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MOSCOW - Deputies, many of them smiling and hugging one another, gathered for the first session of the new State Duma on Wednesday and picked United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov as speaker. Gryzlov told the session that pro-Kremlin United Russia has won over dozens of independent deputies since it swept Dec. |
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Despite the city's 300th anniversary celebrations being the major event in St. Petersburg's cultural and political life this year, local politicians say it was overshadowed by the looming presidential elections for which the October gubernatorial and this month's State Duma elections were merely dry runs. |
 Lera Martynyuk wraps a warm woolen scarf around her waist and starts stretching. This seventh-year student at the prestigious Vaganova Ballet Academy looks confident and concentrated as she takes her usual place in the rehearsal room exactly under a portrait of the legendary Agrippina Vaganova. |
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MOSCOW - In a major setback for the Federal Security Service, a Krasnoyarsk jury on Monday acquitted physicist Valentin Danilov on charges of spying for China while working on a commercial contract. |
All photos from issue.
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The trial of those accused of murdering liberal State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova in 1998 was adjourned Monday until Jan. 5 because a defense lawyer was said to be too ill to travel from Bryansk to St. Petersburg. The trial began Monday with the hearing lasting about an hour, but the lawyer of Yury Kolchin, one of the six suspects on trial, had last week asked the city court to postpone the hearing. |
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MOSCOW - State Duma deputies have decided to forget about politics, at least for one night. Both winners and losers of the recent election are looking forward to greeting the New Year with loved ones, friends or - in the case of Vladimir Zhirinovsky - with the homeless. |
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MOSCOW - Two staples of all post-Soviet presidential elections - Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov and ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky - have decided at party congresses not to run in the March election. With Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, the other candidate in all post-Soviet elections, already out of the way, President Vladimir Putin faces no serious challengers in the March 14 vote and is on course to secure a resounding victory, political analysts said. |
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 The first plum wine bottled in Russia is on sale in St. Petersburg. Although plum wine currently occupies less than 1 percent of total wine sales, with fruit wines holding a bit more than 2 percent, local wine producers might be eager to shift from poor-quality grape wine brands to a wider range in fruit wine production. |
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The first plum wine bottled in Russia is on sale in St. Petersburg. Although plum wine currently occupies less than 1 percent of total wine sales, with fruit wines holding a bit more than 2 percent, local wine producers might be eager to shift from poor-quality grape wine brands to a wider range in fruit wine production. |
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The Russian Audit Chamber said on Friday that at least $120,000 allocated by the World Bank for the reconstruction of St. Petersburg's center was used for purposes not specified in the contract. The Audit Chamber Collegium said that in 1997 the Russian Finance Ministry gave the St. |
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Aa2 Rating Confirmed MOSCOW (SPT) - Interfax Rating Agency, a strategic partner of Moody's Investors Service in Russia, confirmed St. Petersburg's credit rating on the national scale on Monday. |
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This year was special for Russia, and for St. Petersburg in particular. St. Petersburg Times correspondent Angelina Davydova asked top managers of four companies what they think of 2003. Dmitry Kiselyov, Deputy Chairman of the Board, OOO Okhta Group Q. How would you assess the results of 2003? A. For St. Petersburg the year 2003 passed under the sign not of the 300th anniversary, but under the sign of "Road Work." There was an enormous program of city center reconstruction, while most work happened during the first half of 2003. |
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 St. Petersburg's government officials and entrepreneurs this year learned a valuable lesson: money likes peace and quiet. The bustle of politics during the sixth months leading up to the inauguration of a new governor stalled several projects, and foreign investment shrank by at least one quarter. |
 Only three of the dozens of hotels slated to open in time for the city's 300th anniversary have opened. Even such a slow pace is revolutionary for this market. In addition to the big names, the city also gained 20 new mini-hotels. The 230-room, three-star Dostoyevskaya Hotel that opened at 19 Vladimirsky Prospect in early December cost around $20 million. |
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ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Governor Valentina Matviyenko sees turning St. Petersburg into a European city as her main task, Interfax reported Matviyenko as saying at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday. |
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The stock market has been showing steady but had insignificant growth over the past week, with most market participants preparing for the holidays. Most shares experienced a moderate upward trend, while the RTS index fell 7.080 points (0.38 percent) to 567.4 points by Friday. On Tuesday the market opened up with Tatneft leading the way (up to 4 percent), however, it closed down and most shares tumbled. The leader of the downward trend was UES, which, according to VEO analysts, was caused by German Gref's official statement that the decision on wholesale generating companies will be made no sooner than next year. Yukos shares, on the contrary, rose, in spite of the Basmanny court decision to keep Khodorkovsky behind bars. |
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 "If I wasn't married and had a girlfriend, I would bring her to St. Petersburg to stay in the Astoria Hotel. This is the most romantic place I can think of," says Sir Rocco Forte of his business in St. |
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It's pantomime season in London and Boris Berezovsky is one of the hottest tickets in town. He spoke Dec. 8 at the Reform Club in the West End, and a week later addressed the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House. The crowds came to hear what the RIIA had billed as Berezovsky's "trenchant interpretation of current events in Russia," particularly the "leading oligarch's" views on the recent parliamentary elections and the fate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former CEO of Yukos. |
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Jokes during this year's gubernatorial election that Governor Valentina Matviyenko's term in office could end up looking like that of former Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev are not funny at all; they could be realized. |
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This year had the potential to put St. Petersburg in the forefront of a progressive and modernizing Russia. A team of hometowners are holding the reins of power in the Kremlin and the city became the focus of national and international festivities as it marked its 300th anniversary. |
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Head Master OK, we admit it: we were wrong. The big news that shook the world this month has finally convinced your humble correspondent to wolf down a huge plate of crow tartare and confess the error of his ways. |
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