About the almanach
Today there is a multitude of both traditional and digital telephone directories, guidebooks and advertisement magazines, providing information about various companies' activities (their addresses and telephones, their price policies, strategic partners, etc.) And yet the specific people behind these companies are often left out of the picture. "Personalities of St. Petersburg" is an original guide to our city with a permanent Internet representation at http://www.ceo.spb.ru/journal, registered in 180 world search engines. The creation of our almanach has allowedus to put together useful information about the city's social and business elites. The almanach does not limit itself to biographical data, but forms a series of personal interviews, in which the main characters reveal their opinions, their social life and hobbies. An interview may be accompanied by archive photos, by reviews of the person's business and social activities, by information about his or her firm. For source information on participating firmsand advertisement, a special section is formed, in which the firms' contact data, logos and other useful information will be stored.

  Interview structure
The interview is formed by analysing existing publications and formulating questions by previous inquiry of business partners, the competition and the media. The interview does not rule out provocative questions, but its contents must in all cases be verified by its participant. The participant answers questions on his or her firm's development history, on his or her role in the business, on methods of interaction with long-term clients, partners and colleagues. Besides this, the interview contains questions about the participant's personal characteristics, his or her family life and hobbies. As a result of the interview, a personal portrait of a statesman, a businessman or a social figure is formed. The contents of an interview do not exceed two or three pages in the A4 format, including supplementary data.

  The specifics of the distribution system
Considering the fact that St. Petersburg's active business development has sharply increased the clients' as well as the general public's interest towards enterprise leaders, the almanach assumes a special system of distribution. Free delivery is made to city and regional administrations, to heads of military and security organizations, to the media, to General Consulates of foreign countries and trading companies' representations. Depending on the issue's topics, the almanach is distributed at various international exhibitions, science and technology fairs, congresses and other public events. A separate address data base is being formed for free topic-based deliveries. A portion of the almanachs printed is given out to interview participants.

  Polygraphic layout
The almanach is a magazine-type edition in the A4 format (215*260 mm). Its tentative size is 60 pages (20 in colour and 40 black-and-white), including the cover. Chalked offset paper. The circulation is 10,000 copies, which may be supplemented if needed.