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A 16-year-old boy was released Wednesday night from a drug rehabilitation clinic where he had been taken after his father threw a fit over his announcing he was gay.
Ivan Kharchenko was taken by his grandmother to a psychiatric clinic in the Moscow region on April 11, after Kharchenko's father learned he was gay, Novaya Gazeta reported. |
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KIEV, Ukraine -- Four blasts within minutes rocked the center of the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk Friday, injuring at least 15 people in what prosecutors believed was a terrorist attack, officials said. |
 Andrei Lugovoi, a State Duma deputy wanted by British authorities in the 2006 killing of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, took a lie detector test Tuesday, the results of which said he was telling the truth when he claimed he was not involved in Litvinenko's death. |
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A former senior criminal police investigator was nominated by President Dmitry Medvedev Thursday to become the new chief of the St. Petersburg police.
Konstantin Vlasov, who previously ran the local police's criminal division, will now oversee the St. |
 Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov weighed in Wednesday on an article published in Britain's The Guardian titled "The hell of Russian bureaucracy," saying the author's tale about her experience at a dry cleaner's did not say anything meaningful about the country.
In the article, The Guardian's Moscow correspondent Miriam Elder, a former reporter at The Moscow Times, wrote about spending hours to process sweaters at a dry cleaner's and said the experience was prototypical of excessive bureaucracy in Russia. |
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 Novosibirsk's regional legislature passed a new law banning "homosexual propaganda" among youth Thursday, making Russia's third-largest city a part of the emerging national debate about anti-gay legislature. |
All photos from issue.
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The charges against 12 local The Other Russia activists began to look shaky Tuesday as the Vyborgsky District Court interrogated prosecution witnesses in the criminal case — dubbed the Trial of the Twelve — during a seven-hour hearing.
The activists’ claim that the criminal case was a provocation by the counter-extremism Center E police department — which infiltrated the local branch of the oppositional party with an undercover agent known as Mikhail Sazonov and through him offered them a surveillance-equipped apartment for party meetings — found some ground during a cross-examination of Center E officer Dmitry Gryaznov.
Gryaznov said that the apartment was found and rented by the activists themselves, but was confronted by a document detailing his own earlier resolution to conduct an “operative experiment” in the same apartment. |
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RESURRECTION
YEKATERINA SHTUKINA / RIA-NOVOSTI / AP
President Dmitry Medvedev attends the consecration of the newly restored St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral in Kronstadt near St. Petersburg last
week. Restoration work on the cathedral, which the Soviets used as a cinema, is due to be completed in 2013 in time for its 100th anniversary. |
 Loft Project Etagi will herald the beginning of the cycling season Sunday with the unveiling of the city’s biggest bike parking facility in the courtyard of the art center on Ligovsky Prospekt.
Bike lovers will be able to repair their bikes in preparation for a summer of action, as well as buy and sell bikes and cycling accessories.
Visitors will have the opportunity to buy both new and second-hand bikes and accessories, including models made by local bike designer Igor Baronas.
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Unilever Factory to Close
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — British-Dutch company Unilever will stop manufacturing sauces at its Baltimor factory in the St. Petersburg suburb of Kolpino, Interfax reported.
The factory will close as a result of the company transferring production of its Calve- and Baltimor-brand ketchup and tomato sauces to an area in the Tula region, Interfax reported. |
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City Hall intends to change the city’s overall development plan in order to build the Novo-Admiralteisky Bridge.
The St. Petersburg government on April 13 canceled the planning project for the territory of Novo-Admiralteisky Island that it passed in December 2010, City Hall announced on its website. |
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More than 600 St. Petersburg residents brought recyclable materials to a Perekryostok supermarket in St. Petersburg on Saturday for a recycling drive organized by the environmental group Greenpeace.
The event aimed to convince local supermarkets to set up separated trash facilities on their premises. |
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Burnt Body in Park
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg police are investigating a suspected murder after the body of a man was found in the ashes of a bonfire in one of the city’s parks, a source from the law enforcement authorities told Interfax on Tuesday. |
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 MOSCOW — More than 65,000 people gathered at Christ the Savior Cathedral on Sunday for a mass prayer service and procession that was large enough to even rival the mass opposition protests this winter.
Russian Orthodox leaders called for nationwide prayers Sunday to “defend the faith” amid what they see as a spate of attacks, including over their harsh stance on female punk rockers’ political performance in the cathedral in February, the church’s close ties to the state and the ostentatious lifestyles of some priests. |
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MOSCOW — Up to 2,000 tons of oil have spilled from a major field in northern Russia after workers struggled to contain the leak for two days, officials said. |
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MOSCOW — Deputies of the Moscow City Duma discussing the creation of an anti-gay law similar to the one in St. Petersburg have decided to broaden its scope to ban all kinds of “sexual propaganda,” and they said they plan to push the initiative on the federal level. |
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DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Russia and Tajikistan are getting closer to a deal that would extend the presence of Russian troops in the Central Asian nation beyond 2014, Russia’s foreign minister said Tuesday. |
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MOSCOW — The first speed-eating world championship for black caviar was held over the weekend in Moscow.
Hundreds of guests attended the competition, held at a Moscow restaurant called The Apartment. Twelve people were chosen to compete by lottery. The competitors were to consume half a kilogram of black caviar as quickly as possible.
Alexander Valov, a stocky 49-year-old won the competition. He devoured his half-kilogram in one minute, 26 seconds, Ridus.ru said. As a prize, he won 10,000 rubles ($340) and more caviar to take home.
After the competition the rest of the people at the restaurant were allowed to sample the caviar as well. The entire contest reportedly cost organizers 2 million rubles ($70,000). |
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 MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday pardoned a man who had become a lightening rod for the opposition movement after an accident of history led to his imprisonment following a 2009 protest rally. |
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MOSCOW — After going 40 days without food, former Astrakhan mayoral candidate Oleg Shein has stopped his hunger strike by drinking a glass of juice.
Shein had said he would end the strike once election officials agreed to review footage of vote violations in the Astrakhan mayoral elections — which they did last week — and his supporters who had been arrested were released from jail. |
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MOSCOW — The first-ever all-white killer whale seen in the wild has been sighted by Russian scientists near the Commander Islands east of Kamchatka.
Scientists from universities in Moscow and St. |
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SAMBURGSKOYE FIELD, Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District — Blown by a chilly wind, snowflakes attacked Eni chief Paolo Scaroni on Friday, landing on his bare head and beating softly against his glasses, as he took to an open-air stage here, several kilometers above the Arctic Circle, to announce something the Italian company had never done before.
For the first time in its history, Eni has begun producing natural gas in Russia, at this Arctic field, joining the scrupulously vetted cast of international energy majors operating in the country, such as ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Total.
“The Yamal Peninsula is becoming one of the production footholds that are the most important for us,” Scaroni said in a ceremony at a gas treatment hub where steel pipes arched and bent in a rectangular profusion. |
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 MOSCOW — Two road maps to improve the country’s investment climate are ready for review by Prime Minister and President-elect Vladimir Putin.
The plans addressing the construction sector and energy infrastructure — which are in line with Putin’s statement to the Duma on April 11 that the government will embark on 100 steps necessary to increase Russia’s Doing Business rating by the World Bank — were formulated by working groups of businessmen, under the auspices of the Strategic Initiatives Agency. |
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MOSCOW — The government’s drive to make more automotive parts locally isn’t thwarting a U.S. trade mission that seeks to expand American exports of these same products.
Led by Commerce Department Deputy Under Secretary Michelle O’Neill, executives from 13 American companies will explore the market and potential partners for five days starting Monday. |
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 At a banking conference in the mid-1990s, I had lunch with a Russian banker. In the course of an hour, I learned that he was married but had numerous affairs and one-night stands — not to mention prostitutes whom he liked better because of their “skills and lack of commitment. |
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Supporters of the ruling regime interpreted the results of the March presidential election as a victory for the once-conservative, loyal provinces over the protest-ridden capital. |
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 Glavclub, one of St. Petersburg’s leading music venues, which has brought hundreds of Russian and international acts ranging from Iggy Pop to Ian Brown to the city since its opening in 2008, is set to undergo substantial renovation work during the summer, and will move its activities to a summer stage on Krestovsky Island.
“We’ve organized a massive upgrade of the club,” said Igor Tonkikh, Glavclub’s Moscow-based CEO and one of Russia’s pioneering promoters.
“As a result of natural development, it has come to a point where we bring in artists that have very high performance fees, and we should be prepared to greet them not only with our knowledge, but also with the technology and interior our club has to offer. |
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SERGEY PONOMAREV / AP
IMAGES OF THE DRAMATIC
UPHEAVAL SEEN BY LIBYA
LAST YEAR TAKEN BY PRESS
PHOTOGRAPHER SERGEY
PONOMAREV ARE ON SHOW
AT LOFT PROJECT ETAGI. |
 The turmoil that shook Libya last year can now be seen through the eyes of one Russian photographer, whose images of the country can be seen at Loft Project Etagi in an exhibit titled “Libya. Sirocco. War photographs.”
Originating in Northern Africa and the Middle East, the wind known as Sirocco, also sometimes called the “Libyan flautist,” brings atmospheric changes to Europe as fast as the Arab Spring wave of uprisings made differences to the world.
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Îäíàêî: however, but, all the same, apparently, wow
Îäíàêî seems like a pretty straightforward word. And it is — most of the time.
In many cases, it can be translated as “however.” Like “however,” îäíàêî is used to show some kind of contrast with a previous statement. It’s a great qualifier in scientific and scholarly papers that signals: Having just made my case, now I’m going to hedge it or contradict it outright. Ìû ïðåäïîëàãàåì, ÷òî ýòè âûâîäû ìîãóò ðàñïðîñòðàíÿòüñÿ è íà äðóãèå ãðóïïû äåòåé, îäíàêî òðåáóþòñÿ äîïîëíèòåëüíûå èññëåäîâàíèÿ. (We believe that these conclusions might be valid for other groups of children, too. However, we need to conduct additional research. |
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 Forty collections from Russia’s finest fashion talent in the caliber of Tatyana Parfionova, Lilia Kissilenko and Leonid Alexeyev shared the podium with premier designers from the U. |
 Last week, Channel One’s star presenter Ivan Urgant got his own talk show, “Evening Urgant,” which is a direct imitation of the American late-night talk show format, with its jokes about the day’s news along with famous guests and live music.
The start of the first show had a joke about a nervous Urgant asking for a blessing from channel chief Konstantin Ernst, who, love him or hate him, has made real efforts to try riskier formats and produce television that at least gives a nod to what’s going on in the West. |
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Nothing is better at putting people in a spring-like mood than dancing and chocolate. The Spring Chocolate Ball, to be held April 28 at the city’s History Hotel, promises just this, as well as fashion shows, lotteries, and a good time for those with a sweet tooth and lovers of pre-revolutionary Russian culture. |
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Panoramic provender
It is a sad fact that most panoramic restaurants tend to serve food that is simply boring. Or undercooked. Or uninspired. I had fallen into this trap on quite a few occasions in several European cities before I made the decision to discard the view aspect if I wanted a good meal. |
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 YEREVAN, Armenia — A first glance of Yerevan from the imposing central train station may appear uninspiring — bleak empty buildings flank the large square in the gray light of dawn, merchants setting up their stalls stare warily at passersby, and the grandiose monument of a rider on a horse pays tribute to the country’s Soviet past. But as the bustling city gradually awakens, it soon becomes clear that there is much more to Armenia’s capital than meets the eye. |
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 MOSCOW — Vasily Artemyev is not like the average Russian sportsman; he speaks with a soft Dublin accent, has a law degree and plays rugby for one of the best clubs in Europe — Northampton Saints. |
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 PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea sharply escalated the rhetoric against its southern rival, claiming it will soon conduct “special actions” that would reduce South Korea’s conservative government to ashes within minutes.
Monday’s threat from the North’s military leadership comes amid concerns that North Korea may be plotting another provocation in the wake of an unsuccessful rocket launch condemned by the UN Security Council as a violation of a ban against missile activity. |
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NAIROBI, Kenya — Sudan continued with its aerial bombardment of South Sudan on Tuesday, dropping eight bombs overnight, an official said, as South Sudan’s president said the attacks amounted to a declaration of war by Sudan. |
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BEIRUT — Rebels seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad killed three regime officers in separate attacks Tuesday around Damascus, activists and state media said, the latest violence targeting the security forces used by the government to quash dissent. |
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PARIS — European laws on what girls and women wear on their heads are encouraging discrimination against Muslims and against a religion that has been part of Europe’s fabric for centuries, Amnesty International says in a new report. |
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Issues Archive