SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1194 (59), Friday, August 11, 2006
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Was This The Next 9/11?
AUTHOR: By Paul Haven
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Its scope was ruthlessly ambitious, causing destruction officials say would have been “unimaginable.” The alleged plot to take down several U.S.-bound planes with liquid explosives appears to be unlike anything the world has seen in years. 
Counterterrorism officials said Thursday the London plot appears to bear the fingerprints of al-Qaida, and may have been “the Big One” they have been dreading since Sept. 11, 2001, particularly as the five-year anniversary of the carnage approaches.
More than 20 people have been jailed, terror threat levels have been raised to some of their highest levels, and hundreds of flights have been canceled worldwide.
“The scope or the magnitude of this attack is much larger than previous attacks,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Singapore’s Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.
He added that everything known so far points to involvement by Osama bin Laden’s terror group.
“It is a classic al-Qaida tactic. It is a hallmark of al-Qaida to carry out coordinated, simultaneous attacks, and the aviation domain is certainly known to al-Qaida. They have obvious experience in working around that system and extensive knowledge of the aviation domain.”
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff echoed those sentiments, saying the attack “was sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope.” He added that: “It was in some respects suggestive of an al-Qaida plot,” but cautioned that the investigation was still under way.
There have been dozens of thwarted plots around the world since the Sept. 11 attacks, and several that were murderously successful. Suicide bombers killed 52 people in London on July 7, 2005, 58 in two attacks in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2003, and 202 in Bali in 2002. Islamic radicals killed 191 people in Madrid on Mar. 11, 2004, then blew themselves up days later when police were closing in.
While al-Qaida’s call for global jihad clearly acted as inspiration, there has been no direct evidence that bin Laden or his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, had advance knowledge of those attacks, that they helped plan them, or that they provided financial or logistical help to those who carried them out.
The group’s failure to match the destruction it inflicted in the Sept. 11 attacks has led to speculation that a global dragnet that has forced bin Laden into hiding and ensnared many of his most trusted deputies may have degraded al-Qaida’s abilities.
Analysts said Thursday that is a theory to be believed only at the world’s peril.
The airline plan had the potential to dwarf the attacks of recent years — killing hundreds, perhaps thousands.
It also appears to have involved far more extensive planning and expertise.
Counterterrorism agents have been tracking the alleged plotters for months, and made arrests in London and its suburbs, as well as Birmingham.
Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at Sweden’s Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies who has done extensive research into al-Qaida’s efforts to recruit in Europe, said the foiled plot in Britain “could very well have been an attempt at ‘the Big One.’”
Andrea Nativi, a researcher at the Rome-based Military Center for Strategic Studies, said the London plot resembled that of Sept. 11, 2001, in its ambition and was entirely different in scope from other terror schemes of recent years.
“By comparison, the London subway attacks look like child’s play,” he said. “The new element here is their cleverness in trying to overcome the new security systems installed after 2001 ... No one can really expect to pass security checks with explosives in their pocket, they had to look for a plan B.”
Rodolfo Mendoza, a police intelligence official in the Philippines, said the “modus operandi” is the same as al-Qaida has used in the past.

TITLE: Plotters Had ‘Liquid Bomb’
AUTHOR: By Danica Kirka
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — British authorities said Thursday they had thwarted a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up several aircraft heading to the U.S. using explosives smuggled in carry-on luggage. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the terrorists planned to use liquid explosives disguised as beverages and other common products and detonators disguised as electronic devices. 
Officials raised security to its highest level in Britain and banned carry-on luggage on all trans-Atlantic flights. Huge crowds formed at security barriers at London’s Heathrow airport as officials searching for explosives barred nearly every form of liquid outside of baby formula.
The extreme measures at a major international aviation hub sent ripples throughout the world. Heathrow was closed to most flights from Europe, and British Airways canceled all its flights between the airport and points in Britain, Europe and Libya. Numerous flights from U.S. cities to Britain were canceled.
Washington raised its threat alert to its highest level for commercial flights from Britain to the United States amid fears the plot had not been completely crushed. The alert for all flights coming or going from the United States was also raised slightly.
Two U.S. counterterrorism officials said the terrorists had targeted United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. A U.S. intelligence official said the plotters had hoped to target flights to major airports in New York, Washington and California.
British Home Secretary John Reid said 21 people had been arrested in London, its suburbs and Birmingham following a lengthy investigation, including the alleged “main players” in the plot. 
Searches continued in a number of locations.
The suspects were “homegrown,” though it was not immediately clear if they were all British citizens, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. Police were working closely with the South Asian community, the official said.
The official said the plotters intended to simultaneously target multiple planes bound for the United States.
“We think this was an extraordinarily serious plot and we are confident that we’ve prevented an attempt to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, vacationing in the Caribbean, briefed President Bush on the situation overnight.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush also had been briefed by his aides while at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he has been on vacation.
“We do believe the plot involved flights from the U.K. to the U.S. and was a direct threat to the United States,” Snow said.
Chertoff, the homeland security chief, said the plot had the hallmarks of an operation planned by al-Qaida, the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11 attack on the United States.
“It was sophisticated, it had a lot of members and it was international in scope. It was in some respects suggestive of an al-Qaida plot,” Chertoff said, but he cautioned it was too early in the investigation to reach any conclusions.
It is the first time the red alert level in the Homeland Security warning system has been invoked, although there have been brief periods in the past when the orange level was applied. Homeland Security defines the red alert as designating a “severe risk of terrorist attacks.”
“We believe that these arrests [in London] have significantly disrupted the threat, but we cannot be sure that the threat has been entirely eliminated or the plot completely thwarted,” Chertoff said.
He added, however, there was no indication of current plots within the United States. 
Chertoff said the plotters were in the final stages of planning. “We were really getting quite close to the execution phase,” he said, adding that it was unclear if the plot was linked to the upcoming fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. 
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said authorities believe dozens of people — possibly as many as 50 — were involved in the plot. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. 
The plan involved airline passengers hiding masked explosives in carry-on luggage, the official said. “They were not yet sitting on an airplane,” but were very close to traveling, the official said, calling the plot “the real deal.” 
Passengers in Britain faced delays as tighter security was hastily enforced at the country’s airports and additional measures were put in place for all flights. Laptop computers, mobile phones, iPods, and remote controls were among the items banned from being carried on board. 
Liquids, such as hair care products, were also barred on flights in both Britain and the U.S.  
Huge lines formed at ticket counters and behind security barriers at Heathrow and other airports in Britain. 
Ed Lappen, 55, a businessman from Boston, who was traveling with his wife and daughter to Russia, found himself unable to travel further. “We’re safe, we’re OK,” he said at Heathrow. “Now my daughter is going to get a shopping trip in London.”

TITLE: New Twists in Hermitage Theft Drama
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Dramatic developments this week in the unfolding saga of the theft of millions of dollars worth of artifacts from the State Hermitage Museum included the arrest of three people earlier detained by police under suspicion of involvement in the heist. 
More than 220 items were named as having been stolen from the museum on Aug. 1. 
St. Petersburg police arrested the son and husband of Hermitage curator Larisa Zavadskaya, who died suddenly of a heart attack at her desk in October as an the start of inspection of her department,  which eventually exposed the absence of the works.
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called for the formation of a commission to revise and audit the collections of Russia’s museums. The commission, to include representatives of the Interior Ministry, the Culture Ministry, the security services and other state organizations, is due to start its work on Sept. 1. 
Zavadskaya’s husband Nikolai Zavadsky, a 54-year-old history professor who teaches at the Lesgaft Academy for Physical Culture, has confessed to having taken about 50 artworks to antique shops to sell while being aware that they came from the Hermitage, the St. Petersburg police press-service reported. 
Previously, Zavadsky maintained he had not known the items were stolen and that he took them to the dealers at the request of his wife who had told him she had received the works as gifts from friends, according to a report on Fontanka.ru. The investigation established that Zavadsky used his own passport to fill out forms needed to sell the artworks.
The Zavadsky family lives in a communal apartment in central St. Petersburg. 
Zavadskaya’s son, who worked as a courier at the Hermitage, has also been arrested. 
The third suspect is local antiques dealer Maxim Shepel, who was found to have purchased one of the stolen items. On Wednesday, shortly after his arrest, Shepel was hospitalized for a nervous condition and a severe, allegedly self-inflicted, eye wound. Shepel’s lawyer, Andrei Pavlov, told reporters that the dealer is currently undergoing treatment in a psychiatric ward in a city hospital.
Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky said Thursday that the most valuable of the stolen artworks, a 19th-century icon named “The Assembly of All Saints,” worth approximately $200,000, has been recovered. The wooden icon turned up on Aug. 3, in a garbage can outside 21 Ulitsa Ryleyeva following an anonymous call to police.
Many of the stolen items have recovered in this manner in the last 10 days. 
On Thursday, the police collected three items — two icons and a gilded silver cross — from lockers at Moskovsky Railway Station, after an anonymous call.
On Tuesday, two artifacts — a 19th century decorative silver ladle and a gilded silver pectoral four-sided Orthodox cross — were found next to the St. Petersburg branch of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) at 4 Liteiny Prospekt.
It remains unclear who is behind the returns, and whether they lead to a particular group or present a chain of non-connected events. 
The drama has Mikhail Piotrovsky’s critics weighing the chances of the director’s resignation or dismissal. But Piotrovsky’s boss, head of the Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency Mikhail Shvydkoi told Ekho Moskvy radio station this week that Piotrovsky’s position is safe. 
“Well, if you follow this logic, everyone should go. Including me,” Shvydkoi said when asked who should be held accountable for the theft.
“He knows the museum and all its ailments better than anyone else we could possibly headhunt,” Shvydkoi said. “Besides, Piotrovsky has already received his due: his name used to be normally mentioned in high tones, and over the past two weeks everyone speaks about him in very negative terms and most embarrassing context. This is a very tough thing to accept.”

TITLE: Yeltsin Makes Comeback In Ireland
AUTHOR: By Conor Humphries
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: DUBLIN — Twelve years after an embarrassing layover at Dublin’s Shannon Airport, a sprightly Boris Yeltsin returned to Ireland last week to hear a bit of traditional music, go fishing and, naturally, sample the local spirits.
Locals said the former president, known during the 1990s for his drinking binges, was in top form, catching a few fish from a yacht while cruising the waters off the scenic Country Clare.
The trip came two months after Yeltsin, 75, was spotted at the French Open in Paris. Yeltsin has been something of a globetrotter since stepping down in late 1999. He broke his leg during a visit to Italy in September.
William O’Callaghan, the skipper of the 14-meter yacht rented by Yeltsin for his fishing expedition, said Wednesday that his VIP guest needed help keeping his balance on the water but was not drunk.
“He has difficulty in walking. He’s gone pretty feeble,” O’Callaghan said. He dismissed Irish press reports that Yeltsin had been left incapacitated by alcohol. “If you’re not used to going on a small boat, especially in the Atlantic, you definitely need someone to hold onto.” 
Still, the 10-person entourage did manage to drain 3 liters of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey, Darren McNamara, the chef at the Inis Oir Hotel, said Wednesday. 
The hotel is on the smallest of the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland. Yeltsin visited the island Friday, the second day of the three-day trip. 
“He was a little tipsy going out, but he was in great form, all smiles,” McNamara said. 
“He stopped to watch the music, saluted everyone, and shuffled off out the door.”
After the boat trip, Yeltsin had to be helped onto a waiting minibus by two aides as he waved to and smiled at reporters, the Irish Independent reported earlier this week.
Yeltsin stayed at the five-star Dromoland Castle in Country Clare, the hotel where Ireland’s then-prime minister, Albert Reynolds, had planned to host a lavish reception for the Russian leader in 1994.
Although it was never confirmed, it was widely reported at the time that vodka prevented Yeltsin from disembarking his airplane and meeting Reynolds, who was accompanied to the tarmac by government ministers, members of the parliament and a military band.
The Irish officials were told the president was too ill to see them. Yeltsin faced heart trouble and other ailments during his tenure as Russia’s first post-communist leader.

TITLE: Court Clears Suspected Racists
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Russian Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the St. Petersburg City Court’s ruling clearing seven young men of racist murder charges in the 2004 stabbing death of a nine-year-old Tajiki girl, Khursheda Sultanova.
The defendants had been sentenced to jail terms ranging between 18 months and five years in March after a jury found them guilty of mugging and hooliganism, in a ruling that prompted national and international outcry in criticism of the Russian justice system.
“I think the judges had been waiting for the defense to give them an opportunity to deny that the murder ever took place,” said the head of the St. Petersburg Tajik Diaspora, Muhammad-Nazar Mirzolda in reference to the Moscow-based Supreme Court’s team of three judges. 
“Failure to locate the killers after interrogating 500 teenagers in the district where Khursheda lived, is like saying there was no killing at all,” said Mirzolda, insisting that the guilt had been proved beyond any reasonable doubt.
Though skeptical of winning the case in Russia, Mirzolda said court battles would continue since the community he heads, in collaboration with the Moscow Muslim Community, filed an appeal to the Supreme Court Presidium immediately after Thursday’s ruling. 
“It’s a formality that will grant us the right to go to the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.
Khursheda’s father, Yunus Sultanov, who had hoped to over-turn the lower court’s ruling, was not available for comment Thursday.
“It would be day-dreaming to expect an appeal against the same city court to go the other way,” said Aliu Tunkara, president of the St. Petersburg African Union organization, referring to an appeal lodged against last month’s acquittal of the suspected murderers of Congolese student, Roland Epassak.

TITLE: Drawings Worth $1.3M Stolen From Archive
AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Drawings worth an estimated $1.3 million have been stolen from a Moscow archive, authorities said Tuesday. 
The theft of at least 274 drawings by Constructivist artist and architect Yakov Chernikhov from the State Literature and Art Archive was announced just a week after it was revealed that some 220 artworks worth a total of $5 million had been stolen from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
This latest robbery raised fresh concerns about security in the country’s cash-starved museums and archives, and particularly about the problem of thefts by staff.
Archive director Tatyana Goryayeva said Tuesday that employees of the archive had evidently been involved in the disappearance of the drawings.
“Unfortunately, I have to state that employees of the archive were involved,” she said on Rossia television. “Because the main task of the archivist is to ensure the safety of documents.”
Sergei Stepashin, head of the Audit Chamber, called Tuesday for “a complete inventory of all state museums in our country,” Interfax reported. Stepashin also said art auctions should be more tightly controlled.
Officials at the Federal Service for Media Law Compliance and Cultural Heritage, the state culture watchdog, became aware of the robbery at the archive when nine missing drawings were sold by Christie’s auction house in London on June 22. 
“We constantly monitor all the auctions, and at some point we discovered that artworks that should have been in our archives were being put up for sale,” Yevgeny Strelchik, a spokesman for the cultural heritage service, said by telephone Tuesday.
Strelchik said the exact number of stolen drawings had not been determined, but that 274 of them, worth some $1.3 million, had already been located on the domestic and foreign antique market and would be returned to the archive.
Catherine Manson, a spokeswoman for Christie’s Europe, confirmed that the drawings had been sold but “were never released to buyers because it was just at the time of the sale we heard about this issue and therefore canceled the sales immediately,” she said by e-mail.
The architect’s grandson, Andrei Chernikhov, told Itar-Tass Tuesday that he learned about the robbery when an acquaintance asked him to verify the origin of the nine drawings put up for auction at Christie’s. Chernikhov said he demanded that Christie’s withdraw the lots.
Christie’s spokeswoman Manson said that “as soon as it became clear that there was a legitimate problem, we took the necessary steps to work with the authorities to establish the provenance and background to the works of art.”
“Now that it has been established that the vendor did not in fact have title to sell these works, the sales have been canceled and the objects returned to Russia,” Manson said.

TITLE: Spying Colonel Gets 13 Years
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Moscow district military court Wednesday sentenced a retired intelligence officer to 13 years in prison on charges of spying for Britain.
Sergei Skripal, 55, a retired intelligence agency colonel, is believed to have passed sensitive data to the MI6 intelligence agency, an FSB spokesman said.
Sergei Fridinsky, the new chief military prosecutor, represented the state in a hearing held behind closed doors because of the top-secret nature of the proceedings, Moscow District Military Court spokesman Alexander Minchanovsky said.
Fridinsky said he was satisfied with the prison sentence, noting that Skripal had been found guilty on all counts. The prosecutor earlier asked the court to give the defendant 15 years behind bars.
Espionage is punishable in Russia by prison terms of 12 to 20 years. In court, Skripal showed signs of regret and actively cooperated with investigators, Fridinsky said.

TITLE: Watchdog Bungles Spirits Suspension
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Consumer Protection Service’s Moscow branch had egg on its face after it mistakenly announced that Pernod Ricard, the world’s No. 2 wine and spirits company, had had its license suspended.
A statement saying that Pernod Ricard’s Russian subsidiary, P.R. Rus, had its wholesale alcohol sales license suspended was posted on the service’s web site Tuesday. It listed eight other alcohol market players, saying that their licenses were also suspended by the Federal Tax Service’s Moscow branch at the request of the consumer protection service.
“It was a mistake,” a spokesman for the watchdog said. “It happens.”
Dated, incorrect information was given to the press service for publication, he said, adding that everyone was under a lot of pressure and that the department’s chief was on vacation.
The statement caused a stir — including front-page stories in the country’s two largest business newspapers, Vedomosti and Kommersant — before it disappeared from the service’s web site Wednesday.
The phones at the Moscow office of P.R. Rus were ringing off the hook after the statement was released, said Olga Kasatkina, the company’s spokeswoman, adding that P.R. Rus didn’t have any problems with licenses.
“We are working as usual,” she said.
P.R. Rus distributes Jameson’s whiskey, Armenian cognacs produced by Yerevan Cognac Enterprise and Pernod Ricard brands including Havana Club rum. 
Retailers and importers have been struggling for weeks with delays in the introduction of new customs labels for imported wine and spirits that have left store shelves empty of many popular liquor brands.

TITLE: Record House Prices Leave Locals Helpless
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The city’s real estate market can already be characterized by queues and bidding wars, as prices for residential property skyrocket and affordable supply drops to critically low levels.
Although officials are trying their best to reassure those who fear being priced out of the market, experts still see a number of reasons why prices will continue to rise, at least for the time being.
“High real estate price is not exclusively a problem in Moscow. From January to May the price of residential real estate increased by 30 percent in all cities with populations of over one million people,” Interfax cited Sergei Kruglik, head of Federal Agency for Construction and Housing, as saying Tuesday.
But regardless of that fact, Kruglik affirmed a slowing in the rise of prices.
“I think this slowing down will continue till January 2007. At the end of the year, when people get access to various sources of income, like dividends on equities, they will start spending on apartments again, and the growth in prices will resume,” Kruglik said.
He suggested that within two to three years the national project, ‘Affordable Housing,’ would succeed in keeping real estate price growth below inflation.
At the moment this is by no means close to becoming a reality.
According to Becar real estate agency, the price of apartments in St. Petersburg has recently been increasing by 2 percent to 3.5 percent a week, while last month inflation in the city was only one percent, according to the Federal Service for Statistics.
Average inflation across Russia in July was even lower — 0.7 percent. The annual forecast of the ministry for economic development and trade has inflation at between eight percent and nine percent for the year.
Becar expects the prices of real estate to increase through until next year.
“The first and the most important reason is that many potential buyers have postponed their purchases. Prices started growing in September last year but many people considered it a coincidence and did not hurry to buy an apartment,” said Irina Gudkina, Becar deputy director.
“By 2006 the market got really ‘hot.’ It became obvious that prices would not fall and buyers rushed to close deals, also using mortgage schemes, which pushed prices even higher,” she said.
A more general reason for the rise in prices is an increase in the average income in Russia, which last year grew above the rate of inflation, Gudkina said.
“The fall in the dollar, the development of mortgages, decreasing interest rates and fewer requirements for borrowing also contributed to the current situation,” she said.
“A mortgage is a double-edged weapon. While prices are growing, a mortgage is one of the ways that one can afford to buy an apartment. On the other hand, mortgages increase the number of people able to buy an apartment and, consequently, contribute to price growth,” Gudkina said.
Yulia Trushina, head of marketing at Central Agency for Real Estate, saw the high oil price as a prerequisite for growth in the cost of real estate.
“The price of oil has tripled since 2001. The price of one square meter of residential real estate in St. Petersburg has increased at roughly the same rate,” she said.
Another reason she cited was the mentality of Russian buyers who prefer to invest into a steadily growing industry at the expense of other areas.
Nevertheless she was positive about the future of the real estate market.
“Many analysts predict a crisis in the construction market, but the crisis is likely to concern not the market itself but the ‘crazy profits’ made by some of the management companies. Many people already prefer spending more on finished apartments than going through part-take investment into construction. They have started assessing risks adequately,” Trushina said.

TITLE: Russia, Argentina in Talks On First-Ever Arms Deal
AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia is negotiating its first-ever arms sales to Argentina in a deal that could see Russian arms being swapped for Argentine beef. 
The news came less than two weeks after a controversial $3 billion arms deal between Russia and Venezuela that has been widely seen in Moscow as the trigger for U.S. sanctions on Russian defense firms. 
The potential deal includes military helicopters, high-speed patrol boats and rifles, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing a source in the Russian military.
Selling arms to Argentina, led by President Nestor Kirchner — an ally of Venezuela’s leftist leader Hugo Chavez — could risk further upsetting the United States. Chavez has sought to strengthen defense and trade ties between Latin American countries. 
Buenos Aires daily La Nacion reported Monday that Russian officials had offered to swap weapons for Argentine food products. 
A spokesman for state arms trader Rosoboronexport declined to say whether an arms deal was in the works, saying “the question is political.”
Russian officials, including the deputy head of the Defense Ministry’s defense procurement service, have met at least three times this year with Argentine Defense Minister Nilda Garre. 
At the latest meeting on Aug. 2, Garre met with Yury Korchagin, Russia’s ambassador in Buenos Aires, and discussed “technical-military cooperation,” according to a statement from Garre’s ministry.
Speaking by telephone from Buenos Aires on Wednesday, Korchagin said the meeting was “very good.” He declined to give further details, but said a bilateral agreement in 2004 had laid the groundwork for military cooperation.
Garre’s meeting with Korchagin was her third with Russian officials this year. On Jan. 18, she met with Korchagin, and on April 7 with Alexander Fomin, deputy head of the Defense Ministry’s Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, Garre’s ministry said.
During the meeting, Korchagin said Russia already had military deals with Peru, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela, among others, but said that, as far as Argentina was concerned, “in 123 years of relations between our countries, that path has not been trodden,” the Argentine Defense Ministry’s statement said.
Garre said Argentina had “maintained a low level of armament purchases in the last few years, due to, among other reasons, the economic situation of the country,” the statement said.
The Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation declined to comment Wednesday. The service is responsible for Russia’s defense deals.
Russia hopes to sell Argentina a wide range of weapons, including Mi-17 and Mi-35M helicopters, high-speed missile boats and patrol boats, Buk-M1-2 and Tunguska air defense systems, Igla shoulder-fired missiles, military vehicles and rifles, Interfax said.

TITLE: Sheremetyevo May Manage State Airports
TEXT: Profits Brewing
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Baltika brewery increased net profit by 16.3 percent in the first half of 2006, up to 94.7 million euros, according to International Financial Reporting Standards, Interfax reported Thursday.
Revenue increased by 18.2 percent up to 531.6 million euros, EBITDA — by 21.5 percent up to 162.4 million euros.

Constucts of Credit
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — In October 2006 the Etalon-LenSpetsSmu managing company, a part of construction holding LenSpetsSmu, will issue credit linked notes (CLN) worth a total of $100 million, Interfax reported Tuesday.
Managers expect the CLN to fetch nine percent profitability. The company plans to issue eurobonds in 2007-2008 and an IPO for 2008-2009.

Powerful Bonds
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg Power distributor Lenenergo will issue five-years bonds for three billion rubles ($112 million) in November 2006 to finance development of power infrastructure, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Because of expenses on infrastructure Lenenergo expects net profit of 100 million rubles this year — six times less than was initially forecast. 
By 2010 Lenenergo plans to invest 300 billion rubles ($11.2 billion) in development. 

Stocking Up
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Baltiisky bank will increase its authorized capital stock by 25 percent up to 132.986 million rubles ($5 million) by issuing additional shares, Interfax reported Wednesday.

Plant Issues
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The largest industrial construction company in the Northwest, the Kirovsky plant, will issue bonds worth a total of 1.5 billion rubles at the beginning of 2007, Interfax reported Wednesday. 
The resources will be used to realize investment projects and restructure the company’s credit portfolio.

TITLE: A Different View of Television
AUTHOR: By Leontin Byzov
TEXT: Russians tend to disagree with complaints on the part of the political opposition that the parties aren’t treated fairly by the media. The majority of people surveyed believe that the opposition receives sufficient coverage in the national media. At the same time, however, many also believe that there is a real difference in the amount of coverage on national television devoted to, on one side, the United Russia party and, on the other, to the Communist and the Liberal Democratic parties, which receive much less coverage, and the Rodina, Union of Right Forces and Yabloko parties, which have pretty much given up hope of getting coverage.
According to opposition parties, there is a clear lack of equality in the coverage afforded them in the media, particularly on national television. This situation, they claim, is responsible for their poor showing in both federal and regional elections, as well as for the positive performance in the same elections by the party of power, United Russia.
A survey conducted by the polling agency VTsIOM revealed that the public’s disenchantment with opposition parties is the result of different, objective factors. Although the current government does try to undercut the opposition, with the media as one of the tools it uses, the main reason for the marginalization of these parties is that they have failed to propose any new ideas that would appeal to the electorate.
Just 25 percent of those surveyed believe that opposition parties are prevented from delivering their message on national television. Even fewer respondents — 20 percent — believe that they are unable to do so in the major newspapers. The majority of people — 59 percent and 64 percent, respectively — believes that opposition parties face no obstacles in getting their point across on television and in print.
An analysis of the responses to questions about specific parties’ abilities to get their message across in the mass media identifies a greater perceived gap between the levels of access enjoyed by United Russia and the various opposition parties. Seventy-nine percent of those surveyed believed that the party enjoyed unlimited access to airtime, 8 percent believed it faced some limitations, while a mere 2 percent said that United Russia was entirely unable to get its message out.
Respondents showed less faith in the chances of the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party to get their points across. Even though the two represent the official opposition, it is more a case of opposition in form only. They are useful for the current government, as they give the country the appearance of a multiparty system characterized by real political discourse while acting as a safety valve for public discontent. Those surveyed judged the situation with regard to the Communists’ access to media more negatively than was the case with United Russia, with 42 percent believing there was open access, 35 percent believing there were some restrictions, and 6 percent thinking there was no access at all. Largely as a result of the coverage generated by its flamboyant leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Liberal Democratic Party fared a bit better, with 52 percent believing it faced no restrictions in getting its views across in the media, 28 percent believing that its ability was somewhat limited, and 4 percent answering that it enjoyed no access.
Rodina’s access to media coverage was significantly reduced in recent regional elections. The party’s former leaders, Dmitry Rogozin and Sergei Glazyev, at some point became personae non gratae. This was particularly damaging to the party’s prospects as it was positive television coverage that had helped it attract much of its electorate in the first place. The virtual information blockade contributed to the party’s popularity dropping to 2 percent. With regard to Rodina, 36 percent of all respondents said they thought the party enjoyed open access to the airwaves, 31 percent thought its access was somewhat restricted and 11 percent thought it faced serious restrictions.
The numbers for the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko are all in the same range as those for Rodina. Here, the departure of the high-profile figures of Irina Khakamada, Boris Nemtsov and Anatoly Chubais from the Union of Right Forces leadership and the reduced coverage of Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky clearly played a role.
As for media policy toward opposition parties, Russians appear to be divided, with 32 percent of respondents saying that no special measures to ensure coverage in the national media are necessary, 21 percent saying that a channel should be set up devoted entirely to socio-political coverage, 19 percent believing that existing political news and analysis programs should provide more coverage of the opposition, and 16 percent saying that airtime should be set aside on national television for the opposition.
Russia is tired of intrigue and shocks, and today is clearly going through a conservative, defensive phase. Society has no interest in disturbing the peace with ideas from either democratic or nationalist voices. There is some justification to the claims by the opposition that they fall victim to a harsh national media policy, but this doesn’t mean that this is the main reason behind their lack of popularity.

Leontin Byzov is the head of the analytical department at state-owned VTsIOM polling agency. A longer version of this comment was published in Vedomosti.

TITLE: Abkhazia Less Separatist Than Already Separated
AUTHOR: By Jeffrey Sweetbaum
TEXT: While traveling around Abkhazia by bicycle in recent weeks, visiting most of its cities and peddling through much of its countryside, I became extremely skeptical about Georgia’s efforts to reassert itself in the region. I spoke with many Abkhaz and Armenians, who are the dominant ethnic communities in Abkhazia, and they expressed a unanimous sentiment that any future Georgian presence would be absolutely undesirable. After an ugly war and unlikely victory against Georgia in 1993, the Abkhaz feel that it is their right to choose their own destiny. It is a point against which it is difficult to argue. Whatever Georgia’s historical claims, and whatever legal arguments might be posed in the debate, an attempt on Georgia’s part to reintegrate Abkhazia into its political sphere would be considered by the Abkhaz to be an invasion.
While the United States and European Union continue to support Georgia’s position for certain strategically opaque reasons, the reality is that Abkhazia is already a separate political entity and not a separatist movement. Attempting to reverse that status would cause a long drawn out military conflict that could not be won in any permanent sense. 
From a traveler’s perspective, Abkhazia has the look and feel of an independent country; the Abkhaz flag flies ubiquitously, while a range of government institutions provides public services. Chronic underdevelopment, however is evident. I got a surreal sensation as I walked along stretches of pristine beaches and peddled past large tracts of land that anywhere else would be considered prime real estate. Charming in its own way, the quiet Abkhaz coast has the feel of an artificial phenomenon. In Sochi, just a few kilometers down the coast, the density of sunbathers on the beaches jumps by a factor of 20. With the exception of a few adventurous tourists and entrepreneurs, the incredible potential for tourism in Abkhazia remains locked in an imposed limbo.
A considered examination makes it clear that the Abkhaz have carved out a de facto independence that they will never rescind voluntarily. Moreover, no pretender to Abkhazia could subdue this independent spirit with any lasting success, so the sooner the facts, and Abkhazia, are recognized, the sooner a more peaceful, prosperous era in the region will begin.

Jeffrey Sweetbaum is an American entrepreneur who has lived in Moscow since 1990.

TITLE: The Defender of the People
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: Ukraine finally has a government. As expected, it’s a coalition government. In fact, Viktor Yanukovych, head of the Party of the Regions, got votes during his confirmation as prime minister from his recent opponents in Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party. The day before the vote, Ukrainian politicians ceremoniously signed their names to the Declaration of National Unity. In honor of the occasion, Yanukovych even spoke Ukrainian, and Yushchenko’s voice cracked with emotion when he told journalists that the signed document “would unite the two sides of the Dnepr River.” Henceforth, the Russian-speaking East will be a friend of the Ukrainian-speaking west.
In actual fact, the two sides were never at war. The cultural animosity was artificially fanned by politicians and business clans with power bases in different regions. Yushchenko’s victory was not based in the nationalistic Ukrainian West but, rather, Russian-speaking Kiev.
The Declaration of National Unity contains grandiose language and phrases that gloss over the details. The Russian language will be respected, but it won’t have the status of a state language. Ukraine will cooperate with NATO, but not join the organization. In other words: Nothing will change.
The average citizen is far more interested in the economic situation than in the status of the Russian language or even NATO. Naturally, the Declaration of National Unity doesn’t mention the expected utility price hikes and partial privatization of public transport, which will result in higher fares and the discontinuation of unprofitable routes. But the new coalition government will not be concerned with ideology. It will be dealing with the economy. As Yulia Tymoshenko noted, the declaration “is only a screen to hide the backroom deals to divide up ministerial positions and spheres of business.”
Tymoshenko refused to sign the declaration. She appeared at the ceremony and announced that her bloc was going into opposition, which would be outside the parliament. At Tymoshenko’s bidding, her faction left the chamber. At one time, Tymoshenko threatened to return 3,000 companies to state control, so it’s no surprise that the local elite were united in their desire to keep her out of the government.
Tymoshenko stood out at the signing ceremony, dressed all in white against the background of dour men in black suits. The message her image was meant to convey was clear and certainly understood by millions of television viewers.
Over the next few months, the government will have to start taking action. The Ukrainian drama will continue, since a compromise among the political elite does not guarantee social stability. In fact, it’s as if the politicians took each other warmly by the hand and headed off in search of the nearest cliff.
The division of rival camps allowed for the manipulation of public opinion, which kept the situation under control. Now the situation is changing. Who will lead people into the streets when there is another price hike? Who will protest against the flagrant — even by Eastern European standards — social injustice? Who will expose corruption? Communists and Socialists are settling down comfortably into cabinet ministers’ chairs. It seems the leaders of the main parties have accepted their imminent disappearance from the political arena and dream of grabbing something as they leave. Our Ukraine and the Party of the Regions will join forces to carry out price increases and privatization. Only Tymoshenko’s bloc will fight against official policies. I’ll bet anything that if this continues, Tymoshenko will be the only person raising the issues of pensioners and the poor and defending Russian schools and ethnic minorities. 
The political bankruptcy of the Communists and Socialists has left a vacuum on the left that will be filled by Tymoshenko. She is not very left-leaning and her ideology is more than a little shaky. But there isn’t any other opposition in Ukraine. The new organizations that have appeared on the left in the last two or three years will grow and increase in influence but in the coming months it will be hard for anyone to match up to Tymoshenko. So the left will be confronted by a tough choice: either join forces with an ideologically doubtful populist opposition, or stay in the background of political life.
In the meantime, for millions of television viewers, Tymoshenko will be the only defender of the people, fighting for social justice and the nationalization of industry.

Boris Kagarlitsky is director of the Institute for Globalization Studies.

TITLE: The tangled web
AUTHOR: By Jon Fasman
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The classical story of the labyrinth begins when Minos asks Poseidon for a sign that he should ascend the Cretan throne. Poseidon agrees, and sends a flawless snow-white bull to Minos, on the condition that the king sacrifice it back to him. So beautiful is the bull, however, that Minos sacrifices another in its stead, leading the enraged Poseidon to cause Minos’ queen, Pasiphae, to fall madly in love with the bull. Daedalus, whom the British mythographer Thomas Bulfinch calls, with typically bluff Victorian understatement, “a most skillful artificer,” builds for Pasiphae a hollow wooden cow covered in hide, which she can enter in such a way that the bull can, in turn, enter her. 
Pasiphae produces a fierce half-man, half-bull creature, which Minos imprisons in the center of a labyrinth. The Minotaur (literally “Minos’ bull”) receives a steady stream of Athenian youths to devour — 14 a year, seven boys and seven girls, sent as part of a continuing war tribute from the Athenian king Aegeus — until Aegeus’ son, Theseus, travels as part of the tribute to Crete, wins the favor of Theseus’ daughter, Ariadne, and finds his way to the center of the labyrinth (and, with Ariadne’s gift of a long string, back out again), where he kills the Minotaur.
Labyrinths have since proved irresistible to sculptors, gardeners, architects and, of course, writers, particularly those of a postmodernist bent and with a proclivity for puzzles and gamesmanship (e.g. Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco). 
“The Helmet of Horror” is Victor Pelevin’s reinterpretation of the Theseus/Minotaur story; it is part of Canongate’s wonderfully ambitious series in which contemporary writers retell classical myths. At first glance, Pelevin and Theseus seem an odd match. The author of numerous story collections and novels, most notably “The Blue Lantern” and “Omon Ra,” Pelevin is a satirist, though more in the Don DeLillo-Donald Barthelme vein than in the classical Russian style, and the Theseus story seems a classic man-finds-monster, man-kills-monster hero’s journey. But Pelevin, committed postmodernist that he is, squares the circle with admirable efficiency: He almost entirely eliminates the monster, the labyrinth and Theseus (the hero has two lines: “MINOTAURUS!” and an unprintable expletive), as anything other than metaphors. And rather than a hero proving his mettle by traveling abroad in search of quests, we have eight protagonists trapped in hotel rooms, communicating with each other through online chats and identifiable only by Internet monikers (Nutscracker, Ariadne, IsoldA, Monstradamus, Organizm(-:, Romeo-y-Cohiba, UGLI 666, and Theseus/TheZeus) as they try to figure out where they are, who put them there and how to get out.
Just as the mythical Ariadne gives Theseus the string that shows him how to backtrack, so Pelevin’s Adriadne begins the discussion thread in this book with a question: “I shall construct a labyrinth in which I can lose myself, together with anyone who tries to find me — who said this and about what?” 
In an instance of characteristically frustrating narrative playfulness, nobody ever answers that question; instead, we see the characters gradually come online and start asking each other basic questions: where are we, who brought us here, and, most important, what can you see. All of the characters find themselves in similar surroundings: a small room with green walls, a desk with a keyboard “attached rigidly” to it (the translation by Andrew Bromfield has too many such clunky phrases) and a monitor behind glass above it, an open wooden door leading to a bathroom filled with toiletries “marked with a strange symbol — something like a little cogwheel” and a locked bronze door inlaid with an engraved double-headed axe. The cogwheel symbol, one of the characters announces, is an asterisk, aurally cognates to Asterius, which is the given name of Minos and Pasiphae’s bull-human son, and the double-headed axe is, in Greek, a labros, the original root, of course, of “labyrinth.”
Ariadne returns to announce that the question that began the thread was asked of her in an odd dream by a strange little dwarf who then showed her a diagram of the titular Helmet of Horror. Describing the helmet is difficult for Ariadne and would be impossible for a reviewer. Essentially it collapses various states of perception into an epistemological reification machine; it is, in other words, like so much in this book, a rather complicated, overwrought and opaque metaphor.
The ensuing discussion of the dream — that is, the rest of the book — unfolds like an end-of-party bull session among eight glib, highly educated and extraordinarily stoned grad students. A few things of narrative consequence happen — two characters, Romeo-y-Cohiba and IsoldA, fall in love and try to make their ways through their mazes to meet, a few other characters go to sleep and resume discussion (the same one, in the same way) the next morning — but almost everything in this book that happens, happens from the neck up.
Pelevin lays out the game, and the tone, in the introduction, the clearest and most accessible part of the book. A myth, Pelevin explains, can refer either to an explicative, time-honored story or to “a widely held but false belief or idea.” From that telling dual meaning Pelevin draws the twin premises of his book: first, that progress naturally harbors hostility to the lessons and belief systems contained within myths, and that “the concept of progress has been around for so long that now it has all the qualities of a myth. It is a traditional story that pretends to explain all natural and social phenomena. It is also a belief that is widespread and false.” The second premise reminds you that Pelevin, for all his literary pyrotechnics, has a background in science (he was trained as an engineer); for him, myths function as the mind’s “shell programs: sets of rules that we follow in our world processing, mental matrices we project onto complex events to endow them with meaning.” Hence this novel, in which technology and myth conspire to trap and disembody eight people, who end up returning to humanity’s primal drives — love, religion, storytelling — in order to make some sense of their surroundings.
If this sounds like the premise of an intelligent meditation, it is: Pelevin belongs in the same category of hyperintellectual wizards as Richard Powers or Colson Whitehead. Yet unlike these two, there remains something rather chilly and off-putting about this work (his weakness for showy, juvenile puns does not help matters). The characters, for all their intellectual struggles, remain flat and undifferentiated; perhaps this is intentional — Pelevin’s way of showing how technology flattens our humanity — but if so, it seems a strange and sadistic point on which to hang a novel. Like everything Pelevin writes, this book contains its share of inventiveness and wonders. One wishes for just a bit more soul to go with it.

Jon Fasman is the author of the novel “The Geographer’s Library” and a former online editor for The Economist. He writes about books, food and travel for a variety of publications.

TITLE: Big in Japan
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A film made in St. Petersburg about Emperor Hirohito is a hit in Japan.
Alexander Sokurov’s 2005 film “The Sun,” which tells the story of Japanese emperor Hirohito awaiting trial for crimes committed during World War II, premiered in Tokyo last Saturday.
The film, which is running in a limited number of cinemas, has garnered huge interest among the Japanese, whose filmmakers rarely touch on the biographies of the country’s rulers. 
The sensitive subject is no longer taboo but directors approach it with caution and reverence. 
The film, which takes place in Tokyo in 1945, is the third part in Sokurov’s tetralogy of movies about 20th century dictators. As with Hitler in 1999’s “Moloch” and Lenin in 2001’s “Taurus,” Sokurov portrays the Japanese emperor during a time of crisis.
“The Sun” had its international premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2005.
Emperor Hirohito, played in the film by Japanese actor Issei Ogata, reigned from 1926 to 1989 and the first decades of his rule were characterized by rapid militarization and agressive external politics, which eventually led to war with China in 1931. 
The military elite dominated the government, and the country escalated World War II by attacking Pearl Harbor. 
After Japan’s capitulation in 1945, Hirohito, who was frequently accused of war crimes, remained in power as a constitutional monarch according to an agreement with the Americans. As part of the bargain, Hirohito publicly renounced his divine status and declared his own mortality in 1946. 
Sokurov’s goal in his series is to reveal the human side of tyrants as they face their own mortality. 
“It is very often that the audience sees an ulterior motive behind my films — suggesting that my real goal is to show an inevitable punishment coming in various forms, but this is not fair,” Sokurov told The St. Petersburg Times in an interview before the premiere last year. 
“I sympathize with my characters deeply, and don’t feel vindictive when filming them. I am trying to understand what was behind their actions and what emotions led them into totalitarianism.”
Yoshiko Arakawa, who teaches Japanese at the Oriental Faculty of the St. Petersburg State University, says she welcomed Sokurov’s film.
“I belong to a generation that did not see the deified emperor, and therefore I was able to perceive Hirohito as a human being,” Arakawa said. 
“In the film, I took the emperor naturally, as a mortal individual, as a reserved, reflexive, tongue-tied Japanese man, in a state of a deep distress. If my grandmother saw the film, she would probably have felt differently.”
“In a way, my father was a bit like that: he was not very sociable, often lost in thought and did not talk very much,” Arakawa added.
St. Petersburg actor Leonid Mozgovoi has starred in a number of Sokurov’s films and played Lenin in “Taurus” and Hitler in “Moloch.” Mozgovoi believes one of Sokurov’s strongest points as a filmmaker is his solid understanding of the human soul.
“All of us, consciously or unconsciously, have done harm to other people,” the actor said. “We were being unfair. Almost everyone knows what guilt and shame feel like, and so do I. And I called upon these very feelings when I was working on the roles of tyrants.”
“The Sun” has premiered in Japan during a time when, each year, controversy flares over the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, a burial site for those killed during World War II. Every summer during the Mitama Matsumi (The Soul Festival), the annual event to commemorate the 2.5 million dead, divisions over Japan’s role in World War II are exposed.
The film’s Japanese distributor delayed the release of “The Sun” because of fears that conservatives would protest at the portrayal of the Hirohito and the royal family, the BBC reported. 
“People were really worried about the chance of violence from right wing groups, so companies were fearful of buying the rights,” said Michio Koshikawa, head of distribution firm Slow Learner Ltd. 
“But I think the movie will be a good chance to discuss the whole issue of Emperor Hirohito,” he said. “Being able to talk freely about Emperor Hirohito would show that things in Japan have finally normalized.” 
Arakawa said, “Considering this context, it would have been much more difficult for a Japanese filmmaker to produce a film about Hirohito. I think Sokurov’s film is very good: quiet and meditative. I enjoyed it.”

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: As August heat seizes the city, the local music scene has also been hit by the “dead season,” as it is known among promoters. None will dare to set up a big gig at this time of the year because they are scared, not unreasonably, that nobody will turn up; too many people leave the city for a vacation or weekends in the country in August. 
PORT, Red Club, Orlandina, Roks and ArcticA are among the concert venues that are closed now and set to reopen later this month or in September. Although Fish Fabrique and the newly-opened bar Fidel hold a concert or two a week, it is Platforma, the city’s finest live music club, that appears to keep the scene alive.
Friday will be a chance to catch Auktsyon, whose gig at Platforma will be the band’s only local show in August. 
The avant-rock band, in existance since 1983, seems only now to be embarking on a brand new American career. 
Even though Auktsyon usually travel to the U.S. once or twice a year to perform for mainly Russian immigrants, the band’s performance at the third Globalfest, an annual showcase of international music, in January brought it to the attention of the general public and mainstream media. The band returned for a tour a few weeks later and is now set to record its first American album.
The band — largely is seen as rock veterans in its home country — looks like a new and fresh discovery to the American press.
“[Auktsyon’s] music gathers rock, jazz, and ethnic elements into an irrepressible eclectic sound, anchored by Leonid Fedorov’s smoky baritone and Oleg Garkusha’s energetic vocalizing,” wrote The New Yorker.
“Those rock fans who groove on the progressive weirdness of Frank Zappa or the psycho circus theater music of Tom Waits will feel comfortable at an Auktsyon show,” went on The Washington Post, continuing: "They fuse disparate elements such as North African and Middle Eastern sounds, reggae, ska, jazz and pop. Music by a band born behind the Iron Curtain might be expected to be dark and dissonant at times, but it also is frequently melodic and jubilant.”
“They may sing in Russian, but their music exudes a worldly eclecticism that dispenses with genre boundaries. Expect to hear elements of punk, jazz, North African rhythms and ‘60s American pop — all in one song. To top it off, their stage shows are always theatrical, dismissing draconian political gloom and doom to another era,” echoed The Villager.
“Pioneer,” a compilation of 12 tracks culled from Auktsyon’s 11 Russian albums was released in the U.S. on Circular Moves in May, while the band is preparing to record its American debut, according to manager Sergei Vasilyev. 
The recording sessions at a New York studio will start on Sept. 11 and will last for 10 days. According to Vasilyev, American musicians Marc Ribot and John Medeski will take part.

TITLE: Strange Investigations
AUTHOR: By Alexander Osipovich
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new series on NTV has been dubbed Russia’s answer to the cult U.S. show “The X-Files.”
There are plenty of shows on Russian television that pit heroic cops against thuggish gangsters. But the investigators in a new series on NTV face a different kind of enemy: werewolves, zombies and malicious psychics.
Welcome to the world of “Kontora,” or “The Office,” a show that is being called Russia’s answer to “The X-Files.” Just like the long-running U.S. show about a pair of FBI agents who defy government coverups — and their own sexual tension — to investigate paranormal phenomena, “Kontora” centers on a duo of special agents who discover something new, weird and usually supernatural in each hour-long episode.
Rather than Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, “Kontora” depicts the exploits of Naidyonov (Yevgeny Pronin), a former police lieutenant, and Nessi (Laura Lauri), an investigative journalist. In the first episode, Nessi and Naidyonov are recruited by a shady government outfit known as “The Office.” Led by a mysterious figure called “The Curator” (Igor Ivanov), the Office is a top-secret repository of occult and paranormal knowledge that has existed since Soviet times, a sort of KGB-flavored version of “Men in Black.”
Since the show debuted last week, each episode has roughly followed the “freak of the week” formula pioneered by “X-Files” creator Chris Carter. Sometimes, though, it has a distinctly Russian spin. In the fourth episode, for instance, some wealthy St. Petersburg businessmen — all of them stockholders in a major shipping company — are being killed off by zombies. It turns out that the culprit is the company’s sole American employee, who is using voodoo to manipulate zombie hit men into killing the businessmen. Luckily, Nessi and Naidyonov foil her plans to acquire a majority stake.
Russian newspapers and web sites have been quick to dub “Kontora” a Russian version of “The X-Files.” And Dmitry Parmyonov, the show’s director, acknowledged by telephone Tuesday that the cult U.S. series had been a source of inspiration. “Of course, ‘The X-Files’ were a reference point when we were starting to plan this out,” he said.
Parmyonov stressed, however, that “Kontora” had branched away from the original U.S. series during development. “We have more action, more detective work,” he said. “In my view, there are substantial differences in genre between the two shows.”
Some other differences are also apparent. For one thing, the special effects on “Kontora” are distinctly lower-budget. The show’s two heroes are younger than their “X-Files” counterparts, and Nessi, who resembles Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie, is more likely than Scully to use her sexual wiles to cajole information from bad guys. Finally, the romance between her and Naidyonov seems to be moving along at a faster clip than that between Mulder and Scully, whose relationship was platonic for most of the nine seasons that “The X-Files” lasted.
Reviews of “Kontora” have been predominantly negative, perhaps not surprisingly for a show launched in the middle of television’s summer dry season. Some of the harshest commentary has appeared on the Internet.
“I checked out NTV’s nano-budget series ‘Kontora’ — and there was absolutely nothing to watch, it was a pathetic fake,” wrote Igor Karaulov, who blogs on LiveJournal.com under the username oah. 
“But on the other hand, it got me thinking about the new Soviet mythology in pop culture. Characters from the Soviet past, surrounded by typical Soviet attributes, are turning into the bearers of secrets from a lost civilization. The Soviet Union has become a land of holy wonders whose priests understood things that we, as the barbarians who replaced them, will never grasp.”

“The Office” (Kontora) airs Mon. through Thurs. at 10:45 p.m. on NTV.

TITLE: City Bar is back!
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A popular bar for expats and independent travelers has ambitious plans.
City Bar, the ultimate expats’ hangout that called it quits six months ago, has magically returned and will have what its hostess Aileen Exeter calls “quiet summer opening” on Friday.
“When I went back to America, I missed the bar so much,” said Exeter this week. “I missed people coming in, most of the friends I have are from the bar.”
The new City Bar at 20 Furshtatskaya Ulitsa, is well located right across the street from the U.S. consulate. The building also hosts the representative office of the President of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. 
According to a plaque on its outer wall, the building was also frequented by Vladimir Lenin, who used the apartment of Bolshevik sympathizer Dmitry Stasov there as a hideout in 1917.
Exeter, who lives in the same building, said she got the idea to reopen City Bar there when she noticed that Polyglot restaurant, which occupied the basement, closed.
Arrangements to open the bar were made quickly (Exeter said she got the keys to the rooms early last month), but since the place was previously occupied it was in good condition and did not demand much reconstruction.
Although a telephone line has yet to be installed, Exeter said the place will soon be equipped with state-of-the-art technology, from free Wi-Fi to Internet television, Internet telephone and video phone — whatever expats and independent travelers may need.
The entertainment program will include intimate acoustic concerts, stand-up comedy and occasional DJs, said Exeter.
City Bar expects to get its liquor license in a month’s time and to throw a bigger opening party in September, but for the time being serves beer: Baltika for 80 rubles and Fosters for 120 rubles.
City Bar’s international menu has a stress on simple American cuisine and will include its famous hand-ground hamburgers (200 rubles) as well as pork chops, fried chickens, pizza, and pancakes with maple syrup.
According to Exeter, the major difference between the new place and the old City Bar is that she is no longer the principal owner. She has two young Russian partners, Yury Voskresensky and Alexei Ishutin, and 10 percent of the enterprise belongs to City Bar’s staff, which is comprised mostly of students.
“It’s very symbolic, but it’s good, because people are working for ownership, too,” said Exeter.
Voskresensky is the editor of the Stockholm School of Economics’ U-Journal and Ishutin is the general director of the Russian arm of Mercury, a company that trades in speedboat motors.
As with the former place, the new City Bar is designed by American David Bienn.
Until it was closed in February, City Bar had been on the scene for nine and a half years. First launched in the Cappella building on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa, it move to its second location not far away on Millionnaya Ulitsa in 2002.
A hit not least because of the personality of Exeter, who meets and chats with guests, City Bar was more than just a bar. It also served as a community center, a meeting place and an “ideas exchange,” with some people discussing their businesses and making valuable contacts.
Having given the old City Bar’s books and videos to the American Corner, Exeter has started a new small English-language library that she hopes will quickly grow as patrons start to add stuff to it.
The new bar marks Exeter’s first attempt at franchising, with plans to launch expat-oriented bars, with City Bar’s trademark menu and atmosphere, in Kiev and Warsaw next year. 
“There’s so much globalization, there’s much global traveling, so it should work,” she said. 

City Bar, 20 Furshtatskaya, 
M: Chernyshevskaya/Mayakovskaya. 
www.citybar.ru.

TITLE: The Northern Light
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Times was not the first English-language newspaper in St. Petersburg. Before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, when the city was a flourishing Imperial capital, a range of publications were printed in English. In the third of a series of articles, art historian Andrei Vorobei looks at The Northern Light published in St Petersburg in 1882-1883. 
It took 20 years after the demise of The Nevsky Magazine 1863 for Englishmen to revive the idea of an English-language periodical in St. Petersburg. 
The Northern Light, which was modestly advertised as “an extraordinary production,” “the best and cheapest publication of the world,” “for sale at all respectable chemists,” and “recommend all who suffers from nervous irritability” or “sleeplessness.” 
In many respects, The Northern Light really was unparalled. 
“The first rays of this new luminary appeared above the horizon” during the second year of the reign of Tsar Alexander III, labelled as “a sovereign of the retrograde type.” This comment aside, the journal was indifferent to local matters.
On August 1882 “it entered the brains of some ‘juvenile amateurs’ among the English in St Petersburg to have a “literary outburst.’” 
“It began with seventeen members, but not two months passed before the promoters became ambitious, raised the circulation to 50 numbers and had the magazine lithographed,” the editor, G. F. Field, explained later. 
Due to the limited number of subscribers the first eight monthlies were handwritten and then mechanically reproduced. It was, indeed, the “cheapest publication of the world.” 
Instead of being paid, the authors were offered with vast possibilities “to shine in print”: “every subscriber of the ridiculously small sum of Ro. 3 – a year is not only entitled to twelve numbers of that entirely unique and unparalleled periodical ‘The Northern Light’, but is likewise free to send in to the editor as many cartloads of essays, stories, poetry, contributions of all kinds, as he pleases. Only, the editor cannot undertake to print everything sent in to him. He reserves the usual right of selection and rejection”. 
Another of the editor’s prerogatives was proposal of the subject for each month. The subjects as well as deadlines for contributions were announced one or two months before the publication. Approximately half of the 30 pages in each issue was, a collection of amateur compositions in prose or poetry on the subject that was diverse in content, form and style. For instance, the “Hero” issue featured such contributions as a semi-philosophical sketch, “What is the hero?,” (“the picturesque, handsome and strong – or the plain, homely and feeble?”), a poem, “A Legendary Hero of Ireland,” a children’s story, “Two Little Heroines,” an amorous sketch “Her Hero,” as well as a number of autobiographical accounts.
Predictably, the theme of “Beauty” was one of the the most stimulating to contributors. The journal featured both earnest theoretical meditations and frivolous stuff. The following anonymous contribution is particularly appealing:
“I was a beautiful boy from the very first, so I am told, and I have been very beautiful ever since. My fine rolling eye is the palest and blue, not mild blue, mind you, but bold honest deeply-tender love-inspiring blue, such as melted from the eyes of the young Olympian Gods. My hair is of that light brown, so dear to maidens… My forehead is of course low… I don’t like high foreheads, besides they are quite old fashioned… I am proud of my nose. Of course I never blow it in the cold weather, that is a most suicidal thing to do, for if you want to show me an absurdity let it be a red nose! … My mouth is a very pretty mouth is very poetical and ‘mobile’ and sensitive and all that sort of thing…Let me advise any one who wishes to study the beauty seriously, to buy my photograph and study that.” 
Serializations of amateur novels and other trash occupied the rest of the journal. One of the most appreciated of them was “Eugenius Trafford” by Trefoil; another inventive idea was “The Loving Legend of Sir Ludovic,” where each chapter was continued “by someone else.”
Along with “a few historical facts not generally known,” ghost stories, remarks on Buddhism, anecdotes, the widespread genre was the “letter to the editor and its readers,” which was usually composed of marvellous, naÕve or idiotic stories, complaints or remarks. 
For instance, one of the contributors came to the journal’s community of readers for sympathy: “My wife possesses a magnificent cat... This cat is very black, very huge… and has great influence over my wife. Now I’m nominal master of this house… Things are come to such a pass, that unless you can recommend something or other, I’m going to tell my wife plainly – ‘the cat or me’.” The author of another letter, titled “Our Rat,” informed readers that “a rat has died under the floor of our drawing-room” and offered detailed evidence of the event. 
“In consequence of numerous applications for membership,” the editor announced the following year, “the only St. Petersburg English periodical will be printed” (as opposed to handmade). 
There were twelve printed issues of The Northern Light in total. In its printed format as a respectable paper, it was obliged to have more severe selection and formal texts. The journal had none of the creative, unconstrained and intimate climate of its first numbers. Still dependent on amateur contributions, the print version lacked the ingenuous, stormy, lively atmosphere of its handwritten predecessor. A year later, due a falling number of subscribers, the magazine was discontinued. However, this physical ending was long preceded by the symbolic one. 

The author and The St. Petersburg Times thank the staff of the Rossika, the Newspaper Department, and Russian and Foreign Magazines Funds of the Russian National Library for assistance in providing the material for this article.

TITLE: Israel to Put Lebanon Offensive on Hold
AUTHOR: By Karin Laub
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM — Israel will hold back a new ground offensive in Lebanon until the weekend to give cease-fire efforts another chance, senior government officials said Thursday, a day after Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a major expansion of the month-long war.
But prospects for a quick cease-fire resolution by the U.N. Security Council were uncertain, with the United States and France still divided over a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
France wants Israel to pull out once hostilities end, while the United States backs Israel’s insistence on staying in southern Lebanon until a strong international force is deployed, which could take weeks or months.
In fighting Thursday, Hezbollah claimed it destroyed 13 Israel tanks in south Lebanon. The Israeli military declined comment. On Wednesday, 15 Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon, the deadliest day for Israeli soldiers in the war.
Israeli missiles, meanwhile, hit Beirut proper for the first time, damaging a historic lighthouse Thursday. Warplanes also dropped leaflets over northern Lebanon, also a first, warning trucks off a coastal road linking Lebanon to Syria.
In Israel, Hezbollah rockets killed two Israeli Arabs, including an infant, medics said.
The deeper push into Lebanon was approved by Israel’s Security Cabinet. During the tense six-hour meeting, ministers received constant updates on the rising Israeli military casualties in Lebanon.
A senior government official said Thursday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has decided to hold off on the offensive until the weekend. The campaign could begin earlier if Hezbollah launches a major attack on Israel, the official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the issue with reporters.
Cabinet minister Rafi Eitan confirmed the government’s decision to wait.
“There are diplomatic considerations,” he told Israel Radio, when asked about a planned delay. “There is still a chance that an international force will arrive in the area. We have no interest in being in south Lebanon. We have an interest in peace on our borders.”
The government’s running of the war was coming under growing criticism at home.
The army has failed to make a dent in Hezbollah’s ability to fire rockets at Israel — the guerrillas fired 170 on Wednesday, for a war total of more than 3,500 — and critics said pushing deeper into Lebanon would not stop such attacks since longer-range rockets can still reach Israel.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported an angry exchange between Defense Minister Amir Peretz and his predecessor, Shaul Mofaz, in the Security Cabinet meeting. When Mofaz criticized the planned new offensive, Peretz reportedly shot back: “Where were you when Hezbollah built up this array (of weapons)?”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called during the meeting, officials said, and Olmert told ministers after his half-hour conversation with Rice that the offensive would be accompanied by a new diplomatic push.
Under the army plan, Israeli forces would move to the Litani River, some 20 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. At the moment, more than 10,000 troops are engaged in house-to-house battles against Hezbollah fighters in a strip less than half that size.
Even in the current war zone, Israeli troops have had trouble taking control of towns and villages. Security officials say the guerrillas’ bunkers, well equipped with food, weapons and electricity, are a reason for Hezbollah’s stamina. During lulls in the fighting, gunmen emerge and set up new ambushes for troops.
On Thursday, troops backed by tanks and armored vehicles took up positions on the outskirts of the Christian town of Marjayoun in south Lebanon, about six miles from the border. Troops met no resistance. Soldiers also moved to a nearby hill overlooking the Litani River Valley, witnesses said. Heavy battles were reported in south Lebanese villages across from Israel’s Galilee panhandle, hard hit by rockets.
Israel hopes an expanded offensive will force Hezbollah guerrillas out of their strongholds across southern Lebanon. The offensive is expected to last a month and eliminate 70 percent to 80 percent of Hezbollah’s short-range rocket launchers, but not its long-range launchers, senior military officials said.
However, Trade Minister Eli Yishai, who abstained in Wednesday’s vote, said the assessment is too optimistic. “I think it will take a lot longer,” he said.
Danny Yatom, a senior member of Peretz’ Labor Party and a general in the reserves, said moving deeper into Lebanon was pointless.
“We are banging our head against the wall,” he told Israel TV’s Channel One.

TITLE: Fighting Renewed In Sri Lanka
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: KANTALAI, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan war planes have bombed Tamil Tiger positions as the two sides shelled each other around a disputed waterway near Kantalai, leaving at least two soldiers dead and 26 wounded.
The renewed fighting comes after rebels reopened the Maavilaru dam in the northeastern district of Trincomalee after a blockade that had sparked fierce clashes in which hundreds died.
The wounded troops were being taken to the main hospital in the northeastern town where doctors set up a make-shift emergency room while two seriously hurt soldiers were airlifted to the capital, an official said.
“We expect more casualties to come in today,” Kantalai hospital superintendent D.G.M. Costa said.
“This is the heaviest number of casualties were are handling in two days.”
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and government forces began the long-range attacks early in the morning around the Maavilaru waterway which the rebels opened on Tuesday after a 19-day blockade, military officials said.
“There is heavy shelling in the area this morning,” a military official said.
In Colombo, the defence ministry said security forces were conducting a “defensive operation” to secure the waterway.

TITLE: Typhoon Forces Half Million Chinese to Flee
AUTHOR: By Nick Macfie and Guo Shipeng
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BEIJING  — More than a million Chinese have fled their homes in the path of a super typhoon, the strongest to threaten the country in half a century, as it churned relentlessly towards the southeast coast on Thursday.
Saomai, one of three storms to have hit East Asia in the past few days, has already dumped heavy rain on Taiwan and was just hours from an expected landfall between Hong Kong and Shanghai, just south of the booming city of Wenzhou.
Storm tracker Tropical Storm Risk graded Saomai a category five “super” typhoon — its highest category.
Chinese state media said it was the most powerful storm system to threaten the country since August 1956, when a typhoon hit Zhejiang triggering a tsunami that killed more than 3,000.
“Some meteorologists said that the typhoon might grow stronger,” the Xinhua news agency said, adding that it could be fuelled by remnants of the weakening and west-headed tropical storm Bopha.
“Saomai is packing winds of 216 kph (134 mph) and has outpaced forecasts,” Xinhua quoted Li Yuzhu, head of the Zhejiang provincial observatory, as saying.
The centre of Saomai was 140 km (87 miles) southeast of Wenzhou at 6 a.m. British time, moving northwest at 25 km (16 miles) per hour.
Wenzhou residents were reinforcing windows and doors against the storm and stockpiling drinking water and food, state television said.
Wenzhou airport had closed and hundreds of passengers were stranded because of cancelled flights, one airport manager said.
“We don’t know when we will open again,” the manager, surnamed Zhou, told Reuters by telephone. “The wind is only fitful but rain is really heavy here.”

TITLE: Democrats no Longer Supporting Lieberman
AUTHOR: By Stephanie Reitz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HARTFORD, Conneticut — Sen. Joe Lieberman said his conscience demanded that he run as an independent in Connecticut’s Senate race even as his longtime political supporters threw their support to Ned Lamont, the anti-war challenger who defeated the 18-year incumbent in the Democratic primary.
“While I consider myself a devoted Democrat, I am even more devoted to my state and my country,” Lieberman said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, a day after his stunning loss. “I think it would be irresponsible and inconsistent with my principles if I were to just walk off the field.”
Even so, top Senate Democrats, including John Kerry and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Harry Reid of Nevada, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Chuck Schumer of New York, said they supported Lamont as the duly elected choice of Connecticut’s Democratic voters.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stopped short of calling on Lieberman to quit the race but urged the senator to “search his conscience and decide what is best for Connecticut and for the Democratic Party.”
Lieberman said he was not bothered by losing the support of his colleagues, noting he lost the primary even with their backing. “In the end, the people make up their own minds, and this is going to be a people’s campaign,” he said.
The defeat put Lieberman in the familiar role of a go-it-alone politician. He was the first prominent Democrat to openly criticize President Clinton’s conduct with Monica Lewinsky. His support for the Iraq war and his defense of President Bush also have made him unpopular with members of his own party and gave Lamont a powerful platform on which to run.
Lieberman’s 10,000-vote loss sets up a three-way race this fall among Lamont, Lieberman and Republican Alan Schlesinger, who has trailed far behind both Democrats in recent polls.
Though having both Lieberman and Lamont on the ballot could split the Democratic vote, Schlesinger is not considered a major threat. His campaign stumbled in July after revelations that he used a fake name to gamble at a Connecticut casino.

TITLE: Blast Kills 35 Near Shi’ite Shrine in Iraq
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NAJAF, Iraq — A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people and wounded over 90 on Thursday near a Shi’ite shrine in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, dealing a blow to fresh efforts to avert a sectarian civil war.
Hospital sources said the bomber blew himself up at a police commando checkpoint on his way to the Imam Ali shrine, one of the most revered sites in the world for Shi’ites and an annual destination for thousands of pilgrims.
Dr Riyadh al-Shibli said 35 were killed and 94 wounded.
Shi’ite al-Forat television channel said there were two attacks, including the suicide blast, in the city which is home to Iraq’s top Shi’ite clerics.
“Suddenly my cart and the cans and the people were flying through the air,” said Moussa Khadhan, a 37 year-old street vendor, who was nearby at the time.
The blast ripped through the checkpoint as the United States boosted its troop levels in Baghdad, some 160 km (100 miles) to the north, in another attempt to ease communal bloodshed tearing the capital apart.
It was the single bloodiest attack since July 18, when 59 were killed by a suicide bomb in Kufa, near Najaf. That attack was claimed by al Qaeda, which has targeted Shi’ites in a bid to inflame sectarian passions and trigger full-scale civil war.
Ambulances drove through the streets of Najaf appealing for blood donations as the scale of carnage became clear and the number of injured rose.

TITLE: Chelsea To Set Its Sights On Europe
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Successive league titles, one League Cup and a Community Shield represent a decent return on owner Roman Abramovich’s considerable outlay since the Russian billionaire waltzed into Stamford Bridge three years ago.
Chelsea, bankrolled by Abramovich’s seemingly unlimited cash resources, have become the dominant force in the Premier League under coach Jose Mourinho.
Not in Europe though. 
After Champions League semi-final appearances in 2003 and 2004, last season’s challenge floundered in the last 16, a 3-2 aggregate defeat by Barcelona casting a shadow over the season and leaving Mourinho’s side with just domestic bragging rights.
While a securing a hat-trick of Premier League crowns looks a strong probability, claiming European football’s biggest prize will be top of Mourinho’s agenda as he enters his third season in charge.
After another off-season spending spree he has moulded a squad to rival the “galacticos” at Real Madrid.
Chelsea forked out a club record fee to bring in striker Andriy Shevchenko from AC Milan. Germany captain Michael Ballack joined from Bayern Munich on a free transfer while defender Ashley Cole is tipped to join the team before the start of the season.
Mourinho said Chelsea, who have also brought in striker Salomon Kalou and young Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel, were hungry for more success. 
“Everyone is waiting for Chelsea to fail. It is a great motivation for us. We have signed new players not because we need them to make us champions,” he said. “It is not a question of money for the club or for the players. It is a different kind of mission, a new life challenge.”
Former European Footballer of the Year Shevchenko is the highest scorer in the history of the European Cup with 52 goals, including 33 in the Champions League for Milan.
The Ukraine captain will carry the main goalscoring burden in a side that has profited heavily from Frank Lampard’s eye for goal, the England midfielder finishing as Chelsea’s top scorer in the last two seasons. 

Glasgow Rangers have loaned Dutch midfielder Fernando Ricksen to FC Zenit St. Petersburg for a year, the Russian premier league side said on Wednesday.
Zenit said on its website that Ricksen should arrive in the city early next week to sign a personal contract after undergoing a medical examination.
The 29-year-old Dutchman has had a troubled time at the Scottish club recently. He returned to training with Rangers last week after spending time in a London addiction clinic.
Last month he was sent home by Rangers from their pre-season tour of South Africa following an incident on the flight when he reportedly threw water at a flight attendant.
Ricksen will be re-united with compatriot Dick Advocaat, who was named Zenit coach in June. Ricksen will be Zenit’s fourth major signing since Advocaat’s appointment following the arrivals of Turkey striker Fatih Teeke and South Korea midfielders Lee Ho and Kim Dong-jin.

TITLE: Veteran High Jumper Praises New Champ
AUTHOR: By Oliver Grassman
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: GOTHENBURG, Sweden — Olympic high jump champion Stefan Holm praised Andrei Silnov after the Russian claimed the European gold, relegating the Swede to third place on Wednesday.
The Swede had hoped to improve on the silver-placed finish he had achieved in Munich in 2002 but had to settle for third place in front of his home fans.
The little-known Silnov, 21, put on a dazzling performance. He cleared all the heights up to this year’s best of 2.36 metres on his first attempt, setting two personal bests in a row.
“I didn’t think he was going to jump that high,” Holm told reporters.
“[Silnov] might have had the night of his life, he might never do 2.32 or 2.34 again. But winning the European championships in 2.36, he made an incredible performance.
“If he stays physically fit, he’ll probably be up there competing with the best for maybe the next 10 years.”
Silnov went on to attempt clearing 2.41, which would have equalled Igor Paklin’s old Soviet record from 1985, but failed.
“I am a little disappointed that I did not win the gold medal... [but] There was some excellent jumping today,” added Holm.
“In Munich it felt like I really lost the gold medal. This time it feels like I won the bronze. It would have been cruel to be fourth,” said Holm, who only just cleared 2.34, equalling his year’s best.
He then failed his three attempts on 2.36.
“This is my second best outdoors competition ever, I only jumped higher [in a championship] in Athens,” said Holm, whose personal best is 2.40. “I jumped my best competition in a very long time.”
At the 2004 Olympics, Holm triumphed by clearing 2.36.
“This is my best competition for sure but next time I will clear 2.41,” Silnov said with a smile.