |
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MOSCOW — Russians were steadfast in their tastes and political preferences this year, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and notorious pop star Filipp Kirkorov voted as politician and musician of the year in a survey released Thursday. |
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MOSCOW — Former intelligence colonel Vladimir Kvachkov, cleared Wednesday of involvement in a high-profile assassination attempt, is back in detention after being held on suspicion of preparing a violent overthrow of the government, Interfax reported. Law enforcement officers also searched Kvachkov’s apartment before detaining him, his lawyer Alexei Pershin told the news agency. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pointed at the Soviet model as an example of how various ethnic groups can have friendly ties, drawing a quick retort Monday from the president in a rare sign of friction between the two leaders. Putin’s protege and successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, countered him by saying that the Soviet experience wasn’t exactly a positive one and it can’t be repeated, adding that Russia may learn from the U.S. experience. The public exchange will likely fuel speculation about tensions between the two leaders as the nation approaches the 2012 presidential election. |
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ICE MAIDEN
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Icicles hang down from a New Year’s tree in central Moscow on Sunday. Forecasters are predicting continued snowfall throughout the week, with temperatures reaching lows of minus 14 deg. Celsius. |
 The city’s new zoo will be built to designs drawn up by French architects on six islands in St. Petersburg’s Yuntolovo district in the Primorsky district, with each island symbolizing a different part of world. The French architectural studio Beckman-N’Thepe Architects won the international contest for the construction of the new zoo in St. Petersburg on Friday.
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PARIS — Russia agreed Friday to buy at least two French assault ships in a deal that would boost Moscow’s deployment abilities — shrugging off opposition from the United States and some of Russia’s neighbors. It’s one of the largest, if not the largest, military deal between a NATO country and Moscow and a key part of Russia’s efforts to modernize its military. |
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MOSCOW — The Mayor’s Office will redirect funds from road construction to public transportation and “carefully study” allegations of corruption by city officials, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, further chewing away at his predecessor’s legacy. |
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MOSCOW — Russian film director Mikhail Tumanishvili, who was behind one of the biggest Soviet-era blockbusters, died in Moscow on Thursday. He was 75. News agencies did not report a cause of death, but the director was hospitalized with lung problems earlier this year, the Infox. |
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Presley Double MOSCOW (SPT) — Two former policemen went on trial in Omsk for attempting to torch the car of a district judge, the local web site Omskpress. |
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 “The sky is the limit,” believes Peter Katusak-Huzsvar, and it’s something that has largely been proven by his career in the hospitality industry to date. The general manager of the soon-to-open W St. Petersburg Hotel on Voznesensky Prospekt admits that his rise to senior positions in the industry can be traced right back into his childhood. |
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MOSCOW — New Year’s is a traditional time of gift giving, but this year, at least 382 Russian companies will be making donations to charity instead of distributing the usual branded calendars, pens and vintage wines. “It’s great that we are doing something useful for Russia instead of supporting the Chinese economy and its plastic rabbits,” said one chief executive, who preferred not to be identified. The “charity instead of business gifts” worldwide initiative was launched by Britain-based Charities Aid Foundation in 2005. In Russia, the scheme has since raised more than 217 million rubles ($7 million) for worthy causes. |
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SNOW STOPS PLAY
Mikhail Voskresensky / Reuters
Tree branches are covered with ice at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on Sunday. The airport was closed and thousands of Muscovites were left without power after heavy snowfall. |
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MOSCOW — Uralkali, the country’s largest potash miner by market value, officially launched a $7.8 billion friendly takeover of domestic rival Silvinit last week. Pavel Grachev, Uralkali’s chief executive, said in a statement that the merger is a “critical step toward the creation of a leader in the global potash sector.” The combination of the two companies will create the world’s second-largest producer of potash — a raw material used in fertilizers — after Canada’s Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan.
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MOSCOW — The Bank of Moscow last week described critical statements about the bank by VTB’s top executives as a ploy to seek a lower acquisition price. VTB, the country’s second-largest lender, has said it wants to buy control of the Bank of Moscow in what would be the biggest banking deal in the past few years. |
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MOSCOW — A company linked to businessman Valery Abramson won the bidding to buy a Moscow subway builder that could benefit from a planned increase in spending on subway construction, the Federal Property Management Agency said Thursday. |
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Sibur Stake Bought MOSCOW (SPT) — Leonid Mikhelson, a billionaire shareholder and CEO of gas producer Novatek, bought 25 percent of Sibur Holding, the country’s largest petrochemical producer, and may buy the remaining shares, Bloomberg. |
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MOSCOW — Turkish developer Enka has reconsidered its plan to quit the retail business in Russia and is once again developing the CityStore chain so that it can get a better price for the business in the future. |
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MOSCOW — The $4.2 billion television advertising market is entering the new year with two more players to comply with antitrust rules, but industry powerhouse Video International will dominate the business at least for the near future. Video International, which will have to cede part of the market so its share doesn’t go over 35 percent come Dec. |
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There was nothing unexpected about the racially motivated rioting and attacks that took place in Moscow and other cities during December. But many people are still shocked by the image of Russian youth giving Nazi salutes against the backdrop of the Kremlin wall and by reports of an angry, blood-thirsty mob sweeping through metro cars and beating dark-skinned passengers. The rioters had no political agenda or ideology other than their hatred for non-Russians. Even the most demagogic of the mobs did not chant a single slogan calling for social or political change. |
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POTTED PERFECTION
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Porcelain currently on display at the Corinthia St. Petersburg Hotel as part of the personal exhibition by Sergei Sokolov of the Imperial Porcelain Factory. |
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When Russian leaders review the country’s economic development in 2010, they can only be disappointed. There were no great economic disasters, but Russia has clearly underperformed its peers. Until 2008, the favorite Russian measuring mark was other BRIC countries, but that is no longer so. In 2009, Russia did worse than all other Group of 20 countries with gross domestic product plunging 7.
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The recent ultranationalist rampage in downtown Moscow was made possible by ineffective law enforcement and ethnic policies that could prove devastating for the multiethnic Russian state. Organizers tried to justify the Manezh Square rally as a protest against an improper investigation into the killing of Yegor Sviridov, an ethnic Russian and a football fan, shot dead in a street fight with natives from the North Caucasus. But protesters quickly shifted the focus of the protest, giving “Sieg Heil!” salutes and chanting the xenophobic slogans, “Russia for Russians,” “Moscow for Muscovites” and “Kill, kill!” In his response to the rioting, President Dmitry Medvedev called for the prosecution of those behind what he defined as “pogroms. |
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 Against tough political odds, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has squared the circle on a number of long-running domestic and international nuclear policy debates. |
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Ñî÷åëüíèê: the night before Christmas Unless you have been buried under the usual horrendous pre-holiday work load or sleeping on the floor of a snowed-in European airport, you know that this week saw a rare coincidence of cosmic phenomena: ïîëíîëóíèå (full moon) combined with ëóííîå çàòìåíèå (lunar eclipse) at the moment of çèìíåå ñîëíöåñòîÿíèå (winter solstice). |
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 Last week, Alina Kabayeva, the Olympic rhythmic gymnast who is now a Duma deputy, poses on the cover of Russian Vogue in a gold dress, prompting speculation about Vogue’s sudden interest in rhythmic gymnastics and plenty of mean comments about the use of Photoshop to squeeze her voluptuous figure into a model-sized dress. Kabayeva, 27, comes from Uzbekistan and won an Olympic gold at Athens in 2004. She became something of a sex symbol, with her cheery matryoshka-doll face and curvier figure than is usual in the sport. She joined United Russia and became a Duma deputy in 2007, joining fellow ex-gymnast Svetlana Khorkina. She also has a television show where she interviews sports figures. |
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PLAY FOR TODAY
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
An image from “The Ingenious Delusions Depot,” a recent production by the AXE theater group at the Erarta Museum. The group’s next production, titled “Gloria Transit,” opens on Jan. 7. |
 The official in the airport took the passport and boarding card, checked it with a well-honed perfunctoriness and handed it back, clearing the passenger to move on to customs control. And then she handed over a business card. Not hers, but Oleg Mikhailovich’s. The card said, “Wish to buy or take part in sale of my stable business of gold mining by open way in Russia?” before adding, “You are waited by a good commission.
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 MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Dozens of armed men attacked the church, dragging the pastor out of his home and shooting him to death. Two young men from the choir rehearsing for a late-night carol service also were slain. The group of about 30 attackers armed with guns and knives even killed two people passing by Victory Baptist Church. |
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TALLINN, Estonia — Despite a hellish year for the euro, the tiny Baltic nation of Estonia will be joining the single currency club as the champagne corks pop at midnight on New Year’s Eve. |
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TOKYO — Japan has been overtaken by China as the world’s No. 2 economy. Its flagship company, Toyota, recalled more than 10 million vehicles in an embarrassing safety crisis. Its fourth prime minister resigned in three years, and the government remains unable to jolt an economy entering its third decade of stagnation. |
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DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Suspected U.S. missiles struck two vehicles in a Taliban stronghold on Pakistan’s side of the border with Afghanistan on Monday, killing 18 alleged militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said. |
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Issues Archive