May 1 marks Labor Day in Russia, one of the country’s major public holidays. Cities across the country hold official parades, organized street demonstrations and marches on this day, which celebrates workers and laborers. More than 100,000 people attended this year’s parade in Moscow, according to police estimates. Here’s a look at the celebrations throughout…
Details
Months of work are needed to restore clean oil supplies via a key Russian pipeline to Europe, Belarus said on Tuesday, as Moscow suggested a deliberate act was behind the contamination that prompted some countries to release state oil reserves. Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Slovakia and other countries halted oil imports via the Druzhba pipeline last…
Details
Russia‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday rejected a suggestion by Washington that it had persuaded Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro not to flee in the face of street protests, calling the assertion part of an information war. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was prepared to leave the country on Tuesday morning in the face of a…
Details
Russian President Vladimir Putin suddenly sacked Moscow’s ambassador to Belarus, Mikhail Babich, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, amid a row over contaminated oil and a wider political discord between the ex-Soviet countries. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has generally been more closely aligned with Moscow than any other ex-Soviet leader, while the lack of tolerance for…
Details
PJSC PhosAgro (Moscow Exchange, LSE: PHOR) (“PhosAgro”, the “Company”), one of the world’s leading vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers, hereby informs / notifies its shareholders that the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders is to be held on 24 May 2019, Form of the Extraordinary General Meeting: joint attendance of shareholders for discussion of the agenda…
Details
Russia‘s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday accused the opposition in Venezuela of resorting to violence in what it said was a brazen attempt to draw the country’s armed forces into clashes. The ministry made the allegation after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called for a military uprising to oust President Nicolas Maduro and armed factions exchanged…
Details
National Guard troops have been sent to a northern Russian region at the heart of longstanding resistance to importing Moscow’s trash, the investigative Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported on Tuesday. Residents have opposed plans to build the 10.5 billion ruble ($160.7 million) Shiyes landfill in Arkhangelsk region since last summer. Arkhangelsk is one of dozens of…
Details
Russia’s online community has been abuzz over the past week with praise for popular YouTuber Yury Dud’s documentary about life in the land of the gulag labor camps. It’s a departure for the 32-year-old sports editor, whose 5.1 million subscribers tune in to watch him interview personalities from all walks of life about their personal…
Details
News from projects and regions April 30, 2019, 15:10 On April 21, the 19th Plasticine Crow National Children’s Arts Festival concluded in Saransk with a big gala concert. The team of the Torbeyevskoye Gas Pipeline Operation Center, branch of Gazprom Transgaz Nizhny Novgorod, had taken part in the festival. The final round of the competition included 54 concert numbers by young performers aged between…
Details
Europe’s human rights court has awarded opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s aide and an activist $17,000 each for violations of their rights and freedoms by the Russian government. Elvira Dmitriyeva, Navalny’s coordinator in the city of Kazan, was fined in 2017 for organizing and campaigning for participation in an unauthorized public event. Grigory Kablis’ social media…
Details
The Stone Flower fountain is one of the more famous attractions in Moscow’s VDNKh exhibition park. The fountain, which was built in 1954, recently underwent renovations. But do Moscow’s residents know how much it really cost? According to a government tender, the restoration of the fountain cost 1.2 billion rubles ($18.6 million). For comparison, the…
Details
In May 2018, disaster struck in the Tretyakov Gallery. On a Friday evening just before closing time, a man ran into the almost empty hall of works by Ilya Repin, picked up a metal stanchion and bashed the glass-enclosed painting, “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan November 16, 1581.” The assailant broke through the…
Details
Each year on May 9, Russia and a handful of former Soviet countries celebrate Victory Day, which marks the day after Nazi Germany surrendered and Soviet forces took control of Berlin. The end of the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known in Russia, is still celebrated as the country’s most important public…
Details
On April 30, 1905, Emperor Nicholas II issued a decree on “Tolerance Development.” It would be the first in a series meant to reform relations between Russia’s church and state. This Edict of Toleration — a declaration made by a ruler or government that protects practitioners of a religion from persecution — gave the religions…
Details
Russian lawmakers have asked the foreign minister to draw up a list of officials involved in the prosecution of admitted Russian agent Maria Butina, the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper reported Tuesday. Butina was sentenced to 18 months after she pleaded guilty in December to conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and…
Details
Infrastructure development was the top issue when Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing on April 25 to attend Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top-level meeting on the Belt and Road initiative. The meeting was the second of its kind and Putin was the prime guest. Russia is a country of key importance for the Belt…
Details
The United States obstructs Russia’s work in the United Nations by selectively issuing visas to Russian nationals, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday. Russia’s chemical weapons expert Dmitry Poklonsky was denied a U.S. visa to attend a UN Security Council session last Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a press statement. He was due…
Details
Moscow does not expect any foreign leaders to attend its Victory Day celebrations, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the state-run RIA Novosti news outlet on Monday. Every year on May 9, Russia celebrates Victory Day to commemorate the Soviet victory in World War II. In Moscow, the day is marked with a massive parade through…
Details
News from projects and regions April 29, 2019, 18:00 Photos On April 24 and 26, employees of the head office and branches of Gazprom Transgaz Tchaikovsky carried out a number of cleanup actions in Tchaikovsky as part of the Green Spring countrywide environmental cleanup. The cleanup was kicked off by the employees of the company’s culture and sports center. They cleaned Tchaikovsky Square, Sportivnaya Street, and…
Details
Russia has opened its first center aimed at issuing Russian passports to residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, Interfax reported on Monday. Last week, President Vladimir Putin signed an order to simplify the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport for residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, prompting calls from Kiev for more international sanctions. “Today, the center…
Details
Background Gazprom Transgaz Makhachkala is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gazprom. It delivers gas to consumers in the Republic of Dagestan and other regions of the North Caucasus Federal District, as well as to Transcaucasian countries. The total amount of gas transmitted by the company annually exceeds 7 billion cubic meters. The company has 12 branches, including five gas pipeline operation centers, the Emergency Response and Repair Directorate, the Engineering & Technical Center, the…
Details
When Stefan Ingvarsson arrived in Moscow in 2015 as the new Cultural Counsellor the Embassy of Sweden, he already had spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union and Russia, starting with high school exchanges in the 1980s. He also had a great deal of experience organizing cultural events and festivals, coming to Russia…
Details
Around 200 prisoners in 2018 were so badly injured during questioning by investigators in Moscow region pre-detention facilities that they required hospitalization, a senior Federal Prison Service (FSIN) official has claimed. Russia’s federal penitentiary system was rocked by a scandal last year after bodycam footage showed guards violently beating prisoners in a notorious prison outside…
Details
Belarus said on Monday that clean Russian oil had yet to reach its borders via a major pipeline supplying Europe after tainted crude running through the system prompted several importers to halt flows last week. State-run oil firm Belneftekhim said Belarusian refineries were still running at reduced capacity, after Moscow had said it would start pumping…
Details
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russians and Ukrainians would only benefit from sharing common citizenship, the Interfax news agency reported. Putin said on Saturday Moscow was considering offering all Ukrainian citizens fast-tracked Russian passports, a move that angered some politicians in Ukraine which has been at war with pro-Russian separatists since 2014.…
Details
The Kremlin considers it premature to discuss any details about expanding Russia’s fast-tracked passport offer to all Ukrainian citizens, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. President Vladimir Putin on Saturday said Moscow was considering offering all Ukrainian citizens fast-tracked Russian passports. Putin made the statement days after signing an order to simplify the procedure…
Details
Marine specialists in Norway have said a harnessed whale that was discovered off its coast may have been trained by the Russian Navy as part of a program to use underwater mammals for service operations. Norwegian media reported Saturday that local fisherman Joar Hesten removed a harness from a beluga whale in northern Norway after…
Details
More than half of Russians believe the internet in Russia should continue to develop as a network “uniting the whole world,” according to a study conducted by the state-funded VTsIOM pollster. The study comes two weeks after Russia’s lower house of parliament approved the third reading of a draft law that aims to increase Moscow’s…
Details
Russia has fallen out of the top five defense spending countries for the first time since 2006 after its spending decreased by 3.5 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to a new report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Russia has expanded its military presence abroad in recent years, with its 2014…
Details
Orthodox Easter, called Paskha in Russian, celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is one of Russia’s most widely celebrated religious holidays. Because it follows the Orthodox Calendar, it is usually celebrated later than Catholic Easter. People prepare for the celebration by coloring eggs, baking the traditional kulich cake and making paskha, a cottage cheese…
Details
On Saturday night Orthodox churches and cathedrals around the world ushered in Easter with solemn ceremonies. Easter celebrations culminated in a grand midnight procession with crosses and icons, and worshipers chanting “Christ is risen indeed!” Easter is Christianity’s most important holiday which symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Orthodox world marks Easter this year a week later than the Catholic and…
Details
President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday Moscow was considering offering all Ukrainian citizens fast-tracked Russian passports, a move likely to anger some politicians in Ukraine which has been at war with pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Putin made the statement days after signing an order to simplify the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport for residents…
Details
A full-scale assault against militants in Syria’s Idlib province “is not expedient now” and civilians’ security needs to be taken into account, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday. Speaking in Beijing, Putin said Russia would work with the Syrian opposition to finalise the make-up of a constitutional committee, part of efforts to secure a…
Details
U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposals on nuclear arms disarmament is “not serious,” a Kremlin spokesman said on Saturday. Trump has ordered his administration to prepare a push for a new arms-control agreements with Russia and China citing the cost of the 21st-century nuclear arms race, The Washington Post reported on Thursday citing administration officials. “It…
Details
Vladimir Kozlov was born in Mogilev, in what was once the Belorussian S.S.R. and is now Belarus. After his childhood and adolescence in industrial Mogilev experiencing all the chaos, upheaval, crime and freedom of the perestroika years, he moved to Minsk and then Moscow. He has written more than a dozen works of fiction, including…
Details
Every Friday, 24-year-old student Arshak Makichyan stands alone in Moscow’s Pushkin Square with a poster warning locals about the dangers of climate change. He started his protest in mid-March, inspired by the #Climatestrike movement led by young activists around the world. Back then, Makichyan and around two dozen other Muscovites gathered in Sokolniki Park in…
Details
A federal judge on Friday sentenced Russian agent Maria Butina to 18 months in prison after Butina pleaded guilty in December to conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence U.S. conservative activists and Republicans. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said the 18 months will include the approximately nine months Butina…
DetailsASE EC JSC (Engineering Division of ROSATOM) has been assigned the “Acknowledged Excellence” level by the accessors of European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). The certificate confirming the highest (5 star) level according to the criteria of Excellence Model of European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) was awarded today by Nikolay Akatov, the leading assessor…
Details
The Syrian government and armed opposition groups, together with both sides’ backers, could agree on the makeup of a constitutional committee in coming months, Russian negotiator Alexander Lavrentyev said on Friday. Forming a constitutional committee is key to political reforms and new elections meant to unify Syria and end an eight-year war which has killed…
Details
A Russian-born socialite has been found guilty of theft of services and grand larceny in New York, facing up to 15 years in prison and deportation to Germany, the Associated Press reported Friday. Anna Sorokin, 28, assumed the name of Anna Delvey when she tricked her friends and banks into financing her lavish $275,000 lifestyle…
Details
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a catering magnate with ties to Vladimir Putin, has paid out compensation to the parents of dozens of children who were reportedly poisoned after eating food provided by his catering company. Officials confirmed some 130 cases of food poisoning among kindergarteners in southeastern Moscow in December, leading parents to file a class-action lawsuit…
Details
Half of Russia’s Orthodox Christians do not know the origins of Easter, according to a state-run poll published on Friday. Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Day after his death on the cross. Orthodox Easter falls on Sunday, April 28, ending seven weeks of fasting and kickstarting the traditions of spring cleaning…
Details
Admitted Russian agent Maria Butina will be sentenced on Friday by a federal judge after pleading guilty in December to conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence U.S. conservative activists and Republicans. Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who publicly advocated for gun rights, faces…
Details
Veteran columnist Michele Berdy kicked off The Moscow Times’ new monthly Theater series on Wednesday with a talk about her experiences of living in Russia since 1978. The lecture is part of a new series aimed at bringing the local expat community fun, fascinating and occasionally controversial talks and debates with Moscow’s most interesting people. Stay…
Details
Moscow – PhosAgro (MOEX/LSE ticker: PHOR), one of the world’s leading vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers, increased fertilizer production volumes by 1.2% year-on-year to 2.3 million tonnes in 1Q 2019. Sales volumes for the same period grew by 5.2% year-on-year to 2.5 million tonnes. PhosAgro’s production and sales volumes are summarised in the tables below.…
Details
At the first Belt and Road summit in Beijing two years ago, Vladimir Putin offered little more than platitudes for Xi Jinping’s global infrastructure initiative, essentially calling China’s “project of the century” a welcome new plank in Russia’s own strategy for ending American hegemony. Since then, deep-pocketed Chinese companies have intensified their march across Asia, Africa…
Details
Russia will hold talks with Poland, Belarus and Ukraine on Friday about how to solve a problem of polluted Russian oil being pumped through a major pipeline serving Europe and which supplies refineries as far west as Germany. Poland, Germany, Ukraine and Slovakia have suspended imports of Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline over quality…
Details
In 1Q2019 Rosneft Aero, a subsidiary of PJSC NK Rosneft, increased its overwing fueling at Russian airports by 9.5% q-o-q to 458,000 tons. Overwing fueling operations grew by 13% and amounted to 50,700 in the reporting period. Rosneft Aero sold over 797 tons of aviation kerosene in the first three months of 2019, having increased…
Details
Thousands died of hunger and cold as they laid rails across the desolate areas of North Siberia. Now Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu hints he is ready to give the Transpolar Mainline project a new shot. It was one of the many monstrous projects started by Josef Stalin. The railway line was to be built…
Details
The head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) highly secretive branch has been detained on suspicion of large-scale bribery, the Kommersant business daily reported on Friday. Colonel Kirill Cherkalin headed the FSB economic security department’s financial counterintelligence support unit. The department played key roles in investigations surrounding former economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev, deputy prime minister…
DetailsA large consignment of germanium-76 isotope has been shipped to Germany under the contract between Isotope JSC and the Technical University of Munich. The batch was produced by PA Electrochemical Plant JSC (ECP, Zelenogorsk, Krasnoyarsk region; an enterprise of TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom). Germanium-76 has been supplied for the joint international research collaboration LEGEND…
Details
April 26 marks the anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date at the Chernobyl power plant in northern Ukraine. Following the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl’s reactor number four, radioactive material spread across much of the Northern Hemisphere. Thirty-three years on, the power plant is surrounded by both a hushed desolation and a buzz…
Details
Two people are reportedly dead following a shooting at a Moscow metro station, the state-run TASS news agency reported on Thursday. A man opened fire and killed one person at the entrance of Noviye Cheryomushki station before committing suicide, TASS cited a law enforcement source as saying. Russian media, citing the Baza Telegram channel, have…
Details
The wildfires tearing through southeastern Siberia claimed their first human victim on Thursday as damages almost doubled to nearly 1 billion rubles ($15.4 million), authorities said. At least 36 people were injured and nearly 650 left homeless in Zabaikalsky region, while almost 12,000 pets and livestock animals were killed in the flames. The Emergency Situations…
Details
Lawmakers in Kiev approved a bill boosting the use of Ukrainian across state administration and media, in a move that risks complicating relations with Russia and the West at the same time. While Ukrainian has been the sole official language since 2014 when Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych was toppled from the presidency in deadly street protests,…
Details
In Moscow on Thursday, the short list for the 2019 Pushkin House Book Prize was announced by Alexander Drozdov, executive director of the Yeltsin Presidential Center and a member of this year’s jury. The Prize has been awarded annually since 2013 to the best book of non-fiction about Russia or the Russian-speaking world written for…
Details
Rosneft Aero, a subsidiary of PJSC NK Rosneft, sold 20 mn tons of aviation fuel since the launch of its operating activities in 2008. The Moscow-London “Aeroflot” flight at Sheremetyevo airport marked the jubilee fueling. The total number of Rosneft Aero regular customers amounts to more than 100 airlines. The company provides overwing fueling at…
Details
Release April 25, 2019, 15:35 A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Wang Yilin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of CNPC, took place today in Beijing, China. The meeting participants reviewed the development prospects of the Chinese gas market and the strategic aspects of cooperation between Gazprom and CNPC, paying particular attention to gas supplies. It was noted that…
Details
Outgoing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s policy has suffered a “total failure” which manifested in his election loss, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in first remarks on the Ukrainian vote. Poroshenko garnered 24 percent of the vote in the Sunday runoffs, behind television comedian and political novice Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s 73 percent. His defeat was seen as…
Details
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday a decision to give residents of Ukrainian rebel regions fast-track access to Russian passports was no different from what some European Union states were already doing. Speaking to reporters at the end of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Putin said that Poland, Romania and Hungary…
Details