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 Demonstrators in Moscow continued their non-stop marathon protest overnight, gathering as many as 1,500 people after two prominent opposition leaders were given 15-day jail sentences, but anti-corruption bloggerAlexei Navalnycould end up facing even more serious charges. |
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Rescuers have found several bodies but no survivors on the Indonesian mountainside where a Sukhoi Superjet 100 crashed on Wednesday.
"We haven't found survivors," Gagah Prakoso, spokesman of the search and rescue team, told Indonesia's Metro TV, Reuters reported. |
 President Vladimir Putin will not participate in the G8 summit to be held at Camp David later this month, choosing to send newly-minted Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in his stead.
Putin gave Obama the news by telephone, the White House said in a statement, RIA-Novosti reported. |
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MOUNT SALAK, Indonesia — Search teams found at least 12 bodies Friday on the steep slope of an Indonesian volcano where a Russian-made jetliner crashed while demonstrating the plane for potential buyers from airlines, an official said. |
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FSB agents have foiled a terrorist plot on Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Olympics, authorities said Thursday, accusing Chechen separatists and Georgia of jointly masterminding the plans.
Georgian authorities and security experts, however, called the accusations "paranoid" and "hard to believe."
The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the Federal Security Service had discovered 10 caches of weapons and ammunition on May 4 to 5 in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia, which lies just kilometers from Sochi. |
All photos from issue.
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 An estimated 1,000 St. Petersburg activists and election observers went to Moscow to join the March of Millions to protest Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as president Sunday, while small-scale protests were held in St. Petersburg on the following days.
The Moscow protests have been marked by police violence and hundreds of daily arrests, starting with the March of Millions on Sunday.
The St. Petersburg activists carried a large banner reading “St. Petersburg against Putin” and the city’s flags, while many wore white T-shirts with “Piter against Putin” printed on them.
Andrei Pivovarov, the local leader of the Party of People’s Freedom (Parnas) and one of the organizers of the St. Petersburg activists’ trip to the Moscow rally, said the clashes with the police were the result of provocative moves on the authorities’ part.
“Despite the fact that the rally was authorized, the entrance to the site was blocked and people were not allowed to enter the square,” he said.
“People said they would sit on the ground and wait. The police started to make preventive arrests of those who were sitting, and because there were many people who were agitated, it grew into a conflict. |
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VICTORY TRAIN
ALEXANDER BELENKY / SPT
People in 1940s garb steam into St. Petersburg’s Warsaw Railway Station on the ‘Victory Train’ as part of the May 9 Victory Day celebrations
taking part across the city. The young and old filled the streets, marking the 67th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in WWII. |
 The city’s drama community is seething. At stake is a tough proposal made by City Hall to local theater director Yury Butusov. At the end of April, Dmitry Meskhiyev, head of the Culture Committee of the St. Petersburg government, offered Butusov the job of artistic director of the Lensoviet Theater — on one condition. The proviso was that Butusov stop all kind of other work in any shape or form outside this engagement.
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A St. Petersburg court handed down the city’s first conviction under its notorious anti-gay law by fining a gay activist for the “promotion of sodomy to minors” last Friday. The ruling attracted criticism from both international and Russian human rights organizations.
Magistrate judge Maya Yakovleva ordered Moscow LGBT rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev to pay a 5,000-ruble ($165) fine for holding a poster with the words “Homosexuality is not a perversion; field hockey and ballet on ice are” during a one-man demo near City Hall on April 12.
The phrase is an abridged quote from famed Soviet actress Faina Ranevskaya (1896-1984) taken from the book “Faina Ranevskaya. |
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 A six-month-old male polar bear cub, the newest member of the Leningrad Zoo’s bear family, was presented to the public on May 5.
The active and curious fluffy white cub was born in November to the zoo’s bears Uslada and Menshikov. |
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St. Petersburg will gain yet another historical accolade Sunday when it hosts its first-ever official lacrosse match.
The St. Petersburg White Knights have played the Moscow Rebels on three previous occasions, but this will be only the second time in Russian history that both teams have fielded a full side of ten men. |
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 MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin on Monday said the country was entering a fundamentally new stage of development as he was sworn into office for a third term as president, amid street protests against his rule in central Moscow.
After a change in the constitution initiated by his predecessor Dmitry Medvedev, Putin will be president for six years instead of the previously instituted term of four years. |
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MOSCOW — As Moscow geared up to celebrate its victory in World War II, the shadow of political conflict shrouded the capital as hundreds of arrests clouded Victory Day festivities. |
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YEREVAN, Armenia — President Serge Sarkisian’s party has won a majority of seats in a parliamentary election that international observers said Monday was competitive and peaceful, but undermined by organizational problems and some interference by political parties.
The elections were seen as a test of Sarkisian’s support ahead of next year’s presidential election in which he is expected to seek a second term.
The results showed the president’s Republican Party won at least 68 of the parliament’s 131 seats. In the outgoing parliament, the party was a few seats shy of a majority and formed a coalition with the Prosperous Armenia party, which finished second in Sunday’s election. |
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 MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin had no trouble getting the Kremlin-controlled parliament to approve former President Dmitry Medvedev as his prime minister Tuesday, but he did not much like the startlingly critical questions Medvedev faced from lawmakers before the vote. |
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MOSCOW — A new generation Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 has gone missing during a demonstration flight in Indonesia, dropping off radar with no immediate explanation.
Helicopters were sent to search for the aircraft, and authorities did not know what happened to the plane as of Wednesday evening. |
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MOSCOW — The usual sunny weather was absent and fewer soldiers than last year took part Wednesday in the annual Victory Day parade on Red Square, where President Vladimir Putin spoke about Russia’s role in the world. |
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KHARKIV, Ukraine — Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s imprisoned former prime minister, was moved Wednesday from jail to a hospital for treatment of a severe back condition under the supervision of a German doctor.
The move was likely to allay at least some Western concerns over Tymoshenko’s health and handling in prison. |
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VOLGOGRAD — Every May 9, Alexander Ivanovich Kolotushkin dusts off his best suit, gets out his medals from the cabinet and heads to Volgograd’s main square with fellow veterans. |
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 MOSCOW — Banks are reporting a sharp increase in ATM skimming, a fraud in which perpetrators steal information from bank cards to make fake cards.
A total of 362 cases of skimming were registered in the first three months of this year, compared to just 40 cases in the same period last year and 397 cases for all of 2011, Kommersant reported late last week, citing data from the Russian Europay Members’ Association. |
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MOSCOW — Global sportswear giant Nike plans to sign a franchising agreement with re:Store Retail Group — which operates a chain of Apple branded stores in Russia and Europe — to open 15 local outlets in the next three years, the retailer said. |
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danish brewer Carlsberg reported a first-quarter net loss of 76 million kroner ($13.3 million) as earnings were impacted by lower sales in Russia and eastern Europe.
The loss, reported Wednesday, contrasts with a 173 million kroner profit in the same period last year. |
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Gas Prices Increase
MOSCOW (SPT) — Russian drivers paid 0.7 percent more at the pump last month, the first time prices had risen since last November, Interfax reported Friday, citing the State Statistics Service. |
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 The brutality used by police to detain protesters at Sunday’s rally in Moscow — sealing off Bolotnaya Ploshchad where protesters had a right to gather before beating women with batons and using tear gas against the crowds — effectively denied President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration any legitimacy. |
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The real conundrum for liberal opponents of President Vladimir Putin is not so much how to revive and prolong the now faltering wave of urban protests that broke out this winter. |
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 It now takes just a few hours by train to get to St. Petersburg from Helsinki, but the history of Finnish bands performing in St. Petersburg is relatively recent and somewhat mixed. Many suggest that Russians and Finns have a kindred spirit, and local audiences are sure to find something they like in the wealth of Finnish rock music, which covers everything from psychedelic rock to ska, but often with a touch of Finnish tradition and mentality. But the city’s appetite for live Finnish music is not yet sated.
The first contact between Finnish music and St. |
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MULTI-MICHELIN-STARRED
CHEF ALAIN DUCASSE
TALKED SURVIVAL, COMFORT
FOOD AND MUCH MORE
DURING A RECENT VISIT TO
THE CITY’S W HOTEL. |
 With 21 Michelin stars under his belt, French chef Alain Ducasse, the man behind miX restaurant at the city’s W Hotel, is not after numbers. In many ways an exceptional figure — the owner of the highest number of Michelin stars earned throughout a single career and the sole survivor of a plane crash — Ducasse knows how to enjoy life through the art of gastronomy.
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Ïðèæèìèñòûé: tight-fisted, stingy
In the Russian pantheon of virtues, ùåäðîñòü (generosity) must be near the top of the highest column.
For Russians, the epitome of an admirable person is a generous friend, someone who is ready to spend time listening, helping and doling out advice as well as clothing, jewelry and loans.
Or someone who is a generous host, with an open door and a heavy hand for serving food and pouring drinks.
Or being generous in spirit, giving people the benefit of the doubt. This is even true in the Moscow-that-is-not-Russia, although you might need to ask for help before you see Russians at their generous best.
It follows, then, that ñêóïîñòü (stinginess) is at the bottom of the basement of Russian vices. |
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 With little more remaining than the walls of the apartment building at 61 Sadovaya Ulitsa where Mikhail Lermontov, one of Russia’s most revered poets, lived in 1837, City Hall has thrown down a challenge to potential investors, asking them to renovate the building, while providing an opportunity for the local authorities to organize a Lermontov museum in one of the apartments. |
 Last week, crooner Iosif Kobzon had to cancel his tour of the United States after yet another refusal of a visa, based on his alleged links to organized crime and drug trafficking. That did not stop Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin from dropping into his son’s beer joint on Novy Arbat. |
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Caucasian comfort
Located on Ulitsa Belinskogo, the short street between the Fontanka River and Liteiny Prospekt famous for its never-ending barrage of conceptually interesting but short-lived restaurants, Georgian restaurant Adzhabsandal looks to have found the recipe to success and longevity. |
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 Benjamin Franklin’s saying “Time is money” has found a new application in a café business model. At the Tsiferblat (Clock face) “free space,” people pay not for food and drinks, but for time spent there. The business model has proved hugely popular and is already changing the way in which some of the city’s professionals work.
“Soon the idea of Tsiferblat will conquer the world — all restaurants will be selling time and people will be opening creative spaces everywhere,” the project’s ideologist and founder Ivan Mitin said, sitting by a cupboard filled with old alarm clocks in the city’s second Tsiferblat café, at 81 Nevsky Prospekt. |
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 Many consider those who work in the emergency services, medicine and law enforcement to experience the highest levels of stress while at work due to the high level of responsibility and physical and emotional demands. |
 MOSCOW — After the end of World War II, Paul Sadler returned home to Chicago with three German books and a photo album from the Dachau concentration camp.
It was the photo album that caught his son’s attention about 60 years later. And he began to piece together the story behind the wartime pictures, many of which were taken in the Soviet Union. |
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