SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1266 (32), Friday, April 27, 2007
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TITLE: 
AUTHOR: By Jim Heintz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin charged in a combative speech Thursday that foreigners seeking to thwart Russia’s resurgence are increasingly interfering in its affairs.
Putin also called for imposing a moratorium on Moscow’s participation in a key Soviet-era arms control deal, which regulates the deployment of non-nuclear heavy weapons around the continent, until the United States and other NATO members ratify it.
In his annual state of the nation speech that was delayed two days by the death of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Putin declared that he would not seek a third term, but refused to suggest a successor and said nothing to quell speculation that he seeks to remain in power behind the scenes.
Putin’s second term in office ends in 2008, and he is constitutionally barred from seeking a third. While many observers have suggested he would try to stay in office, Putin again dismissed the idea.
“The next state of the nation address will be given by another head of state,” he said.
He acknowledged expectations that he would take advantage of his speech to reveal his choice for a successor, then drew a laugh by saying, “It is premature for me to declare a political will.”
Russia enters a high-stakes political season this year with parliamentary elections in December, followed by presidential elections in March. Russian officials in recent months have complained that Western countries are trying to meddle in the political process by funding pro-democracy organizations, and Putin echoed those allegations.
“There is a growth in the flow of money from abroad for direct interference in our internal affairs,” Putin said in his address, delivered to members of both houses of parliament.
“There are those who, skillfully using pseudo-democratic rhetoric, would like to return to the recent past — some to loot the country’s national riches, to rob the people and the state; others to strip us of economic and political independence,” Putin said.
Putin did not cite specific countries as sources of the funding. The Foreign Ministry this month complained extensively about U.S. funding of democracy-promoting organizations in Russia.
Officials contend that such funding aims to provoke mass opposition protests such as those that helped propel pro-Western leaders into power in neighboring Georgia and Ukraine in recent years.
Police have cracked down on a series of opposition protests this year, beating some demonstrators and detaining hundreds.
Opposition forces charge that Putin is strangling democracy through an array of measures to centralize power and increase the influence of large political parties such as his allied United Russia party, which dominates the Russian parliament.
This year’s parliamentary elections will see seats distributed entirely on a party-list basis, eliminating the opportunity for small parties to win seats through strong local support in particular districts — a change that critics say is among the measures to smother opposition.
But Putin, in his speech, said it was part of “a revolutionary step modernizing the elections system ... (it will) help the opposition widen its representation.”
Putin launched another attack on the West over the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, whose amended version was signed in 1999 to reflect changes since the Soviet breakup.
Russia has ratified the amended version, but the United States and other NATO members have refused to do so until Moscow abides by its commitment to withdraw troops from the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia.
“Our partners are behaving incorrectly, to say the least,” Putin said. “I consider it worthwhile to declare a moratorium until all NATO countries ratify it ... and begin to strictly abide by it,” Putin said.
The death Monday of Yeltsin has drawn new attention to complaints that Putin is heading the country away from democracy. Yeltsin, as Russia’s first post-Soviet leader, worked changes that encouraged pluralism and nudged the country toward democracy.
But Putin clearly aimed to portray himself as the curator of Yeltsin’s legacy. He began the speech by calling for deputies to stand in silence in memory of Yeltsin and later called for a national library to be established in his name.
Putin also praised the development of Russia’s economy, which has soared during his presidency, driven largely by high world oil prices. But he called for more revenues to be applied to improving the lives of its citizens, many of whom have been left behind in the boom and find themselves with insufficient pensions and unable to afford to move out of deteriorating Soviet housing.
He proposed a $10 billion fund to repair housing and resettle residents, saying “It is inadmissible for a country with such reserves accumulated from its oil and gas revenues to be at peace with the fact that millions of its citizens live in slums.”
Putin also called for initiating a program under which the government would match every $40 that citizens put into private pension plans.

TITLE: Yeltsin Is Laid to Rest With One Last Kiss
AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko and Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: Boris Yeltsin’s grief-stricken widow bent over the coffin after it was opened for a final farewell at the Novodevichye Cemetery.
Naina, Yeltsin’s wife of 50 years, stroked his cheeks and forehead for a minute.
Then she kissed his pale lips one last time.
An artillery battery fired three salvos as the coffin was lowered into the ground Wednesday afternoon. The loud booms startled Naina Yeltsin and her two daughters, who jumped.
A band played the Soviet anthem, which Yeltsin had scrapped but President Vladimir Putin brought back.
For the last leg of the journey into the cemetery, the coffin was placed in a gun carriage pulled by an armored vehicle. Soldiers marched behind, carrying Yeltsin’s medals and awards. Behind them walked a crowd of mourners, including Putin, former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, former British Prime Minister John Major and former Polish President Lech Walesa. Bush looked exhausted, swaying back and forth as he walked along.
Crowds lined the road up to the cemetery gates. Television channels broadcast the ceremony live. No reporters were allowed into the cemetery.
The St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly opened its Wednesday session with a minute of silence to honor Boris Yeltsin. 
“The first president of the Russian Federation, he developed a new path for the country,” said the assembly’s speaker, United Russia politician Vadim Tyulpanov. “The path was a winding and difficult one but it has led the country towards a solid democratic foundation, which the next generations will rely upon.”
A group of over 100 activists, mainly liberal politicians and human rights advocates, gathered at Sakharov Square in central St. Petersburg to mourn Yeltsin’s departure.
In his speech at the meeting, Yuly Rybakov, co-chairman of the human rights faction of the St. Petersburg branch of the liberal party Yabloko called Yeltsin “a symbol of the democratic reforms in Russia.”
“Historians are yet to produce an objective evaluation of his political efforts, and Boris Yeltsin was an unorthodox political figure indeed, but for those who took the streets to defend democracy during the 1991 coup, he will always remain the politician who created a country with a democratic constitution,” Rybakov said.
At the same time a group of pensioners walked along Nevsky Prospekt on Wednesday holding posters with negative slogans about Russia’s first president.
Before the burial, about 25,000 people filed through the gold-domed Christ the Savior Cathedral over 20 hours to pay their respects, RIA-Novosti reported. Yeltsin, 76, died of heart failure Monday.
After the viewing ended, world leaders stepped in to offer their condolences to Naina Yeltsin. Clinton, who held a red candle during the funeral service, gave her a big hug and gently patted her on the back.
The funeral service brought together friends and foes, including former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who was left without a job when Yeltsin dismantled the Soviet Union, and former Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, who attempted to overthrow Yeltsin and was subsequently arrested. Rutskoi brought flowers, a Kremlin spokesman said.
Even opposition leaders appeared to have no trouble getting into the funeral. Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky were among those in attendance. Yavlinsky laid a bunch of purple carnations on a table close to the body and went over to greet Yeltsin’s family, kissing Naina Yeltsin’s hand.
Some former officials whose best days go back to Yeltsin’s eight-year reign looked visibly downcast as they stood by the open casket covered by a Russian tricolor. Yegor Gaidar, who served as prime minister in the early 1990s, stood near the innermost security perimeter, frequently wiping his eyes and sighing. “Oh my God,” he said at one point.
“I have never heard anything like this before,” Naina Yeltsin said at a Kremlin reception after the funeral.

TITLE: Case Opened to Investigate Police Brutality
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The first criminal case against the police for using excessive force against an opposition protester has been opened by the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office this week, while over fifty similar cases are being prepared to be filed.
The first case to be filed involves Sergei Gulyayev, who was detained during the March 3 Dissenters’ March in St. Petersburg and was subsequently beaten by the police. At the time, Gulyayev served as a lawmaker with the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
Opposition leaders say over fifty more suits concerning violations of people’s rights during the April 15 rally are already underway, Gulyayev told The St. Petersburg Times on Thursday. The prosecutor’s office is currently conducting preliminary investigations into 22 claims.
“My being a parliamentarian played a role, certainly, but I am determined to support all the other appeals,” Gulyayev said. “Justice must not make distinctions between lawmakers, journalists or ordinary people. And with photo and video material documenting the police attacking unarmed civailians, we hope we can bring the offenders to justice.”
Gulyayev said the investigators have not been able to establish the identities of the officers who beat him, even though photographs of them had been made available. 
“The investigator and I were denied the right to see any officers in person to help with the identification,” Gulyayev said. 
“Instead, the investigator was given a pile of files with outdated, small photographs and the police authorities suggested we start by comparing the shots. It has gone nowhere and I am determined to push on with finding the offenders, even if I have to go through every police station in town to find them.”
Gulyayev is also preparing a second appeal against the police. The activist’s arm was broken during a violent detention process after the April 15 rally.
Vladislav Piotrovsky, head of the city police, attended this week’s session of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly to give clarification and answer queries about police actions during the recent opposition protests.
Piotrovsky defended the police by saying the use of force “had been necessary to disperse what threatened to turn into a spontaneous unsanctioned rally outside Vitebsky station.” The police official also said there had been provocateurs in the crowd, and they “forced the police to intervene.”
Piotrovsky has been invited to attend the Meeting Against Police Arbitrariness, organized by the Memorial Human Rights group on Friday at Pionerskaya Ploshchad at 5 p.m.
St. Petersburg city prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev said his office “will thoroughly investigate” all claims alleging police misconduct and abuse of people’s rights.
Speaker Vadim Tyulpanov said he was satisfied with Piotrovsky’s report but Vladimir Fedorov, leader of the Communist faction in the city parliament, expressed disappointment over the meeting. He said Piotrovsky had failed to give a consistent answer to any of the key issues raised at the discussion.
Thus, questions posed by the former Olympic ski champion Lyubov Yegorova, as to whether any identities of the police officers responsible for violations of people’s rights during the rallies have been established and who ordered the OMON riot police to go on the offensive against the protesters, remained unanswered.
In the meantime the State Russian Duma has been busy making amendments to the Russian legislation that many experts fear will make it easier for the country’s law enforcement agencies to interfere in the work of groups that challenge the authorities.
Following a series of Dissenters’ Marches in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Russian parliament voted overwhelmingly this month to support amendments to Article 13 of the federal law “On Fighting Extremism” and Articles 214 and 244 of the Criminal Code that set terms of imprisonment of up to 3 years for the distribution and storage of information materials of an extremist nature.
Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the political council of the St. Petersburg branch of democratic party Yabloko, said these steps indicate the authorities’ growing fear at the mounting wave of civil protests.
“Russia’s judicial system is already used like a club — selectively on chosen targets — and these loosely written and quickly adopted amendments are designed to make it even easier for the state to strangle its critics,” Vishnevsky said. “The repressive amendments leave an enormous space for interpretation, which allows them to be used both against real extremists and against opposition forces.”
A recent example of the opposition being threatened with the use of charges of extremism occurred on April 13 and 14 when the police raided Yabloko’s St. Petersburg headquarters to confiscate publicity material about the April 15 rally.
During the raid officers also demanded contact information about the people and companies involved in the printing and distribution of the material, which they claimed had extremist content. 
Volunteers who had distributed leaflets about the local rallies were detained by police. 
Lawyer Yury Schmidt, one of the ten lawyers defending the jailed former head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, sees the recent amendment as a major step back towards the Soviet Criminal Code. 
“What I see is essentially a revival of repressive legal articles on a level with those such as ‘Anti-Soviet campaigning and propaganda,’ ‘Distribution of Information Discrediting the Soviet Regime’ and ‘Treason’,” Schmidt told The New Times magazine this week. “The authorities are clearly frightened, but they make a mistake in thinking that their harsh moves can silence the dissidents and the discontented.”
Yury Vdovin, a prominent Russian human rights advocate and deputy head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Citizens’ Watch human rights organization, said Russia has returned to the disgraceful practice of imprisoning people on political grounds.
“We aren’t talking about just one or two cases; Russia’s political prisoners can already be counted in dozens,” Vdovin said. “Take, for instance, the environmentalist Sutyagin, the scientist Danilov or the group from Limonov’s outlawed National Bolshevik Party, who were sentenced to a hefty eight years in jail for ‘mass disorders,’ which, in reality, meant crushing a few chairs in a government building.”
Vdovin said Russia’s human rights advocates should begin to compile a full list of political prisoners and make it available to the general public.

TITLE: Estonia Excavates Soviet War Grave
AUTHOR: By Jari Tanner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TALLINN, Estonia — Protesters gathered at a Soviet war grave in downtown Tallinn on Thursday, as authorities prepared to remove the bodies despite Russia’s angry objections.
Dozens of police faced the 100 protesters at the Bronze Soldier monument. 
Some protesters shouted “Estonia is a disgrace,” and one was detained after trying to jump the police barrier, police spokeswoman Julia Garanza said. 
Estonia’s government intends to relocate the Soviet grave, believed to contain the remains of 14 soldiers, and the statue next to it.

TITLE: Zhukov’s Son Faces 5 Year Term
AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The son of Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov was found guilty of unlawful assault Wednesday at Southwark Crown Court in London. He faces up to five years in jail.
Pyotr Zhukov, 24, will be sentenced within a month, a court official said by telephone on Wednesday. He was released on bail until sentencing.
Deputy Prime Minister Zhukov could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. His assistant, Konstantin Voitsekhovich, said last week that the minister’s only child had been involved in the incident “by chance.”
“I don’t know what’s happening,” said Pyotr’s grandfather, Dmitry Zhukov, a well-known writer. He said he had not heard anything about the trial except through the press.
“He is a good, well educated, very calm [man],” Dmitry Zhukov said of his grandson.
Earlier the court heard how Zhukov had beaten up investment banker Ben Ramsey, who tried to gate crash what he thought was a party last July.
“There was an assault and it was unprovoked,” the prosecutor said in court.
Ramsey was left with a crushed cheekbone, cuts on the back of his head, two cracked ribs, a swollen jaw and bruises to his arms, shoulder, chest and legs, The Times of London reported last week.
Police found Ramsey on the pavement outside an apartment building, covered in blood. He was taken to a local hospital and required five stitches to his cheek and 20 to his lower lip, Kommersant reported last Thursday.
Zhukov was in an apartment in the Whitechapel district of London with two friends when Ramsey and a friend turned up, bringing beer, prosecutors said.
When they realized that there was no party in the apartment, they tried to leave and take their beer with them, the prosecutor said. This sparked the attack.
The Times reported that the fight broke out after Artyom Dahko, a Latvian national who was hosting the party at his apartment, tried to persuade Ramsey and his friend to hand over the beer and leave.
“Mr. Dahko, without any warning whatsoever, punched Mr. Ramsey on the forehead,” prosecution lawyer Richard Milne told the court last week.
After attempting to stop the fight and restrain Dahko, Zhukov began punching Ramsey and continued after Ramsey had stumbled to the floor, covered in blood, Milne said.
Dennis Virin, who was with Zhukov and Dahko at the time, jumped on Rasmey’s back during the attack, Milne said. Virin has not been charged.
Komsomolskaya Pravda saw the beer as the crux of the matter in the fight.
“The naive Englishmen made a strategic mistake and decided to take the beer with them. The host of the evening did not like such an attack on all things holy,” the tabloid opined last week.

TITLE: Ex-Warehouse Opens as Mariinsky Venue
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Mariinsky Theater’s brand-new, state-of-the-art concert hall, located in the company’s former warehouse on Ulitsa Pisareva, a few hundred meters from its historic main building, hosted its first concert for the general public on Tuesday, with its indefatigable artistic director Valery Gergiev conducting the Mariinsky symphony orchestra for performances of Debussy’s “La Mer” and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.
Nearly six months passed between the hall’s official inauguration and the venue being opened to the audiences this week.
Gergiev said the time was spent in an endless chain of bureaucratic coordination efforts with the fire inspectorate and other organizations.
“But now I can claim this venue has the best protection against fire in the entire country,” the maestro joked. “If fire-fighters manage to prove me wrong and come up with a better alternative, I’ll owe them a very good meal!”
Built in record time, within just one year, with $15 million of state financing, in addition to $24 million from private companies and individuals, the Mariinsky’s new concert hall, which is also referred to as the theater’s “third stage,” almost literally embodies the story of a phoenix rising from the ashes.
In September 2003, the warehouse on Ulitsa Pisareva nearly perished in a massive blaze that destroyed scenery for at least 30 of the theater’s productions that was stored there. It was later decided that the space be used for a modern concert hall and construction began in June 2005.
“This is perhaps the first time in modern Russia that private sponsors have invested more than the state into a large-scale cultural project,” Gergiev  said.
Six individual donors, Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, RUSAL chairman Oleg Deripaska and Akhmed Bilalov, the deputy head of the Russian Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, gave money to the Mariinsky.
Designed by the French architect Xavier Fabre in the shape of a child’s cradle, the new concert hall can seat 1,100 people. Good visibility and excellent acoustics are hallmarks of the new space.
“We expect to receive some of the world’s finest performers here, and very soon,” Gergiev said. One of the confirmed agreements is a visit by the London Symphony Orchestra, which Gergiev is now leading as artistic director. “There are just 300 grams of wood in a violin, but what makes a Stradivarius  precious is its marvelous acoustics. Likewise, we could have spent three hundred million dollars on this hall but its real value is in its acoustics,” said Gergiev.
Japanese acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota of internationally acclaimed Nagata Acoustics, responsible for the hall’s acoustics, attended the concert on Tuesday. 
Nagata Acoustics prides itself on the exceptional sound of some of the world’s most distinguished classical venues, including Japan’s Sapporo and Kawasaki concert halls and the U.S. Walt Disney concert hall in Los Angeles.
Gergiev compares the new venue with a magnificent musical instrument which he is very proud of. Debussy’s impressionistic 1905 “La Mer”, one of the greatest orchestral works of the 20th century, defined by the composer as three symphonic sketches, was Gergiev’s deliberate choice for Tuesday night’s performance. 
Ahead of the forthcoming Stars of the White Nights Festival, the musicians are still fine-tuning this instrument and getting to know the acoustic response of the new concert hall, and “La Mer’s” exquisitely nuanced instrumental palette provided a valuable opportunity for the orchestra to seek the balance and learn to make the most of the new venue. 
Canadian maple — Yasuhisa Toyota’s preferred material — was ordered for the hall’s interiors. Local experts had suggested Karelian pine, but as the acoustician has not worked with the material before, he insisted on maple.
Everything about the new hall has a personal touch.
Gergiev personally selected several types of seats for the auditorium — they differ depending on their location in the hall — which were commissioned from a French furniture factory.
The Mariinsky harbors ambitious plans for further expansion.
The next step will be the construction of the theater’s ‘second stage,’ a new theater to run alongside its historic building.
Mariinsky II, a new theater to be built behind the 1840 original, which will be form part of a modern cultural district and has been designed by French architect Dominique Perrault, had originally been scheduled for completion by 2009. 
Gergiev had hoped that the construction, which will be paid for entirely by the federal budget, would be completed within the next three years, but the Russian government in January suspended its contract with architect Dominique Perrault , citing concerns that his French firm might fail to deliver the project on time.
Many St. Petersburgers said they would never accept the French design, branding it too revolutionary, or lacking in taste. One of the more harmless nicknames applied to the new building is “the golden potato.” Critics said Perrault’s design is too elaborate and not in keeping with the classical lines of the neighborhood.
A lone crane looming over an empty field that was once home to the Palace of Culture of the First Five Year Plan and is now the construction site for the Mariinsky’s second stage, may not look too promising, but Gergiev said that acceptable solutions are, slowly but surely, making the project happen.
“One of the changes I personally insisted on, was that the height of the second stage should not overshadow the historic building,” Gergiev said. “We have very recently settled the issue and reduced the new building’s height by ten meters.”
After the inauguration of the second stage — whenever that finally happens — the company’s historic premises will be closed for a two-year renovation.

TITLE: Sergei Mavrodi Convicted of Fraud in MMM Trial
AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Sergei Mavrodi, the mastermind behind the notorious MMM pyramid scheme that scammed millions of people in the early 1990s, was convicted of fraud on Tuesday in a Moscow court in what appears to be the end of a bizarre saga that stretches across the entire post-Soviet era.
Reading out the verdict Tuesday, Judge Nadezhda Markina of the Chertanovsky District Court said Mavrodi had defrauded MMM investors “by deception, betrayal and abuse of trust.”
MMM was the first and the biggest in a series of financial pyramids that hit Russia in the 1990s. Mavrodi was found guilty of defrauding 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles ($4.3 million), though in reality millions of people lost money in the scheme.
Markina is expected to finish reading the 820-page verdict later this week and to sentence Mavrodi on Saturday. Prosecutors have asked for a five-year sentence, but it is likely that Mavrodi will be released soon, as he has already spent four years in custody.
Mavrodi’s lawyer Olga Makarova insisted that her client was innocent.
“We do not consider him guilty,” Makarova said just before Markina began reading the verdict.
There is no article in the Criminal Code that applies to what happened to MMM, Makarova argued.
MMM, which operated from 1992 to 1994, was a sensation thanks to a clever saturation advertising campaign on national television that promised spectacular overnight returns on investments.
MMM’s droll, 60-second television spots, featuring ordinary Russians whose lives improve drastically after they purchase the company’s stock, captured the nation’s imagination.
The advertisements’ fictional heroes, Marina Sergeyevna and Lyonya Golubkov, became household names as MMM shares soared in value from 1,600 rubles (then about $1) to 105,600 rubles (about $65). Dividends were paid with money from new share sales.
Some 2 million to 10 million people lost their savings when the pyramid scheme folded in July 1994, and thousands of panicked people took to the streets. Investigators have estimated that Mavrodi made off with up to $100 million.
After MMM collapsed in 1994, Mavrodi was charged with tax evasion and jailed. But he was released in October 1995 to run for a seat in the State Duma, which he won, largely on the promise to spend $10 million on improvements in the Moscow suburb.
About one-quarter of the district’s voters were reported to hold MMM shares, and many shareholders believed Mavrodi’s claim that MMM had been brought down by a government plot.
As a Duma deputy, he secured immunity from prosecution. A year later, however, the Duma stripped him of his seat, and thus his immunity, and the police resumed their investigation into possible fraud at MMM. Mavrodi remained at liberty during the investigation, and in 1996 he tried to register as a presidential candidate.
The police closed their investigation in 1997, citing a lack of evidence. The Prosecutor General’s Office reopened the case in 1998, and when prosecutors attempted to bring Mavrodi in for questioning, they found he had disappeared.
Although police initially suspected that Mavrodi had fled abroad, he was eventually arrested in his apartment in central Moscow in 2003.
The court on Tuesday was filled with the mainly elderly supporters of Mavrodi, most of whom had lost much of their life savings in his financial scheme. They, along with Mavrodi, were forced to stand while the verdict was read.
Mavrodi was given medical assistance after he collapsed two hours into the verdict while standing in the defendant’s cage. None of his elderly supporters required assistance. Despite their losses, the defrauded investors remain loyal to the bespectacled Mavrodi, an unassuming figure who was dressed in an Adidas tracksuit Tuesday and who looks like the computer salesman he once was.
“Let him go, he didn’t kill anyone,” said Marina Bolotova, 71, a former cleaner who lost tens of thousands of rubles when MMM crashed and complained that she had no money for her funeral. “They should put in jail those who caused this chaos.”
Mavrodi told the court last year that if set free he would do his best to pay back investors, partially by cashing in his $1.5 million in shares of state-owned gas giant Gazprom.
If left in prison, however, Mavrodi said, “there can be no talk of returning the money,” national media reported.

TITLE: MDM-Pechat Equips Itself for Foreign Battle
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MDM-Pechat, a St. Petersburg-based printing plant owned by a group of Irish investors, has launched the most cutting edge printing machine in Russia — Lithoman IV. By modernizing its equipment, MDM-Pechat hopes to attract back those Russian glossy publishers that prefer to use Finnish printing plants.
MDM-Pechat invested about $12 million into the project and expanded its production area by 1,000 square meters. Production capacity increased by 50 percent up to 45,000 units of 48 standard A4 pages per hour, the company said this week in a statement.
A number of publishers have already expressed interest in the opportunities created by the new machine, said Tatiana Shved, commercial director of MDM-Pechat.
“They are interested in local printing plants because the production process takes less long and avoids having to go through customs and the related problems. Russian plants are becoming more competitive in terms of the cost of services when compared to western printers,” Shved said.
With the new equipment MDM-Pechat has become the second largest polygraphics company in Russia, Shved indicated. “Our main competitors are not Russian printing plants but foreign plants. Now we are no longer behind them either in terms of equipment or in the qualifications of our staff,” she said.
The printer appartus Lithoman IV, produced by German company ManRoland, allows the printing of 30 different sizes of magazines up to a very large size, which plant managers consider a significant advantage. The machine decreases the possibility of human error by 90 percent, which is also very important.
Besides Lithoman IV, the new production line is equipped with Kodak’s CtP Creo Trendsetter VLF production system and a Gammerler machine for thermo-gluing, as well as Close Loop system for control over the density of color and other parameters.
The growing number of local glossies means MDM-Pechat expects the plant to operate at full capacity 24 hours a day. At the same time production expenses are expected to decrease.
“In fact, increasing production capacity by 50 percent we will have to increase the number of employees by only 10 percent. The structure of production expenses will change, which will result in the best market price for consumers,” said Yevgeniy Konyakhin, general director of MDM-Pechat.
Earlier this month the largest polygraphics enterprise in the Urals, Sovetskaya Sibir, also announced it was to invest $20 million into modernization through the purchase of Koenig & Bauer and MAN Roland equipment. The company will focus on magazines and packaging instead of newspapers — a general trend among Russian printing plants.
Pervyi Polygraphicheskiy Kombinat in Moscow also launched Lithoman IV. Launching the second Lithoman IV and ROTOMAN 65 by the end of the year the plant hopes to become the largest printer of magazines in Russia, the company said in a statement on its web site.
According to the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications, 18 new printing plants have appeared in Russia since 2003, despite the fact that the total number of newspapers in Russia has decreased in that time. Color printing was introduced at 27 federal and nine regional printing plants. In Russia glossies are mostly printed in Moscow — at Almaz-Press and Pushkinskaya Ploschad plants.
However Russian publishers are steadily increasing spending on printing abroad. In 2003 they ordered $447.6 million worth of printing services from foreign printing plants, in 2004 the amount spent on such services was $530.1 million and in 2005 a total of $551.5 million. According to preliminary data, last year Russian publishers spent over $600 million on printing services abroad.
MDM-Pechat’s core clients, like BAUER LOGOS, Axel Springer, Kommersant and Za Rulem, have all previously used foreign printing plants. Most of St. Petersburg’s glossies are published in Finland and some of them in Moscow.

TITLE: Baltic Pipe Hit By Feud
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: WARSAW — The Polish government said a planned gas pipeline linking Russia with Germany under the Baltic Sea would pass through disputed waters, potentially threatening to delay the 5 billion euro ($6.83 billion) project.
The link would pass through an area of sea claimed by Poland and Denmark and come under the jurisdiction of both countries, Polish Economy Minister Piotr Wozniak said at a news conference in Warsaw on Wednesday. 
Sweden already demanded Gazprom change the route of the pipeline where it passes through the country’s offshore economic zone.
“Investments in the exclusive economic zone are governed by the same national laws as any on land,” Wozniak said. “There will be no special rights for the Nord Stream gas pipeline.”
Gazprom wants to build the link to avoid pricing disputes with transit countries such as Belarus and Ukraine, which disrupted supply. Poland, which would also lose transit fees, says the line threatens its energy security.

TITLE: Shell to Pay Sakhalin Dividend
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell and its partners have agreed to pay an annual dividend to the Russian government as part of a deal to salvage its Sakhalin-2 project, the Wall Street Journal said on Thursday.
The dividend will be paid from 2010 onward and linked to the price of oil, the newspaper quoted an unidentified person familiar with the situation as saying.
“It’s going to be something under a billion dollars every year,” the person was quoted as saying.
Shell declined to comment. Shell’s Japanese partners, Mitsui and Mitsubishi Corp, were unavailable for comment.
Shell and the partners this month ceded control in the $22 billion venture to state-controlled Gazprom, at what analysts considered a knock-down price, after more than a year of pressure on the project from the Kremlin.
Analysts said the production sharing agreement (PSA) that Shell had negotiated in the 1990s offered the world’s second-largest, non-state controlled oil company more favourable terms than most other nations had agreed in the past decade.
A renegotiation of the PSA would have been a complex legal matter and the newspaper said the dividend allowed the terms to be changed without such complications.
However, the payments “won’t have a material impact on the economies of the project,” another person familiar with the terms was quoted in the newspaper as saying.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>CIT Mortgage</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — CIT-Finance bank will issue mortgage securities for $500 million in September 2007, Interfax reported Tuesday. The issue will be organized by Morgan Stanley.
At the moment the CIT-Finance mortgage portfolio amounts to .5?billion rubles ($642?million), which exceeds the volume of the planned issue, and the bank could decide on a second issue later this year.

<b>Peter’s Rainbow</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A Franco-Dutch investment company Ralmir?Holding?invested 130?million euros ($175.5 million) into Piter-Raduga mall, which opened in St. Petersburg Wednesday, Interfax reported.
The 90,000 square meter center houses Real,?OBI, Media Markt?and SantaHouse supermarkets,?KinoStar?city?multiplex and an entertainment center.

<b>Stocking Up</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Eastern-European Financial Corporation Bank will increase authorized capital stock 824 times, Interfax reported Wednesday. The bank will issue shares for about four billion rubles ($155.5 million) at a nominal cost. At the moment authorized capital is 4.857 million rubles ($190,000).

TITLE: Bold Bering Tunnel Advancing
AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: For more than a century, entrepreneurs and engineers have dreamed of building a tunnel connecting the Eastern and Western hemispheres under the Bering Strait — only to be brought up short by war, revolution and politics.
Now die-hard supporters are renewing their push for the audacious plan — a $65 billion highway project that would link two of the world’s most inhospitable regions by burrowing under a stretch of water connecting the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean.
Russians and Americans alike made their pitch for the project in Moscow on Tuesday, at a conference titled “Megaprojects of Russia’s East.”
“It’s time to the rewrite the old slogan ‘Workers of the world unite!’” said Walter Hickel, a former governor of Alaska and interior secretary under U.S. President Richard Nixon. “It’s time to proclaim, ‘Workers — Unite the world!’”
An Economic Development and Trade Ministry official tossed cold water on the idea, saying he wanted to know who planned to pay the mammoth bill for the project before seriously discussing it. But Hickel was unfazed in his speech, saying the route would unlock hitherto untapped natural resources — and bolster the economies of both Alaska and the Far East.
The proposed 110-kilometer tunnel would be the longest in the world. It would also be the linchpin for a 6,000-kilometer railroad line stretching from Yakutsk — capital of the gold and mineral-rich republic of Sakha, which is roughly the size of India — through extreme northeastern Russia, in waters up to 54-meters deep and into the western coast of Alaska. Winter temperatures there routinely hit minus 70 degrees Celsius.
By comparison, the undersea tunnel that is currently the world’s longest — the Chunnel, linking Britain and France — is only 50-kilometers long. That raises the prospect of some tantalizingly exotic routes — train riders could catch the London-Moscow-Washington express, conference organizers suggested.
Lobbyists claimed the project is guaranteed to turn a profit after 30 years. As crews constructed the road and rail link, they said, the workers would also build oil and gas pipelines and lay electricity and fiber optic cables.
Trains would whisk cargos at up to 100 kilometers per hour, 80 meters beneath the seabed.
Eventually, 3 percent of the world’s cargo could move along the route, organizers hope.
Maxim Bystrov, deputy head of the Federal Agency for the Management of Special Economic Zones, injected a note of sobriety. He said his agency would invest in the project only when private investors were committed.
“As a ministry employee, I am used to working with figures and used to working with projects that have an economic and financial base,” Bystrov said.

TITLE: Deripaska to Pay $1.6Bln For 30% Stake in Strabag
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Aluminum mogul Oleg Deripaska will buy a 30 percent stake in Austrian builder Strabag for 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion), boosting the clout of Europe’s fifth-largest builder in Russia. 
The deal, unveiled Wednesday, prompted Strabag chief executive Hans-Peter Haselsteiner to call off an initial public offering of his company a day before it was due to start, stunning his own IPO bankers with what he called a key step for Strabag. 
“Whoever is No. 1 in Russia will be No. 1 in Europe,” Haselsteiner told journalists at a news conference in Vienna. “Deripaska brings the Russian market to Strabag.
Haselsteiner, a former Austrian lawmaker, said he met Deripaska for the first time three weeks ago, after the businessman had approached him about Strabag. He struck the deal himself without consulting outside advisers. 
“At the end of the day it was a gut decision, but I’m feeling very good about it,” Haselsteiner said. 
“There’s no doubt that we could have expanded our business in Russia without him,” he added, “but with him it’s going to be much easier.” 
Moscow real estate experts agreed with Haselsteiner’s assessment, saying other local developers would face an uphill battle competing against the combined duo of Deripaska and Strabag. 
“It was quite a surprise, but I think it was quite logical. ... It is a deal that will allow him to control the quality and timing of the projects,” said Yulia Nikulicheva, an associate director at Jones Lang LaSalle.
Deripaska’s other real estate investments include the Moscow-based Glavmosstroi construction firm, building materials and real estate development companies. Deripaska is also involved with the planned construction of an Olympic Village in Sochi.
Strabag and Deripaska’s companies together will have an annual building volume of about 2 billion euros in Russia, Haselsteiner said.
About one third of Strabag’s building volume of 10.4 billion euros last year came from Eastern Europe, and the company expects this share to grow strongly in the future. 
A spokeswoman for Deripaska’s Basic Element holding company was unable to comment further, saying Deripaska would give a news conference Thursday in Vienna.
Haselsteiner said Deripaska’s Rasperia Trading would buy new Strabag shares issued in a capital increase that had been earmarked for Strabag’s IPO, and to a smaller extent, would buy shares from existing shareholders. 
It will pay 1.05 billion euros for the new shares, or 42 euros apiece, giving Strabag the fresh equity that it had planned to raise with the IPO. 
The existing shareholders will sell about 150 million euros worth of their stakes as well. 
Strabag will revisit its IPO plans in the second half of the year, Haselsteiner said. It will then probably offer 27.5 million shares, which at the price Deripaska paid would be worth 1.2 billion euros. 
Half of Strabag is owned by Haselsteiner’s family, and one-quarter each by insurer Uniqa and cooperative bank Raiffeisen-Holding Noe-Wien. Uniqa said it expected to write up the value of its stake, leading to a book gain of about 140 million euros. 

Reuters, SPT

TITLE: VTB’s $8.4Bln London Float Viewed As Highly Unlikely
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — State-owned VTB will try to raise up to $8.4 billion in an initial public offering in London next month, issuing some 1.7 trillion shares at a price that some market players consider to be grossly inflated.
The bank said Wednesday that it had set the indicative price range for its IPO, the first by a Russian bank in London, at 11.3 to 13.9 kopeks per share, implying a market capitalization of $22.85 billion to $28.1 billion prior to the new share issue. 
The bank plans to issue 1.73 trillion new shares, equal to 25 percent of its charter capital. The bank then plans to float 22.5 percent of its shares in Moscow and London. The placement of 1.56 trillion new shares will raise $6.84 billion to $8.42 billion and dilute the government’s share in VTB to 75 percent.
Based on 2007 earnings forecasts, this implies a price-earnings ratio of 27 at the upper price range, UBS analyst Bob Kommers said. Compared with Sberbank, whose stock price is 17 times its projected earnings for 2007, this is “very expensive,” Kommers said.
Investitsia brokerage changed its plans to take part in the emission after hearing Wednesday of the “extremely inflated price,” the company’s general director Alexei Chalenko said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday.
“Between 5 and 6 kopeks [per share] would already be an overvaluation,” Chalenko said. “After the emission, we will buy the stock when its price drops by at least 30 percent.” Other analysts struck a more confident note.
“I think the IPO will be priced closer to the upper end of the price range as investor demand is very high,” Troika Dialog analyst Andrew Keeley said.
At the bottom end of the range, Kommers said, the valuation is “reasonable.” 
“VTB is by far the largest, most accessible and most liquid investment into the banking sector. Although the valuation range is somewhat challenging, I think the IPO will be successful,” he added.
Fast-growing Russian banks are starting to tap the equity market to replenish their capital base, largely depleted after demand for loans grew fivefold after 2002.
State-controlled Sberbank last month completed an $8.95 billion rights issue. But that deal was placed only in Russia, while VTB hopes to sell up to 70 percent of its offering to international institutions. 
“Debates on the price range continued until after midnight. The consultants proposed widening the price range to meet the traditional proportion of a difference of 20 percent between the lower and the upper price in the range,” a source close to the placement said on Wednesday.
VTB, the former Soviet foreign trade bank, has said it wants to invest in expanding its retail operations and investment banking acquisitions.
Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are joint global coordinators for the IPO, together with Renaissance Capital as joint bookrunners.

Reuters, SPT

TITLE: A Mixed Legacy
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: It is in the nature of men who lead revolutions that they rarely prove to be effective leaders of governments. So it was with Boris Yeltsin. ...
Yeltsin was a huge figure in an extraordinary time. Brought into the ruling Politburo by Mikhail Gorbachev at the dawn of perestroika — the restructuring that couldn’t save the system — Yeltsin electrified Muscovites with his openness and accessibility. His defiance of the Communist Party was a deadly blow to its rule, and when party loyalists staged their putsch in August 1991, Yeltsin’s speech from atop a tank collapsed the rebellion.
As president, Yeltsin tolerated brazen corruption, ended a 1993 rebellion by ordering tanks to fire on the parliament and launched the brutal military campaign in Chechnya. The deals he made to ensure his 1996 re-election undermined the democracy he championed. The country he turned over to President Vladimir Putin was a mess. Looking back, we can identify the most egregious failings of this man. But without Yeltsin, the death throes of that terrible dictatorship could have been far worse.

The Washington Post
Boris Yeltsin was a man of great contradictions who nevertheless will be remembered, first and foremost, for a single image: his defiant stand upon a T-72 tank in front of the Russian parliament in August 1991 against a coup by defenders of the dying Soviet Union. That is the right place to begin any assessment of the first democratic leader in Russia’s history — especially as he may be the last for some time to come. ...
A cynic might ask whether today’s Russia is much different from what it would have been had Yeltsin not mounted his tank and the 1991 coup had succeeded. ... There is, too, the memory of the unfettered society Yeltsin presided over — a time of chaos and misery for many, but also of free speech, free association and free elections. For now, most Russians seem to approve of Putin’s authoritarian remedy for the chaos. In time, they may embrace the aspirations for freedom that Yeltsin embodied at his best.

Los Angeles Times
Boris Yeltsin would have ranked among the best of tsars or commissars. It was Russia’s great tragedy that, instead, he was a would-be democrat. ...
The pessimism of his era in office was perhaps best summed up by one of his many failed prime ministers, Viktor Chernomyrdin: “We hoped for the best, but things turned out as usual. ... “
That Yeltsin failed was forgivable. Transforming the economy from communism to capitalism, building democratic traditions in a country that didn’t have any and establishing relations with Russia’s newly independent former subjects was a Herculean task. But it was because he failed so spectacularly, while passing off his incompetence as the inevitable by-product of capitalism and democracy, that the Russian people embraced the thuggish authoritarianism of Yeltsin’s handpicked successor, Putin. Will history judge this last blunder most harshly of all?

The Wall Street Journal
Boris Yeltsin’s heart, which gave out Monday at age 76, was in the right place at critical moments in Russian history. But his weaknesses, not least for drink and bad company in the end failed him as well as his country. ...
Yeltsin’s tragedy was to stay too long, urged on by his family, advisers and foreigners who thought he was the only man standing in the way of a chimeric Communist threat. “I want this guy to win so bad it hurts,” U.S. President Bill Clinton said about the 1996 elections, when Yeltsin lay in a hospital after suffering a heart attack that was kept secret. He did win, but that year was the turning point for Russian democracy. By 1999, the Yeltsin family was no longer willing to trust voters to select a replacement and found the obscure KGB Colonel Putin. ...
The rest is Russia’s recent history. Putin has muzzled the press and free speech, destroyed opposition parties and centralized economic and political power inside the Kremlin. In retirement, Yeltsin kept quiet as his good legacy was dismantled — leaving mostly the bad. Russia was never as free as in the Yeltsin 1990s, before or since.

The Times (London)
Yeltsin’s immense political courage was too often eclipsed by his own human frailty. By the end of his eight years in power he was presiding over a mess. Ravaged by poor health, he was an embarrassment to Russians, a liability abroad and of little help to a succession of bewildered prime ministers. But his great achievement, the burying of a 19th-century ideology that poisoned the 20th century and abhorred the individual, proved irreversible. Critics assessing his legacy after his death Monday from heart failure may dwell on missed chances and false hopes. But in the war of ideas that continues to shape the contemporary world, Boris Yeltsin was a towering force for good.
Many Russians, both inside and outside the Kremlin, will note with wry disdain the West’s applause for Yeltsin’s role in history. They recall more painfully the deaths of young recruits in Grozny and the mass destitution wrought by the financial crash of 1998. Yet only a slim minority of aging die-hards would choose now to go back to communism. Without Boris Yeltsin, there might have been no choice.

TITLE: This Freedom Cannot Be Taken Away
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Boris Yeltsin — one of Russia’s greatest leaders — has died. His greatness was not as a liberal reformer, like Alexander II, or in opening the country up to Europe, as did Peter the Great. Yeltsin, whose road from the village to the peak of power wound through the Communist Party, had a passionate love for authority and leadership while also possessing an innate respect for freedom.
And that respect for freedom could be recognized in other Party figures as well — Alexander Yakovlev and Eduard Shevardnadze, for example — but was absolutely lacking in the Federal Security Service colonels who sleazed their way through the usual embassy fare of caviar, vodka and denunciations.
It was because of Yeltsin’s passion for freedom that he fell out of favor with the Party in the late 1980s, climbed up on a tank during the putsch of 1991 and didn’t cancel elections or shut down television stations.
Comparisons make everything clear. Yeltsin was accused of corruption, but the worst that history can get him for was the dubious appointment of his daughter and son-in-law to head Aeroflot. Billionaires Mikhail Fridman, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Potanin amassed their enormous fortunes without Yeltsin’s patronage.
This is in direct contrast to today, when all of President Vladimir Putin’s former colleagues from his security services and Ozero-Moscow dacha co-op days have taken major roles in the country’s gas, oil, uranium and armaments industries.
The media ruthlessly criticized Yeltsin for the war in Chechnya and for drunkenly conducting oom-pah music in Germany. But no journalists were gunned down for this and not a single television station owner was jailed.
How different from today’s Russia, where nobody dares criticize Putin publicly. Putin doesn’t say much himself — it is simply not his habit to speak to the people at moments of critical national importance or to address public concerns.
Yeltsin has been blamed for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, under his rule Russia was preeminent among CIS countries and considered an apt negotiating partner with the West. Though we were embarrassed by his occasional drunkenness, horrifyingly infantile behavior was not one of his weaknesses.
What a contrast to Putin’s politics, with his deportations to Georgia and talk of an “asymmetrical response” against the West. Russia no longer has allies. If Yeltsin facilitated Russia’s accession to the Group of Eight, Putin has brought Russia to the verge of becoming a pariah state.
Yeltsin had an equal love for authority and freedom. He knew the difference between what newspapers print today and what history will record for the ages, and he had no desire to be remembered as the Russian Federation’s first dictator. He did not give the country’s major industries to his friends or jail his enemies, take control of television stations or pervert the meaning of elections. For this, Yeltsin was ridiculed on television and Prosecutor General Yury Skuratov found time to dig through intelligence files looking for dirt on Yeltsin’s daughter.
Putin learned from Yeltsin’s mistakes: Television programs do not poke fun at Putin. The question, however, is what history will say.
Although Yeltsin oversaw construction for the Party, it’s hard to claim he was a builder. He did not complete the task of developing the economy, the default occurred on his watch, and he did not reform the security agencies. But he was a free spirit, and he shared that freedom with the rest of us. Under Yeltsin, Russia experienced a free society for the first time in the 20th century. That society remains free even today, despite television station closures, the redistribution of major industries and the presence of former secret service personnel in the corridors of power.
That freedom is something even Putin cannot renationalize and hand to his old KGB and Ozero co-op buddies.

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

TITLE: First President Deserves More
TEXT: Although Boris Yeltsin is a historic figure who ushered in democracy and a free market, he is being laid to rest rather quickly and quietly. Yeltsin, who died of heart failure Monday, will be buried Wednesday in the Novodevichye Cemetery. The funeral is closed to the general public.
Granted, the decision to bury Yeltsin on the third day after his death is in line with Russian Orthodox practice. But that does not explain why the first Russian leader to die in more than two decades seems to be getting little of the honor afforded other world leaders after their deaths.
On Tuesday, Yeltsin’s body lay in state in the Christ the Savior Cathedral all night, from 4:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. The public was given little notice that they could pay their last respects. The ceremony was not announced until hours before the cathedral opened its doors, so no newspapers could carry the news in their Tuesday editions. State television only mentioned the event Tuesday afternoon. Still, thousands of people gathered at the cathedral.
When news of Yeltsin’s death broke on Monday afternoon, Rossia state television stuck to its scheduled programming, showing the “Kamenskaya” crime show, Gazeta.ru reported. BBC and CNN, in comparison, interrupted their afternoon broadcasts to offer nonstop coverage of Yeltsin and his legacy.
The Kremlin has declared one day of national mourning, Wednesday. Many senior government officials will not even leave work to attend the funeral. It took until late Tuesday for the Kremlin-controlled State Duma to realize that it should at least adjorn its scheduled session for a few hours to allow deputies to attend the funeral.
Yeltsin deserves better. For all his faults — and there were many — he did manage to institutionalize the democratic rights and freedoms the country enjoys today, even if some have been curtailed since he left office. Yeltsin averted what could have been massive bloodshed in the waning days of the Soviet Union and the early years of the new Russia. He also oversaw free market reforms that brought the economy past the point of no return. While the changes were painful, and many ordinary people resent Yeltsin as a result, the country is unquestionably enjoying the fruits of those reforms now.
Another Yeltsin-era reform — greater openness in government — was very visible Monday. In 1982, it took the Kremlin more than 24 hours to announce that Leonid Brezhnev had died. Yeltsin’s death was announced within minutes.

This comment first appeared in The Moscow Times.

TITLE: The look of love
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: When it comes to extravagant, impassioned images of saints and sinners, nothing can compare to the sugar-coated masterpieces created by French artistic duo Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard. 
Known the world over simply as Pierre et Gilles, the couple have been active since the mid-70s making photographs that have always existed on the fringes of respectability. A new exhibition that opened last week at the Marble Palace looks set to change all that, at least where the Russian public are concerned. 
Organised in part to mark “The Year of Pierre et Gilles,” the retrospective celebrates 30 years of the pair’s working relationship and features 80 of their most famous and best-loved images — as well as a few surprises. 
Known for creating idealized portraits of the people they know and love, Pierre et Gilles have fashioned an ostentatious fantasy world populated by pop-stars, celebrities and friends. Relying heavily on low-art motifs that inflate the comforts of decoration into a uniquely fake aesthetic, they have created an instantly recognizable body of work.
Like the garish bedroom saints and starry-eyed nursery kittens found on walls throughout France that inspire them, their lavish images have come to be just as ubiquitous around the world. 
Paradoxically it is this success that has kept them on the wrong side of the art world for the greater part of their career. 
Long considered beyond the pale for their overtly homoerotic and flamboyant style, they have typically been dismissed as kitchen-sink provocateurs by an elite that viewed them as slightly suspect oddities to be endured. But with time has come a kind of grudging respect born not of any real change in their method — they are just as true as ever to their fantasist roots — but a growing acceptance of a “queer” sensibility by the mainstream; an acceptance due in large part to the existence of Pierre et Gilles’ riotous camp sensibility. 
The process they use to create their work is labor-intensive to the point of improbability for most artists working in the age of digital photography. 
The voyage towards the final image begins with preparatory sketches that are then elaborated into something that functions as a working design. They then build their sets and locate props before moving on to the design of the lighting. Costumes and makeup are often chosen in collaboration with their subjects. 
Once the setup has been photographed by Pierre, one print is chosen from the images made during the shoot to be meticulously painted and glazed by Gilles using conventional photo-retouching techniques. 
Transforming the print into a radiant image closer to painting than photography, the resulting object practically vibrates with the intensity of its artificiality while miraculously preserving a living likeness of the model. 
Everyone who knows the kinky and militantly luxurious aesthetic their work displays in reproduction will be surprised by the affection with which they create their art for the gallery wall. The artists have spoken of the sensuality inherent in the process of making their pictures, from conceiving the idea, through taking the photograph, painting the surface and including the way the image is finally framed for museum presentation. 
Never a pair to shy away from the extreme, Pierre et Gilles’ images are all but embalmed in this process rendering them almost aggressive in their cloying, chocolate-box perfection. 
Unaided by computers, the work revels in a handmade aesthetic that suggests a homely craft more associated with traditional notions of women’s work. 
This loyalty to tradition, however, doesn’t stop Pierre et Gilles from acknowledging the pictorial potential of digital imagery and making it their own. In one remarkable recent instance they created a hand-painted, pixellated background for a portrait of a handsome Iraqi soldier emerging from the ground with a machine gun as both an aesthetic and political response to the war (“Iraq War” 2006). 
By turns blithely ironic and deadly serious, Pierre et Gilles’ treatment of taboo subjects — including Holocaust imagery and soft-core pornography — is characteristic of their inclusive attitude. With promiscuous abandon, they proclaim that there is room for just about everything in their world. 
There is no sense of the perverse in Pierre et Gilles’ playfully unrepressed approach. Blending the starkly chaste with the wanton, the seductive with the repulsive and high-art with kitsch gives the work the impact of the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove. And it is this marriage of extremes that makes the work so satisfying and successful.  So adroit are they at couching their concerns in a dazzling package that, like the Trojan horse, the message gets in before the viewer knows what has hit them; delivering an aesthetic punch to greater effect and in a more forceful manner precisely because of its indirectness. 
Highly theatrical, Pierre et Gilles’ stock-in-trade is the shimmering glycerine tear of the Hollywood starlet, the overly crimson blood of an Italian crucifixion print, the slick reflectiveness of slightly suspect materials like plastic and patent leather, and the crystalline brilliance of fake snow strewn with plastic flowers. 
The different series the pair have embarked on display a consistent fascination with both beauty and horror knowing as they do how closely the two are linked in the psyche. It is from this that the power of their images to simultaneously fascinate and repulse is derived. 
Created the year after the Berlin Wall fell, “Le Petit Communiste Christophe”(1990), with its reference to the committee images created by Soviet propagandists, shows a uniformed soldier with one of their trademark tears glistening seductively on its way down the perfect skin of his creamy cheek; equally readable as tears of loss or tears of joy. 
Less equivocal, “Le Petit Chinois Tomah”(1991), in which an Asian man in a white shirt stares out aggressively at the viewer with a bloody knife in hand, can be taken as the image of a defiant China but is also a reminder that as much as they like to idealize, there is just as much violence as tenderness in their pictures.
Celebrities such as Catherine Deneuve, Marc Almond, Amanda Lear, Marilyn Manson, Yves Saint-Laurent and porn legend Jeff Stryker all populate the pair’s cotton-candy firmament along with their muses and alter-egos, the French light-pop duo Mikado, for whom they have directed several music videos. 
Unfortunately for the world of pop-music, the bother of working with entire crews and the pressure and strain that big budgets bring has led them to decline requests from the Pet Shop Boys and Elton John to create video clips for them. They have even gone so far as to turn down Michael Jackson’s request for a book full of portraits because, love him as they might, they remain admirably committed to their craft-industry production values.
This dedication to first principals and the pair’s legendary reluctance to give interviews or explain their work hasn’t kept them from becoming household names. But it has masked them from the usual cult of personality to which successful artists are usually subject. 
Part of a tradition that counts art-making couples such as Gilbert and George and McDermott and McGough among their peers, the pair live and work together fusing the dual personae of a romantic couple and an artistic team to create a conceptual project that blurs the boundaries between art and life. 
To this day, the combination of eroticism, painstakingly elaborate set-ups, and minute attention to detail that has characterized Pierre et Gilles’ surprisingly varied oeuvre are still firmly in place. Lately, however, the pair seem to have been transported to a slightly more sinister environment where the clear light of day is frequently overwhelmed by a darker atmosphere that hints at the mystery and strangeness at the center of life rather than its dazzling surface.

“Pierre et Gilles” at the Marble Palace, 5/1 Millionaya Ulitsa, through May 25. www.rusmuseum.ru

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: With heavy political censorship on Russian television and the regime’s intolerance of any anti-Kremlin protest in the streets, as the recent violent suppression of the “dissenters’ marches” in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod demonstrated, politics appears to be retreating not into people’s kitchens, as under the Soviets, but into bars and clubs.
City Bar and the non-governmental organization German-Russian Exchange have launched monthly political <b>Debates in City Bar</b> which take place at 7 p.m. every last Tuesday of the month. 
This month’s debate was on the subject of “political extremism in Russia: opposition to parliamentary initiatives,” with discussions of the new law “On the counteraction of extremist activity,” which many see as a new instrument for dealing with the opposition. Watch out for the next event on the bar’s and the German-Russian Exchange’s web sites.
Back in the street, Yuly Rybakov, an artist and human rights activist, has invited the public to attend a <b>Meeting Against Police Violence and Arbitrariness</b>. 
It will take place on Pionerskaya Ploshchad, the square in front of the Theater of the Young Spectator (TYuZ), where the most recent dissenters’ rally was held earlier this month, and where both protesters and ordinary passersby were attacked by the heavily-armed OMON special police-task force. The Meeting Against Police Violence and Arbitrariness is to be held at 5 p.m. on Friday. 
On Saturday, <b>The Skatalites</b> will play at Orlandina. The concert will also feature the local ska-Afro-rock band <b>Markscheider Kunst</b> that helped to bring the Jamaican ska legends to Russia and will be followed by a ska-themed DJ party.
This weekend’s concerts also include <b>Lisa Germano</b>, a U.S. singer and musician, who will perform at a recently-launched club called The Place on Sunday. See article, page ii.
Meanwhile, tickets for a one-off local concert by <b>Sonic Youth</b>, due to take place at Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa on June 18, hit the street this week. Tickets cost 1000 rubles ($39).
Sonic Youth’s concert is promoted by Light Music, the concert agency that also promotes Stereoleto (Stereo Summer), arguably the main annual summer event in modern music in the city.
This year’s <b>Stereoleto</b> will feature <b>Air</b>, the French music duo that brought us “Sexy Boy” in 1998. Air is due to perform at the main square of Yelagin Island in the city on June 23. 
An innovation that Light Music has come up with this year is <b>Verandah More</b> (Sea Verandah), a summer tent on Krestovsky Ostrov. This temporary bar, holding weekly concerts, will be launched with a set by New York-based DJ <b>Ursula 1000</b> on May 18. 
Swedish crooner <b>Jay-Jay Johanson</b> and the British cabaret-punk trio <b>The Tiger Lillies</b> will follow on May 30 and June 30, respectively.

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Quiet but twisted
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: “My songs are kind of quiet. They’re quiet but they’re a little twisted, so you have to listen to them, or else they’re going to sound kind of boring,” says Lisa Germano, the acclaimed U.S. vocalist and musician who performs in the city this week.
“In the Maybe World,” Germano’s seventh album, features such musicians as ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Many of its 12 songs deal with issues of loss and death.
“Well, it’s got sadness, but I think when it works the best for me and for other people is when … it makes you feel happy afterwards,” said Germano, speaking by telephone from Copenhagen this week.
Germano gained recognition in the late 1980s as the violinist for John Mellencamp. She released her first solo album in 1991 but continued to collaborate with such diverse artists as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Simple Minds and the Indigo Girls. 
With Bowie she recorded an album of his remade 1960s songs, tentatively called “Toy,” in 2000, but few people have had a chance to hear it.
“He never released it,” said Germano. 
“And then he made a record called ‘Heathen’ [in 2002], and he used a couple of tracks from ‘Toy’ on that, and then he recorded a few over. I bet he’ll release it some day. It was pretty cool.”
Her new album, released on Young God Records, the label run by ex-Swans frontman Michael Gira, is Germano’s first in three years. But the singer says she can afford to take her time.
Although best known for playing violin, she plays piano and guitar on tour, backed by bass player Sebastian Steinberg.
“It’s actually electric guitar, but it doesn’t sound loud, it’s just like the Velvet Underground kind of approach,” she said. 
“It’s just a Telecaster, it’s just a guitar, you know. There’s not much fancy stuff going on at a live show.
“I don’t play violin at my own show. The violin is just a color.”
Born into an artistic family in Mishawaka, Indiana, in 1958, Germano penned her first piece of music — a 15-minute piano opera — at the age of seven, according to her biography on the web site of the 4AD record label.
After seven years recording and touring with Mellencamp, she made her solo debut by releasing “On the Way Down From the Moon Palace” on her own Major Bill label in 1991. She followed with “Happiness” on Capitol Records in 1994 but soon quit in favor of 4AD, a British indie label. Germano’s music tastes are very diverse, she said.
“I just like things that make me cry, to be honest. Not just from sadness, but from beauty,” she said.
“Or from something really dark that makes you cry, and then you feel so much better afterwards. Or music as a therapy or a cathartic. Or really happy music that you just dance to and makes you feel really happy. It just has to be music that’s full of life.
“I always liked the really soft songs of Rickie Lee Jones, the really emotional songs. And I like Kate Bush on ‘Hounds of Love’ very much. And I love Bjork — she’s more rock than me, but I love her emotions. I love classical music and gypsy music and Irish music. I heard some Russian rap music a couple of months ago that was really cool, but I can’t remember any of their names.”
Although Germano does write her own songs, she is somewhat reluctant to be referred to as a songwriter.
“It’s not about a formula. I suppose I’m a songwriter—I don’t know. When you say that word, it usually means that there’s a formula that you follow. You do this and you do that, and you put the chords there. You put the guitar in the third verse. 
“My songs are more like paintings, where I’ll record a bit here and a bit there, then maybe months later I’ll add something to it. And then I’ll take something off. It’s just a very different approach from sitting down and writing a song. Because that’s what turns into the record. 
“So then, when I go on tour, I strip it down so it’s just the piano and the guitar. And if you have a bass player or a guitar player with you, it’s just about the songs. Then you go, ‘Oh, I guess that is a song.’”

Lisa Germano performs at The Place on Sunday. www.lisagermano.com

TITLE: Breaking down boundaries
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: After getting rave reviews in the U.S. press, the Russian art-rock band Auktyon is releasing its long-awaited “American” album this week. But does that mean they are set for a new, brilliant career in the United States?
“I feel good in America, it’s a great country. ... Compared to this country, it’s more relaxing there, that’s for sure,” singer and guitarist Leonid Fyodorov said by telephone from Moscow earlier this month.
Based in St. Petersburg, except for Fyodorov who moved to Moscow in 2002, Auktyon is an eight-member group with a distinctive style that draws on rock, punk, world music and jazz. Its new album, “Girls Sing” (Devushki Poyut), was recorded last September in New York’s Stratosphere Sound studios with the help of some prominent U.S. musicians: Marc Ribot on guitar, John Medeski on keyboards, Frank London on trumpet and Ned Rothenberg on reeds.
Originally, the album was meant to be released simultaneously in Russia and the United States. But while the Russian release was launched last week with concerts featuring Ribot and Medeski both in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the fate of the U.S. release is unclear.
“The situation there changed drastically over the summer,” Fyodorov said. “Sales of CDs dropped, the famous Tower Records chain closed and I hear that Sony Records dropped acts that sell, I think, less than 5,000 copies a year. The record industry has collapsed, so no label seems interested in signing a band that’s basically indefinable. But honestly, I don’t care. What’s the difference if it comes out there or not? It will come out here, thank God, but who needs it there? Who needs a record sung in Russian in the United States?”
“Girls Sing,” out on Moscow’s Geometriya label, marks a creative breakthrough for the veteran band, one of the most important forces in the Soviet rock revolution of the 1980s, but still strangely relevant in 2007.
Although its songs have been used in films, from the art-house cult classic “4” to mass-market action movies such as “Brother 2,” and it has a wide fanbase — the popular St. Petersburg ska group Leningrad and New York’s Gogol Bordello both cite the band as an influence — Auktyon has not released an album of new material since 1993’s “Bird” (Ptitsa). 
Fyodorov now describes “Bird” as a “boring” album that suffered from too much rehearsal. Over the past 14 years, Fyodorov has mostly released solo records and collaborations, often with St. Petersburg-based improv musician Vladimir Volkov on double bass.
“At some point with Auktyon, it stopped,” Fyodorov said. “I didn’t feel like we were moving anymore. But here we got a push from the outside, and it sent us into motion.”
That “push” was the opportunity to record in a U.S. studio with New York improvisers Ribot and Medeski, as well as Volkov. Ribot is a well-known guitarist in the city’s New Music scene, while keyboardist Medeski is best known for his work with the jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood.
“We just sat and started to play. The first track was done in one take,” said Fyodorov, who added that he had no previous experience of having 10 musicians in the studio, recording live.
“The songs developed naturally, they developed as we played them. ... The musicians were so great they just couldn’t fail. It was clear they wouldn’t let us down, and I selected more free-form songs that didn’t need written arrangements. We sat and played — it happened as it happened. Then we took what we liked. We didn’t use bad takes.”
The story of the album began in January 2006 when Auktyon performed at GlobalFEST, a high-profile two-day world music event in New York that showcases artists representing a wide variety of cultures, traditions and styles. Auktyon had toured the United States every year since 1997, but like many Russian bands, it had played mostly to audiences of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. 
GlobalFEST — which is heavily attended by music-industry insiders — gave the band its first real exposure to U.S. critics and producers. After Auktyon played the first night, trumpeter Frank London stopped by and suggested the idea of recording an album in New York with some local musicians. Fyodorov offered the names of John Zorn, Ribot and Medeski, and the stage for the collaboration was set, except for Zorn, who replied that he was not participating in any outside projects at the time. 
On the heels of GlobalFEST, Auktyon enjoyed its first U.S. tour where it played at big venues for American audiences, rather than at small clubs for Russian immigrants, and the release of its first U.S. record: the compilation CD “Pioneer,” which came out on the Circular Moves label in June. With songs picked and remastered by Fyodorov, the disc spans the band’s entire career from its 1986 debut “Return to Sorrento” (Vernis v Sorrento) to its later collaborations.
The end result was that Auktyon received more publicity in the United States than any Russian band since 1989, when CBS Records released Akvarium frontman Boris Grebenshchikov’s album “Radio Silence.” Though recorded in English and heavily promoted amid the favorable climate of the perestroika years, the album failed to make a splash among U.S. rock fans.
It remains to be seen whether “Girls Sing” will have better luck. Max Milendorf, the album’s executive producer and Auktyon’s U.S. tour manager since 2000, said he was looking for a U.S. label to release the album and that he hoped to organize a large tour to coincide with its release. But, he said, the climate was unfavorable.
“The fate of this album in the U.S. is not clear to me at this point,” he wrote in an e-mail from Boston. “I don’t have any illusions about being able to appeal to a huge audience with this kind of music. The band will continue to have a cult following, but the abysmal state of the recording industry may make it difficult to sell many copies of this album in the U.S.”
Fyodorov admitted that it would be difficult for any Russian band, however good it was, to break through in the United States.
“I guess, in principle, it’s possible to conquer America, but it depends a lot on fate,” he said. “Actually, there’s one big problem: We live here. If you’re American, there’s no problem; you can go anywhere. But for us, just flying there costs a lot of money. ... Still, there would have to be a quantum leap of some sort — both with us and somewhere else, outside of our control — for things to click, so that we’d be interesting to people there, and not just to a small group of our fans in New York, I mean, producers and people like that.”
Whatever happens, Auktyon can count on the enthusiastic support of at least a few Americans. One of them is guitarist Ribot. Speaking by telephone from New York, Ribot said he greatly enjoyed playing and recording with Auktyon, whose members mostly do not speak English. 
“I thought they had really great energy, great players. I enjoyed the sessions a lot,” he said. “It had great punk shamanistic energy. ... [The band’s members] have a very special mixture of improvisation and written material. It was mostly recorded live, what we did, and which was crazy, because there were so many musicians in a room. It made it hell for the engineer, but it was fun for us.” 
But will Auktyon’s new album be interesting for the American public? 
“I can never speak for the American public, because often if I like things, other people don’t,” Ribot said. “But yeah, I think that it would be interesting here to an indie rock and a New Music audience.”

“Girls Sing” (Devushki Poyut) by Auktyon is out on Geometriya. www.auktyon.ru

TITLE: Capitalizing on culture
AUTHOR: By Katya Madrid
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russian caricatures, military clothes, Soviet animation, railways and revolutions — despite the obstacles that were prevalent during seventy years of communism, they all managed to create corporate brands. For the fifth year running, Interros Holding Company is joining forces with the Agey Tomesh/WAM publishing house to put out a number of books in a format they call the “corporate gift,” hoping to capitalize upon this largely ignored Russian cultural legacy.
The publisher “…strives to?participate in?modern cultural processes and also to?unveil the cultural heritage kept in?archives and museums’ store-rooms, thus available only to?a small group of?specialists,” the Interros web site explains. Paradoxically, the indispensable items for all those attempting to comprehend Russian and Soviet culture are publicly accessible, but not always economically affordable. The books’ prices are as  immense as the topics: “Russian railways” — $330; “The Moscow Metropolitan” — $600: a three-volume “Russia. The Twentieth Century,” is almost $1,000.
 The Interros Publishing Program focuses on historical context, marking the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, for instance, with the release of a huge compilation entitled “1917,” which gathers everything relevant printed during that crucial year. World Art Museum (WAM), on the other hand, has no stable format. Treading the line between magazine and book, it is concerned predominantly with art. 
Whatever their individual strengths, together Interros and WAM have proved themselves capable of putting out books that are a good combination of thoughtful and inventive design. They achieve a reasonable level of scholarship, often involving vast amounts of archival work, as evidenced by the exhaustive English Index of Russian Magazine Illustration, 1703–1941. Similarly, they are all furnished with rich illustrative materials. Conceptually, each of the publications stands on its own and, unusually, many of the editions are fully bilingual.
Issued to accompany the first Russian retrospective in December of last year, “Photography is an Art. Alexander Rodchenko” is the most comprehensive monograph on the outstanding constructivist artist to date. It features much previously unpublished material, alongside already established works. The painter, designer and photographer Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956) was the principal figure responsible for the complex, frenetic black and white images of the young Soviet state. These images, with their radical experimentation juxtaposed against solid conformist documentation, is what the book takes as its structural model. 
It is divided into two parts, “Creative Experiment” and “Photo Reportage,” two aspects of Rodchenko’s work that are practically inseparable. Indeed, his famous dynamic diagonal compositions and odd angles are equally formative whatever the subject, be it buildings, pioneers, sportsmen, or GULAG workers in the Construction of the Belomor Canal series, where the extremely foreshortened composition serves to emphasize the scale of the tragedy.
Compiled by Alexander Lavrentiev, the grandson of the photographer, “Photography is an Art” can also be viewed as an album, with excellent reproductions which occupy two-thirds of the book. It takes a predominantly biographical approach based on archival materials, though it contains some art history analysis. In the first part, Lavrentiev accurately follows the artist’s evolution from abstract painting and graphic works through photo-collages, poster and book design to his mature photographic aesthetic with its famous proposition: “the most interesting points today are ‘from above down’ or ‘from below up’ and their diagonals.” The newspaper extracts bearing witness to the Soviet proletariat’s reaction to the photographs by Soviet proletariat (something akin to “We are fed up with Rodchenko’s shots of everything from above down and from below up”) do a lot to set the historical tone.
The more ‘newsy’ second part gives an insight into what it meant socially, aesthetically and ethically to be a propaganda photojournalist during that turbulent time. It also considers the artist’s professional beliefs (“value everything that is real and contemporary”), and teaching principles extracted from lectures, interviews, diaries and published articles. 
It is worth noting that one of the famous propaganda monthlies designed to cultivate the myth of a civilised and advanced society, USSR in Construction (published 1930 to 1941), to which Rodchenko contributed much as a designer and photographer, has also been reprinted as a compilation by WAM.
The line of significant Soviet illustrative propaganda periodicals is continued by the recent USSR Advertising. Soviet Export. Magazine No. 27. Although a state with a planned economy and no open competition did not need advertising to stimulate demand, the promotion of Soviet goods and services abroad was aimed at meeting the expectations of western mentalities, according to the introduction note. Thus, just as many prominent Moscow conceptualist artists escaped into children’s book illustration, many gifted graphic designers and photographers ended up experimenting in Soviet Export magazine. The compilation features highlights of advertising posters from the magazine published between 1957 and 1989 in several languages.
The material is divided into four periods, each furnished with contemporary quotes from Soviet nomenclature professionals on socialist advertising principles, that were, by definition, ‘better’ than capitalist ones. “Unlike capitalist advertising, socialist advertising appeals to people’s positive tendencies, not their negative ones,” as one of them claimed. Along with the omnipresent machinery, oil products, furs and vodka, the campy posters suggest visits to the USSR and plug photo cameras, clocks and Aeroflot tickets, as well as some unexpected delights — cigarettes, perfumes, horses and even Soviet newspapers! Regrettably, the authors of this remarkable compilation don’t provide any of the images with provenance. Thus, except for the language employed, there are no clues as to where these gems circulated. There are however, plenty of masterpieces of graphic design. The absorbing visual line is accompanied by an introduction from one of the editors, Igor Rozhkov, and includes several comments and anecdotes from the magazine’s designers and photographers. One, about the poet Josef Brodsky contributing to a condensed milk ad, is especially appealing. 
Among other contemporary art publications available in English that are worth having on the shelf, there is a monograph on Moscow’s conceptual artist Erik Bulatov (WAM). Richly illustrated and with essential scholarly credits, the book could serve as consolation for all those who missed the artist’s first, ground-breaking retrospective last year.   

All books can be purchased at the publisher’s shop (in Moscow) or via internet.   

Links: <i>www.knigiwam.ru, http://books.interros.ru, www.wamonline.ru, www.interros.ru/eng/human</i>

TITLE: In the Spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Up till now, it could only be a fantasy: your least favorite game show host or pop singer getting pummeled repeatedly in front of a cheering audience. But now, thanks to Channel One’s new show “King of the Ring,” this is something you can enjoy from the comfort of your living room every Sunday evening.
The show, which started last Sunday, involves a group of eight male celebrities fighting each other until only one remains, bloody but unbowed, to pick up the prize of a glittery belt and 1 million rubles ($39,000). There will also be some one-off matches involving real boxers and several A-list celebrities who weren’t up for the long haul.
Maybe 1 million rubles wasn’t a tempting enough prize. Judging from the lineup, Channel One seems to have sent out some pretty stiff recruitment letters to its own presenters and stars, perhaps hinting that it would be bread and water in the daytime slots unless they agreed to get beaten up over a period of seven weeks.
Contestants include Valdis Pelsh, who hosts the channel’s “Practical Joke” prank show, and singer Alexei Khvorostyan, known for his edgy hit “I Serve Russia.” Khvorostyan came to fame on the channel’s “Star Factory” singing competition, as did another contestant — Cameroonian singer Pierre Narcisse, who did so much for the anti-racism cause with his song “I Am a Chocolate Hare.” Rounding out the list of Channel One veterans is actor Ivan Kokorin, who played one of the soldiers in “9th Company,” a film financed by the channel. 
The show is hosted by Vladimir Pozner, the now rarely seen television host who became a star in the perestroika years when he co-hosted the live telecasts between the United States and the Soviet Union, along with Phil Donahue. He also has help from a female former boxer and tattooed rock singer Garik Sukachyov.
Unlike many celebrity talent shows, “King of the Ring” doesn’t spend much time on chatting with the stars or bickering between the judges. In fact, if you were flicking casually through the channels, you might think it was a real boxing match. Which is a problem, I suspect, because real boxing fans don’t want to watch an aging game show host staggering around the ring, while the rest of the population automatically switches channels at the sight of silk shorts.
Last Sunday’s show made some things easier for the contestants, since each only had to go through three rounds of 1 1/2 minutes each, half as long as in a real boxing match. Apart from that, though, the channel did things properly: Girls in bikinis held up the round numbers and trainers gave pep talks. The most impressively muscled contestant, real-life tiger tamer Edgard Zapashny, even got to wear a lovely tiger-print robe and shorts. 
The trashiest moment came when Pelsh and Narcisse faced each other in the ring. The first used to host a game show called “Guess the Melody,” while the other is a singer known for a catchy hit featuring the lyrics “I am a chocolate hare / I am a tender bastard.” He provoked some unattractive news coverage in 2005 when his then-pregnant wife called the police and told them he had beaten her up. She didn’t press charges, but this certainly makes him an interesting choice for a boxing show. He beat Pelsh, anyway.
The best bit of this show, according to Channel One’s web site, will be the one-off matches featuring a better class of celebrity. Among those promised are camp pop singer Boris Moiseyev, homophobic pop singer Vlad Topalov (yes, that should be a good one) and, best of all, perfectly coiffed socialite artist Nikas Safronov. I know it’s wrong, but I want to see someone pull his hair.

TITLE: A rare exception
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Shatush
64 Moika Embankment. Tel: 448 6075
Open daily from noon until the last client leaves
Major credit cards accepted 
Menu in English and in Russian
Dinner for two with alcohol: 2,580 rubles ($100)

Fresh ingredients, polite and attentive waiters who know their stuff, a good air conditioner and a relaxed atmosphere — the recipe for creating a good restaurant is simple yet surprisingly elusive in St. Petersburg. Shatush, a recently opened Asian restaurant is a rare exception to that rule.
Judging by the flashy cars parked outside, the newcomer is a fashionable haunt aimed at the rich and beautiful. But apart from the standard-issue bouncers on the door, nothing is intimidating about it. Firstly, because once inside what must be one of the darkest restaurants in the city, you are practically invisible.  So is the content of the black-on-red menu, sadly. 
But this little imperfection (the only flaw in the entire dining experience) is counteracted by the extremely efficient and welcoming staff. The waiters know everything on the menu (with no exceptions) and are happy to help you make your choice. And you are certainly spoiled for choice. 
The food menu is varied enough to include sushi, fried dim sum (Chinese dumplings), Singapore noodles, Chinese seafood soup and Indonesian-style pork. It’s followed by an extensive list of whiskies, cigars and freshly-squeezed juices — even the most demanding of clients with the most refined and exquisite of tastes won’t leave the restaurant disappointed.  Shatush is also the place to try a hookah (water pipe), dessert or cocktail. 
This is one of the rare places in the city where the Mojito, a traditional Cuban cocktail and Ernest Hemingway’s favorite tipple, is done properly — fresh spearmint, rum, sugar, lime, and carbonated water. It costs 420 rubles, ($16.3) but is worth every kopeck. The strawberry Bellini ordered as another aperitif (380 rubles, $14.8) was another delight. 
Straight after we finished our drinks, the food arrived. Shatush, according to its motto, knows how to save you time. Although, given its cozy atmosphere, you may not want to rush it. 
The 340-ruble ($13.2) Crispy tofu with spinach was a revelation — fresh (not frozen) spinach really does exist in St. Petersburg! And the tofu (soya bean cheese)  is not only healthy but also delicious. The Dim Sum at 490 rubles ($19) was another success. As explained by our waiter, it represents a Chinese analogue of Russian pelmeni. Intended as a snack, the portions of rolls and dumplings stuffed with chicken, pork and various vegetables were huge. Again, they were made from the freshest ingredients, and were therefore delicious.  
To satisfy our sweet tooth, we opted for the classics. Italian Tiramisu (290 rubles, $11.3) or, as it’s otherwise known, the “Make me Happy” dessert did exactly what it said on the tin, and French Creme-brulee (280 rubles, $11) — (not an ice-cream as many Russians tend to think, but a custard dessert topped with caramel) — was another good option to end the evening.
“The aim of Shatush restaurants is to impress upon our guests the entire fineness and richness of tastes and the reality of dishes in modern Asian cuisine,” reads the restaurant’s blurb. 
The goal is accomplished.  And not only in terms of Oriental food — the chef knows how not to spoil the European hits too.

TITLE: Staying alive in celluloid...
AUTHOR: By Leo Mourzenko
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Looks like the movie moguls are testing the waters — there are now almost two new Russian movies being released every week, and if they get enough attention, that number may go up. If even a quarter of them were as good as “I’m Staying,” then the number of Russian pictures is almost guaranteed to go up. To be fair, however, this is a rare case of a good multiplex movie. Unfortunately, most Russian triumphs will only be found at cinemas in the fantasy world where films are appreciated for what they are, directors have the final say on their productions and Nicholas Cage plays men closer to his real age. In other words, it will never happen, so we should relish “I’m Staying” as a rare example of a successful Russian film that has found its way into the spotlight.
It might not be an indie gem, but it’s a well-funded movie with an array of top-ranking stars that is brilliantly executed. Some relief after the last few months, which have seen a variety of well-funded Russian movies that, in the end, failed to deliver any satisfaction whatsoever. 
With all due respect to the truly magnificent ensemble, the film will always be remembered as the last performance of the actor Andrei Krasko. A face that everyone recognized, he was largely under appreciated until he suddenly stole the limelight in almost every major Russian production over the past few years: “Piter FM,” “Scum,” “Company 9” – he featured in all of them and many others, but never in the lead. Unfortunately, his star potential was revealed too late. On “I’m Staying,” Krasko passed away in the middle of post production, leaving the part to be voiced-over by another actor, Semyon Furman. 
Even in this context, other actors are well worth a mention.  Fyodor Bondarchuk demonstrates that apart from being an infamous, omnipresent Mr. Showbiz he can actually act. The esteemed Yelena Yakovleva and Andrei Sokolov, plus relative newcomer Nelli Uvarova, whose recent achievements mainly consist of television roles (“Kamenskaya,” “Advokat” and the Russian equivalent of “Ugly Betty”, “Ne Rodis Krasivoi” respectively) show some serious on-screen presence and potential well beyond their current “day jobs” on television.
Another great surprise lies in the fact that for director Karen Oganesyan, “I’m Staying” is his first big shot at the major league. The fact that the director chose an adult-themed script for his debut deserves special praise. 
Surprisingly enough for a film with such a wide release, there are no teenagers in the movie. The youngest star, Uvarova plays the daughter of Krasko’s character who, at the age of 28, still has delusions about princes and courtly love. Krasko’s character, Doctor Tirsa, loves his delusional daughter and gets upset when he finds out that she has a hopeless crush on her boss (Sokolov) who (like Nicholas Cage) is desperately trying to ignore the fact that he actually gets older rather than younger as time goes by. Tirsa finds the object of his daughter’s affection at a bowling alley, where he is accidentally hit with a bowling ball. Tirsa ends up in a coma, and while his wife (the truly great Yakovleva) grieves and his daughter, an editor at a publishing house, reads him romance novels she’s working on, Tirsa explores the life “in between.”
This limbo-land looks like an abandoned goldfield. Here, however, it is chalk rather than gold that used to be mined. A guy who must be addressed as Instructor (Bondarchuk) leads a pack of lost souls through the field, telling them empty jokes and giving instructions on what to do. After a while, they gather at what looks like a hunter’s lodge, where these lost souls are supposed to introspect, share and read books. Once they’re joined by Sokolov’s character, everything becomes personal for Tirsa and we enjoy watching his character transform from an old griper with no excuse into a griper with a great heart. 
Krasko’s persona and the fact that “I’m Staying” provides his last performance will help the film catch the public eye, plus there’s a great song by Bi2 and Diana Arbenina on the soundtrack which definitely adds to the movie. What subtracts from it is its target audience. 
The film is too straightforward for hardcore intellectuals and festival crowds: Uvarova’s character dreams to Mozart’s Lacrimosa, which in itself is a bit too much of a commonplace, even apart from the fact that the person dreaming is Uvarova. Similarly, the metaphor of being carried away by a black tractor after death will be too heavy for many. Other than the aforementioned actress and a song there’s nothing in this movie for kids. The target audience – an older, smarter and possibly more thoughtful crowd — is, unfortunately, the laziest one when it comes to filling those seats. 
Hopefully, promotion will do its job well and “I’m Staying” will earn deserved recognition. After all, Russian or foreign, a well-made movie with superb acting and a moving plot — what more can you ask for?

TITLE: Australia Reach World Cup Final in Style
AUTHOR: By John Mehaffey
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CASTRIES, St Lucia — World champions Australia dismissed a feeble South Africa challenge on Wednesday with a seven-wicket victory to take their place in Saturday’s World Cup final against Sri Lanka in Barbados.
South Africa, who were top of the one-day rankings before the seven-week tournament began, collapsed to 149 all out from 43.5 overs in the second semi-final after Graeme Smith had won the toss and elected to bat. It was their lowest total in a World Cup.
Pacemen Glenn McGrath, voted man of the match, and Shaun Tait did most of the damage, taking seven wickets between them.
Australia, who are gunning for an unprecedented third consecutive title, knocked off the runs with 18.3 overs remaining.
They are now unbeaten in 28 World Cup matches since losing to Pakistan in the 1999 tournament. This is the fourth World Cup running that they have reached the final, losing the first of those in 1996 to Sri Lanka.
South Africa, who have an unenviable record of losing when it matters in World Cups since they were re-admitted to the international sporting community in 1992, had preached a good game before Wednesday’s match at the Beausejour Cricket Ground.
But the mantra “confidence, calmness and patience”, which coach Mickey Arthur said the team had adapted to eliminate any lingering inferiority complexes against the top-ranked world champions, was seldom in evidence.
Faced with some excellent pace bowling from Tait, who delivered one of his more disciplined spells of the tournament, and 37-year-old McGrath, who produced one of his liveliest, South Africa succumbed to their lowest score in a World Cup.
Their previous worst was the 184 in the upset loss to Bangladesh in the second-stage Super Eights this month. Smith (2) started the slide with an ugly heave towards cover to a delivery from Nathan Bracken which clipped his off-stump. Jacques Kallis (5), the team’s senior batsman and one of the most accomplished technicians in world cricket, drove McGrath through the covers for four then tried to cut a full-length delivery and was bowled.

MCGRATH RETURNS
AB de Villiers reached 15 before he edged a quick delivery from Tait to give wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist the first of four comfortable catches.
Ashwell Prince (0) was out in the same fashion to McGrath without scoring, driving at a wide delivery and Mark Boucher fell next ball, caught at slip by Matthew Hayden.
Herschelle Gibbs (39), fortunate to get a reprieve on four when he seemed to edge Tait to Gilchrist, and Justin Kemp (49 not out) added 60 for the sixth wicket.
Gibbs hit some fine drives but his dismissal, caught behind off Tait, ended his team’s hopes of posting a competitive total.
Tait finished with four for 39 and McGrath returned to the top of the wicket-takers’ table with three for 18 from eight overs. Overall, he has 25 wickets from the tournament.
Charl Langeveldt bowled Gilchrist for one with his first ball and had Ponting dropped on four by Prince diving to his right at square-leg in his next over. Ponting retaliated by hooking a boundary and off-driving another.
The Australian captain reeled off a series of sumptuous drives before he was bowled by Andre Nel for 22 from 25 balls with five fours.
Matthew Hayden, struggling with his timing on a pitch with increasingly slow, low bounce scored 41 from 60 balls, and Michael Clarke drove fluently each side of the wicket to reach an unbeaten 60 from 86 balls with eight boundaries.
Andrew Symonds (18 not out) struck the winning runs with a four through mid-wicket.

TITLE: U.S. House Passes Iraq Funds, Pull-Out
AUTHOR: By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: WASHINGTON — Defying President George W. Bush’s veto threat, the House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a bill providing new war funds while setting a timeline for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by March 31 next year.
By a mostly partisan vote of 218-208, the Democratic-led House narrowly approved the $124-billion emergency spending bill, ignoring Bush’s promise to veto any bill that sets deadlines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
The Senate is expected to approve the legislation on Thursday, sending it to Bush for what would be only his second veto in more than six years as president.
“Tonight, the House of Representatives voted for failure in Iraq and the president will veto its bill,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Democratic Repupblican John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has led efforts to end the war, said it was “ironic” that Bush will be sent the bill on Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of the president’s speech aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier emblazoned with a banner claiming “mission accomplished” in Iraq.
The House vote came hours after the U.S. commander in Iraq came to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on the status of the war, a briefing the White House hoped would bolster support.
But Democrats were not swayed.
“This bill gives the president the exit strategy from the Iraqi civil war that up until now he has not had,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat.
Democrats, emboldened by public discontent with a four-year-old war that some hoped would last only a few months, used the funding bill to attach an Oct. 1 deadline for the Pentagon to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Unlike an earlier version the House passed last month, this bill would not set a firm date for all U.S. combat troops to leave the war. Instead, a nonbinding March 31 date for finishing the withdrawal merely would be a “target.”
But Republicans said any timetables for withdrawal would handcuff U.S. military leaders and encourage enemies in Iraq.
“We can walk out of Iraq, just like we did in Lebanon, just like we did in Vietnam, just like we did in Somalia and we will leave chaos in our wake,” said House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
After briefing lawmakers on the war, General David Petraeus told reporters that there had been progress in reducing sectarian murders in Baghdad and getting religious groups to work more cooperatively in Anbar province.
But the general said Al Qaeda had dealt some serious blows. “The ability of Al Qaeda to continue horrific sensational attacks obviously has represented a setback,” he said.
About $100 billion of the $124-billion bill would be used to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, including Bush’s ordering of about 30,000 more troops to Iraq to try to stem the violence which has engulfed much of the country.

TITLE: Mavericks Massacre
Warriors To Even Series
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: DALLAS — Jason Terry and Dirk Nowitzki were instrumental in helping the Dallas Mavericks pull away from the Golden State Warriors in the third period to even their playoff series with a 112-99 Game Two victory on Thursday.
Terry scored 28 points and Nowitzki added 23 as the Western Conference top seeds finally ended a six-game losing streak to the Warriors over the past two seasons.
“We dug ourselves in a hole by letting home court get away from us,” Mavericks forward Devean George told reporters in reference to Dallas’s opening-game loss.
“So we had to come even it out,” George added.
“We can start the series over at zero again. We just crawled out of the hole somewhat.”
A 15-2 third-quarter run for Dallas and the ejection of two key Golden State players sealed the Warriors’s fate.
Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson, who spearheaded the Warriors’s opening-game win, were ejected after receiving two technical fouls.
Golden State started well and led 58-54 with 10:44 remaining in the third period, but in the next four minutes, the Mavericks surged to a 69-60 lead behind Terry and Josh Howard.
Golden State came within seven in the fourth quarter but Dallas retained control.
Howard scored 23 points and had 11 rebounds and five steals.
Jackson, who was ejected in the fourth quarter, finished with 30 for Golden State.
Davis, who was ousted with a second left in the third period for arguing a call, ended up with 13.
“We didn’t stay in control of our emotions,” Warriors coach Don Nelson said.
“We’re not good enough to lose a player on an ejection, let alone two. And that’s two of my best players.”
Game Three of the best-of-seven series is in Oakland on Friday.

n? Tim Duncan had 22 points and blocked five shots as the San Antonio Spurs evened their first-round playoff series with the Denver Nuggets with a 97-88 home win.
Trailing by 16 points early in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets rallied to within three on Allen Iverson’s three-pointer with 45 seconds to go.
However, Denver were unable to score again and the Spurs escaped with the victory on a Duncan field goal and free throws by Michael Finley and Tony Parker.
Parker finished with 20 points and Manu Ginobili had 17 with 15 of them coming in the second half.
Carmelo Anthony led Denver with 26 points and 10 rebounds. Iverson had 20 points and Marcus Camby contributed 10 points and 18 rebounds.
Game Three of the series is in Denver on Saturday.

n?LeBron James scored 27 points, despite playing with a sprained ankle, and Drew Gooden contributed 24 points and 14 rebounds as the Cleveland Cavaliers took a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference series with a 109-102 home win over the Washington Wizards.
James had nine points in the final five minutes and 13 for the fourth quarter as the Cavaliers stymied the rallying Wizards.
Antawn Jamison led Washington with 31.

TITLE: Somali Rebels Overrun
AUTHOR: By Sahal Abdulle
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOGADISHU — Ethiopian tanks supporting the Somali interim government pounded insurgent positions in Mogadishu on Thursday, but Somalia’s prime minister said “most fighting” had ended with many hostile areas overrun.
Government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks were still working on the ninth day of battles with insurgents to clear “pockets of resistance,” Ali Mohamed Gedi said, after clashes locals say have killed some 300 people, most of them civilians.
“Most of the fighting in Mogadishu is now over. The government has captured a lot of territory where the insurgents were,” Gedi told a news conference. Artillery and machinegun fire could still be heard in northern parts of the city. He urged any clan militia who had joined the ranks of Islamist gunmen and foreign jihadists in fighting the government to return to their homes and stay there until his administration could incorporate them into a new national army.

TITLE: Court Orders Gere’s Arrest For Kissing
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: JAIPUR, India — An Indian court ordered the arrest of Hollywood star Richard Gere on Thursday for kissing Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS campaign event this month saying it was an obscene act committed in public.
Gere’s repeated kisses on Shetty’s cheeks at an event to promote AIDS awareness in New Delhi sparked protests in some parts of India, mostly by Hindu vigilante groups, who saw it as an outrage against her modesty and an affront to Indian culture.
The order by a court in the northern city of Jaipur came in response to a complaint by a local lawyer.
 The judge watched a video recording of Gere kissing Shetty and found him guilty of violating Indian laws against public obscenity, the lawyer, Poonam Chand Bhandari, said.
The court also summoned Shilpa Shetty to appear on May 5, Bhandari said, adding that Gere was also ordered to be arrested.
Gere can be sent to jail for up to three months or fined or both for the crime if he is arrested. He is not in India now but can be held if he visits the country again.
The Hollywood star is a devout Buddhist and a vocal supporter of the Tibetan cause and visits India frequently to meet the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in northern India. He is also involved with charities looking after HIV-infected people and orphans.

TITLE: Sabres, Ducks Win NHL Second-Round Openers
AUTHOR: By Dan Bollerman
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: The Buffalo Sabres and Anaheim Ducks opened their National Hockey League second-round playoff series with home victories last night. 
Thomas Vanek scored twice late in the second period as Buffalo defeated the New York Rangers 5-2, while Andy McDonald had his first career hat trick as Anaheim beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-1. 
“It was a good start for us, a good start to the series, but we have a long way to go,’’ McDonald said in an interview with the Versus cable network. 
The other two second-round series in the Stanley Cup playoffs begin tonight, as New Jersey hosts Ottawa in the Eastern Conference and San Jose is at Detroit in the Western Conference. All series are best-of-seven. 
At HSBC Arena in Buffalo, New York, Vanek broke a scoreless tie by deflecting a shot from Dmitri Kalinin past Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist 14:19 into the second period. 
After teammate Ales Kotalik gave the Sabres a 2-0 lead two minutes later, Vanek beat the New York defense to score again at 18:24 of the second period. The Sabres’ three goals came in a four-shot span. 
Marcel Hossa scored for the Rangers midway through the third period before Jason Pominville gave the Sabres a 4-1 lead just over three minutes later. The goal was initially waived off by the officials and then allowed after a lengthy video review. Both teams scored in the final minute: Brendan Shanahan for the Rangers at 19:12 and Drew Stafford into an empty net for Buffalo with 16 seconds left. 
Ryan Miller made 32 saves for Buffalo, which hosts Game 2 tomorrow night. Lundqvist had 32 stops for the Rangers, who lost for the first time in the postseason after sweeping Atlanta in the opening round. 
At the Toyota Center in Anaheim, California, McDonald got two goals in the first period as the Ducks took a 3-1 lead, then closed the scoring with his second power-play goal with 52 seconds left. 
Teemu Selanne and Ryan Getzlaf also had goals for the Ducks, while Chris Kunitz had three assists. 
Jeff Cowan gave Vancouver a 1-0 lead 7:07 into the game, but Anaheim scored three times in less than 10 minutes against Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo. McDonald’s goals came at 9:24 and 19:11, with Selanne’s at 14:56. After a scoreless second period, Getzlaf made it 4-1 at 9:05 of the third and McDonald closed it with his fourth of the playoffs.

TITLE: Cole Goal Gives Chelsea Euro Advantage
AUTHOR: By Mike Collett
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — A first-half goal from Joe Cole gave Chelsea a 1-0 win over Liverpool in a tightly-fought first leg of their all-English Champions League semi-final at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.
An entertaining first half gave way to a scrappy second in which Liverpool came back into the game but could not find an equaliser, although the tie is still delicately poised for the second leg at Anfield next Tuesday.
“I am happy with the players, I think the performance was top,” Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho told Sky Sports.
“The first half performance was superb... we had five or six great chances to score. The second half was different, Liverpool attacked more... we still had chances on the counter-attack.”
England winger Cole swept in from six metres from Didier Drogba’s cross after 29 minutes. It was only Cole’s second goal of his injury-plagued season — and the first time Chelsea had scored against Liverpool in five Champions League meetings.
Liverpool, who left top scorer Peter Crouch on the bench until early in the second half, threatened sporadically. England midfielder Steven Gerrard went closest for Rafa Benitez’s side, his dipping left-foot volley well saved by Petr Cech after 53 minutes.
“It was (a game of) two different parts today. The first half we were not controlling... the second half a little bit better but when you play against Chelsea you know they like to counter-attack,” said Benitez.
“We will see at Anfield... we need to score one goal and see what happens.”
Manchester United or AC Milan meet the eventual winners in the final in Athens on May 23. United won the first leg 3-2 at Old Trafford on Tuesday.

EARLY CHANCES
Cole’s goal came after almost half-an-hour of end-to-end football during which Chelsea created two early clear-cut scoring chances.
The first fell to Frank Lampard after eight minutes when he was set up by a flighted Drogba header. Lampard reacted to the dropping ball first and volleyed in a ferocious shot which Pepe Reina blocked and cleared with a fine reflex save.
Andriy Shevchenko then turned and shot just over the bar, but five minutes later the Ukrainian beat Alvaro Arbeloa wide on the left and crossed deep into the heart of the Liverpool six-yard box which Cole was a fraction too slow to connect with.
Despite the promptings of Gerrard in midfield Liverpool made little impression on the Chelsea defence and Boudewijn Zenden wasted the one opportunity they did create when he fired high and wide after 20 minutes.
Lampard went close at the other end with a sizzling low free-kick that went inches wide.
But Chelsea did not have to wait too much longer for their deserved breakthrough which came when Ricardo Carvalho broke on the right and found Drogba who muscled his way around Daniel Agger before crossing for Cole to fire past the helpless Reina.
DIFFERENT GAME
Liverpool came more into the game after the break, although most of the good flowing football that Chelsea had created ended as the home side sat back for longer periods.
That resulted in longer balls to the forwards including Crouch, but although Gerrard and Dirk Kuyt headed over early in the half, Liverpool could still find no way through.
It was the 14th meeting between the two sides since Benitez became Liverpool manager in 2004 and Mourinho took over at Chelsea, and like most of the other games, was a tense, evenly-fought game. Although it was Chelsea’s seventh win over Liverpool, they will not be able to rest on their laurels at Anfield next week.

TITLE: Champions Sweden Up Against It
AUTHOR: By Gennady Fyodorov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia and the Czech Republic are joint favourites to upstage champions Sweden at the world ice hockey championship which starts on Friday.
Sweden became the first nation to win both world and Olympic titles in the same season last year, but face an uphill battle this year after bringing a relatively inexperienced squad to Moscow.
The Swedes are missing all but one of their National Hockey League (NHL) players, notably forwards Peter Forsberg and Mats Sundin and defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, leaving coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson to rely mostly on players from the domestic league.
The injury-prone Forsberg, who won two Stanley Cups with the Colorado Avalanche and now plays for Nashville, has ruled himself out of the worlds, telling Swedish media: “It has been a really hard season in the NHL for me. No use going if you can’t add anything.”
Toronto Maple Leafs captain Sundin also pulled out, citing nagging injuries and fatigue after a long NHL season, while Detroit Red Wings skipper Lidstrom is still involved in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Gustafsson was hoping that forward Kristian Huselius of the Calgary Flames and goaltender Johan Holmqvist of the Tampa Bay Lightning might join the team at short notice, but was not too optimistic about more last-gasp arrivals from the NHL.
“That simply doesn’t exist in my world at the stage I am at now. It doesn’t feel like an alternative,” said Gustafsson.
Canada, 2003 and 2004 champions, will also be without their best player, NHL scoring champion Sidney Crosby, who broke his foot while playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
New York Islanders left wing Ryan Smyth, who has played in seven world championships and two Olympics for Canada, is also staying at home to nurse an undisclosed injury.
Meanwhile, the Czechs, who have won five world titles in the last 11 years, have added 10 players with NHL experience to their world championship roster, although they too are missing their top player, Jaromir Jagr of the New York Rangers, because of Stanley Cup playoffs duty.
The Russians are hoping to break the curse that has plagued world championship hosts for more than two decades and also end their own 14-year-old title drought.
The Soviet Union were the last team to triumph on home ice when the championship was held at the old Luzhniki Ice Palace in Moscow in 1986. Russia, a hockey superpower in Soviet days, capturing a record 23 world titles, have not won since 1993. 
Their coach Vyacheslav Bykov, who scored the winning goal against Sweden 21 years ago, will want to avoid a repeat of the last time the world championship was held in Russia.
In St Petersburg in 2000, the team, loaded with many top NHL players, ended up in 11th place — the country’s worst finish at a major international competition.
.

TITLE: World Cup Winner Ball Dies Aged 61
AUTHOR: By James Cone and Dan Baynes
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Alan Ball, the youngest member of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning soccer team, died last night. He was 61. 
Ball, who was 21 when England claimed the four-yearly world championship for the only time, died ``unexpectedly at his home,’’ his former club Everton said on its Web site. Sky News said Ball had a heart attack. 
``He was such a bouncy and lively, young 61-year-old,’’ former England teammate Alan Mullery told Sky. ``He was the life and soul of everything. It is shocking news.’’ 
The red-haired midfielder, known for his enthusiasm, combative attitude and high-pitched voice, made 72 England appearances in a 10-year international career. They included four games at the 1966 World Cup, culminating in the final as England beat West Germany 4-2 at London’s Wembley Stadium. He’s the second team member to pass away after captain Bobby Moore died of cancer in 1993 at the age of 51. 
Born in Farnworth, north-west England, Ball began his career at Blackpool in 1962 and made 146 league appearances for the club, scoring 46 goals. 
After the World Cup success he moved to Everton for a then British record transfer fee of 110,000 pounds ($308,000 at the time) and in 1970 helped the club win the league title. It was his only domestic trophy. 
On his third appearance for Everton, Ball endeared himself to the Toffees’ fans by scoring two goals in a 3-1 victory against city rival Liverpool and ended the season as its 18-goal top-scorer. 

Everton Title 
Playing in midfield with Howard Kendall and Colin Harvey, two future managers of Everton, he helped the club avoid defeat in all but one of its opening 18 league games as it ended a seven-year wait for the title. 
In December 1971, Ball again moved for a record fee as Arsenal — winner of the league and F.A. Cup the previous season — paid 220,000 pounds to take him to London. He spent five years at the Gunners, and the closest he came to winning a trophy was when the team lost the 1972 F.A. Cup final to Leeds United. 
“Everyone can visualize him with his red hair and squeaky voice which is still there and will always be there,’’ former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson, who played alongside Ball at Highbury in the 1970s, told LBC news. “He was such an infectious character, an extraordinary character. His love for the game was amazing.’’ 

Red Card 
Ball moved to Southampton and captained the team as it achieved promotion in 1978. He had a stint at Blackpool as player-manager before returning to the Saints and then ending his career at Bristol Rovers. In total, he scored 170 goals in 743 league appearances. 
He also netted eight times for England and in 1975 was named captain for six games. Two years earlier he became only the second England player to be shown a red card in an international match when he was ejected against Poland. 
After ending his playing career he followed his father into management. He never replicated his playing success. He had two stints at Portsmouth and was also manager at Stoke, Exeter, Southampton and Manchester City. 
Ball was among the final group of players from the 1966 team to be made MBEs, or Members of the Order of the British Empire, in Queen Elizabeth II’s New Years Honors List in 2000. 
“He was a true footballing genius in every sense of the word,’’ former striker Graeme Sharp said on Everton’s Web site. “Few others have done what Alan Ball have achieved in football and he will be sadly missed.’’

TITLE: Peralta Seals Win For Indians
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — Jhonny Peralta drove in a run in the 11th inning to lift the Cleveland Indians to an 8-7 win over the Texas Rangers on Wednesday, their fourth straight victory.
Peralta swung at the first pitch Willie Eyre threw him and connected, driving in Victor Martinez, who had doubled. “That’s what I had in my mind,” Peralta told reporters. “Whatever he threw, I was going to swing at.”
The Indians squandered a 6-0 lead, scoring five runs in the second inning and pushing the margin to 6-0 on Travis Hafner’s run-scoring single in the fourth. But Texas hit back with five runs in the sixth, including a two-run double by Sammy Sosa.
Cleveland added a run in the seventh, but Sosa again brought the Rangers within one through a run-scoring single in the eighth.
Texas then tied it at 7-7 in the ninth on Michael Young’s double, but Cleveland finally ended the four-hour game with Peralta’s single to left field.
“These are the games we lost last year,” Indians’ pitcher C.C. Sabathia told reporters.