SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1372 (36), Monday, May 12, 2008
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Governor Challenged Over City’s Preservation
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Living City, the local non-governmental organization that delivered a list of recently demolished historic buildings to City Hall late last month, has announced it is putting together an exhibition to demonstrate the scale of the historic center’s destruction under Governor Valentina Matviyenko.
“St. Petersburg is being destroyed, but the administration does not want to admit it at all and tries to hush it up, one way or another,” said Dmitry Vorobyov, an activist with Living City, by phone on Sunday.
“It’s the normal policy of the administration to turn everything inside out.”
Earlier, the pressure group struggling to protect the city’s endangered historic buildings found itself under a surprise attack from Matviyenko, when in her annual address delivered to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, the governor found the time to criticize the “loud defenders of the historic center” and some unnamed “well-wishers,” who, as she put it, “literally zombify the population by screaming and moaning about hundreds — it’s not a slip of the tongue — hundreds of architectural treasures allegedly lost in the most recent years.” 
“This is lies! I beg you — show me the first hundred!” said Matviyenko, adding that hundreds of historic buildings have instead been saved by her administration. In its turn, Living City has presented a list of 100 destroyed historic buildings, including six on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, to Matviyenko’s office at Smolny.
“In just two days, we made a list of 100 historic heritage buildings, including both architectural treasures and listed buildings, with most of the cases requiring legal action to be brought by the Prosecutor’s Office,” said Vorobyov of Living City.
Last month, Living City sent a collective letter in defense of the historic center addressed to Boris Gryzlov, the Chairman of the State Duma, Sergei Mironov, the Federation Council Speaker and Academician Yevgeny Velikhov, Secretary of the Russian Public Chamber. An initiative by Alexander Makarov, a prominent preservationist, the letter was signed by some 300 public and cultural figures including actor Oleg Basilashvili, film director Alexander Sokurov, rock musician Yury Shevchuk and State Hermitage Museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky. 
“Every year, dozens of valuable historical buildings are torn down in the center of St. Petersburg, while aggressive ultramodern construction intensifies,” read the letter.
“We have approached the point at which the quantity of changes in the architectural space of the city will inevitably lead to irreversible qualitative changes in the city’s environment.”
The letter, which called for the immediate appointment of a special parliamentary commission to look into the protection of historical and cultural heritage in St. Petersburg and to conduct parliamentary hearings on the subject, was also mentioned in Matviyenko’s speech.
Noting that St. Petersburg’s cultural heritage is the object of “certain economic and political interests,” Matviyenko said she “understands for whom and for what the temperature of public unrest is artificially increased, hysteria raised, signatures to open letters gathered.” 
Matviyenko warned that “such unscrupulous people” will be held responsible “for disinformation and libel” by existing laws.
Soon after the speech was delivered, several of those who had signed the letter withdrew their signatures, most notably Mikhail Bobrov, retired mountaineer and head of the Guild of the Honorary Citizens of St. Petersburg, who also published an open letter to Matviyenko, titled “We Admit Our Mistake,” in the Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti newspaper last week.
In his letter, Bobrov said that Matviyenko’s address showed that the facts in Living City’s petition were wrong. 
“On behalf of the honorary citizens who signed the document, I present my deep apologies for signing the letter without carefully studying the facts presented,” he wrote.
“It looks like the petition was submitted to St. Petersburg’s administration, and the story took an unpleasant turn. It’s obvious that administrative pressure has been put on those who signed the letter,” said Vorobyov. He added that some of those who withdrew their signatures might have not even needed any pressure.
“On the one hand, the governor says that everything is good, but on the other, many people who are concerned about the city signed the letter that said that everything is bad,” he said.
“There emerges a typical cognitive dissonance. It’s impossible to reconcile. You have either to say that the governor is not entirely right or to admit that you’re not right yourself. So people choose one or another.”
In her speech, Matviyenko also mentioned some unnamed “visitors from Moscow” among those wrongfully criticizing the city’s town-planning policies. 
“It’s probably a rhetorical maneuver,” said Vorobyov.
“It is officially considered that Dissenters’ Marches are also organized by ‘well-wishers from Moscow.’ It looks like it was an attempt to connect the broadest public concern, the fact that a lot of different people and organizations are worried about St. Petersburg’s historical buildings, to Dissenters’ Marches [political opposition rallies organized by The Other Russia, pro-democracy coalition]. 
“That’s not true. Moscow has enough problems of its own. There are some last barricades left, although the city has been almost entirely demolished and rebuilt.”
While waiting for an answer to its letter and reaction to the list of 100 destroyed historic buildings from the city’s administration, Living City is putting together an exhibition showing the level of destruction that it hopes to open later this month.
Meanwhile, the local branch of the Yabloko democratic party has announced a march “in Defense of St. Petersburg” to be held in the city on Sept. 13. 
Although Yabloko suggested that political organizations should not use their symbols and pressure groups such as Living City, Okhtinskaya Duga, Save Vasilyevsky Island and Save Yuntolovo should be at the forefront of the event, it stressed that there is still a political component to the issue.
On Sept. 13, 2004, then-President Vladimir Putin suggested abolishing the elections of regional leaders, Yabloko said in a statement. 
“In St. Petersburg, this has led to a situation in which citizens have been deprived of one of the most important tools of defending the city — the election of a governor,” the statement quoted Yabloko’s local branch leader Maxim Reznik as saying.

TITLE: Food Prices Forecast to Keep Rising
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Food prices in Russia are expected to rise steadily now that a temporary price freeze on “basic essentials  — such as milk, flour and oil — has been lifted since May 1.
Both analysts and businessmen forecast a drastic rise in inflation.
The government froze the price of some sorts of white and black bread, milk, kefir, vegetable oil, and eggs in October last year when prices suddenly went up. In January, the agreement with food manufacturers was prolonged. 
However, food prices have continued to rise. Prices grew by 1.4 percent in April, and by 6.3 percent in the first four months of the year, Fontanka.ru reported.
Prices for vegetable oil and flour rose the most with the price of vegetable oil in March going up by 4.6 percent and by 8.6 percent in April, the Russian State Statistics Committee or RSSC said.
A regular bottle of vegetable oil in St. Petersburg cost about 50 rubles ($2) in April but by May it cost up to 80 rubles ($3.25). In September last year it cost about 28 rubles ($1.10).
In April, the 23.7 percent increase in the price of bread in St. Petersburg was the sharpest in Russia, the RSSC said.
The prices for vegetables in Russia also increased significantly in April with the price of cabbages rising by 24.2 percent, carrots by 13.3 percent and beets by 12.2 percent.
The price of eggs, pasta, and millet increased last week by between 1 percent and 1.2 percent.  Today, a dozen eggs costs a natinoal average of 35 rubles ($1.40).
The price of gasoline has also risen sharply — by 6.8 percent — since the beginning of this year. Analysts predict that the cost of gasoline will exceed the $1-per-liter mark this summer. 
Meanwhile, St. Petersburg authorities will prolong a local price freeze on milk and eggs. In April, milk and egg prices were held at 22 rubles (90 cents) for a dozen eggs and 23 to 27 rubles ($1) for a liter of milk (2.5 percent fat).  Sour cream (15 percent fat) will cost 29 rubles for half a kilo, and kefir will cost 24-25 rubles per liter.
The citywide agreements will continue until June 30, and may be prolonged after that, Fontanka.ru said.
Alexei Sergei, head of St. Petersburg’s Economic Development, Policy and Trade Committee, said the city authorities will continue the policy of price regulation in St. Petersburg throughout 2008. 
“Currently we’re holding negotiations with producers and sellers of vegetable oil,” Sergei said.
However, businessmen would like a regulated end to price freezes.
“We can’t ignore the offers by the city authorities and not take part in signing the food agreements,” Igor Podlipintsev, general director of the Sevzapmoloko dairy company, said. 
“However, the city government should gradually introduce other market measures to regulate the price growth.”
Yury Trusov, director of Lenoblptitseprom, told Fontanka.ru that “many enterprises will soon have to significantly cut down on the production of ‘socially necessary’ products if they are not to go out of business.”
Meanwhile, former Russian prime minister Viktor Zubkov said at a meeting with the outgoing government last week that it had not managed to solve the problem of rising food prices.
“Of course, we’ve got a set of unsolved problems. First of all it has to do with working out the measures that would allow us to quickly and adequately react to the world economic structure, stabilize the prices on the food markets inside the country, and provide quality support to the socially vulnerable sections of the population,” Zubkov said, Interfax reported.
However, Yevgeny Nadorshin, economic analyst at Trust Investment Bank, told the St. Petersburg Times that increasing food prices in Russia were in line with salary and pension rises.
“Today salaries in Russia grow by 25-30 percent a year.  Pensions also have indexation,” Nadorshin said.
“Therefore I think that the food price rises won’t reduce food purchases in Russia,” he said.
Nadorshin said that people would not buy fewer basic products, the prices of which have been frozen, because “those products are traditionally in high demand.”
However, The St. Petersburg Times interviewed a number of people who said they have begun to buy fewer dairy products and some other foods.
“Food price hikes have affected our lives,” said Yelena Timofeyeva, 43, a box office administrator. “We have begun to buy less food. For instance, we almost never buy cottage cheese and cheese. We buy less meat.” 
At the same time, Nadorshin said that the price of fish and meat hasn’t risen, and this gives people the chance “to switch to those products.”
Nadorshin said the growth of food prices is part of a worldwide food price crisis. Wheat and corn has become more expensive in such countries as Brazil, the United States, and others. Dairy products have also become more expensive as there is more demand in Asia, including China.
Food prices began to rise in Russia in September last year and have risen by as much as 30 percent. According to the Russian Statistics Committee, 89 percent of food products in Russia became more expensive in the first month of last fall.
The most obvious rises hit dairy products such as butter, milk and cheese. In St. Petersburg the price for a half-kilo pack of Valio butter went up from 70 rubles to 100 rubles; a liter of Vesyoly Molochnik milk jumped from 20 rubles to 26 rubles. All kinds of cheese, including traditionally cheaper ones, now cost more than 200-250 rubles a kilo.

TITLE: Tanks, Missiles On Red Square
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia showcased its military might and youthful new president to the world Friday, as heavy tanks and missile launchers rumbled across Red Square in a Victory Day parade for the first time since the Soviet era.
In a nationally broadcast speech two days after his inauguration, President Dmitry Medvedev avoided the bellicose rhetoric of his mentor and predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who drew parallels between United States and Nazi Germany during last year’s parade.
However, in his speech marking victory over Adolf Hitler’s Germany, the 42-year-old Medvedev said the history of World War II demonstrated that military conflicts are rooted in “irresponsible ambitions which prevail over interests of nations and entire continents.”
“We must not allow contempt for the norms of international law,” he said, in what sounded like veiled criticism of the United States and its Western allies.
The Kremlin has consistently criticized both the U.S.-led war in Iraq and wide Western recognition of Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Russia-allied Serbia as flagrant violations of international legal norms.
A stern-faced Putin, who was named prime minister Thursday, hovered at Medvedev’s shoulder on the podium hiding the mausoleum of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin. His face was prominently shown in TV broadcasts — an image that played to the wide belief the former president will continue calling the shots.
Medvedev, Russia’s third post-Soviet president, hailed the rebuilding of the Russian military, saying it can “give a reliable protection to the motherland.”
“Our army and navy are getting stronger. Just as Russia itself, they are gaining strength,” he said.
More than 100 combat vehicles, including intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, rolled across Red Square and strategic bombers and fighter jets roared overhead in the first such display in 18 years.
Medvedev smiled frequently as he watched the parade, which the communist rulers of the Soviet Union made into an annual exercise in saber-rattling directed at the West.
Russia’s military spending increased eightfold to an annual $40 billion during Putin’s eight-year tenure thanks to the nation’s oil bonanza. 
Analysts, however, say the military suffers the same problems that dented its capabilities and prestige since the Soviet collapse. Widespread bullying of young conscripts by older soldiers has made the draft extremely unpopular, and rampant corruption and mismanagement plague the military. Despite repeated pledges by Putin to modernize the armed forces, Russia has purchased only a handful of new combat jets and several dozen tanks.
Most of the combat vehicles shown in Friday’s parade were slightly modernized versions of Soviet weapons designed in the 1980s.
“As the Soviet Union in the past, Russia wants to demonstrate its might to potential enemies,” military analyst Alexander Golts wrote in the online Yezhednevny Zhurnal. “But the West clearly understands the true picture behind the talk of ‘rising potential.’“
Modern communications and control systems remain scarce, and a Russian equivalent to the U.S. satellite navigation system has failed to come on line as scheduled this year amid equipment shortages. Basics like night goggles, portable radios and satellite phones are rarities.
Russia’s navy is in particularly poor shape. Soviet-built nuclear submarines frequently need repairs and rarely leave their bases. The first in a series of new nuclear submarines, the Yuri Dolgoruky, is to be commissioned this year, but the Bulava nuclear-armed missile developed to equip it has failed tests and its deployment prospects are uncertain.

TITLE: U.K. Cancels Visa Fees for Fans
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Britain cancelled visa fees for soccer fans traveling to Manchester this week to attend the UEFA Cup final in which the St. Petersburg soccer club Zenit faces off with Scotland’s Glasgow Rangers.
The match at the City of Manchester Stadium on Wednesday is Zenit’s first European final.
William Elliott, the British Consul General in St. Petersburg told reporters on Friday the consulate is expecting to issue a total of 8,000 free visas for fans. 
The consulate has doubled the number of staff involved with processing the visas for Russian guests of the prestigious sports event to ensure everything runs smoothly and all applications are processed on time.   
As of Friday, only 2,000 fans had applied for a visa. Zenit fans living in Moscow and other cities are applying through the Moscow-based U.K. Visa Center. Those who had applied for the visa earlier when fees were in place will not be reimbursed, the diplomat added.
The officials emphasized that the free visa will only be provided to supporters with a ticket. The U.K. authorities stressed they can only guarantee that they will process applications that were lodged by midnight on Friday, but have nonetheless encouraged fans to submit electronic applications up to Monday.
The U.K. government move reciprocates an earlier decision by the Russian Foreign Ministry to allow British fans to enter Russia without a visa to watch Manchester United play Chelsea in the Champions League final at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on May 21.
It was accepted that a match ticket scan be a substitute for the official invitation usually needed for a visa. Multi-entry six-month U.K. visas for Russians usually cost 3,250 rubles ($132). Up to 12,000 Russian fans are expected to arrive in the U.K. to support the Russian team.
Manchester United and Chelsea expect more than 42,000 fans to travel to the final at Luzhniki, Reuters said.

TITLE: Ukraine Fills Freedom Gap in Ex-Soviet Bloc
AUTHOR: By Maria Danilova
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV, Ukraine — A gloomy Vladimir Putin wears a Czarist crown, clutching a bag full of dollars and a miniature television tower.
Filipp Pishchik says this and similar cartoons, depicting the former president as a corrupt leader who stifles free speech, got him in trouble with authorities and forced him to leave Moscow last year for neighboring Ukraine.
“Ukraine is just great,” said the 37-year-old designer and architect. “Here there is hope.”
Since the 2004 Orange Revolution ushered in a vigorous, sometimes chaotic democracy, Ukraine has become an island of freedom and tolerance in an ex-Soviet bloc still dominated by authoritarian regimes, and journalists, political activists, artists, and business professionals have flocked here.
In Soviet times, a dissident wanting to live free had only the West to look to. Getting there was hard, the culture alien, the language foreign. Ukraine, however, is an easy visa-free destination for most, Russian is spoken and speech is free.
Rights groups complain that Ukraine is stingy with granting asylum, which guarantees the applicant’s right to stay and work indefinitely. 
But still, the influx vividly illustrates how far the country’s path has diverged from that of Russia, which by the time of the Orange Revolution had already begun rolling back democratic reform.
The number of foreigners registered as living in this country of 46 million doubled to nearly 200,000 from 2003 to 2006, according to United Nations statistics; that does not include the unregistered. The number applying for political asylum rose to 2,300 last year.
Pishchik said he moved here after architecture magazines stopped publishing his work, longtime clients left him — hinting they were forced to do so by authorities — and he got threats from security officials. The reason, he says, was the cartoons he displayed in galleries and on Web sites.
Today, he lives in a spacious Kiev house loaded with exciting new projects and is married to a Ukrainian artist.
“I tell all my friends that they all will end up here one day,” Pishchik says.
Similar stories abound in today’s Ukraine.
Ukraine today is awash in competitive elections, noisy street protests and heated debates on TV shows and occasional fist fights in Parliament. Opposition rallies are held under the windows of the president’s office, and many have forgotten a time when TV channels were state-controlled.
Savik Shuster had a TV political talk show in Russia until it was closed in 2004 as the Kremlin tightened the screws on media. Now he’s in Kiev, hosting a similar program on a Ukrainian channel.
“In Ukraine, freedom of speech still exists,” said Shuster, 55. But for Russia today, “openness is like light for a vampire.”

TITLE: Putin Becomes Prime Minister
AUTHOR: By Sebastian Alison and Maria Levitov
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin became Russia’s prime minister on Thursday after winning parliamentary approval. Before the vote he urged increased spending to boost growth while calling for tax cuts on oil companies and lower inflation.
Putin stepped down as president on Wednesday and handed power to his chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, a 42-year-old lawyer from St. Petersburg. Medvedev submitted Putin’s nomination to the State Duma hours after taking office.
“Russia has become much stronger in recent years,” Putin said in his Duma speech. “Our resources are sufficient to achieve even more complex, even more ambitious tasks and goals. I’m for using our accumulated potential effectively and judiciously.”
As president, Putin oversaw eight years of growth in Russia, the world’s biggest energy exporter, which is now in a 10th straight year of economic expansion. 
As prime minister, Putin said he plans to take advantage of Russia’s wealth to improve transportation, health care and education, to promote agriculture and scientific research and to raise military pay, among other priorities.
The government increased spending by 40 percent last year, helping fuel inflation that accelerated to an annual 11.9 percent. Putin said inflation for low-income families hit 14.5 percent last year, and called for ``single-digit’’ inflation in the coming years.
The “vast” spending goals which Putin presented can’t be achieved while bringing inflation below 10 percent this year, Evgeny Nadorshin, senior economist at Moscow-based Trust Bank, said in an e-mailed note. “Carrying them out would hardly allow the government to truly concentrate on fighting inflation this year, as well as in the longer term.”
The energy industry produced more than two-thirds of Russia’s export earnings and more than a third of the state’s 2007 revenue, which totaled $325 billion.
“To stimulate growth in oil production and refining, the time has come to take a decision on reducing the tax burden on this sector of the economy,” Putin said.

TITLE: Vox Populi
TEXT: Vladimir Ignatenko, 55, electrician:
I noticed how the prices for food went up. About eight months ago, I used to spend only 200 rubles [$8.10] when I stopped by a grocery store to buy the most essential food, and now I have to spend 500 rubles [$20] on the same items. That is — I pay more than twice as much for food now.  It’s a nightmare.
However, since my wife and I are getting older we have decided to keep eating what we are used to in order to stay healthy and ‘keep the doctor away.’ What we noticed, though, is that now we can’t save anything anymore. We used to save something for our grandson but we can’t do it now. The prices are terrible.

Yelena Timofeyeva, 43, box office administrator:
We have begun to buy less food.  For instance, we hardly ever buy cottage cheese or cheese.  We buy less meat. 
This year we also couldn’t have a vacation by the sea. We just couldn’t save enough money for it. Prices for tickets also go up but salaries don’t. So, we’ll just go to our grandmother in the country. People have been put in a survival situation.

Oleg Vilkov, 21, student:
In my case I buy all the same food that I used to. Of course, I noticed that milk, bread and eggs have become more expensive but it didn’t affect me.

Svetlana Ovod, 42, teacher:
The food price rises have affected me. Now I have to buy less meat, fish, dairy products and white bread. Actually I now buy only milk, and only rarely cheese. Half a year ago I used to buy cheese often. I like cheese, and I used to have it for breakfast every day but now I have it very rarely.
Of course, I need to economize on other things now. Basically, I now spend most of my money on my child’s needs and I forget about my own needs.
What can be done in this situation? I think you simply have to find a better-paid job.

Anatoly Plotnikov, 57, electrical mechanic:
We noticed that prices have gone up but it hasn’t affected us, and we continue to buy the same set of products. We need to eat anyway. And it hasn’t affected other parts of life.

Nina Yegorova, 70, pensioner:
I’m OK in this situation because I live with the family of my son and they help me out.  However, my elderly neighbor, who lives alone, really struggles to make ends meet.  She eats very little fruit, vegetables and almost no meat. She basically eats only bread, milk and cottage cheese.

Marina Andreyeva, 50, economist:
It’s now sad to go to a grocery store. I drink less milk now, buy cheaper cheese, cheaper yogurts.  Fruit is expensive, too, but I keep buying it because I’ve got children. Maybe the new president can improve the situation?
You know, people at work often discuss food prices now. I don’t remember much talk about it before, but now it’s a constant topic

TITLE: Design Forum To Visit City
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The city is set to host Architectural Dialogue 2008, an international forum and exhibition of architecture and design, whose sponsors include City Hall’s committee for investment and strategic projects.  The event will take place from May 23 to June 1 at the Popov Museum of Communications.
The forum will include a series of lectures and masterclasses given by representatives from leading design and architecture firms, as well as an international conference devoted to architecture and an exhibition of architectural projects.
The forum’s participants will examine the most relevant and controversial issues faced by modern architecture — urban construction, education in the field of architecture and design, the investment climate and copyright issues. 
Participants will include representatives of the business community, government bodies and public organizations. Manfredi Nicoletti Architecture in Italy, Tezuka Architects in Japan, and Dorte Mandrup in Denmark are among the foreign architectural firms and design studios that will be represented at the forum and whose experts will discuss the difficulties of modern urban planning. 
The official opening of the forum will take place on May 23, and from May 24 the exhibition will be open to visitors.
www.dialog.org

TITLE: DHL Opens New Terminal Near Airport
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: For The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A new DHL terminal opened in St. Petersburg on Wednesday to handle the rapidly growing volume of DHL customers in the North West region of Russia. The new terminal, located on Pyaty Predportovy Proezd in close proximity to Pulkovo airport, will serve as a central sorting, processing and transit facility for international and domestic shipments in St. Petersburg and the North West region. 
“Pulkovo was chosen as the site for the terminal primarily because of its location: five minutes from St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, on the main thoroughfare into the city and three minutes from the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. With excellent road and airport links, the location gives DHL Express the ability to enhance the services offered not only to St. Petersburg but to a number of destinations within the North West region of Russia, DHL Express’s second biggest market in the CIS and a key priority for our development in this country,” said Adrian Marley, General Manager of DHL Express Russia at the opening ceremony of the terminal on Wednesday. 
The terminal occupies 13,000 square meters, of which 9,500 are designated for operations and 3,500 for office facilities. One of the most advanced facilities operated by DHL in Russia, the new terminal is aimed at handling and sorting goods for DHL customers not only in St. Petersburg, but in cities including Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Syktyvkar and Velikiy Novgorod.
The terminal is capable of handling 500 tonnes of material daily, and is equipped with its own emergency power supply to ensure uninterrupted service in the event of a power failure. There are 80 parking spaces for DHL vehicles next to the terminal. In addition to the terminal and office facilities, DHL is opening a new Service Point in Pulkovo to add to its existing network. 
“The new terminal in St. Petersburg is a prime example of a purpose-built terminal, designed with our customers’ current and future needs in mind. It reflects DHL Express’s passion for quality and service excellence,” said Daniel Kearvell, Area Manager of DHL North West Russia. “The addition of another service point also enhances our service to our customers, who have the convenient choice of dropping off their shipments at a DHL facility or requesting a courier pick-up with a quick phone call to our offices.”
A regional senior management delegation took part in the opening ceremony, led by David Wilson, Regional Sales Director of DHL Express Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa; Garry Kemp, Regional Director of DHL CIS and South-East Europe; Adrian Marley, General Manager of DHL Express Russia; and Daniel Kearvell, Area Manager of DHL North West Russia. 
DHL Express opened in Russia in 1984 with a head office in Moscow. It currently has over 130 offices and 12,000 customers in Russia, and serves more than 500 towns and cities within Russia.

TITLE: Art Sales Fall Amid Fake Revelations
AUTHOR: By John Varoli
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Russia’s booming art market is facing the worst crisis of confidence in the post-Soviet era as hundreds of paintings have been identified as fakes, said dealers and collectors.
About 800 works, most still in private collections, are listed in “The Catalog of Fraudulent Art Works” now on its fourth volume. There are “possibly thousands more” still to be named, its co-author Vladimir Roschin said in an interview. The 800 pictures wrongly authenticated by venerable institutions include almost 100 cleared by the State Tretyakov Gallery, its deputy director Lidia Iovleva said in a separate interview.
“Sales in Moscow of 19th-century Russian art have fallen because of the hysteria over fakes,” said Georgy Putnikov, vice president of the Confederation of Art and Antique Dealers. The Moscow-based association claimed the catalog and its sponsors are “destabilizing the market” and “destroying consumer confidence.”
Dealers and collectors said prices for more expensive works on the Russian art market have risen 20 to 30 fold over the past decade. Sotheby’s, the biggest seller of Russian art, said sales in 2007 were $190.9 million, up 31-fold on 2000. Led by commodities and energy exports, Russia’s economy has grown every year since 1999, creating a business and political elite eager to acquire fine art and luxury goods.
The catalog has prompted collectors to return at least 55 paintings to dealers, said Roschin. His partner is Rossvyaz Okhrankultura, a state watchdog agency for culture and the media. Roschin said the 800 fakes, if they had been genuine, would net $100 million.
The fourth volume of the fakes catalog appeared in mid-April. Volume five has been compiled, showing 150 more fakes, and will be published later this year. While 11 volumes were planned, the authors said that after the fifth volume any newly discovered fakes will be listed on Rossvyaz Okhrankultura’s web site, www.rsoc.ru.
“This whole affair is the crime of the century in the art world,” said Roschin, who himself collects Russian art. “These volumes contain only a small number of the fakes out there.”
The Confederation of Art and Antique Dealers said proven fakes should be removed quietly from the market by dealers. Roschin said he went public because some dishonest dealers knowingly resell fraudulent paintings to unsuspecting customers.
“Many collectors don’t want to admit they’ve bought fakes, and new buyers are increasingly apprehensive,” said Roschin. “I believe these catalogs will help to clear the air and restore confidence.”
Fraudsters target both little-known artists, and top-selling ones such as Shishkin, Aivazovsky, and Bogolyubov. Fakes are often sold for between $100,000 and $3 million, said Roschin.
Volumes two and four list fakes weeded out before resale by experts at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Volumes one and three are the most controversial, containing 300 artworks in private collections and published without the owners’ consent.
These two volumes list 19th-century Western European paintings doctored by criminals to look like 19th-century Russian artworks, and which then passed authenticity evaluations by Tretyakov experts in Moscow.
The frauds in these volumes were compiled by one of the experts, Vladimir Petrov, who admitted in 2005 to having inadvertently authenticated 20 fraudulent paintings. He called on his colleagues to admit their mistakes.
Such errors are possible because many Russian realist painters followed European trends, said Petrov. They used the same techniques, subject matter, and sometimes had the same teachers. 
“Many experts weren’t prepared for such a clever form of fraud,” said the Tretyakov’s Iovleva. “Such fraud is a result of the dramatic rise in prices for Russian artworks.”
She said the catalog is “impressive,” though the prevalence of fakes is “exaggerated.” Of about 10,000 paintings evaluated by Tretyakov experts over the past eight years, they erred only 96 times, Iovleva said.
Citing Petrov, Roschin said “there certainly will be more fakes that had received Tretyakov authenticity.” 
Dealers and collectors say 19th-century paintings are not the only period of Russian art under attack by criminals. 
“The market is overwhelmed by frauds, but this goes for all periods,” said Emelyan Zakharov, co-owner of the Moscow contemporary art gallery, Triumph, and who supported the catalog’s publishing. “Fakes used to be mostly from the avant-garde, but now even postwar art is faked.”

TITLE: New Surprise Claims Made Against TGK-11 Over Stake
AUTHOR: By Nadia Popova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Rosneft subsidiary filed new claims against TGK-11 in a Moscow court on Wednesday, saying the vote to create the utility was invalid because the shareholders’ ballots were miscounted. 
The claim came as a surprise after Anatoly Chubais, CEO of Unified Energy System, TGK-11’s parent company, said last month that then-First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had stepped in to mediate the dispute between the state-owned companies. 
The fight revolves around the creation last year of TGK-11, one of western Siberia’s largest electricity generators. Rosneft unit Neft-Aktiv filed a suit in February saying it did not receive a ballot for an August shareholders meeting in absentia, where Tomskenergo, in which it had a minority stake, was merged into TGK-11. The moved diluted Neft-Aktiv’s stake. TGK-11 rejected the complaint, saying Neft-Aktiv received the documents in time. 
On Wednesday, Neft-Aktiv lawyers said at a preliminary hearing in Moscow Arbitration Court that the vote was invalid because of procedural violations. 
“The ballots were counted by one person, even though there had to be a commission of three, and the ballots were miscounted,” head lawyer Dmitry Chernyakov said. 
Chernyakov also said TGK-11 had violated its charter by not announcing the meeting in the Krasnoye Znamya newspaper. His team read all 11 newspapers published in the country under that name and found nothing, he said. 
Instead, the notification was discovered  beside the horoscopes in Tomsk newspaper Vykhodnoi, he said.  
TGK-11 lawyer Anna Kaflevskaya declined to comment on the claims, saying she had to read them more closely. 
The next hearing will be May 30. 
Dmitry Terekhov, a utilities analyst at the Metropol brokerage, said Wednesday that only a political decision would bring a quick resolution to the dispute. 
“Medvedev didn’t seem to have much time to deal with the case before his inauguration, but he may pay more attention to the dispute sometime soon,” Terekhov said.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Bottler Profits Increase</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co., the world’s second-largest bottler of Coke beverages, said first-quarter profit rose 11 percent, driven by sales growth in Russia and eastern Europe.
Net income for the three months to March 28 rose to $43 million from $39 million a year earlier, according to an e-mailed statement from the Athens-based company Thursday.
Sales gained 9 percent to $2.1 billion. Coca-Cola HBC gets more than half its revenue from emerging markets such as Russia and Romania, where economic growth is outpacing developed markets.

<b>City Courts Investors</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element, Gazprombank and Vinci SA are among companies that may bid to expand St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, Vedomosti reported, citing unidentified city officials with knowledge of the matter.
The municipality called for bids April 21 and will offer a concession to run the airport for 30 years to the bidding group willing to spend as much as $919 million on Pulkovo’s improvement, the newspaper said Thursday.
The government of St. Petersburg began making presentations to potential investors in London Wednesday, Vedomosti reported.

<b>Link Road Costs Soar</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — A high-speed road planned for St. Petersburg will cost 212.7 billion rubles ($8.9 billion), more than double the amount announced two years ago because of a rise in construction material prices, Vedomosti reported, citing government documents and a city official.
The 46.6-kilometer highway, known as the Western High-Speed Diameter, will connect the city’s southern districts with Russia’s national road network, the newspaper said.
The new link is scheduled to be completed by 2014, Vedomosti said. The municipality plans to offer a concession to a group of companies and investors to build the highway, the newspaper said.
The higher cost of the highway stems from a fivefold increase in the price of construction materials since 2004, the newspaper said, citing city official Roman Starovoit. 

<b>Film Monopoly Possible</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russia may transfer control over two state-run movie studios to the Moscow-based Mosfilm, which is also owned by the state, Vedomosti reported, citing Karen Shakhnazarov, the general director of Mosfilm.
The Russian Federal Property Management Agency earlier planned to sell Lenfilm and Gorky Film Studio to private investors, the newspaper said. 
The merger of all three studios may create a state monopoly on film production, Vedomosti reported, citing Aram Movesyan, the director of production at Central Partnership, a movie and television company.

<b>Seaport Terminal Opens</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russian billionaire Vladimir Lisin’s St. Petersburg Seaport opened a 260 million-ruble ($11 million) terminal on Tuesday to handle car imports to Europe’s fastest-growing auto market.
The 5-hectare site, operated by one of the port’s four stevedore companies, has the capacity to handle 80,000 vehicles a year, the port authority said in an e-mailed statement Thursday.
The venture will divert into Russia some car shipments that currently pass through Finnish ports, the company said.

TITLE: Publishing Industry Dynamic Despite Fears
AUTHOR: By Olga Sharapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: More than 70,000 visitors, including traders, bibliophiles and book market professionals, visited the Third St. Petersburg International Book Fair at the Lenexpo exhibition complex on April 24-27. 
The fair’s Soviet-style slogan, “Time to read!,” reminded visitors of the legacy of the Soviet reading culture, in which it was claimed that the nation had the greatest number of readers in the world. Foreigners who visited the U.S.S.R often noted that public transport was full of passengers holding books in their hands.
Reading was both encouraged by the Soviet educational system, and simultaneously represented one of the most easily available methods of obtaining inner freedom in an environment of public censorship. 
However, the range of books available was restricted by the Soviet state and the production of ideologically acceptable classics was much more widespread than the publication of contemporary authors, newspapers and magazines.  
In post-Soviet Russia there are serious concerns about the apparent lack of enthusiasm for reading shown by contemporary schoolchildren and teenagers. 
Alexander Sokolov, Russia’s Culture and Mass Communications Minister told RIA Novosti that only seven percent of families read habitually. 
In the 1970s, the proportion of families who liked reading was about 80 percent, Sokolov said. 
According to statistics, only 23 percent of Russians describe themselves as active readers, while 37 percent of people don’t read books at all. 
Russia has fallen to seventh place on the world list of how much time people spend reading.
However, some see the developing Russian book market as having created a new class of readers who follow and enjoy innovations in literature. 
Olga Lucass, press secretary of the Livebook publishing house, which participated in last month’s Book Fair, says that young people are the most active buyers of its books. 
“We simply aren’t seeing a problem of a lack of reading. About 40 percent of our readers are young people, and they are very interested in news, book exhibitions and the special parties that Livebook regularly organizes,” Lucass said.
St. Petersburg publishing house Limbus Press regularly publishes new authors whom it believes could be interesting for contemporary readers. 
Books by young Russian authors that Limbus has recently published include “Russia: Common Carriage” by Natalia Kluchareva, “Sanka” by Zakhar Plilepin, and a poetry anthology entitled  “St. Petersburg Poetry Structure.” 
Plilepin’s latest novel,  “The Sin,” has been nominated for the National Bestseller 2008 award for the best book in Russian. 
The winner will be announced on June 8 at St. Petersburg’s Astoria hotel. 
According to the editor-in-chief of Limbus Press, Pavel Krusanov, the publishing house focuses on non-fiction and experimental genres. Limbus’ most popular authors include Eduard Limonov, Sergei Dovlatov and Philip Root.
Publishing is a highly dynamic business in St. Petersburg and there are more than 140 publishing houses in the city covering a diverse range of genres.
In total the local book market accounts for about 15 percent of the entire Russian publishing industry.
One of the largest publishing houses by volume in Russia is St. Petersburg’s Eksmo, which publishes books in almost every genre, from crime to modern prose. The titles and marketing policy of the publishing house are oriented toward mass audiences. 
According to statistics, middle-aged women comprise the largest proportion of visitors to bookstores and the most popular genres are novels about high society, romance, fantasy and cookery books. 
Textbooks and academic literature are also in high demand due to the large numbers of students in the city.   
There are more than 170 bookstores in St. Petersburg, including large chains such as Bukvoyed, Dom Knigi, Snark, Top Kniga and ACT. Some are managed by publishers — for example, Eksmo has a majority share in the Bukvoyed chain. 
High prices have been cited as a factor in the decline in reading among Russians. Denis Kotov, director of the Bukvoyed chain, said in a television interview that if there is demand for a book and people want to buy more books, prices should be increased. 
Classifying books as a section of the entertainment industry, Kotov believes they should not be a cheap commodity because competition is very strong in this segment of the market. However, according to Limbus’  Krusanov, the difference between the publisher’s price and the final cost of a book in the bookstore is vast — more than 100 times greater than the initial cost. 
Most Russian readers consider books to be an expensive present, and this is often cited as one of the main reasons for locals reading less than they did in the past. Children’s books and academic books cost from 200-500 rubles ($8-$20), which for some, particularly at the top end of the price range, is prohibitive. 
Today’s teenagers and youths may spend more time on the Internet than reading books, but works such as British author J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have proved extremely popular in Russia. Krusanov believes that e-books will never truly rival printed books, as most authors and readers prefer to have a real book that they can keep.
Some genres however represent a more competitive alternative to printed copies, such as encyclopedias and dictionaries, which are often simpler and faster to use in electronic format.
Despite changing trends and falling readership, books retain their treasured status in Russian culture, as demonstrated by events such as the St. Petersburg International Book Fair, which help to improve communication on the book market between publishers and readers.

TITLE: Experts Slam Gas Excise Tax Plan
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — A government plan to differentiate gasoline excise taxes based on fuel quality will raise the tax burden for the country’s oil companies, benefiting only a few firms owning sophisticated refineries, analysts said. 
Troika Dialog brokerage said the Finance Ministry’s proposal could raise the tax burden for the oil industry next year to $4.9 billion, or $260 million more than it would otherwise pay. By 2010, the industry may end up paying an extra $1 billion. 
“The Finance Ministry seems either to be living in a dream world or is not supportive of the oil industry to propose such measures,” Troika said in a research note. 
The ministry has proposed reducing the excise tax on high-octane gasoline of Euro 4 and 5 standard by 12.6 percent, while increasing the tax by 7.5 percent on Euro 3 standard gasoline from 2010, Interfax reported Tuesday. 
It said the ministry proposed raising the tax for gasoline with lower octane numbers of 92 and 80 by 7.5 percent and 46.8 percent, respectively, from 2009. 
The current rates, introduced in January 2005, are $153 per a ton of high-octane gasoline and $112 per ton of low-octane gasoline. 
“With current prices at the pump, we very much doubt that oil companies will be able (or allowed, for that matter) to pass the tax increase on to the end consumer, especially agricultural ones that use mainly low-octane gasoline,” Troika said. 
Analysts at Deutsche Bank and UniCredit said the measure, designed to stimulate the production of more value-added and environmentally friendly oil products, could be positive for companies with more sophisticated refineries. 
“We expect the changes to have a positive effect on those companies which have already modernized their refineries, such as LUKoil, TNK-BP and Gazprom Neft,” Deutsche Bank said in a research note. 
“But other companies ... will have to make investments to improve the quality of refined products that they produce.” 
Alfa Bank said the suggested proposals, which are likely to have a negative short-term impact on oil firms, might be positive in the medium and long term.

TITLE: Gazprom Leaps As Medvedev Takes Over
AUTHOR: By Greg Walters and William Mauldin
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom overtook China Mobile and General Electric to become the world’s third-largest company by market value after its chairman, Dmitry Medvedev, became Russia’s president.
State-run Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas producer, rose 6 percent in Moscow on Thursday, pushing its value to 8.28 trillion rubles ($347.4 billion). China Mobile Ltd., which has more users than the U.S. has people, declined 1 percent to 2.63 trillion Hong Kong dollars ($337.3 billion). Gazprom overtook GE Wednesday after the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company fell 1.3 percent to $325 billion in New York.
Medvedev may continue dismantling domestic price caps for natural gas designed to contain inflation and reduce costs for households and industry. The government has said it wants to increase prices so that sales in Russia are as profitable as European exports by 2011. Russia, supplier of a quarter of Europe’s gas, is the world’s second-biggest gas consumer.
“A Medvedev presidency is the perfect political cover for Gazprom,’’ said James Fenkner, principal of Moscow’s Red Star Asset Management LP, which manages about $100 million, including Gazprom shares. “He’s going to help push through domestic price increases for gas, and that will be the next great positive catalyst for this company.’’
During Medvedev’s six-year tenure as chairman, Gazprom’s value climbed more than 32-fold as fuel prices rose and the company gained oil, electricity and coal assets.
Gazprom’s expansion, including buying Sibneft from billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2005, helped Russia’s government increase its control over national oil production to more than a third from about 6 percent at the start of Vladimir Putin’s first presidential term in 2000.
Gazprom shares rose 4.3 percent Wednesday after Medvedev, 42, was sworn in as Russia’s third and youngest president, and nominated Putin, 55, to be his prime minister. Medvedev will quit as Gazprom’s chairman next month after a new board is elected, spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said.
GE gained 2 cents to $32.59 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alexander Medvedev, 51, said in a Moscow interview last year that Gazprom, which has a quarter of Europe’s gas market, expects to be the world’s biggest company and reach $1 trillion in value as soon as 2014. The two Medvedevs aren’t related.
“Gazprom’s market value may well be $1 trillion before Russia gets a new president,’’ said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Moscow-based UralSib Financial Corp. “Overtaking GE and China Mobile is not temporary.’’
All 16 analysts whose Gazprom recommendations are compiled by Bloomberg have a “buy’’ or equivalent recommendation on the stock. The average price estimate is $19.66, or 34 percent more than Thursday’s close. Exxon Mobil Corp., at $469 billion, is the world’s most valuable company, followed by PetroChina Co., China’s largest oil producer, at $446 billion.
The government last week approved a plan to allow natural-gas producers to charge 25 percent more for sales to households next year, 30 percent more in 2010 and 40 percent in 2011.

TITLE: Russia Boosts Richter’s Profits
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: BUDAPEST — Gedeon Richter Nyrt., eastern Europe’s biggest drugmaker, said first-quarter profit rose 42 percent on increased exports to Russia, where executives forecast sales rising more than 10 percent this year.
Unconsolidated profit climbed to 10.2 billion forint ($62.1 million) from 7.19 billion forint, ($44 million) a year earlier, the Budapest-based company said Friday in a statement to the local stock exchange. Revenue gained 5.7 percent to 43.3 billion forint.
Richter benefited from stronger sales to Russia, where the drugmaker protected itself against foreign-exchange losses by charging customers in euros. Profit was also helped by gains from the sale of its Medimpex wholesale unit and other financial income. These compensated for a decline in Hungary, where the government is working to control health-care spending and drive down medicine consumption.
Sales to the former Soviet Union rose 9.7 percent to 73 million euros ($112 million), or 18 billion forint in the quarter, with Russian sales accounting for about 49 million euros ($76 million), the company said.

TITLE: Qatar Sees Development Program Bear Fruit
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With 122 students successfully completing their studies at the campuses of high-ranking western universities in Qatar last week, the country saw the preliminary results of its new national development program.
During the next 10-20 years, this petro-state hopes to become an economy based on knowledge and innovation. Huge profits from oil and gas exports will be used to finance the transition.
“We are dependent on oil and gas, but we are trying to move away from it, as this single resource could easily be depleted,” explained Dr. Ibrahim Al Ibrahim, secretary general of the Qatar General Secretariat for Development Planning, an institution founded last year to develop a national strategy.

From oil to innovation
The new economic vision evolved over recent years. The country took a radical turn in 1995, when Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani succeeded his father as Amir of Qatar.
Qatar has exported oil since the late 1940s, but the country had never before seen such robust development as it has over the last decade. The capital city of Doha is crowded with sky-scrapers and operating tower cranes working on new, ever taller buildings.
Economic growth in Qatar currently stands at 30 percent a year in nominal terms. However, inflation is also relatively high, at 14 percent a year. A lack of real estate is forcing rent rates up, which in turn fuels inflation.
The Qatar authorities are determined to diversify the economy, and as part of the development program, Qatar is creating an international education center entitled Education City. It will be followed by several research centers, which should attract talent from abroad and foster human capital inside the country.
Education City and the research centers will cooperate with Qatar Science & Technology Park, which is to start operating in the near future.
The strategic focus of these activities will be on bringing cutting-edge technology to the country. The industries set for development include energy intensive production technologies, the solar power industry, business incubation services, gene therapy, neurogenetic studies, embryonic stem cell biology and vaccine development.
Qatar spends 2.8 percent of its GDP ($1.5 billion) a year on research purposes. “We believe that Education City and the Qatar Foundation are the best investment for the future. Our partners came here not only to offer their diplomas, but to improve and upgrade many things in this country,” said Dr. Mohammed Fathy Saoud, president of the Qatar Foundation.

Best practices 
transplanted
At the moment six universities operate campuses in Qatar Education City — Weill Cornell Medical College, Carnegie Mellon University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Northwestern University.
The American universities were keen to open branches in Qatar, because since the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, their Arab students have faced difficulties in getting visas, said Dr. Abdullah Al Thani, vice president of the Qatar Foundation.
A faculty of Islamic studies was also opened recently in Education City.
Last week Qatar celebrated the graduation of the first classes from Weill Cornell Medical College, Texas A&M University and Carnegie Mellon University, as well as the seventh graduation ceremony of students from Virginia Commonwealth University. 
All the campuses based in Qatar issue diplomas identical to those issued by their parent universities. The admission requirements, exams, education program and fees are also identical.
One year of study at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar costs $38,000 for the premedical course and $45,000 for the medical program — the same as students pay in New York.
The Weill Cornell campus employs about 60 teachers, though the first class to graduate comprised just 15 students.
The college plans to increase the number of its students. Michael Vertigans, director of public affairs at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, said that every year 60 students are admitted to the premedical course, and 50 students onto the medical program. The facilities can accommodate up to 100 students per class.
About 60 percent of students come from the Middle East. The first class to graduate consisted of students of seven different nationalities — nine female students and six male students. Several students from Russia now study at the college.
“Admission is offered regardless of everything except learning performance. The Qatar Foundation does not interfere in the selection of students and appointment of professors,” said Dr. Saoud of the Qatar Foundation.
“When we decided to open a campus here, there were worries about reputation risks. Six years later these risks have been dispelled,” said Daniel Alonso, dean of Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar.
Alonso was positive about the education reforms taking place in Qatar. The reforms aim to replace traditional learning practices, which focus on memorizing information, with a western approach based on the application of knowledge, problem solving and critical thinking.
To prepare students for their university studies, the Qatar Foundation founded a special education course entitled the Academic Bridge Program. Once students from the Middle East have completed that and an English language course, they are just as ready to study as their western counterparts, Alonso said.
This year’s graduates have been awarded residencies in leading medical institutions, including John Hopkins Hospital and other renowned American clinics.

Incentives for expats
Qatar aims to retain the most talented of its residents. During the last two years the population of Qatar has increased by 50 percent and now stands at over one million. However, only about 220,000 people are Qatari by origin.
“We want to increase the participation of Qatari in the labor force and provide all the opportunities for them. But whatever we do, we have to rely on large numbers of expatriates. They should be selected, and their rights should be protected,” Dr. Ibrahim said.
Education expenses for Qatari are sponsored by the state. Foreigners can apply to the Qatar Foundation for a loan, and those who agree to work for Qatari companies for 3-4 years after graduation do not have to repay the loans.
Qatar authorities expect Education City to become a “regional hub for excellence.” In addition to expatriating Arab scholars, they plan to retain the best graduates of Education City.
“Most of my colleagues expressed a desire to return to Qatar and take part in the rise of our medical school. This desire wasn’t limited to Qatari students, but also applied to students from Syria, Bosnia, India and even the U.S.,” said Jehan Al Rayahi, a graduate of Weill Cornell Medical College.

Student voices
“An opportunity to study in a culture different from my own is a great chance to open my mind. I don’t think that in the U.S. I could experience something like I experienced here,” said Sharon King, a graduate of Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar who comes from the United States.
The atmosphere in Education City is very democratic. Students and teachers respect each other’s cultures, said Jehan Al Rayahi, Qatari by origin, who had never studied in a co-educational institution before. She said that she felt comfortable, and her parents fully supported her enthusiasm and willingness to study.
Graduates of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, which offers diplomas in business administration, general management and computer science, go on to achieve success in various spheres including business and social projects.
Mohamed Al-Mahmeed said he is considering several job offers from large corporations, including Shell.
Noor AlAthirah from Jordan said she would work for a Qatari company to pay off her student loan. “I’m very interested in charity. Our mission is to change the world, as the Carnegie Mellon motto says. I want to help students. I think if we mange to organize them in groups, it would be easier to help them on a collective basis,” AlAthirah said.
Another female graduate said she was planning to start an online bookstore to sell books in Arabic to Arabs in other countries.

Cradle of science and innovation
In summer 2008, Qatar Science and Technology Park will start operating. The 600,000 square meter complex will be fully completed by 2010.
As well as the traditional benefits of a free trade zone, tenants are offered low rent rates. Exact figures are not available to the public, but Ben Figgis, marketing manager at Qatar Science & Technology Park, said that the institution has so far operated virtually as a non-profit organization.
So far 15 companies have signed up to become members, including transnational corporations and Qatari companies.
The Innovation and Technology Transfer Center offers 24,000 square meters to large companies. Each tenant will be offered an area of 500-6,000 square meters, and according to the center’s managers, 85 percent of the space has already been reserved. Microsoft, Shell, Exxon Mobil and Total are among the companies to have signed up.
Shell moved into its office last month. The company will invest about $100 million over the next 10 years into its activities in Qatar Science & Technology Park, mainly in research and study.
Andrew Brown, general manager of Shell in Qatar, said that about 30 people have already been employed, and by the end of the year the staff will increase to 50 people. Half of the employees come from the Middle East, and about 20 percent are Qatari.
One of the local tenants is iHorizons, a Qatari software company that operates offices throughout the region, specializing in the development of e-business applications and content management solutions.
Another Qatari tenant is SMARD (Scientific Medical Applied Research & Development) — the first biotechnology and medical research company in the country and a subsidiary of the German companies KMG and iSIMA.
Other tenants who are not in the oil production business include Rolls-Royce and Gartner Lee, a Canada-based environmental services and consulting firm.
Companies renting areas of over 6,000 square meters will be offered separate buildings. General Electric has signed up to occupy the first such building, which will cover 13,000 square meters.
In proximity to these premises a business incubator will operate, housing start-ups and small companies that could supply their products to larger tenants. Venture capital and support programs will be offered to start-ups.
“We will use platform technologies that are expensive to establish for any single university. We will foster interaction between tenants and branches of Education City,” said Tidu Maini, chairman of Qatar Science & Technology Park.
He listed energy technologies, health care and environment protection as the strategic focus for research.

TITLE: The Day of the Bear
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Kiselyov
TEXT: President Dmitry Medvedev has a very Russian surname, one derived from one of the more prominent symbols of Russia — the medved, or bear. Bears have served as the heroes of fairy tales, fables, proverbs and anecdotes, and they are depicted on the coat of arms of many Russian cities. A bear named Misha was the official mascot of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, and a bear is now the symbol of United Russia, which controls an absolute majority of seats in the State Duma. The bear is a symbol of power and authority with practically no rival in the animal kingdom. 
In contrast, however, the other medved — our new president — is still weak, and it is not clear when, if ever, he will possess real presidential authority. The reasons for this are clear. First, Medvedev suffers from a critical lack of legitimacy. Everyone understands that Vladimir Putin effectively appointed him, that he came to office through unfair elections devoid of any real competition, and that his victory was ensured from the outset with the help of the mass media parroting the Kremlin line. Since the elections were a sham, Medvedev cannot be viewed or accepted as the genuine tsar.
Second, Medvedev’s legitimacy will be undermined even more when Putin, who remains more popular, takes over as prime minister. Nobody knows or understands how the new two-headed authority structure will work. 
There are two opposing, radical points of view on this issue. On one hand, liberal opponents of the administration cast Medvedev as a puppet, completely dependent on Putin. Medvedev lacks his own base of support, and he was placed temporarily on the presidential throne on the condition that he vacate it the moment Putin demands — perhaps before his term is finished. On the other hand, Kremlin liberals devoutly preach that Putin is sincerely proud of his chosen successor and believes that the country will have a young, progressive and educated leader. According to this theory, Putin is so eager to help Medvedev that he would not mind playing second fiddle to ensure Medvedev’s success. 
The truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle. Both Putin and Medvedev have repeatedly declared that they have no plans to redistribute authority between the president and the prime minister, especially at the expense of presidential authority. But it is probably not wise to put too much faith in these statements. After all, Putin has made many promises that he later broke. For example, he once spoke out publicly against bankrupting Yukos, eliminating elections for governors and joining United Russia. Most interesting of all, he also flatly denied any plans to become prime minister. 
One element of Putin’s trademark style is to put off making major decisions until the last minute. When he does decide something, it is usually done impulsively and then he often changes his mind. For example, it seems that Putin named Viktor Zubkov as prime minister as part of a plan that he later scrapped. 
Putin probably did not want to become prime minister under a Medvedev presidency and planned to delegate this role to the tried and true Zubkov. But at the last minute, Putin gazed into the future and, dismayed by the thought of being out of power for the next four years, picked the option of becoming prime minister. 
On one hand, there is no basis for doubting that Putin and Medvedev really have a close, trusting relationship. They might actually be able to work out all of the most delicate questions, such as how to avoid conflict in the decision-making process, whom to name to various posts, who should be fired, how to provide guarantees of legal impunity and personal security, and so on.
On the other hand, it is not clear how the two centers of power will be able to avoid heated competition and potential conflict when one side attempts to outsmart the other and gain the upper hand. Any parent knows this well. For example, when you are unaware that your wife has already forbidden your son to go to the movies and he comes to you asking for permission. If a minister, governor or CEO cannot get the necessary green light from Putin on one of their key projects, they will inevitably run to Medvedev in hopes of getting approval.
Nonetheless, a law will probably be passed freeing Putin from having to deal with routine tasks as prime minister, but did anybody seriously believe that Putin would be handling dull issues like improving roads or the rotting plumbing system in the country’s dilapidated apartment buildings?
It seems that all of the speculation about Putin’s White House becoming more powerful than Medvedev’s Kremlin is nothing more than the wishful thinking of the ruling elite who have a vested interest in maintaining Putin’s hold on power. Many of Putin’s supporters and beneficiaries hoped that he would send a strong signal during his speech at Wednesday’s inauguration that the real power would remain with him, even as Medvedev was about to take the oath of office. 
But, in reality, Putin appeared subdued — perhaps even dismayed — during the ceremony. This leads me to believe that Putin has accepted, albeit grudgingly, the transfer of power to Medvedev. The basic distribution of power between the president and the prime minister will remain unchanged. The president is still the commander in chief, and he still appoints the defense, interior and foreign ministers. He also appoints top leaders of the Federal Security Service and, last but not least, he can fire the prime minister.
Moreover, the president determines Russia’s foreign policy. When the West recognizes Medvedev as Russia’s top leader in July at the Group of Eight summit in Japan, this will certainly boost his legitimacy. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev used a similar tactic in the late 1960s and early 1970s when he took personal control over all negotiations with the leaders of the United States, France, West Germany and others. Using this as leverage, he soon managed to dominate other, more influential Soviet leaders.
What is most important today is that the Constitution provides the president with a great amount of power. This authority is further strengthened by the traditional belief among people that the Kremlin, which controls the armed forces and massive security infrastructure, has historically always been the sole and supreme center of authority in the country. 
It is true, however, that the president must do more than simply occupy the top spot in the Kremlin. He has to be strong and tough enough to maintain the power that comes with the position. Only time will tell if Medvedev is able to do this.

Yevgeny Kiselyov is a political analyst and hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.

TITLE: How to Invent Enemies and a Strong Russia
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Who is Mr. Putin? Until 2003, he was a leader who could have made Russia a truly great country if he followed through on his liberal economic program. 
But he had one weakness. As a former security services operative, machinations became his modus operandi for ruling the country. And he who lives by machinations sooner or later falls victim to them.
President Vladimir Putin surrounded himself with people who were terribly unqualified to run a business or government. But they were very skilled in another area — exposing Putin’s enemies. If there are no enemies, you can always invent them. And once the enemies were exposed, Putin’s friends grabbed up their assets.
The first to fall victim to this kind of scheme was Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Putin’s confidantes issued dire warnings to the president about how Khodorkovsky was planning to seize power. This campaign continued every day until Putin was convinced that Khodorkovsky posed a real threat. 
Whenever Putin believed he had a sworn enemy, that person was removed at the drop of a hat. When he thought that Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov wanted to become president, Kasyanov quickly found himself out of a job. Also, once Putin was convinced that Russneft founder Mikhail Gutseriyev was financing insurgents in Ingushetia, the Federal Tax Service initiated an investigation against the company for tens of millions of dollars in back taxes.
Putin did not make a lot mistakes at the helm, but he never admitted to the few he did make. Instead, he attributed his mistakes to the intrigues of his enemies. Take the seizure and expropriation of Yukos, for example. That was not a mistake, but the successful elimination of a dangerous enemy. Or take the defeat of pro-Kremlin candidate Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. It wasn’t that Putin made mistakes in formulating his policy toward Ukraine; it was the insidious United States that undercut everything by plotting an Orange Revolution. 
As government corruption became increasingly worse, the picture presented on state television became increasingly rosy. While Putin’s elite vacationed at the posh French ski resort in Kurshavel, the Kremlin constantly warned Russia’s lumpen proletariat of the country’s mortal enemies in the West. As Nashi youth pelted the Estonian Embassy with stones, eggs and insults, Russian state-controlled television presented this as the resurgence of a “strong Russia.” 
“Strong” is the key word here. Any person who is incapable of making decisions in difficult situations has a great need to pretend to be strong. Remember the photos of Putin shirtless during a fishing trip or the shots of him in the cockpit of fighter jets. But on the frightening morning of Sept. 1, 2004, when Putin — who planned to attend a school-opening ceremony in Nalchik that day — learned about the terrorist attack at Beslan School No. 1, located 90 kilometers away from Nalchik, he rerouted his plane in midflight and returned to Moscow. 
We have been told repeatedly that Putin rules the country with a “strong hand,” but, in reality, his orders are routinely ignored. He once ordered the firing of a number of high-ranking Federal Security Service officers, but they all remained at their posts. Moreover, Putin’s subordinates continued to destroy companies even after he had personally told them to back off. This happened with the East Line company that owns Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, for example.
In the end, what good has come of Putin’s presidency? Eight years of his authority produced swarms of enthusiastic toadies, who have already begun sucking up to the new president, Dmitry Medvedev. And, of course, his friends became very rich.

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

TITLE: Remembering Victory Day in a Different Way
AUTHOR: By David Marples
TEXT: May 9 marked the 63rd anniversary of Victory Day, the day that Stalin set aside to commemorate the end of the World War II in Europe. The fighting had ended by May 5, and the Western allies accepted Germany’s surrender three days later. But the Soviet Union opted to recognize the following day. Victory Day, as its name suggests, was intended originally to celebrate the Soviet victory over fascism. Today, it is used to remember those who took part in the greatest conflict in history and those who sacrificed their lives in the Red Army. Very few of them remain alive today. 
Though the government of former President Vladimir Putin has continued to incorporate the war into national consciousness — and presumably President Dmitry Medvedev will continue the practice — propaganda has always taken precedence over any quest for historical accuracy. The only difference is that the official number of Soviet dead has risen — from Nikita Khrushchev’s original estimate of 20 million to about 32 million combined civilian and military deaths, which is roughly equivalent to the current population of Canada.
But the official narrative in the Soviet era contained several distortions and even glaring omissions, some of which were continued during the Putin era.
First, the term coined by the Soviet leadership of “Great Patriotic War” denotes the beginning of the conflict on June 22, 1941, when the German Wehrmacht, with more than 3 million troops, invaded the Soviet Union. But World War II broke out on Sept. 1, 1939, when Hitler’s troops attacked Poland. Stalin watched the conflict for 16 days before sending in his own troops to occupy the eastern regions of the Polish state, ostensibly to liberate Ukrainians and Belarussians living there. The subsequent Soviet annexation of eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Bessarabia (located in modern-day Moldova) and northern Bukovina (located in western Ukraine along the border with Romania) had been carefully elaborated in a secret protocol, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, between the two dictators. From late 1939 to the summer of 1941, the new Soviet rulers deported some 400,000 Poles, Ukrainians and Belarussians from their homeland on various pretexts.
Stalin was shocked by Hitler’s decision to break the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and this was evident not only from his lack of preparation and refusal to listen to warnings from Winston Churchill and his own spies about the forthcoming German assault, but also from official propaganda that referred to a “treacherous attack” by Hitler. It could only have been considered treachery if the Soviet Union were attacked by its own ally. The Soviet Union thus bears some responsibility for allowing Hitler a free hand in Western Europe, though some historians argue that he had little choice given the reluctance of the British and French to form an alliance with the Soviet side. 
Both Stalin and his chief general, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, were always prepared to sacrifice troops for territorial gains. Stalin was never interested in hearing casualty lists. Rather, in the early part of the war he ordered armies to remain firm as they were being encircled by the German Blitzkrieg operations resulting in the capture of more than 5.5 million prisoners of war, many of whom died in captivity. Front commanders who retreated were shot. By 1942, more than 77,000 Soviet citizens had been executed by the NKVD for “cowardice” and “treachery.”
These tactics were put into legal form with two decrees: Order 270, issued on Aug. 16, 1941, made it a criminal offense for any soldier to surrender; and Order 227, applied on July 28, 1942, declared that any commander retreating without express permission would be tried before a military tribunal. This policy was known informally as “Not a step backward!” To ensure that such demands were met, the NKVD dug trenches behind Soviet armies, filled with sharpshooters who would dispense summary justice to any soldiers who might feel inclined to flee from the Germans. 
As the defeats turned to victories after the Battle of Stalingrad (from August 1942 to Feb. 2, 1943), Stalin’s generals ordered rapid advances even during spring flooding, and they sent troops en masse across major rivers. Hundreds drowned crossing the Dnepr River to recapture Kiev. No one ever explained to Soviet citizens why their army lost three times more than the Germans. In 1945, Stalin ordered his front commanders Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev to race for Berlin, while Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky’s troops advanced to the north of the city. 
Berlin was duly captured, but the losses were extraordinarily high. The Soviet army, with Stalin’s encouragement, went on the rampage in former German and Austrian territories, raping, pilfering and murdering. In the Soviet Union’s western borderlands, new wars broke out with local insurgents that lasted into the 1950s in Ukraine and the Baltic states. 
Though Soviet writings focused constantly on German atrocities in the postwar period, there was never any specific information about Germany’s execution of the Holocaust on Soviet territory. Rather, official Soviet reports focused on prisoners liberated from Nazi camps without specifying the Jewish identity of the victims. By the late 1940s, Stalin had begun his own campaign of anti-Semitism. He had no wish to turn his new Jewish enemies into victims; in fact, members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist League were the first to be targeted. 
The Soviet Union also consistently denied the NKVD’s execution of some 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn, Tver (Kalinin) and Kharkov in 1940. It never explained satisfactorily why, after encouraging the Polish resistance movement, which was called the Polish Home Army, to mount an uprising in Warsaw at the start of August 1944, it allowed the First Belarussian Front of Rokossovsky to observe the battle from the east bank of the Vistula without offering any aid. Stalin even refused Allied planes the right to land and refuel on Soviet territory in order to assist the Poles. The Germans not only crushed the insurgents, but they destroyed Warsaw afterward. 
The Soviet Union emerged from the war as a superpower. But this doesn’t excuse the fact that official Soviet propaganda ignored the crucial role that Western aid to the Soviet Union, such as lend-lease, or the opening of the Western front — albeit somewhat delayed — played in the Soviet and Allied victory. Stalin was given the benefit of the doubt by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt — even to the extent of allowing the Soviets to enter Berlin first. This, one could argue, precipitated the Cold War. Stalin outmaneuvered Roosevelt and Churchill at the Yalta conference in February 1945 and gained control over East European states. Over the next three years, Stalin imposed Communist regimes that would last for four decades.
These events render May 9 a mixed blessing. The sacrifice of the Soviet people in defeating Hitler and fascism should never be forgotten. At the same time, however, the current Russian leaders should not forget or gloss over the callousness and cruelty of the regime that ruled their country during the war years. 

David Marples, a professor of Russian history at the University of Alberta, Canada, is the author of “The Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991.”

TITLE: Russia’s Disabled People Find Life a Struggle
AUTHOR: By Svetlana Osadchuk
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Every morning, Vadim Voyevodin performed the same ritual: Bending over almost parallel to the ground, he lifted the baby onto his back, slung a towel around his son and knotted the edges around his chest. The little boy remained pressed close to his father’s body throughout the day as he cleaned the house or cooked. 
“I always dreamed of having a child, but I never imagined that this dream would come true at a time when I was single and handicapped,” says Voyevodin, 59, who lives in a one-room apartment in northern Moscow with his son, now 16, who is also named Vadim. 
Voyevodin has not left the apartment in more than 10 years. Many disabled Muscovites, especially those with spinal problems, are effectively locked within the four walls of their homes - doorways and elevators are rarely big enough for wheelchairs, and the Moscow metro and bus systems are not designed for people with disabilities. 
Voyevodin used to have a wheelchair, but it was broken several years ago. Now he moves around his apartment in an ordinary office chair equipped with wheels. 
“There are too many bureaucratic procedures to endure to get a new one for free. I have no courage to do it,” he said. 
Under new rules introduced in 2006, all disabled people applying for federal benefits must have their disabilities verified by the state. Even amputees, paraplegics and those with genetic disorders must go through a lengthy process to confirm their disability and define the extent of it. They must obtain documentation from a variety of doctors as well as from their local department of social services, department of residential services, bureau of medical and social analysis and social security office. And naturally, visiting all these agencies requires standing in long lines. 
The process takes two to four months, and while the application is in process, the applicant has no right to any allowances or other privileges. Receiving the document that certifies the disability is only a temporary victory, however. The certification is only valid for a year, and then the process starts all over again. 
“They must think that my leg will grow next year while I secretly enjoy the privilege of moving around in a free wheelchair,” said Mikhail Ruchnov, 42, who has been certified as belonging to the category of people with the most severe disabilities. 
In his annual report on the disabled in Russia, human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin noted that the number of complaints about bureaucracy had increased in recent years. The report also points out that those who are certified as disabled often qualify for equipment that they are unable to use. 
Some, but not all, Russian apartment buildings have ramps designed for strollers, but these ramps are useless for wheelchairs. Additionally, many buildings have steps leading from the entrance to the elevator, and an October 2007 report from the social commission of Moscow’s Vostochnoye Degunino district, where Voyevodin lives, notes that many buildings in that region have a gap of up to 4 centimeters between the elevator and the floor, making it impossible for a wheelchair to enter without being lifted, even if the elevator is big enough. 
“My electric wheelchair weighs 110 kilograms. Who will lift it for me?” said Igor Lapin, 35, who lives alone. 
Lapin’s comments are echoed by people all over Russia who posted questions for former President Vladimir Putin on the web site www.president.yandex.ru. 
“My son’s wheelchair cannot fit through the doorway of our bathroom, so he cannot wash himself there,” wrote Natalia from Murmansk. She added that her son’s disabilities made it impossible for her to leave him alone and therefore she was unable to work. As the parent of a disabled child, she receives a monthly allowance from the state of 120 rubles ($4.80). The amount has not increased in 10 years. 
“If I hand my son over to the state, one month of caring for him in a group home would cost the state 15,000 rubles [$608]. It seems like the authorities are financially urging us to abandon our sick children,” she wrote. 
Vadim Voyevodin says it was very hard to raise his son, who is now 16. At times, they only had bread and kefir to eat. Friends collected second-hand clothes and shoes for them. But family friend Vera Marushkina says Vadim was a great father, devoting himself completely to his son. Today, their one-room apartment looks like a control room, full of cords and monitors. The room serves as both a bedroom and the office of the Foundation for the Defense of the Rights of Disabled People, which Voyevodin founded in 1991. 
“The elder Vadim is a very forthcoming person, although life was cruel to him,” said Vitaly Troyanovsky, a producer with the state television channel Kultura who included Voyevodin’s story in one of his documentaries on pre-perestroika Soviet Union. 
A native of Moscow, Voyevodin moved to Karshi, Uzbekistan, in 1980 to work as a producer at a youth music club and theater. Voyevodin said his success in that position earned him the envy of the local Communist Party boss’ son, Davron Gaipov, who considered himself the key figure in the local music scene. Shortly after a serious disagreement between the two, Voyevodin was arrested on suspicion of abuse of office and appropriation of club property. 
“They were false accusations. All the property was available in the club’s storage. But Gaipov was a kind of god in the city,” Voyevodin said. 
The case never went to court, but Voyevodin was held in a detention facility for almost four years. It was there on Aug. 25, 1985, that Interior Ministry soldiers beat him, fracturing his back. He returned to Moscow on a stretcher. No one was ever punished for the assault. 
It would be an overstatement to say the disabled lived well during Soviet era, but they did have some benefits, such as some free medication and an annual vacation at a sanatorium. This system of privileges continued until 2004, when a controversial law was passed that replaced these benefits with monthly cash payments. The law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2005. 
Another benefit involved a special car known as the Oka, an upgrade of a Soviet-era vehicle that was produced especially for the disabled. Certain categories of disabled people, including veterans and victims of Chernobyl, could receive an Oka for free, and all those who qualified for a wheelchair had the right to purchase an Oka at a 60 percent discount. This benefit was eliminated in 2005. 
Tatyana Morozova said she felt lucky to have an Oka, which gives her the opportunity to reach some small shops that are located beside the road. 
“They sell stuff through the window. I drive really close to them and buy things like at a drive-through,” she said. 
Tatyana Kozyreva, another wheelchair user who is also Voyevodin’s friend, usually travels by metro. 
“I bring my wheelchair close to the stairs and wait for someone to help take me down,” Kozyreva said. Sometimes she waits more than half an hour for someone to help her. She uses the same method to get out of the metro. 
Last year, the Moscow Department of Transportation introduced 30 special handicap-accessible buses, but this does not amount to much for a city with close to 1.5 million disabled citizens. Even if a wheelchair user manages to find one of the specially equipped buses, he will face more challenges once he reaches his destination. Curbs on most Moscow streets do not have gaps for wheelchairs, and few of the city’s stores, hospitals, restaurants, theaters and museums have wheelchair ramps. 
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov called the center of Moscow a wilderness for the disabled because of its lack of accessibility, ITAR-Tass reported. 
Voyevodin has always fought to improve life for the disabled and has become even more committed since establishing his foundation. Through the foundation, he pressed for the installation of banisters at the entrance to Morozova’s apartment building in northeastern Moscow. 
People in wheelchairs are rarely able to defend their rights in court simply because they cannot get there. Laws oblige court officials to visit disabled people with pending cases, but usually they try the cases in absentia. In 2005, Voyevodin filed a lawsuit seeking 32,000 rubles ($1,300) he claimed he was overcharged for electricity, but in his absence, the Timiryazevsky District Court in Moscow ruled in favor of the utilities provider, Mosenergo. 
While Voyevodin has solved problems for many of his friends, he has been unable to win any of these small victories for himself. His apartment features none of the special equipment for disabled people that can be found in Western countries. Vladimir Doronin, an engineer with Tekhma, a company that specializes in installing equipment for disabled people, said measurements were taken to install a special lift for the tub in Voyevodin’s apartment, but the addition has not been made. 
“We can do it, but somebody has to pay for this. It would cost about 50,000 [$20,030] rubles to equip his apartment with everything he needs,” Doronin said. 
Even if the state has verified an individual’s disability and determined what kind of technical aids may be needed, these aids, such as the kind of lift Doronin wants to install for Voyevodin, are not included in the state program for aid to the disabled, said Lin Nguen, a lawyer with the nongovernmental organization Perspektiva. 
Today, the younger Vadim tries to help his father as much as he can. They enjoy each other’s company and avoid talking about Vadim’s mother, who was a nurse at one of Moscow’s rehabilitation hospitals and disappeared from their lives when he was an infant. Voyevodin likes to talk about his passion for music and the theater and the artist friends he used to have. Many of his old friends tried to keep in touch after he became disabled, but most of them have fallen away over the years.


In Russia, the disabled simply live in a world apart.

TITLE: Bush’s Daughter Marries
AUTHOR: By Jeremy Pelofsky
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CRAWFORD — President George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna was married on Saturday evening to Henry Hager, the son of the Virginia Republican Party chairman, in front of more than 200 family members and close friends.
The 26-year-old teacher and author, wearing a white Oscar de la Renta dress, and Hager, wearing a suit, were married around sundown before a limestone altar with a giant cross erected on Bush’s 647-hectare ranch.
The wedding was a private affair with no press in attendance, but information dribbled out over the past few weeks, including the decor for the evening — landscape colors: green, lavender and blue — and the live entertainment for the reception: Super T.
Jenna Bush’s twin sister, Barbara, served as the maid of honor, and Hager’s brother Jack was the best man, according to the White House. The wedding party also included 14 female attendants and 14 male ushers.
A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Bush would take Hager’s name or where the newlyweds would take their honeymoon. The Washington Post reported they would spend it in Europe.
The couple plan to live in Baltimore, where she plans to teach and he will work at Constellation Energy, according to media reports. The 30-year-old groom is receiving his master’s degree in business next week, the reports said.
Hager worked as a White House aide and on Bush’s presidential campaign. His father, John Hager, previously served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor.
While the wedding guest list was limited to family and close friends, the small town of Crawford was cashing in on the event with gift shops doing a brisk business in “Jenna and Henry” souvenir coffee mugs, mouse pads, Christmas ornaments and key chains.

TITLE: Felipe Massa Wins Turkish Grand Prix
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ISTANBUL — Ferrari’s Felipe Massa won the Turkish Grand Prix from pole position for the third year in a row on Sunday after tyre concerns slowed Lewis Hamilton’s challenge.
The Brazilian took the chequered flag 3.7 seconds ahead of the 23-year-old McLaren driver, who ran most of the race on the harder tyres and had to make three pitstops compared to his rivals’ two.
It was Massa’s seventh win in Formula One, at the anti-clockwise track where he took his first in 2006, and his second in five races this season.
Ferrari’s world champion Kimi Raikkonen saw his overall lead trimmed to seven points from nine after finishing a close third. The Finn, the only driver to score points in every race this season, now has 35 to Massa and Hamilton’s 28.
Massa’s win was champions Ferrari’s fourth in a row and meant that the Turkish Grand Prix, which made its debut in 2005, has still only ever been won by the driver on pole position.
Three of his wins have come in Turkey, prompting a suggestion that the Brazilian should change nationality: “I think I can get a passport here already,” he grinned.
Poland’s Robert Kubica was fourth, ahead of BMW Sauber team mate Nick Heidfeld.
Double world champion Fernando Alonso put Renault back in the points with sixth place while Australian Mark Webber was seventh to score for the fourth race in a row. Germany’s Nico Rosberg took the final point for Williams.
Massa led from the start while Hamilton, winner of the season-opener in Australia, accelerated past his McLaren team mate Heikki Kovalainen from third on the grid with Kubica close behind.
The safety car came out at the end of the opening lap when Italian Giancarlo Fisichella’s Force India slammed into the back of Kazuki Nakajima’s Williams at the first corner, leaving debris on the track.
Kovalainen, coming back from a big accident two weeks ago and making his first start on the front row, went to the back of the field when he pitted at the end of the second lap with a puncture after banging wheels with Raikkonen. He finished 12th.
Hamilton pitted after 16 laps and then brilliantly overtook Massa, who had come in three laps later, for the lead on lap 24.
The Briton then pitted again at the end of lap 32, with Massa again taking over at the front until his second and final pitstop when Raikkonen took over for three laps before again leaving Hamilton ahead.
But the youngster knew he had to pit again for the softer tyres, with drivers having to use both types during the race, and he made his third stop with 13 laps to go before coming back out in second place.
Team boss Ron Dennis revealed later that the Briton’s hopes of winning were already looking doubtful because of tyre concerns.
“Heikki got clipped by Kimi and cut a sidewall,” he said of Kovalainen’s misfortune.
“With Lewis, we had a bit of a structural concern with the tyres.”

TITLE: Russia Beat Sweden to Maintain Record
AUTHOR: By Steve Keating
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Eric Staal scored four goals and Martin St. Louis chipped in with five assists to lift Canada to a crushing 10-1 win over Germany and a place in the world championship quarterfinals.
In Quebec City, NHL scoring champion Alexander Ovechkin tallied with six seconds remaining in regulation to lift Russia to a thrilling 3-2 win over Olympic champions Sweden and top spot in Group E with a perfect record.
In other Group E action, Ales Kotalik scored the tying goal in regulation and the winner in a shootout as the Czech Republic edged Belarus 3-2.
Canada, who needed a late goal to beat Norway in their opening game, came out hard against the Germans, storming to a 4-0 first-period lead on the way to their 14th straight championship win.
Staal, who had just two assists in Canada’s four previous games, led the assault with his second period hat-trick.
“Tonight was one of those nights where the puck just seemed to be finding my stick,” Staal told reporters. 
The Russia-Sweden clash was highlighted by a duel between two players vying to be named the NHL’s top netminder but it was MVP candidate Ovechkin who stole the spotlight.
Russia’s Yevgeny Nabokov and Sweden’s Henrik Lundqvist produced the expected steady work in the net, facing 42 and 30 shots respectively.
But Lundqvist could only manage to get a piece of Ovechkin’s game winner, the puck bouncing off his pads and landing in the net to end the ill-tempered contest in which game misconducts was handed out to Russia’s Ilya Kovalchuk.

TITLE: ‘Unimaginable Tragedy’ Awaits Myanmar
AUTHOR: By Aung Hla Tun
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: YANGON — Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta on Sunday in search of food, water and medicine but aid workers said thousands of them would die if emergency supplies do not get through soon.
Buddhist temples and schools in towns on the outskirts of the storm’s trail of destruction are now makeshift refugee centers for women, children and the elderly — some of the 1.5 million people left clinging to survival.
The reclusive military government is accepting aid from the outside world, including the United Nations, but has made it clear it will not let in the foreign logistics teams needed to transport the aid into the inundated delta.
“Unless there is a massive and fast infusion of aid, experts and supplies into the hardest-hit areas, there’s going to be a tragedy on an unimaginable scale,” said Greg Beck of the International Rescue Committee.
In the delta town of Labutta, where 80 percent of homes were destroyed, the authorities were providing just one cup of rice per family per day, a European Commission aid official told Reuters.
The scenes are the same across the delta, the former “Rice Bowl of Asia” where as many as 100,000 people are feared dead in the worst cyclone to hit the continent since 1991, when 143,000 people died in neighboring Bangladesh.
“We have 900 people here but we only have 300 lunch boxes. We gave it to the women and children first. The men still have not had any food,” one woman said at a relief centre in the town of Myaung Mya, 100 km (60 miles) west of Yangon.
“More are coming every day,” she said.
The lives of 1.5 million people in cyclone affected areas are at risk due to disease outbreaks unless a tsunami-like aid effort is mobilized, international agency Oxfam said on Sunday.
“In the Boxing Day tsunami 250,000 people lost their lives in the first few hours, but we did not see an outbreak of disease because the host governments and the world mobilized a massive aid effort to prevent it from happening,” Oxfam’s Regional Director for East Asia Sara Ireland told reporters in Bangkok. “We have to do the same for the people of Myanmar.”
The cyclone is one of the worst disasters since the December 26, 2004 tsunami that hit a dozen countries along the Indian Ocean.
The government’s official death toll stands at 23,350 dead and 37,019 missing from the May 2 disaster. Most of the victims were killed by the 12-foot (3.5 meter) wall of sea-water that slammed into the delta.
The UN has appealed for $187 million in aid, even though it is still not confident the food, water, medicines, bedding and utensils flown in will make it to those most in need because of the junta’s reluctance to admit international relief workers.
Australia dramatically increased its aid contribution to the cyclone victims on Sunday, pledging an extra A$22 million to take its total offer to A$25 million ($23.4 million).
The World Food Programme said on Sunday it was now moving aid down to its field headquarters in Labutta using trucks provided by its long-time partners in Myanmar, including the Red Cross.
The WFP has flown in seven shipments of aid, and an eighth was due to land on Sunday, WFP spokesman in Bangkok Marcus Prior told Reuters. The agency reported its food shipments had been briefly impounded on Friday at Yangon airport.
Despite the alarm bells from the international community, the junta has kept its focus firmly on a seven-step “roadmap to democracy” that is meant to culminate in multi-party elections in 2010 and bring an end to nearly five decades of military rule in the former Burma.
The New Light of Myanmar, the junta’s main mouthpiece, carried a front-page photograph of military supremo Than Shwe and his wife casting their ballots in Saturday’s constitutional referendum in Naypyidaw, the remote new capital he built in 2005.
The paper said election officials were “systematically and accurately” counting the ballots, but said nothing about when the results would be released.
The referendum, the first exercise in democracy in nearly 20 years, has been delayed by two weeks in the worst-hit areas, including Yangon, the former capital and city of five million.
There is little doubt about the final result.
The generals spurned offers of United Nations monitors, and in the run-up to the vote army-run media pumped out a relentless barrage of propaganda, telling the country’s 53 million people it was their “patriotic duty” to approve the charter, which enshrines the army’s grip on power.
“I voted yes. It was what I was asked to do,” 57-year-old U Hlaing told Reuters in the town of Hlegu, northwest of Yangon.
Even before Cyclone Nargis hit, groups opposed to military rule, and foreign governments led by the United States, had denounced the vote.

TITLE: French Soccer Championship To Be Decided by Last Matches of Season
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: PARIS — Bordeaux coach Laurent Blanc is confident his side have what it takes to claim their first French league crown in nine years at the expense of champions Lyon as both won their penultimate games on Saturday to ensure the title race will be decided on the final day of competition. Blanc’s side maintained their title push with a 2-0 win against Sochaux as Lyon, the six-time consecutive champions, emerged 1-0 winners from their home encounter with Nancy, who are fighting to retain third place.
However, the display from Alain Perrin’s champions, who needed a 62nd-minute own goal from Andre Luiz Silva to ensure victory, is likely to give Bordeaux renewed hope that Auxerre can cause an upset against Lyon in Burgundy next week.
Fernando Menegazzo opened for Bordeaux on the stroke of half-time before Marouane Chamakh added the second in the 59th minute.
Bordeaux, just two points behind the leaders, make the trip to relegation-threatened Lens next week. And Blanc was delighted with his side’s performance which leaves them within touching distance of their first league title since 1999.
“Congratulations to the players! We had to take the three points to be able to keep our dream alive ... we needed to be up to the job and we were,” said Blanc. But he admitted that it would be hard to wrest the title from Lyon.
“It’s still in Lyon’s hands to be French champions. They remain ahead and even if they aren’t as dominant they have a strength in depth which will help them be French champions for the seventh time.“At least we will have pushed the champions of the last few years who have gotten used to celebrating their titles 3, 4 or 5 weeks before the end.”

TITLE: Blair, Brown Bickered, Says Ex-Deputy
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown was dealt a further blow on Sunday when former deputy prime minister John Prescott disclosed he had urged Tony Blair to sack Brown when he was chancellor.
In memoirs serialized in The Sunday Times, Prescott described the tempestuous relationship between the two men in the years before Blair stood down last June, and said the prime minister had been scared to act against Brown.
Prescott’s claims come at a difficult time for Brown, already struggling after crushing local election losses, collapsing opinion poll ratings and damaging revelations about his behavior while serving in Blair’s government.
In extracts from her memoirs on Saturday, Blair’s wife Cherie accused Brown, who had long sought the prime minister’s job, of “putting too much pressure on Tony to quit when Tony wasn’t ready.”
Prescott said he spent much of his time acting as a conciliator, with “hundreds” of phone calls and meetings dealing with “Blair-Brown issues.”

TITLE: Obama Lays Bare McCain Strategy, Looks Ahead to November Election
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEND, Oregon — Barack Obama began sketching the outlines of his expected presidential contest against Republican John McCain on Saturday, saying the fall election will be more about specific plans and priorities than about questions of political ideology or who is more patriotic.
Barely mentioning Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he was open to campaigning with McCain in “town hall” events. But he also warned that controversial issues such as McCain’s ties to the Keating Five savings and loan scandal are fair game, and he called McCain’s proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax a pander and a gimmick.
He did not mention that Clinton supports a similar plan.
Obama also said he soon will campaign in Michigan and Florida, two battleground states whose Democratic primaries were essentially nullified by party disputes, angering many voters. He is scheduled to campaign Tuesday in Missouri, marking the first such visit to a state where the primary is over and McCain awaits him in the fall.
Saying he still has not secured the nomination, Obama nonetheless entertained several questions about the likely outlines of a contest against McCain. As he campaigned in Oregon, whose primary is May 20, Obama picked up four superdelegate endorsements, erasing Clinton’s once-substantial lead among the party leaders who will determine the nominee.
Many party leaders feel it is only a matter of time before the former first lady must concede defeat. But Clinton forged ahead Saturday, holding a fundraiser in New York.
“Let’s keep going, stay with me, this is a great adventure and we’re going to make history,” she told the crowd.
Speaking with reporters in Oregon, Obama brushed aside suggestions that the fall campaign may be largely about his race, liberalism or patriotism.
“In a contest between myself and John McCain,” he said, “there is going to be a very clear choice on policy that I don’t think is going to have to do with ideology and who theoretically is more liberal or who’s more conservative. I think it is going to have to do with who has a plan to provide relief to people when it comes to their gas prices, who has a real plan to make sure that everybody has health insurance... So rather than an abstract set of questions about, ‘Is he too liberal, is he too conservative, how do voters handle an African American, et cetera,’ I think this is going to be a very concrete contest.”

TITLE: Chelsea Hit by Injuries Ahead of Moscow
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Chelsea manager Avram Grant said Didier Drogba as well as John Terry had picked up injuries on Sunday, 10 days before they play Manchester United in the Champions League final.
But the Israeli coach looked relaxed after his side finished second to United in the Premier League with a 1-1 draw against Bolton Wanderers and said he had sent his congratulations to a victorious Alex Ferguson.
Terry was taken off on a stretcher with an injured arm in the first half and Drogba jarred his knee near the end of the match.
“Terry hasn't broken his elbow but we need to wait and see,” Grant said. “If it was down to his character he would be sure to play, but it’s up to the medical team,” a smiling Grant added.
Terry returned after an x-ray to lead his team on a lap of honour and said he was optimistic he would play.
On Ivory Coast striker Drogba, Grant said: “It doesn't look so good but we need to wait. We have 10 days.”
Grant said his side should be proud of what they had achieved by reaching the Champions League final and running Manchester United so close in the league despite the squad suffering a host of injuries.
“It's not easy to be following after teams all the time,” he said referring to the chase behind United and Arsenal that Chelsea had had most of the season.
“But we must congratulate Manchester United and Alex Ferguson. He’s a great manager and a great person and I like him personally,” he said.
 “It was a tough one alright,” Ferguson told Sky Sports.
“We had some nervous moments and when it started to rain anything can happen on the greasy surface.
“Then our oldest player, Ryan Giggs, 10 medals, comes on and scores, fantastic.”
United play Chelsea in the Champions League final in Moscow on May 21.

TITLE: Dinara Safina Wins In Germany
AUTHOR: By Iain Rogers
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BERLIN — Dinara Safina of Russia fought back from a set down for the third time in the tournament to win the German Open on Sunday with a 3-6 6-2 6-2 victory over seventh-seeded compatriot Yelena Dementieva.
The 22-year-old Safina came from behind to beat world number one Justine Henin and eight-times grand slam winner Serena Williams en route to the final, where she captured her sixth career singles title.
The 13th seed was far too erratic in the first set but came back strongly in the second with some lusty hitting and won it with an ace down the middle.
She then broke twice in the deciding set and sealed victory when Dementieva netted a backhand return on the first match point after just over two hours of play on the clay at the Steffi Graf stadium.
Safina said the key to her victory was the number of drop-shot winners she nailed.
“I think I hit like 20 of them and I won maybe 18,” she told a news conference.
“This week I played them so good, starting in the match with Justine. Then every match I was more and more confident.”
Safina, who wins $196,900, had been victorious both times the pair had met on clay while Dementieva, who used to be coached by Safina’s mother, had won the other two of their previous four meetings.
“After the first set I just let myself down and I didn’t continue to play as well,” Dementieva told a news conference.
“She was serving quite well, especially the first service,” the 26-year-old added. “I feel like I had some opportunities but I just didn’t take my chances, especially in the second set.”
Dementieva beat world number two Ana Ivanovic in straight sets in their semi-final on Saturday and will climb to seventh in the world from ninth when the rankings are updated on Monday.
A former top-10 player, Safina is projected to rise to number 14 from 17.
She was coy about her chances at the French Open, the only grand slam on clay, that starts at the end of this month.
“I really don’t know,” she said. “If I can continue playing like this. The only thing I want is to stay healthy. Especially now that I have found my game on clay and I’m feeling good.”

TITLE: Australian Athletes Permitted To Speak Freely at Olympics
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SYDNEY — Australian athletes at this year's Beijing Olympics have been told they will be free to express their opinions on any issues, including Tibet and China's human rights record.
The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) said their athletes would be allowed to discuss anything they wanted in media interviews and online blogs, but would not be allowed to make political protests inside Olympic venues.
“The bottom line is that, for us, athletes are entitled to an opinion and express that opinion,” AOC president John Coates told reporters in Sydney on Saturday.
“We are trying to maintain a decency about the way the Games are conducted… but still we are giving the athletes the opportunity to express for what many of them are important issues.”
Coates said the AOC did not believe that freedom of speech constituted a demonstration, which is banned under the Olympic charter, but Australian athletes would be told where to draw the line and political demonstrations would not be allowed.
Coates said Australian athletes would be told that the Games were about sport and they must respect the dignity of the host nation China, their fellow athletes and the Olympic charter.
“We don't want banners and t-shirts and things in the village which is meant to be a place where 10,500 athletes get together,” Coates said.
“You can imagine that if the Iraqi team turned up with t-shirts telling us (Australia) and Britain and the U.S. to get out of Iraq, there could be some unpleasant things happen in the village.

n Slovak brothers Peter and Pavel Hochschorner set their sights on a third successive Olympic title when they won the C2 canoe title at the European slalom championships on Sunday.
Second were another pair of Slovakian brothers, Peter and Ladislav Skantar. Another Slovakian, 2000 and 2004 Olympic silver medallist Michal Martikan, won the men’s C1 title.
Stepanka Hilgertova of Czech Republic won the women’s K1 title.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Record-Breaking Walk</b>
CHEBOKSARY, Russia (AP) — Denis Nizhegorodov set a world record in the men’s 50-kilometer race walk at a World Cup meet Sunday, shaving 1 minute, 34 seconds off the old mark.The Russian finished in 3 hours, 34 minutes, 13 seconds at a course along the banks of the Volga river.
The previous record of 3:35:47 was set by Nathan Deakes of Australia at Geelong, Australia, on Dec. 2, 2006.
With the win, Nizhegorodov, Athens Olympics silver medalist, has secured a spot at the Olympic competition in Beijing in August.

<b>Heavyweight Clash</b>
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The heavyweight title fight between WBA champion Ruslan Chagaev of Uzbekistan and Nikolai Valuev of Russia will be held in Hannover on July 5.
The fight was scheduled for May 31 in Oberhausen, but was postponed because Chagaev has a viral infection. The unbeaten Chagaev (24 wins, 1 draw) won a majority decision against Valuev in April 2007. Valuev (48-1) won a lopsided decision against former WBO champion Sergei Liakhovich in February.
Universum promotions said Thursday that WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm will fight Randy Griffin on the same card.

<b>Mauresmo Pulls Out</b>
ROME, (Reuters) — Former world number one Amelie Mauresmo has pulled out of the Italian Open which starts on Monday because of a rib injury, organisers said on Sunday.
France’s Mauresmo, who pulled out of this week’s German Open because of the injury, will be replaced in the main draw in Rome by Russia’s Nadia Petrova.

<b>Flintoff Ruled Out</b>
LONDON (Reuters) — All-rounder Andrew Flintoff has been ruled out of England’s first two tests against New Zealand after picking up a side strain playing for Lancashire, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said on Saturday.
The former captain had been hoping for a recall after a 14-month test absence despite playing only a few county games after surgery for a persistent ankle problem.

TITLE: Newspaper’s Founder Recalls the Early Days
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Times celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. Lloyd Donaldson was one of the founders of The St. Petersburg Press, which was later renamed The St. Petersburg Times. Here he writes about the early days of the newspaper.

Incidents and memorable moments were never far apart for the journalists who staffed The St. Petersburg Times in its early days. The mafia sometimes visited, businessmen threatened to sue, officials occasionally pressured us — none were humored. Everything was new, things were changing fast, and our initially inexperienced journalists rode the hurricane of events with relish.
The first journalist taken on was Alistair Crighton from Scotland. At one point he disappeared for three days — to my annoyance, given our looming deadline. He emerged, unshaven and stinking of drink, having nailed the rumors of bandits fleecing alcoholics of the ownership deeds to their apartments through a combination of vodka and violence — complete with first-hand quotes and photos of the armed gang he spent those days with. He later worked with The Times of London and now edits a magazine in Dubai.
The second man on, Yevgeny Pogorelov, reported on an American whom the traffice police (GAI) had shot at 17 times in a high-speed chase, but initially followed the GAI line that this was because the man had run a red light! These were the early days — training was a work in progress. Yevgeny carved out a career in PR in Brussels.
Drew Wilson, a former U.S. paratrooper who wrote business for us, was spooked by a nasty brush with bandits. We both bought gas pistols — illegally — for protection, and being a military man he insisted we test them. I suggested shooting a dog (I’m not a fan): Drew, appalled, insisted I shoot him instead. Later that night I did, possibly the only shot ever fired in the newspaper’s office. Drew now mixes journalism with writing books.
Ron Lorenzo, an American whose Russian was flawless (as was his German and skills as a pianist), fed his need for some bang-bang action with a trip to Nagorno-Karabakh — he navigated the treacherous mountains locked inside a refrigerated truck with a band of fighters. The same year he shot the front-page picture of our coverage of the 1993 Moscow fighting. He is now a pilot.
Yevgenia Borisova was also there, and I remember her shock as we rounded a corner behind the burning White House and she saw her first corpse — she went on to see many more in Abkhazia and Chechnya. For The Moscow Times she spent months on a stunning investigative piece that proved vote-rigging in the first round of the election that brought Putin to power in 2000. She is now in New Zealand working on a PhD in journalism.
There were many other memorable events and journalists in those early days. The diminutive Rachel Katz, later with Newsweek. Englishman Michael Randall, whose need to get close to the action saw him strafed by a jet in Chechnya, went on to work for the BBC World Trust. Ali Nassor from Tanzania came to us with a story about black students being beaten — then a novel topic — and spent many years with the paper. Garfield Reynolds, an Australian whose talent and gruff, prodigious energy produced the best papers we had published to date, later worked with Bloomberg.
Tony Hall, possibly the most upright journalist ever to work at the paper, attempted an ill-advised illegal border-crossing in 1994 after being pulled off the night-train to Narva. The FSB were still reminding me of it years later. Charles Digges’ and Anna Badkhen’s dogged work on the Nikitin spy-scandal led the country’s media. Anna was reporting from Iraq for The San Francisco Chronicle last time I heard. Unfortunate Andy Schub was a free-lancer only, but on assignment with us in Chechnya. His camera and passport were recovered, but his body never found. 
Sometimes the seriousness of what we were doing struck home. Brian Whitmore, whose astute political coverage added much gravitas to the paper, informed me in 1996 that the closely contested mayoral election would mark the first ever democratic transition of power in Russian history. Other days were just bizarre. U.S. photographer Paul Miller, sent to cover a simple PR event, came back with pictures of a TV cameraman shooting the band with a camera on his left shoulder, and a pistol in his right hand.
A personal memorable moment was my 30th birthday in 1993, which I spent in Abkhazia watching the bodies of 127 executed soldiers exhumed one-by-one from a mass grave. It took days for the stench of rotting human flesh to leach out of my clothes. The images I photographed remain seared in my mind 15 years later. 
The photos were too graphic to use, but I recall another photograph that did make the front page. One day in 1995 photographer Alexander Belenky turned in a shot of 3,000 tanks waiting to be broken up for scrap — the sheer waste of it struck me forcibly. Sasha joined in 1993, already one of the city’s top photographers. He made a career with The St. Petersburg Times spanning 15 years. He is still with the paper.

TITLE: Looking Back Over 15 Years of News Coverage
TEXT: 1993
On May 11, The St. Petersburg Press — later to be renamed The St. Petersburg Times — brought out its first issue. St. Petersburg People Vote for Independent City Republic Status, read the issue’s top headline for a story written by Konstantin Borisov. In a four-question federal referendum on the presidency, the congress and reforms, 75 percent of St. Petersburg voters answered yes to an extra question on whether they favored turning the city into an autonomous republic. 
Greater independence was something that would remain a popular theme among Petersburgers during the trials and tribulations of 1993. In August, the Central Bank of Russia added to those woes with a bombshell announcement — the bank gave just 36 hours notice that all old-style Soviet banknotes, issued between 1961 and 1992, would be withdrawn from circulation. The city’s Sberbanks were besieged as the locals stood in line to change their old money for new. 
In 1993, however, much of the real action was in Moscow, as supporters of President Yeltsin and his parliamentary foes clashed. It made for high-adrenaline reading: “At the time of going to press (midday Monday), T-72 tanks of the Taman Motor Rifle Division are pouring fire into the White House parliamentary buildings. Airborne troops have been landing on the building.” 

1994
The year began with a royal flourish, with a visit by Britain’s Prince Charles. “The trouble in coming to St. Petersburg is the difficulty of leaving it,” he told The St. Petersburg Press. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II would visit the city later in the same year on the Royal Yacht Britannia. 
The year also had a sporting theme, with the Goodwill Games being hosted in the city. 
The newspaper also reported a seamier side to 1994, however, with one of the country’s top nationalists, Yury Belyayev, left fighting for his life after he was gunned down by a rooftop sniper. Two of his bodyguards were killed in the assassination attempt. Three Kaliningrad residents were also busted for trying to sell a container of nuclear materials to a St. Petersburg resident for $1 million.
And then, of course, there was the unstoppable onslaught of capitalism. McDonald’s to Raise Golden Arches Over St. Petersburg, read the headline to a story about the American burger giant being poised to set up shop in the city. In fact, it was only in 1996 that McDonald’s opened its first fast-food joint in St. Petersburg, a full six years after Moscow.  

1995
Political and military chaos continued into 1995, with a top headline from the year’s first issue reading Russian Collapse Feared Over Bloody Chechen Campaign. “A handwritten note proclaiming ‘Welcome To Hell’ greeted foolhardy visitors to smoke-covered Grozny as Russian troops poured in artillery, mortar and rocket fire.”  
There was some light entertainment for locals and inhabitants of the city — City Center Shaken But Not Stirred, quipped a headline: “The latest model T-72 tanks rumbled past Pushkin’s house along the Moika Embankment last week as part of the action in the new Bond thriller “GoldenEye.” 
A major local story of the year was covered for The St. Petersburg Press by Mike McCoy, pseudonym of Mike Freedman, who provided the paper’s immensely popular Crimewatch column. City’s Al Capone in Court, read the headline to a story he wrote with Linda Jones. “Admirers crowded the public gallery and gleaming black Mercedes automobiles waited outside as the reputed godfather of one of St. Petersburg’s most feared mafia gangs came to trial. Alexander Malyshev, 49, faces a catalog of crimes linked with his gang’s activities and is joined by 17 fellow defendants — including two police officers.” A headline a few months later wrapped up the story: Malyshev Walks Free.
Towards the end of the year, St. Petersburg’s residents distinguished themselves in State Duma elections. “More than 2 million residents of St. Petersburg cast their ballots in the Duma elections, and most of them bucked a national trend by voting for Grigory Yavlinsky’s liberal Yabloko party,” wrote Yevgenia Borisova, a St. Petersburg Press journalist who established her reputation at the newspaper before going on to write highly regarded investigative reports for The Moscow Times. 

1996
Borisova covered another story that would return with alarming frequency over the years — the pressure put on St. Petersburg environmental activist Alexander Nikitin. In February, the newspaper reported that international condemnation was mounting over his arrest by the Federal Security Services and his having been charged with treason and spying — charges that left him facing the death penalty. 
It was a two-way street however, with complaints also being directed at the West. “The Russian Olympic Committee formally complained about everything from Olympic village living conditions to American television coverage to the greasy junk food,” read an article on Russia’s media coverage of the Atlanta games. 
The year’s political reporting was dominated by the presidential elections, which would result in, as the Press put it, “the beginning of a new epoch: For the first time as an independent country, Russia inaugurated a leader chosen in democratic elections.” 
The end of the year, however, brought a mixed bag of news. The two-year war in Chechnya was brought to an end, though State Duma deputies threatened to impeach President Yeltsin for caving in to Chechen separatist demands. And the environmentalist Nikitin, having been held for 10 months, charged with being a traitor and spy, was released. Good news? Not entirely. He would soon be back inside. 

1997
The tumultuous 1990s rolled on, and for many the mood was dark. In March, about 110,000 angry demonstrators took to the streets in St. Petersburg as part of a Russia-wide protest against a grinding crisis in federal wage and pension arrears. And it was a period in which Petersburg developed a perhaps undeserved reputation as the country’s “capital of crime.” Some high-profile hits didn’t help: “Vice Governor Mikhail Manevich was assassinated Monday morning on Nevsky Prospekt by a sniper who fired eight bullets into his car from an AK-47 assault rifle,” Issue 290 told us. It’s a crime that remains unsolved to this day.
Petersburg took another hit in the same month of August when President Yeltsin stripped the city’s Channel 5 of its national broadcasting network. That status would only be restored a decade later. 

1998
For a year that will forever be remembered in Russia for economic catastrophe, it all started so well — Elusive New Ruble Launched Amid Calm, read a headline in the newspaper’s first issue of the year. “Three zeroes were officially lopped from the national currency and new ruble notes were created with the start of the New Year,” read the story. 
A few months later, Yeltsin fired Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and his entire cabinet, saying that the lagging job of economic reform needed ‘more energy’ from a new team.” In Petersburg, meanwhile, “St. Petersburg quietly welcomed Russia’s last tsar home, when nine small coffins bearing the remains of Nicholas II, his family and four servants arrived from Yekatinburg and were transferred to the Peter and Paul Fortress to lie in state before internment,” according to a story written by John Varoli.
In August, the threatened economic storm broke. “Fears of a ruble devaluation sent Russian markets into panic Thursday as interest rates on government debt leapt and the stock market was shut down after a huge drop,” read a story from August 14. By August 28, the headline was Financial Meltdown Hits Stocks, Businesses, and the news was not good:  “With the ruble having no recognized value for the second day running, St. Petersburg and Moscow business circles were thrown into a state of near panic Thursday.” 
In fact, panic fever wasn’t restricted to those business circles, with Yeltsin having yet again fired his entire cabinet just a few days before in order to restore Chernomyrdin as PM. “More energy” from a new team, it seemed, wasn’t quite what was needed anymore.
The real significance of some stories only becomes apparent with the benefit of hindsight, a small article by staff writer Brian Whitmore in late July of 1998 being a good case in point: “St. Petersburg native Vladimir Putin has been tapped by President Boris Yeltsin as head of the Federal Security Service after the president sacked Nikolai Kovalyov without giving any clear reason for doing so.” Watch this space...

1999
Events in the Balkans dominated the headlines in the early part of the year, with NATO launching a series of air raids on Yugoslavia and Russia expressing outrage at the bombing. 
In August, Yeltsin appointed yet another prime minister. “Visibly irritated by the Kremlin’s sudden swapping of prime ministers, the State Duma barely confirmed Vladimir Putin on Monday, granting him just six votes more than the 226 he needed,” read an article by Melissa Akin published on Aug. 17. 
Events developed at a breakneck pace. “A powerful explosion ripped apart a nine-story apartment building on the southeast fringes of the capital Thursday, killing at least 32 people, injuring more than 150 and burying more than 50 under the smoldering rubble,” read the lead to a story in early September. Having linked the Moscow apartment bombings to Chechen separatists — though some would dispute the connection — Russia and Putin’s response was unequivocal. Thousands Flee Russsian Rockets in Grozny was the top headline in the paper by Sept. 28. “Russian airstrikes hammered Chechnya from morning until evening over the weekend and into Monday night, killing civilians, destroying homes, taking television and radio off the air and wrapping the capital of Grozny in the thick acrid smoke of raging fires.” 

2000
In February, St. Petersburg’s former mayor passed away. “Anatoly Sobchak, the law professor who convinced Leningraders to rename their city and elect him as their first mayor, died Sunday in a hotel room in the Kaliningrad region, apparently of a heart attack.”
Sobchak’s protege whilst head of the city government, meanwhile, was going from strength to strength. Putin was elected president just a few weeks later, having been appointed acting president by Yeltsin in an entirely unexpected move on New Year’s Eve.
In May, there was another election closer to home which provided Governor Vladimir Yakovlev with another term in office. 
August brought tragedy with the sinking of the Kursk, with none of the 118 submariners on board surviving. 
There was, however, some cause for celebration in the city: “St. Petersburg scientist and State Duma Deputy Zhores Alfyorov, this week’s Russian sensation for winning the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday, was greeted with a storm of applause at a Duma session the following day.” 
In national news, Putin’s establishment of “the power vertical” continued apace. In an early-March cabinet reshuffle, his close associate — and another Petersburger — Sergei Ivanov was appointed to the Defense Ministry. The month after, the former owner of the NTV television channel, Vladimir Gusinsky, announced that he was planning to sell his remaining stake in the station following unprecedented pressure from groups linked to the Kremlin. NTV, widely regarded as the last independent national channel, fell under the control of the state-dominated gas monopoly Gazprom.  
Other local news was of a more exotic nature, with a $1-million picture, “Pool in a Harem” by French artist Jean-Leon Gerome, being cut from its frame and stolen from the Hermitage, and a mass jailbreak in the Leningad Oblast leading to a vast manhunt to track down the 20 escaped cons. 

2002
As Kremlin-control over mass media continued to tighten, with the TV6 channel the latest to feel the heat, St. Petersburg was struck by the collapse of a nine-story apartment building which killed a 50-year-old man and left more than 400 people homeless.
In what would be big news for St. Petersburg, Russia was given full-member status of the G8 at its summit in the Canadian mountain resort of Kananaskis, along with the right to host a G8 summit of its own. 
It was a year that was scarred by tragedy. In July, a plane crash in Switzerland killed 72 people, 45 of them Russian children headed for an end-of-school beach vacation. 
Flooding across Russia and in its Black Sea region in particular led to the deaths of 70, but it was the horror of the Nord-Ost theater siege in Moscow that captured headlines around the world. The event’s denoument was tragic, with 117 killed in a bungled attempt to release the hostages through the use of a nerve gas. 

2003
As the invasion of Iraq was launched, the city prepared to celebrate its 300th anniversary on May 27, the date on which Peter the Great laid the cornerstone of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Vladimir Yakovlev oversaw the ceremonies for the big birthday bash, but in June he was moved to a position of deputy prime minister in the federal government, clearing the way for Valentina Matviyenko to make a successful bid for the governor’s job in October of the same year. 

2004
President Putin scored a second term in office in March “with a defensive pledge to strengthen democracy and freedom of the press, vows that clearly jarred with a presidential campaign and a first four years in office that centered on clamping down on political competition,” as reported by staff writer Catherine Belton. “Most of all, the main aim is to strengthen democratic institutions,” Putin told journalists at his campaign headquarters as the results became clear. 
Country In Grip of Terror read a headline from early September. “Terror gripped Russia on Thursday as citizens asked themselves when the wave of attacks suffered over the last fortnight would end. They woke up to an unresolved hostage crisis in a school in North Ossetia that started only a day after a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a Moscow metro station. That happened a week after two airliners were blown up mid-air, a blast occurred at a Moscow bus stop and a raid on Grozny was carried out by Chechen rebel forces on Aug. 21.”
The Beslan hostage siege dragged on, only to end in tragedy, and in its aftermath President Putin instituted radical changes. “Calling for a stronger state more capable of fighting terror, President Vladimir Putin announced a sweeping political shakeup Monday that would do away with popularly elected regional leaders and singlemandate State Duma deputies,” wrote staff writer Nabi Abdullaev. 

2005
In early January, St. Petersburg found itself under threat of flooding, with seven embankments covered with water, six metro stations closed in the city and waterlevels 1.50 meters above average.   
On the business front, Gazprom bought control of Sibneft from Roman Abramovich for $13.01 billion in the biggest takeover deal in Russian history, putting nearly one-third of the nation’s oil output in state hands. 
Despite the next presidential election being years away, editors, journalists and political pundits were already beginning the guessing game of identifying Putin’s favored candidate for the post, the fabled “heir” to the presidency. A reshuffle toward the end of the year highlighted two contenders, both Petersburgers, who would eventually be seen as the leading candidates — Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who was promoted to deputy prime minister, and a certain Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s chief of staff, who was promoted to first deputy prime minister.
The close of the year saw sporting triumph for the city when “the beast from the East,” St. Petersburger Nikolai Valuyev dethroned World Boxing Association Champion John Ruiz, becoming Russia’s first heavyweight champion. 

2006
In the midsts of a crisis in the Middle East, St. Petersburg prepared to host a major international event. “The international spotlight falls on St. Petersburg this weekend as it hosts the G8 summit,” wrote staff writer Galina Stolyarova. “But while the publicity from the top event is expected to bring numerous benefits later — such as a boom in foreign tourists — security arrangements now are adversely affecting many aspects of life in the city, from traffic routes to court hearings, from volleyball games to funerals. Even romantic boat trips along canals — one of the signature features of the White Nights — will not be permitted.”
The summit was deemed a success in terms of the presentation of the city, though there were complaints at the treatment of opposition activists and demonstrators and some questioned Russia’s right to membership of the exclusive G8 club. 
Later in the year, St. Petersburg was treated to a less envious, if no less spectacular sight — the blue-domed Troitse-Izmailovsky Cathedral, which was covered in scaffolding for renovation works, burst into flames and was largely destroyed. 
In October, the assassination of the 48-year-old award-winning investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya highlighted the sometimes fragile nature of Putin-era stability. It is yet another case involving the murder of a journalist that remains unresolved. The poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London followed soon afterwards, creating a news story that would, as the saying goes, run and run. 
In St. Petersburg, meanwhile, much of the news had an architectural twist, with the Mariinsky Theater opening a state-of-the-art concert hall located in the company’s former warehouse on Ulitsa Pisareva, and the British “corn-on-the-cob” design for a 300-meter-tall twisting glass tower winning a contentious competition to build a new Gazprom headquarters in St. Petersburg. 
2007
Nationally, the year was largely dominated by the procedure for the handover of power by President Putin to his selected “heir,” with State Duma elections toward the end of the year being seen as one of the final moves in his endgame. In April, however, Russia’s first freely elected president, Boris Yeltsin, died at the age of 76, swiftly followed by legendary cellist, conductor and rights activist Mstislav Rostropovich. 
Tensions with the West were also on the increase, largely focusing on a U.S. anti-ballistic missile program that promised to set up bases close to Russia’s borders (Putin accused Washington of imperialism and having begun a new arms race), energy and the continuing wrangle between the Kremlin and Britain’s No. 10 Downing Street, which resulted in expulsions of diplomats on both sides. 
But there was cause for celebration, with the news that, with the president’s personal lobbying effort and government support, Sochi was selected as the host city of the 2014 Winter Games. The result was a personal triumph for Putin, who put his international prestige on the line by going to Guatemala to lobby the Olympic Committee in person at the final vote. 
There was more good news in sports, with St. Petersburg’s very own Zenit Football Club winning its first league title since 1984. 

2008
In its feud with the British, the Kremlin could claim a victory of sorts at the beginning of the year when the British Council offices in St. Petersburg were shut down following pressure from the security services. 
In other local news, a temporary ice-skating rink on Palace Square caused controversy, with a local business association and pressure group filing a court appeal to have the “monstrosity” shut down. Meanwhile, St. Petersburg’s European University was also feeling the heat, this time applied by fire services who claimed it was a hazard, leading to temporary closure and fears that it was being pressurized for political reasons. The university was subsequently reopened shortly after Governor Valentina Matviyenko said that she would do everything in her  power to keep it open.
Undoubtedly, the most notable news event of the year has been the handover of power, or apparent handover of power, following Dmitry Medvedev’s election as president in early March and his appointment of Vladimir Putin as his prime minister last week.

TITLE: Former Editor Recalls His Darkest Hour
TEXT: Robert Coalson was editor-in-chief at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001. Here he writes about the newspaper’s coverage of the event and his time at The St. Petersburg Times.

Like just about everyone else on Earth, I remember where I was when I first heard about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I was in the newsroom of the St. Petersburg Times.
It was a Tuesday, the day that the paper came out, and late in the afternoon when the news of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center flashed on our televisions. The newsroom was fairly empty, as it usually was on the days after our marathon overnight production sessions. But it was just a few moments before the staff of the business side poured out of their offices and the room was full of silent, shocked people watching that nightmare unfold.
No work was done that day as people eventually drifted away to watch the rest of the story at home or in bars. But early the next morning, the entire news staff gathered to come up with a strategy for the next issue, which would come out on Friday, September 14. We all understood that the paper’s small news hole, and its small staff, would be sorely tested by the task of summarizing three days of world-changing news while also turning the spotlight on the local angles. Luckily, my predecessor as editor, Barnaby Thompson, was in town and more than willing to pitch in.
The next two days were a blur of activity, the work somehow getting done even as we talked about our feelings and tried to contact friends and relatives in New York. We tore up the regular template for the paper and started over. Dima Dervenyev, longtime designer, came up with a memorable new design for the front page that captured in images feelings that were difficult to convey in words. On one side of the page was a long-view shot of the burning towers and, on the other, a photo by Alexander Belenky of the huge mound of flowers that had appeared spontaneously in front of the U.S. Consulate in Petersburg. The jagged edge dividing the two pictures seemed to capture the fact that the world had changed.
The end result was an issue of the paper that everyone at The St. Petersburg Times could be proud of. But, in fact, it was just one of many. I still marvel at how that small team managed with such consistency to produce an interesting and useful local paper that so closely reflected and traced the beautiful and not-so-beautiful sides of our city.
Week after week, Galya Stolyarova brought in the best stories of Petersburg’s arts scene and I am still listening to CDs of artists I first heard of in her articles. Galya — thanks for Cecilia Bartoli, among others. And Ira Titova. An editor’s dream reporter — I could never think up a question too awkward or too embarrassing that Ira wasn’t willing to go out and ask. And Tom Rymer — reliable deputy editor and business editor, a Canadian who loved the paper almost as much as he loves hockey.
And the world’s most beautiful city (arguably) deserves the world’s most beautiful photographs and The St. Petersburg Times in my day was lucky enough to have two photographers who brought them in week after week. I remember sitting down with Designer Dima early in my tenure as editor and figuring out ways to make the photographs of Sergei Grachev and Alexander Belenky the stars of the paper. We came up with front-page layouts that featured oversized photographs, and we decided to run regular full-page photo essays. They made us all look good every issue.
Of course, I can’t mention everyone on the business side who kept the wheels of the company rolling and who were consistently understanding and supportive of the needs and desires of the editorial side. We had some hard times while I was at the paper and had to make some hard choices, but we did so with a shared vision of the kind of paper we wanted to produce.
Now that a few years have passed, I can even say that I miss walking home through the pitch-dark streets in the earliest hours of the morning after our interminable Monday and Thursday production nights. If it weren’t for the often-drunk police lurking about and ready to pounce, those head-clearing walks — fueled by the euphoria of putting out another solid issue and by a couple of post-work beers with the team — might even be among my best memories of my time at the paper. I remember being stopped once at the entrance to Palace Square. A young officer kicked over a couple of empty beer bottles near his feet as he stepped out of the shadows and asked me for my papers. He stared glassy-eyed at my passport for a moment, trying to figure out how much money he could get out of me. Finally, he asked me where I was going at three in the morning. For once, I thought quickly and said, “I’m having an affair.”
He cracked a smile, handed me my passport, and told me that I’d better hurry along then. Sometimes you get lucky.