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MOSCOW - One year after a wave of deadly apartment building explosions rocked Moscow and two other cities, killing over 300 people, federal law-enforcement officials have charged only a handful of the suspected culprits, despite dozens of arrests in the cases. |
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MOSCOW - Russia's parliamentary leaders and President Vladimir Putin agreed on Wednesday to embark on a three-year crash course to thwart what they said was an anticipated chain of disasters due to hit the country in 2003. |
 The St. Petersburg administration has announced a four-year plan to press on with a trio of city projects that have been in the works for a number of years. But as analysts and officials mull the projects over, nobody seems to know where the finances are going to come from. The plan - which was revealed at the end of last month - is aimed in part at preparing the city and the region for an expected rise in goods traffic through the St. |
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 It works on mice. It seems to be working on Gazprom employees. And scientists in St. Petersburg reckon that they have come up with a formula for a longer, healthier life that can work for anyone. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - Although prescribing no explicitly repressive measures against the press, the doctrine on information security signed this week by President Vla di mir Putin has journalists and analysts worried that its vague wording and focus on state security may lead to a state-sanctioned crackdown on press freedom. The 46-page document drafted and approved by the advisory but influential Security Council last June, and displayed in full on the council's Web site Wednesday, identifies four major areas of national interest: . the constitutional right of citizens to procure and use information; . the necessity to provide reliable coverage of state policy; . |
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 Lyudmila Narusova, ex-Duma deputy and widow of former St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, will be hosting a weekly debate program entitled "Freedom of Speech" on RTR state television starting next week. |
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MOSCOW - After five years of investigations and hearings, the case against naval officer-turned-environmentalist Alexander Nikitin is officially over. After an hour-long session Wednesday, the Presidium of the Supreme Court, the country's highest appeals body, dismissed the prosecution's appeal to send the 28-volume case for a renewed investigation, putting an end to the Kafka-esque saga. |
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Legislative Assembly lawmakers on Wednesday approved another three vice governors to Gov. Vladimir Yakovlev's administration, leaving only two posts out of a total of 15 to be filled. |
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Even spies need a who's who guide. While the secrets of the Russian secret services aren't likely to be made available to the general public anytime soon, a curious person can now turn to a new Internet portal, www.agentura.ru, to make basic inroads into the murky world of spies. |
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Estonia changed its rules for Russian citizens living right on the two countries' border last week, revoking special passes and making visas compulsory. |
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ST. PETERSBURG - Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said Wednesday he doubted the bodies of all 118 sailors could be safely evacuated from the Kursk nuclear submarine, which sank a month ago in the Barents Sea. Klebanov told a news conference that an operation to evacuate the bodies would start in early October and be completed by Nov. |
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Russia Just as Corrupt n MOSCOW (SPT) - Russia held on to its dubious position as the 82nd-most-corrupt nation in the world Wednesday, according to Privacy International's annual corruption survey. |
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WASHINGTON - A drive toward a workable, law-based society and economy is prompting new optimism about Russia, a senior official from the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, said on Monday. John Odling-Smee, responsible for ties between the IMF and countries of the former Soviet Union, also said he hoped Ukraine would soon be able to finish work on a reform program that the IMF could back with cash. In an interview with an IMF publication, IMF Survey, Odlling-Smee said that the countries across the region needed to build opportunities for investment, liberalize their financial systems, protect property rights and curb corruption. "We have been very concerned about Russia's fiscal difficulties in the past, which at least up to last year came about largely because enterprises were not willing to pay the full amount of tax and the government did not have the authority to extract the tax from them," he said. |
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 MOSCOW - The sold-out trains and long ticket lines of one of the most frustrating summers for rail passengers in several years are over, as families return to school and the workplace, and the residents of northern Russia prepare to stay home for the long winter. |
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PETROZAVODSK, Karelia Republic - Nestled on the banks of Lake Onega, Petrazavodsk is known more for natural beauty and sturdy birch than setting the standard for telecommunication-industry restructuring. But when the management of Karelia Elektrosvyaz and Artelecom gathered at Karelia Elektrosvyaz headquarters here last week to present their results for the first half of 2000, the impending consolidation took center stage. |
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MOSCOW - Shock waves rippled through the investment community Wednesday when mobile operators Vimpelcom and MTS said the Communications Ministry had ordered them to give up a combined 52 frequencies. |
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MOSCOW - In another sign that the economy is picking up after a disastrous post-crisis period, the nation's largest airline, Aeroflot, announced Tuesday higher-than-expected results for the first eight months of 2000. The carrier said it flew 613,900 passengers in August alone - a decade high - and average seat occupancy, including chartered flights, steadily grew, reaching 74. |
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Russia in Tobacco Suit n MOSCOW (Vedomosti) - Russia has filed a claim against major U.S. tobacco companies with the District Court of the State of Florida, which recently ruled they must pay smokers a punitive award of $145 billion. |
 Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was on hand Wednesday for the official opening of the new Saimenskaya customs inspection point at the border of Russia and Finland on the Brusnichnoye shosse, which runs between Vyborg and Lappeenranta, Finland. Kasyanov said that the new facility was vital for transport between the two countries and for shortening lines on both sides of the border. He said that 2,400 vehicles a day are expected to pass through the customs point. |
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 MOSCOW - All investor eyes were set on the government Thursday as it closed the country's first privatization tender under the reform-minded government of President Vladimir Putin. |
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The government as usual went all euphemistic this week to describe assassination attempts against President Vladimir Putin. It was a week when Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov realized he was not immune from kompromat, as rumors were rife that his post was in danger. |
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THE burning question these days is whether or not Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov will lose his job. Until recently, many thought that Kasyanov would be removed soon and that he would be replaced by Sergei Ivanov, secretary of the Security Council. |
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KHRUSHCHEV? The one who banged a shoe?" Not again! I wish it had never happened, I thought for the thousandth time when I was asked for the thousandth time if I had seen pictures of the UN shoe incident. I hadn't and didn't want to. For all these years, I was slightly embarrassed by my grandfather's uncivilized behavior, exposed the world over. |
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 Boris Grebenshchikov is getting ready to turn the page over for the millennium - these days the Russian rock guru is putting the finishing touches to his definitive "best-of" album, which will also be Akvarium's first release available worldwide. Called "Territorium - the Best of Boris Grebenshchikov and Aquarium," the album is a collection of the band's best songs "as viewed by the Akvarium of today. |
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High-tech investor Alberto Vilar will give $24 million to St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Opera and the Los Angeles Opera for productions designed to travel the world instead of being dismantled after one season. |
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The ties that bind Mexico with Russia are probably tenuous at best. The only one that comes to mind for me is that Leon Trotsky, one of the more renowned leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and virtual creator of the Red Army, eventually wound up in Mexico after being kicked out of the Soviet Union by Stalin in 1929. |
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After last year's skeptical reception of Martha Fiennes' "Onegin," one could not help but wonder how Alexander Proshkin's adaptation of the Pushkin novella "The Captain's Daughter" would be received. |
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Look out for Siberian craftsman Anatoly Konenko in the next edition of the Guinness Book of Records. He is responsible for the smallest book in the world, Anton Chekhov's story "Chameleon," which is less than a square millimeter in size, and includes three hand-colored illustrations. It is currently on display at the exhibition "Miracles under Microscope" at the Ethnographic Museum. The book was first presented at the Frankfurt World Book Fair in Leipzig in 1997, and was officially considered to be the smallest book worldwide at the 15th Congress of Micro-books in New York - beating the world record set by Ian McDonald, Scottish publisher, when he released "Old King Cole" in 1985. |
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 The new theatrical season is upon us, with some theaters already operating, and others about to open this month. Kirill Galetski and Galina Stolyarova look at the productions that St. |
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Last Saturday saw the much-hyped Moscow stadium concert to promote the follow-up to the soundtrack to "Brat-2," the movie criticized for violence and extreme nationalism - but popular with youth not only for pure action but also for its music. The soundtrack features almost all currently popular acts- all in heavy rotation on the radio and music television. |
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VIENNA, Austria - European Union countries have unconditionally lifted diplomatic sanctions they imposed on Austria, but they say they will keep a wary eye on future activities of the far-right Freedom Party in its government. Austria's 14 EU partners, ending Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's seven-month diplomatic quarantine on Tuesday evening, said they still had deep reservations about Joerg Haider's Freedom Party and vowed to monitor the group carefully. |
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Croatia Crackdown n ZAGREB, Croatia (Reuters) - Croatia arrested a dozen people, including two army generals, on Tuesday in what appeared to be a major crackdown against those allegedly involved in wartime atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia. |
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LONDON - Angry farmers staged a short-lived blockade of an oil refinery in Germany Thursday as fuel price protests in Britain began to crumble over concern that the nationwide action could endanger lives and jobs. German police said the farmers, who had used up to 50 tractors to block off the refinery in the northwestern town of Lingen, agreed to end the action after little over an hour. |
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Issues Archive