SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1144 (10), Friday, February 10, 2006
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TITLE: Governor Drops In On Artists
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Watching members of a non-conformist, underground arts group cosying up with a state official — in this case Governor Valentina Matviyenko — is an unorthodox sight. The occasion? A housewarming party for the Mitki arts group, at their new studio, personally presented to the artists by Matviyenko on Thursday.
Matviyenko was dressed in a stripy sailors’ shirt — a garment that features prominently in the group’s works and culture — and drank tea and ate pies with the artists at their new home at 36/38 Ulitsa Marata.
Sitting in a newly renovated, brightly lit exhibition hall-turned-dining room, Matviyenko admired the art around her. “Why don’t you guys start making souvenirs,” the governor asked. “You know, those matryoshka dolls don’t suit our city. That stuff would be alright somewhere like Ryazan, but we really do need something more original,” she said.
The legendary nonconformist group Mitki works in a style that fuses twisted social realism with a touch of primitivism. 
Matviyenko said she was thrilled by Mitki’s gift, a chunky beer mug in the shape of a boatswain’s head. “St. Petersburg, a marine city, really needs this sort of jolly stuff,” she said. “Please do think seriously about this business.”
In the Soviet era, Mitki artists were oppressed for ideological reasons, with the police breaking in to their studios, destroying their displays, leaving footprints on their canvasses and tearing drawings to pieces. Mitki paintings touch on issues of human happiness, social injustice and Russia’s eternal problems, such as alcoholism and poverty in an ironic and eccentric fashion, and the main characters of their works could be best described as philistines. The city of St. Petersburg is vividly present in almost every work.
But if under Communism the artists were oppressed for ideological reasons, in the post-Soviet era Mitki have been threatened by commercial considerations.
In November, the Mitki were evicted from their former studio in the attic of 16 Ulitsa Pravdy, following almost a year of exhausting legal disputes and armed break-ins. 
The old studios occupied 193 square meters of the attic, and the attached art center took up a further 200 square meters. In the property’s registration documents, however, several rooms were listed as residential, despite having no gas, radiators or sewage facilities. Despite this, the district administration registered people in the rooms and privatized them. The new owners then attempted to force the artists out.
The property battle reached its most dramatic moment in April, when what Mitki described as “a bunch of large, muscle-bound men broke into the studio on Ulitsa Pravdy.” They destroyed the entrance door and started kicking paintings and went on to beating the artists who tried to block the way for unsolicited visitors. Many paintings were severely damaged before the police intervened.
A group of the city’s leading cultural luminaries, including film director Alexander Sokurov, the head of the city’s Union of Composers Andrei Petrov, the chairman of the St. Petersburg Writers’ Union Valery Popov and rock musician Boris Grebenshchikov sent a letter to Matviyenko asking her to intervene on the Mitki’s behalf. 
Matviyenko has on several occasions publicly supported the Mitki, declaring their art “St. Petersburg’s cultural property,” and she responded by finding the artists a new location.
“Whatever happens, happens for the best,” said artist Dmitry Shagin, Mitki’s informal leader, speaking at the event on Thursday. “This new exhibition space is so much better, cleaner and more comfortable.”
Some of the Mitki members said they felt guilty about having new, spacious premises while fellow artists are losing their studios as part of City Hall’s campaign to confiscate premises from artists who violate maintenance rules. 
Matviyenko was unequivocal in her response. “Of course, you were right to campaign for yourself and use your name and reputation,” she said. “After all, it’s a short step from modesty to oblivion.”

TITLE: Putin To Invite Hamas Officials to Russia
AUTHOR: By Adrian Croft
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MADRID —President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he would invite Hamas leaders to Moscow, opening a crack in a wall of U.S.-led opposition to dealing with the Palestinian election winner until it recognized Israel. 
Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas official said in Gaza that leaders of the group, whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction, “would be delighted” to visit Russia if Putin tendered a formal invitation. 
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said in Jerusalem there should be no talks with Hamas until it recognised the Jewish state’s right to exist, “renounced terror” and accepted the Middle East peace process. 
“Maintaining our contacts with Hamas, we are ready in the near future to invite the Hamas authorities to Moscow to hold talks,” Putin told a news conference in the Spanish capital Madrid where he was on a visit. 
Hamas, considered a terrorist organisation by the United States, won a crushing victory over the long-dominant Fatah group in an election on Jan. 25. 
Haniyeh said Hamas leaders meeting in Cairo agreed to seek a unity government with other factions. 
Speaking through a Spanish interpreter, Putin said: “We haven’t considered Hamas a terrorist organisation.  Today we must recognise that Hamas has reached power in Palestine as a result of legitimate elections and we must respect the choice of the Palestinian people.” 
An Israeli government source voiced surprise at Putin’s comments, calling them a departure from a position taken by the Quartet of Middle East mediators to which Russia belongs along with the United States, European Union and United Nations. 
“[Russia] agreed to the Quartet’s statements, so people in Jerusalem are raising an eyebrow — what’s going on here?” the source said. 
At a meeting in London on Jan. 30, Quartet representatives called on Hamas to renounce violence and recognize Israel or risk losing international aid. Hamas has rejected the demand. 
Setting U.S. rules of engagement with Hamas, President George W. Bush said in an interview a week ago that Hamas must abandon its goal of destroying Israel and disarm. 
Reacting to Putin’s remarks, Russia’s special Middle East envoy, Alexander Kalugin, was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying Russia hoped to bring Hamas “up to international requirements” and draw it into dialogue with Israel. 
RIA news agency separately quoted Kalugin as saying: “We will insist that Hamas recognize the right of Israel to exist. Without this it would be difficult to arrange any dialogue.” 
In Gaza, Palestinian gunmen abducted an Egyptian military attache, the first kidnapping of a diplomat in the turbulent territory where militants hold sway. 
At the Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel, Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian gunmen who threw hand grenades and opened fire at troops, an army spokeswoman said in Tel Aviv. 
In a separate incident near Erez, Israeli soldiers fired at two Palestinians who appeared to have been planting a bomb, the spokeswoman said. Palestinian medics said a Palestinian farmer was killed. 
The motive for the abduction of Egyptian diplomat Hussam el-Musli was not clear and no one immediately claimed responsibility. 
In a statement, President Mahmoud Abbas said the kidnappers had broken ranks with the Palestinian people and that he would not allow anyone to harm good relations with Egypt, which twice helped broker a truce between militants and Israel. 
Gaza has seen a rash of kidnappings since Israel’s pullout in September, but foreigners seized by militants with grudges against the Palestinian Authority have been released quickly.

TITLE: Petersburgers Go for Gold at Turin Games
AUTHOR: By Greg Sandstrom
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Nine athletes from St. Petersburg are taking part in the Winter Olympic Games which open Friday in Turin, Italy,  part of a Russian team of more than 150 athletes. 
Russia’s Olympic hopes are spread across a few key sports in the bid for athletic achievement in Turin. 
In biathlon, returning Olympic Champion Olga Pyleva competes in the 10 kilometer pursuit, leading a strong team of women biathletes. Olga Zaitseva, who recently won the world championship event in Germany, is supported by Svetlana Ishmuratova, Albina Akhatova and Natalia Guseva, who have each reached the top ten in lead-up events to the Olympics. The women’s relay beat the strong German team at the world championships in a photo finish.
Russia’s cross-country skiing team has some healing to do in Turin after a controversy at the last Winter Olympiad in Salt Lake City in 2002. 
Mikhail Ivanov won gold in the 50-kilometer event on the last day of the games and Yulia Chepalova took gold in the 1.5 kilometer cross-country sprint. She also won bronze in the 10-kilometer event. 
But these were two highlights that came amid a doping scandal that eventually saw gold medallists Olga Danilova and Larissa Lazutina forfeit their medals and sent home. Danilova had won gold in the combined pursuit and silver in the 10-kilometer cross-country race, while Lazutina won silver in the combined pursuit. 
After testing positive for a banned substance, their results were invalidated and later erased from the records list. The women’s team will have a tough task to repeat their feat in the 1998 Olympics, where they won seven medals, including gold in each individual event and the team relay.
In one of the longest winning streaks in modern sports history, Russian or Soviet Pairs Figure Skaters have been Olympic champions since 1964. 
The streak almost ended in 2002 when St. Petersburg skaters Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze won the gold medal and were then had to share it with Canadian pair Jamie Sale and David Pelletier after a French judge admitted to being pressured to vote in a particular way, a claim later retracted. 
The St. Petersburg-based duo of Tatyana Totmiyanina and Maxim Marinin, world title holders for the past two years and five-time European Champions, top the list of medal contenders in Turin. 
They finished fourth at the 2002 Winter Games and have been skating together since 1996. Also, Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov, who took bronze in the 2006 European Championships, will compete for a medal.
In the individual women’s event, Irina Slutskaya  — who is from Moscow — is a favorite after earning a silver medal in Salt Lake City. American Sarah Hughes scored a controversial come-from-behind win, following which a new scoring system has been put in place by the International Skating Union (ISU) to ensure a more balanced judgement. 
Slutskaya has won the European Championships a record seven times, but will look to add the Olympic title to her skating legacy. Russian National Champion Yelena Sokolova will also vie for honours in Italy after finishing second behind Slutskaya in the recent European Championships. A Russian woman has never won an Olympic gold. Veteran American skater Michele Kwan will also be competing in Turin for the title that has eluded her.
 Favorite in the men’s competition is St. Petersburg star Yevgeny Plyushenko, who took a silver medal to Alexei Yagudin in 2002. 
Plyushenko has dominated the sport for four years and Russian men have won gold medals since 1992. Challengers are Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland, who earned silver at the Euro Championships and Brian Joubert of France. Ilya Klimkin is the second Russian male competitor.
In the men’s hockey event, Russia is hoping to improve upon its bronze medal performance at the 2002 Olympics and 2004 World Championships. 
The men’s hockey final is the last event of the Winter Games, held on Feb. 26 just prior to the closing ceremonies and promises exciting action with many NHL professionals involved. 
Russia won the bronze after losing to the U.S. in the semi-final, then sweeping aside Belarus 7-2. The Czech Republic and Canada have won since professionals entered in 1998. Pavel Bure, the team’s General Manager, and his brother Valeri were on the silver medal squad in Nagano.
 This year’s Russian team consists of both veterans and rising younger stars, including Nikolai Khabibulin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Alexei Kovalev, Darius Kasparaitis, Alexei Zhitnik, Sergei Gonchar, Alexei Zhamnov, NHL rookie sensation Alexander Ovechkin, and 19-year old Yevgeny Malkin, this year’s Russian Super-League scoring leader.
Russia enters the Olympic Games ranked a surprising seventh, but will look to place much higher than that. With the Canadian team an early favorite and the American team not as strong, the Swedes, Finns, Czechs and Russians will be fighting for the prestigious Olympic hockey crown. 
In Speed Skating, bright lights for Russia include St. Petersburg native Svetlana Zhurova, the reigning world sprint champion, and Dmitry Dorofeyev, who took the silver at this yearÒs world championships.

TITLE: Putin Warns of Terrorists-NGO Link
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday urged the Federal Security Service to prevent foreign governments from interfering in Russia through NGOs and said terrorists should be hunted down “in caves ... like rats.”
In a speech at the annual meeting of the top brass of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, at its Lubyanka headquarters, Putin also criticized NGOs for a lack of diligence when accepting foreign grants. In a reference to recent FSB accusations that four British diplomats worked as spies, he said NGOs were to blame if they got caught up in scandal. 
“One can only regret that this scandal has cast a shadow over NGOs, but you have nothing to do with it,” Putin told his FSB audience. “It is those who accept financial aid who need to be more scrupulous.” 
While the security services should allow NGOs to operate, they should protect “society from any attempts to use these organizations for the interference of foreign countries in Russia’s internal affairs,” Putin said, according to a version of his comments posted on the Kremlin web site.
Putin also advised the agency, which he headed before being appointed prime minister in 1999, on tracking down terrorists. 
“Make pinpoint strikes against them, find them in all the caves where they are hiding, and eliminate them like rats,” he said. In his opening remarks during the televised part of the meeting, FSB director Nikolai Patrushev listed several North Caucasus republics as among his biggest security challenges.
In a thinly veiled warning to nationalists and religious extremists, Putin also called on the FSB to thwart any attempts to provoke religious or ethnic violence in the country, which has seen a steady rise in xenophobic attacks in recent years.
In other comments published Tuesday, Putin made a foray into a range of domestic and foreign policy issues in an interview with Spanish media a day before his visit to Spain.
Putin said he would welcome another amnesty for Chechen rebels and that authorities would be prepared for a dialogue with rebels who agreed to lay down their arms and were not guilty of violent crimes, the Kremlin web site reported.
Putin also said Russia would oppose the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe becoming an overseer of other countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States, reiterating the Kremlin’s criticism of Western monitoring of those countries’ elections.
Going through a checklist of other foreign policy issues, Putin portrayed Russia’s recent gas war with Ukraine as a successful attempt to secure market prices and uninterrupted supplies to Europe. 
He also praised the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to refer Iran to the UN Security Council as “a balanced decision” and expressed hope that this would lead to the resolution of Iran’s nuclear standoff. In a rare explanation of the state’s tactics in acquiring Yukos, Putin said that any buyer of Yuganskneftegaz, the stricken oil company’s production unit that was auctioned off to pay back tax debts in December 2004, had to be wary of legal risks.
“The future owners had to think about how they would work ... in case of lawsuits. So when Baikal Finance Group bought the stake, it became the owner. Everything else happened on the secondary market.
“In this way, the potential legal claims on anyone who gained this property were practically eradicated,” he said. Soon after the auction, Baikal sold Yugansk to state oil company Rosneft.
Putin also told the Spanish journalists that he was unaware that Yukos’ former owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had been held in solitary confinement in the Chita region camp where he is serving an eight-year sentence.
“Prison isn’t a holiday camp,” Putin said. “That Khodorkovsky found himself in a punishment cell, I can say openly, I heard first from you.
“As you have drawn my attention to this, I will ask the justice minister what is going on, where they have sent him and for what.”

TITLE: Hazing Victim Flown To Moscow Hospital
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: A Russian conscript who was severely beaten and tortured by fellow servicemen was flown to a military hospital in Moscow on Tuesday for further treatment, officials said. 
Private Andrei Sychyov, 18, had his legs and genitals amputated as a result of the New Year’s Eve incident, which has caused an uproar in Russia and cast a new, harsh spotlight on physical and psychological abuse in the armed forces. 
Sychyov was flown from a hospital in the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk, where his military unit is located, to the military’s central Burdenko Hospital in Moscow. Doctors did not make any immediate statement on the condition of Sychyov, who has been in grave condition due to an infection. 
Chief Military Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov told the Federation Council on Monday that about 6,000 people fell victim to military abuse last year, RIA Novosti and Itar-Tass reported. More than 2,600 servicemen were convicted last year of abusing fellow soldiers, he said. 
Savenkov said that in an incident similar to that of Sychyov’s, a conscript in the Irkutsk region fled his unit last month after being beaten by his sergeant and was hospitalized with hypothermia that could lead to amputations. He said the sergeant was detained.

TITLE: Aide to Head Drive for Migration to Russia
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin has appointed his aide Viktor Ivanov as head of a commission charged with encouraging citizens of former Soviet republics to move to Russia.
The interagency group will aim to assist “in the voluntary resettlement of our compatriots residing abroad to Russia,” according to a version of the decree, which was signed by Putin last Saturday and is posted on the Kremlin web site.
Ivanov, who oversees personnel and citizenship issues in the presidential administration, will head the group of 34 people — including governors, ministers and presidential administration officials — that will draw up proposals for encouraging migration to Russia. The proposal is to be submitted to Putin by June 1.
Ivanov, a former KGB officer and longtime colleague of Putin, is the author of the current citizenship law, which has been widely criticized as draconian and imposes strict bureaucratic procedures for immigrants seeking Russian citizenship.
The State Duma passed the bill in 2002, but Putin sent it back with a raft of amendments the next year, saying the initial version created “unnecessary obstacles for our compatriots who want to acquire Russian citizenship.”
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has been in the grip of a severe demographic crisis, and has required a steady flow of migrant labor to bolster its economic recovery.
In a report last year, the World Bank estimated that Russia’s population could shrink from 144 million to 119 million by 2050. To avoid this, Russia would need at least 1 million immigrants per year, the report said.
Former Soviet countries are considered a natural source of migrants for Russia, as their citizens generally speak Russian and their educational systems are similar.

TITLE: Finnish Giant to Milk Market
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Leading Finnish dairy producer Valio is set to build a milk plant in Leningrad Oblast, company president Harry Salonaho said at a meeting with regional governor Valery Serdyukov, Interfax reported Tuesday.
“We proposed the project of a new modern plant in the Gatchinsky district to the governor. We hope that in 2007 production will already get underway,” Salonaho said.
Valio Ltd is owned by 27 cooperative societies and about 14,000 farmers and operates since 1905. The company owns 15 plants in Finland, two in Estonia and one in Belgium.
The new Russian plant will be constructed in cooperation with Gatchinsky Milk Plant, whichoffered one of its buildings to house production lines. Valio will provide the milk production equipment.
“We can not yet give any figures relating to the project’s finances. We have only started filing documentation and a business plan,” Interfax cited general director of Gatchinsky Milk Plant Igor Dyu as saying.
Earlier Valio announced plans to start construction of a butter and cheese packaging plant near Moscow by spring 2006, into which the company will invest 30 million euros. A market expert considered the localization of production as a reasonable step for the foreign producer.
“Consumption of dairy products in Russia, especially raw milk, is on the rise. If we look at the market structure, higher wages lead to growing demand for better quality products. Foreign producers aim to occupy this growing segment of the market,” said Victoria Grankina, senior analyst of the consumer market at Troika Dialog brokerage. Naturally, producing in Russia is more profitable than importing the products from abroad, she said.
Valio is not a pioneer in its move into Russia. Nestle, Coca-Cola, Ehrmann, Danone, Hochland and other foreign food producers have already launched local production facilities.
Valio has the opportunity to economize by producing locally a number of popular brands in Russia.
Mikhail Podushko, director for strategic development at COMCON-Spb, gave statistics for the most popular Valio products and brands.
“Dairy butter Valio is among the 10 most actively consumed butter brands in Russia. The brand is most popular in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, it is a market leader in terms of the number of consumers,” Podushko said.  
“Viola processed cheese is one of the most popular in Russia, and a leader in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. Over 70 percent of consumers know this brand, and over 50 percent buy it at least once every three months in both cities,” he said.
“Oltermani is among the 10 most popular cheese brands in Moscow and St. Petersburg in terms of consumption,” Podushko said.

TITLE: Smolny Stamps Local Products With Quality
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: City Hall has launched the “St. Petersburg Stamp of Quality,” a certification system for companies operating in the city.
The certification, in operation since November 2005, is voluntary and accessible to ‘practically’ all goods and services from both local and national companies, the web site of the city’s committee for economic development, industrial policy and trade reported on Feb. 1. 
“The city’s administration introduced such an initiative primarily with the aim of providing consumers with quality goods and services,” said a statement from the stamp’s developer, the state-owned Center for Quality Control of Goods and Services Thursday. 
Other reasons for the certification cited by the statement included “the opportunity for participants to increase their competitiveness…and to secure each firm’s reputation as a reliable business partner.”
Local experts have welcomed the move but have been somewhat skeptical about whether the new system will be widely used by companies outside the consumer goods market.
“I don’t think this certification will represent a significant tool to attract clients,”Irina Adamovich, head of marketing at Alfa Personnel Consulting Group said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
“In my opinion this system will mostly be used by producers of consumer goods — with the competitive nature of these markets, companies will use any opportunity to give emphasis to their product,” she said. 
The ownership of such certification may also strengthen the brand’s position, Adamovich added.
According to a St. Petersburg-based expert in certification, who wished to remain anonymous, there are many voluntary certification schemes on the market at the moment. 
A widely accepted certificate of management quality, used to help businesses gain international recognition, is very expensive and it doesn’t relate to the quality of the end product, the expert said in a telephone interview Wednesday. 
“Even with a certified management system, many enterprises still want to prove that their produce was made in accordance with correct technological processes,” she said. 
And “whether it [the certification in question] will become popular will depend on their efforts to promote it and if they [its developers] can prove its superiority,” she said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Cinema Sale
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — An investment subsidiary of Alfa-Group, acquired a 100 percent stake in the local multiplex chain Kronverk Cinema from Banking House St. Petersburg, Alfa-Group said Wednesday in a statement. The value of the deal was left undisclosed.
Kronverk Cinema operates six cinemas with a total of 33 screens holding about 40 percent of the city market. Running 240 screenings daily, Kronverk Cinema served about 3.2 million people last year.
Alfa-Group will invest $50 million over the next three years to convert Kronverk Cinema into a federal multiplex chain: 15 new cinemas will be constructed in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large cities.

Web Plus Turnover
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Internet operator Web Plus increased consolidated turnover by 70 percent last year to $24 million, the company said Tuesday at a press briefing. 
Last year Web Plus installed ADSL equipment covering 80 percent of St. Petersburg.  
The company expects to increase subscriber numbers from 28,000 to 50,000 people this year.
Web Plus announced investment of $5 million in development — 25 percent more than last year.

Airport Business
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Travers-Avia-Service could become the managing company of Rzhevka airport, Interfax reported Wednesday. 
Negotiations between Travers-Avia-Service and the airport’s owner, fuel company PTK, will be completed by April 2006. PTK estimates that $100 million in investment is needed for the airport’s infrastructure, aiming to make Rzhevka an airport focussing on business travelers.

TITLE: Russia Faces Its First G8 Test
AUTHOR: By Stephen Boykewich
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Energy security will top an ambitious and politically charged agenda for the first major event of Russia’s G8 presidency, a two-day meeting of the group’s finance ministers starting in Moscow on Friday.
But as Moscow seeks to end doubts about its place in the club of the world’s richest democracies, it will face ongoing anxiety about its own reliability as one of the world’s largest energy suppliers.
Finance ministers from Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Germany and the United States were set to attend the weekend’s meeting, as were World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato. It was not clear Wednesday evening whether James Flaherty, who was appointed Canada’s finance minister on Monday, would attend, but a ministry representative said Canada would be sending a delegation. Representatives from China, Brazil, India, South Africa and Austria — some of the countries tipped as possible future members of the elite club, should it choose to open the books to new members — were also expected to attend.
The meeting will provide the first peek at the likely direction of the group’s discussions under Russia’s G8 presidency. President Vladimir Putin and his G8 sherpa, or point man, Igor Shuvalov, have reiterated the three main themes in recent days: energy security, education and combating infectious diseases.
Russia’s Finance Ministry, however, has been slow to disclose specifics of the finance ministers’ Moscow schedule, aside from saying they would be meeting with Putin on Saturday.
A copy of the agenda provided by the German finance ministry, though, showed Moscow to be ready to face energy security fears head-on, with the overheated oil market, alternative energy sources and energy inefficiency in developing countries all high on the list.
This weekend’s meeting will also focus on the impact of disease on the global economy and restricting funding and money laundering opportunities for terrorists. Meanwhile, exchange rates, a staple of G7 finance meetings, will not be discussed.
In previous years, Russia has attended only one of the group’s four annual finance meetings, the pre-summit ministerial meeting. The other three finance meetings include the seven countries’ central bankers. 
Exchange rates are not on the agenda this weekend as the central bankers will not be attending, Interfax quoted a Finance Ministry source as saying Monday.
The topic of debt relief to poor countries was set to provide continuity with Britain’s G8 presidency last year, which was devoted to combating African poverty. U.S. Treasury officials plan to push the issue in Moscow, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Ahead of the meeting, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Tuesday that Russia would write off $688 million in debt to 16 of the world’s poorest nations, including Benin, Tanzania and Zambia. Russia also this week declared its intention to write off $10 billion in debts from Afghanistan, dating from the time of the Soviet occupation of the country. 
On Tuesday, Interfax quoted an unidentified Finance Ministry official as saying Russia would pay off $11 billion to $12 billion of its Paris Club debt in the next six months. The official suggested the money could fund the World Bank’s International Development Association aid programs to poor nations.
But record-high oil prices — and jitters in the wake of Russia’s bitter gas dispute with Ukraine — seemed destined to take center stage at the start of a G8 year devoted to energy security.
“Prices are way too high,” U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow told reporters at a Washington briefing on Tuesday. Finance ministers “can continue to call attention to the oil-producing countries to take steps to expand capacity and technology,” he said.
G7 finance ministers have repeatedly called for increased transparency and open markets in oil-producing countries — which would seem to put them at odds with recent trends in Russia’s energy sector.
Yevsei Gurvich, head of the Economic Expert Group, a Moscow think tank, said he was “concerned by expanding state control of the energy sector,” which could be a stumbling block for Russia in G8 meetings.
“I see this as a threat to economic efficiency and our future sustained growth,” Gurvich said Wednesday.
And though Putin continues to insist on Russia’s reliability as an energy provider and dismiss criticism that it has used energy supplies as a political weapon, last month’s gas crisis has done lasting public relations damage to Moscow, said economist Clifford Gaddy, a Russia specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
“The fundamental question is: ‘Can you rely on Russia?’” Gaddy said by telephone Tuesday. “Acquiring trust is a matter of years and years, and Ukraine set back Russia’s reputation enormously. It’s almost completely irrelevant whether Russia was in a strict sense justified.”

TITLE: Severstal Wants to Control Suppliers
AUTHOR: By Yuriy Humber
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Steelmaker Severstal said Wednesday that it planned to take control of a number of its raw material suppliers owned by its chairman and key shareholder, Alexei Mordashov, in a bid to improve transparency.
The move, which will be handled through an issue of new shares, could add as much as $4.3 billion to Severstal’s market value, sparking speculation that the steelmaker may be considering a listing abroad or an acquisition in the medium term. Moscow-listed Severstal’s market capitalization stands currently at just over $7 billion.
“Consolidation is an important step in the development of our company as a national steel and raw minerals producer that can compete in Russia and widen its global market presence,” Mordashov said Wednesday in a statement. Mordashov owns 84 percent of Severstal.
Under the deal, Severstal will issue 395.7 million new shares, 84 percent of which will go to Mordashov, in line with his holding in Severstal. In return, Mordashov will hand over control of six iron ore and coal suppliers, currently held through the Cyprus-registered firm Frontdeal. Minority shareholders in Severstal will also receive new shares in proportion to their existing holding in the company.
The new shares will boost the steelmaker’s equity capital by 72 percent.
Novolipetsk chairman Vladimir Lisin recently made a similar move in selling several raw material suppliers, which he owned personally, to help the steelmaker boost its transparency.
Mordashov said the deal would help Severstal avoid accusations of transfer pricing, the practice of setting prices unrelated to market levels for internal transactions.
Accusations of transfer pricing have dogged Russian metals producers as they seek to bring their business practices in line with Western standards. Last week, the Audit Chamber decided that the country’s largest steelmaker, Evraz Group, used offshore traders to export domestic steel at below-market value, hence avoiding higher taxation, Vedomosti reported. Severstal expects the deal to be approved at its shareholders’ meeting on March 27 and cleared by the summer by regulators.
Moscow’s brokerages welcomed the deal, saying it pointed to plans for a flotation abroad or an acquisition. 
Severstal head of investor relations Dmitry Druzhinin denied Wednesday that the company wanted to list abroad, but conceded that the steelmaker “has some [acquisition] projects that our experts are looking at.”
The steelmaker lost out on last year’s tenders for Turkey’s Eredimir and Ukraine’s Kryvorizhstal. Severstal sees no similarly attractive acquisitions at this moment, but “it’s a question of cost,” Druzhinin said.
One possible acquisition target for Severstal in the medium-term could be British steelmaker Corus, Societe Generale analysts said Wednesday.
Dropping profit margins in steelmaking, due to lower steel prices and a rise in iron ore and coal costs, have made high-cost European steel producers seek mergers or acquisitions with emerging markets manufacturers, said Julien Rauffelsbauer, an analyst with Societe Generale in London.
The companies currently held by Mordashov’s Frontdeal are coal miners Vorkutaugol, Vorgashorskaya, Pervomaiskaya and Berezovskaya, as well as iron ore producers Olenegorsky and Karelsky.

TITLE: Bogdanchikov: Resignation Will Not Delay Rosneft IPO
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Rosneft may conduct its initial public offering at more than one overseas exchange, but decisions regarding how large the offered stake will be and whether the IPO will be conducted before or after the oil major’s consolidation have yet to be made by the company’s owner, the state, Rosneft’s president said Wednesday.
“There is a schedule for work, the evaluation is in the process, the subsidiaries’ structure is being decided,” Sergei Bogdanchikov said, Interfax reported. “Nothing is being delayed; everything is going as efficiently and quickly as possible,” he said.
Bogdanchikov made a rare public appearance just a day after the abrupt resignation of Rosneft CFO Sergei Alexeyev, who had been known for his aggressive way of doing business. 
Rosneft reiterated Wednesday that Alexeyev, who joined the company in 2004, resigned on his own volition, and that no information on who would be filling his position was available.
Analysts and other market players on Wednesday were left wondering about the true motives behind Alexeyev’s resignation. Industry players, however, were convinced that the departure was not likely to jeopardize the company’s plans for the IPO, in which Rosneft is hoping to raise as much as $15 billion.
“It is an unpleasant episode, but the IPO preparation process is not going to stop because of it,” said Valery Nesterov, an oil and gas analyst with investment bank Troika Dialog.
But the sheer fact that Alexeyev departed ahead of the IPO, which is seen as an opportunity for the company’s management to take home something extra, indicates the resignation may not have been entirely voluntary. “It does look like a forced exit,” Nesterov said.
Alexeyev appeared to have been pushing for greater transparency and for a larger stake to be floated in the IPO, Vedomosti said Wednesday, citing a banker who is working closely with Rosneft.
Alexeyev did not return a request for comment left at Rosneft’s offices.
The IPO, which is expected to be the largest listing in the country’s corporate history, is being undertaken to help Rosneft to solve its huge debt problems.

TITLE: Italy Urges Alternative Fuels Use
AUTHOR: By Conor Humphries
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The head of a Group of Eight task force urged Russia to switch from fossil fuel to environmentally friendly sources of energy and to do more to conserve energy.
Corrado Clini, a senior official in Italy’s environment ministry, is in Moscow this week under the auspices of a joint Italian-Russian working group set up at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, last summer to develop energy-saving technologies and invest in ecologically clean types of fuel.
Energy security is a plank of Russia’s presidency of the G8 this year. G8 energy ministers are to meet in Moscow in March.
“As members of the G8, Italy and Russia have a large responsibility for helping to regulate the problems facing the entire planet in the coming years,” Clini said at a news conference on Tuesday. 
“Russia at the moment has a chance to combine its position as a major source of fossil fuels with a strong position in developing new alternative sources of energy, and in this way strengthen its leadership,” Clini said.
Clini singled out energy conservation as an area where Russia had a particularly large role to play.
Russia could reduce its fuel requirements by up to 40 percent through energy conservation — far higher than most developed economies, he said, citing government figures. 
The adoption of alternative energies in Russia has long been hampered by the low price of fossil fuels, said Derek Weaving, an energy analyst with United Financial Group. He noted that domestic gas prices were five times lower than in Europe.

TITLE: Taking a Stand for World Trade
AUTHOR: By Don Evans
TEXT: At the end of this week at the historic Hotel National, which stands in the very heart of Moscow, finance ministers of the Group of Eight nations gather to discuss international economic and financial policy issues. As the ministers meet, we hope they reflect on two of the greatest challenges confronting the world: persistent poverty and the sometimes difficult adjustments associated with globalization.  
Ironically, and sadly, one of the most powerful tools at our disposal on both fronts is in jeopardy — the multinational cooperative framework known as the World Trade Organization. Though incremental progress toward eliminating agricultural subsidies was achieved in Hong Kong last December, a successful conclusion to the Doha negotiations — which the World Bank recently estimated would lift an additional 32 million people from poverty — will require a new commitment to an open global trading system governed by the rule of law.
The connection between trade and economic development was made 170 years ago by Adam Smith in his classic work “The Wealth of Nations.” By capitalizing on what different countries do best, Smith explained, trade lowers costs, frees up capital and other resources to be used more productively, promotes growth and development, creates jobs and raises standards of living. Trade also promotes peace because commerce requires communication, which leads to mutual understanding, respect, friendships and lasting partnerships.
And the results have been nothing short of phenomenal. Between 1950 and 1998, global economic output rose by 530 percent, while the volume of merchandise exports rose 1,840 percent. Over that nearly 50-year period, the ratio of trade to global output tripled, from about 7 percent to more than 20 percent. In what has been the most dynamic era of economic development in human history, trade has become the basis for a prosperous world economy.
Academic research has established that countries that have more open economies and that engage in international trade enjoy higher growth rates and faster reductions in poverty than more closed economies. 
The World Bank has also determined that over the past two decades, those developing countries that engaged in trade enjoyed faster growth in real wages. 
China’s and India’s ambitious programs of trade and foreign investment liberalization have fueled accelerations in growth that have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty ¹ perhaps the greatest achievement in the war on poverty in history. 
And trade is a major reason why small but open economies such as Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are able to generate standards of living far higher than most of the world’s largest and resource-rich countries.
The 148 nations of the WTO are currently participating in the ninth round of negotiations, launched in Doha, Qatar, in November of 2001. The main areas of focus are agriculture, industrial market access, services, trade facilitation, WTO rules and the promotion of economic development.
A successful conclusion to the Doha Round matters for at least four important reasons:  
First, study after study shows that the WTO’s rules-based system promotes openness and predictability, leading to increased trade and improved prospects for economic growth. In addition, by promoting the rule of law, the WTO fosters a better business climate in developing countries, which helps them attract more foreign direct investment, thereby increasing economic growth around the globe.
Second, it would be illogical and self-defeating to abandon the WTO framework, given the phenomenal impact of expanded trade on global economic growth. 
Third, success at Doha promises substantial economic gains. A World Bank study released last November estimates the global gains from further trade liberalization at nearly $300 billion a year — with the poorest nations reaping the largest benefit because those countries retain the highest barriers to trade and because the developing world’s comparative advantage is in products, like agriculture, that remain highly protected in world markets.
Fourth, failure of the Doha Round would be the first since the creation of the GATT nearly 60 years ago and would undermine the credibility of the WTO.  
By offering prosperity in return for peaceful exchange and market-led cooperation, international trade has become the foundation for economic development and poverty alleviation around the world. The critical task before the world now is to build on our achievements of the past 60 years by extending those benefits to countries and regions that have not as yet enjoyed the developmental power of a barrier-free global trading system.  
Indeed, negotiations continue in Russia’s bid to join the WTO, which will yield enormous benefits for the Russian people. In a report issued last March, the World Bank estimated that 99 percent of Russian households would see as much as an 18 percent gain in consumption over the medium term as a result of WTO membership. That translates into total additional income growth of $64 billion each year.
The G8 nations — which together account for two-thirds of the world’s economic output — must take a stand for progress. The global capital needed to power development is available and the rules-based trading system needed to direct it is in place. 
We call on the G8 finance ministers to use this meeting to send the following message to the global family of nations: It’s time to put the broader good ahead of parochial interests and affirm the tremendous value of the WTO by bringing the Doha Round to a successful conclusion.    
The lives of 32 million people are at stake.

Don Evans, the former U.S. commerce secretary, is chief executive officer of Financial Services Forum.

TITLE: Ideology Is for Intellectuals
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Mikhail Dmitriyev, the one-time liberal economist who now heads a think tank called the Center for Strategic Research, contributed a comment to Kommersant last week titled “In Defense of Nationalization.” Dmitriyev argued that since the public regarded the privatization that gave rise to the oligarchs in the 1990s as illegitimate, the government should heed public opinion and renationalize everything. Yet since privatization remained a good idea in principle, Dmitriyev reasoned, the government should then turn around and sell everything off again, taking advantage of the current positive investment climate. 
Dmitriyev isn’t the first economist to offer spiritual guidance to the regime. A couple of years ago, Novaya Gazeta ran an essay called “Fortress Russia,” which had been leaked by the Kremlin. The anonymous author maintained that if Russia wanted to develop more quickly than the rest of the world, it would have to erect a wall to protect itself. The wall would have a single gate, and the gate would be manned by a special agency that would decide, for example, whether or not Russia should buy bananas abroad (bananas don’t grow here, after all), and if so, from whom and for how much?
The essay was widely suspected to be a phony, but before long it emerged that the essay was genuine, and that it had been penned by none other than Mikhail Yuryev, a former deputy speaker of the State Duma from the Yabloko party.
Soon after the publication of his treatise, Yuryev began to introduce himself as the chairman of the board of a company called Evrofinance Group. I once touched on this in my radio show, noting how convenient it was that Yuryev had affiliated himself with one of the most likely candidates to play the role of gatekeeper if his protectionist scheme were ever implemented. The following day I got a call from an acquaintance who served as vice president of the real Evrofinance, a state-controlled bank that was cozy with the Kremlin. He informed me that Yuryev had no connection to Evrofinance whatsoever. Yuryev had simply gone out and created a new company, which he christened Evrofinance Group. This tactic was widespread in the early 1990s, when swindlers often brought along partners named Yeltsin and Ryzhkov when they were applying for loans.
The point of this story is that the Kremlin didn’t fully appreciate Yuryev’s intellectual efforts. None of the intellectuals who has offered his services to the Kremlin — from television talk show host Alexander Gordon, who authored an open letter attacking Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to the authors of the so-called “letter of 500,” which called for the banning of Jewish organizations — has ever received anything in return. The Kremlin doesn’t need spiritual guidance from intellectuals, because it has no interest in ideology. What the Kremlin needs is publicity. An ideology implies a clear and consistent system of values. The Kremlin wants to leave itself plenty of room to maneuver.
President Vladimir Putin isn’t anxious to tell his buddy George W. Bush that Russia is pursuing a “third way.” He gets more mileage out of telling Bush about his devotion to democracy. The concept of a conflict between Russia and the West does Putin no good at all. What he needs is for the media one day to report that the terrorists in the North Caucasus are in the pay of foreign taskmasters, and then turn around the next day and cover his call for the West to join Russia in the war on terror. 
In a similar way, Putin has no use for a nationalization program that follows all the rules. He needs a flexible policy that allows him to take over one company and throw its owner in jail; to buy another company and funnel much of the money into foreign bank accounts held by the new masters of Russia; and to hand over stock in a third company to a group of new owners without compensating the previous owners or making the deal public.
Thieves don’t need ideology; they need the tools to jimmy locks. 

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.

TITLE: Ghost story
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The condemnation of communist regimes by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) earlier this month has provoked an emotional debate in Russia about the moral, legal and historical status of the former Soviet Union.
The speaker of Russia’s Parliament, Boris Gryzlov, snubbed the call by PACE for former communist countries to reassess their repressive histories and to “condemn them without any ambiguity,” The New York Times reported. 
On Jan. 25, the assembly, which represents legislators from European countries including Russia, called for governments to confront their nations’ former policies of starvation, mass executions and concentration camps. 
Talk radio and Russian newspapers have given full vent to the debate over Russia’s communist legacy. Gryzlov labeled the PACE statement “a waste of energy and time” and a “crusade against ghosts of the past.”
But in a new book, “The Black Book of Unwanted Names on the Map of Russia,” Professor Andrei Zubov of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, or MGIMO, and a team of scholars argue that Russia’s development depends on such a crusade. 
“Fight the myths, get rid of communist legacy... and Russia is again on the track in line with the civilized world,” Zubov  said. 
The two new anthologies edited by Zubov contain essays elaborating the ways that the Bolsheviks who led the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the creation of the U.S.S.R., and their predecessors, corrupted Russian history, geography and human values that would later give rise to an equally corrupt post-communist Russia. 
In “Black Book” the authors argue that Russian topography must be revised to free history from communist myths created during seven decades of communist rule.
In more than 30 essays, the scholar’s shed light on the quasi-religious cults created by communist masterminds, and their totalitarian motives.
Objects of worship cited by the authors range from the names and identities of Bolshevik political personalities, their overseas counterparts, state monuments, social institutions, and artistic and literary phenomena. The goal, they write, was the total ideological indoctrination of society. 
Zubov believes that history and topography were major platforms on which ideologues launched a new faith based on the worship of monuments and names associated with Bolshevism. 
But 14 years after the fall of communism there exists in Russian society “the same people, the same attitudes, the same street names, the same monuments, the same literature and the same legislature,” says the history professor. 
The ghosts of communism still haunt democratic Russia.
The “Black Book” is a list of more than 200 names, events and personalities, both foreign and Russian, that includes detailed analyses of how such phenomena were transformed into cults of ideological worship. The aim was to fill a spiritual vacuum instigated by an atheist state that criminilized established religeon.
The list includes totemic figures such as Karl Marx, Felix Dzerzhinsky, the father of the Soviet secret service, the Italian communist Palmiro Toliatti, KGB head and Soviet leader Yury Andropov, Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh, and Polish communist Rosa Luxemburg. It also includes fetishized phenomena such as Komintern, the Third International, The Year 1905, The Paris Communune, International Women’s Day (March 8), the Pioneers and Komsomol.
Behind the “Black Book” lies a mirror image of a Russia that walked a thorny path through the 20th century from Bloody Sunday in 1905 to the Bolshevik coup in 1917 to Josef Stalin’s wave of repression prior to World War II when millions languished in the gulag. 
The authors use the life and career of writer Maxim Gorky (given name: Alexei Peshkov, 1868-1936) as an example of the negative trend they want to expose in Russian history. According to them, it was not only Gorky’s name that was based in fiction.
The book portrays the ultimate hypocrite who played patriot but showed disrespect his patrons, who played philanthropist in imperial Russia but financed the future Bolsheviks and their 1905 insurrection. He crossed swords with them only to back them fully in 1917. 
Although one of Russia’s richest men, he supported the annihilation of landowners branded “kulaks.” He used his pen and public platforms to promote Stalin’s repression and its gulag. He shed tears to express sympathy and admiration for the Chekists on August 25, 1933 in a speech before a multitude of prisoners constructing the Belamor Canal that had taken at least 100,000 of their fellow inmates’ lives.
He was on the way to his deathbed; Stalin, the man he had helped rise to absolute power, sent him to his final destination by having him poisoned him three years latter. 
But Gorky was resurrected in the form of monuments to his memory throughout the country as a hero who gave his life for communism. In subsequent years, Gorky was transformed into a totem to be worshipped through the Soviet Union in a process which the author’s demonstrate became commonplace. 
A metro station was named after Gorky in St. Petersburg (Gorkovskaya) and a park in central Moscow became known worldwide as Gorky Park. His plays are frequently performed. The heroic image of “a man who collaborated in the killing of millions of innocent people” and was both victim and perpetrator of the Soviet system lives on in Russia today. 
Streets, railway stations, reservoirs, towns and villages that still carry his name in provincial Russia are only a fraction of things still named after Gorky. It became a national joke in Soviet times when “residents would just call a street named after him Ulitsa koe-kogo [‘Whats-his-name Street’],” the “Black Book” authors write. 
The Gorky cult was not landlocked: there are even ships and submarines named after him.
But five years before Gorky’s death, a “child god” named Pavlik Morozov was born who would be used as a sickening role model for a generation, the authors continue. 
Echoing Catriona Kelly’s English-language version of the same story (“Comrade Pavlik. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Boy Hero”), the authors show how an ordinary 12-year-old from a remote village in the Urals exemplified the mechanism used by the Soviet authorities to transform a person into a vehicle of ideology. 
“Morozov was literally and figuratively crushed by the state’s ideology machine: he informed on his relatives and was then murdered by the secret police for the sake of their subsequent show trial,” writes Jan Levschenko, in a review of Catriona Kelly’s book in Hermitage magazine. 
The propaganda vehicle had been decommissioned in the same way as Gorky.
The boy was brought back to life in the form of streets, schools and the names of government institutions, monuments, themes and characters in plays, poems and as the subject of musical pieces. The character not only starred in Soviet movies, but also served as a “magic carpet” in communist propaganda fairy tales, say the anthologists.
The authors show that in much the same way as the character of Pavlik was used to indoctrinate Soviet youth, International Women’s Day was used to indoctrinate Soviet women. Inspired by an emanicipation campaign in the West at the end of the 19th century, the celebration of the March 8 holiday was a Bolshevik distortion.
The holiday was introduced as a way to avoid comemorating a Bolshevik massacre in 1918 on the same date. “More than 600 Russian military officers were hanged in Sevastopol alone,” on the day now marked by flowers in a patronizing celebration of Russian women, write the authors. 
Applauding the authors for timely work, Alexander Shtamm, a member of the Committee for Restitution and Revival of Russia, says the anthology may be viewed as a reflection of nostalgia for social and moral values dominant during the Imperial Russian era.
“It’s like a compass toward recapturing the lost glory currently bogged down by communist myths, and a viewing glass into President Vladimir Putin’s policies,” said Shtamm.

TITLE: Brezhnev’s back
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Tigran Keosayan’s film “A Hare Over The Abyss” (“Zayats nad bezdnoi”), a romantic comedy released last week in anticipation of St. Valentine’s Day, is the latest example of a wave of nostalgia not just for the Brezhnev era but for Leonid Brezhnev himself.  
Brezhnev, who was Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982,  was until recently thought of mostly as the butt of numerous jokes, a “living corpse” who gave other politicians French kisses. 
But last year Brezhnev’s life was dramatized on television in an affectionate mini-series which portrayed him as a wise old man facing the dilemmas of leading a failing empire and even as the “father of the nation.”
As the Brezhnev era recedes into history, Russians are showing an appetite for cozy depictions of a man once roundly despised as the personification of stagnation and decline. It follows that there is an audience for this nostalgia as everyone over the age of 25 has distant, yet personal memories of the era. Even those who remember Brezhnev’s death while they were still in kindergarten (and who mourned the cancellation of a favorite cartoon series on television rather than the loss of the leader on the occasion of his funeral) now recall his era as one of relative stability.
Yet both “Brezhnev” and “Hare Over The Abyss” interestingly portray Brezhnev as a man trying to run away from the power. They show an old man attempting to flee from his image of “Our dear Leonid Ilyich,” retire and find peace. Brezhnev’s sympathetic portrayal in both dramas is enhanced by leading performances by two brilliant old-school actors — Sergei Shakurov (in the TV series) and Bogdan Stupka (in the new film). 
“A Hare Over The Abyss” takes its title from the fable of the hare who, on the edge of a cliff, decides to leap into the abyss laughing. The explanation for this is given at end of the film — the hare is happy because it is free. Both films portray Brezhnev as a political leader trying to break free in a country where the whole notion of freedom was under question. The only freedom allowed to anyone in the Soviet Union was inner freedom. 
“A Hare Over The Abyss” is set in sunny wine-growing Moldova, a kind of Soviet paradise where people never stop drinking, eating, dancing and having fun (a land of plenty that looks much like Emir Kusturica’s Yugoslavia). 
In the background of Brezhnev’s spiritual search is a love story between two young gypsies (the girl’s father is initially against it, but with Brezhnev’s help, the problem is solved), once again, said to be the most “free” people on Earth. 
“A Hare Over The Abyss” also shows Brezhnev deeply in love — with Queen Elizabeth II! The gypsies help Brezhnev bring his beloved Queen to Moldova, where they are married in a gypsy-style wedding. The marriage lasts just three days. This historical mystification proves the film’s point that even heads of state are only human.

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Dolphin, Kalinov Most, Butch and Stas Bartenyov and Yesli are in the line-up for a high-profile anti-Nazi concert taking place in Moscow this week. Called “For Russia without Fascism, War and Violence,” the show is a charity event with proceeds to go to Grazhdanskoye Sodeystviye (Civic Assistance), an organization dealing with refugees’ problems in Russia. A portion will also go to help the victims of “contemporary Nazis” in Russia. The concert will be held at the Gorbunov Palace of Culture on Feb. 17.
The concert is organized by the Committee of Anti-War Actions (Komitet Antivoyennykh Deistvii), in cooperation with opposition political parties SPS and Yabloko as well as such organizations as the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers and the Moscow Helsinki Group.
“In today’s Russia, democratic gains are threatened,” said the promoters’ news release. “Unthinkable corruption, the absence of an independent media and judicial system, set against the backdrop of unceasing war in Chechnya... inspire pro-fascist views in society, especially among youth. ... Our concert, as a continuation of the anti-fascist march in December, is the answer from democratic organizations to state unlawfulness.”
After the concert had been announced, another neo-Nazi-style attack took place in Moscow, when musicians of reggae bands Jah Soldiers and Mighty House of Vibes were attacked in the street by a 35-strong group of skinheads on their way to the Tochka club, where they were to take part in the Bob Marley Birthday Concert on Feb. 5, Jah Soldiers’ web site reported. 
Jah Soldiers bassist Kirill Usachev was severely beaten, and was taken to hospital with a broken nose and jaw, and concussion. The band announced that it has temporarily ceased to perform. 
The French trio Romano-Sclavis-Texier will open “Jazz On,” a series of jazz concerts at the Maly Drama Theater, hitherto not known for holding music shows, on Monday. The band features Louis Sclavis on bass clarinet, clarinet and alto sax, Henri Texier on the double bass and the Italian-born Aldo Romano on drums. The band performs free jazz with a strong African influence.
Klezmer, a type of folk music that originated in Eastern Europe’s Jewish settlements, will be performed at a concert at Red Club on Monday. Michael Albert, a New York-based Klezmer musician, will play alongside his ex-Soviet Union counterparts.
The Alexander Bashlachev Memorial Concert caused a stir when some of the bands including Vyacheslav Butusov and U-Piter and Chizh & Co. advertised as taking part claimed they had not even been approached by the promoters. The show — dedicated to the late singer/songwriter who happened to become Russia’s first “rock martyr” when he committed suicide at the age of 27 in 1988 — will be held at Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Monday. 
U-Piter, Akvarium and DDT will perform at Yubileiny Sports Palace to celebrate the 17th anniversary of Art Center Pushkinskaya 10 on Tuesday.

TITLE: Vacation in an outpost of tyranny
AUTHOR: By Janek Lasocki
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The hardline repressive regime than runs Belarus is a distraction from the more subtle charms of Grodno, Khatyn and Minsk.
Dubbed the last dictatorship in Europe, Belarus is an authoritarian state where little political freedom exists. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice lumped it with Syria and Cuba as “an outpost of tyranny.”
Belarus is also, however, a beautiful country at the crossroads of Eastern and Western Slavonic cultures. Today, untouched countryside, the legacy of Polish and Russian sovereignty, and rebuilt cities with a new Belarusian identity, make Belarus an undiscovered treasure trove in the heart of Europe.
In the west lies Grodno, on the river Nioman. Its beginnings lie in the old castle that takes a commanding position over the river. Originally built by Kievan princes as the key to the amber route, its defense against Teutonic knight invaders was led by David Gorodnienski, grandson of St. Petersburg’s own Alexander Nevsky.
Today little remains of the original castle but a section of the walls from which you can overlook the Nioman. However, the inside boasts an exhibition of the city’s ecology and history, both prehistoric and more contemporary (entry: $0.25). 
Across a small stone bridge is the New Castle, originally the royal palace of King Augustus III of Poland. Rebuilt after the Red Army left it in ruins taking the city from the Germans, it now holds the city’s main library. Past the synagogue and through the park stands the small Church of Saints Boris and Hilb. Built in 1180, it is the second oldest surviving church in the country.
It was because of its outstanding architecture that Grodno was added to the Braun encyclopedia of Cologne in the 16th century as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. And having survived the war better than any other Belarussian city, today a walk around the centre from Sovyetskaya Ploshchad will charm any enthusiast of Eastern and Central European architecture. 
Grodno was long an important city of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its Polish Catholic influence is easily felt. The Jesuit “Farny” cathedral is said to be the most impressive in Belarus. Inside stand fourteen baroque and roccoco altars crowned by the huge central altarpiece, to the right of which can be found the Virgin Mary of Rome, famously housed here. 
At any time of day you can hear quiet prayers or hymns in Polish, indeed all signs and inscriptions are in Polish. The church’s regular visitors, however, seem to include many who no longer speak the language but know that their roots are in the culture embodied in the cathedral.
Further down the square is the equally impressive Bernadine Church and Seminary. Renovated at various stages in different styles, it was the venue for the wedding of Eliza Orzeszkowa, Grodno’s gift to the literary world. Directly opposite, in contrast, stands the regional Drama Theater, whose concrete, spider-like structure is definitely memorable if not for the beauty of its design. 
Directly to the east of Grodno is the Belarussian capital, Minsk. Today’s territory of Belarus stood exactly between the worst fighting of the Great Patriotic War, and 95 percent of Minsk was left destroyed, hardly a building remaining standing. Following 1945 Moscow architects were given free rein in the city’s reconstruction. Central boulevards tripled in width and most of the centre became a showcase for Stalinist architecture. As a result Minsk has a totally different feel to any other city around it.
The look of the city, for those who aren’t big fans of Soviet architecture, is a pleasant surprise, mainly because of how clean and tidy it is. You can see no broken glass or bottles, no cigarette butts and few beggars. Also drivers seem friendlier, although whether this is out of courtesy or fear of arrest is hard to tell.
Minsk is walkable but its efficient public transport (including a two-line metro) allows you to skip parts of the grand boulevards to save time. The beginning of Prospekt Nezavisimosti (or Prospekt Francyska Skaryny, some streets still carry old names) is a good place to start. 
Ploshchad Nezavisimosti (Independence Square) is dominated on three sides by Belarusian government buildings and the state university. The Soviet monumentalism is broken by the red brick Catholic church of Saints Simon and Elene. Built by Polish nobles in 1910 it closely resembles old Teutonic churches in northern Poland. It was used as a cinema before 1990 and a meeting place for the political opposition before it was supressed. 
A walk down the street sees the classical Soviet blocks become shops, cafes and department stores all the way to Oktyabrskaya Ploshchad (October Square). The Palats Respubliki (Palace of the Republic), an enormous cube-like building on the square, looks somehow out of place. It took fifteen years to build and was opened to great fanfare in 2001 as the premier venue in the capital.
On the opposite side of the square is a little park whose trees hide a better view of the presidential palace, just beyond. Unlike in most countries, the residence of the head of state is avoided by tourists and Belarussians alike. The square also houses the Museum of the Great Patriotic War ($2.50) which is well worth a visit.
Past the circus and across the Sfisloch river is Ploshchad Pobedy (Victory Square). Like the cities of Leningrad  and Smolensk, after the war Minsk was awarded the title of Geroy Gorod (Hero City). The giant obelisk in the centre of the square pays homage to all of those cities and all who fought and died defending them, an eternal flame burning at its base. May 9 commemorations, when former Soviet states celebrate the end of World War II, are held here every year.
Crossing the prospect is the newly renamed Prospekt Pobyedityly (Victors’ Boulevard). Until recently the boulevard was named after a popular former mayor, but today no-one quite knows which victor the new name refers to and some say President Alexander Lukashenko is preparing to rename it in his own honor. 
At the beginning of long boulevard is all that remains of the old town. Troyskoe Predmestiye (Trinity Suburb) is actually a 1980s reconstruction of what the area looked like in the 19th century, although today it is simply a cluster of souvenir shops and a couple of restaurants.
Just poking out of the old town, on an artificial island, is probably the most beautiful monument in Belarus. The Ostrov Slyozy (Island of Tears) has a chapel in its center dedicated to the fallen of the war in Afghanistan. A bell tolls inside the tall blue structure as people stand inside looking at the murals of crying mothers. It could not be more different from the giant concrete monuments constructed in the U.S.S.R. after 1945.
An hour north of the capital is the memorial complex of Khatyn (not to confused with Katyn, near Smolensk, where thousands of Polish officers and ‘enemies of the people’ were shot). 
Although difficult to reach without private transport, Khatyn has to be visited, if only because of what it means to the Belarussian people. On March 22, 1943, the 149 residents, including 75 children, were rounded up into a barn. The barn, along with all 26 houses, was burned to the ground by a German punishment battalion. 
More than 600 Belarussian villages were destroyed with their populations in this way. Khatyn is one of 186 villages that was never rebuilt. Instead it stands as a memorial to the nation’s suffering. 
Twenty-six brick chimneys — all that remains from the log houses — today stand as they did, although a bell has been attached which tolls every few minutes, creating an eerie break in the silence. At the entrance stands a tall sculpture of the one survivor, Josef Kaminski, who was away and returned to his village to find his dead son’s body and home in ash. He chose to stay in Khatyn until he died. The eternal flame burns above the number that every Belarussian knows by heart: every fourth inhabitant — 2.2 million in total — perished during World War II.

TITLE: Two’s company
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Something of an institution in the city, the husband-and-wife artistic team  Olga and Alexander Florensky, co-founders of the Mitki arts group, have demonstrated over the last two weeks that they are still on top form. 
Even before they’d managed to complete a grandiose project entitled “The Russian Trophy,” the artists announced a new series of events to be run under the title “The Universal Museum of Wilhelm Winter.” The first event can already be viewed at a museum, while there will be a temporary presentation of the second at a gallery. 
Although “The Russian Trophy” is a five-year old undertaking and some works have already been shown at various venues and within different contexts, most of the objects are being exhibited for the first time. The Marble Palace is displaying a complete version of the project which features faked war trophies — weapons, flags, military photographs and battle-paintings — as well as famous war films. 
However, the spin-off of “The Russian Trophy” is pacifist, playfully challenging people’s deep-seated views on war, weapons and bygone victories as a source of pride in and construction of national identity. 
As the history of the Russian state demonstrates, this national cult of all things military has no relation to the well-being and prosperity of its citizens — the exact opposite seems to be the case — and, in a sense, still remains an expensive and destructive myth. Touching on this  issue — a sensitive topic for Russians — the humorous Florenskys take a pseudoscientific approach and create a kind of semi-art and semi-scientific museum collection, where militarist pathos is infected with both instructive irony and a somewhat childish tonality. 
Submarines, mine-sweepers, missiles, military helicopters and guns are handmade works created from found objects — the main media employed by the artists — which are usually everyday household items. 
The initial, “peaceful” purpose of these everyday objects, as well as their subsequent arbitrary creative fusion, makes the weapons on display completely non-functional and laughably misleading. In addition, much of this household rubbish is antique, which makes some of the objects on display aesthetically attractive. The marvellous “Triumphal Arch” made from an antique writing-table provides a good example. It could also be claimed that this recycling makes the Florenskys’ art environmentally friendly.
The same approach, but charged with another message, can be found in the artists’ new series of projects, “The Universal Museum of Wilhelm Winter.” The museum refers to a Wilhelm Winter Cabinet of Curiosities that could be found in St. Petersburg in the 19th century. The Florenskys would like to bring it back —  not the Cabinet itself, as we have little information about it, but the concept. One of the planned departments of the future museum — “Geographical Maps” — is on the display at the NOMI (New World of Art) gallery. It features maps of cities or regions of Eastern England made from objects the artists found when in residence there last year. There is a map of London’s River Thames in the form of a hose and water-pipe. The main section of the exhibition, however, gives us familiar maps of St. Petersburg.
The artists say that “The Universal Museum” will consist of ten more thematic exhibitions to be arranged in the near future. When those thematic exhibitions have been completed, they will be succeeded by another show similar to the current “Russian Trophy” event.

“The Universal Museum of Wilhelm Winter” runs through Feb. 17 at the NOMI gallery.  “The Russian Trophy” runs through Feb. 25 at the Marble Palace of the Russian Museum. 
www.worldart.ru; www.rusmuseum.ru

TITLE: Free Speech Trial Begins In Turkey
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ISTANBUL — A Turkish court on Tuesday began hearing the case of five prominent journalists who face possible jail sentences in a trial which is seen as a fresh test of curbs on freedom of expression in the European Union candidate nation.
Prosecutors filed charges against the columnists in December for comments they made about a conference on the massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
The five men, who write for two leading papers, face between six months and 10 years in jail if found guilty of charges of “trying to influence the judicial process” and “insulting state judicial organs.”
Defendant Ismet Berkan, a columnist for Radikal newspaper, accused those behind the trial of refusing to accept EU standards on freedom of expression.
“This is a symbolic day for those who resist the EU. This resistance may continue for some time with a few cases, but it will end,” he told Reuters outside the courtroom in the Istanbul suburb of Bagcilar.
Prosecutors dropped a case against Dutch lawmaker European Parliament member Joost Lagendijk last week. The same nationalist lawyers who are behind the current case had accused him of insulting Turkey’s armed forces by suggesting they were provoking Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey in order to boost their own influence.
Such cases mostly end in fines or acquittal. Four of the writers were charged under controversial Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code — the same used against Orhan Pamuk, the country’s most famous novelist.
Pamuk was charged under a separate clause of Article 301 making it a crime to insult Turkish identity, but the case was later dropped.

TITLE: Scientists Find ‘Lost World’
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: OSLO — Scientists said on Tuesday they had found a “Lost World” in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants.
“It’s as close to the Garden of Eden as you’re going to find on Earth,” said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the U.S., Indonesian, and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the west of New Guinea.
Indigenous peoples living near the Foja range, which rises to 2,200 metres, said they did not venture into the trackless area of 3,000 sq km — roughly the size of Luxembourg or the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
The team of 25 scientists rode helicopters to boggy clearings in the pristine zone.
“We just scratched the surface,” Beehler told Reuters. “Anyone who goes there will come back with a mystery.”
The expedition found a new type of honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face, known only to local people and the first new bird species documented on the island in over 60 years. They also found more than 20 new species of frog, four new species of butterfly and plants including five new palms.
And they took the first photographs of “Berlepsch’s six-wired bird of paradise,” which appears in 19th century collections but whose home had previously been unknown.
The bird is named after six fine feathers about 4 inches long on the head of the male which can be raised and shaken in courtship displays.

TITLE: U2 Wins Five Grammys
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES — The Grammys finally showed Mariah Carey a little love — with an emphasis on “little.”
Though Carey, 2005’s biggest pop success, had a leading eight nominations and the chance to make history with the most Grammys won by a woman in a single night, she went home with just three trophies Wednesday. 
She lost in all of the major categories she was nominated for, including record, song and album of the year.
Instead, U2 got the glory, as the perennial favorites captured five Grammy awards for “How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb,” including album of the year.
It was the second time U2 had won for best album since 1987, when it won for “The Joshua Tree.” It was their 20th Grammy and the eighth for the album, which was released in late 2004 and also won three last year.

TITLE: Winter Olympics Get Off to Shaky Start
AUTHOR: By Pritha Sarkar
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TURIN, Italy — The Olympic athletes’ villages were given a big thumbs down by many leading competitors at the Winter Games on Tuesday. World Cup champion Bode Miller, a favorite in the Alpine ski racing, has opted out of the village in the resort of Sestriere, preferring to stay in the camper bus he uses on the World Cup tour.
“The athletes’ village is really in a lot of ways for a competition not a healthy living environment. The beds are really small and uncomfortable,” the outspoken 28-year-old told reporters ahead of the Games, which will begin on Friday.
“I have a motor home here, I have my own food, my own bed, my own pillows. I am pretty much fully self-sufficient. “I think in these big events keeping things as consistent as you can is very important.”
His teammate Daron Rahlves, who won two world championship medals last year, also has his own mobile home, with his wife, Michelle, and dog for company.
“It is really nice to have a comfortable living area,” he said.
Austrian skier Rainer Schoenfelder said he intended to spend as little time as possible in Sestriere. “After the combined I will go away, after the giant slalom I will go away,” Schoenfelder said on his personal web site.
The technical specialist, who finished fourth in combined at Salt Lake City in 2002, said the Olympic village was not right for his preparation.
“During the Olympics, people are so emotional — both positively and negatively. It is like you are fighting for your life,” he said.
“That’s great, but it is not the right kind of energy and environment to concentrate on the race ahead.”
While Miller and Rahlves chose not to rub shoulders with the thousands of athletes who make the village their base for the duration of the Games, others were at least attempting to adjust to their surroundings. American men’s figure skater Johnny Weir soaked up the atmosphere in the Turin village but he too remained rather unimpressed with the accommodations in Lingotto.
“It’s very cool to be in the Olympic village because it is the Olympic village, but I’m roughing it as the room is cold and dusty,” the American champion said.
“I’m very princessy as far as travel is concerned as I like my creature comforts. I’ve been coughing from the dust.” International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, however, could not find any fault with the facilities. Rogge, who prefers to stay at the athletes’ village during the Games instead of far more luxurious official IOC hotels, said it met all requirements for top athletes.
“I think that it is very top quality,” he told reporters on Tuesday after visiting most areas in the Turin village, including the medical center, the gym and the Internet cafe. “I would compare [the village] with that of [the 1994] Lillehammer Games. 
“I tested my mattress this morning,” he said when asked whether he had liked his room.

TITLE: Real Madrid Humiliated In 6-1 Rout
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ZARAGOZA — Diego Milito smashed in four goals as Real Zaragoza continued their devastating form in the King’s Cup with a 6-1 demolition of Real Madrid in the first leg of their semi-final on Wednesday. 
The inspired Argentine helped himself to a hat-trick in less than 20 first-half minutes at La Romareda as Zaragoza inflicted one of the heaviest defeats on a sorry-looking Real Madrid. 
Although Real pulled a goal back to make it 3-1 before the break, Milito scored his fourth 10 minutes after halftime to the delight of the home crowd. 
Milito’s strike partner Ewerthon also got in on the act when he got his side’s fifth soon after and the Brazilian completed the rout with a wonderful half volley seven minutes from time. 
Zaragoza, who smashed four goals past Betis in 12 first-half minutes in their 4-3 league win at the weekend and beat Barcelona 5-4 on aggregate in the last round, were left with one foot in the final of a competition they have won twice in the last five years. 
“I’m delighted, it was a fantastic victory,” Milito told reporters. “It was a unique night for me.”
Zaragoza coach Victor Munoz was unable to contain his satisfaction at his team’s performance. 
“We bordered on perfection out there tonight,” he said. “The tie is not over yet but we’ve taken a magnificent step towards the final.” 
The home side took control from the first whistle with the in-form Cani orchestrating the midfield and stretching the Real defence as he threaded a series of neat passes through to Milito and Ewerthon. 
It came as little surprise when the two front men combined to carve open the Real defence in the 15th minute. 
Former Borussia Dortmund player Ewerthon scorched past Ivan Helguera on the right, darted into the area and cut the ball back to Milito who lashed home past a helpless Iker Casillas. 
Seven minutes later, the Argentine struck again. This time he stole a march on Roberto Carlos after a quick throw-in, cut inside a despairing Sergio Ramos and beat Casillas at the near post with a sharp finish with the outside of his foot. 
Real were still reeling from the blow when the former Genoa player helped himself to his third, taking advantage of some slack marking to head home in the 34th minute. Just as Real looked as though they were about to fold completely, they pulled one back from a cleverly worked set piece. 
Brazilian forward Julio Baptista powered a header past former Real keeper Cesar after David Beckham had chipped a free kick into the area. 
Zaragoza should have restored their advantage before the break, but Casillas produced a brilliant point-blank save to stop a sharp shot from midfielder Oscar after he had got behind the Real defence. 
The capacity crowd did not have to wait long for the fourth, however, and inevitably the goal came from Milito when he outjumped the passive Real defence to head home from a corner 10 minutes into the second half.  
Espanyol were due to host Deportivo Coruna in the first leg of the other semi-final on Thursday.

TITLE: Rossi Says ‘Four Wheels Good’ After Testing With Ferarri
AUTHOR: By Martin Burlund
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Formula 1, the most powerful league of racing cars, may be joined by a motorcycle driver as he considers replacing two wheels with four. 
Last week Valentino Rossi, five-times Moto GP champion, lined up for Ferrari as the Formula 1 teams gathered up in Valencia, Spain to test their equipment for the upcoming season.
The Italian superstar has previously attended private test sessions in Italy and his official debut in the four-wheeler was followed with great interest by the media.
Either because of nerves or bad weather, Rossi was left red-faced on Tuesday, when his debut, in front of most of the Formula 1 paddock, ended within half a lap after he spun on the wet track and stalled his F2004 M.
But it was the regular Formula 1 drivers who had most to worry about on Wednesday when Rossi set a best lap time of 1 minute and 12.851 seconds from 53 laps — placing thefive times motor cycling world champion just 1.622 seconds from fastest man, and reigning Formula 1 world champion, Fernando Alonso of Renault. This placed Rossi ninth out of 15 drivers.
Ferarri’s rivals lined up to congratulate Rossi. Jacques Villeneuve, world champion in 1997,  was not surprised that Rossi showed decent pace on Wednesday and was only about a second slower than reigning world champion Michael Schumacher.
“But it is true that the last few tenths are the most difficult,” the French Canadian told F1-live.com.
“I am not surprised that he drives well.”
Schumacher, the Ferrari driver who already has secured his team seven Formula 1 championships, was very impressed with the curly-haired Italian’s time and predicted that making the leap from Moto GP has more advantages than problems.
“Absolutely, it’s completely possible for him,” Schumacher told L’Equipe newspaper.
“He has enough talent to get there. I would even say that it is easier to go from bikes to cars than the other way round,” he added.
Rossi was very optimistic about his prospects in the new sport after his performance on the Valencia track.
“It has been a very interesting test, considering how it was the first time I lapped in a Formula One car along with other drivers,” Rossi told FerrariWorld.com. 
“I have to say I felt at ease and had no particular problems. Maybe I need a little more experience of driving on a wet track. 
However, Rossi did not make any predictions about his future with Ferrari.
“I did not come here to show anything to anybody but simply to broaden my understanding of a Formula One car and I thank Ferrari for continuing to give me this opportunity.
“In the next few months there will be more tests but now I go back to motor cycling, which is foremost in my thoughts.”

TITLE: Los Angeles Clippers Hit Record-Breaking Winning Streak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TORONTO — Even though the Los Angeles Clippers have never played better, Sam Cassell doesn’t want their reputation to change.
Elton Brand scored 30 points, Cassell added 27, and the Clippers moved 11 games over .500 for the first time in team history with a 115-113 overtime victory over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday.
“We’re just the same old Clippers. That’s all we are. We’re just the same old Clippers,” Cassell said. “We want teams to continue to take us lightly.”
After 12 consecutive losing seasons, the Clippers won for the eighth time in nine games and improved to 12-10 on the road. They have already surpassed their total of 10 road wins in each of the last two seasons.
The franchise — known for being one of the worst in sports — hasn’t been 11 games over the break-even mark since the Buffalo Braves were 30-19 on Jan. 28, 1976.
“It means a lot,” Brand said. “Every step we take, first time we’re 5-0, first time we’re 10 games above .500, first time we have a winning January. Everything we do we take pride in.”
Cassell sent the game into overtime with a 3-pointer and scored six points in the extra period.
“Sam was terrific. He made big shots again,” Los Angeles coach Mike Dunleavy said. 
“It’s an unbelievable knack that he has.”
Chris Bosh had 29 points, 16 rebounds and six assists, but he missed three jumpers in the final minute of overtime, including a potential tying one from the top of key as time expired.
“I won’t let that spook me too much. I know I can make that,” Bosh said. 
“I can shoot high percentage from there.”
Toronto’s Mike James ran into a screen, allowing Cassell to tie it with a wide open 3-pointer with 7.8 seconds left in regulation.
“I couldn’t believe I was that wide open,” Cassell said.
James claimed he was grabbed by Brand. TV replays showed he just ran into a screen.
“Elton Brand grabbed me and hugged and basically just wouldn’t let me go until Sam Cassell got the ball,” James said. “I thought that maybe somebody might see the play but nobody saw it.”
James missed a driving layup at the buzzer.
Morris Peterson’s 3-pointer gave Toronto a 110-107 lead with 2:25 left, but Quintin Ross converted a three-point play with 1:54 remaining.
After Bosh missed a jumper, Chris Kaman gave Los Angeles the lead for good with a hook shot with 37 seconds left. Cassell followed with two free throws, but Bosh cut the lead to one by converting a three-point play with 13 seconds left.