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Police have detained a third suspected member of all-female punk band Pussy Riot, whose members have been targeted by law enforcement officials for their participation in an unsanctioned performance at Christ the Savior Cathedral last month.
Police called in Irina Lokteva for questioning late last week as a witness in the case, then during her interrogation told her that her status was being changed to that of a suspect, her lawyer Nikolai Polozov told Interfax. |
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Former Soviet Olympic gymnastics champion Maria Filatova has said Russia has denied her application for citizenship, leaving her without a passport from any country. |
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Anzhi football club player Chris Samba reportedly had a banana thrown at him by a Lokomotiv Moscow fan during a match Sunday, marking the second time an Anzhi player has been the target of hurled fruit in the past year.
The incident came to light shortly after Dagestan-based Anzhi's match in the Lokomotiv stadium, when a supporter called radio station Sport to report what had happened. |
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Russian universities have again failed to make the grade compared with their counterparts in other countries.
The annual ranking of the world's 100 most reputable universities was released Thursday, and the list does not include a single Russian university. |
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Investigators in Samara have begun an inquiry into the death of a police employee who was killed by falling ice.
Ice from the hood of a service garage on the territory of the Volga region Interior Ministry building fell on a female police employee, dealing a fatal blow, a police news release said. |
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The government is discussing a possible move to institute a quota for screen time given to Russian films in movie theaters, Kommersant reported Wednesday. |
All photos from issue.
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 The number of recorded crimes committed against foreign tourists in the city has hardly risen, while more such cases are now being solved, according to the St. Petersburg police.
Andrei Stanchenko, head of the city’s Police Investigative Department No. 6, said last year could be seen as comparatively stable in terms of crimes committed against foreign travelers.
In 2011, foreign tourists fell victim to 140 crimes, nine more compared with 2010, Stanchenko said at a meeting with representatives of St. Petersburg’s largest travel agencies, hotels and museums.
“That is 1 percent of all the violations of the law that took place in St. Petersburg last year,” Stanchenko said.
The majority of crimes (73 cases) against foreign tourists were incidences of pickpocketing and appropriation of unattended belongings, while the least common crime was carjacking vehicles owned by foreigners. |
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HEART OF THE MATTER
FOR SPT
Participants in an ‘art mob’ open red umbrellas to form a giant heart in front of Kazan Cathedral on March 8 in an event titled ‘Heart of the City.’ About 300 people took part in the event. Light snow is expected this weekend, and temperatures are forecast to climb to 3 degrees Celsius. |
 St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko signed into law a controversial bill against “promoting sodomy, lesbianism, bisexualism and transgenderism to minors” Sunday, drawing a new wave of criticism from around the globe.
On Monday, the Human Rights Watch described Poltavchenko’s failure to use his right of veto to stop this “deplorable” legislative initiative as “profoundly disappointing” and urged the prosecutor’s office of St.
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SKA St. Petersburg opened its KHL Western Conference semi-final series with a 4-0 win over Atlant Moscow Oblast at the city’s Ice Palace on Tuesday night.
Vladimir Tarasenko, Fyodor Federov, Viktor Tikhanov and Mattias Weinhandl all scored for SKA, while netminder Jakub Stepanek faced a mere 15 shots on goal. |
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St. Petersburg is celebrating the French language for the next two weeks with the Francophonia Days festival, which runs from March 13 to March 30.
An extensive program of cultural events dedicated to the language will include the final of the French Language Song Festival for schoolchildren and students in the northwest of Russia on March 16, and a conference of the International French Language Countries Organization on March 21, at which Swiss writer Pascale Kramer will be a guest. |
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Three months without an ombudsman may seem like nothing compared with the nine years that it took the city to elect its first human rights safeguard. The hundreds of locals who were detained during the recent public protests on the streets of St. Petersburg would, however, undoubtedly have found a helping hand in an ombudsman, who was conveniently absent. |
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Photo Ban Reviewed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The legislative committee of the city’s parliament wants to find a way to restore the right of passengers to film and take photos inside all areas of the metro, the committee’s head said this week. |
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MOSCOW — Investigators on Tuesday named five suspects in the beating death of 52-year-old Kazan resident Sergei Nazarov at a Kazan police station last week.
One suspect, 25-year-old Ilshat Garifullin, has been detained, while investigators are seeking the arrest of four others, all aged 23 to 25, from the Dalny police station where Nazarov was allegedly beaten and raped. Federal investigators have taken control over the case, they said in a statement posted on the Investigative Committee website.
The statement said any illegal actions by police officers will be judged harshly.
“The Investigative Committee will give a harsh legal assessment to the actions of security officials who allowed a violation of the law,” the statement said. |
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 MOSCOW — Icon-like signs have appeared in the city of Novosibirsk portraying a masked member of the all-female punk band Pussy Riot, which has gained notoriety after two of its members were jailed last week for participating in an unsanctioned performance at Christ the Savior Cathedral. |
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MOSCOW — Russia has no intention of curtailing military cooperation with Syria despite calls from the West to stop arming President Bashar Assad’s regime, a senior Russian government official said Tuesday.
Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Russia will abide by existing contracts to deliver weapons to Syria despite Assad’s yearlong crackdown on the opposition, during which the UN says over 7,500 people have been killed. |
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MOSCOW — The Justice Ministry has received 68 new applications to form political parties, a State Duma deputy said, RIA-Novosti reported.
The applications come amidst deliberations on a bill that will soften the requirements for creating a political party by dropping the total number of required members from 40,000 to 500. |
 MOSCOW — The country’s burgeoning e-book market is seeing dramatic growth rates, with an ever-increasing number of titles available in electronic format and e-readers continuing to fall sharply in price.
And while fantasy, detective novels and other fictional works make up the traditional cohort of best-selling genres, they have occasionally been overtaken on the list of most-read e-books in recent months by business and political prose. |
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MOSCOW — Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin plans to meet with billionaire politician Mikhail Prokhorov within the next few weeks to discuss possible cooperation. |
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 Russian Railways will invest more than 7 billion rubles ($34 million) in reconstructing railway stations this year, including 4.3 billion rubles for the reconstruction of stations in Moscow, the state-owned company said Sunday.
“We plan to finish four railway stations this year: Leningradsky, Paveletsky, Rizhsky and Savyolovsky,” said Dmitry Pisarenko, head of communications for the stations department at Russian Railways. |
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MOSCOW — Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization will lead to a substantial increase in foreign investments in two to three years’ time, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said during a meeting with President-elect Vladimir Putin on Monday, Interfax reported. |
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MOSCOW — Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg has stepped down as chairman of aluminum giant RusAl, warning of a “deep crisis” at the company.
The resignation prompted RusAl to suspend trading of its shares Tuesday after they shed 1.3 percent of their value on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. |
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MOSCOW — That inevitable accumulation of almost worthless change could become a thing of the past this year as the Central Bank pushes to remove all 1- and 5-kopek coins from circulation. |
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 After last December’s elections to the State Duma, a number of Russian citizens went to the studios of the web TV channel Dozhd to tape a short message explaining why they and their country need free and fair elections. While speaking, each held a handwritten sign with his or her name and occupation. |
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A prominent Russian satirist told me recently that one of the key differences between Russian humor and that of Western Europe or the United States is that Russian people do not “get” gay jokes. |
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 In the world of pop, you have to run to stay in the same place — or change constantly to keep your work interesting. That’s exactly what Marc Collin, the French producer and mastermind behind Nouvelle Vague does.
The band, or as Collin prefers to call it, the “project,” began by adding bossa nova arrangements and beguiling female voices to 1980s punk and post-punk gems, from The Clash to Joy Division to The Undertones.
Nouvelle Vague went on to record with the songs’ original singers such as Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore, Echo & the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch and The Specials’ Terry Hall, before resurrecting semi-obscure French post-punk material and is now looking forward to recording some original songs.
Collin spoke to The St. Petersburg Times ahead of Nouvelle Vague’s concert this weekend.
Tell us about your upcoming concert in St. Petersburg.
The concert in St. Petersburg will not be the same as what we’re going to perform in Moscow. It will be with Melanie Pain and Liset Alea. Melanie Pain was one of the first singers in the project, she’s the voice singing on the albums “This Is Not a Love Song,” “Dance With Me,” all those tracks that people love. |
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LIGHT MUSIC
THE FRENCH MUSIC
PROJECT NOUVELLE VAGUE
RETURNS TO THE CITY
THIS WEEKEND TO PERFORM
AT GLAVCLUB. |
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Pussy Riot, the Moscow-based feminist all-woman punk group notorious for its unsanctioned performance, found itself under unprecedented pressure from the Kremlin when two alleged members were arrested on the eve of the March 4 presidential election.
The two women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, have been charged with criminal mischief committed by a group and face up to seven years in prison.
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 Nationality is key to the art of composer Rodion Shchedrin. His operas and ballets are almost exclusively inspired by classic Russian literature.
Shchedrin’s works — both new creations and those written years ago — such as the ballets “Anna Karenina,” “The Seagull” and “The Little Humpbacked Horse,” and the operas “The Enchanted Wanderer” and “Dead Souls” are now being enthusiastically staged by Russian companies, with the Mariinsky Theater showing the biggest appetite. |
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Ïóòèíã: a rally in support of Putin
Why, oh why, do I read readers’ comments on online articles about the presidential election? They make me crazy and depressed. |
 A heavily anticipated fight between heavyweight mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes Jeff “The Snowman” Monson and Alexey “The Boa Constrictor” Oleinik is set to be the highlight of the M-1 Mixed Martial Arts Challenge 31 at St. Petersburg’s Ice Palace on Friday. The tournament will also feature a welterweight title fight between Switzerland’s Yasubey Enomoto and Russia’s Rashid Magomedov, and a fight between heavyweights Alexander Emelianenko and Tadas “Lithuanian Bear” Rimkevicius, among other events. |
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 Last week, Russia finally got it with Eurovision, sending the Buranovskiye Babushki, who dance in shoes made of birchbark, but to a disco beat.
The ladies from the Udmurtia republic, known mainly as the birthplace of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, are going to sing “Party for Everybody” in Baku. |
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Karmic cuisine
Frida is the kind of place that makes you feel as if you have boosted your karma simply by crossing its threshold. The latest café to be opened by the team behind the ever-popular Chainny Dom on Ulitsa Rubinshteina, whose small empire of upscale hippie hangouts also includes the Indian café Kashmir on Bolshaya Moskovskaya Ulitsa, the new eatery bears the distinctive hallmarks of its older siblings. |
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 VELIKY NOVGOROD — Veliky Novgorod is a rather small city of just 200,000 inhabitants and is both the cradle and the symbol of Russian democracy, which was established here more than 900 years ago.
For almost 300 years, starting in 1136, the Novgorod Republic was ruled by a local chamber that paid no attention to rulers in Moscow. While some dispute modern Russia’s democratic credentials, ancient Novgorod’s experiment with democracy was outstanding.
The city, initially called Novgorod, or “New City,” was believed to have been founded by Prince Rurik, a Varangian chieftain, and was first mentioned in manuscripts in 859. |
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SNOW SHOW
FOR SPT
A contestant on a snowmobile takes part in the Quiksilver New Star snowboarding show at Igora Park on Saturday. The event included a show
by snowboarding champions from Russia and other countries, as well as performances on snowmobiles and even reinforced trucks. |
 “Wooden Churches: Travelling in the Russian North,” a new book by photographer Richard Davies and artist and writer Matilda Moreton, is a cause for both joy and sadness.
The book celebrates the simplistic beauty of pre-revolutionary churches hidden away in Russia’s northwest but also reflects on the state of disrepair into which many of the buildings have fallen.
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MOSCOW — Russian buyers continue to rank first among foreigners spending on high-end housing in London, giving the market a significant boost in the last few years, a consulting company said Monday.
Property shoppers from Russia spend an average of £6.2 million ($9.7 million) on elite property in London, followed by buyers from the Middle East who usually invest about £4 million, according to IntermarkSavills, an international company focusing on high-end property. |
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 DHAKA, Bangladesh — A ferry packed with about 200 people capsized in a river in southern Bangladesh on Tuesday, killing 31 people and leaving dozens more missing, authorities said.
Local police chief Mohammad Shahabuddin Khan said about 35 people were rescued after the ferry sank on the Meghna River after colliding with a cargo boat early in the morning. |
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BALANDI, Afghanistan — Taliban militants opened fire Tuesday on an Afghan government delegation visiting one of the two villages in southern Afghanistan where a U. |
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PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy heard his first welcome news in a while Tuesday in his battle for re-election.
For the first time in this campaign, a new poll suggests the long-unpopular president could beat Socialist Francois Hollande in the first round of voting next month — but it, like all previous polls, indicates Hollande would win in the crucial runoff. |
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MANILA, Philippines — A court Tuesday ordered the husband of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to be arrested on charges that he received millions of dollars in bribes — part of a wide-ranging prosecution of alleged corruption during her presidency. |
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Issues Archive