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MOSCOW - Boris Berezovsky announced Wednesday that he owns half of Sibneft, backing away from earlier contradictory statements that he either owns 7 percent of the No. 6 oil company or no stake at all. The announcement, which left some market watchers scratching their heads and others tight-lipped, also flies against repeated denials by Sibneft that Berezovsky has any interest in the oil company that he helped form. Berezovsky said his shares in Sibneft are being managed by a team overseen by Roman Abramovich, the oil and metals tycoon who was a close ally of Berezovsky's in the 1990s, according to the Kommersant newspaper, which broke the story Wednesday. |
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 A lavish and solemn rededication ceremony Tuesday evening marked the completion of major repairs to the main prayer hall of the city's Great Choral Synagogue. |
All photos from issue.
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 Margarita Shitikova, 28, is a pretty blonde and a happy new mother. She may also represent Russia's best hope of overcoming its severe demographic crisis. Shitikova gave birth to her second daughter, Angelika, on June 23 - a decision that she and her husband made despite, or even because of, all the talk about financial crises and instability. |
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Massive Mass LVIV, Ukraine (AP) - About a million cheering and singing believers welcomed Pope John Paul II at an open-air religious celebration Wednesday, the last day of his Ukrainian visit aimed at bringing the Catholics and Orthodox closer together. |
 As St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary approaches, a local construction company has proposed a plan to accomodate 1,000 homeless for the duration of the festivities, and is asking the city administration for funds to do the job. The plan as set out by the firm Alyans comprises building a one-storey center of 6,000 square meters in Shungerovsky Park, located in the Krasnoselsky District, right on the city's south-western outskirts where dachas are more prevalent than apartment blocks. |
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MOSCOW - The U.S. Embassy in Moscow cautioned American citizens last week to be mindful of the amount of money and of any valuables they take out of Russia. |
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MOSCOW - The government has approved an ambitious if still vague program to promote the Russian language and prevent a further slide in how the it is written and spoken, especially by today's politicians and journalists. In presenting the program to the cabinet last Thursday, Education Minister Vladimir Filippov called for Russian to be purged of slang and foreign words and for governmental officials, political figures and journalists to be required to pass a spelling test. |
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MAKHACHKALA, Dagestan - Dagestan's Supreme Court on Monday convicted seven men in an attack on a Perm OMON column in Chechnya last year that left 43 servicemen dead. |
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 MOSCOW - Global powerhouse General Motors ended years of talk Wednesday and signed off on the largest investment project in Russian automotive history. GM's $332 million joint venture with top domestic automaker AvtoVAZ, which includes financing from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, will produce 75,000 sport utility vehicles a year under GM's Chevrolet brand. |
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MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Thursday approved a 2.1 trillion ruble ($75 billion) public works program to overhaul Russia's highway network over the next 10 years. |
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MOSCOW - Europe's top insurance company by market value, Allianz AG, is set to become the first Western insurer to grab a significant stake in a top Russian counterpart by buying 45 percent of Rosno, both companies said Wednesday. The price of the sale, by Moscow financial-industrial group AFK Sistema and other Rosno shareholders, was not disclosed. |
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The buzz on debt-trading floors is like music to investors' ears. A lot of gains in Russia are being made - and many more are to come. Adding fuel to the bull run, Standard & Poor's on Thursday raised its long-term foreign and local currency ratings for Russia to B from B-minus and short-term ratings to B from C. |
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MOSCOW - Gazprom's long-awaited annual shareholders meeting on Friday will decide the gas monopoly's future course, which in the past has drifted toward the detriment of its own shareholders for the benefit of management. On the agenda is the election of the board of directors, whose composition will determine how fast and how easily things will change. |
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Pulkovo Numbers Fly ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - State-owned Pulkovo Airlines reported that it carried 879,519 passengers in the first five months of this year, an 8. |
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MOSCOW - The government and the country might be plunging headfirst into cyberspace if the cabinet approves a federal project called "Electronic-Russia." The proposed 76 billion-ruble ($2.62 billion) price tag for the eight-year program covers everything from putting tax forms online to installing computers in schools and universities throughout the country and pushing for better commerce legislation. |
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MOSCOW - Government-appointed managers of Sberbank, the country's largest bank, ignored the concerns of minority shareholders Wednesday and approved a share issue that will dilute their stakes. |
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MOSCOW - Russia plans to pay $1.5 billion in foreign debt falling due in the next three months out of extra revenues building up in the federal budget, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin on said Wednesday. At the start of the year, the government threatened to default on its Soviet-era debts to the Paris Club due in 2001 and sought to postpone this year's payments. |
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IN his recent marathon interview with American journalists, President Vladimir Putin tried to show both a velvet glove - nobody here but us free enterprise democrats, folks - and a barely concealed mailed fist: In essence, if you Americans deploy ballistic missile defenses, we will put multiple warheads on our new ICBMs. |
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AND so my tenure as editor of The St. Petersburg Times comes to an end, and in the words of Spike Milligan, I'm not going to thank anybody because I did it all myself. |
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A lot of things are already going on in connection with the city's tricentennial celebrations in 2003. Slowly, perhaps, but surely, the government and private business are pulling together plans that have a good chance of putting St. Petersburg in the global spotlight in a worthy manner. |
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Mixed Messages Has it come to this? Midas Tours in Britain is offering holiday travelers a real treat in one of its latest packages: fine wines, sumptuous dinners, chi-chi shopping opportunities, classical music and "lively local entertainment," all wrapped around a few leisurely visits to the nearby historic sites. |
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 A farce, a popular opera, a folk play or a parable - all of these descriptions are valid for the bright, joyful production of "Tsar Demyan" which premiered on the stage of the Maly Drama Theater on June 20 and 23 as part of the White Nights Festival. The folklore play about the apostate Tsar and his martyred son has its roots in the persecution of the first Christians under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and was extremely popular in factories and villages alike, even gaining popularity among the military. |
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 Think of the world's top 10 most frequently staged operas, and Giuseppe Verdi's 'Otello' will most certainly cross your mind. Yet, perhaps paradoxically for opera directors, finding a voice to sing the leading role is just as high on the list of opera's biggest headaches. |
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Though St. Petersburg's film-going public, in a strange and highly dubious move, applauded Leni Riefenstahl, who came for the first screening of her Nazi propaganda films in Russia last week, it was refreshing that an event honoring a different German who was the total opposite to Goebbels' favorite director, being Jewish and anti-fascist, drew even more people on Monday. |
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The memoirs of Akvarium's principal member, the late Andrei "Dyusha" Romanov, will be showcased at a concert featuring Boris Grebenshchikov and various Akvarium-related projects at SpartaK on Friday. |
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Kurazh became my regular neighborhood diner about a month ago. I came upon it late at night when I was having a difficult time finding a place to eat. I dropped into one cafe filled with rather menacing-looking types clad in black leather, who didn't seem to be happy about sharing their space with a foreigner; my next stop included two police officers who came in and laid their automatic weapons on the table before going to the bar to order. Strike Two. I walked a little farther along Bolshoi Prospect until I spotted Kurazh. There was nothing immediately striking about the interior: walls covered in plain brown wallpaper, a large Lapin Kulta poster, two Wassily Kandinsky prints, and plastic plants draped over the lamps. |
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 Are you still making excuses? With the White Nights still in full swing, we can no longer claim we just "don't have time" to get in that trip to the gym or jog around the park before the sun goes down. |
 It would be more than a slight stretch to call St. Petersburg a bicycle-friendly city. And the reason is simple: Russian drivers - perhaps the worst enemy of runners and bicyclists alike - behave very differently from their counterparts in Finland, Germany and other European countries, ignoring those traveling on two wheels or by other means, honking wildly, swearing, and even forcing them off the road. |
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Although local authorities often describe St. Petersburg as Russia's most European city, local runners would be hard pressed to agree. Jogging enthusiasts will generally tell you that they spend far more time dodging dog-doo than working on their stride. |
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If you prefer two feet to two wheels, there's a local branch of the international network of Hash House Harriers (HHH). Often described as "a drinking club with a running problem," the HHH originated as an expat enterpise in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the popular running groups - with their off-the-wall nicknames, crazy costumes and cornucopia of other odd traditions - have since spread all over the world. The local chapter was founded by Geoff "Jelly Baby" Stansfield in 1994, and St. Pete hashers have been hosting biweekly runs ever since. Summer runs begin at 2 p.m. on alternate Sundays, meeting at Ploshchad Iskusstv by the statue of Alexander Pushkin. |
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 The banya - or steam bath - carries such great cultural significance in Russia that one doesn't know exactly how to categorize it: Is it a social event, a hygienic routine, an excuse for drunkenness, or, as many Russian banya maniacs would have it, a necessary measure to ensure good health and longevity? While many homegrown Russian health prescriptions range from the absurd (mustard rubbed on the feet as a cold cure) to the antiquated (leaving the house with wet hair ensures the flu), almost anyone who experiences the banya will tell you that there is a certain deeply felt sense of healthiness - what the Russians refer to as a kaif, or high - after a couple hours of sadomasochistic beating in the baths. |
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The banya has long been a traditional Russian method of reducing stress and restoring energy. But with the increasing predominance of Western culture, the city of St. Petersburg has begun to see deluxe spa and health and beauty centers, which along with saunas and banyas have beauty shops, hair salons, aromatherapy cabinets and dozens more services on hand. Club M5 located at 5 Muchnoi Pereulok is a case in point. With its own banya and sauna, the club offers a hair salon, manicures, pedicures, makeup, tattooing, piercing, massage, peeling and thalassotherapy - more than enough to pamper yourself for an entire day. One hour in the sauna plus a banya costs 350 rubles ($11) (200 rubles ($6. |
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 Wap! Splat! That should take care of him. He won't be bossing me around at the office anytime soon. It turns out that it's not just U.S. postal workers that have such thoughts on occasion. |
 This is the time that tries our souls. Summer. Everyone wants to look younger, slimmer, more beautiful. This is when cosmetic surgery seems most attractive. And once you get used to the idea, you'll be surprised at the number of possibilities that local cosmetic-surgery clinics offer for achieving just the right effects. |
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What would you ask a world-famous beauty if she agreed to tell you anything? What kind of cosmetics does she use? How does she manage to stay slim? Where did she get that incredible smile? All this, of course, is very interesting but absolutely useless for you. |
 Scuba diving is one of those things people usually associate with the luxuriant blue waters of the Cayman Islands or Bermuda, waters that offer plenty of encounters with brightly colored fish and barmen who serve up perfect margaritas under the shade of a tropical palm tree. |
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I lucked out in that I've always had good eyesight. Whenever I had an eye exam, I would quickly read off the smallest letters on the chart and be on my way. |
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"Try the red ones - they're my favorite." "No, they make me look fat." "Well, then try the green ones." "O.K." While this may sound like an exchange between two adults in a candy store, it was actually overheard at one of the numerous street vendors purveying St. |
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"In Europe, tattooing is a business. In Russia, it is an art," says Kirill Tatay, a former army officer who is now a full-time tattoo artist. |
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The time is long past when expecting a child meant doing absolutely nothing and expectant mothers were regularly prescribed bed rest or, as it was called, "confinement." Back then, concerned doctors prescribed as much rest as possible and then criticized their patients for gaining too much weight. |
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A U.S. federal appeals court unanimously vacated a ruling splitting Microsoft Corp. into two companies today, and ordered that a new judge decide the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the conclusion that Microsoft violated antitrust laws but ordered that a new judge decide what penalty the company should face. |
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Balkan Peace Envoy SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonia fought ethnic Albanian rebels Thursday as Europe's new Balkan peace envoy prepared to take up an appointment already mired in controversy. |
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Squash Cover-Up LONDON (Reuters) - Women's squash officials have decided not to introduce rules banning thongs on court, despite advising 23-year-old Vicky Botwright not to wear one at this year's British Open. Earlier this month, Botwright had been planning to wear the thong and a skimpy sports bra for her second-round match, only to be asked not to by the Women's International Squash Players' Association (WISPA). |
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