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 Editor's note: This is the first installment in a periodic series on high-school education in St. Petersburg. Life is strictly timed here. For decades, school has come alive at eight in the morning and gone to rest late in the afternoon. It is a small, independent state, which has its own laws, its own governors, its own history and even its own budget. |
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Two customers at a prestigious restaurant in the center of St. Petersburg were beaten up by security staff after complaining they had been charged for food that they had not eaten. |
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MOSCOW - Keeping up a frenetic pace these days, the Prosecutor General's Office arrested the head of Media-MOST's finance department on Tuesday and sent him to the Butyrskaya Prison pending trial The arrest of Anton Titov is the latest step against Media-MOST head Vla dimir Gusinsky, who is charged with fraud in a case widely seen as an attempt to force him to give up his NTV television station. |
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MOSCOW - Police in New York have detained former top Kremlin aide Pavel Bo rodin under a warrant issued by Swiss authorities for alleged money laundering, and Russia on Thursday immediately demanded his unconditional release. |
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MOSCOW - The State Duma's spring session got off to a rocky start Wednesday when most of the liberal lawmakers boycotted the first few minutes of the opening meeting. The deputies said they decided not to be present as the national anthem was played - a traditional part of the first session. At the end of last year, parliament reinstated the Soviet-era melody, much to the chagrin of the Yabloko and Union of Right Forces, or SPS, factions. |
All photos from issue.
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 Nearly 400,000 city commuters could be affected by a business tax taking effect Feb. 1 that could gut profits for St. Petersburg's most rapidly developing transport option: the marshrutka, or minibus taxi, van operators complained. The marshrutki are private minivans that run alternative, and often more convenient, routes in the city's currently dilapidated transport system. |
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Murder Suspect Held ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Ukrainian Security Service said Wednesday that it has arrested a reputed St. Petersburg criminal under suspicion that he masterminded a number of contract killings and robberies. |
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MOSCOW - A rogue former British intelligence agent on the run for three years will publish his banned memoirs in Moscow next week amid claims that the publisher is linked to the Russian secret services. The book "The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security" by Richard Tomlinson will be published in English and describe in detail the workings of one of Britain's most secretive organizations, the MI6, as well as insights into Tomlinson's time as an agent in Moscow. |
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BAIKONUR, Kazakstan - The launch of a cargo rocket to guide the veteran Mir space station back to Earth after a 15-year mission has been put off because of a new glitch on the troubled station, officials said Thursday. |
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MOSCOW - Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov on Tuesday dismissed as "all politics" staunch U.S. opposition to Russia building a nuclear reactor in Iran and announced that work on a second one was already under way. "There is not a single piece of evidence that we are helping or might help Iran strengthen nuclear weapons potential," Adamov said at a press conference. |
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OTTAWA - Canada said Monday that it was about to start a unique test to see whether Russian and U.S. weapons-grade plutonium could be burned in a civilian nuclear reactor and thereby help to boost the disarmament of nuclear weapons Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. |
 VLADIVOSTOK, Far East - An energy crisis that many are calling the worst since before World War II has crippled the Primorye region, shutting down factories, emptying schools and leaving residents without electricity for long stretches at a time. With temperatures falling to minus 45 degrees Celsius in parts of the finger of Russia on the Sea of Japan, hundreds of thousands of people are spending their days in unheated or barely heated apartments in which the lights click off at 7 a. |
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 MOSCOW - Presidential economic adviser Andrei Illarionov painted a bleak picture Tuesday of what awaits Russia over the next 12 months, saying the soaring economic growth seen last year is grinding to a halt. "The party is over and the hangover is about to begin," said Illarionov in opening remarks of a presentation to members of the European Business Club. |
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MOSCOW - With sales booming, the nation's largest producer of heavy machinery said Wednesday it would sell off all non-core units to generate the tens of millions of dollars it needs to expand its main business. |
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MOSCOW - As OPEC leaders decided to cut oil production 5 percent Wednesday to keep world prices steady and high, Russia remained an interested - yet complacent - observer. Russia is in no position to take advantage of higher oil demand on international markets. Already pumping all it can, Russia's pipeline and transport capacity is limited, and expansion of the export infrastructure is fraught with political tumult. The world's No. 1 oil producer, Saudi Arabia, led the push for a reduction of 1.5 million barrels per day to 25.2 million. Iran pushed for a larger reduction of 1.7 million bpd, but was unsuccessful. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries wants to prevent oil from slipping below $20, let alone collapsing back into the single-digit prices seen in 1998. |
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 At the end of December, the Lenenergo board of directors approved a plan for the restructuring of the local utility, which was proposed by the company's management team. |
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President Vladimir Putin waited until National Press Day last weekend to reveal that there is absolute freedom of speech in Russia. But an outspoken television channel was, as usual, on hand to act as guinea pig for this bizarre theory. The War Goes On State prosecutors may have found the president's comments amusing. |
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Americans Get a Leader Who Is 'Dumb Like Us' DEMOCRATS salivating at the prospect of a dim-bulb presidency leading to George W. Bush's defeat in 2004 may be as disappointed as Republicans who were sure Bill Clinton's immorality would bring him down. |
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New Realism Better Than Old Illusions WHILE it is not entirely clear whether U.S. President-elect George W. Bush fully understood what he was saying earlier this week about international lending to Russia during the '90s, we suspect that he may be right. |
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Held Hostage By the Scourge Of Militarism DEFENSE Minister Igor Sergeyev is a lame duck. For almost a year now, he has been removed from any serious national security decision-making. |
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Why does the world so fervently remember Raoul Wallenberg? Every piece of information about him that surfaces, like the recent Russian announcement that he was executed more than 50 years ago by the KGB, spawns renewed speculation about the mysterious circumstances of his disappearance. Are we fascinated by Wallenberg because of his life, because he was a man who did remarkable things during a time of extreme crisis, or because of the riddle of his fate? Had he never vanished while in Soviet hands, had he returned to Stockholm to live to a ripe old age, would he still inspire our reverence? Wallenberg is undeniably a hero of the Holocaust for his efforts on behalf of Jews in Budapest during World War II. |
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Opera director Dmitry Chernyakov well remembers what he felt when he first heard Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh" as a teenager at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The impression, he says, was overwhelming: "I felt a religious horror. |
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One of the most popular directors among Russian film lovers, Emir Kusturica, will come to Russia - not, however, to present a new masterpiece, but to play guitar with the group, which he co-founded when he was a punk in Sarajevo in 1980. |
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So you've heard of Baltika cigarettes, you may have even caught the recent concert of Creedence Clearwater Revived, but have you checked out the "first in Russia" Hard Rock Club? The original Hard Rock Cafe - to which the HRClub claims no connection - boasts over 100 restaurants in 36 countries, though none yet in the former Soviet Union. However, the new St. Petersburg Hard Rock Club's logo - a familiar golden circle with brown lettering - strikingly mimics the signature logo of the world's leading collectors and exhibitors of rock'n'roll memorabilia. But beyond this, all similarities stop. The HRClub turns out to be more of a small pub than either a club or cafe. |
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 Every Friday, dozens of local musicians from such bands as Tequilajazzz, Pep-See, Leningrad, Markscheider Kunst or Volkovtrio, meet on a platform at the Moscow Station to end up at a Moscow club gig - and Moscow's public enjoy it. |
 On an circular glass table there sits an enormous pile of salt. A young, arty-looking girl showing friends around the exhibition puts her finger in the pile and starts tracing wild and random patterns on the glass, explaining as she does so how much she loves interactive art. Suddenly the bohemian calm is shattered. "Dyevushka!" shrieks an septuagenarian official, "Don't touch the art!" Given the Western trend for interactivity in contemporary installation, the mistake, made at the Petersburg 2000 art exhibit at the Manezh Exhibition Hall, was understandable. |
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 The St. Petersburg Philharmonia's break after the closing of the Arts Square Festival didn't last for long, as the following weekend saw yet more high-profile musical events take place. |
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The run-up to Christmas saw a spate of club openings in town, each successively ritzier and supposedly more arty and exclusive than the last. Caught up in the festive drinking season, however, few people seemed actually to pay much attention - although rumors about Ostrov's supposed exclusivity filtered back with some persistence. |
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Charlie's Angels" is dedicated to the proposition that you can have your cheesecake and eat it too. Its three heroines - played with varying degrees of swagger and sultriness by Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore - are meant to appeal both to teenage girls, who will admire their professionalism and fighting spirit, and to teenage boys, who will find other things about them to admire. |
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KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo - President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, shot at his palace in Kinshasa on Tuesday, has died and will be buried next week, a source at the Information Ministry said on Thursday. State television and radio were expected to broadcast the news of his death later on Thursday, ending 48 hours of confusion since Kabila was shot and flown to Zimbabwe for urgent treatment. |
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OTTAWA - Canada's Supreme Court ruled out leniency for so-called mercy killing on Thursday and said a man convicted of murdering his handicapped daughter must serve his sentence of at least 10 years in jail. |
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Arafat Agrees To Talks JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said on Thursday he was ready to hold marathon peace talks with Israel to try to clinch a last-minute deal before elections for an Israeli prime minister on February 6. Arafat, who met Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami in Cairo on Wednesday, said the Israelis had yet to respond. |
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PHILADELPHIA - Allen Iverson poured in 43 points, reaching the 40-point plateau for the fifth time in 11 games, to lead the Philadelphia 76ers to a 99-88 National Basketball Association victory over the Chicago Bulls. |
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PHOENIX - The Phoenix Coyotes exploited Pittsburgh's penalty killing to the tune of four power-play goals - two coming 48 seconds apart in the third period - to rally for a 5-4 National Hockey League victory over the Penguins. Keith Tkachuk provided the game winner with his second goal of the night and 20th of the season, snapping a 4-4 deadlock with 4:16 left in regulation as Phoenix struck three times with a man advantage in the third period. |
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Marist Center Arrested POUGHKEEPSIE, New York (AP) - Marist College's basketball center Marius Janisius, who claimed he was beaten by three men on campus, was arraigned for allegedly stabbing another student. |
 MELBOURNE - Brazilian world No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten was knocked out of the Australian Open on Thursday, beaten 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 by Briton Greg Rusedski in the biggest upset of the tournament. Rusedski condemned the top seed to another early exit when he saved a match point in the 12th game of the final set before claiming victoryafter two hours 44 minutes. |
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EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - The New York Giants returned to work, fired up by the challenge of playing the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl and even more aflame over a report that claimed they had cheated in their playoff victories. |
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