On Tuesday, at the conference of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party, it was decided to create an initiative group to prepare a city referendum - against the construction of high -rise buildings in the historical center of the city and in the immediate vicinity of it. First of all, this, of course, concerns the Gazprom-City skyscraper, which, as it turned out now, should go to the city not even 300, but almost 400 meters.

The leader and organizer of the national extremist group Mad Crowd, Ruslan Melnik, will spend three and a half years in a colony settlement. This sentence was handed down to him on December 5 by the Pushkin Federal Court of St. Petersburg. In Pushkin, perhaps for the first time in the last half century, a man was tried whose views were probably not so far removed from the views of those Nazi thugs who found themselves in the dock after the end of World War II.

Yesterday, the city parliament overwhelmingly scheduled its own re-elections for March 11, 2007. This did not become a sensation - the decision was predetermined. Thus, there are just under a hundred days left until the elections (95 to be precise). Deputies will be elected in March.

Our editorial office received a letter from the former speaker of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Yuri Kravtsov. It concerns the clarification of some facts from the recent past - as discussed in one of our recent publications. The clarification is very significant. And not only from a personal point of view, since the matter concerns Yuri Kravtsov himself. It is also essential for understanding the background of the processes in the political life of our city.

“We, in theory, knew that people could be bullied and kicked out of their own apartments - but not to the same extent! Nobody believes anyone we tell...” In October, residents of Kolpino, homeowners in houses on Pavlovskaya Street, Gubina Street, Lenin Avenue suddenly began to receive strange papers signed by the deputy head of the district administration.

So, after a year and a half of discussions, the Forest Code was adopted. On November 8 it was approved by the State Duma, on November 24 approved by the Federation Council, and on December 5 signed by the president. And now - from January 1, 2007 - it will come into force. At the same time, many experts assess the new “forest constitution” ambiguously. Some predict a redistribution of the market with all the unpleasant criminal consequences.