SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1067 (33), Friday, May 6, 2005
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Few New
 Spoils In
 Victory
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - After the lavish May 9 celebrations are over and the police barriers in central Moscow have come down, President Vladimir Putin may be left with little more concrete than a sense of pride in having hosted dozens of the world's leaders.
 
While big on ceremony, the Victory Day celebrations will offer little of substance for Russia as the key meeting of the holiday - between Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush - is not expected to produce any new agreements or policy breakthroughs. By comparison, the European Union-Russia summit the day could well see the signing of a key roadmap agreement to advance economic, educational and security links between Moscow and the 25-member bloc.
 The Kremlin's main diplomatic success is likely to be simply the presence of so many leaders, as more than 50 countries have accepted invitations to take part in the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. 
 When asked what the Kremlin hoped to gain from the May 9 gathering, Alexander Pikayev, an independent analyst on security and U.S.-Russian relations, described the celebrations as "pompous protocol." "This event is meant to reaffirm the country's role in World War II," he said. 
 Moscow's Victory Day celebrations are planned on an even grander scale than those two years ago for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg in 2003.
 And in contrast to St. Petersburg's uncontroversial anniversary, the Soviet Union's actions in WWII are not universally seen as positive and beneficial, given the ongoing controversy over the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and the postwar communist domination of Eastern Europe that lasted five decades. 
 Bush has already vowed to raise the issue of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact behind closed doors with Putin.
 Latvia, which suffered under the Nazi-Soviet carve-up of Eastern Europe in 1939, may follow Bush's lead and call for Russia to denounce its Soviet past, but do so more publicly, in a way that could severely embarrass the Kremlin. 
 Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine, said Thursday that the Kremlin is still looking to entwine Russia's national identity with that of its Soviet past, and to boost the current leaderships' legitimacy.
 As part of the Kremlin's efforts to boost patriotic feelings ahead of the anniversary, Putin said Thursday that it was "difficult to find a more sacred and unifying day than May 9. ... We have no right to simply forget about the sacrifices that were made for the fatherland and for world civilization by our nation." 
 Putin, however, did attempt to draw a line between the heroism of the Soviet people in the war and the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. "Our country, our people, our society were viable in 1941, in spite of all the attempts by the regime at the time to destroy this viability through repression," Putin said in reference to massive purges ordered by Stalin ahead of the war. 
 Yet Putin chose not to mention Stalin by name, in an apparent effort to avoid direct criticism of the Soviet dictator that many sections of the country, especially elderly Russians, still see as the country's savior against Nazism. 
 Ahead of the world leaders' visit to Moscow, Russian diplomats and lawmakers have sought to justify the Kremlin's refusal to condemn the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, arguing that the treaty was anyway dissolved by Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. 
 Also, since the USSR Supreme Soviet in 1991 denounced the treaty's secret protocols that detailed the carve-up of Poland and the occupation of the Baltic states, another denunciation was not necessary, Pikayev said.
 Soviet Prime Minister and Federation Council member Nikolai Ryzhkov, said Thursday that the Baltic states "should be grateful" for Soviet occupation. These countries "should apologize themselves" for the fact that some of their residents fought on the Germans' side in the war, Interfax reported.
 Russia is reluctant to renounce the pact because it would strengthen the Baltic countries' argument that they were occupied by the Soviet Union and that Russia should pay them compensation or cede territory, Pikayev said.
 Yet Bush will not likely want to antagonize his Russian host overly on these issues, which are sensitive for Russia and are lower down Bush's real Russia agenda than cooperation on combating terrorism and ensuring nuclear non-proliferation, analysts said.
 Specifically, Bush is expected to ask Putin to grant U.S. inspectors access to Russian nuclear arsenals that are undergoing U.S.-funded security upgrades, Pikayev said.
 Russian officials have chosen to carry out a preemptive strike on this issue also, warning the Americans not to bother seeking such access.
 Given that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent visit to Moscow failed to produce any agreement, there is little prospect of anything being signed by Bush and Putin at the summit, Lukyanov said.
 Yet despite no public deals or agreements planned for the meeting, the two leaders' 14th since 2001, "it is still good when two leaders get an opportunity to discuss issues face-to-face in private," Pikayev said.


TITLE: Convoy Veterans Renew Camaraderie of Arctic War
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Dozens of British and Russian veterans of Arctic convoys that delivered vital aid to the Soviet Union during World War II via the Arctic met in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
 
"I came here to see again the country where I served in convoys in 1941-1943," said British veteran Norman Du Plessis, 80.
 "I escorted convoys to the northern Soviet city of Murmansk six times on the British cruiser HMS Kent," Du Plessis said.
 Du Plessis remembered how a German bomber once dropped two bombs just in front of the Kent, and the ship was saved from being hit only because it made a sharp turn.
 "It was a scary picture," he said. "Dozens of Nazi planes bringing bombs and torpedoes appeared on the horizon like a flock of birds." 
 Anatoly Livshits, a Russian navy veteran of 23 Arctic convoys, said he was impressed by the strong spirit of the British sailors during the war.
 "I remember once in July 1942 when a British ship sank our crew saved about 60 of its sailors," he said. "And then I saw what strong spirit they had. That's when our friendship was born, and it will live forever."
 Many of the Soviet veterans today live in St. Petersburg.
 Du Plessis said he found the Soviet sailors he met in Murmansk "fine people," who mostly communicated with each other by making signs with their hands because they didn't know each others' language.
 Mikhail Gavrilov, 84, another Russian veteran of Arctic convoys, said he considered foreign veterans of the convoys "his family."
 "We went to those convoys together, we saw death together, and we were all friends," Gavrilov said.
 During World War II, Arctic convoys transported military and food supplies to the Soviet Union to aid its fight against Nazi Germany. 
 The crews of the merchant vessels were of mixed nationalities, including American, British, French, Polish, Danish and Norwegian. The British Navy guarded the convoys until they reached Soviet waters, at which point the Soviet Navy would take over the responsibility of defending them. 
 Between Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 and the end of World War II, thousands of sailors served in the convoys. They delivered aid under the Lend-Lease program, under which the U.S. delivered arms, ammunition, food supplies and other strategic items to allied countries fighting the Axis powers.
 Thousands of sailors in foreign navies and merchant marines were killed or wounded serving in the convoys. Britain alone lost 2,000 naval and 1,000 civilian sailors on this transport route.
 Between Aug. 31, 1941, when the first Dervish convoy arrived in the Soviet port of Arkhangelsk, and May 1945, the U.S. and Britain organized 42 convoys to the northern ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. In partial payment, the Soviet Union sent 36 convoys bearing raw materials in the opposite direction.
 Even under escort by warships, the route was dangerous: An average of between five and six vessels from each convoy were sunk by German submarine and air attacks.
 On Friday the veterans of Arctic convoys will go to Murmansk to take part in Victory Day celebrations.

TITLE: Riga-Bound Bush Urges Reconciliation
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Five days before President Bush meets Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the White House urged Russia to denounce the Soviet Union's decades-long domination of Eastern Europe to ease tensions with once-occupied countries. 
 
The suggestion was made Wednesday by Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, as Bush prepared to leave Friday on a four-nation European trip centered on celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The main event will be Monday when Bush joins Putin and more than 50 world leaders at a military parade in Red Square. 
 It is a delicate assignment for Bush. He will pay tribute to Russia's tremendous sacrifice - 27 million soldiers and civilians killed - and at the same time reach out to nations that fell under Moscow's heel. 
 The president will open the trip in Riga, Latvia, where he will meet Saturday with the leaders of Baltic nations that were occupied for nearly five decades. The leaders of Lithuania and Estonia have refused to attend the Moscow ceremony because of Russia's unwillingness to denounce the Soviet annexation of their countries. 
 At a briefing for reporters, Hadley said a Soviet-era branch of the parliament in 1989 had renounced the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the 1939 agreement that Soviet leader Josef Stalin made with Nazi Germany to divide Eastern Europe between the two powers. 
 "Obviously it would be an appropriate thing for Russia, now having emerged out of the Soviet Union, to do the same thing," Hadley said. He added that Bush's emphasis would be to look forward, rather than backward, "and to focus on what now ties us together, that in fact Europe now is moving toward a Europe whole, free and at peace." 
 Bush, in a letter to Latvia, acknowledged that the liberation of Europe from the Nazis also marked the long Soviet occupation of the Baltics. But the president stopped short of assigning blame to Russia. 
 "During this trip, I will mark the sacrifice of America and many other nations in defeating Nazism," Bush wrote to Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga. "In Western Europe, the end of World War II meant liberation. In Central and Eastern Europe, the war also marked the Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the imposition of communism." 
 Asked if Bush considered this a particularly difficult trip in terms of its diplomacy, Hadley said, "Look, it's a tricky world out there. There are a lot of challenges the world over." He said the trip was to celebrate the defeat of fascism and Nazism and the schedule wasn't intentionally designed "to send any message to Russia." 
 Yet Bush's emphasis on spreading freedom and democracy will invite comparisons with Putin's quashing of dissent and consolidation of power. The White House said Russia has taken significant steps both forward and backward as it sorts out its future. 
 "We have been concerned ... about certain steps in Russia that we believe are backsliding on democracy, in particular the concentration of power in the Kremlin," Thomas Graham, the National Security Council's senior director for Russian affairs, said in a question and answer session on the White House web site. 
 The Russian leader appears unlikely to heed the White House suggestion to denounce the Soviet Union's past. 
 Putin, a former colonel in the KGB, said in an address last month that the collapse of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory. The epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself." 
 Bush, after beginning the trip in Latvia, will travel to the Netherlands to speak Sunday at an American cemetery in Margraten where the remains of more than 8,000 U.S. troops are buried. The president will fly to Moscow later that day to meet with Putin. On Monday, Bush will attend the ceremony with world leaders and meet with U.S. and Russian war veterans. 
 On Monday night, the president will travel to Tbilisi, Georgia, another ex-Soviet republic that has become one of the global poster countries for Bush's second-term democracy agenda. Bush will return to Washington on Tuesday.

TITLE: Calls to Return Ex-Minister
 Who Was Privy to State Secrets
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Yevgeny Adamov, the former nuclear power minister arrested in Switzerland at the request of U.S. prosecutors Monday, should be returned to Russia to protect the state secrets he knows relating to nuclear power technologies, Adamov's lawyer and lawmakers said Thursday.
 
"I think at present the Russian Foreign Ministry is making every effort to regulate this issue, given the fact that we are not just talking about a citizen of Russia but a person who controls huge secrets in nuclear power," lawyer Timofei Gridnev told Ekho Moskvy radio.
 Adamov faces extradition to the United States on charges of fraud and money laundering. U.S. prosecutors suspect Adamov of diverting some $9 million in U.S. aid earmarked for improving safety at Russia's nuclear facilities into U.S.-based companies he controls. Adamov was dismissed as nuclear power minister in 2001 amid a storm of allegations that he had received kickbacks through his U.S. companies.
 Gridnev said that Adamov is maintaining his innocence of the charges. Adamov contested the extradition Wednesday, meaning that U.S. prosecutors have 40 days to file a formal extradition request.
 State Duma Deputy Nikolai Kovalyov, a former director of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said Thursday that Adamov should not have been allowed to travel abroad, citing the rule that officials can be barred from making foreign trips for five years after being exposed to state secrets.
 "Given that five years have not yet passed since his dismissal and that he still works at the Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering [NIKIET], the travel ban is still valid for him," Kovalyov said, Interfax reported.
 Before his appointment as minister in 1998 Adamov headed NIKIET, which designs nuclear reactors. After his dismissal, he returned to the institute as its head of research.
 Dmitry Rogozin, leader of the nationalist Rodina party, said that the government should demand the Swiss authorities immediately hand over Adamov to Russian law enforcement agencies.
 "This is outrageous, it is unclear why the government has not yet demanded his extradition to Russia," Rogozin said, Interfax reported.
 "As a minister with access to the holy of holies, Russia's nuclear security, Adamov is the bearer of important state secrets and his trips outside Russia must be strictly regulated by law and his personal obligations," Rogozin said.
 Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, doubted whether Adamov was well informed about state secrets relating to strategic missiles.
 "As far as the missile forces are concerned, I think that Adamov is not valuable," Solovtsov told Interfax.
 Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Adamov's arrest was an extreme and unnecessary measure that could have been avoided.
 "Theoretically, such measures are possible, they do not contradict international laws. In high-profile cases such as this one there is always the element of an underlying political cause," Kosachyov said, Interfax reported.
 Kovalyov said that in 2001, as head of the Duma's anti-corruption commission, he had written to President Vladimir Putin and the Cabinet about Adamov's continued business activities after becoming a minister. Kovalyov said he received no answer to his letter, but Adamov was fired soon afterward.
 Former Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov has been arrested in Switzerland and faces extradition to the United States on fraud and money-laundering charges, Swiss officials said Wednesday.
 Swiss Justice and Police Ministry spokesman Folco Galli said Wednesday by telephone from Bern that the U.S. sought Adamov on charges of diverting some $9 million in funds that the Energy Department provided to improve safety at Russian nuclear facilities. U.S. prosecutors believe Adamov invested the money into various projects and diverted the rest to U.S.-based companies he controls, Galli said. 
 Among the companies that Adamov controls is Omeka, a consulting firm registered in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Justice Department obtained the arrest warrant for Adamov from the district of Pennsylvania that includes Monroeville.
 The United States has been investigating Adamov's activities for years. 
 Gridnev said Adamov knew about the investigation but did not expect to be arrested in Bern because he has traveled extensively in recent years and faced no problems.
 "He was aware of the probe, but he considered and considers himself innocent, and he could not imagine that such radical steps would be taken against him," Gridnev said by telephone.
 Adamov headed the Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering, or NIKIET, which designs nuclear reactors, from 1986 to 1999, and he returned to the institute as its head of research after leaving the government. The United States slapped sanctions on NIKIET in 1999 for its work with Iran, barring it from doing business with American companies.
 President Vladimir Putin fired Adamov in 2001 amid a storm of corruption allegations that he had received kickbacks through his U.S. companies. 


TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Petrodvorets Renaming
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg legislators plan to consider the question of changing the name Petrodvorets back to its historical name, Peterhof, Interfax reported Tuesday.
 The German-sounding Peterhof was renamed Petrodvorets in 1944 when the town was liberated from German troops.
 Both authorities and regular residents of Petrodvorets have asked for the original name of the town to be restored, said Alexei Kovalyov, a deputy in the Legislative Assembly.
 "The renaming of Peterhof was as silly as changing the name of St. Petersburg to Petrograd in 1914," he said.
 
 
<b>Trophy Art in Dispute
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Restitution of cultural treasures remains the only unsolved question in relations between Berlin and Moscow, says the German Ambassador to Russia Hans-Friedrich Von Ploetz, Interfax reported Tuesday.
 Von Ploetz said the problem has to do with "many emotions and other things." 
 However, the example of a private German firm financing the restoration of the Assumption church in Novgorod, which was completely destroyed during the war, proves that "goodwill can perform good deeds," he said.
 
 
<b>Estonia to Sign Deal
 </b>

TALLINN, Estonia (SPT) - Estonia is ready to sign a border agreement with Russia on May 18, Interfax reported Wednesday.
 Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said the government decided to sign then at the suggestion of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
 "This step will contribute to the development of Estonian-Russian relations," Paet said.
 Estonia's Foreign Ministry also said it was ready to sign Estonian and Russian land and sea border agreements from 1999.
 
 
<b>Winged Mercury Back
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - A Winged Mercury statue, which was stolen from Pavlovsk during World War II, was returned to Russia from Austria on Thursday.
 Austrian Ambassador to Russia Martin Vukovic delivered the statue to the head of Russia's Culture Treasury, Boris Boyarskov, on Thursday in Moscow's Pushkin Art Museum.
 
 
<b>Traffic Limited
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Traffic in St. Petersburg will be restricted on May 6-9 during the 60th anniversary victory celebrations, Interfax reported Thursday.

TITLE: Pyatyorochka Staff
 Laid Low by Lunch
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: At least 65 employees of discount grocery retailer Pyatyorochka in St. Petersburg had been hospitalized by Thursday after apparently being infected with hepatitis A from packed lunches.
 
Hepatitis A was confirmed in more than 20 cases, Oleg Parkov, head of the epidemiological department of federal consumer authority in St. Petersburg, said Thursday.
 Last Friday, the first Pyatyorochka staff were diagnosed with hepatitis. On Monday, 109 out of 117 of the city's Pyatyorochka stores were closed for disinfection and cleaning, Yulia Kolesnikova, spokeswoman for the chain in St. Petersburg, said Thursday.
 Parkov said the source of the infection was lunches packed by caterer Eshel-Eli and delivered to Pyatyorochka stores.
 Eshel-Eli had no comment Thursday, although its operations have been suspended.
 Kolesnikova said only the employees of 22 Pyatyorochka stores that received food from Eshel-Eli were infected. The State Sanitary Epidemic Inspectorate sent the results of its examination of the case to the prosecutor's office to decide whether a criminal case should be opened.
 All other Pyatyorochka stores reopened Tuesday. Of the 22 whose staff had been infected, half were to open Thursday and the other half on Friday, she said.
 All employees at the 22 stores were tested for hepatitis A, while other Pyatyorochka staff in the city will be vaccinated against hepatitis A.
 Parkov said, however, that the city residents faced no danger of hepatitis infection at Pyatyorochka stores.
 Kolesnikova declined to say how much the outbreak had cost Pyatyorochka from having its stores closed.
 However, Marat Ibragimov, an analyst of financial corporation UralSib, said Pyatyorochka could lose up to $740,000, Vedomosti reported.
 According to Ibragimov, although news about infection in a store in the Western market could damage the reputation of the company, it would do little harm to Pyatyorochka because competition in Russia is rather weak. The chain founded in 1999 has 460 stores in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
 <strong>See further report, page 4</strong>


TITLE: City Synagogue Recreates Wailing Wall
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A huge banner simulating Jerusalem's Western Wall has been installed outside the city's Great Choral Synagogue in an effort to encourage the city's Jews to make closer contact with other confessions represented in St. Petersburg. 
 
Four meters high and 30 meters wide, the banner is lit by several lanterns during the darker times of day and is accessible for prayer round the clock.
 Yelena Marysheva, the synagogue's spokeswoman, said the St. Petersburg impromptu version of the wall is aimed at helping reconciliation and mutual understanding between the city's various confessions. 
 &quot;This wall is not only for Jews to pray at,&quot; Marysheva said. &quot;It is all about spiritual unification and bringing people closer. Any believer is welcome to say their prayers here.&quot;
 Jews believe that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which is also referred to as Wailing Wall, is the only surviving part of the temple of King Solomon. 
 The Western Wall is considered the most sacred spot in Jewish religious tradition because of its proximity to the Western Wall of the Holy of Holies in the temple, where believers say a divine presence is felt. 
 This spring the synagogue will introduce a series of new services and facilities targeting both religious Jews and curious locals. A new restaurant Le Chaim will open this month, while the first visits to the synagogue's new mikvah were made at the end of April.
 &quot;The synagogue is trying to open up to a wider circle of people,&quot; Marysheva said. For instance, many women who aren't strictly religious are using the mikvah once a month for spiritual and physical purification, she said.
 The mikvah is a ritual pool of fresh water. A monthly immersion in a mikvah is required for a married woman after menstruation before she reunites with her husband. It is also used by some brides and grooms before their wedding. 
 &quot;Some women would visit the mikvah even though they aren't normally observing all religious rules,&quot; Marysheva said. 
 Similarly, more and more people are getting interested in kosher food, but most of them prefer not to restrict themselves entirely to a kosher diet but rather to incorporate a kosher element into their eating.
 &quot;With the wall, our main effort is to create a public place of worship and the spirit of the Western Wall in Jerusalem is what inspired us to do it,&quot; Marysheva said. &quot;Symbolically, the idea was voiced around the Jewish Passover festival.&quot;

TITLE: Schroeder, Putin Show Accord
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN - The leaders of Germany and Russia underscored their nations' post-World War II reconciliation in a joint interview released Thursday, days ahead of the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat. 
 
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose fathers fought on opposing sides during the war, said their countries had been able to put the memory of their past as enemies behind them - even though the road to reconciliation was long. 
 &quot;For me it is still a miracle that bitter enemies and opponents in war live today as friends, partners and good neighbors,&quot; Schroeder told the top-selling Bild newspaper in an interview, to be published in Friday's edition. &quot;The generation of my parents or grandparents would never have imagined it.&quot; 
 Schroeder's father was killed in Romania while serving as a conscript, while Putin's father was seriously injured in the war and his brother died during the German siege of Leningrad. 
 But with Schroeder born in 1944 and Putin in 1952, the two leaders have no personal memory of the war and have developed a close relationship. 
 The Red Army advance into Germany was marked by brutality toward civilians - reflecting a desire to punish the Germans for waging a war that killed 26.6 million Soviet soldiers and civilians, by the official Russian count. 
 Putin conceded that German civilians suffered during the war, but that it was not the fault of the Soviet Union or the Red Army. 
 &quot;It was not the Soviet Union that began this war,&quot; he said. &quot;And in any case, our western allies at that time didn't distinguish themselves with particular humanity either.&quot; 
 &quot;It is still incomprehensible to me today why Dresden had to be wiped out,&quot; he said, referring to the Allied bombing of the eastern German city in the closing months of the war.

TITLE: Estonian Consulate Boosts
 Staff for Summer Visas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Estonian Consulate-General in St. Petersburg has boosted staff numbers for the summer to process growing numbers of visa applications from northwest Russia.
 
&quot;We are doing this for the second year because more and more Russian tourists want to travel to Estonia, especially in summer and in December for New Year,&quot; Consul-General Andre Pung said Tuesday.
 The consulate issued about 40,000 visas for tourists and others traveling to Estonia last year. This was about 10 percent more than in 2003 and another increase of about 15 percent is expected this year, he said.
 In a repeat of last year, the consulate has taken on another six staff from May 1 to the end of August to cope with the growing workload. The Estonian government has also allocated additional funding for this purpose, he said.
 In addition, the consulate's visa department has extended the hours when it receives applications by 1 1/2 hours per day to from 9 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. every day of the week. Group visas are accepted between 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.
 The normal processing time is about one week, Pung said,
 Alexander Komov, general director of Com Tour tourist firm, which organizes tours to Estonia, said Com Tour has never had any problems with getting Estonian visas.
 &quot;It's very nice to work with that Consulate,&quot; Komov said.
 For the last two years the number of Russian tourists interested in visiting Estonia has significantly increased, he said, adding that this could be due to the increased number of good, moderate-priced hotels in Estonia, and regular bus routes from St. Petersburg to Estonia.
 Since joining the European Union last year, Estonia has experienced a massive surge in passenger numbers on the Helsinki-Tallinn route, Helsinki Sanomat newspaper wrote Monday.
 It said Estonia has become a safe tourist attraction where Finns can take the whole family on a culture or shopping trip.
 Meanwhile, last week the government Estonia agreed to allow visa-free entry to the country for tourists from non-EU countries, including citizens of CIS countries and Russia.
 The permission applies to tourists who want to go ashore of Estonia during their cruise tours, Interfax reported.
 Such tourists would be allowed to leave their ship or ferry for 12 hours on the basis of passenger lists signed by the captain of the vessel. The permission will apply to passengers whose ships stay in Estonia for not less than 72 hours, and which have travel documents issued by the Estonian government.
 It will be valid from May 1 through October 31 this year.
 Latvia is also about to introduce a provision allowing cruise boat passengers to stay in the country visa-free for up to three days starting July 2005, the Baltic Times reported.

TITLE: Russia Shuns
 Illegal Migrants
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A top Russian diplomat said Thursday that Moscow was reluctant to sign an agreement with the European Union on readmitting illegal migrants, putting a deal easing visa restrictions for Russians in jeopardy, Interfax reported. 
 
&quot;Readmission related to citizens of Russia and EU countries is one thing, but the problem of readmission of citizens of third countries is quite another,&quot; Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov was quoted as saying. &quot;Of course, Russia is not eager to turn its territory into a transit camp.&quot; 
 Russia and the EU are negotiating a long-delayed partnership accord for signature by President Vladimir Putin and EU leaders. Part of the accord addresses freedom of movement issues: Russia has pressed for the EU to drop visa travel restrictions on Russian citizens, but the EU is demanding that Moscow first sign the deal on readmission of illegal migrants. 
 Moscow maintains that it has to sign deals on readmission of illegal migrants with its southern neighbors before it can sign an agreement with the EU.

TITLE: Glut of Russian IPOs May Hurt Grocer
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Pyatyorochka Holding, the country's largest supermarket chain, may struggle to sell shares at top prices as it faces declining equity markets abroad and a hepatitis scare at home.
 
To do well, its initial public offering of global depositary receipts will need to price at the low end of its marketed range of $13 to $16 per GDR, fund managers said.
 However, this week's outbreak of hepatitis A at the chain's stores in St. Petersburg, which forced a close of 110 of the retailer's city stores from May 2 until May 4, will not bode well for the IPO, analysts said. 
 &quot;Such news can't help [but] create a bad backdrop for the IPO. Investors may hint: is not your price too high?&quot; said Alexei Yazykov, an analyst at Russian brokerage Aton. 
 The grocer said Wednesday that a few employees at 18 of its shops were suspected of having been infected through lunches delivered to their offices, it said.
 Meanwhile, the company's founders are selling 46 million GDRs, or about 30 percent of the grocery chain, and seeking $13 to $16 per receipt. The top price values Pyatyorochka at 25 times its expected 2005 earnings, compared with an average of 18 for peers in developed markets and 17 for competitors in emerging markets such as Russia, said brokerage Troika Dialog.
 &quot;This is more expensive than the Russian market,&quot; said Anders Ronnebaek, a fund manager at Sydbank in Aabenraa, Denmark, who doesn't plan to buy Pyatyorochka shares. &quot;At these price levels, the risk is greater than the reward.&quot;
 Russian companies are struggling to persuade investors to pay top dollar amid the country's biggest spate of share sales since the collapse of communism in 1991.
 Carmaker Severstal-Avto on April 22 became the first Russian company to sell stock below its target price for more than two years as its parent raised $135 million. Three days later, real estate company Eastern Property Holdings Ltd. took in $55 million, 29 percent less than planned.
 The Pyatyorochka sale is the eighth Russian IPO in six months and will be the largest since AFK Sistema, a holding with assets ranging from telecommunications to real estate, raised $1.56 billion in Russia's largest initial public sale on Feb. 9.
 Fund managers such as Ronnebaek and Alexander Schwarzkopf, who manages about $1.3 billion in assets, including Russian stocks, at London-based Altima Partners, said the owners of these companies might be pricing their stocks too high.
 &quot;At this level the upside will be very limited and you would have to sit and hope the company meets forecasts just not to lose anything,&quot; Schwarzkopf said.
 Pyatyorochka founders Andrei Rogachev, 41, and Alexander Girda, 44, were expected to price the grocer's IPO on Thursday, bankers said. The sale would value Pyatyorochka at between $1.99 billion and $2.45 billion.

TITLE: 10% of Auditors Lose License
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Finance Ministry has suspended the operating licenses of 10 percent of the country's auditing firms so as to force them to come into line with the law, the ministry said on its web site.
 
A total of 627 firms have been given six months to comply with a requirement that auditing firms have a minimum of five accredited auditors on staff, the ministry said. A decree signed by Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov last week went into effect immediately.
 Government officials said the move was long in coming, and industry watchers hailed it as a necessary step to bring order into Russia's auditing services sector.
 The provision in the law on auditing services, which sets the minimum number of officially accredited auditors in a firm at five, was passed in 2002. 
 &quot;The companies had ample time to comply with the law,&quot; said Andrei Krikunov, deputy director of the Finance Ministry's department that oversees auditors.
 While the 627 affected companies might seem like a large number, industry professionals welcomed the suspension.
 &quot;The ministry carried out basic housecleaning,&quot; said Alexander Ruf, board chairman of the Russian Collegium of Auditors, which unites 1,252 auditors. 
 Auditors can receive official accreditation at the country's 40 certification centers, many of which partner with higher education institutions, he said. 
 Last year's top three auditing companies by revenues were well over the limit. No. 1 PricewaterhouseCoopers had 98 certified auditors on staff in 2004, Deloitte had 150 and BDO Unicon had 181, according to Expert ratings agency.
 There are approximately 6,200 auditing companies nominally operating in Russia, but many of their official addresses and contacts are no longer valid. Some do not conduct audits or provide any services at all, Ruf said.
 Moscow-based De-Credo - one of the few suspended auditing firms with valid and accessible contact information - declined to comment on the matter.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Candy May Buy Plant
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Candy SpA, an Italian household-appliance maker, may buy a washing-machine factory in Russia to boost market share in the country, Vedomosti reported, citing Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service.
 Candy's Candy Elettrodomestici unit on April 6 applied to the service for approval of the Vesta factory purchase, the newspaper said, citing the regulator's press service.
 Officials at Candy's Moscow office declined to comment on the purchase before an official announcement by the head office, the newspaper said.
 
<b>Mobile Phone Mania
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russians bought a record $4.5 billion of mobile phones last year as the country's sixth-straight year of economic growth raised disposable incomes and fueled retail sales, market research company IDC said today.
 Mobile-phone makers led by Motorola, South Korean Samsung Electronics and Siemens of Germany sold nearly 27 million handsets in Russia in the period, 59 percent more than a year earlier, IDC said on its web site. Total sales surged 90 percent after handset prices increased an average of 18 percent.

TITLE: New Port to Make City 'Happy'
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: City Hall has decided to make the northern capital happy with a new passenger port for big cruise liners that will cost between $500 million and $1 billion. 
 
Part of the construction budget will come from the state budgets, but the main player has been named as Vitaly Yuzhilin, a State Duma deputy and former owner of the St. Petersburg seaport.
 At the end of last week, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed an order for construction to begin on the sea passenger terminal this year. By May 17, the Transport Ministry is supposed to estimate the time it will take and how much investment will be required, the order states.
 The idea to build a new port was first examined by City Hall in 2002. Last year Morskoi Fasad Sankt-Peterburga (Sea Fa&ccedil;ade of St. Petersburg) was named as the management company for the development to be completed on Vsilyevsky Island, north of an existing port.
 The 146-hectare area will be cleared and eight piers and a passenger terminal built. The terminal will be able to cope with liners up to 200 meters in length. The order refers to state financing of the entrance channel, the internal harbor, and the border crossing. But &quot;extra-budgetary sources&quot; are to build the piers and the shore buildings.
 Tatyana Yuerva, spokeswoman for Morskoi Fasad, said the project will exceed $500 million, $138 million of which will be partly financed by the state. The press service of the Transport Ministry refers to the cost as 29.7 billion rubles (more than $1 billion), but this figure includes the reconstruction of the surrounding territory as well, which include the construction of hotels, museums and apartments.
 Six hundred million rubles (about $22 million) are to go into the project this year, and about $200 million are assigned to be spent on the terminal next year City Hall said. Yureva confirmed this, and said that financing was being discussed with potential investors, whom she declined to name. Vice Governor Yury Molchanov also would not name them.
 On Thursday Morskoi Fasad announced that an international consortium of companies has won the first tender to reclaim sea land adjacent to Vasiliyevsky island. The consortium is made up of Dutch firms VAN Oord and Marin Contractors BV and their Russian partners Transstroi, Baltdraga, PTPS corporation, Port Fleet and the Baltic Depth Digging Company.
 &quot;The fact that there were 12 companies involved in the competition shows that the project is attractive for investments,&quot; Serik Zhusukov, Morskoi Fasad vice president, said Thursday at a briefing.
 The results of a second tender for sea floor digging work, to be financed by the federal government, are expected to be announced on May 12, Zhusukov said. The work will start in July this year with the federal government promising to transfer 600 million rubles ($21.4 million) this year as part of the financing. 
 &quot;This year the federal financing of big infrastructure projects in the city will increase by 150 percent,&quot; said Governor Valentina Matvienko, quoted Wednesday by City Hall's press-service.
 The last of the port's tenders, for works on the installation of a navigation system and environmental monitoring, is planned to take place on June 6 with &quot;about 20 companies having shown interest,&quot; Zhusukov said. 
 Insiders suspect that the terminal will be built from the proceeds of last year's sale of the government's controlling stake in St. Petersburg seaport. In September 2002, the stake was in the hands of Nasdor Inc., a firm registered in Liechtenstein and linked to Duma Deputy Vitaly Yuzhilin.
 In June 2004 it was sold to Yuzhlin's Danish company Jysk Staalindistri, which is affiliated to the Novolipetsk metal combine, or NLMK. A source familiar with the deal said the stake was worth about $140 million.
 Yuzhilin could not be reached (Tuesday) for comment, but a source close to the deputy confirmed his interest in the project, although declined to give details.
 <i>(Vedomosti, SPT) </i>

TITLE: Officials Struggle To Hold Fair Transport Tenders
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After the annulment of the results of the first tender for transportation licenses last week, the city announced it will hold a second one in three months' time. However, displaying a rare moment of synergy, city officials agreed with experts that unless key requirements are changed, the new tender is once more bound for failure.
 
The city's transport committee spent four months preparing the tender for the bus and mini-bus operators as part of the reform put forth by Smolny to &quot;improve transportation quality in the city&quot; as well as to strike transport maintenance expenses off the city budget.
 For the tender the city was divided into over 100 districts. Tender rules specified that participating transport firms must own enough buses to operate all routes within the districts that they bid for.
 The requirement forced transport firms into a costly gamble few were prepared for. Last week, the tender documentation was found to be illegal by the Arbitration Court, which annulled the results of the 14 tenders that had already been conducted.
 &quot;The conditions were biased toward [state-owned] Passazhiravtotrans, which enjoys low-rate rental fees that are only 5 percent of the price of regular rates. [In addition] Passazhiravtotrans has been using budget funds to purchase new buses,&quot; Viktor Yevtuhov, a Legislative Assembly deputy, said Wednesday at a news conference.
 The five transport operators, besides Passazhiravtotrans, that participated in the tender spent a total of $14 million, or about $1 million per district, to purchase additional vehicles to comply within the conditions. However, despite mounting concern over the rules, the transport committee has continued to urge companies to make further purchases.
 &quot;The operators should use the time [until the second tender] to purchase more vehicles, while the committee will use the time to consult them about a new set of [tender] conditions,&quot; said Alexander Datsyuk, head of the transport committee, also at Wednesday's conference.
 Experts said the dissonance in the stance of different officials exemplifies a serious struggle that's going on within the city authorities. &quot;One side is trying to get things done, while another is corrupt and unprofessional,&quot; political analyst Vladimir Gryaznevich said Thursday.
 &quot;Unless the bus fleet conditions are lowered, the tender will fail once again,&quot; he sad.
 Meanwhile, the official stance - as presented by Governor Valentina Mativiyenko during President Vladimir Putin's visit to the city on Wednesday - is that successful tenders are an essential part of St. Petersburg's economic development.

TITLE: Heinz Playing Catch-Up
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: H.J. Heinz, one of the world's leading food producers, said this week that its European division had acquired a majority stake in Petrosoyuz, a Russian producer of ketchup, sauces, and condiments, Interfax reported Wednesday.
 
The company did not disclose the financial details of the transaction in its statement, the news agency said. Heinz Russia could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
 &quot;The move is part of an effort that accelerates Heinz's growth in Eastern Europe,&quot; William Johnson, president and CEO of H.J. Heinz, said in a press statement, Interfax reported.
 The transaction is the latest in a recent string of major Russian acquisitions by multinational companies. Earlier this year, Coca Cola completed a $500 million purchase of Multon, a St. Petersburg-based maker of juices.
 The purchase of a stake in Petrosoyuz has been in the making since April when Heinz applied for an approval for the buy from the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service. The agency cleared the transaction on April 28. 
 Petrosoyuz is a private food company with an annual revenue of about $140 million. It operates manufacturing facilities in Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan and employs more than 2,000 staff.
 Analysts estimate that Petrosoyuz leads the Russian market in the mayonnaise, spreads, and margarine sector and holds the second spot in ketchup production.
 Heinz's baby foods factory in Georgievsk and the Petrosoyuz plants in St. Petersburg, Otradnoe, and Ivanovo will form a single joint venture company, the U.S. based firm said in a statement. 
 The deal could help Heinz progress towards a market-leading position on the Russian food market, the statement said.
 &quot;It will give Heinz access to local market understanding that will allow us to expand sales of other popular Heinz products throughout Russia,&quot; Joe Jimenez, president and CEO of Heinz Europe, said in the statement.

TITLE: Swiss Chain Eyes St. Petersburg
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Jelmoli Holding, a Swiss retailer and real-estate company, bought a 49 percent stake in Hypercenter Investment to help it invest in a further 10 retail centers in Russia, two of which will be in St. Petersburg, Jelmoli said Thursday in a statement.
 
The purchase of shares in Hypercenter Investment, the company behind Mosmart hypercenters, will allow the Swiss firm to acquire a presence on the Russian market, the Zurich-based firm said Thursday in a statement distributed on Hugin newswire.
 Jelmoli could not be reached for comments by telephone on Thursday.
 Jelmoli will pay 90 million Swiss francs ($76 million) in three installments over 18 months for its stake in the business, the statement said. Currently, the Swiss firm operates the Jelmoli department store in Zurich, Fust electronics and the Portable Shop chain.
 Hypercenter Investment will &quot;continue the development&quot; of Mosmart Hypercenters, which has three retail centers in Russia, Jelmoli's statement said. It also plans to build stores on four sites in Moscow, two in St. Petersburg and four in other Russian cities, it added.
 Eastern Property Holdings Ltd., a real estate company that focuses on Russia and other countries in the region, bought a 26 percent stake in Hypercenter. The majority shareholders in Mosmart own the rest of the business, Jelmoli said.
 <i>(Bloomberg, SPT) </i>

TITLE: Real Estate Broker to Invest $30M in City
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: London Consulting Management Company, a newly formed real-estate brokerage and consulting firm, said it would invest $100 million into office space and retail projects in St. Petersburg and regional centers within a decade.
 
LCMC's development director Dmitry Zolin said the company will spend about $30 million on projects in St. Petersburg, and use the rest of the funds for real estate construction in the regions.
 &quot;We are managing the construction of a B-class business center on the Vyborg side [of the city], which is set for completion in 2007,&quot; Zolin said Tuesday. Zolin declined to specify the exact project the company is involved with, but said investment in the center will reach $10 million over two years. 
 The lion's share of the firm's resources, however, will be diverted to projects in the regions, which have a greater development potential, Zolin said. 
 &quot;Market research showed that the largest investors into Russian commercial real estate are oil and gas-affiliated companies. So heavy investment is shifting from cities to oil-rich regions and industrial centers,&quot; Zolin said, adding that LCMC is developing two large projects in Chelyabinsk regional center.
 Founded in April, LCMC said private London-based Russian investors, who made their fortunes in the oil and gas industry, have financed the company.
 &quot;The investors gave us a carte-blanche to develop the real-estate consulting field, which holds much potential in Russia,&quot; Tatiana Skalandis, LCMC's general director, said in a statement.
 Both Skalandis and Zolin are former employees of another city-based consulting agency - Becar. Becar's marketing group said its two former employees were qualified professionals in their field, but their new company will have to work hard to establish its presence on an already matured St. Petersburg market.
 &quot;It may have better luck in the regions. St. Petersburg developing companies are welcomed by regional operators, who value their expertise in B-class and C-class construction management,&quot; Becar marketing department said Thursday.
 Although LCMC is new in the consulting field, it said it aims to compete with international companies such as Colliers and Knight Frank. When contacted Thursday, neither Colliers nor Knight Frank said they knew anything about the newly formed company.

TITLE: Rewriting Stalin's War
TEXT: On May 9, U.S. President George W. Bush and other heads of state will gather in Moscow for lavish celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Allies' World War II victory in Europe. Paying tribute to the tremendous efforts of the Soviet people, whose staggering sacrifices were pivotal to winning the war, is patently fitting. However, the festivities' main beneficiary won't be the real heroes but President Vladimir Putin, who has made a travesty of their memory by reviving some of communism's worst traditions.
 Among the most troubling developments under his administration has been the steady rehabilitation of Josef Stalin's image, an effort that will reach its apex - for now at least - during the upcoming commemorations. Among other such moves in the past, Putin unveiled a plaque honoring the dictator's military leadership and said that despite his reputation, &quot;it would be silly to ignore&quot; Stalin's role in leading the Soviet Union against the Nazis. Putin also approved minting hundreds of silver coins bearing the tyrant's portrait. Such attitudes have emboldened nostalgists to call for the erection of Stalin statues in various cities.
 A former KGB officer, the president has also praised the Soviet secret service that implemented Stalin's orders to murder tens of millions. (Historians disagree about the numbers who died, but a commonly cited figure is more than 20 million.) 
 One victim of Stalinist repression - a former gulag prisoner and Red Army officer who fought in the war before his capture and imprisonment in the German Buchenwald concentration camp - echoed many Kremlin critics by expressing astonishment at the collective amnesia about the real facts of Stalin's unimaginable crimes and military incompetence. 
 &quot;The war was won despite Stalin and not thanks to him,&quot; he recently told me, referring to Stalin's purge of the top officer corps and failure to believe Hitler would invade the Soviet Union. &quot;People talk about how bad things are today, but under Stalin millions of collective farm workers died of famine. I saw it myself. People had nothing to eat - and still had to give milk and eggs to the state.&quot;
 Those kinds of memories are increasingly forgotten. In 2003, a public opinion poll issued on the 50th anniversary of Stalin's death found 36 percent of Russians believed Stalin brought more good than harm to the country. Another 34 percent saw both positive and negative contributions. Besides victory over the Nazis, Russians increasingly laud Stalin for having forced massive industrialization to catch up to the West. Above all, however, he is praised for &quot;bringing order.&quot; That exploit resonates loudly among an impoverished populace routinely exploited by criminals and bribe-taking civil servants. That the corrupt state bureaucracy undermines rule of law and encourages criminalization is paradoxically a legacy of the Soviet past - but don't try telling that to the growing number of Stalin admirers.
 Tapping into a general nostalgia for Moscow's lost superpower status has provided huge dividends for Putin's presidency in the form of exceedingly high public approval ratings. Part of the reason is that the government never officially apologized for Soviet crimes nor erected any significant memorial to the victims of communist repression. The crucial failure to engage in introspection by acknowledging the past now adds fuel to the nationalist tendency to divide &quot;nashi,&quot; or &quot;us,&quot; and outsiders - on whom the country's problems are once again blamed.
 Ironically, by encouraging revisionism about Stalin - surely the worst leader in Russian history - Putin, whose election brought about the worst single threat to post-communist democracy in Russia, invites comparison between the two. Not least of the similarities is both men's reliance on political loyalty, even if the scale of their abuses is in no way comparable. For years after Putin took office in 2000, the Western press lauded him as an economic reformer, with only small caveats to his &quot;possible&quot; backsliding on democracy. 
 In fact, Putin's moves to exploit the court system for attacking his political rivals and oversee the transformation of parliament from an independent branch of government into a Kremlin tool have had one overriding goal: to consolidate his political power. In the past year, for example, Putin ended direct gubernatorial elections.
 Good old lies and propaganda helped trick outsiders about his actions and intentions. When a state-controlled company took over the country's main independent television station, NTV, in 2001, Putin said that was purely a business affair and had nothing to do with politics. 
 Last year, when he oversaw the dismemberment and state appropriation of Yukos - whose former chief, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, languishes in jail on charges prosecutors compounded at whim - the president defended the move by criticizing Khodorkovsky and other financial and industrial oligarchs for using their political connections to secure state assets.
 But worse things have happened on Putin's watch. Low valuations of key assets during the takeovers of both Yukos and NTV - the two most publicized state appropriations, but by no means the only ones - provide a clue. The pre-sale estimates - the contracts for which were apparently awarded without bidding - came from Dresdner Bank. According to The Wall Street Journal, it turns out that the head of the bank's Russia business, Matthias Warnig, is no stranger to the Kremlin boss.
 The two met after the KGB stationed Putin in East Germany in the 1980s. Strangely (given his current job at Dresdner) Warnig had been recruited by the East German Stasi secret service at the time to infiltrate and spy on the bank. He maintained his ties to Putin after opening the bank's St. Petersburg office in 1991. By then, the future president had left the KGB and was working there as a top mayoral aide and liaison to foreign businessmen. (At one point, the Journal reported, Warnig flew Putin's wife to Germany for medical treatment at Dresdner's expense.)
 Drawing a distinction between the oligarchs and his own vassals in government, Putin said the forced sale of Yukos assets was carried out &quot;in absolute conformity with market means.&quot; In fact, it's never been secret that politics motivated the state's appropriation of Yukos and other private companies. Believing Putin's interests lie in improving Russian capitalism is about as discerning as the old claim that Stalin was motivated by building communism.
 Foreign leaders have done precious little to criticize Putin's attack against Russia's 1990s reforms. Bush, who claims that the spread of &quot;freedom and democracy&quot; is a main goal of his presidency, is among the worst offenders.
 The Russian government insidiously adds insult to injury by continuing to exploit the Soviet population's wartime sacrifices, partly through distorting the memory of Stalin, whose ruthlessness and military bungling were responsible for a large share of the suffering. 
 Only a few have protested Putin's glorification of the Soviet past, chiefly politicians in states that most recently endured Moscow's yoke, including the Baltic countries, Poland and Ukraine. In the face of withering criticism from Moscow, the leaders of Estonia and Lithuania bravely refused to attend the upcoming festivities. But they are the exceptions to a general and dangerous acceptance of Russia's nationalistic revisionism. 
 
 <i>Gregory Feifer's book, &quot;Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer, The True Story of the Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames&quot; (with Victor Cherkashin), was published by Basic Books in January. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Party of Power's Vote Manipulation Is Playing With Fire
TEXT: As the Yabloko faction predicted last week, United Russia, the party of power, has shown all its negative sides in municipal elections in the Akademicheskoye district on Sunday by indirectly forcing the local electorate to vote for candidates it supports.
 If about three years ago the Kremlin still wanted to at least keep up the appearance that the election process was fair, today it does not care about it at all, pushing its candidates into office with the relentlessness of a steamroller.
 Opposition candidates simply disappear under this heavy and powerful election machine that rolls forward regardless of rules that are part of any civilized election campaign.
 As the local Yabloko branch reported on Sunday, United Russia used the resources of local housing committees to get people's votes in a way that the City Election Commission has questioned. United Russia simply brushed aside the commission's concerns.
 The housing committees invited senior residents to come over and sign papers allowing them to receive money instead of a so-called social package, a part of the monthly pension that guarantees retired pensioners free services from the state. According to the new pension law Russian residents have a right to replace their social package with money and receive it as an additional payment to their pension every month. By itself this regulation is fine, but it has nothing to do with elections.
 But while signing the papers, local residents were strongly advised to vote and, surprisingly enough, not for Yabloko. 
 The practice outraged Yabloko leaders.
 &quot;The practice of the party of power buying votes has been introduced on an industrial scale,&quot; Boris Vishnevsky, a member of Yabloko faction at the Legislative Assembly, said Tuesday in an interview.
 &quot;We have estimated that one vote costs 72 rubles, which is the value of a package of goods given to veterans after they voted. The goods include a piece of cake and sprats and was distributed by a local Union of Veterans, which was responsible for getting people to vote,&quot; he said.
 The Union of Veterans reportedly told residents who to vote for, naming candidates who were officially independent but were, in fact, affiliated to United Russia, Vishnevsky said.
 My understanding is that by acting in this way, the regime is playing with fire. If it continues to do so it could face similar reactions to those that occurred in Georgia, Ukraine or Kyrgyzstan. A revolution will not happen tomorrow, but is quite possible in a distant future.
 Signs of people's impatience, especially among the younger generation, are already visible in St. Petersburg.
 According to a report published in weekly Moi Rayon, a group of young people operating under the name &quot;partisans&quot; is distributing anti-Kremlin leaflets and posters in the city. One of the most recent examples of their activity was a red poster with big white letters saying, &quot;Get Rid of the New Tsar,&quot; which was placed on the statue of Peter the Great outside the Manezh exhibition hall, the paper reported. The reference was clearly to President Vladimir Putin. Such posters usually appear on roofs of residential buildings or balconies and as a rule hang there for no longer than the hour it takes them to be noticed by the police.
 I can't remember hearing anything like this happening for quite a while, but the fact is the regime is doing all it can to stimulate such opposition by its actions in municipal elections and its general approach to its opponents. While the party of power was engaged in messing up the elections in Akademicheskoye district, the police were beating up students at an anti-Kremlin rally in downtown St. Petersburg on Sunday.
 In light of these events I regard, May 1 as one of the best days for the local opposition in St. Petersburg because it obviously shows that the Kremlin continues its policy of stepping on the same rakes time after time. The regime has not learned the lessons from Georgia or Ukraine and keeps digging itself a hole, in which it will eventually end up.

TITLE: City Teacher, Nurse, Actress Gave War a Female Face
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: On June 21, 1941, she was 16 and acting in a drama group's performance of the Ukrainian play &quot;Platon Krechet&quot; in Bolshaya Murta in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region. The play was a success. Everybody congratulated her. Life was filled with joy, happiness and laughter. Her friends took her home. 
 
The next morning she woke up with happy feelings - the sun, summer ... but suddenly the good times were all gone - Hitler had attacked the Soviet Union and it would be almost four years until peace returned.
 Yekaterina Mikhailovna Bazarnova, who at 80 still works as a history teacher in St. Petersburg, spent most of her teenage years at war. From 1941 to 1945 she was at the front, from the first till the last day, even despite the saying that &quot;war does not have a woman's face.&quot;
 Bazarnova doesn't tell her story often. She remembers the horror of it all too clearly. And she is by nature humble and becomes very shy when someone asks her about the war. Her colleagues at school No. 327 in St. Petersburg learned her story by accident, after seeing her photographs. There are only three. She has saved them with great care. One was taken on the first day of the war, the second on May 8, 1945, and the last, on the next day, Victory Day. 
 &quot;I never told them about my war. I kept it to myself. It's painful to remember,&quot; she said. 
 Nor did she mention the many medals she was awarded. Among them are a &quot;Medal for Capturing Koenigsberg,&quot; &quot;War Honors, first class, of the Great Patriotic War,&quot; &quot;For Victory Over Germany,&quot; the &quot;Order of the Great Patriotic War,&quot; and the Order of the Red Star. 
 And when she was asked to describe what she had done during the war, she smiled and said: &quot;What deed? I didn't accomplish any feat. I was just living and doing what I had to.&quot;
 Before she can be coaxed to start her tale, tears fill her eyes and her voice begins to tremble. She apologizes and starts to speak.
 &quot;Our family lived in Tambov in southern Russian. My father died before the war. Mom was left with three children. Of course, it was rather difficult. My oldest brother went to work at a factory. I dreamed of becoming an actress, studied in a drama group, and acted. 
 Bazarnova had a normal childhood. She was fond of sport, loved skating and participated in city hockey competitions and gymnastics. She was full of life and devoted a lot of time to ballet and drama. And the ardor of this young girl was infectious. 
 &quot;One friend told me that she had become a master gymnast just because I had inspired her when we were together in school,&quot; she said.
 After seven years at school she enrolled in medical school. 
 &quot;I didn't tell my mother, so at first she thought I was still going to school, but I was already studying medicine. I wanted so much to be a nurse,&quot; she said. 
 After graduating from medical school at age 15 Bazarnova was sent to the settlement of Bolshaya Murta in the Krasnoyarsk region in Western Siberia. 
 &quot;I was full of hopes; my dream had come true,&quot; she said. &quot;And what was especially important for me was that I continued acting. 
 &quot;I remember that when I arrived at the hospital, local boys ran and asked if it was true that a 15-year-old girl had come to work as midwife. I answered, 'No, not 15, 16.' Then they told me about a drama group in the settlement.&quot; 
 &quot;On the evening of June 21, 1941, I was so nervous and excited on the stage that I held the telephone receiver the wrong way up and everybody laughed. But everything was very nice.&quot; 
 &quot;The next morning I was so happy, I ran to the doctor's assistant to get some milk - he had a cow - and Professor Voino-Yasenetsky, who lived in our house, stopped me.&quot; 
 Voino-Yasenetsky was a famous surgeon. He was also Bishop Luka, whom the atheistic Bolsheviks had sent into exile. Voino-Yasenetsky had spent 17 years in the gulag in the far north and then come to Siberia as a doctor. He was affectionate toward Bazarnova, took care of her, enjoyed working together with her and called her &quot;the yellow-beaked sparrow.&quot; 
 &quot;Where are you hurrying, yellow-beaked sparrow?&quot; he asked. 
 &quot;To the doctor's assistant for milk,&quot; Bazarnova replied. 
 &quot;He asked me about the performance. I was so glad, he talked to me and then he said, 'the war has started.' I didn't know whether to be glad or sad. Why? Because there were military preparations in the Far East. Girls used to walked through our town wearing military uniforms and we envied them ... &quot; 
 That day Bazarnova didn't get her milk. 
 She was taken to Krasnoyarsk and given military boots and a uniform. Her feet were too small for the big boots, so a soldier she knew as Uncle Vasya adapted the boots so they would fit. 
 The young nurse found herself on the hospital train where she worked with Voino-Yasenetsky until 1943. They collected injured soldiers and transported them away from the front to the east, but nevertheless the train was bombed on several occasion. Carriages were shattered, there was blood everywhere and everyone suffered. 
 &quot;Once fate gave me a gift. I met my mom in my native Tambov.&quot; But the encounter was so emotional Bazarnova won't say more about it. 
 Everyday life on the train was dealing with tortures, pain, and the moans of the injured who were waiting for help. 
 Bazarnova remembered her dramatic experiences and performed for seriously wounded men, sometimes acting out whole plays in a solo performance. 
 &quot;One sick man told me: 'you should go to the teacher's institute, not to the medical. After the war be a teacher.'&quot;
 At the beginning of 1943, the hospital train was disbanded. Its staff had become very close to each other. Saying goodbye was difficult. 
 At this time General Pavel Rotmistrov formed the 5th Guards' tank army. And it was as a member of the headquarters of this army that Bazarnova passed through the most important events of World War II.
 The army took part in the Kursk battle, the Korsyn-Shevchenskaya and the Yassko-Kishenevskaya operation. Then, as the Red Army's supremacy over its German foes grew and grew, she pushed on with the army into the Baltics, Koenigsburg and finally to Berlin.
 A guardian angel seems to have kept an eye on her during this time. Bazarnova remembers one day having to bring something to the military unit. The road she took went through a large open area and she was surprised that nobody came to meet her. When she arrived the whole unit was looking at her with wide-opened eyes. Only then was she told that she had just walked unharmed through a minefield.
 &quot;I remember May 8, 1945, very clearly. The day was sunny, there was silence, no shooting, no noise from cars, nothing, just silence. And there was a field in Berlin completely covered with lilac, it was a shorter lilac than the one that grows in Russia ... We were wearing full uniform. I even have a photo - I'm a senior lieutenant of the medical service. We are having a rest on the edge of this field. You can even see my future husband. We are full of joy, waiting for something.&quot;
 There was a short delay while the remnants of the German military command were summoned for a short ceremony of capitulation. 
 On May 9, the army paraded outside Berlin and entered the destroyed German capital. Bazarnova wrote her name on the wall of the Reichstag where it remains to this day. 
 After the war Bazarnova worked as a nurse in a hospital in Brest until she was demobilized in 1946. 
 &quot;After the war I went back to Tambov and saw a notice about students being enrolled in the teacher's training institute. I remembered the words of that soldier. Since then I've been a teacher, in spite of urgings from my family to take it easy at home: you're leaving your children, you always go to school.&quot;
 Today Bazarnova is preoccupied with her work at school and the creation of museums. She has devoted her life to them. The first museum she created was in Furstenberg in former East Germany. It is called the Lenin Museum. The second is a memorial museum to 26 officers in Baku who were shot by the Bolsheviks for revolutionary activities. Bazarnova's third museum gives the history of St. Petersburg's school No. 327, which has won many awards. The main one was first prize in a national competition of school museums in 2000, the 55th anniversary of victory year.
 &quot;The last museum doesn't have revolutionary themes. But before, when I was a member of the Communist party: Lenin, Stalin ... I was so proud of my father who had been a pre-revolutionary member of the party and I thought I would continue his cause.&quot;
 She still collects information about those who left school No. 327 to fight in the war, preserving the memory of their achievements. She even arranged the reburial from Latvia to Russia of Viktor Voronov, a graduate of School No. 120 (now No. 327), a Hero of the Soviet Union who fell in battle in Latvia in 1944. 
 She has also guided walking tours for her pupils in St. Petersburg, showing them sites associated with the Siege of Leningrad, the Great Patriotic War and the architecture of St. Petersburg. 
 &quot;If they see it once, they will remember it. And they will take their children to these places,&quot; Bazarnova said. 
 And her pupils remember what she has shown them. They also remember their teacher.
 'This wonderful teacher gave me a start in life, she shared her experience with me,&quot; said Yekaterina Filimonova, today a student of Smolny University. &quot;I developed a feeling of pride and responsibility for those who had been to my school, for Russia, and for people like Yekaterina Mikhailovna. 
 &quot;I became a guide in the school museum, which helped me to break down some of my defenses when it came to dealing with other people,&quot; Filimonova said. &quot;It's so important to form relations with people, to leave a good impression about yourself.&quot;
 Bazarnova's children take after her. Her daughter Irina graduated from the history department of St.Petersburg State University and her son, Nikolai, like his father, from the Naval Academy. 
 Bazarnova's husband was a military doctor whom she met during the war. The marriage came later. He died several years ago.
 Although the children are like their parents, there is one key difference: there is no war in their life. 
 Bazarnova and her husband and many other ordinary people, whose names are not even known accomplished a great deed and presented them with life and peace.

TITLE: Making history
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: American film director Ben Strout, who has made a documentary about the Soviet Union's conflict with Finland during World War II (known as the Winter War), said he was struck by many elements of that historic event.
 
&quot;I was fascinated by the story's basic elements - an invasion of a tiny nation by one of the world's superpowers, battles fought in unbelievable weather conditions, and the unintended consequences of war,&quot; Strout said.
 Strout, who filmed reenacted battle scenes from the Winter War both in Russia in September last year and in Finland in February this year, said his documentary, called &quot;Fire and Ice,&quot; aims to show the event from many perspectives.
 &quot;It aims to show it from the point of view of soldiers on both sides, from Finnish civilians on the home front as well as dealing with the politics and diplomacy behind that event,&quot; he said.
 Strout said the film, which will first be shown on U.S. television, contains messages from many sources - historians, actual participants and excerpts from books, diaries, and battle reports from soldiers on both sides.
 He said he started researching the topic almost three years ago after a friend asked him what he knew about the Winter War, and it turned out that Strout knew very little because &quot;it was a piece of history that has been virtually forgotten, overshadowed by the larger story of World War II.&quot;
 Strout said he filmed scenes about the build-up to the war in Summa, Vyborg and St. Petersburg in Russian Karelia north of St. Petersburg in September.
 However, when he wanted to film battle scenes along the old Mannerheim Line series of defensive fortifications in Russia later in February, he found it wasn't possible because Russian customs officials gave his group a hard time.
 Strout said when his group attempted to drive across the border from Finland they were held up at customs for 24 hours, even though they had the proper visas and the proper customs declarations for their equipment.
 Strout said he was also fascinated by the Russian reenactors of the Winter War, who agreed to take part in the documentary.
 &quot;Each reenactor is a piece of living history. Each one has gone through incredible time and expense to outfit himself with period correct clothing and weapons, and each one takes on the very persona of a soldier. They are so intense about history, and so concerned with detail. No actor could come close to their level of involvement,&quot; Strout said.
 Vladimir Chekunov, head of the North Front reenactment club, who took part in the film, said he was especially impressed by the battle scenes shot in Finland in February. 
 Chekunov said he particularly liked that the filmmakers used real military machines, which remained in good shape after the Winter War in Finland, stunts with explosions, and weapons - and that the process was completely safe.
 &quot;It was really impressive to see a real Soviet-era tank moving and the whole row of Red Army soldiers walking behind it in an attack. It looked so much like real life,&quot; Chekunov said.
 Chekunov said about 30 members of a number of Russian reenactment clubs took part in the filming - some performing the role of Red Army soldiers and others the role of Finnish Army soldiers.
 He said all the clubs used their own Winter War uniforms for the shoot, and the American filmmakers asked that they even wear the real underwear of those armies and all kinds of accessories.
 Chekunov said the filming took place twice - first in September in Russia and then in February in Finland.
 In September, the American filmmakers shot scenes showing the military exercises of Red and Finnish armies before the war. They filmed how soldiers marched and trained for the war.
 In February they shot the battle scenes.
 Chekunov said February's filming had to take place in Finland because it was easier to do it there. 
 Locations of battles in then-Finland (now Russia) were reenacted on present day Finnish soil.
 Chekunov said Finland has more military machines in good shape from the Winter War, less bureaucracy to slow down filming, and more complete bunkers of the times.
 However, he said only Russian re-enactors were used for the filming because in Finland there are not such well-equipped historical clubs of this kind.
 This meant taking the Russian re-enactors across the border to play the part of Finns.
 &quot;You know, Finns are in general pacifists and probably don't need such clubs,&quot; Chekunov said. &quot;However, I can say that despite their peaceful character, Finns can stand up for themselves if it's needed.&quot;
 According to Chekunov, the achievement of the Finns in winning the Winter War was a miracle.
 He said it was very impressive that such a small and unmilitarized country could resist the attack of such a huge and industrialized country as the Soviet Union for so long.
 &quot;I think there were several reasons why Finns were so successful. First of all, they were fighting for their motherland, while Red Army soldiers had a rather vague idea of what they were fighting for - they thought they were helping Finland to be free,&quot; Chekunov said.
 He said Finns used all the skills of hunters, fishermen, and lumbermen to fight in the war. Red Army soldiers and officers did not have much knowledge about the demands of the terrain.
 &quot;At the same time, by 1939 many prominent Russian commanders had been executed in Stalin's repression, while those who survived were scared to take responsibility or go forward with any initiative,&quot; Chekunov said.
 Strout said he believes that a re-examination of the Winter War is important for both Russians and Finns.
 &quot;Much that happened during this period was never told to the Russian people. And it is a subject that most Finns have been reluctant to discuss. Much can be learned from this history, not only by Russians and Finns, but by other nations,&quot; he said.
 Strout said the most intense experience he went through while filming the documentary was the Finnish winter.
 &quot;My film crew was from San Antonio, Texas, where the temperatures rarely approach freezing,&quot; he said. &quot;The Finnish winter is an experience we will certainly never forget. 
 &quot;It gives one an entirely new understanding of the hardship and suffering of the soldiers in that war,&quot; he added.
 Strout said he hopes the program, which will be broadcast on PBS public television in the U.S., will honor the memory of all those who fought and sacrificed during the Winter War by telling their story.
 
 <i>For more information about 
 &quot;Fire and Ice&quot; contact MastersWork Media, 11576 Senie Ln., Carmel, Indiana 46032. Tel: +1 317 844 3662. www.mastersworkmedia.com </i>

TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: As Victory Day hullabaloo reaches its peak this week -recorded voice announcements in the subway being its latest manifestation - local rockers just cannot stay out of it. <strong>Sergei Shnurov</strong> of hugely popular ska-punk band <strong>Leningrad</strong> makes his debut as a narrator in a war-themed documentary on local TV. He is also reportedly going to perform Soviet war songs as well as some of his own, which he composed especially for the film.
 
Publicity photos for the film, &quot;Leningrad Front,&quot; show Shnurov in an unusually serious mood, while what can be heard of Shnurov's music sounds not unlike the &quot;serious,&quot; war-themed part of late Soviet troubadour Vladimir Vysotsky's repertoire - strenuously manly, gravel-voiced and deadly earnest. Not a strong point for Shnurov, who is best at postmodern irony and making true poetry out of everyday situations.
 The news release says that Shnurov's participation &quot;adds new meaning and new relevance&quot; to Soviet war history.
 The four-part documentary runs on Channel 5 at 8:40 p.m. through Saturday. It will be repeated on Sunday and Monday.
 Some bands are peforming at a free, open-air concert called &quot;The Songs That Won the War.&quot; <strong>Tequilajazzz</strong>, <strong>Dva Samaliota</strong> and a few others are expected to perform some five songs each, two of which must be Soviet war songs.
 According to drummer Mikhail Sindalovsky, Dva Samaliota will do a ska version of Bulat Okudzhava's ballad &quot;Zdes Ptitsy Ne Poyut&quot; (Birds Don't Sing Here) from Andrei Smirnov's 1970 film &quot;Belarussky Vokzal&quot; (Belarussky Station).
 &quot;I like this song myself and I liked it as a child,&quot; said Sindalovsky. &quot;I don't think we've spoiled it.&quot;
 &quot;[The organizers] offered us a list of songs, and whatever song we tried it sounded rotten. It sounded either like an amateur band or in such a way that war veterans would not accept it. It's impossible to try and cover Vysotsky, but with Okudzhava it turned out well.&quot; 
 The other song Dva Samaliota is planning to perform at the concert is a ska version of &quot;Proshchaniye Slavyanki&quot; (Farewell of a Slav), Vasily Agapkin's famous march from 1912. 
 &quot;[The concert was] kind of commissioned by the state, but we didn't refuse because it's the country we live in, at least sometimes,&quot; said Yevgeny Fyodorov of alt-rock band Tequilajazzz who chose Leonid Utyosov's &quot;Vecher Na Reide&quot; (Night on a Raid) to perform. 
 The band will also perform &quot;Makhnem Ne Glyadya&quot; (Let's Swap Without Looking) from the 1968 WWII spy film &quot;Shchit i Mech&quot; (The Shield and the Sword), which it occasionally covers on stage, sung by drummer Alexander &quot;Duser&quot; Voronov. 
 &quot;We do it when a string is broken or something goes wrong on stage,&quot; said Fyodorov. &quot;Duser sings it out-of-tune but very charmingly.&quot;
 The three-hour concert will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday on Vasilyevsky Island's Strelka. See gigs for the full lineup.
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: Where's the beef?
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: We felt immediately at home on walking into Genatsvale Georgian restaurant. 
 
Two steps led down from the front door, then a pair of saloon doors swung open to reveal a beautifully lit and cosily decorated interior with exposed brick walls, tastefully handled stone cladding, statues artfully placed and a kitsch water-feature in the corner. The ceiling is elaborated with a latticework of imitation grapevines and, in another part, with a spider's web woven from rope (including a ropey spider lurking at one corner). 
 If all this sounds ghastly, well, it probably should be, but actually it had all been assembled with such an eye for balance and moderation that the whole place communicated a palpably positive atmosphere. 
 The friendly and helpful staff, who speak English as well as being polite, add to this impression. We were glad that we had arrived when the restaurant was not yet full. If we had we arrived later, we would have had to eat in the side room off the large main hall - an altogether less welcoming place, in which bistro furniture (as opposed to the hearty wooden furniture of the main hall) sits uncomfortably among gilt-framed chocolate-box landscapes, giant ugly urns and a huge aquarium full of vulgar-looking fish.
 Apart from the side room, everything up to this point - the decor, the music (a little loud, but otherwise agreeably authentic) - expressed quality. It seemed strange that there were no proper napkins. A heavy cloth napkin in a proper restaurant, I realized, is like oxygen - you only notice it when it isn't there. 
 It isn't abnormal in St. Petersburg for an establishment to spend a lot of money on decoration, but little thought on the food. Fortunately Genatsvale demonstrated that (to use an apt metaphor for sheep-heavy Georgian cooking) it isn't mutton dressed as lamb.
 We started with a sizeable portion of <i>hatchapourri</i> (120 rubles, $4.28), a cheesy bread that is addictive to eat, but there was too much for two people. When the starters came, we couldn't decide which was the more delicious - Kharcho, a spicy dish (120 rubles, $4.28) with chunks of juicy meat and fresh greenery, or Satsavi (100 rubles, $3.57), a deeply moreish dish of chicken pieces served in a cold nut sauce. The latter is simply an exquisite appetizer, perfect with the fresh, warm crescent-shaped lavash bread it was served with.
 As a main course, <i>shashlyk </i>(kebab) is a staple of Georgian cuisine. We had one with mutton (180 rubles, $6.42), although there are different varieties available. It is worth bearing in mind that shashlyk tends to take a little longer than other dishes to cook. Genatsvale's was simply served amid a bed of rice with a slice of lemon, but its strength was in the tender, perfectly cooked meat. 
 Mutton with eggplant (130 rubles, $4.64) is a piece of highly flavored meat on the bone, surrounded by classy grilled vegetables including eggplant, onions and peppers. It was again quite simple and brusque, but deeply satisfying. If you want subtlety, try French cuisine.
 I was too full for dessert, which I put down to the hatchapourri, but I watched in awe as my guest put away a bowl of very rich vanilla ice-cream (40 rubles, $1.42).
 I was sorry that musicians started to play towards the end of our meal as it almost spoiled a great meal. There is a performance each night at 6 p.m. by a different band, and perhaps we were unlucky because this band was too loud and not very good. We left in the middle of a cacophonous guitar solo emitting the crescendo of a Eurovision Song Contest-standard power ballad - a dreadful deterioration of the atmosphere which led us to the following pithy conclusion: Genatsvale: food and decor 10 out of 10; musical entertainment - <i>nil points.
 </i>

TITLE: Signing Off
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Dougherty in her Moscow office. &quot;It is difficult to leave, no question,&quot; she said of her impending departure. &quot;It's a place I feel I'm beginning to know.&quot;
 
When CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty was interviewing Condoleezza Rice recently, she asked the U.S. secretary of state a question that made Rice stop herself in mid-sentence.
 Rice had been speaking about supporting civil society and the work of NGOs in Belarus, which she called &quot;the last remaining dictatorship in the heart of Europe.&quot; Rather than letting the lax rhetoric about freedom and democracy go unquestioned, Dougherty asked: &quot;But couldn't that be interpreted by some as fomenting revolution?&quot;
 Rice replied, &quot;I don't think fomenting revolution is - &quot;and stopped. She then continued, &quot;First of all, if it brings about democratic progress, why is it a bad thing for people to throw off the yoke of tyranny and decide that they want to control their own futures?&quot;
 &quot;It was an interesting comment, wasn't it?&quot; Dougherty said during a recent interview at CNN's Moscow office. 
 Reading between the lines of political rhetoric has become second nature to Dougherty. Before she was named CNN's Moscow bureau chief in 1997, she spent five years as the network's White House correspondent.
 &quot;Under Bush Sr. or Clinton, it was a different situation than it is now. When you're asking [the present administration] for information, they'll tell you what their view is or what they want to say,&quot; she said. &quot;But trying to get some background on how they've made their decisions, or even just getting attributions, can be very, very hard.&quot;
 Persistence is one of Dougherty's strong suits, though, and it has served her just as well in Moscow - and Grozny, and Beslan, and Kiev - as it did in Washington. In May she will bring it with her to Hong Kong, where she is taking up the post of managing editor for CNN's Asia-Pacific operations.
 Dougherty demonstrated another key journalistic virtue at an early age, when she was lured to study Russian as a 13-year-old high-school freshman in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
 &quot;This was 1963, which wasn't that long after Sputnik,&quot; she said. &quot;The mentality was very much at that point that the enemy is the Soviet Union: 'They're going to overtake us, they're going to be on the moon, we've got to get out there and defend the country.'&quot;
 But Dougherty's impulse to learn the language was not a patriotic one; it was an attraction to what was off-limits.
 &quot;It seemed like forbidden fruit in a way,&quot; she said. &quot;Here's this wild and different country, 'the enemy,' and I was certainly attracted by that element of it.&quot; 
 She began studying Russian with her twin sister, Pam, which brought an unexpected side benefit. &quot;We spoke to each other in Russian because my parents couldn't understand it,&quot; she said with a laugh. &quot;It was the reverse of the immigrant parents who speak in the old language the kids can't understand.&quot;
 During college, she and her sister spent several semesters at Leningrad State University - at one point contemporaneously with Vladimir Putin, though as far as Dougherty knows, they never crossed paths. She described what might be the archetypal expatriate experience of falling in love with the country: &quot;We had just turned 20. You're living in a dormitory with Russian students and a whole lot of international students in a perfect location in St. Petersburg. And there's vodka and snow and Dostoevsky. ... I was hooked.&quot;
 Following graduation, she worked as a U.S. Information Agency tour guide in the Soviet Union - answering as many questions from curious Soviet citizens as from visiting Americans - then started in journalism, as a broadcaster with the Voice of America in Washington. 
 Over a decade passed between her joining CNN in 1984 as a Chicago-based correspondent and her long-term move to Moscow. But her Russian-language ability and contacts in the country proved valuable along the way. In 1991, she flew to Moscow to cover the attempted coup against Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's government, and she returned in 1993, when then-president Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire on the White House.
 There would seem to be few significant events in the history of the former Soviet Union that Dougherty has not covered over the past 15 years. As NBC's Moscow bureau chief Thomas Bonifield said in a telephone interview: &quot;Jill has made quite a contribution to CNN. She's covered all the events that have mattered to American and English-speaking audiences. She has the depth and breadth of knowledge about Russian affairs that makes for good, solid reporting.&quot;
 The praise carries extra weight since it comes from a natural rival in television news. And according to Bonifield, Dougherty was the best kind of rival to have. &quot;Jill was the kind of competitor with whom you felt you could work,&quot; he said. &quot;You could count on her to lend a hand if you were working on something in her area of expertise.&quot;
 Los Angeles Times Russia correspondent Kim Murphy had a similar experience of Dougherty. &quot;On a story - any story - she is poised, accurate and knowledgeable, and never hesitant to share her considerable knowledge of Russia and Russians with those of us with far less experience,&quot; Murphy said in an e-mail. &quot;She is a colleague in a competitive profession, in which collegiality seems to be increasingly at a premium.&quot;
 Perhaps surprisingly for a reporter whose own Russia coverage had just won her a Pulitzer Prize, Murphy expressed a certain envy for the reach that Dougherty's CNN presence has brought her. &quot;Let's just say my husband keeps himself informed about Russia not by reading my stories ... but by watching Jill,&quot; she wrote. &quot;I don't want to count the number of times I've walked in the door and my husband has said something annoyingly to the effect of, 'You should be in Kiev. Jill Dougherty's there.'&quot; The reach of cable television news comes at the expense of detail, though. &quot;The average length of what we call a package, a news report, is two minutes, 2 1/2 minutes,&quot; Dougherty explained. She considers it her mission as a journalist to &quot;make things less black-and-white,&quot; replacing the caricatures on both sides of the American-Russian divide with a subtler understanding. 
 &quot;If you've got two minutes, how do you do it?&quot; she asked.
 After eight years of doing her best to answer the question, she is understandably ambivalent about moving on. &quot;It is difficult to leave, no question,&quot; she said. &quot;It's a place I feel I'm beginning to know.&quot; But the appeal of her new position in Hong Kong, where she will coordinate the work of CNN bureaus across all of Asia, is strong. 
 She recalled one of her final news conferences as a White House correspondent, when then-president Bill Clinton used a question of hers to segue into the point that two of the most significant issues in the coming century would be the courses taken by Russia and China.
 &quot;Russia has decided, economically and politically, to integrate with the West,&quot; Dougherty said. &quot;Now, in some ways, the focus is shifting to China. And looking at how China is integrating - but in a different way - into the world will be fascinating.&quot;
 And she will have a front-row seat.

TITLE: Al-Qaida No. 3 Man
 Caught in Pakistan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani commandos nabbed a senior al-Qaida leader, described by U.S. officials as the group's No. 3 operative, after a shootout near one of his barren hideouts. Jubilant Pakistani officials said Wednesday his arrest would help in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. 
 
U.S. President George W. Bush hailed the capture of Abu Farraj al-Libbi, al-Qaida's alleged operational planner, as a &quot;critical victory'' that &quot;removes a dangerous enemy who is a direct threat to America and for those who love freedom.'' 
 Al-Libbi, a native of Libya who's thought to use at least five aliases, is believed responsible for planning attacks in the United States, a U.S. counterterrorism official said. 
 U.S. officials described the arrest as the greatest blow to al-Qaida in more than two years - though al-Libbi is not on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists. Al-Libbi is a confidant of bin Laden and was behind only Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri and the al-Qaida chief himself in the terror organization's hierarchy, they said. 
 Al-Libbi was also Pakistan's most-wanted man, the main suspect behind two 2003 assassination attempts against President General Pervez Musharraf - and is likely to face the death penalty in Pakistan if convicted. 
 Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the arrest Monday has already produced a treasure trove of intelligence, and predicted more breakthroughs to come. 
 &quot;This is a very important day for us,'' Ahmed said. &quot;This arrest gives us a lot of tips, and I can only say that our security agencies are on the right track'' in the hunt for bin Laden. &quot;This man knew many people and many hideouts.'' 
 A Pakistani intelligence official said 11 more terror suspects - three Uzbeks, an Afghan and seven Pakistanis - were arrested before dawn Wednesday in the Bajor tribal region. The official would not say what prompted authorities to launch the raid, or whether it was linked to al-Libbi's capture. 
 Al-Libbi was arrested along with another foreigner after a firefight on the outskirts of Mardan, a rough and tumble town 50 kilometers north of Peshawar, capital of the deeply conservative North West Frontier Province, officials said. 
 Villagers in the Mardan suburb of Shahdand Baba said that a small team of Pakistani security agency officers pounced as two men rode by motorbike across a dusty graveyard. 
 One man was captured quickly, while another, who was dressed in the all-encompassing burqa worn by women in conservative Islamic families, managed to escape temporarily. He fled to a big home of Mardan resident Zakir Khan. 
 It was not clear if the man, who was caught, was al-Libbi or the other suspect, who has yet to be identified. 
 The arrest breaks a months-long drought in the dragnet for bin Laden and his top lieutenants. The terror mastermind has evaded a manhunt since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, appearing periodically on videotapes to warn of more violence. He is believed hiding along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. 
 
 o The CIA officer who led the first American unit into Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said Wednesday that his orders included an unusual assignment: bring back Osama bin Laden's head on ice, Reuters reported Wednesday.
 Gary Schroen and his six-member CIA team arrived in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley two weeks after bin Laden's al-Qaida network orchestrated the attacks on Washington and New York that killed 3,000 people, the report said.
 Schroen said his boss at the CIA also told him and his deputy in no uncertain terms to kill the al-Qaida leadership.
 &quot;What he said [was], 'I would like to see the head of bin Laden delivered back to me in a heavy cardboard box filled with dry ice, and I will take that down and show the president. And the rest of the lieutenants, you can put their heads on pikes',&quot; Schroen said in an interview.
 &quot;I don't think he meant that in detail ... I think he meant to impress upon me and my deputy that this was very serious business and he wanted to get our adrenaline charged,&quot; Schroen added.

TITLE: Jackson Trial
 Phase Ends
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SANTA MARIA, California - The only dramatic flourish - a routine motion for acquittal - came from the defense. Otherwise, the end of the prosecution's nearly 10-week case against Michael Jackson was strictly no-frills. 
 
The final day of testimony illustrated the low-key, methodical way that District Attorney Tom Sneddon and his team have presented witnesses and evidence to prove that the pop star molested a 13-year-old boy.
 After his final witness left the stand Wednesday, Sneddon advised Judge Rodney Melville that he would need to introduce several items into evidence before the prosecution could formally rest.
 The judge told Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. that he would hear the acquittal motion early Thursday. In most trials, the defense files a motion asking for an acquittal on grounds that prosecutors haven't proved their case. The motions are rarely granted.


TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Blasts at U.K. Mission
 </b>

NEW YORK (AP) - Two explosions were heard outside the British Consulate early Thursday, causing slight damage to the building but injuring no one, officials said. 
 The explosions occurred about 3:50 a.m. and apparently originated in or near a cement flower box outside the consulate in midtown Manhattan, said police department spokesman Noel Waters. 
 There were reports of damage to the building's front door and a window, he said. The department's bomb squad was at the scene. 
 
 
<b>Mistrial of Ex-Guard
 </b>

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - In what military legal experts describe as a "shocker," the judge put the case of former Abu Ghraib prison guard Lynndie England back at square one. 
 Colonel James Pohl tossed out the plea agreement that the reservist reached with prosecutors after Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of the abuse, testified Wednesday on her behalf.
 Pohl found that Graner's statements contradicted England's previous testimony and declared a mistrial. Pohl's finding sent the case back to Fort Hood's commander, who will decide what charges, if any, England should face.
 
 
<b>Bobby Brown Blues
 </b>

CANTON, Massachusetts (AP) - A family court judge on Wednesday gave R&amp;B singer Bobby Brown two days to prove he has the income to fund educational trusts for two of his children. 
 Norfolk County Family Court Judge Paula Carey gave Brown, who lives in Georgia, until Friday to produce contracts showing he has enough income to establish the trusts.
 Brown, who lives in Alpharetta, north of Atlanta, with his wife, Whitney Houston, will be the subject of a new eight-episode reality TV show, "Being Bobby Brown," in June.
 
 
<b>U.S. Missing $100M 
 </b>

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. government mismanagement of assets in Iraq, from the lack of proper documentation on nearly $100 million in cash to millions of dollars worth of unaccounted-for equipment, are setting back efforts to fight corruption in the fledgling democracy, auditors and critics say. 
 Iraq became awash in billions of dollars in cash after the U.S. invasion two years ago, often with few or no controls over how that money was spent and accounted for. From the $8.8 billion provided to Iraq's interim government to millions provided to U.S. contractors, investigations have detailed a system ripe for abuse.
 The latest indication of that came Wednesday when investigators released a report saying $96.6 million in cash could not be properly accounted for. The total included more than $7 million that was simply gone, according to the report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
 
 
<b>IBM to Shed 10,000
 </b>

NEW YORK - In a widely expected move, International Business Machines Corp. said it is restructuring its operations to make them leaner and nimbler, slashing between 10,000 and 13,000 jobs, mostly in Europe, and taking a second quarter charge in the process. 
 The company said Wednesday that the pretax charge will amount to between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion.
 The majority of the layoffs are planned for Europe.

TITLE: Russia Remains Unbeaten At Hockey Championships
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: INNSBRUCK, Austria - Alexander Kharitonov and Sergei Vyshedkevich scored goals to help Russia beat Belarus 2-0 Wednesday at the world hockey championships. 
 
Russia stayed unbeaten with the victory in Vienna. Slovakia could overtake Russia for first place in the group with a win over Austria in the late game. 
 Belarus was without forward Tsimafei Filin, who was suspended for the rest of the tournament after failing a drug test. Filin tested positive for norandrosterone after his team's 2-1 loss to Slovakia on Saturday. Norandrosterone, commonly found in anabolic steroids, is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. 
 Ukraine edged Denmark 2-1 on Bogdan Savenko's goal with 2:12 left to clinch a second-round berth. 
 The United States was due to face Canada on Thursday in their first-round finale, but American captain Mike Modano might not play because of a sore right arm. The veteran Dallas Stars center was hurt Tuesday when he was cross-checked in a 3-1 victory over Latvia. Modano sat out practice Wednesday and plans to decide Thursday whether to play against the two-time defending champion. 
 &quot;It's just a stinger to the arm,&quot; Modano said. &quot;It swelled up overnight, but I'm fine. I'll work on it and I should be O.K.&quot; 
 Both teams are 2-0 in the preliminaries and their game at Innsbruck will decide first place in Group B. U.S. coach Peter Laviolette hasn't decided whether Rick DiPietro or Ty Conklin will start in goal. 
 DiPietro played in a 7-0 win over Slovenia while Conklin, 9-1-1 in his last 11 games for the United States, went the distance against Latvia. 
 Also, Jaromir Jagr had the broken little finger on his left hand fixed with a splint Wednesday in the Czech Republic and was headed back for the championships. 
 Jagr, a five-time NHL scoring champion and member of the New York Rangers, left the Czech Republic's 2-0 win over Germany on Tuesday after getting hurt on a slash from defenseman Stefan Schauer.

TITLE: Zenit 'Was Robbed' Says Official
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The referee at the center of bias allegations made by FC Zenit St. Petersburg after a 1:1 draw against Premier League champion Lokomotiv last Saturday has been called weak and inconsistent by a soccer official investigating Zenit's claims.
 
A complaint filed by Zenit against referee Igor Yegorov on Tuesday accused him of &quot;dishonesty,&quot; local press reported.
 The complaint put in question a number of decisions made by Yegorov during the match, including warnings issued to Zenit and his refusal to award a penalty, and decisions which were of an &quot;obviously preconceived character,&quot; Zenit management said.
 &quot;We are bringing to the attention of the expert referee commission that the referee has not given penalties against Lokomotiv two games in a row,&quot; Ilya Chekasov, Zenit general director, said in Nevsky Sport Daily newspaper on Tuesday.
 &quot;Besides, according to the rulebook, Zenit players broke rules 11 times during the match, while Lokomotiv players committed 15 fouls. In this situation Yegorov issued seven - I repeat - seven yellow cards to Zenit players and only two to Lokomotiv! We said this in our complaint,&quot; Chekasov said.
 According to Zenit's management Yegorov should have awarded at least three penalties in the St. Petersburg team's favor.
 &quot;We believe that mistakes committed by Igor Yegorov influenced the result of a match in which the principles of fair play and objective judgment were broken,&quot; Cherkasov said.
 On Wednesday initial comments from a member of the investigating commission appeared to support Zenit's complaint.
 Vladimir Kuznetsov, an inspector from Omsk, said that Yegorov was at fault and had &quot;a weak control of what was taking place on the field.&quot;
 Kuznetsov added Yegorov showed &quot;inconsistency in undertaking disciplinary sanctions&quot; and took &quot;the wrong decision not to award a penalty in the 92nd minute [of the game].&quot;
 In a post-match news conference Lokomotiv coach Vladimir Eshtrekov refused to comment on the case by saying it was not his business.
 But Zenit coach Vlastimil Petrzela, widely credited with Zenit's renewal and a string of impressive results, shocked the sporting world when he said that Zenit &quot;will never be champion&quot; after assessing the officiating of the Lokomotiv match.
 Zenit were due to play Torpedo Moscow at home Thursday night.