Saturday, May 31, 2003
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By Vladimir Radyuhin
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, will show off his refurbished hometown to the leaders of the G-8 group, the European Community, former Soviet republics, India, China and Japan over the weekend. He will take his VIP guests on a tour of the Venice of the North, as St. Petersburg is often called, with its famed tsars palaces, museums and numerous canals criss-crossing the city, and treat them to a gala concert of top world performers, fireworks, a laser show in the night sky and a mock naval battle of 18th century ships on the Neva River. Net surfers will be able to watch the celebrations online at www.flyway.ru. The federal government has pumped in around $1.5 billion to restore St. Petersburg's erstwhile regal splendour and gloss. Authorities have taken unprecedented security measures, suspending all civil aviation flights to and from the city for three days, sealing off its historical centre to all, but official delegations and registered residents, and ordering cellphone operators to stop using enciphering procedures, so that security agencies can monitor suspicious calls. Mr. Putin kicked off the gala events with an informal summit of post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States on Friday aboard a posh ocean cruise-liner, Silver Cruiser, moored for the occasion on the Neva. On Saturday, Mr. Putin will host a Russia-E.U. summit and hold a number of bilateral meetings, including one with the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. Celebrations will wind up on Sunday with a summit meeting between Mr. Putin and the U.S. President, George W. Bush. The Russian leader has clearly tried to use the tricentennial celebration of St. Petersburg, founded by Emperor Peter the Great as Russia's gateway to Europe, to emphasise his new turn to the West. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, St. Petersburg, renamed Leningrad during Communist times, has emerged as Russia's only port on the Baltic Sea and a major trade route to Western Europe. Ever since he came to power three years ago, Mr. Putin has worked to raise St. Petersburg's stature, hosting bilateral and international summits there and nurturing plans to move some federal government structures to the city. Talking to journalists this week he said the tricentennial celebrations were just the beginning of getting St. Petersburg, which had largely fallen into decay in recent decades, back on its feet. The trigger had been pulled, he said, the arrow was in flight and nothing could stop it now.
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