Cultural life in the Russian capital usually begins to slow down a bit in the summer, as theater troupes head out on tour, museums start gearing up for the autumn openings, and movie theaters are filled with Hollywood blockbusters. You wouldn’t know it by the premieres and openings at the end of last week. On…
Nearly half of Russians say they wouldn’t support a switch to a four-day work week over fears that it would reduce their earnings, a new poll has said. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that a shift to a four-day work week is “very likely” to happen as a way to help workers…
News from projects and regions June 24, 2019, 16:30 Photos On June 22, the second extreme cross-country run named At the Limit took place in the Pangody settlement (Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area), gathering 140 athletes in 35 teams from seven subsidiaries of Gazprom: Gazprom Dobycha Nadym, Gazprom Dobycha Urengoy, Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg, Gazprom Transgaz Yugorsk, Gazprom Pererabotka, Gazprom Energo, and Novy Urengoy…
While the summer solstice is more commonly marked with parties, fireworks and picnics in today’s Russia, there’s plenty of history behind the rituals that preceded modern-day celebrations. Ancient tribes that inhabited this part of the world celebrated with fire, water, song, dance and rituals. Called the Night of Ivan Kupala (from the word “to bathe”),…
Prominent businessman David Yakobashvili told Interfax news agency on Monday he did not plan to return to Russia after security services searched his art gallery, though he later denied this was the reason for his staying away. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) searched a Moscow art gallery owned by Yakobashvili earlier this month as part…
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday extending a Russian ban on food imports from the European Union until the end of 2020, according to a government database. Russia imposed an embargo on a wide range of imports from the EU and other countries in 2014 in retaliation for international sanctions over Moscow’s role…
The Islamic State (IS) terror group has claimed responsibility for a gun attack on security officials in Russia’s republic of Chechnya, the online monitor Site Intelligence Group reported on Sunday. IS has claimed a series of attacks over the past year in Chechnya, a predominately Muslim republic in Russia’s North Caucasus. An estimated 3,400 Russians fought…
The U.S. deployment of land-based missile systems near Russia’s borders could lead to a stand-off comparable to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Monday. Russia has been fiercely critical of U.S. plans to deploy missile systems in eastern Europe, and of Washington’s withdrawal from the…
A majority of Russians believe that the Soviet system took care of the common man and woman, according to a recent poll by the independent Levada Center pollster. Russia has seen an upward trend in positive opinions about the Soviet Union in recent years, with nostalgia toward it hitting a 14-year high in December. Public…
Ex-Soviet Georgia is in the grip of a wave of Russophobic hysteria which is being artificially whipped up and is getting worse, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. He said Russia was not imposing sanctions on Tbilisi, but had been forced to halt Russian airline flights to Georgia to protect its citizens after violent…
Russia and its partners will take steps to counter new sanctions that Washington has said it will impose on Iran, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies on Monday. In the comments reported by the state-run TASS and RIA news agencies, Ryabkov did not specify what those steps would…
St. Petersburg is famous for its midsummer celebrations when the night skies never reach complete darkness due to the city’s northern location. The most spectacular celebration of them all took place this weekend: “Aliye Parusa,” or Scarlet Sails. Officially a celebration for high school graduates, the event has evolved into a celebration for the whole…
Anna Akhmatova is one of Russia’s most brilliant poets. Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Akhmatova’s parents were both descended from Russian nobility. Her family moved to St. Petersburg before she was a year old, and she started writing poetry at age 11. Her father didn’t want any of her work published under his “respectable” name (Gorenko),…
The film crew of a Russian state-run television channel was attacked in Georgia’s capital on Saturday amid a flare-up in tensions between the two countries, Russian media have reported. Tensions between Russia and Georgia were ignited after a Russian lawmaker’s speech in the Georgian parliament set off mass protests in Tbilisi on Thursday. Demonstrators violently…
Moscow transformed itself to host hundreds of thousands of fans for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. One year after, what’s the legacy of the event in Russia… and how did Russia change? We headed to two popular places for fans, Nikolskaya Street and Luzhniki Stadium to ask Muscovites about their memories of the World Cup.
President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to suspend passenger flights carrying Russian citizens from Russia to Georgia. The move comes amid a brewing political crisis between the two countries after mass anti-Russian protests sparked by a Russian lawmaker’s visit rocked Georgia’s capital on Thursday. In a decree signed Friday, Putin also instructed the Russian…
Russia is ready to help Iran with oil exports and its banking sector if the Instex European payment system is not launched, Interfax cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Friday. The Instex mechanism was created by European countries in an attempt to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with six global…
Thomas Hammond, a professor at the University of Virginia and a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, made several trips to the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991. During his travels, he visited many Soviet cities, taking more than 3,000 photos along the way. A newly presented series of his photographs taken from 1956…
The summer solstice is here! Get out your sleep masks and blackout curtains. In Moscow the sun rose on June 21 at 3:44 a.m. and will set at 9:18 p.m., giving the city 17 hours and 33 minutes of sunlight — a whopping 10 hours and 33 minutes longer than the amount of sunlight we…
A two-year female polar bear that came out to people in search of food was rescued in Norilsk with help of Rosneft Oil Company and the Wildlife Conservation and Research Society. Due to the severe physical exhaustion of the animal, the specialists had to perform an operation to save her as fast as possible. Under…
Rosneft Aero, the operator of the jet-fuelling business of Rosneft Oil Company, has been awarded a tender for fuelling the aircraft fleet of the largest Turkish air carrier Turkish Airlines in Russian airports until 2020.
Less than half of Russians pay attention to foreign policy issues, according to a new poll by the state-run Foundation of Public Opinion (FOM) pollster. Polling in recent years has suggested Russians are becoming less focused on endeavors abroad as the economy stagnates and living standards fall. In the FOM poll published Friday, 49 percent…
Accreditation of journalists for the Press Conferences in the lead-up to the Shareholders Meeting Listen to audio For Gazprom’s Press Conferences audio broadcast please dial: +7 495 719-35-77 (Russian) +7 495 719-30-00 (English) June 21, 2019, 02:30 pm (Moscow time) [embedded content] Participants: Famil Sadygov, Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee, Gazprom; Elena Vasilieva, Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee, Chief Accountant, Gazprom; Alexander Ivannikov, Head of Department, Gazprom;…
Viktor, 62, turned his back on society 16 years ago and moved to the remote forest wilderness of Russian Siberia where he lives in seclusion in a wooden hut, studying the Bible and foraging for food. Gray-bearded, enigmatic and with a huge tattoo of Christ across his back, the former barge operator refuses to disclose…
The head of Georgia’s parliament has resigned after mass anti-Russian protests rocked the capital this week. Thousands of protesters on Thursday tried to storm the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi after Russian lawmaker Sergei Gavrilov addressed an event for Orthodox Christian leaders in his native Russian from the parliamentary speaker’s seat. Demonstrators violently clashed with police,…
Russia accused the United States on Friday of deliberately stoking dangerous tensions around Iran and pushing the situation to the brink of war, the state-run RIA news agency reported. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called on Washington to weigh the possible consequences of conflict with Iran and said a report in the New York Times…
Oyub Titiyev, a prominent human rights leader in Russia’s republic of Chechnya, was released from Russian prison on Friday morning, more than 18 months after first being detained on drug charges his supporters say were fabricated. Titiyev, who runs the office of the Memorial Human Rights Center in the southern Russian region, was detained in…
Officials in Russia and Georgia have spoken out following Thursday night’s mass protest in Tbilisi which broke out over anti-Russian sentiment and led to dozens of injuries. Crowds angry over the visit of a Russian lawmaker tried to storm Georgia’s parliament building on Thursday evening, pushing against lines of riot police, throwing bottles and grabbing…
European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to prolong until the end of January 2020 economic sanctions against Russia over the turmoil in Ukraine, a spokesman for the bloc said. The EU first slapped sanctions on Russia after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 and supported rebels fighting Kiev troops in the east of…
Crowds angry over the visit of a Russian lawmaker tried to storm Georgia’s parliament building on Thursday evening, pushing against lines of riot police, throwing bottles and grabbing riot shields from some officers and tearing off their helmets. The scenes in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, flared up suddenly after public anger over the visit and speech…
Dmitry, his wife, their five children and his elderly mother spent last weekend hiding in the woods just outside Penza, a city 650 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Whenever they needed food or water, Dmitry drove to the nearest store, bought rations and, after briefly charging his phone, hurried back to his family. “I didn’t sleep…
Tens of thousands of Georgians gathered outside the parliament building in the capital Tbilisi on Thursday to protest against a speech made in the country’s parliament by a Russian lawmaker in his own language. Protesters chanted slogans against Russian President Vladimir Putin and dozens broke through police lines to try to storm the parliament building. Sergei Gavrilov…
On June 20, a solemn ceremony was held at the construction base of hungarian Paks-2 NPP (General Contractor JSC ASE, Engineering division of ROSATOM) dedicated to the beginning of the erecting first buildings of the construction base. The ceremony was attended by the Minister without portfolio Responsible for the Planning, Construction and Commissioning of the…
Hundreds of protesters opposing a controversial landfill in Russia’s north have set up camp near its construction site in a rare tent-based demonstration for the country. Protests against the $162-million landfill in Shiyes, Arkhangelsk region, have become a symbol of Russia’s growing trend toward issues-based local activism. Almost a year of demonstrations in the abandoned…
Russia has started releasing a group of captive whales whose detention in Russia’s Far East has caused an international outcry, state media said on Thursday. Nearly 100 whales reportedly bound for export to China have been held for months in cramped pens near the Sea of Japan port of Nakhodka, triggering a wave of international…
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s is holding his annual question and answer session broadcast live on Thursday on state television. The marathon Q&A session has become a yearly tradition during Putin’s nearly two decades in power, giving the Russian president a chance to shape narratives around pressing issues. Here are the highlights: On whether he has…
As many as 350 people gathered in central Moscow on Wednesday evening to protest murder charges brought last week against three teenage sisters who stabbed their father to death after he had abused them for years. Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan had been under house arrest waiting to hear what the charges against them would…
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the fate of 24 Ukrainian sailors held in Russia since last year must be linked to the release of Russian citizens held in Ukraine whom Moscow wants to see freed. Putin’s comments marked a departure from the Kremlin’s insistence that the sailors must be put on trial and…
Russia has lost $50 billion due to Western sanctions in the past five years, compared to $240 billion that the European Union has lost from Russian sanctions, President Vladimir Putin has claimed. Russia has been hit with several rounds of Western sanctions since 2014 after its annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, as well…
Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft said on Thursday that more contaminated oil had been found at a section of the Druzhba pipeline from Belarus to Poland, the RBC media portal said. Pumping was suspended on Wednesday evening but resumed on Thursday, the report cited Transneft as saying. Russia suspended west-bound flows through the pipeline in April…
President Vladimir Putin told Russians on Thursday there were signs that years of falling real wages, which have dented his popularity, were drawing to an end and that a government programme would deliver higher living standards. Putin, 66, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, was re-elected by a landslide last year but…
Russians will see a boost in their living standards if they raise their labor productivity, President Vladimir Putin has said during his annual phone-in with the public. The productivity of the Russian workforce is among the lowest of the world’s major economies, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Living standards have declined as…
A former U.S. Marine held in Russia on suspicion of spying called on U.S. President Donald Trump and the leaders of Britain, Canada and Ireland to help him as he appeared in court at an appeal hearing on Thursday. Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel…
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday that Russia is being made a scapegoat for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and questioned the objectivity of the investigations into the 2014 disaster. The international investigative team set up to probe the crash said on Wednesday three Russians and one Ukrainian will face murder…
President Vladimir Putin began his televised phone-in session with the Russian public on Thursday at noon Moscow time amid a backdrop of growing dissatisfaction at home and stormy relations abroad. The marathon Q&A session has become a yearly tradition during Putin’s nearly two decades in power, giving the Russian president a chance to shape narratives…
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at next week’s G20 summit in Japan. In an interview on Fox News, Trump said he would hold meetings with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump confirmed earlier this week he would be meeting with Xi. “I want to get along…
Vietnam has formed a special team of experts, including four Russian scientists, to help preserve the embalmed body of the Communist-ruled state’s founding leader, Ho Chi Minh, according to a written copy of the official decision seen by Reuters. The special council has been created to assess the condition of Ho’s aging corpse — first embalmed…
Russia‘s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that it regretted the findings of the international investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17and called murder charges against Russian suspects groundless. Three Russians and a Ukrainian will face murder charges for the 2014 downing of the MH17 jet over eastern Ukraine that killed 298 people, in…
The United States has sanctioned a Russian financial institution for allegedly helping North Korea evade financial sanctions by assisting a company linked to Pyongyang’s primary foreign exchange bank, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday. U.S. officials targeted Russian Financial Society and accused it of opening multiple bank accounts for Dandong Zhongsheng Industry & Trade…
The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom group has called for the immediate release of a journalist detained in the Russian republic of Dagestan late last week, saying that the evidence against him was improperly obtained. Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, the religious affairs editor for the independent Chernovik news weekly, was arrested on June 14 on charges…
Release June 19, 2019, 17:10 The Gazprom Management Committee reviewed the progress of the construction projects for the Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream export gas pipelines. It was noted that both projects are going according to schedule. To date, about 1,450 kilometers of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, i.e. over 59 per cent of its total length, have been laid in the Baltic Sea. Pipelaying is currently underway in Finnish…
Russian anti-doping chief Yuri Ganus said on Wednesday that the country’s suspended athletics federation was not doing enough to stamp out doping culture and was falling short in its bid to be reinstated by global athletics governing body IAAF. Russia’s athletics federation has been suspended since a 2015 report commissioned by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)…
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Russia is at risk of nationwide social upheaval if the country’s economy does not improve, the head of Russia’s auditing agency has said. During a Monday interview on state-run television, Audit Chamber head Alexei Kudrin described an upcoming “explosion” of protests caused by falling living standards and widespread poverty. The only way to prevent this…
The situation in the Korean Peninsula could escalate next year if the United States fails to convince Pyongyang it is serious about improving ties, a senior member of Russia’s Security Council said on Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump said last week he was “in no rush” to make a deal with North Korea to get…
Civil unrest and falling living standards are likely to dominate Vladimir Putin’s annual televised national phone-in on Thursday, depriving the Russian president of the opportunity to concentrate on foreign policy and forcing him to confront domestic problems. In the past few months, Russia has seen mass protests over the framing of an investigative reporter, the…
A team of international prosecutors has launched the first criminal proceedings against four suspects in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the Russia-Ukraine border nearly five years ago. MH17 was shot down in July 2014 over territory held by pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard. Investigators have…
Moscow will transition to citywide recycling collection by the end of the year, its city government has announced. Waste reform has been a major issue facing Russia as the country grapples with a trash crisis. Residents of several Russian regions have held mass protests starting last year against a plan to ship Moscow’s trash to…
Background Uniper SE is an energy company focused on natural gas, power generation, and global energy trading. Gazprom and Uniper cooperate in gas supplies and transportation and implement joint scientific & technical and social & cultural programs. Nord Stream 2 is the construction project for a gas pipeline with the annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea.…
A new, expanded Tolstoy Theater Festival will take place in Yasnaya Polyana July 4-7. Yasnaya Polyana is the ancestral estate of Leo Tolstoy, which is now a museum that has kept everything exactly as it was in 1910, the year of the writer’s death. Tolstoy’s house, in a beautiful setting not far from Tula, is…