Monument to Saint Nicholas the Miracle Worker unveiled in Minsk.

MINSK, March 29 (Itar-Tass) -- The Monument to St. Nicholas the
Miracle Worker was unveiled on the Palm Sunday and consecrated in the
Sokol residential area of aviators in the Belarusian capital.

This magnificent bronze monument was built in Minsk at the initiative
and with the support of the Russian Charity Foundation named after St.
Nicholas the Miracle Worker. The monument was made by Russian well-known
sculptors Sergei Isakov and Irina Makarova. Metropolitan of Minsk and
Slutsk, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus Filaret consecrated the monument.
"Metropolitan Filaret selected personally the place for the monument,"
chief of the Foundation named after St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker Andrei
Bykov told reporters. "We welcomed wholeheartedly this decision, as Saint
Nicholas was a patron of travelers. And the aviators live in this
district. The population of the residential area welcomed the idea of the
monument," he underlined.
The Russian Charity Foundation named after St. Nicholas the Miracle
Worker has already unveiled a three-meter-high bronze sculpture of St.
Nicholas in the ancient Belarusian city of Polotsk several months ago.

.All 40 tons of fuel pumped out from ship cast aground off Iturup.

VLADIVOSTOK, March 29 (Itar-Tass) -- All 40 tons of fuel, which were
in the tanks of the vessel, have been pumped out from the transport
refrigerator Labrador, which was cast aground off the Kuril island of
Iturup on March 22. The threat of fuel spill exists no longer, the press
service of the Far Eastern regional center of the Emergency Situations
Ministry reported on Monday.
Some 228 tons of fish out of 738 tons were reloaded from the Labrador
to the transport refrigerator Kurilgeo. The preparations are underway to
remove the motor ship from the rocks, on which it was cast by a strong
storm that had been raging over the Kuril Islands a week ago.
Labrador sustained a crack in the engine room that was flooded. The
crew consisted of 16 people, who sustained no injuries. A patrol ship of
the Sakhalin Border Service of the Federal Security Service Coast Guard
rescued all of them.
The rescue vessel Rubin is on standby in the incident area with eight
rescuers, including four divers aboard. They are putting a plaster on the
crack in the Labrador hull, after that it will be possible to pump water
out of the engine room of the refrigerator and remove it from the rocks.
The Labrador is registered in the port of Nakhodka with the load
capacity of over 1,000 tons and is 78 meters long. The Labrador ran
aground when being en route from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Vladivostok.
The cause of the wreckage is a failure of the main engine, after which the
refrigerator was caught in the reigns of high winds and waves.

.Putin arrives in Krasnoyarsk for two-day visit.

KRASNOYARSK, March 29 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin arrived in the Krasnoyarsk Territory for a two-day working visit. On
Monday he will familiarize with the current situation in the regional
education system, will hold a meeting on modernization of the higher
education system and will examine how the used car disposal program is
being implemented.
At first the premier will visit a construction site of the Institute
of Oil and Gas of the Siberian Federal University. After that he will
examine the collective use center and the library of the Siberian Federal
University, and then will chair a meeting on modernization of the higher
education system in Russia.
From the university Vladimir Putin intends to visit a motor salon,
where he will inspect how the used car disposal program is being
implemented. Alongside, the premier, who is a keen Alpine skier, will go
skiing at the highland ski center Bobrovy Log.
On Tuesday, the prime minister together with the ministers and
regional chiefs will discuss Siberia's development strategy. He will study
regional projects and then will participate in a meeting of the
interregional United Russia party conference.
The conference is expected to focus on the strategy of the regional
socioeconomic development through 2020. United Russia intends to map out a
concrete development program of the Siberian Federal District for
2010-2011 at the conference.
-0-baz


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