SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1172 (38), Friday, May 26, 2006
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TITLE: Local Press Plagued By Corruption
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Local media are corrupt and most newspapers are packed with planted stories and hidden advertising, according to research by political science students at Herzen Pedagogical University, who presented their results this month at the Regional Press Institute.
Following an internship at the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, a group of fifth-year-students completed a report analyzing the coverage of a series of significant political events in the local newspapers. The publications date from March to November 2005 and deal with high profile, controversial subjects such as City Hall’s conflicts with the St. Petersburg Charter Court and the Baltic Pearl construction project. 
“The alarming thing was that the publications openly supporting City Hall keep repeating the key arguments almost word for word; they don’t quote any critics and they look as if they were all written by the same person, who has, shall we say, a limited vocabulary,” said Alexander Balayan, one of the report’s authors. “We could even see identical mistakes or misspellings circulating from article to article.” 
The students said it was impossible to establish the identity of the writers of these reports. “The editorial offices were being elusive,” Balayan said. “The staff were saying that the person we are looking for ‘is not there,’ ‘has never worked there,’ or that ‘this is a pen-name, but we don’t know who is behind it’.”
Balayan said the researchers have not been able to locate a single author of reports that appear to be planted, whereas journalists who write balanced reports used their real names and were accessible.
The report said suspicious-looking stories were most often found in “Smena,” “Vecherny Peterburg” and local editions of “Komsomolskaya Pravda” and “Moskovsky Komsomolets.”
“Nobody is hiding anything anymore,” said political analyst and Yabloko politician Boris Vishnevsky. “Things are quite openly done these days. Some editors who are not at liberty to deny a request from Smolny do publish planted stories but sign them in a special way, like, for instance, Smolsky — a verbal reference to Smolny — or Valentin Matveyev — a reference to Valentina Matviyenko.”
Sergei Gulyayev, a lawmaker with the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, said the demand for paid stories has increased significantly.
“I have seen it used against me,” Gulyayev said. “For instance, one newspaper would blatantly misrepresent my words or use them in a different context with scathing remarks, and other newspapers would happily reprint it, without checking or contacting me for a comment.”
Planted stories are hardly new to the Russian media. In a survey conducted by the locally based Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Scientists in 2001, 12 percent of St. Petersburg journalists admitted that they “regularly” produce stories involving hidden advertising. A further 18 percent said that they produce such stories “occasionally,” and 37 percent said that they had done so “more than once.” One hundred local journalists took part in the survey.
“These figures indicate how easy it is to manipulate journalists in Russia,” said Tatyana Protasenko, a senior Institute researcher who conducted the survey. “The market has become almost limitless here: if we talk politics, the damage is done to particular politicians’ reputations, but if readers trust planted stories about a miraculous drug, the victims could pay with their health, if not lives.”
“But if ten or even five years ago it was difficult for them to resist financial temptations because, like most people, they had rather modest incomes, these days, in most cases, it is not a matter of survival,” the analyst said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
According to Protasenko’s research, forty-seven percent of St. Petersburg journalists and 32 percent of regional journalists considered “financial issues” to be a major obstacle for Russian journalism. Almost exactly the same percentage in both categories named “the lack of professionalism among journalists” as a key problem.
Protasenko said only a handful of local publications manage to maintain full independence from Smolny. “City Hall doesn’t have to directly intervene or openly use pressure against the editorial teams,” she said. “The media bosses have long accepted a servile attitude with the authorities; they observe a friendly tone and tread carefully, avoiding potentially sensitive subjects and leaving out controversial commentators.”
The sociologist also said the paid-for articles are often very difficult to detect. “To readers’ confusion and advertisers’ benefit, this field has become much more professional,” she said. “These murky policies are a good explanation of the depressing trend whereby papers’ circulations have dropped to laughable levels. The culture of reading newspapers, which is still vital in Europe, has degraded in Russia.”

TITLE: EU-Russia Summit Focuses on Energy Issues
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SOCHI, Russia — Russian President Vladmir Putin and European Union leaders met Thursday for a summit focused on EU concerns about Russia’s reliability as a key energy supplier. 
Putin assured EU leaders that Moscow was looking out for Europe’s interests, citing the start of construction of a northern European pipeline from Russia to Germany.
That project “and steps to improve energy security on the continent are aimed at ensuring successful global and regional development and the fulfillment of the main goal, the improvement of Europeans’ quality of life,” Putin said.
Putin, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana met at Putin’s Black Sea retreat in the resort of Sochi for the talks.
Energy disputes have clouded the relationship since winter. A brief disruption in Russian gas supplies to Western Europe early this year during a price dispute with Ukraine tarnished Russia’s reputation as a reliable supplier and encouraged the EU to intensify a search for alternative supply routes.
The shutdown, which was followed by gas shortages during a harsh winter, came even as Russia declared energy security a top priority of its leadership this year of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
Russia is Europe’s second-biggest oil supplier and provides a quarter of the continent’s gas.
“The energy dialogue is a very important one and it should be based on transparency, reciprocity, on safe connections and safe deliveries,” Schuessel said.
European fears of excessive energy reliance on Russia grew amid talk that Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom natural gas giant was considering acquiring Britain’s largest gas distributor.
When British officials warned of possible legal changes to block such a deal, Gazprom and Putin angrily warned that the gas monopoly could refocus its future export strategy on energy-hungry China.
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that while Gazprom wants to expand its presence in Europe, Russia also needs to offer broader possibilities to the European companies “with regard to the gas infrastructure.”
“For us, market economy also means total transparency and reciprocity,” she said.
Putin and EU officials mentioned the need to draft a new agreement to replace the existing Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Russia and the European Union, which expires next year.
“Russia views the EU as a key international partner,” he said. 
“Over the years, our cooperation has become more and more dynamic, specific and fruitful.”
Ferrero-Waldner said energy would be an important element of the new agreement. She said the deal could also include some free-trade elements since Russia is on track to join the World Trade Organization.
The leaders were also set to sign agreements in Sochi making it easier for some Russians to travel to EU countries and requiring both sides to accept the return of each other’s illegal migrants.
In addition, they reached a tentative agreement on a long-delayed $26 million EU program to help combat unemployment and support small and medium enterprises in the restive North Caucasus regions of Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, she said.

TITLE: Rolling Stones Postpones Concert
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Rolling Stones has postponed its one-off Russian concert which had been scheduled to take place on June 13 in St. Petersburg while guitarist Keith Richards recovers from a head injury sustained when he reportedly fell out of a coconut tree, the band announced Wednesday.
According to the statement posted on the veteran rockers’ official web site, the first 15 shows of the European leg of the band’s current A Bigger Bang World Tour have now been postponed, and that part of the tour will not start until July.
“The tour will now kick off at the beginning of July at a venue and city to be announced,” it said.
Although dates for the tour have been set and confirmed through Aug. 29, the local concert’s promoter, PMI Corporation, claimed that the Stones may well perform in St. Petersburg in early July.
“St. Petersburg is very likely to become the first city in the Rolling Stones’ European tour,” said PMI in a statement Wednesday.
“[The band’s management] will now be checking all the gaps between the concerts when promoters in different countries are able to promote the shows,” said PMI’s press officer Yulia Kolomiitskeva by phone on Wednesday.
The last postponed date is in Zagreb, Croatia, originally set for July 5, while the first confirmed concert is now due in Nuremberg, Germany on July 10, but Kolomiitskeva said that the local concert might happen some time in between. 
“The band knows that the [St. Petersburg concert’s venue] Kirov Stadium is going to be pulled down, and we are speaking to them so that we could [bring the date forward from the end of the tour] and we hope that we will be the first city where they’ll start the tour,” she said.
Kolomiitskeva added that the local date should become known this week.
Meanwhile, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, the web site of the Rolling Stones Fan Club of Europe, said Wednesday that the tour has been “rumored” to open in Belgrade in Serbia and Montenegro on July 7.
Built in 1932, the Kirov Stadium was scheduled to be demolished after the June 13 concert but Kolomiitseva said the venue would not change despite the postponement.
Tickets for the concert are still on sale.
“All tickets sold are valid, there are no changes,” said Kolomiitseva. “A person will [be able to] come and take his or her seat — the only thing that changes is the date.” 
How a ticket can be returned if the new date is inconvenient for the concert-goer will be announced later this week, Kolomiitseva said.
The postponement also affects concerts scheduled for Belgium, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Italy and Greece.
Originally, the European tour was set to start in Barcelona on Saturday, but earlier this month both the Spanish concerts were delayed and it was stated that the tour would start in June.
The further postponement came shortly after the band had confirmed that it would start the tour in June. 
The Stones’ official web site said in a statement Monday that Richards had returned to his home in Connecticut in the United States. According to the statement, he was “feeling great, happy to be home and looking forward to getting back on the road with the Rolling Stones next month.”
Earlier this month PMI confronted press reports that the local concert, which is the only Russian show on the band’s tour, may be canceled due to the accident involving Richards. 
Richards was reported to have injured his head when he fell out of a coconut tree while on holiday in Fiji at the end of the Stones’ tour of New Zealand and Australia on April 27. 
Richards, 62, underwent surgery on May 8 to relieve pressure on his brain. The operation involved drilling a hole in his skull to drain blood from the brain, the New Zealand Herald reported earlier this month. 
The Rolling Stones’ only Russian concert to date took place at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow as part of the Bridges to Babylon Tour in August 1998. 
Sixty thousand fans are expected to attend the show in St. Petersburg.

TITLE: President Receives Honorary Citizenship of St. Petersburg
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Wednesday named honorary citizen of St. Petersburg, beating the writer and former dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the honor. 
The Legislative Assembly in the president’s birthplace said 42 of its 47 deputies had voted for the President in a secret ballot. 
As well as the author of “The Gulag Archipelago,” he beat cosmonaut Georgy Grechko and actor Oleg Basilashvili to the honor. 
Solzhenitsyn, who revealed the horror of the gulag punishment camps, was stripped of his citizenship in 1974 and expelled from the then Soviet Union. 
He returned from exile in 1994 but has been an outspoken critic of the ways in which Russia has changed. 
Russia’s former imperial capital has in the past named poet Joseph Brodsky, academic Dmitry Likhachev and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Zhores Alfyorov honorary citizens.

TITLE: Hack Probed For Mating Gag
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prosecutors are investigating a journalist for publishing an article mocking President Vladimir Putin over his call to pay Russian women to have more children, an official said Wednesday. 
The article was published by Vladimir Rakhmankov, editor of the online newspaper Kursiv in the central city of Ivanovo, said Andrei Galchenko of the regional prosecutor’s office. 
The piece poked fun at Putin’s recent state of the nation address that called for economic incentives to boost the country’s plummeting birth rate. Russian media reported that the publication suggested that animals at a local zoo increased their mating, heeding Putin’s call. 
Rakhmankov could not be reached for comment Wednesday. His article could not be seen, because the web site has been shut down. 
Galchenko said the investigation was launched because the article “contained phrases of an insulting nature aimed at the president.”

TITLE: Governors Held In Graft Cases
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A deputy governor in the South Urals has been charged with abuse of office for illegal purchase of art, RIA Novosti reported local prosecutors as saying Thursday.
Konstantin Bochkaryov, a deputy governor of the Chelyabinsk Region, allegedly used budget funds on behalf of the governor to buy art worth about $6.7 million from a Moscow-based supplier to decorate a regional administration building. 
An expert committee evaluated the price of the art collection at $2.5 million.
The case comes against the backdrop of a pledge made by President Vladimir Putin to tackle corruption this month and a court ruling Wednesday sanctioning the arrest of Nenets governor Alexei Barinov on fraud charges.
Barinov was the last regional governor to be elected by popular vote before a new system came into force that allows Putin to appoint regional leaders, the Financial Times reported.

TITLE: Five Suspects Linked To Racist Crime Wave
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan and Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Five men detained last week for possible ties to the killing of an African student are being charged with killing a prominent racial issues expert, city prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev said Wednesday at a news conference at the City Prosecutor’s Office.
The suspects, members of the Mad Crowd group, are thought to have taken part in the June 2004 fatal shooting of Nikolai Girenko, 64, as revenge for Girenko’s testimony in court against another extremist group, Schultz-88, the prosecutor said.
Girenko, who pioneered a method for classifying ethnically motivated crimes, died after an unidentified assailant rang the doorbell of his St. Petersburg apartment and then shot him through the closed door as he approached it. 
“The recent outburst of extremist crimes is associated with the activities of this gang,” Zaitsev said at the news conference. “We have long suspected that the wave of extremist crimes was not a symptom of a widespread nationalism, which is not typical of St. Petersburg, but was the result of the activities of a well-organized gang that specialized in this type of crime.”
Although the trial has not yet begun, Zaitsev’s strong words were echoed by an even more powerful statement from Governor Valentina Matviyenko, who suggested the gang “sought to taint the reputation of St. Petersburg nearing the G8 summit”.
Besides the murder, the five suspects are also to be charged with taking part in a series of other attacks and robberies, including the 2003 killing of a Chinese citizen and a 2003 attack on an Armenian citizen, Zaitsev said.
During searches at the apartments of the detainees the police found extremist literature. Medical examinations of the suspects have shown that some of them have tattoos of swastikas and extremist or racist slogans. Two of the suspects are students of local universities: one studies at the Baltic International Tourism Institute, while another is a student of the Herzen Pedagogical University.
The arrested men have also confessed to having incited teenagers to attack a Tajik family. In that 2004 attack, Khursheda Sultanova, a 9-year-old Tajik girl, was stabbed to death while her father and a sibling also suffered knife wounds.
The suspects are also being investigated for their ties to the killings of a Vietnamese citizen and a Sengalese student, the prosecutor said. The suspects are all in their early twenties.
Mad Crowd founder Dmitry Borovikov, who was killed last week, is also suspected of having killed two teenagers allied with the group, Rostislav Gofman and Aleksei Golovchenko, Fontanka.ru reported. The two were killed because “they were the weak link and could have betrayed the group,” Zaitsev said. Borovikov was shot dead Thursday after lunging at police officers with a knife. 
Eight of Mad Crowd’s 13 members have been detained, Zaitsev said. After Borovikov was killed, police arrested five other Mad Crowd members. Searches of their apartments netted six guns, three kilograms of TNT and extremist literature, Zaitsev said.

TITLE: Dollar is a Dirty Word for the Duma
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — The State Duma gave initial approval on Wednesday to a bill that would punish government ministers for saying “dollar” when they could have used the word “ruble” instead.
The Duma also passed in first reading a bill that would force stores, restaurants and other businesses to list all prices in rubles. 
“The ruble is on the move,” Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, said, drawing a parallel with the Soviet Red Army’s victorious march across Europe at the end of World War II. “The next stop is Berlin.” 
Duma deputies backed the first bill with 384 votes, with one abstention. The bill outlawing prices other than in rubles passed by 375-2 with one abstention. Both bills must pass a further two readings. 
Backers of the legislation say they want to rebuild pride in the Russian currency and draw a line under the years when galloping inflation meant most people did business in dollars. Critics say it is unworkable and political posturing. 
“This bill proposes that we wage war with a shadow instead of fighting the real problems of the Russian economy,” Communist Deputy Oleg Smolin said of the bill that would restrict officials’ public pronouncements.
The Duma is due to vote soon on the size of the fines ministers would be liable to pay for saying “dollar” inappropriately and on extending the measure to cover the media and legislators. 
That bill is the first major piece of legislation initiated by the Public Chamber to come up for a vote in the Duma. Public Chamber head Yevgeny Velikhov, a leading nuclear scientist, fired off a letter to the Duma last month demanding penalties for bureaucrats who show disrespect for the ruble by referring to foreign currencies. He went as far as to suggest that the Russian delegation at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg in July present all its figures in rubles. “A piece of paper with currency exchange rates should be provided to the rest of the members of the G8,” he told reporters on April 13.
Market players call the issue misplaced patriotic pride.
The ruble has risen 6.7 percent against the dollar this year. President Vladimir Putin has said he wants restrictions on trading in the currency to be lifted by July 1, making it fully convertible.	
(Reuters, AP, SPT)

TITLE: Kiriyenko Optimistic on Iran
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: WASHINGTON — The head of Russia’s atomic energy agency said he hoped for a “major breakthrough” on the Iranian nuclear dispute when major powers were scheduled to meet in London on Wednesday, but a U.S. official said that more talks may be needed to reach agreement. 
By the time the meeting ended Wednesday, there was no formal word on the state of progress. But the meeting did go past its scheduled end into the early evening. 
Senior officials from the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — nuclear-armed permanent members of the UN Security Council — plus Germany met to discuss a package of incentives and threats aimed at defusing a crisis over Iran’s disputed nuclear program. 
The United States and its allies say Iran is developing nuclear weapons under cover of a peaceful energy program. Tehran denies the charge. 
“I hope that this proposal will be a major breakthrough in this issue,” Sergei Kiriyenko, who heads the atomic agency, told a news conference after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior U.S. officials. 
But he gave few details, and it was unclear whether serious differences had been resolved between Washington and Moscow over U.S. demands that Iran face sanctions, resisted by Russia, if it continues to defy the international community.

TITLE: Flying Finns Eye City’s New Investments
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Finnair Cargo has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with the St. Petersburg-based Transsphere group, providing it with airfreight business in the Northwest region and across Russia, the companies announced Tuesday at a press conference.
Transsphere has been providing freight forwarding services to Russian companies since 1996. The new partnership will give Transsphere’s clients access to the international airfreight system offered by Finnair.
According to Sergei Shidlovsky, president of the Transsphere group, the deal will be “significant for the transportation industry in Russia.”
Finnair Cargo, based in Helsinki, transports around 86,000 tons of freight annually, operates 70 planes and flies to 60 destinations worldwide.
Last year the company exported 500 tons of freight from Russia.
“With this new agreement, which gives us access to Moscow and other regions, this amount could double at very least,” said Ilpo Kuisma, vice president for new markets at Finnair Cargo.
“It’s a good opportunity for us to expand our cargo business in Russia. This area will be very important for us in the future,” Kuisma said.
Finnair Cargo will increase the number of its Russian destinations and offer greater capacity to the market, Kuisma added.
At the moment the company is planning regular flights to Yekaterinburg, but the partners indicated the opportunities offered by the Russian market, which covers vast territories and is still underdeveloped. “We have huge potential here. Only five percent of exports are carried by air,” Kuisma said.
The agreement concerns freight export but also includes the possibility of importing cargo.
Timo Riihimaki, sales vice president of Finnair Cargo, suggested that St. Petersburg’s new car plant, currently under construction, would increase demand for air cargo. Demand for two-way transportation from American, Japanese and Chinese companies will be high in the future, he said.
However in absolute terms the business as it stands fails to impress. Transsphere revenue from export operations in St. Petersburg was 500,000 euros last year.
“With this deal we aim to be the first company to offer Finnair Cargo services to the Russian market. It’s too early to speak with certainty of when we’ll be profitable. But if we had not acted, others would have done in our place,” Shidlovsky said.
“In Finland we are a partner of the IATA, which means we can cooperate with all the other airlines in this union,” said Esa Heikkinen, managing director of Transsphere Oy, Finland.
In Russia, Transsphere Aero, part of the Transphere group, has agent agreements with several local airlines including Pulkovo, Ural Airlines, Vladivostok Avia and Aeroflot-Nord.
Lufthansa, British Airways and Air France are the largest players in the airfreight business.
“Russia is considered to be a region with high potential and growing importance for Lufthansa Cargo. Although we do not plan to open new stations in Russia at the moment, we have been able to increase the number of flights – in the summer of 2006 we have got additional Munich flights from and to St. Petersburg and Moscow,” said Veli Polat, Regional Director for Sales in Russia and CIS at Lufthansa Cargo. 
Lufthansa Cargo has direct flights to five Russian cities – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod and Ekaterinburg.
“We are able to deliver freight inside Russia not only to the cities where we have direct flights. We serve off-line destinations using a transit center in Moscow. Thus, almost any city in Russia can be reached either by truck or on board a local airline,” Polat said.
Lufthansa Cargo has signed about 160 agent agreements in Russia with freight-forwarding companies and other firms. The company serves leading industrial companies and small enterprises.
“We are satisfied with the growth we had in 2005 compared to 2004. We expect a double-digit growth rate this year as well. The ratio between export and import in Russia is at the moment 1:5, so this will give you an indication about the general picture as well,” Polat said.
“Moscow and St. Petersburg are showing the largest demand for airfreight. Planned investments in St. Petersburg are indicating higher potential for the future,” Polat said.
According to RIA Novosti, airfreight volume in Russia decreased by 4.7 percent last year to 624,000 tons.
Of this amount 365,000 tons passed along international routes and 259,000 tons internally, the news agency reported on Jan. 19, citing the director of the civil aviation, geodesy and cartography department at the ministry for transportation Karl Ruppel.
Half the total shipment (passenger and freight) was provided by five Russian airlines — Aeroflot, Sibir, Pulkovo, KrasAir and Transaero.
Reasons for the decrease in transshipment include the growing cost of fuel, as well as unfavorable and time-consuming customs procedures.
It is the second successive year that demand for air cargo has fallen in Russia. 
According to IATA statistics, international airfreight increased only 3.2 percent last year. However, despite growth, air carriers lost $6 billion.
IATA forecasts airfreight to increase between five and six percent this year. Nevertheless, total losses for the airline industry as a whole will account for $4 billion.
“The industry will not get back into the black before 2007 at the earliest,” Reuters reported on Jan. 31 citing IATA CEO Giovanni Bisignani.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Construction Loan
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Amsterdam Trade Bank N.V., a subsidiary of Alfa-Bank, granted a $12 million loan to LenSpetsSmu construction company to finance projects in St. Petersburg, Moscow and the regions, RBC reported Wednesday referring to Alfa-Bank press service.
The loan is for a period of 12 years.

Port Investment
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Sea Port of St. Petersburg will invest 1.433 billion rubles ($53 million) into development, acquiring new transport vehicles and equipment, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing a port press release.
The Second Stevedoring Company will receive 20 units of loading equipment — the company already bought three loaders for $218,700.

Business Center
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A new A-class business center has been completed and made available for rent. 
The four-story high building at 19 Nevsky Prospekt dates from 1912 and was reconstructed and modernized by the Corporacia S company, owned by Vasily Sopromadze. 
Total office space is around 1,200 square meters. 
Previously there were another 13 A-class business centers operating in St. Petersburg, with occupation rates of 99 percent, according to Becar agency, the new center’s leasing agent.

TITLE: Russia Cools to Dollar As it Invests in Stability
AUTHOR: By Artyom Danielyan
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG — Russia has raised the share of euros in its growing central bank reserves, a top central banker said on Thursday, confirming Moscow’s cooling to the dollar as a dependable store of value. 
The announcement by central bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev came after Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia would keep its $71.5 billion budget stabilisation fund equally in euros and dollars, with a small share of sterling. 
“The share of euros has increased,” Ulyukayev told Reuters in St Petersburg, without elaborating. Euros have accounted for 25-30 percent of the central bank’s reserves in the past. 
Russia, the world’s No.2 oil exporter, has been piling up reserves at a breakneck pace as the central bank buys up petrodollars and prints rubles to defend a competitive exchange rate. Its gold and forex reserves rose to a record $236.7 billion in the week ending May 19, up 36 percent over the year to date. 
Kudrin had already questioned the weakening dollar’s role as a standalone reserve currency. Late on Wednesday, he said the stabilisation fund would be invested 45 percent each in dollars and euros, and 10 percent in sterling. 
But he signalled a delay to investing the fund — which gathers windfall tax revenues when the oil price exceeds $27 a barrel and is now held in rubles — in AAA-rated government bonds as allowed under new rules approved by the government. 
He said instead the fund would be put on deposit at the central bank to earn interest, meaning that the switch from rubles to dollars, euros and sterling would be a bookkeeping entry and have no impact on forex markets. 
“As far as I know, this will not affect the market, I do not think they (the central bank) will need funds from the market,” Kudrin told reporters. 
Ulyukayev confirmed that the central bank’s reserves — of which the stability fund forms a part — were sufficiently large to cover the fund’s currency allocations. 
“The volume of our gold and forex reserves is over three times bigger than the oil fund, so there is no such problem,” he said. 
Speculation about a shift in state reserves, mainly from China, Asian economies and major oil exporters, was key in dragging down the greenback in recent years. 
But currency strategists doubt there would be any short-term impact on the dollar from the Russian news. 
“Although it may also be a signal of similar moves to come from other reserve managers, it probably suggests that some respite from dollar selling may be seen in the short run,” The Royal Bank of Scotland said in a market commentary. 
Global central banks which hold more than $4 trillion in forex reserves have become more active currency managers and increasingly play a strong role in the $1.9 trillion-a-day forex market as well as the bond markets. 
Oil exporters have received huge petrodollar inflows in the past few years, a major part of which has been ploughed back into risk-free U.S. Treasuries. But they have also made efforts to spread their risks by diversifying into euros and sterling.

TITLE: Gref Says Police Suffocating Small Firms
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref told a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the country’s small businesses were suffocated by pressure from underpaid, bribe-hungry police. 
Opening the meeting, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov also slammed pressure from police and inspectors that he said encouraged “abuses and corruption.”
“It’s a vicious circle,” Gref said, Itar-Tass reported. “Police still get only a few thousand rubles [about $100] per month — and this drives them [to carry out inspections],” he said. 
The criticism comes a week after a series of high-level dismissals in response to President Vladimir Putin’s state-of-the-nation speech, which targeted graft among officials and businesses.
Gref suggested that the government’s consumer rights watchdog should carry out inspections at consumer markets instead of the Interior Ministry and urged the necessary amendments to the law that would allow such changes, Prime-Tass reported.
“That would make life for small business easier,” he said, the agency reported.
Under current Russian law, the police are authorized to carry out inspections at consumer markets. The practice is a source of widespread abuse of powers and corruption. Gref said that small businesses play too small a role in Russia’s energy-based economy, which is dominated by raw materials exporters. 
At present, small businesses — the economic backbone of most Western economies — employ just 22 percent of the nation’s economically active population, compared with 50 to 55 percent in Europe and 80 percent in Japan, he said. 
The government should create conditions that would allow small businesses’ share of the gross domestic product to double to 40 percent in four years’ time, Gref said.
(AP, SPT)

TITLE: MEDEM, Your Medical Home Away From Home! Medical Tourism With MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital
TEXT: With the ever increasing price of health and dental care in the west, as well as the reluctance of many insurance companies to pay for the full cost of treatment, more and more people from the Americas, Europe, and Scandinavia are taking advantages of the cost savings of “Medical Tourism”. 
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MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital is proving to be a first rate choice for “Medical Tourists” for several reasons. In addition to our state-of-the-art facilities and staff of international professionals, coming to St. Petersburg to utilize MEDEM’s medical facilities offers these additional advantages:
– Russia is a “developed” country with very stable internal security, unlike many “third world” or “developing” countries.
– The education system in Russia is among the best in the world and has historically produced pioneers in every scientific endeavor from medicine to space. Therefore, although our staff is cosmopolitan in its composition, our Russian professionals are among the best in the world and global leaders in the medical sciences.
– St. Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities in the world with a history spanning more than three centuries, it remains the “Cultural Capital” of Russia and Europe.
– MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital offers you “World Class” health care and facilities at a fraction of the cost paid in the Americas, Europe, or Scandinavia.
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• Sports Medicine
• Rehabilitation Treatment (long and short-term)

OUR MEDICAL TEAM is comprised of highly qualified and foreign-language speaking professionals ready to provide diagnostics and treatment, and will keep you informed in a language you can understand. We offer care in a respectful and culturally sensitive manner, ensuring strict confidentiality and remembering at all times that we are treating people and not diseases. 

MEDEM’s Assistance Department
Understanding the difficulties and anxieties foreigners sometimes face when seeking medical attention far from home, MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital has established our assistance department to help things go more smoothly for you and your loved ones. Our Assistance Department is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with caring professionals who are here for you. Our services include:

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As the leading health care provider in Russia, for foreign tourists and expatriates, MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital is no stranger to dealing with insurance companies and meeting their requirements for treatment and billing. We have dealt with literally thousands of different insurers on behalf of our patients to make the financial issues surrounding their treatment easier, rather than more burdensome. MEDEM maintains good relations with hundreds of insurance firms we deal with regularly, including North America’s and Europe’s major insurance providers. We are happy to coordinate direct billing with your insurance provider, and seek to make the billing process as painless as possible.

Awards & Recognition
In addition to being the health care provider of choice for many foreign consulates, leading hotels, international companies, and professional and amateur sports teams in St. Petersburg, and Russia, MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital has been internationally recognized for it’s commitment to quality, excellence and service. MEDEM was also recently awarded the European Excellence Award – presented by the European Business Assembly, “for aspiring to achieve the highest quality in accordance with European standards”
NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR HEALTH! That is why MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital is committed to providing you Premium Western Standard Medical and Dental Care and services at a fair and reasonable price. We are here to serve you, and help you care for and maintain your most important possession, YOUR HEALTH.
MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital is a full-service Medical Center, Trauma & Surgical Center, Dental Center, and Pharmacy. As the largest private medical facility in Russia, MEDEM has been specializing in serving the foreign community – tourists and expatriates – for more than 6 years (since 1999). We are here to take care of all of your medical needs.
Whether it be a critical situation requiring the use of one of our ambulances and emergency room services, life-saving surgery or a routine operation, a bi-annual dental check-up or orthodontic care, diagnostic testing, prenatal care, providing necessary medications, or medical certificates for visas, work, or school, MEDEM International Clinic & Hospital stands ready to help.

TITLE: Traffic Cops May Play a New Card
AUTHOR: By Masha Gessen
TEXT: Every couple of years, another item is added to the number of documents you have to hand to the traffic police if you are pulled over. It used to be your license and registration. Then people stopped leaving their technical-inspection cards on the windshield for fear they would get stolen and started handing them out the window as well. Then they added the mandatory liability insurance policy. Now, it seems, you may have to add a debit card.
Some people already place a bill — 100, 500, or 1,000 rubles, depending on the nature of the violation and the make and model of the car they are driving — in their documents when they hand them to a policeman. That is a way to bypass time-consuming negotiations that go like this:
“That’s one severe violation. I could take away your license (impound your car).”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“I’ll have to fill out the paperwork and make you pay a hefty fine (go to court).”
“But couldn’t we settle it right here?”
Or you can pay up front. Or you can say, “Okay, please fill out the paperwork.” It seems that more and more people are saying just that. Indem, a foundation dedicated to the study of corruption in Russia, claims that the volume of corrupt business done by the traffic police has fallen by about 50 percent in the last five years. While I used to be the only one among my friends who refused to “settle the matter right here,” now most people I know insist on getting the proper paperwork.
The motivation for refusing to give bribes is complex. Some are opposed to corruption on principle, sometimes because they have seen that police corruption puts ordinary citizens in danger: Just think of the times terrorists have driven trucks full of arms and explosives into cities, bribing traffic cops along the way. 
Some resist because the part of the ritual where one has to plead with the cop to avoid further punishment is humiliating. Some people do it because the size of bribes has grown out of proportion to actual fines, and it has simply become too expensive. Most people, I think, intend to pay the fine.
But here is the thing. You don’t have to pay. Russian traffic police have not come up with any effective mechanism for fine collection. It used to be cops simply impounded your license until you showed up with a receipt demonstrating you had paid the fine. New laws don’t allow them to do this for minor violations. You can drive around with any number of outstanding traffic tickets until you decide to sell your car: To clear the registration for the new owner, you’ll have to pay the fines.
Other countries have found a variety of ways to enforce traffic fines. Some places, a car can be impounded for outstanding fines. Some places, huge late fees are levied. Some places, you cannot pass technical inspection if you haven’t paid up. But here, Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin has suggested a new way: Pay first, violate later. He is proposing that Russian drivers be required to open a bank account for the payment of fines, which will be withdrawn from those bank accounts when the occasion arises. All you have to do is hand the officer a debit card when you get pulled over.
The advantage is obvious: Instead of creating new police mechanisms, you can make the drivers do the work. The problem is that it would mean that every driver will be presumed guilty of committing violations, and that fines will once again be paid “on the spot,” creating new opportunities for bargaining with the cops, who are likely to offer discounts for paying cash. It seems that even as drivers, in their spontaneous way, are working to reduce corruption, the police are doing what they can to increase it.

Masha Gessen is a Moscow journalist.

TITLE: World of words
AUTHOR: By Adam Cushman
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Now in its seventh year, the well-established Summer Literary Seminars event branches out to include a Russian-language workshop.
In 1999, Russian-born writer Mikhail Iossel founded the Summer Literary Seminars (SLS) in St. Petersburg. In just seven years, SLS has achieved the status of one of the most prestigious literary seminars in the world, bringing to St. Petersburg some of the world’s most famous and respected authors and poets, up-and-coming writers from the finest programs in North America, as well as established and unknown writers from every edge of the globe. 
This summer, SLS will launch a new section of the seminars for Russian writers and poets. 
“The SLS Russian Language Creative Writing Workshops are making a genuine literary workshop available to young Russian writers so that they can develop their craft outside of the pressures of the commercial economy,” SLS co-director Jeff Parker said. 
The Russian Workshop will be a multi-genre class led by Sergei Gandlevsky, winner of numerous literary prizes and a figure who was once named Russia’s “most important living poet.”
“Partially it’s a way for SLS to give back to the literary community that has welcomed us over the past nine years, but it also furthers our participant’s opportunity to interact with and discover the younger generation of writers, many of whom have published work abroad in books and journals through connections with writers associated with SLS,” Parker said.
The new workshop creates a unique opportunity for Russian writers to not only study and improve their craft under the wing of one of Russia’s true greats, but also to become involved with SLS at every level. This includes attending readings, lectures, panels and various literary events, as well as interacting with leading western writers, who include or have included in the past George Saunders, Padgett Powell, Francine Prose and Dave Eggers. Russian poets Arkady Dragomoshchenko and Alexander Skidan, among others, will also be attending this year’s seminars.
Todd Shy, a U.S.-based writer and a participant at last year’s SLS, said that the St. Petersburg setting greatly adds to the value of the event.
“SLS offered the unique combination of first-rate writers and the haunting literary setting of St. Petersburg,” Shy wrote in e-mailed comments this week. 
“The program struck the perfect balance between planned events and free time. Quirky tours like the Mad Monk’s Walk (on the trail of Rasputin) or a guided walk in the footsteps of Raskolnikov were perfect springboards for later explorations and reflections.
“The staff were knowledgeable and helpful, from restaurant tips to obscure questions about Russia’s literary past. The writers were accessible, the White Nights accommodating, and the city packed enough strangeness to last a lifetime.”
Iossel said that it was for reasons such as these that he decided to hold the worldwide event in St. Petersburg.
“St. Petersburg fairly exudes forlorness and unfathomability,” Iossel said. “It’s as much a product of its own literary mythology as it is a place from whence the greatest Russian writers and poets of international bent, as it were, emerged: Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Nabokov…We expose [participants] to the place and the people representing the kind of reality they may not have known existed.”
Shy had his own special recollection of last year’s SLS. 
“A friend of mine and I packed off to find the site of Dostoevsky’s mock execution. We’re still not sure we found it, but our wanderings that morning were unforgettable.” 

For more information about SLS or attending the Russian Workshop, please visit www.sumlitsem.org

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Now that the Rolling Stones has postponed the first 15 shows of the European leg of its A Bigger Bang Tour, including Russia’s one-off concert in St. Petersburg (see article, page 1), an ongoing war between promoters appears to have broken out.
Weeks after the Stones’ gig had been originally set for June 13, the Moscow-based, state-owned company Kreml announced a free, open-air concert featuring Western and Russian acts to take place on Palace Square on that very same date.
The local business newspaper Delovoi Peterburg claimed this week that the Palace Square concert and the choice of the date is “not coincidental.” Actually, it is directed against Yegveny Finkelshtein, the head of the Stones’ local concert promoter PMI, the paper wrote.
“Some time ago, Yevgeny Finkelshtein and Vladimir Kiselyov, the head of the Kreml company, clashed over the Rolling Stones, and the loser is set to rehabilitate himself,” the paper wrote. 
The paper also cited Finkelshtein, who said that the [Palace Square] concert “has been canceled.” Finkelshtein’s opponents issued a statement and organized a news conference to dismiss the “rumors” Thursday. 
The unlikely international lineup featuring the Scorpions, the Cardigans and Russian singer Zemfira Ramazanova will perform on Palace Square on June 13, the promoter confirmed.
The Palace Square concert is advertised as part of the G8 Summit and a global anti-piracy initiative.
“Definitely, because of the great attention from the heads of G8 states [and] the foreign media, the action on the Palace Square will resonate around the world as well,” the promoter said.
The only problem is that the G8 Summit is scheduled to take place on July 15-17, a month after the “Super Concert,” as the promoter  affectionately calls it.
This week, a massive one-night event, Nashi V Gorode, will take place at and around the Yubileiny Sports Palace. Held on five stages and featuring dozens of Russian acts, it will at least give a vast picture of the current state of music in this country, even if its name is reminiscent of the Kremlin-based youth movement Nashi. The event is held on Friday. See gigs for the lineup.
On the club circuit, Giant Robot, the Helsinki-based band that brought us the song “Helsinki Rock City” will perform its blend of rock and hip-hop at Platforma on Friday. The German pop-rock band Wir Sind Helden, scheduled to perform at Red Club on Wednesday, is not coming due to the illness of a member, and will be replaced by the Hamburg-based indie rockers Tomte.
Datscha, the music bar popular among expats and students, will celebrate its second anniversary with a party on Sunday, while the older local favorite, Fish Fabrique, will close for a brief repairs break on Monday, the management said this week. The place is due to reopen 10 days later.

TITLE: Making progress
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The rake is making good progress at the State Hermitage Museum with its recently opened exhibition “Hogarth, Hockney and Stravinsky: The Rake’s Progress.” 
Inspired by a famous narrative series of paintings from the 18th century, the show includes engravings by its orginator William Hogarth and by contemporary artist David Hockney (from the Hermitage and the British Council collections respectively) on the same theme.
A video recording of the 1975 Glyndebourne Festival production of Igor Stravinsky’s 1951 opera based on the paintings, with a libretto by W.H. Auden, is also being shown. 
One of the pioneers of the rich British tradition of social and political satire, Hogarth (1697-1764) gained recognition for what he called “modern moral subjects” — genre paintings depicting fallen lives in serial pictures resembling modern-day cartoon strips. 
As a rule, the artist first produced paintings then made engraved copies to publish by subscription. This innovation gave the artist direct access to the market and relieved him of patrons. 
The earliest such series was “A Harlot’s Progress” (1732) where six images, sin by sin, reflect a prostitute’s career to the point of its collapse. 
After it became hugely successful, Hogarth created a sequel — “A Rake’s Progress” (1735) — destined to become even more famous. In it, the main character, Tom Rakewell, gets an inheritance (the first image is called “Funeral Preparation”) but wastes it away in a series of evermore desperate misadventures in a sequence of pictures called “Opulence,” “Orgy,” “Arrest,” “Marriage,” “Gambling Den,” “Prison” and, finally, “Bedlam.”
The moralistic story, a warning of the pitfalls of sin, is Hogarth’s aim. The British art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon wittily noted once that Hogarth was influenced by Newton’s theory of gravity published some years before the artist’s birth.
“The only way is down and this is true of Hogarth’s people too,” as Graham-Dixon put it. 
At the same time, according to the exhibition’s curator Hermitage senior researcher Arkady Ippolitov, Hogarth’s story must be considered in the context of the development of the theme of rakes, macaroni, pigeons, dandies and other eccentrics. 
All of them are extremely important for English and European culture in general before and after Hogarth’s time. In this sense, the story of the light-headed and unlucky young stud of the beginning of the 18th century transcends time and is as meaningful and tragic as parable of the prodigal son. 
An good old emblematic text is always a fruitful platform on which to build new readings. One such marvellous upgrade of the rake was made by Hockney, a living English artist (born in 1937) who now lives in California. After his first trip to New York in 1961, Hockney created his own version, “Rake’s Progress in New York,” a portfolio of 16 prints, two for each scene. 
The young artist smartly and loosely mixed Hogarth’s narrative with his first impressions of New York and Los Angeles: skyscrapers, gay bars, loud election campaigns, huge swimming pools, palms trees, the cult of sport and perpetual sunshine. 
Being partly autobiographical, the prints are quite intimate, fragmentary and accidental and there is nothing left from Hogarth’s strong didactics. Hockney’s relation to the character is more sympathetic. Like Hogarth, the artist uses etching but besides the traditional black he always uses, there are red spots marking clouds, the sun, a slogan or a signboard, turning the object in to a source of warmth. In the last plate, “Bedlam,” Hockney comes to quite the opposite conclusion as Hogarth: the most awful thing is to find yourself part of a crowd, something that Tom Rakewell naively tried to evade.

The Rake’s Progress runs through July 23. www.hermitage.ru

TITLE: Reaching the summit
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Rising classical music stars who have just broken through but haven’t yet filled their concert diaries for years to come are coming to St. Petersburg to perform at the the 11th International Musical Olympus Festival this week.
The event kicks off Friday showcasing 23 bright up-and-coming musicians from 12 countries. This year’s participants have been handpicked by the festival’s founder, renowned pianist Irina Nikitina and members of its honorary committee which features classical music giants Claudio Abbado, Mariss Jansons, Placido Domingo, Valery Gergiev and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Taking center stage at the Shostakovich and Glinka Philharmonic Halls and the Hermitage Theater will be the winners and finalists of some of the world’s most respected musical contests, including the Queen Elisabeth competition in Brussels, the Grand Prix Maria Callas in Athens and the Rostropovich cello competitions in Paris.
The festival, running through June 4, will introduce young singers, conductors, violinists, cellists, pianists, guitarists, brass and wind instrumentalists as well as a tuba player.
Nikitina’s efforts on behalf of the festival goes against the grain of Russia’s cultural mainstream. Although her festival and its namesake foundation have long made an international name for themselves, the musician finds that the environment for classical music in Russia is not favorable.
“The Culture Ministry and other state organizations involved in supporting and promoting cultures and the arts seem to be turning into show-biz agencies,” Nikitina said. “Most people tend to value labels, rather than quality, and allow themelves to fall for intrusive promotions, be it in arts or otherwise. Everybody knows that Coca-Cola is not particularly good for your health but their sales are booming.”
In such a context, raising funds for classical music is all the more challenging.
“The long-lost traditions of arts philanthropy (I am talking about on such a scale as when new concert halls were being built entirely with private donations) has not yet been revived in Russia.”
A new concert hall is a sensitive subject for the founder of the Musical Olympus. She started the festival — featuring a sumptuous Strauss Ball — with a noble goal in mind: all profits raised by selling tickets to the ball were to be invested in the construction of a modern concert hall in Pavlovsk, where an artistic academy would operate every summer. 
Nikitina, who prefers to trust live impressions rather than recordings and others’ opinions, visits the world’s leading musical festivals herself to select the most talented participants — not necessarily the gold medal winners — for her annual festival. Her choices create the special atmosphere of her festival, in which there are no random guests. “They need genuine talent, and they have to touch my heart,” Nikitina said.
One of this year’s participants, 19-year-old Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, is a case in point. The  musician, who took second prize at the Third Tbilisi International Piano Competition in 2005, will be performing at the opening of the upcoming Musical Olympus.
“The winners in Tbilisi did an excellent job, all being very precise, but when she touched the instrument I was mesmerized: I could tell at that very moment that Khatia is much more than a professional, she is a gifted artist,” Nikitina said.
Her choices have been proving right. A string of young musicians, whose first major engagement was with this festival have since turned into international stars. Examples include violinists Sayaka Shoji, Nikolai Znaider and Sergei Khachatryan. For its participants, the festival is much more than a one-off plum engagement. For many of them the Musical Olympus becomes a kind of patron saint. 
“We are watching their careers very closely, and they can count on us, even at the time of a crisis,” Nikitina said. 
Pianist Eldar Nebolsin, who gained fame after his performance at the first Musical Olympus in 1995, disappeared from the stage for almost two seasons after becoming a Jehovah’s Witness and nearly dropping his artistic career. 
“After the most trying period in his life, he was looking to return to the music, and last year [in 2005] he called me asking if I would advise him to take part in the prestigious Sviatoslav Richter International Piano Competition,” Nikitina said. “He had all my moral support, and I was increadibly happy when he won that contest.”
Now, Nebolsin’s schedule is busy and features, for instance, a performance at the respected Beethovenfest in Bonn this year. “He had to make a very hard and painful choice, and I am very happy to see him back on stage.”
www.musicalolympus.ru

TITLE: Writer in residence
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Once-exiled author Yury Galperin talks about his work and the new Russia.
Russian writer Yury Galperin, the author of “Bridge Across the Lethe,” “Russian Variant” and “Playing Blues,” whose works were banned for publication for many years in Russia, has lived in Switzerland for 27 years. However, he likes to come to visit his native St. Petersburg where he finds inspiration for his best writing.
Although Galperin left Russia in 1979, he still says “we” meaning Russians, speaks only Russian to his Swiss wife and son, is abreast of all the news in the country and talks about politics, culture and problems of life in Russia as if he never moved abroad. 
“You can’t choose you mother or your motherland,” he said. “I was born in this country and I love it.” 
Born in 1947 in Leningrad into the family of a professional musician, Galperin wrote his first story at the age of 17. Having graduated from high school, he was enrolled in the army and served in North Russia for three years. His first works were published in Monchegorsk, a town within the Arctic circle in the center of the Kola Peninsula. Then several of his stories and essays were published in Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known. But Galperin soon fell into disgrace with the Soviet authorities that, for political reasons, did not allow him to publish his novels that were consigned into his desk drawer for several years. 
Although he married Swiss Slavonic scholar Therese Madeleine Rollier in 1978, he still meant to stay in Russia, Galperin said. 
“I didn’t want to live abroad and we kept living in a communal flat in Leningrad but I couldn’t just breathe freely here and finally, a year later, we moved to Switzerland,” he said.
Remaining a Soviet citizen, Galperin still had the chance to come home from time to time until 1982, when he brought his friends in Russia several copies of “Bridge Across the Lethe,” which had recently been awarded the Vladimir Dal award in Paris. Since the novel was banned Galperin was not allowed back into the Soviet Union for the next five years. 
“They thought that such literature would evoke the atmosphere of unnecessary and illicit freedom. And it was only in 1987, during the time of Gorbachev’s perestroika, that I could bring the copies of my third book ‘Russian Variant’ to Russia,” he said.
Galperin, whose books have been published in German, Hungarian, French and English, said his books are written for intellectual people. With all his books in print, he calls himself a “long-selling” author (as opposed to a best-selling author) and wants to have more young people among his readers. 
“As with any author who dreams about literary immortality, I am very interested in young readers,” he said. “I just usually know what most of my old friends’ (who are the same age as me) reaction will be to my new book. Unlike them, the young audience is more unpredictable and that’s why it is more interesting.”
After writing novels and essays for the last 42 years, Galperin thinks that a vocation for writing is only the first element in a combination of qualities a good writer should have. 
“If you have a vocation, you just start writing but then professional skills go. You need to develop the professional attitude to you work, to read a lot and learn writing all the time. It is the high level of culture that a good writer needs to obtain,” he said.
However, besides the writing skills, life experience is what makes a good writer. Galperin, who has never written to order he said, supposes that you need to express on paper what you have within you soul. 
“If you are truthful to yourself and do not follow the fashion, sooner or later you will inevitably conflict with the reality that will bring you, sometimes, bitter but always useful experience for a writer.” 
In Galperin’s opinion, a writer needs to see life from the outside and know it well from the inside. He strongly believes in discussion and is interested in people’s personal point of view that is, in his opinion, valuable and says that, as a writer, he just wants to make people think about his words. 
Now, as a person who suffered from the limitation of his rights and freedom during the Soviet era, Galperin, is, in general, positive about Russia’s future. 
“Due to the favorable economic [situation] things in Russia are getting better and better but it will take several decades to make up the considerable gap [with the West],” he said. He does not think that Russia has succeeded in following the Western way of development because “the authorities and managers do not know how it works, while Western society’s attitude towards Russia is not completely frank.” However, as for the policy pursued in Russia, Galperin thinks that the country is heading for a slow, controlled, democratization. 
Freedom means nothing but freedom of choice, Galperin said. “Once you’ve made your choice, you should follow the way you’ve chosen,” he said. He admitted that the advent of long-awaited freedom in Russia has had many side effects. “The concept of freedom without any responsibility brought lots of vulgarity to the country.”
The growing ideals of consumer society that came to Russia at the beginning of 1990s had far-reaching implications, with people wanting to gain material comforts and lacking time for their inner cultural life, which has declined, said Galperin. 
“I haven’t seen anywhere else besides Russia such an awful amount of imposing and vulgar advertisements. People are anxious only how to earn more and more cash, without taking into account any responsibility they should take for that,” he said. “Pure vulgarity is everywhere.”
Galperin said that even in Switzerland, a country with its material, spiritual, national and religious culture in tact, is suffering from consumerism. However, he cannot stand it if anyone rails against the Swiss or Russians in general. “I love Switzerland and several Swiss and I love Russia and some Russians,” he said.
In his desire to live in both his beloved countries, Galperin recently bought an apartment in St. Petersburg where he will stay for a couple of months soon to write new novels.
Galperin has plenty of creative plans. He is simultaneously working on various projects, including the books “The Foreign Winter,” “The Gold of Helvetia,” “To the Alpine Gods Devoted,” “The Genealogy of Gods” and a collection of his essays. 
“I love writing and want to keep on writing more and more now,” he said. “Life is too short to drink bad wine.”

TITLE: Bin Laden Sneers At U.S. Justice System
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO, Egypt — Osama bin Laden’s latest audiotape is both an attempt to trash the U.S. justice system and recapture his “thunder” as the world’s No. 1 terrorist, experts said Wednesday. 
The five-minute tape posted on the Internet on Tuesday is indicative of al-Qaida’s revved-up propaganda machine, which is issuing an increasing number of messages from top leaders and showing a quicker reaction time to world events. It was bin Laden’s third tape this year.
Bin Laden spent much of the tape trying to exonerate Zacarias Moussaoui of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The tape emerged three weeks after a federal court in Virginia sentenced Moussaoui to life imprisonment for the attacks.
Evan Kohlman, U.S.-based founder of globalterroralert.com, which tracks al-Qaida, said the terror network used to take two to three months to get tapes into the media. “Nowadays they are able to put out these things within days, weeks — it’s quite amazing,” he said.
Bin Laden’s focus on Moussaoui may have had two purposes: to show the al-Qaida leader’s command of the Sept. 11 attacks and to taunt the U.S. over its effort to prosecute terrorists. Moussaoui is the only person convicted in the United States for the 9/11 attacks.
On the tape, bin Laden referred to the 19 militants involved in the suicide hijackings, saying: “I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission.”
Addressing the American people, bin Laden said Moussaoui was not the 20th hijacker “as your government has claimed,” and his confession of guilt was the result of pressure under detention.
“Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events, and if he had known something — even very little — about the Sept. 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohamed Atta, and the others ... to leave America before being discovered,” bin Laden said.

TITLE: In Poland, Pope Honors John Paul II
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WARSAW, Poland — Poland gave German-born Pope Benedict XVI an enthusiastic welcome Thursday as he started a four-day visit aimed at honoring predecessor John Paul II and furthering German-Polish reconciliation from the wounds of World War II. 
Benedict beamed broadly and waved as he descended from the plane, and managed to keep his skullcap from flying off in a brisk breeze — unlike his arrival on his first foreign trip in Germany last year. A choir sang “The Barge,” John Paul’s favorite song — just one sign of how the late pope remains a strong presence in Poland more than a year after his death.
Benedict is delivering speeches in Italian — which he speaks well — and Polish, which he doesn’t, but not in German, presumably out of regard for the feelings of the wartime generation in Poland, which suffered enormously at the hands of Nazi invaders.
But Poles like Benedict’s emphasis on continuing John Paul’s legacy, and don’t seem to mind that he is German despite the memory of the war — which left Warsaw in ruins.
High points on Benedict’s schedule will include a Mass on Friday in central Warsaw where John Paul inspired the Solidarity movement with an appearance in 1979 during communist rule. Then he heads for the late pope’s hometown of Wadowice, and for Krakow, where John Paul was archbishop.
On Sunday Benedict visits the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where Nazi German occupiers killed some 1.5 million people, most of them Jews. The visit by a German-born pope who was enrolled in the Hitler Youth is fraught with significance for Catholic-Jewish relations, a favorite cause of John Paul, who also visited Auschwitz on his 1979 trip to Poland.

TITLE: New ‘American Idol’ Named During Star-Filled Showdown
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES — Taylor Hicks, the mop-topped manic dancer who wooed TV audiences with his raw singing style and boisterous personality, was named the new “American Idol” Wednesday in a pop star-filled finale that included Prince and Mary J. Blige. 
Hicks, 29, of Birmingham, Albama., became the latest in a string of Southern and Midwestern contestants to win the Fox talent contest after collecting more viewer votes than runner-up Katharine McPhee, 22, of Los Angeles.
Hicks leaned over, overcome by host Ryan Seacrest’s announcement.
“Soul Patrol!” he shouted, acknowledging his avid fans by their nickname. “I’m living the American dream,” he added as he closed out the show with a performance of “Do I Make You Proud.”
It was Katharine vs. Taylor, McPheever vs. the Soul Patrol, with a recording contract and the fifth “Idol” title up for grabs.
More than 63 million votes were cast, “more than any president in the history of our country has received,” Seacrest said.

TITLE: Murder Shows Colonial Rift
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NAIROBI, Kenya — A descendant of Kenya’s first white settlers, whose freewheeling ways inspired the book “White Mischief,” was charged with murder Wednesday in a case that has exposed deep resentment about British colonialism in East Africa. 
Thomas Cholmondeley pleaded not guilty to killing a black Kenyan on his 100,000-acre property in the fertile Rift Valley — a region once dubbed “Happy Valley” because of the decadent lifestyles of its colonial settlers.
When asked to answer to the charge of murder, Cholmondeley replied: “Not true.”
Cholmondeley, 38, could face the death penalty if convicted in the case, which marks the second time in just over a year he has fatally shot a black man on the vast, largely ungated farm that’s prone to frequent intrusions. He carries a rifle for safety, as is common in rural Africa.
Cholmondeley’s attorney, Fred Ojiambo, said his client fired in self-defense both times.
“In this case, the lies are being orchestrated to make him look like the guy who shoots Africans for sport,” Ojiambo said. He added that the victim in the latest case unleashed several dogs on Cholmondeley after the man was caught poaching an impala.
Cholmondeley was aiming for the dogs — not 37-year-old Robert Njoya Wambugu, who was shot in the back and died en route to a hospital, the lawyer said.
Last year, a murder case against Cholmondeley was dropped amid high-level government intervention, enraging Kenyans who say he received special treatment because of he is an heir to Britain’s Lord Delamere. In that case, Cholmondeley said he mistook an undercover game warden for a robber.
The cases have exposed deep tensions about the British presence in Kenya, with many citizens resentful that the most precious land was taken over by the British government during colonial times. After independence in 1963, many departing settlers transferred land to Africans, with Britain underwriting some of the costs.
Some settlers, including Cholmondeley’s family, kept their land and became Kenyan citizens. But now an increasing number of Kenyans are saying the land simply doesn’t belong to whites. Kenya’s minister for immigration has even raised the unlikely prospect of deportation.

TITLE: Unlikely Trio Gear Up For French Open Battle
AUTHOR: By Pritha Sarkar
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Amelie Mauresmo, Nadia Petrova and Martina Hingis were unlikely to have been at the top of anyone’s list of likely French Open champions six months ago. 
Mauresmo was a perennial underachiever at the grand slams, Petrova floated on the women’s tour as the forgotten Russian and Hingis had barely competed on a tennis court in three years. 
Yet when the Roland Garros gates are thrown open on Sunday for the season’s second Grand Slam, the trio will be among five players the rest of the 128-strong field will want to avoid running into. The other two being Belgians Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne, the defending champion. 
Since Mauresmo contested her first major final at the Australian Open in 1999, when she lost to Hingis, she criss-crossed the world to compete in 23 Grand Slam events over the next six years. 
On every occasion, the talented Frenchwoman’s trip ended in frustration as she failed to reach another showpiece match. 
Paris was an especially unhappy hunting ground. While she had at least reached the semi-finals in the other three slams, she failed to even equal that feat on home territory. Each time her fragile nerves crumbled under pressure. 
After finally getting her hands on a grand slam trophy at the Australian Open in January, however, Mauresmo has acquired newfound confidence in her game and is determined to live up to her world No. 1 status in Paris. 
“To start the tournament as number one seed will spur me on even if I know that a lot of people will turn their attention to me,” said the 26-year-old, who expects to be fully fit despite withdrawing from last week’s Italian Open with a sore throat. 
“I was sorry not to be able to play in Rome where I always had good results but maybe that’s a good thing,” she said. 
“The previous years I won in Rome or reached the final and it didn’t help me in Paris.” 
When her Russian compatriots Anastasia Myskina, Maria Sharapova and St. Petersburg’s Svetlana Kuznetsova won three of the four majors in 2004, Petrova got lost in the crowd. 
In fact, she did not win her first WTA title until last season. 
This year she has been almost unstoppable on clay, sweeping up titles in Amelia Island, Charleston and Berlin. 
Hingis has been the story of 2006. Since confirming her full-time return in December from a self-imposed three-year exile, she has shot up the rankings at a furious pace. 
Victory in Rome cemented her place as one of the serious challengers for  Roland Garros and the world No. 14 is eager to win the only grand slam title that slipped her grasp during the first phase of her career. The 1997 and 1999 runner-up is happy with her role as underdog. 
“The pressure is on them, it’s not on me, and now with winning this event I know that I can do it again. I know I’m very close.”

TITLE: Federer Calm Under Nadal Pressure
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: PARIS — World No. 1 Roger Federer has said it is too early for him to even consider a possible showdown with defending champion Rafael Nadal at the French Open. 
“The rivalry with Nadal is a wonderful story,” Federer told French sports daily L’Equipe on Thursday. 
“But right now, I am focusing on the early rounds and on my own game,” the 24-year-old Swiss said. “Because the first players I’m going to meet are very different from Nadal.” 
Federer arrives in Paris aiming to capture the only Grand Slam title that eludes him, but faces the prospect of having to defeat a player who boasts a 5-1 winning record against the seven times Grand Slam winner. 
With the Swiss and Spaniard taking the top two seeds, they cannot meet before the final in Roland Garros, which starts on Sunday. 
Despite being ranked the lower of the two, Nadal has developed a stranglehold on Federer this season, beating him in finals at Dubai, Monte Carlo and Rome. 
The last two victories were on clay, a surface on which the Spaniard has won 53 consecutive matches to equal Guillermo Vilas’ claycourt record set 29 years ago. 
Undaunted, Federer said he was relishing the challenge as a way to improve. 
“It has been a long time since I had to ask myself the question ‘how can I beat this opponent?’” he said. 
“But I think my best chance of winning here will come either this year or in the next few.”
Meanwhile Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt may be forced to sit out of the French due to injuries.

TITLE: Diaw’s Late Strike Lifts Suns Over Mavericks
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — Boris Diaw scored the winning basket with 0.5 seconds on the clock as the Phoenix Suns drew first blood in the Western Conference finals with a 121-118 road victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday. 
Diaw had a career-high 34 points and his winning shot came 4.3 seconds after Devin Harris had put the Mavericks 118-117 ahead in a frantic last three minutes that featured an inspired Phoenix comeback.
Tim Thomas tacked on two free throws after Diaw’s late basket to finish off the scoring. 
Dallas led 114-105 with 3:10 remaining, but the Suns out-scored the Mavericks 16-4 to seize homecourt advantage from the Mavericks.
Game 2 in the best-of-seven series was due to be played in Dallas on Friday.
After Harris made his 17-foot jumper to put the Mavs back in front, Phoenix called a timeout and set up a play intended for league MVP Steve Nash, according to Diaw. 
“Coach called the play, but it wasn’t for me, it was for Steve Nash,” Diaw told reporters.
“He wasn’t open, so I had to take the shot.”
Diaw cut to the basket and calmly dropped the winning basket, silencing the sell-out crowd and putting the Suns ahead 119-118.
 Dwyane Wade’s 25 points in just 26 minutes inspired the Miami Heat to a 91-86 victory over the Detroit Pistons in Game One of the National Basketball Association’s Eastern Conference Finals Tuesday in Auburn Hills. 
Antoine Walker added 17 points and seven rebounds for the Heat, who had five players in double-digit scoring as they played a vital part in the opening game victory. 
“That’s what it’s going to take, a total team effort against a championship team like Detroit,” Miami’s Shaquille O’Neal told reporters.

TITLE: Briere Helps Sabres Beat Hurricanes
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BUFFALO, New York — Daniel Briere felt bad enough already and didn’t need Sabres coach Lindy Ruff reminding him and his linemates how poorly they played at Carolina.	
Buffalo’s co-captain quickly made up for it, scoring twice in a 4-3 win over the Hurricanes on Wednesday night that gave the Sabres a 2-1 edge in the Eastern Conference finals.
“We knew we didn’t do the job,” Briere said, referring to Buffalo’s 4-3 loss in Game 2 on Monday. “We knew we had to improve our play... We knew we had to make a bigger difference and we did.”
Ruff’s reminder came during a brief meeting at mid-ice following the Sabres practice on Tuesday. The coach was unhappy after Briere’s line combined for two shots in the defeat.
“Everybody thinks it’s Lindy,” added J.P. Dumont, who assisted on both of Briere’s goals. “But we’ve got character on our line. We didn’t need that meeting. It just rang the bell a little bit.”
Ales Kotalik had a goal and assist, and Chris Drury also contributed in helping Buffalo score four consecutive goals to take a 4-1 lead 13 minutes into the second period, taking advantage of Carolina’s lack of discipline.
Buffalo converted two of seven power-play chances, while Kotalik’s eventual winner came on a delayed penalty when he fired a shot from inside the blue line after Carolina’s Mike Commodore was called for holding the stick of defenseman Toni Lydman.
The win didn’t come easy in a series in which all three games have been decided by one goal.
Eric Staal cut the lead to 4-3 with 4:08 remaining, but Buffalo weathered the final flurry in which Carolina outshot the Sabres 11-4 in the third period and 3-0 in the last 2 minutes.
Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller stopped Ray Whitney in the slot with 13 seconds remaining and Sabres rookie Jason Pominville got his skate out to block the Hurricanes’ final shot, Matt Cullen’s slapper from the top of the left circle.
“We continued to work hard,” Staal said. “We had our chances. There were a couple of blocks there at the end, and Miller made some big saves, and it just wasn’t enough.”
Game 4 of the best-of-seven series is Friday at Buffalo.
Cory Stillman scored twice for Carolina, which failed to carry over the momentum of the Game 2 victory. Things got so bad that rookie goalie Cam Ward was pulled in favor of backup Martin Gerber after giving up four goals on 26 shots.
Ward wasn’t the problem.
“We were in the box the whole time,” Stillman said. “And when we’re doing that, we’re not going after people.”
“We were going to the penalty box and they were making some big plays,” Commodore added. “I don’t know if they caught us off-guard, but it was the difference in the game.”
The Sabres rebounded from their worst performance of the postseason with one of their best, and they did it without steady defenseman Teppo Numminen, who missed his second straight game with a lower body injury. Buffalo then lost another defenseman, Henrik Tallinder, during the win.

TITLE: Basso Rides Into Pole Position to Win Italy/France Double
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: PLAN DE CORONES, Italy — Italian Leonardo Piepoli won his second stage of this year’s Tour of Italy when capturing the 17th stage, which was cut short due to heavy snow falls.
While the 34-year-old confirmed his place as one of the top climbing specialists in the world, his compatriot Ivan Basso came in second to retain the leader’s pink jersey.	
Basso, who virtually secured overall victory in Tuesday’s stage and is bidding to be only the 13th rider to win the Tour of Italy/Tour de France double in the same season, holds a commanding lead of 5 minutes and 43 seconds over Spaniard Jose Enrique Gutierrez with only four days remaining.
The stage had been enlivened by the two-man breakaway of Italy’s Dario Cioni and Frenchman Benoit Poilvet who went clear in the 33rd kilometer and were only swept up with 8km to go.
Piepoli and Basso then split from the remainder of the lead group 1km from the finishing line, but Basso did not bother contesting the final sprint with his older rival.
Piepoli paid a handsome tribute to Basso’s gesture.
“He behaved like a true leader,” said Piepoli. “If he had gone for the sprint he would have beaten me.”
Basso, however, said that he had never intended on contesting the sprint.
“It was not an act of condescension by me,” said the 28-year-old, who has finished on the podium in the past two editions of the Tour de France behind now retired seven-time champion Lance Armstrong.
“If we had gone the full distance Piepoli would have won. He was the best on the day.”
Gutierrez took third 15 seconds behind while Italy’s Franco Pellizotti, Julio Perez Cuapio of Mexico and surprising Frenchman John Gadret filled out the top six.
The big loser of the day’s action was last year’s winner Paolo Salvodelli, who faltered again on the climb, finished over a minute behind Piepoli and saw himself lose his place on the podium as two-time champion Gilberto Simoni took third overall.
Piepoli, who is a member of Simoni’s Saunier Duval team, said he would be doing his best to ensure Simoni finished on the podium.

TITLE: U.S. Soccer Team Prepares For Tough Matches At World Cup
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: HARTFORD, Connecticut — The United States have never fared especially well against European competition, so there is reason for anxiety as the World Cup looms. 
Fourteen European nations are in the finals, and the U.S. are drawn in Group E with the Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana.
“I learned from the 2002 World Cup that you can’t worry about the draw,” U.S. coach Bruce Arena told Reuters. “You have to worry about getting your team ready to play. They’re all good teams in our group.”
The Americans, who had an impressive 2002 finals where they fell to eventual runners-up Germany in the quarter-finals, open against the Czechs, ranked number two in the world, on June 12 in Gelsenkirchen.
Now at an all-time high of fourth in FIFA’s rankings, the U.S. meet three-times champion Italy in Kaiserslautern on June 17 and first-timers Ghana on June 22 in Nuremburg.
“We don’t worry about that [2002 success],” Arena said. “Our focus is really on group play. Once you get into the round of 16, anything can happen. If we can’t get at least one point out of our first two games, we won’t have to worry about that (last 16).”
In 13 World Cup matches against Europeans, the Americans have won three, drawn one and lost nine. Playing in Europe, the U.S. have lost all seven fixtures against Europeans by a stunning 20-4 goal aggregate.
The U.S have also lost three of five games to Italy, including a 7-1 rout at the 1934 finals. They also lost to the former Czechoslovakia 5-1 in the 1990 finals in Italy and have never played Ghana.
“We opened up the World Cup in 2002 against Portugal and beat them,” Arena said. “We have a team that’s four years older. A number of players have experience, not only in a World Cup, but in good club competition in Europe.