SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1212 (78), Friday, October 13, 2006
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TITLE: Human Rights Activists Face Death Threats
AUTHOR: By Maria Danilova
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Internet postings are calling on Russian nationalists to kill government critics — death lists that underscore the dangers journalists and rights activists face in Russia.Svetlana Gannushkina, a refugee rights activist, tops a list of 89 people published by a radical nationalist group, the Russian Will, which has urged "patriots" to take up arms and execute her and other friends of "alien" peoples.
"Since there is nothing I can do in this situation, I try not to think about it," the soft-spoken, 64-year-old Gannushkina said.
Slain investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was on such a list, for her reporting on Chechnya and criticism of the Kremlin. Her slaying Saturday has cast a chill over human rights activists and journalists who criticize government policies and increasingly fear for their safety in a repressive climate.
Since President Vladimir Putin came to power nearly seven years ago, he has moved to silence critics, squeezing the opposition and tightening the screws on media critical of the Kremlin. He came under strong Western condemnation for a new law that severely limits the activities of non-governmental organizations.
Prosecutors have linked Politkovskaya's slaying to her award-winning reports, fearlessly uncovering human rights abuses by government troops in war-ravaged Chechnya. She had been listed as one of 63 "non-friends of Russia" by the nationalist group National Sovereign Party of Russia.
Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, whose forces were accused of torture, abductions and murder by Politkovskaya, denied any role in her murder Wednesday.
Some colleagues have suggested Politkovskaya could have died at the hands of Russian nationalists at a time when xenophobia is growing and hate crimes take place almost daily. Rights activists complain the government is doing little to combat the alarming trend.
"I am horrified at what happened with Anya," said Gannushkina, using Politkovskaya's nickname. "Of course, I understand that considering what happened, we are all under the same threat."
Gannushkina said she first learned in August of the web site calling for her to be killed as an "advocate of alien migrants." Other alleged enemies included journalist and commentator Yevgeniya Albats and veteran rights activist Sergei Kovalyov.
The site, http://www.russianwill.org, could not be accessed Wednesday. Gannushkina said it was shut down this week.
However, information on the targeted activists and journalists, including their phone numbers and addresses, has spread to numerous other nationalist sites and blogs and Gannushkina has received phone threats.
Gannushkina said she asked prosecutors to investigate the group's activities in August, but prosecutors have failed to launch a probe. A spokesman for the Moscow Prosecutor's Office declined comment.
Last year, Oksana Chelysheva, an activist and journalist with the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, which advocates Chechen rights, discovered leaflets stuffed in mailboxes in her apartment building proclaiming her "a whore for the Chechens," giving her full name and address and accusing her of supporting terrorists.
Chelysheva has kept up her work despite the threats. Her boss, Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, was convicted in February of inciting ethnic hatred and handed a two-year suspended sentence — a verdict he condemned as part of a state assault on non-governmental organizations. This week, prosecutors asked a court to shut down the group.
Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, condemned the intimidation campaign against Gannushkina and her colleagues. He urged authorities to use the recently passed law on extremism to crack down on radical groups instead of targeting groups promoting ethnic tolerance.
"The climate is starting to resemble a fascist society where there is freedom to make money for friends of the rulers but critics and independent thinking are persecuted," Rhodes said.
Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said Russian journalists, along with rights activists, face many threats.
"When a journalist is threatened, he is threatened either with courts or with death — either we will kill you or we will throw you in prison," Panfilov said.
He declined to estimate how many journalists have been threatened, saying most threats are delivered by phone or in person, making them hard to document. But he said more than 40 journalists have been attacked in connection with their work this year alone.
Russia has become one of the deadliest countries for journalists. Forty-three journalists were killed between 1993 and 2005, many in Chechnya, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Gannushkina said she would continue her advocacy work despite the intimidation, rejecting her colleagues' advice to hire a bodyguard, because she did not want to put anyone in danger.
"If I intend to live here, I intend to live and not hide in a burrow," she said.

TITLE: Concern Grows Over Nuclear Fuel Shipments
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: As Western European countries examine opportunities to send more spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing in Russia, St. Petersburg's strategic location means much more of it would pass through the city.At present, cargo containing radioactive material passes through St. Petersburg at least ten times a month, said Alexander Shishkin, director of Isotope, a state-owned enterprise responsible for such shipments. Arriving by sea, the nuclear loads are then sent to treatment facilities in Siberia.
In 1999, Russian environmentalists failed to ban the import of spent nuclear fuel from abroad.
In December 2000, the State Duma voted overwhelmingly to adopt the practice of importing irradiated fuel from other countries. Supporters of the project then said that the money the business would raise would be used to develop Russia's nuclear industry, as well as improve its safety record and help clean up contaminated areas.
But ecologists' concerns have risen again as alarming details about the flawed safety regulations of the trade come to light.
Vladimir Slivyak of the Russian environmental group Ecodefence, said an investigation the group conducted showed that engine drivers and other staff on trains typically do not know they are transporting radioactive material.
"We have established several cases when the carriages were not even marked appropriately with a special sign saying 'radioactivity'," the expert said.
"Besides, Russian railways are not immune to traffic accidents. On a recent occasion, a bridge under construction fell on a passing train. It was a lucky coincidence that the train was not carrying uranium."
Environmental groups complain they are not officially informed about the nuclear traffic, and when they find out about a particular load and check the containers for radiation levels, they often find the containers unattended.
In July, environmentalists at the local branch of Greenpeace discovered six containers in Kapitolovo in the outskirts of St. Petersburg stocked with radioactive material that the ecologists claimed was emitting radiation well over the accepted safety level. The wagons were not guarded.
"This kind of transportation would make a perfect gift for terrorists, both in the sense of accessibility of radioactive material and as a most vulnerable potential object for attack," Dmitry Artamonov, head of the local branch of Greenpeace, was quoted as saying.
Greenpeace previously found 37 containers marked as "radioactive material" and stationed in Kapitolovo. That was in May and the material was again left unguarded.
However, the unguarded transportation of radioactive material in Russia in most cases falls within the regulations governing the traffic.
"According to the instructions issued by the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry, armed guards are required only for one type of radioactive material, uranium hexaflouride," Shishkin said, adding that only as much as a single accompanying specialist has to be assigned to travel with any other kind of radioactive material.
For security reasons, any information about the transfer is difficult to obtain from officials, with their main concern being that the release of such information would spark panic among members of the public.
"Ordinary people have to be prepared to deal with this subject," said Maria Rozhdestvina, aide to the Environmental Prosecutor of Leningrad Oblast. "Pouring out information to the general public who know nothing on the subject would simply stir groundless mass hysteria."
But ecologists disagree.
Environmentalists argue that engine-drivers on trains have to be given extra training and deserve the right to be informed about cargo they are responsible for.
"Naturally, the state would rather not tell them; in Germany, rail transportation of radioactive material was banned for three years very recently because the drivers refused to be involved," said Matthias Eickhoff, spokesman of the group Widerstand gegen Atomanlagen (WIGA) in Mßnster, Germany. "The official reason was that close proximity to these containers would put them at an increased risk of impotence. And labor unions nationwide supported the appeal."
Eickhoff said it costs German companies three times less to send irradiated left-overs to Russia than to reprocess them at home and blamed his home country for being immoral.
"This is unethical; every country that decides to use nuclear technologies has to be responsible for any costs and consequences involved," the expert said. "Burdening other countries with it and choosing one state as the world's nuclear waste storage, however difficult the circumstances of this state may be, is despicable."
In June 1999, the Nuclear Power Ministry and a U.S.-based Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT), signed a letter of intent, according to which Russia would accept at least 10,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from Switzerland, South Korea and Taiwan for reprocessing and storage for at least 40 years.
For its services, Russia would charge between $1,000 and $2,000 per kilogram of spent fuel — much cheaper than other countries which store and reprocess foreign nuclear fuel.

TITLE: Courts Put Pressure on Georgians
AUTHOR: By David Nowak and Kevin O'Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Vekhvia Chitadze and his friend Gocha, both engineers, have been in Moscow for six years — working, sending money home to their families, making a life for themselves.On Wednesday, a district court judge told them they had 14 days to get out and pay 1,500 rubles.
Their crime? Working with forged documents, according to the judge at the Gagarinsky court.
"We don't want to go back," Chitadze said in a loud whisper, before a Federal Migration Service official could stop him from talking to a reporter.
The two are part of a wave of Georgian nationals being deported as part of the government's ongoing conflict with Tbilisi, sparked late last month after Georgia arrested four Russian officers on charges of espionage. Since deportations began earlier this month, 480 Georgians have been sent home, the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights said.
Chitadze appeared unfazed by the verdict. "We knew what was coming," he said.
But he insisted his documents were in order. "Listen, do you know how many times in the last six years I've been stopped by the police?" he said. "Hundreds. And every time the policeman said: 'Sorry to bother you. Off you go.'"
Chitadze and Gocha, who wouldn't give his last name, were detained in northern Moscow on Sunday and held in custody until the trial Wednesday, which Chitadze said was his birthday. "What a present," he said. "That's it. We're not coming back to Russia."
While a majority of Georgians living and working in Russia are thought to be in the country illegally, authorities have mostly turned a blind eye — until the recent standoff. Now the larger geopolitical struggle between two post-Soviet states has been brought home on a very real and emotional level.
"We don't care about the politics," Chitadze said. "None of us pays attention to the news."
Now, it appears that the thinly veiled crackdown on Georgians is spreading well beyond Moscow, human rights activists said Wednesday.
In the city of Kaluga, police have received orders to run checks on citizens with names ending in "idze" and "shvili," endings normally associated with Georgians, said Lyubov Moseeva-Helier, head of the local branch of For Human Rights. Moseeva-Helier declined to say where she obtained her information. The Kaluga police department's press service did not respond to phone calls Wednesday.
In St. Petersburg, a senior city police official instructed officers to redouble their efforts to deport illegal migrants, said a letter cited on the city's news web site, Fontanka.ru.
The northern capital has also seen raids on restaurants, casinos and outdoor stalls owned or manned by Georgians.
In Tatarstan and Krasnoyarsk, there have been raids on Georgian businesses, said Simon Charny of the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights.
In Nizhny Novgorod, police waited outside a school to ambush the parents of children from the Caucasus, said Almaz Chaloyan, head of the Center for Help for Migrants in Nizhny Novgorod, Gazeta.ru reported. Chaloyan said he had requests from at least 40 people from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan but added that little could be done. "We human rights defenders are afraid ourselves to go out onto the street because if we do that, they'll start to check our organization," he said Tuesday.
Moseeva-Helier noted that all natives of Georgia — who are not necessarily ethnic Georgians — now face problems with the authorities. She noted that she had heard complaints from frantic Azeris and Armenians taken into custody because they were born in Georgia.
Normally, Moseeva-Helier said, her office hears of three to four deportation cases per month; this week, there have been at least 10.
Russians voiced mixed feelings about the government's effort to rein in illegal Georgian migrants in a poll conducted this week by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion.
In the poll, 71 percent agreed with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's characterization of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's administration as a "bandit government." But only 40 percent back the economic blockade of Georgia imposed earlier this month.

TITLE: Kiev Steps Up Criticism Of Georgian-Russian Conflict
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Kiev — Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's office on Wednesday criticized what it called "elements of xenophobia" in Russia's spat with Georgia."Ukraine is very much concerned with all cases of human rights violations that are taking place today in connection with the situation around Georgia, including elements of xenophobia," said Oleksandr Chaly, Yushchenko's top foreign policy adviser.
The statement was the harshest yet by Ukraine, which has close ties with Georgia but has taken a very cautious approach to the dispute. The Ukrainian government has come under fire from some politicians for not rushing to Georgia's defense. Chaly, however, defended Yushchenko's response.
He said "a whole number of visits" by senior Georgian and Ukrainian officials were being arranged, and that Yushchenko had been in telephone contact with his Georgian counterpart, President Mikheil Saakashvili. Yushchenko had also offered to mediate, if asked.

TITLE: Paper Publishes Slain Reporter's Final Article
AUTHOR: By Judith Ingram
PUBLISHER: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
TEXT: MOSCOW — A slain Russian journalist's last story was published Thursday, revealing an unfinished report on torture in Chechnya that some colleagues believe may have motivated her murder.Anna Politkovskaya's article described the torture of terrorism suspects by the Kremlin-backed Chechen security services. It was accompanied by graphic images of abuse taken from a video apparently shot by the torturers.
Four pictures reproduced in the Novaya Gazeta paper were accompanied by a Russian translation of the culprits' expletive-filled conversation in Chechen about how hard it was to kill the victims. The images did not reveal the torturers' faces.
"Are we fighting legally against lawlessness?" Politkovskaya asked in the article. "Or are we thrashing them with our own lawlessness?"
Politkovskaya, 48, was gunned down in her apartment building Saturday. At home and abroad, her slaying drew concern about the risks faced by journalists who criticize Russian authorities and expose abuses. Prosecutors have said she was probably killed because of her journalistic work, but there have been no immediate leads.
Her final story included written testimony from a Chechen who was extradited from Ukraine to a Chechen government office in Grozny, where he said he was tortured into confessing killings he did not commit.
He said he was hung from a pole by his hands and feet and beaten, subjected to electric shock and nearly suffocated with a bag over his head. He confessed before journalists, saying under orders that he had sustained his injuries during an escape attempt.
Politkovskaya told Radio Liberty days before her death that she was working on a story about torture and was serving as a witness in criminal investigations into allegations of torture in Chechnya.
But some people think her murder could have been connected to any one of her stories focusing on abuses by military and security services, the 2002 Moscow theater siege, the 2004 Beslan school tragedy, and other sensitive topics. In recent years, she had repeatedly accused Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov's security forces of abducting, torturing and killing innocent people.

TITLE: Germans Say No to President Over EADS
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW— President Vladimir Putin was rebuffed in his desire for a bigger Russian stake in aerospace firm EADS on Wednesday, as he ended a two-day German visit clouded by the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.Putin had hoped to further Russian business interests on a trip that took him first to the eastern city of Dresden to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday, and to Munich on Wednesday, but he came at a time of deep suspicions in Europe over Russia's intentions.
Bavarian state premier Edmund Stoiber said he had talked to Putin about EADS and told him there were limits to foreign investments in sensitive sectors.
"I asked him to understand that in some strategic industries there are limits to taking reciprocal stakes," Stoiber said. "We must both respect each other's interests."
Germany worries that Moscow is trying to use revenues from its vast oil and gas reserves to wield greater global influence.
Stoiber's comments were a clear warning to Putin — who makes no secret of his wish to invest further in Germany — that he should steer clear of seeking a strategic investment in EADS after a Russian bank bought 5 percent of it.
But Putin hit back in a speech to business leaders in the Bavarian capital.
"We do not understand the nervousness in the press about Russia investing abroad," he said. "Where does this hysteria come from?"
"The Russians are coming here, not on tanks and with Kalashnikov assault rifles in their hands; they are coming with money, and they deserve to be welcomed and helped in their work," Putin said.
"It's not the Red Army that wants to come to Germany," he said. "It's just the same capitalists as you."
Moscow has been pushing for a seat on the EADS board and Putin told the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Wednesday that he favored Russia boosting its stake in the Airbus parent, which has dual headquarters in Munich and Paris.
Putin also pushed for visa-free travel between Russia and other European countries. "Our goal is an exchange without visas," he said. "After the fall of the Berlin wall, no new walls should be allowed to appear in Europe."
Putin was meeting business and regional leaders in Munich and noted Bavaria's strength in the high-tech sector.
"This is an especially important area of cooperation for us because one of the main jobs in the short term is for us to diversify the Russian economy," Putin told reporters.
Putin brought with him Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref and IT and Communications Minister Leonid Reiman, as well as leading business figures such as Pyotr Aven, head of Alfa Bank; Oleg Deripaska of Russian Aluminum; and Alexei Mordashov, head of steelmaker Severstal.
A range of corporate deals has been signed during the visit, and both the president and Stoiber stressed the potential for closer cooperation in future.
Siemens, Europe's largest engineering company, on Wednesday announced an agreement worth up to 450 million euros ($565 million) with Renova to upgrade Russian energy, transport and telecommunications resources.
The agreement covers areas including power generation, power distribution, telecommunications and airport modernization, Munich-based Siemens said in an e-mailed statement.
Putin has made much of Germany's reliance on Russia for its future energy needs during his visit. Memories here are still fresh of the supply disruptions in January after Gazprom cut deliveries to Ukraine.
Germany is the biggest foreign end-user of Russian gas, importing 40 billion cubic meters per year. Imports will rise substantially when the Nord Stream pipeline is completed in 2010 to carry Russian gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
(Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, SPT)

TITLE: Bank Branch Chief Killed In Moscow
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The head of a branch of a state-controlled bank was fatally shot in Moscow, officials said Wednesday, the latest in a series of apparent contract killings that have shaken Russia.Alexander Plokhin, the director of a Vneshtorgbank branch, was shot once in the head by a gunman who was waiting for him on the landing outside his apartment late Tuesday, NTV television reported. Plokhin, 58, was a former Moscow city council member, it said.
Authorities are looking into whether the killing was connected to Plokhin's position, Deputy Moscow Prosecutor Vladimir Ponevezhsky said.
A series of slayings has underscored the atmosphere of lawlessness that persists in Russia 15 years after the Soviet collapse threw the country into chaos.
The top deputy director of the Central Bank, Andrei Kozlov, was gunned down last month in a killing widely seen as connected to his efforts to clean up the banking sector.
Crusading investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of President Vladimir Putin who exposed human rights abuses in Chechnya, was fatally shot in an apparent contract killing Saturday.
Two weeks ago, the chief engineer at a Siberian subsidiary of oil company BP's Russian joint venture was found dead of gunshot wounds in a sauna. Enver Ziganshin worked for Rusia-Petroleum, which holds the license to develop the giant Kovykta natural gas field.

TITLE: Vyborg Building Collapse Kills 7
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Rescuers found the bodies of four people in the rubble of an apartment building that partially collapsed in the Russian city of Vyborg, bringing the death toll to seven, officials said Wednesday.Three of the bodies were found overnight by workers after a section of the decades-old building in the city near the Finnish border collapsed Monday, an official at the Leningrad regional Emergency Situations Department said. A woman's body was discovered on Wednesday, said Viktor Beltsov, spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry in Moscow.
A 3-month-old girl was killed and the bodies of a man and woman were found Tuesday, according to officials.

TITLE: Travel Fair Offers New View of Russia
AUTHOR: By Nikita Savoyarov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Turnout was down but spirits not dampened at the 14th International Travel Trade Fair INWETEX — CIS Travel Market 2006 that was held at the city's Lenexpo complex last week. Of particular note was the unveiling of the Northwest's new brand and a general review of the city's successful tourist season.According to Sergei Korneyev, Vice President of the Russian Travel Industry Union (RUTI), the summer tourist season in St. Petersburg was a visible success. Apart from the growth in the number of tourists, estimated at 10 to 15 percent, he highlighted other achievements, including the Angels help service, special parking spaces for tourist buses and increases in tourist safety. He also mentioned the renovation of faÍades and courtyards in the city center, an attraction, he said, that is stimulating people to visit the city more than once.
At the plenary session, "The new view of Russia," attention was given to the problems of tourism in terms highlighting, among other things, the insufficiency of infrastructure and of quality marketing of the city and region, as well as the need to encourage the development of ecotourism in the Northwest.
Attempting to address one of these problems, the RUTI stand bore the new regional brand, "New Windows on Russia."
However, above all the fair's stands reflected the tastes of Russian tourists. Beach destinations are still on the rise. Lakis Avraamides, Marketing Manager from Agia Napa Protaras Hotel Association of Cyprus talked of the stable growth in the number of Russians traveling to Cyprus.
Anna Chiara Di Domenico, manager from Italian operator Gartour reported a significant rise in the number of Russian visitors — an increase in 80 percent to the Rimini area and 40 percent to all Italian destinations catered for by Gartour.
Similarly, according to a representative from the Norwegian Embassy, Lyubov Shornikova, there's been an 80 percent rise in Russian visitors to Norway. And in the Baltic States, too, there was a visible increase — Triinu Tammiste, manager at Estonian tour operator "E-Turist" in Tartu talked of a 20 percent rise in visitors from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Pskov and Karelia. In the famous Latvian resort of Jurmala, there had been a rise of 45 percent, said Alexandra Pugina, Deputy head of Department of Tourism and Foreign Affairs in Jurmala City Council. According to her, Russians spend much more money than other visitors, even those from the Baltic States.
This year practically no major travel service provider — international air companies or hotel chains, for example, participated as exhibitors. An exception was the Latvian Low cost carrier Air Baltic, which is trying to take advantage of the constantly rising number of Russian travelers in the Baltic States and the fact that it hopes to join the Schengen group of states by the end of 2007. The Head of Air Baltic's Moscow Office, Natalia Goryunova, spoke of the extension of company activity to St. Petersburg.
Visitor numbers were significantly down in comparison with last year's event. This was probably a result of pressure from other exhibitions in Moscow who organized new travel fairs over the same period.

TITLE: Finnish YIT Looks to Build Up Its Russian Credentials
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Finland's largest construction company, YIT, has set out its plans to tap Russia's real estate boom."The target for revenue growth is an annual average of 10 percent. Russia's surging economy offers good potential for the development of our business. YIT has set itself the goal of increasing its revenue in Russia by an average of 50 percent annually over the 2006-2009 period," Veikko Myllyperkio, Vice President for Corporate Communications at YIT Corporation, said Tuesday in a statement.
YIT expects to increase revenue by stepping up residential development, moving ahead with non-residential projects and expanding building systems operations.
This year YIT will start the construction of around 3,100 residential units in Russia compared to about 3,000 units in Finland and only about 1,100 units in the Baltic countries.
By the end of June YIT had over 6,000 residential units under construction in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Moscow Oblast. Next year construction will be started in Kazan.
"Over the next few years, YIT aims to expand its operations into other Russian cities with populations in excess of a million," Myllyperkio said in a statement.
Such a move goes in accordance with the market. According to Federal Statistics Service, the volume of residential construction in Russia increased by 6.3 percent last year up to 43.6 million square meters, while the cost of construction works accounted for $63.5 million — a 10.5 percent increase on the 2004 level.
According to the Nevsky Prospekt real estate agency, investment priorities have changed. For 10 years Moscow was the area of most active construction, but in 2005 the rate of growth in residential construction decreased by eight percent.
Previously underdeveloped regions — Sverdlovskaya Oblast, Chuvashia — are becoming market leaders, Nevsky Prospekt said in a newsletter.
"Effectively managed companies that increase production volume benefit from scale, and revenue increases faster than production volume," said Mark Lerner, general director of Petropol investment and construction company.
Lerner said that a deficit of high-quality apartments is likely to continue over the next few years.
"The market environment will allow YIT to realize its plans, if the company hires professional specialists. At the moment it is more important than financial resources," Lerner said.
The capital YIT invests in its Russian operations is expected to increase slightly faster than revenue. By the end of June around 135 million euros had been invested in Russia, representing about 14 percent of the Group's invested capital.
YIT's revenue amounted to three billion euros last year. Russian operations accounted for 132 million euros, which is about four percent of consolidated revenue.
Traders gave a positive assessment to the statement. By Tuesday evening YIT shares listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange increased by 97 cent to 19.58 euros, Bloomberg reported.

TITLE: Perfume Prices Look Set to Double
AUTHOR: By Maria Levitov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW —Beauty requires sacrifice, according to the popular Russian saying. This fall, people shopping for perfumes and other beauty products will learn exactly what this means. Cosmetics industry insiders warn that severe shortages of many common beauty products will send prices through the roof and encourage knockoffs as the holiday shopping season begins."We expect prices to double by the end of this year," said Sergei Bolshakov, managing director of the Association of Perfumery, Cosmetics and Household Chemicals Manufacturers. Roughly half of the product lines in Russia's $7 billion cosmetics market are currently in short supply because of new federal regulations designed to tackle a seemingly unrelated problem — bootleg liquor.
Cosmetics producers, importers and distributors have had trouble implementing the government's new alcohol-tracking system, called EGAIS. New licensing rules for companies dealing in products that contain over 1.5 percent alcohol also created chaos in the industry when they came into effect this July.
The production and import of cosmetics that contain alcohol, including many cleansers, creams, hair sprays and deodorants, dropped 76 percent in July and August, according to the Association of Perfumery, Cosmetics and Household Chemicals Manufacturers.
"The situation has not returned to normal, and retailers are running out of stock," Bolshakov said.
Major retailers have largely managed to keep their shelves filled by ordering in bulk and well in advance.
"We were able to avoid shortages because our distributors gave us advance notice about their progress in obtaining the license," a spokeswoman for Sedmoi Continent said in a written response to questions. The chain stocked up on alcohol-based products in advance to avoid any issues, she said.
Smaller retailers are far more vulnerable because they are unable to buy and store large quantities of products. If their distributors have trouble providing a steady supply of cosmetics because of licensing problems, these smaller stores could be left with empty shelves. "Mass market cosmetics will see prices go up the most," said Yelena Aleksakhina, spokeswoman for the Perfumery and Cosmetics Association of Russia.
Russians shopping for budget cosmetics will see prices soar by 90 percent compared with the same period last year because of the new alcohol regulations.
Proctor & Gamble spokesman Viktor Kramarenko said higher prices would also encourage knock-offs of popular brands to fill the demand for cosmetics, which naturally goes up ahead of the winter holidays.
"This is a very good situation for counterfeiting to flourish in," Kramarenko said. The industry's woes will mean lackluster financial reports for some cosmetics giants, industry analysts say. Of the major producers and importers of cosmetics, just 22 — less than half of the companies in the industry — obtained the necessary license by Sept. 1, Bolshakov said.
Swedish cosmetics giant Oriflame did not obtain the license until Sept. 18, thereby freezing the sale of many of its products in Russia for nearly three months.
"Russia sales have suffered from the fact that from July 1, 2006, the authorities required a license to import alcohol-based products, which includes fragrances," Oriflame said in a recent statement. The company warned investors that its third-quarter results, also negatively affected by adverse weather conditions in Central Europe and economic uncertainty in Turkey, would fall below projected targets.
"Everyone in the market suffered setbacks," said Avon's general manager in Russia and Kazakhstan, Ferene Der.
Avon was one of the first companies to obtain all the necessary licenses, Avon Company executives said. The company said it had obtained the licenses for producing and distributing alcohol-based products by Aug. 8.
Der declined to estimate the cost of the new regulations to the company, but said that Avon "aims to make up for any setbacks in the fourth quarter."
Proctor & Gamble, the largest cosmetics company on the Russian market, said the shortage of its products on store shelves was bad for the company's image.
"This is not tragic for our company as a whole, but it's tragic for the departments that deal with products that contain alcohol," Kramarenko said.
Pantene hair sprays, Old Spice cologne and other products account for less than 10 percent of P&G's total product range, so the company's operational results would not take a tumble, Kramarenko said.
The Association of Perfumery, Cosmetics and Household Chemicals Manufacturers estimates that cosmetics that contain alcohol account for at least 40 percent of Russia's cosmetics market, which Renaissance Capital estimates will reach $8.16 billion this year, up from $7.3 billion in 2005.

TITLE: Zimbabwe, Russian Firm Sign MOUs
PUBLISHER: REUTERSREUTERS
TEXT: HARARE — Zimbabwe initiated five agreements on Monday with a Russian company for the execution of projects in its power, aviation and mining sectors with a potential value of $300 million, officials said.President Robert Mugabe has been reaching out to Asian and Muslim nations and Russia lately, seeking investments to mend a gravely ill economy after a fallout with the West ended its support for the southern African nation.
Mugabe's campaign coincides with Russia's push to raise its economic profile in the region.
"These MOUs (memorandums of understanding) are worth $300 million but we hope we will develop our relations so that we bring more investments into the country," Yury Panchenko, external affairs director with with Rusaviatrade, an aviation firm, told journalists after signing the agreements.
Panchenko is part of a 48-member Russian trade mission which is seeking opportunities in mining, transport, power, tourism and telecommunications. The signing of the MOUs marked the end of the delegation's week-long Zimbabwe visit.
Rusaviatrade is expected to upgrade an airport in southern Zimbabwe close to where Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe are developing wildlife sanctuaries on their common border.
Other projects involve boosting Zimbabwe's power capacity, raising coal output at the Hwange Colliery Company, developing a rail link between the capital Harare and a satellite town and marketing local tourist resorts.Lower Prices Hit Steel Maker's ProfitMOSCOW — Russian steel maker Evraz Group posted a 6.7 percent decline in first-half net profit due to lower prices, but said on Thursday it expects growing demand to drive a price recovery into the second half of 2006.
Evraz, Russia's largest steel maker in terms of volumes produced in its home market, said profit fell to $571 million from $612 million a year earlier.
Revenue rose to a record $3.825 billion from $3.632 billion, the London-listed company said, on rising sales from steel mills the company acquired in Europe.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were about $1.10 billion, down from around $1.12 billion in January-June 2005.
"Evraz achieved satisfactory results during the first six months of 2006, especially when compared with the exceptional performance, supported by high steel prices, in the first half of 2005," Chief Executive Valery Khoroshkovsky said in a statement.
Steel prices started recovering in March, Evraz said, after declining in the second half of 2005 and the first quarter of 2006. "We expect the price recovery which started in the second quarter of 2006 to continue on the back of growing demand," Khoroshkovsky said.

TITLE: Politkovskaya Deserves Justice
AUTHOR: By Elsa Vidal
TEXT: Anna Politkovskaya's execution-style murder Saturday in her central Moscow apartment building has deeply shaken human rights organizations throughout the world. In the course of years of tireless work she had become a towering figure who reminded not just Russia, but also the West and Europe in particular, what moral responsibility meant. Reporters Without Borders had long hailed the incalculable value of her commitment and determination to let as many people as possible know about the catastrophic situation in Chechnya and, more generally, the growing autocratic excesses of the Russian authorities.We have expressed our shock and sadness at the news of her death, and we have demanded an independent investigation under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or the Council of Europe, European bodies with the legitimacy to carry this out. It is impossible, unfortunately, to trust the Russian authorities to carry out this investigation in an impartial manner. This is not a dogmatic position. It is just a conclusion drawn from our experience at Reporters Without Borders.
A total of 21 journalists have been murdered, with complete impunity, in connection with their work since Vladimir Putin became president in March 2000. None of these murders has been solved. For example, more than two years after U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov, the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was gunned down in July 2004 in Moscow, the person who ordered the murder has still not been identified. Repeated requests for an independent investigation have been ignored.
We would be the first to applaud if the Russian authorities displayed a sincere and effective desire to establish the truth in this and other cases involving the murder of journalists during the coming months. It would be an encouraging sign for the future of press freedom in Moscow. But Putin's laconic comments on the Politkovskaya murder were not encouraging. The only reasonable option is to demand that the search for the truth be carried out by an international entity. The support of Western countries, particularly in the European Union, is fundamental. For this reason, Reporters Without Borders condemns the support Putin gets from Western countries. That he received the Legion of Honor from French President Jacques Chirac in September was an outrage.
Politkovskaya repeatedly condemned the guilty indifference of our societies. The most faithful way to honor her memory would be to launch an all-out campaign demanding justice.
Her murder is a glaring symbol of the degradation of press freedom in Russia. She was an icon. Despite the threat of death that had hung over her for years, she displayed enormous strength in resisting repeated attempts to reduce her to silence — during what appears to have been an attempt to poison her on the way to Beslan during the terrorist crisis there in 2004, for example, or on another occasion when a woman resembling her was murdered in her building. Her strength had been so great that no one was prepared when the news of her death came. Will it serve as a salutary shock? We hope so.
Politkovskaya's murder sends a message of unprecedented brutality to all Russian and foreign journalists working in the country — one clearly designed to discourage them. The economic interests of Western countries, coupled with strategic and ideological considerations, made us too hasty to overlook the fragility of the democracy established in Russia and how much violence still remained, as the recent murder of Central Bank Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov demonstrated.
The government has been dismantling press freedom for some time. The takeovers of NTV television (resulting in the disappearance of programs like the political satire Kukly), Izvestia (where Politkovskaya used to work) and, more recently, one of the last jewels of the independent press, Kommersant (by a metals magnate who runs a Gazprom subsidiary), are the latest stage in the government's acquisition of the media.
The prevailing degradation of press freedom and impunity enjoyed by those who go after the media has been all the more entrenched because of the overlap of political and economic power.
The harassment of the weekly Permsky Obozrevatel, or Perm Observer, the only independent newspaper in the Perm region, by the local authorities is also evidence of the interlocking machinery of power in Russia.
The adoption of new legislation for nongovernmental organizations in January was one more step in the return to authoritarian rule and illustrated the suspicion with which human rights and press freedom activists are regarded. How the media cover the legislative and presidential elections in December 2007 and March 2008, respectively, will serve as a telling indicator of the degree of control over news and information attained by the Kremlin.
Sadly, there isn't much to indicate that it will do much in the way of honoring the memory of Anna Politkovskaya.

Elsa Vidal is head of the European bureau of Reporters Without Borders.

TITLE: China Is Key To Handling North Korea
PUBLISHER: Financial Times
TEXT: North Korea's fateful decision to test a nuclear bomb makes it the ninth and least welcome of the nations believed to possess such weapons. The test announced in triumph by Pyongyang presents a grave threat to global security that should not — and will not — go unanswered.The risks are clear. Japan, nervous about North Korean missiles capable of hitting Japanese soil, will be tempted to develop its own nuclear arsenal, a move that would abruptly end two generations of Japanese pacifism and stoke an East Asian arms race. Aspiring nuclear powers, including Iran, will be emboldened by the defiant stance of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader.
The wobbly international structures designed to limit proliferation of military nuclear technologies will be further weakened; if Kim's regime can get away with developing nuclear bombs under the noses of the United States and China, then what is to stop others doing the same?
Further economic sanctions have no chance of making an impact without the active participation of China, North Korea's most important trade partner and oil supplier.
China is the key to the crisis, and it is time for Beijing to put serious pressure on the North Korean regime, even if that means undermining Kim and setting the two Koreas on the path to reunification. For too long, China has baulked at "destabilizing" North Korea for fear of an exodus of Koreans seeking refuge in China and the eventual creation of a united Korea allied with the United States.
Chinese leaders must now accept that Kim's regime is itself unstable as well as being a destabilizing force in the region. South Korea, meanwhile, is already moving out of the U.S. orbit into the embrace of an economically powerful China.
It would be hard for a regime such as China's to countenance the demise of one of its few surviving ideological allies. But the government of a united Korea might see the sense in abandoning the expense and the responsibility of nuclear weapons, just as South Africa and Ukraine did after their own revolutionary upheavals at the end of the Cold War.
The alternative is the status quo — a defiant North Korea developing a nuclear arsenal and shrugging off piecemeal economic sanctions — and that is unacceptable to all.

This comment was published as an editorial in the Financial Times.

TITLE: What Oil Prices Are Telling Us
AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer
TEXT: Conventional wisdom suggests that oil prices increased sevenfold from 1999 to mid-2006 because of a sharp rise in demand — especially from China, which now burns some 7 million barrels per day and accounts for about 8.5 percent of global consumption. Demand from Asia contributed roughly 40 percent to 50 percent of the increase in oil demand.During that period, demand for oil grew by more than 10 percent but oil output kept pace, responding to higher prices. High oil prices encouraged investment into new production. The former Soviet Union, for instance, boosted its output by 55 percent, or 4 million barrels per day. Canada's tar sands are expected to produce 10 million barrels per day in coming decades. There is more than enough supply coming up to satisfy projected global demand growth through 2030.
This is why the rise in oil prices took analysts by surprise. Early in the decade, only alarmists forecast an oil price of $40 per barrel. Many economists now expect excess supply to drive oil prices down again, but "black gold" remains stubbornly expensive.
The problem is that the oil market is not really free. Most oil reserves are owned by governments. Only about 15 million barrels per day — or 75 percent of U.S. consumption — is pumped in the Western world. Politics, not supply and demand, drive oil prices.
The overriding reason why oil prices are so high is a dramatic weakening of the United States, the chief guarantor of global stability. Its formidable military has been fought to a standstill by semi-feudal militias in Iraq.
Whatever the merits of its policies, the United States is so disliked around the world that it can no longer lead. It is the world's largest debtor, needing $800 billion annually to balance its trade account. Its industry has been hollowed out and it is hooked on imports from China, a former arch enemy.
Expensive oil, in fact, goes hand in hand with a weak dollar, the international reserve currency. Investors no longer trust in America's ability to hold the world economic and financial system together — which is the reason why gold, the primordial store of value, doubled in price earlier this year and still fetches $600 per Troy ounce.
Most economists view high commodity prices as a sign of market optimism and a harbinger of robust global economic growth. In fact, they probably presage economic, political and military turmoil. Historically, periods of growth — such as 1950-1970 and 1982-2000 — were accompanied by steady and generally low commodity prices, whereas high prices in the early 1970s ushered in a decade of drift and stagnation.
In fact, today's market conditions — expensive commodities and gold and a falling dollar — mirror the 1970s, when the United States lost its ability and desire to lead. But back then U.S. weakness meant Soviet strength, a condition that kept U.S. allies in line. No such imperative exists now, as rifts with Western Europe indicate.
The United States will probably right itself again, but it will be a difficult slog. The Russian government, despite being Washington's ally in the war on terror and part of the Group of Eight, has been rejoicing at the sight of the United States' difficulties. It should not. True, Russia's nuclear weapons, enormous territory and vast natural resources seem to position it well for the future challenges.
Yet it is a society traumatized by over 70 years of communist rule and badly shaken by the events of the past 15 years. Its dwindling, ailing and aging population is torn by income inequalities and seethes with ethnic hatred. Its shaky national infrastructure simply might not withstand the coming tests.

Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.

TITLE: Come hear the music play
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Inside the mind of the man behind quirky cabaret act The Real Tuesday Weld.The Real Tuesday Weld blends the sound of pre-war shellac records, the laid-back, crooning style of French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, the cabaret feel of Tom Waits and retro electronica.Due to perform as part of the Afisha Music Festival at Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa on Sunday, the British eclectic, antique-beat band was started by art college graduate Stephen Coates in London in 1998, inspired, he claims, by two dreams involving old-school celebrities: 1930s British dance-band vocalist Al Bowlly and U.S. movie actress Tuesday Weld.
"I studied at art school and I was seriously contemplating becoming a Buddhist monk for a while but I had a sort of psychic meltdown and started to study Jung and take dreams seriously," wrote Coates, who has been exposed to music since he was a child, in a recent email from his home in Vauxhall, London.
"Then I had two very strong dreams which I took as a message to make music seriously and so I just began and made a little record in my house and then it started to grow — it really did feel as if it was outside my control — I didn't have a big plan or anything. I never had any intention to play live — I was kind of forced into it!"
Once a one-man act, The Real Tuesday Weld comes to St. Petersburg as a full, five-piece band with Clive Painter on jazz guitar, Don Brosnan on bass and Jeremy Woodhouse on percussion, and joined, for the occasion, by violinist and melodica-player Sophie Solomon, who is better-known as a solo artist.
Solomon will be "replacing" Jacques Van Rhijn, the band's clarinet player who can't make it this time. Coates will "play the sampler, sing and sigh."
Visual assistance at the show will come from Leningrad-born, New York-based animator Alex Budovsky, seen by Coates as the band's sixth member.
"Alex got in touch with me through my website a few years ago," wrote Coates, who has collaborated with Budovsky since 2002.
"He said, 'I've been making an animation to one of your songs ('Terminally Ambivalent Over You') — do you mind?' I've had a few approaches like that and I am always keen to see the results — but when he sent me the finished thing, I was blown away — it was wonderful and strange."
Budovsky's comic cartoon video to the band's "Bathtime in Clerkenwell," in which London cuckoo-clock cuckoos revolt and force their human masters into their clocks, picked up a number of awards around the world, including one at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004.
"We have done a lot of other little things since and I think we will be doing another film soon. We are working on a project together for a DVD for children too. It's been great knowing Alex — he introduced us to the Russian community in New York and I'm really looking forward to seeing St. Petersburg with him."
In his quirky, off-the-wall music works, Coates might reinterpret a Greek myth, as on the 2001 album "Where Psyche Meets Cupid," or compose a soundtrack to a book, as on the 2004 "I, Lucifer," based on author (and close friend) Glen Duncan's novel of the same title.
"I have been very inspired by myths — particularly the myth of Cupid and Psyche," he wrote.
"If you have ever been in an intense love affair that has gone wrong, you will be able to read your story in that myth. It's extraordinary — it's archetypal — the interaction of love and soul.
"'I, Lucifer' was written by a friend of mine when he was living at my house and the book and record kind of grew up together like strange sisters. I think I was influenced by our friendship and the things we discussed at that time as much as the book."
The band's latest recorded effort is an alternative soundtrack to Berlin-born Dadaist painter-director Hans Richter's 1946 avant-garde feature "Dreams That Money Can Buy." It comprises of approximately an hour of original music and songs, which was released with the film on DVD by the British Film Institute earlier this year. A couple of excerpts from the film will also be screened during the St. Petersburg concert, according to Coates.
Musically, the concert will be based on "I, Lucifer" and the 2005 album "The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid," technically the band's most recent full-length CD release, but which is partly a reworking of the songs from "Cupid and Psyche" with some new material made for the U.S., where the original album was not available because the record label went out of business. The band will also preview a couple of items from its forthcoming album, tentatively called "The London Book of the Dead."
According to Coates, the material will sound very different from the band's recordings when it is played live.
"The songs have been re-worked for performance so it will be more of a live feel than on the records," he wrote.
"I didn't see the point of trying to recreate the sound of the record in a concert — it would mean having a lot of computers and technology — and I guess I don't personally find that very interesting — like listening to your iPod with some dude sitting still on stage in front of you. I think you'll recognize the songs though — I hope so!"
Coates says he does not follow British rock music, preferring electronica and retro.
"I still really like old music and electronica — my favorite artist for the last year has been [British-based, German-born pianist and composer] Max Richter," wrote Coates. Coates said he began playing retro-sounding music because of his own nostalgia — and not because he was following a trend.
"I liked the sound of old records because that is what my great uncle and father played when I was a child. Or the sound of a radio in the house next door... It's funny because [in the U.K.] at least — and in the U.S. — there are now a lot of people doing music influenced by the 1940s... I will have to change, I suppose, or they will accuse me of jumping on the bandwagon."
Coates leant on his training as an artist when he did the first few album sleeves for The Tiger Lillies, the British vaudeville trio fronted by his friend Martyn Jacques.
Coates met Jacques at a Buddhist meditation class a few years ago and played some music with him, he wrote. Jacques lent his distinctive vocals to a track called "Someday (Never)" on The Real Tuesday Weld's "I, Lucifer."
"I took a masters degree at the Royal College of Art but I don't think I was really 'there' — all this other stuff was going on (mainly in my head) and it all seemed somewhat distant," wrote Coates.
"I think already by then I was thinking I needed to do something else. I know a few artists and I'm glad I changed. I would like to go back to painting — and I will — when I'm old and they won't let me make music anymore..."The Real Tuesday Weld performs, alongside Coldcut and The Pinker Tones, as part of Afisha Music Festival at Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa at 7 p.m. on Sunday. 13 Universitetskaya Nab.,
M. Vasileostrovskaya/Nevsky Prospekt, Tel. 325-8670. www.tuesdayweld.com

TITLE: California dreaming
AUTHOR: By Bernard Holland
PUBLISHER: the new york times
TEXT: The Mariinsky Theater presents the Ring Cycle amid the malls of California.COSTA MESA, California — Russians are everywhere: stalking the upscale shops of the South Coast Plaza, gazing up at the elegantly aligned eucalyptus and palm trees as they make their way from one rehearsal to the next, wandering the numerous new hotels that rim this intersection of art and commerce, and partaking long and lustily at seemingly nonstop outdoor buffets.If the cold war is over, the sunny, breezy one is in full swing. The Mariinsky Theater, with its Kirov Opera, Orchestra and Ballet, has descended on Orange County. Musicians and singers in the hundreds are here for orchestra concerts and Wagner's "Ring" operas. As they take to the road on tour, new musicians arrive for dance performances.
For residents of St. Petersburg, a city elegant in its distinctive way, their Southern Californian listeners — tanned and groomed to a high polish — must seem a species of moon men. Whether real, a mirage or both, the aura of wealth here appears endless. Orange County has had its 3,000-seat Orange County Performing Arts Center for a decade. Within spitting distance is the new RenÎe and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, congenially smaller and made seductively curvaceous by the architect Cesar Pelli.
Henry Segerstrom's family made money in real estate and has given a lot of it to this arts campus. He is also no stranger to the enormous adjacent shopping mall. Thanks to his vision, something nice to hear and something nice to wear are now separated by a short stroll: a new pantheon where Ferragamo and Cartier share retail space with Shostakovich and Wagner.
Wagner's "Siegfried" played at the bigger, older hall on Monday night, with "GÚtterdÊmmerung" to close out the Mariinsky's traveling "Ring" cycle on Wednesday. The company's ad hoc style reflects its music director, Valery Gergiev, who adjusts casts from day to day, much as a baseball manager juggles starting lineups. Gergiev has been everywhere at once and presumably plans to sleep in a future life.
Given the cursory sophistication of this production, it had better sound good if it wants to survive. George Tsypin's giant statuary stands on or is draped across the stage. Hollow, with wrinkled metallic surfaces, and modular for easy disassembly, these figures are accessorized by small penguinlike shapes. (Those of a certain age will remember Al Capp's comic-strip shmoo.) Dancers lurk and do imitations of flames.
It falls to lighting to set moods and induce action. Tsypin's figures light up from inside when emotions demand. Sheets of ghastly reds and greens, like chemical spills, play over the stage. At Fafner's death, the impression is of someone playing with a wall switch. The Woodbird appears onstage wearing beads and flapping her arms. On the other hand, she (she being Anastasia Kalagina) sang beautifully. Mikhail Petrenko made Fafner's bass notes shine.
No Siegfried has looked more like Siegfried than Leonid Zakhozhayev: tall, broad-shouldered, athletic, long hair flowing. Yet Vasily Gorshkov's Mime carried the early hours of "Siegfried." His sly, dry humor dominated Act I, and he also outgunned Zakhozhayev's serviceable tenor and easily upstaged Vadim Kravets's faceless Wotan. Olga Sergeyeva threw her big, rich soprano at Brßnnhilde with an exuberance that threatened vocal steadiness. Viktor Chernomortsev (Alberich) and Zlata Bulycheva (Erda) both sang well.
It was in the pit that the listener found "Siegfried." Given a dreadful workload, the Mariinsky players never faltered in accomplishment and devotion. Gergiev is not a conductor to loiter over Wagner, and here the music was swift and action-packed. The Orange County Performing Arts Center's gloomy demeanor and swooping balconies do not raise the spirit, and its acoustics bled dry the Mariinsky's much admired baritonal glow. The wind and horn playing, on the other hand, was resplendent.The Mariinsky's bus-and-truck "Ring of the Nibelung" goes to New York's Lincoln Center Festival next summer.

TITLE: Chernov's choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: As the local prosecutor's office reports that it has "solved" the infamous murder in 2005 of anti-fascist and punk musician Timur Kacharava and is pressing charges against a 19-year old suspect, Russian nationalism is on the rise more than ever in past decades.The Kremlin-directed anti-Georgian campaign that is raging even took on an ethnic cleansing component when there are reports of Russian citizens being persecuted for their Georgian roots.
The campaign has been led from the very top as President Vladimir Putin's increasingly chilling statements indicate. One of them ones included a call to "protect the interests [...] Russia's native population" last week.
A concert by Nino Katamadze, the popular Georgian world-music vocalist in Moscow was canceled because of the campaign this week.
Katamadze and her band Insight were to perform as part of a world-music event called City Jazz at Ikra club this week. The promoter, ArtManiya, said that Katamadze's concert in Volgograd failed to take place earlier this month and her forthcoming concerts in Moscow scheduled on Nov. 17 and 18 have been canceled as well.
"Restaurants whose menus are dominated by [Georgian national dishes] and satsivi are being closed," reads the promoter's news release.
"Transport between the two countries has been virtually stopped, preventing many Georgian citizens from getting into Russia. Under the current conditions we cannot endanger in the slightest musicians whose work we respect.
"We are beyond politics and can't afford internationally known artists being involved in the Russian-Georgian conflict."
The news release also contains a quote from Insight member Gocha Kacheishvili.
"Any art critic will confirm that any work, be it literary, visual, musical, has its historical and national roots," Kacheishvili was quoted as saying.
"But art has no nationality, while political conflicts mustn't become an obstacle between it and people from different countries."
The promoters asked the public to come to the event where Katamadze's recordings are to be played and her songs performed by other artists who don't happen to be Georgians.
Another Moscow music promoter came across a more personal and scarier problem when his uncle who happened to be of Georgian origin was arrested and had his company shut down by the police in Moscow last week. He did not wish to be named out of fear that it might create further problems for his relative.
Some small good news is that a party tentatively called "I Am Georgian" is being organized at a Moscow club, which is due to feature Georgian cuisine and an exhibition of photos taken in Tbilisi last month, just before the Russian-Georgian border was shut down by Kremlin. The event is expected to take place some time next week.

TITLE: Bunker birthday
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Griboyedov club will mark its tenth anniversary this week with an all-night concert and party with the city's top bands including stadium ska-rockers Leningrad. But despite initial plans to hold the celebration at a stadium or a large concert venue, the party will be held at the club itself."We were told, 'Let's put 'Leningrad' in big type on the posters,' but that would have turned the event into a concert by Leningrad, rather than an anniversary concert with many bands," said Griboyedov's art director Mikhail Sindalovsky, who also plays drums with the local ska-punk/pop-rock band Dva Samaliota.
"But we love all our bands, so we refused," he said, adding that around 600 fans are expected at the club on the anniversary night.
Despite its current lofty star status, Leningrad agreed to perform because the band had its first rehearsal and a few concerts for friends in the bombshelter club in the late 1990s.
Also performing is Dva Samaliota, the band that founded and manages the club, as well as 15 other bands including Tequilajazzz, Kirpichi, Kacheli and La Minor. Each of the bands shares much of its history with Griboyedov, now seen as the city's oldest surviving underground venue, while Tequilajazzz even included the club's name, alongside Fish Fabrique's, into a song.
While the live acts will be performing at the Griboyedov Hill, the newly-launched second-floor restaurant, that was described by Sindalovsky as a "large step toward respectability," the club's favorite DJs will be entertaining the public at the club's old dancefloor downstairs.
The club was started on Oct. 18, 1996 by Dva Samaliota, soon after being kicked out of Nora, a now-defunct dance club, where the musicians worked as hired art directors.
"Griboyedov," named after Alexander Griboyedov, a 19th century Russian author and diplomat, can be translated as a "mushroom eater," a reference to hallucinogenic mushrooms that abound in forests outside the city.
In 1996 and 2003, the club survived a series of brutal police raids, leaving managers and members of the audience robbed, beaten and humiliated.
Over its 10 years, Griboyedov has promoted both live music and DJs sets in an attempt to bring together increasingly separate scenes. Indie film screenings, art exhibitions and crazy contests were added.
For years art directorship was provided by the trio of Dva Samaliota members, Sindalovsky, Denis Medvedev and Anton Belyankin, but last year Belyankin left to manage his own music bar Fidel.
Medvedev, who left Dva Samaliota in 2002 to pursue his other career as DJ Re-disco, remains Griboyedov's art director alongside Sindalovsky, both of whom follow the latest music trends and help the place retain its status as one of the most artistically important spots on the local club scene.
Although Griboyedov has hosted very diverse acts ranging from pop-rock to hip-hop to punk, it has made a point of avoiding massively popular, yet straightforward and unimaginative "Russian rock."
The club's policy is, according to a news release, "to support talented underground artists, showing that innovative concepts are born [in the underground] before becoming encompassed by the general public, as it was with Leningrad who started out at Griboyedov and now packs stadiums."
According to Sindalovsky, the 10th anniversary event will be documented on a DVD that will be released as part of the "Griboyedov Music" series that includes a number of CD compilations.G10, or Griboyedov's Tenth Anniversary Concert and Party, with Leningrad, Tequilajazzz and Dva Samaliota, will start at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
www.griboedovclub.ru

TITLE: Waterlogged landscapes
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In partnership with Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg is hosting a retrospective of the work of Alexei Savrasov, a modest, but indispensable figure in Russian landscape art in the second half of the 19th century.Around 90 works, predominantly paintings, from both museums' collections are displayed at the Benois Wing, spanning the entire legacy of the artist. In a sense, the show represents the artist's rehabilitation as the painter is usually associated with just one notorious work — "The Rooks Have Come Back" — an association that had even become commonplace during Savrasov's lifetime.
Savrasov (1830 1897) was born in Moscow and developed as an artist there. Away from the official academic monitoring that dominated art in the then-capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, the artistic life of Moscow was more relaxed and experimental.
In 1857 Savrasov was appointed lecturer at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, from which he had graduated seven years before. With other artists such as Fyodor Vassilev and Ivan Shishkin, Savrasov's interest in native, unadorned nature was part of the realism of the time.
Savrasov was one of the founders of the Peredvizhniki ("The Wanderers"), an independent artistic group which broke with the Academy of Arts' artistic and financial autocracy.
At the same time, counter to the Peredvizhniki's taste for story-telling in paintings, Savrasov advocated a so-called lyrical tendency in realistic landscape painting, the only tendency which evolved in the landscape painters of the late-1880s and early-1890s.
Two remarkable disciples, who later overshadowed their teacher, Isaac Levitan and Konstantin Korovin, are just two names that underscore this point.
Meanwhile, Savrasov's heyday during the 1870s was stimulated by his most successful and recognizable picture "The Rooks Have Come Back" (1871).
This simple-hearted composition showing rooks landing on a leafless tree amid a lanscape of melting snow is turned into captivating image of the seasons in transition. The painting, which is being shown in a separate room at the current show, was unveiled at the first traveling exhibition of the Peredvizhniki. It was enthusiastically received by contemporaries and purchased by Pavel Tretyakov for his famous gallery.
Following this success, there were dozens of author's replicas (as well as numerous fakes on the art market of the period), at least two of which are on show at the current exhibition. Later the painting was heavily circulated in Soviet visual culture, including in school books.
The artist feels comfortable with in-between states: whether they are of natural origin, like meteorological dramas, dawn and sunset, spring and autumn, overflows of rivers and bogs, or of mental origin. An abundant motif is a rural road, an ill-defined dirt track, and there is poetry and scenic beauty in the impassable mud of pathways, and in spring slush and mire.
This approach was novel as hitherto landscape paintings featured glamorous, sunny, dry Italian-like panoramas. Sloppy Savrasov was therefore highly appreciated as the first painter of a truly Russian ambience. Enormous and awkward pools are still a natural feature in Russian cities streets, let alone in the countryside.
It is characteristic then that one of the western jeeps in Kerim Ragimov's contemporary project "RoadOff," which visually exploits Russian 19th century landscapes, gets bogged down in Savrasov's soggy opus.
Savrasov's success in the 1870s was followed by tragedy when the painter lost his family and his teaching position. An old man with a soft, sad face, slovenly hair and beard, had became a somewhat gifted drunkard (Vasily Perov captured Savrasov this way in a brilliant portrait, also on show). Like the floating nature of his paintings, Savrasov's life dissolved in a rainy October of alcohol and dyes; he traveled into one of his own landscapes, both dirty and dear."Alexei Savrasov" runs through the end of November at the Benois Wing. www.rusmuseum.ru

TITLE: The master of fonts
AUTHOR: By Brian Droitcour
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Lowercase à has all the elements that make a letter beautiful: a tail, a ball and an oblique stroke. But little ä has so many faults it's hard to decide which is its most damning. The bottom of the crooked stem of Ó is better off with a rounded droplet than a flat serif, but the terminals on the left of Ë or the right of Ö are fair game. It is unfortunate that 26 out of 33 lowercase letters of the Cyrillic alphabet are miniature copies of their uppercase cousins — it gives text a square, monolithic look and slows reading.These are a few of the nuggets of typographical wisdom offered by designer Yury Gordon in his "Book on Letters from Àà to ßÿ," a thick tome that deftly balances theory and practice. It has plenty of useful tips for professionals working with the shapes of the Cyrillic alphabet, who often run into difficulties because, as Gordon writes, "Cyrill and Methodius were brilliant linguists but awful designers." The wealth and variety of visual examples and a light, irreverent tone give the book appeal for the layman, too. "People like to say what they think looks good or bad," Gordon said in an interview at his studio Monday. "In this book I tried to figure out why."
Gordon, whose design firm Letterhead has created more than 200 of its own Russian fonts, devotes the bulk of his book to a detailed exploration of what Cyrillic letters can and cannot do. Each chapter begins by displaying the letter in a historical panorama of Russian typefaces, starting with medieval religious script and taking a sharp turn with the typeface designed in Amsterdam at the turn of the 18th century that determined the look of modern secular Cyrillic.
To demonstrate the letter in context, Gordon assembles corporate logos, both clever and clumsy, and examples of "folk design," photographs of hand-drawn posters and signs from the Russian provinces. Amid this thick flow of information, Gordon gives some strictly practical advice, like tricks for avoiding the sticky black mess that can form at the intersection of the strokes of Æ.
Gordon starts with a spirited critique of Cyrillic. On the repetition of forms in uppercase and lowercase letters, he writes: "This is an outrage and totalitarianism."
He contrasts it with what he calls the superior logic of the Roman alphabet, where slender lowercase letters add variety to a block of text, and have elements that draw the reader's gaze to the end of the line.
"Cyrillic text looks like rows of fences, they are stuffed in the line," Gordon said in an interview. "I look at Cyrillic letters and I think, they're waiting in line and they're all wearing identical overcoats. In Europe if people have to wait in line at least they all look different."
Despite his colleagues' accusations of Russophobia, Gordon believes it is better to be upfront about the shortcomings of Cyrillic rather than try to ignore them and force Russian letters into Roman patterns that don't fit. In fact, Gordon thinks type designers should seek out advantages in the alphabet's awkwardness. "Really, it's fine for letters to be squat and pigeon-toed," he said. "No one said they have to be elegant."
Gordon finds hope in the fact that there is still a lot to discover in Cyrillic, estimating that there are only 1,500 Cyrillic fonts and 50,000 Roman ones. This discrepancy can partly be explained by the relative youth of Cyrillic, which was devised approximately 1,500 years after Roman. It took on its current shape during Peter the Great's reforms 300 years ago, whereas the analogous simplification of the Gothic script for use in secular European literature took place in the 15th century. Furthermore, the Russian Revolution stilted the development of Cyrillic typefaces, which had flourished in the early 20th century before being uniformly replaced by Literaturnaya, a font that Gordon said was used "to print everything from streetcar tickets to literary classics."
Nowadays, Gordon thinks the contemporary environment for font design is very exciting. Not only is there growing interest from Russian publishers and businesses in creating distinct typefaces, the structure of reading is changing. "New typefaces are going to be used to write text messages, not 'War and Peace,'" Gordon said.
That means display fonts — the decorative kind used for logos or posters where unusual letters can shine — might get more use than the text blocks that are so disadvantageous for Cyrillic. It is probably this line of thought that determined the piece of advice Gordon's book gives to designers: "Better to make five fun and tasty new display fonts than one old, boring (and you thought it would look fresh!) text font.""Book on Letters from Àà to ßÿ" is published by the Artemy Lebedev Studio.

TITLE: Zenit Agrees Exchange Program Deal With Schalke
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: St. Petersburg's Zenit football club has signed a cooperation agreement with German Bundesliga club Schalke 04, Zenit president Sergei Fursenko said Wednesday.
Fursenko, who is also the head of Gazprom subsidiary Lentransgaz, said the agreement would primarily benefit Russian football, Interfax reported. The agreement provides for the development of an exchange program between the two clubs and the possibility of sending Russian footballers and coaches for training in Germany, Fursenko said.On Tuesday, Gazprom signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Schalke 04. "Schalke 04 and Gazprom perfectly suit one another," Gazprom said in a statement. "Gazprom is a successful, world-class corporation, while Schalke 04 is an inimitable and unique club."
Schalke had earlier said the deal would be worth $157.1 million. Gazprom's statement did not contain any figures. Gazprom also sponsors Zenit. Starting Jan. 1, 2007, players for both Zenit and Schalke 04 will be wearing the Gazrpom logo on their shirts.
During his visit to Germany on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin expressed his hopes for the deal, "I hope that Gazprom's assistance to both clubs, St. Petersburg's Zenit and Schalke 04, will yield dividends. Perhaps this cooperation will help our athletes to achieve the best results." Putin said during a meeting with Fursenko and Clemens Toennies, head of Schalke's supervisory board, Interfax reported.
(SPT, Reuters)

TITLE: Turk Author Wins Nobel
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: STOCKHOLM — Turkey's best-known novelist Orhan Pamuk, who faced trial this year for insulting his country, won the 2006 Nobel prize for Literature on Thursday in a decision some critics said was more political than literary.The Swedish Academy declared Pamuk winner of the prize on a day when, to Turkey's fury, the French lower house of parliament approved a bill making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide.
In a case seen as a test of freedom of speech in Turkey, Pamuk, 54, was tried for insulting "Turkishness" after telling a Swiss paper last year that 1 million Armenians had died in Turkey during World War One and 30,000 Kurds had perished in recent decades.
Though the court dismissed the charges on a technicality, other writers and journalists are still being prosecuted under the article and could face a jail sentence of up to three years.
"With all due respect to Orhan Pamuk, whose books I read and like, I believe his comments on the Armenian genocide have been influential in his winning this prize," said Suat Kiniklioglu, an Ankara-based political analyst."I think many Turks will see it in this way too and will not be cheering."

TITLE: Pitcher Flies To Death
AUTHOR: By Colleen Long
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — A small plane carrying New York Yankee Cory Lidle slammed into a 50-story skyscraper Wednesday, apparently killing the pitcher and a second person in a crash that rained flaming debris onto the sidewalks and briefly raised fears of another terrorist attack.A law enforcement official in Washington said Lidle — an avid pilot who got his flying license during last year's offseason — was aboard the single-engine aircraft when it crashed into the 30th and 31st floors of a high-rise on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said both people aboard were killed.
It was not clear who was at the controls. But the Washington official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Lidle's passport was found at the scene.
Federal Aviation Administration records showed the plane was registered to Lidle, who had repeatedly assured reporters in recent months that flying was safe and that the Yankees — who lost catcher Thurman Munson in the 1979 crash of a plane he was piloting — had no reason to worry.
"The flying?" the 34-year-old Lidle told The Philadelphia Inquirer this summer. "I'm not worried about it. I'm safe up there. I feel very comfortable with my abilities flying an airplane."
The crash came just four days after the Yankees' humiliating elimination from the playoffs, during which Lidle had been relegated to the bullpen. In recent days, Lidle had taken abuse from fans on sports talk radio for saying the team was unprepared.
The law enforcement official said the plane had issued a distress call before the crash.
The FAA said it was too early to determine what might have caused the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators.
"This is a terrible and shocking tragedy that has stunned the entire Yankees organization," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said in a statement. He offered his condolences to Lidle's wife and son.
The crash rattled New Yorkers' nerves five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the FBI and the Homeland Security quickly said there was no evidence it was anything but an accident. Nevertheless, within 10 minutes of the crash, fighter jets were sent over several cities, including New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Seattle, Pentagon officials said.
The plane came through a hazy, cloudy sky and hit The Belaire — a red-brick tower overlooking the East River, about five miles from the World Trade Center — with a loud bang, touching off a raging fire that cast a pillar of black smoke over the city.

TITLE: UN Debates N. Korea Response
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SEOUL — North Korea threatened Japan on Thursday with "strong countermeasures" if it goes ahead with tougher sanctions over Pyongyang's reported nuclear test.Japan and the United States are pushing for tough measures against the North, although diplomats say China opposes the more punitive parts of a draft resolution Washington wants the UN Security Council to adopt in a vote, possibly on Friday.
"We will take strong countermeasures," said Song Il-ho, North Korean ambassador in charge of diplomatic normalization talks with Japan, according to a report by Japan's Kyodo news agency from Pyongyang.
"The specific contents will become clear if you keep watching," Song said. "We never speak empty words."
Japan, arguing that Pyongyang's nuclear weapons pose a direct threat to its safety, is expected to formally approve additional sanctions on Friday, including banning imports from the impoverished communist state and blocking North Korean ships from entering Japanese ports.
President Bush, speaking after Japan announced plans for extra sanctions, said on Wednesday: "In response to North Korea's actions we're working with our partners ... to ensure there are serious repercussions for the regime in Pyongyang."
China, the nearest North Korea has to an ally, has flatly condemned its communist neighbor and backs limited sanctions but diplomats said it sees the U.S. approach as too stringent.
"One can say that punishment isn't the goal," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters on Thursday, saying any sanctions would be to coax North Korea back to talks.
There has so far been no independent confirmation that Monday's explosion was in fact the result of a nuclear device. Some have speculated that even if it was, it might not have been as successful as Pyongyang claimed.
North Korea has brandished the threat of more tests, calling U.S. pressure to rein in its nuclear program tantamount to a "declaration of war."
A UN Security Council vote on the U.S.-drafted resolution could come on Friday, when the leaders of China and South Korea — on which Pyongyang relies for economic aid and a level of diplomatic protection — are also due to meet in Beijing.
Both countries are anxious to avoid driving the reclusive North — with its 1.2-million-strong army — further into a corner, possibly triggering instability on the Korean peninsula, which has been divided for more than half a century.
Analysts question how much sway Beijing and Seoul have over North Korea, which has recently shown it is prepared to shun its main benefactors.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton intends to introduce formally the resolution to the 15-member Security Council members in hopes of a vote on Friday. But China is expected to insist on further negotiations, diplomats said.
China has previously rejected one provision in the new U.S. draft which would authorize international inspections of cargo moving in and out of North Korea to detect arms-related material.
The draft, backed by Japan, also calls for an arms embargo, a ban on the transfer or development of weapons of mass destruction and banning trade in luxury goods. It would freeze funds overseas of people or businesses connected with North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
It adds a proposal by Japan that would allow, but not require, states to bar the entry of individuals and their families connected to or supporting the North's policies on weapons of mass destruction.
The new U.S. draft still invokes Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which could ultimately lead to military action, and determines that North Korea's actions are a threat to international peace and security. China has called military action "unimaginable."
China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, said Beijing wanted to restrict the Chapter 7 reference to Article 41, which would authorize only a narrow list of sanctions to ensure no military action could be inferred.
President Bush said he was committed to diplomacy, and repeated assurances that the United States had no intention of attacking North Korea. But he continued to rule out direct talks with North Korea, which Pyongyang wants, saying they had failed in the past.

TITLE: Late Goals Give Hiddink Win
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG — Two late goals gave Russia a 2-0 victory over Estonia to kick-start its Euro 2008 qualifying campaign Wednesday.After two consecutive draws, Russia badly needed three points to keep it in touch in Group E but the team had to wait until the 78th minute to break through when Pavel Pogrebnyak struck from close range.
Russia hardly threatened Estonia's goal, but wrapped up the victory in stoppage time when substitute Dmitry Sychov fired home from outside the area.
The win moved Russia up to fourth in the table, on five points, following FYR Macedonia's 3-0 victory over group whipping-boys Andorra.
Hiddink had promised a more attacking lineup after Saturday's 1-1 draw with Israel, but while his side enjoyed the lion's share of the possession, it failed to create many clear-cut chances.
But as the second half wore on, Russia's dominance began to tell against a tiring Estonian defense. Yevgeny Aldonin wasted a golden opportunity midway through the half as he side-footed wide from two meters out.
But the home team finally made the breakthrough after neat interplay in the box set up Pogrebnyak to slide cooly home.
The 22,000 capacity crowd breathed a sigh of relief and set off red flares in celebration.
Russia took its foot off the pedal after the goal, but as Estonia pushed men forward in search of the equalizer, they left gaps at the back and a swift Russian counter-attack presented Sychev with an opportunity that he finished with aplomb.
Estonia's Raio Piroja was sent off in the 90th minute.
(SPT, Reuters)

TITLE: Museum Claims Animals Are Gay
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: OSLO — The birds and the bees may be gay, according to the world's first museum exhibition about homosexuality among animals.With documentation of gay or lesbian behavior among giraffes, penguins, parrots, beetles, whales and dozens of other creatures, the Oslo Natural History Museum concludes human homosexuality cannot be viewed as "unnatural."
"We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear — homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature," an exhibit statement said.
Geir Soeli, the project leader of the exhibition entitled "Against Nature," said: "Homosexuality has been observed for more than 1,500 animal species, and is well documented for 500 of them."
The museum said the exhibition, opening on Thursday despite condemnation from some Christians, was the first in the world on the subject. Soeli said a Dutch zoo had once organised tours to view homosexual couples among the animals.
"The sexual urge is strong in all animals. ... It's a part of life, it's fun to have sex," Soeli said of the reasons for homosexuality or bisexuality among animals.
One exhibit shows two stuffed female swans on a nest — birds sometimes raise young in homosexual couples, either after a female has forsaken a male mate or donated an egg to a pair of males.
One photograph shows two giant erect penises flailing above the water as two male whales rub together. Another shows a male giraffe mounting another for sex.

TITLE: Hurricanes Open Stanley Defence With Four Losses
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MIAMI — The Carolina Hurricanes, the reigning Stanley Cup champion, fell 6-3 to the Florida Panthers on Wednesday becoming the first team in NHL history to open the defence of the title with four consecutive losses.The Hurricanes opened the season by raising their championship banner, but it has been downhill ever since after losing their home opener in a shootout followed by three straight defeats while being outscored 17-7. Olli Jokinen had a pair of goals and set up two others as the Panthers sent the Hurricanes to their record loss. Gary Roberts also tallied twice for Florida while Stephen Weiss and Martin Gelinas each found the net once. Eric Belanger, Scott Walker and Andrew Hutchinson answered for the Hurricanes, who matched their longest losing streak during last year's championship season.
After trading goals in a tight opening period, the Panthers pounced, scoring three times in the second to take charge 4-2. "Carolina is a team that can come back, they had quite a few comebacks last year in the third period," Florida coach Jacques Martin told reporters. "Olli's score early in the third period really put them in a hole.
Alex Auld stopped 32 shots in the Florida net to earn the win while John Grahame, making his first start for Carolina ahead of Stanley Cup MVP Cam Ward, faced 31 shots in the loss.
In Detroit, veteran defenseman Mathieu Schneider recorded his second career hat-trick and Mikael Samuelsson counted twice as the Red Wings romped to a 9-2 win over the Phoenix Coyotes.
Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Jason Williams and Tomas Holmstrom also tallied for Detroit as the Red Wings potted nine goals in a game for the first time since 1996 against the Montreal Canadiens.
Dominik Hasek, returning to Detroit after leading the Red Wings to the 2002 Stanley Cup, was solid in a 21-save performance to notch his second consecutive win.
The Red Wings blew open a close contest with a five-goal explosion in the second period, Datsyuk and Samuelsson scoring 22 seconds apart to cap the burst. Wayne Gretzky's second season as Coyotes head coach has got off to a spluttering start as the Phoenix absorbed their second straight defeat after opening the new campaign with a win.

TITLE: Croatia Defeats Dour England, Italians Continue Resurgence
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Croatia beat England 2-0 Wednesday to leave its group wide open in European Championship qualifying, while World Cup winner Italy continued its resurgence and beat Georgia 3-1.Defending champion Greece made it three shutout victories in a row by winning 4-0 at Bosnia-Herezegovina, and Sweden stayed five points clear atop Group F after winning 2-1 at Iceland.
Lukas Podolski scored twice as Germany won 4-1 at Slovakia to maintain its perfect start, although it remains a point behind the Czech Republic, which drew 1-1 at Ireland.
Another round of 22 qualifiers saw Malta upset Hungary 2-1, and 35-year-old Hakan Sukur, who made his international debut 14 years ago, score four goals in Turkey's 5-0 victory over Moldova.
Croatia punished two mistakes by England goalkeeper Paul Robinson in Zagreb to move into a four-way tie atop Group E with England, idle Israel and Macedonia, which won 3-0 at Andorra.
Eight minutes after native Brazilian Eduardo da Silva headed over the stranded goalkeeper, England defender Gary Neville's back pass was missed by Robinson and the ball rolled into an empty net.
England coach Steve McClaren, who experimented with a 3-5-2 formation, is now under pressure after also drawing 0-0 at home with Macedonia on Saturday.
"We lost the game, so obviously the tactics didn't work," McClaren said. "I've been around for five years, I know how it works. I accept the plaudits when they come, and when we lose I have to accept the criticism — it's all part of the job."
Italy went three games without a victory after wining its fourth World Cup title and new coach Roberto Donadoni came under criticism after the team's 3-1 loss to France in a rematch of the final.
But Italy followed its 2-0 victory over Group B rival Ukraine on Saturday with the win over Georgia. Daniele De Rossi, Mauro Camoranesi and Simone Perrotta all scored in Tbilisi. Georgia midfielder Dzhaba Kankava was sent off in the 60th minute with the score at 1-1.
"Coming here and winning seems easy, but nothing is easy," Donadoni said. "In fact, there were moments when we struggled. We did well to stay patient and pull out the victory, even if it helped us with them a man down. There are things to improve, but we've got the right spirit."
France beat the Faeroe Islands 5-0 with Louis Saha scoring after 36 seconds, just two seconds slower than the national record, and substitute David Trezeguet scoring twice.