A group of friends frolicking on a beach in Brazil recently discovered a Russian message in a bottle thought to be written by Soviet sailors, Brazilian media have reported. The 15 friends were vacationing on the country’s southern tip on Sept. 20 when they came across a glass bottle containing a rolled sheet of paper…
In 1881 the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov wrote a short story called “The Tale of Cross-Eyed Lefty and the Steel Flea” about a group of blacksmiths in Tula led by a left-handed master. In the story, Tsar Alexander I brought back a miniature mechanical flea made of steel from England. His son, Tsar Nicholas I,…
President Vladimir Putin wants to connect ports on Russia’s Arctic coast with ports on the Indian Ocean, he said at the Valdai Discussion Club conference. Asia and the Middle East were in the spotlight during the conference, which Putin has attended since its establishment in 2004. Infrastructure development was a key part of this year’s talks which took…
Russia was not informed in advance by the United States or by Turkey about U.S. plans to pull troops back from Syria’s northeast border region ahead of a Turkish military operation, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has emerged as a leading power broker in Syria over more…
A court in Moscow ruled Tuesday that U.S. investor Michael Calvey should remain under house arrest facing charges of embezzlement until Jan. 13, the state-run TASS news agency reported. Calvey and other executives at private equity group Baring Vostok were detained in February. They deny wrongdoing and say the charges against them are being used…
The Kremlin will no longer allow authorities in Moscow to run their own elections after the ruling party lost a third of its seats in the capital’s city legislature last month, the Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin’s administration has reportedly reviewed the results of the Sept. 8 vote — where the pro-Putin…
Russia is aiming to launch a new high-speed rail connection between Moscow and St. Petersburg by 2026, the state railway organization said yesterday. The proposed launch date was confirmed at a meeting between lawmakers in Russia’s Federation Council and Dmitry Kattsyn, head of high-speed projects at the country’s state rail operator, Russian Railways. Russian Railways…
The former head of a Siberian diamond mine owned by Alrosa where eight men were killed in a flood two years ago was found dead in a pre-trial detention center on Tuesday, a day after he was arrested, Russian investigating authorities said. A regional branch of the federal Investigative Committee said there were indications the…
A group of scientific researchers has discovered a record methane emission coming from the eastern Siberian Sea, expedition organizer Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) said in a statement. The scientists found concentrations of the greenhouse gas — which can significantly influence the planet’s climate — up to nine times the global average. “This is the most…
Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin has for the first time said he is linked to pro-Kremlin media after years of denying the association, Russia’s RBC news website reported. A newly formed group of four pro-Kremlin outlets called Patriot mentioned Prigozhin by name, identifying him as chairman of its board of trustees. “This is undoubtedly a big honor…
Personal data relating to the Russian mobile operator Beeline’s 2016 database of 8.7 million clients has been leaked, the Kommersant business daily reported citing banking security department sources. Kommersant checked the database, which list Beeline’s internet clients, and found that it includes full names, addresses and phone numbers. Beeline’s press office told Kommersant the leak…
Couriers at one of Russia’s biggest online retailers Ozon staged a strike in St. Petersburg against low wages on Saturday and Sunday, disrupting deliveries in the country’s second-biggest city, the Fontanka news website reported. Ozon, which pioneered the Russian e-commerce sector in 1998 and is often referred to as Russia’s Amazon, holds around 10% of…
Almost 300 lawyers have signed an open letter demanding that Russian authorities stop prosecuting two of their colleagues for allegedly insulting an FSB investigator, the Bumaga news website reported Sunday. St. Petersburg lawyers Andrei and Mikhail Zlomnov are accused of insulting Dmitry Sablin while they were defending their relative Pavel Zlomnov against charges of arms…
A Russian journalist who is being held in Iran was detained last week for a visa violation and not for spying, the Students News Agency ISNA quoted Iran’s government spokesman as saying on Monday. The spokesman said Yulia Yuzik’s case was undergoing a “quick review” by the Iranian authorities but gave no more details. “Her case…
President Vladimir Putin turns 67 today. The Kremlin announced that Putin would be spending his birthday outdoors with family and friends, and released a series of pictures of the president hiking in the Siberian taiga over the weekend. Today also marks the 13th anniversary of the murder of Russian investigative journalist and fierce Putin critic…
Michael Calvey has had almost $1 million in assets frozen in the latest development in the high-profile legal case against the star U.S. investor and his Baring Vostok private equity fund, the Financial Times reported. The development is a setback for Calvey’s team following reports last month that prosecutors were considering dropping the case. A…
Thousands of people gathered in Kiev’s main square on Sunday to protest against President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s deal with Moscow to grant autonomy to Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebel-held east as part of efforts to end a five-year conflict there. In the first breakthrough towards a possible peace deal in years, envoys from Moscow and Kiev agreed at…
One of my superpowers is the ability to come up with names for dishes. I play with puns, literary allusions, alliteration, and assonance. But in the case of this particular eggplant recipe, I cannot, for the life of me, come up with anything better than the name by which it is known in my immediate…
News from projects and regions October 5, 2019, 18:00 On October 5, employees from the companies and organizations within the Gazprom on Baikal non-profit partnership took part in an annual autumn cleanup arranged in the regional center by Irkutsk gas workers. As usual, the partnership’s teams cleaned up the outdoor area of Irkutsk Residential Care Facility No. 1, as well as the areas adjacent to the water…
Russia will find ways to help Cuba secure supplies of oil and petroleum products, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview broadcast on Saturday. Medvedev pledged to help develop Cuba’s energy sector during a visit to the island this week, but did not announce any short-term measures to provide relief for the island…
After a long, warm summer of shashlik in the park and skateboards on the streets, Moscow is settling into colder nights and shorter days. But before winter gets here, we’re enjoying the colors and shades of autumn! Here’s a look at the capital this season.
From yoga to pho to escape rooms, Moscow has gone through more than its fair share of fads in the past couple of decades. While predicting what the next wave will be is like trying to guess which of your aunt’s cat videos is going to go viral on YouTube, one sleeper contender for Moscow’s…
October 2, 2019, Moscow – TITAN-2 JSC, contractor for building and supply of equipment for Hanhikivi-1 NPP (Finland) construction, has signed a contract with Framatome-Siemens, the French-German consortium, to supply Main Instrumentation and Control (I&C). The contract was signed following a competitive procedure with the participation of international companies that are market leaders in the…
On October 3, 2019 in Havana, an agreement for the implementation of a project for the construction of a multipurpose irradiation center in the Republic of Cuba was signed. Jose Fidel Santana, Vice Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, and Nikolay Spassky, Deputy Director General at ROSATOM, signed the document on the Cuban side and…
Release October 4, 2019, 19:00 The award ceremony for the Oil and Gas Projects: Glance into the Future international competition for young scientists took place at the 9th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum. The top prize went to Vadim Tsygankov, associate professor at the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas (National Research University), for his project entitled Liquefied Petroleum…
October 4th, 2019, Moscow – Rusatom Overseas JSC and The Department of Energy of the Republic of Philippines and signed Memorandum of Intent on cooperation in the sphere of small modular reactors. In the frames of MoI parties agreed to conduct a pre-feasibility study on construction in the Philippines of nuclear power plants based on…
Blaming Stalin for starting World War II is “the height of cynicism,” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said amid renewed discussion over the Soviet Union’s role in the conflict. “To say that Stalin unleashed the war is the height of cynicism,” Putin said at an international conference in southern Russia on Thursday. “It’s as if…
The year was 1909. Mahatma Gandhi was 40 years old and just starting out; Leo Tolstoy was 81 and one of the most famous men in the world. In a letter written on Dec. 14, 1908 by Tolstoy in response to an Indian revolutionary, the Russian writer argued that only through the principle of love could…
October 03, 2019 – Within the framework of the Russian Energy Week 2019 international forum, Rusatom Automated Control Systems JSC (RASU JSC), JSC Specialized Scientific Research Institute for Instrumentation Engineering (JSC SNIIP) and Thermo Fisher Scientific Messtechnik GmbH (Germany) signed the Memorandum of Understanding, which marks the beginning of, and provides the general framework for…
Russia’s protest movement is spreading across the country and narrowing its focus to political issues, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday, citing a new study that tallied 434 rallies from April-June 2019. The Moscow-based Center for Social and Labor Rights NGO found that only the Chechnya and Chukotka regions saw little protest activity. “There are…
Background Gazprom Transgaz Tchaikovsky is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gazprom. The company is focused on natural gas transmission to consumers in the Perm Territory, the Republic of Udmurtia, the Kirov Region and the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as on gas transit via 15 gas trunklines to the central regions of the Russian Federation and abroad. The company maintains over 10,500 kilometers of gas trunklines carrying more than 300 billion cubic meters of gas. The…
Russian airlines are demanding the government compensate them for three months of losses from suspended flights to Georgia as the neighboring countries move toward resuming the schedule, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday. President Vladimir Putin ordered the temporary ban of passenger flights from Russia to Georgia following an outbreak of unrest in Tbilisi triggered…
Release October 4, 2019, 14:30 The award ceremony of the 2018 corporate contest for the best inventors and innovators took place today at the meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council of Gazprom as part of the 9th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum. The top place in the Best Inventor among Gazprom’s Subsidiaries category was shared by Gazprom Transgaz Krasnodar and Severneftegazprom. In 2018, these…
Legendary game designer Hideo Kojima has arrived in Russia to promote his latest game, “Death Stranding,” at the IgroMir computer and video game expo. “Death Stranding” is a post-apocalyptic action thriller created exclusively for the PlayStation 4 and set to be released on Nov. 8. The game’s main characters were designed to resemble stars like…
As comic culture continues to catch on in Russia, Moscow’s annual Comic-Con has delighted, enthralled and captivated fans of comics and superheroes alike. This year’s event alone is expected to draw more than 160,000 people. Similar to Comic-Cons in other countries, the event is a pop culture smorgasbord, showcasing the latest in movies, television and…
Nicknamed the “Venice of the North” for its canals, rivers and bridges, St. Petersburg has had a close bond with Italy since it was first built on the Neva River. Peter the Great, envisioning a capital for his empire that could compare to the great capitals of Europe, invited the Swiss-Italian architect Domenico Trezzini to…
Russian journalist Yulia Yuzik has been detained in Iran on suspicion of espionage, according to her family members and Russian media reports. Yuzik’s disappearance was first announced by her daughter, who said her mother was arrested “in another country” and that her trial was scheduled for this Saturday. She faces up to 10 years on…
The Kremlin said on Friday that Moscow’s move to help Beijing build an early warning system to detect missile attacks showed the two countries had a special relationship. President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia was helping China build an early warning system to spot intercontinental ballistic missile launches, something only Russia and the United States possess at…
Only 10.3 million people in Russia can be fully considered as members of the middle class, according to Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE). Real wages have been declining for five years in a row, fueled by Western sanctions and low oil prices. State-run media analysis of official data placed Russia’s middle-class figures at 14%,…
Ukraine plans to carry out a major prisoner swap with Russia and hopes it will take place next week, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said late on Thursday. The comments come after a breakthrough at talks between Moscow and Kiev this week that open the way for an international summit to be held aimed at…
In a new wave of Russian feminism, thousands of women are posting selfies on social media showing their pimples, cellulite and hair loss to challenge beauty stereotypes that women’s rights activists say fuel low self-esteem and eating disorders. The #AllIsFineWithMe trend — started by a Russian teen who has struggled with anorexia — is the latest initiative…
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev lambasted the Trump administration on Thursday for trying to create a “toxic atmosphere” around Cuba, during a two-day trip to the island demonstrating Russia’s support for its Communist government. The former Soviet Union was Cuba’s main backer for decades and Moscow has sought to renew its commercial, military and political…
Greta Thunberg has changed her Twitter profile in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s criticism of the Swedish climate activist for her United Nations speech. The 16-year-old schoolgirl denounced world leaders at the UN General Assembly last month for failing to tackle climate change, igniting a backlash among Russians. Putin criticized Thunberg’s speech Wednesday, calling…
Release October 3, 2019, 21:30 A music and visual art performance entitled “Imperial Capitals: St. Petersburg – Vienna. 20th Century” took place today at the Grand Hall of the Dmitry Shostakovich St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonia. The event was held as part of the joint cultural project of Gazprom and Austria’s OMV. The concert, which was attended by more than a thousand people, became the…
Background Gazprom VNIIGAZ is the leading R&D technology center of Gazprom focused on designing and promoting cutting-edge technologies, modeling, regulatory and metrological support, supervising research activities within Gazprom’s comprehensive programs as well as devising national and regional development programs for the gas industry. VNG is engaged in natural gas imports, underground storage and consumer supplies in Germany’s eastern federal states and in Berlin. In January 2013,…
Background The spacecraft assembly project of Gazprom will make it possible to produce high-end world-class spacecraft primarily designed to increase the capacity of the Yamal orbital satellite constellation and the SMOTR remote sensing satellites owned by the Company. These space systems provide for technological communication and monitoring of the Gazprom Group’s production facilities. The in-house assembly facility is expected to reduce costs and shorten…
Background Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University is a multifunctional state higher education institution. In 2010, it was granted the status of a national research university. It includes 11 basic institutes, units of further education, the New Production Technologies NTI Competence Center, and a complex of research units. SPbPU is one of the core universities of Gazprom. The university has the specialized department of Gazprom Transgaz Saint Petersburg, which…
A Siberian shaman who had been crossing Russia by foot to exorcise President Vladimir Putin has been declared “insane,” his lawyer says. Officials had placed the shaman, Alexander Gabyshev, in a psychiatric hospital after he was detained about 3,000 kilometers into his journey to Moscow. Gabyshev is now reportedly facing criminal charges of calling for…
Release October 3, 2019, 18:20 Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, today signed at the 9th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum a series of documents with the heads of a number of companies and Russian regions to enhance the use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel. A roadmap for accelerated development of the NGV market until 2024 was signed with Maxim Shaskolsky, Vice Governor of St.…
Background Gazprom Energoholding, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gazprom, manages the core companies of the Gazprom Group in the power generation sector (Mosenergo, TGC-1, OGK-2, and MOEK). GPB Asset Development is a specialized company in the structure of Gazprombank (Joint Stock Company), established to improve operational efficiency in terms of asset management, restructuring of troubled assets, and supporting transactions with assets under management. REP Holding is a developer, manufacturer and supplier of next-generation…
Release October 3, 2019, 18:00 Oleg Aksyutin, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Head of Department, and Nikolai Buynov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Irkutsk Oil Company, today signed at the 9th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum a Memorandum of Intent. Pursuant to the document, the companies intend to jointly set up the Project for exploration, production, transportation, processing and sale of hydrocarbons from…
Russia jails more people than any other European country, according to a report published by the All-Russia Civil Forum civic monitor. Russia’s prison system has been under scrutiny since mid-2018, when revelations of torture sparked nationwide inspections and dozens of legal cases. The country has the world’s fourth-largest prison population, according to The World Prison…
Release October 3, 2019, 17:50 Photos The closing ceremony of the international Blue Corridor – Gas into Engines 2019 Rally for vehicles powered by natural gas took place today at the 9th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum. The race was sponsored by Gazprom and Germany’s Uniper. The ceremony was attended by Viktor Zubkov, Chairman of the Gazprom Board of Directors, and Uwe Fip,…
Release October 3, 2019, 17:45 Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Christian Bruch, Executive Vice President and CEO of Linde Engineering, and John van der Velden, Managing Director of Linde Engineering, today signed at the 9th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum the Joint Venture Contract and Joint Venture Participants Agreement between Gazprom 335 and Linde AG. In accordance…
Background The Salzburg Festival is a world-known festival of music and drama held every summer in Salzburg, Austria. Traditionally, its program consists primarily of classical music concerts and performances of drama and opera. The Festival was founded in 1920 by poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, theater and film director Max Reinhardt, composer Richard Strauss, head of the Wiener Staatsoper Franz Schalk, and set designer Alfred…
Video of a homeless woman singing an Italian opera on a Los Angeles subway platform has become a social media sensation, inspiring multiple offers of professional and financial support. Viewers have reached out through social media to offer Emily Zamourka, 52, housing in the form of an Airbnb. One California man has invited her to perform at…
These days, it’s not very common to see a grey-colored NATO ship sailing into a Russian port. Sailing in the Dvina river delta, the Norwegian Coast Guard ship received some attention. These waters in the White Sea are of strategic importance for Russia. Both the shipyard for building nuclear-powered submarines in Severodvinsk and the mysterious…
At least six top ice-class Arc7 tankers traveled the eastern part of the Northern Sea Route in the last days of September and early October. It is the most complicated part of the Arctic shipping route. Normally, ice lies thick in the area until late July and the waters start to freeze again in early…
The FBI appears to be recruiting Russians living in and around the U.S. capital with awkwardly worded and grammatically incorrect Russian-language Facebook ads, CNN has reported. Washington and Moscow have traded accusations of espionage, disinformation and other influence campaigns as relations between the powers have deteriorated to Cold War levels. An investigation into the 2016…
Rosneft together with Innopraktika, a non-governmental development institute, has published a unique atlas “Russian Arctic. Space, Time, Resources”.