St Sampsoniy Cathedral in St. Petersburg

St Sampsoniy Cathedral is one of the oldest churches in St. Petersburg. The original wooden church was built in 1710 to commemorate Russian victory in the Battle of Poltava of June 27th 1709. In 1909 Russia was getting ready for the celebration of the 200thg anniversary of the battle of Poltava. The church was considerably renovated and elevated to cathedral status. The same year a monument to Peter I has been inaugurated in front of the church. The monument was removed by the Soviets and restored in 2003 as part of the city's tercentenary celebrations.The parish was disbanded by the Soviets in the 1930s, and the church building was converted into a warehouse and then into ready-made clothes shop. It was restored in the late 1970s and reopened in 2000 as a museum attached to St. Isaac's Cathedral.

Russian battleship Poltava (1911)

Poltava was the second of the Gangut-class battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy built before World War I. The Ganguts were the first class of Russian dreadnoughts. She was named after the Russian victory over Charles XII of Sweden in the Battle of Poltava in 1709. She was completed during the winter of 1914–15, but was not ready for combat until mid-1915. Her role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so she spent her time training and providing cover for mine laying operations. She was laid up in 1918 for lack of trained crew and suffered a devastating fire the following year that almost gutted her. Many proposals were made to reconstruct or modernize her in different ways for the next twenty years, but none were carried out. While all this was being discussed she served as source of spare parts for her sister ships and was used as a barracks ship. She was finally struck from the Navy List in 1940 and scrapping began at a very leisurely rate. She was intentionally grounded in late 1941 to prevent her from being sunk in some inconvenient location by the Germans. She was re-floated in 1944 and scrapped beginning in 1949.

New criminal case is filed against Tymoshenko

October 13, 2011 (UNIAN) A new criminal case was filed against former Prime Minister of Ukraine – she is accused of laying of the debts of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) corporation on the budget of Ukraine. According to an UNIAN correspondent, chief of the Main Investigation Department of the SBU (the Security Service of Ukraine) Ivan Derevyanko said this at the press conference in Kyiv. “The Main Investigation Department of the SBU filed a criminal case against citizens of Ukraine Tymoshenko and Lazarenko”, he said.

Tymoshenko sentenced to 7 years in jail

KYIV, October 11, 2011 (UKRINFORM). Pechersk District Court of Kyiv has on Tuesday, October 11, produced a verdict on the former Prime Minister, leader of the opposition party Batkivshchyna, Yulia Tymoshenko, sentencing her to seven years in prison, under Article 365, part 3, the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Judge Rodion Kireyev said Tymoshenko's guilt of abuse of office when signing gas contracts with Russia in 2009 is proved, the convict would also have to pay back the damage she had caused to the state at UAH 1.5 billion (USD 1 - UAH 7.97). She was also banned for three years to hold positions in public service. The verdict can be challenged in the Court of Appeals within 15 days. Interrupting the judge, who was reading out the sentence, Tymoshenko said that the country has returned to 1937. Addressing the audience in the court and her supporters who were watching live streaming on TV, she encouraged them to unite and defend Ukraine. "Then the authoritarian regime will be toppled," she said. Speaking about the trial, the ex-Prime Minister said that a "contract verdict demonstrates only the weakness of power". "Glory to Ukraine - Glory to the Heroes!" she said.

KYIV, October 10, 2011 (UKRINFORM). The National Bank of Ukraine and the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority signed a memorandum of understanding in Stockholm regarding cooperation in the sphere of supervision over credit establishments, the NBU press service informs. According to the NBU statement, the document regulates cooperation of two supervisory authorities in different spheres of banking supervision, including mutual exchange of information about the general state of banking systems and individual banking institutions, opening and licensing of branches and daughter enterprises of foreign banks, holding of permanent supervision and examination of such institutions, carrying out consolidated supervision, prevention of the use of banks for money laundering, etc. The memorandum also contains obligations of the parties on confidentiality as regards the bank secret and its use exclusively with supervision aims.

Ukrainian books averagely printed in poor circulation of less than 500 copies - Publishers Association

KYIV, September 30,2011 (UKRINFORM). Books in Ukraine are published in very small quantities, on the average not exceeding 500 copies, as announced by President of the Ukrainian Association of Publishers and Booksellers Oleksandr Afonin. According to him, this situation is largely due to the lack of state orders for the book. Afonin said that if there was a state program to provide libraries with new books that are produced in Ukraine, the circulation would have grown to several thousand copies. Now, in his words, "book often do not go beyond the publishing regions, such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Ternopil." Now Ukraine is in a situation when publishers can not publish books in large numbers, and libraries can not replenish their funds. As reported, the drop in book publishing in 2011 compared to 2010 is 45%. In turn, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov promised that the government will double costs of Ukrainian book publishing in 2012.