SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1014 (81), Friday, October 22, 2004
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TITLE: Smugglers Cheated Taxman
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Federal customs investigators have uncovered a criminal group of inspectors smuggled significant amounts of cargo from Finland into Russia, local media reported this month.
The group that was operating from the Torfyanovka and Brusnichnoye checkpoints located on the Finnish-Russian border about 180 kilometers west of St. Petersburg cost the state about $30 million, said the reports, citing anonymous sources in Northwest customs.
The Northwestern customs service press service would not say how many officials or inspectors were in the group had been fired or sanctioned, but confirmed that at least one had been fired.
Vladimir Vyunov, head of Northwest customs, said Andrei Andreyev, head of the Torfyanovka checkpoint, had lost his job as a result of the investigation.
"Yes, he was fired," Yevgeny Vensko, spokesman for Northwest customs said Wednesday in a telephone interview and declined to comment farther over the phone.
The group set up a whole system to cover up their smuggling, "imitating customs procedures that are determined by the Customs Code to organize the transport of cargo into Russia.
"As a result of forged customs documents, the Northwest customs failed to collect duties from 1,356 cargo trucks in 2003, including 1,221 at the Torfyanovka checkpoint and 135 at the Brusnichnoye border crossing," Delovoi Peterburg reported Oct. 14.
The calculation of monies lost is based on an average customs duty estimated at $25,000 per truck.
The trucks involved in the smuggling belonged to 14 Finnish transport companies and crossed the border at night, carrying shoes, clothing and household electronic equipment, the reports said.
The customs press-service would not name the Finnish companies involved.
SKAL, the Finnish association of truck drivers, could not be reached for comment.
The reports said the investigation has been handed to the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office, but city prosecutors would neither confirm nor deny that they have received any information.
"We are conducting many investigations and we will not comment on this particular investigation until it's finished, if it is being processed at all," said Yelena Ordynskaya, the city prosecutor's office spokeswoman in a telephone interview Wednesday.
The Vyborgskaya customs district, to which the Torfyanovka and Brusnichnoye stations belong, is one of the biggest customs duty collection points in the Northwest region. In September 8.51 billion rubles ($292 million) was collected in duties.
In the first 9 months of this year the Northwest customs transferred 148.3 billion rubles ($5.1 billion) of customs duties to the federal budget, which is 2 percent more than in the previous year.
Konstantin Sharshakov, deputy head of the Northwest branch of the Union for International Truck Transporters, or SMAP, said Finnish trucking firms could have become victims of the criminal group because they do not have enough time and are unable to follow changes in Russian customs law.
"This could be a technological failure of some sort," Sharshakov said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
Russian trucks crossed the Russian-Finnish border 100,000 times in the first nine months of this year, out of a total 250,000 border crossings by trucks in this period, he said.
"We had only 2 incidents with customs documentation," he said. "Both were linked to minor mistakes made when the customs declaration was filled in."
"In the course of our work we have learned to follow quite closely the changes in the legislation and keep consulting our staff about them," Sharshakov said.
But local businessmen dealing regularly with the Customs Service are quite skeptical about technical failures in this case.
"Why is this about some poor inspectors?" a city businessman said on condition of anonymity in a telephone interview Thursday.
"The inspectors are following example of their management, that's all."
"It's as if 10 Nazi soldiers had been caught on a bridge across the Elbe River and sent to the Nuremberg war trial and nobody but them was guilty," he added.
One example of how customs matters can confuse importers is a new regulation to present "hygiene certificates" for each type of imported product with a requirement that one sample of each product be left at the customs post.
The cost of the certificate, which was introduced last week, is 750 rubles ($26), the businessman said.
"We are required to get these hygiene certificates for magazines we deliver to Russia and had to hand over to customs officials a copy of each magazine, which are quite expensive.
I just can imagine what businesses importing jewelry do," he said.
"An absolutely ridiculous picture I saw today was when a guy that delivers electricity generators that weigh five metric tons stood in the customs office gesturing helplessly, asking if he should hand over a sample of his product," the businessman said.
He also had to obtain the hygiene certificate the businessman said.
TITLE: Russia 'Not Worst Baltic Polluter'
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia and St. Petersburg in particular are not to blame for the lion's share of pollution in the Baltic Sea, an expedition into the Gulf of Finland by a ship carrying representatives of the local office of the international environmental organization Green Cross has found.
The Green Cross findings fly in the face of those of other international environmental organizations Bellona, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund that have pointed the finger squarely at Russia and St. Petersburg as heavy polluters.
A boat rented by Green Cross made three journeys between Vyborg and Gogland Island in August and September of this year. The experts explored the coastal area and took a series of water samples.
"We are not saying that everything is perfect," said Yury Shevchuk, chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of Green Cross.
"A tremendous amount of work still has to be done, like, for instance, the treatment of 100 percent of local sewage," he added. "But it would be unfair to ignore the achievements. Otherwise we won't be able to see where the main danger is coming from."
The expedition found that Russia is only the third-largest contributor in the in toxic contamination category, being responsible for 37 percent of copper, 26 percent of lead, 25 percent of cadmium, 22 percent of zinc and 6 percent of mercury in the sea.
Poland appears by far the largest contributor of toxic waste, accounting for 73 percent of mercury, 38 percent of lead, 40 percent of cadmium and 21 percent of zinc, while Sweden holds second place with 32 percent of zinc, 18 percent of copper and 9 percent of lead, according to Green Cross.
Estonia was the No. 4 polluter with 27 percent of copper, 8 percent of mercury, 8 percent of lead and 8 percent of cadmium, the study found.
Green Cross says that Russia is not a big contributor of nitrogen and phosphorus in the Baltic: it is in fourth position, after Poland, Denmark and Sweden.
The report attributes 28 percent of nitrogen and 50 percent of phosphorus in the sea to Poland.
"Yes, Russia's contamination is dominantin the Gulf of Finland but it is wrong to consider this to be the case for the whole Baltic Sea," Shevchuk said.
The series of tests showed that nitrogen and phosphorus contamination grew as the Green Cross boat traveled from Vyborg to Gogland Island.
"If Russia was the main source of this contamination, the picture would have been exactly the opposite," Shevchuk said.
The International Green Cross was established in 1993 on the initiative of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who became the organization's leader.
The St. Petersburg branch of Green Cross is an umbrella group for 70 nongovernmental organizations and business enterprises, including Finnish gas retailer Neste, water utility Vodokanal and water purifying firm Ecotrade.
Expedition participant Yevgenia Litvinova, of the international ecological organization St. Petersburg for a Clean Baltic, said a striking experience during the voyage was the size of algal blooms.
"We were lucky that the weather was cool," she said. "The bloom [that smells unpleasant] was just about bearable, and, most unexpectedly, the further we went from the coast, the greater the bloom was. Around Gogland Island we saw whole fields of green algae in the sea."
The World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace and Bellona have been crying foul for years over the rapid increase in oil shipments in outdated tankers through the Baltic and the tons of untreated sewage routinely discharged into the Gulf of Finland.
Dmitry Artamonov, head of the local branch of Greenpeace, said his organization is unaware of Green Cross's findings. Environmental organizations that collaborate with businesses involved in polluting industries are difficult to trust, he added.
Monitoring and assessment on the state of the Baltic Sea has been carried out by the Baltic Sea states since 1979, as part of the Baltic Monitoring Program within the Helsinki Commission. or Helcom. In addition, all the states on Baltic Sea coast have national monitoring programs. According to Helcom, national submissions of study results for coastal waters have been rather poor.
According to a 2003 report complied by Helcom, Northwest Russia hasn't been able to efficiently tackle environmental problems in the Baltic Sea.
"In 1992 Helcom identified 132 environmental hotspots of which 18 were in Northwest Russia," the report says.
Today 51 of the original 132 hot spots - or 39 percent - have been improved to meet the requirements of Helsinki Commission and deleted from their black list. But so far only one out of 18 Northwest Russian hot spots has been removed from the list.
TITLE: Mention of Prussia Gets Politicians' Backs Up
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russian politicians have given a sharp rebuke to a proposal by German Christian Democrat party deputies to develop the former German province of East Prussia, which was divided up and assigned to Poland, Lithuania and Russia after World War II.
Seventy-one CDU deputies, which is in opposition in Germany, offered to make Russia's Kaliningrad region and its capital Kaliningrad, which for 700 years was the German city of Koenigsberg, a territory with a special status expanding it to the borders of former Eastern Prussia.
The deputies' query was sprinkled with the words "Koenigsberg" and "East Prussia," which are anathema to Russians who consider the territory theirs as part of reparations for damage meted to the Soviet Union by Hitler's armies.
The deputies asked the German government to consider calling the territory Prussia and the government's views of "a joint tourism development of the historical territory of Eastern Prussia by Poland, Russia and Lithuania." The deputies also questioned whether "the extensive military usage of the Kaliningrad region could be an obstacle" for economic development of the region.
The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the CDU initiative, saying the proposal contained "formulations and dilapidated stereotypes that provokes, at least, perplexity and is annoying."
"By its content this is sharply discordant with the consolidation of rapprochement and strengthening of cooperation between Russia and the European Union.
"The fact that this step is undertaken by one of the leading political forces, whose leaders declare their wish to develop cooperation between Russia and Germany, provokes even more concerns," a ministry statement said Oct. 15.
The ministry called on the German government to give "a clear answer to the muscular contractions of the inquiry's authors to ignore historical, internationally legitimate realities and the outcome of postwar agreements in Europe."
The expulsion of the German population from East Prussia in horrific conditions as the Nazi war machine collapsed in 1945 led to many deaths and is a source of bitterness in Germany.
Every now and then this leads to calls for the compensation or restoration of the territory to Germany. The German government has rejected all such pleas.
Cord Meier-Klodt, spokesman for the German embassy in Moscow, on Wednesday said the German government is due to give an answer that may satisfy the Russian Foreign Ministry soon.
"There will be an official answer to the inquiry rather soon, which will be given in a spirit of our consistent position and unchanging goal to develop close and trustful relations between Germany and Russia," Interfax quoted him saying.
"Parliamentary inquiries, such as those about the economic future of the Kaliningrad region, are linked to tools of communication between the government and the parliament in Germany," Meier-Klodt said. "They are widely used by opposition parties to clarify the official position of the government on a variety of questions."
Vladimir Nikitin, speaker of the Kaliningrad region Duma called the German deputies crazy.
"Unfortunately, none of the parliaments of the world can be protected from revanchists and just crazy people being elected as deputies," Strana.ru, the pro-Kremlin information agency, quoted him saying Tuesday. "None of the normal citizens of Kaliningrad would imagine themselves and their fate to be without Russia."
"I believe that instead the German deputies would be better to join forces with Russia in practical programs to provide real economic assistance for the Kaliningrad region since the expansion of the European Union," he said.
One of the strongest opponents of the Kaliningrad government, regional Duma deputy Igor Rudnikov said the reaction to the CDU query was overblown.
"This is simply a blast of hot air, which takes place every year," Rudnikov said Thursday in a telephone interview from Kaliningrad.
"The topics to discuss should be the negotiations between [President Vla-dimir] Putin and [Chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder and problems with the Kaliningrad air force," he said.
" It has been disbanded and no air patrols of the border have been made for a while. It's worth talking about, but nobody does."
TITLE: Borodin Declares That Putin's Power Comes From God
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A former Kremlin official on Tuesday called for a referendum that would allow President Vladimir Putin to run for a third term, saying Russia is ruled by tsars and Putin's power comes from God, radio and TV stations reported.
Putin's spokesman quickly criticized the statement from Pavel Borodin, who is now the head of a loose union of Russia and Belarus, saying it had "nothing in common with reality" - a sign the Kremlin is sensitive about suggestions Putin might seek to stay in power after 2008.
Speaking after a referendum in Belarus on Sunday that scrapped term limits and gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko consent to run again, Borodin said he would strongly support holding a similar plebiscite in Russia, where the constitution bars Putin from ruining for a third term in 2008, Ekho Moskvy radio reported.
"In Russia, as opposed to the West, it is not corporations that rule, but tsars," the radio station quoted Borodin as saying. "The kind of power that Putin and Lukashenko have is given by God."
In a televised comment, Borodin said: "I think a third, a fourth, a fifth term [for Putin] is completely possible." Borodin was head of the Kremlin property department under Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. He is now the state secretary of what Russia and Belarus call their "union state" - a mostly symbolic entity linking the two former Soviet republics.
Putin spokesman Alexei Gromov criticized Borodin's statement in comments read out by an anchor on NTV television, calling him an "international bureaucrat." Gromov said Borodin was expressing a personal opinion that had "nothing in common with reality."
After sweeping elections in December, the Kremlin-controlled United Russia holds a large enough majority in the lower parliament house to initiate constitutional changes, raising the possibility of a bid to keep the popular Putin in power after his second term expires in 2008.
Putin has said he will not seek constitutional changes to stay in power, but observers are skeptical. Gromov's remarks indicate the Kremlin, under fire from critics at home and abroad who say Putin is sacrificing democracy as he tightens control over Russia, is sensitive about suggestions that he would seek to stay on.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Pumane Recognized
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The girlfriend of Alexander Pumane, a car bomb suspect from Pushkin outside St. Petersburg who died Sept. 18 in Moscow after apparently being beaten in police custody, has identified him on a videotape that shows him being carried on a stretcher from a police precinct.
Ksenia Vologdina told NTV television in a telephone interview that she recognized her boyfriend.
NTV on Monday aired amateur footage of a man, said to be Pumane, lying still on a stretcher with his mouth bandaged while doctors and men in civilian clothes rushed him to an ambulance. Pumane's former wife has said the body shown to her for identification in a Moscow morgue was not Pumane's.
Award for Yavlinsky
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky was awarded the International Prize for Freedom at a special ceremony in Berlin on Monday, Interfax reported.
Yabloko's press service said Yavlinsky was nominated for the prize in June 2003, by the Liberals, Democrats and Reformers faction of the Council of Europe.
Activist Attacked
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Maria Drachenko, an activist in the St. Petersburg branch of Sovest, or Conscience, which supports former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, intends to ask prosecutors to investigate an arson attack on her apartment on Monday night, Ekho Moskvy reported Wednesday.
Drachenko was in the apartment with her daughter when the attack occurred. They extinguished the fire before emergency services arrived.
Drachenko linked the attack to her political activities.
Ex-District Boss Jailed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The city court has sentenced Vladimir Yarmin, the former head of the city's Kirov district, to a year inside a prison colony, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Yarmin has already spent 11 months in pre-trial detention and will only have to serve a month in the colony.
His conviction related to him using his administrative authority to create conditions under which he would get paid a large bribe, the report said.
Vice-Governor Charged
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Former St. Petersburg vice-governor Viktor Krotov has been charged with exceeding his authority.
The investigation said Krotov, who was the head of the city's finance committee caused the city budget a loss of $1,482,000, Interfax reported Tuesday.
TITLE: Half of City Men Die Before Pension Age
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Every second St. Petersburg man dies before reaching the official retirement age of 60, city doctors say.
"In Russia, among the working-age population, 3.3 men die for every woman that dies," Vitaly Dorofeyev, head of information and analytical center of the St. Petersburg Health Committee, said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
The health of St. Petersburg men isn't significantly worse than that of males in other parts of the country, he said.
The No. 1 killer of St. Petersburg men and women is heart and circulation problems. However, young men tend to die violently, either in car accidents, murders or from poisoning, including alcohol poisoning, Dorofeyev said.
Cancer is the next most frequent cause of death. This picture is slightly different to that for the country as a whole.
Margarita Repina, vice-president of the St. Petersburg Association of Gynecologists, said more than 60 percent of deaths in Russia are due to heart and ciculatory diseases, Fontanka.ru reported Monday.
Seventeen percent of deaths are from cancer, and 11 percent due to traumas, accidents, and poisoning.
Repina said that in Russia car accidents kill 20 times more often than in Europe: in Russia 100 car accidents in average kill 14 people, while in Europe the same amount of car accidents kills only one or two people.
The high road death toll can be explained by poor driving standards and ignorance about first aid, she added.
Dorofeyev said the high mortality rate among Russian men of working age is caused by many reasons.
One of the main factors is the unstable economy, which causes lots of stress and makes people work much more than they should.
He said average male lifespan peaked in 1986-87 at 65.8 years. It fell to 58 years in 1993-94. In 2003 it was 60.6 years. Dorofeyev said the peak in longevity in 1987 was partly due by Mikhail Gorbachov's anti-alcohol campaign.
In 2002 the mortality rate of St. Petersburg men was 41 percent higher than in 1990, he said. Dorofeyev said more people are dying than being born in St. Petersburg, and the same is true for the rest of the country.
In the first quarter of 2004 there were almost double the number of deaths as births in St. Petersburg, with 9,800 children being born and 18,900 people dying. Until 1990, the birth rate in St. Petersburg had been higher than the death rate. By 2003 only 8.7 children were born per 1,000 St. Petersburgers, while 16.7 people out of every 1,000 died, he said.
Dorofeyev partly attributed the low birth rate to people waiting for better times. "This phenomenon is called 'postponed delivery', when people delay giving birth to children until the situation stabilizes,' he said.
A consequence of this may be that Russia will have a baby boom, because people can't wait forever, he added. Boris Novikov, head gynecologist of St. Petersburg, said that for the last four years the birth rate has been rising in the city.
In 1999, only 32,000 children were born but by last year the number had jumped to 42,000, he said by telephone on Wednesday.
Dorofeyev said that at 40 the average age of St. Petersburgers is a little above the national average of 38. Repina said Europe's population is aging as a result of its low birth rate.
Sweden is compensating for its low birth rate by adopting children from developing countries, she said.
Swedes don't give birth to children because they build their careers, or because by the time they have completed their careers it's too late for them to bear children, she said.
TITLE: Belarus Rues U.S. Move
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MINSK - Belarus said Thursday that it regretted U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to sign a law that slaps economic sanctions on the ex-Soviet republic, calling it an 'unfriendly step.
The U.S. Belarus Democracy Act calls for the promotion of democracy in this nation of 10 million by supplying aid to nongovernment organizations, helping to establish an independent media and forbidding U.S. federal agencies from rendering any financial aid to Belarus. Bush signed it into law Wednesday.
The recent activity of the U.S. administration has made it all the more clear that the aim is to aggravate relations with Belarus, said Andrei Savinykh, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.
He said the act was reminiscent of the confrontational Cold War approach. "It's an openly unfriendly step that cannot give rise to anything but deep regrets," Savinykh said.
But Savinykh said that the act primarily had a "declarative character" and Minsk wasn't overly concerned about any economic fallout.
Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly lashed out at the West for attempting to meddle in his country's affairs.
Anti-West rhetoric played a major role in last Sunday's referendum, which gave Lukashenko the right to run for president indefinitely.
The referendum has been widely criticized by independent pollsters and neighboring states in Eastern Europe as fraudulent, and it has sparked nightly street protests by students against the 10-year rule of the man branded Europe's last dictator.
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A journalist working for an opposition newspaper was killed in her home in the Belarusian capital Minsk, her family said Thursday.
Veronika Cherkasova, 44, had worked in Belarus' independent media for the past 15 years. She wrote most recently for the newspaper Solidarnost, which she joined in May 2003.
Cherkasova's stepfather, Vladimir Melezhko, discovered her body Wednesday night after she failed to show up for work or answer the telephone. She had multiple stab wounds around her throat.
TITLE: Names for New Bridge Sought
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A public contest has been announced to name a new bridge across the Neva River, the first that will not have to raised for ships to pass, that is to open next month.
City Hall's naming commission was on Monday unable to decide between four options presented - the Nevsky Bridge, the Nevsky Suspension Bridge, the Okruzhnoi and the Bolshoi Obukhodsky. Local media reported that each option had its supporters, but no majority of the commission was reached for any one.
Another complication raised by committee chairman Sergei Tarasov was that another suspension bridge is planned in St. Petersburg in the near future, local media reported.
The commission will consider all suggestions and then opt for one, the reports said.
Completed in June, the bridge is to form an important part of the Ring Road around the city that is designed to clear the inner city of much traffic.
At three kilometers long, the new bridge in the southeast near the Murmansk highway is the longest in the city.
The commission did agree on naming several other parts of the city, with late St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak to be honored by the naming a square in from of the Kirov House of Culture on Vasilevsky Island after him. The naming of the square fulfills an order by President Vladimir Putin, who was Sobchak's deputy in the early 1990s.
TITLE: 3 Detained for Irkutsk Murders
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Three suspects have been detained in two Siberian cities in connection with last month's murder of two campaign workers for the nationalist-populist Rodina party in Irkutsk, authorities said Tuesday.
Irkutsk regional deputy prosecutor Igor Melnikov told Itar-Tass that two suspects had been arrested in Irkutsk and one in Omsk, and they were being questioned about the Sept. 27 slaying of Marina Marakhovskaya and former St. Petersburg journalist Yan Travinsky, who were working for Rodina during the run-up to regional legislative elections earlier this month.
Marakhovskaya and Travinsky were shot dead by an unidentified gunman outside of Marakhovskaya's apartment.
"At the moment investigators are interrogating the suspect in Omsk," Melnikov was quoted as saying. "By Wednesday it will be decided whether to release them, and we will have 10 days to decide whether to charge them."
Melnikov offered no leads on a possible motive behind the killings. Prosecutors in Irkutsk and Omsk could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Immediately following the killings, Rodina leader Dmitry Rogozin called them political and said people with links to the local authorities may be interested in sidelining the party.
Rogozin echoed this sentiment in a statement posted on the party's web site Tuesday. "If the criminals aren't found, then all of us will be shot trying to reveal information about the relationship between the authorities and criminals," Rogozin said in the statement.
"Finding the killers is a question of honor. The crime will be solved."
Rogozin added that Rodina was conducting its own investigation into the murders.
TITLE: Inquiry Urged Into Soldiers' Mothers
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - State Duma Deputy Viktor Alksnis accused the respected Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committees on Wednesday of being "a foreign agent" seeking to undermine the defense capability of the armed forces and said he will demand a federal investigation.
"They are fulfilling political orders from Western countries. ... Maybe they should register as agents of a foreign state," Alksnis, a member of the nationalist Rodina party, said by telephone.
The union's chairwoman, Valentina Melnikova, denied Alksnis' accusations.
Soldiers' Mothers assists young men who do not want to serve in the military or conscripts who have fled to escape hazing.
The union oversees a network of regional nongovernmental organizations that have provided legal advice and other assistance to conscripts for 13 years.
Alksnis, a retired Air Force officer, suggested that foreign donors are pressing the union to encourage draft-dodging and desertions, and said that he will soon send a letter to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Justice Ministry asking that they open an inquiry.
Alksnis also accused the union of violating a law on political parties that bans them from accepting foreign donations.
The union is helping form a political party called the United People's Party of Soldiers' Mothers, and the party's organizing committee has filed registration papers with the Justice Ministry, Melnikova said. The party plans to hold a founding congress in November.
Melnikova said, however, that the nascent party has not, and will not, accept foreign contributions. She added that the party will "have nothing to do" with the union.
She said the union serves as an umbrella organization for Soldiers' Mothers committees in the regions, as well as for informal branch offices that are not officially registered.
In total, 3,000 activists are involved in the organization, and all of them work as unpaid volunteers, Melnikova said.
Melnikova said the European Commission awarded a 40,000 euro ($50,100) grant to one regional committee last year, and another received a similar grant from the European Commission this year.
She refused to say how much money the committees have received this year from Russian and foreign sources.
Alksnis said he will ask that prosecutors and Justice Ministry officials check the organization's books to see whether all grants are reported and whether "thousands of their so-called public activists" do indeed work as unpaid volunteers.
While initially focusing on conscripts, the Soldiers' Mothers union has gradually started to weigh in on political issues. Its most recent initiative was to urge Chechen rebels to enter peace talks with Moscow.
The rebels' envoy in London, Akhmed Zakayev, said Wednesday that he is accepting the offer.
Melnikova said the Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committees will now prepare for a meeting with rebel representatives.
TITLE: Kommersant Ordered to Pay Alfa Bank $11M
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Moscow Arbitration Court on Wednesday ordered Kommersant's publisher to pay $11 million to Alfa Bank for a report about "serious problems" at the bank during last summer's small banking crisis.
Alfa, the country's largest commercial bank and part of Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group empire, claimed the July 7 report in Kommersant caused its business to suffer and asked for 321 million rubles ($11.7 million) in damages, which the court reduced slightly.
Andrei Vasiliyev, general director of the Kommersant publishing house, said the lawsuit has nothing to do with the report and accused Fridman of trying to bankrupt the newspaper because owner Boris Berezovsky refused to sell it to him.
He said Kommersant has enough money to pay the court-ordered damages but that the newspaper stands by the report and will appeal.
Berezovsky, an outspoken opponent of President Vladimir Putin whom Moscow wants on fraud charges, denounced the ruling as an attempt to shut down the independent press.
"If Fridman was really thinking of Russia's future, how would it be possible for him to pick a fight with a newspaper that is one of the only two or three independent media outlets left?" Berezovsky said by telephone from London, where he lives after a British court granted him asylum.
Berezovsky said the lawsuit was probably prompted by factors such as a desire to curry favor with the Kremlin and even more personal issues such as Fridman's dislike of photographs that Kommersant has published of him.
Alfa Bank spokesman Stanislav Ismagilov insisted that the suit was only an attempt to teach the media to be "responsible."
Alfa Bank vice president Alexander Gafin said Alfa "has no intention to buy or destroy the newspaper," Interfax reported. "The amount that we are demanding isn't that critical for the owners, and they are able to pay it."
Vasiliyev defended the July 7 report as "just a gloomy report about what was happening during the day of July 6 around an Alfa Bank office," Interfax reported. The report described a line of Alfa customers at a cash machine.
Boris Reznik, deputy chairman of the State Duma's Information Policy Committee, called the ruling "an absolutely wrong decision."
"I think it's just an attempt to destroy an unwanted brand," he said, Interfax reported. "Even if Kommersant is guilty of something, which I strongly doubt, the amount of the award is too large."
Kommersant has an annual turnover of more than $50 million, Vasiliyev said.
"It is not possible to make us go broke because Kommersant has a lot of money and our shareholders are rich people," Vasiliyev said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
Igor Yakovenko, head of the Russian Union of Journalists, said Kommersant's reporters had just done their jobs, Interfax said.
Staff Writer Valeria Korchagina contributed to this report.
TITLE: Millions of State Workers Protest Over Their Salaries
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Frustrated with meager salaries that have not kept pace with inflation, millions of teachers, doctors and other state employees rallied Wednesday across the country to demand higher wages, union leaders said.
Unions expected some 3 million people would rally nationwide, and that another 1 million would hold short warning strikes, Mikhail Kuzmenko, president of Russia's nonindustrial labor unions, said last week.
The unions said they would only be able on Thursday to give total estimates for participation in the rallies. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying that turnout was not particularly high - suggesting the government was not too worried about the protest widening.
State-employed doctors, teachers and cultural workers - such as librarians and museum employees - are demanding a 50 percent increase this year on monthly wages, which currently range from 3,000 to 4,000 rubles ($100 to $150). They also want further raises next year.
Government officials said they were working with unions on pay-raise agreements.
Zhukov told State Duma deputies on Wednesday that the government would aim for average wage hikes of 30 percent to 50 percent, but that they would not start until 2005, Itar-Tass reported.
"In my school, more than 90 percent of the teachers have to work elsewhere in order just to physically survive," Sergei Vorobyov, a teacher in the central town of Voronezh, told NTV television.
Another Voronezh teacher, Galina Maslova, told NTV she was forced to moonlight as a street cleaner to pay for her three children.
"I know doctors in our apartment building who sweep floors before going to work," she said.
In Rostov-on-Don, about 1,000 students and teachers gathered with banners bearing such slogans as, "A hungry student is a danger to society," and, "The sated State Duma doesn't think about teachers."
"We can't live and teach children on credit. Teachers have always been respected in Russia, but now we are simply stomped into the mud. We've been turned into captives of the lowest wages," middle school teacher Maria Fedotova said.
About 300 teachers rallied in Vladivostok, where schools opened and closed early to allow participation in the protest, NTV reported.
In Moscow, strikers gathered near the White House for a rally that was to last most of the day, with rotating groups of 700 arriving each hour.
TITLE: U.S. Fears a Cheap, Forced Yugansk Sale
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The United States has said it is concerned about reports that the main asset of beleaguered Russian oil giant Yukos might be sold at a price below its fair market value. The Russian government plans to auction Yuganskneftegaz next month to raise cash to meet Yukos' crippling tax bills.
"The reason we care is because a sale at less than fair market value constitutes, first of all ... one has to assume there's some element of coercion or a forced sale involved," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters this week.
"And, second of all, if sales are not made in the open market at fair market value, one has to assume there's an element of favoritism as well, and that affects people's view of the business climate."
During a visit to Washington on Tuesday, a defense lawyer for imprisoned former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky said the legal attack on the oil major reflected anti-democratic trends under President Vladimir Putin.
"He was a spy, and he remains a member of the intelligence community," Yury Shmidt said in an interview amid meetings at the State Department and with members of Congress.
With a smile, Shmidt questioned U.S. President George W. Bush's conclusion, after a meeting with Putin in 2001, that "I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country."
"I know Putin well personally," Shmidt said. "He knows how to speak well, and he knows very well how to hide his true intentions."
Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint a year ago and remains in jail while the state prepares to auction the crucial production unit of Yukos. Shmidt insisted the case against him was purely political.
"What we are up against is the full and entire machinery of the government," said the one-time Soviet dissident human rights activist. And, Shmidt said, the case is part of a larger process by Putin to throttle political opponents. "If they had any sense, there would be a fair trial, with an independent court, and we would not be here now," Shmidt said in an interview in the State Department lobby.
Trade in ruble shares of Yukos was suspended for an hour on Wednesday, the MICEX said, after shares dived by 14 percent as the firm seemed destined to lose its key assets. Trade was halted at 6.15 p.m. and was due to resumed Thursday. The shares stopped trading at 93.99 rubles. Yukos' dollar shares closed 21.7 percent lower at $3.25.
Surgutneftegaz is not now considering whether to bid for Yuganskneftegaz, Interfax reported, citing Surgut chief executive Vladimir Bogdanov. "We are not yet considering the question," he told reporters. "No one is selling yet."
(Reuters, AP, Bloomberg)
TITLE: LUKoil Eyes Share Sale
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: The head of oil major LUKoil, Vagit Alekperov, said Wednesday he expected U.S. oil firm ConocoPhillips to boost its share in the Russian company to 10 percent by the year end as planned.
"There is such an agreement," he told journalists during a visit to the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas.
"We have 11 people on the board, and for Conoco to have a member, it has to raise its share to 10 percent."
Conoco formed a strategic alliance with LUKoil, in which it holds 7.6 percent, in early October, and pledged to raise its stake to 10 percent this year and boost it to 20 percent over the next two or three years. But an attempt to buy shares on the market failed earlier this month because the price it offered was too low.
Alekperov said he expected Conoco to raise its stake by buying shares on the market, as no major shareholders were planning to sell a stake.
He added that LUKoil would invest $40 million into an environmental upgrade of its Bulgarian refining unit Neftochim Burgas, and said that amount would rise to $400 million by 2012.
LUKoil, Russia's biggest oil producer, will adjust a $25 billion plan to raise crude and gas production by 2014, Bloomberg reported.
The Moscow-based company's board will meet Friday in Odessa to discuss a "strategic development program" for 2005 to 2014, LUKoil said in a statement.
The directors also will review investments planned for next year and LUKoil's refining and marketing projects abroad.
"The situation is changing," Dmitry Dolgov, a LUKoil spokesman, said. "The company is expanding the geography of its business."
In February LUKoil said it planned to raise oil output 35 percent to as much 2.2 million barrels a day by 2013. The company also then said it may raise natural gas extraction sevenfold to 40 billion cubic meters a year by 2013, becoming Russia's No. 2 gas producer after state-controlled Gazprom.
The company's development program to 2014 will be a reworking of the 10-year plan approved in February, Dolgov said.
He declined to comment on the potential role of ConocoPhillips in the new program.
(Reuters, Bloomberg)
TITLE: Will the Real Phaeton Please Stand Up?
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Faeton, the second largest gas station chain in the city, has launched a massive legal attack against German car manufacturer Volkswagen AG and its Russian subsidiaries for VW's use of the Phaeton name on its W12 and V6 luxury-class models.
At the same time Volkswagen AG has launched a parallel case against Rospatent (the federal agency for patents and trademarks) criticizing the agency's almost two-year delay in answering VW's request for the Phaeton trademark.
Although, in both the Russian and the Latin spellings, Phaeton has been registered by the gas station chain since 1997, the trademark had not been used in the twelfth "non-rail transport" patent category that also includes cars, prompting Volkswagen to ask Rospatent for the rights to the trademark.
"The rospatent committee twice made the decision to cancel Faeton's rights to the name in the twelfth category, but the head of the agency did not sign the decision both times, which makes no sense," said Ulianna Tabastayeva, a lawyer at Noerr Stiefenhofer Lutz, the legal company representing Volkswagen AG in Russia. "Right now, decisions is pending as the committee considers it for the third time on Friday. This is very atypical behavior [for Rospatent]," she said.
No one at Rospatent was available for comment Thursday.
Meanwhile, Faeton said that it aims to stop the sales of VW's Phaeton model in Russia completely, unless the gas chain and the German manufacturer can come to a "reasonable compromise."
"In my opinion, we have not incurred any damages from the use of the trademark name, but we want to receive compensation [for its use]," the head of Faeton holding company, Sergei Snopok, told media this week.
So far, the St. Petersburg Arbitration Court has passed on the decision to stop the sales of the Phaeton model and furthermore have 2.5 million rubles paid to Faeton as compensation by the city's VW dealerships, Sigma Motors.
Faeton said it will pass the decision onto Federal Customs in order to stop imports of the model.
Volkswagen insists the court's decision was made with serious procedural flaws and said it has filed an appeal at the Federal Court of the Northwest region.
"Volkswagen AG and Noerr Stie-fenhofer Lutz were not even informed when the court case would take place, and the [St. Petersburg] decision was made in their absence," said Tabastayeva.
Sigma Motors director Pavel Gromov confirmed that the dealership has stopped selling the models since the controversy around them began.
"The ban has not significantly affected our profits, " said he when asked about potential losses.
Besides initiating the court case against Sigma Motors and Volkswagen AG in St. Petersburg, Faeton has also filed a case at the Moscow Arbitration Court against Volkswagen Group Russ, attempting to prove the similarities of its trademark with VW's brand.
The first court session in the Moscow case took place on Tuesday, this time with all the sides present. "It was a long 4-hour session. Our demands for further proofs were satisfied and current questions discussed," said Group Russ legal department expert Andrei Sizykh, adding that he cannot comment further due to case-in-process confidentiality.
TITLE: Why Russia and the EU Need Each Other
TEXT: Will Russia and the European Union build a lasting, productive partnership or will our relationship be based on short-term benefit only? That is a question to which there is only one sensible answer. We will be building a partnership that can weather the storms of the 21st century.
We are bound by geography and a common cultural heritage of which Pushkin, Shostakovich and Malevich form an inalienable part. And we are also bound by the absence of a credible alternative. Globalization and a wide range of new threats and challenges dictate an agenda that no serious international player can handle alone.
The EU sees Russia as a major power with an instrumental role in securing international peace and stability. We share a common neighborhood with many unstable areas. And that makes Russia an indispensable partner in any effort to stem the flow of drugs, small arms and human beings illegally trafficked into the EU from and through these areas.
But Russia also needs the EU. The EU and its member states represent more than 455 million citizens and have a combined GDP of 10 trillion euros. Politically, too, the EU is growing up. Every one of our common foreign and security policy crises has heightened our resolve to improve our performance.
Like Russia, the EU believes in an effective multilateral system with a strong United Nations at its core in which political conduct is subject to the rule of law. One might argue that, despite a sometimes uneasy relationship, Russia and the EU share a world view. A closer look at some of the major issues we all feel are important may help us to understand why we need each other.
To start with, the campaign against terrorism unites all civilized societies, and this of course includes Russia and the European Union. In order to prevent another New York, Bali, Casablanca, Madrid or Beslan, the EU member states have taken measures to strengthen their anti-terrorist efforts.
We would like to enlarge the picture by improving our cooperation with Russia as we have done with the United States. The EU and Russia should intensify their information exchange and join forces to disrupt the financial infrastructure of terrorist movements.
At the same time, we should acknowledge that an effective campaign against the disease of terrorism is a campaign that fights both the underlying infection and its effects. Although terrorism may display a global pattern, its causes are often local.
President Vladimir Putin put his finger on the sore spot when he declared that the roots of terror in the North Caucasus "also lie in the mass unemployment that remains in the region, in the lack of effective social policies, in the low level of education of the young generation and even the lack of opportunity to receive education." Russia and the European Union are already strong partners in another crucial area - the economy. Half of Russia's foreign trade is with the EU, and the EU and its member states are by far the most important source of foreign direct investment in Russia.
A prosperous, modern Russia is good for the European Union. Prosperity and modernity in Russia mean more trade, more investment, more innovation and less environmental pollution. That is why the EU has offered Russia "most favored nation" status, which ensures that Russia's exports benefit from the lowest available EU tariff. This tariff reduction means a direct benefit of 300 million euros per year to Russia.
That is also why the EU has consistently supported Russia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization and applauded the Russian government's decision to put the Kyoto Protocol up for ratification by the State Duma.
We hope that Russia will soon ratify the protocol, and, in so doing, make an important contribution to sustainable development across the globe.
Having said this, I would add that Russia needs to improve its investment climate because the country is again suffering from capital flight and because potential European investors are holding back.
They complain that registration regulations are too complicated, that their property rights are not being adequately protected, and that they are subjected to higher fees for state services than Russian companies.
Which brings me to a third area of mutual concern - democracy and the rule of law. A Russian legislator visiting the EU was recently quoted as saying that "too much democracy can be bad for you." Such a comment makes me wonder whether the EU is being clear enough when it makes its case for democracy. A popular vote alone is of course no guarantee of good governance.
The fact that Socrates was sentenced to death by a majority of the Athenian electorate does not make his sentence morally sound. When Europeans speak of democracy, they mean democracy and the rule of law. One without the other does not work.
Many parliaments in the European Union have expressed their concern that, in its fight against terrorism, Russia is in fact sacrificing that precious combination of democracy and the rule of law. Perhaps Europeans do not understand the complexities of governing a country as large as Russia.
Still, in all fairness, I should point out that Russian politicians also criticize the EU, which they say is difficult to understand, bureaucratic and arrogant. We Europeans must take such criticism seriously.
All this underscores the urgent need to invest more - not less - in one another. Cultural exchanges and greater academic mobility offer a way of getting to know each other better. The EU and its member states have already offered hundreds of Russian students access to European universities.
We should make it easier to compare university degrees and should promote scientific cooperation.
And, in a similar vein, we could develop exchange programs for filmmakers and artists.
A productive partnership demands mutual respect, tolerance and a willingness to make a serious investment in our relationship. Turgenev once said that "if we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never begin." Let us heed that warning and get down to business.
Bernard Bot is the Dutch foreign minister and president of the EU Council of Ministers. A Russian-language version of this comment appeared Monday in Izvestia.
TITLE: Out of Africa
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The audience are static and silent, absorbed by the puzzling performance on the stage. A few whispers can be heard here and there as spectators try to figure out what is behind the exotic dances they are watching, dances seemingly based on unfamiliar themes.
"It's the revelation of a mysterious part of Africa yet to be discovered by most average Russians," a man with a painted face, dressed in a grass skirt, holding a spear in one hand and a shield in the other announces in fluent Russian shortly after the performance.
The man in the costume is Valens Maniragena, 40, an information technology lecturer at the St. Petersburg State Electro-Technical University originally from Rwanda.
He had been on stage with 11 other dancers from the central African nation in a performance given on Freshman's Day for the university's students and professors.
The 12-member dance troupe Intore (meaning "The Elect" in Kinyarwanda, a Bantu language of sub-Saharan Africa) has been performing in various venues across Russia for the past eight years. The group's members see themselves as African cultural ambassadors to Russia.
Intore has regularly performed in the city's "Multinational Petersburg" and "Hand in Hand" spring festivals; they are also regular entertainers at the city's Red Cross functions, Federal Migration Services events and even events organized by the United Nation's High Commission for Refugees in Russia. But the group is also a professional troupe and performs in city restaurants and other places willing to pay for their colorful and intriguing shows.
"As dancers and actors we feel our mission has been a success when we see mixed reactions, from puzzlement to joy, in response to our performances," says Maniragena. "The atmosphere we create on stage is not what Russian concert-goers are used to."
The dancers do not sing, but respond to drum beats with discipline and uniformity, and their precision is reminiscent of the European traditional ballet.
Performances of Inkha and Isuka (dances representing cattle rearing and farming, occupations typical of peacetime Rwanda) nearly always raise a smile, but facial expressions change to horror when the entertainers begin to fight each other. The fight seems real.
The war dances refer indirectly to tribal hatred between the Tutsi and Hutu peoples which led to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and which brought this group of Africans to Russia. The Ingarama dance is enough to make a nervous spectator tremble.
The chronological sequence of the dances in the repertoire is designed partly to portray the recent tragic history of the performers' native country.
Peaceful Inkha and Isuka dances are interrupted in the middle by the battle-like Ingarama dance, which evokes a nation at war.
But the Inganji dance portrays a happy ending marked by victory ceremonies with women and children. "That's why we need female performers in our group," says Maniragena.
The return to peace is shown in the depiction of everyday activities in the amanjembere and inyange dances, which are dominated by dove-like movements. These dances are performed by couples to symbolize harmony in the family.
The program ends with the mihimisha urubirugo dance celebrating children. Maniragena says that celebrating the life of children also symbolizes everlasting peace and a bright future for generations to come.
However, Maniragena says, depending on who in the group is performing for, Intore occasionally goes beyond a superficial expression of the theme of war and peace by introducing dances portraying the detailed secrets of Rwandan domestic traditions. These include luring a bride, marriage proposals that involve negotiations between the two families, dowry customs usually involving provision of herds of cattle to the bride's family, and even divorce regulations and burial ceremonies.
In dances relating to marriage customs, a female performer must be able to weep and smile at the same time to portray the paradoxical feelings of a traditional bride, "an ignorant virgin, scared but happy to be taken away for a new independent life; but also hysterical at leaving their old company and parental care," as Maniragena puts it.
But for Africans living in Russia, where racially motivated hate crimes have increased in recent years and where racial prejudice is commonplace, there is more to Intore's dances than tribal conflict.
"Our performance tells the whole story..." says Maniragena. "It is a guide to life at home - and to our life and history in this country, for those who stop to contemplate our dances."
Like most of his fellow dancers, Maniragena is a Rwandan who had studied in the Soviet Union, married a Russian woman and returned to Rwanda with her after completion of his studies in 1991. When Russia evacuated its citizens - including Maniragena's wife and children - following the 1994 genocide, Maniragena also returned. He says other Soviet-trained scholars also tried to find refuge in Russia from the carnage, in which 800,000 people were massacred in a matter of weeks, but were turned away because they didn't have sufficient legal ties to the country, such as being married to a Russian citizen.
However, unlike some asylum seekers who saw Russia, itself an unstable country in 1994, as a half-way station or Icumbe - a "traveler's night shelter" in Kinyarwanda - to the west, Maniragena stayed put because he had a deep conviction that the civil war in his native country would be soon over and he could return home.
But ten years later his dream to return remains unfulfilled as war and instability continue to stalk Rwanda, says Maniragena. A traveler's night shelter has turned into a lifelong home for Maniragena, and he says he would fear for the security of his children were he to return home to Rwanda with them.
However Maniragena describes the first seven years of his new life in St. Petersburg as "hellish" for himself and more than 50 fellow Rwandans that fate brought to the city. Maniragena says, "We felt like people who had jumped from the fire back into the frying pan."
The Rwandans found it difficult to make ends meet. They were refused work almost everywhere, "simply because we were regarded as alien, and incompetent but denied opportunity to show what we were capable of," says Maniragena.
Maniragena had been a lecturer at three institutes in Rwanda, but it was only in 2001 - seven years after he fled the genocide - that the scholar secured a job at the St. Petersburg Electro-Technical University.
As asylum seekers from Africa, "we were not only met with frowns by a portion of the general public and employers but also by the providers of 'life-saving papers' in the bureaucracy," says Maniragena, adding with considerable understatement that "in fact, in its socio-political transition [after the collapse of the Soviet Union] Russia was unprepared to smile on newcomers, especially from faraway Africa."
It was against this background of woes that Maniragena and his fellow asylum seekers in St. Petersburg formed an organization to defend their rights in 1996. It's known as Icumbe, the travelers night shelter. The dance troupe Intore was formed later the same year because its members believed that the near-hostile welcome they endured in the city was due in part to Russians' general lack of knowledge about African culture. The group is also a way for its members to earn money while preserving their traditions.
"We look at dancing as a way of integrating ourselves with Russian society and a psychological communication with our homeland," says Maniragena. "But it is also a way to preserve our culture by reminding our children of their paternal traditional values."
Depending on the type of dance, dancers are either dressed in grass-skirts with ritual make-up or tribal costumes of various colors with or without face paint. Every movement they make including leaps, jumps - in some cases carrying hoes, spears and shields - is a guide to Rwandan society, which, according to Maniragena, mirrors traditional life throughout Africa.
It is no coincidence, says Maniragena, that the group chose the name Intore. "We sincerely believe we are 'The Elect' by virtue of being both Rwandan tribal warriors and traditional African emissaries to Russia," he says.
Some of the dances in its repertoire are usually performed by revered members of the community in Rwanda and performed only on special occasions.
"But in our case, we're self-styled messengers - the elect."
TITLE: All that glisters...
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A rendition of "Don Juan" by Bulgarian director Alexander Morfov at the Komissarzhevskaya Theater swept five awards at the Golden Sofit, the city's top theatrical awards ceremony this week.
The Golden Sofit was awarded in 15 categories this year. "Don Juan" received prizes for best direction, best large scale production, best sets (Alexander Orlov), best costumes (Irina Cherednikova) and best ensemble (Alexander Bargman and Vladimir Bogdanov).
The Golden Sofit was established ten years ago. Its jury's decisions, which are notoriously conservative, sometimes elicit mixed recations. Often the choice of winners for the local prize clashes with those made when awarding Golden Masks, the top national theater awards.
Alisa Freindlikh took the prize for the best female character for the role of Jester Feste in Grigory Dityatkovsly's staging of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night."
Freindlikh, the most popular of all nominees owing to her film roles in popular favorites such as Eldar Ryazanov's "Office Romance" received her prize with a short and bitter speech.
"This production has been slagged off by so many people that I regard this prize as some kind of apologetic gesture," she said. "And I am pleased to announce that we have been brave enough to continue developing and growing within this show, despite all the flack."
Dityatkovsky's "Twelfth Night" was perhaps the most controversial item on the Golden Sofit menu. While strongly criticized for being tedious by a number of reviewers, it was praised for depth and sophistication by others.
"The audience often leaves during the interval so it is definitely not a popular production," said theater critic Tatyana Troyanskaya of the local office of Ekho Moskvy radio. "The major problem with this show, in my opinion, is that it is lacks the cheerful, Christmas mood created by Shakespeare."
In the best director category, Dityatkovsky competed with Alexander Morfov, responsible for "Don Juan" at the Komissarzhevskaya Theater and Andrei Moguchy, director of "Pro Turandot" at Priyut Komedianta Theater.
The jury's torments over the best director award were best reflected by an excerpted scene staged before the announcement. The Bolshoi Drama Theater actor Sergei Losev portrayed Agafia Tikhonovna, the main character in Gogol's "Marriage" with convincing restlessness. In quoting the play sly references were made: "Oh, one is so intellectual," the character says - a reference to Dityatkovsky - "but the other one has got a stunning imagination," - Morfov - "the third candidate captivates with his hot temperament," - Moguchy. The jury voted for the imagination.
Prominent theater critic Tatyana Tkach pointed out that, typically for the Golden Sofit, political decisions are often interwoven with artistic ones.
"Alexander Morfov's win is obvious, and can't be questioned," she said. "But placing Moguchy's 'Pro Turandot' in the chamber stage category when it is not a small-stage production, was obviously a trick to give him a prize, because in the large-stage category 'Don Juan' was the undoubted favorite."
Morfov's impressive haul is a vote of confidence from the local theatrical elite. The director became principal director of the Komissarzhevskaya Drama Theater this fall.
As usual, the Golden Sofit awards recognized milestones in the theater world this year.
Alisa Freindlikh celebrates her 70th birthday in December, and the Akimov Comedy Theater turns 75 this year - giving the theater's Mikhail Razumovsky the prize for the best actor was seen by some experts as a tribute to the anniversary.
Other decisions left some scratching their heads.
"The Puppet theater Potudan received an award for the best show but this particular production was produced without puppets," Tkach said. "This decision was nonsense."
The Mariinsky Theater took a number of prizes in the musical theater category (which includes opera and ballet). The best conductor category, which is routinely given to the Mariinsky's artistic director Valery Gergiev, was removed this year - perhaps because it has become inevitable who will win it. Nonetheless Gergiev received a special prize for outstanding artistic achievement for restoring Wagner's entire Ring Cycle to the Russian repertoire.
Yury Alexandrov triumphed as the best director with his take on Shostakovich's "The Nose," at the Mariinsky, while designer Zinovy Margolin got a prize for the best sets. Alexandrov faced little competition. His only rival was Japanese director Ennosuke Ichikawa with a production of Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Golden Cockerel," also at the Mariinsky.
The Mariinsky's "Tribute to Balanchine" was named best ballet production. The best ballet role, however, found its recipient outside the Mariinsky Theater. Roman Mikhalyov of the Mussorgsky Opera and Ballet Theater won for his performance as Raskonikov in Grigory Kovtun's ballet "St. Petersburg Dreams."
TITLE: Joining forces
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Dobranotch, an odd local folk band that blends Balkan folk, Klezmer music and Arab rhythms, is a far cry from the Irish-folk trio that it was when started out in the late 1990s. On its third album, "Dobranotch," released last month, the band documents its new style and lineup.
"We mix Moldovan and Balkan elements with Jewish and Oriental ones," said violinist Mitya Khramtsov, Dobranotch's sole original member.
The musical blend comes from the mix of people in the band that now features Lebanese percussionist Ussama Shakhin, while the conservatory-educated accordion player Andrei Sapkevich comes from Moldova, where his father was a self-taught folk violinist, and played at Moldovan weddings.
Khramtsov provides the Jewish musical influence in the band's unique sound.
"I was studying Klezmer from recordings and reading music, and from people I met on tours in Europe and even more at KlezFest [the annual local Klezmer festival and seminar] where musicians come from everywhere and mix with locals," said Khramtsov, who is half-Jewish.
"My family was not traditionally Jewish, though there was a certain atmosphere. I've always been interested in the Jewish culture, and even when we played Irish folk, we had one Jewish tune." Zheka Lizin on cimbalom and Alexei Stepanov on tuba studied and performed Klezmer in an amateur band at the Jewish Community Center.
"We try to learn from each other," said Khramtsov.
However, after over two years with Shakhin, Dobranotch has showed some success in adapting broadly defined "Oriental" elements, and even occasionally feature a belly dancer in its show.
Khramtsov started out in blues and rock bands as a university student. In the mid-1990s he enjoyed a stint with Markscheider Kunst as a harmonica player and played with other folk-rock acts in pubs. "It was American-style folk rock, with songs in English," he said.
Dobranotch formed in 1997 in Nantes, France, where its would-be members were "in search of Celtic music," as the band's official biography puts it, but were actually busking. Khramtsov said he went to Europe to avoid the army draft.
The the members of the original band, Khramtsov, Oleg Drobinsky and Stas Zubtsov, concentrated on Irish folk tunes.
"It's wrong to only reduce [going abroad to a matter of] earning money - [the experience ] also matters," said Khramtsov, whose band is notorious for its lengthy European tours.
"Folk music implies communication. A rock musician might just be inspired, compose a song and sing it, but in folk you should join in with a traditional culture, and that mostly happens when you are on the road."
The band recorded and self-released its debut CD, "Musique Russe & Yiddish," in France in 1999.
"It had an immigrant touch; we were abroad, homesick," said Khramtsov. "We played folk music from different countries and styles - Celtic, French, whatever - but we decided to concentrate on one style, so it was mostly Odessa-style Jewish urban-folk music."
For the second album, 2001's "Chtob Dusha Razvernulas" (Let the Soul Unfold), the band, which then performed with a female singer, Natalya Smirnovskaya, attempted to combine Russian folk songs and Balkan-style instrumentation.
"It was an experiment," said Khramtsov. "I don't really know what came out. Russian songs are so northern, while Balkan music is so southern, we tried to bring them together."
Dobranotch mainly performs at underground rock clubs where its audience frequently feels the urge to get up and dance."We like people to dance; it feels like a wedding," said Khramtsov. "Even if we try to play a slow number, it speeds up, all by itself... We just want to play good, fun music."
Dobranotch will perform at GEZ-21
at 9 p.m. on Saturday.
www.dobranotch.spb.ru
TITLE: Newspaper man
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: When it comes to journalism, Vitaly Tretyakov has quite literally written the book. Pulling on Marlboros in his cramped office last week, the former newspaper editor parried questions about the recently released "How to Become a Famous Journalist" until he decided that he'd had enough.
"How much space have you been given for this interview?" he asked with a professional air. "Thirteen hundred words? Then we should stop, because I've already said 10 times as much."
The thick new volume, published last month by Ladomir, includes sections on modern Russian journalism, the freedom of the press, and the cultivation of a personal writing style, as well as a chapter on Tretyakov's personal bugbear - PR. The book emerged as a result of the writer's side job as professor of international journalism at the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations, or MGIMO.
Every Tuesday, Tretyakov, who founded Nezavisimaya Gazeta in 1990 and edited it until 2001, teaches a course on political analysis to third- and fourth-year students, and the book is primarily intended for them, he said. "Repeating the same thing every year to every new group of students is boring for me." But Tretyakov believes that the book will interest others, although its initial print run numbered only 3,000 copies.
The snappiest read comes at the end, with a list of 200 maxims excerpted from the rest of the book. By his own admission, the lazy students will be able to get away with reading just these. "There aren't any texts that don't need editing," he writes, for example. "Be afraid of professional interviewees." And later: "There is no worse journalist than a writer."
The author, who now writes a column for Rossiiskaya Gazeta and presents a political talk show called "What Is to Be Done?" on the Kultura television channel, also uses the book to expand on his ideas about the nature of journalism in Russia.
While Western media and commentators warn of a clampdown on the Russian media, Tretyakov claims that freedom of the press exists since it is still possible to read up on different points of view, albeit only by leafing through a large number of publications. "It's a very boring topic," he said. "Freedom of speech - freedom of the press - undoubtedly exists in newspapers. On television, it's undoubtedly limited."
According to his book, "Freedom of mass information exists for those who have the opportunity to follow the programs of all the main television channels and regularly read six or seven newspapers and two or three weeklies of various political persuasions."
Must-read newspapers today, in Tretyakov's opinion, include Kommersant, Gazeta, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Moskovsky Komsomolets and Izvestia, the broadsheet that recently ended a month-long search with a new editor. But unlike in Soviet times, 90 percent of the population cannot afford to do this, he admitted. "We can't objectively measure many of the parameters of freedom of information in Russia, because the first thing it's limited by, right away, is lack of money."
Another major problem of newspaper journalism, he writes, is so-called "friendly censorship," by which reporters get information from valuable personal contacts, who then pressure them not to put it in print. But the greatest thorn in Russia's side, he continues, is PR, or when journalists supplement low salaries with paid-for articles.
"The system of PR in Russia is just a system of corruption. I can't see it as anything except an evil," he said.
While none of the top exponents of Soviet journalism remain in major publications today, Tretyakov sees some trends in Russian media as throwbacks to official censorship. For instance, he said, journalists tend to use Aesopian language rather than making a point directly.
In addition, Russian journalists have an "innate extreme subjectivity," a trait that Tretyakov dates back to tsarist times.
Instead of pursuing a "more dry" Western style, he said, Russian journalism is a product of the belles lettres tradition, as literature and journalism sprang up together in the 18th century. However, an opinionated style is not necessarily a bad thing, he stressed. "It creates the specific style, the taste of national journalism... It should stay that way."
Yet in his new book, Tretyakov talks tough on the Russian approach to reviewing. "Our Russian reviewers write their reviews, as a rule, in the following way: 'While watching the new film by director X, I remembered my first kiss.' (Then follows the story of the first, second and 15th love of the journalist.)... And at the end is an announcement that the film is garbage. Or a masterpiece." One section rarely found in Russian newspapers is readers' mail, he writes. "Editors don't respect the opinion of readers, and journalists simply don't want to give away space." In Tretyakov's opinion, letters to the editor supply the newspaper with a "second face."
"Show me the unedited letters," he writes, "and I will learn everything about your publication."
But Tretyakov's opinion of certain other newspaper institutions might well leave some western readers choking on their toast. "I categorically banned the printing of crosswords and horoscopes in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, considering [the publication of] both of these impossible for a quality newspaper."
Tretyakov began his career at Novosti, a Soviet press agency specially geared toward foreign readers. In the book, he gives a colorful description of how, assigned to profile an exemplary worker in the early 1980s, he was forced to dream up a more exciting life for her when it turned out that her actual daily existence was less than entertaining. His work was "political propaganda," he admits.
A side benefit of working at Novosti, however, was keeping up with the western press - an opportunity that came in handy later, when Tretyakov founded Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "I personally read French mass media regularly from 1976," he said, naming Le Figaro, Paris Match and other publications. "We were supposed to know about the theory and practice of Western journalism because we were direct enemies. We fought with them on that ideological front."
Indeed, quite a few features of Nezavisimaya Gazeta do come from the West, and the former editor draws special attention to the informational "teasers" that advertise the articles at the top. In Russian, this section is called a shapka, or hat, and Tretyakov credits Nezavisimaya Gazeta with its introduction. The top of the page of Soviet newspapers was usually reserved for medals awarded to each publication.
The genre of investigative reporting is also in some ways a Western import, Tretyakov believes, as is the inclusion of personal questions in a political interview.
Russians did not always subscribe to the idea that "through [a politician's] statements on his personal life, you get to know him better as a politician." But the downside to exposure to Western journalism has been the introduction of lighter-weight news shows like NTV television's "Strana i Mir" and "Namedni" - products of a new showbiz culture, he said. "I think it's turning people into fools, and that's not quality journalism."
Nevertheless, Nezavisimaya Gazeta was structured according to a Western model, he went on, calling it a "newspaper of opinions" such as had not existed in Soviet times.
"Opinions weren't given because I liked them or didn't like them, or because I had one opinion and I needed another in order to create a balance, but simply because they were interesting or important opinions, or... came from an important person."
Tretyakov lost his job at Nezavisimaya Gazeta in 2001 after a series of disputes with its owner, Boris Berezovsky.
Today, he admits that he misses editing a newspaper. "Creating your own newspaper is really the greatest opportunity," he said.
TITLE: Iran Shuns European Bid to Ease Standoff
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VIENNA, Austria - Iran vowed anew to continue enriching uranium, dealing a potential setback to a European plan to ease the nuclear standoff with Tehran by offering sales of nuclear fuel and a trade deal as incentives.
Britain, France and Germany were to offer Iranian officials the enticements Thursday in a private meeting in Vienna, hoping to persuade the country to stop enrichment, which can be used both to generate electricity or build a nuclear weapon.
But even before they could make a formal pitch, Iran said Wednesday it had a compromise proposal which would not compromise its right to enrich uranium. The Iranians did not give details, but President Mohammad Khatami made it clear that his government had no intentions of stopping the practice.
"We expect that our legitimate rights be recognized and that Iran not be deprived of nuclear technology," Khatami told reporters Wednesday in Tehran. "The main problem is that they say, `You should ignore your rights,' and that we would never do."
Diplomats involved in Thursday's talks did not immediately react to the Iranians' statements.
By offering the incentives, the three European powers are giving Iran one last chance to avoid the threat of U.N. sanctions. Although Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful and geared purely toward generating electric power, the United States has accused it of running a clandestine weapons program.
On Nov. 25, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors will deliver a fresh assessment of Iran's cooperation - or lack of it - with the nuclear watchdog agency. The United States is pressing to report Iran's noncompliance to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
The incentives being offered to Iran included the possibility of buying nuclear fuel from the West, along with the promise of lucrative trade, diplomats said on condition of anonymity. They did not confirm reports that a light-water nuclear research reactor was part of the package.
"We will have to see the offer. We have not seen anything yet," an Iranian official told The Associated Press. "And then we will have to take it to our capital. We really have to wait and see."
The foreign ministers of Britain and Germany this week urged Iran to indefinitely suspend its nuclear program. Iran has resumed testing, assembling and making centrifuges used to enrich uranium, heightening U.S. concerns that its sole purpose is to build a bomb.
But the European negotiators are holding out hope that a diplomatic confrontation - and the looming threat of punishing sanctions - can be avoided if Tehran agrees to give up enriching uranium in exchange for peaceful nuclear technology.
If Iran does not accept the incentives, suspend enrichment and agree to IAEA verification that it has done so, the three likely would back the U.S. push to report Tehran's defiance to the Security Council, the diplomats said.
Experts say Iran has been building a heavy-water reactor, which would use plutonium that also could be used in a nuclear weapon.
TITLE: Castro Falls In Public
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HAVANA - President Fidel Castro fell leaving the stage after a televised speech Wednesday night, hurting his knee and arm but quickly recovering his composure to tell Cubans he was otherwise "all in one piece."
Castro, 78, was shown on live television after his tumble, sitting in a chair at the live outdoor event in the central city of Santa Clara, a three-hour drive east of Havana.
Holding a microphone, he said that "maybe I broke my knee, and maybe an arm ... but I am all in one piece." Castro's condition was not immediately known.
People watching television could not see what happened after Castro wrapped up the speech at a graduation ceremony for arts instructors and left the stage.
Television viewers only saw several of his security men running, evidently to assist him.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene said Castro tripped on a concrete step after he finished walking down the wooden stairs from the stage, then fell onto the ground on his right side, first hitting his knee and hip, and then his elbow and arm.
He was immediately surrounded by scores of security agents and others who rushed to help him up.
TITLE: Iraqi Authorities Fear Crisis Will Keep Observers Away
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi authorities fear that the country's security crisis will discourage international monitors from coming here for the January election - a development that could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the crucial vote.
An American official familiar with election planning said the U.S. State Department has been unable to find non-governmental organizations or foreign governments willing to send experts to monitor the election - largely because of security concerns.
Those fears were heightened by the kidnapping this week of CARE International's director for Iraq, Margaret Hassan. A British-Irish-Iraqi national, Hassan has lived here for 30 years and stayed on when other international workers fled following the upsurge of bombings and kidnappings. Suicide bombings last week inside the Green Zone, a heavily fortified area where the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices are located, have stoked those fears.
The election is considered a critical step toward establishing democracy after decades of Saddam Hussein's tyranny. Voters will select a 275-member assembly that will draft a constitution, which if ratified will provide the legal foundation for a second general election by the end of next year.
However, the results must be seen as legitimate, not only by Iraq's ethnic and cultural communities but also foreign governments still reluctant to join the reconstruction of a country where the U.S. wields considerable influence.
TITLE: Red Sox Stage Greatest Comeback Ever
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - Cursed for 86 years, these Red Sox just might be charmed.
Believe it, New England - the Boston Red Sox are in the World Series. And they got there with the most unbelievable comeback of all, with four sweet swings after decades of defeat, shaming the dreaded New York Yankees.
David Ortiz, Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe made sure of it.
Just three outs from getting swept in the American League championship series three nights earlier, the Red Sox finally humbled the Evil Empire, winning Game 7 in a 10-3 shocker Wednesday night to become the first major league team to overcome a 3-0 postseason series deficit.
"All empires fall sooner or later," Boston president Larry Lucchino said.
There is no torture this time, no hour of humiliation. Better yet for Boston fans, it's the Yankees who are left to suffer the memory of a historic collapse.
"Not many people get the opportunity to shock the world. We came out and did it," Boston first baseman Kevin Millar said.
"You know what? We beat the Yankees. Now they get a chance to watch us on the tube."
Boston didn't need any of the late-inning dramatics that marked the last three games, leading 6-0 after two innings. Ortiz, the series Most Valuable Player, started it with a two-run homer in the first off broken-down Kevin Brown, and Damon quieted Yankee Stadium in the second inning with a grand slam on Javier Vazquez's first pitch.
After Derek Jeter sparked hope of a comeback with a run-scoring single in the third, Damon put a two-run homer into the upper deck for an 8-1 lead in the fourth.
Lowe pitched on two days' rest and allowed one hit in six innings. He silenced the Yankees' bats and boasting fans, who just last weekend assumed New York's seventh pennant in nine years was all but a lock. Pedro Martinez started the seventh, his first relief appearance in five years, and immediately sparked chants of the now famous "Who's Your Daddy?"
Three hits and two runs got the crowd going, but the rally stopped there. Mark Bellhorn added a solo homer in the eighth for a 9-3 Boston lead, and the bullpen closed out a five-hitter.
"It's very amazing, I think, to do what we did," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.
Cheering from Red Sox fans could be heard in the ninth, and when pinch-hitter Ruben Sierra grounded to second baseman Pokey Reese for the final out at 12:01 a.m., Boston players ran onto the field and jumped together in a mass huddle.
"The greatest comeback in baseball history," Red Sox owner John Henry proclaimed.
Yankees players slowly walked off, eliminated on their home field for the second straight season.
"I'm embarrassed right now," Alex Rodriguez said. "Obviously that hurts - watching them on our field celebrating."
"We're coming back home and we're going to party for a little while, but it's going to be a great World Series," Damon said.
Now that the Babe's team has been beaten, Boston can try to reverse The Curse, win the Series for the first time since 1918 and bring happiness to the Hub, which can scarcely believe the tumultuous turn of events.
"That's for the '03 team, just like it's for the '78 and the '49 team," Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said.
"I hope [Red Sox legend] Ted Williams is having a cocktail upstairs."