SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1020 (87), Friday, November 12, 2004
**************************************************************************
TITLE: Governor's Son Eyes VTB Post
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Sergei Matviyenko, son of Governor Valentina Matviyenko will soon be appointed to a top post at the St. Petersburg office of Vneshtorgbank, the second biggest financial institution in the Northwest region, local media reported this week.
They said he will be senior vice president responsible for information technology, the same post he holds at Bank Sankt Peterburg.
By appointing the governor's son 31-year-old son, Vneshtorgbank is seeking closer ties with City Hall to secure its plans to expand in the region in the near future and to get advantages when bidding to process city budget money, local analysts said.
Bank Sankt Peterburg, in which Sergei Matviyenko holds a 7.69 percent stake, confirmed Tuesday that the top job at the city branch of Vneshtorgbank is all but his.
"Negotiations about Sergei Matviyenko moving to Vneshtorgbank are in the final stages," Interfax quoted Alexander Savelyev, head of the board of directors of Bank Sankt Peterburg as saying Tuesday.
"[He] will stay on as a co-owner of our bank," he said. "As for the structure of the bank's share ownership, it will not change."
Bank Sankt Petersburg handled large volumes of city budget money before former governor Vladimir Yakovlev was elected in 1996 and after he vacated the governorship last year.
Sergei Matviyenko's relocation to VTB could happen in a matter of days, analysts said.
The governor's son's move has resulted in suspicions of nepotism and claims that Valentina Matviyenko is making running the city a family business.
However, VTB denies that these were the reasons for Sergei Matviyenko's appointment.
"We have full contact with City Hall without this," said Alexander Bakhvalov, VTB spokesman said Thursday in a telephone interview. "I can't say what [the appointment] is related to, [but] I wouldn't have linked it to that."
"Nobody knows so far, what is he going to do," he added. "The decision is to be taken by the head office [in Moscow]. It is likely that he would take responsibility for IT sector."
City Hall could not be reached for comment.
"It is unlikely that the merging of the administration and business could be tied up so closely if it was outside the family circle," said Boris Vishnevsky, a Yabloko faction member in the Legislative Assembly, said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
"I have really big doubts that it would happen if [Valentina] Matviyenko had not been elected governor or did not occupy some significant position in the government," he said. "There is a joke from the Soviet times that asks if a general's grandson can become a marshal. The answer is: 'No, because marshals have grandsons too.'"
Sergei Matviyenko started working with finances in July 2000 for Baltiyskoye financial agency, a year after he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute for Service and Economy.
He was appointed to head IT at Bank Sankt Peterburg in February 2001.
He became the bank's vice president on April 1, 2003, just two weeks after his mother moved to St. Petersburg after being appointed to head the Northwest presidential representative office.
Dmitry Travin, a St. Petersburg economist. and journalist, said it is in Vneshtorgbank's interest to have close ties with the Matviyenko family because it wants to take control of Promstroibank.
VTB has announced it will merge with Promstroibank, one of the biggest financial institutions in the region.
"It is a common practice for businesses to choose their top staff on the basis of the kind of family ties they have," Travin said Wednesday in an interview. "Look at the example of Promstroibank, where the wife of [Sergei] Stepashin, [head of the federal Audit Chamber] worked."
"Today Vneshtorgbank has rapidly activated its moves to take control of Promstroibank by acquiring a blocking stake of 25 percent of the bank's shares," he said. "It is very likely that in two years it will take full control over the bank. It become a very big player and for this reason needs connections to the administration."
If Vneshtorgbank gains control of 76 percent of Promstroibank by 2006, VTB could become the biggest financial institution in the region.
The news that the governor's son is to work for Vneshtorgbank broke less than a month before a tender will be held to choose a financial institution to service the 20-billion ruble ($700-million) payroll for employees working for state organizations, Delovoi Peterburg daily reported Tuesday.
The daily said that the bank that wins the tender could make up to $5 million profit from the deal, so family ties to those running the city could be very important for Vneshtorgbank.
On Oct. 22, the supervisory board of Vneshtorgbank approved plans for the bank's head office to be shifted from Moscow to St. Petersburg after Valentina Matviyenko's request to the federal government to reregister big taxpayers to the northern capital. The final decision scheduled to be made at a VTB shareholders' meeting Dec. 15.
Valentina Matviyenko said earlier this year that relocation of big businesses to St. Petersburg would make it possible to increase the local budget to $5 billion within the next four years through the increased tax take.
TITLE: Rights Group Memorial Makes Gulag Museum CD
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A electronic collection of materials about the Soviet gulag is being created by researchers from the St. Petersburg branch of human rights group Memorial and Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation and put on compact disc.
The first CD in a series to be called "The Virtual Museum of Gulags" will be released early next month. It offers an overview of the collections of several dozen museums from throughout Russia.
"Usually real museums create virtual versions, but what we are doing is exactly the opposite," said Irina Flige, head of history at the city branch of Memorial. "The idea is to create a virtual museum that doesn't exist in reality but encompasses fragmented collections from distant parts of the country."
Gulag is an abbreviation of Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-Trudovykh Lagerei, or Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps, a network of labor, detention and transit camps and prisons that from the 1920s until Stalin's death in 1953 housed the political prisoners and criminals of the Soviet Union.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn famously described the network as an "archi-pelago" because of the way they were spread across the country like a group of islands.
Memorial's researchers have found more than 300 museums across Russia that have either full exhibitions, ongoing displays or temporary projects devoted to the gulag.
Human rights advocates have so far visited about 40 and materials from 29 museum are on the CD.
Useful items were found in the most unexpected places. Museums of schools, factories, construction sites, villages, prison colonies and military detachments turned out to conceal precious and compelling exhibits.
The CD includes items from the Pechora Museum of Repentance, the Kolyma Museum, the Labor Museum of Novy Bor Collective Farm, Sosnogorsk School No. 3 Museum, the Occupation Museum in Riga, Latvia, and the Igarka Museum of Permafrost.
The project's ideologists deliberately focused on lesser-known museums in order to raise public awareness.
Flige said many of the museums visited are not easily accessible. Some are located kilometers away from the nearest train station, while others are housed on the territory of a prison or military base.
The CD contains practical information about the collections, their description and addresses as well as hundreds of photographs with laconic yet informative captions.
A slideshow offers a random selection of photographs that is different with every viewing.
"It is important to create this museum not only because the legacy of the gulag still hasn't been overcome but also because the memories of and memorials to the gulag are fragmented and disjointed," Flige said. "Our CD is the first, and largely incomplete, attempt to bring them together."
Gabriele Baumann, head of the St. Petersburg office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said the idea of a virtual gulag museum developed more than a year ago during a conversation with Memorial representatives at a conference in Syktyvkar, Northwest Russia.
"We have worked with Memorial since 1999 joining them in field research, conferences and all stages of this particular project," she said. The foundation funded the project, but she was unable to say how much money was involved.
Valery Ronkin, who spent seven years in prison and three years in exile for "anti-Soviet activities," welcomed the virtual museum but said the commentary should be expanded.
"We should aim to make every item to tell a human story, otherwise those whose family has no experience [of the gulag] or they have no other personal connection will remain indifferent despite all our efforts," he said.
The gulag will not be overcome until a gulag museum is placed in the former secret police headquarters in the Lubyanka in Moscow, he added.
Anna Schor-Chudnovskaya, of the German office of Memorial, said the theme of totalitarianism is presented differently in Russia and Western Europe.
"In Germany we care most of all to preserve every single item, every single document of the era, whereas in Russia it is more important how you display the documents than what you display," she said. "This is because the task you are facing is for Russian society to develop disgust towards state repressions and [Stalin's] totalitarian regime. In Germany this goal has already been achieved."
TITLE: Tour Recalls the Leningrad of President Putin's Childhood
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This is the house where President Vladimir Putin lived in his childhood," says St. Petersburg guide Kirill pointing at an old, five-story yellow building at 12 Baskov Pereulok.
The building differs little from other houses in the historical center of Russia's cultural capital where the president was born 52 years ago in a city that was then called Leningrad and part of the Soviet Union.
A street cleaner sweeping the tiny well-paved yard where several expensive foreign cars are parked, is not surprised to see another group of people staring at the house's windows trying to guess which window once belonged to the Putin family.
Kirill, who declined to give his last name, is a historian who conducts the tours for Falkon, a company that started organizing tours of city sites connected to Putin two years ago in response to demand from clients.
"We would never have come up with such an initiative if there had been no demand," said Farman Mamedov, head of Falkon.
Mamedov said demand for Putin tours peaks around the time of Putin's birthday - Oct. 7 - and that the clients who want to take the tour are largely journalists or people from other parts of Russia. On Nov. 3, this journalist and one from French newspaper Liberation were the clients.
Mamedov said the demand for Putin tours is not high, and that the firm does not advertise it. The two-hour tours cost several hundred rubles per client depending on how many people take part and the size of the bus used.
"I want to emphasize that our excursion has nothing to do with politics, Putin's cult or anything like that," Mamedov said. "I personally respect Putin, and think Russia has improved a lot thanks to him. But there is no personality cult or fanaticism about him. To my mind, Putin is a very modest person."
In the early 1950s, Putin and his parents lived in one room of a three-room communal apartment. They shared a common kitchen and bathroom with their neighbors.
"They say Putin had a very hospitable mother, and that his friends could easily come to their home, where she would feed them," Kirill says.
In those days many Leningraders, who had survived the hungry years of the World War II siege, focused on food, and for many of them it was a priority and obsession to feed children well, he adds.
The excursion starts at the Snegiryov maternity home at 5 Ulitsa Maya-kovskogo, where the future president was born in 1952.
The three-story gray and yellow building next to Nevsky Prospekt is still a maternity home.
"Putin was born into a completely ordinary St. Petersburg family," Kirill said. "And he was a genuine St. Petersburg native because he was the third generation of his family to live here."
Putin's grandfather Spiridon Putin moved to St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century from a village in the Tver region.
Spiridon Putin, who worked in the restaurant of the Astoria hotel, had six children, one of whom was the president's father, also named Vladimir. He was born in St. Petersburg in 1911.
The communal apartments in the house on Baskov Pereulok where the future president spent his first years are gone. Wealthy people who have bought the apartments in what is a prime location handy to the city center have replaced them.
The area has been home to other famous St. Petersburg natives, including dissident writer and winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize for literature Joseph Brodsky. The poet lived very close to Putin, and the two may have occasionally passed each other in the street, Kirill said.
A couple of minutes' drive from the apartment is the Preobrazhensky Cathedral, a classical yellow church surrounded by a fence topped with golden eagles - a symbol of tsarist Russia - where Putin was baptized a few months after his birth.
Kirill said Putin's mother most probably took her little son to the church without the knowledge of his father, who was a member of the Communist Party. Party members faced problems if the authorities found out about a baptism.
Next stop is a building on Ulitsa Nekrasova, where the Putins used to go to the banya because their apartment had no bath. The banya on Ulitsa Nekrasova has now gone.
School No. 193 where Putin studied in the first eight grades is another historical building, the facade of which is currently covered with scaffolding. Teenage students crowd at the entrance during a break.
Several years ago the secondary school was turned into a professional economics lyceum, where children study for a particular profession at the same time as completing their general education.
The students know Putin studied there, and they are proud of it.
"I like Putin," said Marianna Oganesyan, 16. "I like him because he is a modern man, has good manners, and dresses well."
Kirill says that when Putin was young there were few places where young people could go for entertainment. The tour takes in two of the most popular places of Putin's youth, the buildings which housed the long-gone Lug and Iskra cinemas.
Putin's involvement in sport and exercise, which continues to this day, started at 21 Ulitsa Dekabristov, in 1967. He joined a children's sport society called Trud (Labor) and learned self-defense and later judo.
Kirill points at a huge building at 4 Liteiny Prospekt, which houses the region's police and FSB, where, while still at school, Putin, asked what he should do to become a secret agent.
There, in the KGB reception room, they told him that he would first have to acquire a degree, preferably in law, which Putin later studied.
The bus goes to Liniya 22 of Vasilevsky Island, where the law faculty of St. Petersburg State University is located.
The outside of the building is likely much the same as it was when the future president studied there, but it has changed significantly inside. Yevroremont has transformed the once decaying walls and ceilings into well-lit and modern educational space. You can enter only if you have a special pass.
Ivan Chizhov, 21, fifth-year-student of the faculty, said Putin's having studied there "adds prestige to the faculty."
"I see Putin as a well-educated man, who knows what to do, who has a strong character, and who is very responsible about his job," Chizhov said.
Kirill said St. Petersburgers think it is very important that one of their own heads the country.
"Leningraders always had a feeling that neither Lenin, nor Stalin, nor Nikita Khrushchev [former Soviet leaders of the country] liked the city, and therefore gave it a hard time or just ignored it," he said.
"Putin is the first native of the city to head the country in the almost 100 years since the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, ruled it from St. Petersburg," Kirill said. "And he hasn't forgotten his home city."
"When he brings top foreign guests to this city, Putin advertises St. Petersburg to the world," he added.
The next stop is near a five-story yellow building on Liniya 2, where the adult Putin lived with his family when he was a deputy mayor in the early 1990s.
Kirill doesn't know in which apartment the Putins lived, and invites his clients to use their imagination.
He also recommends the restaurants where Putin took guests such as U.S. president George Bush and Jacques Chirac, president of France. Among them are Russkaya Rybalka (Russian Fishing) and Podvoriye in the suburb of Pavlovsk.
"Of course, those are rather new places because when Putin was young, most of the population could only afford to go only to a pelmennaya (cafe, where one could eat Russian dumplings) or a pivnaya (pub)," he said.
The excursion comes to its logical end near the seat of the St. Petersburg government at Smolny, where Putin worked for five years as the head of the foreign affairs committee.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Baltic Claim Plea
TALLINN (SPT) - The Baltic States should join forces to claim financial compensation from Russia for the period that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were occupied by the Soviet Union, Interfax quoted Toomas Hendrik Ilves, deputy head of the European parliament commission for foreign affairs, as saying Wednesday.
He suggested one way of getting the money was through the European Union. "Russia could be influenced through the EU budget if a solid program [on the question] is presented. It would be more effective if the damage done to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was calculated together and deducted from the amount of financial assistance being transferred to Russia," he said.
Liquidators Spurned
TALLINN (SPT) - The Estonian government has refused to consider liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster or people who participated in tests of nuclear weapons as victims of repression committed by the Soviet regime, Interfax reported Thursday, quoting governmental officials.
The government said that including these categories of people as victims of repression would contradict an Estonian law on repressed people, which gives the victims a range of privileges in welfare, culture services and in transportation.
Four Policemen Killed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Four Sosnovy Bor policemen died in a car accident Thursday morning when a Mercedes car ran into a police Zhiguli in St. Petersburg, Interfax reported.
Another Zhiguli, which was on a side road, did not give way to the Mercedes, which was forced into the path of the police car, the report said.
A criminal investigation is underway, the report said.
Interventionist Honor
MURMANSK (SPT) - A delegation of British diplomats on Thursday paid their respects to British military men who died in Russia's polar regions.
The British Consul General in St. Petersburg, George Edgar, and Jonathan Holloway, the naval attaché from the British Embassy in Moscow, arrived in Murmansk on Britain's Armistice Day, which commemorates the end of World War I, Interfax reported.
They also honored the memory of those who took part after the fighting ended and who opposed the Bolsheviks, who are refered to as interventionists.
The delegation also laid wreaths for the Allied military from many countries who died in Northern convoys supporting the Soviet war effort against Germany during World War II.
TITLE: Zhirinovsky Called To Starovoitova Trial
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the nationalist LDPR party, has been called to appear as a defense witness in the trial of seven people accused of assassinating State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova in 1998, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The court issued a summons for Zhirinovsky to appear next Thursday. Zhirinovsky himself has expressed a wish to testify in response to statements made by another witness, Lyudmila Narusova, widow of Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and a senator for the Tuva region.
She said last month that "hostile relations were formed between Galina Starovoitova and the LDPR faction in the State Duma, and with Zhirinovsky in particular."
Yevgeny Rusakov, lawyer for suspect Yury Kolchin, told Interfax he does not know exactly what Zhirinovsky's plans are, but the firebrand politician has said he will come to St. Petersburg either on Wednesday or a few days later.
"I believe the request to call Zhirinovsky to the court is absolutely silly," said Ruslan Linkov, who was an assistant to Starovoitova and who was injured during her assassination.
"This is going to be in line with all the other witnesses' names mentioned in relation to a circle of people linked to those who ordered the assassination," Linkov added. "I remember [former Duma speaker Gennady] Seleznyov saying that he and Galina had the best relationship ever and that she once even gave him her last headache pill in the hall of the State Duma."
"In other words we will hear lies again," he said.
Zhirinovsky confirmed on Thursday that he would definitely go to the hearing, Interfax reported.
In May last year, Olga Starovoitova, the slain deputy's sister, told Ekho Moskvy that the order for the assassination was given by an LDPR deputy. Her words provoked a swift reaction from Zhirinovsky.
"I'm sorry, very sorry for her. I'm very sorry, but any revolution dies inevitably, as all these [people] die who had been provoking all of these unnecessary, anti-Russian revolutions," Zhirinovsky said in an interview on NTV. "We're for discussion, we're for freedom, we're for the law, for the constitution."
"This is all the democrats' fault," he added. "Olya [a diminutive of the name Olga] should calm down and not think of the LDPR in a negative way to avoid any problems for her in the future. We've got to make it better for us to live, to make it better for everyone."
Staroivoita later distanced herself from the statement, saying that the media interpreted her words incorrectly.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, the defense presented a witness who said he had an alibi for Kolchin.
Leonid Saikin presented in court a copy of the newspaper Rus Pravoslavnaya, or Orthodox Russia, that said the arrest of Kolchin and six other suspects was the result "of a plot of people who are afraid of Russia; democrats that made the country fall apart and is against true patriots of Russia."
Konstantin Dushnov, the paper's editor and another defense witness, said he called Kolchin's cellphone on the night of the assassination Nov. 20, 1998 and spoke to a person he did not know who told him to call Kolchin's home instead.
"The night I called Kolchin at home, he answered and said that he was holding a house-warming party," he said.
But according to the prosecution, phone calls from Kolchin's cell phone were made from Pulkovo airport, where Starovoitova landed Nov. 20 on her way to her apartment where her killers awaited her.
Seven suspects have been on trial in St. Petersburg since January.
They are Kolchin, an employee of the military intelligence General Staff's Main Directorate, or GRU, at the time of the crime, Igor Lelyavin and his brother Vyacheslav, Vitaly Akishin, Igor Krasnov, Anatoly Voronin and Yury Ionov. All were born in the city of Dyadkovo in the Bryansk region.
Pavel Stekhnovsky, another suspect detained in Belgium this summer, is expected by the court to be extradited to Russia. Federal arrest warrants have been issued for three others suspects, Sergei Musin, Oleg Fedosov and Igor Bogdanov.
TITLE: Patch Adams Brings Happy Mission to City
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: U.S. doctor Patch Adams says laughter is the best medicine.
Dressed as a clown, he uses humor to heal patients around the world.
On Thursday, Adams, who was portrayed in the Hollywood movie "Patch Adams" by Robin Williams, and a team of 36 of his compatriots dressed as clowns went to the St. Petersburg Children's Bone Tuberculosis Clinic to entertain about 40 young patients.
"We were excited to have these clowns in the hospital," said Lyuba Miropolskaya, 12, who has been in the clinic 1 1/2 months to undergo treatment to lengthen a withered leg.
"It's very boring to be in the clinic all the time," she said. "It's so monotonous - doctors, doctors, doctors. And suddenly we had so many cheerful people entertaining us. I even felt better physically."
The clowns inflated multicolored balloons, blew bubbles, performed tricks for the children, took Polaroid pictures of the patients and gave the photos to the patients. They also decorated the children's faces with makeup.
Adams, who is visiting Russia for the 20th time, said he comes here because he "loves this country," and because he sees that the kind of help he offers "is needed here."
"I have loved Russia since the times of the Cold War when I wanted to show Americans that people here are beautiful and not our enemies," Adams said.
Adams, 59, a medical doctor and social activist, sports a Salvador Dali mustache and very long hair. Although he speaks little Russian, he believes a smile is understood everywhere. His mission when visiting destinations such as Cuba, Palestine or Mexico, is "not only to treat people with humor," but also "to deliver the idea of peace, justice and care to all people everywhere," he said.
He is the founder of the Gesundheit Institute, a free, full-scale hospital and healthcare service in West Virginia.
The hospital, which integrates medicine with the healing arts, was built in the poorest state of the U.S. to demonstrate a new approach to healthcare.
"It's intolerable to see a child dying of leukemia because she is poor and can't pay for the treatment, whereas big money in the world is accumulated in a small number of hands," he said.
Adams' team ranges in age from 15 to 82. All are volunteers who use their vacations to help all kinds of patients, paying for their trips around the world themselves.
Ed, 82, from North Carolina, dressed in a checked jacket, big orange bowtie, green pants, and wore a clown's red nose, said this was his fourth trip to Russia. He "likes Russians, cares a lot about the relationship between Russia and the U.S., and wants to cheer up Russian patients," he said.
Several Russians joined the Americans.
Sonya Schetinina, a 17-year-old professional ballet dancer, performed pirouettes for the children and said she first worked in Adams' team when she was a child after her parents helped him in Russia.
"These actions of mercy charge me with energy. It's great to open one's soul to kindness," she said.
Adams' team will visit a total of about 20 children's hospitals in St. Petersburg, and visited the same number in Moscow last week.
o
Not everyone seems happy with the joy that Adams brings.
Last Friday he and other members were detained while performing in Moscow's Red Square, MosNews reported.
A member of Maria's Children charity art center, Ilya Segalovich, said that "people in civilian clothes" put Adams and his fellow clowns into their car and took them to a police station. All those detained were freed after 1 1/2 hours.
TITLE: Yukos' Shares in Sibneft Frozen
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Moscow court again froze Yukos' 34.5 percent stake in Sibneft last week, the embattled oil major said Wednesday.
"It has been arrested twice before regarding investigations of tax evasion for 2000 and 2001. And those arrests have not been lifted yet," Yukos spokesman Alexander Shadrin said.
In the notice served to the company, however, Yukos was told that the latest arrest is part of a criminal investigation, Shadrin said.
The arrest could mean that the stake in Sibneft - estimated to be worth $6 billion - could be seized by the state if prosecutors prove that it was initially acquired with funds earned through criminal means, Vedomosti reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed official familiar with the case.
By the end of 2003, Yukos had gained control of some 92 percent of Sibneft as part of a now-defunct merger between the two oil giants.
The merger, which has yet to be fully reversed following Yukos' change in fortunes, was completed in several stages, in which Yukos acquired different chunks for cash or share-swap schemes.
The 34.5 percent stake was bought for $3 billion in cash and Yukos treasury stock.
Following the arrest of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky last October, the merger began to crumble.
Khodorkovsky has since been imprisoned on tax evasion and fraud charges, while Yukos has been besieged by back tax claims for more than $18 billion for 2000, 2001 and 2002.
The companies have been trying to negotiate a divorce settlement, and Yukos has already canceled a share issue for a 57.5 percent stake in Sibneft. But even if an agreement on the remaining stake is found, nothing can be done until the arrested shares are unfrozen.
"This latest arrest is not going to speed up the divorce. But essentially it does not change much since the two previous arrests are still firmly in place," a source in Yukos said Wednesday.
Sibneft was not commenting on the most recent arrest of shares, spokesman John Mann said Wednesday. Sibneft directors Tuesday agreed to hold the company's annual shareholders meeting on Dec. 27.
Yukos shares closed down 4.76 percent on the RTS, after a day of gains on Tuesday fueled by speculation that the oil major's core shareholder, Group Menatep, would sell its 61 percent stake to save the company from ruin.
The sheer size of the tax claim could force the company into technical bank-ruptcy because of the negative ratio between the company's value and the size of its tax debt.
The company could cough up enough cash to cover the entire claim in the period of a year, provided the state provides such an opportunity and if the bill itself does not grow anymore, Yukos CEO Steven Theede said in an interview published by Expert magazine Wednesday.
"If we are talking about the sums that are known today, we could meet the claims within a year," Theede said.
With nearly all its accounts arrested, it was not clear how Yukos would come up with more than $14 billion in outstanding back taxes and penalties.
In a separate development, Yukos exploration subsidiary Sakhaneftegaz announced Wednesday that the unit's former director, Afanasy Maksimov, accompanied by armed men, seized company offices in Yakutsk last week.
Maksimov was ousted by Yukos management earlier this fall. Yukos spokesmen were not able to provide any details on reasons behind his actions.
TITLE: OIL IN BRIEF
TEXT: LUKoil Eyes Africa
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - LUKoil, the country's top oil producer, started drilling the first appraisal well at its Egyptian shelf field as the company plans to compete with BP and Royal Dutch/Shell Group for market share in Africa.
Drilling started at the 1,820-meter deep well at the Northeast Geisum oil field, which requires $6 million of investment, LUKoil said Wednesday in a statement. Drilling of the first well at the West Geisum oil field in the Gulf of Suez in Egypt was delayed to February, the company said.
"The exploration program for both blocks covers a period of four years and includes drilling of four exploration wells," LUKoil Overseas Holding said in the statement.
LUKoil expects to invest as much as $400 million in Egypt as it attempts to boost production abroad to about 15 percent of its total output within a decade. The company wants to bid for more fields when the country offers them, Andrei Kuzyaev, president of LUKoil Overseas Holding, said in April.
Eni Mulls Russian Role
MOSCOW (SPT) - Italian oil and gas giant Eni's chief executive suggested Wednesday that it could be interested in acquiring minority stakes in Russian companies, including troubled Yukos, but only under certain conditions.
Asked whether Eni would consider buying a stake in the Yukos oil company, Vittorio Mincato said, "Eni is not interested in minority stakes unless they give Eni an important role, both industrially and in the corporate governance."
He also said, however, that Eni has not made any offer for Yukos.
Mincato's comments came after a visit last week to Moscow by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, during which he met with President Vladimir Putin to discuss energy cooperation and other issues, including security and the fight against terrorism.
Berlusconi has long cultivated close ties to Putin and is one of the few foreign leaders to publicly back him over the Yukos affair.
ExxonMobil Pipeline
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - An ExxonMobil-led venture started building an oil pipeline to carry crude from offshore fields in the Pacific to a port on the coast where the oil can be loaded onto tankers for export to Asian customers.
The 225-kilometer link will ship 250,000 barrels of oil per day from Sakhalin Island across the Tatar Strait to the port of De-Kastri in the Khabarovsk region, said Exxon Neftegas, which operates the Sakhalin-1 project, in a statement on its web site. The pipeline will be completed in 2005.
"The pipeline was especially designed to meet the challenges unique to Sakhalin," Exxon Neftegas said Wed-nesday.
Nippon Steel, Japan's biggest steelmaker, LUKoil-Neftegazstroi, a former unit of LUKoil, and another local construction firm are building the pipeline. The link will require $300 million of investment, Kommersant newspaper reported Wednesday, without saying where it obtained the information.
Ease in World Oil Prices
LONDON (Reuters) - World oil prices eased on Thursday as signs of strong supply on physical crude markets encouraged dealers to take profits from a bounce in the previous session.
U.S. light crude slipped under $49 to trade at $48.27, more than $7 lower than the record $55.67 peak of late October.
Brent crude in London lost 40 cents to $44.35 a barrel, unwinding gains of over a dollar on Wednesday triggered by a fresh fall in U.S. heating fuel stocks ahead of winter.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a 1.8 million barrel rise in U.S. crude inventories on Wednesday, almost closing the deficit against a year earlier.
"Futures prices were too high and stocks seem to be ample, The insatiable desire for sweet crude seems to have fizzled out," said William Buchanan at Standard Bank in London.
TITLE: State Ponders Oil Fund Usage
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The stabilization fund, Russia's rainy-day pot of windfall oil revenues, is sitting in ruble accounts and won't be invested until year's end because of bureaucratic delays, senior finance officials said Wednesday.
Forecast to grow to 560 billion rubles ($19.5 billion) by the end of this year, the fund is supposed to be held in investment-grade debt instruments issued by the United States, Britain and euro zone countries, according to the fund's rules.
The money is currently being held in Finance Ministry ruble accounts at the Central Bank, the officials said. It has not been invested yet and is not earning any yield, they said.
"I think from December we will start to invest the funds," Alexei Savatyugin, head of the Finance Ministry's financial policy department, told reporters after a conference at Moscow's Higher School of Economics on Wednesday. "There were some delays."
The fund was set up last year to insure the country against a fall in oil prices and to help reduce the inflationary effects of billions of dollars of extra revenue from lucrative oil exports.
The stabilization fund is formed from the budget surplus, higher than forecast budget revenue, oil duties and oil extraction taxes when oil rises above $20 per barrel.
It is expected to grow to $24 billion next year, $88 billion by 2010 and $237 billion by 2020 if oil prices average $28 per barrel and the money is not spent, Savatyugin told the conference.
With the stabilization fund growing twice as fast as was forecast at its inception, the Finance Ministry has come under enormous pressure from other ministries and officials to spend the pot of money on a whole range of projects: from museums to agriculture, oil pipelines, military equipment and even the financing of a hydroelectric power station in Tajikistan.
Presidential economic adviser Andrei Illarionov told the conference that infrastructure projects could be funded by private finance, and that any money above the threshold should be spent on paying off foreign debts.
"To those who say we should spend the money building airports, developing infrastructure and oil pipelines, what is stopping this?" Illarionov said. "If you allowed private companies to build airports, you would have a line forming to build them. There is no problem here - it is an artificial, thought-up problem."
Some of the country's biggest businessmen also opposed spending the fund to insure against a possible fall in oil prices. The collapse in prices following the 1997 Asian crisis hammered Russia's ability to pay mounting debts ahead of the August 1998 financial crisis.
"There is a very favorable economic situation at the moment, but external factors could change so the fund should absolutely not be spent," said Alexei Mordashov, head of the Severstal Group, one of the country's biggest steelmakers. "The fund is actually tiny at the moment, so it should be left alone."
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has recently been forced to defend the fund, making strict recommendations to the government on changes in the way the fund is financed in an attempt to stave off the pro-spending lobby.
All money over the current 500 billion ruble threshold could be used for the early payment of expensive external debts, such as those to the Paris Club of creditors, Savatyugin said. According to Finance Ministry documents, paying off $10 billion of external debt early could save as much as $4 billion in interest payments over several years.
Russia owes about $38 billion to the Paris Club and top Russian officials were deeply unhappy this year when Germany sold repackaged Paris Club debt owed by Russia as credit-linked notes.
Russian officials saw it as a move that could boost debt supply and ramp up Russia's borrowing costs.
The Finance Ministry's proposals have agreement from main economic officials and have been submitted to the government for approval.
The Finance Ministry is proposing to raise the threshold over which money in the fund can be spent, from 500 billion rubles to between 3.1 percent and 4.5 percent of gross domestic product from 2008 onward.
The ministry also wants to raise the price at which money goes into the fund to between $21 and $21.50 per barrel.
TITLE: Microsoft Launches Own Net Engine, Challenging Google
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. finally debuted its own Web search technology on Thursday, hoping to challenge Google Inc.'s long dominance of the field with results tailored to a user's location and answers from its Encarta encyclopedia.
Google signaled that it is ready for a fight by doubling the amount of Web pages available to search through its site.
The Microsoft search engine, offered in 11 languages, will initially be available on a special "test" site. Gradually, some users visiting Microsoft's MSN site may find that the existing search bar uses the new search engine, said Adam Sohn, a director with the company's online division. But a full rollout, perhaps with new features, isn't expected until early next year.
Redmond-based Microsoft has long offered a search engine on its MSN Web site, but the technology behind it was powered by subsidiaries of Yahoo Inc.
Earlier this year, company executives conceded that they had erred by not developing their own search technology and said they had devoted $100 million in an aggressive catch-up effort. The company also pledged to clearly separate paid search results from those based purely on the relevancy. That's something its previous search engine hadn't done but that the new technology will do.
Microsoft also plans to offer by year's end a test version of its hotly anticipated technology for quickly locating e-mail, Web pages and other files on desktop computers. Google launched a similar product last month.
Hoping to steal some of Microsoft's thunder, Google doubled the size of its search engine index to more than 8 billion Web pages Wednesday evening. A Google spokesman downplayed the Microsoft connection, saying the Mountain View-based company had been working on the expansion for months. Google last expanded its Web index to 4.3 billion pages in February when another rival, Yahoo Inc., unveiled a search engine powered by its own in-house technology. Microsoft says its site will sort through more than 5 billion Web pages.
Analysts say that just because Microsoft is a late entrant doesn't mean it won't pose a formidable threat to Google, Yahoo and others.
Microsoft's search offering has many features likely to appeal to users who don't care about particular brands, according to Charlene Li of Forrester Research. A feature called "Search Near Me" guesses where users are located based on their net connections and seeks to provide results nearby. Another feature promises to answer plain-language questions such as "What is the capital of Germany?" by culling through Encarta.
Google also offers a localized search function, with users telling the search engine where they are. And it has a "Google Answers" site, where researchers provide data for a minimum fee of $2.50. Microsoft's version is free but not as tailored.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Theaters Face Tragedy
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Chief of the Theater Professionals Union said that the Smolny-proposed theater reform could destroy the city's theaters.
"The division of the theaters into those that are budget, independent, and those without state funding will result in the city's 28 theaters unable to survive on their own," said Andrei Golubev, deputy head of the Russian Theater Professionals Union at a round-table discussion Wednesday, Interfax reported.
The theaters' repertoire, directing work and financial conditions will not allow them to survive competition, he said.
"City theaters are being prepared for euthanasia," said Golubev.
The most reasonable solution would be the creation of a board of directors for state theaters and a board of directors for city theaters, which would manage the theatrical business, he said.
Road Supervisor Picked
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT)- Lenin-grad Oblast government picked a non-commercial Moscow organization to supervise the construction of the Southern segment of the Ring Road, an Oblast official said to Interfax on Wednesday.
The National Industrial Investment Fund will be in charge of land plot registration, accounting, developing the engineering infrastructure and attracting investors, the official said.
All decisions regarding the use of the land will be made in agreement with the Oblast government.
Among the companies that competed for the project were KAD Lenoblast - the Eastern segment managing company, and three more industrial management companies.
A similar contest for the management of the Ring Road's Eastern segment was conducted in 2002.
Vena Brewers in Merger
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH) decided to merge its St. Petersburg-based Vena brewing company and the Chelyabinsk-based brewery Golden Urals, said Vena on Thursday, Interfax reported.
The decision was made to increase the effectiveness of the BBH distribution system, its purchasing and use of production facilities, said Pyotr Chernishev, general director of both Vena and Golden Urals in an earlier statement. In the future BBH is planning to unite all of its Russian plants under the holding company's management. BBH controls a total of 15 brewing companies on the territory of Russia and the CIS.
The next step in the unification process of the two companies will be the registration of an additional issue of joint-company stock, planned for March next year.
In 2003 Vena and Golden Urals' joint share of the beer market was 3.6 percent in Russia, while the combined sales volume reached 250 million liters.
For the record
Russian Railways is lowering tariffs on long-distance train travel starting Friday, said the company's press service.
Compared to 2003 tariffs, the prices on platskart and public cars will decrease by 10 percent; coupe and weekend ticket prices will be reduced by 8 percent.
n Raiffeisen Bank Austria and PetersburgstroiSkanska launched a joint mortgage program in the city.
Loans for 5 to 15 years, with a minimum of $20,000 credit base will be available, Skanska said.
TITLE: Governor's Iron Fist Reaches Only So Far
TEXT: Governor Valentina Matviyenko learns something new about St.
Petersburg every day. Last weekend she made an unexpected discovery
during an inspection of the Nevsky district.
I guess she was stunned when she saw the mess that most residents of the city's outskirts live in. They are drowning in piles of
rubbish that block their doorways, breaking their legs on rickety
paths across courtyards that have been in decline for years and
living in apartments that are permeated with odors caused by
damp air rising from basements filled with water.
I am quite confident that Matviyenko had heard about the terrible
housing conditions hundreds of times and could not help but have
seen some of the mess before, but surely nothing like this.
The conditions in the Nevsky district seemed so bad to Matviyenko
that she lost it and tried to push district head Vladimir Khrenov
into a huge hole filled with rubbish on a staircase she was visiting.
"Get in!" Matviyenko is reported to have shouted in anger as
she pushed the hapless bureaucrat toward the hole.
Luckily for Khrenov there were lots of other officials around,
so he managed to slip behind them after dodging the hole, Fontanka.ru reported.
Why don't you clean the staircases? the governor yelled at a cleaning lady standing to one side.
It's easy for you to give orders," the woman replied. You should
hire more cleaners. I have to take care of 40 staircases by myself."
Unfortunately, the only conclusion Matviyenko drew from this
conversation was that she should tear off the heads of district authorities.
The governor's anger was there for all to see in photographs
taken during her visit to the Nevsky district. Her face was distorted
and she made sharp gestures with her hands.
It seems that Matviyenko is concerned about the problem. But
how can she address it when the system leaves nobody responsible?
Instead, the authorities continue to follow the practice of relying
on an iron fist that is supposed to take care of everything.
Matviyenko's fist came down on just one of thousands of courtyards
in St. Petersburg's outskirts, so the rest of them will stay
in the same awful condition for years; she just doesn't have
time to walk around all the staircases and courtyards in the city.
A friend who is close to the administration sent a letter to
City Hall the other day complaining that his staircase is dirty
and the roof of the building he lives in leaks.
A couple of days later his courtyard was filled with people wearing
suits. Among them were the deputy head of the Central district,
the head of the municipal region, the man responsible for communal
housing services in the area and several of their colleagues
of a lower rank. They immediately got down to examining the building
from top to bottom, then made some promises, some of which have
already been fulfilled.
My question is: What should ordinary people do who do not have
connections or are not visited by the governor? Are they bound
to live in squalor for the rest of their lives? Unfortunately
they are, because the iron fist is too short to reach all the
rubbish holes in the city.
TITLE: Drawing from memory
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Adolf Hitler wanted him executed as soon as German forces took Moscow.
His mocking cartoons of the Soviet Union's ideological foes in the West, ordered by Josef Stalin himself, prompted angry diplomatic protests.
At 104, Boris Yefimov's eyesight is failing and he is slightly hard of hearing. But Stalin's favorite lampoonist still has the steadiness of hand to sketch every day and a bubbly sense of humor that helps him confront the ghosts of his past.
At sculptor Zurab Tsereteli's exhibition "My Contemporaries," opened in the Moscow Gallery of Arts in early October, a statue of Boris Yefimov was one of the sculpures on display, along with those of Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Josef Brodsky and other artists whose lives marked 20th century Russia.
Yefimov's cartoons, much more powerful than thousands of words of propaganda articles in the Soviet media, created myths about both the West in the Soviet Union and about the Soviet Union abroad. These days, however, many of the cartoons are seen as ambiguous works, some even as blatant lies wielded as a hypocritical weapon in the hands of a totalitarian state.
That's why the vast majority of contemporary Russian cartoonists view Yefimov as an official Soviet-regime caricaturist, whose presence prevented many talented underground cartoonists from drawing, and even put some of their lives at risk. Today's cartoonists also blame Yefimov for strangling the development of the Soviet caricature, which left Russian cartoon art in a retarded state, falling behind world trends in the field for years. But being an official state cartoonist in the 1930s, '40s and '50s when a wrong stroke could be sufficient grounds for being shot, deeply influenced Yefimov's life and work.
"I got orders from Stalin. And this is sad for me to say, but I often had to ridicule people whom I respected," says Yefimov. "There was no way to refuse because..." his voice trails off and he draws the edge of his hand across his neck to indicate execution.
For most of the 20th century - from the Bolshevik Revolution to Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika reforms - Yefimov dutifully served the Soviet state, creating caricatures of Moscow's foes for the consumption of the masses.
In the bleak years of World War II, Yefimov's lampoons sustained the morale of Soviet front-line forces; in the Cold War, they sought to convince people the capitalist world was ultimately doomed.
In a telegram to Yefimov on his 104th birthday in September, President Vladimir Putin, a man with a dry wit himself, paid tribute to his "bright talent, depth, humor and wisdom."
Designed to get a blunt point across to an unsophisticated public, his cartoons, published in the leading Soviet newspapers (mainly Izvestia) of the day, were far from subtle. Hitler was a crazed, often wretched-looking figure.
In the Cold War, the U.S. superpower foe was a mean-looking Uncle Sam bristling with missiles - a dollar sign thrown in just in case a reader might miss the point.
"You know, the point about my work is that it was a weapon. Cartoons have to flog, to beat with their sharpness, to expose and to mock," he said.
A tiny figure still remarkably spry on his feet, he lives in a Moscow riverside apartment overlooking the White House - the former parliament building and now the official cabinet building. His eventful past crowds in around him in books, albums and photos. A portrait of his younger brother on the wall, piles of sketches and drafts everywhere, several old-style unpainted wooden pencils on an old desk by the window, at which he can still draw a cartoon within 2 or 3 minutes.
He sketches every day largely for pleasure. But he no longer draws political cartoons, he says, because post-Soviet Russia does not lend itself to the genre.
"Can you imagine now that we have contract killings in our country? Every day they kill this director or that businessman. This is not a subject for caricatures. I don't see how I can make humor from such awful happenings," he said.
His own age knew a greater terror, though, from above. Stalin's purges carried off Yefimov's brother in the lowest moment of his life. Like millions of others he prudently kept silent.
Families of the intelligentsia were arrested en masse in those days and Yefimov recognizes that his obedience and his skill as a cartoonist kept him alive where others perished.
"It was pure economics for [Stalin]. He was the master of the whole country. He realized he had a good caricaturist that he needed so he said, 'Let him live,'" Yefimov said.
A Jew, he ridiculed Hitler almost daily during the war. When told Hitler had ordered his execution as soon as Moscow was taken, Yefimov is said to have replied he would rather confront an angry Hitler than face Stalin.
In fact, as he said in a recent interview for the BBC for a program about cartoonists in Russia to be broadcast later this year, Yefimov did in fact meet Hitler in person on one occasion in the early '30s. He was coming back to the Soviet Union from France via Germany and met Hitler surrounded by "angry young man in brown shirts," leaving the President Paul von Hindenburg's palace.
"I took notice of [Hitler] there. I especially remembered his look between the pulled down hat and turned up collar. I looked at him for quite a while, but then his guards started pushing me aside and I decided to go back to the hotel in order to avoid any problems. As soon as I got to my room, I drew a cartoon of Hitler".
This was basis for the image that Yefimov used in his caricatures of the German dictator later.
Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill, became a regular target after World War II. When Stalin personally ordered it, Yefimov penciled in more weapons onto a cartoon of U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower so that he was "armed to the teeth."
Yefimov's friendship with Stalin's rival co-Revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, who wrote a foreword to Yefimov's first book of cartoons in 1924, still troubles him.
He recalls his last meeting with him in 1928, on the eve of Trotsky's exile to Central Asia, with the clarity of an event that took place yesterday.
"I told him, 'You know, I think a rest from politics will do you good.' Trotsky replied: 'I do not intend to take a rest from politics. Nor will you. You'll continue drawing your cartoons because you do it well.'"
They parted friends, but Yefimov had nonetheless to lampoon Trotsky on Stalin's bidding, something that weighs on his conscience. After moving around several countries, Trotsky was killed in Mexico by one of Stalin's followers in 1940.
Yefimov reserves huge praise for Gorbachev - the only Russian leader who actually invited him to the Kremlin.
"He removed the threat of nuclear war. That is why he has my respect. He brought a new leadership style after people like Leonid Brezhnev who could only read from bits of paper," he said.
After all these years, it is the death of his brother, journalist Mikhail Koltsov, in the purges of the 1930s that haunts him. Editor of the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, Koltsov was arrested in 1938 by Stalin, spirited away and executed after torture. He was 40.
Yefimov links this now, wistfully, to his own longevity. He gestures toward the portrait of his brother on the wall.
"It may be superstition," he said. "Now I think that somewhere, in the place where the fate of people is decided, those years that were taken from him were passed on to me. That's how I consider now my many years."
Reuters,
with additional reporting
by Angelina Davydova
TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: The Berlin-based painter Jim Avignon of the one-man techno-pop
group Neoangin says that Kid Koala, a Canadian DJ who will perform
at Tinkoff on Friday, is really great. The multi-talented DJ,
who specializes in hip-hop when behind the turntable, is also
a graphic artist and contributed some of his work to the most
recent issue of Avingnon's annual almanac, Attack Delay.
Avignon was in Moscow last week as part of a European tour of
launch parties for Neoangin's new CD, Unhappy House, and packed
out the infamous Project OGI and the newly-launched BAdtaStE Gogol clubs.
It's a theme album about departure in general and departure
from Berlin in particular, he said about the album.
I feel the original Berlin spirit fading away and I sing about
that. Berlin is dead cool to everyone else but to me its more like dead cold.
Avignon devoted the time between the gigs to decorate the interiors
of Gogol with striking visual works which he painted directly on to the walls.
Psoy Korolenko,the Moscow-based singer/songwriter, who also
once worked with Avignon, will come to St. Petersburg with a
very different, yet intriguing project - he is planning to perform
Klezmerized versions of some well-known Soviet songs in Yiddish
as part of the Jewish Book Festival on Monday. See article, page xi.
Gonki, a bizarre collaboration of Korolenko and Avignon, was
released in April and is Korolenko's most recent album.
It's a joke, it's having fun, it's a burlesque, whatever, was
how he described the CD this week.
According to Korolenko, his next release is very likely to be
a live recording of the concert in St. Petersburg.
Meanwhile, the city will be given a brief respite from Leningrad,
Spitfire and their members who perform as DJs in various clubs,
as the two bands embark on a North American tour starting at
Chicago's Logansquare Auditorium on Friday.
The tour that includes four concerts by Leningrad and one by
Spitfire will end in New York's Roxy on Nov. 21. Back home, Leningrad
has scheduled a stadium concert at Yubileiny Sports Palace on
Dec. 24, its first appearance since the summer.
It also looks likely that the long-awaited collaboration CD between
Leningrad and The Tiger Lillies, recorded during the U.K. cabaret-blues
trio's visit to St. Petersburg in September 2003, will finally be released.
Meanwhile, another Lenin-grad/Spitfire offshoot, the St. Petersburg
Ska-Jazz Review, is planning to launch its second album in December
This week, Tequilajazzz will perform its guitar-driven alt-rock
at Red Club this Saturday, as part of charity event to help the
homeless. The art rock ensemble Vermicelli Orchestra will appear
the same night at JFC Jazz Club.
John Peel, the BBC broadcaster who died last month, is to be
buried Friday at St. Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St. Edmunds,
eastern England.
TITLE: Klezmerizing
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Familiar Soviet songs are likely to sound as they have never sounded before at a concert promoted by the Jewish Community Center this week.
Translated into Yiddish and supplied with Klezmer arrangements by the Moscow-based cult singer-songwriter Psoy Korolenko and his All Stars Klezmer Band, the songs will reveal what was hidden behind the Soviet culture's official facade.
Called "Un vu iz der onheyb fun Foterland," the Yiddish for "S Chego Nachinayetsya Rodina," or "What Does the Motherland Start With," after the popular Soviet song, the set features famous songs from the repertoires of such singers as Mark Bernes and Lyudmila Zykina.
"There are love songs, war songs and children's songs; it's a selection that represents different strata of the Soviet song from the 1930s to the 1970s," said Korolenko, speaking by telephone from his home in Moscow this week.
According to Korolenko, the idea came about when Timur Fischel, a singer and collector of Jewish songs from Tallinn, Estonia, brought to his attention Yiddish translations of some of the classic Soviet songs that Sovietish Heimland, the Soviet Union's sole Yiddish magazine published in 1980.
"I found the idea very fruitful for several reasons," said Korolenko.
"If there is a translation into Yiddish, then it could be translated into Klezmer, musically, as well."
"Klezmer music lies in the deep subconsious and sometimes even on the surface of the musical idiom of many composers, even those not of Jewish origin, such as Isaac Dunayevsky, the Porkrass Brothers or Yan Frenkel, just because it had a profound influence on them.
"It also goes without saying that many of the composers were from mestechki [Jewish settlements] from the second generation of settlers.
"Such musical treatment makes it possible to bring this deeper layer of such well-known musical culture to the surface."
Korolenko first performed the set in a few Moscow clubs with Moscow's Klezmasters, including at a Rosh Hashanah party, in 2003. Klezmasters' leader, violinst Mark Kovnatsky, who now lives in Hamburg, will perform in the concert.
However, the rest of the band will be different, featuring Gennady Fomin and Yury Khainson, both of the Kharkov Klezmer Band, on clarinet and accordion respectively, Moscow double bass player Alexei Rozov and St. Petersburg's own Yevgeny Khazdan on piano and Alexei Patrakov on drums.
"We carefully avoid overplaying this Klezmer idiom, so there won't be any postmodernist games," said Korolenko.
"We'll be keeping the balance - it should be a delicate dialogue of totally different musical idioms."
Korolenko said he also performed some of the material solo when on tour in the U.S. last year.
"The response is very positive because people accept it for different reasons," he added. "For some it's another occurence of Soviet nostalgia, with an exotic language, for some Klezmer is important at least as part of the Eastern European ethnic wave, for some it's important for reviving Yiddish both as a language and culture."
"Some could like Jewish songs, but live abroad and not know the Russian language and Soviet songs, so he or she gets a dozen wonderful melodies, tuneful songs as a gift that they haven't ever heard - and suddenly they get them in Yiddish, in their native language."
"For some it's just the opposite. Yiddish is a foreign language for them, it sounds like German, and, for instance, war songs acquire quite a specific, paradoxial resonance.
"There's a lot of different facets there, and for different audiences different facets will be relevant. We want all these audiences to meet each other and feel unity above the language, age, taste, ideological and cultural barriers that exist in our life. At certain times music helps to get rid of them."
For some, however, some of the Soviet songs that Korolenko performs could evoke bad memories of life under communist rule, but he claims there has been no ironic reaction from any slice of his audience.
"I did it for about a year in a draft version, and there was no ironic reaction at all; otherwise, I would drop it," said Korolenko.
"I found that people of very different tastes treat it seriously and with soft humor, which is also necessary."
"I tested this program on very different audiences including the U.S., Germany and all kinds of places in Moscow. I even saw weeping war veterans in St. Petersburg, at the Jewish charity center Khesed."
Psoy Korolenko and All Stars Klezmer Band perform "Un vu iz der onheyb fun Foterland" at the House of the Actor, 86 Nevsky Prospekt, M.: Ploshchad Vosstaniya/Mayakovskaya, at 6:30 p.m. on Monday. www.psoy.ru
TITLE: Here kitty, kitty
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The legendary British musical "Cats," which premiered in London in 1981 and has been bounding across the globe in ever multiplying productions ever since, is finally coming to Russia.
The Russian premiere of "Cats" is set to hit the stage in March in Moscow and travel to St. Petersburg later in 2005.
The production company behind the show, Stage Holding Russia, held its first casting sessions in both cities last month, while rehearsals are scheduled to start in January.
Arguably the British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's most famous musical, the show is loosely based on poems from T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.'' At different points, Dame Judi Dench, Brian Blessed and Elaine Paige have starred in the musical.
Andrew Lloyd Webber has always been fond of cats. Two of his feline pets are named Dmitry and Sergei, in tribute to the Russian composers Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev.
Simone Linhof, the production company's casting director in Germany, who was in Russia to help to set up local casting sessions, said she was pleased with the results of the auditions and sees a bright future for the celebrated musical in Russia. Linhof refers to "Cats" as "The Musical."
"It has everything to be successful - brilliant music, a gripping plot, an ocean of feline charm and that famous fantastic make-up," Linhof said. "The show has been hugely popular in many countries, and I am happy that now the time has come for Russia to see it."
The British actress Marina Stevenson, who joined Linhof for the casting sessions in Russia, agrees. Stevenson, who starred in the London production of the musical as Cat Victoria, was also director of the Spanish production of "Cats," which premiered in Madrid in 2003.
The actress believes that "Cats" is the most challenging musical for singers, actors and dancers because the show incorporates all three talents.
"We could see the most fabulous dancer, of which there are many in Russia, but if they haven't got the imagination to act or the necessary ear to sing in tune, then, no matter how good they are, we have to go and look for someone else," Stevenson explains.
Linhof said it was obvious that Russians aren't used to casting sessions and tend to shy away or become easily perplexed. It took time for her to overcome the candidates' restraint.
"In New York, they have a couple of castings every week, and the actors aren't be surprised by anything," Linhof said. "But here, a casting is still a rare event indeed, and it grows into a very big deal, and they get nervous and so on."
"Cats" ran for 21 years in London until it closed on its birthday on May 11, 2002. During the musical's history, it has been seen by over 50 million people, and revenues have exceeded $2.7 billion.
"Twenty-one years is long enough for any show," Stevenson said. "The company took it off so that it never got to the point when it had been running for too long. For instance, there are dancers that go on until they are 83 but really they should have given up when they were 50! Just so that it didn't go too far."
It is for that very reason the production company is now able to bring "Cats" to other parts of the world where audiences haven't yet seen the musical.
"It is actually quite lucky for the rest of us that it did close in London because now we can spread it out a bit more," Stevenson said.
Vadim Kasparov, director of St. Petersburg's dance studio Kannon Dance, pours cold water on this enthusiasm, suggesting that "Cats" isn't likely to set box-office records in Russia.
"The choreography is obsolete, and the plot isn't relevant to life in this country," he said.
"This is not going to work, and it was for that same reason 'Chicago' didn't get very far," Kasparov said referring to a recent failed attempt to bring the American musical "Chicago" to the Russian stage.
In Kasparov's opinion, to be successful in Russia, a musical must either have target young people, like "Metro", or be a love story, like "Les Miserables," or have a mixture of romaticism and patriotism, Russian-style, as in "Nord-Ost."
But Dmitry Bogachyov, producer of the Russian version of "Cats," is convinced that the musical has already become eternally popular.
"Like Verdi's 'Aida,' this show simply can't go out of date," he said. "The music for 'Cats' was written by a genius, and it has become immortal."
Stevenson says the key to the feline musical's success is that audiences gradually begin to identify themselves with the charming and entertaining characters.
"There is a good story in many musicals, but 'Cats' is just so different," she said. "You don't go to the theater expecting a cat to come out from the seat underneath of you. And in this show the point is to transport people into a completely different world of the imagination where they believe they are a cat."
TITLE: Unsung inspiration
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Gennady Spirin's name does not appear on the cover of Madonna's most recent storybook for children, though it's as much his work as hers.
Spirin, a Russian-born artist who lives in New Jersey, illustrated scenes of Eastern Europe of the 1600s to accompany the pop star's book, "Yakov and the Seven Thieves," but his name appears only on the title page.
In a recent telephone interview, he described researching 17th century architecture, clothing and furniture to capture the time and place Madonna wanted.
"Yakov and the Seven Thieves" is about a cobbler, Yakov, and his wife, Olga, who seek a cure for their very ill son, named Mikhail. "They seek advice from a wise old man, who enlists the help of seven thieves and proves that miracles can occur if we do good deeds," the book's official summary reads.
Madonna, who was born Catholic, has publicly embraced the Kabbalah, the ancient tradition of Jewish mystical wisdom that has enjoyed a New Age revival of late. In connection with this, Madonna, now a mother of two, has said she wants to go by the name Esther.
Her previous two books, "The English Roses" and "Mr. Peabody's Apples," are also morality tales. A total of five books are planned. A fourth, "The Adventures of Abdi," is due this fall. So far, she has collaborated with a different artist on each book.
Reviews for "Yakov and the Seven Thieves," were mixed when it was released in the United States in June by Viking, though Spirin's drawings were widely praised.
The Russian version, "Yakov i Semero Vorishek," was released Aug. 16 by the publisher Eksmo and is selling for 150 rubles (about $5).
A New York Times reviewer in 1998 compared Spirin's style to that of Renaissance artists like Raphael for his combination of rich colors and fine detail. Spirin says his art is also rooted in Russian traditions, including the art of the Orthodox church.
Spirin, 55, was born in the town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, near Moscow, and studied at the Surikov School of Fine Art, opposite the Tretyakov Gallery. He moved to the United States in 1991, on the invitation of picture book publishers, Dial Books and Philomel, both of which are now imprints of Penguin Books.
"I didn't flee anywhere; I didn't emigrate. I was invited for work and have worked ever since," he said, adding that he settled in Princeton, New Jersey, because his editor lived in the town.
The Russian-speaking community in the sleepy, elite college town is tiny, he said, though he has friends among fellow artists who are American. A Russian friend named Tanya had a gallery in Princeton, where he showed his work, but rising rents forced it to close.
"I have my kids, so the Motherland is always with me," he said.
He has three sons, aged 28, 20 and 12. The eldest, Ilya, is following in his footsteps as an illustrator.
These days, Spirin's art is available for sale only through the Storyopolis gallery in Los Angeles, he said. Listings at Storyopolis.com show that his work goes for anywhere from $6,000 to $20,000.
In 1997, the Saks Fifth Avenue department store recruited him to design their Nutcracker-themed holiday window display in New York after seeing his illustrations for the E.T.A. Hoffman fairy tale.
Spirin said that he thinks Madonna herself handpicked him to illustrate "Yakov and the Seven Thieves" because "her team can't handle anything without her, not even the smallest detail," he said.
He admits it is a guess, since he never spoke with the pop star. "I never needed to," he said.
He did send her a letter once. "I wrote to her to explain why certain details needed to be done my way and not the way she suggested," he said. He composed the letter in Russian and had it translated and sent.
His contact was with the publisher and through a translator. Despite having lived in the United States for more than 10 years, he said he does not speak English.
He said his lawyer in New York helps him negotiate contracts and sometimes doubles as his translator.
Numbers are not his thing. He said he did not know which of his 33 books has been the most popular. "I don't know about sales. All I know is I have no money," he said.
The contract with Madonna paid better than his previous projects, he said.
"I get practically no royalties. It's frighteningly unfair," said Spirin, who describes himself as a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian.
"I'm waiting for the Lord to get angry with them and they give me at least a little bit," he said with a chuckle that clashed with his mildly bitter tone.
It is not that Spirin has not found professional success. He won four gold medals from the Society of Illustrators, a group of his peers, for four books, including "The Tale of Tsar Saltan," based on the story by Alexander Pushkin.
Four others have been named best-illustrated book of the year by The New York Times. His illustrations for "Kashtanka," based on a short story about a dog by Anton Chekhov, won an international prize in 1994 in Spain. The original watercolor illustrations - he only paints in watercolor - now hang in a Barcelona museum.
Spirin had an exhibit at the Russian Consulate in New York. But he has never shown his work in Moscow, and he has never returned.
His friends here keep telling him to come visit, but work has always gotten in the way, he said. His current project is an alphabet book.
"It's not that I don't want to, but I just never have had enough time," he said.
"To go for a week is too short. You see two friends and leave. And a month is too long for work. Publishers also have limited time schedules."
TITLE: Lost and found
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A manuscript resurfaces one century later. The autograph manuscript of Sergei Rachmaninov's Second Symphony, long thought lost, was recently discovered in the estate of a European private collector. On Dec. 7, it will go up for auction at Sotheby's in London with a presale estimate of Pound300,000 to Pound500,000 ($550,000 to $920,000).
Sotheby's has not revealed the identity of the collector, nor is it known how the manuscript came into his or her hands. What the auction house did say was that its authenticity had been confirmed by Geoffrey Norris, a Rachmaninov authority and chief music critic at The Daily Telegraph, after he was approached by the estate's executor. "The handwriting, the paper and the manner in which Rachmaninov made corrections - all are as they should be," Norris later wrote.
The discovery is of major significance, in part due to the importance of the Second Symphony in Rachmaninov's creative output. A lush, grandly proportioned work in the late Romantic tradition, the Second Symphony is perhaps the finest and undoubtedly the most frequently performed and recorded of the composer's purely orchestral works. Only the Second and Third Piano Concertos rival it in popularity.
In musical manuscript parlance, an "autograph manuscript" is a continuous copy written out by the composer in more or less final form, including orchestration. This is distinct from preliminary sketches and drafts, and from later manuscript copies made by someone else. Autographs often include corrections or revisions that shed light on how the work reached its final form.
With 320 large folio pages, this autograph is the longest of Rachmaninov's works. Its title page, final page and first few pages are missing, suggesting that, at least at some point in its history, it may not have been appreciated for what it is. Indeed, there is little evidence as to what happened to the autograph after the symphony's full score was engraved from it in Leipzig in 1908. Presumably it was returned to Rachmaninov, then living in Dresden, where he had begun composing the symphony the year before. Sotheby's conjectures that he may have given it away, as he did with the autograph of the Third Piano Concerto, now housed in the British Library. The Second Symphony autograph contains many revisions but no indication of the cuts that Rachmaninov later worked out and are normally observed today, an indication that, from a practical point of view, he may have regarded it as superseded by the printed score.
Most of Rachmaninov's other manu-scripts have been preserved. After he left Russia in 1917, taking few manu-scripts with him, the Bolsheviks requisitioned them together with the other papers he left behind. They are now housed in the Mikhail Glinka Museum. Similar documents relating to Rachmaninov's subsequent career in the West are in large part held by the Library of Congress in Washington.
An unfortunate result of selling musical manuscripts at auction is that they are often purchased by unnamed private parties who deny access to scholars and other interested persons. Perhaps, as with Viktor Vekselberg's purchase earlier this year of the Forbes family's jeweled Faberge eggs, a white knight will donate the autograph to a Russian institution and make it accessible to music lovers.
The manuscript can be viewed at Sotheby's in New York from Nov. 16 to 19 and at Sotheby's in London on Dec. 2, 3, 5 and 6.
TITLE: Yasser Arafat Dies Leaving No Successor
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RAMALLAH, West Bank - Yasser Arafat, the guerrilla leader turned Nobel Peace Prize winner who forced his people's plight into the world spotlight, died Thursday at age 75 - still reviled by many as a terrorist.
Arafat died at 3:30 a.m. in a French military hospital. His last days were as murky and dramatic as his life. Arafat was flown to France on Oct. 29 after nearly three years of being penned in his West Bank headquarters by Israeli tanks.
He initially improved but then sharply deteriorated as rumors swirled about his illness. Neither doctors nor Palestinian leaders would say what killed Arafat.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets of the Gaza Strip in a spontaneous show of grief. Dozens of gunmen fired into the air, and marchers waved Palestinian flags.
Mosques blared Quranic verses and children burned tires on the main streets, covering the skies in black smoke. People pasted posters of Arafat on building walls.
Within hours, former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was chosen to succeed Arafat as leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was expected remain in charge of day-to-day governing.
Parliament Speaker Rauhi Fattouh was to be sworn in as Palestinian Authority president until elections are held in 60 days, according to Palestinian law.
Officials said they wanted to ensure a smooth transition, despite concern both at home and abroad that a behind-the-scenes power struggle to assume the Arafat mantle could result in chaos and violence.
Israel quickly sealed the West Bank and Gaza Strip and increased security at Jewish settlements, fearing widespread Palestinian riots in the coming days.
"The Israeli Defense Forces are deploying to allow a dignified funeral ceremony for chairman Arafat," an army statement said.
The military said it would restrict access to the funeral and burial, set for Friday in Ramallah, and only allow Palestinians with permits to attend. The military will allow processions in towns and refugee camps, officials said.
A military funeral was scheduled earlier Friday in Cairo, a location that allows Arab leaders to avoid travel to the West Bank, where Israel controls access.
Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, without mentioning Arafat by name, said his death could provide an "historic turning point in the Middle East. Israel is a country that seeks peace and will continue its efforts to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians without delay."
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath called on Israel to resume implementation of the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, saying it was time Israel met its obligations.
"Now, the road is open, and we are telling the Israelis, welcome if you want to implement the road map, then implement it," Shaath said. "It was the path of President Araat, and we will go on the path of Arafat."
U.S. President George W. Bush issued a statement of condolence to the Palestinian people.
"We express our condolences to the Palestinian people. For the Palestinian people, we hope that the future will bring peace and the fulfillment of their aspirations for an independent, democratic Palestine that is at peace with its neighbors," the president said.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Arafat and assassinated Israeli leader Yitzak Rabin, said:
"The biggest mistake of Arafat was when he turned to terror. His greatest achievements were when he tried to build peace."
Palestinian flags at Arafat's battered Ramallah compound were lowered to half staff. Television broadcast excerpts from the Quran with a picture of Arafat in the background.
"He closed his eyes and his big heart stopped. He left for God but he is still among this great people," said senior Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim, who broke into tears as he announced Arafat's death.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was saddened by Arafat's passing.
"President Arafat was one of those few leaders who could be instantly recognized by people in any walk of life all around the world. For nearly four decades, he expressed and symbolized in his person the national aspirations of the Palestinian people."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair sent condolences to the Palestinian people.
"President Arafat came to symbolize the Palestinian national movement. ... [and] led his people to an historic acceptance and the need for a two-state solution," Blair said.
Top Palestinian officials flew in to check on their leader while Arafat's 41-year-old wife, Suha, publicly accused them of trying to usurp his powers. Ordinary Palestinians prayed for his well being, but expressed deep frustration over his failure to improve their lives.
Arafat's failure to groom a successor complicated his passing, raising the danger of factional conflict among Palestinians. A visual constant in his checkered keffiyeh headdress, Arafat kept the Palestinians' cause at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But he fell short of creating a Palestinian state, and, along with other secular Arab leaders of his generation, he saw his influence weakened by the rise of radical Islam in recent years.
Revered by his own people, Arafat was reviled by others. He was accused of secretly fomenting attacks on Israelis while proclaiming brotherhood and claiming to have put terrorism aside. Many Israelis felt the paunchy 5-foot, 2-inch Palestinian's real goal remained the destruction of the Jewish state.
Arafat became one of the world's most familiar faces after addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York in 1974, when he entered the chamber wearing a holster and carrying a sprig. "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun," he said. "Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."
Two decades later, he shook hands at the White House with Rabin on a peace deal that formally recognized Israel's right to exist while granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The pact led to the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for Arafat, Rabin and Peres.
But the accord quickly unraveled amid mutual suspicions and accusations of treaty violations, and a new round of violence that erupted in the fall of 2000 has killed some 4,000 people, three-quarters of them Palestinian.
The Israeli and U.S. governments said Arafat deserved much of the blame for the derailing of the peace process. Even many of his own people began whispering against Arafat, expressing disgruntlement over corruption, lawlessness and a bad economy in the Palestinian areas.
TITLE: Slaying Rocks Netherlands
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UDEN, Netherlands - The brazen daylight murder of a filmmaker who criticized Islamic fundamentalism has shattered Holland's fabled tranquility. A wave of attacks on mosques and churches - and a firebombing at a Muslim elementary school - is raising troubling questions about Dutch society's relations with a large and increasingly restive Muslim minority.
Marion Cappendijk can't understand the outburst of violence. "We are so tolerant here," she said Wednesday as she looked at the smoldering rubble of the school, the 14th Muslim building attacked by arsonists, bombers or graffiti sprayers in five days.
The Nov. 2 killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, allegedly by an Islamic extremist, unleashed powerful resentments that have shaken many Dutch.
"Extremism is reaching the roots of our democracy," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende warned Parliament on Wednesday.
A tradition of ethnic and religious harmony, a well-known tolerance for marijuana use and avant-garde policies on euthanasia and alternative medicine have made the Netherlands synonymous for many people with broad-mindedness.
But Van Gogh's murder and the ensuing attacks are only the latest and most dramatic signs of ethnic turmoil here - an uneasiness that mirrors tensions throughout Europe between host and immigrant populations.
A police raid on suspected Islamic militants Wednesday that saw three officers and a suspect wounded amid grenade explosions and gunshots added to the unease.
For the Dutch, it's evidence of a painful loss of innocence they are now tracing to the assassination two years ago of Pim Fortuyn, a gay, populist politician who won a following by campaigning against immigrants, especially Muslims.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Pullout From Kashmir
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced Thursday a reduction in troops in disputed Kashmir.
Singh, who will make his first trip to Kashmir next week, did not say how big the troop withdrawal would be.
Islamabad said the scaling back of troops would help foster peace between the nuclear rivals.
Bush Taps Hispanic
WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday nominated White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who helped shape the administration's controversial legal strategy in the war on terror, to be attorney general. He would be the first Hispanic to serve as the nation's top law enforcement officer.
A Harvard-educated attorney whose parents were migrants, the soft-spoken Gonzales would succeed Attorney General John Ashcroft. Gonzales' selection came just a day after the White House announced the resignations of Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans.
Fajullah 70% Captured
FALLUJAH, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines say they have seized 70 percent of Fallujah and are vowing to hunt down surviving rebels.
"There are large numbers of U.S. forces across Fallujah," Marine Master Sergeant Roy Meek said Thursday.
About 10,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines, backed by 2,000 Iraqi government troops, are engaged in the battle.
Expats Exit Turmoil
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - France, the United States and other nations launched one of the largest evacuations of Africa's post-independence era Wednesday, requisitioning commercial jets to fly out thousands of foreigners following attacks on civilians and peacekeeping troops.
Long convoys sent out by the U.S. Embassy and other nations rounded up foreigners from their homes for evacuation as Ivory Coast's state television alternately appealed for calm and for a mass uprising against the French, the country's former colonial rulers.
Irish Mad Cow Fears
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Ireland has suffered its first homegrown case of the human form of mad cow disease, the government said Wednesday.
Health Minister Mary Harney said doctors confirmed that a man in his early 20s was diagnosed with variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, a fatal condition linked to the consumption of infected beef. Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told legislators that consumers shouldn't be worried about the safety of Irish beef, saying the country had imposed strict controls since the early 1990s to ensure that the meat is safe.
TITLE: Chief of Soccer Federation Koloskov Gets Red Card
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - When Vyacheslav Koloskov took over as the man in charge of the Soviet soccer empire, half of the current national team wasn't even born, and manager Georgy Yartsev was still a player.
Now, after 25 roller-coaster years at the helm of Russian soccer, one of the last remaining dinosaurs of the Soviet and Russian sports bureaucracy has been pushed out in what appears to be a Kremlin coup backed by President Vladimir Putin.
His replacement, some claim, will be Kremlin stalwart Boris Gryzlov, the soccer-mad State Duma speaker. Koloskov is unlikely to be the last head of a sports federation to face the chop.
Koloskov, president of the Russian Football Union, the country's governing soccer body, reluctantly confirmed his plans last week to step down after Vyacheslav Fetisov, head of the Federal Agency for Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism, blasted Koloskov's record.
Koloskov said he had agreed to resign in the wake of Russia's humiliating 7-1 thrashing by Portugal last month in a World Cup qualifier.
Fetisov went on television to say that Koloskov should resign, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming World Cup qualifier against Estonia on Nov. 17. Another defeat will kill Russia's chances of qualifying.
Koloskov told Izvestia last week that Fetisov had pushed for his resignation because Putin had demanded it after such an embarrassing defeat.
"I responded that, if it comes from the president, I naturally will not resist," Koloskov, who was reported to be undergoing medical examinations in Austria, told Izvestia.
The Russian Football Union is a nongovernmental organization, which among other functions controls the national team and major domestic competitions. As the union is not under control of the government, Fetisov has no authority to fire its president.
Fetisov denied that Putin had asked Koloskov to resign.
"He wants to raise his status," said Fetisov of Koloskov's claims that Putin told him to go.
Fetisov also warned that further changes were possible, in comments that appeared to indicate the government is determined to change the leadership of the country's sports organizations.
"We have a system where the president of a sporting federation is god, tsar and military commander," Fetisov said.
"Nobody answers for anything," he said, mentioning the records of the heads of hockey and gymnastics - sports that have failed in recent years, but seen little change in who leads them. "They've become like a sect."
Who will take over from Koloskov is unknown, but there has already been one suggestion.
Sergei Stepashin, the head of the Audit Chamber and chairman of Dynamo Moscow, suggested Gryzlov as a candidate in an interview with Sport-Express. Fetisov said that he believes there should be more than one candidate in the election.
A number of officials close to the Kremlin already have connections with sports. Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service, is president of the Volleyball Federation, while Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Putin's envoy to the European Union, is head of the Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation.
The removal of Koloskov, one of the longest-serving sports bureaucrats, is widely viewed as a coup for Fetisov.
Nicknamed "The Professor," Kolos-kov has always been an adept and clever bureaucrat who, despite a number of scandals, has always escaped with his power base intact.
In his 25 years, he has faced threats from the Soviet government to fire him, accusations of mafia links and corruption, and death threats, yet remained in his post.
But Russia's lack of success since the breakup of the Soviet Union has made him deeply unpopular with many fans and soccer coaches.
"Slava is great," wrote one fan on a soccer web site forum, referring to Fetisov by his diminutive.
"He called him [Koloskov] into his office, put him up against the wall, and tra-ta-ta-ta!!! In complete accordance with the will of the president, they've killed the bastards in the toilet," said one fan, using the slang term Putin made famous in 1999 when talking about what the government would do to Chechen rebels.
Yet the government could end up harming Russian soccer more by removing Koloskov, some soccer experts said.
Koloskov's deputy at the Football Union, Vladimir Radionov, said by telephone that pressure on the union from the government could lead to the national team's disqualification from major international competitions by FIFA, the world's governing body.
Vasily Utkin, a soccer television commentator, said that Fetisov has interfered in other national sports federations before, putting his nominees in charge. But none of them succeeded, as the candidates were not up to the job, he said.
"A key problem of Russian soccer is an absolute absence of sports managers," Utkin said.
However, few fans will miss Kolos-kov, he said, given the poor performance of the national team during his tenure.
The Russian team has failed to get past the first stage of any major tournament since the end of the Soviet Union.
"I have no doubts that Koloskov has knowledge, experience and authority, but somehow he failed to deliver the goods," Utkin said.
TITLE: Showalter Top Manager
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DALLAS, Texas - Buck Showalter won his first American League Manager of the Year award 10 years ago after leading the New York Yankees back into contention.
He's also off to a fast start with the Texas Rangers, and has his second AL Manager of the Year award to show for it.
"Hopefully, there is a story to be continued with our team. We still have some strides we have to make," Showalter said Wednesday.
Following four straight last-place finishes, the Rangers were in playoff contention until the final week in their second season under Showalter. And they did it after Most Valuable Player Alex Rodriguez was traded to the Yankees.
Bobby Cox was selected National League Manager of the Year after leading the Atlanta Braves to an unexpected 13th straight division title.
It is the third time Cox has been honored as a top manager by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He won the American League award with Toronto in 1985 and his first in the NL came after Atlanta started its record run in 1991.
"This year was pretty special. We needed every single player to chip in, and they did," Cox said. "I think I'm as thrilled this year as I ever have been with one single team."
TITLE: U.S. Doping Agency Bans Jerome Young
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DENVER, Colorado - Sprinter Jerome Young, a central figure in a doping case that could cost the U.S. relay team its gold medal from Sydney, was banned for life by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency on Wednesday following his second positive test for a banned drug.
Young tested positive for EPO at a Paris meet in July, USADA said. He is believed to be the first sprinter to test positive for EPO, which is popular with endurance runners and cyclists.
Tests for EPO were introduced at the 2000 Sydney Games. Sprinter Kelli White admitted she used EPO and other performance-enhancing drugs earlier this year when she accepted a two-year ban for doping.
Young, 28, tested positive for the steroid nandrolone in 1999, but was exonerated by a U.S. appeals panel in July 2000, avoiding a two-year ban. He ran in the opening and semifinal rounds of the 2000 Games, but not in the 1,600-meter final anchored by Michael Johnson.
All six members of the relay squad received gold medals, but Young's was stripped.
Other members of the team include 30-year-old Alvin Harrison, who accepted a four-year suspension in October for drug violations uncovered in the BALCO case. Harrison's twin and Sydney teammate, Calvin Harrison, is serving a two-year suspension for testing positive for drugs linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.
The Harrison cases and the latest involving Young all came after the Sydney games. But track's world governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), has recommended declaring the entire Sydney relay team ineligible because of Young.
Last month, the U.S. Olympic Committee challenged the recommendation in a petition lodged with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. Young, who has denied ever using a prohibited substance, was not covered by the appeal.
"As a matter of course, we don't comment on specific individual drug cases," said Jill Geer, spokeswoman for USA Track & Field. "It's certainly tragic if Jerome or any other athlete made the decision to cheat."
Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the USOC in nearby Colorado Springs, said Young's suspension should not affect the case pending before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
"We have complete confidence in the fairness of CAS proceedings and do not believe that the decision announced today will have any bearing on that proceeding."
The CAS has not set a date for a hearing, he said.
Jennifer Coffman of the American Arbitration Association in New York deferred all comment for CAS to Swiss officials. New York attorney Stephen Chien, who represented Young in the steroid case, did not return a call.
If the International Olympic Committee follows the IAAF's recommendation, Nigeria would be upgraded to gold, Jamaica to silver and the Bahamas to bronze in the Sydney relay.
The last American to have an Olympic gold medal taken away for a similar offense was swimmer Rick DeMont in 1972.
TITLE: More NHL Players in Exodus To Join Top Russian Teams
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TORONTO, Canada - Alexei Kovalev, Brad Richards and Nikolai Khabibulin became the latest NHL players this week to join a European team during the lockout, agreeing to play in Russia.
Since the lockout began, about 250 NHL players have headed to teams in Europe, about one-third of the league, according to the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Kovalev, Richards and Khabibulin all signed with Russia's AK Bars Kazan. Kovalev, an unrestricted free agent, also played in his native country during the 1994-95 lockout. Back then he joined Lada Togliatti.
"There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe the lockout will end so he just decided he wanted to play some hockey," Kovalev's agent, Scott Greenspun, said Monday.
Richards and Khabibulin helped the Tampa Bay Lightning win the Stanley Cup last season. Khabibulin was outstanding in goal, and Richards won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs.
Also, Jaromir Jagr of the New York Rangers is leaving the Czech league to play for the Russian club Omsk Avangard, the Czech daily newspaper Sport and The Canadian Press reported. More than 50 Czech players, including stars Milan Hejduk, Patrik Elias and Tomas Vokoun, returned home during the lockout.
Kovalev had 45 points in 78 games with the Rangers and Montreal last season.
In the playoffs, he had 10 points in 11 games, leading the Canadiens to a first-round upset of Boston.
Kovalev joins a Kazan lineup loaded with NHL talent. The team signed Tampa Bay's Vincent Lecavalier last Thursday, Richards' friend and teammate. Lecavalier will report to Kazan on Nov. 23.
Kazan already has Ilya Kovalchuk of Atlanta, Nik Antropov of Toronto, Darius Kasparaitis of the New York Rangers, Ruslan Salei of Anaheim, Fred Brathwaite of Columbus, Denis Arkhipov of Nashville and Alexei Morozov of Pittsburgh.
Kazan, owned by an oil company and in the far east of Russia, is celebrating the 1,000-year anniversary of the Tatarstan republic. The team is intent on winning the Russian league in honor of the celebration.
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Sharapova Sponsorship
LAKE SUCCESS, New York (AP) - Maria Sharapova's sponsorships keep rolling in.
The Wimbledon champion signed with Canon Inc., the Tokyo-based producer of cameras, copiers and computer printers, on Monday, following deals with phone company Motorola and perfume maker Parlux Fragrances Inc.
"I really enjoy being ahead of the latest trends in fashion and technology, and I'm excited to be working with Canon," Sharapova said.
At 17, she became the third-youngest champion in Wimbledon's 127 years by upsetting Serena Williams in the July final.
Colts Top Vikings
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Peyton Manning provided the expected fireworks, including a left-handed pass for a key first down. Mike Vanderjagt's leg sealed the win for the Indianapolis Colts.
Manning threw four touchdown passes and Vanderjagt kicked a 35-yard field goal with 2 seconds left to give the Colts a 31-28 win over Minnesota on Monday night. The kick capped a late duel between Manning and Daunte Culpepper - the two teams combined to score on five straight possessions after an unexpectedly low-scoring start between two offense-minded but relatively defenseless teams.
Wannstedt to Quit
MIAMI (AP) - Dave Wannstedt may have coached his last game for the Miami Dolphins. With his team at 1-8, Wannstedt was expected to resign Tuesday, according to reports late Monday on The Miami Herald's web site and two South Florida television stations. A third TV station, WTVJ, said Wannstedt already resigned. Wannstedt met Monday night at the team's complex with owner Wayne Huizenga, who confirmed an announcement will be made Tuesday.
"Dave called me and we got together, but I'm not going to comment at this point," Huizenga said.
The Herald said defensive coordinator Jim Bates will be named interim coach at a news conference Tuesday.
Phelps DUI Arrest
SALISBURY, Maryland (AP) - Six-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps was arrested last week and charged with drunken driving.
A trooper saw the 19-year-old swimming sensation go through a stop sign Thursday night, state police said Monday. The trooper saw signs of intoxication and arrested Phelps for driving under the influence, police said.
Phelps also was charged with violation of a license restriction and failure to obey a stop sign. The legal drinking age in Maryland is 21.
Emlyn Hughes Dies
LONDON (Reuters) - Former England captain Emlyn Hughes, the driving force behind Liverpool's European Cup glories in the 1970s, has died of cancer aged 57.
Hughes, a central defender who spent 12 years at Liverpool, led the Reds to their first European Cup victories in 1977 and 1978. He underwent surgery for a brain tumor in August 2003.
Nicknamed Crazy Horse for his charging runs upfield, Hughes won the league title four times, the European Cup and UEFA Cup twice each and the FA Cup once with Liverpool, and the League Cup with his next club Wolverhampton Wanderers. He won 62 England caps, many as captain.