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MAKHACHKALA, Dagestan - A fire roared through a boarding school for the deaf early Thursday, killing 28 young boys as they slept, unable to hear calls of alarm. Firefighters and police officers were able to save 131 of their schoolmates, but 106 of them remained hospitalized on Thursday suffering from burns and smoke inhalation, with 22 in intensive-care wards, local emergency officials said. |
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Promising to speed up work on a number of criminal cases and to be more involved in the assessment of draft laws than his predecessor, Nikolai Vinnichenko was confirmed by an overwhelming majority in the Legislative Assembly as St. |
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MOSCOW - Starting Monday, immigration officials will start taking a closer look at foreigners entering and leaving the country, and foreigners may find themselves barred for a reasons such as failing to pay taxes or fines, lacking medical insurance or not having enough money for the visit. The new rules are amendments to the law on entry and exit and will give the government greater control over those who need visas to enter, stay in and leave Russia, lawyers said. |
All photos from issue.
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UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's spontaneous trip to join President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Germany and France in St. Petersburg this weekend was called off only hours after it was announced. The quick turnabout underscores the sensitivity of the diplomatic game being played in world capitals as the Iraq war appears to be wrapping up. |
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MOSCOW - The Russian diplomatic convoy that came under fire as it evacuated Baghdad might have been carrying secret Iraqi files that U.S. intelligence officers wanted to seize, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Wednesday. |
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Balkan Withdrawal MOSCOW (AP) - The military chief of staff confirmed Thursday that Moscow will withdraw its peacekeeping forces from the Balkans, saying the pullout would occur within the next two months or so, news agencies reported. The Russian leadership has approved a Defense Ministry proposal for the withdrawal of Russian troops in the NATO-led peacekeeping contingents in Bosnia and Kosovo, Interfax and Itar-Tass quoted armed forces Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin as saying at a news conference. |
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MOSCOW - Gazprom said Thursday that it had signed a huge long-term gas-import deal with Turkmenistan in a move designed to help the world's largest gas firm supply its Western customers. Under the deal, ex-Soviet republic Turkmenistan, which sits on the world's third-largest gas reserves after Russia and Iran, will sell Gazprom 6 billion cubic meters of gas from 2004, with volumes set to rise to 10 bcm from 2006 and to 80 bcm from 2009. |
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MOSCOW - Shares in Russia's fifth-largest and fastest-growing oil firm, Sibneft, extended this week's gains Wednesday on a fresh round of rumors that a Western major is poised to buy a stake in the company. |
 MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Thursday that the overall tax burden in the country will be reduced next year from the current 35 percent of gross domestic product to 33 percent. "The government has worked out a plan how to do this," Kasyanov told his cabinet, adding that, to achieve this, the government is now looking at spending items to reduce in next year's budget. |
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GROWTH GDP Growth, % 2003 (*) 2004 World 3.2 (3.7) 4.1 Russia 4.0 (4.9) 3.5 U.S. 2.2 (2.6) 3.6 Euro zone 1.1 (2. |
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MOSCOW - UES minority shareholder National Reserve Bank on Wednesday made good on its promise to hound the power monopoly over its restructuring strategy, saying that the latest blueprint leaves the door open to unequal distribution of the company's assets. NRB, owner of about 3 percent of Unified Energy Systems, said in a statement that the long-awaited "5+5" plan for splitting up the company through 2008, which was debated by the UES board for the first time late Tuesday, "[does not] reflect or clarify a number of issues of paramount importance to minority shareholders and investors. |
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WHAT a difference a week makes. The chump-to-champ cycle usually takes longer, even in Washington. Critics of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush should feel shock over their bellyaching about the wayward war plan. All of us feel awe over the professionalism and power of the U. |
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IT seems to me that anyone interested in getting a first-hand idea of the partisan character of Legislative Assembly politics would do well to start out with meetings of the parliamentary budget committee. |
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 The Golden Mask festival, the annual showcase event of the best of the past year in the performing arts, wraps up with its award ceremony on Monday at the Mariinsky Theater. This year, the festival is being held outside Moscow for the first time in its history, coming north as part of St. Petersburg's 300th-anniversary celebrations. Since March 27, more than 40 shows from 13 Russian towns have been performed at venues around the city as the competition for the coveted masks heats up. |
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 The second week of the Golden Mask festival - at least in the configuration playing itself out in St. Petersburg - took a couple of side steps into unfamiliar territory. |
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After the success of his local gigs in February, crossover violinist Alexei Aigui returns with another pair of concerts this week. Aigui, who divides time between Moscow and Paris, had been a rare sight in St. Petersburg until recently. |
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The story of Onegin the restaurant, it seems, will soon be as established in local folklore as the story of Onegin the Pushkinian cad who displayed an uncanny flair for talking in verse. |
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As PR stunts go, the new joint project by the Amphora publishing house and the Bukvoyed bookstore chain appears to be one of the most ambitious to date in St. Petersburg. To launch "Sem Lepestkov" ("Seven Petals"), a new book by hip Moscow journalist Sergei Kuznetsov, the pair are organizing a literary clubbing project at clubs and cultural centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, culminating with a "Party a la 90s" in London on May 20. "Sem Vecherinok Dlya Semi Lepestko") ("Seven Parties for 'Seven Petals'") gets under way with a "Hippie and Reggae" party at Griboyedov club on Tuesday. |
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 The Tiger Lillies are a shining example of a band that people either love or hate. Next week, for the third year in a row, the eccentric London trio returns to St. |
 The official catalog for "Dimensions of Design - 100 Classic Chairs" provides many different approaches to understanding the exhibition, but a quote from opera director Bob Wilson seems most appropriate: "I like small objects in big spaces, because they become larger than life." The exhibition, a joint project organized by the St. Petersburg branch of the Goethe Institut and Berlin's Vitra Design Museum, presents 100 chairs, all exact 1:6 replicas of the originals, mounted on pyramid-shaped plinths inside elgant glass cubes. |
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 It is no secret that St. Petersburgers are an artistic race: "Scratch a St. Petersburger and you'll find an artist," to paraphrase an old Russian saying. |
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NEW YORK - Valery Gergiev's career at the Metropolitan Opera has had its ups and downs since he became its principal guest conductor in 1997. While most would agree that the ups significantly outnumber the downs, a small but determined faction in New York is increasingly vocal in its criticism of Gergiev, the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater. |
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If you want to see some of the future stars of world ice hockey, head to the Yubileiny Sports Palace this weekend. Saturday through Wednesday, junior teams from the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and the rest of Russia will join Team St. Petersburg to compete for the 29th annual Bolshoi Priz Sankt Peterburga, or St. |
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NEW YORK - Home is where the losses were on the first night of the NHL playoffs. The biggest surprises were in Ottawa and Dallas, where the top-seeded Senators and Stars were beaten Wednesday night. |
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