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Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that the Friends of Syria conference held over the weekend in Tunisia did not appear to make any progress toward starting dialogue in the Syrian conflict, Interfax reported.
Russia did not send a representative to the meeting, which it criticized for not inviting the Syrian regime to participate. |
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Assassins planning to kill Prime Minister Vladimir Putin after the presidential election have been apprehended by special forces in Odessa, state-owned Channel One reported Monday. |
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Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov has ordered that FSB employees must free themselves of any property they own outside Russia by Dec. 1.
The decree, published Friday on the website of state-run newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta, does not apply to property used for security operations. |
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A member of the banned Other Russia political party fired a non-lethal shot at a former member of that party in a fracas at an organizational meeting in St. |
All photos from issue.
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 Thousands in St. Petersburg came to show their support for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in his bid to return to the presidency Saturday. The rally was held as part of a national campaign of pro-Putin rallies the same day.
The rallies, or “meetings” — dubbed derisively as “Putings” — held in most major Russian cities, with the notable exclusion of Moscow, were seen as a move to counter large-scale anti-Putin rallies that have been held across Russia since violations and falsifications during the Dec. 4 State Duma elections were revealed.
Called “We Don’t Need Great Turmoil, We Need a Great Russia,” the St. Petersburg rally drew between 10,000 and 15,000, although an on-stage presenter announced the number to be 60,000. |
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ICE, ICE BABY
ALEXANDER BELENKY / SPT
People walk on churned-up ice on the frozen River Neva. Temperatures are set to keep rising this week as the city prepares for Maslenitsa (Shrovetide)
festivities this weekend. The celebration, which marks the beginning of both spring and Lent, will be marked with outdoor pancake parties on Sunday. |
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The Federal Security Service (FSB) has been investigating the activities of St. Petersburg’s former police chief, Mikhail Sukhodolsky, who was recently dismissed from his position.
Sukhodolsky is suspected of violations and financial manipulation in the state security company Okhrana, where he previously held a management position, Fontanka.ru news web site reported, citing the daily paper Izvestiya.
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Russia’s most popular car brand Lada lost its traditional lead in sales in St. Petersburg last year. Nissan instead became the most bought car, Delovoi Peterburg daily reported, citing Avtostat agency.
The difference in sales between the two brands was not large: In 2011, 10,252 Nissans were registered in the city, while the number of Ladas was 9,584.
In Moscow, Lada lost its first-place position several years ago. In Russia as a whole, however, Lada still remains the most sold car, while Nissan is overall ranked sixth.
The second most popular make of car in Russia, Chevrolet, came in eighth in St. Petersburg sales. Hyundai, which placed third in Russia for 2011, came in sixth in the city. |
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 The legendary designer and patriarch of Russian fashion Vyacheslav Zaitsev is celebrating half a century in the industry with an exhibition at Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art. |
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Director Alexander Sokurov, authors Boris Strugatsky and Yakov Gordin and composer Leonid Desyatnikov are among those who signed a public appeal to the St. Petersburg opposition Tuesday. It urges people to stop quarreling and unite in protest against the rigged Dec. |
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Foreign Investment Up
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Foreign investment in St. Petersburg’s economy increased by 17 percent in 2011 compared to 2010, totaling $6. |
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MOSCOW — Equating corruption in the armed forces with high treason, attracting private investors to arms manufacturing and providing better benefits to retired soldiers are some of the concepts Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin expounded on in his latest article, dedicated to military reform. |
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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev won tentative praise from opposition leaders Monday after meeting with them and confirming a proposal to create a working group to discuss political reforms. |
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RIGA, Latvia — Latvian voters rejected a proposal to give official status to Russian, the mother tongue of their former Soviet occupiers, though the referendum Saturday is expected to leave scars on an already divided society.
Russian is the first language for about one-third of the Baltic country’s 2. |
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Starting up a company with a new idea that may seem crazy is becoming more and more attractive in the modern world. Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube are all high-profile examples of projects that began with a unique idea and became amazingly successful and internationally renowned, now providing thousands of employees with a stable workplace and salary. In Russia and the CIS, 89 percent of middle-ranking and senior managers are prepared to accept a job offer from a start-up company, according to research carried out by Antal Russia recruitment agency.
On Saturday, St. Petersburg got its own start-up academy to help nurture fledgling entrepreneurs, with the opening of the SumIT school. |
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 Job vacancies in journalism are the most sought-after and competitive in St. Petersburg, with 132 jobseekers for each vacancy in this field, according to data collated by HeadHunter recruitment portal in November last year. |
 Intense competition on the city’s hotel real estate market promises to bring about improvement in quality levels this year. Experts from Knight Frank St. Petersburg, however, predict that profit indexes will not increase much.
As of the beginning of this year, there were 121 hotels operating in the city (this figure does not include mini-hotels, government-sponsored hotels and those located in the suburbs) containing a total of 18,200 rooms, according to Colliers International data. |
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InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) signed a contract last week to open its first hotel in St. Petersburg in 2016 with constructions starting in 2013.
Aron Libinson, vice president of IHG for development in Russia and the CIS, said IHG was interested in the St. |
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Philip Morris International Tobacco Company is more concerned about the influence on tobacco sales of Russia’s recent acceptance into the WTO than it is about the warning labels the company is required to put on its cigarette packs and about anti-tobacco campaigns.
Philip Morris Izhora, one of the company’s two full cigarette production plants in Russia, decreased production by 2 percent last year — to 70 billion cigarettes per year — while still managing to increase its share of the market by 0. |
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 After Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which political figure would you guess state-controlled television and Kremlin-friendly newspapers have been covering the most over the past month? Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin is the hands-down winner.
Imitating his boss, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Rogozin has been making a whirlwind tour of the regions — from Izhevsk to Tula, from Novosibirsk to Severodvinsk — to learn more about the condition of the defense industry that he has been appointed to oversee. |
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The Kremlin often implements policies that it never makes public, and this is the reason many of its actions seem pointless or absurd.
Take, for example, a bill on the State Duma elections unveiled last week that has already become the butt of many jokes among analysts. |
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 The Subways, an English indie rock trio from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, are coming to Russia for the first time on the back of their new album and a new single.
Guitarist and singer Billy Lunn spoke to The St. Petersburg Times about the financial crisis, ABBA and the future of rock and roll.
You haven’t played in Russia before, have you?
No, this will be our first ever visit to Russia, and I personally have been looking forward to not just playing in Russia, but also visiting Russia for the first time. |
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NATASHA RAZINA
THE MARIINSKY VENTURES
INTO NEW TERRITORY WITH
ITS FIRST MUSICAL — A NEW
STAGING OF ‘MY FAIR LADY.’ |
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This winter’s Glavbeat festival, which will be held on Saturday, Feb. 25 at Glavclub, features exclusively local bands, in contrast to previous years.
“The current festival introduces bands from St. Petersburg only,” said Vadim Melnikov, Glavclub’s press attaché and promoter. The organizers insist that, although the festival’s agenda was always subject to change, the main idea — showcasing new talented Russian bands — has remained the same.
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 Just how far can purity of language and good manners get you in life? This question is sure to be laughed at in modern Russia, where university degrees have long become a matter of a bribe, and top-flight politicians score points with voters by speaking in street slang. |
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Le Cristal restaurant, which occupies an enviable location on the Martynov embankment next to the yacht club on Krestovsky Island, has something to be proud of this week. |
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Ñàæàòü/ïîñàäèòü: to seat, plant, imprison, put
In English, I don’t have much occasion to use the verb “to seat.” In fact, I think the last time I used it was a year or so ago: “Even though we made a reservation, the maitre d’ didn’t seat us right away.”
On the other hand, in Russian I seat things all the time. That is, I use the verb pair ñàæàòü/ïîñàäèòü almost every day.
First of all, you use ñàæàòü/ïîñàäèòü when you are putting someone in a sitting position. Îí ïîñàäèë ìåíÿ íà äèâàí è ñòàë ðàññêàçûâàòü î òîì, ÷òî ñëó÷èëîñü. (He seated me on the couch and began to tell me what happened.) Or: ß ïîñàäèëà ðåáåíêà ê ñåáå íà êîëåíè è ñòàëà ÷èòàòü åìó êíèãó. |
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 In the wake of a high-profile spree of teen suicides across Russia, now might seem like the worst time to release a teen movie titled “The Suicides.” Despite its gloomy title, however, the debut work of filmmaker Yegor Baranov is a life-affirming comedy, with plenty of action scenes and black humor. |
 With spring just around the corner, the city is slowly emerging from its long hibernation. The vibrant strains of jazz could help to speed up this process, as the traditional Usadba Jazz festival has grown to present a new winter festival: Usadba Jazz Zima.
Usadba Jazz started as an attempt to take jazz music “out of basements and into the fresh air,” Maria Syomushkina, the festival’s founder and director, told The St. |
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 Last week, MTV Russia announced that it was pulling a political talk show hosted by It girl and media personality Ksenia Sobchak after just one episode. |
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The real deal
Going out for sushi in St. Petersburg is all too often a guarantee for overpriced morsels of stale fish, loud music, tacky interiors, and a stomachache that lasts well into the next day. Subpar sushi chains dominate the scene, catering to Russia’s seemingly unwavering love for the Japanese delicacy. |
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 While the public outcry has resulted in an openness for opposition voices not seen in years and a genuine feeling that change is in the air, the names on the ballot for the March 4 presidential vote and the expected outcome will not likely come as a surprise.
As Vladimir Putin seeks to return to the presidency for the third time, he faces four officially sanctioned candidates. Three others tried to run but failed to get on the ballot. |
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 While it may seem that the consumer era continues to dictate life by its materialistic rules, an opposing tendency can be observed in at least one sphere: Education. |
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Issues Archive