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 Russian cultural figures have reacted with outrage to a new book on the fate of the Amber Room, which the book says was destroyed in Koenigsberg during World War II. It is not clear that any of the critics have read the book and none of them have presented any evidence that the book is wrong. The book, "The Amber Room: The Untold Story of the Greatest Hoax of the Twentieth Century", was published this month. |
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 The most precious thing that Russia's "No. 1 Beatle fan" Kolya Vasin has in his life is a record and an autograph he received from John Lennon in 1970. |
 Moscow has known since 1945 that the Amber Room was destroyed, possibly at the hands of the Red Army, but for years has lied that it survived, a new book says. "The Amber Room: The Untold Story of the Greatest Hoax of the Twentieth Century," published this month, concludes that the panels of the Amber Room were either burned or looted just after Soviet troops captured Koenigsberg from the Germans in April 1945. |
All photos from issue.
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 The first water taxis began working in town this month in competition with tourist boats and to the relief of some locals, who spend hours in traffic jams on their way from Vasilyevsky Island to Nevsky Prospekt inhaling exhaust gases and cursing authorities. |
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St. Petersburg's chief architect Oleg Kharchenko, who has held the post since 1991, is vacating his position, Governor Valentina Matviyenko said Thursday. |
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MOSCOW - After burglars slipped into a newly renovated top-floor apartment on Ulitsa Akademika Korolyova and made away with the family jewelry in 2002, the owners did what came naturally: they called the police. But a month later, when a portion of the stolen jewelry was returned, the police couldn't take all the credit. Thanks went mostly to the private detective agency Poisk, which the victims had hired to track down the thieves. "People come to us when they understand that the police can't do anything," said Ivan Chebotar, director of Poisk. "We can be held responsible because the client pays us money." Private detective agencies, a relatively new workforce that emerged after the 1992 law on private detective and security activity, can help fill a gap in public service that opened when the Soviet Union collapsed and police efficiency sharply declined. |
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 MOSCOW - For 75 years, Andrei Schmemann was stateless, a man with no citizenship. An ethnic Russian brought to France at the age of 8, Schmemann lived his entire live in Paris with a refugee ID and stubbornly refused to ask for French citizenship. |
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the acquittal of physicist Valentin Danilov on charges of spying for China and ordered a re-trial. Prominent human right activist Lev Ponomaryov said the ruling discredits Russia at a time when President Vladimir Putin was taking part in the Group of Eight summit in the United States. |
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MOSCOW - A nationwide lottery company grew worried earlier this year when its prizes were repeatedly won by residents of the same village in the Russian Far East. |
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 Governor Valentina Matviyenko has given the Western Express Diameter project a green light. The long awaited decision on the exact tracks of the Diameter - a perimeter set to link the ring road in its Western section - was made by the administration on Friday at a specialized meeting. |
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Minor confectionery maker Pekar last week announced it will increase its advertising spending in an effort to compete with national players, a move competitors say will hit six-monthly profits of the St. |
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MOSCOW - When the Dutch government expressed interest in funding the modernization of a power plant in Amursk, Khabarovsk region last year, the Russian government stopped the deal dead in its tracks. The Dutch wanted Russia to give up a few of its greenhouse gas emissions credits, which could be portioned out, should the Kyoto Protocol on global warming take effect. |
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Until mid-April, the Russian stock market had enjoyed more than a year of steady growth. The benchmark RTS index more than doubled during this period to a high of 781. |
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Raw materials remain the Northwest region's main exports. State authorities speak of putting their best efforts into boosting the exporting potential of the local economy, but no solid economic policy to assist the local manufacturers has yet been created, analysts say. Even the more developed areas of the region, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, largely engage in purely administrative reforms instead of addressing the needs of the local industries. "The difficulties of the remaining local industries are not being addressed. The government is preoccupied with simple administrative measures and distribution of land plots for the construction of leisure, trade and office estate," said Igor Yegorov, a representative of the United States Ministry of Trade division, the BISNIS Information service in Northwestern Russia. |
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 For Ryan Smith, the innovative and outgoing chef at the Davidov restaurant in the Astoria Hotel, his choice of career was obvious since early childhood. |
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MOSCOW - London-based home-improvement giant Kingfisher plans to open the first of what may be dozens of stores in Russia within two years and has poached a top IKEA executive to spearhead the expansion. The British company, which operates the B&Q and Castorama do-it-yourself retail chains, said Thursday that it had hired Peter Partma, formerly the head of development for IKEA in Russia, to oversee Castorama's entry into the Russian market. |
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MOSCOW - The Lithuanian prime minister blasted the Russian government over the Yukos affair Thursday, when a notorious corporate raider proposed purging the company's management as a means to stave off bankruptcy. |
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Zakayev Arrest Request OSLO, Norway (AP) - Moscow has demanded that Norway arrest and extradite Chechen rebel envoy Akhmad Zakayev to face charges in Russia, Oslo police said Friday. London-based Zakayev, an aide to Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, visited Oslo last week at the invitation of a parliament member from the opposition Socialist Left party. |
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MOSCOW - The stream of bad news about Yukos continues to push the Russian stock market down and by mid-session on Friday the benchmark RTS index had dropped to 560 points, its level at the start of June. |
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In response to "Police Checking Roma to Protect Tourists," an article on May 25, and "Crooked Cops Are Not a Joking Matter," a comment on June 4, both by Vladimir Kovalev. Editor, I visit St. Petersburg to assist in some work for very deprived children. |
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In his recent State of the Nation address, President Vladimir Putin said that it is the country's goal to achieve "a mature democracy and a developed civil society. |
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There are different truths ... foolish truths and wise truths ... There is also justice - Irina Antonova, Pushkin Museum director, cited in "The Amber Room: The Untold Story of the Greatest Hoax of the 20th Century." What should one believe about the fate of the Amber Room, the amber panels removed from the Catherine Palace at Pushkin by German soldiers in 1941 and last seen, packed in crates, just before the Red Army captured Koenigsberg in 1945? We should know the truth; but Russia's cultural elite still seem to want to have their own truth, a foolish truth that relies on knowledge being the privilege of the elite. |
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Although the law on an annual address on the state of St. Petersburg was passed back in 1998, the previous governor Vladimir Yakovlev didn't once fulfill it. |
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Funeral Games Some cynics say that Heaven's newest sunbeam, Ronald Reagan, was called "The Great Communicator" because he delivered his innumerable lies in words of one syllable. But this is just a typically vicious liberal canard. For Reagan truly was a great communicator, though not with words - or with facts, which he once called "stupid things. |
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Civil War Widow Dies ELBA, Alabama (AP) - The last widow of a Civil War veteran was buried Sunday in an 1860s-style ceremony complete with war re-enactors. Alberta Martin, 97, died May 31, nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended. She was a 21-year-old widow with a young child when she met and married 81-year-old Confederate veteran William Jasper Martin in 1927. |
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Pistons Lead Lakers AUBURN HILLS, United States (AFP) - Rasheed Wallace had 26 points and 13 rebounds as Detroit beat Los Angeles 88-80 despite an enormous effort from Lakers giant centre Shaquille O'Neal, who scored 36 points. |
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