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 After a perilous 80-year journey through four countries, an imperial military flag that has outlived all those who rallied around it returned to Russiaís tsarist-era capital on Monday in a ceremony full of pomp and emotion. The St. George standard was handed over to St. |
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Over 100 cargo ships will find themselves stuck in Lake Ladoga for the height of St. Petersburg's 300th-anniversary celebrations, and the Leningrad Oblast Administration says that the situation poses an environmental danger in the area. |
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MOSCOW - A reputed former crime boss of St. Petersburg, Konstantin Yakovlev, known ominously as Kostya Mogila, or "Kostya the Grave," was gunned down in central Moscow in an apparent contract hit. Two men on a motorcycle opened fire on the car Yakovlev was riding in on Sunday evening, killing him and two men who were with him, Denis Tsaryov and Sergei Chikov, both Muscovites. |
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Thousands of people took to the streets this weekend to enjoy concerts, costumes and a little abuse of the governor as St. Petersburg kicked off its 300th birthday bash. |
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The official celebrations for St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary got under way over the weekend. Friday night saw the first of the promised shows on the Neva River - although many who gathered on the spit of Vasilievsky Island and along the Neva River's embankments were left disappointed as the event in question was water-based rather than the laser display they had expected. |
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May 27 10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. The laying of wreaths at the Bronze Horseman Ploshchad Dekabristov 11 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. |
All photos from issue.
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 While thousands of workers toiled round the clock to prepare the crumbling Konstantinovsky Palace for this month's grandiose summit of world leaders, the 18th-century residence had been strictly off-limits to journalists and curious onlookers. Now that most of the $280 million renovation has been completed, the presidential administration has proudly unveiled its masterpiece. |
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St. Petersburg's 300th-anniversary celebrations will be attended by hundreds of thousands of visitors. But the city is also home to a large expatriate community. |
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MOSCOW - Legions of Russian Beatles fans who never got to see Lennon and McCartney instead got Lenin and McCartney on Saturday when the former Beatle played to about 20,000 people, including President Vladimir Putin, just a few hundred meters from Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square. After missing out on the Beatlemania that took over the world in the 1960s, Moscow fans made up for lost time by eagerly welcoming McCartney to Russia for the first time. |
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MOSCOW - Russia dropped its opposition to a UN resolution lifting sanctions on Iraq once it believed its Soviet-era debt and massive oil contracts in the country would be respected, the Russian press said Friday. "Russia 'sold' its vote in exchange for the respect of contracts and debt," Izvestia said. |
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MOSCOW - The board of directors of Unified Energy Systems on Friday ended years of often acrimonious debate and tinkering by finally agreeing on a blueprint for how - and to whom - the assets of the world's largest utility will be parceled out over the remaining five years of its existence. |
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A new Web site, providing coverage of the St. Petersburg 300th anniversary celebrations in real time, was launched on Monday. The site, which can be found at www.flyway.ru, has been developed by telecommunications companies Equant, Cisco, Comset and Intel. According to Ekaterina Ovchinnikova, spokesperson for the project, the site features on-line video broadcasts of the official jubilee programs and celebration events, which are now available to visitors from across the globe. Equant is also providing technical support for the International Press Center for the duration of the 300th anniversary, according to Tatyana Prokhorova, general director of Equant. |
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 Poor infrastructure is putting a brake on the development of Russia's sea-freight industry, and container-shipping companies are saying that if Russia is going to reap the benefits of this rapidly growing sector, there needs to be significant investment in port terminals and interior transport networks Currently, just 1 percent of freight in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States is containerized. |
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MOSCOW - Half a year after a crisis that could have blocked much of the country's foreign trade, the leading international trucking union is still seeking consensus with the Russian government. The Geneva-based International Road Union, or IRU, is pushing four government agencies - the Economic Development and Trade, Foreign and Transportation ministries and the State Customs Committee - to do more to root out organized crime in international cargo transportation. |
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MOSCOW - The man widely credited with turning Aeroflot into a lean financial machine, chief financial officer Alexander Zurabov, leapfrogged his boss and rival Friday to become chairperson of the flagship carrier's board of directors. |
 MOSCOW - People have long been talking about the need in Russia for affordable international-standard lodging, cheaper than the four-and five-star hotels that dominate in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This year, the talk has given way to plans to establish chains of just such hotels across the country. |
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MOSCOW - The government has launched the second stage of its Electronic Russia campaign by awarding six companies with ten projects meant to reinvigorate the 76 billion ruble ($2. |
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TO most analysts of international affairs, whether based in London, Moscow or Washington, President Vladimir Putin's behavior during the run up to the U.S.-led war in Iraq was very predictable. From a classic realpolitik perspective, Putin behaved rationally. |
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WHEN the government starts talking about achieving a conclusive peace in Chechnya, it usually means one thing: More fighting. The recent spate of violence in Chechnya came as no surprise. |
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Devil's Advocate Too little attention has been paid to a remarkable declaration by George W. Bush in his state of the union address last January. In between great lardbuckets of warmongering lies and vacuous preening, Bush also delivered this ringing passage: "We do not claim to know all the ways of providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history. |
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Issues Archive