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The Federal Security Service, or FSB, was involved in the 1998 assassination of liberal Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, according to excerpts from a book co-authored by a renegade former FSB officer that were published this week in a special edition of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta. |
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MOSCOW - With the new school year about to begin, the country's struggling education system was dubbed a state priority Wednesday, as President Vladimir Putin joined cabinet members and governors to discuss ways to modernize underfunded schools and colleges. |
 MOSCOW - The opening of the Bolshoi Theater's 226th season Saturday will find a new figure at the venerable institution's musical helm: 37-year-old Alexander Vedernikov, who two months ago assumed the post of chief conductor and musical director. Vedernikov's appointment followed a second major upheaval at the Bolshoi in less than a year: the resignation last June, after a mere 10 months on the job, of Artistic Director Gen nady Rozhdestvensky. |
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The promised introduction of three-day visas to be issued to visitors upon arrival in Moscow and St. Petersburg has been put on hold, although the cause of the delay is not entirely clear. |
All photos from issue.
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A videotape released in Belarus added new weight to allegations that a government-sponsored death squad murdered two major political opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko. On the videotape, distributed Monday to news outlets, two men who identify themselves as investigators for Belarus' KGB say that members of a special military unit abducted the two Lu ka shen ko opponents as they left a banya in September 1999, shot them in a forest and buried the bodies in a jeep in a sand-covered pit outside a military base. |
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VLADIVOSTOK, Far East - South Korea wants to join the project extending the Trans-Siberian railway across the Korean Peninsula, a spokesperson for Russia's Railways Ministry said Thursday. Top South Korean railroad officials are visiting Russia to assess some of the key features of the Trans-Siberian railroad, said Vladimir Pechyorin, a spokes person in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. |
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MOSCOW - Russia's main market watchdog said Wednesday that Gazprom managers did not violate the letter of the law when they sold shares in the gas giant on the cheap to companies run by their children and friends. |
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Two aluminum-can makers have launched a $3 million television advertising campaign to wean Russian beer drinkers off the bottle. The Russian subsidiary of Rexam PLC, the world's largest beverage-can maker, and Russian Aluminum's subsidiary Rostar have put aside their rivalry to work together on improving the image of cans among bottle-bred beer drinkers. |
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MOSCOW - Some two dozen midsized banks Wednesday railed against a banking-reform plan put forward by the country's most powerful industrialists, warning that it would lead to a private banking monopoly. |
 MOSCOW - The federal government stepped into the already heated battle for control of Moscow's electricity and heat supply Thursday, throwing its weight behind Anatoly Chubais' efforts to strengthen his grip on Mosenergo ahead of a controversial shareholders vote. |
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Used-Car Duties MOSCOW (Vedomosti) - The government is considering doubling the customs duties on older imported cars in hopes of protecting the domestic auto industry and keeping out cars that fail to meet Europe's new environmental standards. |
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Down-Under Discount SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Australia's biggest airline, Qantas, said Thursday its proposed discount international airline, Australian Airlines, is expected to start operating on routes to Asia next year. Qantas' executive general manager for marketing, Denis Adams, has been named chief executive of the proposed new carrier. |
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"I promised to take the people away from the edge of the abyss, save Belarus from an economic collapse and political chaos." Alexander Lukashenko's campaign platform. MY fellow Belarussian citizens! Read carefully Alexander Lukashenko's campaign platform and decide, from your heart, whether he has carried out his past promises. |
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AS a last way of earning some cash before I finally leave these shores, I have teamed up with a former colleague at this newspaper to update one of those international guidebooks to St. |
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WHEN President Vladimir Putin showed up unexpectedly in town on Aug. 15 for a round of hush-hush nocturnal meetings with Northwest Region Governor General Viktor Cher ke sov, Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and Le nin grad Oblast Governor Valery Ser dyukov, the rumor mill immediately started buzzing with the idea that he'd come to discuss moving the capital from Moscow to St. |
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LAST November, the Security Council approved a military-reform plan that included significant cuts in military personnel. It was announced that up to 600,000 men are to be cut at the so-called power ministries, of which 360,000 are servicemen and 120,000 civilian Defense Ministry employees. |
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AS is so often the case during presidential elections within the former Soviet Union - and Russia, sadly, is no exception - the political situation in Belarus is becoming nastier and nastier as the Sept. 9 polling date approaches. And, as is also usually the case, the blame rests squarely on the current government. |
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IT was a normal family conversation. My wife was talking about her brother who lives in the Netherlands and how happy he was, and our 6-year-old daughter interrupted. |
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 A television tradition disappeared this summer as the children's program "Spokoinoi Nochi, Malyshi" or "Goodnight, Little Ones" finally succumbed to the modern world and was shunted off ORT to Kultura. Since it was launched in 1964, the program has been the nighttime signature for generations of young children as it sings them off to bed at 8:45 p. |
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"The Father of Russian Punk," the late Andrei Panov, will be remembered with a memorial concert at the Friday club on Friday. |
 The Residents, the revolutionary San Francisco group that turns 30 next year, will come to Moscow for their first-ever Russian concert as part of their Icky Flix Tour. Promoting the group's new DVD, the tour features The Residents playing live, roughly in sync with the video. From the very beginning, The Residents, who describe themselves as "the World's Most Famous Unknown Band," have remained strictly anonymous, appearing in public only in disguise, the most famous being their "tuxedoed eyeballs. |
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 The new rock club Front - located in a neglected area off Ligovsky Prospect - may not be very well-known, but it still rocks. Last Friday, when local band Bombers played its latter-day, heavy variety of surf for its leather-clad fans, you could really feel that true rock-and-roll spirit, a rarity in the generally sated and lazy St. |
 The dramatic story of the sinking of a merchant convoy delivering supplies to the north of Russia during World War II has inspired a Canadian choreographer to produce a ballet. The premiere of Bill Coleman's "Convoy PQ-17" will see the stage on Aug. |
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Ever since I first laid eyes on the restaurant Barcelona on Ligovsky Prospect, I've been planning to pay a visit. It looked a reasonable sort of place, perhaps just as good, if not better, than the city's other two Spanish restaurants, El Toro on Ulitsa Marata and Torres on Nevsky: at least the owners had shown some imagination in not naming their establishment after a bull. |
 Petrovsky and Krestovsky islands have been experiencing a renewal in the past few years as the city's yacht-building industry is taking off, and yachting is becoming an increasingly popular pasttime among Russia's and St. Petersburg's wealthy. "St. Petersburg used to have an important ship- and yacht-building industry. There were three important shipyards, but they began deteriorating after 1991. |
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 With its spectacular vistas and noble heritage, St. Petersburg is an ideal place for the comfortably off to set up house and home in the manner to which they are - or would like to become - accustomed. |
 Not everyone, even in Russia, likes to live in an apartment in the center of the city. Sometimes, you just have to get away from the car alarms and the crowded sidewalks. You need a place where you can put your lounge chair out on the grass and watch the dog dig in the flowerbed. You need a suburban house. St. Petersburg has come a long way since the time when your only choice was between living in an apartment and building a squat, red-brick castle complete with everything but the moat. |
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 Finding the most expensive jewelry in St. Petersburg is not a difficult task. Two centrally located establishments stand out, boasting gems and trinkets capable of busting any budget. |
 Discriminating practitioners of the art of fine dining have much to look forward to in St. Petersburg, providing they have a few thousand dollars to drop on an evening's sybaritic delight. And the beauty of the elite dining experience in St. Petersburg is that it is indeed an experience, amounting to much more than just good food. THE NOBLE EXPERIENCE Whenever one thinks of the finest in local dining, the Noble Nest, located on Ulitsa Dekabristov just a stone's throw from the Mariinsky Theater, leaps to mind. |
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 Many people are afraid even to stop and look in the window of the city's exclusive clothing stores. This may not even be because of money, but rather because many Petersburg residents still feel impossibly removed from the world of high fashion, with labels such as Givenchy, Pierre Cardin or Versace remaining names only. |
 Prepare to be disappointed. If you are looking to buy a top-of-the-line automobile, you should know that the world's most exclusive and expensive cars - such as Porsche, Ferrari, Bentley or Rolls Royce - are not sold here. You may have to settle for Jaguar, Mercedes Benz or BMW. Alternatively, you could buy a specially designed vehicle such as the armored VIP Kombat, lovingly constructed locally by St. |
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 Now that you've labored long and hard to make the big bucks, one of the responsibilities your life of luxury entails is the task of security, of making sure that the high life is not just a passing phase. |
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Milosevic Trial THE HAGUE, the Netherlands (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic took a combative stance on Thursday at his second appearance before the UN war-crimes court, prompting judges to cut off a tirade against what the former Yugoslav leader assailed as an "illegal" court. |
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Greene Withdraws BRISBANE, Australia (AP) - For more than two years, sprinter Maurice Greene has been the advertising face of the Goodwill Games in Australia, shown ready to burst from the starting blocks on billboards and in television commercials. |
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