|
|
|
 Labeling the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Russia’s answer to Davos, referring to the annual Swiss gathering of world leaders and business moguls, is no longer an exaggeration.
The list of politicians attending this year’s event, which opens Thursday at Lenexpo, includes President Dmitry Medvedev, Finnish President Tarja Halonen, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Hu Jintao, leader of the People’s Republic of China. The forum runs through June 18.
CEOs of top-flight international companies from 111 countries have confirmed their attendance at the forum, which is now in its 15th year. The event’s key topics this year are securing global economic growth, expanding technology horizons and building Russia’s creative capital. |
|
A DONE DEAL
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Viktor Vekselberg (l), president of the Skolkovo Foundation, and Esko Aho, vice president of Nokia Corporation, sign an agreement at the city’s Corinthia Hotel on Wednesday on the creation of a research center at the Skolkovo Innovation Center near Moscow. About 25 people are expected to work at the Nokia center. |
|
Author and oppositional politician Eduard Limonov will take part in the St. Petersburg Alternative Economic Forum, timed to be held during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum this week.
According to the organizers, the forum will be devoted to the current issues of the “Tandem’s Russia” — the tandem is the term used by the Kremlin for the joint rule of President Dmitry Medvedev and the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — such as corruption, dependence on the natural resources and Russia’s plan to access the World Trade Organization.
|
|
Inspector Imprisoned
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A road traffic inspector who aided a gang of car thieves has been sentenced to two years in prison.
Former inspector Yevgeny Alexandrov, 33, was found guilty of abuse of authority and of knowingly purchasing illegally obtained property. |
|
Hybrid Car Plant
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) —Yo-avto company launched the construction of a plant for the production of Yo-mobile hybrid cars in St. Petersburg’s industrial park of Marino last week. |
|
Two leaders of a neo-Nazi gang were sentenced Tuesday to life in jail for a rash of hate killings that terrorized minorities in St. Petersburg.
The St. Petersburg City Court said Alexei Voyevodin and Artyom Prokhorenko headed a gang that enlisted Russian supremacists and football fans aged 16 to 22 who preyed on non-Slavs with dark skin or Asian features, kicking and stabbing them to death. |
|
One of the most influential figures in the city’s law enforcement authorities appears to have taken a major tumble on the career ladder. Lieutenant-General Vladislav Piotrovsky has failed to be reappointed to the position of head of the St. |
 MOSCOW — Belarus won a 500 billion ruble loan from Russia at the first gathering 15 years ago of what has evolved into the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
But Minsk, currently mired in a financial crisis, is unlikely to get similar treatment at the forum this week.
The annual event, sometimes referred to as the Russian Davos, has come a long way from its roots as a get-together of former countries of the Soviet Union to discuss problems of integration after the Soviet collapse. |
|
 Yannis Bournias.jpg) A regatta, a concert by Sting, culinary classes and a plethora of opera and ballet performances will inject a dose of culture into the program of the St. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
 MOSCOW — Transparency and investor interest will increase for domestic companies reporting consolidated earnings after they are required to implement international accounting standards next year, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Tuesday at a Presidium meeting chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. |
|
MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday replaced the chief of the traffic police and the head of the Russian branch of Interpol, ramping up a police reform that started in March by dismissing the most high-profile officials yet. |
|
MOSCOW — Moscow will lift a ban on European vegetables in exchange for extra guarantees from Brussels on the products’ origin, thus removing a major trade relations headache just days before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The decision, announced by President Dmitry Medvedev after Friday’s summit with EU leaders, was not implemented by Monday, a public holiday, but European officials said they expected results soon. |
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — New changes to the Criminal Code will enable white-collar criminals to buy their way out of trouble. The cost: five times the amount of damages inflicted, capped at 15 million rubles ($535,000), from each convicted person, paid to the federal budget.
President Dmitry Medvedev announced at a meeting with Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov earlier this week that he had submitted the amendments to the State Duma. In the justice minister’s opinion, the changes are not a liberalization but an effort to make the Criminal Code more practical.
Serious alteration of the Criminal Code began last year. Two previous groups of amendments — abolition of pretrial arrests for economic crimes and cancellation of the lower limits of punishments for minor crimes — are already in effect. |
|
 MOSCOW — An online tax payment service, a Russian first, went live Tuesday giving millions of taxpayers the option of avoiding lengthy lines — but only if they have an account with the country’s biggest lender, state-owned Sberbank. |
|
MOSCOW — Georgia will announce within days that it is removing its conditions on Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization, the leader of the Georgian opposition party said, citing a source close to President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration. |
|
MOSCOW — PhosAgro, the world’s second-largest maker of phosphate fertilizers, confirmed that it will hold an initial public offering in London and Moscow, the company’s general director announced at a news conference Tuesday. |
|
|
|
 Russian business has always been highly dependent on the government and good relations with authorities. This interrelationship between business and the state is nothing new. It even existed in imperial Russia, when private business grew not so much as the result of personal initiative and skill as it did by permission of the tsar. |
|
On June 1, U.S. Congress rejected a bill to increase the debt limit by $2.4 trillion, delivering a humiliating defeat to President Barack Obama.
For now, there is no immediate threat of a U. |
|
|
|
|
Vasily Shumov, the frontman of the Moscow band Center, is in charge of the music program of Anti-Seliger, a civic forum comprising ecological and human rights activists, musicians, artists and concerned citizens who will live in tents at a temporary campsite in the Khimki forest near Moscow.
The four-day event, which runs from Friday through Monday, will feature seminars, debates and forest walks.
The main objective is to defend the Khimki forest from deforestation resulting from a Kremlin-backed plan to build a highway through the forest. The activists have sworn to defend the forest despite the threat of arrests and attacks from unidentified thugs.
Acts such as Televizor, Center, Nik Rok-n-Roll and Zakhar Mai have been announced as performing at the event. Around 1,000 people are expected to participate. |
|
PHILIPP HORAK
AUSTRIAN PIANIST RUDOLF BUCHBINDER WILL PERFORM AT THE STARS OF THE WHITE NIGHTS FESTIVAL. |
 Friday’s concert in support of Artyom (Artemy) Troitsky, arguably Russia’s leading music critic who is facing hefty fines and even a prison sentence for allegedly defaming a former traffic policeman and a pro-Kremlin rock musician, seemed to reveal that the lawsuits were orchestrated by the Kremlin when the authorities tried to stop it from going ahead.
|
 The ability to perform every one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 32 sonatas qualifies a pianist for a place in a very narrow circle of musicians. No connections will open the doors of this prestigious club; talent and skill are the only criteria. Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder won the precious right to membership many years ago. |
|
Ãóñûíÿ: goose (female)
One thing that makes learning Russian harder today than it was 20 years ago is the preponderance of bad Russian that we foreigners are exposed to. |
 St. Petersburg and Rio de Janeiro may not seem to have much in common on the surface. But the desire for freedom and peace of body and mind are natural for people all over the world, regardless of nationality, religion and occupation, and accordingly, samba and capoeira have proved popular far beyond Brazil’s borders.
This week, the Mundo Capoeira team invites Petersburgers to embark on a thrilling journey around the magical world of capoeira, guided by experienced teachers from Brazil and Europe at the Sixth Festival of Brazilian National Arts. |
|
 Last week, Moskovsky Komsomolets published a bizarre kiss-and-tell story about Spanish pop singer Enrique Iglesias, alleging that his long-term romance with the delectable blonde tennis player Anna Kournikova is not the real thing. |
|
The trend for rooftop restaurants in St. Petersburg, making the most of the flat skyline (the buildings aren’t supposed to be any higher than the gables of the Winter Palace, for those who haven’t been taking notes) continues unabated. So far, Ginza Project’s restaurants have been leading the way, with Mansarda on Pochtamtskaya undoubtedly the leader of the pack — its view of St. |
|
|
|
 MOSCOW — It remains a mystery who brazenly killed former tank commander Yury Budanov by pumping four bullets into his head as he left a downtown Moscow building for a smoke Friday.
But one thing is clear: Investigators have their work cut out for them because Budanov had a lot of enemies.
Initial fears proved unfounded that the killing would spark ethnic rioting by ultranationalists, who see Budanov as a hero for killing a Chechen girl whom he suspected of being a rebel sniper in 2000. |
|
 MOSCOW — There’s a hiss, a rush of bubbles, golden liquid fills up the glass, and a good head of foam forms.
“This was made just two days ago. It’s fresh,” says Masaru Hemmi, chief brewer of Japan’s Kirin Ichiban, checking the side of the bottle and proffering the glass. |
Temp: -1°C clear 
Issues Archive