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MOSCOW - In the hours before U.S. President George W. Bush flew into Moscow on Thursday night, U.S. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans laid the ground for closer cooperation between the United States and Russia in the key areas of oil and aviation. Bush and President Vladimir Putin are expected to sign off on an energy agreement during their summit talks Friday that could open the door to Russia becoming an important energy supplier to the U.S. market. Formal bilateral cooperation in oil would be the obvious culmination of events following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, when supplies from the Middle East began to look less reliable, analysts said. |
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 When the local traffic police stop Viktor Bush to check his license and registration documents, they always ask him the same question: "A relative?" The 45-year-old engineer just answers: "If I were a relative, I doubt we would be having this conversation in the first place. |
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Federal and city workers and U.S. government staffers spent Thursday putting the finishing touches to the security preparations for the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush this weekend. Bush and President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by their wives, are scheduled to arrive in St. Petersburg on Saturday morning, and a hectic Saturday schedule includes a wreath-laying ceremony at the Mother Russia monument at Piskaryovskoye Cemetery; a two-hour visit to the State Hermitage Museum; a meeting with students at St. |
All photos from issue.
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 While most of the preparations taking place in the city have been for the weekend visit of U.S. President George W. Bush, the official opening ceremony held in Dom Radio on Italianskaya Ulitsa on Wednesday was looking a little further ahead. Sergei Yastrezhembsky, the head of Russia's presidential information service, joined Governor Vladimir Yakovlev to open the International Press Center, which has been set up for journalists who will be covering the city's 300th Anniversary celebrations next year. |
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MOSCOW - Russians pay out a staggering $36 billion a year in bribes and unofficial charges, an amount that adds up to more than half of 2002 government spending, or 12 percent of gross domestic product, according to a study released Tuesday. |
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While law-enforcement and security officials say they expect the city to be relatively peaceful during the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush, an incident that took place Thursday on Universitetskaya Nab., near St. Petersburg State University, might raise some doubts. About 50 protesters, wearing nationalist symbols, staged an anti-globalist rally outside the university grounds. During the rally, David Francis, 42, who said he is from Texas and teaches English at the university, was attacked by some members of the group. Francis, who was passing by the protest wearing a cowboy hat adorned with a U.S. flag, received a number of blows before being pulled away by police on the scene. |
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 MOSCOW - Moscow City Hall announced on the 81st anniversary of Andrei Sakharov's birth on Tuesday that it would raise a monument to the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize winner. |
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MOSCOW - All the hubbub surrounding this week's summit between Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin fails to impress Felix Mikhailov, a 52-year-old auto plant worker. "Summits mean little these days and are only held to observe protocol and demonstrate mutual respect," said Mikhailov, pausing near Moscow's Pushkin Square as he headed home from work. |
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 The issue of Russian steel imports to the United States and Russia's status as a market economy will be key themes for the economic talks at the Bush-Putin summit, said U.S. and Russian trade chiefs Donald Evans and German Gref, who met in St. Petersburg on Tuesday to discuss the economic agenda for the summit. |
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MOSCOW - No. 1 bank Sberbank has split with PricewaterhouseCoopers, members of the bank's board of directors said Thursday, choosing not to renew its contract with the auditing giant. |
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MOSCOW - The Agriculture Ministry has finally allowed two freighters filled with frozen U.S. poultry shipments to off-load in St. Petersburg, where they have been moored for more than a month as a result of a ban on U.S. chicken. The decision to clear the poultry, known colloquially in Russia as "Bush legs," came one day before U. |
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AFTER Sept. 11, there was an abrupt shift in Russia's foreign policy. Despite the course that was still being pursued last summer- symbolized by Korean leader Kim Jong Il's trip across Russia in an armored train - and in the face of the opinion of the so-called political elite, President Vladimir Putin unreservedly supported the United States in its fight with Osama bin Laden's terrorists and the Taliban. |
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THE motto of this year's World Russian Forum in Washington was "Towards Economic, Political and Military Alliance." As a Russian participant in the forum, I was most struck by the atmosphere of respect and enthusiasm for Russia. |
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 With the preparations for next year's 300th-anniversary celebration gathering steam and tourists flocking to St. Petersburg for the start of the White Nights, one could quite easily overlook the fact that next Monday, May 27, the city celebrates its 299th birthday. To mark this, the whole city will get down to some serious partying this weekend, with a host of events aimed at people of all ages. The two-day birthday bash begins at noon on Saturday in a suitably official fashion, with St. |
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 "Female Substance," an exhibition of lesbian-themed works by Moscow art-photographer Tatyana Sazanskaya, opened at the club Coco Bango last week. |
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Whether or not you like Muse, the guitar-based trio is an integral part of the current British music scene, which is poorly represented in Russia, both live and on record. This is a good reason to catch their show at the 2,000-seat LDM, at 47 Ulitsa Professora Popova, on Tuesday. |
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The last time that members of my family came to St. Petersburg, I introduced them to the exotic - at least to a British palate - delights of cuisine from the Caucasus and Central Asia. |
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The White Nights are approaching, and with them comes a series of festivals, of which "Musical Spring," "Musical Olympus" and, of course, "Stars of the White Nights" are the outright leaders. Almost getting in each other's way, the festivals compete for the acquisition of concert stages and sponsors and for the attention of the public and tourists, whose numbers are swelled at this time of year. Among the traditional musical events scattered across the Petersburg concert season, however, "Musical Olympus" undoubtedly occupies a special place. Only at the Olympus can music lovers get to know the young musicians who, in the future, may make it to the upper echelons of the international establishment. |
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 In an unprecedented month of international concerts in St. Petersburg, Manu Chao's gig at the Yubileiny Sports Palace on Saturday was one of the most exciting events in the city for months, despite not selling out - Chao's popularity in Russia notwithstanding. |
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The Siege is one of those books you're supposed to love. The novel's subject - a family's struggle to endure the World War II Nazi blockade of Leningrad, which resulted in the deaths of half the city's 3.5 million citizens - is noble and worthy of epic treatment. Furthermore, the book's award-winning author, Helen Dunmore, has published in 15 countries and received rave reviews from British and Amerian critics for this, her latest effort. Nevertheless, despite its impressive resume, "The Siege" falls short of attaining the distinction that it might have gained. The book's heroine is Anna, daughter of blacklisted writer Mikhail Levin and driven doctor Vera. |
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 The Peter and Paul Fortress was originally built to defend Russia from Western invaders. Now, however, the bastion is embracing the West, with an ambitious photographic project documenting Western-related places in the Northern Capital. |
 We'll never see another "Star Wars," no matter how much we want to. And we want to very much. But, like the cherished passions of first love, the fervor called forth by the landmark film is never coming back, and no amount of prequels or sequels is going to change that. Paradoxically, the fact that the latest prequel, "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones," is a bit better than its predecessor, serves only to illuminate how lacking these newcomers are in the things that matter. |
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SRINAGAR, India - India's prime minister held talks with senior cabinet ministers and military officials in disputed Kashmir on Thursday, as shelling between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan pounded villages on both sides of their border. At least one Indian soldier was killed and seven civilians injured in overnight firing, police said. |
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Arafat Talking Elections RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said in an interview on Thursday that he would hold presidential and legislative elections for the Palestinian Authority by early next year, adding that regional and municipal voting would be conducted toward the end of the year. |
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Kafelnikov Flat DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) - Yevgeny Kafelnikov fell to his eighth defeat in nine clay-court matches, but Russia still defeated Spain 2-1 in the World Team Cup on Wednesday with a doubles win and Marat Safin's 6-4, 6-4 victory over Alex Corretja. Britain also defeated Germany, on a day in which play was moved to a special indoor court because of rain. |
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