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By her enemies, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko is ridiculed for her unorthodox proposals to employ laser rays and homeless people to clean snow from the city’s roofs, and for her pushy campaign to erect the Gazprom skyscraper that was nicknamed “Corn on the Cob” by some sarcastic locals.
By her supporters, Matviyenko, who last week accepted — somewhat reluctantly, it appeared — President Dmitry Medvedev’s “proposal” that she resign and become the speaker of the Federation Council in Moscow, will be remembered as a forceful politician, who increased the budget of St. Petersburg by 10 times during her nearly eight-year tenure, brought wealthy corporations to the city as taxpayers and helped to create an automotive cluster in the city. |
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FULL STEAM AHEAD
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A sailor stands on the deck of a naval ship moored near Lenexpo as part of the 5th annual Maritime Defense Show at the weekend. Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko evaluated the total value of contracts signed during the event at more than $1 billion. |
 St. Petersburg’s City Planning and Architecture Committee is to announce a competition for a development project for Ploshchad Vosstaniya after hosting an international conference devoted to the subject last week.
The results of the conference were discussed this weekend by architects, city planners, sociologists and psychologists. The conference, which opened on June 26, focused on Ploshchad Vosstaniya as a central transport hub.
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Schoolgirl’s Body Found
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The body of a 10-year-old schoolgirl who had been missing since April was found Monday evening near the village of Izvara in the Leningrad Oblast, Interfax reported.
The girl, who lived in Volosovo, went missing on April 1. |
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About 200 people with kidney problems die in the city every year because they are unable to afford or get access to the drugs they need, experts estimate. |
 Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko estimated the total value of contracts signed during the Fifth International Maritime Defense Show (IMDS) held in St. Petersburg last week at more than $1 billion.
The IMDS ran from Wednesday through Sunday at Lenexpo. |
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A regular Friday night mass bike ride from Palace Square was unexpectedly broken up by the police last week.
About 300 cyclists who gathered on St. Petersburg’s central square at 11 p. |
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The St. Petersburg political opposition has pledged to do its best to prevent St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko from being elected as a deputy — a procedure she must go through in order to be appointed chair of Russia’s Federation Council.
In a joint statement issued Monday, several local opposition leaders described the planned scheme as “unacceptable and insulting. |
All photos from issue.
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Rescuers scoured the wide waters of a Volga River reservoir on Monday, searching with dimming hopes for survivors after an aged, overloaded cruise ship sank amid wind and rain. Nine people were confirmed dead, but more than 90 remained missing.
Exactly how many people were aboard the two-deck Bulgaria when it set off for a cruise on Sunday remains unclear but it was certain to be carrying more than its licensed maximum. Officials say anywhere from 185 to 196 people were aboard the ship that should have carried no more than 120.
The cause of the disaster has not been determined. Igor Panishin of the regional Emergencies Ministry was quoted by the state news agency RIA Novosti as saying survivors reported the ship was leaning to starboard as it made a turn and a wave washed over the deck. |
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 MOSCOW — In the largest bailout in modern Russian history, Bank of Moscow, the country’s fifth-largest bank, will receive up to $14 billion in state-backed loans after the discovery that almost a third of the bank’s assets are “problematic,” the Central Bank said. |
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MOSCOW — Galina Kozlova, then 62, was drinking tea in her Moscow apartment when psychiatrists called by her sister broke down the door, handcuffed her, dragged her to a car and took her to a psychiatric hospital.
Her 81-day treatment included copious doses of psychoactive drugs and beatings by her doctor, she said. |
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MOSCOW — U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle said Monday that the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty was important but the real highlight of a “reset” in U. |
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MOSCOW — Two months after President Dmitry Medvedev called for the voluntary chemical castration of child molesters, a Just Russia deputy introduced a bill demanding mandatory chemical castration to the State Duma on Monday.
The government, however, has criticized the bill as too expensive. But the draft may be just an attempt to clear the way for the Kremlin, which is working on a similar bill, said children rights defender Boris Altshuler.
The bill’s author, Anton Belyakov, said by telephone that most convicted child abusers resume the abuse after their release from prison, so medical treatment offers a safe alternative.
“The situation is just plain stupid,” Belyakov said. |
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 MINSK, Belarus — Police used tear gas to break up an anti-government protest in Belarus and forcefully detained dozens of demonstrators in the capital Sunday. |
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MOSCOW — The Netherlands has joined the fray over the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, with the country’s legislature voting to support an entry ban and freeze on assets of Russian officials implicated in the case.
The vote, which passed 150-0, does not introduce the ban or freeze but calls on the Dutch government to support a push for such sanctions, which are being considered separately by U. |
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MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the involuntary enlistment of people to his All-Russia People’s Front on Thursday after the group embarked on a chaotic membership drive that has swept musicians, architects, HIV and cancer patients and even an entire neighborhood into its fold. |
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MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Friday sentenced a former traffic police officer to 14 years in prison for raping 27 women.
The Nagatinsky District Court also convicted Artur Kositsyn, 34, who worked as a lieutenant for the Podolsk traffic police force in the Moscow region until May 2009, of attempted rape and sexual harassment, RIA-Novosti reported, citing a court spokeswoman. |
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St. Petersburg’s retailer Intertorg is to open a chain of Spar supermarkets in the northwest region.
Dutch retailer Spar International has signed a licensing agreement with the Intertorg trading company (which manages the Narodnaya Semya and Ideya supermarkets). |
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The South Korean hotel firm Lotte plans to build a first-class hotel on the Fontanka River embankment.
Lotte Hotels & Resorts, part of South Korea’s Lotte Group, will open a hotel at 23 Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki, a real estate consultant close to City Hall said. |
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 MOSCOW — The expansion of Moscow’s borders and creation of the Moscow Federal District will not affect Skolkovo, the innovation hub near Moscow, Skolkovo Foundation president Viktor Vekselberg told reporters Monday after presenting participation certificates to 21 new resident companies.
“As far as I know, changes to the project’s configuration are being considered. [The expansion] has nothing to do with the Skolkovo project,” he said. |
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 MOSCOW — VTB, Russia’s second-largest lender, will hold roadshows for investors in London and New York to allay concerns about the black hole in the balance sheet of its new acquisition, Bank of Moscow, which received a $14 billion state-backed bailout last week. |
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MOSCOW — In a flurry of activity aimed at attracting foreign investors, President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree Friday that will lift restrictions on domestic companies wanting to list securities abroad and ordered the creation of a central securities depositary by Sept. |
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KOMMUNAR, Leningrad Oblast — French electric services firm Schneider Electric has opened a third Russian factory in a bid to keep up with increasing demand for “smart-grid” technologies in Russia and the CIS. |
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 “Our answer to Chamberlain.”
This Soviet slogan originated in the late 1920s as a government protest against British Foreign Minister Austen Chamberlain, who was outspoken in his criticism of the Soviet policy toward China. But instead of addressing the arguments raised by Chamberlain, the Kremlin responded with the only weapon they had: a massive propaganda campaign that included military threats aimed at Britain. |
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In the run-up to the elections, we are seeing the beginning of a shakeup in top political positions. The Kremlin started with Valentina Matviyenko. She will be moved out of St. |
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Seliger, a summer camp held for the Kremlin-backed movement Nashi, sent out a news release on Friday claiming that a concert by Mumiy Troll is “scheduled to be held” there.
The ill-famed Nashi was created when the Kremlin became scared by Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, and the movement’s initial goal was to confront protesters in the street (and on social networks). This is what they are primarily taught at Seliger.
Commenting on the information, the band’s manager Alex Kedrov slammed journalists, rather than the camp’s organizers. |
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FOR SPT
TRIP-HOP GROUP KIRA LAO
IS AMONG THOSE DUE TO
PERFORM AT THE
STEPPENWOLF AWARDS AT
KOSMONAVT ON THURSDAY. |
 The Steppenwolf Awards, co-founded by the beleaguered Moscow-based music critic and producer Artyom Troitsky with the aim of promoting talented, innovative and independent music, move to St. Petersburg this week.
The ceremony, featuring nominees that include some of the finest Russian indie rock and electronic music artists, will be held Thursday at the local venue Kosmonavt.
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 Controversial decisions abounded at the 14th International Tchaikovsky competition that concluded in Moscow and St. Petersburg last weekend as the event struggles to regain its international reputation and influence under the leadership of its new head, the Mariinsky Theater’s artistic director, Valery Gergiev. |
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What do soap, a hamster, a doggie and a little mouse all have in common?
In English, not much. In Russian, they are all slang terms connected with your computer and the Internet. |
 There are six Ivanovs listed on the web site: Grigory, Semyon, Pavel, Vasily, Pyotr and Alexei.
Ivanov is one of Russia’s most common surnames, so it is unlikely that the six were relatives. What they do have in common though, is that all of them died on Norwegian soil between 1942 and 1945, where they remain to this day.
The Ivanovs are listed on the Krigsgraver web site — launched earlier this year — which lists basic information about close to half of the roughly 13,000 Soviet citizens who died in prison camps in Norway during World War II. |
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 Last week, Channel One controller Konstantin Ernst took a dig at the luxuriant breasts of retired ice dancer Anna Semenovich, saying they were doubly responsible for the death of Russian cinema. |
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Located directly above its own cake shop on a stretch of the Petrograd Side packed with restaurants and cafes, Truffle is a delightful chateau in the heart of St Petersburg.
Designed with French Provence in mind, walking into Truffle is a little like walking into your own home. British visitors may even feel like they are dining in a Laura Ashley furnishings store, of which the restaurant’s clean, light interior and occasional floral decoration are reminiscent. |
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 ROSTOV-ON-DON — If you walk around the city center in Rostov-on-Don, one of the most likely things to catch your eye would be groups of Cossacks dressed in traditional dark-blue uniforms and pants with red stripes.
The Cossacks, riding chestnut horses, seem to have leaped off the pages of Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel “And Quiet Flows the Don,” which won him a Nobel prize for literature in 1965. |
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 PRAGUE — The Russians are back.
Twenty years after Soviet troops left to the delight of a liberated nation, Russian schools, businesses, newspapers and communities are thriving in and around Prague. |
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