SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1326 (92), Friday, November 23, 2007
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TITLE: Strikers Hit Ford Plant For 3rd Day
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: About 800 workers at the Ford Motor Company’s plant near St. Petersburg prolonged a strike in Vsevolozhsk, Leningrad Oblast, on Thursday, with no agreement to end it in sight.
Previously, 950 workers signed a declaration on Tuesday that they were ready to begin work and were not on strike, said Yekaterina Kulinenko, Ford’s spokeswoman.
On Tuesday when the strike began the Ford’s administration limited the access of workers to the plant. 
“Due to the strike action and the stoppage of production, the administration does not see any necessity in the presence of workers at their work stations (except employees providing an agreed minimum of work during the strike),” Kulinenko said.
The workers were stopped from getting into the plant, which employs 2,200 people, by the plant’s guards and OMON special forces police, Interfax said. 
About 1,500 Ford workers participated in the strike during its first two days, Alexei Etmanov, head of the plant’s trade union, said.
The workers and the plant’s trade union went on strike demanding a pay rise from 19,000 rubles ($780) to 28,000 rubles ($1,150) per month, and the night shift cut by an hour, Etmanov said.
The administration said it was ready to negotiate with the plant’s trade union Monday, but only “not during the strike,” Kulinenko said.
The company will also withhold pay from striking workers in accordance with the Labor Code, she said. Meanwhile, workers who refused to strike will receive the two thirds of the payment for each day.
On Wednesday striking workers played soccer, danced, held tug-of-war contests and had a barbeque in front of the entrance to the plant, Etmanov said.  They also put up temporary toilets outside the plant because the administration did not allow them to toilets inside the plant, Etmanov said.
The workers also appealed to administrative employees, who could see the strikers from the windows of the plant, with a sign that read “Accountants! Join Us!” Etmanov said.
Etmanov also said the trade union intended to sue the plant’s administration for its unwillingness to hold negotiations.
The plant normally produces 300 cars daily. 
Petr Zolotaryov, head of independent trade union of AvtoVAZ and co-chairman of International Automobile Production Trade Union, said he hoped the plant’s administration “would have more common sense and stop the strike.”
“We’ll see how much patience they’ve got if they keep losing $5 million per day,” Zolotaryov said, Interfax reported.
The strike is the continuation of a “preventive strike” that the plant’s workers and trade union held on Nov. 7.
The “preventive strike” was initially planned to last for 24 hours, but had to be stopped five hours before it was due to finish because of a decision by a Leningrad Oblast court that obliged the strike’s committee to postpone the action for 20 days.
Time was needed to have the plant’s administration and strikers prevent potential production incidents that could have been caused by the sudden stop of machinery.
On Monday the court also recognized the strike of Nov. 7 as illegal.
On the day of the preventive strike the plant did not produce 250 cars out of 300 cars that it makes every day.
The trade union said it decided to strike after negotiations it held from July 9 through Oct. 9 with the plant’s authorities failed.
Kulinenko said the collective agreement signed by the plant’s administration and the trade union on Feb. 28 of 2007, fixed the pay rise to 14 percent and 20 percent, as well as the other social improvements.
The agreement offered an extra day-off for all employees, rise of subsidies for the birth of a child, and some other privileges, Kulinenko said.  The average salary at the plant is 21,400 rubles ($880) per month. 
Ford workers also held a 24-hour strike on Feb.14-15 this year.

TITLE: Putin Calls Critics West-Funded Jackals
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin called his critics foreign-funded “jackals” and accused the West of meddling in Russian politics in a scathing speech Wednesday meant to drum up support for the main pro-Kremlin party.
The thunderous attack came as Russia heads toward Dec. 2 parliamentary elections that have turned into a plebiscite on Putin and whether he should retain power after stepping down as president next year after two consecutive terms.
Thousands of flag-waving supporters who packed a Moscow sports arena for the speech joined in chants urging Putin to remain Russia’s “national leader.”
It isn’t clear what formal title he might hold, but he heads the ticket of the dominant United Russia party and has suggested he could become prime minister. Opinion surveys suggest the party will win two-thirds of the votes and a crushing 80 percent of the lower house of parliament’s 450 seats.
With approval ratings exceeding 70 percent, Putin cast the election as a black-and-white choice between the current economic boom and the poverty and political chaos of the 1990s — doomsday rhetoric clearly aimed at getting his supporters to the polls.
“Nothing is predetermined at all,” a grim-faced Putin said. “Stability and peace on our land have not fallen from the skies; they haven’t yet become absolutely, automatically secured.”
Addressing about 5,000 backers at the rally, which blended elements of a Soviet-era Communist Party congress with the raucous enthusiasm of an American political convention, Putin suggested his political opponents are working for Russia’s Western adversaries.
“Regrettably, there are those inside the country who feed off foreign embassies like jackals and count on support of foreign funds and governments, and not their own people,” Putin said.
He accused unidentified Russians of planning mass street protests, like those that helped usher in pro-Western governments in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004.
“Now, they’re going to take to the streets. They have learned from Western experts and have received some training in neighboring (ex-Soviet) republics. And now they are going to stage provocations here,” he said.
Putin seemed to refer to anti-Kremlin demonstrations planned for this weekend in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Police have used force to break up several marches and demonstrations, beating and detaining dozens of protesters.
Putin, whose nearly eight years in power coincided with rising energy prices, has repeatedly charged that the West wants Russia weak and compliant.
“Those who confront us don’t want our plan to succeed,” he said. “They have different plans for Russia. They need a weak and ill state, they need a disoriented and divided society in order to do their deeds behind its back.”
Without naming names, Putin railed against his liberal, pro-business and Communist opponents, raising the specter of the economic and political uncertainty that preceded and followed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
“If these gentlemen come back to power, they will again cheat people and fill their pockets,” he said. “They want to restore an oligarchic regime, based on corruption and lies.”
After his speech, the normally reserved president plunged into the crowd, shaking hands and kissing a woman. The crowd, consisting mainly of young people, responded with chants of “Russia! Putin!” Some blew horns and jumped in excitement.
With the election nearing, Putin has made a string of appearances at carefully staged events where speakers have emphasized his indispensability as a leader.
The campaign has drawn heavily on imagery from the Soviet and czarist eras, periods that still evoke feelings of pride in Russians despite their history of bloodshed and oppression.
But there is also an effort to appeal to a new generation of Russians with few memories of the country’s past struggles. The scenes in the grandstand at Wednesday’s rally sometimes resembled those of a rowdy soccer game.
Nostalgic Soviet-era bands mixed on stage with young performers, including a girl group in miniskirts who sang “I want someone like Putin.”
Elderly women wore blue United Russia T-shirts. A young man had “Russia” painted on his shaved head, and a woman sported “Putin” written by lipstick on her cheek. Many had faces painted with bands of white, blue and red — the colors of the national flag and the United Russia party.
The speech seemed intended to transfer some of Putin’s popularity to United Russia, which controls parliament but stirs few passions among voters.
An overwhelming victory for United Russia, which is all but assured given the Kremlin’s tight control over the media and government, would limit the clout of his successor — and possibly lay the groundwork for Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 or sooner.
Apart from United Russia, only the Communists seem certain to clear the minimum threshold for getting seats in parliament — 7 percent of the total vote. But the Kremlin is leaving little to chance. Two top liberal parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, have complained of what they call official intimidation and harassment.
Some Putin supporters have called for rewriting the constitution to allow him to stay on as president. He has promised to step down, but says he will continue to play a role in Russia and has not ruled out a presidential bid in the future.
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told foreign reporters Tuesday that Putin wouldn’t seek a position not envisaged by the constitution.

TITLE: City Parliament Slammed For Pro-Putin Statement
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A major political uproar has broken out over an extraordinary political statement passed by the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly on Wednesday. It urged voters “to unite around the national leader Vladimir Putin” ahead of the forthcoming elections to the State Duma.
Russian electoral law bans both federal and local government structures and other power structures from engaging in political campaigning or distributing election propaganda. 
The statement used grandiose rhetoric, which some critics compare to political proclamations from World War II, both in style and vocabulary. The liberal opposition condemned it as being both servile to the Kremlin and an illegal form of campaigning.
The motion approved by the assembly attributes to President Putin the credit for restoring the self-respect and patriotism in the Russian people and for reviving the country’s international reputation as a superpower. 
“On Dec. 2 during the State Duma elections we will have to defend our achievements,” it reads. “That is why we, deputies of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, regardless of our different political persuasions, ask you, dear citizens, to unite around the national leader Vladimir Putin and make your choice in favor of stability and advancing the development of Russia.”
The statement also emphasizes “the historical responsibility of every voter” and describes the forthcoming elections as THE VOTE in bold capital letters.
Vladimir Vishnevsky, a member of the political council of the St. Petersburg branch of the opposition democratic party Yabloko branded the statement as “collective self-abuse” in the sexual sense.
“This embarrassing public act of self-abuse shows that the politicians who took part in it get a kick out of pleasing the president — in whatever manner they can — rather than serving the people, and enforcing justice and equality,” Vishnevsky said.
Twenty-six lawmakers out of the 50-member city parliament voted in favor of the statement. Those supporting it included all 23 members of the Kremlin-backed United Russia faction and three members of the Liberal Democratic faction. 
Yabloko says it is preparing lawsuits against each of the deputies that supported the motion, accusing them of breaching an electoral law that forbids state officials from using their powers and position in the interests of a specific party.
“Vladimir Putin fronts the United Russia party list and the motion discusses the parliamentary elections so the connection is crystal clear,” said Vishnevsky. 
However United Russia politicians denied any such violation. 
“The document does not mention any party by name and therefore cannot be interpreted as political propaganda that benefits any party,” argued Sergei Andenko, a United Russia member of the assembly. “Technically speaking, we are discussing Russia’s president, who is not taking part in the parliamentary elections.”
Another United Russia assembly member, Vyacheslav Makarov, went further and accused the Kremlin-created “opposition party” Just Russia of discrediting itself in the voters’ eyes by not supporting the statement.
Not a single parliamentarian voted against the statement. The Communist faction walked out in protest, while the bulk of the Just Russia faction abstained. 
Communist parliamentarian Vladimir Dmitriyev said the statement was painfully reminiscent in style to the speeches made back in the Soviet era at gatherings of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. 
“But back then there was a single-party system,” said Dmitriyev said. “This statement is indeed a provocation.” 
Although both factions criticized the statement, Just Russia found itself in an especially tricky situation. Pressure on its members was acute given the consistent and unequivocal support that Just Russia has given the president in the past.
In the absence of genuine political competition, the pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, heavily dominates the political landscape. And its critics claim that it routinely harnesses Russia’s entire administrative machine, its organization, funding, staff and transport, to work in its electoral interests. The term “administrative resources” describes this phenomenon.
According to Georgy Satarov, head of the Moscow-based anti-corruption think-tank INDEM, “administrative resources” have become the main instrument of political campaigning in Russia. He sees the placing by United Russia of President Putin’s name at the top of its party list of candidates for the Duma, announced in October, as the ultimate political misuse of such publicly funded resources. 
“In this context it is hard to expect an objective ruling on this case from a Russian court but we are prepared to go through all stages of the process, up to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,” Vishnevsky said.

TITLE: Campaigning Lugovoi Mocks MI6
AUTHOR: By Douglas Birch
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The former KGB officer named as a suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London said Wednesday the British government’s case against him had collapsed and called the slain man a “traitor.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, Andrei Lugovoi, who is running for parliament in the Dec. 2 elections, said he expects his accusers to use the Nov. 23 anniversary of Litvinenko’s agonizing death from radiation poisoning to renew calls for his extradition.
But the 43-year-old multimillionaire said the Russian constitution prevents him being handed over, so he is not concerned about what British officials and Litvinenko’s friends might demand.
“I don’t give a damn about this raving and barking from across the channel,” Lugovoi said in his office in the Radisson Slavyanskaya hotel overlooking the Moscow River.
“Several times, Russia’s law enforcement system and I have asked the British to provide proof and the evidence against me,” he said. “So far, they have no proof of any kind, and everything about the Litvinenko case is politicized. I’m sure they will not provide anything to anyone, and will keep the issue hot to further discredit Russia on the international scene.”
Lugovoi also alleged the British were being egged on by fugitives wanted in Russia who are living in London, including billionaire Boris Berezovsky. “Britain has always been a country that allows all sorts of bastards to seek refuge on its territory,” he said.
As he has in the past, Lugovoi insisted he would have returned to Britain to discuss the allegations against him if he had been invited. He said the case against him had essentially collapsed.
“I congratulate MI6 and all British secret services with the loudest flop in their history,” he said.
Litvinenko, himself a veteran of Russia’s security agencies, co-authored a book accusing former colleagues in Russia’s Federal Security Service of involvement in a series of deadly bombings in 1999. He fled to Britain in 2000 and was granted political asylum.
Just before his death, Litvinenko was investigating the slaying of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist and critic of President Vladimir Putin.
Litvinenko was poisoned with the radioactive isotope polonium-210, and on his deathbed he blamed Putin. The Kremlin denies the allegation.
Lugovoi, who had met with Litvinenko the day he fell ill, said Litvinenko has been falsely portrayed by the British government.
“What really annoys me is how the British authorities say that Litvinenko was just a dissident writer living in London,” he said. “How can we talk about him being a writer when he was actually a traitor working for the English secret services, for which he was paid money?”
Lugovoi repeated earlier charges that Litvinenko approached him about working as an informant for the British foreign intelligence service MI6.
“British intelligence tried to recruit me,” Lugovoi said. “They tried to force me to betray Russia.”
London’s Daily Mail has reported that Litvinenko was paid a monthly retainer of 2,000 pounds (about $4,000) by British secret services, and said he was recruited by the head of MI6. Lugovoi maintained Britain has historically regarded Russia as an enemy and imperial rival.
“Britain has always waged a war against Russia — be it cold or hot — and utilized both its capacities and those of its neighbors,” he said. “The Cold War never started or ended, it always has been.”
The allegations have made Lugovoi something of a celebrity.

TITLE: Authors Warn About Constitution Games
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Several co-authors of the Constitution on Wednesday warned that using legal loopholes to allow President Vladimir Putin to run for a third term would threaten the legitimacy of the country’s fundamental law.
With Putin required to leave office when his second term ends in May, his supporters are increasingly calling for constitutional amendments and the exploitation of legal loopholes to  keep the presidency in his hands.
But Oleg Rumyantsev, who helped draft the Constitution from 1990 to 1993, warned against “hastily” changing the country’s supreme law to accommodate a particular leader.
“It would be a blow to the constitutional order and to the legitimacy of the Constitution itself,” said Rumyantsev, who heads up the Foundation for Constitutional Reforms, a nongovernmental association.
Rumyantsev was one of five co-authors of the Constitution who met with journalists Wednesday to voice their concern over the possible undermining of the law to keep Putin in power.
Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, who on a seemingly daily basis promotes various strategies for Putin to continue leading the country, gave his stamp of approval Wednesday for a loophole in which Putin could resign from office before his term ends and theThis scenario would skirt a provision stating that the president cannot serve two successive terms, as there would be an interim president — the prime minister — between the time Putin steps down and a new election. Vil Kikot, another author of the Constitution, said the clause on consecutive presidential terms was included under the assumption that a president succeeding a two-term leader would serve out an entire term, “not just a month.”
This, however, was not established in the letter of the law, only in its spirit, the authors regretfully conceded.
Stanislav Stanskikh, a legal expert with the Foundation for Constitutional Reforms, said initial drafts of the Constitution stated only that a president could serve a total of two terms. There was no mention of successive terms, he said.
It was then President Boris Yeltsin’s administration that demanded the stipulation about consecutive terms that would allow a former president to return to office, Stanskikh said.
The Constitution would actually allow Putin, should he become prime minister, to assume most of the powers from the president without constitutional amendments, said Rumyantsev and Mikhail Mityukov, another co-author.
Addressing suggestions from top political and public figures that Putin retain power as a so-called national leader after his term ends, Rumyantsev said such a role corresponds poorly with the Constitution, under which the president is the country’s sole leader.
“There are countries like Iran and, perhaps, Libya, where there are national leaders who are above presidents,” said another author, Viktor Sheinis. “But one sees nothing like this in a democratic country.”

TITLE: Student Jailed for Murder Clip
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A student in the southern republic of Adygeya was convicted Wednesday and sentenced to one year in prison for posting a video purportedly showing the execution of two men on the Internet.
A court in Maikop, the republic’s capital, handed down the sentence after Viktor Milkov was convicted for inciting ethnic hatred by posting the three-minute video on his Livejournal blog in August, Gazeta.ru reported.
The video appeared on ultranationalist web sites under the title “The Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani” and showed the two dark-skinned men kneeling, bound and gagged in front of a Nazi flag. The two men say, “Russian national-socialists have arrested us,” before masked men appear to cut one’s head off and shoot the other at point-blank range.
Milkov was arrested Aug. 15 and admitted to posting the video, authorities said. He maintained that he received it as an email attachment from a stranger.
It was unclear whether authorities had made any progress in determining who made the video and, if it was authentic, who carried out the killings.

TITLE: Interior Ministry Warns Of Fake Cop on Nemtsov’s Trail
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MONDAY — The Interior Ministry on Wednesday warned Moscow and St. Petersburg authorities that an impostor posing as a police officer might attempt to physically harm opposition activists during anti-Kremlin rallies in the cities on Saturday and Sunday.
The warning came on the same day as the event organizers, The Other Russia coalition, accused authorities of unlawfully cracking down on its members, several of whom said they had barricaded themselves into their own homes for fear of arrest.
Mikhail Solomentsev, City Hall’s deputy spokesman, told Russian media that the ministry had sent City Hall a warning that Union of Right Forces leader Boris Nemtsov and others could be the victim of an attack by a fellow opposition activist dressed in police clothes, his secretary said Wednesday.
The reason for an attack would be to provoke a clash with police that would draw media attention to the oppositionists, added the secretary, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Neither the ministry nor Yevgeny Gildeyev, a spokesman for city police, could be reached despite repeated attempts Wednesday.
Vladimir Korobkov, a city police spokesman who deals exclusively with print media, said there would be no comment and that the press service was not “a rumor service.”
It remains unclear where the information came from.
In reply, Nemtsov dismissed the warning as a ploy thought up by the authorities either as a scare tactic to deter oppositionists from attending or as an excuse for authorities to beat him up.
“It is the regime that wants to provoke a fight, not us,” Nemtsov said.
“Anyway, even if there is credible information that someone has stolen a police uniform and is planning to attack me, then it is within police powers to track that person down and prevent an attack,” he added.

TITLE: Etyud Planning IPO For Chainaya Lozhka Chain
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranistyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Etyud Ltd., a St. Petersburg based company that operates the fast-food chain Chainaya Lozhka (Tea Spoon) has announced regional expansion and plans for an IPO in 2011. By then, the chain hopes to comprise 400 tea-rooms generating turnover of $300 to $400 million.
“We decided to hold an IPO because we do not plan to sell the company. We want to attract financial resources for global expansion,” Boris Krupkin, president of Etyud, said at a press conference Tuesday.
This year the company started expanding in the Northwest, Central, Ural and Siberia regions. “To finance the development, we needed a serious partner, and we attracted the Neva-Rus investment fund. To date we have almost doubled the number of tea-rooms,” Krupkin said.
Etyud has operated since 2001. The company estimates its share in the St. Petersburg fast-food market at 23 percent. In July, the Neva-Rus investment fund acquired a 24-percent stake in Chainaya Lozhka for $10 million.
At the moment the company operates 47 of its own tea-rooms (most of them in St. Petersburg) and eight franchise tea-rooms in other regions. By the end of the year Chainaya Lozhka will open 30 new tea-rooms.
The company will sign franchise agreements to enhance regional expansion. By 2011, the chain plans to include 210 tea-rooms of its own and 181 franchise tea-rooms.
Over the next three years the company will invest about $50 million into development, including about $5 million on production facilities.
“We have a plant in St. Petersburg. To operate in the Central region we are constructing a new plant in Moscow. Next year we will start constructing a plant in the Urals. In Novosibirsk, we operate a mini-plant,” said Mikhail Avgustin, vice president of Etyud.
Half of the expenses will be covered by shareholders and the other half - by credit resources. The company is negotiating with several foreign banks to take a loan of about $20 million next year, Krupkin said. In 2011 Chainaya Lozhka plans an IPO on the Russian fund market.
“We restructured our business eliminating a large number of legal entities and introducing regional branches. The taxes increased, but the company became more attractive to foreign investment banks,” Krupkin said.
From 2008 Deloitte & Touche will audit Chainaya Lozhka.
“In the near future, those fast-food companies, that quickly expand their presence in the market through regional expansion and offer high-quality service, will get a competitive advantage,” said Alexander Gruzdev, managing director of AksionBKG consulting company.
“There is no doubt that operators of large chains of cafes, coffee-shops and restaurants will be attractive for investors in the conditions of the growing market,” he said.
Gruzdev said that Starbucks had recently entered the Russian market because of its growth potential.
“Our market also attracts investors who are ready to finance the development of fast-food chains. Rosinter Restaurants Holding attracted $100 million through an IPO in May 2007,” Gruzdev said.

TITLE: River Oil Shipments May Face Ban After Major Spill
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: The government may impose limits on oil products shipments by river in 2008 following a large fuel oil spill from a river barge in the Kerch Strait earlier this month, industry and government sources said Wednesday.
“We will take serious measures to impose sailing bans on ships that are more than 25 years old. We will most likely ban floating storage operations,” a Transportation Ministry source said.
Russian refiners use river barges and floating storage facilities to export around 3 million tons of fuel oil from ports on the Baltic Sea and another 2 million tons of refined products towards the Mediterranean market.
Products arrive in small barges from refineries, belonging to oil majors Rosneft, LUKoil, TNK-BP and the independent Ufa refiners. They are stored in bigger sea floating storage vessels and are then reloaded into tankers for re-export.
Operations stop during the winter, when rivers freeze, and peak in summer months, as they are usually cheaper than rail shipments of refined products.
The source in the Transportation Ministry said its Federal Sea and River Transportation Agency had already ordered the closure of the river navigation season in the south of Russia on Nov. 22, 10 days earlier than planned.

TITLE: Business FM Aims for 400,000
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranistyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Business FM radio station financed by media magnate Arkady Gaidamak plans to win an audience of 400,000 people in St. Petersburg. The radio station, which started broadcasting in the city in May this year, already has a regular daily audience of 140,000 people, the managers said Wednesday at a press conference.
In March Business FM started broadcasting in Moscow offering stream news — 15 minutes to 30 minutes blocks of global, stocks and corporate news. So far, the St. Petersburg branch has retranslated Moscow programs. However, in the near future regional news will account for 40 percent of the broadcasting.
“The opening of the oil exchange, development of the St. Petersburg Exchange and opening of the Gazprom office will increase the importance of business media in the city. We are creating a media for communication for Russian businessmen,” said Andrei Razumov, general director of Business FM St. Petersburg.
Business FM is a part of Unified Media Group. This spring, Unified Media acquired Radiograd Ltd., a company, which owned a radio frequency formerly used by the Leningrad radio station. Managers did not disclose the cost of the deal, saying only that it was several million dollars.
“I think it was a successful acquisition. Next year we plan to break even,” said Daniil Kupsin, general director of Unified Media.
The company is constructing a new production complex in Olgino, near St. Petersburg, which will start operating next spring and house about 30 journalists. The company has invested about $1 million into the project. Business FM will also operate a press center in the city.
Dmitry Solopov, creative director of Unified Media, indicated that in Moscow Business FM has an audience of 600,000 to 700,000 people a day, which is comparable to the audience of national business dailies.
During the first half year of broadcasting in Moscow, Business FM earned $5 million, said Georgy Altman, deputy director of Unified Media. In St. Petersburg, he expects the radio to earn $170,000 to $200,000 a month and up to $300,000 in “high season.”
“In Moscow we had to limit advertisement because it exceeded our capacities. The same thing will happen in St. Petersburg by next spring,” Altman said.
“We increased the advertising price three times in Moscow and at the moment we have the most expensive prime time. 95 percent of managing companies, 80 percent of automakers and 50 percent of banks that advertise on radio stations already place advertisements on Business FM. We started sales even before we got any ratings,” he said.
Nineteen radio stations broadcast in St. Petersburg and about 40 in Moscow.
“Talk radio stations are represented in St. Petersburg only by Ekho Moskvy / Ekho Peterburga. This radio station has a larger audience than Business FM — about six percent daily. And that is a good result,” said Mikhail Podushko, director for strategic development at WorkLine Research.
“Business FM will have a smaller share. At the moment they have about 0.5 percent of the daily audience and between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of the weekly audience. In Moscow, Business FM has an audience five times as large as in St. Petersburg. But there are more companies and people interested in business news in Moscow. The Moscow audience of Ekho is 15 times as large as in St. Petersburg,” Podushko said.

TITLE: Deficit in Current Account Expected by 2010
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The current account surplus will shrink by less than expected this year because of high oil prices but will turn negative by 2010, a senior Economic Development and Trade Ministry official said Wednesday.
“The current account surplus is narrowing quickly. If last year it was $96 billion, then our preliminary forecast for this year is around $78 billion,” said Andrei Klepach, head of the ministry’s forecasting department.
“That [this year’s surplus] is larger than we forecast is in large part due to high oil prices,” Klepach added, forecasting that the trade surplus would fall to $130 billion this year from $140 billion in 2006. He said the ministry saw the average oil price at $74 per barrel in 2008 compared with $69 for 2007.

TITLE: Deputy Minister’s Allies Call for His Release
AUTHOR: By Miriam Elder
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Lawyers and colleagues of Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak mounted a fierce defense of the imprisoned official Wednesday, calling for his immediate release as he faces charges of attempted embezzlement.
Storchak’s court-appointed lawyer appealed his arrest, and a date for the hearing is expected by the end of the week, Moscow City Court spokeswoman Anna Usachyova said.
Storchak’s own lawyer, Igor Pastukhov, said the court would hear the case Friday. “Until then, he’s sitting in Lefortovo prison,” he said. Storchak has been held in the Soviet-era jail since his detention last Thursday.
The Prosecutor General’s Investigative Committee has said it will bring charges against Storchak and two businessmen by next week on suspicion of attempting to embezzle $43.4 million from the state budget.
Storchak oversaw all debt negotiations between Russia and foreign states, as well as the $148 billion oil stabilization fund, in his role as deputy to Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
Federal Security Service officers detained Storchak as Kudrin was flying to an international conference in South Africa. Kudrin, who has called his deputy’s arrest “incomprehensible,” returned to Moscow as planned Tuesday, a ministry spokeswoman said.
State Duma Deputy Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire shareholder in Aeroflot, said Wednesday that he had offered the court his personal guarantee that Storchak would not flee the country or tamper with evidence if released while awaiting trial.
“He is a worthy enough man not to stay in detention during the investigation,” Lebedev said, Interfax reported.
Storchak’s arrest, the most high profile of a serving state official during President Vladimir Putin’s time in office, came two weeks ahead of the Dec. 2 State Duma elections. The presidential vote will follow in March.
“Above all, [the arrest] is linked to the need to fight corruption,” said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst. “Everyone in government is nervous about what will happen to them after the elections,” he added.
Neither Putin nor Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov has commented publicly on the arrest. Some analysts have seen the move against Storchak as a sign of continuing power struggles within the Kremlin as the elections draw near.
The accusations are believed to stem from the repayment of Soviet-era debt from Algeria, which were organized through commercial contracts with little-known firm Sodexim.
Prosecutors believe that Storchak and the two other men, Sodexim general director Viktor Zakharov and Vadim Volkov, the head of Interregional Investment Bank, or MIB, attempted to embezzle budget funds under the pretext of covering expenses for the firm.
The Finance Ministry on Tuesday insisted that the Sodexim transactions were legitimate. “All liabilities [to Sodexim] are sufficiently clear and transparent,” an unidentified Finance Ministry spokesman told Russian media.
Sodexim was awarded a contract to pay off Algeria’s Soviet-era loans in the 1990s by managing commercial agreements equal to the sum of the debt, the spokesman said. “The company had to first transfer the money to the budget and then receive the goods,” he said.
But despite transferring $26 million to the federal budget in 1996, Sodexim never received the goods, the spokesman said. Under a debt agreement ratified by Russia and Algeria last year, both governments were freed from any obligations. Russia said it would settle any debts with Russian companies, and Sodexim is now seeking the $26 million plus interest.
Amendments to the 2007 budget foresaw a debt repayment to Sodexim, the spokesman said.
Neither prosecutors nor the Finance Ministry have explained the alleged involvement of MIB, but the bank was linked to the last scandal to rock the Finance Ministry’s debt department, when its deputy head, Denis Mikhailov, was arrested in December 2004.

TITLE: Prokhorov Offers Sale Of Stake 
In Norilsk
AUTHOR: By Catrina Stewart
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Norilsk Nickel’s largest shareholders moved a step closer to sealing a key deal Wednesday that could see Vladimir Potanin gain control of the mining giant and end months of speculation over the fate of business partner Mikhail Prokhorov’s stake.
Eduard Osipov, a spokesman for Potanin’s Interros Group, said Interros made an offer for Prokhorov’s stake in Norilsk Nickel in response to an earlier proposal from Prokhorov. He declined to comment on the size of the offer or the stake.
Earlier Wednesday, Onexim Group, Prokhorov’s holding company, said in a statement that it had offered to sell 25 percent plus one share in Norilsk, the world’s largest nickel and palladium miner, to Potanin for $15.7 billion in cash — a deal that would hand Potanin control over the company. The offer is based on a price of $293.6 per share with a 12.5 percent premium.
Onexim is also talking to other potential buyers, said Alexei Ryabinkin, a spokesman for the holding.
UralSib metals analyst Kirill Chuiko said the price seemed high, given that the shares closed Wednesday at $283 per share.
Interros declined to comment on the terms of its counteroffer, but general director Andrei Klishas said in a statement that its offer envisioned “a fair market price and regulatory approvals obtained by both parties.”
Prokhorov currently holds 28.2 percent directly in Norilsk, while Potanin has a 25.3 percent stake, Norilsk disclosed in a memorandum last week. The fate of Prokhorov’s remaining stake, if Potanin’s offer is accepted, was not clear, but analysts said it would make little sense for him to retain a minority interest. The bulk of the remaining shares are in free float.
The partners agreed to split their assets last year, but the separation has turned out to be less straightforward than envisioned. Prokhorov, who stepped down as Norilsk’s CEO in March, recently bought an additional 3 percent stake on the open market in what appeared to be an attempt to retain some strategic control at the miner.
Under the original plan, Prokhorov said he would focus on Norilsk’s energy business, which is due to be spun off from the miner in December, while Potanin would take control of the core business. Norilsk has been one of the strongest performers on the Russian stock markets this year, its share price more than doubling in the year to date.
This has complicated the negotiations for Prokhorov’s stake, while media reports have cited Oleg Deripaska’s RusAl as a potential rival suitor.
Analysts have speculated that Norilsk might form the basis of a state-backed champion in the metals sector, with RusAl as a major stakeholder.
But UralSib’s Chuiko said it was unlikely that RusAl would be able to launch a bid for Potanin’s enlarged stake and suggested that a merger between the two companies was more likely.
Chuiko said that if the deal between Potanin and Prokhorov went ahead, it would be difficult for Potanin to finance, even with loans.
“Potanin will need at least $5 billion to $10 billion [of outside funding] to finance this,” he said.

TITLE: Report: Piracy Issue Neglected
AUTHOR: By Tai Adelaja
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian companies’ widespread use of pirated computer software may be partly because of ignorance about the costs and risks involved, according to a survey released Wednesday.
More than 80 percent of commercial enterprises across the country continue to use unlicensed or pirated software, according to the survey, which was commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by IDC, a global provider of market intelligence.
“Many company directors still think procuring software legally is not cost effective and inevitably involves extra expenses like training of IT managers or paying for software upgrades,” said Leonid Klyaiman, Microsoft’s product manager in Russia.
“Such ignorance has encouraged a preference for unlicensed software in many companies.”
The survey polled directors and IT managers in 500 companies across five federal districts to determine how company executives perceive risks associated with using unlicensed software.
Violation of intellectual property rights has long been a sore point in Russia’s relations with the United States.
In May, a Perm region court found school director Alexander Ponosov guilty of installing pirated Microsoft software onto his school’s computers and fined him 5,000 rubles ($200). The case attracted both widespread publicity and media sympathy for Ponosov.

TITLE: The West Needs a New Caucasus Strategy
AUTHOR: By Thomas de Waal
TEXT: The south Caucasus, which are the three nations of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, have always been the “lands in-between” — between the Black and Caspian Seas, between Europe and Asia, between Russia and Iran and between Christianity and Islam. And, more recently, they stood between Soviet authoritarianism and European democracy. 
In the past few years, the positive gloss on the record of these post-Soviet countries is that, with Georgia taking the lead, the region was shrugging off the Russian yoke and making the transition toward democracy and prosperity. All three have posted impressive double-digit economic growth rates. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, opened last year, put the region on the map, and made it an important transit corridor for Caspian energy resources. Georgia’s peaceful Rose Revolution was perceived to have made it a beacon of democracy and an example to its neighbors. If only this region could sort out its so-called “frozen conflicts,” the optimists said, it could become a progressive hub in the emerging greater Black Sea region. The broken heads and tear-gas canisters on the streets of Georgia this month suggest a reality much bleaker. Far from moving forward, the south Caucasus is better seen as being in nowhere land, bogged down in a state of semi-democracy and instability out of which outsiders are incapable of pulling it. 
Georgia’s young president, Mikheil Saakashvili, badly tarnished his democratic image on Nov. 7, when he sent in riot police to break up peaceful opposition protests with truncheons, tear gas and water cannon. He then pulled off the air two pro-opposition television channels — one of them owned by Rupert Murdoch — and imposed a state of emergency, which was lifted last Friday. He subsequently called early presidential elections for January. 
The contrast to the way Saakashvili himself came to power was painful. The Rose Revolution that he led in 2003 succeeded because his predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, though demonized as an autocrat, showed admirable restraint. Shevardnadze, facing much bigger protests, decided not to use force or to shut down an opposition television station, and resigned with dignity. 
Despite recent events, Georgia is still the most democratic place in the south Caucasus and it is still possible — though unlikely — that Saakashvili will respond to pressure and form a more pluralistic coalition government in the new year. The other nations have retreated further from democracy.
Armenia’s main opposition television station, A1+, was closed years ago. Azeri authorities have imprisoned numerous anti-government journalists this year. The latest is Ganimat Zahidov, editor of the leading opposition newspaper Azadliq. He was sentenced to two months pre-trial detention on unlikely charges of “hooliganism” on Nov. 11. In Armenia and Azerbaijan, everyone expects that the ruling elite will do all it can to hang on to power in next year’s presidential elections. The polls will go ahead, but the results are pre-ordained: Leaders in the Caucasus have taken to heart Vyacheslav Molotov’s maxim, “The trouble with free elections is that you stand a chance of losing them.” 
Strong economic growth figures also fail to give the full picture. Certain social groups in the capitals have done well, while unemployment and rural poverty remain extremely high. The economies of the region are heavily monopolized, with politically connected cronies reaping most of the rewards. Billions of dollars of oil wealth are beginning to flow into Azerbaijan, but the benefits are so far not trickling down to society as a whole. 
Most worryingly, frozen conflicts dating back to the chaotic days of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 are far from frozen. All three countries have some of the fastest growing defense budgets in the world, and stubborn intransigence to match. Georgia and Russia are engaging in irresponsible brinkmanship over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia increasingly under Moscow’s control. Azerbaijan is upping the belligerent rhetoric over its lost territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, while Armenia simply declares the problem solved and says that the Armenians in Karabakh have seceded. The chance of some kind of armed flare-up in at least one of these conflict zones in the coming year is disturbingly high. The consequences could be catastrophic. 
At least three pockets of turbulence ahead threaten to bring new instability. In December, Kosovo may well declare unilateral independence and be recognized by a number of foreign states. Whatever Western governments choose to say, this will strengthen the confidence of the  separatist territories in the Caucasus that time is on their side and that the facts on the ground will eventually be recognized in perpetuity. In the Georgian case, Moscow will choose to exploit this and give even greater support to Abkhazia and South Ossetia,while Tbilisi may respond foolishly. 
Georgia has riled the Kremlin elite, and two sets of elections imminent in Russia will also encourage populist politicians to engage in even more aggressive Georgia bashing. The Russian military has made at least three covert air incursions into Georgia in the last year, thankfully without any casualties. More overt intervention to provoke the Georgians could trigger a dangerous showdown between the two countries. 
The last event on the horizon is the one that worries Russia the most: NATO’s April summit in Bucharest. The United States has been leading the push for Georgia to be given a Membership Action Plan at the summit that could lead to its eventual accession to the alliance. The Georgians see NATO membership as their best guarantee of independence from Russia. Moscow wants to stop this from happening at all costs. 
The issue of Georgia’s membership in NATO is deeply political and needs to be handled very carefully. If you tell the Georgians that their country is too turbulent to deserve NATO accession, you virtually hand a carte blanche to Russia to destabilize the situation further and prove the merits of that argument. But to put Georgia on a fast track into NATO is equally irresponsible. The alliance should not be expected to absorb a country that has two unresolved conflict zones with Russian peacekeepers in them. The danger is that if Georgia joins NATO before the conflicts are resolved, those peacekeepers will simply change their helmets and be relabeled Russian defenders against “NATO aggression.” 
Responsible government, slow public sector reform, dialogue with minorities and oppositions, and an open media are needed to ensure the south Caucasus states make an effective transition to stability and modernity. Yet Western countries lack strong leverage and will to persuade the elites to pursue these goals. 
The United States and Europe have plenty of agendas in these countries: energy security, alliance-building in the face of Russia and Iran, tackling organized crime and terrorism. The West also has tactical instruments; one example of this was when officials flew into Tbilisi in the last fortnight to twist the Georgian president’s arm to get back on the democratic track. But the West shows no evidence of having an overall strategy for the region or a vision for its future. At best, the countries in-between are stuck. At worst, they risk slipping into turmoil and being let down by their leaders and the competing ambitions of the powers around them. 

Thomas de Waal is Caucasus editor with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and author of “Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War.” This comment appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

TITLE:  A Taxing Problem?
AUTHOR: By Sophia Bezborodkina and Nikita Gurin
TEXT: Historically, subventions have been considered a way of providing state support to investors following the introduction of Chapter 25 of the Tax Code which limited the reduction of the tax rate by regions to 4 percent.  As an alternative, some regions (including Leningrad Oblast) decided to use subventions to increase their investment attractiveness by compensating investors with a portion of profits tax payable to the regional budget. 
The right for subventions is usually stipulated in an investment agreement between the investor and the regional authorities. There have always been problems obtaining them in practice because this is a budget law mechanism and subventions are granted only after tax has been paid. Actual receipt of monetary funds was always subject to budget expenses in annual regional Budget Law and compliance with a complicated application procedure. 
The Leningrad region began granting subventions (provided in a regional budget) from 2006, but it now seems that this mechanism will not be realizable in the next financial year (2008) due to recent changes in federal budget laws.  
At the end of April 2007, amendments to the Budget Code, by way of Federal Law No. 63-FZ, were adopted by the State Duma and signed by President Vladimir Putin. These provided a new classification of budget assignments (expenses) and removed subventions from the list. As a result, subventions will not be available, in the form of a budget expense in favor of legal entities, from Jan. 1 of 2008.
This definitely has negative implications for investors and may result in the non-reimbursement of tax expenses from the regional budget despite an investment agreement. It should also be noted that the “grandfathering clause” included in regional law and investment agreements does not protect investors against changes in federal legislation.
The amendment of article 78 of the Budget Code provides another form of free and irrevocable monetary grant — these are subsidies, which differ in definition from subventions. In fact, it is disputable whether tax expense compensation can be covered by newly set subsidies (in particular, whether the purpose of a subsidy is compensation of either expenses or loss of revenue with regard to sale of goods, provision of works or services). There is a certain degreee of room here for discussion of whether tax expense can fall into this category. 
Even if we set aside the question of legal feasibility in providing tax expense compensation through subsidies, a number of changes are required. In particular, amendments to the regional law “On state support of investment activities” are required and expenses must be allowed for in the budget from 2008. Furthermore, investment agreements will require amendments and experience has shown that this can be a time-consuming and troublesome process. 
Currently, we can see no regional legislation that would allow investors in, for example, the Leningrad region to utilize subsidies in 2007; however draft regional budget law has just passed the first reading but has not been made available to the public. This is the only process that will reveal if tax expense compensations are to survive after Jan. 1, 2008, although the attention of regional authorities and investors is required as soon as possible. 

Sophia Bezborodkina is manager of the Tax and Legal Department at Deloitte CIS. Nikita Gurin is a consultant at Deloitte CIS.

TITLE: Behind closed doors
AUTHOR: By Ronald Grigor Suny
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The other day a student told me that he had no memory of the Soviet Union or its collapse. He was only four-years old when it happened, so for him the Soviet Union and communism are as much parts of history as the American Civil War or the Roman Empire. They have no palpable relevance for his life in the age of the “green menace” of Islam or the iPhone. With periodic visits to the Soviet Union no longer available as a reality check, that student is left with archives, memoirs, diaries and testimonies to recreate what the Soviet Union might have been. Soviet citizens who lived through the trauma of Stalinism and World War II have already recalibrated their recollections of the past, and historians now come to the Soviet experiment knowing how it turned out. 
Imagination and hard work are more than ever required to resurrect the sense of possibility that inspired — some would say misled — those in the first Soviet generations who embarked on the building of a new world.
In “The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia,” Orlando Figes sets out to reconstruct nothing less than the interior life of ordinary Soviet citizens during the half century of Stalin’s rise, rule and aftermath. A prize-winning historian, Figes is both a prodigious researcher and a gifted writer. His work over time has moved steadily from the academic analytical to broader, more popular and accessible narratives. His first monograph was a stunning study of the Volga peasants during the Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War. 
But it was his second book, a sweeping, almost novelistic treatment of the Revolution — “The People’s Tragedy” — that made his public name. Some academic critics thought he stumbled with his next foray into more popular work — “Natasha’s Dance” — an excursion through centuries of Russian culture, but they will be hard-pressed to fault much in his latest, equally ambitious if more time-constrained study of the Soviet psyche.
Figes begins with the generation of 1917 and the Spartan, ascetic family relations of committed Bolsheviks. 
Officially the ideological drive was to break down the intimacies of parent-child connections and foster dedication to the collective and to the project of building socialism. Hearing her parents talk about “party construction,” the young Yelena Bonner, who would later become the wife of Nobel Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, thought the party built houses! For Bolsheviks there would be no distinction between private and public, and personal interests would coincide with those of society. Yet privacy and intimacy could not be eliminated, and in response people put on a public mask behind which they hid their personal and private feelings. The whole society was made up of whisperers, both those who spoke to one another sotto voce (here, whisperer is expressed by the Russian shepchushchy) and those who secretly “whispered” to the police, reporting on their friends, relatives and neighbors (here, the Russian sheptun carries the meaning of informer).
During the early years of Stalin’s rule, Soviet society was turned upside down. Proletarians were elevated; so-called “bourgeois specialists” — trained professionals, engineers and economists, were arrested; and the most productive peasants, condemned as “kulaks,” were driven from their homes and farms, which were turned over to the poorest villagers. Following the example of the infamous Pavlik Morozov, children denounced their parents. 
People born into formerly privileged or newly repressed classes concealed their social origins or the fact that a parent had been arrested. Young people strove to Bolshevize themselves, eager to take part in the furious struggle to industrialize the country. Fear mixed with enthusiasm, and those who accepted the need to use violence to break with the old and build the new suppressed their emotional attachments to family and their empathy for the victims of the state’s ambitions.
Figes tells multiple stories of the famous, the infamous and the ordinary. He uses a technique that he pioneered in “A People’s Tragedy,” following characters through the years, bringing them to the fore as their personal tales illustrate the themes of the book. The central figure is the writer known as “the favorite of Stalin,” Konstantin Simonov, who reforged himself from son of a noble mother to proletarian poet able to sing the praises of convict labor and of breaking eggs (in this case, human beings) to make an omelet. Later, recalling his awe of Stalin, he said, “You become accustomed to evil.” Simonov became a literary deity when his wartime poem “Wait for Me,” written as a personal anthem to his lover, was taken up first by his soldier comrades and later by the Soviet media to become the expression of the longing of millions to rejoin those they had left behind.
The stories are poignant, heartbreaking, even terrifying in their depiction of human cruelty, the waste of talent, the abuse of trust and faith. It wasn’t the state that withered away — it grew stronger and more distant — but the illusions that a humane alternative to capitalism could be built in peasant Russia. “The Great Terror,” Figes writes, “effectively silenced the Soviet people.” “We went through life afraid to talk,” reports the daughter of an arrested father.
The effect of one personal account piled on another is a layered portrait of successive generations — the fervent communists arrested, exiled or shot; their orphaned children, desperate, despairing and eager to be reunited with the Soviet collective; and the grandchildren who find it impossible to understand either. Even this doorstopper, however, is not big enough to encompass the whole array of Soviet experiences. The victims rather than the victors make up the bulk of the voices heard here. Figes takes issue with historians such as Jochen Hellbeck who claim that the driving ambition of many, if not most, Soviets was to merge with the great aims of Stalin and the Party. For Figes, becoming a Soviet activist “was a common survival strategy.” Yet many of Figes’ stories confirm Hellbeck’s view that acceptance by the Party and the collective was something sincerely desired. One kulak child, Dmitry Streletsky, “despite all his suffering at the hands of the Soviet regime,” remained a Soviet patriot, “believed fervently in the justice of the Party’s cause, and wanted desperately to become part of it.” “To be recognized as an equal human being,” he said, “that is all I wanted from the Party.”
Figes is a historian of keen and fair judgment. His views on major issues are sober and backed by clear argument and evidence. The Ukrainian famine of the early 1930s was a horror for which the regime in its ferocity and incompetence was responsible, but it was not a deliberately engineered genocide. 
He explains the purges of the Great Terror as caused primarily by Stalin’s perverse drive for social and political unity in preparation for the expected war with Germany. The Russian victory in that war is credited not to the Soviet system, but to the stalwart resistance and fortitude of ordinary Soviet citizens, their love of homeland, and their commitment to neighborhood, village, family and close friends.
Figes has written an extraordinary work of synthesis and insight, carefully contextualizing the varied witnesses to suffering and survival. Professional historians might complain that there are no theoretical breakthroughs or radical new interpretations, but they can hardly fail to learn from Figes’ deeply textured narratives. And, besides, this is an awfully good read! I think I will recommend it to my student.

Ronald Grigor Suny is Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History at the University of Michigan and the editor of “The Cambridge History of Russia, Vol. III: The Twentieth Century.”

TITLE: ‘Silent Conformism Takes Place...’
AUTHOR: By Matt Brown
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The historian and author Orlando Figes visited St. Petersburg last month to take part in the Jewel of Russia Russian-British cultural festival. Fresh from a rash of media appearances to promote “The Whisperers,” Figes was happy to discuss his new book over a Coke and a sandwich in the lobby of the Astoria Hotel.

Figes explained that “The Whisperers” was written in large part as a collaboration with the Russian international historical and civil rights society Memorial and its branches in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Perm. Although it is a survey of the whole of Soviet society in the Stalin era, “The Whisperers” opens doors onto many Leningrad lives, and Figes said the city of St. Petersburg itself stood out as a character in the tragedy of the times. 

How did “The Whisperers” come about?
I’d always wanted to do this. I had made contact with some of the families in the 1980s, and I realized I wanted this history to be a moral counterpart to the official history of the period.
It was not possible to do this in the 1990s — people were not ready. Not enough time had passed since the end of the Soviet Union. Memorial would agree: it is difficult to talk about emotions and feelings. It takes time to draw out this from people.
I started on my own [before Memorial became involved] with about 30 or 40 families. It was all a bit ad-hoc at this stage [2002-03].
Later I developed a formal partnership with Memorial. They had collected basic facts, details, and had been compiling archive material. But after the collaboration began the focus shifted to the internal family story with the family as a moral space.
The question of ‘how does this history get passed down’ arose. What were they told? How did families survive? We were entering a forbidden zone.
Memorial were overcome with material in the 1990s — but [the people who gave material were] not volunteering internal histories.

Did you work with Memorial in St. Petersburg?
They were our main partners. Irina Flige [head of the historical department of St. Petersburg Memorial] is very good at oral history. 
The St. Petersburg cohort that we worked with say a lot more about the history of the city than Perm of Moscow; they reveal a lot about the blockade [the Siege of Leningrad by the Nazi Army from 1941 to 1944]; they say a lot about the interconnectedness of the city in the 1930s and ‘40s; there are interesting stories of people helping each other. This was less true of the Moscow material.

Are there any St. Petersburg testimonials that stand out to you? 
Here’s one example: both parents in a family worked at Smolny in 1937, and they were arrested on the same night. Their 13-year old daughter was left alone — but people helped. 
Teachers are the heroes of the book. At Yelena Bonner’s school perhaps half of the class lost parents in 1937. Later school fees were introduced and teachers secretly paid them [for the children whose parents had been arrested or shot]. [The teacher] played a huge role in keeping Yelena Bonner and others in school.
The children were told by their teachers to glue patches over the faces of those who had been ‘disappeared.’ But they were told to do it carefully. The message was that one day it might be possible to remove the patches. [This showed the independent] Leningrad spirit.
What can “The Whisperers” tell us about today’s Russia?
More than I expected it would. Repression affects the family for several generations. Fear is passed down. The younger generation is inhibited. There’s an internal inhibition that is passed down.
Silent conformism takes place. People learn to accept things as they are. If we were doing the book now it would be more difficult because people were conditioned to be wary of the Soviet system. If we were to do it in the current political climate where [President Vladimir] Putin’s regime is trying to get people to think more positively about Stalin’s time, it would be tricky.
[When the book was compiled between 2002-06 its subjects] were feeling marginalized. [But now with the] intensification … by Putin of the normalization of Stalinism [the book’s aim at telling the internal history of the period] would leave people traumatized.

TITLE: Chernov's Choice
TEXT: Although the <b>Other Russia</b> coalition has not been permitted to take part in State Duma elections, due on Dec. 2, it did come up with alternative candidates on its party list, and in St. Petersburg this included musician <b>Mikhail Borzykin</b> of local band <b>Televizor</b>.
Indeed, “Get Out of Control,” “Your Daddy Is a Fascist” and “Fed Up” — the songs that Borzykin wrote in the Soviet Union of the 1980s — seem more relevant than ever these days. Televizor will perform at Orlandina on Friday, while the Other Russia will hold a protest rally, called a <b>Dissenters’ March</b>, at noon on Sunday. 
The main disagreement so far is about the location; the authorities only agreed to a distant route, where the demonstration will have little impact, while the organizers were insisting on Palace Square as this paper went to print.
<b>Agnostic Front</b>, New York’s hardcore legend, will headline what is called Hardcore Attack, a series of concerts launched by New York’s Mad Ball in August. Jacksonville, Florida-based <b>Evergreen Terrace</b> and New York’s <b>Sworn Enemy</b> will also perform, as well as the local band <b>Next Round</b> formed by members of Til I Die, Engage at Will and Distress, with Igor Ribson of the Pupsy and Delfiny fame on vocals.
Some gospel and gospel-arranged pop hits will be brought to St. Petersburg by the <b>Harlem Gospel Choir</b> that performs at Smolny Cathedral on Tuesday and Wednesday and at the Cappella on Thursday. Close harmony group <b>Manhattan Transfer</b> will perform at Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Tuesday.
Promoter Denis Rubin has explained last week’s closure of Gosti music bar, where he was an art director and that he saw as an adult alternative to the popular DJ bar Datscha, by saying it was a violation of an agreement on the part of his partner, while a person who picked up a phone at the place said there would be a “different cafe” in Gosti’s former premises.
Meanwhile, <b>Red Club</b> has failed to reopen fully after its summer vacation. The venue that once hosted such bands as Marc Ribot and Los Cubanos Postizos, Violet Indiana and I Am Kloot, has been reported to hold only night dance parties that it does not even advertize, and its dated website’s announcements only list a concert that should have taken place in June.
Nevertheless, rumor has it that Red Club’s owners are building a new concert hall in the former Varshavsky Vokzal, now rebuilt into a massive shopping and entertainment complex, which will be capable of holding more than 1,000 fans. 
Looking further ahead, expect the <b>New York Dolls</b>, the legendary proto-punk band, will perform at Port on Dec. 6. 
Those going to Moscow should be aware that the <b>Happy Mondays</b> will finally go to Moscow and perform as part of Rolling Stone’s birthday party at B1 Maximum on Thursday.

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: The wanderer returns
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Talented bass-baritone Ildar Abdrazakov, a rare breed of Russian singer that has built an international career performing almost exclusively an Italian and French repertoire, comes to town this month for two performances at the Mariinsky, the theater where he began his career.
On Friday Nov. 30, the singer, noted for his dark, suave, velvety voice, impressive range, smooth technique and powerful stage presence, appears in the title role in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” which he has just sung to great acclaim in a new production that premiered earlier this month at the Washington National Opera, directed by John Pascoe. Abdrazakov had previously sang the role of Don’s servant Leporello in the Mariinsky’s production of the opera, staged by Germany’s Johannes Schaaf in 1999.
“Leporello with [German director] Johannes Schaaf liberated me,” Abdrazakov said. “The director tuned me up, and opened my eyes to the dramatic element which I hadn’t fully appreciated.”
The role marked an artistic turning point in Abdrazakov’s career and put the singer in the international spotlight.
“At first, I just signed everything because I loved everything that I was offered, and then it turned out that I would be so busy I wouldn’t come home for nine months,” he said. “I now always look for a proper balance.” 
Born in the capital of the southern Russian rebublic of Bashkortostan in 1976, Abdrazakov had his first music lessons there, with Professor Milyausha Murtazina. He made his debut at the Mariinsky in 1998 as Figaro in Mozart’s “Le nozze di Figaro” to high critical acclaim, drawing immediate public attention. It was the start of a breathtaking international career. In the following year, the singer received all possible awards in Russian contests for vocalists, but the real breakthrough was the Grand Prix at the Fifth Maria Callas Competition “Nuove voci per Verdi” in Italy in 2000. 
The victory brought multiple lucrative contracts and exposure to classical gems unseen on the Russian stage: Bellini’s “Norma,” Rossini’s “Moise et Pharaon,” “Semiramide,” “Il Turko in Italia” and “L’italiana in Algeri.” Abdrazakov fully immersed himself in the world of Rossini and Mozart, whose operas now form the lion’s share of his repertoire. 
Abdrazakov, who frequents world’s most prestigious operatic stages, and whose most recent engagements have included Mephistopheles in Gounod’s “Faust” in New York’s Metropolitan Opera and contracts with La Scala in Milan, Italy, and Spain’s Bilbao Opera, has been absent from the local stage for many months.
His next performance after “Don Giovanni” is scheduled for Dec. 6, when the St. Petersburg audiences will have a chance to see him in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.”
After international recognition, the 31-year-old Ufa native landed plum roles at world’s most respected venues and rave reviews in the media.
“Ildar Abdrazakov was simply delightful on stage: a true basso buffo, he offered us a petulant and arrogant Mustafa who was, nonetheless, gullible enough to be fooled by Isabella’s seduction maneuvers into the most humorous and ridiculous situations, namely his promotion ritual to Pappataci,” reads a 2002 review in the Classical Voice of a performance of Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri” in Spain’s La Coruna. “The one who eats and utters no word — that is what Pappataci literally means — stuffed himself with pizza, while watching Isabella fleeing his Court with Lindoro. Moreover, Abdrazakov’s full, resonant and dark voice was flexible enough to overcome with confidence the technical difficulties of Rossini’s score. And he still had energy left to spice things up with imaginative diction.”
Abdrazakov has always been enthusiastic about his foreign engagements, eager to sing Moses, Mustafa (in “L’italiana in Algeri”), Selim (in “Il Turko in Italia”), Ferrando (in “Il Trovatore”) and Don Basilio (in “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”). All in all, he reckons he has probably given more performances at La Scala than in St. Petersburg. However, upon his winning the Callas award there hasn’t been much work on offer at the Mariinsky.
“It is partially because here they plan short-term, and would normally announce a new production only in a month in advance, while in Europe they plan several whole seasons ahead,” he explains.
The singer admits not having sang in Russian during his time abroad - not by choice, yet neither to his particular regret. A suitable repertoire of Russian roles in operas such as Rakhmaninov’s “Aleko,” Glinka’s “A Life For The Tsar” (“Ivan Susanin”) or Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Sadko,” do not tend to be performed outside of Russia. 
“Now, I wouldn’t sing in ‘Susanin’ or ‘Boris Godunov’ because everything takes time,” the singer said. “More importantly, belcanto suits my voice much better.”
Abdrazakov opened the 2003/04 season in La Scala as Moses in Rossini’s grand biblical opera “Moise et Pharaon” under the baton of Riccardo Muti, and sang Mephistopheles in Gounod’s “Faust” at the Met and “The Tales of Hoffmann” in the Madrid Opera in 2005/06 and 2006/07 seasons.
Abdrazakov’s tight schedule makes it difficult for him to accommodate the Mariinsky, as his first priority is coordinating his plans with those of his wife, star mezzo soprano Olga Borodina. The couple, the happy parents of five-year-old Vladimir-Amir, struggle to adjust their international engagements and it requires substantial effort to match their schedules. There are often months between the occasions when the two go on stage together.
“We are trying to arrange to sing in same production, or at least in same companies at the same time for the family to be able to stay together for longer,” Abdrazakov said.
“Ildar and I travel a lot but we both don’t see ourselves permanently living abroad,” Borodina said. “We would always be alien there. We might pretend we are not but we always will be.”
In the meantime, the couple’s travel scheduled is packed as ever.
“My suitcases never really get put away as I keep packing them to go somewhere,” he said. “But I do want to come back to the Mariinsky stage, and I hope something will happen in this regard. Again, I just want to remind people that I am alive and that I sing.”

TITLE: A rebel with a cause
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Eduard  Limonov, the controversial politician whose National-Bolshevik Party, NBP, has  been recently banned by a court as “extremist,” has been busy working with  chess champion and oppositionist Garry Kasparov in The Other Russia, a  coalition that aims to revive and defend Russian democracy. Limonov has been  demonstrating with Kasparov and others in the Marches of Dissenters,  anti-Kremlin rallies that have often been brutally suppressed by the police. 
Arrested  in 2001, he spent more than two years in prison on charges of unlawful  acquisition, possession and transportation of firearms and ammunition.
Despite  his political activities, Limonov’s other self as an uncompromising author,  seen by some as Russia’s  best living writer, remains in the spotlight. 
The local  Amphora publishing house has announced it will republish many of his books,  including the irreverent semi-autobiographical novel<i> It’s Me, Eddie </i>(Eto ya, Edichka). The book brought Limonov, then a  political &eacute;migr&eacute; in New York,  international notoriety when it was published in English in 1979 in the U.S.  (French and German editions followed.) Amphora will also publish a new book  entitled <i>Smrt</i>, devoted to what is  perhaps Limonov’s most questionable period, when he was a volunteer on the  Serbian side in the Balkan wars of the early 1990s.
“I’ve  just finished it a month ago, actually. It’s an absolutely new book,” said  Limonov, 64, speaking by phone from his home in Moscow on Wednesday.
“I  just had no time to get to this subject, though at that time I published some  dispatches. But now it’s high time. I had a break in the summer and I had  finished this book by autumn. It’s not really a collection of short stories;  it’s some episodes from the war. 
“It’s  called <i>Smrt</i>, which is Serbian for  ‘death.’ It’s just like the Russian <i>smert</i>,  but they write it with no vowels. It’s something abrupt, like the blow of a  saber. The Serbian death is shorter than the Russian one.”
To be  published in January, <i>Smrt</i> will be  preceded in December by <i>Inostranets v  smutnoye</i> <i>vremya</i> (A Foreigner in a  Time of Troubles). The book is Limonov’s 1990 account of the final years of  Gorbachev’s perestroika and the Soviet Union.  It is based on his impressions when he returned to Moscow after years of living abroad. 
Although  both volumes have little to do with today’s Russia, Limonov’s last published  book was <i>Limonov vs. Putin</i>, his  savage critique of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin politics.
“I am  the author of many tomes. I don’t know how many — 45 books already or more. I  wrote eight books during my time in prison,” said Limonov.
“I  write as needed about what gets on my nerves most at that particular moment.  Putin got on my nerves, so I wrote <i>Limonov  vs. Putin</i>. The book came out in 2006. No publisher wanted to deal with it,  so I had to publish it myself.”
Although  the book is not available in Russian bookshops, it can be downloaded free of  charge from NBP’s website.
“It’s  because there was only one distributor that agreed to take it. Perhaps they  changed their policy, because they don’t seem to have sold anything and some  copies just got stuck there.”
Limonov,  who said he has just written another book called <i>Eres’</i> (Heresy) that he has not yet shown to a publisher, is busy  organizing the Marches of Dissenters with his partners in The Other Russia, the  coalition of different political groups that borrowed its name from Limonov’s  2003 book. The marches will take place in Moscow  and St. Petersburg  on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
“It’s  not simply that I will participate in them. I am the chairman of The Other  Russia’s executive committee, so I’m rather the ranking person,” said Limonov. 
The  rallies will be held to oppose Kremlin-imposed restrictive legislation  concerning elections to the State Duma, which will take place on December 2. The  new rules all but guarantee the victory of the main pro-Kremlin party, United  Russia.
“[The  main slogan of the rallies] is <i>Down with  elections without choice</i>,” said Limonov. He and Kasparov are banned from  appearing on Russia’s  state-controlled television channels.
“Down  with elections in which four fifths of political parties don’t participate.  It’s like the elections at a concentration camp: you are allowed to choose only  from the officers guarding the camp. It’s the only thing it can be compared  with.”
In The  Other Russia’s newspapers, specially published in advance of the Marches, Limonov  describes the upcoming elections as a “national shame.” The newspapers also  feature articles by Kasparov and Putin’s former economics adviser Andrei  Illarionov. Some activists have been detained by the police for distributing  the newspapers, and many copies have been confiscated.
“Of  course, the elections are a national shame, because no freedom-loving nation  would tolerate this. The big question arises, why do we tolerate this — this  big lie when some scumbag, pardon me, from United Russia makes a speech and  claims in a squeaky voice that the majority is behind them,” said Limonov.
“What  majority? It’s like in a camp: you don’t allow people to participate in  elections but instead beat them up and hide them somewhere in a punishment  cell. What do you expect? You’ve culled everybody and take part in the  elections all by yourselves. It’s natural that you’ll win.”
As  opposed to the massive events staged by United Russia, The Other Russia’s  rallies are frequently dismissed because the number of marchers is low.  However, the first March of the Dissenters in St. Petersburg, on March 3, drew an estimated  6,000-plus protesters.
“Many  people think this way because they sit with their asses stuck to their chairs,  waiting for their heads to be chopped off. That’s why we have small turnouts,”  said Limonov.
“If  all of us followed this pessimistic, slavish philosophy that says there aren’t  many of us . . . Well, get out, get off your ass, think about your children,  think about this shameful nineteenth century that we live in now — this  smooth-tongued crowd, allegedly applauding Putin, Putin himself whom everybody  is sick of beyond all measure. 
“They  created a virtual reality, a giant lie. While it’s clear that in free elections  United Russia  would not only not come first but would hardly to get on the list at all. 
“But  when all rivals are destroyed, there is only the fruit called United Russia at  the marketplace.”
Although  Limonov’s NBP party was declared “extremist” by the Moscow City Court, which  forbade its activities within the Russian Federation in April (a decision that  was later upheld by the Supreme Court), the banned party’s members take part in  opposition rallies.
“According  to the Ministry of Justice and the other bodies, the party doesn’t exist, but  our people do exist and those people work within The Other Russia,” said  Limonov, whose party flag was lambasted for its alleged resemblance to the flag  of Nazi Germany. The NBP flag, however, sports a hammer and sickle, not a  swastika.
“It’s  risky to go out with the flags of the banned NBP. The flag wasn’t banned  actually, but as the party is banned, its charter is obviously banned as well.  And the charter includes the red flag with a black hammer and sickle inside a  white circle. Now we go out with different flags. It’s not the same flag  anymore.”
Considered  an extreme nationalist in the 1990s, Limonov now openly advocates democracy and  civil rights. He once described NBP as a cross between Greenpeace and Amnesty  International.
“It’s  because this liquidated, banned party used exclusively non-violent means for  bringing its ideas to the masses,” he said.
“We  have always demanded [democratic freedoms]. As early as Feb. 23, 2000, even before  Putin became the president, we marched down Tverskaya [Moscow’s main street] carrying a 15-meter  long banner that read, ‘Down with autocracy and royal succession.’ And the  second banner read, ‘Putin, we didn’t invite you. Go away.’ That was in 2000. Let  any other party boast that it started to oppose the present president so  early.”
Despite  the evident change in rhetoric since the 1990s, Limonov claims his views have  not changed.
“Absolutely  nothing has changed,” he said.
“We  demanded freedom, demanded to be allowed to take part in elections, and  advocated a certain ideology as we do now. Nothing has changed.
“The  other thing is that they created a disgusting image for us — the media did it.  Although Yeltsin’s Kremlin didn’t like us any more than Putin’s Kremlin does. I  still think that Yeltsin was a super-negative person, the man who dug the Soviet Union’s grave. He’s something like Judas in  Christian history or much worse than [the Ukrainian Cossack Hetman Ivan]  Mazeppa, who is seen as the greatest traitor in Russian history.”
Regretting  the fate of the Soviet Union, Limonov  describes himself as a socialist.
“I am not a Marxist and not a Leninist, and  especially not a Stalinist, but I think that the country’s wealth should be  distributed within the country more or less equally. This does not mean ‘war  communism’ or the absence of businessmen, the absence of a middle class or  absence of rich people. It means that state policy should focus on the majority  of citizens, rather than on oligarchs.”
According  to Limonov, his views do not contradict Kasparov’s.
“Gary  and I have never disagreed on political matters and never argued on these  subjects. If we’ve had arguments, they were technical arguments about how The  Other Russia should develop,” he said.
In the  upcoming elections, The Other Russia urges voters to write the coalition’s name  on the ballots, thus making them invalid. It hopes that the number of such  invalidated ballots will define the number of its supporters. It thus  discourages Russians from voting for liberal parties Yabloko and SPS, which  have little chance of passing the seven-percent threshold set by new Russian  electoral laws as the minimum necessary for taking seats in the Duma.
“Yabloko  and SPS don’t suit us — we’re different,” he said.
“Yabloko  and SPS were in the State Duma already. And my views — I don’t know about  Kasparov’s views, whether they coincide in some ways with Yabloko and SPS — but  I have few points in common with Yabloko and SPS. Neither do my supporters.”
Unlike  Kasparov, Limonov is not frequently profiled in the international press. He  recently responded to a British critic for the <i>Observer</i> by writing a column called “Limonov vs. Western  Journalists,” which was published in the Moscow-based ex-pat newspaper the <i>eXile</i>.
“I don’t  crave the affections of the western press. I absolutely don’t need it,” he  said.
“I  have no interest in the western press at all. I want the public opinion of  other countries, both western and eastern, to be on our side. I want them to  support us in our struggle against our country’s tyrannical government. 
“But  that doesn’t mean I should ingratiate myself to western journalists. I think  they don’t understand me and are rather afraid of me.”
Liberal  parties Yabloko and SPS refused to take part in the Marches of the Dissenters. They pointed to  the views of Limonov and his followers as well as the party’s symbols as the  main reason for their refusal.
However,  the Petersburg  branch of Yabloko has participated in all the local marches and has announced  that it will take part in the upcoming march as well. Under attack from the  authorities for escalating its criticism of the Kremlin, SPS has this week also  announced it will join the rallies.
Despite  all the contradictions and criticisms they generate, Limonov is sure that the  Marches of the Dissenters are vital for political change in Russia.
“It  gives people courage. Everything will be okay here when people start acting  courageously. When people stop making excuses — ‘I can’t march with this guy, I  can’t march with that guy’ — like capricious children. We should all go out and  fight for our freedom — Russians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, whoever. Let’s go  out and at least finally organize a decent political system.”
<i>Eduard Limonov’s </i>Smrt<i> (Death) will be published in January 2008. </i>Inostranets v smutnoe vremya<i> (A Foreigner in a Time of Troubles) will be published by Amphora  Publishing House in early December.</i>

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: This week, Ogonyok and Russian Newsweek magazines took a pop at the feeble state of the Russian music industry, or specifically the singers’ penchant for lip-synching and the producers’ penchant for switching the lineup of their girl groups — a musical genre that one described as “singing knickers.”
The poster boy for Ogonyok’s article on lip-synching was old-stager Filipp Kirkorov, pictured in a fetching pair of high-waisted silver trousers. He won’t be particularly pleased, since he starts a nine-day residency at the Operetta Theater this week, celebrating his 25-year-long career in show business, at least some of which has presumably involved singing. However, he is quoted in the magazine protesting a recent decision by Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov not to pay performers who lip-synch at municipal events. That’s all very well, he says, but the city authorities won’t stump up for the sound equipment needed for live performances
The magazine reprints a quote that Kirkorov originally gave to RIA-Novosti in October, where he said that he usually has to do municipal concerts at venues that only have “a mini-disc player and a remote where half the buttons don’t work.” Anyone who has experienced City Day, when the greatest hits of Zolotoye Koltso reverberate ear-bleedingly over Tverskaya Ulitsa, would suspect that this is true, although surely more Kirkorov-friendly venues such as the Kremlin Palace have at least some working microphones. For the record, though, Kirkorov did tell RIA-Novosti that he’ll sing live at the Operetta Theater.
The Ogonyok article had some nice stories about the illustrious history of lip-synching in Russia. A sound-man who worked with Laskovy Mai, a group popular in the late 1980s, recalled that the group had a recorded soundtrack that even included comments to the crowd such as “I can’t see your hands!” and “Everyone says that we lip-synch, but you can see that it’s not true.” Another Soviet-era group, Mirazh, had four or five different lineups of attractive, but similar-looking girls, who toured provincial cities at the same time, miming to the same songs.
When it comes to girl groups, the rules should be relaxed, the producer of bikini-clad quintet Strelki, Igor Selivesterov, told Ogonyok, explaining that a blanket ban on lip-synching would be like “saying Andy Warhol isn’t an artist because he didn’t draw like [Russian artist Ivan] Shishkin.” All the girls in Strelki actually sing on their recorded soundtrack, he boasted, but on stage they’ve got better things to do, like dancing and showing off their sequins. “People call this genre ‘singing knickers’ and I don’t see anything insulting in that,” he summed up.
As long as the elastic holds up, the producers of such groups can change the lineup as often as they like, Russian Newsweek wrote. Subtly named girl group VIA Gra has had nine changes of lineup in its 7-year history, while everyone has given up counting with Blestyashchiye and Strelki. None of the original members are left in Blestyashchiye — some left to marry rich, others such as Anna Semenyovich, to appear on every second television show — but no one in the audience asks for his money back, said music agency director Tabriz Shakhidi, who books Blestyashchiye among others. “The group is very popular and successful.” 
Interestingly, Blestyashchiye has even become a dynasty, with the younger sister of one of its most famous alumni, Zhanna Friske, joining the group in October. Natalya Friske, a 21-year-old law student, is lucky enough to enjoy the full support of her sister, who has since gone on to a solo career and reality shows. Friske Senior told 7 Dnei magazine that “I hope she has enough brains not to give up her studies.

TITLE: It’s a mad, mad world
AUTHOR: By Ashley Cleek
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Gimnazya // 21 Konnogvardeisky Bulvar. Tel: 570 0770. // www.gimnazya.ru // Dinner for two with wine 2790 rubles ($116)

It will take someone with a worldly palate and broad appreciation of generally incongruous cultures to comprehend the selection of dishes available at the new restaurant Gimnazya.
Located a few steps from Ploshchad Truda, Gimnazya is housed in a small, one-story building that resembles a mix of an Italian villa and an elegant coach house. While the exterior hints at a former splendor, it does not given guests an accurate measure of the grandiosity of the rooms inside.
Technically there is only one dining room. The main dining hall spans the length of the building. Its scope and decoration remind one of Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, and the opulence is comparable. Two rows of dark grey columns divided the room into thirds. The right and left sections are filled with long banquet tables that can be added or taken away open on diners’ requests and smaller, round tables, that all the same seat about eight people. Gimnazya is not for intimate table talk but boisterous, satiated celebration. Groups of ten to twelve sit at tables strewn with plates of various appetizers, some half-finished, most not yet begun.
On arriving for an impromptu visit, I was informed that all tables had long ago been reserved. Unfortunately, the hostess said, only a few of the divans with low tables at the front of the room were available. Much like the “reservation only” policy, everything at Gimnazya has been planned and coordinated. The crimson, velvet upholstery of the chairs matches the curtains, and the black Victorian design of the wood is reflected in the columns and menus. 
While the menu has also been carefully selected, it is difficult to pin down the criteria. Dishes like baked baklazhan (eggplant) and Kotlet Po-Kievsky (Chicken Kiev) represent the regular Russian fare, and the rest of the menu can be divided into East and West. Italian pastas and pizzas, salads of fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil, and a delicious white bean soup (200 rubles, $8) seasoned with pesto, parmesan and a swirl of pepper take up the first few pages, while the back ten pages of the menu are devoted to miso soup, sushi and sashimi. The chef has even taken the bold step of creating two original rolls: The Petersburg Roll (crab, avocado and tobiko or flying fish roe) and the Russia Roll (smoked salmon, avocado and cream cheese). Sushiphiles would be advised to reserve one of the four rooms in the back, which are partitioned off from the main hall by a skillful manipulation of curtains and furniture. These rooms are designed to resemble tatami rooms with traditional Japanese floor mats and are for private parties of four people. 
While the meat and chicken dishes tend toward Russian and Italian cuisines, the fish dishes showcase a more Oriental flavor. The salmon steak (650 rubles, $27) grilled to a flakey pink leans on a pile of crisp field peas, resembling edamame (boiled soybean pods), and is served with a sweet citrus miso dressing. The presentation is also more Eastern in its simplicity and simple, bright colors: the miso sauce is orange and red, while the pea and asparagus garnish is a bright green. 
As with the menu, the atmosphere is a mixture: a Victorian drawing room combined with European disco. The alcoves, archways and columns are illuminated with track lighting that shifts from orange to fuchsia to indigo. Plasma screen televisions showing the most recent soccer game or Eurovision concert hang on the wall between the windows, and covers of Cole Porter and Edith Piaf easy listening are merged with live bossa nova music played by a band on a neon-lit stage.

TITLE: Elizabeth II?
AUTHOR: By Manohla Dargis
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: A kitsch extravaganza aquiver with trembling bosoms, booming guns and wild energy, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” tells, if more often shouts, the story of the bastard monarch who ruled England with an iron grip and two tightly closed legs. It’s the story of a woman, who, as played by the irresistibly watchable Cate Blanchett as David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust period, sublimated her libidinal energies through court intrigue until she found sweet relief by violently bringing the Spanish Empire to its knees.
But that’s getting ahead of this story, which begins in 1585 when Queen Elizabeth hit 52, though the film seems to put her closer to 38, Blanchett’s actual age. The blurring of fact and fancy is, of course, routine with this kind of opulent big-screen production, in which the finer points of history largely take a back seat to personal melodrama and lavish details of production design and costumes. In this regard “The Golden Age” may set a standard for such an adulterated form: it’s reductive, distorted and deliriously far-fetched, but the gowns are fabulous, the wigs are a sight and Clive Owen makes a dandy Errol Flynn, even if he’s really meant to be Walter Raleigh, the queen’s favorite smoldering slab of man meat.
When Raleigh first swaggers into the court, he’s toting a trunk of New World goodies, including some tobacco leaves that, when smoked, he promises with an insinuating smile, are very “stimulating.” Hearing that Raleigh has named a swath of New World land Virginia in her honor, Elizabeth seems exceedingly eager for stimulation. She may be a virgin or virginesque, but she’s far from cloistered. She surrounds herself with female pets (“My bitches wear my collars”), the loveliest of whom is Bess Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish). Bess holds the queenly hand, caresses the royal head and keeps the imperial body intimate company, suggesting that Elizabeth abandoned the metaphoric sword but not the chalice.
The director Shekhar Kapur, who put Blanchett through her flouncing paces in “Elizabeth,” the rather more restrained 1998 film about the monarch’s earlier years, doesn’t spend much time pondering the Sapphic possibilities, mostly because he has armies to unleash, conspiracies to uncork and one head to lop off (Samantha Morton as Mary Stuart). Even so, despite the hurried, sporadically frantic pace, there are a few nice moments in which Elizabeth uses Bess and Raleigh as erotic puppets, turning them into expressions of her own masculine and feminine selves, as if she were a child playing naughty with Barbie and Ken. In her spectral face you see a lonely soul trying to hold onto sanity, to a thread of real life.
Owen looks as if he’s having a grand time, whether he’s revving Elizabeth up with his tales of seafaring adventure, nuzzling a swooning supplicant or hanging off a ship’s rigging as the wind gently stirs his chest hair. With his seafaring movie tan and muscular physicality he matches up well against the forceful Ms. Blanchett, whose strange beauty adds to the queen’s otherworldly affect. The Elizabeth of this film bears little relation to the flushed young woman of the first film, who had not yet been unmoored from the merely mortal. The spring lamb is no more, and with her Kabuki-white mask and palace rituals, this older, ethereal Elizabeth on occasion seems like a space alien, which, in some ways, is what she has become.
Written by William Nicholson and Michael Hirst, “The Golden Age” has sweep and momentum and almost as many mood shifts and genre notes as the queen has dresses. It’s intentionally playful and an inadvertent giggle, an overripe melodrama that’s by turns a bodice-ripper, a cloak-and-dagger thriller and a serious-minded historical drama with dubious contemporary overtones.
The first film opened with persecuted Protestants roasting over an open fire courtesy of Elizabeth’s predecessor; this film leads off with a scheming King Philip II of Spain, her former brother-in-law (Jordi Molla), who wants to dethrone the Protestant queen by igniting a Catholic-led holy war. The resulting conspiracy, with its ominous monks and Latin chants, reeks of “The Da Vinci Code,” as well as a more urgently modern struggle.
For much of “The Golden Age,” the filmmakers flirt suggestively with the idea that the English or perhaps the English-speaking world is engaged in another holy war against another set of radical fundamentalists. By the time the Spanish Armada has set sail for England, and Elizabeth has donned armor and a flowing red wig to rouse her waiting troops to victory, the suggestive has become explicit. Declaiming from atop her white horse, her legs now conspicuously parted as she straddles the jittery, stamping animal, she invokes God and country, blood and honor, life and death, bringing to mind at once Joan of Arc, Henry V, Winston Churchill and Tony Blair in one gaspingly unbelievable, cinematically climactic moment. The queenly body quakes as history and fantasy explode.

TITLE: Bush ‘Misled’ Public
AUTHOR: By Matt Apuzzo
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.
In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were “not involved” in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.
“There was one problem. It was not true,” McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.”
Bush’s chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.
The excerpt, posted on the Web site of publisher PublicAffairs, renews questions about what went on in the West Wing and how much Bush and Cheney knew about the leak. For years, it was McClellan’s job to field — and often duck — those types of questions.
Now that he’s spurring them, answers are equally hard to come by.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn’t clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt. “The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information,” she said.
Plame issued a statement saying the opposite.
“I am outraged to learn that former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirms that he was sent out to lie to the press corps,” Plame said. 
“Even more shocking, McClellan confirms that not only Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told him to lie but Vice President Cheney, presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card and President Bush also ordered McClellan to issue his misleading statement.”
McClellan turned down interview requests Tuesday.
Plame maintains the White House quietly outed her to reporters. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said the leak was retribution for his public criticism of the Iraq war. The accusation dogged the administration and made Plame a cause celebre among many Democrats.
McClellan’s book, “What Happened,” isn’t due out until April, and the excerpt released Monday was merely a teaser. It doesn’t get into detail about how Bush and Cheney were involved or reveal what happened behind the scenes.
Yet the teaser provided enough fodder for administration critics.

TITLE: England Snatch Defeat From Jaws of Victory
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: England needed only a tie at Wembley to make next year’s European Championship.
The English couldn’t do it, losing to Croatia 3-2 on Wednesday in a defeat that cost coach Steve McClaren his job Thursday.
Football Association chairman Geoff Thompson said McClaren’s contract had been terminated with immediate effect, along with that of assistant Terry Venables.
“Qualifying for a major tournament is probably the minimum requirement,” FA chief executive Brian Barwick said at a news conference. “I think that Steve thinks that as well. Not qualifying for Euro 2008 comes up short.”
Under McClaren, England won nine games, lost five and drew four. His 18-game tenure was the shortest of any full-time England coach.
 “We all know there are more important things than football in the world, but for us not to qualify for a competition it’s a huge, huge thing,” said former England captain David Beckham after Wednesday’s defeat.
Faring far better were Russia, Sweden, Turkey and Portugal. All advanced to complete the 16-team field for the tournament in Austria and Switzerland.
Sweden and Turkey qualified with victories in their final games, and Portugal made it with a 0-0 tie with Finland. Russia beat Andorra 1-0 and took advantage of England’s loss to Croatia.
Already in the tournament were: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, defending champion Greece, World Cup champion Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and Switzerland.
The draw for the four groups is Dec. 2 in Lucerne, Switzerland.
England held a two-point advantage over the Russians and needed only to avoid defeat to qualify, but Croatia won on a 77th-minute goal by substitute Mladen Petric.
The English played without injured stars John Terry, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen and trailed 2-0 after only 14 minutes. Goalkeeper Scott Carson failed to get his hands on an eighth-minute shot by Niko Kranjcar, giving Croatia the lead. Carson started over Paul Robinson while McClaren dropped Beckham to the bench.
Ivica Olic added the second goal and England trailed 2-0 by the time Beckham came on for the second half. England was awarded a dubious penalty kick and Frank Lampard converted. Beckham’s expertly timed cross allowed Peter Crouch to tie it in the 65th minute.

ON THE EDGE
Even though Russia was on the way to a 1-0 victory over Andorra, the scores at that stage gave England the edge. But Petric scored with a 30-yard shot to silence the England fans.
Marcus Allback scored a first-minute goal to put the Swedes on the way to a 2-1 victory over Latvia in Group F.
“It’s wonderful to win at home before our own fans in the last qualifier and to experience a fifth straight major next summer will be fantastic,” coach Lars Lagerback said.
Spain finished at the top of the group by beating Northern Ireland 1-0.
Turkey defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 off a 43rd-minute goal by Nihat Kahveci in Istanbul. The 2002 World Cup semifinalists advance along with Greece, which finished at the top of Group C after winning at Hungary 2-1. Greece goes to Euro 2008 with the best qualifying record of 10 victories, one loss and one tie.
Turkey’s narrow victory was enough to edge Norway, which won at Malta 4-1 helped by a first-half hat trick by Steffen Iversen.
Greece finished with 31 points, followed by Turkey with 24 and Norway with 23.
Portugal needed only to avoid defeat at home to Finland and made it along with Group A winner Poland. Poland tied Serbia 2-2 and finished with 28 points to Portugal’s 27. Finland had 24 and Serbia, which has one game to play after Saturday’s postponement of its match against Kazakhstan, has 21.
Italy led Group B with a 3-1 victory over Faeroe Islands, and France finished second after a 2-2 tie with Ukraine in Kiev.
The Czech Republic finished ahead of Germany in Group D by winning 2-0 at Cyprus with goals by Daniel Pudil and Jan Koller. The Germans were held to a 0-0 tie at home by Wales and finished two points behind.
Four days after it was guaranteed a berth with an unimpressive 1-0 victory over Luxembourg, the Netherlands tumbled to a 2-1 upset loss at Belarus. The Dutch team’s poor performances have led to calls for coach Marco van Basten to be fired.
Romania finished first in Group G after beating Albania 6-1.

MCLAREN’S FALL
It was the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England had failed to qualify for a major championship and first since 1984 that the team will miss the Euros.
McClaren said after the game that he would not be quitting, but the 12-man FA board called an emergency board meeting Thursday morning to decide on his dismissal.
“Of course we have no divine right to play in major tournaments, but it is quite right that qualification is expected,” Thompson said.
McClaren took over from Sven-Goran Eriksson after last year’s World Cup. The former Middlesbrough manager had been the Swede’s assistant coach for five years.
When McClaren was appointed, he appeared to be far from the first choice.
Before naming McClaren, the FA had spoken three times to Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari. Russia’s Guus Hiddink was another leading candidate. Both men are taking their teams to Euro 2008.
Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, Hiddink, Scolari, Italy’s World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi and Aston Villa’s Martin O’Neill are among the names considered possible replacements.
Because England won’t be playing at the Euro 2008 tournament and has nothing but friendlies until qualifying for the 2010 World Cup starts next season, there is no rush for the FA to appoint anyone.
“The recruitment process for the new coach begins now and we will do everything to get the right man for the job,” Barwick said. “It will be done differently. We’ve got to learn lessons from the way we did it.”
McClaren’s team failed to qualify from what was not a particularly tough group.
England lost both its games to Croatia, surrendered a lead in Moscow and fell 2-1 to the Russians, and was held 0-0 at home by Macedonia and 0-0 away by Israel.

TITLE: UK Government Admits Massive Data Loss
AUTHOR: By Jilll Lawless
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — It was a civil servant’s simple mistake, but the consequences could be vast.
Two computer disks bearing addresses, bank account numbers and other details of about 25 million people — almost half the British population — were popped into internal government mail and never arrived.
The government says there is no sign the data has fallen into criminal hands. But technology experts and civil libertarians say the security lapse spotlights the risks we take in entrusting personal details to governments and large institutions.
“I profoundly regret and apologize for the inconvenience and worries that have been caused to millions of families,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons on Wednesday. “We have a duty to do everything that we can to protect the public.”
The disks disappeared while being sent by internal mail from the tax and customs department to the government’s audit agency. They contained names, addresses, birthdates, national insurance numbers and, in some cases, banking details for 25 million adults and children.
Treasury chief Alistair Darling said the disks held information on the 7.25 million families in Britain claiming a child benefit — a tax-free monthly payment available to everyone with children. He said the delivery had not been tracked and the disks were missing for three weeks before the alarm was raised.
The disks were password protected, but the information on them was not encrypted.
Darling, who disclosed the breach to shocked lawmakers on Tuesday, called the lapse “catastrophic.”
“I can well understand people’s anxiety and anger that this has happened. It should never have happened, and I apologize unreservedly for that,” Darling said Wednesday.
Technology experts said they could not recall a loss of data on this scale in Britain. They said it showed fundamental flaws in the government’s plan to keep more information about citizens on centralized databases.
Projects in the works include a national medical records database and biometric identity cards for all citizens.
“It’s impossible to control this much data,” said Guy Hosein of watchdog group Privacy International. “Whenever you collect information and keep it centrally it will be abused, it will be lost.”
Conservative Party leader David Cameron said the breach should make the government reconsider its ID cards plan.
“People are desperately worried about the privacy of their bank account details and their personal details,” he told Brown in the House of Commons. “They will find it truly bizarre, they’ll find it weird, that frankly you don’t want to stop and think about the dangers of a national identity register.”
Brown said the ID card plan would go head, with “the biometric support necessary so people can feel confident that their identity is protected.”
Darling insisted there was no evidence criminals obtained the lost data, and said police were hunting for the missing disks. He said banks have been told to look for signs of suspicious activity.
Banks set up phone lines for worried customers, but reported only a trickle of calls.
Greg Day, an analyst at computer security company McAfee Inc., said people should keep a close eye on their bank accounts and consider changing easy-to-guess passwords such as children’s names.
“We also need to be vigilant about making sure we don’t hand out any more information in the initial panicked response to this,” he said. “Cyber-criminals hook into topical activities as a method of trying to trick us.”
The government rejected claims the lapse was a result of cuts at the revenue department, created from a merger of Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise into a single organization two years ago with the loss of thousands of jobs.
Darling, already rocked by fallout from the run on mortgage lender Northern Rock, said he would not resign. Brown said the Treasury chief was doing “an excellent job.”
Brown said he has asked security experts to work with all government departments to check their procedures. He said Information Commissioner Richard Thomas would be given the power to carry out spot checks to make sure date was safe.
There have been several cases of major data theft from companies in the United States. TJX Cos., the operator of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores, disclosed in January that a data theft had exposed tens of millions of credit and debit cards to potential fraud.

TITLE: Russia’s Joy Over ‘Miracle’
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia celebrated Thursday their qualification for the Euro 2008 finals, praising Croatia’s glittering performance at Wembley and Russia manager Guus Hiddink.
“Hvala Vam, Hrvatska!” or “Thank You Croatia!” shouted the headline, written in Croatian, on the first page of Sovietsky Sport daily, rejoicing in the sensational 3-2 win over England at Wembley on Wednesday night.
“It’s A Miracle!!!” screamed the front page of another daily, Sport Express, which also praised Croatia and said the Croats had shown Russia the way they should play at the Euro 2008 finals.
Meanwhile, Hiddink, who has a reputation as being lucky among the world’s top football managers, said that his team had deserved to go through.
“Croatia performed with truly manly character and did honor to the principles of fair play,” Hiddink said. “I can also say the same about Israel, who played very fairly against us Saturday.”
Hiddink also said that he was surprised that England had failed to ensure at least a draw at home but acknowledged that Croatia were a very strong and experienced team, which won the qualifying Group E.
“I did not believe in miracles, I believed we had a small chance,” the Dutch manager added. “I’m happy that we won it. I told my players that I’m proud of them.”
Meanwhile, Russian Football Union boss Vitaly Mutko also celebrated his team’s succes calling however on the country’s fans to remain patient and warning them not to expect “miracles.”
“I believe we deserved this success. We were not bad at all in this qualifying group though our performance was definitely not the best possible,” the Russian football chief said.
“It is not yet the result of our football system. We are just making our first steps in the right direction. But we should use this success for the good of Russian football.”
Many Russian fans, although jubilant over their side’s last-minute qualification, nevertheless noted that the national side would need to improve its game substantially if they want to be competitive at Euro 2008.
“Our dream is fulfilled, we made it to the Euro finals,” fan Anton Vorobiyev told the media in the far-eastern city of Vladivostok. “All of Russia praises Croatia for their regal gift!”
“Hiddink did his job perfectly and led us into the finals. Now he should teach us how to win there,” he said.
Russia finished second in the qualifying Group E with 24 points from 12 matches, five points behind the group winners Croatia.

TITLE: Musharraf To Rule as Civilian
AUTHOR: By Sadaqat Jan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Supreme Court stacked with judges loyal to President General Pervez Musharraf cleared the way Thursday for him to rule as a civilian president, throwing out a final challenge to last month’s election.
The decision, which was widely expected after Musharraf purged the court of independent-minded judges, means that Pakistan’s Election Commission can put a stamp of approval on the October vote that won Musharraf a five-year-term.
The general has said that once he got a court decision in his favor, he would quickly step down as army chief and take the oath as president. Pakistani Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum has said such a move could come as early as Saturday.
The court decision “means there is no challenge to his eligibility (to serve as president) and to the election,” Qayyum told reporters. He said the court would issue a directive to election authorities on Friday ordering them to ratify the result.

TITLE: Iran’s Establishment Slams Ahmadinejad
AUTHOR: By Ali Akbar Dareini
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ARDABIL, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed again Wednesday not to make concessions to the West over Iran’s nuclear program, while an Iranian newspaper reproached the hard-line leader for his attacks on critics in the country’s conservative camp.
Iranians overwhelmingly back Iran’s right to make use of nuclear energy, but criticism of Ahmadinejad has been growing in recent months over his confrontational approach to the U.S. and its allies in the dispute. Many people are also discontented over the poor economy.
Jomhuri-e-Eslami, a daily aligned with Iran’s Islamic establishment, ran an editorial taking Ahmadinejad to task for calling former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian a “traitor.” It said the president was “wrong,” and added that only courts should make such judgments.
Although the president named Mousavian, his attack was widely viewed as being aimed at the envoy’s ally, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is thought to be arguing for a more moderate stance in Iran’s dealings with the West.
Rafsanjani has emerged as a leader of conservatives who once supported Ahmadinejad but have increasingly gone public with criticism of government policies. He also likely worries the president because he has some influence with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate say over all issues, including the nuclear program.
Earlier this month, Ahmadinejad branded critics of his handling of the nuclear issue as “traitors” and warned he would take action against them — a warning many saw as a volley against Rafsanjani’s camp.
“It is not correct to take judgment about such issues to the press, universities and the public,” Jomhuri-e-Eslami said in its editorial.
It said Ahmadinejad should not interfere in judicial matters and suggested legal action should be taken against those who make allegations against individuals — a comment believed directed at the president.
Speaking at a rally in Ardabil, a city in the northwest, Ahmadinejad stood firm in rejecting calls for moderation in grappling with international pressure over the nuclear program. He said concessions would only result in more concessions being demanded further down the road.
“They want to get a small concession from us — for instance, that we won’t go beyond a certain point within the next four years or we annually make just a certain amount of progress,” he said. “This will become a legal precedent. Then, they will come and threaten us to obtain another concession.”
Ahmadinejad said Iran will not go beyond its current work with the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, Austria.
An IAEA report last week said Iran had cooperated in answering some questions about its past nuclear activities, but added that little is known about current work and that Tehran continues to defy a U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend uranium enrichment.
Iran contends its enrichment program is meant solely for the production of fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity. But the U.S. and its allies suspect the Iranians are secretly trying to develop atomic weapons.