|
|
|
|
Plans by Hamburg University to award President Vladimir Putin an honorary doctorate in economics for his efforts when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s have set off a furor in Germany. Putin is likely to face protests on Sept. 9 when he will arrive in Hamburg, St. Petersburg's sister city, for the annual Russian-German summit known as the Petersburg Dialog. He and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder founded the summits in St. Petersburg in 2001. Schroeder received an honorary doctorate from St. Petersburg State University last year. During Putin's visit German students and politicians plan to organize mass protests against the award, saying it is inappropriate because in the five years of Putin's presidency the administration has violated human rights in Chechnya and deprived the public of an independent media. |
|
 Built on the edge of the Gulf of Finland and on the banks of the mighty Neva River, St. Petersburg is surrounded by and threatened by water. But could the 300-year-old city, like the mythical Atlantis and Russia's Kitezh, one day disappear under the waves? Prominent Moscow geologist and oceanographer Alexander Gorodnitsky thinks so, giving the city as little as another 20 years before rising seas caused by global warming overwhelm it. |
|
Russia, or at least St. Petersburg, is undergoing a sexual revolution. At the end of the Soviet era there was the declaration on television that "we don't have sex in the U.S.S.R." Just last year, St. Petersburg was promoted as the nation's erotic capital. But since the people threw out Communism, they have also had to work for a living and many spend long hours in the office. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
|
Greenpeace has filed a lawsuit against the Leningrad Nuclear Power Station, or LAES, for allowing Ecomet-S, a private plant for welding radioactive metals, to use its territory without the statutory environmental impact report being performed, environmentalists say. Ecomet-S has been operating next to the power station since 2001, they added. The company welds up to 8,000 metric tons of radioactive metals a year that it sells in Russia and abroad. Its products include stainless steel and non-ferrous metals, which could be used to make household items, such as frying pans and saucepans, according to Greenworld, a local environmental organization, which provided Greenpeace with information on the plant's activity. |
|
 The city's premiere bookstore, Dom Knigi, has stopped selling books in its main office in the landmark former Singer House, while the building undergoes major renovations. |
|
Police have conducted more than 30 raids and searches in St. Petersburg and Novgorod in their investigation of the murder of Nikolai Girenko, an expert on skinheads. Before he was killed on June 19, Girenko had been due to testify at a trial of an extremist group in Novgorod. St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko met top law enforcers this week to discuss progress on the case. |
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW - Yukos shares hit a new 30-month low of $5.30 on Moscow's RTS exchange after the company made a statement that it will go bankrupt should the state proceed with the sale of its main production unit, Yuganskneftegaz. Yukos said it did not expect to see any money from the Yuganksneftegaz's forced sale to recover a $3. |
|
Lavrov to Resolve Ban MOSCOW (SPT) - Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Dutch counter-part, Ben Bot, said Wednesday they are working to resolve Russia's ban on Dutch flower imports that is costing companies in the Netherlands an estimated $500,000 per day. |
 Svinin and Partners Co. reported their closed-end fund made a profit of 5.6 million rubles ($193,000) during its first 100 days of operation, the fund being the first in the country to invest in commercial real estate. Funds such as Svinin and Partners' First Closed-End Fund are referred to as "closed" because investors deposit their finances for a prolonged period of time - several years - and cannot make a withdrawal until the fund completes its work. |
|
Intel, the world's leading micro processor producer, has opened a research and development center in St. Petersburg. The new center will boost the city's economy and help propel Russia to the forefront of computer technology, company executives said during the center's opening announcement at a news conference Tuesday. |
|
New banknotes with denominations of 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 rubles are set to enter into circulation. Their design will remain the same but some new features will appear that will be easy to notice but difficult to counterfeit. The new notes differ from the old banknotes by the level of protection. |
|
|
|
|
I recently approached a number of Jewish businessmen in Russia about contributing money to an American charity, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. HIAS was founded by Russian Jews in New York in the 1880s to assist those fleeing the pogroms in the Pale of Settlement. |
|
Good spies make their living by not attracting attention. When they get caught, two explanations are possible: Either they slipped up, or they wanted to get caught all along. |
|
The Russian government should seriously review its regional development policies priorities in the light of news about investment plans in the Northwest region. While in 2003 about $696 million in foreign money was invested in St. Petersburg, with the lion's share coming from Britain, Germany, Cyprus, the United States and Finland, this year the regional investment leader could be, surprisingly enough, China. |
|
|
|
 The summer doesn't usually have many treats in store for theatre-goers - the majority of theatres are closed until mid September. Here's where the Molodyozhny Theatre makes a pleasant exception, with its doors opening from the beginning of August. The season opens with Alexei Tolstoy's famous play "The Swallow" ("Kasatka"), which has become the theatre's "trademark" production. |
|
 Zoot Woman, a U.K. electronic trio, writes what are initially good pop songs, their mood shifting from melancholic to euphoric, and then disfigures them with every possible break and beat to leave the tracks even more memorable. |
|
The summer's almost gone. Or, at least the best part of it, which seems to have ended last weekend with a magical couple of concerts by Stereolab and David Byrne, both playing for the first time in the city. Unless there is last-minute news of a concert by, say, Morrissey, it could be said that there will not be anything of that standard until, maybe, September 17 when Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play a scheduled gig at the not-as-prestigious-as-it-claims-to-be Oktyabrsky Concert Hall. |
|
It's not often that you find yourself to be the only guest in a restaurant on a rainy Monday night. Such seeming unpopularity may warn you against the place; or, it could just signify a bad day for a restaurant. |
 On the face of it, Australian art curator Victoria Hammond seems not particularly suited to writing a book about late 1990s Russia, mainly set in St. Petersburg. She doesn't speak the language, and misses out certain themes altogether. Describing herself as an Australian schooled in traditions of liberal democracy, feminism, and postmodernism, how could she possibly understand a society that often keeps its true face hidden and where many of the population are unreconstructed Homo Sovieticus? The book records times of naïvety. |
|
 Part of the old quarter of St. Petersburg, the house at 84 Naberezhnaya Reiki Moiki, is preparing for a delectable and rare celebration - its own birthday party on July 31 in the shape of an installation exhibit. |
 Watching pretty woman Julia Roberts in a U.S. network documentary on Mongolia pour nauseating compliments about "the world's most bloody warriors" who she benevolently finds to be "friendly, gentle and kind," I grew oddly excited about a visit to Mongolia. What would I find there? I did not have Roberts' exclusively smiling mien, nor the ready lean of the head on the perplexed, yet brave shoulders of Mongolian herdsmen. |
|
 It won't take long for the reader of Antony Beevor's latest contribution to European historical studies to feel like a victim of the old bait-and-switch. |
 Samuel Beckett once said, "His writing is not about something. It is that something itself." From D.H. Laurence we hear: "Nothing but old fags and cabbage-stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest, stewed in the juice of deliberate journalistic dirty-mindedness - what old and hard-worked staleness, masquerading as the all-new!" Who could incite such quotes? For the answer head to the Vladimir Nabokov Apartment Museum, which during the next few days, is hosting a travelling display on one of the best known names among Irish novelists - James Joyce. |
|
A Short History of the Russian Political Joke Russian jokes come in all varieties, from the частушка (chastushka, a four-line, rhyming verse), to the байка (a tall tale), to elaborate comic stories that lead inexorably to the punch line. |
|
|
|
|
U.S. to Sell Arms to Iraq WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration cleared the way Wednesday to sell arms to Iraq just as it does to other allies, reversing the ban in place for much of Saddam Hussein's regime. Bush made a presidential determination that the standard methods of engaging in munitions transfers with friendly nations are now appropriate in the case of Iraq and will promote democratic reforms, help achieve reconstruction and strengthen the Iraqi government. |
|
Brazil Through to Final LIMA, Peru (AP) - Brazil reached the final of the Copa America for the first time since 1999, beating Uruguay 5-3 on penalty kicks following a 1-1 tie Wednesday night. |
Temp: -2°C overcast 
Issues Archive