Novaya Gazeta

A legend of Russian legal profession — about lawyers, judges and modern Russian interpretation of the ‘benefit of doubt’

OJSC ‘Tatarstan Airlines’ was registered in 1999. The enterprise was created on the basis of ‘Aeroflot’ squadrons from Kazan and Nizhnekamsk. The company received an impressive aircraft fleet – Tu-154M, Yak-42D and Tu-134. The sole founder of the joint stock company was Tatarstan State Property Committee. In 2003 the airline shares were transferred to OJSC ‘Svyazinvestneftekhim’, created to manage state assets*.

Under the patronage of the Tatarstan leadership, until the mid 00's the airline was one of the most successful regional airlines in Russia. But in fact it was the exploitation of the resource potential provided for back in the USSR times. The republic leadership was not in a hurry to invest into the company development, into replacing the aging aircraft by more modern and efficient planes, and looked for a 'strategic investor' who would undertake the burden of financial injections.

The traditional Prime Minister’s farewell speech delivered to the state Duma by Vladimir Putin was for the most part, boring with one major exception. He listed various programs, projects and promises, but never once indicated that they are only feasible if oil prices continue to rise year on year. The problem is that Russia’s economic dependence on the oil trade is not just important, it is critical

For the past 23 of his 93 years Aydzava-san has been travelling to Russia to fight the Russian historical amnesia

Umberto ECO was one of the first to see Alexey German's recently completed film Hard to Be a God. Especially for Novaya Gazeta, the living classic of the European literature wrote an article dedicated to the film's upcoming world premier at the Rome Film Festival.