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 Moscow took center stage for the arts when the Bolshoi Theater opened on Oct. 28, but St. Petersburg, the historical cultural capital, will quickly answer Moscow’s challenge with an entire cultural complex set to open in fall 2012.
The complex will consist of the historic Mariinsky Theater founded in 1860, a new concert hall opened in 2007 and the Mariinsky second stage, which construction company Metrostroi promised to finish by fall 2012.
“These pieces … when put together will add up to more than the sum of their parts into a cultural complex that is unrivaled,” said Jack Diamond, designer of the new Mariinsky Theater.
Diamond told The St. Petersburg Times in an interview that he is proposing that all three structures rest on the same plane, connected by cobblestone, granite setts or some other paving material. Streets will remain flush with all the pedestrian paths and small light pillars will demarcate lanes for traffic.
He also hopes a tree line will unite the buildings. The narrow park just north of where the conservatory is situated will extend past the existing Mariinsky Theater and end at the door of the new building. |
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RED GUARD
ALEXANDER BELENKY / SPT
A boy holds a Communist party flag at a rally on the square in front of the Finland Railway Station on Monday, marking the anniversary of
the start of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The day is no longer a public holiday, having been replaced by the Nov. 4 People’s Unity Day. |
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Owners of real estate in Finland will face a more complicated process when it comes to getting Finnish visas, Fontanka reported.
In October, Finland introduced new rules stating that owners of houses in Finland will need to not only supply the standard visa documents required, but also submit a document showing payment of real estate taxes.
Previously, the owners of houses needed only to provide a copy of the act of purchase and sale of property in Finland.
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St. Petersburg’s Grand Choral Synagogue will hold an open doors day on Sunday to mark International Tolerance Day.
From 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., people of all nationalities and faiths are invited to visit the synagogue to familiarize themselves with Jewish culture, the synagogues’s information department said. |
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The Union of Journalists has demanded a full investigation into an “unprovoked” attack by a policeman on a press photographer during a protest rally last week that resulted into costly equipment damages. |
 Zenit St. Petersburg is one step closer to realizing its Champions League dream. The team’s 1-0 victory over Ukrainian team Shakhtar last Tuesday now puts it on the brink of a first-time entry into the competition’s knockout stages.
Combined with its recent success, Tuesday’s result places the St. |
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Suicide Case Opened
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg’s Main Investigation Department has opened a criminal case under the article of “driving someone to commit suicide” into the death of a 12-year-old student in one of the city’s schools two weeks ago, Interfax reported. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW — In a seemingly sinister attempt at subliminal advertising, United Russia has been plastering the Russian capital in campaign posters nearly identical to ones used by elections officials to encourage people to vote in December.
The billboards all feature dark-blue silhouettes of a family with two kids, an elderly couple and new parents with a baby carriage in front of a light-blue silhouette of the city skyline. |
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MOSCOW — Ireland and Russia signed a declaration on a partnership for modernization Monday as Irish Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore visited Moscow with an eye on easing visa rules for Russian businesspeople and working more closely with Skolkovo. |
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev was holding talks with the head of the International Monetary Fund Monday over how Russia can provide support to ailing eurozone countries.
The IMF’s managing director Christine Lagarde met with Medvedev for talks focused on the European debt crisis. |
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MOSCOW — Election debates began this weekend when A Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov and Rot Front head Sergei Udaltsov squared off in a heated but friendly exchange on Dozhd TV. |
 MOSCOW — The historian had always been open about his interest in the dead and eagerly described how he loved to rummage through cemeteries, studying grave stones to uncover the life stories behind them.
What he failed to mention, according to police, was that he had dug up 29 bodies and taken them back to his apartment, where he dressed them in women’s clothes scavenged from graves and then put them on display. |
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LUBMIN, Germany — Leaders of Germany and Russia are opening a 7.4 billion euro ($10.2 billion) natural gas pipeline that links western Europe directly with Siberia’s vast gas reserves. |
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MOSCOW — A topless protester from the Ukrainian women’s rights group Femen was arrested at the Vatican after revealing her breasts and railing against the “sexist policies” of the Catholic Church.
Video on the group’s web site showed the blond-haired woman — identified as Alexandra Shevchenko — drop to her knees in St. |
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MOSCOW — Staying inside cramped, windowless modules for nearly a year-and-a-half was a tough challenge for an international crew of six researchers simulating a mission to Mars under 24-hour surveillance by scientists. |
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 TOSNO, Leningrad Oblast — U.S. engineering giant Caterpillar launched in-country production of mining trucks in a bid to capitalize on a boom in metals and mining across the former Soviet Union, executives said.
“This isn’t an investment with a five- or seven-year time frame — it’s an investment for the next 25 or 30 years,” group president Steven Wunning told The St. |
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Norway’s Statoil has said a Russian government guarantee of tax breaks for the Shtokman gas field is urgently required if a final investment decision on the project is to be made before the end of the year as planned. |
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MOSCOW — The member states of a security pact dominated by Russia and China pledged Monday to boost their financial and energy cooperation, despite the global economic slowdown.
The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization praised their economies’ “stability” and “attractiveness for investment” in a joint statement issued Monday in St. |
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 Alexei Navalny is one of the most popular writers on the Russian Internet. His blog is regularly among the top 10 most-read sites. Last year in a virtual election of the mayor of Moscow, Navalny came in first place, way ahead of the political heavyweights. |
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The video shows a skinny, naked man of about 60 lying on the table, his stomach sliced open. An energetic team of nurses and doctors scurries around, flexing their muscles, filling syringes, sexily writhing their hips. |
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As an annual vigil in memory of the punk musician and antifascist activist Timur Kacharava, who was murdered by a group of neo-Nazis in central St. Petersburg on Nov. 13 six years ago, is planned to be held Sunday, human rights activists say that the organizers of the crime are still at large.
Every year, friends, fellow musicians and activists and other concerned citizens of St. Petersburg bring flowers and candles to the Bukvoyed bookstore near Ploshchad Vosstaniya where Kacharava was killed.
Twenty-year-old Timur Kacharava was stabbed to death at about 6.30 p.m. by a group of eight to 10 attackers outside the Bukvoyed bookstore near the busy crossroads of Ligovsky Prospekt and Nevsky Prospekt.
His friend Max “Zgibov” Zgibai, bass player with the punk band Potom Budem Pozdno, was also stabbed. He was badly injured.
Kacharava, Zgibai and others were apparently followed from Vladimirskaya Ploshchad, where they had taken part in a Food Not Bombs campaign event distributing food to the homeless. Suspected neo-Nazi lookouts were spotted on the square at around 4 p. |
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ALEXEI MELENTYEV / PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
FILM DIRECTOR ANDREI
KONCHALOVSKY TALKS
ABOUT MODERN ART AHEAD
OF THE ANNUAL ART &
REALITY FORUM DUE TO BE
HELD LATER THIS MONTH. |
 Yevgeny Schyotov recently spent seven hours on the mast of the Cruiser Avrora — one of St. Petersburg’s main tourist attractions and an iconic Soviet symbol — and 10 days in prison in the name of art and revolution.
Better known as Flor, Schyotov is a member of Narodnaya Dolya (The People’s Share), a new anarchist art group calling itself a party, which occupied the cruiser, now a museum, to protest against poverty, corrupt authorities and oligarchs.
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 Few can compare with legendary American filmmaker Orson Welles and his talent for depicting the rarities and complexities of human nature. Welles, who spent his life in a constant struggle with traditional Hollywood canons, will be celebrated this week at the Orson Welles: Citizen of the World film festival, taking place this week at Rodina movie theater. |
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Åäèíñòâî: unity
The main buzz on the street last week was about Friday’s holiday — as in: Íàïîìíè ìíå, ïîæàëóéñòà, ÷òî ýòî çà ïðàçäíèê? (Remind me, what’s this holiday?)
Well, it is a long story. |
 Ethnic diversity and tolerance take center stage at the forthcoming Ethnic Fashion Festival (Etnomoda) that takes place in the city this weekend.
The event, which will be held at the Vyborgskaya Storona cultural center, brings together fashion designers from far beyond St. Petersburg: Moscow, Kazan, Yakutsk and other Russian cities.
The festival opens at 1 p.m. Saturday with the Show Room event, showcasing pieces by experimental fashion designers, who will also be giving master classes during the course of the day. |
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 It’s difficult nowadays to find a good art critic with an original point of view, according to film director and screenwriter Andrei Konchalovsky, organizer and curator of the Art & Reality Annual International Forum. |
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To the point
Fresh Point, tucked away behind Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro on the corner of Stary Nevsky and 1st Sovietskaya Ulitsa, represents a new format for the local dining scene, with its pre-made sandwiches and takeaway-friendly menu.
In terms of the food on offer (the sandwich has never been a staple of Russian cuisine), the cafe’s simple white and lime-green plastic interior comprised of easy-to-clean surfaces and sharp angles, and indeed its display of neatly packaged and date-labeled products, Fresh Point is highly reminiscent of an Eat outlet (a U. |
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 VLADIMIR — Drivers heading to this city’s biggest tourist attraction should be careful when approaching Cathedral Square: The parking space in front of the magnificent Assumption Cathedral is for busses only.
Other vehicles are likely to be met by a local traffic police officer, eagerly waiting for motorists who decide to head off the square with a left turn, thus crossing over a solid line on the road. |
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 MOSCOW — It’s been nearly 100 years since a jewel case containing family and imperial jewelry crashed through the ice to the bottom of Lake Baikal. The last hands it touched before disappearing into the watery depths were those of a Russian woman who was fleeing the country to save her life. |
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