SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1322 (88), Friday, November 9, 2007
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TITLE: Finnish Shooter Was Bullied
AUTHOR: By Peter Dejong
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TUUSULA, Finland — A bullied teenage outcast fired dozens of times in a rampage at his high school, emptying nearly 20 rounds into some victims before trying to start a fire, Finnish police said Thursday.
Investigators examined a suicide note and hate-filled Internet postings to determine why the killer, identified as 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen, went on the spree and killed people before he fatally shot himself.
Finns mourned the victims of the school massacre, with flags across the Nordic nation flying at half staff. Grieving students placed candles outside the sealed-off high school in the south. The president attended a memorial service for the victims in the capital.
Police said Auvinen left a suicide note, “saying goodbye to his family and a message ... indicating his will against society.” They said he appeared bent on causing maximum bloodshed as he opened fire Wednesday inside Jokela High School in Tuusula, about 30 miles north of Helsinki.
Police said they also seized books and other printed material that suggested Auvinen had “radical thoughts” and was planning an attack, Haapala said.
Investigators believe Auvinen revealed plans for the attack in postings on YouTube in which he urges revolution and grins after taking target practice.
One posting called for a popular uprising against “the enslaving, corrupted and totalitarian regimes” and appeared to anticipate a violent attack.
“I am prepared to fight and die for my cause. I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection,” the posting said.
Apparently selecting his victims randomly, Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse and the principal before turning the gun on himself, police said. More than 400 students aged 12-18 were enrolled at the school.
“There’s nothing that links him with the victims except that they attended the same school,” Detective Superintendent Tero Haapala told The Associated Press. “But the explanation can be found mainly in his Web writings and his social behavior.”
Investigators gave a chilling account of the mayhem, which started just before noon and ended two hours later when police found Auvinen in a bathroom near the school cafeteria with a self-inflicted gun shot wound to his head. He died at a hospital a few hours later.
Police found 69 shells at the scene, suggesting Auvinen fired at least as many shots. The victims were shot in the head or the upper body — some with only a few shots, others with almost 20 rounds, Haapala told a news conference.
The killer also tried to start a fire. He doused the floor and walls of the school’s second floor in a flammable liquid but failed to ignite it, Haapala said.
Auvinen shot the victims with a .22-caliber Sig Sauer Mosquito pistol, police said, adding that about a dozen other people were injured as they tried to escape from the school.
Police chief Matti Tohkanen said Auvinen, who had no previous criminal record, belonged to a gun club and got a license for the pistol on Oct. 19. Auvinen “was from an ordinary family,” Tohkanen said, and bought the gun days before the attack from a local gun store along with 500 rounds of ammunition.
Witnesses described a grim scene in the leafy lakeside community, in which the assailant scoured the school for victims while shouting “Revolution!”
On Thursday, grieving students placed candles outside the school, which was still encircled by police tape as forensic experts sought to reconstruct the shooting spree. A day of mourning was declared and memorial services were planned across the country.
In Tuusula, a town of 34,000 people, a church was turned into a crisis center with experts on hand to comfort grieving residents.
Gun ownership is fairly common in Finland by European standards, but deadly shootings are rare. Finnish media reported that a school shooting in 1989 involved a 14-year-old boy who killed two other students apparently for teasing him.
Students said the shooter often wore the same clothes to school — brown leather jacket, black trousers and checkered shirt — and usually carried a briefcase.
Tuomas Hulkkonen, another student, said he knew the gunman well and said the teen had been acting strange lately.
“He withdrew into his shell,” Hulkkonen told Finnish TV broadcaster MTV3.
“I had noticed a change in him just recently, and I thought that perhaps he was a bit depressed, or something,” Hulkkonen said. “But I couldn’t imagine that in reality he would do anything like this.”

TITLE: Georgia’s President Calls Early Election
AUTHOR: By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia’s pro-Western president said Thursday the country would hold early presidential elections in January to defuse a crisis fueled by protests against him.
President Mikhail Saakashvili also promised to lift within days the nationwide state of emergency that he had imposed late Wednesday after a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters, saying “the situation in Georgia is quickly stabilizing.”
The election had been due to take place in late 2008, but Saakashvili said it would now be scheduled for Jan. 5 “to receive the trust of the people.”
Troops armed with hard rubber clubs were patrolling the center of the Georgian capital to enforce the state of emergency.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned that Saakashvili may be jeopardizing Georgia’s aspirations to join the Western alliance with the 15-day nationwide state of emergency, in which news broadcasts on independent stations were halted and all demonstrations banned.
“The imposition of emergency rule and the closure of media outlets in Georgia, a partner with which the alliance has an intensified dialogue, are of particular concern and not in line with Euro-Atlantic values,” he said.
Hundreds of the khaki-uniformed Interior Ministry officers flooded Tbilisi’s main thoroughfare, the site of the main protests by demonstrators calling for the U.S.-backed Saakashvili to resign.
The riot police responded to the demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons. Saakashvili defended the use of force, saying it was necessary to prevent the former Soviet republic from sliding into chaos as it moves toward integration with the West.
The American-educated Saakashvili, who is trying to shake off centuries of Russian influence and integrate the ex-Soviet republic with the West, accused Moscow of fomenting the protests and expelled three Russian diplomats.
Russia responded Thursday by expelling three “senior” Georgian diplomats in response to Georgia’s “unfriendly acts,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said on Vesti-24 television.
Georgian health officials said 569 people sought medical treatment after the clashes, including 24 police officers, and 28 remained hospitalized Thursday.
The Interior Ministry said 32 protesters were detained.
Classes in schools and universities in Tbilisi were suspended for two days.
Normally noisy, bustling Rustaveli Avenue was quiet. Only a few cars moved along the street.
Many pedestrians seemed stunned by the crackdown, and most were reluctant to talk about it.
“One doesn’t treat one’s own people this way,” said Yekaterina Bukoyeva, a 35-year-old civil servant. “It was very painful to see how they were dispersing all the people.”
The crackdown followed six days of protests in front of Parliament — Georgia’s worst political crisis since the pro-Western Saakashvili was elected nearly four years ago.
Tensions with Russia have risen as Saakashvili has sought to establish central government control over two separatist regions that have run their own affairs with Russian support since wars in the early 1990s.
Russia has dismissed Saakashvili’s claims of interference as an “irresponsible provocation” and said it was an attempt to distract attention from domestic problems.
“We believe Georgia is approaching a serious human rights crisis,” Kamynin said Thursday. “The footage the whole world saw from Tbilisi vividly shows what Georgian-style democracy is: It is the harsh, forceful dispersal of peaceful demonstrations, the closure of free media, the beating of foreign journalists.”
In protests that began Nov. 2, demonstrators initially called for changes in the dates of planned elections and the electoral system. But after Saakashvili rejected their demands and accused their leaders of serving the Kremlin, they made his resignation their central aim.
The White House voiced concern over Wednesday’s events.
“We urge that any protests be peaceful and that both sides refrain from violence,” said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council. “The government and opposition should engage in a constructive dialogue with each other. We will continue to monitor the situation.”
At least four channels showed entertainment programs instead of their regular news shows Thursday morning, and classes in schools and universities in Tbilisi were suspended for two days.
A Georgian television station regarded by the government as an opposition mouthpiece went off the air Wednesday night after riot police entered its headquarters. The Imedi station has carried statements by opposition leaders and broadcast constant footage of police dispersing the protests.
The state of emergency must be approved by parliament within two days.

TITLE: Ford Workers Return to Work, Threaten New Strike
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: About 1,500 workers at ZAO Ford Motor Company held a preventative strike for 19 hours in Vsevolozhsk, Leningrad Oblast, on Wednesday.
The strike, which was initially planned to last for 24 hours, had to be stopped due to a decision of the Leningrad Oblast court that obliged the strike’s committee to postpone the action for 20 days.
This time was needed to have the plant’s administration and the strikers do the needed work to prevent potential production accidents that could be caused by the sudden stop of the production cycle, Ford’s press service said.
Workers are demanding that wages be raised from the basic 19,000 rubles ($775) to 28,000 rubles ($1,145) a month, and that the 7-hour night shift be cut by an hour, Alexei Etmanov, head of the plant’s trade union said.
The trade union said it decided to call the strike after the negotiations they held from July 9 through Oct. 9 failed.
“When beginning the negotiations on raising real wages from March 1 2008, we hoped to find a mutually acceptable decision.  However, the avoidance of conciliatory procedures by the plant’s administration and refusal to form conciliatory commissions, as well as not acknowledging the workers’ demands, showed the unwillingness of the plant’s authorities to think about the needs of its employees,” the trade union said in its declaration.
Unless the demands are met, workers say they will continue the strike later in November. A second strike could last until their demands are satisfied, the union said. 
However, when the strike began at midnight on Wednesday, the administration of the Ford plant appealed to the Leningrad Oblast court to recognize the strike as illegal because the plant’s authorities did not receive an official notification about the strike, the press service said.  
“The plant’s administration also asked the court to take measures and make the strike committee postpone the strike for a month. The administration needs this time to agree the minimum work needed to be done even during the strike,” Yekaterina Kulinenko, spokeswoman for the plant, said.
The Russian Labor Code says that an employer should be warned about a strike in written form not less than 10 days before the strike, Kulinenko said.
 However, the Leningrad Oblast Court did not recognize the strike as illegal on Wednesday, Etmanov said, though the court did oblige strikers to postpone the strike for 20 days. 
At 7 p.m. on Wednesday the conveyer belt was restarted, Kulinenko said.
Kulinenko said the collective agreement signed by the plant’s administration and the trade union on Feb. 28 2007, fixed the rises in wages to between 14 and 20 percent, as well as other social improvements. The agreement offered an extra day-off for all the employees, a rise in subsidies on the birth of a child, and some other benefits, Kulinenko said. The average salary at the 2,200 employee-plant is 21,400 rubles ($875).
The plant produces 300 Ford Focus cars every 24 hours, and stoppages cost the company $3.5 million each day.
The Leningrad Oblast court was due to have another hearing on Friday over the legality of Wednesday’s strike.
Ford workers held a 24-hour strike on Feb.14-15 this year.  At that time the strike resulted in the signing of a collective agreement for a year.  However, a number of social defense measures meant for workers were not taken into account in that agreement.

TITLE: Duma Gives Approval to Freeze On Crucial Arms Control Treaty
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The State Duma voted Wednesday to suspend Moscow’s participation in a key European arms control treaty, approving President Vladimir Putin’s initiative in a widely expected show of defiance to the West.
In a 418-0 vote, the Duma approved Moscow’s temporary abandonment of its obligations under the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, a pact that has become one several issues straining Russia’s relations with the United States and Europe.
The legislation is virtually certain to gain approval from the Federation Council before being signed into law by Putin. It would take effect Dec. 12.
Putin first threatened to suspend participation in the treaty in April, amid increasing Russian anger over U.S. efforts to build a missile defense system in Central Europe and growing Western influence in former Soviet states.
The 1990 treaty set limits on the deployment of conventional armaments by NATO and Warsaw Pact countries. But the disintegration of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 changed strategic balances, and a revised treaty was worked out in 1999.
Russia ratified the updated treaty in 2004, but the United States and other NATO members have refused to do so, demanding that Moscow fulfill obligations to withdraw its forces from Georgia and Moldova’s self-proclaimed Transdnestr republic.
Russia claims ratification is not contingent on the withdrawals and says adherence to the outdated limits of the original pact compromises its security.
Putin complained in May that NATO countries were “filling Eastern Europe with new weapons” and said Russia would have to respond.
“The current CFE Treaty suits the United States and NATO because it allows for the implementation NATO’s strategy of eastward expansion without any limits,” Yury Baluyevsky, chief of the General Staff, told the Duma.
But Putin’s decision to suspend participation is seen as driven less by security concerns than by an increasingly confident desire to emphasize to the West that the country’s interests cannot be ignored.
“This is a forced measure necessitated by the actions — or rather the inaction — of our partners,” said Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Duma’s International Affairs Committee.
Kosachyov stressed that the suspension was “not an act of aggression” and was not aimed to scuttle the treaty altogether, although Putin has said Russia could pull out of the pact if its efforts bring no NATO response.
The Foreign Ministry has said that under the moratorium, Russia will halt inspections and verifications of its military sites by NATO countries and will no longer limit the numbers of its conventional weapons.
A top Defense Ministry official, Colonel General Alexander Kolmakov, said Wednesday that Russia would not rule out strengthening its forces in the western part of the country, but he indicated that no specific plans had been made, Russian news agencies reported.
Analysts say Russia has no interest in a costly force buildup because it faces no real military threat from NATO and has no plans to launch an attack of its own.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Latvian Premier Quits</b>
RIGA, Latvia (Reuters) —Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis said Wednesday that he would resign Dec. 5, bowing to weeks of pressure that followed his attempt to fire the country’s anti-corruption boss.
The government lost four ministers through resignations or dismissals and faced two huge street protests. It later rescinded its dismissal of anti-corruption bureau chief Aleksejs Loskutovs after the parliament refused to ratify it. Kalvitis said after meeting President Valdis Zatlers that the government wanted to complete passing the budget, finalize a border deal with Russia and finish a regional reform. “Only after that can we resign,” he told reporters.

<b>Netrebko Honored</b>
NEW YORK (AP) — St. Petersburg soprano Anna Netrebko has been named musician of the year for 2008 by a classical music publication, whose previous honorees include Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky and Vladimir Horowitz.
Netrebko will grace the cover of the 2008 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, often referred to in the business as the “bible” of the industry, with its comprehensive databases and contact listings.

TITLE: Sociologists Question Election Poll Answers
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With one month to go before the national parliamentary elections, public surveys are showing highly promising statistics about voter turnout and support for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party with President Vladimir Putin on top of its list, but some sociologists are beginning to suspect those voters questioned may not be sincere.
Maria Matskevich, a leading researcher and head of a project with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said a disturbing new pattern has emerged in the way that the respondents communicate with the sociologists.
“While most people that take part in the polls are usually reluctant to talk about their income and financial possibilities for the first time since early perestroika we have noticed that the respondents are getting uncomfortable when discussing their political persuasions,” Matskevich said.  
A number of the institute’s researchers who conduct telephone polls said they feel the respondents are not being sincere and tend to talk not about what they truly stand for but what is expected of them and what the authorities would like to hear.
“It is not that people just bluntly refuse to cooperate; the respondents’ behavior during the conversation has tangibly changed: people are growing more hesitant, evasive or overly reflexive, as if concerned about the consequences of the interviews,” Matskevich said. 
The poll-takers who interview participants in their homes have had problems with physical access for the past two years. With intercoms and concierges becoming more common — especially in the large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg — the researchers get cut-off before they can say a word to the residents.
“There are different types of polls, and if we cannot get through to the more well-off segments of the society, then, of course, the results become less representative and less credible,” Matskevich said. 
At least 48 percent of Russians are expected to vote in December, according to the results of a recent nationwide poll conducted at the end of October by the St. Petersburg-based Agency for Social Information. 
The agency’s head, Roman Mogilevsky, said turnout is expected to be at its lowest in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where it is not likely to exceed 51 and 44 percent respectively. 
The survey suggests the highest turnout would be seen in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Region, where 66 percent of respondents said they are going to take part in the vote.
Fifty-seven percent of those polled said they support United Russia. Just Russia comes second with 14 percent, followed by the Communist Party (12.5 percent) and the Liberal Democratic Party (10 percent). 
Liberal party Yabloko was favoured by 4.1 percent of the survey’s participants, and the Union of Right Forces got 4.3 percent support.
Mogilevsky stressed that voters’ preferences may change now that the actual campaigning has begun.
Open and honest are words rarely used to describe campaigns in contemporary Russia, however. United Russia has refused to participate in political debates with other parties. Instead it will focus entirely on propaganda, a move that is widely seen by its rivals as arrogant and possibly irritating for some voters. 
“No matter how modest the support behind the other parties, each of them represents a part of Russian society and deserves equal respect, never mind the fact that we are talking about millions of people and their interests,” said Kirill Kabanov, head of the Moscow-based National Anti-Corruption Committee, an independent non-profit organization.
Corruption extends beyond official buttonholing of local workers and managers and includes old-fashioned graft.
As one anti-corruption activist puts it, Russian politics is one big pay-as-you-go plan. There are prices for anything, from an ordinary person’s vote — which years ago could be had for cakes, cans of sunflower oil, or packs of flour — to a seat in the country’s parliament.
According to the National Anti-Corruption Committee, four years ago the cost of buying a seat in the State Duma was about $1 million. The group estimates that the price is now five or eight times as much. 
Interest in buying a spot on the winning ticket has increased as two trends converge: newly rich business people are seeking political power to complement their wealth, and the system of choosing candidates has been taken out of the hands of the people and put into the hands of party bosses.
“The members of the nouveau riche feel a seat in the Duma would make them part of the political establishment. They would join a privileged caste, living as they please and running no risk of ever losing their businesses,” Kabanov said. 
“The deal involves a merger between money and political authority, the essence of corruption.”
The major novelty of the current campaign is the introduction of a new proportional representation electoral system that requires candidates to run on a registered party list, in contrast to a simple majority system that would allow independent candidates to stand in the elections.
Critics argue the changes will feed political corruption and reduce the level of accountability of deputies as the new system transfers power from voters to party managers, who will control which individuals get onto the lists of candidates.
“To perform well in their jobs, lawmakers have to be accountable to their voters but the new system includes no mechanism for impeachment, for those cases when the voters are not happy with their deputy,” Kabanov said.

TITLE: Drive Starts for ‘National Leader’
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev and Francesca Mereu
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: MOSCOW — With the looming mystery over President Vladimir Putin’s future after his second and final term ends next year, one senior United Russia official is looking to the past — some 400 years — to cement Putin’s status as “National Leader.”
Abdul-Khakim Sultygov, who coordinates the pro-Kremlin party’s policies on interethnic and interreligious relations, is calling for a nationwide Civil Council to formalize Putin’s role as National Leader after he leaves office.
In an article published Tuesday on the United Russia web site, Sultygov likened the Civil Council to the Zemsky Sobor, or Land Assembly — a collection of boyars, clerics and freemen who pledged allegiance to 15-year-old Mikhail Romanov in 1613, the beginning of Russia’s last royal dynasty.
Sultygov proposed that after the Dec. 2 State Duma elections — in which United Russia is expected to win in a landslide with Putin atop its ticket — all political parties, officials, government bodies and public groups pledge allegiance to Putin in a so-called Pact of Civil Unity.
United Russia will then organize a nationwide Civil Council to hammer out a formal framework for the institution of National Leader, Sultygov wrote.
This will guarantee the continuation of the Putin’s policies, while the council would become a permanent body through which the National Leader would guide Russia and its political elites, Sultygov said in the article.
Reached by telephone Wednesday, Sultygov denied any parallels between Putin and Romanov, however.
“Putin is not monarch, but he deserves all the respect he is getting,” Sultygov said.
A better historical comparison is with former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt or former French President Charles de Gaulle, Sultygov said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied any involvement of the presidential administration in the plan.
“It is Sultygov’s personal idea,” Peskov said.
Even if the envisioned Civil Council is eventually convened, it is unlikely to have any constitutional power to formalize the institution of National Leader, Peskov added. Duma speaker and United Russia head Boris Gryzlov, meanwhile, reiterated his mantra Wednesday that Putin’s national leadership would extend beyond his second term.
“Putin’s role as leader will be guaranteed by the party and its parliamentary majority,’’ Gryzlov was reported as saying on the party’s web site.

TITLE: Theaters Under Threat From Manpower Cuts
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Cultural workers from more than 130 city-funded institutions have called for support from the public, the media and legal authorities in a four-month-old battle against City Hall’s decision to cut manpower in the cultural sector by 10 percent as of Jan. 1.
Battling workers, representing more than 7,000 others, met in the House of Actors on Wednesday but fell short of declaring an all-out strike hoping that City Hall will review its decision.
However they acknowledged they had been on something of a go-slow since news of the cutbacks broke in July. There have been reports of frequent eleventh-hour cancellations in theaters during the last two months. 
Three theaters including the Bolshoi Puppet Theater, Baltiisky Dom and the Music Hall are heading for closure after administrators had succumbed to pressure from City Hall.
Sergei Khovrashov, a lawyer for the workers, said that after the 10 percent staff cut, pressure was applied on theater administrations to “overwork, underpay, deny social guarantees and infringe the civil rights of those who remain, apparently leaving them with no choice but to pack up and go.” 
Khrovrashov's colleague Vitaly Kudinov said that he knew why City Hall is applying such pressure and that closure was becoming more likely for some cultural institutions. 
“Our sources have revealed that the  authorities concerned are marshalling a plan to house commercial organizations in these buildings,” Kudinov said. 
He said he had enough evidence to prove his assertion and that it would be revealed at the right time, “depending on the ongoing dispute over legal authenticity of the July 4 gubernatorial decree,” that ordered the cutbacks.
According to the new order, actors, for example, will have to enter a new contract for every show and be paid accordingly with regard to the role he or she plays on a given occasion, rather than being permenantly employed in repertory companies.  
A new wage scale means that an actor playing a central role in a spectacle in mid-sized  theaters will earn a maximum of 2,500 rubles ($100) per show, not accounting for the prior preparations and rehearsal time. Many shows are staged only once or twice a month.
“It’s such a meager income that we will be forced to find jobs on the side,” said actor Oleg Kotyuzov. 
“It is a situation whereby holidays, medical insurance, maternity and sick leave will be forgotten,” he added.
The measure, a part of the city administration’s policy to carry out reforms in the city’s cultural sector, will hit 131 cultural institutions including the Mussorgsky State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet and the Museum of History of St. Petersburg at the Peter and Paul Fortress. After the cuts, the former will be manned by about 800 staff members from January and the latter will have a slightly fewer than 700 workers. 
Institutions with less than 25 workers such as childrens' leisure spots including movie halls, theaters and suburban cultural centers, will be among the worst hit by the decree. 
“Inefficient and irresponsible policy makers are killing the cultural brand of St. Petersburg. They don’t seem to understand what Russia’s cultural capital is supposed to mean,” said Ivan Kraskov, a veteran theater actor.
In an address to the audience of protesting workers on Wednesday, Kraskov recalled what he described as “the good old days, when theater was an entangled part of the Communist Party ideological propaganda machine,” saying “despite other drawbacks, the Communist regime made theater a priority.”

TITLE: Race Is On to Save Cash Pay Terminals
AUTHOR: By Tai Adelaja
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Senior state officials were scrambling Wednesday to avert the imminent closure of thousands of payment terminals across the country five days ahead of a deadline for them to channel all payments through commercial banks.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin gave officials three days to find an alternative to switching off the terminals, which millions of Russians use to pay utility and phone bills, during a closed-door meeting with high-ranking state officials.
A Central Bank directive designed to regulate the terminals, which have mushroomed in the last couple of years, could mean that half of them are switched off when it comes into effect Monday.
Kudrin, recently appointed deputy prime minister with responsibility for the economy, was meeting with IT and Communications Minister Leonid Reiman, Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev, head of the State Duma banking committee Vladislav Reznik, head of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service Igor Artemyev and senior tax officials.
“A decision was reached to give officials three days to come to a consensus,” Reznik said. “While a legislative solution is being sought, the Central Bank directive will not be enforced.”
The directive, issued in July, stated that payment-terminal owners could only accept payments from users if the money was be processed through commercial banks. Private entrepreneurs running the terminals were also ordered to reregister their businesses as limited liability companies or quit.
Last month, Reznik and Artemyev wrote jointly to Ignatyev, pressing him to rethink the change. In the letter, both officials condemned the directive, predicting that it would destroy the existing payment network, scare away most of the market players and lead to social tension.
Reznik said Monday that he had proposed an amendment to the Civil Code to clearly delineate the functions of commercial banks and allow commercial organizations to continue to receive payments for phone bills and utilities through the existing payment terminals.
The measure, the Central Bank argued, would regulate the market and encourage owners of terminals to pay taxes, while also fighting money laundering by keeping an eye on cash flows.
Russians’ distrust of credit cards coupled with a lingering Soviet-era paranoia about long lines has made the stand-alone payment terminals a hit. An estimated 60 million Russians regularly use about 200,000 payment terminals across the country — a number that has rocketed from just 10,000 terminals two years ago. The payment terminals business is valued at $15.5 billion annually, according to the National Association of Electronic Market Participants.
The impetus for the boom is a law passed in August 2006 that allows unregistered commercial organizations and private agents to accept payments for mobile phone and municipal utility services.
This has been good news for millions of people in small towns and rural areas, where banking services are virtually nonexistent and mobile phones are often the main mode of communication.
Entrepreneurs have also found the automated terminals appealing because they provide a business model that requires no full-time employees, cash registers or large premises.
“An automated terminal costs just $5,000 or so to deploy,” said Alexei Nikolashin, director of Kaskad Pay, a key supplier and owner of thousands of payment terminals. “You can just wake up and own one.”
And, with the banking sector expanding and consumer loans booming, automated payment terminals look set to become an indispensable means of making repayments.
Market players fear that the Central Bank’s directive could nip these developments in the bud before the market gets the chance to mature.
“By weeding out individual entrepreneurs, the market would shrink and lead to uncompetitive practices,” said Andrei Kashevarov, deputy head of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service.
“There is a tendency for prices to remain high and uncompetitive — especially since Sberbank, a state-owned bank, will be the main player in the market,” Kashevarov said. “Only multiple players would ensure an equilibrium between price and quality.”
The country’s major mobile operators also said the measure could endanger businesses by reducing their clients’ choice of payment methods.

TITLE: German Housing Firm Flees Market in Debt
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Piter Dussmann, a subsidiary of the German facility management company Dussmann AG & Co., which serviced about 130 residential buildings in St. Petersburg, will quit the market. The company is being liquidated in the face of debt claims from local authorities.
All the houses formerly serviced by Pier Dussmann will be auctioned from January 2008. In the interim, the buildings will be handed over to Zhilkomservice, a state managing company, Regnum news agency reported last week.
“Probably, Zhilkomservice will remain a facility management company for those houses. Several companies could take part in the tender. The winner will be chosen by the property owner associations,” Regnum cited Konstantin Schmelev, head of Admiralteisky district, as saying.
“I know for sure that Piter Dussmann will not be in the race. We won’t let this company onto the local market ever again,” Schmelev said to Regnum.
Piter Dussmann has serviced buildings in the Admiralteisky district since 2005, when the company was awarded a contract without any formal tender.
This year, the Housing Agency of the Admiraltyeisky district claimed that Piter Dussmann owes 31 million rubles ($1.26 million) to the agency, for electricity and water supplies, and a legal claim has been filed for the outstanding payments.
When contacted Tuesday, managers at the company refused to give any explanations about why Piter Dussmann is facing debt claims and why the firm is leaving the local market.
The company does not plan to resume operations in St. Petersburg. “Our general manager is liquidating the company. He is not authorized by the shareholders to comment on the situation,” a representative of Piter Dussmann said.
The German concern still operates two subsidiaries in Russia — in Moscow and Novosibirsk. The companies offer property management, cleaning, catering and security services.
Local experts said that Piter Dussmann was unlikely to become a profitable managing company in St. Petersburg in view of the existing tariffs on communal and housing services and the condition of the housing stock.
“The technical condition of the houses in the Admiralteisky district leaves much to be desired. Power networks and water pipes have deteriorated and many buildings need repairs,” said Anna Derkach, general director of Praktis Property & Facility Management.
“Facility management companies have to work with the existing tariffs. As a rule, the tariffs do not cover expenses on maintenance and repairs in the old districts,” Derkach said.
She was skeptical about the possibility of any private company making a profit working in the district. However, Derkach did not rule out that other private companies could try to win the tender, despite the negative experience of Piter Dussmann.

TITLE: Oil Prices Approach $100 Per Barrel Mark
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Global oil prices came within a hair’s breadth of breaking through the psychologically important $100 per barrel barrier Wednesday, a level that would give Russia extra confidence to increase spending and attract more foreign investors.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil reached as high as $98.62 per barrel before falling back after a smaller-than-expected supply drop in the United States. The surge toward $100 has been fueled by dollar weakness, bad weather and heightened risks in such oil-producing countries as Iran, Iraq and Nigeria.
In Russia, whose Urals blend of crude typically sells at a $7 discount to WTI, the soaring oil price could encourage potential foreign investors and prompt the government to further boost spending, said Clemens Grafe, chief economist at UBS.
“The higher oil price is giving the government the confidence to spend a bit more,” he said.
The State Duma gave initial approval to amendments to the 2007 budget Wednesday that would increase this year’s spending by 1.1 trillion rubles, including 640 billion rubles in funds to economic development institutions.
The country’s dollar-denominated gross domestic product will rise sharply on the back of high oil prices, making it a bigger marketplace to invest in, Grafe said. “At higher oil prices, the confidence of investing in this country is obviously much higher,” he said.
Gazprom, which has a lower tax and export duty burden than the country’s oil companies, could be the biggest winner of the oil market situation because it ties the price of its gas to the price of oil products, said Timur Khairulin, an oil and gas analyst at Antanta Capital.
The question is how long the record highs will last.
“We find it very difficult to see the oil price declining from its current level,” Grafe said.
The only significant production increase is coming from Kazakhstan and some African countries, but it is not enough to send the prices downward, he said. Soaring demand from India and China, where the governments subsidize oil consumption, is pushing the price still higher, he said.
Chinese and Indian oil imports will almost quadruple by 2030, the International Energy Agency said in a report Wednesday. China will replace the United States as the world’s largest energy user early next decade, the agency said.
On the other hand, demand could fall if major Western economies slump next year as an indirect result of high oil prices, said Leo Drollas, chief economist at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London.
“It looks like we will have a slowdown, if not a recession, next year,” he said. “High oil prices are inflationary. Fears of inflation ... lead to higher interest rates and higher interest rates affect growth.”

TITLE: Nokian To Build Homes for Workers
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Nokian Tyres has announced the construction of a residential complex for employees at its plant in Vsevolozhsk. Offering affordable housing close to the plant, Nokian Tyres hopes to become an attractive employer. Local authorities expect other investors to follow the example of the Finnish company.
According to preliminary estimates, construction of the complex will cost over $22 million. By 2010, Nokian Tyres will construct seven buildings comprising 270 apartments. They will be sold at cost price — 41,000 rubles ($1,677) per square meter. Employees will be able to take a loan with a discounted interest rate of 7.3 percent a year from the Leningrad Oblast Mortgage Agency.
“We do not plan to make a profit on this project. It’s a social program,” said Andrei Pantyukhov, general manager of Nokian Tyres in Russia.
The residential complex named Hakkapeliitta Village will be located 10 kilometers from the plant and 1.5 kilometers from the center of Vsevolozhsk.
The plant employs 470 people, and 60 percent of them are residents of St. Petersburg. Nokian Tyres currently organizes regular bus trips between St. Petersburg and the plant.
The average age of the employees is 31 years and only 22 percent of them live in their own apartments, Pantyukhov said.
At present, 75 employees have signed agreements to buy apartments in Hakkapeliitta Village. They will have to work for Nokian Tyres for at least seven years. Loans can be taken for up to 20 years.
This year Nokian Tyres plans to produce three million tires in Russia. By 2011 production will increase to 10 million tires a year, requiring additional personnel, Pantyukhov said. The company will invest $294 million in production in addition to the $220.5 million which has already been invested.
“One of the main problems in the Leningrad Oblast is the lack of labor resources that are required for the announced investment projects,” said Grigory Dvas, vice governor of Leningrad Oblast.
The upcoming investment projects will create over 100,000 new jobs in the region, Dvas said. A new plant for production of railway carriages in Tikhvin will require 10,000 people, a nuclear power station in Sosnovy Bor will require 17,000 people and Ust-Luga port and the neighboring city will need  40,000 people.
“We are interested in attracting labor resources from other regions. We have to provide these people with housing and competitive work conditions. The combined efforts of the local authorities and private investors could solve this problem. Nokian Tyres is the first example of such cooperation,” Dvas said.
Valery Kim, chairman of the committee for architecture and town planning of the Leningrad Oblast administration, suggested offering incentives to other industrial enterprises in order that they implement similar residential projects.
“We have enough land plots where such experiments can be realized,” he said.
Kim indicated that Hakkapeliitta Village will occupy 4.5 hectares, while the total area available for new construction in this district is 80 hectares.
A new power plant is being constructed in the same area. Power networks are financed by a private investor, Kim said, and all the companies, including Nokian Tyres, that plan residential construction in the area, will have to pay for connection to the networks at market prices.

TITLE: Inspectors Allowed To Check Meat
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Russian food-safety officials plan to begin inspections of food producers in Poland as the countries seek to end a two-year dispute over meat quality that has stalled Russia’s talks on a key accord with the European Union, an Agriculture Ministry official said Wednesday.
“Russia and Poland reached an agreement on joint inspections of Polish meat plants that will begin on Nov. 13,” Alexei Alekseyenko, a spokesman for the Agriculture Ministry’s food watchdog, said after officials from the two countries and the EU held talks in Moscow.
Russia will send 10 officials for two weeks of inspections, Alekseyenko said. The schedule and the plants to be inspected will be determined after the inspectors arrive in Warsaw. More than 60 meat plants in Poland are interested in selling their products in Russia and have agreed to inspections, he said.
The agreement comes two days after the Polish prime minister’s resignation. His likely successor, Donald Tusk, has said he wants to improve relations with Russia, while President Vladimir Putin urged his government in May to resolve the dispute.
Russia banned meat imports from Poland in November 2005, citing health concerns. Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s government responded by blocking talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, the principal document defining relations between the EU and Russia, which expires at the end of this year.

TITLE: British Petroleum, Gazprom Step Up Talks on Purchase of TNK-BP Stake
AUTHOR: By Dmitry Zhdannikov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — BP and Gazprom are holding intensive talks on the possibility of Gazprom buying into BP’s Russian venture, TNK-BP, industry sources said Wednesday.
Such a deal would mark another milestone in a Kremlin drive to reassert control over the energy industry, which has alarmed foreign oil majors but not deterred them from doing business in resource-rich Russia.
BP chief executive Tony Hayward, who flew to Moscow for high-level talks in May and September, met Gazprom’s chief executive, Alexei Miller, again Tuesday night.
“The last meeting took place in Germany at [Tuesday’s] Champion’s League football match between Schalke 04 and Chelsea,” a Gazprom source said.
Photographs of the meeting showed the two bosses at the match, smiling and draped in blue-and-white Schalke scarves.
BP has a 50 percent stake in TNK-BP, the country’s third-biggest oil producer, while a group of Russian and U.S. shareholders owns the remaining 50 percent.
BP’s spokesman in Moscow, Vladimir Buyanov, confirmed that the two chief executives met Tuesday, but declined to comment on the nature of their talks.
“It is natural for the companies’ heads to meet from time to time. I would also remind you that BP, Gazprom and TNK-BP signed a deal in June to set up a strategic alliance,” he said.
Under the pact, Gazprom was to buy TNK-BP’s giant Kovykta gas field in eastern Siberia for $700 million to $900 million, while the three firms also plan a broader international venture.
The Kovykta sale is due to close before the end of the year, but an industry source said that now it might not happen. “I see a chance of Kovykta never happening at all. It would make no sense if there is a broader deal,” he said.
Another industry source said a five-year lock-up agreement that the shareholders signed when BP bought its stake in TNK-BP in 2003 would expire within months.
“Talks have intensified,” said the source, who suggested that BP had become keener to link up with a Russian state company since Hayward took charge at BP from John Browne in May.
A source close to TNK-BP’s owners said its billionaire shareholders, Viktor Vekselberg, Len Blavatnik, Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, were open to the idea of a sale. At market prices, 50 percent of TNK-BP would be worth $18.5 billion.
Vekselberg and Fridman have both denied that they have plans to sell, but that has not quelled speculation of a deal before voters elect a successor to President Vladimir Putin in March.
Gazprom served as the vehicle through which the Kremlin regained control of the vast Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project from Shell a year ago.
Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer saying that the English-Dutch company would enter a “huge-scale” oil and gas project on the Yamal Peninsula.

TITLE: This Country Is No Place for Discussion
AUTHOR: By Georgy Bovt
TEXT: Vyacheslav Volodin, United Russia presidium secretary and State Duma deputy speaker, said recently that election campaign debates were nothing but “squabbles.” This is apparently why United Russia refused to participate in the debates. As Volodin put it, the party does not want to come down to the level of other parties that only spout populist slogans during such debates. Volodin and his fellow party members, including State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov in particular, confirm that for them, the goal of the election campaign will be to “explain the fundamental provisions” of Putin’s Plan, which constitutes United Russia’s entire campaign slogan.
Volodin’s description of public debates is similar to Gryzlov’s off-hand remark that “the Duma is no place for discussions.” Both statements, I am sure, were sincere, and they express quite clearly and concisely the contemptuous attitude toward politics held by the representatives of the new establishment — politicians who are not so much elected by the people as they are appointed to their posts from above.
These people are completely isolated from the daily lives of their electorate. With rare exceptions, most politicians are unable to engage in public debate. They cannot answer uncomfortable questions without having prior preparation, nor are they fit to participate in the rough, competitive environment of politics. Moreover, as a rule, they are incapable of speaking in a language that ordinary people can understand.
After rejecting any role in the televised debates, United Russia explained that the party intended to use their allotted time to air promotional spots to explain Putin’s plan. It is obvious that the spots will be all image and promotion and little substance. United Russia will rely heavily on emotions while offering few details of the party’s program. This will only add to the campaign’s superficiality.
With President Vladimir Putin’s decision to head United Russia’s federal ticket, the public loses out on any opportunity to discuss the different possible solutions to actual problems facing Russia. The public is deprived of being able to participate in an elementary exchange of ideas that focus on different approaches to the country’s development. The whole Duma election campaign has turned into nothing but a referendum on supporting a single individual — or more accurately, an expression of general approval for him, because Putin has yet to announce what post he will occupy after leaving the presidency.
From the historical perspective, Western democracies adopted the practice of holding pre-election debates relatively recently. And although the first such debate was most likely that between the candidates for the 1858 U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, political debates were not widespread prior to the era of mass communication, nor did they significantly influence the outcome of elections.
The first televised debate in the United States was held in 1960 between presidential hopefuls Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. It is generally held that Nixon’s physical appearance during the first debate hurt his image and that despite making a stronger showing during subsequent debates, he eventually lost the election in part due to that initial setback.
After that, U.S. presidential candidates learned their lesson from Nixon’s defeat and refused to participate in televised debates until they resumed again in 1976 between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. But now debates have become the norm in all democratic countries and have taken on such importance that it is hard to imagine a candidate winning an election without first winning a debate. And this year, debates for Poland’s parliamentary seats and for the presidency in France gained worldwide attention for clearly determining the outcomes of those elections.
Now the United States has taken another step toward the popularization of politics by holding a debate between Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the web site YouTube, for which Internet users sent in questions to both candidates.
The majority of Russian voters, however, do not see the necessity for this form of pre-election contest. For example, prior to the presidential election of 2004, almost 90 percent of those polled said that such debates play no role in how they would vote.
And it is worth remembering that neither the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, nor Putin ever participated in a televised debate against their opponents. United Russia also turned down debates in the 2003 State Duma election campaign.
The television companies have taken a similar position in relation to the first-ever televised debates in Russian history by scheduling them for time slots that could hardly be considered prime time. Channel One offered the Central Elections Commission and the 10 parties willing to participate in the debates the 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. slot. After the commission complained, the debate was moved to the more popular 7:05 a.m. slot, when many people watch television before leaving for work. Rossia television chose to air the debates from 10:50 p.m. to 11:20 p.m.
Another half hour of free airtime will be disbursed in segments from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. for various party advertising spots and prerecorded addresses by party leaders. TV Center will air those clips from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and the debates from 5:40 p.m. to 6:10 p.m. All of the stations justified their choice of time slots with the explanation that “very few viewers watch political debates.”
That conviction is supported by the results of a ratings survey conducted by TNS Gallup Media during the 2003 State Duma elections campaign. At that time, just 13 percent to 17 percent of people 18 or older watched the debates on Channel One and Rossia. That was 10 percentage points fewer than typically watched the regularly scheduled evening shows. And really, who wants to watch the chatter of politicians from marginal, relatively unknown political parties?
Meanwhile, the “party of power’s” campaign tactic of open disdain for the methods all developed countries employ in public politics, as evidenced in part by United Russia’s refusal to participate in the debates, is, from the party’s point of view, a rational approach, given that the competition was long ago destroyed. The little opposition that still exists includes a few, virtually unknown figures whom many Russians consider to be clowns.
After all, one of the cardinal rules of political campaigns is not to agree to a debate with an opponent whose ratings are significantly lower than your own. In a best case scenario, the leader can only maintain his lead, but it is possible that the political David would gain points for having stood his own against the party of Goliath.
In any other country claiming to hold democratic elections, a political party —even with ratings significantly higher than its nearest competitors — would never be able to so openly avoid facing difficult and uncomfortable questions from its opponents. That would be considered absolutely unacceptable.
But it appears that in Russia, the time has not arrived for competitive, adversarial politics. Politicians — and sadly enough, voters — do not understand the fundamental importance of or need for the “competition of ideas.”

Georgy Bovt is a political analyst and hosts a radio program on City FM.

TITLE: Don’t Spit in Your Neighbor’s Soup
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: For over a week straight, television news reports have been showing demonstrations against Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and they claim that his regime is on the verge of collapse.
In the same spirit, news reports from the 1970s showed demonstrations in the United States accompanied by self-gratifying predictions that U.S. imperialism would soon collapse. The propagandists did not understand that open political demonstrations are a sign of weakness only under a dictatorship; in democratic nations, they are a sign of a strong and secure government.
Russia’s foreign policy toward Georgia is mind-boggling — not only in the degree to which President Vladimir Putin hates Saakashvili, but also in the striking ways the Kremlin finds to express that hatred. For example, take the pornographic film about Saakashvili, which was the masterpiece of State Duma Deputy Alexei Mitrofanov. Or the Russian missile that landed in Georgian territory followed by Moscow’s accusations that Georgians actually brought the missile to the site where it was found and staged its “discovery.”
When the United States was concerned about the Cuban threat, they conducted the Bay of Pigs invasion. Even though the operation was a failure, it was clearly on a different level than what we see coming from the Kremlin. No superpower would react to a national security threat by producing a porno film or by “losing” missiles in foreign territory — because it would lose its face along with its missiles.
What is most striking about the Kremlin’s attitude toward Georgia is the pettiness of the whole matter. A superpower should not respond in this way. Russia’s behavior is more akin to a communal apartment dweller who spits in his cohabitant’s soup out of spite and malice.
The second most striking feature is the senselessness of the Kremlin policy. Russia’s ostensible goal is to strengthen its authority in the Caucasus, but it certainly can’t achieve this by making a porno film about Georgia’s president. Russia can’t conduct its foreign policy as if it is living in a communal apartment. In these situations, you can befriend a neighbor and earn his respect. Or you can strike fear in his heart by roughing him up a bit. But you will never be able to strengthen your authority by spitting in his soup.
On the other hand, however, if you take a blunter approach by punching your neighbor in the face, for example, there is a good chance that he will call the cops.
Russia differs from rogue states in that it does not constitute a real threat to other nations. Sanctions can be levied against countries that fire missiles at their neighbor’s territory, but not against countries that simply drop unexploded missiles in their neighbor’s backyard.
There was a time when the Soviet Union represented a real threat to the free world, and in the end, the free world was able to drive the Soviet Union into a corner. Today, it is much easier to drive the current Kremlin into a corner by simply exposing the overseas bank accounts of its top bureaucrats.
That is precisely why Putin is careful not to attract the police by punching his neighbor in the face. Instead, he blows a lot of steam by comparing U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic with the Cuban missile crisis. Putin is smart enough to understand that if he responds by putting Russian missiles in Cuba now, the incriminating Swiss bank accounts of certain top bureaucrats would quickly become known to the whole world.
Putin promised an “asymmetric” response to U.S. plans to build a missile defense system, but in the end, all that he has done is appoint a former furniture store manager, Anatoly Serdyukov, as defense minister.
Maybe he is being too asymmetric?

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

TITLE: Going out on a limb
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Alina Simone, a U.S. singer/songwriter, has just released her debut album and while gathering favorable reviews from the New Yorker and Time Out, she has not forgotten about her Russian roots. 
On a brief Russian tour that includes Moscow, Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg, Simone, who cites PJ Harvey, Cat Power and Bjork among her influences, performs her own versions of songs by the late Siberian folk-punk legend Yanka in Russian, as well as her own English-language material.
Born in Kharkov, Ukraine, Simone went to the U.S. when she was 18 months old with her parents when they emigrated as political prisoners in 1975, after her father had had problems with the KGB. Having grown up in the suburbs of Massachusetts, Simone did not start to sing in public until she moved to Austin, Texas where she started playing in the doorway of an abandoned bar. 
Simone now splits her time between Carrboro, North Carolina and New York.
The title of her debut album, “Placenessness,” released in September on the Acme, Michigan-based indie label 54°40’ or Fight!, refers to her personal biography. 
“It’s about a feeling of not really belonging anywhere in the world, and I think that feeling comes in part from being a refugee,” said Simone speaking by telephone from a Moscow hotel this week.
“Growing up in the U.S. during the Cold War being Russian wasn’t the most popular thing, you can imagine. So I’ve always just had this feeling of not really belonging — you know, the Soviet Union didn’t want us and then America didn’t really want us either, in a way. In school I felt always like I had to sort of... maybe not hide, but not emphasize the fact that I was Russian. Because this was during the Cold War.
“I just grew up with this feeling of not really belonging anywhere, and then it becomes complicated to define for yourself, ‘Where I’m really from? Who am I? Where is home?’ Like ‘Where did I come from?’ These kinds of questions. I think the title of the album reflects that feeling.”
The songs on the album deal with “search for home, search for belonging somewhere,” she said.
“I think it is a particularly Russian or, I would say, post-Soviet problem; [because of] the history of Russia, so many families were separated, so many people were forced to move somewhere else,” she said.
“People whose ethnicity had been sort of firmly established for centuries, in the past century were completely thrown to the wind, right? And so you want to say, ‘I’m from St. Petersburg,’ ‘I’m from Kharkov,’ but then things get complicated, you know. I think in every person’s family in Russia or Ukraine, there’s this moment, when you say, ‘Oh, you know, dedushka [grandfather] was sent away, and then we had to move here and originally we were from there...’ And America itself is a country of immigrants. I think people very much want to feel like they belong to some group. 
“It would be nice if I could say, ‘I am Russian,’ but I feel like I can’t even completely say that. There are just so many splits in people’s identities, and so I think there’s a conflict between very much wanting to belong to some particular place and some particular group of people, and the impossibility of that for most people. That’s kind of complicated.”
Simone first heard Yanka thanks to a chance meeting in Brighton Beach, a Russian enclave in New York known as “Little Odessa.”
“ I had just moved to New York, this was maybe around 2000 or 2001, and I went to Brighton Beach for the first time and it was like going to Russia,” she said.
“I had grown up with a Russian family, but I hadn’t seen stores with the names written in Cyrillic. I’d never seen a whole street full of Russian people speaking Russian. I was in shock wandering around Brighton Beach for the first time, and there were these two guys that were sitting on a curb, and they were just playing guitar and singing in Russian. And I stood there, I listened, you know, it was interesting for me, and then we started talking. 
“I had just moved to New York, I didn’t know anything, and, you know, where I lived, there hadn’t really been a Russian music scene, but in New York there is! There are clubs that have mostly Russian music, there’s a large Russian community, so they said, ‘Oh, yeah, we go all the time to these Russian rock concerts, you should come with us next time.’ And I said ‘O.K.,’ and so the next week they called me and said, ‘Come to this show,’ and I went, and one of them gave me a cassette tape that just said ‘Yanka.’ Like a mixed tape. And he just said, ‘Here. I think you’ll like this.’ And then I was into it. When I went back to Brighton Beach, I bought her CDs at a record store there, and that was it!”
Novosibirsk-born singer/songwriter Yanka, whose full name was Yana Dyagileva, became popular in the Soviet underground music scene in the late 1980s. Playing underground concerts and distributing her songs on home-produced tapes, Yanka, who died in May 1991 aged 24, never saw her music released commercially in her lifetime.
Simone’s involvement with Yanka’s music led to her recording “Everyone Is Crying Out to Me: Beware,” a full album of Yanka covers, with producer Steve Revitte (Jon Spencer Blues Band, the Liars). Made with a grant from the local government of the city of Durham in North Carolina, the album is due on 54°40’ or Fight! in March 2008.
“I’ve always loved [Yanka’s] music, she’s my favorite singer, and I think she had these incredible melodies and incredible voice, [but] she never had the time or the money or the resources to, say, go to a fancy studio with a fancy producer and give the songs big arrangements, so my approach was to take these melodies and really try to reinterpret them with full arrangements. Most of the songs have cellos, trumpets, many guitars, drums and it was all recorded in a professional studio in New York City with a really good indie rock producer.”
“So just a lot of time and care was put into it. But the songs are pretty radically different, some of them, from her.”
Yanka, who collaborated with the Omsk-based punk band Grazhdanskaya Oborona and often used distorted punk guitars on her home-produced tapes, tried not to sound polished.
“I understood this,” said Simone.
“I tried my best to sort of do both things — to still capture this raw live element of her music, but also to give it these full arrangements that this music never had, so, for instance, when I recorded the album, we recorded it in two days, and all of my takes, voice and guitar, were recorded at the same time live.” 
“So essentially it’s a live album — you know, we rehearsed, but it still has this element of, I think, surprise and rawness, because of the way that we recorded it. So that was the idea, you know, everyone was in one room... When I recorded with a drummer, the drummer was in the room with me, most of the time when I recorded the vocals and guitar, there was only one microphone for both, so we definitely tried to retain this element.
“But, you know, I also wanted to make it different, I didn’t want just to  re-sing her songs exactly the way she sang them, there’s just be no point to that. The project was really reinterpretation, but, of course, we tried still capture this spontaneity that was so special about her music.”
Despite her American music career, Simone, who had included a song called “Siberia” in her 2005 debut E.P. “Prettier in the Dark,” said she’s always had an interest in Russian language and culture.
“Even though I grew up in the U.S., I was always surrounded by Russian people,” she said.
“All of my parents’ friends even now are Russian, in the States. I mean culturally, they’re very Russian. My whole family. I wouldn’t say that ‘Oh, they just became American’ or something like that. I mean they live in America, but I would say they’re very Russian people and their social circle is very Russian, and so I felt like I grew up in this little society.
“I mean, I never forgot that I was Russian. My grandmother lived through the blockade in St. Petersburg [the Siege of Leningrad], my mother was born in St. Petersburg. I still have family in St. Petersburg whom I visit as often as I can.”
Releasing a Russian-language record in the U.S. might look like a bold move, but Simone said there was already some interest from the press and venues.
“It’s totally a new thing. I mean people don’t do that!,” she said
“I’m really proud of my label. They’re brave enough to try it because I got this grant before I was actually signed to a label, even for my music, even for my music in English. I just didn’t have a label.
“And I was already thinking, ‘God, what I’m going to do with this thing? I’m going to record it, and then it’s just going to sit on my desk, because who’s going to release it in America?’ But then I got signed to this label and they loved it, they thought it was a really interesting project, so nobody knows what’s going to happen.
“I don’t know who the audience is. I wouldn’t be surprised if the audience turns out to be very small for this album, but there’s certainly interest; you know, things are happening, and I’m not even working especially hard to let anyone know about it yet, because it’s a long time from now.”

Alina Simone performs at Revolution on Friday. www.alinasimone.com, www.myspace.com/alinasimone

TITLE: Chernov’s
         choice
TEXT: <b>“Autumn Rhythms,”</b> now a semi-legendary local festival of jazz and improvised music held in the city between 1978 and 1993, was to be relaunched this week, but now it will not. 
Due to a sponsor’s last minute withdrawal, the three-day large-venue event that was to bring <b>Victor Bailey</b> (Weather Report) and <b>Billy Cobham</b> (Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra) to the city has been officially postponed until some time next year.
But <b>Baltic Jazz</b>, the week’s other jazz event promoted by David Goloshchokin’s Jazz Philharmonic Hall — is under way. Several international acts such as <b>JazzKamikaze</b>, <b>Francois Jeanneau</b> and <b>Uli Lenz</b> and <b>Anna Maria Jopek</b> will take part in the two-day event at Jazz Philharmonic Hall on Monday and Tuesday.
Electronic music and art will be featured at <b>Electro-Mechanica</b>, the three-day event at the Modern Art Center opening on Thursday. Thursday will be devoted to video art, animation and short films, while experimental or dance electronic music acts and DJs will perform on Nov. 16 and 17.
Electro-Mechanica is promoted by the Sergei Kuryokhin Foundation, the organization responsible for the annual impovised and experimental music festival SKIF in cooperation with various foreign institutions.
The biggest international visitor this week is <b>Marilyn Manson</b> (Ice Palace, Saturday), but it is better to check out <b>Alina Simone</b>, the U.S. singer/songwriter of Russian descent, who will make her live debut in the city performing American songs in English and the late Siberian singer Yanka covers in Russian. Although she has a band back in the U.S., in Russia Simone will perform solo with a guitar. Simone will perform at Revolution on Friday. See interview, pages i and ii.
Friday’s highlights also include the cabaret-rock band <b>Billy’s Band</b>, the local group that first found fame with Tom Waits covers (Lensoviet Palace of Culture), and <b>The Noise of Time</b>, the difficult-to-define band led by locally-based British drummer Marcus Godwyn (GEZ-21).
<b>Auktyon</b>, the seminal local art-rock band, recorded its “American” album “Devushki Poyut” (Girls Sing) in a New York studio with some help from U.S. musicians Marc Ribot, John Medeski, Frank London and Ned Rothenberg, last year. Although the original plan to release it in the U.S. did not work out, “Girls Sing” came out in Russia and was accompanied with two CD launch concerts featuring Ribot and Medeski, in Moscow and St. Petersburg in April.
Now, a launch concert for the DVD, also called “Girls Sing,” that documents the launch concerts for the CD, will take place. Auktyon will perform at Lensoviet Palace of Culture on Saturday.
Concerts by <b>Tres Muchachos y Companeros</b>, Markscheider Kunst’s spin-off Latin project (Zoccolo, Tuesday) and Moscow-based cabaret artist <b>Psoy Korolenko</b>, who will perform in duo with <b>Alyona Alenkova</b> (Griboyedov, Thursday), might also be noteworthy.

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Igor Moiseyev 1906-2007
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Igor Moiseyev, a legendary Russian choreographer who fused ballet with folk dance, was buried Wednesday in Moscow's most celebrated cemetery.
A funeral for Moiseyev, who died Nov. 2 at the age of 101, was held at the Christ the Saviour cathedral in the center of the Russian capital. Culture Minister Alexander Sokolov and others from Russia’s arts scene attended the funeral, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Moiseyev was buried at the Novodevichye cemetery, which is the last resting place for dozens of famous Russian and Soviet figures, including former Russian president Boris Yeltsin who died in April.
Described as a “genius and an innovator” by the New York Times on his 100th birthday, Moiseyev died of heart failure.
Moiseyev had been unconscious for the last three days  of his life and died in a Moscow hospital, said Yelena Shcherbakova, director of the Moiseyev Dance Company, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Moiseyev, called the king of folk dance, attracted the West to Russian culture at a time of deep political hostility and won standing ovations around the world.
He brought traditional folk dance onto the professional stage by combining ethnic moves with classic ballet. His numbers — from the Russian peasant girl dance to the Greek Sirtaki — were hailed as promoting peace and tolerance by showing that each culture is unique. He amazed Americans with his take on rock 'n' roll and square dance.
Moiseyev had been in poor health in recent years and was rarely seen in public. Looking very frail, he made an appearance at a Moscow concert to celebrate his 100th birthday last year.
President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences, the Kremlin said.
Moiseyev was born Jan. 21, 1906, in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, and enrolled in a dance school at age 14. He showed outstanding talent and was transferred to the Bolshoi Theater choreography school in Moscow, where he became a Bolshoi dancer in 1924.
He soon was ousted from the Bolshoi because of his love of daring experiments, and he began to choreograph and direct independent performances.
In 1937, he founded the Moiseyev Dance Company. Its first performance was a groundbreaking exploration of the music, culture, traditions and costumes of the numerous ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union.
Moiseyev’s company inspired the creation of folk dance companies in many other countries.
He also is credited with pioneering the genre of gymnastic performance — a blend of dance and acrobatic elements — that for decades has been used in parades and celebrations in Russia.
(AP, AFP)

TITLE: Moving around
AUTHOR: By Andrea K. Hammer
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In her U.S. dance company’s studio in South Philadelphia, Artistic and Executive Director Rebecca Davis recently said that she misses Russia-her favorite country-and hopes to return one day.
As a Fulbright Scholar in 2004-2005, Davis, now 25, studied dance and choreography at The St. Petersburg Conservatory and the Mikhailovsky (Mussorgsky) Theater. While studying in Moscow and in Siberia, she was classically trained in the Vaganova method of ballet. Davis received a degree in choreography from The St. Petersburg Conservatory under the tutelage of Artistic Director Nikolai Boyarchikov.
“My time in Russia studying choreography illuminated me as to what I was going to be doing from a more theoretical perspective. I learned how to write a libretto, how to listen to music and make it work with movement ideas, how to revise things in a chronological process,” she said. “So it wasn’t just like, ‘I love making up movements.’ I was forced to sit down and learn how to do choreography in the correct way.”
In 2002, she also spent the summer in Russia working as an arts management intern and studying the language; during her year abroad, she says she became fluent. Davis added that although this experience was excellent, she faced many challenges.
“If you wanted to be in a ballet class, you had to get special permission. You couldn’t just walk in and pay an open-class fee,” she said.
A Vancouver native who was born in Toronto, Davis added that making friends in Russia is difficult. But once a bond is formed, they are lifelong friends.
“They would never stab you in the back, and they’re very supportive. I miss that emotional connection and the patriotism of the Russians. As much as they’re dealing with right now, especially going into an election year, they’re still so proud of their country and everything achieved — and very optimistic about their future despite so many challenges.”
In addition, she said that mind-set helped her maintain proper perspective when she returned to the United States.
“Here, we complain if our coffee isn’t hot. You think if the Russians can have that [positive] outlook in their circumstances, it makes you appreciate and push yourself to recognize everything you have [in the States] that we take for granted. It really grounded me.”
In 2006, the company premiered “Antigone” at the Kimmel Center of the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Other work has been performed at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, The Union League of Philadelphia and The International Children’s Festival at the Annenberg Center. In addition, the company has appeared at the Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York City. 
On Nov. 2 and 3, Davis presented another world premiere at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia. “Helen Keller,” an original ballet in two acts, was completed ahead of schedule in time for the city’s month-long “Independence Starts Here: Festival of Disability Arts & Culture,” which will end on Nov. 20. 
Davis started choreographing for others when she was 14 and completed 15 works in Vancouver. She also implemented a creative dance program for deserving children in Toronto. As a recipient of the Canadian Merit Scholarship, providing 4 years of free education at any school of choice, Davis started her business education at York University in Toronto.
After two years, she transferred to Philadelphia’s Temple University, where she graduated summa cum laude. Determined to find the most direct path to working as a choreographer, she created a business plan for launching her own company two years ago. Davis’ vision, as both artistic and executive director, is to translate ideas from literature and history into movement — and communicate them to a wide audience.
“The challenge of interpreting a character or a historical event or a societal issue into movement is what I find creatively exciting. So to take something that’s in a newspaper and translate that to movement — so it can reach a wider and more diverse audience — helps dance become more relevant… I don’t think we can expect to support major companies here unless we ask them to reach beyond the confines of traditional dance.”
In her role as a teacher in the company’s pre-professional training program, Davis relates to the integral relationship that Keller had with her teacher Anne Sullivan. Through Davis’ outreach program, six local schools are learning about Keller in a condensed version of the production  — with an actress playing the adult Helen. 
“Productions like ‘Helen Keller’ are important because I don’t think it’s just dance for dance’s sake or art for art’s sake. I think it’s a story that’s educational; everyone should know who Helen Keller is. But, beyond that, it’s something everyone can take away and apply to their own lives, looking at this particular woman and how she overcame obstacles and achieved her dreams and visions, which is a universal lesson that can easily be told in a very generic way through dance.”
Inspired by conservatory-style programs offered in Vancouver, Davis wanted to provide a similar training program for 12 to 18 year olds — blending modern dance, jazz and ballet. So she decided to remain in Philadelphia to fill a “gap in the pre-professional training market.”
“So many dancers are asked to do that as they start their professional auditioning career. I think we would serve our students well to provide that type of intensive training in multiple disciplines of dance,” Davis said.
She added that her students are highly motivated. During the training process, some have committed themselves to becoming professional dancers.
“To inspire someone to find their calling in life and then see the work ethic matching that dream — so the reality becomes more probable — is quite a transformation to observe as a teacher,” said Davis, stressing that a strong work ethic and rigorous training are critical for success.
Noting the collective strength and engagement of her board members in guiding the company, Davis said: “They bring enthusiasm and motivation to the company and strategic guidance from the business world. I’m still learning a lot for the first time. They have much more experience that they can lend on some of the more strategic issues the company faces. Without that guidance and skill set at the board level, we wouldn’t be here.”
Davis, who plans to build her company’s base with students in her training program, envisions touring nationally and then internationally in the future. Hungry to do “more, more, more,” she is working on another ballet about the Darfur, Sudan, genocide crisis, which will run at the Arden Theater in Philadelphia on April 24. 
To learn more about the Rebecca Davis Dance Company and upcoming performances, visit www.rebeccadavisdance.com.

Andrea K. Hammer is the founder and director of Artsphoria: Celebrating Arts Euphoria. www.artsphoria.com.

TITLE: More of the Moor
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Think of the world’s top ten most frequently staged operas, and Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otello” will most certainly come to mind. Yet, perhaps paradoxically for opera directors, finding a voice to sing the title role is just as high on the list of opera’s greatest headaches.
The world’s most renowned opera houses have been on the lookout for tenors and Verdi specialists of late, but the Mariinsky Theater can proudly offer tenor Vladimir Galuzin, one of the world’s most recognized Othellos, in the leading role. 
The opera, undoubtedly one of the company’s favorites, first saw the Mariinsky stage almost exactly 120 years ago on Nov. 26, 1887, shortly after it premiered in Milan on Feb. 5 of that year. Since then, “Otello” has been seen in seven different productions at the Mariinsky, including its latest which premiered on Nov. 1.
Up-and-coming Moscow director Vasily Barkhatov is responsible for the new staging and he has turned Verdi’s dark masterpiece into a sublime psychological drama fused with suspense and delirious rage.
The Mariinsky’s artistic director, Valery Gergiev, has been nurturing the idea of a new staging of “Otello” for several years, and casting Galuzin for the title role. A Novosibirsk Conservatory graduate who joined the Mariinsky in 1990, Galuzin sang in the 1996 production of the opera, but now spends most of his time out of Russia, performing at many of the best Western opera venues.
The focal point of Barkhatov’s production is the title character Othello’s internal drama. The soaring tenor Galuzin portrays a victorious naval commander who is powerless and brooding in his private life. His Othello is unable to develop a strategy of handling his internal crisis, and appears as someone in denial Enraged with fury, Othello throws around memorial wreaths prepared for sailors under his command, a shocking gesture, unexcusable for a warrior.
Irina Matayeva was a palpating and doomed Desdemona quivered as if being aware of her fate. In the beginning of Act IV, Desdemona behaves as if out of a presentiment, giving away her garments to servants. The singer presented the role with grace, fluidity and flair.
Baritone Vladimir Murzayev offered a sophisticated and cerebral take on Iago, creating a modern twist  by evoking the image of a cold-blooded spin doctor — raising associations with modern day pro-Kremlin political gurus.
Barkhatov and set designer Zinovy Margolin opted out of visual effects that would overpower the intense and emotionally charged drama, a frequent plight of too many superficial takes on “Otello,” including the Mariinsky’s own previous production. An innovative approach to Verdi is frequently misinterpreted by simply relocating the Shakespearean heroes from the 15th century Cyprus to the modern world in a location of the director’s choice. 
Barkhatov’s show replaces Yury Alexandrov’s 2001 production that featured gigantic sets, blood pouring on stage by the liter and an Othello painted in black. While Alexandrov’s infamous “Otello” was slagged off as racist by a sarcastic British reviewer who was offended by the director painting the Russian singer playing the lead in black make-up from head to toe, Barkhatov refrains from emphasizing a racial motif. 
The director chose to avoid setting a specific time or place for the set, which features a large white lighthouse and white-washed town walls, and opted to create a metaphysical space for the characters. 
Alexandrov’s history at the Mariinsky has been hit and miss. The director, who has worked for the company for over 20 years is responsible both for a camp take on Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” and a Golden Mask-winning rendition of Sergei Prokofiev’s “Semyon Kotko.”
But Barkhatov, in contrast, is a newcomer. At just 24 years old, the director’s career took off earlier this year when he produced several stagings in a row winning to rave reviews, including Janacek’s “Jenufa” and Berlioz’s “Benvenuto Cellini” that premiered at the Mariinsky and its brand-new concert hall in the spring. 
The new production will be shown in Washington’s Kennedy Center on Dec. 9, 12 and 16.
www.mariinsky.ru

TITLE: Mind Games
AUTHOR: By Saul Austerlitz
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “Zugzwang: Derived from the German, Zug (move) + Zwang (compulsion, obligation). In chess it is used to describe a position in which a player is reduced to a state of utter helplessness. He is obliged to move, but every move only makes his position even worse.”
The concept of zugzwang offers Ronan Bennett’s novel both a title and a mood, as the psychoanalyst at the center of the story is never short on potential moves. However, for all Dr. Otto Spethmann struggles this way and that, imagining himself master of his personal domain, each move proves as serviceable — and as futile — as the next.
Dr. Spethmann, a Freudian whose profession puts him in regular contact with nobles and revolutionaries in 1914 St. Petersburg, is in an ideal position to observe the events set in motion by the political murder of a well-known editor, O.V. Gulko. This violent act takes everyone — the victim included — by surprise: “Gulko did not fall dramatically but, according to the same witnesses’ accounts, slowly folded into a sitting position, as one who suddenly feels faint might ease himself to the ground in order to give his senses time to revive — except that in this case a large hole had been torn in Gulko’s abdomen and blood was spotting the frozen snow on which he sat.” Marxist revolutionaries appear to be the culprits, but questions remain: Where can the reclusive terrorist Berek Medem be found? How does the suffering of Russia’s Jews tie into Gulko’s death? And what is the relationship of Dr. Spethmann’s daughter Catherine to these upheavals?
Bennett, author of the well-regarded political novel “The Catastrophist,” sprinkles “Zugzwang” with chess-themed decorations. At times he does this literally, studding the text with drawings of chessboards and with technical descriptions of a correspondence game between Dr. Spethmann and his lifelong friend, the musician Kopelzon. Chess, for Bennett, is more than a game; it is a symbol of the games that people play. Skill can take the players only so far; past a certain point, victory is a matter of dedication and will.
Dr. Spethmann seeks to protect his fragile patients and his daughter, the extent of whose Bolshevik involvement remains a mystery, from the reach of the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary forces. Two patients receive the bulk of the doctor’s attention: the chess grandmaster Rozental, who is scheduled to play a match whose winner will meet the tsar, and Anna Petrovna, daughter of the immensely powerful organ of secretive political power known as the Mountain. Anna Petrovna, trapped in a loveless marriage and haunted by memories of a fateful trip with her father to Kazan, transfers her affections to her widowed doctor, finding consolation and a fatherly hand in his spiritual and physical ministrations.
Revisiting a now-familiar notion of the analyst, Dr. Spethmann describes himself as a detective manqué — an investigator of souls. “The work of the psychoanalyst is not unlike that of the detective: both involve bringing to the surface what is being withheld or hidden, with the obvious difference that the former deals in unconscious inhibition, the latter in very deliberate evasion and concealment.” As befits so shopworn an assessment, the good doctor overrates his capabilities. Convinced that he can outwit both the St. Petersburg police and the revolutionary cadres, Dr. Spethmann often finds himself lagging noticeably behind, avoiding permanent checkmate if only to wind up as little more than a pawn in their game. Some portion of the cause may be found in the occasionally laughable simplicity of his insights: “I was beginning to see clearly again. And one thing I saw was that Anna was not telling me the truth, or at least not the whole truth. I had worked with patients who had buried traumatic experiences, some for the best part of a long lifetime. But none recovered their memories as readily as Anna had.”
Dr. Spethmann’s own identity is fraught with uninvestigated layers of psychic hesitance. A Jew from a nouveau-riche family whose father thought of Judaism as an archaic medieval holdover, he feels estranged from his religion: “In what sense was I a Jew? I was circumcised. I was bar mitzvahed. But I spoke no Hebrew and my father had forbidden Yiddish at home. I did not attend synagogue. Rozental I had first glimpsed as a gentile would.” And yet for others, like the Mountain, Dr. Spethmann is first and foremost a Jew, subject to all the cruelty and callousness of Jew-hatred: “‘Why do you hate Russia?’ [the Mountain] said. ... ‘You don’t fool me for a second, Otto. Admit it: you hate our civilization. You hate our religion and our values. You want to dominate the world and destroy us.’”
Intellectualism and prejudice make for an explosive combination, and the Jews of “Zugzwang” exist on the edge of a precipice, torn between clinging to the safety of their limited realms of sanctioned success and leaping into the chasm of revolution. To the well-heeled Dr. Spethmann, the very notion of rebellion is mysterious: “Why, among [my father’s] people, were there so many terrorists and revolutionaries? Kopelzon would have answered him plainly with the words pogrom, Cossack, Pale and the Black Hundreds. But all my father saw was ignorance and backwardness.” Hearing word of a conspiracy to assassinate the tsar, Dr. Spethmann seeks to avoid calamity for his people and patients, and in doing so finds himself in the arms of Anna Petrovna. The doctor’s skills as a lover have atrophied somewhat since his married days. His idea of postcoital pillow talk is to ask Anna, “Can you remember anything more about your trip to Kazan?” Romantic he isn’t.
As “Zugzwang” nears its inevitably bloody conclusion, Bennett loses track of his pieces and allows his well-plotted novel to drift free of its initial plan of attack. The occasional ludicrousness of the atmospherics — all revolutionary zeal and tsarist cruelty — only increases as the book progresses, leaving a mystery story with little momentum and less credibility. Bennett is a good writer, but his suspense story cannot justify the emotion contained within the grandiose intermingling of chess and politics at its conclusion: “Nothing ... the tsar or any of his ministers or generals could do would prevent a settling of accounts. They could tighten the chains: they could arrest, imprison, persecute and denounce. Or they could loosen the chains: they could mollify, apologize and promise. It would make no difference. They were in zugzwang. When things reach this pitch we are all in zugzwang. Past wrongs will not be forgiven. Rage and numbers will tell.” Bennett is clearly familiar with the rules of the game, but much like his protagonist, and the society he depicts, he ultimately finds himself in a position in which every move only makes matters worse.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Pyotr Listerman is one of the most mysterious figures in Russian showbusiness. He crops up in the society pages of magazines and as a commentator on television and in newspapers, giving an inside angle on the sexual proclivities of Russia’s rich. Izvestia described him as an “elite pimp,” and he is said to provide oligarchs with beautiful women for fulfilling, mutually supportive relationships — or perhaps something more temporary. He boasts of meeting trains arriving from the provinces and spotting likely-looking girls whom he can turn into what he calls “long-haired gold.”
So far, so intriguing. But Listerman now seems to be coming out of the shade, and some of the gloss of mystery is flaking off in the process. Two months ago, he published a trashy tome called “How to Ensnare an Oligarch” that told some very tall tales, including an anecdote about sending girls to Bill Gates’ yacht. And in October, he began starring in his own reality show on Muz-TV, a kind of poor man’s MTV. To give an idea of his illustrious predecessors, celebrity hairdresser Sergei Zverev and It Girl Ksenia Sobchak also have reality shows on the channel.
Listerman’s show is called “Beauties and Beasts,” and its titles feature an animated sequence where he undresses a row of busty models. But in the two episodes I saw, there wasn’t even a hint of dirt. As Listerman said himself at one point, he’s not going to reveal any secrets to the common or garden viewer. But doubts started creeping into my mind about whether he isn’t just making it all up.
In the first episode I saw, Listerman did a radio interview but babbled on without really answering any of the questions. The only response he gave — about whether he provided women for former U.S. President Bill Clinton — was clearly more of the blarney. “Of course, I dreamt it all up” he said of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Then he was shown pontificating about the Russia-England football match, which was unfolding as he spoke. He sounded quite prescient at one point when he promised to give the Russian striker a free girl for every goal scored. After all, how else can you explain that sudden burst of enthusiasm after half-time? But I’m not sure about his claim that he “relaxed” the England players before the match. The story would have been a lot more convincing if he hadn’t forgotten the name of the team’s manager.
Those niggling suspicions only got worse when I watched a second episode, which showed Listerman going to fashion shows in Milan. Or, rather, not going to fashion shows since Muz-TV is too lowly to accredit its journalists. He attempted to pass himself off as Russian Vogue editor Alyona Doletskaya and sneaked into a Gucci show through the back door.
Watching Listerman’s one-sided banter with models, I kept willing for some oligarch to greet him with a cheery “thanks for all the brunettes,” but everyone seemed to be looking the other way. To be honest, he comes across as a man you would cross the road to avoid, unless you were in urgent need of a redhead. He described models as “dead monkeys” and complained about his car being towed away after he parked it in a disabled space — because, heck, that’s the kind of guy he is.
In one scene, he asked his assistant to chat up an Italian blonde, aged perhaps 34. “She looks OK from a distance,” Listerman said, referring to her as “the old lady.” He boasted that he could sell her to an oligarch — as long as the client didn’t get a close look. Lucky, lucky woman. Sadly, though, it turned out that she already had a husband.

TITLE: Keyed up
AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Mari Vanna // Tel: 230 5959 // Open 1 p.m. through 11 p.m. // Menu in Russian and English // Dinner for two without alcohol 1,500 rubles ($60)

This isn’t an average restaurant review and risks being of little use to those wondering where to get a bite to eat over the weekend. 
For starters, the managers of the restaurant in question have requested that we don’t publish its address. As it happens, even if you were standing right outside the place, you’d be lucky to find it because there is no sign on the street and no indication that this is in fact a restaurant. What I can say is that it’s not a million miles from the sorely missed and now closed (hint-hint) Mesto restaurant on Ulitsa Lenina on the Petrograd Side.
Secondly, the door to Mari Vanna is always locked — you can only get in if you happen to have a key, which will have been given to you by its managers. Or by the editor of a certain local English language publication (all major credit cards accepted). 
This, then, is a members-only establishment from the people behind Ginza, Tiffany’s Cafe, Jelsomino, Terrassa and Skazka restaurants. The danger with such a door policy in St. Petersburg is that the restaurant will be the preserve of the try-hard, would-be elite cream of society. The sort of people who feel inordinately pleased with themselves when they’re given membership to a select establishment where they can vastly overpay for the privilege. 
Thankfully, that didn’t turn out to be the case on a visit to Mari Vanna. Being able to let yourself in to this home-style cooking eatery is clearly part of the plan to give it the homely atmosphere of a very welcoming kommunalka or communal apartment. And here that doesn’t mean peeling wallpaper, leaking pipes or toilets that should be cordoned off as ecological disaster zones.
Instead, you’re welcomed by a cheerful coat-check man in tracksuit trousers and a telnyashka Russian navy shirt and led into one of the coziest dining rooms in the city. Done out in cream tones with upholstered furniture, the walls are packed with family photographs and portraits from the pre-Perestroika era. In short, a Soviet kommunalka without the concomitant dust, draughts and, er, odors. The diners were also a far more relaxed breed than expected, with none of the pretensions of a would-be in-crowd.
The hand-written menu features Soviet and Russian home-cooking standards and, although it’s not cheap, there’s nothing here that will really damage your wallet. On the night we dined there was also an additional menu created by no less a figure than the British consul to St. Petersburg, William Elliot, a man on a mission to correct the erroneous impression (no doubt sponsored by the French) that English cuisine is something to be avoided. The restaurant hopes to feature more consuls demonstrating their culinary arts in the coming months.
My dining companion began with a bowl of Mr. Elliot’s excellent carrot and coriander soup (250 rubles, $10), a rich concoction made with chicken broth, cream, English cheese, vegetables and herbs. It was the perfect antidote to wintry weather as the first snow begins to fall — this man should be knighted and made ambassador immediately. I shall be writing to my MP.
The chicken soup with pasta (250 rubles, $10) from the Russian menu was also excellent and the Mari Vanna approach was quickly becoming apparent — very simple dishes, very simply prepared, nothing fancy, but everything made with top-notch ingredients. 
This was nowhere more evident than in the fried liver that we tried — large chunks of wonderfully moist, succulent, fresh meat with a side of mashed potatoes (350 rubles, $14). The meat and cabbage pirozhki that we ordered alongside (100 rubles, $4 for each portion of two) told the same story and certainly appeared to have been baked to order. 
And finally, the tvorog baked Russian cheese dessert (250 Rubles, $10), which was again excellent, if a little heavy. 
So, highly recommended, then, a place you really shouldn’t miss out on. If, of course, you know where it is. And you have a key to get in. 
Did I mention that we accept all major credit cards?

TITLE: Gritty realism
AUTHOR: By Manohla Dargis
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: For his first time behind the camera as a director, the actor Ben Affleck has chosen a brooding, serious drama about missing children, wayward parents and idealism lost and regained. “Gone Baby Gone” is based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, who wrote the similarly themed “Mystic River,” which Clint Eastwood turned into a modern classic. If Affleck hasn’t raised his material to that rarefied level, he has taken a satisfyingly tough look into conscience, to those dark places where some men also go astray.
The story wants to break hearts: 4-year-old Amanda McCready, a blond doll, has disappeared without a trace amid the squalor of her South Boston neighborhood. The cops are out in formation, as are the television news vans, antennas raised high and all but trembling for blood. Staring into the cameras, the neighbors eagerly offer ready-made headlines and self-flattering condolences: they’re coming together, everyone loves Amanda. The days tick past and the child’s anxious aunt, Bea (Amy Madigan), seeks help from a local private investigator, Patrick Kenzie, a squirt who looks as if he just dropped out of college and is played without an ounce of actorly ingratiation by Casey Affleck, the director’s younger brother.
I’m not sure exactly when Casey Affleck became such a good actor. Steven Soderbergh tapped him a few years back for recurring third-banana duties in the “Ocean’s Eleven” films, and Gus Van Sant put him in “Gerry,” his 2002 avant-garde feature, in which he roamed around a merciless desert landscape with Matt Damon, with whom he took turns playing Beavis and Butt-head, Vladimir and Estragon.
More recently he stole the show from Brad Pitt in the western “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” One of the unusual things about his performance as Ford was its lack of sentimentality. He didn’t plead the character’s case or remind us of his own humanity; he just played the role.
Most actors want you to love them, but Casey Affleck doesn’t seem to know that, or maybe he doesn’t care. Patrick doesn’t cuddle or kiss up. He takes the job Bea offers despite the reluctance of his live-in girlfriend and partner, Angie (a solid Michelle Monaghan), but he doesn’t look like anyone’s idea of a savior. With his sneakers and jeans and small-man’s swagger, he comes off like one of those toughs who never leave the neighborhood and would sooner swing a bat at your head than at a ball.
Affleck is already deep into the character right from the start, but neither he nor his director let on all they know about Patrick. There’s something about this guy that needles, that helps keep an already tense story on edge.
Despite its terrible question marks — who stole Amanda and why, is she alive and for how long — “Gone Baby Gone” pays closer heed to the enigmas of soul and heart than to clues and guesswork. There are false leads, dead ends, brandished guns and nightmarish discoveries, as well as shadows and controlled camerawork, but mostly there are human frailties and thrown-away, forgotten lives. The screenplay by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard whittles down but doesn’t reduce Lehane’s material, pulling out details and types that stick to the screen, including Amanda’s mother, Helene, played by a ferocious Amy Ryan. Talk about not wanting our love! Ugly in voice and deed, Helene is the underclass mother from hell, a hazard, a druggie, a villain in waiting.
Helene is a nightmare, or at least the embodiment of a certain familiar fear: the bad woman (welfare queen) periodically held up as a symptom of some grave social disorder. Working with her supportive, encouraging director, Ryan plays with this stereotype and our sympathies to the breaking point. Deploying her broad Boston accent like a weapon, she whines and retreats, testing Patrick’s sympathy with each one of her pathetic excuses. It’s a gutsy, sensational performance that adds layers to an already spiky, provocative creation. At first you hate the woman and love the actress, though because Ryan and Ben Affleck are wise to the ways of scapegoating, you learn why that hate is misplaced.
It isn’t all that surprising that Affleck is so good with his performers, or at least most of them. The film has been wonderfully populated with character actors like Titus Welliver, who plays Lionel, Helene’s straight-talking brother, and Michael K. Williams, one of the outstanding villains from the HBO drama “The Wire,” who shows up here as a friendly cop.
Just as memorable are two unfamiliar faces: the newcomer Jill Quigg, who has a few startling scenes as Helene’s comically, scarily belligerent friend Dottie; and the Boston rapper Slaine, whose cool, dead-eye performance as the drug dealer who leads Patrick right into the heart of darkness adds menace to one of the film’s strongest, most harrowing scenes.
Affleck trips up now and again, mostly with his older, famous peers Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman, who delivers one of the more unpersuasive performances of his career as the head of the police department’s missing-children division. The director does better with Harris, who plays a hotheaded detective in a distracting hairpiece, though again Affleck doesn’t control the performance as well as he does those of the other cast members. He also wavers when he lingers too long over the crumpled faces and bodies of what appear to be real South Boston natives.
Even so, one of the graces of “Gone Baby Gone” is its sensitivity to real struggle, to the lived-in spaces and worn-out consciences that can come when despair turns into nihilism. Affleck doesn’t live in these derelict realms, but, for the most part, he earns the right to visit.

TITLE: Afghans Bury MPs
AUTHOR: By Amir Shah
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL, Afghanistan — Clerics recited prayers as the flag-draped coffins of five lawmakers and their bodyguards were lowered into the ground Thursday following the country’s deadliest-ever suicide attack that killed at least 73 people — most of them schoolchildren.
A sixth lawmaker killed Tuesday in northern Afghanistan is to be buried in southern Helmand province, officials said.
Hundreds of relatives cried and rushed toward the grave as the body of lawmaker Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, spokesman for Afghanistan’s largest political opposition group, was lowered into the ground. Local and international dignitaries stood in silence.
Kazimi’s supporters at the funeral held banners calling for an international investigation into the blast, suggesting they held the government partly responsible for the deaths. Witnesses also have said that some victims may have been killed or wounded by guards who opened fire after the blast.

TITLE: Man Utd Beats Less-Than-Dynamic Kiev
AUTHOR: By Pete Oliver
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MANCHESTER — Manchester United needed to produce only flashes of champagne football to celebrate manager Alex Ferguson’s 21 years in charge with a 4-0 rout of Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League on Wednesday.
It was United’s fourth successive victory in Group F and secured a place in the knockout stages.
A first goal for the club from 20-year-old defender Gerard Pique set United on their way before Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney put the result beyond doubt.
Cristiano Ronaldo added the fourth with a stunning individual goal.
Ferguson was sufficiently confident of wrapping up qualification to give several of his senior players a rest but United still had too much strength for Ukrainian opponents still without a point.
Pique was given a rare start in the centre of the defence and the Spaniard made a telling contribution.
United, faced by a wall of blue shirts as Kiev frequently put nine players behind the ball, endured a frustrating opening half hour.
The pressure finally told however when a free kick from Ronaldo was headed against Tevez by Michael Carrick and bounced up invitingly for Pique to nod home in the 31st minute.
Six minutes later Tevez doubled the lead. Winning possession in his own half, the Argentina striker ran at the defence and played a one-two with Rooney before easily beating goalkeeper Olexandr Shovkovskiy.
Kiev’s acting coach, former Arsenal player Oleg Luzhniy, made two changes at halftime and the visitors posed more of a threat with substitute Diogo Rincon and Tiberiu Ghioane testing Tomasz Kuszczak, who had replaced the injured Edwin van der Sar in goal.
But Tevez missed a couple of chances and Daniel Simpson was denied a goal on his full European debut by Shovkovskiy before Rooney scored the third 14 minutes from time.
The England striker recorded his third European goal of the season by side-footing in a cross from Nani.
Ronaldo then went one better when a wonderful piece of skill gave him room to shoot beyond Shovkovskiy in the 88th.
Rooney said he was bored with Dynamo Kiev’s approach at Old Trafford on Wednesday.
“It was difficult because they did not really want to play. We got frustrated and bored at times,” Rooney told Sky Sports.
“It was like a training session. They showed no enthusiasm to play the game. I didn’t really enjoy it but we did a good job and got the win. We are delighted we are through.”
But Rooney took more satisfaction from the outcome than the performance as Kiev’s defensive attitude left them without a point at the bottom and eliminated from the competition.
United manager Alex Ferguson said he understood Rooney’s reaction, telling a news conference: “It can sometimes be quite tedious to break them down. I think Dynamo Kiev came with a gameplan to make sure they were not embarrassed.
“They have got a massive game against Shakhtar Donetsk on Sunday and I think they were looking for a result to give them some confidence for that,” he added, referring to their home fixture with the Ukrainian league leaders.
“It took time for us to really open up the game. We needed a break and we got that for the first goal and after that I felt we were more comfortable,” said Ferguson.

TITLE: Russia In New Poison Rumors
AUTHOR: By Iain Rogers
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BERLIN — The German tennis federation (DTB) believes there is no medical evidence to support a rumor that Tommy Haas was poisoned during Germany’s Davis Cup semi-final defeat by Russia in Moscow in September.
German Davis Cup doubles player Alexander Waske was quoted in German media on Wednesday as saying an unnamed Russian had told him in Moscow that Haas had been poisoned.
DTB spokesman Oliver Quante said on Thursday that Haas had confirmed he would travel to New York for hair and blood tests to see if there was any truth to the rumor.
However, he said that German team doctor Erich Rembeck had noted there was no medical evidence to support the claim. A senior Russian tennis official called the poisoning story “complete rubbish.”
“There is no medical reason that justifies further, targeted tests with regard to poisoning,” Quante said.
“As an association, we must rely on facts in judging and assessing the situation and not on speculation,” he added.
“Therefore, because we have no evidence of poisoning and because we do not know how reliable the informant is, we must assume that it’s no more than speculation.”
Haas, Germany’s number one player, was beaten in straight sets on the opening day of the match and was unable to play in the reverse singles on Sunday because of a case of gastro-enteritis.
“I had never in my life felt so dreadful and I was really starting to get scared,” Haas was quoted as saying in Thursday’s Bild newspaper.
Russia won the tie 3-2 with victories in both the final day’s singles rubbers.
“We lost that weekend because the Russian team was better than us over the three days,” Quante said, adding that the DTB was not considering challenging the result.
Alexander Katsnelson, general director of the Kremlin Cup who was responsible for organizing the Davis Cup semi-final from the Russian side, told Reuters on Thursday it was odd that the story had come out more than a month after the match.
“We don’t take them [poison rumors] seriously. This is just usual stuff coming from a guy who lost,” he said.
It would not have made sense for the Russians to poison Haas because he was Germany’s weakest player in the tie, he added.
Haas was thrashed by Igor Andreyev 6-2 6-2 6-2 in the opening singles rubber before being replaced by the 206th-ranked Philipp Petzschner for the reverse singles on the final day.
“Since he [Haas] arrived in Moscow and began training it was evident he was not in good shape physically, he was huffing and puffing on the court,” Katsnelson said.
He added that it was possible Haas had suffered food poisoning “if he had eaten something somewhere.”
“I can categorically say the food at the venue was of the best quality,” he said. “We had the same catering company preparing food for both teams, so Haas can’t blame the organizers for any of his problems.”

TITLE: Pakistan Election Promised For February
AUTHOR: By Sadaqat Jan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s parliamentary elections will he held by mid-February, a month later than planned, the country’s military ruler said Thursday, a day after President Bush urged him to hold the vote on time.
Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto denounced President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s pledge as insufficient and said he should step down as army chief within a week.
With anger over military rule spreading, the United States and domestic opponents are stepping up pressure on Musharraf to end the emergency rule imposed Saturday, shed his uniform and hold elections as planned in January.
Bush, who counts Musharraf as a key ally in the war on terror, telephoned him Wednesday to say he should step down as the military chief and hold the vote on schedule.
And Bhutto, who had been in talks with Musharraf on forming a post-election alliance, added to the pressure by deciding to join protests against the emergency. Authorities reportedly arrested hundreds of her supporters overnight to head off a major rally she is planning near Islamabad on Friday.
News that elections would be held by mid-February was flashed on state-run television, which quoted Musharraf as saying the vote would be delayed by not more than one month. The government said earlier this week that the vote could be delayed by as long as a year. Musharraf’s decision was announced after a meeting of his National Security Council.
The announcement was seen as an indication that the emergency would be short-lived because authorities would likely have to ease up on security restrictions to allow campaigning.
Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum forecast that the state of emergency would be lifted in “one or two” months.
“It depends on how the law and order situation improves,” Qayyum told The Associated Press.
Musharraf maintains that restoring democracy is his ultimate aim and the emergency was needed to prevent political instability, protect economic growth, and maintain the campaign against extremism and terrorism.
Pakistan, a country of 160 million, has been wracked by Taliban and al-Qaida-linked violence, including suicide bombings and clashes in its troubled northwest, where the insurgents have in recent weeks scored a series of victories against government forces.
Critics, however, say Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, imposed the emergency measures — suspending the constitution, blacking out independent TV news networks — to maintain his own grip on power.

TITLE: Serena Williams Withdraws In Spain With Knee Injury
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MADRID, Spain — Serena Williams retired with a left knee injury after one set Wednesday and defending champion Justine Henin advanced to the semifinals at the Sony Ericsson Championships.
Ana Ivanovic moved closer to the final four by knocking out Daniela Hantuchova with a 6-2, 7-6 (9) win in red group play.
Williams was treated by the tournament doctor before the start of the ninth game. She retired after losing the first set 6-4 to seventh-ranked Anna Chakvetadze, and went to the hospital to get an MRI on her swollen knee.
Williams had knee surgery in 2003, and also missed 10 events in 2006 because of knee problems.
The fifth-ranked Williams has reached the final in all three previous appearances at the event, which features the top eight players.
Williams said she felt tightness in both knees ahead of the match and as the match went on, the problematic joint only “got worse.”
“It’s beyond unfortunate this has happened and I can’t even stress how disappointed I am,” she said in a statement. “It’s my intention to play on in this event, I have been training really hard, I came over to Europe ... with the goal in mind of doing really well here.”
If Williams is not fit to face Henin on Thursday, Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli will replace her for the last two matches of the round-robin tournament.
Henin beat third-ranked Jelena Jankovic 6-2, 6-2 to move into the semis for the third straight time after Williams retired.
Henin broke Jankovic’s serve six times to win her 22nd straight match and improve to 9-0 against the third-ranked Serbian.
“From the first point to the end, I took all of my chances, all of the opportunities and it was her first match, so maybe I had a little advantage because I could play last night,” said Henin, who improved to 11-1 indoors this year.
Henin broke serve in the first game, and Jankovic broke back to level the first set at 2-2. But the top-ranked Belgian came to the net to break twice more to close it out against the first-time qualifier.
She broke Jankovic’s serve three more times in second set.

TITLE: Pele Says U.S. Fans Were Duped By Hype About Beckham’s Ability
AUTHOR: By Rob Harris
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SHEFFIELD, England — Pele believes American fans were misled about what David Beckham could bring to Major League Soccer.
Amid great fanfare, the former England captain signed a five-year, $32.5 million deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy and was unveiled in July. But his greatest impact this season has been on ticket sales and merchandise, not on the field.
“They announced him as a scorer of goals,” Pele told The Associated Press. “He isn’t a goal scorer. That was a mistake.”
After playing an exhibition match in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Wednesday night, Beckham said “everybody in the world knows I’m not a goal scorer.”
“The Galaxy wouldn’t have come out and said that,” Beckham said. “Like I said, everyone has got their own opinions. Pele is a great player and a great ambassador for the game.”
The 32-year-old Beckham is more adept at delivering crosses and setting up teammates. In five league games, the former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder scored one goal — from a trademark free kick — before being ruled out with a knee injury for seven weeks.
“Beckham wants to be the star and that’s his big problem,” Pele said, referring to Beckham’s injuries. “It is not easy to play in American soccer, because it is very tough.”
Pele, a three-time World Cup-winning Brazil striker, generated similar publicity for the North America Soccer League when he made his debut for the New York Cosmos in 1975.
“The first year was very tough for me because Cosmos was a young team,” Pele said. “Later on we had Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia and Carlos Alberto. We set up a good team.”
More than 75,000 New York fans saw his final match two years later, when he played the first half with the Cosmos and the second half with his former Brazilian team, Santos.
But soccer then struggled to compete with more established American sports or generate publicity — until Beckham’s arrival.