Russian Plane Crashes In Samara; 7 Dead

A Russian airliner crash landed in the central Russian city of Samara on Saturday, killing seven people and injuring 23, emergency officials said. It was unclear what caused the incident. Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov described the accident as a «hard landing.»

Another Ministry representative, Irina Andrianova, said the plane was landing in heavy fog and grazed the runway with one of its wings. She said there was no fire after the crash.

The Tu-134 plane, an ageing model, belonged to the Russian airline UTAir and had 57 people on board, including seven crew members, the company said in a statement. Two of the crew were among the injured, it said.

Andrianova said seven people were killed, 23 were hospitalized, six of them in serious condition. Earlier, officials had said 51 people had been injured, but they revised the figure to 23, explaining that the rest were being treated for psychological shock.

Some Russian media, citing local emergency officials, reported that the plane landed on its fuselage after the landing gear failed to come down.

The plane had flown to Samara, about 550 miles southeast of Moscow, from Surgut, about 1,000 miles to the east.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the incident, transport officials and prosecutors said.

Tu-134s are widely used in the former Soviet Union. The last major crash of a Russian airliner was on Aug. 22, when a Tu-154 of Pulkovo Airlines crashed in Ukraine, killing all 170 people aboard.

In July, an Airbus-310 of S7 airlines went off the runway after landing in Irkutsk, smashed into adjacent buildings and caught fire, killing 123 of the 203 people aboard. In May, an Armenian Airbus-320 crashed into the Black Sea while trying to land in the southern Russian city of Sochi, killing all 113 people aboard.

The President of Europe Table Tennis Union arrived in Samara

Stefano Bosi arrived in Samara. Visit of the President of Europe Table Tennis Union was not planned, he arrived here for one day from Kazan. He is for the first time in our city, however he has already had time to be fond of it. The high-ranking official promised to promote plans of regional authorities in construction of the table tennis youth center.

Priora goes into series production

Yesterday OJSC “AutoVAZ” (Tolyatti, Samara region) began the industrial assembling of Lada Priora new model. The first few cars have come off the assembly line.

The only department of endoscopy in Samara region in N.I.Pirogov’s city clinical hospital №1 was supplemented with the newest medical equipment

The unique special equipment will allow to improve greatly the quality of medical assistance to the citizens. Devices of last generation also will help with highly skilled endoscopists training for hospitals of Samara and Samara region.

It is worth saying, that N.I.Pirogov’s hospital is the only centre in the field of gastroenteric bleedings treatment.

Elections of deputies to the Samara Regional Duma took place in Samara region

According to preliminary data, the members of Samara Regional Duma will be the representatives of «Edinaya Rossia», with 33,90 % votes (11 mandates), Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) – 18,91 % votes (5 mandates), «Spravedlivaya Rossia» – 14,86 % votes (4 mandates), RLDP (Russian Liberal-Democratic Party)– 11,62 % votes (3 mandates), “ Soyyz pravykh sil” and «Green» – 8,15 % and 7,56 % votes accordingly (1 mandate). «Russian Patriots» (1,37 %) has not overcome 7 %- barrier.

Opening of the literature exhibition devoted to M.Rostropovich»s 80th anniversary

The literature exhibition devoted to creative work of an outstanding musician and conductor, Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich will be open on March, 13th in the arts department of the Samara regional public scientific library. M. Rostropovich is 80 years old on March, 27th.

Readers can get acquainted with Leonid Gakkel»s books «Ninetieth», B.A.Pokrovsky’s «When expelled from the Bolshoy theatre», Tamara Grum-Grzhimajlo’s «Rostropovich and his contemporaries », Vishevskaya’s «Galina».

Mstislav Rostropovich has been called the Citizen of the World for a long time name: his magic talent and fantastic public temperament charms all civilized world, created a certain new «circulation» of culture and communications between people. There are unique records of maestro concerts on different musical carriers in the arts department as well. All material collected at the exhibition is a story about the whole epoch of XX century culture where the special place belongs to «furious» Mstislav.