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 MOSCOW - While law-enforcement officials and scientists reiterated Thursday that a gas leak was the most likely cause behind Tuesday's deadly Moscow apartment-house blast, press coverage of the tragedy betrayed public jitters. News reports and witness accounts of the explosion that killed eight, injured as many and left at least 20 people homeless reflected residual fear from the terror attacks of 1999, distrust for official pronouncements and widespread suspicion toward outsiders, especially dark-skinned migrants from the southern Caucasus region. |
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 Like many other St. Petersburg residents, Natalya Petrova spends a good part of the year longing for the season - some call it "dacha season" - during which she can escape the hustle and bustle of the city's streets and get back to the earth or, more specifically, back to her garden. |
 MOSCOW - Vladimir Golovlyov, a liberal State Duma deputy and former regional privatization chief who was the focus of a corruption probe, was gunned down Wednesday morning while walking his dog in northern Moscow. Golovlyov, 45, was walking his dog at around 8 a.m. in a park near Pyatnitskoye Shosse in the Mitino district when an unknown assailant or assailants opened fire on him. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - The Memorial human-rights group said Thursday that the military has started actively to threaten its members working in its Chechen offices and that it was considering closing them down. In the latest incident, a brother of Doka Islayev, head of Memorial's Urus-Martan office, was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a checkpoint while the two brothers were on their way from Urus-Martan to the family's village, Goiskoye, said Lipkhan Bazayeva, Memorial's representative in Nazran, the Ingush capital. A photograph of a Chechen OMON police officer was planted in the pocket of Said-Khusein Islayev and he was told he was suspected of plotting to murder the man and taken away, Bazayeva said Thursday by telephone. |
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 MOSCOW - Police detained some 30 Russian Buddhists who gathered outside the Foreign Ministry in Moscow on Thursday to protest Russia's decision to deny the Dalai Lama permission to enter the country. |
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MOSCOW - Officially, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov's three-day visit to China, which began Wednesday, is about trade - namely, energy, aviation, transportation, electronics, banking and telecommunications. But the item not on the public agenda is the one worrying Washington and Taipei the most: arms. |
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Mikhail Chulaki, famous St. Petersburg writer and the head of St. Petersburg Writers Union, died in hospital on Wednesday from injuries he suffered after being hit by a car the night before. |
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A full week after the cargo ship Kaunas sank near the Liteiny Bridge, blocking most cargo-transport traffic along the Neva River, Interior Waters Ministry officials were reporting Thursday that enough of the vessel would be cleared for traffic to resume by Friday morning. According to information from the ministry, 110 ships were waiting upriver and in the approaches to the Neva, waiting for divers to finish sheering off the upper portions of the Kaunas. |
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MOSCOW - Giving with the right hand and taking with the left, the European Commission this week approved and delivered to its 15 member states proposed amendments to trade-protection legislation that simultaneously grant Russia market-economy status while tightening up the rules. |
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SHANGAI, China - Saying that record volumes of trade are drawing their countries ever closer together, visiting Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and his Chinese counterpart Zhu Rongji on Thursday signed a series of cooperation and bilateral trade deals. |
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On July 1, the State Duma passed in third reading an amendment to the Russia Tax Code regulating the operation of gasoline retailers in Russia. According to a local association representing these retailers, the ultimate effects of the law will be a rise - by as much as 100 percent - in the price of gas in the city. |
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DURING the past five years, Russia's industrial labor productivity has risen by 38 percent, making the United States' productivity boom of about 13 percent appear lethargic in comparison. While some claim that this growth has beendriven purely by devaluation and that high oil prices, we believe this misses the point. |
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IN the worst helicopter disaster in world history, a heavy army Mi-26 helicopter went down in the northeastern suburbs of the Chechen capital, Grozny, killing at least 115 service personnel. |
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Despite the almost total absence of any advertising, the Manezh was crowded enough on Wednesday afternoon for the opening of the fourth running of the International Festival of Experimental Art and Performance. The festival, which has been held biennially since 1996, was inspired by "Dialogues," another two-yearly modern-art event at the Manezh that was first held in 1993 and set up by the same curator, Larisa Skobkina. However, that is as far as the links between the two events go. "Dialogues" is mainly dedicated to demonstrating global trends in the visual arts, and was one of the first festivals in post-Soviet Russia that attracted foreign artists to display their work here. |
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 The name of Ilya Rakhlin, who died on Aug. 15 aged 84, is virtually synonymous with the St. Petersburg Music Hall, the theater that he founded in 1966. |
 St. Petersburg's club scene has not seen Wine, once of the favorite local bands, since November 2000, when its vocalist and songwriter, Alexei Fedyakov - a.k.a. Gelter, a.k.a. Winer - quit to go to France, where he still lives. Since leaving, however, Fedyakov has not been idle. |
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Esco Bar, the recently launched spot on the beach of the notorious Dyuni sanitarium, will throw a farewell party this Friday - as the administration has asked it to leave. |
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The first time I drank samogon, or home-distilled liquor, was in a leaky, Russian-made tent by the Black Sea, in the pouring rain. Like the late Jeffrey Bernard, the renowned British souse-cum-columnist, I was "unwell" that evening. The restaurant-bar Samogonshchiki, while happily not resembling the aforementioned tent, also offers distinct possibilities to leave in a Bernard-like state. Its business card, thoughtfully provided under the ashtray on every table, advertises "Drinks to the special recipes of the 'Moonshiners,'" a reference to the classic Soviet comedy about the (mis)adventures of three drunks. My dining companion and I, however, being true professionals, were not there just for the booze, and Samogonshchiki offers a copious food menu as well. |
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 "You're so sadly neglected And often ignored, A poor second to Belgium, When going abroad. Finland, Finland, Finland ..." Michael Palin, from the album "Monty Python's Contractual Obligation" A lot has changed in Finland since Palin and the Python crew mercilessly ridiculed the country over 20 years ago, not least of which is the emergence of the Helsinki Festival from a small classical music event to one of the major cultural festivals in the European calendar. |
 As summer fades away and St. Petersburg's white nights turn ever darker, those in search of an evening's entertainment face a dilemma: It seems a shame to spend the last days of true summer in the smoky, sweltering atmosphere of a bar or a club, but not much is happening outside. The number of bars is limited in any case, and, besides, everyone wants to try something different occasionally. But what is there to do, short of taking the dog for a walk while wearing headphones? The Jazz Boat might just be the answer. |
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 Amber, the "sunshine stone," has a long history in Russia. It became popular for its unique texture as early as the 13th century, and was used for decorative pieces and ornamentation, as well as necklaces and crosses. |
 For a simple-minded film, which is what it is, "We Were Soldiers" manages to evoke a complex series of reactions: While its unrelenting sentimentality is frustrating, the overwhelming physicality of its combat sequences is undeniably impressive. In turn, these sequences are so powerful that they take on a life of their own, sending a message that is probably quite opposite to the one the filmmakers intended. |
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CHANGSHA, China - An army of Chinese soldiers and civilians is racing against time to stop a huge lake from bursting its banks and flooding an area that is home to millions. About 900,000 people in the southern province of Hunan piled up sandbags as a crest of floodwater from days of incessant rain surged down the Yangtze River towards the dangerously swollen Dongting Lake, local officials said on Thursday. |
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NEW YORK - Top seed and defending champion Lleyton Hewitt was handed a tough draw Wednesday for next week's U.S. Open, where he could meet red-hot Briton Greg Rusedski in the second round, while Serena and Venus Williams will be expected to meet in a Grand Slam final for the third straight time. |
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A Big, Big Shock MOSCOW (Reuters) - Spartak Moscow coach Oleg Romantsev will spend a week in hospital after an argument with his top striker, Dmitry Sychyov, who wants to quit the club, the Russian Premier Division team said on Wednesday. "Oleg Romantsev has been admitted to a Moscow hospital," Spartak spokesperson Alexei Zinin said. |
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