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In Brief

City Quits Tower

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg lost about $47 million while withdrawing from the controversial Okhta Center project last week.

The city sold its 22.6 percent share in the project for 2.96 billion rubles ($98.5 million) to Gazprom Neft, an oil company belonging to the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, Interfax reported on Friday.

The sum is 1.44 billion rubles ($47.3 million) less than the 4.4 billion rubles that the city has invested in the project since 2006, without taking into account the drop in the ruble’s exchange rate against the dollar from 26.2 in Dec. 2006 to 31.7 in Dec. 2009.

In 2006, when City Hall and Gazprom agreed to build the Okhta Center, then known as Gazprom City, as offices for Gazprom Neft close to the center of St. Petersburg, the city was due to finance the project in its entirety.

Criticism and protests against both the plans to build a high-rise tower, endangering St. Petersburg’s UNESCO-protected skyline, and the use of the city budget to fund the project followed.

In March 2007, it was agreed that the shares would be split between Gazprom Neft and the city’s budget, with each receiving 51 and 49 percent respectively.

Late last year, City Hall announced that it had decided not to fund the project due to the economic recession.

More Club Closures?

As fire safety checks at St. Petersburg nightclubs and other entertainment businesses continue in the wake of the deadly Dec. 5 nightclub fire in Perm, Governor Valentina Matviyenko demanded that nightclubs where drugs are sold also be blacklisted.

“A black list of clubs where incidents of drug use and sale have been registered should be compiled,” Matviyenko was quoted by Interfax as saying on Thursday.

Meanwhile, by Monday 400 out of 15,000 inspected venues were temporarily closed by courts across Russia, Russia’s Chief Fire Inspector Gennady Kirillov said, Interfax reported. Kirillov said a decision to shut down a total of 2,700 venues had been taken.

To close a venue, a court decision is required by Russian law.

In St. Petersburg, the Ministry of Emergency Situations sued 26 venues over fire security violations, which were included in its Black List of Nightclubs, Discos and Restaurants posted on its web site, the ministry’s press officer said on Monday. According to the spokesperson, “three or four” venues have been temporarily closed by court decisions. She did not give the names of the venues.

One hundred and fifty people died as the result of the Perm nightclub fire, according to Interfax’s Monday update.

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