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St. Petersburg will be the only city in Russia and one of only three European cities to host the Olympic torch relay ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August. The torch will be carried through the city on April 5. London and Paris are the other European cities through which the Olympic torch will be carried. “It’s a great honor for St. Petersburg to host such a serious world sports event,” said Vyacheslav Chazov, head of the St. Petersburg Sports and Physical Culture Committee. “I think St. Petersburg has received the honor because it is known not only as the country’s cultural capital, but also as the home of a whole set of magnificent sporting achievements,” Chazov said. Chazov said at least 81 Olympic champions live in St. Petersburg, and 44 of the city’s sportsmen will take part in the Olympics this year. The Olympic torch relay in St. Petersburg will cover 20 kilometers, beginning at Ploshchad Pobedy and passing famous sights including the Mariinsky Theater, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Bronze Horseman and the Peter and Paul Fortress. It will end its journey on Palace Square next to the State Hermitage Museum. Among the 80 participants of the relay will be many Russian Olympic champions, including ice-skater Yevgeny Plyushchenko and speed skater Svetlana Zhurova, who will complete the 3 1/2-hour relay. Shot-putter Galina Zybina, 77, who won three medals in the Helsinki (1952), Melbourne (1956) and Tokyo (1964) Olympic games will begin the relay. The honor of carrying the Olympic torch will also go to Russian actors, including the 73-year old actress Alisa Freindlikh. The other torch-bearers will be representatives of public organizations and sponsors. In comments to the media ... |
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LIFTOFF FOR EAGLES
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Two of the double-headed eagle statues surrounding the Alexander Column on Palace Square. An inspection on Thursday revealed that 28 of the smaller eagles have been stolen. |
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MOSCOW — Russian security services have detained an employee of BP’s Russian joint venture and a second person with links to the British government’s cultural arm on charges of industrial espionage, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday. The agencies quoted the Federal Security Service (FSB) as saying the two people detained were brothers with ...
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A new generation of activists joined veteran protesters this week near the Angleterre Hotel on St. Isaac’s Square to mark the 21st anniversary of mass protests held to save the original historical building, one of the most important such demonstrations ... |
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A recent increase in the number of accidents involving the city’s marshrutki minibuses has prompted police, prosecutors and the city administration to ... |
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MOSCOW — Opposition coalition The Other Russia on Wednesday proposed creating an alternative parliament that would unite opposition groups across the political spectrum. The alternative parliament, tentatively titled the National Assembly, would consist of 500 to 600 members, including activists from ... |
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Most violations of people’s rights in St. Petersburg are connected to housing, according to an annual report released by city ombudsman Igor Mikhailov. These findings are countered by local human rights advocates who are working on an alternative document. Mikhailov ... |
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MOSCOW — Russia received the United States’ compromise proposals on missile defense in written form Wednesday, and officials were studying them, Foreign ... |
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 MOSCOW — PepsiCo and its largest bottler agreed to buy a majority stake in Russia’s leading juice producer in another step by the world’s No. 2 soft drinks maker to increase its presence in healthier food and beverages. PepsiCo and the Pepsi Bottling ... |
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Fazer Group has signed an agreement to buy a land plot in the Leningrad Oblast on which it will build a new bakery to strengthen its position on the Russian ... |
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Vegetable Profits Slump ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Sunway-Group LLC, a Leningrad Oblast-based fruit and vegetable retailer, saw its net profit decrease by 16 times last year, Interfax reported Tuesday. The company reported net profit of 2.686 million ... |
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 MOSCOW — The murder trial in absentia of former Yukos executive Leonid Nevzlin began in Moscow on Wednesday, prompting complaints by defense lawyers that ... |
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MOSCOW — Russia, the world’s third-biggest wheat exporter, agreed to give the country’s farming bank 70 billion rubles ($3 billion) to help boost grain output after borrowing costs doubled. Russian Agricultural Bank will get 20 billion rubles ($848 million) ... |
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MOSCOW — Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Wednesday that he saw the Central Bank’s deposits, bank reserve requirements and market operations, but not ... |
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MOSCOW — Russia’s Interior Ministry said it uncovered “large-scale embezzlement” by State Pension Fund employees. Fund managers used government money to purchase apartments from the city of Moscow in 2004 and 2005, the ministry said in a statement on its web site Wednesday. The unidentified workers signed ... |
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 Earlier this month, the American Enterprise Institute hosted a panel discussion with leading members of the opposition in Russia — Boris Nemtsov; Vladimir Ryzhkov; Oleg Buklemishev, the deputy manager of Mikhail Kasyanov’s presidential campaign; and Vladimir ... |
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Here is the latest scandal to hit Chechnya: A Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist, while on a visit to Grozny for a football game, took a drive down the street ... |
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 BEIJING — Tibet authorities said on Thursday they had arrested dozens of people involved in a wave of anti-Chinese violence that has swept the mountain region and prompted Beijing to pour in troops to crush further unrest. China’s response to last week’s ... |
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LONDON — Two British tabloid newspapers made unprecedented front page apologies on Wednesday to the parents of missing girl Madeleine McCann for suggesting ... |
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Todd Pitman, the West Africa bureau chief for The Associated Press, was riding behind Dmitry Chebotayev’s vehicle when the Russian photographer was killed last year. He describes how the experience changed his life. In my nightmares, the helicopters ... |
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Free Maxim Reznik, a rally against imprisonment of the leader of the local branch of Yabloko democratic party, will feature Garry Kasparov, ... |
 Amid a wave of hate crimes that has tarnished Russia’s cultural capital, a youth organization has taken up the challenge to retrieve St. Petersburg’s reputation by organizing a movie festival on tolerance in the week following the UN’s World Day Against ... |
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 This year’s Mariinsky Theater Ballet Festival, running through Sunday, has proved very meager indeed compared with the rich and diverse fare offered by ... |
 Atop the globe, the icy surface of the Arctic Ocean has remained relatively peaceful. But its depths have boiled with intrigue, no more so than in the cold war. Although the superpowers planned to turn those depths into an inferno of exploding torpedoes ... |
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 Arthur C. Clarke, a writer whose seamless blend of scientific expertise and poetic imagination helped usher in the space age, died early Wednesday in Colombo, ... |
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Simplebar // 1 Degtyarnaya Ulitsa // Tel. 941 1744 // Open daily from 1p.m. to 1a.m. // Menu in Russian and English // Dinner for two with wine 6,510 rubles ($268) SimpleBar has the subtitle “Aram and Olga’s Enoteca.” Aram is the owner of this restaurant ... |
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 At the beginning of “27 Dresses,” Jane (Katherine Heigl), a serial bridesmaid with an almost pathological devotion to other people’s nuptials, spends a ... |
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LONDON — David Beckham could win his 100th international cap against France next Wednesday after he was recalled to the England squad on Thursday. Coach Fabio Capello named the 32-year-old midfielder, who plays for LA Galaxy, in a 30-man squad for the ... |
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BEIJING — Beijing organisers are refitting the toilets at three main Olympic venues after complaints from foreign athletes about having to squat, an official ... |
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BEIJING — The largest producer of China’s favorite tipple has promised the country’s shooting team a 10 million yuan ($1.42 million) bonus if they bag five gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, state media reported on Thursday. The Wuliangye Group, which distils the fiery alcoholic drink baijiu, has ... |
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