SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1147 (13), Wednesday, February 22, 2006
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TITLE: Iran, Russia Talks Positive, Iran Negotiator Says
AUTHOR: By Henry Meyer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Iran and Russia held “positive” talks on a Kremlin offer to conduct uranium enrichment for Tehran, the Iranian chief negotiator said Tuesday, but there was skepticism in Moscow that the Islamic regime is ready for compromise. 
“In our belief, the trend of negotiations was positive and constructive,” Ali Hosseinitash told state-run Iranian television as he left Moscow after two days of meetings, adding that the two countries had agreed to continue talks. 
“There are elements in these negotiations that give us grounds for hope that we will reach an agreement,” Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Hosseinitash, the deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, as saying. 
The negotiations ended without any visible progress, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declined to label them a failure. 
“I would be cautious about using the term ‘failure’ or ‘setback’ as long as the negotiations have not finished,” he said in televised remarks. Russia’s atomic chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, visits Iran on Thursday for further talks. 
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, visiting Moscow, said Thursday: “From what we know ... no new ground was broken.” But he said he thought the wide cooperation among countries in putting pressure on Iran was working well. 
“I think the momentum is with this coalition,” he said. 
However, a senior Russian lawmaker expressed frustration. 
“Unfortunately, Iran so far has not shown sufficient good will,” Konstantin Kosachev, head of the lower house of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, was quoted as saying by news agencies. 
The U.S. and the European Union have backed Russia’s offer – seen as the final opportunity to ease international concerns over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons drive. But Iran has adamantly insisted on maintaining domestic enrichment. 
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is to hold a March 6 meeting that could start a process leading to punishment by the UN Security Council. 
Russia, which has strong interests in Iran – it is building the Middle East country’s first nuclear power station – is anxious to avoid sanctions against Iran and wants to win prestige by helping to find a solution to the dispute. 
China on Tuesday also urged Iran to freeze uranium enrichment activities and to find a diplomatic way out of the crisis. 
“We hope Iran can restore its moratorium on all activities related to uranium enrichment and create the conditions for the solution of the nuclear issue through negotiations,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regular news briefing in Beijing. 
Under Moscow’s plan, Iran’s enrichment activities would take place on Russian soil to ensure no uranium is diverted for nuclear weapons. Enrichment is a process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a warhead. 
However, Hosseinitash and other Iranian officials have rejected Russia’s demands that Iran restore a freeze on uranium enrichment it broke last month and made clear that Tehran did not intend to renounce its right to produce nuclear fuel domestically. 
The Kommersant daily, citing an official in the Russian delegation, reported Tuesday that the closed-door talks the previous day had broken up after more than five hours without “any hope of reaching an agreement.” 
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. 
Sergei Markov, a political analyst closely associated with the Kremlin, said Tuesday that Iran appeared to be deliberately stringing Russia along in the hope of avoiding Security Council action. 
“Iran will seek to drag out the negotiations, because while they are ongoing, the possibility of referral to the UN Security Council and the possible implementation of economic sanctions are almost zero,” he was quoted as saying by Interfax. 
Tensions escalated earlier this month when the IAEA reported Iran to the Security Council. Iran responded by suspending certain aspects of its cooperation with the IAEA — including allowing surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities — and confirmed that it had resumed small-scale uranium enrichment. 
Iran insists its nuclear program is purely to meet civilian energy needs but the United States and other Western nations see it as a cover-up for a suspected atomic weapons drive. 
Experts have said Iran would like its scientists to have access to the Russian enrichment facility and hope to retain the right to conduct some part of the enrichment process at home. 
Kiriyenko, the atomic energy chief, said Moscow was ready to “do everything possible to give [Iran] a chance to get out of this difficult situation in a peaceful, constructive way,” RIA-Novosti reported. 
But Kosachev voiced fears that Iran’s defiance of the international community could land it in the same predicament as North Korea.

TITLE: Politician Gets Life For Gang Murders
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg City Court last Friday sentenced Yury Shutov, a former Legislative Assembly lawmaker, aide to the late St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak and later a close ally to the former city governor Vladimir Yakovlev, to life imprisonment for forming a criminal gang responsible for a series of contract murders.
The court declared Shutov, 53, and four accomplices guilty of performing a series of contract killings of prominent local politicians and business people. All five received life sentences. A further eleven members of the gang were found guilty of kidnapping, robbery, and illegal possession of arms. They were sentenced to long terms in jail, ranging from seven to 18 years. 
Prosecutors convicted Shutov’s 16-member gang of participating in over a dozen high-profile contract murders between 1997 and 1999. The list includes the blowing up of Dmitry Filippov, chairman of the board of directors of Bank Menatep St. Petersburg, local attorney Igor Dubovik, an adviser to the governor who was shot in February 1998, as well as the chairperson of City Hall’s Consumer Market Committee Yevgeny Agaryev (the man in charge of local cemeteries and burials) and Nikolai Bolotovsky, chairman of the board of directors for the local defense contracting firm Istochnik, who was shot six times in the head in June 1998.
Shutov, who spent seven years in pre-trial detention, suffered severe epileptic seizures there, often several times a day.  During the course of the court hearings he continued to suffer from the illness, with one of his seizures temporarily putting him in a coma.
Despite the brutality of the crimes committed by Shutov’s gang, Shutov’s plight drew a compassionate reaction from some of his former fellow parliamentarians.
“He is so sick, he is barely alive — I doubt he presents that much of a danger to society that he should be kept in prison for the rest of his days,” said Mikhail Brodsky, a representative of the city government in the Legislative Assembly, in an interview with Fontanka.ru this week.
Shutov is the author of Sobchachye Serdtse, or “The Heart of Sobchak,” a critical book about former mayor Anatoly Sobchak. The book was meant as a parody of Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic Sobachye Serdtse — “Heart of a Dog.”
While in jail, Shutov managed to get elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2002 in the hope that his status as a parliamentarian would help him to get out of prison, though he remained behind bars.
Shutov has been seen by many to be a personal enemy of President Vladimir Putin as a result of his association with the mayor’s successor, Yakovlev. 
At Sobchak’s funeral in 2000, the President and mayor’s widow Lyudmila Narusova asked ex-governor Vladimir Yakovlev not to attend the funeral. After the funeral, Putin delivered a much-quoted, emotional speech, where he called Sobchak’s departure “not a death but a tragic accident resulting from severe persecution and badgering”.
“In St. Petersburg, Shutov played the role of a local Zhirinovsky in a campaign aimed at discrediting Sobchak,” political columnist Yulia Latynina told reporters this week. “Sobchak brought president Vladimir Putin to politics, and now, the president is having his revenge.”

TITLE: Berezovsky Sells Remaining Russian Assets
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Boris Berezovsky said Friday that he was selling the remnants of his business empire, including the Kommersant newspaper, to his longtime partner Badri Patarkatsishvili in an effort to shield it from Kremlin pressure.
Berezovsky, a kingmaker turned fierce Kremlin critic, said he was selling out because his Georgian partner, who has been a joint owner in many of Berezovsky’s businesses, was unnerved by his recent claim that he has spent the last year and a half working to overthrow President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking by telephone Friday from London, Berezovsky said the handover could help shield the businesses from mounting political pressure. “Nothing is ever safe in today’s Russia. The authorities can take away property whenever they like. But this will help reduce the risks,” he said.
Apart from Kommersant, however, it is not exactly clear which businesses are left for Berezovsky to sell. Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili have been business partners since the early 1990s, when they set up LogoVAZ, the car dealership from which the rest of their vast oil-to-metals empire sprang. Their clout swiftly vanished in 2000 when Berezovsky fell from Putin’s favor, just months after helping engineer the latter’s rise to power. 
 After a criminal investigation into Berezovsky’s business practices began, Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili fled the country and faced attempts by Russian prosecutors to extradite them on charges of large-scale fraud. 
Berezovsky denies the charges.
Berezovsky said Friday that even though Patarkatsishvili was a close associate, the sale would reduce the risks for Kommersant and the other businesses.
“Badri is only wanted by the Russian authorities because he happens to do business with me. As soon as we stop being partners, I believe the charges against him will be lifted,” Berezovsky said.
Berezovsky fled Russia in November 2000 for Britain, where he has received political asylum. While Berezovsky settled in with a country estate near London, a squad of French Foreign Legion veterans as bodyguards and a plush office in Mayfair, Patarkatsishvili headed for his native Georgia. There, he has become one of the country’s wealthiest and most well-connected businessmen.
But while Patarkatsishvili has maintained a low political profile, Berezovsky has threatened to take his revenge on Putin and once vowed to invest $100 million to oust him from power. Even though Berezovsky has spent the last few years touting his influence, many in Russia see him as a spent political force. 
Berezovsky claims to have helped bankroll Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, in which hundreds of thousands took to the streets in November 2004 to help pro-Western presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko gain victory over Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych. 
While Yushchenko and his aides have denied ever receiving any financial support from Berezovsky, the claims nevertheless unnerved the Kremlin.
Last month, Berezovsky went on Ekho Moskvy radio to say he would “seize power by force” in Russia.
Meanwhile, via his New York-based For Civil Liberties foundation, Berezovsky has been quietly financing NGOs and groups that oppose the Kremlin, both in Russia and in the “near abroad.” 
Kommersant, too, often takes an opposition line.
Berezovsky said Friday that the sale of his stake in the paper to Patarkatsishvili, who is already a co-owner, would not have an impact on its editorial policy. “Badri is already chairman of the board,” Berezovsky said.
Kommersant commercial director Pavel Filenkov also said he did not expect any change. “This isn’t even a sale. It’s a redistribution of shares,” he said.

TITLE: American Cultural Center Enters Fifth Year
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The American Corner library, which introduces the inhabitants of St. Petersburg to “American ideals and values” through its services, celebrates its fourth anniversary on Wednesday. 
“In addition to ever-present resources such as books, magazines, and instructional tapes, we offer a wide range of activities such as art exhibitions, film showings, English-Russian discussion clubs and lectures,” said Anna Nadezhina, director of the American Corner library. 
The American Corner, of which there are more than thirty branches in Russia, hosts cultural and educational programs for as many as 70 visitors a day.
Representatives of the press, non-governmental organizations, cultural and educational institutions, and businesses hold seminars at the American Center and go there for up-to-date information about the U.S., Nadezhina said. 
“Almost every day we have something interesting at the American Corner,” Nadezhina said. “Every Monday, we host a discussion club for Russian and American students, on Wednesdays we have movie showings, on Thursdays there are lectures, and on Saturdays there is a discussion club for the general public.” 
The American Corner’s calendar for March promises events that will be exciting and educational for anyone interested in America, Nadezhina said.
On March 9 at 5 p.m., the University of Louisville Jazz Ensemble is giving a free concert, and Alexis Marsh, a Canadian saxophonist, will speak on the history of women in jazz. 
“With each new meeting of the discussion clubs, the attendance grows and the conversation gets livelier,” Nadezhina said.
The American corner is at the Mayakovskaya Library at 46 Fontanka. For more information visit: www.amcorners.ru.

TITLE: Sergeant Demoted By Court For Hazing
AUTHOR: By Oleg Shchedrov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Chelyabinsk military court on Monday held the first in a series of trials of servicemen charged with hazing soldiers at the tank academy where Private Andrei Sychyov lost his legs and genitals after being tortured. 
The treatment of Sychyov, who had to undergo several operations after being tied up and badly beaten by drunk fellow soldiers, has shocked Russia and sparked a public outcry at the state of the armed forces. 
Investigations showed that Sychyov’s ordeal was not the only episode of dedovshchina, or hazing of young soldiers by older servicemen in the Chelyabinsk tank academy. 
RIA-Novosti said the Chelyabinsk military court demoted Sergeant Ivan Chernykh, the first to face trial as a result of the investigations, and gave him a four-year suspended sentence for beating a private and breaking his nose.  
Chernykh and his victim will continue serving in the same battalion. 
Later this week, five other servicemen from the academy will face trials for dedovshchina episodes unrelated to Sychyov. Several soldiers have been arrested over Sychyov’s case but it is not yet clear when they will be tried. 
Hazing is not unusual in the armed forces. But after the Kremlin established tight control over national media, key television channels and newspapers became reluctant to report such episodes. 
Unusually outspoken media coverage of Sychyov’s suffering was a severe blow to Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. 
Critics say that defense budget hikes have allowed the military to run exercises unprecedented since Soviet times, but do not help improve morale among servicemen. 
Five years into President Vladimir Putin’s military reforms, parents across Russia still do their best to bail out their children from compulsory military service, fearing its bad reputation. 
The military complain that massive draft dodging has led to a situation when mainly young people from the poorest families, many of them with drinking habits and criminal records, join the armed forces. 
Many politicians have said the public scandal around Sychyov would encourage further dodging and put Russia’s plans to cut military service from two years to one in 2008 at risk. 
Keen to show that they are fighting hazing, the military has launched a public hunt for servicemen involved. 
On Monday, Interfax reported that three servicemen had been arrested in Bashkortostan over the beating of a fellow soldier to death.

TITLE: Bosco di Ciliegi Causes Stir at Olympics
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — As general sponsor of Russia’s Winter Olympics team, the Bosco di Ciliegi luxury clothing company has been causing controversy in Turin over its aggressive advertising and the antics of owner Mikhail Kusnirovich — as well as turning heads with the team’s striking uniforms.
At home, Kusnirovich and the company have been springing surprises for years. Kusnirovich, now 40, was part of the first wave of entrepreneurs to tap post-Soviet Russia’s pent-up desire for fun and flair.
Even as the country was struggling to find its way in the early months after the 1991 Soviet collapse, Kusnirovich was busy building a complex of rides and attractions in Moscow’s Gorky Park. As his clothing empire grew, he laid on a rainbow-colored fleet of customized Audis to taxi big-spending customers between his luxury brand boutiques for free. 
His outfits for the Athens Olympics nostalgically evoked Stalin’s Russia in the 1930s — provoking criticism  from some.
Most recently it was Kusnirovich’s striking white and red winter Olympic outfits that turned heads. Many praise them for making the athletes look slimmer and taller.
But the uniforms were laden with Bosco di Ciliegi logos, violating the games’ limits on logo size. The offending logos were quickly covered up with stickers after a reprimand from the International Olympic Committee. The IOC also warned that company banners at the athletes’ villages and event venues were in violation of regulations.
Russian news media, meanwhile, reported that the boisterous Kusnirovich had forced athletes to attend lavish late-night parties, interfered in their training schedule and even used his credentials to barge into a room while a Russian athlete was being drug-tested.
Speaking from Turin last week, Bosco de Ciliegi’s spokeswoman Olga Yudkis dismissed the reports as the “fantasies of journalists.” There is not a single quote [about this] by sportsmen or statements by official delegations,” she said. She also said that the company was now fully in line with Olympic advertising regulations.
Be that as it may, Olympics coverage in Russia has the look of a Bosco di Ciliegi commercial.
Under a partnership deal with state-controlled Channel One, Kusnirovich’s clothes are beamed into living rooms across Russia’s 11 time zones: All anchors reporting on the games go on air dressed head-to-foot in Bosco gear. 
“It is natural for the presenters to share the values of the Russian Olympic team,” Yudkis explained.
As well as selling the clothes out of two boutiques in Turin, six Bosco Sport shops satisfy demand in Moscow. 
Shoppers at one downtown mall can access its main department store only through a Bosco de Ciliegi Olympic arcade, watched by rows of white “Cheburashkas” — a furry Russian cartoon animal reinvented with a polar look as the team mascot.
Leveraging off the fashion empire he built over a decade and a half, Kusnirovich has fitted Russian Olympians at Salt Lake City, Athens and now Turin. 
The crisp, cream suits designed in tandem with the Etro fashion house for the Athens opening ceremony were a stylish remake of the uniforms worn by Soviet athletes in the 1930s, but drew criticism from some that the company was celebrating one of the bloodiest chapters in Russia’s history.
Today Kusnirovich commands 50 boutiques in four Russian cities, catering to the voracious appetites of Russia’s ever-growing rich.
As well as being the exclusive purveyor in Russia of the Etro, Kenzo and Max Mara lines, to name just a few, Bosco sells cosmetics and fashion accessories and owns three restaurants — two on Red Square — and a dental clinic.
While retaining an office in Gorky Park, where he launched his amusement park in the early ’90s, Kusnirovich does most of his business these days from offices looking onto the Kremlin.

TITLE: Mukhu Aliyev New President
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Dagestani parliament voted 101-1 on Monday to confirm its former speaker, Mukhu Aliyev, as the new leader — and first president — of the volatile republic. 
The parliament then unanimously chose the son of the outgoing Dagestani leader, Magomedali Magomedov, as its new speaker. 
Russia’s oldest and longest-serving regional leader, Magomedov, 75, abruptly announced his retirement last week after meeting with President Vladimir Putin. Magomedov then proposed Aliyev to succeed him, and Putin sent the nomination to the republic’s parliament for formal approval.
Aliyev, 65, parliament speaker since 1994, was sworn in on Monday as the first president of the republic. 
Under Magomedov, Dagestan’s top executive body was a collective presidency called the State Council, comprising representatives of the republic’s 14 largest ethnic groups. It was proclaimed disbanded.

TITLE: U.K. Companies Not Aware Of Opportunities – Minister
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Ian Pearson, U.K. foreign trade and investment minister, was in St. Petersburg on Sunday and Monday on an official visit to learn about further investment opportunities for British business in the region. After St. Petersburg the minister is due to visit Moscow, where he’s scheduled to meet top officials from the Ministry of Economic Development and Ministry of Atomic Energy, as well as representatives from British businesses there. 
The St. Petersburg Times spoke to the minister about the results of his visit and his impressions of British-Russian business relations.

What can you say about the results of your visit to St. Petersburg?
St. Petersburg is a wonderful city and I get a real sense that it’s a city moving strongly forward, and has potential to grow as an engine of wider regional development. I’ve talked to a range of companies and I’ve also talked to vice-governor Molchanov about their plans for the future, and I get the feeling that St. Petersburg is heading toward a period of rapid economic growth. I wish more U.K. companies were aware of the opportunities here. I am also very pleased that Norman Foster was chosen to work on the New Holland project. We’ve also seen strong interest from U.K. companies in the retail sector — as you know, recently Mothercare, Body Shop and Next came to St. Petersburg, now another British company Kingfisher is coming with their Castorama brand. I am sure other U.K. high street retailers will be interested in coming to the St. Petersburg market. As I already mentioned I talked with vice governor Molchanov about the use of public-private partnerships (PPP). This is an area where the U.K. is a world leader. I know consultants from the U.K. are working here at the moment, and PPP is one of the ways St. Petersburg can rapidly upgrade its infrastructure. 

Why is U.K. experience in the field of PPP particularly useful for St. Petersburg?
PPP programs have been very important to the U.K., enabling us to bring forward investment in our infrastructure. This is of the best places to take advantage of globalization. No one country nor city can upgrade its infrastructure overnight, and you can’t finance it unless PPPs are aware of how to bring in the necessary investment. By putting these two parts together, you can see what the public sector does best and what the private sector does best, and you get better value for money and better projects. In the U.K. we use PPPs for schools and hospitals, as well as roads, and also prisons. It’s been an important way in which we’ve started upgrading our infrastructure, which will go on for the next 10 years. I know that the administration here has looked closely at PPPs in the U.K., and has seen that such a program might be beneficial for the city. 

How would you characterize the situation with British investment in St. Petersburg and Russia at the moment in general? 
Firstly, trade. Two-way trade is running at about 11 billion euros at the moment and is growing quite strongly. We also see an increase in U.K. investment, but it’s very hard to put a figure on it. But when one considers the really large investment projects by Schwepps, GlaxoSmithKlein, Unilever, BAT, I can say that the relationship is good. I just think it could be better. I am keen on more U.K. companies being aware of how strongly Russia is developing. There’s a danger that people just talk about China, or maybe India, and neglect the fact that Russia is a huge market. Certainly, there are some obstacles, such as issues regarding intellectual property, and some companies say they have issues regarding commercial and legal sovereignty, which can make life difficult. I know that president Putin is going to address some of these issues through economic reform to ensure stability, and this will be very helpful in encouraging investment from the international community. Talking about the investment climate, here you have Toyota coming very soon, which will bring in the manufacturers of components, and I’d like to ensure that U.K. companies are aware of these opportunities. I think you will see a fresh wave of new investment on the back of the Toyota decision to set up here.

TITLE: City Accommodates 5-Star Kempinski
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg welcomed yet another luxury brand Wednesday as international operator Kempinski officially opened its new 5-star hotel. The centrally located hotel, situated on Moika 22, offers 23 suites and 174 rooms.
“The hotel offers a wide range of luxury accommodation designed especially to meet the needs of the modern traveler and businessman,” said Maria Sobolevskaya, executive assistant manager at the hotel.
In fact the hotel has been operating since last spring, though some rooms and parts of the building were still to be completed. The hotel’s owner — Petersburg Real Estate Agency — invested about $20 million into construction and restoration.
“Kempinski is particularly strong at attracting corporate clients but we expect an equal distribution of all types of guest. However, taking into account seasonal shifts in demand for rooms in St. Petersburg, in low season corporate clients will dominate while in high season both business travelers and tourists will be represented,” Sobolevskaya said.
Hotel managers predict an average occupancy rate of 55 percent to 60 percent.
There are now siz 5-star hotels in the city, the others being Grand Hotel Europe, Astoria, Nevskij Palace, Radisson SAS and Emerald.
Intercontinental and Ramada operators plan to open hotels in St. Petersburg and Rezidor SAS will expand its presence.
A number of other projects are due for completion. Raffles International will open a 5-star Swissotel business-class hotel by 2007. Renaissance construction firm will build a 5-star hotel by the end of 2006, and French operator Accor announced construction of a 5-star Sofitel.
“First of all the city needs 3-star and 4-star hotels. In the elite class hotel segment competition depends mainly on the policies of City Hall, on its programs to attract tourists,” said Victoria Kulibanova, development manager at Astera, a consultancy firm for commercial real estate.
“Nevertheless, large investment projects are being realized, large companies’ headquarters are moving into St. Petersburg. So the opening of Kempinski hotel is unlikely to seriously affect competition in the 5-star hotel segment,” Kulibanova said.
According to Astera estimations, the pay-back period for such a hotel will be over eight years.
“Most probably, as with other hotels, in high season the hotel will mainly make its earnings from tourist groups, in low season — from businessmen. The average annual occupancy in such hotels is 60 percent to 65 percent,” Kulibanova said.
According to research done by BCG experts last year on the order of City Hall, in order to become a center for international tourism the  city needs 12,000 new hotel rooms by 2012.
According to a statement made last year by City Governor Valentina Matviyenko, by 2008 “the number of hotel rooms will double, and hotels will serve up to six million tourists.”

TITLE: New Registration Procedure Could Hamper Investment
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Foreign companies wanting to register legal entities in St. Petersburg are facing even stricter bureaucratic control. In order to stop the registration of false firms local tax authorities now demand the applicant to appear in person to file registration documents.
According to a local business association, tax authorities have effectively enforced the new procedure for the last three weeks, seriously troubling the investment community.
A legal expert said that such a requirement does not break the law, but never before was it de-facto so severely introduced into practice.
“The legal basis for such a practice is approved by the Decree of the Government of RF No 439 dated 19.06.2002, stipulating that the documents for the state registration of legal entities are to be filed with the registering authority by the applicant directly,” said Denis Sosedkin, Senior Associate, Head of Corporate practice at DLA Piper in St. Petersburg.
In practice it means that the heads of foreign companies establishing Russian subsidiaries will have to “make trips to the Russian Federation exclusively to lodge applications with tax authorities and then do the same each time they make alterations to the original documents, such as when changing their legal address,” Sosedkin explained
“In previous years, there existed a practice, based on explanations issued by the Federal Tax Service, of filing documents on the basis of the power of an attorney. Unfortunately, St. Petersburg tax authorities have recently stopped this practice,” he said. Though agreeing with the necessity of legal barriers to prevent “acts of bad faith,” he warned that an unbalanced approach could negatively affect the city’s investment climate.
“Stricter requirements for registration should be applied with care, taking into account the specific nuances foreign companies face when running investment projects in Russia,” said Maria Chernobrovkina, executive director of St. Petersburg chapter at American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.
“During the early stages of an investment project the CEOs of large foreign companies stay abroad, while junior managers responsible for the initial launch are given the power to act as an attorney,” she said.
Abiding by the law would literally force top executives to come to Russia at the very beginning of the process, causing serious inconvenience, Chernobrovkina said. 
For example, companies registered in Luxemburg and Finland will have to send two senior executives to sign documents required by their own national laws, she said.
“We understand the reasons for the change. It is aimed against false firms registering for a short period of time. However, such firms will anyway find ways to circumvent the rules, while bona fide foreign investors will be stuck in queues,” Chernobrovkina said.
“With respect to the fight against fraudulent companies, we are very much concerned with the challenges that foreign investors may face as a result,” she added.
The actions of tax authorities seem even less reasonable when one considers governor Valentina Matviyenko’s repeated calls for the simplification of bureaucratic procedures for investors. She has suggested introducing a “one window scheme,” when an investor gets all the necessary permissions and files all the documents in one place.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Monopoly Case 
BRUSSELS (Bloomberg) — De Beers and Alrosa have settled their monopoly abuse case with the European Commission, Reuters said Tuesday, citing an unidentified person familiar with the situation The settlement will be approved under the EU executive Commission’s Article 9 procedure, in which the companies will admit no wrongdoing but sign commitments to avoid abusive practices, the newswire said.
The settlement still needs the approval of the 25-member Commission at its meeting Wednesday, Reuters said. The Commission has been investigating the two companies for a possible breach of its competition laws, it added.

Russian Reserves 
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia will probably add about $70 billion to its foreign currency and gold reserves this year because of the high price of oil, Reuters reported, citing Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman at the central bank.
The reserves, which were a record $194.2 billion on Feb. 16, will increase more slowly in the future, he said, the news agency reported. That will help the bank to let the ruble float in three to four years from now, he said, according to Reuters.
The bank may let the ruble strengthen further this year to help reduce inflation by making imports cheaper, Ulyukayev said, the news agency reported. The ruble gained more than 10 percent last year against currencies of the country’s major trade partners when adjusted to inflation.

Airbus Talks 
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Airbus SAS, the world’s biggest builder of commercial jets, is in talks with the Russian government on forming a $25 billion partnership as it battles rival Boeing to win a major order from state carrier Aeroflot.
The pact would include contracts for Russian companies to supply Airbus with components for its new A350 airliner, joint development of new aircraft and the conversion of older single-aisle passenger jets into cargo planes, Airbus Senior Vice President Axel Krein told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday.

Carlsberg Profits 
VALBY, Denmark (Bloomberg) — Carlsberg A/S, the maker of Tuborg and Baltika beers, said 2005 profit was little changed as higher sales in Russia offset a shrinking European market.
Net income rose to 1.11 billion kroner ($180 million) from 1.1 billion kroner a year earlier, the Valby, Denmark-based company said Tuesday in an e-mailed statement. Carlsberg was expected to earn 1.14 billion kroner, according to the median estimate from nine analysts. Sales rose 4.9 percent to 38 billion kroner.
Carlsberg said Tuesday that it will stop brewing in Valby, Denmark, and shift production to Fredericia, a move that will affect 240 workers. 

Gazprom Stake 
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Gazprom sold the Russian government a four percent stake in CJSC Atomstroyexport, a company that exports nuclear technology, the news agency Interfax reported, citing Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia’s Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy.
A state-owned nuclear exporter, Techsnabexport, will buy the shares next week from Gazprom’s banking unit, Gazprombank, giving the government control of Atomstroyexport, Interfax said.
Interfax didn’t say how much Russia paid for the stake.
Gazprombank now owns 53 percent of Atomstroyexport’s shares and the Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy owns 46 percent, Interfax said.

Alfa Bank Valuation
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private lender, is worth about $3.5 billion, according to Mikhail Fridman, chairman of Alfa Group, the lender’s parent company.
The bank isn’t currently planning to put itself up for sale or hold an initial public offering, and it has enough money to grow on its own, Fridman told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday.
“We have internal resources,” Fridman said. “There is no reason for an IPO. I don’t see any big interest among western banks in buying Russian banks.’’
The lender will borrow no more than $1 billion this year, Alfa Bank’s Rushan Khvesyuk said on Tuesday. 

Russian Inflation
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia needs to do more to curb inflation, which could top 10 percent this year, a government adviser said.
The government needs to “do what it planned” to restrict inflation, adviser Alexei Dvorkovich told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday on the sidelines of an economic conference. 
“There is a risk that inflation may be close to 10 percent this year.”
Russia failed in its goal to keep inflation below 10 percent in 2004 and 2005. The inflation rate was a preliminary 10.9 percent in 2005, compared with 11.7 percent in 2004, according to the Moscow-based Federal Statistics Service.

TITLE: Sacrificing Stalin
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: Fifty years ago this month, the Soviet Communist Party held its 20th Congress. The decisions reached at most Party congresses are long forgotten, but the events of February 1956 continue to inspire interest and debate.
For young people who have grown up in the post-Soviet consumer society, Feb. 14 — the opening day of the 20th Party Congress — is Valentine’s Day, when people send flowers and sappy cards to their sweethearts. Yet the ideas first aired at the 20th Party Congress continue to echo in the political debates of the present.
Current Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, commenting on the 50th anniversary of the congress, said that the famous “secret speech” delivered by Nikita Khrushchev to a closed session at the congress was extremely damaging. In Zyuganov’s view, Khrushchev’s speech, in which he denounced Stalin’s crimes and the cult of personality, was the beginning of the end. It left society deeply divided. Everything in the speech was true, of course, but what was the point in airing the Party’s dirty laundry? “In his speech, Khrushchev was basically settling a personal score with Stalin,” Zyuganov said. “It should be emphasized that the speech was not discussed in advance by either the plenum or the presidium of the Communist Party.”
Khrushchev delivered the secret speech on Feb. 25, the last day of the congress. And it wasn’t much of a secret. The text was sent out across the country and read at Party meetings, which were, of course, also closed. As a result, millions of people were familiar with the speech within a few weeks. Contrary to Zyuganov’s claim, it did not divide society. People accepted it, just as they had accepted previous Party directives about exposing “wreckers” and destroying “enemies of the people.”
In geopolitical and economic terms, the Soviet Union reached the height of its power under Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. It led the way into outer space, achieved nuclear parity with the United States and cultivated many new allies in the Middle East and Africa. The standard of living improved at home. But the ideological monolith of the Stalin era was gone for good.
Soviet society was never entirely monolithic. The proof of this can be found in the novels of Alexander Solzhenitsyn as well as in the Soviet archives. There was, however, a strong sense of a common fate and a common cause that united not just the working class and the bureaucratic elite, but even gulag inmates and their captors. The Stalinist regime was directly linked to the history of the Revolution. It was a sort of communist Bonapartism. It combined totalitarianism with democratic principles, fear and repression with enthusiasm and sincerity. This blend made the 20th Party Congress possible.
Looking back on the congress, some accused Khrushchev of inconsistency and a lack of radicalism, while others objected to the fact that he made Stalin’s crimes public and turned political reform into a personal, posthumous reckoning with Stalin. The guilt or complicity of other Politburo members is not the issue, however. Khrushchev heaped all the blame on Stalin because he wanted to avoid a serious discussion of what had happened in the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s.
Had Khrushchev’s view of the dead dictator been more balanced, questions might have been raised about the inherent contradictions of the Soviet state and about the extent to which the existing order reflected Marxist conceptions of socialism. These questions had been raised by Trotsky, who was anathema to the elite under Khrushchev just as he had been under Stalin. Had Khrushchev been a less virulent anti-Stalinist, he would almost certainly have been forced in the direction of Trotskyism.
The Party elite in the late-1950s opted to forgive no one and to comprehend nothing. Stalin had to be sacrificed in order to protect the system. The secret speech was not one man’s initiative; it reflected the general view of the Party machine after three years of infighting.
Another 30 years passed, and Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika drove the Soviet Union to total collapse. Subsequent reforms left millions of people to fight for their lives, as they had once fought to survive in the gulag. Can all of this be regarded as a direct result of the 20th Party Congress, which had such an influence on Gorbachev and his successor, Boris Yeltsin?
Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin belong to another generation, of course, one both formed and corrupted by the Brezhnev years. The bureaucracy went through a major evolution in those years as well. The 20th Party Congress was nevertheless a watershed of sorts — a superficial victory for the democratic current in Soviet society, but a real victory for the bureaucracy. Democratic reforms were carried out, but only under the control of the bureaucracy, and only to serve its interests. For the country this was the worst possible outcome.

Boris Kagarlitsky is director of the Institute for Globalization Studies.

TITLE: American Aid For Russia
PUBLISHER: wp
TEXT: It is good news that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning to spend $75 million on aid to Iranian democrats and Farsi-language broadcasters. It’s less good news that the U.S. administration is planning cuts in similar forms of aid to Russia and other countries that made up the Soviet Union.
To be precise, next year the administration plans to cut “democracy assistance’” to Russia — money authorized by the 1992 Freedom Support Act — to $31.6 million from $44.2 million. 
That’s money that gets spent on support for human rights and other independent organizations, as well as training for journalists and election monitors. Other cuts, in academic and professional exchange programs, will reduce the amount spent even further. 
The changes in Russia are mirrored in other former Soviet countries: Overall, the Freedom Support Act funding will drop significantly next year, resulting in less money for democracy promotion as well as health and education across the region.
And — rubbing salt in the wound — Voice of America will stop radio broadcasting in Russian and a half-dozen Balkan languages too. Radio Liberty will continue its Russian broadcasts, although since a recent change in format — an attempt at “popularization’” — there is evidence that Radio Liberty’s audience has declined.
The State Department’s explanation for the cuts isn’t political but budgetary: Put simply, the money that used to get spent in Russia is now going to Iran, as well as Afghanistan and the Middle East. While not illogical, this change is shortsighted. 
Recent legal changes as well as political pressure from the Kremlin have weakened Russia’s already small contingent of democrats. Yet Russia is due to hold important elections in 2008 — elections that may determine whether the country remains even nominally democratic in the future.
If it does not, there could be serious consequences for American foreign policy — for example in the Middle East and Iran, where Russia has lately been looking to revive its influence, often in ways unhelpful to the United States. Is it too much to ask that the administration keep its focus on more than one set of democracies at a time?

This comment ran as an editorial in The Washington Post.

TITLE: In Need of a Code of Ethics
AUTHOR: By Alexei Pankin
TEXT: I don’t know about you, but the ongoing cartoon scandal has made me a better person. I’ve started to spare the feelings of others, even people I find extremely unpleasant. In part, this change has been forced upon me. 
When every press outlet in Russia and most foreign media were marking Boris Yeltsin’s 75th birthday earlier this month, my wife forbade me to write anything on the subject. “I know what you’re going to say — that the best thing Yeltsin could have done for his country was never to have been born at all. It’s not in your power to change that, so what’s the point in raining on his parade?”
After thinking about it, I decided she was right. Was this a case of censorship, self-imposed censorship or simply self-restraint? You be the judge.
The Yeltsin family didn’t need me to spoil their festive mood in any case. On Feb. 10, Moskovsky Komsomolets, one of the biggest and most influential newspapers in the country, featured an article titled “A Hard Night in Barvikha.” Citing no sources, Mila Karalova reported that following a Kremlin banquet in honor of Russia’s first president, the party continued at Yeltsin’s residence in Barvikha. Yeltsin played the role of tamada, or toastmaster, until the wee hours. When the last guest had gone, Yeltsin went to bed, but couldn’t sleep and demanded a strong soporific. A team of paramedics, always on call in Barvikha, was called in. The paramedics refused to give an irate Yeltsin the soporific, which becomes dangerous when mixed with alcohol. 
The next day, Moskovsky Komsomolets published a short letter from Naina Yeltsina in a section buried at the bottom of page two called From the Editor’s Mailbox. The former first lady noted that she and her husband generally refrained from responding to reports about them in the press. On this occasion, however, she felt compelled to reply in order to prevent Yeltsin’s birthday from being covered in “rumors and lies.” 
Yeltsina stated that everything in Karalova’s article was untrue. “I can only guess who might have had an interest in providing this kind of ‘information’ to a reporter from such a popular newspaper,” Yeltsina wrote. “Boris Nikolayevich did not call for an ambulance or paramedics after the Kremlin reception. In fact, the following morning he received a visit from Helmut Kohl. In closing, I would like to reiterate that I would not have refuted any article if it were not a birthday, which should not be tarnished.”
The word mailbox implies that letters go in and out. Moskovsky Komsomolets never published a response to Yeltsina’s letter, however. The editor, Pavel Gusev, did not defend or retract Karalova’s article. There was no admission of guilt or expression of regret. Gusev, who is also chairman of the Moscow Union of Journalists and head of the Public Chamber’s media commission, was probably busy with his pet project — a code of ethics for the Russian media. Putting this man in charge of creating a code of journalistic ethics is like entrusting military reform to the commander of the Chelyabinsk Armor Academy.
I’m deeply concerned about the form the cartoon scandal has taken in this country. The Orthodox Church, which looks more like an official religion every day, seems even more concerned about the feelings of Muslims than the Muslim clerics. The Federal Service for Media Law Compliance and Cultural Heritage threatens to strip media outlets of their registration. United Russia functionaries are pushing to shut down Gorodskiye Vesti, the daily newspaper of the Volgograd city administration, for publishing a cartoon showing Jesus, Moses, Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed.
Clerical censorship is clearly on the rise, and I’m not sure the press can withstand it, especially when its “best and brightest” ignore the basic rules of decency.

Alexei Pankin is a freelance journalist based in Moscow.

TITLE: Book tour
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Non-Russian authors do not have the mass appeal they once had, but St. Petersburg publishers are seeing an increasingly sophisticated market for foreign literature.
With the fall of the Iron Curtain 15 years ago came a flood of formerly proscribed literature — both foreign and Russian — and the sight of each straphanger on the metro avidly reading new books of all kinds. 
The break-up of state publishing houses had created a clutch of new publishers, many based in St. Petersburg, that competed for the attention of the reading public. At one point in the 1990s up to 70 percent of all fiction published in Russia was foreign as rights were secured and titles translated. 
With the financial crisis of August 1998, many publishers went bankrupt and the trend for translated fiction changed direction.
Although mass interest in foreign works tailed off, readers became more selective and critical. 
So-called “intellectual literature” suddenly became popular, said Alexei Gordin, the executive director of Azbuka publishing house. 
Up to 70 percent of all fiction Azbuka releases is translated literature.
“Russian readers were open to [non-Russian] authors such as Milorad Pavic, Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami and Patrick Susskind,” Gordin said. 
However more recently, Gordin said, demand for new “intellectual literature” has slowed. Publishers are sticking with authors who already have an established following, and are publishing new authors only in small print runs unless they are big names like Dan Brown, author of “The Da Vinci Code.” 
Another trend is the growing popularity of translated crime fiction and Azbuka will publish “everything that comes that is above average,” Gordin said.
Another type of foreign literature that is heavily represented on the Russian market is children’s literature. 
Azbuka said it publishes only a few children’s’ titles by Russian authors and the vast majority of its output in the genre is foreign children’s fiction.
Limbus Press is another St. Petersburg publisher that publishes work by foreign authors. 
“We have our own distinct line. We publish books that have their own character”, said Natalia Smirnova, foreign rights manager, at Limbus Press. 
One of the Limbus Press lines is so-called “literary sex” or “hardcore” fiction — something that other publishers might not dare to publish — dealing with “sex, drugs, violence and rock ‘n’ roll.” 

The publisher also looks for “big names” that are well-known in their home countries to publish exclusively in Russia, such as Pulitzer prize-winning author Philip Roth and Jewish-Italian writer and novelist Alberto Moravia.
Limbus also recently published Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children,” the Booker Prize winner of 1981 which was voted “the Booker of Bookers” in 1993, becoming the best Booker-winning novel of the first 25 years in the prize’s history.
 Smirnova said that in the month after it was published “Midnight’s Children” sold 5,000 copies — a record for a 700-page-book. 
Another direction Limbus is pursuing is contemporary teenage literature for readers aged between 15 and 19. 
“Nowadays teenagers perceive literature as music or television,” Smirnova said. “They want to read about the same people as they are. They want to see a boy or a girl sharing their thoughts with the readers in books. That’s why we decided to launch this series.” 
The Limbus Press catalogue comprises both Russian and translated non-Russian titles in equal measure.
“We tend to publish non-commercial literature, launching new authors. The market is in constant movement,” Smirnova said. 
Smirnova said that most publishers in St. Petersburg do not have their own staff translators and work with freelance professionals. Publishers are always eager to try new ones. 
“Different books require various translators,” Smirnova said. “A middle-aged translator might not be able to put adequately the thoughts of a teenager, to translate young people’s slang, and the way they speak and act.”
St. Petersburg-based publisher Astrel publishes both translated fiction and non-fiction, with a strong emphasis on contemporary commercial paperback literature. 
According to Yelena Surinova, Astrel’s editor of translated literature, interest in foreign fiction never falters in the marketplace. 
“The reader is always interested in what foreign authors say and write about the same problems as theirs, what contemporaries living in other countries think and do,” Surinova said.
Astrel publishes “good quality commercial fiction,” including romances and thrillers. 
“When choosing a book to translate, we always read the reviews, see what prizes the book got or was nominated for,” Surinova said. “Many of the titles we publish were screened in Hollywood.”
At the same time, Surinova has noticed a recent trend in reading tastes toward more high-quality literature. 
“The interest in more serious and more high-quality fiction is certainly rising. Readers are interested in well-written books about people, people’s relationships, psychological aspects of human life. So that badly-written, false crime novels don’t find readers anymore.”
Astrel also publishes self-help books, mainly dealing with love, life and relationships.
“People will be eager to read professional advice in a popular and amusing form,” Surinova says.
St. Petersburg publishing house Amphora, half of whose titles originate abroad, says it follows and watches out for the new titles in Europe, the U.S. and Africa. 
Vadim Nazarov, the publisher’s art director, said the company has their own foreign rights department in New York which works directly with American and European markets.
However, most Russian publishers buy foreign rights from the Moscow offices of the three major international literary agencies, which control up to 90 percent of all fiction in English. 
As for European titles, Russian publishers generally tend to buy either directly or via agents. Literary fairs, especially the ones in Frankfurt and London, are also very important hunting grounds for the next bestseller

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Last year saw the closing of several underground rock clubs, but now new live music-oriented places are opening and some old ones are coming back.
Although it has been open since January, Zorro Club will stage its official opening with a concert by local favorites Markscheider Kunst and the reformed band Wine, featuring its old drummer Katya Sidorova. Sidorova is also the new club’s art director. The club, which is located at 22 Naberezhnaya Admirala Lazareva, boasts a fine sound system and 1,000-capacity concert hall. For more information, call (905) 206 1208 or (906) 253 73 08.
Orlandina, a grungy underground rock club that was shut down by the local authorities in February 2005, reopened at a new location with a concert this week, to a mixed reaction by fans. One fan described the club as a “nightmare,” complaining in her blog about poor sound quality, the absence of proper ventilation and even locks on the toilet doors. 
A concert held on Monday was dedicated to what would have been Kurt Cobain’s 39th birthday, but according to the club, the “real” opening will take place sometime in mid-March. By then managers said, the place’s second floor with a large concert room and bar, with windows looking out onto nearby gardens, will open.
Orlandina is located on 5/2 Naberezhnaya Reki Karpovki, 10 minutes from Petrogradskaya metro station. Call 234-8046 for more information.
The Sparks will perform in Russia, but sadly, not in St. Petersburg. The American band centering around two brothers, vocalist Russell Mael and keyboard player Ron Mael, will perform two concerts at B2 club in Moscow on Sunday and Monday.
Although the Sparks have changed direction toward somewhat less-inspired dance music, some of their 1970s albums such “Kimono My House” and “Propaganda” (both from 1974) have become classics.
The artists that the Sparks influenced include Morrissey, a hugely influential figure in his own right. An early fan, the then 15-year-old Morrissey wrote in a letter to the New Musical Express about the Sparks in June 1974: “Today I bought the album of the year, I feel I can say this without expecting several letters saying I’m talking rubbish.”
It is most likely that the local leg of Season Noir, the series of concerts by Marc Almond, Barry Adamson and Anthony and the Johnsons, as well as a one-man performance called “Rede / Speech” by Einsturzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld, will not happen, according to promoters. 
The Moscow part seems to be falling apart at the same time, as only Almond has so far confirmed, the Moscow-based promoter Greenwave Music said this week. While Adamson and Anthony and the Johnsons still could happen (the promoters are still waiting for confirmation for the both acts), Bargeld has definitely canceled.

TITLE: A very merry Falstaff
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Director Kirill Serebrennikov’s opera debut at the Mariinsky Theater takes on Verdi’s ribald comedy and sides with its eponymous hero.
Showing sympathy for the eponymous rascal of “Falstaff,” first-time opera director Kirill Serebrennikov, the enfant terrible of Moscow’s theater scene, has turned Shakepeare’s merry wives into a gang of stylish and heartless battle-axes.
Serebrennikov’s engaging production of Guiseppe Verdi’s last opera, based on “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and “Henry IV,” premiered at the Mariinsky Theater last Wednesday.
“Falstaff” was first staged at Milan’s La Scala 1893. It’s central character is the aging lothario Sir John Falstaff, who features in several Shakespeare plays. 
In the opera, Falstaff (Viktor Chernomortsev) sends identical love letters to Alice Ford (Oksana Shilova) and Meg Page (Yelena Sommer). The two ladies, who happen to know each other, discover this cheeky trick and plan revenge. 
Mistress Quickly (Mzia Nioradze) urges Falstaff to court Alice, while Alice’s husband (Alexander Gergalov) disguises himself as her unhappy admirer “Fontana” and comes to Falstaff to convince the ladies’ man to seduce Alice. Ford’s daughter Nannetta (Lyudmila Dudinova) is in love with Fenton (Andrei Ilyushnikov) but engaged to Dr. Cajus (Nikolai Gassiyev) as her parents prefer the wealthy doctor to the humble Fenton.
Alice receives Falstaff in her house, and when Meg arrives, Sir John finds refuge in a laundry basket — only to be thrown out with the arrival of “Fontana.”
Mistress Quickly persuades Falstaff to meet Alice in Windsor Forest, where the long-suffering man gets pinched, punched, tickled and pricked by Alice, Meg and the rest of the crowd pretending to be “evil spirits.” Nannetta and Fenton use this masquerade to get married. And after all masks are removed, Falstaff is relieved to see that many other people were similarly fooled.
Serebrennikov’s production balances on the verge of misogyny: Alice, Meg and Mistress Quickly, like empty-headed dolls, pull their lips and meticulously plan vicious revenge as they get their nails and hair done in a beauty salon. 
The director contrasts Falstaff’s emotional spontaneity with the womens’ mean, cold-blooded callousness. Their vendetta appears shallow, and the audiences are likely to sympathize with Falstaff.
Chernomortsev’s Falstaff is an aging charmer. A big man with a big heart who just can’t help falling for too many women and who throws himself into romances without giving thought to the consequences. Vocally and dramatically, Chernomortsev was overwhelmingly convincing.
The main challenge of this opera is its ensemble pieces. The cast navigated safely through the pitfalls, and the orchestra, under the baton of Mariinsky Theater artistic director Valery Gergiev, barnstormed confidently through the score.
The opera’s crowd scenes appear to have been most difficult for the director. The finale, choreographed by ballet master Alla Sigalova, was disappointing. Fashioned to resemble an S&M fetish party, complete with whips, lashes, leather corsets and masks, it lacked a consistent concept.
Falstaff, who should react violently to the tortures of the “evil spirits,”  instead receives passively an attack of quite merciful and not-very-energetic little pinches. 
The pizzicato of the score was felt only in the orchestra pit without much support on stage. Devils, ghosts and witches indulged in well-synchronized  dances and expressed little interest in their rotund captive instead of attacking Sir John like piranhas.
Having Falstaff fall unconscious in the last scene (the libretto has him smiling) amid the orchestra barreling along in major, is therefore perplexing.
Serebrennikov’s theater background served to the production’s advantage. 
The director plays with physicality and teases the audience in a deliciously provocative way. At the beginning of Act II, the corpulent and imposing Chernomortsev pampers himself in a bath tub overflowing with foam, exposing his chest and belly. At the end of Act II, the audience watches, hearts ticking with anticipation, as the laundry basket containing the mighty Sir John — lifted in the air by a crane — approaches a large window. In a theatrical fashion, Serebrennikov introduces pantomime characters. Pot-bellied devils, restless and frivolous, fidget around Falstaff every now and then.
To Serebrennikov’s credit, he has succeeded in creating a lively visual spectacular, without overplaying the comic note. The director is sophisticated  in his allusions to the opera’s subtext about the nouveau riche. Avoiding direct parallels with inhabitants of Moscow’s millionaire district Rublyovka, Serebrennikov opts for a retro link instead.
In Act III, a glamorous black vintage Ford carrying Nannetta and her beloved Fenton stands still, and its movement is shown by dozens of body guards, Cosa Nostra style, waving Nannetta’s scarf in the air.

“Falstaff” will next be performed at the Mariinsky Theater on March 28. 
www. mariinsky.ru

TITLE: Caged in
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The National Center for Contemporary Art has put on an exhibition by Vitaly Pushnitsky that shows he is one of the few St. Petersburg artists who is establishing a new face for the local contemporary art scene by making it visible and specific. 
Belonging to the young generation, Pushnitsky uses very different media and equally skillful in all of them. The new exhibition, at the State Hermitage Museum’s educational center, features a good selection of the artist’s photographs and a couple of mixed-media installations that are based on associative principles and very picturesque — something quite unusual for installation art. But these are not the highlight of the show.
A remarkable preoccupation evident in the artist’s body of work is the problem of metaphorical “space” around painting — either social or historical — and this is developed interestingly in the current exhibition. 
The first expression of this theme was presented by Pushnitsky in his project at the First International Moscow biennale in 2005 when he showed paintings enclosed in cages. 
In his next piece “Iron Age” now on show, Pushnitsky develops the  idea on a polysemantic level. The main object of the exhibition is a construction in which the artist’s paintings (from his “Mirror” series of 1998-2002), “Clouds” (2006) as well as his graphic series “Voyage” (2004-06) have been placed in a huge metal cage. 
To be precise, the paintings have been hung along the rectangular perimeter of the cage facing the inside. The viewer cannot pass the bars and can only observe fragments of the works from outside. This paradoxical piece could equally mean that art always lives in an autonomous, hermetic space, or is constantly hostage to a certain social or historical situation. 

The Iron Age runs through March 5 at the Hermitage educational center, Moika 45. www.ncca-spb.ru

TITLE: A Danish revolution
AUTHOR: By Martin Burlund
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Ugly Duckling
Tel: 323 8222
22 Ulitsa Gavanskaya
Dinner for two with alcohol, 1,650 rubles ($58)
As far out as the idea of dining out on Danish cuisine in St. Petersburg might seem, that is not as far as the location of the city’s only Danish-owned restaurant. 
“The Ugly Duckling” was established near the coastal end of Vasilyevsky Island six years ago to provide the city with genuine Danish smœrrebrœd (open sandwiches) and other specialties.
Since the nearest metro is kilometers away, it is imperative on winter days to find alternative public transport or a car to get to the restaurant. But there are lots of parking spaces near the restaurant, which is named after the misunderstood baby swan in Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale.
Thankfully the establishment, which brightens up a corner on Ulitsa Gavanskaya, is not plastered with icons from children’s stories, but is decorated like a krostue (a Danish hotel-restaurant combo).
This Germanic style featuring wooden booths means that a party of two to six people are able to consume rye bread curiosities in seclusion. 
The walls parade a kitsch gallery of Danish cities and churches. As at parties in Denmark, an elderly musician sits next to the entrance to create the peculiar mood of a suppe, steg og is celebration (“soup, roast and ice cream”) familiar to Danes everywhere. 
If at this point the Andersen altar hasn’t caught your attention and you missed the enormous red-and-white flag at the entrance, the menu, available in English, will leave you in no doubt that you are about to try Danish cuisine — and the dishes are certainly worthy of a Viking.
Although it skips over the Vikings’ murderous past, the menu starts by explaining why Denmark never had a revolution. That is “because every night at 5 p.m. everybody goes home to have dinner.” This could also be the restaurant’s motto because at 9 p.m. the place was completely empty.
Nevertheless the diversity of smœrrebrœd on offer is nothing short of revolutionary. These dishes, based on rye bread or toast, are pricy at $10-$15. But faced with an open sandwich with eel, with spinach and eggs (355 rubles, $12.45) or smoked salmon with dill (310 rubles, $10.90), your taste buds will surrender quicker than France. 
Even more satisfying are the dishes listed under “traditional Danish meals.” Bœf med lœg (320 rubles, $11.20) is the Danish version of minced steak topped with onions covered with a fried egg served with small potatoes, traditional brown sauce and surt (pickled beetroot and cucumber). Other dishes feature frikadeller (meatballs) with cold potato salad, pork medallion and homemade pate. 
If one does not dare to explore the Danish side of the menu, it is also possible to choose international a la carte dishes. This will increase the price to more than 500 rubles a dish, and this part of the menu even features duck to be true to the restaurant’s name. 
It was difficult to ignore the mouth-watering dessert card with listings of cheeses and sweets like pancakes and homemade apple pie. At The Ugly Duckling pancakes come in different varieties — Mexican-style with chicken, as a main course, or with plain ice cream (205 rubles, $7.20) or camembert and forest berry jam (215 rubles, $7.55) — as a dessert.
The chef is Russian, which makes it all the more remarkable that he has been able to make the dishes “as Danish” as they are supposed to be. The food tastes genuinely Danish, and the explanation is that the owner imports meats and other items from his home country.
If the food of Denmark is the missing piece in your European culinary puzzle, flee from the city center and spend an evening at The Ugly Duckling to discover that the Scandinavian country not only tells fairy tales but provides superb food.
However, an obvious minus mark goes to the restaurant’s selection of beer. 
Denmark is notorious for its lager and it is simply not on the menu at Ugly Duckling. Although most of St. Petersburg acknowledged the great Danes of world brewing Carlsberg and Tuborg long ago, the city’s only Danish restaurant serves Heineken (a Dutch brand brewed in Russia) and Guinness (an Irish brand also brewed in Russia) at 125 rubles ($4.40) for half a liter.

TITLE: Bin Laden Says George Bush is as Bad As Saddam Hussein, Vows to Stay Free
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO, Egypt — Osama bin Laden vowed never to be captured alive and said the U.S. military had become as “barbaric” as Saddam Hussein in an audiotape reposted on a militant Islamic web site after first being broadcast last month. 
In the tape posted on the web site Monday, bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaida terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil. The tape was initially broadcast Jan. 19 on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel.
Islamic militant web forums often repost messages from al-Qaida leaders to ensure sympathizers can see them. U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that last month’s tape was of bin Laden — making it his first message in more than a year.
“I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don’t want to die humiliated or deceived,” bin Laden said, in the 11-minute, 26-second tape.
In drawing the comparison to American military behavior in Iraq to that of Saddam, he said:
“The jihad [holy war] is ongoing, thank God, despite all the oppressive measures adopted by the U.S. Army and its agents [which has reached] a point where there is no difference between this criminality and Saddam’s criminality.”
Bin Laden also denied Bush administration assertions that it was better to fight terrorists in Iraq than on U.S. soil.
“The reality shows that the war against America and its allies has not been limited to Iraq as he [Bush] claims. Iraq has become a point of attraction and restorer of [our] energies,” he said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Soldier Death Toll
BAGHDAD (AP) — As of last Sunday, at least 2,273 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The figure includes six military civilians. At least 1,781 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.
The AP count is three people lower than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday.
The British military has reported 101 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, one death each.

65 Miners Trapped
SAN JUAN DE SABINAS, Mexico (AP) — Emergency crews using picks, shovels and their hands tunneled feverishly through dirt, wood, metal and rock on Monday in an attempt to reach 65 coal miners trapped by a gas explosion 600 feet underground. 
Officials said that while it was unlikely the miners were still alive, there was still a chance of finding survivors.
Above ground, priests and pastors led hundreds of the miners’ friends and relatives in prayer for the men trapped by Sunday morning’s explosion at the Pasta de Conchos mine near the town of San Juan de Sabinas, 85 miles southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.

Pope Talks Cartoons
VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI stepped into the furore caused by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed for the first time with an appeal for mutual respect for the world’s religions.
The pope’s comments, made in French while speaking to Morocco’s new ambassador to the Vatican, were his first public remarks about the controversy over the set of 12 Danish cartoons.
“In the current international context, the Catholic Church remains convinced that to encourage peace and understanding between peoples and individuals it is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols be respected, and that the faithful not be subjected to provocations injuring their outlook and religious feelings,” he said.

TITLE: Rosenborg Not Scared By Zenit
AUTHOR: By Martin Burlund
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Rosenborg BK coach Per-Mathias Hœgmo remains optimistic about his team’s chances for advancement in the UEFA Cup after a bruising clash with FC Zenit St. Petersburg in the first leg in Trondheim last week.
Although he admits the Norwegian team’s performance was poor, he is confident Rosenborg will prevail and win by at least two goals in Thursday’s second-leg at St. Petersburg’s Petrovsky Stadium.
Hœgmo told The St. Petersburg Times that he would not make radical changes to the line-up, which lost 2-0 to Zenit at Lerkendal Stadium last week. Hœgmo said his team has the ability to perform miracles at away games. 
“We won 3-1 away against Olympiacos in the Champions League. Of course we can do it again,” Hœgmo said by telephone from Norway on Monday.
Zenit coach Vlastimil Petrzela said Rosenborg present the strongest challenge Zenit has yet faced in the UEFA Cup, but reckons that his team is the better of the two.
“We managed to show our best side in the first leg, and it became clear that our players are of better quality than Rosenborg’s,” Petrzela told The St. Petersburg Times through a translator Tuesday. 
“I would say we have a 99 percent chance of advancing.”
Zenit has won all three of its previous matches against Norwegian sides with a scoreline of 2-0. That score is given as the odds-on lowest outcome of Thursday’s match at www.gamebookers.com.

TITLE: Austria in the Spotlight After Police Stage Doping Raids
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TURIN, Italy — Italian police carried out an anti-doping search on quarters near the Austrian cross-country coaches’ base at the Winter Olympics on Monday night, an Italian police source said on Tuesday. 
Police searched quarters at the Pragelato cross-country skiing base in the Italian Alps where banned Austrian coach Walter Mayer stayed at the weekend.
“We searched the house where Mayer stayed. Nothing was found,” the source said. 
Mayer visited Austrian athletes at the Winter Olympics in Italy despite a ban after a blood doping scandal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. 
His visit spurred an Italian police raid on the Austrian biathlon and cross-country athletes’ quarters on Saturday. Ten athletes were taken for urine tests and police found used medical equipment including syringes. 
The Austrian Skiing Federation’s director of cross-country and biathlon, Markus Gandler, told Austrian state television ORF that he had rented the searched place for a “private citizen” accompanying the Austrian team. 
“This has nothing to do with the [National Olympic Committee] or the [Austrian Skiing Federation], this was rented for private citizen,” Gandler said. He added that he had rented the quarter in Pragelato Plan. 
“This place was searched yesterday,” Gandler added. “Nothing was found.”
The fresh search angered Otto Jung, the coach of Austrian cross-country skier Martin Stockinger. 
“I had dinner in a pizzeria and when I came home it looked as if a bomb had hit the place,” Austrian news agency APA quoted Jung as telling a group of Austrian journalists. 
“Cupboards were thrown open, bags were emptied, things destroyed.” 
APA also quoted the skiing federation’s Gandler as saying: “What they are doing with us here is a scandal.” He said the federation’s president, Peter Schroecksnadel, would hold a news conference later in the day. 
But at the ski venue of Sestriere, Austrian Olympic Committee secretary general Heinz Jungwirth said the search was a routine procedure, but declined to give further details of the operation.

TITLE: East Wins, Stars Shine in NBA Spectacular
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HOUSTON, Texas — Even down by 21 points, the Detroit Pistons’ Fab Four plus LeBron James were still in the game. A push from the Pistons, an MVP performance by King James and a putback by Dwayne Wade helped the East rally for a 122-120 victory over the West in an NBA All-Star game that went down to the final seconds Sunday night.
“We didn’t want to get blown out on national TV,” James said. “All in all, this is a game and we just want to have fun, but you know we’re all competitors and our competitive nature kicked in at one point.”
The East pulled it out in a frantic final minute that felt more like a game that mattered than an exhibition.
“I thought, especially for our league, the fourth quarter was a great quarter,” said East coach Flip Saunders of the Pistons. “They saw a little bit about what NBA basketball is about: great plays by great players.”
With the score tied, Allen Iverson was off-target on a jumper, but Wade darted into the lane for the rebound and the go-ahead basket with 16 seconds left.
Still, the East didn’t wrap it up until hometown hero Tracy McGrady of the Houston Rockets missed a jumper with the clock ticking down. Kobe Bryant then had the ball slip out of his hands for a turnover, and it hardly mattered that Vince Carter missed a breakaway dunk on the other end just before the buzzer.
McGrady led all players with 36 points. The 21-year-old James, in his second midseason showcase, scored 29 and became the youngest All-Star MVP.
“It was more impressive that we came from, at one point, 21 points down and willed ourselves to a win,” James said.
Detroit teammates Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace and Richard Hamilton, all selected as reserves from the team with the league’s best record, came off the bench together to help the East rally.
“I talked to the guys at halftime and basically said that we were not as competitive,” Saunders said. “I thought that the second half they played exceptionally well. In these types of games, it takes a lot of time to get used to playing with guys. Every guy did something in a very positive way.”
The West took a 74-53 lead 2 minutes into the third quarter. But the East responded with a 28-13 run over the next 6 minutes as James scored 13 points.
“You could definitely see the game change when (the Pistons) were all out there together,” West center Tim Duncan said.
Led by Billups’ 15 points and seven assists, the Pistons combined to score 23 points, grab 14 rebounds and dish out 10 assists. Defensive ace Ben Wallace added three steals and blocked two shots.
“They were in sync,” West coach Avery Johnson said. “It really shows how great a team sport basketball can be when you have everybody on the same page.”
The East grabbed a 117-107 lead with 3:29 to go. The West made it 120-all on Bryant’s fadeaway jumper with 32 seconds remaining.
That set up the final sequence. After McGrady missed, Bryant lost the ball and Rasheed Wallace grabbed it with 5 seconds left.
McGrady claimed he was fouled by James on his final shot.
Had McGrady hit the tying jumper, he might have beaten out James for MVP honors. McGrady thanked his West teammates for trying to help him win the award at home.
“That was the whole strategy,” he said. “Obviously, those guys did a great job. First of all, just their kindness to want to get me the MVP. It was there if we would have won the game.”
McGrady said the game provided a respite from the undisclosed personal problems that have bothered him in recent weeks.