SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1069 (35), Friday, May 13, 2005
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TITLE: FSB Head Denounces U.S., British NGOs
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: U.S., British and other foreign nongovermental organizations are providing cover for professional spies in Russia, while Western organizations are bankrolling plans to stage peaceful revolutions in Belarus and other former Soviet republics bordering Russia, Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev told the State Duma on Thursday.
Patrushev said the FSB has monitored and exposed intelligence gathering activities carried out by the U.S. Peace Corps, the British-based Merlin medical relief charity, Kuwait's Society of Social Reforms and the Saudi Red Crescent Society.
He said foreign secret services rely on NGOs to collect information and promote the interests of their countries.
"The imperfectness of the legislation and lack of efficient mechanisms for state oversight creates a fertile ground for conducting intelligence operation under the guise of charity and other activities," Patrushev said in televised remarks.
He said a bill to regulate the activities of foreign NGOs will be submitted "soon" to the Duma. He said the bill would change registration procedures for foreign NGOs, but did not elaborate.
The unusually harsh rhetoric caps a year of growing concern among NGOs about a government crackdown on their activities. The worries were sparked by President Vladimir Putin last May when he questioned whether NGOs were really pursuing their stated missions and accused them of advancing their sponsors' interests in his state of the nation address.
A U.S. Embassy official, speaking on behalf of the government-funded Peace Corps, dismissed Patrushev's claims as "completely baseless."
"We deny them utterly," the official said.
The Peace Corps began sending volunteers to Russia in 1992, but the program was abruptly canceled in 2003 after Russian authorities refused to issue visas to volunteers, saying Russia was as developed as West European countries and those countries did not receive Peace Corps volunteers.
Patrushev, however, offered a new explanation in December why the Peace Corps had been shut out, hinting that its volunteers in Russia had been surreptitiously gathering intelligence. The program's leadership denied the accusation at the time.
In the Duma, Patrushev also said the FSB, whose prime responsibility is domestic security and counter-intelligence, has also uncovered a "regime change" plan for Belarus that involves Western organizations and the Ukrainian activists who played a key role in that country's Orange Revolution last year.
He said directors of the U.S. International Republican Institute's CIS offices recently met in Bratislava, Slovakia, to discuss ways of supporting the Belarussian opposition.
"At the meeting, they discussed the possibility of continuing orange revolutions" in former Soviet republics, Patrushev said.
He said the directors decided to allocate $5 million for projects to support the opposition and to study the feasibility of recruiting Ukrainian activists to train the opposition.
Lisa Gates, a spokeswoman for the International Republican Institute's headquarters in Washington, did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
Patrushev said the threat of uprisings loom in other former Soviet republics as well and that representatives of the secret services of those republics met in April to discuss it. He did not elaborate, however, on what other countries apart from Belarus might repeat the uprisings seen in Ukraine, in Georgia in 2003 and in Kyrgyzstan this year.
He said the three uprisings show that "certain forces in the West are trying to weaken Russia's influence" with its neighbors. He would not identify the Western countries.
Patrushev also accused Western countries of discriminating against Russian exporters, saying U.S., Canadian and European Union trade barriers against Russian commodities and services are costing the country $4 billion per year.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who addressed the Duma after Patrushev, used more diplomatic language to express Kremlin concerns about the West's growing influence in the former Soviet Union. While conceding that influence from "third countries" was growing, Lavrov insisted that "we are not putting a claim on monopolizing [the influence] in this region, but we won't tolerate anyone else having a monopoly either."
Calls to the Saudi Red Crescent office in Riyadh went unanswered Thursday evening, and Marie-Francoise Borel, spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, declined to comment when reached by telephone in Geneva.
Merlin representatives in London could not be reached for comment.
Social Reform Society officials in Kuwait City also could not be reached for comment. The organization's Moscow branch was registered in 1993 as a charity organization aimed at Russian-Kuwaiti cooperation. In February 2003, however, it was included on a government list of 15 international terrorist groups accused of presenting a national threat, and its operations were subsequently banned on Russian soil. The Moscow branch was officially closed on April 22, 2003.
Patrushev earlier accused U.S., Chinese and North Korean intelligence services of being the most active of all foreign espionage agencies in Russia and said the FSB last year exposed 18 career spies and 89 individuals who worked for foreign intelligence services and extremist organizations.
FSB officials have previously asserted that foreign NGOs collect sensitive information on Russia and are used as a cover by career spies. However, Thursday was the first time that Patrushev publicly pointed the finger at educational exchange programs as a means to advance foreign interests.
Patrushev's assessment of Western activities in former Soviet republics was echoed by the results of a nationwide opinion poll released by the state-controlled VTsIOM polling agency earlier Thursday. The poll of 1,600 people in early April found that "every second Russian" is very suspicious about U.S. and EU activities in the former Soviet Union.
Nikolai Petrov, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Patrushev's worries are "natural for the leader of a secret service." What is alarming, however, is that the political leadership has begun to share his fears, he said, referring to Putin's criticism of NGOs in his station of the nation speech last year.
Petrov also said he believes Patrushev overestimated the role that Western organizations are playing in former Soviet republics. "If it indeed takes only $5 million to overthrow a regime, that means public discontent is so overwhelming that the regime is already hanging on by a hair."
TITLE: Acrimony
Clouds
Agreement
With EU
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The European Union and Russia shook hands on a new partnership agreement Tuesday, even as the two sides struck unusually acrimonious tones.
Coming a day after President Vladimir Putin hosted world leaders at a Victory Day extravaganza on Red Square, the meeting was intended to highlight agreement in four areas: economy, security, justice and cultural affairs.
But bitter feelings over the Soviet Union's post-World War II domination of Eastern Europe, combined with frustration over foot-dragging in trade relations, framed the summit, attended by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
The nonbinding accord "shows that with sufficient political will, Russia and Europe can find mutually acceptable solutions," Putin told a televised news conference. At the same time, he lashed out at new EU member Latvia, which still has not signed a border treaty with Moscow since achieving independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
"We are ready to sign an agreement on borders. ... We hope they will not be accompanied by idiotic - in terms of their content - demands of a territorial nature," Putin said.
He added that it was time to put historic grievances to rest.
The president's outburst came after the leaders of Estonia and Lithuania boycotted the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, and the European Commission itself pointed out that the defeat of Nazi Germany did not spell the end of suffering for much of Eastern Europe.
"We remember as well the many millions ... for whom true freedom was only to come with the fall of the Berlin Wall," the commission said in a declaration Friday.
Conflicting views of history clouded an agreement that - though largely symbolic in nature - was to set the course for future negotiations.
The two sides pledged to harmonize regulations on the environment, safety and health, and to strengthen multilateral organizations like the United Nations.
But Moscow failed to achieve its key goal: an agreement on visa-free travel for Russian citizens to the EU.
Brussels has demanded that Moscow agree to take back all illegal migrants who entered Europe via Russian territory. Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov told Interfax last week that "Russia is not eager to turn its territory into a transit camp."
Putin, speaking at a reception with Barroso on Tuesday evening, said that the talks leading up to the agreement "got to the point where we were offending each other - but it was, you know, a real fight."
The accord is important from a symbolic point of view, said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Center for European Reform, a think tank in London.
"Of course, this is a non-legally binding cooperation agreement that just puts existing issues under new headings. Yet for over a year, they could not agree on signing it, which gives an indication that the relations are not particularly good at the moment."
At a summit a year ago, Brussels agreed to endorse Russia's candidacy to the World Trade Organization, in an apparent trade-off for Moscow's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
But in a briefing on Monday, Mandelson told journalists that while Russia could still squeeze into the WTO "in the early part of 2006," its ministries needed to be singing from the same hymn book.
The country has so far been unable to reach an agreement with Washington, which is insisting that Russia open up financial markets and enforce intellectual property rights.
"Russia needs to take advantage of the window between now and the summer to get the accession tied down," Mandelson said.
The EU is Russia's largest trading partner, buying more than half the country's exports, mostly as oil and gas. Bilateral trade reached $125 billion last year.
Staff Writer Anna Smolchenko contributed to this report.
TITLE: Putin Sets Deadlines for Latest Promises
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday set strict deadlines for the government to define the areas where foreigners can invest, to streamline tax procedures and to draft other bills so that promises he made in his recent state of the nation address can be fulfilled.
A document outlining the desired legislation and deadlines was posted on the presidential web site, and it contains 15 points that closely adhere to Putin's April 25 speech. The document - the first of its kind to be made public - appeared to be an attempt to assure the general public and the business community that Putin's political and economic goals would be reached.
"It's time to start working with State Duma deputies," Putin told Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov at a meeting shown on Channel One television.
"Overall, this is supported by the State Duma and the Federation Council," he said. "All that we need is to simply organize the work so it doesn't drag on until the end of the year. OK?"
"Will do," Fradkov replied.
But some investors, recalling that Putin has made promises in previous addresses that have yet to be fulfilled, greeted the news of the deadlines with caution.
"Let's talk about it again when the deadlines expire," said Igor Yurgens, vice president of RSPP, the big business lobbying group, and first vice president at Renaissance Capital.
Putin ordered Fradkov to submit a bill to the Duma by Nov. 1 that defines the industries and sectors where foreigners are barred from investing due to national security interests.
Putin and the Internet document did not specify what would happen if the Cabinet missed the deadlines. But it does name Fradkov as the pointman for all of the legislation and assigns various ministers to participate in the drafting of different bills.
Most of the deadlines range from Sept. 1 to the end of 2005.
Among the first legislation that must be sent to the Duma - by Sept. 1 - is a move to streamline tax procedures and limit tax investigations. Putin said in his April speech that tax authorities must stop "terrorizing" businesses and that the collection of taxes and duties should not be based on pre-determined targets.
The Cabinet discussed draft amendments to the Tax Code at the end of last month, but Fradkov inexplicably delayed giving his final approval to the bill at the last minute.
A Sept. 1 deadline was also set for legislation to provide an amnesty for money that left Russia over the years if it is deposited in Russian banks. The returned money would be taxed 13 percent.
Bills to abolish the inheritance tax and to simplify the registration of property such as apartments, dachas, dacha plots and garages must also be submitted to the Duma by Sept. 1.
In the Internet document, Putin also orders the government to draft a "principally new approach" to fighting crime, including terrorism, by Nov. 1.
TITLE: Putin Shuns Council of Europe Meeting
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin will not attend a summit of the Council of Europe in Warsaw on Monday and Tuesday, sending instead a delegation led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
The Council of Europe - the continent's leading human rights watchdog - has been critical of Russia's record in Chechnya and brushed off pleas from Moscow to reprimand the Baltic countries over their treatment of Russian-speaking minorities.
But observers suggested Putin probably decided to skip the summit to avoid potentially uncomfortable questions from journalists about Yukos. A verdict in the state's politically tinged case against Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky is expected at the same time as the summit.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman would not say Thursday what prompted Putin to decide not to attend. "Every country freely decides the level of its participation in this summit," spokesman Mikhail Troyanovsky said by telephone. "It was decided to send Lavrov. That is a high enough level."
Most of the other member states of the 46-nation Council of Europe will be represented by their presidents or prime ministers. Apart from Putin, only British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and French President Jacques Chirac will not attend, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Thursday.
Then-president Boris Yeltsin attended the last summit in 1997.
Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected analyst, said Putin's decision was probably motivated by a combination of factors, including irritation with the Council of Europe over the Baltics and for not heeding Russian demands to investigate alleged fraud in Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's election last year.
"The president wants to send a signal that Russia is not satisfied with the performance of the Council of Europe," Markov said.
Ekho Moskvy radio speculated that Putin wants to avoid being grilled by Western journalists over Yukos and the Soviet occupation of countries in Eastern Europe after World War II - a hot topic in the Western press in the run-up to Moscow's Victory Day celebrations this week.
TITLE: Gergiev, Finn Lose Valuables
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Thieves burgled Valery Gergiev's dressing room at the Moscow Conservatory's Grand Hall on Tuesday, taking his golden watch, two mobile phones, a credit card and other precious personal items.
The renowned conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky theater was in Moscow to conduct a series of concerts as part of the Fourth Annual Easter Festival, of which he is the founder and artistic director.
Gergiev estimated that the stolen items were worth 500,000 rubles ($18, 000).
Seven out of nine concerts in the festival's symphonic program were held at the Moscow Conservatory's Grand Hall.
Moscow police said the burglars broke into Gergiev's dressing room between 7.30 and 8.30 p.m., before the interval of the concert, which started at 7 p.m. An investigation is in progress, but no one has been detained.
o A crime reporter for Finland's central TV station was robbed in Vyborg, a city on the border of Finland and Russia, on Tuesday, Interfax reported Thursday.
The journalist said three unidentified people approached him as he was leaving the Soyuz bar located on Leningradskoye Shosse late at night.
The attackers threatened to beat him up and then took his cash totalling about 3,000 rubles and 110 Euros, his watch, jewelry, a mobile phone and a belt, Fontanka. ru reported.
Police, who are investigating, said the man was drunk and was unable to describe his attackers.
TITLE: Pskov Police Deport
Latvian Journalists
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Pskov police have deported a three-member Latvian television crew, inflaming tensions between Latvia and Russia.
Police in the northwestern region detained the crew from Latvian Television as they were filming Victory Day celebrations on Monday. After questioning them, police ordered them to leave the country, even though they had obtained accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry and violated no laws, the Latvian Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry sent a note of protest to Moscow on Tuesday, saying, "Such incidents do not help improve the image of Russia as a country where press freedom is observed."
LTV journalist Ivo Kirsblats, cameraman Maris Jurgensons and driver Eriks Pakalns said in a statement Wednesday that the Pskov police officers forced them to erase footage they had filmed in the region's Pytalovo district. The district was carved out of Latvia and made part of the Pskov region after World War II.
The crew also said the windshield of their car was smashed while they were questioned inside a Pskov police station.
Pskov police said the journalists were detained because they filmed a Pytalovo railroad junction near the Russian-Latvian border without permission. A senior Pytalovo official, Yury Russky, said the law required authorization to film within 5 kilometers of the border.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has asked Pskov authorities for an "official explanation," Interfax reported.
Moscow's relations with the Baltic states are strained amid disputes over borders and history. Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov told the BBC on Monday that Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus was "the only living head of state who has fought on the Germans' side."
The Lithuanian foreign minister said Tuesday that Adamkus had fought "with the Lithuanian partisans against the Soviet occupation."
TITLE: Protests at Alleged Sale of Space in Capella
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: National Bolsheviks held an unsanctioned protest Thursday against what they said was the sale of apartments in the historic Capella building to Moscow investors.
A party member said the director of the State Academic Capella in St. Petersburg Yevgeny Kolchin intends to sell Moscow investors part of the wings of the Capella, including the apartment where the famous composer Milii Balakirev once lived, Interfax reported.
The National Bolsheviks said they were planning to involve musicians, who were to play a march as a sign of protest, but the orchestra of the Capella was taken away for a performance.
Kolchin said he knew nothing about the protest and could not comment on it because "none of Capella's staff took part in it."
The Capella buildings, which run between the Moika River and Bolshaya Konyushennaya Ultisa and are used for choir and orchestra performances, cover 13,000 square meters. The city property committee has registered 6,000 square meters for the use of the administration of the Capella, with the remainder belonging to City Hall.
Kolchin said several apartments in the Capella yards were given by the city administration to Moscow businessmen for an investment project.
He said the protest was most probably planned by six employees of the Capella, whom the administration intended to fire for not attending work.
"Those people collaborated with the National Bolsheviks," Kolchin said.
However, the press service of the property committee said it didn't have any information about such sales.
"We have no information about sales of the Capella yards to Moscow businessmen," said spokeswoman Tatyana Prosvirina.
The National Bolsheviks said they were told of the sale by Capella staff.
TITLE: Federation Council Passes Bill
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The State Duma gave final approval Wednesday to a bill ending the election of independent lawmakers to its lower house, part of widely criticized electoral reforms President Vladimir Putin initiated after a wave of terrorist attacks last year.
Under the bill, passed by the Federation Council, in a 96-15 vote with 11 abstentions, all 450 members of the State Duma will be elected from candidate lists published by political parties, starting with the next Duma elections in 2007.
It was passed by the Duma in April and now requires only Putin's signature to become law.
Critics of the bill, which Putin asserted would help bolster political parties and strengthen the country in the face of terrorism, say it will decrease dissenting voices in the already Kremlin-controlled parliament and worsen representation of voters' interests.
TITLE: Putin Reads Papers Every Day
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - In a wide-ranging interview broadcast on U.S. television last weekend, President Vladimir Putin said he read newspapers every day and found journalism very similar to intelligence work.
"You know journalism, as concerns collecting information, differs little if at all from intelligence work," Putin told Mike Wallace, an anchor of CBS television's Sunday program "60 Minutes."
"I worked in intelligence and know how information and information bulletins are made," the president said. "After all, this is determined to a considerable extent by the political qualities of those who do it."
Later in the interview, Wallace asked Putin if he read The Moscow Times, and he responded "sometimes."
Wallace proceeded to read an Associated Press report of Putin's comments on the dangers of anti-Semitism.
TITLE: Foreign Airlines Start Moscow Services
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - China Eastern, the second airline to launch operations from Domodedovo in 2005, has started service to Shanghai.
Foreign airlines are increasingly discovering Moscow as a destination, as air traffic surges for the fifth year in a row.
China Eastern launched three weekly flights from Shanghai to Moscow's Domodedovo Airport on Wednesday.
Germany's budget airline German Wings will come to Vnukovo Airport in June for flights to Berlin and Cologne, and Thai Airways is advertising Moscow on its web site as a new destination as of August this year.
"There is a clear tendency. Russia's economy is booming, and air traffic has been growing at a rate of up to 15 percent a year," said Boris Rybak, head of the Infomost aviation consulting firm. "It makes foreign carriers look our way."
Last year Russian airlines flew 34 million passengers, an increase of 14 percent on 2003.
China Eastern is the second airline to launch operations from Domodedovo this year, after Spain's Iberia. It is the 14th foreign carrier to choose the capital's most modern airport as its Moscow base.
Continental Airlines plans to start a daily nonstop service between the Newark Liberty International Airport and Domodedovo in May next year.
TITLE: Matviyenko to Sign
Baltic Pearl Agreement
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: An agreement paving the way for the $1.25-billion Baltic Pearl development is to be signed in Shanghai this weekend between a group of Chinese investment companies and Governor Valentina Matviyenko, who left for China on Thursday.
The agreement specifies investment conditions for Shanghai industrial and investment companies to develop a district in the southwest of St. Petersburg covering more than 200 hectares. When signed, it will become the most concrete step taken toward developing the project, which has been discussed by the city government and Shanghai companies since the beginning of last year.
"Construction may begin as early as the summer," said Yuguang Qiao, a representative of Shanghai Overseas Enterprises Corp., which unites the five mainly state-owned Chinese investors. "The preliminary works have been finished, now we are awaiting the signing of the agreement, after which we can proceed with the actual construction," Qiao said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
The project, which includes developing the swampy district's infrastructure and constructing 2 million square meters of residential and commercial real estate, would be divided into four stages, he said. The first and the most important step is the construction of electric lines, water and gas pipelines, as well as roads, all of which are lacking in the Krasnoselsky district.
Qiao said the investors are planning to hold a tender for interested contractors. "Mostly Russian companies will participate in the tender," he said. The tender is open to all companies wishing to participate under the Russian legislation, he said.
Although Qiao said a Russian division of the Chinese company would be established once the agreement is signed, the city's committee for investment and strategic projects said Thursday a subsidiary has already been registered.
"OOO Baltic Pearl, a 100 percent Chinese-owned company, has already been established," the committee's spokeswoman said in a telephone interview.
"The company will control the project's financing, organization and construction," she said, adding that all business decisions about the project will be made by the investor.
"The city's role in the development will involve only supervision, to make sure all investment agreements are observed and that construction is done in keeping with Russian law."
Under the terms of the agreement, the Shanghai investors will contribute $10 million to the development of city infrastructure and spend $20 million on the construction of social and communal facilities, such as schools and kindergartens, libraries and health clinics.
The considerable amount of investments, including the social and infrastructure spending, allowed Baltic Pearl to qualify for strategic investor status.
"This status allowed the company to legally avoid a tender and obtain the land plot through a specific procedure of provision of land for designated purpose," said Natalya Dyatlova, head of the real estate and utilities group at Ernst&Young via e-mail Thursday.
Although City Hall is still in the process of working out a smooth legal scheme for the realization of large-scale foreign projects, the significant steps taken by the city with regard to development of the area are a positive sign for investors, she said.
"The project will boost the attractiveness of the neighboring southwest industrial zones and may attract other investors to the area," she said.
However, the project may prove much more costly than originally planned for the Chinese investors, she said, as the absence of developed infrastructure and the lack of power capacity may cause considerable additional expenses.
TITLE: Baltika, Vena, Pikra to Amalgamate
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: City-based brewer Baltika, along with major brewers Vena and Pikr,a will form an integrated company by the end of the year, the management of Baltic Beverages Holding said Wednesday.
Although the holding is a major shareholder of all three breweries, it has kept the companies' operations separate. Combined, they control about 35 percent of the Russian beer market, with Baltika brands holding the largest share at 22 percent of the market. Upon integration, the brewers' operations will be centralized at Baltika headquarters.
"By the end of the year, Baltika, Vena and Pikra will be a united holding," said Anton Artemyev, the newly appointed president of Baltika.
Artemyev will head the integrated company, while the general director of Vena Pyotr Chernishov will become its financial director, and Pikra's general director Danil Briman will manage regional development, the company's press release said.
Management hopes the integration will allow cost savings by creating a common purchasing, logistics and distribution system. The changes will also affect the companies' stock market trading, as integration will mean a switch to a unified company stock. However, Artemyev declined to discuss the stock exchange mechanisms until legal integration procedures are completed in 2007.
The integrated BBH company will control up to 40 percent of the Russian beer market and have a turnover of more than $1.6 billion, experts said.
"BBH developed a rather well-organized structure of manufacturers and distributors, and uniting them into one company is a logical step," said Kirill Ustinov, press officer at Moscow's Efes brewery, a BBH competitor.
Together with Sun Interbrew, Heineken and Ochakovo, Efes and BBH round off the top players of the Russian beer market. They control over 80 percent of the supply, according to market statistics.
"The integration will only affect small manufacturers, which have few marketing and distribution resources," said Marat Ibragimov, Uralsib analyst.
There are about 300 small brewers in the Russian market, which control the remaining 20 percent, he said.
SPT, Vedomosti
TITLE: Russian Vets to Check Imports of Finnish Pork
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia has imposed new rules on Finnish pork sold in Russia that will raise export costs, Helsinki daily Helsingin Sanomat reported Monday.
The rule stipulates that the meat must be inspected by Russian veterinarians upon entering the country. According to federal officials, the purpose of the new rule is to make sure that the meat really comes from Finland, and not from some other European Union country.
"Finnish officials and meat exporters alike were surprised by the rules, which came into effect earlier this year," the newspaper said.
"This new arrangement is unnecessary and inappropriate", said Matti Aho of the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. "We are capable of guaranteeing the safety of foods."
According to standard international practice, veterinarians of the country of origin are authorized to inspect meat that is to be exported. Aho said that this practice is based on the so-called SPS Agreement reached by the World Organization for Animal Health and the World Trade Organization, and that the SPS agreement clearly states that the officials of the exporting country are to be trusted.
Lea Lastikka of the Finnish Food and Drink Industries' Federation said that the use of Russian veterinarians increases meat export costs by more than 10 euros per metric ton of meat.
TITLE: Grand Hotel Europe Marks
130th Year in Business
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Top city hotel the Grand Hotel Europe celebrated its 130th birthday Thursday with an attempt to set a world record by making a 130-meter long sandwich with red caviar.
The gigantic sandwich covered with 30 kilograms of red caviar was located along Ulitsa Mikhailovskaya outside the entrance to the hotel, where its guests could sample the delicacy.
"We really want to get into the Guinness Book of Records for making the longest sandwich," said Marina Kharlamova, PR manager of the hotel.
The five-star, 301-room Grand Hotel Europe, which opened its doors in 1875, is the country's oldest operating hotel and one of St. Petersburg's most famous addresses.
In 1991 it became the first five-star hotel in modern Russia. The hotel has preserved its unique architecture and interiors.
In February, British luxury hospitality chain Orient-Express Hotel snapped up a 93.5 percent stake in the hotel for about $100 million.
Orient-Express is assuming full management and operational control.
It has also announced plans to refurbish the hotel, including acquiring an adjacent building. It will also purchase the remaining 6.5 percent stake held by City Hall.
The renovation of the hotel, including its guest rooms, restaurants and ballroom will take three years and $35 million of investment, Thomas Noll, general manager of the hotel, said in an interview published in the German-language Internet newspaper Russland-Aktuell. Ru.
Noll said Orient-Express also plans to bring more quality and comfort to the hotel. Extra comfort would mean different bed linen, towels, shampoo and soap.
Each room will have fresh flowers and there will be more live entertainment in the restaurants. More money would be allocated for staff training, as well.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Pipeline Start This Year
ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - Gas gaint Gazprom plans to start building its north European pipeline at the end of 2005, the deputy head of its transport and storage arm Sergei Serdyukov said Thursday.
"It's expected that work will start at the end of this year. We plan that at the end of September Gazprom's management will decide on timeframes and a construction program for the pipeline," Serdyukov said.
That decision is being prepared, he said.
He said Gazprom was forming a unit called Gazpromzapadinvest to lead the construction project.
The pipeline will take gas to Germany across the Baltic from Vyborg, a port near St. Petersburg and the Finnish border.
Spurs from the main pipeline could also feed gas networks in Finland, Sweden and Britain.
The undersea portion of the pipeline is expected to cost $2 billion, and is intended to bypass transit countries such as Ukraine, the main artery through which Germany gets most of its Russian gas.
TITLE: Unified by Yalta's Divisions
TEXT: For 60 years the word "Yalta" has meant betrayal and abandonment. The diplomatic accord reached between Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States in that sleepy Black Sea resort relegated millions of people to a ruthless tyranny. As U.S. President George W. Bush said last week in Latvia: "The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable."
Thankfully, the division of Europe created at Yalta, and the Iron Curtain that marked its boundary, are ghosts in our past. The generation of 1989 succeeded in the streets of Gdansk, Prague and Riga, and much of the territory Yalta allotted to a dictator is now part of the community of democratic nations.
Now it is our turn to contribute to the completion of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace. After recent discussions with presidents Traian Basescu of Romania and Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine, I believe that it is time for a new Yalta Conference, a voluntary association of new European democracies with three central goals.
First, we must work together to support the consolidation of democracy in our own countries. Georgia regained its freedom in the Rose Revolution only 18 months ago. Though we have made great strides, much remains to be done in building a lasting democracy. Two significant portions of our territory, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, remain untouched by the freedom the rest of Georgia enjoys. We can and must peacefully resolve these disputes to better the lives of Georgians. Ukraine's Orange Revolution succeeded only five months ago. My friend Viktor Yushchenko faces real challenges in rebuilding his country's economy and in ending the corruption and criminality that are the legacy of decades of repression and misrule.
Second, we must extend the reach of liberty in the Black Sea region and throughout wider Europe. Moldova, like Georgia, faces a separatist region that maintains itself with cast-off Soviet weaponry and the profits from an illicit economy based on trafficking in weapons, drugs and women. These are the last razor-sharp splinters of the Soviet empire.
In Belarus, 10 million people remain in a more regimented captivity. The regime of Aleksander Lukashenko rules by fear, yet fears its own people. The new Yalta Conference will press for liberty in Belarus through increased travel restrictions on government officials, expanded financial and material support to the opposition, and enhanced training for civic society in the methods of peaceful protest.
Third, we seek to expand the frontiers of freedom far beyond the Black Sea. Our message to the oppressors and their subjects is unequivocal: Free peoples cannot rest while tyranny thrives. Just as we benefit from the blessings of liberty, we have a duty to those who remain beyond its reach. In Zimbabwe, Cuba, Burma and elsewhere, millions live under cruel tyrants. Too many governments and international organizations appear willing to sacrifice freedom for what they mistakenly believe will be stability. We know that only the consent of the governed brings stability. And we know that if the world's democracies make liberty the priority of their policy, the days of the dictators are numbered.
Those on the wrong side of history in Tbilisi, Kiev and Bishkek lost touch with their people and did not see democratic change coming. Invariably they saw peaceful, popular protests as a "conspiracy" driven by mysterious forces. But the only mystery is why corrupt and despotic leaders thought they could retain power forever in defiance of their own people's will.
Historically the Black Sea has stood at the confluence of the Russian, Ottoman and Persian empires. Now the Black Sea is a new frontier, a frontier of freedom, with vibrant new democracies. The values that drove our peaceful revolutions Ñ accountable government, open society, the rule of law Ñ are not exclusively European values; they are universal.
It is time to return to Yalta. This time we will not engage in a secret diplomacy in which our values are compromised and innocent peoples are enslaved. In this new association of democracies, our diplomacy will be open and our focus will be the possibilities of our future.
Mikheil Saakashvili, president of the Republic of Georgia, contributed this comment to the Washington Post.
By Vaira Vike-Freiberga
As the president of a country that suffered immensely under Soviet and Nazi rule, I recently faced a dilemma. I had to decide whether to accept an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend a rally in Moscow on Monday. That is the date when Russia traditionally celebrates its military victory over Nazi Germany, and this year is particularly significant, as it marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.
Numerous heads of state and government, including George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder and Silvio Berlusconi, had already said they would attend the Moscow celebrations. But unlike in France, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Austria, the collapse of the Nazi empire did not lead to my country's liberation.
Instead, with the full acquiescence of the western Allied powers, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were reoccupied and annexed by the Soviet Union, while a dozen other countries in Central and Eastern Europe experienced renewed repression and decades of totalitarian rule as powerless satellite states of the Soviet empire.
Latvia certainly rejoices with the rest of the world at the fall of Hitler's regime. Like numerous other European countries, my country suffered immensely under the German occupation, which lasted in Latvia from 1941 to 1945. During that time, the Germans and their local accomplices carried out the most heinous and large-scale crimes against humanity ever committed on Latvian soil. They murdered about 100,000 of Latvia's inhabitants, including more than 90 percent of the country's prewar Jewish community, as well as tens of thousands of other Jews whom they transported into Latvia from other parts of Europe.
The Nazis also drafted some 115,000 Latvian men into various German military units. Thousands more people were shipped to Germany as forced labor. For a country with a population of less than 2 million, these figures represented a staggering loss.
But Latvia's so-called liberation by Soviet troops in 1944-45 materialized in the form of another calamity, accompanied as it was by the customary rapes, lootings and wanton killings that the Red Army committed in a systematic manner throughout the territories it occupied, and that continued in Latvia well after the end of the war. These were followed by still more killings, repression and wave after wave of mass deportations, the last taking place in 1949.
After the war, Germany made great efforts to atone for the unspeakable crimes committed under the Nazi regime. This process began with an honest evaluation of the country's Nazi-era history and continued with Germany's unequivocal renunciation of its totalitarian past. Russia would gain immensely by acting in a similar manner and by expressing its genuine regret for the crimes of the Soviet regime. Until Russia does so, it will continue to be haunted by the ghosts of its past, and its relations with its immediate neighbors will remain uneasy at best.
In the end, though, I accepted President Putin's invitation, because I believe that the Allied victory over Nazi Germany should be seen as a victory of democratic values over totalitarianism and tyranny. These values form the very basis of our common social contract and lie at the foundations of our civil societies. We the democratic nations of the world value respect for human life and dignity. We value compassion for the suffering of others, tolerance of differences and diversity, and freedom of choice and action, so long as it does not result in harm to anybody else. We value the rule of law as a basis for justice.
For decades after the war, Europe's former captive nations, including Latvia and Russia, were robbed of the opportunity to flourish and to prosper in the framework of these values. And it is on these core values that the perspectives of our long-term partnership with Russia will depend. That is why all democratic nations must urge Russia to condemn the crimes committed during the Soviet era in the name of communism. Russia must face up and come to honest terms with its history, just as Germany did after the end of World War II, and just as my own country is doing today.
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, president of Latvia, contributed this comment to The Washington Post.
TITLE: Distorted View of History Divides Neighbors
TEXT: On May 9 shortly after the Victory Day fireworks a friend who was driving his car with Estonian license plates got stuck in a traffic jam on Ploshchad Truda.
Drivers had blocked all the directions by stopping their cars in the middle of the crossing to wait for a next green light. When he asked one of them why people are so stupid as to block others from driving when they have the green light, my friend was told: "Shut up and go back to your Estonia!"
"That was my Victory Day congratulations," he said sadly.
The attitude on Ploshchad Truda seemed to be the same as the one I saw in Tallinn where World War II veterans who fought on the Soviet side were celebrating the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. They have nothing to say to those who tried to halt their advance as the Red Army entered Estonian territory in 1944.
While the Estonians are calling for reconciliation, Russians keep screaming at them, calling them Nazis. This has been going on year after year with no signs of a let up.
It is enough to look at the statistics of war victims in the Baltic States to understand that both sides did awful things of one kind or anther. And it does not really matter if was it done under the flags of liberation or self-defense. Civilians, including thousands of Jews, have died in concentration camps in Estonia and the Soviet Union and their lives will never be returned.
The main obstacle in the way of reconciliation is a lack of balanced information on the World War II in the Russian language. The historical material that is generally published in the Russian media presents the Soviet Union in a good light, with a few reservations in relation to "Josef Stalin's mistakes." The Russian media ignores that these mistakes cost the Soviet Union the lives of more than 50 million of its own people and those of millions from other nations. This fact should be repeated for the public again and again to make it able to understand the scale of the crimes.
The veterans of the Soviet army as well as the major part of the Russian society will never reconcile until people receive detailed information about what was happening behind the backs of these soldiers, who were told they were liberators. They were indeed when they opened the gates of Nazi concentration camps as they walked though the Baltic States and Eastern Europe.
But the crimes committed by the Soviet government later on in these territories casts a dark shadow on these veterans, and the signs of this darkness can still be seen and clearly noticeable along the border between Russia and the EU.
Unfortunately, the Russian government has not made a single move to change the situation. It probably does not have enough time left when the advanced age of veterans who stick to views formed by Soviet propaganda is taken into account. On the other hand, there is still enough time to start learning modern history so that younger generations can take a civilized approach to their neighbors.
While leaving Estonia on May 9 I heard that somebody splashed black paint on the graves of German soldiers in Narva that day. Others threw red paint on a statute of Soviet soldiers in Tallinn. So much for reconciliation.
Despite all this I am still hoping that one, perhaps a long time in the future, the paint will be replaced by red carnations. This happened in St. Petersburg on Monday when German students gave flowers to veterans on city streets. Sixty years after the bloodletting finished they hugged each other and that is the way it should be.
TITLE: Lots to offer
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: NEW YORK/ST. PETERSBURG - Barely a month after its New York City office hosted the most profitable auction of Russian art in history, Sotheby's will hold another sale of Russian treasures on Thursday in London. The May 19 sale, comprising 260 lots, is expected to tally up as much as $15 million in sales.
The highlight of the sale is a group of paintings by the early 20th century painter Pyotr Konchalovsky being sold by the artist's family. Other works on sale include those by some of the hottest selling Russian artists today, such as Ivan Aivazovsky, Boris Grigoriyev, Pyotr Vereshagin, and a number of fine works from Faberge.
Since the stellar success of the New York sale took the market by surprise, Sotheby's appears careful not to inflate expectations for the London sale that could damage a fragile but dramatically rising market.
"The bulk of the material in the sale is characterized by its freshness to the market, its provenance, fine condition and - of course - quality," said Joanna Vickery, Head of Sotheby's Russian department.
"The last five years has been a particularly exciting time in the Russian market: the growth we have witnessed in recent years has been extraordinary, and all of us working in the field have experienced some exhilarating - and occasionally surprising - moments. Now it seems that prices are stabilizing and the taste of the new Russian buyers has reached a level of good discernment."
Indeed, prices seemed to be stabilizing last winter, and few expected that Sotheby's April sale in New York City would earn a staggering $35,167,720, making it the most successful auction of Russian art in history.
Led by a pair of 1825 porcelain vases and rare works of Faberge, the auction earned about twice the total pre-sale estimate of $15 million to $22 million. It was Sotheby's second most lucrative auction so far this year, trailing only a $70.9 million sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in London in February.
"This venture of combining sales of paintings and works of art and developing the Russian market in New York shows the overall strength and widespread international demand for great Russian works of art," said Gerard Hill and Sonya Bekkerman, Sotheby's experts on Russian paintings and works of art, in a joint statement.
"The results of [April's] sale reveal that collectors seek quality and rarity in every category, whether it's painting, porcelain, Faberge or works of art," the experts said.
Seven of the 356 lots made more than $1 million, including three early 20th century Faberge hardstone figures of popular characters from Russia's tsarist-era society, sold by the Charles R. Wood Foundation in New York. These pieces are considered to be among the rarest and most valuable works by Faberge, the leading jewelers to the tsars from 1885 to 1917.
The most expensive lot, however, was a pair of 54 inch porcelain palace vases which sold for $3.9 million, about five times their top estimate. The vases were made in 1825, the year when Tsar Nicholas I ascended the throne, at the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St. Petersburg, Europe's third oldest porcelain factory, once the personal property of the tsar.
More than 80 percent of the lots were sold, reaching more than 90 percent of the expected total value of the lots. These figures outstripped Sotheby's Dec. 1, 2004 sale in London when $17.7 million in Russian art was sold, with less than 60 percent of items sold accounting for more than 70 percent of total value.
"The estimates were quite low for many works and didn't seem to reflect the strong results of the winter auction," said Anastasia Starovoitova, co-director of ASKI-Art, a Paris-based Russian art consultancy firm. "I get the feeling such low estimates were a clever tactical move by Sotheby's to lure more buyers.''
Russia's growing number of new rich, whose income has rapidly risen due to high prices for natural resources such as oil and metals, is fueling the recent boom in prices for Russian paintings and works of art.
A number of the major works on sale also have impeccable provenances, certainly a factor helping to boost buyer confidence since the Russian market is plagued by rumors of a growing number of fake works of art.
While three of the top 10 lots in April's sale were listed as bought by private Russian collectors, six anonymous buyers on the list are also believed to be their countrymen.
An unnamed American collector, however, picked up the day's second most expensive piece, Konstantin Makovsky's late 19th century painting, "The Judgment of Paris,'' from the collection of the Pabst Brewing Company for just over $2 million, almost twice its top estimate.
"Interest in Russian art has been steadily increasing in the post-Soviet period as the art becomes better known to western buyers, and as we see Russian buyers with the means to participate in the market," said Sotheby's Hill before the sale.
The third most expensive lot was an 1848, 30-piece silver Russian tea and coffee set once owned by a brother of Tsar Alexander II that sold for $1.8 million, more than twice its top estimate.
Boris Grigoriyev's 1922 painting "Sailors at a Cafe," sold from a collection in California, went for $1.584 million, more than five times its top estimate and a record for the artist at auction.
"Prices have been high, very high," said a nearly speechless Alexander Ivanov, director of the Russian National Museum, the name of a group of private Russian art collectors from Moscow who are among the leading buyers of Faberge works. "We didn't buy any of the four Faberge figures, but we bought a number of paintings and a lot of other Faberge pieces today.''
Among Ivanov's purchases was the painting "Tobogganing" (1935) by Soviet Impressionist Fedot Sychkov, purchased for $228,000, a record for the artist, against a pre-sale top estimate of $80,000.
Ivanov said his group is motivated by "patriotism" and seeks to repatriate works to Russia. Oil barons are rumored to be among the members of the Russian National Museum.
The April auction offered 39 lots by Faberge, almost all of which sold for far more than their top estimates, and which included several silver and gold cigar cases, a number of silver table clocks, and even a gold parasol handle.
Only one of the four Faberge hardstone figures made of semi-precious stones failed to fetch over $1 million, and all together the four netted just over $5 million, almost twice the cumulative top estimate of $2.7 million.
Ivanov, who before the sale said his group was interested in purchasing the hardstone figures, believed that a Russian collector living in the West bought the pieces.
Of the four figures in the auction, the least expensive was an officer of the Imperial horse guards that went for $856,000; another depicting a Ukrainian peasant sold for $1,068,800; a third, a tsarist-era police officer, sold for $1,584,000; while the most expensive was a boyar noble originally owned by Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, and which sold for $1,808,000.
Indeed, there is growing indication that not all art purchased by Russians abroad is returning to the Motherland. A number of collectors, who wished not to be quoted, said they keep only a minority of their collections in Russia, while many works are kept in residences abroad for security reasons and due to political instability.
"To say Russian art is returning to Russia is not correct," said art expert Starovoitova. "It's more correct to say that these works are returning to Russian owners, and these people have houses all over the world."
Some experts believe the recent dramatic rise in Russian art prices is partly fueled by the outflow of capital resulting from President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on big business. Russia's Economics Ministry reported a four-fold increase in capital flight in 2004, now at $8 billion. Almost $1.3 billion of that went to Great Britain, a center of the Russian art market and a favorite place for Russians to buy real estate.
Besides record-setting prices for classical Russian art, Sotheby's made the first offer of Russian contemporary art at auction, what Sotheby's Hill called an "exploration into contemporary art."
These lots didn't disappoint, and the relatively high prices for contemporary art works by Natalya Nesterova and the Komar and Melamid duo indicated this could be the next main area of interest for Russian art collectors. Sotheby's is continuing the trend with this week's sale.
"Over the last several years, I've seen growing interest in contemporary Russian art among new Russian collectors living both in the USA and in Russia," said Alexander Gertsman, president of the Manhattan-based International Foundation of Russian and Eastern European Art, and the owner of one of the Nesterova paintings sold in April.
"I put Nesterova's painting on sale to see how the international art world would react to her, and I can't believe how well it went," Gertsman added just after hearing that the artist's 1991 painting "Transformation Salamandres" sold for $60,000, more than three times its top estimate.
The leading contemporary art duo Komar and Melamid saw their 1985 mixed-media piece "Nike Over the Moon" sell for $84,000, a little above its top estimate.
An auction at Sotheby's rival auction house Christie's on April 14 proved that the Russian art market is always a buoyant and spectacular one, and should serve as a lesson. Christie's sale of Important Silver, Objects of Vertu and Russian Works of Art netted just under $3.6 million, primarily due to the silver works and not the Russian art.
Only about 90 lots out of the total of 254 were Russian works, and all of those were minor pieces. The highest priced Russian piece in the sale, "Grazing Sheep" by the little known 19th century Russian painter Ivan Pokhitonov, sold for $66,000.
"The market is so tough, you can't imagine how it is," said Alexis de Tiesenhausen, Christie's Senior Vice President and head of the Russian department. "High prices make the market much more competitive."
TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: Franz Ferdinand, Britain's top band, comes to St. Petersburg at the time when its international popularity is at its peak, makingits concert this week's most-anticipated event. The band, which played its first concert in a friend's bedroom in 2003, made news this week when its fans started an Internet petition asking singer/songwriter Alex Kapranos to grow back his famous fringe. Franz Ferdinand will perform at Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa on Thursday. See article, page xii.
The Toasters, New York's ska pioneers, join the local ska punkers Spitfire for a concert called Ska Spring Festival at PORT on Friday. In an interview with The St. Petersburg Times, the band's founder Rob "Bucket" Hingley spoke about its history and the possibilty of a new ska boom. See article, page xii.
This week's Nordbeat festival includes four bands from northern European countries that will perform at four local venues, ranging from the underground club Griboyedov to the upscale restaurant Moskva.
Promoted by the team behind the Stereoleto festival and, actually, the Franz Ferdinand gig, Nordbeat aims to showcase contemporary music, from indie rock to dance.
Iceland's Hjalmar, an odd yet exciting reggae band that sings in Icelandic, will play at Griboyedov on Friday. Earlier this year, Hjalmar won two Icelandic Music Awards, established by the Icelandic Music Academy, as "the brightest hope" and the "best album in the rock music" category.
Norway's "dreamy dance" band Ralph Myerz & the Jack Herren Band perform at Tinkoff bar on Friday. Formed in Bergen on Norway's west coast in 1997, the band owes its name to 1960s porn director Russ Meyer and his cameraman, Herren.
Saturday will see Finland's "loungecore" act Accu performing at Platforma and Denmark's dance band Filur appearing at Moskva restaurant.
Moscow's Avant Festival comes to St. Petersburg with British "postrock," "lo-fi" band Hood as its headliner. The Leeds-based band, which formed in December 1990 and which has released nine albums, claims it "defies categorization often switching sounds/styles at the drop of a hat" on its web site.
Aiming to "overcome Russia's isolation in music," the festival was launched in Moscow last year with the U.S. band Xiu Xiu headlining. The Avant Promo Group behind the festival also comprises a club and a label. Russian bands to take part include Moscow's Silence Kit and Moi Rakety Vverkh and St. Petersburg's Klever and Skafandr. The festival will be held at the recently opened Center for Contemporary Art, which hosted SKIF9 festival last month, on Friday. See gigs for details.
From Budapest, Hungary, comes Kamu. Formed in 1998, the six-piece band is fronted by South African singer Sena and plays a danceable mix of jazz and hip-hop with Balkan beats. Kamu will perform at Platforma on Sunday.
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Pizza that delivers
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Back in the bad old days when Boris Yeltsin was president, there was a rather fine little eatery called Pizza Pronto on Zagorodny Prospekt. As a lowly intern doing copyediting at this august paper, I used to go there for lunch on Tuesdays, to browse through that day's edition and castigate myself over the mistakes that I had failed to spot. Pizza Pronto was way ahead of its time, serving good, cheap pizzas on thick dough that put to shame the greasy horrors available at a certain well-known international chain. It was, therefore, disappointing to return to the country and find that Pizza Pronto had become one of the first victims of the Putin regime (only joking). Now it's back - but is it as good?
Pizza Pronto, reincarnated in a basement on Kolokolnaya Ulitsa about 200m from the old location, makes a relaxing impression. The decor is light and airy (well, as light and airy as you can get in a basement), with faux-stone trimmings that I guess are supposed to look Italianate but reminded me more of a Mexican restaurant for some reason. My guest and I picked a table in the second room, and as she recounted the story of her awful day - something about war veterans, the Swiss Consulate and a fistful of dollars - we scanned the menu. In addition to pizzas, this includes a range of pasta and other hot dishes and a small selection of salads and desserts.
The pizza menu at first seems quite small, with just five basic variations of ingredients. However, the management clearly expects people to mix and match, providing a long-ish list of possible additional toppings (most cost 30 rubles, just over $1). In addition, there are three more variables to consider: in pizza size (large or small), in dough (thick or thin), and even in cheese (Oldenburg or mozzarella). We both went for mozzarella.
We started off with a Greek salad (85 rubles, $3.05) for her and the Italian version (95 rubles, $3.40) for me. Both were fairly standard selections of vegetables and leaves, with feta cheese on the Greek salad, and drizzled with an oil-based dressing. Neither was outstanding, but the vegetables were fresh and crisp and provided a reassuringly healthy start to the meal.
I then had a large ham pizza with additional olives and jalapeno peppers (misleadingly labelled pepperoni on the menu) (230 rubles, $8.25). The jalapenos had a kick to them that made the pizza pleasantly hot. And I'm pleased to be able to report that the thick dough is as good as I remember it being all those years ago. My companion, meanwhile, demolished a small salami pizza with additional mushrooms and corn (188 rubles, $6.75). She was disappointed not to be able to have it on thick dough, but said her thin-crust version was excellent.
We finished off by sharing a portion between us of ice-cream (the main ingredient in all of the desserts) with chocolate powder and sliced almonds (65 rubles, $2.35), plus a large French press of green tea (150 rubles, $3.40), all of which rounded off the meal nicely (in fact, by this time I was overfull).
The new Pizza Pronto, then, picks up where the old one left off, serving good food at very reasonable prices. Our dinner - two salads, two pizzas, dessert, drinks - came to well under 1,000 rubles ($36), which by most standards represents excellent value for money.
The service was a bit inefficient, but my companion charitably suggested that our server was new and should therefore be excused.
Pizza Pronto also delivers, a service of which I shall definitely be availing myself in the near future.
TITLE: Rigo mortis
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Verdi's "Rigoletto," a long-standing audience favorite, received languid treatment from Italian director Walter Le Moli, whose interpretation of the opera premiered at the Mariinsky Theater on May 6 and 7.
The director, who is responsible for the similarly inert and emotionally enfeebled 2002 rendition of Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte," offered a constrained, inanimate and surprisingly static production. Both Verdi's music and Piave's libretto based on Victor Hugo's "Le roi s'amuse" suggest much more agility than routine stand-ups and the throwing up of hands where appropriate.
The opera begins with a ball scene at the court of Mantua, where the jester Rigoletto mocks an angry father, Count Monterone, who is pursuing a vendetta against a Duke who has seduced his daughter. The desperate old man curses the fool. Count Ceprano, who was taunted by Rigoletto, plans revenge against the jester, and the courtiers plot to abduct Rigoletto's daughter Gilda.
Gilda disobeys her father, who tells her never to leave the house alone, and meets the duke and falls in love with him. The courtiers fulfill their plan and even trick Rigoletto into helping them.
After Rigoletto rescues his daughter, he hires Sparafucile, a professional assassin, to kill the duke. But the killer's sister Maddalena, who is used to lure the duke to the house, dissuades her brother from committing the murder. The two decide to kill a stranger instead, and Gilda, who has seen everything, sacrifices her life to save the noble rake. It is only when Rigoletto receives the sack with his dying daughter in it that he realizes that Monterone's curse is fulfilled.
The only decoration in Act One is a folded curtain, while in the scene of Gilda's abduction there is nothing but a giant ladder, and in Act Two, everything revolves around a huge doorway. The performers don't make much use of the stage space. Even in the most dramatic act, Act Three, set in a shabby barn which resembles the portacabins in which construction workers live, there wasn't much invention. Minimalist, constructive, limited to black, silvery grey and red colors, the sets by Tiziano Santi could have been used more interestingly.
While the plot features large portions of intrigue and highly temperamental characters, in this minimalist staging, the personages appeared emotionally restrained, with the only exception being Rigoletto himself. However, the difference is mainly due to bass Nikolai Putilin's own efforts and insight, rather than to the director's imagination.
The opera is full of repugnant characters, with the Duke of Mantua being perhaps the most disagreeable. The thoughts of this incorrigible womanizer seem to be constantly engrossed by seduction tactics. His entourage acts likewise.
Putilin was convincing both vocally and dramatically. The audience's high expectations are fully rewarded by his compelling take on the character. The singer brings despair into his interpretation of the tormented and ill-fated humpbacked jester. However repulsive and obstinate he may look in the beginning, Putilin's Rigoletto wins more and more sympathy as he struggles to rise above his curse and protect his daughter. Portraying a fatally misguided father and a fool, whose attitude is sooner disturbing than amusing, Putilin plunges the audience into his hero's abysmal personal tragedy.
Soprano Zhanna Dombrovskaya, who was making her debut as Gilda, approached the role with the required sublime tact, creating an innocent and palpitating image. She seemed slightly intimidated in the beginning but vocally the singer nonetheless proved perfectly adroit. Her higher notes were precise and shiny, and Dombrovskaya demonstrated a promising musicality and expressiveness.
But tenor Sergei Drobyshevsky produced an enervating impression as the Duke of Mantua. His voice seemed too light for the role and lacked strength. The singer also struggled with high-pitched notes and failed to hit them on two occasions.
The chorus sounded disjointed and unclear but the Mariinsky Orchestra produced a captivating and flawless performance under the baton of the company's principal guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda.
But the opera's tremendous dramatic potential wasn't fully realized. If Putilin alone could have saved the production, he probably would have. But a successful staging requires strong teamwork and consistent directing.
As internationally established young soprano Anna Netrebko is getting ready to sing Gilda in June during the Stars of the White Nights festival, there will be another opportunity to see the new staging.
Links: http://www.mariinsky.ru
TITLE: Nordic spring
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: From Jean Sibelius to Hans Christian Andersen to modern Swedish jazz and the music of the Royal Danish Court, the second international Nordic Music Festival, which runs from Monday through May 26, parades impressive artistic diversity.
With classical and modern music by composers from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden featured in the program, the festival pays tribute to three anniversaries: the 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and Norway, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen and 140 years since the birth of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.
Although music from Nordic countries is often grouped under the misnomer "Scandinavian music," in recent years greater awareness of each country's distinct cultural identity, as well as their common traits, has led to an increased understanding of Nordic music.
The Nordic countries include Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. The Nordic Council, an international organization, also includes the autonomous territories of Aland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Historically, however, the term Nordic was also applied to the far north of European Russia and the Baltic region including parts of northwest Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Scandinavia applies only to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
The festival was established last spring by Swedish conductor Kristofer Wahlander, who is artistic director and principal conductor of the St. Petersburg Festival Orchestra.
The main event in last year's program was the Russian premiere of Hugo Alfven's Symphony No. 1, "The Mountain King."
This time, the festival opens with a performance of Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar's works by Swedish pianist Per Tengstrand, followed by Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 2 played by the St. Petersburg Festival Orchestra with Wahlander conducting.
Concerts are being held at the Shostakovich Philarmonic, the Glinka Philharmonic Chamber Hall, the White Hall of Peterhof's Grand Palace, the Shuvalov Palace, Zazerkalye Theater and at the House of Composers (Dom Kompositorov).
On Tuesday, Constitution Day in Norway, the festival presents a concert devoted entirely to Norwegian music, paying tribute to the 100th anniversary of Russia's diplomatic ties with Norway.
Grieg's Suite No. 1 from "Peer Gynt" is followed by Klaus Egge's Symphonic variations and a fugue based on Norwegian folkloric music; Eivind Groven's Hjalarljod Overture; Christian Sinding's Suite for violin and orchestra; and Henning Sommero's "Ri Sull Da" for violin, children's choir, baritone and orchestra.
A Hans Christian Andersen-inspired concert at the Glinka Philharmonic on May 23 definitely counts among the most exciting offerings. Danish soprano Susanne Elmark, joined by her compatriot, pianist Elizabeth Westenholz, will perform Edvard Grieg's "Melodies of the Heart," Sergei Prokofiev's "The Ugly Duckling" and four songs from the "Danish Song Treasure," with all works set to Andersen's lyrics and prose.
The concert in the House of Composers on May 20 features works by contemporary Russian composers inspired by Nordic pagan traditions and Scandinavian sagas as well as a performance by Stockholm's Saxophone Quartet playing cutting-edge Swedish and Icelandic jazz.
Sweden-born Wahlander, who is the festival's artistic director, is conducting the opening concert only.
The conductor graduated with honors from Sweden's Royal Northern College of Music, later completing a postgraduate apprenticeship in conducting at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg. A well-known figure in St. Petersburg's musical life, he has worked as an adviser to the vice-governor of St. Petersburg and is presently the chairman of the Swedish Society in St. Petersburg.
In 2003, Wahlander conducted a concert of Swedish and Russian music as part of the official celebrations of St. Petetersburg's 300th anniversary, featuring a memorable performance of Handel's Messiah. The performance was part of the worldwide "voices for hospices" project and won encouraging reviews.
"Wahlander, with his charisma, got exactly the right phrasing and nuance from all the musicians," wrote Swedish newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning about the performance. "In the joyful message of the first and the third act, the birth and resurrection of Messiah, he was literally radiating not only with his face but also with his whole body."
The Nordic Music Festival has much potential because of the many unexplored avenues in Nordic music. Local audiences have yet to discover the sounds of ancient Nordic musical instruments, such as the Norwegian seljefløyte -a traditional flute made of willow bark - or the Finnish kantele, a harp with a tinkling sound that evokes cracking ice.
For more information, see listings or visit www.norden.spb.ru/nordicmusic
TITLE: Franz frenzy
TEXT: Having sold more than 2.5 million copies of its debut album and won almost every British music award possible, British pop sensation Franz Ferdinand is coming to Russia at the height of its international popularity.
At its two Moscow shows and one St. Petersburg gig, the band is expected to concentrate on its successful release of last year, simply called "Franz Ferdinand," with performances of such singles as "Take Me Out," "Matinee" and the gender-bending hit "Michael."
Some new material might be performed as well, as at a London concert earlier this month when the band unveiled four new songs. These are likely to be included in a recently recorded but as yet untitled second album.
In the tradition of British art-school bands, Franz Ferdinand was formed by singer Alex Kapranos, guitarist Nick McCarthy, bassist Bob Hardy and drummer Paul Thomson, at the Glasgow School of Art in 2001. Despite its arty influences and all kinds of gimmicky labels coined for the band's music by journalists worldwide, Franz Ferdinand officially describes its work as "music to make girls dance."
"The best moments in pop music are when outsiders come into the mainstream," Kapranos was quoted as saying to U.S. music magazine Rolling Stone. "We're playing pop music, the same way that Nirvana was a pop band."
Promoters in Russia, as well as comparing the band to Nirvana, also compare Franz Ferdinand, somewhat strangely, to St. Petersburg's '80s rockers Kino.
What also makes Franz Ferdinand's tour interesting is Kapranos' well-publicized interest in early 20th century Russian avant-garde art; the cover of the debut album and a video for "Take Me Home" are clearly influenced by Soviet constructivism. This link has even been cited by the band's Russian label as the reason why the band chose to have its only autograph-signing session in St. Petersburg. The session is scheduled to take place at the Soyuz record shop in the PIK trade center on Sennaya Ploshchad at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
In Moscow, Franz Ferdinand will perform at the B2 club on May 20 and Maxidrom rock festival, which the band headlines, on May 21.
The 800-seat Moscow club gig has already sold out, but in St. Petersburg Franz Ferdinand is scheduled to play in a larger venue, capable to hold 3,000 fans.
Franz Ferdinand will perform at Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa on Thursday. www.franzferdinand.co.uk
TITLE: Ska-boom!
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With a 21-track compilation album, "In Retrospect: The Best of The Toasters" re-released in Russia, New York's ska pioneers will bring greatest hits from its entire 24-year career to St. Petersburg on Saturday, even if one member was not able to join the band on tour due to a visa problem.
Now on an intense, 38-date European tour that band started in Sheffield, northern England, last month, The Toaster is a band looking forward to a new ska boom.
"For me it's not just music, it is a political message, and it's a social message as well. It's good-time music but it has a political edge to it and socially conscious as well. That's what does it for me," said the band's founder Robert "Bucket" Hingley speaking by phone from Leiden, the Netherlands last week.
"A lot of other people just get into it simply because it's good-time party music, but for me the other side is equally important."
Hingley, who sings and plays guitar, started out as a musician at university where he studied languages including French, German, Italian and Swahili.
"I got playing in a lot of bands at university in England, like punk rock bands, reggae bands and ska bands," he said
"So that was what really started me playing in bands full time. You know, I started with The Toasters in 1981, but it wasn't until 1985 that I quit my job and started on the band full time."
Inspired by 2-Tone, the revolutionary British ska label that brought such bands as Selector, The Beat and the Specials to the forefront in the 1970s, Hingley even sees The Toasters as a 2-Tone band. "A lot of my influences are from 2-Tone so we do really think of ourselves as being a 2-Tone ska band more than anything else," he said.
"Then it was a very odd time in England," he said about the late 1970s when the British ska revival happened.
"At the time there was a lot of political upheaval. We had a right-wing government with Margaret Thatcher. And there was a lot of racism and fighting in the streets and there were riots in Brixton [London] and Toxteth [Liverpool] and there was the National Front, which is the extreme right-wing. It was very bad politically in England.
"So what I liked about 2-Tone, apart from the music, was the fact that a very big message, which was anti-racist and anti-fascist, and with very positive vibes coming from that label in general, I was able to identify a lot with it."
Hingley moved to New York in 1980 to manage New York's extension of Forbidden Planet, a London fantasy, science-fiction and comics book store. He discovered that the city and the U.S. on the whole lacked ska music.
"It was ska-less," he said, explaining that it was difficult to teach musicians to play the ska beat.
"A lot of musicians in New York heard reggae and they heard ska but they didn't really know how to play it, so first we had to reeducate them as to how play their instruments. That was very funny."
Soon The Toasters were playing at CBGBs, then New York's haven for punk and new wave bands such as the Ramones, Blondie and Television.
"I think we were the really first ska band really to go in there and make a good showing of ourselves," said Hingley.
"And once we started playing in CBGBs, we attracted a lot of other people who were into ska, and we were able to make some changes in the band and get better musicians. That was right about the time when we recorded our first single. And then we got involved with [British singer-songwriter] Joe Jackson, who produced our first EP. We really got some critical acclaim and were able to go on tour nationally."
Now Hingley operates the band and his Megalith label from Valencia, Spain, where he lives.
"I moved there with my family, so the band is still out of New York but with a computer and Easyjet now you don't need to be living in an expensive town [such as New York]," he said.
"Also I was in New York for 25 years and I decided I needed a break personally and creatively just to go do something different. I'm quite happy that I came over here to Europe.
"It's more laid back, and I needed more time to concentrate on my kids, because my son is 13-years old, and I've been on a road all his life, so I wanted to have more time to spend with him and my twins."
Hingley, who has launched his ska label Megalith after his original Ska Moon label folded in 2003, is critical of the current situation in music.
"I think generally in music there's a really bad situation," he said.
"I think there really has been no harder time for bands who are starting to try to get out there, because I mean there's so much competition, and distribution systems have broken down so it's very difficult for bands being on the road, it's very difficult for bands starting. I think what's happening - the major labels even though they're crying are in a much stronger position vis-a-vis independent labels than they've ever been. In a sense they've destroyed the competition."
Although ska's popularity has subsided since the American ska boom of the 1990s, Hingley said he sees the signs of a new revival approaching.
"The signs are: the facts that there are a lot of young bands; people coming to the shows are very young; and the fact that the industry isn't paying attention to it anymore. I think it's the most important thing.
"That's giving us the chance to organize again, and what's going to happen (I think it's the same every 10 or 15 years) is a big resurgence of interest in ska music, and it is our job as a band and as a label to be ready for that when it comes round again."
According to Hingley, on its current tour The Toasters performs as a five-piece band since vocalist Andrew "Jack Ruby Jr." Lindo was denied his entrance visa to Europe and the U.K. "It's because of his Jamaican passport - people don't like that these days," he said.
Apart from Hingley, the band's current touring lineup includes Jason "Jah-Son" Nwagbaraocha on bass and vocals, Chris Rhodes on trombone, Jeff Richey on alto and baritone saxophones and Larry "Ace" Snell on drums.
The Toasters will perform with Spitfire at PORT on Saturday. "In Retrospect: The Best of The Toasters" is out on BAd TaStE. www.toasters.org
TITLE: CT Scans Reveal Tutankhamun's Face
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO, Egypt - The first facial reconstructions of King Tutankhamun based on CT scans of his mummy have produced images strikingly similar to the boy pharaoh's ancient portraits, with one model showing a baby-faced young man with chubby cheeks and his family's characteristic overbite.
That model, a photo of which was released Tuesday, bears a strong resemblance to the gold mask of King Tut found in his tomb in 1922 by the British excavation led by Howard Carter.
The beardless youth depicted in the model, created by a French team, has soft features, a sloping nose and a weak chin - and the overbite, which archaeologists have long believed was a trait shared by other kings in Tut's 18th dynasty. His eyes are highlighted by thick eyeliner.
Three teams of forensic artists and scientists - from France, the United States and Egypt - each built a model of the boy pharaoh's face based on some 1,700 high-resolution photos from CT scans of his mummy to reveal what he looked like the day he died nearly 3,300 years ago.
"The shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamun as a child where he was shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom," said Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The CT scans - the first done on an Egyptian mummy - have suggested King Tut was a healthy, yet slightly built 19-year-old, standing 5 feet, 6 inches tall at the time of his death.
The three teams created their reconstructions separately - the Americans and French working from a plastic skull, the Egyptians working directly from the CT scans, which could distinguish different densities of soft tissue and bone.
The French and Egyptians knew they were recreating King Tut, but the Americans were not even told where the skull was from and correctly identified it as a Caucasoid North African, the council said in a statement.
"The results of the three teams were identical or very similar in the basic shape of the face, the size, shape and setting of the eyes, and the proportion of the skull," Hawass said.
The French and American models, seen in photos released by the council, are similar.
TITLE: Light Plane Sparks Capitol Alert
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - A security scare in the U.S capital served as a terror alert test after authorities diverted a small plane that flew within 5 kilometers of the White House and led to the frantic evacuation of thousands of people.
Alert levels at the White House and Capitol were raised Wednesday to their highest state when a Cessna 152 crossed into restricted air space and failed to respond to a Homeland Security helicopter scrambling to stop it. Military jets fired four warning flares at the single-engine aircraft, which was carrying a pilot and a student pilot flying from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, before it turned away from the national landmarks.
The government decided not to press charges after interviewing the men and determining the incident was an accident.
"They were navigating by sight and were lost," a Justice Department spokes-man said.
The scare sparked a frenzy of activity that tested the capital's post-Sept. 11 response system.
While praising the fast federal response, experts said the alarm highlighted security measures that still need to be put in place.
TITLE: Refreshed Federer Easily Beats Berdych
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HAMBURG, Germany - Roger Federer's three-week break must have served him well.
Playing in his first tournament since sitting out to rest swollen feet, the top-ranked Federer easily beat Tomas Berdych 6-2 6-1 in the second round of the Hamburg Masters on Wednesday.
Federer needed only 53 minutes to get past the 46th-ranked Berdych. He hit 25 winners against six for the Czech, who beat Federer at the Athens Olympics last year.
"He ruined my Olympic dream," said Federer, who lost to Berdych in the round of 32 in their only previous meeting. "I was happy with the way I played. From the start, I felt good."
Federer, who has won five titles this year, is 37-2 overall in 2005. He next faces Tommy Robredo, who beat three-time French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten 6-3 6-0.
In other matches, Juan Carlos Ferrero rallied to beat third-seeded Marat Safin 4-6 6-4 6-2, fifth-seeded Tim Henman beat Greg Rusedski 7-6 (3) 6-4 and 10th-seeded Guillermo Coria beat Mikhail Youzhny 6-2 6-3.
Ferrero twice broke Safin's serve in the final set. Safin had nine aces but 40 unforced errors to 15 for Ferrero.
Safin later complained about Ferrero's behavior, saying his childhood friend shouldn't have come up to the chair umpire to urge him to make Safin play while the Russian argued a call while trailing 2-0 in the second set.
"He has to be a gentleman. I was really bothered," said Safin, who also accused Ferrero of being coached on "every second point."
Ferrero said the call wasn't important enough for Safin to argue "for three minutes," and that his coach had only commented a couple of times during the match.
"That's not why I won. I hope this doesn't spoil our friendship," he said.
A former No. 1, Ferrero slid down the rankings while sitting out much of 2004 with chicken pox and injuries.
He had to play two qualifying rounds to reach the main draw in Hamburg. He was denied a wild card entry, even though he was in the final in Barcelona and the semifinal at Monte Carlo last month.
"I feel I can beat anyone now," Ferrero said.
While Federer and Ferrero won on the covered center court, Henman and Rusedski had to battle rain and wind whipping the outside court. During a rally, the wind upended a courtside umbrella used to shelter the players, and there were several delays because of intermittent showers.
"It was very, very difficult," Henman said. "I don't know if I've played in more difficult conditions."
Henman complained about the state of the court, saying it should be covered during the rain. "On a sodden court like that, it's difficult to play the level of tennis you'd expect from such a field. That court is not good enough," he said.
The $2.7 million tournament is a major warm-up for the French Open, which starts May 23.
o
In Rome on Wednesday, Serena Williams certainly didn't look ready for the French Open.
The six-time Grand Slam winner was upset 7-6 (2) 6-1 by Italy's Francesca Schiavone in her opening match at the Italian Open, an important tuneup for the season's second major, which starts in less than two weeks.
Williams moved poorly and was overpowered by the 26th-ranked Schiavone, who had all her shots working. Williams called it the worst loss of her career.
"This is it for me probably for sure. It won't be happening again," she said.
In the first-set tiebreaker, a seemingly uninterested Williams didn't even run for a drop shot by Schiavone that gave her a set-point opportunity.
"I couldn't get my legs moving. It was really weird. I've never felt like this before," Williams said. "I actually had a really good warmup right before the match and I thought everything would come together, but it didn't."
The crowd supported Schiavone and rained whistles down upon Williams, who seemed lethargic throughout the second set.
The loss extended Williams' run of misfortune since winning the Australian Open in January.
Williams was forced to withdraw from the Paris Indoors in February with a stomach illness before her quarterfinal match.
In March, she retired from her semifinal with Jelena Jankovic due to a shoulder injury. Then in Miami, she lost to sister Venus for the first time in four years, snapping a six-match winning streak against her sibling.
Last month, Serena sprained her left ankle during a quarterfinal match with Silvia Farina Elia and retired after failing to convert three match points in a second-set tiebreaker.
Serena was not planning on playing another tournament before the French Open, although she said after the loss that she was going to rethink her schedule.
"I didn't expect this to happen," she said.
TITLE: Bottom
Teams Fear
Relegation
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON - All four teams at the bottom of the English Premier League standings can still avoid relegation going into the final round.
Chelsea may have captured the league title with three games to spare, but the relegation struggle is the most wide open in years, and the tension over the next seven days may be hard to take for players, coaches and fans of West Bromwich Albion, Crystal Palace, Southampton and Norwich.
Norwich, which won on Saturday, climbed from last place into the safety zone and can send the other three to the League Championship by winning again next Sunday.
But West Brom, which slipped to last despite a 1-1 draw at Manchester United, can still stay up by beating Portsmouth at home if the others don't do any better than a draw.
"Our fate is still in the hands of others, but at least we have given ourselves a fighting chance," West Brom manager Bryan Robson said Saturday. "That is something because at Christmas we looked like we were dead and buried.
"If we do stay up it will be the best achievement I've had in football,'' said Robson, a former England captain who won seven trophies as a player for Manchester United.
Southampton needed a last-minute equalizer at Palace to gain a point. Now, veteran Saints manager Harry Redknapp is confident his team will stay up.
"That's the second week in succession we've got a late goal and that's the reason we will avoid relegation," Redknapp said. "I must admit I thought we'd had it after their second goal. But it all came right in the end. We could win next week and still go down while a draw next could keep us up because no one knows what will happen."
The Saints have a home game, but it's against third-place Manchester United. Palace goes to south London neighbor Charlton with local pride at stake, while Norwich visits fifth-from-last Fulham.
"There is no love lost between Charlton and Palace, while Norwich have got to win at Fulham and they've not won away all season. So you can't take that for granted," Redknapp said.
Manchester United's players may have their minds on the FA Cup final against Arsenal the following Saturday. But manager Alex Ferguson, who was furious with his team's performance against West Brom, likely will warn his stars that they have to perform to get a place in the starting lineup on May 21.
Although a visit to Fulham appears to be a game Norwich is capable of winning, the team hasn't won away all season.
Palace, which gained promotion last season through the playoffs, twice had the lead against Southampton but wound up with a 2-2 draw.
"We can put it right next week,'' Palace manager Iain Dowie said. "We would have had to win at Charlton anyway next week after Norwich got a great result today .''
The fact that any of the four teams can either survive or go down at such a late stage of the season is remarkable considering West Brom was eight points from safety at the end of 2004 and Norwich had seven points to make up just five weeks ago.
TITLE: Roaring Russia Pursues Win Over Finland in Quarterfinal
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VIENNA - The United States will have a familiar opponent in the quarterfinals of the world hockey championships - the Czech Republic.
The Americans, who beat the host Czechs in a shootout at the same stage at last year's worlds, finished third in their second-round group and have a 3-1-2 overall record. They were due to play the Czechs on Thursday. The semifinals are Saturday, and the final is set for Sunday.
"They're a formidable opponent, we know that," U.S. head coach Peter Laviolette said on the team's web site. "It should be a heck of a game. We'll have to be at our very best to beat them."
In other quarterfinal games, Russia faces Finland in Vienna and Sweden takes on Switzerland in Innsbruck. Two-time defending champion Canada plays 2002 champion Slovakia.
Last year, Andy Roach scored the lone shootout goal against the Czechs in Prague. The Americans, who are 3-3-1 against the Czech Republic at the worlds, went on to finish third in that tournament.
Czech Republic star Jaromir Jagr is looking forward to the rematch.
"Normally you don't get a second chance, but we did," Jagr said.
The U.S., which has given up just 10 goals in its six games, will play either Sweden or Switzerland if it advances to the semifinals.
The Czech Republic, however, has allowed a tournament-low five goals in six games.
The Americans are led by Mike Knuble and Doug Weight, who have six points each. Also, goalie Rick DiPietro is third in goals against average (1.33) and sixth in save percentage (.942).
Canada struggled to beat Ukraine in its last game at this year's championship.
"We definitely have to improve our game," Canada forward Rick Nash said. "I feel we will step up once we get the good teams."
Nash and linemate Joe Thornton have combined for 14 goals and are tied for the scoring lead with 11 points each.
Russia last won the title in 1993, and finished 10th last year. The Russians are unbeaten in these championships.
Russia head coach Vladimir Krikunov has managed to form his NHL stars into a cohesive team. Finland has only occasionally shown its skating prowess and has lacked scoring power.
Sweden reached the final the last two years. The Swiss reached the quarterfinals in 2003 and '04, but lost to Slovakia both times. The last time Switzerland beat Sweden at the worlds was in 1993.
TITLE: NHL League, Union Make Progress in Negotiations
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - For a change, the NHL and the locked-out players' association talked about more than just salary caps Wednesday.
In an unexpected second straight day of labor negotiations, the league and the union branched out into other discussions, such as the potential formation of a competition committee that would be comprised of player and team representatives, NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly said in a statement.
The players' association didn't immediately comment or respond to an e-mail sent by The Associated Press following the ninth bargaining session since commissioner Gary Bettman called off the entire 2004-05 season on Feb. 16.
"Among the topics covered this morning were various accounting issues relating to the calculation of club payroll in the context of a new economic system," Daly said.
So far, no headway has been made on the central issue - the team-by-team salary cap - and the time finally came to talk about other issues that will impact the game once a deal is reached and the NHL is back on the ice.
The NHL made a new offer to the players last Thursday in Toronto, but no progress was reported by either side after talks ended Friday.
That proposal was spawned by a union offer April 4 that contained a hybrid concept, addressing the relationship between player salaries and league revenues. It contained an upper cap of $50 million and a floor of $30 million.
As before, the sides have not come close to an agreement on the values of the caps or how wide a range there should be between the minimums and maximums.
Daly said Wednesday's salary cap discussion centered on lower and upper limits.
The sides will reconvene Thursday morning to talk about annual financial statements from each club and how teams divulge their finances, Daly said.
The league and the union were only scheduled to meet in New York on Tuesday, but the NHL asked players' association representatives to remain in town instead of going to Austria for the world hockey championships.
NHL leaders also postponed their European trip so talks could continue. The sides have already planned to meet two days next week, likely in Toronto.
TITLE: Sports Scribes Love Perks
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania - Sports journalists routinely accept free tickets, travel and memorabilia from the teams they cover, a practice that requires more advocacy for better ethical standards, a Penn State University researcher said.
In a survey of 285 newspapers, about 43 percent of sports editors agreed that accepting such "freebies" didn't affect reporters' objectivity, said Marie Hardin, an assistant professor at the Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.
"A lot of sports journalists don't see the harm in them because they don't see it as changing the story," Hardin said Wednesday.
But, she added, accepting meals and other items could affect a reporter's relationship with a source - or at least the impression of the relationship with a source - in stories beyond game coverage. She cited the ongoing story of the use of steroids in sports as examples of sports coverage becoming more complex.
The findings come from a study conducted in the spring of 2003 of sports editors or deputy editors in the southeastern United States, from Louisiana to Maryland. The results were published in the latest edition of the Newspaper Research Journal, a publication of the nonprofit Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, based in Columbia, South Carolina.
It also found that 39 percent of editors reached in the survey agreed with the statement that sports coverage "should boost the home team."
Editors at smaller papers were more likely to agree than those at larger papers. More experienced editors tended to disagree with the statement.
The results show a need for more discussion in newsrooms about ethical standards, especially at smaller newspapers, Hardin said. She also urged colleges to emphasize "rigorous" training in ethics to journalism students.