Forty-five votes out of forty-seven. The 2006 city budget was triumphantly adopted in the first reading yesterday. Even the opposition Democratic faction spoke out in support of this option for the distribution of government funds. Revenues to the treasury have doubled in three years - as was the case before.

The number of reputable trading companies wishing to get hooked on the not yet completed ring highway is growing day by day, and land in the vicinity of the future highway is constantly becoming more expensive. Yesterday, one of these companies, OJSC "Ring Road - Leningrad Region" ("CAD-L"), which is the authorized structure of the regional government for managing the development of territories adjacent to the ring highway, shared its grandiose plans with the public.

It seemed that nothing foreshadowed a sensation. The official reporting conference in Smolny, dedicated to the results of Valentina Matvienko’s two-year governor’s term, went as planned. “Unexpected” (and very predictable) questions from journalists about a second gubernatorial term and the possibility of a campaign against the Kremlin, as Vladimir Putin’s successor, were answered without a shadow of a doubt.

Cook Valentina Mikhailova spent more than a year behind bars. She served this term in a pre-trial detention center even before the St. Petersburg City Court sentenced her. The sentence, by the way, turned out to be quite humane - two years probation, so Mrs. Mikhailova gained her freedom immediately after the reading of the sentence was completed. But you can't get back what was...

Remember the sensational story about the bathing and sexual adventures of “a person similar to the prosecutor general”? So, it turns out that such amusements are honored by the servants of the rule of law. True, prosecutorial workers do not have such a high rank. And in this case, not in Moscow, but here, in the northern capital. And besides, sometimes it’s not as nice as it was in that loud scandal, but much more rude and visible.

They spoke, of course, in connection with the scandal caused by the crash of a Russian fighter jet on Lithuanian territory and the subsequent investigation into the incident. However, in Vilnius this story was perceived without the hysteria that was characteristic of numerous statements in Russia.