SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1256 (22), Friday, March 23, 2007
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TITLE: Russia Urges Leniency
Over Iran
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia opposed “excessive” sanctions against its economic partner Iran, as the UN Security Council prepared to debate sanctions meant to curtail Tehran’s uranium-enrichment program.
Lavrov also stressed that Russia had not issued Iran any ultimatums under which Moscow would not deliver nuclear fuel for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant unless Tehran complied with the United Nations’ wishes.
“There is no link whatsoever between the UN resolution … and the implementation of the Bushehr project,” Lavrov said in an address at the State Duma.
European and U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said Tuesday that Moscow had bluntly told Tehran it would not ship fuel for Bushehr until Tehran freezes its uranium enrichment work.
Lavrov dismissed the claims as a “trick.”
“It’s not the first time that we are seeing such an unscrupulous approach aimed at driving a wedge between us and Iran,” he said.
Lavrov said Russia “will not support excessive sanctions against Iran,” adding that a draft resolution on the new sanctions before the Security Council has been softened at Moscow’s behest.
Security Council member nations are hoping to draw Iran back into negotiations over its nuclear program, which the United States and other countries fear is aimed at the development of atomic weapons. Iran says it only wants to generate nuclear power.
Russia has said fuel for the Bushehr plant would not be supplied this month, as had been planned, because of Iranian payment delays. The delays, Moscow says, prompted it to postpone indefinitely the reactor’s launch, which had been set for this September. Russian officials also said the number of workers at Bushehr had dwindled due to the funding shortage.
Iran angrily denied falling behind in payments and accused Russia of caving in to U.S. pressure to take a tougher line. Iranian state television on Tuesday described Russia as an “unreliable partner.”
In his Duma speech, Lavrov also accused Washington of resorting to its old ways in pressuring European states into hosting parts of its anti-missile shield.
“This is how they acted in past times, during the Cold War,” he said, “when they scared everyone with the Soviet threat and persuaded everybody to group together in a disciplined block.”
Washington plans to install warning radars and missile batteries in Poland and the Czech Republic as part of a plan designed to counter future long-range rocket attacks by hostile states such as Iran or North Korea.
Moscow has strongly attacked the plan, saying Iran does not possess long-range missiles and charging that the shield threatens Russia’s security instead.
Lavrov on Wednesday also said Russia does not view the Commonwealth of Independent States as an “integration” tool, noting that some members of the loosely knit group did not sign its charter.
(AP, Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: Chinese Leader to Bring $4Bln in Deals
AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Chinese President Hu Jintao will oversee the signing of $4 billion in deals for oil, ships, buses, steel and real estate during a visit next week that will also kick off Russia’s “Year of China,” officials said Wednesday.
One political accord — a broad joint declaration — will also be signed, but no arms deals will be struck, a Foreign Ministry official said.
Hu’s three-day visit, which starts Monday, reciprocates President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Beijing last March, which kicked off China’s “Year of Russia,” a series of cultural activities.
Although Hu has been a frequent visitor to Russia, this trip will be “special” because the total value of the deals could reach $4 billion, said a lobbyist, citing China’s Commerce Ministry.
“We haven’t had a visit of such magnitude yet,” said Sergei Sanakoyev, head of the Russian-Chinese Center for Trade and Economic Cooperation.
A Foreign Ministry official who helped prepare the visit and put together the deals said: “We need to fill our relations with concrete content.”
“We are proceeding from the fact that there are no large political problems between us that could hamper economic cooperation,” said the official, who asked not be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the visit with the media.
He noted that Moscow and Beijing had resolved their last major political problem in 2004 when they signed an agreement over the 4,300-kilometer border between the two countries.
Citing the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the official Xinhua news agency said Wednesday that the deals would be worth $4.3 billion.
Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui put the figure closer to $2 billion, Reuters reported. Li, speaking to reporters in Beijing, also highlighted the importance of energy cooperation between China and Russia.
The two countries are expected to sign a deal to increase oil deliveries to China by railroad, Sanakoyev said. Last year, Russia delivered only 10 million tons of the 15 million tons of oil it had promised due to technical difficulties, angering the Chinese, he said, adding that the new deal could increase the oil shipments from 25 million tons to 30 million tons by 2010.
Sergei Kharlamov, a trade official with the Russian Embassy in Beijing, said he was aware of the plans to “improve oil supplies by rail” but declined to provide other details. A crude oil pipeline from Siberia to the Pacific Rim feeding China is expected to start in 1 1/2 years. Rosneft spokesman Nikolai Manvelov declined to comment.
The officials did not say whether the two countries would discuss any other energy deals. The Foreign Ministry official said work on the oil pipeline was “going normally.”
Several banking deals also are expected to be signed next week, including one by VTB to receive a $500 million loan from China’s State Development Bank to promote Russian exports to China, the ministry official said.
Sanakoyev said that agreement was likely to be signed in the Kremlin, while a raft of other deals would be signed at an exhibition at the Crocus-Expo center that will be opened by Putin and Hu on Tuesday.
The Chinese bank will also sign a framework agreement with Sberbank and an investment deal with Vneshekonombank to develop the Krasnoyarsk region, the Foreign Ministry official said. Under a similar agreement last year, China became the first foreign investor in Chechnya.
Steel major Novolipetsk, or NMLK, is expected to agree to send almost $500 million in electrotechnical steel to China, Sanakoyev said.
China, in turn, is expected to reach deals to build ships and buses for Russia, Sanakoyev said. Talks are also to be held on a long-running plan to build a $300 million Chinese business center named Huaming in Moscow.
The Foreign Ministry said the visit is largely focused on bolstering economic ties between two countries, which want bilateral trade to more than double to $80 billion by 2010. The ministry official said the single political accord would be a joint declaration touching on major bilateral and international issues. “This is not a breakthrough document,” he said.
He said no arms deals would be signed.
Kommersant, citing no one, reported Wednesday that Defense Minister _Anatoly Serdyukov would go to China on April 2 to sort out issues related to Russia’s arms supplies to China. Serdyukov was charged this week with overseeing military cooperation with China and India, the two biggest buyers of Russian weapons.
A Chinese Embassy spokesman declined to discuss Hu’s visit to Russia.
Hu praised “the all-time high level” of bilateral relations in an interview published Wednesday. “At the same time,” he told Rossiiskaya Gazeta, “we are counting on Russia taking steps to further improve the investment climate and further open up the market.”
During Putin’s visit to China last year, the two nations signed 29 agreements worth around $2.5 billion.
About 150 high-ranking Russian delegations traveled to China last year, said Kharlamov, the Russian Embassy official in Beijing.
Among the “Year of China” activities throughout the year will be tea and coffee festivals, the opening of a summer camp and many groundbreaking ceremonies, according to the Russian-_Chinese Center for Trade and Economic Cooperation.
Chinese young people really warmed up to Russia, a Cold War-era foe, after the “Year of Russia” last year, with 64.5 percent expressing an interest in the country, according to the center. No comparative figures were provided.
As part of the cultural exchange, high-voiced singer Vitas won thousands of Chinese fans by holding several concerts there.
“I love him so much,” a Chinese fan wrote in a recent English-language _posting on one of the singer’s Chinese web sites.
TITLE: Duma Proposes Tough Anti-Drug Law
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: As the State Duma prepares for parliamentary hearings of the controversial draft law that would allow forced treatment of child drug addicts, Russian narcologists are sceptical.
If passed, the bill would enable Russia’s schools to send pupils to treatment centers without their own or their parents’ consent through a specifically set judicial procedure that involves a trial.
Valentina Ivanova, deputy head of the Science and Education Committee of the State Duma is urging her counterparts in the parliament to pass the controversial bill “as soon as humanly possible.”
“We must protect the people around those who take narcotics: on average, one drug user gets a further 12 to 15 novices into it within one year,” Ivanova told a news conference at Rosbalt News Agency on Thursday, stressing that children and teenagers are the most vulnerable group in society in relation to drug addiction. “The next step will be to introduce obligatory tests in schools and other educational organizations.”
According to the Federal Drug Control Service, between 70,000 and 80,000 people die annually in Russia from overdoses and problems related to use of narcotics. At least 1.8 million Russians are officially listed as drug addicts by the organization, while a further 6 million people are said to have experimented with narcotics.
But with only 2,000 narcological clinics at its disposal, Russia’s resources to confront the problem are scarce.
Many Russian narcologists say they are helpless in the face of the problem and decry the lack of a coherent national policy of fighting drug-use.
Yevgeny Krupitsky, chief narcologist of the Leningrad Oblast, called Russian narcology “an ugly phenomenon.”
“Quacks flourish here, and patients are not protected against them,” he said. “At the same time, some state-run research institutions run questionable experimental methods on people. The majority of Russian doctors look with prejudice at treatments offered in Europe and the United States, such as, for example, substitutional theraphy, which is not permitted in only three countries: Russia, North Korea and Kazakhstan.”
Krupitsky argued that since motivation plays an important role in overcoming addiction to narcotics, forcing treatment on patients is doomed.
“The use of punitive therapy back in the Soviet Union had proved inefficient a long time ago, that is why this shameful practice was declared illegal in 1990,” he added.
But Sergei Belogurov, a narcologist with the Center of Innovative Technologies, supports punitive strategies and methods of intimidation to be used against drug-addicts.
The doctor suggest a strategy of “creating problems and obstacles for drug-addicts who refuse to get treated.”
“If they are offered a choice: to serve a term in prison or go on a therapy course, I am sure they would be more willing to go to clinics,” Belogurov explained. “If drug users knew they would encounter problems with keeping their places in schools or universities or finding work, they would reconsider taking drugs.”
Such proposals, which certainly unnerve human rights advocates, also make other doctors uncomfortable.
“Treating a sick man as a criminal and placing them behind bars — let us be honest, forced treatment is equal to prison— is deeply wrong and cannot be permitted,” said Yury Polyakov, head of the psychoneurological department of the St. Petersburg-based Institute of the Human Brain. “We live in a country that claims to be a developing democracy, and we need to make sure that we solve our problems with tools and schemes that do not contradict democratic principles. Punishment without a crime is unacceptable.”
Some of the instutute’s own methods of tackling the problem of drug dependence are not immune to criticism. The institute uses neurosurgery as a solution. Using a cryosurgical technique surgeons freeze the part of the patient’s brain responsible for obsessive conditions and causing their addiction. Several Russian human rights groups have campaigned against the practice.
Importantly, all patients who have this operation consent to it and sign a detailed contract.
“I began using drugs in Chechnya; we were all dead scared and would inject ourselves with whatever crap was available, not hesitating to even use water from dirty ponds to dissolve powder narcotics,” said a male patient in his early twenties who has had the brain surgery and who declined to give his name. “My heroin addiction was progressing, and the operation was the last resort, really. After all the things that I had been through, fear was no longer an issue.”
As Maria Matskevich, a senior researcher with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences points out, the ideologists of the new law make no clear distinction between drug users and drug addicts.
“Not everyone who once used drugs, or even uses narcotics occasionally is a drug addict,” she said. “Needless to say, it would be damaging to stick them all in one boat.”
TITLE: U.S. Says Democracy Under Threat
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS — The U.S. State Department’s point man on Russia on Wednesday said Washington was concerned about democracy under President Vladimir Putin and disappointed over relations with Moscow.
“The trends unfortunately are not going in the right direction,” said David Kramer, U.S. deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs.
“We hope those trends will not continue,” he said.
Kramer spoke to reporters in Brussels ahead of talks with European Union officials to coordinate policy toward Russia and the EU’s other former-Soviet neighbors.
He said Washington’s concerns included an increasing concentration of power in Putin’s Kremlin, growing state influence over the media, the unsolved killings of journalists, pressure on opposition parties and nongovernmental organizations, the arrest of critical business tycoons and continued human rights violations in Chechnya.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Mironov Nominated
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly voted Wednesday to nominate Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov for another term as head of the upper chamber of the federal parliament.
The assembly’s United Russia faction voted to support Mironov’s candidacy even though he heads a rival party, A Just Russia, national news agencies reported Wednesday.
Military Jets Collide
MOSCOW (REUTERS) Two military jets collided Wednesday in southern Russia; the pilots managed to eject, RIA-Novosti reported, citing sources in law enforcement agencies.
The news agency gave no further details of the incident, which apparently happened in the Rostov region. Interfax said MiG-29 fighters were involved.
Sochi Complaint
MOSCOW (SPT) — The Supreme Court rejected a Greenpeace complaint Tuesday contending that the construction of Olympic facilities in Sochi National Park is illegal.
The international environmental group requested that the court ban Sochi’s Federal Target Program, which has made transformation of the Black Sea resort into an international ski destination its No. 1 goal.
Greenpeace spokesman Mikhail Kreindlin said the organization would appeal the decision.
Chechen Damages
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Chechnya’s parliament asked the Russian government to compensate the troubled region for political repression during World War II, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.
The federal budget should provide a one-off payment of $300 million for property seized from Chechens during deportations carried out in 1944 and $384 million in annual damages, the newspaper said, citing documents from Chechnya’s parliament.
TITLE: Police Detain Extremists Over McDonald’s Blast
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG – Six far-right activists were detained in St. Petersburg in connection with a bomb blast at a McDonald’s restaurant, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
The first suspects were detained at the beginning of this week, Interfax quoted a police source as saying.
“In the case of some of the detainees, who pleaded guilty, the court yesterday made a decision to take them into custody,” the source said, adding that a decision about the rest of the group was due to be made later Thursday.
The police suspect the detained group of carrying out the February 18 attack which injured six people, including two children and a 38-year-old German tourist. A bomb went off under a table in a McDonald’s on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Ulitsa Rubinshteina.
According to the police source, all the detainees are members of an extremist group that formed after Dmitry Borobikov, one of the leaders of another extremist group was killed by the police while being arrested last year.
“After this event, several people who support the ideas of the supremacy of the white race united in the memory of their dead friend,” the source told Interfax.
The police source said the group could be responsible for a series of explosions including the bombing of a flower stall near Vladimirskaya metro station. That incident also occurred in February.
At least one home-made bomb amd extremist symbols and literature were discovered during police searches that took place in the detainees’ apartments, Fontanka.ru reported Thursday, quoting the police.
The police said that footage from a surveillance camera in the McDonald’s assisted them in catching the suspects, Fontanka reported. According to the camera footage, the six detainees visited the restaurant 30 minutes before the explosion. The camera also showed the bomb being put under one of the tables, Fontanka reported.
TITLE: Mourners Remember Fire Victims
AUTHOR: By Sergei Venyavsky
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROSTOV-ON-DON — Churches held mourning services Wednesday and people placed flowers outside the smoke-blackened walls of a nursing home in southern Russia where a fire killed 63 people.
A survivor of the blaze died of a heart attack overnight, authorities said. The 66-year-old woman was one of 30 people hospitalized after the fire early Tuesday in the two-story facility in Kamyshevatskaya, a town of 5,000 in the Krasnodar region on the Azov Sea, regional emergency officials said.
State-run television showed freshly dug graves in a cemetery for some of the 26 victims who officials said had no relatives and were being buried by the government.
As authorities and relatives tried to identify the victims, nine of those who died were buried in Kamyshevatskaya at a ceremony attended by about 250 people, local administration chief Vitaly Vorobyov said. One man’s family attended the ceremony, but the other victims had no known surviving relatives.
The country’s fire death rate is high and the country has suffered a number of deadly blazes at schools, dormitories, hospitals and other state-run facilities that have uncovered rampant violations of fire safety rules and official negligence.
It took nearly one hour for firefighters from Yeisk to reach Kamyshevatskaya, whose volunteer fire department was shut down last year, and emergency officials said a fire alarm system had not been fully installed and that actions by nursing home personnel had probably contributed to the high death toll.
On Wednesday, deputies in the State Duma called for an effective probe into the fire as well as into the deadly blast in a Siberian mine, which killed 107 people Monday.
Itar-Tass reported that the Communists suggested inviting Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to appear before the Duma at an upcoming session to face questions about the frequent deadly accidents.
“The question of our citizens’ safety is a political question,” Communist Deputy Anatoly Lokot said, Itar-Tass reported.
The disasters were unlikely to have major political repercussions, however. While many Russians often lay part of the blame for deadly accidents and terror attacks on the authorities, dismissals are usually limited to local or low-level officials, and Putin has retained his popularity despite the persistent problems.
TITLE: 107 Dead, 3 Missing In Mining Blast in Siberia
AUTHOR: By Misha Japaridze
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NOVOKUZNETSK, Kemerovo region — Emergency workers struggled with flooded caverns and flammable gas in their search Wednesday for three miners still missing following an underground explosion that killed at least 107 people.
Flags across the country flew at half-mast, church bells tolled nationwide and television stations took entertainment programming off the air Wednesday, an official day of national mourning over a trio of tragedies: the mine disaster, a nursing home fire that killed 63 and a weekend plane crash that killed six.
A methane explosion ripped through the mine in a coal-rich part of Siberia known as the Kuzbass on Monday, where about 200 workers were underground. Ninety-three made it to the surface safely.
Emergency officials said Wednesday that water, gas and structural damage in the Ulyanovskaya coal mine were slowing the search for those still missing. Crews were considering using pumps to dry out an area where officials believe the miners were trapped, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said.
Divers sent underground covered 50 meters but were unable to go farther because their path was blocked by rubble, Shoigu said. He said authorities had hoped to complete the search Wednesday.
Shoigu also cautioned that it would be impossible to pinpoint quickly the precise cause of the blast, saying it would take at least two weeks to collect data from instruments in the mine that could help determine what happened.
Relatives gathered on Wednesday in a tent outside the main morgue in Novokuznetsk, a few standing at the door as sunshine gave way to a soft snowfall while they waited to be taken in to identify the dead. Sixty-three victims have been identified, said Valery Korchagin, spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry’s regional branch.
The explosion, which was the worst in post-Soviet Russia’s history, highlights the precarious and hazardous state of the country’s mining industry, which fell into disrepair when government subsidies dried up after the Soviet collapse.
TITLE: Man Found Dead Inside Owl Cage
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — A scantily clad, 32-year-old man was found dead early Monday in a pool of blood in an owl cage at the Moscow Zoo.
A bird keeper at the zoo found the man, Alexander Luparev at about 10 a.m., lying in the cage, which is home to a Siberian long-tailed tawny owl.
Luparev, who fixed gas pipes for a living, was wearing only boxer shorts.
Vladimir Zdorenko, deputy prosecutor at the Presnenskaya interdistrict prosecutor’s office, said it was not clear what killed the man —_blood loss from a blow to the head, or freezing to death.
Luparev’s clothes were strewn across the concrete base of the cage. Also found were his documents, an undisclosed amount of money, and a half-empty, one-liter bottle of vodka.
Sometime after midnight, prosecutors believe that Luparev climbed the gates of the staff entrance of the zoo, which is on Krasnaya Presnya Ulitsa, opposite the Krasnopresnenskaya metro station.
Luparev is believed to have been drunk.
He then made his way through the zoo and entered the unlocked owl cage via an unguarded staff entrance. That part of the zoo is not open to visitors. The owl is moved to a display cage during the summer.
At this point, no one quite knows what happened. Luparev apparently hit his head on the ground — possibly following an altercation with the owl — and fell unconscious.
He is believed to have died between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. The owl, which flew out of its cage after the incident, was found perched in a tree next door to the zoo Tuesday evening.
“The owl is still in a state of shock,” zoo spokeswoman Natalya Istratova said Wednesday.
She added that the owl was not eating or drinking and that she feared for its life.
Istratova declined to name the bird keeper who found Luparev. “She hasn’t stopped crying,” she said.
TITLE: Local Women Stalked by Historic Seducer
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: L’Oreal Cosmetique Active distribution company opened its first Skin Health Center in the Petropharm drugstore on Nevsky Prospekt on Wednesday.
Managers are hoping to repeat the success of their Moscow center that opened last year and significantly increased sales of dermocosmetics.
Apart from the distribution of specifically dermocosmetic products, which customers will be able to test and examine, the center will offer free skin diagnostics services and consultations with pharmacists. Regular customers will be offered a medical card to monitor their skin’s health and results of the treatment.
“Such an environment is ideally suited to the promotion of dermocosmetics. The center has been designed in a medical-like way with dermatologists and pharmacists on hand to serve the customers,” said Yekaterina Lazareva, head of the department for the management of product categories at L’Oreal Cosmetique Active.
The center will distribute three brands — Vichy, La Roche-Posey and Inneov. Lazareva claimed the project was unique, unifying the traditions of one of the oldest drugstores in the city at Nevsky 22, and the long history of world-famous brands.
“We were the first drugstore in the city that started to sell dermocosmetics. At that time we just sold the Vichy brand,” said Vera Protsenko, director of the drugstore, a part of the Petropharm chain.
An initial three million rubles was invested into the center, Lazareva said. However spending could increase as the company plans to install a new computer program for skin diagnostics.
The strategy of opening skin health centers in large drugstores has proved successful for Vichy across Europe. Now the brand is launching similar projects in Russia. A similar center has been operating in Moscow for about a year, Lazareva indicated, and sales increased almost fourfold.
According to the latest survey by the PharmExpert marketing research center, in the first half of 2006 Vichy dominated the Russian dermocosmetics market with a 62.1 percent share, followed by Lierac (9.8 percent) and La Roche-Posey (4.6 percent).
The Russian dermocosmetics market as a whole was estimated to be worth 52.6 million euros in the first half of 2006 — a 31 percent increase on the same period in 2005.
The shopping format launched by Vichy and Petropharm accords with Russian consumer preferences.
According to a survey released by ACNielsen marketing agency this week, Russia is the sixth most important consumer of cosmetics, hygiene and beauty products. 87 percent of Russians regularly buy hygiene and beauty products (75 percent of men and 99 percent of women).
ACNielsen surveyed 46 countries. In terms of consumption only Spain, Thailand, Hungary, Philippines and Mexico use more.
In Russia 78 percent of consumers buy hygiene and beauty products in drugstores, 65 percent in specialized stores and 47 percent in supermarkets.
According to the survey, 58 percent of Russians believe in a brand’s promises.
“In Russia price is not generally the least important consideration for buyers, but in terms of hygiene and beauty products Russian customers are more influenced by the recommendations of friends and a brand’s seductive “promises,” said Alexander Pismenny, general director of ACNielsen Russia.
The advice of friends is important for 62 percent of Russians, the brand “promise” for 58 percent. 49 percent of respondents said they buy their own “favorite” brands. 49 percent of Russian buyers consider price the most important factor while 48 percent trust the advice they read in glossy magazines.
TITLE: No Kicking The Dollar Habit
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday watered down plans to ban officials from using the word “dollar” after Kremlin bosses, and Putin himself, found it hard to kick their habit and use “rubles” instead.
Russian deputies last year gave initial approval to a draft law that would have fined government ministers for using the words “dollars” or “euro” when “rubles” could be used.
But the Kremlin’s top brass, including Putin and First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, have continued using dollars to price major transactions and spending.
Putin signed a decree calling for officials “to refrain” from using pricing in foreign currency, with the exclusion of foreign deals, but the decree, published on the president’s web site, www.kremlin.ru, said nothing about penalties or fines.
Deputies also heavily amended a draft law on using the word “ruble”, removing mention of fines for ministers before passing the bill, also on Wednesday, by a majority in the lower chamber, which is controlled by the pro-Putin United Russia party.
Last year the ruble appreciated 4.3 percent against the central bank’s dollar/euro basket, and some Russian producers say the strong ruble is eating into export profits.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Sterh Park
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Sterh corporation has invested $23 million into the construction of a new 60 hectares logistic park, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The park, located at the junction of Vyborgskoye Shosse and the city’s ring-road, will start operating in May 2007. It will offer freight storage, processing and customs registration services.
Expansive Filling
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Teremok fast-food operator plans to open 22 new restaurants and 26 outdoor places in Moscow and St. Petersburg this year, Prime-Tass reported Thursday.
The company will invest $100,000 to $350,000 per restaurant. In St. Petersburg Teremok will open nine restaurants and 12 takeaway counters. At the moment Teremok operates 20 restaurants and 35 takeaway counters in the city, and 23 restaurants and 29 takeaway counters in Moscow.
Super Scania
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Swedish automaker Scania will supply 144 new trucks to the X5 Retail Group that manages the Pyatyorochka and Perekrestok retail chains, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Scania recently supplied 100 trucks to the company. Last year Scania increased sales in Russia by 80 percent up to 2,565 trucks. Griffin trucks, designed especially for the Russian market, make up a considerable share of orders.
Poultry Profits
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Evrofinans food producer and importer increased net profits by 57 percent last year up to $16.4 million, according to preliminary data, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Revenue increased by 30.5 percent up to $523.4 million.?Most of the revenue came from chicken imports. The company considerably expanded its retail activities and product assortment. Evrofinans businesses include the import, production and retail of sugar, dairy products, meat and bakery products.
Constructing Profit
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — LenSpetsSMU plans to triple net profits this year, Interfax reported Tuesday. The construction group aims to earn $42.6 million in profit in 2007 according to IFRS.
Revenue is expected at $299.3 million (a 28 percent increase), EBITDA at $84.8 million (threefold increase). The goal is to increase revenue to $807.9 million, EBITDA to $312.9 million and net profit to $195.1 million by 2009.
In April the company will issue a Credit Linked Note?for $100 million to $150 million. Annual profitability of the CLN is expected at 9 percent to 9.5 percent.
Kia in Kaliningrad
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Kaliningrad-based carmaker Avtotor will start producing KIA’s new C-class model in April, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The new production line will replace production of the KIA Sportage, which the company stopped selling last year. Avtotor plans to produce up to 20,000 units a year with a price range of $15,900 and $22,500.
By September Avtotor will have completed new production lines for GM, Chery and KIA with a capacity of 80,000 cars. Total investment into the new lines is estimated at $10 million.
MTS Disappoints
MOSCOW (Reuters) — Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) reported a lower-than-expected fourth-quarter 2006 net profit on Wednesday after writing off an asset acquired during 2005.
MTS, said fourth-quarter net profit was $280.3 million, below an average forecast of $330.1 million in a Reuters poll.
TITLE: Forbes Told To Pay In Inteko Suit
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Combined Reports
MOSCOW — Yelena Baturina, the country’s only female billionaire and wife of Mayor Yury Luzhkov, won a libel suit against the editor of Forbes magazine’s local edition after publishing a cover story on how she acquired her fortune.
Chertanovsky Court ordered Maxim Kashulinsky to pay Baturina’s company Inteko 106,500 rubles ($4,089) in damages for publicly claiming that it pressured him to withdraw the article from the December issue.
“We will appeal the decision,” said Kashulinsky’s lawyer, Alexander Dobrovinsky, by phone in Moscow on Wednesday.
He said the defense would attempt to extend the case till December, hinting that could be a turning point for the legal battle, Interfax reported. December is when Luzhkov steps down as mayor.
Baturina’s fortune almost tripled to $3.1 billion last year from $1.1 billion a year earlier, according to the U.S. edition of Forbes’ annual world wealth survey published this month. That ranked Baturina No. 30 on the list of 52 Russian billionaires. Luzhkov, who has run the capital for 15 years, has presided over a building boom that has transformed Moscow and drawn criticism from preservation groups.
Inteko is also suing Axel Springer Russia, the Axel Springer unit that publishes Russian Forbes, over the same story, which claimed Inteko has benefited from Baturina’s marriage to Luzhkov. That suit is scheduled to be heard April 4.
(Bloomberg, SPT)
TITLE: Federal Budget Will Shrink for First Time
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Budget revenues will fall next year for the first time since President Vladimir Putin took office in 2000, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Wednesday.
Budget revenues will total 6.67 trillion rubles ($256 billion) in 2008, Kudrin said during a presentation of the country’s first three-year budget. The government plans to collect 6.96 trillion rubles this year.
The 4 percent decrease could indicate that the government is planning on lowering either the profit tax or value-added tax in 2008, said Peter Westin, chief economist at MDM Bank.
Budget revenues will pick up again in 2009 and 2010, amounting to 7.42 trillion rubles in 2009 and 8.04 trillion rubles in 2010, Kudrin said.
Although it would cause a short-term slump in budgetary revenues, a cut in taxes may eventually provide more incentives to pay levies and result in a growth of the tax base, Westin said. Furthermore, the government could raise the mineral extraction tax on gas to offset any shortfalls, he said.
Despite lower revenues, Kudrin said, budget spending will increase by 1 trillion rubles next year but will grow at a slower pace in the subsequent two years.
The government plans to raise state salaries, defense spending and investment from 2008 to 2010, Kudrin said.
Government expenditure will total 6.5 trillion rubles in 2008, up from 5.46 trillion rubles this year, he said.
Westin said that the budget would need to fulfill promises made during State Duma and presidential election campaigns this year and next.
“We are going to see an election budget next year,” he said.
From 2009, the government’s annual spending growth will be less than 1 trillion rubles. The budget will spend 7.36 trillion rubles in 2009 and 8 trillion rubles in 2010, Kudrin said. The budgetary surplus from 2008 to 2010 will range between 0.5 percent and 0.1 percent of gross domestic product, Kudrin said.
The Finance Ministry calculated its 2008 budget based on a world oil price of $53 per barrel; the 2009 budget on $52 per barrel; and the 2010 budget on $50 per barrel, Kudrin said. He conceded that prices might be too optimistic, saying world oil prices had passed their peak and would remain within $40 to $50 per barrel in the next few years.
The proposed budget also stipulates the breakup of the stabilization fund into a reserve fund and an oil and gas fund. The reserve fund — designed to cushion the budget against declines in the oil price — will be invested at a conservative rate of 3.5 percent to 4 percent.
It is to be set up on Feb. 1 by transferring 10 percent of the GDP in 2007 from the stabilization fund and will remain at 10 percent of the GDP every year. Money from the oil and gas fund will be invested to yield between 6.5 percent and 7 percent of profit for future generations, Kudrin said.
The ministry is considering the creation of a special agency or hiring a private management firm to handle investments from the future generations fund.
Salaries to budget-dependent workers will grow by 7 percent to 8 percent in 2008, Kudrin said.
TITLE: The Endgame Moscow Should Have Expected
AUTHOR: By Georgy Bovt
TEXT: Russia’s relations with Iran have come to resemble its relations with Belarus. In both cases, each side started out assuring the world of how much they had in common, how mutually advantageous their relationship was, and how they had established an equitable partnership. Most of all, they unfailingly added that all of this had been achieved in spite of the West, and the United States in particular.
Then these wonderful relationships unexpectedly began to fall apart. The declarations of love were replaced by accusations of underhandedness and evil intentions.
This happened with Belarus at the end of last year, when Russia got fed up with subsidizing its economy by selling it oil and gas at bargain prices. In a snap, all thoughts of Slavic brotherhood were forgotten as each side accused the other of acting in bad faith and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko attempted to blackmail Moscow by threatening to establish independent relations with the West. A similar problem appears imminent between Moscow and Tehran.
The problems with Iran date from the end of last year, when reports began to surface that Iran was late on payments to Russia for the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Iran blamed the delay on its decision to convert its cash reserves from dollars into Euros. Two months have since passed without the promised payment, and Russia has declared it will halt construction on the Bushehr station. The Iranians provided assurances that some payment had been made, but that no further money would change hands until Russia delivered the first shipment of nuclear fuel. Moscow answered that deliveries of fuel were pointless at this stage, as the reactor was not yet ready to receive it.
This all look like political gamesmanship, especially given Washington’s support for Moscow’s calls that Iran stick to its contractual obligations. After all, business is business and the Iranians should accept that a contract is a contract.
There is also the creeping suspicion that Moscow is using the late payments as an excuse to pull out of the controversial Bushehr project altogether. Washington has long demanded just this, and blaming Tehran for everything would allow Russia to pull the plug without appearing to have bowed to U.S. pressure.
In a situation like this, most Soviet leaders would have waived the contractual obligations and finished building the plant just to spite the United States. But the current crew in the Kremlin isn’t as interested in “altruistic” projects, and when the price tag for opposing U.S. policy becomes prohibitively high, it tends to opt for pragmatism. Nobody — or at least nobody in Russia — is ready to foot the bill for the Bushehr power plant.
Iran’s motives are unclear at first glance. The Iranian government owes Russia something in the neighborhood of $200 million to $250 million, a sum it could produce instantly if it wanted to. The ultimatum regarding fuel deliveries appears to be deliberately impracticable, which gives the impression that the Iranians themselves are now less interested in completing the construction at Bushehr. This could be because the project has become a political lightning rod. Iran doesn’t want to incur any increased obligations in its relationship with Moscow or join it in an anti-U.S. crusade. It doesn’t want to become dependent on Russia for its nuclear energy program as it doesn’t entirely trust Moscow. The money withheld from Russia will probably be set aside for a different plant or to enable the Iranians to finish the Bushehr project themselves.
Russia comes out the loser here. It tried to play the “Iranian card” by building a special relationship with an unpredictable, fanatical regime strongly opposed to the United States. This was Moscow’s way of demonstrating its independence or, using the terminology currently in fashion in the Kremlin, its “sovereignty” in foreign policy.
But one particular characteristic of authoritarian or dictatorial regimes — whether run by Iranian mullahs or by a former chairman of a Soviet collective farm like Lukashenko — is that they are unpredictable. They change the rules of the game according to their own whims and wishes, and without consultation.
Furthermore, they only understand one language — the language of force. Had Russia acted in concert with the large international group trying to bring pressure on Iran — as it did, for example, with the group of six nations addressing the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program — it would have left Tehran without maneuvering space and reduced its ability to blackmail others.
Whatever the case, canceling the Bushehr contract — a move that looks increasingly imminent today — would not have left Moscow in the awkward position in which it now risks finding itself. This is the result of naively placing all its hopes on Iran and vehemently rejecting every suggestion from Washington that Russia and the United States coordinate their policies toward Iran. Once the disagreement arose with Tehran, Moscow was stuck.
Georgy Bovt is editor of Profil magazine.
TITLE: Why Tlisova Left Russia
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: An article appeared 11 days ago in London’s Sunday Times about a Russian journalist requesting political asylum in the United States. Working under the pseudonym of Maria Ivanova, she is an expert on the Caucasus region and claims to have been poisoned last autumn.
Up until last Thursday, people unfamiliar with the specifics of the story were trying to guess her true identity. Those who knew the whole story, however, were praying for her life. This is because Fatima Tlisova — former correspondent for Svoboda, Novaya Gazeta and The Associated Press, head of the North Caucasus bureau of the Regnum online news service and winner of numerous international awards — was scheduled to fly last Thursday from Nalchik, in Kabardino-Balkaria, to the United States. She was then to fly out of Turkey on Wednesday for the United States, where she has won a two-year scholarship to study at Harvard.
The unwanted publicity caused by the article in the Sunday Times may have put Tlisova in greater danger four days prior to her flight. The source of the information is unclear, as she never spoke with the paper’s reporters, and I know many journalists who kept silent to avoid putting her in danger.
Because of her professionalism, the security services saw the widowed mother of two as an enemy. Before her poisoning, her home had been searched, she had been detained by authorities, and articles appeared calling her a U.S. spy and a terrorist leader. Her fellow journalists were questioned and told that she was a Turkish spy.
Her colleagues only learned about these events through third parties, or after weeklong delays: Tlisova, a proud Circassian, had absolutely no desire to make waves or leave her homeland. She just wanted to work honestly at her job.
At the end of last October, Tlisova returned home after an evening walk, applied face cream from an old cosmetics jar, had a cup of coffee, and went to sleep. In the morning, skin was peeling from her fingers and her tongue had become swollen. She was rushed to a local hospital, where she was diagnosed with kidney failure.
A week later her symptoms had disappeared. After comparing her test results with those taken at the onset of her symptoms just 10 days earlier, doctors at a Moscow clinic couldn’t believe the results came from the same person.
A few weeks later, I talked with one of the government’s highest-ranking officials for the North Caucasus. He knew all about Tlisova’s case. Despite her almost pathological humility, these events had caused quite an uproar. The official said he thought very highly of Tlisova and her work. “I ordered them to leave Tlisova alone,” he told me.
Two weeks after this discussion, a man knocked at Tlisova’s door and asked: “Does Ruslan Nakhushev live here?”
Nakhushev is a human rights activist from Kabardino-Balkaria who disappeared without a trace after he was interrogated by the Federal Security Service. Tlisova knew him well. It is events like this that suggest that the FSB has more to do with running the country than the civil authorities.
I think Tlisova’s poisoning was a warning. When she failed to heed that warning and leave, she was “warned” again. The second poisoning affected both her heart and her kidneys. After that, the AP arranged for her to work in the United States as part of a two-year professional exchange program. And so it was that the journalist I consider to be the leading expert on the Caucasus left the country.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the country to prove that the Caucasus is a good place to invest. For that matter, it is also having trouble proving that self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky was involved in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the poisoning of former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Her role as history’s witness
AUTHOR: By Jeffrey Fleishman
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: The Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW — You walk through the snow with a cane, old and tiny amid the birch and pine. You still call St. Petersburg by that other name. Leningrad. Your husband died a long time ago, and your life has been whittled into a room scattered with hand creams, lipsticks, reading glasses, a hot plate and pictures of an actress frozen in her youth.
“I was famous once,” you say.
Yes.
“I played young roles for a long time, you know. I looked young but I was experienced, that’s why the directors loved me. I could improvise. Years ago, I did a belly dance on stage. It was in Poland. They thought I was a ballerina.”
Your name?
“Tamara Kryman.”
Born in Moscow in 1922. Your country has witnessed much since you were a girl: wars, bread lines, men in space, the fall of communism, new democrats and gangsters and rich boys with big cars and guns.
You are different, too. Right hand cupped from arthritis, the face still pretty but more rounded, and the eyes, yes, the eyes glitter, blue, if a bit cloudy. You’ve traded in your high heels for snow boots, but your mind is as sharp as an icicle, even here at the Yablochkina Rest Home for Theater Veterans.
Go back.
1941.
Rifles clattered in alleys and burning papers drifted from Moscow’s office windows. Ash and cinder swirled through the streets as you fled past Russian soldiers waiting for the advancing Germans. They were so scared; the city balanced on dwindling bullets and courage. You took a train to Tashkent. It sounds so romantic now, a journey to safety in Uzbekistan. But then…
“I worked in an orphanage as a substitute teacher. Many teachers at the orphanage were men because it saved them from being drafted into the army. They loved me. They called me doll. I didn’t really know how to teach, so I told the kids stories I had heard or read in my life, like Ivanhoe.”
Your first acting role came a year later.
“A small part in a Russian play. I can’t remember the name of it, ‘A Girl something or other.’ The lines were in verse. I played a girl carrying a cake. I got bigger parts and the theater hired me full time, which meant I got bread coupons. I was a stand-in for some very popular actresses back then. All of them heroines. I quit the orphanage.”
Your break was playing a woman named Malva.
“I was 20. The character was much older. They applied makeup, but my voice was rich enough for an older woman. I have a crystal voice. I played with gusto and with God’s inspiration, of course.”
You became Cinderella, stepped into the classics.
The director, Alexander Ginsburg, admired your flair and upped your salary from 430 rubles a month to 750 rubles, which bought more rations and a few extra skirts. You were the lead in “Poverty Is Not a Sin.”
In real life, you married a soldier returned from the front. He took a job in theater administration; the government, in the years after World War II and during the Cold War, assigned him to an office in Siberia, where the air stung so hard it grabbed your breath. You were the star on his stage.
“I played Chekov, and I played in some stupid political propaganda play about a woman in a Nazi concentration camp. I still can’t figure that insipid play out.”
Three years in Siberia were enough. On to Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, so battered and ruined by war that flowers were the only things left. You acted on Russia’s stages for nearly four decades, raising your husband’s two children from an earlier marriage, smoking and drinking with intellectuals and traveling occasionally to Moscow. Soviet spies hovered around theaters like moths, always looking for the dissident or the weak one who would turn him in.
“The theater was the light in the window for the Soviet citizens. They had radio but no television, nothing in cultural terms in Kaliningrad except our theater. We were the preachers, priests and activists…
“The communists put a lot of pressure on us. They’d censor plays or force us to perform ridiculous skits about workers and factory production processes, collective farms. Nothing enlightening. They were false. Sometimes we’d fool them and put hidden messages in the plays, add a bit of irony in the subtext to depict a party official in not such a positive light.”
You laugh, a ripple of eyebrow, a glimmer of a gold tooth. Your husband died in 1986. You quit the stage two years later. Your stepchildren took the family apartment. But what to do? Your pension was small, no villas to retire to; the Soviet system, that great and failed perversion, paid less in money and more in prestige, but that, as you know, is fleeting. The theater union found you a room here, along a hallway of other rooms, where pictures of actors hang on walls and a black-and-white cat darts amid potted plants.
This new Russia bothers you. You have aged with your country, lived through its purges and all those vanished lives, but today it seems foreign. Perhaps you’re romanticizing the past, but something is different. The Soviets took, yes, but the soul stayed intact. Now, the men on the streets wear black leather and shoot each other, not for pride or patriotism but for drugs and smuggled things.
“This new rich class, they used to be small-time traders at the markets. Now they have offices and drive in limousines. They learned from the West how to commit crimes and make money. But they have no culture, no taste. And these young boys own everything.”
There is something else.
“I think in the past you had to go against the grain to survive. You had to struggle to get something done. But it’s all too easy now, and maybe we’ve lost the edge. Do you know these days our actors don’t want to know what they’ll play, they want to know how much money they’ll make?”
Along the icy path you go with your cane, through the front gate of the rest home, past the guard, up the stairs, alongside the big windows, down the hall to door 49. You pull the key from its hiding place. The door opens. A tiny room. This is what’s left. You slip off your wool cap, comb your hair, fix your pink lipstick and brush the lint from your green pants suit.
There you are amid the knickknacks, thimbles and water stains. You look down from the walls, a young actress aging subtly through her parts but keeping that flash in her eyes. There’s you in “Pygmalion” and “The Cunning Lover.” There’s you in a top hat and a smirk, and above your bed, an oil portrait of you in a ruffle-collared dress, your eyes looking left, expectant, as if waiting for a stranger to make his way across the parlor.
“I gave many things away to museums.”
It’s getting late. You slip back into your coat, hat and scarf, pull on your boots. Out the door, down the hall, past a stooped, silver-haired woman, through the gate and into a stand of trees. You feel as though you are in a forest. You like this rest home. A frost-shrouded bust of Vladimir Lenin peeks out from the trees. You stop and recall those days when your mother took you to the Bolshoi Ballet. How exciting it was beyond the floodlights.
The cold makes your words seem like ghosts; they hover and blow away. The snow is still falling, dry and grainy. You have a request. “Please, mail me copies of the pictures.”
You nod goodbye, turning, your cane leading the way, back through the trees and toward the memories that linger behind door 49.
TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: The Moscow-based journalist, music critic and promoter Artyom Troitsky opened an art exhibition in St. Petersburg on Thursday, but, apart from borrowing a name from an old record, the show has nothing to do with music.
“It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with music,” said Troitsky who is putting artworks from his private collection, by such artists as Ilya Kabakov and Sven Gundlakh, on public display for the show. “I have artworks by some musicians in my collection, say, by Andrei Makarevich and Zhanna Aguzarova, but none of these works are on show.”
Called “Every Picture Tells a Story,” after Rod Stewart’s 1971 album, the exhibition includes around 30 paintings, several photographs and a sculpture. “I took the name not because I’m a Rod Stewart fan, but because this name expresses the idea and formula of this exhibition perfectly,” said Troitsky. He has written commentaries about each work on display which will be displayed next to them.
“It can be the story of my relationship with the artist or the work, or some anecdotes behind them,” he said. “In fact, I am not a genuine professional collector, so paintings for me have a living value, rather than a critical or investment value.”
The exhibition includes works that Troitsky has collected since the mid-1980s.
“Mostly these are works by my friends. I get most as gifts, but there are some works that I buy when travelling and sometimes in galleries. This stuff has been accumulating at my home for a long time, covering the walls, and some don’t even fit. A soon as Olga Kudryavtseva of the D-137 gallery saw all this wealth she said it should be exhibited. I didn’t object at all.”
The exhibition, at D-137 gallery (90/92 Nevsky Prospekt), closes on April 21.
Another arrival from Moscow is Psoy Korolenko, the extravagant klezmer-influenced singer-songwriter. He will bring a show mostly based on his cabaret set called “Power & Point” which he performs at Moscow’s art club Project OGI on a monthly basis.
“This is songs accompanied, continuously, by PowerPoint slides,” said Korolenko by phone this week. “[In this set] more attention is paid to visual art, the accent is shifted from the musical-acoustical aspects to the tactile and visual ones.” Korolenko performs at Orlandina on Friday.
International acts this week include Vert, an art-electronic-music project by Cologne-based Englishman Adam Butler. He will promote his most recent album “Some Beans & an Octopus,” released on the German band Mouse on Mars’ label Sonig last year. The album has been described by Pitchforkmedia web site as “vocal-based music that falls somewhere between low-key, Streets-informed rap and rhythmic spoken word.” Vert performs at Maina on Friday.
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Art or sacrilege?
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Paintings portraying Jesus Christ as Mickey Mouse and Vladimir Lenin are prompting charges of abuse of religious symbols by Russian Orthodox Church leaders.
The paintings, part of the “Forbidden Art” exhibit at the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center, went on display March 7.
“The curator has simply broken the law,” church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin said. “Defacing a religious symbol such as Jesus Christ is not art. It is a civil crime.”
Curator Andrei Yerofeyev countered: “Chaplin just wants to make a name for himself.”
Saying it is not for the church to decide what is art, he added: “Only an artist knows how to portray Jesus.”
Yerofeyev noted that artistic freedom is one of the guiding principles of the exhibit, which features banned paintings, collages and photographs from the last 30 years.
The contentious paintings include a work by Alexander Savko featuring a Christ-like figure in the form of the Walt Disney mouse addressing a crowd of saints and disciples. The painting comes from a 1995 series titled “The Journey of Mickey Mouse.”
The second eyebrow-raising artwork depicts the crucifixion. In place of Christ’s head, however, is the Order of Lenin medal, which shows a profile of the Father of all Fathers.
Lending all the paintings in the exhibit the cache of forbidden fruit, a giant white screen blocks them from the outside world. To view them, viewers must look through peepholes that are a bit too high for comfortable viewing. The museum has helpfully provided a stepladder.
Museum-goers are uncommitted.
“I haven’t decided whether I like the exhibit or not,” said Valentina Nikolayeva, 63, an Orthodox believer, as she descended the stepladder after viewing a collage of Jesus next to a McDonalds logo. Beneath the logo are the words: “This is My Body.” Nikolayeva added, “But maybe that’s the point.”
It is important to document the “social censorship mechanism” at work, Yerofeyev said. “To do that, we are simply showing the dynamic of censorship in Soviet and post-Soviet times,” he said.
Other works in the exhibition feature swear words and fornicating soldiers.
TITLE: Dreaming spires
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia is abundant in utopias, which, along with oil and gas, seem to fuel its well-being. Interrelated, they are whatever you wish: social, economical, political, military, artistic, and so on. Now, the Contemporary Art department of the Russian Museum has collected architectural utopias in its exhibition “Architecture: Ad Marginem” at the Marble Palace.
The show is the one of the most original curatorial undertakings of recent years at the Russian Museum, as well as in the city, which is itself a utopia inspired by the fantasies of Peter the Great.
“There is an architectural boom in the city,” Alexander Borovsky, head of the department and think tank behind the show, said at its opening. “And we are not satisfied with current architectural process. So this exhibition is our response to the situation.”
Although featuring a number of architects, the response, apparently, doesn’t make any professional claims: the two-part exhibition is loaded with wooden skyscrapers, macaroni urban compositions, constructions from dust, psychedelic mushrooms with the Tatlin’s Tower on top and other curious stuff.
“The organisers are not interested in architecture as such,” Borovsky said, “but in the things that are literally marginalia: something presented in the margins of a ‘big book of architecture,’ handwritten over the typescript and placed beyond the bounds of professional architectural space.”
In the show, Borovsky has put together a conceptually tasty and multilayered pie, in which mocking contemporary art is elaborately mixed with the dead seriousness of gifted architectural losers from the last three centuries (of which the 20th Century offers the richest and most diverse examples).
Room by room, new art works or those from the museum’s contemporary collection — by artists such as Alexander & Olga Florensky, Valery Koshlyakov, Timur Novikov, and Pyotr Bely — accompany architects’ flights of fancy. One will find in Vitruvius and Sons Architectural Studio’s ludicrous “Design of the First Orthodox Monastery in Earth’s Orbit” hints of Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist compositions. Conversely, much of the familiar contemporary art — such as Timur Novikov’s Neo-Academism program or the religious tolerance of the Florensky’s “Cult Buildings” — gain despairingly utopian intonations in this context.
The show cannot avoid the leading figures of the “Paper Architecture” movement —?a genre invented in 1984 to describe architectural fantasies that contrasted with Soviet architectural mainstream — such as Yury Avvakumov, Aleksander Brodsky, Ilya Utkin and others. Avvakumov, the chief expert in Russia’s most ambitious utopias, is famous for his installation “Russian Utopia: a Depository,” which featured around 500 unfulfilled architectural projects from the Tsarist and Soviet Empires and formed a sort of “columbarium of ideas” referring to an ancient structure for the storage of cremated human remains. The “Paper Architecture” masters are represented by old models and designs, including the entertaining project “Matryoshka Dom” (“Nesting Dolls House”) and a nice selection of prints.
The graphic art in the exhibition is one of its most historically rare and valuable components. It features, for instance, the series of brilliant prints from the “Park” album (1943) by the Soviet architect Alexander Nikolsky, whose masterpiece, the Kirov Stadium on Krestovsky Island, was recently demolished and now exists only on paper.
Two thirds of the objects on display are towers. Photographed, drawn, etched, made of cards, dominoes or even slides, simple or compound, plastic or organic, they all reproduce the somewhat cocky potency of every second utopia (the Gazprom Tower comes to mind) or reflect, perhaps, mankind’s simple desire to be left alone. While some of them are better left only as drafts, others represent unseized opportunities. Gathered together they are spectacular and stimulating. After all, “A columbarium may become an incubator,” as Avvakumov once said of his “Russian Utopia: a Depository.”
“Architecture: Ad Marginem” runs through end of April at the Marble Palace of the Russian Museum www.rusmuseum.ru, www.utopia.ru
TITLE: Strange fruit
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The audience had been waiting for about quarter of an hour when people started turning their heads toward a squabble in the stalls over what seemed to be overly vigorous ticket checking.
As the noise grew, it was difficult not to think what Governor Valentina Matviyenko made of the scene as she watched the fracas from her seat in the front row of the Tsar’s Box.
Then brightly dressed people started wandering through the rows, popping up in the balconies and even spilling into the Tsar’s Box itself. The show, which had sneaked into the audience unnoticed and manifested itself in a somewhat riotous manner, was on.
The govenor worships discipline and is known for her zero tolerance approach to activities happening in places she regards as inappropriate — and in theaters, the space allocated for performance is traditionally the stage — so having her present substantially added to the initial tension. It could have been part of the plan of French director Alain Maratrat, whose adrenaline-driven production of Sergei Prokofiev’s “The Love For Three Oranges” saw its premiere on that night,?March 14, at the Mariinsky Theater.
The border between reality and theater often becomes blurred, regardless of where the performance takes place. And modern Russia, where a taste for absurdist theater has recently emerged, is no exception.
“The Love For Three Oranges” tells the story of a hypochondriac prince whose first laugh is unfortunately sparked by the sight of the wicked witch Fata Morgana slipping to the floor and losing her wig. Angered, the fairy curses the prince to look for three magic oranges. During his quest, the doomed young man falls in love with Princess Ninetta, contained in the third orange.
Inspired by Carlo Gozzi’s commedia dell’arte scenario, the surrealistic and enchanting work is Prokofiev’s most widely performed opera. The Gozzi tale, created in 18th century Venice, with the Age of Enlightenment in full swing, was admired by the composer for its bright theatricality and whimsical fusion of magic and parody. As a dramatist, Gozzi’s amibition was to change the focus of commedia dell’arte from that his predecessor Carlo Goldoni had on simple people, toward a more mysterious, eccentric and improvisational style.
Last week’s show was the Mariinsky’s third take on the opera, after productions in 1926 and 1991. The opera first saw the stage in Chicago in 1921, and immediately became a favorite on the international opera scene. It enjoyed its first staging at the Mariinsky five years later. Prokofiev welcomed the Russian premiere — staged by director Sergei Radlov — by saying that the show was by far the most successful production of the opera he had ever seen.
Alain Maratrat, who thrives on lively extravaganzas, was a predictably good choice to direct the new production, and boldly responds to the challenges set by both Gozzi and Prokofiev. The performance spills generously off the stage, and the show’s unruliness flows into the far corners of the auditorium. In the best traditions of courtyard theater, spectators in the higher balconies leaned over the banisters and stood up from their seats to catch a fuller view of the constantly fleeting show, as if admiring vagrant performers in a street show through the windows and doorways of their courtyard. Every row and every circle was filled with cheer.
When the character Truffaldino spits in to the Prince’s hat, a chemical reaction produced thick, suspicious-looking smoke. And Fata Morgana’s spell on princess Ninetta results in a huge radio-controlled rat chasing her and racing across the stage. The fashionable Spanish designer Gregoria Recio, who has already collaborated with Christian Lacroix, Givenchy and Jean-Paul Gaultier, was recruited specifically to make hats for the production. Her fabulous hats made an impressive contribution to the visual feast.
Tenor Andrei Ilyushnikov (Prince) does not possess a strong voice, but on the opening night he was remarkably artistically adroit. Ilyushnikov’s Prince is an inert young man engrossed by fears and uncertainties, with a sour grimace never leaving his face. Maratrat’s idea of linking the fairy tale with reality to caricature the escapist moods of modern youth, which hide behind imaginary realities, is beautifully personified. Regrettably, the Prince’s apathy — essential in Act I — somehow lingered and stayed in the character until the finale.
Soprano Anastasia Kalagina created a charming, tender and palpitating Ninetta, while bass Gennady Bezzubenkov made a fittingly regal and profound King of Clubs. The oranges themselves grow as the show moves on, until they become larger-than-life and three princess emerge from them. This trick illustrates Maratrat’s favorite method of engaging the audience’s imagination.
“The Love For Three Oranges” will be performed on March 25, March 31 and April 11. More info: www. Mariinsky.ru
TITLE: Treasure trove
AUTHOR: By Katya Madrid
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Pigeons hobbling around puddles are a pleasant part of the landscape in the afternoon light that baths them and St. Isaac’s Cathedral in a pink haze. A short walk towards Nevsky Prospekt leads to 38 Bolshaya Morskaya, home of the St. Petersburg Artists’ Union. This is a treasure that has survived all the political changes, and continues to serve as a resource for all who wish to get a taste of the local visual arts scene, imperfect as it is.
A grand staircase leads you to several galleries. Walk right past the painting gallery — this is not their strong point. A smaller space nearby houses “A Women’s Project. St. Petersburg — Moscow. Spring 2007,” a show of three hot enamel artists that runs through March 25. This 4,000-year-old artform is now experiencing a renaissance.
Olga Lisenkova from St. Petersburg, and Olga Zuyeva and Tatyana Kiselyova from Moscow are a strong group, however Lisenkova sets herself apart by experimenting with mixed media techniques such as embedding her images in pieces of driftwood, and the use of found objects.
The warm quality of the wood brings out the sleek, cool texture of the enamel on copper, making an otherwise two dimensional piece tactile and sensually inviting. This sculptural element also adds to the dynamism of the pictorial composition. Lisenkova collaborates with her husband, Vasily Shcherbenin (not mentioned in the credits) who is an interior designer. Together, they create the final form that completes the story evoked by the image.
“I hope to effect positive change in people’s state of mind,” Lisenkova said in a recent phone interview, explaining her approach to art.
“I am not an artist that seeks to shock, or upset my audience. There is enough of that in our daily life. They must leave with joy.”
Her work has a meditative feel. A cutting-edge super-hipster she is not, but maybe not everyone needs to be. She incorporates aspects of Russian culture, fairytales, and the Orthodox faith in her art.
“Autumn’s Fan” is a key piece for Lisenkova. It has lively spots of the rich color that is characteristic of her work. Two fairly heavy pieces are connected by slender little sticks. In the lower panel long, tentacle-like fingers, adorned by many jewels, reach for the season’s harvest just out of reach in the upper panel. There is an implication that manual labor alone will not achieve the goal. A small brass bell hanging off the edge of the upper panel (the fan that bears the basket of fruit) brings sound to the attention of the viewer, as well as inviting thoughts of the church, as if to suggest the necessity of the intervention of God before true satisfaction can be reached. Figures of angels appear in the lower panel that stands upright, firmly grounded on earth.
There is a balance of the earthly and heavenly realms in both halves of the piece.
The technical aspect of the process of hot enamel is fascinating and painstakingly long. After the artist makes a drawing on a copper plate, the first layer of enamel color (a combination of glass and oxidizing pigment that bond to metal in high temperatures) is applied, and the piece goes into an oven heated to 800-850 degrees Celsius.
This process is repeated many times, and each time the enamel changes its chemical composition, which results in a change in color. The transformation can be dramatic, thus the mastery of this craft involves being able to predict how the color will change.
It is like playing chess, and thinking many moves ahead.
Simpler commercial pieces are done in three to four firings. Lisenkova, and others of her caliber, put their pieces in the kiln twenty times on average. She confesses that after a certain point, she no longer knows what to expect.
Thus, each firing is a nerve-racking adventure that can either make or break a piece.
The next gallery exhibited the bold and humorous work of Dennis Fedorov, in his show “Graphic Automatism, the Philosophy of Line.” Fedorov is a breath of fresh air whose universality is part of the appeal.
The whimsical pieces recall the art of Keith Haring, only minus the bright colors. Using design elements native to the Maori tribes of the Pacific Islands (bold, complex, rectilinear forms that weave a dense, interlocking pattern), Fedorov creates funny little creatures in his paintings which he manages to infuse with charm and character.
One piece that stands out is entitled “Cat with Kitten.” It has a poetry akin to a child’s dream. A sitting figure with a cat’s features en face and a melancholic humanoid profile holds a kitten on its lap.
The human looks at a dandilion stretching up towards his gaze. The busy pattern that fills the image sets up a quick rhythm that is juxtaposed against the stillness of the moment depicted.
Fedorov often leaves naked, swampy grey canvas as the background, which adds a textural dimension to his work.
The technique that he uses is only described as being authored by the artist. Keep an eye out for this one. He is worth seeing.
The Art Cafe next door is also part of the Artists’ Union, a quaint little place whose interior is fully painted by the hands of the union members.
Try the artfully-made pelmeni and the vareniki, Russian-style dumplings.
“A Women’s Project. St. Petersburg — Moscow. Spring 2007” runs through Sunday at the Artists’ Union Exhibition Center, 38 Bolshaya Morskaya. Tel: 314 3060. www.uniart.ru
TITLE: In the Spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: When it comes to being robbed, Russian celebrities think big. Last year, pop singer Filipp Kirkorov had a watch worth $195,000 stolen from his dressing room during a concert at the Novosibirsk circus. Of course, he just left it lying there. I didn’t think it would be possible to top that, but pop/opera singer Nikolai Baskov revived my faith in human stupidity last month by managing to part ways with a briefcase worth $24,000 — and that’s not counting the price of the contents.
The black crocodile case was made in Italy especially for the blond tenor, but he didn’t have long to enjoy its scaly expensiveness. His driver and bodyguard popped into a supermarket; the bodyguard handed the case to the driver; and then a criminal snatched it and drove off in a waiting Volvo — a surprisingly staid choice of car for a gangster. Don’t tell me he fastened the seat belt.
Sadly, the case was not empty crocodile skin, but contained 50,000 euros ($68,000) that Baskov was going to use to pay a studio bill, as well as his internal and external passports and some personal items such as gold cuff links, a cross and a small case containing a portion of a saint’s relics. Just the usual things you take to the supermarket.
In a cruel blow for Baskov, the first news report said a singer at the Mariinsky Theater had been robbed. This was not, in fact, the case — in the police report (photographed in the weekly tabloid Zhizn), Baskov put as his profession that he sings at the little-known opera and drama theater of the Marii-El republic, which is called the Mariisky.
Nevertheless, Baskov got lavish tabloid coverage, including 18 photos of the crime scene on Tvoi Den’s web site that showcase the singer and his mother wearing lots of fur. And readers also have a great description of the criminal to look out for: a man of “Slavic appearance” and “normal build.” It can only be a matter of days before they catch him.
Interestingly, another celebrity muscled in on the robbery beat just a day after the Baskov incident. The daily Tvoi Den splashed with blonde pop singer Valeria this month, devoting no fewer than four articles to an attempted robbery at her jewelry store. Designing jewelry is one of Valeria’s sidelines; she also advertises Tvoi Den’s weekly edition, Zhizn, on television. Not that I’m making any connections here.
In one article, the tabloid printed not one but two photographs of Valeria wearing the $900,000 diamond necklace that an armed robber tried to snatch before being beaten by guards. Her black dress really set off the diamond, and looked great next to the shot of the robber lying on the ground with blood coming out of his nose.
Casting off journalistic cynicism, the writer of another Tvoi Den article went all poetic.
“The criminal froze on the spot at the sight of the sparkling 13-carat diamond that cost 24,419,100 rubles,” he wrote. “In front of him lay the luxurious pendant of white gold, from the famous jewelry collection of the singer Valeria.” So detailed, yet all the information is so relevant. Valeria herself, in the personal column she writes for Zhizn, couldn’t do better.
The television presenter Andrei Malakhov couldn’t get mugged for the occasion, but he delivered a moving homily to Tvoi Den on the silver lining in Baskov’s crocodile briefcase. “I can see something good in this situation,” he said. And he wasn’t talking about getting his photo in the paper.
Rather, the guru of Channel One felt that Baskov had earned some good karma through his suffering. “If you take a philosophical attitude,” Malakhov said, “[Baskov] gave away this sum of money in return for not having to experience something worse and more frightening.”
Funnily enough, the man in the black Volvo might have said something similar.
TITLE: Cheap ‘n’ Chinese
AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The wealth of low price Chinese restaurants in St. Petersburg is a goldmine for those in search of a vast, filling meal, but there are few that really standout. For the most part, the threadbare carpets, cheap and none-too-cheerful decor, greasy, stodgy food and dubious hygiene standards are enough to put off even the most undemanding of diners. Divny Sad (“Magic Garden”) on the Petrograd Side, however, comes with at least something of a recommendation. A recent city guide published on the Internet by the local administration revealed that the restaurant is a favorite haunt of the staff of the city’s premier television center located near by on Ulitsa Chapygina.
No celeb sightings on the evening we visited, but it quickly became apparent why it might be incredibly popular with Channel 5’s criminally underpaid television crews — the prices here are low. Frighteningly low . Can you really get a decent-sized portion of frogs’ legs for just a few hundred rubles?
The “duck’s nest” at 288 rubles ($11) was another good case in point. It consisted of finely sliced potato woven and fried into a crisp basket, with a copious mound of duck filling it. In view of its size, however, the nest would be more accurately described as a sizeable aviary, and this dish alone would have been big enough to satisfy all three of us. The duck itself was light and well prepared, having been fried up with sliced peppers.
The sweet and sour chicken (168 rubles, $6.50) was an equally abundant portion. Although the sauce was generic, but the batter was refreshingly light and wonderfully crisp. And, again, this dish could easily have been shared.
The assorted meat dish, which featured seafood, beef, lamb, mutton, chicken, bamboo shoots and mushrooms, was less of a success, the flavors of all the different components being entirely lost. Nevertheless, it avoided the usual pitfall of Chinese restaurants in this price range in the city — poor quality cooking oil producing too much grease.
The rice garnishes, apart from being entirely superfluous due to the size of the dishes they accompanied, were also fairly bland. The rice with chicken (68 rubles, $2.60) and rice with seafood (88 rubles, $3.40) both came topped with an excessive dollop of sweet and sour sauce and the seafood variant came with disturbingly miniscule prawns.
Although the room isn’t large, with about twenty tables, it manages to comprise three levels, one set into the floor and another on a balcony above it. The decor isn’t excessive, but not tatty. The service was cheerful, although catching the waitress’s eye to ask for another beer involved a long wait.
The interior and ambience are something of a mixed bag. A big flat screen on the wall was showing Chinese television, but the music system was pumping out ghetto rap. This might not be to everyone’s taste, but in terms of value for money, Divny Sad is certainly a winner.
TITLE: Pulp fiction
AUTHOR: By Leo Mourzenko
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: There’s this wonderful feeling when you look at an old Soviet TV set. It’s so cute and so helpless that you can’t help but smile at its crippled design and functions. Everyone has a memory of one that stood in their grandma’s apartment covered by a white lace doily with a fat crystal vase on top.
Still, this inexplicable nostalgia would be a pretty poor economical justification to start selling modern replicas of all those Rekords and Zenits. Fortunately, Russian home equipment manufacturers are many times more reasonable than moviemakers. The latter apparently are so dramatically out of touch with reality that they keep producing films that for maximum effect should be watched on one of the televisions mentioned above.
“Three Days In Odessa” is yet another unnecessary reincarnation of the Soviet murder mystery, a hopeless masterpiece in a flawed genre that was described in The St. Petersburg Times in detail last year when the return of all the worst things in the national movie tradition seemed the result of a momentary but unrecognized solar eclipse that affected a few filmmakers whose works were released last fall. Well, no such luck: first “Konservi,” now the doomed “Paragraph 78 Clause 2,” that is released next week as a sequel to the laughable “Paragraph 78” (which should at least be celebrated for its attempt to get away from Russia’s unceasingly wretched heritage which keeps being dragged into modern times by those who refuse to acknowledge the year on the calendar and move on).
Like many unlucky cinematic towns before, postwar Odessa is governed by organized crime from the moment the sun goes down. However even the mafia trembles when the news spreads that a mysterious criminal nicknamed The Accountant is set to arrive in town. The Accountant does arrive, finds Tatyana (Ksenia Kuznetsova), the girlfriend of the local mafia boss Uncle Misha (Vladimir Kachan), and threatens her with a knife. He says he will find and kill Uncle Misha if she fails to deliver a secret database that Uncle Misha keeps locked in his house. Tatyana weeps and agrees. Since the identity of this Accountant is the main mystery of this “Mulholland Drive” wannabe, it’s not fair to reveal who he is, however one thing is for sure: the guy doesn’t have any supernatural powers so it’s an even bigger mystery how he managed to scare a woman who robs restaurants for fun by showing her a blade and speaking to her in a soft voice standing in a shadow.
In the meantime, three young guys arrive in the city looking for The Accountant:?Major Nefedov (Oleg Maslennikov), Officer Alexei Kazarin (Dmitry Zhulin) and probably the protagonist of the story, Agent Vladlen Kolzov (Alexander Makogon). Since one of them is Mr. X it might be the director’s trick to confuse the viewer but he tried just a bit too hard: at a certain point it becomes difficult to follow the plot because all three young man are equally unknown and look almost identical. Once you sort them all out it the story doesn’t become any easier to follow since it develops according to some hidden logic that is never revealed to the audience. The characters go places and talk about love and murder, but it all results in actions that are totally detached from anything other than the director’s head.
Unfortunately, there must have been so many things in the director’s head at the same time that he forgot a few of them, for instance a story line he started and dropped halfway through the movie. Due to the lack of men after the war, there is a camp where young women are trained to execute special operations. It could have been interesting but the director forgot about it. He also forgot that the main character’s name, Vladlen, an invented compound of Vladimir and Lenin, did not appear before 1924. Given that the action takes place in 1947, the guy can’t be older than 23 and a 35 year-old actor was cast probably just to spice things up a little.
With all this said, here’s where the most interesting part comes in: this movie is so fantastically bad that it’s actually fun to watch. Apart from other horrifying elements, there’s good camera work, appraisable costume design plus the scenery is so strikingly beautiful that the ambience is rather pacified; throw in a bunch of good-looking people and make the holes in the story so laughable that you get yourself a couple hours of giggling and you are left with the thought: “Did they seriously think they were making a mystery”?
TITLE: Mavericks Outmuscle Cavaliers
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — The Dallas Mavericks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 98-90 on Wednesday to improve their NBA-best record to 56-11 with a fourth straight victory.
Dirk Nowitzki scored 23 points and Jason Terry 21 as the Mavericks improved to 3-0 on their six-game road trip, shooting 47 percent from the field and making all 17 free-throw attempts.
Nowitzki added nine rebounds for the Mavericks, who moved five games ahead of the Phoenix Suns in the overall standings and nine in front of San Antonio in the Southwest Division. There are 15 games left in the regular season.
The Mavericks had five players in double-figures in scoring and four players with at least six rebounds. Nowitzki said that depth of squad was the reason his team leads the NBA.
“We have a lot of guys on this team who are capable of producing when somebody is having an off night,” Nowitzki told reporters.
“That’s why we are a great team, because other guys stepped up when we needed them.”
The Mavericks struggled in the first quarter and trailed 23-22, but took over for the rest of the game, piling up a 13-point lead after three quarters to beat the Cavaliers for the second time this month.
Devin Harris had 17 points, seven rebounds and six assists for the Mavericks, and Erick Dampier contributed 13 points and nine rebounds.
LeBron James led the Cavaliers with 31 points after shaking off a slow start. Drew Gooden added 19 points and eight rebounds. Cleveland lost its second game in two nights after an eight-game winning streak, going down to a Western Conference opponent at home for just the second time in 14 games this season.
• The Miami Heat won for the 10th time in 11 games, downing the Atlanta Hawks 91-83.
• Chris Bosh had 34 points and 16 rebounds as the Toronto Raptors maintained their big lead in the Atlantic Division standings with a 92-85 win over the Orlando Magic.
• Tim Duncan scored 27 points to help the San Antonio Spurs snap a two-game losing streak after winning 13 straight with a 90-72 victory over the slumping Indiana Pacers who have lost 13 of their last 14 games.
• Elton Brand tipped in a shot with three seconds to play, lifting the Los Angeles Clippers past the Milwaukee Bucks 104-103.
TITLE: 28 Taliban Killed In Joint Attack
AUTHOR: By Noor Khan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Fighting between Afghan forces and Taliban militants in a volatile southern province Thursday killed at least 28 militants, officials said.
The Afghan army and police carried out a joint operation in the Gereshk district of Helmand province, said Sher Mohammad Karimi, the Defense Ministry’s chief of operations. Ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said 28 Taliban were killed.
The two officials said no NATO or U.S. forces were involved.
Officials in Helmand province gave a higher death toll.
The deputy provincial police chief, Mohammad Eisah Khan, said 40 Taliban and three police had been killed, while the Gereshk district chief said 38 Taliban had been killed.
Khan said that 10 Taliban had also been arrested. The fighting took place on a remote battle site and none of the numbers could be independently confirmed.
Both Helmand officials said NATO forces were involved, but Lt. Col. Angela Billings, a spokeswoman for the NATO-led force, said she had no indication that NATO troops had taken part.
Karimi said a report from the field described the Taliban fighters as “very badly demoralized” and running from the fight.
TITLE: Federer Pays Woods A Visit During Practice
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MIAMI — The No. 1 player wasn’t even the most popular in his own group on Wednesday, and that was OK with Tiger Woods.
Roger Federer came out to watch him play at the Doral Golf Resort.
“It’s pretty neat when you have probably the most dominant athlete on the planet out there in your gallery,” Woods said after his practice round for the CA Championship, where he is the two-time defending champion.
This is the first time Woods and Federer, the top players in their sports, have competed in the same week at the same city. Federer’s opening tennis match is on Saturday in the Sony Ericsson Open at Key Biscayne.
Woods and Federer, both IMG clients, struck up a friendship last summer when Woods sat in Federer’s box during the U.S. Open final. Federer watched him play in Shanghai during the HSBC Champions last November, and they were together again in Dubai last month.
“I had never really seen live golf from professionals up until the last year,” Federer said. “It’s different from sitting in a stadium watching soccer or a tennis match. You’ve got to know where to stand to see the ball. For me, it was hard to follow the ball. I lost it just because he hits it so hard and so far.”
The hardest part was getting a view from inside the ropes.
Dressed in blue jeans, an untucked collared shirt and a black cap, Federer showed up on the back nine and was swarmed by fans wanting autographs. A tournament official let him inside the ropes, but U.S. PGA Tour officials said he couldn’t stay.
Only when Woods invited him in did Federer get some space.
“They said they didn’t want to do a favor because other players otherwise want the same treatment,” Federer said. “I guess just one Roger Federer was coming to the golf course today, so it was nice they got me inside the ropes.”
Woods said he understood the tour’s policy.
“I’m sure I’ll get fined for it,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t mind paying because he was starting to get hassled pretty good. That’s not why he came out here. He came out here to enjoy himself and watch me slap it around a little bit.”
Woods said he would go to Key Biscayne on Saturday to watch Federer.
They posed for pictures beyond the 18th green, and Federer walked through a corridor of fans as they yelled at Woods for an autograph. Asked who gets more attention, Woods said he probably had a slight edge.
“I don’t know if you’d call it an advantage or disadvantage,” Woods said.
TITLE: Rocket Hits Near UN Chief in Baghdad
AUTHOR: By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — A rocket landed near the prime minister’s office Thursday during the first visit to Iraq by the head of the United Nations in nearly a year and a half, sending Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ducking unharmed behind a podium at a news conference.
The attack came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government said it had been negotiating with Sunni insurgents for months, and the U.S. military said that it had released a senior aide to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on al-Maliki’s request.
The rocket caused no injuries but rattled the building in the heavily guarded Green Zone, sent small chips of debris floating from the ceiling, and left a three-foot-wide crater about 50 yards away outside.
It struck right after al-Maliki, standing next to Ban, had finished telling reporters that Ban’s visit was a sign that Iraq was on the road to stability.
“We consider it a positive message to (the) world in which you confirm that Baghdad has returned to playing host to important world figures because it has made huge strides on the road toward stability,” al-Maliki said in his opening remarks.
Ban had just finished giving an answer to question and it was being translated into Arabic as the rocket struck with a big explosion.
He appeared frightened, casting his eyes right and left as he rose after ducking behind the podium where he was standing and answering questions with al-Maliki. A worried-looking Ban turned to one of his aides and asked: “Is it OK?”
Al-Maliki told his security guards, “Nothing’s wrong,” as one of them moved to grab him. He then proceeded to answer a question and while that response was being translated, he turned to Ban and asked: “That’s enough?”
“Yes,” he replied.
The last visit to Iraq by the head of the U.N. was in November 2005, by Ban’s predecessor, Kofi Annan.
The United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was bombed by militants on Aug. 19, 2003, and 22 people died, including the top U.N. envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
The U.N.’s international staff withdrew from Iraq in October 2003 following a second assault launched against its offices and other attacks on humanitarian workers.
A small staff has gradually been allowed to return since August 2004.
TITLE: Dedieu Spoils Russian Golden Sweep Bid
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MELBOURNE, Australia — French star Virginie Dedieu won her third consecutive world synchronized swimming title in the solo free event Thursday night, spoiling Russia’s bid for a golden sweep.
Wearing a black V-neck suit and swimming to music featuring an operatic aria, Dedieu dazzled the judges.
She received three perfect scores of 10.0 for artistic merit and technical marks of 9.9. Her total of 99.500 points bettered Natalia Ischenko of Russia, who had 98.500 and settled for silver for the second straight world meet.
“The third (title) was the hardest because I retired and came back,” Dedieu said through a translator. “I made a bet with myself. It wasn’t easy to come back to the top. I’m really, really happy.”
Dedieu’s victory broke up Russia’s hold on the gold. The Russians had won the first four events, and they are heavily favored in the remaining two.
“The competition with Virginie is very tough,” Ischenko, who won the solo technical gold, said through a translator. “She’s an outstanding performer and a great athlete.”
Gemma Civil Mengual of Spain earned the bronze, her third consecutive bronze-medal finish at the worlds. Saho Harada of Japan was fourth and American Christina Jones finished fifth.
When she realized she had won, Dedieu began weeping. She ran across the deck and climbed into the stands for a long, lingering embrace with her boyfriend, Jeremy.
“I said to him, ‘I did it,’ but we actually did it together because he really helped me getting back to the top,” she said.
Dedieu had four months to prepare for the worlds after coming out of retirement. The 28-year-old swimmer captured the world title at Montreal two years ago, then left the sport to pursue interior design.
After Melbourne, Dedieu plans to tour Japan with a music and water show before resuming her interior design career.
Mengual thought she had seen the last of Dedieu two years ago in Montreal.
“It was a surprise she came back. It’s the last time, I think,” Mengual said, laughing.
Earlier, Alexandre Despatie caused a few double-takes — the Canadian was leading a diving event and a couple of Chinese were trailing.
Despatie, winner of the 3-meter springboard in his hometown of Montreal in 2005, got off to a good start in defending his title by leading the preliminaries in Melbourne, relegating Chinese divers Qin Kai and He Chong into second and third, respectively.
Despatie had 486.54 points in the prelims. The top 18 advanced to Friday’s semifinals, with the final set for that evening.
Qin finished with 474.70, followed by He Chong at 470.75.
TITLE: Woolmer Murder Possible
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Gill Woolmer, wife of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer who died in Jamaica on Sunday, said on Thursday she had not ruled out the possibility that her husband had been murdered.
Jamaican police said on Tuesday that the 58-year-old’s death was being treated as “suspicious.”
Former England batsman Woolmer was found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room less than 24 hours after Pakistan’s shock World Cup defeat by Ireland which knocked them out of the tournament. He was pronounced dead in hospital later that day.
“I suppose there is always the possibility, I mean some of the cricket fraternity fans are extremely volatile and passionate about the game and about what happens in the game… so I suppose there is always the possibility that it could be that (murder),” she said in an interview with Sky Sports.
“It fills me with horror. I just can’t believe that people would behave like that or that anyone would want to harm someone who has done such a great service to international cricket.”
A statement from Jamaican police on Wednesday said that a second pathologist’s opinion was being sought.
“Following consultations today involving representatives from the government of Jamaica and the police, a decision was taken to seek the opinion of a second pathologist,” police spokesman Karl Angell said in the e-mailed statement.
“Arrangements are currently being made to engage the services of this pathologist.”
Gill Woolmer said in the Sky interview her husband was “depressed” after Pakistan’s defeat but ruled out suicide, adding that he was fit and had been trying to lose weight because of diabetes.
“He was very depressed and he sent me an email to that effect, but he always got depressed and down when the boys didn’t do as he expected and hoped,” she said.
“But that was normal in any competition, he was a very competitive person. But there’s no way that suicide was involved, he would never ever…”
She said that she was waiting for the results of a second pathologist’s report before her husband’s body could be flown home to South Africa.
“They have given me some indication of why they think it’s suspicious but I’m not prepared to say what,” she added..
Pakistan won their final rain-affected match on Wednesday when they beat Zimbabwe by 93 runs.
TITLE: Joubert Claims Men’s World Title
AUTHOR: By Alastair Himmer
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TOKYO — France’s Brian Joubert added the world gold medal to his European title after a breath-taking free program at the world figure skating championships on Thursday.
Joubert had led after Wednesday’s short program and was a class above his rivals again with a flawless routine that brought the Tokyo crowd to his feet and left the Frenchman in tears.
“I worked hard for this gold,” said Joubert, who posted a winning total of 240.85 points. “It’s been a great season. I gave it everything I had. But waiting for the scores was torture.”
Japan’s Daisuke Takahashi also broke down after taking the silver with a total of 237.95 while two-times defending champion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland was third with 233.35.
Czech Tomas Verner was fourth with 226.25 with American Evan Lysacek fifth on 222.18.
Canadian champion Jeffrey Buttle, second after Wednesday’s short program, blew his chances by crashing to the ice three times in an unhappy skate and finished sixth on 214.96.
Sweden’s Kristoffer Berntsson brought some Travolta-esque dazzle to Tokyo with a rousing skate to the music from “Saturday Night Fever” which briefly gave him the lead.
The Nordic champion eventually finished ninth on 206.29 points despite bringing the house down with his high-intensity routine.
Russian three-times world champion Yevgeny Plushenko is on a year’s sabbatical following his gold medal at last year’s Turin Olympics.
Earlier, Bulgaria’s golden couple Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski edged closer to a second straight ice dancing world title with a spell-binding original dance routine.
Denkova and Staviski, whose resemblance to former England soccer captain David Beckham has made him a big fan favorite in Tokyo, were given a rare standing ovation.
The Bulgarians, skating in their last official competition, finished the second of the three ice dancing elements on a total of 99.52 points, with the slenderest of leads over Canada’s Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon.
“It’s nice they think I look like David Beckham,” a beaming Staviski told Reuters. “Thank you very much. If only I could get as much money as Beckham that would be great!”
TITLE: Kazan March Continues
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Champions and favorites Ak Bars Kazan took a 2-0 lead in their Russian Hockey League quarterfinal playoff series with Khimik Moscow Oblast with 3-1 and 5-1 wins in games one and two respectively in Kazan. Even without Alexei Morozov, who is ill, Ak Bars dominated Khimik and is looking to improve on last season when they mowed down all of their opponents and lost only one game in the playoffs.
CSKA Moscow tied their series with Salavat Yulaev Ufa 1-1 with a 3-1 win, scoring three unanswered goals in the closing 10 minutes of game two in Ufa Wednesday night. Salavat Yulaev dominated the Muscovites 5-2 in the series opener.
Avangard Omsk similarly dominated Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 5-2 in game one but also fell short in game two getting edged by Lokomotiv 4-3 in Omsk Wednesday. Loko was anchored by goalie Yegor Podomatsky who played an outstanding game.
Metallurg Magnitogorsk lead their series with Sibir Novosibirsk 2-0 having just barely escaped defeat in game two with a 2-1 win. Sibir netminder Sergei Nikolayev saved a penalty shot and stood on his head during the game. Metallurg finally broke through on a powerplay with less than three minutes remaining in regulation to tie the game at one. Igor Korolev scored the game winner with 46 seconds left in regulation. Metallurg won game one 2-0.
TITLE: Poison Dart Shooter Found in Hong Kong
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: HONG KONG — Police in Hong Kong are investigating an elaborate device found embedded in the turf at a world-famous horse track apparently designed to shoot poison darts at the animals at the start of a race.
A track supervisor unearthed the device on Wednesday morning while making routine checks of the starting points for races scheduled that evening at the Happy Valley racetrack, the Hong Kong Jockey Club said in a statement.
The remote controlled shooter included 12 metal tubes, each a foot long, filled with darts buried in the grass under the spot where the starting gates would be situated for 1,200 meter races on Wednesday night.
The tubes, spaced so each would aim up at a horse, were wired together and linked to a wireless receiver, according to a local newspaper and a police source who declined to be identified.
“The obvious intent was that it was going to fire these little darts which have got some kind of chemical in it … up from the ground up to where the horse’s starting gate is,” said the senior police source.
“I doubt very much that it was meant to do anything more than just slightly tranquilise the horse. That’s my speculation.”
The police source said the shooter was almost certainly related to betting, and could be linked to organised crime syndicates, known as triads.
“It could well be that triads are part of that, especially the gambling which is done outside the Jockey Club’s system,” he said.