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A new smoking law threatens to severely damage small businesses throughout Russia, campaigners say.
The draft law aims to reduce tobacco use and improve the health of the nation, yet could prove to be harmful in other ways, according to its opponents. However inconvenient these new conditions might seem to smokers, they are not the only ones affected by the new ordinance — the effects are much more global. Experts believe that the adoption of the law will first of all affect small restaurant and retail businesses.
The project includes a number of radical measures including a 50-percent increase in proportional excise tax on tobacco products, resulting in an increase in the cost to the buyer, a ban on smoking in many public places such as hotels, cafes, nightclubs and on long-distance trains and a ban on selling cigarettes in retail premises smaller than 50 square meters.
Some experts believe the bill doesn’t meet its stated aims and could moreover cause substantial damage in social and economic spheres. These opinions were expressed on Nov. 24 at a roundtable discussion in St. Petersburg devoted to the effects of the new law on small businesses and society.
The U.K. is proof of this hypothesis, participants argued. |
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CLOSER TO HEAVEN
ALEXANDER BELENKY / SPT
One of the angel sculptures is lifted back into place on the roof of St. Isaac’s Cathedral on Tuesday morning. The 15-ton figures have been under restoration for five years. On Wednesday evening, the cathedral will celebrate their return by illuminating them with a giant projector. |
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Zenit St. Petersburg has complicated its chances of entering the Champions League knock-out stages after a frustrating 0-0 draw at Petrovsky stadium last Wednesday to Cypriot champions APOEL.
The game’s outcome was to decide which of the two teams would move forward into the last 16 of the competition before the final group games on Dec. 6 and 7, with nothing less than victory needed by the home team, and a draw sufficient for group leader’s APOEL.
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About 1,500 city residents have appealed to St. Petersburg City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko requesting that a number of St. Petersburg streets and squares be given back the names they had before the 1917 Revolution, and that the names of streets named after those who took part in criminal activities be changed as well. |
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LONDON — A special immigration tribunal ruled Tuesday that a Russian former lawmaker’s aide who was accused of being a spy can stay in Britain.
The tribunal concluded that Ekaterina Zatuliveter — who had an affair with her boss, a British lawmaker — was not a threat to national security despite government claims. |
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Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill visited the city earlier this month to check on his first creation in St. Petersburg, an elite business center and apartment complex on Novgorodskaya Ulitsa.
Bofill, or “Maestro” as he was referred to at a press conference organized in honor of his visit to the city, has designed more than 1,000 projects for more than 50 countries and owns the Taller de Architectura workshop in Barcelona. Together with his team of architects, Bofill has created Barcelona Airport and the National Theater of Catalonia, the head offices of Cartier and Christian Dior in Paris, the Shiseido Building in Tokyo and the Dearborn Center in Chicago, the latter two of which are both skyscrapers. |
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 A deputy of St. Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly and one of the supporters of the ruling United Russia party’s controversial “gay propaganda” bill introducing fines for “promoting sodomy and lesbianism … to minors” effectively suggested that gays should go back in the closet last week. |
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A wild video was posted on YouTube showing two base jumpers parachuting off the bell tower of the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, although authorities claim the high-flying stunt never occurred.
The amateur video shows the two mystery parachutists leap from the 123-meter tower one after the other, and slowly drift to the ground within the confines of the fortress surrounding the cathedral. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW — New evidence released Monday added weight to suspicions that Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by prison guards in 2009 and did not die from health problems as previously claimed by the authorities.
A report by Hermitage Capital, once Russia’s largest foreign investment fund, found that the 37-year-old lawyer was left to die on a cell floor after suffering a brain trauma in the beating apparently ordered by prison officials. |
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MOSCOW — The situation in South Ossetia was tense Monday after authorities declared opposition candidate Alla Dzhioyeva the winner in a presidential runoff, a result that her Kremlin-supported opponent Anatoly Bibilov loudly disputed. |
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MOSCOW — In a dramatic rescue, a team of British coast guards, including Prince William, plucked two Russian sailors from the Irish Sea after their freighter sank in foul weather Sunday. But at least one sailor died, and five others from the all-Russian crew remain missing.
The Cook Islands-registered Swanland was carrying about 3,000 tons of limestone from Wales to the Isle of Wight when it encountered gale-force winds and giant waves and sank early Sunday morning about 30 kilometers off the coast of Wales.
Responding to a 2 a.m. mayday call, the British coastguard sent four helicopters and seven ships to the scene. Prince William, a Royal Air Force search and rescue pilot and second-in-line to the British throne, co-piloted the helicopter that hoisted sailors Roman Savina and Vitaly Kornenko to safety. |
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 MOSCOW — In a show of unity amid sagging ratings and growing public dissatisfaction, United Russia on Sunday nominated its leader Vladimir Putin as its presidential candidate Soviet-style — with 614 of 614 ballots cast in his favor. |
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MOSCOW — Campaign ads by opposition parties have been banned on state television by order of the head of the Central Elections Commission, who has no authority to do so, Vedomosti reported Monday.
Vladimir Churov’s actions prompted a mutiny among the commission’s working group, whose job is to review such videos, but which was only asked to do so after they were banned, the newspaper said. |
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SOCHI — International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge praised Russian organizers for making significant progress in preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. |
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 An inauguration ceremony dedicated to the opening and sale of the premium-class residential property Duderhof Club, part of the Baltic Pearl multi-functional complex, was held in St. Petersburg last week.
“Duderhof Club is the third residential and first premium-class structure in the Baltic Pearl project,” said Lee Bo, first deputy director general of Baltic Pearl company. |
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MOSCOW — Gazprom on Friday agreed to slash its gas price for Belarus as the two neighbors prepare to move their economies closer next year.
Gazprom will charge Belarus $165. |
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MOSCOW — The Transportation Ministry determined it needs to concentrate on repairing existing roads and constructing toll roads as it lacks funds for anything else.
Transportation costs account for 15 to 20 percent of production in Russia, as opposed to 7 to 8 percent in developed countries, and population mobility in Russia is half that of the developed countries. |
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MOSCOW — Foreign direct investment in Russia reached $36 billion in the first 10 months of the year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday during a meeting of the government’s commission on foreign investment, citing the Central Bank. |
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 There is one boat only, and we are all in it. Science is clear on what needs to be done to avoid rocking the boat: The world needs to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius to prevent catastrophic climatic events.
But not much time is left to ensure that the next generations sail as safely as we have. |
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The fifth convocation of the State Duma ended its work last week with a final session devoted to the giving and receiving of awards and congratulations. |
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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was booed at a wrestling match a week ago, and Russia’s liberal intelligentsia felt encouraged. When Putin announced that he would seek another presidential term, disgust around the country was palpable. Over the past two months, it has been reinforced by the buffoonish behavior of the ruling Medvedev-Putin duo, Soviet-style electioneering methods used by the governing United Russia party and heavy-handedness of the police in dispersing peaceful protesters, including Moscow University students. |
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 Jenia Lubich, a St. Petersburg indie pop singer-songwriter whose voice can be heard on Nouvelle Vague’s most recent albums and whose star is in the ascendant in Russia, will launch her debut album with a concert in St. Petersburg this weekend. Called “C’est la vie,” the CD was recorded with French musicians in Paris and contains 11 songs that she wrote in Russian, French and English.
Lubich, whose songs include the ironic “Russian Girl” (who has “vodka in her blood” and “dances with brown bears,”), frantic “Crisis of the Moment (With a Question to the President)” and love song “Galaxy,” has been on the scene for a while, but made a name for herself through her collaboration with Nouvelle Vague, the French band that performs unlikely bossa nova covers of 1970s and 1980s new wave and punk hits sung by various female singers.
Her local breakthrough came somewhat unexpectedly at a Nouvelle Vague concert at Zal Ozhidaniya club in October 2009. The band had asked her to perform as a guest singer, but she ended up singing virtually the entire show when both the band’s vocalists were unable to come at short notice. |
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TANYA TIKKA
THE LOCAL SINGERSONGWRITER
AND RISING
STAR JENIA LUBICH WILL
GIVE A CONCERT AT THE
PLACE ON FRIDAY, DEC. 2. |
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It’s Scotland Week at the Hotel Astoria, and the hotel has gone all out to bring a bit of Celtic charm to the city, culminating in the annual St. Andrew’s Ball, which takes place on Saturday evening at the hotel.
Now in its 14th year, this year’s ball will as usual feature traditional country dancing and a Scottish feast prepared by Jeff Bland, head chef at The Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, who has been flown in to supervise the menu of both the week-long festival and the ball itself.
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 Color is starkly absent from the “Expression Beyond” exhibit that opens Dec. 1 in an ex-factory building now used by the Rizzordi Art Foundation.
For the “Expression Beyond” project, the curators of the Rizzordi Art Foundation Loft exposition area, which recently opened on Kurlyandskaya Ulitsa in the former industrial area near the city’s port, have selected 10 artists from all over the world whose work is characterized by their use of black and white. |
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Îñâèñòûâàòü: to boo, shout catcalls
The political buzz this week in Moscow was: Did they or didn’t they? Boo Vladimir Putin at the boxing match, that is. |
 Modern Israeli cinematgraphy is making a strong impression on the international market — Israeli documentaries have already become a well-known brand, and feature films are catching up, claim the organizers of the Israeli Film Festival that takes place in the city from Dec. 1 through 5.
“During the last 20 years, Israeli cinematography has made an important breakthrough,” said the organizers.
“Before, Israeli filmmaking was largely devoted to violent political and social conflicts, and this cinema was interesting mostly for the internal audience,” said Sasha Akhmadshina, PR-director of the Tour de Film international festival agency. |
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 This week, Britain’s Daily Mail highlighted the case of Kristina Rei from St. Petersburg, who has enormous lips springing out of her face, created with what it said was £4,000 ($6,215) worth of silicone injections. |
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Tipping the scales
Building on the success of their three restaurants in Moscow headed by Tunisian brand chef Zitouni Abdessatar, La Maree company, the largest importers of luxury seafood products into Russia, opened a restaurant in St. Petersburg back in July 2010. More than a mere restaurant, La Marée on Suvorovsky Prospekt is also a “fish boutique” in which clients can either enter the fishmongers and select their own fish to be prepared in a range of different ways or simply purchase food to take away. |
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 Strangers are apt to approach you and strike up a conversation, a grandfatherly voice wishes you well on the metro intercom “vsego vam dobrogo,” and the ruddiness of people’s cheeks is due primarily to the cold.
Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia and the country’s third-largest city, offers a welcome contrast of warmth and immediate friendliness — possibly explained by its location as a waypoint for travelers moving between east and west. |
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MADISON, Wisconsin — Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s daughter, whose defection to the West during the Cold War embarrassed the ruling communists and made her a best-selling author, has died. |
 Smart opinionated chic: This is what Trussardi women are all about, according to Tomaso Trussardi, general director for development of the Trussardi fashion house, who was in St. Petersburg last week for the Russian premiere of the Trussardi Spring/Summer-2012 Women’s Collection.
The collection was designed by Umit Benah Sahin as part of Elle Fashion Days and celebrations of the brand’s 100th anniversary. |
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 BEIRUT — A UN investigation has concluded that Syrian forces committed crimes against humanity by killing and torturing hundreds of children, including a two-year-old girl reportedly shot to death so she wouldn’t grow up to be a demonstrator.
The results of the inquiry, released on Monday, added to mounting international pressure on President Bashar Assad, a day after the Arab League approved sweeping sanctions to push his embattled regime to end the violence. |
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CAIRO — The head of Egypt’s election commission said turnout was “massive and unexpected” for the first elections since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, with millions participating peacefully in a spirit of hopefulness that surprised many after new protests broke out in the days leading up to the vote. |
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OSLO, Norway — The forensic psychiatrists who evaluated the mental state of confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik handed over their assessment to a Norwegian court on Tuesday.
One of the psychiatrists, Torgeir Husby, told The Associated Press that the report draws a “clear conclusion” about Breivik’s mental health, but declined to give details. |
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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan said Tuesday it would boycott an upcoming meeting in Germany on Afghanistan to protest the deadly weekend attack by U.S.-led forces on its troops, widening the fallout from an incident that has sent ties between Washington and Islamabad into a tailspin. |
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Issues Archive