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MOSCOW — Travel between London and Moscow might soon get cheaper if easyJet wins the contest to become Britain's second operator for flights on this route.
Europe's second-largest budget airline is promising to introduce lower rates than the current operator British Airways, company spokeswoman Catherine Lynn said Tuesday. |
All photos from issue.
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 The judge rejected the defense’s motion to exclude video surveillance tapes as inadmissible evidence Tuesday in St. Petersburg’s notorious Trial of 12, in which 12 activists of the opposition party The Other Russia face prison terms for alleged extremist activities.
The prosecution says the tapes — presented on 27 DVD disks — were secretly made by counter-extremism Center E police between July 1, 2009 and Jan. 1, 2010 in an apartment where the local branch of the party held its weekly meetings.
Although repeatedly denied registration with the state, The Other Russia has not been banned and acts legally.
The prosecution sees the tapes — which were watched in the Vyborgsky District Court from June through August (excluding July, when the judge was on holiday) — as one of the key pieces of evidence that activists had in fact re-launched the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP) in 2009. |
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VIRTUAL SPACESHIP
YEKATERINA SHTUKINA, GOVERNMENT PRESS SERVICE / AP / RIA-NOVOSTI
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (r) examines a model of the Zenit Arena stadium that is under construction during a visit to the city at
the weekend. The much-delayed stadium is due to be used during the 2018 World Cup soccer tournament that will be held in Russia. |
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Free mini-libraries are set to open at public transport stops around the city and in the metro by the end of this month.
The idea is that travelers will be able to choose a book, read it during their journey and return it to any of the other borrowing points around the city.
“The first shelf will probably appear in the center, but we will not forget about the commuter belt — it is an opportunity to make all of the urban environment more civilized,” said Viktor Orlov, one of the project’s organizers.
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“The Russian passport is a curse!”
This bitter exclamation is well known to just about any Russian who has spent several hours waiting — in various weather conditions — in seemingly endless, slow-moving lines outside consulates of European countries, carrying thick stacks of documents ranging from bank statements to letters from employers to property ownership deeds.
It is no secret that the sentiments of European residents in need of a Russian visa are no less positive.
Optimistic and encouraging statements on the visa issue have been made in impressive quantities by both Russian and European politicians with some regularity since at least 2008, but no feasible step forward has yet been seen. |
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 The city’s best known bookstore, Dom Knigi, has found itself mired in scandal after a group of those working at St. Petersburgsky Dom Knigi limited liability company sent an open letter to City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko on Aug. |
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 MOSCOW — The country’s new law on child protection caused a new round of major headaches for media outlets Monday when it became clear that the law obliges online news sites to set age limits for potentially harmful content.
Some big online news resources, including Gazeta. |
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MOSCOW — Russia sternly warned Britain on Monday that it will respond tit-for-tat if London imposes any travel restrictions that would target Russian officials allegedly involved in the prison death of a Russian lawyer. |
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin has introduced legislation to the State Duma that would raise the maximum age at which officials could still be employed by the state from 65 to 70.
Changes would be made to article 25.1 of the Law on State Service, allowing those older than 65 to continue in their government jobs with the personal approval of the president. |
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MOSCOW — Orthodox Church officials have announced plans to set up a nationwide youth movement, just days after Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov, formerly the Kremlin’s point man on youth affairs, assumed full responsibility for overseeing ties with religious organizations. |
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MOSCOW — The Foreign Ministry on Monday expressed concerns over Azerbaijan’s decision to pardon a convicted killer Hungary sent back to Azerbaijan to serve his prison sentence.
Lieutenant Ramil Safarov was given a life sentence in 2006 by a Hungarian court after he confessed to killing Lieutenant Gurgen Markarian, an Armenian, while both were in Hungary for a 2004 NATO language course. |
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MOSCOW — A university professor has confessed to the brutal murder of two women in a Kazan apartment where the words “Free Pussy Riot” were written in blood on the wall, investigators said Friday. |
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BOGORODSKOYE, Moscow Region — Trucks will move almost as much earth for a project here as was excavated to build the Suez Canal.
One of the country’s biggest construction projects, a $2.2 billion RusHydro power station that requires two huge artificial lakes, is under way north of Moscow just two hours by car. |
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After two years of minimal transfer activity, Zenit St. Petersburg rocked European sport headlines Monday after completing the two biggest transfers in Russian soccer history for a combined sum of 80 million euros. |
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Stroke Victim Dies
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City resident Olga Volobuyeva, an employee at the children’s charity Roditelsky Most, died in St. Petersburg on Saturday, Interfax reported.
Volobuyeva had been in a coma for several weeks after suffering a stroke when on vacation in Bulgaria last month. |
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.jpg) MOSCOW — The young girl on the wrapping of the Alyonka chocolate bar may look timid and sweet, but to Russian confectioners she is more dangerous than her namesake, Helen of Troy.
The fight for Alyonka between confectioners in the two Russian capitals started when the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service prohibited the St. |
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MOSCOW — State-owned banking giant VTB will play a key role in financing Otkritie’s buyout of Nomos-Bank, creating Russia’s second-biggest private bank, VTB president Andrei Kostin said Monday. |
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MOSCOW — The government has introduced a recycling fee for vehicles produced in Russia or imported from any country other than Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The fee took effect on Sept. 1, according to a Cabinet announcement published on Rossiiskaya Gazeta’s website. |
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MOSCOW — Automaker Yo-auto has postponed the launch of its Yo-Mobile plant from the second half of 2012 to late 2014 or early 2015, said Yo-auto’s chief executive Andrei Biryukov, who is leaving the company but will continue to participate in the project as an investor, Interfax reported. |
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MOSCOW — McDonald’s has broken ground on a new hotel for families of patients at the Republic Children’s Clinical Hospital in Kazan.
Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov and Khamzat Khazbulatov, the head of McDonald’s Russia and Eastern Europe, attended the ceremony, which took place last week.
Ronald McDonald House is a “home away from home” for families whose children are undergoing long-term care at the hospital, according to a statement from the fast food giant. |
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 Within days, maverick State Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov is likely to be forced out of the parliament.
The Duma’s United Russia-dominated commission for the oversight of incomes and property is scheduled to review Gudkov’s activities on Sept. 6. Then, on Sept. |
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I must say that I am very happy with Friday’s decision by the London court. Quite unexpectedly for the entire Russian business community, Judge Elizabeth Gloster found that the plaintiff, self-exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky, was an “unimpressive and inherently unreliable witness” who said “almost anything to support his case” and billionaire Roman Abramovich was a “truthful and on the whole reliable witness. |
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 Yury Shevchuk, Boris Grebenshchikov, Zorge and Markscheider Kunst will perform at a charity concert this week to help the local homeless to survive St. Petersburg’s notoriously harsh cold season.
But despite the gravity of the issue, Zorge frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov said the concert would be pure rock and roll fun.
“We — everybody who is participating — will play our usual sets, cheerful and upbeat songs,” Fyodorov said.
“Homeless people have not necessarily found themselves on the streets as a result of bad habits. I know that many homeless people were the victims of imperfect legislation and, above all, real estate fraud. |
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MARIA SHKODA
ZORGE WILL JOIN A HOST
OF OTHER LOCAL ROCKERS
THIS WEEK FOR A CONCERT
IN SUPPORT OF THE
NOCHLEZHKA HOMELESS
CHARITY. |
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A concert in support of Pussy Riot that came under attack soon after Glavclub — a club with a capacity of 2,500 — was named as its venue earlier this month looks set to go ahead, as the club added the concert to its website and started selling tickets late last week.
The concert will not, however, be advertised on street posters, because the outdoor advertising agency that was approached to do the job “got scared,” the organizers said.
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 The Presidential Library is currently accepting photographs taken by non-professionals from all over the world for its annual Foreign View competition, which will finish in one month.
Both pictures of Russia taken by foreigners and pictures of other countries taken by Russian photographers can be submitted for the competition, whose aim is to establish a dialogue between cultures and attempt to make people look at their own country from another point of view. |
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Local fashionistas are set to join models, designers and bohemians on the evening of Friday, Sept. 7, as they flock to stores around the city to indulge in a bit of nocturnal retail therapy. |
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Ãðå÷êà: buckwheat
As I sat in my kitchen the other day, my eyes rested on a box of the most Russian of Russian grains: ÿäðèöà ãðå÷íåâàÿ (whole-grain buckwheat), aka ãðå÷êà. Odd name, isn’t it? It sounds like it’s related to the word ãðå÷åñêèé (Greek).
Assuming that this phonetic association was an inaccurate bit of armchair — or kitchen stool — etymology, I thought I’d look it up. Instead of a quick clarification, I got caught up in a very strange culinary trip involving ancient history, obsolete names and unusual associations.
Hold on to your hats: Russian ãðå÷êà (also ãðå÷à, ãðå÷èõà) really is derived from the word ãðå÷åñêèé. The grain, which was originally grown in Southeast Asia, found its way into Russia via Greek traveling merchants. |
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 A new exhibit at the State Russian Museum celebrates one of St. Petersburg’s most illustrious families of artists: The Traugot family.
The St. Petersburg family is known foremost for the book illustrations by brothers Alexander (1931-present) and Valery Traugot (1936-2009). |
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The breathtaking Altai region is the subject of a new photo exhibit at St. Petersburg’s House of Nationalities.
“The Melting Beauty of Altai” exhibit consists of more than 30 images captured by art photographers depicting the natural reserves, life and beauty of the centuries-old, majestic yet fragile world of the Altai republic in south-central Siberia. Its main message is the importance of human respect for nature, the conservation of natural resources, man’s responsibility and the prevention of adverse effects caused by the development of modern civilization.
All of the images on show illustrate the connection between natural ecosystems and the devastating results of human interference with the environment. |
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 Last week, long-running children’s show “Spokoinoi Nochi, Malyshi,” or “Good Night, Little Ones,” stirred fears that a new law could lead to censorship of the cartoons — or the show even shifting to a louche 11 p. |
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More than steaks
Cozy and mismatched are two words that delicately sum up the newest steakhouse on St. Petersburg’s reigning restaurant street. From its appearance, Buffalo Steak House looks more like a funky organic hideaway with its low, arched brick ceilings, large wooden surfaces and random eclectic décor than a typical city steakhouse. |
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 The summer in St. Petersburg is coming to an end, causing thoughts to turn to holidays abroad. But travel abroad doesn’t necessarily have to entail a long-haul flight to a hot, faraway destination. Europe has an unlimited wealth of cities that are perfect for short breaks, not least of which is St. Petersburg’s twin city of Hamburg.
St. Petersburg and Hamburg are indeed like sister cities — perhaps born of different fathers, but the same mother: The sea. |
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 Seventeen-year-old Arman says he has no regrets about killing a man who insulted him and his family.
“I believe in justice: Everyone has to get their due for what they do,” says the teenager, who has been sentenced to eight years in prison for murder. |
 LONDON — Self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky lost his multibillion-dollar legal battle against fellow Russian mogul Roman Abramovich on Friday after a British judge ruled that he didn’t tell the truth in the clash over vast oil wealth.
The case in London’s High Court sparked broad interest because of its focus on the two oligarchs’ personal and business relationship in the chaotic days of post-Soviet Russia. |
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Issues Archive