SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1074 (40), Tuesday, May 31, 2005
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TITLE: Couples Face Long Lines to Get Married in Palaces
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: On a sunny May day Andrei, 25, proposed on one knee to Svetlana, 24. He gave her a bouquet of flowers and he made his proposal in a romantic restaurant.
It was an unforgettable moment of happiness for both young people, who declined to reveal their last names.
The next day the excited couple hurried to the city's leading and most beautiful Wedding Palace No. 1 on Angliiskaya Naberezhnaya to apply for their wedding ceremony.
They hoped it would be soon, certainly some time in the summer.
The administrator searched for a free time slot in a computer.
"The next slot available to you will be in mid-October," she said, pouring cold water on the couple's plans.
But where there is a will there is a way and some entrepreneurial lovers, who change their minds or are wary of rushing, are only too happy to give up some the best slots in return for cold cash.
A forum on the www.svadba.spb.ru offers slots at the palace in return for cash or exchanges.
On the forum, which is popular among prospective newlyweds, wedding ceremony slots are offered for $30 to $300.
A search of the forum by the St. Petersburg Times found a message from Lola, who offered a slot on a Friday this month, and a reply from Andrei, who immediately offered to pay $200 for it.
"I have a place in the Wedding Palace No. 1 for July 6. I can sell it at a cheap price," wrote another correspondent of the forum.
Ever since one of the city's three major wedding palaces was closed in 2000 to become the office for the presidential envoy to the Northwest region, the lines to get married in the other two palaces have increased significantly.
Couples who want to marry in summer - the most popular time of the year - must plan for their ceremonies several months ahead. Some say they should even apply in October.
Svetlana said she and Andrei will take up a sale or swap if they find one that would fit their plans.
"We really wanted to get married in summer," Svetlana said, "first of all because it's a nice time of the year, and we wanted to go on our honeymoon during our summer vacations.
"It's better to have the wedding when you are in the right romantic mood. Who knows how people's emotions will change in almost half a year."
Couples who can't wait to get married can do so in district wedding registration offices, but these are drab and make the big day less special. Most brides and grooms want to register one of the most important events in their lives in a place of beauty.
Svetlana said she wants to tie the knot in Wedding Palace No. 1 because her family and friends have all been married there.
"None of my friends or relatives who were married in that palace have ever divorced," she said.
Marina Anutina, director of Wedding Palace No. 1, declined to comment on the market for slots at the palace.
She confirmed that the palace is highly popular and that the number of people wanting wedding ceremonies in summer starts growing several months before summer arrives.
Nevertheless, some slots are still available this summer, most of them on workdays, she said.
"Maybe those slots are at an inconvenient time for couples."
The low season for weddings is in May, which a Russian superstition suggests is not a lucky time for taking vows. The superstition originates from the verb mayatsya, or "to suffer," which is derived from the word "May."
"I personally think there is no difference if one marries in May or some other month," Anutina said.
She had no comment when asked if the city needs more wedding palaces to accommodate the demands of newlyweds.
TITLE: Khodorkovsky, Lebedev Sentenced to Nine Years in Camp
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Meshchansky District Court on Tuesday convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced them both to nine years in a prison camp, ending the biggest trial in the country's post-Soviet history.
Defense lawyers said they would appeal the verdict, and Khodorkovsky, who was once one of the nation's most powerful men until a growing clash with the Kremlin ended in his arrest, remained defiant and signaled that he thought the fight was far from over. "My sentence has been decided in the Kremlin," he said in a statement read out to reporters by his lawyer Anton Drel after the trial. "I do not consider myself guilty and consider my innocence proven.
"Judicial power in Russia has been turned into a dumb appendage, a blunt instrument of the executive branch of government," he said. "Or not so much of the government, but of a few quasi-criminal economic groups."
As the sentences were finally read out, a group of anti-Khodorkovsky demonstrators outside stood in silence, huddled under umbrellas. Across the street, a group of Khodorkovsky supporters chanted, "Freedom! Freedom!" As soon as the sentences became known, they switched to shouting, "Shame! Shame!"
Khodorkovsky's arrest in October 2003 by gun-toting special forces, the ensuing trial and the partial takeover by the state of Yukos have marked a shift toward greater Kremlin dominance over the economy and politics. President Vladimir Putin's economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, who has often clashed with his boss over the affair, has called it the biggest systemic change to hit the country since August 1991.
But as the Kremlin moved against a businessman who had climbed through the chaos of the Soviet Union's collapse to become the owner of the country's fastest-growing oil company and the country's richest man at the age of 40, the handling of the trial was widely criticized. The case has been widely seen as a Kremlin backlash against Khodorkovsky's mounting political ambitions and threat to Putin's hold on power, and Western leaders have raised questions over the use of selective and arbitrary justice in the trial.
Meanwhile the campaign, which has also included the partial renationalization of his Yukos oil major, could end up only strengthening Khodorkovsky as a political force.
On Tuesday, however, U.S. President George Bush sidestepped the question of whether the conviction was a response by Putin to Khodorkovsky's political ambitions, and refrained from direct criticism of the Kremlin.
"It will be interesting to see how Khodorkovsky's expected appeal is handled by the government," Bush said. "Here, you're innocent until proven guilty and it appeared to us - at least to people in my administration - that it looked like he had been judged guilty prior to having a fair trial," Bush told reporters Tuesday. "We're watching the ongoing case."
The U.S. administration is on a drive to revive its flagging energy relationship with Russia, which was all but torpedoed after the arrest of Khodorkovsky, who had been the biggest proponent of sending greater supplies of oil to the United States.
Khodorkovsky's conviction is likely to meet a muted reaction across Russia too. Businessmen like him who rose to wealth and power under former President Boris Yeltsin, while the majority of Russians sank into poverty, are still widely reviled.
But some observers have suggested that Khodorkovsky's jailing could turn him into a political force for having suffered at the hands of the regime.
Khodorkovsky appeared to be laying the groundwork for that transformation in his statement. "I don't have significant savings anymore," he said. "I've lost my place in the oligarch's club. But I have gained a huge number of true and devoted friends. I have regained a feeling for my country. And now together with my people I will bear this and victory will be ours together."
Saying he would continue the philanthropic works that marked his career in recent years, including aid for prisoners, he said his conviction would lead to suffering for the authorities and not for himself. "I want to say thank you," he said in the statement. "They did not win. Freedom is an internal human condition. It is exactly my ill-wishers ... who are doomed to shake under the stolen assets of Yukos for the rest of their lives."
Another of Khodorkovsky's former business partners in Menatep, Leonid Nevzlin, told reporters Tuesday that the attack on Yukos and Lebedev signaled the future demise of Putin's regime and accused the president of rigging the trial.
Nevzlin has previously said he would support former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov were he to run for president in 2008.
Kasyanov slammed the verdict on Tuesday. "Today we should all admit that we already live in a different country. The unification of democratic forces is no longer a question of political ambitions, it is a vital necessity for the country," he said, Interfax reported.
Yukos managers on Tuesday also upped the ante in response to the sentences against the oil major's former bosses. The company said it had filed an $11.53 billion lawsuit against the government for damages arising from the sale of its main production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, last December. Yugansk was sold at a knockdown price in a controversial auction as payment for $28 billion in back taxes.
Group Menatep, the holding company founded by Khodorkovsky that owns Yukos and other assets, is also suing the government under the terms of the Energy Charter, an international treaty signed by Russia. The threats of legal action have already helped upset Putin's plans to merge state-controlled Gazprom with state-owned Rosneft, the new owner of Yugansk, because of the legal risks.
After the sentences were pronounced, one of the Western lawyers representing Khodorkovsky called for further legal action against the officials behind the takeover of Yukos. "Today another step has been taken to legitimize the expropriation of Yukos," said Robert Amsterdam, a Toronto-based lawyer.
He said the people behind the trial and the verdict were "the same as those who set up a front company in 24 hours, set up a phony auction and stole a company," referring to the mysterious front company Baikal Finance Group that won the Yugansk auction and was soon afterward bought up by Rosneft. "These are the people who should be under investigation," he said.
Amsterdam also warned that Khodorkovsky's jailing would only strengthen his political clout.
"There are very few men who serve time in prison for political reasons whose political ambitions aren't strengthened," he said.
Political analysts said the sentences of nine years were aimed at making sure that Khodorkovsky stayed behind bars until after the 2008 presidential election. "There's no way they could let him out before 2008," said Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank. "They made a political figure out of him and now they fear him."
Prosecutors made sure to maintain the pressure Tuesday, announcing again that new money laundering charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev would be filed soon.
If filed, the new charges would keep them in Moscow for as long as a new trial would take. Defense lawyers have suggested that the Kremlin wants to keep the former oil magnates in Moscow so as to keep tighter control over their movements, rather than in the regions where the Kremlin's power could be weaker.
For now, however, they cannot be sent off to a prison colony until the sentence has been passed into law. That cannot happen until the defense's appeal at the next stage, the Moscow city court, has been concluded.
Defense lawyers said Tuesday they had little hope of winning an appeal.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have also been fined a total of 17.4 billion rubles ($620 million) in unpaid tax bills, under a civil suit filed by the Federal Tax Service. Chief judge Irina Kolesnikova ruled to levy that amount from the two men. But Lebedev's lawyer Yevgeny Baru said that he was not sure how his clients would pay that bill off. He said they only had "minimal" amounts in their Russian bank accounts.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were both convicted of theft with conspiracy a malicious failure to obey a court order, damage to property rights via fraud with conspiracy, personal tax or national insurance evasion, and appropriation or embezzlement of property with conspiracy.
A charge of repeated forgery of documents was dropped.
The two men were found guilty of the initial charge brought against them, the fraudulent acquisition of a 20 percent stake in the Apatit fertilizer plant in a 1994 privatization. But the court discarded the charge, as a 10-year statute of limitations had already expired.
TITLE: City Hall
'Ignoring
Rights'
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Leaders of the St. Petersburg Citizens' Resistance, an umbrella group for two dozen city NGOs and opposition movements, said Thursday the city government and law enforcement agencies are arbitrary in their treatment of them and media who cover their events.
While Governor Valentina Matviyenko is fond of referring to St. Petersburg as Russia's most European city, the city's democrats argue that is only true for its architecture and history.
"A European city is first and foremost a place where human rights are respected, and this is not the case here," Maxim Reznik, chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party, said at a news conference about the suppression. "Citizens' political, social and economic rights are routinely violated and those who criticize this practice are persecuted."
City police routinely detain opposition members, disrupt authorized meetings and even physically abuse protesters, he said.
The police press service could not be immediately reached for comment Thursday.
Vyacheslav Notyag, head of city NGO People's Solidarity, said a policeman struck him twice with a baton - on his ear and arm - during a sanctioned demonstration on May 1.
"Other people were beaten too as they attempted to get through to Palace Square," he said. "I was waving a sheet of paper with the official permission to take part in the meeting but nobody was listening, and the police blocked my way."
People's Solidarity members had carried posters critical of the city government. "City for sale. Cheap. Valya" read one poster in reference to Matviyenko's privatization plans.
Olga Kurnosova, head of NGO Citizens' Union, said democrats' requests to hold meetings in appropriate places are constantly denied.
Recently, officials suggested that a meeting against the war in Chechnya, which the organizers asked to be held outside the headquarters of the special police OMON, which sends its officers to the rebel republic on a regular basis, be transferred to the square outside the Theater For Young Spectators.
"Neither young spectators, nor the actors have anything to do with the war," Kurnosova said.
Journalist Dmitry Zhvania, chief editor of online news web site Lenizdat.ru and a member of the St. Petersburg Citizens' Resistance, said he had also received attention from the police.
On May 28, he was on his way to a flash-mob event, carrying masks of politicians and other gear in his backpack. Outside Primorskaya metro station, he was detained and taken to a police station where he spent 5 hours.
Zhvania is a co-organizer of flash-mob events, which on this occasion was to criticize the "St. Petersburg Muscovites," members of the political and financial elite who made a second home in the Russian capital through their links to President Vladimir Putin.
The masks in Zhvania's backpack were to be used for a "Parade of Judases" and featured images of Putin, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Unified Energy Systems head Anatoly Chubais.
"I walked very peacefully and the police were certainly aware of our plans for an 'alternative carnival,'" Zhvania said, adding that the organization had announced the event long beforehand and even invited the media.
"We weren't plotting a blast or terrorist attack, just a little happening," he added. "Mind you, the colonel didn't question me, he just talked to me about Putin, soccer and different things in life. There was no reason to detain me, but they were obviously hoping that flash-mob wouldn't happen because I was sitting in the police with all the gear. But ha! Somebody else had an identical set of everything and the 'carnival' went ahead."
He did not demand a lawyer or cite the Constitution. "From my experience, I know doing that would have only made things worse," he said.
Journalists said many of their colleagues have little trust in the legal system or the law enforcement bodies, but now unpleasant incidents have been added to the hazards of the job.
Reporters complain that not only are they detained and sometimes assaulted, but that producing a balanced report often turns into a problem.
Reporters see crucial parts of their stories edited out - they call this "story castration." The bosses explain the censorship by "sublime relations" with one of the parties involved. That is, if an explanation follows at all.
Anna Sharogradskaya, director of the Regional Press Institute, said more and more journalists are joining opposition groups primarily so that dissident voices can be heard.
This conflict of interests often results in an awkward and ambiguous situation when reporters are covering political meetings organized by themselves or their editors. Naturally, human rights advocates find this tendency alarming.
"Journalists have to remain independent, but instead they take the streets to fight for freedom in a literal sense," Sharogradskaya said. "I clearly understand what drives them to join the opposition, but I believe that they have to use other possibilities and more justified methods. For instance, I see our organization as a potential venue for open discussions on this and other hot topics."
TITLE: Appeal Rejected
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by the Communist Party against a Central Election Commission ruling that 17 out of 19 questions submitted by the party for a referendum were unconstitutional.
The Communists said they would either appeal the decision to a highercourt of in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
"This case has demonstrated that it is impossible to call a referendum in our country," said Vladimir Ulas, the Communists' Moscow chief, Interfax reported.
The commission had ruled that most of the Communists' questions would lead to extra expenditure and thus contradicted the law on referendums.
Critics said the August 2004 law effectively meant no one could call for a referendum without Kremlin support.
TITLE: New Radio
Station Puts
Rights First
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Free Voice, a new St. Petersburg radio station focusing on human rights issues, was officially launched Monday.
The station broadcasts for one hour a day in the dead of the night from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. on medium wave (684 KHz).
Yuly Rybakov, the station's founder and a prominent human rights advocate, said Free Voice will reflect a broad range of opinions on issues including the environment, ethnic tolerance and abuses of human rights.
"The station's name refers to the freedom of speech in the discussions we broadcast," Rybakov said. "Our ultimate goal is to foster a new generation of civil society."
Rybakov said the idea of creating a human rights radio station came to him as he was considering solutions for overcoming the widening gap between the authorities and the public in Russia.
Stressing the absence of feedback mechanisms between people who would like to lead a democratic opposition and their potential supporters, the station's founders say they are hoping that Free Voice will help encourage reconciliation in what they consider a deeply split society.
"The main reason why the independent media is suppressed here is not really the tricks of political intriguers," Rybakov said. "These tricks would have inevitably failed if there was consistent and transparent connection between the government and the governed."
Yevgenia Litvinova, the station's chief editor, said the mission of Free Voice is to show how to remain independent while living in a state where freedoms are suppressed, abused and violated.
"Among our guests will be dissidents whose lives serve as examples of confronting an oppressive regime," Litvinova said. "Those who think differently from rulers shouldn't feel alienated. We are helping them by voicing alternative opinions to those transmitted by state-controlled outlets."
Russia has a centuries-long tradition of a dissident press, which is reflected in a special series at the station.
Both right- and left-wing opposition figures will be encouraged to take part in discussions.
"The idea is to give the microphone to people who are denied the right to speak on the state-controlled media outlets," Litvinova said.
Free Voice gives center stage to the city's human rights groups, including Citizens' Watch, Memorial, Soldiers' Mothers, Night Shelter, the Society for the Protection of Consumers' Rights and the Women's Crisis Center.
Versions of all radio programs can be found, with a few days delay, on the station's web site at www.freevoice.ru.
The station's business plan envisions shifting to day-time broadcast in July, as well as expanding the duration of daily broadcasting up to three hours by September.
A further increase to five hours daily by January 2006 is planned if sufficient funds can be raised through advertising sales.
Litvinova said several local companies fund the station. A key investor is the city's automated waste-treatment plant.
Free Voice features news bulletins as well as a string of feature programs and studio discussions.
All programs are pre-recorded but the station's managers are planning a switch to live radio shows after the broadcast time shifts from night to daytime.
The station's name evokes associations with the two leading international radio stations traditionally covering Russian opposition movements - Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America.
Tatyana Voltskaya of the St. Petersburg bureau of the influential RFE/RL, welcomed the new station. Although dissidents' opinions can be heard at RFE/RL fairly often, local events don't get as much coverage as they would have at a city radio station, she said.
"As an international broadcaster, we offer a global coverage of events, and naturally, the events of local importance fall victim to that strategy," Voltskaya said.
"St. Petersburg needs an independent station giving its full attention to the local scene."
TITLE: Thieves
Prey On
Tourists
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Australian tourists Peter and Ann Rumble barely had time to see something of St. Petersburg's magnificent sights before they fell victim to a gang of pickpockets in the metro and were left cashless for six days.
"It was a traveler's nightmare," their daughter Chantal, who was also visiting the city, said in an e-mailed letter.
Foreign visitors to St. Petersburg are walking targets for pickpockets and the metro, where people are often crushed against others in a confined space, offers pickpockets prime opportunities to rob them. The central stations have the worst reputations.
Those robbed complain that neither the public nor the police appear ready to do anything to help them or to stop the felons even though security cameras monitor the platforms.
The Rumbles were pickpocketed on the morning of April 29, the second day of their visit. The trio entered Mayakovskaya metro station to catch a train to Gostiny Dvor. The station was not crowded at the time.
As the train pulled in and the carriage doors opened, a group of about six or eight men suddenly rushed towards the same carriage entrance, surrounded the family and pushed them into the train, creating a tight crush, Chantal Rumble said.
The men, most of whom wore nondescript blue jeans and black jackets, quickly separated the family. Some held their arms up to the roof, blocking the family from view.
As soon as the train began to move, one man began kicking Ann Rumble on the leg, causing great distress and a distraction, Chantal Rumble said.
During the confusion, one man removed a wallet from the inside zipped pocket of Peter Rumble's jacket. It contained several credit cards and a significant amount of cash in rubles and Australian dollars.
The thieves also removed a small purse from Ann Rumble's backpack, despite her holding her arm over the bag throughout the incident.
"However, it was only when the family alighted at Gostiny Dvor station - and the group of men disappeared into the crowd - that we realized the extent of the robbery," Chantal Rumble said.
Three weeks later an Italian couple - Rosemary and Michele Severino, who were visiting their son Claudio, fell victim to the same scheme.
"On May 19 at 12.15 p.m. we stepped into the metro at Mayakovskaya station. Suddenly five or six huge men blocked the entrance to the train, improvised a crush, surrounded my 73-year- old father and searched him for valuables. He did not call me, as in this moment he did not realize what was going on. They got his wallet and escaped just before the doors closed," Claudio Severino wrote in a letter to The St. Petersburg Times.
Many people outside and inside the train witnessed the theft, but did not react.
"They were only staring at the floor," he said.
The families' ordeal did not end with losing their valuables. Their search for justice turned out to be no less stressful than the attacks.
The Rumble family describes its efforts to inform the authorities of the theft and organize a police report as a wild goose chase.
They were first directed to the police officer at Gostiny Dvor who told them they were the latest in a long line of foreigners who had been robbed at Mayakovskaya station that morning.
He sent the family back to Mayakovskaya station to report the incident to the officer on duty. That officer told the group he was only a sergeant and therefore unable to initiate an investigation or issue a report. He sent them to the Metro Police Headquarters on Pervaya Sovietskaya Ulitsa.
"With great difficulty, we found the poorly signposted office, reported the incident and organized a police report - but only in Russian. Not one police officer spoke English. Nor did they ask for the family's contact details in case the stolen wallets were recovered," said Chantal Rumble, who speaks Russian.
Meanwhile, the thieves had already used Peter Rumble's credit cards to drain one bank account and had begun to access another.
"The situation was compounded by the fact that the robbery took place immediately before the Orthodox Easter holiday weekend, delaying the delivery of an emergency credit card," Chantal Rumble said.
However, when the new card was delivered the following Tuesday, Russian banks refused to service it without the Rumbles' passports, which had been taken from them for registration.
"It was terrible. The family was stranded without access to cash for six days," Chantal Rumble said.
Claudio Severino's family also went straight to a metro employee and described what happened. But the policeman who was supposed to be on duty could not be reached because he had gone for a walk, he said.
The metro employee told Severino that the police knew about the pickpockets' activities.
"These thieves seemed to be 'residents,' of these metro stations and did not feel uncomfortable, as 15 minutes later we saw one of them again at Gostiny Dvor watching out," Severino said.
"I understand that such pickpocketing can happen in every place in the world, but nevertheless something has to be done to make St. Petersburg a bit safer during the tourist season. Like in Moscow, where a minimum two policemen are on the gates of popular metro stations," he said.
Alexei Minailov, head of the St. Petersburg metro's criminal police, said pickpockets had always been a problem in the metro.
A special group of the metro's criminal policemen dressed in plainclothes regularly ride the metro to catch the pickpockets.
"The problem with pickpockets, however, is to catch them red-handed, which must be done for them to be prosecuted. That's very hard to do," Minailov said.
This year alone the metro's criminal police detained 48 pickpockets, 32 of whom were sentenced to jail.
However, courts often release detained pickpockets because pickpocketing is not considered a serious crime, he said.
"Those released pickpockets go back to their business again," he said.
Prevention was the best policy, Minailov said.
People should not carry all their money and documents when taking a metro, should not to keep wallets in their back pockets and should be attentive, he said.
"I'd also advise tourists not to carry their money in wallets at all but carry it separately in several different places," Minailov said.
A tourist surrounded by a group of suspicious people should shout loudly to attract other people's attention, he added.
If tourists are unlucky enough to be pickpocketed, they should go up the metro station escalator and tell the duty police officer what happened. The officer will then contact the city's special police, which deals with foreigners and has interpreters, he said.
He conceded that few metro police speak English.
Asked if the metro should have signs in English warning about pickpockets, Minailov said that would pose problems because the metro is special, and cannot be flooded with all kinds of notices.
"Ideally foreign tourists should be informed by their travel agencies about the risks they may come across in Russia," he said.
Tourists and city residents can also be pickpocketed in the street, and must not ignore this danger, he added.
The metro police had recently received information about suspicious guides, who offer their services to foreign tourists, and later turn to be informers for criminals or pickpockets, Minailov said.
The guides visit different sites with a tourist, watch where he keeps his money and if he has a lot the tourists fall victim to pickpocketing, he said.
Meanwhile, the city prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev said last week that the city police were failing to fulfill their obligations to protect the population, news agency Regnum reported.
Speaking at a meeting of law enforcement leaders discussing how to prevent domestic conflicts, street crimes and recidivism, Zaitsev said that a third of crimes in the city are committed in public places. Only 16 percent of such crimes are solved, which is too low, he said.
The number of crimes registered this year to date is 11.7 percent higher than in the same period last year. The number of serious and especially serious crimes is up by 14.3 percent, Regnum reported.
The number of crimes committed in public places is 30.4 percent higher than in 2004, Zaitsev said.
Some 2,752 crimes were committed by people convicted previously - about the same number as last year and 452 crimes were committed by minors, 2.2 percent fewer than in 2004, the report said.
The City Tourist Information Center Tel. 310 2231, also provides English-language help to crime victims.
TITLE: Foreign Adoption Agencies Denied Accreditation
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - More than a dozen foreign adoption agencies have been denied renewed accreditation following checks by prosecutors, Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said Monday.
"This measure was applied due to violations found in operations of these agencies, including their failure to submit reports on monitoring adopted children abroad," Fridinsky told a meeting of government officials hosted by Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko, Interfax reported.
Fridinsky did not say precisely how many foreign adoption agencies had been denied accreditation by the Education and Science Ministry. He said last week that 87 agencies have operated in Russia over the past 18 months.
At least seven agencies were denied accreditation because they kept operating and processing adoptions after their old accreditation expired, Fridinsky said. Those agencies include U.S.-based International Christian Adoptions and Commonwealth Adoptions International Inc. as well as several Italian, Canadian and Spanish agencies.
Fridinsky also said that unlicensed intermediaries have been participating in adoptions - a practice that is prohibited by law.
International adoptions have been a hot issue in recent months. Cases of Russian children being abused or murdered by their adoptive parents have received widespread coverage in Russian media.
TITLE: Referendum Appeal Weighed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Supreme Court on Monday considered an appeal by the Communist Party against a Central Election Commission's ruling that 17 of 19 questions it had proposed for a referendum were unconstitutional.
The commission said the majority of planned questions - which included such issues as guarantees of free education and salaries above the subsistence level, free television broadcasting time for all parties represented in the legislature and a progressive tax for the wealthy - could lead to additional expenditures for the state budget, according to Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
The election commission did approve of two questions: on returning to a mixed system for electing deputies to the State Duma, allowing for MPs to be elected in individual races as well as the exclusive single party-list system introduced by President Vladimir Putin; and on preserving deferments from obligatory military service.
The Communists appeared to expect their appeal will fail, since they have called a mass protest outside regional electoral commissions on June 28, Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.
Supporters of the Communists and other opposition parties gathered outside the Supreme Court for a protest Monday.
TITLE: Protest in Favor of Wanted OMON Officer
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: About 30 people participated in a protest in St. Petersburg on Monday against sending city policemen to Chechnya and to defend former city OMON special police officer Sergei Babin.
Chechen prosecutors demanded at the end of last year that Babin be sent to Grozny to face questioning regarding his alleged killing of civilians while he was stationed in the war-torn republic. Although a federal arrest warrant for him has been issued, he has gone into hiding.
"Babin is a hostage of Putin," "We won't give ours to the bandit regime of Kadyrov [Junior]," "Stop the war in Chechnya!" the protesters' placards read.
The protesters - members of the Yabloko youth faction, National Bolsheviks and democratic party Nash Vybor - gathered in front of the city's OMON headquarters on Naberezhnaya Kanala Griboyedova.
They demanded any trial of Babin be held not in Chechnya, but in St. Petersburg.
"We came here to defend St. Petersburg OMON officer Sergei Babin. We demand that he be tried here, not in Chechnya, where there would not be a fair trial," Interfax quoted Andrei Dmitrieyv, head of the National Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg, as saying.
Babin said in December he was shocked when police showed up at his apartment on Dec. 16 and detained him.
A federal warrant for his arrest had been issued a year earlier.
Babin served in Chechnya in a platoon of St. Petersburg OMON officers stationed in the Vedensky district.
Chechen prosecutors suspect him of killing an old man in front of a woman,whom he also robbed of 350 rubles, in 2000. The Chechen prosecutors said Babin had been identified from a picture seen by a witness.
However, Babin said that he neither killed the man nor robbed any woman, nor was he where the alleged murder took place at the time the crimes are said to have occurred, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported in March.
The commander of Babin's unit, who was with Babin at the time of the crimes, said Babin was many kilometers from the murder scene, the newspaper said.
St. Petersburg police released Babin a day after questioning.
Sergei Gulyayev, deputy of the city Legislative Assembly, who is lobbying on Babin's behalf, said Monday that there were no grounds to doubt Babin's innocence.
"While in Chechnya, Babin served as a sapper and never even shot a terrorist, and he wasn't at the scene of the murder," Gulyayev said.
Gulyayev said if Babin was sent to Chechnya for trial, he could easily die there, even before appearing in court.
Babin would especially be in danger if he were put in the same prison as Chechen terrorists.
It was not yet clear why Chechen prosecutors decided to pursue Babin.
However, Gulyayev said that if Russian authorities did not protect Babin, the St. Petersburg OMON could refuse to go to Chechnya on the grounds that they could not do their job safely, Gulyayev said.
He suggested this was exactly what the people around deputy Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov wanted in order to have total control in the republic.
TITLE: Prosecutors Rule Paper's Use of Word 'Zhid' Is Legal
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The City Prosecutor's Office has again refused to open a criminal case for inciting ethnic or religious intolerance over anti-Semitic articles printed in two city newspapers, Za Russkoye Delo and Rus Pravoslavnaya.
In a written explanation of the refusal, deputy city prosecutor Alexander Korsunov declared that the derogatory term "zhid," or Yid, does not denote adherents of a specific religion.
"The term 'zhid' [mentioned in the article] and its grammatical modifications are not officially recognized as ... belonging to a certain religion," he wrote.
"The pretentious attitude of the author of the article and editors-in-chief to Judaic dogma, introduced in the article 'Jewish Happiness, Russian Tears," is based on an analysis of the officially published book 'Kitzur Shulchan Arukh,' which contains instructions of the rules of behavior for people of Jewish nationality towards non-Jews," Korsunov wrote.
The book is an ancient Jewish text.
"An appeal by the author [Korsunov] to the Prosecutor General with the request to check the data given in the book, and in case of its confirmation to forbid the activities of Jewish national religious unions as extremist ones, his desire to attract readers' attention to existing differences between dogmas ... in the absence of any calls for committing illegal actions against representatives of this or that nation, race or religion, provoking hatred or hostility ... does not constitute a crime as described in article 282 part 1 of the Criminal Code ... ," he said.
The request to open a criminal case came from Ruslan Linkov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Democratic Russia, and Yury Vdovin, co-chairman of human rights organization Citizens' Watch.
Linkov and Vdovin in January 2005 criticized Rus Pravoslavnaya for publishing a so-called "letter of 500," which was "saturated with extremism and hatred toward Jews."
The letter was signed by 20 State Duma deputies.
The City Prosecutor's Office first rejected opening a criminal case, deciding that a warning to the newspapers was sufficient. In May they decided to reconsider the rights activists' request.
The newspapers' editors have argued that the prosecutor's office has been too harsh toward them.
In repeated comments to The St. Petersburg Times, the editors of the newspapers have denied the charges, saying all they did was analyze historical materials.
Vdovin said he did not accept city prosecutors' explanation.
"It could be a consequence of the secretive sympathy of such bodies for xenophobic moods, including anti-Semitism," Vdovin said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
"Our administration supports such moods on purpose to divert the public's dissatisfaction with the social and economic situation. This way people tend to blame Jews for all their problems rather than the authorities," he said.
There is a danger that "in a while officials would not be able to control such moods," he added.
Linkov said he planned to write a letter to the General Prosecutor to explain his concerns, and to bring an lawsuit against the city prosecution office for its "illegal" and "absolutely unjustified" refusal to open a criminal case against "a blatant crime."
Linkov also said modern Russian dictionaries define "zhid" as an insulting name for Jewish people.
Rabbi Michael Farbman, of the Progressive Jewish Community Shaarei Shalom, said of nationalism in Russia that "Russian nationalism should find the positive in itself, not the negative in others."
"A strong nation is not afraid of anyone," Farbman said, adding that nationalists do not represent all Russians.
TITLE: Border Strike Reduces Checks
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Almost no passport controls have been made of travelers entering Russia from Finland where frontier guards began an 11-day strike on Tuesday.
Senior officers have replaced the strikers at eight of the crossing points on the Finnish-Russian border. The officers focus on those entering Finland.
Reijo Kortelainen, chairman of the striking Finnish Frontier Guards labor union, said neglecting to make the checks of people exiting Finland posed dangers.
"Criminals from throughout Europe can basically come to Russia without security checks," Kortelainen said Thursday in a telephone interview.
Though Russian border staff check the passports of those entering Russia, the Russian databases for European citizens are not as comprehensive as the Finnish ones, he said.
However, Matti Mottonen, head of Frontier Guard Headquarters, said "nothing unacceptable" was happening at the border, adding that there were no traffic delays.
Mottonen said that on the weekend when traffic gets heavier the border may become more difficult to pass, but personnel will also be increased.
Kortelainen said Russians leaving Finland without getting a departure stamp in their passports could face problems when they try to enter Finland again.
However, Pafi Tolvanen, deputy chief of the Frontier Guard district, said those Russian travelers who demand departure stamps will receive them and Finnish officials will show understanding when they want to enter Finland again.
TITLE: Strike Looms
On Border
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Finnish officials were conducting last-minute negotiations late Monday to prevent frontier guards from beginning an 11-day strike that could slow or almost close the Russian-Finnish border beginning Tuesday.
The strike was planned for 6 a.m. on May 31 through June 11, if the dispute remained unresolved.
"We are to hold the last negotiations tonight in order to find an appropriate solution for the situation," Matti Mottonen, head of Frontier Guard Headquaters, said Monday.
Mottonen said that last week the headquarters and other Finnish officials tried to resolve the conflict, offering various solutions to the potential strikers, but those were not accepted.
"We offered to give them a little bit more money because it was one of the demands, but it didn't work, because the frontier guards had all different kinds of other demands," Mottonen said.
More than a week ago, Finnish frontier guards threatened to go on strike and possibly stop road and rail traffic passing across the Russian-Finnish border from Tuesday.
The guards, led by their labor union, demanded higher salaries and protested a new wage system introduced in the country.
Reijo Kortelainen, chairman of the frontier guards' union, said earlier the strike would definitely affect the passage of people and transport at the border.
However, Mottonen said even if the strike went ahead, the border crossings would still function, though the check of passenger traffic would be less thorough.
TITLE: State-Controlled Gazprom Media to Purchase Izvestia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - State-controlled gas giant is to buy control of the influential Izvestia daily from a private conglomerate - a move that could bring one of the country's largest private newspapers under firm Kremlin control.
Gazprom Media gave no details of negotiations for Izvestia, and said it was too early to tell if the deal would lead to changes at the national newspaper.
Time will be needed to see if the paper is working "the right or the wrong way," said Gazprom Media press-service head Anton Sergeyev. He would not elaborate on the possible value of the deal.
"Negotiations on this matter are close to conclusion, and in the coming days we will make an official announcement about the deal," he said.
Citing unnamed sources on both sides of the deal, the Vedomosti business daily reported Thursday that Gazprom Media, a subsidiary of state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, and Interros - a sprawling financial and industrial group controlled by Vladimir Potanin, one of Russia's richest men - were in talks over the possible sale of Potanin's 50.17 percent stake in the paper. Industry players polled by the paper put the value of the deal at between $10 million and $20 million.
Izvestia, which dates from the Soviet period, has national reach with a daily print-run of 200,000.
Andrei Grigoriyev, editor of Kompaniya magazine, suggested Potanin might be seeking to ditch the paper in order to stay on the right side of President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin. Potanin's billionaire peer and fellow oligarch oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in prison Tuesday for fraud and tax evasion in what observers say was punishment for his political ambitions.
Izvestia is a "political asset rather than an object of a media business," Vedomosti quoted Grigoriyev as saying.
Potanin has been seen as careful to avoid the Kremlin's ire. Following the Beslan hostage-taking tragedy in September, Izvestia Editor Raf Shakirov resigned from the paper amid speculation that graphic photographs the paper carried of the bloody denouement spurred the paper's main shareholder to ask him to leave for fear of Kremlin displeasure.
Gazprom has a history of reining in media outlets that challenge the Kremlin line. The company was the tool by which the state wrested control of the famously critical NTV television station from exiled media tycoon owner Vladimir Gusinsky. Gazprom said it was simply calling in Gusinsky's considerable debts.
Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Merkator group media consultancy, called Izvestia "liberal, but in measure."
"The paper will teach its reader - who is educated, liberal-minded, and oriented toward a Western value system - to be loyal to the policies of the Kremlin," Vedomosti quoted him as saying.
TITLE: Vyborg Crime Said Resolved
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The problem of attacks on tourists in Vyborg has been "resolved," local media quoted Vyacheslav Krasavin, executive head of the Northwest region directorate of the Interior Ministry, as saying last week.
He made the statement at a meeting with Ritva Viljanen, director general of Finland's Interior Ministry, in St. Petersburg.
During a visit to Petrozavodsk in March, Viljanen had told Interior Minister Rashid Nurguliyev that muggers were persistently robbing Finnish tourists in Vyborg.
"The numbers of complaints from Finns have been fewer recently. On the square next to the market where most of the attacks took place, a police support unit has opened," Kommersant quoted Krasavin as saying.
"In addition, agreements have been made with market security guards and tourist groups have been instructed how to behave," he added.
Vijanen told Krasavin that the Finnish government is monitoring the web site of an entrepreneur that is raising funds for Chechen separatitsts.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Ammunition on Plane
MOSCOW (SPT) - Police have detained an assistant of a Liberal Democratic Party State Duma deputy, who tried to carry ammunition on board a plane at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport on Sunday
Yury Kuznetsov, assistant to LDPR deputy Sergei Abeltsev, tried to carry on cartridges for a TT pistol and a shell for a grenade launcher, Interfax reported Thursday.
Earlier Vyacheslav Zakharenkov, head of the department of transport security, had said an LDPR deputy had tried to carry ammunition on board a plane using his deputy immunity.
New Phone Numbers
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The city's fixed-line telephone service St. Petersburg Telephone Network, or PTS, on Wednesday began replacing all the city's telephone numbers starting with "1" with "7," and retaining the other six digits.
Until June 17 the numbers can be dialing with "1" or "7" in front, but after that date "7" will be mandatory.
In addition, when the first three numbers were 177, this will become 771 with the last four digits staying the same.
Services in Italian
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - This Sunday the first Italian-language Catholic mass for the summer will be held in St. Catherine's Church at 32/34 Nevsky Prospekt. The services will continue until Sept. 25.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Caricature Case
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The Dzerzhinsky federal court began Monday to consider a charge of libel against Alexei Andreyev, the editor-in-chief of newspaper Novy Peterburg.
The case was initiated by senator Lyudmila Narusova, widow of former city mayor Anatoly Sobchak.
Narusova filed a complaint to the court when she saw a copy of the newspaper featuring several women dressed in Nazi uniforms. Narusova recognized herself among those women.
Expedition to Titanic
KALIININGRAD (SPT) - Images of the Titanic are to be transmitted to the Internet by the Russian submersible Mir and scientific vessel Academician Mstislav Keldysh.
On Saturday, Keldysh left for another expedition to the region where the Titanic and the Bismarck sank, Interfax reported Friday.
This time Keldysh will have on board not only Russian, German, and American scientists but also the crew of famous U.S. movie director James Cameron, who filmed the hit movie "Titanic."
This time Cameron plans to directly transmit live the shooting of the Titanic, and will shoot the Bismarck for a film about the ship, its history and sinking.
HIV Spreads in City
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - About 300 new cases of HIV infection are registered in St. Petersburg every month, the city doctors said.
In 2005, the accumulated total of registered cases is project to surpass 25,000, Interfax reported Friday.
The city's chief infectious diseases expert Aza Rakhmanova said in 2004 the proportion of registered cases of the virus being spread though sexual contact rose from 12.7 percent in 2003 to 16.2 percent.
Session in Apartment
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Dzerzhinsky federal court on Friday held a hearing in an apartment owned by cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his opera singer wife Galina Vishnevskaya to define the lawfulness of plaintiffs' claims against the couple.
The plaintiffs showed court representatives the floors and doors, which they say were damaged due to repairs done in the apartment of Rostropovich, who is planning to to turn the apartment into a museum of composer Dmitry Shostakovich, Interfax reported.
The neighbors are claiming 316,000 rubles ($11,238).
Palace Fountains Open
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Peterhof's fountains were opened Saturday.
Governor Valentina Matviyenko said at the opening ceremony that Peterhof is celebrating its 300th anniversary this year and that there will be more works done to maintain Peterhof's streets, parks and yards.
Kunstkamera Robbed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Two exhibits were stolen from Kunstkamera museum, Interfax reported Monday.
A statue of a bronze group and a Chinese porcelain vase made in the 17-18th century were missing. They are valued at about 1.5 million rubles ($53,000).
8,000-Kilometer Ride
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg traveler Vladimir Ketov plans to ride his bicycle 8,000 kilometers along the coast of Scandinavian peninsula.
Ketov said he will start of his journey from the Arrow of Vasilyevsky Island on June 7, Interfax reported.
Ketov plans to complete his ride in three months. He will transmit photo and audio materials from his trip to the Internet on his mobile phone.
Royal Bones 'Authentic'
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - There are no grounds to doubt the authenticity of the remains of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family, said Ivan Artsishevsky, the official representative of the Romanov dynasty in St. Petersburg.
"I don't see any reasons to doubt the analysis, which confirmed the authenticity of the remains. To my mind, those now suggesting identifying the remains again just have nothing else to do," Artsishevsky told Interfax on Tuesday.
Foreign Student Safety
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg will strengthen its measures to protect foreign students, Interfax quoted Alexander Viktorov, head of the city's science and higher education committee, as saying.
By Sept. 1 all student dormitories, where foreign students live, must be equipped with turnstiles and smartcard devices, Interfax said Tuesday.
"There'll be patrols of places where such students live, and of routes between metro and dormitories," he said.
Plans for New Replica
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A copy of Peter the Great's yacht will be constructed in St. Petersburg, said Vladimir Martous, head of Shtandart project.
"We began to build a replica of the royal yacht Royal Transport in 2000, but had to dissemble it because we didn't have a mooring place.
Shtandart sailed on Friday after taking part in City Day celebrations, and will go to Copenhagen, Kaliningrad, and other ports. It is to return on Sept. 22.
TITLE: Chubais Won't Resign
Over Capital Blackout
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Anatoly Chubais said Saturday that he would not resign as head of Unified Energy Systems in the wake of last week's blackout and lashed out at politicians calling for his ouster.
Chubais, in an interview on Rossia television, said he accepted responsibility for Wednesday's blackout, which left 1.5 million to 2 million people in Moscow and four surrounding regions without electricity, but that he would not bow under pressure to resign from anyone other than UES shareholders, the largest of which is the government.
"The shareholder makes the decision about hiring or firing a manager," Chubais told the "Zerkalo" weekly news program. "I'm a manager, and the shareholder will make a decision. It will be carried out within three minutes."
An investigation into criminal negligence was opened by the Prosecutor General's Office against UES and its Moscow subsidiary, Mosenergo, hours after the blackout, and city prosecutors questioned Chubais for four hours Thursday evening at the Zamoskvoretsky prosecutor's office, Kommersant reported Saturday. A city prosecutor's office spokesman told Kommersant that investigators were unable to get an explanation from Chubais about what exactly caused the blackout.
Chubais' lawyer, Anesa Gubina, said the investigators had offered to cut short the questioning, which began at around 8 p.m., but that Chubais insisted on continuing. "He is swamped with work trying to clean up the accident, and for that reason he wanted to tell the investigators everything at one time," Gubina told Kommersant.
In other televised comments, Chubais lashed out at politicians calling for his resignation.
"Two months ago I was shot at," Chubais told Ren-TV on Saturday, Interfax reported. "Results of the investigation published in all of the papers said two of the gunmen are assistants to deputies of that wonderful Rodina faction. Guys, do you have a faction with a political leader, or an organized crime group with a mob boss, or are you one and the same? And now you want me to bow down before criminals? Are you kidding? I've never done that in my life, and never will. Don't hold your breath."
At a State Duma session Friday, Rodina leader Dmitry Rogozin called on the government to fire Chubais.
"A technological catastrophe happened in Moscow, one that affects the entire country," Rogozin said, Kommersant reported Saturday. "The president has already addressed this. ... The government has addressed the issue; ... parliament should take a position too."
The Duma rejected his resolution.
On a visit to Nizhny Novogorod on Friday, Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said Chubais would soon be called before the Duma to answer questions about the blackout, Itar-Tass reported.
Mayor Yury Luzhkov said Saturday that the city was preparing to sue UES for damages caused by the blackout, and that the losses were being calculated. "We can already say that the losses were great and they are very serious," Itar-Tass reported Luzhkov as saying.
"The city suffered large losses in the housing sector and the social sphere, as well as in trade and industry," Luzhkov said. "About 30,000 people were stuck underground in metro cars; commuter trains ran late. All of which meant not only colossal financial losses, but psychological ones as well."
Luzhkov and Chubais have clashed before over control of the city's power supplies.
Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev on Friday claimed responsibility for the power outage, though Energy and Industry Minister Viktor Khristenko said it was unlikely that terrorists were to blame. The blackout was sparked by a fire at the Chagino substation in southern Moscow.
TITLE: Orthodox Official Praises Pope's Plea for Unity
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A top Russian Orthodox Church official praised Pope Benedict XVI's call for unity but expressed caution Sunday, saying that it should be followed by concrete actions and warning of differences that cannot be bridged easily.
Father Vsevolod Chaplin, who is in charge of foreign relations for the Moscow Patriarchate, said the Russian church was "thankful" for the pope's expression of commitment to closer ties with Orthodox Christians and hoped it "will be followed by real steps to bring our churches closer."
Chaplin said the Russian Orthodox Church was ready to "revitalize the dialogue" with the Roman Catholic Church but warned that some differences cannot be solved easily or quickly, citing a disagreement over whether the Christian world should have a single center.
Choosing an Italian city closely tied to the Orthodox church as the destination of his first papal trip, Benedict pledged to make healing the 1,000-year-old rift with the Orthodox church a "fundamental" commitment of his papacy.
Ties between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church have been strained in recent years amid accusations by the Russian church that the Catholic Church is poaching souls on its traditional territory.
Pope John Paul II had hoped to make a historic visit to Russia during his lifetime, but Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II made it clear that he was not welcome.
TITLE: SPS Will
Stick To
Policies,
Start Lobby
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Union of Right Forces, or SPS, will not review its policies as it attempts to win over voters but instead will launch a public relations campaign with a motto such as "Russia in Europe" to help people understand what the party stands for, two top SPS officials said Monday.
SPS elected a new leadership at a congress Saturday, amid calls from some members to transform from a liberal, pro-business party into one with an oppositional stance to the Kremlin that would set it apart from other parties.
New SPS chairman Nikita Belykh acknowledged Monday that the party faces an uphill fight for voters but insisted that the main problem is a widespread lack of understanding about SPS' ideology.
"Our party is not going to be only the party for the 'Garden Ring,' or rich Muscovites, but a party for all the country," Belykh said at a news conference.
"The plan is to make our party more popular, and this is not going to be an easy task," he said. "Our program is not going to change, but we should find a way to make our ideology understandable for our voters."
Former SPS chairman Boris Nemtsov said at the same news conference that the party should choose a motto understandable to "millions of Russians."
"I think a motto such as 'Russia in Europe' would be liked not only by people who share liberal and democratic ideas, but also by those who have socialist ideas," Nemtsov said.
Russia, he said, needs to decide whether to ally itself more closely with China, Central Asia or the European Union. "Of these three - China, the fundamentalist Central Asian regimes, and Europe - the Union of Right Forces chooses Europe," he said.
Belykh agreed with Nemtsov and said he has spoken with many European ambassadors in Moscow. He did not elaborate.
Belykh dismissed worries voiced by some senior party members that he and his new deputy chairman, Leonid Gozman, had been tapped by SPS co-founder Anatoly Chubais to make the party pro-Kremlin. Gozman is a board member of Unified Energy Systems, the state power monopoly run by Chubais, and is widely seen as Chubais' right-hand man. Belykh, 29, is a deputy governor of Perm.
Belykh said he would resign from that post Tuesday and visit all 40 of the party's regional branches that had not voted for him at Saturday's congress. He was elected by a vote of 155-40.
"People don't know who Belykh is in many regions. I hope to win their trust with my personality," he said.
As far as the Kremlin is concerned, SPS will never be a pocket party, Belykh said. "Nobody from there will call us, but that does not mean that there won't be discussion between us and the Kremlin," he said. "We are ready to cooperate with them, but we'll always be independent."
TITLE: 2 Chechens Held Over Slaying
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: AMSTERDAM - Two Chechens have been arrested in France and the Netherlands in connection with the November slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, Amsterdam prosecutors said Thursday.
The suspect in France was arrested May 18 in the western French city of Tours, and was identified under Dutch privacy rules only as Bislan I., 25, prosecution spokesman Rob Meulenbroek said. The suspect in the Netherlands, identified as Marad J., 22, was arrested April 19 and is being held in Amsterdam.
Both are believed to have ties with a group of Islamic fundamentalists dubbed the Hofstad network by prosecutors, Meulenbroek said.
A 27-year-old Dutchman, Mohammed Bouyeri, is awaiting trial on a charge of murdering Van Gogh and belonging to the same Hofstad network.
Van Gogh was shot and stabbed on an Amsterdam street on Nov. 2. Bouyeri was arrested in a shootout with police minutes later, and at pretrial hearings in his case he said he "wants to be held responsible for his actions," but stopped short of a confession.
Prosecutors have said they believe Bouyeri had logistical support in carrying out the killing but have not charged other suspects.
Meulenbroek said fingerprints of one Chechen suspect were found on a suicide note Bouyeri left, and fingerprints of the other were found on a cassette tape Bouyeri recorded shortly before the killing.
"We're looking for an explanation of how those fingerprints came to be there, and also whether this is related to the murder of Van Gogh," Meulenbroek said.
Bislan I. will be extradited to the Netherlands within weeks, Meulenbroek said.
Separately, 12 other men were arrested in the month following Van Gogh's death for allegedly belonging to the Hofstad network. They face trial in Rotterdam. Lawyers for the men have said they are not guilty.
The Dutch secret service said that several of the 12 Rotterdam suspects received weapons and bomb-making training in Chechnya. Two were arrested at a house in The Hague on Nov. 10 after a standoff in which several police were injured by hand grenades and booby traps.
Van Gogh was an outspoken critic of the treatment of women in some Muslim households, and his killer left a note threatening more attacks in the name of radical Islam. The killing led to a wave of retaliatory attacks on Dutch mosques.
TITLE: Putin Meets Roman Abramovich
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin met with oil tycoon Roman Abramovich in the Kremlin on Friday, showing measured support for the billionaire soccer club owner whom he is expected to nominate for a second term as governor of the remote Chukotka region.
In the meeting, part of which was shown on both main state-run television networks, Putin asked Abramovich to explain why companies in the Chukotka region suffered financial difficulties last year and handed him a document across the table where they sat facing each other.
Abramovich looked at the document and said higher fuel and energy prices were apparently to blame for the problems in the remote region. He said Chukotka's economy had grown fivefold during his term.
Russian media said Putin also had praise for the tycoon, saying there had been some good results on his watch.
TITLE: Reporter Complains
Of FSB Harassment
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Radio Liberty correspondent Yuri Bagrov said last week that a Federal Security Service agent prevented him from covering an opposition rally in North Ossetia this month and then followed him to his office and threatened him.
The incident is the latest in a series of actions by the Federal Security Service, or FSB, and by police that have prevented Bagrov from reporting. Bagrov and media rights groups have linked his troubles to critical reports he has written about Chechnya.
Bagrov said he tried to interview a North Ossetian opposition leader, Alikhan Khugayev, at a rally May 20 of about 700 people protesting regional government corruption in Vladikavkaz. But the FSB agent ordered him to stop, saying he was breaking the law because he did not have proper press accreditation, Bagrov said.
Bagrov, a former Associated Press reporter, was stripped off his passport and press credentials last year when a North Ossetian court convicted him on FSB-initiated charges of using falsified documents to obtain a Russian passport. Bagrov was born in Georgia but lives in Vladikavkaz.
Bagrov said he tried to contest the FSB agent's order on May 20, but that the agent "promised trouble" if he disobeyed.
Bagrov said he recorded their conversation and told the agent that he would include it in a report for Radio Liberty.
Shortly after he returned to his office, the agent entered and demanded that the recording be erased, Bagrov said. "You will have very big problems, much bigger than the ones you have already dealt with," the agent said, according to Bagrov.
"My wife is to give birth in two months. I decided not to argue and erased the tape," Bagrov said.
Bagrov said he has been prevented from reporting many times in recent months. On May 19, the FSB and local police barred him from the trial of Nurpashi Kulayev, the only known survivor of the group of armed militants that seized the Beslan school in September, Bagrov said.
A police officer and several plainclothes FSB officers stopped Bagrov at the entrance of the republic's Supreme Court and told him he could not go in because he lacked press accreditation from the Foreign Ministry, he said.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, condemned the latest incidents and called on Moscow "to take genuine steps to allow Bagrov to report freely."
"CPJ is deeply troubled by the continued harassment of Yuri Bagrov," the media watchdog said in a statement.
The North Ossetian Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, defended its actions, saying in a statement that Bagrov was not registered as a resident in North Ossetia, CPJ said.
However, the ministry said in February that Bagrov was registered as a resident - a statement it made after the FSB had ordered Bagrov deported and media rights groups had protested. At the time, the ministry ruled that Bagrov could stay in Russia and reapply for citizenship.
Neither Ministry officials nor Regional FSB officials could be immediately reached for comment.
A decision on whether Bagrov - whose mother and wife are Russian citizens - will receive a Russian passport is expected in September. Until then, Bagrov is not allowed to leave Vladikavkaz.
TITLE: Evraz Raises $422M In Soft London IPO
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: LONDON - Russia's biggest steelmaker Evraz Group made a quiet London debut on Thursday after raising $422 million in an initial public offering (IPO) that valued the steel and mining group at $5.1 billion.
Evraz ranks among the world's top 15 steelmakers and joins a wave of Russian firms listing in London, after telecoms group Sistema raised $1.6 billion in February and retailer Pyaterochka wrapped up an IPO last month.
Two and a half hours after trading opened Thursday, Evraz global depositary receipts (GDRs) were trading at $14.38, down 0.8 percent from their IPO price of $14.50.
Analysts said the decline was in line with European peers, but that Evraz, as a new entrant, was likely to suffer more from any negativity towards the sector.
"If people get cold feet on the steel cycle, they'll punish this one more than the rest," said one, declining to be named.
Steelmakers have benefited from strong demand from China in recent years but prices have slipped back lately.
Evraz Chief Financial Officer Pavel Tatyanin said this was caused by a winding down of stocks and that high iron ore and coal costs should continue to underpin steel prices.
"It's very good news for us because we pursue an integrated model and we source more than 50 percent of our iron ore and coal internally," he said.
Evraz sold 29.1 million GDRs, or 8.3 percent of its issued share capital, in its IPO at $14.5 apiece. The firm had set an indicative price range of $13.5 to $17 per GDR.
There is an over-allotment option of up to 4.37 million GDRs, which could raise a further $63.3 million if exercised by investment bank Morgan Stanley.
Despite strong world demand for steel, some brokers saw the lower-end pricing of Evraz GDRs as a reflection of the metal market's volatility.
"Current market sentiment regarding steel stocks clearly affected the placement price, as steel shares have shown considerable weakness globally over concerns about future prices for the metal," Aton brokerage said Thursday in a research note.
"By placing the shares at the lower end of the original range, Evrazholding has not capped potential upside, while the high end of the range would have stretched valuations a bit too much," the note said.
Controlled by CEO Alexander Abramov, Evraz produced 13.7 million tons of steel in 2004.
The firm controls the Zapadno-Sibirsky, Nizhniye-Tagilsky and Novokuznetsky steelworks and has said it will use the IPO proceeds to buy mining assets in Russia and Ukraine, as well as downstream operations outside Russia.
(Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: State: Oil Must Be Locally Controlled
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: The government said foreign companies seeking to extract minerals in the country should find local partners, acting to ensure that domestic producers control development of the country's biggest oil, gas and metals fields.
In two weeks the government will submit to the Duma a draft legislation that will propose new limits reserving "strategically important" fields for Russian-controlled companies, Anatoly Ledovskikh, head of the state agency for natural resource use, said Thursday at a conference in Paris.
"Working with a local partner wouldn't present a problem. It's something that we do all around the world," Chevron Corp. spokesman Andy Norman said Thursday by telephone from London. "Any move to clarify the situation of the strategic fields is positive."
President Vladimir Putin has strengthened the government's role in Russia's natural resources industry, which holds 6 percent of the world's oil and 27 percent of its gas. In April, Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev asked Putin to support new laws aimed at increasing investment, in part by restricting foreign ownership of oil and metals deposits.
Already this year the government canceled plans to sell two oil fields (Trebsa and Titova) because TNK-BP might have won the auctions, Ledovskikh said. The Arctic fields hold a total of 657 million barrels of oil, which is more oil than TNK-BP produced last year.
The government also delayed selling the Sukhoi Log gold field and the Udokan copper deposit. Sukhoi Log is Russia's biggest untapped gold deposit with at least 1,000 metric tons of reserves. Udokan, with 20 million metric tons of ore, is the country's biggest copper deposit.
The situation has not deterred foreign firms, but has made some cautious of making new large investments in Russia. Last December, Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Lee Raymond said his company was wary of further major projects in the country.
In a show of consolidation, however, Trutnev said Wednesday that Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the biggest and second-biggest U.S. oil companies, may get priority rights to gain a minority stake in a Sakhalin-3 project. The territory holds 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas, enough to fuel the U.S. for more than two years.
However, the strategically important fields, including Sakhalin-3, will only be sold once the new laws are in place, Ledovskikh said.
(Bloomberg, SPT)
TITLE: Starbucks Tiptoes Into Russian Market
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Global coffee behemoth Starbucks is planning expansion into Russia after quietly opening its first outlet in Moscow last week.
The company has been eyeing the capital's expanding coffee culture for years but is entangled in a legal dispute with a local firm claiming ownership of the Starbucks trademark in Russia.
Seattle-based Starbucks opened its first Russian cafe in the basement of the Renaissance Hotel in Moscow last week. It managed to skirt the trademark question thanks to an international cooperation agreement with Marriott, which owns a stake in the Renaissance.
"We look forward to participating in this market. ... In the next several months, we will have specific answers," said Julio Gutierrez, president of Starbucks Coffee Europe, Middle East and Africa, warding off reporters' questions about the company's specific plans.
Gutierrez flatly dismissed suggestions that the launch was being delayed by the challenge from OOO Starbucks.
Starbucks originally registered its trademarks with Rospatent in 1997. But OOO Starbucks is claiming that the registrations were inactive too long.
"The Starbucks trademark was canceled because it was not used," said Sergei Zuykov, a lawyer for OOO Starbucks, which acquired the registration last year.
OOO Starbucks owns the Russian rights to several trademarks used worldwide, including a logo strikingly similar to the famous green mermaid, said Yevgeny Ariyevich, a partner at Baker & McKenzie, which is representing the U.S. firm in Russia.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: IT to Weigh In at 10%
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia's information technology industry will account for 10 percent of gross domestic product by 2008, double its current share, the Economy Ministry said in its mid-term forecast Thursday, Interfax reported.
IT services will account for 5 percent of all exports by 2008, compared with 0.3 percent now, according to the forecast, the news service said. The percentage of the workforce employed in the industry will quadruple to 5 percent.
Reserves Up by $2.2 Bln
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia's foreign currency and gold reserves jumped to a record $147.1 billion in the week to May 27 as the country benefits from high prices for oil, its biggest export earner.
Reserves rose $2.2 billion in the week, the central bank said in an e-mailed statement Thursday. Central bank reserves pay back foreign debt.
TITLE: Russia and U.S. Discuss Trade 'Action Plan'
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The new U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez flew into St. Petersburg to discuss Monday an "action plan" to increase trade and investments between Russia and the U.S.
Gutierrez met with Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref to work on the details of an action plan that was agreed on by President Vladimir Putin and U.S President George Bush earlier this year.
At a Bratislava summit in February, the two presidents had picked a series of trade and economic issues as vital to promote mutual growth in the future, despite a rising trade turnover between the two countries.
"We will work out the details of the plan by June 30, as instructed by the presidents," Gref said, adding that the steps of the discussion process have already been agreed on.
"We plan to meet with representatives of the U.S.-Russia Business Council (USRBC) to learn the specific obstacles in the way of higher trade turnover between our countries and identify the areas with the greatest cooperation potential," Gref said.
U.S.-Russia trade turnover totaled $9.8 billion last year, a 35 percent increase on 2003. However, this figure was still low compared to potential trade volume between the two countries, Gref said.
The main areas the ministers will target for increased mutual investment and trade are the energy, high-tech and machine building sectors, Gref said. The latter has already enjoyed a number of successful joint projects, such as the Ford plant in the Leningrad Oblast, he said.
An imperative to commercial growth will be Russia's entrance into the World Trade Organization. "The support of the U.S. for Russia's bid to the WTO membership is very constructive," Gref said, adding that he hoped negotiations concerning Russia's entry will be completed this year.
In contrast, Gutierrez was less outspoken in specifying sectors of the economy targeted for increased cooperation, instead saying that the more progressive industry areas will ultimately be selected through consumer demand.
"We will work together with [German] Gref and other Russian officials to improve the environment and investment climate in the target sectors, and it will be up to the companies to invest [in the areas] where they think there is consumer demand," he said.
The trip to St. Petersburg is Gutierrez's first visit to Russia since being appointed to his post in February. Prior to the meeting with Gref, Gutierrez met with local American business representatives at a breakfast briefing sponsored by the St. Petersburg branch of the American Chamber of Commerce, a member of the USRBC.
Head of AmCham in St. Petersburg, Maria Chernobrovkina, said Monday that the meeting, as well as Gutierrez's visit to the city as a whole, was a positive sign for investors in the Northwest region.
Ralf Wagener, partner and head of Ernst & Young in St. Petersburg, agreed, saying that the meeting was "productive" for all sides.
"All participants had a chance to comment on the current obstacles for the potential investments, presenting a picture of what are the issues and what should be addressed to improve the investment attractiveness of the region," Wagener said Monday.
Citing a recent survey by the Foreign Investment Advisory Council (FIAC) and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Wagener identified corruption, administrative barriers, and selective interpretation and application of laws as the main issues marring Russia's investment potential.
"These are the issues that should be worked out first and foremost, and the Russian government indicated previously that it intends to resolve them," Wagener said. "Also, the work of the government on promoting the country's image to foreign investors should be enhanced," he said.
On numerous occasions, FIAC members have reiterated that investment in Russian would intensify if the State communicated information directly to foreign investors and followed up the survey results with concrete steps and actions.
Eric Hansen, deputy director of U.S. Russia Center for Entrepreneurship - a part of U.S. Russia investment fund - said transparency and corporate governance were the main issues for investors.
"Administrative barriers lead companies to try and find lea-ways around them, which makes them non-transparent. It's a vicious circle," he said.
Gutierrez will travel to Moscow Tuesday to meet with business representatives and government officials.
TITLE: Svenska Enters Russia, Retail Service in 2 Years
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Svenska Handelsbanken, one of Scandinavia's leading banks, has announced Tuesday the start of operations in Russia, the latest in a string of foreign lenders to enter the market.
Handelsbanken's Moscow subsidiary, the first in Russia by a Scandinavian bank, will have charter capital of 45 million euros ($55.5 million) and will tailor mostly to Scandinavian and British corporate clients. It plans to move into retail banking in two years, the Swedish bank said.
In addition to the Moscow unit, Handelsbanken plans to open an office in St. Petersburg, which will later become part of the Moscow subsidiary.
"For our main customer group, the Scandinavian and UK corporate clients, Russia is becoming an increasingly interesting market," Lars Gronstedt, the bank's CEO, told reporters. "It's important for us to follow our clients wherever they go."
There are over 1,400 Scandinavian and British companies present in Russia, according to the bank's estimates.
Handelsbanken, Scandinavia's No. 3 bank, has had a representative office in Russia since 1974. With total assets of $185 billion, it currently has over 450 branches in Sweden and 120 branches in other Scandinavian countries and Britain.
As Russia's burgeoning middle class continues to grow, the bank said it was "very interested" in expanding into retail banking in two years, when, by Russian law, it will be allowed to start catering to individuals. The firm, however, reiterated that no plans were set in stone.
"We put in 45 million euros now and will see how far that takes us," said Gronstedt, adding that growth in Russia is more than twice the growth of the saturated markets in Scandinavia.
The bank said that it would bring to Moscow a "very special corporate philosophy," which is not common in the banking world and even less so in Russia. Handelsbanken prides itself on decentralization, whereby many responsibilities are delegated to the branches, the bank said. Market analysts welcomed the news about yet another foreign player entering the banking sector.
Andrew Keeley, a banking analyst with Renaissance Capital, said the move is "another indication of the level of interest in the Russian banking sector on the part of major Western banks."
Foreign banks are prohibited from operating branches in Russia but can open 100 percent-owned subsidiaries, of which there are currently 36.
TITLE: Spending Hike Inflates Fears
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG/MOSCOW - The Cabinet approved an 11 percent hike in spending this year to pay for social services even as officials are under orders to curtail the runaway inflation.
Economists said they saw no easy options left to avoid yet another double-digit inflation this year as consumer prices have already recorded a 6.5 percent rise in the first four months of 2005.
The extra 383 billion rubles ($13.5 billion) allotted for spending this year, almost a third of which will come from the stabilization fund, will go on earlier- promised social programs, including salary and pension hikes. The state vowed to hand out more money to bureaucrats and pensioners after President Vladimir Putin's popularity was dented by protests against turning social benefits into cash.
The decision comes as a blow to economic liberals like Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who have tried to restrain the government from spending more money as its oil tax revenues increase.
"Raising non-interest spending creates monetary grounds for raising inflation by up to 1.5 percent," Kudrin told Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, Reuters reported.
In contrast to slowing economic growth, down to 4.9 percent in the first quarter, compared to 7.3 percent for the same quarter in 2004, Russians have increased their spending.
Growing demand and slowing output means that more money is chasing fewer goods. The shortage causes higher prices and a falling standard of living, a phenomenon that in its extreme form is known as "stagflation."
Fradkov has ordered his ministers to come up with a strategy for fighting inflation by June 6. But the best way to head off price rises of about 12 percent this year is to boost private investment and increase growth, said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog.
"Inflation was dropping in the first half of last year when the economy kept growing at 7 to 8 percent," he said.
However, Sergey Ignatiev, the governor of the Central Bank, said he expects inflation to reverse in July through September as a bumper harvest drives down food prices.
"Our target is to keep inflation at 7 percent to 8 percent this year," he told a banking conference in St. Petersburg. He insisted that the "rising inflation rate is not dependent on the monetary policy" and blamed rising utility prices and import tariffs on meat for booming prices.
Ignatiev's reasons met with skepticism from analysts. "They are not really sticking to their [inflation] target, they are just mouthing it," said Gavrilenkov. "It's not a real target, it's a spell."
Many economists say there is no other option to curtail prices but for the Central Bank to let the ruble appreciate. Monetary authorities keep the national currency artificially low by selling shovelfuls of it in exchange for dollars. The policy, which was designed on orders from the Kremlin, is meant to help Russian manufacturers compete but has also contributed to inflation.
"The Central Bank is in a bind," said Al Breach, chief economist at Brunswick UBS investment bank.
Ignatiev admitted as much Thursday, saying that "to lower inflation to 8.5 percent and not to allow a sharp rise in the real effective exchange rate of the ruble is extraordinarily difficult."
But he ruled out making the ruble stronger on foreign currency exchanges as a way to rein in rising prices. "That would stop economic growth as well as cause problems in the banking sector," he said.
Economic liberals in the government also rue the raiding of the stabilization fund, which was primarily intended to sterilize record oil revenues from seeping into the economy and raising prices.
Though the fund is rapidly growing - it swelled to 31 billion rubles as of May 1, the last period for which data is available - Kudrin had always insisted that the money from the fund should only be used to pay off foreign debt. Putin appeared to support him last week when discussing plans for the 2006 budget.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Machines Win in China
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT)- Power Machines, a major power equipment manufacturer, won the tender to supply machinery to Chinese power station Baishi, the company said Monday.
The contract is worth $46.5 million, Power Machines said in a statement.
The manufacturer will work with a Chinese hydropower equipment plant to supply three machine units providing 140 Megawatts of energy each.
"Power Machines competed against the three largest Chinese power equipment companies, yet was able to win the contract with Hydropower Development Co, the project's developer," the statement said.
Hydropower Development will provide the financing for the project, in which Power Machines' total share will amount to $10 million.
"For Power Machines, Baishi will become the third hydropower project on which the company cooperates with Chinese plants," the company said.
Peterstar Branches Out
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Peterstar, a major alternative tele-communications provider in the Northwest, said Monday it had completed the restructuring of a recently purchased Murmansk-based ADM into a fully operational branch of the telecoms company.
"This is another step of our Northwest business development strategy," the company said in a statement.
Oleg Sobolev, the former head of ADM will assume the position of branch director.
The company said the Murmansk branch will provide corporate as well as private services. "We hope to capture a 40 percent market share in the Internet and IP sectors," the statement said.
Peterstar said it plans to invest $500,000 in the Murmansk branch by the end of the year, including a development of the local transportation network.
EBRD in Fruity Deal
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development may give St. Petersburg-based fruit importer JFC a $55 million loan, the bank said Monday.
JFC, one of the country's main importer of fruits, is seeking financial backing for construction of storage facilities in the central regions of Russia, as well as more remote areas, the bank said in a statement, Interfax reported.
The money could also go towards reconstruction of JFC's existing terminals, a project that will require a total investment of about $193 million, the news agency said.
The bank may provide $55 million as part of the financing for the project in the form of a syndicated, long-term loan. The bank's board of directors will make the final decision over the loan by June 28.
JFC expects to raise a further $15 million through mezzanine financing.
JFC occupies 40 percent of the Russian banana import market, and about 30 percent of other fruit markets, the company said. The importer's net profit jumped to $9 million in 2004, compared to $5.5 million in 2003.
Gazprom Purchase Nears
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia will acquire control over Gazprom, the world's largest producer of natural gas, before the end of next month, Interfax reported, citing Economy Minister German Gref.
Russia will boost its stake in the gas company to more than 50 percent, the Economy Ministry said May 17.
TITLE: InBev Might Buy Tinkoff
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: InBev subsidiary Sun Interbrew is on the verge of buying St. Petersburg-based Tinkoff brewery, Kommersant business daily reported Thursday.
Sun Interbrew has already signed a preliminary agreement to buy Tinkoff and is now finalizing the acquisition details, anonymous sources close to the deal told the paper.
Kommersant quoted sources and experts as saying Sun Interbrew would pay up to $300 million for Tinkoff, which had revenues of $42.5 million in 2004 and carried more than $100 million in debt.
InBev declined to comment, but the world's biggest brewer by volume has said it was looking to expand in Russia.
Russia is one of the fastest-growing beer markets in the world. In recent years, the Russian market has become the world's fifth largest after China, the United States, Germany and Brazil.
Tinkoff is owned by founder Oleg Tinkov, one of Russia's most creative entrepreneurs, who previously controlled electronics retailer Technoshock and Darya meat-processing plants. His city-based Tinkoff brewery focuses on premium beer under the names of Tinkoff, Tekiza, Zooom and T, and holds about 1 percent of the national market.
Through Sun Interbrew, InBev has a market share of more than 15 percent, making it the second-largest brewer in the country, behind Baltic Beverages Holding. The beer brands in the Sun Interbrew portfolio include Klinskoye, Tolstyak, Sibirskaya Korona, Staropramen, Stella Artois and Beck's.
(Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: Nokian to Expand Via Russian Operations
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: HELSINKI - Nokian Renkaat Oyj, the largest Nordic tiremaker, is betting on expansion in Russia to stay ahead of competitors including Michelin & Cie. and Continental AG in former Soviet countries.
A factory opening outside St. Petersburg in June is expected to reach annual capacity of 4 million tires by 2008, Chief Executive Officer Kim Gran said.
Nokian, a Finland-based company, is the biggest foreign tire supplier in Russia. It plans to triple the St. Petersburg plant's yearly production to 12 million tires to match demand expanding at 15 percent a year.
Russia overtook Finland as Nokian's biggest single market in the first quarter. Focusing on winter and high-performance summer tires has helped make the former unit of cellular-phone company Nokia Oyj more profitable and faster growing than bigger competitors, such as global leader Bridgestone.
"Our guns are aiming at one point instead of firing randomly," Gran, 50, said in an interview at corporate headquarters May 20. "It's enough that we are the maker of the world's best-quality winter tires."
Nokian Renkaat stock has almost doubled in the past year, valuing the company at 1.73 billion euros ($2.1 billion).
"Russia is a big market for a company the size of Nokian," said Kim Gorschelnik, an analyst at FIM Securities in Helsinki. "Having their own factory there gives them broader possibilities than relying on imports would."
Nokian Renkaat, founded in 1898 as Suomen Gummitehdas to sell galoshes to St. Petersburg, was the world's first maker of winter tires in 1934 and became part of Nokia Oyj in 1966.
Earnings before interest and taxes as a proportion of sales last year were up to 18 percent. This can compare with a 14 percent operating margin at Tokyo-based Bridgestone, the world's biggest tiremaker by sales; 8 percent at Michelin, Europe's biggest; and 9.8 percent at Continental, the world's fourth-biggest.
Nokian plans to double sales to 1.2 billion euros by 2009 and be the most profitable tiremaker worldwide.
Revenue has more than tripled in 10 years even as growth has been curbed by capacity constraints, Gran said. The company wants new products to account for about 25 percent of revenue will each year.
Basing growth plans on Russia doesn't come without risks, Gran said, as gross domestic product growth is driven by volatile energy prices and political shifts, corruption and red tape can make projects unprofitable.
Nokian has 26 percent of Russia's winter tire market and 10 percent for summer tires.
Replacement passenger-tire sales may exceed 50 million units by 2010 versus more than 20 million tires last year, according to Moscow-based Strategica Management Consulting figures in Nokian's annual report.
Japan's Bridgestone tire manufactuer is Nokian's largest owner after acquiring a 18.9 percent stake from Nokia in February 2003. The stake was diluted to 16.8 percent by the end of April.
TITLE: Norilsk Makes an Approach for Gold Fields
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Harmony Gold Mining Chief Executive Bernard Swanepoel said he has received approaches for the company's 11.5 percent stake in Gold Fields from people claiming to represent Russia's Norilsk Nickel.
Swanepoel said he wouldn't comment further until a formal offer was made. Norilsk Deputy Chief Executive Denis Morozov declined to comment Monday when contacted by telephone.
"These people all know where I am, and I can't believe they need to send middle men," Swanepoel said in a telephone interview Monday. "If they want to make an offer, they can approach me directly."
Norilsk has said it would consider buying Harmony's Gold Fields stake, which it acquired in a failed bid for South Africa's second-largest gold producer. The stake is worth 4.12 billion rand ($628 million) at Friday's closing market price.
As yet, no official approach has been made from Gold Fields, the world's fourth-biggest gold producer, to buy back the shares, and Harmony Investor Relations Executive Brenton Saunders declined Monday to identify any other interested parties.
"Gold Fields is on the record as saying that they are buyers of the stake, but we haven't seen anything official," he said.
A Gold Fields spokesman declined to comment Monday, but the firm has previously said it would be interested in buying back the stake.
Last week Gold Fields scuppered a hostile 27 billion-rand bid from Harmony. Norilsk is spinning off its gold unit, Polyus, which owns 20 percent of Gold Fields.
Harmony hasn't offered the shares, Morozov said in a telephone interview in Moscow on Friday.
An analyst said Harmony seemed to be having second thoughts about a buy-back proposal. "I think he's gone back to the drawing board to get an idea on whether it's actually the right thing to do," said the analyst, who declined to be named.
"It is highly-rated paper which it would use cash to buy back. A lot of people would say, this is highly dilutive, do you really want to do this?"
Harmony's Saunders repeated that his company hoped to use the stake for strategic gains rather than simply selling it.
Gold Fields is considering a venture with Norilsk, the world's biggest nickel miner, to boost earnings from overseas assets after the rand's surge cut profit, people familiar with the plan said Wednesday.
The combination would create a gold producer with annual output of about 2.6 million ounces, the world's seventh-biggest.
(Bloomberg, Reuters)
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Ruble May Rise 11%
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - The ruble may rise 11 percent against the U.S. dollar, when adjusted for Russia's higher inflation rate, Interfax reported, citing Andrei Klepach, director of macroeconomic forecasting at the Economic Development and Trade Ministry.
The currency may average 27.80 rubles to the dollar this year, Klepach told reporters in Moscow, Interfax said. The so-called real effective ruble rate will increase by between 9 percent and 10 percent, Klepach said.
Phone Monopoly Ends
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The government said Monday it had issued its first long-distance and international phone service license to a private company, ending the monopoly of state-controlled Rostelekom.
The Federal Communications Monitoring Service said in a statement it had issued the license to Centreinfocom, a little-known company that groups some small telephone service providers.
Russia has promised the European Union it will end Rostelekom's monopoly by 2007 as part of Moscow's efforts to join the World Trade Organization.
"Similar requests from other bidders will be considered soon," the statement said.
Other bidders are fixed-line firm Golden Telekom, owned by Alfa Group and Norway's Telenor, Multiregional TransitTelecom, owned by Sistema and Telekominvest and Transtelekom, owned by Russian railways.
UES Income Soars 69%
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Unified Energy System, the world's largest electricity company by capacity, said profit soared 69 percent last year.
Net income under Russian accounting standards climbed to 54.9 billion rubles ($1.95 billion), from 32.5 billion rubles in 2003, the Moscow-based company said on its web site. Consolidated revenue rose 13 percent to 797.3 billion rubles. Pretax profit was 74.3 billion rubles, versus 56.7 billion rubles in 2003.
Unified Energy hasn't released results for the period calculated to international standards. It posted a net loss in the third quarter of 2003 of 1.3 billion rubles under international accounting standards, according to Bloomberg calculations based on nine-month earnings released by the company in February.
Tank Shares For Sale
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia will sell to the public shares in Uralvagonzavod, the world's largest maker of battle tanks, RIA Novosti said, citing Eduard Rossel, governor of Sverdlovsk, where the company is located.
The government will sell as much as 49 percent of the company next year, after it is taken off a list of strategic enterprises, the state-controlled news service said.
Uralvagonzavod produces the T-72 and T-90 series of tanks, most of which are bought by Russia's Defense Ministry, RIA said.
The company, which also makes railway cars, could be worth more than $1 billion, RIA said, citing Konstantin Makiyenko, the head of the Center for Analysis and Strategies and Technologies.
Foreign Debt Shrinks
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia's foreign debt shrank from $114.4 billion to $108.3 billion as of April 1, after the government used higher revenue from oil exports to pay off all of its debt to the International Monetary Fund ahead of schedule.
TITLE: Khodorkovsky's Trial Stretches Yet Longer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Moscow court reading the verdict in the trial of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky adjourned its 11th day Monday, without making a final statement on guilt or sentencing.
Expectations had been high that the grinding process could be completed Monday. But after about four hours of reading, the court called a break until Tuesday with no clear indication of when the end would come.
Defense lawyers say the court's summation so far of evidence and testimony leaves no doubt that Khodorkovsky will be found guilty on charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement in the case that supporters claim is Kremlin revenge for his funding of opposition parties.
Prosecutors have asked for the maximum 10-year sentence, and observers say the only real uncertainty left is whether the court will impose less than that.
Khodorkovsky, once the CEO of the Yukos oil company and with a fortune estimated as high as US$15 billion, has been in jail since his October 2003 arrest when special forces stormed his private plane as it sat on the tarmac at a Siberian airport.
The centerpiece of the case had been charges connected to the 1994 acquisition of shares in a lucrative fertilizer component maker through a privatization auction that Khodorkovsky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev allegedly rigged.
That episode has not been addressed by the court and the expiration of the 10-year statute of limitations appears to mean he could not be sentenced if found guilty. After the court completed addressing other charges on Friday, expectation rose that the charges relating to the fertilizer company could be dealt with perfunctorily.
However, the court spent most of the day Monday considering charges against Andrei Krainov, a former director of the company that acquired the shares in the fertilizer component maker. He faces only some of the same charges as Khodorkovsky and Lebedev and, unlike them, has not been in custody.
The court also reviewed defense challenges to the admissibility of some evidence, but dismissed the complaints, including one motion alleging a defense lawyer's office had been searched without a proper warrant.
Similarly, expert assessments on particular episodes that the defense had sought to have included in the case materials were rejected.
Khodorkovsky's lawyers are expected to appeal a guilty verdict and sentence in the 10-day period allotted under Russian law. Any appeal, which would likely last months, would be heard in the Moscow City Court and would see Khodorkovsky's custody in Moscow extended.
Even were Khodorkovsky to receive a suspended sentence, prosecutors have promised to bring new charges against him and Lebedev for alleged money laundering, which would see his detention extended for the duration of a new trial.
A liberal member of parliament, Vladimir Ryzhkov, suggested Monday that Khodorkovsky's team consider filing an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights, "which will make a decision on the basis of common sense and law," the Interfax news agency reported.
TITLE: AvtoVAZ to Axe 4,000 Jobs Amid Sales Slump
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - AvtoVAZ, the country's largest carmaker, plans to cut 4,000 jobs this year because of a drop in its production plan for 2005.
The news comes as the domestic car industry is struggling to keep up output as foreign auto makers aggressively carve out market share in Russia.
AvtoVAZ board chair Vladimir Kadannikov made the announcement at the company's annual shareholders meeting on Saturday.
"[We] will do that as painlessly and naturally as possible," said Kadannikov, Interfax reported Monday.
The company said that some workers would be sent into early retirement, while others may eventually be employed on assembly lines producing the company's latest model, the Kalina.
Last week AvtoVAZ announced it had revised its 2005 production figures to 694,000, down from 730,000, Interfax reported. Last year AvtoVAZ wheeled out 718,000 cars. Earlier this month, the carmaker ended its Saturday shifts.
AvtoVAZ is not alone in having to eliminate jobs on falling demand. No. 2 carmaker IzhAvto said last month that it plans to let 4,000 workers go by the end of the year.
On Monday, UAZ, a maker of off-road vehicles, posted losses of 71,000,000 rubles ($2,525,000) in the first quarter of 2005, Interfax reported. The company had profits of 17,000,000 rubles ($605,000) for the same period last year.
The government has abandoned plans to shield domestic carmakers from foreign competition as part of its bid to join the World Trade Organization.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Timoshenko May Go
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko may be sacked because of the worsening investment climate, Interfax reported, citing Boris Nemtsov, the Russian adviser to Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko.
Timoshenko and Yushchenko are "so different" they won't be able to work together much longer, Nemtsov was quoted by the news agency as saying.
The Timoshenko government has made "grave mistakes," including trying to control energy prices, which has hurt the country, Nemtsov told the news service.
Capital is leaving the country, economic growth is slowing and investment is being reduced in export-orientated industries, Nemtsov said, Interfax reported.
Moscow to Sue UES
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov said the capital's administration plans to sue national power utility Unified Energy System for losses inflicted on the city by outages on May 25, Interfax reported.
The city has set up a special commission to assess the "very grave" damages, Luzhkov said yesterday during a routine inspection of city facilities in Moscow, Interfax reported. Management at Mosenergo, the Unified Energy unit that supplies most of Moscow's power, is "absolutely incompetent" Luzhkov told Interfax.
Prosecutors on May 26 opened an investigation into whether Unified Energy's management was negligent for outages that left as many as 2 million people without power. Mosenergo needs to increase tariffs to help raise as much as $285 million a year to modernize its grid, Vladislav Nazin, deputy chief economist of Mosenergo, said Sunday.
Mosenergo's current budget only lets the company spend $107 million a year on upgrades.
Yukos May Lose All
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - The government will probably seize the rest of OAO Yukos Oil Co.'s assets, regardless of who is elected to the company's board, Vedomosti said, citing an unidentified person in President Vladimir Putin's administration.
Yukos Chairman Viktor Gera-shchenko, the former Russian central banker, handpicked candidates for the new 11-member board after shareholders failed to put forward any names, Vedomosti said. Four foreign directors quit last year, the newspaper said.
Gerashchenko nominated himself and four other current directors, including Chief Executive Officer Steven Theede and Deputy CEO Yuri Beilin, Vedomosti reported. New nominees include Ivan Silayev, the former chairman of the Soviet Union's council of ministers who now heads the Union of Machine Builders, and Alexander Semikoz, a member of Evrofinance Mosnarbank's audit committee, the newspaper said.
Telenor Defies Alfa
OSLO (Bloomberg) - Alfa Group, one of Russia's largest industrial-financial holdings, and its main owner, Mikhail Fridman, will never be allowed to own a stake in Telenor ASA, Norway's dominant phone company, Dagens Naeringsliv reported, citing Norway's Industry Minister Boerge Brende.
Alfa Group and Telenor are vying for control of VimpelCom, Russia's No. 2 mobile-phone company. One option may have been for Alfa to swap its VimpelCom stake for shares in Telenor, a move that would dilute the Norwegian government's 53 percent stake.
"It has never been an issue, and never will be, to agree to an industrial solution where the state dilutes its Telenor stake to get in Fridman and the Alfa Group,'' Brende said, according to the Oslo-based newspaper.
TITLE: Former Chernobyl Pilot Soars Above His Obstacles
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - If there are men who have gone through fire and water, Nikolai Melnik is certainly one of them.
Once a test pilot, Melnik lives in Spain, where he has received a royal award for his efforts in aerial firefighting. His most dangerous mission, however, came in 1986, when he was sent to help measure radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after one of its reactors exploded.
Making about 40 sorties to the area, he was hit by radiation 10 times above the permitted level. Predictably, medical complications ensued.
"In 1994, I had two operations. ... Doctors told me to stay away from drinking and smoking, and lead a normal life," Melnik said as he lit a cigarette. "A month later, I decided I would live the way I like, not limiting myself in anything."
For the past decade, Melnik, 51, has been living comfortably with his wife and son in a house in Alicante, Spain, fighting fires and helping out in emergency situations.
Living what he calls a calm and stable life in Spain, Melnik said he would trade it back for the years when he did "real man's work."
"If I was given what I had back in the Soviet times, I would not have gone to Spain," he said. "What I do in Spain now is a game for kids. I used to do serious risk-related work."
Back in 1986, working as a test pilot with the Kamov helicopter design bureau, Melnik was summoned to Moscow to prepare for the Chernobyl mission.
However, it was only on the way to Borispol Airport in Kiev that he was told what he would be doing.
Melnik's task was to place radiation sensors in the reactor by dropping them with a 200-meter cable from his helicopter.
"I just thought, 'Woe is my youth!' when we were told what we were about to do," Melnik said. "I was 32 years old."
A few days before flying to Kiev, he was practicing the maneuver he would have to perform at Chernobyl at the Kamov facility in southeast Moscow: dropping a heavy weight into a small circle.
"It looked like a preparation for some official show," he said.
Melnik's interest in aviation followed his father, who was among the first pilots to test-fly the MiG-9, the first jet fighter made by the famous design bureau after World War II.
In 1972, Melnik started off his career as a pilot flying the Czechoslovak L-29 trainer jet, later progressing to the MiG-17 and MiG-21 jet fighters. Five years later, he was forced to switch to civilian planes, having been decommissioned after he suffered partial hearing loss in his left ear due to a sudden depressurization in the cockpit at 7,000 meters.
Melnik moved to Aeroflot, where he got his first taste of flying helicopters. He flew various types of craft, including the workhorse Mi-8 and superheavy transport Mi-26, starting at Kamov in 1982.
After the Soviet Union broke up, Melnik, who had been named a Hero of the Soviet Union for his work at Chernobyl, had to make a move again, and he set up a cargo airline in Kiev.
"When [the country] broke up, I realized that as a Hero of the Soviet Union, I would either be wearing a dirty jacket and begging like a babushka, or have to get myself a new job," Melnik said.
In 1993, Melnik and a Bulgarian partner set up the airline in Ukraine, shipping cargo for DHL and UPS on Antonov 24s and Kamov helicopters. The business did well enough for the Spanish company Helicopteros Del Sureste to approach him in 1995 about obtaining some helicopters.
"When [the Spanish firm's representatives] came over in 1995, we had complete disorder here in the country," Melnik said. "People were pulling the wool over their eyes for months, taking them [horseriding] and to saunas, but never gave them business. In 1 1/2 months, we found six Mi-8s and two Ka-32s for them."
Melnik and his family moved to Spain, where he became a pilot and instructor for Helicopteros Del Sureste, one of the country's largest helicopter operators, and a link to Kamov, which supplies Ka-32 helicopters to the Spanish company. Business between the two firms has taken off.
Melnik has 13,400 recorded flight hours, 3,000 of them in Spain. He has trained 25 Spanish pilots, and in 1998 he received his award from Spain's King Juan Carlos for firefighting but shies away when asked about it.
"He is not a man of many words," said Luis Alzira, a pilot he trained. "He would not go about being proud. He just does it because it's his job and he likes it.
"But he is a true professional with lots of experience, and one you can learn a lot from. When you want to try something new, he shows how to do it and has faith in you."
TITLE: City Complex Named Nations' Best for Entertainment
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: An entertainment center from St. Petersburg, called Materik ("Continent"), was honored with one of the top prizes at the second annual Commercial Real Estate Awards. It won in the category of the best entertainment complex in the country completed in 2004.
Materik, the largest entertainment center in the Nevsky District, opened its doors in December 2004. It stands on Pyatiletok Prospekt, next to Prospekt Bolshevikov metro station and across from the Ice Palace.
"The name of the complex fully reflects its main concept, which also serves as the organizing idea for its design in the style of fusion," said Alina Shirina, public relations director for Materik.
Sponsored by Raiffeisenbank Austria, Jones Lang LaSalle, URSA Eurasia and other companies active in Russia's property market, the Commercial Real Estate Awards considered venues launched in the country throughout last year.
"The criteria for the competition were drawn together using the standards of Urban Land Institute, International Council of Shopping Centers, and the specifics of the commercial real estate market in Russia," said Julia Mityukhina, the project manager for Commercial Real Estate Awards 2005.
Materik, designed by the Architectural Studio of Sergei Televnoi, is part of a larger Torgovy Dvor retail complex and consists of four distinct zones, which refer to various areas of the world.
"This entertainment center is interesting for two reasons," said Irina Anisimova, the managing director of Astera real estate agency. "First, its location is in a district with growing residential infrastructure, near Prospekt Bolshevikov and the Ice palace."
"Also, it features an imaginative ornamental design scheme, where every interior sector is decorated in the style of a different continent."
The restaurant and its classical colonnaded interior evoke Europe; the coffee shop creates a South African ambiance while the dance hall uses African-inspired decorative motifs. The overall area is just over 2,000 square meters.
"We were able to realize the principle of flowing space," Shirina said. "It makes strolls around the interior possible: you enter the successive spaces and soon grasp that you can always continue somewhere else."
At the heart of Materik is a massive bowling hall that conveys the visual experience of polar night. Neon lamps, for example, conjure up northern lights; shimmering columns signify icebergs, and the overall decorative scheme is bathed in the icy blue of the ocean.
The setting features 12 bowling lanes. All equipment is supplied by Brunswick, one of the leading makers of bowling gear.
The management of Torgovy Dvor company expects the project to come into profit in five years. Investments have so far totaled around $ 1.5 million. A recreational area and pedestrian zones are planned around Materik in an effort to integrate it more fully with the surroundings.
"The market practice shows that entertainment centers are typically located within larger retail complexes," said Nikolai Kazansky, a senior consultant at the St. Petersburg office at Colliers International.
"That's not surprising. The yield on investments into construction of entertainment centers is lower than that on retail development in general. Leisure and recreation areas are used to maximize the use of available space and also to boost the popular appeal of the complex for customers."
Proximity to several major thoroughfares places Materik at a strategic crossroads of this city area. Pyatiletok Prospekt, Prospekt Bolshevikov, Ulitsa Kollontai, and Rossiisky Prospekt all pass in the vicinity, making the complex widely accessible.
The Nevsky District, despite its bleak Soviet-era housing blocks, is one of the fastest growing areas of the city. Around 60,000 square meters of new residential space is completed every year.
Materik follows the trend of placing entertainment and retail centers away from the city center and moving them closer toward expanding residential areas. The growing cottage communities in the Moscow region, for example, continue to draw the attention of developers of such venues, who also prefer sites adjacent to major highways.
Anisimova noted that St. Petersburg still lacks modern entertainment venues at the moment, even though around 10 projects are under construction. These include Planeta Neptun in the city center and the Varshavsky Express retail and entertainment complex, located in the building of the former Varshavsky Station. None of them will be realized earlier than 2006.
She also cautioned against attributing disproportionate citywide significance to the emergence of Materik and the accolades it has received. "Materik does not hold particular interest from the point of view of the range of entertainment it provides," she said.
"It is successful as a recreational area that serves the purposes of a district. But its opening will hardly have wide implications in the context of the entire city."
TITLE: Dachas Offer Bucolic Charm and Elite Modern Comforts
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As the days lengthen and temperatures finally rise, many people's thoughts will be turning away from the stuffy, mosquito-ridden confines of the city towards a rural retreat where tranquility reigns.
Dacha season is upon us once again, although nowadays it seems as if the tradition of one-story wooden dwellings is losing out in the popularity stakes.
"These days Russians with money want big modern houses," said Paul May, general manager of City Realty, " It's Westerners who are interested in the stereotypical wooden dachas."
Yet despite this romanticized view of simple country living, a traditional dacha for expats doesn't mean a dilapidated Soviet-style shack. "Foreigners on average will spend upwards of $500 per month on renting their dachas," said Yulia Anikeyeva, managing director of property advisers DTZ Zadelhoff Tie Leung.
For this they will get a good quality building with water, gas, and electricity, and the property will usually be near the Gulf of Finland or in the lakes region.
Among Russians the demand is for newer, flashier, three-story "cottages" with full security, water purification systems, and complete modern furnishings.
However, a summer palace of this sort does not come cheaply. In the most fashionable areas to the north of the city such as Komarovo and Sestroretsk, newly built dachas have been known to sell for up to $1 million.
This of course is the very top end of the scale, but, as Anikeyeva said, people are buying the prestigious locations as much as the property.
"The area north of the city became popular among new Russians because it had big value for the former Soviet bohemians [artists, writers, actors]," she said.
"It became fashionable to have even a small house in this area."
The price also gets bumped up if a dacha is near a body of water and if it's easily accessible from the city, making it a quick weekend getaway. Most dachas are situated between 6 and 60 kilometers from the city, although recently some have been built inside the city limits near the Ozerki metro station.
Areas to the south of the city such as Pushkin and Pavlovsk, once favored summer haunts of the tsars and aristocrats, are also increasingly sought after.
Due to the poor road network in this region, top-of-the-range dachas will sell for only about half the amount of their equivalents in Sestroretsk. But as the infrastructure develops, the prices are rising.
At the other end of the property market, for those who really don't mind roughing it, a one-room dacha can be picked up for as little as $2,000 to $3,000 a month.
However, the title of holiday home may be a little too lofty for these single-room huts, which usually have electricity, but no gas or water supply.
You may not mind such a lack of basic amenities if your dacha is situated in a leafy forest glade not far from the bank of a languid river.
But as Leonid Karankevich, manager of real estate sales from City Realty points out, many of the cheapest dachas are built on recently cleared forest land, or on old garden plots that are being redeveloped.
"Many developers are selling sotki, which are re-zoned plots of no more than 100 square meters," he said.
Overall, the demand for renting dachas is high but supply is low, with people tending to keep their dachas for personal use.
Hence the rental market has been growing steadily since 2001, with prices up around 15 percent a year in the last four years.
For the most part it is Westerners and Muscovites who are looking to rent, while local people are more likely to buy.
The Muscovites are usually businessmen based in the city who want somewhere for their wives or children, and have much bigger budgets to play with.
"They are willing to pay from $5,000 to $10,000 per month," Anikeyeva said, "but they expect much better quality than is generally available around St. Petersburg."
Many seasonal dachas for foreigners are rented out through the human resources departments of the companies that they work for.
In this case, companies prefer to rent because some consider buying property in Russia to be a risk.
Furthermore, while real estate purchases always have to be declared to tax authorities, seasonal leasing arrangements are not necessarily checked.
Even so, DTZ estimates that only about 10 percent of St. Petersburg's expat community are using dachas, and most of them have Russian wives.
So if you have your heart set on a summer retreat, what's the best way of getting your hands on one?
Well, unfortunately for season rental you may already be a little late.
According to agency Alexander-Nedvizhmosti, the best time to start enquiries is around February, and to have a monthly budget from $500 to $10,000.
However, it is possible to rent dachas by the month, week or even day if they're not already taken for the whole season.
As there are very few firms that deal specifically in dachas, another option that many Russians use is to go to dacha villages at the beginning of the spring - or indeed - whenever it is you want to rent, and look for handwritten advertisements that will be put up in windows.
This avoids the extra expense of going through an agency, which can still happen even if you look through newspaper ads to find your dacha.
"Often when you ring up a number in the paper, it won't be clear that you are dealing with an agency until you have spoken several times," Anikeyeva. "You should always check if you are dealing with agencies or individuals."
TITLE: IT Needs More than Spare Change
TEXT: Russia has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in information technology, if it does not shoot itself in the foot.
Just look at what India has accomplished. It has become the world's software, IT and business process outsourcing leader. Virtually overnight, it has taken the majority of what analyst Datamonitor recently predicted will be a $163 billion marketplace globally - and that's just IT outsourcing. In software exports alone, India sold $12.8 billion in 2003-2004, and this sector employed more than 770,000 people. And India does not even have the world's best programming minds.
Russia does.
IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman has been trumpeting this fact for several years now. On April 4, just before his speech at the Russian Economic Forum in London, Reiman said, "Our vision is for Russia to become a global center of innovation and entrepreneurship, a place where radically new, breakthrough technologies are developed. We want Russia to be a place where the next big thing is born."
Reiman has been exhorting President Vladimir Putin to borrow a page from the other countries that invest heavily and successfully in their own economic development in certain sectors, and particularly to borrow a page from India, where government officials made a high-profile visit earlier this year. And Reiman has not been without success.
Yet, to accomplish what Reiman is proposing, Russia needs to get over its arrogant and distracting fascination with natural resources and move boldly into the IT future, using its oil windfall revenues as funding levers. These resources are finite. Though it may take 100 years, they will run out.
Putin seems to have gotten Reiman's message and has recently been moving in the right direction recently. "We all know that diversification of the economy is one of the priority tasks," Putin stated at a January government meeting dedicated to promoting IT and manufacturing in Akademgorodok, a scientific center near the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. "The need to do away with too much dependence of our economy on raw materials is obvious. Unfortunately, not much has been done to implement this task," he said, Itar-Tass reported.
This is blisteringly obvious. For instance, if the city of Singapore's economic development board has more than 700 people around the world promoting their city-state of 3 million people, it seems a bit bizarre that 140 million-strong Russia has precisely zero people doing the same thing.
Yet Putin is also on top of this problem. A new initiative, propelled forward by Reiman, would set up technology parks in as many as 10 special economic zones, slated to become "fully fledged market projects" by 2010, with tax breaks and reduced customs duties on imported equipment for high-tech companies. This is a good start - but not enough.
Reiman earmarked 18 billion rubles ($644 million) in government money over the next five years for strengthening the Russian IT sector and helping it advance on the world stage. Again, good but not good enough.
Roughly equivalent to the annual Russian government funding of the entire Russian Academy of Sciences, it would be delusional to think that this would be enough financial support to turn Russia into "one of the world's top 10 countries in IT by 2010," as Reiman suggested. This amount is also roughly equivalent to the annual budget for the University of California at Davis, one of the smaller campuses in the large University of California system. So, Russia's entire financial commitment to the IT sector equates to the money available for one small university campus in the United States? Better $644 million than nothing, however.
Thus, Reiman and Putin are on the right track, but they need to do even more, to spend even more and direct even more of Russia's big thinkers to the campaign for Russian technological advancement and eventual domination. They should bring in successful Russian IT businessmen - like inventor and entrepreneur Alexander Galitsky, computer and software magnate Anatoly Karachinsky, talented entrepreneur Valentin Makarov and business genius Roustam Tariko - to consult. They should listen to them closely and implement their ideas widely.
But while Reiman and his ideas may be right, what about the complicated corruption charges and complex conflict of interest claims regarding the minister and MegaFon? For more than 70 years, Soviet governance was untrustworthy and dishonest, and it seems counterproductive at this point to hold a government in its infancy to difficult, near impossible standards. The suggestion of impropriety, conflicts of interest or even outright corruption should be overlooked, as long as the right things are being done to exercise Russian technological muscle. This tradeoff would reflect and continue the typical Russian attitude toward their politicians' malfeasance. Eventually, corruption and shady dealings should end, and Russia, like other nations, should come to expect at minimum that the "appearance" of propriety be shown.
For now, while the country's economy needs pruning, direction and vision to develop its strengths, a little of this old, omnipresent duplicity should be tolerated, particularly given the casual way it has been disregarded in the past.
Yet, regardless of what is going on behind the scenes, the government must stop sending negative messages to Western investors in the form of crusades against oligarchs, entrepreneurs and the general business community. It must stop seizing assets and inflicting questionable tax burdens. The idea that foreign investment will be met with legal difficulties in enforcing contracts, mismanagement by Russian staff, or even worse, outright theft or loss of that investment money, will make Russia a pariah in the worldwide business community - if it isn't already.
Reiman and Putin should be held accountable for what they do and what they don't do to encourage investment. Right now, from a purely technology and economic development perspective, they are moving in the right general direction. The time is right to pick up the pace and start marching double-time.
Bill Robinson is a freelance journalist specializing in IT. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: In the Footsteps of Dostoevsky
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Two myths cling to the perception of 19th century novelist and short-story writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881).
The first myth says that he was born in St. Petersburg, the city where most of the action in his books takes place. The second myth is that he was a gloomy and lonely person, a conclusion made by readers from the mood of his novels and short stories.
In Dostoevsky's works the atmosphere of St. Petersburg is so vividly depicted that it becomes more of a character than a setting. The city with its beauty and its bleakness is revealed in his books in a way that no other has succeeded in doing.
But, Dostoevsky was not a native St. Petersburger. He was born in Moscow where he lived for 15 years until his father sent him and his brother to an Engineers' College in St. Petersburg.
He was far from a miserable fellow and led a happy family life with a loving wife and two children.
So what did the young man see in the new city, which when he arrived was known to him only through the poems of Russia's national poet Alexander Pushkin.
He saw churches and cathedrals which he liked most of all. He liked the city because they looked so great and perfect and harmonious. But he did not like the architecture. He called it a "muddle." Most of the building were dokhodny or tenement houses.
He used to walk along the mysterious embankments of St. Petersburg - the Catherine canal, the Fontanka and the Neva. He saw classical Petersburg with the Hermitage and the architectural ensembles of Ploshchad Iskusstv, Senate Square and the Kazan Cathedral.
His first impressions influenced him so much that he fell in love with St. Petersburg and stayed besotted with it until his dying day.
Influenced by Pushkin, he saw the city in its most romantic time of the year - late spring, during the White Nights. St. Petersburg appears in Dostoevsky's works as a beautiful, poetic city. Whenever Dostoevsky left, he always returned because he was incapable of bidding it farewell forever.
However, while the young Dostoevsky's imagination soared in response to the city on the Neva, he also had to deal with day-to-day life on its streets and lanes. Very soon he saw another side of the city: it can be ruthless toward individuals, especially poor ones. Its unreal, mystical, alien atmosphere can drive people out of their minds.
Being the son of a poor doctor, he was well-suited to see these downsides and he had to adapt to a completely new city.
Dostoevsky's first three years in the city were spent at the Head Engineer's College where he was a top student. Located at 2 Sadovaya Ulitsa, the building is now famous as the Mikhailovsky Palace. Tsar Paul I built the fortress-like castle, but did not enjoy his stay in it for long, because he was murdered there after 40 days.
After graduating from the college, Dostoevsky rented an apartment at 11 Vladimirsky Prospekt, where he wrote his first novel "Poor People." He would change apartments 20 times in St. Petersburg, living between one and three years or in each. Nowadays nothing is left of his stay in his first dwelling: it is little different to any other 19th century house between Sennaya Ploshchad and Vladimirskaya Ploshchad could have been rented by the writer.
In mid-19th century St. Petersburg the edge of the city was along the Obvodny Canal. The area around Sennaya Ploshchad, or the Haymarket, was inhabited by the lower and middle class: craftsmen, tradesmen, low ranking state employees. Here is how Dostoevsky describes these people in "Crime and Punishment:"
"In that quarter of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would have created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Haymarket, the number of establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the trading and working class population crowded in these streets and alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets that no figure, however queer, would have caused surprise."
Dostoevsky had to rent apartments in this slum area because he could not afford anything better. He preferred spacious apartments in a poor area to a cramped room in a rich house, where there would not be enough space for him to think.
Living in this area and knowing well what kinds of lives its inhabitants led, he placed the heroes of his books in it, quite often naming streets and yards near where he lived in his work. The exact addresses are easy to establish because Dostoevsky left clues on the pages of his novels and he had his own preferences. Buildings which were typical for the writer stood on crossroads. In addition, he liked to live in rooms overlooking churches. For example, his first apartment on Vladimirsky Prospekt gave him a view of the Vladimirskaya church. Form an apartment at 4 Bolshoi Prospekt, the only time he lived on Vasilyevsky Island, he could see a Lutheran church. He lived also at 8/23 Voznesensky Prospekt, from where he could look out at St. Isaac's Cathedral.
He liked the Sennaya Ploshchad area so much, that he lived in three houses on Kaznacheyskaya Ulitsa, which was then called Malaya Meschanskaya Ulitsa. In 1861-63 he lived at No. 1 close to the the Griboyedov canal. In 1864 he lived at No. 9.
It was while he lived for three years in Flat 13 at 7 Kaznacheyskaya Ulitsa that he completed "Crime and Punishment," "Notes from the Underground," and "The Gambler." An inscription outside reads: Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky lived in this house lived in 1864-1867. His novel "Crime and Punishment" was written here. He also edited the journal "Epokha" here.
It was in this house that Dostoevsky became acquainted with his future wife, Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. Working as a stenographer, she helped him with "The Gambler" and "Crime and Punishment."
Dostoevsky fell in love with Snitkina, 22, who was 25 years younger than him and married her in the Cathedral of the Trinity. She was like an angel saving him all the hardships of his life. Who knows, would people read Dostoevsky's brilliant novels, if she had not been his wife? After her husband's death, Leo Tolstoy told her: "Many Russian writers would feel better if they had wives like Dostoevsky's."
To look at the house, where Dostoevsky once lived, a tourist need only to step into the yard. It is rarely closed. The people who live here say that after major repairs the house has changed much, and, unfortunately, the writer's apartment was not preserved. But the walls of the yard are so dilapidated that it is easy to believe the house is the same as it was in Dostoevsky's time.
The yard is a typical one for St. Petersburg. When the weather is dark or cold or on rainy days the yard seems to be gloomy and narrow; a ray of light or a piece of sky breaks through only if one cranes one's neck.
Doestoyevsky's wife described the house in her memoirs: "The house had many small flats where merchants and tradesmen lived. It reminded me of the house in 'Crime and Punishment,' where the hero of the novel, Raskolnikov, lived."
Within the bends of the Griboyedov canal, Kaznacheyskaya Ulitsa runs parallel to Grazhdanskaya Ulitsa. Both streets are crossed by Stolyarny Pereulok. Dostoevsky quartered Rodion Raskolnikov at the Grazhdanskaya Ulitsa. Though the writer gives only the street's initials and the description of the route Raskolnikov took, it is clear which house he was talking about.
"A young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. per. and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge."
It is difficult to inspect the inside of the house today, because the gate leading to the yard is locked, but it can be opened by those who know the code. Guides who organize excursions to Dostoevsky haunts know it as do the tenants, who may become weary of the constant flow of tourists. If you do gain entry you will see a typical tenement building. In Dostoevsky's time, rich landlords owned the apartments and they divided them into small apartments. The houses were named after their owners.
Many tenants didn't have enough money to keep up with rental payments. One of those who did not was Raskolnikov.
"He... avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with the garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which invariably stood open."
Unfortunately, his garret cannot be seen and it is impossible to count the famous "thirteen steps" from the mansard where he lived: the tenants say it is closed.
A plaque on the corner says Raskolnikov lived here.
Raskolnikov used to wander around the Haymarket crossing the Kokoushkin bridge (K. bridge). The 19th century newspaper "Petersburg List" reported that in 16 houses on Stolyarny Pereulok there were 18 taverns. This is how Dostoevsky desribed the lane:
"The insufferable stench from the pot-houses, which are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men whom he [Raskolnikov] met continually, although it was a working day, completed the revolting misery of the picture."
Dostoevsky, as well as his characters, walked along Sadovaya Ulitsa that runs from Sennaya Ploschad to the Yusupov garden. They preferred the neighboring streets and alleys in this part of Petersburg. On the site now occupied by the metro station there stood the Church of the Savior, and the market was located on the square. Dostoevsky's wife remembered "he did not notice or see anyone while walking." The writer must have been completely drowned into the world of his characters, working out the plan of the murder together with his hero.
The atmosphere of poverty influenced people much, and Raskolnikov thought of ways that he could earn money easily. He made up his mind to kill a woman who was richer than him. We can walk in the footsteps along the 730 paces from his house to the house of his victim, Alyona Ivanovna, which is situated at 104 Naberezhnaya Kanala Griboyedova. The canal was known as the Catherine Canal in Dostoevsky's time.
"He went up to a huge house which on one side looked on to the canal, and on the other into the street. This house was let out in tiny tenements and was inhabited by working people of all kinds-tailors, locksmiths, cooks, Germans of sorts, girls picking up a living as best they could, petty clerks. There was a continual coming and going through the two gates and in the two courtyards of the house. Three or four doorkeepers were employed on the building... the staircase was dark and narrow."
Nowadays the gate on to the canal embankment is closed. If you happen to come into the yard of Alyona Ivanovna's house on a cloudy day you will feel how scary it is there. The atmosphere of the murder scene has persisted through the years and centuries: Dostoyevsky was right with his choice of crime scene.
It is interesting to read the notes left by people on the walls of the gate leading to the Srednaya Podyacheskaya Ultisa. "We are [sic] remember 1596 year when you was here, with us. Dostoevsky forever," says one whose author knew what he liked in writing but who must have forgotten when the writer lived.
In Russia every schoolchild has to read "Crime and Punishment" and learn about Dostoevsky's life and creative work. Some especially witty people have left signs that give directions to Raskolnikov on how to get to the murder scene.
Leaving this dark place we run with Raskolnikov to Voznesensky Prospekt, which is refered to cryptically as V-pr in the novel, where he hides the treasures he has stolen. It must have been the yard on the corner of Voznesensky Prospekt and Pereulok Pirogova, where he stashed his loot.
Dostoevsky lived in two flats on Voznesensky Prospekt: on the corner of Malaya Morskaya and later at No. 29. We can cross Voznesensky bridge, which was a common place for attempted suicides. Raskolnikov, who considered killing himself by jumping off the bridge, watched a woman plunge into the water.
Luckily, she was saved by a policeman. This bridge was constantly mentioned by Dostoevsky in "The Injured and Insulted" and other books. The Voznesenskaya church once stood to the left off the bridge.
Voznesensky Prospekt is reflected in other works by Dostoevsky: in the story "A Weak Heart," Vasya buys Lizochka a hat in a fashionable corner shop on the street. A cake shop on the same street is described in "The Injured and Insulted."
In "Crime and Punishment," Marmeladov is run down by horses and dies where Voznesensky Prospekt intersects with Prospekt Rimskogo-Korsakogo. On hearing of her husband's death Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova goes mad on the corner near Voznesensky bridge. It is not far from the place where Sonechka lives.
Other heroes of "Crime and Punishment" have real addresses. Sonya Marmeladova must have lived at 73 Catherine Canal. House No. 63 also fits the description: "Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal bank where Sonia lived. It was an old green house of three storeys..."
One more story was added since those times.
"Having found in the corner of the courtyard the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he mounted to the second floor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole second storey over the yard." Her room because of unusal shape of a house was "irregular quadrangle and this gave it a grotesque appearance. A wall with three windows looking out on to the canal ran aslant so that tne corner formed a very acute angle, and it was difficult to see in it without very strong light. The other corner was disproportionately obtuse."
Raskolnikov's mother and sister Dunyasha lived in Kazanskaya Ulitsa that stretches to the Kazan Cathedral. It was not far from the same area - they lived in the corner house on Voznesensky Prospekt and Kazanskaya Ulitsa. This house was described as dirty and smelly.
In contrast to the slums, the area of Nevsky and Liteiny prospekts was where wealthy people lived. Liteiny is mentioned in the "The Idiot:" the house of General Yepanchin was near. Another hero of "The Idiot," Ptitsyn, says:
"I shall never be a Rothschild, and I don't want to be ... but I shall certainly have a house on Liteiny Prospekt."
Dostoevsky was fond of shopping at the corner of Vladimirsky and Nevsky, where there was a bakery. He used to buy rolls and sweets there. At 18 Nevsky Prospekt there was a cafe where Dostoevsky used to go and read newspapers.
The action in all of Dostoevsky's novels takes place in St. Petersburg, but there is an exception - "The Brothers Karamazov." The heroes of this novel live in Staraya Russa, where Dostoevsky's family rested in summer of 1878 after the death of their fourth child Alexei.
When they got back from Staraya Russa they moved to a house at 5 Kuznechny Pereulok. "When we returned to St. Petersburg in the fall [from Staraya Russa], we decided not to remain in an apartment that was full of reminders of our little boy, and moved to Kuznechny Pereulok," Dostoevsky's wife wrote in her memoirs.
Dostoevsky spent the last three years of his life in this apartment. Today it houses a museum devoted to him. It has two parts - his flat and an area where there his personal belongings, objects that tell the story of his life, are displayed.
The flat is a typical one for the 19th century. It was reconstructed from plans in archives and the memories of his contemporaries. Even the wallpaper is an exact copy of Dostoevsky's. It includes a study, drawing room, a dining room, children's room and Anna Grigoryevna's study.
The study was the most important room of all for the writer. He kept it in perfect order. There he completed "The Brothers Karamazov," "A Writer's Diary" and wrote a speech devoted to Pushkin whom he adored. On his desk one can see a clock that still records the exact hour and minute of his death - 8.38 p.m on Jan. 28, 1881.
This apartment retains the atmosphere of a happy and harmonious family home. Fyodor Michailovich was a tender and loving father.
At night, when he locked himself in his study and thought about his novels, the children invented a way to communicate with their father: they would push notes under the door. "To Fyodor Mikhailovich, a parcel has arrived. Give me candies, Fedya," his little son wrote with grammatical mistakes. This note is kept in the museum.
In another apartment in this house there are photos and scenes representing the plots of the most famous novels "Crime and Punishment," "The Gambler," "The Idiot," and maps of his trips to Europe.
There is also a map indicating sites in Dostoevsky's Petersburg.
The museum can become the starting point or the end point of an excursion.
Nearby there is a monument to Dostoevsky "the great Russian writer who told the story of poor people, about their passions and lives. And he introduced St. Petersburg - a beautiful and cruel city - to the whole world."
TITLE: The Man and the Mythical Politician
TEXT: After being sentenced to nine years in prison, former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky has finally become an important Russian politician. This has been his dream for a long time, apparently. His verbose public musings on liberalism and the deteriorating national infrastructure had already attracted notice several years ago.
Many believe that in fall 2002, Khodorkovsky set his sights on the post of prime minister in a future, parliament-dominated Russia, naturally only after checking his plans with the then-powerful chief of staff Alexander Voloshin. Yukos then dumped millions into getting the dull and ordinary Khodorkovsky all over national television. Yet the only thing memorable about these television appearances was the heavy mark of Kremlin censorship on his slippery words and confusing explanations.
But his dream came true anyway. It came true on Tuesday in Meshchansky District court.
The former oil magnate became Russia's first big politician working outside the system. He does not believe in cutting any deals with the Kremlin and for this reason is completely independent.
He can happily ignore the royal commands filtering down from on high. He cannot be blackmailed with being banned from the television or with being kicked out of office when someone tampers with the useless ballots of some election.
Khodorkovsky is his own man and stands outside the system that President Vladimir Putin understands and controls. He can make decisions without asking the presidential administration and without fear that something will be taken from him for his disobedience. Everything has already been taken from him, except his life and his honor.
For this reason, he now has a chance to become the focal point for a real - meaning outside the Kremlin system - opposition in Russia. And in his articles, Khodorkovsky seems to have made a decisive step to the left, and the next leaders to come to power will be leaning in precisely this direction.
I don't agree with those who claim that you can't be involved in politics from a jail cell. You certainly can - and how!
The myth of Khodorkovsky sprouted, grew and bore fruit while he was in prison. This mythical figure will remain far simpler, stronger and more convincing than the flesh-and-blood man. The real Khodorkovsky was the embodiment of the bourgeois order Russia despises. But he became Russia's native son with his own Dostoevsky-style crime and punishment. It is impossible to say how the inquisitive yet sleepy little towns of provincial Russia would have reacted to the real Khodorkovsky adjusting his glasses and staring with his intense gaze.
But it is clear that from now on every word he speaks from prison is destined to become something akin to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago." The man who lost $7 billion while he sat in pretrial detention has shifted into the position of moral leader. In today's Russia, this position has long been vacant because the ruling elite does not need it. Yet moral authority means more to Russia than gold monograms on business cards, Mercedes and all the other formal attributes of power.
Khodorkovsky has become a tragic figure, and only tragic heroes can hope to rule Russia.
The country is sick of vaudevillian performers who professionally spout words they themselves do not believe. Russia wants the real thing, not politicking. What could be more real than nine years in a penal colony?
In the end, the road to the Russian throne has always run through tragedy. In recent history, there have only been two leaders who were not tragic and who, for this very reason, wound up in the grips of a serious crisis of legitimacy at home: Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin.
For its part, the Kremlin has once again demonstrated that the Yukos affair stopped being a political campaign long ago. Politically, it was not to Putin's advantage to turn Khodorkovsky, the nice chemist, into a prisoner of conscience. The case unfolded according to an entirely different logic: Yukos' former owners were not supposed to get in the way of the complete and final division of the company's assets.
For this reason, they had to go to jail. They could not be allowed to take Rosneft to court, especially abroad. Putin, deputy chief of staff Igor Sechin and others like them have already shown that they do not think in political categories. For them, politics is merely one of the difficult ways to make easy money. If Khodorkovsky and his associate Platon Lebedev have to be thrown behind bars to make this money, so be it.
To destroy Khodorkovsky's political career, Putin did not have to imprison him. The president had all the means for doing so at his disposal, from the complete support of the pro-Putin majority to absolute power over the mass media. But there was no way to grab and divvy up oil assets without the slammer. Putin preferred to lose a political fight for the sake of gaining property.
From a political point of view, the president did not solve the problem; he created a problem that he will have to answer for.
Without a doubt, the Kremlin still has one more chance to make the right move. Putin could pardon Khodorkovsky. It is highly likely that the official liberals from the quasi-formed right wing of United Russia will soon start making a fuss and demanding a pardon. If Russia's most famous prisoner writes to the master of the Kremlin and asks for forgiveness - and, of course, admits he is guilty of all six charges of the multibillion-ruble sentence - the president would be most merciful and give a gift to the world community, now somewhat shocked by the unreasonably long nine years. Some observers believe this is exactly why the sentence was so long: Three or four years would not have been enough to scare Khodorkovsky. But the thought of living behind bars until 2012 most certainly would.
If Khodorkovsky wrote and asked to be pardoned, it would certainly be good for his family. Then again, it would be better for the opposition for him to do time. Regardless, he will not spend the full nine years in jail. The maximum time he would serve would be three years. Until he is up for parole or until the regime changes, which ever comes first.
Whatever decision Khodorkovsky makes, he was effectively acquitted on Tuesday. Khodorkovsky put all the blood and grime of the 1990s behind him. He got away from the same system that sent him and his angry associates to jail. So far, no one else has ever managed to survive this kind of trial by fire.
Stanislav Belkovsky is president of the National Strategy Institute. He contributed this comment to Vedomosti, where it first appeared.
TITLE: Adopting a New Attitude
TEXT:
Can orphans be exploited for political gain? You bet they can. In fact, it's a sure thing. The champions of orphans score political points while those who abuse them are regarded as evil incarnate. The main task of the champions, therefore, is to "name and shame" the offenders. Preferably during prime time.
The orphans themselves tend to get lost in the shuffle, particularly when patriotism gets involved.
Foreigners, specifically foreign adoption agencies operating in this country, have been blamed for all the problems of Russia's orphans in recent months. A few days ago, a number of agencies were denied new accreditation. A week before, these agencies were doing business as usual. Suddenly, as if on cue, prosecutors discovered scores of violations, including operating with expired accreditation, doing business with unauthorized Russian middlemen and failing to monitor adopted children abroad. No smoking guns were discovered, mind you, but that hardly mattered. The campaign had begun.
This is what rankles - it's a politically motivated campaign that began in earnest back in April when a suburban Chicago woman, Irma Pavlis, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the beating death of her 6-year-old son just weeks after she and her husband had adopted him from Russia. Playing on this high-profile case, certain politicians who consider themselves patriots declared, in effect, that the Americans were murdering our children. They were not able to whip up a general frenzy, thank goodness, but they did turn the Pavlis case into a political issue.
For the organizers of this campaign, it made no difference that the Pavlis case was an exception, that it generated a huge public outcry in the United States or that Pavlis was sentenced to 12 years in prison. In the period from 1990 to 2004, Americans alone adopted some 60,000 Russian orphans, yet only a dozen tragedies such as the Pavlis case are known to have occurred. For all the horror of each individual case, this tiny percentage suggests that the system is actually working quite well.
There are currently some 125,000 orphans in Russia. Would a total ban on "selling our children abroad," which some opponents of foreign adoption have called for, benefit these children? Can a propaganda campaign make adoption in Russia as popular and widespread as it is in the United States, with its strong tradition of missionary work? Can such a political campaign bring an end to the endemic corruption in our orphanages? It's well known, for example, that adoptive parents pay an average per child of $10,000 to $15,000 in bribes to Russian officials. The answer to all these questions is no.
But another approach is possible, one that is far nobler. We simply have to rise above politics and do what's best for the children. Rather than focusing exclusively on the tragedies, we should be telling the stories of Russian orphans who have found good homes abroad, and of children who have been cured of illnesses that were considered untreatable in Russia. In other words, we should be telling the stories of children in loving families who are enjoying new lives they couldn't even have imagined while they were stuck in orphanages back in their homeland. We have to remember that, however much we might resent it, the overwhelming majority of adopted Russian children are better off with their new families abroad. Such success stories might not be advantageous in the context of domestic politics, but surely political gain is insignificant when compared to a child's happiness.
And stories of successful adoptions like these are far more likely to encourage Russians to become adoptive parents than the campaign of hate that has been waged over the airwaves these past few months. The truth of the matter seems painfully obvious: We can do far more to improve the lives of our orphans by focusing on the positive than we ever could by dwelling exclusively on the negative.
Georgy Bovt is editor of Profil.
TITLE: The Mysterious Mr. Isakov
TEXT: Recently, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on investigations of the U.S. Senate essentially accused Russia of receiving bribes from Saddam Hussein in exchange for lobbying for the Iraqi dictator's interests in the UN Security Council. Moreover, the congressional investigators announced they had discovered that Iraq handed over around 90 million barrels of oil to Putin's presidential administration. This oil, they claimed, brought the administration almost $3 million.
The subcommittee's report named two figures in connection with these transfers: Alexander Voloshin, who was President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff at the time, and Voloshin's "close friend," a certain "Sergei Issakov." This Issakov, according to the report, was Voloshin's trusted confidant and envoy who also worked in the presidential administration.
Voloshin responded to the assertions about his so-called friend by insisting that, "no person of this kind ever worked in the administration of the president. He was never my friend or my envoy, if he even exists at all. I have no idea who this person is."
So, who is this mysterious Sergei Isakov, whose last name is unlikely to contain a double "s"? To all appearances, the investigators had the following man in mind, though he never worked in the presidential administration, or at least not officially. It is unclear if he ever had any relation to Voloshin. But he did have a connection to oil and to Hussein's lobbyist, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the head of the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDPR.
Let's take a brief look at Isakov's biography. He was born in the town of Mtsensk in the Oryol region in 1961. He graduated from the Arkhangelsk Naval School and the All-Soviet Legal Correspondence School. Starting in the late 1980s, he got involved in commercial business in the Oryol region, and then in 1991 he became the vice-president of Oryol-Avia airlines.
The year 1993 saw the first direct elections for the head of the Oryol regional administration. The front-runner in the election was the former first secretary of the Oryol regional party committee and the former agriculture secretary of the Soviet Central Committee, Yegor Stroyev. He was running against a Yeltsin protege, Nikolai Yudin.
Isakov's company, Oryol-Avia, paid for a 20-minute film promoting Stroyev, titled "The Leader." In April 1993, Stroyev won by a landslide, taking 52.9 percent of the vote, while Yudin garnered 34.2 percent. Delighted, Isakov bragged about his accomplishment left and right, claiming that Stroyev should thank him personally for becoming governor.
Soon afterward, Isakov's company had its registration revoked, and in December 1993 Isakov was arrested and charged with financial misconduct.
No one really knows exactly what happened between Stroyev and Isakov. Maybe Stroyev was not pleased that a local businessman had tried to capitalize on his electoral victory. Or perhaps, on the contrary, the federal authorities whose plans were thwarted by Stroyev's win decided to do a number on his big campaign sponsor. Or maybe Isakov was indeed guilty as charged and was ratted on by some competitor.
Whatever the case, Isakov was jailed for a while but then released. His relationship with Stroyev soured soon after that.
Isakov joined Zhirinovsky's LDPR and became the party's regional coordinator. He ran unsuccessfully for a State Duma seat in 1995, losing to Communist Alexei Zotikov. In 1996, he acted as Zhirinovsky's personal envoy during the presidential election. He made an attempt to get onto the gubernatorial ballot in Oryol in 1997, but the election commission, which likely answered to Stroyev, refused to register his candidacy. This rejection sent shock waves all the way to Moscow. The entire LDPR Duma faction caused a major stir in October 1997 by getting up and leaving the legislature in protest of the commission's decision.
Isakov did not turn up in the limelight again until 1999, when he became the deputy general director of the Rosavia Consortium, an industrial and financial corporation.
In the same period, he joined the board of directors at Nafta-Moskva, a Moscow-based oil company. That same year, he tried again to make it into the Duma on the LDPR ticket, but failed once more.
The head and co-owner of Nafta-Moskva, Suleiman Kerimov, whose company became one of the biggest sponsors of the Liberal Democrats about the same time, was elected to the Duma in 1999, and then again in 2003.
The other Nafta-Moskva co-owner, Akhmed Bilalov, was also elected to the Duma as part of the pro-Putin party, Unity. He was re-elected in 2003, this time as a member of United Russia, of course.
It is amusing that Zhirinovsky, a rabid Russian nationalist and patriot despite his Jewish roots, was happily sponsored by two Muslim oil magnates from Dagestan.
As a rule, sponsors in Russia do not donate to political parties out of personal conviction or political sympathies. They are marching to the beat drummed by the Kremlin. Those who ignore this rule will face a fate similar to that of former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
But let's get back to Iraqi oil and Hussein.
Isakov opened a business in Iraq, the Russian Engineering Company, and traded equipment and machinery for oil as part of the UN oil-for-food program. He told Vedomosti that his activities were completely legal.
In the end, God only knows if Voloshin actually received oil from Hussein. And no one knows for sure if and how Zhirinovsky and Isakov were involved in the alleged deal.
The U.S. investigators could have gotten their story mixed up, of course. Just the way they got confused about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, for instance.
But perhaps the folks at Nafta-Moskva might have been able to enlighten the senators as to who exactly the mysterious Mr. Issakov was and what his role in the oil deals with Hussein was.
Vladimir Pribylovsky is president of the Panorama think tank. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Better to Do Nothing Than Miscued Reforms
TEXT: Valentina Matviyenko has recently made some clear changes of strategy. If in the first year of her rule she positioned herself as a radical reformer and her administrative machine's plans to restructure different spheres of city life appeared like mushrooms after rain, then today it looks as if City Hall's reforming zeal has noticeably faded. The first priority for the administration has shifted to concrete investment projects.
These include the recent agreement with Toyota to build an auto assembly plant at Shushari, the opening in September of Elcoteq, Electrolux's plans for a washing machine plant and an agreement with Bosch und Siemens Hausgeraete GmbH to build a refrigerator factory and so on. This is not to mention large development projects in the historical center of St. Petersburg such as the Paradnaya Kvartal on the former territory of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Naberezhnaya Yevropy on the former territory of the former State Institute of Applied Chemistry.
The new direction is also evident in the characteristic lexicon of the governor. If in the past she talked mainly of a European standard of living for the population, her striving to make St. Petersburg a European city, then now one hears variations of the word "ambition" occurring more and more often. For instance, judging by her reactions at the recent presentation of the plans for a sport and entertainment center, which it is proposed to build next to the park of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, what she liked most was that it would be the largest complex of its type in Russia. "Everything that is done in St. Petersburg should be ambitious and fitting for our city," she declared. And City Hall's press service in its brief comment about the event said: "St. Petersburg Governor V. I. Matviyenko approved the plan, emphasizing its ambitiousness."
One can understand Matviyenko. After 18 months in power, she has undertood that the administrative machine in its current form is incapable of fine, painstaking work. Therefore the complex reforms that require a sophisticated management by the administration can simply not be realized by it. The scandal surrounding the reform of municipal transport is the best example. The evidence of this is in the details as was told to me by the people in charge of revision to one of Matviyenko's key programs, the economic and social development of city for 2005 to 2008. The main management talks of this program was to switch sector committees from trivial "operative means" to achieving concrete results that can be expressed in figures like "ambulances must arrive within 15 minutes of being called. Of course, the reformers told me, it is unlikely that the 15-minute target will be achieved, but approaching it will be considered a sign of the efforts of the health committee to achieve the goal. That is to say the bureaucrats have lost their determination. It is understood that in such a situation it would be naive to count on the realization of any serious reforms.
There is nothing strange in all this. We have long understood that the state is not only a bad property owner but has never been a good manager either. We who do not have a shining business culture should not expect much from bureaucrats whose motivations and qualifications are of a lower order. In such a situation Matviyenko's accent on ambitious projects appears justified. In the end, the realization of these projects, which will be personally guided by our energetic governor, will teach the bureaucrats how to work effectively. Then, maybe, it will be the time to conduct reforms.
All the same, the strategic position does require City Hall to change its policies. The best that the administration, which is now working on the fine details of concrete projects is to stop torturing us with well-meant, but ill-managed carrying our of refrorms. If some reform is obviously not working out, then it is better not to hurry with it.
One should not that former governor Vladimir Yakovlev acknowledged that a bad reform is worse than none at all - the public thinks the same and that's why it does not like reforms on the whole, and that is why he did not introduce any. The energetic Matviyenko has tried to correct that defect - St. Petersburg does need reforms - but the result was "as always."
This was demonstrated in the municipal transport reforms and ineffectively conducted ten tender for transport routes that only made things worse. It is good that thanks to a court ruling, the old order has been restored saving many transport firms from ruin. The chaos that would have arisen can be imagined if Alexander Datsyuk, head of the transport committee, had prevailed. The same danger is threatening the communal housing services reform, although things are better in this sector thanks to the more responsible approach of the housing committee leaders. If a bureaucrat does not introduce ineffective decisions favoring, for instance, city-owned Zhilkomservis, but gives the choice to residents, then the majority of the population will live better. Citizens themselves may introduce order and make the reform work on their own initiative.
Today the optimal tactic for reforms is to create mechanisms that allow the population, including entrepreneurs, to conduct the reforms using their own efforts. Even in the face of costs to citizens they will in the end do a better job than bureaucrats - provided that the rules of the game created by the administration are not self-serving but in the interests of the population. But, one step at a time.
Vladimir Gryaznevich is a political analyst with Expert Severo-Zapad magazine. His comment was first broadcast on Ekho Moskvy in St. Petersburg on Friday.
TITLE: Tattoo Nation
TEXT: Seymour Hersh, chronicler of madness from the My Lai massacre to Abu Ghraib, tells a chilling story of the lingering aftermath of atrocity.
As the revelations of brutal torture by the victors were first spilling from conquered Iraq, Hersh was contacted by a family member of a young U.S. woman who had served in a unit policing Abu Ghraib, the Guardian reports. The young soldier had "come back a different person," the relative said: distraught and angry, turning her back on her family.
The relative retrieved a computer she'd lent the soldier to use in Iraq - and found there a file crammed with torture porn: photo after photo of a naked Iraqi prisoner writhing before the onslaught of fierce police dogs. One of the pictures was later published and became an emblem of the dehumanizing brutality of the U.S. occupation.
The young soldier thought she'd been sent to fight for democracy and freedom, the relative told Hersh, but it was a lie. Instead she found herself in Hell, committing crimes, violating her own nature, her sense of duty perverted by leaders who twisted it into a weapon to serve aggressive war. Since her return, said the relative, the young soldier keeps getting black tattoos, more and more of them, slowly covering her entire body - literally trying to change her skin.
The fate of this soul-broken, tormented daughter of America embodies the nation itself under the malevolent reign of President George W. Bush. The whole country is changing its skin, trying to cloak its complicity and shame with a wilful disfigurement. Who could look on the hideous form of Bush's America - the snarling faces belching rancor on Fox News; the rabid partisans oozing bile through the halls of Congress; the money-glutting religious extremists relentlessly pushing ignorance, intolerance and theocratic dominion; the corporate beasts devouring the landscape, destroying communities, writing their own laws, gorging on unprecedented profits wrung from global sweatshops, corruption and war; the somnolent, silent, acquiescent public, blankly countenancing torture, deceit, military aggression and the destruction of their constitutional order - and not see in all this a body politic in profound psychological crisis: traumatized, guilt-ridden, turning itself inside out in a frantic attempt to escape the truth?
And this desperation only grows as the truth piles up, fragment by fragment, dug out from Bush's slagheap of lies. In the past month, there has been a barrage of "smoking guns" outlining the Regime's criminality in such stark and blatant terms that even the U.S. corporate media - those cringing enablers of atrocity - have been forced to take some notice.
First came the leak of the 2002 "Downing Street Memo," where Britain's war council confirmed, once again, that Bush was determined to conquer Iraq no matter what and was "fixing the facts and intelligence around the policy." Of course, this was old news to anyone outside the echo chamber of the U.S. media. For example, we reported here in September 2002 that top Bushists like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had signed off on a plan in September 2000 calling for the military occupation of Iraq - even if Saddam Hussein's regime had already been overthrown. Thus the "liberation" of Iraq was just as much a phony casus belli as the nonexistent WMD.
Even more fresh evidence of Bush's deliberate deception surfaced in The Washington Post last week, with a story detailing the mountain of doubts, caveats and outright debunking about Iraqi WMD that U.S. intelligence services placed on Bush's desk before the war - all of it wilfully ignored as Bush continued to deceive the nation about the "undoubted" WMD "threat."
Then last week, The New York Times highlighted Bush's murderous torture system in Afghanistan: U.S. captors beating prisoners to death, pulpifying their limbs as part of a regimen of exquisite torments later exported to Iraq - including to Abu Ghraib, where Hersh's tattooed soldier entered Hell.
We have reported here in great detail on the voluminous evidence establishing that the endemic, systematic torture in Bush's gulag was instigated by the White House, sanctioned by Bush's appointed "legal experts" who ruled that as commander in chief, he is not constrained by laws against torture - or, indeed, by any law whatsoever. Equally copious evidence establishes that Rumsfeld and selected Pentagon officials eagerly implemented the torture regimen - then systematically worked to block or limit investigations once the truth began leaking out. For example, one of the low-ranking "bad apples" finally convicted in the Afghan murders - after extended Pentagon cover-ups - was sentenced to just three months in jail by a military court this week, The Associated Press reports. Three months for helping beat a chained, helpless man to death.
The evidence of the Regime's culpability for torture and mass murder is overwhelming. The burden of proof is no longer on Bush's accusers, but on those who would defend his evil actions. Yes, evil is the word. The Nuremberg Tribunal called aggressive war "essentially an evil thing." To initiate such a war - under any circumstances - "is not only an international crime," said the tribunal, "it is the supreme international crime," because it carries all the others in its wake. It breaks down all barriers of law and morality, in states and in individuals, creating the necessary inner chaos - and physical opportunity - for the most abysmal perversions of human nature.
There are other evils in the world, including the terrorism that Bush invokes, mendaciously, to justify an act of aggression he planned long before the Sept. 11 attacks. But the invasion of Iraq is the "supreme international crime" of our day. No tattoo, no new skin can blot it out.
For annotational references, see Opinion at www.sptimesrussia.com
TITLE: Basic instincts
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Since launching its first list in 2002, Hesperus Press has acquired an enviable name in British publishing for its adventurous editorial policy and the attention it lavishes on each of its graceful volumes. Specializing in short works by major writers of the past, mainly from Western Europe, Hesperus has also earned praise for the high standard of its translations. The publishers may require further encouragement in fulfilling their stated commitment to "bringing near what is far" (they still offer no examples of genuinely distant literary cultures, from Poland to Greece), but we can only be grateful for their sustained efforts in bringing closer at least one neglected fictional family: Russian novellas and long stories of 150 pages or less.
Over the last three years, Hesperus has published more than a dozen fresh renderings of lesser-read works in this category, mainly from the 19th century. Reading just a handful of these provides a new perspective on apparently familiar writers and the tradition they helped create. From the early flowering of Fyodor Dostoevsky's idiosyncratic genius in "The Double" (1846) to the brief but brilliant last expression of Leo Tolstoy's epic gift in "Hadji Murat" half a century later, the range of concerns and styles is dazzling. Unexpected echoes between the texts can be equally striking. It is an insult that begins the comic standoff between once inseparable neighbors in Nikolai Gogol's "The Squabble" ("And you, Ivan Ivanovich, are a real goose"); and an insult that drives a wedge between once inseparable neighboring landowners, one rich and one poor, in Alexander Pushkin's "Dubrovsky," unleashing terrible retribution.
Slight as they are, the Hesperus volumes reflect the entire canvas of Russian society, from serfs to princes. There are the tight-laced, posturing provincial merchants of Nikolai Leskov's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk"; the sycophantic, posturing civil servants of Dostoevsky; the magnificent, posturing officers and generals of Tolstoy; the dissolute, idle gentry, typified by Pushkin's wealthy landowner, Troekurov; and the mostly unhappy mothers, wives, daughters, lovers and housekeepers of all the above. In general, it is an exceptionally unpleasant and merciless world where one sin leads to another and there seems to be no way back. The possibility of redemption, a key theme of longer Russian 19th-century fiction, is chillingly absent here. Dostoevsky's novels "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov" offer the hope that the internal fracturing of the modern personality can be transcended; not so "The Double," in which the main character, lonely Golyadkin, gabbles his way to insanity in a psychological case study fundamental to all Dostoevsky's later writing.
As pessimistic as "The Double," yet utterly different in its expression and approach, is the taut, sometimes primitivistic storytelling of Leskov. His Lady Macbeth is a 23-year-old given in loveless marriage to a provincial merchant. Left to herself in a clean, empty house, with icon lamps glimmering in the sepulchral silence, she dozes her way through the long days, forever waking "to that same Russian boredom, the boredom of a merchant house, a boredom so profound that, as people say, it makes even the thought of hanging yourself seem like fun." In the event, things take a much nastier turn, though the combination of violence and bitter humor in this sentence is entirely typical, and not only of Leskov's story.
Many of these works are founded on what Leskov's narrator calls "vile jokes," sprung by fate or design. They explore not so much "the basest of animal instincts," as asserted in the translator's introduction to "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" (why should animal instincts be base?), but specifically human forms of revenge, mockery and humiliation. The vicious humor of the characters draws further irony from the narrators. "Such were the noble pastimes of a Russian gentleman," comments Pushkin's narrator in "Dubrovsky" after describing Troekurov's habit of locking the less fortunate of his visitors in a room with a hungry bear (the bear is tied on a rope that can stretch to every corner of the room bar one). At such moments, Pushkin, widely celebrated for his non-judgmental authorial stance, begins to sound almost as sarcastic as Tolstoy; such is the reality he is describing.
In "Hadji Murat," one of the highlights of the list, Tolstoy contrasts the reality of a corrupt social order with Russia's perennial antithesis in imagination and fact: the ethos of Muslim life and resistance in the Caucasus. A hero among his people, the rebel leader Hadji Murat has nevertheless been forced by his feud with the local ruler, the imam Shamil, to pledge his loyalty to the Russians. Placing Murat among the top Russian brass in the south allows Tolstoy to indulge fully his loathing for the masquerade of flattery and decadence that passed for Russian power under Nicholas I. (Though written at the turn of the 20th century, "Hadji Murat" is set 50 years earlier.) At times, this hatred erupts in almost buffoonish interjections on the part of the narrator, to whom ladies at balls seem to be wearing no clothes and who pictures government couriers "exhausting [their] horses and punching drivers in the face." Set against this circus of vice is the sober, awestruck depiction of Hadji Murat as a man of faith and deed, a hero impregnable to the pervasive cynicism of the world he inhabits. Compelling in its own right, and superbly structured, the tale is an essential counterbalance to the rest of Tolstoy's late writings. He had not, it seems, entirely rejected literature or violence.
Leo Tolstoy was one of many 19th-century writers who skewered Russian society in short works of fiction."Hadji Murat" has been translated by Hugh Aplin with the authority that marks the many other Hesperus volumes for which he has been responsible. His translations are loyal in the fullest sense; each rises to the particular challenge of the author in question. Tolstoy, arguably the most straightforward in style, is rendered with a minimum of fuss; the word "cheerful" can occur three times in six lines, just as its Russian equivalent does in the original. The "rough stylistic edges" of a writer who, as Aplin comments in his introduction, "was not renowned as the most polished of the great Russian classics," are rightly preserved. Quite in contrast is the linguistic exuberance of his version of "The Squabble," which recasts Gogol's wandering narrative voice in a funny and entirely appropriate idiom; perhaps no other Russian title published by Hesperus gives quite as much pleasure.
At the risk of imitating one of Gogol's disturbingly friendly landowners, to whom everything is always quite splendid, it must be said that the renderings of Pushkin and Leskov supplied by Robert Chandler are, indeed, also excellent. Pushkin, in particular, seems to be the ideal match for the poise and brightness that characterize Chandler's work. It only seems a shame that, on all the covers of the Hesperus volumes, it is the authors of the generally dispensable forewords who are acknowledged and not the translators, whose efforts make the whole enterprise worthwhile.
Oliver Ready's most recent translation is "My Paris," by Ilya Ehrenburg, published to accompany a reprint of the original edition of 1933.
Hesperus press titles
mentioned in this review:
"The Double"
By Fyodor Dostoevsky
Trans. by Hugh Aplin
Foreword by Jeremy Dyson
172 Pages. Pound7.99
"The Squabble"
By Nikolai Gogol
Trans. by Hugh Aplin
Foreword by Patrick McCabe
112 Pages. Pound6.99
"Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk"
By Nikolai Leskov
Trans. by Robert Chandler
Foreword by Gilbert Adair
112 Pages. Pound6.99
"Dubrovsky"
By Alexander Pushkin
Trans. by Robert Chandler
Foreword by Patrick Neate
112 Pages. Pound6.99
"Hadji Murat"
By Leo Tolstoy
Trans. by Hugh Aplin
Foreword by Colm Toibin
128 Pages. Pound6.99
TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: After Brian Eno's visit last week, another alumnus of the influential British band Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, was due in St. Petersburg on Friday to perform at an "exclusive," black-tie fashion/music event at the Konstantinovsky Palace.
A promoter was unable to comment Thursday, but according to an insider tickets sell for as much as $1,000.
Ferry was also scheduled to appear as an "honorable guest" at a fashion event at the newly opened SpoonCafe on Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa on Thursday.
Ferry first came to St. Petersburg in 1997 to visit Eno and performed with a symphony orchestra in the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall in Sept. 2000. Ferry's concert was based on "As Time Goes By," his 1999 album of jazz oldies.
Meanwhile, Eno was in St. Petersburg performing with French-Algerian singer Rachid Taha and showcasing his forthcoming album, "Another Day on Earth," with an event at the Russian Museum. See article, page xii.
Eno was also spotted at Platforma attending the premiere of "Dark Mu," a documentary about Zvuki Mu, Moscow's 1980s avant-rock band whose eponymous debut album Eno produced and released on his Opal label in 1989. Later Eno said that the film confirmed his conviction that Zvuki Mu's frontman Pyotr Mamonov was a "genius."
Now working solo, Mamonov will stage his theatrical performance, called "Chocolate Pushkin," at the Comedy Theater on Monday.
Moscow promoter BAd TaStE said that a Moscow concert by 17 Hippies was canceled due to "inexplicable reasons" in its posting this week. It suggested that the band "is not coming to Russia at all."
Platforma, the club where the Berlin-based band was scheduled to play its local concert on Friday, also said that the show is not happening.
17 Hippies was to have come to Russia to play at an open-air concert to launch Platforma's concert venue in Moscow. But, according to art director Denis Rubin, the whole event was postponed because of a ban by Moscow city authorities that led to the cancellation of concerts by both 17 Hippies and Romania's Spitalul de Urgenta.
Nevertheless, Rubin confirmed that Chumbawamba, the third act that was to take part in the Moscow opening, is scheduled to perform at Platforma on Sunday. But, as of Thursday afternoon, it appeared that the concert might not be happening at all. Call the venue before going there. See interview, page xii.
A new jazz club will open Friday. Called Street Life, it will be located at the premises of the city's Architectural Academy formerly occupied by the notorious gay club, Club 69, which closed in 2003. The club seems to be oriented toward a blend of jazz and contemporary dance music.
Ethno Style, a three-day festival of world music, opens at the Yacht Club on Friday, while Sega del Canto, a Finnish eccentric duo who use a saw as a musical instrument will perform at Platforma Thursday.
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Cherry blossom bliss
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Sakura 12 Griboyedov Canal. Tel. 315 9474, 315 7391 Open from noon until 11pm. Menu in Russian and English Dinner for two with sake 1,120 rubles. ($40). You know a good Japanese restaurant by its tuna. This fish has become almost an icon in Japan, and can sell for as much as $100 a piece in Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, the country's biggest seafood bazaar. The Japanese will turn into die-hard travelers to discover a place with quality maguro sashimi (raw tuna steak). Luckily, a man in St. Petersburg need only travel as far as a sideroad off Nevsky Prospekt.
There is almost a rule against dining at a place situated on a main city thoroughfare. It's economics pure and simple: high rents, expensive advertising, hiked food prices. With many of the city's Japanese restaurants this rule holds, making them rather gaudy - in décor and taste.
Sakura ("Cherry Blossom") has a delicate appeal, although not so traditionally Japanese as to be obtrusive. A minute's walk away from Nevsky Prospekt metro station along Griboyedov Canal, towards the Church on Spilled Blood, the restaurant has a central location, but avoids the Prospekt's tussle and pomp. As if shy, Sakura's entrance crouches on the basement level, with no more declamatory sign than the name and "Japanese Cuisine" written underneath.
Someone once remarked that the Japanese are never as sincerely happy as when they eat. It's not really just about "happiness," however, since the tradition of eating has evolved to be a way of communicating with people.
While in Tokyo last week, I called up a Japanese friend. The first question she asked when we started arranging a meeting was what I wanted to eat. This was before we selected the meeting day, never mind the time.
What Sakura communicates immediately upon entrance is tranquility, neatness, and tactful division. A sushi bar counter fits into the opening room of the restaurant, a little further there is room for a private dining room.
A narrow staircase brings one to the main dining hall, which again contains a fountain, a bamboo partition, and a sliding door to a more private room.
A kimono-clad waitress smiles and bows. She doesn't speak a word of Japanese, but, you know, that's not going to disappoint a lot of the visitors, most of which will be Russian, although there is a strong tourist presence at Sakura too.
For sushi-virgins (and the rest of us who fail to distinguish between yellow-tail and baby yellow-tail) there is a plastic photo menu. In addition, the menu runs through all the main Japanese dishes, seemingly in order of familiarity: sushi, sashimi, salads, appetizers, teriyaki, nabemono, teppan, dessert.
When lost for where to start, especially when wishing to venture beyond the edges of Japanese cuisine - sushi and sashimi - a sure bet is to order liquor (which is simply what "sake" means in Japanese).
"We'll have hot sake, slightly sweet, mild," I say, and the smiling cherry blossom nods in understanding. In the time it takes to examine the zen garden-like design under the glass of our table, the small sake "vases" arrive (125ml for 180 rubles, $4.30).
"Kampai!" (Cheers!) to the various dishes that followed, with tuna dishes, the sashimi (as part of a three-fish selection: 690 rubles, $24.65), the carpaccio (270 rubles, $9.65), and the sushi (120 rubles, $4.30) particular recommended. Non-oily, as soft as butter, assuaging in the melt, the maguro was finely prepared by Sakura's Japanese head chef, Yamamoto Takashi.
Equally good were the slightly sweet, crunchy daikon rolls (150 rubles, $5.35), tender teriyaki chicken (180 rubles, $6.40), and yakitori (fried chicken skewers, 210 rubles, $7.50).
Less authentic, rather Russified dishes included ramen (a hot soup with Chinese noodles, 180 rubles, $6.40) and tofu salad (120 rubles, $4.30). The former was reminiscent of a spruced-up Pot Noodle, although my friend thought it wonderful.
The balance of taste was restored by dessert. Although pricey, and with nothing but the green tea ice cream (180 rubles, $6.40) and umeshu foam (240 rubles, $8.60) that are truly Japanese, the desserts were light, memorable, and a good wind-down to the evening.
When the time came to pay the check, my eyes glanced at my watch. It was 11 p.m. We had been at the restaurant more than three hours, and I had not even noticed. Does that mean that I too had reached a state of "sincere happiness"?
TITLE: Cabin fever
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new production of Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," which opened the Stars of the White Nights festival at the Mariinsky Theater last Friday is literal, universal and replete with claustrophobia.
Not a single outdoor location is featured in the show. The director locks the lovers' wild, effusive passions inside limited spaces. The story of the doomed love of Tristan and Isolde evolves in a boat cabin, a hotel room and an apartment that wraps the performance in a cold and detached atmosphere.
In Act I, Director Dmitry Chernyakov places Isolde and her maid Brangane in a cramped boat cabin with a depressingly low ceiling. The cabin is complete with faceless furniture, a computer, a exercise machine and a water-cooler, and its gray walls are adorned with personal photographs.
Just minutes after the curtain rises, the audience sees Brangane (Olga Savova) twitching ecstatically in tune with her Walkman, her moves blatantly - and purposefully - discordant with the orchestra.
Later, Isolde (Larisa Gogolevskaya) flies into indomitable rage as she ponders the prospect of marrying Marke and separation from her beloved. Generating blind fury, radiating despair and protest, she rages through her cramped cabin like a tornado, knocking down furniture and tossing aside a coffee set. The singer's voice was a little overstrained and at times somewhat hoarse but dramatically Gogolevskaya proved most convincing.
At the Mariinsky, Wagnerian heroes turn into modern, cosmopolitan, universal characters. In the story, Tristan, escorts Isolde, princess of Ireland, to Cornwall, where she is to wed Marke, the King of Cornwall.
Isolde plots to kill Tristan (Sergei Lyadov), whom she despises because the warrior, whose wounds she once healed, killed her fiance Morold in a battle for the independence of Cornwall. Tristan is a timid, bespectacled, balding man, who stands at attention, not daring to move, when he arrives at Isolde's call. In vocal terms, Isolde's domination was similarly tangible: Lyadov's humble Tristan was sometimes overpowered by the orchestra but nontheless technically correct. The Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, already well-rehearsed in Wagner, produced a solid, formidable and highly captivating performance, with the strings dramatically yet flawlessly storming through the Wagnerian strains.
Isolde asks Brangane to prepare a potion that will kill the lovers, but she deceives Isolde and brews a love-potion instead. The magic drink works, and the two fall in love. The romance is in full swing when the ship arrives at Cornwall, but the beloved are spied on by Marke's man Melot, who attacks Tristan. Tended by Kurwenal, he survives just until Isolde comes, then falls and dies. Isolde, who feels Tristan is calling to her from the "dead of night," wills her death soon afterwards.
The new production is an unlikely show to come from Chernyakov, known for metaphoric, spiritual shows with a philosophical bent and religious references.
Speaking about the show shortly before the premiere, Chernyakov promised a straightforward work, "showing this drama through the prism of ideas, concepts and physical objects that ring a bell with modern audiences."
The objects in question were plentiful in the production: a sword was replaced with a gun, and the lovers put a "don't disturb" sign on the door of their hotel room.
The urbanized modern designs are contrasted with the narcotic, ethereal flair with which the main characters drink the potion. Moving as if dreaming with eyes wide open, stretching and rolling on the floor, the pair are unable to coordinate their movements when the boat arrives at Cornwall.
Act II, featuring a particularly long duet between Tristan and Isolde, is notoriously difficult to stage.
The director teases the audience throughout Act II, when the famous love scene in the forest - Liebensnacht - takes place. Instead of a forest, the lovers find themselves in a hotel room at the top of a skyscraper. All the singing and acting is centered around a huge bed, yet the lovers never manage to take their coats off, let alone touch each other. The tension between the lovers is huge. Tristan stares emptily into space as Marke reproaches him, while Isolde reels and staggers about the room.
King Marke (Mikhail Kit), who arrives at the scene surrounded by bodyguards dressed in identical black suits, resembles a contemporary mafioso: oozing ominous confidence, the shaven-headed king possesses the required power and might.
Act III is set in Tristan's parents' apartment. The characters' delirium progresses: the stage is crossed by images of the dead, including Tristan's mother visibly pregnant with him. The finale separates the lovers, with Isolde remaining desperate and alive when the curtain falls.
TITLE: Africa calling
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Africans from the continent and the surrounding islands gathered in St. Petersburg last week to encourage Russians to explore the bright side of the traditionally derogated "Dark Continent."
It took the rhythm of drums and a chorus of voices typical of Africa's many languages and cultural diversity to help counter Russian stereotypes of Africa as a continent only of poverty, hunger, disease and war on Africa Day (May 25) when a colorful display of traditional arts and artifacts, and even a fashion show, were held in St. Petersburg.
"I've a dream of Russia where such questions as whether we have houses in Africa, or if crocodiles are members of our households, are not asked," Aliu Tunkara, head of the St. Petersburg "African Union" community group that organized the event, said.
"It's a burden on us to send them [Russians] the right message from our motherland - not their books, not their media, and not their tour operators," Tunkara said. His tone reflects the pain of more than 22 years lived in Russia, where he feels there is a lack of accurate information about African life.
Video footage shown at the event showed not only Africa's jungle life and exotic tribal rituals, but also modern and sophisticated urban lives in continental Africa and the neighboring Indian and Atlantic ocean island states, some of whose people have scattered as far as St. Petersburg.
They gathered in a conference hall of the St. Petersburg Polytechnical University's Institute of International Education to commemorate the founding of the African Union (AU), formerly known as the Organization of African Unity (OAU).
Africans have regarded Africa Day as their "second birthday" ever since the organization was founded 42 years ago with the aim of uniting the then-newly independent African states, liberating others from colonial clutches and resolving interstate social and political disputes.
The OAU was conceived as a stepping stone toward a "United States of Africa" as foreseen by Kwame Nkrumah, a Pan-Africanist who had in the previous six years led Ghana to independence. He collaborated with other African charismatic leaders including Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Emperor Haille Selassie of Ethiopia and Omar Bongo of Gabon to found the organization that was intended to police the continent and be a voice to be reckoned with in the international arena.
Nkrumah's dream and how much it has failed was manifest in the AU anthem which was played to mark the start of the celebrations in St. Petersburg. It was dedicated to the memory of those who fell in the struggles to make the dream of the "United States of Africa" come true and in honor of the their legacy.
"Let us all unite and celebrate; the victories for our liberation ... Defend our liberty and unity ... O sons and daughters of Africa ... Let us make Africa the tree of life ..." goes the anthem.
In response to the call to celebrate, dancers from Mali immediately took to the stage to show their traditional dancing skills. The Malians enthralled the 500-strong multinational audience.
Then an Ivorian and a Congolese sang a due in different tongues in an attempt to show that love transcends boundaries. "To betray love is to destroy humanity," reads the words from the Russian-language version of the song.
Sudanese, Moroccans, Nigerians, Zambians, Cameroonians and Kenyans also performed. But the audience applauded the loudest when a four-year-old African boy jumped on to the stage from nowhere to grab the microphone to sing, imitating an African language he didn't know, and dancing to the tune. It appeared as if the spirit of Africa had been passed to him through the genes.
An African fashion show attracted some Russian girls from the audience who asked for spare traditional dresses so that they could join the performance.
Outside the concert hall was an exhibition of the traditional arts and crafts of dozens of countries from Cape to Cairo and the island states of Seychelles, Mauritius, Comoro, Madagascar, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe.
But it was a work by Tesfaye Negga, an Ethiopian fine arts lecturer at the St. Petersburg State University of Technology and Design, which conveyed the spirit of Africa Day with his poignant portrait of an Abyssinian girl.
TITLE: Political pop
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Chumbawumba is a punk band that does not really play punk rock.
The British band combines, amazingly, anarchist ideas and pop harmonies and cites The Beatles as an influence. Formed in a squat in Leeds, northern England, as part of an anarcho-punk movement in 1984, the band has attacked the establishment, show business and the media with their riotous songs, famously threw a jug of iced water on a British deputy prime minister at the Brit Awards ceremony and has enjoyed international chart success with hit single "Tubthumping."
Chumbawamba, which performed for 20 minutes at a Moscow festival in 2003, will make its full-length St. Petersburg debut, performing as a five-piece acoustic band this week.
Speaking to The St. Petersburg Times by phone last week, the band's singer and trumpet player Jude Abbot opened the conversation by claiming that Chumbawamba will perform Russian folk songs in St. Petersburg.
"A selection of Russian folk songs! No, I'm joking," she said. "We're performing acoustically at the moment, so its not a big rock and roll show. It's a mix of songs, some old Chumbawamba songs, some new ones, some English radical folk songs. But it's acoustic. Acoustic guitars, voices, a little bit of trumpet, accordion, a bit more folk music."
The "Frequently Asked Questions" on Chumbawamba's web site describe the band's music in the following way: "Punk. Always. Not 'punk-rock' punk. Thus we can encompass folk, doo-wop, a cappella, techno, trip-hop, pop, emo, Frutiger, Amarillo, Geneva, Helvetica and Times bold."
"It's people's expectations; it's certain words that can drop certain associations," Abbot said.
"If you say 'anarchist,' people immediately think 'punk rock,' and actually that doesn't have to be the case. Those categories are broader than people give them credit for, I think.
Chumbawamba's most recent album, 2004's "Un," features Latin influences and a Russian-style choir arrangement while using folk instruments from such countries as Poland and China.
"I think that's the sort of folky direction we are going in now. It's been hinted at on some of the earlier albums, but it's always been there," Abbot said.
Originally from near London but now living in the north with the rest of Chumbawamba, Abbot calls herself the "baby of the band," having joined it in 1996.
She joined just before the band notoriously signed to EMI and scored an international hit with "Tubthumping."
"Soon after I joined we had a hit and 18 months of madness associated with that," she said, adding that the band gained access to the media as a result of the hit record and were then able to express their views to a larger audience. Abbot said it is possible to write pop songs and still be relevant as uncompromised social thinkers.
"We write songs about things that are going out in the world, the things you want to write songs about, really," Abbot said. "There are enough people writing love songs, so we write people's stories, what is happening and that kind of thing. We've always done that, so people describe what we do as political, but we're also complete lovers of pop music, so it's presented in a kind of pop music style.
"I think people expect political songs to sound either like early Bob Dylan or like Rage Against the Machine, kind of very aggressive, and we don't do either of those. We use the medium of pop music, with its lovely choruses and harmonies, all those things. So we're doing what we like doing. It's sweet on the outside and hard in the middle."
Addressing Chumbawamba's influences, Abbot immediately names The Beatles.
"Obviously bands like The Beatles were a massive influence, a massive inspiration, people we admired. If you think about The Beatles, every album they did was different, unlike a lot of bands where every album they do is the same. We try and change. Between us likes and influences diverge massively. I might be listening to Public Enemy one minute and Joni Mitchell the next. It's pretty broad."
Asked her opinion of contemporary Abbot said it sounds unoriginal.
"The trouble with me is as I'm getting old, everything I hear I think it sounds like something else. It sounds like such and such in the 1970s. I am sure if I were 23 rather than 43, and you asked me that, I would probably say that the music scene is very exciting. Well, you asked me and I think it's all derivative."
The way Chumbawamba operates - for instance, crediting songs to the whole band rather than to one or two members - makes it different from many other bands, said Abbot.
"I think it's different from a lot of bands in lots of ways, mainly to do with how we organize ourselves. We're keeping control of it as much as we can, from running the web site to designing the T-shirts. We keep our hand in the whole process, not just how we just play songs and sing them."
The band's stance is perhaps idealistic in cynical times, a throwback to an earlier period when people thought music could change the world.
"There's the whole heap of things that can change the world and we're one tiny part of that," Abbot said.
"I think we see ourselves as a big community out there that is made up of artists, activists, writers, teachers, whatever, all sorts of different people, and everybody is doing a little bit. We are not saying, 'Our music will change the world,' we are saying we're part of a mass of people who are trying to do that."
Abbot said, the band's political activities are mostly confined in its music, sometimes playing a concert for a cause or donating a track to a benefit CD.
However, sometimes the band is capable of more direct action as it was at the Brit Awards in 1998, when Chumbawamba vocalist Danbert Nobacon poured a jug of water over British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, saying "this is for the Liverpool dockers."
"It was a kind of political action, if you like, but it was a spur-of-the-moment, not-to-be-missed opportunity, really," Abbot said.
Chumbawamba have been shechuled to perform at Platforma on Sunday but as this paper went to press it appeared that the concert might not be happening at all. Call the venue on Tel: 314 1104 before going. www.chumba.com
TITLE: Eno's evolution
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new album by British music legend Brian Eno, to be released in Russia a week before the rest of the world on Monday, ends with a controversial new song written from the point of view of a Palestinian suicide bomber.
Eno, presenting his forthcoming solo album at the Russian Museum's Marble Palace last Saturday, said "Bone Bomb" was inspired by a newspaper story about a Palestinian girl who becomes a suicide bomber. On the same page there was an article by a Israeli doctor who explained that wounds from the scenes of suicide bombs are often caused by tiny fragments of the bomber's bones, which embed themselves like shrapnel in the people around.
"These articles were on the same page, and I thought what a combination of tragedies these represent, so I wrote the song with words from the articles," Eno said.
"Bone Bomb," sung by Aylie Cooke, is the last song on "Another Day on Earth," which has an exclusive early release date in Russia.
Eno made the gesture for "educational" reasons, as he explained in a phone interview with The St. Petersburg Times prior to his visit.
He said he wanted to fly some British journalists to St. Petersburg for the event so they could see the city with their own eyes. Eno spent six months in St. Petersburg in 1997 and owns an appartment here.
During last week's visit to St. Petersburg, Eno also appeared with Algerian-French singer Rachid Taha in a rare stage performance for the noted producer and musician.
Eno's first solo album in years is a collection of 11 tracks in which he combines traditional pop song structures and instrumental soundscapes that one usually expects from the ambient pioneer.
Eno said he made "Bone Bomb" the final track on the album because it's emotionally brutal and he did not want to follow the style of television news where horrible news is often closed with a lighter, life-asserting story of a "cat that was saved," for example, from up a tree.
"The main reason that I put it at the end of the album was because nothing can follow it," he said.
For the album's Marble Palace presentation Eno brought British novelist and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell, who started the event by leading a conversation with Eno in front of a 50-strong audience of journalists and guests from the local music and art scenes.
Also present were several British journalists and photographers invited by Eno for the occasion. The journalists were invited to ask their questions after the conversation with Bracewell, who last year published "Roxyism," a book about the art rock group Roxy Music that Eno was a member of in 1971-73.
The Marble Palace's imperial-style White Hall complete with gilt, moldings, double-headed eagles and chandeliers, is the same room where Eno had held his art installation "Lightness" in November 1997. At that time it was a semi-destroyed black-walled room in desperate need of renovation.
Bracewell started the conversation with a question about the influence of Russian art.
Eno, who studied to be a painter in Bristol in the 1960s before becoming a musician, said he was inspired by Russian revolutionary art of the early 20th century, and that painters then believed that art could change and renew society.
"In fact the first painting I did was of Leon Trotsky, which was a copy of a painting by Lyubov Popova, which is actually in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow," he said. "It's one of her black, red and white compositions."
Eno's fascination with Russia is seen in his bold decision to release an important record here before it is available in the West. Usually the reverse is true.
Eno, 57, also explained why he chose to release an album of songs after having made many instrumental, ambient records.
"I suppose what started to happen [is that] I've lost interest in making only instrumental music because it started to seem too easy to do," he said. "Essentially you can buy a keyboard and hold down one key and have a whole career."
According to Eno, "Another Day on Earth" began with a song called "And Then So Clear" that he said he wrote six years ago before playing the track to the audience at the Marble Palace.
"I came up with that song one day. In one day, actually, I pretty much finished it," Eno said. "And I liked it so much, and I thought, how I am going release this song, and I thought, I have to write some others, and actually this record is built around this one song."
On the track Eno's voice was changed by a technician to sound "sexless," and throughout the album he kept experimenting with the sound of the human voice.
Eno said he was conscious about bringing pop song structures and electronic music together on the album because for the past 10 or 15 years the British music scene has been divided into two different camps.
"There is a 'guitar-bands camp' that all sound like Talking Heads to me, and then there is a 'computer camp' which all sound as sort of derivatives of Kraftwerk. Or of me, actually," he said.
"And these two worlds are highly separate from each other. Guitar bands almost religiously don't use computers, and computer people almost religiously don't use performance."
The album has a melancholy sound that Eno attributed to his age. The mood comes from "realizing that your life is finite. You don't realize [this] when you're 23, when it seems to be endless."
Eno, who was active in elections in the U.K. last month, admitted that the album's subject matter was political.
"When you're in your 50s as I am, what are you going to write about?" Eno said.
"You're not going to write about riding in open cars with teenage girls. If you want to have subject matter which is convincing, you have to sing about your life."
TITLE: Annan Fires UN Staffer Over Oil-for-Food
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS -UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday fired a staffer for manipulating contracts under the Iraq oil-for-food program, the first dismissal to result from a U.N.-backed probe of the $64 billion humanitarian operation, a spokesman announced Wednesday.
Joseph Stephanides, a Cypriot diplomat and longtime UN staffer, was dismissed over accusations that he tainted the competitive bidding process for a company to inspect humanitarian goods entering Iraq under oil-for-food.
"Mr. Stephanides was advised accordingly yesterday and was separated from service with immediate effect," UN associate spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Reached after the announcement was made, Stephanides rejected the charges and vowed to appeal. Stephanides, who had planned to retire in September when he turns 60, has two months to appeal.
"I am very disappointed by this decision," Stephanides sad. "I look to the appeal process in the confident hope that justice will be made and I will be exonerated because I have committed no wrongdoing."
The oil-for-food program, established to help ordinary Iraqis suffering under UN sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, is the target of several corruption investigations and has become a lightning rod for critics of the United Nations.
An independent, UN-appointed inquiry led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker first detailed the allegations against Stephanides in an interim report released in February. When the report came out, senior UN officials promised to punish anyone found guilty of wrongdoing.
Stephanides, head of the UN Security Council Affairs Division, had been accused of helping Britain-based Lloyd's Register Inspection Ltd. win an inspection contract even though there was a lower bidder, France-based Bureau Veritas, Volcker's probe found.
The committee never claimed that he sought to enrich himself. Instead, it described the deeply politicized atmosphere that surrounded the awarding of contracts, and how officials were wary about giving the inspection job to Bureau Veritas because several other companies awarded contracts were also French.
Investigators detailed how Britain, one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, may have exerted pressure to help Lloyd's win the contract.
In the same report, Volcker's investigators accused two other UN staff members of wrongdoing in the program, oil-for-food chief Benon Sevan and Dileep Nair, who headed the UN's internal watchdog agency.
Under the program which ran from 1996-2003, Iraq was allowed to sell oil provided the proceeds were used primarily to buy humanitarian goods, including food and medicine.
UN action against Sevan has been suspended until Volcker's team finishes its work, Dujarric said. Sevan was accused of a "grave conflict of interest" in soliciting oil deals from Iraq.
TITLE: Federer, Nadal Go Head-to-Head in Paris
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Built like a boxer rather than a tennis player, Rafael Nadal is listed at 165 pounds in the annual ATP Tour media guide but actually weighs nearly 190.
Just a growing boy, the Mallorcan says his muscular physique isn't the result of any secret Mediterranean diet.
"I eat just normally," Nadal says. "If you give me olives, I eat olives. Yesterday I ate Haagen-Dazs ice cream. I don't have anything out of the ordinary."
On Friday, the French Open will determine whether olives and ice cream are the recipe for beating Roger Federer.
Nadal and Federer meet in a semifinal showdown touted as the match of the tournament, if not the year. It features the game's top two players in peak form: Federer, entrenched at No. 1 and bidding to complete a career Grand Slam at age 23; and Nadal, the teen sensation who has won five tournaments this year and emerged as the biggest threat to Federer's reign.
"This is a match where I'd like to have fun," said Nadal, who turns 19 Friday. "I think I might be able to win. At least that's what I'm going to go for."
The other semifinal features two first-time Grand Slam semifinalists: unseeded Argentine Mariano Puerta and No. 12 Nikolay Davydenko of Russia.
Puerta, back on the tour following a nine-month drug suspension, advanced Wednesday by beating compatriot Guillermo Canas 6-2 3-6 1-6 6-3 6-4. Davydenko edged No. 15 Tommy Robredo 3-6 6-1 6-2 4-6 6-4.
Federer-Nadal is a rematch of the final in Key Biscayne, when Nadal took the first two sets, led 4-1 in the third and was twice two points from victory before Federer rallied to win.
"In the end, I felt I was the fitter player," Federer said. "He looked extremely tired in the fifth, and that kind of surprised me."
Maybe it was the Haagen-Dazs. But that final took place two months ago on a hardcourt, and Nadal has since won 22 consecutive matches, all on clay.
The slow, slick surface supposedly gives an attacking player like Federer the most trouble, and a clay championship is the lone gap in his Grand Slam resume. Andre Agassi is the only champion still playing to win all four major titles.
"That would be definitely a dream come true," Federer said. "At 23, it would be quite something."
He smiled and added, "I'm not quite there yet, so just relax."
The reigning Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion has shown this spring that he can play on clay. He has won 28 consecutive sets on the surface, including 15 in Paris.
That's a big improvement from 2002-04, when Federer won just two of five matches at Roland Garros, twice losing in the opening round.
"I think it's purely the experience, the big matches, the big occasions I've faced," he said. "It's just overall believing more in my game - not only my clay-court game, my game in total."
Many regard the No. 4-seeded Nadal as the favorite, even though he's playing in his first Grand Slam semifinal. The left-hander has delighted crowds at Roland Garros with his charisma, creativity and athleticism.
In the quarterfinals against David Ferrer, he brought fans to their feet by whipping a running forehand winner down the line into the corner - an improbable shot reminiscent of Pete Sampras. Later in the same game, Nadal hit virtually the same shot again, this time braking to avoid tumbling into the first row of seats.
Federer's game is less flashy, but more stylish. He has already drawn comparisons to the game's greatest players, and he's intent on doing what Sampras, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker never did: win the French Open.
"He has been playing very well," Nadal said. "He hasn't lost a single set, has he? Well, we'll go for him."
TITLE: Henin-Hardenne Advances Easily to French Open Final
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: PARIS - Justine Henin-Hardenne moved smoothly into the French Open final with an impressive 6-2 6-3 win over Russian Nadia Petrova on Thursday.
The Belgian former world No. 1, gunning for her second title at Roland Garros, looked in ominously good form as she clinched victory against her error-strewn opponent in just 68 minutes.
Seventh-seeded Petrova, who also lost in the semifinal here two years ago, briefly threatened to make a match of it when she broke Henin-Hardenne in her first service game.
The fast conditions were more suited to Henin, however, and her ferocious backhand constantly had Petrova scrambling to stay in the rallies.
Henin, the No. 10 seed, broke in the seventh game of the second set and raised her arms in triumph two games later when Petrova shanked a forehand over the baseline.
Henin, who has now chalked up 23 consecutive victories, will play Mary Pierce or Elena Likhovtseva in Saturday's final.
"I have to stay focused and concentrate on my own game, whoever I play next," she told reporters.
"I was very determined, I was patient and I was aggressive when I needed to be. I'm very satisfied. I'm getting a bit tired, but I keep winning and that's a good feeling.
"It would be a good conclusion for me to finish the claycourt season undefeated.
"I have lots of memories and emotions from here. This is a bit like home."
The other semifinal is between another Russian, Yelena Likhovtseva, and Frenchwoman Mary Pierce.
Missing from the group are the Williams sisters, two-time runner-up Kim Clijsters, top-ranked Lindsay Davenport, Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova, Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo and last year's finalists, winner Anastasia Myskina and runner-up Yelena Dementyeva.
Among the top contenders at the start of the two weeks, only Henin-Hardenne successfully navigated the first five rounds.
"I would be surprised if she didn't win it," said Sharapova, who lost to Henin-Hardenne in the quarterfinals. "If she keeps her level up, she has a great chance."
Henin-Hardenne's play has steadily improved in Paris despite some rocky moments.
(Reuters, AP)
TITLE: Darfur Food Scarce, Annan Told
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RUMBEIK, Sudan - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan met Sunday with a former rebel leader who warned that UN food supplies to southern Sudan had run out, creating a humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of refugees return to their homes following a January peace deal.
John Garang, chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, told Annan that more than a quarter-million refugees have returned to homes around this former rebel stronghold since the signing of the January peace agreement with the Sudanese government in Khartoum.
Garang, who was made a first vice president under the pact, said the war-ravaged region needs help feeding the returnees, who have not yet been able to go back to farming.
"The UN food pipeline is empty," Garang told Annan.
Annan spent about five hours in southern Sudan during the last stop of his three-day tour of Sudan.
He was greeted at the airport here by hundreds of colorfully dressed locals who danced and shouted greetings to the secretary-general. Farmers presented a pair of white bulls to Annan and asked the UN leader to lay his hands on them in a good luck gesture.
January's peace deal signed in Kenya cleared the way for the drafting of a new constitution and gave southern states the opportunity to vote on secession in six years. The SPLM also will take 30 percent of seats in a transitional national government.
The 21-year war pitted the Arab Muslim-dominated government in Khartoum against rebels fighting for greater autonomy and a larger share of the country's wealth in the largely African animist and Christian south. Two million people are thought to have been killed in the war.
The Sudan News Agency quoted Annan as saying that his visit to Rumbeik was to show "backing for the peace process in Sudan."
Last month, the two sides began talks aimed at drafting a new constitution, which President Omar el-Bashir branded as the start of the most critical period in Sudan's history.
TITLE: Kidnapped Italian Aid Worker
Shown on Afghan Television
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL, Afghanistan - A video of a kidnapped Italian aid worker was broadcast Sunday on Afghan television, which showing her wrapped in a brown blanket flanked by two men aiming rifles at her head - a tactic reminiscent of Iraqi abductions.
Meanwhile, in the southern city of Kandahar, one of Afghanistan's most influential clerics - who led a recent meeting that condemned the Taliban and called on people to support the government - was shot to death Sunday while driving.
In the video broadcast Sunday, the aid worker for CARE International, 32-year-old Clementina Cantoni, responded to prompts from a man not shown on the video, identifying herself and naming her father, mother and an uncle.
The tape, broadcast by independent Tolo TV, then zoomed in on her face. She had a blue scarf on her head, spoke quietly and looked nervous.
It was not clear when the recording was made, but near the end of the tape, the man who was speaking off-camera asked Cantoni the date. "Today is May 28, Sunday," she said. The date referred to Saturday and the discrepancy could not be explained.
Cantoni was abducted on May 16, dragged from a car by four armed men as she was being driven to her home in Kabul, the capital. She has been in Afghanistan since 2002 and was working on a project helping Afghan widows and their families.
The TV station did not say how it had obtained the tape. The Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed the woman on the video was Cantoni.
TITLE: Indonesia Bombing Worst Since 2002 Blasts
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TENTENA, Indonesia - Tearful mourners on Sunday began burying the victims of twin bombings that killed at least 20 people in a crowded marketplace in a Christian-dominated town - the deadliest terror attacks in Indonesia since the 2002 Bali bombings that killed hundreds.
Saturday's attacks came just days after Washington issued a fresh terror warning in Indonesia and closed its diplomatic offices across the nation. The blasts, in Christian-dominated Tentena on Sulawesi Island, were just 15 minutes apart.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the bombings, but suspicion has fallen on Islamic militants responsible for a series of attacks on Christians in Sulawesi Island since a peace deal in 2002 ended a bloody conflict that killed as many as 1,000 people.
Nineteen of the dead were Christians, hospital officials in Tentena said. One unidentified and unclaimed corpse lay in the hospital's morgue covered by a bloody sheet.
Church leaders called for Christians not to retaliate.
"The terrorists want us to perform violent acts to return the region to chaos," said Rinaldy Damanik, the leader of the Synod Churches of Central Sulawesi. "We must stay calm.
Shortly thereafter, an angry mob stoned Tentena's only mosque.
More than 90 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslims, and about 8 percent are Christian. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but central Sulawesi has roughly equal Muslim and Christian populations.
Most of the country's Muslims practice a moderate version of the faith. But attacks against Christians have increased since ex-dictator Suharto's downfall in 1998, amid a global rise in Islamic radicalism.
The bombing sparked concerns that the region could again descend into religious violence. The earlier conflict here and in the nearby Maluku Islands galvanized militant Muslims across Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Members of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked extremist group, have been blamed for previous deadly bombings in Indonesia - including the Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists - and have told authorities they fought in the conflict or were inspired by it.
Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has vowed to crack down on militants, declined to speculate on the identity of the attackers.
"I ask the Indonesian people, especially our brothers in Central Sulawesi, to remain calm, and not to be provoked and agitated because we will handle this matter. We will find the perpetrators and punish them in accordance with what they have done," he said at a news conference.
TITLE: U.S. General
Defends
Treatment Of Prisoners
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - Terrorism suspects held in the U.S. Navy prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being dealt with "humanely" and with "dignity," the nation's top military officer said while disputing reported abuses. In television appearances Sunday, Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also said U.S. officials believe al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is wounded, but it's not known how badly.
Muslims in several countries have demonstrated in recent weeks over allegations that a Quran, their faith's holy book, was flushed down a toilet by guards at Guantanamo. Myers denied that.
The human rights group Amnesty International also released a report last week calling the prison camp "the gulag of our time."
Myers said the report was "absolutely irresponsible." He said the United States was doing its best to detain fighters who, if released, "would turn right around and try to slit our throats, slit our children's throats."
"This is a different kind of struggle, a different kind of war," Myers said on "Fox News Sunday."
"We struggle with how to handle them [the prisoners], but we've always handled them humanely and with the dignity that they should be accorded."
Myers repeated the Pentagon's contention that five cases of mistreatment of the Koran at Guantanamo had been confirmed. He did not give any other details about the mistreatment.
The U.S. military had detained more than 68,000 people since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said, and looked into 325 complaints of mistreatment. Investigations have found 100 cases of prisoner mistreatment and 100 people have been punished, the general said.
On Zarqawi, who heads the al-Qaida insurgency in Iraq, Myers said U.S. officials believe postings on a militant web site that Zarqawi had been wounded in a battle are true. He said he did not know whether Zarqawi had left Iraq for treatment in another country, as some Web sites and news organizations have reported.
In London, The Sunday Times reported that Zarqawi was being treated in Iran after a piece of shrapnel hit his chest during an attack on his convoy. Iran denies it is harboring Zarqawi.
Myers said he did not think the United States should have used more troops in the Iraq invasion but acknowledged that progress has proved slower than military officials had hoped.
"I don't think we understood that people had been suppressed, and their spirit had been suppressed to the point where it wasn't just going to naturally blossom once they had the opportunity," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Later Sunday, Myers joined Rolling Thunder, an annual motorcycle rally in the capital to support veterans. Thousands of bikers rode from the Pentagon to the National Mall, gathering at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Among those attending were Keith and Carolyn Maupin, the parents of Sergeant Keith Maupin, the only U.S. soldier listed as missing and captured in Iraq. The 21-year-old soldier has been missing since his convoy was attacked west of Baghdad on April 9.
"To see these people and see their faces, and hear their caring and sincerity, it's just amazing," Carolyn Maupin said in a telephone interview.
TITLE: Japanese Diplomats Leave
After Stragglers Unsighted
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines - Japan said Monday it will withdraw diplomats from the southern Philippines after four days of unsuccessfully trying to verify reports that two surviving Japanese soldiers have been hiding there since World War II.
The Japanese Embassy and officials in Tokyo cited security concerns in a region notorious for Muslim guerrilla attacks and criminal gangs. Japan's Kyodo news agency, citing an unidentified government source, said Tokyo also concluded that a Japanese mediator -a trader who first reported the case of the two soldiers - can't be trusted.
But embassy officials stressed that their efforts to arrange a meeting with the mystery men would continue.
"The mediator said that he will inform the embassy about the date and timing of the interview at a later date," Akio Egawa, the embassy's deputy chief, told reporters in General Santos City, adding that the mediator wants the interview "in a more quiet situation."
"Security is one of the concerns," he said, citing the presence of about 100 Japanese journalists in the city. "If some journalists go into the mountains, that will be dangerous."
Egawa refused to say when he and four other diplomats will leave the city, adding that efforts to verify the astonishing tale will be exerted from Manila.
"Of course, any information on the survival of a former Japanese soldier is a very crucial concern for us, the government as well as the Japanese families," he said.
He also welcomed an offer by the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front to help find the men. He evaded questions whether officials believe the mediator - a longtime resident of the Philippines - is trustworthy.
In Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said attempts to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the men would continue despite suspicions the tale is a hoax.
Japanese journalists, who last week rushed to the area, 1,000 kilometers south of Manila, have been raising doubts about the story, including that the trader - who has not surfaced publicly - is part of an elaborate scam.
Egawa also said the Japanese government was unaware of any ransom payments or demands in connection with the two alleged former soldiers.
Japanese media have reported that unidentified armed groups have demanded or received ransom for the men amounting to about $250,000.
The story of the two soldiers, who were reportedly separated from their unit six decades ago and were afraid to return for fear of being court-martialed, broke as Japanese veterans marked the 60th anniversary of the war's end.
The Philippines, then a US colony, was a major battleground in the Pacific. The Japanese occupation is remembered for its massacres of civilians and deaths of hundreds of thousands of US and Filipino soldiers. A few Japanese soldiers surrendered as late as 1948.
In March 1974, intelligence officer 2nd Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda came out of hiding on northern Lubang island, but he refused to give up until the Japanese government flew in his former commander to formally inform him the war was over.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Israel to Release 400
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners in what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called a bid to bolster moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of a Gaza pullout.
But the Palestinian Authority said Israel had failed to coordinate the release with them and it would leave behind prisoners the Palestinian public most wanted to see free.
Israel freed 500 prisoners on Feb. 21 after Abbas and Sharon announced a ceasefire at a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Sharon later suspended the promised release of 400 more, citing Palestinian inaction in disarming militants.
"Israel has complaints about the Palestinians, even very serious complaints, relating to the implementation of the Sharm el-Sheikh understandings," Sharon told the cabinet, which voted 18-3 in favor of the release.
King Fahd Recovering
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi King Fahd was recovering from the pneumonia that sent him to the hospital last week, a hospital official said, citing chest X-rays taken Sunday.
The king's condition was "stable and improving" and his temperature was back to normal, but he remains in intensive care, said the official at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.
Fahd was hospitalized Friday for unspecified medical tests. Concerned Saudis have closely followed health updates on the king, believed to be 82, who brought the oil-rich kingdom closer to the United States during more than two decades as monarch.
Merchant Buried
BOMBAY, India (AP) - Ismail Merchant, the Indian-born Hollywood producer who mastered the period-piece genre in a 44-year filmmaking partnership with James Ivory, was buried Saturday in the town of his birth.
Relatives and friends gathered at his ancestral home in downtown Bombay. Several actors from the Indian film industry who had worked with Merchant also attended the funeral.
"It was ... his wish to be buried in India, and he wanted to be buried near his mum," said Jaya Ramachandran, a production coordinator who worked with Merchant for 10 years.
Merchant, 68, died Wednesday at a London hospital.
The Merchant-Ivory brand of costume drama spans some 40 films from "The Householder," a 1963 film set in India, to "Le Divorce" in 2003, an art house hit. Their films won six Academy Awards, including the best-actress Oscar for Emma Thompson for the 1992 film "Howards End."
Oliver Stone Busted
BEVERLY HILLS, California (AP) - Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone was arrested on suspicion of drug possession and driving while intoxicated, police said Saturday. Stone, 58, was arrested Friday night at a police checkpoint on Sunset Boulevard after showing signs of alcohol intoxication, police Sergeant John Edmundson said.
A search of his Mercedes turned up drugs, Edmundson said. He did not specify what kind, but Lieutenant Micaela Garland said police confiscated pills that were being analyzed at a lab.
Stone was released Saturday morning after posting $15,000 bail.
In 1999, the filmmaker pleaded guilty to drug possession and no contest to driving under the influence and was ordered into a rehabilitation program.
Stone's films include the recent "Alexander," "JFK" (1991) and "Natural Born Killers" (1994).
TITLE: Sharapova Advances to Quarterfinals
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - Maria Sharapova needed only 10 minutes to complete a rain-interrupted fourth-round victory at the French Open, sweeping the final three games when play resumed to beat Nuria Llagostera Vives 6-2 6-3 on Monday.
The match was halted Sunday night because of drizzle with the second set at 3-all and resumed in damp, 60-degree weather. Sharapova closed out the win 17 points later when Llagostera Vives shanked a backhand on match point.
Seeded second, Sharapova celebrated her berth in the quarterfinals by smiling and blowing kisses to the sparse crowd on Court Suzanne Lenglen. The reigning Wimbledon champion struggled with her serve throughout the match but hit 17 winners and improved to 31-5 this year.
Top-ranked Roger Federer equaled his best showing at Roland Garros when he advanced to the quarterfinals Sunday, beating an ailing Carlos Moya 6-1 6-4 6-3.
Federer improved to 45-2 this year. He has yet to drop a set through four rounds at the only Grand Slam event he hasn't won.
"I'm very relieved in a way, and happy to have come so far after a few years of tough times here in Paris," Federer said.
"I've won four matches, which is good. But of course once you get to the quarters, you want more, especially because I haven't been using my reserve tank yet. I still have a lot of energy left. I'm looking forward to hopefully another few more matches."
Moya, the 1998 champion, gave Federer little trouble while playing with a sore shoulder that hindered his serve and forehand. The Spaniard said he needs rest and isn't sure whether he'll play Wimbledon.
"I'm glad that I managed to save some energy," Federer said. "I'm surprised that he finished the match."
Federer's opponent Tuesday was due to be 90th-ranked Victor Hanescu, who upset No. 10 David Nalbandian 6-3, 4-6, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2. Hanescu, who arrived in Paris with a record of 6-9 this year, will play in his first Grand Slam quarterfinal.
"When I started to play tennis, I was dreaming to be here," Hanescu said. "My family is a poor family. When I was young, we didn't have so much money even to eat sometimes. Now I'm here and very happy."
No. 9 Guillermo Canas and No. 28 Nicolas Kiefer completed victories in third-round matches suspended Saturday because of darkness.
On the women's side, top-ranked Lindsay Davenport was due to play in the quarterfinals for the first time in six years Tuesday when she faces 2000 champion Mary Pierce of France.
Davenport won in three sets for the fourth time in four matches, beating two-time runner-up Kim Clijsters 1-6 7-5, 6-3. Davenport, the tournament's only remaining American, male or female, is seeling the only major title she has yet to win.
"Right now, I'm just ecstatic to be where I am," she said.
Pierce had French fans groaning when she failed to convert 10 match points, but she finally finished off eighth-seeded Patty Schnyder 6-1 1-6 6-4.
"I'm so tired," Pierce said. "I don't know whether to laugh or cry."
She's 2-8 against Davenport, but they haven't met since 1999.
"She's No. 1 in the world," Pierce said. "On paper, I shouldn't win. But I'm playing my favorite tournament. You know, nothing to lose."
Also making the final eight was 15-year-old Bulgarian Sesil Karatantcheva,who beat Emmanuelle Gagliardi 7-5, 6-3. Karatantcheva, who made a name for herself by beating Venus Williams in the third round, is now making it hard for friends and family to reach her.
"I'm not even answering my phone," she said. "I had 20 missed calls yesterday. A lot of people are very happy for me, a lot of kids, a lot of adults."
Karatantcheva's opponent Tuesday was due to be 16th-seeded Yelena Likhovtseva, who needed 2 hours, 49 minutes to win an all-Russian matchup by beating No. 4 Yelena Dementyeva 7-6 5-7 7-5.
A match between Rafael Nadal and Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean was first interrupted by booing, then by rain. Drizzle forced suspension of play until Monday.
TITLE: CSKA Wins Cup Final,
Zenit Takes UEFA Spot
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: CSKA Moscow completed a memorable double on Sunday when they beat first division Khimki 1-0 in the Russian Cup final less than two weeks after lifting the UEFA Cup.
Sunday's victory also meant that FC Zenit St. Petersburg, who lost to CSKA in the semi-finals, will represent Russia in the UEFA Cup next season.
Russia winger Yury Zhirkov headed home from close range following a cross by Brazilian playmaker Daniel Carvalho in the 68th minute to settle Sunday's final and give CSKA the trophy for the second time in the last four years.
It was their seventh cup triumph, bringing them level with city rivals Dynamo and Torpedo. Spartak Moscow have won a record 13 finals since the competition began in the Soviet Union in 1936.
Khimki, who were playing in their first final, were trying to match the feat of fellow first division side Terek Grozny who beat favourites Krylya Sovietov Samara to win last year's final.
"We are all very happy to win but honestly myself and all the players are so tired and drained mentally that we don't have any strength left to celebrate," said CSKA coach Valery Gazzayev.
The army club have been playing virtually non-stop for the last two months, but the players will now have a deserved break before the Premier League competition resumes in two weeks.
On May 18 CSKA became the first Russian club to lift a European trophy when they beat Portugal's Sporting 3-1 in the UEFA Cup final in Lisbon.
Zenit bounced back Saturday from being ejected from the Russian Cup by beating Saturn 1-0 in the tenth game of the league season.
With 17 points, Zenit lie in fourth place, three points behind leaders Lokomotiv Moscow. Igor Denisov scored for Zenit in the 63rd minute.
Champion Lokomotiv went top with a 4-1 home win against city rivals Dinamo while Spartak Moscow moved into second position, a point behind, after beating Krylya Sovietov Samara 3-1.
Igor Lebedenko scored two goals while Dmitry Loskov and Marat Izmailov added one apiece to lift the champions into the driver's seat after Brazilian striker Derlei had given the visitors an early lead.
Midfielder Maxim Kalinichenko rifled home two piledrivers for Spartak and substitute Roman Pavlichenko scored with a late header to cancel out Anton Bober's close-range effort.
(SPT, Reuters)
o
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The 20th anniversary of the Heysel Stadium tragedy was marked Sunday by the unveiling of a statue complete with 39 lights to commemorate the number of deaths in European soccer's worst episode of violence. "It was on this day that the most terrible page of soccer history was written," said Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans, who attended the ceremony along with the mayors of Turin and Liverpool and hundreds of fans.
(Reuters)