SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1018 (85), Friday, November 5, 2004
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TITLE: Bush Back in White House for 2nd Term
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush claimed a re-election mandate Wednesday after a record 59 million Americans chose him over Democrat John Kerry and voted to expand Republican control of Congress as well. He pledged to pursue his agenda on taxes and Iraq while seeking "the broad support of all Americans."
Kerry conceded defeat in make-or-break Ohio rather than launch a legal fight reminiscent of the contentious Florida recount of four years ago. "I hope that we can begin the healing," the Massachusetts senator said.
Claiming a second term denied his father, Bush struck a conciliatory tone, too. "A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation," he said, speaking directly to Kerry's supporters.
"To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support and I will work to earn it," he said. "I will do all I can do to deserve your trust."
It was a warm-and-fuzzy close to one of the longest, most negative presidential races in a generation.
Bush didn't use the word mandate, but Vice President Dick Cheney did, and the president's intention was clear as he ticked off a familiar list of second-term goals: overhaul the tax code and Social Security at home while waging war in Iraq and elsewhere to stem terror.
Bush stands to reshape the federal judiciary, starting with an aging Su-preme Court that voted 5-4 to award him Florida four years ago. In all branches of government, the GOP now holds a solid, if not permanent, ruling majority.
Bush's vote totals were the biggest ever and his slice of the vote, 51 percent, made him the first president to claim a majority since 1988 when his father won 53 percent against Democrat Michael Dukakis.
Like Dukakis, Kerry is a Massachusetts politician who was labeled a liberal by a Bush. This president also called Kerry a flip-flopping opportunist who would fight feebly against terror.
None of that rancor was evident Wednesday, when Kerry called Bush to concede the race. He told Bush the country needed to be united, and Bush agreed. But the numbers suggest the country is deeply split.
Bush's victory ensures Republican dominance of virtually every quarter of the U.S. political system for years to come - the White House, Congress and the federal judiciary. Democrats pored over election results and sadly determined that the GOP base was bigger, more rural, suburban and Hispanic than they had ever imagined.
They looked within their own party, and found plenty of Democrats to blame - Kerry, his running mate John Edwards .their layers of consultants and legions of former Bill Clinton aides. The jockeying began in earnest for the 2008 race, with Edwards signaling his ambitions by pressing Kerry to wage a legal fight for Ohio. Democrats love to fight the GOP, particularly those Democrats who vote in primaries and caucuses.
"You can be disappointed, but you cannot walk away," Edwards told supporters at Kerry's concession. "This fight has just begun."
Supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton - herself a potential candidate in 2008, accused Edwards of posturing.
Kerry himself showed no signs of exiting the political arena. "I'll never stop fighting for you," he told backers.
Still, it was a grim day for Democrats.
Party strategists had longed hoped to supplant their political losses in the Midwest and South with growth in the Hispanic-rich Western states, but those plans were put in doubt Tuesday night. Exit polls suggested that Bush had increased his minority share of the Hispanic vote since 2000.
One-third of Hispanics said they were born-again Christians and nearly 20 percent listed moral values as their top issue, suggesting they have more in common with Republicans than Democrats.
The election also vindicated Bush's unorthodox strategy of governing from the right and then targeting his voters with a volunteer-driven organization run through his campaign headquarters. Kerry played to the center and relied on a loosely knit conglomerate of liberal groups who paid get-out-the-vote workers.
Americans Coming Together, the Media Fund and other liberal special interest groups spent more than $200 million to defeat Bush. Kerry spent tens of millions more, and what did he get? Just one state won by Bush in 2000, New Hampshire, switched to the Democratic column this year.
Young voters didn't increase their turnout as Democrats had hoped. Neither did blacks or union members, two keys to the party's base.
Bush, meanwhile, saw a surge in rural and evangelical voters, according to strategists on both sides. The rural vote, once reliably Democratic, swelled in size and supported Bush over Kerry.
In Ohio, exit polls suggested the rural vote increased from 15 percent of the electorate in 2000 to 25 percent on Tuesday. Rural voters backed Bush over Kerry 60 percent to 40.
In Ohio and Florida, the two most important states Election Night, Democrats said they met their turnout targets, only to see Bush's forces trounce them. They said state ballot measures to ban gay marriage may have driven GOP voters to the polls.
The most stinging defeat was in Ohio, which may no longer be considered a swing state. With 232,000 jobs lost under Bush and state voters uneasy about Iraq, it was as ripe as it will ever be for Democrats, strategists said.
Ohio's 20 electoral votes gave Bush 279 in the Associated Press count, nine more than the 270 needed for victory. Kerry had 252 electoral votes, with Iowa's seven unsettled.
Bush beat Kerry by more than 3 million votes.
TITLE: Nordic Body Boosts Ties With Russia
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: STOCKHOLM - Russia stands to get more money from the Nordic countries because more funds have become available for Russia since Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia joined the European Union this year, a Nordic official said.
Soren Christensen, a senior adviser and former secretary general with the Nordic Council of Ministers, said in an interview that the Baltic states had got 60 percent of funding and Russia only 40 percent of funding for the four nations that border Nordic states.
"Collaboration with the adjacent countries is essential to us, and now as the three Baltic states have joined the European Union, our relations with Russia become even more important," Christensen said, adding that this attitude has not only rhetorical but also financial implications.
"If before 60 percent of our budget for cooperation with the adjacent territories went to the Baltic countries and the rest to Russia, then next year, it will be vice versa."
A total of 70 million Danish krone ($12.1 million) will next year be allocated for Russia-related projects from the budget of the Nordic Council of Ministers, he said.
Speaking on the fringes of a meeting of the Nordic Council's 56th Session in Stockholm this week, representatives of the Nordic countries said they would like to increase cooperation with Russia, but in the meantime the environment is the main focus of work done in Russia by the Nordic states.
Nordic politicians expressed much enthusiasm about Russia's decision to sign the Kyoto protocol perceiving this gesture as an indication that the country is going to tackle its multiple environmental problems with greater effort.
"It is a very positive sign and I am sure there will be more encouraging decisions coming soon," said Gabriel Romanus, the president of the Nordic Council.
"It is good that Russia is signing useful agreements but of course they have to be implemented, and there is going to be a great need for a joint action," he said.
"The pollution resulting from untreated radioactive waste in northern Russia is something where we can contribute, and the Nordic Investment Bank, in particular, can participate," he said in an interview
Romanus also mentioned the fight against organized crime, prostitution, drug smuggling and human trafficking as highly resonant issues.
"We have a problem with it in the whole Baltic area, and there is the need of a joint effort here," he added.
It is expected that the Nordic Investment Bank, along with other major Nordic business organizations will take part in financing projects aimed at economic development along the border between Russia and the Nordic states.
"The difference in standards of living is drastic, which makes a good breeding ground for crime," Romanus said.
Per Unckel, secretary general of the Nordic Council of Ministers. said another pressing task concerning Russia is establishing an office of the Nordic Council of Ministers in Kaliningrad.
"Ideally, we would like have it already early next year," Unckel said. "It should become the missing link in the Baltic area."
"In a practical sense, we cooperate only with Northwest Russia," Unckel added. "At present, we are trying to determine the areas of specific interest for both of us."
That process is going to take more time to shape up and it will be at least another six months before it is possible talk about it in more concrete terms.
Unckel stressed that his organization would like to concentrate on areas where the Nordic countries as a group can make a difference.
The Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers have been working with the Baltic States for 25 years and with Russia for the past six years.
All official cooperation in the five Nordic countries - Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark - is carried out through the Nordic Council, which is the forum for parliamentarians and the Nordic Council of Ministers, the forum for government politicians.
The council has a rotating presidency. This year it is Iceland, while the next year the duties are passed to Denmark.
Representatives of the Russian State Duma, the Federation Council of and the parliamentary association of Northwest Russia held a series of meetings during the session.
Jens Christian Larsen, the Nordic Council observer for cooperation with Northwest Russia, said the issues that Russians would like help with from Nordic countries include development of small and medium enterprises, exchange of experience in legal issues and travel-related questions.
"Young people in Northwest Russia would like to have a chance to get cheaper visas and more opportunities to study in the Nordic countries," he said. "This is a form of barrier to freedom of travel for Russian youth and we need to look at how we can make it easier for them."
Igor Kudrik, of the Norway-based environmental group Bellona, praised the environmental efforts of governments of Nordic states regarding Russian ecological problems.
"Over the past several years there has been a major breakthrough," he said Thursday in a telephone call from Oslo.
"Nordic governments are investing more and more into programs for processing radioactive waste in the Murmansk region or clean-up projects in the Baltic Sea."
Kudrik mentioned the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership, set up with governmental funding in order to integrate Russia into Western Europe and enhance democratic reforms in the country. He said 100 million euros have been earmarked for the Nuclear Window program within the Northern Dimension.
Meetings of the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers help develop a fuller understanding within both governmental and parliamentary circles of the region's hot issues and possible ways to solve them, Kudrik said.
Russia has been slow to act in tackling its ecological plight, while neither the Nordic Countries of Ministers, nor other major international political organizations possess an efficient instrument to push the country to take these steps.
The Barents Sea area is the largest repository of nuclear waste in the world, while existing processing facilities for the waste are out of date and overused, which results in frequent leaks of radioactive material to the environment.
"Of course, we need to put political pressure on the Russian government but also a lot can be achieved through inter-parliamentary networks," Romanus said.
"We should make all possible effort into explaining the parliamentarians how important the problems are and what horrendous risks there are if, for instance, you transport oil on vessels that don't meet safety standards."
Galina Stolyarova's attendance at the Nordic Council of Ministers' session was funded by the Information Office of the Nordic Council of Ministers in St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Flap Over Sex and Diplomats in Helsinki
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A sex scandal is rocking the Russian diplomatic corps in Finland after Finnish police arrested several Russian prostitutes and a Russian woman suspected of running brothels out of Helsinki apartments owned by the Russian government's local trade representation.
The prostitutes were arrested on Oct. 14 after Finnish police raided three
central Helsinki apartments owned
by the Russian trade representation, Helsinki's Helsingin Sanomat reported.
Police believe the ring may involve as many as 200 Russian women, many with expertly forged documents who allegedly courted clients in local restaurants, and the brothels may have been operating for more than two years, the newspaper said.
The Helsinki District Court ordered the arrest of the 41-year-old Russian woman accused of running the brothels on Oct. 18, the newspaper said. No Russian diplomats or embassy staff are suspected of involvement in the prostitution ring.
It was unclear when the woman was arrested or whether she was still in custody, and calls to chief inspector Kari Tolvanen, who is handling the investigation for the Helsinki police, went unanswered Tuesday.
Helsingin Sanomat reported that the case will be handed over to prosecutors, who will decided whether to press charges.
A Finnish diplomatic source in Moscow said Tuesday that the Finnish Interior Ministry has received a written complaint from the Russian Foreign Ministry that Russian authorities were not warned before the apartments were raided and that because they are diplomatic apartments, they should not be subject to police searches.
The source said, however, that because no one with diplomatic immunity was living in the three apartments, they were not off-limits to Finnish authorities.
The trade representation owns "many" apartments in the Finnish capital and they are usually used to house members of the diplomatic corps, Andrei Kuzmin, deputy head of the trade representation, said by telephone from Helsinki.
But when the apartments are empty, they are rented out exclusively to Russian citizens, he said.
"We pay to keep those apartments, so we have to cover those costs by renting them out to Russian citizens permanently or temporarily in Finland," Kuzmin said.
He said background checks on potential tenants consist primarily of establishing their legal status in Finland and that the trade representation had no reason to suspect that the 41-year-old Russian woman may have been running a brothel.
"If the Finnish government gives them a legal basis for being in the country, then that is enough for us," Kuzmin said. "We're not their employers, so we're not going to do an extensive background check.
"And the woman who was arrested had permanent resident status. Apparently Finnish authorities were just fine with having her in their country."
Valery Shlyamin, head of the Russian trade representation in Finland, was on vacation and could not be reached Tuesday, a secretary at the Helsinki office said. But he told Gazeta.ru on Monday that his department was in no way connected to any wrongdoing.
"These citizens will themselves be legally responsible for any illegal activity," Shlyamin said.
He also expressed dismay that neither Finnish police nor the Finnish Foreign Ministry had given Russian authorities a heads-up about the investigation.
"We first found out about the circumstances surrounding the investigation from the Finnish media, not Finnish authorities," he said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Vla-dimir Tyurkin declined to comment on the investigation Tuesday and directed all inquiries to a statement on the ministry's web site.
The statement said simply: "Moscow has expressed concerned about information from Finnish authorities regarding the incident with trade representation's apartments in Helsinki. As far as we know, at the moment an investigation is under way regarding all circumstances connected with this issue."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Greenpeace Spurned
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A city court has rejected a lawsuit brought by Greenpeace asking it to make water utility Vodokanal supply Greenpeace with information about its waste disposal plants, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The court made a decision to satisfy the demands of the ecologists only on one issue - according to which Vodokanal must provide Greenpeace with an opportunity to acquaint itself with the materials on the basis of influence on the environment in regards to the construction of incinerators for sewage sediment, the report said.
New LDPR Faction
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A new faction of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, or LDPR, appeared in St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly this week.
Among the deputies, who entered the faction are Vladimir Belozerskikh, Vadim Voitanovsky, Denis Volchek, Vitaly Martynenko and Gennady Ozerov.
Konstantin Sukhenko is the coordinator of the faction.
However, Maxim Reznik, chairman of the city's Yabloko faction, said Sukhenko seriously damaged his political career by entering the nationalistic LDPR, Ekho Moskvy radio reported.
On Oct. 28, Sukhenko had promised to enter the Democratic faction, Reznik said.
Putin Backs Road, Dam
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - President Vladimir Putin said St. Petersburg's Ring Road and Flood Defense Complex should be completed by 2008, Ekho Moskvy reported.
Putin confirmed his support on the construction of the projects to the city's governor Valentina Matviyenko in a telephone call.
Matviyenko said the federal government already approved the financing for the road and the dam. The city plans to have the eastern section of the Ring Road operating next year, she added.
Berlin Stance Gets Nod
MOSCOW (SPT) - The Foreign Ministry says it is satisfied with the reaction of the German government to a query by the opposition Christian Democracts about its stance on the creation of a region called "East Prussia," which would include Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia.
"The government of the Federal German Republic has distanced itself from ... 'ideas' to create on the basis of Kaliningrad Oblast a certain European unit of 'Prussia' in the geographic borders of former East Prussia and taking the region out of Russia's legislative and customs territory," it said.
TITLE: City Subway 'Meets Only Half Demand'
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Even as the St. Petersburg subway system was declared to be meeting only half of the demand on it and plans for two more stations in the southwest were announced, moves to open metro station Admiralteiskaya faced protests this week.
"The current capacity of St. Petersburg metro - 100 kilometers of tunnels and 58 metro stations - is only half of what the city metro needs," Interfax quoted Vladimir Garyugin, head of the St. Petersburg metro system as saying Thursday.
"The development of St. Petersburg metro is behind by about 20 years," he said. "We are now implementing the program of 1980-1990s."
However, despite pressing demands for more stations, 400 residents who live near the site where the Admiralteiskaya station is due to open in 2008 say they don't want it near their homes.
The residents of Ulitsa Malaya Morskaya and Kirpichny Pereulok, who gathered Monday in the Barrikada movie theater, said they were not against the station as such, but did not like plans to evict and resettle them, Interfax reported.
The apartment building at 1 Kirpichny Pereulok, which is to become an entrance to the metro station, and another building at 4 Kirpichny Pereulok are to be demolished. Residents of adjacent buildings will be rehoused while the work is done. Residents said they were worried that their rights would be violated, and demanded written guarantees from the city government.
Arkady Fursa, deputy head of St. Petersburg metro, said that the construction of Admiralteiskaya would not only improve the service to an area that is distant from other stations, but the station would also boost the safety of the subway line.
The distance between the Sadovaya and Sportivnaya stations is 3 kilometers and opening Admiralteiskaya between them will mean that in an emergency such as a fire the passengers will have less distance to get out. That could save their lives, he said.
Meanwhile, Valentina Ivanova, deputy head of the State Duma's education and science committee, appealed to Governor Valentina Matviyenko with a request to consider the construction of the two new metro stations at the south-west of the city.
When the city opens the Southwest Waste Treatment Station, which is under constructions, the district will develop rapidly and the metro will be essential, she said.
One station is to open on the corner of Marshal Kazakov and Marshal Zhukov prospekts, and it will be named Kazakovskaya. While the second station is planned to be constructed on the corner of Peterhofskoye Shosse and Ulitsa Doblesti, Ivanova said.
TITLE: Putin Hails Bush Victory As Sign U.S. Voters Hate Terror
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a victory by U.S. President George W. Bush would show that American voters had stood up to terrorists.
Speaking hours before Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry conceded to Bush, Putin said: "If Bush wins, I will be able to rejoice that the Americans have not allowed themselves to be scared and made the decision they considered reasonable."
Putin spoke at a news conference after talks with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
He reiterated remarks made during the U.S. election campaign that terrorists had tried to prevent Bush from getting re-elected.
Calling Bush "a tough politician" and "a safe and predictable partner," he said he hoped U.S.-Russian relations would not go back to square one if Kerry won.
Liberal politicians Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada said they were worried that Bush would sacrifice human rights and civil liberties in Russia for Putin's support against terror.
"The Republican administration's tradition of displaying deep apathy toward human rights abuses in other countries, including Russia, will continue," Nemtsov said, Interfax reported.
Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky agreed, saying: "The Republicans will push even harder their extremely dangerous neo-conservative policy."
Communist leader Gennady Zyuga-nov shrugged off Bush's victory. "As far as Bush is concerned, he will continue his global saber-rattling."
A close Putin ally, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, suggested that Bush was destined to win. "If Bush, the incumbent president, wins, then our cooperation in fighting international terrorism and global threats and challenges will continue," he told Interfax. "We are destined to cooperate."
Lyubov Sliska, the first deputy speaker of the State Duma and a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, also said counterterrorism would be at the heart of U.S.-Russian cooperation after the election.
TITLE: UN Body Decries Hostage Plan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GENEVA - UN human rights experts expressed "grave concern" Thursday at proposed measures that would allow Russian authorities to detain relatives of terrorists to discourage hostage-taking, saying it would contravene international law.
"All states have the right and duty to take effective measures against acts of terrorism," but these proposals "run counter to the principles of international law," UN human rights experts Leila Zerrougui and Stephen Toope said in a statement.
"Detaining innocent people as hostages of the state in order to combat abductions and terrorism is contrary to the most elemental international human rights principles and norms," the statement said.
Zerrougui is head of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Toope is in charge of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said last week in a report to lawmakers that existing legislation made it hard to combat terrorism effectively and that detaining terrorists' relatives could be an effective tool in negotiations.
"Detaining relatives and showing terrorists what may happen to their relatives could help save people's lives, so let's not close our eyes or put a diplomatic face on it," Ustinov said. "When you live by the sword, you die by the sword."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Businessmen Protest
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg entrepreneurs protested against plans to eliminate trading kiosks at public transport bus stops on Monday.
About 200 kiosk employees gathered in front of the city government's offices in Smolny to demand that Governor Valentina Matviyenko abandon plans to shut the kiosks. Closing them would result in the loss of 40,000 jobs, Interfax reported.
Car Rams Soldiers
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Thirteen soldiers were hospitalized after a stolen car was driven into a group of military men walking along a city road in St. Petersburg on Wednesday night.
"The car literally rammed into the formation of about 30 soldiers, who were coming back from a banya," said Andrei Gavrilyuk, assistant to the prosecutor's office of the Leningrad Military District.
The driver and his companion were drunk, and the driver fled the scene. He was caught by the morning.
The perpetrators turned to also be military men from the same military unit as the injured soldiers.
The prosecutor's office initiated a criminal case of auto theft.
The soldiers' injuries were moderate.
Bridge Raising Changes
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) -Dvortsovy Bridge will this month close from 0.50 a.m. to 4:50 a.m., meaning there won't be a traditional 15-minutes downing of the bridge in between those hours, Interfax reported.
The city's road committee had to change the opening schedule during repairs.
To make the situation more convenient for the residents the Lieutenant Schmidt's Bridge, which neighbors the Dvortsovy Bridge, will open at the same time as Dvortsovy Bridge used to, the report said.
Children Injured
TVER (SPT) - A 16-year-old girl died and nine other children were injured when a bus with St. Petersburg schoolchildren crashed in the Tver region on Tuesday, Rosbalt reported.
The bus carrying 35 schoolchildren and five teachers overturned when the driver lost control.
The children were returning from Sergiyev Posad to St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Budget Deal Offers London for 50 Euros
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: EasyJet, one of Europe's few budget airlines, launched daily flights to Talinn from Berlin and London at the beginning of the week. The new routes are expected to raise the number of travelers to Russia as well as Estonia, with an eight-hour bus trip linking Talinn to St. Petersburg.
Airline tickets from London's Stanstead airport to Talinn start at 35 euros (including the 16-euros tax) one way; it's 21 euros from Berlin. The next link are Eurolines buses, departing from Talinn's central bus station to St. Petersburg five times daily at 15 euros a trip.
Overall, the journey will take up to 12 hours to complete, but total one quarter of the cost of the cheapest direct flight to the city. The question is, will the saving boost independent travel between Russia and Europe?
"About 47,000 British tourists visited Russian in 2003, according to Moscow's information office," said Dimitry Paranyushkin, editor of waytorussia.net. "At the same time, there're a few million independent travelers in the UK who would like to go to Russia, but don't want to pay 400 euros for the tickets. Once the travelers learn about [the offer], I reckon the number of travelers will double," said Paranyushkin.
"There are an estimated 1.7 million backpacker travelers from the United States and Western Europe, whose interest in the Baltic states and Russia would be promoted by the offers," he said.
Low budget airlines have started to recognize the business potential in Eastern Europe since ten accession countries joined the EU earlier this year. Both EasyJet and another budget airline, Ryanair, will also launch flights to Latvia at the end of the month. Ryanair will operate flights to Riga from London starting at 50 euros, while EasyJet said it will launch a Berlin-Riga route, with 21 euros for a ticket.
The expansion of low-cost airlines may continue in Eastern Europe, but it's unlike to encompass Russia directly, said the president of Sindbad, a city-based travel agency, Steven Caron. "The [airline's] cost of flying into Russia is more prohibitive. No [budget airlines] will be coming into Pulkovo anytime soon."
Furthermore, Caron did not think the new routes will cause an explosion in the number of travelers going to and from Russia.
"Such a trip may appeal to backpackers, who are not constricted by particular time frames, but it's out of the question for business travelers," said Caron. Traveling through Estonia will also be problematic for Russian citizens, who will be required to obtain a paperwork-heavy Estonian transit visa.
Of the emerging new routes, Riga will prove most interesting for Russians, said Paranyushkin: "Obtaining the [Latvian] transit visa takes only a day, after which Russian tourists have cheap access to major European cities.".
Until Estonia's addition to EasyJet's network, cheap tariffs between Russia and Europe could only be accessible from Finland's Tampere, from where Ryanair operates flights to London, Frankfurt and Riga.
City travel agencies said they are not afraid of losing business to budget airlines who retail tickets mainly via the Internet.
"There stands the question of actually having a credit card to book the ticket, and they are still not widespread in Russia," said Liana Arutyunian, the head of Infinity travel St. Petersburg.
Apart from the public's cautious attitude towards passing on financial details over the Internet in order to buy things, Arutyunian saw the offers as rather impractical for Infinity's clientele: "Budget airlines usually fly at inconvenient times and to far-removed airports. Our clientele are mostly corporate travelers, who value service and convenience."
St. Petersburg-based carrier Pulkovo offers some of the cheapest direct flights from the city to London. Besides offering $300 (before tax) round-trip deals, the airline also has year-round special tariffs for students under an agreement with UNESCO, said Pulkovo's public relations manager Alexandra Cherkasova, although the tariffs cannot be disclosed.
"Some of the advantages of our London flights are flexible tariffs, convenient departure times and high service quality," said Cherkasova.
While admitting that the corporate clients will always choose the quickest, if not the cheapest route, Paranyushkin reminds the larger domestic operators the value of the independent traveler market.
Domestic operators may soon see, predicted Paranyushkin, that given a chance to save on price, service will not play such an important role for travelers choosing their cross-European means of transport.
Germanwings, a German budget airline with ticket prices comparable to those of EasyJet, is planing to start operating flights to Russia in the summer 2005, he said, with EasyJet and Ryanair following in its footsteps. If domestic airlines remain skeptical and inactive, they may well lose large sections of the independent traveler market to the budget operators.
TITLE: Telecom United in Net Deal
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: North-West Telecom announced this week a major deal with national Internet provider RTKomm.RU. The agreement, which was signed back in October, covers Internet traffic between all the affiliate branches of North-West Telecom.
In practice, the deal means that quality of Internet services available will be higher, said Natalia Nazarova, a spokesperson for North-West Telecom, one of the region's largest telco players. "Internet traffic will move faster and in greater volumes," she said.
Previously, each of the company's four subsidiaries: St. Petersburg Telephone Network, Elektrosvyaz Kaliningrad Oblast, Murmanelektrosvyaz and Eletrosvyas Vologda Oblast had separate agreements with PTKKomm.RU.
However, the unified deal is the beginning of a wider-scale investment, enlargement and improvement of Internet network services, the company's announcement said.
The new agreement covers the next twelve months; however, Nazarova said that this was a long-term partnership and that they had plans to extend it after the first year.
In practical terms, the agreement means that Internet-access levels will increase significantly. In the Kaliningrad Region they will increase by two and a half times, in Vologda by two times and in Murmansk by one and a half times, the company's announcement said.
North-West Telecom also announced that Internet-access prices may come down as a result of the new deal, but did not give any specifics.
Last month international rating agency Standard & Poor's assigned a corporate governance score of 5+ to North-West Telecom (according to the Russian national scale-5.9).
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: New Oil Firm Listed
ST. PETERSBURG - Gazpromneft, the joint venture between Gazprom and Rosneft, has been registered by Russian tax authorities, reported RosBusinessConsulting.
The subsidiary Gazpromneft, wholly owned by Gazprom, has become a St. Petersburg-based company. Gazpromneft was created as a result of the parent company's restructuring process.
For the Russian government, the restructuring effectively offers a controlling share stake in the company with a 50 percent plus one share. Currently, it owns 38.3 percent.
Cobra Launched in City
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Cobra beer, the most British of Indian largers, started being retailed in St. Petersburg on Friday. It's the brand's first venture onto the Russian market.
The importer for Cobra, public joint venture company Progress, aims to market the beer as a premium brand, and to sell mainly to hotels, upscale supermarkets, and larger local supermarkets. The brand enjoys a world-wide turnover of Pound65 million at retail value.
TITLE: Yukos to Ponder Bankruptcy
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Yukos is calling for an extraordinary shareholders meeting Dec. 20 to consider whether to file for bankruptcy under the crippling weight of $14 billion in outstanding tax claims, or to pave the way for an ownership change in case of a last-ditch settlement, the company's CEO, Steven Theede, said Wednesday.
In an interview, Theede said the meeting call came in response to staggering new tax claims worth nearly $10 billion and came ahead of a possible fire sale of the oil major's main production unit, Yuganskneftegaz. The moves, he said, could make a long-feared bankruptcy scenario unavoidable.
"With the outrageously high tax levies being sent to us, in conjunction with what appears to be a government attempt to liquidate our assets at a relatively low value, the ballgame has changed," Theede said. Previously, company management has said it wants to avoid bankrupting the nation's largest oil exporter.
The company was slapped with a massive new tax claim Monday worth $6.7 billion in taxes and penalties for its operations in 2002, while Yugansk was hit with an additional $2.35 billion for 2002. In total, the company's outstanding tax claims of $14 billion are worth more than its market value.
If the government announces a sale of Yugansk for less than $10 billion, Yukos would be forced to file for bankruptcy. That would create a scenario where the value of the company's assets was less than its outstanding liabilities. This situation, under Russian law, is a technical definition of bankruptcy, Theede said.
"If Yugansk is sold for a value as low as $3.75 billion," as stated in some earlier unconfirmed reports, "it creates a real problem. We would be forced into taking steps," he said.
Theede said the shareholders meeting was being called as it became clear that the government's legal onslaught against Yukos was coming to a head.
"It is still our belief that the worst decision of all is fully to sell Yuganskneftegaz. It truly is not in the interests of the Russian oil industry."
Yukos' call appeared to be a direct challenge to the government to reach settlement before the company is forced to file for bankruptcy, a scenario that President Vladimir Putin has said he wants to avoid. It also appeared to be a last-ditch bid to stave off a sale of Yugansk, which produces more than 60 percent of Yukos' total output.
The government has said it plans to sell off Yugansk to cover Yukos' outstanding tax debts.
The shareholders meeting will also be asked to discuss a possible restructuring of the company, a move aimed at opening the way for a possible change of ownership at the company if a settlement is reached with the government, Theede said.
"If there is some agreement with the government that would involve the shares of our shareholders ... then we would have the meeting set up to allow that kind of vote to take place," he said.
He added that a second EGM, tentatively scheduled for around the third week in January, could also pave the way for an ownership change by dismissing the current board of directors.
Theede confirmed Wednesday that on-off talks with top-level Kremlin and government officials on proposals to settle the tax bills, including Khodorkovsky's shares offer, had taken place.
The government, however, has made no indication of whether it would accept the offer and talks were abruptly curtailed three weeks ago, he said. "They've been trying to understand what we have in mind," he said. "They've been trying to understand how difficult it might be to implement. ... In most of the discussions we have been explaining to them how we would see a certain set of actions playing out."
Theede said the massive new tax claims for 2002 appeared to be a sign the government had decided against the offers made by Yukos and was far from agreeing to any settlement.
"It was unbelievable. I think we were all just shocked," he said of the 2002 claim, which brought Yukos' effective tax rate for that year to more than 100 percent of its total revenues.
"It seemed aimed at coming up with a number that would justify a sale of Yuganskneftegaz."
In a news conference earlier Wednesday, Theede said Yukos would be able to maintain production at 1.73 million to 1.75 million barrels per day this year, despite a company-wide account freeze that sees half of its revenues seized as payment for tax bills.
But during the interview, he warned that Yukos' cash situation was getting so dire that it could have to cut output.
Under what he called "a day of reckoning," Yukos could be forced to cut back production if a Russian court rejected the company's application for bankruptcy.
"In that nightmare scenario, the company has to start reducing production," he said. "If we can't pay export taxes and we're not allowed to export, that starts impacting production levels. It's not in anyone's interests for things to get to that point."
Bankcruptcy is also seen as highly risky, because a Russian court could reject the claim as being filed "with malicious intent."
In the worst case, Theede and other senior Yukos managers and board members could face criminal charges.
Theede said Wednesday he was aware of the risk. "I am absolutely confident that we have worked within all legal frameworks," he said.
"The company has bent over backwards to try and appease the government. I don't know what else we could be doing to try and steer this company through this unprecedented series of attacks," he said.
TITLE: The Imperial Economy
TEXT: For decades to come, George W. Bush's 2004 re-election run will be held up as an extraordinary example of political dexterity. As devised by Karl Rove, senior adviser to the president and mastermind of his public career, it was a veritable tour de force.
The president ran on his record, which featured such highlights as failing to capture Osama bin Laden, a quagmire in Iraq, loss of 2 million private sector jobs, and oil prices at $55 per barrel without an energy policy in sight. His presidency has been one of the most divisive ever, not only at home but abroad, too, among America's closest allies.
Yet instead of making excuses, Bush ran triumphantly, like somebody who had an exceptionally successful four years in office, and promised more of the same. But Americans obviously want more.
In pre-election opinion polls, Bush got a strong endorsement on the war on terror, while voters were far less happy with his stewardship of the economy.
But since his steadfastness has been validated by the ballot box, Bush will have no reason to change his policies in his second term. On the contrary, his election platform included promises to make his tax cuts permanent and to roll back corporate taxes.
His administration is also likely to persevere with its laissez-faire policies on international trade, in keeping with its negative attitude toward business regulation in general.
This suggests that the record fiscal and trade deficits seen during the first Bush term will endure. Between 2000 and 2004, the United States ran up a cumulative trade gap of $1.9 trillion and a federal deficit of more than $1 trillion, including a $127 billion first-year surplus inherited from Bill Clinton.
During the Bush presidency, the federal deficit grew on average by more than 50 percent per year, and the trade gap by 18 percent. But even if the deficits stay at their current levels, by the time Bush leaves office in 2008, the United States will be massively and catastrophically in hock.
The outside world will have to pay for this extravagance. Currently, nearly one-half of all outstanding U.S. Treasury securities are held by foreigners, compared to less than a third in 2000. Foreign central banks have been the main buyers of Treasuries in recent years, since private investors can no longer digest all the dollars the United States pumps into world markets.
In fact, even Russia has made a modest contribution to financing U.S. government debt. Since 2000, Russia's hard currency reserves increased by more than $90 billion, and a portion of its $20 billion oil stabilization fund will be invested into Treasuries.
Russia needs plenty of money to spend on its decrepit physical, social and industrial infrastructure. But if it let the ruble appreciate and stimulated domestic demand, its domestic market would be inundated by cheap imports. Russia's predicament is shared by many other nations. India, which has 400 million citizens living in extreme poverty on less than $1 per day, nonetheless bought some $80 billion worth of dollars over the past five years.
In fact, foreigners don't have a choice but to recycle their export earnings into dollars and subsidize the ongoing spending spree in the United States, by government and consumers alike. The United States accounts for about one-third of the global economy, and its consumers make up 70 percent of the U.S. economy, up from 66 percent a decade ago.
America needs foreign money to buy goods and services, but foreigners also need Americans to keep buying. Without U.S. demand, exporters' economies would tank and commodity prices would plummet, causing a worldwide economic crisis.
In the second half of the 20th century, the United States sometimes used its dominant position in the global economy and the reserve status of its dollar to force its trading partners to share some economic burdens.
Thus, Washington made its allies pay a portion of the cost of the war in Vietnam, and then extracted a contribution from the oil sheikhs toward the post-oil crisis economic adjustment in the second half of the 1970s.
But it is only with the advent of the Bush administration that the United States started to exploit its economic dominance so blatantly. Even though America's trading partners have no choice but to accept dollars that are being rammed down their throats, it does not mean that they are doing so happily.
Highly competitive producers, especially in Asia, as well as commodity exporters around the world, realize that they are exchanging real goods and non-renewable natural resources for pieces of paper, which the U.S. Federal Reserve very unexpectedly prints in Washington. The surfeit of dollars, in turn, makes the greenback liable to devaluation - which means that their central banks will need to add even more dollars to their caches of dollar reserves.
But perhaps the worst thing is that all those forced loans from America's trading partners go to waste.
They are not being used to modernize U.S. infrastructure, pay for better schools or promote scientific research and cultural efflorescence, which the federal government used to do in the early postwar decades.
Instead, Washington has been running an imperial economy to help pay for an imperial foreign policy.
In other words, the Bush administration has avoided asking its voters to make economic sacrifices and instead shifted the burden onto its trading partners.
While U.S. financial markets are poised to rally on the Bush election victory, the rest of the world has plenty of reasons to be alarmed.
Alexei Bayer, a New York-based economist, writes the Globalist column in Vedomosti on alternate weeks. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Privileged Citizens of the Month
TEXT: As far as I understand, Ukrainian citizens have become the most privileged people in Russia, at least until Nov. 21, when the second round of presidential elections in Ukraine is scheduled to take place.
To persuade them to vote for a candidate favored by the Kremlin, Russian authorities have given Ukrainians rights that even Russian citizens do not enjoy in their own country.
There are up to 1.5 million Ukrainians working legally or illegally in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major Russian cities. They have just been given the right to live in the country for up to 90 days without registration.
The Ukrainians were given this privilege as part of a protocol signed by Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's ambassador to Ukraine, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Konstantin Grishchenko during President Vladimir Putin's visit to Kiev last week.
Unlike other foreigners, from now on Ukrainians can just show policemen a migration card with a border stamp that they receive at a checkpoint on their way to Russia. They don't have to run around city hotels or registration offices, spending from $30 to $50 for a registration stamp. They can just enjoy their stay in friendly and democratic Russia.
The freeing of Ukrainians from the obligation to register would be a good step if it were the first step in getting rid of the unconstitutional registration system once and for all, but if the Kremlin really wanted to do that, why has Ukraine suddenly become so special?
The difference is, of course, quite obvious. The Kremlin does not intend to curry favor with, for instance, British or German citizens in this way because their countries would never be considered to be within Russia's sphere of influence. The second reason is that in Western Europe, society works differently from the way it does in Russia, where politicians bribe one another, businesses and people openly.
By offering Ukrainians freedom of movement, which the Russian Constitution lists as a basic right, and giving an order to Moscow police to be polite to people holding Ukrainian passports, the authorities have introduced a new kind of bribe. Instead of operating with material resources, the Kremlin has offered a privilege that costs it nothing.
Strangely enough, officials do not seem to understand where this puts their own citizens, who have to register if they visit a region for more than three days. At a meeting with Putin on Saturday, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the president that the new regulation was to come into force on Monday, but they did not say a word about how how the move leaves Russian citizens comparatively disadvantaged.
Putin himself has started to talk about the problem:
"We must be careful that our own citizens are not worse off than the citizens of foreign states," he was quoted in Monday's issue of Moskovskiye Novosti as saying. "We know the reasons why such strong measures and strict terms for registration were introduced.
But the recent most dangerous crimes and analysis of how the cruelest terrorist acts were organized have shown that criminals are getting around these obstacles quite easily. It is conscientious and law-abiding citizens who have to put up with this."
I have often heard Putin say the right words, but I don't remember a single action taking place afterward that would make me trust him this time.
In 2000, Putin said, "Freedom of speech is one of the main achievements of democracy." Where is it now?
I'm afraid that once again his words will disappear into thin air, especially if you take into account that when expressing his concerns about Russians, Putin issued no orders to remove the registration requirement for all people who live in or visit Russia.
TITLE: Tuned into the world
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Coming out of the metro station you might hear Tarkan, Usher, or Linkin Park blaring out of the CD stalls. Around the corner, McDonald's golden arches stare out from the facade of a neoclassical building, competing with the orange Chainaya Lozhka spoon across the way. Cosmopolitan, Elle and Maxim lead magazine sales at the local newspaper stall, and a billboard advertises "Jersey Girl" next to a newly-opened sushi joint. This may not sound like the haunt of Pushkin, Gogol orDostoyevsky, but this is the face of St. Petersburg that young people know, a world inundated by foreign fads.
The music, movies and leisure activities of St. Petersburg's youth are fully globalized, with trends that range from bowling and belly dancing to Sake and Britney Spears. The plethora of cultural imports isn't unusual, unexpected or unwelcome. In 1985 Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, meaning "openness," derived from the Russian word for voice, made foreign goods legally available, and VCR technology began bringing uncensored Western movies into homes. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russians were able to go abroad for the first time in years, and St. Petersburg began to return to its historic role as the country's "Window to the West."
In terms of music, the popularity of foreign tunes is hardly new. In the '60s and '70s groups like the Beatles had a huge underground following even though their music was officially banned. Some fans went so far as to buy bootleg records etched into the plastic of x-ray photographs so they could listen to the songs on an LP player.
This summer, Western music is no less popular and easier to obtain. Albums like Anastasia's No Name, Norah Jones' Feels Like Home, Avril Lavinge's Under My Skin and the Amelie sound track topped CD sales in July at a branch of the music and video store 505 Piatsotpiat near Gostiny Dvor. Many popular music outlets across the city say they sell significantly more foreign music than Russian music. The sales attendant in a kiosk in front of the Gostiny Dvor metro station estimated 70 percent of sales were of foreign music, both Western and Eastern, the latter referring not just to East Asia, but also to India and the Middle East.
"I listen to foreign music mostly," said Yulia Bogdanova, a student at St. Petersburg State University. "There are some good projects in Russian music, but in general ..." she tailed off. "If we could create something real ourselves, the influence of foreign culture wouldn't be so dominant."
Some contemporary musicians in St. Petersburg feel frustrated by financial difficulties and limited recording and producing facilities.
"It's very difficult and hard to be a musician in Russia because musicians are always smothered," said Nikolai Feoktistov, 19, a vocalist and composer in a band he started with friends - "Neadekvatnaya Reaktzia" (Inadequate Reaction).
Feoktistov said Western music has been very influential in the development of contemporary Russian music, and lists Queen and Faith No More as two of his favorites. The popularity of foreign albums and DVDs is also boosted in part by their cheap prices in relation to Russian albums, on which copyright rules are much more strictly enforced.
A shop assistant in the music and video store Rus Hall on Vasilievsky Island said in their shop Russian groups' albums cost around 100 rubles ($3.33), compared to around 60 rubles ($2) for the average foreign album. Others report a similar situation with films.
"For Russian films, the owners often check if they have a license," said Katya Sivitskaya, a student at the Northwest Polytechnic Institute who worked at a CD and DVD stall over the summer, "So foreign films [sold at the same price] earn more profit for the shop."
Foreign movies, especially American, also dominate in movie theaters, where films like Troy, Shrek 2, Kill Bill, The Day After Tomorrow, Lord of the Rings and Spider Man were hits this summer. The same handful of films tops the list of DVD sales at the 505 Piatcotpiat near Gostiny Dvor, where the movies with the most Hollywood glamour and the best special effects outstripped the rest.
"It happens because people go to the cinema not to think but just to see a beautiful picture. Nobody wants to think at the cinema," said Sasha Safronova, 17, who just graduated from a high school specializing in science and technology. "In foreign countries they do have good films, but often we don't see them because in our cinema theaters they show things like Spider Man and Harry Potter," she said.
One notable exception to the American movie trend came this summer with the Russian-made Nochnoi Dozor (Night Watch), a blockbuster that opened in July and grossed nearly $9 million in its first two weeks. Boasting spectacular special effects and lots of gore, the movie also has a plot based on a conflict between good and evil that echoes familiar Soviet classics.
While contemporary foreign films may capture the attention of movie-theater goers, it is really films of the Soviet era that come up again and again in conversations with students. When asked about what Russian films they like, many students rattle off a list of Soviet favorites like Sluzhebny Roman (Office Romance, 1977), Lyubov u Golobiye (Love and Pigeons, 1984), or Ironiya Sudby (The Irony of Fate, 1975), an assortment of comedies and dramas that still provide fodder for quotes and jokes from day to day, they say.
The creative energy of the Soviet era also gave rise to much Russian music that is still popular today. "We had real music in the '70s," said Safronova nostalgically.
Although the film scene is dominated by Western trends, the East has been dictating shopping trends in recent years. Stores selling curios from the Far East and from the Middle East are becoming more fashionable and widespread. Most customers are young people with a little pocket money who come to buy saris, jewelry, or hookahs as gifts for friends, said Olga Milchenko, a shop assistant in Gang (Ganges), an oriental curio store that has opened three branches in St. Petersburg.
Milchenko, who just finished her first year at college studying education, is dressed in a coral sari with a matching pink bindi between her eyebrows and a tattoo of a bat on her left biceps.
"It's a Chinese symbol," she explains. "No, no, it's Japanese," she corrects herself. Despite neatly written labels hanging from the ceiling - "China," "Nepal," or "India," - the countries do seem to blend together in the shop, with No Doubt's "Don't Speak" playing in the background.
The Eastern influence has also made a comeback in the leisure scene, where belly-dancing is one of the most recent fitness fads in studios that already offer international favorites like flamenco, break dancing, salsa and jazz. At 8 p.m. on a Friday evening a multipurpose room in a fitness center just off the Fontanka Canal near Nevsky Prospect is filled with a motley crowd - skinny teenagers there for the first time gyrating along with snowy-haired matrons who have already invested in full belly dancing costumes, following the lead of their professor, Nadezhda, whose name in Russian literally means "hope."
"I started to belly dance because I wanted good stomach muscles," said Olga Dudko, 19, a lean student wearing a black hip-belt. She took her first belly-dancing lesson about a year ago, after reading about it in Cosmopolitan's St. Petersburg supplement. She says she even wears her hip belt around the house or while washing dishes, and she recently took her mother along with her to a class. When asked if her mother danced, she rolls her eyes, "And how! She kept dancing and dancing, even after we got home ... I'll have to get her an instruction video."
Topping the list of other leisure-time trends is bowling, which started in the city in 1998 with the opening of bowling alley Nevsky Melody. Now the city boasts around ten alleys, including the 36-lane Bowling City, which opened earlier this year to a crowd of over 2,000 people its first weekend.
The Bowling City PR Manager, who gave her name as Olga, pointed out that they are the only alley in St. Petersburg with lanes equipped for children. This unique feature highlights the fact that in St. Petersburg, many bowling alleys cater largely to a crowd of young people who like to bowl late at night and early in the morning. Of the six or seven biggest alleys, all are open until six or nine am, and several - including Bowling City - are open 24-hours.
Bowling is still only for those who can pay, though, with hourly rates for a lane varying according to the bowling alley and the time of day from 180 roubles ($6) on a weekday afternoon to 900 ($30) on a weekend night. In a telling juxtaposition, the doors of Bowling City open onto Sennaya Ploshad, the site of several of Raskolnikov's famous walks in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. In many ways, it may be the historic fame of Russian culture that leaves St. Petersburg's youth optimistic in the face of a flood of foreign fads.
"I don't think it's a problem that we have a lot of foreign culture," said Irma Tzutzeridze, an 18-year-old student at St. Petersburg State University. "If we don't have ours, we can take theirs. And I don't worry about this. In spite of everything we have great Russian literature."
TITLE: Timeless appeal
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: John Peel, the broadcasting legend who died while on holiday in Peru last week, came to St. Petersburg in June 1992. Brought to the city by a BBC publicity bus on an Eastern European tour, Peel, then 53, unexpectedly seemed to be not very busy. When we first met, he was sitting relaxed on the grass in front of the Kazan Cathedral, speaking via a satellite telephone with someone in New York.
The pioneering BBC Radio 1 DJ, who also hosted a new music program on the BBC World Service, advocated burgeoning music genres which were then outside the mainstream: punk, reggae and hip-hop. Peel was one of the first to air hundreds of innovative bands including T. Rex, The Fall (his all-time favorite), The Cure, The Undertones and The Smiths.
In St. Petersburg, however, it was a BBC Russian service presenter, better known in the city than Peel, who conducted autograph-signing sessions with fans that day. Meanwhile, photos of Peel were locked in the bus for the rest of the route that included Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where he was thought to be more popular.
"BBC World Service have this bus which has been driving all over Eastern Europe and they said, 'Do you want to go on it?', and we said, 'Yes.' It seemed to be more interesting to come to St. Petersburg, have a chance to hear something we haven't heard before."
Although his BBC World Service show was available in Russia via short wave, Peel seemed to be known to a limited circle of music fans. So, when he agreed to read a lecture at the TaMtAm club, Russia's first alt-rock/punk club, and the only one at that time, only a few fans came. As it turned out, this was much to Peel's relief. Peel admitted that he was afraid of speaking publicly - something that one would hardly expect from a radio presenter.
Instead, the canceled lecture turned into a lengthy conversation in TaMtAm's inner yard, with Peel talking about the music he had known and been a part of, and his impressions of Russia.
Peel, whose first Russian visit was in 1988, said he had not heard much Russian music in the intervening four years except for Zvuki Mu, Moscow's avant- garde art rock band that toured the U.K. in 1989 and recorded a few songs for Peel's program in London. It turned out that the fashion for theatrical rock in Russia left Peel cold. The trend fascinated many Westerners, including such people as Brian Eno, who produced and released Zvuki Mu and St. Petersburg's own AVIA (featuring a group of actors led by Anton Adasinsky of Derevo experimental theater) - on his Opal label.
"The thing that's always been a problem for me is that so much of the music that I heard from this country seems to come from a kind of arts laboratory background," Peel said.
"It seemed to be more of the head than of the body. It's very theatrical. I always say, rather flippantly, that in England if ever musicians come on wearing funny hats that's when I leave, because I know it's going to be crap. This is a bit of an over-simplification...
"When I saw Zvuki Mu and some other bands in Moscow, the people dressed as clowns and monks, and things like this... that makes it too theatrical for me. I wasn't able to understand the attraction in that, but then it wasn't made for me. I always say, wherever I go, there must be something underneath all this. There must be younger people, because a lot of those people are the same age as me."
Peel said he was optimistic and still hoped to hear something that would change his life once again one day.
"I live in hope, you know, I am a very optimistic man, I always think that tomorrow will be the day when I hear something that changes everything.
"Every day I hope for this, when the records arrive at my home or when I go into the record shops to buy records, when I come here or like last year when I went to Bulgaria... And wherever I go I always expect, really, to hear something that's going to change everything."
Peel's optimism and curiosity defined his views on the music world in general.
"There's always a lot going on somewhere. It's a question of finding out where it is. At the moment it seems to be principally in the United States.
"British music seems to be going through a bad period, I think. People are imitating each other too much, and they seem to be thinking more in terms of a kind of career, rather than in terms of creativity. Whereas in America, they do get a lot of interesting and exciting and confrontational records. And I like to get records that when I put them on I don't initially know whether they're good or bad. I think that's quite healthy, you know, to be confused, especially when people try and make you out to be an expert. I think it's quite healthy to be bewildered by records. So I get a lot of bewildering records from America, but it frustrates me that I know there's wonderful music being made all around the world that I'm never going to hear."
During his stay, Peel also attended a punk concert at TaMtAm and a rehearsal of the local trashy band Sobaka Tse Tse, or Tse Tse Dog. The following month, Peel put together a Russian show that included tracks from such local bands as Durnoye Vliyaniye, Post Color and Monument Strakha.
"I'm sure that there are a great many really excellent Russian bands whose names I won't even know. I always feel that it's a bit absurd, really. This is the second time that I've been to St. Petersburg and stayed for three or four days, talked to a few people and I got given some tapes, but then I went away and made a program which is supposed to be like an authoritative report on Russian music. And, quite clearly, it's nothing like that. That's why I always say at the start of these programs, 'I know, this is not an authoritative report on Russian music, but here's a little bit of what we heard and what we saw.' I think it's a pity that so many music people, not just in America and Britain, but also in Russia as well, I'm sure, assume that if it comes from Britain or America it's somehow better. I get the impression that in the last four years this has changed somewhat in Russia and people seem to be more proud of Russian music than they were three or four years ago. And that's very good."
There were disappointments, too, Peel admitted. Take his trip to Japan, for instance.
"Japanese culture is so totally different to ours and yet it seems to produce music which is just imitations of what people hear from America and Australia and so on," he said.
"When I was in Japan a few years ago, I came back with an incredible number of LPs, and when I listened to them they were all just copies of music that was being made in Britain or America, and that's really boring. So I liked the fact that it seems to me to be healthy that Russian bands are no longer, as far as I can tell, that much influenced by other countries, as much influenced by the West."
Whether Russian bands draw from Russian folk tradition or not, Peel felt that it was important for them to stick to the Russian language.
"They say that English is the kind of language of, you know, rock and roll or whatever, but I must admit I like to hear bands singing in their own language as much as possible. Because, as I always say, there are far too many bands singing in English already, so adding lots more from other countries, it gets quite boring, I think."
Peel admitted that he had been receiving letters from Russia in the past three or four years. There weren't many, between 15 and 20, but most of them seemed to be misguided.
"Often from Russia they write about The Beatles," he said. "I write back and say, 'Thank you for the letter. The Beatles broke up 25 years ago, and a lot has happened since then.'"
www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/johnpeel/
TITLE: Best in show
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg's Molodyozhny Theater is in line for a top arts prize for its production of "Lyubovniye Kruzheva" ("Love Lace"), to be announced Nov. 15.
The Molodyozhny Theater has been nominated in the literature and arts category for one of five prizes awarded by the government under new nominating rules for achievements in science and culture.
The nomination is a proud achievement for the theater's director Semyon Spivak, who celebrated 15 years at the Molodyozhny last weekend. The prize is worth 5 million rubles ($15,000), part of the 25 million ruble-fund established for the prizes this year.
"Love Lace," directed by Spivak and Mikhail Chernyak, is an updated version of Alexander Ostrovsky's 19th century classic "Belugin's Marriage." In their version, the directors seek to move on from the broad social comedy of Ostrovsky's world full of evil merchants and acquisitive maids.
"When we hear 'Ostrovsky,' we say: everything is clear, but in this play nothing is clear. Everything is difficult," says actor Leonid Osokin, who plays merchant Andrei Belugin in "Love Lace."
The production, though set against a 19th century Moscow backdrop, aims to show that the human motives contained in the play - greed, love, forgiveness - are just as relevant in 21st century Russia.
"Ostrovsky accurately noticed that there is such a feeling as sincere love in our lives and anyone can encounter it," says Spivak. "When a person falls in love, he doesn't see anything, he concentrates on the object of his love, and this object can easily manipulate him. I think it's a very interesting theme because the contemporary world manipulates people. It's a very dangerous thing."
The play had been in production for many months when, a week before the first night, Spivak decided to move away from a classical interpretation of the piece.
Lead actor Roman Ageyev was replaced by Osokin from the company of St. Petersburg's Theater on Liteiny.
"This role is important because in it Spivak discovered another side of me. I've worked in the theater for more than 10 years but [till now] I didn't think I could act like this, " said Osokin.
TITLE: The keys to success
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Mutsuko Dohi, the first Japanese pianist to earn a doctorate in music at St. Petersburg's Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, a woman who won second prize at two international piano competitions in Russia and Ukraine, is to perform with the Hermitage Theater's orchestra during a month-long tour of Japan this fall.
She also plans a solo concert at the Hermitage Theater, a concert venue within the buildings of the State Hermitage, in January and another concert during a Japan-Russia cultural festival supported by the Japanese consulate in March.
"I hope that the listeners not only notice my playing beautifully but also are moved by what I am feeling," says Dohi. "I hope that the audience will receive something inspirational during my concerts."
Coming to St. Petersburg was her destiny, says Dohi.
What motivated her to come here from Japan in 1996 was a photo of the Smolny Convent on the back of playing cards given to her by a friend. The convent looked so beautiful that she was eager to see it in person. She was also curious about the conservatory from which Pyotr Tchaikovsky had graduated and the city where other famous figures in the world of music had lived.
She decided to enroll in a two-week piano course at the conservatory, with the intention of taking a fruitful summer vacation.
Dohi's knowledge of Russia before visiting St. Petersburg was limited - and influenced by the negative news she had seen about Russia in Japan. But when she arrived she was shocked, she says, by the wide gap between her image of Russia and the country in reality. For instance, she says she was surprised by well-dressed Russian women and how European the city seemed.
After a concert at the end of the course at the conservatory, a teacher invited Dohi to enroll in its two-year undergraduate course without taking an exam.
Back in Japan, however, Dohi had abundant opportunities to teach and play piano and she turned down the offer.
But, she says, the idea of studying in St. Petersburg attracted her so much that she continued to think about going back to the conservatory. But studying in Russia for two years was a tough choice for her because she would have to quit her jobs in Japan. Finally, she decided she would regret having missed the chance to study in St. Petersburg more than missing opportunities in Japan - and made the leap.
After completing the undergraduate program at the conservatory, she moved on to its two-year graduate course. While studying piano in St. Petersburg, she was asked to perform at concerts. She took these jobs and has been working in Russia as a pianist ever since.
Dohi first received music lessons from her mother, a piano teacher, when she was 3 years old and her mother saw her "playing" a desk as if it was a piano.
As Dohi grew up, her mother decided to let her to take lessons from other teachers. Dohi describes the teachers as "scary," "very strict," and "enthusiastic." But she also says that when she had not practiced, she was sometimes kicked or beaten by her tutors. After such hard lessons, she vowed she would quit piano.
Dohi says she planned to stop taking lessons after a piano recital in high school. For this supposedly last recital, Dohi practiced to the best of her ability, wanting to do well because she imagined the concert to be her last. Ironically, the dedication she showed caused her to re-evealuate her interest in a career as a pianist after one of her teachers recommended that she become a professional.
Looking back, Dohi thanks the tough teachers whose discipline led her to pursue her career. If the teachers had been kind all the time, she would have played piano as a hobby, not as a profession, she says.
Despite her professional success, Dohi still experiences stagefright and admits to great anxiety before every concert. She says she calms herself by reminding herself that performing in a concert is better than going to the dentist.
Dohi says she recognizes that a certain amount of tension contributes to the success of her concerts, She says she deals with the stress by chatting with friends or taking taking trips out of the city. St. Petersburg's historical center also distracts her: its architecture reminds her of favorite novels by Fyodor Dostoevsky, especially in fall and winter.
Dohi prefers performing with ensembles to solo concerts because it allows her to create one unified work of music with her partners. She also enjoys performing with orchestras in various places in Russia.
Dohi says that pianists in Russia enjoy a higher status than those in Japan. For example, Russian people tend to treat pianists as equal partners of singers, while Japanese people tend to view pianists as mere accompanists.
Playing piano is more than using ones hands and fingertips, she says. It also requires brainwork. Dohi imagines her sound first, and then tries to produce an actual sound to match.
"My thought passes through my senses which are connected to my hands. When I place my fingers on the keys, the piano produces sound..." she says. "I hope I am a pianist who can transmit my thought through my fingertips."
For Dohi, the warmth of the Russian people, their somewhat "earthy" attitudes, their music and their country's climate seem similar to those of Japan, perhaps because she comes from Hokkaido, in north Japan.
When she returns to Russia after visiting other countries, she relaxes and feels at home although she cannot fully enter into Russian society, mainly because a Russian law prohibits state-owned theaters from hiring non-Russian citizens.
While studying and working in Russia, Dohi has had opportunities to introduce Japanese music and culture to Russian people. As a result, she has learned about, and has come to appreciate, Japanese melodies and cultural elements which she had not consciously noticed when she was in Japan.
Yasunobu Osaki, a diplomatic sta-ffer at the Japanese consulate in St. Petersburg, describes Dohi as a person who does not advertise herself very much and yet who enjoys talking if someone draws her out. During the interview, although she began speaking in a somewhat nervous voice, she soon relaxed and talked in her usual joyous voice punctuated by occasional laughter.
Dohi's St. Petersburg apartment has Japanese and Russian decorations that add a unique air to her multi-purpose living room that she uses as a bedroom, piano room and studying place.
Genrietta Serova, Dohi's piano professor who trained her at the conservatory for four years, says that Dohi is a good pianist and good friend with a curious and intelligent mind and a warm heart, and who has achieved her goals. Dohi can express herself through the piano, Serova adds.
Dohi says: "I am sometimes thrilled by really a beautiful sound, by a short piano melody played casually by my teacher."
Dohi hopes that her listeners will feel similarly when they listen to her playing.
"I hope to hold a concert where at least one person is moved by it ... and returns home with something remaining in his or her heart."
TITLE: Valuably patriotic
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: William and Catherine MacDougall are just two of the latest entrepreneurial dealers to throw in their lot with one of the hottest sectors of the international art market. Everyone, it seems, is buying Russian.
Last week, the husband-and-wife duo could be found at the Central House of Artists, plying for trade among local enthusiasts and gallerists and dishing out catalogues for the Nov. 30 inaugural sale of MacDougall's, a new Russia-specialist auction house based in London.
Two other major Russian sales at Sotheby's and Christie's are to be held in London that week, but William MacDougall has no doubt that there is room for more. "There are a significant amount of wealthy Russians about, with money to spend and homes to fill. They do tend to be a little bit nationalistic, and they do tend to buy Russian art," he said.
While buyers range from serious collectors wanting top-quality pieces - with Ivan Aivazovsky, Ivan Shishkin and Pyotr Konchalovsky among the most sought after - to Moscow-based dealers looking for something to take home, it seems that nowhere else are they willing to part with more cash. Compared to New York, Paris or Moscow, prices fetched at Russian art auctions in the British capital are squarely the highest around, with those who can afford it spending serious amounts.
Indeed, the last Russian sale to be held at Sotheby's went down as the most successful ever, weathering a well-publicized scandal surrounding a doctored Shishkin canvas, which Sotheby's Russia specialist Joanna Vickery admits "fooled experts both in Russia and abroad," to raise a cool $19.8 million. The top picture alone, Mikhail Nesterov's 1912 canvas "Peace on Earth," pushed a new $1 million price record for the artist.
Vickery believes that part of London's growing appeal for the Russians is due to the fact that domestic export laws favor art that has been purchased abroad. "Buying outside Russia gives clients the freedom to import and then re-export works in their collection," she said. "Whereas if they simply buy in Russia, export is usually not granted."
Another reason for London's popularity is that a large number of buyers make it a point to fly in simply for the previews, turning them into society events. "It became extremely fashionable for Russians to visit London, spend a couple of days here and go to the auctions," said head of Christies' Russian department Alexis de Tiesenhausen.
Judging from the buzz at Sotheby's and Christie's, William MacDougall is confident of a clientele for his new auction house. "This part of the art market is large in absolute terms, and growing rapidly, but it is very small in value compared to the kind of money that they have to spend," the director said. "It's still pocket change for the Russian billionaires."
One of the paintings up for sale in November, an 1870 portrait of Emperor Nicholas I, carries a top estimate of $275,000. "We are secretly hoping that the Hermitage will buy that one back," MacDougall said. But as to whether Russian buyers would miss the cachet that goes hand-in-hand with buying from one of the more established venues, the director was forthright: "Well then, now they get the cachet of going to MacDougall's."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Arafat in Intensive Care
PARIS (AP) - Yasser Arafat, hospitalized in France with a mystery ailment, was rushed to intensive care after suffering a setback and was undergoing a new round of tests, Palestinian officials said early Thursday.
The two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 75-year-old Arafat's condition had seriously deteriorated over the past day, adding that doctors who have been examining him for a week still don't know the cause of his illness.
French hospital and military officials refused to comment. Arafat's top aides denied there had been any setback and accused Israel of spreading rumors. The report first aired on Israel's Channel Two television.
Dutch Filmmaker Slain
AMSTERDAM (AP) - Dutch police have arrested eight suspected Islamic radicals as part of the investigation into the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, prosecutors said Wednesday. The suspects were detained in the 24 hours after van Gogh's killing while he bicycled on an Amsterdam street, said prosecution spokeswoman Dop Kruimel.
Six detainees are of Moroccan origin, one is Algerian and the other has dual Spanish-Moroccan nationality, she said.
The suspect in the killing - a 26-year-old suspected Muslim extremist with dual Moroccan-Dutch citizenship - was arrested Tuesday after a shootout with police.
Van Gogh, 47, who received death threats after his recent movie sharply criticized how women are treated under Islam, was repeatedly shot and stabbed to death Tuesday.
Hungary to Quit Iraq
BUDAPEST (AP) - Hungary's government will ask lawmakers to keep its 300 troops in Iraq for an extra three months before pulling them out by March 31, the country's new prime minister said Wednesday.
Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said he would ask parliament to extend the troops' current mandate, which expires Dec. 31, until March 31.
"We are obliged to stay there until the [Iraqi] elections," Gyurcsany said. Iraq's elections are to be held by Jan. 31.
U.S. Deserter Convicted
CAMP ZAMA, Japan (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who pleaded guilty to deserting to North Korea nearly four decades ago was sentenced to 30-days confinement and a dishonorable discharge on Wednesday, ending one of the Cold War's strangest dramas.
The sentence will allow U.S. Army Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins, now 64 and frail, to resume private life once his confinement ends. He will join his Japanese wife, Hitomi Soga, and resolve a diplomatic headache for Japan and its close ally, the United States.
Japan had sought leniency for Jenkins out of sympathy for Soga, whom he met and married after she was abducted to North Korea in 1978.
Karzai Named Winner
KABUL (AP) - Hamid Karzai was declared winner of Afghanistan's landmark presidential election Wednesday, after investigators concluded a string of irregularities were too minor to overturn his triumph.
The country's joint UN-Afghan electoral board confirmed the U.S.-backed incumbent had clinched a five-year term as the country's leader.
Board chairman Zakim Shah said Karzai won 55.4-percent support in the Oct. 9 election.
TITLE: Roddick Back From Break With a Vengeance
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Andy Roddick surged into the third round of the Paris Masters with a 6-2 6-2 rout of Armenia's Sargis Sargsian on Wednesday in his first match since late September.
The top-seeded Roddick won in 51 minutes and raised his record this year to a tour-leading 71-14. Top-ranked Roger Federer (69-6) is not playing at this indoor event.
"I couldn't ask for much more. I hit the ball pretty well," said Roddick, whose previous match was a loss to Federer in the Bangkok Open final.
"I needed that break," he said, referring to his long absence. "I was fatigued mentally."
Sixth-seeded Marat Safin - yelling at himself and the umpire and slamming his racket - defeated Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic 6-7 (1) 6-3 7-5. Five other seeded players - No. 7 Gaston Gaudio, No. 10 Tommy Robredo, No. 12 Dominik Hrbaty, No. 15 Fernando Gonzalez and No. 16 Jiri Novak - lost in the second round. But No. 13 Guillermo Canas, No. 14 Nicolas Massu and No. 17 Vince Spadea joined Safin in the third round.
Safin was as temperamental as ever. The Russian even showed off his soccer skills: heading one ball over the net, volleying another over, and easily juggling a third on the inside of his foot.
Ljubicic had won two of their previous three meetings. Entering Wednesday's match, the last seven sets the pair played against each other all ended in tiebreakers.
"I do not enjoy playing tennis against him," Safin said. "He sees the ball well, is consistent, can play from the back of the court, doesn't make many errors, serves well."
Toward the start of the second set, Safin was warned by umpire Romano Grillotti of Italy.
"He gave me a warning for saying something in Russian, when he cannot even understand what I am saying," Safin said. "But all of a sudden he decided it was a bad word. This has no logic. How can an Italian explain to a Russian what he just said. I tried to explain this to him."
Safin, who served 13 aces, earned the crucial break to go up 6-5, and he closed the match on his serve.
Having reached the final at the Australian Open and in Estoril, Portugal, in April, Safin has been regaining his form nearing this month's season-ending Masters Cup in Houston. He won the China Open in September and the Madrid Masters two weeks ago.
However, he crashed out of the St. Petersburg Open last week citing exhaustion.
Gaudio, the French Open champion, lost 7-5 3-6 6-1 to Feliciano Lopez of Spain. Robredo of Spain fell 6-3 3-6 6-1 to Jurgen Melzer of Austria. Hrbaty of Slovakia lost to Cyril Saulnier of France 7-6 (4) 6-2.
St. Petersburg Open winner Mikhail Youzhny of Russia downed Novak of the Czech Republic 6-3 7-5. Max Mirnyi of Belarus beat Gonzalez of Chile 7-6 (8) 6-3.
Saulnier has won more wins this year (28) than in his previous five years (26) on the ATP circuit. The Frenchman next meets Sweden's Robin Soderling.
"I played the right tactics today," Saulnier said. "I got straight into the match and I stayed there. The crowd really helped."
Spadea downed Russia's Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 (4) 6-0 while Massu overcameBelgium's Christophe Rochus 6-2 7-6 (4). Canas beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-1 6-3, and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic downed Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-4 6-1.
TITLE: Latvian Star Zholtok Dies In Belarus
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIGA, Latvia - Latvian hockey players, officials, and fans were saddened Thursday after national star Sergei Zholtok died while playing in Belarus.
Zholtok left the game between Riga 2000, the club he was playing for during the NHL lockout, and Dinamo Minsk about five minutes before it ended on Wednesday night. He went back to the locker room where he collapsed and died, Riga 2000 president Viesturs Kozioles told The Associated Press in Riga.
Paramedics at the arena tried to revive him but were unsuccessful. Zholtok, who was known to have an irregular heartbeat, was 31.
An autopsy was scheduled for later Thursday. Zholtok missed games twice last year while playing with the Minnesota Wild, and suffered from dizziness and fatigue.
After leaving a game in January 2003, he was kept in a hospital overnight for observation. He was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia. After missing seven games, he was cleared to return to the lineup.
Zholtok was a key forward for the Wild during their unexpected playoff run that spring.
"Sergei was a great competitor and a valuable member of our organization for almost three years and will be greatly missed by his teammates and his fans in the hockey world," said Wild general manager Doug Risebrough.
Everyone associated with Latvian hockey was shocked and saddened by the news, said Kozioles, who broke down crying while talking about the star forward's death.
"I was really honored to have him on the team," Kozioles said. "He was a patriot for his country and for hockey who never took a shift off and always devoted time to trying to make our young players better. He was one of the best players Latvia ever had, and he was a brilliant person, a brilliant character."
Zholtok was popular with Latvian fans, who are among hockey's most passionate. While many NHL players skip the World Championships that are held each spring, Zholtok regularly suited up for Latvia.
Zholtok, along with goaltender Arturs Irbe and defensemen Sandis Ozolinsh and Karlis Skrastins, was one of a handful of Latvians to have a lengthy NHL career.
"He was one of the greatest all time players in Latvian hockey history," said Guntis Keisels, a sports reporter with the country's leading newspaper Diena. "Ten years in the NHL is quite an achievement. He was the best goal scorer, the best forward, Latvia ever produced."
Called Zholi by his teammates, Zholtok scored 111 goals and had 147 assists during his NHL career. He had a career-best 26 goals for the Canadiens in 1999-2000.
Zholtok was a member of the Latvian team that won silver at the 1994 world championships, and in subsequent tournaments helped his country retain its position in the top flight of international hockey. He was on the Commonwealth of Independent States team that won gold at the 1991 world junior tournament.
Zholtok was traded from Minnesota to the Nashville Predators in March. He was drafted by Boston in 1992, 55th overall, and played 588 NHL games with the Bruins, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton, Minnesota and Nashville.
"We are all saddened and shocked to hear of Sergei's sudden passing," Nashville general manager David Poile said in a statement released by the club. "He was a hardworking player who was well-liked by his teammates and coaches.
"We extend our deepest sympathies to the Zholtok family, his wife, Anna, and his sons, Edgar and Nikita."
The Predators originally announced that Zholtok had died in Latvia.
Three years ago, Zholtok and Irbe helped set up an online auction of hockey memorabilia to benefit abused children in Latvia. They arranged to have pucks, sticks and equipment autographed by more than 115 NHL players sold to the highest bidders.
o
Seventy-five NHL players met with union leaders Tuesday to get an update on a lockout that shows no sign of ending. Among those players was Montreal's Pierre Dagenais, who has said he would be willing to disobey the union and accept a salary cap if that would help settle the lockout.
Dagenais, one of a few players who have criticized the union's position, said he found the meeting informative - but did not retract his comments.
"I think everyone knows what I said. I just came here to learn a little bit more. I did learn," the Canadiens forward said.
The meeting at an airport hotel was billed as a routine update on the labor dispute so player representatives could brief their teammates. But the meeting took on greater importance following recent comments by disgruntled union members Dagenais, Mike Commodore, Brian Pothier and Rob Ray.
San Jose Sharks forward Vincent Damphousse, a union vice president, invited Dagenais to the meeting. "I'm very confident that all the guys are on board," Damphousse said.
The players met for about four hours Tuesday, after having dinner together on Monday night. The meeting included player representatives from all 30 clubs and other players who wanted to attend.
The NHL regular season was due to begin Oct. 13, but games are being canceled by teams on a 45-day rolling basis.
During the last negotiating session in Toronto on Sept. 9, the NHLPA proposed a luxury tax-based system that was rejected by the league. The NHL wants a system that guarantees "cost certainty," which the players association says is akin to a salary cap - a solution it refuses to accept.
St. Louis Blues defenseman Chris Pronger said he's waiting for the league to make the next proposal.