SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1314 (80), Friday, October 12, 2007
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Food Prices Soar 30% In a Month
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Prices rose by as much as 30 percent for 9 out of 10 food products in September, the Russian Statistics Committee (Rosstat) has said, leaving ordinary people stressed and angered as basic products such as milk and vegetable oil are hit by rising inflation. 
“I’m in shock,” Svetlana Rudakova, a 35 year-old hairdresser, said. “I’ve got two children and I’m scared to think how we’ll manage our financial situation now. Of course, I can go on a diet myself and not eat butter and cheese, but I can’t do that with my children and my husband!”
The most obvious rise hit dairy products such as butter, milk, and cheese. In St. Petersburg the price for half a kilogram of Valio butter went up from 70 rubles ($2.80) to 100 rubles ($4); a liter of Vesyolyi Molochnik milk jumped from 20 rubles (80 cents) to 25 rubles ($1). All kinds of cheese, including traditionally cheap ones, now cost between 200 rubles and 250 rubles ($8-$10) a kilogram.
According to Rosstat, 89 percent of food products in Russia became more expensive in the first month of fall. 
In Moscow the situation is worse with the price for one liter of Domik v Derevne milk rising from 25 rubles ($1) to 35 rubles ($1.40); vegetable oil Zolotaya Semechka rocketed from 38 rubles ($1.50) a bottle to 60 rubles ($2.40); and ten eggs now cost on average 38 rubles ($1.50) compared to 28 rubles ($1.12) last month.
Prices similarly went up in many regions. In the Siberian town of Angarsk the price for Donskoi bread doubled from 9 rubles (36 cents) to 18 rubles (72 cents).
Cereals cost up to 4.5 percent more this month than they did a month ago, Rosstat said.
President Vladimir Putin last week ordered Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov to stabilize prices. The government and the State Duma urgently began to work out anti-inflation measures.
The sudden rise left experts scratching their heads and offering conspiracy theories about a plot by leading food retailers. At the same time, they referred to world trends such as a bad harvest in Australia and some other countries that export food to Russia.
Andrei Vorobyov, State Duma deputy and head of United Russia’s Central Election Committee, said the rise of prices on food products has several reasons, Rosbalt reported.
“First of all our market is under the strong influence of world market trends. Secondly, Russia strongly depends on imported goods: 40 percent of its meat and 25 percent of its dairy products are imported. The third reason is inner factors that provoke such price rises,” Vorobyov said.
“All this heavily affects the financial situation of the poor, weakens our efforts to raise wages while indexing pensions and social subsidies,” he said.
According to Vorobyov, the situation calls for an analysis of the market and creating of a favorable regime for Russian agriculture producers.  Secondly, measures should be taken against monopolies, he said.  Thirdly, the government should consider additional measures to provide social support to poor people to compensate for rising prices and the expected growth in utilities bills.
Anton Struchenevsky, head economist of Troika Dialogue, told The St. Petersburg Times that the main reason for the rises was “external factors.”
“The prices for wheat are rising all around the world and consequently they rise in Russia.  Accordingly the price for animal feed goes up and then prices of meat, milk and butter increase,” Struchenevsky said. Inflation is a worldwide phenomenon, he said.
He said many things also depend on the price of oil. When the oil prices are high, wheat is used to make bio-fuels as an alternative, so pressure is exerted on world wheat supply, Struchenevsky said.
He said the government can hardly control world inflation, and food prices will continue to rise.
Vladimir Plotnikov, head of Russia’s Agrarian Party, said a significant amount of food in Russia is made by foreign producers.
“As soon as the world price of food goes up, products in Russia become more expensive,” Plotnikov said to Rosbalt.  “Therefore there’s only one way out: the rebirth of our national agriculture, to restore the Russian villages that we’ve almost completely destroyed.” 
Every year Russia’s fields get smaller, cattle numbers decrease, and the deficit in food is covered by imports. Today the country spends no more than 1 percent of the federal budget on agriculture, instead of the necessary 5 percent, Plotnikov said.

TITLE: Police Break Up Ecological Demonstration
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The police on Thursday disrupted an environmental picket outside the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, detaining more than 10 activists from local and international ecological groups campaigning against the import of spent nuclear fuel and depleted uranium hexafluoride. The picket was held in the wake of a hefty cargo of depleted uranium arriving in the city.
At 1 p.m., activists from the environmental groups Bellona, Ecodefence and Greenpeace and the environmental faction of democratic party Yabloko lined up outside the city parliament holding a long yellow banner which called for an end to the import of radioactive materials.
Within minutes, the protesters were surrounded by a police detachment. The officers declared the gathering illegal and demanded that the protesters pack up the banner and leave. 
“You are holding an illegal picket, and I ask you to stop it. If you continue, you will be detained and taken to the nearest police station,” a police officer told the protesters. “You failed to give three-day’s notice for your picket.”
According to the Russian law, to hold a street picket the organizers must give the local authorities three days’ notice. The officer had a printout with him of a document which said that City Hall received the picket request on 8 October.
The protesters disagreed with the officials’ calculation, asking the officer to count the three days with them. “You do not have to follow orders that contradict the law,” argued Andrei Ozharovsky, a leading expert with Moscow-based environmental organization Ecodefence. “You can count the three days using your own fingers: October 8, 9 and 10; today is October 11.”
After the activists refused to withdraw, the police took the banner by force and detained most of the activists.
Also on Thursday, the Doggersbank cargo ship carrying about 80 containers with a total of 1,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride from the Gronau uranium enrichment facility, which belongs to Urenco Deutschland, arrived at the St. Petersburg city port.  
The radioactive load on board the Doggersbank is due to be sent by rail to the town of Novouralsk in Siberia for reprocessing and storage.
Olga Tsepilova, deputy head of the environmental faction of liberal party Yabloko, was bewildered by the police intervention. “The picket was peaceful and also quite small — about several dozen people were present — so from a security point of view it was absolutely harmless,” she said. 
“What would harm the authorities indeed was what those people had to say to local citizens: that every month many tons of spent nuclear fuel pass through St. Petersburg putting many thousands of people at risk of radioactive contamination.”
In 1999, Russian environmentalists failed in their attempts to have a ban put on the import of spent nuclear fuel from abroad. 
In December 2000, the State Duma voted overwhelmingly to adopt the practice of importing irradiated fuel from other countries. 
Supporters of the project then said that the money the business would raise would be used to develop Russia’s nuclear industry, as well as improve its safety record and help clean up contaminated areas. 
Ecodefence and other pressure groups argue the transportation is not safe, as the containers are not completely leak-proof and the freight travels across the country unguarded, with the drivers of the trains that carry the dangerous cargos not being informed about the radioactive content of the containers. 
They are not given anytraining to deal with any emergencies or accidents that may arise.
“The cargo passes through residential districts of the city and if a leak occurs thousands of people within a distance of half a kilometer to several kilometers would suffer,” said Dmitry Artamonov, head of the local branch of Greenpeace.
“There have already been cases of leaks and on one occasion in 2006 an entire container stocked with radioactive materials sank in the Baltic Sea and was never located,” Tsepilova said. 
Environmental groups complain that they are not officially informed about the nuclear traffic and when they find out about a particular load and check the containers for radiation levels they often find the containers unattended.
The Russian activists found out about the Gronau shipments from their counterparts in Germany. Matthias Eickhoff, spokesman of the Widerstand gegen Atomanlagen (WIGA) group in Munster, Germany, also alerted several Russian environmental journalists about new shipments.
At present, cargo containing radioactive material passes through St. Petersburg at least 10 times a month, said Alexander Shishkin, director of Isotope, a state-owned enterprise responsible for such shipments. Arriving by sea, the nuclear loads are then sent to treatment facilities in Siberia. 
For security reasons, any information about the transfer is difficult to obtain from officials, with their main concern being that the release of such information would spark mass panic. 
“Naturally, the state would rather not tell the people; in Germany, rail transportation of radioactive material was banned for three years very recently because the drivers refused to be involved,” Eickhoff said. 
“The official reason was that close proximity to these containers would put them at an increased risk of impotence. And labor unions nationwide supported the appeal,” he said. 
Eickhoff said it costs German companies three times less to send irradiated left-overs to Russia than to reprocess them at home and blamed his home country for being immoral. 
“This is unethical; every country that decides to use nuclear technologies has to be responsible for any costs and consequences involved,” the expert said. “Burdening other countries with it and choosing one state as the world’s nuclear waste storage site, however difficult the circumstances of the state may be, is despicable.” 
In June 1999, the Nuclear Power Ministry and a U.S.-based Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT) signed a letter of intent stating Russia would accept at least 10,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from Switzerland, South Korea and Taiwan for reprocessing and storage for at least 40 years. 
For its services, Russia would charge between $1,000 and $2,000 per kilogram of spent fuel — much cheaper than other countries which store and reprocess foreign nuclear fuel.
The activists accused the authorities of deliberately stifling their critics by banning street protests on technicalities.
Earlier in October, Yabloko wanted to organize a meeting to mark the anniversary of the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya on Oct. 7 but failed to receive permission from the authorities.
“At first the city officials told us that holding such an event on President Putin’s birthday — the Russian president’s birthday is Oct. 7 — would be inappropriate, “ Tsepilova recalls, 
“But then they probably realized how silly and absurd that sounds and officially turned us down on the grounds that a team of the city’s landscape designers will be working in the garden we had requested for the meeting on that day. In general, City Hall always finds a superficial reason to turn us down, whether it be busy traffic, gardening works, road repairs or someone else getting the permission first.”

TITLE: Sarkozy Smiles Achieve Little on Iran Issue
AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy pledged Wednesday to promote deeper relations between their countries but gave only minor indications that they had found common ground on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.
The two presidents agreed that Iran should make its nuclear program more transparent, but Putin reiterated Russia’s position that it had no “objective data” indicating that Tehran was working on a nuclear bomb.
The leaders also pledged to bolster energy ties and said exchanges of stakes in major companies between the two states could help ensure interdependence and greater control.
After two hours of talks in the Kremlin’s ornate Yekaterininsky Hall, Putin called the meeting a “confirmation of the inalterability and continuity of the Russian-French partnership.”
“France wishes to become Russia’s privileged partner,” said Sarkozy, who appeared to have opted for a charm approach for his two-day visit.
He said the countries had “come somewhat closer” in their positions on Iran and that he hoped Putin would be able to influence Iranian leaders on the issue next week in Tehran at a meeting of leaders of countries bordering the Caspian Sea.
Sarkozy said that even though the two sides’ information concerning Iran differed, the most important thing was “the will to cooperate.”
On energy issues, Sarkozy said that French investors had a significant interest in a stake in Gazprom and promised that France would not set up barriers to Russian companies in its markets.
“We just want this to be mutually beneficial, in the interests of both sides,” Sarkozy said. “We have discussed this and will try to solve the problems.”
Putin welcomed the overture, saying it could help create a “system of interdependence and, therefore, mutual control.”
Putin has been steadfast in maintaining that the state would retain control in strategic projects, and in energy in particular. On Wednesday, he said Russia and France could increase cooperation in the aerospace, automotive and telecoms sectors.
The leaders also discussed France’s upcoming role as holder of the rotating European Union presidency, beginning in July.
“We hope France will succeed in its work with its European partners,” Putin said.
In a departure from the style of predecessor Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy has criticized Putin’s record in government on a number of occasions, including the charge of a “certain brutality” in energy policy and describing the president as “covered in blood” as a result of his policies in Chechnya.
But he was all charm in public in Moscow on Wednesday, calling Putin “Dear Vladimir” and addressing him in the familiar “tu” form at the news conference.
Putin stuck to a more formal approach, never referring to Sarkozy by first name in front of reporters.
The atmosphere was a bit more relaxed Tuesday night, when Putin took Sarkozy for a spin in his Mercedes SUV — with the minor problem that he forgot to turn on the lights, Kommersant reported Wednesday.
There was a mix-up at the beginning of Wednesday’s news conference as well, eliciting a rare smile from Putin. 
Sarkozy occupied the spot behind the lectern bearing the Russian double-headed eagle, leaving Putin to ask him to trade places for a second, unmarked lectern.
Later in the day, Sarkozy had a half-hour meeting with members of the Memorial human rights organization, which has strongly criticized Putin for security forces’ excesses and for continuing abductions of people in Chechnya and Ingushetia.
Ahead of the meeting, Sarkozy said France would not lecture Russian leaders but that “We both believe that friendship means telling each other what we think.”

TITLE: Zoo Worker Killed By Elephant
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Moscow zoo worker died Wednesday after being either struck or crushed by an elephant as workers were loading the animal for shipment to a new zoo, Russian news agencies reported.
Three African elephants were being readied for shipment to a zoo in Valencia, Spain, when one of them lashed out with its trunk and hit the longtime employee, ITAR-Tass reported.
RIA-Novosti, however, said that the elephant stepped on the woman and crushed her.
The 143-year-old zoo is one of Moscow’s most popular attractions.

TITLE: St. Petersburg Fashion Show Hits the Catwalk
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s leading fashion event, Defile on the Neva, is in full swing, having kicked off Wednesday at the Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa with shows by local fashion icon Lilia Kiselenko and Voronezh designer Tatyana Sulimina.
Living up to its reputation of an event that gives center stage to well-established fashion gurus such as Tatyana Kotegova, Tatyana Parfyonova and Larisa Pogoretskaya, Defile on the Neva, now in its seventh year, features an array of Russian fashion’s biggest names.
The name “Defile” comes from the French défilé, meaning fashion show.
Friday’s program at the former cadets riding school fuses a show by debutant Vera Chaplinskaya with famous brands of the caliber of Asya Kogel and Janis Chamalidi. Despite her age — only 20 years old — Chaplinskaya has already won the top prize in the Admiralty design competition, and partipated in the Modny Desant fashion contest.
On Tuesday, Tatyana Kotegova’s show takes place, while Moscow designer Max Chernitsov unveils a show of his artwork at the Baltiisky Trade Center on Thursday. Unlike Modny Desant (“Fashion Landing Force” as it would be in English), a festival and contest of creative pret-a-porter fashion aimed at fashion-conscious youngsters, Defile on the Neva is for sophisticated, well-off middle-aged customers. 
The invitation-only event is usually limited to the initiated, with an unorthodox system of admission. The easiest way to get a ticket was to become a customer of the Defile boutique, where one can shop for any item seen on the event’s catwalk.
However, this time round the project’s organizers decided to expand their range and reach out to younger audiences by introducing several aspiring young designers and devoting one full day to the works of students.
Irina Ashkinadze, the event’s director, says the organizers are closely looking at up-and-coming young talents.
“The catwalk of Defile Na Neve is open for talented beginners and I consider it my mission to find young stars whose works don’t fade in the presence of well-known designers,” Ashkinadze said. 
“Some people complain there are a lot of students at the show, but I say we should support young designers because the commercial success of the story we call Russian fashion will be seen in five, or maybe even in 10 years,” she added. The event concludes on Oct.18.

TITLE: United Russia Rating Jumps With Help From President
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Support among voters for United Russia has risen to a record high after President Vladimir Putin announced that he would run on the party’s ticket in this year’s State Duma elections, according to a recent opinion poll.
The poll, released late Tuesday, indicated that 54 percent of voters questioned planned to vote for United Russia in the Dec. 2 elections, up from 48 percent in the previous poll at the end of September, said VTsIOM, a state-controlled polling agency.
It put the increase down to Putin’s popularity rubbing off on the party. “The decision by Putin to become No. 1 on the United Russia party list has ... given that party an additional 6 percent of votes,” VTsIOM said.
Putin is not expected to serve in the Duma after the elections. He exploited a legal loophole that allows serving officials to run for the Duma but not take up their seat.

TITLE: FSB Arrests Throw Light on Feud
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A behind-the-scenes battle between Kremlin clans has broken into the open with the arrests of senior officers and public accusations — a sign of a struggle for power in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle before his departure next year.
The group of fellow KGB veterans closest to Putin has long been beset by rifts that have mostly remained hidden from the public. Putin may have been interested in maintaining the discord as a way of preserving a balance in his team and keeping his underlings at bay.
But the infighting became public last week with the arrest of Gen. Alexander Bulbov, the right-hand man of Viktor Cherkesov, a longtime Putin associate who heads Russia’s drug control agency.
Bulbov was arrested at a Moscow airport by agents of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main KGB successor agency. Several other senior officers of the drug control agency also were arrested and their apartments searched.
Cherkesov accused fellow KGB veterans of waging an “all-against-all” war that could weaken the government and undermine the nation’s stability. He compared the feuding to rifts among top Communist officials that marked the waning days of the Soviet Union and accelerated its collapse.
“Such a process ... once led to a social and geopolitical catastrophe,” he said.
The power struggle between Putin’s lieutenants appears to be intensifying amid uncertainty over his succession.
The immensely popular president has said he would step down at the end of his second term, and is expected to give his blessing to a favored successor. But last month, Putin abruptly announced he would lead the main pro-Kremlin party’s ticket in December parliamentary elections and could later take the prime minister’s job. That scenario could allow him to remain at the helm and eclipse a weaker president.
The arrests appeared to be fallout from a battle that has pitted Cherkesov against Putin’s powerful deputy chief of staff, Igor Sechin, and other influential members of Putin’s inner circle.
Andrei Illarionov, Putin’s former economic adviser, compared the infighting to battles between feudal lords, and warned it could foment instability and “palace coups.”
“Russia’s law enforcement agencies are going through a quick degradation,” he said.
Cherkesov, who spoke out Tuesday from the pages of business daily Kommersant, did not mention any names, but said the arrests spotlighted “infighting among the special services.”
“There can be no winners in this war,” Cherkesov wrote. “There is too much at stake.”
Bulbov has been charged with illegally tapping phones, even though the drug control service is among the security agencies with the authority to do so as part of official investigations. Some observers said he was involved in the tapping of phone conversations between Sechin and his ally Vladimir Ustinov that angered Putin and led to Ustinov’s dismissal as prosecutor general.
Cherkesov said the officers arrested had roles in an investigation into the Moscow furniture store Tri Kita, which was accused of evading millions of dollars in import duties. They also had investigated another high-profile case of smuggling of consumer goods from China, he said.
Russian commentators have alleged that some senior FSB officials were involved in both schemes. Some say the FSB was striking back at Cherkesov’s service with the arrests.

TITLE: Zubkov Taps Nashi Leader
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov has appointed Vasily Yakemenko, leader of pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi, to head the newly established State Committee for Youth Affairs, the White House press service said Wednesday.
President Vladimir Putin announced the creation of the committee along with changes to the makeup of the Cabinet on Sept. 24, but no one was named to head the committee. Yakemenko, 36, has been at the center of speculation over who would get the post.
Putin’s decree gave the committee responsibility for shaping and implementing youth policy, as well as providing it with the authority to “manage state property” and “state services” in the process.
Yakemenko founded his first youth organization, Moving Together, in 2000 and switched his focus to Nashi in 2005.
The movement is best known for organizing rallies of students  to proclaim their support for Putin and his policies.

TITLE: Vox Populi
TEXT: As inflation rages with nearly 90 percent of food products becoming up to 30 percent more expensive in September than the month before, The St. Petersburg Times asked what people think about the crisis.

“We are seriously worried about the price situation… but, we are not scared. We’re already well-trained for it.  But it’s very sad.  We’ll keep working to survive. I think, the rise has to do with the wrong policy of the federal government that gave too much power to food producers. Besides, we notice that prices go up along with a little rise in pensions. It happened again.”
— Vladimir Suchkov, 
56, engineer


“I didn’t notice the rise of prices.  So, I’m not worried.”
— Igor, 15, college student

“They say inflation is eight percent. It’s nonsense. Just look at cheese prices. I used to buy Peshekhonsky cheese for 106 rubles and now it’s 160 rubles! The rise is 50 percent. I’m outraged at the situation. I don’t know why the prices went up so significantly. It seems they go up by themselves.  Just think what financial situation pensioners are in!” 
— Valentina Shemyakina, 
62, pensioner

“I’m really worried about the rise of prices on bread, cheese and milk. I think, we’ll still keep buying the same products but we’ll economize on something else, such as a vacation or buying clothes, for instance.”
— Yekaterina, 25, office manager

“I’m very negative about the rise of prices. I think we now have to do with some sort of deal with the big chains. I’m sure the problem can be solved on a federal level, and on our city level, too. I’m sure Governor Matviyenko will do her best. As for economizing, I’ll probably cut down spending money on leisure.”
— Andrei Georgiyevich, 
43, teacher

Text: Irina Titova 
Photographs: Alexander Belenky

TITLE: Euro-Standard Cottages To Be Built Outside City
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two new cottage villages designed according to the standards of European and American residential suburbs will be completed in the Pushkinsky district by 2010. They will provide housing for 18,000-20,000 people, Regnum news agency reported Tuesday.
The Novaya Izhora and Slavyanka villages will be constructed by Baltros managing company, which plans to provide the cottages with connections to gas pipelines, electricity networks, water supply, cable television and the Internet. The company will also construct a link-road between Sofiiskaya Ulitsa and Kolpinskoye Highway to provide residents with direct access to the ring-road.
“From January 2008, once we obtain approval from the General Plan for the Development of St. Petersburg, we will start constructing residential complexes in Novaya Izhora and Slavyanka on a mass scale,” Regnum cited Konstantin Simakov, vice-president of Baltros, as saying Tuesday. Prices for cottages will be announced later, Simakov said.
According to Baltros’ web site, a new residential district will be created, along with the necessary engineering infrastructure at a 220-hectare territory in Slavyanka. About 1.3 million square meters of housing will be constructed in four- and five-story buildings.
In Novaya Izhora, Baltros has constructed a plant to produce standard panel framework cottages. In April this year the plant produced the first standard cottages of a total area of 133 square meters each. The plant’s production capacity is 60 cottages a month. After expanding its production lines, the plant will be capable of producing up to 2,000 cottages a year.
At a 285-hectare territory in Novaya Izhora, over 3,000 individual cottages, duplexes and townhouses will be constructed. The village will house up to 20,000 residents, becoming part of the national “Affordable Housing” project.
Mikhail Bimon, director for marketing and development at Peterburgskaya Nedvizhimost Corporation, indicated that in the city’s suburbs, townhouses are the most popular type of development.
Within 10 kilometers from the city Bimon listed over 30 cottage projects that are being developed at the moment. According to Peterburgskaya Nedvizhimost, prices vary between $1,540 and $4,400 per square meter. In St. Petersburg itself, Bimon named seven cottage projects.
“Infrastructure in those cottage villages is good. As a rule, residents use the city’s engineering networks and do not face problems typical for remote villages,” Bimon said.
“However, the number of free land plots is decreasing, especially in the Kurortny, Primorsky and Vyborgsky districts, and the price of land is increasing at a fast pace. Constant traffic jams can already be seen anywhere on the way to St. Petersburg,” he said.
After completing the Novaya Izhora and Slavyanka projects, Baltros will start developing standard cottages in the Central and Privolzhsky federal districts.

TITLE: Major Electronics Chain Plans Initial Public Offering
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: M.video, one of the largest Russian consumer electronics retail chains, announced its intention to launch a public offering of ordinary shares, including shares held by its shareholder, Svece Limited, the company said Tuesday in a statement.
Shares will be offered in Russia and to institutional investors outside the United States before the end of the year. M.video has applied to list its ordinary shares on the Russian Trading System (RTS) and the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX).
“From our first store opening in 1993, we have now grown to be one of the largest consumer electronics and home appliance retail chains in Russia with 105 stores in 38 cities,” said Alexander Tynkovan, president of M.video.
“We are committed to offering the highest level of customer service and to selling a wide range of innovative products, manufactured by the world’s leading brands, to our rapidly growing consumer base. Our IPO will help us to fulfill our expansion plans and continue to enhance our level of customer service,” Tynkovan said.
At present, M.video’s retail store space totals approximately 280,000 square meters. In addition, M.video operates online stores.
Last year M.video reported a net loss of 2.37 million rubles ($100,000) “due to the reorganization of the company and its subsidiaries.” In the first half of 2007, M.video reported revenue of 12.39 million rubles ($500,000) and net profit of 5.9 million rubles ($240,000).
“M.video is the second largest retailer of consumer electronics in Russia. According to prior estimations, M.video’s capitalization is about $1.4 billion. The company itself expects to raise $300 million in the fund market, estimating capitalization between $1.4 billion and $1.7 billion,” said Tatyana Bobrovskaya, analyst at Brokercreditservice.
“M.video has good prospects for growth. The investment attracted will be used to improve logistics and for regional expansion,” she said.
Bobrovskaya indicated that apart from the 36.6 drugstore chain, no other non-food retailer had yet floated its shares, and investors would be interested in diversifying their stakes.
The market of consumer electronics grows at over 20 percent a year, she said. Retail company shares also demonstrate good performance.
“Retail has been one of the most profitable industries over the last three years. Since Sedmoi Kontinent’s share offering in 2004, the company’s capitalization has increased by over 300 percent — from $536 million to $2.1 billion. Magnit floated its shares in April 2006, and its capitalization increased from $1.9 billion to $3 billion,” Bobrovskaya said.
Deutsche Bank has been appointed the offering’s global coordinator as well as joint bookrunner, along with Renaissance Capital.

TITLE: Airlines Ordered To Conform
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Transportation Ministry has ordered the country’s airlines to improve their customer service or risk losing their licenses.
Ministry regulations, to come into force Oct. 20, will require all air carriers to conform to a list of customer service standards in dealing with passengers on the ground.
“This is all aimed at making the customer feel like the airline cares about them,” ministry spokesman Timur Khikmatov said Wednesday.
The instructions forbid airlines from denying a passenger travel in the case of lost or stolen tickets and sets out strict guidelines in the event of delays, from providing hot meals every four hours to providing baby-changing facilities and putting passengers up in hotels overnight.
An airline that fails in customer service risks sanctions ranging from a small fine to losing its operating license or being closed down altogether.
The country’s biggest airline, Aeroflot, was unconcerned.
“It will take only very minor changes to make us fully compliant,” spokesman Viktor Sokolov said. “For example, before [in the event of a delay] we offered two telephone calls and one fax to every customer. The new rules require two calls and an e-mail,” he said.
Artur Akopov, a spokesman for airline S7, said the implied increase in competition would not hit the company’s customer base.
“We are not afraid of losing customers,” Akopov said. “This is one area in which S7 excels.”
One problem is that such legislation requires the backing of a powerful oversight agency, said Pyotr Shelishch, a United Russia State Duma deputy who heads the Consumers’ Union.
“Look, it’s obvious that this is a good thing,” Shelishch said. “The only question to ask is: Why has it taken so long? I will tell you why — because nothing gets done quickly in this country. We still need a good, functioning oversight agency to make sure these rules are properly enforced.” 
The new rules are aimed at putting an end to episodes like those described on English-language web site Redtape.ru, in which people complain of long delays without food or drink and unhelpful staff.
“It’s important to get a set of standards for every airline, no matter whether they already meet those standards,” said Khikmatov, the Transportation Ministry spokesman. “It will increase costs for certain, smaller airlines, but improve service standards across the board.”
The regulations will update Soviet-era legislation that does not fully comply with the Warsaw Convention on international air travel liability, to which Russia is a signatory.
The new regulations state that airlines should provide “all essential services” to passengers in the event of delays or cancellations for which the carrier is responsible or as a result of bad weather or “other reasons.”
Those services include: providing separate rooms in airports for mothers with children younger than 8 years old; providing hot meals every four hours; providing hotel facilities if the delay is longer than eight hours during the day and six hours during the night; and guarding luggage.

TITLE: RusAl Plans $7Bln Plant Near Volga
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — United Company RusAl said Tuesday that it planned to build the world’s largest aluminum smelter near the Volga River and to finance the expansion of a nuclear power station to secure energy for the 1.05-million-ton plant.
RusAl said it had signed an agreement with the Saratov regional government to build two reactor blocks at the nuclear plant to generate 2,000 megawatts for supply to the new smelter.
Investments of $6 billion to $7 billion would be required, analysts and a company spokeswoman said. RusAl said the budget for the project would be determined by a feasibility study due for completion by the end of next year.
“It will require large capital expenditure at the beginning, but it’s a cheaper in the long run than other forms of energy,” Alfa Bank metals analyst Valentina Bogomolova said.
RusAl has been examining nuclear fuel as a potential new power source for metal production through a joint venture with the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, although the latest deal is separate from this. The company said it would build the new reactor blocks at the Balakovsky nuclear power plant. The plant is one of the country’s most modern nuclear power stations.
“It will enable our company to strengthen its power base through the construction of one of the most environmentally friendly energy sources, as well as increasing aluminum production by over 25 percent,” chief executive Alexander Bulygin said.

TITLE: European Leaders Sign Pipeline Deal
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: VILNIUS — Leaders of five former Soviet-bloc countries signed a deal in  Vilnius on Wednesday to build a new oil pipeline linking the Black and Baltic Seas that will cut their dependence on Russia and give Central Asian producers a new route to Europe.
During a two-day meeting of officials from more than 20 countries, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine agreed to extend Ukraine’s Odessa-Brody pipeline, allowing it to carry Caspian oil to Poland and beyond.
The line will give Azerbaijan new markets in the other four countries, importers who say Russia’s politics make it an unreliable supplier. The world’s second-largest oil producer cut off supplies to Poland during a dispute with Belarus in January, shut down a pipeline to Lithuania last year, and last week threatened to halt gas shipments to Ukraine.
“This deal will have great impact not only for signatory countries, but for all of Europe,” Polish President Lech Kaczynski told a news conference in Vilnius.
The Odessa-Brody oil pipeline stood empty for two years after its completion, until Russian companies started using it to send crude from Brody to the Black Sea, the opposite of the planned direction, for export by tanker. Offers of financial backing from the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development weren’t enough to return the line to its planned use.
Recent supply disruptions, and tension in Russia’s relations with Poland, whose government last year compared a planned Russian-German pipeline to a treaty between Hitler and Stalin, could give Odessa-Brody the support it needs to succeed.
“This project already has a long history, and while my initial feelings were very pessimistic, step by step it’s getting a more definite shape, and probably becoming more realistic given the strong political views involved,” Valery Nesterov, an analyst at Troika Dialog in Moscow, said by phone Tuesday.
The pipeline’s backers still need to ensure supplies from Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan and find buyers among central European refiners.
Political support from the European Union could help outweigh purely economic calculations, Nesterov said.
The Odessa-Brody oil pipeline is one of several projects by European countries seeking to reduce their reliance on Russia. Nabucco, a pipeline planned by Mol and Austria’s OMV AG, would bring gas from Central Asia through Turkey.
Such plans are encouraging Russia to loosen ties with its European customers, building gas-liquefaction plants and new oil pipelines to seaports to make its resources available on world markets, said Ron Smith, chief strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow.
(Bloomberg, AP)

TITLE: Strong Economy Causes Long Delays at Borders
AUTHOR: By Terhi Kinnunen
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: VAALIMAA, Finland — Next time you complain about waiting in a line, spare a thought for the many truckers who spend days at a time in lines that stretch for kilometers at the Finnish-Russian border.
Russia’s economy is booming, and its hunger for new cars, televisions and machinery means the transit routes through Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are clogged with trucks. 
Because of this surging, transborder traffic, Finland is now as large a trading partner for Russia as the United States, but customs posts on the border are struggling to cope.
One such trucker, Pavel, makes a return trip to Finland once a week. Two weeks ago, he spent 48 hours waiting to get back home. Last winter, the lines stretched for more than 60 kilometers. While the vehicles are stuck at the border, retailers in Russia and the transport firms are losing money, and local people are scared to drive on the roads with one lane blocked by trucks.
The Finns blame the Russians for the lines, which are also a problem in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
“Last year, we had queues on 300 days,” said Mika Poutiainen, head of Finnish customs at Vaalimaa, 185 kilometers east of Helsinki.
Vaalimaa is Finland’s busiest border crossing to Russia, dealing with 700 to 800 trucks per day. Poutiainen says Finnish customs could double the amount of trucks that pass through because processing export papers takes only a couple of minutes. 
“But because of the different kinds of procedures … the limit is set by the Russian side,” he said.
Russians prefer to import goods through Finland because Russian harbors near St. Petersburg do not have enough unloading equipment or warehouses. The amount of goods imported through Finland has doubled since 2002 to about 3 million tons in 2006, and the Russian Transportation Ministry admits that its officials cannot handle the growing number of vehicles. 
“Crossing points cannot manage as they are not big enough,” a ministry spokeswoman said. Finland’s transport minister says Russia could do more. 
“They have promised to cut the number of officials [at the border] from seven to two. And they should also increase the number of staff,” Anu Vehvilainen said.
Finnish President Tarja Halonen, who met President Vladimir Putin at the end of September, said Russia had made decisions that would help improve border traffic but that it had not carried them out fully. 
Latvia has lines of 700 to 1,000 trucks regularly waiting at the two main crossing points to Russia, and processing takes 60 to 72 hours.

TITLE: 
TEXT: <b>Wider Road to Finland</b>
HELSINKI (Bloomberg) — Lemminkaeinen Oyj, a Finnish construction and road-paving company, won contracts valued at $141 million to widen a Finnish highway running to Russia.
The work will be carried out together with local contractor Kesaelahden Maansiirto Oy. The company will widen from two lanes to four a section of Highway 6, which connects the Helsinki region with Russian border crossings at Nuijamaa and Imatra.

<b>Foreigners Unpopular</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said large companies shouldn’t employ foreign executives, Vedomosti newspaper reported.
Russian companies should be managed by Russians, Putin told the Federation Council on Tuesday, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
An unidentified Kremlin official said Putin’s comments were intended to encourage companies to recruit qualified Russians, not to purge foreign staff.

TITLE: America’s Misplaced Hopes on the Kremlin
AUTHOR: By John Vinocur
TEXT: Suppose that the Kremlin, as Iran’s monopoly supplier of nuclear where-withal, decided it could live with a few atomic weapons in the hands of the mullahs. 
Suppose Russia, flush with money and superpower fantasies, believed that weakening and humiliating the United States was well worth the instability that might come with its refusal to help block Iran’s drive toward nuclear arms. 
Where’s the downside? From President Vladimir Putin’s point of view, it’s win-win. 
With Russia’s obstructive tactics encouraging Iran to plunge ahead, he may figure that the United States will eventually strike Iranian nuclear installations. The Yanks would harvest opprobrium in much of the world. 
Still, if their strike does eradicate the Iranian nuclear program, that’s fine, too. Russia’s oil and gas prices are sure to shoot up. Moscow becomes Tehran’s key reconstruction contractor and sets out a rare claim to international righteousness. 
What’s irrational about the above scenario? Or its counterpart, which is that Russian now calculates that the United States in the end will sit on its hands concerning Iran? 
Nothing. Multiple versions of them get discussed within the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, all stamped Nonwhacko. It’s exemplary of the difficulty of the U.S. situation. 
On one hand, the Bush administration sticks to the notion — recall, please, Bush’s magnanimous first-term reading of Putin’s soul in his KGB eyes — that somehow, someday and in the nick of time, Russia is going to come around to join an international effort to halt Iran’s nuclear drive. 
On the other hand, important parts of the administration are offering a hardened assessment of what Russia ultimately wants. 
After a couple of years of talking about how Putin’s richer Russia reasonably craved respect, a senior administration policymaker in a private conversation now asserts the “overwhelming evidence” that Moscow seeks to weaken the United States. Wherever possible internationally, he says, Russia will work to stop the United States from achieving success. 
The hitch is that, concerning Iran, these two administration notions — expecting good from Russia while regarding it as a gathering, noxious force — are contradictory to the point of incompatibility. 
The summer showed just how much. 
In June, the United States said they expected a United Nations Security Council resolution in July that would add a new round of modest sanctions to those already in effect against Iran. It never happened. The Kremlin, with Chinese assistance, sidetracked the measure. 
Reality now says the UN is not going to be the place where Iran’s nuclear dreams die. 
Almost in the same stride, Moscow in July used the threat of a Security Council veto to dismantle a U.S.-backed motion on Kosovo’s independence. 
The combined effect is not only a U.S. defeat. It’s a demonstration that, unlike in the Cold War, there are no clear limits on how far this Russia feels it can push this United States. 
Forget the grandiloquence of Moscow planting flags in the Arctic and re-establishing worldwide strategic bomber patrols. 
But as Washington flails in Iraq and faces a financial crisis that may affect command economies and authoritarian regimes less than democracies, why shouldn’t Russia see the Iran issue as a strategic hole for achieving a new global status? 
After all, Jacques Chirac, whose vision of a multipolar world consigning Washington to the role of everyone’s opponent gets applause in Moscow, argued in his last months as French president that a few Iranian nukes shouldn’t cause much lost sleep for anyone sharing his take on a remade global hierarchy. 
Chirac didn’t say it, but he could have rationalized that a limited number of atomic weapons at Iran’s disposal would be a reasonable price to pay for disabling a U.S. world order that he, like Putin, reviles. 
It’s a reflection of the United States’ current incapacities that French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who might have interesting notions of Putin’s calculations from Elysee Palace files, two weeks ago detailed the Iran situation in a tougher and more concise way than Washington. 
Sarkozy knows that some Westerners who have talked directly to Putin have been told that Russia does not want a nuclear-armed Iran. He also knows the deceit of the Kremlin’s official position that it has no evidence indicating Iran’s nuclear activities are anything but peaceful. 
Draw this conclusion: If Sarkozy had been informed that Putin will act to halt Iran’s drive short of a bomb, then he would not be calling the prospect of Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb the world’s biggest menace. 
There are, on good evidence, officials within the Bush administration frustrated by its own bollixed approach — hoping that the Kremlin will turn responsible after their “elections” next year while acknowledging Moscow is now in full confrontational mode. Assume they could only leap to praise Sarkozy for saying in a speech a couple of weeks ago what Bush would not. 
If sanctions fail, the alternatives are an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran. As for Russia, Sarkozy described its behavior as marked by a “certain brutality.” 
The sanctions Sarkozy is talking about are hard, new measures outside the UN that would probably involve an ad hoc group including the United States, Britain, France and Japan at its core. 
This approach specifically means forgetting about the Security Council, and giving up on Russia, barring sudden and unlikely cooperation. The sanctions have to be so penalizing, obviously disadvantaging Western banks and industry, to become truly dissuasive. This requires real resolve. It also requires the underpinning of a tacit yet palpable threat: If these measures don’t work, there’s real unpleasantness to come. With a phrase, Sarkozy marked out the Iranian choice with a sharper edge than the United States has. 
That’s a significant advance. 
But unless Bush first gets publicly tougher on Russia as Iran’s protector and international obstructionist, the mullahs may take Washington’s insistence on skirting this reality as the surest sign they can get that they’re home free. 

John Vinocur writes the Politicus column for the International Herald Tribune, where this comment appeared.

TITLE: Happy Birthday, Mr. President
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: On Oct. 7, 2006, Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in the entrance to her Moscow apartment building. And no matter how many demonstrations the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi stages on that day to honor President Vladimir Putin’s birthday, it will remain the day that Politkovskaya was killed.
It would seem that, unlike the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, Politkovskaya’s case will remain unsolved forever. Nonetheless, there is a fair amount that we actually know about the investigation, which is in itself surprising to some people.
The facts are as follows:
The investigation was assigned to Petros Garibyan, an investigator who has never failed to solve a case. Investigators found the car used by Politkovskaya’s killers, allegedly owned by one of the Chechen Makhmudov brothers. It has been established that Federal Security Service Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Ryaguzov looked up Politkovskaya’s address in FSB files one month before her murder. Ryaguzov then called his old acquaintance, Shamil Burayev, the former head of the Achkoi-Martan district of Chechnya. When the investigators realized that Politkovskaya’s address was outdated, they hired police to follow the journalist. In fact, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said there were actually two surveillance teams trailing her.
Moreover, there were two separate groups assigned to the murder — the killers and the people responsible for conducting surveillance. The link between the groups, investigators say, is Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former operative of the police unit that focuses on ethnic organized crime groups. He is also an acquaintance of Ryaguzov.
On Aug. 13, several arrests were made in the case, but this was not made known in the media until Chaika had the opportunity to inform Putin that the case had been solved and that the murder’s ringleader had fled Russia. Immediately following his report, however, information began leaking out to the public, and the investigation started to collapse. Nothing was leaked while Garibyan handled the case, but the moment the information reached Putin, leaks were released everywhere.
Those are the facts. Everything else consists of conclusions based upon those facts.
Naming Garibyan to the case was a clear signal that Putin was genuinely interested in learning the identity of Politkovskaya’s murderers.
Judging by the way the killing was carried out, it was clear that the mastermind had hired professional hit men. Anybody could have ordered the murder, although it is unlikely to have been the Makhmudov brothers, Burayev or even Khadzhikurbanov. The unusual decision to involve so many law enforcement personnel in hunting down Politkovskaya suggests that people in uniform knew of the plan to murder her.
Chaika called the news conference as a public relations move to deflect attention away from the facts of the case, since rumors of the arrests had already begun to circulate in Moscow. And since the last thing the law enforcement agencies wanted was for the people to discover the facts, they threw out a classic red herring by claiming that Politkovskaya was killed by certain enemies of Russia.
Putin knows who killed Politkovskaya, but we will never solve this mystery — at least as long as Putin is still in power.
And you know what else? Garibyan is a very savvy and experienced investigator, having survived in the politically volatile environment of the Prosecutor General’s Office for some time. I have no doubt that if someone were to pin him up against a wall and demand that he reveal who killed Politkovskaya, he would repeat the official line that it was ordered by enemies of the state.
But I would not criticize Garibyan for that, because he has done more than all of the liberal press managed to do: He identified the killers and determined all the facts behind the murder case.

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

TITLE: Theatrical renaissance
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The new management at the Mussorgsky Opera and Ballet Theater is keeping its promise: following extensive restoration work that began in June, the theater, sometimes referred to by its historic name, Mikhailovsky, and also the Maly, has just opened its new season, confounding skeptics who doubted the make-over could be completed in just four months.
The restoration of this Empire Style edifice on Ploshchad Iskusstv (Arts Square) created by Carl Rossi comes as the theater celebrates its 175th anniversary. The cost of the renovation is said to have topped 300 million rubles ($12 million) which was donated by the St. Petersburg businessman Vladimir Kechman who last spring unexpectedly became the new general manager of the theater.
The concept behind the renovation was to improve, restore and, where possible, preserve. The roof, electrical wiring, and water and fire systems all needed to be replaced. Other major renovations included the enlargement and lowering of the orchestra pit and the improvement of the hall’s acoustics. This last task was carried out under the direction of Yasuhisa Toyota of the internationally acclaimed Nagata Acoustics, who was also a consultant to the Mariinsky Theater’s new Concert Hall on Ulitsa Pisareva. 
What the public will notice at once is a splendid, freshly painted façade, a newly gilded hall, and a new curtain created according to classic designs discovered in the theater archives. During intermissions the refurbished foyer rooms and buffets will surely attract compliments. However, what the audience doesn’t see has also been upgraded: back stage areas have been greatly improved, including the installation of a heating system and the restoration of rehearsal and make-up rooms.
But a theater is not only a physical structure. The heart of it is its troupe, including three companies: opera, ballet and the orchestra. The new manager of the Mussorgsky opera company is world renowned Russian singer Yelena Obraztsova. The celebrated dancer Farukh Ruzimatov, who was for 25 years leading soloist of the Mariinsky Theater, has taken over the ballet company. 
Principal conductor Andrei Anichanov assures continuity at the head of the orchestra, while taking on the additional role of deputy artistic director. These three pivotal figures spoke at the official opening of the renewed theater earlier this month about their plans.
“I started my work with the troupe listening to all the singers, soloists and chorus members,” Obraztsova said. “I liked the soloists but not so much the chorus. It needs work. The main problem is to sing without forcing the sound. And I started instruction and sharing trade secrets.”
In addition to its own soloists, the theater intends to invite lead singers from around the world. For the opening night the great Russian baritone Vladimir Chernov returned from London to join Obraztsova in Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades.”
Another noteworthy innovation is that from now on all operas will be performed in their original languages. To prepare the singers for this important change, the theater is inviting foreign languages coaches, starting a contingent of French teachers. In November the theater will be taking Bizet’s “Carmen” to Japan and for the first time will present it in French. 
The repertoire will be refreshed, adding some less known but worthy pieces. This should take the Mikhailovsky back to where it was in the immediate post-Revolutionary period when it was considered the city’s workshop for modern music. This is where groundbreaking director Vsevolod Meyerhold worked and new operas by Dmitry Shostakotvich were first staged. 
This season the theater will perform “Werther” by Massenet and “The Director of the Theater” by Mozart. Sergei Taneyev’s “Oresteia” (1895) will be staged by the Russian film director Alexander Sokurov. This season will also feature “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Mascagni, a verismo piece that most Westerners know as the second part of the traditional opera double-bill with the more famous “Pagliacci.”
The ballet troupe of the theater is undergoing its own rejuvenation (see box, right). The new ballet director is well acquainted with the dancers, with whom he has collaborated off and on for 15 years including on foreign tours, so they found a common language without delay. It has been agreed that the classics should remain the backbone of the repertoire. However, there will be big changes.
The theater intends to invite celebrated dancers to give master-classes as well as to participate in the shows. This season the theater will present a new version of “Spartacus” (1954) by Aram Khachaturian and the classic Petipa “Giselle” (1884) using scenery from the Opera de Paris. The quality of the troupe will be improved by inviting new dancers and holding regular competitions.
The orchestra’s plans include adding symphony concerts to the schedule. The first of these took place on Sept. 30.
Finally, the new management intends to pick up some of the activities for which the Mikhailovsky was known before the 1917 October Revolution, when it did not have its own troupe and relied upon invited artists. The Michailovsky will be a venue for various performing artists, including drama companies. This season there will be a jazz concert with Moscow saxophone virtuoso and bandleader Igor Butman.
There is an important new ticketing policy: discriminatory pricing against foreigners has been abolished. Now everyone can walk through the doors without being stopped and asked to show their passport to prove entitlement to subsidized prices. The management hopes to recover any revenues lost by this even-handed approach via the introduction of a limited number of “high comfort” seats in the boxes of the dress circle, which will cost 3,500 rubles ($140). Otherwise the theater will be modestly priced, with weekday shows on offer for between 100 and 700 rubles ($4-$28), rising to 280-1,050 rubles ($11-$42) on weekends. For special children’s performances, the minimum price is 100 rubles ($4). 
However in practice, the new ticketing policy represents two steps forward but one step back. Unexpectedly the theater administration has replaced one form of discrimination for another. 
From now on, theater-goers who hold tickets to the second and third balconies are segregated to the back of the bus: they have no right to go join other ticket holders in the elegant foyer and buffets, now reserved for those sitting in the stalls, dress circle and first balcony. To assure that no one will try to sneak in, bouncers guard the entrances to the foyer. 
This new policy runs counter to the trend of democratizing classical music, as even the Mariinsky Theater is following at its new Concert Hall opened last year where the various levels of the auditorium lead out to an atrium-like, multi-level foyer joined by an open staircase. 
One other peculiar feature of the renovation that stands in contrast to the management’s stated aim of performing all operas in their original languages is the failure to provide any kind of subtitling system.
Given that the auditorium was substantially improved, it would have been logical to provide individual screens on the seats such as those at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna Opera and many other houses have long had. 
There is no indication that a screen over the stage to provide subtitles has been anticipated. In this day and age, it is hard to see how the well-heeled opera going public is going to accept being left clueless as to the action on stage.

www.mikhailovsky.ru

TITLE: Word’s
         Worth
TEXT: By Michele A. Berdy

People seem to associate the word apple, or <i>˙áëîęî</i>, with one kind of apple that they grew up eating, and that one sort was imprinted on the brain as the quintessence of apple. For me, an apple is a Macintosh, and nothing else is quite the same (although for Mac lovers, the sort in Russia called <i>Ńëŕâŕ ďîáĺäčňĺëţ</i> — Glory to the Victor — is pretty close). For Russians, it’s the tart <i>ŕíňîíîâęŕ</i>. One emigre blogger in the United States asks plaintively, <i>Ďî÷ĺěó ćĺ ŕíňîíîâęč â Ŕěĺđčęĺ íĺň?</i> (Why aren’t there antonovka apples in America?)
<i>ßáëîęî</i> in Russian is not only a fruit, it is also anything relatively small and round. <i>Ăëŕçíîĺ ˙áëîęî</i> (literally, “eye apple”) is what we call the eyeball. <i>Äĺđćŕâíîĺ ˙áëîęî</i> (literally, “apple of rule”) is not the emperor’s favorite snack, but it is the globe he holds along with the scepter. <i>ßáëîęî íŕ řďčëĺ</i> is the globe at the top of a flagpole or other spire. <i>ßáëîęî ěčřĺíč</i> (literally, “apple of the target”) is a bull’s eye. This can be used literally or figuratively: <i>Îí ďîäŕđčë ĺé ęîëüöî č ďîďŕë â ńŕěîĺ ˙áëî÷ęî</i>. (He gave her a ring that was the perfect present.)
There are other kinds of non-apple apples. <i>Ŕäŕěîâî ˙áëîęî</i> is Adam’s apple, the slight protuberance in a man’s neck. Legend has it that Adam choked on a piece of the apple Eve gave him and that piece of apple is still stuck there. And then there is <i>çĺěë˙íîĺ ˙áëîęî</i> (ground apple), also called <i>÷¸đňîâî</i> (the devil’s) or <i>ńîäîěńęîĺ</i> (Sodom’s). This is what Russians once called one of their national foods — the potato. Apparently, when it was brought from South America to Europe and then to Russia, Slavs were sickened by eating it raw and cursed it as a devilish and heathen food.
The apple has made its way into a number of Russian expressions. The most common is <i>˙áëî÷ęî îň ˙áëîíč íĺäŕëĺęî ďŕäŕĺň</i> (literally, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” which can be translated as “like father, like son,” or “like mother, like daughter.”) This is the sort of annoying expression you come out with when your best friend is astonished to discover that her husband, son of a hard-drinking louse, turns out to be a hard-drinking louse himself. Less common is the expression <i>˙áëîę íŕ ńîńíĺ íĺ áűâŕĺň</i> (literally, “apples don’t grow on pine trees.”) This is not a description of a pineapple, but rather an assertion that something is impossible.
In politics — workplace, gender, and state — you often hear about <i>˙áëîęî đŕçäîđŕ</i> (the apple of discord). This is the golden apple Paris presented to Aphrodite when asked to choose the most beautiful goddess. Aphrodite promised him the love of the beautiful Helen and got the apple; Paris got the girl. In Russian, the expression is used to describe any disagreement that cannot be resolved. <i>Ŕđęňčęŕ ďđĺâđŕůŕĺňń˙ â ˙áëîęî đŕçäîđŕ.</i> (The Artic is becoming a point of contention.)

— Sergey Chernov is away

TITLE: The 175th theatrical season of the Mussorgsky Opera and Ballet Theater Opened
TEXT: The 175th theatrical season of the Mussorgsky Opera and Ballet Theater opened Saturday with the classic Minkus ballet “Don Quixote” with Denis Matviyenko in the title role. A soloist of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater and the New National Theater of Tokyo, Japan, Matviyenko was until 2002 a dancer with the Mariinsky Theater and the performance was something as a homecoming for the dramatic blond star.
In the words of Andrei Kuligin, assistant director of the ballet company, who has worked as the dancer at the Mussorgsky for more than 20 years, new life is being breathed into the ballet repertoire by the renovation of the theater. 
Now, dancers have a large and comfortable rehearsal hall to train in and conditions for visiting stars like Matviyenko and the permanent company alike have been much improved. 
"It is a fact,” Kuligin said, “that a theater takes some years to grow its own soloists. So for now the best way forward for us is to invite stars to again attract an audience to the Mussorgsky. This season spectators will see on the stage such excellent ballet stars as Diana Vishnyova and Igor Kolb.” 
In November, the Mussorgsky will stage a new version of “Giselle” with Vishnyova in the lead role. However it will represent a departure from the traditional version that audiences know so well, Kaligin said, thanks to director Nikita Dolgushin.
Kuligin said that master classes for dancers form part of the ballet troupe’s plans. In October, the famous American teacher Jennifer Gube will give lessons in modern ballet and in the following month the legendary Natalia Makarova is due to give master classes. 

— Olga Sharapova

TITLE: Black Russians
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Scholars from the U.S., Russia, Europe and Africa celebrated 200 years of U.S.-Russian diplomatic ties in St. Petersburg last month by exploring the once-hidden African-American contribution to Russian and Soviet history.
The legacy of African-Americans in pre-Revolutionary, Soviet and post-communist Russia was the focus of “Russian-American Links: African-Americans in Russia” on Sept. 20-21 at the Russian Academy of Sciences with academics and speakers presenting more than 30 papers that mediated the past with the present and smashed stereotypes surrounding the role of African-Americans in Russia.
“At a time when Europeans were solidifying their grip on Africa and as [segregational] ‘Jim Crow’ laws etched the division lines between black and white deep into the fabric of American society, there emerged a new state with a broad and emotional appeal to the world’s downtrodden,” Dr. Maxim Matusevich of Seton Hall University said, referring to the emergence of the Soviet Union in the early 1920s. 
“Africans on the continent [of America], the diaspora [and] the prominent political and intellectuals among them, traveled to the ‘Red Mecca’ [the Soviet Union] to experience firsthand the reality of deracialized egalitarianism,” Matusevich explained.
Professor Lily Golden countered by saying that “the notion that the so-called influx of Black Americans following the formation of the Soviet communist state early last century was motivated by a lust for greener pastures denied at home, seems to be highly exaggerated.” 
Golden then cited the example of her father, Oliver John Golden, an African-American agronomist from Mississippi who resettled in the Soviet Union. 
Oliver John Golden also selected  only “Sixteen African-Americans [for] their academic merits amid thousands of applications he had received from his black compatriots seeking employment opportunities in the new Russia” in the early 1930s, recounted Professor Golden.
When Oliver John Golden died in 1940 in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, his daughter Lily and wife, Bertha Bialek, a Polish Jew who originally hailed from Brooklyn, New York, were left behind in the U.S.S.R. 
As Dr. Fon Louise Gordon from University of Central Florida put it, in a review of Professor Golden’s daughter’s book about her family, the Goldens were left to reflect on the “intergenerational and diasporic questions of race, authenticity, self-definition, family and negotiations on tradition, modernity and creolization.”
Professor Golden’s daughter is Yelena Hanga, a journalist and television personality, who is probably the most well-known black Russian.
Hanga’s father was Abdullah Kassim Hanga, a Zanzibari who became vice-president of the Zanzibar Revolutionary Government in January 1964 and who was brutally murdered by his former comrade-in-arms in 1967. 
This tangled ancestry suggests that it is impossible to talk about African-Americans in isolation to non-American Africans from the diaspora who live in Russia. 
In Professor Golden’s view “non-American Africans are more integrated to modern Russian society than their American brethren.” 
The conference produced some heated discussions. In taking the academics to task for focusing on the world of theories and neglecting the practical experience of black people in Russia today, often the targets of hate attacks and racial abuse, a representative of St. Petersburg’s African community backed Golden, saying “we may be different in attitudes as we belong to different societies, but before the eyes of an ordinary Russian we are one and the same since we share similar physical features dominated by our dark skin, and equally face the consequences of racial hostilities of contemporary Russia.” 
Addressing the African experience in modern Russia, Dr. Svetlana Boltovskaya of Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Germany, described a contemporary Moscow neighborhood where an African man and his colleagues had set out to feed elderly and poor Russian people at Moscow’s Protestant Chaplaincy, an international, interdenominational, English-speaking Christian congregation that has of late adopted the task of monitoring the surge in race-related hate crimes. 
Dr. Yury Tretyakov who chaired the conference, challenged Russians to learn from this experience in a nation he condemned for lacking history of similar charitable endeavors based on harmonizing race relations.
“It’s an invaluable contribution and a lesson we should learn from this community however tiny it might appear,” he said. 
But as the discussion raged over the history and the role of African-Americans in Russia, Dr. Irina Udler of Chelyabinsk State University, took listeners back to the late 18th century Russia with a discussion of a book about the experience of an African-American in Russia back then. Udler said “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African,” is an “abolitionist text” that conveys the experience of someone yearning for freedom.
She drew parallels with “Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow” by the Decembrist rebel Radishev and pointed out striking similarities between American slavery and Russian serfdom.
Meanwhile, St. Petersburg’s Africans today hail Ibragim Petrovich Gannibal, the great grandfather of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, as Europe’s first black intellectual who made an invaluable contribution to the Russian Empire. Dr. Larry Greene of Seton Hall University pointed out that African-Americans such as poet Langston Hughes, civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois, journalist Claude McKay and singer Paul Robeson also took pride in Pushkin as black poet. All four were communists or communist sympathisers who visited the Soviet Union.
Previous Russian-American Links conferences were also held in St. Petersburg in 2003 and 2005. Organizers of the most recent conference included the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg State University, U.S. Consulate general in St. Petersburg, Collegium for African-American Research, European University in St. Petersburg and the English-Speaking Union.

TITLE: Nureyev’s turn
AUTHOR: By Mindy Aloff
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Brilliant, thorough, clear-eyed yet also profoundly affectionate, “Nureyev: The Life,” by Julie Kavanagh — author of “Secret Muses,” a biography of the choreographer Frederick Ashton — is so unusual in its depth of both reporting and integrity that a reader arriving at the last page is left dumbstruck. In the making for over a decade, “Nureyev” unscrolls everything that matters about the sensibility, the actions, the ambitions and even the unconscious impulses of the dancer who serves as its titanic subject, and it places them in the full contexts of the theater and society of his era. 
For the first time in this reader’s experience, at least, Rudolf Nureyev seems not only comprehensible but even, from the distance of a posthumous book about him, admirable. I write this while aware of the fact that he professed a virulent anti-Semitism despite several tours to Israel, where he was well received onstage and happily cruised the streets at night. However, when it came to working with Jerome Robbins, a Jew he considered a master, the anti-Semitism seems to have disappeared, and Nureyev became a lamb in the studio. Nothing, not even deep-seated prejudice, superseded his thirst for excellence and his ravenous curiosity to explore all the possibilities his art could offer.
Excitingly feral and arrestingly innocent in his early years, Nureyev purchased his experience and fame at a considerable price. Prematurely cut down in his 50s by the complications of AIDS, he died with the knowledge that he had compromised his own artistic ideals and that he had proven an emotional beast toward family, friends, lovers and colleagues. His constant performing past the height of his excellence had disfigured his audience’s memories of him at his pantherine best; his choreography was discounted as fussy and, in some cases, unwatchable. To much of the dance world that had seen him in the 1960s and ‘70s, he had become a caricature of a hero, if not a brute self-parody. 
Yet thanks to Kavanagh and the many Nureyev friends, fans and family members who helped her, he emerges here even from chapters of degradation with his dignity intact — a figure of monumental stature in the mold of Byron or Michelangelo, a category-5 force of solipsistic intelligence, perseverance and charisma, whose godlike energy, intermittent capacity for human feeling and permanent legacy for the world of dance iis finally possible to understand.
Whatever you want to learn about the dancer or the man is here except, perhaps, for a definitive answer to the question of whether he and Margot Fonteyn, whom he called “the dear friend of my soul,” ever slept together. (Given the way this book is written, it would seem they didn’t.) In terms of Nureyev’s art, Kavanagh has given us the complete story — at last — of his childhood teachers and Kirov youth in the Soviet Union; a detailed and engaging portrait of his performances in the West, with qualitative evaluations as well as analyses; a chronicle of his stagings of works by Marius Petipa and his original ballets; and a study of his collaborations with choreographers, costume designers, and filmmakers. She recreates his intellect, giving a sense of his reading (Jorge Luis Borges, Gustave Flaubert, Mario Praz) and of his inclinations as a listener to music (classical, classical, classical). 
She provides an account of the condition of his dance technique at every stage and of his changing attitudes toward his presentation of it in performance, and carves an informed cameo of every major dance partner, a group in which Fonteyn (whom Nureyev also described as a kind of mother) has pride of place. She opens a window on his dream projects (beginning with his hope to dance for George Balanchine) that either never came to fruition or, if they did, came too late. And — arguably best of all — she makes a running inventory of his beneficial effects on male classical technique and repertory, and constructs a rationale for the peremptory changes he imposed on inherited Petipa classics as well as on ballets by contemporaries, including, amazingly, “Theme and Variations” by his idol, Balanchine. 
As someone who saw Nureyev perform live in the West from the early 1960s until the late 1980s, I can say that everything Kavanagh reports about his art could be observed on stage and in film. 
In terms of the star’s offstage existence, the biography is also superb. The chapters on Nureyev in the Soviet Union, prior to his 1961 defection in Paris, are particularly wonderful, having the benefit of hitherto-unknown documents (Kavanagh, who is not a Russian speaker, commissioned translations) and, for Western readers, of fresh recollections from family members, friends and fellow artists. One comes to cherish his nourishing friends in London, the critics Maude and Nigel Gosling, and to respect the honest Dutch choreographer Rudi van Dantzig, the beleaguered yet faithful agent-factotum Joan Thring, and others. 
Although Nureyev said that the love of his life was the Danish virtuoso Erik Bruhn, with whom he enjoyed rich artistic harmony and stormy personal relations, and although shortly before death Nureyev commented that he should have stayed with the filmmaker Wallace Potts (“Wallace was the true one”), and although Nureyev’s parade of male lovers and pick-ups and fellow bathhouse orgiasts is innumerable, he had many women around him as well, including a small group who were sexual partners. Apparently, he asked several to bear him a child, though none did. (He, himself, spread rumors of abortions.) The women outside the theater who seem to have had the deepest effect on him emotionally were Russian: Ksenia Pushkin, the wife of Nureyev’s beloved Kirov teacher, Alexander (she initiated an affair with Nureyev when the latter was still a teenager); and Menia Martinez, a Cuban dancer in Leningrad to whom Nureyev twice proposed and who, in the interests of her own career, twice rejected him. 
His seriousness with Menia, in particular, is one of his shining qualities as a human being, and Kavanagh’s descriptions of the moments between them are among the biography’s most memorable. (Martinez, Ksenia Pushkin and other Russians in Nureyev’s life can be seen — along with early films of Nureyev at the Kirov — in the touching new film “Nureyev: The Russian Years,” recently telecast in the United States.)
Wallace Potts, who, lamentably, also died young last year, headed up the U.S. branch of The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation, and his intrinsic devotion and kindness are everywhere present in this book. Nureyev seems to have written little, apart from his autograph, his early autobiography and a few letters, which, apparently, haven’t survived. 
Still, he was perhaps the most completely documented dancer of the 20th century in terms of film, photography (David Daniel’s pictures from the late 1960s and ‘70s are the most beautiful), interviews, appearances in other people’s journals and dance criticism. Kavanagh’s is the authorized biography — there are many unauthorized ones, as well as published memoirs — and it is absolutely clear that the Nureyev estate, his remaining intimates, members of the dance profession and everyone else who contributed information were at one with the author’s efforts to tell his story fully and vividly, to show all of him without erasures and yet also without embarrassment: to get it right. As final songs go, it is a great one.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Recently, Russian tabloids have been discussing blond opera and pop singer Nikolai Baskov, who is separating from his wife, Svetlana. Or then again, maybe he isn’t. Whatever the case, the tabloids have been slinging insults at each other that would bring a blush to the cheeks of even the most bitter divorcing couple.
The tabloid that broke the story was Tvoi Den on Oct. 1, with the headline, “Baskov Has Left His Family.” It included quotes from the singer, who used to perform at the Bolshoi but now is more often seen giving a bit of class to endless televised concerts for some luminary’s birthday. “Yes, it’s true. Sveta and I did break up around a month ago,” Baskov told the paper.
He also mentioned that he is no longer represented by the PR agency co-founded by his wife. She is the daughter of Baskov’s producer, Boris Shpigel, who is also a pharmaceuticals magnate and Federation Council senator. So it’s not just a case of who gets the Engelbert Humperdinck records.
The next day, though, Komsomolskaya Pravda, printed an article with the headline, “Why are They Destroying Baskov’s Family?” Referring to Tvoi Den as “the boulevard press,” Komsomolka printed a denial from Svetlana. “Our divorce is the fruit of the fantasy of journalists,” she said, explaining that her husband was touring a lot and so they were living separately for a while.
That’s when it got personal. Tvoi Den responded the next day with an article headlined: “Komsomolka, Stop Lying.” If a young mother reads the paper on a Moscow boulevard while pushing a stroller, then the paper is a boulevard one, TD quipped. “We don’t have a problem with that.” The tabloid taunted KP for printing “old cabbage soup” and said its reporters were lucky to be able to pay 10 rubles for a “lesson in journalistic excellence.”
Rather than responding in kind, Komsomolskaya Pravda began backfooting on its initial statement. Its next article said “it was hard to believe” Svetlana’s denial and added that KP journalists had been invited to appear on a television show where Baskov would spill the beans – but then it was canceled. Its latest article was a damp squib with the headline, “Is Baskov Getting Divorced?”
Meanwhile, the other big tabloid, Moskovsky Komsomolets, immediately went for the jugular – after reading 10 rubles worth of journalistic excellence in Tvoi Den, presumably. On Oct. 3, showbiz reporter Artur Gasparyan, printed a scandalous, obscenity-laden interview with Baskov.
“It’s all lies and falsification,” the singer told MK. “I can even guess who is behind it.” Disappointingly, he wouldn’t name names. Asked if he is gay – a persistent rumor – Baskov said his wife would only live with someone who was a “good fucker.” He added that the divorce quotes appeared in a paper with “a very dubious reputation.”
Gasparyan also talked to Svetlana, who said she couldn’t travel with Baskov because they have a toddler. He also – probably without a blush on his cheek – asked her about the gay rumors, and she squashed them.
Naturally, Tvoi Den was not happy about this. They responded with a headline, “Nikolai Baskov: Read All the Truth About My Divorce Only in Tvoi Den.” More in sorrow than anger, the journalist said the tabloid’s rivals were “more brown than yellow.”
Tvoi Den picturesquely compared Gasparyan to a prostitute who must be paid, even if she is old and toothless. It quoted Baskov as saying he only gave interviews to Tvoi Den and its weekly edition, Zhizn.
Baskov and his wife may get back together, but it looks like the Russian tabloids have irreconcilable differences.

TITLE: At the captain’s table
AUTHOR: By Ashley Cleek
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: James Cook Pub and Cafe // 45 Kamenoostrovskaya, Petrograd Side. Tel: 337 2433 // Open for breakfast and until 2 a.m. // Menu in Russian and English // Dinner for two with beer: 2,320 rubles, $93

While pubs are not a rarity in St. Petersburg, late-night revelers are often searching for a new joint to quench their thirst for kilts and spirits. The James Cook pub on the Petrograd Side, a sister restaurant to the popular James Cook located in the center on Shvedsky Pereulok, is well-equipped with both. 
The restaurant cannot be reached from the street, where exit doors tell customers to enter to the left, through the Stone Island Hotel.
This James Cook is composed of two main rooms. The larger one houses the bar. Chairs and tables of various shapes and sizes cater to both diners and imbibers. One can either retire to the corner to relax and drink coffee in a leather booth, have a drink at the bar, or gather with friends at taller tables to converse and smoke cigars. The second room is reminiscent of an old seaside inn and is primarily for dinner.
The decor mimics a Scottish bar accurately and tastefully. Lithographs of long-ago hunts and festive dancers hang on the walls, the lighting is low and the tables are made of a sturdy, dark wood. The scene was set so perfectly that I thought at any minute someone would start speaking with a Scots brogue. 
The clientele of the James Cook varies with the seating. At 8 p.m., the back room is full of businessmen and couples, while the front room livens up around 10 p.m. with both foreigners and Russians meeting for drinks and cigars.  
Waitresses dress in a modern version of the Scottish kilt and, upon ordering, cork placemats are set before diners. On weekend nights, bands perform in the back dining room and guests are treated to Slavic renditions of Led Zepplin numbers.
In ordering appetizers, the choice was difficult, and guests would be wiser to opt for the selection of German sausages, rather than salads. The namesake salad (the James Cook Salad for 260 rubles, $12), turned out to be an average mayonnaise-based salad wrapped in salmon. 
Despite the variety on the menu, the vegetarian section is comprised of only two dishes. The Vegetable Gateaux (350 rubles. $14), described as “potato pancakes, roasted eggplant, zuccini, mushrooms, and a fresh tomato sauce” seemed promising. The heavily fried potato pancakes went hand in hand with beer; however, the vegetables and tomato sauce encircling the dish were bereft of any taste at all. 
When it comes to steak, James Cook aces it in both presentation and taste. The peppercorn steak (450 rubles, $18) was brought out on a wooden tray, served with a small, decorative vinaigrette salad and surrounded by fried eggplant (80 rubles, $3.50).
The final nine pages of the menu are dedicated to liquor, beer, and liqeurs. The range is more than extensive, stretching from the expected whiskey and scotch to sambucca and mulled wine. There are American, Irish, Scotch and — even a lone Canadian —whiskeys, and the prices are not astronomical. There is no water listed on the menu. Upon request, I was served a bottle of Perrier (90 rubles, $3.50). 
As in any good pub, there is a fine selection of both bottled and draft beers. The Czech beer, Cernovar (120 rubles, $5 for 0.33 liter), is light in color and taste, while the Beamish (150 rubles, $7 for 0.5 liter) is a dark, nutty beer that strongly resembles its cousin, Guinness. 
The desert choices travel the well-worn path of the New York Cheesecake and various strudels. 
While the food is somewhat schizophrenic, James Cook provides a comfortable place for a world traveler to unwind after a long journey.

TITLE: Just don’t make her angry
AUTHOR: By A. O. Scott
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: Erica Bain, the gunslinging heroine of “The Brave One,” is the host of a public radio talk show called “Street Walk” that takes a sentimental, nostalgic view of New York City. Also a rather purple one, since Erica is prone to come up with poeticisms on the order of “New buildings sprout like chromosomes from the city’s DNA,” a sentence that someone evidently thought so highly of that we get to hear it twice.
Until a senseless act of violence wrecks her affection, Erica looks back longingly at a vanished metropolis whose touchstones include Eloise at the Plaza and Sid Vicious at the Hotel Chelsea. She sighs about how that old Manhattan — Edgar Allan Poe and Andy Warhol are other names in her necrology — is “dying.”
For its part, “The Brave One,” though set in the present, tries to conjure a more specific moment in the history of New York, a time when its citizens, on screen and off, seemed to be in far greater danger of actually dying at one another’s hands. Around 30 years ago, in the depths of its civic and fiscal crises, the city served as a perfect setting for nasty, dark-hearted crime dramas — tales of vengeance that ranged from “Death Wish,” on the brutal, populist end of the spectrum, to the more self-aware and nuanced “Taxi Driver.”
In that movie Jodie Foster played Iris, the young prostitute who was the object of Travis Bickle’s white-knight fantasies. In this one Foster’s character, Erica, is, like Travis, a haunted survivor who supplies rueful voice-over narration. But her spirit is in many ways closer to that of Charles Bronson’s workaday vigilante in the “Death Wish” movies. The public radio gig, the references to Emily Dickinson and D. H. Lawrence, the directing credit for Neil Jordan (of “Crying Game” fame) — all of this produces a patina of refinement and seriousness.
But don’t be fooled. “The Brave One,” though well cast and smoothly directed, is just as crude and ugly as you want it to be.
And that, the movie insists, is how, in your heart of hearts, you really do want it to be. Its none-too-subtle governing idea is that even the most effete, brownstone-dwelling public radio listener (or New York Times reader) might feel the occasional urge to blow someone’s head off.
 Jordan and the screenwriters, the father-and-son team Roderick Taylor and Bruce A. Taylor, and Cynthia Mort, clearly relish the conceit of transforming a slightly built, overcivilized blonde into a killing machine. After allowing us a glimpse of the carefree life Erica shares with her fiancé, David (Naveen Andrews) — scenes that remind you just how little the portrayal of happiness has figured in Foster’s recent performances — they plunge her into a modern urban horror story.
While walking their dog at dusk in Central Park, with joggers and park-bench sitters in sight, Erica and David are viciously beaten and robbed by three thugs, who also steal the dog. As if to emphasize the swift, brutal transition from before to after,  Jordan tastelessly juxtaposes images of Erica’s bloody clothes being stripped off in the emergency room with flashbacks of David slowly undressing her for lovemaking. After three weeks in a coma, Erica awakens to find that David has died and that she is paralyzed by fear and grief.
The cure is an illegally purchased 9-millimeter pistol and a box of bullets (when told of the mandatory 30-day waiting period for a legal purchase at a downtown gun store, she replies, “I need something now,” perhaps unwittingly echoing one of Homer Simpson’s greatest lines.) At first accidentally and then deliberately, Erica becomes a vigilante, shooting down a murderous husband who is also a convenience-store robber, a pair of iPod thieves who are also potential rapists and a few other bad guys whose badness is similarly overdetermined.
Erica clearly feels some anguish, but little in the way of remorse. Foster handles her emotions efficiently, having made pain offset by steeliness something of a specialty of late. In “Panic Room” and “Flight Plan” her mix of desperation and ferocity was that of a mother in extremis. Here, looking smaller and more vulnerable but at the same time more ruthless, she is driven by grief, perhaps a less rational and more dangerous motivation.
Not that “The Brave One” is overly concerned with the finer points of her psychological state. Nor does it have much new or interesting to say about the morality of her actions or the urban context she inhabits. Erica’s foil and confidant is a homicide detective named Sean Mercer (Terrence Howard), who seems to be the only member of the New York Police Department actually interested in doing his job. (His partner, played by Nick Katt, is the only person in the movie with a sense of humor).
Mercer befriends Erica and agrees to be interviewed for her radio show, even as he is investigating the shootings carried out by the mysterious, presumably male, vigilante.
They have a few desultory discussions about the rule of law and the ethics of extrajudicial killing, arguments that are resolved in a climax that manages to be at once preposterous, sentimental and appalling. That it may also be viscerally satisfying is a sign of just how cowardly “The Brave One” really is. It’s a pro-lynching movie that even liberals can love.

TITLE: Sharapova in Poor Form, Out of Kremlin Cup
AUTHOR: By Gennady Fyodorov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Second seed Maria Sharapova was unceremoniously bundled out of the Kremlin Cup on Wednesday, losing to Belarus’s Victoria Azarenka 7-6 6-2 in the second round. 
It was Sharapova’s second successive defeat by an 18-year-old after the world number four went out of the third round of the U.S. Open last month to Pole Agnieszka Radwanska. 
In her first match in almost six weeks, Sharapova, who had been nursing a shoulder injury, looked a shadow of the player who won two grand slam titles as a teenager. She made 45 unforced errors and served seven double faults in a match lasting one hour 49 minutes. 
Earlier, Russia’s Vera Zvonareva recorded her first win over Amelie Mauresmo when she came from behind to beat the sixth-seeded Frenchwoman 4-6 6-3 6-4 in the first round. 
After battling for over two hours, the unseeded Russian scored a decisive break in the ninth game of the third set before clinching the win at her first opportunity when the 11th-ranked Mauresmo hit a wild backhand on match point. 
“Finally I was able to beat her, it feels great,” said the 24th-ranked Zvonareva, who had lost her previous seven meetings with Mauresmo and will face Radwanska in round two. 
Mauresmo’s compatriot, fifth seed and Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli, was also sent home by unseeded Russian Vera Dushevina 2-6 6-0 6-4. 
On a day of upsets, seventh seed Patty Schnyder of Switzerland was knocked out by another unseeded Russian Elena Dementieva 6-3 6-4. 
In the men’s draw, Britain’s third seed Andy Murray made his Moscow debut in impressive style, crushing Russian teenager Evgeny Korolev 6-2 6-4 in the first round. 
Fourth seed Paul-Henri Mathieu of France became the first player into the last eight with a straightforward 6-3 6-4 win over Russian wildcard Igor Kunitsyn. 
Eighth seed Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany joined Mathieu after outlasting Croatian qualifier Marin Cilic 7-6 1-6 6-4. 
Russia’s second seed Mikhail Youzhny also advanced, seeing off Latvian teenager Ernests Gulbis 6-3 6-2 in the first round, only to be defeated by Michael Berrer (Germany) 7-5 6-4 in the men’s singles second round.
In the women’s singles second round on Thursday, Serena Williams (U.S.) beat Tatiana Perebiynis (Ukraine) 7-5 6-4.

TITLE: Hiddink To Stay With Team Russia
AUTHOR: By Gennady Fyodorov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Guus Hiddink will extend his contract as Russia manager through 2010, the Dutchman said on Wednesday, ending media speculation he could leave to coach elsewhere in the near future.
Hiddink, 60, who signed a two-year contract with Russia after leading Australia to the second round of last year’s World Cup finals, agreed a new deal after meeting Russian soccer chief Vitaly Mutko on Monday.
“We had discussions with Mr. Mutko and we agreed for me to stay on for two more years,” Hiddink told a news conference.
“It is a wise decision not only to think about the upcoming match or matches but to think ahead to the future of Russian football.”
Russia faces England in a decisive Euro 2008 Group E qualifier in Moscow next Wednesday, needing victory to have any real hope of reaching next year’s finals.
Russia dropped to third, two points behind England and five adrift of pacesetters Croatia, after losing 3-0 against England at Wembley last month.
“No doubt, this is a key game for us, the one we must win,” Hiddink said. “But regardless of next week’s outcome we must have a bigger picture in mind concerning Russian football.
“As far as myself, I’ve said many times I’m very happy here, I enjoy being in Russia, learning a new culture, a new language, so for me it was an easy decision to make,” he added.
Regarding media speculation linking the Dutchman with English Premier League club Chelsea, Hiddink said:
“Even before the Chelsea coach [Jose Mourinho] left his job I had already discussed my future with Mr. Mutko, so it had absolutely no bearing on my decision to stay here.”
However, the hugely successful coach did say he has a good relationship with Chelsea’s Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich.

TITLE: England Unfazed By Russian Stadium Pitch
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — England is unconcerned about playing next week’s crucial Euro 2008 qualifier against Russia on Luzhniki stadium’s artificial surface, the Football Association said Tuesday.
Media reports suggested that the Russian Football Federation had changed their minds about upgrading the surface for the October 17 match to maximize home advantage in a match they have to win. An FA source said, however, that England coach Steve McClaren and his staff had “no reservations about playing on the surface.
“We have sent two delegations to Moscow to see the pitch, and we’ve done our homework,” an FA spokesman said. “It’s not an issue as far as we are concerned.”
“For now the team is purely focused on the Estonia game at Wembley on Saturday.”
The FA has two pitches for the players to train on before departing for the Russian capital. One is at Arsenal’s London Colney training ground, while the other is at a school in Altrincham, in the north of England.
“The one at Altrincham is identical to the one in Moscow and the players will use it on Monday,” the FA said.
Russia’s federation has denied that it had ever made a formal decision to upgrade the pitch despite a spokesman for FieldTurf, which installed the surface, saying they had on BBC television’s “Inside Sport” on Monday.
Should England beat Estonia Saturday, it will just need to avoid defeat in its final two matches against Russia and group leader Croatia to reach next year’s finals.

TITLE: Match Fixing Reports Lead to New Measures
AUTHOR: By Chris Lehourites
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — As more and more players speak out about match fixing in tennis, the sport’s leaders are intent on keeping the game clean.
The ATP Tour immediately asked Top-20 player Andy Murray to explain himself, after he told the BBC on Tuesday that matches were being thrown.
The ATP and the International Tennis Federation are joining the WTA Tour and the Grand Slam Committee to devise a unified set of regulations to combat match fixing and illegal betting.
“Tennis is vulnerable,” ITF executive director Bill Babcock said. “We have to keep the integrity of the matches. I think we have that, but we have this looming cloud now that we have to dissipate.”
Suspicions about match fixing began in August, after an online betting site, in an unprecedented move, voided bets on a match in Poland between fourth-ranked Nikolai Davydenko and 87th-ranked Martin Vassallo Arguello because of irregular betting patterns. Davydenko withdrew from the match in the third set because of a foot injury, and the ATP is investigating.
“Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport, and the ATP has shown that it will act where it has information which requires investigation,” the men’s tour said Tuesday. “It is the responsibility of everyone, without exception, to ensure we have any information about possible threats to the integrity of tennis.”
ATP president Etienne de Villiers said the group was setting up a “Tennis Integrity Unit” to look into the issue.
“We have had a number of very constructive meetings on the issue this year and will be meeting again this week with external experts to discuss the next steps in ensuring a unit becomes a reality as soon as possible,” de Villiers said in a statement.
Babcock said the group was seeking help from sports such as horse racing and cricket.
“Experts in those sports have found a way to keep those sports clean,” he said. “It’s a huge work in progress.” 
Since the Davydenko match, other players have said they had been approached by outsiders trying to influence a match. Last month, Gilles Elseneer of Belgium said he turned down more than $100,000 to lose a first-round match at Wimbledon in 2005.
On the women’s tour, a match in September drew suspicion for unusual betting patterns. An online betting site briefly delayed payment after 120th-ranked Mariya Koryttseva beat No. 96 Tatiana Poutchek in the quarterfinals of a tournament in India. Eventually, bets were paid out, and both the WTA and the betting site said they doubted that there was any wrongdoing. 
Professional players are not allowed to gamble on tennis, but Babcock said the sport had no intention of preventing others from betting on matches. 
“We’re not looking to regulate betting,” Babcock said. “We need to make sure we’re keeping matches clean.”