SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1250 (16), Friday, March 2, 2007
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TITLE: Three Die As Crane Falls On Building
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Three people including a baby died after a crane collapsed on a 12-story building in northern St. Petersburg on Tuesday. 
The most probable reason for the accident on Kamyshovaya Ulitsa, is that the crane failed to stop during a manoeuvre, the head of Primorsky district Yury Osipov told the St. Petersburg Times on Thursday.
The accident also injured three people, two of whom were hospitalized, including the 30-year-old crane operator whose injuries have been described as light, and 19-year-old Anton Shcherbakov, St. Petersburg daily Smena reported Thursday. 
Doctors had to amputate part of Shcherbakov’s foot, and he suffered multiple bone fractures and a head injury, the newspaper reported, quoting the hospital’s press-service. He was also said to be in shock. 
St. Petersburg’s governor has already put the blame for the incident on construction company Energomashstroy.
“[Governor Valentina Matviyenko] specially stressed that it seems obvious that it’s the developer who is responsible for the tragedy… The company has to fully compensate the victims and cover all the other costs,” reads a statement from the Governor’s Office, published Tuesday.
Vasily Biryukov, the head of Energomashstroy could not be reached for comment on Thursday.  
His secretary told the St. Petersburg Times that “the director is very busy and he is out of the office, trying to sort out this very serious matter.”
“Matviyenko cannot blame us, as no official conclusion has been made so far regarding the case,” she added.
“In December of 2006 we received all the necessary permits from City Hall and were working lawfully. The building was almost ready and the crane was in the process of being dismantled,” Biryukov told the Delovoi Petersburg daily earlier. 
The crane’s stopping mechanisms and the rails it stood on were already partly dismantled when the incident happened and so the crane operator should not have moved the crane, Delovoi Petersburg quoted Biryukov as saying. 
City Hall has allocated six new apartments for occupants of the damaged building. 
If they don’t like the accommodation offered, they will be able to return to their homes once the repairs, which are estimated to take approximately a month, are completed, City Hall said Wednesday.

TITLE: Politicians ‘Killed’ In Election
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: At least two candidates running for seats in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly have been “killed off” by their rivals as leaflets were distributed around town during the past two weeks declaring that candidates Sergei Andreyev and Alexei Kovalev, representing the Just Russia party, had been murdered.
With both men very much alive and the subject of identical murder scenarios described in the anonymously-produced leaflets, the scam was quickly detected. The leaflets had claimed both politicians were stabbed exactly 26 times, each receiving with 15 mortal wounds —the candidates were even to share the same grave assigned to them at the Smolensky cemetery and the funerals were to be at the same time.
The ongoing election campaign has proved one of the dirtiest in the past decade.
With the “murder” leaflets exposed as fake, Andreyev became the target of more leaflets purportedly from local gay organizations expressing support for him — support that would tend to discredit him in the eyes of conservative voters. Several news organizations have also reported obtaining a video showing “a man similar to Andreyev taking part in pornography.”
Andreyev said he has not seen the sex tape and has no intention to familiarize himself with it.
Maria Matskevich, a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said turnout in the elections for the city parliament — scheduled for March 11 — is expected to be lower than 25 percent, thanks to growing public disappointment with the course of the election campaign.
“These ‘funeral reports’ have only added to people’s confusion and served to strengthen the prevailing view of politics as a dirty occupation,” Matskevich said. 
“But many local citizens were already put off by these elections after they saw the embarrassing scandal with Yabloko being forced out of the poll for the most absurd reasons.”
Andreyev had expected the trouble.
In December 2006, the State Duma abolished the minimum voter turnout limit, which was seen by many analysts as the last way of controlling misuse of electoral registers and other “black” techniques to manipulate elections, such as negative campaigning.
 “Until now, the amount of dirty reports and planted stories compromising rival candidates has been kept under some control — mainly because of worries that in especially large quantities it may lead to the voters boycotting elections,” Andreyev said. “But nobody cares about the turnout anymore.”
Yury Korgunyuk, of the Moscow-based think-tank INDEM said the variety of tricks used during the current election campaign stems from the view that St. Petersburg provides an excellent training ground for methods that may be used during elections to the State Duma in December.
Ironically, the Just Russia faction that has been targeted is not regarded as an opposition party and largely supports the policies of President Vladimir Putin and the United Russia party that was created by the Kremlin to support him.
Matskevich pointed out that opposition politicians have suffered less from discrediting campaigns during the current election — largely because they have been barred from taking part.
“Those candidates were wiped out of the game before it even started and the field for spin-doctors and PR gurus to use their professional skills has naturally narrowed,” she said. “Thus, to entertain themselves they are trying various tricks — and their effects. Voter turnout, as everybody knows, is not a problem, however low it might fall [now that minimum turnout limits have been abolished].”
Earlier last month, a fake copy of Peterburgsky Dnevnik — an official newspaper produced by City Hall — alleged that banker Sergei Matviyenko, the 33-year-old son of Governor Valentina Matviyenko, had drug abuse and marital problems.
Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst with the National Strategic Institute, said that although it remains unclear who was behind the fake newspaper, its goal was clear.
“It was meant to incite hatred between the Governor Valentina Matviyenko, an open supporter of United Russia, and Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council and leader of Just Russia,” Belkovsky said.”This is why the negative campaign was devoted to the subject most sensitive to Matviyenko — the adventures of her son Sergei.”
While compromising materials about the two pro-Kremlin parties have been widely distributed, smaller opposition parties have complained they have been restricted in reaching potential voters.

TITLE: A Brand Built on Soviet Baggage and a Smile
AUTHOR: By Max Delany
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Aeroflot is trying to pull off a branding feat that few companies would dare copy.
The airline is clinging to a Soviet-era name and logo that conjure up images of rude flight attendants, bland food and rattling, over-the-hill jets. In reality, however, its fleet is among the youngest in Europe, its business class is considered top-notch, and it has sent its flight attendants back to school to learn to smile.
Now, 75 years after the state adopted the Aeroflot name on Feb. 25, 1932, the airline is very much a marketing manager’s conundrum. And Aeroflot hasn’t been afraid to let some of the best people in the industry sweat over it.
“The airline had a shady reputation,” said Michael Peters, chairman of Identica, the London-based branding and design consultancy firm that Aeroflot hired in 2001 to buff up its image.
Peters said the main problems Aeroflot faced when he came on board were perceptions of unsafe, aging aircraft and unfriendly staff — problems that surfaced in Soviet times and continue to plague the airline today.
Even before Identica, Aeroflot initiated a sweeping rebranding with McKinsey & Company in 2000. The management consulting firm developed a strategy that, among other things, tried to teach the cabin crew to smile. Smiling proved to be a big step for an airline that aggrieved passengers once referred to as “Aeroflop.”
A McKinsey spokesman refused to comment on the company’s work with Aeroflot.
When Identica came along, it advised Aeroflot to drop its logo, a hammer and sickle with wings. In December 2002, the airline announced that it would, but four months later it backtracked. A senior Aeroflot official said at the time that the painted logo would be replaced with easily removable stickers on all planes — just in case the airline changed its mind again.
Aeroflot’s marketing department now says the logo is here to stay.
“We will never change the logo,” said a department spokeswoman, who refused to give her name. “We’ve done research, and the bird, as we call our logo, is very popular among passengers.”
She added that there was no political dimension to the decision and that the logo was purely a marketing matter.
A passenger survey carried out by Identica yielded mixed results.
Other changes started taking place at Aeroflot in 2004. The airline swapped its brusque old slogan “Fly Aeroflot!” for the softer “Sincerely Yours” and, under the direction of Identica, repainted its aircraft in silver, dark blue and red, redesigned the interiors and improved the food. In December, it unveiled new uniforms for its cabin crew.
Peters said it had been difficult to convince some people at Aeroflot to adopt even those changes. “There were so many people having a vested interest, both the old guard and the new people, that to find one common positioning was very tough,” he said.
The facelift for Aeroflot’s image is the most obvious element of a more profound process of modernization that has seen the airline’s fleet overhauled.
“Aeroflot right now has one of the youngest fleets in Europe,” said Yelena Sakhnova, an aviation analyst at Deutsche UFG, saying older, Russian-made aircraft were only used for domestic flights.
The airline announced Feb. 15 that it intended to replace 14 of its Tu-134 jets by next year with modern planes and to replace 28 of its larger Tu-154 jets by 2010.
Sakhnova said that, according to her information, Aeroflot now offers the best business-class service and an economy class “on a par, if not better than” its competitors on flights to Europe.
What impact Aeroflot’s rebranding campaign has had thus far is open to debate, with analysts and consultants arguing that it will take at least several more years before passengers associate Aeroflot with any improved services.
“How do we judge the success of what we do? Well of course, it’s bums on seats, as they say,” Peters said, adding that Aeroflot was reporting improved ticket sales.
External factors such as the general perception of Russia also affect Aeroflot’s image, he said. Another problem is the disparity between the quality of Aeroflot’s domestic and international services, said Eduard Faritov, an aviation analyst at Renaissance Capital.
Passengers used to flying on European airlines often are shocked when they step onto a domestic Aeroflot flight, Faritov said. “They really need to improve their services to Asia and within Russia,” he said.
Aeroflot’s steps to reinvent itself come as part of a wider trend among Russian air carriers. Other airlines have pointedly chosen Western image consultants to distance themselves from the traditional negative perception of the Russian airline industry as a whole.
In 2005, Sibir Airlines changed its name to S7 and overhauled its image under the guidance of London-based consultants Landor Associates. The airline, which grew out of the Novosibirsk branch of Aeroflot in 1992, needed to shed its regional image as it spread its wings countrywide, S7 spokesman Ilya Novokhatsky said.
Despite the rebranding, S7 has its work cut out for it after one of its Airbus jets ran off a runway in Irkutsk in July, killing 120 people.
“With airlines, it takes a long time to build a reputation. It takes five minutes to destroy it,” Peters said.
The S7 spokesman suggested that it would be easier for the airline to win back passengers than for Aeroflot to rebrand itself while carrying the weight of its historical baggage.
“The hammer and sickle is just too deep-rooted in the minds of millions of Russians,” he said.

TITLE: Putin Nominates Kadyrov As New Chechen President
AUTHOR: By Musa Sadulayev
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: GROZNY, Russia — President Vladimir Putin nominated a widely feared security chief as the new president of Chechnya on Thursday, while Europe’s human rights chief denounced torture and other rampant abuses in the war-battered region. Ramzan Kadyrov, who previously had served as Chechnya’s prime minister, has run a security force that is accused of abducting and abusing suspected rebels and civilians believed to be connected to them.
Speaking at a conference in Chechnya on Thursday, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, said he had found widespread evidence of torture and other rights abuses on his trip to the region, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Kadyrov had been widely expected to seek the presidency after turning 30 in October — the minimum age for presidents under local law. His nomination follows Putin’s dismissal of regional President Alu Alkhanov earlier this month and needs to be approved by the local legislature.
During a meeting with Kadyrov on Thursday, Putin hailed the reconstruction efforts, saying Chechnya has seen “significant positive developments,” according to televised remarks. He expressed hope that Kadyrov would continue efforts to improve social and economic conditions in the region, so that “people in Chechnya feel a greater security.”
International rights groups have accused Kadyrov’s security force of abuses against civilians, including abductions, torture and killing. Some have speculated that the October killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who had reported critically on Chechnya, may have been connected with her investigation of Kadyrov’s administration.
Kadyrov denied any involvement, saying, “I don’t kill women.”
On the eve of the human rights conference, a senior regional government official lashed out at NGOs that are boycotting the event for fear of lending legitimacy to the regime of acting President Ramzan Kadyrov.
“The human rights activists are acting like a sulking child who has been offended,” Ziyad Sabsabi, the Chechen government’s representative in Moscow, said Wednesday.
The conference in Grozny opened on Thursday under a cloud of criticism from its highest-profile participant, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, who on Tuesday accused Kadyrov’s government of allowing the torture of prisoners.
In addition to Hammarberg, the only other leading human rights figure scheduled to attend the conference was Ella Pamfilova, an adviser to Putin.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of Moscow Helsinki Group, defended her organization’s decision to stay away from the conference.
“You think that Mr. Kadyrov will stop torturing people just because I have spoken to him?” Alexeyeva said Wednesday. 

(The Associated Press, SPT)

TITLE: Corrupt Police Under Scrutiny
AUTHOR: By Mark Sweetman
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prosecutors opened a criminal probe into bribe-taking by traffic police and the government may create a network of informants to battle graft as President Vladimir Putin enters his last year in power.
“The instances of traffic police being involved in bribery, abuse of office and exceeding their powers, as well as illegal fines and extortion, have become more frequent,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday.
The State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, or GIBDD, issues licenses, road permits and imposes fines, which are often paid in cash and at the scene of the infraction.
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry is working on a comprehensive anti-corruption program that includes establishing a network of informants throughout the government and installing cameras in offices where bureaucrats meet businessmen, Vedomosti reported Wednesday.
The Federal Customs Service, which collects 42 percent of state revenue, has its own program, which includes paying informants and spying on officers.
Almost half of all Russians, 48 percent, consider traffic cops corrupt, a poll by the Levada Center showed last month. A Public Opinion Foundation survey two years earlier found that 85 percent of Russians “wouldn’t be surprised to hear that traffic police were involved in the theft and sale of foreign cars.”
The Interior Ministry, which oversees the traffic police, refused to say how many officers are in the GIBDD and declined to comment on the investigation. Nobody answered the phone at the GIBDD’s news service when Bloomberg called for comment.
Corruption has increased over the past few years as the state strengthens its hold over the economy, according to organizations such as Moscow-based Indem, which tracks graft. Putin, who must step down next year after two consecutive terms, has called corruption one of the most acute problems facing the country.
The Public Chamber, an advisory body of leading members of society appointed by Putin, this month called it “a national security threat.”

TITLE: U.S.-Russia Rhetoric Reaches New Low Point
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The war of words between Moscow and Washington resumed on Wednesday with a senior U.S. intelligence official accusing the Kremlin of backsliding on democracy and Russia’s chief diplomat accusing the White House of unilateralism.
“The march for democracy has taken a step back,” national intelligence director Michael McConnell said Monday at a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Reuters reported. “And now there are more arrangements to control the process and the populace and the parties and so on, to the point of picking the next leader of Russia.”
McConnell added: “As Russia moves toward a presidential election in March 2008, succession maneuvering has intensified and increasingly dominates Russian domestic and foreign policy.”
The hearing focused on global threats to U.S. national security. McConnell’s remarks were posted on the U.S. Senate committee’s web site. McConnell also said President Vladimir Putin is now surrounded by “extremely conservative” advisers who are suspicious of the United States.
Earlier in February, Putin told a security conference in Munich that U.S. unilateralism threatens global stability and that plans for a U.S. missile system — parts of which would be based in Eastern Europe — were a threat to Russia.
McConnell said Russia had been emboldened by its robust economy to pursue foreign policy goals that “are not always consistent with those of Western institutions.”

TITLE: Vladivostok Mayor Forced From Office by Investigation
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The mayor of Vladivostok was suspended by a regional court Wednesday, removing him from office during an investigation into accusations of embezzlement, national media reported.
The Mayor’s Office in Vladivostok has been beset with scandal. One incumbent was sacked in a Kremlin power struggle, while another is on trial for a financial deal sealed without due process.
Prosecutors suspect Nikolayev of funding his bodyguards from the city’s coffers, using police cars for private escort duty and flying within Russia and abroad on expensive charter planes, Russia’s First Channel television said.
“The reason given for this court ruling is that … Nikolayev, by using his position, could apply psychological pressure on deputy directors of organizations who … could provide explanations that would suit the investigators,” Nikolayev’s lawyer Olga Korovina told the channel.
The suspended mayor said he was innocent.
“All those facts that were presented in court are completely made up,” he told NTV television.
Besides Nikolayev, one of his deputies and other senior city officials are under investigation for embezzlement, RIA-Novosti reported. The mayor and his subordinates are suspected of stealing $3.8 million, including more than $3 million that had been intended for city coffers.
About 500 people gathered in central Vladivostok to support Nikolayev, Interfax said. Television showed them holding banners reading: “Hands off the mayor.”

TITLE: Luzhkov Repeats Anti-Gay Stance
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Mayor Yury Luzhkov on Wednesday reiterated his opposition to gay-pride parades in Moscow.
“The issue is not about discrimination or persecution, but it does concern propaganda,” Luzhkov said. “Homosexual propaganda is unacceptable in Moscow because most in society do not accept the practices of this untraditional sexual orientation.”
Speaking at a meeting of big-city mayors, Luzhkov was greeted with a wave of criticism from mayors and protesters alike.
The meeting included mayors from Berlin, Paris, London and Beijing.
Luzhkov has repeatedly vowed to make sure that no gay parades or other gay-rights events are held in the capital.
He has even referred to such parades as “satanic.”
Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has criticized Luzhkov’s stance.

TITLE: Japan, Russia Aim to Tighten Links
AUTHOR: By Chisa Fujioka
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TOKYO — Japan and Russia agreed to bolster economic ties in energy and other industries Wednesday as they sought to resolve a territorial dispute that has weighed on diplomatic relations for decades.
Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, wrapping up a two-day visit to Tokyo, called on Japanese businesses to invest more in Russia, quelling concerns over issues such as administrative red tape.
“We are prepared to deal with and resolve various concerns,” he told a news conference through an interpreter. “We are working in line with plans to resolve issues of bureaucracy, corruption and lack of law enforcement.”
The feud over the sparsely populated islands known as the Northern Territories in Japan and Kuril Islands in Russia has prevented Moscow and Tokyo from signing a peace treaty more than 60 years after the end of World War II.
But the two sides have been trying to deepen ties, with Russia keen for funds to develop its regions in the Far East and Japan eager to tap Russia’s booming oil industry to reduce its reliance on the Middle East for its energy needs.
Trade between Russia and Japan totaled $13.7 billion last year — just six percent of Japan’s trade with China. 
Fradkov headed a large delegation from Russia, including several Cabinet ministers and corporate executives, for discussions on a broad range of cooperation that led to a flurry of deals.
Japan agreed to provide guarantees on syndicated loans to build a new terminal at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport, while Japanese truck maker Isuzu Motors will consider forming a joint venture to produce and sell trucks in Russia.
Isuzu said in a statement that it had agreed with Russian partner Severstal-Avto and Japanese trading company Sojitz Holdings to consider forming a joint venture to produce and sell trucks in Russia.
Isuzu last year consigned production of light-duty trucks to Severstal-Avto unit UAZ in Russia, but output at the plant in Ulyanovsk has approached maximum capacity.
Sojitz, Japan’s sixth-biggest trading company, supplies parts to the plant. 
Isuzu currently supplies knockdown kits to UAZ with an aim to boost annual production to 10,000 units within three years. It has said volumes could eventually reach 30,000 units.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while stressing there was room to increase trade and investment, said the two sides should work to resolve their territorial dispute.

TITLE: TKT Targets Local Broadband Boom
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg Cable Television Company (TKT) has announced plans to take on the leaders in the local broadband market. Focusing on a business that still has huge growth potential, TKT managers hope to triple the number of subscribers this year, they said at a press conference Tuesday.
Despite the fact that broadcasting still generates 80 percent of total revenue, TKT managers see the Internet as the area with the most growth potential. Broadband provides $20 average revenue per user, while broadcasting provides only $12.
“This is a strategic market for us. At the beginning of 2006 we served 1,700 subscribers. But we increased our market share from five percent to 15 percent last year. This year we expect to get 60,000 new subscribers,” said Ruslan Yevseyev, commercial director of TKT.
TKT has over 25,000 broadband subscribers. About 40 percent of households in St. Petersburg could afford high-speed Internet, while actual penetration is only 15 percent to 20 percent, depending on the district, Yevseyev said.
Tatiana Tolmatcheva, analyst at iKS-Consulting, said that according to preliminary data, by the end of 2006 TKT held 18 percent of the market, it was the third biggest player after Northwest Telecom (36 percent) and Web Plus (30 percent).
The broadband market grew considerably from 60,000 subscribers to 140,000 subscribers last year, increasing by over 2.3 times.
“This year the market share of TKT will depend on their technical abilities, on modernization of the network. If they modernize it, they will get a competitive advantage compared to Web Plus. Web Plus uses Northwest Telecom infrastructure, which promotes its own brand,” Tolmatcheva said.
“Considering the growth rate, TKT was on the second place last year after Northwest Telecom,” she said.
TKT has invested $40 million into the fiber-optic network. This year TKT will invest $10 million.
“We will expand our network. All the districts will be covered with our own broadcasting,” said Sergei Kalugin, general director of National Cable Networks, a holding company for TKT, which also manages broadband and cable television operators in Moscow and Moscow Oblast, Yekateribburg, Novosibirsk and Kurgan.
TKT increased revenue by 34 percent up to 826 million rubles last year. However because of considerable investment net profit accounted for 93.1 million rubles, a decrease compared to 2005.
This year TKT managers expect to enjoy the benefits of previous investments and increase revenue by 30 percent and net profit — by 80 percent.
Competitors are also eager to keep pace with the market development.
According to the 2007 budget, Northwest Telecom will invest 5.753 billion rubles into development (26.2 percent of revenue) focusing on new services including broadband.
The company expects to increase revenue by 8.2 percent this year up to 21.921 million rubles.
Northwest Telecom expects that the new services will provide 2.479 billion rubles (11.3 percent of the total revenue). It will be a 40 percent increase on 2006 figures.
Web Plus will invest about $7 million into development this year, Victoria Kulibanova, head of PR department at Web Plus, said.
The company increased revenue by 8.3 percent up to $26 million last year. Corporate clients provided $80 average revenue per user and individual clients provided $28. Last year Web Plus had 41,000 ADSL subscribers. This year the company expects to increase their number by 50 percent. Web Plus plans to include 1,100 new residential houses into its “home networks.”
Also Web Plus will develop Wi-Fi and create 120 Internet spots in business centers. Besides broadband, TKT uses its fiber-optic network for digital television broadcasting. This year TKT plans to get 10,000 new subscribers. Last year the company got 9,000 new subscribers increasing the total number up to 15,500. Yevseyev estimated the TKT share in paid television services market at 38 percent.
As for core services, TKT serves about 1.2 million apartments in St. Petersburg. Most of them (870,000 people) subscribed to a so-called “expanded social package” — terrestrial television channels and 15 satellite channels delivered by the cable network. TKT estimates the potential market at 1.56 million households.

TITLE: Powerful Choice
AUTHOR: By Yuriy Humber
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia is considering giving companies that generate power a choice between guaranteed sales and regulated prices or selling at free-market prices, when the state-run utility, Unified Energy System, breaks up.
The generating companies may sell electricity to the power grid, which will be run by a separate company after the breakup, at regulated volumes and prices, and earn cash from state payments for providing more capacity when it’s needed, said Nikolai Morilov, the head of strategy at the Urals-based generator OGK-5. Or they may find clients and negotiate price and volume on their own.
“We favor concluding our own contracts on the day-ahead electricity spot market, and will opt for this should the state publish the system along those lines,’’ Morilov said yesterday during a visit to OGK-5’s Konakovsk power plant.
The state is expected to announce a final version of the capacity-payment rules by June, with the possibility of the first capacity auctions between September and December, Morilov said. 
The capacity system works through a systems operator, which matches the volume of electricity needed by consumers with the output from power plants. The state can then pay plants to work at additional capacity in the event demand exceeds forecast.

TITLE: LUKoil Incentives To Expand
Baltic Port
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — LUKoil, Russia’s biggest oil producer and refiner, received tax breaks and promises of support from the Leningrad region for projects to build filling stations and expand capacity at the Vysotsk terminal on the Baltic Sea.
The Leningrad region will promote LUKoil’s plans to expand the terminal and rail links with federal and regional regulators and support the company as it buys land to build filling stations, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
LUKoil is considering a $150 million project to expand the Vysotsk terminal to load as much as 15 million tons of oil products per year, Interfax reported, citing CEO Vagit Alekperov in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. 
The terminal’s current project capacity is 11.6 million tons.
The Leningrad administration will also draft bills that would lower the profit tax rate to 13.5 percent from 17.5 percent for companies that invest in projects to increase oil products supplies to the region, LUKoil said in the statement. 
Companies benefiting from the tax break would also be expected to spend half of the amount saved on social and sports projects.

TITLE: Mitvol Targets TNK-BP  Kovykta License
AUTHOR: By Miriam Elder
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — TNK-BP headed closer to a standoff with Russian authorities Wednesday as a senior environmental official called for the company’s main production license to be revoked.
Oleg Mitvol, the deputy head of the Natural Resources Ministry’s environmental agency, said TNK-BP’s license for the Kovykta gas field in east Siberia should be revoked since the company was failing to fulfill its terms.
TNK-BP subsidiary Rusia Petroleum is obliged to produce 9 billion cubic meters of gas per year, but it has been producing less than 1 bcm to supply local markets after Gazprom blocked the construction of a pipeline to export markets in Asia.
“A promise is a guarantee in any country,” Mitvol said by telephone. “If you don’t fulfill your license, then the license must be taken away.”
Mitvol’s agency does not have the power to revoke licenses. But the outspoken official is seen as the public face of a state campaign to scoop up oil and gas assets. After he threatened to sideline Sakhalin-2 over purported environmental violations last year, project operator Shell and its Japanese partners sold a 51 percent stake to Gazprom. President Vladimir Putin has since said all environmental problems have been corrected.
TNK-BP and Gazprom currently are negotiating Gazprom’s entry into Kovykta, which is estimated to hold 1.9 trillion cubic meters of gas.
TNK-BP spokeswoman Marina Dracheva reiterated the company’s position that while it could produce 9 bcm per year, there was not enough demand. She said demand in the area, Irkutsk, would only reach 2.5 bcm by 2009.
Without access to Gazprom’s closely guarded export pipeline monopoly, many firms operating in Russia are constrained to limit supply.
Mitvol’s statements came a day after TNK-BP said Gazprom had nearly halved the amount of gas it would allow TNK-BP to ship through its pipelines from the Achimov field in west Siberia. Gazprom allotted TNK-BP subsidiary Rospan 2.5 bcm last year, but just 1.7 bcm this year, Dracheva said. 
In another development, outgoing BP CEO Lord Browne and Tony Hayward, his replacement, were in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with government officials and firms.
Aside from seeking entry into Kovykta, Gazprom has also said it is interested in buying the 50 percent stake of TNK-BP’s Russian shareholders when a clause obliging them to maintain ownership runs out this year. A TNK-BP official said the clause was due to expire at the end of 2007.
Gazprom may also be interested in a potentially large gas field just 100 kilometers from Kovykta’s boundary that was recently registered by an unknown company named Petromir, Vedomosti reported Wednesday. Petromir is headed by a businessman named Anatoly Oruzhev, and registered offshore on the Channel Island of Guernsey, the paper said. It cited a Gazprom source as saying Oruzhev had offered to sell the field to Gazprom for $500 million.
Petromir estimates that the Angaro-Lunskoye field holds 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas, with proven reserves of 1.5 billion, but many, including Mitvol, are questioning those figures.
“This company has drilled only one well and put 1.5 bcm on their balance sheet. It’s physically impossible,” Mitvol said.
Also Wednesday, Tyumen Deputy Governor Alexander Moor said TNK-BP planned to invest $3.5 billion over the next three years to develop fields in Uvat, Tyumen region, Interfax reported.
Dracheva declined to comment on the report, citing legal limitations ahead of an upcoming eurobond issue.

N?Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry will begin ecological checks at Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Sakhalin-1 project on March 28, Interfax reported, citing Oleg Mitvol, the deputy head of the ministry’s environmental inspectorate. Exxon runs the oil and gas development together with the Russian state oil company Rosneft.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Tax Amnesty</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia will get between $5 billion and $8 billion in extra revenue from a personal tax amnesty, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported Thursday, citing AlexanderKogan, a member of the Duma’s budget and taxes committee.
Russia’s first-ever tax amnesty allows people to legalize undeclared income earned before 2007, the official state newspaper said.
Individuals must transfer 13 percent of their undeclared income to a special account of the Federal Treasury to be pardoned for tax avoidance, the newspaper said, citing Yury Vasilyev, chairman of the budget and taxes committee. People already charges with tax avoidance aren’t eligible for the amnesty, Vasilyev said, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported.

<b>Mazeikiu Profit</b>
VILNIUS (Bloomberg) — AB Mazeikiu Nafta, the only oil refinery in the Baltic States, said profit fell 78 percent last year after a fire cut production and crude supplies by pipeline were halted.
Net income fell to 192 million litai ($73.5 million), compared with 887.8 million litai in 2005, the company said on its web site Thursday. Revenue rose to 11.9 billion litai, compared with 11.2 billion litai in the previous year.
Mazeikiu had to cut production by half after a fire in October. The refiner also stopped getting Russian crude through the Druzhba pipeline in July after an oil link sprung a leak near the Belarus border, forcing the company to rely on imports through a sea terminal.

<b>Entertaining Blavatnik </b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Leonard Blavatnik’s Access Industries Holdings LLC acquired 6.1 percent in CTC Media Inc., which controls Russia’s No. 4 television network by market share, to benefit from the country’s growing advertising market.
Access Industries bought 9.2 million shares, Nasdaq-listed CTC Media said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late Wednesday. The shares rose 3.5 percent in New York Sunday to $21.10, valuing the company at $3.2 billion.

<b>United Shipyards</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia plans to unite its shipyards into four state-controlled companies as the government seeks to consolidate the nation’s ship-building industry, Kommersant reported.
Two of the companies will be based in the far north, one in St. Petersburg and one in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, the Moscow-based newspaper said Thursday, citing government documents. The yards have $12 billion in orders until 2015, Kommersant said.
The state has yet to discuss its plans with owners, the newspaper reported.

<b>Sual Hush</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Brian Gilbertson, president of Sual Group, declined to confirm or deny a report in the Financial Times that he’s leaving the aluminum producer after a dispute with company owner Viktor Vekselberg.
Sual is combining with Russian Aluminium and the alumina assets of Glencore International AG and Gilbertson was expected to become chairman of the combined group. Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska, Rusal’s owner, decided Wednesday that Gilbertson should leave once the transaction is completed this month, the FT said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

TITLE: Splitting From and Over Europe
AUTHOR: By Maria Ordzhonikidze and Lev Gudkov
TEXT: The majority of Russians don’t think of themselves as European but as representatives of a different civilization. Many are actually afraid of Europe and don’t share what are generally considered to be European values, and this is leading to a sense of alienation from Europe. These were the results of an opinion poll from December by the Levada Center and commissioned by the EU-Russia Center.
A full 71 percent of those surveyed didn’t think of themselves as Europeans, and almost half (45 percent) consider Europe to be a potential threat (compared with 37 percent who did not see such a threat and 18 percent who were unable to answer). Of those who thought of the European Union as a threat, 39 percent identified the danger they believe it poses to Russian economic and industrial independence, 24 percent cited the danger associated with the imposition of a foreign culture, 24 feared the threat it posed to Russian political independence and, closing out the list, 13 percent identified the EU as a military threat.
This sense of alienation is also evident with regard to what are broadly considered European values: democracy, civil rights and market capitalism. 
Only 16 percent of those surveyed identified the “Western model” of democracy as the ideal (this same figure was 25 percent in 1996) and 35 percent said that they “prefer the Soviet system before the 1990s.” Another 30 percent of those surveyed said that Western democracy “wasn’t suitable for Russia” and 12 percent said it has had a “devastating effect on Russia.”
Negative concepts like chaos, demagoguery and pointless chattering were most often associated with democracy by people from the lowest income groups (19 percent, or more than three times higher than the number for high-income respondents), among those with lower levels of education (23 percent, but just 4 percent among students and 9 percent among those with university educations), and more often in rural areas (15 percent, compared with 4 percent in Moscow). Positive associations were most often registered by the young, entrepreneurs, civil servants and members of law enforcement agencies. Perhaps most striking, 65 percent of those surveyed were unable to provide an answer as to what they understood “liberal democracy” to mean.
An understanding of a separation of powers was practically absent among those surveyed. Asked whether the activities of the judiciary and legislative branches should be under the control of the executive branch, an absolute majority of those surveyed answered that the judiciary (56 percent) and legislative (54 percent) branches should be at least to some extent.
Asked to label a group of concepts generally associated with democratic values as either positive or negative, just 33 percent chose the word “freedom” as positive, while 44 percent said they were positively predisposed to the idea of “private property” and 49 percent to that of “defending human rights.” A large number of respondents chose capitalism (40 percent) and privatization (36 percent) as having a negative association. It is interesting that the processes of privatization and accumulation of large personal fortunes continue to become less legitimate in the public consciousness. At the beginning of the 1990s, about one quarter of those surveyed believed it was possible to earn a million rubles honestly. By 2006, this number had fallen to just 13 percent.
The distribution of the answers in the survey bore little dependency to the place where they lived, so regional identification appeared to have no bearing on attitudes related to Europe. Seventy-five percent of respondents consider Russia to be a Eurasian state with its own particular path of development and its own values. Just 10 percent said that Russia is part of the West and should look for closer ties with the EU countries and the United States.
How can we reconcile these numbers with the rhetoric of those in power toward their Western partners about the concept of pan-European partnership or who, like President Vladimir Putin, call Russia “a historically and culturally … integral part of Europe?”
It seems that in the 21st century, just as in the 18th, Russia’s ruling elites are far more Europeanized than the population as a whole. Peter the Great’s order that the boyars shave their beards and don European clothing; the never-ending arguments between Westernizers and Slavophiles; the Decembrist movement; the planting of Marxist economic theories in Russian soil; and finally the capitalist modernization of the rotting Soviet economy — each of these initiatives from the top has been met, if not passive resistance from the masses, then at least with increasing ambivalence.
This is reflected in the fact that 94 percent of those surveyed said they “don’t have any influence on the current situation” in the country or that their influence was “relatively small” or even “too small’ (13 percent and 18 percent, respectively). Those who said that they exercised a “deciding” or “ significant” influence on the path of their lives and the country numbered just over 2 percent.
Directly related to this is a very low sense of responsibility among respondents for what happens in the country. This is the case for the overwhelming majority of respondents (82 percent: 39 percent feeling “little” or “very little” responsibility and 43 percent said they felt no responsibility at all). Russians appear to have reconciled themselves to the idea that all significant decisions in the country are made independently of their opinion. 
The result is growing political apathy, as 17 percent of those surveyed said they would not vote in State Duma elections this December, 11 percent that they had yet to decide whether to vote and 23 percent said they were undecided for whom they would vote.
The worsening of Russian attitudes toward Europe and its basic values is an alarming indicator, revealing the insufficient (if not completely absent) effort on the part of the elites looking for Russian integration into a European system of values. 
The absence of a sense of responsibility among Russians for what is happening in the country, the average person’s willingness to accept at face value the explanation of decisions as necessary by those on television, and attitudes of suspicion toward ideas like the separation of powers bear witness to the widening gulf in values between Russia and Europe.
This political passivity on the part of the public provides ruling elites with significant freedom to carry through a more Westernized policy line than the majority of Russians actually support. At the same time, the public’s strong refusal to accept European values limits the government’s ability to follow a pro-Western foreign policy line, just as it acts as a brake on the introduction of further reforms to strengthen the market economy and further the democratization process. This split has been one of the main determinants of Russia’s foreign and domestic policy course over the last seven years.

Maria Ordzhonikidze is senior secretary of the EU-Russia Center and Lev Gudkov the director of the Levada Center. This comment appeared in Vedomosti.

TITLE: Don’t Fear the Spinach
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: In the book “Emperors of Illusions,” author Sergei Lukyanenko tells the story of aliens who study Earth and conclude that humans are unable to reproduce without spinach. Accordingly, they employ a bacteriological weapon that eliminates spinach from the face of the Earth. Humanity nevertheless survives.
Watching reports of the latest U.S. shenanigans on state-run Channel One television always reminds me of spinach. It is rich in vitamins, of course, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot survive without it. Of course the United States is acting impudently by installing an anti-ballistic missile defense system in Poland. But that doesn’t mean Russian security will actually be compromised.
But the media here are attributing the missile plan to aggression, not impudence. The chief of the General Staff, General Yury Baluyevsky, said Russia may respond by backing out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. And Strategic Missile Forces commander Nikolai Solovtsov threatened to retarget Russian missiles at Poland if the anti-missile battery is installed. At a recent security conference in Munich, President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia would respond “asymmetrically” to the American anti-missile defense system, “but it is of no significance to Russia, because it employs weapons Russia can overcome.”
The 10 proposed anti-missile batteries in Poland would, however, only intercept missiles passing over the country. Let Putin, Baluyevsky and Solovtsov explain how these could stop Russian missiles targeted at the United States, which would have to leave the Earth’s atmosphere and follow the shortest route available, over the North Pole. Even if, for the sake of argument, these missiles were a threat, this raises a whole series of questions.
First, if there is such a threat to Russia, does it make sense to choose a former furniture store director as defense minister? 
Second, instead of arguing over what could happen in space, shouldn’t we focus on terrestrial issues instead? How about Belarus, which falls within Russia’s zone of strategic interests? Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko survives on Russian patronage and uses this to his advantage whenever possible. Is our military capable of seizing the pipelines in Belarus the next time Lukashenko starts illegally siphoning oil? I’m not suggesting we start a war with Belarus: Wars are best won by never starting them. But if we had at least a plan regarding Belarus, Lukashenko wouldn’t be wiping his boots on Russia.
Finally, does anyone remember that the treaty Baluyevsky is talking about was signed by a Soviet Union much more powerful militarily than modern Russia because it understood it couldn’t counter U.S. Pershing missiles in Europe? Now, when the United States’ military budget of $518 billion is twice the size of Russia’s gross domestic product, we are talking about dumping the treaty.
The reality is that the United States is not threatening Russia. The more awkward truth is that Washington does not see any need to reckon with Russia at all. Unfortunately, this opinion is shared by a number of countries. North Korea did not warn Moscow before test firing rockets last year — two of which reportedly landed in Russian territorial waters — although it always warns China ahead of such maneuvers. Tehran doesn’t really take Moscow seriously either, although it still expects Moscow to back it up in the UN Security Council.
Russia’s interests are not taken seriously inside the country either — not by the business community, soldiers, bureaucrats or the justice system. Even the Kremlin has other priorities, including a policy vis-a-vis Europe with the main goal of filling Gazprom’s coffers.
Given this situation, it’s not hard to understand why Washington wouldn’t be too concerned about what Russia feels is in its interests.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.

TITLE: Through the fire
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Sean Lennon is not the type of musician that feels under pressure to release an album and tour every year — what has taken him back into the studio and on the road in the last year was a tragedy. 
“Friendly Fire,” Lennon’s second album — after his 1998 debut — began as a form of therapy for the trauma Lennon went through when his girlfriend, as he revealed in various interviews, left him for his best friend, who was killed in a motorcycle accident soon after, before Lennon had had a chance to be reconciled with him.
“You’re dead meat, dead meat,” repeats Lennon on the opening track of his sorrowful but tuneful album, released on Capitol Records in October. Lennon is now promoting the record on the European leg of a world tour that comes to Moscow on Tuesday and St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
“It’s kind of like a conceptual record, and all of the songs are sort of about one story, which is, you know, the story of a relationship that becomes kind of a triangle and eventually disintegrates. It’s a tragic love story,” said Lennon, speaking by phone from a hotel in Munich. Lennon sounded happy about being on the road again, after a hiatus. 
“I’m playing some shows in countries I’ve never been to, like the Czech Republic and Croatia, which was interesting,” he said.
“I also got to go to Sicily, which was nice, and generally I’m having a lot of fun on this tour, because it’s a different time of my life… I’ve toured a lot before [but] it’s better now, because I feel I have more experience and I know how to enjoy what I’m doing.”
At 31, Lennon has found himself facing a mixed audience. “Generally it seems to be pretty diverse, you know, there’s a lot of kids and there’s a lot of middle-aged people as well, it’s kind of mixed, you know,” he said.
Based on “Friendly Fire” (including “Would I Be the One,” the obscure Marc Bolan song that Lennon covered on the album), the concert set also features some new songs and some songs from Lennon’s first album, “Into the Sun,” he said.
Lennon’s tour band features keyboard player Yuka Honda, with whom Lennon first collaborated in 1997 when he joined the New York-based Japanese female duo Cibo Matto that consisted of Honda and vocalist Miho Hatori. Honda also produced Lennon’s debut “Into the Sun.”
According to Lennon, his backing band, which also includes Cameron Greider on guitar, Brad Albetta on bass and Bill Dobrow on drums, is more of a real rock band than a group of hired hands.
“It’s a new band but it feels more like a band [rather] than some kind of business relationship,” he said. 
“The people that are playing with me are my friends, and they are very, very talented.”
Lennon describes his latest, self-produced album as a more mature work than his 1998 debut.
“Well, I think that the record that I made when I was younger was much more free-form, it was almost like a stream of consciousness, and I wrote a lot of the songs in a studio,” he said.
“I was trying to go for an aesthetic of unfinished and home-made music, because I liked that sort of feeling of something that was home-made. With the new record, it’s a little more adult. I sort of tied up all the loose ends. It feels more like a complete finished product.”
The son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon was born in New York on Oct. 9, 1975. He studied at private boarding schools in Switzerland and in New York.
Lennon’s early music influence was the 1950s rock and roll records that his father played to him. He also frequently cites the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson’s solo work as influences.
“Of course, I look to the past, because a lot of the master songwriters are from the past, but I also like a lot of modern writers as well, and I think that my music is sort of the result of my influences, which range from the Beach Boys to Guided by Voices to Cole Porter. I have a lot of influences. So I think all of that kind of comes out in the music.”
The length of the album is comparable to some of the great albums of the past. While some acts are happy to cram 80 minutes of sound on a CD, “Friendly Fire” lasts 38 minutes.
“I like the traditional length of an album, 30-40-minutes long…and I think that that’s a good format to tell a certain musical story. And I like that form in terms of the way that you can develop and resolve a story, a musical story,” he said.
“But I think sometimes if you go on for 70 minutes or 80 minutes, your brain starts to get tired and you don’t want to listen to it anymore. You can’t pay attention for so long.”
But, with the advent of compact discs, something has gone — that split of a vinyl record into two parts, Side One and Side Two.
“We did lose it. But I actually think of a record still as Side A and Side B, it’s like a play in two acts, and I like a two-act play or a three-act play. I tend not to like one-act plays,” said Lennon.
Based in New York, Lennon is reluctant to speak about the “New York scene.”
“I don’t know, it’s hard to identify scenes, especially if you’re living there,” he said. “I have a lot of friends who play music in New York, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t know, I don’t feel like I represent anything necessarily.
“There’s good musicians that live in New York, there’s John Zorn, and then there’s The Strokes, and there’s Regina Spektor, and Rufus Wainwright lives there… There’s a lot of good musicians but I don’t think they’re making New York music. I mean Regina Spektor doesn’t make New York music, really. Maybe she does… And Rufus doesn’t really make New York music. But you know, they’re living there, so I don’t know if that makes them ‘New York,’ I don’t really know what ‘New York’ means.When I think of New York music, I think of the Velvet Underground and, like, Charles Mingus or something. You know, Miles Davis or something. But I don’t really think about that.”
Speaking of his literary tastes, Lennon singled out Vladimir Nabokov, citing “Ada” and “Pale Fire” as his favorite novels.
“I definitely love Nabokov, but I don’t think he’s Russian. I mean he is Russian but he’s not really a Russian writer like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. I do like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but I prefer Vladimir Nabokov. Nabokov is my favorite writer of all time.”
Untypically, “Friendly Fire” is accompanied by a full-length film that was shown at the Raindance Film Festival in London last year as well as at a selection of theaters in France and the U.S.
“I just didn’t want to make a regular music video, because I felt like it wasn’t something that made sense for me. I wanted to make an art film instead, you know. It’s as simple as it was, the idea,” he said citing Werner Herzog, Federico Fellini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Cocteau, Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean Renoir, Louis Bunuel and Woody Allen as his favorite directors.
Lennon, whose drawings are used in the film’s animation sequences, is also responsible for the album’s artwork. 
“I do it not because… Not just because I’m an egomaniac, but mainly because I enjoy making everything, you know. It’s more fun for me.”

Sean Lennon performs at 
Baltiisky Dom, 4 Aleksandrovsky Park. Tel: 232-3539, on Wednesday. 
<i>www.seanonolennon.com</i>

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: <b>Tsypa</b> called it quits and threw a farewell party on Saturday. Translated as “Chick,” the bar was launched last year as one of the several indie disco bars set on repeating the success of Datscha. 
“It’s because of a maniac who lives opposite,” said a DJ source close to Tsypa.
“He has double glazing, but he would open his window, tape the noise and film drunken visitors leaving with his video camera. Then he would take it to the prosecutor’s office.”
According to the source, for the owner — who hopes to reopen Tsypa at another location — “it was easier to close the place, than to deal with the complaints.”
The music bar Mix closed because of similar reasons, in December.
Rumors about <b>Novus</b> reopening at its old location are untrue, according to founder Denis Cherevichny. The place, located on the second floor above a bistro, closed after the state sanitary inspectorate visited Novus and found out that it did not officially exist. 
“The place is in reality registered as a technical school canteen and has no right to work at night,” said Cherevichny, who now runs Mod club.
However, he said that he is considering opening a bar next door to Mod and might call it Novus. “The place actually looks like Novus, with two rooms, two floors and a ladder,” he said. “But there is a lot of work to be done, it won’t open until May.”
Moscow’s club B1 Maximum, which has held gigs by Ian Brown, Brett Anderson, Starsailor, Maximo Park and Art Brut, among others, announced that it will host a “special semi-acoustic performance” by <b>Noel Gallagher</b> of <b>Oasis</b>. Gallagher, who will be backed by Oasis’ guitarist Gem, will perform on March 23.
Meanwhile, the year’s first real concert in St. Petersburg by a more or less relevant international artist will be by <b>Sean Lennon</b> performing at Baltiisky Dom on Wednesday. <b>Yoko Ono</b> was reported to be planning to go to Moscow on Monday to check out her son’s Moscow show. See interview, pages i and ii.
<b>Puressence</b>, an indie-rock band from near Manchester, will perform at Maina on Saturday.
The four-member band was formed in 1992 by fans of football and The Stone Roses. Although the band’s most recent album was in 2002, Puressence will release its next CD later this year. The album’s first single, “Palisades,” came out in December.
The week’s other highlights include punk poet/vocalist <b>Alexei Nikonov</b> of PTVP, or Posledniye Tanki v Parizhe, teaming up with the electronic band <b>Yolochniye Igrushki</b>, also known as EU. The unlikely collaboration will perform at Revolution on Friday.
Check out <b>Spitfire</b> (Orlandina, Friday), <b>J.D. and the Blenders</b> (Tsokol, Saturday), <b>Dobranotch</b> (Fish Fabrique, Wednesday), <b>Iva Nova</b> (Manhattan, Thursday) and <b>Kolibri</b> (Tsokol, Thursday).

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Cradle of revolutions
AUTHOR: By Olga Sharapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This year marks the 90th anniversary of the February Revolution in Russia — not to be confused with the Bolshevik Revolution of October that year — which put an end to the Romanov Dynasty’s controversial three-hundred-year reign and promised highly anticipated democratic modernization of the country. Lenin in turn put an end to that outcome with his Bolshevik coup. 
St. Petersburg’s Museum of Political History of Russia is commemorating the February Revolution by tracing step by step the events of that turbulent February with an exhibit: “February 1917: Chronology of the Fall of the Monarchy in Russia.” 
Authentic archival material such as telegrams, photographs, and decrees, bear witness to the judicial, social and visual transformation of Russia and illuminates the past in the light of current events. 
Meanwhile, the museum is also celebrating its 100th anniversary. Since 1907, the museum has had several names indicating the vast political changes that have occurred in Russia. When the museum was created, it was called the Museum of the Revolution — referring in this case to the 1905 Revolution which brought about some reforms to the way the Russian Empire was run such as the creation of workers councils, or soviets. 
As noted by Dr. Olga Kokh, vice-director for public relations for the museum, the objective of the first organizers of the museum (who included Maxim Gorky, the playwright, and Anatoly Lunacharsky, later to become the first Soviet People’s Commissar of Enlightenment or Culture Minister), was to create a collection reflecting a new kind of revolution, not only political, art and cultural, but also in biology and other fields of knowledge.
During the 1930s and 1940s as the power of Joseph Stalin increased and he took full control over all areas of Soviet life, most of the heads of the museum were purged.  The museum was renamed The Museum of the Great October Revolution.
The first permanent home of the growing collection was the Winter Palace, which is now fully occupied by the collection of the State Hermitage Museum. From 1957 onward, it was housed in the magnificent modernist mansions belonging to Matilda Kshesinskaya, designed in 1906, and of Baron V. Brant, designed in 1909.  
Kshesinskaya was a prima-ballerina at the Mariinsky Theater, and the lover of Tsar Nicholas II, the last tsar, and his cousin Grand Prince Andrei Vladimirovich with whom she had a son. Kshesinskaya was a strong and charming woman who became one of the significant figures of high society in pre-Revolutionary Russia. The Kshesinsky Mansion is also famous as the house where in 1917, the Bolshevik headquarters were located and Lenin had an office.  
Today the museum is restored to its original decor and houses displays of Revolutionary banners, a large collection of original posters, sculptures and unique propaganda porcelain. There is a dish with the slogan “Lenin is Dead, But His Cause is Alive” from 1924, the year Lenin died, and plates by Altman such as that declaring “Land to the Workers” from 1920. 
Some commemorative porcelain is more recent, such as that marking the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project joint space mission between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1970s. 
The gap between the official portrait the Soviet state painted of itself with endless utopian propaganda and the everyday life of the Soviet people became bigger and bigger as the years passed.  The museum’s key display — “The Soviet Epoch: Between Utopia and Reality” (Man and Power in the USSR: 1917-1985) — is a combined display about the machinations of the state and people’s everyday life in families, in the streets, and at work.  The kitchen of a communal apartment and a barracks for builders of giant plants envisioned in the state’s grandiose Five-Year Plans are recreated in the display.
There are sections describing Stalin’s terror and the labor camp system. Accounts of the gulag and dissident movements between 1960 and 1970 form an important part of the exhibition. There are original articles from the prisons and evidence of the prisoner’s underground creative work. The display includes a quilted jacket of a 1970s Soviet political prisoner and unique documents concerning searches in dissidents’ homes, their arrests, and their being taken to mental hospitals; there is also a display of “medical supplies” that were used for “treatment” (torture) of these prisoners.
The museum was given its present name, the State Museum of Political History of Russia, in 1991, and it is the only St. Petersburg museum that reflects the history, events and upheavals of Russian society during the 19th and 20th centuries.  
Www.polithistory.ru

TITLE: The queen of Hollywood
AUTHOR: By Matthew Brown
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russians can take some pride this week that a woman with roots in the country  won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the annual Oscars extravaganza in Hollywood on Sunday. 
British actress Helen Mirren, who was awarded for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen,” was born Yelena Vasiliovna Mironova to an English mother and Russian father in London in 1945.
The granddaughter of an emigre Russian aristocrat, Mirren doesn’t speak Russian and once had a limited awareness of her Russian background. It was not until recently that the actress discovered that her ancestors’ family estate was near the town of Smolensk. 
Mirren’s grandfather, who was in the tsarist army and came from an old military family on both sides, died when Helen was seven years old. Her Russian grandmother died later but it was her grandfather who dreamed of coming back to Russia and found it very painful to be away from his home country after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 stranded him in Britain. Her father, on the other hand, tried to have as little to do with the country of his birth as possible and called himself Basil, the Anglicized version of his Russian name Vasily.
“Since the 1930’s, my father became very left-wing in England as a reaction against fascism, conflicting with his father who believed in the tsar and that whole system in Russia,” Mirren told The St. Petersburg Times in 2004. “So [my father] just wanted to forget about Russia and the family house there and all related things. “
That Mirren now knows more about her Russian heritage is, surprisingly, thanks to the popular Russian actor Oleg Menshikov. 
For years Mirren had her grandfather’s papers, letters and documents with her but couldn’t read them as they are all in Russian.
“I have only recently started having them translated,” she said. “I was working on [the TV series] ‘Prime Suspect’ in England, and Oleg Menshikov was in it, acting with me. He had a Russian translator working with him on the set to help him with his English. I  told the translator that I had all these papers, and asked if he would be able to translate them for me. And he said yes. And it sort of opened the door.”
Her childhood image of Russia was romantic. Mirren loved to look at a photograph of her Russian grandfather in the snow outside the family home near Smolensk. 
“There were his brothers and sisters in that picture as well, and the troika, and it looked to me exactly like something out of Chekhov,” Mirren said. “So I had a very romantic vision of the country, all to do with snow, troika, vodka, paskha and bells — not remotely to do with the reality at all.” 
On a trip to Russia three years ago, the actress couldn’t find the graves of her ancestors at the Vagankovskoye cemetery in Moscow but a visit to the Kremlin proved more successful in tracing the family connection. 
“It was at a great hall at the Kremlin, and on the walls they had the names of all the generals, field-marshals and heroes who fought in all the wars,” she said. “And I know that my great-great-great-great-grandfather was field-marshal Kamensky, one of the heroes of the Napoleonic wars.” 
Mirren’s connection to Russia goes further — she met her husband, American film maker Taylor Hackford, when he directed her in “White Nights” in 1985, which was set in the U.S.S.R. (but filmed mostly in Finland) and starred Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov as a defector. Mirren played a Leningrad ballerina once in love with Baryshnikov. 
And one of her first notable film roles was playing cosmonaut Tanya Kirbuk in the 1984 movie “2010” — the follow-up to “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Mirren’s forte, however, has been to play quintessentially British characters with a provocative twist — from Shakespearean roles such as Lady Macbeth to the detective Jane Tennison in “Prime Suspect.” Two of Mirren’s most memorable films are Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” (1989) and “Calendar Girls” (2004). But playing British queens has proved particularly fruitful for Mirren. As well as playing Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen,” she played Queen Elizabeth I on television last year — earning the actress the  distinction of receiving two Golden Globe awards in the same year for portraying distantly-related monarchs. Mirren also earned her first Oscar nomination in 1994 for playing Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III in “The Madness of King George.”
Fittingly, Mirren — who is styled as Dame Helen, the female version of “Sir” after receiving a state award for services to acting in 2003 — paid tribute to the real Queen Elizabeth when she was awarded the Oscar for playing her this week. 
“For 50 years, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, sense of duty — and her hairstyle,” said Mirren.
Saluting the monarch’s “courage and consistency,” Mirren raised her award and told the audience: “I thank her because if it wasn’t for her I most certainly would not be here. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Queen!”

“The Queen,” dubbed into Russian, is showing at St. Petersburg cinemas this week. See Screens listing, page xii.

TITLE: Suomi sounds
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The kantele, an ancient Finnish folk instrument, arrived in St. Petersburg on Tuesday for the opening concert of a festival of Finnish music  at the Carnival Concert Hall.
Suomi Music 2007 — The Year of Finnish Music marks the 90th anniversary of Finland’s independence from Russia.
Finland is frequently referred to by Russians as a country of a thousand lakes. Rephrasing this popular slogan, Helena Autio-Meloni, director of the Finnish Institute in St. Petersburg, said her home country will soon be acknowledged in Russia as “a country of a thousand songs.”
Having a kantele performance at the festival opening was a meaningful gesture.
As Finland’s famous national epic, the Kalevala, has it, the first kantele was made by the epic’s central character Vainamoinen from the jawbone of a pike and hair from a horse belonging to the demon Hiisi. He nicknamed it “the pikebone harp.” When the hero lost the magical kantele, which no-one else could play, he cried and his tears turned to amber. The kantele is regarded as a key Finnish emblem.
Mythological versions aside, the kantele — also often played in Karelia — is a distant relative of the gusli, a Russian folk instrument played by Sadko in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera of the same name.
Finnish musicians play both the traditional five-string kantele and an electric kantele which has 39 strings. The modern version of the instrument was invented in the 1990s by Hannu Koistinen and has been widely used to perform jazz and rock, in addition to folk music ever since. 
In the first half of the 20th century the kantele featured prominently in  the country’s musical culture, with many Finns possessing their own instruments.
“Finland is a blessed land for music festivals, with countless styles and performers of all genres and calibers,” Autio-Meloni said. “I am convinced that its music and musical legacy reflects well the theme of Finland’s independence. Music is the very thing that captures the Finnish cultural identity, while it also unites all the ethnic and cultural minorities, from Finland’s Swedes to the Saami people.”
In St. Petersburg, knowledge of Finnish music is not limited to the work of romantic composer Jean Sibelius, a long-standing favourite of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.
Classical music audiences are already familiar with the distinguished Savonlinna Opera Festival, one of the oldest and finest operatic events in Europe, held at the romatic medieval castle Olavinlinna each summer.
Finnish-born conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, currently music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, has been enthusiastic about coming to the city. His music has been performed at the Mariinsky Theater in recent years during Valery Gergiev’s prestigious Stars of the White Nights Festival.
And nobody can forget the Finnish joke band Lordi who won the 2006 Eurovision contest by beating Russian heartthrob Dima Bilan into second place.
Likewise, Suomi Music 2007 will feature a diverse range of performances showcasing Finnish musical talent. 
After Tuesday’s opening concert, the next in the series takes place on March 9. Concertgoers will be treated to “Songs of Jor and Sorrow,” a performance by Finnish female vocalists in the Sheremetev Palace.
April will see a performance by the rising rap star Mikkal Morottaja, also known as Amoc, who gained fame for bridging American rap culture with Nordic culture and the language of Inari, one of the Saami languages.
“Morottaja sings in one of the planet’s rarest languages,” wrote Helsingin Sanomat in an article in February. “The Saami language of the Inari region [Inari is actually the Finnish name for the community] was already under threat of extinction. It is spoken by only 300-400 people in Inari and in the villages surrounding Lake Inari. But better times are on the way: children are learning the language in day care, it is used in school, and now it can be listened to even in rap songs.”
Singing in a rare language has its benefits. “You can use sarcasm as well, you can slam other rappers in secret,” the singer told Helsinging Sanomat. “When you rap you can express what you happen to feel, even criticise someone’s mother, and you are not supposed to take it seriously.” 

www.suomimusic.ru, www.instfin.ru

TITLE: The puppet masters
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kozlov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: At the end of 2006, the Russian publishing industry was puzzled to learn that many of the year’s bestseller lists were topped by the debut novel of a then-unknown author, 31-year-old Sergei Minayev. His book, “Dukhless” — the title is an invented half-Russian, half-English term that loosely translates as “soulless” — told the story of a cynical executive at a large multinational corporation. Written in a plain and rather clumsy style, it was dismissed by many critics as trash. But after hearing that it had sold more than 500,000 copies within nine months of its release, many began to discuss the “Dukhless” phenomenon.
It’s a phenomenon that’s especially impressive when one considers that Minayev, a successful entrepreneur in the liquor business, never had any formal literary training; prior to “Dukhless,” his writing experience was limited to essays and magazine columns. In any case, he is now busy presenting his second book, “Media Sapiens,” which is focused on the mass media and their impact on today’s Russia.
 “I had long been interested in the mass media, ever since I read [media theorist Marshall] McLuhan during my university years,” Minayev said in an interview last week. “But in this book, I’m not really revealing any specific secrets of media spin doctors. Their methods are simple; they focus on appeals to basic human emotions, such as fear or hatred. With this book, I wanted to raise among my readers indignation at, and even disgust with, the mass media.” The writer added that it took him almost one year to research his novel, since neither he nor his business had ever been involved with the media industry.
“Media Sapiens” is subtitled “A Tale of the Third Term,” a reference to the often-discussed possibility that President Vladimir Putin may run for a third term once his current one expires in 2008. The protagonist is Anton Drozdikov, a spin doctor who has been fired from his job at the Foundation for Effective Politics (a real-life pro-Kremlin think tank in Moscow) for submitting slightly updated speeches by Joseph Goebbels to the politicians he was supposed to be working for. At a time almost exactly coinciding with the book’s release date — February 2007 — Drozdikov is hired by a fictional anti-Kremlin organization to coordinate all of its media activities. Armed with major financial resources, he uses all kinds of shameless media tricks to promote the opposition’s case.
“Since the state controls all major information resources, it wasn’t interesting for me to put the main character in the pro-Kremlin camp,” Minayev said. “In that case, you have to work with large media channels, which is quite simple. My character, however, operates ‘tactical media’ such as newspapers, the Internet or fake documentaries, and he has to be much more ingenious. And the book shows that the size of a media channel does not always matter. What matters is the idea, and most of the ideas are based on scaring the audience.”
The detailed, cynical descriptions of anti-Kremlin PR tactics, which include such tricks as faking an attack on an opposition activist or paying off the participants in a protest, may lead some readers to think that Minayev has taken sides in the dispute between pro-Kremlin forces and the Russian opposition. But the writer denied having any political allegiance. “Overall, the book is not about politics,” he said. “It’s about mass media as a third mind, which can operate by itself, even though politicians and spin doctors think that they’re manipulating it.”
Another central idea of the book, the writer said, is the stupidity of both the mass media (which “feeds the audience the same stuff on a daily basis, like a clockwork toy”) and its audience (which “eats it with a big spoon, without really thinking”).
One noticeable element of “Media Sapiens” is the presence of real-life organizations alongside the fictional ones. Besides the Foundation for Effective Politics, one can find references to media outlets like Ekho Moskvy radio and Kommersant. There are also references to well-known events such as the mini-banking crisis of 2004, which led Alfa Bank to sue the Kommersant publishing house, claiming that the newspaper had smeared its reputation. Minayev described the 2004 events as a media campaign. “I remember that crisis very well,” he said. “I believe that another, smaller bank was actually the target of that information war, but they used Alfa to create more media buzz around it.” The writer claimed that a story in “Media Sapiens” about the deliberately engineered collapse of the fictional bank Zeus is based on a true story in which a bank was destroyed using the guestbook of the Banker.ru web site. “I included this in the novel to show that a financial crisis could also be staged with such simple tools,” he said.
In terms of style, “Media Sapiens” doesn’t differ substantially from “Dukhless,” but the author believes that both books’ rugged language is an advantage rather than a flaw. “It may well be that this ruggedness of language was one of the reasons why ‘Dukhless’ was so successful,” Minayev said. He added that good timing and the right readership were the other factors contributing to its success. “The book hit the right audience, namely, office clerks — a very numerous group, as well as active Internet users and advertising people,” he concluded.
Minayev shrugged off rumors that huge amounts of cash were invested in the “Dukhless” promotion campaign. “The only investment the publisher made in the promotion of the book was the printing of posters, which maybe cost $500 or $1,000,” he said. “All the interest in the book was generated exclusively in blogs, and this was the first precedent when a book initially gained popularity on the Internet, and then all that popularity went beyond the Internet and onto the streets.” The author didn’t deny his own contribution to spreading the word about “Dukhless” on the Internet, as he was a well-known blogger long before he finished his debut novel. “When we announced the publication of the book, information began to spread on the web very quickly, and of course, we didn’t pay anything to anyone for this kind of promotion.” Overall, Minayev said he would never invest any of his own cash in the promotion of his books, preferring to keep his business and literary endeavors separate.
“At the very beginning, I had very clear answers to two major questions,” he explained. “First, I knew that if the book fell through, I wouldn’t write anything else, and second, I knew that I wouldn’t turn my writing into a business. I’ve been in the wine business long enough and I’ve been quite successful, and I don’t want to approach writing, my hobby, the same way as I approach my business.”
Minayev insisted that “Dukhless” was not about “glamour” or “anti-glamour,” labels that critics stuck to the book. Rather, he said, it was about the crisis of a human being in the environment of a large multinational corporation. “In business, politics or anything, the dominating factor is the individual,” he said. “And the main ideology of multinational corporations is that a brand will always be superior to the individual, and at some point we could come to that, when people begin to believe it. And they probably will, because if they hear from the television for a long enough time that bread tastes worse than pure buckwheat, they will begin to believe it.” 
“Dukhless” and “Media Sapiens” are published by AST. Vladimir Kozlov is a Moscow-based fiction author, journalist and filmmaker.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Published: February 22, 2007	
Last Saturday, Channel One unveiled its latest project, a freak show called “A Minute of Fame.” Did I say freak show? Sorry, I meant talent contest. It’s a fine line and this show sometimes set its limbo-dancing pole a fraction too low. 
The idea of the show is that contestants from all over Russia have two minutes in which to impress judges with their particular talent. (I guess “Two Minutes of Fame” just didn’t have the right ring to it as a title.) Each judge has a button that he or she can press to stop the act. If all three press their buttons, the contestant has to slink off shamefacedly. If even one judge likes the act, the contestant goes through to the next round.
The judges are singing State Duma Deputy Iosif Kobzon, intellectual novelist Tatyana Tolstaya and the long-standing host of the student comedy show “KVN,” Alexander Maslyakov. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but Kobzon is Simon Cowell on this show. While the other judges agonized over whether to let several contestants through, he simply barked, “No, of course not.” And, to be fair, he was right.
 The good cop is doe-eyed presenter Garik Martirosyan, who made his name as a stand-up comic on TNT’s “Comedy Club” and has now broken into the mainstream. At one point, he begged the judges to approve a contestant who did comedy routines, saying he would write him some scripts himself. Nice offer, but some more jokes wouldn’t go amiss in your own routine, Garik, especially since the show feels about as long as a Dostoevsky novel.
The contestants were shown at the beginning of the show arriving in a special bus at Rechnoi Station in northern Moscow. Apparently they are all going to live on a riverboat there, honing their individual talents until they get knocked out. Or until the snake charmer’s cobra makes a break for freedom, whichever happens first.
Yes, Denis and his cobra made it through to the next round, although Tolstaya didn’t like it when he drank the snake’s venom. Also in the next round is 2 1/2-year-old Mark, who lisped the answers to arithmetic questions dictated by his mother. Perhaps the show’s makers will take pity on him and give him a decent haircut. Why do child geniuses have to have mullets?
My personal favorite was Alexander, a train driver from Omsk who plays the saxophone while standing on one hand. Perhaps not the most useful skill in the world, but obviously one that took hours of practice, carefully fitted around the elektrichka timetable. And Alexander had the kind of beaming smile that used to get you a job as a cosmonaut. 
I predict him to be the next president.
But some contestants were obviously just cannon fodder, such as the elderly sisters who worked at a kindergarten near Domodedovo Airport and fancied themselves singers. OK, they were terrible and had probably just never heard their voices over the aircraft noise, but why show them up in front of an audience of millions? Then there was the tone-deaf policeman who sang a Spanish love song with ostrich-feathered dancing girls. It’s not a popular profession, but still, have a heart. 
It was also hard to understand why there were constant requests for viewers to send (paid) text messages to support the contestants, since the judges were apparently making all the decisions. I will give the channel the benefit of the doubt and assume the votes will be used later. Nevertheless, this reminded me of a moment of honesty on TNT’s “Comedy Club” when the presenter told viewers to vote for the stand-up comics, saying that the votes wouldn’t change anything, but “we want the money.”

TITLE: Pass the port
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Lisboa
45 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 570 1974
Open daily 11 a.m. — 2 p.m.
Credit cards not accepted currently
Menu in English and in Russian
Dinner for two with alcohol: 2,100 rubles ($80.30)
Lisboa is situated in the cellar of a beautiful mansion, designed by Auguste de Montferrand and is only a street away from one of the most famous creations of the same architect, St. Isaac’s Cathedral. The restaurant’s central location together with its real log-burning fire and atmosphere of tranquility (the place is only a month-old and therefore is not very well-known) makes it quite a good place for tourists in the mood for romance. 
As the name suggest, Lisboa is a restaurant serving Portuguese cuisine and claims to be the only place in the city focusing on the food of Portugal.
But if you don’t know anything about the Portuguese cuisine, this is not the place to find out. Firstly, because the waiters won’t tell you anything. 
The level of ignorance amazed even those of us who has been living in the city all our lives, and are thus used to the general lack of  professional knowledge among the majority of St. Petersburg’s waiting staff. 
The waitress who served our table wasn’t even aware that a side order of creamed cauliflower (80 rubles, $3) was supposed come on the side of the main dish. 
In our case, it was meant to accompany the traditional bacalhau (salted cod burgers for 290 rubles, $11). It was delivered 15 minutes later after we assured the waitress, that yes, we did indeed want it served together with the main course.
The burgers, half-made of potatoes, (tender and quite interesting), came by mistake too. What we really wanted was the 690 rubles ($26.40) dish of black cod — a speciality from the southern hemisphere — recommended to us by the Lisboa’s manager, who kept on appearing in front of the table quite randomly, sorting out the waitress crisis. 
According to Wikipedia, a popular web-based encyclopedia, “Portuguese cuisine is characterised by rich, filling and full-flavoured dishes and is a prime example of Mediterranean diet.” It’s hard to believe, after visiting Lisboa. 
Fancy-sounding shrimp soup-puree for 250 rubles ($9.60) turned out to be a sloppy yellowish liquid. The rabbit soup for 180 rubles ($6.90) was not only a less expensive option but was also slightly less disappointing. If you are into small pieces of rabbit meat, tomato sauce and salt, then the soup is just made for you to try. 
Poultry is another specialty of the cuisine. But the chance of trying chargrilled chicken (280 rubles, $10.70) did not materialize. The restaurant had run out of it — a big surprise, considering the restaurant was empty. 
Chicken wings for the same price, suggested as a swap for the grilled chicken was quite a good option, but only if you are on a diet — they were dry and much too healthy looking. If the chef doesn’t try to save on dressing and seasoning, the meal might win popularity of those who don’t fanatically watch their waistlines.
The same goes for desserts. A dry mass with egg proudly called Portuguese cake (150 rubles, $5.70) is best avoided.
Nevertheless, in Lisboa, you will feel at home. Nevermind that the hosts can’t cook or are not very good at cleaning the lavatory. At least everyone smiles, the fire is burning and a glass or two of good old port (Porto Cruz Vintage, 300 rubles, $11.40 is a good option) and  good company will make all the blunders less important.

TITLE: Doing battle
AUTHOR: By Leo Mourzenko
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russian mainstream cinema is taking one giant leap after another. Just a few years ago any production that involved more than one visual effect caused a commotion  — but look at the industry now: for the second time this year, two big crowed-pleasers are released simultaneously. 
It hasn’t even been a full month since fantasy epic “Volkodav” beat glamorous comedy “Zhara” in the holiday season box-office battle, yet now there’s another bout between a pseudo-historical epic “The Sovereign’s Servant” and sci-fi action-flick “Paragraph 78.” 
The cumulative gross of the January frontrunners exceeded $35 million and if the current clash of blockbusters ends up taking a similar impressive amount the Russian film industry will have good reason to celebrate.
Both “The Sovereign’s Servant” and “Paragraph 78” have two uniting majors flaws, they both are quite silly and unoriginal, but at the same time both try hard to amuse and entertain.
“Paragraph 78,” an action flick about a team of action-figure-like studs plus one ex-pop singer, is derived from every videogame-based movie, from “Resident Evil” to “Doom,” even though it’s based on a short story by Ivan Okhlobistin; “The Sovereign’s Servant,” based on authentic memoirs and historical events from the 18th century, is derived from every single movie ever made, with maybe the exception of “Resident Evil” and “Doom.”
In “Paragraph 78” a diverse group of multitalented individuals with very evocative names, such as Spam and Festival, breaks apart due to a disagreement with the leader of the pack named Goodwin (Gosha Kuzenko). The relevance of this backstory is questionable because in spite of the supposedly serious clash none of the members of the rescue gang show any sign of hesitation when Goodwin shows up a few years later to reassemble the squad. The only shadow upon this exciting class reunion comes from a girl, cherchez la femme, so to speak.  The girl, nicknamed Fox (Anastasia Slanevskaya, formerly known as Slava), used to be with the guy nicknamed Skif (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) but over the years developed a liking for Goodwin. Now they all need to fight evil and trouble is in the air. The group takes on the risky mission of saving the world and flies in a chopper that drops them off on a mysterious island where a secret WMD lab has run into trouble. 
In “The Sovereign’s Servant,” meanwhile, two bewigged and powdered chevaliers get into a duel. Louis XIV says “cherchez la femme” and fires a shot. La femme happens to be a lady in waiting for whom the aged king has the hots, so he decides to get rid of both potential rivals by sending them away: chevalier De La Bouche (Valery Malikov) to Charles XII of Sweden; chevalier De Brese (Dmitry Miller) to Peter I of Russia. Prior to departure chevalier De Brese breezes into la femme’s bedroom and we are shown exactly how courtiers kissed goodbye in 1709. The necessity of this backstory is even more than questionable than that in “Paragraph 78” because what fits into two sentences unravels for almost 40 minutes and there’s no other way to explain it other than that writer/director Oleg Ryaskov wanted everyone in the audience to realize that he did actually go to France and really liked it there. Chevalier De Breze however doesn’t dare to go against Louis XIV and leaves the director’s favored location to embark on a risky and valiant journey to help the Russians win a war against Swedes, thus probably saving the world.
The two feature films, both alike in dignity, try to compensate for the lack of originality by going out of their way to create eye-candy images — and they succeed. “Paragraph 78” has some kickin’ visual effects and very-well choreographed stunts. “The Sovereign’s Servant” does a really good job squeezing the best out the southern Russia landscapes, boasts scenes shot in Versailles and demonstrates technical achievements in depicting battle scenes with more than 1,000 extras.     
Their mutual trouble is silliness.
In “Paragraph 78” this problem matters little due to the overall structure of the movie where character development isn’t required. The film however manages to seriously impress you with ridiculously shameless product placement and the most God-awful acting ever since Natalie Portman finished her Star Wars career.  
The silliness of vital script elements is more apparent in “The Sovereign’s Servant” where the main character has absolutely no motivation to be in any way involved with Russian wars; still he fights as if Marianne was right behind him. Moreover, it remains unclear who is the sovereign’s servant because DeBrese befriends heroic Russian warrior Danila Voronov (Alexander Bukharov) — who was born in a village that came out of a yogurt commercial and who looks like a beatnik dressed as a wardrobe man at the Mariinksy — but the guy is clearly a supporting character. What did the French guy do to become a servant of the Russian emperor is a mystery. 
The same is true of what exactly happened at the WMD lab in the other movie — although that story is set to be resolved in “Paragraph 78 Part II” which hits screens in a month.

TITLE: Asian Markets Still in Retreat After Plunge
AUTHOR: By Hans Greimel
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO — Major Asian stock markets retreated for a third session Thursday amid persistent unease about the global economy, while European markets opened cautiously higher after a rebound on Wall Street that was buttressed by upbeat comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. 
Shares in Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia all retreated mildly, while the Shanghai market — whose plunge Tuesday triggered a global sell-off — fell 2.91 percent.
But markets in the Philippines and New Zealand rebounded.
The losses across much of Asia underlined lingering worries about the outlook for the U.S. and global economy as well as overvalued stock prices. While analysts said the global jolt was most likely a correction to cool surging markets, some said market volatility could persist for months.
In Europe, the U.K. benchmark FTSE 100 rose 0.3 percent to 6,191.2, while France’s CAC 40 gained 0.16 to 5,525.37. Germany’s DAX Index added 0.09 percent to 6,721.64.
But Asia, the epicenter of the meltdown, is seen as especially vulnerable because its markets have surged in recent months and its export-oriented economies rely heavily on U.S. demand.
“Asia and Japan are highly dependent on the U.S. economy,” said Shun Maruyama, an equity strategist with Credit Suisse in Tokyo. “Stocks need some more time to return to a rising trend.”
On the region’s biggest bourse, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index fell 150.61 points, or 0.86 percent, to finish at 17,453.51 after being down by as much as 1.5 percent.
Hong Kong stocks fell 1.6 percent, while Malaysia’s key index sank 1.3 pecent. Australian shares shed 0.4 percent and Singapore closed down 0.4 percent.
In Taiwan, which was closed Wednesday and missed the market selloff, the benchmark index plunged 2.8 percent.
On mainland China, stocks continued their roller-coaster ride, with the Shanghai Composite Index falling 2.9 percent to close at 2,797.19 on Thursday. The index had tumbled 8.8 percent Tuesday, sparking a global financial market sell-off, before rebounding nearly 4 percent Wednesday.
Troubles began Tuesday as investors unloaded Chinese shares to lock in profits amid speculation about a fresh round of austerity measures from Beijing to slow the nation’s sizzling economy. 
The selling later spread to Europe and New York.

TITLE: China Mulls 2018 World Bid
AUTHOR: By Ryan Mills and James Cone
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: China, hosting next year’s Olympic Games, is considering a bid to stage the soccer World Cup in 2018, a move that may pit it against countries including England, Australia and the U.S., FIFA President Sepp Blatter said. 
China hosted the inaugural women’s version of soccer’s showpiece in 1991 and is set to put on this year’s event from Sept. 10-30. The national team’s only appearance in the men’s tournament was in 2002, when Japan and South Korea staged the event for the first time in Asia. 
“You can already see what they did with the women’s World Cup, they turned it into a great show,’’ Blatter told reporters today in London. “But I’m not a prophet. I can’t see where the World Cup is going.’’ 
A call to China’s General Administration of Sport wasn’t returned. 
FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, will decide in November which confederation will stage the 2018 tournament. After Germany was awarded last year’s edition, Blatter said the quadrennial event would be rotated around the confederations. The 2010 World Cup is set for South Africa, with South America’s Brazil or Colombia likely to stage the 2014 edition. 
Post-2014 remains to be decided. If each confederation is allowed a turn, the tournament would probably return in 2018 to north and central America, which won’t have staged it since the U.S. did so in 1994, Blatter said in an interview. 

Rotation Problems 
It may be, however, that the U.S. is viewed as part of the Americas, in which case the World Cup may pass to Asia, which would include Australia after it left Oceania to join that confederation, Blatter said. FIFA’s 24-member executive committee, of whom eight are European, may also decide to scrap rotation and allow any capable country to play host, Blatter said. 
“My own personal thinking is that we should consider the rotation as a privilege of all confederations as long as the conditions are guaranteed,’’ said Blatter, who will stand for re-election later this year. “On strict procedure, that’s north and central America — probably Mexico, the U.S. or Canada.’’ 
The U.K. government this month said it would back an England bid after a feasibility study found the country has the infrastructure and public support needed to stage the most-watched event in sports. Blatter today met U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Sports Minister Richard Caborn and Football Association Chairman Geoff Thompson to discuss the possibility of England staging a competition it won on home soil in 1966. 

Political Enthusiasm 
“There is absolute enthusiasm in the political authorities in England’’ to host the World Cup, Blatter said. “More so than in the F.A., because the F.A. knows that it’s not so easy.’’ 
Gianluca Vialli, who played in two World Cups for Italy, said it would be good if “football is coming home’’ to England, where he spent almost six years as a player and manager. 
“There is a fantastic infrastructure, there’d be a great atmosphere, financially they’re secure and it is where football was invented,’’ Vialli said in an interview. 
Even if the tournament were to return to Europe, Blatter pointed out that England wasn’t guaranteed the competition. 
“What about Russia?’’ he said. “Europe doesn’t stop with the European Union.’’ 
FIFA requires between eight and 12 venues with a capacity of at least 40,000 people, among other criteria. The opening match, semifinals and final must take place in an arena that can hold a minimum of 60,000. 

Wembley 
English teams have invested about 2 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) in all-seat stadiums in the past 15 years, according to accountancy firm Deloitte & Touche LLP, and the new national stadium at Wembley, northwest London, is also almost completed. 
Italian teams are currently updating arenas after violence resulted in the death of a policeman at Catania on Feb. 2. 
“England is a great example of how comfort and security in stadiums can be ensured,’’ said Blatter, adding that England would be ready to stage the World Cup tomorrow. “This is a huge point for England should the competition come back to Europe.’’ 
Of 18 World Cups since 1930, 10 have been in Europe and six in Latin America, with the U.S. and Asia each staging the event once. 
Africa will host the tournament for the first time in 2010. Blatter dismissed news reports that South Africa wouldn’t be ready to stage the event, adding that the greater number of African teams, due to the host nation qualifying as of right, would increase the chances of a first champion from the continent.

TITLE: Wenger Calls 
Linesman A Liar
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has accused a League Cup final linesman of lying and called on Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard to tell the truth about a clash with Emmanuel Adebayor, British media reported on Thursday.
The comments, which could land Wenger in trouble with the FA, followed a brawl in his team’s defeat on Sunday which prompted three red cards and led to charges for both clubs, Adebayor and team-mate Emmanuel Eboue.
“I don’t agree with the report of the linesman because, for me, he lies,” Wenger was quoted saying after Arsenal’s 1-0 FA Cup fifth round defeat at Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday.
“Adebayor didn’t punch anybody. So when the linesman says he punches someone, he lies.
“I would like you to ask Lampard if he was punched. And I want him to say the truth. If it is ‘yes’, we will accept it.
“But we have watched it on microscope and, if you can see Adebayor punching Lampard, I would like you to show me.”
Adebayor missed the Blackburn game as he has begun an automatic three-match suspension for being red-carded.
He risks further punishment after being charged with reacting aggressively and failing to leave the pitch immediately on Sunday.
“We have lost players (through suspension) for three or four games and Adebayor would definitely have played for us against Blackburn if he were available,” Wenger said. 
In further developments, Thursday, Frank Lampard’s agent said Adebayor did not punch his player, while the FA has said it will ask Wenger to explain his accusations.

TITLE: Copenhagen Hit by Riots, 75 Arrested
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: COPENHAGEN — Danish police arrested at least 75 people in Copenhagen on Thursday in violent street clashes after authorities evicted squatters from a youth center, a police spokesman said. 
Scores of demonstrators threw cobblestones at police and set makeshift barricades on fire. Officers in riot gear chased protesters through the streets as police vans smashed through the barricades.
Copenhagen police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said authorities had the house under control after a morning raid which saw officers land in helicopters on the building roof.
“Now a lot of gangsters are rioting in the streets, building barriers, throwing bottles and so on,” he said.
“It is a bit confusing right now. We are trying to control the area and prevent new riots.”
The conflict over the youth center has been simmering since 2000 when local government sold the building that houses the center to a religious group. Left-wing activists have been using the center as a base since 1982.

TITLE: Short-Handed Suns Succumb
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Andre Iguodala scored 24 points, Willie Green had 20 and the Philadelphia 76ers never trailed Wednesday night in a 99-94 victory against the Phoenix Suns, who lost on the road to an Eastern Conference team for the first time.
The Suns won their first 14 on the road against East teams, but lost in their bid to become the first team to sweep its nonconference road games. It was also the first time this season the Suns failed to even hold a lead.
“We didn’t want them to get the streak against us,” Iguodala said.
With the Suns playing without Shawn Marion and Boris Diaw, the 76ers were able to pull off their most impressive victory of a mostly miserable season.
Amare Stoudemire had 31 points and 14 rebounds, and Steve Nash scored 23 points for the Suns. Marion sat out his first game of the season because of a bruised right hand and bruised left quadriceps. Diaw had back spasms.
The Suns joined the only other team that finished with one road loss in nonconference games: The 1982-83 76ers, who went on to win the N.B.A. championship. The star point guard on that title team was Maurice Cheeks, the 76ers’ coach.
The 76ers came out in the first playing more like Phoenix, surprising the Suns with one of their highest-scoring quarters of the season (35 points). Leandro Barbosa tried his best to spoil a rare Philadelphia celebration. His 3-pointer made the score 84-84 with 4 minutes 27 seconds left, the first time Phoenix tied the score. Andre Miller hit a go-ahead jumper from the right wing and Kyle Korver followed with two free throws for Philadelphia.
HEAT 92, WIZARDS 83 Shaquille O’Neal took over the game in the fourth quarter, assuming command of the paint by scoring 10 of his season-high 23 points to lead Miami. 
O’Neal, carrying much of the load while Dwyane Wade is out with a shoulder injury, finished 11 for 17 from the field. He also had 10 rebounds and 4 assists. 
NUGGETS 111, MAGIC 101 Allen Iverson scored 34 points and Carmelo Anthony added 23 to lead Denver at home. 
Linas Kleiza and Eduardo Najera provided sparks off the bench for the Nuggets. Najera scored 17 points on 8-of-9 shooting. Kleiza added 15, including three 3-pointers. 
Dwight Howard led the Magic with 23 points and 12 rebounds, his seventh straight double-double. He now has 42 double-doubles this season, which is second in the league to Minnesota’s Kevin Garnett, who has 50.
HORNETS 107, HAWKS 100 Chris Paul had 24 points, 13 in the fourth quarter, and Tyson Chandler added 18 points and 13 rebounds as New Orleans beat Atlanta in Oklahoma City. Joe Johnson led the Hawks with 27 points. 
New Orleans outscored the Hawks by 30-12 at the free-throw line and sealed the victory by going 7 of 8 from there in the final 32 seconds. 
JAZZ 104, GRIZZLIES 88 Carlos Boozer had 24 points and 16 rebounds, and the reserve Matt Harpring added 25 points to lead visiting Utah.
Pau Gasol led Memphis with 28 points and 13 rebounds. But he had only 6 points after halftime. 
RAPTORS 106, ROCKETS 90 Andrea Bargnani scored 20 points as visiting Toronto built a 20-point lead in the first half and won for the 10th time in 13 games. 
Tracy McGrady scored 22 points for Houston, which has lost four of six.
BULLS 113, WARRIORS 83 Ben Gordon scored 16 of his 22 points in the first quarter and the rookie Tyrus Thomas tied a career high with 14 points to lead host Chicago.

TITLE: Prodi Back as PM?After Senate Vote
AUTHOR: By Silvia Aloisi
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ROME — Romano Prodi won a confidence vote in Italy’s upper house on Wednesday to stay on as prime minister, but an opinion poll suggested his grip on power would remain weak. 
Prodi resigned last week after only nine months in office when some members on the left of his coalition, ranging from Roman Catholics to communists, voted against him in the Senate over foreign policy.
He was given a second chance by President Giorgio Napolitano after he rallied his fractious allies, playing on their fears that his premature political demise would clear the way for former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to return to power.
To stay on, Prodi had to prove he could command enough support in the upper house, where his bloc has a flimsy majority.
He won Wednesday’s vote by 162 votes to 157. Crucially, to avoid opposition protests, he would have had a majority even without the support of four unelected life senators who voted for him.
“We are self-sufficient in every sense of the word, even without the life senators,” Prodi said after the vote. “I am very satisfied.”
Prodi, who last year won the closest election in Italy’s post-war history, now faces a much easier test in the lower house, where he has a comfortable majority.
However, a new poll published on Wednesday gave him little reason to celebrate, suggesting only four in 10 Italians want the center-left leader to stay on.
Most favor a non-partisan technical government or snap elections, according to the poll in the newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Thirty-nine percent said Prodi would last only a couple of months and 22 percent gave him 1-2 years — well short of a complete five-year term.
“Not to sound like party poopers, but unfortunately the question all Italians are asking is still the same, and a very simple one: when, and over what, will the Prodi government fall again?” said an editorial in La Stampa newspaper.
Italy’s electoral law favors small parties and motley coalitions like Prodi’s alliance rather than strong majorities, and is widely blamed for the political instability that has given Italy 61 governments since World War II.
Before the vote, Prodi had promised electoral reform if confirmed in his job.

TITLE: Hiddink Fined For Tax Fraud
AUTHOR: By Svebor Kranjc
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: DEN BOSCH, Netherlands — A Dutch court handed Russia coach Guus Hiddink a six-month suspended sentence and fined him 45,000 euros ($59,270) on Tuesday after finding him guilty of tax fraud.
Hiddink was accused of evading almost 1.4 million euros in Dutch taxes by falsely claiming to be a resident of Belgium in 2002 and 2003.
The court cleared him of tax evasion during 2002, saying the Dutchman may well have intended to go and live in Belgium, but found him guilty for the period of 2003, when he had actually lived with his partner in Amsterdam, and imposed the maximum fine.
“The court reached the conclusion that Hiddink deliberately submitted an incomplete and incorrect tax declaration over 2003,” it said in a statement.
Earlier this month, prosecutors demanded a 10-month prison sentence for Hiddink, who was not in court to hear the verdict, dismissing his claims that he had been living in Belgium, where the tax rate is much lower, as “a joke”.
“Hiddink is glad that the punishment is lower. But nevertheless his image has been damaged,” his lawyer told Dutch news agency ANP.
In explaining its sentence and why it had not sent him to prison, the court said: “The court considered that there already has been a lot of negative publicity around Hiddink.”
From 2000 to 2002, the 60-year-old Dutchman was in charge of the South Korean national side, guiding the World Cup co-hosts to fourth place at the 2002 finals. He then returned to the Netherlands and accepted a coaching job with PSV Eindhoven.
After the 2006 Soccer World Cup in Germany, Hiddink then became the coach of Russia’s national team.
A spokesman for the Russian Football Union said they would consult legal experts on the consequences of the ruling.
“Our main concern is what the suspended sentence means as far as Dutch law is concerned. Would it prevent Hiddink from doing his work or prevent him from traveling, that is what we are concerned about,” he said.
Hiddink’s case came to the attention of Dutch tax fraud inspectors after telephone conversations with a former PSV director were monitored by wire taps in a criminal investigation into the PSV director some years ago.
During the trial Hiddink admitted that he never spent a night in his house in Belgium but also denied that he lived with his girlfriend in Amsterdam.

TITLE: McCain Announces He Will Run For U.S. President in 2008
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator John McCain made it official on Wednesday that he is seeking the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and said he plans a formal announcement in April.
The Arizona Republican, surprising few Americans, made the announcement during an interview on CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman,” which was taped for broadcast late on Wednesday.
“I am announcing that I will be a candidate for President of the United States,” McCain told Letterman.
McCain said he would make a formal announcement in April.
McCain has been on the campaign trail since revealing plans in November to form an exploratory committee, a key step in the campaign fund-raising process.
McCain joins former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney who are leading a large field of Republicans eyeing a 2008 White House run.
A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Giuliani holding a two-to-one advantage over McCain among Republicans nationally.
McCain, who turns 72 in August 2008, is a former Vietnam prisoner of war who stresses his experience in foreign policy and military affairs.
One of President George W. Bush’s key allies in the U.S. Congress on Iraq, McCain called for a troop buildup for months, even after the November election when it looked like the more likely option was the beginning of a U.S. withdrawal. If he was elected president, McCain would be the oldest U.S. leader.

TITLE: Pakistan’s Injured Shoaib, Asif to Miss World Cup
AUTHOR: By Waheed Khan
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KARACHI — Pakistan pace bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif have been ruled out of the World Cup due to injury, a senior cricket board official said on Thursday.
The double withdrawal comes just five months after the pair tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone and were banned by their national board before an appeal panel cleared them to play again.
Shoaib, who has played only one test and four one-dayers since February 2006 due to fitness concerns, has not recovered from the knee injury that forced him to be sent back from South Africa last month.
Asif has been carrying a niggling elbow problem since that tour and the pair were receiving treatment in London, but neither will be fit enough to take part in the tournament in the Caribbean, which starts on March 13.
“The doctors have said they require at least another three weeks to make a complete recovery from their injuries. We couldn’t wait that long,” Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief selector Wasim Bari told reporters.
“Yasir Arafat and Mohammad Sami will be sent as their replacements.”
The loss of the new-ball pair comes as a major setback to Pakistan’s hopes before their opening match against the West Indies on the first day of the tournament.
Captain Inzamam-ul-Haq said his team has not had a perfect build-up with Shoaib and Asif joining all-rounder Abdul Razzaq as high-profile withdrawals from the squad.
“Certainly it is not an ideal situation for us. Losing three experienced players is a big disappointment,” Inzamam said.
“But we just have to manage with the players we have and they are capable of doing well.”
“It is a big blow for us, but I am confident that Yasir Arafat and Mohammad Sami will live up to the expectations,” team coach Bob Woolmer said.
“They will join the team in a week’s time and we hope to overcome our injury problems with a united team effort.”

TESTED POSITIVE
Shoaib and Asif have faced a number of problems since testing positive for the banned substance nandrolone last October in out-of-competition tests carried out by the PCB before the Champions Trophy in India.
Initially, the 31-year-old Shoaib was banned for two years and Asif for one year by a drugs inquiry tribunal, but an appellate panel of the board later exonerated them of doping charges and lifted the suspensions.
The incident led to the Pakistan board holding in-house dope tests for the players and reserves in the World Cup squad.
All the players appeared and passed the tests except Shoaib and Asif, who were being treated for their injuries in Britain.
Sources within the board said the decision to drop the players on the eve of the team’s departure for the West Indies might have come as a result of an unusually strong statement about doping issued by the International Cricket Council on Thursday.
ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed said that Shoaib and Asif could face doping tests as soon as they arrived in the Caribbean for the World Cup.
He also described their continuing to play international cricket as an embarrassment for the sport.
“The ICC had made its position very clear and the board could no longer take a risk of them facing drug problems again in the World Cup,” one source said.
Medical experts say that traces of nandrolone remain in the body for up to six months.
Pakistan media have reported extensively that Shoaib and Asif went to London to have private drugs tests to confirm whether the substance remained in their bodies before the World Cup.

TITLE: White House Candidates Exploit YouTube
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — Top White House candidates unveiled their own YouTube video channels on Thursday, pushing the 18-month-old web video-sharing site even farther into the U.S. political mainstream. 
Google Inc.’s YouTube, best known for short, amusing videos made by users at home, says You Choose ‘08 (www.youtube.com/youchoose) will allow candidates to control how they exchange views with voters.
Democrats including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson have signed up to have their own channels. So have Republicans John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.
They can post a video in which they speak on a given issue while members of the public will be able post a video response or questions for the candidate.
Politicians have the final say about what appears on their channels, but they still may be unable to prevent being caught up in what became known last year as the “macaca” phenomenon.
Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia, lost a closely fought election after getting some unwanted publicity when a video showed up on YouTube of him calling a rival’s staffer “macaca” — an African monkey and sometimes a racial slur. The rival’s staffer was of Indian origin.
Jordan Hoffner, YouTube director of content partnerships, said candidates might get the most benefit from their channels by being as open as possible.
“I think the politicians will be better served by letting the dialogue with the public take over,” said Hoffner. “Our users are very smart and savvy and they can see through something if it’s not genuine.”
U.S. presidential candidates are increasingly taking advantage of online video to get their message out. Both Clinton and Edwards opened their campaigns with online messages to voters.
This week McCain launched a channel on Veoh Networks, a smaller online video rival site to YouTube. Veoh founder Dmitry Shapiro said other politicians would soon be joining the site to establish their own channels.
“We live in a world where people want to hear directly from their politicians and not sound bites filtered by editors. Nobody believes the media is impartial,” Shapiro said.