SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1324 (90), Friday, November 16, 2007
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TITLE: State Of Emergency To End
AUTHOR: By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — A nationwide state of emergency imposed last week amid a police crackdown on opposition protests will end Friday under a measure approved overwhelmingly by Georgia’s parliament.
“The nation is no longer in danger, so there is no need to extend the state of emergency,” parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze said Thursday.
Lawmakers voted 142-2 to lift the state of emergency as of 7 p.m. Friday.
The United States and other Western nations had pressured Georgia to end the state of emergency, which was imposed Nov. 7 by U.S.-allied President Mikhail Saakashvili after police violently dispersed opposition protests in the capital, Tbilisi. Independent newscasts and demonstrations were banned as a result.
The West had warned the state of emergency harmed the Georgian president’s efforts to integrate the small Caucasus nation into the European Union and NATO.
In a bid to defuse the political crisis, the worst Saakashvili has faced in nearly four years in power, he has called early presidential elections for Jan. 5.
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday denounced the early vote as a “farce” to “keep the current government in power.”
Separately Thursday, Russia completed a withdrawal of troops based in Georgia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, officials said, although several thousand remain as peacekeepers in its two breakaway provinces despite protests from the Georgian government.
The final convoy carrying about 150 troops and equipment, which had been based in Batumi in far southwestern Georgia, moved to Armenia, said Col. Igor Konashenkov, Russia’s Ground Forces spokesman.
“We have completed the withdrawal of our forces from Georgia. Only peacekeepers remain in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Konashenkov told The Associated Press, referring to the two breakaway provinces.
He said about 1,500 peacekeepers remain in Abkhazia and another 500 are deployed in South Ossetia. Georgian officials say, however, that Russia has some 2,500 peacekeepers in Abkhazia.
Saakashvili’s government has accused the Russian peacekeepers of backing separatists and pushed for their replacement with a U.N. force. Russia says its peacekeepers were deployed as part of peace agreements in the early 1990s that ended wars between the rebels and the government in Tbilisi.
On Wednesday, Saakashvili claimed that Russia had sent additional forces to Abkhazia to strengthen its support for separatists.
“They deployed several dozen armored vehicles and artillery pieces in Abkhazia and deployed another 200 paratroopers who aren’t part of the peacekeeping contingent,” he said Wednesday.
Konashenkov rejected the claim, adding that U.N. monitors in the area would immediately have cried foul if Russia had done it. “Abkhazia has a relatively small territory and U.N. observers keep close track of all troops movements,” he told the AP.
Russia had stationed several thousand regular troops at former Soviet bases in Georgia since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Moscow had pledged to withdraw those troops by the end of 2008, but accelerated the withdrawal as tensions have increased between the two neighbors. The 150 withdrawn troops were the last of them.
Saakashvili this month accused Moscow of fomenting unrest and attempting to overthrow his government by encouraging opposition protests in Tbilisi, the capital.
Russian officials angrily rejected the accusations, and accused Georgia of harassing its soldiers.
“Georgian military police kept detaining our servicemen, making it hard for officers to walk out of their bases,” Konashenkov said.
Moscow and Tbilisi continue to argue over the status of the former Soviet base in the Abkhazian town of Gudauta. Russia has said it has withdrawn from the base, but Georgian officials say otherwise.
Kote Gabashvili, the head of the international affairs committee of Georgia’s parliament, said the Gudauta base still hosts about 800 Russian soldiers and has an airstrip that can handle large transport planes capable of delivering troops and weapons.
“The so-called peacekeepers have lost their status and effectively deal with splitting Abkhazia from Georgia,” Gabashvili told the AP.
Saakashvili’s efforts to break with Moscow, integrate into the West and join NATO has put him on a collision course with a newly confident Russia.
Last fall, the Kremlin responded to Georgia’s detention of Russian military officers on spying charges with a massive transport blockade and expulsion of Georgians living in Russia.
In August, Georgia claimed that a Russian warplane violated Georgian airspace and released a missile after flying over South Ossetia. The missile, whatever its source, did not explode and no injuries were reported, but the incident raised concerns that Russia was trying to intimidate Georgia.

TITLE: Report: Political Ads Not Working
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The streets of Russian towns have been plastered with political posters and the TV channels are clogged up with election commercials. But critics say that political advertising in Russia, despite its lavish style and the vast sums of money spent on it, is disappointing in content, and may turn voters off. 
According to this fall’s report of the St. Petersburg-based Agency for Social Information, 49 percent of respondents polled in St. Petersburg said they react negatively to political advertising. Further more, 25 percent claimed they do not pay any attention to it, while only 8.5 percent admitted to trusting it.
Natalya Sveshnikova, a leading expert on political advertising with the Political Psychology Department of the philosophy faculty at the St. Petersburg State University, said that according to her department’s most recent findings, most Russians do not perceive political advertising as a reliable source of information.
“Political advertising in Russia is lacking in content, and there is no competition of concepts and ideas,” Sveshnikova said. “The audiences do not see anything behind the slogans, and therefore their attention is wandering.”
The polls show that the elderly demonstrate more trust in political advertising, while the younger more financially secure voters tend to ignore it.
As Igor Burenkov, a political technologist of 15 years and general producer of Rosbalt Media Holding, points out that when a news program or movie is interrupted by commercials, political or not, most people promptly mute their television sets.
“Political technologies have to bear this fact in mind, but if someone watches this campaign’s television ads without a sound, they would not be able to tell the difference between the parties, let alone guess any signs of their orientation,” Burenkov said, adding that one would easily confuse Nikita Belykh, the leader of the Union of Right Forces with the Communist boss man Gennady Zyuganov. 
“From this point of view, the prize for the most efficient TV advertisement goes to Vladimir Zhirinovsky [the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party],” Burenkov added. “His short clip, accompanied by the slogan “Do Not Lie and Do Not Scare” delivers a succinct message, even without audio.” 
Burenkov accused the politicians of failing to set specific tasks for PR-agencies. Without being given a target, spin-doctors send their arrows randomly into empty space, he said. Burenkov also blamed the PR-technologists and distributors of making a rubbish product and sending it into mass circulation, and called for greater professional responsibility. 
“In theory, any member of the audiences can file a suit against a company that runs a non-credible or unfair advertisement of its products and services,” Burenkov said. “I have not heard of it ever being applied in political advertising but there is clearly a potential.”
Sveshnikova said her department’s research shows substantial frustration over the televised political debates that have been running on NTV and Channel 1 since the beginning of November.
The snappy format of the debates has also been criticized: the participants are given very limited time for their responses, and where the initial idea had been for the debates to be dynamic, the result is a chaotic and highly disorienting jumble.
“Time slots are too short for the politician to be able to frame or develop their thoughts,” she said. “But the participants appear very poorly prepared, as if they were a street vendor who had a very vague idea of what they were selling.”
United Russia has refused to participate in political debates with other parties. Instead the party said it will focus entirely on propaganda, a move that is widely seen by its rivals as arrogant. The party is also criticized for limiting its campaigning by the sole slogan “Putin’s Plan is Russia’s Victory”, while failing to mention any specific points of the plan or introducing any faces, except for President Putin.
But Vladimir Ryabovol, head of the St. Petersburg branch of News Outdoor Russia argued that most ordinary Russians “do not need to know more”.
“For many people Putin’s name tells all: they have lived under his presidency and as long as they are happy there is no need for digging too deep,” Ryabovol said.

TITLE: Supporters Call For President To Stay On
AUTHOR: By Mansur Mirovalev
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TVER, Russia — Hundreds of grim citizens jammed a theater here Thursday, vowing to hold parliament accountable for executing President Vladimir Putin’s policies even after he steps down next year.
The gathering was one of the most visible in a series of recent demonstrations, testimonials and appeals across Russia’s 11 time zones, urging Putin to remain in power somehow after his second term ends this spring. He is barred by law from seeking another term as president.
Critics have called the outpouring of support for Putin evidence that a personality cult has sprung up around the 55-year-old former KGB lieutenant colonel. But hundreds of members of the “All Russia Council of Initiative Groups to Support Putin,” who gathered Thursday, listened to a parade of speakers describe Putin’s leadership as crucial to Russia’s future.
“The existence of our group is needed until Putin’s plan is implemented and until we make sure that Putin remains an active leader of our country,” said Irina Nosachevskaya, from Russia’s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.
Colorful banners from Russia’s more than 80 regions decorated the walls of a former theater in this city, surrounded by snowy forests 100 miles northwest of Moscow. But the tone was somber, as council members pledged political allegiance to a president officially heading for retirement.
“We will follow Putin as we followed our commanders during the war,” declared Mikhail Shebanov, who took the stage dressed in a uniform jacket resplendent with Soviet-era medals and ribbons.
Pavel Astakhov, a prominent lawyer and TV personality, told reporters after the meeting that the council wants Putin to remain in power following the parliamentary elections Dec. 2 and the presidential contest in March — and that the title Putin chooses isn’t important.
“We will offer Putin a position from which he will be able to lead the country,” Astakhov said. “After December’s and March’s elections, it’s still possible for him to stay at the helm. The choice is up to him between prime minister, speaker of parliament or the head of the largest party.”
Astakhov denied that support for Putin amounted to a cult of personality, such as those that grew up around Soviet leaders like Josef Stalin. “We had such a strong inoculation against it, that there is no place for it in modern Russia,” he said.
To some critics, the pro-Putin chorus smacks of the highly orchestrated outpourings of sentiments in the Soviet era. And there are questions about how these efforts are being coordinated and financed.
Irina Blokhina, one of coordinators of the All Russia Council, said the council’s expenses have been paid out of donations from businessmen and sympathizers. She denied that any participants received money. “None of us got a kopek,” she said. “We were all working free of charge.”
There is no doubt about Putin’s popularity.
During his presidency, Russia has experienced steady economic growth and recently his approval ratings have hovered above 70 percent. But he has also benefited from the disappearance of opposition voices from most major media — following a Kremlin campaign against Putin’s most powerful critics.
Enthusiastic supporters have urged parliament to amend the constitution to allow Putin to serve a third consecutive term, but he has rejected that idea. He announced Oct. 1 that he might become prime minister, but later denied widespread speculation that he would use the post — if he seeks it — to maintain power.
Putin has insisted he will no longer be in charge after the March presidential elections. But he has left the door open to running for president again in 2012 or earlier, if there are new elections, since the constitution does not rule out a third nonconsecutive term.
Putin last month lent his explicit support to the largest pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, seemingly ensuring its landslide victory in the parliamentary election. He’ll appear on the party ticket in that vote mainly as a figurehead, and is not expected to serve in the legislature.
A big win for the party, he said Tuesday during a trip to Siberia, would give him the “moral right” to hold lawmakers and government officials accountable for implementing his policies.
Also on Thursday, the leader of the Union of Right Forces, or SPS — one of the leading liberal democratic opposition parties — said his group has asked a court to disqualify Putin from appearing on the United Russia ticket.
SPS leader Nikita Belykh accused Putin of violating the law by throwing the Kremlin’s weight behind United Russia in the elections.
In the past, the SPS has been among the most moderate of Kremlin opposition groups, preferring negotiation over confrontation.
But Belykh said Thursday his party would join the Other Russia opposition coalition, which has staged a series of anti-Kremlin demonstrations in the past year. Belykh has previously criticized Other Russia, and one of its co-leaders, former chess champion Garry Kasparov.

TITLE: Man Stabbed in Suspected Hate Attack in St. Petersburg
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: An African-Russian man was hospitalized following a violent street assault by a group of suspected neo-Nazis on Sunday near his home on Ulitsa Aviakonstruktor in northwest St. Petersburg.
Maira Mkama, 24, a second-year Ph D. student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Economics and Administration was stabbed six times in the chest and stomach, badly damaging one kidney and his liver, on his way home from the nearby Kommandantsky Prospekt metro station, at around 8 p.m. 
Although the incident occurred a few hours after FC Zenit St. Petersburg had won the Premier League soccer championship and some fans were going on the rampage, it was not immediately clear if the attack was connected to the evening’s soccer-related hijinks.
“He has had one kidney removed, and blood is urgently needed,” Mkama’s mother Lubov said on Monday as her son lay in intensive care at St. Elizabeth’s hospital. Detectives were yet to gather necessary details by Thursday as Mkama could hardly talk about the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Roman, a detective who declined to give his surname at the Kirovsky District police precinct, confirmed that criminal charges had been filed in connection with the incident. Although he did not rule out hate motives, he said it was “too early to talk about the exact nature of the crime on the basis of circumstantial evidence.”
But according to Mkama, who managed to drag himself back home after the attack, “two of the assailants were in masks, one had his head shaven, but I could not make out the others,” his mother said he told her before he fell into a coma. 
Sergei Trubin, a friend of Mkama’s who was in a courtyard waiting for him to fetch a third friend for an evening out said: “I saw two guys behind us and two others coming from the front while Maira and I were under the arch… they went in Maira’s direction but I did not pay attention particularly as I didn’t suspect them.”
“I stood there waiting for Maira, but when he did not turn up I thought he was stranded at his friend’s place, and so I decided to go back home to call him later, only for his mother to tell me about the attack,” Trubin said.
“I wish I had a gun to shoot them all… [they are] a disgrace to the nation,” Mkama’s mother said, referring to the assailants as skinheads.
 “Fatal stabbing is their style. It’s typical of almost all violent hate incidents in St Petersburg,” she added.
Sunday’s attack came five months after a hate murder in June in which a group of suspected neo-Nazi stabbed a Jewish student. The police, however, described jealousy as a motive behind the murder, saying the boy was killed because of his involvement in a “love triangle.” 
Only two of dozens of hate murders committed in St. Petersburg in the past five years has involved guns. They include the shooting of ethnographer Nikolai Girenko in June 2004 and that of a Senegalese student Lampser Samba in April last year.

TITLE: Freed Architect Welcomed as Hero
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — An architect convicted of killing an air traffic controller over a 2002 midair collision was given a hero’s welcome by Nashi activists as he arrived in Moscow from a Swiss jail Tuesday.
But Vitaly Kaloyev, who lost his wife and children in the crash, said his main desire was to visit the family grave in North Ossetia.
“The most important thing for me is that I will be able to visit the graves of my children, my family,” Kaloyev said in televised remarks.
The 51-year-old was convicted in October 2005 of premeditated homicide in the killing of Peter Nielsen, an air traffic controller with Swiss company Skyguide. Nielsen, a Dane, was the only person on duty when a Bashkirian Airlines Tu-154 and a DHL cargo jet collided on July 1, 2002, in airspace he was responsible for over southern Germany. The crash killed 71 people, mostly schoolchildren on a vacation trip to Spain.
Kaloyev was set free Monday evening and immediately flew to Moscow, following a ruling by a Swiss court last week to cut his sentence from eight to five years and three months. He was ordered released right away because he has served more than two-thirds of his sentence with good behavior.
“I want to express my great thanks to all the citizens of Russia, to the Russian president, for the strong support they have extended to me,” Kaloyev told dozens of journalists upon his arrival at Domodedovo Airport. “While in prison, I did not feel I was away from my motherland.”
Reuters, AP

TITLE: Russian Gives Birth to Quintuplets
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — A Russian woman has given birth to five healthy quintuplet girls at a British hospital after defying Russian doctors who suggested she abort some of the foetuses.
“They’re very well. All five,” Lawrence Impey, a doctor at John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, told BBC radio on Thursday.
Giving birth to quintuplets can be dangerous and historically it has been rare that all five children survive.
The couple were advised in Russia to abort some of the foetuses, but decided to give birth in Britain instead, where their medical costs were said to be paid by a Russian charity.
The babies were born last Saturday, 14 weeks early.
Impey said the biggest of the babies was just under a kilogram in weight, but they were all now out of the most intensive form of care and could return to Russia in the next four to five months.
“The principle risk is that they’re born so early that they don’t survive. And in this case she got to a time when they have survived,” he said.
“Throughout most of the pregnancy, I don’t think she really thought that she was going to end up with five live little babies, and to be fair, we didn’t think that either. 
“So everybody’s absolutely thrilled but, of course, most of all, her and her family.”

TITLE: Missiles May Be Sent to Belarus
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A general warned Wednesday that Russia could deploy short-range missiles to Belarus as part of efforts to counter planned U.S. missile defense sites in Europe, Itar-Tass reported.
Colonel-General Vladimir Zaritsky, chief of artillery and rocket forces for the ground forces, said, “Any action meets a counteraction, and this is the case with elements of the U.S. missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic.”
Zaritsky was responding to his Belarussian counterpart, who said that Russia could provide Belarus with its new short-range Iskander missiles. “Why not? Given adequate conditions and an adequate Belarussian opposition,” Zaritsky said.
Zaritsky said Iskander missiles could strike targets at ranges from 300 to 500 kilometers.
The deployment of Iskander missiles in Belarus would likely put planned U.S. missile defenses in Poland within range; the site in the Czech Republic would likely be out of reach.

TITLE: City Signs Off on Three New Projects
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg government approved land planning for three strategic projects to be implemented in the city — the Krasnoselskaya industrial zone, the Sea Passenger Terminal and a land reclamation project to the west of Vasilievsky Island, the local government press service said Tuesday in a statement.
A total of 414.6 hectares of new land will be created near Vasilievsky Island. Residential buildings will occupy 85.4 hectares, business centers and public facilities — 65.7 hectares, parks and recreational areas — 18.5 hectares. Roads will occupy 204.4 hectares, including 58.8 hectares for the Western High-Speed Link-Road.
Over 1.5 million square meters of residential area will be constructed for 33,800 people as well as shopping and entertainment areas, hotels and an exhibition center.
The Sea Passenger Terminal will occupy 73.7 hectares of land. It will have river mooring berths, four passenger railroad stations and a customs check-point. The terminal will serve 2.8 million people and 726 ships a year. Cruise liners will be served 140 days a year and ferry-boats all year round.
The Krasnoselskaya production zone will occupy 3.857 million square meters between Geologicheskaya Ulitsa, Garazhnaya Ulitsa and the Kingisepskoye Highway. It will house food production enterprises and public areas. Residential buildings will occupy only a small section of the zone.

TITLE: Grain Export Limits Could Be Extended
AUTHOR: By Catrina Stewart
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said Wednesday that the government might extend restrictions on grain exports from January as the authorities struggle to rein in inflation.
But the government’s policy of limiting wheat and barley exports drew criticism from a European Commission trade official, who said it could harm firms relying on raw material supplies from Russia.
“The government does have plans to limit grain exports,” Gordeyev said, Interfax reported. “[Grain] prices are still high on global markets, while exports remain healthy.”
He did not provide details on what form the limitations might take.
Under a new export regime that took effect on Nov. 12, a 10 percent export duty was placed on wheat shipments, while barley was hit with a 30 percent tariff.
The move is a part of a government effort to stem price rises in basic foodstuffs, which have been identified as one of the key drivers of spiraling inflation in the country.
Prior to the implementation of the new tariffs, farmers rushed to export their grain to take advantage of higher international prices, pushing up the ministry’s targeted export figures for the year to as high as 14 million tons.
“We see normal export volumes from 12 million tons to 14 million tons, and the government will be guided by this criterion in restricting exports,” Gordeyev said. The ministry will monitor the effect of the new duties for two weeks, he added.
Peter Balas, deputy director with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade, criticized the move to raise export tariffs beyond the levels agreed in a 2004 agreement on WTO accession between the European Union and Russia.
Speaking at a conference on EU-Russian economic relations in Moscow on Wednesday, Balas said the recent “change in Russia’s economic priorities” would have a negative impact on European companies who rely on supplies from Russia.
Russian and EC officials met last week, where the issue was raised, Balas said.
“We hope to find a solution,” he said.
Speaking at the same event, State Duma Deputy Andrei Klimov, head of a subcommittee on European cooperation, hit back by saying it was Europe’s decision to cut subsidies that had helped drive up food prices in Russia, as many of the goods on the country’s supermarket shelves were imported.
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry has noted a slight slowing in the growth of weekly inflation, but analysts say many of the measures taken by the government have been largely cosmetic.

TITLE: Prosecutors See Reiman, Ipoc Link
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman secretly owns a large part of the country’s telecom industry through an offshore fund, according to “overwhelming evidence” uncovered by the British Virgin Islands government, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing prosecutors.
British Virgin Islands prosecutors plan to charge one of Reiman’s associates, Jeffrey Galmond, with allegedly covering up his investments in the telecommunications industry, the newspaper said. The government has appealed to the U.S. Justice Department for assistance in the investigation. Reiman has denied having investments in companies he regulates.
British Virgin Islands police are investigating whether IPOC International Growth Fund is a front for the “laundering of the proceeds of crime of, amongst others, the IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman,” the Director of Public Prosecutions Terrence Williams said in a letter, the daily said.
The British Virgin Islands prosecutor alleges that IPOC, involved in a dispute over a stake in mobile operator MegaFon, is owned by Reiman through Jeffrey Galmond, the journal said.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>WestCall To Invest</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — WestCall telecom operator will invest between $50 million and $55 million in the development of its network in St. Petersburg by 2012, Interfax reported Tuesday.
By 2011 WestCall plans to cover all city districts with its broadband network, spending $25 million to $30 million on the project. WestCall expects to attract 100,000 subscribers. About $10 million will be invested in IP-telephone services and about $15 million in IP-television.

<b>$400M From Hyundai</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Hyundai Motor Company will invest $400 million in the construction of its plant in the Northwest region of Russia, Interfax reported Thursday.
The new plant will produce 100,000 to 200,000 cars a year. A number of producers of components will open their plants close to the Hyundai plant, investing $300 million in construction. Those production facilities will occupy 60 to 100 hectares of land. The location will be chosen by the end of 2007.

<b>VTB Stats Up</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — VTB Northwest bank increased assets by 30.5 percent during the first nine months of this year, Interfax reported Thursday.
The assets increased to 193.1 billion rubles ($7.88 billion). Net loans increased by 42.8 percent up to 148.4 billion rubles ($6 billion). Deposits increased by 22.8 percent up to 135 billion rubles ($5.5 billion). By October 1, the capital of the bank amounted to 29 billion rubles ($1.18 billion). Net profit increased by 25 percent up to 4.5 billion rubles ($183.6 million).

TITLE: Fuel Shortages Force Gas Stations To Close
AUTHOR: By Maxim Nazarov and Lyudmila Zaramenskikh
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The country’s transportation fuels market is facing its biggest crisis in almost 20 years as severe shortages force some retailers to close their filling stations.
As global oil prices beat records, Russian firms are rushing to export both crude oil and refined products. That, combined with outages at refineries in central Russia, has caused a spike in wholesale gasoline and diesel prices.
The shortages have forced wholesalers to ration supplies to retailers, who in turn are unable to pass on higher costs after pledging to the Kremlin to keep pump prices stable ahead of the Dec. 2 State Duma elections.
“My vacation has gone to hell. I had to race back home after my staff told me that they had nothing to sell,” said Alexander, a wholesaler who declined to give his surname.
Retail prices for A-92 gasoline in the Moscow area average around 19.2 rubles (78 cents) per liter, while wholesale prices at the main regional fuel depot work out at 16.5 rubles.
That works out at a profit margin of around 16 percent, below the 20 percent many retailers need to cover their costs. 
LUKoil and TNK-BP have partly stopped business at their retail networks in the southern regions, while Rosneft’s Siberian retail network has been working intermittently, traders said.
Petrol stations that yield little profit are also being shut down. “Temporarily shutting down filling stations that sell little can be a way to reduce operating costs, instead focusing on sales on busy highways,” a source at LUKoil said.
Moscow city government held a meeting with oil companies and independent traders in the region last week to address the problem, a retailer said.
Russian drivers get easily angered about petrol prices as they ponder why they are on par with the United States, the world’s largest oil importer, while Russia is the second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia.
Although prices for motorists have been capped, they also suffer as access to petrol becomes harder.
Traders say TNK-BP’s shortage has forced it to limit its supply of “summer” diesel fuel and popular A-92 gasoline to drivers, particularly at petrol stations in Rostov-on-Don.
“Some were giving no more than 60 to 100 liters of diesel and 20 liters of A-92 [per vehicle],” a local trader said.
Life is worse for the independent petrol station operators, some of whom are wrapping rubber hoses around their pumps to signal that they are out of fuel.
In Saratov, one trader said he was unable to fill his car for 300 kilometers because of a lack of open petrol stations selling good quality fuel. “On the motorway, people are not able to get A-92 fuel, only low-grade A-80,” he said.
Despite the troubles, many independent petrol stations are soldiering on.
“Closing down a petrol station is not respected and can be embarrassing in front of our competitors, plus you can lose customers for the future,” one filling station owner said.
Low-octane A-80 gasoline has meanwhile disappeared from many stations. Some fly-by-night operators are slipping in octane-boosting additives illegally and profiting by selling the fuel more expensively as A-92.

TITLE: New Oil Exchange To Open in 2008
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The new oil exchange will start operating in St. Petersburg at the beginning of 2008. The Russian ministry for economic development and trade announced Wednesday that St. Petersburg Exchange won the tender to operate the crude oil and oil products exchange.
Nine companies took part in the tender, including Moscow Fund Exchange, St. Petersburg Currency Exchange, National Commodities Exchange, St. Petersburg Exchange, Universal Commercial Exchange (UMEX), Euro-Asian Exchange, St. Petersburg Futures Exchange, Interregional Oil and Gas Exchange and Russian Trading System (RTS).
“On November 12, 2007, the tender commission examined applications and checked whether they met the requirements for the new exchange. Considering the results, the commission voted for St. Petersburg Exchange as winner,” said the statement released Wednesday by the ministry for economic development and trade.
St. Petersburg Exchange was founded in 1991. The company is licensed to organize trading in funds and auctions. Last year the consolidated turnover of funds, futures contracts and commodities at the exchange exceeded 4.1 trillion rubles ($167.38 billion).
Over 280 banks and companies trade at the St. Petersburg Exchange through remote terminals serving 130,000 clients. The trading system covers over 30 Russian cities.
“St. Petersburg Exchange is a high-tech exchange that uses modern software and technological solutions. The Exchange provides technical support to Russian and foreign exchanges. Our range of services allows us to be a universal trade organizer,” said Victor Ignatyuk, head of commodities market department at the St. Petersburg Exchange.
“Winning the tender was predetermined by our wealth of experience in commodities trading and our readiness to invest in the development of this segment,” Ignatyuk said.
The St. Petersburg Exchange will invest 300 million rubles ($12.2 million) into oil trading. The electronic auctioning of crude oil will start at the beginning of 2008. Later the St. Petersburg Exchange plans to introduce standardfutures contracts for crude oil and oil products.
The oil exchange is part of a larger project for the creation of the International Mercantile Exchange in St. Petersburg. In June 2007, the ministry for economic development and trade, the St. Petersburg government and the New-York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) signed an agreement on the establishment of an exchange in St. Petersburg for commodities and raw materials.
One of the goals of this new exchange is to set fair price indicators for Russian oil and other natural resources, both in Russian rubles and foreign currencies. The new exchange will begin by trading Russian crude oil (REBCO/Urals) and later will add oil products, gas and metals.
Mikhail Zak, head of analysis at Veles Capital investment company, said that the Oil Exchange would improve oil pricing in Russia. However, he suggested that St. Petersburg was chosen as the location for the new exchange in order to redistribute cash flows between Moscow and St. Petersburg, rather than being due to the city's proximity to oil pipelines and transport hubs.
Though traders are likely to use the new oil exchange for speculative trade, a number of Russian oil and gas giants showed interest in the oil exchange, including Rosneft, Transneft, Tatneft, Surgutneftegas and Zarubezgneft.
According to a decree issued by the Russian government on June 5, 2007, companies where the state owns a stake of over 25 percent are obliged to buy over 15 percent of crude oil at the new oil exchange.

TITLE: Belarussian Government Slams Sanctions Imposed by U.S. Govt
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MINSK — Belarus said Wednesday it was considering retaliatory moves against the United States in response to financial sanctions on oil processor Belneftekhim.
The Bush administration on Tuesday prohibited Americans doing business with the refining and petrochemical firm and froze any assets it has under U.S. jurisdiction. International banks often follow U.S. banks in such bans.
“We appeal to the United States to refrain from the practice of trying to intimidate our country,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Andri Popov told a news conference. “Should there be unfriendly actions by the United States, Belarus will be obliged to react in appropriate fashion.”
Belneftekhim, the Belarussian State Concern for Oil and Chemistry, has a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, Belneftekhim USA, and is made up of more than 50 petroleum and petrochemical businesses.
Belarus depends almost solely on Russia for the crude oil it refines. Beleneftekhim controls two refineries in Belarus as well as a potash plant and provides one-fifth of all Belarus’ foreign currency earnings.
The United States and European Union accuse President Alexander Lukashenko of hounding and jailing opponents, muzzling the media and rigging polls, including his re-election to a third term last year.
Since that election and the four days of large protests it sparked, Lukashenko and dozens of officials have been barred entry to both the United States and the 27-nation EU.
The United States has little investment in Belarus and it was not clear what form any retaliation might take.

TITLE: Building Institutions, Not Egos
AUTHOR: By Anne Applebaum
TEXT: The French Revolution had its Jacobins and the Russian Revolution erupted in Red Terror. The peaceful revolutions of more recent years weren’t supposed to produce violent counterrevolutions. But now one of them has. 
Indeed, in a single week, the president of Georgia — Mikheil Saakashvili, or Misha to his friends — probably did more damage to U.S. “democracy promotion” than a dozen Pervez Musharrafs ever could have done. After all, no one expected much in the way of democracy from Pakistan. 
But a surprising amount was expected of Georgia. These expectations have now vanished in the crowds of riot police and clouds of tear gas that Saakashvili sent pouring out over the streets of Tbilisi, breaking up street demonstrations there last Wednesday. 
Bruce Jackson, president of the Project on Transitional Democracies, put it best, “Even for those of us who work professionally with self-destructive countries, this was an exceptionally bad day.” 
It is true that Georgia never attracted hordes of enthusiastic Western groupies (let alone the actors and models who flock to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela). Full-time Georgia watchers — a small but hardy group — have long had serious doubts about Misha, a man about whom amazing tales are told, involving wine, women, temper tantrums and even Ferris wheels. 
Nevertheless, during his visit to Tbilisi two years ago, U.S. President George W. Bush did go out on a limb, praising his Georgian counterpart for “building a democratic society ... where a free press flourishes, a vigorous opposition is welcome, and unity is achieved through peace.” Saakashvili’s goons have not only broken up public demonstrations with tear gas, but also smashed up a private television station largely owned by Rupert Murdoch — not the best way, one would think, to attract positive international media coverage.  Now, Bush’s speech sounds not just naive and premature, but usefully idiotic, to paraphrase Lenin. Moreover, the fact that Bush has made no comment about Georgia at all this past week is a disgrace. 
It was not merely predictable that Georgia would somehow go wrong, it was a certainty: Just about all revolutions, even peaceful ones, some- how go wrong. In the decade following 1989, for example, Communists were elected to power in pretty much every central European country. 
Over the subsequent decade, however, many of these same Communist parties were voted out again. Meanwhile, the rest of the region’s politicians gradually grew more competent and more predictable. Over the long term, then, the question is not whether the revolution goes wrong, but how it goes wrong and how long it takes to fix itself. Georgia has achieved many things in the past few years: Investment is up, economic growth is up and the infrastructure is recovering from its post-Soviet collapse. 
But a tradition of peaceful exchange of power has not been established. Democracy is not a single moment where you stage one revolution and — presto — everything changes, but it is a procedure, a course of development that Georgia had yet to complete. Despite Georgia’s achievement in overthrowing the Soviet-style political and economic nomenklatura that had run the country since 1991, it was too early to declare “mission accomplished” in that country. Unfortunately, we did. 
Many excuses can be made for Georgia, and Saakashvili has already made most of them. Clearly, the country’s geography doesn’t bode well for a peaceful evolution to democracy. And the timing isn’t great either: This is not the early 1990s, when Russia was looking inward and when the West had nothing better to do than think up interesting ways to integrate Eastern Europe. 
There is no question that the government of President Vladimir Putin has used every tool at its disposal to undermine Saakashvili, from economic boycotts to separatist movements to military threats. Nevertheless, for Saakashvili to accuse the entire political opposition — critical journalists, street demonstrators and all — of collaborating with Russia is not credible. Besides, whatever problems you have, you clearly don’t solve them by smashing television equipment. 
Ironically, all of this has disturbing echoes of another mistake made by another U.S. president not that long ago and in the same part of the world. Over and over again throughout the 1990s, Bill Clinton told Boris Yeltsin that he was a democrat. In one summit after another, the U.S. president praised his Russian counterpart as an example. Even as Yeltsin shot his parliament with tanks, revived the KGB and started the repressive processes that culminated in the selection of Putin as his successor, the U.S. government kept using the words “democracy” and “free market” about Russia, hoping it would all come out right. 
It didn’t. Picking democratic “friends,” it seems, is no easier than picking winning horses. We’d be better off building institutions, not egos. I hope that next time we will. 

Anne Applebaum is a columnist for The Washington Post, where this comment appeared.

TITLE: 21st-Century Dystopia
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: The anti-utopian literary genre of the 20th century was led by Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We,” Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and George Orwell’s “1984.”
And now, at the start of the 21st century, it turns out that dystopias really exist. They are not global, but exist on tiny, isolated islands of time and space. They are run by leaders whose golden statues slowly rotate on pedestals in their countries’ central squares. They appear on television like lords descending from the heavens, presented as saviors of the motherland and all-powerful defenders against the foreign enemies.
Dystopian regimes are called rogue nations of the 21st century, and they all have similar qualities.
First, none of these countries’ leaders considers himself a despot. They call their governments “true” or “sovereign” democracies — in contrast to “false” or “Western” democracies. The United Nations has reported that even the Myanmar junta claims to be building a “genuine democracy” in Burma. But be careful here: Whenever a ruler adds an adjective before the word democracy, you probably have a dystopian society.
Second, the economies in these dystopias are in an appalling condition. In North Korea, for example, people are dying of hunger, and the gasoline shortages in Iran remind me of the old, Soviet anecdote:
Question: “What would happen if they built communism in the Sahara Desert?”
Answer: “There would immediately be sand shortages.”
Even countries with only a mild form of dystopia will lag behind the economic development of democratic countries because the main economic resources on which they rely are oil and gas, whereas the primary economic resource in the democratic world is freedom.
The only option for the rulers of economically isolated, backward and destitute countries is to dump the blame for all of their internal problems on the machinations of their supposed enemies.
There is one category of nations that does everything it can to strike fear among countries of the free world. Iran is a good example. It is rushing to achieve this level of fear by trying to create a nuclear weapons program. There is a second category of countries that also brings xenophobic and anti-Western rhetoric to a boiling point, but for domestic consumption only. This is how Russia operates.
The first approach espoused by Iran is usually taken by dystopian regimes whose bank accounts are already frozen in Western banks and whose leaders believe that having absolute authority in their own countries is more important than owning a villa in Nice. The second approach, represented by Russia, is chosen by dystopian leaders with significant assets in the West. These leaders view their high government posts as an opportunity to amass great personal wealth. They understand that if push comes to shove, the West could deliver the most powerful blow to the dystopian leaders’ most vulnerable spot by revealing and possibly freezing their foreign bank accounts.
Dystopias do not represent mankind’s future but its past. Modern dystopian leaders are very similar to Nero in the 1st century or Persian King Shapura in the 3rd century. They hand out provinces, high-ranking posts and oil companies with one stroke of a pen. In their capacity as benevolent “national leaders,” they are always struggling against exaggerated — and often invisible — enemies. And they attempt, in vain, to cover up their countries’ 1,000-year economic and technological backwardness in an era of personal computers and satellite telephones.
In the end, all of these Neros and other capricious despots who have ruled the world for so many centuries have never been able to make new discoveries or inventions, such as satellite telephones or computers. This is probably because their enemies got in the way.

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

TITLE: A common language
AUTHOR: By Jessica Bachman
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: When Rudi Eastwood came to St. Petersburg in 2005 to continue his studies in conducting under the direction of Russian conductor Peter Gribanov, he practiced his art before an orchestra of imaginary musicians. Over the orchestral sounds of two pianos, playing the part of each invisible instrument, Gribanov would exclaim, “you forgot to bring in the bassoon!”
“It’s difficult being a young conductor,” said 25-year-old Eastwood, discussing the formidable task of gaining access to orchestra time with real musicians.
 “You can either win a big competition or try to make things happen yourself.”
Eastwood’s studies in St. Petersburg pushed him toward the second path. 
After a year of ambitious collaborations with Russian and British musicians, composers and producers, he created the city’s first St. Petersburg British Music Festival, which began on Oct. 31 and runs until Dec. 2. 
The festival’s ambitious and comprehensive program includes 11 concerts and chamber recitals in some of the city’s most respected concert halls; two seminars with contemporary British composers and musicologists; and a film screening at Dom Kino.
Concert participants include: the St. Petersburg State Academic Orchestra, the Capella Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of the Troitsky Cultural Center — an amateur ensemble — young musicians from the St. Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory and both British and Russian conductors. 
“He [Eastwood] phoned me up to share his… well his shock actually, that Russian students hadn’t heard of [British 20th Century composer Ralph] Vaughan Williams,” said Edward Clark, the festival’s producer and president of the United Kingdom Sibelius Society.
“He told me of his idea to perform a Vaughan Williams symphony in St. Petersburg and that little idea has turned into the biggest celebration of British music ever to be performed in Russia.” 
According to Clark, who spoke at a press conference on Tuesday, the festival was “centered around” Thursday’s concert at the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace on Nevsky Prospekt. Malcolm Arnold’s English Dances and three works by the distinguished contemporary composers James Brown, David Matthews and Matthew Taylor were performed.
“The concert on Nov. 15 has given us the opportunity to focus on lesser-well known composers… on Malcolm Arnold,” Clark announced. 
“I knew Russians would love Arnold… He is best known for writing film music but he also wrote nine symphonies.”
Clark reinforced the British-Russian connection by mentioning that Arnold had met the Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich twice. When it came to deciding what pieces and composers to include in the festival, Clark asked Eastwood: “Shall we show them what living composers produce as well?”
The answer was a definitive: “Yes.” 
The festival now features 16 contemporary British composers — six will be present in the city during the performances — in addition to the acclaimed British composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Vaughan Williams, Arnold, John Ireland, Edward Elgar, Benjamin Brittan and Frederick Delius. 
“We wanted to get as much variety as possible,” said Eastwood.
“British music isn’t played often here in St. Petersburg and the music students at the conservatoire were keen to know more about British music.” 
Until Oct. 31, the opening night of the festival, Malcolm Arnold’s Fifth Symphony had still never been performed in Russia, said Eastwood. 
“In fact,” he added, “a lot of this music is a Russian premiere.”
But despite the festival’s originality and strong sense of purpose, raising the funds to execute it proved challenging.
“It’s hard to find money for classical music,” said Yelena Kostyuchenko, the festival’s Russian producer. “It’s not a sporting event. It’s not a pop concert.”
The festival received support from many British trust funds, foundations, companies and individuals.
“But a third of our funds came from Russian sources,” said Clark, who considers this large percentage a big success for a “new festival.” 
Clark, however, sought funding mostly in Moscow. 
“It is almost impossible to raise money in St. Petersburg,” he said, claiming that wealthy Russians looking to donate to the arts in the city are encouraged by the Kremlin to give to the Mariinsky Theater. “It helps the Kremlin save some money on funding the Mariinksy,” he said.
The majority of the festival’s concerts are free, said Kostyuncheko, who was responsible for booking and negotiating payments with Russian orchestras, musicians and venues for the concerts.
“We wanted to assemble excellent musical collectives, professional orchestras, composers, and yet make the concerts accessible to all. At first I thought this was a romantic, a fantastic idea. But thanks to Clark’s ability to find the funds and Rudi’s determination, stubbornness and devotion, it became a reality.” 
At the festival press conference, Clark spoke of the need to strengthen the presence of British music in the city.
“About 50 percent of the music being played in British concert halls was written by composers from St. Petersburg or in St. Petersburg… And we can all guess by who.”
So while Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov “dominate concert programs” in Britain, “only two composers of British music, Elgar and Benjamin Britten, are known here in Russia,” said Clark.
But as the festival progresses, Russian musicians and audiences are dismantling this unfamiliarity with British music. 
Maria Voltovskaya, a violinist in the Modus String Quartet, is one of Eastwood’s many conservatory acquaintances who was eager to learn British music for the festival.
“Before this, I knew a little bit of Britten, but that was it,” said Voltovskaya, who will be playing Arnold’s Second String Quartet with the Modus String Quartet on Nov. 30 in the Sheremetev Palace on the Fontanka.  
“We have never played Arnold before,” she explained. “This is a bright-sounding, unusual piece. And the music is not easy to play. It’s 20th century so there are allusions to other composers in it. There were several moments when we were reminded of Bartok.” 
According to Eastwood, after Gribanov —  the artistic director and principal conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society and principal conductor of Kazakhstan’s Karaganda Symphonic Orchestra, and Eastwood’s teacher — attended the festival’s opening concert on Oct. 31, he became “very enthusiastic about British music.”
“Now he wants to do a British music festival in Karaganda,” said Eastwood, who cleverly went on to dispel puzzled looks that cropped up at the mention of the city. “Karagana,” Eastwood said, “is to the Russians what Timbuktu is to the British. It’s like when British people talk about Timbuktu, nobody really knows where it is.” 
Music from the festival may also make it to the northern city of Murmansk.
Last week, after Maria Chernova, a pianist and graduate of the conservatory, had a chance to look over two Arnold pieces for violin and piano, she told Clark that she would try to play both at the festival.  But if time doesn’t allow her to learn both, she will play one at the festival and the other at a January concert in Murmansk. 
Looking back on the moment with Chernova, Clark said: “A lot of this music really stands a chance to be replayed in Russia. What more can I ask for?”

www.britishmusicfest.co.uk

TITLE: Chernov’s
         choice
TEXT: “I have to admit it’s getting better,” sang Paul McCartney as a member of The Beatles in 1967. 
Or, on a murkier note, “Life has become better, life has become more cheerful,” as Joseph Stalin said in 1936, months before unleashing the mass repressions of 1937.
<b>Boris Grebenshchikov</b>, the founder of Akvarium and once a semi-banned underground musician and driving force of the “Soviet rock revolution” of the 1980s, is now toeing the party line. He describes how Russia is flourishing under the rule of President Vladimir Putin — carefully choosing not to touch on any negative aspects, be it limitations imposed on the media or the shutting down of democratic institutions of the 1990s.
“People say that life has become easier,” he said in an interview published in the Gazprom-owned newspaper Izvestiya this week. 
Grebenshchikov, who claimed he does not read newspapers or watch television, said he gets his information directly from the people in the provinces — and, for some reason, Germany.
“Five years ago they were saying that it looks like it’s getting better. But they were saying it not very confidently. During the last year they all started to assure me in one voice that it’s really getting better. And when I was in Germany, the Germans were telling me that they changed their attitude toward Russia.”
In the past few years, Grebenshchikov, who has been awarded a state medal and is friends with Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov, has not hesitated in praising Putin and his politics, but is now doing it amid the Kremlin-backed “Za Putina” (For Putin) campaign, in which some ardent supporters, such as film director Nikita Mikhalkov, have been asking Putin not to leave office in March 2008 in open letters.
Although Grebenshchikov objected the notion of the third term in office for Putin as unconstitutional, he said that power should not change hands in Russia.
“I think that if power remains stable for a long time, the country will start to get better after the traumas of the whole of the 20th century... And now I see that, at the end of [Putin’s] eight-year term, Russia is starting to straighten up a little. I just pray to God that this straightening up will continue. It should continue for another 20-30 years, so that we should return to the norm a little.”
However, another quote makes Grebenshchikov’s observations look somewhat doubtful. When asked what he did still not like about Russia, he said: “I don’t have precise information about what goes on.”
Music-wise, <b>Gosti</b> bar has closed, Dead Can Dance singer <b>Lisa Gerrard</b> will perform at Music Hall on Tuesday and Israeli avant-jazz band <b>Edom</b> (from John Zorn’s Tzadik Records) will perform a free concert as part of Day Aleph, a monthly Israeli culture event, on Sunday. See Gigs for the rest.

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Affirmative action
AUTHOR: By Olga Sharapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Jon Anderson, the musician and high-voiced singer from progressive rock band Yes, also known for his own diverse projects, began a European tour in Belgium earlier this month and on Tuesday performs in St. Petersburg at the State Academic Capella.
This is Anderson’s second visit to Russia who said he enjoys being here. 
“Everywhere I can, I listen to music and I was pleased to see that Russians like music, dancing and sport very much,” Anderson said by telephone from Belgium.  “Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite composer’s from my early days. When I was a young musician I met [Russian artist] Marc Chagall. I have written the musical about his life. So I have made music about Russia and its Revolutionary times. I can say that Stravinsky became my God in music. Russian culture is a big, big part of my life,” he said.
“In addition, [Finnish composer] Sibelius is like a teacher for me. I listen to his music every day.”
Talking about the importance of classical music, Anderson noted that structures from classical music, as well as jazz, folk and rock structures are important in the music of Yes.
“So, if you love a combination of all these things, you have Yes music,” Anderson said.
Yes and Anderson himself like using a number of rare musical instruments such as the clavichord, the lute, the harp and others, and these can be heard on classic albums such as “Fragile”(1971), “Tales from Topographic Oceans” (1973), “Relayer”(1974) and “Big Generator” (1987).
Founded in 1968, Yes is still active, although the group has had a checkered history. Anderson, Rick Wakeman and other members of Yes left the group several times, tried other projects and are now reformed.
Anderson worked in collaboration with Greek musician Vangelis, Kitaro, a composer from Japan, King Crimson (on its 1970 album “Lizard”), violinist Charlie Bishard, and other musicians. 
“ I love modern music,” Anderson said. “ I was very lucky to work with some young musicians this year in New York and Philadelphia. Although they were teenagers, they could play music of Yes and Led Zeppelin.”
Anderson’s passion for music, sport and Buddhism are well known. 
“I can say that my music is only tiny part of music. But it is a good thing to be a part of the world and to be a creator of your life and music. But, for instance, if I weren’t a musician, I would be a football player — for Manchester United!” Anderson said. 
As for his current European tour and appearance in St. Petersburg, Anderson promises a selection of songs from his long and varied career.

www.jonanderson.com

TITLE: Orchestral maneuvers
AUTHOR: By Chris Pasles
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: Asked to name the flagship orchestra of Russia, many people would answer the Kirov, helmed by the indefatigable Valery Gergiev. He and his players, after all, have received considerable media attention for, among other things, presenting Wagner’s “Ring” cycle in the U.S., including at the Orange County Performing Arts center.
But other, perhaps more experienced music lovers wouldn’t pause a second before naming a different ensemble from the same city: the St. Petersburg Philharmonic led by Yury Temirkanov. Southern California audiences will have their latest opportunity to see why when the orchestra plays four area concerts this month, beginning Nov. 12 in San Diego and continuing in Santa Barbara, Costa Mesa and Los Angeles.
The St. Petersburg’s pedigree is more than impressive. The orchestra traces its origins to 1802, when a group of music-loving aristocrats formed Europe’s first Philharmonic Society. It went on to present the world premiere of Beethoven’s mighty “Missa Solemnis” in 1824.
The orchestra also premiered works by such iconic 19th century Russian composers as Borodin, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. And the tradition continued into the 20th century. Six of Shostakovich’s 15 symphonies received their first performances by the Petersburg, which was renamed the Leningrad Philharmonic when St. Petersburg changed names in the 1920s after the Russian Revolution. (The orchestra reverted to its original name in 1991, shortly after the city returned to its earlier name as well.)
For 50 years, from 1938 until his death in 1988, the orchestra was led by the great Yevgeny Mravinsky, who spread its international fame through tours and recordings. After he died, Temirkanov took over.
“When I came to this orchestra, it was the premier orchestra in Russia,” Temirkanov, 69, said through an interpreter recently from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where the orchestra’s 20-city U.S. tour opened. “It remains that today. This is my great pride.”
His pride appears justified. Of the opening performance in Washington, Baltimore Sun critic Tim Smith wrote: “All of Temirkanov’s familiar traits that local audiences got to savor during his seven seasons as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra were very much on display. The alternately sweeping, fluttering, slicing arm gestures that fly in the face of how-to-conduct textbooks; the combination of control and spontaneity; the sense of music being not so much made as being lived — it was great encountering all that magic again.”
Temirkanov led the Baltimore Symphony from 2000 to 2006 and remains its music director emeritus. In fact, his plate is full. He is also principal guest conductor of the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow and the Danish National Symphony, conductor laureate of the Royal Philharmonic in London and artistic director of St. Petersburg’s annual Arts Square International Winter Festival. Then there’s his guest conducting in Europe, Britain and the U.S.
“My schedule varies from year to year, but the main thing is the St. Petersburg Philharmonic,” he said. “I spend a lot of time touring with them and plan my season around the orchestra.”
The ensemble’s Southern California presenters include Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Dean Corey, executive director of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.
“The orchestra’s remarkable history parallels the history of the development of Western music in the 1800s and 1900s,” Borda said. “They also have an absolutely beautiful hall in St. Petersburg called the Grand Hall, which is one of the greatest places to hear music. You sit there and think about the ghosts of Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky, who actually conducted the orchestra.
“When any Russian musician or music lover talks about it, they speak in deep reverential tones,” she observed. “Plus, when you see these people in the orchestra, you know their fathers played in the orchestra. There’s a real tradition that’s been handed down.”
Said Corey: “I remember the great Leningrad Philharmonic which this orchestra was — or is — which certainly was the dominant orchestra over anything at the Mariinsky Theater. Recently, with Gergiev, that certainly has greatly changed people’s perspective. Still, it’s this great orchestra. We’ve had them twice since I’ve been here, but never with Temirkanov.”
Corey is aware that some people may not know the orchestra’s illustrious history. “Branding of orchestras in general has changed dramatically from what it was,” he said. “Take the Cleveland Orchestra. Older folk remember the great George Szell years, or classical aficionados know them from their great recordings. But for someone new to classical music, Cleveland is where Drew Carey is from.
“I’ve found with the Kirov, that name is a little tough to sell,” he added. “The Bolshoi Orchestra, which is not as good, sells easily. Anything with ‘Moscow’ in front of it sells really well. ‘Russian.’ But ‘St. Petersburg’? Some people may be thinking it’s from Florida. That’s part of the great transition as we move to the future.”
Still, he said, “Any time they’re available, we’ll try to bring them. The quality is high. It’s the real thing. Our main folks are very aware of who they are and know their history.”
Temirkanov acknowledged all the compliments, but he was equally complimentary about American orchestras. “There is a Russian sound,” he said. “It is a good sound — when the strings are not just playing the notes but engage in the music. They give themselves to the music and the result is a very good sound, a special sound. But I remember the same applied to the Philadelphia Orchestra. All string players are special.”
Temirkanov, however, has one advantage that most American orchestras don’t — the luxury of rehearsal time. “In my orchestra, I can work as much as I want, and fortunately we don’t have trade unions that get in my way,” he said.
He put the same idea more forcefully in an interview with the Times of London in 2005. “If trade unions continue to exist as they are they will kill culture,” he said. “At least here [in Russia] nobody in management says: ‘You let the orchestra go an hour early, but we have to pay them for three hours.’ At first, the intention of trade unions was very good. The Communists also wanted to make everybody happy. But any good intention when it’s taken to extremes becomes absurd.” 
As for the great Russian performance tradition handed down from families of players, “Yes, there’s a very strong tradition, but membership in the orchestra depends on the auditions,” he said.
After this American tour, scheduled to end in Seattle on Nov. 20, the orchestra is booked in Paris and then for the Winter Festival in St. Petersburg, “which is where we invite the best of the Russian artists and also some new, young talent,” Temirkanov said.
Beyond that, he hopes to record all of Mahler’s symphonies and music by Prokofiev. “I value Prokofiev very highly because he is one of the greatest composers of the 20th century,” he said. “This is my dream. Not all of his works are performed enough.”
(The orchestra’s program at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa will include Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony and the suite from his ballet “Romeo and Juliet.” Temirkanov will also conduct the latter the following night at Walt Disney Concert Hall.)
As for Gergiev and the Kirov, Temirkanov has no feelings of rivalry. Gergiev made his opera debut when he was assistant conductor at the Kirov Opera under Temirkanov, and he took over there as chief conductor and artistic director only after Temirkanov left to helm the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
Moreover, it is thanks to Temirkanov that both orchestras  still exist. When they were imperiled because of seriously reduced state funding, Temirkanov knew exactly who to go to.
“About five years ago, I asked President Putin if I could talk to him about the state of our orchestras,” he said. “As a result, five major orchestras and two conservatories in Moscow were given grants which increased the musicians’ salaries probably eight times.
“But the provincial orchestras are still in a very difficult situation,” he said. “So I am going back to the government to get support for them too.”

TITLE: It was twenty years ago today...
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: “The future is bright and unpredictable. Nothing scares us now.” 
That was the last sentence in Artyom Troitsky’s “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” the celebrity journalist’s personal account of rock music in the Soviet Union, published in the U.K. in 1987. Written at the height of optimism caused by Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, the book celebrated a phenomena that Troitsky helped form as a music journalist and underground concert promoter. 
Twenty years later the book has been republished in Russian by St. Petersburg’s Amphora Publishing House. Troitsky is still subversive, criticizing Kremlin politicies — and some of his book’s main characters, who have turned conformist under President Vladimir Putin. But now he is not sure about his 1987 closing statement. 
“As to ‘The future is bright and unpredictable,’ of course, the second part has come true, 100 percent of it. There can be different opinions about the first part, though,” said Troitsky, sitting in a Novotel room rented by his publisher for a series of press interviews. 
“Back in the U.S.S.R.” happened to be the first — both in Russia and the West — and one of the very few books about the phenomenon. Originally published by Omnibus Press as “Back in the U.S.S.R. The True Story of Rock in Russia” in the U.K. in 1987, with the author’s name spelt as Artemy Troitsky, the book’s Russian version (published by Iskusstvo), came out in the Soviet Union in 1990, but had not been republished until recently. 
The Soviet version was called “Rok v Soyuze: 60-ye, 70-ye, 80-ye…” (Rock in the Union: the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s…), but now Troitsky is happy to have it republished in Russian under its original title. 
The story behind “Back in the U.S.S.R.” dates back to May 1986, when Troitsky, with pop diva Alla Pugachyova, promoted the stadium charity concert “Account 904” to raise funds for victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster which occurred in April that year. 
“I got the idea [of organizing the charity concert], I knew that I could hardly cope with it alone, so I went to Pugachyova, who was my close friend then, and then we went together to Alexander Yakovlev, then the main ideologist at the Communist Party’s Central Committee,” said Troitsky.
“He gave his full approval, despatched a pair of his guys to carry out our every whim, and actually the concert was put together in a week.”
Held less than a year after Live Aid, when the West was in the grip of Gorbymania, the concert, which featured mainly officially approved pop acts with an exception of then-underground band Bravo, received massive international media attention, and Troitsky was picked up by foreign correspondents as “Russia’s Bob Geldof.”
“There were a great number of people there, and a huge amount of money was raised, too,” he said.
“Of course, the maximum number of Western journalists flew in, because too many ‘sweet’ subjects met in one point — the subject of Chernobyl, the subject of the first Soviet charity concert, which was a trendy thing then with Bob Geldof and Live Aid, and the subject of Russian rock.”
In London, Chris Charlesworth, the editor of Omnibus Press and the former editor of Melody Maker, came up with the idea of a book about rock music in the Soviet Union after reading a report by The Guardian’s then-Moscow correspondent Martin Walker.
“Chris Charlesworth, who didn’t know how to reach me, but was subscribed to The Guardian and read Martin Walker’s famous perestroika reports, found Martin Walker through The Guardian and asked Martin Walker, who often wrote about me because we were friends, traveled and hanged out together, to pass his request to me. 
“I got the offer in June 1986 and started to work on the book at once, little by little. Traveled some places, taped a number of interviews, got down to work and in spring 1987 the manuscript was ready and even translated.”
Written when few people could predict the Soviet Union’s impending collapse, “Back in the U.S.S.R.” also profiled music scenes in the Soviet republics, giving a lot of space to the Baltics.
“Actually, that’s the formal reason why I chose not to continue this book. It deals with the U.S.S.R., and now we have a totally different country. Also I’m afraid that I don’t know that much about Baltic, Transcaucasian and Ukrainian music now and simply may not write about it responsibly.”
Twenty years later, Troitsky is critical of some of the book’s characters for conformism and loss of momentum, notably Akvarium’s Boris Grebenshchikov. Intense and subversive in the 1980s, Grebenshchikov now has dealings with Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov and praises Putin’s rule. But Troitsky does not deny Akvarium’s contribution to Russian rock music in the past.
“I think there was a period in Akvarium’s history when this band was interesting,” Troitsky said.
“I would define this period with the dates 1979 and 1983. And that was all. After that I think ‘the air left the body’ for me.”
Troitsky said his current attitude to Russian rock music stems from personal changes, too.
“The whole story about what has happened since then falls into two parts, one dealing with the rock music scene and the other dealing with me personally,” he said. 
“I am not that inclined to blame today’s rock music for its worthlessness, lack of talent and lack of right motivations, even if to a certain extent I think that all exists, definitely. But I rather tend to stress that my attitude to this whole story has changed drastically. I started to see things differently. 
“As I wrote in the book, I have never been interested in the music of Russian rock; with rarest exceptions, it didn’t impress me. What was more interesting for me was its existential aura, I mean, I was interested in those people, in those situations — dangerous, adventurous and somehow noble — that we all used to find ourselves in. 
“But if we’re speaking about the songs, I was more interested in the lyrics, rather than the music. I really think that poetically Russian rock is at least not worse than American, although it’s absolutely different, of course. 
“So when this paradigm of the 1970s/80s Soviet rock that was dear to me disappeared, evaporated, inevitably I lost my interest in it. But speaking about the music itself, I always say that we have some quite likable guys, whose work I treat with sympathy and understanding.” 
Even though civil liberties and freedom of speech have been gradually stifled under Putin’s rule, there is no new rock revolution in sight, according to Troitsky.
“There are certain speculative, theoretical prerequisites,” he said.
“It’s evident that the current Russian Federation, with the exception of […] its market economy and disappearing democratic add-ons, has virtually rolled back, full-time and full-scale, toward the Soviet Union of the early 1980s.
“So there appears the idea that if there is clampdown, if there is censorship again, this and that, then the young people will get angry and there will be some new rock wave. But practically, nothing like this is happening, at least on my observations. Though I’d be utterly happy if it happened.”
However, Troitsky also traces Russian rock music’s decline to international circumstances.
“The reasons are not fully clear to me, I think in many aspects it has something to do with the situation in global rock,” he said.
“All this rock energy was fed by what was rock in the rest of the world. I can’t imagine Akvarium or Mike [Zoopark’s Mikhail Naumenko] or [Kino’s Viktor] Tsoy without their Westernist music-fan streak. I knew them pretty well. First and foremost, they were fans — some of Lou Reed, some of Marc Bolan, some of Duran Duran — and only secondly they started scribbling their own songs.
“Globally, this inspiring rock situation stimulated rock music here. There isn’t anything like this anymore. What is Western rock now? Linkin fucking Park? It’s hilarious.”
But at least one character, Mikhail Borzykin of St. Petersburg band Televizor, who was famous for his outspoken anti-authoritarian lyrics in the 1980s, did not turn conformist, continues to perform his defiant songs and is now a frequent sight at opposition rallies. 
“It’s like a preserved band, I know. Moreover, Borzykin wears the same clothes on stage that he wore 20 years ago. An amazing person.” 

Artyom Troitsky’s “Back in the U.S.S.R.” is published in Russian by Amphora Publishing House.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: This week, Britain’s Mail on Sunday called 15-year-old fashion designer Kira Plastinina a “spoilt bratski,” as the paper put it in fluent tabloidski, after she invited Paris Hilton to attend her show at Moscow Fashion Week. Well, invited is a nice way of putting it. There was an added incentive of a reported $2 million — although no official word on that — and a couple of nights in a 6,000 euro presidential suite. Oh, and some free clothes, too.
I would feel better about this if I knew that Kira’s father, milk mogul Sergei Plastinin, was taking it out of her pocket money for the next 4,000 years. But I don’t want to sound like spoilsport rapper Timati, who proudly told Tvoi Den tabloid that he would ditch the show because Hilton isn’t as cool as her Russian equivalent. “I don’t understand why people are getting so excited about her coming,” he said. “There is nothing interesting about her. She doesn’t compare to our Kseniya Sobchak.”
The many bandanna-ed rapper made it clear that not going to the Hilton shindig was a matter of principle for him — although he didn’t make it quite so clear whether he was invited. “I didn’t even think of going to the show or meeting her in person,” he boasted. 
This was all a bit cheeky, given that Timati ripped off Paris’ porn tape in a recent music video, in which he cavorted with Kseniya under infra-red light while wearing some questionable boxer shorts.
For those, like Timati, who were simply too cool to attend the show, the tabloids filled the breach, giving a step-by-step guide to Paris’ two-day stay in Moscow. After arriving in a private jet, she was met by a motorcade of three black Mercedes saloons that drove her to the Ararat Park Hyatt — there isn’t a Hilton hotel in Moscow — where she stayed with Jason Moore, whom the Russian tabloids called her boyfriend, even though he’s generally said to be her manager. 
After attending the show, she had dinner with Kira and her parents at ultra-pricey restaurant Turandot, where they feasted on black caviar (Extinction threat? What extinction threat?) and vodka, although presumably Kira was too young to indulge. Channel One host Andrei Malakhov was invited, too, as were some young actors, including Pavel Derevyanko, in case the conversation dried up. 
Then she went along to a karaoke bar and danced on a sofa with Malakhov — this sounds very strange, but Tvoi Den provided photographic evidence to prove it. The tabloid wrote that she visited the ladies’ room every half-hour, artlessly adding, “Why she did this remained a secret.” Finally, she went back to her hotel and the party continued with champagne and some of the young actors.
The next day, Hilton was supposed to go to a press briefing at one of Plastinina’s stores at noon, Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote. She turned up fashionably late at around 5 p.m., and her minder refused to let her answer any questions about her fee. Estimates varied: MK put the figure at $1 or $2 million, while Tvoi Den said it was only 2 million rubles, or $80,000. 
Finally, Hilton’s free clothes were packed up at the store in pink bags. This took five people 15 minutes, MK wrote. So it was not the most taxing way to earn $2 million. And she didn’t even sing.
The Mail on Sunday article, which was later quoted almost word for word in Izvestia and MK, only gave Plastinina four out of a possible five “spoilt bratski” stars for the Hilton episode — the designer apparently works hard, and talks about her active role in creating the teenage clothing brand, which is sold in stores around Russia. But I think Hilton earned the full five.

TITLE: Sweet and sour
AUTHOR: By Matt Brown
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Don Khuan // 41 Kazanskaya Ulitisa. Tel: 314 9629 // Open 11 a.m. through 11 p.m. // Menu in Russian only // Dinner for two with beer 1118 rubles ($45).
Not to be confused with Saigon, another Chinese restaurant nearby at the Voznesensky end of Kazanskaya Ulitsa, Don Khuan announces itself at street level with an entirely predictable display of red lanterns and a red sandwich board painted in gold letters in an “oriental” font.
A few steps down into the basement-level restaurant and there’s a choice of a hall to the left and a hall to the right. There is not much to distinguish them. Both are unprepossessing, if not forlorn. Sparse, square rooms lined with dining room tables with white and red nylon tablecloths. Dark flock wallpaper and weird prints of Chinese dragons in frames. Glaring overhead lighting. And a bar at the far end of the left-hand room with shelves that are bare but for a few bottles of beer. 
Despite the rather downbeat appearance of Don Khuan, it is clear the place has a following. Every table is occupied — a family celebration, a middle-aged couple, a trio of men with a carafe of vodka — and two petite waitresses glide effortlessly about, placing and retrieving menus, plates and ashtrays with a quiet efficiency. With the lulling strings of a Mantovani orchestra playing “My Heart Will Go On” wafting over the loudspeakers, the feeling of mild recreation hangs in the air.
Don Khuan doesn’t have a liquor license but welcomes guests to bring along wine or spirits and is happy to serve them for a nominal corkage fee. On the other hand, a large selection of bottled beers from China is on offer as well as draft Nevskoye for 60 rubles for 0.5 liters ($2.45). 
Aside from its puzzling name (neither Don Juan or Don Zhuan), which may contain a cheeky pun in Russian, what else sets Don Khuan apart from dozens of similar Chinese cafes in St. Petersburg? Put simply, the food.
A mercifully concise menu offers the standards of Chinese cuisine, including a good selection of duck dishes. With few variations, each dish weighs in at 300 grams — a hearty plateful — and are priced reasonably at around 250 rubles ($10). Sides for less than 100 rubles include gloopy noodles and vegetables in a meaty sauce, ivory-hued steamed bread rolls and heaps of variegated fried rice. 
The spring rolls are a real bargain. At 88 rubles ($3.50), the dish consists of five glistening rolls — known on the menu as blinichki po-kitaisky — each at least 15 centimeters long. End to end that would be three-quarters of a meter of spring roll. Stuffed with bamboo shoots steaming with a fresh-cut grass aroma, the rolls are light and crispy and appear to have been fried in a very clean, light oil. Presentation plays a bit part in Don Khuan: the rolls were served naked on a white plate, and deceived with their unappetizing appearance. 
A dish featuring the watery combination of duck and seafood, however, was accompanied with a red rose carved from a carrot and dyed with beet juice. It was the most successful touch of the dish, which otherwise failed to capitalize on the combination of flavors gleaned from sweet duck meat and salty clams and squid since it was swamped by a brown sauce.
From the chef’s menu — and having been recommended by a diner who left a comment on Don Khuan’s entry at the online Russian-language restaurant directory www.allcafe.info — the sweet and sour pork ribs proved a real treat. Each in a mound of dark meaty pieces, served on a bed of Chinese leaves, had been covered in a crisp, sticky honey batter. The meat inside was satisfyingly fatty and fell away from the bones to melt in the mouth. The only problem — this is true of many of Don Khuan’s dishes — is that so much pork is served it is difficult to finish before it goes cold and its irresistible taste fades.

TITLE: Talk of
      the town
TEXT: A brief word of apology to our friends at Mari Vanna, reviewed last week in the Dish — the phone number for this Petrograd Side eatery contained a misprint and should have read 230 5359. Apologies also go to the unfortunate owners of the misprinted number, who have apparently been plagued by calls all week asking for tables for two, the arrangements of banquets and the like. 
The season of good cheer is already upon us. This Sunday the Grand Palace will be celebrating the birthday of Father Christmas — or, rather, Father Frost, in his Russian embodiment — in its Boutique Gallery. For the second year running, there will be children’s fashion shows, games, prizes, competitions, circus performers and even a special wooden house constructed by Rovaniemi for the occasion. But how do they know that Nov. 18 is Father Frost’s birthday? Well, that the date it’s celebrated in his homeland, the town of Veliky Ustyug in the Vologda Oblast in the north of Russia. True, the Finns might have something to say about this… 
An advance warning — this December, the Kannon Dance Center will be celebrating its 10th anniversary and the event is being marked with a series of events. First and foremost, this Saturday, there will be a Petersburg premiere of a production entitled “The Songs of Comitas”, featuring a wealth of Armenian compositions. The production has already been well-received in Moscow. 
And finally, next Sunday (Nov. 25) at 11 a.m. the Fyodor Lopukhov Hall in the Mikhailovsky Theater will be hosting a master class in memory of the late Kirov teacher and honored artist Nikolai Zubkovsky. 
The master class will be held by the choreographer Boris Blankov, one of Zubkovsky’s former students, and the organizers tell us that all our welcome. 

Send information for Talk of the Town to tot@sptimes.ru

TITLE: Coversation piece
AUTHOR: By Manohla Dargis
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: Career Politicians, the Fourth Estate and Disaffected Youth all earn a stern knuckle rapping in “Lions for Lambs,” Robert Redford’s big-screen lecture about civic responsibility and its absence in the Age of Iraq. Those who remain shocked, shocked that elected officials, certain journalists and cosseted college students sat idly by, huffing Hummer fumes and nodding out on 24/7 infotainment (all Britney, all the time), while the administration led the charge, first into Afghanistan and then into Iraq, may find much to embrace here. Everyone else will continue to nod out or resume banging their heads against the wall in bloody frustration.
I suppose there’s something commendable about Redford fighting the good fight, or at least one civilized version of it. Movie critics often flog directors for not engaging with urgent contemporary matters, like the current wars, but when they do engage, as several have tried to this year (“In the Valley of Elah,” “Rendition”), we complain that they’re not saying much of anything. Consider “Lions for Lambs” exhibit R in this open case: It names the wars, presents a handful of fictionalized main players from politicians to soldiers, and drops words like “the people” and “Al Qaeda” and “propaganda.” It flashes photographs of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, if without overtly naming names.
What else do we learn from “Lions for Lambs”? That America is no longer only the land of the free, home of the brave, but also of the opportunistic and the compromised. Among the most conniving, or most true-believing of these new Americans are politicians like Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise), a Republican senator with his eye on the White House. Among the most compromised among us, or the most exhausted, or timorous — or something — are journalists like Janine Roth (Meryl Streep), whom Irving has summoned to his office so he can pitch her a shiny new war plan. Mistakes were made, he says, but that was then, this is now. From their framed photographs, President Bush, Cheney and Rice silently keep watch.
Nothing if not on party message, the senator has taken aim at Iran, which, he tells Roth, is allowing Iraqi terrorists to cross its borders on their way to Afghanistan, where they will fight alongside Al Qaeda. As Roth leans forward, you can almost see the thought bubble above her: Howzthatagain? But Roth is also vain; she’s a journalist, after all, and rubbing shoulders, and who knows what else, with movers and shakers has blunted her senses, clouded her vision. Power is an aphrodisiac, as well as addictive. And power begets power, as Redford reminds us when he shows Roth looking at a Time magazine cover story she wrote about Irving. She helped make the senator and he did much the same for her in turn.
It’s fun to watch this acting odd couple spar even in such a visually inert context. Cruise pours on his characteristic intensity and lights up the board with alternating flashes of charm, sincerity, gravity, indignation and outrage. Every mood feels phony, a total put-on, which works well for a character delivering a self-conscious, constructed performance. As his audience of one, Streep’s journalist must do a lot of listening, which the actress does with one of her vibrant, entertaining, gestural performances. Every twitch, blink, shrug, head bob and seat shift speaks softly at first and then with increasing volume, giving physical form to the inner voice we actually hear only later. Redford’s camera pays her close, appreciative heed, as do we.
Alas, there’s more — namely two other story threads, the dreariest of which involves yet another two speakers locked in one claustrophobic space: a history professor, Dr. Stephen Malley (Redford), who has summoned an apathetic student, Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield), into his office for a metaphoric spanking. One of those bright young things who puts the “i” in Generation iPod, Todd has been dodging Malley’s class, opting to turn off and tune out even while agreeing to drop in for morning coffee. It’s not nearly as much fun to watch these two, largely because the screenwriter has stacked the deck so much in Malley’s favor you know the end of the conversation as soon as it gets going.
It’s a long conversation, more soporific than Socratic, and brimming with parental chiding, generational conflict and invocations of Vietnam. You see, back in the day, Malley fought in that war after being drafted. He didn’t want to fight, didn’t agree with its aims, but he did nonetheless, which leads to another story fragment and two more of his students: a Latino, Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Peña), and an African-American, Arian Finch (Derek Luke). After absorbing Malley’s lessons about responsibility, Ernest and Arian joined the army. These lion cubs don’t believe the current wars are righteous, but they believe they can effect change from the inside, which is how they land in an Afghan misadventure more unbelievable, both in thematic and visual terms, than Senator Irving’s military strategy.
In truth Ernest and Arian are less lions than sacrificial lambs that exist solely so the film can wave the flag along with index fingers. Malley regrets but respects the students’ decision to enlist, which echoes the prevailing wisdom that you should support the troops even if you don’t support the wars. The problem isn’t whether this assertion is true; the problem is the film reflexively embraces it, much as it does every single other cliché, without inquiry, challenge or a single ounce of real risk. It tells us everything most of us know already, including the fact that politicians lie, journalists fail and youth flounders. Mostly it tells us that Redford feels really bad about the state of things. Welcome to the club.

TITLE: Nadal Still Hungry at Season Showdown
AUTHOR: By Alastair Himmer
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SHANGHAI — World number two Rafael Nadal blasted past Serb Novak Djokovic 6-4 6-4 to reach the semi-finals of the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup on Thursday.
The French Open champion sank to his knees in celebration after his Gold Group match in Shanghai but still faced a nervous wait before his place in the last four was assured.
Nadal’s fellow Spaniard David Ferrer guaranteed his close friend would join him in the knockout stages by pulverizing Frenchman Richard Gasquet 6-1 6-1.
American Andy Roddick became the first man to reach the semi-finals the previous evening, while world number one Roger Federer is hot favorite to claim the final spot on Friday.
An inspired Ferrer finished on a perfect 3-0 round-robin record with Nadal going through as runner-up in their group 2-1 having lost to his compatriot earlier this week.
“I played a complete match — one of my best matches of the indoor season,” Nadal told reporters. “Even if I’d gone out today I would have gone out with very good feelings.”
Djokovic, already eliminated after losing his first two matches, failed to consistently threaten Nadal, who was fired-up from the start.
A lucky net cord gave Nadal an early break and Djokovic effectively surrendered the set when he dumped an easy volley into the net to drop serve again in the fifth game.
Nadal dashed any ideas Djokovic had of a comeback with a lunging backhand volley to hold to 5-3 in the second set, pumping his fists and roaring in delight after winning a marathon point.
A looping forehand down the line sealed a comprehensive victory for Nadal, while Djokovic was left to lick his wounds after a disappointing Masters Cup debut.
“I’m going to go somewhere far, far away from everybody,” smiled Djokovic, who won five titles and reached the U.S. Open final in 2007.
“I’m still just 20 years old and I’m number three in the world but I still need a little something more.”
Ferrer’s confidence was sky-high after beating Nadal on Tuesday and he rattled of 20 of the last 23 points to take the first set in just 26 minutes.
The Spaniard, who thrashed Gasquet 6-1 6-2 in the final of the Japan Open just over a month ago, blew him off the court in even quicker fashion this time, taking just 59 minutes.
Meanwhile, world number four Nikolay Davydenko will lead defending champions Russia in the Davis Cup final against the United States, the team said on Wednesday.
Davydenko, who is playing in Shanghai, will be joined by world number 19 Mikhail Youzhny, Igor Andreev (33) and Dmitry Tursunov (34) for the three-day tie that starts on Nov. 30 in Portland.
Russia captain Shamil Tarpishchev decided against calling up the team’s charismatic leader, former world number one Marat Safin, who has struggled to find his top form since coming back from a knee injury.
“There’s no point in drafting Marat to play the Americans. He only began training again this week after an extended break,” Tarpishchev told Reuters.
“But you can always change a player even just before the draw, so there’s is still a small chance that he would be in the team if someone’s injured or is not in top form. Marat might go to Portland anyway. He could be our secret weapon there.”
Tarpishchev said Russia had a good chance of beating the U.S.
“It’s true they have the best doubles team but I don’t think their singles players are any better than any of our guys,” he said.

TITLE: French Strike On 2nd Day
AUTHOR: By Elaine Ganley
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — Transport workers shut down most rail traffic in France for a second day Thursday, frustrating passengers forced to postpone trips and Parisians who had to walk, bike or skate to work.
The government awaited a response to its offer to negotiate a way out of the strikes — the first major challenge to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to modernize France with vast reforms.
Sarkozy wants the strike to end “as quickly as possible,” his spokesman said Wednesday night, and offered company by company talks in the presence of a government representative.
Labor Minister Xavier Bertrand, in a letter to seven union chiefs, said negotiations should commence “rapidly” and be completed in a month.
However, authorities made clear that the core principle guiding a plan to reform special retirement benefits for transport and utilities workers, in place for more than 60 years, could not be touched.

TITLE: Bhutto in National Unity Government Push
AUTHOR: By Paul Haven
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Detained opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said Thursday she hopes to form a national unity government to replace President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ahead of elections, and is contacting other opposition parties to get them on board.
“I am talking to the other opposition parties to find out whether they are in a position to come together,” she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the home in Lahore where she is under house arrest. “We need to see whether we can come up with an interim government of national consensus to whom power can be handed.”
Bhutto left open the question of whether she, or someone else, would lead such a government, saying it was a subject that would have to be worked out in negotiations.
But she said a consensus must be reached that would ensure an orderly transition should Musharraf agree to step down.
In an Associated Press interview Wednesday, Musharraf said he expects to quit as chief of the army by the end of November, heralding a return to civilian rule. However, he rejected Western pressure to quickly end the emergency.
Bhutto made the comments shortly after a visit from Bryan Hunt, the U.S. consul general in the eastern Pakistani city.
Hunt was allowed to cross the barricades and heavy police cordon surrounding the house where Bhutto has been confined since Tuesday.
He emerged an hour later and said he had told Bhutto of Washington’s wish for Musharraf to lift the state of emergency, quit as army chief and free opposition politicians and the media.
“We need to move as rapidly as possible to have free and fair elections held on time,” Hunt said.
Bhutto said Washington is concerned about a power vacuum in Pakistan, and wanted to know if she would still consider working with Musharraf.
“He came to find out whether I could work with Gen. Musharraf, and I told him that it was very difficult to work with someone who instead of taking us toward democracy took us back toward military dictatorship,” she said.
Bhutto said she tried to allay Washington’s concern about what would happen to this nuclear-armed nation if Musharraf were forced out, saying she shared the Americans’ misgivings and that a strategy for an orderly transition was a must.
The Americans “worry about what would happen if there was not a smooth transition, and they worry about what would happen if Musharraf left and there would be a vacuum. So that is a concern, and a valid concern,” she said. “I share that thought, too. In fact, once General Musharraf agrees to go, we need to have an exit strategy. I think an exit strategy is very important,” Bhutto said.
Nov. 15 marks the end of the current Parliament’s five-year term. Musharraf’s concurrent presidential mandate also expires Thursday, though he has extended it by calling the state of emergency that has cast Pakistan into a deep political crisis.
A caretaker administration will be charged with guiding Pakistan toward parliamentary elections to be held by Jan. 9. 
The vote is supposed to complete the restoration of democratic rule in Pakistan, eight years after Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup.

TITLE: Croatia Cool Atop Group E
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: Croatia need only a point against Macedonia in their penultimate group game on Saturday to qualify for Euro 2008 but the Group E leaders are well aware of the dangers of playing for the draw.
Croatia tops the group with 26 points from 10 games, ahead of England on 23 from 11 games and Russia on 21 from 10 games. They play England in their last match at Wembley on Nov. 21.
A draw in Skopje will see Croatia through, and coach Slaven Bilic — who has yet to lose a match since taking over in 2006 — said he was confident his players could do it.
“We have enough knowledge, quality, morale and strength to take this last step and qualify for Euro, which we’ve deserved,” he said.
Bilic has few injury worries with only Borrusia Dortmund striker Mladen Petric recovering from a concussion. He will probably be replaced by in-form Ivica Olic of Hamburg SV.
While the Croatians need only a point to qualify, Hertha Berlin defender Josip Simunic said the team should focus on taking all three points.
“If you start the game thinking that you need a draw, you may end up losing. It’s a well-known thing,” he said.
Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva is convinced Croatia and Russia will go through.
“I think this Saturday we will know that Croatia and Russia have qualified,” the forward told the Jutarnji List daily.
“The English have squandered their chances and I think we’ll be able to go Wembley almost as tourists.”
Macedonia, who have no chance of qualifying, will be without top scorer Goran Pandev. The 24-year old Lazio striker is nursing a thigh strain and his absense is a huge blow for coach Srecko Katanec.
“We know what he means for our team. But we’ll try to give our best in the two (remaining) matches,” Katanec said.
“Croatia are favorites but we’ll try to stage a surprise.”
England’s stand-in skipper Steven Gerrard meanwhile said on Wednesday that head coach Steve McClaren should remain in his job even if England fail to qualify for next year’s European Championship.
Gerrard, who will captain the team in the absence of the injured John Terry in Friday’s friendly international against Austria in Vienna and probably in England’s last Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia next week, told reporters he believed McClaren was still the right man for the job.
“Whether we qualify or not, he is still the best manager for England,” said Gerrard.
“He is a top coach with the right credentials and I don’t see the point of changing your manager every six months or every year.
“We have a good young squad and the players have to take responsibility if we do not qualify for the finals.
“We had five 3-0 wins in a row in the qualifiers, and the team has been moving in the right direction apart from a few mad minutes against Russia when we lost.”

TITLE: Sochi Residents Say ‘Olympic Law’ Violates Constitution
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova and Max Delany
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: The current State Duma is set to squeeze through a controversial bill in its final session Friday intended to speed up preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
With the eyes of the world on Russia ahead of the games, proponents of the legislation say it is vital if the country is to get the site ready on time.
Local residents and opposition Duma deputies, however, are up in arms about some elements of the legislation, dubbed the “Olympic Law,” which they say could lead to thousands of people being kicked out of their homes without proper compensation.
“If the deputies really understood what the consequences would be, then maybe they would intervene,” said Valery Suchkov, who heads an association of Sochi residents. “But in reality they are completely indifferent. That is the scariest thing.”
The government is looking to clear land it says is needed for Olympic developments and wants to slash the length of time it takes to evict residents from their property to three months. Under current federal law, the process takes a year.
A number of Russia’s biggest 
companies, including state-controlled Gazprom, Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element and Vladimir Potanin’s Interros, are heavily involved in the multibillion-dollar redevelopment of the Black Sea resort.
Sochi residents have taken to the streets in a series of protests against the proposed law, while President Vladimir Putin has said that the interests of local residents must come first.
Having faced a barrage of criticism over the proposed law, deputies have introduced a number of last-minute amendments to try to ensure that those affected are fully compensated.
Yevgeny Fyodorov, who heads State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, Entrepreneurship and Tourism, which introduced the latest amendments Monday, defended the bill as being “aimed at protecting the rights of the citizens” and amply compensating them for their property.
“You can only envy these people, as they will have so much money that they will be able to choose where to buy homes for themselves,” Fyodorov said.
He said compensation payments would be determined according to the market value of the property at the moment the official decision to expropriate it is issued by the authorities.
Private real estate appraisal firms will determine the price and residents will have the option of choosing the company themselves or allowing the state corporation do it, according to the bill.
Residents will also have the option to negotiate one of two alternative forms of compensation: either an apartment or a land plot, Fyodorov said. This would give them the right to ask authorities to provide them with housing in a desirable region, he said.
According to the new law, residents will be able to contest decisions on the level of compensation they receive but not the confiscation of property itself.
Despite the amendments, the latest version of the bill has still drawn fire from opposition parties in the Duma.
Communist Deputy Oleg Kulikov, whose party voted against the draft legislation in its first reading, said the new version was still “insufficient.”
“This is a step forward, but all of this was still conducted in a big hurry,” Kulikov said.
Boris Kibirev, a Communist deputy representing the Krasnodar region, said the bill violated constitutional guarantees.
“The right to private property is inviolable,” Kibirev said. “Residents have no way to avoid the seizures.”
Since the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to Sochi in early July, property values in the region have soared, with some real estate firms reporting a doubling of prices almost overnight.
One of the biggest concerns on the part of residents is that the compensation they ultimately receive will not match the real value of their property — a concern that Kulikov said was well-founded.
“There aren’t the necessary economic conditions in place to fulfill the requirements of the new law,” he said.
The Sochi residents’ association’s Suchkov said that in cases where the evicted residents opt for land as compensation, the plots they receive are unlikely to be in desirable locations.
Perhaps the most important amendment to the bill has been the limitation of its authority to Sochi and building to a 2014 expiration date.
With no geographical or time limits set in stone, deputies feared that unscrupulous developers would invoke the legislation if they needed to clear land for construction anywhere in Russia.
The bill should go through its second and third readings on Friday and, after being passed by the Federation Council and signed by the president, come into effect at the start of next year, said Yury Barzykin, another of the bill’s authors.
The Olympic Law will also cover a range of other, less controversial areas, ranging from advertising and the pricing of official merchandising to rules on bringing in migrant workers, Barzykin said.
Suchkov said Sochi’s residents were being kept in the dark about the overall development plan for the Winter Games.