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 The producer of the legendary Kalashnikov rifles, Izhmash, is betting on an increase in exports of nonmilitary weapons, which skyrocketed in the January-to-September period, besting output over the same period a year earlier by 60 percent, the company said Thursday. |
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MOSCOW — A city court has declared Pussy Riot's “punk prayer” video extremist, meaning that media outlets can face closure for publishing the all-female band's famous performance in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. |
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St. Petersburg authorities have dismantled a syndicate they say cost the city 3 billion rubles ($100 million) by installing some 600 kilometers of substandard heating and water pipes.
Top officials in the city's energy and engineering committee and the state treasury's energy infrastructure construction and remodeling department, as well as the heads of several private firms including installer Petrokom and supplier Rustrubprom, took part in the scheme to defraud the city budget, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.
More than 200 law enforcement officials participated in exposing the scheme and conducting 30 searches, the ministry said in a statement. |
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 MOSCOW — The romantic role of train travel in Russian culture is slowly being unseated by cramped airplanes as flight tickets become more affordable and government subsidies for economy-class rail tickets are trimmed, according to a report from Metropol consultancy. |
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Saying the "repressive" label given to new laws on treason and other civil issues is "a pure political tactic," Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev voiced support for the State Duma's reinstating of criminal charges for libel — which overturned one of his own initiatives as president. |
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According to a new poll published Thursday, the approval ratings of President Vladimir Putin and his protege, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, have fallen over the past seven months. |
 There were either 250 participants or about 1,000. They demanded improved conditions or nothing at all. Their protest was plotted by criminal masterminds or it was spontaneous.
Almost nothing is clear about last weekend's revolt at a maximum security prison in the Urals, as official statements, media reports and testimony from human rights activists vary wildly.
What is clear, however, is that the incident has attracted an unusually large amount of attention, with even state television — usually deaf to reports of widespread abuse and corruption in the nation's prison system — devoting prime-time programming to developments at Federal Prison No. |
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 KHIMKI — Decked out in a white lab coat and chatting freely with scientists, Rusnano chief Anatoly Chubais seemed particularly cheerful Wednesday as he welcomed American pharmaceutical company Selecta Biosciences, which aspires to develop the world's first anti-smoking vaccine. |
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A key witness in a Swiss investigation into alleged money-laundering by Russian officials suspected in the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was found dead outside his palatial home in southern England, a media report said Wednesday.
The body of 44-year-old Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichny was discovered two weeks ago, but news of his death came to light only now, The Independent reported. |
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The Moscow City Court on Wednesday handed a 15-year prison sentence to a Caucasus rebel who planned two suicide bombings on Red Square on New Year's Eve two years ago. |
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Members of the Mariinsky Theater ballet troupe have sent an open letter to Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, accusing the theater’s management of not paying their salaries in full and of creating a manipulative system of running the company in which critics of the bosses get restricted access to the stage, which in turn immediately affects their pay.
The petition’s authors spoke about the mass exodus of the most outstanding dancing talent from the company: Leonid Sarafanov defected to the Mikhailovsky Theater in 2010, and that same year, Mikhail Lobukhin left for the Bolshoi Theater, and Yevgenia Obraztsova joined him there one year later.
According to the dancers who signed the petition, soloists and members of the corps de ballet alike are fleeing the Mariinsky because of “ill-conceived planning and disrespect for the artists. |
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GHOST STADIUM
DMITRY LOVETSKY / AP
Zenit goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev (r) and CSKA’s Pontus Vernblum leap for the ball at an empty Petrovsky Stadium on Monday. Zenit was ordered to pay a fine and play two matches behind closed doors after its Nov. 17 match against Dinamo Moscow, in which the Dinamo goalkeeper was injured by a firecracker. |
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Pay Raise for Governor
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Hall introduced a bill to the Legislative Assembly last week in order to update the salary and compensation package of the St. Petersburg governor.
According to the document, the governor is to receive a salary of 170 so-called units of payment a month. The governor is also guaranteed compensation for expenses on business trips and the cost of maintaining an official car, Interfax reported.
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The controversial Trial of 12, which started with 12 activists accused of organizing and conducting “extremist” activities of the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP) in April, came to an end Tuesday with only seven defendants left. Judge Sergei Yakovlev declared a break until Dec. |
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Despite an appeal by St. Petersburg’s soccer club FC Zenit against sanctions imposed by the disciplinary committee of the Russian Football Association last week, Zenit was forced to play a key derby with one of its main rivals, Russian Premier League leader CSKA Moscow, behind closed doors Monday. |
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Imperial Interiors
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The dressing rooms of the Romanov dynasty and the chambers of their maids of honor became part of the permanent exhibition at Gatchina Palace last week.
The rooms have become part of an exhibition called “The Family Members of the Emperor Alexander III in Gatchina,” which forms part of the museum collection of the former royal estate at Gatchina. |
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 MOSCOW — Kommersant has fired opposition-minded journalist Oleg Kashin for writing too much for other media and too little for his employer, the leading daily’s editor said Monday.
“An agreement has been reached with Kashin [to terminate his employment] because he effectively has not worked for Kommersant for one year,” editor Mikhail Mikhailin told Interfax. |
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MOSCOW — The State Duma on Friday passed anti-corruption legislation requiring government officials to prove the legality of their spending and the spending of their spouses and underage children if it exceeds the family’s declared income. |
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MOSCOW — A bank security guard suspected of stealing 8 million rubles ($260,000) from his place of employment was caught at a Perm region spa, police said in an official statement Monday.
Forty-year-old Andrei Sysoyev was partying in a banya with some “easy” girls at the time of a police raid, Life News reported. |
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MOSCOW — Russia will stay neutral on the Syrian civil war but continue to honor arms contracts with President Bashar Assad’s regime, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview published Monday. |
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MOSCOW — Drug police seized more than 175 kilograms of Afghan heroin in a special operation in the Tatarstan republic, the director of the Federal Drug Control Service said Tuesday.
“On the night of Nov. 23, four drug traffickers were arrested in Naberezhniye Chelny, and 175 kilograms of heroin were seized with a diacetylmorphine concentration of 55 percent,” Viktor Ivanov told reporters, according to RIA-Novosti. |
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin is visiting Turkey and Turkmenistan next week, signaling that he is fit for travel again after a two-month hiatus that raised speculation about his health. |
 MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was showered by a wave of ridicule and negative public sentiment on Monday following a weekend tirade against bad driving.
The backlash kicked off on Saturday when Medvedev used the latest entry on his video blog to call for a crackdown on the country’s notoriously lax attitude to driving rules by setting traffic violation fines higher than the average annual wage. |
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MOSCOW — A revolt at a maximum security prison in the Chelyabinsk region by prisoners complaining of corruption and abuse has ended, regional prison officials said in a statement Monday. |
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MOSCOW — Feminist punk band Pussy Riot has been shortlisted for Time magazine’s Person of the Year award.
“In a year when so many voices of liberty and dissent have suffered harsh retribution, the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot has paid a particularly steep price for provocative political expression,” the influential magazine said on its website. |
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 MOSCOW — Russian Railways is giving its transportation hubs a glitzy makeover, with 40 movie theaters set to be created near railway stations in the near future.
These theaters are meant to restore the image of railway stations as cities’ cultural centers, Sergei Abramov, head of Russian Railways’ stations department, said late last week. |
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MOSCOW — If Ukraine turns its plans to slash Russian gas imports into a reality, Gazprom will demand that Naftogaz pay billions of dollars for the 2013 import shortfall as per the “take-or-pay” provision outlined in the contract. |
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MOSCOW — It will take 1,000 years to build a decent road network at current rates of construction, a top official has said.
“The program to modernize the transportation system says we have to build on the order of half a million roads for common use,” Regional Development Minister Igor Slunyayev said Friday. |
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MOSCOW — The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has dropped a case against Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor’s increased stake in VimpelCom, the agency said.
“The Russian Government has decided to withdraw the case brought by the FAS before the Moscow Arbitration Court which was seeking to annul the transaction by Telenor in VimpelCom shares,” the FAS said in a statement Friday. |
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MOSCOW— The Federal Mass Media Inspection Service has put the IP address of a blog service belonging to Google on the “blacklist” of Internet sites containing prohibited information.
Including Blogspot.ru — which contains information including Gmail. |
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MOSCOW — The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service will lift restrictions on Russian companies seeking to list on bourses abroad, in a bid to boost foreign investment, the head of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said. |
 MOSCOW — A recent flurry of proposals related to developing the Far East shows the government’s resolve to make policy adjustments that will attract investment to the hinterland.
In the wake of enormous construction efforts in the east coast city of Vladivostok that enabled it to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in September, the government’s proposals are focused on slashing taxes. |
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 Once upon a time, there was a free country. The country’s citizens could openly express their opinions, share information and read, watch and listen to whatever they wanted. The Constitution of that country stated clearly that censorship was not permitted. |
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On July 14, 1789, as the Paris mob stormed the Bastille, King Louis XVI wrote “rien” in his diary, meaning that nothing of note had happened on that day. |
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 6.jpg) Aino Venna, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Finland, sings in English and French, blending folk, chanson, torch songs and pop, but admits a Finnish music tradition.
Venna, who released her debut album “Marlene” in late October, had success with the album’s first single “Suzette,” which was named the “Summer Hit” by Radio Helsinki and was among the most played songs at Radio Suomi for three months.
Venna will perform in St. Petersburg and Moscow early next week — alongside Big Wave Riders and Tundramatiks — as part of the News from Helsinki project organized by Music Finland. |
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FOR SPT
‘BUDDHA COLLAPSED OUT OF SHAME’ IS ONE OF THE FILMS BEING SHOWN AS PART OF A MOVIE MARATHON IN THE CITY THIS WEEK WITH THE AIM OF PROMOTING TOLERANCE. |
 Humphrey Bogart, a Hollywood legend and one of America’s cultural icons, takes center stage at the upcoming American Film Festival, which will run at the Avrora movie theater from Nov. 28 through Dec. 2. Bogart’s name graces the festival’s title this year as it marks the first retrospective festival of the celebrated actor in Russia.
The star of the golden age of Hollywood, Bogart gained worldwide fame and began building his reputation in cinema’s romantic repertoire after starring in Michael Curtiz’s 1942 classic “Casablanca,” which opens the festival’s program at 7 p.
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If you hang around kids or dogs in Russia, or happen to have some of your own, very early on you’re going to hear the word áÿêà, which means something that is filthy, gross or yucky. The first time your toddler picks up a dirt-encrusted stick and aims it toward his mouth, you shout: Ôó! Áÿêà! (Ew! That’s yucky!)
Dictionaries tell you that the word is imitation baby talk, and I suppose it’s possible that some kids in the babbling stage of language acquisition spit out êà-êà (ca-ca) or áÿêà. |
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MOSCOW — Independent American film director Gary Huswit spoke to a packed audience at Moscow’s Polytechnic Institute on Monday about “crowdfunding,” the Internet phenomenon that is revolutionizing the media industry. |
 This week will see the city attempt to inculcate tolerance for other cultures among city residents via the medium of cinema.
The “Art Without Borders” marathon of movies from around the world event kicked off at the Dom Kino and Rodina movie theaters on Nov. |
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On entering a restaurant named Leica, one might expect to be welcomed by a barrage of photo-related décor, as a tribute to the renowned camera company of the same name. |
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 Locals complain that outsiders are often surprised to find out that Murom actually exists, having heard of the small town in the Vladimir region only from fairy tales.
Murom is featured in a wide range of literature, usually as a gateway into a fantasy world of epic battles, dragons, heroic quests, slain martyrs, gods, princes and saints or a time machine that brings you back to the age of Vikings, pagan tribes and fierce nomads. |
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 YARABAIKASY, Chuvashia — When Eduard Mochalov tried to have the people who stole his cattle and pig farm brought to justice, he spent eight months in jail on charges he says were cooked up. |
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 CAIRO — Thousands flocked to Cairo’s central Tahrir Square on Tuesday for a protest against Egypt’s president in a significant test of whether the opposition can rally the street behind it in a confrontation aimed at forcing the Islamist leader to rescind decrees that granted him near absolute powers. |
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DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed in a weekend fire at a garment factory, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps. |
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RAMALLAH, West Bank — Yasser Arafat’s political heirs on Tuesday opened his grave and foreign experts took samples of the iconic Palestinian leader’s remains as part of a long-shot attempt — eight years after his mysterious death — to determine whether he was poisoned. |
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TOKYO — A group of American scientists met in Tokyo on Tuesday to study last year’s Fukushima nuclear accident in hopes of finding lessons to improve the safety of U. |
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Issues Archive