SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1077 (43), Friday, June 10, 2005
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TITLE: Descendants of Nobles Alarmed by Privatization Plans
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Descendants of nobles whose homes and estates were nationalized by the Bolsheviks expressed alarm Thursday that the properties could soon be privatized.
Culture and Communications Minister Alexander Sokolov said Wednesday that privatization of the country's crumbling architectural monuments could start in the next six months.
A substantial proportion of the monuments, including palaces, summer estates and historic buildings, are located in St. Petersburg. When the city was the capital, the royal family and their court filled the city and surroundings with architectural wonders.
The Bolshevik revolution saw the noble owners going into forced exile and their property nationalized. Many fine buildings were turned into communalkas.
"Some time ago the country wasn't ready for privatization of cultural objects, but now the time has come," Sokolov said in the State Duma on Wednesday.
His office is ready to present a report on the subject to the government before the end of this month, he added.
However, the nobles' descendants are outraged.
"The time has really come to return what was stolen from us," said Boris Turovsky, head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Imperial Union-Order, an organization of Russian aristocrats living abroad, headquartered in the U.S.
"Instead, the state is once again wishing to get rich at our expense by selling historical buildings to nouveaux riches who will put jacuzzis in former ballrooms," he added.
Many aristocrats are appalled that government officials at all levels never mention the original owners of the properties when the privatization issue is raised.
"They speak about it as if we don't exist, and the communists themselves built all those palaces and estates, and now there are too many of them, so the state would like to share the burden of maintaining them," said Princess Vera Obolensky, director of the St. Petersburg branch of French travel company CGTT Voyages. "But they didn't build them, they expropriated them."
Turovsky suggested that Russia's property owners, their social class notwithstanding should unite into an association to defend their rights.
"The authorities probably think that the Bolsheviks had managed to kill all of the elite, and there is nobody left now to claim the properties back," Obolensky said. "Yes, they killed almost 90 percent of us but thank God they didn't kill everyone. We must stand up and speak about our rights in full voice."
Governor Valentina Matviyenko first proposed privatizing the city's monuments in April of 2004, and her initiative has since gained the support of many high-ranking advocates.
One of them is Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref.
"The only buildings that should remain in federal ownership are those of national significance, such as the State Hermitage Museum," Gref said in a much-quoted televized speech at a government meeting in March. "The thousands of dilapidated houses and palaces should be handed over to businesses that, unlike the state, have the money to renovate them."
Former Culture Minister Natalya Dementyeva said privatization should be allowed "as an experiment in two or three regions of Russia."
Speaking on Ekho Moskvy radio station Wednesday, Dementyeva said that "not all regions are stable enough economically to make sensible use of the opportunities."
Since Matviyenko made her statement on privatization, the city's aristocrats have formed a group to represent the former owners.
Obolensky said Matviyenko has not made any contact with the committee, neither directly, nor via a representative. The governor has not invited any of the members to express their view of the situation or submit their proposals, she said.
Museum curators fear that privatization will not so much rescue properties as ruin them. The ill-fated historical mansions are at risk of undergoing massive alterations when carelessly renovated by the new owners who have neither family traditions nor the relevant education to give the architectural monuments the treatment they deserve, they say.
But Alexei Komech, director of the Moscow-based Russian Institute of Art History, said privatization is inevitable.
The best museum curators can do is to create strong and detailed legislation and include supervisory boards to control the process, he said.
"The potential new owners must know what punishment they face if they damage their precious properties," he said. "They have to understand that they won't be allowed just to adapt these places for their personal needs."
In Russia, where generation after generation has been mistreated by the state, Obolensky's plight is not unique.
But many politicians say restitution would cause a new wave of dangerous property wars. People other than nobles also lost their property, for instance during the Great Terror in 1938, and they have no chance of compensation.
Mikhail Amosov, head of the Legislative Assembly's town planning committee said that over the past 100 years almost every family in the country has suffered from the state one way or another.
"[After the Bolshevik Revolution] the country went through the war, mass repression, ethnic discrimination and much more," he said. "If everyone can't be compensated, then it would be unfair to do justice just to one category of people."
Obolensky isn't ready to give up just yet. She is convinced that the original owners should at least be able to supervise the further use of their family's former property.
"We have a personal connection and the moral right to decide on this issue, and we will fight on," she said.
TITLE: Chinese To Invest $1.5 Bln
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia and China signed eight investment agreements worth a total of $1.5 billion at the Second Russia-China Investment Forum in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
"The transition from trade collaboration to investment collaboration between Russia and China means a quality shift in our cooperation," Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said at the forum.
Ma Kai, chairman of China's State Committee on Development and Reform, said that the investment collaboration is "a sign linking the past and the future." "Investment collaboration is the engine of Russian-Chinese cooperation," Ma said.
Among the projects signed was the second agreement on construction of giant residential complex the Baltic Pearl in St. Petersburg, in which the Shanghai Foreign United Investment Co. is to invest about $1.25 billion. The development, which is to house 35,000 people, is China's biggest investment project in Russia.
Russian and Chinese officials on Thursday laid the foundation stone for the complex in the Krasnoselsky district.
Meanwhile, the administration of Khabarovsk region signed a $42 million agreement with the Chinese Development Bank to develop the region's timber resources.
The administration of the Novgorod region signed an agreement on the creation of a center for producing agricultural and industrial products and for logistics in the region. Chinese investment in that project will total $31 million.
Russian firm Atis signed an agreement on collaboration with a Chinese partner on the construction of a Chinese retail fruit and vegetable base in the city of Irkutsk, in which China will invest $20 million.
Russian company M-Video signed a memorandum on collaboration with a Sichuan province company, which will invest $10 million to fund the production of television sets in Moscow.
Gref said "the agreements show that the geography of Russian-Chinese collaboration is rather wide," because many projects will be developed "far from the border."
Chinese firms have shown "stable investment interest" in the Russian economy, with direct Chinese investments growing 82 percent last year, Gref said.
By 2010 annual trade turnover between Russia and China will reach about $60 billion, he added.
Nevertheless, China and Russia present barriers to investors when they try to enter each others' markets, Gref said.
Among those barriers are a lack of experience of investment collaboration at the corporate level, lack of knowledge in Russian and Chinese circles about the countries' investment climate and bureaucratic barriers.
In Russia "not only investors from China experience barriers, but also investors from other countries." To create a favorable investment climate, Russia must reduce corruption and administrative barriers, Gref said.
Ma called for a fast-track agreement with Russia on mutual protection of investments to be fast-tracked. "We think, it is necessary to develop a program of incentives for investment. It is especially important in regards to giving incentives on tax and labor migration, as well as developing conditions for the rapid organization of all investment projects," he said.
Meanwhile, Chen Gen, president of the Chinese National Oil and Gas Corporation, said Russia will increase its oil exports to China from 10 million tons planned in 2005 to 15 million tons in 2006 and that in the future these exports will rise even higher.
Bloomberg later cited Prime-Tass as reporting that state-owned oil company Rosneft had signed a deal with China Petrochemical Corp. that may involve Rosneft supplying the Chinese with as much as 12 million tons of oil a year.
The companies will cooperate inside Russia and abroad, said the report, citing an executive from China Petrochemical, or Sinopec.
Gref said China is interested in investing in Russian logistics and infrastructure and that Chinese companies can be attracted to Russia's projects to modernize its energy infrastructure.
Russian business could take part in projects on transport energy infrastructure, which will develop in China, he said.
St. Petersburg Vice Governor Mikhail Ovseyevsky said the city is interested in attracting Chinese investments for construction of three- and four-stars hotels, production of household appliances and transport projects.
"We plan to build several transport tunnels under the Neva River on the principles of private and state partnership. I think these projects deserve attentions from certain Chinese companies," Oseyevsky said.
Meanwhile, about 20 members of St. Petersburg Communists and Sober Petrograd held a meeting of protest against the construction of the Baltic Pearl on Thursday. They said the city was "voluntarily giving away one of its districts to Chinese people," and doubted city residents would benefit from it.
However, Interfax reported only 1 percent of the residents of the complex will be Chinese.
TITLE: Woman's Right to Self-Defense Recognized
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prosecutors are asking the Moscow City Court to overturn a woman's murder conviction on the grounds that she acted in self-defense against a man who was trying to rape her.
In what is being seen as a landmark ruling on a woman's right to self-defense, the City Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday asked the court to overturn a June 2 verdict by the Lyublinsky District Court.
Alexandra Ivannikova, 29, stabbed Sergei Bagdasaryan, 23, in the thigh with a knife after waving down his car for a ride in December 2003. The knife struck Bagdasaryan in an artery, and he was dead by the time police arrived at the scene.
The Lyublinsky court found Ivannikova guilty of murder and gave her a suspended sentence. District prosecutors had sought a three-year prison sentence.
In their appeal, city prosecutors said that Ivannikova's actions "did not constitute a crime," spokesman Sergei Marchenko said by telephone Wednesday. "The district prosecutor has expressed her opinion. We disagreed and said so."
City prosecutors appeared to have taken note of public outcry over the conviction. Ivannikova's relatives and independent observers had expressed dismay at the original verdict of the district court, which found her guilty despite accepting that she had acted in self-defense to avoid being raped.
"This is a landmark case, not because it is a victory for justice but one for public opinion, which is still taken into account sometimes," said Yulia Latynina, who hosts a show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
The prosecutors' decision to seek to overturn the conviction came as a surprise to Ivannikova and her lawyer.
"I sighed with relief when I got a suspended sentence last week, and I cannot say how surprised I was to learn the prosecutors are on my side," Ivannikova said by telephone. "I realize that this is not over yet and no one knows which decision the city court will take."
Ivannikova's lawyer, Alexei Parshin, said, "It is no secret that our judges are reluctant to acquit defendants, especially on murder charges."
No date for the city court hearing has been set.
Ivannikova got into Bagdasaryan's Lada car in southern Moscow on Dec. 8, 2003, after he agreed to take her home for 100 rubles, according to court documents. She became alarmed after she noticed that he had passed her house and turned instead into a dark side street near Donetskaya Ulitsa.
Bagdasaryan parked the car and locked the doors. Ivannikova testified that he then pulled his pants down and attempted to undress her, despite her protests. Ivannikova said she eventually managed to take a kitchen knife out of her purse and stab him in the leg.
She got out the car and ran away. She stopped a police car and told officers what she had done, but by the time they found Bagdasaryan he was dead.
Parshin, Ivannikova's lawyer, insisted that his client had acted in self-defense, and that she had carried the knife for self-protection after being raped at the age of 16.
Nikolai Rylatko, a lawyer for Sergei Bagdasaryan's father, Andrei, said in remarks published Wednesday in Gazeta that he was preparing to appeal the Lyublinsky court sentence as too mild, and criticized prosecutors for making what he called a political decision.
Parshin insisted that race was not a factor in the case.
Dmitry Olshansky, a prominent defense lawyer, said that in the past those accused of killing in self-defense had been routinely sentenced to prison terms, but that this policy was slowly changing, with more leniency being shown to defendants.
The turning point was the adoption of an amendment to the Criminal Code late last year that rejected the concept of adequate response, he said.
"Earlier, if one was attacked by a fist, he was allowed by law to defend himself only with a fist and not with a knife or a gun," Olshansky said. "Now, someone defending himself and his property can use a gun against anyone trying to get into his apartment, regardless of whether the intruder is armed or not."
According to Interior Ministry statistics, about 8,000 rapes and attempted rapes were recorded last year.
Olshansky said rape cases were underreported.
TITLE: Helsinki Worried by Strike
On Russian-Finnish Border
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Finland's Interior Minister Kari Rajamaki has appealed to the Border Guards' Union to cease the strike by the Finnish Frontier Guard at border posts on the Russian-Finnish border that has been running since May 31.
Rajamaki expressed concern about border security, and said it was hardly satisfactory on the eastern border, newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported.
Rajamaki expressed his hope that the negotiations would reach a rapid resolution.
He was not willing to comment, however, on whether or not the government intends to intervene in the labor dispute.
Reijo Kortelainen, chairman of the Finnish Border Guards' Union, said Thursday in a telephone interview that the frontier guards will continue their strike.
"We will go on with our strike as we planned until June 11 [Saturday], and start another one on June 21 until our demands are fulfilled," Kortelainen said.
As a result of the strike, passport controls on the Russian-Finnish border crossings have been performed by a quarter of the normal staff, mainly by senior officers.
Finnish border inspections have been focused on travelers arriving from outside the EU and European Economic Area. Finns have made no inspections of those crossing into Russia.
The Border Guards' Union says the inspections have been performed by people who were not professionally trained for this job.
The Interior Ministry admitted Wednesday that the decision by the Finnish Frontier Guard to stop inspecting passports of travelers crossing the border from Finland into Russia is a violation of the Schengen Treaty.
Meanwhile, Finnish border guards have threatened to expand their strike to airports and harbors.
TITLE: Germany Grants Russian Asylum
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: BERLIN - Germany for the first time has granted political asylum to a Russian national who stood as a candidate in regional elections and was allegedly tortured while in custody, a German newspaper reported Thursday.
Oleg Liskin, 36, risked being arrested for his political activity if he returned to Russia, according to the German federal office of migration and refugees, which granted him asylum, the daily newspaper Tagesspiegel reported.
Liskin was held in custody and allegedly tortured in 2001 after standing as a candidate in regional elections to become governor of Tula in central Russia, according to an immigration and refugee office report.
He came to Berlin in December 2002 because he risked being sent to prison for being a danger to state security, the report said.
Liskin also worked for the Russian bank Legprombank, which supported the Russian reformist party Yabloko.
An immigration and refugee office spokesperson, contacted by AFP, refused to comment on the case.
Liskin is the first Russian national to have been granted political asylum in Germany, according to human rights group Amnesty International in Germany.
"It's a sign," said Amnesty International's Russian expert, Peter Franck.
Foreign affairs expert for the ruling Social Democrat party Gernot Erler described the government's decision as "very unusual".
The decision was welcomed by the parliamentary human rights committee president and Green party member Christa Nickels.
The Greens, who are members of the coalition government, place greater emphasis on rights than other parties do.
TITLE: St. Isaac's Lookout To Be Open at Night
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The colonnade lookout on St. Isaac's Cathedral, which offers a bird's eye view of St. Petersburg, is to open every night from 7 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. from Friday until the end of the White Nights in early July.
The administration of the cathedral, which is a federal museum, decided to offer the all-night observation sessions after test runs on City Day on May 27 and June 3. A total of 750 came on the first night, but word spread that the colonnade was open and on the second occasion 2,500 people came, said Yevgeny Korchagin, deputy head of the museum.
"The experience turned out to be extremely popular with Russian and foreign visitors and tourists," he said.
Only if there is rain or strong wind will access to the lookout be closed, Korchagin said.
Night excursions to the colonnade became possible due to recent repairs that made it safer, Korchagin said, adding that the number of security guards will be increased at night.
Entrance to the colonnade at night costs 100 rubles, with the same price for foreigners and Russians. Tickets can be bought next to the entrance to the cathedral, where visitors can start their climb to the colonnade.
About 300 steps lead to the colonnade, which is located 43 meters above ground level. The lookout provides an excellent view of the city's main sights including the Peter and Paul Fortress, the State Hermitage Museum, Smolny Cathedral, St. Nicholas Cathedral, Troitsky Cathedral, Vasilyevsky Island, and even the Gulf of Finland.
St. Isaac's Cathedral is 101.52 meters high. It is the fourth highest cathedral in the world after St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, St. Paul's Cathedral in London and Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.
St. Isaac's Cathedral was once the main church of St. Petersburg and the largest church of Russia. It was built in 1818-58 by French-born architect Auguste Montferrand.
The gilded dome of St. Isaac's still dominates the skyline of St. Petersburg. Although the cathedral is smaller than a newly rebuilt Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow, its facades and interiors are far more inspirational.
The church, designed to accommodate 14,000 standing worshipers, was closed in the early 1930s and reopened as a museum. Nowadays, church services are held there only on major occasions.
TITLE: Italians Can Now Praise God Par Italiano
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Italians will be able to celebrate Catholic masses in the language of Dante every Sunday this summer in St. Catherine's Church at 32/34 Nevsky Prospekt.
Italians love to visit the city whose appearance is heavily influenced by classical forms and the work of architects of Italian origin including Rastrelli, Quarenghi and Rossi.
However, until this summer they could not attend mass in their own language.
The masses, which started last Sunday and continue until September, are being held on the initiative of the Italian Consulate as a result of numerous requests from Italian tourists.
"It was indeed our reaction to the requests of many Italian tourists who visit St. Petersburg," consulate spokesman Francesco Bigazzi said.
Some 200,000 to 300,000 Italians visit the city every summer, Bigazzi said.
"Italians have a very longstanding, even ancient, love for this city," Bigazzi said. "I know for sure that many Italians consider St. Petersburg more beautiful than Moscow."
Italians, who are proud of their own country's ancient architecture and the great voices at La Scala, are particularly excited about the State Hermitage Museum and Mariinsky Theater, he said.
Services in Italian will also be good news for the about 110 Italians, who live permanently in the city, working as businessmen, culture experts and teachers, Bigazzi said.
Father Reati Fiorenzo, who will conduct the Italian masses every Sunday at 8 p.m., said he was glad the consulate came up with the initiative.
Father Fiorenzo, a Franciscan priest who also works as a philosophy professor in St. Petersburg, said the summer months were chosen for such masses because it's when most Italian tourists come.
St. Catherine's Church also holds masses in Polish, English, French and Russian, he said.
TITLE: Airspace Violations Downplayed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said Tuesday that too much of a fuss was being made over Russian intrusions into Finnish air space, and his Finnish counterpart Matti Vanhanen said the issue had been dropped from the bilateral agenda.
"I would not start dramatizing the situation. There is more of a racket here than actual violations," Fradkov said after talks between the two heads of government, Interfax reported.
Vanhanen said the planes had gone just 1 to 3 kilometers inside Finnish air space and that Finland does not regard the violations as intentional. The two prime ministers ordered their countries' military and civilian experts to solve the problem, Fradkov was quoted as saying.
"In the future, how to organize air traffic in the narrow corridor over the Gulf of Finland in the best possible way will be discussed at the expert level. For now, the matter has been dropped from the agenda," Vanhanen said.
Before his visit, Vanhanen had played down the significance of the air violations for Finland, which works closely with NATO, and where a debate continues on whether the neutral country should join the alliance.
"We don't see that this has any significance for decisions about our security policy," Vanhanen told commercial MTV3 before departing for Russia.
Fradkov said the two had also discussed practical avenues for economic cooperation, including energy, the timber industry, transport and machine-building, Interfax reported.
Vanhanen said the talks also focused on environmental protection, a planned high-speed train link between Helsinki and St. Petersburg and joint use of the Saimaa Canal, RIA-Novosti reported.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: 21 More Metro Stations
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City Hall is planning for 21 new metro stations by 2015, Interfax quoted Governor Valentina Matviyenko as saying Monday on city-controlled television station Channel 5.
"Starting in 2005 we have decided to invest at least 3 billion rubles ($105 million) from the city budget because the metro has fallen seriously behind over the years," she said.
Construction of the first section of a rapid transport system that will link the Krasnoselsky district with the city center is being planned, she said.
Hostel for Delinquents
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) -Two hostels have been prepared for resettling citizens who fail to keep up with communal services payments without good reason, Interfax quoted Valentina Matviyenko as saying Monday on city-controlled television station Channel 5.
Residents have total debts of 3.5 billion rubles ($123 million), she said.
"Half a million families are behind on their payments," Matviyenko said, "about 100,000 of them have not paid for housing services for more than a year or even for more than three years."
Those whose debts have been behind for at least six months will be targeted for resettlement in the hostels where 6 square meters will be allocated to each resident, she said.
Tramp Lives in Museum
ST. PETERSBURG (Reuters) - Curators at one of the city's most venerable museums have evicted a tramp who made his home among its priceless collection of antique china and manuscripts.
Workers at St Petersburg's 18th century Peter and Paul Fortress discovered the homeless man after a burglar alarm went off Tuesday morning.
"We asked him: 'What are you doing here?' and he said: 'I live here,'" a museum worker said.
The man was handed to police.
Tallinn Raps Police
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Estonia's chief policeman gas punished two senior officers in Tallinn for failing to ensure order and security on the eve of May 9, and prevent the vandalization of a World War II monument, the Baltic Times reported.
An investigation established that one of the reasons why the so-called Bronze Soldier monument to Soviet troops in Tallinn's Tonismagi area could be defiled was the police's inadequate cooperation with local authorities and organizers of Victory Day celebrations.
Foreigner Robbed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A 62-year-old Egyptian military doctor attending the international military medicine congress in the city was robbed of $4,500 at a bus stop on Nevsky Prospekt on Wednesday, Interfax reported.
TITLE: Ernst Young Quits CIS Law Operations
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Ernst & Young's legal practice in Russia and the CIS is preparing to split from its parent company and join DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary to form one of the region's largest law firms, sources from both companies said.
"It is definitely going to be one of the three largest law practices in Russia and the CIS," said Ernst & Young partner Constantine Lusignan-Rizhinashvili, who is set to head the combined CIS practice at DLA Piper.
The combined practice will boast around 100 lawyers, the majority coming from Ernst & Young's four offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev and Tbilisi.
The deal takes effect July 1, when DLA's six Moscow-based lawyers will move into Ernst & Young's offices on Sadovnicheskaya Embankment, Lusignan-Rizhinashvili said. The deal requires the approval of DLA partners outside Russia.
EY Law's split from its parent company comes at a time when its partners are increasingly confident that they can fend for themselves in the feverish wheel-and-deal environment in Russia.
The firm is active in mergers and acquisitions as well as in real estate, intellectual property and tax law. Its clients include SeverstalTrans, Gazprombank, BP, the household appliance maker Merloni, the insulation producer Rockwool and the brokerage Troika Dialog.
The value of mergers and acquisitions activity in Russia rose by 70 percent to $30 billion last year, according to Ernst & Young. Brokerage Aton Capital estimates that Russian companies have sold shares worth $2.9 billion in initial public offerings so far this year, more than twice the amount they sold over the whole of the past decade.
Moscow lawyers say they routinely put in so many hours drafting contracts and proposals that they do not even find time to enjoy the free massages their firms provide.
Ernst & Young was under pressure to spin off its legal services after the collapse of Arthur Andersen in 2002. Critics say an auditing firm cannot be objective when it seeks legal and consultancy work from the company whose books it is inspecting.
But some large accounting firms relish being a one-stop shop for the legal and consulting needs of their clients.
"We have no intention of spinning off our legal practice," said Mike Kubena, managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, which employs over 50 lawyers in Moscow. "Our legal capabilities represent an important component in many of our advisory projects."
Ernst & Young - which employs a total of 1,900 people in Moscow including in its law department - will retain some lawyers in the CIS to provide services, such as helping clients make sense of currency and customs regulations.
"We hope to finalize out internal approval process within the next few weeks," DLA Piper's managing director for continental Europe, Steven de Keyser, said by telephone from Brussels.
TITLE: Aviation Tops 2004 Arms Revenues
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Aviation accounted for about 70 percent of defense companies' revenues last year, according to a report to be released Thursday.
The domination of aviation in arms sales may soon change, however, with shipbuilders likely to grab the lion's share in 2005, said the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based independent defense think tank.
With revenues of nearly $1.5 billion, jet fighter maker Sukhoi Aviation Holding Co. held on to its No. 1 position for the fourth consecutive year in CAST's annual report of the country's 20 defense companies, most of which agreed to provide their financials.
The next four companies, in descending order, are tank maker Uralvagonzavod, $952 million; Irkut, another maker of Sukhoi fighter jets, $643 million; avionics maker Aerospace Equipment, $583 million; and MiG, $427 million.
Admiralteiskiye Verfi, the St. Petersburg-based maker of submarines, last year pushed aside two aircraft engine manufacturers, Salyut and Ufa MPO, to take the No. 6 spot.
In 2004, aviation companies earned $4.7 billion of the $7 billion total tabulated by CAST.
"[The year 2005] is likely to be the first year when aviation will give way to naval systems, and we already have signals in favor of that," said Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy head of CAST.
Makiyenko said that Admiralteiskiye Verfi would likely assume the No.1 position on the list for this year thanks to deliveries of four Kilo-class submarines to China, which could bring in more than $700 million.
The company last year earned $405 million, according to CAST estimates. Citing state secrecy, Admiralteiskiye Verfi is the only listed firm that refuses to provide information for the ranking.
Considering that major aircraft deliveries to China and India were completed last year - and that new ones are not due before 2006 - Makiyenko said that Russia was not likely to repeat last year's arms sales, which marked a post-Soviet record.
In 2004, Russia exported $5.6 billion worth of arms, $5.1 billion of them under the aegis of Rosoboronexport, the state-owned weapons selling agency.
"I do not see any Sukhoi deliveries this year," Makiyenko said.
Sukhoi refused to comment Wednesday.
"With Rosoboronexport's order book at $12 billion until 2008, Russia can still earn about $4.5 billion per year from arms sales," Makiyenko said.
He added that the review of defense companies' financials showed that the firms continued to be export dependent.
"The allocations for state arms procurement have been growing and this year exceeded the revenues we get from arms exports," he said. "But we don't see any purchases for the domestic armed forces. I would like to ask the Defense Ministry where the money goes."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Billionaire Probed
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating whether Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev's holding company paid the government of former President Leonid Kuchma too little for assets, Vedomosti reported, citing Lebedev.
Ukrainian prosecutors suspect the Kuchma administration of selling Lebedev's National Reserve Corp., 50 percent of Kiev's Ukraina hotel and real estate in Crimea at knock-down prices, Lebedev said, the newspaper reported. Lebedev may exit his businesses in Ukraine, the report said.
Sony Buys Dom-2
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Entertainment unit bought the rights to a Russian reality television show, the first such sale ever for a Russian broadcaster, Vedomosti reported.
TNT, one of two television networks owned by Russia's state natural-gas company OAO Gazprom, sold the rights to Dom-2, or House-2, for an undisclosed sum plus 40 percent of future revenue, the newspaper said, citing TNT director Roman Petrenko. TNT already earned $12 million from the show, making it one of the most profitable on Russian television, Petrenko told Vedomosti.
TITLE: VF Hopes to Spark Jeans-Mania
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: VF Corporation, a leading international jeans producer, has announced ambitious expansion plans for the city. Dmitry Yeremeyev, the company's regional director for Russia and CIS, said VF is set almost to triple the number of its shopping outlets in St. Petersburg from 7 to 20 by the end of 2006.
VF owns over 40 brands worldwide, including Wrangler, Lee, Nautica, JanSport, and Eastpak. The corporation, which has a daily production volume that requires 20 million square meters of denim, opened its Russia and CIS office in Moscow in 2003.
Between 40 million and 60 million pairs of jeans are sold in Russia every year, with St. Petersburg holding 10 percent of the market. In the premium segment, VF's sales volume in St. Petersburg is half that of Moscow, Yeremeyev said.
According to recent results from KOMKON, a leading St. Petersburg market research agency, 18.1 percent of the city's population spend money on women's jeans or other denim clothes for women, while a further 14.1 percent buy men's denim.
In St. Petersburg, Lee tops the list of the most familiar jeans brands, mentioned by 37.8 percent of those surveyed. Lee is followed by Montana (36.1 percent), Motor (35.8 percent), Levi's (34.2 percent) and Gloria Jeans (33.4 percent). Wrangler ranks 6th in the rating, with 30.8 percent, according to KOMKON.
Lee and Wrangler also figure within the top five most purchased brands. Seven percent of St. Petersburgers buy Motor jeans, which holds the leading position. Colin's comes second with 6.3 percent, followed by Lee and Gloria Jeans (5.2 percent each). Wrangler holds 5th place, with 4.5 percent. However, when asked to name their competitors, Alberto Calo, VF's vice-president on business development, pointed to counterfeit jeans. "Nine out of ten pairs of jeans sold locally are fake," Calo said.
Authentic Lee and Wrangler jeans are sold in seven local shops, at 80 euro per pair on average. Fake versions are available from local markets or kiosks at 30 percent of that price. VF doesn't have its own shops in Russia and operates through several local stores such as Amerikanskaya Klassika (American Classic) on Nevsky Prospekt.
In Russia, all VF brands are sold at the same prices as in other European cities, and locals can expect no discounts, Calo said. "When I visit less developed countries, I am always asked to sell at lower prices. But I always reply that it doesn't cost me less to produce the jeans for you," he added.
Yeremeyev said the company expects to increase sales through aggressive marketing, which will aim to raise awareness of brand value versus counterfeit quality. In addition, VF will try to increase the number of its distributing outlets.
"St. Petersburg has made a big step towards European-style purchase patterns: the numbers of people shopping at markets has dropped from 17 percent in 1998 to 14 percent last year, while the numbers of customers choosing self-service shops has rocketed from 3 percent to 30 percent in the same period," Yeremeyev said.
VF's positive market prospects are not completely supported by some other market players. SELA, a leading St. Petersburg-based clothes chain that has a popular jeans collection, said it has not noticed a substantial increase in the sales of denim.
"Young people like denim, so every season we have a denim segment in our collection, following fashion trends," said Filipp Kapchits, general director of SELA's St. Petersburg branch. "That segment can be increased if denim is in fashion in a certain season, but we are not talking about a strategic decision to strongly develop this section."
TITLE: McDonalds Set for 20% Expansion in Russia
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Fastfood giant McDonalds will spend up to $50 million to expand its chain in Russia by 20 percent this year, with plans to commence franchising operations within three years, Khamzat Khasbulatov, head of McDonald's in Russia, said Tuesday.
In addition, the chain plans to install three more of its coffeeshop-style in St. Petersburg by the end of this year and more elsewhere. It will devote 20 percent of its marketing budget to woo Russian consumers to having breakfast in its restaurants.
"We will open 25 restaurants in Russia this year, five or six of those in St. Petersburg, and I see the current tempo of expansion continuing for the next few years," Khasbulatov said at a press breakfast. "Of the new additions, we will put the emphasis on drive-thru and standalone restaurants," he said.
McDonald's has 129 restaurants throughout Russia, 82 of which are in Moscow and 15 in St. Petersburg. The company spends between $1.5 million and $2 million to set up each new restaurant.
Recently, it invested $10,000 per restaurant just to launch a new breakfast menu, which the chain hopes will double the significance of its breakfast sales to the overall sales volume.
"Our research showed that 90 percent of Russians have no opportunity to have breakfast outside of their home. That's a huge market for us to explore," Khasbulatov said.
Unlike fastfood rivals Subway, Pizza Hut and KFC, among others, which have activated their expansion in Russia through franchise deals, McDonald's directly owns and runs all its restaurants in Russia.
Its Russia McDonald's business model is the opposite to the one the company employs in the U.S. and Europe - where franchisees run 80 percent and 50 percent of the McDonald's restaurants respectively.
Analysts said the chain's "delay" in introducing franchises is a wise strategy.
"Regional restaurant franchises [in Russia] can really vary in the quality and service that they offer," Alexander Gragin, partner at Deloitte in Moscow and head of the consumer industrial products division, said Wednesday.
"The tricky part of selling franchises is finding reliable partners in the regions," he said. "Also the legal situation with franchises at the federal level is as yet unclear."
Aton brokerage's consumer products analyst, Alexei Yazykov agreed. "[McDonalds] will want firm control over the process," Yazykov said.
Not ruling out selling existing McDonalds restaurants to franchises in the future, Khasbulatov said the company will be careful to create a strong legal base before embarking on any franchise agreements.
"I think franchising is a possibility for us in 2008, but ... [for franchisees] I have to find people who will work better than our managers," he said.
TITLE: A Social Explosion in the Pipeline
TEXT: The opening of the new oil pipeline from Azerbaijan, through Georgia, to Ceyhan, Turkey represents a triumph for U.S. imperial policy over Russian ambitions in the southern Caucasus - and the culmination of a 13-year campaign to open up the Caspian region to Western oil multinationals.
It allows Anglo-American oil giant BP to pump as much as 1 million barrels of oil per day - roughly 1 percent of global output - directly to the United States and Western Europe without having to cross one kilometer of Russian soil or use any pipeline controlled by Moscow. It would also allow significant amounts of oil from Kazakhstan to travel the same route, after being shipped across the Caspian to Baku, giving the United States geopolitical leverage in Kazakhstan, a key country in the battle for Central Asian energy reserves.
Speaking at the May 25 ceremony to open the Azeri section of the pipeline, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili - U.S. President George W. Bush's poster boy for neo-liberalism in Eurasia - said the pipeline would "make the whole region, including Georgia, fully energy independent." What he meant but did not say, of course, was independent of Russia - and dependent on a largely American-run oil industry, backed by a growing U.S. military presence in the region.
Perhaps even more clearly than Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan represents the fundamental contradiction in U.S. policy in the region. On the one hand, Bush's administration ostensibly claims to be supporting "democratic" change, while on the other, it is allied to a corrupt regime that owes its fortunes to oil.
In October 2003, one month before Georgia's Rose Revolution, Ilham Aliyev succeeded his seriously ill father, Heydar Aliyev, in an election that was hardly free or fair.
But unlike in Georgia or Ukraine, the United States did not ride to the rescue of Azeri democracy. A range of observers pointed out the election's unfair conditions: blanket pro-government media coverage, restrictions on opposition rallies, and ballot-rigging by Aliyev-dominated election commissions, not to mention the systematic, decade-long persecution of the opposition. And even as thousands of frustrated opposition protesters were clubbed by riot police on Baku's Freedom Square, the White House was phoning in its congratulations to Ilham Aliyev within hours of the polls closing.
Since then, Aliyev has been careful to follow his father's policy of wooing Washington and the Western oil majors, and promising to keep the oil flowing in return for support of his clan's hold on power.
But this support, which even a few months ago looked rock solid, may be starting to erode as protests by an emboldened opposition grow against the regime.
The White House and the oil companies likely fear that a real revolution is brewing, one that may not be to their liking. If Aliyev cannot deliver oil and stability, they may try their hand at a "watermelon" revolution and replace him with someone equally pro-Western but less likely to provoke the social upheaval that could threaten their oil interests.
Four days before the pipeline ceremony, Azerbaijan's main nationalist opposition parties and youth groups - all professing pro-pipeline and pro-American sentiments, as they auditioned for the part of the West's "democratic" model opposition - held a rally in Baku calling for free and fair elections to parliament this November. The protest was banned and police waded in, beating and arresting hundreds of protesters.
The regime's brutal response even worried BP's top manager in the country, who described the violence as "unfortunate." Aliyev's chief of staff Ramiz Mekhtiyev was quick to reprimand him: "Foreign companies should get on with their business and not interfere in politics," he said.
Yet under Western pressure, the regime caved in last Saturday and refrained from smashing up the next opposition demonstration. It was the first to be allowed to go ahead peacefully since Aliyev came to power.
To get an idea of how dependent Aliyev's regime is on the oil industry, it is sufficient to look at the figures: Oil revenues are set to grow rapidly over the next five to seven years, bringing in $5 billion to $6 billion per year - up to three times the state budget. GDP in Azerbaijan is expected to grow at a rate of 13 percent this year and 14 percent next year, the highest growth rates in the CIS. But the boom will be completely fueled by oil, and starting next year by gas, when a parallel gas pipeline is due to open from Baku to Turkey.
Thus, Azerbaijan has all its eggs in one basket. As long as oil prices remain high, the country stands to gain an estimated $50 billion over the next 20 years. The big multinationals working in the country - BP, which has some 40 percent of its assets in the United States, together with U.S. oil services giants Halliburton, McDermott's, and Schlumberger - stand to make many billions of dollars, too.
Yet a chronic lack of investment outside the oil sector, combined with all-pervasive corruption, means the country is likely headed for a future closer to that of Nigeria than Norway. The country's agricultural and industrial potential has been utterly stymied by corruption and an obsessive focus on oil.
Aliyev's government has been unable to translate its oil wealth into higher living standards for the vast majority of Azeris, who subsist on an average of about $50 per month. The worst-off section of the population is the hundreds of thousands of refugees uprooted by the 1988-94 war with Armenia over Nagorny Karabakh.
As oil money rolls into state coffers, the danger arises of large-scale theft and misuse, whether Aliyev stays or the opposition comes to power. Even developed industrialized countries with publicly accountable oil funds have experienced difficulties in avoiding the "Dutch disease," when the dominance of natural resources leads to inflation and the atrophying of other sectors.
In the case of Azerbaijan, where investment outside the oil sector is already negligible and democratic control of the State Oil Fund is zero, the prospects for this wealth to be stolen, frittered away on prestige projects, or put into defense spending are frightening.
And when Azeris see few tangible benefits from the expected oil bonanza, a social explosion cannot be long in coming. It may take the form of a nationalist uprising, demanding that Azerbaijan restart the war with Armenia to recover Karabakh, or an upsurge of Islamic fundamentalism akin to the Iranian revolution. Or the revolt could be more class-based, calling for the expropriation of the Western-dominated oil industry.
Those who now back Aliyev's government could still switch sides in an effort to protect their oil interests. Yet whichever horse Washington backs, it should be ready for a bumpy ride ahead.
Tim Wall was editor of Caspian Business News
in Baku and is currently night editor at The Moscow Times. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Lifting Yushchenko's Log
TEXT: Official Soviet ideology contained a legend about Vladimir Lenin pitching in to clean up the Kremlin grounds during a communist subbotnik. A photographer even snapped Lenin helping his comrades to carry a log. According to unofficial folklore, when the authorities began to collect reminiscences of the event, they soon learned that several thousand people had helped Lenin to shift that log.
At the 11th Kiev International Television and Radio Fair last week, I first heard the expression "Yushchenko's log." I had been invited to the fair to receive an award for several of my articles. The three main points of these articles were criticism of Russia's policy in Ukraine, whose one-sidedness threatened to open a rift between the people of the two countries; support for the protesters on Independence Square who rallied against the excesses of the Leonid Kuchma regime; and a skeptical approach to the notion that things would change for the better once a new president was elected.
I tried to test this last hypothesis by looking into the fate of regional television stations that had opposed the Orange Revolution. Strange as it may sound, I didn't manage to find any. The heads of two private television stations in eastern Ukraine - Yanukovych country - both told me that her station had been the only one in the region to support Yushchenko. I put the same question to the head of a private television station in Crimea, an area known for its strong pro-Russian (and anti-Kiev) stance. "We were the only station in the region to support Yushchenko," she said.
These days you're considered pro-Yushchenko if you gave Yushchenko's people a couple minutes of live airtime, some colleagues in Kiev told me. Yet none of the media executives I interviewed was willing to speak on the record. But I did come across a frank assessment of the issue in a Ukrainian professional magazine, Teleradiokuryer: "The political situation in our region is such that it's now fashionable to be orange. And it has already become somewhat dangerous not to be orange," opined Vladimir Vedernikov, deputy director of LiK-TV, a radio and television station in Lisichansk, eastern Ukraine.
After Yushchenko's victory, new governors were appointed across the country. The heads of state-owned television stations are being replaced. The top executives at UT-1, a nationwide state-owned television station, were obviously appointed by the new regime for political reasons. There have been reports of regional authorities putting pressure on local state-owned media outlets. But a number of my colleagues, people who stood on Independence Square during the revolution not so much to support Yushchenko and oppose Yanukovych as to defend democracy and protest corruption in politics, tell me that this isn't the most dangerous thing. The government is allowing journalists more freedom than they know what to do with, they say. These are people who, under the previous regime developed the habit of kissing up to the leadership regardless of political affiliation.
What we're seeing in Ukraine is the normal and inevitably difficult birth of democracy and freedom of speech in a country with a weak democratic tradition. The success or failure of this process will depend less on the benevolence of the authorities, than on the readiness of society and the media themselves to stand up for their rights.
As Gennady Sergeyev, director of the Chernovtsy television company in western Ukraine, told the Russian service of Radio Liberty at the time, the main thing is that "things haven't gotten any worse."
Alexei Pankin is opinion page editor at Izvestia.
TITLE: Beautiful creatures
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: I never grew up hoping to aspire to be a model... who does?"
- Stacy Zielenski, American, 23, former model of the New York model agency Women Model Management.
"My friend said: 'why don't you try it?' so I went to modeling school when I was 17 years old."
- Sonya Sharonina, Russian, 23, of the St. Petersburg model agency Status.
"Modeling is fun and it's not my whole life ... I'm open to wherever it takes me."
- Karen Desouza, American, 16, of the New York modeling agency New York Models.
"I've wanted to be a model, for a very, very long time."
- Galina Galavanova, 17, of the St. Petersburg model agency Feya, says.
Four young women from two different countries, sharing similar views about their chosen profession. But do their experiences working as fashion models differ between St. Petersburg and New York?
Galina has worked as a model for approximately a year.
When asked what it is exactly she likes best about her work she simply grins and opens her arms wide and tries to explain: "Everything is attractive... the thrill of walking down the catwalk ... being photographed...all the attention."
She earns $50 to $100 per job, depending on the designer, and for shows she is paid $10 dollars for each trip down the catwalk. But she insists: "I don't do it for the money, I do it because I love it."
Sonya echoes Galina's opinion that there are absolutely no drawbacks or negative aspects to the profession.
"There are many advantages, many good people in the business, it's an incredibly active lifestyle, it's very sociable, everything is attractive, and there is nothing bad about it. It gives you the opportunity to meet lots of different people."
However, difficulties can arise while rehearsing for a show and "someone doesn't understand what's wanted [from a director] and we all have to do it again and again," Sonya said.
That tedious repetition is part of modeling came to light during rehearsals for April's Defile on the Neva fashion show, in which the Russian models participated.
Director Sergei Lukovsky yells at the girls constantly. He screams things like: "I'm not paying anyone who doesn't work!"; "Who are you working for? Where?"
He even uses Russian vulgarisms such as "Pizdets!"
BEAUTY TREATMENT
At this point during their work, skepticism seeps into Galina and Sonya about the warm and helpful relationships between each of them and other models.
The young women being yelled and cursed at look increasingly ill at ease, while many other models watching this
TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: Mogwai canceled its local concert this week. The British band was scheduled to headline the NokiaLab festival at Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa on Saturday, but pulled out on a short notice because of its member's health problem.
"We are very sorry to announce that we cannot play the concerts this week in Glasgow and St. Petersburg as [drummer] Martin [Bulloch], has developed tendonitis and has been told by his doctor that he cannot play drums," said the band on its Web site on Tuesday.
Last week saw another cancellation when Chumbawamba did not perform at Platforma club on Sunday as scheduled. Earlier in the week the Platforma team that acted as the promoter for the band's two ill-fated Russian concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, claimed that the concert was happening but on Friday posted a notice on the club's web site saying that the show is "postponed for technical reasons."
Chumbawamba's own site announced the "full story" behind the cancellations, but finally only came with a vague statement. "The Russian gigs were pulled on the advice the agent for the two shows because of some unresolved issues with the promoter," said the posting headlined "'Canceled' Seems to Be the Hardest Word," a play on the title of Elton John's 1975 hit.
"More than that, I can't say - we're just the band, remember!"
In a letter to The St. Petersburg Times, an unidentified member of Chumbawamba wrote this week:
"We were really disappointed not to come to Russia last weekend. ... I think the reason the gigs were pulled so late was because the agent was hoping things could be sorted out and the concerts would be able to go ahead. Unfortunately this didn't happen. As to whether we'll reschedule the concert: obviously we'd love to play in St. Petersburg, but ultimately it's down to the people that organize and promote the shows. ... All I can say to people who were hoping to come to the show is 'Sorry.'"
The band's agent and the booking team for Chumbawamba's Russian tour were tight-lipped about the reasons for the cancellation this week.
On a good note, a fun new eight-member band, J.D. and the Blenders, will make its public debut this week. Formed by locally-based American vocalist Jennifer Davies of the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review and the local ska/rock steady band Froglegs, the band is quite a departure from the both, performing soul and old New Orleans funk.
"Nobody's playing this music live in St. Petersburg right now, nobody," said Davies. "There are no bands doing it."
The band played an impressively danceable set of 14 songs mainly chosen by Davies set at a party last week. These included the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing," the Neville Brothers' "Tell Me What's on Your Mind" and Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walking." The band has one original, bassist/backing vocalist Mikhail Lavit-penned "Raining."
J.D. and the Blenders will perform at Moloko on Saturday.
- By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: To and fro
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A three-day festival that celebrates the cultural exchange that accompanies migration flows starts Friday in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
The Russian-German cultural festival REmigration 2005 is founded on the idea to "remigrate," for the duration of the festival, musicians, artists, writers and poets who immigrated from Russia to Germany.
It is run by the St. Petersburg German-Russian Exchange office, and the works and events reflect their roots and character in the exchanges between the two countries.
"We are interested in the question of how a new country influences the life and the work of an artist,'' Eva Cucear, chief coordinator of the festival, said in an interview.
"We started to work on the project in December of last year. To attract artists we placed info about it on the two most popular Russian-German Internet forum boards [www.joe-list.de and www.007-Berlin.de]. There were more than 45 applications and due to the limited budget, only 17 were accepted," Cucear said.
The festival has a somewhat amateur feel, but deserves attention since it introduces some interesting points of view, creative ideas and, most important of all, new names.
Cucear said most of the participants are quite young, some even students, and one goal of the festival is to promote these new artists.
The eclectic program offers plenty to satisfy different tastes.
The visual art section of the festival covers a broad spectrum of media from documentary to photography and installation.
Among the notable works is a very smart and touching photo series "Identities" (2004) by Andrei Loginov. The artist captures images of homeless people against background of blue sky. The photographs imitate the works of Renaissance masters and convey a sense of dignity and tragedy. Loginov's second series "5 positions" (2003) (see image) is in some way a contrast to the "Identities," including in its artistic values.
Another visual event that should appeal is the documentary "Petersburg Places and Paintings" by Dutchman Ben van Lieshout. It is dedicated to the young Russian-Dutch-German painter Tatyana Yassievich, who "registers what remains of Soviet aesthetics in the public space, before it disappears entirely." Unlike the hero of the well-known German film "Good Bye, Lenin," who grapples with a similar set of problems, Yassievich finds that such opportunities still abound in Russia.
The quite extensive literary program starts with a Poetry Slam "Berlin vs. St. Petersburg." Then comes Anya Chepez and Frederic Meltendorf's book-performance "Hello, Chancellor," which is based on the correspondence between a mother and daughter, who has emigrated to Germany.
The program also features a series of personal appearances by young German-Russian poets as well as city figures.
Theater is represented by a performance of "Arpheus II" by the Dresden artist Oleg Gukovsky - a former actor in the famous artistic troupe Derevo, which started in Russia. This solo performance inspired by the ancient Greek figure of Orpheus, will be accompanied by sound mixed by St. Petersburg DJ Marusin.
According to the organizers, the installation "Architecture without Boundaries" will be the key event of the festival. Russian and German architecture students, as well as academicians, will try to experimentally answer the question: "Where does architecture start and where does it stop?" regarding a "form" that has been under construction on the fortress beach since Monday.
Music will be performed each day of the festival. The well-known Moscow band Deti Picasso, or Children of Picasso, will play on Friday. One of the pioneers of electronic music in Russia, the group Noviye Kompozitory, or New Composers, will present a joint "visual music" project with Hamburg's Holophonic on Saturday. Another Hamburg band, Jana Mishenina and the United Color Ensemble, which consists of both Russian and German musicians, is going to offer what is described as "fresh, emotional Slavic jazz" on Sunday.
No German event could take place without discussion, and the Remigration festival is no exception. The theme will be emigration and remigration in art and how it influences the context of art.
The festival REmigration runs from Friday to Sunday in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The program is at
http://obmen.org/
TITLE: Greek for lunch
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Oliva Greek Taverna
31 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel. 314 6563.
Menu available in Russian, Greek, English,
French and German. Links: www.tavernaoliva.ru
Three-course business lunch with tea or coffee: 210 rubles ($7.50).
When Oliva opened in the dead of winter in 2004, it felt like a ray of sunshine on Bolshaya Morskaya and a breath of Mediterranean Sea air across the glacial surface of the Neva.
Note: in contrast to the seemingly ever-clear ceiling of the city during White Nights, the winter skies really are as gray and terrible as all that.
A "taverna" on a Greek theme, its owners - which also ran a bowling alley business - pumped millions into Oliva's interior design and spacious dining room. The restaurant soon became a definite favorite for the informal after-work crowd and foreigners who found its multilingual approach reassuring.
By no means a "fast food" restaurant in the American sense, Oliva nonetheless thrives on its ability to serve up to 270 guests hot Greek dishes quickly, politely and at a reasonable price.
As the glare of its whitewashed walls and the polish of its brass ornaments have dulled, Oliva has begun to acquire a lived-in feel, although to some people it retains a hint of the cavernous, antiseptic atmosphere of a school canteen.
At night it is nothing if not lively, with a noisy Greek band attempting to play above the chatter and the clamor of excited orders for more wine.
However, another draw of late has been Oliva's attractively priced business lunch, running in the afternoon between 12 p.m. and 4 p.m.
The business lunch special was introduced last October. More than just a few lines on a menu, the restaurant installed two service counters - one for salads, one for hot dishes - in its upstairs lobby.
After you are seated the server will probably try to "sell up" by handing you the main menu, but you won't offend them by asking for the lunch option. With it you get the opportunity to try kompot, a watered-down syrup drink, soup, salad and main course, tea or coffee, and dessert.
Not offering a juice option on a hot day may seem mean to some, but the meal does come with Oliva's famous basket of freshly baked rolls and a peppery pink dip.
Soups include cold borshch and a creamy cucumber number both of which, I suspect, have more to do with Slavic than Hellenic cuisine. The same could be said of the salad and coleslaw selection, for which you must leave your table, go to a counter and get a plate which your choice will be served. There appears to be no limit to the amount you can have, which will suit gluttons.
The hot food selection includes pork chops in sauce, chicken legs, meatballs and an economy-level mousaka (minus eggplant). There's rice, pepper, carrots, sweetcorn in a spicy tomato sauce mix, cauliflower heads deep fried in batter to perfection and other hearty stewed and boiled vegetable dishes. The food is well-cooked, although toward 4 p.m. when the business lunch set-up is removed, it is possible for some of the dishes to become a touch dry.
Asking for the server at the food counters to pile the plate up high might be intimidating in some restaurants where the service may not be as friendly and relaxed as it is in Oliva. In the taverna such indulgences have been known to occur, and quite successfully!
Oliva's isn't the cheapest business lunch in the Bolshaya Morskaya area - it was introduced at 160 rubles ($5.70), but only recently the price has risen - but it may be the fullest.
After the main course, an espresso or green/black tea (according to preference) is served with a sweet little piece of orange sponge cake dusted with icing sugar.
The meal should take no more than 40 minutes to order and eat - depending on how many times you go up to the hot plate that is. And if that's not enough Greek sunshine in your life, then you really do need that holiday.
TITLE: Young Bergman
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Twelve films by renowned Swedish director Ingmar Bergman are being shown in Dom Kino in a special retrospective, organized by the Swedish Consulate General and the city's Film Critics' Association.
Before the retrospective closes on Monday, cinemagoers can see Bergman's 1966 "Persona" (Friday), 1969 "The Ritual" (Saturday), 1953 "Summer With Monica" (Sunday) and 1953 "Evening of the Jesters" (Monday).
Coinciding with the screening of the films is a new exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum that focuses on Bergman's younger years.
The display, called "Before Ingmar Became Bergman" rolls back decades to explore the first steps of a young man towards international fame and recognition.
Bergman, who lives on an island in the Baltic Sea, is best known as a filmmaker whose "chamber cinema" is famous for meticulous attention to detail and masterful use of the facial close-up to reveal every nuance of human emotion.
However, Bergman's first experience of directing was on the stage and some of his films reflect this.
Swedish critics often refer to Bergman as "the puberty crisis director" who specializes in "delayed adolescence."
His artistic oeuvre features about 100 stage performances, 40 radio productions, 50 feature films, 15 TV productions and several books.
"I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being," the director is quoted as saying in John Simon's 1972 book "Ingmar Bergman Directs." "It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then."
According to the exhibition's curators, the Hermitage display "provides a foretaste of Bergman's professional career in cinema, theater and literature."
Born in Uppsala in 1918 in the family of Lutheran priest, Ingmar was brought up in a very strict environment.
Taking the audience back to the period when Bergman was young, while at the same time making reference to his film classics inspired by his strongest early personal recollections, the exhibition also pays tribute to the masterpieces at the end of the director's filmmaking career.
The exhibition focuses on the beginning of Bergman's career: the earliest materials date from 1938 and the exhibition ends with Bergman's first full-length art film "Crisis," produced in 1946. This very early period in Bergman's career has never before been presented to a wide audience.
The virtual epilogue of the display represents Bergman's latest film, "Saraband," and his latest stage production, Ibsen's "Ghosts."
The Ingmar Bergman Foundation has provided extensive archive material and some personal memorabilia specifically for the exhibition.
The display features selected scripts, working notes, quotations, sketches and photographs relating to his first stage productions and films, including "Frenzy" and "Crisis."
The exhibition explores Bergman's school years, the start of his career as a stage director, when his experience was brought into his first plays, the relations between the young Bergman and his family, which the audiences can later trace in his family dramas, and the portraits of women in his films.
Photographs show the landscapes and small villages of Sweden, which served as settings for Bergman's films.
Among the most intriguing items
is a film projector that Ingmar received as a Christmas present when he was 10.
In an omen of his future career, it instantly became his favorite toy.
Visitors can also watch a short,
10-minute film "Karin's Face" based on photographs of Bergman's mother from family albums.
The exhibition "Before Ingmar Became Bergman" can be seen until June 30 at the State Hermitage Youth Center. 45, Naberezhnaya Reki Moika.
TITLE: Message to Man
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Message To Man," Russia's only international festival of documentary, animation and short non-documentary films kicks off Wednesday with a selection of films that have won awards at the prestigious international Jameson Short Film Awards, and runs through June 22.
Screenings will be held in Dom Kino, Priboi, Rodina and Svet movie theaters.
The festival was established to offering Russian documentary makers a stepping stone to the international film scene and has been a springboard for young and up-and-coming film directors.
The 15th "Message To Man" still puts an emphasis on documentaries. Many of the films shown at the festival have rarely been screened and cannot easily be found anywhere else in Russia.
"For us, individual humans are sacred," said festival director Mikhail Litvyakov, director of the festival. "I believe that if there are more individuals in the world, it will be a better place."
In the 15 years since it started, Message To Man has been diverse enough to incorporate films about aged Eskimo hunters, Swedish authors and refugees starting new lives. A special screening called "Films in the Context of Epochs: A Way of Encoding Reality" explored the influence particular eras may have on film directors' methods. In 2001, Leni Riefenstahl's documentaries on the Nazis, "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia," were shown, with Riefenstahl, then aged 98, coming to St. Petersburg to enjoy a standing ovation during a screening.
The festival was initially held once every two years, but developed into an annual event. Since 1995, the debuts have been turned into a separate competition.
The opening program this year includes Thabang Moleya's short fiction film "Portrait of a Dark Soul" (South Africa), Theodoros Papdoulakis's short fiction film "Pilala" (Greece), Pjotr Sapegin's animation film "Through My Thick Glasses" (Norway-Canada), Alonso Nunes's short fiction film "The Age of Man" (Brazil), Stephanie Noel's short fiction film "It Hurts My Heart" (France) and Joao Figueiras's short fiction film "Looking Up" (Portugal).
More decorated films from the Jameson Awards can be seen on June 18. The list features Christoph Wermk's short fiction film "Escape!" (Germany), Jan Andersson's animation film "Handkerchiefs for Sale" (Finland), Szabolcs Palfi's animation film "The Yellow Bus" (Hungary), Suvi Andrea Helminen's documentary "Land of Mist" (Denmark) and Vanessa Ly's short fiction film "Mekong Interior" (France/Germany/U.S.).
Message to Man is divided into four categories: international competition, debut film international competition, documentary films of Russia national competition, and special programs. The international jury, which always features a winner of one of the previous events, awards the Golden Centaur Grand Prix and several Centaur prizes.
Filmmakers from Russia, Hungary, Britain, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, France, Denmark, South Korea, Australia and the United States will be competing for the Golden Centaur in the international competition.
This year, the top prize comes with a cash award of $4,000. Additionally, winners in best documentary film, best short feature film and best animated film categories will get $1,500. The three best films in the debut category will be awarded with $1,000 prizes.
The jury features an array of internationally established professionals: Polish animator Piotr Dumala, French photographer Francoise Huguier, film director Viktor Kosakovsky, actor and director Andrei Smirnov and prominent Greek director Stavros Hassapis.
Twenty-six films are taking part in the international competition. Recognized Russian director Irina Yevteyeva is showing her 10-minute animation film "Demon", unveiling a love story inspired by mystical paintings of early 20th century artist Mikhail Vrubel and loosely based on Mikhail Lermontov's poem of the same name.
Established filmmaker Kira Muratova is presenting a short fiction film "The Information".
"Silhouettes of War," a special series of documentaries running throughout the festival in Dom Kino is among the most interesting offers.
Contemporary South-Asian cinema is presented in a special screening running throughout the festival. Entitled "Sakura branch - Eastern Cinema of Today," the program incorporates short fiction films by Japanese, Thai and South Korean directors. A retrospective of films by renowned Hungarian director Miklos Jancso showcases "Hungarian Rhapsody" (1979).
Swiss filmmakers are featured in a separate program. They include Felice Zenoni's "Grock - King of Clowns" (2003) and "Charlie Chaplin - the Forgotten Years" (2002), shown in Dom Kino 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. on June 21, and Norbert Wiedmer's 2002 full-length documentary "Behind Me."
For more information and a complete program visit the festival'sweb site
at http://www.message-to-man.spb.ru
TITLE: Beautiful creatures
TEXT: Sonya said of Lukovsky: "In my opinion he is very talented and does the best fashion shows in the city... he shouts and swears but the results are absolutely the best. It's normal that he shouts, he knows what's needed and he needs to be strict. If I were him I'd shout as well."
The New York-based models say they are treated professionally.
Karen said that the rudest anyone had ever been to her was during a casting. Typically, she said, this happens when "it's late and they've already seen like, 1,000 girls and they just look through your [portfolio of pictures] and give you a snotty 'okay, thank you.'"
During a photo shoot for Fader magazine in New York, Karen, aside from being referred to as "you" or "the model," is made to feel relaxed and at ease by the stylists, designers, directors and photographer who often chat amiably with her.
New York-based model Stacy said "If they're smart, no photographer or anyone in the industry will risk such rudeness - unless they are so big that they can afford to... Photographers, designers, stylists, and my agents were always really professional."
Despite the often tense environment at fashion events, Stacy said people in the U.S. fashion industry have high standards of professionalism.
"At fashion week though, things were always so hectic, but I never had any problems with anyone... You have to remember, during the shows sometimes the press have backstage access so the designers and anyone on staff representing them, including the models they've hired, have to be on their best behavior."
Stacy has worked as a model on and off for six years. Unlike compatriot Karen and Russians Galina and Sonya, she never approached an agency for hire but was instead scouted by an agent from the modeling agency Women Model Management at age 16.
Working for that agency, her first major editorial spread was for American Vogue. For any model just starting out, this would be considered a "big break" because it is a rarity that a model without previous work experience would be picked.
Meanwhile, the other young women found that getting taken on by agencies tested their dream of becoming models.
"They asked me to lose two inches off my hips... but I didn't think that would be healthy," explains Karen, about how one agency she approached for hire thought her hips were too wide. It is a staggering notion given her absolutely tiny frame.
Despite her flying start with Vogue, Stacy also found that weight was a key issue.
Two years after her first break "I was scouted by the same agent while in Bloomingdale's [New York department store]; she was working for a different agency and wanted me to meet with them. I wound up turning them down after meeting with the agents one night because of the fact that there was a scale in the bathroom and they took the model's weights every week. I totally couldn't believe it."
More pressure followed.
"On top of that, they asked me to lose 10 pounds when I was already at the lowest healthy weight I could be in order to menstruate... I was pretty much still recovering from a four year battle with anorexic behaviors and tendencies and really didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize all that I had worked for then."
For the Russian models, diet is also a weighty matter.
Galina, while admitting that she naturally has a thin physique, still eats dramatically less than the nutritional requirements for a teenage girl. A typical daily diet for her would be kasha (porridge) for breakfast and soup for lunch. She never eats after 8 p.m.
On the day of the Defile on the Neva fashion show in St. Petersburg in April, Galina had eaten kasha and an apple. She said she might eat a banana later that day.
"If you eat chocolate you won't get castings and the majority of all models are on a diet," Galina said.
Sonya said that she was not on a diet nor did she have a special nutritional regime. But wgeb asked what she had eaten she said, "I've had chocolate and some yogurt." She added laughing, "I'm probably not going to eat again today."
In New York, Karen summed up her dietary philosophy: "I eat when I'm hungry... and not too much chocolate."
However, she admitted that she hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch that day. At lunch in an Outback Steakhouse, Karen ordered a regular coke, a 9 oz. tenderloin steak which came with a salad and mashed potatoes and bread. Despite having a photo shoot an hour later, Karen ate about two slices of bread, half the steak and the potatoes.
FUTURE PERFECT
Thoughts about the future were common to the young models in both New York and St. Petersburg.
Karen and Galina are university bound. Karen expresses interest in going into advertising and says that "the experience of being a model will give me a foot up in the business."
Galina is entering a St. Petersburg theater academy and says her work in modeling is something that "won't hurt" those future pursuits.
"Most of all," Galina says, "I dream of modeling in Paris, France... I've dreamt of this for a long time."
With Slavic looks in high demand in the West - Vanity Fair magazine recently devoted a special issue to models from Eastern Europe - such a dream is not entirely unattainable.
"Many Russian girls work abroad in a few countries, the possibility of such an opportunity simply depends on the casting," Galina says.
Sonya, who has already attended the Music Conservatory in St. Petersburg, has never worked abroad and, at 23, thinks it is too late for her to do so. Her goals is to work in television. "Working in the public eye already can only help."
At 16, Karen has already traveled to the Bahamas for Cosmo Girl magazine. "One of the best parts of the business is that the opportunity for travel is fabulous."
Another aspect she considers positive is that it "broadens your horizons... you meet a lot of the same girls at the same castings... girls from all over the world... Asia, Sweden, Norway, Brazil, France..."
The money she earns is far more substantial than either of the Russian models - and this is one of the benefits she lists of being a model.
Karen says she can earn anywhere from $150 to $500 an hour for a magazine work, and between $2,000 to $10,000 for a catalogue job. She goes to four or five castings each day and is usually booked on average for one or two jobs a week.
"It's like a double edged sword," Stacy, the elder of the two New York models, says. "When you're a part of this industry you're treated like you're incredibly important, even though you're just an ordinary person that happens to take pictures and wear other peoples' clothes. You're given special privileges like getting your hair cut and or dyed at top salons for free, invitations to any VIP party or club; and free clothes from the designers you're working for; you're literally given the red-carpet treatment. You get to travel all over... You get to meet people that you otherwise would never meet.
"The worst parts are the pressure to be 'perfect' ...You're expected to basically not have any emotions or feelings... just do your job. And of course someone always will have something to say about you, for whatever reasons. People can be very insensitive... so cold, so superficial."
Karen, the younger American model, mentions drawbacks such as long hours from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. or later, which can interfere with her school hours or her chance to simply be a teenager.
"You do miss a lot honestly... you need to be able to appreciate your childhood. When you're so innocent, there's a danger of growing up too fast ... I want to be able to keep my youth and still be able to goof off."
Stacy echoes this: "When I was with the agency a 'typical day' for me was quite hectic... I was in my junior year at Fiorello H. LaGuardia, [a New York] Performing Arts High School. studying as a Dance Major in conjunction with the required academic curriculum as well as a full-time student with the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance... modeling happened any free second I had.... I had to wake up around 5 a.m. to get ready for school... sometimes I would go for almost three days without sleeping. I remember the longest I stayed up for was 68 hours straight. How exactly I 'juggled' my time... but all I can say is that I was extremely organized, I had to be."
In St. Petersburg, Galina mentions drawbacks such as "feeling nervous before a show, having to get ready quickly and walking in high heels." Modeling, she says, "doesn't hinder my schoolwork, I've got a lot of energy and on average I have ten hours of homework a week, or an hour and a half a day... as for my teachers, well, if they don't ask [about modeling] I don't tell them, but I can't help it if they see a picture of me somewhere."
Back in New York, Stacy says: "I don't think it's fair that models are given special treatment. We all want to be 'seen' or thought of by others as 'beautiful' and worthy of love, respect, and attention, but the thing is... each one of us is worthy of all that, regardless of physical appearance or attributes."
Stacy's six years of modeling have given her a perspective which both the Russian and U.S. women seem to share about their profession.
"People shouldn't be expected to be so perfect; the modeling industry just breeds impossible idealistic standards, which in turn, I think, makes people feel bad about themselves if they can't look like what the magazines publicize... models are idealized and given more opportunities than others solely based on appearance. I'm just not one to condone and base my aspirations within an industry that puts so much precedence on superficiality. I feel what I do in life should be an example of what I believe in."
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Crowe Apologizes
NEW YORK (AP) - A chagrined Russell Crowe apologized Wednesday for throwing a telephone at a hotel concierge this week, saying he reacted poorly to being a lonely family man away from his wife and family in Australia.
"This is possibly the most shameful situation I've ever gotten myself in in my life, and I've done some pretty dumb things in my life," Crowe told David Letterman.
Crowe, in New York to promote a new movie, was angered by a malfunctioning phone at the Mercer Hotel at 4 a.m. Monday, so he threw it and struck a concierge in the face.