Perhaps the only way to answer the question who the elite of St.Petersburg's elite really are is to ask the members of the elite themselves. That is the approach taken by a recent study by Gallup, Channel 6 television and the Smena newspaper.

According to the study, the city's 20 most influential people now include Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky and Valery Gergiev, artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater - both of whom rated considerably higher in this survey of the elite than they have in similar "most influential" studies in the past.

Rubbing shoulders with them in the top five spots according to the survey are Governor Vladimir Yakovlev in first place, President Vladimir Putin in second, and Northwest Region Governor General Viktor Cherkesov in third.

Among the 75 voting participants there were 18 representatives of the city administration; 14 from business; 14 from culture and science; 20 from the mass media; five from the police; and four from sports and show-business.

Rounding out the top 10 were Legislative Assembly Chairperson Sergei Tarasov in sixth place; Nobel laureate, Duma deputy and the head of the St. Petersburg Russian Academy of Sciences, Zhores Alfyorov in seventh; Taimuraz Bolloyev, general director of the beer producer, Baltika, in eighth; Vladimir Kogan, chairperson of the supervisory council of Promstroi Bank, in ninth; and scandal-tainted Vice Governor Valery Malyshev in tenth.

Other representatives of the local cultural elite who made the top 20 include St. Petersburg University Rector Lyudmila Verbitskaya in 18th place and Oleg Kuzin, editor of the newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti, in 20th.

In addition to Bolloyev and Kogan, business was represented on the list by Lenenergo Regional Utility General Director Andrei Likhachyov in 11th place.

Politicians held half the positions on the list. Unified Energy Systems chair Anatoly Chubais; Vice-Governor Yury Antonov; Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref; Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin; and St. Petersburg's representative on the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, made the list.

News source: The Saint-Petersburg Times
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