A Russian astrologer and yoga instructor said she has been accused of illegal missionary work for organizing celebrations of a major Hindu festival. Yekaterina Kalinkina, 47, faces a fine of 50,000 rubles ($650) for organizing and promoting events marking the festival of Maha Shivratri on social media in March, according to documents she posted Friday. Maha Shivratri,…
A monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has been dismantled days after local communists in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan erected it on Russia’s last remaining Stalin Avenue, media reported Monday. The Communist Party chapter in the town of Dagestanskiye Ogni 2,000 kilometers south of Moscow ignited deep-seated divisions when its members placed Stalin’s…
Rosneft will report its Q1 2021 IFRS financial results on Friday, May 14, 2021.
CHOKH, Dagestan – Maxim Alyoshin sips sweet black tea from a thermos flask in this picturesque mountain village as he recalls the horror stories his father told him about fighting jihadist militants in the region in the 1990s as part of an elite Russian special forces regiment. “We always heard scary things about Dagestan, that…
The NIKA Awards The Russian film community holds their big awards ceremony every spring, except in 2020 when Moscow was on lockdown during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, this year’s ceremony gave out awards for two years: 2019 and 2020. The best film of 2019 was “The Frenchman,” the story…
Hundreds of journalists from scores of countries have called on Russia to end its persecution of independent media, according to an open letter published on the Russian student-run news outlet DOXA’s website Monday. The World Press Freedom Day statement came a month after authorities filed a criminal case against DOXA’s editorial team for allegedly “inciting…
The European Union summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday after Moscow put eight EU nationals, including top Brussels officials, on a blacklist in retaliation for sanctions by the bloc. Moscow’s envoy was to meet senior officials from the European Commission and the EU’s diplomatic service later in the afternoon, EU spokesman Peter Stano said. “These…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law fines for publishing information and reports from “foreign agent” media without identifying the outlet’s status amid what observers call tightening restrictions on dissent ahead of key elections. Under to the new law that Putin signed Friday, media organizations can be fined up to 50,000 rubles ($650) for…
Russians across the country on Sunday celebrated the most important and sacred holiday in the Russian Orthodox Church’s calendar: Easter. At home, most Russians took part in beloved traditions like dyeing and decorating eggs, as well as eating Easter delicacies like kulich bread and paskha cake. Worshippers also flocked to church to attend Easter services,…
Three Russian tycoons and the Rosneft oil giant have filed libel and data protection lawsuits in Britain against the publisher of journalist Catherine Belton’s acclaimed 2020 book “Putin’s People,” the Financial Times has reported. The billionaires — Mikhail Fridman, his longtime business partner Peter Aven and real estate tycoon Shalva Chigirinsky — and Rosneft filed…
Kyrgyzstan said a ceasefire with Tajikistan was holding on Sunday, as it accused citizens from its Central Asian neighbor of crimes during the pair’s worst clashes at their contested border in decades. The Kyrgyz interior ministry said that casualties on its side had risen to over 160 with 34 deaths, 31 of whom were civilians. The…
This Translation by Robert Chandler Teffi is difficult to translate. I have said a little in the foreword about her Pushkinian grace and deft use of repetition. She also makes the most of two freedoms—the freedom to omit words and an extreme freedom of word order—that are available only in a highly inflected language like…
On April 30, over 3 200 people from some 40 countries watched ROSATOM’s Atoms for Humanity new nuclear awareness campaign launch event. The project is aimed at demonstrating the importance of nuclear technologies in achieving the UN Sustainable Goals through human-centered stories. The project launch event Why Humanity Needs Nuclear brought together Polina Lion, Chief…
In December 2019, police officers came to Ruslan Shaveddinov’s Moscow apartment, sawed through the door and placed him in handcuffs before whisking him away for forced military service in the Arctic. Denied access to a cell phone — a rule violation, according to the 25-year-old opposition activist — he had to correspond with his loved…
Russia recorded more than 460,000 excess deaths during the first 12 months of the coronavirus pandemic, according to analysis of official statistics published by the Rosstat federal statistics agency. In its latest report published Friday, Rosstat data showed 38,000 more people died in March 2021 compared to the same month in 2020 — the last…
One of life’s great indulgences is a mid-afternoon tea break. At 4:00 each afternoon, my phone trills the high-pitched, reedy “Tea” melody from “The Nutcracker,” signaling that it is time for a cup of tea and perhaps a slice of something sweet. During lockdown, my family members have folded this habit into the rhythms of…
Five girls were killed Friday when a truck overturned on a highway in southern Russia and crushed a minibus carrying their basketball team to a tournament, officials said. The team was going from the city of Volgograd to a tournament in Cherkessk when the accident happened. “It is very difficult to write about this […] five children…
Five girls were killed Friday when a truck overturned on a highway in southern Russia and crushed a minibus carrying their basketball team to a tournament, officials said. The team was going from the city of Volgograd to a tournament in Cherkessk when the accident happened. “It is very difficult to write about this […] five children…
Russia’s foreign ministry said Friday it had barred eight European officials from entering the country in response to EU sanctions against Russian officials last month. The ministry said it was responding to sanctions imposed by the European Council last month against four top Russian security officials over the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and…
April 30, 2021, 18:35 Dear members of the media and representatives of investment and finance companies, We are pleased to invite you to the traditional Press Conferences of Gazprom’s top management to be held in the lead-up to the Company’s annual General Shareholders Meeting The Press Conferences will take place online from May 14 through June 16 as follows: May 14 (02:00 pm, Moscow time) – “Power generation: development prospects” with Denis Fyodorov, Head…
Hundreds of military vehicles and thousands of troops swept through Russia’s capital late Thursday for the first grand rehearsal of Moscow’s Victory Day parade. Held annually on May 9, the parade commemorates the Soviet victory in World War II, or the Great Patriotic War as it is usually referred to within the country. Apart from…
Bashneft, an enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company, reduced overall air pollution by 8% in 2020.
The Russian Navy for the first time test-fired a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile in the Black Sea, the military announced Friday with tensions still high following Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine. The Moskva guided missile cruiser launched one turbojet missile toward the “opposite end” of the Black Sea, according to the Defense Ministry-run Zvezda broadcaster’s…
Officials in Kyrgystan and Tajikistan sought to ease tensions on Friday after major clashes between the ex-Soviet neighbors in Central Asia left over a dozen dead and thousands displaced in Kyrgyzstan. Clashes between communities over land and water along the pair’s long-contested border are regular occurrences, with border guards often getting involved. But the shooting…
Easter The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Easter this year on May 2, which means that there will be lines outside churches on Saturday as people bring baskets of kulich (sweet bread), paskha (a sweet cheese spread), colored eggs and other treats to be blessed. The main Easter service, with the glorious procession around the church,…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s political network has been blacklisted as a “terrorist-linked” organization, Russia’s state financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring said Friday. “Navalny Networks” now appears on Rosfinmonitoring’s searchable database of groups and persons with links to terrorist activities, which includes al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State. The designation means that authorities can block the…
A member of German metal band Rammstein has expressed support for an ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny who was jailed for reposting one of the band’s music videos on social media. Andrei Borovikov, the former coordinator of Navalny’s Arkhangelsk headquarters in northern Russia, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison Thursday on charges…
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said Friday it will cut most visa services for Russians and eliminate non-emergency consular services for Americans from next month following Moscow’s hiring ban on “unfriendly” countries. The move means 75% of consular staff will lose their jobs. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week capped the number of Russians allowed…
On April 21 the Museum of Russian Impressionism has mounted another exhibition filled with revelations. Called “Seekers of Art,” the show continues the museum’s innovative approach to uncovering the hidden aspects of Soviet life. It tells about a phenomenon that before perestroika was not publicized and in fact was harshly punished: private collections of art,…
One of Russia’s leading defense lawyers has been detained on criminal charges of disclosing details of an investigation hours before he was due in court to represent a prominent former journalist accused of treason, his colleagues said early Friday. “Ivan Pavlov, the leader of Team 29, was arrested on April 30 in Moscow after a…
A prominent Russian scientist accused of state treason has died from cancer at age 77, his lawyer and the RBC news website reported Thursday. Viktor Kudryavtsev was charged in 2018 in connection with a suspected leak of hypersonic missile secrets to Belgium. He was later released after over a year in pre-trial detention after he…
Brazil’s health regulator said Thursday its decision to reject the Russian-made Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine was based on the developer’s own data, after the latter threatened to sue for defamation. Brazilian regulators’ decision Monday to deny emergency use authorization for the vaccine has blown up into an all-out international row, with Sputnik V’s makers accusing…
A Russian court on Thursday sentenced an ally of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny to two and a half years in prison on pornography charges, his lawyer said. The sentencing came as Russia inches closer to shutting down Navalny’s political network, with his regional offices announcing they would disband ahead of a ruling over whether…
The developer of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine said Thursday it would sue Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa after it refused to import the jab. “Sputnik V is undertaking a legal defamation proceeding in Brazil against Anvisa for knowingly spreading false and inaccurate information,” the developer said on the official Sputnik V Twitter account. Anvisa announced…
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has completed a special investigation into how Russia conducted clinical trials for its Sputnik V vaccine as part of the jab’s application for approval in the EU. The regulator told The Moscow Times on Thursday that an EMA inspection team currently in Moscow had conducted a Good Clinical Practices (GCP)…
A visibly gaunt Alexei Navalny made his first public appearance Thursday since being imprisoned on old fraud charges and finishing a three-week hunger strike. Joining a court hearing via videolink from the notoriously harsh prison colony outside Moscow where he is serving two and a half years, the 44-year-old Kremlin critic compared himself to a…
The independent Meduza news website has launched a fundraising campaign after editors said its branding as a “foreign agent” has put its survival in jeopardy. Russia’s Justice Ministry added Meduza to its “foreign agents” registry last week, a move supporters say is aimed at silencing one of Russia’s most popular independent media outlets. Meduza’s editors…
Authorities in Russia’s republic of Chechnya have granted state protection to two gay men facing threats of familial “honor killings” after they were forcibly returned to their home region, the MBKh Media news website reported Thursday. Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev had fled Chechnya for Nizhny Novgorod northeast of Moscow last summer after they were…
Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said Thursday that it would expel a Russian diplomat, a day after prosecutors said they had established links between six Russian nationals and several past explosions at arms depots. “The Bulgarian foreign ministry declared one more Russian diplomat persona non grata,” the ministry said in a statement. It urged Russia to “fully…
Tensions between Russia and the Czech Republic soared this month when Prague accused Moscow of orchestrating a fatal arms depot blast on Czech soil in 2014. The accusations set in motion a flurry of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions between Prague and its European allies on one side and Moscow on the other. Slovakia, Albania and the…
Armed forces in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have exchanged gunfire along a contested stretch of border, dramatically raising the stakes in a conflict that began with clashes among local residents. Marufkhan Tulayev, deputy head of Kyrgyzstan’s southern Batken region, told Interfax news agency on April 29 that at least four Kyrgyz soldiers have been hospitalized with…
Moscow’s chief infectious disease specialist hit out Thursday at the city’s slow vaccination drive and residents not wearing masks in crowded places after coronavirus cases nearly doubled in the Russian capital overnight. Doctor Nikolai Malyshev said both factors were behind a 74% increase in single-day infections that Moscow authorities confirmed earlier in the day. The…
United States law enforcement authorities have arrested a Russian citizen in Los Angeles whose bitcoin mixing platform allegedly helped users launder $336 million over a decade, Reuters reported Tuesday. Roman Sterligov was the main operator of Bitcoin Fog, a website founded in 2011 to help users anonymize cryptocurrency payments, especially on darknet markets where drugs…
TEREKLI-MEKTEB, Dagestan – In the remote north of Russia’s Caucasian Dagestan region, rich grasslands once sustained hordes of humans and animals alike. Now, herds of stray cows roam towering sand dunes in a huge new desert that grows bigger every year. For 30 years now, climate change has been driving the sands further into the…
The Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex has begun the next stage of measures for artificial reproduction of aquatic biological resources – the release of young salmonid fish into rivers of Primorsky Krai.
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s political network has been disbanded ahead of a court ruling to declare it an “extremist” organization, his senior aide announced Thursday. A Moscow court is expected to hand down the decision behind closed doors next month, banning the network’s crowdfunded work and putting members and supporters at risk of up…
Sudan has suspended plans for Russia to open a naval logistics base in a key Red Sea port, Middle Eastern media reported Wednesday in news that sparked immediate denials from Moscow. Russia in December announced the signing of a 25-year deal to build the logistics hub for nuclear-powered warships and up to 300 military and…
April 29, 2021, 10:00 IFRS results 2020 Today PJSC Gazprom issued its audited consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards for the year ended December 31, 2020. The table below presents the main items of the consolidated statement of comprehensive income prepared in accordance with IFRS for the years ended December 31, 2020 and December 31,…
Tainted batches of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine sent to Brazil carried a live version of a common cold-causing virus, the South American country’s health regulator reported in a presentation explaining its decision to ban the drug’s import. Top virologist Angela Rasmussen told AFP the finding “raises questions about the integrity of the manufacturing processes”…
April 28, 2021, 21:05 On April 29, Gazprom’s Investor Day event will be webcast live. The live broadcast will start at 03:00 pm Moscow time (08:00 pm in Singapore, 01:00 pm in London, 08:00 am in New York) at gazprom.ru and gazpromvideo.ru, as well as the Company’s pages on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Investor Day participants: Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee, Gazprom; Oleg Aksyutin, Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee – Head…
Rodion Chepel’s documentary film “Durov” that premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival over the weekend tried to lift the veil of mystery surrounding one of the most talked-about IT entrepreneurs — Pavel Durov. Durov, 36, has been dubbed by the media as “Russian Mark Zuckerberg” for founding the social networking platform VKontakte, the Russian…
Updated at 4:47 p.m. on April 28 to add Kremlin statement. Russia will send a large shipment of medical aid to India as the country battles an unprecedented wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. The shipment of coronavirus treatment drugs, ventilation equipment, oxygen supplies and other medical equipment comes “in…
Russia could invest $11 billion in reconstruction projects in the mineral-rich Central African Republic, where rebel violence has led to mass displacement and Russian mercenaries are widely reported to be providing security services to the embattled military, a government official has said. Moscow has since 2018 expanded its diplomatic and financial activities in the former…
The Kremlin has denied keeping secret statistics on the number of coronavirus cases in Russia, after Bloomberg reported government officials warning a third wave of the pandemic has already hit the country. The newswire on Wednesday quoted two unnamed government sources saying “unofficial statistics” painted a different picture from that presented by Russia’s coronavirus task…
In 1871 a very elegant bath house was opened on Fonarny Pereulok in St. Petersburg. Called the Voroninskiye Bani for the merchant who owned the building, Mikhail Voronin — or Fonarskiye Bani or just plain Fonari for the street it was on — in the Soviet period it became simply Bathhouse #43, with much of…
Bulgarian prosecutors have linked six Russian nationals to a series of explosions at ammunition and arms factories on its soil, media in the southeastern European nation reported Wednesday. Prosecutor-General’s Office spokeswoman Siika Mileva said the four incidents dating as far back as a decade ago may be connected to the attempted 2015 poisoning of Bulgarian…
Moscow on Wednesday expelled seven European diplomats after their countries ordered Russian diplomats to leave in solidarity with the Czech Republic, which is engulfed in a diplomatic row with Russia. The Czech government this month accused Russian security services of being behind a deadly explosion at an arms depot in eastern Czech Republic in 2014.…
A popular Russian YouTuber has been sentenced to six years in prison for the death of his abused girlfriend in a disturbing live-stream this winter, media reported Tuesday. Stanislav Reshetnyak, who performed abusive stunts in exchange for viewers’ cash tips under the nickname Reeflay, had beat his girlfriend Valentina Grigoryeva and forced her to sit…
Russian authorities have detained nearly 200 people in over two dozen cities in the week since protests in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny swept the country, an independent police monitor said Wednesday. Police initially detained 1,800 people in 100 Russian cities on the day of the rallies last Wednesday that called for civilian doctors…
Kiev said Tuesday it was expelling a Russian diplomat from the port city of Odessa in response to the “unfriendly” removal of a Ukrainian embassy worker in Moscow. The announcement came amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Kiev over an uptick in fighting between Ukraine’s army and pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. It also added…