SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1008 (75), Friday, October 1, 2004
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TITLE: Yabloko: City Elections Skewed for United Russia
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With less then three months to go before a new round of municipal elections in December, Mikhail Amosov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, has accused the city election commission and the city prosecutor's office of acting in favor of the Kremlin-loyalist party United Russia.
The city election commission and the district election commissions are openly breaking the law to create conditions under which United Russia candidates will be elected and representatives of opposition parties such as Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, will fail to win seats, as happened in the last municipal elections in March, Amosov said.
"We are facing a new way of stealing elections in the city," he said Tuesday at a news conference. "The city election commission does not provide a unified code of practice for working in municipal districts. This organization is too politicized and acts in favor of certain candidates."
In March, SPS and Yabloko candidates took 8 of 14 seats in municipal district No. 52, he said. Shortly after the elections, the municipal commission declared the results invalid, basing its decision on a ruling by the Kalinin district court that said students of military academies, who are not entitled to vote, where included on electoral rolls.
Amosov said Yabloko and SPS had themselves asked for the students to be struck from the rolls. At the same time, a court in the Petrograd district, where United Russia won a majority of seats in municipal districts, ruled that students of military academies can vote.
In an election in district No. 51, another victory by Yabloko and SPS deputies was annulled after the municipal election commission ruled that "the way the votes had been counted was wrong," despite a City Prosecutor's Office investigation having earlier found no forgeries or violations that could have influenced the result of the elections, Amosov said.
"During elections, or on the very day of elections, municipal commissions themselves have committed violations either by their activity or inactivity that later are being used as a reason to abolish results if they don't look the way the government would like them to look," he said.
"These actions are being tolerated by the St. Petersburg election commission, the federal election commission and the city prosecutor's office, all of the structures that are supposed to control the legitimacy of elections and to see that the law is applied on an equal basis," Amosov said.
The city election commission has not replied to complaints by Yabloko, he said.
The next municipal elections will take place Dec. 19 in 72 districts of the city's 111 districts, according to amendments to the local election law passed by the Legislative Assembly in September. In 45 of the municipalities, the elections are reruns after March elections were deemed invalid, mainly because of a low turnout.
The City Prosecutor's Office was not able to answer a question about how two courts could issue contradictory judgments on the eligibility of students of military academies to vote.
"There is a very big number of such cases," Yelena Ordynskaya, the office's spokeswoman, said Wednesday in a telephone interview. "As for this case in particular, I can't say anything."
Amosov said Sergei Zaitsev, the city prosecutor who was appointed last week, does not know about the problem, and had not investigated it before consultations with the Legislative Assembly factions last week.
"That's why I voted against him," Amosov said.
Deputies involved in such arguments "should get rid of their inferiority complex," said Dmitry Krasnyansky, deputy head of the city election commission.
"Without mentioning any names I'd say some of the deputies have to learn to play on the side of a common sense," Krasnyansky said Thursday in a telephone interview. "They shouldn't be offended with voters if they choose to support other parties, but not theirs."
SPS, and Yabloko parties, which officially failed to break the 5-percent barrier to enter the State Duma entry in December, took third and fourth places in the city with 9.2 percent and 9 percent respectively. This week the Communists and Yabloko filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court stating the election was unfair and the count rigged.
In St. Petersburg, the official count for the Duma elections gave United Russia 30.7 percent of votes, with the left-wing, nationalistic Rodina, or Homeland, bloc second with 13.7 percent.
The United Russia faction could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Tatyana Dorutina, head of the St. Petersburg League of Voters, said officials, whether they are in city or municipal election commissions, are receptive to what President Vladimir Putin says and try to be in line with his opinion rather than following the law and the Constitution.
"The main goal for them is to report the results without taking regard of the law," Dorutina said Thursday in a telephone interview.
"It is true that the United Russia has become more active in municipal elections, but the Central Election Commission's idea that deputies in municipalities should be elected from party lists is wrong," she said. "It is a well known fact that most of the people that are being elected on party lists have no connections to their districts."
"Such deputies don't know what needs to be done in the districts they represent - which roads should be fixed or where staircases should be repaired," she added.
If municipal deputies are elected from party lists "municipal administrations will sink into a party business with the interests of society being put to one side," Dorutina said.
TITLE: Cabinet Approves Kyoto Protocol
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Cabinet approved ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on Thurday, making international implementation of one of the most far-reaching and controversial environmental initiatives a near certainty.
"The fate of the Kyoto Protocol depends on Russia. If we ... rejected ratification, we would be the ones to blame," Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov told the Cabinet meeting.
The decision puts an end to months of heated domestic debate over the international treaty that aims to curb climate change by limiting greenhouse gases. The European Union has been pushing Moscow to commit to the protocol.
"We have put the Russian champagne on ice, but we will open it when this is confirmed by the [State] Duma," European Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, said by phone from Brussels.
Ratification of the treaty by the Duma is seen as a formality, as pro-Kremlin forces hold a solid majority in the assembly.
The fate of the protocol has hinged on Russian approval. In the absence of support from Washington, Moscow's ratification has been crucial, as countries producing a majority of the world's greenhouse emissions must endorse the treaty before it can take effect.
The EU has said it would reduce its emissions even without backing from Russia.
"If we don't ratify the Kyoto protocol ... then the protocol will be implemented without us and we will be sidelined," Alexander Bedritsky, head of the national metereological service, told the Cabinet.
President Vladimir Putin is personally in favor of the Kyoto Protocol, Bedritsky said.
"The fact that [Putin] has ordered the acceleration of this issue tells us that a political choice has been made."
The Cabinet decision came after an hourlong discussion and passionate objections by the country's fiercest Kyoto critic, presidential economic advisor Andrei Illarionov.
Ratifying Kyoto will torpedo the economy, defeat Putin's goal of doubing GDP by 2010 and cost the country $1 trillion in lost growth by 2012, Illarionov said.
Under Kyoto, Russia would have to stay below 1990 greenhouse gas emissions levels through 2012. Following the collapse of the command economy, Russia produces about 30 percent less emissions than 14 years ago. Under the treaty Russia would be allowed to sell so-called emissions quotas to big polluters.
Bedritsky said that Russia can stay within its targets but should not sell extra quotas.
Rather, he said, Russia could benefit in other ways. A provision in the treaty allows countries to make emissions-reducing investments abroad but count the reductions as their own. Kyoto supporters have said such investments would help modernize Russian industry.
Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said after the Cabinet meeting that the Kyoto Protocol is likely have little effect on the economy.
But Gref said he favors joining the treaty because the move "carries symbolic meaning that Russia is taking part in the global process of lowering greenhouse gas emissions," Interfax reported.
Illarionov said in an interview earlier this week that officials see no economic or scientific basis for ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, but will support the treaty as "a political gesture to Europe."
He did not say what Russia might hope to gain in return.
Observers have said that Moscow is trading its approval for the protocol in return for EU support for the country's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
The Kyoto Protocol is "not completely isolated" from other issues in Russian-EU relations, said Wallstrom.
"Of course it will influence energy politics, of course it will influence trade -sometimes in a subtle way, sometimes in a rather clear way." She did not elaborate.
"There is no formal link between Kyoto and the WTO," said Arancha Gonzalez, spokeswoman on trade issues for the European Commission.
But many trade-related energy issues that were negotiated between Russia and the EU for Russia's accession to the WTO are "absolutely coherent with the Kyoto agenda," Gonzalez said. "They are mutually supportive."
TITLE: St. Pete Programmers Best in World at Simulation Soccer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Tired of the feckless performance of its national soccer team, Russia can be proud to be world champion in another form of the game - simulation soccer.
The St. Petersburg team won the world RoboCup championship in the simulation soccer league in Portugal this summer and says their victory indicated Russia's good results in developments of artificial intelligence or AI.
Competing against 86 other teams from Japan, Iran, Germany, China, Portugal and elsewhere, the Russian team made a complete sweep, scoring 113 goals in 15 games and conceding only 5 goals against.
"It was a confirmation of a high level of our developments [in the field of AI]," said Alexander Yakovlev, head of Elektropult's department of managing systems, "It's prestigious, and ... it allows us to master new technologies."
Yakovlev said the victory was achieved thanks to several extra factors, including learning from the experience of the other teams, intensive work at Electropult's programmers, and consulting with Boris Rapoport, a former coach of St. Petersburg soccer club Zenit.
"Actually consulting with Zenit was one of the most important factors for the victory," he said.
When the former Zenit coach watched a videotape of a game played by China, he said that the Chinese programmers had obviously consulted real soccer experts, Yakovlev said.
Simulation programming is part his staff's normal work, he added.
Whereas artificial intelligence programmers once poured their energies into developing programs that could master the royal game of chess, there is now a worldwide effort to produce machines that can play the more proletarian game of football.
Formerly artificial intelligence buffs aimed to pass the so-called Turing Test to show that machines could think, now they want to show that they can boot like Pele or Maradona.
However, reproducing the high skill of a Zinedine Zidane is still a long way off.
A website www.robocup.org has been set up by an international group of researchers to document these efforts and states the programmers' goal as "by the year 2050, [to] develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team."
Although that lofty goal still seems far off, St. Petersburg programmers formed a team called STEP consisting of the staff of the city's Elektropult plant. The company develops systems of managing electric power stations, information technologies, and AI. It was the only Russian team represented in the league at RoboCup.
Robocup has five soccer leagues. They are for soccer simulation programs, mini-robots (15 by 18 centimeters) on wheels, medium-sized robots (50 centimeters by 50 centimeters), toy dog robots and humanoid robots.
Soccer simulation games are virtual. The action takes place in three dimensions, but inside a computer, with 11 players programmed to outplay the 11 on the opposing team.
Yakovlev said this year's success was the fourth time the team, coached by the head of AI laboratory Lev Stankevich, participated in the RoboCup in the simulation league.
"But it was the first time that we won," he said.
In simulation soccer every virtual player has a particular program created exactly for it, determining how hard it kicks the virtual ball and its running speed.
Before each game against a different team the Russian programmers adapted their players to a certain style.
However, when the game is running the virtual players play independently, making their own decisions.
In an interview with Delovoi Peterburg newspaper, Stankevich said the success of the game depends on the accurate calculations by a programmer.
"Each virtual soccer player should make accurate passes, and make exact strikes between the goalposts," he said.
"But the most complicated task is that it should be able to make decisions depending on the situation: whether he should take the ball forward himself, pass it to a partner, or make a strike at the goal," he said.
"Our soccer simulators make decisions within 0.1 seconds," Stankevich said.
Yakovlev said the strongest teams in this year's RoboCup were from China, Iran, Germany, the Netherlands and Japan.
RoboCup chose to use soccer as a central topic of research, aiming at innovations to be applied for socially significant problems and industries.
In order for a robot team to play soccer, various technologies must be incorporated including: design principle of autonomous agents, multi-agent collaboration, strategy acquisition, real-time reasoning, robotics, and sensor-fusion.
RoboCup is a task for a team of multiple fast-moving robots under a dynamic environment.
RoboCup also offers a software platform for research on the software aspects of RoboCup.
One of the major applications of RoboCup technologies is search and rescue in large-scale disasters.
TITLE: Sailors Say U.S. Security Law Stops Them Going Ashore
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Several ships sounded their foghorns in the port of St. Petersburg at noon on Thursday in support of an international protest against a U.S. requirement for civilian sailors to obtain visas if they want to go ashore in the United States.
"It's a very inconvenient requirement which angers international sailors throughout the world," said Alexander Bodin, head of the Baltic Territorial Organization of the Russian Sailors Trade Union, or the RSTU.
Bodin said the problem is a pressing one for the world's 1.25 million merchant seamen, including 60,000 Russians.
The RSTU said the U.S. authorities restricted access of foreign citizens to its territory after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and that these hit sailors hard.
Previously seamen could go on a shore leave by merely carrying sea passports or crew lists. Now they have to obtain a visa to get off their ships if they are docked in the United States.
"This requirement means that a sailor, who often does not even know for sure if his ship will stop by the U.S. on its voyage, has to go to a U.S. consulate, just in case, and pay $250 for a visa," Bodin said.
"A civil vessel may stop at more than 10 countries on one voyage," he said. "So if all those countries introduced such measures, would a sailor need to get as many visas?"
Bodin said preventing sailors going ashore is very unhealthy for sailors' psychological and physical well being.
"A sailor needs to leave the ship after a month of being on board, at least for a while," he said.
Bodin said several Russian sailors had been deported from the U.S. after they went ashore simply to make phone calls from a telephone booth.
On Thursday, the RSTU sent letters to all U.S. consulates in Russia, asking them to let sailors to be able to go ashore in the U.S. without a visa.
The American consulate in St. Petersburg said they have received the letter, and are planning to pass it to the U.S. State Department.
However, Jeffrey Murray, the U.S. consul for press and culture in St. Petersburg, said that the visa requirement for sailors is necessary to maintain security.
Besides, since Sunday all people who get U.S. visas are supposed to have biometric indices, such as fingerprints or a photograph, recorded and crew lists don't have such indices, Murray said.
U.S. consulates plan to introduce a fast-track visa procedures for sailors, he added.
The RSTU said it has also asked the U.S. to ratify International Labor Organization Convention 185, which establishes a universal seafarers' identity document that addresses security concerns.
The convention, passed by the ILO in June 2003, aims to issue new identification documents for civilian sailors that will feature barcodes and fingerprints.
TITLE: 50Kg Explosives Stash Found
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Residents found 50 kilograms of high-explosive TNT, a rusty hand grenade and a shell in the yard of a residential building at 2/17 Sredneokhtinsky Prospekt, the Agency for Journalistic Investigations reported Thursday.
The explosives were discovered in the yard of a district license issuing office after local residents noticed suspicious items in the garbage, the report said.
At 2 p.m., a special police unit removed the explosives from the yard.
The police could not be reached for comment. One explanation was that the explosives were dumped after the owner became afraid to hand them over to the police, which is running an amnesty to collect weapons and explosives from city residents, the agency reported.
The police is also examining other explanations, the report said.
The amount of explosive found in St. Petersburg was the largest recent find in the country with 7 kilograms of TNT reported found in a secret store near Kaliningrad this week and Moscow police saying that last week they had detained a person who had 10 kilos of TNT, and 1.1 kilograms of other explosives in his apartment.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Reburial Rescheduled
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The date for reburying the remains of Tsarina Maria Fyodorovna, wife of Tsar Alexander III, had been moved from Sept. 26, 2006 to another day at the request of Russian Orthodox church because of a religious celebration of the Day to Install Cross of the Lord, Interfax reported Wednesday, quoting the federal heraldic commission.
"The event will start in Denmark on Sept. 26, but the ceremony itself will be continued after the church celebration is finished," Interfax cited Ivan Artsishevsky, head of the heraldic commission, as saying.
The reburial will be in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Child Sex Cases Rising
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - More Russian children are becoming victims of sex traffic and this problem is starting to affect St. Petersburg, Interfax reported Wednesday quoting Maya Rusakova, an analyst at the Academy of Sciences.
"The problem of trafficking in children is very real and will get worse because of the great 'demand' for underage children," Rusakova said.
The exact number of children and teenagers who have suffered as a result of being taken abroad or being involved in the pornographic industry is not known because Russia does not have an effective system to control sex traffic, she added.
60th Anniversary Plans
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Nine new memorial plaques will be installed in St. Petersburg for the 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, Interfax reported Wednesday, quoting Vice Governor Lyudmila Kostina.
City Hall has drafted a comprehensive plan to celebrate the anniversary in St. Petersburg, Kostina said.
"All plaques, signs and memorials linked to World War II will be put in order by May 2006 using the city budget," she said.
Education Realignment
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The St. Petersburg education system is to be brought into line with European standards and to attract private financing, Interfax reported Thursday, quoting the company that is set to achieve the result, Balt-Audit-Expert.
"A new element in this system is [an idea] to set up forms [of management] that consist of both the state and the community such as guardianship counsels, clubs of friends and associations of graduates," Interfax cited Leonid Ivanovsky, head of the company as saying. "The new system will allow institutes and universities to be more independent in regard to planning their budgets."
TITLE: Finns Move Into a New Consulate
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Finnish Consulate General has moved into newly built premises at 4 Preobrazhenskaya Ploshchad.
The consulate's visa department closed Thursday and will resume its work on Monday in the 18-million-euro building. The official opening of the entire consulate is scheduled for the beginning of next year.
Martti Ruokokoski, the consul in charge of visas, said the new premises will offer clients and visa personnel more space and better technical services.
"The uncomfortable queues will be history after some time," Ruokokoski said in a written reply to questions.
He expected a teething problems when the new consulate starts work, but that in a few weeks "before the new-year season, I hope that everything should work smoothly."
The consulate's visa department operates Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. without a break. The entrance to the new visa department is from Pereulok Radishcheva.
The Finnish consulate handled 230,000 applications last year and this year is expects about the same number.
"There will be always some queuing, but everything will be more comfortable and quicker," he said.
Finland is the most popular foreign destination for St. Petersburgers. According to City Hall's tourism committee, the numbers are constantly growing.
In 1998, St. Petersburgers made 800,000 trips to Finland, a figure that grew to 1.4 million in 2000, according to the committee. In 2002, St. Petersburgers crossed the Finnish border more than 1.6 million times. Similarly, more than 1 million trips have been made by Finns to St. Petersburg every year since 1998, according to City Hall.
"In the wake of the recovery from the economic crisis of 1998 in Russia, the consulate was faced with a tremendous increase of visa applications due to increased travel to Finland from northwest Russia," Ruokokoski said.
"The consulate was obliged to employ more people in order to handle all visa applications and therefore to find supplementary premises for our visa department," he said. "As a result, the consulate was operating in three different places, which proved to be inadequate for our activities."
Consul Juha Virtanen, who was in charge of the move, said the consulate decided several years ago to solve the problem either by finding a building suitable for renovation or by acquiring a plot of land on which a new consulate could be built.
"Finally, after having seen more than 30 different places offered by the St. Petersburg administration we were lucky to acquire a site on Preobrazhenskaya Ploshchad that had several major functional and logistical advantages," Virtanen said. "Firstly, it is situated in the historical center. Secondly, it is close to a metro station [Chernyshevskaya] and thirdly, the area itself is beautiful and quiet."
Virtanen is convinced the new building is a good investment.
"The consulate is a kind of functional focal point between Finland and northwest Russia," he said. "It is also an investment that contributes to the architecture of St. Petersburg and, as far as I know, it is the first purpose-built consulate ever built in this city."
"After having completed a difficult and time-consuming project the Finns say, that 'a lot of coffee and cigarettes were spent,'" he said. "I think that this was such a case.
"First of all, we are very grateful for the city administration and its related services which have supported our project as much as they can," Virtanen said.
"Some minor problems related to the engineering infrastructure still remain but we are confident that they can be solved by the end of October."
TITLE: Lawyer Says Shutov Is Too Sick to Stand Trial
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Yury Shutov, a former Legislative Assembly lawmaker who has been in pre-trial detention since 1999 on suspicion of organizing the contract killings of prominent people, is too ill to stand trial, his lawyers say.
Shutov, a onetime ally of former governor Vladimir Yakovlev, has epileptic seizures several times a day, and has had them during court hearings, the lawyers said.
"The first day of the trial [which resumed Sept. 23], Shutov was clearly not up to it," Vladimir Zakharov said Tuesday at a news conference. "He had a convulsive fit, which was confirmed by doctors. The second time, Shutov was tied to his wheelchair and chained to the bars."
Suspects in trials in Russia are kept in a cage during hearings.
"Then he had a second fit after which he was dragged away to a sideroom," Zakharov said.
On Monday, Shutov was removed from the courtroom because he prevented the judge from reading out the verdict by demanding a jury trial, ignoring Judge Alexander Ivanov's warnings not to interrupt.
"Because of repeated attempts to disrupt the hearing and because of insults directed at the court, a decision was made to remove Yury Shutov from the courtroom until the prosecutors' case is finished," Interfax quoted him saying.
This means Shutov will be absent until the verdict is announced, Zakharov said.
Seven other suspects on trial together with Shutov were removed later for the similar reasons. Some of them have admitted their guilt, while others have pleaded not guilty, Interfax reported.
In May 2002, the trial was suspended while Shutov, who has been in the city's Kresty prison for five years, received medical treatment.
Zakharov said a medical examination in summer showed Shutov's health is so parlous that he has to be placed in a special clinic where he can get neurosurgery, which doctors say he needs.
The defense plans to appeal the Constitutional Court about the resumption of the trial, Zakharov said.
Shutov is the author of Sobchachye Serdtse, or the "Heart of Sobchak," a bitterly critical book about former mayor Anatoly Sobchak written as a parody of Mikhail Bulgakov's classic novella Sobachye Serdtse - "Heart of a Dog."
He is charged with the murders of Dmitry Filippov, chairman of the board of directors of Bank Menatep St. Petersburg, who was killed by a radio-controlled bomb in October 1998; local attorney Igor Dubovik, an adviser to the governor who was shot in February 1998; Yevgeny Agarev, the City Hall official in charge of cemeteries and burials, killed by a bomb in September 1998; and Nikolai Bolotovsky, the chairman of the board of directors for the local defense contracting firm Istochnik, shot six times in the head in June 1998.
Shutov is also charged with plotting to kill State Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Shevchenko, a member of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party and State Duma deputy Alexander Nevzorov. The latter is alive, but the former was murdered in unexplained circumstances in Cyprus this year.
On Tuesday, the court granted an extension to the period Shutov can be held in pre-trial detention until Dec. 31.
TITLE: Société Générale Joins the Masses
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Société Générale, a leading French bank, will open three branches in the city by the end of 2005, said the general director of Societe General Vostok (East), Michel Briku, at the Wednesday opening of the bank's first St. Petersburg branch.
Though present in Russia since 1973, making it the oldest foreign bank in the country, Société Générale has been slow in expanding its activities. It has only started individual retail and financial services in 2004. The St. Petersburg branch, beginning its operations in October, will offer both retail and corporate client services.
"We plan to service 50,000 individual accounts for the Russian middle class, whose monthly income runs at above $300," Briku announced.
In 2004, Société Générale started two new consumer business directions: Rusfinance, which offers consumer credits, and Ald Automotive, offering vehicle leasing services.
The demand for financial services among the populations has exceeded the market supply, which explains the recent emergence of several new retail banks on the city financial services market, said the head of Moscow-based RusRating banking consulting firm, Richard Hainsworth.
"These banks are looking to capitalize on the potential for Russian retail, which hasn't been explored much yet," Hainsworth said. St. Petersburg, second only to Moscow in terms of size of average income (twice the national average), has been a logical destination for retail expansion.
Financial services for individual consumers, such as apartment and vehicle loans, or purchase credits, are relatively new to Russia. Over the last two years, retail banks have begun developing a closer relationship with customers, offering a wider range of financial products and services, said director of Northwest Banks Association, Viktor Titov.
Although first-comers to the financial services market were domestic banks - Russky Standard (Russian Standard), First AVK and state-backed Sberbank - it is foreign banks such as Citibank and Société Générale that "have the resources and the long-running traditions of consumer loaning," Titov said.
There has been a tendency in the last year to make consumer financing more readily available: Citibank has started to offer credit cards for individual accounts, while Home Credit made their purchase loans services available in city megastores such as Ikea.
Since at the moment, there is no unified data of the residents' financial history, Titov said the association hopes to develop a credit history bureau which would make the retail and loans business in Russia a "civilized one."
The establishment of the bureau should be made easier after the State passes legislation to define the legal barriers for collecting consumer information and to clarify the legal status of public information gathering.
Société Générale also plans to offer education financing. Student loans will be available to Russian students wishing to study abroad, as long as the school they plan to attend is well-known and there is a guarantee that the funds will be go towards tuition fees, said Briku.
TITLE: City Chiefs Suggest How To Tame Ads
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg administration offered a new mechanism to prevent unethical advertising in the city.
Head of St. Petersburg's Mass Media Committee, Alla Manilova, suggested that the City Advertisement Placing Center or CAPC should not continue or sign a contract with a company that abused Anti-Monopoly Policy legislation by allowing unethical ads to run for the second time.
The new municipal government initiative was prompted by frequent appearance of unethical ads in St. Petersburg recently, and in particular of street ads.
On August 4, street posters for Flosstic, a dental hygiene product made by city company Prosperity, featured a woman with the product and below the text: "I take it into my mouth, and easily and effectively clean between my teeth."
City media were the first to ring alarm bells about the text's alleged sexual innuendo and drew the attention of CAPC to it.
In the next few hours, eight Flosstic posters were partly covered with gray paper to hide the controversial part of the text: "I take it into my mouth."
At the same time six posters with another version of the Flosstic ad campaign appeared around the city. They showed a woman in a transparent gown, with the text: "Why would you need lacy underwear if you have yellow teeth?"
Earlier this year, household appliance chain Eldorado placed an ambiguous advertisement for LG vacuum cleaners.
"Pyl' sosu za kopeiki", or "I suck dust for kopeks," was the text written in large red letters on Eldorado posters. The word "dust" was slightly apart from the rest of the text and harder to read.
The risque nature of the ads bothered many city residents. Two Legislative Assembly deputies appealed to Governor Valentina Matviyenko to ban such ads, "so that they would not corrupt our citizens."
However, racy ads already have an established history in Russia. Companies often create such adverts on purpose since a scandalous ad naturally attracts a lot of attention. It seems that to reign in such antics may take more than moral outrage.
TITLE: Paterson Grows Kind Towards Student Needs
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Supermarket chain Paterson plans to double its presence in St. Petersburg in the next year, said Paterson St. Petersburg director, Vladimir Prokhorenko at a news conference Tuesday.
The chain, which operates eight stores in the city, will open two more by the end of this year, one on Vasilevsky island, the other by Narskaya underground station. By the end of 2005 Paterson hopes to have 20 stores operating, with investment ranging between $1 million to $1.5 million in each, Prokhorenko said.
The news conference also announced that Paterson plans to establish 16 stipend student awards to the amount of 1,500 rubles ($50). Eight will go to the State University students and another eight to the Retail and Economic Institute (REI) students working in the field of retail economics.
Representatives of both the State University and REI said that they were grateful to Paterson management for the stipend student award program in that it promises to encourage academic excellence.
The university representatives considered the stipend amount to be "very substantial", and second only to the 2,000 ruble stipends that are awarded by the oligarch Potanin's fund.
The 6 available presidential stipends and 6 government stipends that students can receive from the State are worth 800 rubles ($27) each.
TITLE: ConocoPhillips Purchases Stake in LUKoil
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In the country's biggest-ever privatization auction Wednesday, ConocoPhillips paid nearly $2 billion for a 7.59 percent stake in LUKoil, sealing a strategic alliance between the oil majors and revitalizing energy ties between Russia and the United States.
LUKoil and ConocoPhillips also agreed to set up two potentially lucrative joint ventures in the Timan-Pechora fields in northwest Russia and in Iraq, where a LUKoil project was thrown into doubt ahead of the U.S.-led invasion last year.
Against the background of the Kremlin's year-long legal campaign against LUKoil's main rival, Yukos, and the resulting uncertainty about the risks of investing in Russia, the deal is welcome news for investors already cheered by a recent flurry of big-money energy deals.
Also announced this month were $3.5 billion of South Korean investments into Russian oil projects, the $1 billion sale to France's Total of a blocking stake in the country's largest independent gas producer, Novatek, and a memorandum of understanding on gas cooperation between Gazprom and U.S. major ChevronTexaco.
At a joint news conference Wednesday afternoon at LUKoil headquarters, ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva said the deal had the support of both the Russian and U.S. governments.
"Our strategic alliance helps us to accelerate the development of reserves in Russia and also helps us develop bilateral relations in energy between Russia and the United States," Mulva said.
LUKoil CEO Vagit Alekperov was even more upbeat.
"If he invests the money, it means the investment climate is good," Alekperov said, gesturing toward Mulva.
Mulva said ConocoPhillips plans to raise its stake in the Russian oil major to 10 percent by year's end through purchases on the market and tender offers. Additional purchases could increase the stake as high as 20 percent over the next two to three years, Mulva said.
"That would be done at our own discretion and in our own time," Mulva said.
The deal would also eventually allow ConocoPhillips to increase booked reserves and output by 10 percent.
LUKoil said it would introduce a clause into its charter requiring a unanimous decision from its board of directors on certain issues, a move that would give ConocoPhillips a measure of control in the absence of a blocking stake of 25 percent plus one share.
ConocoPhillips will also nominate one director to LUKoil's board over the next few months, and in the future will be represented proportionally to its stake.
For LUKoil, which welcomed the arrival of its new partner by raising the Stars and Stripes in front of its headquarters in central Moscow, the new alliance will mean more funds available to develop rewarding but costly projects in Timan-Pechora in northwest Russia.
The company also expects that the partnership will bring access to advanced technology and management know-how, as well as aiding the growth of LUKoil's capitalization, Alekperov said.
LUKoil's capitalization now stands at $27 billion, less than one-half of Conoco's $56 billion, despite leading its new partner on both production and reserves. LUKoil currently produces about 1.8 million barrels per day, slightly ahead of ConocoPhillips' 1.6 million bpd, while LUKoil reserves stand at 20.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, more than twice Conoco's 7.8 billion barrels.
"Our capitalization is lagging behind," Alekperov said, adding that he hopes Conoco's arrival will make LUKoil's capitalization grow faster.
Alekperov and Mulva met jointly with President Vladimir Putin at his Sochi residence in July, in what were seen as talks to finalize the shares deal. Although the sale was conducted through an auction organized by the Federal Property Fund, when it came, the U.S. oil major's victory in the auction came as no surprise.
TITLE: Budget Draft Passed by Duma
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: The State Duma gave preliminary approval Wednesday to the government's draft budget for 2005, which envisages a surplus fueled by high oil prices for a fifth straight year.
In a 339-96 vote, with four abstentions, lawmakers in the 450-seat Duma passed the draft budget in the first of four readings. It projects a surplus of 278 billion rubles ($9.6 billion).
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said high oil prices will allow the government to earmark over 500 billion rubles ($17.2 billion) for an extra-budgetary stabilization fund. The budget was calculated on the basis of $28 per oil barrel, whereas it remains over $40 per barrel at the moment. The difference will go the stabilization fund which is not counted as part of the national annual budget.
Kudrin warned that the oil windfall does not reflect industrial growth.
"We must always understand that the money poured into [the stabilization fund] is due to high oil prices, and not because of industrial production," he said.
GDP is forecast at 18.7 trillion rubles ($645 billion) in 2005 - showing growth of 6.3 percent. Inflation is expected to reach 8 percent, said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov.
The government's budget blueprint also calls for a 28 percent increase in defense expenditure and a 26 percent increase in law enforcement and security spending in the wake of a series of deadly terrorist attacks.
The draft faces three more votes in the Duma and one in the Federation Council. (SPT, AP)
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Meat Ban Continues
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Efforts to end Russia's ban on Brazilian meat imports after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the Amazon this month have stalled, Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues said Tuesday.
"We're in the same situation," the minister said at a seminar in Sao Paulo.
Russia suspended Brazilian meat imports on Sept. 20 after a few head of cattle were confirmed to have foot-and-mouth disease on a remote island in the Amazon earlier in the month. The region is not an export region.
A team of Brazilian officials and veterinarians met with Russian counterparts last week but failed to reach an end to the ban.
"We cannot permit this. Russia stopped buying poultry and pork from southern Brazil due to this unique case of foot-and-mouth in the north," said Rodrigues.
Russia is Brazil's largest foreign fresh beef and pork market and a major poultry client.
Pyaterochka Plans IPO
MOSCOW (Reuters) - One of Russia's biggest grocery discount chain stores, Pyaterochka, plans an initial public offering (IPO), board member Viktor Beliakov said Wednesday.
"We hope that some time in the future we will make a listing, possibly in London," Belliakov told a Brunswick UBS investment conference.
"We are working on this issue very closely." He did not elaborate on the IPO, but said the supermarket retailer, which focuses on Moscow and St. Petersburg, hoped to nearly triple the number of its outlets to 600 from 220.
Beliakov also said that first half sales of its stores rose to $532.5 million in 2004 from $345.9 million in the same period last year.
WBD Eyes EU Markets
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Wimm-Bill-Dann, the country's biggest dairy and juice maker, received a license to export dairy products to the European Union from its flagship factory in Moscow as the company seeks new markets.
Wimm-Bill-Dann's Lianozovo dairy plant got the license following an inspection in March by EU veterinary officials and the Ministry of Agriculture, according to a statement.
The company is in talks with retailers in Germany, Latvia and Lithuania to sell its dairy-product brands Neo, Bio Max and Chudo, among others.
The move follows Wimm-Bill-Dann's published results, based on the second half, saying that their sales have jumped 21 percent because of expanded dairy sales in the regions.
TITLE: Whither Relations After November?
TEXT: The rapidly approaching U.S. presidential election has given rise to discussions about who would be better for Russia-George W. Bush or John Kerry. These conversations are not the result of an unlucky twist of fate that has made Russia critically dependent upon the United States. Rather, we are living in a world whose appearance is largely determined by that superpower.
Unlike in Soviet times, Russia today searches for friends and allies to pursue similar interests, not for mobilization against strategic opponents. We supported the United States in its plans to form an anti-terrorist coalition following Sept. 11, 2001. But we spoke out against its escapades in Iraq. In both cases, we made valuable allies without eroding our global position, and we won additional credit as an international authority.
At the end of the Cold War, it became clear that the successful nations would be those who could demonstrate an ability to create ad hoc coalitions and alliances that would benefit not only themselves but all involved. Russia has had its successes and failures in this respect. There has been progress in working in the G8 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but also various blunders in working with the European Union.
Unlike during the entire second half of the 20th century, events in the United States today affect Russia no more than other countries, but no less, either. It is therefore more important for us to evaluate the prospects for achieving the strategic goals of our international policy irrespective of who wins the U.S. election.
Many politicians and experts in Russia prefer the current president as a more convenient choice. Arguments in his favor tend to follow a single line: a good personal relationship with the Russian president and the traditionally decent results in bilateral relations under a Republican government, versus the prospect of a strengthened desire to "teach democracy" in the case of a Democratic victory.
Undeniably, these arguments have a solid basis and need to be taken into account. However, if we look at the issue in a broader context, these preferences in large measure do not coincide with the opinions of many of our partners. Europe's authoritative majority is gambling on the Democratic candidate, expecting more respect for its opinion in international affairs. The Islamic world, likewise, would not be delighted if the man who declared a "crusade" remains the U.S. leader.
We should also recall that, as a senator, Kerry has actively supported agreements for arms control and for curtailing military expenditures. He is interested in the construction of durable long-term partnerships, rather than putting together hasty alliances designed to give the appearance of international support for the unilateral actions of the United States.
Whatever the case may be, there is abundant food for thought, and it would be pointless to pitch one's tent in one camp or the other. Especially since differences that appear radical during the campaign often have a tendency to soften after the inauguration.
Military ambitions appear when there is a demand for them in American society, and if, God forbid, the United States under a Democratic president is confronted with the same sort of challenge as Bush was after Sept. 11, it would be wrong to expect Kerry to adopt a policy of pacifying terrorists.
On the contrary, a third choice looks completely realistic, in which the current president would remain in power but the more odious neo-conservatives who have surrounded him would be removed.
We should not rule out, however, a repetition of the "Madrid scenario" in the United States, but with the opposite effect. If before the elections-again, God forbid-a serious terrorist act occurs in America or against Americans outside the country, it could have a monumental effect on the choice made by the electorate. But unlike the peace-loving Spanish, the Americans could be expected to hand victory to the party of war and military patriotism.
This would mean that Bush's politics of force had received the most important authorization of all-that of the American people. Given his election in 2000 without winning the popular vote, even a gain of a few percentage points would be interpreted by the White House as a mandate for continuing the war against terrorism in the same fashion.
Without a doubt, this issue is part of a larger question about how the United States intends to realize and develop its undisputed leadership in the world.
The United States and its allies in NATO have already implemented the notion of "selective legitimacy" by interfering in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia, the experience of which led to the United States' independent operations in Iraq.
From this point of view, the prospective development of events could look decidedly different, depending on the outcome of the U.S. election. However, it is likely that the strategic aims-strengthening the role of U.S. leadership and the creation of a world order that ensures that the pecking order remains intact-could be moved forward by either party.
This means that we do not need to spend our time guessing who the president will be, but rather need to develop our own strategy for application irrespective of who comes to power.
Of course, it would be a mistake to adhere strictly to ready scenarios when considering such a complex question as the post-election foreign policy of the United States in general and its relations with Russia specifically.
There is potential for numerous nuances and unexpected twists to be caused by other factors, such as terrorist attacks or political maneuvering by other countries in relation to Russia and the United States.
For example, were Kerry to come to power, Europeans, encouraged by increased attention from their "older partner," could very well cool toward Russia, which when necessary has been useful in expressing a general opinion about the U.S. adventure in Iraq. Or the reverse: an increase in attention given to arms control could make our country a willing participant in all negotiations about defense.
However, it is necessary to note that if the hypothetical cooling from Europe were to come about, then the cause would be not so much Kerry as the inadequacies of our relations with Europe. This would mean that our connections are not strong enough, and the alliance with France and Germany over the war in Iraq was to a large degree a one-off, rather than being part of a trend toward sustainable integration with Europe.
The general formula of attitudes toward the electoral unknown in the United States looks approximately like this: To remain sufficiently independent of either candidate, it is necessary for Russia to become an active and integral component of those international structures that the United States, if not dependent upon, at least must reckon with, or will have to reckon with in the future.
Our ties with the last superpower have many unique aspects that likely have their origins in the past, rather than stemming from current relations.
We cannot say that the comparable strategic offensive potential that we inherited from the 20th century or the mutual distrust has had a positive influence on our relations. Before, issues were contested and solved bilaterally, but today the situation has changed.
No less important than good personal relations with the incumbent of the White House is Russia's active participation in United Nations reforms, European integration, a Middle East settlement, and Asian political and economic processes. With one important difference: These foreign policy initiatives are not dependent on the outcome of the U.S. elections.
Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Another Journalist Gets Caught in The Crossfire
TEXT: Another journalist from St. Petersburg was killed this week, the second this year.
The first was Maxim Maximov, who officially went missing in the end of June. He is presumed dead because there have been no signs that he is alive for three months. The second, Yan Travinsky, was shot Monday morning in Irkutsk while acting as a consultant to Rodina in its campaign for seats in the Irkutsk Legislative Assembly.
Travinsky was probably just out to earn some money to feed himself. Many journalists take on consulting work due to the sorry state of the media in the regions. Far from informing people, many outlets have become tools for crude propaganda, offering neither moral nor financial incentives for reporters.
An election campaign in Russia involves huge amounts of cash. The one in Irkutsk is no exception. A police search of the apartment of Maria Marakhovskaya, the head of Rodina's regional election headquarters who was assassinated together with Travinsky, revealed receipts for campaign donations totaling $428,000, according to the Agency of Journalistic Investigations. This sum is more than three times the legal limit for financing a campaign, which is set by the federal election law at 5 million rubles ($171,200).
But money is not the issue. This is about the life of a journalist who did not kill or threaten anyone. He was writing leaflets and press releases. How disturbing it is that 13 years after the country was declared a democracy, journalists are still being killed during election campaigns?
Four journalists have been murdered in Russia this year, including Paul Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition, and Adlan Khasanov, a Reuters correspondent who died May 9 in a bomb explosion in a stadium in Grozny.
These names have been added to the list of 30 journalists killed in Russia since 1994, according to the International Committee to Protect Journalists. The figure is comparable to Algeria's, where 31 reporters have been killed in the same period.
The statistics reflect the sorry state of the treatment of professional journalists in this country. While in the United States journalists are welcomed with respect, in Russia the public and the authorities blame them for all the sins committed by officials. It looks as if self-examination is out of favor in Russia. Of course, this is not a recent development-just watch Gogol's famous play "The Government Inspector."
I am sure that many of those who regularly watch state-controlled Channel One television shrugged their shoulders and said, "There's another one who got what he deserved," when they heard the news from Irkutsk.
I have heard such phrases frequently when other journalists were killed. It is unbelievably frustrating, but that is the inevitable reaction from people who have been brainwashed by the government.
Maybe, for this particular reason, we shouldn't pay too much attention to their reaction. But this attitude seems to be getting worse every month. With each terrorist attack, the authorities put more pressure on the media, prevent journalists from showing and reporting the truth about their country, and try to make people get used to fairy tales.
I didn't know Travinsky, although I saw him almost every Wednesday at St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly meetings, and at press conferences and briefings. His was a familiar face among journalists writing on politics in this city. He would still be alive if elections had not become a dirty business with no rules and where competitors are ready to use all possible methods to gain money or influence.
The immediate causes behind Travinsky's murder are still unknown. But the lessons are clear. Guns and poison are still the most popular tools for deciding who is right and who is wrong in Russia. And journalists who get in the way die.
TITLE: Voice activated
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Mariinsky theater, which opens its 2004-2005 season on Thursday, Oct. 7th with Glinka's "A Life For The Tsar," has tailored the forthcoming musical year for its female operatic stars.
One of the brightest, celebrated mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, will sing Lyubasha in a new production of Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Tsar's Bride," which premieres in December. Borodina has performed the role abroad a number of times to the highest acclaim, and is pleased with the opportunity to sing Lyubasha on home soil.
"Being a Russian singer, it is frustrating to feel that Russian audiences are not aware of what has long been available to the foreign spectators, simply because my repertoire wasn't being staged at the Mariinsky," Borodina told The St. Petersburg Times. "Last season, when I first performed Dalila, it was a special experience for me as it brought me much closer to my Russian audience."
Mezzo-soprano Yekaterina Semenchuk, one of the troupe's youngest talents, stars in the lead role in Bizet's "Carmen". Although Carmen is a role associated with Olga Borodina, the Mariinsky has opted to encourage their young and most promising mezzo so and design the new production for her.
Meanwhile the fascinating soprano Anna Netrebko appears in "The Tsar's Bride" as Marfa but her main engagement with the company this season is as Gilda in Verdi's "Rigoletto," which will be unveiled in April.
Netrebko has already sung the role with the Washington Opera in Martha Domingo's rendition of the opera, and has been invited to perform Gilda at London's Covent Garden and New York's Metropolitan Opera this and next season respectively.
"I never try to portray Gilda as a victim, although directors often prefer to present her in that kind of light," Netrebko said in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times this week. "I don't see Gilda as a 'lightweight heroine' with no guts. Rather, I believe she has a lot of character and struggles hard to retain her love. And naturally, it takes a lot of courage to claim your own life, which she ultimately does."
Although Netrebko is a rare guest in her musical alma mater these days, she considers herself a thoroughly local citizen and has just bought an apartment overlooking the Mariinsky Theater.
"St. Petersburg is my home, I live here and love it here, I just wish I was able to visit here more often," she said, referring to her hectic schedule, fitting arrangements with San Franscisco Opera, Los-Angeles Opera, Covent Garden, Vienna Opera, The Salzburg Festival and the Met. Upcoming engagements include Bellini's "I Puritani", Verdi's "Rigoletto" and Puccini's "La Boheme" at the Met, Massenet's "Manon" and Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet" at the Los Angeles Opera and Verdi's "La Traviata" at the Salzburg Festival, not to mention the Mariinsky.
The star is not immuned to fatigue, however. On her current trip to Russia, the singer admitted to having just canceled a contract for Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" in the United States to allow herself a deserved and long-awaited two-month rest.
"I am very deeply connected with the Mariinsky and this part of town in general," Netrebko said. "My jolly student years and first years with the theater were spent here. I simply love to see it all around me."
There was little glamour in Anna Netrebko's first years on the banks of Neva river. She lived in a notoriously horrible dormitory belonging to the St. Petersburg Conservatory on Ulitsa Doblesti and worked as a floor cleaner at the Mariinsky theater where she was dreaming to perform. Netrebko recalls the past hardships with one of her easy laughs. "God, it was a dreadful place that dormitory, and it took ages and ages to get to work," she remembers. "Cold, poor, near-starving times with 1 1/2 hours each way in doubly overcrowded public transport every time."
Since then Netrebko has avoided public transport, especially in her home country. "Even if I have to spend the last bill in my wallet on a cab ride I would still take a cab - as long as I do have that last bill," she said.
"But it was a good time," the singer said, returning to memories of her first years in town. "I had the dream of my life to keep me warm, and I knew I was getting closer and closer to that dream, which was a huge motivator. Just physically being at the Mariinsky was incredibly stimulating, helping me to turn a blind eye to harsh realities when a parcel from home was just enough to pay my debts only to immediately get into new ones!"
The charming soprano approaches life with ease and a radiant smile. She describes herself as unsophisticated, a person who adores shopping and enjoys spending money. "I stay at home when I have no money, so I don't get upset," she smiles.
Netrebko came to St. Petersburg from her hometown of Krasnodar at the age of 16 to study at the Rimsky-Korsakov Music College and subsequently the Conservatory, with a plan to become an operetta singer.
After a few visits to the Mariinsky she quickly reconsidered her career goals. Netrebko joined the world-famous company at the age of 22, simultaneously dropping out of the Conservatory in her fourth year there.
Not once has she regretted that move, and it was a clear choice between classroom singing and real performances. "I just didn't have any time to study at all," Netrebko explains. "The Conservatory certainly gave me the basics and vocal training, and I am extremely grateful to my mentor Tamara Novichenko. But there came a time when I didn't need school classes but experience singing and being on stage."
The only other place coming almost as close to Netrebko's heart as St. Petersburg is San Fransisco "with its special bright radiant energy that I adore," but the city "is just too far away and too expensive for me to be able to buy an apartment there."
The turning point in Netrebko's career came after she was a tremendous success as Donna Anna in "Don Giovanni" directed by Nikolaus Harnoncour at the opening of the prestigious Salzburg Festival in the summer of 2002.
"Neither myself, nor anybody around me had envisaged a big success, apart from the director who had a great faith in me as Donna Anna," Netrebko recalls. "Basically, I learnt my lines and score and went on stage without particularly high expectations."
But the performance won her much applause, an array of flattering reviews, a list of plum contracts with the world's major operatic companies and a welcome place at every Salzburg Festival ever since and for several years to come. Next year she will sing Violetta in Willy Decker's version of Verdi's "La Traviata", while in two years' time she stars as Suzanna in Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro."
Salzburg Festspiele, a magazine for friends and patrons of the festival, called Netrebko "the miracle of Salzburg."
"Salzburg was not prepared for this: no CD, no poster, no limousine," wrote Festspiele. "And yet she and her voice are the sensation of Salzburg."
The feeling is, indeed, mutual.
"I adore Salzburg, it is galvanizing to be there during the festival," Netrebko said. "I am thrilled to be there. Every day the most distinguished musicians perform in front of the snobbiest, most sophisticated audiences, and you can just see all the snobbery melting down or the opposite, manifesting itself in a revolt - sometimes both during the same show!"
Every day in Salzburg, Netrebko is torn between a dozen shows she is dying to see, desperately struggling to get a ticket, and often failing, because everything's long been sold out.
"I use every tiniest chance to see something there, and I usually watch from the furthest row back," she said, laughing. "I never hold a grudge against the festival administration: I know they love me, and I know if they'd had tickets they would have given them to me."
Netrebko is excited by the Salzburg's atmosphere, with "boos" and "bravos" crossing over in controversial productions.
Festspiele this year placed Netrebko second in the list of divas with prima donna criteria, like charm, style, manners, social habits, appearance and dress, after Angela Georgiu. Renee Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Karita Mattila and Deborah Voigt were placed lower down in the ranking. For Netrebko, however, terms like diva or prima donna are considered obsolete. "Diva is a word completely out of date and out of fashion," she said.
The times of picky prima donnas have passed, the singer believes. Not using public transport doesn't count. She earned that right the tough way.
"While 20 or 30 years ago extravagance, chic, arrogance and escapades were in vogue and would earn you public admiration, these days such behaviour only provokes irritation," she said. "It would be unwise to play a diva, and I strongly believe the easier you are to deal with, the more respect you get."
TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: Night of Music, the annual one-day festival promoted by Radio Baltika, will take place on Friday. The concept of the festival is to hold a number of free concerts at a number of venues on the same day and, some of them, at the same time. The public is supposed to get its free tickets from the respective venues from noon on the day of the festival. The number of tickets is limited to a respective venue's capacity.
This year, the festival's only rock concert is one by Germany's Mambo Kurt and Finland's Giant Robot. Mambo Kurt seems to capitalize on the popular idea that German rockers have no taste. A total lack of it is exactly what the band offers in its "Teutonized" covers of such hits as The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K.," Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You" and Kiss' "I Was Made for Loving You," all available as MP3 files on Mambo Kurt's Web site, www.mambo-kurt.de.
And it does have fans - one web site of one of them also lists Germany's largely unlistenable-to band Rammstein and Russian pop duo Tatu as his favorites.
Hailing from Helsinki, Giant Robot is a much more promising and musical affair, blending funk, hip-hop and dub. See an interview on page xii.
Another Finnish band to perform in the city this week, The 69 Eyes, is a more formulaic, neglected-teenager oriented affair. It will play its goth rock, complete with mascara and life-weary expressions, at the Palace of Youth on Saturday.
The Swedish festival, which started with electronica crooner Jay-Jay Johanson this week, will continue with Weeping Willows, the alternative-rock band that started in 1993 as a cover band that performed songs by diverse artists, from Elvis Presley to Morrissey, but that has since developed its own material. The band's sad songs are frequently compared to The Smiths, and they do have Morrissey's "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" on its repertoire. One review described Weeping Willows as "The Smiths with Depeche Mode on top."
Weeping Willows, which perform at Red Club on Friday, will be followed by a pair of underground bands performing at Moloko on Saturday.
Deltahead is a "punk/blues" duo of a guitarist and a double-bass player who both make use of drums.
According to its Web site, www.deltahead.se, Deltahead sounds as a "bizarre mutation of Hasil Adkins, laced with deadly doses of '76 Punk and Delta Blues.
"On stage, their brutal hybrid of Punk and Blues explodes like a black asphalt Molotov cocktail leaving the survivors witness to a raging inferno beyond anything ever experienced."
The second act, Meine Kleine Deutsche, appears to be a more conventional punk band.
Local acts performing this week include garage rockers Kacheli, that will play at Deep Sound on Friday and Fish Fabrique on Saturday, and alternative-rock/hip-hop band Kirpichi (Red Club, Saturday).
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Flaming tasty
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Black Cat White Cat, the new Serbian restaurant just east of the Summer Garden, is a bit of a contradiction: simple, unpretentious yet stylish presentation; hearty, healthy yet hardly oppressive taste. Picture barbecue in a trendy New York bar; candles and brussel sprouts; neon lights and a pig roasting on a spit.
Located on Pestelya Street, just across the Fontanka from the Summer Garden and the Mikhailovsky Castle, Black Cat White Cat is a bit off the radar for most St. Isaacs-Hermitage-Russian Museum walking trips. Although somewhat difficult to find (a 25 minute walk from Metro Station Nevsky Prospekt and 15 minutes from Cherneshevskaya), it's impossible to miss. The outside of the restaurant attracts with wide glass windows, neon-tinted interior, and a large video screen visible behind the bar. The first impression is one of forced stylishness - another bar with expensive drinks, club music playing a little too loud, and an endless procession of models on an obtrusive television screen.
Characteristic of Black Cat White Cat, this impression is deceiving. The interior is focused around the food, not drinks. Facing you as you enter, along the back wall, is an open grill, the restaurant's Serbian chef behind it, flipping meat over the red coals. There is no club music - in fact there is no music at all - and the restaurant hums only slightly with muted conversation. As for the procession of models, there is none. Instead, classic movies play - Russian and Yugoslavian - audible from any part of the restaurant, but not bothersome.
The name of the restaurant comes from the 1998 film, Black Cat White Cat, by Bosnian Serb director Emir Kusturica. It's in their video library, of course, and you can ask to have it put on. Faded, black and white stills from the film decorate shades that hang from the ceiling separating the tables from each other. The movie is a romance/slapstick comedy about Gypsies living on the Danube, and it contains strong elements of the surreal including a recurring shot of a hog munching on an old car.
The restaurant is itself a bit surreal, though subtly so. The stylish interior stands in contrast to the simplicity and hominess of the Serbian food on the menu. Serbian food is hearty - meat and vegetables - the kind of stuff your mom would be happy you're eating.
Appetizers run from a plate of olives (70 rubles, $2.41) to beefsteak strips (400 rubles, $13.80). The most popular salad is the Shopsky ("It's named after some Serbian town, I think," says the waitress), a basic green salad with vegetable oil and sheep's milk cheese, or brinza (150 rubles, $5.17). Order the Kaimak for the table: this slightly spicy spread made of milk curds, sour cream, and two kinds of cheese comes with multi-grain bread (150 rubles, $5.17).
The hot appetizers are variations of each other: various types of meat, cut in slightly different ways, with accompanying vegetables. Those not watching their weight should try the Muchkalitsa: tender pork and vegetables in an unforgivably buttery sauce (170 rubles, $5.85).
After paying due respect to the appetizers, move on to the real strength of the menu: the meat and fish entrees cooked over the open grill. The fish selection is limited to grilled trout (one portion 240 rubles, $8.27), grilled salmon (one portion 210 rubles, $7.24), and Dorado (100 grams for 120 rubles, $4.14). The Dorado, or Golden Fish, is for those with some time on their hands, who are looking for a bit of a show. It must be ordered as an entire fish, and it takes 40 minutes to prepare, but the waitress promises that it is worth the wait. Cooked on a bed of sea salt, the fish absorbs only enough to give it taste but not to make it salty. Afterwards, the waitress brings it to your table and takes out the bones in front of you.
The meat selection is more varied. The Pleskovitsa, or hamburger meat, is popular among regular customers and is the cheapest of the meat dishes at 200 rubles ($6.90). If you're not too hungry, or if you don't mind to sharing, order the veal or chicken shashlyk (250/220 rubles, $8.62/$7.58).
Several other dishes round out the meat options, but the true carnivore is sure to be satiated by the meat assortment which includes pork, sausage, chicken liver, and veal (380 rubles, $13).
The presentation of the meat assortment, as with all other dishes, is pleasantly, and appropriately, unpretentious. A leaf of lettuce and a sprig of parsley look over-matched next to the meat and seem to have been added more out of guilt than any idea of aesthetic or culinary balance. Black Cat White Cat knows where its strength lies - over the open flame - and the menu doesn't pretend to do anything else.
This goes for the drink menu as well. The beer and wine selection is relatively limited, with only a handful of wines available by the glass, running from 90 to 150 rubles ($3.10-5.17). The only "local" wine is from Montenegro, a full dry red called Vranats that goes well with the meat in any of its forms. French, Argentine, Australian, and Georgian wines are for sale by the bottle and range from 700 to 1,300 rubles ($24.14 - $44.80).
Black Cat White Cat - open since April - is a welcome addition to the choice of foreign cuisine in the city, a more pleasant and refined version of the much repeated southern/shashlyk restaurant. But fine diners and nibblers beware: come to this restaurant with an open mind and, more importantly, an empty stomach.
Black Cat White Cat (Chyornaya Koshka Bely Kot) 13,
Pestelya Ulitsa. Tel: 276 7430.
Dinner for two with wine 1,020 rubles ($35).
TITLE: THE WORD'S WORTH
TEXT: ë ÅÓ"ÓÏ; ÅÓÊÂ '++Ò ÒÓi@++ÌË; ÅÛo/oo, Áo/ooÓ@Ó: God bless you! (after a sneeze).
All rules have exceptions, and the exception to the "Russians are great quoters and Americans are not" rule is Biblicisms. This is the one area where English-speakers excel with Biblical quotes, references and paraphrases for every occasion.
Folks who study this, like T. Klyukina V. Lanchikov, D. Yermolovich and M. Zagot (whose books and articles are a treasure trove of Biblical lore, translations and analysis) point out that the Old Church Slavonic of the Russian Orthodox liturgy made it harder for Russians to understand and claim Biblical phrases the way English-speakers could with the King James version. "Thou shall not commit adultery" is quite clear to an English-speaker; the Russian version - ç Ô@ÂÎ,.Óo/ooÂÈÒÚ'ÛÈ - might send a Russian to the dictionary to figure out what he shouldn't be doing.
And then came the Soviet period, when the Bible was virtually banned from public and literary life and when, Russian translators tell me, they resorted to lifting the Gideon Bibles from hotel rooms on business trips abroad so they could at least know what their colleagues were referring to. Another of the Ten Commandments (o/ooÂÒflÚ, Á++ÔÓ'Âo/ooÂÈ) - <<ç ÛÍ@++o/ooË>> (Thou shalt not steal) - is pretty clear on this point, but hey, it was for a good cause.
As a result, even if you know how to say your favorite Biblical saying in Russian, Russians might not get the reference. Of course, many quotes do exist as recognizable sayings in both languages: not by bread alone (Ì iÎÂ.ÓÏ Âo/ooËÌ(o)Ï); daily bread (iÎÂ. Ì++ÒÛ^Ì(o)È); forbidden fruit (Á++Ô@ÂÚÌ(o)È ÔÎÓo/oo); manna from heaven (Ï++ÌÌ++ ÌÂ.ÂÒÌ++fl); to cast pearls before swine (ÏÂÚ++Ú, .ËÒÂ@ ÔÂ@Âo/oo Ò'ËÌ,flÏË); many are called, but few are chosen (ÏÌÓ"Ó Á'++Ì(o)i, o/oo++ Ï++ÎÓ ËÁ.@++ÌÌ(o)i). You can flip on the light switch with a flip Ñ++ .Ûo/ooÂÚ Ò'ÂÚ! (Let there be light!), and your Russian friends will appreciate your erudition. If you want to reprimand a friend for speaking harshly about someone, you can say, ç ÒÛo/ooËÚÂ, o/oo++ Ì ÒÛo/ooËÏ(o) .Ûo/ooÂÚ (Judge not, that you be not judged), but Russians might more readily resort to Griboyedov's Ä ÒÛo/oo,Ë ÍÚÓ?! (Who are you to judge?!) And "the writing on the wall" (ÔËÒ,ÏÂÌ++ Ì++ ÒÚÂÌÂ), while recognizable, has never caught on with Russians the way it has with English-speakers.
Neither has Job taken hold of the Russian metaphorical mind. You can speak of the patience of Job (ÚÂ@ÔÂÌËÂ àÓ'++) or long-suffering Job (ÏÌÓ"ÓÒÚ@++o/oo++Î,Ì(o)È àÓ'), but it will not resonate as strongly as it does in English. This is utterly baffling to me, since if there was one country on Earth that is the personification of Job, it must be Russia. But God moves in mysterious ways (ÔÛÚË ÉÓÒÔÓo/ooÌË ÌÂËÒÔÓ'Âo/ooËÏ(o)).
"I am holier than thou" (fl Ò'flÚ o/ooÎfl ÚÂ.fl) is more likely to be expressed in Russian by the adjectives Ò++ÏÓo/ooÓ'ÓÎ,Ì(o)È (self-satisfied) or '(o)ÒÓÍÓÏÂ@Ì(o)È (haughty).
I've given up on the Good Samaritan (o/ooÓ.@(o)È Ò++Ï++@ËÚflÌËÌ), first because it's too easy for us foreigners to confuse it with o/ooÓ.@(o)È Ò++Ï++@Â^ (a good man from Samara), and then because Russians don't use it much.
"God bless you" is also a tricky phrase. Of course, if you want to say it after someone sneezes, say instead, ÅÛo/oo, Áo/ooÓ@Ó'! (Literally, "be healthy.") The standard translation, ÅÓÊÂ '++Ò ÒÓi@++ÌË is rather high-toned - more like "May God bless you and keep you" - and in Russian you would usually add what you want God to keep you from.
If you're the sort of person who says goodbye with a cheery, "Have a nice day and God bless you!" try ë~++ÒÚÎË'Ó! ë ÅÓ"ÓÏ! ("Go with God," "May God be with you.")
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
TITLE: The Earlymusic Festival
TEXT: The Earlymusic Festival wraps up Sunday with a concert of distinguished French ensemble L'Arpeggiata, one of the most highly acclaimed baroque ensembles in Europe (pictured). L'Arpeggiata's performances are frequently aimed at bridging baroque music with the traditional repertoire and unveiling lesser-known masterpieces of French, Italian and Neapolitan baroque music. L'Arpeggiata gives its only local concert Sunday, Oct.3 in Yekaterininsky Palace of Tsarskoye Selo.
Prior to that, William Dongois gives a concert on the zink, a curved six-finger pipe also known as a cornetto curvo or krumme zink, in the Grand Palace in Peterhof on Saturday, Oct 2. In 16th and 17th centuries this versatile Renaissance instrument was used in concerts of classical music as well as rural festivities, and religious and court ceremonies. The sound of the instrument was compared to the sound of the human voice when the instrument emerged and one critic even said "one might mistake it for a choice eunuch!"
According to Benvenuto Cellini, it was his cornet playing that procured him a position with Pope Clement VII who hired him on the spot after hearing Cellini perform the soprano part.
Dongois originally studied trumpet in Rheims and Paris, but eventually his passion for the early repertoir inspired him to try his hands at the early cornet.
Galina Stolyarova
TITLE: Incidents in museums
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: There are a lot of museums in St. Petersburg, but few receive many visitors, let alone visitors from overseas. But for several years one of the most engaging and promising attempts to solving the problem of low visitor numbers has been the "Contemporary Art in the Traditional Museum" festival.
The festival, which is run by the Pro Arte Institute and which has become one of the of highlights of the local cultural calendar, opened last weekend, after a year's hiatus, for the fourth time.
The idea behind the event is to exhibit contemporary art projects in a traditional museum setting. On the one hand, the festival supports contemporary art, and on the other promotes traditional museums by attracting visitors to them.
Most of the "traditional" museums selected by the festival organizers have a narrow focus; they include museums that cover the history of ethnographic subjects, science, geology, botany, communications history, political or military history, religion, medicine, physics, and so on - that is, everything except art itself.
The festival organizers want to coax the "art crowd" to hidden, under-promoted "non-art" museums. This is what makes the idea of the festival important from the arts- and museum- management points of view.
However, this exciting and promising idea stands or falls on the quality of the art on offer.
Unfortunately it doesn't look like the festival benefited much from its year off.
This year's festival features eight contemporary art projects in eight traditional museums (which are linked together in a special route by organizers to direct visitors from one to the other), but less than half of the projects are really worth the time and money one would spend to visit them.
However, it is possible to draw up a route that includes the places that are interesting for both the contemporary art and permanent museum exhibits on display.
Start at the Military-Historical Museum for Artillery, Engineering and Signal Troops, which is located in an extensive brick building opposite the Peter and Paul Fortress. The permanent exhibition of the museum consists of a huge collection of historical arms, rockets, guns and other stuff like this, a review of which will convince you, along with the artists whose work is displayed here, that humanity should definitely forget about a happy ending.
The museum space is occupied by nine young media artists - Pro Arte institute students - within the group project "Voinushka" (the Russian word for a children's war-game). Voinushka is word from childhood and the artists' main efforts are directed toward dumping the adult, military mood of the museum. "Toy" by Yulya Grebneva, at the entrance of the museum, is a poster showing a giant child using all the guns and tanks in the museum's courtyard as playthings. Among the more refined, poetic artistic decisions are those made the artists in the fascinating "Soul of a Tank" by Viktoriya Ilushkina and in "Kaleidoscope," by Ulyana Apatina, in which a kaleidoscope resides in the muzzle of a gun.
The only piece that works in the other direction by echoing the pathos of military evolution as expressed by the museum's permanent exhibit is "Perfect Soldier" by Mikhail Shtarker and Kirill Shamanov. In it, military technology has evolved to a point of true pathos, to include man; the work is composed of large computer-generated posters of genetically-modified soldiers.
After leaving the museum, head west to Birzhevoy Most and cross to Vasilyevsky Island. Go right along the Universitetskaya Embankment as far as the building opposite the two Sphinxes. This is the Academy of Arts, the first and, for a long time, only educational institution for artists in Russia.
"Way of Life" by Tantyana Goloviznina, the best work of the festival, is displayed here. Among the young generation of local artists Goloviznina, is one of the most interesting and well-established figures.
The artist has taken a very delicate approach to the large collection of gypsum copies of classical sculptures housed in the Academy. Around the figures of young athletes, she has placed a carpet of live green shoots, and she revives the dead antique sculptures by playing the sounds of human breathing. The artist's intervention is finished by a video installation, which is a stylistically as well as conceptually perfect match to the permanent exhibition.
To get the last worthwhile show in the festival venue you should go further along the Naberezhnaya Leitenanta Shmidta embankment, turn right on the 19th Liniya ('19th Line' street) and go as far as the intersection with Sredniy Prospekt, where the solemn building of the State Geology Institute and Museum is located.
Here local artist Pyotr Shvezov has installed his "Columbarium," a nice mix of brutal concrete and elegant Indian ink intended as memorial for extinct species of animals. Next to Shvezov's work the museum offers an exciting mineral collection which is framed in beautiful old museum cases.
Another marvel at this museum is a grandiose and unique geographical map of the Soviet Union from 1937. At around 5 meters in length and 3 in height the map was displayed during the World Exhibitions in Paris and New York. This map is very interesting in artistic terms, since it is made from precious and semi-precious stones which form a relief map of the country, from malachite forests to granite mountains to turquoise rivers and lakes.
It is certain that without the "Contemporary Art in The Traditional Museum" festival, the casual visitor would be unlikely to discover such unexpected treasures.
www.artmuseum.spb.afisha.ru
(only in Russian.)
TITLE: Action stations
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Ludwig Museum and State Russian Museum in St Petersburg are collaborating with the Kunsthalle of Bonn to show modern German art in all its current directions in an exhibition showing at the Marble Palace, Actionbutton, until Nov. 16.
From the Federal Republic of Germany's collection of over 1,100 works of post-war art (mostly from after 1949), around 100 works by 34 living German artists are on display with the majority of these works having been added to the collection between 2000 and 2002.
The works of young artists are presented together with the works of their teachers - the famous German masters of the 20th century - and it is curious to see where the older generation ends and the young artists begin.
For St. Petersburgers, this show is a continuation of the work of familiarizing us with modern art that the Ludwig Museum has been doing in the Marble Palace for some time. The works aren't as shocking as they might be to a novice spectator, even though the latest works are very innovative and as distant from classic art or even from 20th century art as one could imagine.
Speaking at the opening ceremony with his characteristic aplomb, Russian Museum Director Vladimir Gusev commented that he had been asked directly by reporters if he personally liked the show: "I like it as much as I like contemporary life in general. Present day reality is what it is and we have to live with it. But to see the works of young Germans certainly is interesting."
The works presented include canvases both of figurative and abstract painting, drawings, graphic art, a video show, installations, sculptures and a great many photo montages.
The collection goes back to 1970 when then German Chancellor Willy Brandt suggested that the state should create a collection of modern art and make it available to everybody. Although more than 1,100 works have now been purchased, the process of collecting new art has not stopped. The German state plays the role of the patron of the arts, commissioning new works from young artists and also purchasing works by older masters that are in private hands.
Dr. Wenzel Jacob, general director of the Bonn Kunsthalle said: "I call this collection democratic as opposed to royal, private, or bank collections which depend upon the taste of one or a few persons."
He went on to explain that the collection reflects the four main periods of artistic development in post-war Germany, from the first tentative steps as the country recovered from its destruction after World War II, though periods when French abstract art, then Anglo-American Pop Art were dominant, to the time beginning with Joseph Beuys in the 1960s when Germany found its voice and began to generate its own styles.
Among the late 20th century German artists exhibited are Hans-Peter Feldman (a bust of "David"), Joseph Beuys (drawings), Heimrad and H.P. Zimmer (paintings in the style of Arpel) and other CoBRa members. They all were active in the 1960s.
From there on the young artists working in different media take the stage. To distance themselves as far as possible from classical, traditional art they use different materials. For example, instead of canvas there can be an inflatable mattress covered with newspapers; sculpture in glass, silicon, cloth, metal and hair instead of the traditional marble or bronze, such as "Hagen von Troje versus Siegfried" by Jonathan Meese.
One strange, shocking installation looks like a fight between a bust on a pedestal and an elongated female figure on crutches dressed in a sort of leather bag. Here there is an obvious hint, a reference to antiquity, together with mockery and sarcasm.
In the last, empty room at the exhibition there is a showing of the video installation "Trip to the Moon" by Heike Baranovsky: a shiny blue ball signifying the moon moves along a real wall.
The mysterious title of the exhibition is a tribute to the artist Michel Majerus who died tragically in an airplane crash 2001 aged 35. His enormous painting executed in 2001 is called "Actionbutton."
At the same time, this title alludes to young artists who are spurred into action; it shows the energy and boldness of a new generation and their independence of mind.
Actionbutton, at the Marble Palace of the State Russian Museum until Nov. 16. www.rusmuseum.ru
TITLE: Oddly fantastic
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: "Where's Helsinki?"
"Helsinki is in Finland."
This brief dialogue of two geography buffs opens the rapping "Helsinki Rock City," possibly the best-known song by Giant Robot, a leading Finnish indie band performing in St. Petersburg this week.
Referring to Kiss's "Detroit Rock City" and sung in an exaggerated Finnish accent, the band's tongue-in-cheek anthem to its home town was originally released as its second EP in 1999 and is so far its greatest hit.
"It's about our wonderful home, a very ironic homage," explained Arttu Tolonen, Giant Robot's guitarist.
"Helsinki is a great place to live and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but to call it rock or even a city (it's a town) is not exactly accurate. There's a fair amount of stuff going on in Helsinki, but compared to real cities like St. Petersburg, it's a little sleepy... We love it, but we are aware of its, shall we say, shortcomings."
But wherever Giant Robot is based, the band which blends funk, hip-hop and dub, has a definite international quality. Hossni Boudali, the band's part-time vocalist, is originally from Morocco, but has lived in Brazil, Switzerland and the U.K., while drummer Abdissa "Mamba" Assefa's parents are from Ethiopia.
The other cosmopolitan members of the band include Tolonen and his bassist brother, Aleksi, who spent a large part of their childhood in Tanzania and Zambia, and later in the U.S., where Tolonen has also lived as an adult. Singer Tuomas Toivonen has lived in U.S., France and Holland.
Thanks to touring and recording albums, the most recent being its third, "Domesticity," the band has received recognition in continental Europe and even in the U.K. where the it played at the "In the City" festival in Manchester last week. Its debut CD, 1999's "Crushing You with Style," was hailed as "oddly fantastic" by now-defunct British music weekly Melody Maker. A Finnish journalist sees Giant Robot's three albums as "statement," "antithesis" and "synthesis," and Tolonen feels that such description of the band's dialectic progress has a point.
"The first album was a loose, sprawling and spontaneous affair, consisting of live favorites. It had little studio snippets that each member had made... A very ramshackle album. And openly charming," he wrote.
"The second album, [2002's "Superweekend"], which was made after Mamba joined, is a very tight and controlled affair, focusing on atmosphere and detail. Some people thought it cold, but we don't agree. We see it as having a sort of majesty to it.
"The third album, to us, feels like a combination of the two." Tolonen was initially inspired to become a guitar player by older bluesmen, such as Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy and Albert Collins.
"When I started out, I wasn't really good enough to play [blues], so I turned to punk bands like Bad Brains, The Clash, MDC... there were so many," he wrote.
"Most of them I've forgotten and many of them were dreadful. Many of the other guys in the band have a bit of a metal background, like most people in our generation in Finland. Kasio [Kim "Kasio" Rantala], the keyboard player, used to play in Amorphis."
"Eventually we all gravitated towards hip hop, funk and rap, in the mid- to late-'80s, and on to other forms of what's called dance music."
"Get Up," the opening track on "Domesticity," sounds slightly reminiscent of Talking Heads. Tolonen acknowledges the influence.
"I'd say Talking Heads has probably had an impact on many of us," he wrote.
"They were a band that took elements from a staggering amount of sources, going all the way back to Africa, and seamlessly incorporated them into their own musical universe. It wasn't a question of trying to sound like the sources, of fetishistic purism... This is something we try to do, too.
"We take influences and feed them into the blender of the band, where they get chewed up and chopped by the various personalities. They made art rock out of all of it and I think the longer we operate, the more we gravitate towards what might be labeled art rock. We should be recording for [art rock label] 4AD."
According to Tolonen, Giant Robot has changed drastically since its first and so far its only local concert at a two-day Finnish festival in 2001.
"[We have a] different drummer and a different approach. We are more together now, and we draw from a deeper pool of musical resources, we have more trust, we are better at listening to each other, all of which opens the way for both more simplicity and more complexity, resulting in more communication, resulting in more emotion. The band is more outgoing."
Even if its music sounds international, there is a certain Finnish quality about Giant Robot, whose early recording was a version of an old Karelian tune called "Konevitsan kirkonkellot," made popular by the famous Finnish folk-rock band Piirpauke in the 1970s.
"I think there's a certain air of melancholy pervading the music that could be considered Finnish," said Tolonen.
"This is something that Russians can probably relate to."
Giant Robot will perform, with Mambo Kurt from Germany, at the Theater of Young Spectators (TYuZ) at 10 p.m. on Friday, and as part of the Tusovka festival of Finnish music at Stary Dom at 5 p.m. on Oct. 9.
www.giantrobot.fi, www.stupido.fi
TITLE: Ale house rock
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Spitalul de Urgenta, a band from Romania that effectively combines Balkan folk wedding and drinking songs with western rock and punk, was doomed to be a hit in Russia, where Emir Kusturica and Goran Bregovic are still all the rage. After packing Moscow art and rock clubs on its first Russian tour in February, the band, whose best-known song is called "Long Live Beer," will make its debut in St. Petersburg this week.
Formed in Bucharest in 2000, the five-piece band includes singer, guitarist and songwriter Dan Helciug, electric guitarist Emil Chican, bassist Adrian Chepa and drummer Vladimir Sergeyev, the latter being an ethnic Russian who moved to Bucharest from Chisinau, Moldova. The most drastic change that affected the band since its last Russian visit has been the trading of Vali Craciunescu's accordion to Claudiu Stoica's tambal, or a hammered dulcimer, a traditional Romanian instrument.
"It's a pure Balkan original, with a lot of strings and strange musical sounds," said Helciug in a recent telephone interview from Bucharest.
Spitalul de Urgenta, which recently released its fourth album, "Stupefiant," continues to develop musically, according to Helciug.
"Our style is in permanent state of change," he said.
"[Our] music is mostly rock, Balkan rock, with influences from punk, progressive rock, and symphonic rock, an interesting hybrid, but also very modern. I keep the irony and good mood of the lyrics, making fun of the false values of the society."
Helciug, 29, who has a degree in acting, has been a popular figure on Romanian television for several years, after appearing on a star-search show similar to American Idol. He also spent three years studying psychology at a university.
Apart from fronting Spitalul de Urgenta, Helciug also plays in another, more straightforward rock band called Nod, which he describes as a blend of Rammstein, Depeche Mode and Korn, but found it difficult to get that act broadcast on Romanian radio.
"I formed Spitalul de Urgenta without electric guitars and rock, in order not to scare the radio. But it's still rock at its base," he said.
Despite Helciug's efforts to placate listeners, though, Spitalul de Urgenta ("Emergency Room") remains a black sheep on the Romanian music scene.
"In Romania, it's only the extremes that are popular," he said. "On the one hand there is music for weddings and parties that sounds a bit like Turkish music. On the other there is very cheap house and dance." At home, Spitalul de Urgenta performs at open markets where it might draw thousands and at Club A, Bucharest's one and only rock club, which boasts a 30-year history and rich traditions.
"All the other clubs only host boy bands that cry about their babies on stage," said Helciug.
Spitalul de Urgenta's biggest hit so far is "Long Live Beer" ("Traiasca Berea"), a simple and fun ode to drinking, known to every second Romanian, according to Helciug.
The musician prefers to describe himself as an "underground poet," whose work is a "mix of reality and literature." Lyrically, he admits to the influence of Tom Waits and the French folk-punk band Les Negresse Vertes, which is a frequent local sight.
"It's a combination of different things," he said about his music.
"On one hand, it's a protest about the system, on the other hand, one has a chance to put aside the problems and live in a world made by your friends, not thinking about the rest of the world - fools, rogues, thieves in the government and all kinds of stupid things on the radio and television. Our music is fun, but it makes listeners to reflect on different things."
"We make fun of the fake public personalities, bubbles of poor minds, dressed in high society clothes, artists, TV stars and politicians. I'm fighting for simplicity and sincerity, and brainstorming for a new and modern mentality to be born."
In Russia, Spitalul de Urgenta's music is available on the CD compilation, "Unde e popa?," out on the Moscow-based BAd TaStE label.
Spitalul de Urgenta plays at Platforma at 8 p.m on Thursday.
Links: http://spitalul.badtaste.ru
TITLE: Private Pilot Pioneers Flight Into Space
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOJAVE, California - Ignoring a warning to abort the flight, a test pilot took a stubby-looking rocket plane on a corkscrewing, white-knuckle ride past the edge of the atmosphere Wednesday, completing the first stage of a quest to win a $10 million prize.
As spectators and controllers nervously watched from the ground, SpaceShipOne rolled dozens of times as it hurtled toward space at nearly three times the speed of sound. It reached a height of 103 kilometers over the Mojave Desert.
Spaceship designer Burt Rutan said he asked pilot Michael Melvill to shut down the engine, but Melvill kept going until he reached the altitude specified under the rules for the Ansari X Prize, a bounty offered to the first privately built, manned rocket ship to fly in space twice in a span of two weeks.
"I did a victory roll at the top," the 62-year-old Melvill joked from atop the spaceship after it glided safely to a landing.
The problem was being analyzed by the spacecraft's builders, who must decide whether to proceed with another flight Monday in order to win the X Prize.
But Rutan and Melvill were confident the flight would go on as planned. Rutan said rolling occurred during flight simulations, and it was not a complete surprise when it happened on Wednesday.
"I've looked at it, and I think we just change out the engine and fill it with gas and let it go," Melvill said.
The test pilot said he may have caused the rolling himself.
SpaceShipOne, with Melvill at the controls, made history in June when it became the first private, manned craft to reach space.
The Ansari X Prize will go to the first craft to complete safely two flights to an altitude of 328,000 feet, or 100 kilometers - generally considered to be the point where the Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins - in a 14-day span.
Rutan, with more than $20 million from Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, secretly developed SpaceShipOne-which has a wing span of just 5 meters-and is well ahead of two dozen teams building X Prize contenders around the world.
During its 81-minute flight, SpaceShipOne climbed to 337,500 feet-nearly 10,000 feet above its target, said Gregg Maryniak, executive director of the X Prize Foundation.
Rutan said controllers asked Melvill to shut the engine down early because of the rolling, but Melvill kept going until he was certain he would reach the target altitude.
"We actually were asking him to go ahead and abort, to shut it off to where he wouldn't have gone the [100 kilometers]. He stayed in there just for a handful of seconds more," Rutan said.
The Ansari X Prize was modeled on the $25,000 prize that Charles Lindbergh won in his Spirit of St. Louis for the first solo New York-to-Paris flight across the Atlantic in 1927.
Already, the ultimate goal of the X Prize appears in sight: Richard Branson, the British airline mogul and adventurer, announced Monday that beginning in 2007, he will begin offering paying customers flights into space aboard rockets like the SpaceShipOne.
TITLE: Blair Says He's Ready To Talk to Kidnappers
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: BRIGHTON, England - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday he was ready to open up contact with captors of a British hostage in Iraq, shown on video begging Blair to save his life.
Kenneth Bigley, 62, appeared on the tape chained and squatting in a cage, pleading to the prime minister for help while accusing him of lying over the hostage crisis.
Italy rejoiced at the release of two women aid workers after paying a ransom and France was also gripped by a hostage drama when a freelance negotiator, disowned by Paris officials, said two French journalists held for six weeks could be free in days.
"They've made no attempt to have any contact with us at all. If they did make contact, it would be something we would immediately respond to," Blair told reporters on the fringes of his Labour Party's annual conference in the southern town of Brighton.
"I don't think we can take any hope from anything until we know exactly what the intentions of these people are," Blair said. "They're not in contact with us, it's impossible for us to make contact with them."
Blair has said repeatedly he will not negotiate with the kidnappers, who demand release of women prisoners held in Iraq.
The French mediator said a condition for the journalists' release was for U.S. forces to provide safe passage between the rebel towns of Falluja and Ramadi.
Iraq's defense minister, however, said U.S. and Iraqi troops were about to launch offensives to re-establish their control ahead of elections planned for January.
"You wait and see what we are going to do. We are going to take all these cities in October," minister Hazim al-Shalaan said.
Italy reacted with joy to the release of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, who spoke of returning to Iraq despite their three-week kidnap ordeal.
But while most Italians were simply delighted that "the two Simonas" were safe and well, there was controversy over reports Rome paid a $1 million ransom to win the women's freedom-the kind of response Iraqi officials said would promote kidnappings.
The chairman of the Italian parliament's foreign affairs committee confirmed media reports of a ransom.
"Yes it was paid, it was right because the life of the two girls was more important than the money. I think it was paid by the intelligence services," said Gustavo Selva, a member of the ruling center-right coalition.
Meanwhile, Blair on Tuesday skirted around a direct apology over Britain's participation in the invasion of Iraq, but said intelligence used to justify the invasion was wrong. He insisted the world was safer with Saddam Hussein in prison.
In a rousing address to the party's annual conference, interrupted twice by delegates booing and heckling, Blair defended the war and said Labour members-even the war's opponents-must believe he backed the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq to protect Britain.
"And the problem is, I can apologize for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologize for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power," he said.
(Reuters, AP)
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Koreans Enter Embassy
BEIJING (Reuters) - A group of 44 North Korean asylum seekers used makeshift ladders to scale the fence and leap into the Canadian embassy in Beijing on Wednesday, officials said.
Hundreds of asylum seekers from reclusive North Korea have broken into foreign embassies and consulates in China since 2002, hoping to secure passage to wealthier South Korea, but usually in smaller groups.
Pilot Attacked With Ax
OSLO, Norway (AP) - An Algerian asylum seeker on a commuter plane in northern Norway attacked both pilots and a passenger with an ax as the aircraft was landing Wednesday, police said.
The injured pilots could land the Kato Air Dornier 228 safely in the northern town of Bodoe after passengers subdued the attacker, police and witnesses said.
The attacker, a man in his 30s whose name was being withheld, was arrested after the plane landed.
Spector Indicted
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Moments after he was indicted on murder charges in the 2003 death of a B-movie actress at his Alhambra mansion, music producer Phil Spector railed at prosecutors.
Spector compared District Attorney Steve Cooley to Adolf Hitler. The charges were returned by a grand jury whose indictment superseded a murder case previously filed by prosecutors in November 2003, seven months after Spector's arrest.
Cole Bombing Verdicts
SAN'A, Yemen (AP) - A Saudi suspected of being an associate of Osama bin Laden and a Yemeni militant were sentenced to death by firing squad Wednesday for the bombing of the USS Cole four years ago, the first convictions in the al-Qaida terror attack that killed 17 American sailors.
The judge ordered Jamal al-Badawi, a 35-year-old Yemeni, and Saudi-born Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location, executed for plotting the attack by two suicide bombers who blew up an explosives-laden boat next to the Cole as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000.
Bird Flu Alert
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia is on heightened alert for bird flu in its northern regions after a probable case of human-to-human infection was detected in neighboring Thailand, officials said.
Thailand is investigating if an outbreak within a Thai family threatened a global pandemic. Officials have said it appeared the strain had not mutated into a more infectious form for humans.
TITLE: Astros Take Lead in NL Wild Card Race
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HOUSTON, Texas - The Houston Astros can put themselves in the playoffs. They no longer need help from anyone else.
Roger Clemens, Jeff Kent and the Astros took over the National League wild-card lead Wednesday night, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 6-4 for their club-record 15th straight home victory.
Houston moved a half-game ahead of the slumping Chicago Cubs, who lost to Cincinnati, and the San Francisco Giants, who fell in San Diego.
"We've certainly made it interesting for everybody," Clemens said. "We'll take where we are right now and hope it's enough to get us in the playoffs."
Jeff Bagwell drove in two runs for the Astros and Kent hit his 300th career homer. Clemens was denied his 19th win - and almost certainly a chance at his seventh 20-win season - when he left with the score tied at 4 after the sixth. It was his worst outing in three weeks.
But Bagwell had a run-scoring single in the seventh and Lance Berkman followed with an RBI double to help the Astros eclipse their best home winning streak set in 1980 at the Astrodome.
"It's an electric atmosphere here right now," closer Brad Lidge said. "The fans are as loud as I've ever heard them."
Chad Qualls (4-0) pitched a scoreless seventh for the win, Dan Miceli struck out the side in the eighth and Lidge got three outs for his 27th save in 31 chances.
The Rocket got off to a strong start, retiring the first 10 batters before So Taguchi singled in the fourth.
Roger Cedeno followed with a double to the scoreboard in deep left, driving in Taguchi. Cedeno went to third on the throw and scored on Jose Vizcaino's throwing error to give St. Louis a 2-1 lead.
Scott Rolen, who returned from an injured calf a night before, added a two-run shot in the fifth to tie the game at 4. The homer, Rolen's 34th of the season, nearly went out of the park, hitting the train tracks atop the wall in left-center.
"We were able to get a couple of things going," Rolen said. Clemens "gave us some chances and we weren't able to capitalize."
Clemens left the game after Jim Edmonds flied out to center to end the inning. He isn't scheduled to make another start before the end of the regular season, but has suggested he'd like to pitch in the regular-season finale against Colorado on Sunday.
"I'll be ready to start or do whatever we need me to do," Clemens said.
Kent became the 105th player to reach 300 homers with his second-inning shot off Jeff Suppan. The four-time All-Star joined Tino Martinez, Edgar Martinez, Chipper Jones, Ruben Sierra, Edmonds and Vinny Castilla in reaching that mark this season.
Morgan Ensberg's two-run homer in the fourth was almost stopped by Taguchi, who stuck his glove in the air but just missed the ball as it bounced off the wall and into the right-field seats. Ensberg, who hit only his ninth home run of the season, pumped his fist and let out a yell as he rounded the bases.
Bagwell's RBI double in the fifth gave Houston a 5-4 lead it wouldn't relinquish.
"They have some momentum going," Suppan said. "It was hard to shut them down because they kept fighting back."
Suppan (16-9) went seven innings, allowing six runs on nine hits in his first road loss of the year. The right-hander struck out four and walked one.
Suppan was 10-0 in 13 road starts before Wednesday's game, hoping to join Jimmy Key in 1994 and Greg Maddux in '95 as the only pitchers to go undefeated in a season on the road.
Hours before the game, many Astros gathered around a large TV to watch the final innings of the Reds-Cubs game.
When Cincinnati's Austin Kearns tied the game with a two-out double in the ninth, the Astros' clubhouse erupted with cheers and whoops.
"That pumped us up big-time," Lidge said. "Everyone was thinking, this is it. This is a fantastic opportunity to go up on them."
TITLE: Chelsea Overpower Coach Mourinho's Ex-Team Porto
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON - Jose Mourinho's Chelsea outplayed the team he led to Champions League glory, FC Porto, 3-1 on Wednesday, leaving his former club with a huge task to stay in the competition.
Goals by Alexei Smertin, Didier Drogba and John Terry gave Chelsea its second victory in a row and control of Group H. It left Porto third in the standings with just one point.
Six-time champions AC Milan scored twice in the last two minutes to beat Celtic 3-1 and is tied with Barcelona atop Group F after the Spanish powerhouse beat Shakhtar Donetsk 3-0.
German champion Werder Bremen came from behind to beat Valencia 2-1 after the Spanish champion saw Carlos Marchena ejected early in the second half. With Inter Milan winning 3-1 at Anderlecht to lead Group G, with a maximum six points, Bremen and Valencia are at three.
Rosenborg, Norwegian champion 12 seasons in a row, tied 1-1 with Arsenal, which is atop Group E after Panathinaikos' 1-0 loss at PSV Eindhoven.
At Stamford Bridge, Russian midfielder Aleksei Smertin gave Chelsea a seventh minute lead and Drogba, who scored twice against Paris Saint Germain two weeks ago, made it 2-0 five minutes into the second half.
Substitute Benni McCarthy scored for Porto in the 66th for only the second goal Chelsea has conceded all season, but Terry dived to head home Frank Lampard's free kick four minutes later.
CSKA Moscow won for the first time since the competition became known as the Champions League, 11 years ago, beating PSG 2-0 at home. Its previous results were two ties and four losses.
Deco, signed from Porto in the summer, put Barcelona ahead in the 14th minute against Shakhtar Donetsk. Ronaldinho added the second goal with a penalty kick after he had been brought down by the Ukrainians' goalkeeper. Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o scored the third near the end and Barcelona tops the group on goal difference.
TITLE: Unsuccessful Olympian Rued Failure
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas - In a suicide note made public Wednesday, a former Olympian wrote of being haunted by perceived failures and blamed at least some of them on his wife, whom he is believed to have stabbed to death before killing himself.
"I have worked so hard in this life time [sic] and to fall short on many occasions has been hard," the note written by Robert Howard begins.
Howard, a medical student and 10-time NCAA champion in the long jump and triple jump at the University of Arkansas, was a two-time Olympian who never won a medal. He failed in his third attempt to make the U.S. Olympic team for this year's games.
Howard, 28, jumped from a 10th-floor dormitory room window at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences early on Aug. 8, hours after the Olympics opened in Athens.
Police investigating his death discovered the body of his wife, Dr. Robin Mitchell, in bed at the couple's apartment, covered with a blanket. Mitchell, who was the chief neurosurgery resident at UAMS, had been stabbed numerous times in the head and torso the night before.
Only one sentence in Howard's rambling, handwritten, unsigned suicide note mentions Mitchell: "Robin really screwed my life. She made me feel like I was worthless and could not speak the English language well."
University police, after closing their investigation into Howard's death, released their case file Wednesday. Little Rock police are investigating Mitchell's death, and Sgt. Terry Hastings said officers are awaiting toxicology and forensic test results before closing their case.
"We believe he is the one who killed her. We just have to prove it," Hastings said.
Howard went to the hospital after the slaying, and was first noticed by registered nurse Jack Chris Lafont, who in a statement to police said he told Howard how to open a double door, to which Howard answered, "Oh, OK, thanks."
A short time later, university police - following a trail of blood dripped from several cuts on Howard's hands - found him in a 10th-floor dorm room whose occupant was out of the country.
Officer Johnny Wallace wrote that Howard, "who was covered with blood and was wearing blue hospital scrubs, yelled 'Ya' and came toward us in an aggressive manner." Wallace pulled his gun and ordered him to stop, but Howard pushed him and a fellow officer out of the room and shut the door.
Wallace wrote that he heard the sound of breaking glass, and by the time he got back in the room, Howard had jumped.
Howard was accepted into medical school in 1999. Time off for Olympic training left him two years behind, but he remained in good academic standing. Mitchell, who met Howard in early 2003 and married him that May, was months away from finishing her neurosurgery residency.