SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1344 (8), Friday, February 1, 2008
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TITLE: Analysts: Europe To Stay Mute In March
AUTHOR: By Mark John
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BRUSSELS — The European Union is keeping any doubts over the fairness of Russia’s March 2 election to itself to avoid needlessly antagonizing its large neighbor at a delicate time in their ties, analysts and diplomats say.
Usually swift to chide democratic failings around the world, the 27-member bloc does not want to exacerbate relations with its biggest energy supplier, and believes Moscow would in any case shrug off any criticism about its staging of the poll.
“There is a sense that whatever we say it will not make any difference,” said Katinka Barysch of the London-based Centre for European Reform (CER) think tank.
“We need to have a functioning relationship with the leadership, old or new... We don’t want to antagonize them too much.”
Europe’s main election watchdog said on Wednesday it would refuse to monitor the vote, in which President Vladimir Putin’s chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev is streets ahead of rivals, unless Moscow eased restrictions on its observers.
That came at the end of a week in which Medvedev — the beneficiary of blanket coverage from state media — refused to hold television debates with rivals and former prime minister and Kremlin critic Mikhail Kasyanov was barred from running.
Europe’s leaders have been strikingly silent, with only EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer making cautious statements that they hoped the election could be observed according to usual rules.
That will not cut much ice with the Kremlin, with Putin on Wednesday putting Russia’s state security service on guard against “attempts to interfere in our domestic affairs”.
“You could say the silence is deafening,” said a senior EU diplomat of Europe’s reaction.

TITLE: Hotel Gives Troubled Kids Careers, Hope
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Just a few years ago Yana Politova, 18, who works as a pastry cook at the Grand Hotel Europe, spent most of her time at a day-center where neglected children go to play games, take a shower and have dinner.
Today Politova, who was neglected by her mother for years and first went to school at the age of 10, cooks delicious cakes at one of the city’s leading hotels, is finishing school and has serious plans for her future.
“My goal is to have a good job, arrange my own apartment and have a good life,” said Politova, a pretty dark-eyed girl who produces the impression of being a very energetic and purposeful person.
It was at the day-center, known as the Ostrov Center for Youth of Social Risk, that Politova and three companions, who were in similar predicaments, received the offer of a job at the Grand Hotel Europe, one of St. Petersburg’s most luxurious addresses. The five-star hotel was ready to give the teenagers a chance to get their lives in order and help promote their careers.
Irina Khlopova, spokeswoman for the Grand Hotel Europe, said the hotel came up with the initiative in 2006 of hiring youngsters from the Center for Youth of Social Risk.
“Our position was that any profitable business should be socially responsible and help those who are in need,” Khlopova said.
“We decided that our charity would not only be about holiday dinners for orphans or children in need, but also about giving those children a chance to find a job, develop their careers and become independent from their unfavorable circumstances,” she said.
“In other words, ‘give a man a fish and he’ll eat once: teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever.’” Khlopova said.
Khlopova said the idea was strongly supported by the hotel’s German General Manager Thomas Noll, who has been living in St. Petersburg for many years and had come to understand the problems of the city’s neglected children.
The hotel offered training to several young people from the Center for Youth of Social Risk, but only four were interested. All four girls were also offered a job.
Of the four girls, two — Politova and Nastya Volkova, 18 — went to work in the confectionary department. Nadya Kin, 20, joined the laundry team, and Natalya Bulanova, 18, chose to work as a chambermaid.
Politova said she wanted to work as a pastry chef because in her childhood she had dreamed of becoming a cook.
“Now I feel I’ve learnt quite a lot about cooking, and I may choose to also learn to become a hairdresser. However, I’m very thankful for the knowledge and financial independence I’m getting here,” Politova said.
As young as she is, Politova lives on her own. Her mother had an alcohol problem and didn’t work. The family lost a place to live when Politova’s mother was conned out of a new apartment. Politova’s mother died 18 months ago, and only the Center for Youth of Social Risk helped her.
In her turn, Kin said she liked working in the laundry more than being a chef.
Kin, who is one of six children, came to the Center for Youth of Social Risk looking for help. She was able to spend time in the center’s cafeteria, make friends with other children and get help from doctors, psychologists and social workers. Today Kin has a 16-month old son, and she says that working at the hotel supports her, too.
For Volkova, the job at the hotel is a big help. Volkova’s father threw her and her brother out of their house, and the young people had no place to live. Now both work and they can afford a room.
Astrid Wenkel, Human Resources Manager at the Grand Hotel Europe, who used to work at the Center for Youth of Social Risk and has helped out many of the children there, said it’s hard for such children to find a job because they have often missed out on education and lack skills.
“Besides, many children from the Center for Youth of Social Risk have had a difficult life.  The only thing they know about is how to survive. Not all of them are used to understanding the importance of responsibility,” Wenkel, who comes from Germany, said.
However, she said that those young people who have come to work to the hotel have made a conscious choice about their lives.
Khlopova said that coming from a different world, the girls were in shock at first: it was difficult to follow orders and stick to the discipline of hotel work, she said. However, over the last two years the girls have undergone a “grandiose [level of] development” and have showed excellent results, Khlopova said.
“For instance, when we had an inspection with no warning, Nastya’s room-cleaning was found to be of the highest standard,” she said.
Wenkel said that so far, the only local businesses who offer work placements to troubled children from the Center for Youth of Social Risk are the Grand Hotel Europe and IKEA.
Khlopova said, however, that the hotel’s program doesn’t just offer such youngsters a job, but will also support them through their education.
The hotel is planning to pay for the higher education of at least two girls at the prestigious St. Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics or ENGECON.
“We want the girls to study and to promote their career,” Khlopova said.
In 2008, the hotel is planning to hire five more young people from the Center for Youth of Social Risk, she said.

TITLE: Environmentalists Held For Trying to Measure Radiation
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The police detained three environmentalists and a local photographer Wednesday as the ecologists tried to measure radiation levels outside wagons carrying radioactive material. The activists and the journalist were released without charge.
Tatyana Kulbakina of the Murmansk-based non-governmental organization Nature and Youth, and Rashid Alimov and Alexei Snigiryov of the environmental pressure group Bellona, were monitoring Kapitolovo train station (next to Isotope, a state-owned enterprise responsible for the transportation of radioactive substances) which is normally used by trains carrying such shipments, when they received a phone call from Sergei Yermokhin, a photographer with the local weekly Moi Rayon. Yermokhin told the ecologists that a train had arrived and called them to join him.
The ecologists and the photographer were tracking down the route of a large shipment of uranium hexafluoride, a toxic low-radioactive compound used in the uranium enrichment process that makes fuel for nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. 
The hazardous cargo arrived in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, Jan. 23,  on board the MV Schouwenbank, a ship carrying containers with a total of 2,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride from the Gronau uranium enrichment facility in Germany. 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.
According to Bellona, Russia is the only country in the world that receives uranium hexafluoride from abroad in industrial quantities. Russian officials claim that uranium hexafluoride is as safe as toothpaste, while the ecologists regard the compound is “nuclear waste.”
According to Russian legislation, the import of nuclear waste is banned in the country but the trick is that uranium hexafluoride is not on the list of the compounds officially recognized in the “nuclear waste” category.
 “When Sergei called us, we were very near but when we got to the spot, I barely had time to measure the radiation level, which was 65 microroentgen per hour, about five times more than average level,” Alimov recounts. “Security and the police would not let us continue, although we were not on a restricted-access territory. In fact, we were right next to the passenger train platforms.”
Isotope staff saw Yermokhin taking photographs of the train and promptly sent their private security guards to the scene. Within minutes, the police arrived as well.
“They took our passports, without as much as introducing themselves or saying what it was that we had violated,” Alimov recalls. “At the same time, both the security guards and the police were on the offensive from the start. They made direct attempts to intimidate us and said we put ourselves at risk by hanging around Isotope and the hazardous cargo; one of the men said we could have even been dealt with by the interior ministry troops, if not shot at.”
The four were then driven in a civilian car to the nearby police station in Kuzmolovo, questioned at length and released without charge.
The ecologists said they were amazed to see that Isotope staff seemed to have orchestrated the whole process. 
“They were telling the police what to ask, how to go about things and at some point they started telling the officers to hurry up!” Alimov said. 
“They were also lecturing us about the advantages of nuclear industry all the way through, while making nonsensical remarks about how we could have shown terrorists how to get to the cargo,” Alimov added.
Environmentalists across the country stress that independent monitoring of nuclear safety is being made complicated by officials. 
“Independent experts can be denied access to facilities, and the very possibility of measuring radiation levels in the proximity of nuclear objects is often a problem,” said Olga Tsepilova, deputy head of the environmental faction of the liberal party Yabloko and an environmental scientist with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 
Russian officials argue that ordinary Russians are poorly prepared to deal with this subject, and the release of any relevant information would spark panic among members of the public.
But ecologists accuse the officials of hypocrisy.
“Had the storage facilities been secure, the technologies reliable, the radiation levels normal, the funds sufficient and well-spent, independent experts would have been welcome, in any numbers,” Tsepilova said.

TITLE: Medvedev Predicted To Win 71% Share of Vote
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin’s chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, will win 71 percent of the votes in March’s Russian presidential election, state-owned pollster VTsIOM predicted on Thursday.
Medvedev, who enjoys full Kremlin backing and blanket coverage in state-owned media, has been consistently way ahead of his opponents in all polls published to date.
The pollsters also analysed the past likely behavior of voters to suggest Medvedev’s final support could rise to 74 percent when other factors, such as likely turnout for candidates in past elections, are taken into account.
VTsIOM predicted Communist Party Leader Gennady Zyuganov would come in second place with 12.8 percent and nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky in third with 11.5 percent.
The survey was conducted on Jan 26-27 among 1,600 committed Russian voters in 46 regions.
Andrei Bogdanov of the tiny Democratic Party received 0.9 percent of the predicted votes.
Amongst confirmed voters, Medvedev’s 71.2 percent support towers over the 6.1 percent for Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov’s 5.6 percent. VTsIOM said the margin of error was 3.4 percent and anticipates a 70.7 percent turnout on March 2.

TITLE: Oil Terminal To Be Upgraded
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: Petersburg Oil Terminal, the largest refinery product outlet in St. Petersburg, plans a $150-200 million upgrade by 2010 that will allow it to launch gasoline exports, a port official said on Thursday.
Petersburg Oil Terminal (PNT) currently loads fuel oil and diesel while Russia’s fast-growing gasoline output is shipped via the northern ports of Murmansk and Vitino or via the Baltic states.
“If our shareholders approve the expansion plan, we will be ready to start gasoline and kerosene exports in two years,” the PNT official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
“We will be able to increase shipments of all light products, including diesel, and fuel oil volumes will decline.”
Many Russian refineries are being revamped to increase output of in-demand light products, while demand for fuel oil is falling.

TITLE: Zubkov Tipped For Gazprom
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov is most likely to replace First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as board chairman of state-controlled Gazprom in a reshuffle prompted by the upcoming presidential elections, a top Kremlin adviser said Wednesday.
The announcement brings clarity as to who will oversee the world’s largest natural gas producer if Medvedev, the front-runner in the race, wins the vote in March.
“I think that there’s no other choice,” said Arkady Dvorkovich, an economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin, referring to Zubkov in an interview with Bloomberg Television. It is important for the state to oversee the country’s largest company, he added.
Dvorkovich was out of his office Wednesday afternoon, and no one there could immediately confirm his comments.
Dvorkovich’s comments followed leaks to RIA-Novosti and Interfax, who quoted an unnamed highly placed government official as saying Zubkov could chair Gazprom’s board.
The state will also nominate other new members to the board: Economic Development and Trade Minister Elvira Nabiullina, Deputy Industry and Energy Minister Andrei Dementyev and deputy head of the Federal Property Management Agency Yury Medvedev, Interfax reported, citing a source familiar with the proposals.
The Cabinet officially remained mum about the possible Zubkov nomination. “There’s no official information about this and it will hardly appear in the near future,” said Oleg Dukhovnitsky, the Cabinet’s deputy chief spokesman. “It’s news to me.”

TITLE: Report: City to Remain
Hotspot of Xenophobia
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two new human rights reports released this week argue that the numbers of hate crimes in Russia seem set to increase in the near future, with St. Petersburg keeping its notorious status as one of the hot-beds of xenophobia in the country.
“We see the situation exacerbating in the recent months: since early January 2008 there has been more than 25 apparent ethnically motivated attacks [in Russia],” said Alexander Brod, director of the Moscow Bureau For Human Rigths, a member of the Public Chamber. At least 14 people died in what the organization regards as hate crimes, with 20 more people sustaining injuries.
“The lion’s share of the incidents was registered in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tolyatti,” Brod said. “Not only have the incidents mushroomed in numbers, they can also be seen in many different regions.”
Galina Kozhevnikova, deputy head of the Moscow-based SOVA Center think tank that monitors xenophobia and tracks ethnically motivated crimes, said xenophobia in Russia is taking off at high speed, with apparent hate crimes seen in at least seven regions of Russia since the beginning of the year.
Yuly Rybakov, a prominent human rights advocate with the St. Petersburg rights group Memorial, accuses the authorities of turning a blind eye to the problem.
“Usually it is democrat politicians or human rights advocates who report these cases,” he said. “And most of the time, the prosecutors openly show their contempt to anti-fascists and democrats, sometimes with outright insults.”
Human rights advocates are alarmed by the changing pattern of ethnically motivated crimes in Russia.
“It used to be that it was mostly skinhead groups responsible for such attacks but xenophobic attitudes are spreading and now affect a large proportion of ordinary people,” Kozhevnikova said. “It reveals itself in a greater share of crimes committed by ordinary people, not involved in any gangs and radical groups.”
“At the same time, ultra-nationalist organizations are becoming increasingly more violent,” Kozhevnikova said.
According to the statistics collected by SOVA Center, in 2007 sixty-nine people died in xenophobic attacks, and over 600 people were injured in such incidents. Racially motivated crimes were registered in 39 regions of Russia.
Natalya Yevdokimova, an advisor to Sergei Mironov, the chairman of the Council of Federation, urged the authorities to commission an in-depth analysis and assessment of the scope of extremism and nationalism in St. Petersburg and Russia as a whole and for the results to be widely publicized.
“It does not help that only human rights groups are aware of the issues; ordinary people do not get the picture at all,” she said. “The circumstances of and around these crimes — which are often classified as robberies, hooliganism or homicide without a hate motive — remain obscure to them.”

TITLE: Legality of Ice Rink Questioned
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The regional office of a federal heritage body has backed the plaintiffs in a legal dispute over a huge ice-rink that has been operating for the last two months on Palace Square, central St. Petersburg.
The plaintiffs, including the St. Petersburg Association of Middle and Small Business Entrepreneurs and Living City, a pressure group, have been seeking a court ruling in favor of halting the operation of the rink and its removal since it allegedly infringes access to objects of cultural value. 
They lodged a suit against two City Hall institutions — the Committee for State Control, Utility and Protection of Historical Monuments (KGIOP) and the Architectural and Construction Committee (KGA) — that approved the installation of the ice rink.
“The installation of the facilities on Palace Square is in violation of the rules governing the use of the territory and its surroundings,” Alexander Shukhobodsky deputy chief inspector of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Federal Mass Communication and Cultural Heritage Inspectorate (Rossvyazokhrankultura), said at a press conference on Monday. 
The 5,000 square-meter rink, the property of Bosconeva, opened Dec. 1 following approval by the City Hall and despite reaction heavyweights including director of the State Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky.
According to the contract between Bosconeva and the KGA, the disputed ice rink will stop operating on March 9. Shukhobodsky has vowed to fight any attempt to repeat the operation. 
“I would not like to see Palace Square used for such experiments any time in future,” he said.  
In a separate incident, the KGA acknowledged that Bosconeva had violated the agreement including a condition to build the installations more than 10 meters away from the Alexandrovsky Column with at least 50 meters separating the stage and the column.
Although Shukhobodsky backed the KGA, saying, “the rink should not have been built so close to the monument and around Alexandrovsky Column,” he took KGIOP to task, accusing it of exceeding its authority by sanctioning outdoor advertisements on Palace Square.
It is estimated that more than 5,000 people visit the ice rink each day.

TITLE: Virgin to Take Off in Russia
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — U.K. billionaire Richard Branson said he plans to compete in Russia’s air travel market to offer “better” services for consumers, and may name a local partner in three months to introduce his Virgin brand in the country.
“We’re looking to take on the airlines here,” Branson said at an investor conference in Moscow on Thursday, adding that he’s in talks with two or three possible investors from Russia.
Air travel in Russia, a country that spans 11 time zones, is growing at more than 10 percent a year, according to government figures. Russian airlines, led by state-controlled Aeroflot, have been leasing more aircraft, starting routes and forming international partnerships to meet growing demand.
Sky Express, a Russian discount airline, and Branson’s representatives have held talks and may reach an agreement over the next two months, Vitaly Korenyugin, a spokesman for the Moscow-based carrier, said in a telephone interview Thursday.

TITLE: Tourism Experts Share Ideas To Help Local Industry
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Intourfest 2008 tourism conference was due to open in St. Petersburg on Friday, making it the 17th tourism conference to be held in the city. The event will continue through Saturday at the Ambassador hotel.
“During the two days of Intourfest, industry professionals will be able to establish business contacts with corporate clients and new partners from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Dubai, present new services and programs, negotiate with top executives from tourism companies and take part in seminars and master-classes run by market leaders,” St. Petersburg Express, one of the companies organizing the conference, said in a statement.
This year one of the main events at Intourfest will be a master-class by Georgy Mokhov, general director of Persona Grata law agency, scheduled for February 1.
Mokhov will specify the changes in Russian legislature that would affect the tourism industry starting from this year. He will focus on the differences between the rights and responsibilities of tour agents and tour operators, on the information that a company is obliged to provide to a client, payment of damages, new forms of agreements and new legislation on passenger flights.
Mokhov will also discuss new legislation concerning trademarks and corporate naming and its implications for the tourism industry.
On February 1, Liliya Bitkulova, an expert on hotel certification, will hold a seminar on quality control in the hospitality industry. She will focus on national service standards, Russian certification systems and the procedures involved in assessing hotel rankings.
On the same day a round table is planned which will focus on the prospects of cultural tourism in St. Petersburg and the Northwest region. The main topics will be the promotion of cultural brands and cooperation between museums and tourism companies. Experts are expected to produce a five-year forecast for the industry and discuss state support programs, cross-regional cooperation and marketing in cultural tourism.
On February 2, tourism companies participating in Intourfest will hold a Discount Day and a lottery, offering popular tours to conference visitors at a discount.
Last year over 2,500 people and 80 companies from Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany and other countries took part in Intourfest. The main topic for discussion last year was the development of sanatoriums and resorts.
During the previous Intourfest conference, Sergei Korneyev, vice president of the Russian Tourism Union, forecasted that the European Union would become one of the main sources of tourists for the Northwest region. He listed Scandinavian countries, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy as the most important countries.
He also suggested that mixed tours that include a visit to St. Petersburg and one or several other places in the Northwest region could make the region more attractive.
Intourfest is sponsored and supported by industry associations and City Hall’s Committee for Investment and Strategic Projects. St. Petersburg is expected to benefit from increasing appeal to tourists as the popularity of tourism grows in the world. This week the UN World Tourism Organization issued a report saying that international tourism increased by six percent last year to about 900 million international arrivals.
“Economic and tourism growth are driven by emerging markets and developing economies. While mature markets remain the leading destinations in the world, the faster growth rate of new markets confirms the UNWTO’s main message of tourism’s potential for the developing world,” Francesco Frangialli, UNWTO’s Secretary-General, said in a statement Tuesday.
Of the additional 52 million worldwide arrivals last year, Europe received some 19 million and Asia and the Pacific 17 million. Trips to the Americas were up by around six million, Africa by three million and the Middle East by five million. All the different regions registered increases above their long-term average.
In 2008 UNWTO expects international tourism to keep growing. There are some concerns that tourism might be affected by uncertainty over economic growth, subprime mortgage crises, global imbalances and high oil prices. “But based on past experience, the sector’s proven resilience and given the current parameters, UNWTO does not expect that growth will come to a halt,” the statement said.

TITLE: Deripaska’s BasEl Faces $4 Million Back Tax Bill
AUTHOR: By Catrina Stewart
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The country’s tax authorities are seeking 100 million rubles ($4 million) in back taxes from Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element holding, a claim some analysts fear may carry political overtones. 
In July, the Federal Tax Service informed BasEl that the conglomerate had underpaid taxes relating to 2003 and 2004. BasEl subsequently appealed the claims in the Moscow Arbitration Court, and the case is currently ongoing. 
Aelita Baichurina, a spokeswoman for the Federal Tax Service, confirmed that the case was being heard, but declined to give further details.
BasEl refused to comment on the substance of the claims, although a source close to the company insisted that it had paid its taxes in the proper fashion. The source added that the case was “not a big issue.” 
According to court documents, the tax authorities say BasEl used a complex promissory-note scheme with the aid of fly-by-night companies to understate its profit, Kommersant reported. The authorities also claim that BasEl made suspicious payments for staff-training events to similar vehicles. 
BasEl is the latest in a line of companies to be facing back tax charges. Russneft, the beleaguered oil company formerly owned by Mikhail Gutseriyev, was slammed with an $800 million tax bill this week. 
Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst and United Russia State Duma deputy, said the BasEl back-tax bill was negligible and that the case had been blown out of proportion. “One hundred million rubles is a small figure for BasEl. ... I’m surprised not by the demands — that is normal practice — but by the fact it’s on the front page.” 
But others were less sure. 
“No [Russian] tax case is purely a tax case — there is always a political background,” said Yevgeny Volk, the Moscow-based head of the Heritage Foundation, adding that he was not familiar with the details of the BasEl case. 
Deripaska is one of Russia’s richest men, overseeing a vast business empire built up around United Company RusAl, the world’s largest aluminum producer, which is in the process of buying a blocking stake in Norilsk Nickel. 
While he boasts impressive pro-government credentials, analysts say the businessman has been bruised by bitter power struggles with Igor Sechin, the influential Kremlin deputy chief of staff who is also chairman of state-controlled Rosneft. 
Stanislav Belkovsky, another political analyst with Kremlin connections, said Deripaska and Sechin went head to head in a bid to control Russneft. Toward the end of last year, the deal seemed all but closed in Deripaska’s favor, but the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has since dragged its feet on approving his bid for the oil firm.
Deripaska’s ties with U.S. lobbyists

TITLE: Billionaires Seize A Golden Opportunity
AUTHOR: By Robin Paxton
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The country’s metals billionaires are moving into gold, attracted by record prices and the prospect of carving a share of production that is forecast to rise 40 percent by 2015.
Six of the 10 richest Russians ranked by Forbes own gold assets in a country with reserves second only to South Africa’s. The wealthiest, Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, is among the latest to join the gold rush.
“There’s definitely a move, both internally and externally, to become involved in gold in Russia. The price is one of the things driving the frenzy,” said Peter Hambro, whose eponymous company is the country’s second-largest gold miner by output.
When Hambro, a London-based bullion trader, set up his Russian mining firm in 2004, gold was trading below $400 per ounce. Today’s prices above $920 have never before been seen.
Average gold prices are set to rise another 20 percent in value this year and retain most gains in 2009 as dollar weakness, market turmoil and inflation fears stoke investor interest, a Reuters poll of 50 analysts and traders showed.
“Everyone is extremely buoyant about the gold price. They are seeing this as an industry they want to be in,” said Henry Horne, managing director of Highland Gold.
But why Russia? Most of its lucrative gold deposits are in remote parts of Siberia and the Far East, where temperatures can plunge to minus 40 degrees Celsius and millions of dollars must be spent on infrastructure.
“Russian businessmen are moving into gold because they are bullish on the commodity itself and bullish on Russia’s ... extensive but under-explored mineral base,” Troika Dialog metals analyst Mikhail Stiskin said.
Russia is the world’s fifth-largest gold miner, accounting for about 6.6 percent of world production. Output last year is believed to have been about 161 tons (5.2 million ounces).
Valery Braiko, who heads the Russian Gold Industrialists Union, says 2008 will be a “breakthrough year” — with rising gold output after five consecutive years of decline, as the cost of developing remote alluvial deposits has risen.
Canada’s Kinross Gold, due to launch its Kupol mine in the Chukotka autonomous district, will make up much of the increase.
The fragmented gold-mining sector includes some 600 companies, many of them tiny. The largest, Polyus Gold, mined nearly one-quarter of the country’s output in 2006, while its nearest competitor produced less than 5 percent.
“In Russia, gold remains one of the least-consolidated sectors,” said Vladimir Zhukov, senior mining analyst with Lehman Brothers in Moscow.
Polyus, which plans to triple output by 2015, has a market capitalization of $9.9 billion. Though worth only one-quarter of world leader Barrick Gold, this still values Polyus at four times its nearest domestic rival, making acquisitions realistic.
“A few hundred million dollars can get you full control or a decent-sized stake. In steel or base metals, the cost of entry is much higher,” Zhukov said.
Roman Abramovich’s investment vehicle, Millhouse, paid $400 million for 40 percent of Highland Gold this month.
The country’s top gold miners are each developing projects that will allow them to expand production, and much of the country’s potential lies in fields yet to be fully explored. Such deposits form the backbone of the company being built by Severstal owner Alexei Mordashov, a billionaire better known for his background in steel.
Eyes have now turned to a looming showdown for control of the huge Sukhoi Log field, the only gold deposit to be declared strategic by the government and thus off limits to foreign control when sold, possibly this year.
Until recently, Polyus was the clear front-runner for the field, although Abramovich, Mordashov and others may yet muster a challenge.

TITLE: Greenspan Warns Over Inflation
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Former U.S. Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said Wednesday that the double-digit inflation rate was hurting Russia’s economy, Interfax reported. 
While Greenspan praised the development of the Russian economy, he said the government could not “sterilize” the excess money flowing into the economy because of high energy prices and the size of the country’s oil and gas sector, the agency said. 
Greenspan said there were “legitimate concerns” about the role of sovereign wealth funds, such as Russia’s, investing in global financial markets, but as long as they behaved “wholly like profit-making institutions” their money would be welcomed. 
Greenspan’s comments, relayed by satellite link to an investment forum in Moscow, come after Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week that money held in Russia’s stabilization fund would only be used to invest in stakes of up to 5 percent in foreign companies.
Russia currently relies for more than 70 percent of its exports on oil and gas, Kudrin told the same investor conference, which was organized by Troika Dialog, earlier in the day.
The government has reported an inflation rate for 2007 of 11.9 percent, and the State Statistics Service on Wednesday estimated that consumer prices for January would rise by 2.3 percent to 2.4 percent. 
In an interview with Germany’s Die Welt, Greenspan said the chances of a U.S. recession were “50 percent or more.”

TITLE: Ukraine’s Plan Dismissed
AUTHOR: By Alexander Vershinin
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday scoffed at Ukraine’s proposal to build a new pipeline that would carry Turkmen natural gas to European markets, saying other nations should consult it before making such statements. 
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on a trip to Brussels this week that her country could serve as a transit point for a pipeline that would deliver Turkmen and other Central Asian gas to European countries. She said the pipeline, known as White Stream, could cross the Caspian and the Black seas. 
The Turkmen Foreign Ministry said it knew nothing about the project and expected other nations to consult it on future pipelines before making statements about possible routes. 
“Official notices about projects to build international pipelines are supposed to come from energy-producing nations after holding relevant talks and consultations with other interested parties,” the ministry said in a statement. 
Turkmenistan is the second-biggest gas producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia, and its gas resources are playing an increasingly important role in the geopolitics of the region. Russia controls the only export routes for Turkmenistan’s gas and the main pipeline for Kazakh oil exports. 
Russia is already the world’s No. 1 natural gas exporter, and it would further strengthen its clout by maintaining a monopoly on the transit of Turkmen and Kazakh exports to Europe. 
Concerned about growing dependence on Russian energy supplies, the European Union has sought to diversify supply routes by mulling over potential routes for Turkmen and other Central Asian gas exports that would bypass Russia. 
The Kremlin last month dealt a stinging blow to such hopes by signing a deal with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan for those countries’ Caspian Sea gas supplies to flow through Russia.

TITLE: Lenta Dispute Heard by Court
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Shareholders of Lenta, the country’s third-biggest food retailer, are battling in court for control of the company after failing to agree on funding for expansion.
A judge in the British Virgin Islands is hearing cases filed by Lenta founder Oleg Zherebtsov against co-owner August Meyer and another mounted by Meyer against Zherebtsov, Meyer’s spokeswoman said Wednesday. The partners planned last month to replace the company’s board because of the disagreement.
Lenta has said it may hold an initial public offering or sell a stake this year to fund store openings as rising incomes enable consumers to turn away from open markets. Zherebtsov ousted Sergei Yushchenko as chief executive earlier this month, a step that Meyer has said was taken without board approval and has vowed to fight in court.
Yushchenko joined an “alliance with a small group of shareholders and prepared documents to sell the company” without his approval, Zherebtsov, who also is chairman, said in a statement dated Jan. 25 and e-mailed Jan. 28.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Korean Investment</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A group of Korean industrial enterprises could invest $217 million into production facilities in the Leningrad Oblast. The new plants will supply components to the car assembly plants located in the region, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The Leningrad Oblast government is negotiating with 12 Korean companies. A 45-hectare land plot next to the Hyundai plant being constructed in the Kamenka industrial zone is being considered for the project.

<b>Cottage Complex Built</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The National Housing Corporation has completed the first part of a mass-market cottage village in Yanino in the Leningrad Oblast, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The company has constructed 70 cottages and 64 townhouse apartments on the 17-hectare site. So far all the cottages and 41 apartments have been sold. The second part of the village will include 90 cottages and 68 townhouse apartments.

<b>Baltinvestbank To Float</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Baltinvestbank will float 10-15 percent of its shares by the end of the year, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The shares will be offered to foreign financial institutions and new shareholders will be allowed to acquire no more than five percent of the authorized capital stock. The bank expects to raise over $100 million, and negotiations with potential investors will start by June this year.

<b>Gas Station Expansion</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Faeton-Auro invested 727 million rubles into filling stations in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast last year, Interfax reported Thursday.
Their operation of 52 filling stations gives the company 18 percent of the local fuel market. Last year Faeton-Auro sold 278,000 tons of oil products, earning revenues of 5.53 billion rubles ($226 million). This year the company plans to construct eight new filling stations in St. Petersburg and invest over 6.5 billion rubles ($266 million) in other regions. 

<b>Port Turnover Increases</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The planned cargo turnover of Ust-Luga port in the Leningrad Oblast has been increased up to 120.6 million tons, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The port is due to start operating at full capacity by 2015. The previous plan stated that the port’s turnover would be 36 million tons a year. Last year the port processed 7.1 million tons — a 90 percent increase compared with 2006.

<b>Rossia To Issue Bonds</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Bank Rossia will issue bonds for three billion rubles ($122.7 million) that will be in circulation for three years, Interfax reported Tuesday.
It will be the bank’s second bond issue — Bank Rossia issued bonds for 1.5 billion rubles ($61.3 million) in July last year with an interest rate of nine percent a year. 

<b>Deripaska Drops Out</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska decided against bidding for a contract to build a toll road between Moscow and St. Petersburg and may focus on projects in the country’s south, Kommersant reported.
Three groups submitted applications to construct the link between the two cities, the newspaper said, citing the Transport Ministry. 
France’s Vinci SA and Enka Insaat & Sanayi AS, Turkey’s biggest builder, are leading two groups for the St. Petersburg road, Kommersant said, citing unidentified officials. Units of Gazprom teamed up with Spanish and Portuguese companies in the other, Kommersant said.

<b>Tidal Power Planned</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s government plans to help fund the construction of a 15,000-megawatt power plant to harness the tides of the White Sea.
“The state is ready to put money in the Mezen tidal power station,” Dmitry Akhanov, head of the Federal Energy Agency, told an investor conference organized by Troika Dialog in Moscow on Thursday. “The state is ready to attract investment in it.”
Hydro OGK, Russia’s biggest hydropower utility, is already testing an experimental 1.5-megawatt generator at Mezen Bay in the White Sea off Russia’s northwest coast. The full-scale plant would boost Hydro OGK’s generating capacity by almost two-thirds.

<b>Fund Making Returns</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia has earned an annual return of 10.75 percent since July 2006 from investing its oil fund, the so-called Stabilization Fund that was split into two new funds Wednesday, a Finance Ministry official said.
Russia seeks to make higher returns from the National Wellbeing Fund and the Reserve Fund, which are currently invested in highly rated debt instruments, Pyotr Kazakevich, the Finance Ministry’s senior manager of Russia’s sovereign oil fund, told reporters Thursday.

TITLE: Economics 101 From Chess Masters
AUTHOR: By John Kay
TEXT: Bobby Fischer, who died two weeks ago, may have been the greatest chess player in history. The 1972 match in which he won the world championship from his Soviet counterpart Boris Spassky is certainly the best-known chess match in history.
That game has often been treated as a metaphor for the Cold War — not just a contest between an American and a Soviet, but a contest between freedom and totalitarianism, between individualism and order. This metaphor has recently been developed, to the point of caricature, by the neoconservative Daniel Johnson.
While Spassky was a cog — albeit ill-fitting — in the Soviet chess machine, Fischer was incapable of normal cooperative human relations with anyone. Spassky was accompanied to Reykjavik by other Soviet grand masters and KGB agents, while Fischer was flanked by his attorneys.
Yet the Cold War metaphor has a central flaw. The United States won the Cold War, but Russia won the chess war. Fischer never defended his title and was succeeded by Anatoly Karpov. The years from 1972 to 1975 were the only period between 1948 and 1991 in which the world champion was not a Soviet citizen.
There are also economic lessons from this story, but they are subtler than those that divide the world into heroes of freedom and villains of totalitarianism perceive.
Planned regimes have often succeeded when they have ploughed resources into the achievement of narrowly defined objectives. We smile when we read of the All-Union Chess Section, under the Supreme Council for Physical Education. Its director, filled with bile and Marxist rhetoric, proposed shock brigades to spearhead five-year plans for chess. But it worked. Most of the world’s best chess players succeeded as a result of the Supreme Council’s endeavors. If chess was the battleground between free enterprise and state planning, state planning won.
But the real battlefield was not chess but consumer goods and military hardware. Although the Soviet Union produced great chess players by directing resources to the game, the cars and computers it produced were inferior and few. Planned economies were unable to cope with the diversity of consumer needs and the constantly changing requirements of modern technology. Chess lies on the boundary between the tasks best accomplished by careful coordination and design — the strengths of planning — and those best accomplished by experiment and adaptation — the strengths of markets.
When modern computers were first developed, it was assumed that they would dominate chess. But it was not until 1997 that a computer was developed that was good enough to score a victory against world champion Garry Kasparov. IBM was relieved that a publicity stunt — which had proved more costly than anyone had imagined — had achieved its goal. After that, it retired from the game.
Yet the rules of chess are well-defined and uncomplicated: There is a single opponent and rarely more than a handful of legal moves. Compared with fighting the war in Iraq, mapping the future of the telecommunications industry or planning the economic development of China, chess is simple and predictable. But chess is still too subtle to be defined by a single narrative and too complex for models to be more than illustrative. People who hold to a single idea or a fixed design generally lose in chess, as they lose in battle, in business and in economics. Great chess players apply a variety of principles, they sense patterns, and they hold a formidable range of models and analyses in their mind without being a slave to any of them.
As in chess, so it is in business and finance. We cope with an uncertain world through incremental and mostly unsuccessful innovation, not through extensive visions of the future. That is both why computer chess is not very interesting and why market systems outperformed planned economies. And this is also why people who seek to remodel politics or business with grand designs are as mad as Bobby Fischer — and far more dangerous.

John Kay is a columnist for the Financial Times, where this comment appeared.

TITLE: Something Is Very Wrong
AUTHOR: The Washington Post
TEXT: First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev polled at 80 percent in a recent survey, compared with 1 percent for the only opposition candidate then in the running, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. But like the former Soviet regime it increasingly resembles, the Kremlin is leaving nothing to chance. On Sunday, Kasyanov was excluded from the presidential ballot on the pretext that thousands of the 2 million signatures he had gathered were fraudulent.
The next day Moscow announced ground rules for international election observers that limit their numbers to 70 and stipulate that they can arrive in Russia only after Feb. 27, which, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, leaves too little time to monitor the election effectively. 
Moreover, Medvedev announced this week that he would not participate in any election debates.
The most interesting aspect of this heavy-handed strategy is that it is entirely unnecessary. Thanks to the government’s control of television and the country’s oil-fueled economic boom, a large majority of Russians are more than happy to vote for Medvedev or anyone else President Vladimir Putin might point to. 
Putin could have permitted Kasyanov and any  other opposition figures to run, allowed in thousands of international observers and ordered Medvedev to participate in televised debates — and still his candidate would have won. In that case, he could have claimed to have held a democratic election, and many around the world would have agreed.
Yet Putin insists on staging a Potemkin vote that no serious observer outside of Russia can regard as credible. He evidently prefers to incur the scorn of Western democrats than allow someone such as Kasyanov to speak freely even for a few minutes on Russian state television. 
Putin’s embrace of the Soviet political model reveals his growing contempt for Western opinion. It also shows that Russia’s political system, as Kasyanov put it, “as in the U.S.S.R., will not respond to change either from inside, or from outside.” No wonder that Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader, felt moved to speak out. “Something wrong is happening with our elections,” he told the Interfax agency. 
But it’s not only the elections that are wrong; the entire system that Gorbachev took apart is being meticulously reconstructed.

This comment appeared as an editorial in The Washington Post.

TITLE: Medvedev’s Amorphous Political Agenda
AUTHOR: By Georgy Bovt
TEXT: As a presidential candidate, what values and ideas does First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stand for? According to the latest VTsIOM survey, with only five weeks remaining until the March 8 presidential election, 65 percent of the people still have no idea. And considering that Medvedev’s victory was a foregone conclusion from the moment President Vladimir Putin chose him as his successor, I think the word vybory, which means “elections” and, in the singular, “choice,” has little relevance to what will take place on March 8. Instead, the word golosovaniye, which means “voting,” is a better word to describe the presidential election.
It was no surprise that former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov would not be allowed to register his name on the ballot, and this was clear even before he started to collect his “forged” signatures. Similarly, before presidential candidate Andrei Bogdanov had a single one of his “legitimate” signatures on paper, it was also clear that the Kremlin would allow him to run. Now it will be interesting to see if the two million people who signed his petition to register will actually vote for him. 
Of course, the outcome of the presidential election was determined long before it began. The electorate has been left almost entirely in the dark as to the future president’s political agenda. And since Medvedev hasn’t debated a single rival, he has been able to avoid any difficult or uncomfortable questions — including, “What the heck is your platform?” 
Medvedev’s meetings with journalists are meticulously orchestrated beforehand so that he is fed only easy and convenient questions. To have such a cakewalk for an election campaign is the ideal situation for any candidate looking for a guaranteed victory. 
Heavily edited news coverage is virtually the only source of information about Medvedev that is available to voters. According to the latest Levada Center poll, the number of voters inclined to choose Medvedev in the election now stands at 82 percent of the electorate, which represents an even higher rating than Putin enjoys. 
What a great deal for Medvedev, it would seem. He has a record level of support without having to develop a political program. But, in reality, he has four main problems that will become serious issues for him after he wins the election.
The first is that, as president, the public will at some point demand that he concretely define his positions on a range of issues. 
The second problem is that Medvedev has a softer, more intellectual and less macho image than Putin. This is a liability in the minds of many Russians, who prefer the tough-talking style of a strong-armed leader, or even a dictator.
The third problem is that Medvedev will have to get his on-the-job presidential training with Putin close by as prime minister. The duo will have to coordinate all of their actions by agreeing beforehand who will make which statements and by preassigning their roles in a range of situations. This may be tricky for the Medvedev-Putin pair to pull off because Russians are not accustomed to this kind of power sharing in the Kremlin. On the rare occasions when the country was ruled by dual leaders, these arrangements were always shaky.
Finally, Medvedev’s current high popularity may prove too much of a good thing. It could become a potential source of conflict with Putin when he will want the presidential chair back in 2012.
But the one problem that stands above all others is that nobody — perhaps including Putin himself — knows Medvedev’s political agenda. And this could come back to haunt Putin because, in this swamp of ambiguity, Medvedev as president will have an opportunity to develop a new political strategy that could catch Putin completely off guard.

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

TITLE: Exorcising the slave
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Heavy on social and existential themes, PTVP’s new album, is the band’s manifesto, according to frontman Alexei Nikonov. Having mixed psychedelic rock and punk, the band, one of Russia’s best, came up with what Nikonov describes as “Jimi Hendrix playing in Joy Division.”
“I went to a concert today, and there was a guy singing how he was sick of [Russian music radio station] Nashe Radio and things like that, and I realised how petty it is,” said singer and lyricist Alexei Nikonov, whose punk band PTVP is premiering its new album, “Zerkalo” (Mirror), this weekend.
“The fact is we are witnessing a very serious situation, a historical process, and that’s what I wanted to reflect in this album. Of course, the title is not original, but after listening to the album, it will be clear what it’s about.”
PTVP, whose full name is Posledniye Tanki v Parizhe (Last Tanks in Paris), is known for its uncompromising criticism of the political and social situation in Russia, most famously on its 2001 album “Hexogen,” named after the explosives used in the terror attacks in Moscow preceding the Second Chechen War and, eventually, Vladimir Putin’s presidency.
According to Nikonov, PTVP, has finally come up with what he describes as “essentially our definitive album and our manifesto.” 
“In a sense it’s a return to our roots, it’s the music we wanted to play when we were kids,” said Nikonov, who spoke to The St. Petersburg Times by phone this week.
“Now we had a chance to record this album. It’s dark, depressive music, not the short, upbeat songs that we have been playing all our lives for some reason.”
“Mirror,” the follow-up to last year’s self-produced album “Freedom of Speech,” is being released on the local alt-rock Kap-Kan label, which put out PTVP’s CD single “Usual Day” late last year. The 13-minute track is also available on the album.
“Because the CD is a dying form, we wanted to release the album — it might be our last CD album, so we wanted to have a large number of copies released,” said Nikonov.
Before settling on Kap-Kan, the band approached a number of other labels, but negotiations usually stopped when managers heard the opening track, “Million,” which, translated into English, goes:
“Good morning, Beslan / Good morning, Chechnya / God morning to cops / Good morning, my country / My free country / A million kilometers of shit.”
“I used social topics, because the situation is amazing, it amazes me; everybody drops on their knees and cries ‘cool!’ Even if they are not endangered. Nothing threatens them, nobody seems to do anything to you, if you say ‘fuck off,’ but everybody cries ‘cool!,’ I can’t understand it. So I wanted to express my attitude to it on this album,” said Nikonov.
Nikonov said that he has been influenced by the existentialist philosophy of Nikolai Berdyayev and Lev Shestov as well as the history of Russia as a whole.
“Speaking of lyrics, I used to lower the standard a little, use some irony, like [in songs] ‘Deflower, Baby’ or ‘A Bullet for a Bourgeois,’ but I speak rather seriously here, in every song,” said Nikonov.
“This album’s lyrics could be used as poems, which I cannot say about any of our previous albums. It even scares me a little, because the album turned out to be perhaps too serious. But there could not be any other album now, because the social situation around is such that I have no desire to make a positive, entertaining album. I think it’s even inappropriate in the historical process that we’re going through now.”
Nikonov compares the promotion of First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as Putin’s “successor” to Ivan the Terrible who passed the formal power to baptized Khan Simeon Bekbulatovich, while restyling himself as “Ivan from Moscow,” to return to the throne 11 months later.
“We are present at exactly the same historical situation, only in a different guise, and I couldn’t help expressing this on the album,” he said.
Whatever official propaganda says, life in Russia has deteriorated, according to Nikonov.
“It’s a commonplace, it’s so obvious that it’s not even funny anymore,” he said.
“The hopes that Westerners had relied on in Europe didn’t come true, all in all. Churchill had his pictures taken with Stalin, despite the harshest criticism. The same happens now. Whatever regime there is in Russia, the West will never take any radical steps to help radical circles here.”
According to Nikonov, the clampdown on civil liberties and suppression of a political opposition can only lead to the emergence of radical groups, such as Narodnaya Volya, or People’s Will, responsible for the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.
“We have come to a situation when the creation of such parties as Narodnaya Volya is inevitable. This is not a call to violence, but a lesson from history,” he said.
“The preservation of the regime that the presidential bunch undertakes is parallel to the course of Tsar Alexander III, which only gave birth to a wave of terror. What form this terror will take, be it Islamic or social, is a different question, but it’s inevitable, because, when society is squeezed out of the legal process, the political struggle intensifies.
“That’s what I wanted to speak about on the album. If ‘Hexogen’ was rather detached, on this album we have made our social position clear from the start. We’re trying to establish ourselves in this historical situation.
“We don’t answer the question ‘What is to be done?,’ we’re just trying to understand how to remain human and free under slavish circumstances. In this sense, we reject Aesopian language as the language of the slave. The opening song is manifesto-like and social, as well a couple of others. The rest are existential.
“Because the fact of the matter is not Putin, it lies much deeper. That’s what we are trying to understand on this album, that’s why we called it ‘Mirror.’ We’re trying to look into ourselves on this album. Why we have remained the same slaves we were? An attempt to exorcise the slave from ourselves is perhaps what this album is.”
The tone of the lyrics has had a profound effect on PTVP’s music, Nikonov said.
“It has even influenced the chords. If we had everything in major on all the previous albums, all the songs on this album are in minor.”
Musically, “Mirror” is a blend of punk and psychedelic rock, according to Nikonov, who said it was influenced by the band’s early heroes, such as Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus, The Stooges and Television. 
“It is an homage to all the bands we listened to as kids. It’s very different even from our earlier albums, that all sounded different. Everybody who heard it in its early stages were a little shocked that it was us. But it is us, whatever it is.
“Our attitude to the sound has fully changed; we recorded it even more live than before, on purpose — it took us four hours. We didn’t use any overdubs; we only had a guitar, bass and drums, three instruments, a classic lineup. There’s a lot of guitar psychedelia, which is not typical for Russian punk, but we still tried to play punk — how we understand it.
“We wanted to make an album the likes of which nobody has made in Russia before; a genuinely garage album. We even recorded it in a church; we got into debt over it, but somehow we paid it off.”
PTVP recently united forces with Televizor, one of the leading bands of the 1980s perestoika rock explosion, famous for its uncompromising protest songs such as “Your Father Is a Fascist” and “Get Out of Control,” to oppose the political climate in Russia at a double-bill concert at Orlandina club in December. On stage Nikonov joined Televizor frontman Mikhail Borzykin to add vocals to “Fed Up,” the band’s 1980s anti-totalitarian anthem.
“It was a landmark concert for me, in a way, because I grew up on his songs, I immediately remembered myself, how I was listening to his ‘Fatherland of Illusions,’ when I was 15. I would have never imaged that I would  be singing ‘Fed Up’ with Misha,” he said.
“I’ve always liked his stance, too, very individual — he has never danced to anybody’s flute. I would always be happy to play with him. His new songs show what [DDT’s Yury] Shevchuk and the others have lost as they were chasing after studios — he has not lost his sound judgment.”
To make the album’s release concert affordable for fans, the band that, apart from Nikonov, features guitarist Anton “Bender” Dokuchayev, bassist Yegor Nedviga and drummer Denis Krivtsov, has set the ticket price at a relatively low 200 rubles ($8). Every ticket-holder will also receive a free copy of the “Usual Day” CD single, according to Nikonov.

PTVP performs at Port at 8 p.m. on Saturday. http://ptvp-official.livejournal.com

TITLE: Chernov’s
         choice
TEXT: This week brought good news and bad news. The branch of the <b>British Council</b>, which said it suspended its activities under the pressure from the Kremlin, has called it quits and was reported to be giving away its possessions such as textbooks and DVDs on Monday. 
It means the end to many British cultural initiatives such as British film events and U.K. Flavours, a music concert featuring British pop acts to promote multi-culturalism and tolerance, at least for the time being.
The good news is that the Kremlin has chosen to close or at least cut down <b>Nashi</b>, the artificial pro-Kremlin youth organization that has been giving Russia a really bad image in the past few years, whatever its intention was.
Labeled “Putinjugend” or Putin Youth (as in Hitler Youth) by its critics, Nashi directed its anger in whatever direction the Kremlin disapprovingly looked.
It has harassed foreign diplomats, besieged embassies in Moscow and St. Petersburg and staged provocations abroad, while getting such bonuses as free mobile phones and hoping for the state careers they were promised.
It was reported this week that 20 out of 25 regional branches of Nashi will be closed, including the one in St. Petersburg. 
The first sign of Nashi’s problems came early last month when the police, previously very tolerant to its actions, detained dozens of Nashi activists, including its leader, at a rally outside the European Commission’s offices in Moscow. Nashi has been recently protesting against the refusal of the European countries to grant their officers or “commissars” visas.
The local Nashi leader made himself scarce just before the problems started and is now “studying in Malta,” according to Kommersant.
While the commissars will have to spend their holidays in Russia, a prospect they appear to abhor despite their loud-mouthed “patriotism,” the bands that entertained them at Nashi’s sinister summer camp Seliger, such as Zemfira, Vyacheslav Butusov and Multfilmy, will have a huge stain on their reputations.
Local bands will gather for a <b>charity concert</b> to help the city’s homeless on Friday. <b>Boris Grebenshchikov, Splean, Marksheider Kunst</b> and <b>Billy’s Band</b> will play at Lensoviet Palace, with the proceeds going to a homeless charity.
The international bands performing this week include Korn. The U.S. nu-metal band made news last year, when its former member, Brian “Head” Welch, published a memoir called “Save Me From Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived to Tell My Story.” 
Korn, which reportedly had to write two songs to answer Welch’s criticism, will perform at Yubileiny Sports Palace on Thursday.
Check out, alternatively, PTVP’s new album release concert at Port or Einsturzende Neubauten <b>Alexander Hacke</b>, performing a nine-part electronic piece with his artist wife <b>Danielle de Picciotto</b> at The Place, both on Saturday.
<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Electric dreams
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Electricity is a mundane, everyday thing, but there is also magic to it, according to Alexander Hacke, the bassist with Germany’s seminal industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, and his artist wife Danielle de Picciotto, who bring their electronic performance called “The History of Electricity” to the city this weekend. 
“For me, electricity is magic,” said de Picciotto, speaking, with Hacke on the same telephone line from the couple’s home in Berlin.
“Electricity is part of our life, but you never see it. It’s everywhere and it influences everything. It’s like a magic life form. That’s why it interested me. I do the visuals in the show, and I try to make an abstract interpretation of this magic of electricity.”
A Berlin-based American, de Picciotto has been working as an interdisciplinary artist since 1985. She also sang with Space Cowboys and The Ocean Club, and co-founded the Berlin Love Parade, the world’s biggest dance festival, with Dr. Motte.
Described as an “electronic/acoustic show in nine chapters,” “The History of Electricity” started as a commissioned piece for a German museum.
“They asked us to create a program to go with an exhibition, but since then we have been playing it quite a bit. It has developed a life of its own,” said Hacke.
To comply with the concept, the performance uses only electronic sounds, both computer-generated and played on a Korg MS-20, a vintage analog monophonic synthesizer from the late 1970s.
“[The Korg MS-20] was first released in 1978, and I got my first in 1979 when it was one-year-old,” said Hacke. “But I’m not bringing the synthesizer — I’m using samples from it. But for this program I use a controller that is fairly revolutionary in the way it works. It’s quite entertaining for the audience as well; I’ve found a way to visualize playing electronic music. 
“It’s not old-fashioned, like some guy behind the computer — I can actually move and form the sounds with my hands.”
Although the work is structured, there is plenty of room for improvisation, both the music and the visuals, according to Hacke.
“There’s a lot of improvisation involved. All we know, really, is the order of things, but each of the nine chapters can sound quite different,” he said.
“The show is meant to be electric, and nobody knows how it’s going to happen — not even us,” de Picciotto added.
For Hacke, who released a solo album, “Sanctuary,” in 2005 and took it on road with de Picciotto, “The History of Electricity” is his third recent major work away from his band Einstürzende Neubauten. 
The pair, plus London’s cult punk-burlesque trio The Tiger Lillies, continue to perform “The Mountains of Madness,” a work based on writings by U.S. horror author H.P. Lovecraft, and released on DVD in December 2006. Hacke and de Picciotto’s most recent multi-media performance, “Ship of Fools” was premiered in Berlin in December.
Meanwhile, Einstürzende Neubauten, with whom Hacke has played for 26 years, will perform in Moscow on April 23 at Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa.
“We will be presenting a new album. It’s going to be a great tour and a great show, and it’s going to be the last tour — at least for a long time. We’re looking forward to it,” Hacke said.

<i>Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto will perform “The History of Electricity” at The Place, located at 47 Ul. Marshala Govorova, M.: Narvskaya/Baltiiskaya, Tel.: 331 9631, at 8 p.m. on Saturday. 
www.hacke.org, www.danielledepicciotto.de</i>

TITLE: Thinking ahead
AUTHOR: By Katya Madrid
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Modernity, new technologies, new standards of cultural responsibility and civic engagement.
These are not a set of ideas that are normally associated with a traditional institution such as the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. But the beloved museum at the heart of the city is rethinking its place in history.
Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the Hermitage, and Rem Koolhaas, a renowned architect who together with Reinier de Graaf heads the think tank AMO, announced at a press conference last week that they were moving forward with a new phase of a joint project — a complete conceptual plan that will lay the groundwork for renovating the Hermitage by 2014, when the museum marks its 250th anniversary. 
“Over the next year,” AMO’s website reads, “the ideas and ambitions of the AMO/Hermitage team will manifest themselves in a comprehensive masterplan for the institution, covering its global agenda [from] its urban and architectural programming to its curatorial strategies and display methods.” 
Hermitage 2014: A Masterplan is an ambitious project that aims to redefine what it means to be an encyclopedic museum in the 21st century and whose efforts may result in a blueprint that could guide other world-class museums in their future restructuring needs. 
The Hermitage is arguably the world’s greatest museum with 3 million objects in its collection, a small part of which is displayed in six buildings including the vast Winter Palace. 
The joint team will use data already gathered from a study by AMO of the General Staff Building commissioned by Piotrovsky in 2003, and expand upon it to determine what changes need to be made both architecturally, and in other areas, to the whole museum. The goal is to tackle these questions holistically.
With what can only be referred to as a tender appreciation for refined architectural detail, Koolhaas hopes that an architect with a distinctly modern style will work as an “archeologist”  to preserve the historic structure as much as possible during modernization. A less profound thinker, Koolhaas suggested, might forcibly produce a new look and feel at the expense of the old. He and his team at AMO adopted an approach they call “modernization through conservation,” which allows the unique character of the museum to emerge.
Koolhaas also demonstrated impressive sensitivity to the complex set of problems facing the museum, while always keeping a sense of humor. He did not hesitate to point out the absurdities inherent in displaying art in an environment alien to its nature, for example Kazimir Malevich’s modernist Black Square (1915) flanked by frilly curtains. Koolhaas emphasized the awkward charm of the experience of viewing the painting in such a setting, even though this curatorial decision was clearly eccentric in terms of current thought on the presentation of art. This is just one example that illustrates the difficulties of using an historic building, a work of art in its own right, as an exhibition space.
AMO found several unique aspects to the Hermitage, including the artistic and historical value of its main building. 
Having gone through two distinct periods (the pre-Revolutionary period — during which the Winter Palace functioned as a residence of the Tsar, and the Communist period —  during which the building neglected and carelessly remodeled. 
Now in its third, post-Soviet period, the Hermitage faces the challenge of preserving evidence of both of its previous eras as critical to Russian history. 
AMO found a positive approach to this legacy, which they called “Neglect/Value in neglect.” They claim that that which has not been fixed has a virtue since the original forms, although now in poor shape, are untouched, and therefore have been changed. 
Koolhaas noted ways in which some areas of the Winter Palace were used effectively, allowing for the beauty of the architecture to come through, and others less effectively, where form and function were in conflict. 
He also pointed to the changing nature of the entire museum complex: six buildings situated along the embankment of the River Neva, extended by the eastern wing of the General Staff Building, the Menshikov Palace and the recently constructed Repository. 
The museum is evolving into a small neighborhood, which now encompasses Palace Square by virtue of two separate buildings in dialogue with each other across open space. As such, the museum needs to consider the needs of this urban center beyond its responsibilities as a cultural center.
There is also the problematic question of size. Art has become increasingly large in the past 50 years, necessitating ever-bigger rooms to house it. The Hermitage has been unable to compete for the privilege of adding certain important pieces to its collection, because it simply lacks the capacity to store and display them.
St. Petersburg is in part familiar with Rem Koolhaas; his company participated in the 2006 architectural competition for the design of the highly controversial  Gazprom City development, now called Okhta Center.  
AMO is a subsidiary to Koolhaas’ Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). A think tank focusing on how modernity and architecture cohabit, though not in physical structures, AMO operates in such areas as “sociology, technology, media, fashion and politics.” Most famously, AMO proposed a visual identity and flag for the European Union based on a bar code made up of member nations’ colors. 
“The mutual interest and curiosity between OMA/AMO and the Hermitage was seeded in early 2001 upon the commission for the Hermitage Guggenheim exhibition center in Las Vegas,” AMO’s website explained. 
“In 2003, the relationship was fomented with AMO’s study for the Hermitage’ extension of the General Staff Building. During this time AMO’s radical ‘modernization-by-preservation’ posture began to take shape, and the architectural dimensions of the brief reconceived. 
“The sensibility and approach of the proposal led to AMO’s commission as consultant for the General Staff Building extension (2003-2005), and were instrumental in the formation of the collaborative think tank and ambitious masterplan project.”
The statement continues: 
“The Masterplan will be initiated by the creation of a (self-) portrait of the institution — a body of extensive research and critical and comparative analyses. 
This compilation of distilled knowledge and thought will serve as the conceptual basis from which innovative proposals and experimental case studies will be generated. 
“The strategic proposals will be centered upon different aspects of the Hermitage: its global mission, national position and urban situation; its relationship to the city of St Petersburg as both protagonist and microcosm; its historically layered architecture, rooms, collections and objects — and the orchestration of their latent potentials.”
The statement concludes: 
“The ideas and proposals set forth will be refined and tested through a number of case studies, which will include an urban intervention, the conception and design of one of the museum’s permanent exhibitions, and the design of a temporary exhibition.”

www.oma.eu, www.hermitagemuseum.org

TITLE: Not my cup of tea
AUTHOR: By Marina Kamenev
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: When Olga Freer moved to London at the age of 18, she simply wanted to perfect her English accent. Now at 23, she is a British citizen with a son and an ex-husband, and she has written a Russian-language book, “The UK for Beginners,” describing some of her experiences.
Despite its title, “The UK for Beginners” is not a guidebook. “If you want a guide to London, you should get a travel guide. I list some of the places I like, but that’s about the extent of it,” Freer said in a telephone interview this week, her English accent almost cemented.
The book is in fact an autobiographical novel based on e-mails to her friends and family about her daily life in Britain; each month is given a new chapter.
“My mum said my writing style was good and liked my stories,” said Freer, whose as yet unfulfilled dream is to be a music reviewer.
Freer studied English and then took odd jobs as a shop assistant and a waitress. At 19 she married a British man, and had a son; the couple recently divorced. Last year she obtained British citizenship and now studies law at the University of Westminster.
Many of Freer’s anecdotes about Britain are shopping-related. One story describes how she got up at 8 a.m. to go to the January sales before realizing that the stores only opened at noon; she walked around all morning, nostalgic for the long hours in Russian retail. Later that day, she bought a printer that had its price reduced because of a defect, but the cable needed to fix the problem turned out to cost a small fortune.
“I think it is daylight robbery,” she writes. “When I bought the printer, those miserable liars did not even warn me. They could have said ‘Madam, we suggest that you buy the other cable that is required straightaway.’ If my memory does not deceive me, I am sure that this kind of absurdity would not happen in Russia. Or would it?”
Much of the book is about Freer’s appearance and lack of social confidence. She writes about catching sight of her disheveled appearance in a changing-room mirror, not knowing what to write in a Valentine’s Day card for her husband, and even worse, not knowing what to wear. Despite being confident about her small bust size, which she details in a chapter called “Big breasts are a small problem,” she documents her battles with body image in a Bridget Jones-style chapter devoted to her fluctuating weight.
The book deals less with Britain than the universal woes of bored women, but there are some insights.
In one chapter, Freer writes extensively of her complaints against the London Underground. “The cars are a lot (and when I say a lot, I mean A LOT) smaller than the cars on the Moscow metro. It’s at times like this that I appreciate the ‘broad nature’ of Russians.”
She also talks of the boredom of watching British television with its “dozens of different shows about real estate (how to sell, how to renovate and/or sell at a profit).”
On the telephone, Freer said she hasn’t managed to make female friends in Britain. “Now I have a lot of English male friends, but it’s different with girls. I mean it’s fine to talk to them at parties for 10 minutes.”
She said that British people are less cultured than Russians. “If I wanted to talk about books or philosophy, I would call a Russian friend.”
Freer does not miss Russia, she says. “I miss the people but not the country itself.” She now plans to write a novel about New York.
The author said her main advice to those choosing to live overseas was to think twice: “Be careful what you wish for! Because you think about Europe as foreign and far away, [and] when you first move there everything is so great. But after a while you get used to it, and in the end you find that everything is the same. It’s just geography that’s different.”
“The UK for Beginners” (UK dlya Nachinayushchikh) is published by Tsentrpoligraf.

TITLE: A hero for our times
AUTHOR: By Matt Brown
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: An exhibition that takes the life of Swedish World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg as a starting point to examine themes of tolerance and humanitarianism opens at the Museum of the Political History of Russia on Friday.
Wallenberg was an unknown diplomat sent by neutral Sweden to Budapest, Hungary, during the closing chapters of the war in 1944. His remarkable efforts to save tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis have become a legendary example of how “one man can make a difference,” to borrow the title of the display about his life. 
The story has added relevance in Russia, because towards the conclusion of the war, Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviet security service and taken to Moscow. The circumstances of his subsequent disappearance and death became a historical mystery and a source of tension between the Soviet Union and Sweden during the Cold War.
However, it is the story of Wallenberg’s life and deeds before and during his mission to Budapest — and the lessons that can be drawn from it today — that forms the basis for the exhibition, which was organized by the Jewish Museum in Stockholm and has traveled to other Eastern and Central European capitals since its creation in 2004. 
“Wallenberg is a modern kind of hero,” Yvonne Jacobsson, director of the Jewish Museum in Stockholm, said in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. His story is one of “civic courage” and “selfless, moral obligation” that young people now can respond to and learn from, she said.
Wallenberg was born in Sweden in 1912 to a privileged and cosmopolitan background, but apart from his international education in business and diplomacy, nothing in his early life indicated he was destined for greatness. It has been suggested that because his father died before he was born, Wallenberg learned self-confidence early on and benefited from the devotion of a loving mother and secure upbringing.
“Mother and I adored him,” Wallenberg’s sister Nina Lagergren recalls in the catalogue to “Raoul Wallenberg: One Man Can Make a Difference.” Lagergren said her brother was “cultured, musical, very humorous and charming. We believed he would do something remarkable with his life.”
When he was called to serve Sweden’s diplomatic service, Lagergren was not surprised. Wallenberg set about his mission to save Jews using “unconventional means” and in an “unbureaucratic fashion,” she said.
“Once there, in Budapest, there were no limits to Raoul’s efforts to help. His colleagues at the Swedish legation were not unambiguously positive to the changes initiated by this newcomer, aiming at saving as many Jews as possible from the clutches of the Nazis. The reputation of the legation might even be tarnished. But Raoul never wavered.”
Jacobsson said that historians can’t be sure how many Jews Wallenberg saved in those brief months in Budapest, but it was at least 20,000 — and may be as many as 100,000. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Wallenberg’s arrest and mysterious disappearance in 1945 has been the subject of two commissions: one, a joint Swedish-Russian Working Group to establish the facts around his arrest and probable death in the Soviet prison system; the other, to investigate the conduct of Swedish foreign policy at the time. 
The reports, issued earlier this decade, attempted to settle the Wallenberg case. 
However, Jacobsson concludes, “Sweden could have done more, but the fact remains we don’t know what happened him.”
Wallenberg’s personal belongings were returned to his family by Soviet authorities in 1979, who said he’d died of a heart attack in prison in 1947.
Jacobsson said the idea of taking Wallenberg’s story to help young people think about tolerance and humanitarian action came about after the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, “when it seemed the demarcation between groups in the world became sharper, and we wanted a role model for young people.”
“He’s a world-famous figure, a God-like figure. But we wanted to underline that here’s a person of flesh-and-blood,” Jacobsson said. “All people are created equal. Wallenberg didn’t care particularly that he was saving Jews — but he didn’t turn them away either.”
“The lesson is that, if a child is given self-confidence, love, and empathy, he will act accordingly in crucial moments,” Jacobsson said. “Anyone can develop these traits. A better world starts with the young. You don’t have to be rich or a diplomat, but you can inspire others.” 

“Raoul Wallenberg: One Man Can Make a Difference” at the Museum of Political History of Russia, 2-4 Ulitsa Kuibysheva, through March 7.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: The hosts of Channel One game shows come in all shapes and sizes. Leonid Yakubovich, the host of the long-running word game “Field of Fortune,” is a jolly mustachioed figure who gets showered with gifts of homemade pickles by the folksy contestants. Then there’s Maxim Galkin, the aloof, perfectly blow-dried presenter of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” He rarely seems to take much interest in the sweating guests, only becoming animated when he urges them to drink a glass of the sponsor’s apple juice.
When they cast around for the host of their new show, “The Magic of 10,” Channel One bosses picked someone completely different: Vera Brezhneva, a blond former member of the scantily clad girl group VIA Gra. She left the group this summer to spend more time with her businessman husband and baby. In the first show last week, she flirted mildly with the male contestants and made some slightly off-color remarks, even though her sober jacket and trousers were a long way from the sequined barely-there outfits of her pop heyday.
The new show is all about the results of public opinion polls, which the contestants have to guess accurately to win a top prize of 10 million rubles ($408,000). First, two contestants compete against each other in a preliminary round; then the winner has to answer five questions, each time with less margin of error allowed. Every correct answer multiplies his win by 10, hence the show’s name. The contestant can ask for help from the audience or a nominated friend. The format is based on a show from the United States called “Power of 10.”
I missed the beginning, where they presumably explained how the data was obtained, but I have no doubt that only absolutely scientific methods were used to find out how many Russians give other people unwanted presents (35 percent), talk to the television 
(19 percent) and enjoyed physical education classes at school (a shockingly high 66 percent). “If the teacher is cute, all the girls go to the class,” Brezhneva reminisced.
The piece de resistance of the show, however, was the question: How many Russian women think their husbands have been unfaithful at least once? The contestant in the hot seat, Andrei, consulted his girlfriend in the audience, who went for 70 percent. The audience decided on 74 percent. But Brezhneva tried to stick up for the men. She gave the example of a man living in a small village and asked “Where would he go? With whom? The cow?” She also painted a heart-rending picture of the deep-sea fishermen in Russia’s Far East who “have nothing to look at but fish.”
The answer, though — wait for this — was only 20 percent. And poor old Andrei had to leave the show with nothing but his girlfriend. “My wish for you is that you never cheat on your wife,” Brezhneva said, waving him off.
Brezhneva was noticeably friendlier to the male contestants than the women. She invited one man to guess right “because otherwise you won’t have the chance to stay here next to me,” and when one girl beat a male opponent — bizarrely enough, a Russian emigre from Buenos Aires — she voiced her regret that he didn’t win.
When the remaining contestant on the first show turned out to be a middle-aged woman who worked in real estate, Brezhneva looked bored. “And what does your job involve?” she asked, to receive the scintillating answer “buying and selling.”
Interestingly enough, the real estate agent was able to put the 10 million ruble prize into perspective. Forget yachts or villas in the South of France. When Brezhneva asked her what the money would buy, the pragmatic woman didn’t pause for thought: “A three-bedroom apartment in Biryulyovo.”

TITLE: Bittersweet symphony
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Dolce Amaro Trattoria // 10 Ulitsa Barochnaya. Tel: 380 8040 // www.dolceamaro.ru // Open 12 p.m. until the last guest leaves // Menu in Italian and Russian // Dinner for two with a bottle of wine: 2,700 rubles ($108)
It’s difficult to say for sure what Dolce Amaro’s greatest asset is. It is certainly not its location, hidden away in an industrial area on the Petrograd Side, a ten-minute walk from Chkalovskaya metro station. It may well be the excellent service — the warm and helpful attitude of the staff is unrivaled in most of the city’s restaurants, adding to the atmosphere of a genuine Italian trattoria. 
Of course, it is always nice to be treated to complimentary appetizers, as well as to warm fresh bread with herbs and a selection of three delicately flavored butters, but that wasn’t what made a visit to Dolce Amaro so enjoyable. Perhaps it was the interior? Certainly the restaurant’s owners take enough pride in the décor to have installed discreet CCTV cameras on the upper level, perhaps to discourage diners from pilfering the rather attractive deep blue water glasses. And although considerable effort has clearly been invested into the large fresco occupying one wall, and the balcony level overlooking the open atrium is charming with its semi-circular banquettes, not to mention the striking winding wrought iron staircase that doubles as a convenient short cut to the toilet, none of this is the key ingredient in the appeal of Dolce Amaro, which means “bittersweet” in Italian.
No, the secret of Dolce Amaro’s success is quite simple; its delectable Italian cuisine. That dishes are also presented flawlessly and highly originally, despite hearty portions that could thankfully never be described as nouveau cuisine, is merely a bonus. The cream of spinach soup (300 rubles, $12) deserves a special mention, arriving in a hollowed-out loaf of bread with rucola leaves elegantly trailing from underneath the bread lid. The dish more than lived up to the expectations created by its appearance, with a tangy flavor of white wine beautifully offset by small pieces of crumbly ricotta cheese.
The cream of tomato soup (250 rubles, $10) was no less impressive and was bursting with the flavors of ripe tomato, basil and béchamel sauce. This wonderful rendering of a simple dish left us in no doubt as to the authenticity of the Italian chef’s credentials, and the willingness of the waitress to bring the spinach soup without the pieces of salmon included on the menu’s description assured us that dishes are freshly prepared.
The standards set by the first courses were extremely high, but our main courses did not disappoint. The filetto ai porcini — steak with mushrooms, mashed potatoes and roasted cherry tomatoes, recommended by our unfailingly obliging waitress, was worth every kopek of its 750 ruble ($30) price tag. The generous portion of succulent steak was grilled to perfection and flawlessly complemented by the mushroom sauce.
The menu is extensive and offers both classic Italian favorites such as lasagne, along with lesser-known dishes. Guests should bear in mind that Dolce Avaro is not a pizzeria, so the only Quattro Formaggi in sight is a pasta dish. There is however something for everyone, including vegetarians and children — in fact there are so many mouthwatering options that gastronomes may find it hard to decide. Though there is little chance of disappointment, those in doubt can consult the wait staff or follow the menu’s descriptions. The urge to try risotto in a cheese sauce, described boldly on the menu as “unbelievable — you cannot fail to love it” proved too great to resist. It was another delight — a generous plateful decorated with strips of fresh pear. The sauce was rich and so cheesy that some diners may need to swallow their pride and ask for a doggy bag.
Although Dolce Avaro calls itself a trattoria, its service, atmosphere and superb cuisine are more characteristic of a fully-fledged ristorante. It is hard to find a better Italian meal in St. Petersburg, despite the profusion of restaurants around the city. Gourmets ready to make the modest effort required to find Dolce Avaro will certainly not go unrewarded.

TITLE: Charity concert
TEXT: A stellar line-up of local musicians will perform a charity concert to help provide warmth to St. Petersburg’s homeless people on Friday - hurry to get a ticket. Conceived by Boris Grebenshchikov, the founder of the seminal Russian rock band Akvarium, the concert also features Splean, Markscheider Kunst and Billy’s Band.
“It is winter now,” wrote Grebenshchikov in a statement.
“Eight thousand spend the night on the streets of St. Petersburg. They should be helped. My friends and I decided to organize a show in support of the homeless. [...] The proceeds will go to the Nochlezhka charity that helps to people left without the roof over their head in real ways.”
Oleg Garkusha, a member of local art-rock band Auktsyon, will recite a poem about the homeless. Artist Dmitry Shagin of the local art group Mitki has designed the concert’s poster and is in charge of the stage set.
Taking its name from the Russian word for night shelter, Nochlezhka is a charity that provides help to homeless people in St. Petersburg and operates a 50-bed shelter located at 112B Borovaya Ulitsa, as well as other services.
According to the organization, proceeds from the concert will be used for the organization of “heating stations” for the homeless. A heating station is a heated army tent with where as many as 40 people can spend the night and get hot meals, as well as medical and social help. 
This service is extremely important during the winter because the number of sites in state and non-governmental shelters is very limited, and the heating stations are accessible to anyone, without requiring special permits or documents, according to Nochlezhka’s website.
One such heating station operates near Nochlezhka’s permanent night shelter. Nochlezhka has been operating in Russia for more than 16 years providing services for those who are living in extreme poverty and are deprived of access to housing, medical help and employment. There are more than 50,000 such people in St. Petersburg. Every year, Nochlezhka’s day service provides social consultations and medical help for more than 10,000 homeless people.
Nochlezhka’s night bus provides hot meals for about 30,000 people. In 2007 Nochlezhka’s shelter found a temporary home for 150 people, including disabled and elderly people.
Nochlezhka regularly organizes campaigns aimed at changing the attitude of the public, media and government toward homelessness and housing issues. Nochlezhka’s projects have been supported by City Hall, the European Commission, Diakonie (Hamburg), Association Suisse-Russie, Acer Russie, Tinkoff, Heineken Brewery, 505, and the hotels Pulkovskaya, Pribaltiiskaya, Astoria, Grand Hotel Europe, Novotel, and others.
“I could have said a lot of high-flown words about our active social stance, but it all would be rubbish,” said Markscheider Kunst’s frontman Sergei Yefremenko by phone this week.
“It’s just because,deep in his soul, nobody  wants to become a bum. I have a great pity for these people, especially old women. We do have songs about this - about a homeless old woman dancing.
“And if such a respected man as Boris Borisovich [Grebenshchikov] approaches us with such a noble offer, it’s impossible for us to refuse. Because we have no strength, no spirit, no power to organize such events ourselves, so if he does it, thank God - we’ll be happy to take part. It’s a good and noble cause.”
According to Nochlezhka, tickets costing between 300 and 1,500 rubles are available from the city’s box-offices and the Lensoviet Palace of Culture. 

<i>— Sergey Chernov

Boris Grebenshchikov, Splean, Markscheider Kunst and Billy’s Band will perform at a charity show to help the homeless at Lensoviet Palace of Culture, located at Kamennoostrovsky Pr., M: Petrogradskaya, Tel.: 346-3063, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. www.homeless.ru</i>

TITLE: Killer Coens
AUTHOR: By A. O. Scott
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: “No Country for Old Men,” adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen from Cormac McCarthy’s novel, is bleak, scary and relentlessly violent. At its center is a figure of evil so calm, so extreme, so implacable that to hear his voice is to feel the temperature in the theater drop.
But while that chilly sensation is a sign of terror, it may equally be a symptom of delight. The specter of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a deadpan sociopath with a funny haircut, will feed many a nightmare, but the most lasting impression left by this film is likely to be the deep satisfaction that comes from witnessing the nearly perfect execution of a difficult task. “No Country for Old Men” is purgatory for the squeamish and the easily spooked. For formalists — those moviegoers sent into raptures by tight editing, nimble camera work and faultless sound design — it’s pure heaven.
So before I go any further, allow me my moment of bliss at the sheer brilliance of the Coens’ technique. And it is mostly theirs. The editor, Roderick Jaynes, is their longstanding pseudonym. The cinematographer, Roger Deakins, and the composer, Carter Burwell, are collaborators of such long standing that they surely count as part of the nonbiological Coen fraternity. At their best, and for that matter at their less than best, Joel and Ethan Coen, who share writing and directing credit here, combine virtuosic dexterity with mischievous high spirits, as if they were playing Franz Liszt’s most treacherous compositions on dueling banjos. Sometimes their appetite for pastiche overwhelms their more sober storytelling instincts, so it is something of a relief to find nothing especially showy or gimmicky in “No Country.” In the Coen canon it belongs with “Blood Simple,” “Miller’s Crossing” and “Fargo” as a densely woven crime story made more effective by a certain controlled stylistic perversity.
The script follows McCarthy’s novel almost scene for scene, and what the camera discloses is pretty much what the book describes: a parched, empty landscape; pickup trucks and taciturn men; and lots of killing. But the pacing, the mood and the attention to detail are breathtaking, sometimes literally.
In one scene a man sits in a dark hotel room as his pursuer walks down the corridor outside. You hear the creak of floorboards and the beeping of a transponder, and see the shadows of the hunter’s feet in the sliver of light under the door. The footsteps move away, and the next sound is the faint squeak of the light bulb in the hall being unscrewed. The silence and the slowness awaken your senses and quiet your breathing, as by the simplest cinematic means — Look! Listen! Hush! — your attention is completely and ecstatically absorbed. You won’t believe what happens next, even though you know it’s coming.
By the time this moment arrives, though, you have already been pulled into a seamlessly imagined and self-sufficient reality. The Coens have always used familiar elements of American pop culture and features of particular American landscapes to create elaborate and hermetic worlds. McCarthy, especially in the western phase of his career, has frequently done the same. The surprise of “No Country for Old Men,” the first literary adaptation these filmmakers have attempted, is how well matched their methods turn out to be with the novelist’s.
McCarthy’s book, for all its usual high-literary trappings (many philosophical digressions, no quotation marks), is one of his pulpier efforts, as well as one of his funniest. The Coens, seizing on the novel’s genre elements, lower the metaphysical temperature and amplify the material’s dark, rueful humor. It helps that the three lead actors — Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin along with Bardem — are adept at displaying their natural wit even when their characters find themselves in serious trouble.
The three are locked in a swerving, round-robin chase that takes them through the empty ranges and lonely motels of the West Texas border country in 1980. The three men occupy the screen one at a time, almost never appearing in the frame together, even as their fates become ever more intimately entwined.
Jones plays Ed Tom Bell, a world weary third-generation sheriff whose stoicism can barely mask his dismay at the tide of evil seeping into the world. Whether Chigurh is a magnetic force moving that tide or just a particularly nasty specimen carried in on it is one of the questions the film occasionally poses. The man who knows him best, a dandyish bounty-hunter played by Woody Harrelson, describes Chigurh as lacking a sense of humor. But the smile that rides up one side of Chigurh’s mouth as he speaks suggests a diabolical kind of mirth — just as the haircut suggests a lost Beatle from hell — and his conversation has a teasing, riddling quality. The punch line comes when he blows a hole in your head with the pneumatic device he prefers to a conventional firearm.
And the butt of his longest joke is Llewelyn Moss ( Brolin), a welder who lives in a trailer with his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald) and is dumb enough to think he’s smart enough to get away with taking the $2 million he finds at the scene of a drug deal gone bad. Chigurh is charged with recovering the cash (by whom is neither clear nor especially relevant), and poor Sheriff Bell trails behind, surveying scenes of mayhem and trying to figure out where the next one will be.
Taken together, these three hombres are not quite the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but each man does carry some allegorical baggage. Jones’s craggy, vinegary warmth is well suited to the kind of righteous, decent lawman he has lately taken to portraying. Ed Tom Bell is almost continuous with the retired M.P. Jones played in Paul Haggis’s “In the Valley of Elah.” It is hard to do wisdom without pomposity, or probity without preening, but Jones manages with an aplomb that is downright thrilling.
Still, if “No Country for Old Men” were a simple face-off between the sheriff’s goodness and Chigurh’s undiluted evil, it would be a far stiffer, less entertaining picture. Llewelyn is the wild card — a good old boy who lives on the borderline between good luck and bad, between outlaw and solid citizen — and Brolin is the human center of the movie, the guy you root for and identify with even as the odds against him grow steeper by the minute.
And the minutes fly by, leaving behind some unsettling notions about the bloody, absurd intransigence of fate and the noble futility of human efforts to master it. Mostly, though, “No Country for Old Men” leaves behind the jangled, stunned sensation of having witnessed a ruthless application of craft.

TITLE: Sharapova Set For Federation Cup Debut
AUTHOR: By Ori Lewis
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: HERZLIYA, Israel — Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova will make her long-awaited Fed Cup debut for champions Russia when they face World Group newcomers Israel in the first-round tie this weekend.
Fresh from her victory at Melbourne Park, the Florida-based Russian was keen to forget her strained relationship with some of her teammates and finally step on court to represent the country of her birth.
“Ever since I saw the girls win the Cup last year I was so excited to be asked to be a part of the team and it is a great opportunity,” said the world number five, who pulled out of last year’s semi-final against the U.S. citing injury but turned up to cheer on the Russians in the final against Italy.
“Since the beginning of the year this was one of my top priorities.”
Sharapova will be joined by world number seven Anna Chakvetadze, Dinara Safina (16) and Elena Vesnina (53) as the Russians launch their bid to capture a fourth Fed Cup title in five years.
Shahar Peer will spearhead Israel’s hopes of pulling off an upset victory but she was more excited at the prospect of making a rare appearance in front of her home fans.
“According to the rankings we are not supposed to win but we are playing in Israel and in front of our home crowd for the first time ... I think it will help our chances,” said the world number 17.
The Jewish state is riding on a wave of tennis euphoria after Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich captured the men’s doubles title at the Australian Open, while Peer was runner-up in the women’s doubles with Belarus’ Victoria Azarenka.
The success in Melbourne has added an extra dimension to this weekend’s showdown with Russia. “An event like this has never taken place here. It is an unreal opportunity for the crowd who usually see these players on TV to actually see the top women and Israel’s best players,” Israel captain Oded Jacob said.
Peer, the only top 80 player for the hosts, will be joined by 34-year-old Tzipi Obziler, Julia Glushko and Keren Shlomo.
The tie in Israel is one of four taking place this weekend, with the U.S. hosting Germany in California, France travelling to Beijing to face China and Italy are at home in Naples to Spain.
Last year’s runners-up Italy are without Mara Santangelo and Roberta Vinci because of injury but have seasoned Fed Cup players Flavia Pennetta, Tathiana Garbin and Francesca Schiavone, who was inspirational in the tournament in 2007.
The 2006 winners have also included Sara Errani for the first time and will be keen to extend their 3-2 head-to-head record against Spain.
Former world number one Lindsay Davenport will lead the United States against Germany. The former Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Australian Open champion will team up with Lisa Raymond, Ashley Harkleroad and Laura Granville in La Jolla, California.
Davenport, 31, will be keen to reproduce the form that has helped her win 19 of 21 matches since her comeback to the tour last September after taking a year out to have a baby.
Germany will be represented by Tatjana Malek, Julia Goerges, Sabine Lisicki and Anna-Lena Groenefeld.
China will look to avenge the only previous meeting with France in 1992. Li Na leads the Chinese after celebrating her comeback from injury with victory in the Australian Hardcourt Championships in the Gold Coast earlier in the month.
France will have to rely on a second-string team after former world number one Amelie Mauresmo and last year’s Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli opted out of the tie.

TITLE: Fans Plan       Liverpool Takeover
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: LIVERPOOL, England — A group of Liverpool supporters is trying to succeed where the financial might of Dubai International Capital has so far failed and buy their beloved club from its American owners.
Tom Hicks and George Gillett have, for the time being at least, seen off the threat to their Anfield reign from DIC, an international investment company, and recently completed a 350-million-pound ($696 million) re-financing deal that left Liverpool with interest payments of about 30 million pounds ($60 million) per year.
Manager Rafael Benitez has been promised that the arrangements will not affect his ability to sign new players at the end of the current season.
However, financially, as well as in footballing terms, much depends upon Liverpool’s ability to keep playing in the lucrative Champions League.
A 1-0 defeat at West Ham on Wednesday left Liverpool seventh in the English Premier League, where only the top four at the end of the season qualify for European football’s most prestigious club competition.
Regardless of the club’s on-field form, the boardroom set-up at Anfield remains a concern for a new organisation called “Share Liverpool FC”, which has now announced plans for a supporter co-operative to buy the club.
The plan is to produce a members-share scheme similar to the one already in existence at Spanish giants Barcelona, effectively owned by its fans, and raise 500 million pounds to buy the club and build a new stadium in Stanley Park, close to Liverpool’s existing Anfield ground.
Rogan Taylor, one of the figures behind “Share Liverpool FC” and a lifelong Reds fan, said: “The time is right to offer a different solution to the rising concerns that football fans have about the patterns of ownership developing at our major football clubs.
“Thousands of Liverpool fans have already demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.
“Large amounts of debt often devolves onto clubs newly purchased, but the fans know that, in the end, it will be they themselves who will have to pay it off through increased ticket prices and other schemes.
“In such a case, why not simply buy the club yourselves?” Taylor, director of the football industry group at Liverpool University, asked.
“What many don’t realise is that there are other ways of financing and taking ownership of big clubs. In Germany and Spain, most top level football clubs are simply not for sale.

TITLE: New England Patriots’ Brady Tipped For MVP
AUTHOR: By Tom Canavan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CHANDLER, Arizona — Justin Tuck didn’t need to conduct a survey to figure out who America expects to be the Super Bowl MVP.
“Tom Brady,” he said.
If Brady plays well, the New England Patriots are going to cap an undefeated season and certify their claim to being a dynasty.
The biggest obstacle in his way is a band of brothers who form the New York Giants’ defensive line.
There’s Michael Strahan, the NFL’s active sacks leader and the group’s emotional linchpin. Fellow defensive end Osi Umenyiora is the only current Pro Bowler in the group and its rising star. There’s Tuck, the standout hardly anyone knows.
Fred Robbins is the brawn in the middle and Barry Cofield is the smart guy next to him who gives way to Tuck on passing downs.
“We can’t win this game if we don’t play well,” Umenyiora said Wednesday before the Giants returned to the practice field. “We will absolutely lose if the defensive line does not play well. There is no question about that.
“We’re facing a quarterback who completes passes and does all these things with people in his face. So can you imagine if no one is around him? It will be absolutely ridiculous.”
In the Patriots’ 38-35 win over the Giants on Dec. 29, Brady was sensational, hitting 32 of 42 passes for 356 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
Still, New York got to the quarterback who set an NFL single-season record with 50 touchdown passes this season. Brady was sacked once and hit eight times.
His record-setting touchdown on a 65-yard pass to Randy Moss came during a play on which cornerback Sam Madison pulled a stomach muscle and could not cover.
“Early in the football game, we got him out of his rhythm,” Tuck said. “I think he went in at halftime, made his adjustments and you saw the Tom Brady that everybody is accustomed to seeing. We have to be consistent and continually hit him. If we can continually get pressure up the middle, up in front of him, it gives us opportunity for the defense to be successful.”
New England’s offensive line has changed slightly since then. Starting right guard Stephen Neal and right tackle Nick Kaczur will be back after missing the final game of the regular season with injuries.
The Patriots are still concerned about the defense that led the NFL with 53 sacks, including 39 by the linemen.
“When we played them, we had a lot of negative yardage plays in the run game,” tackle Matt Light said. “They obviously got to Tom more than we’d like and they are very good at what they do. There is a reason why they are here and in this game.”
Light and Umenyiora might be the best matchup to watch, especially since Umenyiora accused Light of some late hits in the first meeting.
Both players downplayed the comments this week.
Umenyiora, who had a team-high 13 sacks this season, including a franchise-record six against Philadelphia, said that time seems to almost stop with each snap. He will get in his stance, see how Light is set up, and decide what moves to make.
“I hear absolutely nothing,” Umenyiora said. “I don’t hear the crowd. I don’t hear anything. Justin Tuck told me when I’m in my stance, I make noises. I don’t hear myself. I don’t know I am doing that. I guess sometimes you are so focused that everything else is blocked out.”
As far as getting to Brady, Umenyiora admits he doesn’t watch the league MVP — or any other quarterback.
“As soon as you beat the guy in front of you, most times the quarterback is right there in front of you,” he said.
Getting there, however, doesn’t equate to either a sack or even a hit.
“Tom understands how to move around in the pocket,” said Strahan, who had nine sacks in 2007. “He moves around very well. He looks like he’s on ice skates. And he doesn’t stand that deep in the pocket so it’s not like you can aim at a spot.”
For this second meeting, Brady expects defensive changes: new fronts, new looks, different packages of players.
“We’ll come in with new plays, and probably not until the end of the first quarter, you won’t really understand how the game is going to play out,” Brady said. “It’s always a little more challenging when you play a team a second time. I think there are advantages to it, but at the same time, you have to change up the things that were successful.”
What won’t change is the way the Giants’ front four plays.
While defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has used blitzes to pressure quarterbacks, the majority of the pressure has come from the front line.
Sometimes, it’s the front four against the five offensive linemen. Sometimes it’s four vs. six or seven or eight blockers.
“To be honest with you, and not to take anything from the linebackers and DBs, most games are won up front,” said Tuck, who had a career-best 10 sacks. “We take pride in that and the pressure placed on us, and we embrace it.”
Defensive line coach Mike Waufle isn’t surprised. He has seen it all year from his group, which is not only talented, but close-knit.