SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1262 (28), Friday, April 13, 2007
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TITLE: Ukraine President, PM Dig In Heels
AUTHOR: By Ron Popeski
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KIEV — Ukraine’s antagonistic leaders said on Thursday they favored a compromise to resolve a standoff prompted by the president’s dissolution of parliament, but neither appeared to make immediate concessions.
President Viktor Yushchenko, swept to power by the mass protests of the 2004 “Orange Revolution,” dissolved the chamber and called a new parliamentary election for May 27 after months of sniping with his arch-rival, Ukraine’s prime minister.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and the majority backing him in parliament have asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the legality of the president’s decree.
Ukraine watchers agree that any court ruling would only widen a rift between the conflicting parties. Both sides have suggested that a face-saving political deal could obviate the ruling and allow both sides to back down.
Yushchenko dissolved the chamber to stop what he said were illegal moves to entice his allies to cross the floor and join the majority coalition. On Thursday, he accused parliament of creating “hysteria,” but vowed to stand by a court ruling.
“I will abide by any ruling of the Constitutional Court. I am a democrat and I respect the law,” Yushchenko told a news conference.
But he added: “This is a political crisis and it is up to politicians to use their professional skill and political mechanisms to solve this conflict. It is improper to put a political question before the Constitutional Court.”
He suggested that fresh elections were needed as a “purgatory” for all Ukrainian political forces.
Yanukovich initially rejected the decree, but has since said he would back simultaneous parliamentary and presidential contests.
On Thursday, he said a political deal could be a solution.
“Even if the Constitutional Court rules that the decree is unconstitutional, an election is possible if all participants in the political process reach an agreement in political terms,” he said during talks with Lithuania’s prime minister.
In Brussels, a European Union envoy who met senior Ukrainian politicians on Wednesday, said the crisis could be solved by putting off the election.
Marek Siwiec, a vice-president of the European Parliament, proposed finding “a compromise date for any early elections, with all the parties of the conflict. This would be better than to keep May 27, which is not realistic at all.”
Siwiec on Wednesday said it was too early to involve European Union institutions in the crisis.
Supporters and opponents of the president’s decree pressed on with protests in central Kiev, but these have been relatively small. Attempts to recreate the atmosphere of the 2004 “orange” protests have largely gone flat.
Yushchenko defeated Yanukovich in a re-run of a 2004 election after weeks of upheaval against a blatant attempt to initially declare the latter the winner.
The two men hold contrasting visions of the future of ex-Soviet Ukraine.
Yushchenko has promised to move Ukraine closer to the West, seek long-term European Union and NATO membership and build an open, liberal economy. Yanukovich accuses the president’s allies of pitching the economy into a tailspin and has pledged to rebuild close links with Russia to the north.
The president reluctantly named Yanukovich prime minister after his own “orange” allies scored badly in a parliamentary election barely a year ago and failed to form a government. 
He has since constantly chipped away at the president’s authority.

TITLE: Prosecutor Moves to Suspend Yabloko
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg branch of the liberal party Yabloko found itself under fire Wednesday when its regional leader Maxim Reznik received a written warning from the city prosecutor’s office ahead of an opposition event known as the Dissenters’ March scheduled for Sunday.
The prosecutor’s office threatened to suspend the local branch the party for up to six months if Yabloko fails to “correct violations of the Russian legislation it made during [a previous] Dissenters’ March on March 3.”
“Despite repeated offers from the city government to organize a meeting on Ploshchad Lenina near the Finland Station, the marchers proceeded on their own route from the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall down Nevsky Prospekt,” reads the letter, signed by Andrei Lavrenko, St. Petersburg’s deputy prosecutor. “Being fully aware that they were breaking the law, the rally’s participants, including [Yabloko politician] Mikhail Amosov, deliberately continued the illegal action. After the marchers refused to end the illegal event, the police took steps to block the procession. As a consequence, transport in the area was disturbed for several hours.”
Reznik called the letter an example of direct political persecution. 
Boris Vishnevsky, a member of Yabloko’s political council, accused prosecutors of intimidating the opposition ahead of the forthcoming protest rally. The prosecutor’s letter calls on Yabloko “to take measures to prevent such violations of the law in the future.”
“The letter once again unmasks the prosecutor’s office and reveals it as the Governor’s dog,” Vishnevsky said. “These guys are let loose on a chosen target… and their task is to silence and weaken the opposition.”
Yabloko representatives ridiculed the prosecutor’s demands.
Reznik said “correcting the past” — a method common in the writing of Soviet history textbooks — is tricky.
“This is a fine example of judicial delirium: the way the prosecutors phrased it, there are two ways to correct what they call violations: either the physical destruction of Mikhail Amosov or getting a time machine to roll back five weeks and try to stop our colleague from blocking the traffic on Nevsky,” Reznik said. “Needless to say, both scenarios are utterly absurd, as is the letter itself.”
“Mikhail Amosov is not guilty of anything and even if a party member really did something wrong, it does not make his entire political party responsible,” Vishnevsky said. “If a Yabloko member took a pee on the street, or broke a window, it does not oblige the entire party to march to the scene, repair the window, wash away the mess and rid ourselves of the shame.” 
Yabloko lawyers called the document judicially illiterate, adding that the prosecutor’s office has no authority over a political party. 
“The document reveals an embarrassing ignorance; issuing warnings to political parties is the right of the Federal Registration Office,” said party lawyer Olga Pokrovskaya. “Besides, the party as an organization, rather than any of its members, has to be responsible for whatever activities the warning is talking about. And finally, it takes a court ruling to suspend a political party.”
In the meantime the St. Petersburg’s Prosecutors Office has not yet responded to Yabloko’s own questions concerning the March 3 rally.
Amosov and Natalya Yevdokimova, a liberal former lawmaker at the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, sent an appeal to the St. Petersburg  Prosecutor’s Office to help speed up City Hall’s response to a parliamentary inquiry they lodged last month. 
The inquiry asked Governor Valentina Matviyenko to reveal who ordered Yabloko activists and other participants in the March 3 demonstration to be detained and beaten, and is who is to be held accountable. Meanwhile, Yabloko politicians, who supported the march on March 3, continue to prepare for the march on Sunday.
The party has asked Matviyenko to attend the meeting to respond to criticism but the Governor has turned the invitation down saying that “a constructive dialogue would be impossible on the street.” 
Matviyenko has, however, invited party representatives for talks in the City Hall in the near future. 
Yabloko politicians also challenged Matviyenko to face live televised debates but there has been no response so far to this proposal.

TITLE: 6,000 Urge Bakiyev to Quit in Bishkek
AUTHOR: By Bagila Bukharbayeva
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Thousands of opposition supporters gathered in the main square in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Wednesday to press President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to resign.
Bakiyev sought to head off the opposition protest by signing constitutional amendments curtailing his power Tuesday, but the opposition rejected his move and showed up in full force, just two years after demonstrators drove his predecessor from power.
Thousands of protesters gathered at seven locations across the capital, Bishkek, and marched to the Ala Too square carrying banners reading “No to Bakiyev!” and “Reforms Without Bakiyev!” Most participants were young, and many were armed with massive wooden sticks.
About 6,000 protesters rallied at the square near the presidential headquarters, setting up dozens of traditional yurts.
“We want a government that will be honest and open … and not divide the nation into the south and the north,” former Prime Minister Felix Kulov told the rally.
Bakiyev and his entourage come from the south, while Kulov and many other opposition leaders are from the north.
Protesters booed Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev when he attempted to address them and talk about consensus. They said protests would continue until Bakiyev stepped down.
“We are disgusted by Bakiyev’s policy,” said one of the protesters, Mirlan Ozubekov, 20, from the northern Issyk-Kul region. “He only puts the southerners in official jobs.”
“We are sure that we will be able to force Bakiyev to resign,” said Fatima Tagayeva, 55.
Underscoring the tension between the north and the south, Deputy Interior Minister Temirkan Subanov said authorities deployed 300 elite police from the southern Osh region to help protect order in the capital.
In all, 4,000 police were put on duty to maintain order in Bishkek during opposition rallies, officials said.
The situation was calm Wednesday, and many officers were lying on the grass to relax under the warm sunshine, taking off some of their clothes.
The prospect of large, protracted protests that could throw the country into chaos is a concern for both Washington and Moscow. The United States and Russia each have an air base in Kyrgyzstan.
Bakiyev on Tuesday accused the opposition of plotting a coup and threatened tough action if the demonstrations jeopardize public security.
Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev said any attempt by protesters to storm the president’s headquarters, which also houses the government, would be put down by force.
Shop and market owners — mindful of the looting that followed the fall of Askar Akayev’s regime two years ago — were taking security precautions ahead of the opposition protests, with some saying they had hired armed guards, local media reported.
Subanov, the deputy interior minister, said guards at stores had been allowed to use weapons to prevent looting.

TITLE: NGOs Struggle to Comply With Accounting Legislation
AUTHOR: By Svetlana Osadchuk
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Nongovernmental organizations are scrambling to file their accounting paperwork to authorities by a deadline Sunday, exactly one year after a controversial law on NGOs came into effect.
All NGOs must file their annual reports to the Federal Registration Service by Sunday or risk facing closure, and NGO representatives said Wednesday that they are suffocating from the additional paperwork required under the revamped law.
“There are too many details we have to provide, and it’s confusing to try to distinguish between ‘main’ events, which have to be included in the reports, and other events, which don’t,” said Tatyana Kasatkina, executive director of the human rights group Memorial.
Boris Altshuler, head of the Right of the Child advocacy group, said his organization was required to file so much paperwork that it was virtually impossible to do anything else.
Kirill Yezhov, spokesman for Charities Aid Foundation Russia, said larger NGOs such as his face fewer difficulties in making the deadline because they have lawyers and accountants working exclusively on filing the required paperwork. “It’s much more difficult for smaller NGOs who simply can’t handle such large amounts of paperwork,” Yezhov said.
Registration service official Zhanna Fedyushkina said the agency had sent recommendations to NGOs on submitting their paperwork, but that a vast majority had yet to file.
Those that miss the Sunday deadline will be issued a warning, which, if ignored, could lead to closures, Fedyushkina said.
The new requirements are especially problematic for human rights groups that receive most of their financial support from abroad. NGOs must, among other things, list all foreign donations received and specify exactly how those funds were used.
State Duma Legislation Committee chairman Pavel Krasheninnikov said Wednesday that there was nothing wrong with foreigners funding NGOs involved with humanitarian work, but that foreign funding of political activities must not be allowed.

TITLE: U.S. Report on Human Rights Riles Ministry
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday hit out at a U.S. State Department report critical of Moscow’s human rights record, saying U.S. support for civic groups and democratic opposition parties here violated international law.
The ministry said in a statement that the report, “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2006,” contained unfair criticism of Russia’s political system and distorted its record on human rights.
Russia is open for a “constructive dialogue,” the statement said, but would not tolerate “using democracy and human rights issues as a cover for interference in its internal affairs.”
The State Department report, issued last week, pointedly avoided calling Russia’s political system a democracy, instead characterizing it as “a weak multiparty political system with a strong presidency,” which had only grown stronger in 2006. The report also described U.S. financial aid to NGOs and independent media, including efforts to help promote free and fair elections.
The Foreign Ministry said the funding ran contrary to “such principles of the international law as respect for nation’s sovereignty,” as well as internationally recognized rules governing embassy activities.

TITLE: U.S. Reserved on WTO Entry
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — A senior U.S. trade official said Russia was making only slow progress toward entering the World Trade Organization and that Congress was not close to dropping a key trade restriction.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab appeared to be taking a harder line than U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who said last week that the United States would do all it could to help Russia enter the WTO.
Schwab said Monday that Congress was not ready to repeal Cold War-era legislation known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment to normalize trade relations with Russia.
“The question that I get asked when it comes to Jackson-Vanik and permanent normal trade relations with Russia is: ‘Is the WTO ready to let Russia in?’ And the answer is: ‘Not yet,’” Schwab said at a news conference in Washington.
Schwab called the news conference to announce that the United States would complain to the WTO about copyright violations in China, which is a WTO member. She mentioned Russia in response to a reporter’s question.
Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman at the U.S. trade representative’s office, was unable on Tuesday to immediately comment on Schwab’s remarks.
Gutierrez sounded more upbeat about when he visited Moscow last week. Speaking on the sidelines of an investment conference, he said the United States was “very supportive” of Russia’s WTO bid and that “we want to help in any way we can.”
In return, Washington expects Russia to combat intellectual property rights violations. Russia should also better define its laws on imports of encryption technology, Gutierrez said.

TITLE: Local Sailors Prepare For Voyage to the United States
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Three St. Petersburgers, including a man who has never sailed further than the nearby town of Kronshtadt, are to set off on Sunday to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a handmade yacht. 
The journey taken by Sergei Tikhonov, Boris Kupriyanov and Artyom Drokanov to New York and back covers more than 13,000 nautical miles (about 25,000 kilometers). 
The yellow 30-foot long boat called “Elizabeth,” constructed by Tikhonov in 1995, will dock briefly in Helsinki, Kiel, Lisbon and other European ports, then proceed to the Canary Islands, cross the Atlantic Ocean to Florida, sail up the east coast of the U.S. and then enter New York harbor. 
“Sergei has, all his life, had two overwhelming desires. One is to sail the seven seas and the other is to see New York,” Tikhonov’s friend, Grigory von Laeser said. 
But Tikhonov said the idea of the journey came to him spontaneously. “I have sailed to the North already, but never been South. Besides, every sailor should try and skip across the Atlantic!” 
As for the ports and marinas that the crew encounter on their way, Tikhonov said “they’re not that different the world over,” adding that the sea and how they are going to cope with it are the most important challenges in the adventure.
Artyom Drokanov, a recent university graduate and a close friend of Tikhonov’s son, said he has never been on a long-distance voyage before but that the chance to test himself tempted him.
“When the captain offered me the chance to join the project, I thought ‘Why not, I’ve only just graduated from university and don’t have a job or a family — I am totally in independent mode’,” he said. 
“The most interesting thing about a long journey is that you can try and prove something to yourself and you have space for your thoughts,” Drokanov said. Although he admits that he hasn’t “seen the sea yet,” Drokanov said he is not at all scared. “The crew is made up of very experienced people and I will learn along the way.”
Another team member, Boris Kupriyanov, who met Tikhonov through an internet site dedicated to yachting and has already gained some yachting experience and qualifications, explained his motivation for taking part: “The presence of adrenaline in my blood is vitally important.” 
Although the three men have never been to sea together, Tikhonov, the captain, believes his team is made up of “real sailors.”
Asked how to define a “real sailor”, Tikhonov, who has already sailed to Spitsbergen (a Norwegian island in the Arctic Ocean) in the same boat a few years ago, said: “If you can steer during a storm and you’re not paralyzed with fear, then you are a true sailor.”
“The ocean’s waves can be higher than the yacht’s mast and in those conditions you need people you can trust,” he said. “Having been on watch for four hours, you go to rest and you should have people with whom you can relax and fall asleep and, most importantly, with whom you will be able to wake up all right with, rather than in an abyss, deep down beneath the sea,” Tikhonov said, mentioning that they are going to sail through the area where “The Perfect Storm,” a Hollywood blockbuster about a killer tempest in the North Atlantic, was set. 
If everything goes according to the initial plan, the team will be back in St. Petersburg by mid-October. 
“The art of yachting is not in the ability to overcome difficulties, but in the skill of being able to forecast and then avoid them,” Tikhonov said.

TITLE: Cult Leader Warns Judge In Court
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Cult leader Grigory Grabovoi warned a judge on Tuesday that she had better free him or risk a catastrophic explosion at the Balakovskaya nuclear power plant.
The judge, Yelena Ivanova, was unfazed. After hearing opening statements by city prosecutors and Grabovoi’s lawyer, she adjourned the trial until April 23. She ordered that Grabovoi be kept in custody.
“I will be freed,” Grabovoi said in an interview during a recess, standing in a tiny cage in the stuffy courtroom.
Grabovoi, 43, is being tried on 11 counts of fraud connected to his promises to resurrect the dead, including children who died in the Beslan school hostage-taking in 2004.
Grabovoi has also sold information on how to treat terminal diseases and cure the incurable, prosecutors said. He charged about $1,500 for one-on-one meetings and $35 per person for group meetings.
Around 30 people, including journalists and supporters, filled the Tagansky District Court by the time Grabovoi was led in handcuffs to the metal defendants’ cage.
About 100 other people, mostly members of Grabovoi’s cult and their acquaintances, were made to wait outside.
As a shackled Grabovoi was frog-marched out of the courtroom, he planted a kiss on his wife’s cheek.
“He is openly practicing his beliefs,” she said later. “That is not a crime.”

TITLE: Sokolov: Germany Must Pay For Art
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia wants compensation to send a collection of trophy art back to Germany, Culture and Press Minister Alexander Sokolov told the State Duma on Wednesday.
Brought from Germany soon after the end of World War II by Soviet Army Captain Viktor Baldin, the valuable collection — 362 drawings by masters such as Titian, Rembrandt, Delacroix and Van Gogh — ended up at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Russian and German officials have for years been discussing the conditions that would lead to the collection’s return to Germany, and Sokolov said Russia was insisting on compensation for restoring and maintaining the artwork.
“No one will give back this collection for nothing,” he said in response to a question from a deputy about the progress of Russian-German talks.
Moscow sees this and other art taken from Germany as restitution for the loss of millions of lives and the destruction of entire cities during the war.
Boris Boyarskov, head of the Federal Service for Media Law Compliance and Cultural Heritage, said at the Duma that Russia had so far compiled a list of 36,000 pieces of Russian art lost in the war.
The Duma invited Sokolov, Boyarskov and Mikhail Shvydkoi, head of the Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency, to speak about historical and cultural issues at Wednesday’s session. Obsessed with strict adherence to its schedule, the Duma, however, gave the officials only five to 15 minutes to deliver their speeches, and technicians cut off microphones and speakers after their time elapsed.
Sokolov lamented lack of government spending on preservation efforts, saying 10 percent of historical buildings were in ruins and 30 percent more needed urgent attention.
The country has about 88,000 historical and cultural landmarks, including old Orthodox churches and the Kremlin, Shvydkoi said. About 26,000 of them are on a federal list, while the others are on regional lists, he said.
The federal budget earmarked 2.2 billion rubles ($85 million) to preserve them this year, which is only 5 percent of what they require, Shvydkoi said.
In other comments, Boyarskov said his agency and prosecutors work to prevent regional officials from removing Soviet-era monuments, often statues of Lenin and other Soviet leaders.
Sokolov, responding to a question why “showmen, bandits, prostitutes and politicians” dominate television airtime, agreed that stations still broadcast much “dirt.” He called for federal funds and guidelines to create alternative programs, but said direct bans should be avoided.

TITLE: Evraz In Talks To Buy IPSCO
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s biggest steelmaker, Evraz Group SA, which completed a major acquisition in the United States at the start of the year, is in talks to acquire Canada’s IPSCO Inc., a business daily reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources.
Evraz’s management held acquisition talks several weeks ago with IPSCO, the Vedomosti paper said, citing two unnamed businessmen familiar with Evraz’s shareholders.
Irina Kibina, vice president at Evraz, declined to comment on the report when contacted by The Associated Press.
In January, Evraz completed the takeover of Oregon Steel in the U.S. for $2.3 billion, one of the largest investments in the United States by a Russian company. Evraz already owns steelworks in the Czech Republic and Italy.
Billionaire Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich holds 41 percent of Evraz’s shares. 
Andrei Litvin with the MDM investment bank in Moscow said the deal was “theoretically possible” and called IPSCO an attractive and profitable target that would allow Evraz to diversify geographically and in terms of the products it makes.
However, he said there was a question mark over how Evraz would finance the acquisition of a company with a market value of some $6 billion.

TITLE: Fosborn Home Signals Start of Regional Battle
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Fosborn Home mortgage brokerage opened a St. Petersburg branch this week in a move that signals the start of an ambitious program of regional expansion. By supplementing the standard range of brokerage services with a number of innovations, the managers hope to seize a considerable share of the local market.
“We’ve opened the first regional branch in St. Petersburg, and it will be an innovative branch,” Vasily Belov, financial director of Fosborn Home, said at a news conference Tuesday.
Besides the standard services — mortgages, consumer loans, debt refinancing and mortgage realtor services — the new office on Nevsky Prospekt will offer car loans and insurance services. Fosborn Home will focus on loans to individuals buying cars from other individuals and on expensive insurance products like life insurance.
By the end of 2007 Belov expects the company’s loan portfolio to reach $240 million, of which $40 million in St. Petersburg.
About 300 companies offer similar services in the city. However Belov thinks quality will set Fosborn Home apart from the competition. To improve business operations Fosborn Home has installed Microsoft Dynamics CRM — a customer relationship management system.
“Thus the possibility of making a mistake, which a person can make when trying to keep in mind the credit schemes of 20 banks, decreases to a minimum,” Belov said.
He sees the main competitive advantage in offering “the best terms in the market, which the client would not get applying directly to the bank.” Fosborn Home has partner agreements with 27 Russian banks, including Alfa-bank, VTB-24, Raiffeisenbank and Sberbank.
The one-off commission at Fosborn Home is 1.5 percent. On average banks offer a discount of 0.5 percent to Fosborn Home clients. 
“Multiplying it by 10 years we figure a benefit of five percent. Besides, the borrower is guaranteed a deal that is signed by the deadline and according to the terms specified,” Belov said.
Within the next two months Belov promised to introduce a “western model” where the client does not pay for brokerage services and the bank covers the commissions. 
“At the moment we are launching this scheme in Moscow. In May-June we will launch it in St. Petersburg,” he said.
“A significant number of mortgage brokers operate in this market. It will be hard for Fosborn Home but with their experience and technical know how they will succeed in taking a considerable share of the St. Petersburg market,” said Vitaly Demidov, deputy manager of Absolut Bank’s St. Petersburg branch.
Belov expects debt refinancing to be in demand because interest rates have been decreasing in recent years. Fosborn Home offers interest rates of between nine percent and 10.75 percent. 
In the twelve months after Fosborn Home began offering refinancing on its web site the company received applications for a total of $40 million.
By the end of 2007 Fosborn Home will open nine regional branches, including Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Volgograd and Rostov-na-Donu. By the end of 2009 the company plans to take 20 percent of the Russian brokerage market covering over 50 regions.
Igor Zhigunov, head of the sales department of Gorodskoi Mortgage Bank in St. Petersburg, considered regional expansion a “timely step.”
By the beginning of 2007 the Russian mortgage market was estimated to be worth some $10 billion. Last year the market increased over four times, Zhigunov said.
About one third of the deals in Gorodskoi Mortgage Bank are closed with the mediation of brokers and about 25 percent in Russia on average, Zhigunov said. In western countries between 60 percent and 70 percent of loans to individuals and small companies are granted through the mediation of brokers.
At the moment Fosborn Home employs 30 people in St. Petersburg, but expects that figure to rise to 40 by the end of the year. Promoters will work in the Sennaya and Rodeo Drive malls.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>New Brew</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Baltika has started supplying a new sort of beer, “Baltika N 1 Light,” to the Finnish market, Interfax reported Tuesday.
In Finland beverages containing over 4.7 percent of alcohol are distributed through specialized stores. This light beer contains only 4.4 percent alcohol and can be sold in any retail chain.
Baltika started export to Finland in November 2005. Last year the company supplied about 30,000 liters of beer to the country.

<b>Elite Investment</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Vozrozhdeniye Sankt-Peterburga construction corporation will invest over $3 billion into elite residential construction in the city by 2011, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The company, a part of LSR Group, will build about 500,000 square meters of housing. The investment will be funded by the company, part-take investors and bank loans.

<b>Power Profits</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — TGK-1 power generation company reported net profit of 598 million rubles ($23 million) in 2006, Interfax reported Wednesday.
According to preliminary data, revenue accounted for 20.5 billion rubles, total operational expenses for 20.18 million rubles, investment for 3.6 billion rubles.
The company produced 23.2 billion kilowatt-hours of energy in 2006.

<b>Filling Plans</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Faeton-Aero, a franchisee of German company Aero that operates premium-class filling stations, plans to increase revenue by 60 percent this year up to 6.56 billion rubles ($2.52 million), Interfax reported Thursday.
At the moment Faeton-Aero operates 44 filling stations in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast. By investing one billion rubles into filling stations in Moscow the company expects to increase their total number to 55 this year.

<b>Expanding Drugs</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Natur?Produkt?holding is to acquire a drug store chain in Samara “Znokomy Pharmatsevt for an undisclosed sum,” Interfax reported Wednesday.
The St. Petersburg-based holding has already acquired eight out of the firm’s ten drug stores. The remaining stores are in the process of being sold.
By the end of 2007 the holding plans to acquire about 70 drug stores across Russia and operate them under its own brand “Zdorovye Lyudi.” 

<b>Streams of Money</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — UNIStream international money transfers system processed transactions worth $496 million in the first quarter of 2007, the company said in a press release Thursday.
The total represents a 117 percent increase compared with the same period in 2006 when the amount of transactions totaled $239 million.

TITLE: Russia Signs $700 Million Deal To Upgrade India’s Fighter Jets
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia has signed a $700 million contract to replace 18 of India’s Sukhoi-30 fighter jets with new versions of the same plane, Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday, citing a military source.
“Several days ago Rosoboronexport signed a contract to deliver the Indian air force 18 multifunctional Su-30MKI fighters,” the source said, Interfax reported.
The Su-30MKI is a long-haul Sukhoi fighter specially modified for the Indian air force.
Indian officials had said they would sign a deal to buy 40 Sukhoi fighters by the end of March. 
It was unclear if this contract was part of that planned deal.

TITLE: Drug Maker to Float 40% Stake in Offering
AUTHOR: By Douglas Busvine
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The country’s largest drug maker, Pharmstandard, plans to float a stake of up to 40 percent in London and Moscow, making it the first Russian pharmaceuticals firm to list abroad.
Pharmstandard said it was the fourth-largest drug company operating in Russia by sales volume last year, although an independent researcher said it had grabbed the overall market lead in the early months of 2007.
“Our goal is to strengthen further our position as the leading domestic pharmaceutical company in Russia,” general director Igor Krylov said Wednesday.
Krylov added that Pharmstandard’s strategy was “promoting our market-leading brands, launching new products, increasing investment in sales and marketing and selectively acquiring additional companies”.
Analysts said a lack of listed rivals made it tough to estimate how the market might value Pharmstandard, although Olga Samarets at Prospekt brokerage said that, based on current market multiples, it could be worth $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion.
Sergei Filchenkov at Finam put a “very preliminary” price tag of $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion on Pharmstandard.
The planned float follows Pharmstandard’s acquisition last year of competitor Masterlek and with it, a product portfolio including antiviral drug Arbidol, the market leader in Russia, where it outsells Pfizer’s Viagra anti-impotence treatment, the second most popular drug.
Commercial drug sales in the country rose by 22 percent in 2006 to $5.2 billion, according to market researchers Pharmexpert, which said Pharmstandard had taken first place in the first two months of this year from Sanofi-Aventis.
“This is a very dynamic company. It has consistently shown annual sales growth of 30-40 percent — faster than the market,” said Pharmexpert’s head of market research, David Melik-Guseinov.
A banking source familiar with the offering said Pharmstandard would begin a road show April 23, when it will announce a preliminary initial public offering price range. Final pricing should be set by May 4.
Citigroup and UBS are acting as joint global coordinators and bookrunners of the offering of global depositary receipts in London and ordinary shares on Moscow’s MICEX and RTS exchanges.
The float would be of existing shares belonging to the company’s owners — Viktor Kharitonin, Yegor Kulkov and Millhouse Capital, Roman Abramovich’s investment vehicle.
“It is a pure secondary offering — our owners have decided to monetize their investments,” said spokeswoman Olga Leschankaya. “The current plan is to sell up to 40 percent,” she added, declining to estimate proceeds from the float.
Announcing 2006 results, the company said sales rose 50 percent to 8.52 billion rubles ($324 million) while net profits gained 109 percent to 1.9 billion rubles ($72 million).
Only 8 percent of overall sales were tied to a government drugs reimbursement program. The plan, designed to replace Soviet-style provisions for people on low incomes, has been hit by teething troubles and financial woes.
Melik-Guseinov said Pharmstandard had profited from its commercial focus, but could achieve future growth by moving into the state-funded sector. He cited company plans to become the country’s first maker of insulin products to treat diabetics.

TITLE: Gazprom Holds Greek Talks
AUTHOR: By John F.L. Ross
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATHENS, Greece — Gazprom agreed Wednesday to negotiate a 24-year extension of its current contract to supply Greece with natural gas, heralding a potential deal that would solidify Russia’s long-term foothold in the Greek energy market. 
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Greek Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas said that the two governments aimed to complete the deal, which would extend the present arrangement until 2040, by year’s end. 
After their meeting, Miller underscored the two countries’ collaboration in the sector and his company’s long-term reliability as a supplier to the expanding Greek market. “Gazprom has fulfilled its contractual obligations completely and in timely fashion … I want to ensure all that Gazprom will continue working in the Greek market as a reliable supplier,” he said. 
Greece has imported natural gas for a decade, 80 percent of it from Russia via a pipeline through Bulgaria. It also plans to begin piping in gas from the Caucasus via Turkey by mid-year, a system which will later extend to Italy. 
Sioufas said the expansion of natural gas usage since 1996 “represents an impressive rhythm of growth” for Greece. 
“It creates the basis for new constructive collaboration and continuity … between Russia and Greece and Gazprom and Greece,” he said. 
Greek domestic gas consumption rose by 35 percent between 2003 and 2006, he said, and will double between now and 2010 to 6.5 billion cubic meters on higher industrial and consumer demand and ambitious plans for new gas-fired electrical power plants. Greece’s gas and electricity markets are slated for partial liberalization this year. 
Miller also underscored Gazprom’s growing collaboration in the Greek energy sector via the planned Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, by which Russian oil will be piped via Bulgaria to the Mediterranean when completed in 2010, bypassing the Bosporus Straits. Russia, through Gazprom and two other firms, has a majority stake in that deal, which the leaders of Greece, Russia, and Bulgaria signed last month in Athens.

TITLE: Beer Ad Ban Threatens Final
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s right to host the Champions League final next year is at risk after the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service ruled that an ad for Heineken during a match in Europe’s premier football tournament was illegal, Kommersant said Wednesday.
Beer advertisements in stadiums are legally banned and the service threatened to fine Heineken should it place any again after examining a game in Moscow, the newspaper said, citing Sergei Puzyrevsky, the service’s head of control over advertising law.

TITLE: Yushchenko’s Big Gamble
AUTHOR: By Andreas Umland
TEXT: Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s recent decision to dissolve Ukraine’s parliament is a step so risky that it could threaten the integrity of his political legacy. Contrary to the nature of heated discussions about the constitutionality of Yushchenko’s decree, the main question about his decision is not a legal but political one.
Yushchenko can’t win the fight he’s gotten himself into. Not only might the Constitutional Court strike down the decree as unconstitutional, which would leave his reputation fundamentally tainted, but the political conditions Yushchenko has created provide his political opponents with an opportunity to choose from a variety of possible counterstrategies. Moreover, he has plunged the country into a process that could spin out of control. Demonstrating a hubris similar to President Boris Yeltsin’s in 1993, Yushchenko and his entourage seem to think that they have finally put themselves firmly back in the saddle when, in fact, they have created a situation that could well turn against them.
In this, the decree is only the latest instance in a series of awkward decisions by Yushchenko’s team since the Orange Revolution in 2004. These include the disintegration of the first Orange coalition, the embarrassing results for his Our Ukraine bloc in the 2006 parliamentary elections, and the failure to form a functional second Orange coalition in their aftermath.
Oddly, a major protagonist in all three of these major bungles was Petro Poroshenko, a prominent business magnate, godfather to Yushchenko’s children, and one of the most unpopular public figures in Ukraine. In 2005, Poroshenko drove Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko out of office with his attempts to transfer governmental prerogatives to the Security Council, which Poroshenko headed at the time. During the parliamentary elections of early 2006, Poroshenko was one of Our Ukraine’s highest-profile members making regular — and often bizarre — appearances on ICTV’s popular political talk show “Svoboda Slova.” After Our Ukraine’s poor showing in the elections, the bloc still insisted that Poroshenko should be the speaker of the new parliament, in place of popular Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz. Facing the dim prospects of a second Orange coalition with Tymoshenko as prime minister and Poroshenko as speaker, the disillusioned Moroz switched sides, and the second Orange coalition fell apart before even having formed a government.
What Yushchenko and company are unable to accept is that, after these and other lapses, it is natural that they have recently been losing power to their political opponents. Like the market punishes companies when their strategies do not fit current economic conditions, politics is a game where it is not the “bad guys” but the less effective organizers and campaigners who lose out. 
By trying to counter their previous blunders with one grand stroke — new elections — Yushchenko’s team is making the Ukrainian state a hostage of its own incapacity and risking the breakup of the country.
What is most important is not how the Constitutional Court assesses Yushchenko’s decree, but how the voters will react to the prospect of new elections. What happens if the elections really do take place? Ukraine’s exceptionally low 3 percent barrier to gain representation in the parliament creates the possibility of myriad combinations that are difficult to foresee. The result could be an even less favorable situation for the Orange factions in the parliament than with the current balance of forces.
The situation is reminiscent of Russia’s State Duma elections in December 1993, which followed President Boris Yeltsin’s dissolution of the Congress of People’s Deputies three months earlier. It was Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s triumph in this vote that helped create the political atmosphere in Moscow leading to the decision in December 1994 to intervene in Chechnya. 
In turn, the Kremlin’s unhappy Chechnya adventure, in combination with the new 1993 Constitution, have been the two factors that have done the most to undermine post-Soviet Russia’s nascent democracy and prepared the ground for President Vladimir Putin’s tightening of control over public life.
While the situation in Ukraine is very different from that in Russia in 1993, the events that have followed Yeltsin’s actions demonstrate how miscalculated the gamble the democrats took in 1993 was and the unexpected results that radical political steps in transition societies can often have.
In Ukraine, the political context in which Yushchenko has made this move is, in some regards, even more complicated than that in Russia. What happens if large numbers of voters in eastern and southern Ukraine simply boycott the proposed elections this May? The country’s western regions will surely generate high turnout. 
This makes it possible that Tymoshenko’s party could come out ahead of all others in the vote. But what would a parliament in which the majority Russian-speaking regions are heavily underrepresented mean for the stability of the Ukrainian state?
Crimean politicians have been for some time the most vocal critics of Yushchenko’s moves, and continuing on this path could push the Crimean legislature toward declaring itself separate from Ukraine, and even joining Russia.
Given these scenarios, there is the possibility that Yushchenko and his team are merely bluffing and not really counting on new elections being held. Even if this is the case, they are still playing with fire. Given their record so far, you have to wonder not only whether they will be able to play the game well, but also whether they really comprehend just how high the stakes are.

Andreas Umland is a visiting lecturer at the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev and editor of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society.”

TITLE: Fifteen Not Quite Spartan Britons
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: “They did exactly as they should have done from start to finish,” said Jock Stirrup, Britain’s chief of defense staff. He was referring to the release of 15 British sailors who had been taken hostage by Iranian forces. When I heard this, I gave up even pretending I understood the story.
The British seamen were shown on Iranian television for two weeks stating that they had violated the country’s international waters.
The sailors surrendered themselves into captivity without firing a single shot. It isn’t important whether they actually violated Iran’s international waters. What matters is that they knew perfectly well which country they were sailing near. Ultimately it was the president of this surprisingly hospitable Islamic republic who ultimately authorized their release.
I think that this would provide great material for a historical film, which would go something like this: Gaius Mucius, a brave youth, sneaks into the Etruscan camp and, instead of trying to slay King Porsenna, he kisses his feet. Upon his return to Rome, a people’s assembly decrees that our hero conducted himself properly.
Or how about this one: Three hundred Spartans see that Xerxes’ army is nearing Thermopylae. King Leonidas kneels before Xerxes, who then forgives everyone. Spartan mothers are moved to tears at the brave conduct of their sons.
I realize that the British sailors were pressured. They were told they could confess and go free or face seven years in prison. But these are soldiers. They sign up knowing that part of their job might include dying for their country. Bringing shame on their country when threatened is not in the job description.
In his Timaeus dialogue, Plato told of how the barbarians seized Atlantis, the riches of which led to its own destruction. It sounds stranger in a modern context, as if Plato was claiming a state would fall because its gross domestic product was too large.
But thousands of years of history have shown Plato was right on the money: The richest and most civilized empires have fallen at the hands of barbarian aggressors because their populations became soft and cowardly. Barbarians saw it as unfair that such cowardly people slept on soft beds and ate with fine plates and utensils, while the brave and proud had no place to lay their heads at night.
Any prosperous country — whether a Sumerian city, Roman empire or Asian Khanate — ultimately became something like a low pressure zone by virtue of the ease enjoyed by its citizens. This created a vacuum into which stepped the “higher-pressure” and physically stronger neighbors who invaded. This historical cycle was only broken when personal bravery was surpassed in strategic importance by the advantage of more technologically advanced weaponry.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Iran or any other group of fanatics or terrorists are capable of overpowering the West. The more imminent threat facing the West is the undermining of their democratic institutions in the name of the fight against terrorism.
But it is truly remarkable that some Western leaders — U.S. President George W. Bush foremost among them — seriously believe that their soldiers, accustomed as they are to creature comforts and computers, who surrender to the enemy without a fight, can act as the torchbearers of freedom in the Middle East. You can’t expect them to serve as role models for people who have a different concept of civilization than Hollywood, hamburgers and democracy.
Try to look at it through the eyes of an average Iranian. On his television screen he sees an Englishwoman wearing a hijab and thanking Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. What will he feel for such a soldier other than sneering contempt? What will he think about democracy, other than it hasn’t the strength to stand the test?

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

TITLE: Ballet in bloom
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A neoclassical ballet set to rap, a soothing dose of classical hits and a reconstruction of an 18th century work originally presented by the Mariinsky Theater to Princess Ksenia Alexandrovna, the sister of Russia’s last tsar Nicholas II, on the occasion of her wedding, are in store for ballet fans at the Seventh International Mariinsky Ballet Festival,  which opened Thursday and runs through April 22.
On the opening night, the company was due to premiere Sergei Vikharev’s reconstruction of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov’s one-act ballet “The Reawakening of Flora,” originally created for Mathilda Kshesinskaya and later adored by Anna Pavlova. 
In addition to this newly-wrought classical piece, in which Flora, the goddess of flowers, falls in love with Zephyrus, the god of the West Wind, the festival will include two new ballets by the Mariinsky’s Alexei Miroshnichenko. The first is set to Leonid Desyatnikov’s piece for violin and piano “Like an Old Organ Grinder” and the second — working title “The Ring” — will be performed to rap music  written specifically for the occasion by 2H Company, a St. Petersburg band that works on the boundary between experimental electronic music and hip-hop.
“The Reawakening of Flora” was first shown at the Mariinsky in 1894, when Princess Ksenia Alexandrovna married her cousin, the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, the youngest son of Nicholas I. Choreographer Sergei Vikharev, who is responsible for the reconstruction, compared the ballet’s exuberance to Faberge jewellery. 
“This little piece is like an ornate Faberge egg,” he said. “The concentration of solo dancing for the role of Flora is enormous and there would be enough to stretch it into a two- or three-act work.”
Another premiere Thursday was “Like an Old Organ Grinder.”
“It is very difficult to discuss music and choreography because you really need to listen to one and see the other but I can tell you that the form of Desyatnikov’s piece naturally dictated the form of my ballet opus,” Miroshnichenko said. “There is a female solo and then a duet, followed by a nonstop 15-minute long male solo.”  
“The two soloists go on stage simultaneously and dance to the same music,  perform different moves, tell different stories and exude different emotions,” Desyatnikov said. “This piece was not intended for a ballet, and as a composer I was thrilled to see that the balletmaster was able to see various layers and levels in the score.”
Desyatnikov and Miroshnichenko have worked together before. 
Miroshnichenko’s “Du cote chez Swan” set to Desyatnikov’s score, premiered during the 2006 festival. With literary as well as choreographic references, in the piece the balletmaster alludes to Marcel Proust’s “Swann’s Way” and Michel Fokine and Camille Saint-Saens’ “The Dying Swan.” Miroshnichenko said he was inspired by Desyatnikov’s unorthodox score. 
“His music deliciously bridged these two worlds, and the challenge facing me as a choreographer was to visually  connect the dying Swan experience with Proust’s twisted reality where time doesn’t exist, through Desyatnikov’s talented, sharp, witty music,” the balletmaster said. “So in my piece, just like in Proust’s prose, dreams blend with reality, real events mix with the imagined, and beginnings are confused with endings.” 
“The Ring,” which premieres on Friday, features two powers challenging each other, and a referee. But there will be no kick-boxing, mud-wrestling or martial arts involved. 
“The contradiction will be in the air, with the dancers’ neoclassical moves being in opposition with the rhythms of electronic rap soundtracks,”  Miroshnichenko said. “‘The Ring’ is a rather conventional title and the word should not be taken literally.”
“The only limiting factor was the theater’s request not to use obscene language,” said Mikhail Fenichev, a 2H member responsible for music including rap vocals. “The rest is pretty much like what I have done before.”
The Mariinsky’s top-flight dancers will spend the next ten days performing alongside their foreign counterparts in what has become St. Petersburg’s premier annual classical ballet event.
Since it was established by maestro Valery Gergiev in 1999, the festival, now in its seventh year, has developed a formula: Petipa, Balanchine and cutting-edge modern choreography.
A brainchild of Gergiev, the festival aspires first and foremost “to agitate souls,” as Gergiev put it. It is designed as an outlet for Russian audiences to see Western stars, but also to show the best of the theater’s own talent.
The Mariinsky already has an annual festival — “The Stars of the White Nights,” which Gergiev established in 1993 — but the dance element has been gradually disappearing from its program, with operatic and symphonic programs dominating the summer fiesta.
Paris Opera dancers Agnes Letestu and Jose Martinez — both regulars at the festival since its early days — will not be able to attend the event this time because Letestu was recently injured.
But Maria Kowroski, Philip Neal and Damian Woetzel of the New York City Ballet will dance in a Balanchine evening that comprises “Serenade”, “Diamonds” (from “Jewels”) and “The Prodigal Son” on April 21.
Audience favorites Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg of London’s Royal Ballet (Covent Garden), who made their debut at the Mariinsky during 2003’s ballet festival in “Giselle,” are making a fourth visit to the St. Petersburg festival. 
Cojocaru and Kobborg dance in Leonid Lavrovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” with the Mariinsky company on Saturday. The pair are renowned for their performance of Kenneth MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet,” making their appearance in the Russian ballet that first saw the stage at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater in 1940 a special event.
Danish-born Kobborg, who started out in Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Ballet, joined London’s Royal Ballet in 1999 to become one of the company’s most outstanding soloists. Diversity of talent combined with depth of interpretation and technical virtuosity — the dancer embodies the style of Danish ballet icon August Bournonville — have earned Kobborg much critical recognition and wide international fame.
The variety of repertoire at Covent Garden is inspiring for the dancer, who especially appreciates the opportunity to perform MacMillan. It is not only the high degree of dramatic intensity that the dancer feels close to but also the chance to build a strong male character — often a tricky thing in the world of classical ballet. In life, women may fight for equality but typically they reign in classical ballet.
“In Russian ballets, and in many other ballets, it is normally the ballerina who takes the leading role, while male dancers tend to have a supporting character, being completely outshone by females,” Kobborg noted in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times in 2005. “But in many of MacMillan’s ballets, as well as in some of Bournonville’s men, they are much more equal as partners. In some works, the male character is even the main hero, and this is a huge challenge to dance these roles.”
Cojocaru, a 25-year-old principal dancer with a Thumbelina-like appearance, who often says she feels her life has much in common with the story of Cinderella, is one of the festival’s most eye-catching names.
Born in Bucharest, Romania to a family of market-stall holders, Cojocaru expressed an early interest in gymnastics, but quickly switched to dance. At the age of nine, she was invited to the Kiev Ballet School, where she studied for seven years. In 1997, Cojocaru’s career took its first quick turn, when the dancer, then 16, won the prestigious Prix de Lausanne, and subsequently took a six-month scholarship at Covent Garden. When the course finished, she had a drastic choice to make: stay with the Royal Ballet — in the corps de ballet — or return to the Kiev Opera and Ballet Theater as a principal dancer. The relative standards of living in Britain and Ukraine notwithstanding, Cojocaru returned to Kiev, where she danced an array of top roles — including Cinderella — in a single season. 
By the end of the 1998-1999 season, she felt it was time for a change, and moved to London to join Covent Garden’s corps de ballet. The speed of Cojocaru’s rise to the top in London — she made a dazzling transition from corps-de-ballet member to first soloist in just one season — shocked even her. 
She is now famous for her lead roles in MacMillan’s “Manon” and Marius Petipa classics such as “Giselle.” 

The Seventh International Mariinsky Ballet Festival runs through April 22. <i>www.mariinsky.ru</i>

TITLE: Chernov's choice
TEXT: This weekend’s central outdoor event is the <b>Dissenters’ March</b> (Marsh nesoglasnykh) — the second such march since a March 3 breakthrough anti-Putin rally, one of the biggest opposition demonstrations in recent years.
Then it drew, surprisingly, several thousand protesters who marched through the city’s main street despite threats and attacks from the estimated 3,000 special forces policemen, many brought from other cities. 
The protesters, dismissed by the authorities as “extremists,” wanted simple things, such as free speech and honest elections — something they are deprived  of in today’s Russia. 
The people were peaceful, while the police and the authorities that sent them violated the constitution and basic human rights, such as the right to gather and the right to free speech as well as the right not to get beaten and not to be detained without charge. 
The second Dissenters’ March is due to start at noon on Pionerskaya Ploshchad in front of the Theater of the?Young Spectator (TYuZ) on Sunday.
Musically, the next couple of weeks promise to be atypically busy, as lots of musicians and artists will come to the city for <b>SKIF</b>, or the Sergei Kuryokhin International Festival.
Dedicated to the late local musician, SKIF was founded in 1997 in New York, originally as SKIIF, or the Sergei Kuryokhin International Interdisciplinary Festival, by the late Russian emigre cellist Boris Raiskin. After the second festival, also in New York, the event was moved to St. Petersburg in 1999 by Kuryokhin’s widow, Anastasia Kuryokhina, who formed the Sergei Kuryokhin Foundation to promote it. 
Technically, SKIF opens on Thursday with a program of music films and video art, but concerts and performances — featuring such acts as Canada’s jazz-punk band <b>NoMeanNo</b> and U.S. multi-instrumentalist composer and improviser <b>Zeena Parkins</b>, will start on April 20. SKIF is held at the Modern Art Center (former Priboi Cinema) on 93 Sredny Prospekt (Petrograd Side). 
In the days before SKIF, all sorts of off-beat characters will flock to the city. <b>Damo Suzuki</b>, Japan-born ex-vocalist of krautrock band Can, returns to perform as Damo Suzuki’s Network with local musicians at Orlandina on Monday. This time, Network features Alexander Leonov on the singing saw, Alexei Degusarov on guitar, Roman Nevelyov on bass, Mikhail Ogorodov on keyboards, Nikolai Rubanov on saxophone and Katya “Cat” Sidorova on drums.
A new song-based noise project called The <b>Frozen Orchestra</b> will premiere at GEZ-21 on Monday. It features St. Petersburg-based musicians Tamara Lee on vocals, Richard Deutscher of Metamorphosis on guitar, Marcus Godwyn of Time of Noise on drums and ex-Markscheider Kunst Ramil Shamsutdinov, who now leads his own fusion band Nado Podumat, on trombone.

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Remembering Nabokov
AUTHOR: By Olga Sharapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In April, the Vladimir Nabokov Apartment Museum located in the former Nabokov family mansion on Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa in St. Petersburg celebrates Vladimir Nabokov’s birthday and the 10th anniversary of the founding of the museum. 
The latter commemoration is simpler to observe than the former. Nabokov, author of “Lolita,” “The Gift,” “The Luzhin Defense” and other 20th century classics, poet, lecturer, professor and lepidopterist, was born in the Bolshaya Morskaya house on April 10, 1899, according to the Julian calendar in use in Russia at the time. But the Gregorian calendar in use after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 means that the birthday is celebrated on April 22. 
However, this coincides with Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, and since the writer hated Bolshevik tyranny and believed in the magic of numbers, Nabokov supposedly preferred to mark his birthday on April 23, William  Shakespeare’s birthday. 
Nevertheless, the Nabokov Museum observes April as his anniversary month and last week unveiled newly acquired photographs of the Nabokov family country estate. 
Leaving St. Petersburg for the Crimea in 1917 to flee the Bolsheviks, the Nabokov family and 18-year-old Vladimir probably expected to return — but they never did. A happy childhood before emigration became a boon to Nabokov during his life in exile, as well as providing a theme which echoes from Nabokov’s first books  to later works such as his autobiography “Speak, Memory” (1967), where the author recalls vivid details of the family mansion, and “Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle” (1969). Nabokov died in Switzerland in 1977.
Twenty years later, with the Soviet Union gone, it was decided that the Nabokov house, which had been used as a laundry, a warehouse and offices during the Soviet era, should open as a museum dedicated to the writer.
But very little remained from the Nabokov family life in the house. The museum’s curators have had to search in Russia and abroad to recreate the Nabokov house he would have known and form a collection about his life. The museum is situated on only the first floor of the large building. The top floors are occupied by the offices of a local  newspaper — Nevskoye Vremya. Unfortunately, visitors of the museum can’t see the magnificent children’s room on the second floor decorated with wooden panels and with an old-fashioned fire-place. This room is now an editor’s office.   
The house wasn’t destroyed during the Soviet era but almost all the family’s valuables, furniture, art collection and books were plundered, scattered to different museums or sold to foreign collectors.
In the words of Tatyana Ponamareva, director of the museum, and Yelena Kuznetsova, curator, it was only thanks to a strong desire to establish a Nabokov museum in the building and donations from the writer’s son Dmitry Nabokov, living in Switzerland, that the museum’s collection has expanded. The collection contains items that once belonged to Nabokov and his family, books from the writer’s own library, photographs and  a part of Nabokov’s remarkable butterfly collection. In Nabokov’s own words: “The pleasures of literary inspiration are nothing beside hunting butterflies and studying them.”
In recent years the museum has operated as both a  traditional literary museum and an actively developing cultural center. The museum has a gallery and a lending library. The museum is a non-profit organization and is not supported by the state, which is unique in Russia. 
Now it is preparing to set up a modern, information library and internet center where visitors will find different Russian and foreign publications about  Nabokov and his books. 
The culture program this month includes Nabokov Readings, a conference on April 23-24, an art exhibition by Nadjezjda van Ittersum, a Dutch artist closely related to the Nabokov family, and the unveiling  of the first monument to the writer in Russia. 

<i>http://nabokovmuseum.org</i>

TITLE: Misery in Moravia
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Leos Janacek’s dark expressionist drama arrived in St. Petersburg on April 4 with the premiere of “Jenufa,” the composer’s best-known opera, at the Mariinsky Theater.
For reasons that remain obscure, the work of Janacek has been notably absent from the Mariinsky repertoire for many decades.
The 23-year-old Moscow director, Vasily Barkhatov, has created a spectacular show where a visually unchanging landscape is contrasted with razor-sharp, noir-flavoured dramatic acting. 
Based on “Jeji Pastorkyna” (Her Stepdaughter), a story by Gabriela Preissova, a contemporary of Janacek, “Jenufa” is a  domestic drama about a Moravian family. The Mariinsky’s staging is set in what resembles a settlement or an unfinished construction site. Metal steps with no railing lead into a hollow accommodating the house of Jenufa (Irina Matayeva), who is expecting a child by Steva (Oleg Balashov) and plans to marry him. Anticipation is in the air as Steva gets drunk to celebrate escaping army service. His condition provokes Jenufa’s foster-mother, Kostelnicka (Larisa Gogolevskaya), to suspend the marriage until Steva combats his drinking problem. Steva’s stepbrother, Laca (Jorma Silvasti, a soloist from the Finnish National Opera) is also in love with Jenufa. In a fit of jealousy, Laca disfigures her face with a knife. 
The lyric soprano Matayeva, whose talent is best revealed in belcanto and romantic repertoire, oozed warmth and fragile feminity as Jenufa, with the crystal purity of her vocals enhancing the image. Silvasti, who has previously sung Laca in other productions, was very much at home with the role in both vocal and dramatic terms, creating a clumsy, kind-hearted but doomed man.
When the baby is born, Kostelnicka begs Steva to marry Jenufa, but the woman’s maimed face is no longer attractive to him. Kostelnicka then tries to arrange the marriage of Jenufa and Laca, who is still in love with her. Kostelnicka drowns the baby and convinces  both Jenufa and Laca that it died of natural causes, but the truth comes out as soon as the wedding ceremony begins. Jenufa offers freedom to Laca, who remains faithful, and the couple declare their love for each other.
The unrelenting chain of miseries suffered by these doomed people is certain to resonate greatly with a Russian audience. 
“Three quarters of Russia lives like this anyway — and it certainly did a hundred years ago,” joked the show’s set designer Zinovy Margolin in an interview last month.
True to its intentions, the production team placed the story in a forgotten humble village, totally lacking character and devoid of a sole distinctive feature.
Kostelnicka’s religious prudence remains a period element in the picture but with jealousy being a known cause of homicide and domestic violence regardless of the age and geography, and poverty widespread in all parts of the world, the plot is timeless.
The sun never seems to rise for the characters. Fittingly, the setting remains virtually unchanged throughout the performance, except for minor details, like, for instance, a rough-looking cradle in which Kostelnicka will carry Jenufa’s newborn son to the river to drown him.
Gogolevskaya, well-rehearsed for the roles of redemptive and monumental Wagnerian heroines from Senta to Brunhilde and Isolde, brought religious angst and despair into her interpretation of Kostelnicka. Her performance was a genuine highlight.
The Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev was flawless. The musicians produced an outstanding sound and balance both during subtle ensembles and ecstatic climaxes, treating Janacek’s expressionist score with rare lucidity, raising the composer’s drama to the height of tragedy.
Gergiev was able to curb and restrain his orchestra’s trademark vigor and conducted the complex score with delicate care for its transparent textures.
The staging’s weakest point is the moment when the body of Jenufa’s son Steva is found. Jenufa finds herself in the far right corner of the stage, where she is barely heard and can hardly be seen in the dim light. The scene appears chaotic and lacks coherence. 
Then the heroine and the others struggle to climb back into the house, making poorly hidden efforts to keep balance and place their feet on the right step. Their rapid and risky descent sparks immediate compassion in the audience yet it troubles the smooth flow of the show, making one wonder why the director put the singers to such inconvenience.
In a recent take on the opera at the Riga Opera Theater, the scene was rendered much more creatively. A brightly dressed crowd in folk garments gathers for the wedding of Jenufa and Laca, and then a messenger arrives with the news that the body of the baby has been found in the frozen river. A chunk of ice with contours of baby’s body is brought into the room with Jenufa chipping at the ice block — with patience and difficulty — until she releases the body of her son.
The show ends with Jenufa and Laca breaking the fine glasses presented to the couple for their wedding.
The tradition of breaking a glass at weddings to scare away bad spirits gets an ecstatic rendition in Barkhatov’s production, serving to create an emotionally intense, exuberant finale. The newlyweds recklessly indulge in throwing the glasses at the walls, shaking with liberating laughter and the release from misery.
Barkhatov predicted a modest appetite for the new show and said he does not expect the production to run often. But that said, the greatest revelation of the April 4 premiere was the introduction of Janacek’s immensely rich score.

The next performance of “Jenufa” takes place at the Mariinsky Theater on April 30. www.mariinsky.ru

TITLE: Spreading the word
AUTHOR: By Masha Rumer
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Do Russian women shave their legs? What’s the deal with homosexuality in Russia? These are among the questions tackled in a new glossy magazine whose debut issue appeared last month in U.S., Canadian and British bookstores.
Russia!, an English-language quarterly with an initial print run of 20,000, aims to serve as a reality check to Western conceptions of Russia as a place populated with spies, vodka-guzzling chess players and mail-order brides. Its target reader is the Westerner who may not know much about the country but is interested in it, said Michael Idov, main editor of the next issue.
Idov, together with the magazine’s publisher, Ilya Merenzon, met with a reporter near Union Square in New York, where Russia! Has its editorial offices. Both Idov and Merenzon stressed that the magazine is largely apolitical and has no Kremlin ties — something they are often asked.
“It’s so unaffiliated with the Kremlin, in fact, in the second issue there’s going to be some anti-Putin material, if I have anything to do with it,” said Idov, who was born in Riga and also works for New York Magazine as a contributing editor.
Russia! Is co-owned by Press Release Group, a New York-based company headed by Merenzon, and New Century Bold, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands and headed by Andrew Paulson, the U.S. expatriate businessman best known for founding the Afisha publishing house in Moscow.
In its first issue, the 132-page glossy serves up the edgy sensibility of a Lonely Planet travel guide with a sampling of modern culture, as well as a healthy dose of humor. Heavy on design, it includes a number of photo spreads that illuminate various aspects of day-to-day Russian life, from kitschy Soviet hiking gear to the crammed interior of a Moscow apartment. In “Dacha,” a tongue-in-cheek fashion spread, overdressed Russian girls in gaudy makeup chop wood or languish against a rustic backdrop. (Their wardrobe was all made by Russian designers.) 
The magazine boasts Artemy Lebedev — perhaps Russia’s best-known designer — as its art director. Other contributors include Moscow gallery guru Marat Gelman, credited as the arts editor; author Boris Akunin, with an excerpt from his novel “The Winter Queen”; and Olga Sergiyenko, a former sex columnist for Bolshoi Gorod who is touted as Russia’s answer to Candace Bushnell.
The editorial team chose content for the first issue by asking students at Western universities what they wanted to know about Russia. The magazine has also used creative marketing: Its first 100 subscribers got canned air from St. Petersburg and chocolates as freebies, Merenzon said. 
Born in Chelyabinsk, Merenzon holds an MBA from New York’s Pace University and is the founder and CEO of Press Release Group, a market research and public relations firm specializing in the Russian-American market. Its projects include RUXX, an index that tracks the performance of Russian stocks on foreign markets, which the company maintains with RIA-Novosti, the Russian state news agency. Merenzon has also edited Metro, a Russian-language entertainment magazine in New York.
Merenzon’s latest venture into publishing follows the launch of several other English-language media outlets designed to inform Westerners about Russia. In 2005, RIA-Novosti created Russia Today, a satellite television channel, and began publishing Russia Profile, a monthly magazine. The latter is published in conjunction with Independent Media Sanoma Magazines, the parent company of The St. Petersburg Times.
Most recently, RIA-Novosti announced in February that it would target the expat market by financing a major remake of the Moscow News, the sister newspaper of the Russian weekly Moskovskiye Novosti. RIA-Novosti plans to double the newspaper’s size from 16 pages to 32 and to increase its print run.
But unlike those publications, Russia! Generally steers clear of politics. The most political article in the first issue is an interview with Nina Khrushcheva, the granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, in which she discusses freedom of speech in Russia. 
Merenzon denied that Russia! Has propagandistic goals, saying that it may eventually run stories about military conscription — “what happens to people in the army and how shitty their life is” — as well as tales of doing business in Russia. 
“We’re not going to edit it for political reasons,” Merenzon said. “Relationship with advertisers is important, but we’re a business venture.”
Many of the ads in the first issue of Russia! Are from high-profile Russian brands such as Aeroflot, Baltika beer and Rambler.ru. Most of those advertisers are clients of Press Release Group, Merenzon said.
Merenzon also said that despite their identical names, the magazine has nothing to do with “Russia!”, the mammoth exhibition of Russian art at New York’s Guggenheim Museum whose 2005 opening was attended by President Vladimir Putin.
So far, Russia! Can only be bought in small independent bookstores. One of them is St. Mark’s Bookshop in New York, which has been selling just over a dozen issues per week since mid-February. Margarita Shalina, a bookstore employee who is of Russian origin herself, said most of the buyers were trendy professionals in their 20s and 30s. She called the magazine “cool” and “clever.”
Eventually, Russia! Will hit the shelves of giants like Barnes & Noble and Borders, Merenzon promised. “We feel we are on the right track,” he said. “We now have to fine-tune our project.”

Alexander Osipovich contributed to this report.

TITLE: Germany calling
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: German Days in St. Petersburg, an annual program of events designed to highlight many aspects of German life, takes place this year from Monday through Sunday, April 22. 
During the week, Cafe D at the Goethe Institute on 58 Naberezhnaya Reki Moiki, will be the center of a series of events built around three themes: “The modern art and culture of Germany” focusing on trends in modern German music; “Germany — country of innovation,” aimed at illustrating the range of possibilities that are available in Germany for German speaking young professionals; and “Germany and Russia — values, prospects, life style” which draws distinctions between the life of young people of Germany and Russia. 
Florian Seitz, press and cultural consul at General Consulate of Germany in St. Petersburg, said the event “is not only an attempt to show the past, present and future of Germany, it also reveals the new modern Germany, gives our guests the opportunity to learn more about it and, also, makes a contribution to the development of closer connections between German and Russian companies in St. Petersburg.” 
Seitz added: “German Days 2007 is mainly aimed at the young people professionally interested in Germany. They can be students, researchers, entrepreneurs, businessmen, scientists but there are also many events that will be interesting for a wider audience.”
Although throughout the week Cafe D will be the venue for meetings, roundtables, presentations of films as well as music performances, it will continue to operate as a cafe for guests who simply want to have a cup of coffee and read Russian and German newspapers.

TITLE: German Days in St. Petersburg 2007
TEXT: Roundtables

Monday
IN GERMAN “How consulting works? Is Russia a service desert?” 
Among the participants are the General Consulate of Germany in St. Petersburg, Russia Consulting, Beiten Burkhardt, Ernst&Young, Roedl& Partner, Dagmar Lorenz. 
Cafe D, 4 p.m.-7p.m.

Tuesday
IN RUSSIAN “Prospects and problems of the development of infrastructure.” 
Cafe D, 4 p.m.-7p.m.

Thursday
IN RUSSIAN “The visible champions. The vision culture of Germany” Cafe D, 4 p.m.-7p.m.


Art Events

Monday
Presentation of “Let’s save pop culture,” a collection of German music videos
Cafe D, 8 p.m.-10 p.m.

Monday
IN GERMAN Presentation of “Moon Landing,” a German feature film 
Russian-German Exchange, 87 Ligovsky Prospekt, 7 p.m. 

Monday
Master class by the well-known German jazz musician Harald Ruschenbaum
St. Petersburg University of Culture and Arts, 2 p.m.-5 p.m.


German Lessons

Tuesday, Thursday 
Open German language lessons
Cafe D, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.


Documentary films

Tuesday 
“Blind Cat” and “Siberian Germans - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” 
Russian-German Exchange, 87 Ligovsky Prospekt, 7 p.m. 

Thursday
“Milk and Honey from Rotfront” 
Russian-German Exchange, 87 Ligovsky Prospekt, 7 p.m. 

Friday
Documentary music films
Dom Kino at 7 p.m. (Also on April 21, 
3 p.m. and April 22, 5 p.m., 7 p.m.)
Professional Programs

Tuesday
Presentation of the educational programs for German speakers among students and young professionals 
The House of German Economy 
10 Vasilievsky Island, 7 p.m.

Thursday
International conference: “The Relationships between Russia and the EU in the context of the German Presidency of EU.” 
The House of German Economy 
10 Vasilievsky Island, 7 p.m.


Jazz Program

Monday
Young jazz from Germany with the jazz orchestra Bavarian First Herd
Capella, 7 p.m. 

Friday (April 20)
Young jazz from Germany with the jazz orchestra Bavarian First Herd
St. Petersburg Jazz Philharmonic Hall, 
7 p.m.

Saturday (April 21)
Young jazz from Germany with the jazz orchestra Bavarian First Herd
JFC club, 8 p.m.


Meetings

Wednesday
The Russian-German Press Club discussion 
Cafe D, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

Saturday (April 21)
The Russian-German Press Club discussion 
Cafe D, 4 p.m.-7 p.m.

Sunday (April 22)
The Russian-German Press Club discussion
Cafe D, 4 p.m.-7 p.m.
	

Concerts

Friday (April 20)
Joy Denalane, “Queen of German soul.” 
Cafe D, 8 p.m.

Saturday (April 21
Joy Denalane, “Queen of German soul.” 
Red Club, 9 p.m.


Open House 
Sunday
The offices of SAP, 23 Malaya Morskaya.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: When you find yourself trying to decipher Mongolian song lyrics and cooing over a Danish drag queen’s chihuahuas, it can only mean one thing: The Eurovision Song Contest is on its way. And this year’s event is already stirring up passions that make Albanian blood feuds look like PMS.
The best controversy so far is swirling around the Ukrainian entry, “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” as sung by Verka Serdyuchka. This sparkly, turban-wearing train attendant, a.k.a. comedian Andrei Danilko, is already a well-known act in Ukraine and Russia, but her decisive victory in the Ukrainian heat has taken her into a whole new league. And naturally, not everyone is happy about that.
The first shots in the battle came in Lviv, where protesters wrote a letter 
to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko saying that the cross-dressing comic singer would “disgrace Ukraine in the eyes of Europeans,” the Ukrainskiye Novosti web site reported March 14. But that was before The Daily Telegraph weighed in with a proper conspiracy theory.
An article in the British broadsheet on March 17 pointed out that the chirpy song includes the lyrics “I want to see / Lasha tumbai,” which sound suspiciously like “I want to see / Russia goodbye.” The story said that Russians “erupted in fury” at the insult from their neighbor, although Danilko told the newspaper that the words actually mean “churned butter” in Mongolian. To clear this up, I asked a Mongolian speaker, who said that no words in the language even came close.
A quick listen to the song suggested that Verka really is singing “Lasha tumbai,” whatever that means, and not “Russia goodbye,” since she’d normally go in for some seriously rolled R’s. But I hate to spoil a good conspiracy theory. 
Luckily, this one has taken on a life of its own. Reading the messages on Ukraine’s official Eurovision web site — much visited by Russians — is a bit like eavesdropping on a particularly intemperate civil war. Discussion of the contestants’ vocal abilities flows naturally into discussion of who owns Crimea and the likelihood of gas pipelines being turned off. As one contributor puts it, “They can talk all they like about ‘lasha tumbai’ or whatever. To us, it will always be ‘Russia Goodbye.’”
The good thing about performing a song whose lyrics are complete nonsense is that there is really no limit to potential conspiracy theories. Lurching from English to Russian to Ukrainian, Verka’s song also includes some German words. On a superficial level, they mean “Seven seven one two,” but of course there has to be more to it than that.
The Daily Telegraph suggested that the German text was an attempt to compare Russia to the Nazis, while Gazeta.ru quoted Danilko as saying that an earlier version of the song had more German words in it, and that he sang them “in an hysterical manner, like Adolf Hitler in his best speeches.” What a vote-winner that would have been at Eurovision. 
Also, I prefer not to think too much about that phrase, “best speeches.”
Verka will be fighting for first place with another drag queen, Denmark’s Peter Andersen, who is a former hairdresser with chihuahas, bless him. Little Tyson and Chilie could just swing the vote. But the smart money might be on Russia’s entry — a dark horse, admittedly, but streets ahead of the competition in terms of ridiculous lyrics.
Their entry, “Song #1,” is performed by a completely unknown girl band called Serebro, or Silver. It’s a rap-flavored girlpower anthem about having “my bitches standing up next to me” and not letting anyone call you “funny bunny” — because then you would have to blow their “money money.” The best line goes: “Put your cherry on my cake and taste my cherry pie.” You couldn’t put it better in Mongolian.

TITLE: Go v gosti!
AUTHOR: By Jennifer Davis
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Gosti
109 Fontanka. Tel: 517-2469
Open from 1 p.m. to 6 a.m. 
Menu in English and Russian
Big dinner for two (without alcohol): 1,180 rubles

Many still mourn the demise of Platforma, a progressive music club that closed in October last year. Not only did Platforma host great concerts that attracted an alternative but mature audience, it also served great food all night long. 
Gosti, a recently opened cafe located near Sennaya Ploshchad, comes close to filling the vacuum left by Platforma, not least because it is managed by several former Platforma stalwarts, such as local promoter Denis Rubin and kitchen wizard Alexei Dronin, creator of the most delicious borshch in town.
Gosti, loosely translated as “someone’s home,” as in the oft-used phrase “poshli v gosti” (“Let’s go visit”) lives up to its hospitable name. The interior is comfortable and intimate; the food is creative, but unpretentious and filling; the servers are fun and friendly; and regulars are happily assimilated into the family and greeted by name. 
The design could be described as gaudy-chic: Soviet wallpaper meets sturdy wooden tables, second-hand lampshades, and new, comfy sofas. There’s an element of retro tackiness but not of decay, which gives Gosti an atmosphere more similar to your grandmother’s house than that of another cheap watering hole frequented by poor students.
The menu is diverse but not overwhelming, with a focus on Russian classics. We decided to go crazy and order as much as we could stomach in order to sample a little bit of everything. For starters, we selected soup and salad: “Borshch + Bonus Track” (120 rubles, $4.60) and Chicken Caesar Salad (150 rubles, $5.75). As expected, the borshch was divine: thick and hearty, and prepared from the same recipe used at Platforma. The “Bonus Track” is a shot of vodka served with genuine Ukrainian salo (lard).  The borshch makes a wonderful meal in itself. Black and wheat bread comes free of charge. The Caesar Salad was basic but tasty, topped with warm chicken breast and croutons.
We also ordered some appetizers to share with friends who happened to stop by. A baked bell pepper stuffed with minced vegetables and cheese (150 rubles, $5.75) was surprisingly non-vegetarian and contained chicken. Nice but lacking spice, commented our tablemates. Baked eggplant with tomatoes and mozzarella (120 rubles, $4.60) was a little boring, and I wouldn’t order it again. Finally, we decided to get the Russian party staple, pickled herring with onions and potatoes (120 rubles, $4.60). A very generous portion arrived with more bread. “Yummy, just like my mom makes,” said the Russian in our company. 
For main course, we decided on beef medallions with fried potatoes and mushrooms in juniper sauce (250 rubles, $9.60) and fillet of pangassius fish with mango sauce (270 rubles, $10.40). The medallions were “inventive and had a lot of personality,” if beef can be described as such. It was passed around the table for all to share. The fish was flaky, delicate and light, gorgeously complemented by the sweet mango sauce. There is also a large selection of side dishes available ranging from Idaho potatoes (60 rubles, $2.30) to spinach with cream and soy sauce (50 rubles, $1.90), but we were just too stuffed to sample them. 
Gosti is not merely a great place for food, but also a cozy place to enjoy drinks with friends. Misha Lavit, local musician and DJ who plays under the moniker Kinetic, mans the bar and spins tracks simultaneously. Draught Heineken comes in at 80 rubles ($3) per half liter. Lavit serves up everything from designer cocktails and mulled wine to draught beer with a wink and a smile. Poshli v gosti!

TITLE: Miracles can happen
AUTHOR: By Leo Mourzenko
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “Waiting for a Miracle” (V Ozhidanii Chuda) throws you into a surreal world from the start, probably unintentionally. 
It is quite bizarre to see the 20th Century Fox fanfare followed by visuals of St. Petersburg and realize you are not watching a sequel to “Goldeneye,” the James Bond movie that was partially set in the city. But once you enter this surreal world, there’s no going back. Outstandingly well-shot with passionate performances, “Waiting for a Miracle” is great entertainment if you choose to ignore any attempts to give it any meaning.
Strangely enough, although American funded for the most part, the film largely resembles the celebrated French international sensation “Amelie.” Lacking Audrey Tautou’s famously cute semi-schizophrenic grins, the main character Maya, played by newcomer Yekaterina Kopanova, is odd enough to be a fish out of water in any setting. Given that she works at a posh advertising agency, awkwardness is bound to be Maya’s faithful companion. She however manages to find another, and a quite dazzling one at that: Fei (Vladimir Krylov), a male take on a Russian word feya, i.e. a fairy. 
Together with this imaginary friend, Maya gives the audience the best this film has to offer: a sparkling ensemble cast, a lead couple with real chemistry and energy that reaches even those otherwise occupied viewers in the love seats at the back of the theater. 
The story itself matters little. Maya wants to be loved and successful but since she doesn’t meet the supposed requirements, set by her tanned, wasp-waisted, perfectly shaped colleagues, she fails. The imaginary friend comes upon her to raise her self-esteem and spice up her lonely life.  
The banal premise is used and abused to get laughs and gasps at any cost. Maya spills ice-cream, is bullied by everyone she comes across but has titanic tolerance for any sort of misfortune, which indeed brings a good laugh every now and then.  
As in every good romantic comedy, there’s a whole streak of supporting characters, from the integral such as Maya’s best friend, a yard-keeper turned sculptor (Nina Ruslanova) and a demonic boss (Tatyana Vasiliyeva) to almost a dozen more who are actually hard to recall: there are models, lawyers, clowns and God knows who, and everyone tries their best to steal at least a part of this well-funded show. Multiple celebrities, from the obnoxious designer Sergei Zverev to the soundtrack kings of late Gorod 312 make meaningless cameos and this is where the movie stumbles.  
Halfway through, one might start wondering what exactly “Waiting for a Miracle” is: a full-scale feature film or just polished New Year’s Eve TV programming? Those traditional concert shows that go on air in the first minutes of Jan. 1 are similar to musical reviews; the main difference between these gems of Russian television and “Waiting for a Miracle” is that there’s not enough singing on-screen. The rest — clean, mass-appeal jokes, constant costume changes and tons of celebrities — are all there. Their presence is unfortunate. 
Behind all this there is a film about a funny chubby freckled girl and her relationship with an imaginary friend. Fei makes his appearance within the first ten minutes and stays almost to end. Some of their scenes might be overstretched but the charm is always there. The producers probably concluded that it was going to be a tough-sell, so instead, by placing Maya in the fashion world and calling up all those famous people, they tried to make it a movie about glamor. That’s the second stumble. 
Unfortunately, the second stumble leads to the third, the most bitter of all. Inevitably, the directors and writers couldn’t bring up the world of glamor just to portray it, there had to be some kind of commentary. The most recent example of this kind, the mediocre “The Devil Wears Prada,” was all about the heartless and zombifying fashion industry; however mediocre, the movie made its point loud and clear.  
“Waiting for a Miracle” tries to be a Devil-alike, a love story that is also contemporary social satire. Russia’s undeniable fascination for everything shiny should be commented on and made fun of. That, however, deserves a separate movie and the bleak attempt made here, such as for instance an unsatisfying ending, only breaks the rules of the genre and destroys the positive momentum the leading actors create.

TITLE: AC Milan Stands in Way of English Glory
AUTHOR: By Dan Baynes
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: LONDON — AC Milan stands in the way of the first all-English Champions League soccer final after advancing to the semifinals for the fourth time in five years. 
The Italian club beat Germany’s Bayern Munich 4-2 over two matches to join Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea in the final four of Europe’s elite club competition. 
Milan, which has won the title six times, is the only team that can prevent a second English champion in three seasons following Liverpool’s 2005 triumph. The Rossoneri face United in their two-match semifinal on April 24 and May 2 with Chelsea and Liverpool meeting on April 25 and May. 1 
“The Champions League is part of our history, it is our competition, our mentality,’’ AC Milan Chief Executive Adriano Galliani told the club’s web site after yesterday’s 2-0 win in Munich. 
“There are three English teams and us. Hopefully we will do well.’’ 
U.K. bookmaker William Hill rates Manchester United and Chelsea, who will have semifinal home advantage first, as the 2-1 joint-favorites to win the European Cup. Five-time winner Liverpool is a 3-1 chance ahead of 4-1 shot Milan. 
United, which won the last of its two titles in 1999, routed Roma 7-1 two days ago for an 8-3 aggregate in its quarterfinal, while Chelsea edged Valencia 3-2 over two games after a 2-1 victory in Spain. 
Liverpool ensured there will be at least one English team in the May 23 final in Athens by completing a 4-0 win over PSV Eindhoven of the Netherlands yesterday. Liverpool and Chelsea met in the final four two years ago, with the Reds winning 1-0. 
“To see three English teams in the semifinal shows the Premier League to be very strong,’’ Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez said in comments posted on the web site of tournament organizer UEFA. ``We know Chelsea and they know us.’’ 
Their matchup also ensures a third straight English finalist after Liverpool and last year’s runner-up Arsenal. 
Not since the 1970s and 1980s have English clubs enjoyed a sustained period of success in the continent’s top competition. Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa secured seven straight triumphs from 1977-1984. 
Before this season, at least one English club made the semifinals in all but one of the past six campaigns. The presence of three this year may herald a shift in the balance of power, coaches said. Spain had three semifinalists in 2000, while Milan was one of a trio of Italian teams to make the final four in 2003. 
“The fact three English teams are in the semifinals probably makes our league the best in Europe,’’ United manager Alex Ferguson told reporters after overseeing the team’s biggest European win since 1968. 
“Six or seven years ago Spanish football was the best. The competitive nature and the quality of the English game has improved over the seasons.’’ 
Luciano Spalletti, whose Roma team became the first Italian club in 49 years to allow seven goals in a European club match, said the physical nature of the Premiership gave English teams a competitive advantage. 
“The players are better equipped for one-on-one duels because they are used to that in the Premiership and they bring this strength into Europe,’’ Spalletti said on uefa.com. 
PSV Eindhoven coach Ronald Koeman, whose team was beaten 3-0 at home before losing 1-0 at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium last night, offered a more simple formula for English teams’ current Champions League dominance.
“They have money, good players and good managers,’’ said Koeman, a European Cup winner as a player with PSV and Barcelona.

TITLE: Explosion Hits Iraqi Parliament Building
AUTHOR: By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — A bomb exploded in the Iraqi parliament’s cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone Thursday, killing at least two lawmakers and wounding 10 other people.
The blast in the parliament building came hours after a suicide truck bomb blew up a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.
The bomb in parliament went off in a cafeteria while several lawmakers were eating lunch, media reports said. In addition to the two dead, state television said at least 10 people were wounded.
After the blast, security guards sealed the building and no one — including lawmakers — was allowed to enter or leave.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said no Americans were hurt in the blast.
The bombing came amid the two-month-old security crackdown in Baghdad, which has sought to restore stability in the capital so that the government of Iraq can take key political steps by June 30 or face a withdrawal of American support.
One of the dead lawmakers was Mohammed Awad, a member of the Sunni National Dialogue Front, said Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the party, which holds 11 seats in Iraq’s legislature. A female Sunni lawmaker from the same list was wounded, he said.
A security official at the building said a second lawmaker, a Shiite member, also was killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
But Mukhlis al-Zamili of the Shiite Fadhila party said the second dead lawmaker was a Kurd, adding that six of those wounded were members of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc.
Al-Zamili also said he believed a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest was behind the attack.
Another member of the National Dialogue Front, Mohammed al-Dayni, also suggested a suicide bomber was behind it.
“I am standing now at the site of the explosion and looking at the severed legs of the person who carried out the operation. If this tells us anything, it tells us that security is lax,” al-Dayni told Iraq’s Sharqiya television.
Earlier in the day, security officials used dogs to check people entering the building in a rare precaution — apparently concerned that an attack might take place.
The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations.

TITLE: Russian Skating Legend To Return
AUTHOR: By Barry Wilner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — Yevgeny Plushenko is coming back to rescue Russian figure skating. 
The 2006 Olympic gold medalist said Tuesday that he would skate next season after sitting out since the Turin Games.
He was disappointed by the showing of his nation in international events this year, including placing 18th and 19th at last month’s world championships. 
“After seeing the results of Russian skaters in the world championships in Tokyo, I have decided to go back to competition,” said Plushenko, who is in Richmond, Virginia, to begin the Champions on Ice tour. “I want to keep Russian figure skating at a competitive level. I want to bridge the gap so our young skaters have time to train and be competitive, which should be in a few years.” 
Plushenko also plans to compete at the Vancouver Olympics, something he mentioned he might try after winning at Turin last year. 
“I feel strongly that I can be competitive and ready for the 2010 Olympics,” Plushenko said. “I am doing triple axels in my show programs on the Russian tour and landing quads in my practice sessions.” 
Plushenko, 24, said he would continue such difficult elements on the Champions on Ice tour before going into full training for the 2007-08 season. He expects to skate in Grand Prix competitions, as well as the European and world championships. 
Plushenko owns three world titles (2001, ‘03 and ‘04) and a 2002 Olympic silver medal. His combination of jumping, spins and artistry made him a strong successor to Olympic champions Ilia Kulik and Alexei Yagudin. Plushenko had an intense rivalry with Yagudin in the late 1990s and earlier this decade. 
He did not skate in the last three worlds, skipping 2005 because of injury and ‘06 because he was worn out from the Olympics. 
Plushenko has battled knee injuries through the years, but the season off from competition has left him feeling reinvigorated. 

N?Two-time Olympic skating medalist Irina Slutskaya will leave the Champions on Ice tour because she is expecting her first child. 
Slutskaya, 28, will be staying at her home in Russia during her pregnancy. Slutskaya and her husband, Sergei Mikheyev, are expecting their first child this autumn. Slutskaya married Mikheyev, a Russian fitness instructor, in 1999.

TITLE: Author Vonnegut Dies at 84
AUTHOR: By Cristian Salazar
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — In books such as “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle,” and “Hocus Pocus,” Kurt Vonnegut mixed the bitter and funny with a touch of the profound.
Vonnegut, regarded by many critics as a key influence in shaping 20th-century American literature, died Wednesday at 84. He had suffered brain injuries after a recent fall at his Manhattan home, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.
Vonnegut’s more than a dozen books, short stories, essays and plays contained elements of social commentary, science fiction and autobiography.
“He was sort of like nobody else,” said fellow author Gore Vidal. “Kurt was never dull.”
A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view.
He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.
“He was a man who combined a wicked sense of humor and sort of steady moral compass, who was always sort of looking at the big picture of the things that were most important,” said Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times, a liberal magazine based in Chicago that featured Vonnegut articles.
Some of Vonnegut’s books were banned and burned for suspected obscenity. He took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers’ aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.
Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet.
“I like to say that the 51st state is the state of denial,” he told The Associated Press in 2005. “It’s as though a huge comet were heading for us and nobody wants to talk about it. We’re just about to run out of petroleum and there’s nothing to replace it.”
Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.
“I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations,” Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.
Vonnegut was born in 1922, in Indianapolis, and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the army. 
He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with “A Man Without a Country,” a collection of his nonfiction, including jabs at the Bush administration (“upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography”) and the uncertain future of the planet.

TITLE: Raikkonen Confident Of Speedy Return in Bahrain
AUTHOR: By Alan Baldwin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MANAMA — Kimi Raikkonen can go flat out for victory in Bahrain on Sunday after being powerless to prevent McLaren’s Fernando Alonso seizing the lead in the Formula One championship last weekend.
The Finn was dominant on his Ferrari debut in the Australian season-opener last month, winning from pole position and with the fastest lap, but engine worries slowed his efforts in Malaysia.
He finished third at Sepang, behind a McLaren one-two led by Alonso that sent the Spanish double world champion two points clear in the standings.
With a new engine for the third round of the season, Raikkonen is confident he will be back up to speed at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit.
“Because of the engine worries we had to make compromise after compromise,” he said on his web site (www.kimiraikkonen.com) of the Malaysian race.
“That put us in a position where we did not want to be.
“I always want to fight for the victory,” he added.
“That is why I felt a little bit disappointed and empty inside, when I had to race just in a way to be able to finish it. It is like playing a football game defending a goalless draw.
“We will get a new fresh engine in Bahrain. That makes me feel very optimistic… when we have our whole package working 100 percent, we should be back to the same speed as what we had in Melbourne.”
The Finn has twice finished on the podium at Sakhir, in third place in 2005 and 2006 for McLaren, but Alonso has won there for the last two years with Renault.

HAMILTON FRENZY
Despite evident improvement by his Mercedes-powered team, the Spaniard still expects Ferrari to have an edge with Raikkonen and Brazilian Felipe Massa.
Champion Renault, failing to make even the top 10 in qualifying in Malaysia and picking up only a few meagre points so far, appears to be out of the picture.
“The Ferrari was a little bit quicker than everybody in the (pre-season Bahrain) test so I still believe it will be very, very hard to beat them again.” 
“I think we will have again a difficult weekend,” Alonso said after Sepang.
Massa, on pole in Malaysia, will be eager to make up for being outgunned at the start by the McLaren drivers and then botching an attempt to overtake outstanding British rookie Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton, Alonso’s team mate, will attract even more attention after a truly sensational start to his Formula One career. 
No driver has ever been in the top three in all his first three races and Hamilton will have to deal with the feverish expectations of those who see a natural progression in his results, with third place in Australia followed by second in Malaysia.
Britain has been without a world champion since Damon Hill in 1996.

TITLE: European Tournament To Go Ahead Next Year
AUTHOR: By Kevin Smith
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: DUBLIN — A European tournament featuring clubs from all six current participating nations will go ahead next season even if top French and English sides stick to their boycott, the European Rugby Cup (ERC) said on Wednesday.
“There was a commitment made for at least one tournament for the coming season and discussions will continue regarding the format of European club rugby in the coming weeks,” an ERC spokesman said.
The future of European club competition including the Heineken Cup has been surrounded by uncertainty since top French and English clubs announced they were pulling out.
If they continue their boycott the tournament could feature lower-ranking teams from those two countries since each of the six countries’ rugby unions has agreed to enter teams.
The six countries are England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy.
Apart from the Heineken Cup, the ERC also organises the second-tier Challenge Cup.
The trouble started in January when the French national league (LNR) said it would pull its clubs out of Europe next season because a dispute between the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Premier Rugby clubs was creating uncertainty.
That dispute centers on voting rights and shares in the ERC, with the Premier Rugby clubs wanting the RFU to give them 50 percent of its stakes and voting rights.
The LNR confirmed at a board meeting last week that the boycott would take place and Premier Rugby has also said its clubs would join it.
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) welcomed the ERC’s confirmation that some sort of tournament would take place.
“This is a significant step forward from the gloomy picture that we faced last week with the announcement that the French and English clubs will boycott next season’s Heineken Cup,” Roger Lewis, WRU group chief executive and ERC board director, said in a statement.
Any tournament without the top French and English clubs would lose much of its significance since the two countries have provided nine of the 11 winners of the Heineken Cup since it began in 1995.

TITLE: Pistons Secures Victory Over Orlando Magic
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Tayshaun Prince’s short jumper broke a late tie, and the Detroit Pistons locked up home-court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs with a 104-99 victory over the visiting Orlando Magic last night.
In a possible preview of a first-round series, Chauncey Billups led the Pistons with 28 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter. Richard Hamilton added 21.
The eighth-place Magic had its lead over Indiana cut to one game in the race for the final playoff spot in the East.
With the score tied at 95-95, Prince backed down Hedo Turkoglu, then hit a turnaround jumper with 1 minute 17 seconds left.
After Jameer Nelson missed a 3-pointer, the Pistons ran the shot clock down to three seconds before Billups hit a long 3-pointer over Keyon Dooling and Dwight Howard to make it a 5-point game.
Trevor Ariza’s layup pulled the Magic within 3, but Billups clinched the game from the line.
Grant Hill, a former Pistons All-Star, led Orlando with 22 points, the most he has scored against Detroit since leaving in the summer of 2000. Dooling and Nelson had 17 points apiece, while Howard finished with 12 points and 16 rebounds.
HEAT 85, WIZARDS 82 Following a season filled with injuries and turmoil, Miami knows that at least one new championship banner will hang over its home court next season.
Antoine Walker scored 19 points and took two crucial charges late in the fourth quarter, Dwyane Wade added 16 points, 7 assists and 6 rebounds, and the Heat wrapped up the Southeast Division title by beating visiting Washington.
The win assures the defending N.B.A. champion Heat no worse than the fourth seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs. But unless Toronto collapses down the stretch, Miami will likely open the postseason on the road because its record will not be among the four best in the East.
Brendan Haywood had 14 points and 10 rebounds for Washington, which has dropped six straight games, the last five by a combined 26 points. 
Miami was without Shaquille O’Neal, who attended his paternal grandfather’s funeral in Newark earlier in the day.
MAVERICKS 105, TIMBERWOLVES 88 Dallas keeps rolling, even without Dirk Nowitzki. With Nowitzki and Jerry Stackhouse resting at home, Josh Howard and Jason Terry each scored 16 points as the Mavericks set a franchise record with their 30th road victory.
If Dallas (65-13) wins its last four games, it will finish with the second-best record in league history.
With the top seed in the West wrapped up, Dallas left Nowitzki, Stackhouse and Erick Dampier at home and sat Devin Harris to rest up for what will certainly be a grueling postseason.
Not to be outdone, the Timberwolves announced shortly before game time that Kevin Garnett is out indefinitely with an injured right quadriceps. Garnett, the league’s leading rebounder, will miss at least two games while he gets the injury examined and could be out for the remainder of the season.
Minnesota entered the night tied with several teams for the 10th-worst record in the N.B.A. If the Wolves do not have a pick in the top 10 of the draft, they have to give their selection to the Los Angeles Clippers as part of the Sam Cassell-Marko Jaric trade that was made two years ago.
PACERS 104, BUCKS 98 Mike Dunleavy scored 25 points, including four free throws in the final 7.7 seconds, and visiting Indiana tightened the Eastern Conference playoff race. Indiana (35-43) pulled within a game of Orlando for the final playoff spot. Both teams have four games left, with the Pacers at Miami tomorrow night.
A day after a potentially costly loss at Philadelphia, the Pacers had a fourth-quarter scare but held on to win for only the second time in their past 14 road games.
SPURS 109, KINGS 100 Tim Duncan scored 26 points and Michael Finley added 19 as host San Antonio swept its season series (4-0) with Sacramento, which has clinched last place in the Pacific Division.
With four games remaining, the Spurs (57-21) have a shot at their second consecutive 60-win season and their third in the last five seasons. They have won 11 of 12.
76ERS 102, CELTICS 94 Steven Hunter tied a career-high with 20 points and Andre Miller added 19 points to lead visiting Philadelphia. Louis Williams tied a career high with 18 points for the Sixers, who outscored Boston, 55-36, in the second half to win their third straight.
Ryan Gomes scored a game-high 26 points to lead the Celtics, who earlier in the day announced that Paul Pierce, their leading scorer, would miss the rest of the season with a sore left elbow.
WELLS’S FUTURE UNCERTAIN Guard Bonzi Wells will miss the rest of the season after mysteriously leaving the Houston Rockets; his future with the team is uncertain. Wells was fined and placed on the inactive list after failing to show for Monday’s game in Seattle, the team said. 
Wells was not with the team before last night’s game against the Trail Blazers in Portland, Ore., and his sudden departure was mostly a puzzle except for a message he left for the team trainer saying he was concerned he was disrupting team chemistry.

TITLE: England Labor to Defeat Bangladesh
AUTHOR: By N.Ananthanarayanan
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — England overcame another nervy batting display to defeat Bangladesh by four wickets in their World Cup Super Eights match on Wednesday to keep their semi-final hopes alive.
England pacemen led by man-of-the-match Sajid Mahmood skittled out Bangladesh for 143 in the 38th over on a bouncy Kensington Oval pitch.
However, Bangladesh bowlers piled on the pressure as the new pitch slowed down before England reached 147 for six in the 45th over.
It was England’s first win over a test-playing nation at this World Cup but will have convinced few that they can still make a serious bid for their first title.
England were reeling at 110 for six as Bangladesh, who upset South Africa in their previous game, fought superbly until the experienced seventh-wicket pair Paul Collingwood (23 not out) and wicketkeeper Paul Nixon (20 not out) guided them to victory.
“It was too tight,” England skipper Michael Vaughan told reporters. “We would have liked to chase down the target with much more confidence than we did.”
“They made it difficult and their spinners bowled very straight,” he said. “We were desperate to get two points.”
England now have four points after their second win in four games with matches left against South Africa and hosts West Indies. Bangladesh have two points from four games.
Bangladesh left-arm seamer Syed Rasel and left-arm spinners Abdur Razzak and Mohammad Rafique grabbed two wickets each to rattle England.
Rasel had makeshift opener Ian Bell (0) caught at point and trapped Andrew Strauss leg before for 23.
Left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak then removed Vaughan for a chancy 30 before taking the prize scalp of Kevin Pietersen for 10 runs.
Vaughan, dropped on five by wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim after nicking Rasel, top-edged a sweep to Habibul Bashar at short fine leg.
Pietersen, who hit a hundred in the seven-wicket defeat against Australia, stepped out and failed to check his shot as Razzak pitched it short to offer a tame catch to mid-wicket.
Bangladesh were reeling at 65 for six in the morning before Saqibul Hasan top-scored with a defiant 57 not out.
Mahmood took three for 27 after doing the damage with fellow new ball bowler James Anderson (2-30) and Andrew Flintoff.
Five of the top six batsmen failed to reach double figures after Mahmood removed openers Tamim Iqbal (8) and Shahriar Nafees (9). Left-arm spinner Monty Panesar (3-25) then ran through the lower order batsmen.
The seven-week tournament ends with the final on April 28.

TITLE: Wembley 
Curtain-raiser
Against Brazil
PUBLISHER: AGENCE FRANCE PRESS
TEXT: Agence France Press
LONDON — England will take on Brazil in their first match at the new Wembley Stadium on June 1, the Football Association (FA) confirmed Wednesday.
England’s first match at Wembley for seven years will provide a test for Steve McClaren’s side ahead of their Euro 2008 qualifier in Estonia five days later.
The 90,000-seater national stadium has been rebuilt at a cost of 800-million pounds (1.45 billion dollars).
FA chief executive Brian Barwick said: “We’re delighted to be able to announce that Brazil will be the first team to take on England at the new Wembley.
“It’s a fantastic match to mark the team’s return to the stadium after nearly seven years on the road around the country.
“Brazil featured in some memorable matches at the old Wembley. The new stadium is a fantastic football arena and I’m confident there will be many new memories created there for England fans over the coming years.”
England were beaten by Germany in a World Cup qualifier in their last match at Wembley in October 2000.
Football returned to Wembley last month as England Under-21s played out a 3-3 draw with their Italian counterparts in front of a crowd of 55,700.
The success of that match allowed the FA to confirm that the ground would be able to stage this year’s FA Cup final as anticipated on May 19.

TITLE: Down to a Decider
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG — The 2007 Russian Hockey League champion will be determined in game five of play-off finals Friday night in Kazan. Ak Bars Kazan edged Metallurg Magnitogorsk 4-3 in game four to tie the series at 2 games a piece. Metallurg crushed the defending champion in game three 4-1. If Ak Bars wins they will be the first team to win back-to-back championships since Lokomotiv Yaroslavl won in 2002 and 2003. 
Metallurg last won the championship in 2001.