At the moment her mother was murdered at midday on
December 8, Valeriya Kornienko and her son became the owners of her three-room
apartment on St Petersburg's Veteranov Prospect. Ms Kornienko paid 10 million roubles ($ 2,127) for the privilege.
The Justice Department has refused to register the St
Petersburg branch of the Unification Church, posing a threat to the resumption
of the church's activities in the city.
A month before the deadline for cities to submit bids for
the 2004 Olympic Games, St Petersburg was already being evaluated as a possible host by a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
St Petersburg's beleagured Metro suffered another blow
last week as a section of the tunnel on the Kirov-Vyborg line, currently under
construction, collapsed. No one was hurt.
An insider's view of the Soviet Communist Party is the latest offering from St Petersburg's largest publishing company, Lenizdat. The author of "Once Upon A Time There Was A Communist Party" is Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who was first secretary of the Leningrad party organization during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika era.
Living politicians rarely attract crowds these days and
dead politicians are even less popular. In his day, especially after he was released from exile in Gorky by Mikhail Gorbachev, Andrei Sakharov was a national hero.
Paraphrasing not only the Russian but also the US Constitution, "We the people of Russia" is the title of an award presented to St Petersburg journalists last week.
Human rights activists met in St Petersburg last week to
condemn xenophobia, racism and anti-semitism, which they claim have made their
way to mass media.
A TV series based on the works of a St Petersburg police
officer, who writes bestseller detective stories in his spare time, is to be
screened on national television next year.
