SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1342 (6), Friday, January 25, 2008
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TITLE: Minister Says Russia Won’t Be Pressurized
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that the country would not soften its stance in major international disputes, slamming the Western position on Kosovo, NATO activities and the behavior of the British Council as outside international law.
Lavrov’s traditional annual news conference came a day after an address by First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in which the overwhelming favorite to replace President Vladimir Putin after a March 2 election appeared to signal a greater willingness to cooperate on international issues.
But when asked about the possible impact of Medvedev’s accession to the presidency, Lavrov said there was no need for any change in foreign policy since current stances had the strong backing of public opinion.
In decidedly sharp comments, Lavrov lashed out repeatedly at the European Union, saying “a reorganization of the entire European architecture” was one of the country’s key foreign policy objectives for 2008.
Lavrov accused the 27-member union of promoting the illegitimate interests of individual nations under the guise of solidarity.
“This interpretation of solidarity differs from the Union treaties,” he said.
As an example, he singled out the bitter disagreement that has developed with Britain over the activities of the British Council in Russia, warning London not to turn the dispute into an issue for the whole union.
“We hope that European solidarity in such issues will not result in abuses,” he said.
Lavrov complained that the council, a British government-funded organization that promotes cultural and educational ties, might be turned into a question for European solidarity, while the EU refused to discuss proposed U.S. anti-missile defense bases in Central Europe because they were “a problem between Russia and the United States.”
Russia has asked the British Council to close its offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, claiming that they are operating illegally in the country. Britain defied the order at the beginning of the year but ultimately gave in after council staff were called in for questioning by the Federal Security Service and visited at home by Interior Ministry officials.
Lavrov repeated Wednesday that there was no legal basis for the council’s work in the country.
British Ambassador Tony Brenton, by contrast, has called the legal framework “rock solid” and warned that the dispute may have a negative impact on talks about a new cooperation agreement between Moscow and Brussels.
London also accused Moscow of attacking a cultural institution in response to the dispute following the 2006 murder in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a dissident former Federal Guards Officer. Russia has refused to hand over Britain’s chief suspect in the case, Andrei Lugovoi, citing a constitutional ban on extradition.
Lavrov himself has in the past linked the measures against the British Council to the Litvinenko affair, which culminated in the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats by both sides last summer. On Wednesday, however, he described any consideration of recent events as related to the Lugovoi extradition case as “counterproductive.”
On the Kosovo dispute, Lavrov warned that Moscow would view the recognition of a unilateral declaration of independence by the Serbian province as an illegal move that would set a dangerous global precedent.
“We must do the utmost to solve [the issue] within the framework of international law and the nonviolation of borders,” he said. “Anything else is illegal and cannot be recognized.”
The United States and a number of European governments have already said they support Kosovo’s aspirations, while Russia is backing its traditional ally Serbia in opposing independence and calling for more talks between Belgrade and Pristina.
Lavrov warned that recognition in this case would set a precedent for 200 territories worldwide.
He called suggestions that Moscow in turn would recognize breakaway republics on former Soviet territories like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, however, as “absolutely false.”
“We clearly understand the destabilizing effect of any separatist movements,” he said.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been vying for independence since bloody conflicts with Georgia after the Soviet breakup in the early 1990s. The Georgian government has accused Moscow of undermining its sovereignty by supporting separatists on its soil.
Lavrov was adamant that his government was devoted to regional cooperation without meddling in the affairs of its neighbors.
He took a swipe at what Russia has complained was insufficient criticism of this month’s presidential election in Georgia. Mikheil Saakashvili, the pro-U.S. incumbent, won in a vote that has been criticized for not meeting international democratic standards.
“Unlike others, we do not interfere in Georgia’s affairs, nor did we interfere in the presidential election, although we are certainly aware of how [the vote] was judged,” he said.
Lavrov also accused the West of harboring backward-looking defense policies through NATO.
He argued that the alliance was still clinging to its founding treaty of 1949, drafted for “a totally different situation” from today. For Moscow, NATO’s “open door policy ... is not capable of solving any real security issues,” he said.
He lambasted the alliance’s claims that it was promoting democracy.
“We are being told that NATO is a tool of democratization. But at the same time, NATO members are trying to rewrite history by glorifying Nazi heroes,” Lavrov said, referring to Latvia and Estonia. “They can get away with it because now they are members of a respectable club.”

TITLE: Kremlin: Kasyanov’s Election Bid Invalid
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW— The only liberal Kremlin critic in Russia’s presidential race stands to be kept off the ballot because tens of thousands of signatures on his nominating petitions were forgeries, election officials said Thursday.
The Central Election Commission was expected to make a formal ruling later.
Opinion polls gave former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov little chance of posing a significant challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in the March 2 vote. Kasyanov, however, could have been an embarrassment for Putin and Medvedev because of his harsh criticism.
The denial of registration to Kasyanov would likely fuel criticism of the election as undemocratic and stage-managed by the Kremlin.
Presidential aspirants not affiliated with political parties must submit 2 million signatures supporting their bid to get on the ballot. Kasyanov’s campaign said it turned in 2,067,000 signatures.
But Nikolai Konkin, secretary of the Central Elections Commission, said a check of the signatures found more than 80,000 to be invalid.
“That means the number of reliable signatures is less than 2 million, which is the basis for the denial of registration,” Konkin said in a statement.
Registration can also be denied if more than 5 percent of an aspirant’s signatures are found to be invalid; Konkin said more than 13 percent of Kasyanov’s signatures were bogus in two large samples of the total submitted.
On Tuesday, the prosecutor-general’s office also opened a forgery case against the campaign of Kasyanov, who was Putin’s first prime minister but became a critic after his dismissal in 2004.
Kasyanov, speaking on a trip to Brussels, told AP Television News the election officials’ statement about forged signatures was “simple propaganda.”
Kasyanov said that if he were kept off the ballot, Putin would be to blame. “It’s not up to the Central Election Commission, it’s up to Vladimir Putin,” he said Tuesday.
Medvedev faces no strong challengers, and other liberal Putin foes who sought to mount campaigns, including chess great Garry Kasparov, have accused the Kremlin of forcing them out of the race.
Medvedev’s approval ratings soared after Putin named him as his preferred successor last month, boosted by positive coverage by national television stations, all controlled by the Kremlin. The latest opinion poll, released this week by the All-Russia Opinion Research Center, which also has links to the Kremlin, had more than 60 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Medvedev.
The nationwide poll of 1,600 people had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

TITLE: Ecologists Warn of Dangers to City of Nuclear Waste Cargo
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: As 2,000 tons of radioactive cargo arrived at St. Petersburg’s port from Germany on Thursday, environmental groups took to the streets to inform city residents about the growing imports of nuclear materials and the dangers the trade imposes.
The MV Schouwenbank cargo ship, carrying containers with a total of 2,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride, came from the Gronau uranium enrichment facility that belongs to Urenco Deutschland. The radioactive load on board the ship is due to be sent by rail to the town of Novouralsk in Siberia for reprocessing and storage.
The Russian ecologists — who gathered for a small demonstration on Malaya Konnyushennaya in downtown St. Petersburg on Thursday afternoon — learned about the cargo from their German counterparts who had organized eight protest events on the route of the nuclear load. The Russians have complained about the secrecy surrounding the transportation of spent nuclear fuel and other types of nuclear cargo.
For security reasons, any information about the transfer is difficult to obtain from officials in Russia, with their main concern being that the release of such information would spark panic among members of the public. 
Olga Tsepilova, deputy head of the environmental faction of liberal party Yabloko and an environmental scientist with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said Russia has signed contracts with India, Pakistan and China — states rapidly bolstering their nuclear programs — to receive spent nuclear fuel and uranium hexafluoride for reprocessing.
Tsepilova said the independent safety monitoring of Russia’s nuclear facilities is being made complicated by the country’s security services. In 2004 the scientist herself faced espionage charges as she tried to collect materials for a dissertation on Russia’s nuclear cities.
Although Tsepilova was a scientist working legally on her dissertation, she was denied access to a nuclear facility at Ozersk, a town in the Urals.
“The nuclear industry in Russia is highly corrupt but tracing misappropriation of money is very complicated bearing in mind that external control is restricted,” Tsepilova said. “Outsiders can just compare the slow tempos of construction of new nuclear facilities and record speed with which the nuclear bosses are building luxurious mansions for themselves and their families.”
In June 1999, the Nuclear Power Ministry and the U.S.-based Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT), signed a letter of intent, according to which Russia would accept at least 10,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from Switzerland, South Korea and Taiwan for reprocessing and storage for at least 40 years. For its services, Russia would charge between $1,000 and $2,000 per kilogram of spent fuel — much cheaper than other countries that store and reprocess foreign nuclear fuel.
Although the advocates of the move had argued that the money raised through reprocessing would help in building new storage facilities for Russia’s own fuel and help boost its nuclear industry, environmentalists say the results have been discouraging.
“What we have seen is just an ever-increasing proportion of foreign nuclear waste,” Tsepilova said.
Russia currently boasts 700,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, with 100,000 tons coming from abroad.
Environmentalists argue that the safety of nuclear transportation in Russia leaves much to be desired, with inadequate guarding and monitoring. As Rashid Alimov, the Malaya Konnyushennaya meeting’s principle organizer and editor of environmental website Bellona.ru, pointed out, the risks are high. 
“Russia’s transport system is not immune to accidents and if an accident involving radioactive material happens in St. Petersburg, the price that the city would pay would be much too high,” Alimov said. “If a transport accident occurs that breaks the hermetic seal of a container loaded with spent nuclear fuel, it may result in lethal cases of radiation poisoning in a 32-kilometer radius from the site of the spill.”
“Transport accidents of all sorts are very common in Russia; trains often collide, go off the rails or fall from bridges,” the ecologist added. “In November 2007 we learned about an accident at a local enterprise when a vehicle containing radioactive was overturned.”
Oleg Bodrov, chairman of environmental group Green World, which is located in the town of Sosnovy Bor and monitors the nearby Leningrad Nuclear Power Station (LAES), called for greater international responsibility in handling radioactive material.
“The solution of sending the spent nuclear fuel to Russia seems convenient, but in reality it conceals many dangerous pitfalls,” he said. “Lax safety procedures and St. Petersburg’s location on the Baltic coast make for a dangerous combination. If a leak or any other accident occurs, the other countries on the coast would suffer. It is high time to stop looking at the Baltic Sea purely as a convenient transportation route for all kinds of cargo.”

TITLE: Communist Candidate Denies Plan to Pull Out of Campaign
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov on Wednesday denied reports he was pulling out of the March 2 presidential election over the lack of media coverage his campaign is receiving, despite comments from party officials that the option was being considered.
Zyuganov did complain that a media campaign was being waged against him ahead of the vote but said no decision on pulling out had been made.
“We will make team decisions on strategy for my further participation in the presidential election,” he said, Interfax reported.
Analysts have called the withdrawal scenario unlikely, saying Zyuganov’s candidacy was crucial to both his own political survival and to the Kremlin.
But not everyone in his own party seems convinced. Communist Party secretary Oleg Kulikov said Wednesday that there was a question as to whether there was any point in running.
“The outcome [of the elections] is almost predetermined,” Kulikov said Monday. “The question is whether there is any sense in taking part in this farce.”
“All of the media coverage is going to one party,” he added, referring to United Russia, whose nominee, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, is the Kremlin’s choice to replace President Vladimir Putin.
Kulikov said that if the party fails to receive media coverage equal to that of United Russia during the campaigning period, “all options will be considered,” including Zyuganov’s withdrawal.
The decision about a Zyuganov pull-out will be made in about two weeks, said Vadim Solovyev, another party secretary, Vedomosti reported Wednesday.
Whatever Zyuganov decides, it will have no impact on the legitimacy of the vote, a member of the Central Elections Commission said Wednesday, adding that he thought the announcement was just a ruse to draw attention.
“It is probably just a publicity stunt,” commission member Siyapshakh Shapiyev said, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Alexei Mukhin, an analyst at the Center for Political Information, said Zyuganov has to run if he hopes to avoid losing the post of party leader to his first deputy, Ivan Melnikov.

TITLE: Historians: Russia Less Free Than After 1917 Revolution
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia is more illiberal today than it was ninety years ago when the Bolsheviks, fresh from seizing power in the revolution of October 1917, dissolved the All-Russian Constituent Assembly (Vserossiiskoye Uchreditelnoe Sobraniye), a democratically elected body that survived until 1918, a group of historians and human rights advocates said at a conference on Saturday.
This month saw the 90th anniversary of the abolition of the ill-fated parliament, but the matters that it had sought to resolve have become newly relevant and sensitive in Russia, conference-goers said. 
Elected in November 1917, the short-lived assembly that had hopes to draw up a liberal constitution and form a government for post-revolutionary Russia, was dominated by the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries while the Bolsheviks were a minority. After holding a fruitless meeting on Jan. 5, 1918, the delegates dissolved the assembly the following day.
Saturday’s conference participants drew a parallel between the weakness of the 1918 assembly, which failed to unite and resist the Bolsheviks, and the modern liberals that have not been able to form a powerful coalition against President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
More discouraging, however, is the lack of enthusiasm that the Russian people now show toward liberal ideas, said Boris Pustyntsev, head of the St. Petersburg branch of the human rights group Citizens’ Watch. 
“The Constituent Assembly was not viable and could not serve the people and the modern parliaments are nominal — but the root of the problem is the same: the Russian people have too little appetite for democracy,” he said.
Pavel Yeremeyev, a politician with the youth wing of the Union of Right Forces, said education is key to making Russians become more receptive to the democratic ideas.
“Since the times of the Constituent Assembly, which proved a feeble body incapable of defending itself, the Russian people have not learned much about the problem of political representation,” he said. “The importance of electing a politician to stand up for their interests is still hugely underestimated and until the average Russian gets a clear idea of what it is all about the country will never get over authoritarian rule.”
Sergei Fregatov, an activist with the Memorial human rights group is convinced that Russia’s democrats in the post-Soviet era made a crucial mistake by taking a general westernized liberal concept and trying to impose it on the Russian people without considering their needs and developing a tailor-made approach. In his opinion, if society is granted more liberty than it can possibly digest, then democracy in that country is doomed.
“Just look at what happened in Russia in the early perestroika era: the people had all powers and tools in their hands but they elected too many crooks, careerists or even gangsters to the country’s first independently elected parliament,” he said. “The truth is that however sad or embarrassing it may sound the majority of Russians still do not relate to the liberal idea; they have absolutely no connection with it.” 
But Boris Vitenberg, a columnist with the New Literary Supplement argued that this alienation from liberal ideas is nothing more than a stereotype. He said that after Tsar Alexander II introduced the institution of “the honorary justice of the peace” (“mirovoi sud,”) in the 1860s the courts were immediately flooded with cases filed by servants against their masters.
“The cases dealt largely with humiliation and what we now call violations of people’s rights,” Vitenberg said. “The high flow of appeals and their actual content showed that there was a strong need for a democratic instrument like that already at that time. It only took the introduction of it and for people to become aware of it.”
Human rights advocates point out that Russians demonstrate a strong reluctance to carry the burden of responsibility for the country’s future. They seek to delegate these responsibilities while at the same time lack the maturity essential to choose the most suitable people to represent their interests, they said.
Putin’s so-called vertical of power eschews any form of civil control and serves to suppress critical thinking in the Russian people, Viteberg said.
Citizens’ Watch’s Pustyntsev stressed that the Kremlin — although it has not declared this is not an official policy — is restoring an authoritarian rule in Russia.
“An authoritarian regime with a human face could exist in the 19th century when it could be found in a number of countries,” Pustyntsev said. “But in the current historical period when there are widely recognized international standards in the field of human rights such a regime is bound to be a pariah.”
Pustyntsev said growing nationalism and a quest for a national idea shows that Russia finds itself on the edge of a spiritual catastrophe. 
“The issue of national idea — or national unification — only surfaces when a country is either at war or some kind of a devastating cataclysm. And, after all, why don’t the Russians unite around the humanitarian ideas of respect for human rights? It would only earn them the respect of others, and help them regain their self-respect.”

TITLE: Assassination Plot Trial Begins
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A jury was selected Wednesday to consider charges of the attempted assassination of Governor Valentina Matviyenko in May last year.
The charges are being brought against three St. Petersburg men who studied with the Islamic organization Al Fatkh.
About 60 candidates for the jury came to the hearing, Nezavisimaya Gazeta said, an unusually large number of people to heed the call for jury duty. The City Criminal Court selected 20 members of the jury, 12 to sit permanently on the case with eight reserves.
The eight women and four men selected have differing professions such as teachers, technical workers, office clerks, doctors, housewives, and people with secondary and higher education. 
Vladislav Lapinsky, defending one of the accused, Timur Saidgariyev, told Kommersant that the defense did not want to see state bureaucrats or policemen on the jury. He said he didn’t pay much attention to the religious beliefs of the jury but said they would prefer to have people from differing confessions. 
The case begins next Wednesday.
St. Petersburg’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, prevented the attempt on Matviyenko’s life while it was being prepared. The FSB detained the three St. Petersburg residents when they were buying the ammunition near Inzhenerny Castle, Kommersant said. Despite the ambush the sellers of the ammunition managed to escape.
While searching the detained — Saidgariyev, Fyodor Baranov and Ravil Muratov — the FSB found two F-1 grenades and 500 grams of plastic explosives. The prosecution opened a criminal case on the preparation of the attempted murder of a state official, terrorism, illegal circulation of ammunition, and the involvement of minors in terrorism.
Later the investigation found that the accused studied together in the Islamic organization of Al Fatkh and were brought up in Muslim families.

TITLE: Zhirinovsky Engages in Street Theater
AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Liberal Democratic Party leader and presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky had his back to the British Embassy on Wednesday, but his voice boomed over a microphone toward the Moscow River with a message for British officials.
In a 20-minute tirade that was part theater, part campaign circus, Zhirinovsky accused Britain of most of the world’s ills — including fomenting the 18th-century war between Russia and Sweden, the Russian-Japanese war, World War I, the October Revolution, World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“The British provoked perestroika,” Zhirinovsky said. He accused former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of “pushing” former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to make liberal reforms.
Journalists — Reuters journalists, in particular — were are on the payroll of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6 — “the most disgusting secret service in the world” — Zhirinovsky said.
The embassy’s press service is also working for MI6, he alleged.
With Russian-British relations at a low following the closure of two regional British Council centers and with the March 2 presidential election approaching, Zhirinovsky’s performance was almost a given. While he is largely loyal to the Kremlin, he paints himself as an opposition ultranationalist.
The LDPR had promised an appearance Wednesday by Andrei Lugovoi, the party’s newly elected State Duma deputy who is wanted in Britain for purportedly murdering Andrei Litvinenko, but whom Russia has refused to extradite.
One foreign journalist suggested that Lugovoi might have been pushed onto British territory had he shown up. But there was no Lugovoi, and so it was a typical one-man show from Zhirinovsky.
Before his spoke, eight LDPR supporters, including an 11-year-old girl, held up flags that read: “Russia Has Never Been a British Colony.” One party official insisted that 12 supporters had turned up.
Now and again a motorist would beep a horn on the embankment — possibly in support unless it was an enraged Jaguar driver telling Zhirinovsky to cease his anti-British rhetoric.
“In time,” said Zhirinovsky, hitting his stride, “Britain will be recognized as the most barbaric country on the planet.”
A British Embassy spokesman declined to comment on the long list of accusations.
Apart from his few supporters, Zhirinovsky had one other fan in tow: Iren Ferrari, known as “the biggest chest in Russia,” who wandered down to watch and to pose in the cold for photographers, her coat open and trembling dog, Bentley, in her arms.
“I do not agree with what Britain does in relation to Russia,” Ferrari said, accusing Britain of aggressive politics as photographers clicked away.
When asked if she could elaborate, Ferrari said, “What clever questions you ask,” and giggled.
Zhirinovsky, who insisted that he was not giving a campaign speech, did offer one way for the two countries to mend ties.
“In the end, Britain will have to give freedom to Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland ... and that will only leave London, which, because of [global] warming, will constantly flood,” he said. “And the time will come, maybe, when we will have to accept immigrants because of the climate.”
He also demanded that British Ambassador Anthony Brenton leave his post.
Wrapping up his speech, Zhirinovsky told reporters: “It’s cold. Go home have some tea, and then in the evening go and get your salary at the embassy, one from the ambassador, one from MI6.”

TITLE: Tanks, Missiles To Roll Across Red Square on Victory Day
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Tanks and missiles will rumble across Red Square during the May 9 Victory Day parade for the first time in 18 years, as Russia asserts its military might at the close of Vladimir Putin’s presidency.
The Soviet-style display will feature S-300 surface-to-air missiles on the ground and Su-27 and MiG-29 fighter jets in the air, General Yury Solovyov said in comments posted Tuesday on the Defense Ministry’s web site.
A total of 32 fighter planes will take part in the event, which marks the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, the statement saidas well as tanks, intercontinental ballistic missiles and helicopters in the first display of weapons on Red Square since 1991.
Rights activists blasted the move.
“It is an artificial attempt to resurrect the Soviet myth that if they are scared of us, they respect us,” said Arseny Roginsky, of human rights watchdog Memorial, Interfax reported.
Bloomberg, SPT

TITLE: Lenta Shareholder Rift Continues in Public
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The main shareholders of St. Petersburg-based retail chain Lenta this week issued statements that were rich with emotional comments and accusations as they continue to try to oust each other from the company’s management after disagreeing over strategy.
 “This dispute is about one thing only — the illegal takeover of Lenta LLC by Oleg Zherebtsov and Vladimir Senkin. Neither the majority of Lenta Ltd’s board of directors nor any single other Lenta shareholder supports them in the takeover,” said August Meyer, an American shareholder who owns a 36.4 percent stake, in his statement Tuesday.
“He’s defying the shareholders and the board of directors. Soon we will see if he chooses to defy the British Virgin Island court,” Meyer said of Zherebtsov’s actions.
Lenta Ltd, which is registered on the British Virgin Islands, owns Lenta LLC — a retail chain that operates 26 hypermarkets across Russia and has eight sites under construction.
The conflict escalated earlier this month with the dismissal of Lenta LLC’s general director, Sergei Yushchenko.   When his contract expired, four out of seven members of the board voted in favor of appointing Vladimir Senkin to the position of acting general director. Senkin was proposed by Oleg Zherebtsov, the founder of Lenta who holds a 35 percent stake.
Meyer opposed the decision and held an extraordinary meeting on Jan. 15th of Lenta Ltd. shareholders, who elected a new board of directors and voted to retain Yushchenko as Lenta Ltd’s CEO and general director of Lenta LLC.
The newly elected board of directors consisted of nine people instead of seven — Oleg Zherebtsov, August Meyer, Sevki Acuner, Loren Bough, Dmitry Kostygin, Greg Lykin, Sergei Yushchenko, Mikhail Leshchenko and Vladimir Senkin, according to the statement issued by Meyer.
“August Meyer is involving the company and its shareholders in his game. In 2006, he did not like my decision to develop independently a new retail chain called Norma,” said Zherebtsov.
“He demanded my resignation from the position of general director of Lenta LLC at the end of 2006. To pacify him and in the interests of the company I quit. Then Meyer demanded my resignation from the position of chairman of Lenta Ltd. and the sale of my shares,” Zherebtsov continued.
“On my refusal, he and his ally Sergei Yushchenko tried to sell the company to an outside investor, presumably to another Russian retail chain. As far as I know, they employed a Russian investment bank for that purpose and tried to start due diligence of the company for sale,” Zherebtsov said.
Having failing to do so, Meyer then put pressure upon other shareholders and members of the board by making unethical and obscene statements about them, Zherebtsov said.
Zherebtsov said that Meyer did not inform shareholders about the extraordinary meeting in due time, against the requirements of the company’s charter.
“We had to change general director in order to ensure the development and stability of Lenta. The candidate appointed to this position could not be underestimated. Now the company is in reliable hands and will develop rapidly,” Zherebtsov said.
The main task for Senkin would be to develop economy-class hypermarkets in highly competitive regional markets that are difficult to enter, Zherebtsov said, pointing out that Senkin was in charge of regional expansion when it started to expand in 2006.
“Lenta will open 10-15 new stores a year for the next three years. The split between shareholders will not affect our operations,” Senkin said.
Alexander Arbouzov, lawyer at Beiten Burkhardt St. Petersburg, indicated that if Lenta Ltd owns 100 percent of Lenta LLC’s shares, then the board of directors of Lenta LLC should be elected on the British Virgin Islands where the parent company is based by its shareholders.
“As far as I know from media reports, one of the shareholders was seemingly dissatisfied with the management of Lenta LLC, which acted in support of his opponent. Naturally, he wanted to change the managers who were not loyal to him. One shareholder considered this decision to be lawful and the other considered it illegal. Only the British court can determine who is in the right,” Arbouzov said.
As for ousting the general director, Arbouzov said that according to Russian legislation, the board of directors (if it exists) of a limited liability company usually appoints and removes the general director. However, under the company’s charter the shareholding company (Lenta Ltd) could have authority over the issue, he added.
“I would not conclude that one of the shareholders is trying to take over the company. Disputes over the management of Lenta LLC are likely to stop once the shareholders come to an agreement on a public offering of shares,” Arbouzov said.
In any case, only Lenta’s competitors would benefit from prolonged court investigations, Arbouzov warned.

TITLE: Merrill Warning: Russia Not Immune
AUTHOR: By Max Delany
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Amid the financial blizzard that swept through global markets this week, Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain brought a sobering message to Moscow on Wednesday, warning that the Russian economy was not immune to the crisis.
“Even though we do see great growth in Russia and India, China and Brazil, I think that none of those markets are immune to a global slowdown,” Thain said at a news conference at the plush Ritz-Carlton hotel to mark the opening of a new Merrill Lynch office in Moscow. 
“Russia is probably more insulated than other of those BRIC emerging growth economies, but the world is a very interconnected place and we saw all the world’s equity markets react negatively,” he said.
Thain, one of Wall Street’s biggest hitters, made his comments as Russian markets fell for a seventh straight day on fears of a U.S. recession. 
The MICEX ended the day down 4 percent, while the RTS fell 3.9 percent. 
With the energy-driven economy buoyed by high oil and gas prices, and with exports to the United States relatively low, especially compared with those to China, Thain said Russia could be protected “to a significant extent.”
But asked if Russian authorities could move to further protect the economy from any global shockwaves, Thain was skeptical. “The linkages between the world economies are simply facts, and I don’t think you can change that in the near term,” he said. “The slowdown in the U.S. will be felt in many other places in the world.”
Thain was speaking during a whistle-stop visit to Moscow — his first official trip abroad since taking the reins at Merrill Lynch two months ago, at the height of the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis. 
Speaking to reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Thain is headed Thursday, Russia’s top representative there, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, said the country’s huge foreign-currency reserves would help stave off an economic crisis.
“Of course, we have become more dependent on the world economy, and this will affect us, but we have a good system of defense and immunity,” Kudrin said.
And international investor interest in Russia as an “island of stability” could well increase, he said.
Also in Davos, Andrei Kostin, head of state-owned bank VTB, sounded similarly upbeat about the potential resilience of the Russian economy. 
“Markets in China, India and Russia are growing much better and to a certain extent will provide certain compensation for the world economy for whatever losses the U.S. has,’’ Kostin said, Bloomberg reported.
Although he steered clear of saying there would definitely be a U.S. recession, Thain said the troubles in the U.S. housing market were the worst since the 1930s. 
“There is no question that the U.S. economy is slowing significantly,” he said.
As stock markets around the world nosedived at the beginning of the week, the U.S. Federal Reserve slashed its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point in an emergency move Tuesday. 
Thain warned that there would not be a “quick cure to the problem’’ but added that the expectation of further interest-rate cuts could help mitigate the damage.
Coming from the head of Merrill Lynch, a somber assessment of the current financial turmoil is hardly surprising. Last week, the bank reported huge operating losses of $8.6 billion for 2007, making it one of the hardest-hit U.S. banking giants in the credit crunch.
Thain, who previously headed the New York Stock Exchange, was drafted in to replace Stan O’Neil as head of the banking giant in November.
According to reports at the time, Thain will earn nearly $50 million per year, with potential bonuses taking his pay as high as $120 million, depending on the bank’s share performance.
Despite the downbeat global outlook, Thain insisted that Russia was a vital and growing market for Merrill.
Last year Merrill helped Russian firms close 29 major deals, worth almost $70 billion, including United Company RusAl’s acquisition of a stake in Norilsk Nickel from Mikhail Prokhorov’s Onexim group.
And despite brutal job cuts in some of the bank’s U.S. offices, especially in the mortgage department, Thain said Merrill was looking to expand rather than lay off employees in Russia.

TITLE: Serbia Agrees To Sell Stake, Approves Pipeline Route
AUTHOR: By Tai Adelaja, Alex Osipovich and Max Delany
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian energy ambitions in the Balkans received a shot in the arm Tuesday as Serbia backed Gazprom taking a major stake in its state oil and gas company and approved a branch of the South Stream gas pipeline through the country.
The deal, which comes after President Vladimir Putin last week won agreement to build the pipeline through neighboring Bulgaria, will likely further entrench Gazprom’s control over European gas supplies — and weaken support for the competing Nabucco pipeline project, which is the European Union’s favored supply route.
Serbia is under pressure to sign a deal with Gazprom on the South Stream project, as its relies on Russia for 90 percent of its gas and looks to Moscow for support in its dispute with the West over Kosovo independence. 
“The government of Serbia has approved the text of the agreement between the Russian Federation and Serbia on cooperation in the oil and gas sector,” the Serbian government said in a statement Tuesday, adding that it had authorized Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilic to sign the agreement.
Last month, Gazprom offered to take a 51 percent stake in NIS through its oil arm, Gazprom Neft, paying 400 million euros ($580 million) in cash and pledging $500 million in additional investment over the next five years.
The Serbian government rejected the offer, saying it was too low for a company valued at $2 billion, and called on Gazprom to raise its additional investments to $2 billion. 
Gazprom Neft said on Tuesday that it was still involved in intense negotiations on the agreement.
“As far as we are concerned, no formal agreement has been reached. We are in the process of negotiating the terms,” said Natalya Vyalkina, a Gazprom Neft spokeswoman.
Under the deal, the two countries are to jointly reconstruct a Serbian underground gas storage facility and Gazprom Neft will buy a major stake in Naftna Industrija Srbije, or NIS.
Analysts said Tuesday that Belgrade had little choice but to accept Russia’s terms, because its proposal was packaged with the South Stream gas project, which would guarantee the country’s gas supplies. 
Gazprom is understood to have been pressing hard to strike a deal before the second round in Serbia’s presidential elections, and analysts said Serbia’s need for Russian support over Kosovo had been a factor in clinching the deal.

TITLE: From the ground up
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A television documentary highlighting the damage done to St. Petersburg’s historic center by new building projects has received a massive response from the public after it became available on the Internet earlier this month. The debate continued offline when “St. Petersburg: The Dusk of the New Century” was screened and discussed at the offices of the Russian-German Exchange, a local non-governmental organization, last week.
Directed by Tatyana Selikhova, the 44-minute documentary shot in 2006 for RTR Television, shows how much of the historic center has been destroyed in the past few years and includes interviews with such cultural figures as author Daniil Granin, the late actor Kirill Lavrov, and rock musician Yury Shevchuk about the current state of St. Petersburg’s architectural landscape.
Met with disapproval by local authorities — whose planning policies it implicitly criticizes — the film was shown on RTR early last year and largely went unnoticed. 
The documentary was shown in a late-night slot, after a long delay and with no publicity. After watching it, Governor Valentina Matviyenko dismissed it as “untimely,” director Selikhova said on Ekho Moskvy radio earlier this month.
However, the film created a stir on blogs and in the media when Living City (Zhivoi Gorod), a pressure group struggling to protect the city’s endangered buildings, uploaded it onto RuTube, the Russian replica of YouTube, earlier this month.
“The film landed on us all of a sudden,” Dmitry Vorobyov, an activist with Living City, said.
“It was shown on television at night and that was that, and nobody would know about it were it not for the rumors that it had actually been made. And because we have a great interest in how our city changes, and there’s a big discussion going on about how it develops and how it is destroyed, any impulse, any analysis of what is happening is in great demand.
“It was found through connections, and after we got in contact with the film crew and obtained a copy, we thought, ‘Why don’t we upload it on the web?’ That’s what we do; we find some facts, artifacts and so on and use them so that somebody can see it and understand it.”
According to Vorobyov, the public screening was organized when an unprecedented number of viewers downloaded or watched the film on the web.
“We decided to show it on a large screen, because by that time it had been watched by 21,000 people on RuTube.” “It’s just a natural development of events, we’re just helping it,” he said. The number of views increased to 24,169 this week, not counting downloads from file exchange services.
Though rather mild and unfocused in tone, the documentary’s vivid images of historical buildings being pulled down and replaced by ugly business centers say more than words can in the redevelopment debate. 
Since no criticism of the authorities’ town-planning policies is allowed on local television and in most newspapers controlled by the local government, news of the screening caused an unexpected reaction from journalists, who called the organizers and asked them whether they are afraid to screen the film in public.
“That’s because there’s nothing happening here in St. Petersburg, there’s no active civic life, and because the film caused a big response on the web,” said Vorobyov.
“Many think that it is a total nightmare in the city, with repression, mafia, corruption, and then a film appears exposing the processes of what’s going on here — how could it be that some group of people decided to show it on a large screen? It must be scary — there will probably be 45 OMON policemen, some scandal, perhaps the film calls people to take to the streets... The press called both us and the venue, the Russian-German Exchange, asking us whether we’re afraid and whether the screening would take place or not.”
The film was unearthed by Andrei Vorontsov of Living City, who had learned about it from a friend and got a copy after contacting the director.
“The film almost coincided with the emergence of the Living City movement, which formed just over a year ago,” he said. “Actually, the emergence of Living City was caused by the problems depicted in the film.”
But the situation has worsened since the film was shot, according to Vorontsov.
“The situation is progressing and moreover, the most dangerous and most unpleasant aspect of it is that they now are trying to free themselves to further destroy the city on a legislative level, and, secondly, legitimate the crimes that they have committed. It’s not looking good,” he said.
The Okhta Center, the highly contentious skyscraper development known as Gazprom City when the film was shot, is mentioned in the documentary, although its planned height was only 100 meters at that time (already violating a local law allowing buildings no taller than 48 meters in that area). Since then, however, plans for Okhta Center have seen it increase to nearly 400 meters.
“The more you get, the more you want,” said Vorontsov. “They talked about 100 meters at first, then all of a sudden there was a condition that it should be no less than 300 meters tall.”
In September, Living City co-organized the March for the Preservation of St. Petersburg along with the liberal political party Yabloko and the pressure group Okhtinskaya Duga (Okhta Bend) to protest against the Okhta Center, attracting an estimated 3,000 demonstrators. The 396-meter building — just 50 meters shorter than the Empire State Building  — threatens to destroy St. Petersburg’s UNESCO-protected historical skyline.
Shot for state-run television, the documentary avoids naming those officials responsible for railroading building projects through planning stages. The film also extensively cites, for instance, Vera Dementyeva, the chairwoman of the Committee for the State Inspection and Protection of Historical Monuments, or KGIOP, who speaks for the preservation of the historical sites on screen.
However, her committee is held responsible by Living City for licensing the destruction of historic buildings in the center.
“Vera Anatolyevna looks smart and says some nice words in the film, but it doesn’t correspond to what they sign and approve,” said Vorontsov. Living City criticizes KGIOP’s intention to reduce the city’s preservation zones to give way to new construction activity in the historic center.
“So construction works in the center will be allowed, and, taking into account the preparation of amendments to the general plan that cancels the distinction between construction in the ‘bedroom communities’ and central districts and attempts to change height regulations, they will destroy historic buildings and erect high-rise buildings in the center.
“We will only be left with the borders of Peter the Great’s St. Petersburg. The general trend is that we will only be left with postcard views; here you have the Stock Exchange, the Strelka, the Peter and Paul Fortress, here you have the Winter Palace, see and admire. All the rest is given over to builders. How can Dementyeva’s position correspond with what she was saying in the film? In my view, it’s a profound contradiction between words and deeds.”
One of the most striking examples of the committee’s actions has been the fate of a historic building at 7 Ulitsa Esperova that was deprived of its “cultural monument” status by the committee five days before it was pulled down, according to Vorontsov.
“On the other hand, one should consider that they are not independent,” he said. “Sometimes they do try to defend a building, as they are doing with the Frunzensky Univermag, but, ultimately, they are all subordinate to the governor or St. Petersburg’s administration.”
Launched early last year as the “movement for the preservation of the cultural and architectural heritage of St. Petersburg,” Living City has frequently been in the media spotlight for its frequently flashy, theatrical protests. Occasionally, the protests have achieved results, according to Vorontsov. Dom Knigi, the city’s main bookstore on Nevsky Prospekt, was planned for offices after renovation, but has become a bookstore again.
“So far the Tavrichesky Sad has been prevented from being all built up. I think the public should keep an eye on the so-called reconstruction of the Summer Gardens that was mentioned in the film as well, because it’s not finished there. I know that there’s still lobbying for the alleged rebuilding of lost buildings whose purpose will become purely commercial.”
“The public, the city’s residents, are capable of doing a lot. This small group of bureaucrats connected with the construction industry, they do what’s profitable for themselves, and they think least about those who live in the city. It’s not a normal situation. In a city like St. Petersburg, two, three or five people should not decide its fate.”

www.save-spb.ru, http://community.livejournal.com/save_sp_burg

TITLE: Chernov’s
         choice
TEXT: A concert by <b>Chuck Berry</b>, announced last month, has been canceled, Ilya Bortnyuk of promoter Light Music said this week. “We just decided not to promote it,” he said, when asked why.
The show was due to be held at the Lensoviet Palace of Culture in March. However, Bortnyuk said he is speaking with several other acts about performing in St. Petersburg.
According to him, Light Music’s next confirmed concert  is <b>Einsturzende Neubauten</b>, the influential industrial band from Berlin, who will perform at Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa on Apr. 23.
As the grungy student bar <b>Tsinik</b> moves its possessions out of its former location at 4 Pereulok Antonenko, the premises that once hosted <b>Gosti</b> have a “For Sale” sign out front, giving lie to the claim that a different cafe would replace the defunct music bar.
Meanwhile, Zoccolo will host the premiere of supergroup <b>Hugo Chavez</b>, formed by members of reggae/Latin-influenced alt-rock band <b>Poimanniye Muravyedy</b> and the instrumental dub-metal band <b>Skafandr</b> this week.
The band, which will begin by performing Poimanniye Muravyedy covers rearranged by Skafandr before playing its own new material, features all three members of Skafandr and two singers from Poimanniye Muravyedy: Vladimir “Jorge” Dolgov and Alexei “Jose” Pavlikhin.
“Because we are planning to have a slant toward social topics in the songs and I’m interested in the ideas of Zapatistas as well as in Latin-American culture in general, I suggested the name. Nobody has objected,” said Pavlikhin. Hugo Chavez will perform on Friday.
Up-and-coming indie-pop band <b>The Krolls</b> has recommended the bar Korol Plyushch, or King Ivy, at Ozerki, where it will perform on Friday.
“It’s far away, but it’s a very good club, and it meets all our requirements,” vocalist Masha Andreichikova said this week.
“There’s an acute problem with the clubs in the city,” she admitted.
“We only like to perform at Mod because it’s Mod, because it’s dear to us. The sound is terrible there, but we like it because of the atmosphere. It’s just as it should be. A club can have a great sound system, but people don’t feel comfortable there.”
“Fish Fabrique — I like it but it has a drawback for a band like us,” said Andreichikova.
“We need a dance floor, because people usually dance at the concerts, but there’s no dance floor as such, so people have problems dancing there easily, and it’s rather oriented to livelier, alternative bands.
“The Place is a very good club. Its only drawback is that it is not in the center. In other respects, it’s perfect. Even if last time we were overheated by the spotlights. They have very hot spotlights. I had to retreat often to the back of the stage for five seconds, because it was very hot.”

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Fish out of water
AUTHOR: By Marina Kamenev
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Director Anna Melikyan dreads hearing one question about her movie, “Mermaid,” which is being shown in the World Cinema Dramatic competition this week at the Sundance Film Festival.
“My least favorite question is: ‘What is your movie about?’” the straight-talking Melikyan said in a recent interview, sitting in the basement of a film company in central Moscow. “When journalists read the hype without watching the film, they were constantly asking about mermaid tails, and underwater scenes and so on.”
In fact “Mermaid” is a film about a girl called Alisa, who was conceived underwater in a brief beach encounter and lives in a seaside village. She stops speaking after a difficult encounter with her mother and is sent to a special school. At the age of 17, she moves to Moscow with her mother and grandmother and finds a simple job that doesn’t require her to speak to people: handing out leaflets inside an oversized cellphone costume. But when she meets the love-interest, Alexander, her life takes a different turn.
Melikyan wrote the script with her friend, Masha Shalayeva, a fellow graduate of VGIK film school, in mind for the central role. “Writing the film was not linear. I wrote different parts at different times. Masha, the lead, was a friend I studied with, and I was always thinking and thinking about her. I wrote the screenplay especially for her, always thinking how she would appear in certain scenes.”
The seaside village where Alisa grows up is colorful and lively, with bright green and blue hues. The film has other slightly quirky elements. It lists Alisa’s age in years, months and days in each scene, a gimmick that is reminiscent of the French movie “Amelie.”After a cyclone destroys her village, Alisa says to herself: “When people have nowhere to go, they go to Moscow.”
The city is portrayed as a huge metropolis that looks clean and European, but at the same time dynamic and bustling. Alisa and her family move into a concrete high-rise, in a suburb where all the other buildings look the same. As the wide-eyed Alisa looks out of her window, an advertising banner with a girl and the slogan, “It’s good to be home” drops down, covering the whole side of the building. Later, in an evocative scene Alisa cuts a hole from her window, which is directly behind the eye of the poster girl.
“I showed Moscow the way I see it, I don’t know if it’s beautiful or not, but that’s the way it presented itself. I see it as multicultural and bubbling. Some places it’s dirty, some places it’s beautiful,” Melikyan said. “If you gave 10 directors an assignment to film Moscow, you would come out with 10 absolutely different films about absolutely different cities; each person will see something different in it for themselves.”
Melikyan was born in Baku, but grew up in Yerevan. Like the heroine of “Mermaid,” she moved to Moscow at 17. “I had a straightforward path. I always wanted to be a director, I studied and then I became a director. I guess I am lucky in this way,” she said.
In 2004 she released her first film, “Mars,” which was well received. “Like ‘Mermaid,’ it was also about life,” Melikyan said. The film was a colorful and eccentric view of the lives of people in a Russian town named Mars. It had originally been called Marks, the Russian for Marx — but one letter dropped off the train station’s name.
In her second film, Melikyan changed her tactics. “I had the [typical] experience of making a debut film,” she said. “All the mistakes I made in the first film, like projecting every single thought and life experience you have into one film. When you start you are greedy with each scene and don’t want to cut anything. You think, ‘I filmed this. How could I possibly throw it away?’”
With “Mermaid” Melikyan was more rigorous. “When we finished filming, we threw out 40 minutes and then for the first screening, another 15 minutes. So we practically threw out an hour of edited film. It contained really famous actors and really interesting scenes, but I did not feel bad discarding the footage.”

“The Mermaid” (Rusalka) will be screened at Sundance Film Festival through Saturday. See the festival’s web site, www.sundance.org, for details.

TITLE: The show must go on
AUTHOR: By Jill Lawless
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — From Russia — with qualms.
Works by Matisse, Van Gogh, Cezanne and other masterpieces from Russian museums are finally hanging in a London gallery after a last-minute legal change eased Moscow’s fears that the paintings could be seized in legal action if they traveled to Britain.
The Royal Academy of Arts’ blockbuster exhibition “From Russia” gathers 120 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works — many seized by the Soviet state after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
The show, which took years to assemble, was canceled last month by Russian authorities who said families of the paintings’ original owners might go to court to get them back while they were in London.
The exhibition was saved when the British government agreed to rush into effect a law giving loaned foreign artworks immunity from seizure.
“It was a little bit of a cliffhanger from our point of view,” lead curator Norman Rosenthal said Tuesday, standing in front of the show’s most famous masterpiece — Henri Matisse’s huge “Dance II,” an exuberant painting of naked five figures dancing hand-in-hand. “We didn’t have a back-up plan.”
Rosenthal said the show, one of the biggest in the academy’s history, captures an “extraordinary outburst” of cross-fertilizing creativity between Russia and France. It covers the tumultuous period between 1870 and 1925, when European society underwent wars and revolutions, and painting moved from rural realism to the radical perspective-shattering of Cubism and Futurism.
But the exhibition has been overshadowed by international tensions between Britain and Russia. Strained by the 2006 killing in London of former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko, relations have worsened with Russia’s decision this month to shut down two offices of a British cultural organization, the British Council.
“It would be a disaster if cultural relations were in some way affected between our two countries, because they run very, very deep,” Rosenthal said. “We have to collaborate for all of us to survive, particularly in the cultural field.”
At the exhibition’s heart are paintings gathered by two Russian collectors, Ivan Morosov and Sergei Shchukin. Rich textile merchants with a passion for French art, each amassed an extraordinary collection: Morosov owned 18 Cezannes, Shchukin more than 50 Picassos.
The works were seized by Vladimir Lenin for the Soviet state after the 1917 revolution, and the collectors’ descendants have led a long campaign for compensation. Shchukin’s grandson Andre-Marc Delocque-Fourcaud and Morosov’s great-grandson Pierre Konowaloff say they don’t want the paintings back, but do want acknowledgment of their loss and financial compensation.
The two stood outside the museum Tuesday and spoke to reporters coming to review the exhibit.
“We are not enemies of the Royal Academy,” said Delocque-Fourcaud, 66, who traveled to London from his home in France. “We didn’t want to jeopardize the exhibition” — which they say has drawn new attention to the families’ cause.
The works in “From Russia” run from 19th-century Russian realism through French innovators like Cezanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso to the experimental Russian and Soviet artists inspired by them: Marc Chagall, Vassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and others.
Lead curator Rosenthal has little sympathy for the families of the paintings’ pre-Revolutionary owners.
“I think history is history and we have to live with the consequences of history,” he said. “In 1917, the Russian Revolution took place and for better or for worse we can’t turn the clock back.”

“From Russia” opens Friday and runs until April 18 at the Royal Academy.

TITLE: Food for thought
AUTHOR: By Matt Brown
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: William Bass Pub-Restaurant // 53 Ligovsky Prospekt. Tel: 717 9339 // www.rmcom.ru // Open: 11 a.m. through midnight // Menu in English and Russian // Dinner for two with beer 2770 rubles ($111)

There are few more stately pleasures than perusing the shelves of a great library in an English country manor. Searching among musty leather bound volumes, carefully selecting one, settling in a comfy fireside armchair and whiling away the hours lost in a book, perhaps sipping a whisky and smoking a cigar, is an experience now available at a new English pub in St. Petersburg.
William Bass, which opened in December, is a large, two-floor place run by a Moscow company that operates high-end restaurants in the capital. As such there’s a touch of Moscow glamor and scale about William Bass, which has a wood-paneled interior that could have been lovingly reproduced from the stage set of an Agatha Christie drama. The staging includes Toby jugs, framed pictures of Winston Churchill, etched mirrors, Axminster shag-pile carpets, and a wall of book shelves groaning with genuine English books including the collected works of Dickens, the Encyclopedia Brittanica and even a shelf of modern political biographies.
As for that drink, prepare to pay. As well as Moscow pretensions, William Bass has Moscow prices. Expect draught beer to cost more than 200 rubles for half-a-liter — from Grolsch and Harp (210 rubles, $8.50) to Beamish and Tennents (235 rubles, $9.50). Whether William Bass is experiencing teething problems or there’s a serious flaw in the bar equipment, the beer may not be served as fresh or as cold as it should be. 
However, there’s nothing wrong with the kitchen. With a highly unusual menu based on English cuisine — with notable deviations — William Bass delivers well-made, and satisfying meals in generous portions. The Greek Salad (295 rubles, $12), made to the classic menu with cucumber, tomato, peppers, onion and olives with Feta cheese and a smooth dressing, could double as a main course, as could Bergen (370 rubles, $15), a pile of iceberg lettuce, cucumber, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, cornichons and heaps of chilled smoked salmon in a tangy dressing. A most unexpected dish on the salad menu is a fresh strawberry salad (275 ruble, $11) — not a fruit salad — but chopped lettuce, peppers, tomato and other vegetables garnished with strawberries and smetana (sour cream). 
Other cold starters include such treats as a cheese plate with Mozzarella, Camembert, Cheddar, Emmenthal, Feta and Manchego served with tartar sauce (415 rubles, $17) and a similarly varied spread of Spanish smoked hams (350 rubles, $14). In a witty aside, two high-end sandwiches (one with beef, one with pork costing 360 rubles, $14.50) are called Manchester United and Manchester City.
For main courses, “meat-and-two-veg” describes the basic gist but doesn’t do justice to the high-quality ingredients and creative approach to such dishes as T-bone steaks, pork chops, ribs, duck, perch, dorado and veal. Whitby Sausages (535 rubles, $21) — named after an English port — is a sensational dish of handmade pork, herb and cranberry sausages, served with a baked potato and roasted vegetables. The star dish is roast rabbit with baked leeks and green beans (760 rubles, $30) while vegetarians are not forgotten with a dish called Hecho legumbres (355 rubles, $14) — a Spanish style sizzle platter of roasted vegetables and parmesan cheese, which may be too oily for every taste. 
With a selection of hard-to-find desserts like Death by Chocolate and Apple Strudel (both 295, $12), the food at William Bass is rich and weighty enough to satisfy the most gluttonous appetite. 
Now, how about that whisky and a nice cigar?

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Valeria could arguably have chosen a better time to launch a cultural invasion of Britain, bringing weepy pop songs and perfectly straight blond hair. But she got off to a pretty good start this week, scoring an interview in The Independent on Sunday calling her “Russia’s answer to Madonna,” which was then followed by a blow-by-blow analysis in Valeria’s pet paper, Tvoi Den, whose weekly edition she used to advertise.
Rumblings about the squeaky clean pop singer’s intentions to conquer the West started a few months ago. She gave an interview to 7 Dnei magazine in October, saying she was canceling all her tours in Russia and the CIS in 2008 to “concentrate on my Western career.” In case anyone was worried, she confirmed that “we will definitely come back for the presidential elections.” She also added a frank proviso: “But I’m not going to stop performing at exclusive corporate parties: after all they pay well.”
She told The Independent that “Nobody knows who I am in Britain yet, but I want to become as famous here as I am in Russia.” The headline “Nyet! The Madonna of Moscow says our pop stars are rubbish” cheekily picked up on another quote from her, saying that many acts in the West are “just producers’ projects, more than artists in their own right.” The article also said that President Vladimir Putin is one of her fans.
The Independent article prompted a triumphant headline in Tvoi Den: “Full Steam Ahead, Valeria!” However, the singer gave an interview to the tabloid denying that Putin has any particular liking for her girly pop. “I can only imagine that he respects my music because, as a mother of three children, I try to promote family values,” she said. Putin is said to prefer patriotic rock band Lyube, which promotes Cossacks and serving in the army. 
Valeria and her producer husband, Iosif Prigozhin, are fixtures in the tabloids and glossy magazines, but not because of any Madonna-like antics. As part of a well-oiled publicity machine, each interview depicts Valeria as a woman next door bringing up three children and worrying about how to scrape together enough money to fly to Dubai business class. 
Prigozhin is Valeria’s second husband — she used to be married to her first producer, Alexander Shulgin, but in 2006 she wrote an autobiography called “Life, Tears and Love” in which she accused him of regular domestic violence. 
She has had hits with catchy songs such as “I’m Melting” and “Little Clocks,” which are the kind of sweet, unthreatening pop that goes down a storm in Russia, where pop is aimed at grannies watching Channel One far more than nose-ringed teenagers. To be fair, Valeria has had her moments of reckless abandon. She posed in a flesh-colored body stocking on the cover of Star Hit magazine and simulated an orgy with some lissom girls in a recent video, but throughout retained the slightly worried air of a woman caught in a nasty draft. 
In a brave step, she is now taking a year off from her Russian career to record an English-language album in London and Paris. That follows in the footsteps of such teen favorites as Dima Bilan, who is soon to release a collaboration with Timbaland, and Sergei Lazarev, who made an English-language album in 2005 called “Don’t Be Fake.” 
I don’t want to jinx her success, but I don’t remember anyone calling Lazarev the Russian Robbie Williams.
Nevertheless, producer Prigozhin has high hopes. He revealed the battle plan to 7 Dnei: “Now, we are going to conquer Europe. Later, Japan and China will follow. After that we might even make it to America.”

TITLE: Winners and losers
AUTHOR: By Ann Hornaday
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: When nominations for the 80th annual Academy Awards were announced Tuesday, they were greeted with the usual complaints about who got left out. But the fuss was already a week old over the nominations for best foreign language film.
When the nominating committee released its short list of nine films last week, the outcry was so forceful and so immediate that the committee’s chairman has vowed to change the academy’s nominating procedures for this perennially problematic category.
Enduring arguments — that the retired academy members who tend to serve on the committee habitually shut out the most vibrant and edgy examples of world cinema — are being revived. Even the notion of the best foreign-language film category itself has come under fire as obsolete in an increasingly cosmopolitan and porous global film culture.
The nine selected films, five of which were nominated Tuesday, weren’t in themselves controversial; many are by established and even revered directors in the global filmmaking community, among them Denys Arcand, Giuseppe Tornatore, Sergei Bodrov, Andrzej Wajda and Nikita Mikhalkov.
The five nominees are Austria’s “The Counterfeiters,” Israel’s “Beaufort,” Kazakhstan’s “Mongol,” Poland’s “Katyn” and Russia’s “12.” The others were Serbia’s “The Trap,” Brazil’s “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation,” Canada’s “Days of Darkness” and Italy’s “The Unknown Woman.”
But two of the most highly regarded foreign films of 2007 did not make the cut: the Romanian film “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes as well as several other critics’ and festival prizes; and “Persepolis,” an animated film from France by the Iranian graphic artist Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud that won its own share of laurels and landed on several critics’ year-end Top 10 lists.
The absence of those two titles — as well as ones from such vibrant film cultures as Mexico (“Silent Light”) and Korea (“Secret Sunshine”) — stirred up immediate ire in film circles, mostly expressed in the blogosphere that covers Hollywood. 
“How Do You Say ‘Oscar Scandal’ in Romanian?” read the headline on LA Weekly critic Scott Foundas’ “Foundas & Taylor on Film” blog the day the shortlist was announced. Foundas called the omission of “4 Months,” by writer-director Cristian Mungiu, “as embarrassing a blunder as any in the academy’s history.”
Reached by phone on Thursday, Mark Johnson, chairman of the nominating committee for the foreign-language film Oscar, was clearly upset, although he took pains to make clear he didn’t take issue with the nine films that were selected. “The outcome is noteworthy not for what made it — it’s not like some ridiculous movies made it onto a list they shouldn’t be on — it’s what didn’t make it.” Citing “4 Months” and “Persepolis” by name, Johnson said, “It’s just inconceivable to me that they weren’t included.”
The exclusions are especially distressing to Johnson in light of recent reforms he made to the nominating process. Along with documentaries, foreign-language films aren’t nominated by people in their own “craft” categories (such as directors, cinematographers and actors), but by members of the academy at large — who commit to watching around 14 or 15 movies over two months.
Because the process is a significant time commitment (foreign-language committee members can’t watch the films on DVD, only at academy-sanctioned screenings), the demographics of the committee have skewed toward people with time on their hands — in other words, retirees. The result, many observers say, are films that are safe, conventional and relatively mainstream.
Johnson last year instituted a process by which members of the committee, which numbers around 400, would come up with a shortlist of nine films. Then a smaller group, composed of 10 randomly selected committee members as well as 30 specially invited, more professionally active members, would winnow those to the five nominees.
“Last year was the first year” of trying that process, Johnson said, “and it worked very well. I was really happy with it.” Among the nominees selected last year were Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” the Algerian film “Days of Glory,” Denmark’s “After the Wedding” and the Canadian film “Water.” The Oscar winner was the German Cold War drama “The Lives of Others.”
What went wrong this year? For one thing, the shortlist was left in the hands of the same people whose choices were criticized in the past.
Observers suggest that “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days,” with its stark neorealist design, real-time pacing and graphic depiction of a late-term abortion (including a shot of a fetus on a bathroom floor), turned committee members off. “Persepolis,” an animated film with a bold, black-and-white look, might have been dismissed by some as “only” a cartoon.
Whatever the reasons, Johnson says, the process clearly needs tinkering. “I think we have to do some kind of radical change and hopefully we can come up with a system that works better,” Johnson said.
The shortlist wasn’t the first source of controversy for the committee, which has long been accused of having arbitrary rules. Foreign-language films aren’t submitted for Oscar consideration by their filmmakers or studios but by countries, opening the process to politics and cronyism. “Each country does it differently,” said Picturehouse President Bob Berney, a longtime critic of the nomination process. (Picturehouse’s film “Mongol” made the list, whereas “La Vie en Rose,” which the studio also distributed, was overlooked by France in favor of “Persepolis,” which the committee proceeded to overlook. However, “Persepolis” has been recognized separately with a nomination in the Best Animated Feature Film of the Year category.)
“In France there are only six or eight people on the (submission) committee, whereas in Spain, 1,000 people vote,” Berney said, “which only adds to the ambiguous nature of this process. And the fact that a country can nominate only one is very tough.”
Johnson said that the rules are revisited on a regular basis: “We’ve asked, should we have a wild-card entry, where we take the winner of, say, four or five of the most important film festivals? We’ve talked about things like that, and it’s ongoing. I just think right now, for me, the bigger problem is the one we’ve been talking about.”
Rules and regulations aside, at a time when cinema seems to be becoming only more globalized, the notion of ghettoizing films into a foreign-language category is seen by many as problematic. Last October “The Band’s Visit,” a highly regarded Israeli film, was disqualified from competing because more than half its dialogue is in English, the only language its Egyptian and Israeli characters can communicate in. Tom Vick, film programmer at the Freer and Sackler galleries, notes that “Mongol,” which was submitted by Kazakhstan, was made by a Russian director (Bodrov), stars a Japanese actor and features Chinese and Mongolian supporting actors.
“It’s clear these distinctions about what constitutes a foreign film are starting to break down,” said Vick, adding that “the idea that you have these borders separating movies” might be one whose time has passed.

TITLE: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Wins Shock Victory Over Nadal
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MELBOURNE, Australia — Second-ranked Rafael Nadal, seeking to prove he can win a Grand Slam on a surface other than Roland Garros’ clay, instead matched his worst loss in a major as the No. 39-ranked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga reached the Australian Open finals with a dominating 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 victory on Thursday. 
Nadal played well against Tsonga, who has struggled with injuries and had never gone beyond the fourth round in his four previous Grand Slams. But the Frenchman was virtually untouchable, smashing 17 aces against one of the best serve returners. 
He faces the winner of Friday’s semifinal between top-ranked Roger Federer and No. 3 Novak Djokovic. 
Nadal had just 12 unforced errors — four combined in the first two sets — while matching the fewest games he has won in a Grand Slam, against Andy Roddick at the 2004 U.S. Open. 
“I was playing fine,” Nadal said. “He played unbelievable. Congratulate him.” 
Tsonga had 49 winners and didn’t face any break points until the third set, when he saved three in one game in Nadal’s only real challenge. 
“It’s unbelievable, just amazing,” Tsonga said, calling it his best performance ever. “Nothing can stop me today. It’s like a dream. I can’t believe it’s true. I was moving on the court like never I move. Everything was perfect.” 
On the women’s side, fourth-ranked Ana Ivanovic staged a dramatic comeback, losing the first eight games before ousting No. 9 Daniela Hantuchova 0-6, 6-3, 6-4 to reach her second Grand Slam final. She will meet No. 5 Maria Sharapova, who overwhelmed Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic 6-3, 6-1. 
While Nadal is popular, Tsonga has been adopted by the Melbourne Park fans for his go-for-broke style and outgoing personality. He frequently had them standing and cheering. 
Nadal got a taste of what was ahead as Tsonga jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first set. After watching one untouchable service return zip past, Nadal simply stared at him in disbelief. 
As three other seeded players already learned here, this guy is for real. 
Tsonga picked up volleys off his feet with an amazingly deft touch. Changing speed and spin, he slugged it out with Nadal from the baseline the way few can. And anytime he got close to trouble, his big serve bailed him out. 
“I can’t believe some volleys,” Nadal said. “I tried to play little bit slower; I tried to play a little bit faster; I tried to play more inside the court; behind the court. No chance. Not today.” 
He broke Nadal at love to finish off the first set, then reveled in the cheers, waving his arms to get the fans to yell even louder. 
“They give me lot of energy,” Tsonga said. 
With Nadal serving at 3-4 in the second set, Tsonga set up break point with a lunging backhand volley that left him with his back facing the net, then raised a finger to indicate “One more.” He smacked a blistering service return on the next point, then another stinging shot to set up an easy overhead. 
Serving for the set, Tsonga blasted two aces, then another serve that clipped the net and landed on the line. Nadal challenged the call, clearly unwilling to give Tsonga another chance — and for good reason. The call stood, and Tsonga rang up another ace. 
Tsonga broke for the seventh time, then served for the match at 5-2, finishing it off with another ace. He looked stunned it was over, then jumped around the court in celebration. 
Sharapova has shown focus and determination to get back to the women’s final after losing to Serena Williams last year. 
“You have your bad moments in your career and you have your good moments, and it’s been a good ride so far,” said the Russian, who hasn’t dropped a set in six matches and earlier ended No. 1 Justine Henin‘s 32-match winning streak. “But it’s not over yet.” 
With Rod Laver Arena’s roof closed due to a light rain, Jankovic looked anxious and tight. It didn’t help that Sharapova, seeking her third Grand Slam title was whacking winners everywhere. 
Jankovic double-faulted three times as Sharapova broke to start the second set, then got treatment for lower back pain. 
“I wanted to withdraw, but it was a semifinal,” Jankovic said. 
The second match started as a near-replay. Ivanovic said her fans, including a strong presence from Melbourne’s sizable Serbian community, helped her rally. 
“If it wasn’t for you guys, I would already be booking my flight back home,” she told the crowd. 
Ivanovic, who beat Venus Williams in the previous round, won only nine points in the first set.

TITLE: China Slams Critics, Defends Beijing Games
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING — In a blast of harsh rhetoric, China lashed out Thursday at the Dalai Lama and critics of Beijing’s support for Sudan, saying attempts to link political issues to the Beijing Summer Olympics betrayed the spirit of the games.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said China could “definitely not accept” rights groups that say China’s support for Sudan’s government is prolonging the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
“To link the Darfur issue to the Olympics is a move to politicize the Olympics and this is inconsistent with the Olympics spirit and will bear no fruit,” Jiang told reporters at a news conference.
She also attacked the Dalai Lama as a religious phony seeking to split China, a response to the exiled Tibetan leader’s reported support for peaceful protests during the Olympics.
Beijing’s tough approach illustrates its extreme sensitivity toward anything that might tarnish its staging of the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games. Beijing has invested billions of dollars and national prestige in what it hopes will be a glorious showcase of China’s rapid development from impoverished agrarian nation to rising industrial power.
A tide of criticism from rights groups, celebrities and international media threatens to dampen the mood surrounding the games.
On Sunday, actress Mia Farrow received widespread publicity with an attempt to stage a protest at a former Khmer Rouge prison in Cambodia over Chinese support for Sudan. 
Farrow has been working with the U.S.-based advocacy group Dream for Darfur, which has held mock Olympic-style torch-lighting ceremonies in places around the globe that have suffered mass killings to call attention to the Darfur violence.

TITLE: Pakistan Wins Victory
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: HYDERABAD, Pakistan — Opener Nasir Jamshed smashed a fluent 74 to help Pakistan pull off an unconvincing five-wicket victory over Zimbabwe in the second one-day international on Thursday. 
Chasing 239 for victory, flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi came to Pakistan’s rescue with a powerful 43 not out from 27 balls after Zimbabwe had reduced the hosts to 178 for five in the 38th over. 
Afridi, who struck four boundaries and two sixes, and Mohammad Yousuf (38 not out) added 61 from 52 balls in an unbroken sixth-wicket partnership to guide Pakistan home with 22 balls to spare. 
Several dropped catches also contributed towards Zimbabwe’s second defeat in the five-match series. 
Afridi was let off on 32 and 36, Yousuf on 29 and Jamshed was dropped on six and 72 on a flat batting pitch at the Niaz stadium. 
Zimbabwe removed opener Salman Butt early on when he was caught behind by Tatenda Taibu for 17 off Elton Chigumbura. 
Jamshed produced some explosive shots as he and Younis Khan (35) put on a free flowing 95 from 80 balls. 
The left hander, who scored a half-century on his debut one-day outing in Karachi on Monday, continued his hot streak as he smashed 14 fours in his 64-ball knock. 
When Jamshed and Younis were both run out within a space of four balls in the 21st over, Zimbabwe raised hopes of an upset victory. 
Jamshed was beaten by a return throw from bowler Ray Price, while a direct throw from Vusi Sibanda from square leg sent Younis back to the pavilion. 
Pakistan also lost skipper Shoaib Malik (4) when he was stumped off Price, who bowled an excellent spell to concede 21 runs in his 10 overs. 
Misbah-ul-Haq struggled for his 20 before he was caught in the deep by Brendan Taylor off Hamilton Masakadza to leave Pakistan requiring 61 from 75 balls. 
Earlier, left arm pacer Sohail Tanvir produced his best bowling figures of 4-34 to restrict Zimbabwe despite half centuries from Masakadza (87) and Taibu (81). 
Following the match, Pakistan substituted Samiulah Niazi and Sarfaraz Ahmed for Khalid Latif and Sohail Khan for the third one dayer in Multan.

TITLE: Toyota Denies It Could Leave Formula One
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Toyota have condemned as “malicious scaremongering” media reports that they could withdraw from Formula One if the team do not improve significantly in the next two years. 
The speculation was triggered by team boss Tadashi Yamashina saying in Toyota’s annual motorsport report that he had been given two more years to get the team on the winning track. 
However, Toyota Motorsport president John Howett told Britain’s Autosport magazine on Thursday that Yamashina was merely stating his personal position and the company remained committed to the sport. 
“In Barcelona in 2006 we initially signed a non-binding agreement with the other manufacturers to stay in F1 until at least 2012,” he said. 
“We later transformed this into a binding agreement with (Formula One’s commercial supremo) Bernie Ecclestone — something some others have still to do.” 
Howett conceded the team’s performance was closely monitored by Tokyo. 
“A lot of the company’s senior executives really like to win so, if anything, we face a passionate pressure to perform. The media reports of the squad withdrawing are pure, malicious scaremongering,” he added. 
Toyota have yet to finish a race higher than second place since their Formula One debut in 2002 and last season they scored just 13 points in finishing sixth overall.