Exchange plans move to offshore zone and launch trading in Hong Kong shares.
The St. Petersburg stock market, Russia’s third largest exchange, is considering relocating to the Far East to tap into the growing pool of investors in the region.
The stock exchange has started weighing up a decision to move to one of Russia’s special offshore zones, Russky Island, near Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East, as part of a wider rebranding that would include a possible name-change from “Saint Petersburg Exchange” to “Voshod”.

Russia’s parliament has invited Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg to address young Russians concerned about the environment.
The 16-year-old schoolgirl has catalyzed global school strikes and inspired Russia’s nascent climate protest movement. Thunberg’s impassioned speech at the United Nations General Assembly last week sparked a fierce backlash in Russian society.
“I invite you to give a speech to Russian youth in the State Duma on any date convenient for you,” lawmaker Vasily Vlasov wrote to Thunberg, according to excerpts of his letter published by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency Tuesday.
Vlasov, 24, a senior member of the Duma’s Natural Resources Committee, highlighted his youth in the letter sent to the Swedish embassy.

The deal implies that the way the Kremlin oversees mega-construction projects is changing.
Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom has closed a deal to buy out 100% of its largest subcontractor Stroygazmontazh, controlled by oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, for 70 billion-95 billion rubles ($1.1 billion-$1.5 billion), according to reports from the RBC news site and Vedomosti daily, citing unnamed sources.

Non-Russians seeking a second passport will no longer have to give up their existing one.
Russia’s lower chamber of parliament plans to vote on legislation that could allow dual citizenship for foreigners wanting to become Russian citizens, the RBC news website reported Tuesday.
Analysts believe the new rules may increase the attractiveness of a Russian passport, as in the past foreigners applying for the documents have had to renounce their existing citizenship.
The State Duma on Tuesday adopted the legislation for consideration. It is expected to enter its first reading on Oct. 23-24.

A Russian man is seeking more than $15,000 in damages from Apple after claiming that the U.S. tech giant drove him to homosexuality, the Govorit Moskva radio station has reported.
The plaintiff, identified as D. Razumilov, alleges that he became “mired in same-sex relationships” this summer after receiving 69 GayCoins on a cryptocurrency payment app he downloaded onto his iPhone in 2017. The unknown sender was said to have included an English-language message that Razumilov interpreted as “don’t judge without trying.”

At least two inmates have been housed in a tower long thought to be abandoned at the infamous Butyrka prison in central Moscow, the Public Monitoring Commission (PMC) prison watchdog has said.
The 19th-century Butyrka prison has held notable figures behind its bars, from persecuted Soviet-era writers Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Isaac Babel to Adolf Hitler’s nephew Heinrich. Officially known as the Butyrskaya pre-trial detention center, Butyrka has long come under fire for overcrowding, fire safety violations and poor living conditions.

Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant has arrived to its permanent base near an isolated Russian town across the Bering Strait from Alaska, Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom said on Saturday.
Developed by Rosatom, the plant, known as “Akademik Lomonosov,” set off on a 5,000 kilometers journey on Aug. 23 through Arctic waters to reach the Chukotka region. Rosatom said it aims to make the floating station operational by the year-end. It would become the world’s northernmost nuclear power station.

A Russian volcano’s eruption this summer has turned sunrises and sunsets in the Northern Hemisphere more purple, according to research by the University of Colorado Boulder.
Raikoke erupted on June 22 on an uninhabited island south of the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East after lying dormant for 95 years. NASA said the eruption spewed a concentrated plume of sulfur dioxide that spread across the North Pacific.
University of Colorado researchers sent high-altitude balloons to Earth’s stratosphere and measured that sulfur particles from the Raikoke eruption were 20 times thicker than normal.