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Whoever may be behind a magazine that has run an article blaming Jews for hindering the development of the Russian state, Viktor Cherkesov, the governor general of the Northwest region, apparently wants nothing to do with it. So the appearance of an introductory article authored by Cherkesov in the latest issue of the magazine - entitled Admiralteistvo: Northwest Russia - has prompted some furious backpedaling on the part of the governor general's office to distance him from the publication. |
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An American film company has been shooting scenes in Moscow for a movie about a Russian submarine disaster, despite the vehement opposition of the sub's former crew. |
 MOSCOW - Russians love to have sex, but hate to talk about it. So says the country's leading sexologist Igor Kon, who despite a spate of recent attacks is on a quest to get Russians to be more open about sex. Otherwise, he says, they will face the consequence of silence leading to outbreaks of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. |
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A spate of unrelated fires earlier this week killed 18 people in St. Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad Oblast, including two children aged three and four, the St. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - Human rights ombudsman Oleg Mironov accused the government Tuesday of serious human rights violations, echoing similar criticism from the U.S. State Department made a day earlier in an annual human rights report. The United States took one of President Vladimir Putin's favorite phrases - "dictatorship of law" - and used it against him to slam Russia's human rights record in 2000. |
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MOSCOW - Press Minister Mikhail Lesin on Tuesday responded with indignation to U.S. criticism of Russia's record on press freedom, saying his ministry is investigating media violations by the United States itself and may launch an advertising campaign to polish up Russia's tarnished image in the West. |
 MOSCOW - The first trial of a top Russian officer accused of serious abuses in Russia's offensive against Chechen separatists got under way in earnest on Thursday, as dozens of nationalists outside demanded his release. Russia's RTR state television said judges in the southern Russian town of Rostov-on-Don began reading out the charges against Col. |
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President Vladimir Putin, on the second leg of a tour aimed at reasserting Russian influence in Asia, declared a new strategic partnership with old Cold War ally Vietnam on Thursday. |
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The Oktyabrsky Federal Court on Tuesday ruled against releasing the Russian-Israeli businessman Mikhail Mirilashvili, who has since Jan. 22 been in Kresty remand prison on charges of kidnapping. Mirilashvili's lawyer, Yury Novolodsky, had appealed to the court to release his client on a guarantee that he would not leave the city, putting forward a letter that had been signed by several leading St. Petersburg cultural and public figures. "I am deeply upset by the day's events," said Novolodsky at a press conference an hour after the hearing. Gennady Ryabov, spokesperson for the City Prosecutor's Office, said: "The court did not consider the defendant's arguments convincing enough. |
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 Some 4,000 St. Petersburg teachers, professors and students joined a Russia-wide protest Tuesday to picket education reforms suggested by the federal government that could put much of Russian higher education on a paying basis. |
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After more than 10 years of sitting on a powder keg of weapons and dangerous chemicals, Kotlin Island and its naval port city of Kronshtadt received official assurances that the potential time-bomb sitting under it will be defused. After a meeting with Kronshtadt officials earlier this week, Governor General Viktor Cherkesov issued a promise that the overloaded munitions storage facilities, fuel dumps and old chemical reservoirs at the island's naval base will be removed and destroyed at the Shikhany military chemical institute in the Satarov region, 1,200 kilometers southeast of St. |
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Pavlova's Ashes LONDON (Reuters) - The ashes of Anna Pavlova, arguably Russia and the world's greatest ballerina, are finally on their way back to her homeland from a cemetery in London where they have been on display since her death 70 years ago. |
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MOSCOW - Still smarting from what he calls the worst investment he ever made, billionaire financier George Soros is moving to salvage what he can from his disastrous $1.875 billion purchase of a blocking stake in national telecoms holding Svyazinvest in 1997. |
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After five months of legal wrangling, a Moscow court Tuesday finally bottled up a local tobacco company's bid to sell cigarettes under the name and logo of top brewery Baltika. |
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SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea and Russia on Tuesday agreed to boost cooperation on development of a major natural gas field in Siberia and other oil and gas projects, but no firm details were announced. "The two parties agreed to closely cooperate on the gas development project in Irkutsk," the two countries said in a joint declaration issued after talks between President Vladimir Putin and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. |
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MOSCOW - After 30 months of heckling by foreign and domestic investors in St. Petersburg's failed $5 billion state-backed high-speed railway project, Prime Minster Mikhail Kasyanov on Thursday officially ordered the Finance Ministry to pay them back. |
 MOSCOW - Starting this month more than 1,000 pensioners across Russia will not have to stand in line to collect their monthly stipend - they will just have to remember their personal identification number. As part of an ambitious program to cut down on paperwork and increase fiscal oversight, state-owned savings bank Sberbank has launched the Pension Card, which allows pensioners to access their payments through automated teller machines throughout the country. |
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MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov urged the government on Thursday to take steps to stimulate economic growth this year as record expansion in 2000 slowed in the first two months of this year. |
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ALMATY, Kazakstan - Iran has forced the postponement of a crucial Caspian Sea summit and President Mohammad Khatami intends to fly to Moscow as early as next week to negotiate with President Vla di mir Putin on how to share the sea's oil and gas riches, Russian and Iranian sources said Wednesday. |
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Reserves Fall $200M Moscow (SPT) - The Central Bank's hard currency and gold reserves fell $200 million to $28.7 billion in the week ending Feb. 16, Interfax reported the bank's press service as saying Thursday. |
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MOSCOW - No. 4 oil major Tatneft plans to increase the face value of its shares at an annual shareholder meeting this summer in order to make jumbo ruble bond placements, company officials said Wednesday. "The idea is to sell more ruble-denominated bonds in the future," said Sergei Savinykh, head of international reporting and investor relations with Tatneft. |
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LAWMAKERS Igor Artemyev and Viktor Yevtukhov have a draft law before the Legislative Assembly that would require St. Petersburg residents eligible for reductions in transport fares to acquire a pass, thus enabling the city to track how many students, military personnel, pensioners and others use public transport, and how often they do so. |
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IT was always unlikely that, on his visit to South Korea this week, President Vladimir Putin would plunge into the crowded streets of Seoul, poking his nose into antique shops while munching on street vendors' roasted silkworms. |
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WITH Gov. Vladimir Yakov lev away from his desk this week on a 10-day holiday at a Swiss ski resort, the city's political circles have been buzzing - again - with rumors that when he comes back, it will not be to his current job. It's not that they doubt the governor's prowess on the slopes and fear that some injury may incapacitate him. |
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Propaganda or agitation that incites social, racial, national or religious hatred or hostility is prohibited. Propaganda espousing ideas of racial, national, religious or linguistic supremacy is also prohibited. |
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Dear Editor, Masha Gessen's criticism of my opinion piece on legal reform ["Aid That Works," Feb. 20; Letters, Feb.23] is an example of why Western professionals only infrequently say anything positive about reform in Russia. If one says anything positive, one is immediately branded an apologist, or worse supporter, of the pace and details of reform efforts. |
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THURSDAY March 1 marked the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the revolt of Kronshtadt sailors against Soviet power, an anniversary that Russian officials and Russian scholars have found difficult to acknowledge. |
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Lunar Landing Cult leader and top GOP supporter Sun Myung Moon is wasting no time in toddling down to the trough of government pork that his good buddy George W. Bush is laying out for one of his favorite religions. (Sorry, his favorite "faith-based organizations.") Moon - when he is not pairing up his followers by computer for mass marriages, or slipping a few hundred thousand to George Sr. |
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While the Leningrad concert last week drew an estimated 2,000 fans and can be considered quite a success for what is mainly a club band, Sunday's Cactus Awards bombed. Intended as trophies for everything from underground clubs to the finest club acts, the Cactuses quietly died in 1996 - and the 2001 rehashed version demonstrated that they have not become any more alive. The worst thing was that the promoters did not bother to inform the headliners before they issued press releases and posters full of good-sounding names, such as Tequilajazzz or Pep-See. Eventually, almost none of them appeared at the farcical ceremony, leaving the stage to a bunch of unknowns. |
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 Employing modest means and an uncompromising artistic sensibility, Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov produces works which address the most profound quandaries of human existence. |
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"Everyone says: the Kremlin, the Kremlin. I've heard about it from everyone, but I've never actually seen it myself. So many times (probably a thousand), drunk or hungover, I've walked from north to south and from west to east - but I have never seen the Kremlin", confesses Venichka at the beginning of his work "Moskva-Petushki. |
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The "Avant-Garde to the Present Day" arts festival is taking place between March 5 and 15, and its main concerts are to be held in the Philharmonia Small Hall. |
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As part of the Sheremyetev Evenings, the Mariinsky Theater staged a production of the early Verdi opera, Nabucco, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the composer's death which is curently being celebrated throughout the world. This was surprisingly the first staging of the opera at the Mariinsky, bearing in mind the popularity of the famous Judean chorus from Act Four, produced during the Italian risorgimento, and becoming an unofficial but no less loved anthem of Italian independence. |
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What professional athletes do after they give up their sporting careers is often anyone's guess. One may end up running a nightclub, while another ends up cutting meat at a supermarket. |
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After reviewing a good number of the city's restaurants, it seems to become a truism that the most expensive establishments are not necessarily the best. While many eateries go to great lengths on getting the atmosphere right, their food often leaves something to be desired - not to mention the decor. |
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 LONDON - Britain's foot-and-mouth outbreak spread to Scotland and Northern Ireland on Thursday, prompting other European countries to tighten steps to disinfect travelers and vehicles from the U.K. to ward off the disease. As U.K. officials confirmed the highly contagious disease had traveled across the Irish Sea and beyond the border with Scotland, Ireland strengthened its defenses by setting up extra checkpoints on its border with the northern province. |
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Bomb Jolts Israel JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A car bomb blast in which a person died jolted Israel on Thursday as Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon moved closer to forming a coalition he has dedicated to ensuring Israelis' security while achieving peace. |
 BOMBAY, India - Australia crushed India by 10 wickets in the first test on Thursday with more than two days to spare, extending its world record of consecutive test victories to 16. India, 58 for two in its second innings overnight, was all out for 219 soon after tea on the third day, and Australia hammered the 47 runs needed in just seven overs. |
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DUBAI, United Arab Emerates (Reuters) - Marat Safin raced to a crushing 6-1, 6-2 victory over Andrei Medvedev to move into the semifinals of the Dubai Tennis Championship on Thursday. |
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Slugger Signs Extension ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) - Mark McGwire and the St. Louis Cardinals have agreed to a two-year extension worth about $30 million, The Associated Press learned Wednesday. The new deal runs through 2003, the season McGwire could be approaching Hank Aaron's home-run record of 755. |
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LONDON - England's break with 129 years of tradition appeared to be fully justified Wednesday when it beat Spain 3-0 in a friendly international in its first match under a foreign coach. |
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CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina - Matt Doherty has delivered to North Carolina what Bill Guthridge could not - an Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season championship. The fourth-ranked Tar Heels clinched at least a share of their first ACC title since 1995 and earned the top seed for the league tournament by riding a strong second-half performance by Joseph Forte to a 76-63 victory Wednesday over North Carolina State. |
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