World Headlines: Issue #1665(27), Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The St. Petersburg Times Issue #1665(27), Wednesday, July 13, 2011
LOCAL NEWS
City Denies That UNESCO Criticized It		Australian Crayfish Used To Monitor City's Waste Water
	City Hall has dismissed the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's criticism of the treatment of St. Petersburg's historic center as having nothing to do with either City Governor Valentina Matviyenko or the city administration, and demanded that two Russian publications run corrections. Read the story...	Six Australian red claw crayfish have been recruited to work at St. Petersburg's southwest water treatment plants (YuZOS), Interfax reported this week. Scientists will assess the quality of cleaned waste water by monitoring the crayfishes' condition and pulse before the water is discharged into the Neva Bay, said representatives of Vodokanal, the city's municipal water utility. Read the story...
Nocturnal Bike Ride To Focus on Petrograd Side		In Defense Of Journalists' Right to Work
An architecture-themed mass nocturnal bike ride will take place on the Petrograd Side of the city this weekend. All cyclists are welcome to take part in the five-hour bike ride, during which participants will learn about the architectural masterpieces and historic monuments of the Petrograd Side and see places connected with Nobel laureates such as Joseph Brodsky, Ivan Pavlov and Pyotr Kapitsa. Read the story...		"The Day of Family, Love and Faithfulness, an official city event, will be celebrated in Tavrichesky Garden with various shows and entertainment," was how last week's event was announced in the local media. Read the story...
Greenpeace Says Snow Dump Polluting Gulf		IN BRIEF
The company in charge of a dumping ground for snow located near the Gulf of Finland has been fined, but continues to pollute the waters, according to the local branch of Greenpeace. The state enterprise Tsentr, which operated the site inside the protected area around the Gulf of Finland, was fined 335,000 rubles ($11,800) in June for violating environmental legislation. Read the story...		Killed by Lightning ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Two people were killed when they were struck by lightning during a thunderstorm in the city center on Friday evening. The tragedy occurred in a courtyard at 8 Ulitsa Vosstaniya, where a man and woman were sheltering from the heavy rain under a 30-meter poplar tree that was struck by lightning, Fontanka reported. Read the story...
NATIONAL NEWS
One Held Over Boat Tragedy		7 Killed After Airplane Crash-Lands on River
	MOSCOW — Police on Tuesday detained the head of the company that leased the Bulgaria riverboat for a weekend cruise on the Volga River, where more than 120 people drowned when it sank. But the ship's Canadian-based owner said it could only assume "moral responsibility" for the worst disaster in Russian waters in post-Soviet history. Read the story...	A twin turboprop passenger plane carrying 37 people made a crash-landing on the Ob River on Monday after one of its engines caught fire, killing seven. The An-24 plane operated by Angara Airlines was cruising at an altitude of 6,000 meters when the fire engulfed the left engine about 30 minutes into a flight from Tomsk to Surgut, Interfax reported. Read the story...
Officials Say Mass Brawl Was Not Ethnic Violence		Russian Cyclist Fails Drugs Test
MOSCOW — Investigators denied on Saturday that ethnic tensions were behind a mass brawl in a Sverdlovsk region village where locals fended off an attack by visitors from Yekaterinburg, most of them purportedly Caucasus natives. Read the story...		AURILLAC, France — A French official said police didn't find doping evidence in a search of Russian rider Alexandr Kolobnev's hotel room. Jean-Pascal Violet, the public prosecutor for the town of Aurillac, told The Associated Press that he has opened an investigation in connection with Kolobnev's failed Tour de France doping test. Read the story...
Georgian Photographer Confesses to Being a Spy		Moscow May Double in Size
TBILISI, Georgia — The personal photographer to the Georgian president was shown on television Saturday confessing to supplying a colleague with secret information that was then sent to Russian military intelligence. Read the story...		MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday reviewed a plan that would more than double the size of the capital and establish an international financial district west of the current city limits. Medvedev ordered Moscow's mayor and the governor of the Moscow region to draft the plan aimed at reducing traffic jams and turning the city into an international financial center at the St. Read the story...
Nationalists Given Sentences
	MOSCOW — A Russian court on Monday handed down sentences ranging from 10 years to life in prison to 12 members of the country's most vicious neo-Nazi gang convicted of 27 hate killings, which included a videotaped decapitation of one of their own gang members and other crimes. Read the story...
NATIONAL BUSINESS
No Beer to Be Sold After 11		Taxes Being Cut, But Not Medical Funding
	MOSCOW — The State Duma approved additional restrictions on alcohol sales in the country Thursday that will end sales of beer at night and from kiosks. The law is expected to fully enter into force by January 2013, but it is already causing shock waves in the industry. Read the story...	MOSCOW — The government will not abandon or trim down its $16.5 billion plan to buy medical equipment and raise doctors' salaries, even as it reduces the tax that was intended to fund the move, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Read the story...
Meat Importer to Build Hothouses in Pikalyovo		Russia's Rich Keep Home Life Separate From Work
Meat importer Agro-Line will invest 1.7 billion rubles ($60 million) in a hothouse complex in the Leningrad Oblast town of Pikalyovo. In fall 2012, a 12-hectare hothouse complex for growing vegetables will be launched in Pikalyovo, said Konstantin Grankin, the project's manager. Read the story...		Russia's richest are more focused on the opportunities generated by the financial crisis than its downside. They look to separate their personal wealth from their business interests and are largely opposed to involving their families in their business activities. Read the story...
51% Stake in Discount Airline Avianova Up for Sale
	MOSCOW — Alfa Group's investment arm A1 decided to sell its 51 percent stake in Avianova in late 2010, said Dmitry Chernyak, former managing director of the investment group, who quit in March this year. Read the story...
OPINION
How Russia Can Copy China's Success		A Tale of 2 Industrial Declines
	The theory that free trade and free capital flows are always good is increasingly under attack. Even at the International Monetary Fund, the old orthodoxy is on the way out. Markets usually produce desirable results, but not all the time. Read the story...	At the height of the Cold War in the 1960s, some political scientists predicted that the Soviet Union and the United States would eventually come to resemble each other. The role of the state in capitalism was expanding, while communism seemed to be mellowing and liberalizing. Read the story...
CULTURE
CHERNOV'S CHOICE		Modus operandi
As Nashi's Seliger camp continued its activities this week, another rock band found its reputation in tatters after performing for the pro-Kremlin movement gathered at Lake Seliger near Tver. Last week, Mumiy Troll reluctantly rejected a seemingly lucrative offer from Seliger's organizers, albeit after some consideration: It appears that the band, which once refused to perform at a concert promoting Putin's United Russia party, decided its reputation was more valuable. Read the story...			Mod is a rarity in St. Petersburg: A club that combines live music and a relaxed atmosphere. It's a place for people to feel comfortable in and free, says its owner Denis Cherevichny. Hidden in a long courtyard off the Griboyedov Canal, a five-minute walk from Nevsky Prospekt, the premises include a large concert room with a capacity of some 700 people and — particularly popular during the recent hot days and nights — an open terrace overlooking old buildings now occupied by offices, behind which the crosses of the Church on the Spilled Blood can be seen. Read the story...
Vive la France!		The return of the '80s
	Rivers of wine and mounds of delectable French cheese and crispy baguette, as well as haute couture and chanson music will be brought to the city's Yusupov Garden on Thursday as part of local Bastille Day celebrations. Read the story...		An exhibition devoted to fashion from the 1980s comprising pieces from the private collection of Alexander Vasiliev opened at the Erarta museum of modern art Monday. The items of clothing collected by the eminent fashion historian are on show to the public for the first time. Read the story...
The word's worth: Stop at Nothing		Jazz on the beach
Куда уж тут: not likely! At a dacha outside Moscow on a sunny afternoon, a group of friends are sitting around a table, telling байки (tall tales) and bragging about their financial acumen. You don't believe a word of it. Read the story...			This weekend's 7th annual PetroJazz festival will continue the series of summer music events being held in St. Petersburg, showcasing musicians from all over the world, as well as some of the city's finest local jazz talent. Read the story...
in the spotlight: Celebrity Charity: The Sequel		THE DISH: Illusions of Grandeur
	The charity fund that persuaded Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to sing "Blueberry Hill" — and prompted those awkward questions about money — did it again at the weekend, this time with Moscow concerts at which they promised Woody Allen would play jazz. Read the story...	There is nothing very grand about Grand Cafe Bazilik (Basil). It may have aspirations above its simplicity, such as a pork dish rather extravagantly titled "Madame Bovary," yet on a recent Friday evening, it was entirely lacking in the staple part of any Caucasian cuisine (the cafe's supposed speciality): Meat shashlyk. Read the story...
FEATURE
Salty Ears and Salient Culture		Iconic Cathedral Turns 450
PERM — The picture on a city sign shows a white stick figure wielding a baseball bat, clearly on the verge of doing some hideous violence to an unseen victim. In case you don't quite understand, there is a black line drawn through the club, as in a "no smoking" sign. Read the story...			MOSCOW — Russia celebrated the 450th anniversary of St. Basil's Cathedral on Tuesday by opening an exhibition dedicated to the so-called "holy fool" who gave his name to the soaring structure of bright-hued onion domes that is a quintessential image of Russia. Read the story...
Banker's Gift Spurs Blind Entrepreneur's Vision
MOSCOW — "I used to think, what can the blind do? But then they fixed my back," said Sergei Ogarkov, finance manager of the Lights of the Lighthouse, a grocery store in northern Moscow. Ogarkov is talking about blind masseurs who after three sessions eliminated back pain that he had endured for 15 years. Read the story...