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St. Petersburg prosecutors are checking whether an exhibit by British artists incited religious hatred by displaying Ronald McDonald and a teddy bear nailed to a crucifix.
Prosecutors have received 117 complaints about the "The End of Fun" exhibit by brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman at the State Hermitage Museum, Interfax reported Friday, citing local prosecutors. |
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A St. Petersburg court Friday sentenced former mixed-martial-arts fighter Vyacheslav Datsik to five years in prison for robbery and arson.
Datsik, who fought under the nickname "Red-Haired Tarzan," has denied his guilt and intends to appeal the Nevsky District Court's verdict, RIA-Novosti reported, citing Datsik's lawyer. |
 MOSCOW — Open disagreement between Moscow and Washington over human rights and democracy as well as intra-organization infighting overshadowed high-level talks of Europe's top security watchdog Thursday.
During a foreign ministers meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused each other's governments of not complying with the organization's principles. |
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 MOSCOW — Law enforcement officials Friday morning raided the flat of a director filming an ongoing documentary series about the lives of opposition leaders. |
 MOSCOW — A popular local TV anchor was shot dead in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria late Wednesday in what investigators and observers interpreted as a warning to the journalist's bosses not to give news coverage to authorities' fight against local rebels.
In a separate attack, a deputy transportation minister for the republic was hospitalized in Nalchik on Thursday morning after his car exploded as he was leaving his home. |
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 MOSCOW — Russia will impose a visa ban on U.S. citizens accused of human rights abuses in response to the "absurd" trade and human rights bill passed by the U. |
 MOSCOW — Activists who took part in large-scale protests against the Kremlin over the last year are putting their hopes in new political parties that could be used as a platform for opposition leaders like Alexei Navalny.
With public enthusiasm for protests seeming to have waned after a year of mass demonstrations, members of the opposition are building political parties to give people a new vehicle to put forth their demands. |
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 MOSCOW — The head of Opora vowed Wednesday to continue the small-business association's cooperation with a U.S.-Russian business group that he said was maligned by "yellow" press in the wake of the new law on nongovernmental groups. |
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FONTAINEBLEAU, France — The single line of Napoleon's secret code told Paris of his desperate last order against the Russians: "At three o'clock in the morning, on the 22nd I am going to blow up the Kremlin."
By the time Paris received the letter three days later, the Russian tsar's seat of power was in flames and the diminished French army was in retreat. Its elegantly calligraphic ciphers show history's famed general at one of his weakest moments.
"My cavalry is in tatters, many horses are dying," dictated Napoleon, the once-feared leader showing the strain of his calamitous Russian invasion, which halved his army.
The rare document, dated Oct. |
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 MOSCOW — Even as the government wages a high-profile anti-corruption campaign, Russia remains in the bottom third of Transparency International’s corruption index, released Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin came third in Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's most powerful people, down one position from last year's ranking.
For the second year in a row, first place went to recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama. German Chancellor Angela Merkel came in second, up from fourth in 2011.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates was given fourth place, moving up one position from last year, and was followed by Pope Benedict XVI, who also improved his ranking since 2011.
Forbes' top 10 also included Ben Bernanke, head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, General Secretary of China's Communist Party Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister David Cameron. |
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 MOSCOW — Forestry workers can expect a pay raise next year as the government seeks to get a grip on the endemic wildfire problem and widespread illegal logging. |
All photos from issue.
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Hundreds of local environmental activists took part in a citywide smart recycling initiative Saturday organized by the St. Petersburg "Waste Separation" environmental group. Local residents joined group's members and Greenpeace activists in a waste collection and separation event that was held in eight districts of the city.
“Our goal was to promote the idea of separating waste for recycling,” said Maria Musatova, spokeswoman for the St. Petersburg branch of Greenpeace. “For a healthy environment it is essential that residents do not perceive used items as “garbage” but rather understand the policy of recycling, and how, for instance, plastic items should be treated and processed differently from waste paper and cardboard. |
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CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO / AP
A little girl walks past a Christmas tree in the GUM department store on Moscow’s Red Square on Tuesday. St. Petersburg is also getting ready for the festive
season, with decorations and trees going up all over town. Father Frost, the Russian Santa, is expected to switch on the city’s Christmas lights on Dec. 22. |
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The St. Petersburg opposition has applied to City Hall for approval to hold a rally on Saturday, Dec. 15 to mark the anniversary of the December 2011 protests, when tens of thousands took to the streets to protest fraud and violations recorded during the Dec. 4 State Duma elections.
Called the March of Freedom, the rally is set to coincide with the Moscow march of the same name initiated by the Opposition Coordination Council elected in October.
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St. Petersburg schoolteacher Tatyana Ivanova, who spoke out about falsifications at the State Duma elections last year, has won a court case against her former superiors.
The St. Petersburg city court dismissed the claim of Natalya Nazarova, head of the Vasileostrovsky district education department, who had sought to obtain recognition that what Ivanova had told Novaya Gazeta newspaper had “discredited her reputation. |
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Local shopaholics and fashionistas are looking forward to the night of Dec. 7, the city’s biggest pre-Christmas shopping event embracing St. Petersburg’s most prominent luxury boutiques and top-class shopping centers. |
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St. Petersburg SKA’s new head coach Jukka Jalonen, who was introduced to the team following last Friday’s 6-1 loss to Spartak Moscow, held his first practice with the team Monday.
SKA signed Jalonen, Finland’s national team coach, on Nov. 29 on an 18-month contract. |
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St. Petersburg authorities have dismantled a syndicate they say cost the city budget 3 billion rubles ($100 million) by installing some 600 kilometers of substandard heating and water pipes. |
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Senior officials and millionaires from St. Petersburg could be symbolically equated to endangered species if City Hall pushes ahead with its proposal to designate their elite residential area on a centrally located island a nature reserve.
The St. Petersburg city legislature’s commission on urban planning has compiled a list of about 30 sites that would be mandated by law as sites required to go through ecological tests to determine whether they should be declared nature reserves. |
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City to Host G20
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The G20 summit will be held in St. Petersburg on Sept. 5 to 6 next year, Anton Siluanov, head of the Finance Ministry, announced at a press conference in Moscow on Monday. |
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 MOSCOW — Talk about Vladimir Putin’s health resurfaced Friday after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reportedly said he had postponed a visit to Moscow because Putin was feeling unwell.
“It’s about [Putin’s] health problem. This is not something that can be made public,” Noda told officials on the northern island of Hokkaido about the delay of his trip, according to Reuters, which quoted Japanese news reports citing one of the officials. |
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MOSCOW — The European Court of Human Rights has asked Russia and Ukraine to provide information about the criminal case against opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev, his lawyer Anna Stavitskaya said. |
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MOSCOW — Fyodor Khitruk, one of Russia’s most renowned animators and the creator of the Russian version of the “Winnie the Pooh” cartoon, died Monday morning at his home in Moscow at age 95.
Khitruk was born on April 18, 1917, in Tver, approximately 200 kilometers northwest of Moscow. |
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MOSCOW — A regional investigator who was publicly grilled over his decision to close a criminal case against anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny was fired Tuesday, according to a statement on the Kremlin website. |
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MOSCOW — Social problems like the quality of local education and state of the utilities sector are causing growing instability in Russia’s regions, a report by an influential think tank said Tuesday.
The report by the St. Petersburg politics think tank said that average estimates of regional stability have dropped from 7.05 to 6.90 points across the country since the October regional elections.
On the think tank’s scale, 10 signifies stability and 0 instability.
The report, which assessed the situation in 83 regions, cited the utilities sector and education as major sources of concern that could lead to “social risks,” Kommersant reported Tuesday. |
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 MOSCOW — Officials on Monday passed around blame for a 70-kilometer traffic jam on the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway that trapped 9,000 drivers over the weekend with scarce food, water and fuel, following heavy snowfall. |
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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin used his first known trip in almost two months to boost economic ties with Turkey and slam a NATO plan to place surface-to-air missiles on the Turkish-Syrian border.
The one-day visit to Istanbul also seemed to refute rumors that Putin is suffering from poor health. |
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 City Hall last Wednesday approved the adoption of a program titled “The Protection and Development of Konyushennaya and ‘North Kolomna-New Holland’ from 2013-2018.” The amount of investment will come to 86.9 billion rubles ($2.8 billion), of which 69 billion rubles ($2. |
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MOSCOW — Sakha republic leader Yegor Borisov has said after meeting Transportation Minister Maxim Sokolov that work has begun on the design of a bridge across the Lena River. |
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MOSCOW — A decision on reforming the International Monetary Fund’s distribution of voting quotas among member states is likely to be made next year, as it is one of the key issues on the agenda of the G20 summit to be hosted by Russia, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Monday. |
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MOSCOW — Apple on Tuesday launched a Russian version of its bestselling iTunes Store, but the online music shop so far offers a limited selection of Russian songs because the U. |
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MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday put forth a finalized version of the government’s plan for improving the country’s dilapidated housing stock and making quality apartments more accessible.
The measure is designed to fulfill a decree on housing issued by President Vladimir Putin on May 7, his first day in office.
Titled “Providing Accessible and Comfortable Housing and Building Management,” it lays out a slew of goals ranging from increasing the level of the mortgage lending to developing “noncommercial housing stock” to cleaning up drinking water.
The overarching goals “are to increase the population’s access to housing,” including high-quality housing, which the government is obligated to provide to special groups such as young families, and “to increase the quality and safety of provided housing and utilities,” according to the government’s website. |
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 MOSCOW— The founders of the Korkunov premium chocolate boutique that opened in Moscow’s AFIMALL City on Sunday hope to transform Russians into chocolate gourmands. |
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MOSCOW — Russia has applied to host the Expo world exhibition in Yekaterinburg in 2020.
The application documents were submitted to the headquarters of the International Exhibitions Bureau, or BIE, in Paris.
Vicente Gonzalez Loscerates, BIE’s secretary general, personally accepted the application from the representatives of the Russian delegation. |
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 In 2007, Semyon Vainshtok stepped down as head of state-owned Transneft and was replaced by Federal Security Service General Nikolai Tokarev.
The siloviki had long waged a backroom fight to remove Vainshtok, and the Audit Chamber compiled a secret report on his murky activities as Transneft chief. |
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Thousands of Russians are preparing for a very special day during the last half of December. And they are looking for special deals and attractive offers to mark the occasion. |
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 When people feel their freedom of speech is limited, and what they are fed by the media is often pure propaganda or mere informational noise serving to distract their attention from pressing issues, they start to express themselves on the streets, be it through rallies or political graffiti.
An exhibition titled “Voice of the Streets” that opened last month at Loft Project Etagi, an arts center located in a former bread factory, documents the current state of the messages expressed on city walls in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities, ranging from anarchist and left-wing to feminist and pacifist.
Although a number of the exhibits seem apolitical, most represent direct forms of political and social protest.
Surprisingly, the exhibition’s organizer, PublicPost, has links to both the authorities and liberals.
PublicPost is a website created in November 2011 by the Russian state bank Sberbank, news agency Interfax and Alexei Venediktov, editor of Ekho Moskvy radio station, which enjoys a reputation as a liberal station. |
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SERGEY CHERNOV / SPT
‘RUSSIAN BEAR’ BY SLAVA PTRK
IS ONE OF THE WORKS ON SHOW
AT AN EXHIBITION OF PROTESTTHEMED
STREET ART AT LOFT
PROJECT ETAGI. |
 A group of St. Petersburg sociologists have published their insights into the lives of Russia’s imprisoned women. Titled “Before and After Prison: Women’s Stories,” the book (in Russian) blends uncensored stories written by prisoners with a professional assessment of the plight of the country’s female prison population.
“There were thirty of us sharing the same room in the colony,” recalled Galina, a prisoner whose story is included in the book.
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One of my more grim memories of early Russian language learning is sitting in my college dorm room, a textbook in my lap, eyes shut and repeating verb declensions over and over again: ÿ ïèøó, òû ïèøåøü, îí ïèøåò… (I write, you write, he writes…) The point was to sear those forms into my brain so that eventually, one day, just maybe I could say ÿ (I) and automatically follow the word with the properly declined verb.
I’m happy to say that the old-fashioned rote method finally worked.
Now the problem is modifying those imprinted verb forms to accept idioms and constructions that violate them.
Take the idiom áåðè íå õî÷ó, which, thanks to years of declensions whispered into the night, I would translate as “you take — I don’t want (to). |
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 Karen Shakhnazarov’s “White Tiger,” a World War II fantasy blending history, philosophy and the supernatural, has made it onto the long list of Oscar 2013 nominees for Best Foreign Language Films. |
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MOSCOW — “I’m a gallery owner again,” he said.
Marat Guelman, a former political spin doctor, returns less than six months after closing his Moscow gallery and after a period of semi-exile in Perm, where he attempted to make the Urals city a cultural powerhouse. |
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Dinner in Narnia
Stepping into Tao, the latest addition to the parade of hip, upscale eateries on Konyushennaya Ploshchad, off of the blustering streets of wintry St. |
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 The St. Petersburg office real estate sector has become more “civilized,” according to analysts from consulting companies. The city is attracting more and more large international and Russian tenants who wish to have an office here.
“The deadlines announced for launching new projects are being adhered to, and property owners and management companies offer commercial conditions with full services and maintenance,” said Marina Puzanova, head of the office real estate department at Knight Frank St. |
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Investments in the Russian commercial real estate market could reach $6.5 billion by the end of the year, according to data published by consulting company Knight Frank. |
 This year is considered to have been a stable year on the residential real estate market, with no drastic increase in prices observed. Next year, analysts predict stable growth in this sector of 1 to 1.3 percent every month, totaling a 12 to 15 percent rise by the end of 2013. |
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During the last two years the development of the St. Petersburg hotel real estate market has advanced significantly, according to experts at consulting company Colliers International. |
 BUCHA, Ukraine — Andrei Mandrykin, an inmate at Prison No. 85 outside Kiev, has HIV. He looks ghostly and much older than his 35 years. But Mandrykin is better off than tens of thousands of his countrymen, because he is receiving treatment amid what the World Health Organization says is the worst AIDS epidemic in Europe. |
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 BEIRUT — Syrian forces fired artillery at rebel targets in and around Damascus on Tuesday as the country’s civil war closed in on President Bashar Assad’s seat of power and the international community grew increasingly alarmed about the regime’s chemical weapons stocks. |
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TEHRAN, Iran — Iran claimed Tuesday it had captured a U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf — even showing an image of a purportedly downed craft on state TV — but the U. |
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JERUSALEM — Israel is moving forward with plans for two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem, a spokeswoman said Tuesday, even as a senior Palestinian official warned that his government could pursue war crimes charges if Israel doesn’t halt such construction. |
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TOKYO — The deadly collapse last weekend of hundreds of concrete ceiling slabs in a tunnel outside Tokyo is raising calls for more spending on Japan’s aging infrastructure, but the country might simply not have the money. |
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Issues Archive