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The Legislative Assembly took a first step toward speeding up Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's exit from office, prompting an angry reaction from City Hall representatives and, in what was described as an ironic statement, the suggestion, from Yakovlev himself, that he might leave even earlier. |
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MOSCOW - Russia's richest man could barely control his glee - not only did he beat some of the world's largest oil companies to the punch, but he made himself a member of their exclusive club in the process. |
 MOSCOW - The list of shareholders in Russia's new and only oil supermajor includes disgraced oligarch Boris Berezovsky - at least according to the man himself, making the $15-billion merger between Yukos and Sibneft a potential political hot potato. "I think the deal was a good move," Berezovsky said by telephone Wednesday from London, where the former Kremlin powerbroker who helped President Vladimir Putin come to power is now fighting extradition on fraud charges he claims were engineered to silence his opposition to Putin. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - The federal government on Thursday opted for the Defense Ministry's vision of military reform - an incremental expansion of volunteer service - over a fast-track, cheaper plan put forward by liberal lawmakers. But it balked at providing sufficient funding, which threatens to stall, if not derail, the much-needed reform. |
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MOSCOW - A Moscow student detained Wednesday in the Sergei Yushenkov murder case was released Thursday on condition he not leave the city. Artyom Stefanov, 20, denied he killed Yushenkov and said that he barely remembered the incident eight years ago between the lawmaker and his father that investigators said they suspected could have served as a motive. |
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Coming Back MOSCOW (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair will fly to Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Thursday, with talks expected to focus on a post-war settlement in Iraq. Russia and Britain, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, have been at odds over the US-led war. |
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While the city's birthday falls on May 27, which is a Tuesday this year, the major official events to mark the day for the 300th anniversary will be held on the following Saturday, May 31. |
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According to figures from the State Statistics Committee, the census recently completed in Russia revealed that the population of St. Petersburg, estimated by the census at 4.67 million, has dropped by 6 percent since the last census was taken, in 1989. Over the same period, the population of Moscow increased by 17 percent - to reached 10. |
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MOSCOW - Indonesia plans to buy 48 Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia, the Associated Press quoted Indonesia's military chief General Endriartono Sutarto as saying in Moscow on Thursday. Sutarto, who was accompanying President Megawati Sukarnoputri on a trip to Russia this week, was quoted as saying that Jakarta would purchase an initial batch of two long-range Su-27s and two Su-30s for delivery this year and at least another 44 planes over the next four years. "We have decided to buy these jet fighters and ideally we need four squadrons of 12 planes each," Sutarto said. Talks on a possible jet deal began in 1997, but were put off after the Asian financial crisis. |
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 MOSCOW - The Central Bank on Thursday essentially fired the head of MICEX, the country's largest stock market by volume, just two months after the head of RTS, Russia's benchmark bourse, was forced to resign over a feud with the Federal Securities Commission. |
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MOSCOW - The $15-billion merger deal between Yukos and Sibneft is being hailed as a new dawn for Russian business, the birth of a Russian powerhouse big enough to stand eye to eye with the biggest players in the global economy. Supporters say the new domestic heavyweight will have enough economic and political clout to budge government policy in its favor - and its combined market capitalization of $35 billion should lure a flood of cheap foreign credits to finance an expansion that will only add to its power. |
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LONDON - U.S. President George W. Bush's vision for a postwar Iraq was founded on the dreams of exiles and defectors who promised that Iraqis would shower U.S. troops with flowers. Now, with the crowds shouting, "No to America; no to Saddam," and most Iraqis already referring to the U. |
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A quick course in translation: Whenever you here a phrase like "we're going to find our own, new solution," spoken in Russian, simply translate as "We're trying to reinvent the wheel," and then move on. |
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A bad case of deja vu or is it really happening for a second time? Five years after they first announced a merger to form a "world-scale and world-class" company, Yukos and Sibneft are at it again. And they have plenty of high-level cheerleaders in the government egging them on. No sooner had it been announced than Alexei Kudrin was calling the merger "a very positive step" that "other Russian companies have a lot to learn from. |
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 The long-awaited new CD from increasingly popular St. Petersburg band La Minor is a rare case of a genuinely "difficult second album," a term music journalists more often use in an ironic or even mocking sense to refer to a band's silence after a successful debut. "Chto-to Sigareta Gasnet" ("The Cigarette Keeps Going Out") is finally set for release a full 18 months after La Minor debuted with "Blatnyak," and will be showcased with a big concert at Red Club on May 4. |
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 The Mariinsky Theater's Stars of the White Nights festival, which kicks off on May 5 with a performance of Andrei Konchalovsky's rendition of Prokofiev's opera "War and Peace," is unarguably Russia's top annual classical-music event. |
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This weekend's SKIF7 festival, which opened on Thursday and runs through Sunday, will attract most of the city's regular club audiences to LDM, so at least one club has chosen to take a break. Moloko, the leading underground rock club, won't open on Friday and Saturday, as its director, Yury Ugrymov, admits that not only the public but also the club staff will head to SKIF. |
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Following Tuesday's coverage of the exploding popularity of sushi restaurants in the city, I am happy to have had the chance since then to explore yet another non-indigenous cuisine - this time, African - rearing its head in St. |
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Razgovlyatsya: to break the Lenten fast after the midnight Easter ceremony. Orthodox Christian Russians celebrate Easter with the most joyful and colorful religious service of the year, feasting, and celebrations with family and friends. The season actually begins with the last pre-Lenten splurge of Maslenitsa, which was first a pagan holiday to celebrate the rebirth of the warming sun and then morphed into a Mardi Gras of bliny (crepes) served with 40 days worth of butter and sour cream. Then Lent, called Veliky Post (literally "the great fast") in Russian, since it is the strictest of all the many fasts in the Orthodox calendar: no alcohol (except a bit of Kagor, a sweet church wine), milk, eggs, or meat, and fish only on a few special occasions. |
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 Four students from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory took top honors at the Ninth London International String Quartet Competition last week, carrying off both the jury-awarded first prize and the audience prize voted for by the public, which snapped up all the seats at the British capital's presitigious Wigmore Hall for the final round. |
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World Warm Up ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Tomas Vokoun made 36 saves to anchor the Czech Republic to a 2-1 win over Russia on Tuesday night in front of 11,500 fans at the Ice Palace in the final friendly game before the start of the IIHF World Ice Hockey Championships, which start in Helsinki this Saturday. |
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