SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1095 (61), Friday, August 12, 2005
**************************************************************************


TITLE: CCTVs To Tackle Crime
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In response to a spate of thefts and robberies against foreign visitors this month, City Hall has said it will install security cameras in crime hot spots, including several central metro stations.
A 24-hour police telephone hotline to help foreign victims of crime is to be established next year.
Ulvi Strelchuk, deputy head of the justice and law enforcement committee, said Wednesday the cameras will be installed where thefts and pickpocketing are worst. 
Strelchuk, who was speaking at a meeting of the city branch of the Russian Travel Industry Union, or RST, said part of the crime-prevention plan foresees language training for police officers, but said resources are limited.
“There is an obvious shortage of police staff in the city, but the local government has no legal authority over law enforcement,” Strelchuk said. “We have contacted the federal Interior Ministry about the problem, asking them to allocate more funding to employ extra staff.”
This summer, patrolling has been introduced on Nevsky Prospekt and around tourist sights, including the State Hermitage Museum. 
A scheme of attracting officers from various police task forces and even the army to patrol streets for crime prevention proved successful in 2003 during the city’s 300th anniversary celebrations.
On Tuesday, a French diplomat serving as ministerial adviser on economic issues to the French ambassador in Warsaw was robbed during his visit to the city as a tourist. 
The diplomat contacted the police after his wallet was stolen outside the Church on the Spilled Blood. 
On Aug. 8, the wife of Irish ambassador Brendan Moran was reported to have been robbed at the Peter and Paul Fortress. The thieves took her wallet containing 250 euros in cash as well as her passport and a credit card.
Last week, local news agencies reported two more robberies involving foreign victims. 
On Aug. 5 an Austrian citizen contacted the police about his wallet being stolen from the pocket of his coat outside an apartment building at 2 Naberezhnaya Kanala Griboyedova. The same day thieves took a camera from a German tourist on Nevsky Prospekt.
British Ambassador Tony Brenton and his wife Susan Brenton were attacked in central St. Petersburg on June 26. The diplomat was robbed of his wallet, which contained a credit card and 3,000 rubles in cash and his wife was slightly injured.
Three suspects have already been detained in connection with the incident.
Leonid Flit, general director of Nika travel agency, recalled a recent example when a camera in the Radisson SAS hotel recorded an Italian tourist carelessly leaving his mobile phone on a sofa and a Spanish tourist picking it up and sticking it in his pocket. 
“The Italian tourist left Russia with a feeling of being cheated by a Russian thief but he will soon be surprised not only go get his phone back but to learn the thief was Spanish,” Flit said.
Crimes against foreigners get into the media, resulting in negative publicity for St. Petersburg. The city is already having a tough time facing a 20 percent decline in incoming tourism this summer.
Vladimir Salikhov, general director of the St. Petersburg office of Intourist, said a consistent city policy is needed urgently, otherwise soon many more tourists will turn their backs on the city.
“Yes, it will be great to get this hotline, but really we have been talking about it for centuries,” Salikhov said. “Sporadic measures won’t solve the problem. The city needs to acknowledge the importance of the hospitality industry and take steps to boost it, if, of course, the city government wants to fill its coffers with these revenues.”
Tour operators feel little support from the city government, which slashed its budget for tourism development programs by 80 percent last year and has not increased it this year. The tourism committee was abolished, and incorporated into the external relations committee, to cut costs.
Sergei Korneyev, head of the Northwest branch of RST, praised the special police task force investigating crimes against foreigners saying that all registered incidents get solved, but complained that getting the incidents registered is a struggle.
“Most tourists stay a very short time and simply can’t afford to spend at least half a day going through all the bureaucratic procedures,” he said. “This doesn’t just cost the tourists, it costs the city.”

TITLE: Author To Publish Unknown ‘Swift’ Text
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Previously unpublished erotic passages that where cut out of the first edition of “Gulliver’s Travels” in 1726 are being released in Russia this week, a St. Petersburg publisher says.
Neonilla Samukhina, head of the city’s Soitology Institute, has previously published illustrated works on sex in the office, outdoor sex and a prize-winning edition of the Decameron.
Her “The Erotic Adventures of Lemuel Gulliver,” will be released in Moscow bookstores over this weekend. 
The book features the hero of 18th century Irish author Jonathan Swift’s famous satire in physical encounters with tiny Lilliputs — who are only 15 centimeters tall — and in Brobdingnag, which is inhabited by 20-meter giants. 
Experts say the work is likely a fake. 
Samukhina denies having commissioned the work herself, but admits to not being an expert and that she could be deceived.
The book launch has echoes of the fake Hitler diaries scandal and of the issuing of a new Harry Potter tome.
Samukhina says the work is a translation of original material written by Swift. Its foreword contains an angry complaint purportedly written by the satirist about the mayhem inflicted on his work by the removal of the erotic passages, which were an integral part of the original work.
Samukhina said she had bought the work at great expense, had gone to great lengths to ensure its veracity, and fears that it could be stolen. The manuscript on which the erotic adventures is based is locked in a Geneva bank vault and no copies exist, she said.
Copyright has expired on the work and if she were to print it in English, everyone could copy it to her financial loss, she added. 
She intends to donate the manuscript to Britain’s Albert and Victoria Museum, which houses the first edition of “Gulliver’s Travels” of 1726 with Swift’s own corrections, in 20 years, after her expenses for buying the manuscript, paying for professional examinations and storage are recovered.
She is especially wary of showing it in Russia, which has a notorious reputation when it comes to intellectual property. Despite taking measures to maintain secrecy when it was published, news of the work and copies of some pages had leaked out before the launch, she said.
“There is no confidentiality in this country,” she added. 
Samukhina said she obtained the manuscript from a descendant of the Karzhavin family, an old Russian merchant dynasty, who lives in Britain. 
Under the terms of the purchase, Samukhina was unable to name the seller, she said.
The seller’s ancestor, Fyodor Karzhavin, polyglot and writer, bought the manuscript from the Ford family, whose ancestor was Swift’s friend and Swift’s archive keeper. The text had been obtained by Karzhavin in the 18th century and left with the family in 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution, she added.
The seller had also had some concerns that the British or Irish governments could try to seize the work, Samukhina said.
“When we asked the young man why the manuscript had never been published, he said that we should first read the manuscript. After reading it we realized why the descendant of Karzhavin chose a publishing house that specializes in erotic literature,” Samukhina said. “The manuscript shocked us with its openness and freedom, which few authors in Swift’s time would have risked.”
The text did not bear Swift’s name, but the original “Gulliver’s Travels” was published in great secrecy and even the publisher was unaware who the author was, Samukhina said.
The text was poorly preserved and the text was saved only because in the first part of the 19th century it was carefully copied by one of Fyodor Karzhavin’s descendants. Only 49 pages, written in Swift’s hand, were saved, she said.
Experts on Swift, who she also declined to name on the grounds of wanting to protect them from harm, had examined the manuscript and confirmed it originality. Their inspection included an examination of the ink, the paper, the handwriting and literary allusions with Swift’s known works, she said.
The expert was very cautious, she added.
“He understood that he was risking his own reputation,” she added.
Unnamed publishers had also told Samukhina that the original paper was from the 18th century and that there were no stocks of such paper on which a modern forger could create a new work, she said.
The foreword to the book, supposedly written by Swift as Gulliver, contains the following passages: (translated from Russian into English)
“My reader does not know the real vicissitudes of my so-called escape from Lilliputia. The version, which the reader knows from the published falsification of my adventures, is as far from the truth, as England is far from Lilliputia.
“In reality this book became twice thinner by the will of its publishers, who threw out of it whole parts, dedicated as it will become clear further not to ‘rising tides and ebb tides.’
“Therefore I kept the parts, taken out by the publishers from my book, and placed them in reliable storage. Am I right doing so? I’m sure I am. I confess I’m warmed up by the thought that in another 100 years … ”
The first published version of “Gulliver’s Travels,” did include some erotic descriptions, for instance, describing how in Brobdingnag maids of honor took off all his clothes and “put him nude on their breasts.”
It also described how “the most beautiful of those maids of honor, a merry and naughty girl of 16 years old, put him on one of her nipples and made him make other excursions along her body.” (This quote was translated from Russian into English)
However, in that version of the book Gulliver expressed negative feelings about these experiences and how disgusted he was to go through all that.
Samukhina said that after reading the manuscript she bought that Gulliver’s supposed negative feelings were the work of the publisher.
In the newly published book Gulliver describes in detail the pleasant sides of his imprisonment in Lilliputia. He narrates how Lilliput women give him and themselves sexual pleasure.
It also says that a handicapped woman discovers that Gulliver’s semen has a medicinal effect. This discovery spreads like wildfire and some commercially minded Lilliputians open a pharmaceutical trade in the product.
The books describes how those “businessmen” collect the “product” and how Gulliver felt about it.
Samukhina said she had a feeling that after reading the new version of “Gulliver’s Travels,” readers will see Gulliver as “a man in the full sense,” and not “a canting hypocrite as he was shown in the first publication where he expressed disgust towards women’s intimate charms.”
However, the international Swift experts expressed doubts about the authenticity of the published manuscript.
Hermann Real, director of Ehrenpreis Center for Swift Studies based in Germany and one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, said he was pretty sure the manuscript obtained by the Soitology Institute was “a fake” and “an elaborate hoax mainly devised to promote sales.”
 There were only a few “Swift scholars whose expertise in Swift’s hand is unquestionable,” he said.
“Other reasons which incline me to think that this text is a hoax are: Swift never is sexually explicit, what in modern parlance you would call ‘pornographic,’” Real said.
“Rather, Swift wrote scatology/obscenity, with this proviso, however, that scatology in Swift never is an end (like pornography) but a means to shock, to administer prophylactic shock therapy, to make people think again, etc,” he said.
“In fact, because of his reputation for scatological verse, the kind of material described would be most likely to be foisted on him,” he said.
At the same time Real said that “whoever is responsible for setting up the framework of the “hoax” was clearly knowledgeable,” because that person was well aware of Swift’s connections to Charles Ford, Karzhavin’s Swift connection and so on. However, he said some details given about those connections were wrong or questionable.
Joseph McMinn, professor of Anglo-Irish literature at the University of Ulster, who also specializes on Swift’s works, said in a telephone interview from Ireland on Wednesday that it was “very unlikely” that the manuscript was genuine.
“Every few years somebody comes up with news about unknown manuscripts of famous writers found but very often those things are not real. So, I’m a bit skeptical about this case,” McMinn said.
He said there was indeed lots of criticism on sexuality expressed in Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travel,” which was mostly about how “disgusted he was towards that part of his adventures.”
Another thing that made McMinn suspicious about the origin of the manuscript was that the new publishers refused to name the experts, who confirmed the authenticity of the text.
“In conclusion, I think this is a clever way of selling an erotic text, by giving it the appearance of ‘serious’ literature, and inventing a mystery story about its origins. None of this is to suggest that the Russian story is no good, it may be brilliant! 
“But it is almost certainly not by Swift, I’m afraid,” McMinn said.
In his turn Peter Selley, senior director of the book and manuscript department at the Sotheby’s Auction House, said original manuscripts of Swift are very rare at the auction.  He also said the Sotheby’s could not comment on the value of the manuscript without seeing it.

TITLE: Wealthy Businessman Dies in Mystery Fall
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Pyotr Semenenko, 59, the general director of St. Petersburg’s Kirovsky Zavod, one of Russia’s largest defense plants, died early Wednesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi after falling from the 15th floor of a local sanatorium.
Semenenko was one of the richest men in St. Petersburg with Forbes magazine estimating his wealth at $95 million, according to media reports.
“It’s not possible to say that his death was the result of a crime,” Interfax cited Temur Vorobyov, deputy prosecutor of Sochi as saying Thursday. “The information we have suggests it was an accident.” 
The director fell at about 2 a.m. from a balcony window of a luxury apartment in the White Nights resort, which belongs to Kirovsky Zavod and is the location Semenenko has been holidaying with his wife, Noviye Izvestia reported.
His body was discovered at about 5 a.m. The family had been renting a separate cottage at the resort and had organized a big party on Tuesday night before Semenenko was due to return to work in St. Petersburg, the report said.
Anonymous employees of the resort said revelers at the party, including Semenenko, had been fairly drunk, the report added.
After the party, Semenenko went for a walk, but for some reason dropped into somebody else’s luxury room at the resort’s hotel. 
The prosecutor’s office has not revealed why the director was in the room, but said that “after witnesses have been questioned all information about how the dead person got into this room will have been clarified,” Kommersant reported.
Kirovsky Zavod was founded in 1801, and is one of the oldest plants in St. Petersburg. It was one of the main producers of tanks during World War II and during the Siege of Leningrad finished war machines drove out the factory gates directly to the front. 
Semenenko was known in the city’s business community as a director who had succeeded in putting the defense plant back on its feet after it suffered a deep financial and production crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 
The plant clawed its way back to profitability in the last few years by increasing sales to the biggest state-controlled holdings, including Gazprom and Russian Railways, according to national media.
Before Semenenko left for vacation in July, the plant completed its biggest investment program with 213 million rubles ($7.6 million) invested in the plant’s development this year.
The director was highly valued by people in power as was shown by their condolences.
“All of his professional activity is closely linked to Kirovsky Zavod,” Interfax quoted Ilya Klebanov, the presidential representative to the Northwest region, as saying Thursday. 
“He invested into his job so much of his soul that his name will be written down forever not only into the history of the plant, but also into the history of the city,” Klebanov said. 
St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko and Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov also sent their condolences to Semenenko’s family.
On Thursday, the plant’s board of directors appointed the Pyotr Semenenko’s son, Georgy Semenenko, acting head of Kirovsky Zavod. Before the appointment he headed Petrostal Invest, the plant’s investment company, Interfax reported.
Semenenko’s funeral is to take place in the city’s Nikolsky Cemetery on Friday.

TITLE: Neva Nature Reserve Swept For Old Mines
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russian and Swedish field engineers have started to clear mines remaining from World War II from Tyuters Island near Kronstadt in the Gulf of Finland, the Emergency Situations Ministry reported Wednesday.
The work is being done to prepare the island to be a part of the Ingermanland Nature Reserve, which is to include several islands in the gulf. 
Ingermanland is the area along the Neva River and on the east bank of the Gulf of Finland traditionally inhabited by Finnic peoples.
“The expedition, which will last until Sept. 10, will be staffed by a joint team of specialists from the Swedish Agency for Rescue Services together with sappers of the [Russian] 294th Center for Rescue Operations with Increased Risks, the179th Rescue Center and the Northwest regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry,” RIA-Novosti cited the ministry press service as saying Thursday.
The specialists are to inspect more than 20 hectares of the island, which was used during World War II for defense and as an artillery position. In the second part of the project, the sappers will destroy mines, shells and aviation bombs found during the expedition.
This month sappers of the Leningrad Military District conducted a preliminary examination of the island, which showed that lots of mines, shells and even heavy weapons remain from the war, according to local media.
Anton Antonov, the coordinator of the project for Sweden, said no mine clearing should be expected any time soon. 
“We will work together with our Russian colleagues,” Antonov said in a telephone interview from Stockholm on Wednesday, a day after he returned from the island. “Our aim for this expedition is to form a computer map of the island, to include all the mines and explosives found on its territory into an ISMA — information system for mine action. This will be the first step before clearing mines in the future.”
“This is going to be quite hard work because the area is pretty wild on the island with lots of grass, trees and bushes, so very often it’s almost impossible to walk off the road. There were two expeditions that have worked on the island in the past. They have done something, but have not documented anything. We’re expecting to come out with some results by the beginning of September,” he said.
“The second stage will be the actual mine clearing, but when it is going to start is not clear,” Antonov said.
According to a draft federal government plan, the Ingermanland natural resort will include nine islands in the Vyborg and Kingisepp districts of the Leningrad Oblast, including Kopytin, Bolshoi Fiskar, Halli, Virginy, Maly and Bolshoi Tyuters, Seskar and Vigrund. 
The total area of the reserve is estimated to be about 18,000 hectares, including the surrounding area of water of the Gulf of Finland.

TITLE: Chopper Crash Victims Found
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TALLINN — Divers on Thursday recovered the first of 14 bodies believed to be trapped inside a submerged helicopter that crashed in the Baltic Sea off the Estonian coast, the Interior Ministry said.
The cause of Wednesday’s crash was unclear, but Estonian Economy Minister Edgar Savisaar said technical problems may have been to blame, the Baltic News Service reported. 
The U.S.-made Sikorsky S-76 went down three minutes after takeoff Wednesday on a commercial flight from Tallinn to Helsinki. On board were two Finnish pilots and 12 passengers from Finland, Estonia and the U.S, officials said. No survivors were found. 
Officials did not identify the body lifted from the wreckage, which was resting on the seabed at a depth of 48 meters. The bodies will be taken to Tallinn for identification by forensic experts, Finnish media reported.
The cause of the crash was unclear. A storm in the area had caused the cancellation of ferries between Tallinn and Helsinki, but winds at the time and place of the helicopter crash were not that strong. 
The chopper plunged into the water near the island of Naissaar, about 5 kilometers off the Estonian coast.

TITLE: Scientists Test Bird Flu Vaccine
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia may launch production of its own vaccine against bird flu as soon as this fall.
The vaccine would be used to combat the flu, which has recently been detected in Siberia.
Scientists at St. Petersburg’s Scientific Research Flu Institute are getting ready to test the vaccine, which they have developed, on themselves.
Yelena Doroshenko, head of the institute’s scientific department, said Thursday that the institute had received samples of the bird flu, or HSN1 virus, from the World Health Organization, which, worried by the spread of the disease, sent it to many other countries.
“When different states receive such cultures they develop their own type of the vaccine, adapt it to the natural and climactic conditions and make sure if it’s not harmful and is effective for its citizens,” Doroshenko said.
The institute did not even look for volunteers to test the vaccine because usually employees of the institute test new vaccines on themselves, she added. 
However, in the case of the bird flu the institute is working with a so-called inactive vaccine, which won’t harm the testers even if the experiment is unsuccessful. The worst that can happen is that volunteers may have allergic reactions.
In an emergency, the institute could launch production of the vaccine as soon as November. 
However, the institute’s experts believe that the outbreak of the bird flu may be extinguished in 10-15 days when it gets colder in Siberia, the Russian territory where it’s now spreading, Interfax quoted institute head Oleg Kiselyov as saying Tuesday.
He said the chance of the disease reaching the European part of Russia is almost zero.
However, there is a necessity to develop a vaccine because the death rate from this disease reaches 50 percent, experts say. Thus, out of 110 people, who were infected in 1997, 60 people died.
Symptoms of bird flu are similar to those of regular flu and include headache, intoxication and bone pains.  Bird flu can be transmitted to a man by excrement, air or food. Chickens, ducks and geese are the source of the disease. Wild birds only transmit the bird flu.  A sick person is considered not dangerous to other people.
Meanwhile, no bird flu cases were registered in St. Petersburg yet, Oleg Parkov, head of St. Petersburg’s epidemiological monitoring service, said Thursday at a news conference.
However, the danger still exists because migratory birds transmit it, Parkov said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Russians Check Latvia
RIGA (AFP) — A Russian military plane on Thursday overflew Latvia to monitor the Baltic state’s military infrastructure, a spokesman for the Latvian armed forces said. 
“The Russian military plane landed this week in Latvia in the framework of the OSCE Open Skies program. It will fly in Latvia’s air space only Thursday,” said Uldis Davidovs, a spokesman of the Latvian National Armed force. 
“It is the first time that a Russian plane will inspect Latvia’s military infrastructure under this program. Latvia together with German and Spanish colleagues has already carried out a mission to inspect Russian military infrastructure in April this year,” Davidovs said.

Gravestones Revealed
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Gravestones from a 19th-century cemetery  have been found by workers renovating the area around the statue of Vladimir Lenin at Finlyandsky Station, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The gravestones were reportedly taken by workers in 1926 from a biggest Catholic cemetery in St. Petersburg, which was located nearby on Arsenalnaya Ulitsa and were used to install the statue of Lenin because of a lack of construction materials.

Chinese Attacked
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A female Chinese student was attacked at noon on Monday on Vasilyevsky Island, Rosbalt reported.
The student was hit in the face on a staircase at 22 Nalichnaya Ulitsa by an unidentified criminal, who stole her bag, which contained $500 and 500 rubles.

Singer Building Fire
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A fire broke out in the former House of Books, or Singer Building, located at 19 Naberezhnaya Kanala Griboyedova on Thursday morning, Interfax reported. 
The fire was discovered on the 7th floor at 7:15 a.m. and covered 100 square meters. It was out by 7:41 a.m.

Journalist to Advise
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Igor Pavlovsky, head of Regnum-Baltica news agency, has been appointed a consultant to the presidential administration on cultural ties with foreign countries, the agency reported Thursday. 
Pavlovsky  worked as head of Governor Valentina Matviyenko’s press service before becoming the head of the agency in 2004.

TITLE: U.S. LED Maker Eyes Russian Market
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: U.S. light-emitting diodes producer Lamina Ceramics is in negotiations with St. Petersburg company Dobraya Energiya for the local company to become its main distributor in Russia and CIS, Delovoi Peterburg reported Tuesday.
Agreement for a term of five years will be signed soon. By 2010 company sales volume in Russia will reach $300 million, the daily quoted general director of Dobraya Energiya Mikhail Dubina as saying.
Lamina Ceramics did not respond to a request for comment, and Dobraya Energiya could not be reached.
Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, represent one of the most dynamic world markets. Annual sales volume was estimated at $1.8 billion in 2002. By 2007 the world LED market will grow  to $4.5 billion, according to Strategies Unlimited data.
The U.S. market research and strategic consulting company said LEDs have enjoyed annual growth at rates of 40 percent to 50 percent a year since 1995, becoming especially popular in the United States, Europe and Japan.
By 2010 LEDs will fully replace incandescent lamps in United States and Japan, the researcher said.
Nobel prize winning scientist Zhores Alfyorov has estimated the Russian LED market to be 10 million diodes a year with 50 percent provided by foreign producers.
The LED application field is extremely wide. LEDs are used in luminaries, lamps and torches, displays, traffic lights, car headlights, wing clearance lights, beacons, architectural and landscape lighting.
The main LED advantages are energy saving and a longer working life. Compared to incandescent lamps, LEDs perform up to 10 times more efficiently.
Despite attractive product qualities producers and distributors so far see low demand in Russia. LED information signs and displays are still quite rare.
“While in Europe street and building lighting projects are financed by the state, in Russia commercial companies are the main LED consumer,” said Anna Kluyeva, marketing director of Svetotekhnicheskaya Companiya.
The largest LED usage area in world market is cellphone display and liquid crystal display lighting (about 37 percent of total volume) with traffic lights and motor car lights taking second and third place, Kluyeva said.
In Russia, LED car tuning is still an additional option for expensive cars, she said.
Though other industry players said LED consumption in the car industry is growing just as strongly in advertising and information displays with street lighting following close behind due to innovative technology projects.
“It’s hard to estimate industry growth precisely. The market expands in geometric progression. Not so long ago nobody talked about LEDs and now you can find them in any electronic retail outlet,” said Valery Kuznetsov, head of the LED sales department at Corvette-Lights.
“LEDs win the market from car tuning to Chinese trinkets and torches,” he said.
However, Kluyeva insisted the Russian advertising industry consumes the lion’s share at the expense of underdeveloped automobile, information and traffic lights industries.
LED advertising signs cost 20 percent to 30 percent more than neon ones thus being affordable to private companies, especially since color LEDs used in advertising are cheaper, Kluyeva said.
Lamina Ceramics and Dobraya Energiya will face Russian rivals: Optel, Corvette-Lights, Power Light Systems, Optonica, Planeta, Proton, Svetotekhnicheskaya Companiya and Svetlana-Optoelektronika. But the competition with Russian producers may be not so strong.
“We use foreign-produced LEDs, despite there being several local producers. Import LEDs are cheaper and better. They have stable qualities and are simpler to operate,” Kluyeva said. Nobody uses Russian LEDs in advertising, she added.
Main LED producers are Nichia Chemical Corp. (Japan), Agilent Technologies (U.S.), Lumileds Lighting (U.S.), VS Optoelectronic (Germany), OSRAM Optosemiconductors (Germany), LIGITEK Electronics (Taiwan), Kingbright Electronics (Taiwan).
As for Lamina Ceramics sales volume plans, it may be a reachable goal. 
“In advertising it’s impossible, but in cheap lighting equipment it’s a realistic figure. It’s the question of price and product qualities,” Kluyeva said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Trade Surplus Rises
MOSCOW (SPT) — Russia’s trade surplus grew 52 percent to $57.9 billion in the first half of the year, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing the Central Bank. 
Exports hit $112 billion in the first half of this year, a 39.2 percent increase compared to the same period last year. Imports increased by 27.7 percent to $54 billion, the Central Bank web site said.

Estonian Cooperation
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Leningrad Oblast authorities and the Estonian government will form a commission to analyze sea ports’ freight transit, Interfax reported.
Leningrad Oblast governor Valery Serdyukov and Estonian consul Laury Bambus came to agreement at a meeting Tuesday. 
Russian and Estonian experts will “precisely estimate freight volume and structure in Leningrad Oblast customs terminals,” Serdyukov said.
The cooperation was awaited for a long time because Russia and Estonia compete against each other in the transport market, the governor said. Ust-Luga port is likely to increase this competition, but there is “enough freight for everyone,” he said.

Port Returns to Normal
ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) — The port of Kaliningrad began getting back to normal Thursday after three days of storms, despite port officials’ earlier predictions that it would stay closed Friday. 
“The sea canal opened Thursday. All the loading and dispatching of vessels has returned to a normal regime,” a maritime administration official said. 
Port officials had earlier said heightened storm warnings would keep the sea canal closed another 24 hours.
Oil terminals at St Petersburg and Vysotsk were working as normal.

TITLE: Finns Win Tender for MEGA Store
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Finnish constructor Lemcon Ltd. of the LemminkÊinen Group has signed a design and build contract with Swedish retailer IKEA concerning the construction of the MEGA family shopping center in the Leningrad Oblast.
The contract value is about 92 million euros, Lemcon said Tuesday in a  statement.
MEGA shopping center in the Parnas district will occupy 145,000 square meters. In June, IKEA announced an investment plan saying it will build the MEGA retail and entertainment center near the existing IKEA shop in Dybenko and add another MEGA complex and IKEA in the Parnas area.
Lennart Dahlgren, CEO of IKEA Russia, said the company will invest $400 million in the project, with additional financing arriving from anchor tenants Auchan, OBI and M-Video. Construction is to be completed by 2006.
Lemcon Ltd. specializes in international construction projects. Last year company net sales were 264.5 million euros ($329 million) and an operating profit of 11.1 million euros.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Neva Tunnel Tender
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Hall’s committee for street management and improvement has called a tender on car tunnels under Neva river that are to be built by 2008, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Two 1.6 kilometer commercial tunnels will connect the Central and Krasnogvardeisky districts starting at the intersection of Piskarevsky Prospekt and Orlovskaya Ulitsa and are to carry 40,000 to 60,000 cars a day, reducing traffic on the Liteiny and Peter the Great bridges.
Investment is estimated to be between 9.7 billion rubles ($342 million) and 11.2 billion rubles ($395 million) and is to be returned within eight years. 
German company Herrenknecht is considering the project, Interfax reported.

Glass Plant for City
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) – Russkaya Sodovaya Companiya, the owner of the Bereznyaki soda plant, is to invest 220 million euros ($273 million) in a glass plant in St. Petersburg, Interfax quoted the committee for investment and strategic projects as saying Thursday.
City authorities will offer a 50-hectare construction site to the company by September. A final decision on launching the project will be taken by the end of the year. The plant is to make glass packaging, and car and sheet glass production, the report said.

Svyaznoi to Discount
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) – Cellphone retailer and mobile payment outlets owner Svyaznoi has launched a discount chain, the company said Thursday in a press release.
Svyaznoi has completed design works for five discount shops in Moscow, three in St. Petersburg and two in Nizhny Novgorod. The chain will expand to 20 shops by the end of 2005.
The shops will sell cut-priced GSM and DECT telephones and other digital equipment.
Regular telephones at ordinary prices will form up to 30 percent of the assortment. Discount shops will provide all traditional Svyaznoi services including after-sales service.
At the moment Svyaznoi operates 701 shops in 134 cities across Russia. Company turnover in the first half of this year reached $439.5 million with 1.35 million telephones sold.

Skanska ‘Is Staying’
Swedish-based international construction giant Skanska has no plans to leave Russia, Dmitry Lomakin, head of Skanska’s Moscow office said Thursday.
“[The Russian ] regional markets suffer from lack of investment and thus cause business troubles, but Moscow and St. Petersburg perform quite well,” Lomakin said. “Upcoming market repartition may create even more attractive opportunities in the future.”
Skanska’s strategy in Russia is not to surrender, but to cooperate with local construction companies instead of direct project management to “localize regional business.”
Delovoi Petersburg had reported Wednesday that stagnation in the primary real estate market was forcing Skanska to decrease its operations in Russia.
Delovoi Petersburg said the Swedish parent company even had to provide financial support to complete local projects because of decreasing sales and was considering quitting St. Petersburg.

TITLE: Faking Left
AUTHOR: By Stanislav Belkovsky
TEXT: It is already obvious that the second half of 2005 will unfold under the banner of bustling faux modernization. And we have only the Kremlin’s enemies to thank for this wide-ranging imitation.
If the Orange Revolution hadn’t happened in Ukraine, the Kremlin would never have set up a way to pass on power to an anointed successor. It would never have set up the youth organization Nashi and would never have started talking about vertical social mobility or handing power over to the next generation. If Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych had won, the wise Kremlin specialists would have floated above an unseen political void, convinced that the main focal point of politics was tallying up the votes just right, the way Central Election Commission head Alexander Veshnyakov does, and that everything else — ideas, leaders, strategies and parties — was a big waste of time and money.
Now, under the influence of the unexpected popular protests against benefits reform this January, the electoral success of the left in many regions and even the political musings of former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Kremlin has decided to make a swift move to the left. President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric will likely change by early fall. He will talk about justice and the priorities of Russia’s 140 million citizens. A new crop of buffoonish organizations will be sown, and parties made irrelevant by their previous pointlessness will be thrown into the PR fray, from the Patriots of Russia to the social democrats. 
The widely despised Social Development and Health Minister Mikhail Zurabov may fall victim to this leftward shift, along with one or two other federal officials who had long wanted to work in the private sector anyway. Finally and most importantly, the sacred inviolability of the stabilization fund will finally be destroyed. In general, the Kremlin will attempt to demonstrate that it is the country’s only real leftist.
The Putin administration might even try staging a pseudo-revolution in typical Kremlin fashion. For example, Zurabov could leave his post kicking and screaming, dragged out of the ministry after a three-day standoff with Nashi’s “antifascist” soccer hooligans.
Naturally, none of this will mean a real change in policy. The Putin regime’s goals exclude any real changes, no matter how good, out of principle.
Many big-name Kremlinologists in Russia and elsewhere are tirelessly reproducing the myth that Putin heads a chekist regime of authoritarian modernization that wants to destroy all vestiges of Boris Yeltsin’s rule, as the few remaining liberals in power try to resist their bloodthirsty schemes. Until this myth is debunked, we will not be able to grasp the logic of Putin’s actions.
Putin’s rule is not an autonomous or separate political and historical phenomenon. It is the final stage of Yeltsin’s regime. Putin, as Russia’s leader, has one main goal in life and that is to make the results of the great privatization wave from 1993 to 2000 untouchable. He needs to do this fast enough so that those who profited from privatization can sell off their assets at market prices and legalize their money in the safe and comfy West.
From this perspective, Putin is pursuing a completely rational economic policy. The point of this policy is to reduce the state’s obligations to the public and the ruling class’ responsibility to the state. Those reaping the profits of privatization should have the right not to invest anything in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and should be allowed to shift the burden onto the public. This is why benefits are being replaced by cash and the housing and utility sector is being reformed.
The fundamental logic of the Putin regime dictates that any proactive steps are justified and appropriate only when they do not affect stability one iota. Since all reforms threaten stability, the Kremlin does not want to initiate them or, after starting them, stops the second the president’s approval rating slips or discontent grows. 
Thus, Putin is serving as the figurehead for a classic example of a canned, conservation regime trying to maintain the status quo. This type of regime should not be called conservative. Conservatism means modernization based on national traditions, while conservation is the complete absence of any hint of modernization.
For this reason, the Kremlin chooses exclusively to react instead of act. When unpleasant circumstances demand a reaction, Putin grits his teeth and pretends to take radical steps in response. Instead of actually letting people rise through the ranks, the Kremlin holds discussion groups in the woods for Nashi members. Instead of making a real step to the left in social policy, it discusses the war on poverty while swapping benefits for meager cash payments.
As there can be no change, there cannot be any success either. This is reflected in the economy’s increasing dependence on natural resources over the last 5 1/2 years of high oil prices. When the Kremlin discovered that its resources for pulling the wool over people’s eyes were running low, it declared its own stability to be its most shining achievement. The message seems to be, “We’ve done well because we’re still ruling you.” The public should reward the goodwill of its tolerant rulers by parting with their money and their lives.
Part of Putin’s bluff is the myth that the president represents some secret corporation of chekists who are following in the footsteps of Felix Dzerzhinsky and Yury Andropov, and who put Putin in power to trample Yeltsin-era democracy.
Of course, once upon a time, Putin did work in East Germany for the KGB. However, back in 1990, the Soviet checkists basically kicked the future president out of the club by sending him from the GDR, which was posh by late Soviet standards, to work as the assistant to the Leningrad State University rector in charge of international relations. Since that time, Putin, like any other outsider, has more reasons to hate the KGB than to love it.
The popular tall tale that chekists have taken all the key posts in executive branch also does not hold up to careful scrutiny. The problem is not only that no truly influential figures in the Kremlin have a KGB background. Chekism is a neo-Soviet imperial ideology and not just a line in a resume. The thousands of former KGB officials in bureaucratic posts do not set the tone in the government. They do as they’re told, and under Yeltsin they were hired in droves for their tight-lipped discipline. 
Chekism for the regime is little more than a PR ploy. Putin basically resembles tycoon Roman Abramovich in a rented KGB uniform.
That said, Putin will certainly step down when his term is up, despite what experts and diplomats in the West might think. Conservation can only last so long, and a system that does not change will collapse. Putin’s regime will lose its reason for being once it fulfills its life work: to export the cash made off the 1990s privatizations. Once that happens, power for Putin and Co. will be reduced to a continuous chain of blackouts, terrorist attacks, frozen hinterlands and sunken mini-subs. In other words, obligation without profit.
The Kremlin’s left turn will become its final bluff. The only true result of this leftism will be loans from the stabilization fund to businesspeople particularly loyal to the Kremlin, “in order to encourage exports,” as they say.
Then, the toughest question on Russia’s historical agenda will be who will replace Putin and Co. at the helm, not when and if Putin will go.

Stanislav Belkovsky is president of the Institute for National Strategy. He contributed this comment to Vedomosti, where it appeared in longer form.

TITLE: Lessons Learned Save Lives, But Lies Continue
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
TEXT: The rescue of seven sailors from a stricken mini-submarine on Sunday was a clear sign that Russia had learned from some of the mistakes it made when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank five years ago.
British rescuers were allowed to use their equipment to free the vessel from entanglement in the Pacific Ocean. But comments made later by the rescued men and the Russian naval hierarchy made one thing clear: the top brass still have a lot to learn when it comes to telling the truth.
This is the only way to avoid large-scale misfortunes and the comments made this clear as never before.
Military leaders’ words recorded by the media shortly after the rescue operation sounded rather anecdotal and looked to be a last, unsuccessful attempt to conceal information that was slipping out of their hands uncontrollably.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying that the navy had raised the mini-submarine first to 60 meters below the surface and then to 30 meters.
“This is not true,” Kommersant quoted one of the rescued sailors as saying. “We were not lifted up to 30 meters, or to 60 meters. We were sitting at 200 meters until we were lifted up.”
Viktor Gavrikov, head of the military group operating in the area, quickly interrupted the sailor.
“You just didn’t notice that you had been lifted up,” Gavrikov said. “To do so, you need special skills.”
The conversation sounds similar to an old joke about a Russian soldier asking an officer if crocodiles can fly.
“No, they can’t,” the officer says.
“But the colonel said they can,” the soldier replies. 
“Well … OK, sometimes they can, but they fly very low,” the officer said.
Without a doubt, heeding superiors is one of the most important parts of serving in an army. But the way this is understood in Russia leads to absolutely illogical developments. Sometimes it is rather funny, but more often the unquestioning following of orders without even thinking about possible consequences leads to the unjustified loss of human lives.
One rescued sailor was reported as saying that the trapped men’s request to their commanders to maneuver the mini submarine was refused on the grounds that doing so could damage secret equipment.
“When we asked for permission to let the submarine move forward they told us they couldn’t do that because they had an order from Moscow to be careful with an antenna,” Kommersant quoted the sailor as saying.
This remark received a similar reaction from Gavrikov as the one he made to the comment that apparently contradicted what Ivanov had said.
“You’ve mixed up something,” Gavrikov was quoted as saying. “There couldn’t be anything like that. The team had an order to rescue you regardless of the consequences for any equipment.”
In any case it was a big achievement that the navy bosses rated the lives of the submariners as more important than some secret equipment resting 200 meters under the ocean. At the same time, Gavrikov’s insistence that the sailors’ comments were wrong could be a sign that the humane approach to problems is still exceptional in the Russian military system.
The military always does all it can to cover up information in order to get out of the water without getting wet. In the end, this approach results in drastic consequences such as the death of all 118 people on board the Kursk in the cold waters of the Barents Sea in 2000.
This time the seven sailors just got lucky that somebody from the navy command learned the lesson of the Kursk and decided to call for help as soon as it was possible. The question is if the authorities will keep this tradition for the future.
If it really wants to take another step along this new path, it should get back to the accident in the Barents Sea and reveal the truth about the cause of the disaster.
But for some reason I don’t believe we’ll ever learn this truth.

TITLE: Haunted archipelago
AUTHOR: By Paul Abelsky
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The flight from Arkhangelsk in Russia’s Far North to the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea takes just 40 minutes, a deceptively quick trip to one of the most sacrosanct and tragic corners of Russia. 
But the intricately patterned enormity of the northern seascape below, the abrasive landing, and the stark silhouette of the ancient monastery, which materializes as soon as one gets off the airplane, signal both apprehension and rare splendor, the twin hallmarks of human experience on these islands throughout history. 
The trip, organized for a group of Scandinavian and Russian journalists by Barents Press International in co-operation with the Nordic Journalist Center, included a two-day stay on the island and extensive excursions to outlying areas.
A mid-summer visit disguises the place’s forbidding climate. The winter lasts for eight months and brings near-total isolation, as the islands become practically cut off from the mainland. 
Summer, however, is accompanied by majestic white nights: the indistinguishable succession of sunset and sunrise adds a timeless quality to life on the island.
The fortified nucleus of Solovki, as the place is colloquially known, is the site of one of Russia’s most illustrious monasteries, a treasure chest of devotion and unworldly resolve. 
The monastery was founded in the 15th century as a spiritual retreat on the edge of the world, only 160 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. It sits on the largest of the six main islands, which themselves make up part of a sprawling archipelago.
Religious struggle was consonant with the harsh climate, where daily life became a fight for survival. Even today, locals speak of an unusual spiritual charge on the islands, a kind of proximity to God afforded by Solovki’s location on the outer edge of civilization.
Solovki increasingly came to play a pivotal role in Russia’s religious politics. By the mid-16th century, the institution also wielded great economic influence, as it came to possess vast tracts of land, fisheries, and salt refineries. 
Gradually, Solovki acquired another, more ominous, purpose, one that presaged its tragic history during the Soviet years. 
From the time of Ivan the Terrible, political prisoners and religious offenders were sent here to be incarcerated either in solitary confinement or in the monastery grounds. 
Although small in scale, this practice of internment marked Solovki as one of the more feared prisons in imperial Russia. It also created an ill-fated precedent which was exploited following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
After the Bolsheviks disbanded the monastery in 1920 and plundered its riches, they set up the first political prisoner camp in the Soviet Union. 
Established in 1923, it predated Stalin’s reign and served the experimental purpose of honing the techniques of enslavement and mass torture that would be replicated throughout the extensive Gulag complex that sprang up in the Soviet Union. 
The Gulag, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, metastasized from here into a malignant snare of human lives, one that persisted in one form or another well into the 1980s. By some estimates, around one million inmates passed through the Solovki camp alone. They included Russia’s best minds, from the theologian Pavel Florensky to the literary scholar Dmitry Likhachev. 
The authorities gave the area’s harsh climate a new punitive function, exposing the inmates to the unforgiving elements. The sacred topography of the monastery was inverted and deliberately blasphemed. In one of the former monastic interiors, an outhouse for the prisoners was located where the altar once stood. 
For all the sadistic innovations unveiled at Solovki, the confined surroundings were of limited use and the camp soon exhausted its utility. It was closed in 1939, and the Gulag complex expanded to wider spaces throughout the Soviet Union.
The scar tissue from those years is visible on Solovki today, but an effort to restore the original purpose of the island and bring back a semblance of normality has sidetracked an attempt to memorialize this 20th-century trauma.
Today the Solovetsky monastery is slowly rebuilding itself. It was reestablished in 1990 and now has around fifty monks. In 1992, Archimandrite Iosif was installed to oversee the community.
“Monasticism is like a vast sea,” said Father Iosif. “It is fed by powerful rivers and tiny rivulets, large streams and small creeks. Every person who becomes a monk here has his own fate, his own understanding of faith, God, and ancestors. What unites us all is the legacy of the Soviet past, the hardships we all went through.”
The monastery has taken possession of parts of the central complex, nearby Anzer Island, and other dispersed buildings and tracts of land around Solovki. Father Iosif is adamant that all former monastic holdings should someday be returned to the church.
Unlike other Russian monasteries, such as Valaam, local inhabitants do not reside on the territory of the convent itself. 
“The situation here was resolved thanks to the assistance of the museum administration,” said Father Iosif. “And I don’t see any grounds for conflict with the locals in the future.”
Tensions certainly persist at the bureaucratic level. The Solovetsky state museum was established in 1967. Its exhibitions and facilities occupy monastic territory, and tourists inevitably undercut the cadences of devout life. Today’s visitors and pilgrims already number around 20,000 each year.
Mikhail Lopatkin, the museum director, said that three new hotels have opened in the past four years. Around 95 million rubles ($3.3 million) was provided from the federal budget for upkeep and restoration, five times as much as in 2000.
“The museum promotes and encourages the development of the monastery,” said Lopatkin. “We don’t want conflicts with the Russian Orthodox Church. As the director, I point out the possible consequences of converting all of the territory to monastic use. But as an Orthodox believer, I share the yearnings of the church.”
During the past four years, according to Lopatkin, the museum has transferred dozens of monuments to the monastery. Now the two institutions manage about fifty buildings each, and eight more are jointly overseen. 
“Our main questions for the church concern their lack of funds for maintenance and restoration,” Lopatkin said. “There aren’t any legal means for the federal government to finance Solovki if it’s turned over to the ecclesiastical authorities, since the church is separate from the state”
Extensive parts of the monastic complex survive today behind the fortified stone ramparts. Regular visitors to the islands note the visible progress made by the ongoing restoration campaign. Scaffolding still mars certain buildings but it is no longer the ever-present blemish it was just a few years ago.
Unpaved roads and the poverty of the residential settlements that surround the monastery provide a sobering counterpoint. The locals describe themselves as inmates of a new kind, confined by destitution and lack of public services.
The resurgence of monastic life inadvertently deflects from staging a proper tribute to Solovki’s more recent history. At present, the museum includes a poignant exposition that narrates the history of the Gulag, and small memorials dot the islands. 
But the overall experience is underwhelming. Tour guides are noticeably reticent about the details, emphasizing that recollections of camp life have become obscured by unsubstantiated legends.
KÌre Tanvik, a Norwegian journalist who heads the Friends of Solovki society, calls for creating an entirely separate museum complex on Solovki, a “world Gulag center,” which would honor the lives lost. Tanvik believes such a memorial could serve a vital educational function and would be of importance to people far beyond Russia.
Feelings on the island and among the monastic leaders are mixed. But the idea of instituting a museum detached from the functioning monastery seems appropriate. 
“The Gulag comprises a tragic page in our country’s history,” says Father Iosif. “It should be remembered and lamented, so it may never happen again.”
“Nonetheless, I would not agree with making a memorial out of the entire monastery, even if all of its existing spaces were once occupied by a concentration camp. It does not mean they should all be converted to memorial use. There should be an exhibition hall, an exposition of some sort to illuminate what took place here.”
Short memories have obscured Russia’s remembrance of Soviet crimes during the time of transition to an independent Russia. Anne Applebaum, the author of a comprehensive recent history of the Gulag, describes this condition as “moral confusion about the past.” 
In the brief list of existing memorials, the first, the most laconic, and perhaps the most evocative is the massive boulder hauled from the Solovetsky Islands and installed on Lubyanka Square in front of the former KGB headquarters in Moscow. 
The monument is abstract and tactile at the same time. It concentrates the power of remembrance and becomes a kind of physical token of the crimes committed: the stone conveys the enormity of terror while remaining an incongruous shard from a distant world in the White Sea.

TITLE: Open the window
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The border town of Vyborg, 120 kilometers from St. Petersburg on the road to Helsinki, throws open a “Window to Europe” this weekend with the commencement of a film festival under that name. 
The 13th “Window To Europe” International Film Festival opens Friday to showcase more than 50 fiction, documentary and animation works competing for prizes in various categories.
New films to be shown include Stanislav Govorukhin’s “Ne khlebom Yedinym” (“Not By Bread Alone”), Maxim Korostyshevsky’s “Dura” (“The Fool”), Nikolai Dostal’s “Kolya-Perekati-Polye” (“Kolya, the Rolling Stone”), Andrei Proshkin’s “Soldatsky Decameron” (“Soldiers’ Decameron”), Konstantin Khudyakov’s “Na Verkhnei Maslovke” (“At Verkhnyaya Maslovka”) and Vera Storozheva’s “Grecheskiye Kanikuly” (“Greek holidays”).
Andrei Kravchuk’s “Italyanets” (“The Italian”), which was filmed in Vyborg last year and won two prizes at the Berlin film festival earlier this year, will also be shown.  
Film director Sergei Ovcharov chairs the jury in the fiction film section, while writer, actor and satirist Vadim Zhuk leads the jury in the animated film category. The documentary competition jury is headed by director Vladimir Gerchikov.
The best film from all categories will be awarded the Grand Golden Boat, the top prize, at the festival, which runs through Aug. 20. 
The prize is awarded after the result of a popular vote, in which each member of the jury as well as special guests, moviegoers and film makers are invited to fill out questionnaires and choose their favorite work.
All films will be shown at the Vyborg Palace cinema at 25 Krepostnaya Ulitsa at the heart of Vyborg’s historic Old Town.
Armen Medvedev, the president of the festival’s organizing committee, said at a press-conference in Moscow last week, that at least seven out of the fourteen works competing in the fiction film category will be world premieres that haven’t yet been shown at any other festival or public event.
The “Window to Europe” festival makes a point of highlighting new names or unveiling sensational and often controversial new works, Medvedev said. 
Emphasis is often given to romantic, sentimental stories and complex human dramas. For example, Alexei Uchitel’s “Progulka” (“The Stroll”) made a big splash during the 2003 event, while premiere of Renata Litvinova’s “Boginya” (“The Goddess”) sparked great interest last year.
Medvedev said the festival’s organizers are planning to screen Alexei Uchitel’s most recent film “Kosmos Kak Predchuvstviye” (“Dreaming Of Space”), which won the top prize at the Moscow Film Festival last month, at the festival and organize a meeting with the director and some members of the crew.
This year’s festival will mark two significant movie anniversaries. 
In tribute to one of the first hit movies ever made, the Lumiere Brothers’ groundbreaking “L’ArrivÎe d’un train È la Ciotat” (“The Arrival of the Mail Train”) 110 years ago, special trains and buses will be arranged to deliver moviegoers to the venue.
And to mark 30 years since the release of Ilya Averbakh’s 1975 psychological drama “Chuzhiye Pisma” (“Other People’s Letters”), the film classic will be shown at a special screening to be attended by some of its cast and crew.

For more information, contact the organizers at (813 78) 21 564 and (813 78) 24 725 or call the Vyborg Palace cinema at (812 78) 20 560.

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Platforma, which took a holiday last month, will reopen on Tuesday. The next concert at the venue will be by TransLit, the Amsterdam-based Russian avant-rock duo on Wednesday. TransLit, which also appears at JFC Jazz Club on Tuesday, is best-known for its collaboration with Auktsyon’s Leonid Fyodorov, who has recently released the band’s debut album, “Literali,” on his Ulitka label. The duo also composed the controversial song “Bin Laden” which Fyodorov performed with double bass player Vladimir Volkov. The song appeared on Fyodorov and Volkov’s album “Tayal” earlier this year.
According to art director Denis Rubin, Platforma will celebrate its first anniversary with a free concert featuring three or four bands and poetry readings on Sept. 4. The lineup has yet to be set.
Simba Vibration, a new band formed by Markscheider Kunst’s ex-singer Seraphim Selenge Makangila, will perform at the 2nd Floor bar on Saturday.
Better known as Seraphim, Makangila was born on Aug. 31, 1968 in Kasongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo (later named Zaire, but now known by its original name), one of 12 children in an unlikely family headed by a Muslim mother and Catholic father. “Seraphim” was later dropped the musician’s official papers when Mobutu — the dictator who was in power from 1965 to 1997 — banned Christian names.
Seraphim was going to become a Catholic preacher but was expelled from a seminary for “impurity.” He went on to become a medical student, but chose to leave the Zaire because of increasing repression of students by the regime.
Traveling to the Soviet Union on a UNICEF program in 1991, Seraphim entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute. Friends who came from Congo-Brazzaville, Benin and Guinea — none of whom with any background in music — started a group.
“We didn’t like what we saw on television, so we wanted our fellow countrymen to gather in some place and listen to African music,”  Seraphim said in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times. 
Called M’Bond Art (the “art of the drum”), the nine-piece band performed Zouk, Afro rumba and Soukuss — first for the local African community, but later in early local clubs, such as the Art Club, Indie and the fabulous TaMtAm (all now defunct).
Seraphim, who sings and writes songs in his native tongue Lingala, has never studied music. “Of course, we are taught to sing from early childhood,” he said. “When a child starts to talk, parents teach him to sing folk songs.”
M’Bond Art split when most of its members graduated and went home. Seraphim stayed and formed a new group with local musicians who hung out at TaMtAm — called Motema Pembe (“pure soul” in Lingala), also known as the Makangila Band, which made its debut in March 1995. David Byrne, in St. Petersburg at the time, danced to their music at a closed “pancake party” held for the chief Talking Head.

TITLE: Up close and personal
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: An exhibition of portraits by a distinguished Russian-born photographer reveals a preoccupation with human liberty.
Thought-provoking and captivating portraits of political leaders and cultural luminaries by St. Petersburg-born emigre photographer Mikhail Lemkhin are on show at the Stroganov Palace of the State Russian Museum until Sept. 5.
The close-up shots of 60 accomplished individuals are in black-and-white because the artist considers this the most suitable technique for “psychological” portraiture. The works are purposefully timeless, each reflecting the drama behind a human face. Lemkhin’s ultimate ambition is to illustrate the qualities that these people are remembered for.
Lemkhin, who left the Soviet Union in 1983 for San Francisco and a career as commercial photographer, has been a U.S. citizen since 1990.
Born in Leningrad in 1949, Lemkhin earned a degree in photojournalism and worked as a freelance and staff photographer for a string of local publications. 
He also published more than 20 books as an advertising photographer for the Graphics Arts Agency, part of the Union of Artists of the U.S.S.R.
Lemkhin’s subjects are united by their relation to liberty: from politicians to religious leaders to independent artists, they represent various aspects of the struggle for human freedom.
The collection features the first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, emigre Russian writer Sergei Dovlatov, emigre poet and Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky, dissident Andrei Sakharov, U.S. actor and activist Sean Penn and British art-house film director Peter Greenaway.
Lemkhin has made hundreds of portraits of other Russian and Western cultural figures such as former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel, Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky, Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni, U.S. author Susan Sontag, Irish poet Seamus Heaney and U.S. jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. 
His photographs have appeared in numerous publications in Russia and abroad and his works are held in private collections all over the world.
Speaking at the opening of the Stroganov Palace exhibition last week, Lemkhin said he used several criteria to choose works for the St. Petersburg show.
“Of course, I picked the works I believe to be the most compelling,” he said. 
“Besides, I was aiming to juxtapose the images of people who are well-known in Russia and the portraits of people who have undeservedly remained obscure and who should be recognized.”
There is a personal connection with every image, he said. Some subjects are Lemkhin’s close friends, while others have made achievements in life which he admires.
Lemkhin said he prefers to photograph his subjects when they are preoccupied by work, thought or conversation but he can change his tactics when the occasion calls.
“I try and talk to them to find out their sensitivities, what makes them tick, and what can produce a particular impression on them,” he explains. “A face in itself is not an image. A facial expression could become one, and you have to seize the moment and capture it.”
The photographer, with over 50 major international exhibitions behind him, received a U.S. State Department grant for the Russian Museum exhibition but somehow the sum didn’t cover the cost of shipping the works to Russia. 
Lemkhin was offered the use of the diplomatic mail service to send the 60 framed portraits to Russia, but declined the option, having been warned the journey would take two months. 
“I thought, where would they be for two months? I was afraid,” the photographer told reporters, admitting he considered placing the unframed works in a suitcase.

TITLE: Independent’s day
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Back in the 1980s, Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then called, was seen as the capital of Russian rock. 
Two decades later, local alternative bands are still in high demand in Moscow and the rest of Russia, according to Artyom Kopylov, the head of the city’s leading alt-rock label Kapkan Records.
“If you look up polls on alternative-culture web sites, you’ll find out that nine out of ten ‘best bands’ are from St. Petersburg, and eight out of those nine are on Kapkan,” Kopylov said, speaking in his office in Novaya Gollandiya, the once “closed” artificial island in the city center, formerly occupied by naval warehouses.
“There’s an evident slant towards St. Petersburg,” he said. 
Last week Kapkan announced that it plans to put out about 30 new releases in the next six months, but when it was started the label was a modest operation that helpes out punk-musician friends to get their music released in the late 1990s.
The label was launched by Kopylov and Alexander Kanayev, both of whom had experience of working at record shops and hanging around at local underground clubs. Its name, Kapkan (“trap”), is actually an acronym of their names.
“It started out from friendship. We were friends with [punk band] Brigadny Podryad; Sasha [Kanayev] was also friends with Yugo-Zapad, while I was friends with Dai Pistolet,” said Kopylov, naming St. Petersburg bands of the era.
“We both came not out of nowhere, we were part of the club scene. So we chatted, and one word led to another: ‘Why don’t we help this band or that band?’” 
Kapkan’s first releases were “DiVersiya” (“DiVersion”), the second album by the local hip-hop/punk band Dai Pistolet, and the veteran punk band Brigadny Podryad’s “Reanimatory” (Reanimators) in 1999.
“We did it as volunteers in the beginning just because it was interesting, but then we realized that we learned something and started to do it more professionally,” said Kopylov.
“Now we have some position and identity. For instance, I don’t know who can compare with us in St. Petersburg. It seems nobody deals with this kind of music but us.”
According to Kopylov, the label’s most successful releases this year have been  by such loud, guitar-based alt-rock bands as Psikheya, Jane Air, Amatory, Stigmata and Eskimo. But the label also boasts La Minor on its roster, a unique band whose interesting, acoustic treatments of Russian urban-folk classics are also in high demand.
Kapkan has also obtained the rights to the self-titled, fully instrumental debut by The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review, which was released on the now-inactive small label Zvezda in 2002 and is no longer available.
“We didn’t set a goal to occupy a certain niche. We simply release the records that we find interesting,” said Kopylov. 
“But even if we have no niche, we tend to specialize in alternative rock now because life has become much more active in this field. That’s why it’s the main direction of the label.”
Kapkan is with many bands each step of the way, from arranging studio facilities to selling the resulting CDs and even promoting concerts.
The label has a special relationship with the specialist alternative-rock record shop Farshmag at 22 Karavannaya Ulitsa (where most of its releases are available), but the most popular items can be bought in general record stores.
“Every big record chain store has our CDs,” said Kopylov.
“The other thing is that not everything we offer is represented everywhere. Sellers don’t want to deal with a release that doesn’t sell well or is by a band that has already split.”
Kapkan’s policy is to keep prices low while trying to reach out to more fans — mostly young people, according to Kopylov.
“Pricing is dictated by the market. Basically, because our releases are original, that is we do our product ourselves, we can’t just set any price, like some electronic labels do,” he said.
“But we sell 95 percent of our CDs for the same price as any other pop releases, which is comparable to the price for pirate CDs. Because we are oriented toward young people and not a rich audience, numbers are important as well. Not that I want to popularize some direction, but I want as many people as possible to be interested in this culture. Prices should be affordable.”
Kapkan’s CDs usually cost between 120 and 150 rubles ($4.22-$5.28) in shops while a CD’s wholesale price is less than $2, which is supposed to cover studio costs, salaries and payment to the band.
“Of course you can’t make $3 by selling a disk for $2, but even the 50 cents that we make [from a CD] can be split between everybody. Everybody should get a little. Basically it’s right,” said Kopylov.
According to Kopylov, Kapkan produces between 1,000 and 10,000 copies of a title. Since its start it has released over 100 albums on CD, excluding its out-of-print cassette tape releases. It also produces T-shirts and all kinds of rock paraphernalia.
Although the label works efficiently, Kopylov said he sometimes had to draw funds from his other business projects.
“It can be self-sufficient in theory, but it’s clear that there’s no harm in drawing funds from the outside,” he said.
“If there’s a question of recording and producing a more or less strong release, it demands a budget of several thousands of dollars. Sometimes you cannot produce such a sum easily.”
Although Kapkan is not modelled after any Western indie label, Kopylov admits having borrowed some ideas from such labels as Britain’s Mute.
“If you took a Mute disc, there is a catalog and you can order something from its web site. We use that too, because the distribution network is not well-developed [in Russia],” he said.
“We also publish ‘zines, which is normal practice. Who can write about our bands better than we do? We know them better than anybody.”
Releasing albums by bands that draw about 1,000 fans to gigs at best, Kapkan does not suffer from at the hands of  notorious Russian pirates as much as bigger labels do.
“It affects us but not as much as some pop labels, because it is easier to sell a release which is played on television and radio,” said Kopylov.
“You have to know how to sell our releases, roughly speaking, so there were only isolated instances. On the other hand, if they counterfeit your record it’s a good sign. If they pirate it, it means it’s popular, that people need it. But yes, it’s your money being stolen, that’s why it’s not very pleasant.”

www.kapkanrecords.com

TITLE: Leave out the lederhosen
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The first thing that impresses you about Schwabski Domik is its size — it’s a restaurant and a bistro and a pub in one. There is a spacious sitting area outside for summer evenings, and several  dining halls inside. 
Situated on the square immediately above Novocherkasskaya metro station, this German-themed establishment was one of the first private restaurants in post-Soviet St. Petersburg — opened way back in the early 1990s. We were lucky enough to have as our guest an American friend who had actually been there not long after it had opened. She recollected the day she drank too much beer there in 1993, and because of this she could give us only scant information about how much had changed since then. 
With its polished wooden furniture, assorted knick-knacks on the wall, kitchen-nook furniture, corner-booths, and small windows with lace curtains, Schwabski Domik could teach the Russki Kitsch restaurant over on Vasilyevsky Island something about bad taste. 
We expected the Von Trapp family to turn up and provide the entertainment. 
The atmosphere is relaxed (especially on a warm sunny Sunday evening). The music, unlike in so many other places in St. Petersburg, is not loud, and the service is efficient and unobtrusive.
As soon as you walk into Scwabski Domik, you are no longer in Russia: service is excellent and dishes arrive on time and in the right order. However prices are also not Russian. A draft beer, for example, something called Alpirsbacher, which comes in light and dark varieties, costs a staggering 130 rubles ($4.64) for a third of a liter, 199 rubles ($7.10) for half a liter, and had no discernible magical properties. Is this the most expensive beer in the city?
The menu contains world-famous German specialties such as Schwabski sausages, sauerkraut, leberkes (also a kind of sausage), Algoyer kazesoup (cheese soup), and veal liver a la Berlin. It is difficult to know what to choose, especially if you are unfamiliar with German cuisine. I plumped for one of the three set meals on offer. The Schwabski meal (415 rubles, $14.80) included: a plain vegetable salad (nothing special); a salty broth with noodles (unusual); sausages with mashed potatoes and (superfluous) yellow noodles (absolutely delicious, but needed more gravy); and warm apple pie. We enjoyed the delicious fresh bread and butter provided, and asked for another helping (for which we were later charged.) 
The Schwabski menu provides a hearty meal, and by the time I had licked the cream off my plate, I couldn’t have eaten another thing. The other member of our party who was dining decided to go freestyle, choosing chantarelle cream mushroom soup, with a thick, but not fatty, creamy texture, two small bits of fish and a prawn (350 rubles, $12.50), Munich sausages with red sauerkraut and fried potatoes (265 rubles, $9.46), and for dessert, cream cheese strudel with poppy seeds (120 rubles, $4,28). All the dishes were good, especially the strudel.
Schwabski Domik offers well-made food and good service at a price. But leave your lederhosen at home.

Schwabski Domik
Novocherkassky Prospekt, 28/19. Tel: 528 2211
Menu in Russian, English and German
Restaurant: 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.
Pub: Noon to 11 a.m. Bistro: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
All major cards accepted
Restaurant dinner for two with beer 2,087 rubles ($74.50)

TITLE: Iran Defies the West With Nuclear Plans
AUTHOR: By Ali Akbar Dareini
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Iran resumed full operations at its uranium conversion plant Wednesday, as Europe and the United States struggled to find a way to stop the Islamic republic from pushing ahead with a nuclear program they fear will lead to weapons of mass destruction.
With United Nations inspectors watching, Iranian officials removed U.N. seals that had been placed voluntarily on equipment at the facility eight months ago when Tehran agreed to freeze most of its nuclear program.
The breaking of the seals at the facility outside the southern city of Isfahan was the latest move of Iranian brinkmanship over its nuclear ambitions. 
Iran has rejected European proposals to limit its program in return for economic incentives and shrugged off threats of U.N. sanctions. Any attempt to impose sanctions could face a veto in the U.N. Security Council from Russia and China, which have close ties with Iran.
Tehran’s delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Sirus Nasseri warned Europe and the United States that referring Iran to the Security Council over the resumption of operations at the plant, would be a step toward “the path of confrontation.”
Europe and the United States were left appealing to Iran to reconsider the proposals and waiting for Tehran to make its own offer in negotiations, while diplomats at the U.N. nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — debated how strongly to rebuke Iran.
The 35-nation board of governors of the IAEA held private discussions on how best to tackle the problem. 
Matthew Boland, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the IAEA, described the breaking of the seals as “yet another sign of Iran’s disregard for international concerns.”
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s office said it “hopes Iran will still take the sensible path and look seriously and constructively at the offer from the (Europeans).” The French Foreign Ministry urged Tehran to stop work at the plant “to restore confidence.”
Europe has hoped to persuade Iran to accept fuel from abroad, but Iran’s reopening of the Isfahan plant underlined its insistence on developing the entire fuel cycle on its own. Iran says its nuclear program aims only to produce electricity.
On Tuesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he was willing to continue negotiations and would put forward his own proposals. However, Iran has said it won’t restart uranium enrichment without a negotiated deal with Europe. Enrichment can produce nuclear fuel for a reactor or material for a bomb.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Pakistan Tests Missile
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) — Pakistan successfully tested on Thursday a nuclear-capable, ground-launched cruise missile, which has a range of 500 km, a military spokesman said.
Pakistan reached an agreement last week with nuclear armed rival India to inform each other about missile tests but military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the agreement did not cover the cruise missile, called “Babur.”
“We don’t have to inform neighbouring countries in this case. It is not a ballistic missile and it doesn’t fall under the agreement,” he said.
“By conducting the successful test, Pakistan has joined a select group of countries which have the capability to design and develop cruise missiles,” the military said in a statement.

Bush Targets Hot Spots
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) — President Bush is looking at world hot spots from Baghdad to Pyongyang, without leaving Texas.
Keeping up an annual tradition, Bush was meeting with his defense and foreign policy teams on Thursday at his ranch, where he is spending his August vacation.
Vice President Dick Cheney and senior officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will come dressed casually for serious talks about issues ranging from ongoing violence in Iraq and standoffs with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs to anti-American sentiment abroad, especially in the Middle East.

Fugitive Couple Caught
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A fugitive inmate and his wife, wanted in a courthouse escape and shooting in Tennessee, were captured Wednesday night at an Ohio motel after a tip from a cab driver who had dropped them off, authorities said.
George Hyatte and Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte were arrested without a struggle, said Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
On Tuesday, authorities say Jennifer Hyatte, 31, ambushed two guards as they were leading her 34-year-old husband from a courthouse hearing in Kingston, Tenn., about 300 miles south of Columbus. Guard Wayne “Cotton” Morgan was fatally shot in the escape.

4 U.S. Soldiers Killed
BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraqi insurgents savaged a U.S. patrol overnight, pursuing a violent revolt heedless of Iraqi politicians racing to draft a constitution that Washington hopes will stabilize the country and reduce its military burden.
A terse U.S. military statement on Wednesday gave no details of Tuesday night’s attack which killed four soldiers and wounded six. It took place near Baiji, an oil refining town 180 kilometers north of Baghdad.

TITLE: Sports Watch
TEXT: CSKA Up to 2nd
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — CSKA Moscow gained a 2-0 Russian Premier League victory at cross-city rival Torpedo on Wednesday night.
Midfielder Rolan Gusev grabbed the first after 12 minutes with an accurate strike into the left-hand corner.
Then in the 54th, Croatian striker Ivitsa Olych angled the ball into the far corner from inside the box after being put through after CSKA’s Brazilian midfield playmaker Carvalho split the defense.
The result brings CSKA level on points with second-place FC Zenit St. Pe-tersburg, which is ahead by virtue of goal difference.
Both trail Lokomotiv at the top by eight points, though the railway side has played an extra game. Torpedo remained in seventh.

Fan Hit by Stray Bat
MIAMI (AP) — A baseball fan was hospitalized after she was hit by Shawn Green’s flying bat during Wednesday night’s game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Florida Marlins. 
Karen Wellmeyer of Boca Raton suffered a ruptured spleen and was in serious but stable condition in the trauma intensive care unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital, according to her husband, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported on its web site Thursday. 
Hospital administrator Victoria Zambrano said she could not confirm any information about the woman, due to hospital policy. 

Nadal to Meet Grosjean
MONTREAL (Reuters) — Top seed Rafael Nadal of Spain eased to a 6-1 6-2 victory over Brazil’s Ricardo Mello in the second round of a rain-affected Montreal Masters on Wednesday. 
The world No. 2 made quick work of Mello after waiting out the rain, which caused the schedule to be backed up throughout the day, with matches going on until late in the evening. 
The 19-year-old French Open champion delighted the crowd with his fist-thumping enthusiasm as he dominated his over-matched opponent to set up a third round encounter against Sebastien Grosjean.