SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1030 (96), Friday, December 17, 2004
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TITLE: Bankers
 Wary Of
 Yukos Suit
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A consortium of international banks has reportedly put on hold plans to lend Gazprom $13 billion for a bid for Yuganskneftegaz amid fears over the legal repercussions of Yukos' emergency petition in the United States to stay the oil unit's sale.
 
U.S. bankruptcy judge Letitia Clark was still hearing testimony late Thursday in an unprecedented case that brings an explosive battle between the nation's biggest oil major and the Russian government to a Houston courtroom. 
 Although it was not clear whether the case would stretch into Friday, Yukos' surprise move to file for bankruptcy protection in the United States already appears to have created some doubt about the financing of Gazprom's bid.
 "The filing has thrown a spanner in the works from a commercial perspective regarding the validity of the sale and also from a legal perspective," a banker close to the financing deal told Reuters in London on Thursday.
 Moscow banking sources close to the deal could not be reached for comment Thursday. But given the potential legal consequences, it seems likely that banks will delay signing off on the loan until it is clear what the outcome of Yukos' petition is, lawyers said. 
 Interfax on Thursday also cited banking sources as saying the loans had been put on hold.
 Hearings began at 9.30 a.m. Houston time and continued late Thursday as the court heard testimony from Yukos chief financial officer Bruce Misamore, who told the court that he believed that the Russian government might seek revenge for Yukos' move to seek bankruptcy protection in the United States.
 He said prosecutors had launched new raids on Yukos' downtown Moscow headquarters Thursday and added that he expected Russian prosecutors would try and extradite him, Reuters reported.
 "It's clear that you will not be able to protect yourself in the Russian judicial system," he said.
 Yukos has said it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a last-ditch move to protect shareholders' interests from a relentless legal onslaught by the Kremlin and stave off the sale of Yugansk, the production unit that produces more than 60 percent of Yukos' total output. 
 Yugansk is to go on sale in a government auction Sunday as payment for the more than $20 billion in back taxes levied on Yukos this year. State-controlled Gazprom is expected to win the auction.
 The sale to Gazprom would signal the end of Yukos as one of the world's top oil majors and its takeover by the state after a bruising 18-month battle.
 Yukos has asked the court for the restraining order to be imposed on Gazprom and any other entities that might bid for the unit on Sunday, as well as on the six major international banks reportedly financing gazprom's bid with a $13 billion loan. It listed the banks participating as J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Calyon, BNP Paribas and ABN AMRO.
 "Unless this court enters such an order this week, Yukos will be severely and irreparably harmed, and will not have the chance to reorganize," the company said in its petition for an emergency stay, according to court filings.
 Misamore testified Thursday that the $8.65 billion starting price the government has placed on the unit was way below the price set by three independent appraisals, which valued the unit at a minimum of $18 billion.
 Lawyers representing Deutsche Bank and Gazprom attended the hearing, Reuters reported. But no one was representing the Russian government.
 It was not clear, however, whether a delay in financing a Gazprom bid could jeopardize the auction. 
 A Gazprom official indicated by telephone Thursday that that the gas giant would press ahead with buying Yugansk anyway, even if financing for the bid has not been confirmed by Sunday. "Why does it have to be in line by Sunday?" he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Gazprom would have till the New Year to pay for Yugansk in full.
 The Kremlin press service declined comment Thursday, as did the Justice Ministry, which ordered the sale.
 A court injunction against the sale would be easier to enforce on banks with assets in the United States than on the Russian government, which could argue protection from asset seizures under sovereign immunity, lawyers say.


TITLE: Scientist
 Says FSB
 Vindictive
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg sociologist Olga Tsepilova has written to newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda asking it to explain why it printed an article last month accusing her of being a spy.
 
The article, published Nov. 13, referred to a plan by Tsepilova, a member of the Academy of Science, to conduct a public opinion poll in the closed town of Ozyorsk located in the Chelyabinsk region. The town is contaminated with radioactivity as a result of the operations of the nearby nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Mayak, where radioactive materials and nuclear waste are stored.
 The article says Tsepilova came to the attention of the Federal Security Service in May when, in her haste, she forged the signature of a director of the Sociology Institute where she works. The signature was on a letter that had to be sent to Ozyorsk early on the morning of May 12 to complete her preparations for her trip to conduct the poll.
 Tsepilova said the newspaper article is a provocation organized by the FSB to prevent her conducting the poll, which the paper described as "another spying scandal." Neither the FSB nor the editor of Komsomolskaya Pravda could be reached for comment Thursday.
 "The St. Petersburg FSB has switched on to the case," the article said. "The investigators have found out that Tsepilova was going to conduct her 'research' together with Ozyorsk-based organization Planet of Hopes on the topic of ecology and politics. The sponsors have also been identified. They appear to be the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization well known to our special services. NED has never hidden its friendly relations with the CIA." 
 Tsepilova said that soon after the FSB became involved she was summoned to its St. Petersburg headquarters and was told that she would be visiting investigators more often than she goes to work.
 "When they asked me for documents to show how much money I was paid to organize the research, I provided them," she said Thursday in a telephone interview. 
 "I was getting only about 1,600 rubles a month [from Planet of Hopes] then, which made us think just before the planned trip what kind of tickets we could buy to go there.
 "When FSB officials looked though these financial documents they asked if the figures are in dollars or in euros and when I said that this is in rubles they gave them back because they were not interesting," she said.
 Since the first interrogation, Tsepilova said she had noticed FSB agents monitoring the area around the building where she lives, especially on days when her friends and colleagues visit.
 "It is simpler for them to keep 20 people working around Tsepilova, rather than be busy with problems like Beslan," the scientist said. "This may be the reason that people are unafraid of the FSB because they can't be taken seriously."
 In May, the FSB accused Tsepilova of attempting "to collect unidentified information that could later damage interests of Russia."
 But all that the project intended to do was to find out the opinions of local people about the state of the environment in the region so that this information could help authorities to address the problems, the scientist said.
 Once the FSB were certain they had prevented her trip to Ozyorsk, investigators calmed down and took no action against her, Tsepilova said. 
 So she is unsure why the article was printed in November, almost half a year after the conflict took place.
 "Taking into account the recent cases of Valentin Danilov and Alexander Sutyagin [both of whom were prosecuted by FSB for spying] we should find out what is going on," she said.
 Between 1949 and 1967, almost 188,000 people in the Chelyabinsk region, where Ozyorsk is located, received dangerous radiation doses after accidents at the Mayak plant, according to the regional Radiation and Environmental Safety Department.
 "I was very attracted by the idea of conducting research in Ozyorsk because this is a very bright site for sociologist work," Tsepilova said. 
 "This is a place where several radioactive disasters have occurred and where ecological risks keep increasing," she said.
 "We could have got unique scientific and practical results, which would have definitely help a region that is in trouble."

TITLE: Campaign Aims to Clean Up Image of Roma
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A campaign called "Roma Community Against Drugs" was launched in St. Petersburg this week with the support of the French consulate and international nongovernmental organizations. 
 
The campaign aims to clean up the image of the Roma community by getting rid of a prejudice that Roma are "gypsy drug traders," organizers said Tuesday at a briefing. 
 A police representative participating in the program said the numbers of Roma people involved in drug dealing, theft and other crimes are not as high as people are accustomed to think. 
 "The numbers of Roma community members involved in drug dealing is no higher than among other national groups," police representative Lyudmila Alexandrova said at the briefing in the Regional Press Development Institute. "We believe that the image of 'gypsy as a drug dealer' was created artificially."
 There are about 20,000 Roma living in the Leningrad Oblast, most of whom live in extreme poverty, in many cases because employers, influenced by the negative image of the community, refuse to give them jobs, organizers said. 
 Another important reason is that Roma are generally unskilled with just one child in 20 graduating from school, according to the statistics presented at the briefing. 
 Stefania Kulayeva, head of the Northwest Center for Social and Judicial Assistance to the Roma Community, which is part of the Memorial human rights group, has already visited several families in the Leningrad Oblast trying to offer them advice as part of the campaign.
 "We pointed out that to our regret the word 'gypsy' is closely associated with drugs and everything that is linked to this illness of society," she said. "Most Roma who live in the Leningrad, Pskov, and Archangelsk regions are against drug dealing, but are afraid to declare it publicly.
 "They are really afraid of their kinfolk who earn huge money trading in drugs and are influential," she said.
 Emmanuel Berard, spokesman for the French consulate which financed the campaign with 15,000 euros ($20,110), with funds coming from international non-governmental organizations, such as Caritas and the French organization for social programs.
 Since receiving the money in October the center has hired a narcologist, a social worker and a legal adviser, all of whom will work on the problem of drug addiction in the Roma community. 
 The center has already spread leaflets explaining the bad influence drugs have on some areas where Roma live.
 "We understand that this is a pilot project, but the topic of the program was very interesting to us because it is undoubtedly necessary and useful," Berard said.
 "If the project is successful [the center] can expect to get more money for such programs," he said.
 Yury Vdovin, co-chairman of local human rights organization Citizen's Watch, said it would be extremely hard to adjust the Roma community to settled lifestyles, but the money collected by the French consulate would help, and this could only be a good thing, he said.
 "They are quite peculiar people without a doubt," he said Wednesday in a telephone interview. "But the thing is they hurt my interests quite often by trying to steal something or attacking me when I walk on the street."
 "They came to live in our society, but instead of adjusting to the way civilized society lives they want to impose their way of living on us. If this money helps to change this approach, this would only be for the better," he said.

TITLE: Suspension
 Bridge Across
 Neva Opened
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new partially-completed suspension bridge, the first bridge over the Neva River that will allow vehicles to cross 24 hours a day without having to open to allow ships to pass and making cars wait for it to close, opened Wednesday. 
 
"This bridge is very important for the city," President Vladimir Putin said at the opening ceremony. "It will provide not only an additional connection between the north and south of St. Petersburg but it will help development of new transport infrastructure projects."
 The new bridge, which is yet to be named, will also help to preserve the historic center of the city, and improve the environment, Interfax quoted Putin saying.
 Traffic gets stuck on one side of the Neva when the city's drawbridges open for shipping. Traditionally this has occurred between 1:30 a.m. through 4:30 a.m. from April to November.
 The new, 2.8-kilometer bridge, located in the southeast of the city, stands 30 meters above the water and will be a part of the city's as-yet incomplete ring road.
 The first stage of the bridge, built at a cost of 11 billion rubles, will be completed only at the end of 2005, although it can already be used. When finished it will have eight lanes that will allow 120,000 cars to cross it every 24 hours. However, for the next few years only four lanes will be open, while the remainder are being completed.
 Transport Minister Igor Levitin said Wednesday trucks will pay from 1.50 rubles to 3 rubles per kilometer to cross the bridge, but private cars will cross for free, Izvestia newspaper reported.
 Levitin compared the new bridge to another suspension bridge opened this week in France. He said the French Millau Bridge cost four times as much as the St. Petersburg one and it is much higher, but, at 2.5 kilometers long, Millau Bridge is almost the same length.

TITLE: 10 Years for Murdering Syrian
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A 21-year-old St. Petersburg man was found guilty Wednesday of murdering a Syrian student by pushing him into the path of a metro train in March and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder.
 
The city's Kuibyshev district court jailed Valentin Bulanov for killing Abdel Qader Al Badawy, 22, a student at St. Petersburg Electricity and Technical University, in March.
 Witnesses to the murder told police there was a fight between several foreign students and fans of St. Petersburg's leading soccer team Zenit in the Nevsky Prospekt metro station. As a result, Badawy fell on to track. He tried to get up back to the platform but didn't manage to make it before the train arrived despite attempts to help him from people on the platform.
 Bulanov, who turned himself in, said he had hit Badawy five times, and after the last hit the Syrian student fell on the rails. Bulanov said he had no intention to push Badawy to the rails, didn't want to kill him, and didn't have any national or racial hostility towards the man. 
 However, on Nov. 16, web site Fontanka.ru said that the main witness in the case said Bulanov had deliberately pushed Badawy on to the track.
 She said there were from 15 to 20 young people, who kicked Badawy with their feet and shouted "Russia!"
 On Wednesday the defense tried unsuccessfully to get the charge against Bulanov changed from murder to manslaughter.
 However, St. Petersburg metropolitan prosecutor Vladislav Yakovenko said that the punishment fitted the crime Bulanov had committed.
 "Even during investigation we considered that when a man pushes the other man under the train, he must understand that that man is unlikely to survive," Fontanka.ru quoted him saying.
 Bulanov was also fined 10,000 ruble ($359).

TITLE: Finland Wants Russians' EU Travel Eased
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Finland supports Russia's quest for its citizens to have easier access to all European Union countries, Finnish President Tarja Halonen said Tuesday.
 
"Six million people cross the border between Russia and Finland each year," Halonen said at a meeting with the President Vladimir Putin in the city's Konstantinovsky Palace. "Naturally, we would want the transit through our borders to be fast, flexible and without unnecessary delays." 
 Putin also said that, in return, Russia also intends to make entry to its territory easier for citizens of EU countries.
 "We are not asking for drastic changes to the Schengen regulations; however we are seeking opportunities to ease the visa regime for certain categories of citizens within the Schengen framework," Putin said. "We consider it as the first step in the solution of the issues relating to the general alleviation of visa regulations during the talks with the European Commission [the EU's executive body]."
 The Schengen Agreement operates in almost all European Union countries, treating them as if they have no borders between each other, and only borders with non-EU countries. In principle, this allows holders of visas to one Schengen country to travel to others without having to obtain visas for the additional countries. 
 Halonen's flying visit to Russia took place at a time when Finns are expressing concern and bewilderment over statements from the Kremlin asserting that Finland is part of an informal European bloc with negative attitudes toward Russia.
 Putin's aide and envoy to the EU, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said in a Russian television interview on Nov. 27 that "inside the European Union a certain, as yet informal bloc of states has formed, mostly from the 10 [new members], but also from some northern states".
 Ten new countries, most of them former members of the Soviet Bloc, joined the EU on May 1.
 "Finland's position on many questions has been surprising recently," Yastrzhembsky said, but did not give examples.
 When asked by Finnish journalists to comment on the issue Putin, said he "would prefer employees of his administration to comment on what I say, and not vice-versa." Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat had quoted Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja as saying he suspected Yastrzhembsky's criticism might be linked to criticism of Russia voiced by five Finnish members of the European Parliament.
 Tuomioja said five Finnish were among a group of 100 signatories to a letter criticizing the way that Russia plans to celebrate Victory Day next year, which marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
 Most signatories were MEPs from former Communist countries.
 Criticizing the planned celebrations as an endorsement of the Soviet occupation and the "crimes of totalitarian communism," the letter urges European leaders not to attend the celebration.
 Halonen has already said she will attend the event. 
 Meanwhile, Halonen said Finland intends to have a positive influence on relations between Russia and European Union when it receives the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2006. 
 There is "unrealized potential in the relations of Russia and EU," she said, "therefore we want to positively influence this process."
 Both presidents expressed satisfaction with the level of economic relations between their two countries. 
 Putin said trade between Russia and Finland is now worth a record 9 billion euros ($12 billion).
 "Russia occupies a solid position as Finland's No. 3 trading partner after Germany and Sweden," he said. "If the trend continues we'll have the opportunity to get one position higher." 
 Putin said that the economic relations between the two countries should develop better and faster.
 Halonen said environmental safety was another important area that both countries should increase collaboration on, especially regarding the Baltic Sea, on which both countries have international borders.
 When asked about the situation of Russian minorities in the Baltic States, which this year joined the EU, Halonen said the countries meet all essential "norms and standards."
 However, Putin disagreed, saying "the minorities have problems," and that Russia won't ignore them.

TITLE: Estonia Seeks Deal
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Estonian President Arnold Ruutel is prepared to sign a border treaty with Russia during a visit to Russia on Jan. 21, Interfax reported Thursday.
 
"Estonia has been ready to sign a border agreement since the mid-1990s," Ruutel was quoted as saying in an interview published Thursday in the newspaper Eesti Paevaleht. "And because we have been ready to do it for a long time, there would be no need for special preparations."
 Ruutel said he could not agree with the Russian Foreign Ministry that it would be impossible to sign an agreement on Jan. 21 because his visit will be a private one, the report said.
 Interfax had earlier quoted a source in the ministry as saying, "If such a visit takes place, it will be private and the Foreign Ministry knows nothing about it."
 Ruutel denied the visit is private. 
 "My visit is connected with my receiving an award at a ceremony of the International Foundation for Unity of Orthodox Peoples," he said. "This award is being given to me as the head of state, and not as a private person."
 At a Russian-European Union summit in the Hague last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the Foreign Ministry to prepare agreements on borders with Estonia and Latvia.

TITLE: Kiev Poisoning Recalls
 Peculiar Russian Cases
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - In the bloodstained post-Soviet period, feuds over money and power have often been solved by bullets or bombs. But confirmation that Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was disfigured by dioxin draws attention to suspicious cases in Russia in which poison may have been used to silence political foes and settle business scores. 
 
Allegations by Yushchenko supporters of Russian involvement in the poisoning have emboldened Kremlin critics who claim poisoning is a common Soviet-era practice that seems to have reappeared since former KGB officer Vladimir Putin took the presidency. 
 "The list is rather long, and since Putin assumed power in Russia, poisoning has been one of the preferred political tools used by the Kremlin," said Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military affairs analyst. 
 One of the most prominent cases is that of Yury Shchekochikhin, a liberal State Duma deputy and journalist who crusaded against corruption and died in July 2003 after apparently suffering a severe allergic reaction. Colleagues suspect he was poisoned, probably in connection with his reports on a case involving customs officials and allegations that the Tri-Kita furniture store evaded millions of dollars in import duties. 
 The Prosecutor General's Office told Shchekochikhin's colleagues at Novaya Gazeta newspaper and in the Yabloko party that there was no evidence he was poisoned, Yabloko spokeswoman Yevgenia Dilendorf said. But she said a British laboratory that conducted tests as part of a probe by the paper and the party found signs of poisoning.
 "We unequivocally believe that Shchekochikhin was poisoned," said Vyacheslav Izmailov, a reporter and columnist at the paper. 
 Izmailov said the same was true for Anna Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta journalist and Kremlin critic who fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to Vladikavkaz during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. At least two other journalists accused authorities of trying to stop them from covering the crisis. Izmailov points a finger at state intelligence agencies such as the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor of the KGB. 
 He and Felgenhauer also said that Chechen rebels held in Russian jails have been poisoned. While those cases have not been confirmed, the FSB has said its operatives killed Omar Ibn al-Khattab, a Saudi-born militant who fought with the rebels in Chechnya and died in 2002. Khattab's relatives say he was poisoned. 
 "Poisoning is not the only method the security services use to remove people who are inconvenient for them, but it's one of them," Izmailov said. 
 Felgenhauer said federal security forces showed their propensity for using toxic substances when they pumped a knockout gas into the Dubrovka theater seized by Chechen rebels in 2002. Most of the 129 hostage deaths were attributed to the effects of the gas. 
 "These substances were mostly developed during Soviet times, under the auspices of the KGB," Felgenhauer said.
 The most notorious Soviet-era case of political poisoning allegedly involving the KGB was that of Bulgarian defector Georgy Markov, who died in London in 1978 after a pellet containing ricin was injected into his thigh - purportedly by a jab with a rigged umbrella. 
 The alleged cases of poisoning in former Soviet countries are not limited to Russia and Ukraine. 
 In Belarus, where many critics of authoritarian President Alexander Luka-shenko have disappeared and are feared dead, the wife of opposition leader Gennady Karpenko has claimed her husband was poisoned shortly before he died in 1999.
 Yushchenko associates speculate that Russian or former KGB agents may have been involved in poisoning the candidate. 
 Some suspected poisonings do not appear politically motivated but rather related to business vendettas. Around the same time Yushchenko was sickened, a prominent St. Petersburg businessman died after suffering symptoms of severe food poisoning. 
 Russian media reported that Roman Tsepov, whose bodyguard agency once provided security to Putin when he was an official in the St. Petersburg city administration, was murdered with a massive dose of a leukemia drug - after surviving three assassination attempts in the 1990s. 
 Prosecutors said Tuesday that they have not confirmed Tsepov was poisoned. 


TITLE: 40 Protesters Seize a Kremlin Office
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - About 40 members of the radical National Bolshevik Party seized a presidential administration office just off Red Square on Tuesday and demanded that President Vladimir Putin resign, a police spokeswoman said.
 
Federal Guard Service officers and riot police broke down the door of the office on the first floor of the building at 21 Ulitsa Ilyinka and detained 39 people, said the spokeswoman, Yelena Persilova.
 The protesters managed to hold the room - a presidential administration directory information service - for 35 minutes, the Interfax and Regnum news agencies reported.
 "This is a political action protesting the rigging of recent elections, the passage of a law replacing benefits with cash payments and other political steps taken by the government," said National Bolshevik Party spokesman Alexander Averin, Interfax reported.
 Denis Osnach, a party leader from Kaliningrad, elaborated on the other political steps in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio given from the seized room. He accused the authorities of closing all independent television channels and blamed them for the terrorist attacks on the Beslan school in September and Moscow's Dubrovka theater in 2002.
 Osnach also accused Putin of making foreign policy mistakes that led to U.S. military bases being established in formerly Soviet Central Asia and the presidential election crises in Ukraine and in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia.
 The protesters barricaded themselves inside the room and chanted "Putin, Step Down!" "Tsarism Will Not Pass!" and "Putin, Dive After the Kursk!" The Kursk nuclear submarine sank after an onboard explosion in 2000, killing all 128 sailors aboard. 
 The National Bolshevik Party has staged a number of publicity-grabbing protests against the Kremlin in recent years.

TITLE: Court Convicts Officer
 Of Spying for Estonia
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Moscow district military court convicted a former border guard officer of spying for Estonia and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
 
The sentence on charges of state treason is considerably milder than the 14 years handed to Krasnoyarsk physicist Valentin Danilov last month on similar charges and the 17 years handed to scientist Igor Sutyagin in April.
 Lieutenant Colonel Igor Vyalkov, 34, was found guilty of selling secret information to an Estonian intelligence agent in a closed trial at Moscow's Lefortovo prison, Interfax reported.
 The court, which stripped Vyalkov of his military rank, found that he contacted an Estonian intelligence agent, identified by prosecutors as Zoya Kint, and passed information to her on three Russian intelligence officers. 
 The court, however, threw out charges that Vyalkov illegally collected and stored secret information, saying prosecutors had not provided evidence that the disclosure of the information could have inflicted damage on Russia.
 The court also dismissed a charge that Vyalkov illegally crossed the Russian-Estonian border, saying a five-year statute of limitation had expired. 
 Vyalkov was arrested in 2002.
 Vyalkov maintained his innocence and testified that he was trying to recruit Kint, Interfax reported.
 Prosecutors had asked that Vyalkov be sentenced to 15 years in prison.
 It was unclear whether Vyalkov might appeal.
 The case is the latest in a series of espionage trials. Human rights activists have condemned many of the trials as part of a new wave of spy mania. 
 Danilov was convicted of passing classified information to Chinese companies in a retrial, which the Supreme Court ordered after he was acquitted by a jury. Fellow scientists accuse the Federal Security Service of using him and Sutyagin in an attempt to scare researchers.
 But Andrei Soldatov, editor of Agentura.ru, which focuses on Russian secret services, said Vyalkov and other security and military servicemen are less likely to get a fair trial on spying charges than civilians like Danilov.
 "Any civilian tried on espionage charges has a chance. At least he can make his position public and say something to justify himself," Soldatov wrote in a comment in this week's Moskovskiye Novosti.
 He said human rights advocates, lawyers and journalists can help publicize a civilian's case.
 "A security service officer accused of espionage is in quite a different situation," Soldatov said. "His fate is decided quietly and discreetly, and the public will only know what [FSB] officials in the Lubyanka decide is necessary to make public."

TITLE: Nalchik Drug Officers Killed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROSTOV-ON-DON - Attackers raided a regional branch of the Federal Drug Control Service in the Kabar-dino-Balkaria republic before dawn Tuesday, shot and killed four employees, looted an arsenal and set the office ablaze, police said. 
 
The assailants stole 36 Kalashnikov automatic rifles, 136 pistols and 1,500 rifle cartridges, said Alexei Polyansky, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry's branch in Rostov-on-Don. 
 Six to 10 attackers were involved in the raid on the drug service building in Nalchik, the republic's capital, according to a preliminary investigation. 
 It was not immediately clear who they were. 
 Interfax quoted Natalya Marshen-kulova, spokeswoman for the drug agency's regional office, as saying the attackers handcuffed the four employees - three officers and a driver - and led them into a basement, where they shot them. 
 Polyansky said it was unclear how the attackers had gained entry to the building, which they apparently entered without firing a shot. 
 The first that law enforcement agencies heard of the attack was a telephone call around 5 a.m. from a man who reported he saw smoke pouring out of the drug agency office's windows, Itar-Tass reported. 
 Investigators were considering two motives for the attack: revenge by a drug baron or a hunt for weapons. 
 State television said the agency had interrupted a key drug route through Kabardino-Balkaria in the last month, but officials played down that version.

TITLE: Banks, Industry Rue Rare Links
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Opportunities for banks and industry in the St. Petersburg region to interact continue to be limited, local representatives of both sides have said.
 
Furthermore, banks are as yet failing to turn accumulated savings into investments, participants at the "Banks and business of the Northwest Russia: ways of development" conference agreed Thursday.
 The conference, which opened in St. Petersburg, looked for ways to surmount the problems, however noting that the condition of Russia's financial sector is improving, despite the summer's mini-crisis.
 In the Northwest, banks have performed well, with most financial indicators up and the quantity and quality of banking services improving, said Dmitry Nikolayev, first deputy head of the Central Bank in St. Petersburg.
 The last three years has seen a dramatic increase in the number of banks opearting in St. Petersburg. Forty-one St. Petersburg banks and 90 branches of Moscow and foreign banks operate in the city - 11percent more than in 2001 - creating a competitive banking environment and better-quality banking services, Nikolayev said.
 The volume of banks' accumulated start-up capital in the area has doubled to 8.5 billion rubles since 2001, and the amount of held capital has increased from 22 billion rubles to 62 billion rubles.
 "Since 2002 no bank in the Northwest has had their license revoked," Nikolayev said in a further sign of the sector's good health. Ninety-eight percent of banks in the region are working profitably, and 30 percent of St. Petersburg banks have been accepted into the state's bank deposit insurance system.
 However, Vyachyaslav Shverikas, a deputy of the Federation Council who also works at the Committee for financial markets and money circulation, pointed out that there are a number of problems still facing the banking sector.
 "The sector obviously lacks transparency - I hope that with the introduction of international accounting standards will rise," Shverikas said.
 Another problem is the non-acting market of securities issued by banks, and, sometimes, the policy of the Central Bank. "The Central Bank doesn't always act as the lender of last resort - sometimes it restricts its functions only to supporting the short-term liquidity and control," Shverikas said.
 Many participants of the conference said that there is an urgent need to develop and support the idea of credit stores and to create credit bureaus.
 "The banks don't perform their main function effectively - I mean, transforming savings into investments," Shverikas said.
 Vakhtang Kaveshnikov, chairman of the coordination council of industrialists and entrepreneurs of Northwest Russia, agreed.
 "The banks are responsible for only 15 percent (4.2 billion rubles) of all volume of investments into the economy of St. Petersburg over 9 months of 2004 (4.6 percent in 2003)," he said. However, the accumulated volume of investment into the industrial sector of the city fell in comparison to the previous year (11.9 billion rubles in 9 months of 2004 versus 13.7 billion rubles in 2003), and 53 percent of it came from investments by enterprises.
 The most attractive sector for investment remains the food industry (beer, tobacco and milk segments), followed by machine-building and electro-energy sectors.
 "The economy requires the development of leasing and factoring operations, as well as lower loan rates, but the latter can only be provided if inflation goes down. However, inflation is justified by the growing energy prices. All this lowers the competitiveness of products, especially those having a long production cycle," Kaveshnikov said.

TITLE: Mega Mall Feud Ends, St. Petersburg Is Next
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Swedish retail giant IKEA finally was allowed to open its huge new shopping center just north of Moscow on Wednesday, ending two weeks of mudslinging that startled foreign investors and made international headlines.
 
The result is also also a victory for shoppers in St. Petersburg. Later Wednesday, IKEA announced it would invest 250 million euros ($330 million) into the construction of a Mega Mall anchored around IKEA's existing store in St. Petersburg now that its Moscow problems are over.
 The standoff in Moscow began when authorities stopped IKEA from opening its $300 million Mega complex in Khimki on Dec. 2, citing safety concerns over a gas pipeline. It escalated Monday when IKEA accused regional authorities of "sabotage" and extortion, and appeared intractable after the regional government posted a rebuttal on its web site late Tuesday accusing IKEA of "Mega lies."
 But all was forgotten Wednesday when Khimki's mayor made a surprise appearance at a news conference scheduled by IKEA Russia chief executive Lennart Dahlgren to announce that Eastern Europe's largest mall was officially open for business.
 "Today we were planning to have a press briefing to update you on the situation, but last night we were able to reach an agreement," Dahlgren said inside the 230,000-square-meter complex. 
 Dahlgren said he sent a letter to Moscow region Governor Boris Gromov on Tuesday asking him to intervene and received a "very quick" response that resulted in a successful peace conference with the Khimki administration that evening.
 In exchange for being allowed to open, IKEA agreed to pay for measures to better protect the gas pipeline in question and build a new offramp and bridge over highly congested Leningradskoye Shosse, on which the complex is located.
 IKEA previously agreed to build the overpass, but was unable to get all the permits required. 
 "It is not IKEA's fault - it is extremely difficult to get all the approvals [necessary for building infrastructure]," Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko said.
 Dahlgren also said IKEA would keep a promise, made during a groundbreaking ceremony a year ago, to donate $1 million to improve sports facilities in Khimki. 
 "I hope journalists here won't see this as a bribe," Strelchenko joked. "But we can only thank IKEA for a 'bribe' like that."
 Mega's 250 tenants, including Finland's Stockmann, Turkey's Boyner and Russia's largest multiplex, the 12-screen Kinostar, are expected to ring up sales of about $3 million per day, a figure realtors say could soar to $10 million over the Christmas holidays.
 "We have proven that even when there are differences with authorities, problems can be solved," Dahlgren said.
 "Late Tuesday, right after the meeting, I called [IKEA founder] Ingvar Kamprad to tell him what happened and he told me: 'Lennart, this is a victory for Russia.' I absolutely agree," Dahlgren said.
 IKEA, the world's largest retailer of home furnishings, has four stores in Russia - two in Moscow and one each in Kazan and St. Petersburg - and plans dozens more. It opened its first Mega Mall in southern Moscow in late 2002 and plans to open one in Kazan late next year. The company did not say when it plans to complete the one in St. Petersburg announced Wednesday.

TITLE: Spain May Pay for Study of Railroad to Capital
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Spanish government is ready to finance a feasibility study on the construction of a Moscow-St. Petersburg high-speed railroad, Spanish Ambassador to Russia, Francisco Javier Elorza Cavengt said Tuesday.
 
Speaking during a meeting with Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin, the ambassador said: "The Spanish government is ready to sign an agreement on allocating 1,300,000 euros to conduct a feasibility report for the high speed railway." 
 Plans to resume construction of a high-speed railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg were voiced by Levitin last June. At the time, the ministry studied the experiences of several countries that run similar projects and held negotiations with South Korea, Japan and Spain. 
 Some Spanish railway technologies have recently been offered to Russia. According to the Russian Railways press office, Spanish-made double-decker trains with a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour will start operating between Moscow and St. Petersburg in 2006.
 The trains will be operated by the country's first private rail service PPK, which belongs to EuroSib holdings group. Each carriage of the Spanish train will cost 1.9 million euros and accommodate 109 passengers. No information regarding pricing policy is available yet but the Russian Railways press office said they expect the prices to be comparable to their own services.
 St. Petersburg's recent forays into high-speed rail projects have not proved particularly fruitful. 
 An ambitious $5 billion plan to lay 654 kilometers of track between St. Petersburg and Moscow, which would have allowed high-speed trains to cover the distance in just 147 minutes. was shelved in 2002. Furthermore, the project's Sokol-250 high-speed train, which had cost $20 million to design and manufacture, failed to achieve the expected speed of 250 kilometers per hour.
 Sokol-250's best result came in at 236 kilometers per hour; the project closed in 2003.
 Web site Magistral, a print and web information resource of Oktyabrskaya Railways, reports that only five countries in the world make trains that travel at over 250 kilometers per hour: Japan, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden. 
 To complete the process of projecting logistics, designing a model, then building an actual, working train takes from 11 to 21 years on average; modification of an already existing model takes between five and eight years, according to Magistral.
 The VSM Co., or High Speed Railway company, created in 1992 specifically for the project, received $200 million from two British banks, Indosuez and UBS Warburg, but never returned the money. The federal government, which provided guarantees for VSM, then assumed responsibility for the loans. 
 The Property Ministry owned 87 percent of shares in VSM.
 The Transport Ministry also announced an update on the construction of a new high-speed toll road between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The road linking Russia's two capitals will be one of the first projects of a transport-route modernization program supposed to run until 2025, which was approved by the federal government in September.
 Levitin said the St. Petersburg part of the new road will begin at the sea port. 
 Work finalizing detailed plans for the road will be undertaken before the end of the year. 
 Construction is expected to span about five years and cost some 180 billion rubles ($6.2 billion), the Transport Ministry said. Half of the sum is expected to come from private investors. Levitin added that Spanish companies Renfe and Ineco are discussing the investment opportunities.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Gazprom Worth $72.2 bln
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Morgan Stanley has evaluated gas and oil monopoly Gazprom at between $60.1 bln and $72.2 billion, said a representative of the investment bank, Interfax reported.
 In comparison, oil company Rosneft is worth $7 billion to $8.5 billion, said Vladimir Tumarkin of Morgan Stanley.
 "Perhaps, this may differ from figures provided by other appraisers. But they may have different access to different information," Tumarkin said.
 Gazprom's consultant, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, plans to announce its estimations of Rosneft next week, but the evaluation of Gazprom has already been sent, the report said.
 
 
<b>MTS in Japanese Deal
 </b>

TOKYO (Reuters) - NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone operator, will license its industry-leading i-mode mobile Internet service to No. 1 Russian mobile phone firm Mobile TeleSystems, potentially boosting MTS's revenues, sources close to the matter said.
 An agreement between the two firms will be signed Friday, a different source in Moscow said Tuesday. The agreement would put i-mode's total potential users worldwide on a par with those of Vodafone's multimedia service.
 
 
<b>Yeltsin Jr. Joins F1 Team
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian-backed Midland Formula One team planned for 2006 has hired the grandson of former president Boris Yeltsin as marketing director, Kommersant reported Wednesday. 
 The paper said Boris Yeltsin Jr., 23, will be mainly in charge of dealing with foreign sponsors and arranging public events to advertise the team. 
 "After all, 'Boris Yeltsin' is a brand and that cannot be denied. This potential should be used in full," a Midland spokesman said.

TITLE: Baltika Chief Resigns After 13 Years
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Taimuraz Bolloyev resigned as president of Baltika on Tuesday after 13 years at the helm of Russia's largest brewer.
 
&quot;I am sure that Baltika's management team and staff will continue to work honestly and reach high results in the future,&quot; Bolloyev said in a statement, which did not elucidate the reasons for his resignation.
 Baltika's sales reached $416 million in the first half of this year, a 24 percent increase over the same period last year. 
 Market watchers said the move signals Bolloyev's interest in a political career, though such plans have not been officially confirmed. Baltika spokesman Alexei Kedrin declined to comment on Bolloyev's departure Tuesday.
 &quot;For the past six months, there has been talk about his interest in politics. It's no secret that he is friendly with the President [Vladimir Putin],&quot; said Natalia Zagvozdina, consumer market analyst at Renaissance Capital. 
 &quot;The only big question now is whether the next [Baltika] president will be from Newcastle or Carlsberg.&quot;
 Carlsberg, located in Copenhagen, and Edinburgh-based Scottish &amp; Newcastle own Baltika, which controls a quarter of the Russian beer market. 
 In January, Anton Artemyev, executive vice president of majority shareholder Baltic Beverages Holding, will take over as interim president, the company said.

TITLE: Pirate Audio Rules in Russia
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Up to 90 percent of all audio and video sales in Russia are of illegal, pirate copies, Alexander Sokolov, culture and mass communication minister has said, Prime Tass reported.
 
Speaking at a government meeting, Sokolov said that while tackling the issue of illegal CDs and DVDs is a priority for the government, setting up any effective defense against the influx of pirate recordings has proved a real problem.
 Furthermore, the minister noted that the problem is inextricably linked to national incomes.&quot;Piracy will persist up to the time that people will be able to afford to go to a shop and buy a legal copy,&quot; Sokolov said.


TITLE: Wrapping Up 'National Assets'
TEXT: Recent developments in Russia all point in one direction: The Kremlin's energy sector policy has shifted to more aggressive efforts of direct control. Moves by Gazprom to acquire the Yukos subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz at auction and increasing pressure on Russia's oligarchs to play by Kremlin rules suggest that, even if the Mikhail Khodorkovsky case is unlikely to be repeated, President Vladimir Putin's government has not finished tightening its grip on the oil industry - and possibly on other strategically important areas of the economy.
 
Even before Gazprom's official declaration of interest in Yugansk, the natural gas giant was the clear front-runner to purchase it at the Dec. 19 auction. Despite repeated claims by CEO Alexei Miller that Gazprom was not interested in Yukos assets, the announcement of Gazprom's latest intentions was hardly a surprise. Because Gazprom has close ties with - and is partly owned by - the government, the authorities can use it to acquire and control Yugansk.
 Merging Gazprom and Rosneft and buying Yugansk will give the state a large amount of leverage in the oil sector. The Kremlin will control more than 50 percent of the new entity, a company that will produce 1.6 million to 1.7 million barrels of oil per day. The new firm will be a major integrated energy player globally. In fact, given Gazprom's acquisitions in nuclear capacity over the last decade, it won't only be oil and gas that the Kremlin can use to consolidate power.
 The Nov. 19 announcement that 76.8 percent of Yugansk would be sold at a starting price of $8.65 billion sent a clear signal: The Kremlin intended to put Yugansk's price within reach of Russian companies whose prospects looked unlikely when the Justice Ministry announced in October a $10.4 billion valuation for the company. It now looks likely that Gazprom will bid for Yugansk together with Surgutneftegaz, which also has good relations with the Kremlin. Yet this has not put to rest speculation that Gazprom will dilute its own ability - and by extension that of the government - to control Yugansk by borrowing money on the international market. Yukos' U.S. bankruptcy declaration and the recent pangs of conscience at some major banks about lending to Gazprom have further muddied the political waters. Finally, there has been increasing speculation of another sort as well, that various foreign companies will bid for Yugansk. However, the precedent set by other recent foreign acquisitions of Russian companies makes foreign ownership highly unlikely.
 Energy is not the only economic sector of strategic importance to the government, as recent events have shown. Those in the Kremlin most determined to bring scarce and profitable resources under state control have been pushing for a couple of years to label other sectors of the economy &quot;strategic assets,&quot; with limits on foreign involvement in their development. Recent legal pressure applied to Mikhail Fridman's VimpelCom suggests that the telecoms sector may be next on the government's shopping list and that Khodorkovsky may not be the only Russian oligarch the Kremlin intends to bring to heel.
 In fact, the oligarchs, Russia's robber baron business moguls who made fortunes buying up key Soviet monopolies at bargain basement prices in exchange for financial support for Boris Yeltsin's political agenda, will be the most obvious immediate losers in this process of state consolidation of &quot;national assets.&quot; The Khodorkovsky case is only the least subtle example of the Kremlin's determination to reassert its control over Russia's natural wealth.
 As a result, the Kremlin's recent moves produce a heightened risk of capital flight from Russia, as Russia's wealthiest businessmen scramble to stow their valuables beyond the Kremlin's reach.
 The Yugansk sale raises issues about the government's commitment to the rule of law in Russia. Certain elements of the Yukos case were unique. The case against the company and against Khodorkovsky was initially politically motivated, and the level of punishment for Khodorkovsky is unlikely to be repeated. But the government's use of the courts to assert control over national assets, despite the passage of legal reform three years ago, reveals that the state has not decided to curb the excesses of zealous prosecutors intent on scoring political points with the Kremlin with high-profile victories over powerful and politically independent businessmen. Investors should also be concerned with the disregard for the rights of minority shareholders in the Yukos case.
 Sunday's auction will be a good test case of the government's willingness to conduct transparent auctions. Industry analysts fear with good reason that the political undercurrents of the Yugansk case will push conduct of the auction in the direction of the bidding around the 2002 privatization of the oil company Slavneft. Companies will likely have to vault a number of bureaucratic hurdles to qualify; then they'll be asked to pay a $1.5 billion deposit. The Slavneft auction was widely criticized for its lack of transparency and for the political pressure that led to the disqualification or voluntary withdrawal of several bidders.
 Russia still remains a comparatively attractive place for foreign direct investment in energy. But risks around Russian equities remain undervalued by the market. Russia will continue to attract foreign oil companies because of the potential it offers to accumulate reserves. Russia still looks more attractive in that regard than countries in West Africa, the Caspian region or the Middle East - although Libya has also begun to attract major energy players over the past year. But investors should expect that the Kremlin will be carefully watching - and managing - the efforts of private firms to find a foothold in the Russian energy sector.
 
 <i>Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and senior fellow at the World Policy Institute. He is also a columnist for the Financial Times. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Candidates Need to Meet and Greet
TEXT: When reading local newspapers over the last two months, I have been pleasantly surprised to learn that the St. Petersburg authorities have finally understood that they need to do something to boost public interest in municipal elections.
 
City Hall has learned from past elections when many municipal districts were left without representatives because of low turnout or widespread refusal by voters to choose deputies from the dozens of unfamiliar faces. The indifference was so obvious that it made the authorities realize that the only thing they have been getting for the millions of rubles of city money spent on elections is a whole lot of nothing.
 With elections due again this weekend, the papers are full of explanations about what municipal deputies do and how municipal budgets and governments work. Local television showed well-kept yards and stairways and urged citizens who want the same in their neighborhood to come to the polling stations Sunday. &quot;If you want to find out what your deputy has been doing, check the yards in your area,&quot; one newspaper suggested. It then added that municipal authorities are the closest branch of government to the public, and people can appeal to their city representatives directly.
 Legislative Assembly Deputy Igor Rimmer promised last month that the assembly would consider raising municipal councils' funding over the next few years. He admitted one reason for city voters' indifference was that the city system does not function properly due to insufficient funding. City Hall is showing signs of waking up. But the majority of candidates running for seats in St. Petersburg's 111 municipal districts have a lot of work to do if they want to get the attention of voters.
 In the district where I live in the city center, one candidate's posters hang at the entrance to my building and describe his achievements during his current term. And he has gotten some things done, such as having metal doors installed. Nonetheless, he and other municipal campaigners seem to miss one key point: They never ask the people living in the area what they want.
 This may be one of the main differences between the approach to voters in the United States and Russia. While candidates in the United States visit stores and gas stations to talk to voters, candidates in Russia prefer to hide behind their campaign teams. Even during a campaign as low-key as municipal elections, candidates do not go to the people. Yes, they organize meetings with voters in concert halls and schools, but most of them would not be caught dead hanging around a local grocery store. But this is exactly what they need to do if they want to get closer to voters.

TITLE: Goodbye, Sweet Liberty
TEXT: During the first week of November, two events occurred that have a bearing on the fate of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty. At first glance, these events are not related to the re-election of George W. Bush, but should be perceived in the same time frame and context. 
 
The first event was the emergence of a Radio Liberty document called, &quot;Radio Svoboda. Recommendations and Implementation Plan.&quot; It states that at Radio Liberty &quot;the real staff issue is not one of head count but whether or not Svoboda [Liberty] currently has the 'right' people with the right skill sets in the right places to modernize the station's programming and improve its effectiveness.&quot; The document claims that &quot;there are many reasons that Russian listeners feel that Svoboda is a foreign station run by expatriates who are far away and don't like Russia,&quot; and then goes on to recommend, &quot;drop references to Prague. ... The intention is not to lie to the audience but there is no upside to continually pointing out that the newscaster is outside Russia. Move the center of gravity of the operation from Prague to Moscow.&quot; The document further contains practical recommendations concerning changes in content and scheduling that, in many respects, are perhaps appropriate. 
 But what is dangerous and important is that nowhere does the document mention the significant changes that occurred in Russia during the first four years of Vladimir Putin's presidency and the first 1 1/2 years of his second term. The Constitution has been demolished. The two-chamber parliament has been destroyed. Elections were violated. Federalism has been annihilated. Independent courts are being liquidated. The Orthodox Church is coalescing with the political authorities and threatening the secular nature of the state. Public schools and public consciousness are being militarized. Public officials at all levels are being replaced by veterans of agencies like the NKVD, KGB and FSB. The war in Chechnya, monstrous in its cruelty, goes on. And the Russian authorities are deceiving the whole world by presenting this war as a struggle against international terrorism. Putin has declared war on poverty. Instead, poverty will dramatically increase thanks to the planned conversion of real welfare benefits into cash money. The financial resources for this reform will be drawn mainly from the regional budgets, which are already strapped. All this is taking place while almost all the independent media, the press as well as radio and television, are being wiped out.
 The document, by neglecting all that characterizes Russia today, represents a generous gift to those forces in Russia that are systematically destroying the possibility of democratic development, if they have not destroyed it completely already. These very forces do not want any &quot;international broadcasting.&quot; They want Radio Liberty to broadcast from Moscow, and, under Moscow pressure, they want Radio Liberty to be inevitably transformed into an imitation of state-owned Radio Russia. These very forces have dreamed for decades to ban from international broadcasting this breed of &quot;overseas Russians,&quot; &quot;expatriates,&quot; &quot;intellectuals&quot; and &quot;dissidents&quot; who allegedly do not love Russia.
 The second event was a consequence of the document. The management of Radio Liberty revealed plans to close some of the best and time-honored Russian Service programs, including specialized broadcasts on human rights, media freedom and nationalities problems. Four of the most distinguished and experienced Russian Service editors have been eliminated. Twelve staff members who played a crucial role in the development of democratic forces in the Soviet Union and Russia were asked to compete for seven positions.
 This is an attempt to destroy the very moral foundation of Radio Liberty's Russian Service. Does Radio Liberty management really believe that the Russian Service team will have the strength to resist pressures from the Russian authorities and actively continue to search for ways to sustain the remaining democratic forces in Russia in their current weakness?
 
 <i>Yelena Bonner is a human rights activist and political analyst based in Moscow and Boston. Vladimir Bukovsky is an author and human rights activist. They contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: The return of Stingray
AUTHOR: Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Twenty years ago a young musician from America came to Russia and played a small but significant part in ripping down the Iron Curtain. Now, after a stranger-than-fiction life that included bringing Russian rock to the West, a career as a singer and television host in Russia, a wedding that even became a matter of international diplomacy and an abrupt return to the U.S. in 1995, Joanna Stingray is back. 
 
Now based in Los Angeles, Stingray returned to mark 20 years since her first trip to Russia with a one-off concert in Moscow and a flying visit to St. Petersburg last month. In an interview with The St. Petersburg Times, Stingray spoke out about what she did to change the world, her intimate relationships with legends of Russian music, and her encounters with Communist aparatchiks and Russian mobsters.
 Although the 20th anniversary concert was held at B2 club in Moscow, Stingray's first visit to Russia was to St. Petersburg, then known by its Soviet name Leningrad.
 The 23-year-old Stingray (born Joanna Fields), came to the city as an independent traveler with her sister Judy in March 1984. A Russian emigre friend in the U.S. helped her to contact Boris Grebenshchikov, the frontman of Akvarium, then the leading underground rock band in Russia. Grebenshchikov met Stingray at a subway station and took her to the apartment of Seva Gakkel, then Akvarium's cellist.
 &quot;That's where we first sat and talked,&quot; said Stingray by phone from her home in Los Angeles last week. 
 At the time, Stingray was a brand new pop/rock vocalist slightly reminiscent of Cindy Lauper, and who had released her U.S. 12-inch, 4-track debut, &quot;Beverly Hills Brat,&quot; in 1983. Like Madonna, for artistic reasons she was then simply known by her first name.
 &quot;[Grebenshchikov] let me listen to his music, I let him listen to my album that I had out in the States. We started listening to each other's music.&quot;
 In the U.S.S.R. bands such as Akvarium were officially considered at best &quot;amateur,&quot; at worst &quot;non-existent.&quot; Their musicians were supposed to have non-musical permanent jobs. They performed rare, unpaid, invitation-only concerts mainly at the specialized venues such as the local House of People's Creativity. The music was available only on home-produced tapes to be distributed privately, mostly among friends. But Stingray was impressed. 
 &quot;I remember when I heard [Grebenshchikov's] music, it just sounded so spiritual and beautiful that it definitely moved me,&quot; she said. &quot;I remember being just overwhelmed by his music even if I didn't understand the lyrics. For some reason the music and songs were just very powerful.&quot;
 Stingray, who made a second trip to St. Petersburg in August 1984, thought she should share the music with her compatriots in America.
 &quot;After time I became very close to Boris, and he introduced me to a lot of the other bands from the Leningrad Rock Club, and so when I would bring back Boris's music to play to people [in the U.S.], they had the same impression I had,&quot; said Stingray.
 &quot;They were so surprised that there was actually rock 'n' roll in Russia. When they saw photos of the musicians and they heard the music, people just opened their eyes up. Then I decided 'Boy! Maybe I should do an album so that all America can see that there's rock in Russia, so basically the idea came from Boris and I. 
 &quot;We were the two that sat down and figured to do a record and to call it 'Red Wave,' and then I think that <i>I </i>decided to do more than one band because I thought that if I'm giving Americans the chance to see there's rock in Russia, better I give them a couple of different tastes of what there is. So that's how I came up with the four bands to put on there.&quot;
 The next year, 1985, was spent preparing the album. Getting the music out of the Soviet Union certainly required courage and secrecy.
 &quot;Obviously we knew that the KGB was following us,&quot; said Stingray.
 &quot;The first time was at the Rock Club, you know. A man at the end [of a concert] grabbed me and took me into a room and kind of interrogated me, talking things through...
 &quot;I remember that once we had lyrics [hidden] in our boots! I put a bunch of lyrics underneath my boot, and we carried the tapes in the back of our jackets, so, you know, we <i>were</i> scared. And the silly thing was is that it wasn't like we were smuggling anything illegal like drugs. All that we were taking out was lyrics and music - but certainly there was a sense of danger about somebody finding that we were hiding something and getting into trouble.&quot;
 The breakthrough came when the double album, &quot;Red Wave. 4 Underground Bands from the U.S.S.R.,&quot; featuring Petersburg acts Akvarium, Kino, Alisa and Stranniye Igry (Strange Games) was released on the Los Angeles-based indie label Big Time Records on June 27, 1986.
 To prevent problems for them in the Soviet Union, Stingray was cautious to claim that the Russian bands had nothing to do with the album.
 &quot;The musicians do not bear any responsibility for publishing these tapes,&quot; said a notice on the album cover, while Grebenshchikov, who alongside Stingray was credited with the album's concept, went by the pseudonym &quot;Jagger.&quot; 
 &quot;We had code-names for all the bands working on the records, and 'Jagger' was actually Boris's codename, and 'Stingray' was my code name.&quot;
 Although only a few of the 25,000 albums were sold, the reaction to &quot;Red Wave&quot; in the U.S. was overwhelming.
 &quot;Oh, I think it blew people away, because again you have to remember this was back under communism when American opinion of Russia was, you know, this enemy that we were afraid of, and they just never imagined there could be rock music there,&quot; said Stingray.
 &quot;When they saw what the musicians looked like, and that they looked like rock musicians anywhere, and that the music sounded like rock music anywhere, I think it just really opened up people's eyes to the fact that rock 'n' roll has no borders, that it's happening in every country, whether it's a communist country or a capitalist country. So I think it had a very good impact.&quot;
 The record caught the attention of western artists such as David Bowie, Brian Eno and Andy Warhol, to name just a few. 
 &quot;David Bowie definitely was very into it,&quot; said Stingray.
 &quot;He had heard of Boris and some of Boris's music even before that, and he helped me to buy a red Kramer guitar for Boris.&quot;
 Because the circulation of the dollar was strictly illegal in the Soviet Union, Stingray would bring musicians musical equipment as compensation for their participation in the album.
 &quot;I was kind of like Santa Claus every time I came back, because I always had a lot of stuff for them, and they usually asked me for things they needed. I remember [the late keyboard player Sergei] Kuryokhin asked me for a keyboard and we came back and brought him this really neat Yamaha keyboard that he really liked, and with Boris it was guitars.
 &quot;The record obviously didn't make a lot of money. The record was more important in that it got people to see that rock 'n' roll existed in Russia. Obviously it couldn't be [a commercial hit] because it was, you know, recorded on a two-track and they were singing in Russian.&quot;
 Back in the U.S.S.R., &quot;Red Wave&quot; made the bureaucrats seek new ways in dealing with underground rock. Six months later an Akvarium album would become the first officially released album of Russian underground rock. It had a positive effect on both fans and bands.
 &quot;I think a lot of 'Red Wave' did made sense to these groups in Russia, it made their fans still happier, it kind of validated how much they loved these bands that these bands are also recognized in the West. I just remember walking on the streets of Leningrad after 'Red Wave' and all the young people screaming 'Stingray! 'Red Wave'!' It seemed like the fans were so thrilled that this record came out in the West. It seemed very important to them.
 &quot;When 'Red Wave' came out the glasnost thing started happening, so I think it had some impact on changing the situation for the musicians.&quot;
 It was important that the Russian underground rock musicians see their work on real vinyl symbolizing the recognition they had longed for for years. 
 &quot;A man from the Swedish Consulate in Leningrad helped to get in a box of records so I could give them to the musicians. I remember their faces looking at the album, and the only one who spoke was Sergei Kuryokhin, and he said, 'OK...' He looked [at the photo] on the back [of the album] and saw that the top of the Church [of the Spilt Blood] was lit up and then my blond hair was lit up [by the sun] and Sergei said, 'God sent a message to the church and He sent a message to you.' That totally conveyed to me how it felt for the musicians that they could see their music on vinyl with a real album cover.&quot;
 Stingray continued to visit Russia but she could feel the anger of the Soviet authorities toward her activities as articles under such headlines as &quot;'Red Wave' on Muddy Waters&quot; appeared in the state-controlled press. 
 &quot;They were very angry that the work was unofficial because they termed these musicians 'amateur,' [and felt] that they just weren't quite as good enough to be official musicians in Russia. So they were first mad that it said underground they were also mad that some of the magazines said that I <i>smuggled</i> the stuff, so they weren't happy with that. <i>I</i> never said this, but I remember Newsweek did.&quot;
 Stingray did try to find ways to settle the issue with Soviet officials.
 &quot;When I came back, I went to [the Soviet copyright agency] VAAP in Moscow and said I was sorry and explained to them why I did it, that I thought it was important that the West saw that there was great rock 'n' roll in Russia. And eventually they had me sign a paper admitting that I did it without their authority and that I would pay a penalty fee, which I did.&quot;
 But when Stingray was about to come back to get married with Yury Kasparyan, the guitarist with the band Kino, with the wedding scheduled for April 1987, she was suddenly denied a Soviet entrance visa, and would get more denials over the next six months.
 &quot;Obviously it was a hard time for me,&quot; she said.
 &quot;I was so excited to get married to Yury, to be there, and then to be cut off and not able to even get there to see him - it was a very difficult period. Thank goodness it only lasted six months.&quot;
 Trapped in Los Angeles, Stingray recorded a home-made album, in the Russian underground rockers' style called &quot;Save Stingray,&quot; with such songs as the angry &quot;Petty Men.&quot; 
 She then took her case to U.S. politicians. 
 &quot;We had a lot of very important politicians that were pushing the Russians and saying, you know, 'you can't separate people when they love each other, that it's not fair to decline a visa for two people who want to get married,&quot; she said.
 Senators Alan Cranston and Edward Kennedy as well as then Secretary of State George Shultz spoke on her behalf, and the wedding finally took place in St. Petersburg in November 1987.
 Having released a pair of albums by Kino and Center, a Moscow band, on her own label Red Wave Records that failed to get the same level of attention as &quot;Red Wave&quot; had, Stingray decided to concentrate on her own work instead.
 &quot;After those two [albums] I realized that I'd done what I could do in terms of showing the American people that there was Russian rock. I'd done enough. It wasn't going to work to try and make it commercial.&quot;
 By 1989 Stingray was living in Moscow. She was occupied with her Russian careers as a singer (After 1990's &quot;Thinking Till Monday&quot; Stingray released 5 albums and a compilation in Russia) and a television personality with her own show &quot;Red Wave Presents.&quot; She also had a new partner, Alexander Vasilyev, then the drummer with Center.
 &quot;Moscow was the period when I had <i>my</i> career, when I had made a couple of TV programs and when I had my albums out,&quot; she said. Despite her unlikely success, Stingray felt uncomfortable in post-Soviet Moscow. 
 &quot;It just seemed that everybody was trying to figure out the capitalism and they were all obsessed with trying to figure out how to make money. I left for another reason but I also had to deal with the mafia who came to me and wanted some money. They thought that since my videos were on TV a lot that I must be paying to have them aired. So I met with them and explain that I didn't pay to have my videos on - I gave the stations other Western videos, and then they played my videos.
 &quot;But it was just a time in my life where I was ready to come home and I was ready to focus not on myself, but to focus on somebody else. So it was right at the time that I got pregnant and it all worked out. It was a good time to move home.&quot;
 Back in Los Angeles, Stingray became a full-time mother to her daughter Maddie. She is now the executive director of the Beverly Hills High School Alumni association and has a part-time job in a real estate business. After almost nine years away, Stingray returned to Russia last month to perform the anniversary concert at B2 in Moscow and have a lunch with old friends at Platforma in St. Petersburg. While today's Moscow seemed to her &quot;very Las Vegas,&quot; she said she felt an immediate link with St. Petersburg.
 &quot;I was only in St. Petersburg for six hours, but I really felt this deep connection,&quot; she said.
 &quot;And even though there are lot of western stores and restaurants, the city seemed very similar. So to me St. Petersburg has changed a lot less than Moscow has.&quot; Stingray said she is ready to continue her career as a singer.
 &quot;A couple of weeks before I came to Russia, I all of a sudden started having all this emotion, remembering my time in Russia, and I got very excited. I went to a studio and started to record some stuff. 
 &quot;I recorded some acoustic versions of some of my hits, and then I recorded a couple of my new songs. And one song that [summed up] my whole feeling about coming back to Russia, how much it meant to me, is a version we did of [the Soviet children's song] 'Pust Vsegda Budet Solntse, Pust Vsegda Budet Nebo' (Let There Always Be the Sun, Let There Always Be Skies). We sing this song in kind of a disco dance version, and I'm so happy with it. 
 &quot;It's a very happy song. In the song I say the name [of Kino frontman Viktor] Tsoi, and [of artist Timur] Novikov, and Kuryokhin - three very important people to me who have passed away. This joyous and happy song is my memory of how important Russia was in my life, and how exciting and fun the time that I spent there was.&quot;

TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: Iva Nova, the all-girl folk-punk band that was to introduce its new vocalist to audiences last week because Vera Ogaryova, its current singer, is leaving to have a baby, failed to do so since its would-be singer Tatyana Dolgopolova called briefly before the show to say she was not coming, said Iva Nova drummer Katya Fyodorova.
 &quot;I think she was scared, maybe her pop spirit prevailed,&quot; said Fyodorova, who added that the band had rehearsed with Dolgopolova, better known for her pop career, for three months.
 &quot;I doubt we will continue with her after this.&quot;
 However, a second concert, Ogaryova's last if for a while, will take place and even will be &quot;special,&quot; as announced. Fyodorova said the band would invite some guest musicians, such as Gaya Arutyunyan, the vocalist with Moscow's Deti Picasso, and Auktsyon's saxophone player Nikolai Rubanov.
 The band is again looking for a singer , but is rehearsing as an instrumental ensemble for its scheduled tour to Tbilisi, Georgia, according to Fyodorova. 
 &quot;We'll be an instrumental band, but with some shouts and squeaks,&quot; she said. Iva Nova will play at Moloko Saturday.
 After the aggro caused by the first local concert by <strong>Emir Kusturica and The No Smoking Orchestra</strong> in October 2001, promoters chose to arrange its next event in an expensive, restaurant-style environment.
 The famous film director's folk-punk hobby band will perform at a local exhibition complex with people sitting at VIP tables in four categories (600 to 1,500 rubles per seat). Those seated will have access to hot meals and strong drinks, while everybody else is advised to console themselves with Turkish beer and snacks.
 &quot;It was truly punk style, they threw away their instruments, drew people onto the stage, and some girls undressed,&quot; said one witness about Kusturica's local music debut, adding that he decided not to go this time, because the new venue unsettles him. 
 The concert will take place at the 5th Pavillion of Lenexpo on Sunday.
 Akvarium will play its traditional Christmas show at Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Thursday. 
 Boris Grebenshchikov's band, which returned from its five-date German tour last week, is reported to have finished its long-awaited new album, the first after the 2003 album &quot;Pesni Rybaka&quot; (Fisherman's Songs).
 According to Akvarium's official website, the band was busy recording the album, tentatively called &quot;Reproduktor,&quot; during much of 2003 and 2004. But because Grebenshchikov wrote &quot;a great deal of new songs in June,&quot; the album was postponed.
 This Saturday, <strong>The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review</strong> will perform a concert at Platforma which was scheduled to be launching the band's new album, &quot;Too Good to Be True.&quot;
 However, instead of the full album the public will be treated with free singles. The band's drummer Denis Kuptsov explains why on page xii.
 


TITLE: The sweet taste 
 of Le Mon
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It was Saturday, and although it was getting on for late afternoon, we thought it would be a nice idea to investigate a new French restaurant whose name is so beguiling to a speaker of the language. In fact, &quot;Le Mon&quot; (The Mine) doesn't mean much in French or Russian, although in English it is perhaps a pun on a certain type of citrus fruit.
 
The restaurant is not far from Petrogradskaya metro station, located in the same building as a Japanese restaurant called Bonsai, with only a simple curtain separating the two. 
 &quot;Don't you get the feeling that this is going to be the kind of place where you are served three small carrots and one piece of ravioli with the chef's compliments, and it sets you back half a month's salary?&quot; was my first remark, as I hovered at the entrance. We went in anyway. I was suddenly frightened for another reason - the restaurant was completely empty - usually a very bad sign. Well, we would soon see. 
 The interior, we had to admit, was very appealing, upmarket without being sterile, and extremely comfortable. The decoration and the setting of the tables lent an indisputable air of quality. Apart from the walls, which were a little too red, and the presence of a large flat screen on the wall which pumped out the latest hits from &quot;Star Academie&quot; (the French version of Pop Idol), the atmosphere was <i>tr&egrave;s agr&eacute;able.</i> The menu (in Russian only) quickly monopolized our attention. It wasn't the world's most extensive menu, but all the dishes were highly original and the prices were extremely reasonable. We happily chatted for a short time before the starters arrived, a carpaccio of beef (210 rubles $7.50), a scallop bathing voluptuously in a truffle sauce (250 rubles, $8.90) and a Caesar salad (150 rubles, $5.30). Everything was first class, especially the Carpaccio: strips of tender meat marinated in a sauce which predominantly tasted of ginger. The sizes of the portions were very good, except for the (singular!) scallop.
 We had waited barely a quarter of an hour when the main course arrived. My earlier remark about the carrots and ravioli had no justification - we weren't being served a plate of diet tidbits but a main course which allowed us to eat to our hearts' content: <i>tournedos</i> with fried asparagus and mushrooms (250 rubles, $8.30); veal with blackberry sauce (260 rubles, $8.70); and <i>dorado, </i>a kind of salmon (360 rubles, $12.85). Everything was excellent, both in subtlety of taste and elegance of presentation. A flat note was struck by the accompaniments - which did not completely suit the food. Tagliatelle came with the fish, and couscous came with the veal - combinations that lacked in harmony. Nevertheless, we were more than satisfied and very full. Finally, came the desserts...<i> Et la, je dis bravo!</i> We had ordered a cheesecake (200 rubles, $7.10) sprinkled with nuts and covered with a lattice of caramel; a selection of sorbets (100 rubles, $3.60) sitting like an island in a colourful sea of fruit salad; and, leaving the best for last, a deliciously rich white chocolate mousse (160 rubles, $5.70), which was covered with an avant garde biscuit construction which Kandinsky would be proud of. Eating these creations smacked of vandalism because they were so beautiful. We were already quite full but we felt duty bound to clean our plates and to leave something behind would have been a crime. It was with a feeling of intense satisfaction, that agreeable sense of slight drunkeness that an excess of excellent food can give you, that we left the restaurant. Our wallets also left in excellent humor. 
 The service had been excellent throughout: speedy, polite, and always on hand. Le Mon is one of those places where you feel perfectly at ease, where the meal is a feast for the appetite and the eyes and where it's easy to stay a lot longer than you intended. I certainly plan to return, perhaps to try out the Japanese restaurant next door, but one thing is certain, before the curtains separating the restaurants falls for the evening, I will discretely glide through to Le Mon to order my dessert.
 
 <i>
David Dos Santos is director of the Mediatheque Information Center of the French Institute. </i>

TITLE: Faking it
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A Chechen terrorist is killed when a Russian rocket homes in on a signal tracked through his satellite phone; a group of Chechen terrorists hold dozens of men, women and children hostage as they are watching a circus show, before the Spetsnaz storm in to save the day; a Russian oligarch with shady business connections, afraid of arrest if he lands his private jet in Russia, decides to head to London.
 
If all these events sound familiar to you, then either you have at least a passing interest in Russian current affairs, or you have recently seen Russia's latest attempt to nail the American blockbuster genre, &quot;Countdown&quot; (Lichny Nomer).
 The film (the Russian title of which would literally translate as &quot;Identification Number&quot;), like the events it portrays, is already showing a tendency to polarize the public. With its reputed $7 million budget, peanuts for Hollywood but a serious investment for a Russian film, &quot;Countdown&quot; is hoping to follow in the footsteps of the sci-fi thriller &quot;Night Watch,&quot; this year's fantasy blockbuster, which broke previous Russian box-office records. But the film is also facing criticism for its treatment of sensitive political issues, not least of which are those thrown up by the war in Chechnya.
 It's hardly anything new in the movie world to make capital out of the latest disastrous turn of events, but rarely have plots been so slavishly copied from the newspapers as they are here, and not since the days of Stalin, journalists complain, has history been so unctuously rewritten to suit the official version of events and exact the most patriotic fervor. 
 They have a point. The plot of &quot;Countdown&quot; is essentially news events in Russia as the Kremlin would like you to remember them (and if you thought that was what the news on Channel 1 was for, you are too cynical to be going to the movies.) 
 During the dramatic storming of a circus by Special Forces, for example, a scene that can hardly fail to evoke the Dubrovka Theater siege two years ago, not one hostage is killed by the crossfire. Considering how the real drama played out, with more than 100 people killed during the bungled retaking of the theater by Russian Special Forces, one might add to the accusation of propaganda the additional charge of poor taste. 
 Its director and co-writer, Yevgeny Lavrentyev, speaking in response to this controversy after the St. Petersburg premiere of &quot;Countdown&quot; last week, said that the main thing was that the film was &quot;interesting for the viewer&quot; and, with a line that sounded particularly well-rehearsed, that it was important to show people that &quot;not just the Governor of California can save Russia.&quot; 
 &quot;Countdown,&quot; then, is intended both as a vehicle for entertainment that also shows Russia in a positive patriotic light.
 Politics aside, if the director of &quot;Countdown&quot; wants his film to be judged solely on its artistic merit, I'm more than happy to oblige: his film hasn't got any. 
 From confusing start to stultifying finish, the story leaves no cliche unturned, gaily ripping off superior thrillers like &quot;Die Hard&quot; as if nobody else had ever seen them. Moreover, it is the closest attempt yet by a Russian film to capture a &quot;Hollywood&quot; aesthetic in the pejorative sense. The camerawork is slick and the images are glossy, the action swift and bloody, and electronic readouts in the corner of the screen announce every change of location - a device popular in Hollywood techno-thrillers. 
 The hero, an FSB officer named Smolin (Alexei Makarov), has the personality of a parking meter, and doesn't have the muscled charisma of Schwar-zenegger or Vin Diesel to compensate for it. The momentum built up in the first hour of the film, where Smolin escapes from his Chechen captors and heads back to Moscow, quickly dissipates, because the hero suffers no significant setbacks from then on, mopping up the terrorists and moving from one tiresome action set-piece to another. 
 No sooner does he take care of the circus terrorists than he's fighting in the cargo hold of an airplane, then dismantling a bomb, then having to land the plane. It's as if the director has watched the ending of every blockbuster for the last 15 years and cobbled them together in the belief that the effect will be cumulatively exciting. Instead it's cumulatively boring, and by the end of it you begin to sympathize with the bad guys.
 Another unsettling aspect of this film is the amount of English spoken. The heroine is an English journalist called Catherine Stone, played by Louise Lombard, who is working in Chechnya, and doesn't seem to speak any Russian. This means she communicates with the hero in monosyllabic English dubbed over for the Russian audience. Could it be that the makers of &quot;Countdown&quot; are intending to market this film for a western audience? 
 I've got news for them. If &quot;Countdown&quot; ever makes it to the West, it's going straight to video. 
 That this film is a &quot;big event&quot; or that anyone seriously expects it to give Russian cinema a shot in the arm is a symptom of the dire state of filmmaking in this country. And that's a shame, because it is impossible to believe that an industry capable of putting together a package as slick as this can't put their services to something more meaningful.

TITLE: THE WORD'S WORTH 

TEXT: &Ccedil;++&Icirc;fl&Uacute;, o/oo&Ucirc;@++&Iacute;++: </i>to play the fool, to act like an idiot
 


 
A fun little list of mistakes we foreigners make in Russian is 
 making the e-mail rounds, causing you to wonder, &quot;Hmm ... That 
 sounds right - what's the problem?&quot; The problem is usually that 
 we non-native Russian speakers mix up our metaphors and expressions, 
 definitely have a problem with prefixes, find prepositions problematic, 
 and cheerfully fracture <i>'&Acirc;&Icirc;&Euml;&Iacute;&Euml;&Egrave; &Euml; &Iuml;&Oacute;&quot;&Ucirc;~&Euml;&Egrave; @&Ucirc;&Ograve;&Ograve;&Iacute;&Euml;&Egrave; fl&Aacute;(o)&Iacute; </i>(the great 
 and powerful Russian language). We generalize rules of grammar 
 where we shouldn't, for example, with idioms. 
 
Take, for example, <i>&Igrave;&Acirc; &Igrave;++o/oo&Oacute; '++&Icirc;fl&Uacute;,&Ograve;fl o/oo&Ucirc;@++&Iacute;++&Iuml;&Euml;. </i>Here the speaker 
 applied the rule that a comparison &quot;like something&quot; usually uses 
 the instrumental case. <i>&eacute;&Igrave; &Iuml;&Ucirc;i&Oacute;&Egrave; &Ograve;.&Acirc;&quot;++&Icirc; ' &Iuml;++&quot;++&Aacute;&Euml;&Igrave;. </i>(He ran to 
 the store in a flash.) So acting like a fool must be <i>'++&Icirc;fl&Uacute;,&Ograve;fl 
 </i>(lie around) <i>o/oo&Ucirc;@++&Iacute;++&Iuml;&Euml; </i>(like idiots), right? Wrong. The idiom 
 is <i>'++&Icirc;fl&Uacute;, o/oo&Ucirc;@++&Iacute;++: &ccedil;&Acirc; &Oacute;.@++^++&Egrave;&Uacute;&Acirc; &Igrave;&Acirc; &Igrave;&Acirc;&quot;&Oacute; '&Igrave;&Euml;&Iuml;++&Igrave;&Euml;fl - &Oacute;&Igrave; &Ocirc;@&Oacute;&Ograve;&Uacute;&Oacute; '++&Icirc;fl&Acirc;&Uacute; 
 o/oo&Ucirc;@++&Iacute;++. </i>(Don't pay any attention to him: He's just acting like 
 an idiot.) Or maybe the speaker was thinking of another idiom: 
 <i>&Uacute;++&Iuml; &Euml; &Iacute;&Oacute;&Igrave;, &Igrave;&Acirc; '++&Icirc;fl&Icirc;&Ograve;fl </i>- which means &quot;to put off doing something.&quot; 
 <i>&eacute;&Uacute;~fi&Uacute; &Igrave;++o/oo&Oacute; &Aacute;++&Iacute;&Oacute;&Igrave;~&Euml;&Uacute;, &Iacute; ~&Acirc;&Uacute;'&Acirc;@&quot;&Ucirc;, ++ &Uacute;++&Iuml; &Acirc;^fi &Euml; &Iacute;&Oacute;&Igrave;, &Igrave;&Acirc; '++&Icirc;fl&Icirc;&Ograve;fl! 
 </i>(The report is due by Thursday and they haven't done a single 
 thing!)
 
And then there are those pesky prefixes. I myself am famous for 
 mixing up my prefixes: For example, I once cheerfully announced, 
 <i>&egrave;&Oacute;@++ &Ucirc;&Uacute;&Oacute;&Ocirc;&Euml;&Uacute;, .++&Igrave;,! </i>(Time to drown the bathhouse!) The verb <i>&Uacute;&Oacute;&Ocirc;&Euml;&Uacute;,, 
 </i>much to our confusion, can either mean &quot;to heat something&quot; or 
 &quot;to drown/sink&quot; someone or something. 
 
To heat up the bathhouse would be <i>&Uacute;&Oacute;&Ocirc;&Euml;&Uacute;,, </i>but once you stick 
 on the prefix <i>&Ucirc;- </i>you are definitely talking about sinking it 
 under water. 
 
Judging by the e-mail list of bloopers, one of my compatriots 
 must have called his Russian colleagues on the carpet with an 
 indignant <i>&ccedil;&Acirc; &Igrave;++o/oo&Oacute; &Igrave;++&Iacute;++~&Euml;'++&Uacute;, .&Oacute;~&Iacute;&Ucirc; &Igrave;++ &Iuml;&Acirc;&Igrave;fl! </i>and was probably 
 rewarded with howls of laughter. <i>&ccedil;++&Iacute;++~&Euml;'++&Uacute;, </i>is the verb you use 
 for pumping something up, like tires: <i>&igrave; &Iuml;&Acirc;&Igrave;fl &Iacute;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Acirc;&Ograve;&Oacute; &Ograve;&Ocirc;&Ucirc;&Ograve;&Uacute;&Euml;&Icirc;&Oacute; 
 - &Igrave;++o/oo&Oacute; &Acirc;&quot;&Oacute; &Igrave;++&Iacute;++~++&Uacute;, o/oo&Oacute; &Uacute;&Oacute;&quot;&Oacute;, &Iacute;++&Iacute; &Ocirc;&Oacute;&Acirc;o/oo&Ucirc; &Igrave;++ o/oo++~&Ucirc;. </i>(One of my tires 
 is low - I've got to fill it before I drive out to the dacha.) 
 What the poor guy wanted was the verb <i>&Iacute;++&Uacute;&Euml;&Uacute;, </i>(to roll) in the 
 expression: <i>&ccedil;&Acirc; &Igrave;++o/oo&Oacute; &Igrave;++ &Iuml;&Acirc;&Igrave;fl .&Oacute;~&Iacute;&Ucirc; &Iacute;++&Uacute;&Euml;&Uacute;,!</i> (Stop dumping on me!) 
 
 
Sometimes prepositions make a world of difference: <i>&Ntilde;&Oacute;@&Oacute;&quot;&Oacute;&Egrave;, fl 
 &Iuml;&Oacute;&quot;&Ucirc; &Uacute;&Acirc;.&Acirc; &Aacute;++&Acirc;i++&Uacute;, ' &Icirc;,.&Oacute;&Acirc; &Iuml;&Acirc;&Ograve;&Uacute;&Oacute;! </i>This means &quot;Dear, I'll whack 
 you one anywhere you want!&quot; <i>&aacute;++&Acirc;i++&Uacute;, &Iacute;&Oacute;&Iuml;&Ucirc;-&Uacute;&Oacute; ' (or &Ocirc;&Oacute;) </i>and then 
 the body part is slang for &quot;to hit someone somewhere.&quot; Probably 
 not what the person wanted to say. 
 
Someone else sent his staff into giggles with the ponderous statement 
 <i>&Auml; &Ograve;&Acirc;&Egrave;~++&Ograve; '&Oacute;&Ocirc;@&Oacute;&Ograve; &Igrave;++ &Aacute;++^&Acirc;&Ocirc;&Iacute;&Ucirc;. </i>(And now a question to put in gear!) 
 Hmm, that can't be right. The expression is actually <i>'&Oacute;&Ocirc;@&Oacute;&Ograve; &Igrave;++ 
 &Aacute;++&Ograve;(o)&Ocirc;&Iacute;&Ucirc;, </i>which means &quot;a stumper,&quot; &quot;a tough/tricky question.&quot; 
 It comes from student slang that means &quot;question that can't be 
 answered&quot; during an oral exam, that is, a question you're given 
 to make sure you don't pass. You can say, for example, <i>&uuml; &Aacute;++&Ograve;(o)&Ocirc;++&Icirc;&Ograve;fl 
 </i>(I flunked/I blew the test). 
 
And that's pretty much the way we foreigners feel about Russian: 
 No matter how long we study, we'll always flunk the exam.
 

 
<i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter. 
</i>

TITLE: The America complex
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Here's one thing that Moscow and New York have in common: If you want to get the lay of the land, the best person to ask is your proverbial taxi driver. Just this past October, for instance, I was riding home late one rainy night down a slick Leningradsky Prospekt when the conversation turned to the subject of daylight savings time, which was ending that weekend. I mentioned that the clock would be changing in the United States, as well.
 
&quot;No,&quot; the driver said authoritatively. &quot;They don't switch around the clock in America. Only Russians would think of something as crazy as that.&quot;
 Was he criticizing his country, or congratulating it? In light of the similarly perverse pride expressed by many of the 26 contributors to &quot;Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States,&quot; edited by Mikhail Iossel and Jeff Parker, I'd have to conclude that he meant it as a compliment. If there's one point on which nearly all of the essayists in this collection seem to agree, it's that while Russia may seem unstable - even madly self-destructive - when compared to the West, that &quot;craziness&quot; is just part and parcel of what makes it great, and its culture incomparable.
 For decades prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States served as Russia's foil, the other heavyweight duking it out in the great balance-of-power arena, the opposite of everything that Russia stood for. From the official Soviet perspective, this translated into a very nasty portrait of that distant giant across the Atlantic: cutthroat capitalists, racist politics and cowboy presidents with one finger menacingly poised on the button. From the unofficial and hyper-intellectual perspective, the constituency that most of the writers in this collection represent, America during the Soviet period became a repository for individualism and free thought, an &quot;anti-country, a state in reverse,&quot; as poet and novelist Sergei Gandlevsky writes in his delightfully irreverent account of his cynical, hard-drinking Soviet-era youth.
 Of course, neither the ideological nor the intellectual myth of America was accurate. They were simply the preferred inversions of whatever one took to be Soviet reality, blissfully ignorant of America as it was. For many of these writers, disillusionment followed hard on the heels of the Soviet Union's collapse; the alluring America of jammed shortwave Radio Liberty broadcasts and Jim Morrison became &quot;Amerika&quot; - crass, corporate and Kafkaesque. &quot;After the fall of the 'Iron Curtain' the outside world lost all its charm for me and probably for a certain number of other Russian people,&quot; critic Igor Shevelev writes. &quot;From now on there was nowhere to run, except inside oneself.&quot;
 Indeed, it's hard to run away from America these days. As the contributors to this volume grimly acknowledge, America is everywhere - in politics, on billboards, in music, on television. And most of them are convinced that they know all there is to know about it: Americans smile too much. They're diligent and efficient, but lack a sense of irony. They live in houses with glass-paneled front doors. Culture is recreational, not essential. Positivism and rationalism are built into the English language, whereas the Russian language is rife with negative constructions. Can you blame Russians for turning out the way they did? This is meant as a compliment, of course - to the Russians.
 No question, &quot;Amerika&quot; is a provocative book, one with which it is easy to argue. But it would be a mistake to give too much credence to its authors' often blithely ill-informed opinions. What's more interesting is what their views reveal in mirror image about what Russians think about Russia today. Their idea of America may be much more firmly based in reality than it was several decades ago, but it still serves the self-affirming purpose of myth. 
 Take, for instance, political correctness, a term that pops up, in one withering reference or another, in eight of the essays. In America, poet Grigory Kruzhkov says, mutual respect has destroyed artistic rigor, with people making such an effort to understand each other that they forget how to speak their own language. Try to get an American to parse a poem, Kruzhkov says, with English that has been run through the PC mill. Physicist and critic Anatoly Barzakh blames &quot;the idiocy of 'political correctness,' the marginalization of culture, the flourishing of subcultures&quot; on democracy in general, which undermines rigor and hierarchy by giving equal precedence to all walks of life. 
 Here, as elsewhere, there's a direct link between Russia's political failings and its cultural strengths. If American culture suffers from a surfeit of democracy and mutual respect, then Russian culture can only benefit from their absence, the logic goes. The America that these writers conjure up is more a different state of mind than an actual place. Perhaps that's why critic and short-story writer Oleg Dark says that &quot;it is impossible to return 'from America' - in one specific sense only: return the same person one used to be, unchanged.&quot; Those Russians who have emigrated to the West lose a certain basic understanding and empathy with their native people, as psychiatrist and author Artur Kudashev attests after meeting some former compatriots on a trip to the United States. &quot;'Forgive me,'&quot; one of them asks, &quot;'but I just want to ask. What on God's green earth are you doing living there, huh?'&quot; 
 Pose a question like that and you're bound to get a mouthful from the people who stayed in Russia. Linor Goralik, one of the collection's younger writers and a repatriated emigre herself, from Israel, launches into a tirade about &quot;true&quot; Americana - Crayola crayons, plastic lunchboxes, contraception, anorexia, depression, born-again religion - &quot;that neither a green card, nor language, nor your little blue passport ... nor the Fourth of July fireworks and hot dogs can grant me.&quot; It's impossible for a Russian to achieve these things primarily because they don't exist - at least, not in the pre-packaged American myth that Goralik evokes. 
 Imagine a flip-side collection of essays by American authors about Russia. Russians would no doubt rant and rave, accusing Americans of straying into territory they could never possibly understand. And yet, nothing stops such writers as Leonid Kostyukov from summing up America for this collection as &quot;a land of fools&quot; and Yevgeny Bunimovich from authoritatively characterizing it as a place where &quot;geography takes the place of history.&quot; Which is why it is such a relief to come across the more balanced and informed contributions of psychiatrist Kudashev, popular novelist Max Frai, poet Sergei Leibgrad, and, especially, Oxford Russian professor Andrei Zorin, who rounds off the alphabetically organized collection with his subtle, nuanced and genuinely open-minded reflections on a semester spent teaching in San Antonio.
 What is truly remarkable about most of the contributions to this ultimately valuable artifact of current Russian thought, however, is how little difference a trip to America actually makes. With some exceptions, the Russians in this collection conform to a ready-made opinion that is only confirmed by first-hand experience. &quot;On the whole, in principle, there's no real need to travel to America in order to know everything you need to know about it, all that's useful to know for one's possibilities,&quot; poet Dmitry Prigov writes. For most of these writers - and, one can only assume, the intelligentsia segment of society that they represent - America remains to this day as real a way as ever of refracting Russian reality. Or, as Prigov puts it, &quot;a point of extrapolative running-away in the hopes of looking back to understand one's home.&quot;

TITLE: A feast during the plague
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum is bridging four centuries of art and bringing together contemporary and classical works through the images of mannerism and postmodernism. 
 
&quot;Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist Prints&quot; is the most recent fruit to be bourne of the collaboration between the Hermitage and the U.S. Solomon Guggenheim Foundation.
 Robert Mapplethorpe's nude photographs have shocked and scandalized America since the time when they were first displayed in 1970s. His characteristic aestheticization of male (particularly black male) bodies made him an icon of contemporary photography and gay culture. He died of AIDS in 1989.
 Born in 1946 in Long Island, he expressed early interest in art but wasn't interested in photography until the 1970s when he acquired his first professional camera.
 &quot;I don't like that particular word 'shocking',&quot; Mapplethorpe said in an interview with ARTnews magazine in 1988. &quot;I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before... I was in a position to take those pictures. I felt an obligation to do them.&quot;
 The Hermitage's decision to host the project is both a sign of recognition for Mapplethorpe, and an attempt to link it's own collections to the present.
 The exhibition's curator Arkady <br> Ippolitov, an art historian with the <br> Hermitage's Western European Arts Department, said he was aimed to explore stylistic parallels between Mapplethrope's photography and classical art. 
 The curator's choice of works reveals tremendous research: even people's poses and the anatomical muscled shapes of the juxtaposed photographs and prints resemble one another.
 &quot;The vital anatomical forms of his portraits, such as the female bodybuilder Lisa Lyons and the statuesque dancer Derrick Cross, find their roots in antiquity, and here find their mirror in the highly expressive and sculptural 16th century prints of Jan Harmensz,&quot; Hermitage press manager Lena Getmanskaya said.
 Yelena Kolovskaya, head of the city's Pro Arte Institute, said she finds this approach a little too straightforward and illustrative. 
 &quot;Apparently, this was an intentional move meant to help uninitiated audiences feel closer to modern art, which many people dislike, ignore or consider to be in bad taste,&quot; she said. 
 &quot;As a professional, I found the juxtapositions a bit too literal but the exhibition caters to the Russian general public which hasn't yet recognized the values of contemporary art.&quot;
 The exhibition, showcasing 70 of Mapplethorpe's photographs next to about 50 16th century prints by Dutch and Flemish artists, is not controversial. 
 Ippolitov deliberately left out Mapplethorpe's images of homosexual intercourse, close-up shots of human genitalia and sadomasochism, choosing more modest examples of the photographer's works. 
 &quot;I think it was the best possible approach, if the Hermitage didn't want to get hundreds of tongue-in-cheek media reports accusing them of bringing pornography into the museum,&quot; said local artist and designer Nika Dranitsyna. &quot;The curators had to take into account the taste of the Russian audience, including its low tolerance of modern art.&quot;
 In Ippolitov's opinion, what unites the old and the new is the brutality of human beauty. 
 &quot;There are thousands of depictions of the human hand in art, and they are all more or less similar,&quot; he said. &quot;These are the hands of martyrs, prophets and creators, hands as seen by Leonardo da Vinci, Durer and Rodin. But here the audiences come across a ruthless, hard and stunningly personal effort.&quot;
 Kolovskaya welcomed the fact that the Hermitage has made the interweaving of the old and new a consistent trend. 
 &quot;It is the worldwide practise that museums of contemporary art exist independently, being separated from the old collections, which are often too conservative to host an adventurous modern display,&quot; she said. &quot;The alliance of the Hermitage and Guggenheim allows the unification of these artistic worlds.&quot;
 In 1987, two years prior to his death, the artist founded the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to promote photography, support museums that exhibit photographic art, and to fund medical research and finance projects in the fight against HIV and AIDS. 
 &quot;In such a context, and with the global epidemic of HIV/AIDS, this exhibition produces a somewhat 'feast during the plague' effect,&quot; Dranitsyna said. &quot;But the feast is sumptious.&quot;
 The exhibition's advantage is that it leaves it to the visitors to decide whether to take the old prints as a commentary on Mapplethorpe's work or vice versa. The carefully structured juxtaposition makes explicit the similarities but stops short of drawing conclusions.
 The exhibition, which was first shown in the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin last August, is going on display through Jan. 16.
 After that it travels to the Center of Photography in Moscow and subsequently to the Guggenheim Museum in New York. 


TITLE: Too good to be true
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review is giving two concerts, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, to launch its long-awaited second album. But it emerged last week that the album will not be available for some months yet.
 
The band recorded six cover versions of existing songs for the album, including an unlikely ska-jazz take on Depeche Mode's &quot;Policy Of Truth.&quot; The band was later told that the 15-track CD could not be released until permissions from the copyright owners are received, which means the album will not go on sale for another three or four months.
 &quot;It's because of a Russian law - there's nothing like this in the West,&quot; said drummer Denis Kuptsov this week.
 &quot;When you release an album with covers in the West, you simply list the songwriters and the royalties go to them automatically. But 'everything goes through the ass in Russia,' as usual.&quot; The band's debut album, &quot;The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review,&quot; originally released in Russia in April 2002, which also contains covers, went out on the Muenster, Germany-based Groover label last month.
 The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review, named after The New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, first appeared on the scene in April 2001 at the annual Sergei Kuryokhin (or SKIF) Festival in St. Petersburg.
 The initially instrumental band began as a &quot;simple jam session&quot; formed by the local ska-punk act Spitfire, some of whose members have formal jazz background. Two members of Afro-Cuban-influenced Markscheider Kunst came on board, and soon the band expanded to include St. Petersburg-based American vocalist Jennifer Davis the following year.
 &quot;We were looking for a singer, listened to a few and Jennifer was the one that fitted perfectly,&quot; said Kuptsov.
 &quot;We wanted our songs to be sung in English and with her we don't have to worry about the pronunciation. She also knows the music that we play very well - and simply just any music.&quot;
 Davis first came to St. Petersburg in 1996 on a &quot;study-abroad&quot; program at Herzen University, but stayed for a year teaching English, working at a translation agency and embracing the then-burgeoning and fun local underground scene attending such places as the now-defunct venues Gora, Ten Club, and Art Clinic as well as the old, spacious Fish Fabrique.
 Davis, whose favorite Russian band then was Dva Samaliota, began to sing on stage when she returned to the city in 2000. At that point she said she was interested mostly in jazz. After meeting respected saxophone player Oleg Kuvaitsev, Davis began performing with his Leningrad Dixieland Band as a guest vocalist. &quot;For about a year I used to go on Saturdays and sing three songs, some jazz standards, but for free - I wasn't paid, just for experience.
 &quot;It's pretty odd, because it doesn't normally happen now that way in St. Petersburg, but my very first live performance here was on a Saturday night the Jazz Philharmonic Hall, in front of probably 100 people, a real concert. It was really scary. But it went OK, I remember singing 'A Girl from Ipanema' and 'All of Me.'&quot;
 She went on to sing with the well-known Alexei Kanunnikov Jazz Band and formed her own band to perform at local jazz clubs and cafes in 2002. She was introduced to Spitfire's Kuptsov at Marc Ribot's concert at Red Club in March that year. 
 Kuptsov was looking for a singer for Spifire's latest spin-off project, The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review. &quot;They invited me to a rehearsal and I had to sing 'I'm in the Mood for Love' and 'The Sun Doesn't Shine,' and some other reggae song,&quot; said Davis. &quot;The rest is history.&quot;
 In late April and early May 2002, Davis sang with The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review at launch concerts for the band's eponymous, fully instrumental debut album both in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Davis, who also writes lyrics, feels that the band's ska-jazz style, which has been lately expanded to include funk and soul, is a hit with Russian and German audiences.
 &quot;But the whole ska thing in general, I think, is really endemic to Russia and maybe Germany,&quot; said Davis. 
 &quot;In America it's really such a small scene, it's not popular at all right now, but to me it seems it's the most popular club music in Russia.&quot;
 Apart from Davis, The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review's ten members include the full lineup of Spitfire, with Kuptsov, Konstantin Limonov on guitar and lead vocals, Andrei Kurayev on bass, Ilya Rogachevsky on keyboards, Grigory Zontov on tenor saxophone, Roman Parigin on trumpet and Vladislav Alexandrov on trombone, plus Markscheider Kunst's Sergei Yegorov on percussion and Alexei Kanev on tenor saxophone. 
 Since 2001, the full-lineup of Spitfire is also an intergral part of the massively popular local ska-punk band Leningrad. 
 Even though the launch of The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review's new album &quot;Too Good to Be True&quot; has been postponed until February or March, drummer Kuptsov said the band would release a CD single to give away to the public at the launch concert Saturday. 
 Released on the band's own expense, it will include five tracks. None of them are covers.
 
 <i>
The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review performs at 9 p.m. Saturday at Platforma. www.spitfire.spb.ru
 </i>

TITLE: Attack on Shiite Shrine Kills 7
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bomb targeting a prominent Shiite cleric killed seven people outside one of southern Iraq's holiest shrines Wednesday as campaigning began for Iraq's first post-Saddam elections - a vote that is going ahead despite suicide attacks and assassinations by Sunni insurgents. 
 
The attack in the heartland of Iraqi's majority Shiite population wounded the cleric, Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalayee, and was a stark reminder of the risks for the six-week campaign leading to a Jan. 30 vote for a 275-member National Assembly. 
 Unlike most Western countries where election campaigns kick off with media blitzes and rallies, there was little fanfare in Iraq, particularly in the capital, where many fear large gatherings in public places could be invitations for militant attacks. 
 The campaigning began as a government official said Saddam Hussein's notorious right-hand man, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as &quot;Chemical Ali,&quot; will be the first among 12 former regime members to appear at an initial investigative court hearing next week to face charges for crimes allegedly committed during Saddam's 35-year dictatorship. 
 Formal indictments could be issued next month - just ahead of the elections. 
 On the final day of candidate registration, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and Washington favorite, announced his 240-member list of candidates, pitting him against the slate embraced by Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. About 90 parties and political movements have applied to be represented on ballots. 
 Heading the al-Sistani-backed United Iraqi Alliance list is Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution and chief of its armed wing, the Iran-based Badr Brigade, during Saddam's rule. 
 With the threatened Sunni boycott, the lists submitted make Allawi and al-Hakim the leading contenders to take top jobs in Iraq's next government. 
 In the election, each faction will win a number of seats in the assembly proportional to the percentage of votes it gets nationwide - meaning the highest-listed candidates on each roster are most likely to be elected. The groups ending up strongest in the assembly will be in a powerful position as the body will elect a president and two deputies, who will nominate the prime minister. The assembly will also draw up a new constitution. 
 Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million population and are expected to dominate the polls. Such an outcome worries some secular Shiites here, along with neighboring Sunni-dominated countries and the United States, who are wary of a Shiite-run Iraq growing closer to its eastern neighbor, Iran. 
 In a move likely to inflame election tensions, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan accused Iran and Syria of cooperating with former Saddam security operatives and Iraq's top terror figure, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. 
 Iran, Shaalan said, is the &quot;No. 1 enemy.&quot; 
 Iran and Syria reject such claims. 
 Shaalan also sharply criticized the United Iraqi Alliance for links to Iran and described a key coalition member, nuclear physicist Hussain al-Shahristani, as the &quot;leader of an Iranian list.&quot; 
 His remarks appeared timed to coincide with election announcements by Allawi and interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, who also filed a list of about 80 elections candidates. Allawi, a secular Shiite, and al-Yawer, a Sunni leader supported by Shaalan, are obvious political opponents of conservative Shiites like al-Hakim with close affiliations to Iran. 
 &quot;This is the first time in Iraq that free and democratic elections will be held and that competition takes place without any pressure from the government,&quot; said Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. 
 Allawi, who has survived several assassination attempts, made his elections announcement on national TV behind the fortified walls of Baghdad's Green Zone, which houses the interim government and foreign missions like the U.S. Embassy.

TITLE: Memorial to Jews Finished
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN - A crane hoisted the last of thousands of charcoal-colored slabs into place at Germany's national Holocaust memorial Wednesday to commemorate the 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis. 
 
The event signaled a symbolic end to a 15-year battle over the building of the project - which has been tangled in debates about financing, artistic vision and Nazi-era guilt. 
 But backers of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe said Wednesday they expected differences over its meaning to continue even once it is finished. 
 In March, Berlin Jewish groups demanded that architect Peter Eisenman, who is himself Jewish, resign from the project, claiming he told an anti-Semitic joke. Last year, it was disclosed that the memorial stones have an anti-graffiti coating manufactured by Degussa AG, which co-owned the maker of poison gas for the Nazis. 
 There also have been years of arguments about the design, financing and politics of the project. 
 The uneven field of concrete blocks sits in an area heavy with German history. Near where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler died in his underground bunker in 1945, the area was also part of the Berlin Wall's no man's land during the Cold War.

TITLE: Key British Cabinet Minister Resigns in Sleaze Scandal
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON - A key member of Tony Blair's Cabinet and the man in charge of legislation on crime and terrorism in Britain resigned after acknowledging that his department fast-tracked a visa for his former lover's nanny. 
 
David Blunkett's departure Wednesday was a blow for Blair, who confidently asserted he would be cleared of wrongdoing. 
 Blunkett was Britain's top law enforcement officer and had been establishing a new system of national identity cards. 
 Blunkett said he felt he had to step down because his actions led to preferential treatment for a residence visa for a Filipina nanny employed by his former lover, American magazine publisher Kimberly Quinn. Blunkett has suggested Quinn leaked details of their relationship to the media as a form of revenge.
 Blunkett's place in the Cabinet became shakier with the revelation that he made caustic comments about colleagues to the author of a newly published biography. 
 Blair on Wednesday appointed Education Secretary Charles Clarke as Home Secretary to replace Blunkett. Clarke, 54, will be replaced in the education post by Ruth Kelly, currently Cabinet Office minister, Downing Street said. Home Secretary is a key Cabinet post with responsibility for law and order, immigration and counter terrorism. 
 Blunkett's problems have been a distraction and embarrassment for Blair's government since the affair was revealed in August, but it got worse this month with the disclosure of his low opinion of some colleagues. 
 Blunkett's targets included Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Treasury chief Gordon Brown and Education Secretary Charles Clark. 
 And Blair, Blunkett told biographer Stephen Pollard, doesn't like people who stand up to him.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Bus Hostage Siege
 </b>

ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek bus hostage siege ended peacefully on Thursday when all 23 passengers were freed and police revealed the two armed Albanian hijackers had been bluffing when they threatened to blow up the bus.
 Speaking after the end of the siege, which had lasted from dawn on Wednesday until just after midnight on Thursday morning, Greek police chief George Angelakos said the gunmen did not have any explosives despite telling hostages they had dynamite.
 Both gunmen were aged 24 and had lived in Greece for six years, coming to the country from Albania, police said.
 
 
<b>Les Halles Redesigned
 </b>

PARIS (AP) - Les Halles, the crowded commercial neighborhood in the heart of Paris immortalized in Emile Zola's 1874 novel "The Belly of Paris," but now shunned as an urban eyesore, is being given new life with an ambitious project to turn it into a user-friendly "work of art."
 French architect David Mangin was given the job Wednesday of helping put a new face on the run-down quarter, beating out four competitors. 
 Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, announcing the choice, made clear that Mangin's concept of an ecological garden - not the project itself - was the winner. 
 
 
<b>80% Shunned
 </b>

LONDON (AFP) - Increasing numbers of British Muslims have faced discrimination in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, a study by an Islamic group said. 
 Four out of five people surveyed by the Islamic Human Rights Commission said they had experienced discrimination, well up on the 45 percent figure reported by a similar poll in 2000. 
 The report, called "Social Discrimination: Across the Muslim Divide," lists the results of a survey of 1,200 British Muslims along with individual interviews and case studies. 
 Case studies cited in the report include discrimination at work and school, as well as more overt issues such as abuse and violence on public transport.
 
 
<b>Quake Hits Islands
 </b>

GEORGETOWN, Cayman Islands (AP) - A strong earthquake struck the Cayman Islands on Tuesday - the strongest since 1900 - rattling windows and sending residents fleeing into the streets. No serious damage or injuries were reported. 
 The epicenter of the magnitude 6.7 earthquake was 32 kilometers south-southeast of Georgetown, said Kathleen Gohn, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado. 
 
 
<b>Illegal Orangutans
 </b>

BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) - The owners of a Bangkok amusement park will be charged with importing endangered animals illegally after DNA tests confirmed a group of orangutans had not been born in Thailand, forestry police said Thursday. 
 The tests showed that 12 young apes were not bred at Safari World as the zoo had claimed, they said.

TITLE: Alemannia Win Puts Zenit Out of UEFA Cup
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: To the dismay of FC Zenit St. Petersburg's legions of &quot;Crazy Fans,&quot; TSV Alemannia Aachen gave the performance of the night in the UEFA Cup on Wednesday as they went through thanks to a 2-0 win away at AEK Athens, who fielded a second string side in front of a virtually empty stadium.
 
AEK's actions in playing a second choice team will not have gone down well with the Russian side, which had gone into the final round in third place, a point ahead of Aachen, but were powerless to improve its position as it had already completed its matches in the group. 
 Rangers bowed out in humiliating fashion as the Scottish powerhouse went down 2-0 at home to French side Auxerre with Bonaventure Kalou grabbing a double to ensure the visitors progressed to the last 32.
 Austria's Graz AK beat Group F winners AZ Alkmaar 2-0 in Austria to see it advance at the expense of Rangers, which experienced its second European disappointment of the season having exited the Champions League before the group stage.
 Ivory Coast star Kalou struck in each half to give Auxerre a deserved victory over the lacklustre Rangers side and manager Alex McLeish admitted his players had let down their supporters.
 &quot;To give away two goals the way we did is difficult to comprehend,&quot; said McLeish.
 &quot;It was two early Christmas presents for Auxerre at the start of each half.
 &quot;We blew the chance to qualify for the last 32 and we know collectively that we let the Rangers fans down. It was in our hands but you won't get anywhere by losing the types of goals we did tonight.&quot;
 His French counterpart Guy Roux was understandably delighted.
 &quot;We heard the result from Austria and we knew we would have to win the game,&quot; said the veteran coach.
 &quot;We did and we deserved to do so because we played very well in front of their 50,000 fans.&quot;
 In Austria Roland Kollman delivered the killer blow for Rangers hopes and made himself a Graz AK hero when he slotted home from the penalty spot in the 54th minute, as AZ Alkmaar wilted under the hosts onslaught.
 The Alemannia Aachen hero - now villain in St. Petersburg - was veteran striker Erik Meijer. The 35-year-old Dutchman struck in the 56th minute to set Aachen on its way to a famous victory and a place in the knockout stages.
 The German team ensured its advancement when French substitute striker Daniel Gomez shot into the net from defender Stefan Blank's low cross six minutes from time.
 French side Lille won Group H as they beat Spain's Sevilla 1-0 in France.
 Zenit's exit from the UEFA Cup as a result of Aachen's victory ends a promising campaign from the St. Petersburg team which spent much of the year leading the domestic league only to drop out of the top three following a 3-2 home defeat by FC Moskva last month. <i> 
 (AFP, SPT)
 </i>

TITLE: Lockout
 Worse Than
 Decade Ago
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TORONTO, Canada - NHL veteran Jim McKenzie thought about accepting a salary cap during the last lockout 10 years ago. 
 
He's glad the union didn't. 
 &quot;I would not be where I am now if 10 years ago the guys had given in,&quot; said McKenzie, a forward for the Nashville Predators. &quot;Ten years ago for me was tempting. I was sitting there with a young family. They weren't in school so you got up everyday and they are staring back at you. I was 22, 23 and didn't have a lot saved.&quot; 
 The journeyman enforcer was thrilled when the season wasn't wiped out. 
 &quot;There was a real chance that the season would have been canceled. We're fortunate that it wasn't,&quot; he said. 
 But McKenzie and St. Louis Blues defenseman Chris Pronger think the current lockout, in which North American Hockey League games are suspended due to a pay dispute between officials and players, is worse than the one that wiped out half a season a decade ago. 
 They don't think they'll be playing again until 2006. 
 &quot;I think you're looking at, at the very earliest, January '06 for the start of a season,&quot; McKenzie said Wednesday. 
 Pronger is just as pessimistic. 
 &quot;I think Jimmy hit it on the head. Probably December of '05 and going into January '06 we're going to be in the same position we are in now, trying to come to a resolution,&quot; Pronger said. 
 On Tuesday, the season moved a step closer to being lost when the league rejected the players' association proposal and made a counteroffer that was turned down by the union. 
 No new meetings have been scheduled, making it quite possible the NHL will become the first North American sports league to cancel a full season because of a labor dispute. 
 The major roadblock between the sides remains a possible salary cap. The NHL wants a cap to achieve what it calls cost certainty. The players' association says it will never accept that. 
 There might be a month left to salvage the season, but the sides could be too far apart over a cap. The last NHL lockout ended with a deal on Jan. 11, 1995, allowing for a 48-game season. 
 The union rejected Bettman's salary cap proposal on Tuesday. 
 The league also revamped the union's 24 percent rollback offer by significantly reducing the salaries of the richest players and leaving others untouched. Players making less than $800,000 would not have their salary decreased. Those making $5 million or more would have 35 percent taken away from their existing contracts. 
 McKenzie's $700,000 salary wouldn't be affected, but Pronger, the league's MVP in 2000, would see his $10 million salary reduced to $6.5 million. 
 &quot;If it weren't so disappointing it would be comical,&quot; McKenzie said. &quot;Basically, the league has taken our 24 percent rollback, put it in their pocket and said, 'Thank you' as it though it were some kind of tip, and then said, 'Now we'll negotiate and we'll go back to getting this cap.'&quot; 
 McKenzie thinks the league is trying to divide the union by trying to woo the 349 players who make $800,000 or less.