Valentina Matvienko spent the weekend in Venice

Today Valentina Matvienko returns from her first foreign visit this year. Contrary to her predilection for Asian routes, this time the governor of St. Petersburg went to Europe. Refusing to rest, the head of Russia's northern capital spent last weekend in Venice, Italy, where she learned from the experience of holding citywide celebrations using the example of the famous Venice Carnival, which opened on Saturday.
Italy is the tenth country that Valentina Matvienko has officially visited during her governorship, while she is traveling to Europe for only the fourth time (before that she visited Finland, Sweden and England). According to the official version, the purpose of her visit is to sign a cooperation agreement with the mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, who agreed to hold a working meeting with Ms. Matvienko even on weekends, given the long-standing ties of the St. Petersburg authorities not only with Venice, but also with the province and region of the same name. Despite the fact that Milan is St. Petersburg’s Italian sister city, the governor chose Venice for her first official acquaintance with Italy.
As sources in Smolny told Kommersant, Valentina Matvienko is accompanied on the trip by her full-time cultural adviser Viktor Okulov and the head of the cultural committee Nikolai Burov, with whom the governor got acquainted “with the traditions of citywide holidays.” They are modestly silent about the Saturday opening of the Venice Carnival in Smolny, although it is obvious that this event was the main event attended by officials. It is noteworthy that this year the theme of the current Venice Carnival is “Dragon and Lion”; all events and theatrical performances are related to the tradition and culture of China - a country that the St. Petersburg governor likes so much. According to Kommersant's information, the governor was not able to stop by on the way to Turin for the Winter Olympics, but yesterday she was able to watch how the Italian runner Manuela Levorato flew from the bell tower of the famous St. Mark's Cathedral onto the square into the carnival crowd as an "angel."
It is not known whether the Smolny delegates decided to rent carnival costumes and famous Venetian masks (rental price - from 150 euros per day), however, it is very likely that already in May, on City Day, Valentina Matvienko will delight St. Petersburg spectators not only with the procedure of cutting off the governor’s scarf in during the Carnival Parade, but also with new original know-how that it will borrow from the Venetians.
According to Kommersant, on February 26, the governor will go on a more serious three-day tour of the United States, where she, together with vice-governors Mikhail Oseevsky and Yuri Molchanov, who oversee investments and the economy, intend to visit Washington, New York and the sister city of San Francisco. During the visit, business meetings are planned with representatives of the State Department and the US Congress, negotiations with heads of large companies, including the financial corporation Citigroup, office equipment manufacturer Hewlett-Packard, and the Internet company Google, as well as hotel and tour operators.
ANNA PUSHKARSKAYA

Newspaper "Kommersant St. Petersburg" No. 30/P dated February 20, 2006, p. 1

The governor went to the carnival