SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1167 (33), Friday, May 5, 2006
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Britain, France Make Iran Resolution
AUTHOR: By Nick Wadhams
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS — Over Chinese and Russian opposition, Western nations circulated a UN Security Council resolution that would demand that Iran abandon uranium enrichment or face the threat of unspecified further measures, a possible reference to sanctions. 
Britain and France, backed by the United States, hope to wrap up negotiations on the legally binding resolution before a meeting of foreign ministers in New York on Monday. 
However, diplomats acknowledged that resistance from China and Russia may prolong talks well beyond that. 
The resolution, presented Wednesday, is the latest in weeks of negotiations over how to confront suspicions about Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes. 
The United States and France accuse the country of secretly trying to build nuclear weapons. 
“Once again, the key to this lies in Iran’s hands,” U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said. “If they give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons, a lot of things are possible. If they continue to bluster and to threaten and obfuscate and try to throw sand in our eyes, then we’re onto a different circumstance.” 
The resolution mandates that Iran suspend enrichment and warns the council would “consider such further measures as may be necessary to ensure compliance” — language that opens the door to sanctions. 
It calls on Iran to stop construction of a heavy-water reactor and demands that nations “exercise vigilance” in blocking the transfer of goods and technology that could help Iran’s uranium reprocessing and missile programs. The council would also seek a report back from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Iran’s compliance. 
No timeframe has been set for that report but France’s UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said he wanted it no later than early June. 
The resolution was written under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which makes any demands mandatory and allows for the use of sanctions — and possibly force — if they are not obeyed. Any sanctions would require another resolution. 
That could force a showdown with Russia, which has arms and technology deals with Iran, as well as China. Both nations have said they adamantly oppose tough council action, including sanctions, and the two could use their veto power on the council to block it. 
“I don’t think this draft as it stands now will produce good results,” China’s UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said as he emerged from the Security Council meeting where the draft was introduced. “I think it’s tougher than expected.” 
The resolution was drafted by Britain, France and Germany, the three European Union nations that have led negotiations with Iran. Ambassadors said discussions between the three EU nations, the United States, China and Russia were only beginning over the resolution. 
Ambassadors said the Chapter 7 element was the core of the resolution, suggesting that other language, like the threat of further measures and blocking technology transfers, could be scrapped. 
“On the strategic objective, there’s nothing between the six of us. We do not want to see an Iran with a nuclear weapon capability,” Britain’s Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry said. “On the detail of the resolution, there have been exchanges of views and those will continue.” 
President Bush has stressed that the United States will continue to focus on diplomacy. But he refuses to rule out military action if necessary. 
When asked last month if the United States would consider “the possibility of a nuclear strike” if Tehran refuses to halt uranium enrichment, Bush replied, “All options are on the table.” 
Russia, a firm opponent of the resolution, was clearly wary that some language in the new draft could be seen as opening the door to military action. 
That would likely include the reference to “further measures.” 
“We do not believe the matter can be resolved by use of force, so that does reflect in our attitude to various possibilities in the text of the resolution,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said. 
Wang said he also opposed language that refers to the “proliferation risks presented by the Iranian nuclear program” and “the threat to international peace and security.” 
Last month, the Security Council issued a nonbinding statement that Iran comply with previous demands to abandon enrichment, which can also be used to make the fissile core of nuclear weapons. That statement asked for a report from IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei in 30 days on Iran’s compliance. 
As had been widely expected, ElBaradei issued a report Friday saying Iran had not complied, laying the groundwork for Wednesday’s resolution.

TITLE: Airplane Disaster Cause Unclear
AUTHOR: By Mike Eckel
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SOCHI, Russia — Boats laden with bodies sailed into the palm-fringed harbor of this resort Wednesday, carrying an Armenian airliner’s orange tail section and the remains of some of the 113 people who died when the plane tumbled into the Black Sea. 
The plane went down about 2:15 a.m. in heavy rain and poor visibility as it was approaching the airport in Adler, about 18 kilometers south of this city wedged between the sea and soaring snowcapped mountains. Most of the dead were Armenians. 
“I’ve lost my sweetheart, my son!” Anait Bagusian, 50, wailed at Zvartnots Airport in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, from which Armavia Airlines Flight 967 originated. Doctors hovered nearby because she swooned several times. 
Authorities were investigating the cause of the crash as divers attempted to retrieve the Airbus A-320’s recorders from the deep, wave-chopped site about 6 kilometers offshore. 
A spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General’s office, Nataliya Vishnyakova, dismissed the possibility of terrorism. Other officials pointed to the rough weather or pilot error as the likely cause. It is difficult even under normal conditions to land at the airport, which can be approached only from the sea. 
Salvage ships battled stiff winds and heavy seas to try to recover bodies and fragments of the plane, which was leased by Armavia, Armenia’s largest airline. By evening, 47 bodies had been brought into the port and taken to morgues for identification. 
Outside one morgue, about 100 people stood grimly, rushing forward every time a truck carrying remains pulled up to the gates. They waited for any word of identified bodies from coroners. 
“Tell me anything. Anything! I know nothing now!” said a teary-eyed ethnic Armenian man who gave his name only as Zaghar, reflecting the wide distrust of authorities within Sochi’s large Armenian community. 
Zaghar said he had flown to Sochi from Moscow, where he works as a businessman, and had invited his mother and father in Armenia to join him for a fishing vacation. 
“I sent for them! I sent them money to fly here so we could vacation together! And look what happened!” the 49-year-old said, shaking his hands at the sky, his eyes welling up with tears. 
A 47-year-old man who gave his name only as Misha said his brother, sister-in-law and nephew had also been aboard the plane. 
“The women are all home crying. The men are all standing here waiting. What else can we do?” he said. 
Transport Minister Igor Levitin said the body of a child was the only passenger identified with certainty and that identifying the others would be difficult. 
At Zvartnots Airport in Armenia, Samvel Oganesian said his 23-year-old son, Vram, and his friend Hamlet Abgarian had been heading to Sochi for a vacation. 
“Why did he go?” Oganesian asked in anguish, over and over again. 
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian President Robert Kocharian declared Friday a day of mourning in both countries. 
The airline said 26 Russians, one Ukrainian and one Georgian were among the passengers, while the rest were Armenian citizens. But Interfax cited Armenian civil aviation spokesman Gayane Davtian as saying no Georgians or Ukrainians were aboard. The passengers included the airline’s deputy general director, Vyacheslav Yaralov, the airline said. 
The plane broke up on impact, and passengers’ personal belongings and plane fragments were found scattered over an area spreading a mile from the crash site. 
There were conflicting statements about the events leading to the crash. 
Emergency ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said the plane disappeared from radar screens while trying to make a repeat attempt at an emergency landing. However, Interfax quoted the Russian air control agency as saying the plane’s crew had not declared any emergency. 
Armavia deputy commercial director Andrei Agadzhanov said in Yerevan that the crew had communicated with ground controllers while the plane was flying over the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The ground controllers said the weather in Adler was poor but the plane could still land, Agadzhanov said. Just before the landing, however, the ground controllers told the crew to circle in the air again before approaching the airport and then it crashed. 
Agadzhanov said the crew was highly experienced, the airplane was in good condition and that weather conditions were “certainly” the cause. The plane was manufactured in 1995 and underwent full-scale servicing a year ago, he said. A statement from Airbus said the plane had logged more than 28,200 flight hours. 
Airlines in former Soviet countries wracked up a grisly record of crashes in the 1990s, following the whittling off of much of Soviet monopoly carrier Aeroflot into hundreds of regional airlines plagued by scant money, aging equipment and cavalier disregard for safety. They often flew badly overloaded. In an infamous 1994 case, 75 people were killed in a crash reportedly caused by the pilot’s allowing his teenage son to take the controls. 
In recent years, crashes from equipment failure or pilot error have declined sharply.

TITLE: Kremlin Employs Western PR Agency
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Kremlin has hired a leading Western public relations firm to improve foreign media coverage of the July Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg — an unprecedented step for Russia. 
Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov said the government had decided to employ a multi-agency team led by U.S.-based firm Ketchum in order to more effectively get across its message to Western media. 
“The idea is to improve our communications strategy using the experience of a Western PR agency. In Russia, we are preparing seriously for the G8 summit,” he said. 
Russia, which was admitted to the club of leading industrialized nations in 2002, is chairing the G8 for the first time this year, cementing its status as a leading global power. 
But Russia has come under heavy Western criticism for measures that tighten control over nongovernmental organizations and are seen as part of a general trend of democratic backsliding, with some U.S politicians even calling for Moscow to be expelled from the G8. 
It also faced questions about its reliability as an energy supplier after cutting off gas to Ukraine in a New Year’s dispute that also disrupted deliveries to Europe, which gets 25 percent of its gas from Russia. 
“We’re under no illusions about this job,” said Jon Higgins, chief executive of Ketchum Europe, Canada’s Globe and Mail reported Wednesday. “It’s going to be intense.” 
Ketchum said the task would be to ensure a high level of logistical and communications support at the summit and to promote the Russian G8 presidency’s three priority issues — energy security, combating the spread of infectious diseases and improving education. 
Ketchum’s clients include U.S firms Kodak, Pepsi, FedEx, and Procter and Gamble. It said it had won the Kremlin contract along with European PR agency GPlus and Gavin Anderson in Japan. 
Ketchum’s office in London will co-ordinate the work, drawing on expertise from its regional offices and affiliates in Russia, Germany, Canada, the United States and elsewhere, the Globe and Mail said.
A senior Kremlin official, Dmitry Peskov, was quoted as saying by Vedomosti on Tuesday that the Ukraine gas conflict showed the need to sharpen Russia’s PR skills. 
“We explained our point of view then, but no one listened to us. Maybe if we had worked then with a major PR agency, it would have all turned out differently,” he said. 
Former Kremlin deputy chief of staff Alexei Volin said the decision to seek Western assistance was remarkable. 
“This is the first time that Russia at a government level has decided to employ a major Western PR company, although Russian business has been doing this for a long time already,” he told Vedomosti. 
But he warned that even a slick PR drive would not overcome critical foreign media coverage “because of the inability of most Russian officials to communicate with the media.”
(AP, SPT)

TITLE: City Parliament Reviews Policy on Stray Animals
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new, long-awaited law on domestic animals is being reviewed by the city’s Legislative Assembly. The document, if passed, will put an end to the ongoing practice of night raids aimed at catching and exterminating stray domestic animals. The review will last for several months and the parliament is expected to make a decision before the end of the year.
According to Yury Andreyev, St. Petersburg’s chief veterinary surgeon, of a total of 250,000 dogs in the city, 10,000 are homeless. Independent experts estimate the figure is at least twice as high. According to the Baltic Care for Animals charity organization (BCA), between 4,000 and 6,000 dogs are killed every year by various local authorities. 
Igor Rimmer, deputy head of the Judicial Commission of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly welcomed the move, saying it is high the issue was tackled.
Many environmentalists agree that the most efficient and humane strategy for controlling the population of stray animals in large cities is sterilization — a system not yet used in St. Petersburg, despite several statements from Governor Valentina Matviyenko endorsing the policy. 
The BCA has been carrying out 100 sterilization operations per month for the past three years. 
Although City Hall adopted a sterilization plan for stray animals in September 2005, no funding has yet been allocated.
The law calls for stronger punishments for dog owners who unleash their pets in local parks and gardens.
“There are too many irresponsible people walking their dogs without a leash and a muzzle,” Rimmer said at a news conference in Rosbalt News Agency this week. 
Svetlana Mirolyubova, an advisor with the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, concurred.
“Dogs, regardless of their size or breed, have to be legally acknowledged as a high source of danger,” Mirolyubova told online news resource Fontanka.ru last week. “This way the owners won’t be able to escape responsibility if their pets attack someone, be it indoors or outdoors.”
Unlike in Western Europe, in Russia there is no history of legislation covering stray or domestic animals. A federal law passed by the State Duma in 1999 was vetoed by ex-president Boris Yeltsin on the grounds that the document “was lacking a subject.” The Moscow City Duma has been debating the issue for the past three years without any tangible results.
Rimmer recommended studying Western experience of special police task forces dealing with crimes committed against animals. According to statistics collected by the Moscow-based Serbsky Institute for Forensic Psychiatry, 85 percent of prisoners serving terms for murders and other severe crimes were reported as having tortured animals.
The law also suggests the allocation of budget funds for the construction of shelters and cemeteries for stray animals.
At present, there are no state-run shelters for lost or stray animals in St. Petersburg. The several small shelters funded by local charities that do exist are unable to deal with the scale of the problem.

TITLE: Black Sea Fleet Talks Mar Relations With Ukraine
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian and Ukrainian diplomats on Thursday argued over bases and other facilities used by the Russian navy in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, saying that tense talks have failed to bring their positions closer. 
Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ogryzko accused Russia of being reluctant to discuss the Ukrainian push for an inventory of the Black Sea Fleet. 
The proposal is a key part of Ukraine’s efforts to review a 1997 agreement that allowed the Russian navy to remain in the Crimean port of Sevastopol until 2017. 
“We can’t accept the tactics of dragging out the talks,” Ogryzko told reporters after talks with his Russian counterpart, Grigory Karasin. He said Ukraine believes Russia has violated parts of the 1997 agreement, but did not provide specifics. 
After Russia raised the price for natural gas supplies to Ukraine this year, Ukrainian officials suggested that the annual rent of US$93 million (euro74 million) the Russian navy was paying under the 1997 agreement should also be increased. 
Earlier this year, Ukrainian officials suggested that the price should reflect market rates, warning it could increase up to 20 times to US$1.8 billion (euro1.4 billion). Russia insisted that Ukraine does not have the right to demand a rent hike. 
Ogryzko said negotiators did not discuss the issue Thursday, but he reaffirmed Ukraine’s push for higher rent. 
“We are switching to a market basis in our relations and, naturally, all aspects of our relations should change accordingly,” he said. “If we have market conditions in one area, we cannot lack them in another sector.” 
Thursday’s talks between diplomats and experts were the second round this year, after a February meeting. “We regret to say that we haven’t scored any significant progress since then,” Ogryzko said. 
Karasin said that Thursday’s talks had highlighted “stark differences” but said more talks should lead to a solution. 
Ukraine also has demanded that Russia surrender lighthouses and other property along the Crimean coast that Ukraine claims is not part of the fleet agreement. 
Moscow says it is entitled to use the lighthouses, and it protested vociferously when Ukraine took over a lighthouse in the port of Yalta in January.

TITLE: Georgian Leader Slams Russia
AUTHOR: By Karl Ritter
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VILNIUS, Lithuania — Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Thursday accused Russia of trying to undermine national sovereignty and economic growth in the fledgling democracies emerging from the former Soviet empire. 
Saakashvili warned that democratic advances in Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltic countries since the collapse of communism were under threat from Moscow, which he said suffered from “imperial nostalgia.” 
“Freedom is under threat,” Saakashvili told a forum of Baltic and Black Sea leaders in the Lithuanian capital. “Political forces in Moscow actively work to undermine our economies, our sovereignty, and even our system of governance.” 
Georgia, is heavily reliant on imports of cheap Russian natural gas, and Saakashivili accused Russia of using “new tools such as energy dependence, state censorship and the power of national monopolies” to bully its neighbors. 
“We still have imperial nostalgia around us,” Saakashivili said, also noting a recent Russian ban on imports of Georgian wine. 
Ties between Moscow and Tbilisi have cooled markedly since Saakashvili swept to power more than two years ago during Georgia’s Rose Revolution. 
Earlier Thursday, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accused Russia of restricting the rights of its citizens, and said “no legitimate interest is served” by turning energy resources into implements of blackmail. 
The presidents of Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland also attended the summit, sharing their experiences in democracy-building after the Soviet collapse. 
The countries are in different stages of integration with the West through membership in NATO and the European Union.

TITLE: Report: Racism Goes Untackled
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia is failing to tackle a rising tide of racially motivated killings, beatings and discrimination, human rights group Amnesty International said Thursday in a report that accused Russian authorities of “deadly tolerance” toward racism and xenophobia. 
The report details assaults — some of them deadly — against foreign students, asylum-seekers and refugees from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America; members of ethnic groups and migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia as well as members of the Jewish and Roma communities. 
Russia, which is chairing the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations and the Council of Europe rights body this year, was damaging its international reputation, the London-based rights group said. 
“Russia’s record on racism is incompatible with the country’s place on the international stage and undermines its standing in the world,” Amnesty secretary general Irene Khan said. 
“As a Council of Europe member about to take its chair, and head of the G8, Russia must comply with its obligations under international human rights law,” Khan said in a statement. 
In 2005 alone, racism played a role in the murders of 31 people and assault of 382 others, according to Russia’s Sova human rights center. In the first four months of this year, 14 people died in racist attacks and 99 were assaulted. 
Law enforcement authorities often classify attacks on minorities as simple “hooliganism” with no racial motivation, fueling the anger of Kremlin critics who say the government does little to stem hate crimes. 
“The Russian Federation’s stance on racially motivated attacks has evolved from blind indifference to deadly tolerance,” said Josh Rubenstein, Russia expert and director of Amnesty International USA’s Northeast regional office. 
Following terrorist attacks by militants linked to the separatist rebels in Chechnya, Chechens and members of other ethnic groups from the North Caucasus are particularly vulnerable to persecution, according to the report.

TITLE: Burger King Mulls Franchises
AUTHOR: By Maria Levitov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The world’s second-largest fast-food company, Burger King, is set to enter the Russian market, Vedomosti reported Wednesday, citing unidentified sources.
The Miami-based giant, which has more than 11,100 restaurants worldwide, is negotiating with several Russian companies that are interested in opening Burger King eateries here, Vedomosti reported, citing sources familiar with the situation.
Coffee-shop chain Shokoladnitsa is the top contender for purchasing a master franchise, which would allow it to open Burger King restaurants in Russia, a fast-food executive told the paper. About 90 percent of Burger King restaurants are operated by franchisees, according to the company’s web site.
Vladislav Lozitsky, general manager of Shokoladnitsa, which runs 49 cafes in Russia, declined to comment on the matter Wednesday. The chain, which reported 700 million rubles ($25.70 million) in turnover in 2005, plans to expand its network to 80 by the end of 2006, according to Lozitsky.
An unnamed Shokoladnitsa executive told Vedomosti that the Russian chain had held talks with Burger King. The terms were not disclosed during the meeting, the source said.
Burger King spokeswoman Lesly Hughes declined to comment on its Russia plans as the company is undergoing a quiet period after announcing plans to go public, she said by telephone from Britain on Wednesday.
The chain’s parent company, Burger King Holdings, said Tuesday that it planned to sell 25 million shares — around 19 percent of the company’s stock — at a price of up to $17 each, which would value Burger King at about $2.25 billion, The Associated Press reported.
Russia’s fast-food market is growing at a rate of more than 20 percent per year, which is comparable to China’s, Khamzat Khasbulatov, McDonald’s president in Russia and Eastern Europe, said earlier this year.
Average monthly per capita spending on eating out increased from $18.80 in 2004 to $23.60 in 2005, according to the results of a poll of Russian cities conducted by research company Comcon.
McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food chain, was the first Western chain to enter Russia. It opened its first outlet near Pushkin Square in Moscow in 1990. 
The U.S. giant plans to invest over $50 million in expanding and upgrading its network of 147 restaurants in Russia.
Another global fast-food brand, KFC, signed a partnership agreement with local fried chicken chain Rostik’s last summer. Some 96 Rostik’s eateries operating across Russia will become joint Rostik’s-KFC locations by 2007.

TITLE: Montblanc Too High for Officials
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: City architects want to suspend construction of an elite residential complex on the Neva embankment, citing its potential height as a threat to St. Petersburg’s historic panorama. Stoimontazh, the company in charge of the Montblanc residence, has denied the charges, saying it obtained all the necessary permissions. 
Last week the committee for town planning and architecture made the recommendation that Stroimontazh should build no higher than its current level of nearly 45 meters, Fontanka.ru news web site reported Tuesday. 
Fourteen out of the 24 planned floors have so far been completed, Ludmila Leshinskaya, press secretary of Stroimontazh, said by telephone Wednesday.
“Montblanc is supposed to reach a height of 70.6 meters. It will be the first and only building to reach such a height in the center,” Leshinskaya said.
The problem is that Montblanc is located in the central part of the city where, according to the current height regulations, buildings should not rise over 42 meters.
“This particular project was approved by the committee for town planning and architecture in 2003, before the height regulations were introduced,” Leshinskaya explained.
“We received all the necessary documents and approvals, and thus started construction,” she said, adding that the conflict was in no way the company’s fault.
City architects have said that they would ask the governor to step in and correct the “mistake” made by the committee three years ago, Fontanka reported.
The architects will ask Smolny to compensate Stroimontazh all financial losses.
“The committee can only make recommendations, they have no legal power with which to support their statements,” Leshinskaya said.
The company has already sold about 90 percent of apartments in the building, with a number of buyers arranging mortgages through Stoimontazh’s partner in the project, Sberbank.
“To stop construction would be difficult, because the interests of too many parties would be affected,” Leshinskaya said. 
 “The only things open for discussion is the look of the faÍade and the additional use of glass [as a decorative substitute for a monumental rooftop spire]  — which was proposed by the committee — but not the revision of the structure itself,” Leshinskaya said.
A lawyer said that the building’s legal title could come into question if it’s constructed without proper permits and approvals, or when it significantly violates town planning regulations.
“In the Montblanc dispute one of the major issues is determining whether the new height restrictions are applicable to constructions started before such stipulations came into effect,” said Pavel Loguinov, associate at DLA Piper in St. Petersburg.
“In this regard one should remember a basic principle of the law that new legislation adversely affecting individuals or legal entities shall have no retroactive effect. This principle is reflected in various laws, including the Russian Constitution,” he said.
However, Natalia Makarova, lawyer at Capital Legal Services International, said that in disputable cases the committee for town planning and architecture usually insists on the validity of the new regulations, something which provokes serious problems when trying to attain state approval for the project.
“The only efficient way to solve such problems is through the courts,” she said.
As for buyers’ rights, Makarova said that their agreements should have included paragraphs about ‘force majeur’ events that prevent the construction company from fulfilling its liabilities.
In such cases the buyers would only receive back their fees without any compensation, she said.

TITLE: Lithuania’s President Hits Back at Russia with Energy
AUTHOR: By Stefan Wagstyl
PUBLISHER: Financial Times
TEXT: President Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania has called for a common European Union front in response to Russia’s willingness to use its energy supplies to secure political influence over its neighbours.
Speaking to the Financial Times on the eve of an international pro-democracy conference in Vilnius, Adamkus condemned Germany for backing Russia’s controversial planned Baltic Sea gas pipeline, which will circumvent transit countries including the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland.
He said: “I believe I can understand the Russian position but I can’t understand Germany’s position. As a member of the EU, they acted without even extending the courtesy of advising the Baltic states [about their plans].”
Adamkus’s comments echoed those of Polish officials including Radek Sikorski, defence minister, who earlier this week compared the Baltic pipeline deal with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact — the secret German-Soviet agreement dividing up eastern Europe signed just before the second world war.
Although the 79-year-old Lithuanian president distanced himself from Sikorski’s rhetoric, he left no doubt that Warsaw’s concerns are shared by Vilnius, as they are by the EU’s other new member states in central Europe.
 “I don’t want to use the word blackmail,” said Adamkus in referring to Moscow’s efforts to extend its influence through energy policy, but he made clear he was very concerned about Russia’s economic and political pressure.
On Thursday Adamkus hosted a summit attended by Dick Cheney, the U.S. vice-president, and more than 20 European political leaders, including nine presidents of east European states. The conspicuous absentee is Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who was invited but — to nobody’s surprise in Vilnius — declined to accept. His absence will give Russia’s critics a chance to voice their complaints unhindered.
Adamkus, a former U.S. government official who returned to his native Lithuania in the 1990s, said the conference would highlight the region’s shared democratic values and emphasise the fact that this ideology extended much further than was often supposed - as far as the south Caucasus.
Adamkus said there were differences in interpreting democratic values between Russia and the west but he avoided any direct comment on what is widely seen in the west as Russia’s growing authoritarianism.
He urged EU leaders to support Lithuania’s bid to join the euro next year, saying the application should not be blocked because the country’s inflation rate missed the entry criteria by a “fraction of a percentage point.”
Vilnius is lobbying to be admitted alongside Slovenia on Jan. 1.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: St. Petersburg Credit
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — One of the Northwest’s largest private banks, the St. Petersburg Bank, has been offered a $30 million syndicated loan from the ABN AMRO bank, AK&M reported Wednesday.
The loan is for a period of one year, though may be extended. The annual interest rate includes LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) plus 2.4 percent.
The loan will be spent on trading and for corporate purposes, the bank said in a statement.
By Sept. 30, 2005 the St. Petersburg Bank had total assets of $964 million.

Vneshtorgbank Loan
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Vneshtorgbank has been granted a $600 million syndicated loan from a pool of 17 leading global banks, Vneshtorgbank said Thursday in a statement.
The three-year loan will be used refinance two previous syndicated loans of $600 million total value. The interest rate includes LIBOR plus 0.375 percent annually.

TITLE: U.S.’s Cheney Rebukes Russian ‘Blackmail’
AUTHOR: By Brendan Murray
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: VILNIUS — U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney rebuked Russia for rolling back democratic “gains of the past decade” and called on its state-controlled energy companies to stop intimidating nations in the region that need oil and natural gas to expand their economies.
“No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolize transportation,” Cheney said in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, where he’s attending a conference of Baltic and Black Sea countries.
The U.S. and Europe “want to see Russia in the category of healthy, vibrant democracies,’’ Cheney said in the speech. 
“Yet in Russia today, opponents of reform are seeking to reverse the gains of the past decade.’’
Russian President Vladimir Putin last month said political opposition in Europe may force Russia, the region’s biggest oil and gas supplier, to focus more on Asia, where economic expansion is increasing demand for fuel. European and U.S. politicians have expressed concern that Russian state-run Gazprom’s plans to expand in their gas markets will increase the region’s dependence on Russia.
Cheney said “in many areas of civil society’’ Russia has infringed on individual freedoms, including “from religion and the news media, to advocacy groups and political parties.’’ He said “other actions by the Russian government have been counterproductive, and could begin to affect relations with other countries.’’
Cheney’s comments were some of Washington’s harshest words for Moscow since U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took Russia’s “centralization of state power’’ to task in April 2005, a trend she called at the time “clearly very worrying.’’ 
Cheney’s remarks may not help U.S.-Russia relations, said Michael Heath, an analyst at Aton Capital Group in Moscow. 
“What the speech does is ratchet up the tension between Russia and the U.S. ahead of the G-8 summit,’’ Heath said. 
“The problem for the U.S. is that Russia has alternative options, like India and China, so the U.S. has little real leverage.’’
Leaders from the Group of Seven industrial countries, at a meeting hosted by Putin, 53, in St. Petersburg in mid-July, will try to persuade Russia to foster economic and political ties in the region, Cheney said.
“We will make the case, clearly and confidently, that Russia has nothing to fear and everything to gain from having strong, stable democracies on its borders and that by aligning with the West, Russia joins all of us on a course to prosperity and greatness,’’ Cheney said. “None of us believes that Russia is fated to become an enemy.’’
In the speech, Cheney also made a reference to what the U.S. views as Russian interference with neighboring separatist conflicts in Georgia and Moldova, saying “no one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor or interfere with democratic movements.’’ 
Cheney, 65, was U.S. Defense Secretary in the George H.W. Bush administration from 1989 to 1993, during the years of the Soviet empire’s collapse and the region’s initial steps away from communist rule and planned economies.
Russia “has a choice to make,’’ Cheney said, “and there is no question that a return to democratic reform in Russia will generate further success for its people and greater respect among fellow nations.’’
Cheney’s scolding of the Putin government came near the end of a speech devoted largely to encouraging Russia’s neighbors to embrace democracy and free markets. The U.S. vice president drew comparisons to the liberation of Eastern Europe from communism to the U.S.’s recent wars to oust repressive regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“The freedom movement is far from over and far from tired,’’ he said.
Officials from Poland, Lithuania and other Baltic countries and former Soviet republics have expressed concern that a Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea will leave the region’s developing economies without enough energy supply and at the mercy of Russian shipments.
“The Bush administration is increasingly concerned about growing Russian state control of the energy sector,’’ said Celeste Wallander, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. 
Russia is the world’s biggest natural-gas producer and second-biggest oil exporter and Putin is building state-run Rosneft and Gazprom into energy champions able to compete with Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest investor-owned oil company. 
The government increased its stake in Russia’s oil industry to about 30 percent of output last year, up from about 10 percent two years ago.
“There is, frankly, virtually nothing the U.S. can do about alleviating their concerns or addressing the fundamental problem of Kremlin control and use of energy in these non-transparent ways for wealth and power without a Europe that has gotten its act together,’’ she said.
Countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Georgia that need cheap energy to fuel their emerging economies are “very concerned’’ about the pressure Russia’s energy industry is applying, Wallander said.
“Without a common European policy, there is no chance for a common energy policy toward Russia, which would be necessary to create leverage,’’ Wallander said. Cheney “ought to be visiting Berlin, Rome, London and Paris if the U.S. wants a truly effective policy toward Russia to help to deal with the concerns of the countries he is visiting on this trip,’’ she said.
Cheney also called on the government in Belarus to release opposition leader Alyaksander Milinkevich, criticizing the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, as part of “the last dictatorship in Europe.’’
In Belarus, where Lukashenko’s election victory in March was deemed illegitimate by the U.S. and European countries, “a climate of fear prevails,’’ Cheney said.
Cheney’s trip to three countries in the region — he travels to Kazakhstan on Friday and Croatia on Saturday — comes at a time when the U.S., the U.K. and France are seeking Russian and Chinese support for a draft resolution demanding that Iran cease uranium enrichment or face sanctions should the government in Tehran fail to comply.

TITLE: Putin Approves Second National Airline Merger
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin approved the creation of a second national airline by combining five companies including KrasAir, Vedomosti reported Thursday, citing unidentified government officials.
Russia would have less than a controlling stake in the holding company, called AirUnion, which would include KrasAir, Domodedovo Airlines, Omskavia, Samara and Sibaviatrans, the newspaper reported, citing officials from the economy and transport ministries.
KrasAir General Director Boris Abramovich and companies connected with him would own the largest stake in the new company, the newspaper said. 
Abramovich was the architect of the plan, which is still opposed by Russia’s Federal Property Fund, the newspaper said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Nuclear Replacement 
KAZAN (Bloomberg) — Russia will replace all of its strategic nuclear submarines in the next five years, Itar-Tass reported, citing Russian navy chief Admiral Vladimir Masorin.
“The main strategy of the navy in the next five years is to create a more powerful, high-speed submarine fleet capable of using the latest Russian weapon, the Bulava rocket, in the defense of the state,’’ Masorin said Thursday at a shipbuilding plant in Kazan, central Russia, the news service reported.
 Russia’s new-generation Borey-class submarine, armed with “solid-fuel IBM Bulava rockets,” will be the mainstay of Russia’s strategic nuclear submarine fleet this century, state submarine designer Sevmash says on its Web site. 

Ukrainan Moat
KIEV (Bloomberg) — Ukraine is digging a 400-kilometer moat on its border with Russia to help fight smuggling, Interfax reported Monday, citing the Ukrainian Border Guard Service.
Nine kilometers (5.6 miles) of the 400-kilometer ditch has already been completed and the rest will be done by the end of the year, the Russian news service said. “Secret surveillance’’ posts are being erected to help authorities monitor traffic along the stretch, Interfax said.

EU Backs Poland 
WARSAW (Bloomberg) — Poland can count on the European Commission’s support for its fight against a Russian ban on Polish meat imports, Gazeta Wyborcza reported Thursday, citing European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
“If Russia wants to be treated as a serious and responsible member of the international trade community, it can’t treat its trading partners in this way,” said Mandelson in an interview with the Polish newspaper.
Russia stopped all imports of Polish meat in November after complaining of veterinary-code violations that included meat mislabeled to avoid paying higher taxes. Poland exported 37.5 million euros ($47 million) of meat to Russia last year.
Mandelson said he is considering what steps should next be taken and that the European Union supports the Polish government’s position “100 percent,” Gazeta reported.

Minimum Wage
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to consider increasing the minimum wage, which covers a third of the amount needed to keep a person above the poverty line, Kommersant said Thursday.
President Putin promised the government would look at the issue of the minimum wage in a meeting with Mikhail Shmakov, head of Russia’s Federation of Independent Unions, the daily Moscow-based newspaper said.
The minimum wage was raised in some Russian regions on May 1 to 1,100 rubles ($40.45) a month. It is estimated that 3,000 rubles a month are required to keep a person above the poverty line, the newspaper said.

TITLE: Tender Hysteria Over Victory Day
AUTHOR: By Josefina Lundblad
TEXT: It’s easy to laugh at Russia and the Russians when it comes to history. What other than a giggle can a country expect when it acknowledges only the sweeter bits from the cupboard of the past? How is an educated foreigner expected to swallow amusement when a state prefers legend to fact? 
I have chuckled at everything from Poltava to perestroika in my Russian life, and I shamelessly laughed out loud at their Victory Day for more than a year. On May 9, Russia celebrates a Communist victory over fascism and the end of the Great Patriotic War, what those further west call World War II and consider to have ended on May 8, 1945.
For me, since both my nationality and my youth have sheltered me from personal experience of the war, this is somewhat of a mystery. I, an openly naive Swede, thought such celebrations should only take up one day once a year. As always, the Russians go against the stream of the international crowd with a burningly passionate patriotism that makes more shy populations, such as mine, turn pale.
It all begins during the last week of April, when every town in all of Russia is decorated with flags of all sizes in white, blue and red, which are put up everywhere there is an available hook. Luckily for Omsk, my little Siberian town of a million inhabitants, the former regime left not only confusion but also hooks on every worn and torn concrete building. The customary everyday propaganda, such as “I love Omsk,” “I believe in my favorite town Omsk,” “Siberia is for a united Russia” and “Everything will be OK,” suddenly changes to “S dnyom Pobedy!” or Happy Victory Day! The phrase hits you in the face every time you turn a street corner. 
On the day of the occasion, every little village from Kalingrad to Magadan is no worse than my Omsk, dolled up and equipped with fireworks and beer and vodka in great quantities — in other words, ready to remember. Since May 9 is a day off, the remembrance starts in the morning, which is why there are few sober people left when the fireworks light up the sky in white, blue and red. 
Last year, Omsk turned into an amusement park on May 1 and remained so for two weeks. To me, the innocent foreigner, it was hard to make out Victory Day from all the other hot sunny Siberian spring days when everyone must drink one beer too many in the park. Of course the difference lies in the fireworks. Fireworks, the official as well as the private displays, keep going up and up and up until dawn breaks over a flat steppe covered with bottles in every color and shape. 
The celebration of last year’s Victory Day was bigger than usual, since the holiday was additionally adorned with the title of “60 Years of Victory.” This meant that all the central buildings here were repainted to give the impression of true success. This redecoration, however, was not only made in the spirit of the Soviet Union, but also with its quality. By August, the paint had started to peel, and Omsk was once again gray and worn when the first snows of winter fell. 
This year, there is no money for paint in the state budget, but in people’s pockets there is enough for vodka and fireworks, which is what matters most when the hangover of May 10 is to be graded.
But Victory Day is not simply a day. Victory Day is a concept, an occasion that seems more like a national or maybe state brand. Its influence and force in everyday reality can easily be measured by taking a walk through any average-size Russian town, where the image of Victory Day meets you everywhere. Here in Omsk, the new Metro Bridge was renamed the “60 Years of Victory Bridge” when it opened last fall, partly because there is, as yet, no existing metro. The biggest park is called Victory Park, and there are Victory Streets and countless Victory memorials that all, in one way or another, honor the triumph of the war. 
It was at this hysteria that I giggled heartlessly for almost an entire year, until I realized why this day has the overly tense feel that it has. The Soviet Union left very little behind that inspires joy, pride and patriotism, and maybe, out of 70 years, all that remains is one good day.

Josefina Lundblad is a poet and writer from Gothenburg, Sweden, and a student at the Omsk State Pedagogical University.

TITLE: One Main Reason To Be Scared
AUTHOR: By Masha Gessen
TEXT: It is probably the most abused quotation of all time: “When they came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.” It is attributed to German Pastor Martin NiemÚller, a onetime Hitler supporter who was later imprisoned by the Nazis. The poetic wording probably has only a remote relationship to the pastor’s actual words; overall, though, it is a brilliant but little-understood insight into the nature of collaboration.
In the modern world, everybody is a something. In Western democracies, the ability to claim affiliation with a group leads to the useful but annoying phenomenon of identity politics. In Russia today, it endows each of us with her own individual allotment of fear.
I am Jewish and gay. I am also the mother of one (light-haired, fair-skinned) child who attends a Jewish preschool and one child who has very dark hair and eyes and swarthy skin. I have four reasons to be scared. 
How scared are you? Go ahead and count the ways. 
That’s silly. All of us have exactly one reason to be scared, and we all have it in common. We live in a city and in a country where people who claim authority — including God-given authority — actually say that some human beings do not have the right to exist. To my mind, that is key to any definition of fascism. 
Over the last year, various religious leaders have called on their followers physically to attack gay people. 
It began when a group of activists declared their plans to organize a gay pride parade in Moscow in May 2006. Umar Idrisov, the chief Muslim authority in the Nizhny Novgorod region, said Muslims should stone gays if and when they march. Far from reprimanding Idrisov for calling for violence, Russia’s head mufti, Talgat Tadzhuddin, stated that all “normal people, both Muslims and Russian Orthodox,” are going to beat gay people if they come out to march. Patriarch Alexy II was not quite as crude, but he publicly thanked Mayor Yury Luzhkov for his blatantly illegal refusal to consider the organizers’ application for a parade permit. 
Last month, Metropolitan Kirill cited homosexuality as a chief evil value forced upon Russia by the West. The message was clear: Homosexuals don’t just lack the right to march, they don’t have the right to exist.
Last weekend, Russian Orthodox religious activists cooperated with radical nationalists to attempt two pogroms at Moscow gay-friendly clubs. Police intervened, with varying degrees of success: According to the management of the club attacked on Sunday night, one of their staff members had to be hospitalized after being hit by flying bottles, eggs and rocks. The following night, young men with shaved heads and older women with religious posters, and their priest, appeared in front of a different gay club, alternately praying, shouting “No fags in Russia!” and “Glory to Russia!” and trying to storm the club.
I could circle back now to Martin NiemÚller’s famous quote and state that if you don’t stand up for gay people because you are not one of us, sooner or later they will come for you. That is true, in most cases, and obvious. But it’s not the point. The point is, we live in a country where religious and secular authorities openly encourage fascist violence. It’s getting to the point where we risk becoming collaborators by even just recognizing the authority of this president, this mayor, this patriarch and this mufti. And at this point, it really makes no difference what you are anymore.

Masha Gessen is a Moscow journalist.

TITLE: Starry, starry nights
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The popular American soprano Renee Fleming, the London Symphony Orchestra, conductor Mariss Jansons and violinist Leonidas Kavakos are among the headlining performers appearing at the 14th International “The Stars Of The White Nights” Festival that opens Wednesday at the Mariinsky Theater.
Established and run by the Mariinsky’s indefatiguable artistic director Valery Gergiev, this annual event has become Russia’s premiere classical music event and assembles some of the world’s greatest musicians for 70 days of distinguished classical music.
During its history, the event has successfully become a window to the world of opera and ballet for a loyal audience of local music fans, as well as a draw for visitors to St. Petersburg. 
Fleming, arguably the most-acclaimed soprano in the world, gives a solo recital on June 27 alongside the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra with Gergiev conducting. 
On June 24, Kavakos and pianist Yefim Bronfman join forces with the Mariinsky orchestra in a program of Sibelius’s violin concerto, Rachmaninov’s piano concerto No. 3, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 2. Another highlight will be a solo recital by the world-renowned tenor Vladimir Galuzin on June 12.
The singer, who established himself at the Mariinsky Theater in roles like Hermann in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades,” Andrei Khovansky in Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina,” the title role in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Sadko” and other Russian classics, now performs almost exclusively works from the Italian repertoire and almost always abroad, in particular at Milan’s La Scala.
Verdi’s “Don Carlos” on June 30th with sensational German bass Rene Pape in the lead role is another opera highlight of the festival.
Some of the Mariinsky’s brightest opera and ballet stars, including, besides Galuzin, bass Nikolai Putilin, mezzo-soprano Larisa Dyadkova, baritone Vassily Gerello and ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina, will be appearing alongside international guests. 
Lopatkina appears in “Swan Lake” on June 1,3 and 9. On July 3 she debuts in Leonid Yakobson’s ballet “Leningrad Symphony” set to Dmitry Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony inspired by 
the Siege of Leningrad during World War II.
Russian opera classics dominate this year’s listings. After the festival opens on Wednesday with Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov,” the program moves on with  “Khovanshchina” (Thursday) with Larisa Dyadkova as Marfa and Vladimir Ognovenko as Ivan Khovansky, Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” (Friday May 12) and Shostakovich’s 14th and 15th symphonies conducted by the composer’s son Maxim (Saturday May 13).
The elder Shostakovich, who would have reached the age of 100 this autumn, will be featured in a special project. 
The Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra will perform all of the composer’s symphonies over the course of the festival. Gergiev conduct’s the Symphony No. 11 on May 30, while Symphonies No. 3 and No. 13 will be performed on June 5. German conductor Christoph Eschenbach conducts Symphony No. 5 on June 3. 
More Shostakovich can be heard on June 29, when Paavo Jarvi will conduct the Mariinsky orchestra in a performance of Symphony No. 10.
Mariss Jansons, a successful St. Petersburg conductor, who is currently music director of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, will conduct Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6 on July 6 in a program that also features Shostakovich’s First piano concerto and Tchaikovsky’s “Italian Capriccio.”
A regular with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Jansons is one of only three Russians — alongside conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky and violinist David Oistrakh — to be awarded membership of the Musikverein, the prestigious Viennese international music society that boasted Mozart and Beethoven as members. 
This year Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra received a Grammy award for best orchestral performance for their recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13.
The maestro’s most recent performance in St. Petersburg was in May 2003, during festivities for the city’s 300th anniversary. 
The American choreographer Noah Gelber, whose choreographic take on Gogol’s “The Overcoat” set to a Shostakovich score premiered at the Sixth Mariinsky International Ballet Festival earlier this year, has been commissioned to stage Shostakovich’s ballet “The Golden Age” at the Stars of the White Nights Festival. The show premieres on June 28.
Bass Nikolai Putilin, who is now prominently featured in U.S. opera companies, particularly New York’s Metropolitan Opera, will sing the role of Tomsky in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades” on June 2 and Prince Igor in Borodin’s namesake opera on June 8.
During this year’s festival, Russian works will be contrasted by the Italian repertoire. As part of its “Italian Opera Masterpieces” series, the company performs Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” with Gianandrea Noseda at the baton (June 18), Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci”(June 23), Verdi’s “Falstaff”(June 19), “Nabucco” (July 1) with Nikolai Putilin and “Don Carlos” (June 30), all with Gergiev conducting, 
June also sees a complete performance of Wagner’s operatic tetralogy “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” undoubtedly, Gergiev’s most ambitious project. “Das Rheingold” shows on June 13, followed by “Die Walkure” on June 15. The tetralogy continues on June 16 with “Siegfried” and the final part, “Goetterdaemmerung”, plays on June 17.
Admirers of soprano Anna Netrebko are going to be disappointed: the exciting diva will be touring Japan with the Metropolitan Opera, and won’t be able to attend the festival.
Soothing news for her fans, however, came when Netrebko divulged to The St. Petersburg Times a plan to appear in a new production in Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” at the Mariinsky alongside Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon some time next season. 
The two singers made a winning pair in racy production of “La Traviata” at the Salzburg festival in August 2005, and have performed together on a number of occassions to rave reviews. Villazon joined Netrebko as Rodolfo in “La Boheme” at the Mariinsky in January when she made her debut in the role of Mimi.
“Russia should not be off the international musical map,” Gergiev once commented on the festival’s aim and direction. “When I was a student, St. Petersburg was visited by six to seven orchestras a year. Now, it is our turn to do the same for new audiences.”
No other festival in Russia can rival the level of star representation this Gergiev’s festival typically assembles. 
Over the festival’s history, the list of participants has included tenor Placido Domingo, bass Paata Burchuladze, conductor Riccardo Muti and his orchestra of Milan’s La Scala Opera House, the New York City Ballet, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, pianist Alfred Brendel and composer Tan Dun, who conducted his own “Water Passion According to St. Matthew” at the Mariinsky in 2001.
Gergiev’s international connections help to make these arrangements: in addition to his duties at the Mariinsky, Gergiev is principal guest conductor at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, one of seven guest conductors at the Opera de Paris, and a regular with a host of other ensembles, including the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
The maestro is also to start a three-year contract on Jan. 1, 2007, with the London Symphony Orchestra, with which he says he has developed a special relationship. As a curtain-raiser to the new partnership, the LSO is making its first visit to St. Petersburg to perform at “The Stars of the White Nights.” Gergiev conducts the orchestra in the program of Shostakovich’s Symphonies No. 1 and No. 4 on June 22. 
Under the new engagement with the LSO, Gergiev has committed himself to directing 12 programs each year with the orchestra performing in the LSO’s home, the Barbican Center, as well as undertaking a major international tour every year, with additional projects in Europe.

For details, see weekly listings. The full schedule can be found at: www.mariinsky.ru. It is also possible to buy tickets online through the company’s website.

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Local ska band Dva Samaliota will perform a rare concert at Platforma on Sunday. The band reformed in 2004 with a new lineup after frontman Vadim Pokrovsky died in Sept. 2003  and embarked on a tour of Western European clubs and bars. Drummer Mikhail Sindalovsky sounded excited about the return of Dva Samaliota’s long lost tour bus.
“It’s actually a three-part story,” said Sindalovsky. “First, it turned out that we had bought a stolen bus so it was taken by the German police, then the police gave it back to us, [bassist/vocalist] Anton [Belyankin] and I went to take it and it got broken, and now it's finally fixed and here.”
Dva Samaliota is planning to start work on its next album in the autumn to coincide with the band's European club tour.
The people who brought back the bus are Russian emigre DJs who run parties including the Datscha Project. According to Sindalovsky, the Hamburg-based Datscha Project draw thousands to its parties of Russian and Eastern-European music, and also promoted concerts by Russian bands such as Dva Samaliota, Leningrad and the Moscow-based ska collective Pakava It.
Performing at the Dva Samaliota-managed club Griboyedov on Monday, Datscha Project will be also providing video footage of Eastern-European avant-garde mixed with Soviet amateur 8-mm films and Czech cartoons.
Local clubs seem to split over Victory Day, celebrated on Tuesday, which, in the past, was seen as belonging to official culture rather than the “underground” but has recently been boosted by patriotic propaganda. The day marks the surrender of the German Army to the Soviet Union on May 9, 1945. 
While underground rock clubs Orlandina and Manhattan have scheduled Victory Day concerts, it is not clear who is performing and what is the repertoire. Red Club and Platforma on the other hand will celebrate the birthday of Dave Gahan, the Depeche Mode frontman who happened to be born on the same date 44 years ago. 
Platforma’s celebration will take a form of a concert by Melotron, a synth-pop band from Germany whose lyrics are exclusively in German. The band’s American label, Metropolis, describes the band as being “in the vein of Depeche Mode with sexy German vocals” on its web site.
From Amsterdam comes a dub collective called King Shiloh Sound System that will perform at Platforma on Wednesday.
The Czech indie-rock band The Mood will perform at Griboyedov on Saturday, as part of a tour in support of its third album, “Cupid In Your Pump,” while the Helsinki-based band Grand Revolt perform two club gigs at Manhattan on Saturday and Red Club on Sunday.
Local gigs also include punkers PTVP at GEZ-21 on Friday, the Klezmer/Balkan folk-influenced Dobranotch at Platforma on Saturday, the all-girl folk-punk band Iva Nova on Sunday Fish Fabrique and self-described “extreme disco” band Pep-See at Red Club on Monday.

TITLE: The official (and unofficial) story of Soviet Art
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Russian Museum mounts a major retrospective of art made in the Soviet Union from the Khrushchev era to perestroika.
Times are a-changin’ at the State Russian Museum with its new large show “Times of Change: Art in the Soviet Union 1960-85.” 
Covering the period from the end of the Khrushchev era to the height of Gorbachev’s perestroika, the exhibition takes as its starting point the implicit co-existence of two types of art at the time: official art, defined by the state-mandated Socialist Realism, and so-called underground art which was made by artists who didn’t conform to the aesthetic authority of the state. 
The former could be viewed in public exhibition spaces while the latter — being semi-illegal — circulated for the most part at artists’ studios or private apartments (an attempt to restore such an apartment-exhibition is also part of the show). 
In the mid-1980s, after the liberalization of the exhibition rules, the nonconformist art movement in the Soviet Union lost its social and political meaning. 
Now, contemporary art history books justifiably pay more attention to that unofficial, especially, Moscow-born, art, which was radical and inventive; despite the Iron Curtain it paralleled developments in western art, with some breaks and gaps, within the advantageous circumstances of the Soviet cultural environment. 
In the Russian Museum, where there is no Soviet art dating from later than the 1930s on permanent display, any exhibition highlighting the work of later artists looks sure to be a winner. 
However, exciting art — whether it is rare examples of official art or well promoted underground works — doesn’t a good exhibition make. Unfortunately, “Times of Change” is a show that has been organized rather than curated. 
In two separate halls, the exhibition passively and straightforwardly follows the division between official and unofficial art, lumping together more than 200 works in all media without any explicit, articulate curator’s guide. 
“The Russian Museum and [Moscow’s] Tretyakov Gallery possess equally worthy collections of official Soviet Art and it obviously could be considered as an expression of Soviet cultural policy,” Yevgenia Petrova, the museum’s deputy director, said. 
Socialist Realism, after its concentrated and refined Stalinist version, allowed some deviations over time. One of them, with a subtle new rhetoric underpinning it, was the “Severe Style” (“Surovy stil”). 
This distinct and mature style was perhaps the most remarkable and intellectually honest Soviet visual product when it appeared as the ‘50s gave way to the ‘60s. 
It shares with Socialist Realism its realist aesthetics, but operates with a lesser degree of optimism and pathos. It lacks illusions and is uncompromising and gloomy. Its protagonists are tired, “harsh romantics” in the roles of builders, geologists, engineers, and other archetypes who conquered the taiga, mountains, seas, and polar regions or who constructed dams and railways. 
Pyotr and Alexander Smolin, in their work “Polar Explorers,” Folke Nieminen in “Tyashbummash Workers,”  and Andrei Yakovlev in “Complicity” share this “cool” masculine aesthetic. 
The monolithic, large-scale and epic 1960s were followed by the eclectic and metaphorical ‘70s and ‘80s, featuring neoclassical, naÕve or expressive directions shared by a young generation of artists, but still defined by the Socialist Realist figurative presumption in representation. 
Meanwhile, what once was at the foreground of Soviet Art is now considered as merely the backdrop to the more conceptual art which was being made in parallel at that time.
“With regard to nonconformist art, the Russian Museum wasn’t in a position (for political reasons) to gather a good selection of these works,” Petrova said. Therefore this part of the exhibition borrows a lot of work from private Russian and foreign collections. 
These organizational limitations this placed on the exhibition could explain why this part of the show is casual, fragmentary and superficial. 
Although it lists almost all the significant names of the Moscow and Leningrad scenes of the period, it lacks a concept behind its presentation. 
It is hard to identify the ideas, inventions, groups, and forces which actually shaped the unofficial art scene, for example Ilya Kabakov’s influential Moscow Conceptual Circle or Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid’s “Soc-Art” project, behind the rambling organization of the works.  
	 
“Times of Change: Art in the Soviet Union 1960-85.” 
runs through September at the Benois Wing. www.rusmuseum.ru

TITLE: The view on Pyongyang
AUTHOR: By Charles Armstrong
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With information on the North Korean regime so scarce, a new book by Balazs Szalontai looks for historical insight in the next best place —  newly opened archives in Eastern Europe.
When it comes to understanding North Korea, we are rather like the five blind men in the Indian tale who describe an elephant based on the feel of its ear, trunk, flank or whichever part of the animal each man can touch. As is well known, North Korea (officially, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) is a frustratingly opaque country about which it is next to impossible to get accurate inside information. Not long ago, the Soviet Union and its East European “satellites” were similar, if less extreme. One byproduct of the opening of archives in these countries is the insight they have given about the currently existing communist states whose archives remain closed, countries like China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea. Until the latter are opened up to the outside world, the views from Eastern Europe are the best we have.
In “Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era,” Hungarian scholar Balazs Szalontai presents the first major study of post-Korean War North Korea based primarily on East European documents. His extensively researched, impressively detailed and insightful book does a great service to the fields of Korean studies, Cold War history and the history of communist regimes. It should be required reading for anyone curious about the workings of this reclusive country, not least the policymakers in Washington who have so consistently misread North Korea over the years. Szalontai shows us a state that maneuvered deftly through the Sino-Soviet split, managing to maintain support from both communist giants throughout these difficult years; a leadership centered around Kim Il Sung that ruthlessly crushed its enemies and established a power base that would carry on long after Kim’s death; a regime that, uniquely among East Asian socialist states, created a viable industrial economy, although everyday life for its citizens remained harsh. Much of this has already been known in broad outline, but not in the detail presented here. Szalontai’s book is filled with fascinating bits of information, from a serious food crisis in 1955 that most outsiders have overlooked to North Korea’s nationalist attack on Esperanto in the late 1950s. If anything, the book is too detailed. By trying to cover everything from foreign affairs to factional politics to economic policy and culture, it tends to get bogged down in minutiae at the risk of losing sight of its core thesis.
While Szalontai has a great deal to say about North Korea and its relations with the outside world, especially the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, neither the title nor the subtitle is entirely accurate. A more descriptive if less alliterative version might have been “North Korea and Eastern Europe, 1953-1964: The View from Budapest.” With a couple of minor exceptions, Szalontai bases his study on Hungarian primary sources and English-language secondary sources. His notes contain no references to sources in Korean, Russian or Chinese, or, for that matter, German or Japanese, each of which would have added valuable perspective on North Korea’s history. Of course, as the author acknowledges, North Korean archives are entirely off-limits to foreign scholars, and Chinese archives nearly so (Russian archives, though more restricted than a decade ago, are not “closed” as James G. Hershberg claims in his series preface). The most logical basis for a history of North Korean-Soviet relations would, of course, be the Russian materials, and perhaps one day a Russia scholar will pursue such a study for this period, as Andrei Lankov has done for the earlier history of the DPRK. 
In the meantime, Budapest is an odd place from which to view North Korea; to paraphrase the old joke, were I to look for North Korea I wouldn’t start here. Hungarian-North Korean relations were never particularly close, especially after the Hungarian uprising of 1956, and there were few real Korea experts at the Hungarian embassy in Pyongyang. Among East European countries, East Germany and Romania both had consistently better relations with the DPRK, and for Pyongyang, the Soviet Union and China were by far the most important allies. Hungarians were nominally part of the “socialist camp” but — especially after 1956 — not the kind of people that a North Korean leader would confide in. Far from giving us the “inside” view of North Korea, Szalontai’s book sees the DPRK from a double or even triple remove: Hungarian diplomats talking about what their Russian, East German, Czech or other counterparts have told them about their conversations with North Koreans. Nevertheless, this is certainly an improvement on the guesswork and second-rate “Kremlinology” that constitutes much of the existing scholarship on North Korea.
The second, and perhaps more important, problem with a Hungarian perspective is the constant comparison between North Korea and Eastern Europe, which informs both the author and his sources. On one level, such a comparison is understandable, even inevitable: Like the communist states of Eastern Europe, the DPRK was a small country founded under Soviet auspices in the late 1940s and strongly influenced by the Soviet political-economic model. But this comparison can also mislead the observer to see North Korea’s peculiarities as aberrations from a putative East European norm (the East Europeans themselves were certainly guilty of this). To be sure, Szalontai is conscious of this problem and tries to emphasize the indigenous aspects of the North Korean system where he feels it is appropriate. Still, the book cannot escape the East European bias of its sources. This leads to the popular question that unfortunately underlies much contemporary American (but probably not Chinese, Russian or South Korean) policy toward the DPRK: Why hasn’t the North Korean regime collapsed like the communist regimes in Eastern Europe? Szalontai’s book helps to answer this question, but it is really the wrong question to ask. North Korea is not, nor has it ever been, as much like an East European “satellite” state (or Mongolia for that matter) as it is like its still-existing fellow East Asian communist states, China and Vietnam. Szalontai makes this point, but not as assertively as he could have done.
It is, rather, the lack of reform in North Korea that needs explaining, and Szalontai argues convincingly that the rigidity of the North Korean system has its roots in the late 1950s and early 1960s. North Korea’s despotism, he writes, is rooted in foreign models and Korean tradition, as well as in the “the intense and xenophobic nationalism” of Kim Il Sung and his Manchurian guerrilla cohorts, who solidified their grip on power in the period the author describes. The Sino-Soviet split gave North Korea the space to avoid a Soviet-style de-Stalinization, while the ongoing hostility of the post-Cold War environment reinforces the North Korean leadership’s fear that any substantial change will lead to disaster. Thus, North Korea carries on, reforming the edges of its economic system while leaving the political system untouched, much as it did 45 years ago.
Szalontai has done an admirable job of making clearer more parts of the mysterious elephant that is North Korea. To use another metaphor, he is like a paleontologist who reconstructs an extinct animal on the basis of a few bone fragments. But North Korea is very much alive, and someday, hopefully, we will have enough information from within North Korea to be able to see the elephant in its entirety.

Charles Armstrong is an associate professor of history at Columbia University and the author of “The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950.”

TITLE: Hundreds Hurt in U.S. Base Riots
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: PYONGTAEK, South Korea — Hundreds of people were injured as thousands of South Korean riot police fought pitched battles with anti-US protesters and villagers as the military started clearing a site for a new US army base. 
Clashes began when 13,000 riot police arrived to help thousands of soldiers erect miles of barbed wire fence around a vast tract of paddy field to secure the site of the planned base at Pyongtaek, 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Seoul.
The military mobilized 15 UH-60 helicopters to drop rolls of barbed wire as riot police used water cannons to drive the protesters into an elementary school, AFP photographers on the scene said.
About 1,000 protesters led by Roman Catholic priests and anti-US activists resisted the police by igniting fires and wielding bamboo sticks and steel pipes.
Police said the 10-hour confrontation left 117 policemen and 93 protesters injured.
Police armed with batons and shields detained 524 protesters who had pelted them with shards of broken bottles and flower vases from the school’s rooftop.
One banner visible from the building read: “Stop expanding the US military base in Pyongtaek! No war on the Korean peninsula!” The protesters called for the withdrawal of all US troops from South Korea.
Dozens of US military bases in and around the capital are to be relocated to Pyongtaek. Construction is to begin in October but some residents and farmers, backed by anti-US activists, had refused to vacate their houses on the site.
Soldiers used heavy equipment to demolish the school after puting up a 29-kilometer-long wire fence, defense ministry spokesman Ahn Jung-Hoon said. “The area was designated as a military facility protection zone,” he said.
Under a mutual defense treaty following the 1950-1953 Korean War, some 32,000 American troops are stationed in South Korea.
Seoul and Washington have agreed to relocate 35 US military bases across the country in a consolidation plan. Camp Humphreys in Pyongtaek will serve as the American military headquarters.
Some 80 percent of the residents in the area have agreed to sell their land to the defense ministry and the relocation project is due to finish in 2008.
“The government has come to a conclusion that this project should not drift further,” Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-Ung said in a statement.
Yoon said delays were not in the national interest and would cost taxpayers money. He said his ministry would block civilian access to the site and deploy a military guard.
The US military plans to close 28 of its 41 major military camps scattered across South Korea and return the land to the host nation by 2011.
The relocation is part of a broader US plan to reshuffle troops in South Korea, along with the repositioning of the 2nd Infantry Division from near the border with North Korea to Pyongtaek.

TITLE: Moussaoui: U.S. Will Never Catch Bin Laden
AUTHOR: By Matthew Barakat and Michael J. Sniffen
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ALEXANDRIA, Virginia. — U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema told Zacarias Moussaoui “you will die with a whimper,” never allowed to speak publicly again, as she sentenced him to life in prison. 
Brinkema handed down the sentence at the end of a two-month trial in which the jury rejected the government’s case to have Moussaoui executed.
An unrepentant Moussaoui, the only person tried in the U.S. in for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, warned Americans in his final public words that they would never catch Osama bin Laden.
“God save Osama bin Laden — you will never get him,” Moussaoui declared moments after walking into the courtroom flashing a victory sign.
“You have branded me as a terrorist or a criminal or whatever,” he said. “Look at yourselves. I fight for my belief.” He spoke for less than five minutes; the judge told him he could not use his sentencing to make a political speech.
Barring an unforeseen circumstance, Moussaoui will be sent to a maximum federal prison in Colorado under special conditions that will prevent him from having any contact with the outside world.
French authorities said Thursday they may eventually press the United States to have Moussaoui serve his life sentence in France under two conventions on the transfer of convicts. They were waiting to hear the conditions of his sentencing.
Moussaoui’s mother Aicha El Wafi, pressed for her country to intervene. “My son will be buried alive because France didn’t dare contradict the Americans,” she said.
After seven days of deliberation, the nine men and three women rebuffed the government’s appeal for death for the only person charged in this country in the suicide hijackings of four commercial jetliners that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
Moussaoui, who spent much of his two-month trial cursing America, blessing al-Qaida and mocking the suffering of 9/11 victims, offered one more taunt after the jury reached its verdict Wednesday saying, “America, you lost. ... I won,” and clapping his hands as he was escorted from the courtroom.
From the White House, President Bush said the verdict “represents the end of this case but not an end to the fight against terror.” He said Moussaoui got a fair trial and the jury spared his life, “which is something that he evidently wasn’t willing to do for innocent American citizens.”
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, attending a European Union security conference in Vienna, told reporters Thursday: “There are challenges that exist with respect to prosecuting terrorist cases in our system. I think justice was served in this case.”
Families of 9/11 victims expressed mixed views.
Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, died on hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, said her mom didn’t believe in the death penalty and would have been glad Moussaoui was sentenced to life. “This man was an al-Qaida wannabe ... who deserves to rot in jail.”
Patricia Reilly, who lost her sister Lorraine Lee in the New York attacks, was deflated. “I guess in this country you can kill 3,000 people and not pay with your life,” she said. “I feel very much let down by this country.”
It is not known how many jurors wanted Moussaoui sentenced to life and how many wanted a death sentence. Under federal law, a defendant automatically receives life in prison when a jury is split. The 42-page verdict form gives no indication on how, or if, the jury split.
The jury rejected two key defense arguments — that Moussaoui suffers a mental illness and that executing him would make him a martyr.

TITLE: Suicide Bomb Kills 10 in Iraq
AUTHOR: By Thomas Wagner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide bomber attacked a crowd of people waiting outside a heavily guarded court building in Baghdad on Thursday, killing 10 Iraqis and wounding 52, police said. Two U.S. soldiers also died in a roadside bomb attack. 
Police first said the attack near the court was caused by a car bomb targeting a police convoy, but later said it was caused by a man with explosives hidden under his clothing.
The man detonated them off in a crowd of police officers and civilians waiting outside the civil court, said police Lt. Thair Mahmoud. The officers were guarding the building and many of the civilians were meeting just outside it with paralegals writing the petitions the civilians planned to submit to the court.
The blast occurred at 9:45 a.m. on Palestine Street, a major road in a mixed Sunni-Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, said. It was powerful enough to smash the windows of nearby shops.
Firefighters rushed to the scene and used hoses to clean bloodstains from the sidewalk and street outside the court. Mahmoud said all casualties were civilians, except for two wounded policemen.
The roadside bomb that killed the two U.S. Army soldiers exploded about two hours later in south-central Baghdad, the military said.
The attack raised to at least 2,409 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Shootings in Baghdad and other areas, and a roadside bomb south of the capital, also killed eight Iraqis, including a Shiite tribal leader and an Iraqi army officer, police said.
In Ramadi, police Lt. Ahmed al-Dulaimi and Dr. Ali al-Obeidi at Ramadi General Hospital said U.S. aircraft bombed two houses, killing 13 Iraqis and wounding four. But the U.S. military said it had no information about such an attack in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad.
U.S. Army Sgt. Dan Schonborg, of the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, said no coalition aircraft launched bombing runs in Ramadi on Thursday.
U.S. officers said there were sporadic exchanges of fire in Ramadi on Thursday, and two Iraqi soldiers were wounded. Ramadi, populated by Sunni Arabs, is the most dangerous city in Iraq for U.S. forces. Commanders say there are more insurgent attacks there than anywhere else in the country, with militants and U.S. troops exchanging fire several times a day — at least.
On Wednesday, the corpses of 43 Iraqis were found in the streets of Baghdad and other cities, according to the Interior Ministry. They were apparent victims of death squads that kidnap civilians of rival Muslim sects, torture them, and dump their bodies.

TITLE: Vatican Shuns Four Chinese Catholic Priests
AUTHOR: By Alessandria Rizzo
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Thursday excommunicated two bishops ordained by China’s state-controlled church without the pope’s consent, escalating tensions as the two sides explore preliminary moves toward improving ties. 
The Vatican also excommunicated the two bishops who ordained them, saying church law mandates excommunication for bishops involved in ordinations without Vatican approval.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls cited Article 1382 of the Roman Catholic Church’s canon law. That article states that “both the bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a ‘latae sententiae excommunication,’” which means they are automatically excommunicated.
Earlier, Navarro-Valls said Pope Benedict XVI was deeply saddened by news of the ordinations, which have occurred in recent weeks. “It is a great wound to the unity of the church,” Navarro-Valls said in a statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry officials were not available to comment on the excommunications.

TITLE: Zenit Fires Coach After String of Losses
AUTHOR: By Gennady Fyodorov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Zenit St. Petersburg’s Czech coach Vlastimil Petrzela was fired on Wednesday following a string of poor results, the Russian premier league club said. 
Zenit lost 1-0 to CSKA Moscow in the Russian Cup semi-final, first leg on Wednesday after a 4-1 drubbing at home by Spartak Moscow over the weekend saw them drop a place to ninth in the top flight standings with eight points from six matches. 
Petrzela, 52, became the second coaching casualty in Russia within a week after Spartak Moscow’s Alexander Starkov quit his job last Wednesday. 
Zenit assistant coach Vladimir Borovicka has been named as caretaker manager, the club said on their website. 
Petrzela, who guided Zenit to second place in his first season at the helm in 2003, has been a popular figure among the fans in St. Petersburg. 
He took a team that had been through three coaching changes and were in danger of relegation and quickly transformed them into title contenders. 
He led them on a 27-match unbeaten streak between July 2003 and May 2004 and their attacking style and youthful exuberance attracted a nationwide following. 
But the outspoken Czech has often raised eyebrows with his blunt remarks and openly clashed with other premier league managers, notably CSKA Moscow coach Valery Gazzayev. 
Petrzela once said that a pro-Moscow soccer establishment in Russia would never allow Zenit to win a league title. 
This season he got into trouble by regularly criticising the club’s management in the media. 
Despite leading St Petersburg to this year’s UEFA Cup quarter-finals — their best ever showing in Europe — his days were numbered when he publicly scolded Zenit president Sergei Fursenko for lack of support last week. 
Petrzela became only the second foreign manager in Russian soccer history when he was appointed in November 2002.

TITLE: England Set to Replace Manager Eriksson
AUTHOR: By Trevor Huggins
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Steve McClaren’s hopes of becoming the next England coach were boosted on the eve of the expected decision by a ringing endorsement from the current incumbent Sven-Goran Eriksson. 
The Football Association’s Board met on Thursday and McClaren, Eriksson’s assistant, was widely expected to be appointed as his successor when the Swede steps down after the World Cup. 
Asked about McClaren’s abilities, Eriksson told reporters on Wednesday: “He’s extremely good. As a coach, perfect every time.” 
The Middlesbrough manager, who has guided the northeast club into next week’s UEFA Cup final against Sevilla, has been a part of Eriksson’s England set-up for several years. 
The Swede made it clear that McClaren had made his contribution to England’s performances and that the Boro manager had his own views on the national side. 
“Everytime we are together, after dinner, all the coaches sit and discuss football for one or two hours — what we are going to do tomorrow, the next squad or the next team,” he said 
McClaren’s appointment would come a week after the FA’s abortive bid to hire Brazilian 2002 World Cup winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who pulled out of talks citing media intrusion.

TITLE: Long Road To Shortstop For Orphan Russian Girl
AUTHOR: By Bill Plaschke
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: LOS ANGELES — For the first 10 years of her life, she didn’t know she had a first name.
Now, baseball has given her several.
“Let’s go, Tash!” … “Get ‘em Nat!” … “All yours, Pony Tail!”
“They call me lots of things,” Natasha Smith said. “I never get tired of hearing any of them.”
For the first 10 years of her life, she didn’t experience a loving touch. Now, baseball surrounds her with dozens.
Her teammates smack her glove. She punches their arms. They grab her shoulders. She slaps high fives.
“I used to feel unwanted,” she said. “But people like me now.”
For the first 10 years of her life, living in a children’s home in the Russian woods, she was an orphan.
Today, on the Calvary Baptist high school boys baseball team in La Verne, California, Natasha Smith is a shortstop.
Her adoptive parents hold the camera in the stands. Her date for her school’s graduation banquet sits next to her on the bench. MaggieMoo’s will be open for a strawberry-banana shake after a victory.
Simple things, but wondrous things, for a girl who grew up without celebrating her birthday because she didn’t understand the concept of birthdays.
“I thought kids never grew up,” she said. 
She didn’t even understand the idea of parents until she had them.
“I thought all the kids lived together forever,” she said.
When missionaries Carol and Harry Smith brought her to La Verne a decade ago, just before she turned 10, she didn’t speak a word of English. 
And when she did, she had difficulty understanding because of long-untreated dyslexia.
“I was always the dumbest,” she said. “In Russia, in America, everywhere, I was the dumbest.”
But then she discovered the daily miracle that American adolescents have understood forever.
It is the one place in their life that does not judge. It is high school sports.
The playing field does not care where you are from, as long as you keep showing up. It does not care who you are, as long as you bring it all with you.
Running around her giant orphanage made her physically strong. Hiding from daily beatings made her mentally tough.
Her mother took her to a church league soccer practice shortly after her arrival here, and suddenly she found a language she understood.
“In sports, I was even with everyone,” said Smith. “In sports, they did not laugh.”
Kids never grow up? Oh, but they do, and this spring, at age 19, Natasha Smith’s days are filled with balloons and frosting and light.
She is not only one of the only serious female baseball players in Southern California, she is possibly the best pure player at her 35-person high school, which is not large enough to field a girls softball team.
Folks stare at the pig tails sticking out from under her blue cap, but nobody notices anything else.
The playing field only cares, can you hit? Smith does, driving in 10 runs in her first 18 at-bats.
Can you catch? Smith does, having committed errors in only three of nine games.
Can you run? Smith had 15 stolen bases in her first 15 tries.
Can you … go out on a date with the opposing pitcher?
OK, in Smith’s case, the playing field occasionally cares about something else.
“Our guys are really impressed with her as an athlete, but I hear them talking, they also think she’s really cute,” said David Bowman, father of an opposing Highland Hall player, Matt. “You can see them hanging out longer after the game because they want to meet her.”
In one recent victory, against the California School for the Deaf, Smith stole home with the eventual game-winning run, then recorded the final out as the winning pitcher.
Afterward, surrounded by congratulating teammates, heading for the ice cream parlor with her parents, Smith had one of those thoughts that often fills her eyes with tears.
No crying in baseball? Not here.
“Sometimes during the day I just stop and cry, thinking about how lucky I am to have been chosen by these wonderful people,” she said in her perfect Russian-accented English. “Chosen for this wonderful life.”
Fourth inning, runner on first, one out, Highland Hall pitcher struggling, up stepped Natasha Smith.
And here came the familiar cheer.
“You’re not gonna let her get a hit off you, are you?” shouted a dad to the pitcher.
At some point in every game, she hears it. And at some point in every game, after she makes a good play, it stops.
This time, it stopped with a thwack. A fastball sailed into her left forearm.
She turned, winced, then dropped the bat and trotted down to first base with one noticeably absent motion.
She never touched the arm.
“It hurt a little, but I don’t show it, I never show it,” she said. “You have to get used to the hurt.”
She learned this after she was abandoned by her parents as an infant in St. Petersburg.
She spent the next decade in orphanages where she was called only by her last name — Salieleva — and called only to work or eat.
“If you complained, you were hit, so I eventually learned to stop complaining,” she said.
She rarely experienced a warm hug, never felt a good-night kiss, never heard a lullaby.
What she did hear were the commands to wash the floors or haul the trash, followed by slaps if the jobs were not done properly.
“They did not care about you there,” she said. “I never knew love.”
When Harry and Carol Smith decided to add two children to their childless marriage, they worked through a local agency, picking Natasha out of a video.
“She didn’t have the proper paperwork, so the agency tried to talk us into somebody else, somebody easier, but she had this certain presence, I can’t explain it, we just had to have her,” Carol said.
It took a year longer, and when they finally arrived to pick her up, her hair had been shoddily cut because of lice, and her body was still aching from a beating.
“I remember my mother put me on her lap, I had never before sat in anybody’s lap, it was the happiest day of my life,” Smith recalled.
She had never driven in a car, so she vomited throughout their drive to nearby St. Petersburg.
She had never seen a clock, so she had no understanding of something as simple as bedtime.
She had been scared during long nights in orphanage, so she refused to sleep in the dark.
And when it came time to give her new parents a kiss?
“She didn’t even know how to kiss,” Carol said. “It was more like a bite.”
On her adoption application, Natasha had written that her favorite thing in the world was kukla, the Russian word for doll.
So her parents showered her with dolls, leading to one of the first revelations about their daughter.
“I told them, I only put kukla on the application because I was told that would make it easier for me to get adopted,” Smith said. “I told them, ‘I hate kukla.’”
No, she loved sports, even those she didn’t understand, like baseball, which she only began playing on a dare.
“My freshman year, my friends asked me to play, but I was afraid of the ball,” she said. “When I finally decided to try it, I run to the wrong base.”
But try it she did, because the field, any field, was the one place she felt comfortable.
“Sports was the one place in life where she felt on equal footing with everyone else,” said Harry, who is now a mechanical engineer. 
“It was the one place she felt she could compete.”
In this, her senior year, she was a basketball all-star, but it is in baseball where she makes her biggest impact.
“When I first saw her, I had no idea she would become such a good player,” said her coach, Lincoln Dial, who is also the Calvary Baptist pastor. “We play sports for the right reasons here, but we also want to win. We play her because she can help us win.”
And she never ceases to amaze, such as the time she singled and stole second and briefly took off her helmet and the opposing shortstop shouted, “Hey, look! It’s a chick!”
Or the time a hard-throwing pitcher threw her only lobs, which she angrily swatted away.
Then there are the opposing players who compliment her during the postgame handshake, then quietly ask her teammates for her phone number
“We tell them to back off,” said Robert Little, a junior third baseman. “She’s one of us.”
She’s one of us.