SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1294 (60), Friday, August 3, 2007
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TITLE: Killer Of Activist Faces 14 Year Stretch
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A St. Petersburg jury has found Andrei Shabalin responsible for the lethal stabbing of 20-year-old antifascist activist and student Timur Kacharava, the attempted murder of fellow antifascist Maxim Zgibai in November, 2005 and inciting ethnic hatred.
Following the jury verdict on Tuesday, a state prosecutor has asked for a sentence of 14 years in prison for Shabalin, and suggested shorter terms of between 2.5 and 4.5 years in jail for six other defendants.
The verdict will be delivered on Tuesday, August 7, by the St. Petersburg City Court.
Kacharava was stabbed to death outside the Bukvoed bookstore on Ligovsky Prospekt opposite the Moskovsky Railway Station at around 7 p.m. on Nov. 13, 2005, when a group of teenagers, aged 17 to 20, armed with knives attacked Timur and his friend Maxim Zgibai, another student.
Kacharava died of severe blood loss before the ambulance arrived at the scene of the crime ten minutes after the incident.
Zgibai, who sustained multiple knife wounds and severe brain damage, survived the attack.
Immediately prior to the attack, Kacharava and Zgibai had been taking part in an international humanitarian initiative titled “Food, Not Bombs”, giving food to the homeless and street children.
An outspoken pacifist and anti-fascist, Kacharava drew additional attention as a musician. He was a guitarist with two local punk bands, Sandinista! and Distress, known for the provocative wit of their lyrics.
Both Kacharava and Zgibai took part in many anti-fascist events, including the ‘March Against Hatred,’ dedicated to the memory of the late Nikolai Girenko, Russia’s leading expert on ethnically-inspired crimes, who was gunned down on the footsteps of his apartment in June 2004.
Prior to the fatal attack that took his life, Timur, who had been targeted by fascists before, complained to his friends of being followed. Just three days prior to his murder, he told his girlfriend he felt threatened and worried for his life.
Human rights lawyer Olga Tseitlina, who represents the Kacharava family, described the case as very difficult. The advocate is bewildered by what she calls “the attempts to present anti-fascists as a radical youth group of an extremist nature.”
“The defendants’ lawyers almost made it sound as if Timur got what was coming to him and the judge and prosecutors just turn a blind eye,” Tseitlina said.
“We were being forced to prove the most obvious things, like the difference between fascism and anti-fascism, so the discussion at times found itself balancing on the brink of absurdity,” the lawyer recalled. “We have to prove that blatantly open fascist rhetoric is discriminating and dangerous. Even though I represented the victims, I was forced to defend them; I had to explain the essence of the difference between fascism and anti-fascism. Needless to say, the distinction is obvious to any sane human being.”
“Trying to portray Timur as a radical youth was utterly nonsensical,” Tseitlina said. “The values of antifascism are shared by any normal individual, but even that fact needed to be defended. Some of the arguments that we considered important, like, for instance, the swastikas constantly reappearing at the murder scene, were not being taken into account.”
Russian experts on violent xenophobia believe that St. Petersburg is the skinhead capital of Russia and accounts for a disproportionately large number of attacks against dark-skinned migrants and foreigners.
Attacks by skinheads and neo-fascist groups on ethnic minorities have become regular occurrences in recent years. But authorities have been generally reluctant to admit the attacks were hate-crimes, trying to categorize them instead as hooliganism or alcohol-fuelled homicide.
While Russia garners negative headlines worldwide because of its rise in skinhead violence against non-Slavs, the anti-racist activists, who call themselves “anti-fascists,” who oppose them have received far less attention.
The anti-fascist movement’s modest numbers are dwarfed by their opponents in the much larger, more vocal, and often violent nationalist movement. At the anti-fascist rallies in St. Petersburg, police and counter demonstrators usually outnumber those participating. The “Marches Against Hatred”, which are held once or twice a year, rarely manage to gather more than about a thousand supporters.
TITLE: Belarus To Settle Debt to Gazprom
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Belarussian president said his country will pay $460 million to settle its gas debt to Russia in the next few days, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
“Today I ordered money taken from our reserves and the payment of $460 million,” President Alexander Lukashenko said.
“Of course, we are draining our resources, but our good friends, in particular [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez, said they are ready to extend a loan at advantageous terms,” Lukashenko said, according to Interfax. He added that western banks were also prepared to provide funds.
“Today we pay from our reserves but loans will replenish them within a month. Let them take it and live in peace,” Lukashenko said.
Following a breakdown in talks earlier this week over a loan to help Belarus cover the debt, Gazprom said it would cut supplies by 45 percent beginning Friday. It insisted, however, that the move would not affect European customers.
The European Union, for whom the announcement was a sharp reminder of previous oil and gas disputes, said Wednesday that it considered the situation serious and expressed hope the dispute would be resolved swiftly.
Belarus, a key transport link between Gazprom and its European customers, owes the state-owned giant $456 million for gas deliveries. There was little official reaction from Belarus on Wednesday.
“Nobody should suffer. Beltransgaz should see to that,” Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said, referring to the Belarus gas pipeline monopoly.
The 45 percent cut in supply was equal to the shortfall in Belarus’ payments, Gazprom said.
Kupriyanov described the move as a “purely routine operation,” adding that it was a different case from last year, when Gazprom cut shipments to Belarus after a supply contract expired.
Gazprom notified Belarus of the decision by telegram Tuesday and also sent notices to European partners like Poland and Lithuania, company spokeswoman Tatyana Golubovich said.
The warning concerning the cuts came after Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and his Belarussian counterpart, Sergei Sidorsky, failed to reach agreement earlier this week on a loan to help Minsk cover the bill it has run up since Gazprom began charging the country a higher price at the start of the year. The deadline for payment passed on July 23, touching off the latest round of negotiations.
At the beginning of the year, Gazprom raised prices for Belarus to $100 per 1,000 cubic meters from the heavily subsidized previous price of $46. The price would have been even higher had Belarus not agreed to sell Gazprom a 50 percent stake in Beltransgaz for $2.5 billion. Gazprom has so far paid $625 million for 12.5 percent of the pipeline company, a payment it says provides Belarus with the ability to pay off its gas debt. Minsk maintains that the money will be used to develop the Belarussian economy.
The European Union on Wednesday expressed concern over the standoff and said it hoped the situation would be normalized as soon as possible.
“We take these developments absolutely seriously,” European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said by telephone from Brussels.
The commission, which is the European Union’s executive branch, was prepared to call a meeting of gas-supply experts, if need be, and would decide on what moves to take within the next few days, he said.
Mikhail Chigir, former prime minister of Belarus, said Gazprom might have more than the gas debt in its sites.
“Gazprom either wants to get the money or participate in the privatization of the most important enterprises in Belarus,” Chigir was quoted by the AP as saying.
“Lukashenko doesn’t plan to give up the former, and particularly the latter, without a fight.
He said a likely result of the latest gas feud would be renewed calls for the diversification of supplies in Europe, which depends on Gazprom for 25 percent of its gas.
Despite the current dispute being settled, the political difficulties between Minsk and Moscow are still likely to increase, Yaroslav Romanchuk, head of the Mizes Research Center, said from Minsk.
“The Belarussian government still can’t adapt to the new energy reality,” Romanchuk said.
(AP, SPT)
TITLE: Putin Emphasizes Support for Abbas
AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday came out in support of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, as the Foreign Ministry announced that it was downgrading its ties with Hamas.
A senior Foreign Ministry official official said Russia had downgraded its ties with the militant Hamas group and would increase aid to the Palestinian Authority, including 50 armored personnel carriers.
“I want to assure you that we will support you as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people,” Putin told Abbas at the start of their one-hour meeting in the Kremlin.
Putin said Russia realized the difficulties his government faced and expressed hope that Abbas would do his utmost to ensure Palestinian unity.
The leaders previously met in February in Amman, Jordan. Moscow has downgraded its ties with Hamas but will continue negotiations with the militant Islamist group, First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said after the leaders’ talks.
He said the only purpose of talks with Hamas, which violently took power in the Gaza Strip last month, would be to restore peace.
The visit to Russia by Abbas is widely seen as an attempt to garner more support from Moscow for his Fatah movement. At the same time, Russia is the only member of the Quartet trying to broker a Middle East peace deal that is officially in contact with Hamas.
While the other members — the United States, the European Union and the United Nations — have sought to bolster Abbas’ leadership and shunned Hamas for its refusal to disavow violence and to recognize Israel, Russia has performed a kind of balancing act between the sides.
While saying that Moscow was reducing relations with Hamas, Denisov, who participated in the talks, said it would not drop its contacts with the militant group altogether.
“By continuing these contacts, we are pursuing just one objective: to help restore Palestinian unity,” Denisov told reporters in the Kremlin. He added that Abbas said Russia was free to maintain contacts with Hamas and did not want to interfere.
Although he stressed that Hamas was not a monolithic movement and that Russia was looking to forge ties with its more moderate members, Denisov said that there were no immediate plans for talks with the militant group.
A Hamas delegation came to Moscow on Putin’s invitation in February, 2006, following the group’s victory a month earlier in Palestinian parliamentary elections in early 2006. During the visit, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal met with a number of Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Lavrov, who met with Abbas on Monday, spoke by phone with Meshaal last week.
Abu Marzouk, deputy head of the Hamas political leadership, said the organization was not planning any visits to Moscow in the near future, saying the group was “pleased with the communication channel it now had with Russian side,” RIA-Novosti reported from Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Marzouk said he welcomed Abbas’ visit to Moscow and expressed hope that the visit would help the president embrace an open dialogue free of any conditions.
During his meeting with Putin, Abbas compared Gaza to a “big prison” from which thousands of people have had a hard time getting out.
“Thousands of people who wanted to cross the border have been stranded at the border between Egypt and the Palestinian territory,” he said, referring to the Rafah crossing on Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.
Abbas also urged friendly nations to send humanitarian aid to help prop up the Palestinian economy.
Russia plans to send 50 armored personnel vehicles on the condition that they are not used in the internal Palestinian conflict, Denisov said.
Since Abbas’ government cannot afford to pay for the vehicles, Denisov said the transfer would be part of military aid to Palestine designed to “help maintain law and order on the West Bank.”
Russia had promised to send the vehicles two years ago, but the transfer was put on ice for fear of destabilizing the situation in the region.
Dmitry Vasilyev, an analyst with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, estimated the value of the shipment at less than $20 million, as Russia is unlikely to send new vehicles.
Russia would also send humanitarian aid, Denisov said.
He said Moscow had been one of the first to offer the Palestinian Authority aid last year — a total of $10 million — after the Hamas victory led European contributors and the United States to stop funding, and Israel to withhold tax revenues. Western aid was resumed after Abbas fired the Hamas-led government last month.
Denisov would not say how much Russia would send this time, as it was still studying what the government needed and how aid could be delivered.
“We are proceeding from our real capabilities, but we will try to satisfy the requests of our Palestinian partners to the maximum,” Denisov told reporters in the Kremlin.
Vladimir Akhmedov, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, praised Moscow’s effort to broker peace, saying that, unlike Western capitals, it was not taking sides.
“The region has been divided along so many lines,” Akhmedov said. “We’re trying to unite them.”
Despite the downgrading of ties with Hamas, Akhmedov said contacts through diplomatic channels would continue.
Speaking to reporters after the talks, Abbas said he was ready to participate in an international meeting aimed at brokering peace in the Middle East, and that he had discussed the possibility with Putin.
“But we don’t know which countries will take part, when and where it will be, or what topics will be discussed,” he was quoted by Interfax as saying.
TITLE: Sub Plants Flag Under North Pole
AUTHOR: By Guy Faulconbridge
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian explorers dived deep below the North Pole in a submersible on Thursday and planted a national flag on the seabed to stake a symbolic claim to the energy riches of the Arctic.
A mechanical arm dropped a specially made rust-proof titanium flag onto the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 meters (13,980 ft), Itar-Tass news agency quoted expedition officials as saying.
Russia wants to extend right up to the North Pole the territory it controls in the Arctic, believed to hold vast reserves of untapped oil and natural gas.
But Canada mocked Russia’s ambitions and said the expedition was nothing more than a show.
“This isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say ‘We’re claiming this territory’,” Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told CTV television.
Under international law, the five states with territory inside the Arctic Circle — Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark via its control of Greenland — have a 320 km economic zone around the north of their coastline.
Russia is claiming a larger slice extending as far as the pole because, Moscow says, the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by one continental shelf.
“Then Russia can give foundation to its claim to more than a million square kilometers of the oceanic shelf,” said a newsreader for Russia’s state news channel Vesti-24, which made the expedition their top news story.
“It was a soft landing,” Tass quoted expedition leader Artur Chilingarov as saying from on board one of the submersibles.
The rest of the expedition team, floating on a support vessel between the giant ice sheets of the Arctic, broke into applause when news came through the mission had been completed.
“There is yellowish gravel down here. No creatures of the deep are visible,” said Chilingarov, 67, a veteran Arctic explorer and parliament deputy for the pro-Kremlin party.
Expedition leaders have said their main worry is to resurface at the ice hole where they dived as the mini-submersibles are not strong enough to break through the North Pole’s deep ice cap.
One of the aims of the expedition is to allow oceanographers to study the seabed and establish that Russia and the North Pole are part of the same shelf.
“The aim of this expedition is not to stake Russia’s claim but to show that our shelf reaches to the North Pole,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Manila, where he is attending a regional security conference.
The Mir-1 submersible reached the seabed at 1208 Moscow time.
A second Russian submersible, manned by Swedish businessman Frederik Paulsen and Australian adventurer Mike McDowell, reached the seabed 27 minutes later. It reached a depth of 4,302 meters.
Soviet and U.S. nuclear submarines have often traveled under the polar icecap, but no one had reached the seabed under the Pole, where depths exceed 4,000 meters.
TITLE: Migration Department Breaks Record for Fines
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg and Lenoblast Federal Migration Department has collected a record 52.37 million rubles (over $2 million) in fines for violations of a new migration law restricting the influx of foreign workers in force since mid-January.
The law not only imposes a maximum fine of 800,000 rubles on employers of illegal immigrant workers, but also makes the employer liable for his deportation or expulsion costs.
While only a few hundred illegal immigrants were expelled from Russian territory during the period, President Vladimir Putin’s scheme to tempt overseas compatriots back to Russia to replace the foreign labor force has made little headway since it was made public over a year ago.
“You have to believe in a plan before setting out to realize it,” said Police Major Yury Buryak, chief of the Migration Department, citing a series of hindrances in putting the presidential plan into practice. “St. Petersburg has been given a target of accommodating at least 8,000 workers belonging to this category [overseas Russians] but there’s not even a place to shelter them,” he said, adding that, “the same is true in the rest of Russia’s North West region.”
Sandwiched between EU countries, Russia’s Western enclave of Kaliningrad is probably the most suitable place to execute Putin’s plan, according to Buryak, who cited a degree of success in meeting its target to attract 350,000 overseas Russians.
Putin called for Russian migrants to return to their homeland to help fill in the population gap he called “Russia’s demographic crisis” in his address to the nation in April last year. Six months later, Putin met in St. Petersburg with about 600 representatives of the Russian Diaspora to tempt their 30 million compatriots to return with promises of work and living incentive packages. About three months latter, a law placing restrictions on foreign labor forces came into effect.
“The real concern in Russia’s official circles is about an extinction of Russians as a race, rather than population decline in its traditional sense,” said Dmitry Dubrovsky, head of the modern ethnology and inter-ethnic relations department at St.Petersburg’s Russian Museum of Ethnography,” adding that “such cities [as St. Petersburg and Moscow] are as a rule attractive spots for both internal and foreign migrants,” without the necessity for a selective ethnic call.
During the six-month period since the new law came into force, raids on 21,500 locations including construction and trading sites, housing, industrial and agricultural facilities in search of illegal foreign workers, migration officers located 366 foreigners from CIS countries who were either deported or expelled.
There was no indication of a negative effect in the local labor market as 130,000 foreigners secured work permits during the period, less than a third of the demand in the city and its surrounding region, but more than four times the number of permits issued in the whole of last year, according to figures released by the migration authorities.
According to Buryak, while 6 million foreign workers were needed across Russia, in St. Petersburg and Lenoblast there were 350,000 vacancies for foreign workers when the law came into force earlier in the year. Buryak said it was unlikely that those jobs would filled by the end of the year, citing problems that included lack of accommodation.
He said that about 355,000 foreigners were registered during the period, but the actual number of illegal migrants is unknown, with more accurate estimates only expected at the end of the year.
However, he ruled out long queues and bureaucratic red-tap as a factor leading to the low turnout for registration, saying that “there are no more queues in our offices and although it’s on a commercial basis, there are hundreds of post offices where foreigners are able to register themselves without having to come to us.”
Asked if the crime rate had declined following the passage of the strict immigration law, Buryak said, “allegations that foreigners are responsible for most of crimes in the city are totally unfounded... only 1 percent of crimes [in the city] are committed by foreigners.”
Though not attributing it to the law, he said “the rate of hate crimes has notably declined,” thanks to what he called “law enforcers’ awareness of the problem and their commitment in tackling xenophobia.”
TITLE: Diplomat’s Nose Broken at Rally
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — A fight after a bikers’ rally that left a German diplomat with a broken nose and a black eye has sparked a diplomatic dispute in the Urals.
The German Consulate in Yekaterinburg has delivered an official note of protest to the Foreign Ministry’s local branch demanding a thorough investigation of a weekend incident involving Deputy Consul General Max Muller, the consulate said Wednesday.
Police in the Sverdlovsk region are investigating the assault on Muller in the town of Irbit, Valery Gorelykh, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry’s regional branch said by telephone from Yekaterinburg.
A passionate biker himself, Muller had traveled on his Yamaha to the rally.
Police on the scene established the identities of those involved, and a criminal case has been opened, Gorelykh said.
“The incident has been classified as an assault and act of hooliganism,” he said.
TITLE: ‘Vesti’ Designs Own Version Of London Times Front Page
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — State-run television channel Rossia displayed a fake version of Monday’s issue of The Times of London on its news show “Vesti,” featuring exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky on Monday.
Two pictures flanked the front page of the fake issue, one apparently showing Berezovsky and the other Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, with the headline, “Berezovsky is playing us, and it’s embarrassing.”
The newspaper did run the article, by Stefanie Marsh, and under that very headline, but in the comment and opinion six-page pullout section rather than the paper’s front page.
“In no way did the piece suggest that the shown image — which was a collage — was the actual issue of The Times newspaper that came out on Monday,” Yulia Polipova, a “Vesti” spokeswoman, said Wednesday.
In response, The Times highlighted the fact that a personal opinion piece had been presented as news reporting.
“The image shown by ‘Vesti’ gives a completely incorrect representation of The Times front page,” said Anoushka Healy, editorial communications director for the newspaper, in e-mailed comments.
Polipova flatly dismissed speculation in the Russian media that the image may have been ordered by the Kremlin.
The article referred to Berezovsky’s recently announced allegations that Scotland Yard police foiled a plot to kill him. Berezovsky said police had told him to leave Britain because his life was in danger.
During the week he was gone, police apprehended a man suspected of the plot at a Hilton hotel in central London, Berezovsky said.
In the article, Marsh criticizes Britain’s decision to grant Berezovsky asylum status and suggests that he abuses the status by using his British base as a platform for an anti-Kremlin campaign to “destabilize Russia.”
Moscow shares that view.
Boris Timoshenko, a media analyst at the Glasnost Foundation, called the program’s actions “idiotism,” but stopped short of blaming the program’s editors.
“In current conditions, people understand what is expected of them,” Timoshenko said, alluding to pressure from the Kremlin.
The front page of Monday’s bona fide Times led with an article about a shortage of court judges in Britain.
TITLE: AvtoVAZ Strike has Little Effect
AUTHOR: By Max Delany
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Yedinstvo union claimed that a strike Wednesday by several hundred workers had seriously disrupted production at AvtoVAZ’s giant Tolyatti plant.
Conflicting accounts emerged over the scale and impact of the strike, however, with the company’s management downplaying the scale of the walkout.
According to estimates from Yedinstvo, a small independent union at the plant, a majority of employees in one workshop, between 300 and 400 workers, voted to down tools midmorning and staged a protest meeting.
Yedinstvo has been calling on workers at three crucial workshops to strike over demands to almost triple minimum wages to 25,000 rubles ($980) per month.
A spokeswoman for Yedinstvo said the production line had slowed to one-third of its normal pace and that no fully assembled cars were produced Wednesday. She could not confirm whether workers in two other workshops targeted for strike action had stopped work.
AvtoVAZ spokesman Ivan Skrylnik insisted that only a small number of people had stopped working and that the company did not recognize it as a strike.
“About 150 people out of the 112,000 working at AvtoVAZ stopped working. We consider it to be in contravention of the law,” Skrylnik said. He said the company regularly held wage talks with the plant’s official union. Average wages at the plant are 14,000 rubles ($550) per month, he said.
Yedinstvo chairman Pyotr Zolotaryov said the strike would not last beyond Wednesday.
Several protesters were detained during a protest outside AvtoVAZ’s offices in Moscow on Wednesday, Ekho Moskvy radio reported.
n The Avtostat agency forecasts that AvtoVAZ will be overtaken in sales by Toyota this year, Vedomosti reported Wednesday.
TITLE: End Forthcoming For Telenor Dispute
AUTHOR: By Simon Shuster and Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Kremlin is giving its blessing to a deal that could resolve a festering dispute between Alfa Group’s telecoms arm, Altimo, and Norway’s Telenor, a source inside Alfa Group familiar with the negotiations said Wednesday.
The deal would see the two firms merge their assets across a range of telecom firms in Russia and Eastern Europe and create a regional telecom empire.
In return for giving its approval for the merger, the Kremlin is likely to require Alfa Group to sell its stake in TNK-BP to a state-owned company — at the price and time it is told to do so — the source said.
Kremlin spokespeople were not immediately available for comment Wednesday evening.
The wrangling between Altimo and Telenor has played out in the boardroom of mobile operator VimpelCom, in which both firms hold large minority stakes. In 2005, Altimo expanded VimpelCom into Ukraine, where it posed a competitive threat to Telenor-controlled operator Kyivstar, sparking hostilities.
Analysts have often said VimpelCom is being stifled by the bad blood in the boardroom. Telenor owns 30 percent of the company, and Altimo owns 44 percent.
“In such a situation, when there is a conflict between major investors inside the board, the company cannot operate, and they cannot effectively reach decisions,” said Konstantin Chernyshev, telecoms analyst at UralSib. “A resolution would be a global driver for this company.”
Kirill Babayev, Altimo’s vice president for public relations, did not confirm that a deal would be reached but said Wednesday that his company was “interested in reaching an agreement with Telenor on all the disputed matters.”
Telenor vice president for communications Dag Melgaard did not rule out that a settlement with Altimo would be reached, but stressed that the aim had to be a split of business interests. “We would be happy to resolve the dispute ... but at the end there must be a separation between us,” he said by telephone late Wednesday.
He said Telenor was still involved in arbitration lawsuits against Altimo in Geneva and New York, and added, “Altimo cannot be trusted, because they have been signing agreements and walking away from them.”
But the Alfa source said the deal would see Altimo and Telenor pool their major telecom assets, including their stakes in Kyivstar, VimpelCom, Internet and fixed-line operator Golden Telecom and MegaFon, Russia’s third-largest mobile phone operator.
This would create a regional giant spanning most of the former Soviet Union under the umbrella of Altimo, and ultimately Alfa Group. The company would hold an IPO soon afterward, the source said.
Alfa Group head Mikhail Fridman has often stated that a top strategic goal of his was to create a telecom giant spanning Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
The merger would end the Telenor-Altimo competition on the Ukrainian market that set off their dispute.
Together with billionaires Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik, Fridman’s Alfa Group owns 50 percent of TNK-BP, a joint venture with Britain’s BP. TNK-BP in June agreed to sell its majority stake in the huge Kovykta gas field in eastern Siberia to Gazprom after months of state pressure as the Kremlin seeks to increase its control of strategic sectors of the economy.
Mobile telecoms, however, is not considered a strategic sector. At a February meeting of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, President Vladimir Putin urged big businesses to diversify away from oil and gas and focus more on high-tech and value-added products, and he pledged to help Russian firms expand into foreign markets.
The comments were widely interpreted as a signal to some of the country’s most powerful oligarchs to leave the leading role in strategic industries to the state.
Gazprom has offered to buy Fridman, Vekselberg and Blavatnik out of TNK-BP. The three billionaires are committed to staying in the company until around the end of this year under their 2003 partnership deal with BP.
Another source familiar with the Alfa-Telenor talks confirmed that a deal would be concluded this week. He said a statement about it had been drafted last week but that it was held up because legal proceedings had not been finalized.
“Of course we can’t expect that [a resolution] will go through without some political guidance,” said Chernyshev of UralSib.
“When the Kremlin allows it, the decision could be made fast” as it would allow swift approval from state watchdogs such as the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, he said. He added, however, that Telenor officials told him in May that no resolution deal with Altimo would be reached this year.
Under an earlier proposal, the two firms would have broken ties through a swap of Telenor’s 30 percent stake in VimpelCom for Altimo’s 25 percent stake in MegaFon, the Alfa Group source said. This proposal fell through because the MegaFon stake was seen as far less valuable.
The second source said that while an agreement between Altimo and Telenor would be logical for both sides, a deal involving Altimo taking a stake in Telenor was unlikely to happen.
TITLE: EBRD to Raise $1Bn for VW
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will lend 750 million euros ($1 billion) to help Germany’s Volkswagen build its first car plant in Russia, the bank said Tuesday.
The bank will lend 250 million euros itself and will organize a syndicate for the remaining sum.
Volkswagen is building a plant near Kaluga that will produce 115,000 cars a year. The company earlier estimated the plant’s cost at 370 million euros. Volkswagen is also discussing a project to build a car components plant in Russia.
Last year, the EBRD agreed to organize a 292 million euro equity participation in the project, of which it will contribute 30 million euros.
Volkswagen expects to begin production of the Volkswagen-Rus compact model on September 16, Prime-Tass news agency reported Tuesday.
(Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: Pharmacy Chain 36.6 Reports Loss
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Pharmacy Chain 36.6, Russia’s largest drugstore company, reported a first-quarter loss after profitability weakened and costs rose.
The net loss of $5.7 million compares with a year-earlier profit of $291,000, the Moscow-based company said Thursday on its web site. Sales jumped 87 percent to $185.1 million as 36.6 added outlets and higher incomes boosted spending on medicines and personal-care products.
The company, whose name comes from the Centigrade reading for the optimal human body temperature, is expanding and buying smaller rivals as a ninth straight year of economic expansion in Russia boosts wages. 36.6, which plans to spend as much as $200 million in 2007 on new stores and acquisitions, said last month it would sell a 16 percent stake to help fund growth.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, increased 52 percent to $8.3 million in the quarter, the statement shows. The ebitda margin narrowed by 1 percentage point to 4.5 percent. Selling, general and administrative expenses surged by three-quarters to $56.6 million. 36.6 has said it opened 25 pharmacies, remodeled 11 and shut 16 in the quarter, bringing the total to 854 at the end of the period.
TITLE: TGK-2 to Start GDR Program Aimed at Foreign Investors
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — TGK-2, a power and heating utility supplying Russia’s northwest, will start a global depositary receipt program in November to attract international investors.
Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s largest custodian of investor assets, is bidding against Deutsche Bank AG, Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan & Chase Co. to become the depositary bank for the receipts, Alexei Shishakov, TGK-2’s head of investor relations, said Thursday. The winner will be picked in two weeks, Shishakov said by telephone from Yaroslavl, where TGK-2 is based.
“We think it’ll give the company greater investor appeal and transparency,’’ Roman Filkin, who helps manage $4 billion in assets with Prosperity Capital in Moscow, including TGK-2 shares, said by telephone. Investors in national power utility OAO Unified Energy System will get shares in 25 of its units, including TGK-2, after the state-controlled company is broken up next July to stimulate competition. The move may be unpopular with some investors because they won’t be able to hold the common shares of the units, which are new companies yet to be certified by U.S. and U.K. markets authorities.
TGK-2 owns 16 power plants in the regions north of Moscow with an installed capacity of almost 2,500 megawatts. Unified Energy owns 49.36 percent of TGK-2 and Prosperity holds 23 percent.
“After Unified is broken up, we’ll get a lot more minority investors and we will consider listing the GDRs on foreign stock exchanges,’’ Shishakov said.
TITLE: Alrosa Opens $3.5Bln Diamond Mines
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Diamond producer Alrosa has opened new diamond deposits worth $3.5 billion in eastern Siberia, the state-controlled company said Wednesday. The deposits are expected to last at least a quarter of a century, and have between 1.2 and 1.5 million tons of ore, from which rough diamonds are extracted.
“The last time Russian diamond deposits of this size were found was 10 years ago,” Alrosa’s spokesman said.
The deposits are in the Sakha republic, where almost all of the country’s diamonds are found. Alrosa controls 97 percent of all Russian diamond output and has operations in Angola. It mined around 50 million tons of ore last year.
The diamond monopoly’s president, Sergei Vybornov, said in May that company still had plans for an initial public offering toward the end of this year, but declined to say where.
TITLE: Shipbuilder Director Fired Over Delay
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Vladimir Pastukhov has been dismissed as general director of Sevmash shipyard, the country’s largest shipbuilding enterprise, over the company’s failure to fulfill a $1.5 billion contract to modernize an aircraft carrier sold to India in 2004, Interfax reported Wednesday.
“The reason for Pastukhov’s dismissal is the failure to carry out the contract to re-equip and modernize the aircraft carrier on behalf of the Indian navy,” a source at Sevmash told Interfax. “The contract is delayed for three years. ... The realistic date ... is now 2011.”
Under the contract, Sevmash shipyard was due by 2008 to upgrade and re-equip the ship, built in 1987, to combine the power of a missile cruiser and capabilities of an aircraft carrier.
Indian media and officials have said the ship, with a squadron of MIG-29 jet fighters on board, would considerably enhance the firepower of the Indian navy and bring nuclear rival China within range. India is the only country in South Asia that has an aircraft carrier, an issue of concern for some of its smaller neighbors.
Interfax quoted the Sevmash source as saying that miscalculating the amount of work needed to renovate the ship had led to problems.
“After a more detailed examination was conducted, it became clear that the ship’s technological condition is awful and that money allocated for the renovation is not enough,” he said.
The source at Sevmash also said the most likely replacement for Pastukhov would be Nikolai Kalistratov, who is currently general director of Zvyozdochka ship-repair plant, Interfax reported.
(Reuters, SPT)
TITLE: Inflation Seen Over Target
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: COOLUM, Australia — The government will not meet its inflation target this year, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said Wednesday.
“Inflation once again will exceed 8 percent,” Storchak told reporters at a meeting of finance ministers from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Coolum, Australia.
Russia has an annual inflation target of 8 percent this year and has struggled to bring the rate down to West European levels as revenue from oil and gas sales drive economic growth and wages. Inflation was 9 percent in 2006. The Central Bank may need to allow the ruble to appreciate more than planned to slow inflation.
“They are going to need to let the ruble appreciate,” said Al Breach, head of research at UBS bank. Allowing the ruble to strengthen is the Central Bank’s most effective monetary policy tool, he said.
The ruble’s real effective exchange rate will probably rise between 8 percent and 9 percent this year, more than the Central Bank’s forecast, Breach said. The ruble may increase up to 5 percent this year, Central Bank chairman Sergei Ignatyev told the State Duma on July 4.
Breach dismissed concerns that the strengthening of the ruble will hurt manufacturers, making their products less competitive than imports. UBS expects year-end inflation at 8.5 percent in 2007.
“The economy is growing very strongly, manufacturing is growing very strongly,” Breach said. “There is no Dutch disease.”
The economy will grow 7.3 percent this year, beating an earlier forecast of around 6 percent, because of booming investment and oil revenues, Storchak said.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Gazprom in Germany
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Gazprom, the world’s biggest natural-gas provider, joined Germany’s European Energy Exchange AG in July to trade day-ahead power as it expands in the region’s electricity markets.
Gazprom Marketing & Trading Ltd., the Russian company’s U.K. trading subsidiary, is one of 175 member companies from 19 countries authorized to trade physical day-ahead power, the Leipzig-based exchange said Thursday in an e-mailed monthly report.
Gazprom concluded its first trades in Germany in March this year in the over-the-counter market. It began U.K. power trading in October and entered the French market in January.
Inprom Profit
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Inprom, a Russian metals trader planning an initial public offering, swung to profit last year after expanding in its home market.
Net income was $1.2 million, versus a loss of 1.2 million, the Taganrog, southern Russia-based company said in a statement on its web site Thursday.
Sales advanced 60 percent to $446.6 million from $279.5 million, in results calculated to International Financial Reporting Standards.
Record Reserves
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s foreign currency and gold reserves rose to a record $417.3 billion in the week ended July 27, the central bank said.
Russia, the world’s biggest energy exporter, increased its reserves by $4.2 billion from $413.1 billion the previous week, the Moscow-based central bank said in an e-mailed statement Thursday. The reserves, the world’s third biggest, gained $1.9 billion the previous week, according to the bank.
Russia increased its reserves from $12 billion in 1998 as high prices of crude oil, the nation’s biggest export, boosted economic growth. The economy may expand 7.3 percent this year, up from 6.7 percent in 2006, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said Wednesday.
Surviving Sakhalin
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Gazprom’s Sakhalin Energy liquefied natural gas plant on the island is unaffected by earthquakes, a spokesman said.
“Nothing is wrong,’’ Alexey Okhotnikov said by telephone from the island of Sakhalin, off Russia’s Pacific coast. “Got a feeling of a lot of moving and shaking. This is just normal.’’
State-run Gazprom bought a majority shareholding in the Sakhalin Energy joint venture in April from Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp.
Turkish Backing
ASTANA, Kazakhstan (Bloomberg) — Turkey’s government will approve the sale of chemicals maker Petkim Petrokimya Holding AS to a group of Russian and Kazakh companies and complete the transaction as early as next month, Vatan newspaper said.
The government will ignore criticism that the buyers, a group named TransCentralAsia that includes Moscow-based investment bank Troika Dialog, didn’t provide enough information about their activities, Vatan said Thursday, citing unidentified people close to the government.
TransCentral won an auction last month for 51 percent of Petkim with a bid of $2.05 billion.
Polish Drugs
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Bioton Wostok, a Russian unit of Poland’s largest biotechnology company Bioton SA, signed an agreement to sell $5.1 million of the diabetic drug Gensulin and antibiotics to Russia by December, the company said in a regulatory filing Wednesday.
Crude Rise
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s crude exports rose 1.2 percent in July as oil prices grew the fastest in 1 1/2 years.
Russian exports advanced to 4.3 million barrels a day last month, according to preliminary data from CDU TEK, the Energy Ministry’s information center.
Russia’s July oil production was little changed, increasing to 9.89 million barrels a day from 9.85 million barrels a day the previous month.
Oil prices in New York jumped 10.7 percent in July, the biggest monthly gain since January last year.
E.ON and Gazprom
NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — E.ON AG, Germany’s biggest utility, is negotiating with Russia’s gas export monopoly, Gazprom, about a swap agreement that would give the German company a stake in the Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field in western Siberia, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The swap agreement would give Duesseldorf-based E.ON a share in the gas field of 25 percent minus one share, the newspaper said, citing Chief Executive Officer Wulf Bernotat.
E.ON and Gazprom reached agreement a year ago on the swap, then Gazprom delayed talks to focus on other arrangements, the Journal said.
TITLE: Gorbachev’s Distorted View of Putinism
AUTHOR: By David R. Marples
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin has an unexpected ally in his current war of words with the United States — Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union and architect of perestroika and glasnost, the reform movement that started the democratization process in Russia. Gorbachev maintains that Putin has reconstructed Russia and enabled it to recover from the economic crisis of the 1990s and that he is intent on establishing a democratic society.
Although his standing in his own country has long since dissipated, Gorbachev enjoys a lingering and genuine respect and admiration in the West. Thus, his comments sparked editorials in many Western newspapers and understandably some vitriolic reactions, particularly to his comment that the United States is obsessed with a “victory complex” and that it has embarked on a new era of imperialism.
Of more interest, perhaps, is Gorbachev’s perception of the recent history of his own country, which can be summarized as follows: An era of reform began with his own administration in 1985, and through his policy of perestroika and glasnost, the world observed the onset of democratic reforms, openness and an end to the Cold War.
In the 1990s, however, following the end of the U.S.S.R. and the onset of the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Russia experienced a sharp economic downturn with the impoverishment of the people, widespread corruption and the uncontrolled power of very rich oligarchs, who were interested in enriching themselves rather than the people.
Putin has, in Gorbachev’s view, reversed these trends, thus continuing his goals, albeit by using more arbitrary methods. Therefore, Putin’s achievements far outweigh his flaws and there is no justification for the foreign media to adopt such a negative stance toward his government. Putin will leave office in 2008, as mandated by the Constitution, but he will continue to play an important role in the nation’s political and economic affairs as well as in its foreign policy.
What is wrong with this picture?
It is true that Gorbachev introduced reforms, but they were introduced haphazardly and without any clear forethought. In 1991, Gorbachev’s opponents tried to carried out a coup, but they were thwarted by popular resistance led by Yeltsin, the brash reformer best known at that time for throwing away his Communist Party membership card and opposing the Soviet nomenklatura. Unlike Gorbachev, Yeltsin subjected himself to a national election in the then-Russian Republic of the U.S.S.R. And it was Yeltsin, in his capacity as the new president of the post-Soviet Russian Federation, who authorized the shock therapy that transformed the country from a command economy to a market-oriented one.
Admittedly, the situation deteriorated subsequently with the rise of oligarchs such as Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky and others, who gained their wealth as a result of the reckless and unwarranted sale of key state assets at cut-rate prices.
Corruption became an uncontrollable problem, and Yeltsin himself spent long periods incapacitated by health problems. Moreover, in 1998, Russia experienced a financial crisis so severe that it almost led to a collapse of the economy.
Against the background of the Yeltsin era, Putin certainly deserves some praise. He has brought order to society, curbed the outflow of capital and ended the reign of unpopular oligarchs. He has brought about state ownership over key companies such as Gazprom, which also controls a hefty share of Russian oil output. To be sure, he has been blessed with remarkably good fortune, particularly in the rise in world prices for oil and gas, over which he had no control.
Gorbachev’s version of events chooses to ignore some key aspects of Putin’s two terms in office, including the renewal of the war in Chechnya and the growing control over the media. Ironically, one exception to that comment is Gorbachev’s own newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, whose most prominent journalist and Putin critic, Anna Politkovskaya, was assassinated in October.
Moreover, Gorbachev ignored the fact that Putin has reduced the State Duma to little more than a talking shop (and it is highly unlikely that any real opposition faction will emerge). His acolytes in United Russia won 222 out of the 450 seats in the 2003 Duma elections, and, together with several minor parties, make up a firm majority. He has also appointed governors, ending gubernatorial elections three years ago.
The reduction of the power of the oligarchs, while popular, is clearly politically motivated. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former CEO of Yukos, has served an eight-year sentence for fraud in a maximum-security prison in Krasnokamensk, a remote and toxic-ridden town in the Chita region (in December, Khodorkovsky was transferred to a detention center in Chita in connection with the new charges brought against him.)
Khodorkovsky was singled out for the harshest treatment because of his political ambitions. Putin has stronger grounds for demanding the extradition from Britain of Boris Berezovsky, who has advocated the violent overthrow of the government. But other oligarchs have been left untouched, either because they have no political ambitions or because they have declared their loyalty to the Putin government.
On several occasions, relations with neighbors have been strained. Tiny Estonia suffered a cyberattack on its government networks following the dismantling of a Soviet-era statue commemorating World War II victims. And Putin’s overt backing of the flawed presidential campaign of Ukraine Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych sparked the Orange Revolution in 2004.
Lastly, state-run Gazprom claims to apply the laws of the market, but uses draconian business tactics and arbitrary pricing. Thus, Belarus pays less for gas than Ukraine, which in turn pays less than Georgia, whose government has been hostile toward Moscow.
Putin has indeed led Russia’s recovery, restored national pride, and raised the country to the level of a powerful regional power. But he has not used democratic methods, his security forces enjoy vast powers, and his own authority is now greater than that enjoyed by his admirer Gorbachev. The latter’s depiction of the Putin government seems as distorted as his memory of his own years in office.
David R. Marples, professor of Russian history at the University of Alberta, Canada, is the author of twelve books, including “The Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991.”
TITLE: Billion-Dollar Principles
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: The president and owner of Russneft, Mikhail Gutseriyev, wrote an open letter in which he accused authorities of “unprecedented persecution” in an effort to make him “more compliant.” Gutseriyev also announced that he would leave his post in order to keep the company intact. It is widely known that Oleg Deripaska, who is one of the Kremlin’s favored oligarchs, will buy Russneft. In this context, it is important to remember Deripaska’s interview with the Financial Times in which he said he was prepared to hand his company over to the state if requested to do so.
Deripaska’s role in the Russneft deal is quite similar to that of Baikal Finance Group, the little-known investment company that purchased Yukos’ largest production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, in December 2004. He could function as an intermediary for the state, which could end up being the ultimate buyer. In this arrangement, Deripaska would shoulder all of the legal risks of the transaction, which are considerable, Gutseriyev’s letter said.
There are two reasons why Russneft has undergone “unprecedented persecution.” The first is purely technical. Gutseriyev rankled Kremlin authorities by buying up shares of Yukos without their permission. Having gone through all the trouble of plundering Yukos and sending former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky to jail in the Siberian city of Krasnokamensk, the Kremlin would hardly want an outsider to come along and pick up Yukos’ crumbs for himself. Buying Yukos shares without the sanction of the Kremlin is tantamount to a direct attack on the country’s foundation.
The second reason is broader and has nothing to do with Gutseriyev’s shocking impudence, but stems from the Kremlin’s overall strategy to use oil and gas to transform Russia into a global superpower. It is generally understood that Russia will become a major energy superpower only after the country’s oil and gas companies are consolidated under the faithful leadership and ownership of President Vladimir Putin’s friends. An independent and privately owned Russneft, which attained amazing growth in recent years, does not fit at all into the Kremlin’s conception of Russia as a superpower. It could even be said Russneft posed a direct threat to attaining that goal.
There was even a third risk factor for Gutseriyev. He is from Ingushetia, and God only knows what goes on there. Ingushetia suffers terrorist acts regularly, and the business of kidnapping President Murat Zyazikov’s relatives has become a regular event. In fact, they are kidnapped as frequently as the FSB announces it has thwarted terrorist attacks against summits in St. Petersburg, Sochi and Samara.
Gutseriyev’s letter was unprecedented. Other businessmen who found themselves in similar situations could have written such letters in the past. For example, Vyacheslav Bresht and Vladislav Tetyukhin, the co-owners of VSMPO-Avisma, a company that was purchased by Rosoboronexport on the cheap, or Farkhat Akhmedov, the owner of oil and gas services company Nortgaz. Even Royal Dutch Shell, which the Kremlin muscled out of the Sakhalin-2 deal, could have written such a letter but didn’t bother. This is because businessmen — Russian or foreign — are cowardly and cautious, and they understand that letters of this type may gratify one’s sense of pride, but ultimately cost them billions of dollars in lost profits.
In most cases, businessmen gain much more satisfaction from their billion-dollar profits than from standing on principle and going against the ruling elite. For Gutseriyev, an Ingush, principle is apparently worth more than profits, however.
It is never a good idea to force a mountain dweller into a corner. This will only result in a vitriolic war of words splashed all over the newspapers.
In the end, Gutseriyev’s letter will serve to strengthen his position only if a change in the political climate allows him to win his company back through a court battle.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Bergman remembered
AUTHOR: By Mervyn Rothstein
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: Ingmar Bergman, the “poet with the camera” who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died on Monday on the small island of Faro where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said. Bergman was 89.
Critics called Bergman one of the directors — the others being Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa — who dominated the world of serious film making in the second half of the 20th century.
He moved from the comic romp of lovers in “Smiles of a Summer Night” to the Crusader’s search for God in “The Seventh Seal,” and from the gripping portrayal of fatal illness in “Cries and Whispers” to the alternately humorous and horrifying depiction of family life in “Fanny and Alexander.”
Bergman dealt with pain and torment, desire and religion, evil and love; in Bergman’s films, “this world is a place where faith is tenuous; communication, elusive; and self-knowledge, illusory,” Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times Magazine in a profile of the director. God is either silent or malevolent; men and women are creatures and prisoners of their desires.
For many filmgoers and critics, it was Bergman more than any other director who in the 1950s brought a new seriousness to film making.
“Bergman was the first to bring metaphysics — religion, death, existentialism — to the screen,” Bertrand Tavernier, the French film director, once said. “But the best of Bergman is the way he speaks of women, of the relationship between men and women. He’s like a miner digging in search of purity.”
He influenced many other film makers, including Woody Allen, who according to The Associated Press said in a tribute in 1988 that Bergman was “probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera.”
In his more than 40 years in the cinema, Bergman made about 50 films, often focusing on two themes — the relationship between the sexes, and the relationship between mankind and God. Bergman found in cinema, he wrote in a 1965 essay, “a language that literally is spoken from soul to soul in expressions that, almost sensuously, escape the restrictive control of the intellect.”
In Bergman, the mind is constantly seeking, constantly inquiring, constantly puzzled.
Bergman often acknowledged that his work was autobiographical, but only “in the way a dream transforms experience and emotions all the time.”
He carried out a simultaneous career in the theater, becoming a director of Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theater. He married multiple times and had highly publicized and passionate liaisons with his leading ladies.
Bergman broke upon the international film scene in the mid-1950s with four films that shook the movie world, films that became identified with him and symbols of his career — “Smiles of a Summer Night,” “The Seventh Seal,” “Wild Strawberries” and “The Magician.”
He had been a director for 10 years, but was little known outside Sweden. Then, in 1956, “Smiles” won a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The next year, the haunting and eloquent “Seventh Seal,” with its memorable medieval visions of a knight (Max von Sydow) playing chess with death in a world terrorized by the plague, won another special prize at Cannes. And in 1959, “The Magician” took the special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival.
Audiences flocked to art cinemas all over the world to see his films. Then, in 1960, “The Virgin Spring,” told of a rape and its mysterious aftermath in medieval Scandinavia; it won the Academy Award as best foreign film. In a few years, he had become both a cult figure and a box-office success.
Throughout his career, Bergman often talked about what he considered the dual nature of his creative and private personalities. “I am very much aware of my own double self,” he once said. “The well-known one is very under control; everything is planned and very secure. The unknown one can be very unpleasant. I think this side is responsible for all the creative work — he is in touch with the child. He is not rational, he is impulsive and extremely emotional.”
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born on July 14, 1918, in the university town of Uppsala, Sweden. His father, Erik, a Lutheran clergyman who later became chaplain to the Swedish royal family, believed in strict discipline, including caning and locking his children in closets. His mother, Karin, was moody and unpredictable.
“I was very much in love with my mother,” he told Alan Riding of The New York Times in a 1995 interview. “She was a very warm and a very cold woman. When she was warm, I tried to come close to her. But she could be very cold and rejecting.”
The young Bergman accompanied his father on preaching rounds of small country churches near Stockholm.
“While father preached away in the pulpit and the congregation prayed, sang or listened,” he once recalled, “I devoted my interest to the church’s mysterious world of low arches, thick walls, the smell of eternity, the colored sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls. There was everything that one’s imagination could desire — angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans.”
His earliest memories, he once said, were of light and death:
“I remember how the sunlight hit the edge of my dish when I was eating spinach and, by moving the dish slightly from side to side, I was able to make different figures out of the light. I also remember sitting with my brother, in the backyard of my flat, aiming with slingshots at enormous black rats scurrying around. And I also remember being forced to sit in church, listening to a very boring sermon, but it was a very beautiful church, and I loved the music and the light streaming through the windows. I used to sit up in the loft beside the organ, and when there were funerals, I had this marvelous long-shot view of the proceedings, with the coffin and the black drapes, and then later at the graveyard, watching the coffin lowered into the ground. I was never frightened by these sights. I was fascinated.”
At the age of 9, he traded a set of tin soldiers for a battered magic lantern, a possession that altered the course of his life. Within a year, he had created, by playing with this toy, a private world, he later recalled, in which he felt completely at home. He fashioned his own scenery, marionettes and lighting effects and gave puppet productions of Strindberg plays in which he spoke all the parts.
He entered the University of Stockholm in 1937, nominally to study the history of literature but actually to spend most of his time working in amateur theater. He soon left home and university for a career in the theater and the movies.
He split his time between film and theater from the early 1940s, when he first was taken into the script department of Svensk Filmindustri — a youth, as his first boss described him, “shabby, rude and scampish with a laugh born out of the darkest depths of the inferno.”
In his theater career, he became head of the municipal theater in the southern Swedish city of Halsingborg in 1944; in 1946, he switched to Goteborg for four years, then spent two years as a guest producer in a couple of cities before going to Malmo in 1952 to become associated with the municipal theater there.
In films, he wrote many scenarios as well as directed. His name first appeared on the screen in 1944 in “Torment,” which he wrote and Alf Sjoberg, one of the dominant figures in Swedish film, directed. The film, based on a story Bergman wrote about his final, torturous year at school, won eight Swedish awards as well as the Grand Prix du Cinema at Cannes. It made an international star of its leading performer, Mai Zetterling, who portrayed a shop girl loved by a young student and shadowed by the student’s sadistic teacher. Bergman got his first chance to direct the next year. His early films were essentially training films — basically soap operas that enabled him to experiment with directorial style.
Most experts agree that his first film of note was “Prison,” his sixth movie and the first all-Bergman production. The film is the story of a prostitute who committed suicide. He made it in 18 days, and while critics have called it cruel, disjointed and in many ways sophomoric, it was an early favorite of his.
In the next few years, he made “Summer Interlude” (1950), a tragedy of teen-age lovers; “Waiting Women” (1952), his first successful comedy; “Sawdust and Tinsel” set in a traveling circus and originally released in the United States as “The Naked Night”; “A Lesson in Love” (1953), a witty comedy of marital infidelity, and, finally, “Smiles of a Summer Night” and “The Seventh Seal,” his breakthroughs to fame.
In 1957, the same year as “Seventh Seal,” Bergman also directed “Wild Strawberries,” his acclaimed study of old age. In the film, the 78-year-old Isak Borg (played by the silent-film director and actor Victor Sjostrom), drives through the countryside, stops at his childhood home, relives the memory of his first love and comes to terms with his emotional isolation. “I had created a figure who, on the outside, looked like my father but was me, through and through,” Bergman has said. “I was then 37, cut off from all human emotions.”
Bergman won his second Academy Award in 1961 for “Through a Glass Darkly,” and then came the turning point in his career — “Winter Light,” which he made in 1963, the second of his trilogy of the early 60s that ended with “The Silence” and portrayed the loneliness and vulnerability of modern man, without faith or love. Many of his earlier films had been animated by an anguished search for belief, Kakutani wrote, but “Winter Light” — which shows a minister’s own loss of faith — implies that whatever answers there are are to be found on earth.
Bergman explained that the philosophical shift occurred during a brief hospital stay. Awakening from the anesthesia, he realized that he was no longer scared of death, and that the question of death had suddenly disappeared. Since then, many critics feel, his films have contained a kind of humanism in which human love is the only hope of salvation.
Every time he made a failure, he managed to win back critics and audiences quickly with such films as “Persona” — in which the personalities of two women break down and merge — “The Passion of Anna,” “Cries and Whispers” — a stark portrait of three sisters — and “Fanny and Alexander.”
Bergman often used what amounted to a repertory company — a group of actors who appeared in many of his films. They included Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Bibi Andersson, and, above all, Liv Ullmann, with whom he had a long personal relationship and with whom he had a child. He also for many years used the same cinematographer, Sven Nykvist.
The ideas for his films, he said, came to him in many ways. “Persona,” the study of two women in neurotic intimacy, came to life, he said, when one day he saw two women sitting together comparing hands. “I thought to myself,” he said, “that one of them is mute and the other speaks.”
Bergman’s celluloid carvings often revealed an obsession with death. But in later life he said that the obsession had abated. “When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying,” he said. “But now I think it a very, very wise arrangement. It’s like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about.”
TITLE: Word’s worth
TEXT: Ñîöèàëüíî îðèåíòèðîâàííàÿ êîìïàíèÿ: a socially responsible company, a company with a conscience
Three cheers for corporate social responsibility. Yes, I know: folks who head corporations instead of writing columns say that companies should put their efforts into running their businesses and let someone else solve society’s problems. But I say, if a company has money to spend, let it spend it on a good cause.
But I wish they didn’t talk about it. For every CEO giving a PowerPoint presentation on the company’s philanthropy, there is a translator weeping in the corner.
You wouldn’t think this would be hard. The rich, pre-revolutionary Russian tradition and lexicon of philanthropy ended in 1917, and the new breed of corporate do-gooders are using English as their guide. So corporate social responsibility is êîðïîðàòèâíàÿ ñîöèàëüíàÿ îòâåòñòâåííîñòü. Ñîöèàëüíàÿ ñïðàâåäëèâîñòü is social justice. Ñîöèàëüíûå ïðîáëåìû are social problems.
When you come across the phrase ñîöèàëüíàÿ ñôåðà, you think to yourself, “No brainer —social sphere.” But in Russian, this encompasses áûòîâûå óñëóãè, îáðàçîâàíèå, êóëüòóðà, çäðàâîîõðàíåíèå, ñîöèàëüíîå îáåñïå÷åíèå, îáùåñòâåííîå ïèòàíèå, êîììóíàëüíîå îáñëóæèâàíèå, ïàññàæèðñêèé òðàíñïîðò, ñâÿçü (consumer services, education, culture, health care, social services, restaurants and cafes, utilities, passenger transportation and communication). In English, “social” is usually narrower in scope, especially in the context of corporate activities.
In a Russian town, the local factory might be doing activities that in the U.S. would be carried out by religious groups, nongovernmental organizations, community volunteers, the town government, business associations, state social services departments and the education board. So you need to decipher the reality behind the Russian words.
Ñîöèàëüíàÿ ïîëèòèêà êîìïàíèè ïðåäñòàâëÿåò ñîáîé ñèñòåìó êîðïîðàòèâíûõ ñîöèàëüíûõ ïðîãðàìì (literally: the company’s social policy consists of corporate social programs) might be more understandable to an English-speaker with a descriptive translation: The company’s social policy is implemented via corporate programs designed to improve conditions in the local community.
The ubiquitous word “community” comes in handy, especially when you want to avoid the meanings of “social” connected with socializing or gregarious personalities. Ñîöèàëüíûå öåíòðû translated as “social centers” might suggest a club where the workers kick back with a brew after a hard day at the widget factory. In Russian, they are more likely to be offices that conduct grant competitions and oversee aid programs. Depending on the context and what they do, you might try “community aid or outreach centers.”
— By Michele A. Berdy
Sergey Chernov is on vacation
TITLE: They Call Him Jesus of Siberia
AUTHOR: By Kevin Sullivan
PUBLISHER: The Washington Post
TEXT: ABODE OF DAWN, Russia — Ten kilometers from the nearest road, in the vast Siberian wilderness, a bearded man in flowing white linen robes sat at his kitchen table and talked about his crucifixion at the hands of Pontius Pilate 2,000 years ago.
In a voice barely louder than the rain falling on the mountaintop home his followers have built for him, Sergei Torop said it was painful to remember the end of his last life, in which he says he walked the Earth as Jesus Christ.
Torop, 46, is a former Siberian traffic police officer who is now the spiritual leader of at least 5,000 devoted followers. They have abandoned lives as artists, engineers and professionals in other fields to move to this corner of Siberia, 3,200 kilometers from Moscow. In empty woodlands, they are building from scratch an entire new town, where they pass their lives near the man they call Vissarion, “he who gives new life.”
Government officials and religion analysts call his Church of the Last Testament one of the largest new religious groups in the country, which has become an incubator of novel faiths since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Thousands of new religious groups have formed all over the world in recent years as increasing numbers of people become disillusioned with traditional religions, according to experts who study worship trends. In Russia, millions of people returned to the Orthodox Church after seven decades of state suppression of religion, but hundreds of thousands of others sought new faiths for new times.
Periodically, Torop comes down from his mountaintop home to meet his followers, who bow down and worship him. On Sundays, he receives them at his house. Torop has also preached in Moscow, Western Europe and the United States. Critics variously dismiss him as a delusional or perhaps dangerous cult leader. But people who have flocked here declare themselves certain of his divinity.
“When I saw Vissarion, my heart said, ‘This is him. This is the one, the teacher I have been waiting for all my life,’” said Lyuba Derbina, 44, a former Red Cross translator from Murmansk. “Yes, I believe he is Jesus Christ. I know it, like I know I’m breathing, and that’s it.”
It was already sticky-hot and spitting rain at 7 a.m. one recent day as a hundred people gathered for morning prayers. Most were in their 30s and 40s. They met, as they do every day, at the circular garden they are building at the center of the village.
Kneeling in the muddy grass, they sang hymns amid the tall pines and soaring white birch trees. Others became lost in silent prayer: One woman didn’t seem to notice the bugs on her bare ankles, already scarred with bloody bites.
Then they gathered beneath the community basketball hoop and divvied up chores for the day: Work crews were dispatched to create roads and paths; to re-channel mountain streams into plastic tubes for household water supply; and to run workshops on woodcarving and embroidery.
Despite harsh winters when temperatures can dip to minus 50 degrees Celsius, more than 250 people live in the growing village. They have named it the Abode of Dawn. Some 4,000 to 5,000 more followers live in about 40 other villages scattered along old logging roads within a few hours’ drive.
Framed photos of Torop, wearing purple robes, hang in hundreds of small wooden homes. Here they measure time by the life of Vissarion. Because he turned 46 in January, the followers are now living in Year 47.
By Torop’s order, alcohol, drugs and smoking are strongly discouraged, and everyone maintains a strict vegetarian diet. The villagers try to eat only what they grow, supplemented by big sacks of basics such as sugar, grain, salt, flour — and the occasional box of Earl Grey tea.
The emphasis on environmental awareness is part of Torop’s teachings, contained in a nine-volume “Last Testament” and 61 commandments. He preaches kindness to all, nonaggression and peace. His commandments include “Be pure in your thoughts,” “Do good deeds beyond all measure” and “Destroy nothing without reason.”
The Believers
Galina Oshepkova, 54, said that 18 months ago she was a divorced mother of two sons, searching for meaning in her life in her native Belarus. Then a friend showed her a videotape of Torop. To her, she recalled, he looked so much like the classic images of Jesus, with his long brown hair and beard. In his sermon, he said he had come back to Earth because people had forgotten his teachings about peace from 2,000 years earlier.
“That was the end of my search,’’ Oshepkova said, boiling porridge over a propane stove in her dirt-floor kitchen. “I felt my heart beating really fast, and I knew, ‘This is the truth. This is Him.’ He is the second incarnation of Jesus Christ.’’
Oshepkova gave her apartment and all her possessions to her sons and moved to Siberia. She said she arrived with two suitcases and no money, and was invited to move in with other followers. She is now married to Nikolai Oshepkov, an engineer also from Belarus. Now he designs the village’s network of solar panels and generators and its rudimentary networks of piped water.
“We are building heaven on Earth,” Oshepkov said. “The conditions here are severe. Life is physically hard. But we have found what we were waiting for.”
Alexander Dvorkin, a Moscow academic and one of Russia’s leading specialists on new religions, called Torop a cult leader who is exploiting vulnerable followers.
“To have this kind of control over people is bad,” Dvorkin said. He estimated that as many as 800,000 Russians are members of religious sects.
Torop’s followers, he said, are idealists who have had difficulty adjusting to the freewheeling new world of Russian capitalism.
“They think, ‘I am more important than you because I am with Jesus. The end of the world will come, and where will you be with your money and big car?’’’
Many followers interviewed said they were happy to give their money to a community they found so rewarding, but Dvorkin said it amounted to Torop fleecing them. Assets turned over by followers are the main income of the group; it also earns money from sales of handicrafts, such as woodcarvings, knitting, pottery and oil pressed from cedar nuts.
Some one-time followers later dropped out. Maria Karpinskaya, 55, was a divorced mother of one when she met Torop in 1992 in Moscow. She moved to Siberia. At first, she said in an interview in Moscow, Torop seemed like a strong spiritual leader who dreamed of creating a “beautiful life — like a new America.” In 1995, she said, she came to the conclusion that Torop was only claiming to be Jesus for personal gain.
“The hypnosis disappeared and I realized my life was ruined,” she said. “He doesn’t believe he is Jesus Christ. He is just manipulating people. It’s PR, it’s a brand. Jesus is a brand.”
Home With the Stars
There is only one path up to Torop’s mountaintop home. Boris Mozhin, a mechanical engineer from Moldova, acts as the leader’s gatekeeper. Mozhin sits at a window next to a Soviet army crank phone, supplemented by two cell phones and a radiophone on a desk. A large portrait of Torop hangs on the wall.
“When you are with a person you love, your heart beats faster — that’s what it’s like to be with the teacher,’’ said Mozhin, 54, who moved here nine years ago with his wife, also an engineer.
Past a shed filled with neatly cut cordwood and a snowmobile, Torop stood in his kitchen doorway in white robes, awaiting two visitors. His house has three floors and a majestic panoramic view down to the village and wilderness beyond.
He and his wife live here, along with the younger of their six children. The older ones live in the village with Torop’s mother, who is divorced from his father.
Torop spends most of his days in the house painting and praying, followers say. He asked the guests to sit with him, folded his hands and said, in a soft voice, “How may I help you?”
His hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail streaked with gray; he had soft hazel eyes and high cheekbones.
Speaking slowly, with long pauses, he said he had a typical upbringing as the son of a Siberian construction worker. At 18, he joined the Soviet army and spent two years on a construction unit. In 1985, he took a job as a traffic cop working the night shift.
“When I had to do street patrols, I would just watch the stars,” he said. “I felt clearly that the stars were my home.”
Sometime around 1990, when he was 29, he recounted, “something woke up inside of me” and he realized his divine nature. He said he then understood that God had sent him to Earth because hatred and war and environmental degradation had become rampant.
“To do what I’m called to do, I need to have a human body,” he said. “I live in a body in order to bring man closer to God.”
“This is the first time I have been needed in 2,000 years. This is a critical point. Only when mankind becomes one family on Earth will the doors to the universe become open to them.”
TITLE: The great communicator tells all
AUTHOR: By Tim Rutten
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: There is a great deal of interest in “The Reagan Diaries,” but what sets the late president’s personal recollections of his eight years in the White House apart from the recent spate of tell-all, inside-Washington books is what’s absent: You can scour this thick volume from back to front and find not a trace of self-righteousness, self-pity or self-justification — all standard issue accouterments among today’s office-holders and political appointees, whether their veins bleed red or blue.
Some of this has to do, of course, with the fact that the former actor and California governor experienced his eight years in office as a turbulent but successful period in his life and that the subsequent reviews of his performance have been good. There’s a reason why the 2008 campaign’s first debate among aspiring Republican presidential candidates was held at the Reagan Library and why the participants all strove to drape themselves in “The Great Communicator’s” mantle.
Historian Douglas Brinkley, who adroitly edited what could have been “two or three fat volumes” into one substantial book, clearly came away from the experience with not only an academic regard for Reagan’s written legacy but also a genuine regard for the writer. As Brinkley writes in his warm introduction:
“There is an appealing earnestness to the diaries, an unvarnished account of his days in office. The entries don’t dazzle in a self-congratulatory fashion. Nor do they consciously attempt to spin history in his favor…. Nowhere in the entries did the president bask in glory, savor the misfortune of adversaries, or wallow in his own defeats. More often than not, he is self-deprecating.”
It’s an entirely apt characterization and, taken as a whole, “The Reagan Diaries” brings to mind nothing so much as Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous appraisal of the young Franklin Roosevelt: “second-class intellect but a first-rate temperament.” (It’s interesting that Reagan returns repeatedly to his admiration for the New Deal and mentions that when he hosted members of the Roosevelt family at the White House, he quipped that he was the only person in the room who had voted for FDR four times.)
To borrow Holmes’ condescending appellation is not to denigrate Reagan’s intelligence. The chief executive who emerges from these pages has a capacious attention to and knowledge of this country and the world. It is not, however, a self-examining or particularly reflective intelligence. On the other hand, it’s hard not to feel that, if you called Central Casting and said, “Send us somebody with a presidential temperament,” you couldn’t have done much better than this guy.
Reagan the diarist is at home with himself, unself-consciously comfortable — even proud — of his film industry origins. He retains something of the film personality’s instinctive attraction to the personal gesture. He always has time for children who are ill, for the unexpected average hero he read about in the newspaper or to inquire whether his staff can’t do “something” for a California householder in danger of losing his property in a misunderstanding over municipal taxes.
Reagan’s conservatism runs through his observations less as an ideology than as a deeply felt emotion. He believed communism was evil and his inclination to think from the personal to the general led him to have a lively interest in Soviet-era dissidents and, particularly, the persecution and privations of the Jewish refuseniks. He read what they wrote and gladly received them in the White House, when opportunities arose. Here too though, one thing that gave Reagan such a superb presidential temperament emerges — he always knew not just where he wanted to go but was keenly interested in who and how many were willing to follow him.
Take this entry from Tuesday, May 13, 1986: “Met with Anatoly Scharansky. It was fascinating to hear the story of his imprisonment by the Soviets. I learned that I’m a hero in the Soviet Gulag. The prisoners read the attacks on me in Tass & Pravda & learn what I’m saying about the Soviets and they like me.”
There’s a touching quality to this sort of “you-like-me-you-really-like-me” Hollywood affect, but the former president’s anti-communist fervor takes on a more chilling quality when it blinds him — as it does throughout the diaries — to the realities of the dirty war U.S. policy promoted in El Salvador and Nicaragua. The seeds of Iran-Contra are there from 1982 on.
Reagan continually and, almost reflexively, took the popular pulse of whatever audience he was addressing, whether it was calls to the White House after a televised address or the reaction of the Washington press corps to his appearance at the annual Gridiron Dinner, which he found exhausting but enjoyable. While Reagan frequently points to what he saw as unsympathetic and “biased” treatment in the press, he never took it personally. (He also watched a lot of old movies in the evening and usually preferred them to contemporary films, which he found riddled with left-wing politics.)
Reagan’s attitude toward the press was all of a piece with something else that set him so distinctly apart from today’s national politicians: He was a man of firm conviction without any inclination to rancor. In part this seemed to stem from an unshakeable confidence in the force of his personality and in the efficacy of personal contact. (He was, for example, genuinely fond of Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill, with whom he so frequently butted heads but shared a convivial relationship, as if they were two sundered sons of the New Deal.)
Take, for example, this entry for Nov. 17, 1987: “From there to a meeting of Jewish leaders & 3 refusniks we succeeded in getting out of the Soviet U. I told them of how we intended to get more Jews released & hopefully better living conditions & freedom for all Soviet Jews. Then my sneeze shot & upstairs to a meeting with Justice Thurgood Marshall. I’d asked for a meeting because of his public statement to Carl Rowan that I was a racist. I literally told him my life story & how there was not prejudice in me. I have examples of my relations with Minorities in school, as a sports announcer & as Gov. I think I made a friend.”
For all his years in Hollywood and subsequent political success, two things run through the diaries like a thread: One is a kind of gee-whiz everyman’s delight in finding himself in such interesting and enjoyable circumstances; the other is his love for and reliance on Nancy. Some will be put off by the cloying pet name — “Mommie” — by which he referred to her. On the other hand, people who remain attached to each other at their age and circumstances are entitled to style their own affections. What is clear is that he always was miserable without her, as in these entries:
“I miss Mommie. She called from Fla. — will be home tomorrow nite.”
Or this, while on a 1986 visit to Tokyo without her: “Another fabulous suite at Hotel Okura — actually a penthouse…. Dinner alone in my suite. I’ll be glad when Nancy joins me. CNN has an English language channel in Japan. I ate dinner watching ‘The A Team’ & ‘Hart to Hart’…. “
In October 1988, as the Reagans prepared to return to California, he persuaded her to go to Los Angeles and toss out the first ball of the World Series at Dodger Stadium: “Well — spent the day reading & checking over things for the Library. Then exercise — shower and dinner. Watched 1st game of World Series. Saw Nancy throw out the 1st ball — she done good. Also told crowd & TV audience about the need to step up the anti-drug campaign. Dodgers won 6 to 5 with an exciting come from behind finish. And so to bed.”
The Reagan Diaries // By Ronald Reagan // Edited by Douglas Brinkley // HarperCollins // 784 pages
TITLE: In the Spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last month’s most bizarre celebrity rumor has to be a story published by the Daily Mirror’s gossip hounds, the 3am Girls, saying that Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is dating “sexy Russian Evgeny Lebedev.” It wasn’t so much the story — headlined “Tsar’s in Her Eyes — that grabbed the attention as the photo of Ginger’s possible beau wearing a very, very shiny suit.
Evgeny, as he styles himself (goodness knows how that gets pronounced in Belgravia), is not a household name in Russia, but his father, Alexander Lebedev, very much is. He’s a Duma Deputy who campaigns for the closure of casinos and also makes No. 27 on the latest Forbes list of rich Russians, as the head of a corporation that owns 30 percent of Aeroflot. Forbes writes that he’s worth a cool $3.6 billion, so he probably doesn’t luxuriate in Aeroflot economy class too often.
Lebedev Sr. was described in the Daily Mirror as an “academic and former KGB agent,” which is another way of putting it. His official web site writes that he has a doctorate and that he worked in the Foreign Intelligence Service, which was part of the KGB until 1991, the year before he left. Although, rather boringly, his web site describes his job as stopping capital going abroad, which is probably the worst nightmare of his It Boy son.
Snappy dresser Evgeny has still to crack the Forbes list, but he made No. 3 on the latest annual list of eligible bachelors published in the cliquey socialite magazine Tatler. To put that into proportion, Prince Harry was No. 10. The magazine described him as a “jazz musician” — plenty to talk about with Geri, then — who “entertains in a fabulous blacked-out flat in Belgravia.”
Yes, that description does give you pause for thought. Surely the billionaire’s son isn’t squatting on some bijoux demolition site? Although I do know a man who lives in a blacked-out house with UV lighting and plans to turn his kitchen into the inside of a walnut. It’s a British thing. Anyway, I certainly wouldn’t suggest that Evgeny got dressed in the dark for that party, although it’s a brave man who strides out in London wearing pointy white shoes.
The 3am gossip squad wrote that Geri and Evgeny met through the Abramoviches and were spotted together at a party at an art gallery. Their “spy” (no relation to Evgeny) got close enough to hear him ask Geri if she was wearing a thong. Maybe she didn’t need to ask him the same question — shiny trousers are so unforgiving.
Of course, cynics might see a promotional motive to this pairing. Geri has got the Spice Girls reunion and Evgeny has got Wintle, a British line of men’s clothing that he and his father have invested in, Kommersant reported this month — three days before the Daily Mirror splashed with its exclusive. They are also opening a restaurant in London, the Russian broadsheet wrote. It will serve Oriental cuisine and the average bill will be “$400 to $600,” which should be popular with the jazz musician cum minigarch crowd.
However, it’s early days for Evgeny and Geri and I don’t want to jump to conclusions, unlike Zhizn tabloid, which published an article lamenting the fact that Geri is contractually forbidden to get pregnant during the Spice Girls reunion tour. Whoah there, she probably hasn’t even had time to introduce him to Bluebell Madonna (her baby), not to mention Daddy (her Pomeranian), yet.
There’s no word on what Evgeny’s daddy thinks of the match. Although, sad to say, poor old Ginger Spice didn’t even make this year’s list of top 100 celebrities in Forbes.
TITLE: Made in the Med
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Villa Urbana // 21 Zagorodny Prospekt. Tel: 380 7955, www.villaurbana.ru // Open around the clock // All major credit cards accepted // Lunch for two without alcohol 1,885 rubles ($74)
“Making your dream of a worry-free holiday come true, in our restaurant we create the atmosphere of your favorite resort destination, giving coziness, comfort and warmth to every guest,” reads the flyer for this restaurant.
Well, given some of the exotic and at times confusing constraints on ordering certain dishes at Villa Urbana, “your favorite resort destination” might be one from the Soviet past. Back then you knew for sure that if a menu said a certain dish went with a certain side order, you had to either take it or leave it — negotiations were meaningless. Nevertheless, despite a few niggles over what and when you can order certain dishes, we suggest you read this review until the end before jumping to conclusions — this restaurant certainly has a lot going for it.
In terms of its menu, this place deserves a medal in the “most outlandish restaurant in town” category. According to their blurb, Villa Urbana every week offers a new “culinary adventure” to one of the Mediterranean countries. When we visited it a week ago, the “Mediterranean” country of the week was… Ukraine. But was it easy for us to “taste and travel” to our Slavic neighbor? At 1 p.m. it was too late to try the Voyage menu, “served daily from noon to 5 pm.”
With the restaurant only recently opened, it’s easy to see why there might be some teething problems with the complex revolving menu policy. Luring us to the restaurant, someone at the door had told us that if we wanted something from the breakfast menu (served 8 a.m. to noon) it was no problem. How wrong she was! There was no way they would serve a simple chicken salad from the breakfast menu. It was explained that during the day the price of dishes changes, and they are not able to calculate the cost of the salad since it was not on their list at lunch.
After some hard negotiation with the waiter we ordered the risk-free grilled chicken for 295 rubles ($11.60). We also ordered the Provence country salad (245 rubles, $9.60) and the Malta salad (265 rubles, $10.40). Made of liver and beautifully decorated with raspberries, the Provence salad was a hit, though the other dish paled in comparison.
Difficulties with the menu are more than made up for by the extremely pleasant interiors and wonderful atmosphere. Villa Urbana is elegantly decorated with airy rooms decorated in pastel shades.
There is also a great selection of teas, and a great hot chocolate option (150 rubles, $6.30) that make the place worth visiting for an afternoon beverage.
As does the “five o’clock” tea (from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. daily), where you can enjoy two desserts for the price of one. Villa Urbana has been open for only a month and it is to be hoped that, as the restaurant gets older, it will get wiser.
TITLE: Simpsons go to the pictures
AUTHOR: By A. O. Scott
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: I have long been of the opinion that the entire history of American popular culture — maybe even of Western civilization — amounts to little more than a long prelude to “The Simpsons.” I don’t think I’m alone in this belief. But it does not follow that “The Simpsons Movie” represents a creative peak toward which the show’s 18 seasons and 400 episodes have been a long, slow climb. Let’s keep things in perspective. “The Simpsons” is an inexhaustible repository of humor, invention and insight, an achievement without precedent or peer in the history of broadcast television, perhaps the purest distillation of our glories and failings as a nation ever conceived. “The Simpsons Movie” is, well, a movie.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a very funny movie, loaded with dumb jokes that are often as funny as the clever ones, and full of the anarchic, generous, good-natured humor that is the show’s enduring signature. From the very start, when Ralph Wiggum stands inside the 20th Century Fox logo and sings along with the company fanfare, to the last frames of the closing credits, “The Simpsons Movie” provides plenty of amusement for both casual fans and hard-core zealots.
It is not better than the best episodes — it’s no “22 Short Films About Springfield” or “Homer’s Enemy” or “Krusty Gets Busted” or “Lisa the Vegetarian” — and it doesn’t strain to be. (I’d put it at about the level of “Trash of the Titans,” the 200th episode, with which it shares an environmental theme.)
Instead of trying to top “The Simpsons” or sum it all up, the film’s director, David Silverman (whose association with the series goes back to the days of “The Tracey Ullman Show”) and the writers (who among them have at least a century’s worth of experience on the show) take advantage of the opportunity to go wider and longer. CinemaScope, the wide-screen format developed by Fox in the 1950s to combat the rise of television, turns out to be the ideal way to appreciate the small-screen, small-town paradise that is Springfield. In a variation on the show’s opening sequence, we swoop through the town, seeing it from new angles and appreciating its history and beauty anew.
There are also crowd scenes on a scale rarely attempted on television, spectacles that compensate somewhat for the skimpy screen time granted some of the secondary characters. Everyone has a little, thank goodness, but for my taste there was too much Flanders and not enough Krusty. Less Cletus, please, and more Groundskeeper Willie. And where were Patty and Selma? I will say that the “Itchy and Scratchy” movie at the beginning is pure genius, though.
At this point, the temptation is strong to rifle through my notes and repeat my favorite jokes — to tell you about Bart’s full frontal nudity and Homer and Marge’s bedroom scene and the bomb-defusing robot and the many acts of auto-homage that made my inner Comic Book Guy exclaim, “Oh yeah, I remember that episode.” Instead, I’ll just spoil the plot: Homer does something really stupid. Also, Lisa develops a crush, Bart gets in trouble and Marge expresses concern and disapproval. Sorry.
Homer’s main screw-up is not necessarily more or less idiotic than anything he’s done before. (All I’ll say is that it involves a pig.) The consequences, though, are proportionate to what you might expect from a summer blockbuster action movie. That is, they involve Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been elected president of the United States; the elite attack forces of the Environmental Protection Agency; and the near-destruction of Springfield. Also motorcycles.
The head of the E.P.A. is voiced by the “Simpsons” stalwart Albert Brooks, but the movie is generally light on celebrity cameos and voice-overs, properly emphasizing the talents of the series regulars (Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Yeardley Smith and Nancy Cartwright as the family, with Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer filling out much of the non-Simpson Springfield phone directory). There is Green Day, performing an excellent revved-up version of Danny Elfman’s theme song, but other than that the filmmakers stick to the solid core of family and town, and to the mixture of irreverence and sentiment that has underwritten the program’s longevity.
One of the esoteric pursuits that divert “Simpsons” devotees is what might be called the question of authorship. A movie may be the work of a single, imperial auteur, but a television comedy, more often than not, arises from the collective, at times antagonistic labor of a bunch of writers in a room. It is easy enough to identify the graphic style and populist sensibilities of Matt Groening, and to intuit the sharp, fuzzy humanism of James L. Brooks. But over the years dozens of writers have passed through the bungalows on the Fox lot where “The Simpsons” is written. Many have stuck around, come back after grazing elsewhere or left traces of their influence behind. They are, as a group, responsible for the show’s variety and its consistency, for its high points and its occasional doldrums.
Quite a few storied figures of “Simpsons” history turn up in the movie credits — the screenplay is attributed to Groening, Brooks, Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder and Jon Vitti, several of whom have served in the crucial and mysterious role of show runner — and this is a sign that the movie is more to its makers than a byproduct or an afterthought.
Except, of course, that it inevitably is. Ten or 15 years ago, “The Simpsons Movie,” which has been contemplated for almost as long as the show has been on the air, might have felt riskier and wilder. But “The Simpsons,” for all its mischief and iconoclasm, has become an institution, and that status has kept this film from taking too many chances. Why mess with the formula when you can extend the brand? Do I sound disappointed? I’m not, really. Or only a little.
“The Simpsons Movie,” in the end, is as good as an average episode of “The Simpsons.” In other words, I’d be willing to watch it only — excuse me while I crunch some numbers here — 20 or 30 more times.
TITLE: F1 Rivals Set to Renew Hostilities in Hungary
AUTHOR: By Alan Baldwin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BUDAPEST, Hungary — McLaren and Ferrari renew hostilities when Formula One’s increasingly bitter rivals face off in the heat of the Hungaroring on Sunday.
After a week dominated by talk of spying and subterfuge, a saga that shows no signs of abating, the immediate focus switches back to the track and a title fight that remains too close to call.
McLaren’s double world champion Fernando Alonso senses the momentum is with him after winning the previous race in Germany to move just two points behind 22-year-old rookie team mate Lewis Hamilton with seven rounds left.
The Spaniard, who turned 26 on Sunday, can now seize the outright lead for the first time since April at the circuit where he took his first grand prix victory as a 22-year-old with Renault in 2003.
“It was great to take the win in Germany and I hope to achieve the same result in Hungary,” he said in a team preview that made no mention of the off-track controversy that still hangs over his team’s title prospects.
“The track will always be special to me. I usually enjoy the race.”
With overtaking difficult at the best of times at one of the slowest of circuits, Alonso will have to make sure that he outqualifies both Hamilton and the Ferraris.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, swept aside by Alonso in a wheel-banging finale at the Nuerburgring, will be out for revenge.
The Brazilian is nine points behind Alonso.
Ferrari are 27 adrift of McLaren, who emerged unscathed from a hearing of the sport’s governing body last Thursday that found them to have been in unauthorised possession of Ferrari technical information. The affair will now go to appeal.
BUTTON DOWN
Hamilton, the Briton whose nine race run of podium finishes came to an end with ninth place at the Nuerburgring, will be doing all he can to keep the lead through the summer break.
“We have as good a chance as anyone at the race,” he said.
“We have a great car and it is important that I go with a clear mind and the same approach as normal but there is no reason why we can’t go there and win.”
Throw Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, winner here with McLaren in 2005 and runner-up in 2003, into the Hungaroring and Sunday promises to be another full-on four-way battle.
Raikkonen, a three-times winner, needs another victory to haul himself back into the reckoning after a retirement at the Nuerburgring left him 18 points off the lead.
Briton Jenson Button, who took an emotional first win for Honda on a wet afternoon in Hungary last year, can expect to finish way down the order this time.
He and Honda have only a point since the end of last season and even eighth place would be something to celebrate.
“Obviously it will be quite a different race for us this year but hopefully we can keep up the steady progress we have been making and take another step forward,” said Button.
The starting grid will see two new faces from the last race, with 20-year-old German Sebastian Vettel replacing American Scott Speed at Toro Rosso and Japan’s Sakon Yamamoto at tail-enders Spyker.
TITLE: Death Toll May Rise in Bridge Disaster
AUTHOR: By Jon Krawczynski
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MINNEAPOLIS, United States — Alyssa Rocklitz never showed up for work. Kirk Foster and his girlfriend Krystle Webb are nowhere to be found.
Their friends and family members were among more than 20 relatives gathered in a hotel ballroom early Thursday, waiting for word after an interstate bridge collapsed, killing at least seven and sending dozens of cars plummeting more than 60 feet into the Mississippi River.
“I’ve never wanted to see my brother so much in my life,’’ said Kristi Foster, who went to the center looking for Kirk. She hadn’t had contact with her brother or his girlfriend since the previous night, and his cell phone was shut off.
The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery that carries more than 100,000 vehicles a day, was in the midst of being repaired and two lanes in each direction were closed when the bridge buckled Wednesday while jammed with rush-hour traffic.
Officials said seven people died, more than 60 were injured, and as many as 50 vehicles were in the river. The collapse did not appear to be terrorism-related.
Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack said the death toll could rise. “We think there are several more vehicles in the river we can’t see yet,’’ he said Wednesday.
By 1 a.m. Thursday, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek said all search efforts had been called off for the night and that officials didn’t expect to find any more survivors. ``It’s dark, it’s not safe with the currents in the water and the concrete and rebar,’’ he said.
Search lights on the banks illuminated a horrific scene of twisted wreckage, thick concrete slabs, twisted steel and crushed cars tossed about haphazardly. A line of ambulances idled along the adjacent bridge.
“Obviously, this is a catastrophe of historic proportions for Minnesota,’’ said Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Pawlenty said the 40-year-old bridge was inspected by the Minnesota Department of Transportation in 2005 and 2006 and that no immediate structural problems were noted. ``There were some minor things that needed attention,’’ he said.
Road crews were working on the bridge’s joints, guardrails and lights this week, with lane closures overnight on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Aerial shots from local television stations showed the entire span of Interstate 35W had crumpled into the river below. Some injured people were carried up the riverbank, while emergency workers tended to others on the ground and some jumped into the water to look for survivors. Fire and black smoke rose from the wreckage.
A school bus had just crossed the midsection of the bridge before it collapsed. The bus did not go into the water, and broadcast reports indicated the children on the bus exited out the back door.
Christine Swift’s 10-year-old daughter, Kaleigh, was on the bus, returning from a field trip to Bunker Hills in Blaine. She said her daughter called her about 6:10 p.m.
“She was screaming, ‘The bridge collapsed,’’’ Swift said. All 60 kids got off the bus safely, but about 10 of the children were injured, officials said.
The collapsed bridge stood just blocks from the heart of Minneapolis, near tourist attractions like the new Guthrie Theater and the Stone Arch Bridge. As the steamy night progressed, massive crowds circulated in the area on foot or bicycle, some of them wearing Twins T-shirts and caps after departing early from Wednesday night’s game at the nearby Metrodome.
Thursday’s game between the Twins and Kansas City Royals was called off, but the Twins decided to go ahead with Wednesday’s rather than sending about 25,000 fans back out onto the congested highways. Inside the stadium, there was a moment of silence to honor victims.
The river’s depth at the bridge was not immediately available, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintains a channel depth of at least 9 feet in the Upper Mississippi from Minneapolis southward to allow for barge and other river traffic.
There were 18 construction workers on the bridge at the time of the collapse, said Tom Sloan, head of the bridge division for Progressive Contractors Inc., in St. Michael. One of the workers was unaccounted for.
Sloan said his crew was placing concrete finish on the bridge for what he called a routine resurfacing project. “It was the final item on this phase of the project. Suddenly the bridge gave way,’’ he said.
Sloan said his workers described a horrific scene. “They said they basically rode the bridge down to the water. They were sliding into cars and cars were sliding into them,’’ he said.
TITLE: Ambitious Phelps Opens Account at U.S. Nationals
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CHICAGO — Michael Phelps grabbed the spotlight at the U.S. swimming nationals on Wednesday, scooping a pair of titles while narrowly missing out on a world record in the 200 meters backstroke in Indianapolis.
Phelps, who set himself an ambitious 10-event program at the Indiana University Natatorium pool, got the meet off to a quiet start on Tuesday failing to qualify for the final of the 200 breaststroke.
But the 22-year-old stamped his mark on the championships on Wednesday, winning the 200 backstroke and later helping the Michigan Wolverines to victory in the 4x100 freestyle relay to take his tally of national titles to 34.
Phelps, who is rarely able to work the 200 backstroke into his program, led from the horn storming to the wall in a time of one minute, 54.65 seconds, just .33 seconds off the world record of 1:54.32 set by Ryan Lochte at the world championships in March.
Chris Dejong was a distant second in 1:56.75 while Lochte could finish no better than fourth after winning the 400 individual medley an hour earlier.
“I saw the split at 150 and saw I was only a tenth off and tried to do everything I could,” Phelps told poolside reporters. “But I had nothing left in the tank.”
Dana Torres, a 40-year-old mother, bidding to make her fifth Olympic team showed she still has what it takes touching first in the 100 freestyle.
Torres, who competed in her first Olympics at the 1984 Summer Games, led from the gun beating Amanda Weir to the wall in a time of 54.45 secs.
“You can’t put an age on your dreams,” said Torres. “It’s great to be back swimming against these young swimmers.”
David Walters was also a surprise winner of the men’s 100 free clocking 48.96 to pip Ryk Neethling, a member of South Africa’s gold medal relay team from the 2004 Athens Olympics, by 2/100ths of a second.
TITLE: PM Asks Sunnis To Rejoin Cabinet
AUTHOR: By Hamid Ahmed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — The Iraqi prime minister’s party asked the country’s largest Sunni Arab bloc Thursday to reconsider its withdrawal from government, in a last-ditch effort to restore Iraq’s national unity government.
All six Cabinet ministers from the Iraqi Accordance Front quit Nouri al-Maliki’s regime a day earlier to protest what they called the prime minister’s failure to respond to a set of demands.
Among them were the release of security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias and the participation of all groups represented in the government in dealing with security issues.
Their resignation left only two Sunnis in the 40-member Cabinet, undermining efforts to pull together rival factions and pass reconciliation laws the U.S. considers benchmarks toward healing the country’s deep war wounds.
Al-Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party issued a statement Thursday calling on the Accordance Front to ``reconsider its decision.’’
“The party expresses its concern and regret about this setback for Iraqi politics, an action taken before exploring any dialogue,’’ the statement said.
“We need to stand side by side as a national unity government and set aside all differences and cooperate, in order to answer the challenges our people are suffering,’’ it said.
But an Accordance Front lawmaker, reacting to the Dawa statement, said Thursday that the bloc would reconsider its withdrawal only if promised “the priority of real partnership.’’
“If we were assured by tangible and concrete promises of real change ... and the priority of real partnership, we would reconsider our stance,’’ Salim Abdullah, a Sunni parliament member, told The Associated Press. But he added that he was not optimistic such assurances would come from al-Maliki.
Also Thursday, the U.S. military announced three more soldier deaths: two killed in a mortar or rocket attack Tuesday, and another killed by a roadside bomb Wednesday.
It brought to at least 3,659 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.
Washington has been pushing al-Maliki’s government to pass key laws - among them, measures to share national oil revenues and incorporate some ousted Baathists into mainstream politics.
But the Sunni ministers’ resignation from the Cabinet — not the parliament — foreshadowed even greater difficulty in building consensus when lawmakers return after a monthlong summer recess.
In a video conference late Wednesday, President Bush prodded al-Maliki to unite rival factions and show some overdue political progress, the White House said.
The two leaders spoke for 45 minutes on a secure video link, part of a regular series of conversations on the war and Iraq’s struggling democracy.
“The president emphasized that the Iraqi people and the American people need to see action - not just words - but need to see action on the political front,’’ White House press secretary Tony Snow said. “The prime minister agreed.’’
Altogether at least 142 Iraqis were killed or found dead on Wednesday, including 70 in three separate bombings in Baghdad.
The violence came after July ended as the second-deadliest month for Iraqis so far this year, but with the lowest U.S. death toll in eight months.
TITLE: Man United Fails To Impress Against Inter
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MANCHESTER, England — Manchester United failed to impress as Italian champions Inter Milan won 3-2 at Old Trafford in a pre-season friendly on Wednesday.
United manager Alex Ferguson left summer signings Nani, Anderson and Owen Hargreaves on the sidelines as his team laboured.
Inter recorded the first victory of their pre-season tour to England with two goals from striker David Suazo and another from Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic — all in the first half.
Wayne Rooney, by far United’s most dangerous player, had opened the scoring in the first half with Adriano heading into his own net to gift the Premier League champions a second.
England defender Rio Ferdinand wasted a chance to equalise by shooting over the bar from close range with nine minutes left.
United faces Chelsea in the Community Shield at Wembley on Sunday, the curtain-raiser to the new season.
TITLE: Sorenstam Calls on Tiger’s Help At British Open, Bids to Become No.1
AUTHOR: By Elspeth Burnside
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Annika Sorenstam is hoping some advice from good friend Tiger Woods will help the Swede claim her 11th major at the Women’s British Open starting on Thursday over the Old Course at St Andrews.
Woods has the 2000 and 2005 Opens at St Andrews among his dozen majors and Sorenstam said it would “be almost too hard to describe” if she became the first woman to win a professional event over the historic links.
The Swede, returning to full fitness after an early season injury scare, has tasted success over the Old Course, winning the St Rule Trophy as an amateur in 1992.
“This is just such a fabulous place and it is a treat to be back here,” said Sorenstam. “It’s amazing to absorb all the history and I think I appreciate it even more than when I was an amateur.”
The 36-year-old Swede was at home in Orlando, Florida a few weeks ago when near neighbour Woods offered her some insight into the strategy for playing St Andrews.
“He gave me his yardage book, and I was delighted to accept,” she said. “He also reminded me that I had to hit it left, practise long putts and stay out of the bunkers.”
Sorenstam is determined to regain the world No.1 slot she lost to Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa.
TITLE: Hatton Tempts Floyd
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Floyd Mayweather Jr. will come out of his short-lived retirement to take on Britain’s Ricky Hatton in a welterweight “super-fight”, the British boxer’s father Ray said on Wednesday.
The 28-year-old Hatton is expected to move up a division from light welterweight for the bout which will probably be staged on December 8 in Las Vegas where he beat Jose Luis Castillo in June to retain his IBO title.
“The contract provided what we wanted and we are officially signed up and our lawyers have told us that the Mayweather camp have also signed,” Ray Hatton was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The boxer’s father said victory for his son could represent the greatest achievement in boxing history.
“Ricky is not only fighting the fella on his own turf — Las Vegas — but he is fighting at the time the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet,” he said.
“If he could do it, it would be the biggest achievement in boxing, going down whatever years you want to go down.”
Hatton himself said he was respectful of his potential opponent and the timing of the fight was perfect.
“He’s a true world champion, the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and has won world titles at five different weights,” the English fighter told Sky Sports News.
“You can’t get bigger than that. He’s come off that fantastic win against (Oscar) De La Hoya so there’s no better time to face him. He’s in his prime, I’m in my prime.
“To win a world title is one thing, to know it’s against the best pound-for-pound fighter in any weight division would be something else, and I can’t wait.”
The 30-year-old Mayweather, who said he was retiring following his victory over De La Hoya to win the WBC super-welterweight title in May, has no doubts who will emerge victorious, however.
“I don’t know who is the pound-for-pound number two in the world, but there is no fighter in the world like me,” the American said.
“I’m in the business of blood, sweat and tears.”
Hatton’s team are equally thrilled at the prospect of the match-up.
“Ricky set out to be the undisputed champion of the world and he did that, and did it against a living legend in Kostya Tszyu,” trainer Billy Graham said.
“But this fight, between the best pound-for-pound fighters out there, both at their peak, is the ultimate fight in boxing.”