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Active municipal councils are instrumental in building a prosperous society, believes Liv Signe Navarsete, Norway’s Minister for Local Government and Regional Development who visited St. Petersburg last week to give a lecture at the State Academy for National Economics and State Service.
Navarsete is convinced that it is possible to make use of political experience and tools from other countries, and successfully apply foreign systems in other countries.
What makes municipal councils in Norway particularly strong, according to Navarsete, is the wide range of rights and high level of authority granted by the state. For example, while in Russia, all state-run health centers are funded either directly by the federal government or by the regional authorities, in Norway, municipal health care is an integral part of the national system. |
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DREAM OF ICARUS
FOR SPT
This model of a 15th-century flying machine, built to designs by Leonardo da Vinci, is one of the range of diverse contraptions invented by the Renaissance polymath on show at the Artillery Museum as part of an exhibition titled ‘Da Vinci the Genius’. |
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Preservationists have appealed in an open letter to new city governor Georgy Poltavchenko asking him to prevent the demolition of a heritage site on the Okhta cape and to dismiss officials who failed to protect what they describe as “The Troy of St. Petersburg” — the remains of the Nienschanz and Landskrona medieval Swedish fortresses, as well as a Neolithic settlement discovered on the site.
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The Just Russia party expects to get up to 15 percent of votes around the country and win the most votes in St. Petersburg in the upcoming parliamentary elections, Sergei Mironov, the leader of the party, said in St. Petersburg on Friday.
Mironov said that according to his information, opinion polls in St. Petersburg showed that A Just Russia is leading in pre-election ratings, leaving behind Putin’s United Russia, the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party.
“We have serious plans to win in this region,” Mironov said.
Mironov called on all Russian citizens to show up and vote in the upcoming elections, saying it would be the best way to ensure a free and fair vote. |
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 Despite its status as a relatively young city, St. Petersburg is awash in mythology. From stories surrounding its initial construction, to the Bronze Horseman, to tales of the Revolution, St. |
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Radiation Fears
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — An exhibition of Russian glass from the Romanov imperial dynasty will continue to be shown in Japanese cities that have no danger of radioactive pollution from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Interfax reported.
The State Hermitage Museum canceled its exhibition in the Japanese city of Takasaki due to its location 200 kilometers away from the power plant. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW — Budget airline Avianova, which has been embroiled in a bitter shareholder dispute between its U.S. and Russian partners, issued a statement late Sunday saying that it would cancel all flights from Monday and file for bankruptcy. The airline went on to say it could not pay airports or meet licensing fees for its aircraft after minority American shareholder Indigo Partners cut off funding. |
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MOSCOW — A Russian businessman suspected of using $56 million in embezzled funds to buy a German shipyard died after being shot by a gunman at a Moscow restaurant in what appeared to be a contract killing. |
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MOSCOW — Turmoil is growing in South Ossetia after the election commission of the breakaway Georgian province refused to register opposition politician Dzambolat Tedeyev as a presidential candidate.
South Ossetia’s president, Eduard Kokoity, said Monday that the authorities had prevented a “color revolution” and that Tedeyev has “no legal and no moral right” to run in the Nov. |
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MOSCOW — An anonymous Russian businessman spent 200,000 euros ($269,000) on a pop-art portrait of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
“Putin-Mona Lisa,” by Georgian-American neo-pop artist David Datuna, had been on sale at the Art Moscow festival, which ran from Sept. |
 MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev has defended his decision to shelve his political ambitions in favor of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, saying Putin deserved to become the next president because he is “the most authoritative politician” in the country. |
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Former Yukos vice president Vasily Aleksanyan, who fought a protracted legal battle with the authorities before finally being freed on bail in 2009 to seek treatment for AIDS-related illnesses, died Monday, Dozhd television reported late Monday, citing his family. |
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MOSCOW — Reclusive math genius Grigory Perelman has refused to join the ranks of the Russian Academy of Sciences by not replying to a membership invitation, Interfax reported Monday.
“He hasn’t responded to our telegrams or phone calls. And he has not made any attempt to communicate with us either,” said an official with the St. |
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LONDON — Self-exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky accused fellow tycoon Roman Abramovich of betraying and blackmailing him, as the two former business partners squared off Monday in a London courtroom in a multibillion dollar lawsuit over an oil deal. |
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 Plans to build a tunnel under the River Neva have been scrapped and the fate of two more of the city’s biggest investment projects hangs in the balance after the new city governor, Georgy Poltavchenko, questioned the need to realize the schemes.
Plans for the Novoadmiralteisky Bridge and the Palace of Arts on Vasilyevsky Island may be abandoned along with the Orlov Tunnel after City Hall’s new deputy governor in charge of finance, Sergei Vyazalov, proposed canceling the allocation of budget funds to the public-private partnership projects that were all launched under former city governor Valentina Matviyenko. |
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 Poor Anton Siluanov, Russia’s new acting finance minister. Siluanov, following in the footsteps of Alexei Kudrin, who resigned a week ago, is not to be envied. Without his predecessor’s expertise and experience, Siluanov may have been handed the proverbial poisoned chalice. |
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The Russian media discussed Kudrin’s dismissal even more enthusiastically than it did the news of the tandem switch announced at United Russia’s convention on Sept. |
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There’s plenty going on in St. Petersburg this week. Zoccolo, the underground music club launched to replace the now-defunct legendary Moloko, will mark its fifth anniversary with a concert on Friday, Oct. 7.
Morekorabli, Polyusa and Skafandr featuring Kirpichi frontman Vasya V., aka Vasily Vasin, will perform.
Zoccolo was launched with a concert by St. Petersburg’s seminal band Tequilajazzz in 2006.
The club was formed by the same team that managed Moloko club. Moloko was seen as the successor to TaMtAm, the city’s pioneering and extremely influential alternative rock club that helped a new generation of the city’s rock bands to emerge.
“We understood that it would be impossible to recreate Moloko,” Moloko and Zoccolo founder Yury Ugryumov told this paper back in 2006. “It’s more honest to leave Moloko in the past. We’ll take something from it, some traditions will remain, but ultimately, it will be a new place,” he said. |
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FOR SPT
PAINTINGS BY THE MILANESE ARTIST GIANNI MAIMERI FORM A COLORFUL NEW SHOW AT THE ACADEMY OF ARTS. |
 Censorship is forbidden by the constitution in Russia, although the past decade saw attempts to partly reintroduce a censorship body governed by the state or the church, or both. In the most recent claim last week, Vsevolod Chaplin, the Russian Orthodox Church’s top cleric for public affairs, said classic works by Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel Garcia Marquez should be examined to see whether they condone pedophilia.
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 Leonardo da Vinci may be best known as the creator of the Mona Lisa and her enigmatic smile, but the artist and inventor’s boundlessly diverse repertoire had a darker side too, stretching to designs for military machines designed to kill a maximum number of people. |
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Î÷êîâàòü: to be scared, to turn tail
Lately, I’ve been indulging in my favorite procrastination pastime — reading Russian blogs. When the posters are young and snarky — and the posters are almost always young and snarky — this is a humbling experience. |
 “The Sense of Color” exhibition that opened its doors Monday at the Academy of Arts gives Petersburgers a unique opportunity to appreciate the work of the Italian artist Gianni Maimeri.
The exposition, which comprises about 300 works, is the biggest exhibition of the artist’s works since 1919, when Maimeri’s work was showcased in his hometown of Milan.
“St. Petersburg and Milan, as we know, are sister cities,” said Gianni Cervetti, president of the Italy Russia Foundation that oversees the Year of Italian Culture in Russia events. |
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 As part of the Spanish-Russian year of cultural exchange, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts on Friday opened its doors to the largest exhibition of Salvador Dali artworks in Russia. |
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Costly Indifference
The covert positioning of expensive restaurants on the upper floors of hotels and malls is a peculiar phenomenon in St. Petersburg, a trend that Comme Il Faut unfortunately perpetuates. Although located on the second floor inside a shopping complex, there is actually no clear sign for the restaurant either outside or once you reach the restaurant itself, a confusion added to by an entrance which on first glance may or may not be a door. |
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 ORYOL — A city of bridges, Oryol is spread out on the banks of the Oka River and its tributary, the Orlik, which flow through the city center and are dotted with fishermen.
But there’s another Oryol associated with legends and mysteries that are known to just a handful of residents. Walking along the compact and tidy streets, with red-and-yellow trams passing by squat houses, you would hardly think that you are walking above kilometers of underground caves and lakes. |
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 MOSCOW — Leading German oceanographer Peter Koltermann was fascinated when he won a Russian “mega-grant” of 150 million rubles ($5 million) last year to research natural disaster risks. |
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 MOGADISHU, Somalia — Islamist militants detonated a truck bomb Tuesday in front of the Education Ministry in Somalia’s capital, killing at least 70 people and wounding dozens including students and parents who were awaiting the results of scholarships. |
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SIRTE, Libya — Libyan revolutionary forces fired rockets into the western half of Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown Tuesday even as hundreds of residents streamed out of the city to flee the fighting. |
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STOCKHOLM — Three U.S.-born scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace, a stunning revelation that suggests the cosmos will eventually freeze to ice.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said American Saul Perlmutter would share the 10 million kronor ($1. |
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PERUGIA, Italy — Amanda Knox headed home to the United States a free woman Tuesday, the morning after an Italian appeals court dramatically overturned the American student’s conviction of sexually assaulting and brutally slaying her British roommate. |
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Issues Archive