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 The Golden Toilet Brush, an annual anti-prize awarded every year by the local branch of the Yabloko Democratic Party for the most absurd use of state funds by a government official or organization, has once again found a recipient. This year, the sobering prize, cast in the shape of a white plastic toilet brush painted gold, was awarded to the St. |
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The Open Your Eyes! Film Festival Against Racism and Xenophobia was called off hours before its planned opening on Wednesday, organizers said. The Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation canceled the event after its director was summoned to the prosecutor’s office and warned that a probe could be launched into the foundation’s activities due to the festival, organizer Yevgeny Konovalov said. |
 Moscow-based opposition politician and former deputy minister Boris Nemtsov will spearhead a Dissenter’s March for the Dismissal of St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko on March 31, which will go ahead despite being banned by City Hall, organizers confirmed Tuesday. |
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St. Petersburg’s FC Zenit last week said it would launch an investigation into a racist incident in which one of its fans offered a banana to Brazilian soccer player Roberto Carlos. |
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The Princess Anastasia ferry to Stockholm is scheduled to embark on its first voyage on Thursday, March 31.
The Nordic capitals will become closer to Petersburg with the launch of the new ferry. The Princess Maria already connects St. Petersburg with Helsinki, and the Princess Anastasia will shuttle passengers to the Swedish capital, docking in Stockholm after a 25-hour voyage. |
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Decapitator Was Insane
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg investigators last week announced the end of an investigation into a case in which a Chinese citizen decapitated a 59-year-old female secretary of St. |
Car Plants Prepared
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Japanese automobile plants based in St. Petersburg that depend on supplies of components from Japan will continue to work according to their regular schedules at least until May or early June.
The plants have enough car parts in their local storehouses to keep working until then without receiving more supplies from Japan, Interfax reported this week. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW — Russia’s population is shrinking, women still outnumber men by millions, and villagers are abandoning their homesteads to move to urban areas, according to preliminary census results released on Mar. 28.
The population stands at 142.9 million, down 1.6 percent, or 2.2 million, from 2002, when the last national census was held, State Statistics Service chief Alexander Surinov said in a report published by Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
He predicted in November, shortly after the census ended, that the population might actually see a 1 million uptick from 2002, a forecast that now stands debunked. |
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RECON MISSION
Igor Tabakov / The St. Petersburg Times
Soldiers line up near the Lenin Mausoleum on Monday after they were brought to Red Square to, in the words of their commanding officer, ‘get used to the place’ ahead of the Victory Day Parade. |
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday backed tougher checks on the income declarations of government officials, called for stronger anti-corruption measures in state procurements, and introduced new rules for implementing his orders.
Medvedev’s whirlwind of activity promises to bear fruit. Kremlin officials said the percentage of his orders being implemented is close to the highs seen under Josef Stalin and that Medvedev is far ahead of his tough-talking predecessor, Vladimir Putin, in his early years in power.
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MOSCOW — Long-running tensions between prosecutors and investigators flared Thursday after the Prosecutor General’s Office largely rejected Investigative Committee allegations that its officials had broken the law.
The prosecutor’s office said it had failed to find evidence to back up Investigative Committee claims last month that Ivan Nazarov, a businessman suspected of running an illegal gambling operation in the Moscow region, had paid for overseas trips by regional prosecutors. |
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MOSCOW — While the Russian consulate in London is getting ready for deploying a biometric visa system, its headquarters in Moscow — the Foreign Ministry — denies such a plan is in the works. |
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MOSCOW — Hazing in the army rose more than 16 percent last year, with ethnic tensions contributing increasingly, the chief military prosecutor said Friday.
Sergei Fridinsky did not provide exact statistics but said “thousands” faced abuse, “dozens” were crippled, and some were murdered. |
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MOSCOW — Olga Ulyanova, a niece of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin who wrote several books praising her uncle and family, has died in Moscow. She was 89. |
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Nearly a quarter-century after a German boy tossed a message in a bottle off a ship in the Baltic Sea, he’s received an answer.
A 13-year-old Russian, Daniil Korotkikh, was walking with his parents on a beach when he saw something glittering lying in the sand.
“I saw the bottle and it looked interesting,” Korotkikh said Tuesday. |
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A second store operator in the duty free section has appeared at Pulkovo Airport, and the German firm Gebr. Heinemann will be breaking up the 20-year old monopoly previously held by Lenrianta.
Vozdunshie Vorota Severnoi Stolitsy (VVSS) (“The Air Gates to the Northern Capital”) has been managing Pulkovo Airport since April 2010, and on March 9 it concluded an agreement with the German tax-free store operator Gebr. |
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A tender for the implementation, on the basis of a public-private partnership (PPP), of an “Arts Palace on Vasilyevsky Island” project was announced in December. |
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The high-profile St. Petersburg businessman Mikhail Mirilashvili, who moved to Israel after serving a prison sentence, has won the tender for the construction of a shopping center above the Admiralteiskaya metro station that is currently under construction.
The St. Petersburg Metropolitan state company gave the commission for the construction of the overground part of Admiralteiskaya station to Sovetnik company, which is part of Mirilashvili’s holding Petromir, Delovoi Peterburg newspaper reported this week. |
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MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asked his subordinates for more, faster and better efforts in providing government services electronically, and announced Moscow as the new host city for the world figure skating championship during the Cabinet session on March 24.
Electronic government, the universal electronic card and improving the overall quality of services provided by the state to the masses have become key elements of President Dmitry Medvedev’s agenda, as the presidential election draws nearer and increasing popularity ratings of the country’s leadership becomes ever more important.
Many of these improvements are supposed to be completed over the next two years, and it seems that Putin is showing his commitment by pushing hard on the government services agenda. |
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 MOSCOW — Foreign investors will enjoy more freedom from bureaucracy when buying into strategic natural resource companies under legislation that the government is considering, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday. |
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MOSCOW — Only a year ago, Russia’s dominance as a global energy supplier was threatened by low gas prices and a reputation as an unreliable trade partner. But with the world now shaken by Japan’s natural disasters and uprisings across the Middle East, the country is back at the heart of the market — and cashing in. |
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MOSCOW — Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsed the Skolkovo innovation hub on March 25 during a visit to the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo. |
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 The collapse of corrupt business groups has led to an interesting phenomenon. When wealthy businessmen with close ties to the ruling kleptocracy fall from favor, they start complaining that they are victims of illegal takeovers and that they had actually been engaged in human rights activity and charity. |
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Since 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the Soviet collapse, there will inevitably be a spate of articles viewing those two decades from every possible vantage. |
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 Radio Chacha, a band formed by Moscow punk band NAIVE frontman Alexander “Chacha” Ivanov, will mark its first anniversary with a concert in St. Petersburg this weekend.
Having made its debut in April last year, Radio Chacha is described by Ivanov as an attempt to return to the earlier punk ideas of his former band NAIVE, which tended to drift toward classic rock and metal during the last few years before it went on sabbatical in April 2009. |
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Whatever happens in Russia, be it another rally dispersal, artists put in prison or a band interrogated by anti-extremism Center E agents over a lyric, it does not excite the international media too much. |
 The Open Your Eyes! film festival, an annual event held to confront racism and xenophobia, will be held this week despite opposition from the authorities, organizers said.
Earlier, two state-owned film theaters — Dom Kino and Rodina — declined to host the festival’s film screenings and discussions, explaining that there were no available slots in their programs for the events, but Dom Kino’s administrator was recorded on tape as saying that the anti-fascist festival “contradicts the ideology” of the city’s culture committee. |
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Íåàäåêâàòíûé (inappropriate) has become one of those ubiquitous buzzwords that you seem to hear every day in relation to just about everything. It’s a tricky word for us foreigners, partially because of the false-friend factor. |
 Throwing down a bridge between contemporary ballet and the era of the Imperial Russian Ballet, the International Dance Open Festival comes to town this week for the 10th time, showcasing some of the world’s finest talent.
As a preview event, the festival is organizing a free film screening in Dom Kino on March 31 at 3 p.m. of “Ballet Russes,” the internationally praised 2005 film by Dan Geller and Dana Goldfine. |
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 In Ren-TV’s new show, “Who’s the Star?”, celebrities are caught off guard as they are interviewed by apparently the world’s least competent journalist. |
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Baklazhan is Ginza Project restaurant group’s second outlet to open in a shopping center in recent months, hot on the heels of Moskva, located in the Stockmann Nevsky Center. While the eponymous Finnish department store dominates the Stockmann center, catering to shoppers with a taste for designer clothes and gourmet delicacies (bills of 15,000 rubles — the monthly budget of some families — are not uncommon at the gourmet delicatessen in the center’s basement), the mammoth shopping center Galleria caters to a more mainstream clientele. |
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 The interest in Russian art shown in recent years by collectors both in Russia and abroad shows no sign of abating. An auction held by Sotheby’s auction house in December saw Russian works of art, including Faberge items and icons, go under the hammer for a total of three million pounds ($4.8 million), and a similar auction held in London in June 2010 raised more than five million pounds.
Russian collectors in particular have started to actively participate in international auctions and buy works by masters of their native country. |
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 MOSCOW — Since the country’s first perestroika-era pageant, Russia has welcomed the beauty contest as a stage to showcase the glamour of its women. But in Moscow’s most recent pageant, crew cuts and tuxedos replaced curlers and swimsuits, as 10 finalists fought to be named most eligible bachelor from Russia’s regions. |
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