|
|
|
|
MOSCOW - As the country gears up to elect its fourth post-Soviet State Duma on Sunday, The St. Petersburg Times' sister paper, The Moscow Times, is gearing up to conduct an exit poll. The Moscow Times has joined forces with the Soros Foundation, Renaissance Capital and polling agency ROMIR to survey 20,000 voters in 150 cities on election day. The poll is an effort to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the country's democratic process in action, as well as to provide insight into voter behavior and attitudes. Results will be available online at elections.themoscowtimes.com, starting from 9:01 p.m. Moscow time, with continuous updates over the following days, giving vote-count breakdowns by federal district. |
|
 A huge swathe of the Russian electorate will ignore this Sunday's elections, as completely as the politicians will have ignored them throughout the course of the campaign. |
|
As Finns celebrate their Independence Day on Saturday, they will revisit their view of themselves after recent revelations that their country handed over dozens of Soviet Jews to Germany where almost certain death awaited them during World War II. "The Extradited," a new book by Finnish historian Elina Sana, for the first time reports that about 3,000 foreigners, including 74 Jews, were sent by Finns to Nazi Germany. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
 MOSCOW - In an election season dominated by the darker side of public relations, Anatoly Chubais, the consummate contrarian, is shrouding himself in light - holy light. In a new biography that he edited himself, Chubais, widely derided for creating the oligarchs while lord of the early privatization process, compares his life's work to some kind of divine dance performed to a supernatural beat. |
|
MOSCOW - With only one contender leading anything close to an election campaign, the victory of incumbent Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov in Sunday's mayoral vote seems inevitable, analysts said. |
|
The city prosecutor's office has opened a criminal case against Dmitry Zuber, general director of the VNITI institute, which is a national center for high-technology defense products, Interfax reported Wednesday. Citing a statement from the office, the news agency said a case of abuse of authority in regard to the sale of the administrative building located at 87 Maly Prospekt. |
|
MOSCOW - The pro-Kremlin United Russia party is considering expelling outspoken St. Petersburg Deputy Vladimir Yudin after he accused it of accepting funding from Yukos. |
|
MOSCOW - Fingerprints will be taken from those applying for U.S. visas starting Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said in a statement posted on its web site usembassy.state.gov/ moscow/ on Wednesday. "The biometric program in its initial stage involves scanning of the two index fingers, a procedure that should only take a few seconds," the statement said. |
|
Security for Elections ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Polling stations on Dec. 7 will be guarded by 6,800 militia officers, Boris Donov, deputy chief of the St. |
|
|
|
 British business in St. Petersburg continues to develop, despite the political uncertainties arising from the Yukos affair and the upcoming presidential elections. According to Dan Kearvell, commercial manager and St. Petersburg representative at the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, British companies are regaining their confidence in investing in St. |
|
The banking sector is distorted and fails to provide the services that consumers want and the economy needs, but economic growth and stability are increasing trust and fostering expansion, an American Chamber of Commerce seminar on retail banking in Northwest Russia was told Tuesday. |
 MOSCOW - Andrei Illarionov, President Vladimir Putin's top economic advisor, sought to distance the Kremlin on Thursday from the troubles of oil giant Yukos and warned that the judicial probe into the company will have long-term negative consequences. |
|
MOSCOW - Despite reducing its share of social responsibilities in the past decade, Russian industry last year still shouldered a 97 billion ruble ($3.4 billion) burden, or just under 1 percent of gross domestic product, according to a recent report. |
|
|
|
|
Of the dozen or so elections of regional executives taking place on the same day as the State Duma elections, Bashkortostan's presidential election has attracted particular attention. For much of the past year, the national media have been reporting on various scandals involving the republic and its president, Murtaza Rakhimov: the victory of the Rakhimov/United Russia list in elections to the republic's legislature was immediately followed by an anti-Moscow demarche on the part of the newly-elected legislators regarding the issue of Bashkir sovereignty; the Audit Chamber's statements regarding the Rakhimov clan's privatization of the Bashkir oil-refining complex on the sly; the charges of multibillion dollar tax evasion by oil companies controlled by Rakhimov's son, Ural, and so on. |
|
There is a widely held view that the State Duma is completely in the pocket of the presidential administration, that all it really does these days is perform the role of rubber stamp for Kremlin-backed legislation, and that Sunday's ballot will not change much. |
|
Union of Right Forces co-leader Irina Khakamada came up with quite an interesting play on words this week. The Party of Life, set up by Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, which is running in a bloc with State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov's Russia's Rebirth, has one of the lowest party ratings in the election campaign. |
|
|
|
 Is Russian society still as mentally deranged as described in Anton Chekhov's "Ward No. 6"? Oh, yes, sighs Russian actor Alexei Guskov, the producer and the brains behind a new movie called "Ragin" and loosely based on Chekhov's famous story. Currently being filmed on location in St. Petersburg, the film aims to explore the state of mind of Russian society over the past two centuries. |
|
 Tequilajazzz, a leading local alternative band, has kept a low profile lately. Having passed its 10 years in existence this September, the quartet refrained from any anniversary activities - except for playing a "secret" concert for friends at Fish Fabrique in the spirit of the band's and the underground venue's tradition of jointly celebrating their anniversaries with annual parties. |
|
The coarse-voiced singer and double bass player of Billy's Band, Vadim "Billy" Novik, who formed the trio on the strength of his love for Tom Waits, will start celebrating the birthday of the U.S. troubadour at Red Club on Saturday, on the eve of the actual date. |
|
An acquaintance recently recommended a new restaurant tucked away on the Petrograd side. He told me the street and the name of the place, Mesto, which is Russian simply for "place. |
 Since the time video technology was embraced as an artistic medium in the 1960s, its use has become widespread among modern artists: nowadays only a lazy artist doesn't work with video. The [Pro] Smotr Video Art Festival, which continues at various venues in St. Petersburg until mid-January, offers the chance to get acquainted with some of the big names in the wide category of video art today. One of those names is the prominent British artist Mark Wallinger, perhaps best known for "Ecce Homo," a life-sized sculpture of Christ which occupied the so-called "Fourth Plinth" on London's Trafalgar Square in 1999. |
|
 Those who heard Olga Borodina sing Dalila at the Mariinsky Theater on Tuesday may have been wondering why they sympathized with this magnetic Philistine beauty, a femme fatale who deluded and betrayed her Hebrew lover for the sake of her people's victory. |
 With its relentless bloodshed and scrambled, inconclusive narrative, Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited fourth feature, "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," is certain to provoke both awe and revulsion. The film's detractors and its fans are likely to agree, however, that the movie, a densely referential pastiche of B-movie attitudes and situations, is above all an exercise in style. |
|
As a young man Abraham Lincoln wrote poetry. John Quincy Adams, to console himself after losing an election, translated some odes of Horace. But leaving aside campaign speeches, legal depositions and recent addresses to Congress, up until now no American president has ever published fiction. |
|
Zhryeby: lot, fate, destiny. Anyone watching the election debates? Well, I am, along with four pensioners, six representatives of the Central Elections Commission, and 23 lawyers (representing the organizations participating in the State Duma elections). And I highly recommend them to any foreigners wanting to expand their vocabulary, pick up the code words of contemporary Russian political life, and get utterly confused over who stands for what. |
|
|
|
|
Chretien Says Farewell OTTAWA (AFP) - Prime Minister Jean Chretien leaves Ottawa next Wednesday for a tour to Nigeria and France, his final overseas tour before he steps down as prime minister on Dec.12. Senior Canadian officials said Friday that his visit to Nigeria - for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) - was very important because, as one of the officials said, "the prime minister is passionate about Africa. |
Temp: 0°C partly cloudy 
Issues Archive