SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1196 (62), Friday, August 18, 2006
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TITLE: Museums Make Appeal To Fradkov
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia’s Museum Union has sent an appeal to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov asking for the organization’s representatives to be included in the presidential commission slated to revise and audit the collections of Russia’s museums. 
The Museums’ Union held an emergency session this week to discuss security in the context of the recent scandal at the Hermitage. The massive theft of 221 items from the museum’s Russian art fund was branded a “museum Chernobyl” during the forum’s discussions.
Following the theft at the Hermitage, arguably Russia’s most internationally acclaimed museum, President Vladimir Putin ordered that a commission be created and that it include representatives of the Interior Ministry, the Culture Ministry, the security services, the Culture Ministry and other state organizations.
The commission is currently being formed and is due to start its work on Sept.1.
Anna Kolupayeva, head of the museum section of the Culture Ministry said it remains unclear how long it will take to do a complete audit of all the country’s museums.
Russia’s state-funded museums and galleries employ over 63,000 people and comprise a total of about 79.5 million items.
“It depends primarily on what format they decide on,” Kolupayeva said. “If they go for a physical check of every item, then the process may take three decades or more. But if they choose a more reasonable option, then, hopefully, the necessary work can be done within 3 to 4 years.”
The Union also spoke out against the idea of giving full control over their collections exclusively to Russian law enforcement agencies.
The delegates adopted a statement calling for an end to what they called “a witch-hunt.” The highly critical publicity brought on by theft at the Hermitage featured prominently in the discussions.
Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum, speculated that the scandal around the theft is being artificially inflated in the interests of antique dealers who nurture plans to privatize Russia’s finest art galleries. 
“Museums and galleries are the only spheres of Russian culture that are still off-limits for the ravenous business elites,” he said. “So, the interested sides apparently felt that they must use our plight to seize the moment, take over the last bastion and push privatization plans ahead.”
Piotrovsky admitted being “upset, hurt and alarmed” by what he described as “the unexpectedly high resonance” the theft has generated in the media and in society.
“I see remarkable levels of malevolence and ranting,” Piotrovsky said. “There have been several attacks on me, but this one is by far the most resonant.” 
Alisa Aksyonova, director of Suzdal Museum-Estate, said she was stung by what she calls media attempts to extrapolate the Hermitage case onto the entire community of museum curators in Russia.
“Why portray us en masse as corrupt? On the contrary, most of the people who work in museums and have titanic volumes of responsibilities which they fulfill for pennies deserve nothing but praise,” she said.
“A single case, however embarrassing it may be, is not enough to talk about the corruption of the entire museum community,” said Vladimir Tolstoi, director of the Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate. 
“But I find it frustrating that it really took a ‘museum Chernobyl’ to happen for the authorities to get seriously concerned about the levels of security and standards of inventories. Many museums and galleries in Russia have been knocking on the doors of many officials in Moscow, but the bureaucrats have always waved them away.”
Following the theft at the Hermitage, the Culture Ministry immediately tightened its control over the museum and introduced additional security measures. Thus, only collections that have been completely inventorized can be taken abroad to participate in exhibitions.
The museum will have to cut down the numbers of its exhibitions — both domestic and international — to allocate more funding for security.
“Security has become a top priority now,” Piotrovsky said.
The St. Petersburg police arrested four suspects in connection with the theft. One of them, antiquarian Maxim Shepel, was released on Tuesday owing to a lack of evidence against him. It was established that the dealer, who spent a week in a mental ward following a nervous breakdown brought on by the arrest, had purchased one of the stolen items. The purchase was legal, and made in an antiques store on Ulitsa Lenina in St. Petersburg. 
Shepel’s lawyer, Andrei Pavlov sent an appeal asking for his client’s arrest to be acknowledged as a mistake, but the St. Petersburg city court rejected his appeal on Thursday.
Three people remain under arrest, including the son and husband of Hermitage curator Larisa Zavadskaya, who died suddenly of a heart attack at her desk in October at the start of an inspection of her department. The inspection went on to expose the absence of numerous works. 
Twenty-four of the stolen 221 items have been found by the police. Most of the items were collected after what the police describe as anonymous calls, although some critics see the calls as being “agreed deals” between the law enforcement agencies and collectors.

TITLE: Ukraine Offered Assurances on Stable Gas Prices
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signaled Wednesday that Ukraine would not have to pay more for Russian natural gas until at least the end of the year.
An agreement — even for a stopgap measure — would be an important first victory for new Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who met with Fradkov on the sidelines of an economic meeting in Sochi.
“I have confirmed that our position is based on the agreements reached in the beginning of January,” Fradkov said in televised remarks after the talks. Ukraine now buys its gas from Russia at $95 per 1,000 cubic meters.
Fradkov, however, said Russia would insist on a market price and that a final decision would rest heavily on how closely the two countries agreed to cooperate in other areas.
“There has to be positive movement, and it has to be on all issues,” Fradkov said, Interfax reported.
Moscow has been eager to push Kiev toward allowing Gazprom to control Ukraine’s gas transportation and distribution system.
Fradkov also said an agreement had been reached to pump 24.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas into Ukraine’s gas storage facilities by the end of this year.
Yanukovych was in the Black Sea resort city for a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Community, an organization aimed at fostering economic cooperation between Russia, Belarus and Central Asian states Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Leaders from Ukraine, Armenia and Moldova attended as observers.
The visit was his first trip abroad since his appointment on Aug. 4, and he was expected to spend it patching up Russian-Ukrainian relations that have soured since he was defeated by Viktor Yushchenko in a presidential election in 2004. Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions swept to victory in March elections on promises to secure a better gas deal and improve relations with Russia.
Disagreements over gas prices peaked in early January this year, when Gazprom briefly cut gas supplies to Ukraine after the collapse of several rounds of negotiations. The cutoff led to a drop in supplies to many European countries as well.
In a sign that serious talks lay ahead, Yanukovych said Wednesday that the possible gas price for next year should become known closer to the New Year. “Right now, we don’t know what will happen to the prices. And possibly in December or November we will know what the prices will be in 2007,” he said, Interfax reported.
While hinting that the price could go up, he dismissed speculation that it would surge to somewhere from $150 to $230 per 1,000 cubic meters — a level that Ukraine could not afford.
“We think that no sharp rises in gas prices are to be expected,” he said.
Yanukovych was also to meet with President Vladimir Putin for talks that he earlier said would include gas. It was unclear when they would meet.
Yanukovych, who served as Ukraine’s prime minister from 2002 to 2004 under then-President Leonid Kuchma, has billed himself as the face of the pro-Russian faction of Ukrainian politics. It is, however, unlikely that Russia will be willing to give Ukraine any preferential treatment.
Putin on Wednesday was busy meeting with the leaders of the other former Soviet republics that are members or observers of the Eurasian Economic Community. The leaders discussed long-existing plans to create a customs union that would unite all member states. No deadlines have been set for the formation of the union, while the concept itself contradicts individual members’ drives to join the World Trade Organization.
Putin called for all member-countries to speed up work on the creation of the union and to improve communication with one another about their steps toward joining the WTO.
Russia last month failed to sign an agreement with the United States on WTO entry — the last agreement it needed at the time to join the organization. Since then, Georgia, Moldova and Costa Rica have said they need further negotiations before Russia can join.

TITLE: Yukos Security Chief Faces Life Sentence in Killings
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Moscow City Court is due to hear the verdict Thursday in the politically charged trial of former Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin, who stands accused of a series of contract killings, including the 1998 murder of Nefteyugansk mayor Vladimir Petukhov.
The case is a key part of the state’s efforts to link former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s chief lieutenant, Leonid Nevzlin, to the killings.
State prosecutor Kamil Kashayev has asked the court to hand down a life sentence for Pichugin, who is already serving 20 years in jail after being convicted last year of organizing the double murder of Tambov entrepreneur Sergei Gorin and his wife, as well as two assassination attempts. Pichugin’s lead lawyer, Georgy Kaganer, who says his client is a victim of political persecution, said Wednesday that prosecutors could also bring more charges after this trial. “It’s possible there could be new charges. There are other cases,” Kaganer said.
Pichugin denies involvement in any of the killings.
Pichugin’s arrest on June 19, 2003, began the legal onslaught against Khodorkovsky’s Group Menatep which controlled the oil major Yukos.
Khodorkovsky and one of his closest associates, Platon Lebedev, are serving eight-year sentences in Siberian prison camps on charges of fraud and tax evasion, while Menatep’s remaining shareholders have fled Russia with warrants out for their arrest.
Nevzlin, of ordering Pichugin to organize the series of contract killings. Nevzlin, who has lived in exile in Israel since 2003, denies the charges.
On July 27, the day prosecutors demanded a life sentence for Pichugin, the creditors of Yukos voted to liquidate the oil company.
As the Yukos affair has drawn to a close, a rift has emerged among the team of people who worked together for nearly 20 years to build the Menatep business empire.
Amid the onslaught of prosecutions against current and former Yukos executives, accusations have been leveled that Menatep created a vast security “machine” to forcibly settle commercial disputes.
As the verdict in the Pichugin trial neared, one disaffected former Menatep shareholder broke his silence to accuse the Yukos security service under Nevzlin’s leadership of organizing an attempt on his wife’s life.
In an interview with well-known television commentator Mikhail Leontyev that was given near-blanket coverage recently on state-controlled television channels Channel One and NTV and in Gazprom-owned newspaper Izvestia, the shareholder, Alexei Golubovich, said he suspected the security service of setting off a bomb outside his home as his wife drove past in her car in 2001.
At the time, Golubovich said, he was locked in a commercial dispute with Menatep’s other shareholders over his Russky Produkt commercial trading firm.
“No one else apart from Menatep and Yukos came to mind” as being behind the attack, he said in the interview. “It was clear the explosion was meant as a demonstration.”
Golubovich also claimed the Yukos security service had tried to poison his wife, Olga Mirimskaya, who heads Russky Produkt, by planting mercury in her car.
He blamed the Yukos security service for being behind the collapse of the company.
“If even one-third of what’s been told during the Pichugin trials is true — and I have no reason to think this has been thought up by someone — then the role of the security service in the collapse of the company has the place of honor,” Golubovich said in the interview.
Golubovich, a former physicist and a founding member of Khodorkovsky’s Menatep in the late 1980s who later became head of strategic planning at Yukos, said he had been forced out of his stake in Menatep.
Nevzlin’s assistant Eric Wolfe declined to comment on the Golubovich interview.
Golubovich is currently under house arrest in northern Italy, in a resort near Pisa. He was detained on an Interpol warrant in May as he attempted to leave the country for London.
Russian prosecutors have a warrant out for his arrest on charges of fraud and embezzlement as part of the 1994 privatization of the Apatit fertilizer plant. An Italian court has yet to hear his extradition case.
Golubovich denies any wrongdoing.
Representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office said the reading of the verdict in the Pichugin trial could stretch over two days.

TITLE: Helsinki Choked by Forest Fires As Danger Recedes, Experts Say
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Forest fires raging in Karelia last week, sending smoke billowing into neighboring Finland as far as Helsinki, are now largely under control according to officials on both sides.
“The smoke from Russian forest fires reached the southern coast of Finland … the sky was grey, obscuring visibility as far away as Helsinki, and a strong acrid smell of smoke was detectable over large areas in the Greater Helsinki area,” Helsingin Sanomat, the largest Finnish daily, reported last week. 
Paula Karppinen, Consul for Social and Health Care at the St. Petersburg Consulate of Finland confirmed Thursday that the fires had been a cause of concern last week, but that the situation is now returning to normal.
“As I have been told, very unfortunate winds for Finland had caused the air in some parts of the country to deteriorate significantly and last week was particularly bad,” she said in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times on Thursday.
“The situation is getting better, but last week we were very concerned as people living in Finland who are suffering from lung and heart-related disorders had to seek medical attention,” she said.
“Finnish news media reported that a lot of money was spent on the provision of additional care and medicines to such patients, with estimates of the cost even reaching several million euros,” she said.
Asked why only the Russian side of Karelia appears to be suffering from such widespread fires while Finnish Karelia has been largely unharmed, Karppinen said a major factor was that Finland treats its forests differently. 
“I am not an expert but, in my opinion, Finns are used to treasuring their forests and they treat them very differently, with great care understanding as many Finnish businesses depend on them,“ she said. 
“In Finland, we’re shown special maps pointing out the areas where starting-of fires is not permitted — you can get a prison sentence for not following this order,“ she said.
Valentin Sidorin, a spokesperson for the Leningrad Oblast administration, also confirmed that the majority of fires in the region neighboring on Finland region have been put out and said that the situation is “not that dramatic.”
“There’s only one fire close to the border with Finland at the moment, near the village of Kamenka, but it is around 100 kilometers from the border and it has been already localized and is currently burning out,” he said Thursday.
According to Sidorin, this year’s very hot summer, with a shortage of rain, and military exercises carried out by the army in the region are to blame for the majority of the fires.
Another explanation is the human factor, he said.
“The cause is peoples’ negligence when handling fire, including negligence on the part of Finnish travelers.
“Some of them don’t follow the rules [when on the territory of Russian Federation] and they act the way they do back home, throwing away their cigarette buds.“
“I agree — the human factor is one of the causes of the fires, but I find it difficult to believe that Finnish tourists are to blame,” Karppinen said.

TITLE: Russian Vice Ring Busted
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIVERSIDE, California — Several Israeli and Russian nationals were arrested Tuesday when a prostitution ring that employed more than 240 women across several U.S. states and generated millions of dollars was broken up, authorities said Tuesday.
Boaz Benmoshe, 44, and Ofer Moses Lupovitz, 43, were among five people arrested last week and charged with felony pimping, pandering, perjury, loan fraud, money laundering, falsifying income tax returns and grand theft, Riverside County district attorney’s spokeswoman Ingrid Wyatt said.
Three other suspects facing the same charges were fugitives, she said.
Another two suspects, both women, were charged with grand theft and tax fraud in a separate complaint, Wyatt said.
The suspects operated Elite Entertainment, a business in Palm Springs, California, that posed as an escort service in online and newspaper advertisements, according to an affidavit filed by prosecutors. For at least three years, the business allegedly managed more than 80 phone lines on which clients across California, Nevada, Oregon and Arizona would call and request women.
The suspects would dispatch prostitutes who charged $200 to $2,000 for services, Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle said. They used the money to fraudulently secure loans for million-dollar homes in Coachella Valley, California, authorities alleged.
During a 2 1/2-year probe, undercover detectives ordered escorts who worked for Elite Entertainment to hotel rooms in several locations and arrested them after money was exchanged for the promise of sex.
Authorities also seized about 15 computers and $5 million in unspecified assets. Officials said the investigation was continuing and that more arrests were likely.
Arrested and in custody were Benmoshe; Lupovitz; Benmoshe’s wife, Melanie Ann Smith, 24; and Russian nationals Moti Vintrov, 33, and Eliran Vintrov, 28. Still at large were Moti Vintrov’s wife, Stephanie Vintrov, 23; Eliran Vintrov’s girlfriend, Candis Lynn Castro, 25; and Gabrell Marie Lukow, 26. Tiffany Welsh, 22, and Rebecca Luna, 25, both secretaries who worked at the ring’s administrative offices, posted bail, Wyatt said.
Bail amounts were set from $25,000 to $1.5 million, according to court records.

TITLE: Japanese Fisherman Killed by Russian Patrol
AUTHOR: By Hans Greimel
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO — Japan dispatched diplomats Thursday to negotiate the release of three fishermen detained by Russia after a high-seas shooting that killed a fellow crew member. Tokyo said the incident could affect ties with Moscow.
A Russian patrol boat opened fire on the fishing vessel, killing one Japanese man in the latest flare up of a 60-year-old territorial dispute over a series of islands off Japan’s northernmost island.
Russia seized the boat after the incident, accusing the crew of illegal fishing and taking the three survivors to Russia for further questioning.
Russia’s ITAR-Tass news agency, quoting officials with the Russian Prosecutor’s Office, reported that the three were charged with poaching, smuggling and border violations. The crew has been refusing to give evidence to prosecutors, the agency said.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday pressed again for the immediate release of the fishermen. It protested Russia’s response to the alleged poaching as too extreme and demanded that the officials responsible for the shooting be punished.
A group of Japanese diplomats was dispatched Thursday to Hokkaido to seek the release of the detained crew members and their seized boat, and to receive the dead fisherman’s body, Foreign Ministry spokesman Noriyuki Shikata said. They were expected to go to nearby Russian-controlled islands for talks with Russian authorities.
“We don’t think the use of force is acceptable in those circumstances,” Shikata said. “If there is not good cooperation obtained from the Russian side, this could negatively affect bilateral relations.”
Russian officials have said they had discovered freshly caught crabs on the fishing boat: Japan’s Fishery Agency acknowledged that crab fishing in that area is illegal at this time of year under an agreement between the two nations.
Russian officials also said the boat ignored orders to stop, was maneuvering dangerously and tried to ram a Russian dinghy. They claimed the fisherman was mistakenly killed by a warning shot as he rushed to recover fishing equipment aboard the fishing boat.
Each country claims the fishing boat was in its own territorial waters at the time of the shooting.
The four disputed islands — called the Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan — were seized by the Soviet army near the end of World War II. Tokyo has demanded their return, and the dispute has blocked a treaty formally ending wartime hostilities.
The islands are surrounded by rich fishing waters and are believed to have promising offshore oil and natural gas reserves, as well as gold and silver deposits.
Russian authorities have seized dozens of Japanese boats and injured several fishermen over the years, but this was the first shooting death of a Japanese in the region since October 1956, Coast Guard officials said.

TITLE: Party Aims to Play Opposition Role in State Duma
AUTHOR: By Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The little-known Party of Life, touting a senior Kremlin official’s support, is portraying itself as the future counterbalance to United Russia.
Vladislav Surkov, the deputy chief of presidential staff, says the Party of Life, with United Russia, should serve as the foundation for the nation’s emerging two-party system.
In a March speech posted on the Party of Life’s web site Wednesday, Surkov said “there is no second leg for the society to stand on when the first becomes numb. Russia needs a second large party.”
The pro-Kremlin United Russia already has a two-thirds majority in the State Duma and has adopted several measures this year expected to shield it from serious competition in the 2007 parliamentary elections. The party has 1 million members.
By contrast, the Party of Life has 120,000 members. It was created with the Kremlin’s blessing to siphon votes away from the Communists in the 2003 parliamentary elections. In those elections, the party garnered less than 2 percent of the vote.
To build support, the Party of Life must refashion itself as “the new left.” “So far, no one has undertaken such a noble mission,” Surkov said.
The Party of Life is headed by State Duma Speaker Sergei Mironov, a longtime friend of President Vladimir Putin. Surkov and Party of Life leaders appear to envision a similarly friendly relationship between the Party of Life and United Russia.
Surkov said that, as the Party of Life seeks to build its base, it should avoid criticizing United Russia. Mironov’s deputy, Rafgat Altynbaev, embraced Surkov’s suggestion that the Party of Life assume the role of the country’s official left-wing party, while Mironov said the party would seek to eradicate poverty and reverse the negative population trend.
Altynbaev claimed the party would be in a position to win 13 percent to 15 percent of the vote in the upcoming Duma elections.
United Russia leaders on Wednesday welcomed Surkov’s comments, despite Surkov having said in his March 26 speech that the party’s top brass “would not thank me” for addressing the Party of Life and said “jealousy” existed between the two parties.
Vladimir Pligin, a member of United Russia and the head of the Duma’s constitutional law committee, said Surkov’s speech was designed to promote further strengthening of a multiparty system.
But liberal opposition leaders voiced skepticism that the Party of Life could meld into a serious counterbalance to United Russia. The party lacks charismatic leaders and, like United Russia, a clear ideology, said Nikita Belykh of the Union of Right Forces. Belykh also said the party would not be able to count on administrative support from governors, whose time and resources would be dominated by United Russia.
Analysts linked the timing of the posting of the speech with the Party of Life’s efforts to merge with other parties. “There’s no doubt Mironov decided to post the speech to demonstrate that Surkov also supports his party at the same time that it is absorbing Rodina” and other smaller parties, Andrei Ryabov of the Gorbachev Fund said. Rodina was also set up with Kremlin support to capture votes from the Communists in 2003.
In a recent VTsIOM poll, 3 percent of voters said they would back a joint Party of Life-Rodina ticket in the next elections. Another 17 percent said they were open to supporting the new faction.
The Party of Life is also in talks to merge with the Pensioners’ Party, a former opposition party. The two are expected to announce a final deal within a month. In the 2003 elections, the Pensioners’ Party, with the Social Justice Party, won slightly more than 3 percent.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Soldier’s Killer Convicted
MOSCOW (AP) — An army officer has been convicted by a military court of killing a soldier and sentenced to a 6-year jail term, ITAR-Tass reported Wednesday.
Captain Sergei Isayev, who served in the Interior Ministry troops outside Moscow, was found guilty of causing serviceman Alexander Kuznetsov’s death, a court official said.
Angered by disorder in the barracks, the officer hit two soldiers standing in formation; Kuznetsov, 21, suffered a heart failure after a powerful blow to the chest and died in March 2004. 

Beslan Toll Reaches 332
MOSCOW (SPT) — As the second anniversary of the Beslan tragedy approaches, the death toll reached 332 when a woman, 66, died of injuries sustained when she was taken hostage on Sept. 1, 2003, Interfax reported.
Taisia Dauyeva was taken hostage along with her son and two grandsons. 

Star Animator Dies
MOSCOW (SPT) — Svetozar Rusakov, one of the giants of Soviet animation, died Tuesday, Russian newspapers reported. He was 84.
Rusakov was best known as the creator of Nu Pogodi, or Just You Wait, a cartoon series about a delinquent wolf, narrated by the renowned film actor Anatoly Papanov, that became a favorite for generations of Soviet children. Rusakov began his career during World War II, producing agitation propaganda.

TITLE: Moscow Measures To Help Cheated Buyers
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The results of a State Duma investigation into real estate fraud has revealed serious violations related to the double selling of new apartments and delays in flat construction. A counsel for the city’s ‘Affordable Housing’ project announced its findings at a press conference Thursday.
Although Vladimir Kuznetsov, chairman for Smolny’s committee for construction, said “the share of cheated buyers is small,” many local experts remained unconvinced. 
According to the counsel, around 400 residential blocks are proving problematic in Russia at the moment, 96 of them — in Moscow, 143 — in the Moscow Region. In total, then, the counsel listed around 100,000 apartments — between 300,000 and 400,000 buyers — which have been subject to fraudulent business, said Alexei Semyonov, deputy chairman of the expert counsel for ‘Affordable Housing’.
Figures for St. Petersburg vary significantly depending on who one asks. According to City Hall, only 1,000 people have been cheated. The expert counsel listed around 4,000 to 5,000 people.
In May, after cheated buyers in Moscow organized a picket, several news portals soon found a total of 12,000 such victims in St. Petersburg.
Semyonov indicated only residential blocks. However, the number could increase, as investors try to circumvent a new law on partake investment into construction, he said.
“In principle, the problem can be resolved. We’ve used this option in Moscow and want to offer it to St. Petersburg. It is a real solution, which does not require budget financing,” Semyonov said.
“Investigations related to corruption in land distribution are extremely complicated and time-consuming. Moscow took a radical decision. Since the state, on a municipal level, took some part in the crisis, it will be held partly responsible,” he said.
According to the scheme, a new investor will receive the land and its unfinished building at a discount. The investor is then obliged to complete construction without any additional charges to the cheated buyers, while covering its expenses through development of the territory.
“I believe that the cost of construction in St. Petersburg works out at around $600 to $700 per square meter. Increasing the cost by 10 percent to 20 percent would not cause serious problems. Everybody knows the market price for real estate,” Semyonov said.
He suggested that local authorities could also cover some of the expenses related to infrastructure.
Semyonov expects to resolve all existing conflicts in Moscow by 2009. In St. Petersburg this could be achieved much earlier, because the number of building proving troublesome is much smaller, he said.
Kuznetsov listed only four such blocks in the city. “We try to solve the problem through creating associations of property owners and making people complete construction. Otherwise we change investor,” he said.
“However, many people do not trust the new investor, refuse to sign new agreements and try to sue the company in court,” he said.
Svetlana Drozdova, chairman of the public Committee of Cheated Investors, did not recommend filing legal suits, because it would bankrupt the construction company.
“In the best case scenario, a new investor will force buyers to pay for their apartment again at the market price. At worst you will just get a court decision advising you to place all claims in the bankrupt firm,” she said.
Kuznetsov indicated the building at 93 Leninskiy prospect as a case of problem solved. Around 200 families created an association of property owners and will continue construction at their own expense.
However, Drozdova said that a total of 500 people have suffered because of the double sale of these apartments.
Experts said that a special committee will be created under the governor’s supervision to monitor the situation.
A special state body will also be created to supervise financial relationships between construction companies and buyers. At the moment state bodies only supervise the technical character of the buildings and the time it takes to build.
It is still unclear if the proposed solution will lead to increases in the price of real estate.

TITLE: TEPCO, Gazprom Strike LNG Trade Agreement
AUTHOR: By Ikuko Kao
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TOKYO — Tokyo Electric Power, Japan’s largest utility, said on Thursday it had signed an agreement with Russian gas monopoly Gazprom for the trading of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Gazprom will mostly sell LNG on a spot basis to TEPCO, and the Russian company can also buy surplus LNG from the Japanese utility, a TEPCO spokesman said. 
“The agreement will facilitate spot trading between both companies in the future. Prices, volumes and delivery spot will be decided in each case,” the spokesman said.
He did not disclose the value of the deal and did not know when the companies would trade the first cargo.
Gazprom is positioning itself as a global LNG trade giant and the agreement gives it a foothold to expand its business to the Pacific.
TEPCO purchases 16 million tonnes of LNG based on long-term contracts from such countries as Malaysia and Australia, making it the world’s second-largest commercial buyer of the fuel.
The utility, which has an electricity generation capacity enough to meet the power demand of Britain, is regarded as the most valuable strategic partner by international gas producers. It set up a LNG trading unit earlier this year, seeking more flexibility in its LNG purchase contracts and trading business.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Brewing Profit
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Baltika brewery increased net profit by 27.6 percent up to 4.2 billion rubles ($155.5 million) during the first half of the year, according to Russian accounting standards, Interfax reported Tuesday.
Revenue increased by 11.8 percent up to 18 billion rubles. The short-term contractors’ debt to the company increased from 1.7 billion to 4.7 billion rubles.

Slick Profit
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Gazprom Neft increased net profits by 41 percent up to 30 billion rubles ($1.1 billion) during the first half of the year, according to Russian accounting standards, Interfax reported Tuesday.
Revenue increased by 70 percent up to 190.3 billion rubles. The company’s total debt increased by 40 percent up to 54.2 billion rubles.

Power Loss
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Power distributor Lenenergo reported a net loss of 247.6 million rubles ($9.17 million) during the first half of the year, Interfax reported Tuesday. The company’s revenue stood at 4.8 billion rubles, production costs — 4.7 billion rubles.

Territorial Gains
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Territory Generating Company 1 earned 857 million rubles ($31.74 million) net profit during the first half of the year, Interfax reported Tuesday. Revenue totaled 11.16 billion rubles.

TITLE: Mobile Antitrust Case Started
AUTHOR: By Lyubov Pronina
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW— Russian antitrust authorities began a case against the country’s top three mobile-phone companies including Mobile TeleSystems, for setting tariffs between themselves at a lower rate than for other competitors.
The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has started the case after Mobile Telesystems, VimpelCom and MegaFon, the country’s three largest operators, set the tariff to terminate a call between them at 0.95 ruble ($0.04) and at 1.1 rubles for other operators, the service said in a statement posted on its web site Thursday. The watchdog will hear the case on Sept. 28.
“If they are found to be violating legislation they will be obliged to eliminate this violation,’’ Yelena Nagaichuk, spokeswoman for the Anti-Monopoly Service said in a telephone interview Thursday.
The “Big Three” companies together operate 86 percent of cellular phones in Russia, a country of 143 million people, where mobile-phone penetration reached 98.5 percent last month.
The lower interconnection tariff between the three companies will make smaller regional operators review their pricing policy and give up attractive low tariffs that allow them to be competitive on the market, the service said.
“Regional operators and operators that are entering the market of mobile communication find themselves in an unequal situation compared to federal operators which is unacceptable under requirements of anti-monopoly legislation,” the statement said.
The Anti-Monopoly Service asked MegaFon on Aug. 7 to provide documents and explanation for the difference in tariffs, Marina Belasheva, a spokeswoman for MegaFon, Russia’s third-largest operator, said in a telephone interview Thursday.
“We were expecting their reply and now here’s this news,” she said, adding that there is certain excitement around the tariff as it concerns vast majority of Russians.

TITLE: RusAl Eyeing West Indies Alumina
AUTHOR: By Yuriy Humber
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian Aluminum, owned by metals mogul Oleg Deripaska, is considering investing in West Indies alumina assets. 
A 35-member team from RusAl visited the Jamaican plants of West Indies Alumina Company, or Windalco, and Alumina Partners, or Alpart, this week, Jamaican media reported Wednesday.
RusAl, the world’s No. 3 aluminum producer, is in talks with Swiss trader Glencore, which owns majority stakes in both West Indies assets, and could strike a deal before year’s end, the newspaper Jamaica Observer said, citing company sources.
It was not clear whether RusAl was interested in a total or partial acquisition of Glencore’s stakes. The Swiss firm controls 65 percent of Alpart and 93 percent of Windalco.
RusAl spokeswoman Vera Kurochkina declined to comment on “these types of rumors,” but said RusAl “personnel visit plants around the world on a regular basis for a variety of reasons.” Glencore spokeswoman Lotti Grenacher did not immediately comment.
Alpart owns a bauxite mine and an alumina refinery, which produce the raw materials for aluminum production. Norway’s Norsk Hydro, which has a major aluminum unit, holds the remaining 35 percent of Alpart, while the Jamaican government holds the minority stake in Windalco. Should any deal take place, the proximity of the U.S. market would be a boon for RusAl, said Michael Kavanagh, an MDM bank analyst.

TITLE: MTS Will Cut 800 Jobs in Moscow
AUTHOR: By Maria Levitov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The country’s biggest mobile operator, Mobile TeleSystems, is to cut nearly 800 jobs in Moscow as part of a wide-ranging corporate restructuring program, the company announced late Tuesday.
The new structure, approved by the MTS board in a unanimous vote Monday, will have one corporate center and three regional operational units — covering Russia, Ukraine and the CIS countries of Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, respectively.
The new structure will “effectively divide management functions into strategic and operational,” MTS CEO Leonid Melamed said in a statement Wednesday.
The Moscow-based corporate center will handle strategic planning, branding and investment policy, while regional units will focus on operations and meeting targets for their regions.
MTS said it planned to trim its corporate center’s staff by about 40 percent, from 1,750 to 966 employees, and announce further job cuts in other units next month.
Market watchers reacted positively to the news, saying the changes were just the first of several under way at MTS.
“Given the view that the market is going to the regions, it’s logical to stress local managers’ initiatives,” said Yevgeny Golossnoy, telecoms analyst at Troika Dialog.
Mobile market penetration, calculated by the number of valid SIM cards, reached 98.5 percent nationwide at the end of July, according to AC&M Consultancy. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, there were respectively 149 and 131 SIM cards per 100 people, AC&M said.
Following the rebranding of MTS, the company’s restructuring is the next logical step in the new management team’s quest to “boost internal efficiency” in a saturated market, Golossnoy said.
MTS got a new look — a white egg on a colored background — in May, when its parent company, Sistema announced it would use the egg logo for its telecommunications assets. 
Sistema, which raised $1.56 billion in an initial public offering last year, said it had spent about $4 million on the rebranding campaign.
Under MTS’s previous structure, key operational decisions were made by the company’s corporate center, and local management was not properly motivated to implement these decisions, Deutsche UFG said in a research note Wednesday.
MTS had nearly 28,000 employees at the end of last year, compared with about 14,000 employees at VimpelCom, the No. 2 mobile operator by subscribers, according to Deutsche. This translated into 1,800 subscribers per employee at MTS, compared with 2,800 at VimpelCom, highlighting “much lower efficiency at MTS,” Deutsche said.
The new structure makes managers responsible for showing results, allocates resources more transparently and simplifies the company’s system for ensuring that targets are met, MTS chairman Sergei Shchebetov said in a statement.
The bulk of the restructuring is due to be completed by 2007, MTS spokesman Kirill Alyavdin said Wednesday.
“The announced change is only the beginning of a major corporate restructuring effort, which should boost overall decision-making efficiency” and lead to further job cuts, Deutsche said.

TITLE: Thawing Transneft Shares
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Moscow court has unfrozen the preferred shares of state pipeline monopoly Transneft, allowing market players to resume all operations with the stock, newspapers reported Wednesday.
Kommersant and Vedomosti quoted sources at the Prosecutor General’s Office as saying the decision was made by a Moscow court Aug. 3 and came into force Aug. 13.
The exact date when the stock can resume trading on the RTS and the MICEX bourses is yet to be announced.
Interfax quoted a spokeswoman for the Moscow City Court, which confirmed the decision Wednesday, as saying the shares would not trade until the appeals court had heard a challenge to the ruling by the prosecutor general.
She said the date of the appeals court hearing would be announced later.
The ban came into force in May after another Moscow court decided to freeze all transactions with the stock.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Meaty Threat
MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia will scrap preferences for U.S. poultry and red meat imports if Washington does not endorse Moscow’s accession bid for the World Trade Organization within three months, the Economy ministry said on Thursday.
“If talks (on Russia’s WTO entry)... set for the end of October in Geneva fail, Russia will have to return to its original stance prior to agreements on (bilateral) meat trade that had been reached,” a ministry statement quoted a letter by Minister German Gref.

Flying Growth
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian airlines carried 9.2 percent more passengers in the first half of 2006 than in the year-earlier period, an eight-year economic boom lifted incomes across a nation that spans 11 time zones.
A total of 14.8 million passengers travelled by air in the period, the Transport Ministry said in a statement Thursday. 

Indian Imports 
NEW DELHI (Bloomberg) — India expects to import the first two cargoes of crude oil from Russia’s Sakhalin-1 project in the last quarter of 2006 as part of the nation’s share in the joint-venture project.
ONGC Videsh Ltd., the overseas investment arm of India’s state-run exploration company Oil & Natural Gas Corp., plans to bring in the first two cargoes, each with a capacity of 700,000 barrels, in October and December, junior oil minister Dinsha Patel told India’s lower house of parliament in New Delhi Thursday.
India is entitled to oil from Sakhalin in proportion to its investment in the project. First flows from the project started in October last year. 
The South Asian nation, which imports 70 percent of its oil, has invested in overseas fields such as Sakhalin to feed the nation’s 8 percent annual economic growth.
The $12.8 billion Sakhalin venture has enough oil to supply India for almost 2 1/2 years.

TITLE: These Sanctions Have Bigger Targets
AUTHOR: By Konstantin Makiyenko
TEXT: Despite President Vladimir Putin’s blessing last Friday for an $18 billion deal between Russian titanium producer VSMPO-Avismo and U.S. aircraft producer Boeing, the announcement by the U.S. State Department on Aug. 4 that it was slapping sanctions on Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport and leading aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi could still cause serious problems for U.S. and Russian companies. The sanctions were imposed for two years under a new U.S. law aimed at weapons nonproliferation with regard to Iran. The formal reason for the sanctions was reportedly a $200 million contract to modernize Iran’s aging fleet of Su-24 Fencer fighter-bombers, which can theoretically carry nuclear weapons. Both Rosoboronexport and Sukhoi deny the existence of the contract.
Previously, the United States has imposed sanctions against various Russian companies and research institutes as a result of contracts signed with Iran and Syria. Until now, however, the U.S. measures have for the most part been largely symbolic, as the companies targeted have not been involved in cooperation with U.S. firms or the U.S. government. For example, the sanctions that were placed on an instrument design bureau in Tula in 1999 resulted in nothing more than sarcastic comments in the media from the company’s managers.
This time, though, the sanctions affect companies that directly or through affiliates have business ties — either actual or potential — with the United States worth billions of dollars. It was thought that one of the hardest hit would be VSMPO. Rosoboronexport is currently in the process of taking over VSMPO, and roughly half of the company’s output is exported to the United States at a value that has been estimated from $300 million to $450 million annually. The $18 billion deal to supply titanium and finished titanium components to the U.S. aircraft producer struck on Friday represents much more value added than simple production of the metal. While VSMPO would not have had much problem finding alternative customers — the titanium market is fiercely competitive and the aerospace industry is booming both in Russia and internationally — arranging these deals would have taken time and meant some financial loss.
But the threat to Rosoboronexport’s business remains in relation to contracts under discussion for the supply of Russian weapons — mainly small arms, rifles, and helicopters — to the Iraqi Army, being trained and outfitted in a U.S.-led operation, and the Afghan army, which is being trained and supplied by NATO forces. The value of these contracts has been estimated at as high as $1 billion. The negotiations were being held with the Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies, but the imposition of the latest sanctions will significantly complicate the signing and fulfillment of any such agreement.
The sanctions also threaten to cause difficulties for Sukhoi’s Superjet 100 project for the construction of a Russian regional passenger aircraft. The jet is being built in collaboration with a number of U.S. firms supplying crucial systems including auxiliary power units, generators, and landing gear. Boeing is also involved in the project as a consultant.
Russia’s initial reaction to the news of the sanctions was severe. In particular, the State Department’s announcement was seen as payback for Russia’s recent rapprochement with Venezuela on military cooperation. This reading of events was supported by the fact that the sanctions were announced immediately after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s visit to Moscow, during which major contracts were announced for the supply of Russian fighter jets, helicopters, and weapons to the South American country. Washington issued repeated warnings that it was unhappy with the arms deals during Chavez’s trip.
It does seem, however, that the State Department sanctions are largely the result of the unfortunate application of routine legislation. American companies like Boeing, which buys 35 percent of its titanium from VSMPO, could still suffer financially. If Boeing ultimately runs into problems over Russian titanium, it will have to look for alternatives on the U.S. or Australian markets. Although this can be done, it will take some time and will likely mean higher costs. Boeing’s chances to win an Aeroflot tender to supply the airline with 22 of its 787 series aircraft could also be hurt. Airbus, with its 350WXB passenger jet is also competing for the order.
But a week after the sanctions were introduced, tempers seemed to have cooled and the situation was already looking much less dramatic. A number of major U.S. firms had already assured Sukhoi that their equipment does not fall under the sanctions and that they have no plans to pull out of programs with the two Russian companies.
Should the situation with regard to American producers take a negative turn, these systems could be replaced quickly and painlessly. VSMPO management announced almost immediately that supplies of titanium to the U.S. market would continue, a point echoed by Boeing Russia Chairman Sergei Kravchenko. In any case, Boeing, which has a team of effective lobbyists, will try to ensure that the deal with VSMPO is allowed to stand. Finally, if the Pentagon really is interested in supplying the Iraqis and the Afghans with Russian weapons, then it will find a way to push through its plans without busting the sanctions. At the end of the day, the end users will not be Americans, and the United States already has experience in arming others where the circumstances with regard to legality are murky — during the Iran Contra affair, for example.
All the same, the recent announcement represents an alarming new element in the history of U.S. sanctions against Russian companies. Whereas previously sanctions of this type were of no real commercial import, substantial losses for both sides in the case of Sukhoi and Rosoboronexport are more likely than ever before.
There is no doubt that, if the crisis is not resolved favorably for Sukhoi and Rosoboronexport, the Russian executives and the political establishment will come to the conclusion that any collaboration with the United States, especially in the high-tech sphere, carries unacceptably high political risks — risks so high that the attractiveness of the colossal U.S. market is not enough to compensate. In theory, this has already been clear from the problems some U.S. partners in Europe and Asia — and Israel in particular — have had in the past with U.S. sanctions. This could end up being the first time Russia feels the effect of an American diktat. No doubt a lesson will be learned.

Konstantin Makiyenko is deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

TITLE: Back on Its Feet, Inconveniently
AUTHOR: By Masha Gessen
TEXT: Life in Russia is becoming increasingly inconvenient. This inconvenience is once again becoming a topic of conversation. Whenever this happens, a friend of mine says, “Russia is getting up off its knees.”
The sentence is the essence of official rhetoric. In the name of pulling Russia up from its knees, the government is waging war on corruption. That, in turn, is making life in Russia more and more inconvenient every day.
Let’s go back and review what happened when Russia was brought to its knees. This unfortunate change in Russia’s disposition occurred roughly when the Soviet Union collapsed. In the 1990s, we thought this heralded the victory of democracy, but in the first decade of this century we learned — from the president himself — that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “a tragedy,” quite possibly the root of all evil, and certainly what brought Russia to its knees.
One of the first things that happened when Russia fell to its knees was that life rapidly started to become more convenient. Key aspects of this convenience, such as food, were prohibitively expensive at first, but the number of opportunities available to people in Russia expanded exponentially.
Some of the most remarkable changes occurred in dealing with the bureaucracy. Previously unfathomable feats, such as extending a visitor’s visa or obtaining a certificate, were suddenly within reach. What accounted for this change was a sudden proliferation of go-betweens. There had always been people capable of motivating the bureaucracy to do its job, but now they were out there offering their services to the paying public (payment could be either in cash or in kind: Everybody desperately needed something and had no good way of getting it). These people tended to be overweight men with greasy hair and an apparent distaste for shaving.
After a while, the greasy-stubble lot went legit, placing print advertisements, opening offices and calling themselves “agencies.” There were visa agencies, passport agencies, register-your-real-estate-transaction agencies and many obtain-a-certificate agencies. Now, instead of suffering the humiliation of lines, rudeness and uncertainty, you went to a clean, well-lit office and paid someone else to suffer or find ways to avoid the suffering.
These civilized agencies served to obscure the fact that nothing had actually changed in the bureaucracy. Even the laws that governed it changed late or not at all, like the law criminalizing the possession of foreign currency, which stayed on the books through the mid-90s. The bureaucrats continued to take bribes and respond only to those who wielded some sort of power over them, be it personal, political or financial.
Then this, too, began to shift. The government agencies and the intermediary agencies began to merge. Government entities started sprouting for-profit offshoots that would perform the same services quickly, efficiently, and politely — for a fee. For example, to obtain an official floor plan for your apartment building, you could either stand in line for hours to apply and then again, a couple of weeks later, to get your copy of the plan or you could go to a small office next door and pay $50 to have it ready tomorrow. This was a definite victory for the market: You were now entering into a direct transaction with the people actually performing the service, and in exchange for your money you got a guaranteed result, plus friendly treatment.
The new anti-corruption campaign has scared most agencies out of existence, bringing people face to face with the unreformed bureaucrats again. I, for example, have just obtained my son’s foreign-travel passport. It cost me precisely the same amount, in cash, as if I had gone through an agency, plus seven — count them — visits to the passport office, not to mention the fear and uncertainty inherent in this way of doing things. Everyone who expected a bribe got one. I missed seven days of work. Sure am glad Russia is getting up off its knees.

Masha Gessen is a Moscow journalist.

TITLE: Over the waves
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg music luminary Valery Gergiev takes the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra to the Baltic Sea Festival that he helped to establish.
The world premiere of an exciting new work by Russian-Swedish composer Viktoria Borasova-Ollas opens this year’s Baltic Sea Festival on Sunday in Stockholm’s Berwald Concert Hall.
The brainchild of the Finnish-born conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Mariinsky Theater’s artistic director Valery Gergiev, the Baltic Sea Festival was launched in 2003 to campaign for the endangered marine environment of the Baltic Sea through the universal language of music. The festival will run in Stockholm through Saturday, Aug. 26.
“The language of music has no political restrictions and can easily reach people across language barriers,”  Salonen has said. “I believe that a festival of this size can spark a shared desire to improve the deteriorating Baltic Sea environment.” 
Gergiev and Salonen believe in a “Baltic identity,”  a historical and cultural affinity between the nations around the Baltic in a similar way to that which is said to exist between nations around the Mediterranean.
Although the event, which features world premieres of new pieces by Finnish and Swedish composers and attracts an array of the finest musicians from the Baltic region, this year one of the star attractions comes from a little further afield.
The thrilling Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie will perform a program of Debussy, Stravinsky, Lepo Sumera and Erkki-Sven Tuur on Friday, Aug. 25 in the Berwald Concert Hall. Deaf since the age of 12, the talented Scot has evolved into a distinguished musician using a unique tactile technique. Glennie goes on stage barefoot to catch the vibrations of the sounds she makes on the xylophone and other percussive instruments.
Other performers include the Mariinsky Theater, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the Latvian Radio Choir and the Grieg-Ensemble of the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory.  
To continue its celebration of St. Petersburg composer Dmitry Shostakovich’s centenary year, the Mariinsky Theater is performing Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (The Leningrad) and a concert version of its very successful recent premiere of Verdi’s “Falstaff” under the baton of Gergiev on Monday and Tuesday respectively. 
On Wednesday, the Estonian conductor Paavo Jarvi will conduct the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 and Schumann’s Symphony No.1.
The Mariinsky presented Yury Alexandrov’s bold take on Shostakovich’s “The Nose”  and Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov”  as well as a series of symphonic concerts at the festival in previous years.
Gergiev is convinced it is culturally important to bring the festival to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, also a Baltic territory. 
“To build relationships, we all need to see a wider picture,”  he said during the 2005 festival. “Russia and Kaliningrad should be a part of Europe culturally. The Mariinsky Theater already is, but we all should be.” 
The Baltic Sea Festival will also be continuing its tradition of musical ferry cruises. As a curtain-raiser before the week of performances in Stockholm, a series of cruises is being held on the waters of the Baltic.
Salonen, the festival’s artistic director, would like the festival to become the premier classical music event in the region, and his collaborator Gergiev sees the events regional and environmental focus as its strength. 
“We’ll never become a great homogenous mass of people,”  Gergiev said. “Finns are different from Swedes, Swedes are different from Germans, and Germans are different from Russians, but because of our position we are close. Of course, we can close our eyes and pretend we are important on our own and don’t needs friends — but this attitude leads nowhere.” 
Salonen echoes this view.
“The are so many political structures in Europe at the moment that are more or less artificial, like, for instance, the European Union or NATO,”  Salonen said. 
“Baltic Sea countries, similar to Mediterrenean countries, have a common history and culture, and therefore present a natural unit, rather than one based on artifical political agreements.”  
As the maestro points out, the countries, which have been through periods of tranquillity and turbulence, have now developed a political relationship in which the exchange of ideas and communication is easy to establish and maintain. 
“We just felt that this is the moment to manifest it through the classical music,” he said. “I would like to see every Baltic country participate in this.”

TITLE: Curtain up
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Molodyozhny Theater’s new season promises something new — a rare thing in St. Petersburg
After a dearth of theatrical activity during the summer, the new season is always a treat for theatergoers. The Molodyozhny Theater, one of St. Petersburg’s best loved repertory companies, this week embarked on its 28th season with the promise that it will be rich with events and premieres.
Unexpectedly, one of the company’s new productions will be directed by Molodyozhny actor Alexander Stroyev. The director of the theater, Semyon Spivak, has given the actor the opportunity to reveal himself as a theater director. 
He will direct “A King and a Prince, or The Truth about Hamlet,” an obscure play by St. Petersburg playwright Alexander Radovsky  which hasn’t been seen on stage for 30 years. 
“It is a version of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’,” Stroyev said. “It is almost the same: the time, the characters, the finale. However the reason for the characters behavior, the motive of deeds, has been changed by the author.”
“But it is not a modern thing with quite a different or perverted view as often happens now. It is a story about family with a tragic finale.” 
Although Stroyev saids the play follows Shakepeare’s original closely, the production has an unexpected twist. 
“Stroyev makes the work with his own view of life, and he deals with awe with such things as kindness, positive attitudes to people, and the absence of aggression. In this way the play is a controversial one in our time,” Spivak said.
Although Stroyev has already had directing experience on TV (with the series “The Game Online”) he does not consider himself to be a director. And as a corroboration of his first profession he also acts in the new Molodyozhny production. 
“When you are an actor it is easier, there is always a director who helps, supports, who is responsible for everything. Of course it is difficult to combine these activities but the role is too good,” said Stroyev.
Answering the perennial question of why actors like to move into directing, Stroyev said that one should always raise the bar.
“There comes a moment when you feel that you can do more than just your role but create the whole world of the play,” Spivak added.
The new season also offers the chance for Spivak to direct a new production: “Don Quixote” by Mikhail Bulgakov. Spivak considered the play for a long time and said he finally found a central idea to make it work for him. The play, based on Miguel de Cervantes novel, includes an important conflict with time, he said. 
“It was very difficult to catch Cervantes’ idea. He wrote his novel as a parody of the knight novels and at the same time he touched a very serious and great thought,” said Spivak.
“What staggered me was the idea that in such a serious time there appears so childish, playful, naÕve and ingenuous thoughts.”
Spivak compares our time to the past and finds that the conflict is the same. 
“We are all serious people and yet we are in conflict with the child inside us. It is inner conflict. The child who lived in us in childhood did not die, he is just hidden, closed and there is a large lock,” he said.
“I think Cervantes detected this wonderfully. So I believe it will be a very good performance for us. The novel finishes with the idea that this child is finally defeated and it is very serious.”
“Don Quixote” is not Spivak’s only new project this season. The director is also thinking about a version of the Aristophanes comedy “Lysistrata” and calls it “a sad antique comedy about conflict in human nature.”
Another new production has been prepared by Mikhail Chernyak. He took James Goldman’s “The Lion in Winter,”a play which was famously filmed in 1968 with Peter O’Toole as King Henry II of England and Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine.
“The film was a tragedy. I believe our performance will be a tragicomedy, a little absurd, with a contemporary interpretation and lots of surprises,” said Spivak. 

Molodyozhny Theater, 
114 Naberezhnaya Fontanki. 
Tel: 311 3314. See Stages (page ix) for performance times.

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: On a visit to the city earlier this month, Peter Gabriel’s recording engineer Richard Chappell complained that there were much fewer live concerts taking place in St. Petersburg than he expected. But that’s just typical for this time of year.
Tequilajazzz, one of the leading local bands that has been on holiday for the past couple of weeks, will perform at Griboyedov on Friday. There is a difference of opinion between the club and the band about when it last played there (the club says eight years ago) or whether it played there at all (the band has some doubts.)
The Griboyedov gig was put together mainly because Moloko, the underground club that where Tequilajazzz liked to perform its “traditional summer concerts” closed at its original location and has yet to reopen at a new one, the band’s frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov said this week.
However, there is some news about Moloko’s reopening; it is rumored to be happening — “secretly” and “unofficially” — with a gig by Melomane in mid-September.
Melomane, the Brooklyn-based indie-pop band, will be playing four concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg between Sept. 13 and 17 to promote the its third album, “Glaciers,” scheduled to be released in Russia on Soyuz Records.
The Rotterdam Ska-Jazz Foundation will be on the program of Dutch Punch, a festival of Dutch indie music, film and arts in Russia first held last year.
This year’s event will also include bands and DJs including Feverdream, Elle Bandita and FFF as well as a program of shorts and videos. Dutch Punch will be held at Platforma, Manhattan, Red Club and GEZ-21 between Sept. 7 and 10. Forays to Pskov and Moscow have been also planned.
More ska will be brought by The Toasters. Formed in New York in 1981, the veteran 2-Tone-like band, which played here last year, will return to the city to perform at Red Club on Sept. 21. The Toasters will visit Moscow (22) and Irkutsk (24).
City Bar, or rather its third incarnation, was the latest addition to the city’s club scene when it threw its great opening party last week. Expect more parties in September. 
At Novus, be warned about a gray-haired man who acts as if he is a coach of the Latvian table game, novuss, which gives its name to the place. This week, he looked like he was growing less and less careful with that cue.
This month’s best news, however, came from New York, where the New York Dolls, even if it some of its members have passed away, has a new album out. The wittily-named “One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This” is the first proper studio album made by the legendary pioneers of punk since 1974 and at least some of it sounds great.
“This first new Dolls album in 32 years is not just a legitimate entry in their catalog, it’s a great one,” wrote Billboard.

TITLE: Taking a stand
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The former lyricist for perestroika rockers Nautilus Pompilius lashes out at the band’s frontman for cozying up to the Kremlin.
Russian rock, which helped change the face of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, seems to be adrift in the Putin era. As some former rock heroes seek benefits from the state, what was once the Russian rock fraternity has cracked.
Perhaps the last straw was the dispute that erupted after perestroika-era rock idol Vyacheslav Butusov played for 5,000 activists of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi on July 24. The activists had come to Seliger 2006, a Nashi summer camp being held at Lake Seliger in the Tver region.
Butusov — who won fame as the frontman of Nautilus Pompilius, one of the leading bands of the 1980s Soviet rock breakthrough — was then rebuked by his former lyricist, Ilya Kormiltsev, a writer and translator who now heads the offbeat Moscow-based publishing house Ultra Kultura.
Writing on his blog on Livejournal.com, Kormiltsev accused Butusov of betraying his and his fans’ ideals by playing at a pro-Kremlin event, even if it meant good money.
“I am against the lyrics that I wrote being performed in the context of political events such as Seliger 2006,” wrote Kormiltsev, 46, who co-wrote some of the best-known Nautilus Pompilius songs, including the anti-totalitarian anthems “Chained Together” (Skovanniye Odnoi Tsepyu) and “Khaki-Colored Globe” (Shar Tsveta Khaki).
“As a conscious opponent of the present-day Russian political system, I don’t want hired young louts having fun on taxpayer money to listen to lyrics that I wrote with my heart and blood,” he added.
Nashi leaders — or “commissars,” as they call themselves — were brought to Lake Seliger from around Russia for lectures and seminars led by figures such as Kremlin-connected spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky and free rock concerts by the likes of the Moscow-based pop bands Uma2rmah and BI-2. Local bands Korol i Shut, Multfilmy and Kukryniksy also took part.
The youth movement, widely seen as the brainchild of presidential deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov, was organized last year in the wake of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, the street protests involving young people and rock bands that paved the way for opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko to win the country’s disputed presidential election. Many, including Kormiltsev, believe that Nashi was created to prevent an Orange Revolution from happening in Russia.
Kormiltsev’s blog entry promptly drew over 300 comments. Speaking by telephone recently, the writer explained why he was angry at Butusov for participating in the Nashi event.
“I think it’s unworthy for a person who is seen by many as a symbol of a definite period, of a definite era, ... to sell himself like this,” he said. 
“If he takes part in things like this — whether it’s for his beliefs or just for the money — he must take responsibility for being associated with this kind of scene. For instance, he might expect an expression of disapproval from me, his co-writer, because for me, with my political beliefs, it’s a serious blow.”
Butusov played at the Nashi summer camp on Lake Seliger on July 24. Last year, Butusov was present at an infamous meeting between Surkov and Russian rock stars, including Akvarium’s Boris Grebenshchikov and Leningrad’s Sergei Shnurov. Kormiltsev sees the meeting — initially kept secret — as another part of the Kremlin’s effort to co-opt Russian youth.
“These musicians don’t think about their future much, in the first place,” Kormiltsev said. “Surkovs come and go, but you can’t get your reputation back. I think they acted too hastily and ran gleefully, led by their managers, in the hopes that big state bucks would be given away.”
Kormiltsev made similar accusations in a lengthy article titled “The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle 2” that was published last month. In it, he argued that Russian rock stars — even those who don’t necessarily back the Kremlin — had sold out to politicians.
“I am 100 percent sure that Vyacheslav Butusov not only doesn’t support the position of Nashi, but most likely has no idea what it’s about or who they are,” he said. “He was told by his managers, let’s go there and play, they pay money. So he went and played because they paid money. Acting like this, the man devalues himself.”
Butusov’s manager, Innokenty Mineyev, said by telephone that neither he nor the singer would comment on the matter. Kormiltsev said he sent Butusov his criticism via SMS text message soon after learning about the Lake Seliger concert, and the singer’s reply was, “I don’t understand the essence of your claims.”
Kormiltsev has a long history of defying the authorities. In 1989, he rejected the Lenin Komsomol Award that was given to Nautilus Pompilius, while Butusov and guitarist Dmitry Umetsky accepted it.
More recently, Kormiltsev’s publishing house has attracted controversy by putting out a wide range of nonconformist literature, from skinhead memoirs to anthologies of American Beat poetry to the prison essays of National Bolshevik Party founder Eduard Limonov. In May, prosecutors launched an investigation of Ultra Kultura for allegedly printing pornography.
For Kormiltsev, the investigation of Ultra Kultura and the founding of Nashi are part of the same phenomenon: overreactions by the authorities to perceived threats.
“There is only one problem: the neuroticism of the authorities, who see a threat to themselves everywhere, often exaggerating its scale,” he said.
“These guys never imagined they could make so much money for themselves, and that’s why they’re nervous. They act like somebody who finds a suitcase with a million dollars and gets scared of being hunted down the rest of his life. That’s why they’re so easily, disproportionably irritated. The Ultra Kultura publishing house isn’t even the most striking example — Limonov is the most striking example of the authorities’ disproportionate reaction to an irritant.”

TITLE: In perfect harmony
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: If you saw the recent Hollywood hit “The Break-Up,” you’ll remember that the brother of Jennifer Aniston’s heroine was an aficionado of acappella music.
“Words fail me in describing the magic of singing voices joining in complete harmony — this is something unreal!” he exclaims.
Well-liked in America, this musical genre — known as barbershop — is beginning to gain in popularity in Russia.
Starting Saturday, there is a chance to learn more about unaccompanied singing at St. Petersburg’s Seventh International Festival of Barbershop Harmony.
“A wonderful variety of sounds from Russian folk songs, American pop songs from the ’60s, Russian liturgical music, American songs from Broadway and Hollywood with a common denominator of four-part harmonies for men,”  Carrol Peterson, one of the festival’s participants, said, describing the barbershop music performed at the festival last year.  
The wide-ranging eclectisism of sounds to be found perhaps explains the range of venues hosting the festival.
The event runs through Wednesday with the St. Petersburg Cappella hosting the opening (Saturday, 7 p.m.) and the Pink Pavilion in Pavlovsk staging a gala (Sunday, 2 p.m.). 
Other performances will also take place at the Cappella (The Open Stage, Sunday, 5 p.m.), the Conservatory (Glazunov Hall, Aug. Monday, 7 p.m.) and the Peter and Paul Cathedral (Tuesday, 7 p.m.). St. Petersburg’s Music Hall will be home for the finale on Wednesay, at 7 p.m. 
According to the U.S.-based Barbershop Harmony Society, one of the festival’s organizers,  barbershop, like jazz, is a uniquely American art form with its roots in African-American musics, European hymn-singing culture and the American tradition of recreational music, which, some argue, began life in the country’s barbershops.
With melodies in the vocal and skill range of average singers and lyrics emphasizing simple, heartfelt emotions of love and friendship, the barbershop musical tradition has many followers, including professional musicians as well as amateurs.
“Singing barbershop harmony is about creating a unique sound without the need for instrumentation.  If it is performed properly, the barbershop chord ‘rings’ with an overtone that generates excitement,” Julie Siepler of the Barbershop Harmony Society said. 
“It is fun to sing, and offers a means for people to continue singing throughout their lifetimes. The unique sound and presentation of barbershop harmony inspires those who sing it to share it with others,” Siepler added, explaining why the tradition has not only survived from its hayday a century ago, but  has also attracted many new fans around the world. 
Barbershop Harmony, the only barbershop festival in Russia, is a good example of a creative exchange. 
The event is largely a Russian-American gathering. It features celebrated U.S. choirs and quartets, including the Celebration Chorus (Nevada–Florida), The Virginians (Virginia),Vocal Spectrum (Missouri) and Moonlight (Virginia).
Russia will be represented by eight ensembles including The Magnitka Nightingales Quintet (Magnitogorsk), described by the organizers as dedicated fans of the style.
Only men participated in the festival in its earlier incarnations but now womens’ groups are invited to perform.  
To sample female singing, look out for Wildfire (a quartet from Nevada), the St. Petersburg-based Anima and Phoenix,  the Lady Mix quartet from Perm or the newest addition to the festival, “Sweet Singers,” a 30-member amateur choir, made up of girls who attended masterclasses at last year’s festival. 
A series of masterclasses, taking place in the St. Petersburg Conservatory from Monday to Wednesday is being held this year. 

For information: Tel: 314 4495.

TITLE: Our Children, Yunaya Rossiya
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 two childrens’ journals published in St. Petersburg in the 1880s. 
The current generation of young Russians has a highly practical attitude towards the English language, making for a stark contrast with attitudes widely held a hundred years ago and earlier. In the 1880s, St. Petersburg newspapers wrote that a knowledge of English was only beginning “to be well-regarded by society.” Two periodicals founded in the city by Britons, in different ways, provide evidence of this. If Our Children was aimed at giving support to the growing popularity of the language, Yunaya Rossiya (Young Russia) demonstrated that the trend was still feeble and did quite the reverse. It is legitimate to compare the two periodicals inasmuch as they appeared almost simultaneously, had the same editor, William Bray (who, amusingly, used the Russia-friendly pseudonym Vasily Vasilevich), and had the same target group — Russian children and teenagers. 
“Having spent a long time teaching at higher and secondary educational institutions, I became convinced of the deplorable fact that many young people have given up learning English on graduating from such institutions as they didn’t have a proper means to continue... this leads me to the current proposal of an inexpensive and independent way to master the language,” the editor, an English lecturer at the Commercial School, explained in Russian in the introduction of Our Children. The first issue of the publication — “Our Children. An English Journal for Young Russian People and Little Folks,” to give it it’s full title — came out in January 1884. 
Although it was a periodical aimed at youngsters, it followed the same principles as earlier English magazines here: the texts, both prose and poetry, were taken from the finest English childrens’ and youth periodicals; many of the classical and contemporary literaturary works were retellings or prose adaptations (like “The Story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”). To a lesser degree, there were translations from other languages and original articles. However, a functional innovation frequently employed was a Russian footnote translation of all the difficult words in the texts, getting rid of any need to consult a dictionairy. Essentially, then, it was the only English periodical produced in St. Petersburg which ingeniously combined rest and relaxation with study of the language.
One of the regular sections, “For Young People,” along with brief biographies of historic (Christopher Columbus, Queen Louise of Prussia, Napoleon Bonaparte) and contemporary figures (Bismarck), included dozens of works of fiction and educational materials such as “Smoking and Smokers,” “Think Before You Act,” “How a letter is sent through the English Post” or “How a daily newspaper is produced in London.” “For Little Folks,” the second and main section, had short and simple tales and rhymes and employed large typefaces. In addition, like most periodicals of the era, Our Children had its own miscellany section which collected brief and funny curiosities from around the world. All the sections possessed gems of the genre, such as the stories “Dick and the Giant” and “Luther’s Letter to his Son” and a touching poem entitled “The Violet-Boy and the Hungry Dog,” as well as odd pieces such as “About Eastern Inns,” which examined the various types of hotel in the Biblical era.  
At the end of its first year the editor reported on the publication’s great success, informing readers that all the previous issues had sold out. Moreover, Our Children received an extensive and enthusiastic response in the Russian press; in particular, the well thought-out content and good design were noted. The editor used complimentary quotes in an advertisement for a subscription in the following year. In 1885, the magazine went further and arranged a new section entitled “Samouchitel,” which featured the English alphabet, grammar lessons, spelling rules and other learning aids. Another small change was increased illustration in the periodical. All these improvements raised the production costs and, correspondingly, the subscription fee went up to 6 rubles. Although this wasn’t an outlandish price (for instance, 40 kopeks would buy you a reasonable lunch), within just a few issues the price had again been reduced. It’s worth noting that in the same year a German analogue — Deutsche Zietschrift fßr die Russische Jugend — appeared in the city. It had the same goals and the same footnote translations, but also suffered the same fate.
Four months later, another periodical entitled Yunaya Rossiya, produced by the same editor, was unveiled. Its cover featured an engraving of the crown prince, Nicholas Romanov (the future Emperor Nicholas II), who was just 16 at the time — the image was no doubt intended to suggest that Nicholas was the embodiment of the publication’s target group. The new paper appears to have been an even greater success than Bray’s first effort — printed twice a month, richly illustrated, it was published from 1884 to 1887, making it the longest-living English publication in St. Petersburg of its era. Its success may have been due to the fact that it comprised only Russian language texts, its “Englishness” derived from having an Englishman as editor and the nature of the material. To a certain extent, Yunaya Rossiya was an expanded version of the “For Young People” section of Our Children. Hence, many of the texts were Russian translations from Our Children (a useful cost-saving idea). 
Being a Russian-language publication, Yunaya Rossiya automatically became a player in a niche — periodicals aimed at children — where the competition was stiff. That put it up against at least nine different titles in St. Petersburg alone, including two prominent semi-official journals — Detskoye Chteniye (Children’s Reading) and Rodnik (Spring). 
In competitive environment, the distinctive feature of Yunaya Rossiya was its international approach, which relied on the fact that the British Empire stretched round the globe. The magazine included unique features such as “Children of the World,” “Cities of the World,” “Nations of the World” and the like, which, above all, served to promote a recognition of the world’s diversity. 

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: New Conflicts, Iraq in “Chaos”
AUTHOR: By Paul Von Zielbauer
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi security forces and British troops fought Shiite militias and tribesmen in two major cities south of Baghdad on Wednesday in sustained battles that left two policemen and a dozen militiamen dead and underscored the tenuous grip the Iraqi government maintains even in regions not under the sway of Sunni Arab insurgents. 
Also Wednesday, as American and Iraqi Army soldiers continued a security sweep through hostile neighborhoods in western Baghdad, bombings in other parts of the city killed 21 people and wounded 59 others. 
Violent eruptions in Karbala, a Shiite holy city about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad, and Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, demonstrated the destabilizing power of internecine conflicts that have little to do with the anti-American insurgency or sectarian killings. 
In Basra, a gun battle erupted between Iraqi Army troops and members of the dominant local tribe, the Bani Asad, apparently angered by the killing on Tuesday of a tribal leader, Faisal Raji Al-Asadi, government officials in Basra said. 
In a battle that lasted the better part of an hour, tribesmen clad in black clothing fired fusillades of bullets and grenades at the provincial government building, local police and government officials said, and eventually occupied the parts of the government complex. 
“The building was in the hands of Bani Asad tribe,” an Iraqi government official said in a telephone interview from Basra, adding that the tribe believed the government was involved in Mr. Asadi’s killing. 
“There is a state of chaos in the city,” the official added, speaking over the sustained crackle of gunfire in the background. Six people were killed in the fighting, he said, including two policemen and two tribesmen.
A prominent member of the tribe suggested in an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday afternoon that British forces, which have struggled to maintain control of Basra in the midst of warring Shiite militias, may have been responsible for the assassination. 
“It is an outburst because of the assassination of the head of the Asadi tribe,” the tribal leader, who called himself Ayatollah al-Asadi, told Al Jazeera. Faisal Raji al-Asadi “contributed to throwing the British out,” he said. “Maybe they are taking revenge now.” 
A spokesman for the British military in Basra denied any involvement in the killing and gave a much different and far less harrowing account of Wednesday’s hostilities. 
Bani Asad tribesmen arrived at the government building armed but peaceful and demanded to see the governor, Muhammad al-Waili, a member of a different tribe, said the spokesman, Major Charlie Burbridge. “The protesters arrived and walked in the door,” he said. “It wasn’t an attack.” 
Iraqi Army soldiers and local police succeeded in moving the armed men out of Mr. Waili’s offices, he said, though an Iraqi police officer appears to have been killed in a skirmish that followed. As the tribesman were leaving the area, they passed by a British military encampment and firing at it, provoking “quite an exchange of small-arms fire” that lasted 20 minutes, Major Burbridge said. 
In Karbala, Wednesday’s violence took on a different hue, as security forces controlled by Shiites who are aligned with the main pro-Iranian bloc, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, fought militiamen loyal to a local Shiite cleric opposed to Iran’s influence in Iraq. The battle led security forces to cordon off the city to most nonresidents and impose a curfew to restore order. 
Militiamen fighting on behalf of the cleric, Mahmud al-Hasani, converged from suburbs of Karbala and attacked a city police station and other government offices, according to statements from Mr. Hasani and Iraqi government officials. 
Sheik Ali Badir al-Aboudi, one of Mr. Hasani’s aides, said in an interview that Wednesday’s attack was in retaliation for a car bomb that exploded near one of Mr. Hasani’s religious schools. “We know that Iranian intelligence helped them to do this attack,” Mr. Aboudi said, “and now they are sending in troops to kill and arrest everyone they can.”
Ten militia fighters were killed and 281 were arrested, according to a statement from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

TITLE: Hezbollah Won For Most Arabs
AUTHOR: By Nadia Abou El-Magd
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO, Egypt — Babies have been named “Hezbollah” and “Nasrallah.” Even some die-hard secularists are praising the Shiite fundamentalist militia in the wake of its cease-fire with Israel saying its fighters restored their feelings of honor and dignity.
But behind the outpouring of support for Hezbollah in recent days, some in the Middle East are increasingly worried about the rising power of religious extremists.
“The last thing I expected is to fall in love with a turbaned cleric,” wrote Howeida Taha, a strongly secular columnist in Egypt, in the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper this week. “I don’t like them, and of course they will never like somebody like me ... (but) I feel I’ve been searching for Nasrallah with my eyes, heart and mind. I feel Nasrallah lives within me.”
Yet, she added, “No matter how much we admire Hezbollah’s fighters’ bravery, the last thing we want to see is the rise of a religious party in Egypt.”
Around the Arab world, Hezbollah was widely seen as the victor in the 34-day war with Israel, because of the tougher-than-expected resistance it put up under Israel’s relentless bombardment and heavy ground assaults.
As a result, Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, have emerged as popular heroes.
“Thanks be to God and to Hezbollah,” read the banner of an opposition independent weekly, Al-Destour, in Egypt on Wednesday.
More than 120 babies born during the war have been named after Nasrallah in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, according to the official registrar there. In Gaza City, there are at least a dozen newborns named Hezbollah, (Party of God) Nasrallah (Victory from God) or Hassan.
On an Islamist Web site for youth, based in Egypt, many women wrote saying they would love to marry someone like Nasrallah.
“I want to marry one of Nasrallah’s three boys and dedicate myself to resistance and pride of my (Islamic) community,” said Noha Hussein, a university student in Cairo.
Necklaces and key chains with his image are now in style, the web site notes.

TITLE: Ex-Paraguay Dictator Stroessner Dies in Exile
AUTHOR: By Guido Nejamkis
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BRASILIA, Brazil — Former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, a strongly anti-communist general who epitomized an era of authoritarian rule in Latin America, died on Wednesday in exile in the Brazilian capital Brasilia.
Stroessner, 93, had lived in Brazil since he was toppled in a 1989 military coup after ruling Paraguay for 34 years.
“He has just died,” a spokesman for the Santa Luzia hospital said on Wednesday morning.
Stroessner, the son of a German immigrant and a Paraguayan peasant, had been in intensive care for several days following a hernia operation.
A career soldier, he seized power in a military coup in 1954 after 27 years of political chaos which had seen 22 presidents come and go in the poor, landlocked country.
He gained a reputation as an iron-fisted leader. Corruption and human rights abuses were rampant during his rule. He was one of the most prominent leaders in an era when repressive military dictators, often with U.S. backing, ruled many countries in Latin America.
The scale of repression in Paraguay was far less than in Argentina or Chile, said Sebastian Brett, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.
“But the degree to which people felt subject to persecution if they were in any way opponents of the regime was very, very intense,” Brett said.
Paraguay long enjoyed U.S. support by giving Washington unflagging diplomatic support. But relations began to deteriorate in the late 1970s because of Washington’s criticism of its human rights record and harassment of the opposition.
Stroessner was criticized for providing a haven for Nazi war criminals, notably ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele, chief doctor at the Auschwitz death camp who died some time in the mid-1980s in Brazil. He also gave refuge to fellow dictators such as Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza.
Paraguay became increasingly isolated after 1982 as the military regimes of its neighbors gave way to civilian revolt.
Street demonstrations early in 1986 were put down by police and in 1987, civilian gangs with chains and wire whips broke up opposition meetings.
Stroessner’s all-powerful Colorado party, effectively the only political party allowed to operate, split in 1987 when a faction known as the militants won the party leadership and expelled so-called traditionalists.
Open confrontation ensued. The militants wanted Stroessner’s son Gustavo to inherit the presidency but traditionalists and some sectors of the army rejected him.
General Andres Rodriguez, a former political ally, toppled him in a coup on February 3, 1989. Stroessner fled to Brazil a few days later where he spent the rest of his days living in a luxury residential area of Brasilia.
Stroessner was born on November 3, 1912, in Encarnacion where his father, a Bavarian beermaker who emigrated to Paraguay at the turn of the century, ran a timber business. The young Stroessner was educated at a military college in Asuncion. He was promoted to captain for his services in the 1932-35 Chaco war between Paraguay and Bolivia. He became commander in chief of the armed forces in 1951 at age 38 but not before he spent a period of exile in 1948 for his political activities.

TITLE: Rushdie in Defence of Grass
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Salman Rushdie sprang to the defence of Guenter Grass on Thursday after Germany’s Nobel prize-winning author confessed he was once a teenage member of Hitler’s Waffen SS.
Grass, world famous for his first novel “The Tin Drum” and an icon of the German left for his outspoken pacifism, made the shock admission in a newspaper interview last Saturday before the release of his autobiography “Peeling Onions.”
“I feel that the outrage is a little bit manufactured,” Rushdie said after Grass came under attack from German writers, literary critics, historians and politicians.
Rushdie said he was extremely shocked and disappointed by Grass’ admission, “but there is no suggestion as far as I can see that he was ever involved in any kind of war crimes.”
Calling his Waffen SS membership a mistake that was perhaps forgivable because of his youth, Rushdie told BBC Radio: “His stature comes from the fact that he is a giant in the world of literature.”
“He remains today the great writer that he was a couple of days ago,” said Rushdie, target of a fatwa in 1989 when Iran’s leader called on Muslims to kill him for blasphemy against Islam in his novel “The Satanic verses.”

TITLE: Debutant Hiddink Impresses With 1-0 Win
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: MOSCOW — Dutchman Guus Hiddink proved again that he can get results as he enjoyed a winning start at the helm of Russia’s national team in a Euro 2008 warm up match Wednesday against Latvia.
An injury-time goal by Tomsk striker Pavel Pogrebnyak, who also made his debut performance for the national side on Wednesday, sealed Russia’s 1-0 win and boosted morale three weeks ahead of the opening Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia.
“Today’s match was an important test before the start of the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign,” Hiddink said after the friendly match. “And I think we’ve passed the test successfully.”
Hiddink also expressed his satisfaction with his team’s playing style and the result.
“We looked solid and dominant throughout the match and kept the game under control. We missed a set of clear chances but managed to scrape out a win because we believed we’re capable of winning up to the very end.”
“We still have time to prepare for the match against Croatia. In particular we will need to decide whether the players who are sidelined with injuries — Alexei Smertin and Yegor Titov — can strengthen our line-up.”
In the match with Latvia, Hiddink opted against any revolutionary changes, picking a set of field-tested players for his starting line-up.
Russia looked in command right from the start and created a hatfull of scoring opportunities, but missed them all, lacking a killer instinct in front of goal.
In the second half, Hiddink substituted Zenit St. Petersburg forward Alexander Kerzhakov, who had looked unimpressive, for Spartak striker Roman Pavlyuchenko and he made the Russian attack more aggressive.
The Dutch manager brought on Pogrebnyak with 10 minutes to go to form a duo of tall forwards, and it payed dividends.
In the third minute of injury time midfielder Andrei Arshavin steered the ball into Latvia’s box and Pogrebnyak fired home from seven meters out to finish off Pavlyuchenko’s header.
Russian Football Union (RFU) boss Vitaly Mutko expressed his satisfaction with the result and the way the home team had played.
“We got a win, which was vital for our squad, in the first match under our new manager,” Mutko said. 
“I’m pleased with the game and the result though we managed to score only in injury time. This team has a strong spirit and it makes me optimistic.”
The 59-year-old Dutch guru, who has enjoyed success with a variety of clubs and has turned around the fortunes of underachieving national sides, took over as Russia coach after guiding Australia into the last 16 round of the World Cup this summer.
“We face a tough challenge — to improve Russia’s FIFA rankings and to qualify for the Euro 2008 finals,” Hiddink said in a recent interview.
“To reach the European championship finals would be a big boost for the development of football in the country.”
“But our main goal is to achieve sustained performance for the Russian national team in the future,” he added.

TITLE: Metallurg Mulls Star Loss, Malkin Remains Hidden
AUTHOR: By Alan Robinson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — Yevgeny Malkin has filed a letter of resignation with his Russian Super League team, a procedural move necessary for the star forward to sign with the Pittsburgh Penguins and begin his NHL career. 
Malkin remained hidden Wednesday, four days after abruptly leaving the Metallurg Magnitogorsk team on Saturday after it arrived for training camp in Helsinki, Finland. 
The 20-year-old Malkin, arguably the top player in the world not currently in the NHL, is believed to have flown to Canada and remained there since, with no indication he has arrived in Pittsburgh for the start of the Penguins’ training camp in three weeks. 
Metallurg coach Dave King, the former Columbus Blue Jackets coach, told Toronto radio station CJCL the team had received a fax from Malkin resigning from the team. Russian law permits an employee — even an athlete under contract — to leave his job by giving two weeks’ written notice. 
Described by Metallurg’s general director as a “Russian treasure,” Malkin has stayed out of sight since leaving the team. But his North American agents, J.P. Barry and Pat Brisson of CAA Sports, said he was safe, though they would not say where he is. 
“J.P. and I have been in constant touch with Yevgeny, as we would do with any player, but especially with Yevgeny,” Brisson told The Associated Press on Wednesday. 
He would not speculate when Malkin might emerge. 
Malkin, who starred for Russia’s Olympic team in the Turin Olympics in February, recently agreed to stay with Metallurg for one more season. His previous contract was through 2008. 
Malkin’s acquaintances have suggested he was under considerable pressure and duress to agree to the deal, and it was reported in Russia the renegotiated contract wasn’t completed until a 3 a.m. bargaining session. 
The NHL has not publicly stated its support for Malkin and his desire to play in the league, but deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league believes any player should have the right to choose where he wants to play as long as he is legally free to do so.

TITLE: Sports Watch
TEXT: Japanese Referee
MOSCOW (Reuters) — Japanese Toru Kamikawa will become the first referee from Asia to take charge of a Russian Premier League match, league officials said on Wednesday. 
Kamikawa, Japan’s top referee, will officiate in the eastern port city of Vladivostok at a match between local side Luch-Energiya and Spartak Moscow on Saturday. 
The 43-year-old refereed three games at this year’s World Cup, including the third-place match between Germany and Portugal. 

Valuyev to Fight
CHICAGO (AFP) — Unbeaten Russian giant Nikolai Valuyev will defend his World Boxing Association heavyweight crown against American challenger Monte Barrett in Chicago on Oct. 7, promoter Don King announced.
Valuyev, a 7-foot and 320-pound St. Petersburger, is among four fighters born in four different former Soviet Union nations who now each own one of the four highest-regarded titles in a division once ruled by American boxers.
Las Vegas and New York were also contenders to host Valuyev’s second U.S. appearance following a first-round knockout victory in 2001 at Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Valuyev, 32, is 44-0 with 32 knockouts. The self-styled “Beast from the East” won the crown last December by beating Puerto Rico’s John Ruiz in Berlin.

Rangers Verses Zenit
GLASGOW, Scotland (Reuters) — Rangers have completed the release of Dutchman Fernando Ricksen on a one-year loan deal to Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg which is coached by its former manager Dick Advocaat. 
The Scottish club confirmed the move on its web site and stated: “Dick had no hesitation in taking Ricksen and is set to use him next Saturday when Zenit play away at FC Saturn. 
“Zenit are midway through their season as the Russians play March to November, so Ricksen will also play next season as his loan deal does not expire until July 31, 2007.” 
Rangers has arranged a friendly with Zenit on Wednesday as part of the deal and the 30-year-old former Dutch international could make his first appearance at Ibrox this season playing for the Russians. 

Safin: ‘Not Himself’
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuters) — Former tennis world No. 1 Marat Safin has decided to take a break from his Swedish coach Peter Lundgren. 
“Marat is not quite himself any more, he doesn’t really know where he stands,” said Lundgren, who helped the Russian to win his second grand slam title in 2005, the Australian Open. 
The 26-year-old Russian, who beat Lleyton Hewitt in that final, has not won a tournament since and is currently ranked 74 in the world. 
“He told me: ‘Peter, I have nothing against you but I have to go on my own for a while. And I understand him perfectly,” Lundgren told the Swedish daily Dagbladet on Thursday. 
“We have taken a break now and we’ll have to see what happens. Hopefully we’ll be back in autumn with Marat in better shape. And I believe we’ll start it off together then.” 
Lundgren has previously coached world number one Roger Federer and the now retired Chilean Marcelo Rios.