SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1296 (62), Friday, August 10, 2007
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TITLE: Kacharava Killer Gets 12 Years
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The killer of 20-year-old antifascist student Timur  Kacharava was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Tuesday, with the  St. Petersburg City Court also handing down sentences to six  accomplices in the murder.
Alexander Shabalin was earlier convicted of stabbing to death Kacharava in downtown St. Petersburg in November 2005 and inciting social hatred. The six other defendants received between three years in a penal colony to suspended sentences of two years for inciting social hatred. 
Another suspect, who Timur’s friends suspect plotted and masterminded the murder, is still at large according a lawyer close to the case. Kacharava’s mother Irina watched in silence as the defendants, all of them around her son’s age, grimaced at reporters, cheered and waved at their parents and friends from behind the bars of the dock in the St. Petersburg court.
Neither the judge nor guards restrained the men as one of the defendant’s mothers shouted, ‘I told you it is going to be just fine!’
The seven convicts were between 17 and 20 years old when the crime was committed.
Defendant Andrei Moskovkin received three years in a penal colony, the Russian equivalent of an open prison. Defendants Sergei Panaskov and Sergei Golovlev were sentenced to two years in a penal colony.
The remaining defendants — Valery Yefremov, Kirill Semyonov and Dmitry Kushakov — received suspended sentences of between two and three years.
Shabalin’s lawyers said Shabalin and Moskovkin may appeal.
In court, the sentencing bewildered Kacharava’s friends.
“Every member of this gang should have been tried for murder but what happened instead was that the judge conveniently piled everything up on Shabalin and let everyone else have a lucky escape,” said an anti-fascist activist who goes by the alias Sedoi. His face was almost completely covered in a black scarf. “According to this trial, the person who slit Timur’s throat is a murderer but the people holding  Timur and preventing him from resisting did not assist in a murder. This is absurd.”
Human rights lawyer Olga Tseitlina, who represented the Kacharava family in the trial, said the convicts’ bravado was consistent with their behavior throughout the trial.
“None of them, not once, showed the slightest sign of remorse, regret or compassion,” the lawyer said. “They feel that they are kind of heroes and behaved in a highly insulting manner all the time. For example, they drew swastikas on the bench where they were sitting.”
Tseitlina said Kacharava’s killers had been aggressive during the trial and their lawyers consistently made attempts to present anti-fascists as a radical, extremist youth group.
“The defendants’ lawyers almost made it sound as if Timur got what was coming to him and the judge and prosecutors just turned 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 the absurd.”
Prior to the fatal attack, Kacharava, who had been targeted by extremists before, complained to his friends that he was being followed. Three days prior to his murder, he told his girlfriend he felt threatened and worried for his life.
Prosecutors were unable to prove that Kacharava’s murder was premeditated, and that a planned murder was carried out by a group of people.
Tseitlina said apparently a mistake was made — either deliberately or because of incompetence — when the case was classified during  preliminary investigations.
“The investigators bought Shabalin’s scenario in which he said he spontaneously suggested beating up an anti-fascist and took the initiative in attacking him, with the whole thing getting out of control,” she said, adding that as a lawyer representing the victims she had no authority to initiate a reclassification of the case.
“By the time a case reaches court it is too late to requalify it anyway, and we all have to make do with the articles that have been applied,” Tseitlina said. “The judge squeezed absolute maximum of the articles that applied in each case.”
Svetlana Yefimenko, the state prosecutor in the trial, said the prosecution would not appeal the verdict.
“The sentences were fair: most of the culprits were juveniles when the murder was committed, they all were of good standing with their municipalities, most of them pleaded guilty and actively cooperated with the investigation,” Yefimenko said. 
“These are all factors, and the court is obliged by the law to take them into account when delivering a sentence.”

TITLE: Experts Call Neva, Beaches Toxic Dumps
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The city prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation in connection with twelve illegal drains channeling industrial discharge into the River Neva. The investigations were prompted by a new report by the international environmental pressure group Greenpeace. After a series of tests in the Neva and its tributaries, carried out in July, the ecologists submitted some of the preliminary results of its environmental monitoring and awareness program to the prosecutors. 
Since early July, Greenpeace has been sending its own patrol boat along the Neva with crews taking water samples, documenting illegal discharge sites and publicizing the results among city residents. The patrol boat is currently making two or three ecological monitoring trips per week.
Every day in St. Petersburg, 3 million tons of used water is dumped into the Neva. Two thirds of that amount falls into the river completely untreated, Greenpeace warns.
City Hall says there are currently 375 drains channeling untreated industrial discharge within the city limits, and more than 1,000 sewage dumping points. Most of these are located in tributaries of the Neva. The rivers Mga, Okhta, Slavyanka and Izhora are among the most polluted.
“Most of the waste flows into the Neva through the polluted tributaries,” said Dmitry Artanomov, head of the local branch of Greenpeace. “The banks of Okhta, Slavyanka and Izhora abouund with industrial enterprises of all sorts. Many of the companies dump their waste into the water without any treatment.”
As part of their monitoring programs, Greenpeace activists also run tests on local fish. The most recent tests, carried out in Greenpeace laboratories in Exeter, U.K., show that the fish contain high concentrations of poisonous substances, including arsenic, lead and copper.
The fish are picked randomly from local street vendors or on markets. 
“For example, we bought some from local residents who we spotted fishing on Sverdlovskaya embankment and Pirogovskaya embankment,” Artamonov recalls. “We also bought fish on Kuzhnechny market and from a street vendor outside Ladozhskaya metro station.”
Artamonov said that many city residents are either unconcerned about the problem or unaware of the state of the water. 
Illegally pumped water may contain anything from dyes and oils to various chemicals, he added, warning that polluted water may often appear clean.
“The Neva is fast-flowing, so if you throw something into it at night it will be far away by morning,” he said. “Even if the water looks clean, with no obvious oily patches, don’t trust your eyes — they just don’t give you the whole picture.”
But some local residents are not intimidated even by the sight of multi-colored water with an apparently high degree of pollution.
“My cat loves this fish, and fishing here is good fun,” Olga, a woman fishing on the banks of the Izhora River on the route of the Greenpeace boat. Olga was fishing a stone’s throw from a dumping point of the Kolpino Sewage Treatment Facilities. Olga said she knew about the proximity of the treatment plant and doubted the quality of water but admitted she was not bothered, adding that the fish has not so far caused any problems.
Fishing in the area is easy: fish are attracted to these waters by the organic components of huge quantities of waste coming from the dump site.
Water contamination is the chief reason behind the high numbers of local beaches declared unsuitable for swimming. This summer, according to the regional board of the Russian Trade and Sanitary Inspectorate, a state surveillance organization with hygiene supervision functions, only two out of twenty-five officially registered beaches in and around St. Petersburg are safe for use. 
The two beaches include one at Olginsky Lake in the Vyborgsky district and one at Bezymyannoye Lake in the Krasnoselsky district. The blacklist of places unsuitable for swimming includes the popular beach at the Peter and Paul Fortress, which can be used only for sunbathing. Waters there show dangerous levels of toxins, contaminants and bacteria.

TITLE: Officials: Russia Ups Pressure on Iran
AUTHOR: By George Jahn
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VIENNA, Austria — Russia is increasing pressure on Iran to be more open about its nuclear program, threatening to indefinitely withhold fuel for a Russian-built reactor unless Tehran lifts secrecy shrouding past nuclear activities, diplomats said Tuesday.
Russia warned in March that it would not provide fuel rods for the reactor it is building in the southern city of Bushehr as long as Iran ignored UN Security Council demands that it freeze uranium enrichment, diplomats said.
Now, Moscow has modified that demand, saying no fuel will be provided unless Iran meets another key international request — that it fully explain past activities that heightened suspicions it might be looking to develop a nuclear arms program, two diplomats familiar with Iran’s nuclear file told The Associated Press.
The two, commenting separately, spoke on condition of anonymity because their information was confidential. 
The International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as Iranian and Russian officials, declined comment. 
Moscow has played a complicated role in attempts to pressure Tehran to comply with international demands.
With China, Russia has blunted attempts by the U.S., Britain and France — the three other permanent Security Council members — to impose harsh UN sanctions, leaving Washington no choice but to accept two sets of watered-down penalties.
Still, Moscow has used the Bushehr reactor as a lever to push for some key international demands, like more openness, according to diplomats with knowledge of the two countries’ interactions.
The Security Council still formally demands an end to enrichment, which can be used to generate power and to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
But one of the diplomats, who has deep knowledge of Iran’s file with the UN, told the AP that there was now “tacit understanding” in New York that if Tehran fully cooperates and leaves no IAEA question unanswered, there would be no new UN sanctions unless the agency probe turns up evidence of attempts to make nuclear weapons. That would represent another concession by Washington to pressure from the Russians and Chinese.
Moscow has depicted delays in finishing construction on Bushehr — now 95 percent finished but eight years behind schedule — as due to Iranian foot-dragging in making payments on the $1 billion contract.
But a U.S. official, also agreeing to discuss confidential information under condition of anonymity, questioned Russia’s public assertions that the delays were for purely financial reasons.
“I’ve seen some stuff that indicates that the delays in providing fuel are more than routine problems over the contract,” he said.
Even before the increased Russian pressure, Iran agreed to make new concessions in an apparent attempt to stave off new sanctions.
Tehran told the UN nuclear watchdog agency last month that it would answer questions about past experiments and activities that could be linked to a weapons program. In recent months Iran also has slowed down its enrichment activities and lifted a ban on IAEA inspections of a plutonium reactor under construction.
Past IAEA reports have expressed concerns that Tehran has secretly developed elements of a more sophisticated enrichment program than the one it has made public; that it might not have accounted for all the plutonium it processed in past experiments and that its military might have been involved in enrichment, a program that Tehran insists is strictly civilian-run. Revelations that Tehran possesses diagrams showing how to form uranium metal into the shape of warheads have heightened concerns.
In Algeria Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that his country will continue pursuing nuclear energy and will refuse to talk with any countries that do not recognize Tehran’s right to civilian nuclear power.
“Iran cannot hold discussions with countries that do not recognize this right,” he told a news conference during a visit to Algiers. “The Iranian people will ... continue their efforts toward acquiring nuclear energy for peaceful ends.”

TITLE: Russia Issues New Warrant for Tycoon
AUTHOR: By Jim Heintz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A court on Tuesday issued a new arrest warrant for exiled tycoon and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky, a move likely to increase tensions between Moscow and London over Britain’s refusal to extradite him.
The Basmanny District Court issued the warrant on charges that Berezovsky stole some $13 million from the SBS-Agro banking giant. The previously unknown case surfaced late last month.
Berezovsky already is on trial in absentia for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars from the Russian flagship airline Aeroflot.
Britain has repeatedly refused Russian requests to extradite Berezovsky.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Horseman’s Birthday</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg’s most famous monument, the Bronze Horseman, celebrated its 225th Anniversary on Tuesday, Kultura television reported this week.
The statue of Peter the Great, which has stood in Decembrist’s Square since 1782, has been carefully protected over the centuries from both natural and man-made threats. During World War II, it was encased in a 14-meter box, and it is regularly cleaned and polished with wax to protect its thin bronze coating from the elements. 
Twice during its lifetime, the monument has been restored: once in 1909 and once 30 years ago, when cracks appeared in the horse’s legs. Experts believe that the monument, which was bequeathed by Catherine the Great and designed by Etiene Falconet, is in good shape for its age.

<b>Prices on the Rise</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The price of bread has risen by 11 percent and the price of sausages by 8 percent during the last seven months, Regnum.ru news agency reported Thursday. 
The prices of all goods and paid services have increased by more than 10 percent on average during this time. Experts suggest that one possible reason for this could be the rise in the price of transport services, which has gone up by 5 percent.
Other price rises have been for documentation photographs (by 27 percent), hairdressers’ costs (by 16 percent) and strangely, the cost of changing a car tire (by 21 percent). 

<b>Rostropovich Sale</b>
LONDON (SPT) — Following the announcement last month of the sale of the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Collection of Russian Art, Sotheby’s London has declared that the auction will now include as many as 450 lots, with a pre-sale estimate of $26-40 million. Around 100 masterpieces previously under consideration for sale will now be added to the collection, including works by Borovikovsky, Repin, Serov, Ivanov and Grigoriev.
The auction will take place over two days, beginning with an evening session on Tuesday September 18, and followed by a further two sessions the next day, Wednesday September 19.
The sale is devoted entirely to fine and decorative Russian Art from the 18th to the 20th centuries, that were amassed in the Paris and London apartments of the late cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya.

TITLE: Polar Scientist Defends North-Pole Flag-Planting
AUTHOR: By Mike Eckel
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The United States and Canada have scoffed at a Russian submarine expedition that planted a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole. Coming home to a hero’s welcome Tuesday, the famous polar scientist who led the risky voyage did not mince words in responding.
“I don’t give a damn what all these foreign politicians there are saying about this,” Artur Chilingarov told a throng of well-wishers. “If someone doesn’t like this, let them go down themselves ... and then try to put something there. Russia must win. Russia has what it takes to win. The Arctic has always been Russian.”
Thursday’s dive by two small submarines was partly a scientific expedition. But it could mark the start of a fierce legal scramble for control of the seabed — and what could be vast energy reserves beneath — among nations that border the Arctic, including Russia, the U.S., Canada, Norway and Denmark, through its territory Greenland. The United States promptly dismissed the Russian move as legally meaningless whether it planted “a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bedsheet.” Canadian Foreign Minister Peter Mackay said the voyage was “just a show” and that Russia could not expect to claim territory under the rules of “the 15th century.”
But in Russia, the tone of state-run television reports have been triumphant since the submarines planted the titanium flag on the Arctic Ocean floor.
Chilingarov, who became a Soviet hero in the 1980s after successfully leading an expedition aboard a research vessel that was trapped for a time in Antarctic sea ice, was shown brandishing the Russian tricolor and spraying champagne from a huge bottle. President Vladimir Putin quickly telephoned the crew to offer his congratulations.
Officials said the expedition was more about gathering evidence for the case Russia hopes to make for ownership of the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. A U.N. commission, which has rejected Moscow’s claims in the past, will ultimately make the decision.
Canada answered the Russian move with a clear message, highlighting plans to spend up to $7.12 billion to build and operate eight patrol ships to help protect its sovereignty in the Arctic.
Moscow has sought to position itself as a force to be reckoned with in international disputes from Middle East peacemaking to U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, seeking to reclaim much of the clout it had when it was the capital of the Soviet empire.
Russia’s bold and sometimes confrontational positions have brought it increasingly at odds with the West.
Ties with Britain plummeted when Moscow refused to send a Russian businessman to England for trial in the poisoning death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Relations between Washington and Moscow are at their lowest level in years because of disputes including the final status of Kosovo and U.S. plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet bloc countries.

TITLE: Agents Investigate Yevroset’s Bosses
AUTHOR: By Simon Shuster and Tai Adelaja
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: MOSCOW — Interior Ministry agents Wednesday searched the apartments of executives of Yevroset, the country’s largest mobile phone retailer, suspected of possessing contraband, a Prosecutor General’s Office spokeswoman said late Wednesday.
Citing an ongoing investigation, the spokeswoman declined to elaborate on the results of the searches or exactly what kind of contraband the agents were looking for.
Yevroset co-owner and chairman Yevgeny Chichvarkin said by telephone Wednesday evening that he could “neither confirm nor deny this news.”
An Interior Ministry spokesman declined to comment on the ministry’s involvement.
“This is the prosecutor general’s party,” the spokesman said. “They’re handling it.”
But citing a law enforcement source, Interfax reported that the central Moscow home of a Yevroset vice president had been searched, as had the home of the company’s head of security.
More than 10 apartments were searched in connection with the investigation, the source said, Interfax reported.
Andrei Bogdanov, a telecoms analyst with Troika Dialog, said the searches came as a surprise because most of the country’s leading mobile phone retailers now import all of their handsets legally.
“The large mobile phone retailers, especially Yevroset, have incentives to stay clean before the law because they are all public companies thinking about IPOs,” Bogdanov said. “They simply cannot afford to do things the old way.”
Bogdanov said the relationship between law enforcement authorities and leading mobile phone retailers and telecom operators was strained at best, noting media reports that testify to a cat-and-mouse relationship.
Last month, for example, the Association of Computer and IT Enterprises accused police of raiding retailers to confiscate merchandise and proceeding to either extort bribes to return the goods or to have them sold by friendly companies, Vedomosti reported.
Officers demand bribes ranging from 20 to 50 percent of the value of the seized merchandise from the targeted retailer, said the organization’s head, Alexander Onishchuk, Vedomosti reported.
Onishchuk accused officers of the Interior Ministry’s high-tech crime department and city police’s economic crime department of carrying out such raids, Vedomosti reported.
Onishchuk did not name the officers. City police declined to comment, while the ministry’s high-tech crime department denied the accusations, the report said.
But Sergei Kupeyev, a telecoms analyst with Alfa Bank, said there had indeed been complaints recently from consumers that some handsets sold by Yevroset did not have the correct documentation because they had not gone through proper customs procedures.
A disgruntled consumer could have tipped off authorities, who then decided to act, Kupeyev said.
“The problem is not with the quality of the handsets,” Kupeyev said. “It is a question of whether they were brought in with proper documentation.”
Chichvarkin said he was unaware of any complaints by consumers about handsets purchased in Yevroset outlets.
“We have one of the best service centers as well as the least number of defective handsets compared with other retailers,” Chichvarkin said.
Ekho Moskvy reported Wednesday evening that the searches were related to the Motorola case, quoting unidentified investigators.
Yevroset, which has about 41 percent of the country’s handset sales, expects to have 5,100 outlets by the end of the year.
The company said last month that its revenue could increase 21 percent to $3.5 billion in 2007, Bloomberg reported.
Yevroset has been gradually expanding its operations outside Russia, with India being the latest in the list of countries where it plans to open stores.
At the end of June, it had 4,883 stores in 11 former Soviet republics, Bloomberg reported.

TITLE: Russia: Georgia Faked Report
AUTHOR: By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — Russia’s military chief on Thursday accused Georgia of fabricating a report of a Russian missile attack, as tensions heightened between Moscow and its small Westward-looking neighbor.
Georgia said radar data proved Russian jets violated its airspace Monday and fired a missile aimed at a Georgian radar. The missile, which did not explode, landed close to a village in the northwestern Gori region near Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia, which is patrolled by Russian peacekeepers.
Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia’s military General Staff, said Wednesday that Georgia concocted the incident to foment tensions.
“I’m convinced that it was a provocation by Georgia ... a provocation against the Russian peacekeepers and Russia as a whole,” Baluyevsky said on a visit to China, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

TITLE: Rosatom Eyes India Contracts
AUTHOR: By Archana Chaudhary
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: DELHI — Areva SA, the world’s largest maker of nuclear power stations, and General Electric Co. are among four companies poised to share $14 billion of orders from India as nations led by the U.S. prepare to lift a 33-year ban.
Toshiba Corp.’s Westinghouse Electric Co. and Russia’s atomic energy agency Rosatom will probably also win contracts to each build two 1,000 megawatt reactors, said Nuclear Power Corp. of India Chairman S. K. Jain. India will be able to purchase equipment after an Aug. 3 accord with the U.S. is approved by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group.
“These are the only four reactors in the world that meet our requirements,’’ Jain said in an interview in Mumbai after the agreement was announced.
The orders will form the first phase of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s plan to build 40,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity by 2020, equivalent to a third of current generation. India needs to add to the 3 percent of electricity that comes from Russian-designed reactors to meet soaring energy needs and reduce its reliance on coal-fired power plants.
“India will try to diversify its suppliers and it’s highly likely all four will win the contracts,’’ said Mikhail Stiskin, a nuclear industry analyst with Moscow-based brokerage Troika Dialog. “The question is how much more will one or the other get, and Russia seems to be in a strong position.’’
Nuclear energy projects in India and China, to sustain economic growth that’s more than five times the pace of the U.S., may lead to shortages of manpower and equipment and push up costs.
Global capacity will rise to 519,000 megawatts by 2030 from 370,000 megawatts last year, according to International Energy Agency forecasts.

Initial Contracts
General Electric, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, Paris-based Areva, Westinghouse and Rosatom may each win contracts valued at $3.5 billion, part of a $40 billion reactor-building program, Jain said. Nuclear Power Corp., India’s monopoly atomic energy generator, plans to set up plants at four sites in the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal, he said.
The company plans to build “nuclear parks’’ housing reactors capable of generating as much as 8,000 megawatts at a single location.
“To begin with, we will give out orders for two reactors of 1,000 megawatts at each of the locations,’’ Jain said in an Aug. 3 interview. The four suppliers will not be permitted to own equity in the projects under Indian law, he said.
Nuclear Power Corp. plans to buy the AP1000 series of reactors from Monroeville, Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse, the ‘ABWR’ series from General Electric, Areva’s serial designs for the 1,000 megawatt reactors and the Russian VVR 1,000 reactors, he said.
U.S. and Russia
The state-owned company will award contracts after India’s civilian nuclear deal is cleared by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Jain said.
The U.S. deal was held up by differences over whether India would get a perennial supply of nuclear fuel, be allowed to reprocess spent fuel and have the right to conduct nuclear tests.
India signed a similar civilian nuclear agreement with Russia in January. Russia is helping India build the two 1,000-megawatt light water reactors at the Kudankulam nuclear power station in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
International sanctions against India were prompted by the nation’s testing of a nuclear weapon in 1974. The explosion conducted in a desert in western India prompted the formation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Another round of tests by India in 1998 led to the U.S. choking trade with India by blocking the Export-Import Bank and Overseas Private Investment Corp. from guarantee loans to projects in India.
The U.S. removed the economic sanctions in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks to bolster support for its campaign against terrorism. The U.S. decision to give India access to civilian nuclear technology was based on talks initiated during Prime Minister Singh’s visit to Washington in July 2005 and concluded during President Bush’s visit to India seven months later.

TITLE: Court Freezes Russneft Assets After Tax Probe
AUTHOR: By Simon Shuster
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Interior Ministry announced Wednesday that a Moscow court had granted its request to freeze the assets of Russneft, the oil company owned by billionaire Mikhail Gutseriyev, who is facing a tax probe and what he called “unprecedented hounding” from the state.
Moscow’s Lefortovsky District Court ordered all of Russneft’s assets frozen on July 31, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry’s investigative committee said late Wednesday.
“In proceeding with the criminal case over nonpayment of taxes and illegal business activities ... we have requested the freezing of [Gutseriyev’s] assets, and the court has granted that request,” she said. “This gentleman is accused of these crimes, and while the investigation is proceeding, his assets will remain frozen.”
Russneft vice president Eduard Sarkisov said the company had not received notice of the order from either the Interior Ministry or the court.
“As of now, Russneft and all of its subsidiaries are working as normal and meeting all of our supply commitments,” Sarkisov said.
The announcement was the second from a court this week concerning the company’s assets.
On Monday, Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court said it had reviewed the same request from the Interior Ministry, but had refused to issue a freeze order.
A ministry spokesman confirmed Wednesday that the request had been filed with the two courts simultaneously, “in order to be sure,” he said, declining to elaborate or give his name.
Pavel Gritsevsky, a lawyer with Moscow-based firm Status, said multiple filings were common practice as a form of “insurance” in legal matters.
“If I were unsure which of the two courts would grant this request, I would have done the same thing in the prosecutors’ place — filed with both courts in the hope that one of them gives you what you want,” Gritsevsky said. “It’s a tactical move.”
In a faxed statement, the Interior Ministry said the request to freeze the assets fell within the jurisdiction of the Tverskoi District Court “because of the location of the preliminary investigation.” The request also fell under the jurisdiction of the Lefortovsky District Court “because of the location of the holder of the company’s assets,” the statement said.
Gutseriyev owns an 80 percent stake in Russneft.
While the company’s assets are frozen, Gutseriyev will not be able to sell them or transfer them in any way, Gritsevsky said.
But Sarkisov, the Russneft vice president, said it was not yet clear that this was the case.“There are different legal formulations for arrested assets, and I don’t know which one applies in our case,” he said. “But most likely, yes, it is true that we cannot sell the assets.”
Last week, Gutseriyev said he had been forced to sell his stake in the company after “unprecedented hounding” from authorities. He later retracted the statement, saying the choice to sell the company was in line with the wishes of Russneft’s shareholders.
Basic Element, owned by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, has said it is in talks to buy the company. Basic Element spokesman Sergei Rybak said Wednesday that his company had applied to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service for clearance to buy a controlling stake in Russneft before the freeze order was granted. After learning of the court’s decision, Rybak said he did not know how it would affect Basic Element’s attempts to purchase the company. “For now, we are just waiting for some response” from the anti-monopoly service, he said.

TITLE: Pharmacy Chain 36.6 Sales Rise on Expansion, Spending
AUTHOR: By Maria Ermakova and Mark Sweetman
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Pharmacy Chain 36.6, Russia’s largest drugstore company, said first-half sales rose 77 percent as new stores opened across the country and consumers spent more money on medicines and personal-care products.
Sales increased to $385 million from $217.6 million a year earlier, the Moscow-based company said Monday in a statement, without providing net income.
36.6, whose name comes from the Centigrade reading for the optimal human body temperature, is expanding across Russia as a ninth straight year of economic growth boosts incomes outside the country’s largest cities. The average monthly wage increased an annual 15.2 percent to 13,810 rubles ($539.95) in June, according to the Economy Ministry.
Regional pharmacies generated more than half of revenue from 36.6’s chain operations in the half. The average purchase in those stores climbed 38 percent, more than in Moscow. Sales gained 35 percent at outlets opened before Jan. 1, 2006.
The company had 936 pharmacies in 26 Russian regions as of the end of June. In the second quarter, 36.6 acquired a 48-outlet chain in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains. The company opened another 43 pharmacies itself in the quarter and closed nine.
Veropharm, the company’s drugmaking unit, contributed $58.2 million to total revenue and increased sales by 29 percent in the first half.
36.6 had debt of $263.6 million as of the end of June, including $21.4 million owed by Veropharm.

TITLE: Iraq Won’t Favor Lukoil 
In Bid For 
Qurna Field
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Iraq won’t give Russian oil company Lukoil preferential terms in its bid to develop the West Qurna oil field, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said, Interfax reported.
Lukoil will compete with other companies for West Qurna and whoever proposes the best terms for Iraq will win, the Russian news service cited al-Sharistani as saying in Moscow.
Lukoil signed an agreement to develop West Qurna with Saddam Hussein’s government in the 1990s. A new law on regulating the oil sector, now pending in the Iraqi parliament, calls for the reevaluation of contracts signed under the former dictator, al-Sharistani said, according to Interfax.

TITLE: Sinopec, Rosneft To Start Drilling Sakhalin-3
AUTHOR: By Wang Ying
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: BEIJING — China Petrochemical Corp., the nation’s second-biggest oil company, will start drilling the Sakhalin-3 offshore area with Rosneft next year as the companies increase output to meet domestic energy demand.
Sinopec Group, as China Petrochemical is known, and Rosneft plan to complete 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) of seismic survey in the Sakhalin-3’s Veninsky block in the second half of this year, the Beijing-based producer said in a statement in its in-house newsletter Monday. Drilling work will start in the second half of 2008, Sinopec Group said.
Sakhalin is Russia’s newest oil province, where two projects have attracted more than $30 billion in investment from companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. State-owned Rosneft, which signed the exploration accord with Sinopec Group in March, is competing with Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas monopoly, to supply nearby Asian markets.
Russia aims to increase output from the Sakhalin Island by as much as fivefold by 2010, Sinopec Group said Thursday. Annual production will reach 21 million metric tons (420,000 barrels a day) of oil and 31 billion cubic meters of natural gas by then, the Chinese oil producer said.
Rosneft owns 74.9 percent of the joint venture, called Venin Holding Ltd., the Russian company said March 29. Sinopec Group owns the rest. Venin Holding will own a company that will hold the license to develop the Veninsky sector of Sakhalin-3, Rosneft said then.
Veninsky holds estimated reserves of 258.1 billion cubic meters of gas and 169.4 million tons of oil, Rosneft said.
Sinopec Group is the parent company of Hong Kong-listed China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest oil refiner.

TITLE: Rosneft Buys Export Unit
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — State-controlled oil firm Rosneft won another auction of the remains of bankrupt oil firm Yukos on Wednesday, buying its important transport assets including those Yukos used for exports to China.
Rosneft paid $729 million, just above the starting price, for the lot which included Yukos’ key transport units, Yukos-Transservice and East Asia Transit.
Rosneft’s only rival at the auction, a previously unknown firm called Benefit, pulled out of the race after Rosneft’s first bid in a development similar to many previous auctions at which Rosneft snapped up most of Yukos’ assets.
The Wednesday lot included Yukos-Transservice, which owns long-term leasing contracts on around 7,000 railway cars and short-term leasing agreements on 5,000 railway cars, Rosneft said.

TITLE: Magnit Denies Merger Talks With Dixy Group
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Magnit, Russia’s second-largest food retailer, said it’s not in talks with smaller chain Dixy Group about a possible merger or takeover, denying a report in Kommersant newspaper.
Magnit hasn’t been approached by Dixy, said Oleg Goncharov, a spokesman for Magnit. Kommersant today said Dixy is in merger talks with bigger rivals Magnit and X5 Retail Group NV. The newspaper cited an unidentified Dixy executive.
“There are no chains that aren’t interesting’’ for a potential acquisition, Goncharov said in a telephone interview from Krasnodar, where the retailer is based. “It’s all about the price. Bankers are making an initial evaluation for us. There are just a few chains that we haven’t evaluated yet.’’
Dixy’s spokesman Andrei Alimov said the company may have an official comment in due course. X5’s spokesman Gennady Frolov couldn’t be reached on his work or mobile phones.
Dixy is Russia’s fourth-largest supermarket chain by sales. The retailer in May raised $360 million in an initial public offering to fund expansion.

TITLE: Gazprom Revives Debt Issue
AUTHOR: By Steve Rothwell
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom, Russia’s natural-gas export monopoly, sold $1.25 billion of 30-year bonds amid signs that credit markets are stabilizing after a seven-week rout, according to a person familiar with the sale.
The Moscow-based company revived the debt issue, initially planned for July 26, pricing the bonds to yield 225 basis points more than similar-maturity U.S. Treasury notes, said the person who asked not to be identified.
At least six companies, including Kraft Foods Inc. and Citigroup Inc., are taking advantage of improved appetite for debt today by seeking to sell bonds. The risk of owning corporate debt fell to the lowest in more than a week in the U.S., according to the benchmark CDX North American Investment Grade Index of credit-default swaps.
Debt sales by companies and governments slowed in July by more than a third to $662 billion from $1.01 trillion in June because of “adverse credit conditions,’’ Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said in a report Thursday. Sales by year-end are likely to reach a record $10.2 trillion as borrowers revive
deals postponed because of the slump triggered by U.S. subprime mortgage defaults, Lehman said.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Highland Mines </b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Highland Gold Mining Ltd., a U.K. company that produces the precious metal in Russia, sold three money-losing mines for $25 million in cash and debt. An accident at one of the sites, Darasun, killed 25 people last September.
Darasunsky Rudnik, the owner of the Darasun, Teremky and Talatui mines, was sold to Uzhuralzoloto Group, St.Helier, Jersey-based Highland said Thursday in a statement. Uzhuralzoloto will pay $3 million in cash and repay $22 million of Darasunsky’s debt to Highland by March 2008, the company said.
“It’s very positive news for Highland,’’ said Marat Gabitov, a Moscow-based analyst at Aton. “Getting any money for Darasun would be good in this situation.’’
The fatalities at the Darasun mine in eastern Siberia followed a blaze last September. The three mines lost $109 million in 2006.

<b>OGK-3 Profit</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — OGK-3, a Russian power generator controlled by the country’s biggest miner GMK Norilsk Nickel, posted a profit of 4.4 billion rubles ($173 million) last year, reversing a loss in 2005.
The company reported a loss of 898 million rubles in 2005, Moscow-based OGK-3 said Thursday in a statement on its web site.
Sales increased 39 percent to 22.3 billion rubles on a 5.2 percent growth in power demand in Russia, it said.
Norilsk Nickel, a nickel and palladium producer that plans to create an electricity company in Russia, increased its stake in the generator to 54 percent earlier this month. 

<b>VTB Finance</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s VTB Bank OJSC may finance Alrosa’s $2 billion purchase of a 25.5 percent stake in Polyus Gold, the country’s biggest miner of the metal, Kommersant reported Thursday.
The investment arm of Alrosa, Russia’s largest diamond miner, has probably formed a group with VTB and Boris Jordan’s Sputnik Advisors Ltd. to buy the Polyus stake from billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the Moscow-based newspaper reported, citing several unidentified people with knowledge of situation.
Alrosa was forced to bring in other buyers because of concerns that its Eurobond holders may wish to sell if they have doubts about the Polyus stake purchase, Kommersant said.
VTB spokesman Andrei Chelyuskin declined to comment, as did Alexey Ryabinkin, a spokesman for Onexim Group, which manages Prokhorov’s assets.

<b>OTP Appointments</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — OTP Bank Nyrt., Hungary’s biggest bank, hired Alexei Korovin to lead its Russian unit Investsberbank, Interfax reported, citing the Russian bank.
Korovin was formerly the deputy chairman of Impexbank, now part of Raiffeisenbank Zentralbank Oesterreich AG, the newswire said Thursday. OTP Bank last year bought 96.4 percent of Investsberbank for $477 million.
The head of OTP Bank said in February that it would be difficult to find a new head for the unit because of the high salary demands in the Russian capital, Interfax said.

<b>Reserves Decline</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s foreign currency and gold reserves declined to $416.8 billion in the week ended Aug. 3 after rising for four consecutive weeks, the central bank said.
The reserves, the world’s third biggest, declined $500 million after rising to a record $417.3 billion in the previous week, the Moscow-based central bank said in an e-mailed statement Thursday.
Russia, the world’s biggest energy exporter, increased its reserves by $4.2 billion in the previous week. The nation expanded its reserves from $12 billion in 1998 as the price of crude oil rose, boosting economic growth.
China has the world’s biggest foreign-currency reserves, totaling $1.3 trillion at the end of June, according to Bloomberg data. Japan has the second largest, $892.76 billion, as of June 30.

<b>Kagazy Board</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Kazakhstan Kagazy, a cardboard maker with real-estate assets, agreed to buy Kazupack Ltd., Kazakhstan’s third-largest producer of corrugated board for $5 million.
Almaty-based Kazakhstan Kagazy will assume $3 million of Kazupack’s debt and the purchase should be completed by Sept. 30 after an audit is conducted, Kagazy said in a statement distributed by Business Wire Thursday.

<b>Vozrozhdenie Net</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Bank Vozrozhdenie, a Russian regional lender, said profit almost doubled in the first half as mortgage loans climbed.
Net income advanced to 674 million rubles ($26.6 million), or 32 rubles a share, from 342 million rubles and 17 rubles in the same period last year, the bank said on its web site Thursday.
Mortgage loans outstanding quadrupled to $238 million and now account for 49 percent of all retail loans, the Moscow-based lender said.
Banks in Russia, where the $1 trillion economy is expanding for a ninth consecutive year, increased mortgage lending in the first half to 203 billion rubles ($8 billion), according to the central bank.

<b>Bratsk Upgrade </b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — United Co. Rusal will spend $350 million to modernize its Bratsk aluminum smelter in Siberia, the world’s biggest.
Upgrades at the plant in the Irkutsk region will reduce emissions by 40 percent, Rusal said Thursday in an e-mailed statement. The first stage will be completed in 2011, the company said.
Rusal is the world’s largest aluminum producer.

TITLE: Anti-Westernism is the New National Idea
AUTHOR: By Lilia Shevtsova
TEXT: The Russian political elite has long dreamed of finding a national idea capable of rallying the people. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to consolidate the country with his idea of socialism “with a human face.” Former President Boris Yeltsin roused the people around anti-communism.
And President Vladimir Putin came to power under the unofficial slogan: “Let’s put an end to the Yeltsin-era chaos.” Now the elite is pushing a new national idea to rally the nation. It can be stated as follows: “We will protect the country from external enemies and establish a new global order to replace the one that so humiliated Russia in the 1990s.” To put it more simply, Putin’s motto is: “Russia is back!”
The closer we come to the end of Putin’s second term, the more the Kremlin needs to find an idea that would preserve everything it has achieved during the past eight years. Searching for enemies and casting the West in the role of the principal foe has turned out to be the most successful method for rallying the people. Russia has adopted an aggressive foreign policy rhetoric; Putin’s fiery Munich speech is a classic example. Anti-Western sentiment has become the new national idea, and national revival has taken the form of revisionism.
The arguments supporting the new national idea are plain and simple: “The West is interfering in our domestic affairs and attempting to weaken Russia. By promoting democracy, the West is really advancing its own interests.”
It seems that even pro-Western analysts are trying to convince themselves and the world that Russia should play by its own rules, and that the responsibility for the crisis in Russian-Western relations lies with Western capitals. Some of them even believe that NATO expansion, U.S. President George W. Bush’s export of democracy and Washington’s plan to install elements of anti-missile batteries in Europe is the main — and perhaps even only — reason for the failure of Russian democracy. Yesterday’s moderates and pragmatists today have joined with professional anti-Western political analysts — such as Vyacheslav Nikonov and Alexei Pushkov, the host of a popular analytical television program — in singing the same song. Being pro-Western in Russia today is not only unpopular, but also dangerous because it necessarily means being anti-Russian.
What is behind the new national idea? Anti-Western ideology has become an important factor that legitimizes the highly centralized state. The Kremlin has to offer some kind of explanation for the concentration of authority in so few hands, the elimination of political pluralism, the expansion of the state’s role in the economy and the redistribution of property. The search for enemies and the cultivation of a “siege mentality” have always been used to justify “iron-hand” regimes in Russia. To be sure, the Kremlin also has created smaller enemies, such as Georgia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. In addition, liberals and certain unpopular oligarchs serve as convenient adversaries. But a great power should not be shooting at sparrows with a cannon or focusing so much attention on “small fries,” as one Russian analyst said. The West, and especially the United States, has proven to be the most convincing enemy.
But the crisis in Russian-Western relations is not purely based on a fundamental lack of shared values and principles. After all, communist China has much less in common with the West than Russia does, but U.S.-Chinese relations are quite friendly, and, in the economic sphere, they resemble a strong mutually beneficial partnership (notwithstanding the numerous difficulties). China, in seeking out its own prosperity, has chosen to pursue a policy of rapprochement, successfully making use of the West for its own modernization. Russia’s ruling elite has taken a different path, trying to establish its global role by distancing itself from the West.
Russia’s elite uses the anti-Western national idea because it believes it is giving the people an attractive ideology. But, at the same time, Moscow wants to pursue a partnership with the West for the sake of its own development and global integration.
The attitude toward the West has become a litmus test of loyalty to the authorities and the system. Verbal attacks have become synonymous with patriotism. As a result, the numerous so-called “liberal Westernizers” of the 1990s dwindled down to a tiny group. Only the most desperate, such as Garry Kasparov, still attempt to voice their liberal sympathies. Everyone else understands that it is not advisable to show too much reverence for the West. That would be considered as unpatriotic behavior.
Let’s consider the most popular cliches of the new national idea:
• “Russia has recovered from the humiliation of the 1990s.”
But why must this be achieved by spoiling relations with the West? Germany and Japan overcame their postwar humiliation by transforming themselves into great economic powers and by integrating into the global economy and adopting liberal-democratic values.
• “Russia has the right to pursue an independent policy.”
If Russia takes this desire to its extreme, it would have to withdraw its membership in and application for all Western clubs and international organizations that place limits on its sovereignty, such as the Group of Eight, the Council of Europe and the World Trade Organization.
• “Russia is an energy superpower and Europe’s dependence on its energy will increase.”
This dependence cuts both ways. One of the most humiliating forms of dependence is an exporter’s dependence on the importer, and the Kremlin has yet to fully understand this.
• “Russia wants to be integrated into the West on its own terms.”
This is music to the patriots’ ears, but they don’t explain how they can be equal partners when Russia is building its society on anti-Western principles.
It must be admitted that the proponents of the anti-Western ideology succeeded at their goal of preserving the interests of the ruling class. This is a case when the West, which does not entirely understand events in Russia and does not have a strategy for dealing with a “revisionist” Kremlin, has allowed itself to be used as a “negative” factor in Moscow’s drive to mobilize the people behind an aggressive national ideology.
The anti-Western ideologues are joined by the pragmatists — the pundits who until recently had independent political positions but today support the new national idea. They advise the West by saying: “Accept Russia as it is and base your policy on mutual interests, not on values.” Perhaps they sincerely believe that realpolitik will lead to future rapprochement between Russia and the West and will help build Russian democracy.
But then why has Western realpolitik resulted only in a crisis in its relations with Russia? Don’t these “realists” understand that they are encouraging the West to build relations with Russia according to the same model that the West pursues with China?! If this is indeed the case, then Russia must leave the G-8 and the Council of Europe, whose membership is conditioned upon adherence to democratic principles and institutions.
Russia’s ruling elite has let the genie out of the bottle and it will be very difficult to put it back again, especially because there is no resistance to anti-Westernism even in intellectual circles.
Fortunately, the majority of people have managed to avoid getting caught up in the anti-Western hysteria. Polls show that 70 percent of Russians still consider Europe to be a partner. But there are definite consequences to the Kremlin’s heavy anti-Western propaganda. The elite, which has built a political and foreign policy program based on anti-Western ideas, cannot easily switch back to the opposite position. That is the legacy Putin leaves behind — a legacy built by everyone who today shouts with such enthusiasm, “Russia is back!”
It’s true — Russia is back. But it has only returned to the past.

Lilia Shevtsova is a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

TITLE: Another Blow to Professionalism
AUTHOR: By Alexei Pankin
TEXT: If you believe what is written in the news and conversations among journalists, then it would seem that Raf Shakirov — the well-known former editor of both Kommersant and Izvestia and the current editor of the New Times weekly magazine — is about to suffer again at the hands of the Kremlin. The last time this happened was in September 2004, during the hostage crisis in Beslan. The day after government troops stormed the school, Shakirov filled much of Izvestia’s pages with graphic photos showing heaps of dead children’s bodies. The Kremlin demanded his resignation soon after. Whether his editorial decision was appropriate is debatable, but there is no justification for the Kremlin’s interference in the affairs of a private newspaper.
In any case, the current growing conflict between the New Times and the Kremlin is not so much dramatic as it is bizarre. The intrigue began at the end of 2006, when television businesswoman Irena Lesnevskaya bought the New Times, which was popular during glasnost but later fell in standing. She named Shakirov as editor in chief, and a short time later, installed journalist Yevgenia Albats as political editor. The shock felt by the journalistic community at these appointments was so great that I still regret failing to play the role of bookmaker with my colleagues at work: Will Shakirov quit now or after a few months?
If one accepts the definition of a Russian “democrat” as someone who attributes all that is wrong in the world to government authorities and President Vladimir Putin, then it would be impossible to find any two more contrasting individuals to run a single publication.
Shakirov’s views are far from radical. His interpretations of the authorities’ actions is based on a fundamental presumption of innocence. Albats, on the other hand, is the type of “democrat” who is inclined to blame Putin personally for the appearance of sun spots.
Shakirov is modest and speaks quietly. Albats’ hot temperament is more like that of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Wherever she is, her voice is the only voice you hear. Shakirov loves facts, but Albats loves only her own “correct” opinion. I will never forget how, on her Ekho Moskvy radio program, Albats demanded that a young journalist repent for an article she wrote on the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya — simply because Albats did not like the article.
I know a few good journalists who reconsidered joining Shakirov at the New Times once Albats started working there. The web site Gazeta.ru published a woeful list of people who could not tolerate working with the political editor. They ultimately left the magazine and Shakirov endured all of this patiently.
And there is a twist that adds some spark to this affair: According to Kommersant, Gazeta.ru and independent sources, the Kremlin expressed its dissatisfaction with the magazine’s owner about the degree to which it expresses its opposition views. Lesnevskaya has never been one to buckle under pressure from anybody. She responded by closing ranks around Albats, declaring that anyone who doesn’t like it can go take a hike. That “anyone” might very well turn out to be Shakirov, notwithstanding his public comments to the contrary. If that happens, he will become the sacrificial lamb for both the authorities and the opposition.
What is most disheartening in this matter is that the Kremlin leadership does not consider it below its dignity to meddle in the affairs of a small-circulation publication. At the same time, Lesnevskaya showed foolish courage by investing money in a respected brand and then destroying it with her own hands, appointing editors who were, from the start, fundamentally incompatible.
In the end, common sense and professionalism suffer most in these types of cases, and in Russia, these are in short enough supply as it is.

Alexei Pankin is the editor of “Strategii i Praktika Izdatelskogo Biznesa,” a magazine for publishing business professionals.

TITLE: Top of the class
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: It’s a biology lesson, but the blonde in the hotpants can’t keep her mind on the topic of biosynthesis chalked up on the blackboard. Instead, she listens intently as Yegor, the class dreamboat and son of an oligarch, talks to the new girl, Vika, a provincial mouse whose father has a lowly army job. And why did she just throw a bunch of flowers in his face?
The teenagers are all students at School No. 1, a sparkling new institution in an elite suburb that enrols the children of wealthy businessmen and officials, as well as a few humbler students living nearby. Although their text books and desks are real enough, the classroom is just a set for a new comedy drama to air on STS next season, which aims to add a local twist to the “Beverly Hills, 90210” formula.
The show, “School No. 1,” is being filmed in a huge hangar at the ZiL factory in eastern Moscow, where Soviet trucks and limousines once rolled off the production lines. A banner reading “The History of the Factory is the History of the Country” hangs over the grimy facade. 
Inside, though, giant backdrops showing stuccoed mansions will transport viewers to a suburb resembling the fashionable Rublyovka district outside Moscow.
In a break from filming earlier this month, Sergei Nazarov, the actor who plays Yegor, described his character as the confident son of an oligarch, who is used to having things his way. “He is the class leader, everyone tries to be like him. He is one of the best. His father donates generously to the school — he feels like the owner of the school.”
In the first few episodes, Vika, a pigtailed and demure girl in a knee-length skirt joins the school with her equally cleancut brother, Viktor. Coming from a hardup army family, they find themselves up against the school mafia of privileged, arrogant teenagers, led by Yegor, but cause ripples when they refuse to know their place in the class hierarchy.
The show’s line producer Gyuzel Sultanova, stepped onto the set to explain the current scenario to the actors, whom she addressed as “classmates.” Yegor “has teased everyone in the class and now they enjoy watching him doing it to someone else,” she said.
In the episode being filmed, Vika angrily confronts Yegor before a biology class and throws a bunch of flowers at him that he secretly planned to give to her brother, who is in the hospital after a duel — it’s a long story, and this is only the eighth episode. Yegor kept stumbling on his contemptuous opening line: “I didn’t think that provincial girls could be so passionate.” Yegor is “used to classy Moscow girls who only think about cars and money, how they look and clothes,” Nazarov said of his character. Vika attracts him because she is different — a “pure, open girl,” he said.
Dressed in a pink shirt, suit trousers and polished black shoes, Yegor is a far cry from your average scruffy teenager, but then the dress code in the elite classroom is hardly casual: Kristina, the unofficial queen of the school, wears a low-cut top, hotpants and high heels and carries a bag on a gold chain. Nazarov said his own school years were nothing like this. He lowered his voice to a whisper to confess his age: 30. A former MTV presenter and model in commercials, he plays a 17-year-old in his final year of high school in the series, which is due to launch at the beginning of September — coinciding with the start of the school year.
The show is an attempt to attract a young audience to CTC, the channel’s public relations director, Marina Pork said by telephone on Wednesday. “It’s about young people and so we very much hope that young viewers will watch it.” The show will air in a prime-time slot, with a planned run of 40 episodes, she said.
STS has scored hits with previous sitcoms that were translated copies of foreign shows, such as “Don’t Be Born Beautiful,” based on the Colombian telenovela, “I am Betty, The Ugly One,” and “My Fine Nanny,” based on the U.S. show “The Nanny.” However, “School No. 1” is an original screenplay, reflecting contemporary Russia, its producer Anna Barvashova said in an interview on the set.
Barvashova watched “Beverly Hills, 90210” on Russian television, but didn’t aim to copy the series. “I like those shows,” she said, “but I think that here we have an absolutely different way of life.” In Russia, the “conflict between the rich and the poor is greater,” she said. “It’s in every minute of our series.”
The makers visited elite schools to research the show, she said, although, “they are such closed-off institutions, it’s extremely difficult to get into them.” (Exterior shots of the school in the series actually show a historic mansion.) She said the situation in the show, where a poor family is allowed to attend a — presumably state — school that has been modernized thanks to donations from wealthy parents, is realistic. 
“There are rich people who choose to send their children there, but there are always some local residents who also have the right to study at that school because they live nearby,” she said. “The series is about that conflict.”
The students at School No. 1 “want to be rich, beautiful, famous, glamorous and desirable,” Barvasharova said. “It’s a new show and I hope that we will be able to reflect the spirit of our time.”
An episode due to be filmed that day showed a student paying for a famous actor to come to the school and pretend to be his father. “Who would have thought it?” a catty classmate comments. “Only yesterday I had a go at him, saying that his father was a nobody.” The producer said such awareness of social status was less evident when she left school seven years ago, although she attended a top school that specialized in English. “To be honest, I think that children have changed a lot now. They understand the value of material things from an early age.”
However, Lana Shcherbankova who plays Olesya, the bitchy friend of the class queen, Kristina, remembers her high school years differently. She says she can empathize with her character in the show, who is the daughter of the Prosecutor General and “for that reason behaves a bit arrogantly toward everyone else,” she said. “Here it is more about money,” the actress conceded. But “the series is very close to life.”

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: The Rolling Stones’ recent concert on Palace Square has generated a plenty of reviews, but one definitely makes you feel as if you are “Back in the U.S.S.R.” Amid general exaltation about the celebrity visit, Peterburgsky Dnevnik, an official publication from St. Petersburg City Hall, accused the band of Satan worship and promotion of drug use.
“The Stones’ main superhit was called ... 'Sympathy for the Devil,’” the article states.
“‘Sympathy for the Devil’ was followed by the no-less infernal ‘Paint It Black,’ etc. The performing style itself — jumps, savage grimaces and the hellish noise of incredibly loud music making the Hermitage’s windows rattle — all this also had a strong smell of sulfur, rather than of roses.”
“The devil has always been a trademark of St. Petersburg recent visitors’ work, whose official motto in the late last century sounded like ‘sex, drugs, love,’” continued the paper.
“As early as in 1967 the Rolling Stones released ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request,’ an album dedicated to Lucifer. The band’s other songs do not smell like flowers either: ‘Cousin Is Cocaine,’ ‘Morphine Is Your Best Friend,’ etc.”
The Rolling Stones has no songs with such titles (no doubt deliberately misinterpreted lines from the 1971 song “Sister Morphine”), but that has never stopped creative Soviet-style propagandists.
“The Rolling Stones’ songs might be a new word in music. And they might be really great musicians loved by many. But it doesn’t matter. Having grown much older, the rockers have celebrated and continue to celebrate the Devil and drugs,” Peterburgsky Dnevnik wrote, linking the rise in crime to the “fashion for Satanists, narcotics, energy drinks, the noise of brain-softening rhythms.” 
Although President Vladimir Putin called the demise of the Soviet Union a “national tragedy on an enormous scale” and has reintroduced many Soviet habits such as ardent anti-Westernism and symbols such as the Soviet anthem, the picture is mixed in 2007. 
Soviet leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev and Konstantin Chernenko obviosly disliked rock music, but present-day Russia is, in fact, ruled by rock fans. 
The Rolling Stones' concert was massively attended by the Russian establishment including former defense minister Sergei Ivanov, frequently seen as Putin's likely successor, who claimed to be a Beatles' fan and a collector of its vinyl records when he was interviewed for the documentary “Paul McCartney In Red Square” in 2003. Meanwhile Putin's other possible successor, Dmitry Medvedev, has recently admitted attending Deep Purple concerts with Ivanov.
Kremlin ideologist Vyacheslav Surkov writes rock lyrics, while Putin himself, whose favorite band is reported to be Smokie, hung around with McCartney in Kremlin while the ex-Beatle performed “Hey Jude” for him on a Kremlin piano.

<i>—By Sergey Cherno</i>

TITLE: Between the lines
AUTHOR: By Alastair Gee
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Nikolas Koro’s stories in the new gay fiction collection “Liberty Life” touch on everything from Buddha to cigarettes to an angel with the sniffles. But there’s one topic he doesn’t openly discuss: homosexuality. 
A character who writes fairy tales mentions he’s gay. A doctor protests that he isn’t. If there’s anything else, it’s on the level of metaphor.
The stories are about gays “inasmuch as their author is openly gay,” Koro said in an interview Monday at the Moscow office of NEIMS Branding & Consulting Group where he’s a member of the European board of directors. “It’s not obligatory that being involved in the gay community means waving a rainbow flag.”
Other stories in the anthology “Liberty Life,” released recently in a print-run of 1,000 by Kvir publishing house, also avoid mentioning homosexuality, or focus on straight rather than same-sex relationships. The book’s editor, Vladimir Kirsanov, said the theme of freedom is the link between stories, though the downplaying of gay themes also reflects the fraught status of homosexuality in Russia.
“I regularly think in my head about what the grandma in the bookstore who opens the book will say. I’m always a little afraid and am reluctant to have problems with the government,” Kirsanov said. “I wanted a collection of authors that wouldn’t arouse such a reaction” as previous gay prose books had, he admitted.
The 16 authors are scattered around the world — in Germany, the United States, Sweden and Belize, “free from the prohibitions of Russian culture,” as the book jacket puts it. There are journalists, budding novelists and even a librarian from Cherepovets, north of Moscow. Most communicated with Kirsanov using e-mail, and a few have never spoken with him.
Belize-based Lida Yusupova’s raunchy “Attida” focuses on a woman stranded in Greece after her girlfriend, Valya, decides she doesn’t want to live abroad. “She met Valya in the company of identical shaven-headed girls, but she didn’t see them because Valya outshone them all — she was red-haired, tall, curvaceous,” the story explains.
The woman’s only consolation is sex with a “fat and stupid” Greek, the daughter of the owner of a restaurant where she eats, though the mood quickly dissipates when the ex is mentioned.
In “I’ll Be You” by Margarita Sharapova, a former circus performer named Rita falls in love with a blind girl, Larisa, whom she’s looking after for a weekend. They roll around kissing in a forest and declare their love, though the ending, involving an unexpected birth, is melancholy.
“Blindness is in its entirety a symbol of the heterosexual community’s attitude toward homosexuals” in Russia, Sharapova said by e-mail last week. “They try not to see us. Or they see us in a perverted way.”A surprising number of English words appear in the text, often connected with sex or relationships — “brief encounter” and “blind date,” for example. The word “Liberty” in the book’s title is also written in English. And the publisher’s name, Kvir, is a Russianized version of Queer.
This preponderance of foreign terms suggests that “the idea of queerness in itself is still associated with abroad — it couldn’t be something native Russian,” said Kevin Moss, head of the Russian department at Middlebury College in Vermont and editor of a collection of Russian literature on gay themes.
He added that in the 1990s, there was a rash of gay-themed books set on other planets, and even a collection of gay vampire stories, as authors found it hard to imagine being gay in Russia following the lifting of the Soviet-era ban on homosexuality.
A number of the stories finish with bitterness and disappointment. “One Day Alla Pugachyova Picked Up the Phone and Heard My Voice,” by Natalya Vorontseva-Yuryeva, weaves a conversation between the pop star and a worshipful fan into the tale of a lesbian love-triangle, but not even Pugachyova can save these characters. And the lessons in Konstantin Kropotkin’s “Sidorov. Lessons of Life” are bleak.
“This text is about a lack of freedom,” Kropotkin said by e-mail. “Though the text was written with a breathtaking feeling of creative freedom, which is new for me.” Despite the lifting of Soviet-era prohibitions, Moss said gay literature hasn’t witnessed a growth in popularity. “Liberty Life,” whose jacket features a rainbow flag, will only be sold in two gay stores in Moscow.
“In the Tsarist era, Russia was pretty much ahead of other places,” Moss noted, particularly after the publication of the first coming-out novel, Mikhail Kuzmin’s “Wings,” in 1906. Today, though, “there hasn’t really been a boom. Given the state of Russian society, I’m not really sure that there will be one.”

TITLE: The mother of the Gulag
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BOLSHOI SOLOVETSKY ISLAND — Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn called it the “mother of the Gulag” — the spot near the Arctic Circle where the Soviet Union built one of its first camps for political prisoners.
Now the site has gone back to its pre-revolutionary use as a monastery, and part of it has been turned into a museum that pays homage to the camp’s inmates, and the unknown millions killed nationwide in Soviet purges.
Few of those, mainly Russians, who visit this island in Russia’s White Sea come to see the gulag. Most are attracted instead by its religious history, wildlife and white summer nights.
That may be because Russians are still deeply ambivalent about Soviet repression, which turned them into victims but which was also done in their name.
Historians estimate that, at the height of the purge, up to one in 10 Russians may have been imprisoned in the thousands of Gulags — a Soviet acronym for its prison camp system — across the vast country. Many died.
“There is an attempt to suppress the interest in this topic and this is the state policy, to put it in shadow,” said museum curator Olga Bochkaryova, standing in front of a display of photographs of people who died in the camp.
“The authorities in Russia are not interested in revealing the terrific scale of what happened here in this country. This was the destruction of its people by the state,” she said.
“It’s impossible to ignore this history, though, especially among the Russian citizens who lost their relatives, who search for those who died here,” said Bochkaryova.
The island is now a tranquil beauty spot but it has a dark history. Thousands of Stalin’s enemies and others caught up in the purges — some as young as 15 — were incarcerated and died there between 1923 and 1939.
Many inmates were literally worked to death, with little protection against the winter cold. Troublesome inmates were tied to a stake during long, hot summer days, so mosquitoes could feed on them as punishment.
“Many of the deaths were registered as ‘death by illness’ so in thousands of cases we do not know how some of them really died,” Bochkaryova said.
The island was first used as a political camp when White Army officers were held in a Tsarist-era jail there after the Russian revolution.
The regime was not harsh at first, but the worst time was 1937-39 when it became a formal prison camp, Bochkaryova said. Prisoners were not allowed to talk to each other — even though there were often six to a room — to try to prevent information spreading between the inmates. 
The island even used its own currency to prevent prisoners bribing the guards.
Elsewhere on the site, there are other reminders of its darker legacy: in one remote corner of the complex is a prison doorway, and next to it a heavily barred window. 
Guards forced inmates to build their own cells.
In recognition of the island’s place in the grim history of the Gulag, a boulder was shipped from here to the square outside the former headquarters of the Soviet secret police in Moscow as a memorial to the victims.
A few times a year, small groups of people gather next to the rock with candles to hold a vigil.
Today, Bolshoi Solovetsky island does not dwell on its grim past. The site is now home to 40 Russian Orthodox monks who have resettled the pre-revolutionary monastery.
On a sunny morning last month, many visiting tourists appeared to be religious pilgrims, with a small fraction choosing to look inside the gulag museum.
The museum’s director, Mikhail Lopatkin, says the island is more closely associated with the gulag system in the minds of foreigners than among Russians.
“Most of the Western people accept it as a Gulag museum and Russians think of it as a spiritual, holy place.
“Young people come here in search of something spiritual — to find something for their soul and not necessarily this monastery,” he said. “Instead, they want to escape from modern life, like the hippies did.”
Sergei Oyama, from St. Petersburg, was making his third trip to the island. He and two friends rented a boat to cruise through the island’s network of canals and lakes.
“[We come] for all the reasons, including its time as a prison camp, its religious history,” he said. “But now mostly for its nature.”

TITLE: Beneath the waves
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg archeologists have discovered last month what they say is Russia’s oldest shipwreck in the Gulf of Finland.
But the state of the wreck of the 40-meter tall ship, similar to the Vasa, the famous giant mid-16th century battleship that sank in Stockholm harbor, has puzzled the researchers, preventing them from giving an accurate account of the discovery three weeks following the endeavor.
“The spoiled wreckage is randomly scattered all over a 300 square-meter area of the seabed in differing depths of between 17 and 35 meters,” said Andrei Lukoshkov, who led a twelve-man team of scholars and divers in a two-week archeological odyssey in the Gulf of Finland as part of a long-term, Gazprom-sponsored program to explore Russia’s seas and fresh waters.
“It’s too early to give an accurate account, pending study of the wreck’s remnants which are currently being examined in our laboratories,” Lukoshov told journalists last week. 
However, he said preliminary examinations have indicated that the ship was more than 30 years older than the Vasa and belonged to the same Swedish fleet. It is believed to have sunk between 1580 and 1610 during the reign of Tsar Boris Gudunov (Boris I) who ruled over ancient Russia while the Swedes had conquered the north western part of the territory.
The latest discovery has put into question last year’s findings by the same team that established that the 25-meter tall Russian ship, the Novgorod, which sank in the River Volkhov between 1550 and 1560, is the oldest known wreck in Russian waterways. But unlike the Swedish ship, the Russian vessel was found “almost intact enough to serve as an underwater museum,” Lukoshkov said. 
“The location of the latest discovery reminds us of a dump for sunken ships,” said Ilya Kochorov, a film producer with the team who noted that seven shipwrecks belonging to various historical epochs had been earlier located in a 1.5 square-kilometer section of the Gulf of Finland. The latest mission involved the study of three shipwrecks among the seven.
They include the Swedish frigate the Archangel Raphael, which sank in 1724, the Swedish yacht Aurora, which was wrecked in 1790 and a Finno-Swedish battleship that sank in the same year. 
Another vessel that was found lying 37 meters under the Gulf of Finland is a two-mast cargo ship whose consignments were traced to the mid-19th century. Historical records indicate the sinking of a British ship, named the Fruit, in that area in October 1863.
About 300 meters away, at a depth of 42 meters, is a better preserved ship the construction of which is typical of the late-17th century Dutch Smack- and Hooker-class merchant ships. It was probably one among a Dutch fleet of ten ships that sank in a fierce storm on September 9, 1717, according to archeological experts. An “invaluable consignment” was found in the ship, they say. 
Meanwhile, the explorers are working out the initial stages toward establishing a permanent museum in St. Petersburg to display findings from the program, which began in 2004. A rotating team of a dozen men has explored hundreds of underwater objects including crashed aircraft, tanks, ammunition, torpedoes, mines, battleships and oil tankers and even remnants of ancient monuments and cemeteries. But the initial phase of the planned museum will be limited to the provision of “virtual services,” pending further developments, Kochorov said.
Rough estimates suggest that there are more than 10,000 ships lying on the bottom of the Gulf of Finland and in Lake Ladoga, say the explorers, who have announced a mission to Lake Ladoga in 2008. 
www.baltic-sunken-ships.ru

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: This week, Channel One launched a new show telling people what not to wear called "Fashion Sentence." That's "sentence" as in prison sentence, since the channel has organized a kind of show trial for those miserable worms who dare to wear clothes that are mumsy or not their color.
A cowering victim is confronted by a judge -- fashion designer Slava Zaitsev — and a prosecutor -- the steely editor of L'Officiel magazine, Evelina Khromchenko. Meanwhile, smiley television presenter Arina Sharapova acts as defense. Worst of all, the victim's friends come into the studio to act as "witnesses," denouncing the accused's gradual slump into comfy leisure wear.
Actually, things weren't that bad in the first episode, which aired on Monday. Tuning in, I looked around for the weeping defendant in something tentlike, renouncing elasticated waistbands, but instead there was a tall, slim, auburn-haired woman who looked a bit like the uptight one in "Desperate Housewives."
Natalya's crimes were letting herself go and wearing sporty clothes, Zaitsev explained helpfully. The judges called in Natalya's friends to hint that her husband has lots of well-dressed female colleagues and to reminisce about how much better she used to look. Oh, and her husband was there too, pronouncing his verdict on everything she tried on.
Luckily, she was given a chance to reintegrate herself into society by modeling a series of new outfits, first picked out by herself and then by a team of stylists. The audience then voted on which set of outfits was better -- and she got to keep those clothes. 
The strange aspect of the show was that it didn't explain how the stylists chose outfits for Natalya, or even who the stylists were. It seemed that Zaitsev and Khromchenko weren't involved — the intimidating blonde editor yanked off a string of pearls that she didn't like from one outfit, and Zaitsev finally said he preferred Natalya's own choice of clothes, since she looked "more stylish."
And Natalya was no fashion dunce, even if she had slacked on the shopping lately. At the end of the show, the audience decided that she looked better in her choice of cotton jackets and trousers than in the stylists' choice of Jackie O. tunic dresses and bug-eye sunglasses. Which was nice in a way, but made the proceedings seem a bit pointless.
It would also have been good to reveal some juicy backstage conflict between the judge and prosecutor. Because I somehow doubt that Khromchenko — who wore minimalist black and arty glasses -- shares her vision of style with veteran fashion designer Zaitsev, who wore magenta and a cravat.??The show differs quite a lot from other makeover formats that have aired recently on Russian television. Domashny used to have a show called "Fashion Shot," hosted by Svetlana Bondarchuk, the wife of film director Fyodor Bondarchuk. The time I caught this, it had no bite at all and basically involved product placement for a fashion chain and the makeoveree being told she looked sweet in pink.
Meanwhile, "Take It Off Immediately!" on CTC borrowed the format of the bitchy British show "What Not To Wear," which forces victims to stand in their underwear to have their points appraised. The Russian version is off the air at the moment, and Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that it will relaunch with new presenters because the previous ones weren't mean enough to fill the Manolo Blahniks of the original's Trinny and Susannah.
The Channel One show, which will air every weekday, would be more fun if it had a similar hard edge. Unfortunately, there was never really a chance that twinkly Zaitsev would forcibly pull up Natalya's top and tell her she was wearing the wrong-sized bra.

TITLE: Spice of life
AUTHOR: By Chris Jones
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Kavkaz Bar // 18 Karavannaya. Tel.: 312 1665 // Open daily, 11 a.m. – 1 a.m., CafI open 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. // Menu in Russian and English. // Major credit cards accepted. // Lunch for two, no alcohol: 1,890 rubles ($74).

Kavkaz Bar, a fixture of St. Petersburg’s dining scene last reviewed on these pages back in 1999 when decent restaurants were scarce, provides just what diners expect from a good Georgian restaurant — an exotic alternative to traditional Russian or European fare.   
If you are just stopping in for a quick lunch, relax in one of the restaurant’s two front rooms (five tables and one booth for about 30 guests), which form the cafI portion of the Kavkaz Bar. The space is light and airy, with white and tan stucco impressed with traditional carved images. Additionally, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., the cafI has a slightly cheaper menu (with correspondingly reduced portion sizes) than the restaurant proper.
For a romantic dinner, or a larger celebration, head to the large, cozy back room (with eight tables for 26 guests), which is by far the best spot in the house. Here, creeper vines hanging from the ceiling mix with candlelight and wrought-iron lamps to give a dark, secluded feel that is perfect for a long evening with friends or a business dinner.  The places are carefully set with simple, tastefully laid glasses and silverware, and a dark red candle glows on each table. 
Kavkaz’s menu, which comes with excellent English-language translations, fills an astounding 22 pages, half of which is an extensive alcohol selection.  Pleasingly, The menu also guarantees in writing that your meal will be ready within 25 minutes of ordering, as indeed ours was.  In line with other restaurants in its price range, Kavkaz’s service was cordial and well informed, though occasionally slow to deliver dishes or take our order.
About half of Kavkaz’s cuisine is true Georgian, with mains ranging from 270 rubles ($10.50) for Georgian meat dumplings to 700 rubles ($27.50) for a sturgeon kebab. The highlight of our meal was the Adzharian Beef (540 rubles, $21) — a Georgian specialty of beef stuffed with pomegranate. Coming on a thick slab of wood, the meat is accompanied by crisp, fried white potatoes, thinly sliced carrots, and dark red Georgian cabbage, mixed with surprisingly spicy beetroot. The meat itself is a tender steak wrapped around a filling of sweet pomegranate and spiced onion, all capped by a bright red grilled slice of tomato. The combination of colors makes the dish almost too pretty to eat, but you are rewarded when you do so. The Chokopuli (520 rubles/ $20), a lamb stew, was similarly pleasing in presentation, coming out steaming hot in a dark, rough ceramic bowl. The meet was tender, though it tasted more of beef than lamb, and came surrounded by a mix of sweet vegetables and spices. Combined with a side of Tkemali sauce (a Georgian sauce made from wild plums), it too provided the pleasant, somewhat exotic departure that most visitors to Kavkaz are looking for.
The Adzhapsandall salad (250 rubles/ $10), a mix of stewed peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes, is an ideal introduction to some of the flavors you should expect at Kavkaz; sweet peppers mix with sharp spices, drawn together in a deep red sauce.  As a hot appetizer, the Achma (210 rubles, $8) layers thick pieces of suluguni, a salty Georgian cheese, between flaky pastry. Although the cheese itself was excellent, the pastry came drowned in butter, washing out some of the flavor.
For dessert, the Gvezeli Arazhani (150 rubles/ $6), a sweet sponge cake soaked layered with white cream and soaked in cranberry sauce is a nice conclusion, although it is unclear what makes this fairly ordinary cake “Georgian.” It comes carefully garnished with strawberries, chocolate shavings, and a soft cream coating, and is big enough to split if you are feeling full.

TITLE: Sergei Shchurakov 
(1960-2007)
TEXT: Sergei Shchurakov, the ex-Akvarium accordionist who led his own band Vermicelli Orchestra, died of post-surgery complications this week. He was 47.
Shchurakov, who formed Vermicelli Orchestra in 1995, broke through as a member of the BG Band that Akvarium’s founder Boris Grebenshchikov formed in 1991, soon after disbanding his extremely influential group. Akvarium’s official web site described him as the BG Band’s “main musical force.”
Shchurakov was with Grebenshchikov in Akvarium’s latter-day incarnation in 1993 and co-wrote a number of songs until the band was, in its turn, dissolved in 1995. 
Since then he ran the Vermicelli Orchestra, an instrumental art-rock band with world-music and classical influences, and also gained recognition as a film composer. His own band’s efforts include playing on “Heart on Snow,” Marc Almond’s 2003 “Russian” album.
Over the years, however, the Vermicelli Orchestra has undergone many permutations with about 30 musicians having passed through the ensemble. The inspiration, however, remained Shchurakov, whose early listening experiences included classic rock like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin and classical music. Beethoven was his favorite composer — "the composer of composers" — as Shchurakov said in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times in 2001.
"There was a period back in my 20s when I was listening to Akvarium a lot," Shchurakov said. "I was impressed by a lot of things [in Akvarium's music], so impressed that I ended up joining the band and staying with them for quite a while."
Shchurakov who studied composition in school and at the Mussorgsky College of Music, from which he graduated in 1980 with a degree in folk music, was introduced to Akvarium in 1987 by Seva Gakkel, the band's cellist, during the “Ravnodenstviye” (Equinox) album sessions that he ended up taking part in.
"I sense deep within myself that the old Akvarium, despite its lack of professionalism, is an unrepeatable phenomenon for me. Even now it seems to me that nobody has reached [the artistic heights of] ‘Den Serebra’ (Day of Silver) and ‘Deti Dekabrya’ (December's Children) [Akvarium albums from 1984 and 1985, respectively]," Shchurakov said. 
"I believe that no group in Russia has achieved the [level of] creativity that Akvarium did then."
Unlike Akvarium, Shchurakov stressed that his own band, complete with a string section, was an orchestra, rather than a rock group.
"We are an orchestra. We have written scores and defined parts," he said.
"With a rock band, it is bass, guitar, drums and vocals, which leaves a lot of room for self-expression because the instruments don't intersect much. But for us, everything must be reduced to a common denominator, so we need coordination."
Shchurakov was resolute about not succumbing to broader audiences’ vulgar tastes and described the Vermicelli Orchestra as “alternative.” 
“We are an alternative band ... although we had no intention of becoming one,” he said.
“It happened de facto because we didn't want to go with the mainstream."
The Vermicelli Orchestra’s recorded work includes the albums “Anabasis” (1997), “Byzantium" (2000) and “Marcus Aurelius” (2005).
Shchurakov was hospitalized at the Djanelidze Research Institute of Emergency Medicine Hospital with peritonitis and had surgery last week, but then had to undergo another operation as he had developed a duodenal ulcer, yet he died of edema of the lungs on Tuesday.
He was buried on Volkovskoye cemetry in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Bourne again
AUTHOR: By Manohla Dargis
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: Jaw clenched, brow knotted, body tight as a secret, Matt Damon hurtles through “The Bourne Ultimatum” like a missile. He’s a man on a mission, our Matt, and so too is his character, Jason Bourne, the near-mystically enhanced superspy who, after losing his memory and all sense of self, has come to realize that he has also lost part of his soul. For Bourne, who rises and rises again in this fantastically kinetic, propulsive film, resurrection is the name of the game, just as it is for franchises. This is the passion of Jason Bourne, with a bullet.
Their sights set far beyond the usual genre coordinates, the three Bourne movies drill into your psyche as well as into your body. They’re unusually smart works of industrial entertainment, with action choreography that’s as well considered as the direction. Doug Liman held the reins on the first movie, with Paul Greengrass taking over for the second and third installments. And while the two men take different approaches to similar material (the more formally bold Greengrass shatters movie space like glass), each embraces an ethos that’s at odds with the no pain, no gain, no brain mind-set that characterizes too many such flicks. Namely remorse: in these movies, you don’t just feel Bourne’s hurt, you feel the hurt of everyone he kills.
“The Bourne Ultimatum” picks up where “The Bourne Supremacy” left off, with this former black-bag specialist for the C.I.A. grimly, inexorably moving toward final resolution. After a brush with happiness with the German woman (Franka Potente) he met in the first movie (“The Bourne Identity”) and soon lost in the second, he has landed in London. Stripped of his identity, his country and love, Bourne is now very much a man alone, existentially and otherwise. Damon makes him haunted, brooding and dark. The light seems to have gone out in his eyes, and the skin stretches so tightly across his cantilevered cheekbones that you can see the outline of his skull, its macabre silhouette. He looks like death in more ways than one.
Death becomes the Bourne series, which, in contrast to most big-studio action movies, insists that we pay attention and respect to all the flying, back-flipping and failing bodies. There’s no shortage of pop pleasure here, but the fun of these films never comes from watching men die. It’s easy to make people watch — just blow up a car, slit someone’s throat. The hard part is making them watch while also making them think about what exactly it is that they’re watching. That’s a bit of a trick, because forcing us to look at the unspeakable risks losing us, though in the Bourne series it has made for necessary surprises, like Potente’s character’s vomiting in the first movie because she has just seen a man fling himself out of a window to his death.
That scene quickly established the underlying seriousness of the series, particularly with respect to violence. There’s a similarly significant scene in the new film, which caps a beyond-belief chase sequence in which Bourne runs and runs and runs, leaping from one sun-blasted roof to the next and diving into open windows as the cops hotfoot after him. He’s trying to chase down a man who’s trying to chase down Bourne’s erstwhile colleague, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles). When Bourne comes fist-to-fist with the other man, Greengrass throws the camera, and us along with it, smack in the middle. It’s thrilling at first, and then — as the blows continue to fall, the bodies slow down, and a book is slammed, spine out, into one man’s neck — ghastly.
An intentional buzz kill, this fight succeeds in bringing you down off the roof, where just moments earlier you had been flying so high with Bourne. (Look at the dude go!) Greengrass knows how to do his job, and there’s no one in Hollywood right now who does action better, who keeps the pace going so relentlessly, without mercy or letup, scene after hard-rocking scene.
But he, along with the writers (here, Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi), also wants to complicate things, mix some unease in with all the heart-thumping enjoyment. Not because he’s a sadist, or at least not entirely, but because the Bourne series is, finally, about consequences, about chickens coming home to roost.
“The Bourne Ultimatum” drives its points home forcefully, making you jump in your seat and twitch, but it’s careful not to leave any bruises. (It’s filmmaking with a rubber hose.) Amid the new and familiar faces (David Strathairn and Joan Allen), it introduces a couple of power-grasping, smooth-talking ghouls and stark reminders of Abu Ghraib that might make you blanch even if you don’t throw up. As Bourne has inched closer to solving the rebus of his identity, he hasn’t always liked what he’s found. He isn’t alone. Movies mostly like to play spy games pretty much for kicks, stoking us with easy brutality and cool gadgets that get us high and get us going, whether our gentlemen callers dress in tuxes or track suits.
What’s different about the Bourne movies is the degree to which they have been able to replace the pleasures of cinematic violence with those of movie-made kinetics — action, not just blood. Greengrass and his superb team do all their dazzling with technique. They take us inside an enormous train station and a cramped room and then, with whipping cameras and shuddering edits, break that space into bits as another bullet finds its mark, another body hits the ground, and the world falls apart just a little bit more.

TITLE: Lucky 13th For White Sox
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CHICAGO — Juan Uribe blasted a two-run homer in the bottom of the 13th inning to guide the Chicago White Sox to a 6-4 victory over the Central Division-leading Cleveland Indians on Wednesday.
Uribe’s homer to center field followed a single by Scott Podsednik with one out to give Chicago its sixth victory in 10 games.
The winning hit enabled Uribe to overcome a 12th inning error that led to a brief 4-3 lead for the Indians before Chicago tied the game in the bottom of the inning.
“The two errors were in the back of my mind,” Uribe, who also had a throwing error in the 10th inning, told reporters.
“I’m glad I was able to come through because I felt the game might have been different if I made those two plays.”
The Chicago shortstop was charged with the 12th inning error after a fly ball to shallow left field by Cleveland’s Kenny Lofton hit and bounced out of his glove.
That enabled pinch-runner Josh Barfield to score.
*Roy Halladay (13-5) struck out eight in seven innings and Vernon Wells drove in four runs as the Toronto Blue Jays used 16 hits to end the New York Yankees’s five-game winning streak with a 15-4 rout.Yankees loser Wang Chien-ming (13-6) gave up eight runs and nine walks in two-plus innings.
*Ichiro Suzuki had three hits and Jose Vidro drove in four runs in the Seattle Mariners’s 8-4 home win over the Baltimore Orioles.
*Rob Bowen homered twice — once from each side of the plate — as the Oakland Athletics topped the Texas Rangers 6-3.

TITLE: Nadal Punishes Hapless Safin
AUTHOR: By Simon Cambers
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MONTREAL — Defending champion Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal eased into the third round of the Montreal Masters with straight-sets wins on Wednesday.
World number one Federer tamed the giant serve of Croat Ivo Karlovic to win 7-6 7-6 and Nadal beat Russian Marat Safin 7-6 6-0 in a high-quality match under the lights.
Federer, in his first match since winning his fifth successive Wimbledon title, could not force a single break point but came out on top in two tiebreaks.
“I think I played very well,” Federer told reporters. “I didn’t give many chances on my own service game. From the baseline, I hardly missed a shot. I played aggressively.
“I couldn’t read his serve at all — it is definitely the best in the game. I was happy the way I played tiebreakers, both of them. I wasn’t very happy with the draw, to be honest. Now that I’m past it, I’m very relieved and happy.”
Federer next meets Italian qualifier Fabio Fognini, who upset 13th seed Andy Murray 6-2 6-2.
Nadal, runner-up to Federer at Wimbledon, had to work hard to get the better of former world number one Safin, who fought back from an early break down to force two set points on his opponent’s serve at 6-5.
But once the Spanish world number two had saved both, the writing was on the wall and he took the tiebreak 7-4 before cruising through the second set.
“He played very well to break me back and then I had a little bit of luck to win the set,” Nadal said. “After that, it was a little bit easier.”
The Spaniard will next play Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu, who beat Croat Mario Ancic 6-3 6-2.

SOLID START
Fifth seed Andy Roddick made a solid start by beating Frenchman Arnaud Clement 6-1 7-6.
The American, who won the title in Washington last weekend, trailed 5-3 in the second-set tiebreak before winning four consecutive points to clinch victory.
“He started being a lot more aggressive, playing higher risk in the second set,” Roddick said. “It was working for the most part and I was kind of just hanging on there in the second set.
“But I was just able to kind of hang around long enough, win a couple points in the breaker. It was definitely a tale of two sets.”
Roddick will face Marcos Baghdatis after the Cypriot beat Dutchman Robin Haase 6-2 3-6 6-1.
Lleyton Hewitt was gifted a place in the third round when opponent James Blake withdrew before their match with an abdominal strain.
“I hope four, five days of ice and rest will do for me and I’ll be okay for Cincinnati (next week),” American Blake said.
“I need to be careful with the U.S. Open coming up, I don’t want to do something that’s going to cause some serious damage.”
Australian Hewitt will now play Slovakian Dominik Hrbaty, who upset seventh seed Tommy Robredo of Spain 6-2 6-4, while eighth seed Richard Gasquet squandered a match point before losing 3-6 7-6 6-4 to Spaniard Fernando Verdasco.
Fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko battled past Finn Jarkko Nieminen 6-3 7-6 to reach the third round and another Russian, 14th seed Mikhail Youzhny, advanced with a 6-4 6-4 win over Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka.

TITLE: Sharapova Through In
Los Angeles
AUTHOR: By Matthew Cronin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LOS ANGELES — Top seed Maria Sharapova advanced to the third round of the Los Angeles Classic on Wednesday after Greece’s Eleni Daniilidou retired with breathing difficulties.
Down 7-6 3-1, Dandiilidou called it quits after a medical time out and left the court in tears.
“I had a virus for four days and I wanted to try because Maria and I have such great fights,” Daniilidou told reporters.
“I just couldn’t pull out because these are the matches that you work for.”
Sharapova, who won the San Diego Classic last week, nearly lost control of the first set but came back from a 0-3 deficit in the tiebreak to win it 7-5.
“I was doing the rights things, I just needed to keep looking for opportunities to come forward,” Sharapova said.
“I feel better and my confidence increases the more I keep winning.”
Sharapova will face 18-year-old Michaella Krajicek of the Netherlands in the next round.
Daniilidou is not the only player who has been struck by a flu bug that players say is going around the locker room.
At Stanford, France’s Marion Bartoli was ill and was bed bound for four days, as was second seed Jelena Jankovic, who managed to get past China’s Peng Shuai 6-1 6-1 on Wednesday.
“I’m still not 100 percent and still blowing my nose on each changeover,” said Jankovic. Jankovic will face Sybille Bammer of Austria, who thrashed Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-2 6-1.
Playing in her first match since reaching the Wimbledon semi-finals, third seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia beat American Ashley Harkleroad 6-4 6-2 and defending champion Elena Dementieva eased past 17-year-old American Madison Brengle 6-2 6-0.
Dementieva will face fifth seed Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, who beat American Jill Craybas 6-3 7-6.

TITLE: Lesser-known Players Thrive at the US PGA Championship
AUTHOR: By Tom Spousta
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TULSA, Oklahoma — Golf’s major trophies should have been claimed already by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, who in recent years left only scraps by the time the PGA Championship rolled around.
But with Woods uncharacteristically failing to close the deal at the Masters and U.S. Open, and Mickelson winless since May thanks to a midseason wrist injury, there is a sense of purpose spreading across Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“It gives everybody a little hope,” Chad Campbell said. “It reminds you that it is possible for people that haven’t won one, that people besides Tiger and Phil can win.”
Woods and Mickelson had combined to win six of the previous eight major tournaments before this year, but Zach Johnson, Angel Cabrera and Padraig Harrington reversed that trend by capturing their first major titles.
And one look at the names etched on the Wanamaker Trophy — Rich Beem, Shaun Micheel, Bob Tway, Jeff Sluman, Wayne Grady — reveals that lesser-known players appear to thrive at the PGA Championship.
The top stars have helped make that case leading to the first round Thursday at Southern Hills. Although everyone snapped to attention when Woods took his thunderous eight-stroke victory at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational last week, he failed to convert after holding the lead on Sunday at both the Masters and U.S. Open.
Mickelson has struggled since winning the Players Championship in May. He injured his wrist practicing for the U.S. Open, then missed the cut at Oakmont Country Club and at the British Open at Carnoustie.
Jim Furyk is nursing an ailing back that forced him to withdraw from the Bridgestone Invitational. And Vijay Singh of Fiji, a two-time winner of the PGA Championship, and Ernie Els of South Africa cannot seem to make enough putts lately to make their presence felt on the leaderboard.
“You look at Phil, Tiger and the guys that have won [majors],” said Stewart Cink, who was third in the last major held at Southern Hills, the 2001 U.S. Open. “So when a guy that’s lesser-known wins the Masters — I play practice rounds with Zach all the time — you think, why can’t I do it?”
Southern Hills might be the perfect place for a non-superstar to grind out a victory and complete a sweep of first-time major winners for only the fourth time since the Masters began in 1934.
The last time four newbies collected major hardware in the same year was 2003, when Mike Weir of Canada won the Masters, Jim Furyk took the U.S. Open, Ben Curtis captured the British Open and Shaun Micheel won the PGA Championship (the other occasions were in 1959 and 1969).
This week, the plot screams for a final act to Johnson’s victory in the Masters, Cabrera’s mastery in the U.S. Open and Harrington’s rally to win a playoff in the British Open.
And what better stage than Southern Hills, a course that was built in 1936 on a hope and a tractor plow.
Designer Perry Maxwell was forced to work under constraints of a $100,000 budget due to the Depression, and his crew kept costs in line by using only one tractor to carve the course carefully into the allotted land. The result was sloping fairways, uneven lies that test players’ shot-making and numerous visually challenging holes that dogleg left and right. Indeed, Southern Hills has stood the test of time, becoming the first course to hold four PGA Championships and also playing host to three U.S. Opens and two Tour Championships.
With temperatures expected to be in the 90s Fahrenheit (about 32 degrees Celsius), major tournament pressure is not the only heat the field will feel. Putting strokes were especially frayed at the end of the 2001 U.S. Open here, when Retief Goosen, Mark Brooks and Cink all missed putts inside four feet on the 72nd hole. Goosen prevailed in an 18-hole Monday playoff against Brooks, winning the first of his two U.S. Open titles.

TITLE: Coach Drive With Drugs
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s national athletics coach was temporarily suspended Wednesday for alleged involvement in doping scandals. Valery Kulichenko was suspended by the Russian federation’s executive body after being linked to hammer throwers Tatyana Lysenko and Yekaterina Khoroshikh. Both tested positive for doping in out-of-competition tests in Moscow on May 9.
The athletes have said that the hormone could have been in food additives that they had bought from Kulichenko.
The Russian national doping laboratory said the hormone was not on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances but the IAAF specialists have qualified it as a banned one.