“Can’t they sign agreements in other places?”

For St. Petersburg, SPIEF always becomes a stress test: it causes traffic jams, buses are overcrowded, mobile Internet and city Wi-Fi fail, and this time, on top of everything else, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked an oil terminal and a corvette in Kronstadt with drones on the very first day.

The organizers expected that more than 20 thousand people from 100 countries would come to the forum in 2026. The declared theme of the forum is “Pragmatic dialogue - the path to a stable future.”

“Why the hell is this SPIEF? Can’t they sign agreements in other places?” — a man was indignant at a stop near the Moskovskaya metro station. His question remained unanswered: the crowd at the bus stop stormed the bus. It was from Moskovskaya that numerous SPIEF participants and workers went to Expoforum, located south of the city - they loaded onto buses along with residents of Pushkin, heading in the same direction.

They tried to overtake a line of buses by expensive cars heading towards the same place along the Petersburg Highway, but they all inevitably got stuck in a traffic jam. In 2026, the cost of participation in the forum was 1.6 million rubles (over five years, most of which the Russian-Ukrainian war continues, tickets have tripled in price, RBC calculated).

The main event of SPIEF was traditionally a panel discussion with the participation of Vladimir Putin. There are fewer and fewer foreign high-ranking speakers at the forum from year to year. This year, the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the head of Tanzania Samia Suluhu Hassan and the Deputy Chairman of the People's Republic of China Han Zheng spoke at the SPIEF.

The number of police officers and National Guardsmen scattered along the roadsides along the Petersburg Highway grew larger as we approached Expoforum. Residents of the adjacent quarter were subject to serious restrictions: during the forum, enhanced security measures were introduced in this area.

“This happens every year. To enter home, you need to issue a pass for each person and for the car, otherwise you simply won’t be able to get to your place,” a resident of the “Exemplary Quarters” residential complex humbly said before getting off the bus. A significant number of passengers got off with her. The bus went to Pushkin almost empty.

More and more people flocked to Expoforum, business suits and badges of various categories flashed. Participants entered the building, ignoring the plume of black smoke rising above the city - a reminder of the fire due to the attack of Ukrainian drones.

To prevent a few days in Russia in 2026 from becoming a shock for foreign guests, the organizers took care in advance of how they would use the Internet. A source in a PR agency that was involved in organizing the forum told Bereg about this: “We were given the task - WhatsApp, Instagram and other services should be opened for foreign guests. This required obtaining SIM cards and purchasing VPN subscriptions.”

Some forum guests did not seem to really understand the realities in which Russians live. For example, the owner of the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, Holger Friedrich, who attended the forum, described this experience to Die Zeit:

I do not deny that there is much more freedom in Germany. But independent media still exist in Russia, such as the daily newspaper Kommersant.

Today on stage I spoke in the context of Ukraine about the bloody war and the failure of the political elites - and I was not arrested. It's possible here. We must use this freedom to mediate and communicate information. Talk to each other, not about each other.

Truly independent Russian media did not make it to the forum: almost all of them were forced to emigrate due to military censorship laws adopted at the beginning of the big war with Ukraine. “They didn’t give out any special manuals to the remaining loyal media,” an interlocutor in one of the major state media told Bereg: “Pretty default settings: more attention to the first person, the meeting [of Putin with journalists], the plenary session. Shoot a bunch of photos and videos with interactivity on site.”

Separately, journalists loyal to the Kremlin, he said, were asked not to cover the expensive parties planned for the forum participants, and the presence of female escort workers, “so as not to anger the people.”

The only party about which news was leaked to the press was a closed event dedicated to the launch of the Max messenger. Its host was Ksenia Sobchak, the guests were the Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev, the General Director of VK Vladimir Kiriyenko (the son of the deputy head of the presidential administration Sergei Kiriyenko), performers Vanya Dmitrienko, Lolita Milyavskaya and others. On June 3, the Max messenger was removed from the App Store.

The city authorities, where planned summer shutdowns of hot water have already begun, announced on the eve of the forum that water would return for a short period from June 1 to 5: technical work would be suspended “to ensure the safety and comfort of residents and guests of the city during the forum.” “During SPIEF, St. Petersburg residents should smell good. Well, just in case,” Fontanka readers sneered in comments to the news about this.

Residents of some residential areas of St. Petersburg later reported that hot water was not returned to them during the SPIEF. “In the Moscow region there has been no hot water supply (hot water supply - Berega’s note) since May 18, and there still isn’t. The tests ended yesterday,” wrote one of the St. Petersburg residents in the comments of Fontanka before the start of SPIEF.

Advertising posters for the forum were rare in residential areas, but in the city center it was impossible not to notice them. In hotels in the center during the days of the forum, almost the entire number of rooms was booked: it was extremely difficult for ordinary tourists to find accommodation.

On the morning of June 5, the day of Vladimir Putin’s speech, the central areas on Yandex maps turned red - the city was blocked off to the passage of high-ranking guests, including the president. “The king is in the city,” wrote one of the users under the note about the restriction of travel across the Palace Bridge.

On the same day, the Chronicles of Media publication, which covers news from the North-West of Russia, discovered that in mid-April an attraction for children and adults in the form of a ballistic missile in the colors of the Russian flag was opened on Krestovsky Island - it was named after the new missile complex of the Russian Armed Forces, Oreshnik.

According to the St. Petersburg telegram channel Rotunda, the installation was initiated by the owner of the Divo Ostrov amusement park, owner of the Velikoluksky Meat Processing Plant, Vladimir Podvalny. A day earlier, Putin commented on the use of Oreshnik at a meeting with journalists as part of the forum.

On the evening of June 5, a transport collapse occurred again in St. Petersburg: Putin and other high-ranking guests began to leave.

At that time, the concert “In the Rhythm of Summer” was taking place on Palace Square. It was organized by the Roscongress Foundation and the Russian Media Group for SPIEF participants and St. Petersburg residents who experienced the three-day forum. Entrance was made free. Members of the group ARTIK & ASTI, singer Seville, Jasmine and the International Symphony Orchestra TV BRICS performed on stage.

Covid restrictions, which are still in force in St. Petersburg for public events, did not apply to the concert. Only participants in the plenary discussion with Putin were required to take a PCR test.

On the morning of June 6, the last day of SPIEF, St. Petersburg again came under attack from Ukrainian drones. The governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, published a post on his Telegram channel at about seven o’clock in the morning, in which he called on city residents to “stay in their homes and not go out.”

According to the Astra publication, UAV strikes occurred on the Cadet Naval Corps in Kronstadt, the Peterhof oil depot and the Research Institute of Marine Thermal Engineering in Lomonosov (where they create underwater weapons).

The governor of the Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko, said that 141 drones were shot down over the region at night. A fire broke out in the area of ​​the village of Bolshaya Izhora due to falling debris. There were no official reports of dead or injured.

Due to the attack at night in St. Petersburg, disruptions to the mobile Internet began.

"Shore"