SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1276 (42), Friday, June 1, 2007
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TITLE: Putin Says New Arms Race is On
AUTHOR: By Oleg Shchedrov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a scathing attack on the West on Thursday, accusing Washington of imperialism and of starting a new arms race. 
Speaking a week before he meets leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrial nations in Germany, Putin said Russia’s tests on Tuesday of two new missiles were a direct response to U.S. moves to create a missile defense system.
“We are not the initiators of this new round of the arms race,” Putin told a joint Kremlin news conference with visiting Greek President Karolos Papoulias.
“There is no need to fear Russia’s actions: they are not aggressive,” he said. “They are a mere response to harsh and groundless unilateral actions by our partners and are aimed at maintaining the balance of forces in the world.”
Putin’s comments, which will be popular among ordinary Russians in a year when there is a parliamentary election, are the latest in a line of harsh outbursts against the West.
Russia on Tuesday test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple warheads and a new cruise missile, which Russian generals say are sufficient to ensure the country’s security for the next 40 years.
“Our partners are stuffing eastern Europe with new weapons,” Putin said. “What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this.”
Moscow has been alarmed by U.S. plans to deploy elements of its global missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. 
Washington says it wants to avert attacks from “rogue states” such as Iran but Russia sees a threat to its own security.
“There is a clear desire by some international players to dictate their will to everyone without adhering to international law,” Putin said. “International law has been replaced by political reasons.”
“In our opinion it is nothing different from diktat, nothing different from imperialism,” he added.
Relations between Russia and the United States are strained by issues that also include U.S. concerns that human rights and democracy are backsliding in Russia.
Putin and Bush have a chance to discuss their countries’ differences at talks in the United States on July 1-2.
Putin said Russia had to design new missiles after Washington quit the Cold War-era Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in order to pursue its missile shield project.
“We warned them then that we will come out with a response to maintain the strategic balance in the world,” he said.
“We conducted a test of a new strategic ballistic missile with multiple warheads, and of a new cruise missile, and will continue to improve our resources.”
In another move putting Russia at odds with the West, Putin has frozen Russia’s commitments under the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) pact, which limits heavy weapons deployed between the Atlantic and the Urals mountains.
Russia blames NATO countries for failing to ratify the 1999 version of the treaty which took into account the collapse of the Soviet Union and the departure of its Warsaw Pact allies. 
NATO believes Russia should first meets its commitment to withdraw military bases from ex-Soviet Georgia and Moldova.

TITLE: Lugovoi Claims Britain Killed Litvinenko
AUTHOR: By Guy Faulconbridge
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The man charged by Britain with murdering former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko denied involvement on Thursday, saying British intelligence and a self-exiled Russian multi-millionaire were far more likely suspects. 
In comments likely to deepen a Russian-British feud reminiscent of Cold War spy scandals, Britain’s chief suspect Andrei Lugovoi rejected Litvinenko’s deathbed charge the Kremlin had ordered his poisoning with highly radioactive Polonium 210.
At a packed news conference in Moscow, Lugovoi said he suspected British intelligence, the mafia and Boris Berezovsky, a multi-millionaire Kremlin critic who fled Russia for London, could have been involved in Litvinenko’s murder.
“The main role was played by British secret services and their agent Berezovsky,” a confident and combative Lugovoi, himself a former KGB agent, told a news conference aired live on state television.
“The poisoning of Litvinenko could not have been but under the control of British secret services,” he said. Asked whether he had firm proof of British intelligence involvement in the murder, Lugovoi replied: “Yes.”
But Britain hit back by saying its request for Lugovoi’s extradition from Russia — which Moscow said it could not meet — had nothing to do with British intelligence.
“This is a criminal matter and is not an issue about intelligence,” a Foreign Office spokesman said. “A British citizen was killed in London and U.K. citizens and visitors were put at risk.”
Looking tanned and dressed in a dapper pink shirt, Lugovoi said the Kremlin’s enemies and the Western press were portraying him as a “Russian James Bond” in a campaign to tarnish Russia’s image.
Private security guards were protecting Lugovoi at the news conference and sniffer dogs checked the room for weapons or explosives.
Lugovoi portrayed a shadowy world of secret codes, hard drinking and meetings with British spies plotting to compromise Putin.
“There was an open attempt to recruit me as an agent of British secret services,” he said. “The British basically asked me to start collecting any compromising material on President Vladimir Putin and members of his family.”
Berezovsky, who has said openly he wants to fund a revolution to change the government in Russia, denied he worked for British intelligence and said the Kremlin was using Lugovoi as its mouthpiece.
Lugovoi spoke in a media center where government officials often give news conferences and Russian television, which toes the Kremlin line, gave him extensive coverage.
“Everything about Mr Lugovoi’s words and presentation made it obvious that he is acting on Kremlin instruction,” Berezovsky said in a statement.
Speaking by telephone to Ekho Moskvy radio station, Berezovsky said: “This [Lugovoi’s] statement makes everything clear, it has become obvious that the whole campaign the Kremlin is staging around Litvinenko’s murder is a campaign of state lies.”
In a statement read out by friends after he died in a London hospital, Litvinenko, a former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who obtained British citizenship, said Putin was behind his poisoning.
The Kremlin has described the allegation as nonsense. 
“A real war has been stirred up against me and Russia in the western press,” said Lugovoi, who once guarded the Kremlin elite and now runs a private security firm in Moscow. 
He said that Litvinenko had been recruited by British intelligence and may have annoyed his handlers. “Litvinenko was an agent who had gone out of control and they got rid of him.” 
Lugovoi also alleged Litvinenko had obtained compromising material which could jeopardize the political refugee status of Berezovsky. He said this could have provided a motive for his murder. 
“In this regard I can suppose that he did not abandon these attempts to blackmail Berezovsky and it is quite possible this led to tragic consequences,” Lugovoi said.

TITLE: Customs Service Bans Medical Exports
AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn and Svetlana Osadchuk
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Customs Service has halted the export of blood samples and other biological materials, a decision experts say will put the lives of hundreds of sick people at risk. 
The agency has told courier services DHL and TNT Express that they can no longer send medical samples abroad, the companies said Wednesday.
Biological samples, usually blood or plasma, are often sent abroad to help patients find bone marrow donors. They are also used for research purposes in clinical drug trials.
Because there is no database for bone marrow transplants in Russia, for example, a bone marrow cancer patient must send samples abroad to find a match for a transplant.
The purpose of the ban was unclear, though one report linked it to bioterrorism fears.
Customs officials refused to allow the biological samples to pass Monday at Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports, Yury Pavlyuk, director of marketing and sales for TNT Express in Russia, said in a statement.
The inspectors cited a verbal internal ruling from senior customs officials, Pavlyuk said. “We did not see any written order,” he said. 
TNT transports more than 100 biological specimens a day for pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical trials in Russia and for patients in need of analysis at foreign clinics. 
Mark Jordan, the commercial director of DHL, confirmed that the company had received a directive from customs officials but refused to specify its contents or when it was received.
The agency refused to comment Wednesday, and it remained unclear whether the ban was permanent.
The Health and Social Development Ministry, meanwhile, said the new rules referred only to exports in large quantities.
“The system for the export of biological materials for sick individuals remains unchanged,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry’s press service admitted that it knew nothing about the new decree until Kommersant broke the story about it Wednesday. It did not specify whether the ministry had actually seen the decree. 
Federal Customs Service chief Andrei Belyaninov told Kommersant that all biological specimens had been banned from export.
Alexei Mashtan, head of the hematology department at the Russian Institute for Pediatric Hematology in Moscow, said he was unaware of the order. 
“But if we do not send the blood of our patients — children with leukemia — to Germany, where we choose bone marrow donors, then the transplant program will not work,” Mashtan said.
Some 1,500 children are in need of bone marrow transplants in Russia, Mashtan said. There are around 60 such transplants annually. 
Some tightening of regulations is needed, said George Mentkevich, head of the department of bone marrow transplants at the Institute for Pediatric Oncology Research.
“No one can say what is being sent abroad in a freezer because it is forbidden to open it,” Mentkevich said. He added, however, that Russian scientists work with foreign scientists in researching various diseases, for which the transport of biological samples is essential.

TITLE: Putin Finds An Ally In Portuguese PM
AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates warned against preaching to Russia about democracy, and President Vladimir Putin promised not to preach to the European Union about Polish meat at a summit next week.
Then Putin sternly told a Portuguese reporter that Russia was not the devil.
The two leaders spoke at a joint news conference in the Kremlin’s Malachite Foyer that capped a two-day visit by Socrates, whose country takes over the revolving EU presidency in July. In sharp contrast to a recent Russian-EU summit outside Samara, the atmosphere at Tuesday’s news conference was warm and friendly.
“The task is to arrive at a common strategic agreement that would unite our historic missions,” Socrates said after 2 1/2 hours of talks with Putin. “With that idea, Portugal will embark on its EU presidency.”
Putin, who has been trying to win over individual EU members after running into a brick wall with the EU leadership, could barely contain his glee.
“We highly appreciate the attitude of the Portuguese prime minister with an eye to strengthening relations between Russia and the EU,” Putin said.
Putin failed to win over Germany, which holds the EU’s presidency until July 1, in its disputes with East European countries. Socrates’ visit came at the Kremlin’s invitation.
Putin said he had told Socrates about Russia’s concerns about U.S. plans to set up a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic and about Moscow’s decision to suspend its commitments to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. They also spoke about Poland’s refusal to sign off on a new Russian-EU partnership agreement until Russia lifted a ban on Polish meat.
“Because of separate problems, one can’t see the wood for the trees,” Putin said.
Putin reiterated his position that the Polish meat was substandard, noting that Berlin had recently seized a shipment of the meat. Germany has backed Poland in its dispute with Russia. Putin said the seizure spoke louder than words and he would not preach to Merkel when he travels to Germany for a Group of Eight summit next week. 
“Of course I won’t tell her, ‘You don’t want to eat this meat yourself but want to feed it to me.’ I won’t say that,” he said.
Socrates lavished praise on Putin and warned against moralizing over common values, human rights and democracy.
When a journalist with Publico, a major Portuguese newspaper, asked whether Russia shared the bloc’s common values, Socrates said Portugal and Russia shared values that stemmed from a long history together. He said protecting human rights and democracy was important, but “these values need to be developed without preaching.”
Socrates added that no country was a paragon of democracy. “There’s nothing worse than one country trying to lecture another country,” he said.
Putin has many times accused the West of preaching to Russia about human rights and democracy, including at the Russian-EU summit when Merkel accused Putin of silencing his critics.
Putin grew agitated when it was his turn to respond to the Publico journalist’s question. He said Moscow should not be likened to a “monster that has just come out of the forest and has horns and hooves instead of feet.”
“Let’s talk without conceit, like partners,” he said.
Socrates said he also had come to Moscow to urge Russians to invest more in Portugal, and he praised Russian plans to build an ethylene plant in the Portuguese port of Sines. Portugal intends to ease visas for Russians, Socrates said.
Russia has reciprocated Portugal’s goodwill by paying off its Soviet debt to the country ahead of schedule, Putin said.
During his visit, Socrates attended the opening of an exhibition of several high-tech companies from Portugal and a first Russian-Portuguese economic forum. The two countries signed several export agreements. 
“I am wrapping up my visit with a feeling of satisfaction,” Socrates told reporters in comments translated into Russian. “During the past two days, our relations have received an amazing impulse.”
The volume of bilateral trade increased by 13 percent to nearly $1.4 billion last year, the Kremlin said.
Socrates’ friendly rhetoric will not help bring about a breakthrough in EU relations unless Poland decides to lift its veto and Russia improves relations with Estonia and Lithuania, political analysts said.
“Alas, nothing will come of it,” said Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the Politika Fund, a think tank.
Boris Makarenko, analyst with the Center for Political Technologies, said Socrates was keen to set the agenda for his upcoming EU presidency. “And the largest sticking point is Russia,” he said.
The next Russian-EU summit will take place in Lisbon in October. 
The Publico journalist said after the news conference that she had not heard anything new from Putin. “It’s always the same,” she said.

TITLE: Duma Takes Steps to Restrict Smoking
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev and Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: MOSCOW — The State Duma gave tentative approval Friday to legislation aimed at restricting smoking in public places such as restaurants and waiting lounges in train stations and airports.
Restaurant owners, who would face fines of up to $3,900 for noncompliance, expressed some unease about the bill. But if the lax enforcement of a previous attempt to crack down on second-hand smoke is any indication, they and smokers themselves have little to worry about.
The new rules would prohibit smokers from lighting up anywhere except specially designated areas in restaurants, trains, ships, municipal government offices and waiting lounges. Smoking on airplanes would be banned altogether.
In a restaurant, the designated area would be limited to half the space of the establishment, while in other places the area would be limited to one-quarter of the space.
The bill proposes fines of up to $190 for individuals and $3,900 for companies that fail to enforce smoking rules. No fines are proposed for smokers.
Under a 2002 law, smoking is currently restricted to designated areas in federal government buildings, workplaces, universities, hospitals and theaters. There are no penalties, however, for violations. The only fine in place right now — of 100 rubles ($4) — is for people who smoke on wooden bridges and public transportation.
In an explanatory note to Friday’s bill, its authors argued that the measure would protect passive smokers, particularly children and women, from the “harmful effects of tobacco smoke.”
However, even within the walls of the Duma — where smoking is theoretically forbidden because the building lacks a formally designated smoking area — skepticism about the new bill permeated the air together with the stale scent of tobacco on Friday. Most Duma deputies smoke right in their offices, several deputies’ aides acknowledged during smoking breaks in the building’s stairwells.
“The worst is [Deputy Duma Speaker] Artur Chilingarov. He smokes like a chimney,” said an official who works in the United Russia faction. He declined to give his name and said he preferred to smoke in the stairwell because he respected visitors who might not like the smell of tobacco.
Chilingarov was not available for comment.
A middle-aged aide to another Duma deputy called the bill “idiotic.” “People will not smoke less but will hide with a cigarette like cockroaches in dark corners because no one will set up proper smoking areas,” he said, puffing on a cigarette.
Another aide complained that the bill, like a previous ban on beer, could not be enforced. “We have already been through it all. Remember the ban on selling beer near schools and drinking it in the metro? Nothing has changed,” he said.
The bill, approved in a first reading by a vote of 406-0, was authored by nine United Russia lawmakers, including Duma Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska, as well as Federation Council Senator Lyudmila Narusova.
Representatives of the tobacco industry were decidedly soft-spoken about the plan. “We will accept any reasonable regulations,” said Anatoly Vereshchagin of Japan Tobacco, which sells Camel, Salem and Winston in Russia.
He stressed that the law should be “balanced and not extremist,” citing the partial ban on restaurants as a step in the right direction.
Some restaurants might face difficulties, however. “We could only ban smoking completely,” said Anatoly Sokolov, director of Vinosyr, a wine bar located in a cellar behind Tverskaya Ulitsa.
Sokolov said he opposed the bill but did not see a way to avoid it. On the other hand, he added, a smoke-free environment might actually do some good: “Wine tastes better without cigarettes.”
Frank Caruana, manager of Sportland, a bar on the Arbat popular with expatriates, acknowledged that he had not heard of the bill at all. He said he did not think that smoking was a great concern to his guests. “I never had any complaints,” he said, adding that he had an elaborate ventilation system.
While he said designating a smokers’ area would be no problem, he expressed surprise that the legislation was being considered in the first place. “This is probably the only place in the world where smoking is no issue at all,” he said.
Health experts criticized the restaurant restrictions as insufficient. “It will not work at all,” said Kirill Danishevsky of the Moscow-based Open Health Institute. Ventilation would only spread the smoke evenly, he explained.
But he praised deputies for trying to do something about second-hand smoke and cautioned them not to move too quickly. “You must make the laws stricter step by step not to risk riots,” he said, adding that in regions such as Chelyabinsk, 82 percent of men are smokers.
Russia’s tobacco market is considered to be Europe’s biggest. The World Health Organization estimates that 64 percent of men and 21 percent of women smoke, said Haik Nikogosian of the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

TITLE: Evraz to Take Over Mining Company
AUTHOR: By Miriam Elder and Denis Kungurov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: NOVOKUZNETSK, Kemerovo Region — Steel giant Evraz Group announced Friday that it would assume full control of the company that owns the Yubileinaya mine, where a methane gas explosion a day earlier killed at least 39 miners.
Evraz currently holds a 50 percent stake in Yuzhkuzbassugol, which owns Yubileinaya and other area mines and is valued by analysts at about $2 billion. Evraz is expected to buy out the rest of the company at a steep discount.
“The decision has been made because of the circumstances,” Evraz spokesman Nikolai Kudryashov said.
He said Evraz’s board would meet in the “near future” to approve the deal, which also requires Federal Anti-Monopoly Service approval.
The explosion at Yubileinaya is the second this spring at a Yuzhkuzbassugol mine. A methane blast at the company’s Ulyanovskaya mine in mid-March killed 110 people.
On Thursday, Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev called for Evraz to take over Yuzhkuzbassugol and bring in new management. The governor also said Yuzhkuzbassugol’s business license could be revoked if it resisted the takeover by Evraz, whose major shareholders include Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, RIA-Novosti reported.
On Friday, however, Tuleyev and Abramov rejected a proposal by Konstantin Pulikovsky to pull Yuzhkuzbassugol’s license, Interfax reported. Pulikovsky heads the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Atomic Inspection, the government’s main industrial safety watchdog.
“The southern Kuzbass, and Yuzhkuzbassugol in particular, account for 85 percent of Russia’s coking coal. This region is indispensable not just for Evraz, but for the country’s entire steel industry,” Abramov said.
Yuzhkuzbassugol general director Georgy Lavrik said the takeover would be “better for the company, and things won’t get worse for the miners,” Interfax reported.
Abramov, who also sits on the board of Evraz, said major changes were in store for Yuzhkuzbassugol, including a management shake-up.
Andrei Litvin, a metals analyst at MDM Bank, said Yuzhkuzbassugol was valued at $2 billion, but Evraz could expect to pay less than $1 billion for the 50 percent stake belonging to Lavrik and two other senior managers, Alexander Govor and Yury Kushnerov.
“Evraz was forced to buy this stake and the shareholders were forced to sell,” Litvin said, adding that the company would probably restore order at Yuzhkuzbassugol and then announce an initial public offering. “Now they will have to spend a lot of money on this asset, improving operations, restoring production and spending on staff,” he said.
Evraz will likely pay $500 million to $750 million for the stake, Aton brokerage said in a research note. The deal will likely have a negative effect on Evraz in the short term, adding to the company’s liabilities before improving operating results in the long term, Aton said.
Yuzhkuzbassugol produced more than 16 million tons of coal in 2006, and planned to raise output to nearly 20 million tons this year, according to company figures.
The Yubileinaya mine accounts for nearly 6 percent of Yuzhkuzbassugol’s total production and less than 0.2 percent of Evraz’s revenues, UralSib said.
The death toll in the Yubileinaya mine disaster rose to 39 early Sunday when a miner injured in the explosion died in a hospital in Leninsk-Kuznetsk, about 150 kilometers from Novokuznetsk.
The miner, identified as Eduard Lyakh, 33, will be buried Tuesday. Four miners were buried Sunday and another 34 on Saturday in Novokuznetsk and other nearby towns. One miner remains in critical condition.
In Novokuznetsk on Sunday, a team of investigators spent 10 hours inside the mine in a preliminary attempt to determine the cause of the blast. The team will continue its work Monday, said Andrei Malakhov, who heads the Kemerovo regional office of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Atomic Inspection. Malakhov said the fire at the blast site had been extinguished. The team noted that the electrical equipment at the site had suffered relatively minor damage, he said.
Tuleyev said Saturday that the bill for equipment lost in the blast and ensuing fire could reach 600 million rubles ($23.2 million).
The governor had opposed allowing the team into the mine, arguing that conditions were too dangerous. A fire broke out shortly after the blast, leading to calls to flood the shaft. Authorities decided instead to seal off the affected coal faces.
On Saturday, Tuleyev said he would only allow investigators to enter the mine if they signed waivers that would absolve Yuzhkuzbassugol of any responsibility for their welfare.
“Then the investigation will have to be conducted on the basis of the black boxes and the data-recording devices in the gas-control system,” he said.
A mine supervisor said the data collected from these sources would be insufficient for a thorough investigation.
“The so-called black box only comes on after an explosion. It’s an ordinary mic that records conversations with the dispatcher on the emergency telephone,” said the supervisor, who declined to give his name because he feared retribution from the company.

Staff Writer Miriam Elder reported from Moscow.

TITLE: Britain Asks Russia to Extradite Suspect
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Britain’s ambassador on Monday submitted an official request to Russia for the extradition of the man suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko.
British prosecutors said last week they wanted to bring Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi before a British court to try him for the murder of Litvinenko, who died on November 23 after being poisoned with polonium 210.
Ambassador Anthony Brenton submitted the request to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, a spokesman said.
“I can confirm that today the ambassador submitted to the Russian Foreign Ministry papers requesting the extradition of Mr. Lugovoi,” a spokesman for the British embassy said by telephone.
Asked if they had received the documents, an official with the Russian prosecutor general’s office said: “We confirm this.”
Lugovoi, who has always protested his innocence, met Litvinenko in a London hotel on November 1, the day Litvinenko fell ill.
Moscow has refused to hand over Lugovoi to Britain because the Russian constitution forbids the extradition of its citizens. The affair has set the two countries, now tied by billions of dollars of trade, on a diplomatic collision course.

TITLE: Carmakers Get Down to Business
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Foreign carmakers and components producers unveiled their investment plans for St. Petersburg at the  AutoRussia 2007 conference that opened Tuesday at Grand Hotel Europe.
American carmaker General Motors will open its plant by November 2008. The plant is being constructed in the Shushary district on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Its production capacity is projected at 70,000 cars a year. Investment into the project should total $300 million.
Richard Swando, managing director of General Motors in the CIS, said that the Chevrolet Captive will be the main model produced at the plant, Interfax reported Tuesday.
“Chevrolet Captive will be launched in November 2008, while the C-class sedan could be launched in April 2010,” Interfax cited Swando as saying.
GM has two production sites in Russia.
Speaking at the conference, Henrik Nenzen, president of Ford Russia, promised to increase Ford’s turnover in Russia by 50 percent this year up to $3 billion. Last year Ford Russia reported turnover of $2 billion.
High transport costs are forcing foreign carmakers to set up local production sites for the manufacture of components. “We are interested in localizing the production of all components,” Nenzen said. However he did not announce any related plans.
On the other hand, the “Russian Detroit” is attracting component producers. Canadian company Magna already owns a number of assembly plants in Russia and will start construction of a plant in Shushary in January 2008.
According to Interfax, Maxim Sokolov, Chairman of the Committee for Investment and Strategic Projects, said that the plant could be completed in a one and a half to two year period.
At the moment Magna is undertaking exploration works on a land plot. The decree on projection and construction will be issued by the St. Petersburg government before the end of 2007, Sokolov said.
Fujio Hosaka, managing director of Nissan Manufacturing Rus, announced that their new plant in Kamenka, that is to start operating in January 2009, will initially produce one model and later could expand its assortment to three or four models.
Initial production capacity will be 50,000 units a year, which could be expanded to 500,000 units. Although at this stage all components will be imported, Nissan will consider localizing their production in the future, Hosaka said. Investment into the plant will total about 5.5 billion rubles, according to Maxim Sokolov.

TITLE: Baltic Aluminum To Build $1.2Bln Plant
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Baltic Aluminum, a hitherto little-known Russian company, is planning a $1.2 billion smelter near St. Petersburg to break United Company RusAl’s monopoly on output of the metal in the country, a local government official said Tuesday.
The smelter would have the capacity to produce 360,000 tons per year of aluminum, said Alexander Butenin, press secretary for the Leningrad Oblast’s Committee for Economic Development.
A first stage of 180,000 tons would go into production by September 2010, and capacity could be doubled by September 2013, he said, citing data from a proposal received by the committee mid-May.
“In principle, the capacity of this enterprise could be increased to 540,000 tons after 2013,” Butenin said.
Vedomosti, citing another local government official, said Baltic Aluminum was connected with billionaire investor Mikhail Fridman’s Alfa Group. Local newspaper Delovoi Peterburg said it was controlled by A1, the investment division of Alfa Group.
A1 officials declined to comment and the project was not listed on the company’s web site, www.a-1.com. Butenin did not confirm the ownership of Baltic Aluminum.
He said a decision on whether to build the smelter in the Kingisepp locality within the Leningrad Oblast, near Russia’s border with Estonia, would probably be taken by July.
Delovoi Peterburg quoted Baltic Aluminum CEO Ravil Musin as saying the smelter would use imported raw materials.
Aton analyst Dmitry Kolomytsyn said that there did not seem to be a strong basis for the proposal.
“Baltic Aluminum probably has no experience in the industry, so this doesn’t seem to be a very good investment,” Kolomytsyn said.
Mikhail Fridman was ranked the country’s sixth-richest man in the May edition of Forbes. He was one of only two men in the Forbes top 10 with no direct known investment in metals.
Alfa Group, Fridman’s private equity vehicle, is better known for its interests in retail, telecoms, banking and oil.
The group controls Alfa Bank and X5, the country’s largest food retailer, and holds stakes in mobile phone companies VimpelCom and MegaFon as well as a minority stake in TNK-BP.
United Company RusAl, formed this year by a merger of RusAl, SUAL and assets of commodities trader Glencore, is the country’s only producer of aluminum and accounts for one-eighth of world supply of the metal used in cars, construction and packaging.
Alcoa, which operates two aluminum-fabricating plants in Russia, has expressed interest in building a smelter in the Far East.
Hydro Aluminum, a unit of Norwegian energy and metals group Norsk Hydro, has also held discussions about building a smelter in Russia.

Reuters, Vedomosti

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Constructive Issue</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Federal Service for Financial Markets has registered the second issue of LSR-Invest bonds for a total of three billion rubles ($115.4 million), Interfax reported Wednesday.
The bonds will be in circulation for four years. 
LSR-Invest is part of the LSR Group that unifies 16 construction enterprises in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast. 

<b>Northwest Loan</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — International Moscow Bank will organize a syndicated loan for $100 million for landline operator Northwest Telecom in the second quarter of this year, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The bank commission will account for one percent of the loan, which will be organized in two equal tranches subject to 0.95 percent and 1.25 percent annual interest rates and issued for three and five years respectively.

TITLE: Carbon Trading Gets Fradkov’s Approval
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has given a surprise green light to carbon trading under the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but the government needs to start approving actual projects to unlock a multibillion-dollar market. 
“This is the big one. It’s what everyone’s been waiting for for over a year and a half,” said Abyd Karmali, a climate change consultant at ICF International.
Fradkov signed a government decree on Monday defining guidelines. 
“If there were 50 steps, we’re at step 49,” said Arthur Houston, a Russia manager at London-listed carbon project developer Camco. “Now we need to know the final text of the decree, on how to apply. We’re expecting that to be posted on the Economic Development and Trade Ministry web site over the next week.” 
The final text will be released by Friday, said Leonid Yaskin, general director of Bureau Veritas, a leading certifier of carbon reduction projects. 
Russia is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. China is the biggest, followed by the United States. 
As a big player in both energy and climate change, Russia is well-placed to cash in on the sale of emissions cuts, or carbon credits, to other industrialized countries, but has long delayed implementing the necessary rules. 
Kyoto allows rich countries to meet caps on greenhouse gas emissions by investing in emissions-cutting projects in other countries, part of a $30 billion global carbon market. 
Russia could be a cheap source of credits, for example by simply plugging holes in its vast network of gas pipelines, which currently leaks methane. 
Russia could sell up to 500 million tons of emissions cuts in carbon dioxide equivalent by 2012, estimated Karmali, which would value the market at $5 billion, assuming current prices. 
The main window for participating in this market runs from 2008 until 2012, and the timing of this decision leaves just over six months to sort out the final approval mechanisms. “They really waited until the last minute, but six months should be enough time,” Yaskin said.
The Russian Carbon Fund, a carbon project developer, put the market size at up to 350 million tons, and underlined the need for further details and operation in practice. 
“This is an important step. It’s something the market’s been waiting for for some time, but one should not be fooled that it takes care of everything,” said Morten Prehn Sorensen, chief climate change officer at the Russian Carbon Fund. “Details need to be fleshed out, like where applications should be submitted. Markets will want to see it in operation and issued approvals.” 
Russia is expected to get UN approval to trade carbon early next year. 

Reuters, SPT

TITLE: Imperial Energy Production License Under Threat
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia may strip Imperial Energy of all its oil production licences on Friday after the state environmental watchdog accused the London-listed firm of not meeting licensing obligations, an industry source said on Thursday.
Rosnedra, Russia’s licences regulator, will discuss the issue at its fortnightly meeting on Friday, when the body also may decide to withdraw a licence from a subsidiary of oil firm TNK-BP to develop the huge Kovykta gas field in East Siberia.
“They will consider all the licences from Imperial Energy, I think three licences from (its unit) Nord Imperial, as well as Kovykta and a number of other firms,” the source said.
Russia’s environmental agency, RosPrirodNadzor (RPN), said last month it wanted Rosnedra to withdraw licences from Imperial Energy’s units Nord Imperial, Alianceneftegaz and Sibinterneft. 
It said the firms were not meeting exploration and development obligations and declared false information on their reserves. Imperial Energy had said it was not aware of any grounds for the statements against it.
Like RPN, Rosnedra is a part of Russia’s resources ministry. RPN can only recommend actions against companies, while Rosnedra can order those actions to be enforced.
Friday’s meeting may also put an end to a long discussion on whether TNK-BP, half owned by BP Plc, can continue developing the $20 billion Kovykta project, accused of underproduction by RPN. The battle for the field, which has reserves estimated at two trillion cubic meters of gas, enough to supply the world for almost a year, is seen by many analysts as part of a Kremlin drive to consolidate major energy resources under state control.
Imperial Energy has said its proved reserves have increased by 150 percent since 2005 to 803 million barrels of oil across its 15 fields in the Siberian region of Tomsk.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Refined Kremlin</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — The Russian government doesn’t plan to resume oil-pipeline service to a Lithuanian refinery after supplies were halted last year, Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said Thursday.
AB Mazeikiu SA, the only oil refiner in the Baltic states, has been using more expensive sea routes to import crude since Transneft, Russia’s state-owned oil-pipeline monopoly, shut its link to Lithuania. The refinery gets Russian oil by tanker from the port of Primorsk, Khristenko said.
It’s “absolutely’’ not the government’s plan to encourage opening the pipeline, Khristenko told reporters in Paris. 

<b>Kalina Profit</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Concern Kalina, a Russian perfume and cosmetics maker, said profit climbed 3 percent in the first quarter after sales rose.
Net income advanced to 199.2 million rubles ($7.69 million) in the three months ended March 31, from 193.5 million rubles in the year-earlier period, the Yekaterinburg-based company said Thursday in a statement on its web site. Sales advanced 7 percent to 2.54 billion rubles.

<b>VTB Investment</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — VTB Group, Russia’s second-largest bank, plans to invest 25.6 billion rubles ($1 billion) in its consumer-banking unit VTB-24, Interfax reported, citing Chairman Mikhail Zadornov.
The consumer bank’s capital will increase to 17 billion rubles from 12.6 billion rubles, the news service Thursday cited Zadornov as telling reporters in Moscow.
VTB raised $8 billion in an initial public offering this month, the largest in the world this year. State-run Sberbank is Russia’s biggest bank.

<b>Metromedia in Georgia</b>
NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Metromedia International Group Inc., the mobile-phone company that operates in the former Soviet state of Georgia, paid $12.6 million for stakes in Telecom Georgia and Telenet to gain control of both companies.
Metromedia had owned about 26 percent of each company before the acquisition, according to a statement Thursday from the New York-based company.

<b>Billions of Barrels</b>
SEOUL (Bloomberg) — An oil field Rosneft is developing with South Korean companies off far-eastern Russia may hold 10 billion barrels of oil, almost three times initial estimates, South Korea’s energy ministry said.
Rosneft and a group of partners led by Korea National Oil Corp. received results of evaluation of the area in the Sea of Okhotsk, off the Kamchatka Peninsula, in November, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said in an e-mailed statement Thursday.
The area was initially estimated to hold 3.7 billion barrels of oil, the ministry said, citing 2005 figures from the Russian government.

<b>MTS Profits</b>
MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia’s leading mobile services provider, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), reported on Thursday a first-quarter net profit of $448.6 million, above market expectations of $370.2 million.
The figure was a 143.3 percent rise versus the same quarter of 2006, and also a four-fold increase in comparison with a revised fourth-quarter net profit of $110.3 million.
MTS said earlier on Thursday it had restated its 2006 results to reflect a $170 million provision for the potential costs of a deal in ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.
The previously announced net profit figure was $280.3 million.

<b>MTS Write-Off</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Owners of AFK Sistema, a publicly traded Russian holding company, said they will finance a potential $170 million write-off facing the Mobile TeleSystems unit, eastern Europe’s largest mobile-phone company.
Nomihold Securities Ltd. wants Mobile TeleSystems subsidiary MTS Finance to buy a 49 percent stake in Tarino Ltd., which formerly owned Kyrgyz mobile operator Bitel. Nomihold holds a put option to sell the stake to MTS Finance for $170 million.
Sistema, controlled by billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov, is disputing the put option as Tarino no longer holds the stake in Bitel. Mobile TeleSystems has already written off $150 million, the price it paid for the 51 percent stake in Tarino.

TITLE: A Writer’s Farewell
AUTHOR: By Jo Durden-Smith
TEXT: This was Jo Durden-Smith’s last column for The St. Petersburg Times, published in April, 1997. He died of a stroke on May 10. He was 65.
I first came to Russia in January 1988. I was living in London at the time, after 15 years in America, and was feeling completely out of place. (I found I no longer spoke the local language.)
So when an editor of an American travel magazine called me to ask whether I’d write something for him, I at first grumpily declined. But then he said: “Oh, come on! You can go anywhere you want!” So after a while, I said reluctantly, “OK I want to go to Leningrad.”
There was no particularly compelling reason for this choice, except that I’d been reading a lot of Dostoevsky at the time and had been talking with some filmmaker friends about a series they wanted to do on Russian culture. But it was the beginning of one of the most extraordinary periods of my life: a love affair with a country that was changing then at an almost unimaginable speed, in what seemed at the time a sort of passionate reprise of the Western 1960s.
At first I came and went, bringing curry powder and marmalade for Western correspondents, tights, cigarettes and malt whisky for my Russian friends, and Chinese mushrooms and vast bottles of soy sauce for a Moscow Chinese restaurant, which had neither. There were films to make: a film about the rock band Aquarium, another (finally) about Russian culture. I soon realized that I knew more people more intimately in the Soviet Union than I ever did in England.
Besides, by that time I’d met Yelena, at the first above-ground underground rock concert of modern times (at the now legendary venue of the Moscow Electric Light Bulb Factory’s House of Culture). I’d become little by little a member of her family. So the visits — films or not — went on. Yelena and I traveled to Yalta together, to Vologda and Kostroma, Tarusa. And after we were married and Katya was born, we settled in a dacha in a cooperative village 55 kilometers outside the city.
There were new friends and great happenings all around us: elections, the 1991 coup, the outlawing of the Communist Party, the coup d’etat that led to the breakup of the Soviet Union, the siege of the White House. I wrote a drama series for the BBC. I worked for MGM. I wrote magazine articles and a book. And in October 1993, I began this column for The St. Petersburg Times.
One hundred and seventy-one columns later, I no longer live in my little village — or in Moscow. Yelena is today working for a London-based film company. Our daughter Katya is at school there. And now it is her grandmother Tatyana and Russian sister Ksenia who do the coming and going — along with virtually all the friends I ever made in Russia. We are all, one way or another, part of the Russian diaspora now.
It seems time, then, to say goodbye to the little corner of this newspaper that I’ve occupied weekly for the last 3 1/2 years. It’s a new age, a new country, and it’s time for someone else who lives in Russia to try and interpret it.
It only remains for me to say goodbye (in print, at any rate) not only to you, but also to the people who have given their stories to this little corner, and with them their friendship to me: to Fedya and Oksana, who today visit me in London from Canada; to Sasha, the founder of the great hallucinatory rock band Zvuki Mu, who’s here today; to Artyom, the first fully paid-up Soviet citizen I ever met (who’s just retired as founding editor of Russian Playboy); to Kolya, the classical pianist; to Boris, the guitar-poet; to Ksenia, my student-daughter; and to Vadim, the writer and editor, who remains probably the most clear-sighted, thoughtful Russian whom I’ve ever met.
All of these people’s lives have changed utterly in the seven, eight or 10 years that I’ve known them. For some, it’s been a hard and wrenching journey. For others, it was a journey that finally did them in: Sasha Kaidanovsky, the actor and film director, for example, who died of the neglect and relentless buck-chasing that followed the demise of the Russian film industry; and my closest friend (and Katya’s godfather), Tomas Topadze, who was assassinated outside his apartment almost exactly three years ago today.
No reason was ever found for his killing. The murderer came, did his business and went. And Tomas quickly became a statistic. But there’s not a day when I don’t think of him. He taught me much about the bottomless sentimentality and brutality of Russian life; much, too, about fatherhood and loyalty.
These lessons of his, I hope, will stay with me always — together with my Russian family and many, many Russian friends. Do svidaniya.

TITLE: Seeing Is Only Sometimes Believing
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: The people of Volgograd elected a new mayor last week, a Communist named Roman Grebennikov who at 31 was the youngest speaker of a regional legislature in modern Russian history. Grebennikov edged out both the incumbent, acting Mayor Roland Khrianov, and State Duma Deputy Vasily Galushkin.
With the endorsement of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party in their pocket, Galushkin was convinced he had the election in the bag. But the support clearly went to Galushkin’s head, and he started behaving strangely. He appeared at a pre-arranged meeting with war veterans and just told them he was from United Russia, obviously under the impression that this would be enough to guarantee victory. He arranged meetings with labor unions and then didn’t bother to show up. Once United Russia got a look at his opinion poll ratings, the party withdrew its support.
But Galushkin did not pull out, and for good reason. If you borrow a load of money to run a campaign but decide to drop out of the race early, people are going to expect their money back.
The turnout in Volgograd was expected to be unusually high, but just before election day, rumors began to circulate. Journalists received tips that there had been an accident at the nuclear power plant near the city. These rumors were apparently designed to scare elderly voters, who turned out to be Grebennikov’s strongest constituency.
Scare tactics like these are typical tools for those interested in lowering voter turnout in regional elections. In most cases, however, the threat is more along the lines of a flu epidemic or flash fires racing toward town.
But the rumor of the power plant explosion spread like wildfire, gaining force as it grew. Drug stores quickly sold out of supplies of things like iodine in the ensuing panic. The local communications infrastructure couldn’t hold up to the surge in usage, and phones at emergency hotlines were ringing off the hook.
Another example of this phenomenon, in Dagestan, was even worse. An official announcement made to counter earlier rumors of an explosion never reached the 400,000 television viewers at whom it was targeted. It seems the television station had been closed that day for repairs. A short time later, local radio stations reported unusual solar activity and warned listeners to stay indoors. Schoolchildren were treated with iodine as a precautionary measure, and traffic disappeared from the streets of Makhachkala. No cases of radiation poisoning were reported, but there was likely a wave of excessive iodine ingestion.
These are strange times. According to all accounts, President Vladimir Putin’s popularity is at record levels, even rivaling that of history’s “great leaders.” Everyone knows that he strengthened power structures, brought order, and increased the country’s international prestige. That’s the message conveyed daily on the Channel One and Rossia television channels, and people end up believing something when they hear it that often.
Ironically, it turns out that the people who are ready to believe in televised conspiracy theories about the U.S., or in the efficacy of strong power structures, or even the idea that Putin himself invented nanotechnology and personally liquidated Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, are the same people who refuse to believe that Volgograd’s nuclear power station did not in fact blow up, even after seeing footage of it still intact and learning that there couldn’t have been an accident because the facility was shut down for repairs.
These people are willing to believe the most ridiculous rumors and eat up the stories told by their drunken neighbors. And they continue believing these far out versions of events in the face of all other evidence. Given how widespread this tendency is, it’s amazing that so many people believe what the television and radio tell them about Putin’s Russia.

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

TITLE: In the spotlight
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The brunette Nelli, the redhead Larisa and the annoying one, Nastya, compete for a chance to join the jet set in Muz-TV’s new reality show “Passport to Rublyovka.” The show’s makers don’t just give the girls an elektrichka ticket to the elite suburb and leave them to climb over the fences. Instead, they lay on a kind of finishing school for gold-diggers in the rough.
The show, presented by blonde socialite Ulyana Tseitlina, puts up the three girls in the Sovietskaya hotel on Leningradsky Prospekt — not exactly the Metropole, but this is Muz-TV. They get taken out to meet celebrities, attend glamorous parties and learn golf. At the end of the show, one candidate will win the ultimate prize — not actually a mansion on Rublyovskoye Shosse, but the next best thing: a job as a Muz-TV presenter.
Last weekend, I caught an episode in which the girls, dressed in black and looking suitably glum, were herded into an exhibition of contemporary art, chaperoned by socialite novelist Oksana Robski. Faced with the homoerotic works of French artists Pierre et Gilles — shown with lots of blurry bits on Muz-TV — the girls were supposed to come up with some witty and original remarks.
“You have to amaze people and not be afraid to shock them,” Robski said. Stopping beside a picture of a sailor, she asked the girls to say their pieces. “Stop scratching yourself,” she warned Nelli, who fiddled with her shoulder as she spoke, looking far out of her depth. 
Then Nastya launched into a school-marmish comment about “a work of art,” only to be told off for being banal. Finally, she hit the cultural zeitgeist, saying something that got bleeped out but gained a smile of approval from her stern mentor.
The next test saw badger-haired pop singer Vlad Topalov lecturing the girls at a go-kart track. He praised Larisa for talking about sex, but told Nelli off for being too shy and not seeming to know what she was doing on the show. Finally, Nastya — who had been thrusting her breasts in Topalov’s direction throughout — got the ultimate compliment: “You know how to attract attention to yourself.” The other two gave her dirty looks.
The most controversial participant in the show is Pyotr Listerman, an outrageous “model producer” who claims to provide beautiful wives for rich men. Izvestia has called him an “elite pimp.” He gives commentary on the girls’ progress, although he doesn’t meet them on screen. Smoking a cigar, he tipped his favorite. 
Larisa, the redhead will go far, because she is a “bitch,” he said. “There are some men who ask me, ‘Give me a bitch, that’s all I want.’”
Luckily, the girls got a chance to meet more suitable men, restaurateurs Mikhail Zelman and Ilya Demichev, and pick up nuggets of wisdom over lunch. Nastya cut straight to the chase: How do you part a man from his money? she asked. By not trying, Demichev replied. But the girls didn’t look too convinced, and Tseitlina spurred them on by saying that “the supply far exceeds the demand.”
The blonde presenter clearly knows what she’s talking about — she had an eight-page spread in this week’s OK! magazine, showing off her house on Rublyovka. Described as “an ex-model and an interior designer,” she poses with her four dogs, which are also blonde. She has a baby son, too, but he didn’t get a picture. Oh, and there was a husband as well. He bought the house.
If any of the Muz-TV girls do manage to squeeze their way onto Rublyovka, they might want to drop by for a visit. Because Tseitlina told OK! that her next-door neighbor is Roman Abramovich.

TITLE: Last testament
AUTHOR: By Gregory Feifer
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Such was Anna Politkovskaya’s courage and determination in recording killings, torture and abductions in Chechnya that failing to read her articles in Novaya Gazeta — the country’s most progressive newspaper — meant risking ignorance of what Russia’s chattering classes were saying each week about the government’s latest outrage.
The 48-year-old mother of two grown-up children was shot dead by an unknown assassin in the elevator of her apartment building last October shortly after she’d completed her last book, commissioned by Random House for publication in English. “A Russian Diary” is an account of the country’s major political events from December 2003 to August 2005. It catalogs a year-and-a-half of President Vladimir Putin’s relentless drive to, in effect, transform his country from a bankrupt would-be democracy into a corrupt authoritarian state in which opposition figures are jailed and Kremlin cronies run the crown jewels of a newly resurrected state-controlled economy.
The book opens shortly after the arrest of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, whose Yukos oil company would be broken up and sold to state-controlled companies in shady closed auctions. Khodorkovsky’s arrest in October 2003 was a wake-up call to the West, where many Russia observers had shut their eyes to Putin’s attacks on democracy, free-market capitalism and above all, his rivals. When the president visited British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London several months earlier, the Times called him Russia’s best leader since Tsar Alexander II, who abolished serfdom in 1861. The book ends with the aftermath of the Beslan school siege, which Putin used as justification to abolish elections of regional governors in favor of Kremlin appointments.
Politkovskaya’s indictment records some of the Putin administration’s worst official corruption and criminal negligence, beginning with the parliamentary elections of December 2003. The Kremlin’s manipulation of the voting was a major step toward Putin’s evisceration of Russia’s liberal opposition parties: None of them won enough votes to make it into the legislature. Politkovskaya describes some of the numerous violations: the beatings and intimidation of regional opposition candidates — one of whom had plastic bags containing human body parts thrown through his window — as well as pervasive evidence of ballot stuffing and the state-controlled media’s refusal to cover the campaigns of Kremlin rivals. Her account belies the weak complaints of observers from the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe, whose failure to properly condemn such abuses amounted to an endorsement of Putin’s victory.
In short, Politkovskaya describes a country in which violent crime trumps rule of law. Some of her most moving passages retell the experiences of Beslan’s victims. She also chronicles the aftermath of other terrorist attacks, the grisly hazing deaths of army conscripts and brutal episodes from the second war in Chechnya that Putin launched in 1999. Here she documents one of its many unpunished atrocities:
“Beslan Arapkhanov, a tractor driver, was beaten up in front of his wife and seven small children before being shot dead. By mistake. The security forces were attempting to arrest the fighter Ruslan Khuchbarov. According to highly secret intelligence, Khuchbarov was sleeping that night at No. 11 Partizanskaya Street. 
“For some reason, however, the soldiers came and shot the guiltless Arapkhanov at No. 1 Partizanskaya Street. Immediately after the murder, an officer entered the Arapkhanovs’ house, introducing himself to the shocked wife as FSB [Federal Security Service] Investigator Kostenko, and presented a warrant to search ‘No. 11 Partizanskaya Street.’ At this point the error became evident, but Kostenko did not so much as apologize to the grieving widow. 
“That is the reality of our ‘antiterrorist operation.’ What are the seven children of Beslan Arapkhanov going to make of this? What chance is there that they will forgive and forget?”
Politkovskaya tells about Putin’s systematic attack against the free press and civil society with his officially sanctioned “Russian Orthodox” understanding of human rights. She describes Putin’s sublime acting skills during a meeting with some of the country’s top human rights defenders: “When need be, he is one of you; when that is not necessary, he is your enemy. He is adept at wearing other people’s clothes, and many are taken in by this performance. The assembly of human rights campaigners also melted in the face of Putin’s impersonating of them and, despite a fundamentally different take on reality, they poured out their hearts to him.” 
The Kremlin has managed to resurrect a Soviet-style system of rule, Politkovskaya writes, thanks to popular apathy, “rooted in an almost universal certainty among the populace that the state authorities will fix everything, including elections, to their own advantage.” She asks if the authorities realize the ruinous effect their actions are having on Russia: “Or are they simply mindless, living for the moment? ... Does being in power in Russia really mean no more than having a place at the trough?”
This loosely structured and repetitive book is not a personal diary. Politkovskaya’s account would have benefited from including more of her own experiences, such as her alleged poisoning during a plane flight to Beslan, ostensibly to stop her from covering the crisis. Giving voice to the Kremlin’s marginalized victims, she sometimes fails to explain the significance of the figures and events she mentions, which will be known only to dedicated Russia observers. And although Arch Tait’s translation is perfectly readable, one suspects it’s too faithful to the original text and would have improved from finessing.
The book’s major faults are common in Russian journalism. Much of it reads like a sermon, an extended op-ed piece that doesn’t provide the kind of documentation and structure to which Western readers are accustomed. Politkovskaya condemns most Putin opponents as fiercely for their inaction as she criticizes the Kremlin for its crimes. Rightly so, perhaps, but her unrelieved moral outrage and her patronizing tone become tiring, and leave the reader wondering what makes the writer right and pretty much everyone else wrong. 
Nevertheless, “A Russian Diary” is an important book. A critical failing of the West’s understanding of Russia is interpreting Moscow’s actions through the prism of Western rationalism, which often makes them appear inexplicable. Much of the country’s real political culture is hidden behind a facade of Western forms. The Kremlin creates fake opposition parties and NGOs, Putin speaks of democracy and justice as overarching values, and the Energy Minister says with a straight face that Russia’s state-controlled oil and gas companies operate as independently as private Western ones.
But there’s no hiding behind Politkovskaya’s blow-by-blow relating of events; the actions speak for themselves. “A Russian Diary” provides a crucial record of the country’s slide toward an isolated, angry reincarnation of its former Soviet self, seen through the eyes of a sensitive and perceptive observer.
Politkovskaya excoriates the Russian public for failing to protest Putin’s transgressions. Her death, like her publications, also passed unmentioned by most Russians. Her mission was to record the regime’s crimes, partly in the hope that their perpetrators would one day be held to account. She died for that aim, and her death become a landmark tragedy in the Russia of Vladimir Putin against which she so bravely campaigned.

TITLE: Supporters of Thailand’s Ex-PM Decry Party Ban
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BANGKOK — Supporters of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra protested on Thursday against the court-ordered dissolution of their party and the political banishment of its leaders which threaten more turmoil. 
Some 2,000 people rallied peacefully near Government House a day after the ruling, shouting slogans against the coup leaders who ousted Thaksin in a bloodless putsch last year.
“Democracy Back, Thaksin Come Back,” read one banner held by a protester wearing a “CNS Get Out” headband, referring to the name the generals gave themselves, the Council for National Security.
“Although Thai Rak Thai has been banned, we still love Thaksin,” Jatuporn Prompan, a rally organizer and former party spokesman, told the crowd from the stage.
“The Constitutional Tribunal has ruled that Thai Rak Thai has committed a crime that was hostile to democracy. But who will make that ruling on the CNS which toppled a democratically elected government?,” Jatuporn said.
Earlier, Thaksin, who is living in London, issued a statement urging his supporters to accept the ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal, which found his party guilty of two charges of fraud in last year’s inconclusive poll, later annulled by the courts.
He also pressed the generals to speed up elections promised for December. Analysts say the plan could be derailed by unrest.
“I would urge everyone to stay calm and don’t make any moves,” said the billionaire telecoms tycoon whose Thai Rak Thai [Thais Love Thais] party was the first in Thai history to win an absolute parliamentary majority.
There has been no violence since the ruling, but police set up extra checkpoints across the city of 10 million people.
“Nothing has happened yet, but we are worried that a third party could cause trouble,” the Bangkok police chief, Lieutenant-General Adisorn Nonsee, told reporters.
The rival Democrat Party, Thailand’s oldest party but no match for Thaksin’s machine in the vote-rich countryside, was found not guilty of breaking election laws, and should now be in pole position for the promised December election.
The rulings, greeted by the English-language Bangkok Post with a banner headline reading “BYE BYE THAI RAK THAI,” would “reshape and realign” Thailand’s electoral landscape, political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak said.
“The military will come into an alliance with the surviving politicians and this alliance will be anchored with the Democrat Party,” he said.
“The military has to protect itself, it has to watch its back, it has to have some cooperation from the politicians after the election because the military will be out of power.”
But he said this new alliance could not ignore the millions of rural and urban poor who lionized Thaksin, in part for populist policies such as cheap health care and loans.

TITLE: All Blacks, France  Warm Up Together
AUTHOR: By Julian Linden
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: AUCKLAND — New Zealand and France, the world’s two top-ranked teams, lock horns at Auckland’s Eden Park on Saturday in a match billed as a possible preview of this year’s World Cup final.
The All Blacks are ranked number one after winning last year’s southern hemisphere Tri-Nations title while the French confirmed their place as Europe’s best side with victory in the 2007 Six Nations.
Both teams are on the long road they hope will lead to the World Cup final in Paris in October and although the French have left out most of their leading players the significance of Saturday’s match is not lost on either side.
The game will be played almost 20 years to the day after New Zealand beat France in the inaugural World Cup final at Eden Park in 1987, and the All Blacks are desperate to strike an early psychological blow.
“For us this is just the start of getting back to the standards we ended on last year — that will be our number one focus,” hooker Keven Mealamu told reporters on Thursday.
The All Blacks are overwhelming favorites to win Saturday’s match, and eventually the World Cup, but are leaving nothing to chance, naming their strongest available side.
Coach Graham Henry rested his top players from the first half of this year’s Super 14 series and the jury is still out on whether the ploy will pay dividends after none of New Zealand’s five franchises made the final.
“There’s a real expectation for us to get back to the level we were at last year, but it will take time,” flyhalf Dan Carter said.

TITLE: Mandela Hails Blair in Africa
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nelson Mandela hailed Tony Blair on Thursday as a “very good friend” to Africa for the priority he has given the continent, while the outgoing British prime minister called on rich countries to fulfill aid pledges to the region. 
Blair, ending his farewell tour of Africa, said the Group of Eight summit in Germany next week must follow through on commitments made two years ago, when Britain made Africa the focus of its presidency of the G-8.
“We need each G-8 to be bolder than the last,” Blair said in a speech at the University of South Africa. “If we give up, we will lose the chance in this continent, rich as it is though its people are often poor, for our values to take root. It would be a calamitous misjudgment and we should not make it.”
Blair said Mandela, who led the struggle against apartheid and became South Africa’s first black president, embodied the best of the continent. The two men met at Mandela’s foundation in Johannesburg.
Blair “has been a very good friend to Africa, and I know his commitment will continue in his retirement,” Mandela said. “I know that your energy, passion and youth can still play a big role in international affairs.”
Blair said both the West and Africa faced two possible paths.
“One is chosen by countries like South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana and many others, reinforcing economic growth with good governance and the stamping out of violence and corruption,” he said.

TITLE: Maria Leads Russian Advance
AUTHOR: By Juliet Macur
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: PARIS — On her way to the French Open, Maria Sharapova had to make an important decision: face her fear of needles and receive a painful shot in her injured, inflamed shoulder, or take time off and skip one of the biggest tournaments of the year.
There was never any doubt what she would choose, Sharapova said. One cortisone shot and nearly two months later, she walked onto the red clay courts at Roland Garros, sore shoulder and all, and played her first-round match. 
In her second tournament since returning from her injury, Sharapova beat Emilie Loit, 6-3, 7-6 (4). 
“As long as the doctors give me an O.K., as long as I can play through the little aches and pains that I get from time on, then I’m O.K., I’m willing to do it,” she said. “I take the good with the bad.”
On another rainy day, the second-seeded Sharapova was one of nine Russian women to win their matches Wednesday. With success like that, the American men playing at the French Open should have asked them for their secrets. 
Never before have American men fared this miserably on the red clay at Roland Garros. All nine in the draw lost in the first round. 
Eight were beaten on Tuesday, including No. 3 Andy Roddick and No. 8 James Blake. On Wednesday, Robby Ginepri was their final hope. He could not redeem them, losing to Diego Hartfield, 6-4, 1-6, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2. 
This is the first time in the Open era, which began in 1968, that all the American men entered in a major tournament lost in the first round. 
“I don’t know if it’s because they are not willing to grind for the points,” said Meilen Tu, one of the five American women still in the singles draw. “I don’t know if they’re trying to finish the points too quickly.”
She added, “You’ve got to be ready to hit one more ball.”
Ginepri suggested that the Americans hold a camp before next year’s clay-court season in which they could be tutored by one of the better clay-court players.
But the Americans will not give up. Though they expect pain and disappointment, Ginepri said, they will still come to Paris, if only to hope for a breakthrough.
On the women’s side, four Americans, including Venus Williams, showed that they could win here. 
Williams made it to the third round in a tight match against her countrywoman Ashley Harkleroad, 6-1, 7-6 (8), though not without a struggle. Williams took control of the match early and was leading by 5-1 in the second set when the mistakes flooded in. Suddenly, the score was 5-5, with the schoolchildren filling the stands wildly cheering every point.
“I really just got overconfident,” Williams said. “I was just feeling like I couldn’t lose, and then it was even. So it was definitely a mistake that I’ve made before, not often.” 
Williams fended off five set points to finally win. One of her serves was clocked at 128 miles an hour, setting the record for the fastest women’s serve in a Grand Slam event. 
Elsewhere, the No. 1 seeds, Roger Federer and Justin Henin, advanced to capture some attention. Still, the day belonged to the Russian women.
Third-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova, No. 9 Anna Chakvetadze and No. 10 Dinara Safina won their matches. But Anastasia Myskina, who started the wave of Russian women’s success in 2004, got only a quick taste of Roland Garros before being sent home. 
When Myskina won the French Open in 2004, she became the first Russian woman to win a Grand Slam singles title. The Russians have won three titles since, and they continue to occupy many places in the top 10.
Myskina returned Wednesday, despite missing five months after foot surgery in January. She was in search of the magic that made her a champion three years ago. Instead, it was a bittersweet return. It took 55 minutes for her to lose to Meghan Shaughnessy, 6-1, 6-0. 
Myskina, 25, said she knew she was not going to win a title here, considering the operation that left her left big toe painful and swollen. She did not, however, expect the comeback to be so physically and mentally jolting. 
Now she realizes that the doctors may be right: she may never play again, at least at a top level.
“You remember how you used to run or you used to play, and now it’s completely different story,” she said. “It’s difficult not to be sad right now, you know, to say like everything is fine.”

TITLE: Soccer’s
Lucrative Future
AUTHOR: By Ryan Mills
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: English soccer teams will pay some players more than 10 million pounds ($19.7 million) a year by 2010 as lucrative broadcasting contracts from next season spark wage inflation, a report said Thursday. 
New television agreements will lift the combined revenue of the 20 Premier League teams 28 percent to 1.77 billion pounds by 2008, according to accountancy firm Deloitte and Touche LLP’s Annual Review of Football Finance. 
The money will filter down to players whose salaries rose 9 percent to an average of 1.1 million pounds in the elite league during the 2005-06 season after dropping for the first time the year before, Deloitte said. About 30 teams in English soccer sought creditor protection in the seven years through 2004 as teams overspent before financial management improved. 
“The challenge for clubs is that the players’ agents are fully aware of the TV deals,’’ Philip Long, a partner in the football unit of London accountancy firm PKF (UK) LLP, said in a telephone interview. “It really is a case of double your money.’’ 
The Premier League’s revenue climbed 3 percent to 1.38 billion pounds in the 2005-06 season, Deloitte said. Income from broadcasters will double to 2.7 billion pounds over the three seasons from this August under new contracts with companies in 190 countries. 
Top earners such as Chelsea’s Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, who get about 6.8 million pounds a year from their club, will be the main beneficiaries, according to Deloitte, which said the league’s combined wage bill of 854 million pounds in 2006 may rise 17 percent to more than 1 billion pounds by 2008. 
“There’s no guarantee the money will go to players,’’ Mick McGuire, deputy chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, said in a telephone interview. 
Bankrolled by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, Chelsea spent 114 million pounds on salaries in 2006, Deloitte said, followed by Manchester United’s 85 million pounds, Arsenal at 83 million pounds and Liverpool with 69 million pounds. Fulham and Manchester City topped a list of five that reduced spending. 
If wages remain “comfortable’’ at 62 percent of sales, the 20 clubs may double their combined operating profits to 260 million pounds, according to the report. 
“In any other industry you’d be horrified at that ratio,’’ Long said. 
The number of Premier League clubs reporting operating losses increased to four in 2005-06 from two in 2004-05, and those posting pretax profits declined to nine from 14.

TITLE: Favorite Pulls Out Of
Wales Open
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEWPORT, Wales — The Wales Open lost one of its pre-tournament favorites on Thursday when Welshman Stephen Dodd was forced to withdraw due to a migraine.
Dodd, a three-times tour winner whose last victory came in the 2006 European Open, is the latest Welsh casualty after Ian Woosnam decided not to play because of a long-term viral infection.
Bradley Dredge, who lost in a playoff at the Irish Open to Padraig Harrington, and former Ryder Cup player Phillip Price are the main home hopes for victory, though their lesser-known compatriot Sion Bebb held a one-stroke lead on three-under-par after nine holes.
Australian David Bransdon has replaced Dodd in the field.

TITLE: Flintoff Faces Another Ankle Operation
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff is to undergo a third operation on his troublesome left ankle.
Flintoff, sidelined for the first two tests of the series against West Indies, will have investigative surgery over the weekend and miss the remaining two tests which begin on June 7 and 15.
His participation in the July and August three-test series against India is also in doubt, although the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said on Wednesday that the latest problem was not as bad as on previous occasions when he has been out of action for several months.
“Andrew Flintoff has undergone rigorous fitness testing over the past two days, most recently 30 minutes of net bowling on Tuesday, but has reacted with further discomfort in his left ankle,” ECB chief medical officer Nick Peirce said in a statement.
“Despite intense treatment and rehabilitation, Andrew’s ankle has continued to cause him discomfort when bowling at full capacity. As a consequence he will undergo an exploratory arthroscopy over the weekend.
“This current ankle injury is separate to the previous posterior impingement injury and while a comprehensive timescale of rehabilitation will be clearer following the operation, the recovery period is not expected to be as long as Andrew’s previous surgery.”
Flintoff underwent surgery in 2005 and 2006, the latter forcing him to miss the second half of the English season.
The ankle problem continued to hamper him during the recent Ashes whitewash by Australia.
“Obviously I’m bitterly disappointed to face another operation on my ankle as I really thought I was making progress over the past few weeks,” Flintoff said.
“I’ve been working really hard on my game and the rest and rehabilitation appeared to be helping the ankle but after giving it a strong workout this week, it now seems an operation is the only option.”

TITLE: Pahlsson Has Ducks Quacking
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ANAHEIM, California — Defense has come so easily to the Anaheim Ducks’ checking line, the unit is honing its scoring touch.
First Travis Moen, then Samuel Pahlsson.
A couple of late third-period goals from unexpected sources 
have the Ducks within two wins of Southern California’s first Stanley Cup.
Pahlsson beast goalie Ray Emery with 5:44 left to give the Ducks a 1-0 victory over Ottawa Wednesday night and a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup finals.
“We worked really hard the whole game for that one, but we couldn’t get anything by Emery,” said Pahlsson, a finalist to be the NHL’s top defensive forward. “We just try to play our game, make it easy for us and hard for them.”
The series will shift to Ottawa Saturday for the first time since 1927, and the Senators will have to figure out how to break out of a scoring funk to earn a trip back to Anaheim. Teams that won the first two games at home have won the Cup 29 of 30 times.
Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 16 shots for his sixth postseason shutout and first this year.
Emery finished with 30 saves for the Senators, who lost only once in each of their first three series.
“Anybody who writes this team off is crazy,” Senators forward Jason Spezza said. “We feel like we can get a couple games at home.”
After a turnover by Dany Heatley, Pahlsson carried the puck down the right wing, worked around Daniel Alfredsson, and let go a shot past defenseman Joe Corvo, who had his back to him. 
“We try to make them turn the puck over,” Pahlsson said. “That’s the best possible scenario for us, to get turnovers on the blue line.”
Ottawa gave the puck away 21 times, 11 by Alfredsson (6), Spezza (4) and Heatley (1). It was only the second time in the Senators’ 17 playoff games the trio was pointless. The team has gone 95 minutes, 24 seconds since Wade Redden provided a 2-1 lead in the second period of Game 1.
“For some reason, we’re playing differently than the way we’ve played,” Corvo said. “We have 
to find a way to get that feeling back.”
Along with Rob Niedermayer, the Ducks’ checkers have five winning playoff goals. They might have to work even harder in Ottawa, where the Senators have the last line change and will likely try to keep their scorers away from them.
“It’s going to be a different game,” Pahlsson said. “We’re going to have to change.”

TITLE: Spurs Win the West
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — The San Antonio Spurs advanced to the NBA finals with a crushing 109-84 victory over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday.
Tim Duncan and Tony Parker each scored 21 points, helping the Spurs clinch the Western Conference series 4-1 and book a place in the NBA finals for the third time in five seasons.
The Spurs will play either the Detroit Pistons or the Cleveland Cavaliers in the finals, which start on June 7 in San Antonio. The Pistons and Cavaliers are tied 2-2 in the Eastern Conference finals.
“It’s great,” said reporters.
“Last year we had a tough finish. To come back this year, to put the team back together, to have a healthy year myself and to go through three really, really good teams. It’s great to get back here.”
San Antonio was leading Utah 16-11 in the first period when they embarked on a streak that set the tone for the game.
Parker scored seven consecutive points to push the advantage to 23-11 and Duncan dunked on an alley oop. Bruce Bowen connected on a three-pointer before Parker drove for another basket and in less than three minutes the Spurs had a 19-point lead.
“Tonight we played great, everybody from the starting five, from the bench, everybody made shots,” Parker told reporters. “I think we won that game in the first quarter, and we kept the lead the whole game.”
The Spurs, whic has defeated the Jazz 19 consecutive times in San Antonio, led 34-15 after the first quarter and 55-39 at the half. That advantage grew to 83-56 going into the fourth.
Andrei Kirilenko led the Jazz with 13 points. Deron Williams, who played with a sprained left foot, and Matt Harpring had 11 each. Carlos Boozer was held to nine points and 12 rebounds.
Guard Derek Fisher missed the first half while returning from New York where his daughter is undergoing treatment for an eye condition. He was 0-3 from the floor.
The finals will be the Spurs’ fourth appearance in nine seasons. It won the NBA title in 1999, 2003 and 2005, but lost in the second round of the 2004 playoffs and the Western Conference semi-finals in 2006.

TITLE: Yankees Pounds Blue Jays
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TORONTO —The New York Yankees pounded the Toronto Blue Jays 10-5 in a controversial road win on Wednesday that snapped the Yankees’ five-game losing streak .
With a one-run lead at the top of the ninth, Alex Rodriguez hit a two-out, run-scoring single that gave the Yankees a 7-5 advantage.
The Yankees third baseman then sparked controversy by yelling at his Toronto counterpart Howie Clark on a popup by Jorge Posada. Clark appeared distracted and the ball dropped safely for a run-scoring single.
The incident infuriated the Blue Jays and umpires had to step in to prevent players coming together.
Rodriguez said he shouted “Ha!” as he passed Clark, but the Toronto player insisted he heard a call for the ball and as a result he left it for team mate John McDonald.
“Maybe I’m naive,” Toronto manager John Gibbons told reporters. “But, to me, it’s bush league. You always look at the Yankees and they do things right.
“That’s not Yankee baseball.”
Rodriguez said he was just trying to help the Yankees win.
“We’re desperate,” he told reporters.
The Yankees took a 5-0 lead after the first inning but Toronto kept plugging away and reduced the gap to the slender one-run margin going into the ninth.
Robinson Cano went 4-for-4 with three doubles and Marinao Rivera earned the save after Tyler Clippard pitched five innings.
*Daisuke Matsuzaka was pounded for 12 hits and six runs in five-plus innings as the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox 8-4.
*Torii Hunter walked with the bases loaded in the ninth inning, giving the Minnesota Twins a 7-6 home win over the Chicago White Sox.
*Dan Haren (6-2) won his sixth consecutive game, pitching four-hit ball for eight innings in the Oakland Athletics’ 6-1 road win over the Texas Rangers.

TITLE: Swedish Day
TEXT:      Dear Readers,

It is a great pleasure for me to have this opportunity to invite you to take part in this year’s celebrations of the Swedish National Day, which will take place on Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa, just outside the Consulate General of Sweden, on Saturday, 2 June.
The Swedish National Day actually falls on June 6, but we decided to celebrate it a little in advance, in order to make it possible for as many as possible of you to include a visit to our event as part of your Saturday walk in the city center. And for those of you who have other plans for Saturday, celebrations will continue on Sunday, June 3, although in a different location — the MEGA Dybenko shopping center. 
Sweden’s National Day has been celebrated on June 6 for many years, but it was only recently that this day was made into a national holiday. The date itself has many historical links: on June 6, 1532, Gustav Vasa was crowned as King of Sweden. This is generally seen as the beginning of the modern Swedish state. And on this same day in 1809, a new constitution was adopted, that proved to be a corner stone in the development of democracy in our country.
The year 2007 is a very active period in relations between Sweden and Northwest Russia. In March, Mr. Ilya Klebanov, Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in Northwest Russia, visited Sweden and held talks that were mainly about developing economic relations. During the visit Mr. Klebanov met with the deputy Prime Minister and several other ministers. 
The new Prime Minister of Sweden, Fredrik Reinfeldt, has underlined that the Nordic and Baltic Sea region should be Europe’s strongest growth region, and that every opportunity to strengthen our cooperation should be harnessed.
Clearly, the city of St. Petersburg and the Northwest region of Russia are important keys to this development. I have myself only been here in this post for a year, but I was quickly very impressed by the dynamic economic life in the city and also the fact that so many Swedish companies are present here and in the region.
This year, we are especially happy to celebrate our National Day on the pedestrian street outside the Consulate General, as it is the 10-year anniversary of our presence in this building, Sweden House, on the corner of Malaya Konyushennaya Street and Shvedsky Pereulok. The building itself has a long Swedish history, as it was once part of the parish of the St. Catherine church next door. In 1997, after extensive reconstruction, the Swedish Consulate General was officially inaugurated in Sweden House in the presence of the Governor of St. Petersburg and the Prime Minister of Sweden.
Furthermore, a number of interesting events to promote Swedish business and culture will take place during 2007. Let me just mention a few of these. This is indeed a year of jubilees: 300 years since the birth of Carl Linnaeus, which has already been celebrated with a beautiful joint exhibition in the Russian museum, and with several other events. This year we also celebrate 100 years since the birth of the writer Astrid Lindgren. This will be the focus of several activities here in Russia, where she is much loved. During the National Day celebrations you will be able to meet with Pippi, one of Lindgren’s most loved creations, and to see an exhibition about Astrid Lindgren. You can always get up-to-date information about these and other cultural events at our website: www.sweden.spb.ru. 

With best regards,
Gunnar Klinga
Consul General of Sweden in 
St. Petersburg

TITLE: Program for June 2
TEXT: On Saturday, June 2, on Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa, by the Swedish Consulate General, the Swedish Days in St. Petersburg festivities will get underway. A variety of events will be held to celebrate both the National Day of Sweden (June 6) and the tenth anniversary of the Consulate General’s occupancy of what was previously the Swedish parish building. On Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., the events will be repeated at another of the city’s Swedish landmarks – the Mega shopping center in Dybenko. Below is the program of events for Saturday. For Sunday’s program and additional
information see:
www.sweden.spb.ru/swedfest

June 2

12:00
Opening of the celebrations with a performance by the Fingal folk music ensemble.

1 p.m.
A performance by Fingal and The Swedish students’ choir.

2 p.m.
A “100th Anniversary of the Birth of Astrid Lindgren” children’s program, featuring a parade dedicated to the author’s renowned creation Pippi Longstocking, performances by clowns from the Bicycle Variety group, and a performance by musician Philip Fransson of works by Astrid Lindgren.

3 p.m. 
A Swedish fashion show

4 p.m.
A joint performance by Swedish musicians from the Fingal ensemble and accordion players from the Smirov Orchestra of the Palace of Youth Studies on Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa.

5 p.m.
A performance by the Bicycle Variety clowns. 

6 p.m.
Ceremonial closing of the celebrations.

6 p.m.
The Housewives duet of DJs performs at The Other Side bar (1 Bolshaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa).

1.30 a.m.
Early on Sunday morning, the Housewives DJs will be giving another performance at the Red Club (7 Poltavskaya Ulitsa).

TITLE: Swedish Floorball Arrives in Petersburg
TEXT: As part of the celebrations on Malaya Konyushennaya on Saturday and at the Mega store in Dybenko on Sunday, two top division floorball players will be giving master classes and organizing games for all those interested in this young but fast-developing Swedish sport.
Floorball is often described as hockey without the ice and without the skates, though there are some fairly major differences in the rules. Although some claim that floorball dates back to the U.S. of the 1950s, where “floor hockey” is still played with a plastic puck, the Scandinavian variant began to develop in the 1960s in Sweden, where it became popular at schools and in leisure clubs. It soon began to spread across Europe, already having conquered Finland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
There are five players and one goalie on each team, with the standard court measuring 24 meters by 14 meters. The goalie wears protective clothing, but apart from that little in the way of specialized equipment is needed. Just two teams, 10 sticks (the goalies do without) and a plastic ball.
The pace of the game is frenetic, so it’s usually played in 3 periods of 20 minutes each with body contact allowed. 
Michele Simpson, 18, one of the two players attending the Days of Sweden in St. Petersburg, is a goalkeeper with the Hammarby top division club, having begun playing seriously six years ago. 
“I played handball for years as a goalie,” Simpson says. 
“But over the last few years, I’ve enjoyed nothing more than floorball — it’s a very fast game, but you have to really think things through and all the members of the team have to really stay focused. The game has really good prospects and it’s incredibly interesting!”
Sara Attermo plays as a forward with the Hammarby team. Aged just 19, she has already been playing in the most senior league in Sweden for three years. “I love floorball,” Attermo says, “because the technique involved is very interesting and it’s a very, very fast game.”

TITLE: Stockholm: Scandinavia’s Capital City
AUTHOR: By Matthew Brown
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: You might imagine, with its noble royal heritage or its cutting-edge approach to sleek design, that Sweden would disavow something as seemingly low-rent and cheesy as ABBA, the chart-topping pop music phenomenon that originated there some 35 years ago. Not a bit of it. Last month it was announced with pride that ABBA — The Museum will open its doors in central Stockholm in 2009.
“It’s really great that the location for the ABBA museum has now been finalized,” Stockholm mayor Kristina Axen Olin said. “The museum will be a new, important attraction that strengthens Stockholm’s international reputation as a tourist town. The location is the custom house, right across from the Grona Lund amusement park, and is an excellent spot for a museum.”
Stockholm — self-styled as Scandinavia’s capital — does indeed offer something for everyone, from history buffs and nature lovers to fashionistas and gourmands, and now, apparently, dancing queens.

Knowing me, knowing you
Gamla Stan or Stockholm’s Old Town, founded by the regent Birger Jarl in 1252, is one of the most impressive parts of the city.
It is situated on one of the islands and  includes the Royal Castle, where the royal family no longer resides although Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden, has his office there.
Most of the streets in Gamla Stan are so narrow that residents can literally shake hands with their neighbors across the street.
However, they are not as excited by this as romantic tourists are because their apartments lack sunlight and privacy.
The Old Town is full of bustling streets, souvenir shops, bookstores, churches and museums. 
Opposite the Royal Palace on the eastern side of Stockholm’s main waterway is the Blasieholmen spit and the charming islands of Skeppsholmen and Kastellholmen.
Connected by bridges, this is where 19th century palaces such as the National Museum of Fine Arts jostle with grand hotels, banks and renowned places of entertainment, as well as with auction houses, art galleries, exclusive antique shops and antiquarian bookshops.
One of the most attractive museums in Stockholm is the Vasa Museum, featuring a huge royal ship which sank in Stockholm harbor 15 minutes after it was launched in 1628.
The gigantic, seven-story wooden galleon was recovered from the harbor bottom 333 years after it sank but it was still in a good condition, and a museum was built around it.

The winner takes it all
Stockholm is also known for hosting the smartest people on the planet who every year come to the city to receive Nobel Prizes on Dec. 10.  
The prominent Nobel Prize Gala is held in the Blue Hall and the Golden Hall of Stockholm City Hall. After the prize-giving ceremony a splendid banquet for 1,200 invited guests is held in the Blue Hall.
Tourists are able to tour these famed halls, as well as the rest of City Hall — an important national symbol with the three golden crowns at the top of its tower. At 106 meters high, the tower offers one of the best views of Stockholm. Starting this year, City Hall even has daily guided tours in Russian.
If you only have time for one gallery go straight to the National Museum on the south side of Blasieholmen. Designed by the 19th-century German architect August Stuler, it houses Sweden’s largest art collection, with more than 16,000 works from the 15th-20th centuries.
Another place reveling in 19th-century opulence is Cafe Opera, a  center of Stockholm nightlife for the young and elite, located in the grandiose building of the Opera House.
The CafI is not just a cafe despite its name. It includes a luxurious restaurant in the baroque style, an open-air bar, and a fashionable disco after midnight. One of the best and most expensive restaurants in town,  Operakallaren, is also located in the  building.
The restaurant, which one can only enter if dressed in a suit and having foregone using your mobile phone, offers its lavish dinners and services to Sweden’s top people, including the royal family.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
The Opera House is located just next to the city’s business district, which is home to a number of Stockholm’s biggest department stores, banks, nightclubs, and business centers.
The area includes the so-called Golden Triangle where many fashionable stores and restaurants are located.
Here one can see the famous Stockholm “Mushroom” — a sort of a city monument shaped like a mushroom, where Stockholm residents like to arrange to meet each other.
For young people looking for a fancy disco, Stockholm residents advise hitting the Spy Bar. They say even princesses visit the place sometimes.

I have a dream
Stockholm’s many charms make it a dream destination for many and it is not hard to see why. Exceptionally open for weekenders or longer-term visitors, the city’s progressive and cosmopolitan characteristics add up to a very warm welcome. It is no wonder that Stockholm is one of those envied cities that repeatedly makes it into the Top 10 of places everyone should see, at least once in their lives.

TITLE: Journeys in Swedish Lapland
TEXT: What is commonly known as Lapland is known to its native Sami people as Sapmi, an internationally recognized region that covers northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia (Murmansk oblast).
But it is its southern Swedish section that offers the greatest travel and tourism opportunities — not all of them earthbound. 
The Lapland part of Sweden covers about a quarter of the country, and, straddling the Arctic Circle, is snowbound and frozen from November to April or longer. In these conditions it is little wonder that nearly 20 years ago a company specializing in rafting, walking tours, reindeer corrals and Sami cultural tours during the summer decided to make use of the winter and rent out an igloo they had built to house intrepid guests: the world famous Icehotel was born.
Now each year, on the banks of the Torne River 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle near the village of JukkasjErvi, the Icehotel rises from the ice with as many as 80 rooms for guests willing to spend a night in the freezer. Invited artists decorate each suite but all the works of art melt in the springtime — along with the entire building. It flows back into the Torne from whence it came, and Swedish Lapland becomes a summer paradise again, however briefly.
One attraction that fully exploits the region’s summertime beauty is the so-called Wilderness Road. Winding its way through hundreds of kilometers of forests, mountains and lakes, the Wilderness Road was originally laid to service a distant mine. The mine is closed but the road — from Vilhelmina to Stromsund — passes ancient Sami sites, graves and settlements as well as age-old mountain meadows, rapids and waterfalls. But the forward-thinking Swedes provide tourists these days with a hand-held computer full of knowledge from local guides, as well as GPS technology, to get the most from the route.
Forward thinking lies behind one of Swedish Lapland’s potentially most amazing attractions: a launchpad into space. Richard Branson’s space tourism enterprise Virgin Galactic has earmarked the city of Kiruna as a spot to launch commercial spaceflight with the next five years. 
Kiruna airport — which also currently serves visitors to the Icehotel — is set to become Spaceport Sweden. From here, part-time cosmonauts will blast off for a short trip beyond the atmosphere and be able to glimpse Earth’s beauty — including Sweden’s — from space.

TITLE: Vox Populi
TEXT: In the run up to the Days of Sweden celebrations on June 2 and 3, we asked St. Petersburgers whether they had been to Sweden and what they thought about the 
Scandinavian country.

Artur Novak, 24, works for a security alarms company

“I have not been to Sweden so far, although of course I would like to visit it in future. Sweden for me is Volvo cars, the Swedish family, tranquility, relaxation, and for some reason I think a lot of elderly people live there too.”

Yelena Ilyina, 20, student and an IT company employee

“I don’t remember anything about Sweden, nothing comes to mind at the moment…apart from that they have good watches there…or am I confusing it with Switzerland? …Really, traveling to Sweden has never been a part of my agenda, firstly because I have not been able to travel. due to financial reasons. When I earn enough money, maybe I’ll try and go to Sweden.”

Per Andersen, 55, tourist from Denmark with a fellow traveler

“We have been to Sweden a lot of times, as we live nearby. It’s a lovely country - clean, well-organized, and has beautiful nature. Basically, it’s almost Denmark. It’s an old Danish land, and there is no big difference between the two countries.” 

Sergei Yelymanov, 36, businessman

“I have been to Sweden only once, and I really liked Stockholm (although St. Petersburg is better). What I really enjoyed there was the beautiful old town and the museums, especially the Vasa ship museum. Maybe it will sound like a truism, but Sweden for me is first of all a land of Vikings. I also liked the museum of books by the children’s writer, Astrid Lindgren.” 

Sergei Svetlov, 58, in commercial 
security

“I have only just come back from Sweden, where I visited southern towns and the capital city of Stockholm with its Royal Palace and its usual set of touristy pleasures. And I am absolutely positive that this is the only Scandinavian country where I would like to relocate – the rest of Scandinavia is not up to my standard. I really liked the people – 100 percent Scandinavians and Stockholm is simply astonishing. It reminds me of St. Petersburg a little, but whereas Petersburg is a city of water, Stockholm is not much about water but rather is a city of stones and rocks.” 

Interviews by Evgenia Ivanova, photographs by Alexander Belenky

TITLE: Design: the Swedish way
TEXT: In Sweden, the words “invention” and “design” go hand in hand. Both notions are meant to improve people’s everyday life by uniting technology, progressive thinking and beauty. Swedish Inventions, Swedish Design, an exhibition held in an outlet of Ikea, the iconic Swedish furniture and housewares retailer, in Dybenko this Sunday, aims to prove it. 

The display, featuring about 40 objects — from clothes for nursing mothers, robotic vacuum cleaners, rubber horseshoes and electricity generated from the ocean’s waves — shows how innovation meets functional design in action.
Here’s a quick insight into the Swedish way of thinking. 

Celsius scale
The scale by which the entire world (apart from the U.S. and Jamaica) measures temperature was devised by Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius in the mid-18th century. Originally however, his scale indicated boiling point as zero degrees and 100° C was referred to as the melting point of ice. It was reversed after Celsius’ death by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778). He used his “linnaeus-thermometer” in the greenhouses where he grew the plants he studied. The word “centigrade” to describe the units of a thermometer was dropped in 1948 because it can be ambiguous in some languages: the correct term honors the inventive Swede who came up with the whole idea — Celsius. 
Product: Capillary thermometer for outdoor use
Inventor: Anders Celsius (1701–1744)
Company: Termometerfabriken Viking AB
Child safety seat
The first rear-facing child safety seat  was designed by Bertil Aldman of Chalmers University in Gothenburg in the 1960s. Aldman was inspired by the position of the astronauts in the Gemini space capsule.  
In the 1970s Volvo car makers picked up the pioneering idea and reported that this safety equipment led to a dramatic decline in child injuries in car accidents.
Product: Rear-facing car safety seat 	
Inventor: Bertil Aldman
Design: Karin ReikerIs
Manufacturer: Volvo Cars
Clothes for nursing mothers
The idea of Boob was born when Mia Seipel, now the founder of an award-wining company, saw her sister breastfeeding in 1999.
“Watching my sister nurse her newborn baby son, her waist bare to the icy, northern wind, I had an idea,” Seipel said. “Deciding that it should be every mother’s right to nurse in comfort and in style, I developed my Boob Nursing Wear.” 
The stylish designs allow women to breastfeed discreetly while looking chic.
Product: Boob® clothing for nursing mothers
Design: Mia Seipel
Company: Boob AB
Robotic vacuum cleaner
Trilobite, the world’s first fully automatic domestic vacuum cleaner is another outstanding example of Swedish forward-thinking and their understanding of beauty. 
This low-reach vacuum cleaner can work under furniture, between chair legs and tables, sense obstacles and even find its way to the battery charger when the batteries need recharging. According to Electrolux, the cleaner’s producer, Trilobite was rated among the 100 most innovative designs of the 20th century.
Product: Trilobite 2.0 robotic vacuum cleaner
Design: Inese Ljunggren
Company: Electrolux
Tetra Pak packaging
An idea that radically changed retail shopping forever was launched in 1952. This was a plastic-coated tetrahedron-shaped carton for the hygienic distribution of liquid foods. 
The concept became a commercial success and was quickly adopted by the dairy industry. Further improvements continued and in 1963 the brick-shaped Tetra Brik package was introduced. Today, millions of liters of milk and other liquids are sold in Tetra Pak’s packaging all over the world. Hans Rausing, the son of one of the inventors of Tetra Pak who ran the company for nearly 40 years, is one of the richest men in the world.
Product: Tetra Classic package
Idea: Erik Wallenberg and
Ruben Rausing
Company: Tetra Pak
Rubber horseshoe
In 1993, Lone Pedersen received a patent for a horseshoe made of rubber with a steel core because she thought that traditional horseshoes made of iron must be uncomfortable and harmful to horses. The horseshoe was further developed by Halmstads Gummifabrik, which bought the patent. The horseshoe improves the horse’s grip and is especially suited to horses that walk a lot on asphalt and cobblestones.   
Product: Horseshoe in rubber, AllUv original
Design: Lone Pedersen
Company: Halmstads Gummifabrik

Swedish Inventions, Swedish Design at Ikea in the Mega-Dybenko shopping mall, June 3. Open: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

TITLE: Astrid Lindgren’s 100th Anniversary
TEXT: 2007 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sweden’s world famous children’s author, Astrid Lindgren, whose works have been translated into 85 languages and published in over 100 countries.
The characters in Lindgren’s works are known for their independence, energy and unconventionality, and perhaps her most famous, Pippi Longstocking, won great popularity in Russia. Another work, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, about a funny, chubby joker with a propeller on his back, was turned into an animated film in Russia which has gone down in Russian television history.
Lindgren was born on Nov. 14, 1907. Her early pregnancy and refusal to marry the child’s father, who worked as the editor-in-chief at the local newspaper where she worked, provided evidence of the strong-willed, independent attitude that would become such a feature of her literary works. 
Lindgren’s first novel was published in 1944, but her Pippi Longstocking books, deriving from tales originally told by the author to her own children, were originally rejected by her publisher. They went on to sell nearly 130 million copies, inspiring 40 film and television adaptations. 
As well as achieving great literary success, Lindgren worked to defend children’s and animal rights, founding Astrid Lindgren’s Children’s Hospital, one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe, in 2008. 
Following the receipt in 1976 of a tax bill that actually exceeded her income, she made political headlines by forcing the government to review its policies, largely due to her satire on the theme, Pomperipossa in the World of Money. Lindgren died in the Stockholm apartment she had lived in for over sixty years in 2002.