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MOSCOW - Heads started rolling Monday over a months-long heating crisis in the Far East with President Vladimir Putin firing the energy minister and announcing the resignation of the Primorye governor. Putin also ordered his chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, to raise the issue of management conduct at the next board meeting of state-controlled power giant Unified Energy Systems, a move that could spell the ouster of UES head Anatoly Chubais. |
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Battling St. Petersburg's viscious, blood-sucking mosquitoes is a summer problem. Right? To the annoyance and desperation of some St. Petersburg residents, the battle does not, in fact, end with the onset of colder weather. |
 Prosecutors on Friday brought official charges against three close aides to Mikhail Mirilashvili, a prominent St. Petersburg-based businessman, who they say were his accomplices in the kidnapping he allegedly organised last September. Mirilashvili was himself arrested two weeks ago. |
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MOSCOW - A former property manager of the Prosecutor General's Office - who has been plagued by allegations of corruption and insider power-brokering - has been appointed a deputy to presidential Chief of Staff Alexander Voloshin. |
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Nuclear energy officials have announced a $1 billion project to construct a safe and technologically advanced reactor at the Leningrad Atomic Power Station, or LAES, the Northwest region's biggest energy supplier. Officials, however, said that groundbreaking for the new reactor at LAES - located 60 kilometers to St. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW - The seemingly invincible governor of the Primorye region, Yev geny Nazdratenko, submitted a letter of resignation to President Vladimir Putin on Monday, less than a week after the president blamed him for the crippling energy crisis in the Far East region. |
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OTTAWA - Canada's opposition is accusing the Foreign Ministry of incompetence in the case of a Russian diplomat who knocked down and killed an Ottawa woman, saying civil servants had totally mishandled the affair. |
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MOSCOW - A small bomb exploded in one of Moscow's busiest underground railway stations during rush hour on Monday, injuring up to nine people and causing minor damage. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who had urged people to be alert after a bomb killed 12 people in a metro station tunnel last August, called the latest blast at the Belorusskaya underground station, "a 100 percent terrorist act. |
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MOSCOW - Yury Boldyrev has decided not to seek reappointment to his post as deputy head of the Audit Chamber, saying parliament's budgetary watchdog has lost its teeth as a corruption fighter and has become an instrument of the presidential administration. |
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MUNICH - A top Russian security official said on Sunday that Afghani stan was supporting about 30 "terrorist" camps aimed at training commandos as well as smuggling drugs and arms. "According to our information, the Taleban fighters, supported by Pakistan, have set up in Afghanistan approximately 30 training camps for terrorist commandos from Central Asian, Arab and European countries," Russian security council secretary Sergei Ivanov told a conference of defense officials in Munich. Last month the United Nations imposed new sanctions because of the Taleban's refusal to hand over U.S. terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden for trial over his alleged involvement in the bombing of two U. |
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 MOSCOW- U.S. aid worker Kenneth Gluck was free on Sunday after three weeks in captivity in Chechnya, saying that he had been treated well but was eager to see his family. |
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Shoigu Blasts Leaders MOSCOW (AP) - Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said that governors who do not provide sufficient heat and electricity to their regions should be fired. Shoigu said in Krasnoyarsk on Saturday that governors who fail to avert energy crises, like the one in the Far East, should be removed. |
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A new hotline project will soon give the city's lawyers the chance to expand their client base. Announced on Friday by several St. Petersburg lawyers and the Digital Commerce and VessoLink United paging companies, the Lawyers of St. |
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MUNICH, Germany - Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov said Sunday that U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile system would undermine world stability and lead to a new arms race in outer space. Speaking at a defense conference in Munich, Ivanov offered talks on deep cuts in strategic nuclear arms if Washington abandons its plans. "The destruction of the ABM treaty will result in the annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race, including one in outer space," Iva nov said in remarks clearly aimed at the new administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Defense analysts say that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the then-Soviet Union would be breached by the new U. |
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 City Gov. Vladimir Yakovlev has offered to draft a bill ensuring governors' immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes committed in office when a governor's term of service ends. |
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MOSCOW - The head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said the EBRD had not been approached to participate in any investment in embattled private television station NTV. "No talks have been opened by anybody with the EBRD on this," president Jean Lemierre told reporters in Berlin on Friday. |
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 Clouds of controversy continue to grow around natural gas monopoly Gazprom's activities in Eastern Europe. On Friday, Russia gave into a request from the Budapest government to carry out a joint investigation of Gaz prom's purchase of Hungary's leading chemical producer, while Poland was calling for an urgent meeting with Gaz prom management to discuss control-sharing over the controversial Yamal gas pipeline. |
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North-West GSM, St. Petersburg's largest cell-phone service provider, and Metrocom, which operates a system for hard-line telephone transmissions, have completed the installation of a system of base stations at three of the city's busiest metro junctions. |
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MOSCOW - Top oil producer LUKoil said Thursday it is moving into the Balkans and Eastern Europe, partially because it needs more markets for its Bulgarian arm, LUKoil Neftochim. Vice president Ralif Safin told a news conference in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, that LUKoil was in talks about buying "big networks" of filling stations in Greece, Turkey and Macedonia, which Bulgaria borders. |
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MOSCOW - As part of an ongoing revamp of its image, Aeroflot said Mon day that passengers will now get many of the same amenities offered by Western airlines. |
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MOSCOW - Russia may export 2 million to 3 million tons of food grain this year following an improved harvest in 2000, Interfax quoted Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev as saying. He gave no comparison for last year, and it was unclear if he was referring to the calendar or crop year. Russia harvested 65.4 million tons of grain in clean weight in 2000, up from 54.7 million in 1999. Earlier this week, Gordeyev said the 2001 harvest could reach 70 million tons. Independent analyst Andrei Sizov of SovEcon Ltd. said Gordeyev's figure for possible 2001 exports might be exaggerated as domestic grain prices were high and traders lacked incentive to export. |
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 MOSCOW - Top automaker AvtoVAZ wants to launch new models and raise output but lacks strategic investors needed to implement ambitious multimillion-dollar projects, its chairman said in an interview. |
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MOSCOW - Swedish furniture giant IKEA prides itself on its inventiveness, but Russia's proposal to Germany to swap assets for $30 billion in debt took even it by surprise. But then when IKEA - known worldwide for its unorthodox advertising and aggressive expansion efforts - realized that the government was dead serious about trading stakes in factories for the Soviet-era debt, its German division saw an opportunity to make a fresh inroad into the Russian market. |
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MOSCOW - The Finance Ministry told State Duma lawmakers Monday that a proposal to restructure 220 billion rubles in farm debt would be drawn up by April in a bid to bring some relief to the cash-strapped agricultural sector. |
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Always politically inflamed, Western policy toward Russia attracts more speculation than actual scrutiny of facts. This has been especially true of Western assistance to Russia's market economic transformation. The first myth is that the West has provided Russia with enormous assistance. |
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WASHINGTON - U.S. Congressional investigators said Monday that major U.S banks holding accounts for foreign counterparts have been used as conduits for laundering millions of dollars of dirty money obtained through drug dealing, corruption and organized crime. |
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THE small square in front of my house has recently become a parking lot for a series of trucks loaded with construction materials, meaning that a new residential complex comprising several buildings is not far behind. The view from my window onto St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Hermitage Museum, as well as the sight of the city's mosque and the Church on Spilled Blood, will therefore be spoiled. |
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AGREAT embarrassment for modern macroeconomic theory is that it has never achieved any consensus on the basic questions of what makes the stock market rise or fall and what ultimately causes recessions. |
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THIS week in Paris, a member of the Chechen military staff told me that the rebels had suffered high casualties last year, but that they have now managed to adapt to Russian tactics and their fighting spirit is high. In 1999, as the main rebel force was pushed back by Russian tanks, undercover armed resistance cells were left behind to create havoc in the enemy's rear. |
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SOMETIME during the early months of the second Chechen war, the Federal Security Service (FSB) summoned me to their Moscow headquarters for "an informal chat. |
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AN academic controversy has revealed a most interesting fact: A significant number of social scientists, especially political scientists, regularly work with the Central Intelligence Agency. It has long been known that the academia-CIA connection was a staple of the early Cold War. |
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PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin has indicated that he would welcome a dialogue with newly inaugurated U.S. President George W. Bush, but the White House has made it clear that policy discussions at the summit level will not be held any time soon. |
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THE other day I happened to be at a gathering at a foreign embassy. It was just a small gathering and the talk was fairly banal, but the hope of posing some questions to a former prime minister of a certain European country meant that the time was worth spending. |
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PERHAPS the most striking thing about the Mirilashvili affair is not the man's arrest - whatever evidence prosecutors think they have unearthed of criminal activity, Mirilashvili's contacts with various shadowy figures, his position as virtual casino king in St. |
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Tsar Alexander II had a (relatively) successful day 121 years ago. On Feb. 4 1880 the emanipator of the serfs managed to survive a fifth attempt on his life. A bomb, planted in the Winter Palace, exploded but did not harm the tsar, its intended target. Alexander II eventually ended up being blown up a year later outside the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, now more commonly known as the Church of the Spilled Blood, due to the attack. The successful attempt on his life was carried out by the "People's Will" revolutionary movement; a first bomb hit the tsar's carriage as he arrived at the church and after the tsar's ill-considered decision to get out and inspect the damage, a second, more accurately thrown device swiftly ended his reign. |
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 Duma Deputy Speaker and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky has actively crusaded for the legalization of polygamy in Russia. |
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Outcry Over Organs LONDON (AP) - Britain's health secretary has called for an emergency summit to ease the public anxiety over organ donations in the wake of two reports that revealed thousands of organs had been removed from dead patients without the proper consent. The summit, to be held in the next few weeks, will involve surgeons, health chiefs, health-care unions, business leaders and parents. Its aim is to make "absolutely clear" for patients the difference between agreeing to donate their organs after death, and organs being retained without proper consent after a post-mortem examination, Health Secretary Alan Milburn said. Britons were horrified last week by two official reports that revealed the extent of unauthorized organ removal for research and teaching purposes. |
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 Residents of St. Petersburg wishing to find a place of worship are unlikely to be left wanting. Over the past decade the city has become home to a wide spectrum of Protestant and Catholic churches alongside the more traditional Russian Orthodox Church. |
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Monday's ruble/dollar rates in St. Petersburg: Bank Address Buy Sell InkasBank 44 Nevsky Prospect 27.90 28.55 RusRegion Bank 54 Nevsky Prospect 28.35 28.65 Promstroi Bank 4 Mikhailvsky Ulitsa 28.05 28.60 BaltUneximbank Grand Hotel Europe 27. |
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Dear Editor, Tom Masters' recent article ["No End in Sight for Dual-Pricing System," Jan. 30] was very interesting, even though it is now commonplace for foreigners to complain about the difference in pricing for Russian nationals and citizens of other countries. |
 During his first visit to St. Petersburg in 1995, Dmitry Nabokov - son of Russian-born émigré writer Vladimir Nabokov - expressed his indignation regarding the blatant copyright violations and barbarian treatment of his father's works by publishers in Russia. |
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I grew up the spoiled youngest son in a well-off provincial family in the 1950s. I learned to read and write very early and was in the top class at school, but it didn't interest me, and because I didn't answer the teachers the way they wanted me to, they classed me as mentally retarded. |
 Barcelona produced the performance of the weekend in European football to destroy Athletic Bilbao 7-0 in the Spanish league. Spanish international Luis Enrique hit a hat-trick as the Catalan club stormed into a 6-0 lead by halftime in front of 65,000 fans at the Nou Camp. |
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CAPE TOWN, South Afric - South Af rica's inquiry into cricket match-fixing has been postponed again after doubts were cast on Judge Edwin King's right to head the investigation. |
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EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - Stephon Marbury scored 11 of his 34 points in the fourth quarter as the New Jersey Nets rallied from a 10-point deficit for a 96-89 victory over the NBA-leading Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday. Headed to his first All-Star Game, Marbury made 11-of-23 shots and handed out nine assists as he outdueled fellow All-Star Allen Iverson. |
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PEBBLE BEACH, California - He had not had a PGA Tour victory in more than 2 1/2 years, and Davis Love III, in spite of his elite reputation and world ranking, admitted that he was disappointed. |
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LONDON - With the opening weekend of the Six Nations championship over, England are already 4-1 on favorites to win the title and odds-on for the Grand Slam. Their six-try 44-15 demolition of Wales silenced an intimidating Millennium Stadium on Saturday and, coming after wins over South Africa, Argentina and Australia late last year, it underlined their status as Europe's premier team. |
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If you like it hot, a trip to a Russian banya might be just the thing to cut the winter chill. And you can't beat the prices - not even with a birch branch: Standard class banya facilities run at a flat rate of 12 rubles 60 kopeks for 90 minutes in most facilities, with luks available at around 75 rubles (about $2. |
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As is the case with almost any purchase, prices on Nevsky Prospect are higher than further out of town where the cost of film can be up to 25% less. Development is generally charged per picture, occasionally with an additional charge for negative development. Prices remain largely unvaried across the city. |
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Issues Archive