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 Cases against three more activists from The Other Russia party were dropped Tuesday, thus downsizing the number of defendants on trial for allegedly continuing the activities of the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP) from the initial 12 to eight.
Judge Sergei Yakovlev closed the cases after defendants Vladislav Ivakhnik, Vadim Mamedov and Alexei Zentsov motioned Friday for the cases against them to be closed on the grounds that two years (the expiration term for petty crimes) had passed since they were last arrested during the protest rallies.
Last week, the case against Oleg Petrov was dropped on the same grounds, and the Nizhny Novgorod-based author and The Other Russia activist Zakhar Prilepin testified in the case as a defense witness.
The author, 37, who won the National Bestseller literary prize as Russia’s best writer of the past decade in 2011, belonged to the NBP until it was banned and is now a member of The Other Russia.
Prilepin, who was an OMON special task police officer before he became a journalist and author, said he had known The Other Russia leader Eduard Limonov, who co-founded the NBP in 1993, since 1996 and had got acquainted with some of the defendants, including Andrei Dmitriyev, Andrei Pesotsky and Igor Boikov, in 2001. |
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RING OF FIRE
DMITRY LOVETSKY / AP
A member of a Russian traditional riding club jumps through a burning ring during a festival marking the 200th anniversary of the Battle of
Borodino in St. Petersburg on Sunday. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day event of the French invasion of Russia in 1812. |
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The St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Public Council of the Russian Interior Ministry has taken action over the so-called “traps” set by local traffic police (GIBDD).
Nikolai Kropachev, head of the council, said they had received many complaints from drivers, saying that local traffic police officers often take advantage of a number of unclear or confusing road signs and markings in the city in order to fine car owners.
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While Russian outbound tourism, including from St. Petersburg, is showing stable growth and taking a leading position in the world, foreign tourism operators are in turn expanding their services on the local tourism market.
Last week TUI, a major European tourism operator, announced the launch of flights from St. Petersburg on both TUI branded planes and regular planes.
The company will start flights on TUI branded planes to the Egyptian resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada on Oct. 7. The operator will also offer package holidays with direct flights from St. Petersburg to Thailand, Spain, Tenerife and the United Arab Emirates.
“All our customers enjoy a European standard of operations in both the services we provide and at the holiday resorts, and we want St. |
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 While the March of Millions drew about 100,000 in Moscow on Saturday, according to organizers’ estimates, the St. Petersburg rally split into several and ultimately drew fewer participants than a similar rally on June 12. |
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St. Petersburg’s five millionth resident is expected to be born in the city this weekend.
Doctors and statisticians say the child will be born on Sept. 22 or 23, Interfax reported.
Every day about 180 children are born in St. Petersburg. This weekend, the city’s maternity homes will reportedly inform the relevant city committees online about newborn babies. |
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The city’s Moskovsky district court will on Oct. 11 begin hearings in the lawsuit filed against pop star Madonna and organizers of the concert at which she performed in St. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW — Following the expulsion of opposition Deputy Gennady Gudkov from the State Duma for unlawful entrepreneurship, parliament will investigate other reports of lawmakers engaging in illegal business activities, regardless of their political affiliation, a senior pro-Kremlin deputy said Monday. |
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MOSCOW — Russian Internet users could face a YouTube blackout if a video clip responsible for ongoing protests across the Muslim world is declared extremist by authorities, a top government official warned Tuesday. |
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MOSCOW — A Russian tourist may face up to two years in prison for not declaring a $1.8 million watch he brought to Moscow from New York, the Federal Customs Service said Monday.
As the man attempted to pass through customs at Domodedovo Airport via the green channel, for “no goods to declare,” he was stopped and his luggage was searched.
Inside a “handbag,” officials uncovered a Jacob & Co. diamond-encrusted Rainbow Tourbillon gold watch with an estimated value of 54.5 million rubles, far exceeding the 10,000 euro limit for an undeclared item, the customs service said in a statement.
The man, whose identity has not been disclosed, told officials that the watch was a present from friends in America and he was unaware of its value. |
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 MOSCOW — Sending a signal of defiance to President Vladimir Putin, an eclectic crowd of tens of thousands marched peacefully through central Moscow over the weekend, although their numbers appeared smaller than at previous protests. |
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YALTA, Ukraine — A top U.S. official said Saturday that Ukraine is failing its test on democracy in the run-up to parliamentary elections, citing the jailing of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and shrinking media freedoms.
The jailing of Tymoshenko, the country’s top opposition leader and heroine of the 2004 Orange Revolution, has strained Ukraine’s relations with the West, which has condemned her conviction as politically motivated. |
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MOSCOW — A 15-month guessing game for investors ended Monday as the Central Bank announced it was launching the long-awaited sale of a $5 billion stake in state-owned financial mammoth Sberbank.
Considered a proxy for Russia itself, a successful conclusion to Sberbank’s deal would lay a stable foundation for the Kremlin’s ambitious privatization program, which is looking to raise $9 billion this year alone.
The sale of 7.58 percent of the country’s biggest lender will leave the Central Bank with a majority holding of 50 percent plus one share.
A decision to go ahead with the placement has been repeatedly delayed because of turbulent market conditions, political uncertainty and fragile commodity prices. |
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 MOSCOW — The Russian Orthodox Church is prevailing in a dispute over its free use of government land on which its buildings are located, potentially avoiding a giant bill. |
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MOSCOW — The government may double subsidies to Russian Railways next year in a bid to stave off reductions of passenger services.
Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said at the Baikal Economic Forum last Thursday that subsidies to the monopoly in 2012 amounted to 100 billion rubles ($3 billion). |
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MOSCOW — Belarus’ State Property Committee has begun preparations for the auctioning off of the state’s 51 percent stake in the joint venture it has with Russian cell phone giant Mobile TeleSystems. |
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 As President Vladimir Putin tries to strengthen his vertical power structure, the country’s social divisions are growing deeper.
The Pussy Riot case divided Russian society between those calling for leniency for the women and those who demanded that they be severely punished. |
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After returning from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vladivostok, foreign guests are still trying to make sense of what they saw there and asking themselves whether Russia will ever be able to develop the Far East. |
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 Dozens of international music stars — from Madonna and Sting to Peter Gabriel and Paul McCartney — expressed their support for the imprisoned women of feminist punk group Pussy Riot, who were sentenced to two years in prison for an anti-Putin performance in a Moscow church. Last week, Russian state television struck back by alleging that the artists were paid for their support.
Called “Provocateurs 2” as a follow-up to a show aired in April, the program — seemingly aimed to further demonize Pussy Riot and their supporters — contained an interview with American analyst William Dunkerley, who cited unnamed sources in British show business as saying that the London-based PR firm Bell Pottinger offered to pay up to 100,000 euros to artists for statements in support of Pussy Riot. |
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JESSICA GORTER’S
FILM ‘900 DAYS’
ABOUT THE SIEGE OF
LENINGRAD WILL BE
SHOWN AT THIS
YEAR’S MESSAGE TO
MAN FESTIVAL. |
 Message To Man, Russia’s only international festival of documentary, animated and short non-documentary films, kicks off on Sept. 22, pushing its boundaries and embracing drama theater. Two cutting-edge theater companies — Moscow’s Teatr.doc and Belguim’s Liege Theater Festival — will present some of their most recent and much-discussed productions.
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One of the most talked-about events among the city’s beau monde this week was the opening of the French footwear company Christian Louboutin. Twenty years after the creation of the legendary brand, the designer and company founder himself came to St. |
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Êëèí: birds flying in a V-shaped formation
On this fine September day after the start of the school year, it’s time for a pop quiz. Ëåòÿò æóðàâëè (the cranes are flying) is:
a) the name of a famous Soviet film
b) what Vladimir Putin exclaimed on a hang-glider flight to lead Siberian cranes south
c) the phrase that launched a thousand witticisms
d) all of the above. |
 St. Petersburg is one of three Russian cities welcoming Romanian culture as a part of a cultural exchange festival this week.
The show “Mozart Rocks” will officially open the Days of Romanian Culture festival on Sept. 24 at the city’s Music Hall.
“Mozart Rocks,” created by producer Constantin Teodorescu in 2006, sees the works of Mozart played on electric guitars together with a philharmonic orchestra, and famous rock songs by bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd arranged in a classical style. |
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 The program of the Year of Germany in St. Petersburg 2012-2013 was officially presented in the city last week.
The Year of Germany in Russia represents the Russian half of a cultural exchange between the two countries that began in June. |
 This month, NTV launched a new reality show, “The Call of Fate,” where sleazy “model producer” Pyotr Listerman helps a millionaire choose from a harem of young women.
The idea of the show is close to that of the U.S show “The Bachelor,” where women compete for the affections of a man who has been deemed highly eligible. |
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Third time lucky?
It’s easy to see why at first Angliiskaya Naberezhnaya seems to be an attractive proposition to the restaurateur. It’s just around the corner from the Bronze Horseman and St. |
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 ODESSA, Ukraine — “The air conditioner is broken, but you’re very welcome to come in,” an attractive restaurant hostess says with a charming smile. “Here in Odessa, you cannot feel let down.”
Situated on the Black Sea in southern Ukraine, the nation’s fourth-largest city is as renowned for its warm water seaport as for its humor.
Native son Mikhail Zhvanetsky, a beloved satirist, once wrote: “In Odessa they joke without end, but this is not humor, it’s a condition caused by heat and audacity. |
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 MOSCOW — A pair of modern-day Cossacks begin their patrol at 8 p.m. on a cool September evening. They’re on the lookout for lawbreakers: Drunks, drug addicts, youths out after curfew — anybody disturbing the peace in Lyublino, a quiet residential district in southeast Moscow. |
Temp: -1°C clear 
Issues Archive