SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1286 (52), Friday, July 6, 2007
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TITLE: Russia Vows Missile Defense Response
AUTHOR: By Jim Heintz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A senior Russian official warned Wednesday that Moscow could put new missiles in western Russia if Washington pursues plans to build a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland.
President Vladimir Putin, who has suggested alternatives to the U.S. plan, said he is sure Russia and the United States can continue to work together despite disagreements. President Bush and Putin met this week at the Bush family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, in an effort to halt the deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations.
Sergei Ivanov, a first deputy prime minister and former defense minister, said Russia would not need to rethink its missile deployments if Washington drops its plans to build the system in Central Europe and accepts Putin’s proposal to expand the system and use Russian installations.
But Ivanov, considered a leading contender to win Putin’s endorsement in the March presidential contest, warned there would be consequences if the U.S. does not compromise on the issue.
“If our proposal is accepted, then we will have no need to deploy new weapons including missiles in the European part of Russia, including Kaliningrad, in order to parry the threats that could arise — and they definitely will arise — if a decision is made to deploy a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland,” Ivanov said in a televised remark.
“If our proposal is not accepted, we will take adequate measures. We are already taking them; an asymmetrical and effective response has been found,” ITAR-Tass quoted Ivanov as saying. “We know what we are doing.”
Putin has also said Russia could deploy missiles in Kaliningrad, which borders Poland and is Russia’s westernmost region, if the U.S. pushes ahead with its missile defense plans.
Polish Defense Ministry spokesman Jaroslaw Rybak said Russia made similar threats before Poland joined NATO in 1999.
“I think this is just another step, and the Russians want to show that on the one hand they want to cooperate and then on the other hand they threaten,” Rybak said on Poland’s TVN24 television.
Putin suggested the U.S. use current or proposed radar sites in Azerbaijan and southern Russia, adding this would eliminate the need for a proposed radar site in the Czech Republic and a battery of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.
The U.S. says the missiles are intended to protect Europe from the potential threat of a nuclear missile attack from Iran. Russia says the U.S. anti-missile system is really aimed at its nuclear arsenal, and would upset the balance of strategic forces in Europe.
Despite Ivanov’s comments, Putin marked the Fourth of July holiday with a statement saying he was certain relations between Russia and the United States would progress despite disagreements.
“We look with certainty to the future of mutually satisfactory working together. I am sure that, despite known disagreements, which are unavoidable in an open and honest dialogue, the policy of comprehensive development of bilateral ties in all areas will continue,” Putin said in the statement, released by the Kremlin while Putin was in Guatemala.
Putin last month proposed that the U.S. share the use of a mammoth Russian-leased radar installation in Azerbaijan, aimed south toward Iran, as an early warning system. He suggested an interceptor missile site could be built only if Iran developed the capability of launching nuclear missiles.
Experts have said the Azerbaijan radar system at Gabala is not capable of directing interceptor missiles.
But in Kennebunkport, Putin offered to modernize Gabala, as well as link to the system a new radar facility being built in southern Russia. He also proposed making the shield more regional by bringing in NATO and setting up joint missile launch early warning centers.
In a sign of some progress, the two countries pledged Tuesday to reduce their stockpiles of long-range nuclear weapons “to the lowest possible” level.

TITLE: Putin Scores Sochi Victory in Olympic Bid
AUTHOR: By Stephen Wilson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Backed by the president’s personal lobbying effort, charisma and government support, Sochi was elected Wednesday as the host city of the 2014 Winter Games.
Sochi defeated the South Korean city of Pyeongchang by four votes in the final round of a secret ballot by the International Olympic Committee, taking the Winter Games to Russia for the first time.
The result was a personal triumph for “the captain,” who put his international prestige on the line by coming to Guatemala to lobby IOC members and lead Sochi’s final formal presentation.
“Putin being here was very important,” said French IOC member and former ski champion Jean-Claude Killy. “He worked very hard at it. He was nice. He spoke French — he never speaks French. He spoke English — he never speaks English.
“The Putin charisma can explain four votes.”
The Austrian resort of Salzburg was eliminated in the first round, unable to compete with the political and economic might of its Russian and South Korean rivals.
Pyeongchang led the first round with 36 votes, followed by Sochi with 34 and Salzburg with 25. Sochi picked up 17 votes in the second round to secure the victory.
“The captain of our team today raised our team to a completely different level,” Russian sports chief Vyacheslav Fetisov said of Putin.
He had left Guatemala by the time the result was announced but called IOC president Jacques Rogge from his plane when he heard the news. Putin expressed his “deep gratitude” and confirmed Russia will complete all the Olympic projects in time and on budget, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said.
The Putin magic matched Blair’s influence on London’s victory in the race for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Blair was instrumental in wooing IOC members in Singapore in 2005, helping London defeat Paris, Madrid, New York and Moscow. Putin did not travel to Singapore for that bid, which lost in the first round.
“If Putin was not here, I think it would be different results,” said IOC executive board member Sergei Bubka, a Ukrainian who won a pole vault gold medal for the Soviet Union at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. “He did a fantastic presentation — his speeches, his communication with people these last few days. They were very impressed with his personality, his intelligence. I think this final touch made the difference.”
Rogge also spoke of the importance of Putin’s backing.
“This is very reassuring for the International Olympic Committee,” he said. “It guarantees us the support of the public authorities of the country. ... Today a successful bid is a bid that entails the whole country and population.”
Sochi bid chief Dmitry Chernyshenko called the victory a “key moment in Russian history.”
“You have decided to play a major role in Russia’s future. The games will help Russia’s transition as a young democracy,” he said.
Zhukov said the decision was a reward for the “largest winter country in the world,” where winter sports is “part of our soul and heritage.”
“The whole of Russia will be celebrating these days,” he said. “We understand lots of [work] is waiting for us once more.”
The government has pledged $12 billion to develop Sochi into a world-class winter sports complex linking the palm-lined Black Sea coast to the soaring Caucasus mountains nearby.
Putin praised Sochi’s natural setting, saying, “On the seashore you can enjoy a fine spring day, but up in the mountains, it’s winter ... real snow is guaranteed.”
Although most venues must be newly built, Putin assured, “We guarantee the Olympic cluster in Sochi will be completed on time.
“No traffic jams, I promise,” he said with a smile.
Russia, an Olympic power that has won 293 Winter Games medals, has never hosted the Winter Games. That was a strong point in Sochi’s favor with the IOC, which likes to spread the Olympics to new host countries. Moscow hosted the 1980 Summer Games, which were hit by the U.S.-led boycott following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The Sochi bid won out over the appeals of its rivals — Salzburg, presenting itself as a safe, no-risk winter sports mecca at the heart of Europe with world-class venues already in place; and Pyeongchang, offering the potential for peace and reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula and promoting winter sports in Asia.
It’s the second time in a row that Pyeongchang has lost by a handful of votes after leading in the first round. The Koreans lost 56-53 to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the 2010 Olympics four years ago.
This time, ninety-seven IOC members were eligible to vote in the first round, with 95 casting valid ballots. Members from bidding countries are ineligible to vote as long as their cities remain in contention. With Salzburg out, 100 delegates were eligible in the second round, with 98 casting valid votes.
The Russian delegation erupted in cheers, jumped to their feet and hugged each other after Rogge opened a sealed envelope and read the words: “The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing the 22nd Olympic Winter Games in 2014 are awarded to the city of Sochi.”
Many of the winning delegation headed across the street to Russia House, where they waved the Russian flag, played the national anthem and celebrated on a specially constructed ice rink.
In Sochi, cheers erupted from the crowd of more than 15,000 that had gathered for a pop concert and the announcement in a main square.
“We did it all together. We won,” the concert’s announcer said from the stage as fireworks flashed and boomed in the sky.
People hugged and waved their hands in the air. Some appeared to have tears in their eyes.
“It is great. I’ve never been so happy in my life,” said Marina Matveyeva, 23, who works in a bank. “It means that Russia has reached the level of Europe, and we can be proud of our country.”

TITLE: After 9 Years, Ombudsman Elected
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A United Russia politician and former lawmaker in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly who had failed to win a seat in March elections to the parliament, was elected as city ombudsman Wednesday amid indignant protests from local human rights groups. 
In the final round of voting in the 50-member parliament, Igor Mikhailov received 31 votes, with two lawmakers voting against all candidates, and one parliamentarian supporting human rights advocate Yuly Rybakov who had been endorsed by Governor Valentina Matviyenko.
Mikhailov will be St. Petersburg’s first ombudsman. The city parliament had not been able to fill the job for the past nine years.
A group of the city’s leading human rights organizations refused to cooperate with the newly elected official and the local branch of the liberal Yabloko party has called for the formation of a city council of ombudsmen with experts delegated by the city’s non-governmental organizations and human rights groups.
“Many people associate the ombudsman’s work with being a dissident or an opposition leader causing trouble for the authorities — but to me the ombudsman is a civil servant who is devoted to perfecting the mechanisms of protecting people’s rights,” Mikhailov said Wednesday.  
But his words did not soothe opposition and human rights groups.
“Mikhailov is a ruling-party stooge, cynical to the core,” said Maxim Reznik, head of the local branch of Yabloko. “Most organizations working in the field of human rights find it impossible to collaborate with him.”
Six candidates competed for the post, including, apart from Mikhailov and Rybakov, Natalya Yevdokimova, an advisor to [Just Russia leader] Sergei Mironov, head of the Federation Council; Rudolf Kagramanov, head of the Anti-Bureaucratic Party, a non-governmental organization; lawyer Nikolai Kozlov and radical opposition activist Pavel Smolyak.
In the first round of elections, in which lawmakers were able to vote for more than one candidate, Rybakov and Mikhailov won comparable numbers of votes — 24 and 31 respectively. But things changed drastically in the run-off, with lawmakers almost uniformly voting for the United Russia candidate.
“What we saw was a wretched theatrical show, that illustrates the new level of cynicism and disregard to human rights the authorities have reached,” Reznik said. “They do not even bother choosing a decent person as city ombudsman to at least creating an illusion that they care, like President Vladimir Putin did with Russia’s federal ombudsman Vladimir Lukin.”
Rybakov said that, frightened by the results of the first round, leaders of the United Russia party produced a strict order for its members to vote for Mikhailov.
Asked whether Matviyenko’s support for him had been intended to discredit him and create the impression that the human rights advocate was a hypocrite playing games with the authorities, Rybakov said that he believed Matviyenko had been sincere. 
“I have discussed this issue with the governor only once but have since been under the impression that she really feels that the wrong person could destroy the job,” Rybakov said. He then added that Matviyenko, in all likelihood, would not want yet another lickspittle whose best skill is kissing someone’s backside, in the post. 
His use of colorful language prompted parliamentarians, led by speaker Vadim Tyulpanov, to criticize Rybakov for using what they called “obscene speech.”
Mironov has voiced scepticism over Mikhailov’s ability to act in the interests of the people and achieve much in the new job.
“I will be honest: yet another government official who has been compensated with this post for not getting a seat in the city parliament, is not going to help solving a string of ailing problems in the sphere of human rights, “ Mironov said. “I very much regret that such worthy candidates as Natalya Yevdokimova and Yuly Rybakov were not elected.”
Human rights advocates have continuously highlighted the difficulties encountered by candidates with a background in non-government organizations to get elected to the job of ombudsman across Russia, whereas former state officials, civil servants and law enforcement staff have proved more successful. 
Galina Matveyeva, the Novgorod region ombudsman, is a former vice-governor of the region. Nadezhda Akhramenko, the Arkhangelsk region ombudsman, had spent over 30 years working in law enforcement before being appointed to her current job. 
Ruslan Linkov, the leader of the Democratic Russia non-governmental organization, is critical of this tendency. “I would find it difficult to trust government inspectors or retired police colonels when it comes to protecting human rights, but as long as there are no acting FSB officers here, there is room for growth,” Linkov said.

TITLE: Extremist Held After Debate
AUTHOR: By Julia Vail
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Authorities have arrested the leader of an ultranationalist group on suspicion of inciting hatred by shouting “Sieg heil” and “Kill the liberals” during a political debate, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Maxim Martsinkevich, 22, has been arrested and charged in connection with the incident Feb. 28 at the Bilingua cafe in central Moscow, City Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Valentina Titova said.
Titova declined to elaborate, but a law enforcement source told Interfax that Martsinkevich, leader of the group Format 18, was arrested early Tuesday morning at his apartment on Rublyovskoye Shosse in western Moscow.
Martsinkevich, who goes by the nickname Tesak, or “Hatchet,” and several other young men flashed Nazi insignias and began yelling “Sieg Heil” and verbally attacking participants at the political debate titled “Where are the Democrats?” witnesses said.
“They were shouting, ‘Kill the liberals,’ but they almost immediately retreated,” said Yulia Latynina, a political commentator and columnist for The St. Petersburg Times, who was participating in the debate. “If they wanted to kill liberals, there were plenty around.”
Martsinkevich, a student at the Russian State Social University, has been charged with inciting hatred and faces up to five years in prison if convicted, Titova said.
Human rights activists have accused authorities of largely turning a blind eye to hate speech by skinheads and other ultranationalists, and apparent racially motivated attacks are often classified as lesser crimes, such as hooliganism.
“I’m very pleased that the prosecutor’s office is arresting fascists,” said Maxim Kononenko, a political satirist and well-known blogger, who also participated in the debate.

TITLE: Russky Standart Sues Rating Agency
AUTHOR: By Simon Shuster
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Analysts beware: If your outlook on a company is less than rosy, you could get slapped with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.
Russky Standart, the country’s third-biggest bank and No. 1 consumer lender, is suing a Western-owned rating agency for a potentially crippling $20 million after it issued a recent downgrade.
The case is prompting worries that financial analysts might pull their punches when commenting about Russian companies, thus impairing the quality of investment advice on the country.
In the lawsuit, Russky Standart, owned by vodka billionaire Rustam Tariko, is seeking $10 million in damages from RusRating and $10 million from one of its analysts, Yulia Arkhipova. 
The bank is claiming that Arkhipova’s explanation of the downgrade to a reporter hurt its business reputation.
RusRating, the country’s largest independent bank-rating agency, marked Russky Standart down from B+ to B last December. A week later, Arkhipova told weekly magazine Profil that the bank’s public image had been a key reason.
“It’s important for any bank not only to attract clients but to keep them,” she was quoted as saying. “But once a client uses Russky Standart’s services, he won’t come back to them again.”
Artyom Lebedev, chief spokesman for Russky Standart, said the lawsuit was “against the rating agency, as well as its analyst, who allowed a one-sided and groundless judgment of the bank’s business.”
RusRating CEO Richard Hainsworth said the bank was going after his agency specifically over the downgrade. “We cannot find any other explanation for this under the circumstances,” he said.
Reached for comment Wednesday, Arkhipova said she stood by her opinions of Russky Standart and was continuing her work. But she added that her experience had made her wary of speaking with the media.
“We are still giving commentary, still expressing our views on various economic events and indicators,” she said. “But it’s not us and not the bank that will make the decision in this case. It’s the court, and it could go either way.”
If a Moscow court decides against RusRating during a second hearing in the case on July 17, the rating agency will face bankruptcy, Hainsworth said. 
It would also set a grim precedent for objective investment analysis and freedom of speech in Russia, he said.
Honest ratings are a vital part of the investment world, as they allow investors to gauge the risk of putting money into a company, said Alexander Batchvarov, head of international structured finance at Merrill Lynch in London.
“In the West, a rating agency is considered a publication company, a statistical organization which publishes opinions,” Batchvarov said. “Their ability to express such views is protected under the laws of free speech.”
Pavel Gritsevsky, a lawyer representing RusRating, said the precedent would be “fateful” if Russky Standart won.
“If all experts and all analysts are under this kind pressure, we can close the rating agencies, and not listen to any experts at all,” he said.
Arkhipova’s criticism of Russky Standart is shared by at least some of the bank’s customers. Although it has the country’s largest consumer loan portfolio — almost $8 billion with 17.5 million clients, or more than 12 percent of the population — it also has the worst complaints record by far.
Out of 892 consumer complaints to a government watchdog, the Federal Consumer Protection Agency, 723 were against Russky Standart, according to the agency’s web site.
Many investors have a policy of not touching a firm with a rating lower than BBB, meaning that Russky Standart’s grade at RusRating would put it on the verge of being cut off from millions of dollars in potential funding.
With stakes this high, companies have often cut off ties with the rating agencies they hired to rate them, said Olga Ignatyeva, an analyst at the Fitch rating agency.
But with RusRating, Russky Standart did not have this option, as the rating was not commissioned and was issued free of charge.
For the agencies that Russky Standart has hired to rate it, the bank has “great respect,” Lebedev, the bank’s spokesman, said in e-mailed comments late Wednesday.
“Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch have all adjusted the rating of our bank exclusively toward the positive.”
Taking RusRating to court over a little negativity was a bit extreme, said Merrill Lynch’s Batchvarov. “I think the way for the court to establish best practice is to have this case completely thrown out, and in this way to discourage any other companies from filing such suits.”

TITLE: Gay Parade Planned For Center of Town
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The first official gay pride parade in St. Petersburg could go ahead in September, its organizer said Thursday. 
Although City Hall refused to give permission for a similar parade in May this year, gay rights activists say they are not giving up on the idea. 
“Our first application for a gay parade in Petersburg was rejected due to the celebration of City Day at the same time [on May 27], and we fully understood this,” one of the parade’s organizers, Alexei Khinshtein told The St. Petersburg Times on Thursday.  
The Russian gay rights movement has previously made two attempts to organize a parade in Moscow but Mayor Yury Luzhkov fiercely opposed the idea, condemning the parade as “satanic” and swearing he would never allow such a parade to take place in the Russian capital.
St. Petersburg is a much more tolerant city, gay rights activists think.
“Although it’s a topic that deserves a separate conversation, in that case we didn’t feel we were rejected for homophobic reasons,” Khinshtein said in a telephone interview. 
According to Khinshtein the aim of the event is to kill two birds with one stone: “It will be a big, colorful show, a festival and at the same time an act to support sexual minorities.” 
A provisional date for the parade has been set for Sept. 8. However, this date also marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Nazi Siege of Leningrad, a solemn date on the city calendar.
Khinshtein said that organizing the parade Sept. 8 is not their “principal” position since he realizes the date might not suit City Hall.
“Of course we understand this and might move our event to a different date — Sept. 9 for example.”
City Hall said it has not yet received any formal request for permission to hold the parade, Fontanka.ru reported.

TITLE: Russia Refuses to Extradite Suspect in Litvinenko Killing
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian prosecutors said Thursday they have officially refused Britain’s request to extradite a businessman accused in last year’s fatal poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Prosecutor General Yury Chaika’s office said its refusal to turn over Andrei Lugovoi was based on a constitutional prohibition against turning over Russian citizens to foreign nations, as well as a European convention on extradition.
In May, Britain accused Lugovoi, a former agent-turned-businessman, of involvement in the killing of Litvinenko, who died in a London hospital in November from a fatal dose of the radioactive substance, polonium-210.
Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin had emphasized that Lugovoi would not be extradited. Putin called the British request “stupidity,” saying British authorities should have known about the Russian constitutional prohibition.
In a statement, Chaika’s office also said it would consider investigating Lugovoi as a suspect if Britain makes such a request and provides sufficient evidence to justify it. Prosecutors had earlier said they would not rule out prosecuting Lugovoi.
But Russian authorities have tried to turn the tables on Britain by opening their own investigation into allegations of British espionage made by Lugovoi, who also said British secret services and a self-exiled tycoon could have had a hand in Litvinenko’s death.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the British government had not received any formal communication from Russian authorities.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Lucky Sevens</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) —The St. Petersburg Wedding Palace is due to register a record 77 marriages on Saturday because 07/07/07 is a date many consider to be lucky.
Nina Kalenichenko of the Wedding Palace said that the record turnout of 77 is “pure coincidence,” Fontanka.ru reported. In order to cater for the large number of ceremonies, marriage registrations will begin at 6 a.m. on Saturday and end at midnight. 

<b>Creationism Rejected</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The St. Petersburg City Court rejected an appeal to the department of education of the Russian Federation to suspend the teaching of Darwinism as the only theory of creation, the plaintiff’s lawyer Roman Konstantinov told RIA Novosti on Wednesday. 
Schoolgirl Maria Shreiber filed the suit last year in the hope that textbooks would be amended to include biblical theories but on Feb. 21 the suit was rejected by the District Court.  Wednesday’s City Court decision confirms the rejection of the suit.

<b>Skating on the Square</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Russian Summer Inline Skating Championship is due to be held on Palace Square on Sunday at 4 p.m.
The competitors at the event — a one-lap sprint around the square — will be members of the Russian national team. Organizers said that its main aim was to popularize inline skating. 

<b>Tennis Honor</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The international St. Petersburg Open tennis tournament has been rewarded for its player services at a meeting of ATP directors held at Wimbledon. It is the sixth time the professional tennis governing body has recognized the St. Petersburg Open. 
In previous years the tournament was honored with awards for “The best appearance of the arena” (2003-2005), “The best organized tournament” (2002), and “Advertisement and marketing” (2001).

TITLE: Rexam Pays $297M for Can Maker
AUTHOR: By Tai Adelaja
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Rexam, the world’s biggest maker of beverage cans, said Wednesday that it was buying Russian beverage can maker Rostar for $297 million in cash as part of an expansion drive in emerging markets.
The British packaging firm will acquire the business, including debt, from En+ Group Limited, part of aluminum giant Basic Element.
“The acquisition of Rostar is fully in line with our emerging markets strategy and represents an excellent opportunity for Rexam,’’ Rexam CEO Leslie Van de Walle said in a statement.
The acquisition follows three years of intensive efforts by Rostar to find a foreign investor, Vedomosti reported. 
Rostar controls about 50 percent of the country’s beverage can market, and the acquisition will give Rexam a share of about 90 percent.
Rostar operates two manufacturing plants, one in Dmitrov, near Moscow, with an annual capacity of 1.3 billion cans, and the other in Vsevolozhsk, near St. Petersburg, with an annual capacity of 1.7 billion cans.
The company also owns the Dmitrov Metallurgical Plant.
Rexam said in the statement that Rostar had sales of $214 million in 2006, but profit was dented by aluminum price volatility. It said profit, however, was expected to improve this year.
Yury Shitov, commercial director of Rexam in Russia and the CIS, praised the synergies and economies of scale that would result from the acquisition.
“By controlling Rostar, Rexam will be able to streamline production while introducing state of the art technology in all its Russian holding,” he said.
A spokesman for Basic Element said his company clinched the best possible deal, and Rexam came up with the best offer out of half a dozen contenders.
“We built Rostar from scratch ... and we are proud to turn it over to Rexam as a fully-fledged, profit-making company,” he said on condition of anonymity, citing company policy. He said the sale would allow Basic Element to concentrate on its other businesses.
Wednesday’s acquisition is not the British company’s first foray into Russia. Exactly 10 year ago, Rexam built its first can-producing plant in Naro-Fominsk, 70 kilometers southwest of Moscow. 
The plant became operational in 1998 with capacity to produce 2.4 billion cans, making it one of the largest in Russia. 
In April, Rexam started construction of a second can-producing plant, in Chelyabinsk, and it is expected to meet a growing demand from the 60 million people living in the Urals and Siberia.
Shitov said the plant would be operational in early 2008 and consist of one production line with an annual capacity of 800 million cans.
Wednesday’s deal is subject to regulatory approvals from the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2007. It will not affect Rexam’s current debt ratings.
Rexam’s foray comes after Shell and BP gave up assets under intense government pressure. British electronics giant DSG recently backed out of a $1 billion deal to buy into Eldorado.

TITLE: Banks to Emerge From the Shadows
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The banking sector in the emerging economies of China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey will grow significantly faster than GDP, PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a report released Tuesday.
Total profits from domestic banking in the E7 could be around half that of the G7 (U.S., Japan, Germany, U.K., France, Italy and Canada) by 2025 and could exceed it before 2050.
“The banking world in 2050 will look radically different from the one we see today, with the E7 economies becoming at least as important as the G7. This reflects both the faster growth projected GDP in the E7 and the tendency of banking sectors to grow faster than GDP as economies develop,” said John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PwC U.K.
Last year PwC predicted that by 2050 the seven emerging economies will have outstripped the current G7 by around 25 percent when comparing GDP using market exchange rates and around 75 percent when using purchasing power parity exchange rates.
In the new report PwC suggests that total domestic credit in China could overtake the UK and Germany by 2010, Japan by 2025 and the US before 2050.
India could emerge as the third largest domestic banking market in the world by 2040 and in the long run grow faster than China.
PwC also expects a rapid expansion of banking sectors in Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey, driven by strong growth in retail banking.
“Before 2050, these countries all have the potential to develop banking sectors of comparable scale to major European economies such as France and Italy,” PwC said in the statement.
The development of banking will stimulate M&A activities. “Restructuring the E7 economies should create major opportunities for private equity firms. Leading E7 banks will also expand outwards and become major competitors in the global ‘war for talent,’ a trend that is already underway as Russian, Chinese and Indian banks attract staff with experience in G7 institutions,” PwC said.
In Russia, domestic credit accounted for $0.2 trillion in 2004. By 2050 it would reach $5 trillion, PwC said. However by that time Russia will fall behind all E7 economies with the exception of Turkey. For example, in China domestic credit is expected to reach $45 trillion by 2050, in India to reach $23 trillion.
In Russia the two largest state banks dominate the industry. Most of the banking sector is fragmented. The largest banks focus on major cities and then move into the regions. Among other recent trends according to PwC is a focus on the retail sector.
The Russian economy benefits from the buoyant energy sector, but needs in the long run to become more diversified, a prerequisite of which is a stronger banking sector, PwC said. 
Igor Zhigunov, deputy chairman of City Mortgage Bank, forecast that Russian retail banking would double or triple over the next two years. In the long run, volumes could increase ten times over.
However he doubted the exact figures indicated in the PwC report. “The growth of profitability in the banking industry depends on too many factors including the social and economic environment, macroeconomic figures, legislation, the system of regulation, the level of integration of the nation’s banking industry in the world market and its correspondence to international standards,” Zhigunov said.
“Last year retail banking more than tripled in size. In the future growth is expected in all segments, especially in the issue of bank cards, project financing, consumer and mortgage loans and the investment activities of banks,” he said.

TITLE: Unilever Sticks to St. Pete for Deodorant
AUTHOR: By Max Delany
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Unilever is shifting its entire European stick deodorant production from Britain to its St. Petersburg factory to take advantage of cheaper labor costs, the company announced. 
The British-Dutch home and personal care giant will invest 7 million euros ($9.5 million) this year to modernize the production line at its Severnoye Siyaniye plant outside St. Petersburg and hopes to double production rates to 20 million units in 2008.
“The transfer of all European stick deodorant production to Russia is logical and in line with Unilever’s global development strategy. ... Russia is a priority target for business development and production,” the company said in a statement.
“Lower labor costs are only one of the key reasons for switching production to St. Petersburg,” Irina Kurachenkova, a spokeswoman for Unilever said Wednesday.
By the end of 2007, Unilever will start exporting deodorants from the St. Petersburg plant to countries around Europe and the CIS. Among the brands produced there will be Rexona, Dove, Sure, Brut and Lynx.
Currently Unilever produces its stick deodorants for the European market at its Leeds plant in northern England.
Kurachenkova said the switch of production to Russia would not lead to job losses at the company’s British plant. The Leeds factory would swap to producing aerosol deodorants and capacity would be increased.
Since entering the Russian market in 1992, Unilever has plowed more than $600 million into production in the country and currently employs over 2,000 workers. 
The company acquired the Severnoye Siyaniye plant in 1994.

TITLE: Saakashvili Says Russia Set to Lift Sanctions
AUTHOR: By Michael Stott
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Wednesday that Russia was willing to start lifting some of the economic sanctions it imposed on Georgia last year, recognizing they were counter-productive. 
Moscow clamped a virtual economic blockade on Georgia in October, cutting off rail, air and trade links after the country briefly arrested four Russian army officers and accused them of leading a spy ring. 
Russia’s measures, which included rounding up and deporting hundreds of Georgians living in Moscow, caused an international outcry and led to Western accusations that Russia was trying to punish its former Soviet vassal for pursuing NATO and EU membership. 
Saakashvili said in an interview that President Vladimir Putin had “mentioned the necessity and the willingness of Russia to lift step by step some of those sanctions” when the two leaders met in St. Petersburg last month. 
“Now they’re talking about the resumption of air traffic,” Saakashvili said. “We are still in the initial stage but I think we will get there soon. We are talking to different levels of the Russian administration about letting our products back. Well, I would say that I’m cautiously optimistic.” 
Saakashvili said Russia now recognized that its sanctions had failed to bring Tbilisi to heel and instead made it stronger and more independent. 
“I don’t know many other countries that have lost 70 percent of their export market within a week and still had almost 10 percent growth rate that year,” he said. 
“So in many ways we paradoxically should thank Russia for helping create a modern Georgian economy because those sanctions really forced our producers, our business colleagues to diversify,” Saakashvili added. 
Moscow has sharply criticized Georgia’s pro-Western course, with government-controlled media lampooning Saakashvili as a dangerous demagogue bent on causing conflict. Saakashvili said he had “no intention of being the main troublemaker in the region” and wanted good relations with Russia. But he warned hard-liners in Moscow against stirring up trouble in the volatile Caucasus region ahead of the Russian presidential election next March. “This would be very reckless and irresponsible behavior,” Saakashvili said. “Countries in this region are much more organized now. It’s much more difficult to play around with them.” 
He said Moscow should remember that “the biggest problems in the Caucasus are on the Russian side” and that “messing up their neighbors will aggravate their own problems.” 
Saakashvili has made NATO membership a top priority for his government, modernizing the Georgian military and sending its troops to serve in Iraq and Kosovo to help in its bid. He said he had received strong support from the United States and most European allies for Georgia’s bid to join.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Seeing Double</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Last year CIT Finance investment bank doubled estimated net assets according to IFRS, Interfax reported Thursday.
By the end of 2006, net assets accounted for 74.9 billion rubles ($2.9 billion). The bank’s own capital increased 2.3 times up to 13.285 billion rubles ($518 million). The credit portfolio increased over fourfold up to 26.363 billion rubles ($1 billion). Net profit was reported at 3.664 billion rubles ($142.8 million).

<b>Licensed Travel</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Over 2,500 companies were licensed by the Unified Registrar of Tourism Operators by the beginning of July, 2007, Interfax reported Wednesday.
A total of 2,164 companies are licensed for international tourism activities, 622 companies for tourism activities within Russia. The licensed companies were insured for five million rubles and 500,000 rubles respectively, according to the new legislation related to the tourism industry, which came in force on July 1. Applications from 225 companies were rejected.

<b>Nissan Sales</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Nissan increased sales in Russia by 82 percent in the first half of 2007 compared to the same period last year, Interfax reported Tuesday.
This year Nissan Motor Rus sold 50,053 cars through its official dealers. The most popular models were Nissan Almera Classic (9,542 cars), Nissan Qashqai (6,401) and Nissan Note (4,887). Last year the company sold a total of 75,514 cars in Russia.
Unlicensed Hall</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City Hall agreed to abolish the St. Petersburg License Hall at a government meeting Tuesday, Interfax reported.
From now on licenses will be issued directly by the Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade.

<b>X5 Logistics </b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — X5 Retail Group will invest $200 million into logistics complexes this year, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The company already operates four logistics centers of 100,000 square meters total area. By 2011 this is expected to increase to 600,000 to 700,000 square meters.
At the moment X5 is constructing seven logistics centers in European Russia and the Urals. The new complexes will be constructed in Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Ufa, Kazan and Rostov-on-the-Don.

<b>Plant Billions</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia will spend 77.5 billion rubles ($3 billion) to complete the biggest hydropower plant in the Far East within two years, supplying metals producers including Peter Hambro Mining Plc and exports to China.
Hydro OGK, Russia’s state-controlled power utility, will allocate a further 23 billion rubles from next year to boost the capacity of Bureiskaya GES to 2,000 megawatts, or the equivalent of about 2 nuclear reactors, Hydro Chief Executive Officer Vyacheslav Sinyugin said. The new supply may not keep pace with demand from new industrial customers such as miners.
“Should all the investor projects in the Amur region come on line, I feel that we could even enter a power deficit,’’ he said at the opening of Bureiskaya’s fifth power unit Thursday.

<b>Reserves Decline </b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s foreign currency and gold reserves declined to $406 billion in the week ended June 29, the central bank said.
The reserves, the world’s third biggest, declined by $600 million after rising to a record $406.6 billion the previous week, the Moscow-based bank said in an e-mailed statement Thursday.
Russia, the world’s 10th biggest economy, received a record $67 billion in net capital inflows in the first half of the year.
High capital inflows were spurred by the assets sales of Yukos Oil Co. and share sales of VTB Bank and Sberbank and will probably decrease in the second half of this year, central bank chairman Sergei Ignatiev said Wednesday.
China has the world’s biggest foreign currency reserves, totaling $1.07 trillion at the end of last year, according to Bloomberg data. Japan has the second largest, $875 billion as of Dec. 31.

<b>Sitronics Contracts </b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Sitronics, a Russian maker of microelectronics and a supplier to Siemens AG and Ericsson AB, has won research and development contracts worth $50 million.
The company got 15 tenders to develop electric components for the Russian Federal Agency of Industry, the Moscow-based company said in a statement distributed by Business Wire on Thursday. The projects are part of the Russian government’s program to develop the technology sector and diversify the economy away from its dependence on oil and gas.

TITLE: Governors Not Made to Measure
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: At last! Two years after introducing a system for appointing rather than electing governors, the Kremlin has come up with a system for publicly evaluating the effectiveness of their work. As a modern version of the old Soviet planning department, the evaluations signal the start of a battle for higher “returns” from each region, thus motivating governors to compete among themselves and with their predecessors.
Reports on governors’ regular meetings with President Vladimir Putin are posted on the president’s web site. There we see how regional leaders try to emphasize their successes over the course of their tenure, or — at a minimum — since their last meeting with Putin. Each meeting usually begins with governors giving an upbeat report on the growth of the gross regional product and personal incomes, successes in attracting investments and updates on major projects in gas production and supply, housing construction, increasing birth rates, special economic zones, and so on.
A foundation has now been laid for controlling the socio-economic situation in the regions and the authorities’ efforts to improve it. The preliminary version of the system presented one year ago included almost 150 criteria, but the president’s current checklist has just 43, starting with the gross regional product and ending with the degree to which citizens are satisfied with the work of the authorities.
The various criteria are not listed in any particular structure or order of priority. Any combination of points can be singled out to emphasize either the positive or negative aspects of any governor’s activities. It is worth noting, however, that the first items on the Kremlin’s list are gross regional product, investments and personal incomes.
Budgetary indicators make up the majority of the points. Most relate to expenses, but other items include: real personal incomes, the condition of public health services, education, cultural programs and participation in “leisure activities,” housing availability and the condition of residential properties and small business.
The Kremlin’s criteria seem to have been formulated in a hodgepodge fashion. The list includes highly specific items, such as the number of library books per capita, as well as fairly generalized yardsticks, like overall death and crime rates. Taken as a whole, however, the list is concerned primarily with economic indicators. Socio-political questions such as strikes, protests, nonparticipation in elections and other forms of protest are not addressed. The evaluation allows citizens to tell pollsters how satisfied they are with the medical and educational systems, and with the activity of local or regional authorities. But in all other matters, people are treated as a labor force in need of constant care by the authorities.
The only demographic item on the list concerns the death rate. Any mention of the unusually low birthrate is conveniently avoided, although data on migration trends might well have served as an effective indicator of the quality of life.
Nothing is included regarding the court system, objections against decisions made by the public prosecutor or inappropriate actions by authorities. Moreover, no attempt is made to assess how authorities interact with the citizens. Of course, no mention is made of one of the Kremlin’s primary criteria for measuring a governor’s loyalty and effectiveness, which is the number of votes garnered in the region for United Russia candidates and the president. Neither is any opportunity given for citizens to record their grievances against government agencies and public officials. We can only speculate that these issues will be included in future versions of the evaluation.
It would seem that the list of 43 overly broad criteria is designed more to allow governors to sing their own praises than to provide an objective evaluation of their administrations. This is a throwback to the Soviet era, but it has even deeper roots in pre-revolutionary history, when it was common for regional authorities to be viewed not as managers, but as lords, answerable to the Kremlin for every soul under their custodianship. Practically no criteria can be found on the list regarding administrative performance — this can instead be inferred from the state of affairs in the regions, or from budgetary expenses.
In the end, it remains unclear how an overall evaluation can be made based on this list of odd criteria, much less how to do it by the Aug. 1 deadline stipulated in the president’s decree. The previous system of direct elections was a more objective method by which voters — those most concerned with the performance of the governors and their teams — made their evaluation.
The obvious political nature of the president’s decree does not specify the method by which governors should evaluate their own performance. Regional authorities must present their first reports by Sept. 1 — that is, three months before State Duma elections and six months before the presidential election. It can be assumed that a battle for numbers and their positive interpretation will now ensue. This will certainly be followed by an effort on the part of those governors who have been fined by Moscow for various offenses (which includes most of them) to outdo themselves in proving their effectiveness to the Kremlin.
The decree might influence the quality of statistics as well. The dynamic of many indicators will probably look something like the teeth of a saw, with a sharp drop the moment one governor leaves office and a gradual rise under his or her successor. We will certainly witness numerous public disclosures of past misdeeds by predecessors. After all, new governors have a vested interest in casting the accomplishments of the previous officeholders in as negative a light as possible, and then proceeding to tout their own accomplishments year after year.
What is important is not only the presidential decree itself, but its execution. Ideal criteria for monitoring administrative effectiveness do not exist; the important thing is how they are used. An objective approach would also go a long way in helping the president’s commission to improve state management and the judicial system. But the commission must first develop objective methods for evaluating the effectiveness of authorities’ performance using the criteria provided, and then analyze their findings and report on each region. At the same time, it is necessary to understand what can be accomplished, and this depends on how responsive various indicators are to this or that administrative action over time. And every assessment must take into account objective factors in each region, such as geographic, economic and ethno-cultural considerations. If scientists and other experts were to participate in the evaluation process along with state officials, the public might learn a great deal of new information about itself. In any case, perfecting the science of analyzing the performance of an elected official is the government’s social obligation.

Nikolai Petrov is a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

TITLE: Science Funding Down to a Science
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: I continue to be fascinated by Russia’s foray into the nanotechnology business. The government has allocated 130 billion rubles ($6.9 billion) for the project and installed Mikhail Kovalchuk, who has close ties to President Vladimir Putin that stretch way back, to head up the project.
The funds set aside for nanotechnology will be channeled to the project in two ways. The first method can be characterized as follows: A man approaches his boss with a proposal.
“I’ve got an idea for a project requiring 100 million rubles in funding, of which you and I can pocket 80 million.”
“Sounds great,” his boss replies, “but how can we make it look good on paper?”
“Just say we’re building a photoreactive nanorefractometer.”
“And how will we explain the absence of a refractometer?” the boss asks.
“Just say it didn’t work out.”
The money is allocated, divvied up, and deposited in Swiss bank accounts. End of story.
The second method works like this: An idealistic young researcher approaches the program director and says, “I want to build carbon nanotubes for the good of Mother Russia.”
“What are those?” his boss asks.
“They can work as transistors!” the researcher enthuses. “They are logical structures, and ...”
The boss is ecstatic. Not only can he steal the discovery, but now he has something to justify his pay.
“How much did you say you needed?” the boss asks.
When the idealistic researcher returns for the money, he discovers the director is either too busy to meet him or that he must fill out endless forms to obtain even part of the funds.
Three months later, the director brings in his nephew as project deputy director. The nephew is a drunk who rarely comes to work, and when he does, throws his feet up on his desk and asks the researcher, “So, where are the results? I’ve got my eye on a Nobel Prize.”
Six months later, members of the secret police show up. They claim that the researcher has earned himself a good 10 years behind bars for sharing restricted nanotechnology with colleagues in the United States. But for $10 million in cash they would be willing to forget all about it.
A year after the project’s start, the director shows up trailing an entourage of officials. Pointing to a formula on the blackboard, he asks the researcher, “What’s that written there?”
“That’s oxygen,” replies the researcher.
“Are you sure it isn’t hydrogen?” the director asks. He doesn’t care if it’s the formula for pudding, as long as everybody sees that he’s in charge.
Soon a new deputy director appears, insisting they purchase tunneling microscopes from a particular firm. The researcher is puzzled, since the firm in question normally deals in imported chicken legs. “And what of it?!” the director shoots back. “My sister runs that company, and that’s all that matters.” The contract is signed, but in place of tunneling microscopes, they get MRI tomographs, costing more than even a cyclotron. In the end, the various deputy directors have either bought themselves villas in Switzerland, left for research labs in the United States, or been jailed on trumped-up treason charges connected with sensitive technology.
Five years later comes news that the researcher who immigrated to the United States has created computers based on nanotube technology, making him the country’s youngest billionaire.
The point of this story is that in the quest for funding the first of these methods is by far the simplest, and comes across better than the second in the competitive bidding process. In the same way that light travels from one point to another along the shortest path, budgetary funds travel from government coffers to Swiss bank accounts along the path that takes the least time.
It’s a very particular science.

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

TITLE: Go west
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With the reburial this week of eight Soviet World War II-era soldiers in a military cemetery in Tallinn, after they were identified and given an honorable funeral, the diplomatic conflict between Russia and Estonia over the monument to the unknown Soviet soldier (which served as the original grave and was moved to the cemetery from a spot downtown in a move widely seen as insulting by Russians) could have been resolved — yet the Russian ambassador in Estonia continued the spat by refusing to attend the ceremony.
However, amid the Kremlin’s anti-Estonia rhetoric, the Baltic country shows its openness and has plenty to offer to visitors — Russians among them. 
Russians may prefer to spend vacations in Turkey, with its obvious warm seaside pleasures and hordes of compatriots, but there is a real gem just next door. A close neighbor of St. Petersburg, Estonia and its capital Tallinn were once visited en masse by locals who saw it as the closest most of them could get to the West in the closed Soviet Union. 
Even under the Soviets, with many historic buildings destroyed in Russian towns, the city managed to keep much of its identity, saved its unique medieval architecture and was famous for its cafes, whipped cream and Vana Tallinn liquor. (The other attraction was commodities such as children’s clothes, textiles and electronic parts that were in shortage elsewhere under the planned economy.)
Tallinn is one of the three places “one can live in,” alongside Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and New York, according to the late Russian writer Sergei Dovlatov, who moved to the city from Leningrad in 1972 and spent several years there working as a hack journalist for Tallinn’s Russian-language newspapers. However, due to interference from the KGB, Dovlatov failed to publish a book of his real writings — even under Estonia’s more relaxed censorship. 
His stint there was later documented in his hilarious yet bitter novella “Compromise” (1981) in which he took some of his false and bleak Soviet-style newspaper articles (a sharp contrast to the fine style of his short stories, some of them later picked by The New Yorker) and conveyed the true stories behind them. 
Dovlatov emigrated in 1979 and lived in New York, working for emigrant newspapers and on Radio Liberty until he died there in 1990. His Tallinn house at 41 Vabriku, where he lived between 1972 and 1975, was adorned with a plaque in 2003.
Estonia has been a member of the European Union (and NATO) since 2004, so visitors from many countries can enter with no visa, but Russians still need one. If a tour is less than five days, no invitation is needed, if it is longer the best solution is to go to a tourist agency, such as Nordic Star (16/5 Bolshaya Monetnaya Ulitsa, Tel: +7 812 44 85 444, www.nordicstar.ru). Although Estonia was expected to join the Euro zone earlier this year, this was postponed for economic reasons, so the country’s national currency is still Estonian kroon (EEK), pegged to the euro (1 euro is 15.65 kroons). 1 kroon is around 2.2 Russian rubles, which makes the calculation easy.
While keeping the best of its character, Estonia has changed drastically since Dovlatov’s time. 
After regaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the country now has much to offer to a visitor, as a recent trip for journalists organized by Enterprise Estonia, an institution within the national support system for entrepreneurship in Estonia, showed. Designed to show off what’s new in the Estonian tourist industry, the trip started at St. Petersburg’s Vitebsky Railway Station where a new train departs. The service was launched on March 31, replacing the old St. Petersburg-Tallinn train service which had been abolished in 2004. 
Tallinn was the scene of Kremlin-backed protests against the moving of the World War II monument, known as the Bronze Soldier, in late April. The protests quickly turned into riots, accompanied by vandalism and looting. A month later there was almost no trace of the events, except for an occasional broken shop window fixed with plywood. The monument is settled in its new location at the well-kept, quiet and green Estonian defense forces’ cemetery; its former position in the center was a painful reminder to Estonians about the thousands killed or sent to Gulag in the 1940s and the decades of the Soviet occupation that followed. The Soviet and German occupations and the fate of the repressed Estonians are the subject of the Museum of Occupations (Toompea 8. Tel: +372 6680250. www.okupatsioon.ee.)
A UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site since 1997, Tallinn’s Old Town looks like a colorful postcard from the Middle Ages, especially during the Old Town festival in late May-early June, when a fair is in full swing on Raekoja plats (Town Hall square) while groups of young people dressed in traditional clothes roam through the center, banging drums and playing folk instruments. Bands perform on a stage on the main square, while tourists sit around in pavement cafes. 
Dovlatov’s characters preferred Armenian cognac, the all-Soviet alcoholic hit, but Estonia’s main traditional drink is beer, alongside “small beer” (a low- or non-alcoholic drink similar to kvass) and milk. Originally produced at home, in abbeys and castles, beer is an integral part of Estonian culture, and even though it was somewhat degraded under the Soviets, it has been revived since independence in 1991 and is available everywhere on tap or bottled and canned. Of the seven major breweries, Saku is the oldest, biggest and best-known, with Tartu’s A. Le Coq coming second. Also, many restaurants have house beer produced on site. Beer House, a pub-cum-brewery, offers seven kinds of beer, from the classic Pilsner Gold to the sweetish Medovar Honey Original (Dunkri 5. Tel: +372 644 2222. www.beerhouse.ee.)
Estonian traditional cuisine is based, naturally, on what this land with its more than 1,150 lakes, 3,794 kilometers of coastline and woods (48 percent of the territory) produced — fish, meat, vegetables and milk. Over the centuries Estonia incorporated the food habits of the country’s neighbors and invaders, and its cuisine is in many ways similar to German and Russian traditions, with meat, sauerkraut, potatoes, bread, and milk products forming its solid base. Back-to-basics Estonian dishes, in huge amounts, are on offer in such restaurants as the basement Kuldse Notsu Korts. 
The three-floor Olde Hansa is a more exotic and intricate affair, built around the Middle Ages and offering such dishes as “The Honorable Cook Frederic’s game sausages made from Bear, Wild Boar and Elk, figs and almonds” (195 EEK) and “Bear (marinated in rare spices and cooked over a fire in honor of Waldemar II, the King of Denmark)” (650 EEK). The place boasts sturdy wooden tables and benches, medieval music, candle light and waitresses wearing medieval linen dresses. 
Today, some of Estonia’s best restaurants tend to keep the land’s traditions, but add some European culinary sophistication to it. This is the credo of Dimitri Demjanov, the chef and owner of Gloria, one of the best-known restaurants in Tallinn. The place has entertained such world leaders as Tony Blair and almost every president who ever visited the city, as well as pop stars, from The Rolling Stones to Sting, according to Demjanov.
“No high-ranking visitors from Russia have been here so far,” he added.

The St. Petersburg Times was a guest of the Estonian Tourist Board, Enterprise Estonia (Liivalaia 13/15, 10118 Tallinn, Estonia. Tel: +372 6279 770). www.eas.ee, www.visitestonia.com.

<b>INFORMATION</b>

How To Get There
The GO Rail company operates a daily train service between Tallinn and St. Petersburg, with coupe, seated carriage and "Emperor's Lounge," a luxury car for five or six passengers with breakfast and coffee available. It departs from Vitebsk Station in St. Petersburg at 6:57 a.m. Moscow time and leaves Tallinn to return at 3:30 p.m. Tallinn time (www.gorail.ee)
The alternative is a Eurolines bus. These depart from Baltiisky Station eight times a day, between 6:45 a.m. and 11:20 p.m. (www.eurolines.ee) 

Where To Stay
Hotel Telegraaf, a new downtown luxury hotel located in the remodeled building of an old telephone station 120 meters from Town Hall Square, is themed around wire and telephone communication and comes complete with spa facilities and the restaurant Tchaikovsky offering a "symphony of Russian cuisine." (Vene 9, Tel: +372 600 0600. www.telegraafhotel.com) 
The St. Petersbourg Hotel is a small hotel right in the center with 27 art-deco-styled suites and guest rooms. Claiming to be the city's oldest surviving hotel since the 1900s, it was renovated and given back its original name in the late 1990s. (Rataskaevu 7, Tel: +372 628 6500. www.schlossle-hotels.com/st.petersbourg) 
On the cheaper side, there are a large number of hotels, guesthouses and bed-and-breakfast facilities that can be found on www.visitestonia.com.

Where To Eat
Olde Hansa, a three-story medieval restaurant offering game (wild boar, bear, hare, elk), fish, poultry, fruits and sauces, house wines, beers and liquors (Vana turg 1, Tel: +372 627 9020. www.oldehansa.com). 
Gloria, a gourmet restaurant developed on the basis of traditional Estonian  food with some Russian elements by owner and chef Dimitri Demjanov. (Muurivahe 2, Tel: +372 6 446 950. www.gloria.ee)

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: <b>Elton John</b>, who is on an European tour, will perform on Palace Square on Friday. 
The British singer and pianist’s open-air concert is being promoted by PMI, the company behind the Rolling Stones’ local concert, scheduled to be held in the same location on July 28.
John was the first genuine international rock performer to tour the Soviet Union in 1979, performing four concerts in Moscow and four in St.Petersburg.
Arranged as part of a Soviet-British cultural exchange, John appeared mild enough to communist cultural officials not to cause a revolution.
At that time, after releasing an album called “Single Man,” John performed some of his show solo and some of it with percussionist Ray Cooper.
He returned to St. Petersburg in 2001 to perform at a strange, Moscow bank-promoted, dinner-jacket-only charity event at a former royal palace in Pushkin, where he played for around 600 celebrities and businessmen.
Although a mainstream pop monster now, John recorded some truly brilliant albums and has always been reputed to have an ear for interesting new music, being an ardent supporter of punk rock in the late 1970s and performing Marc Bolan 's “Children of the Revolution ”with former Libertine Pete Doherty at Live 8 in 2005.
The duet turned out to be perhaps the only lively and entertaining piece at the mostly boring television event,which had the reformed Pink Floyd as its main attraction.
More rock monsters come to town this week, as <b>Aerosmith</b> performs at the Peterburgsky Sports and Concert Complex on Tuesday. The ticket-selling website www.kassir.ru is charging between 1,500 and 15,000 rubles ($58-$580) for John and between 1,000 and 10,000 ($39-$390) for Aerosmith. Who says that Russians are not rich?
There are a couple of alternatives to Elton John on Friday. The Ladybug Transistor, the Brooklyn-based band described by the New Musical Express as “orchestral pop” for example are due to perform at The Place.
“An intelligent, sensitive and no doubt impeccably dressed five-piece, TLT are the last word in well-crafted pleasantness,” wrote the magazine.
“Songs saunter contentedly along, equal parts butterscotch and benevolence, living in a gentle, pastoral ’60s that never really existed.” 
Unfortunately, the band’s MySpace website does not allow to listen to their mp3 tracks if you are outside the U.S.
The week’s other offers include the local Afro-beat band <b>Simba Vibration</b> (The Other Side, Friday and Zoccolo, Saturday), the soul-funk band <b>J.D. and the Blenders</b> (Achtung Baby, Saturday), the art-rock bands <b>Vermicelli Orchestra</b> (JFC Jazz Club, Saturday) and <b>NOM</b> (Orlandina, Sunday). 

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Woke up this morning...
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Surprises, discoveries and many debuts are expected to take place in the historical setting of the Yusupov Garden this Saturday as the Fifth International Neva Delta Blues Festival comes to town to try and show that Russians can not only appreciate this musical genre, but also create it. 
In Russia, although the country is far away from the United States, the birthplace of blues, the music is nevertheless popular. The reason behind this phenomenon is blues’ universality, organizers of the festival say. 
“Blues embraces everything that a Russian person craves for — love, sincerity and beauty,” the festival’s president and artistic director, Sergei “Steve” Nekrasov said, briefing journalists Monday.
“The best song is the one that comes out of your experience and your heart, because blues as well as folklore is a musical reflection of our culture — how we live, how we love, what we go through, what moves us, how we behave not for the cameras, or when other people are around but when we are left alone,” Nekrasov added.
“Such maestros as Mike Naumenko [the St. Petersburg-based cult musician who performed in the 1980s] have already shown that indeed blues can be sung in Russian and sound as sincere, deep and natural as it does in when it is sung in English,” Nekrasov said, adding that this year’s festival will feature less cover versions and more original songs. 
Despite calling itself an “international” event, the overwhelming majority of its participants come from Russia and include such local bands as Old Fashion, Jungle Jam, Blues Clan, Dyadya Sam and the Moscow-based Mishouris & His Swinging Orchestra, Rocking Dead, Doctor Agranovsky and Yury Koverkin. Roots, blues, folk and classical music are all part of the program. 
The event will also feature Keith Dunn, the U.S.-based blues harp player, who, according to Nekrasaov is a well-known performer both in America and Europe.
“Dunn just released an absolutely extraordinary album, featuring no musicians apart from his voice, his harmonica, and his feet tapping,” Nekrasov said. “This is very unusual and fascinating because one would think such limited mediums of expression [might be boring], but this album is actually very absorbing. You will see it and hear it for yourself at the festival,” he said. 
A performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue by the St. Petersburg State Academy Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fabio Mastrangelo is said to provide a “fitting culmination” to the festival.
“Me and Sergei [Nekrasov] had the idea of combining blues and classical performers in one festival to get the music to more people and, most importantly to unite the musicians,” Rinat Shakirov, a soloist who is planning to appear at the festival, said. “So the performance of the Gershwin’s Rhapsody is in a way the beginning of this uniting process.”
“This experiment is very interesting firstly because Fabio Mastrangelo is an unusually luminous and sunny conductor. I think everyone who comes to the festival will see how colorful the orchestra sounds in his hands,” he said.  
The musical heritage of Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein and the work of other composers who drew on blues and jazz culture will also be featured.

The Neva Delta Blues festival will take place from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday at the Yusupov Garden, 50A Sadovaya Ulitsa. For more details:  Tel: 571 5058, 315 274, www.nevadelta.ru

TITLE: Modern Cinderellas
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: An up-and-coming 28-year-old Canadian choreographer, whose professional ambition is to reform the classical heroine from a perfect but brainless princess into an intelligent, sophisticated, yet still beautiful character, makes his debut at the Mariinsky Theater on Saturday with “Aria Suspended,” an unorthodox take on Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony in C.

TITLE: 100 years of Frida
AUTHOR: By Julie Watson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MEXICO CITY — Tormented Mexican painter Frida Kahlo meticulously painted blood, gore and her emotional suffering. Yet curators recently discovered she lived playfully, spending hours with puppets acting out scenes in a childlike theater.
As she challenged conventional ideas of beauty, she boldly flaunted her unibrow and mustache, yet kept photos of bikini-clad women and beefy, chisled-faced sailors.
Mexico’s celebration of the centennial anniversary of her birth this summer demonstrates there is still much to learn about one of its most revered 20th-century icons, whose life and self-portraits have inspired books, plays and even the 2002 Hollywood film, “Frida,” starring Salma Hayek.
To mark the anniversary, curators have carefully selected for public display a small representation of the thousands of keepsakes, notes, sketches and clothing found in 2004 at her former family-home-turned-museum in Mexico City.
The discovery, including the puppet theater and photos, confronts widely held beliefs of the eccentric wife of muralist Diego Rivera. Part of the new find will be on display at the Casa Azul from Friday, under the exhibit name “The Treasures of the Blue House, Frida and Diego.”
If “Every mind is a world” as the old Mexican adage goes, Kahlo’s was a vast universe that art researchers say they have only started to understand and will spend decades more exploring, 100 years after her birth.
“This discovery has raised a lot of doubts and reshaped many things,” said curator Ricardo Perez, who is part of a team of five experts overseeing the findings. “Concerning Frida, there are a lot of surprises.”
Kahlo spent a lifetime building her image as a mythical, self-possessed and often defiant figure who was openly bisexual and had an affair with Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. 
She dressed in elaborately embroidered Tehuana Indian dresses and even scratched out the date on her birth certificate, making herself three years younger so she could say she was born in 1910, the year of the Mexican revolution.
But researchers are uncovering an optimistic, studious and even playful side of Kahlo that rarely is reflected in the self-portraits that make up her best-known work.
Perez, who has analyzed and studied the lives of Rivera and Kahlo for more than 50 years, said the puppet theater was among the biggest surprises and “is a testimony to the child inside Frida her entire life.”
The theater was part of a collection of items locked away in trunks and cabinets, covered in tape, and behind bathroom walls in the Casa Azul, or The Blue House. Rivera left instructions asking the caretakers of his trust not to open them until 15 years after his death in 1957.
But Dolores Olmedo, a patron of Rivera, let the collection be, fearing it could contain personal information that would compromise the couple’s image, said her son, Carlos Phillips Olmedo, who runs several museums, including The Blue House.
Curators opened the trunks in 2004, a year after Olmedo’s death.
What they found was mind-boggling: 22,105 documents, 5,387 photos, 179 pieces of clothing, more than 6,000 magazines and books, and personal items such as X-rays of Kahlo’s fractured back, a trolley bus ticket and a note with a lipstick-stained kiss.
Investigators say it unleashed a deluge of questions. 
Who took the photo of Kahlo posing seductively in her bed, partly covered by a sheet? 
Why did Kahlo apparently fold in half a photo of herself hugging Rivera’s first wife, Guadalpue Marin, rather than rip it to shreds?
Kahlo’s letters reveal her jealous side. In one, she calls Rivera’s suspected mistresses “old hags” and says they make her want to vomit.
“The investigation of Frida and Diego is in its initial stages,” Perez said. “Their lives offer an endless fountain of research.”
Kahlo was never afraid to be vulnerable. Disabled in a bus crash and having survived polio as a child, she suffered physical and emotional pain throughout her short life. Her self-portraits helped her deal with her rocky marriage, her miscarriages and the nearly three dozen operations she underwent before her death at the age of 47.
That ability to display vulnerability in her paintings is why many believe Kahlo today rivals Rivera and other great Mexican muralists in popularity. 
Her paintings are now used in therapy groups, and she is held up as one of the world’s early feminists.

TITLE: Secret confessions
AUTHOR: By Katherine Shonk
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “Oh, I love writing! Now I’ve written this, I feel calmer, as though some invisible hand has tidied up everything in my heart so that there’s not a single little thing left to worry me.”
Thirteen-year-old Muscovite Nina Lugovskaya wrote this passage early in the diary that she began in 1932. For the next five years, many more worries, both little and big, sent Nina to her diary, her one confidante. Only intermittently did writing seem to alleviate her frustrations and loneliness. And, as it turned out, the turmoil of adolescence was only a prelude to greater troubles.
Historian Irina Osipova discovered Nina’s diary, which spanned three thick notebooks, within the KGB archives — a remarkable find, given Nina’s flair as a writer and the fact that the authorities destroyed most confiscated diaries and letters. In 2003, the Moscow-based publisher Glas first printed an edited version of Nina’s diary in English as “The Diary of a Soviet Schoolgirl.” Now Houghton Mifflin’s children’s division is releasing a new translation by Andrew Bromfield with the title “I Want to Live.” Post-entry commentaries fill out the context of Nina’s life and, in a chilling touch, the passages underlined by NKVD security-police censors are printed in bold type.
When the diary opens, Nina’s father, Sergei Rybin, has just returned from three years’ exile in Siberia for counterrevolutionary activities. Nina goes on to recount — sometimes offhandedly, sometimes adding murderous threats against Josef Stalin — how her father was exiled again and imprisoned. In January 1937, the NKVD searched their Moscow apartment and confiscated Nina’s notebooks, among other papers. Soon after, Nina, her mother and her older twin sisters were arrested, interrogated and sentenced to five years’ hard labor in a Kolyma prison camp.
The NKVD used both personal and political passages in Nina’s diary against her and her family. “I didn’t poison myself... I still want to live too much,” she wrote at age 15, the emphasis added by the censors. Suicidal ideation was considered a “thought crime” against the state, the editors explain.
Nina worried about her diary being discovered, but she was as concerned about embarrassment as she was about imprisonment. “What if there’s a sudden search and they happen to find it and come across the absolutely unprintable words about Stalin? And what if the police spies get their hands on it? They’ll read it and laugh at my nonsense about love.” In fact, Nina’s mother later scanned the diary “because she was afraid of finding something counterrevolutionary in it.” Nina dutifully scratched out some of the more incriminating passages, but not enough of them to save her family.
Inevitably, Nina has been dubbed “a Russian Anne Frank.” The two girls did have much in common, including their age, their sensitivity and talent, their era and the abrupt silence that follows the final entry in their diaries. Both Anne and Nina were buffeted by new, confusing feelings, ecstasy and despair. Misunderstood by their parents and friends, they dreamed of becoming writers. “I spend my time observing,” Nina wrote. “I watch everything that happens and try to engrave it all on my memory.”
Yet after going into hiding, Anne Frank saw another purpose for her diary. Planning to use it as the basis for a book she would write after the war, she took copious notes on daily life in the “Secret Annex.” Compare this to Nina’s comments: “In my opinion, a diary is an unnecessary and superfluous thing that provides no benefits, and is therefore harmful. A diary cannot develop your style. It won’t be any use to posterity, so what is it for?”
Whether read by the police or by her family after her death, Nina felt her diary could cause nothing but trouble. “Naturally, not finding any [suicide] note,” she wrote, “everybody will go dashing to [my diary] as the only explanation for such a strange act. They’ll start reading it, judging it and making fun of it... And even though I’ll be dead, it’s still unpleasant to know that they’ll start abusing me and calling me a stupid, shallow little girl, a sentimental dreamer and depressive.”
Perhaps because Nina saw no historical merit in her diary, “I Want to Live” ultimately feels most vital as a chronicle of the tortures of adolescence — a defiant, even hopeful cry for help. It would be a shame if adults interested in Russian history overlooked this important book, yet teenaged girls may have the most to gain from Nina’s private musings. “I’m 15 years old,” she writes, “and they say these are the best years of your life. That’s not the way I feel. When I was younger, I was so happy in my childish stupidity and naivete ... Now I’ve realized that happiness is nonsense, it doesn’t exist in this world, you can never find it. ... It’s a delusion, a mirage.”
Nina was cross-eyed, a condition that made her feel like “an ugly freak.” Her classmates mocked her for it, and the fact that she was two years older than them (for reasons not explained in the book) was another source of shame. Throughout the diary Nina falls hard for one boy after another and is ignored by all of them. The story of her infatuation with an older boy named Zhenya G. unfolds in painful detail; eventually it becomes clear that he is actually smitten with one of Nina’s older sisters. Twice, Nina followed through on her suicidal thoughts, swallowing medicinal opium stolen from her grandmother, but the doses were only strong enough to give her stomachaches. 
“Today I read some of the entries and, I must confess, I felt ashamed: pessimism and boys, boys and pessimism,” she wrote in 1936. Yet Nina was not just a self-absorbed adolescent. She read the forbidden publications that her father brought home and, unlike her sisters and classmates, formed strong and dangerous opinions about issues such as collectivization and the role of women. She challenged a teacher on Stalin’s education reforms and started a petition at school when the day off was changed. Ironically, given that she and her family became victims of the purges, in 1934, she admitted to feeling “joy” at the news of Leningrad Party head Sergei Kirov’s murder.
Also leavening Nina’s moody self-incriminations are deft portraits of 1930s-era Moscow and fascinating accounts of historical events, such as the crash of a “stratosphere balloon” launched to honor the 17th Party Congress and the Arctic rescue saga of the steamship Cheliuskin. In one tantalizing passage from 1933, Nina described possibly catching a glimpse of Stalin visiting his wife’s grave. And, each April, Nina delighted in the first winds of spring.
Nina, her mother, and her sisters survived Kolyma. In exile, Nina married a fellow political prisoner, Viktor Templin. Little is known of Nina’s life beyond age 18, but it is a relief to know that, after her years of longing, she apparently enjoyed a long marriage to an artistic equal. She died in 1993 at the age of 74, having outlived the Soviet Union.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Last week, the tabloid Tvoi Den printed exclusive photographs supposedly taken from a sex tape featuring It Girl Ksenia Sobchak and hip-hop artist Timati. Green-tinged, with the couple’s eyes glowing eerily, these looked like outtakes from “The Blair Witch Project” but still seemed to be a fantastic scoop — the local equivalent of the notorious “One Night in Paris Hilton” film. The only slightly worrying element was the plug for the participants’ “joint music video” buried at the end of the article.
As far as the tabloids are concerned, Sobchak and Timati are an official item. That is, they turn up together at parties attended by tabloid photographers. They are also musical partners who recorded a song together called “Dance!” One is a publicity-hungry socialite-cum-television presenter; the other is a publicity-hungry rapper who came to national fame as a participant in Channel One television’s music contest Star Factory. His real name is Timur but he switched to the more streetwise Timati.
Sobchak provided the Russian voice for Paris Hilton’s starring role in the sorority comedy “Pledge This!” and, like the blonde heiress, has starred in a reality show and created a signature perfume. Staging a fake porn shoot to complete the resemblance might seem a bit extreme, but some skeptics immediately accused Ksyusha of doing just that.
Tvoi Den sacrificed a whole centerfold to a shot-by-shot analysis of the film. First Ksenia is pictured licking her finger, then she’s sitting on a bed wearing flowery underwear, then there are close-ups of her lying down. The largest photos show the most apparently compromising material: Ksenia arching topless above a man unseen except for one knee, then a shot of a man wearing some interestingly patterned boxer shorts with his head down around her thighs.
The accompanying text — which doesn’t explain how Tvoi Den acquired the material — says the “home video” was filmed by Timati. It even includes some of their dialogue. “Come on baby, let’s put this thing there and get down to business,” the rapper purrs, perhaps referring to the camera. Then Ksenia talks dirty, saying he looks “okh...no,” as the tabloid puts it, too shy to print some juicy Russian mat. She adds: “I feel like I am in a bad German porn film.” 
The problem is, this porn looks suspiciously professional. The photos are taken from varying angles — and so presumably by a third party, unless Tiger Timati kept leaping up to adjust the camera. The tabloid boasts that Timati has Ksenia’s underwear “on the floor in a matter of seconds,” but all except one of the photos seem to show her semi-clothed. And there’s that plug for the couple’s music, saying the rapper wanted the material to be used in “their joint video,” although adding that Ksenia refused.
Tvoi Den placed a link to the sex video on its web site. Unfortunately it was blocked by Friday afternoon, but some readers managed to watch the film and left their comments. And they weren’t bowled over by the pair’s erotic artistry. One disgusted reader said that “Ksenia has made a cheap parody of Paris Hilton and given it to the newspaper herself.” Another called Mike complained that “Ksenia’s fully clothed. I shouldn’t have bothered downloading it.” 
After some in-depth research, I found the video — or at least part of it — on a blog. It only lasted about 80 seconds and had lots of jumpy editing. It didn’t show either star naked or doing anything that couldn’t be shown in an R’n’B video, so the jury is still out on the real-versus-fake question. If the couple really did get jiggy with it, I just hope Ksenia wasn’t knocked out by Timati’s gold chain.

TITLE: Dough not dear
AUTHOR: By Matt Brown
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Testo // 5/29 Pereulok Grivtsova. Tel: 310 8270 // Open 11 a.m. through 11 p.m. // Menu in Russian only // Lunch for two without alcohol 510 rubles ($19.60)

The popular corner of Grivtsova and Kazanskaya streets, which has seen a rash of eateries opening this year to cater for ravenous office workers and passersby, now welcomes Testo, an Italian bistro with high ambitions and low prices.
This corner used to house a Soviet-style bakery known for its multihued loaves and stomach-busting pies and perhaps Testo — which means dough in Russian — honors that legacy. The place has been thoughtfully renovated in a red and grey scheme with wooden details, and has two rooms seating about thirty guests. Bench seats built into the walls are finished with crimson tiles and made comfortable with navy blue cushions while other seating is formed by simple oaken chairs and tables. The walls and arched ceilings are painted in a soothing goose-wing tone. Low hanging lamps have shades that repeat Testo’s simple logo of a row of wine bottles, which can also be seen on the door, the menu and the long aprons worn by the waiters and waitresses. The scene is set for a light, no-frills meal composed of Italian staples: pizza, pasta, wine. 
The choice on offer is by no means enormous with a dozen or so options in each category plus a few salads and desserts. However, when ordering pasta, customers can choose which type they want from spaghetti, tagiatelli or vermicelli.  In any case, be warned: the chef clearly takes the notion of cooking pasta al dente seriously. If you are not a fan of this method, in which pasta is nearly undercooked so that it remains a bit hard, you may want to stick to the pizzas (which are altogether less interesting). Priced between 150 and 250 rubles, all the dishes are worth a try. A cream sauce with salmon and spinach sounds tempting but proved dry and tasteless, carbonara with juicy bacon and onions was a better choice while the tomato-based sauces all seemed to fit the bill. Special tall glasses of wild-smelling mint tea complement a standard drinks selection of beer, water and coffee (50 rubles, $1.90), while the wine card offers a solid roster of reds, whites and roses from Italy and beyond.
Anybody who has seen The Sopranos may be amused that a waiter at Testo bares a passing resemblance to the obsequious restaurateur Artie Bucco, however this place is quite a few notches down the dining scale from Vesuvio, that character’s mobbed-up place. Friendly and fast, the service conforms to the standards one comes increasingly to expect from St. Petersburg’s restaurants and nothing more. 
Portions are not large but satisfying, indicating that Testo is certainly a great place for lunch if you are working nearby or dinner if you happen to be passing that way but not the kind of restaurant worth make a special trip for.

TITLE: Bible story
AUTHOR: By A. O. Scott
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: “Evan Almighty,” in which Steve Carell, playing a newly elected congressman from Buffalo, is commanded by God (Morgan Freeman) to build an ark, is a movie far less interesting than its premise. 
It is also slightly less interesting than its hugely popular predecessor, “Bruce Almighty,” which starred Jim Carrey. But there is nonetheless a fruitful franchise in the making here, a potentially endless series of movies with popular, sometimes naughty comedians acting out wholesome modern-day versions of well-known Bible stories.
Think of the possibilities: In “Stan Almighty,” Freeman tells Sacha Baron Cohen to kill off one of his kids (whichever Breslin, Culkin or Fanning is furthest from puberty); in “Doug Almighty,” Will Ferrell is swallowed by a computer-generated whale; and in “Jane Almighty,” a virginal Sarah Silverman finds herself pregnant with Freeman’s child. 
Eventually, Dave Chappelle will fight the battle of Jericho and the culture wars will have officially ended.
Meanwhile we can ponder the lessons of “Evan Almighty,” which combines bland religiosity and timid environmentalism into a soothing Sunday-school homily about the importance of being nice. As I understand it, the God of the Old Testament is a pretty tough deity, but it is not in Freeman’s nature to be wrathful or jealous. 
His God is more a practical joker than a smiter, and his intervention in human affairs (and in the American legislative process) more therapeutic than punitive.
At first, Evan is a twitchy, gung-ho careerist — for some reason, Carell seems to be trying out a Greg Kinnear impersonation — who drives a Hummer, neglects his family and falls under the unsavory sway of a corrupt committee chairman (John Goodman). 
Then the Lord appears, followed by truckloads of wood (funny, I always thought hickory barky barky was the traditional ark-building material) and hundreds of animals. The birds relieve themselves first on Carell, then on Goodman, who is also spat upon by an alpaca.
Both men retain their good humor. Lauren Graham, who plays Evan’s wife, Joan (get it?), has a harder time finding anything amusing to do, and the couple’s three sons (Johnny Simmons, Graham Phillips and Jimmy Bennett) barely register. 
A gaggle of gifted comic actors — Wanda Sykes, Molly Shannon, Jonah Hill — read their lines and cash their checks, and Jon Stewart has a cameo.
Carell, once again, encounters some hair-removal issues. Otherwise, most of the humor consists of cute biblical references (Shannon’s character is a real estate agent named Eve Adams), carpentry slapstick (Carell smites his thumb with a hammer or falls off a beam) and animal gags. 
There is not much in the way of wit, emotional complication or suspense, and as Evan’s initial skepticism turns to righteousness he seems to fall into a trance. 
If you feel yourself doing the same, chances are it is the result of boredom, not beatitude.

TITLE: Hamilton Heads Home As Hero
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MAGNY COURS, France — Lewis Hamilton is concerned as he heads back to England.
But he isn’t worried about this weekend’s British Grand Prix. On the track he is confident, earning top-three finishes in all eight races this season. He leads the Formula One standings by 14 points over McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso, the two-time defending world champion.
“I keep saying that I didn’t even expect to finish on the podium in my first race, let alone eight races in the season, so I am very happy with the job that I have done and the job that the team have done,” Hamilton said. “I think that going into my first Silverstone Grand Prix in the team that I have always wanted to drive for and leading the world championship is one of the greatest feelings that a driver can have.”
With the success comes attention. He is a bit uneasy about how he will handle his increased fame with the home crowd. He has gone from a virtual unknown at the start of the season to being the sport’s newest star.
“Going from almost being no one, and no one recognizing you, to having everyone recognizing you is a big step,” Hamilton said.
The 22-year-old Hamilton says the race at Silverstone this weekend causes him concern as he races Formula One in his homeland for the first time.
“I think most people would say they are happy. Some people would say they are afraid,” he said. “I am a bit in between.”
He hedged when asked whether being noticed is a nice feeling.
“I wouldn’t say it is a nice feeling, there is always positive in it knowing that you are driving and people are seeing you. It is something you have to get used to,” he said, “but I am definitely not used to it yet.”
Things have changed since the first race of the season in Australia in March, when Alonso had all the hype coming over from Renault with two world titles. Hamilton was the new guy, just up from GP2.
“I remember when I came to the first race, I didn’t really understand the expectations on me,” Hamilton said.
Then he set a record by coming third, second and second in his first three races, the first time a rookie had placed in the top three in his first three races. And things really changed after the third race in Bahrain, when he found himself in a three-way tie for first place in the standings.
“The first time I noticed the effect I was having back home was after Bahrain. I came back and people started to notice me,” Hamilton said.
Then he won races in Canada and the United States, returning to Europe at the end of June in the lead in F1.
“I came back after Indianapolis and it multiplied by about 10. People noticed me as I am driving in my car. It is really quite a strange experience. People notice me at night,” Hamilton said. “I was driving in my car and a taxi driver recognized me. It is crazy, an unusual experience.
“I don’t have any surprises (on the track),” he said. “When you are preparing for a race you know what sort of things you have to prepare for, you have other people’s experiences, the team’s experiences. You have guidelines of where you need to go and the steps forward.”
But once he gets out of the car, the outside world intrudes. Now comes a merry-go-round of sponsors, fans, expectations, interviews, all packed into three days before the British GP.
“I could probably get advice from Mikka Hakkinen or Michael Schumacher or even Fernando if they had trouble when they first had it,” Hamilton said.
He said he was conscious of the title chase and what he has done to get ahead.
“I am really surprised to see myself with such a gap and having done so well. The key is consistency and we need to make sure we score as many points as we can, not only for the drivers’ championship but the constructors’ championship,” Hamilton said. 
“The team is pushing as hard as they can for reliability and working as hard as they can to make sure I stay in the zone.”
Good results inevitably lead to higher expectations and more attention. He got a taste of that when he was cheered by 65,000 people at an auto festival two weeks ago, and when his minor accident in a go-kart generated headlines.
“There was a lot of attention there. It is just how you control it,” Hamilton said.
And with the fame comes obligations.
“There are a lot in my family who haven’t seen a Grand Prix. You know you can’t get passes for all of them,” he said. “I have a very big family.”

TITLE: Sharapova Positive in Defeat
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WIMBLEDON, England — Maria Sharapova was gracious and upbeat in defeat, perhaps because she has had a fair amount of experience this year with such one-sided losses.
Still seeking her first title in 2007, Sharapova lost Wednesday in the fourth round at Wimbledon to Venus Williams, 6-1, 6-3. It was the Russian’s earliest exit at the All England Club since she won the tournament at age 17 in 2004.
“It’s always special being on Centre Court, knowing I’ve held that plate before when I was young,” said Sharapova, now a sage veteran of 20. “I definitely know I have it in me. I have so many years ahead of me. I’ll be back, and I’ll be stronger, and I’ll win it again.”
First she must regain her championship form, and eliminate a yearlong tendency to play poorly in big matches. She won only three games against Serena Williams in the Australian Open final, won two games against Serena in a rematch at Key Biscayne, Florida, and won three games against Ana Ivanovic in the French Open semifinals.
In short, the year has been a disappointing sequel for the 2006 U.S. Open champion.
Sharapova has struggled with her serve, in part because of a nagging shoulder injury. She plans to undergo scans on the shoulder as a precaution and said she didn’t know when she’ll be fully healed.
“I’ve been able to play my matches almost without pain,” Sharapova said. “It’ll be important the next few weeks before the hard court season that I do a lot of strength work and keep doing the treatment.
“It’s getting better. Next time I’ll be on court, better watch out.”
Also leaving the tournament ailing was two-time champion Serena Williams, who considered pulling out of her quarterfinal match against top-ranked Justine Henin, decided to play and lost 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
Williams played despite a strained left calf and sprained left thumb, both heavily wrapped.
“Definitely not 100 percent,” she said. “It was probably at 40 or 50, max.”
Both of her injuries occurred during a dramatic match Monday against Daniela Hantuchova, when Williams hobbled to victory. Her father and coach, Richard, said he and a doctor advised her against playing again because she was risking further injury.
“It was really a last-minute decision to go out,” Serena said. “I would have felt bad if I didn’t at least try. I mean this is the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. You can’t give up.”
Williams did pull out of doubles, where she and sister Venus had won their first-round match.
That leaves Venus in singles to represent the family. The three-time champion outserved Sharapova in her best performance this year.
“I kept fighting,” Sharapova said. “You always hope for a little door to open, and you try to sneak in. Today I couldn’t find an opening.”
With the schedule in disarray because of rain on eight of the first nine days, four of the remaining six women were to play quarterfinal matches Thursday, with Williams facing Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Ivanovic playing fellow teenager Nicole Vaidisova.
In the semifinals Friday, Henin will face No. 18 Marion Bartoli, who beat Michaella Krajicek 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
All 12 remaining men were scheduled to play Thursday, including four-time defending champion Roger Federer, idle since Friday after his fourth-round opponent withdrew. He was to face Juan Carlos Ferrero in the quarterfinals.
Advancing Wednesday to the fourth round was three-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal, who finished off Robin Soderling 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (7), 4-6, 7-5 more than 90 hours after they first stepped on court. The match was stopped because of rain six times.
Novak Djokovic also reached the fourth round in a match that took three days. Andy Roddick advanced to the quarterfinals, saving three set points in the final set to beat Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-2, 7-5, 7-6 (6). Roddick said he didn’t know whether Federer’s long layoff will be a disadvantage for him.
“We’ve been stuck in a locker room for nine hours a day, and he’s been chilling out taking the double-decker bus tour, maybe,” Roddick said. “Given the choice, I’ll take a living room over a locker room.”

TITLE: Tiger’s Tourney Tees Off
AUTHOR: Joseph White
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BETHESDA, Maryland — At 6:30 a.m. on a pristine Fourth of July, tournament host Tiger Woods teed off with a solider and an airman to open the pro-am. The gallery that followed them was bigger than any that trailed the leaders in the early rounds of last year’s Washington-area PGA Tour stop, the Booz Allen Classic.
At No. 7, Woods asked Sgt. Michael Woods, the special guest caddie for the hole, to read a 12-foot birdie putt. Woods then handed the sergeant the club and said: “Here you go.” The surprised and nervous sergeant sank the putt, Woods thrust his arms in the air, and the crowd went wild.
At 11:28 a.m., former President George Bush, who arrived on a golf cart driven by Woods, provided the highlight of a star-spangled opening ceremony by hitting a drive at the first tee of the famed Blue Course, whose holes were marked by pins with miniature American flags instead of the usual hole numbers. 
It was all so perfect, especially for a tournament that didn’t exist as of five months ago — and in an area that thought it had lost its spot on the tour for many years to come.
The inaugural AT&T National — more commonly known as Tiger’s Tournament — began Thursday, and the stars have aligned quickly to make it the biggest sporting event for the nation’s capital since Major League Baseball’s return in 2005. It features the sport’s top name, one of its best courses, a military tie-in surrounding the most patriotic of holidays and an impressive field of golfers Eight-time tour winner Fred Funk did his best for years to wave the banner for the PGA Tour’s annual trip to Washington. 
He was upset last year when news came that the Booz Allen Classic was being taken off the calendar, a casualty of inconsistent scheduling, a much-derided TPC at Avenel course and general apathy among the top players.
It took a remarkable sequence of events to turn things around. Woods began showing interest two years ago in hosting a tournament — similar to Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial and the Arnold Palmer Invitational — but the PGA Tour had a full roster set through 2012.
“I was very interested,” Commissioner Tim Finchem said. “But I didn’t see it happening for a period of time.”
Then the Booz Allen Classic lost its sponsor, which wasn’t happy about plans to move the tournament to the fall. 
The tour then took Washington off its calendar for 2007.
In February, the International in Denver was canceled because it couldn’t find a sponsor. That left a hole in the schedule this weekend. Enter Woods, whose charitable foundation and the tour worked furiously to line up a sponsor and began courting the membership at Congressional.
In a matter of days, the deals were struck.
“What we’ve done here in such a short span of time,” Woods said, “has been absolutely remarkable.”

TITLE: Torres Completes Record Move from Atletico to Anfield
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LIVERPOOL, England — Fernando Torres believes he is the goal scorer to bring the English league title back to Liverpool for the first time since 1990.
Signed from Atletico Madrid on a six-year deal for a reported 20.3 million pounds ($40.6 million) Wednesday, Torres will wear the No. 9 shirt worn by Liverpool greats Ian Rush and Robbie Fowler.
Rush is Liverpool’s all-time scoring leader with 346 goals in 660 games, while Fowler is known as “God” to Reds fans after passing the 30-goal mark in successive seasons in the 1990s after scoring 18 in his debut term. But Torres doesn’t feel burdened by either his price tag or shirt number.
“The figures that have been mentioned are bound to bring an added pressure,” he said. “But when you sign for a club like Liverpool, you’ve got to bear with any pressure that there may be. I know the demands are high, but I believe in hard work and think I can work hard to fulfill those expectations.”
Liverpool won the Champions League in 2005 and finished runner-up to AC Milan last season. But the last of its record 18 league titles was in 1990, with Manchester United taking the championship nine times and Arsenal, Chelsea, Blackburn and Leeds also having won the title since the Reds’ last success.
The 23-year-old Spain striker is likely to be first choice alongside either Dirk Kuyt, Peter Crouch or new signing Andriy Voronin, with Craig Bellamy expected to leave Anfield.
“You know that when you join a club as big as this there is going to be a lot of competition for places,” Torres said. “It is a fantastic opportunity to be joining one of the best clubs in Europe with a fantastic history. When you hear a club like Liverpool is interested in you, it is something that fills you with a lot of surprise and a lot of pride.”
Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez has signed several Spaniards since he moved to Anfield in June 2004 after having guided Valencia to the Spanish league and UEFA Cup titles. But the last Spanish striker he bought — Fernando Morientes — scored just 12 goals in 61 games and left after only 17 months.
“Morientes had other skills and was a finisher,” Benitez said. “Torres is a player who runs behind defenders. He’s younger, he’s desperate to win trophies and he wants to win everything.”
The transfer is 6 million pounds ($12 million) more than Liverpool’s previous record fee — paid by former manager Gerard Houllier to Auxerre for France striker Djibril Cisse in July 2004.
“We are bringing in a young player with a great future,” Benitez said. “He has power, he has pace, he can win the ball in the air and he can score goals.”
Nicknamed “El Nino” (The Kid) after joining Atletico’s youth squad at the age of 11, Torres cut short a holiday to finalize personal terms worth reportedly 90,000 pounds ($182,000) a week.

TITLE: Bonds Replacement Lewis Belts Grand Slam
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — The San Francisco Giants snapped a seven-game road losing streak with a 9-5 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday, claiming victory despite giving home-run record chaser Barry Bonds the day off.
Fred Lewis started in left field instead of Bonds and belted his second grand slam home run of the season — becoming the first Giants rookie to hit two slams in one campaign — and had three hits to pace San Francisco.
Bonds was given the day off following a night game after hitting his 751st homer in the series opener on Tuesday.
The 42-year-old veteran is expected to play on Thursday and then heads to St. Louis for a three-game series before the All-Star break to continue his pursuit of Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record of 755.
Lewis took full advantage of his opportunity to play, going 3-for-4 and keying a five-run Giants fourth inning off Reds starter and loser Matt Belisle.
“I’m speechless man,” Lewis told reporters. “I was very emotional (after the homer).”
The grand slam wiped out an early 3-0 Reds lead and the Giants went on to register 13 hits on five Reds pitchers, with Ray Durham, Rich Aurilia and Mark Sweeney also hitting homers.
Matt Cain (3-9) picked up his first win since May 13, allowing four runs on nine hits over 5 2/3 innings, striking out six and walking two. Four relievers combined with him on a 12-hitter.
“It’s been a long time since I got to enjoy a win,” Cain said. “It’s definitely a relief to get it out of the way.”
Belisle (5-6) allowed five runs on six hits over four innings. Ken Griffey Jr had two hits and drove in a pair of runs for the Reds.

n The Milwaukee Brewers continued its struggles on July 4 holiday games by dropping a 5-3 decision to the Pirates in Pittsburgh.
The Brewers are 13-25 on the holiday, the worst record among any Major League team with 20 or more games played on July 4.

n The St Louis Cardinals overcame an early 3-0 deficit to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-4.

n Cole Hamels picked up his 10th win of the season as the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Houston Astros 8-3.

The Washington Nationals blanked the Chicago Cubs 6-0, as Dmitri Young belted a grand slam.

TITLE: Le Tour in Need of Smooth Ride
AUTHOR: By Julien Pretot
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON (Reuters) — Never mind who wins, Tour de France organizers just want their sport to emerge scandal-free from the three-week race which starts from London on Saturday.
The Tour desperately needs a smooth ride after a traumatic experience last year when Floyd Landis tested positive for elevated levels of the male sex hormone testosterone after winning the race.
American Landis has denied any wrongdoing and his case should be settled by a United States panel of judges and the French Anti-Doping Agency in the next few weeks.
“My wish for this Tour is to be sure the rider who will raise his arms on the Champs-Elysees is the real winner of the race,” Tour director Christian Prudhomme told Reuters last week.
The war against doping has taken its toll this season again with 1996 winner Bjarne Riis admitting to cheating and 2006 Giro d’Italia champion Ivan Basso saying he had intended to take banned substances.
In the absence of the suspended Basso, the retired Jan Ullrich and Giro d’Italia winner Danilo di Luca and fellow Italian Damiano Cunego who have both opted to skip the Tour, Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov is the favorite.
The Astana leader, whose team were barred from starting last year’s race after five of their nine riders were implicated in a blood-doping scandal, has a score to settle at the Tour. Vinokourov, who finished third overall in 2003 and fifth in 2005 after winning in Briancon and on the Champs-Elysees, has a strong team behind him.
German Andreas Kloeden, who left T-Mobile for Astana and ended third overall last year, Kazakh Andrej Kashechkin and former Giro champion Paolo Savoldelli are expected to pull the experienced Vinokourov in the mountains.
Vinokourov bounced back from the disappointment of missing last year’s Tour by producing a career-best ride to win the Vuelta d’Espana. He started 2007 focusing only on the Tour de France. 
“I have already won what I wanted to win in the sport, with the exception of the Tour, and that is my big dream,” he said earlier this year.

TITLE: Upstart Fells Hot Dog Champion
AUTHOR: By Ken Belson
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: NEW YORK — It was a script that could have been out of a “Rocky” movie, with an upstart trying to fell the champion. And just as in those movies, the upstart and the champion embraced in the end, knowing that a sequel would be inevitable. 
The goal was rapid-fire hot dog consumption, not pummeling an opponent in the ring, but like a particularly bloody boxing match, it was disturbing to watch. 
Joey Chestnut, a 23-year-old engineering student from California, ate a world-record 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes yesterday to unseat the six-time champ, Takeru Kobayashi, at the Nathan’s Famous hot-dog eating contest in Coney Island.
Chants of “U.S.A.” and “Joey! Joey!” rose from the crowd when Chestnut hoisted the Mustard Yellow International Belt of the champion. 
“The Fourth of July brought this out,” he said, when asked where he found the strength to consume more hot dogs than a large family at a holiday picnic. It was his first victory in the 92nd annual event. 
Kobayashi bowed and was humble in defeat. But he also pointed straight at Chestnut and yelled, “I will definitely beat him next year.”
While there were plenty of patriots in the crowd cheering for an American to win the belt for the first time this decade, Kobayashi clearly has established a following. Japanese and American fans flooded the stage in search of autographs after Kobayashi lost the championship this year by three hot dogs and buns. One woman carried a sign that read in Japanese, “If we get married, I’ll make you hot dogs every day.”
Another fan yelled “Tora, tora, tora!” just before the event began.
The showdown more than lived up to expectations and a weeklong buildup. Last month, in a Tempe, Ariz., qualifying contest, Chestnut broke Kobayashi’s world record by 6 hot dogs, stuffing down 59 and a bite in 12 minutes, or one every 12 seconds or so.
Then Kobayashi reported on his web site in late June that he had an unexplained ailment that limited the motion of his jaw: he could open his mouth no wider than a fingertip, and even then with pain. To help relieve the stress on his jaw, he had a wisdom tooth removed, leading to swelling.
As recently as Friday, he appeared unable to eat anything more substantial than yogurt and rice porridge, making it unclear whether he would be able to compete. A few hours before the event, Kobayashi went to an acupuncturist to relieve his pain. 
Like the 15-round epics between Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed, the outcome was unclear until the end. The rivals matched each other frank for frank. Chestnut, who has also won championships for eating grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken wings and deep-fried asparagus, jumped out to an early lead, but was never more than three hot dogs ahead.
Kobayashi, who wolfed down nearly 18 pounds of pan-seared cow brains to win the Glutton Bowl, made a push in the last several minutes to finish in a tie. The two men were eating so fast, stuffing several hot dogs in their mouth at once, that midway through the contest, several of the 15 other entrants had stopped eating and were watching the main event at center stage.
“It was kind of hard to concentrate on my own stuff,” said Erik Denmark, a challenger from Seattle, Washington.
 “I felt the emotion of the event.”
Since both leaders appeared to have consumed 63 hot dogs and buns at the finish, the judges spent several minutes in a somewhat bizarre recount. According to the rules, whatever is in contestants’ mouths when the buzzer rings counts toward their total, assuming they can swallow it.
Chestnut seemed to have finished what he had started, while Kobayashi apparently spat out some of what was in his mouth, leading to a recalculation. The judges also counted the scraps of food left on the contestants’ plates.
When Chestnut was announced as the winner with 66 hot dogs and buns eaten, Kobayashi slumped in his chair, draped in a silver-colored blanket typically used by marathon runners.
Some spectators suspected that the reports of the precompetition mouth injury suffered by Kobayashi was a hoax created by the organizers to drum up publicity for the event, which was broadcast on ESPN. Others in the crowd, which spilled out onto Surf Avenue, said Kobayashi had been trying to psych out Chestnut.
Scott Johnston, 42, who drove from Potomac Falls, Va., with his twin brother and nephew to see the event, held up a sign saying Kobayashi had “Chestnut-itis.”
“He is playing head games,”  Johnston said. “He’s the champ, so he’s the one to knock off.”

TITLE: Alinghi to Face Bigger Test
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: VALENCIA, Spain — Bigger, faster yachts will contest the next America’s Cup. America’s Cup organisers ACM said on Thursday that the new yachts would be 90 foot long or 27.4 meters, considerably longer than the 24-meter boats that were used this time round.
“These boats will be bigger, faster and harder to sail. There will be no electronic or hydraulic winches so the guys will have to be athletic,” said Brad Butterworth, skipper on America’s Cup winner Alinghi. “They’ll be tough to sail.”