Swedish Dental Clinic: 10th Anniversary

Swedish Dental Clinic: 10th Anniversary On 7 April the Swedish Dental Clinic will celebrate its 10th anniversary. The project was initially launched by two Swedish entrepreneurs Karl Peter Hеkansson and Lars-Alvar Wassdahl. The clinic provides all kinds of services not only to Russian, but also to foreign citizens. The offered services include operative dentistry, parodontics, oral surgery, orthodontics, professional oral hygiene etc.

The employees of the clinic are Russian doctors who had their internship in Sweden, and participated in various international dental seminars and conferences. All the doctors and medical attendants regularly go through professional retraining. In 2006 the clinic took part in the Russian-Swedish healthcare workshop (see Issues 64, 2006, week 48).

From the very beginning the clinic has been oriented on prevention of dental diseases. In 2002 Swedish Dental started up a continuing programme of preventive maintenance of caries at St. Petersburg schools. Now the clinic has put forward a city project on teenage and children’s caries prevention. A pilot project will be carried out in the academic years 2008-2009 in one of the city districts. Swedish partners are invited to participate in the project.

Contact person: Contact person: Natalia Mironova, Director General, Swedish Dental clinic, email: swedent@mail.ru, web: www.swedishdental.ru

The World Bank to Support Housing and Utilities Reform

Residents of 10 Russian cities will have a chance to feel the results of the pilot programme aiming at the increased quality of housing and utilities services. The project will be implemented in the frames of the partnership programme between Russia and the World Bank, which approved allocation of a USD 200 million loan for maintaining of “Housing and Utilities Reform” project. Source: Metro newspaper, February 2008, www.metro-russia.com

Finnish Prisma in St. Petersburg The Finnish SOK Company, operating a chain of hypermarkets and hotels Prisma, is entering the St. Petersburg market. The first hypermarket will be opened in summer 2008. There will also be a business and fitness centre. The gross area of the complex will be 2.5 thousand sq. metres.

In 2008-2009 SOK plans to open another 3-5 supermarkets. By 2015 the company intends to increase the number of Prisma hypermarkets to 15-20, investing EUR 500 million. Prisma is planned to fill 15-17% of the St. Petersburg retail market, selling 80% local goods and 20% goods imported from Finland.

Source: Delovoy Peterburg newspaper, March 2008, www.dpgazeta.ru

The Stockholm Region Office in St. Petersburg in cooperation with the North-West Association continues publishing profiles of the 11 regions of the Northwest Russia

The Vologda Region

Capital: Vologda

Area: 145.7 thousand square km

Population: 1 324 thousand people

The Vologda region is located in the Northwest Russia, 500 km away from Moscow. The territory of Vologda is crossed by important ways connecting central Russia with the Urals and Siberia. The city of Vologda, being the largest one in the region, is a most important junction of rail-, motor- and airways in the North of Russia. It is a port which stands on the river under the same name. Nowadays the Vologda Region is remarkable for such branches of industry as metallurgy, chemical, wood, textile, pulp and paper industries.

External relations. The region has cooperation agreements with Borsod-Abaъj-Zemplen (Hungary), Preљov (Slovakia), Oulu and Lapland (Finland), Jдmtland and Vдstmanland (Sweden), Steiermark (Austria), Telemark (Norway), Moravian-Silesian Region (Moravskoslezsky kraj) of the Czech Republic, and the Chinese province Jilin. Innovation activities. The following sectors demonstrate values of this indicator above the average: chemical industry (40%), communications (33%), metallurgy (21,7%), manufacture of machinery and equipment (16,7%), light industry (14,3%), food industry (12,7%), and manufacturing industry (12%).

The Vologda Region Government provides assistance and a wide range of services to start-ups by creating business incubators encouraging and assisting entrepreneurship. The year 2006 saw the opening of a business incubator in Vologda City. In autumn 2007 business incubators were launched throughout the Vologda Region, namely in Gryazovets, Belozersk and Sokol. Next year business incubators are expected to be opened in Veliky Ustyug and Sheksna.

Sheksna Industrial Park. The Sheksna Industrial Park is the only economic and technological development area in the Vologda Region. It is entitled to preferential policies as both an economic and technological area and as a national-level high-tech industrial park. The unique feature of the Industrial Park is its location at the intersection of all transport lines: railroads and federal motor roads, the Volgo-Baltic waterway and air corridor "Europe - Asia". Over 50% of the region's working-age people live in the agglomeration Vologda-Sheksna-Cherepovets employing highly skilled workforce. The region's largest insurance companies, banks, institutes and universities are based here.

Culture. The Vologda Region is a land of original art noted for unique and various historical and cultural heritage. It is famous for the number and significance of its monuments of architecture and archaeology, museums and libraries, all the diversity of handicraft products. Belozersk, Veliky Ustyug, Vologda, Ustyuzhna, Tot'ma and other cities are in fact unique open-air museums.

Tourism. The Vologda Region is a land rich in forests, rivers and lakes, ecologically pure food products and air – these are the key factors for organizing a full rest amateur tourism with hunting and fishing, walking, rafting and horseback riding routes. The city of Veliky Ustyug and its outskirts are one of the most beautiful places in the Vologda Region and in Russia. It is that very place where Ded Moroz (Russian Santa Claus) lives. Everybody can visit Father Frost at any time during the whole year and each one will find something special here.

Contacts: Yury Senko, Department of Economics, Vologda Region Government, tel.: +7 (8172) 728470, fax: +7 (8172) 722719; Dmitry Shevtsov, Department of Interregional and Foreign Affairs, Exhibition and Fair Activity, Vologda Region Government, tel.: +7 (8172) 722564, fax: +7 (8172) 722564.

Galina Telegina, Chamber of commerce of the Vologda Region, tel.:+7 (8172) 721480, fax: +7 (8172) 721480 More information about the Vologda Region can be found on the official website www.vologda-region.ru;

e-mail: info@vologda-region.ru

1995, the Corona Guitar Kvartet collaborates with composers

CGK was supported by

International Festival of Arts: From the Avant-garde to the Present Day Musicians, singers, orchestras, and modern composers from Russia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the US attended the 17th International Festival of Arts From the Avant-garde to the Present Day, organized by the Charitable Foundation Music & Contemporary and held on March 13-22.

Among other participants there were two young composers Nicklas Schmidt and Peter Helms, and the Corona Guitar Kvartet from Denmark. On March 21, the State Hermitage Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Golikov performed Nicklas Schmidt’s Solitude Variations and together with the Corona Guitar Kvartet - Peter Helms’ “Rollercoaster Rock’ n’ Roll.” The Corona Guitar Kvartet (CGK) gave a solo concert at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory on March 21, and joined the “Kitsch Concert” on March 22, at the Polytechnic University.

Nicklas Schmidt graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory and the Royal Danish Academy of Music. His music has been performed in a number of international festivals in Ireland, Germany, Denmark, and Bosnia. Peter Helms is an M. A. student at the Royal Danish Academy of Music; his works has been performed in Latvia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Formed in from Denmark, the Faroes, Norway, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, Italy, Canada and the USA in the creation of new works for guitar quartet. CGK has participated in numerous international festivals of the guitar or contemporary music, and has done several concert trips and projects throughout Europe and North America. The visit of Nicklas Schmidt, Peter Helms, and SAS and Danish Arts Agency.

Contact person: Rikke Helms, Director, Danish Cultural Institute, e-mail: rhsp@mail.wplus.net The archive of the newsletters can be found at http://www.stockholmregion.org/website1/sd_page/16/1/index.php STOCKHOLM REGION OFFICE in ST PETERSBURG

Visiting address: Nevsky 1, St. Petersburg Postal address: BOX 1005, 190000, St. Petersburg tel.: +7-812-314 68 18, fax: +7-812-314 68 53

e-mail: stockholm.office@stockholm.spb.ru