SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1006 (73), Friday, September 24, 2004
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TITLE: Pulkovo Boosts Security to Protect Flights
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Security at St. Petersburg's domestic and international airports at Pulkovo has been boosted significantly after last month's suicide bombings of two Russian planes, but this has not been enough to check a fall off in passengers.
"The latest terrorist acts on the Russian planes caused a 4 percent decrease to the number of passengers on our domestic flights," Alexander Golovin, acting director of the Federal State Aviation Enterprise Pulkovo, said Wednesday at a news conference.
"We even had to cancel a number of flights," Golovin said, adding that Pulkovo was not the only Russian airport to suffer in this way.
Two Chechen women boarded flights at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Aug. 24 and apparently detonated explosives hidden on their bodies, causing the planes to crash and killing 90 people on board.
The bombings set off alarms worldwide because Domodedovo is one of Russia's best equipped airports and it appeared the women might have passed through metal detectors and other security measures undetected. The concern was particularly great that they might have used plastic explosives, which is not detectable by conventional luggage scanners.
Later it transpired that the women had bought their tickets from a scalper and probably bribed airport staff to let them on board without proper security checks.
Pulkovo authorities said Wednesday that security measures at Pulkovo I and Pulkovo II have been strengthened to the highest possible extent.
Pulkovo has started more thorough searches of passengers, installed the latest explosive detection equipment, introduced document identification, and employed a lot more security officers.
Today, any person entering the terminals at Pulkovo is immediately subject to the officer's scrutiny. The checks cover not only passengers' or visitors' luggage, but also the people themselves. Not only must they pass through metal detectors, but passengers may also be touch searched or asked to raise the lower part of their trouser leg.
"We had to go to extreme measures and even touch-search passengers," Golovin said, adding that in the most suspicious cases a strip search is performed.
In addition, Pulkovo has boosted its profiling methods, conducting probing interviews especially of those passengers who raise suspicion.
This method is based on creating a psychological chart of the risks a passenger presents.
Golovin said one of the suicide bombers flying from Moscow had been the last person to board and was in a hurry. That should have already alarmed professionals that she was a security risk.
Pulkovo has also equipped its terminals with a unique device developed by St. Petersburg scientists. The EDS 5101 (Explosion Detection System) device is said to be much more effective than the regular X-ray units operating in airports.
Yevgeny Stepanov, head of security at Pulkovo, said the EDS uses neutron-radiation analysis and has a 99-percent chance of detecting explosives in luggage,
The device scans the structure of a substance at the nuclear level and can determine the presence or absence of explosives. The system is especially sensitive to nitrogen, which many explosives, including plastic explosives, contain.
Andrei Vishnevkin, deputy director of development for the scientific development company RATEC, which designed the device, said that this fall, EDS will also be installed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, and most probably at Domodedovo.
Pulkovo also has a device called The Fountain, which can absorb explosions. The Fountain is used to cover suspicious objects until bomb disposal teams arrive.
Another new device introduced in Pulkovo a few weeks ago is the Identifier Personal Documents, or IPD, which was designed in Israel. Within a few seconds, the IPD can determine whether a traveler's passport is fake or if the owner is on a police wanted list.
Golovin said all of Pulkovo's more than 8,000 staff, are well trained to deal with any emergency.
"Even our cleaners know what to do in such cases," he said.
Over the last few years, Pulkovo has raised the number of staff maintaining security from 100 to 800 people. Their average pay of about $400 is well above the local average, Golovin said.
"The financial situation of our security staff is our priority today," he said.
Stepanov said Pulkovo security staff also monitor what is happening and who is working for other services at the airports and in the surrounding area.
"Our security staff accompanies passengers' luggage to the planes," Stepanov said. "It safeguards that there is no physical contact between passengers on different sides of the border and patrols the perimeter of the airports."
Recently all Pulkovo's staff have been issued with special electronic access control badges that restrict Pulkovo's employees access to only their own area of work.
Meanwhile, Sergei Belov, head Pulkovo's aviation and technical complex, said another concern of Russian aviation is unruly behavior on the part of passengers.
Belov referred to the recent case of a drunk passenger on a flight from Tyumen to Moscow who suddenly threatened to explode a bomb if the crew landed at Vnukovo airport instead of Domodedovo, which he wanted to land. The threat proved to be a hoax.
"Such cases are unacceptable and we will take such passengers off the flight in any country, wherever they do it, and deliver them to local police," Belov said.
Golovin said Pulkovo is trying to ensure the extra security measures do not make people wait for hours.
"There should be a certain limit to the time each check takes," he said. "Toughened security should do not scare passengers away from airports."
Instead of the $700,000 that Pulkovo first budgeted to spend on security this year, the airport company has raised that sum to $830,000.
However, Golovin suggested that Russia could introduce a new system of charging passengers a security fee of about $5 a ticket to raise more money to equip smaller Russian airports, which are in dire financial straits, with extra security services.
Meanwhile, Yakov Levin, deputy director of RATEC, said that modern science has several theories on how to examine a person carrying explosives on their body and even inside it.
Levin said there are heat-sensing methods that have the potential to detect anything in a human body that does not correlate to the natural temperature of a person.
"However, developing such devices would require a lot of money," he said.
Mikhail, a passenger flying from Pulkovo I airport on Wednesday, said he was not irritated by the thorough examination he had to go through.
"At least those actions give me more confidence that the flight will be safe," he said.
Meanwhile, Moscow's tourism committee said Wednesday that terrorism, including the downing of the planes, a suicide bomber at a Moscow metro, and the Beslan tragedy had cut the flow of foreign tourists to Russia by 15 percent, Interfax said.
TITLE: Pledge on Visas Made To Business
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Members of the St. Petersburg International Business Association, or SPIBA, on Thursday were given hope of a slight improvement in the tortuous process of obtaining visas for foreign staff.
Police at a round table organized by SPIBA on safety of foreigners and visa issues said the business people can expect some changes for the better soon.
Alexander Lobanov, deputy head of the St. Petersburg police passport-visa department, said city police have filed a package of amendments to the federal law on the international workforce that will put foreign companies operating in St. Petersburg with head offices abroad on the same footing as foreign businesses registered in the city.
"This law doesn't aim to simplify things," he said. "It is being done to close perceived loopholes in the legislation."
In about a month the police will complete work on the amendments, which among other things, will allow foreign companies that are not registered in St. Petersburg to apply to the police for invitations for their employees, he said.
"After the work is finished the documents will be sent to Moscow for analysis," Lobanov said without specifying exactly which legislation is to be amended.
Lobanov also refused to give SPIBA a draft of the amendment to inspect.
Meanwhile, the police have recorded a steady growth of foreign citizens visiting the region on private visas within the last 3 years.
The number has grown from 57,000 people visiting the city on private visas in 2002 to 70,181 in the first eight months of 2004. Police statistics show 14,666 people came to St. Petersburg on business in 2002, 23,949 arrived in 2003 and 15,000 had been registered as having visited to the city by Sept. 1 this year.
Meanwhile, city authorities this year set up a regional commission to work on issues that are important for foreign businesses and tourists.
Yelena Lukina, senior specialist in the department of the City Prosecutor's Office that works with justice bodies, said this had already resulted in opening a center in the city with the aim of assisting foreigners who get into trouble while visiting the city.
"We are concerned about the question of security and for this reason took some measures to provide security for foreign students and tourists," Lukina said.
"The center, which was opened in the tourist information office at 14 Sadovaya Ulitsa was supposed to operate only from May until September, but then we decided to extend its work," Lukina said.
However, when SPIBA members asked if the regional commission could also address simplifying visa rules for business people, Lukina said that was not its role.
"The order to obtain visas is determined by federal legislation," she said. "All we can do is to gather, analyze and hand over to the federal administration the proposals that you'd come up with."
Lukina said the city is considering increasing the quota for work permits for foreigners in St. Petersburg from 5,000 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2005, although the limit set by the federal government has already been exceeded with 13,000 permits issued in St. Petersburg this year.
Foreign businesses can expect more changes after November, when the Interior Ministry has scheduled hearings in the State Duma about migrant labor, Lukina said without giving details.
The authorities said the police have been ordered to more closely patrol places frequented by foreign students and tourists, and to keep an eye on student hostels to offer security, she said.
The city has many students from the developing world who complain they are the victims of racist attacks, skinheads and that the police are often indifferent to their plight.
A question about issuing work permits for foreign employees went largely unanswered. But Pavel Pankratov, deputy head at the St. Petersburg department of the federal employment agency, said the city urgently needs foreign labor because there are 64,000 vacancies in the city and only 16,000 people have officially registered as unemployed.
"This is a formality now in conditions when the city has a serious labor shortage," he said. "The city's economy won't develop without attracting a qualified work force."
His statement that obtaining a work permit should only take 10 working days, as specified by federal law, provoked a sharp retort from businesses that regularly deal with the issue.
"The time taken differs a great deal, depending on the city district," a representative of a company that obtains work permits said on condition of anonymity.
"In the Moskovsky district, for instance, it takes two weeks, while in the Central and Admiralteisky districts it takes a month," he said.
"Everything is decided by money and Pankratov knows it full well," the man said. "Sometimes there are direct bribes. Sometimes there are persistent offers to participate in a market for vacancies [organized by City Hall] that is useless for foreign companies. The cheapest stand at such a market costs $200, while it is possible to resolve this directly by paying up to 2,000 rubles ($68.40)."
Ludmila Murgulets, vice president of the city's Stockholm School of Economics and a SPIBA executive member, said the round table did not produce significantly different results to previous ones in which business people met officials, heard some promises and got no concrete results.
"They [the officials] have said so many times that legislation is flawed and that they are ready for a dialog with businesses, but afterwards little changes for the better," she said. "All the same, it is clear that things are much better than they were five or 10 years ago."
TITLE: Seeking Women in Wartime Photos
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A German man is hoping publication of wartime photographs of three young Russian women associated with St. Petersburg may help explain how they came into the possession of his late father-in-law.
Eckhard Bernecker, 68, of Hanover, found the photographs among the belongings of Friedrich Wilhelm Uebel, who was killed in action in World War II. The fate of the women is unknown.
"We found a picture which poses a riddle," Bernecker said of one photograph.
"The picture is worthless to us," he wrote in a letter to The St. Petersburg Times. "But I know that during the war a lot of keepsakes (such as photos) were destroyed. So it could be that 'Zinochka' or 'Panya' in St. Petersburg [or their descendants] will be grateful for the photo."
The woman in the first picture is identified as Panya, which is likely to be a diminutive of Praskoviya, Osipova. On the back of the photograph appears a dedication to a friend called Zinochka, a diminutive of Zinaida.
"To Zinochka, for you to remember me by, Panya Osipova. It is better to think of me at least sometimes than not at all. Leningrad. Sept. 28, 1941," Panya's Cyrillic text reads.
St. Petersburg was known as Leningrad at the time.
The date is just after Hitler's armies launched a murderous attack on Stalin's Soviet Union. The Germans surrounded the city and besieged it for almost 900 days.
At the bottom of the reverse side there are the German words "Gruzinerin," which means "Georgian," and a word that is difficult to decipher but looks like "Manuck."
Another photograph shows a woman in a military uniform. Her name is hard to decipher, but appears to be either "Tamarochka," a diminutive of Tamara, or some other female name that starts with the letter "T."
The second woman also dedicated her picture to Zinaida.
"To Zinochka from T ... If you have time for memories of the past, remember me, too. 21 Å. Ç. Leningrad Nov. 16, 1941," the dedication says.
The code 21 Å. Ç. may be the number of the woman's military unit.
At the bottom is written the German word, "Armenierin," or "Armenian."
Three young women appear in a third photograph. On the back of that photograph only the date May 2, 1940 is written. It can be assumed that one of the women is Zinaida.
Bernecker said he had no idea how Uebel got the pictures. His father-in-law never fought in northwest Russia or the Baltic States during the war. He served on the southern front - in the Caucasus and beside the Azov Sea.
It might be that Zinaida lived or fought in this area too. Bernecker said Uebel, who served as an armored infantryman (in German: Panzer-Grenadier), had not left any explanation about the pictures before he was killed aged 32 on March 16, 1945, in Neuwied-am-Rhine-River in west Germany.
Uebel's widow, Lisbeth, now 91, remembers her husband being sent to fight in the Soviet Union in late summer of 1941.
She said he remained there as a lance corporal in the "orderly room" for many months until he was wounded in the back. After treatment at a hospital in Germany he was sent to fight the Allies who were advancing from the west.
The widow also remembers that Uebel was in Rostov-on-Don "at the foot of the Caucasian mountains," and later in Taganrog on the Azov Sea.
Lisbeth Uebel recalls that when her husband had leave at home he would collect tools for his Russian landlord and fashion magazines with sewing patters for the landlord's wife.
Bernecker thinks Uebel brought the pictures of the Russian women home with him on one of these trips.
Uebel had three children, one of whom, Charlotte, who was eight when her father died, later became Bernecker's wife. He said Uebel's family had a very difficult struggle to survive in post-war Germany. It was only with the help of their grandparents that the family avoided dying of starvation.
Bernecker said his family wants to give the pictures back to people who are interested in them - be it Zinaida, who likely owned the pictures before Uebel, or the women pictured in the photos.
Anyone with information about the women in the photographs is asked to contact The St. Petersburg Times either by writing to us at telephoning us on (812) 325-6080. Ask for Irina Titova.
TITLE: In-Fill Builders See No Grounds for Protests
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Local construction companies do not understand public protests against in-fill construction because the sites developers are building on were designated as suitable for construction in a city plan that was approved in 1980s, Lev Kaplan, head of the St. Petersburg Union of Construction Companies said Wednesday.
The only reason the sites were not built on then was because of the economic decline that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In-fill development involves construction on vacant or underused land plots, often green areas, in areas of cities that are already largely developed. Such construction in people's yards and the removal of trees has raised the ire of residents across the city.
"There are two parts to this problem," Kaplan said at a round table organized by ABN business news agency.
"One is related to construction sites located in the suburban areas," he said. "Most of those sites were approved in the general plan to develop the city in 1985. This is about construction on empty sites that are supposed to be developed, so for this reason I'd say the protests of public on this matter are unjustified.
"The second group of construction sites is in the historical part of town and this is mainly about plans to develop projects that are necessary for the city, such as sites for infrastructure and buildings that had been approved by the city long ago," he said.
"At the same time, I do not welcome projects like the recent one to build in Mikhailovsky Gardens, for instance, just because some manager of a construction company liked the place," Kaplan added.
City Hall promised to build 2 million square meters of residential space this year, but estimates show that construction will fall at least 30 percent short. The reason for this, which is also the reason for so much in-fill construction, is a lack of suitable plots of land with infrastructure already in place, he said.
Meanwhile, representatives of Okstroi, a local construction company that has had repeated clashes with locals at numerous sites in the city, said residents are politically motivated.
"We have faced protests, for instance one organized on Institutsky Prospekt, that resembled some sort of military operation, but in fact looked like it was hooliganism," Okstroi representative Violetta Melnichuk said at the round table.
"These people were not from neighboring houses," she said. "I saw them in pickets organized in different parts of town in which members of the National Bolshevik Party took part. This is about people who want to exploit the situation to achieve some PR goals easily."
In June, about 40 residents supported by the National Bolshevik Party prevented construction vehicles entering their yard at 9 Institutsky Prospekt by all but throwing themselves under the wheels.
Residents said the yard where Okstroi was building belonged to the neighborhood community.
But Alexei Belousov, a Legislative Assembly lawmaker, said he supported people's right to defend their territories and regrets that legislation does not resolve in detail such questions as what is meant for a new building to be too near to existing buildings.
TITLE: Zaitsev Appointed Prosecutor
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Sergei Zaitsev, a former chief prosecutor with a reputation of fighting police corruption, was appointed the chief prosecutor of St. Petersburg on Thursday after winning overwhelming support in the Legislative Assembly.
The previous chief city prosecutor Nikolai Vinnichenko, who worked in that position for just over a year, was reported to have resigned at the beginning of August after pressure for him to go was applied by Russian General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov.
Ustinov was reportedly dissatisfied with the results of a number of investigations of prominent cases in St. Petersburg, Kommersant reported.
But last month, sources in the Legislative Assembly said that a group of Kremlin insiders behind the Yukos affair and which covets lucrative deals in St. Petersburg had forced Vinnichenko, who was allegedly against favoring the group, to resign.
Zaitsev, formerly chief prosecutor of the Chuvashia region in southern Russia, was put forward as a replacement by Ustinov earlier this month.
Almost all members of the Legislative Assembly supported the candidature of Zaitsev in a secret ballot on Wednesday with at least 31 deputies out of 33 voting for him.
As he left the Legislative Assembly building Zaitsev told journalists that his priority in his new position will be fighting street crime and corruption, as well improving the investigation of murders, Kommersant wrote.
Zaitsev built a reputation as an anti-corruption campaigner in Chuvashia after charging 33 high-ranking police officers with abuses of power in 2003.
He declared that tackling corruption in Chuvash law enforcement bodies was his priority as prosecutor, Sovetskaya Chuvashia newspaper reported in December.
Zaitsev, a graduate of law from Kazan State University, has worked in the prosecutory system since 1987. He later worked as a chief prosecutor in the town of Leninogorsk, Tatarstan; deputy prosecutor of Tatarstan, and first deputy of chief prosecutor of Chuvashia.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: 'Nord-Ost' in Moscow
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A new touring version of musical "Nord-Ost" will premiere on its former stage in the Dubrovka theater center on Friday, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The musical's directors opted for the return performance after St. Petersburg's Music Hall theater, where the premiere was initially planned for the same date, refused to host the performance.
The musical, which gained worldwide attention when Chechen terrorist's seized the Dubrovka theater in October 2002, was last performed there in May of 2003, when performances were called off because of poor attendances.
Shostakovich Museum
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich plans to open a museum dedicated to composer Dmitry Shostakovich on the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth, Interfax reported Wednesday.
"I'm planning to open it at 11 a.m. on Sept. 25 of 2006 on Shostakovich's 100th birthday.
I bought an apartment at 8 Ulitsa Marata where the composer used to live," Rostropovich said.
Beyond Recognition
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City man Alexander Pumane, who police said was detained in Moscow in a car carrying explosives and beaten to death, was so badly beaten his ex-wife could not identify him, Izvestia reported Thursday.
Police said Pumane, a former submariner, had been interrogated and told of a plot to park cars packed with explosives around Moscow.
His family have denied that he could have been involved in terrorism and local media suggest the bomb plot is a fabrication by law enforcement officers trying to cover up his murder by officers.
Budanov Plea Reviewed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Ulyanovsk region pardons commission has postponed until Sept. 29 its consideraton of a request by Ulyanovsk governor Vladimir Shamanov whether to grant convicted killer Yury Budanov's request to withdraw his plea to be pardoned, Interfax reported Thursday
The commission granted Budanov, who was convicted for the murder of 17-year-old Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva in 2000, his plea last week.
On Tuesday, Budanov asked the commission to withdraw the pardon.
TITLE: French Oil Giant Buys Stake in Novatek
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - French oil giant Total ended months of speculation Wednesday by announcing it is buying a blocking stake in Russia's largest independent gas producer, Novatek, in a deal that looks set to revive flagging investor confidence.
The news came just hours before Gazprom said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with U.S. oil major ChevronTexaco on cooperation in the gas sector.
The move brings the two companies a step closer to joint development of the vast Shtokman gas fields in the Arctic and to supplying U.S. markets with liquefied natural gas.
Both announcements are welcome news for an investment climate long in the doldrums over the state's legal onslaught against Yukos.
The signs of renewed foreign investor interest in Russia also come a week ahead of the privatization auction of a 7.59 percent stake in LUKoil. U.S. major ConocoPhillips is widely expected to bid for the stake.
Total, the world's fourth-biggest privately owned oil and gas company, put no price tag on the Novatek deal, but earlier reports suggested that the stake of 25 percent plus one share was valued at about $1 billion.
Total had been rumored to be eyeing Sibneft, but opportunity for that deal appeared to fade away amid the instability surrounding Sibneft's aborted merger with Yukos.
"This partnership with Novatek will allow Total to increase its production and reserves of hydrocarbons and marks a further step in its strategy of participating in the development of Russian resources," Total CEO Thierry Desmarest said Wednesday.
Under Russian acquisition laws, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service must approve the Novatek deal.
Fast-growing Novatek produced 13.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2003 and 1.7 million tons of oil -year-on-year output increases of 59 percent and 54 percent, respectively.
Novatek's three fields in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district - East Tarkosalinskoye, Yurkharovskoye and Khancheyskoye - hold combined proven and probable reserves of about 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
In the first half of 2005 Novatek plans to launch production at two new plants, processing gas condensate and producing raw materials for plastics.
"Novatek is a young company with new production facilities and significant reserves," Desmarest said.
"Total will bring its expertise in the field of production, transport and processing hydrocarbons, which will assure, within the best conditions, ongoing growth in hydrocarbon production and the construction of new process installations on Russian soil."
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, meanwhile, touted Wednesday's memorandum of understanding with Chevron as a significant boost to cooperation between Russia and the United States in the gas market. "The signing of the MOU is confirmation of the commercial dialogue between Russia and the United States as well as an example of the cooperation between our two companies," Miller said in a statement released by ChevronTexaco.
"For Gazprom, access to the American gas market is strategically important, and in addition, we are keen to bring advanced LNG production and transportation technologies to Russia," said Miller, who was in Washington to discuss the deal.
Novatek currently supplies gas only to the domestic market, with about 10 percent sold at state-regulated prices and the rest sold at independently agreed prices to large domestic consumers, a Novatek spokesman said.
"The deal is very positive for Russia and for the investment climate," said Valery Nesterov, oil and gas analyst with Troika Dialog. Nesterov said the deal is beneficial for Gazprom as it implies a higher value for Gazprom assets.
"Total looks to be valuing Novatek at $4 billion and Gazprom's asset base is many times bigger. The deal could also give impetus to the development of the gas market in Russia, not just for Novatek but for other independent producers," Nesterov said.
TITLE: Levitin Says Won't Fund Terminal 3
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Transport Minister Igor Levitin this week dealt a fresh blow to Aeroflot's efforts to build a badly needed third terminal at Sheremetyevo, the nation's largest airport.
Russia's flag carrier said its board approved financing for the $430 million project at a meeting late on Tuesday, but Levitin, who is both chairman of Sheremetyevo and an Aeroflot board member, moved quickly to counter the announcement, saying the government will have the final say.
Aeroflot declined to comment.
"We are not ready to make the details of the project yet," deputy general director Lev Koshlyakov said by telephone.
"I think that Sheremetyevo-3 cannot be considered separate from Sheremetyevo-1 and Sheremetyevo-2," said Levitin, who was elected chairman of the state-controlled airport Monday, Interfax reported. "This is a single complex," he said.
Levitin said that overhauling Sheremetyevo-2 is still a viable alternative to building a new terminal and that the airport's board will consider the option when it meets next month.
Built for the 1980 Olympic Games, Sheremetyevo has operated above capacity for years, and its gloomy interior and notoriously bad service have led to an exodus of both domestic and foreign carriers.
Its major tenant, Aeroflot, has tried to get the project off the ground for years, but aside from a groundbreaking ceremony in 2001, no progress has been made.
Slowed first by wrangling with airport management and the government over who would own Sheremetyevo-3, Aeroflot was dealt another blow early this year when it lost a government tender for managing the entire complex to Alfa-Sheremetyevo, a company set up by the powerful Alfa Group, which has no experience in the industry.
Despite winning the tender, however, Alfa-Sheremetyevo has yet to get final approval from Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, a delay blamed on President Vladimir Putin's decision to overhaul the government in March.
State-controlled Aeroflot and its largest private shareholder, National Reserve Corp., lobbied hard for the tender to be overturned, and this summer Levitin announced that the airport should be managed jointly by Aeroflot and Alfa, but no progress has been made.
Koshlyakov said Wednesday that the management contract for the airport is no longer an issue for Aeroflot, but it remains staunchly opposed to Alfa's participation in the Sheremetyevo-3 project.
Alfa-Sheremetyevo chief Igor Baranovsky said the whole complex - including the nonexistent third terminal - should be considered a single unit and developed as such.
"Levitin is totally right," Baranovsky said by telephone. "It would be a crime to develop Sheremetyevo-3 separately, totally disregarding the rest of the complex. It has to be considered as a single complex."
He said Alfa-Sheremetyevo still has a "smoldering" interest in the airport and expects a final decision to be made regarding its role in the "near future."
TITLE: Russia Bans Brazilian Meat After Foot-and-Mouth Scare
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia has temporarily suspended imports of Brazilian livestock and animal products due to fears about a foot-and-mouth-disease contamination, the government's head veterinary inspector Alexander Ponomarev said this week.
The ban includes all meat imports which have not undergone thermal treatment since Sept. 20.
A Brazilian ship with meat shipments, which has been docked at the St. Petersburg port since last week, will not be sent back. Instead, the shipment will be checked by veterinarians and if declared safe, it will be sold in city markets, said the senior specialist at St. Petersburg's GosVetNadzor, the city's veterinary control bureau, Valentina Andreyeva, in an interview with news agency Fontanka.ru
However, the shipments that left Brazil after Russia imposed the ban will not be admitted to the country's ports. The Leningrad Oblast should have enough resources to compensate for the lack of Brazilian meat, the agency reported, however, it said that beef prices may go up.
The restriction will remain in force until the foot-and-mouth situation in Brazil stabilizes, Ponomarev said.
On Sept. 13, Brazil registered a case of foot-and-mouth disease in its remote northern state of Amazonas. Amazonas, which does not export beef, is outside the country's vaccination program that covers all beef-exporting states in central and south Brazil.
The Brazilian government sent a delegation to Russia on Saturday to try to convince authorities to lift the ban, the Russian government's press service reported. Russia is Brazil's main fresh and frozen-beef export market, its main pork export market and an important market for poultry.
Brazil exported 84,595 tons of beef to Russia in 2003 worth $101 million.
A ministry statement from Moscow last week said Russia has also temporarily restricted imports and transit of Chinese livestock and all animal products not subjected to thermal treatment from Sept. 17.
TITLE: Capital Well-Equipped for Business Travelers
TEXT: Many of Moscow's hotels cater specially to business travelers, providing equipment and services that enable work to be done quickly and easily.
Ararat Park Hyatt Moscow Hotel Business Center. 4 Neglinnaya Ul.
Tel.: (095) 795-3244, 783-1234,
fax: (095) 795-3259, 783-1235.
E-mail: moscow@hyattint.com; www.hyatt.com
A relative newcomer on the Moscow hotel market, this conveniently located hotel (a few minutes walk from Moscow's central business district, the Bolshoi Theater, the Kremlin, Red Square and the Russian Parliament building) makes an excellent spot for conducting business in the Russian capital.
Ararat Park Hyatt Moscow has a total of eight conference rooms, situated on the second and third floors, and the Bibliotheque, on the hotel's top floor.
The Khachaturyan Ballroom, located on the second floor, which can be sub-divided into two smaller rooms, has an overall area of 208 square meters and can seat 180 people. It is an ideal venue for organizing medium-sized conferences or hosting receptions or gala dinner events.
Adjacent to the ballroom, there are two breakout rooms, which can accommodate from 10 to 70 people. An additional five meeting rooms are located on the third floor, the smallest with an area of 19 square meters (it is in high demand for conducting job interviews), and the largest one with an area of 70 square meters.
The Bibliotheque, located on the hotel's top floor, has a seating capacity of 14 and is an ideal venue for small private meetings.
All meeting rooms are supported by state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment and high-speed broadband Internet access. The hotel's public areas are also covered by wireless (Wi-Fi) Internet access. A business center provides any back office support functions that a businessman may require.
The hotel has three restaurants and two bar lounges, with The Gallery, the hotel's main restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, Cafe Ararat cooking up authentic Armenian fare, and the Conservatory Lounge and Bar offering some of the most spectacular views of Moscow. It is possible to order dishes from any of these restaurants to the meeting room.
Marriott Grand Hotel
26 Tverskaya Ul.
Tel.: (095) 937-0000,
fax: (095) 937-0001.
E-mail: reservations@marriott-moscow.ru; www.marriott.com/mowgr
Home to U.S. President George W. Bush when in town, the Marriott Grand - one of three Marriotts in the city - is situated on Moscow's equivalent of New York's Fifth Avenue, Tverskaya Ulitsa.
Even if you are not staying in the illustrious presidential or ambassador suite, the executive-level rooms in the five-star Marriott are tailored for the business traveler. Rooms are equipped with three telephones, modem access Internet, large desks and televisions with satellite channels and cable news. International newspapers are delivered to all executive rooms daily and executive guests have access to a separate lounge area where breakfast and hors d'oeuvres are served.
The hotel has special rates for long-term guests including discounts on laundry, telephone calls and use of the hotel's health club solarium and massage service.
For formal business there is more than 60 square meters of flexible meeting and exhibit space (for example, around the fountain in the first-floor lobby or on the patio) and simultaneous translation and audiovisual aids are available.
The Grand Hotel's conference hall can hold up to 400 people, and the hotel's Grand Meeting Package includes audiovisual equipment, morning and afternoon coffee breaks and buffet lunch at the Samobranka Restaurant. There are 11 meeting rooms overall, catering for groups from 20 to 400 people.
Baltschug Kempinski Moscow.
1 Baltschug Ul.
Tel.: (095) 230-6500/07,
fax: (095) 230-6502.
E-mail: hbkm.moscow@kempinski.com; www.kempinskimoscow.com
Overlooking the Moskva River with views of Red Square, the Kremlin, the GUM shopping center and the evocative onion domes of St. Basil's Cathedral, the five-star Baltschug is well suited for the visiting businessperson.
All rooms are beautifully appointed with practical amenities, such as CNN and other satellite-television channels, direct-dial telephones with voice mail, in-house mobile phones, outlets for computers and faxes, and Wi-Fi Internet access. Luxuries like a mini bar, trouser press, hairdryer, slippers and air-conditioning are standard. Downstairs, the hotel's business center offers secretarial and translation services and state-of-the-art technical equipment 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Computers, overhead, LCD and slide projectors, screens, laser pointers, flip charts, TV and video equipment, microphones and many other gadgets are available for rental.
The hotel can cater for groups of up to 180 people in the Vladimir conference hall. Yaroslavl, a second conference room accommodates up to 60 guests, and three more meeting rooms take groups of up to 14 people. The Library on the eighth floor, complete with picturesque views of the Kremlin and surrounding areas, caters for up to 50 people.
National Hotel - Le Meridien
15/1 Mokhovaya Ul.
Tel.: (095) 258-7000, fax: (095) 258-7100. E-mail: Hotel@national.ru ; www.national.ru
A Moscow landmark and one-time home to Lenin - he lived in room 107 before moving to the Kremlin - the legendary, five-star National Hotel is now well-geared for capitalist ease and pleasure. Its central location in the very heart of old Moscow provides a picturesque view of the Kremlin and Manezhnaya Ploshchad.
The majority of the 221 rooms, including 37 suites, have been individually designed and decorated and some include unique ceiling paintings. All are equipped with radio and satellite television, direct phone lines (including in the bathrooms), mini bar, climate control system and fans. The VIP floor caters especially for the business traveler, and services include the pressing of suits upon arrival and delivery of international newspapers to each room. VIP guests also have access to a fax, printer, scanner and copier, Wi-Fi & dial-up Internet access as well as free use of a solarium.
For further business, the hotel's 11 banqueting halls and its conference room overlooking the Kremlin can accommodate from six to 150 people, for everything from meetings at the highest level to a company party. Each room is accented with natural light and individual decor and can be equipped by the hotel with a wide range of audiovisual equipment.
Professional staff at the business center can act as personal assistants, interpreters and translators.
World Trade Center Moscow - Mezhdunarodnaya Hotel
12 Krasnopresnenskaya Nab.
Tel.: (095) 253-2884/253-9565/253-1140, fax. (095) 253-2051. E-mail: Interhot@wtc.msk.ru; www.hotel.wtcmoscow.ru
The Mezhdunarodnaya Hotel sits amid the World Trade Center, 4 kilometers from the Kremlin. Its location lends itself to a wide range of business as it is only a stroll to the White House, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and many embassies. Russia's largest exhibition facility, Expotsentr, is within walking distance.
Each room is equipped with international telephone line access, voice mail, satellite television and a work desk with a data port and Internet access.
The hotel's business center offers temporary office space, a trade library, secretarial services such as word processing, interpretation and translation services, photocopying, and a range of communication services including fax, personal computers, Internet and e-mail.
For those needing to arrange large gatherings, the World Trade Center's Congress Center has state-of-the-art telecommunications and audiovisual equipment including simultaneous multilingual translation tools, computer connection points, ISDN lines, Internet access and web casting in an environment able to cater for any event from a banquet to an exhibition or a conference for up to 1,200 people.
And, for added convenience, a currency exchange, a post office and a barber shop are all located in the hotel.
Novotel Moscow Center
23 Novoslobodskaya Ul.
Tel.: (095) 780-4000, fax: (095) 780-4001.
E-mail: reservations@novotelmoscow.ru
Just over 10 minutes drive north of the Kremlin, the four-star Novotel Moscow Center, is international hotel giant Accor's latest addition to the city's hotel market - following in the footsteps of the long-established Novotel at Sheremetyevo-2 airport.
The unusual circular tower block has 255 rooms, including 43 Executive Harmony rooms.
Standard features include air-conditioning, satellite television, cable news and a mini bar. All rooms are equipped with Internet access making it ideal for business operations. Wi-Fi is also available in all guest rooms and public areas.
The hotel's business center offers computer access and staff can help with printing, faxes, photocopying and audiovisual equipment. Meetings and conferences can be held in five sound-proofed rooms catering for up to 120 people.
Radisson SAS Slavjanskaya Hotel and Business Center
2 Ploshchad Evropy.
Tel.: (095) 941-8020, fax: (095) 941-8000, 956-9870.
E-mai: reservations@radissonsas.com; www.radissonsas.com
The Radisson Slavjanskaya was Moscow's very first Western-style hotel and was home to many businesspeople seeking to take advantage of the "Wild East" in the early and mid 1990s. Today, the establishment situated near the Moskva River and Kievskaya train and metro stations and close to the White House and the embassy district, serves as a meeting space for businessmen.
All 410 rooms are equipped with IDD telephones, satellite and cable television channels in a variety of languages, and Internet access for those with their own computers. For those without their own computer equipment, the hotel's comprehensive business center has computers available for guests between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. every day. Staff at the full-service business center can also help in organizing meetings and events catering for up to 1,000 people using the hotel's conference room, six banquet rooms or four negotiation rooms.
The business center also provides color copying, computers with Internet access, secretarial services, desktop publishing, office supplies, and film developing. Also, there are Class A executive offices available for short or long term lease.
TITLE: Serviced Apartments Gain Appeal
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With hotel prices soaring and Moscow losing its affordable hotels to demolition and reconstruction as parts of big hotel chains, business travelers are often forced to pay premium prices for a hotel room. Many companies have found a simple and more affordable solution to their housing dilemma - a serviced apartment.
Serviced apartments are available for rent from most reputable real estate agencies. They are often cheaper than regular hotel suites and offer a home-like atmosphere to a businessman who may be weary of yet another standard hotel room in yet another city.
Such apartments can be rented from one night to several weeks, and agencies offer discounts to long-term lodgers.
For example, St. Petersburg-based real estate agency Nevsky Prostor offers a 10 to 20 percent discount (depending on the season) for a two-week stay. Depending on the number of stars, average prices of hotel rooms in St. Petersburg can run from $100 to $300, while Nevsky Prostor offers two and three-room apartments for $80 to $120 a night.
Dennis Burlitsky, short-term lease consultant for Moscow-based Beatrix Relocation Services, said his tenants (95 percent of whom are foreigners) aren't required to pay any additional fees if they book an apartment at short notice.
Beatrix Relocation Services leases its upscale two-room apartments for from $90 per day, including taxes and agency fees. The company also signs an official contract and receives payments by bank transfer from its corporate clients. By arrangement, real estate agencies can supply such services as dry cleaning, shopping, driving, translating for a separate fee.
Alla Shinkevich, lease administrator at Nevsky Prostor, said that foreigners coming to St. Petersburg from Moscow for the first time rent a hotel first of all because security is very important to them, but those who have been to the city before, opt for serviced apartments. "Many spend their first two nights in a hotel and later move to an apartment," she said.
She also noted that Moscow travelers tend to prefer paying from $80 to $100 per night, and that there is "a lack of cheap apartments" costing $40 to $50 per night. She said that people from Moscow account for 20-30 percent of the company's short-term lease business.
The majority of real estate agencies have comprehensive bi-lingual websites which offer a picture of the property, its price, location and a list of additional services available at a particular apartment.
Beatrix's Burlitsky said leasing a flat for a short term as opposed to staying at a hotel made a lot of sense because they can be a budget option for business travelers, especially in the face of a looming 30 percent increase in hotel room prices and 100 percent occupancy at the hotels.
TITLE: History and Culture in Moscow's Top 10 Sights
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Moscow is a city crowded with a history and culture very different to that which visitors will find in St. Petersburg. A brief look at ten of the capital's sights provides a taste.
THE KREMLIN
The city's fortress heart has played a pivotal role in the country's politics and culture for more than 800 years. The difference is that today - in addition to being the president's workplace - the triangular complex on the banks of the Moskva River can be visited by anybody who purchases a ticket or joins a tour.
Behind the great red walls are the buildings and courtyards that were once home to Ivan the Terrible, Lenin, Stalin, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. The basic nature of the Kremlin is made clear at the entrance where, opposite the humorless Palace of the Soviets, visitors pass the collection of cannons confiscated from Napoleon's retreating troops. The riches displayed in the Armory are an awesome demonstration of the Russian empire's might, and the domes and icons of the cathedrals surrounding Cathedral Square, are a stunning manifestation of its links to the church.
The Kremlin is open to visitors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Thursday. The entrance and ticket office is at the Kutafya Tower off Manezhnaya Ul. (M: Alexandrovsky Sad or Biblioteka Imeni Lenina).
RED SQUARE
On the eastern side of the Kremlin lies the magnificent Red Square. It is actually a vast oblong with a gentle rise over the small hill it straddles. Because of the rise, the most dramatic entrance to the former marketplace is via the Resurrection Gate with the fairy tale domes of the 16th-century St. Basil's Cathedral - once threatened with demolition to make way for tanks during Stalin's time - slowly appearing above the horizon. Lenin's Tomb is set against the Kremlin walls and is open for visitors until 1 p.m. each day except Monday and Friday. The actual square remains closed until 1 p.m. while visitors are taken through the tomb and past the gravestones of Stalin, U.S. journalist John Reed, cosmonaut Yury Gagarin and others that line the Kremlin wall. Fortunately for late risers, the vista is as good by night.
GUM
For those needing a break from history and wanting to sample what the capital's stores have to offer, the GUM (Gosudarstvenny Universalny Magazin, or State Department Store) shopping center sits somewhat incongruously opposite the Kremlin on Red Square. The lavish 19th-century building is a manifestation of the city's growing prosperity. Three floors of exclusive boutiques and chains now line the soaring, naturally lit, arcades where once there were empty storefronts and bare shelves. The complex was originally designed to be a shopping arcade and today is once again one of Moscow's most prestigious. However, it was a used as a government venue during Stalin's reign and was where Stalin's wife, Nadezhda, lay in state after her 1932 suicide. Stalin sat in the building for days noting who came to pay their respects.
On the ground floor, the Bosco Cafe and Bosco Bar look out onto Red Square and are a good location for coffee or a light meal.
STARY ARBAT
Southeast of the city center, Stary Arbat was once the bohemian heart of Moscow.
The cobbled street and its surrounds were inhabited by writers, artists and scientists during the Soviet era, and the neighborhood felt the full brunt of the Terror of the 1930s. During the previous century, however, it was home to a very different crowd, made up of nobility and the new rich.
Pushkin lived here with his mother-in-law for a couple of painful months. The house has now been turned into a museum and the street has a particularly garish golden statue of the writer and his wife.
There are a number of other museums commemorating famous former residents including composer Alexander Scriabin and architect Konstantin Melnikov.
Today the street is a pedestrian strip lined with shops, restaurants and cafes and crowded day and night with buskers, portrait artists and souvenir sellers. It can be reached from either end via the Smolenskaya or Arbatskaya metro stations.
TRETYAKOV GALLERIES
While St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum is in a league of its own, Moscow's Tretyakov galleries - the old and the new - together house the world's most comprehensive collection of Russian art. The collection was begun by the 19th century Moscow financier and art patron Pavel Tretyakov who donated his own collection of 2,000 paintings, along with his home to house them in, to the city. The "old" Tretyakov is a recently and skillfully refurbished building in the Zamoskvarechye ("South of the River") part of town. It is close to the Tretyakovskaya metro station and displays paintings up to the 20th century; it has a particularly good group of icons. The new Tretyakov is across the bridge from the Park Kultury metro station and displays the rest in a hideous modern construction set amid a park full of Soviet-era statues including the Felix Dzerzhinsky monument from Lyubyanka Ploshchad.
KOLOMENSKOYE ESTATE
Escape the clamor of Moscow to wander among the lindens and ancient oaks of Kolomenskoye Estate. Established as a royal summer retreat during the 16th century it was Ivan the Terrible's childhood home and Peter the Great's refuge during the Streltsy revolt of 1682. Today the estate even includes a log cabin built by Peter the Great made while he lived near Arkhangelsk and transported to Kolomenskoye in the 1930s.
The estate's UNESCO World Heritage-listed wooden churches are enchanting, situated high on the banks of the Moskva River with sweeping views across the city. Particularly outstanding is the 15th century Church of the Ascension - claimed by some to better its uptown rival St. Basil's.
There is free admission to the estate which is a short walk from Kolomenskaya metro station and it is open 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. during the summer, and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in winter.
ALL RUSSIAN
EXHIBITION CENTER (VVTs)
For a concentrated illustration of the ego-led folly of Stalin-era architecture, the All Russian Exhibition Center or VVTs - formerly the VDNKh - is hard to beat.
The massive, garishly decorated pavilions were built to house the 1939 All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. Originally, the exposition of socialism's success was to have opened in 1937 but unfortunately had to be postponed after Stalin purged a large chunk of the organizing committee.
Today the great halls celebrating the wonder of the Ukrainian harvest (designed during a time of famine), Gulag construction projects and other Soviet marvels are full of tinpot salesmen. Note that between the nearby VDNKh metro station and the park is the soaring monument celebrating Yury Gagarin's space journey.
The park is open daily between 10a.m. and 9 p.m. and is free.
BORODINO PANORAMA
The Borodino Panorama commemorates just one episode during Mos-cow's often tragic past. Located not far from the city center, the great blue circular pavilion was opened in 1962 on the 150th anniversary of the clash between the Russians and Napoleon's troops that took place at Borodino, west of the capital.
Although neither side could declare victory, the battle was unprecedented in its brutality and marked a new mode of warfare. During the course of 15 hours, 30,000 French and 40,000 Russians were killed. The 115-meter panorama by painter Franz Roubaud depicts the battle from the perspective of surrounded Russian troops in the village of Semyonovskaya.
Get to the memorial via the Kutuzovskaya metro station. It is open Monday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with regular tours available.
NOVODEVICHY CONVENT
This small plot on a curve in the Moskva River not far from the center is an enchanting collection of domed churches founded as a convent during the 16th century, and still operating today. Far from being a quiet haven for delicate maidens, it played a large role in the country's history and politics. Irina Godunova retired to Novodevichy after the death of her husband, Tsar Fyodor I, enabled her brother, the doomed Boris, to assume the throne. Later, Peter the Great's older sister, Sofia, was confined in the convent and Peter also used it as a place to keep his first wife.
Next door is the Novodevichy Cemetery, the resting place of many of the country's leading figures, including director Sergei Eisenstein, composer Dmitry Shostakovich and authors Mikhail Bulgakov and Nikolai Gogol.
Access to the convent and cemetery is best from Sportivnaya metro station and opening hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Tuesday.
MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY
The Moscow skyline is dominated by gold domes, candy-striped smokestacks and Stalin's notorious seven ugly sisters. The sisters are scattered across the city and now serve a variety of functions. The university, however, still serves its original purpose, and is the largest and most outstanding example of its type.
Set overlooking the city atop the Sparrow Hills, it is a riot of Soviet symbolism, still used for lectures and accommodation for some of the country's top students. Unfortunately, there is no admission to the building, but visitors can gaze at its exterior by walking a short distance from the Universitet metro station. Circle the building to walk down the grand formal driveway towards the Sparrow Hills lookout, which has sweeping views across the river to the city's center.
TITLE: After Business, Take Time Out for Pleasures
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The relative merits of Moscow's nightlife versus St. Petersburg's - like those of the Bolshoi Theater versus the Mariinsky Theater - are a matter of taste. However, by virtue of its sheer size, the capital - described by one visitor as "the New York of the East" - comes into its own when the sun sets, guaranteeing a quantity and variety of entertainment unmatched elsewhere in the country, and in few places around the world.
Whether it is food, dance, music or the arts, Moscow has a surfeit of choice for the traveler to sample when business is over.
CAFES
Begin with a pep-up coffee at one of the city's growing number of cafes. Sit in a window or out on a wooden deck at one of the city's best loves cafes: Coffee Mania (13 Bolshaya Nikitskaya Ul., Building 1, M: Okhotny Ryad) next to the Conservatory building has good prices, a selection of about 30 kinds of coffee, desserts, breakfasts and business lunches and Wi-Fi connection. Sip espresso or homemade lemonade and watch the beautiful people promenade in Coffee Mania's Kuznetsky Most branch (6/9/20 Ul. Rozhdestvenka, M: Kuznetsky Most) not far from the Ararat Park Hyatt Moscow Hotel and just across the street from the soon-to-be refurbished Savoy Hotel. For different scenery, try Coffee Mania at 46/54 Kudrinskaya Ploshchad (M: Barrikadnaya) close to the United States Embassy.
Closer still to the center of power, Bosco Cafe (GUM shopping center, 3 Red Square. M: Ploshchad Revolyutsii) serves coffee and light meals on the edge of Red Square opposite the Kremlin. For a fancy cocktail, head to a new fashionable Bosco Bar located on the first level of GUM.
The city's three Coffee Bean cafes (18 Pokrovka Ul., Building 3. M: Chistiye Prudy; 22/1 Sretenka Ul., M: Sukharevskaya; 10 Tverskaya Ul. M: Pushkinskaya) boast a cozy atmosphere, where you can get yourself a good caffeine fix with added cake, amid wooden booths and shelves of books.
RESTAURANTS
When looking to find a meal, you needn't go far to discover food to tickle any taste bud. From pelmeni to sushi and fusion of every variety, new restaurants are opening each week in a city where what's on your plate can become the latest must-have fashion accessory. Be warned: Moscow is also reputedly the most expensive city in the world in which to dine out.
Shesh Besh is Azeri for "Five Six" and is the name of a string of Azeri-themed restaurants (6A Smolenskaya Pl. M: Smolenskaya. Tel.: 241-6542). Amid plastic vine leaves, the costumed staff give guests the chance to roll a set of dice and win another carafe of the house red wine if they score a 6. The menu is dominated by kebabs of all varieties (including a vegetarian selection) and the food is good and plentiful. The "salad" bar comes complete with plates of fish and tubs of meat curry and is highly recommended.
For something a little more formal, venture into the rarefied atmosphere of French restaurant Carré Blanc (19 Seleznyovskaya Ul., Building 2. M: Novoslobodskaya. Tel.: 258-4403). Frogs' legs and snails are served with silver-service style and can be accompanied by a top selection of wines from Moscow's largest wine cellar.
As an alternative, put on your walking shoes and find a place to eat by wandering along Kamergersky Per., which is lined with restaurants and bars.
THEATER
For any theater performance, from a Bolshoi Theater ballet to a musical or circus performance, have a look at a copy of Friday's The Moscow Times, which includes reviews and a listing of the weeks performances, pick up a free copy of The Moscow Times' G!O entertainment monthly (www.go-magazine.ru) or the Russian-language TimeOut copycat Afisha (60 rubles from kiosks and street sellers everywhere). Check out the theatre.ru site for comprehensive listings of cultural events. Tickets can be bought at the theater box offices or from a number of city center kiosks (for example, the EPS box office next to the Okhotny Ryad metro station on Teatralnaya Pl.), but the hassle of queuing can be relieved by trying one of the on-line resources such as parter.ru, kontramarka.ru and biletik.ru.
MUSIC
Upcoming operas and ballets at the Bolshoi are regularly listed and reservations can be made on the theater's web site (www.bolshoi.ru). Booking ahead through a hotel concierge, or by calling the booking office on 230-7317 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. is advised, otherwise a small number of tickets is available from the ticket office at the front of the venue after 3 p.m. on the day.
If Bolshoi tickets are unavailable, the city's Novaya Opera (3 Karetny Ryad at Sad Hermitage, M: Tverskaya), while less well-known to visitors from abroad, also has an excellent opera company and an extensive repertoire.
For location, the Kremlin Palace (Tel.: 928-5232) within the fortress' great red walls is often the venue for visiting stars of both the classical and popular genres.
Classical-music concerts are held virtually every night at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (4/31 Triumfalnaya Pl. M: Mayakovskaya. Tel.: 299-3681) and you can hear musicians of all standards - from students to virtuosos - any night of the week at the Moscow Conservatory (13 Bolshaya Nikitskaya Ul. M: Pushkinskaya. Tel.: 229-9403). Pick up a copy of The Moscow Times for daily listings.
Jazz aficionados can satiate themselves at Le Club (21 Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya Ul. M: Taganskaya. Tel.: 915-1042). Singers and musicians from around the world perform on-stage in the atmospheric venue with its dim lighting and low ceilings, where guests can sit and eat while listening to the music.
Alternatively, the massive TsDKh, or Central House of Artists (10 Krymsky Val. M: Oktyabrskaya. Tel.: 230-1782), has a small hall that hosts a program of concerts based around contemporary, ethnic and folk music.
BARS AND CLUBS
From a quiet drink with cigar to a night of mad dancing and beats that follow you home, there are clubs and drinking venues to satisfy anybody's desires.
For the former, retire to the Petrovich Club (24 Myasnitskaya Ul. M: Chistiye Prudy. Tel.: 923-0082), a calm environment in which to indulge in conversation and perhaps have something to eat. The club was begun by psychiatrist-turned-cartoonist, Andrei Bilzho, the man behind the Petrovich cartoon character in Kommersant. The walls are decorated with images of Petrovich and the theme of Soviet nostalgia extends to the traditional Russian menu.
For the latter, Jet Set (37 Malaya Ordynka Ul. M: Dobryninskaya) is recommended by DJs as having the city's only "perfect" sound quality. The club opened in April 2002 amid great secrecy and outrageous rumors about how much money had been lavished on the interior. Guests can chill out on authentic Indian antique furniture.
Night Flight boasts a bar visited by stunning Russian women and a solid, high-profile restaurant. (17 Tverskaya Ul., M. Pushkinskaya.)
The narrow streets and alleyways of the Zamoskvorechye area are riddled with clubs, bars and restaurants in which, on any night of the week, you can find bands and DJs from around the country and the world performing to crowds of all sorts. Prominent among the venues nestled in the area around the Novoskuznetskaya metro station are Dom (24 Bolshoi Ovchinnikovsky Per., Building 4. Tel.: 953-7236) and Vermel (4 Raushskaya Nab. Tel.: 959-3303).
MISCELLANEOUS
For entertainment during the day, a morning spent wandering through the old-time fun park rides while feasting on fairy floss at Gorky Park can be a good way to spend the day recovering from the night before.
Cross the road and return to the Central House of Artists or TsDKh (see Music). This is home to the New Tretyakov Gallery which is filled with the country's best 20th century art and overlooks a garden of sculptures and statues.
For your souvenir shopping needs, nothing can beat Izmailovsky Vernisazh (M: Izmailovsky Park), where after a lot of walking around and haggling, you will head home laden with unique handmade gifts for the entire family.
TITLE: Terrorists, Siloviki and Double-Speak
TEXT: The number of dead and wounded in the Beslan tragedy was stunning, but so were the authorities' lies. They minimized the number of hostages and casualties. They said there were Arabs and "one black" among the terrorists.
They got the names and number of terrorists mixed up, as well as the circumstances in which the hostage-taking occurred. It turned out that two of the terrorists identified in Beslan were officially listed as inmates in Russian prison camps. Supporters of rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov claimed that the security services had killed Chechens in advance and planted their corpses at the scene.
Government officials were unanimous in insisting that the storming of the school was unexpected. But on Sept. 3, once the shooting had started, a statement was released to the press outlining the careful preparations made for the operation.
"Agents in Emergency Situations Ministry uniforms, who had come to collect the bodies of the dead, first approached the school to within handgun range," the statement read. "In the firefight that ensued, they would take the full brunt of the terrorists' fire. Then special forces used a directional explosion to blow up one wall of the school, and hostages began to flee from the building. Snipers quickly opened fire on the fighters as they spilled out of the school, trying first to catch the running children and then simply shooting at them. Special forces immediately burst into the school from all four sides. ... The entire operation lasted 12 minutes, twice as long as prescribed in anti-terrorism manuals. But for the first time the freed hostages were little children. ... As in any complex hostage rescue operation, there are civilian casualties as well. Some of the terrorists escaped from the school, but this was a planned measure intended to put as much distance between the terrorists and the children as possible. These savages will be rounded up in the next two or three days. They will not leave the republic."
Those involved in the events told a different story. It's true that operational headquarters in Beslan didn't plan to storm the school. Former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev contacted Akhmed Zakayev in London in an attempt to secure the intervention of rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov. Maskhadov promised to come to the school and secure the release of the hostages, but he demanded safe passage. While officials on the scene debated the possibility of cooperating with Maskhadov, their superiors in Moscow reached their own decision.
The Kremlin could not allow Zakayev and Maskhadov to act as mediators. Even if no political concessions were made, their involvement would be a propaganda coup for the separatists. Openly planning to storm the building was also impossible, as the authorities would have had to take responsibility for any casualties. Everything possible was done to prevent carnage. Local vigilantes stood in the front row around the school to prevent special forces from storming the building.
Storming the school was both politically inevitable and impermissible. It had to happen - as if by accident. It has now been established that shots were fired from behind the line of local vigilantes before the bomb went off in the school. Eyewitnesses recall that the shots were extremely accurate; one of the fighters was killed on the spot. Aushev has complained about a "third force." It's not hard to guess who was in command of this "third force."
As a result, the vigilantes themselves rushed in first to save the hostages who were fleeing the building. This left Federal Security Service special forces units with no option but to enter the fray. In the aftermath of Beslan, these units were roundly criticized for not having done enough to save the hostages, and for lack of professionalism. They paid with their lives and their reputation for political decisions made far from the scene.
Political hysteria spread through the country. We were urged to rally around the regime. Unfortunately, our chances for survival depend little on measures adopted by the state. In my estimation, the U.S. security system has only gotten worse since 9/11. Increased security checks have led to a decrease in overall effectiveness. Yet no more terrorist attacks have occurred. In Israel, on the other hand, people are dying despite a very effective security system. Perhaps the real issue isn't the system but the aims of those who sponsor terror?
When Spain withdrew its troops from Iraq, many observers in Russia said the Spanish had capitulated. After all, everyone has known since the 1970s that making concessions to terrorists only leads to further attacks and more outlandish demands. Back then, this rule might have held true. Terrorism back then was practiced only by a few fanatical organizations. Today terrorism is an organized industry interwoven with the security services.
Spain's decision was supposed to provoke a wave of murders and bombings across Europe, especially in countries whose troops were involved in the occupation of Iraq. But the opposite happened; Europe calmed down.
Does this mean that the standard policy of not cutting deals with terrorists is wrong? No. As the well-known journalist Anatoly Baranov has noted, terrorists attack not in order to end wars, but to start them. Peaceful conflict resolution is not a concession to terror but the only effective method for confronting it.
The bombings in Spain coincided with the rise of the antiwar movement. The Socialists, who promised to bring the troops home from Iraq, enjoyed increased popularity.
After the bombings, the nation was supposed to realize the importance of the war against terrorism, to rally around the government and support the occupation. Instead, antiwar sentiment grew, the Socialists won the election and Spain pulled its troops out of Iraq. In response, the bombers sharply curtailed their activities.
Terrorists' demands must be distinguished from their political goals. Their demands are usually just a bluff. Those who sponsor and organize terrorist attacks know that the authorities will not meet their demands, and often their real goals are completely different. Terror is part of the battle for power - often in places far from the blast site.
Back on July 29, before the Beslan tragedy, I wrote in this space that divisions in the security services, which had become obvious by mid-summer, would lead to a wave of terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, that column proved prophetic. The battle for power is turning us all - President Vladimir Putin included - into hostages. Putin has no cards left to play. The siloviki, oligarchs, corrupt bureaucrats and officers in the security services who brought him to power with the help of bombings, terrorist attacks and war have now split into various factions.
The feud between the chekists and the military, the sacking of former General Staff chief Anatoly Kvashnin, and ham-fisted attempts to establish FSB control over the military have led at best to strikes in the security services. And at worst...
Have you ever wondered why responsibility for destroying the passenger jet that fell not far from Putin's summer residence was claimed by a previously unknown organization, the "Islambouli Brigades"? The group's name speaks for itself: Khaled Islambouli was an Egyptian army officer who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Perhaps the attack on the jet was a hint.
And for those who didn't get the hint, it was repeated. The group also claimed responsibilty for downing a second plane and for the Rizhskaya metro bombing. The "Islambouli Brigades" were threatening to go after Putin.
"War has been declared against us," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced. Lapdog journalists adjusted his statement to read, "War has been declared against Russia." But what has Russia got to do with any of this? We're hostages. If you want your message to be taken seriously, blow up a plane.
In fact, Ivanov committed a very Freudian slip of the tongue. What we are observing is the dismantling of Putin's power by the same methods with which it was built. They say if you live by the sword you will die by the sword - especially if the sword isn't yours.
Boris Kagarlitsky is director of the Institute of Globalization Studies.
TITLE: Matviyenko: The Post-Modern Brezhnev?
TEXT: Governor Valentina Matviyenko has a strong sense of nostalgia for the Soviet era, when she steadily moved up through the ranks of the Communist Party, getting closer to the top of party. Perhaps her dreams were shattered when the Soviet Union collapsed at the beginning of 1990s.
But in 2004, Matviyenko could return to the career path that she became used to, after seeing in the Kremlin-backed United Russia party something familiar that she has missed in the years since the last communist left City Hall in 1991.
"United Russia has become a real political force in St. Petersburg," Matviyenko said last week at the official opening ceremony of the city branch office of United Russia.
"This is reflected in the constructive work of the party with the legislative and executive branches of power," she said. "This is a centrist party that grieves for the country."
As if without United Russia Matviyenko would not be able to grieve strongly enough about the country and the city that she was elected to grieve for.
She said she is thinking of joining United Russia.
"We are ready to accept Valentina Matviyenko in the party and believe it would be logical for her to become a member of the United Russia Supreme Council," said Vadim Tyulpanov, the Legislative Assembly speaker and head of the St. Petersburg branch of United Russia.
I believe Matviyenko has chosen the right way to develop her career, taking into account that if certain expectations are fulfilled the United Russia Supreme Council will in several years turn into an analog of the Politburo, or the Political Council of the Soviet Union, which was responsible for everything in U.S.S.R.
If that does indeed happen, she will be right at the top with a chance to repeat the achievement of Leonid Brezhnev, one the longest-serving CPSU leaders in Soviet history. Isn't that her secret dream?
All this, of course, is speculation and seems like it could be written for a political novel, such as George Orwell's "1984."
On the other hand, there is nothing speculative in saying that United Russia is taking over the role that was formerly that of the CPSU. In the Soviet era, the CPSU was call was called "the managing and guiding party."
Matviyenko doesn't care that United Russia, with all its devotion to President Vladimir Putin, its strong hierarchy of subservient bureaucrats and rejection of alternative points of view, has guided the country into the ditch.
Politicians in contemporary Russia have become quite used to the practice of treading on rakes without noticing. They have done this several times in a row already. And I am afraid, for his particular reason, there is no way that Matviyenko could be persuaded that being a United Russia member would hinder rather than help her in her job of heading City Hall.
For most of her adult life Matviyenko, 55, has worked inside Communist Party structures. It is unlikely that a person who graduated from the party's Academy for Public Sciences in 1985 is able to change her mind about the party's role in managing the public.
Unfortunately, the public has known this for quite some time.
When I first heard Matviyenko speaking publicly in St. Petersburg last year, after she was appointed to head the Northwest presidential representative office, I could not believe how many words from the vocabulary of a typical Communist party official she used. That vocabulary is still familiar to many people who remember Brezhnev's speeches on the three Soviet television channels.
Then there was an unpleasant echo in my ears, which, I'm afraid, is going to turn into a loud cacophony some time soon when United Russia becomes the only party and its members are given the sovereign right to rule the rest of us.
TITLE: Fur Hats and Miniskirts
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A dyed-in-the-wool fashion victim, Alexandre Vassiliev appears for the first time in his new book smiling in a satin suit - at the age of one. Still dressing to impress at a recent interview in a Moscow cafe, he sported a large brooch in the shape of a starfish on the lapel of his corduroy two-piece, a casual choice for an overnight train trip later that evening to his summer house in Lithuania.
Variously a theater costume designer, interior designer, writer, teacher and collector, Vassiliev recently raided his trove of 20,000 photographs of Russian couture for an illustrated book, "Russian Fashion: 150 Years in Photographs," which is published on Saturday by Slovo.
Beginning with the earliest black-and-white photographs of the 1850s and stretching to the end of the Yeltsin era, the book is the most comprehensive record of Russian fashion ever written, Vassiliev says. But the 45-year-old author anticipates that the section devoted to the Soviet period - a time that may inspire memories of Nikita Khrushchev's ill-fitting suits and kerchiefed milk maids - will be most interesting for Russian readers.
"Of course, Russia during the Cold War, and its fashion, is known in the West only through James Bond movies," Vassiliev generalized. While in "From Russia With Love," former beauty queen Daniella Bianchi spends a good deal of time draped in a sheet, the reality was a little less sexy. Bans on low necklines, bare legs, jeans, platform shoes and hippie gear were part of an ongoing struggle against Western decadence, the author said, leafing through the book.
Even trousers were long confined to sport. Yet "a hint of glamour" was permissible, and the book shows pictures of 1960s-era starlets such as Svetlana Svetlichnaya with high hairdos and dangling earrings. In 1965, the first bikinis appeared - nine years after their invention in France - followed by the miniskirt in 1969. Some particularly Russian fashion trends remained constant, though.
Vassiliev listed "fur hats, high boots [and] folk embroideries," calling these wardrobe perennials "a mixture of allure, lavishness and folklore."
While Soviet fashion could be drab, it was never entirely cut off from the outside world and retained some "razzmatazz," the author said in his colorful English. Entry routes for Western fashion were Poland, Finland - whose tourists began cruising to St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad) earlier than other visitors - and the Baltic states, which had a highly developed fashion industry before the war and subsequent Soviet occupation.
But fashion modeling did not attain the glamor it has in the West until the 1990s, Vassiliev said. Houses of Patterns, the central organizations that designed clothes for the masses, employed XXL models. And the retirement age for models was 78.
Vassiliev found himself combing markets for the antique photos, since few survived the 20th century.Vassiliev's own family provided plenty of material for the book, which includes around 2,000 photographs. His great-grandmother poses in a black crinoline in the style of Queen Victoria. Further on, his great-aunt Olga, "a socialite beauty of the 1900s," wears a white silk summer dress, and his grandfather sports a bowler hat and Chesterfield coat. Many of these blue-blooded relatives emigrated to France after the Revolution. The author also figures in a few of the snapshots.
As a Moscow teenager in the 1970s, Vassiliev wore his hair "in The Beatles' style" and posed for a photograph in a T-shirt with a print of suspenders clutched by two hands, which, he believes, came from London. In the picture, Vassiliev is holding a guitar. "It was fashionable just to carry a guitar. I couldn't play it," he recalled with a laugh.
Unsurprisingly, the young Muscovite, who had already begun collecting clothes and costume photographs from trashcans and the city's three antique stores, was desperate to go to the West. He found a way at the age of 23, by marrying a Frenchwoman. "It was a marriage of arrangement," he commented. "But it was consummated."
Thanks to support from his own family in Moscow and its emigre wing in France, Vassiliev quickly found his feet in Paris. He began designing for theater, opera and ballet productions and furnished an apartment with Russian antiques. Amassing a collection of thousands of items of Russian clothing, Vassiliev taught fashion history and stage design at art schools across Europe.
A 1987 shot shows the young Parisian wearing a jacket decorated with words in Cyrillic script from Jean Paul Gaultier's Russian-inspired collection. "It was very fashionable in the 1980s," he said.
Now, though, Vassiliev spends most of his time in Moscow, where he heads an interior design company that specializes in antique decor. "I have nouveaux riches Russian clients who are in search of history," he said. In his spare time, he teaches a course in management and the theory of fashion at Moscow State University. Sitting on a sofa in the cafe, the author turned his sharp tongue on a hapless waitress with well-lacquered hair who told him that it cost more to sit in the comfortable seats. "No problem at all. You also need money to buy hair spray. I understand you," he said.
While Vassiliev hopes this book will be a success, he is already planning his next project - a catalogue of his dress collection, which includes gowns donated by ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, French actress Leslie Caron, and "Cold War-era Russian movie stars." Ultimately, he hopes to house the collection of around 15,000 items dating back to the 18th century in a purpose-built museum.
Vassiliev drew from family archives for the 2,000 photographs in his new book. Meanwhile, Vassiliev hopes that his latest publication - "Russian Fashion" follows another coffee-table book from 1998 called "Beauty in Exile" that traces the influence of Russian emigres on fashion - will spark a trend for collecting old costume photos. At the moment, he buys his prints from antique stores in Paris and Izmailovsky Market in Moscow, paying anything from 50 rubles to 300 euros per snapshot.
Not that it's easy to find pictures of elaborately dressed people in pre-Revolutionary Russia, Vassiliev said, since those well-off Russians who failed to take their family albums into emigration often died in the gulag. "The ones that are available are mainly from very modest origins, and who wants photos of modest origins? They are not spectacular enough." While the book, which is priced at around $100, is bound to attract collectors with deep pockets, Vassiliev is keen for the field to widen. "When collectors are paying a good price for them [photographs], it means that [dealers] aren't throwing them away."
The book deliberately ignores the Putin era. "I do not have enough historical perspective to analyze," Vassiliev said, lapsing into French. "I think future historians will do it probably better."
Still, the fashion historian has plenty of opinions on style today. Describing 1990s-era fashion as "twinkly" and "a Russian salad," he commented that there has since been "a certain turn toward elegance." French influences have taken the place of Orientalism, he believes, and designers have learned from their well-traveled customers. While veteran designers such as Slava Zaitsev and Valentin Yudashkin "marked their era in the past," Vassiliev sees today's frontrunners as young designers Igor Chepurin, whose clothes, he said, are "feminine, elegant, westernized," and Tatyana Parfyonova, who creates "arty, sporty pret-a-porter."
Nevertheless, in show business vulgarity reigns, Vassiliev said, hard put to name a well-dressed celebrity until he finally settled on actress and director Renata Litvinova. The diamonds that New Russians buy for their wives and mistresses are this big, he exclaimed, putting his hand around a tea-glass. "A real Mardi Gras."
"Those who are possessors of wealth love to show off," he commented. "They love to be very much fashion victims."
"Russian Fashion: 150 Years in Photographs" (Russkaya Moda. 150 Let v Fotografiyakh) will be published by Slovo on Saturday.
TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: Michael Gira, whose former band Swans was - alongside Sonic Youth - a pioneer of "noise" in New York in the early 1980s, has become a dark balladeer of late. According to promoters he will come to St. Petersburg equipped only with a guitar to introduce some songs from his most recent solo album, "I Am Singing to You From My Room," which he recorded, singing with a guitar, right onto DAT, without any overdubs. The man once described as the "Cowboy of Death" will perform at Red Club on Saturday.
La Minor, acclaimed for its treatments of Soviet gangster songs, will play its first local concert in a while, since the band recently returned from a month-long European tour. The band's lineup has undergone some changes recently, but now seems to have stabilized to include vocalist Slava Shalygin, Sanya Yezhov on accordion, Pyotr Ketlinsky on drums, Alexander Volkov on double bass and Igor Boitsov on saxophone. La Minor will play at Red Club on Friday.
Chufella Marzufella will launch its long-awaited new album called "Greblya" (Rowing) with a concert at Moloko on Saturday. The garage band's friends, folk-punkers Iva Nova and younger "Britpop" band Kosmos.com will also take part.
The art club Platforma hosts Dlhe Diely, a Slovakian band that blends lounge/electronica and alternative pop, on Saturday. The new club has also launched its website, www.platformaclub.ru but so far the site does not contain much information. The club will launch its much-talked-about bookstore with a poetry reading on Sunday.
With the Dutch and Icelandic festivals behind us a Swedish one arrives. It's pop program will start with a concert by crooner Jay-Jay Johanson, whose local debut at the open-air Stereoleto festival last year was an impressive success. Johanson, whose vocal style is profoundly influenced by Chet Baker, was then backed by a loud duo of Apple Mac laptop operators.
While Johanson's most recent album of new material, "Antenna," came out in 2002, he is now promoting a recent compillation called "Prologue - Best of the Early Years 1996-2002."
Johanson will perform at Tinkoff on Thursday.
His compatriots to follow include the country-rock band Weeping Willows at Red Club on Oct. 1, the alternative acts Meine Kleine Deutschland and Deltahead at Moloko the same night and a bunch of DJs spinning records here and there.
The Fall was reported to have performed two great, if slightly chaotic, concerts at Moscow's club 16 Tons last weekend. The next Moscow-only event will be Le Tigre, the New York-based "feminist" band fronted by former Bikini Kills singer Kathleen Hanna.
"I am interested in expanding notions of what it is to be a political artist rather than playing into 'women-in-rock' stereotypes of feminist rage," she has been quoted as saying by the band's label, Chicks on Speed Records. Le Tigre will play at the Moscow venue Apelsin on Tuesday.
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Fish tales
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Fish is not to everybody's taste, and there are probably as many fish lovers as there are people who dislike fish. I belong to the former group and was pleased when a friend invited me to a fish restaurant on the Petrograd Side. Since St. Petersburg, dubbed the "Venice of the North," is a city built on water, it is no surprise that fish and seafood enjoy great popularity here.
The name of the restaurant, Demyanova Ukha, translates as "Demyan's Fish Soup" from the title of a humorous fable by Russian satirist I. A. Krylov. Those familiar with Krylov's story will easily guess what's on the menu: fish in all forms and varieties, prepared in a Russian style.
There are cold and hot starters such as salads, fish solyanka (a thick soup with vegetables and salted cucumbers), ukha (traditional fish soup) and caviar and an extensive section of other home-made dishes. The only thing I was truly missing on the menu was a dessert section (are there any fish-based desserts?).
For a starter I settled on salad originalny (135 rubles, $4.62) a composition of smoked fish, peas, mushrooms, and egg topped with a spoonful of mayonnaise. I enjoyed but could not see what was so "originalny" about it since my friend's salad s kalmarami, (squid salad for 115 rubles, $3.94), was composed of exactly the same ingredients, except for the fish and the mayonnaise.
As soon as we had finished our starters, two bowls of steaming hot fish soup arrived - cream soup made from prawns and white fish (149 rubles, $5.10) and ukha rostovskaya (fish soup a la Rostov for 144 rubles, $4.93). The cream soup was watery and boring. My friend was quite satisfied with the chunks of sturgeon, potatoes and onions in his soup but described it as rather "average." We did not have to wait long for our main dishes. Actually, they came a bit too quickly. I had selected spicy salmon with onions, potatoes and mushrooms baked under a heap of cheese (204 rubles, $6.99) - a very filling and large dish. My friend had settled on salmon stuffed with prawns and garnished with tomatoes (300 rubles, $10.27), tenderly steamed and full in flavor, and it didn't last long. It seems I had had too much fish for one day and could not really enjoy the salmon. (Krylov's little fable comes to mind: its hero, Fok, is overfed with ukha made by Demyan and flees his neighbor's house, never to return.)
In contrast to that poor Fok, I would definitely pay Demyanova Ukha another visit, perhaps choosing something fish-free for a starter.
Krylov's fable was also translated onto canvas by the Russian painter A. A. Popov, who depicted Fok sitting at a table eating ukha while Demyan and his wife wait to give him another spoonful of soup. The scene is set inside a traditional Russian peasant house, a symbol of Russian hospitality and peasant life. The scene could well have taken place at Demyanova Ukha as the restaurant is decorated in the style of a typical izba. The walls are covered in wooden logs, pictures devoted to the topic of fish are placed everywhere and a large samovar is placed in the middle of the room, lending a comfortable atmosphere to the place.
The only complaint we had was the level of noise during our dinner. As the restaurant is a one-room establishment with one table placed next to the each other, it can get quite noisy. While we were dining, a Russian band provided background music, which became more of a nuisance than entertainment after a while.
However Demyanova Ukha is the right place for those who would like to give classical Russian cuisine a try and to enjoy fish dishes. But before heading for the restaurant, you should maybe also have a look at Krylov's little fable about the potential dangers of overindulging in fish eating. You have been warned!
Demyanova Ukha. 53 Kronversky Prospekt. Open daily, 12 p.m. -
12 a.m. Dinner for two, with alcohol: 2,124 rubles ($72.74). All major credit cards accepted. Tel: 232-8090.
TITLE: Collective face
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This year marks a couple of milestones for the Russian emigre painter Oleg Tselkov: his 70th birthday and, as of last week, the mounting of a one-man retrospective of his work at the State Russian Museum.
Although he has lived in Paris since 1977, Tselkov's name and work are familiar to St. Petersburg audiences thanks to three exhibitions of Russian painters living abroad which the Russian Museum organized in 1996, 1998 and 1999.
The new show, at the museum's Marble Palace space, presents 22 paintings executed by Tselkov in the last 15 years and continues a policy of showcasing recent works by living Russian artists.
"Future generations will judge our time through many things, and art is one of them. It reflects reality." Russian Museum director Vladimir Gusev said at the opening of the Tselkov show. "Contemporary art is a mirror of life. Oleg has created a portrait of his contemporaries."
Tselkov's early career in the U.S.S.R. took him away from the path of officially approved art, and he was rejected by the art establishment. He was born in Moscow and began studying art in Minsk but was expelled from art school. Next he was turned out of the Leningrad Fine Art Academy in what is now St. Petersburg.
"Imagine a soldier who steps out of the line. He is reprimanded, punished. The same happened to me," said Tselkov. "It had nothing to do with the paintings. I just refused to follow the rules of the official art."
Eventually Tselkov managed to graduate from the Leningrad Theater Institute, but run-ins with the authorities over his non-conformist art continued and he remained in the underground until his eventual emigration to France in 1977.
During the last half-century Tselkov has completed over 200 paintings. Throughout this body of work there is remarkable continuity and Tselkov's works have one subject: the face. However, Tselkov's face is an abstraction. The development of this subject began in 1960 when Tselkov was engaged in painting a conventional portrait.
"Quite unexpectedly I depicted on the canvas a portrait, but not of one person, not some common portrait." Tselkov said. "He was strange, this personality, because he looked as if he fell from the sky, without any relatives or friends. He was a loner. An abstract man. I depicted the whole of mankind in one face. The mankind which was familiar to me."
Tselkov's anonymous, hairless creatures, with heads comprised of narrow foreheads, big chins and small slits for eyes, set on thick necks, fill his canvasses. It is nothing less than a portrait of Soviet collectivism.
In his unfinished autobiography the painter wrote: "We are these creatures - a flock of sheep, a flock of crows, a herd of swine who would go to the holy wars or to the bloody uprisings or work from morning until night for the sake of a great future. We have lost our faces." Tselkov's creatures are aggressive and viewers feel uncomfortable contemplating them. His faces stare intently from the canvass and around them Tselkov paints sharp objects such as scissors, needles, axes and knives that can cut, pierce, chop and slash.
But Tselkov explains that these objects represent a defense mechanism on the part of his collectivized subjects, not a means of attack. To soften the impression, Tselkov also inserts dragonflies, balloons, fruits and flowers into his pictures.
Tselkov's faces may be grotesque or surreal but they are often executed in the most exquisite and economically used colors. There is a luminous effect and a gradual transition from dark to light in many paintings. Refined monochrome or polychrome colors shape the paintings in thin or thick layers and decorate the central idea.
A dialog between the viewer and these anonymous creatures is difficult. We are worlds apart. As Gusev put it: "We don't like these portraits of us. We prefer our portraits to be made by [contemporary kitsch-realist portraitist Alexander] Shilov."
Tselkov says his influences range from the 14th century icon painting of Theophanes the Greek, to the 19th century realism of Ilya Repin and the bold 20th century abstraction of Kazimir Malevich. The canvasses are strongly influenced by the Russian avant garde.
There are also clear references in Tselkov's work to artists working in France in the 1910s and 20s, notably Fernand Leger and Pablo Picasso, with their passion for the circus and its artists. His puffy, inflated forms are also reminiscent of figures in the work of Francis Bacon.
Of the 22 works shown at this exhibition, six are being donated by the painter to Russian museums. Two will go to the State Russian Museum; two to Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery; one to the State Hermitage Museum; and one to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
"The fact that my paintings will be kept in the same museums where the great masters' works are takes my breath away," Tselkov said.
Others paintings in the exhibition will also stay in Russia, but in the private collection of Feliks Komarov.
Oleg Tselkov at the Marble Palace
of the Russian Museum,
5/1 Millionnaya Ulitsa, until Oct. 12.
www.rusmuseum.ru
TITLE: Talent scouts
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A group of U.S.-based theater professionals visiting St. Petersburg's New Drama Festival this week has expressed confidence in Russia's fragile contemporary theater scene and hopes to build artistic bridges from here to America.
The New Drama Festival, which runs until Sept. 26 in the Lensoviet, Baltiisky Dom and Osobnyak theaters and the city's Academy For Theater Arts, features performances by experimental troupes from Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Tolyatti and Kemerovo as well as by foreign counterparts from Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Serbia, Germany and Iran.
The festival, a project within Russia's Golden Mask theater organization, is designed to give the stage to daring, up-and-coming young artists. This year marks the third such festival and the first time it has been held in St. Petersburg.
Philip Arnoult, director of the U.S.-based Center for International Theater Development, is leading the delegation of American visitors to the festival as part of his center's Russian-U.S. Theater Initiative.
Arnoult has spent the last several years involved in a similar initiative in Eastern Europe, and came into contact with the Golden Mask organization in Russia during that time.
His work connects American theater producers with new directors elsewhere, and, here in Russia now, with new plays.
"We need to really start this conversation, and it is a project that works," he said. "The same things that I am doing here for the next four years I did for the last six years in Poland, Hungary, Romania and a little bit of Russia, and out of that came 23 major productions in the American theater."
In Russia, Arnoult's project is mostly focused on new directors and playwrights, meaning those that have come to prominence since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its theater culture.
Arnoult intends to visit St. Petersburg frequently in the next two years to continue a U.S.-Russia dialog which has already nurtured some successes.
For example, Moscow director Kama Ginkas took his rendition of Anton Chekhov's "The Lady With A Lapdog" and several other plays to the U.S. and has become a huge success.
Mark Bly, Senior Dramaturg at Washington's Arena Stage and Arnoult's partner in the project first saw Ginkas's "Lapdog" in Moscow several years ago, but at the time didn't speak Russian. Nevertheless, the dramatist said this week, he understood every moment.
"I knew that the director had a great deal to give us in the United States, and I had a faith that it would work there just as it worked for me," Bly said.
Bly describes the production as very physical and as establishing a very close relationship between the actors and the audience.
"In the U.S. there are audience's perceptions and preconceptions as to 'what Chekhov is about,' and Ginkas's dislocates all that thinking to the point where the main actor at some point was talking to the audience in a very presentational way, not at all in Chekhovian psychological way," Bly explained. "And I think that, more than anything else, helped the work to have a life here. It is very aesthetic, it is very abstract and yet it reaches out to the audience."
The plays of Chekhov, who died 100 years ago, are, however, well-known in the international theater world. How interested are American audiences in contemporary Russian drama and what can the two cultures learn from each other?
Marc Masterson, artistic director of the Humana Festival of New Plays in Louisville, Kentucky, and another partner in the American Theater Initiative points out that U.S. audiences are accustomed to contemporary work, and it is difficult to get them interested in classics.
Ironically a majority of Russian theater companies refrain from staging experimental, cutting-edge plays, opting instead for reliable old classics to fill draughty auditoriums and empty coffers.
American theater has always been a playwright's domain as opposed to the Russian theater, where the director is the king. In Russia the vast majority of theaters are state-owned and large - both in terms of the size of the theater space and the numbers of actors - while most American companies are private and small. The rules of the game can be very different.
Kate Ryan, a playwright associated with New Dramatists in New York and a member of the American delegation, said that in the U.S. a playwright has the means of communicating creatively with a director. Russian writers are now only finding such a language.
"Also, in the States, we writers have full control over the piece, and lines cannot be changed and taken out without our consent," she said.
Linda Chapman, associate artistic director of the New York Theater Workshop, believes that Russian contemporary theater is reminiscent of the American scene in the 1960s and '70s "when there was an explosion of new ways to think about writing theater."
"It seems like everything is possible for Russian playwrights now," she said. "There is a huge variety: they touch on social issues as well as an interior exploration. Political, religious, and poetic writing is happening on so many different levels."
"As for Russian plays," Masterson added, "if they speak to a universal human truth, they should be able to transcend the culture successfully."
See Stages for
New Drama Festival listings.
Links: www.newdrama.ru