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The City Charter Court ruled on Tuesday that Governor Vladimir Yakovlev may not submit amendments to a law passed by the Legislative Assembly to raise pensions for the elderly to Russia's official poverty line. In its ruling, the court called on Yakovlev either to sign the law into effect or to veto it. The case was brought by a group of eight deputies who complained that, even after they had accepted a number of amendments to the law "On Social Payments to Pensioners in St. Petersburg" on June 5, the governor returned it to the assembly, asking that further amendments be made. According to statements by the governor at the time, the law violates procedures for drafting legislation. |
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 TVER, Central Russia - What is Christmas without a Christmas tree - that German tradition that made its way to Russia some 300 years ago and has become such a part of both Orthodox Christian and secular culture here? But there is at least one small Protestant Christian community that takes its Biblical foundations so seriously that a tree and even the whole merry spirit of the holiday is a matter of debate - if not controversy - among its 70 members. |
 MOSCOW - She's a police officer, a former Miss Universe and now the host of the country's most popular children's television show. St. Petersburg's Oksana Fyodorova, who lost her crown just months after being named Russia's first Miss Universe, is donning a new hat as the host of "Spokoinoi Nochi, Malyshi," or "Good Night, Little Ones. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - A confidential British Foreign Office memo that was posted on the Internet gives details of closed-door meetings two years ago with Sergei Ivanov and lightly pokes fun at the man who would become Russia's defense minister. Russian officials said the leaked memo was an embarrassment for British authorities but not for the Kremlin. |
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 CHERNOGOLOVKA, Moscow Region - Some people might be tempted to drink Oleg Udolin's windshield-cleaning fluid rather than use it in their cars. But Udolin doesn't recommend trying it - even though it's made from bootleg vodka. "Whether or not people drink our liquid, I don't know," said Udolin, the director of Spirtprompererabotka. "But I do remember people drinking antifreeze not so long ago. |
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 The Maritime Administration of the St. Petersburg Port held a ceremony to launch its new ferry service between the city and Kaliningrad on Wednesday. The ferry Georg Ots, which was purchased in November for $2 million by the administration from ESCO Maritime, a Tallinn-based maritime management firm, then set sail on Thursday for the first time on its new two-day route. |
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MOSCOW - The World Bank said last week it expects to approve $570 million in new loans to Russia in the next six months, more than it did in all of 2002, but cautioned that higher lending doesn't necessary mean unqualified support for the government's reform effort. "We don't measure the success of our programs in Russia by the number of loans," said Julian Schweitzer, the bank's director for Russia. |
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A DEC. 18 front-page article in The Washington Post titled "Projection on Fall of Hussein Disputed" attempted to describe a split that simply does not exist between the senior civilian and military leadership over planning for potential war in Iraq. |
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THE discussion on Iraq at the UN last week revealed a consensus on a key point: that Baghdad's 12,000-page submission to the Security Council failed to meet the council's demand for a complete declaration of weapons of mass destruction. |
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LAST week's big entertainment news was President Vladimir Putin's two-hour live call-in show. Of the huge number of people hoping for a chance to put their question to the president, only 51 lucky - thoroughly vetted and 100-percent-loyal - souls actually got the chance. On Thursday morning, as the select few were preparing to dial, a Canadian friend of mine asked me if I was planning to call the president as well. |
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 Running a music festival isn't very difficult, according to conductor Yury Temirkanov, the artistic director of the Arts Square Festival. "A festival is no big deal, really," he smiles. "In Europe, nearly every village now has its own festival." "What does present a challenge is building a symbolic concept of the event in such an historic location [as St. Petersburg]," he adds. |
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 "For the first time in many years, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just doing what I want, nothing to do with my past," says Sergei Shnurov, frontman of ska-punk band Leningrad, which saw its popularity skyrocket in 2002. |
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There are some questions that manage to provoke hours of stimulating discussion at the dinner table. On the other hand, there are some that stop the conversation and make your dining companions look at you slightly askance. "Come to think of it, what is the singular of ravioli?" falls into the latter category. I had cause to ask this question this week while dining at Il Grappolo, an upmarket Italian restaurant that opened not long ago on Ulitsa Belinskogo. My curiosity had been piqued upon realising that the three said stuffed-pasta envelopes that constituted my main course were costing me in the region of $5 each. It must immediately be said, however, that each was $5 well spent. |
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 Wherever she goes, Barbara Hendricks seems to make it her aim to inspire people. The American soprano is one of today's most in-demand performers, but there is much more to her than merely a world-class musician. |
 Your can take the girl out of Alabama, but ... In "Sweet Home Alabama," that girl is Melanie (Dakota Fanning). When we meet her, she's a preteen and telling her sort-of boyfriend, Jake (Thomas Curtis), she'll be busy for a while before she's ready for marriage. There's a bolt of lightning, as if to cement this precocious utterance. And another. Cut to Melanie (Reese Witherspoon) as a grown-up woman, on the verge of success and love. |
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 Politics is a very different animal in Russia than in the West. Whereas politicians in the United States, for example, can usually return to their law firm and a stable income when they are not reelected, their St. |
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Stary Novy god: old-style New Year's. Before the Revolution, seasonal festivities started on Dec. 24 with kolyadky - a cross between Christmas caroling and trick or treat. People would go from house to house, singing songs and asking for sweets. This was really a pagan holiday in honor of kolyada, the god of feasts, but since it coincided with Christmas Eve (nakanune Rozhdestva Khristova, also called sochelnik), everyone pretended that this was really a celebration of Christ's birth. |
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Yankees Sign Contreras NEW YORK (AP) - For the second time in less than a week, baseball's biggest spender broke its budget for a big international acquisition, reaching a preliminary agreement Tuesday on a $32-million, four-year contract with Cuban defector Jose Contreras. Last week, the New York Yankees agreed to a $21-million, three-year deal with outfielder Hideki Matsui, Japan's biggest slugger. |
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