SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1383 (47), Friday, June 20, 2008
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TITLE: British Council In Court Over Tax Bill
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The British Council is embroiled in fresh dispute with the authorities, this time over taxes, less than six months after it was forced into closing its offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.
The organization, which functions as the British government’s cultural arm, said Wednesday that the disagreement hinges on a tax bill it received in May that it has only partially paid.
“We will complain ... about particular aspects of the tax demand with which we do not agree,” the organization said in an e-mailed statement. “The British Council is registered with the tax authorities, it regularly pays taxes ... and carries out all the demands of the Russian tax authorities.”
The council said it would not discuss the nature or amount of the tax claim while the issue had yet to be resolved.
The tax case was to be heard in Moscow’s Basmanny District Court this Thursday, a council official said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, dismissed fears that this was a fresh attempt on the part of authorities to pressure the council.
“This is simply what happens to every Russian taxpayer,” he said.
The official also played down a newspaper report that said tax officials had threatened to send bailiffs to seize property, including books, furniture, poetry and computers, from the council’s Moscow office unless the bill was paid in full.
He said seizures of this type were standard procedure in cases where tax authorities believe that there is still an outstanding sum.
“This is simply what Russian tax law stipulates,” he said.
The official refused to comment the report, published Wednesday in London’s Guardian newspaper, saying an unidentified official at the council had described the bill as “punitive and disproportionately large.”
The council also said in its official statement that the bill received by the council in May was the result of tax examinations carried out in 2007.
It was last year that the organization came under intense pressure to curtail its activities in the country, a demand that came during a period in which Russian-British relations sank to their lowest point since the Cold War.
In January, the council bowed to requests to close its offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, the only two in the country remaining outside Moscow, after police questioned local staff in what Britain’s foreign minister described at the time as unacceptable harassment.
Both sides linked the crisis to the diplomatic spat over the 2006 murder in London of former Russian security services officer Alexander Litvinenko.
Moscow has refused to extradite Britain’s chief suspect in the murder, Andrei Lugovoi. The former Federal Guard Service officer, who has since won a seat in the State Duma with the Liberal Democratic Party of nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has attacked the British Council as a haven for spies.
The disputes with the British Council have centered on the nature of the organization. The Foreign Ministry maintains that the council is a commercial organization and must pay the requisite taxes and follow the relevant regulations. The British Council insists that it is a nonprofit organization with the sole function of promoting cultural exchange.
An official at the Federal Tax Service office handling the case refused to comment on Wednesday.
TITLE: EU’s Trade Chief Sees WTO Deal in 2008
AUTHOR: By Conor Sweeney
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Agreement can be reached by the end of this year on Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but rows over the trade in meat and timber need to be resolved, the European Union’s trade chief said.
“I certainly think we can secure agreement on Russia’s accession by the end of the year,” EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said in an interview late on Wednesday during a visit to Moscow.
Commenting on restrictions that Russia, citing food safety concerns, has imposed on the import of some meat products from EU countries, he said: “I regret them and I think the actions taken by the Russian authorities are exaggerated.
“I’m not even sure that it’s justified and either way these issues need to be resolved as soon as possible. They are irritants, they are not impediments to the negotiations on WTO,” Mandelson said.
He said the EU was “taken by surprise, frankly” by Russia’s decision to raise tariffs on the export of raw timber, a move that hurt timber processors in EU countries.
Russia is the largest economy still outside the world trade body and has been negotiating membership since 1995.
Russian officials say they are now very close to clinching a final deal on joining the organisation.
On the prospects of Russia’s WTO entry, Mandelson said: “There are certainly important issues that have got to be resolved, certainly, but there aren’t that many.”
“I don’t identify any issue on the table at the moment which is so complex or so big a problem that it causes me to be pessimistic about the outcome,” he said.
Russia plans to raise duties on exports of raw timber to 80 percent of their value from the start of 2009 from the current 25 percent. That will add to costs for paper companies, especially in Scandinavian countries.
EU diplomats say the rise in duties will put Russia in breach of a 2004 deal it signed with the EU. Russia has denied it is violating the agreement.
Mandelson said European industry supported Russia’s strategic bid to develop its domestic timber processors, but European firms should be encouraged to invest for sound commercial reasons and not feel coerced into doing so.
“Finnish companies and Swedish companies, for example, see that (to invest) is the right thing to do on commercial criteria ... not because they are being strong-armed into doing so, or being left with no alternative but to do so.”
Russia has angered Brussels by introducing a series of company-specific bans on meat imports from a number of EU countries. It said antibiotic levels in the meat exceeded safe limits.
The European Commission last month described the bans as “disproportionate” and asked Russia to lift them.
TITLE: Russian Tourism Industry Regears for Change
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Rozhkov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: New laws set to come into force next month requiring travel companies to take out state insurance and assume financial liability for the quality of their services look set to spark a wave of consolidation in Russia’s underdeveloped travel and tourism industry.
Last week Finland’s OY Aurinkomatkat-Suntours LTD Ab opened its first Russian office in St. Petersburg while Aurinkomatkat’s local partner, Calypso — World of Travels, St. Petersburg’s largest supplier of individual and cruise tourism services, sold a stake to the Finnish company. This will enable Calypso to promote the Finnish brand and five packages of tours to Greece, Italy and Turkey on the local market.
Market analysts believe such mergers are on the rise. Expert North-West magazine reported that Thomas Cook, the British travel agent, is negotiating with Russia’s largest tourist companies such as Intourist, Nataly Tours and Capital Tours to enter a market which foreign companies regard as ripe for development.
According to the Russian Tourism Industry Union, only three international tourism operators — REWE Touristik, TUI Group and Interhome — operate in Russia, but over the next five to seven years the market is expected to become more diversified and attract larger companies. As a result, smaller firms will find the going tougher.
According to July 2007 legislation set to come into force next month, tour firms bear financial liability for the quality of services offered to their clients and must pay bank insurance to the state. However since the amounts are fixed — 10 million roubles ($423,000) for international tourist companies, and 500,000 roubles ($21,000) for companies involved in domestic tourism — the costs will more easily be met by large integrated operators than by small firms.
Georgy Sinin, CEO of Ecotur, is in favor of the new financial requirements but believes that different companies should pay different rates.
“The total sum has to depend on annual turnover and lots of other factors have to be considered. For example, if turnover is $2 million at a big company and 20 million rubles ($845,000) at the company I run, and if we deal with different quantities of tourists and take different risks, why do I have to pay the same amount as the more prosperous tour operators in Russia?”
Along with consolidation, Russia’s travel and tourism industry is expected to change shape in other ways.
Officials of Rosturizm (Russian Federal Agency of Tourism) have predicted that the inflow of tourists to Russia from abroad will lessen.
“As traveling costs rise, so do hotel services. Russia is becoming expensive for guests from abroad,” the head of Rozturizm Vladimir Strzhalkovsky said.
There has been a 20 percent decline in the number of visitors from the U.S., Japan and South Korea in 2007 compared to the year before.
That dropoff, however, may be misleading. In the first quarter of 2008 around 245,000 foreign tourists traveled to Russia, a 10 percemt rise on the first quarter of 2007.
St. Petersburg’s propects as an international tourist destination may also be looking up.
In May, TripAdvisor, an internet site with 6 million registered users from all over the world, included the city in its Top 100 of Best World Tourist Destinations. St. Petersburg ranked 63rd between Prague of the Czech Repuublic (62nd) and Versailles of France (64th).
Moscow was left outside the Top 100, which is based mainly on foreigners’ impressions and views.
Grigory Antyufeyev, the head of the Department of Tourism in Moscow said that the Russian capital had 4 million foreign tourists a year, half the number of international visitors to St. Petersburg. Yet the statistics for Moscow and St. Petersburg should be treated with caution, experts say.
“Foreign tourists to the Russian capital are mainly business tourists,” Yelena Lvova, PR manager of the Baltic Travel Company said. “They may contribute up to 99 percent of total number of foreign travelers to Moscow. But St. Petersburg enjoys regular tourists.”
St. Petersburg shares with Moscow one particularly attractive draw for foreign tourists — river cruises.
“The dynamics for cruise tourism are good,” said Yelena Malchenok, executive manager of Arktur Travel. “The reasons are the attractiveness of the city itself and the weakness of U.S. currency. Hotels in Europe are very expensive and tourists travel by cruise liners paying for them in dollars. European companies have to shift costs to remain effective in business.”
However, lack of hotels and traffic problems in Russia’s Northern Capital are major obstacles preventing St. Petersburg from even more impressive achivements in tourism.
City officials say they are aware of such problems.
“By the end of 2010 we aim to meet European standards in hotel business accommodations provided per one thousand people,” Governor Valentina Matviyenko said in a televised address to city residents. “This will ensure competition and lower costs, and therefore guests will rush to come to us. And we want them to do so. Moreover we require additional hotel accommodation because this is one of the objectives listed in St. Petersburg’s strategic development plan to make this city a kind of Mecca for tourism. It should be noted that there are cities all over the world that gain profit only from tourism.”
Malchenok has a more sober analysis of St. Petersburg’s potential.
“Actually foreign tourists do not always enjoy their stay here,” she said. “During their brief stay guests from abroad face traffic jams, their itinerary is often ruined or changed without prior notice, and so visitors leave for home disappointed.”
TITLE: Activists Beaten in Clash With Building Company
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Activists defending Skver Podvodnikov (the Submariners’ Garden) in the north of St. Petersburg were attacked and beaten on Wednesday by guards hired by a construction company that is erecting four tall buildings on the land, used by residents as a public park, the garden’s defenders said.
Several activists were severely beaten and one was hospitalized according to activist Yelena Malysheva, who spoke to The St. Petersburg Times by mobile phone on Thursday.
“I was not present at the scene but I know from the other locals that a resident of 26 Bestuzhevskaya Ulitsa was hit [on his leg], but it was not immediately clear that he had a fracture. I don’t know how serious it is, but I know that the ambulance came and he was taken away to a hospital,” said Malysheva, who lives close to the garden.
“But I witnessed several other cases yesterday [Wednesday]. I got a call that heavy trucks were approaching the city from activists on duty, and went there in two minutes. When I saw what was happening I was astounded; one woman was tossed around on the ground while the other woman was being pressed by the truck onto a school fence.”
Malysheva said that later, when activists tried to prevent a welding machine from being brought to the fence as part of the ongoing construction work, a middle-aged resident was beaten by the guards.
“He face was smashed, and he has spine and knee contusions,” she said, adding that the police at first refused to accept his version of events when he reported the assault at the nearest police station. They relented on the insistence of other activists.
An 80-year-old woman, who survived the Leningrad Siege of World War II was also beaten, according to Malysheva.
“I saw for myself how they kicked her,” she said. “She refused to go to see the doctor, she said, ‘I defended the city during the Siege, and I will defend it now.’ We managed to persuade her to spend the rest of the day home, but at eight in the morning today she went out on duty.”
Tatyana Lukyanova, the lawyer and spokesperson for Stroikomplex XXI, the building company responsible for the works, was not available when repeatedly telephoned for comment on Thursday.
The activists want to halt construction in the garden located at 14 Prospekt Mechnikova because around 700 trees will need to be destroyed. They have so far prevented workers from cutting down the trees and establishing a cement fence, some 20 blocks of which were erected on Tuesday.
The conflict at the garden, which residents dedicated to submariners who perished in peacetime in 2006, has been escalating since Monday, when the builders with heavy trucks arrived to start construction at the location.
Workers from Stroikomplex XXI cut down two big trees on Monday, but were stopped at that point by the garden’s defenders. Many nails have been hammered into the garden’s trees by the activists to prevent them from being felled.
The activists consider the construction illegal, citing the inclusion of the garden into the official register of public parks and gardens. In clashes with the building company’s guards, residents have been backed by members of Eduard Limonov’s banned National Bolshevik Party as well as activists from left-wing groups and anarchists.
Part of the cement fence was erected on Tuesday morning, but actvists did not allow two more trucks laden with blocks to enter the site, and prevented the workers from welding together the already established blocks.
According to Fontanka.ru, vice governor Alexander Vakhmistrov ordered a temporary stop to the construction work in the area on Tuesday. The acting chairman of City Hall’s building committee asked the company to “immediately stop” construction in view of “the high social tension” that day.
However, on Wednesday morning, workers with trucks and cranes came again and welded the portion of fence despite the activists’ resistance. It was then that beatings were reported.
On Thursday, location was quiet, although both the building company’s guards and the garden’s defenders were present, Malysheva said.
“We are not going to surrender, and we don’t believe promises of the government,” she said.
TITLE: Georgian Authorities Free
Four Russian Peacekeepers
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — Georgian authorities on Wednesday released four Russian peacekeepers who were detained on charges of carrying unauthorized weapons to a buffer zone near the breakaway region of Abkhazia.
Georgian officials said they would keep the load of anti-tank missiles they seized from the Russians late Tuesday. Zaza Gorozia, the local governor, said the Russians were not authorized to take the weapons into the area.
Russian Colonel Igor Konashenkov said the detention of peacekeepers and their cargo violated the existing agreements on peacekeepers’ deployment in the region.
In footage broadcast by Georgian and Russian television, burly men in plainclothes descended on a Russian military truck, dragging young soldiers out, taking their weapons and putting one of the Russians face down on the ground. The Russians looked stunned and did not seem to offer any resistance.
Konashenkov denounced the detention. “It will foment tensions in the region, hurt mutual trust and undermine the peace process,” he said in televised remarks.
President Dmitry Medvedev and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili spoke by phone Wednesday. In the conversation Medvedev called the incident “acts of provocation” and “unacceptable,” the Kremlin said in a statement. Saakashvili promised to look into the matter.
TITLE: Executives Targeted In TNK-BP Spat
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — BP’s billionaire partners said the company was planning to fire Russian executives at TNK-BP as a battle for control of the 50-50 oil venture escalates.
“We have received very strong signals that BP and [TNK-BP CEO] Bob Dudley may take the unilateral action to terminate at least several members of senior management that were appointed by AAR,” said Stan Polovets, CEO of AAR, a consortium of three companies controlled by Mikhail Fridman, TNK-BP executive director German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik.
Dudley is legally allowed to terminate the employees.
(SPT, BLOOMBERG)
TITLE: Four Charged in Killing Of Anna Politkovskaya
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Formal charges were filed Wednesday against four men accused in connection with the 2006 killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the Investigative Committee said.
Three men were charged with involvement in Politkovskaya’s murder, while an officer from the Federal Security Service faces charges of extortion and abuse of office, the committee said in a statement. The four have been held since their arrests last August.
Politkovskaya, 48, was shot to death in her central Moscow apartment building in October 2006. Colleagues believe that her murder was linked to her work reporting on abuses by federal troops in Chechnya.
One suspect, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, is a former police officer. Two others, brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, are from Chechnya.
The committee said the charges against the FSB officer, Pavel Ryaguzov, related to other crimes. It was not immediately clear whether Wednesday’s charges were connected to Politkovskaya’s murder. Authorities previously have accused Ryaguzov of giving Politkovskaya’s killers her address.
The committee did not cite a motive for Politkovskaya’s killing or specify the suspects’ roles in her murder. A separate probe into the suspected shooter, Rustam Makhmudov, who remains at large, will continue, the Investigative Committee said. He is the oldest of the Makhmudov brothers.
Charges against several others, including former Chechnya district administrator Shamil Burayev, were dropped, the committee said.
Politkovskaya’s colleagues at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper accused authorities of deliberately undermining the investigation by releasing details about the case before it reaches trial.
Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov said Wednesday that leaks from investigation allowed the accused shooter to escape arrest, Interfax reported. Muratov called it too early to consider the murder solved.
Officials have alleged that Politkovskaya’s killing was ordered by someone living outside Russia with the aim of discrediting the Kremlin — statements that have been interpreted as alluding to self-exiled businessman Boris Berezovsky, a former Kremlin insider who lives in London and is now a fierce Kremlin critic.
TITLE: Arshavin Wins Popularity Vote
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: FC St. Petersburg Zenit striker and Russian international Andrei Arshavin is the nation’s favorite soccer player, an opinion poll has revealed.
Twelve percent of those questioned said Arshavin was the best Russian footballer according to a survey conducted by state-run polling organization VTsIOM before the beginning of the Euro 2008 soccer championship taking place in Austria and Switzerland, Interfax reported.
Arshavin was rated as the player who is the “most interesting and pleasant to Russian citizens” the survey said.
The playmaker did not let down his fans in his first appearance at Euro 2008 on Wednesday when he scored the second goal in Russia’s 2:0 demolition of Sweden in Innsbruck, Austria, taking the team into the quarterfinals.
The speaker of St. Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly Vadim Tyulpanov, who attended the match, said he was impressed with the game and Arshavin’s goal.
“Arshavin’s goal, which crowned the triumph of the Russian team, filled the heart of every St. Petersburg fan with the pride for the city’s soccer skills,” Tyulpanov said.
Tyulpanov said after Arshavin’s goal all the Russian fans at the stadium stood up and did not sit down until the end of the game.
“The stadium exploded at the sound of the final whistle. I think that Austria has never seen so many happy Russians,” he said.
Tyulpanov said that when Spartak forward Roman Pavlyuchenko scored the first goal, Russian fans were so excited that it seemed there were no Swedes at the stadium at all.
Moscow Lokomotiv player and Russian international Dmitry Sychyov, who topped the popularity poll in 2006, placed second in this year’s survey. Zenit’s Pavel Pogrebnyak and Spartak’s Roman Pavlyuchenko shared the third place with 3 percent each. Goalkeeper Igor Akinfeyev scored 2 percent.
The research also indicated that interest in soccer in Russia is growing. In 2006 about 78 percent of those questioned had difficulties in naming a player they liked, but this year a mere 71 percent of people could not answer the question.
TITLE: TV Channel Taunts Swedes Before Euro 2008 Qualifier
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: State television taunted Sweden with past military victories on Wednesday before the two countries vied for a place in the quarterfinals of Euro 2008, the continent’s most prestigious football tournament.
Vesti-24, the government’s cable channel, played a commercial every half-hour today using Soviet-era movie footage of Russian soldiers killing Swedes during Peter the Great’s victory over Charles XII in 1709 and Alexander Nevsky’s defeat of invaders in 1240. Each scene was followed by a scorecard reading “Russia 1, Sweden 0” and accompanied by the theme music from the movie “Gladiator.”
“It’s part of a revival of Russian nationalism,” said Yevgeny Volk, a Moscow-based analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a U.S. research group. “The advertisement reflects this Russian mentality, which still interprets the military as a major factor in the country’s international image.”
The Swedish Embassy in Moscow said Russia “can run whatever they like” on television. “I don’t know of any Swedish channels showing all the battles that Sweden has won against Russia, but if they did there would be many of them,” an embassy spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.
The ad shows Prince Alexander Nevsky’s victory over the Swedes in 1240, after fighting off their attempt to take control of a trading port.
After splashing “1-0” across the screen, the montage moves to shots of a triumphant Peter the Great after his army slayed thousands of Swedish troops in the Battle of Poltava. Russia’s 3-2 win against Sweden in the semifinals of the world hockey championship last month is also shown.
Komsomolskaya Pravda sent reporters to the site of the Poltava battle in Ukraine, where they blessed a football at the feet of a statue of Peter the Great and then ceremoniously kicked it in the direction of Sweden, according to a report in the newspaper today.
TITLE: Paper in Putin Scandal to Return
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Moskovsky Korrespondent, the newspaper that closed after writing that former President Vladimir Putin would marry a former Olympic gymnast, intends to resume publication in two months.
“The site is already working. The print version will come out at the beginning of September,” said Artyom Artyomov, director of the Noviye Media holding, which owns the newspaper.
Artyomov, speaking by telephone Wednesday, said Moskovsky Korrespondent would keep its tabloid format but come out once a week instead of daily. “It will be a weekly paper completely devoted to the life of the megalopolis. We will cover only what is going on in Moscow, from politics to the economy and social problems,” he said.
TITLE: Girl Injured at Amusement Park
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A 12-year-old girl was seriously injured on a fairground attraction at the Divo Ostrov amusement park in St. Petersburg on Monday.
The girl was injured on the Air Gymnasts attraction, which is kind of a trampoline, RIA Novosti reported.
The girl was hospitalized with an open fracture of the skull, injury to the back of her head and a fracture of the spine, Interfax reported. The girl struck metal structures that are part of the mechanism of the attraction and fell three meters to the ground, SeverInfo reported.
City prosecutors have opened a criminal case under Article 238 of the Russian Criminal Code (production of products or services that do not meet the safety requirements).
Administrators at the park said it would meet all medical costs.
TITLE: From Vancouver to Vladivostok
AUTHOR: By Fyodor Lukyanov
TEXT: President Dmitry Medvedev has made a number of foreign policy statements since taking office. His speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has drawn the most attention, although it was lacking something new in content. But his June 5 speech in Berlin was remarkable, especially in the context of the rejection a week later of the Treaty of Lisbon, a document that represented a watered-down version of the failed European Constitution.
The theme of his Berlin speech was continuity — a word popular in Russia now. But here, it was used in a broader sense than simply continuing the course set by Vladimir Putin when he was president. Continuity here refers to the whole period of Russia’s re-emergence as a major player in the global arena. Medvedev’s speechwriters tried to refute the widely held view that the country’s foreign policy has been a zigzag of different courses that were adopted over the past 20 years. What follows logically from Medvedev’s remarks is that Moscow’s foreign policy had been more or less constant but that circumstances abroad had been changing during those years.
The idea of a “Euro-Atlantic space from Vancouver to Vladivostok” resonated strongly. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev also called for a radical reconfiguration of the global system without existing political blocs. The idea of creating a European system of security is rooted in the perestroika period, although it resurfaced again in the 1990s. And the idea of an all-European summit as a means for creating a fundamentally new agenda has been put forward more than once.
What is different about the return to that idea now? Conditions in Europe have changed. When Gorbachev spoke of “new political thinking,” world leaders perceived it in different ways, although few took it very seriously. While world leaders and analysts might have admired the unorthodox and progressive Soviet leader, many suspected ulterior motives on his part. Others were struck by Gorbachev’s naivete.
Prudent realists ended up carrying the day. The Soviet Union collapsed, and the winners in the ideological confrontation began to measure the size of their new geopolitical prize. European politics moved in what the winners considered a natural direction — the expansion of Western institutions rather than the creation of something new and universal.
During the next stage, Russia’s international influence dramatically decreased for objective reasons. Although Russian diplomats had accomplished a great deal and held many good ideas in the 1990s, the balance of power in the world did not allow for their realization.
Then, under Putin’s presidency, Russia changed its course. The hopes and expectations that observers pinned on his first term gradually gave way to disappointment and annoyance with Moscow by the end of his second. Nonetheless, Russia’s foreign policy potential grew significantly, and this was one of Putin’s most important accomplishments.
The European outlook has also changed over the last two decades. The euphoria that marked the unification of the Old World — beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and culminating in the accession of the former Eastern bloc countries into the European Union and NATO early in this century — started to fade midway through the current decade. It became clear that world events were developing differently than had been expected when the Soviet Union disintegrated, at which point some optimistic political scientists and analysts declared the “end of history.”
The international system has come to a state of imbalance, and the pillar of Western politics — trans-Atlantic unity — is now in question. With the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a common threat, it became clear that the countries on either side of the Atlantic held divergent views. Although Europe and the United States share basic values, their understanding of how to apply those values are becoming noticeably different. Most important, the United States and the EU have almost no common political goals. Washington’s predilection for using force to resolve global problems has created serious tensions with its European partners. Most of those countries have lost the desire for large-scale geopolitical power plays. If they still have ambition, it is focused closer to home.
There are several main factors that are creating a strong sense of uncertainty in global affairs: Asia’s rapid economic growth, the political awakening of the Third World, the revival of national and religious consciousness in various parts of the planet and the instability in financial, food and energy markets. In this light, it is an oversimplification to interpret Medvedev’s decision to make his first visit abroad to Kazakhstan and China — instead of Europe — as a rebuff to the West. More likely, it illustrates his recognition of global changes and the fundamentally new role that China plays in today’s world.
The situation in the EU is also changing. The failure to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon essentially means that the hope for creating a federalized Europe — that is, the creation of a supranational political identity — has suffered a serious blow. Although this might create certain tactical problems in Moscow’s relations with the EU, it could prove strategically advantageous for Russia. The return to European integration as an interstate union that does not encroach upon the sovereignty of member states leaves open the possibility of a new political configuration in Europe’s future. And it could include Russia — not as a member of the EU, but as a full-fledged participant in some type of European framework.
Changing global conditions create new opportunities for the concepts that Medvedev expressed in Berlin. The global situation is dictated by rigid rules, and it increasingly narrows the range of opportunities open to Europe and Russia. The United States’ influence is decreasing, and it still seems unlikely that former dogmas — especially those inherited from the Cold War — will be revived. But what before seemed to be pointless dreams might soon turn out to be vital necessity.
Remembering all of the disappointments and failures that we experienced in international relations over the past several years, we should treat Medvedev’s romantic ideal of a “Euro-Atlantic space from Vancouver to Vladivostok” as a serious new model for the new era in global affairs.
Fyodor Lukyanov is editor of Russia in Global Affairs.
TITLE: Discarded Like a Worn-Out Pair of Shoes
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: The Federal Drug Control Service is purging its staff. The first to go was General Viktor Rykov, head of the agency’s internal affairs. Rykov is a friend and confidante of General Alexander Bulbov, a former senior officer with the drug control agency who was arrested in October on suspicion of wiretapping top-ranking siloviki.
More firings are expected to follow in the agency. After all, its new chief, Viktor Ivanov, has an ax to grind with Bulbov and his compatriots since Ivanov was one of members of the siloviki clan that Bulbov supposedly wiretapped. Bulbov therefore will likely be in prison for a long time to come. He and his former colleagues are doomed. Ivanov running the drug control service is like German World War II General Heinz Guderian heading up the Soviet General Staff.
I don’t like the Federal Drug Control Service.
One year after the agency’s creation in 2004, the number of fatal drug overdoses doubled in Russia, and they rose by another 150 percent the following year. Meanwhile, employees of the drug agency were themselves caught selling drugs on a regular basis. But instead of apprehending drug dealers, agency officials arrested veterinarians for giving Ketamine anesthesia to cats and chemists for selling toluene solvent.
But what does Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have against the Federal Drug Control Service? First of all, Putin never intended the service to fight drug trafficking. Rather, he wanted to create another power center to counterbalance the siloviki clan headed by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin.
And the drug service took real pride in loyally serving that function. One example of its success: It is believed that Vladimir Ustinov was fired as the prosecutor general because of some compromising material that was fished out from his conversations on Bulbov’s wiretaps. It is also believed that Bulbov wiretapped former Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev and Sechin, as well as Ivanov — in short, all the most prominent members of the siloviki.
Bulbov could not have conducted his wiretaps without the president’s sanction. But at the same time, he was turned into a scapegoat. In theory however, Putin should never have allowed Bulbov’s enemies to arrest him. After all, no one will ever want to spy for Putin again if the person knows that he can be sent to jail by those he is spying on.
So we return to the question: What did the Federal Drug Control Service, and Bulbov in particular, do to prompt Putin to appoint Ivanov as the agency’s new chief?
The answer is very simple. Putin no longer needs the Federal Drug Control Service as a counterbalance to the siloviki because now President Dmitry Medvedev is pegged to play that role.
Putin probably got fed up with the drug service’s former chief, Viktor Cherkesov, after his harassment of veterinarians and complaints about his enemies’ intrigues. You can imagine how upset Putin was with Cherkesov when, after Bulbov’s arrest, he aired his dirty laundry in public and warned of an internecine clan battle in a Kommersant article in October.
Putin used the service and all the generals holding top positions there to serve his own purposes. And when that was accomplished, he essentially tossed it into the garbage like a worn-out pair of shoes.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Violin virtuoso
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: His first violin may have been nothing more than a token Christmas gift from his father but today Greece’s Leonidas Kavakos is one of the world’s most distinguished and versatile virtuoso violinists with a packed concert diary.
A regular at renowned international festivals, including the Salzburg Festival, the BBC Proms and the Ravenna Festival, Kavakos comes to town this week to perform at Valery Gergiev’s Stars of the White Nights Festival. Saturday sees Kavakos performing Henri Dutilleux’s 1985 violin concerto L’Arbre des Songes at the Mariinsky Concert Hall.
The winner of the 1991 Gramophone Award for the first-ever recording of the original version of Sibelius’ violin concerto, Kavakos performs a stunningly diverse repertoire spanning centuries of classical music. His programs feature works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Stravinsky, Schubert, Ravel, Sibelius, Debussy and George Enescu as well as cutting edge contemporary composers such as Dutilleux — all played on a Stradivarius made in 1692.
The violinist regards L’Arbre des Songes as one of the most fascinating concertos of the 20th century.
“Dutilleux has a unique sense of orchestration and color and a wonderful ability of designing these colors,” he said.
Kavakos initially came across the Dutilleux concerto after a friend’s recommendation, and was immediately enchanted by the piece. Learning the work turned out as somewhat of an adventure for the 41-year old musician, however, as he was drafted to the Greek army in 1996. Kavakos was already engaged to perform the concerto in Minneapolis, Minnesota — after completing his service — so the need to practice was essential.
The military authorities granted the musician 90 minutes in the evening (during dinner time) for rehearsals and assigned him a humble room with a small window and no electric light for the purpose. The violinist did not complain about the spartan conditions as long as he had the time with his musical instrument.
“My love for this concerto was so great that I would have learned it in any circumstances, and in this sense, although Dutilleux’s was a very complex score, I did not mind the darkness,” Kavakos remembers.
He talks about this part of his service fondly, recalling the light coming into the room from the street, the beauty of the concerto and the chance of artistic escape from a military environment in which he felt lonely and alienated.
Born to a family of musicians — both his parents and his grandfather played Greek folk music — Kavakos grew up in an artistic atmosphere in the house with music all around.
“Music is heavenly by nature but when it gets to the learning stage is the most demanding, even painful thing, especially for a little child,” he said. “Children enjoy experiments but suffer in any conditions that require strict discipline. My parents were very smart, and simply allowed me to play with a violin as if it were a toy for a year, when I was about five years old. Then, slowly, we moved on to the lessons.
“Music was a natural choice for me indeed — because of the early exposure and the environment I grew up in. But my parents never forced me into becoming anything.”
Kavakos said he “always enjoyed the different ages — being seven, being 12, being 15 — and this is what I am very thankful to my family for.”
Kavakos’ first shot at international fame came in 1985 when he won the Sibelius competition. Three years later Kavakos triumphed at the Paganini competition, and plum foreign engagements followed.
A key to Kavakos is his diverse repertoire.
“As a musician one has to be aware of all the different eras and aesthetics of the music, which is why it is beneficial for a performer not to confine themselves to one or two ‘key composers’,” Kavakos said. “I seek to expand my horizons and enrich my expressive possibilities as widely as humanly possible.”
Such an approach helps the performer to understand the legacy of the music of the past.
“We have to imagine that all the great 20th century composers were looking back to their predecessors — Mozart, Haydn or any other composers — and using these reflections when trying to make a step forward,” he explains.
“I see classical music legacy as a living organism, a chain, and no part of this chain should be ignored. In other words, if I play Dutilleux it gives me a deeper insight into the works of Ravel or Debussy. The same would be fair for the works of, say, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky.”
Every year in Megaron, Athens’ premiere concert hall, Kavakos organizes a classical music festival, as he has since he launched the event 15 years ago. Focused on violin and cello works, the festival attracts some of the world’s finest musicians, including, for instance, Gergiev and pianist Alfred Brendel.
The festival was born in the same year that the venue saw its inauguration with the aim of highlighting new music, including contemporary Greek classical music performed by internationally acclaimed soloists.
The Athens festival is about changing attitudes and pushing boundaries.
Cello music — a largely unexplored part of the classical repertoire, compared to, for example, symphonic works — has been the festival’s special focus. Brahms, Shostakovich, Ravel and many other great composers wrote a wealth of cello pieces but concert managers do not seem to consider them marketable, and these masterpieces remain unplayed.
“Starting from scratch we have built a wonderful and faithful audience,” Kavakos said.
Greek culture is crucial to understanding Kavakos’ performing style.
“The sounds, the language and the culture that I grew up with all affect the way I play and the way I perceive music as an art,” he said, adding that his artistic being and approach to the music-making derived naturally from being Greek.
“Ancient Greek culture and philosophy were anthropocentric. I very much admire and share this focus. The human dimension of music is very important for me when I study the score. A score is so much more than a chain of notes. Classical music is full of colors, moods and life, and I use the anthropocentric essence of ancient Greek philosophy as a tuning fork to discover these hidden treasures in the score.”
As Kavakos point out, Greek philosophy is not about giving answers but rather about posing the right question — here he sees a connection to the mission of classical music.
“Greek philosophy teaches you to look at things from different perspectives and to interpret words and events; Interpretation is invaluable for classical music — and a wealth of angles and approaches here is equally crucial here as in philosophy.”
With the world becoming more and more cosmopolitan, and performing arts schools in classical music, opera and ballet becoming increasingly more competitive, many critics have noted that young people tend to concentrate on a handful of places to learn classical music.
“Everyone thinks about the famous names [of schools], best managers and career opportunities first,” Kavakos said.
“The great thing about the past was that practically every European country boasted its own wonderful school with its unique performing style, sound, identity and culture. Now everything revolves primarily around London, Munich and New York and we are losing a precious diversity of sound.”
Since October 2007, after having held the position of the principle guest artist for the previous six years, Kavakos serves as artistic director and conductor for the internationally renowned Camerata Salzburg orchestra, with its venerable traditions and excellence in the repertoire of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelsohn.
For Kavakos, the social role of music has always been meaningful. With his arrival in Salzburg last fall, the orchestra launched an already hugely popular education program where pupils sit between the members of the orchestra during specially arranged open rehearsals absorbing the sounds, the skills, the philosophy and the atmosphere.
“The most rewarding element of being involved with this amazing orchestra is about expanding the possibilities of interpretation and expression,” Kavakos recounts. “We are pushing the boundaries with the orchestra by performing Ravel, Honegger and other exciting composers new to them, and hoping to create new possibilities for the orchestra to express itself.”
TITLE: Chernov’s
choice
TEXT: While Roger Waters found himself in a tricky situation by being financed by capitalists and politicians who he officially despises at the Economic Forum earlier this month, Yury Shevchuk, the frontman of the local band DDT, used the gathering to make some disobedient statements.
Shevchuk was a speaker at one of the Kremlin-backed Economic Forum’s panels for some mysterious reason, despite taking part in an opposition Dissenters’ March in March and, last year, writing a song with the words “When oil runs out, our president dies” and “We all start breathing easier, when gas runs out.”
However, he used his appearance at the Forum to criticize the natural resources-based Russian economy.
“Oil and gas are not Russia’s wealth,” he said. “Oil and gas are an ordeal. They may even be our tragedy because oil and gas brings plenty of perks such as country houses and yachts. Do you know what they know about the Forum in St. Petersburg? It’s [pro-Kremlin multi-billionaire Roman] Abramovich’s yacht that everybody takes pictures of, they don’t know anything else about the Forum!”
He also criticized what the former President, now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin praises as Russia’s current “stability.”
“Stability and stagnation are close to each other,” he said.
“Stability is our Constitution, all the rest should breathe, argue and fight. But look, we have only one party now, one power, United Russia is everything. Where’s the struggle of opinions? There’s nothing like that.”
Shevchuk criticized Russian television’s stabs at Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic countries as “chauvinist.”
“We all love Russia, but we should reject certain stereotypes from the Cold War times, drive it from our heads and start building a new, normal, humane relationship with each other and react to it normally, in a human way. If Russia smiles, I think, the world will breathe and live more easily. It’s very important. That’s what I wanted to say.”
Returning to Waters, there is one excuse, perhaps, for his lapse. The flying pig, Pink’s Floyd’s notorious stage prop, was decorated with Soviet dissident slogans. One was “For Your and Our Freedom,” the slogan carried by a handful of dissidents on Red Square after Soviet tanks entered Czechoslovakia in 1968. They were arrested and imprisoned. The second was a slightly distorted “Don’t Trust, Don’t Be Afraid, Don’t Beg” from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago.” Coined in the Soviet labor camps, Solzhenitsyn popularized it as the prisoners’ motto and the only way to survive.
This week, The Sex Pistols, the band most hated by the Soviet authorities, will finally make it to Russia and perform at Yubileiny Sports Palace on Monday. Watch out for The Go! Team, which will perform as part of Stereoleto music event on Friday (at 1 a.m.)
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: 120 percent propaganda
AUTHOR: By A.J. Goldman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN — It’s an iconic image of World War II: Berlin has fallen and Soviet soldiers are hoisting the red flag over the Reichstag.
What most people don’t realize, however, is that the photograph isn’t capturing the historic moment. Yevgeny Khaldei staged the scene on May 2, 1945 — three days after the Soviets captured Germany’s parliament building.
The picture is the centerpiece of an exhibit — “Yevgeny Khaldei — The Decisive Moment” — that bills itself as the first comprehensive retrospective of the photographer’s World War II work.
The show at Berlin’s Gropius-Bau museum reveals the extent to which Khaldei’s work as a war correspondent and later a staff photographer for Pravda blurred the boundaries between photojournalism, art and propaganda.
For Russians, the Reichstag photo is as potent a symbol of victory as Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal’s shot of the U.S. flag being raised on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima is for Americans.
But the Reichstag image was heavily manipulated: Smoke in the background was etched later on the negative, to create the impression the battle was still unfolding.
In another version, a soldier’s wristwatches have been deftly edited out lest they give the impression he looted them.
Ernst Volland, one of the exhibit’s curators, calls the Reichstag photo “120 percent propaganda” — especially since it was made to order according to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s specifications.
“Stalin badly wanted the combination of Reichstag and the red flag,” Volland said.
Another image shows a tank planted in front of the Brandenburg Gate, while a straight line of fighter planes soar overhead. Closer scrutiny reveals that the tank is a cutout from another picture and the planes are painted into the frame.
Khaldei saw no ethical problem with the doctoring. If challenged about a photo’s truthfulness, Volland said, the photographer would simply reply: “It’s a good photo. I made it. ‘Auf wiedersehen.’”
Khaldei toiled in obscurity for most of his life and lived out his retirement in a small Moscow apartment on a modest pension until his death in 1997.
The retrospective of over 200 images was put together by private photography collectors Volland and Heinz Krimmer, who have been instrumental in bringing Khaldei’s work to a broader public.
“Khaldei’s photos are in every German schoolbook. His images are known, but the man behind them is not,” said Krimmer. Khaldei never considered himself an artist, and only sold his work in small quantities from his apartment.
Born to a Jewish family in 1917, Khaldei built his first camera at age 12. In 1936, he began to shoot for the Soviet news agency Tass, creating his most memorable images during World War II and its aftermath, notably the Potsdam Conference of Allied leaders in 1945 and the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals.
After the war, Khaldei had difficulty finding full-time work because of Stalin’s anti-Semitic purges and campaigns.
Only after Stalin died in 1953 was Khaldei hired by Soviet newspapers.
Volland and Krimmer met him in Moscow in 1991 and began collecting his work. Their collection of his images is now the largest outside Russia.
In 1994 in Berlin, they mounted the first exhibition of Khaldei’s work and published a book with some of his pictures.
The current show, which opened May 8 and runs through July 28, was supported by Germany’s Federal Culture Fund. It will travel to Ukraine this year and a U.S. visit is also likely, though no details have been cemented.
While war photography makes up the heart of the exhibit, it also includes Khaldei’s images of Europe in ruins. From the 1950s onwards, his work focuses on workers, politicians and artists, such as cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and composer Dmitry Shostakovich.
The curators said Berlin was an appropriate first stop for the tour.
“Khaldei’s most famous images were made right around the corner,” Krimmer said.
TITLE: Violent joy
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Go! Team is where noisy guitar rock music and funky, early hip-hop style merge into a phenomenal live show built around a black female rapper.
The multicultural six-piece indie pop band, whose members are based in Brighton and London in the U.K., bring their unique blend of music to St. Petersburg on Saturday. The band, whose second album, “Proof of Youth,” came out in September, formed in Oxford in 1999 when Ian Parton, then a television documentary researcher and director, started to experiment with an old 1980s sampler and a four-track tape recorder after work.
The Go! Team will perform as part of this year’s second Stereoleto music event on Saturday, alongside French-Finnish pop duo The Do, German funk band Torpedo Boyz and British DJ Mr. Scruff as well as a selection of Russian acts.
Ian Parton spoke to The St. Petersburg Times by phone from Oxford this week.
Q: Did the band start as a studio thing with your experimenting with music on your own?
A: Yeah, that’s right, I mean I used to make documentaries, and music was just something I did after work. You know, I would always fuck around with samples and four-tracks and old vinyl, and really just tried to please myself. You know, I was really frustrated with indie music and how indie music was all the same. So I really just tried to make music that I wished somebody else would make, and mix together all my favorite things, and I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of contrasts and how you could mix noisy guitars with cuter things like glockenspiels and recorders and stuff like that. So that’s what I did.
I wrote a bunch of songs and eventually had enough to make an album, which was “Thunder, Lightning, Strike,” the first album, which was recorded in my mom and dad’s house up in Wales when I had some holiday time.
The plan was always to become a live band, I never really wanted to do it on my own or just be a studio thing. It was always got to be a gang of us. I always wanted to make it a live thing.
I don’t approach it like dance music; I didn’t want to stand behind a laptop or behind decks or something — it was always going to be kind of thrashy but live band. I wanted us to be loud and ballsy.
So I looked for five other people who would agree to be in a band with me. None of us particularly knew each other before we started the band, we were all strangers, we were all quite different people and we all liked different music. But we got together for one gig in Sweden in 2004 and never really spoke about the future, never really thought about, you know, “Oh! We are a band now.” We just slowly kept doing more gigs before we knew we were traveling the world.
Q: Your show at Glastonbury last year was pretty spectacular. How did you come up with the visuals and all those things happening on stage?
A: I guess it had to be that way anyway just to make the music come to life. There had to be lots of us, and there had to be lots of instruments, because somebody had to be able to play a banjo, and had to be able to play the harmonica and stuff, so, you know, just to do the music. We have to be able to swap, we have to be able to run across the stage and get behind the drum kit. I like the idea of chaos. I like the idea of it always being on the edge of falling apart. That’s what I strive for: I like overload, I like excess. That’s maybe what we have in common with [U.S. psychedelic rock band] The Flaming Lips. We played with them a couple of years ago and they have a similar idea about sensory overload — you can’t take anymore, almost, you know?
Q: You once said that it’s sort of a band rule only to use female vocalists. What do you like about female vocalists?
A: It’s a personal taste thing, really. I’ve just always been a fan of Phil Spector, ‘60s girl groups and riot grrl, and I’ve always liked female rappers more than male rappers. Like Roxanne Shante, Double Dutch kind of chants, you know, things like that. Particularly in the kind of climate we’re in now where every British band seems to be four blokes, four men, with guitars. I wanted to bust out of that, really.
Q: What’s was so special in lead singer Ninja’s style for you? I understand you posted an ad somewhere looking for an “old-skool female rapper”...
A: Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of candidates for this job, really. Ninja was kind of intrigued by us. She didn’t quite know who we were or what the music was or how it was going to be on stage. She was brave enough to take a chance. And she didn’t really want to be in a band, she just thought, “I’ll do one gig and then I’ll forget about it.” (Laughs) So I kind of tricked her into being the frontwoman, really. She gives the band a new dimension when we’re on stage. She’s not from the kind of noisy guitar world that me and [band member] Sam [Dook] are from — we all like to make noise and feedback and stuff, but she kind of gives the music a funky dimension, I suppose. She gets down in a really cool way and stuff. And she is quite cool at grabbing the audience by the balls and bullying them.
Q: So you started with the desire to do some sort of cross between black and white music?
A: Yeah, I think so. I mean it wasn’t a quest to be “right on,” you know. I’m not trying to be right on and worthy. I’m just really interested in the sonic combination of things like feedback and weird tuning and distorting drums, all this art rock kind of stuff transplanted into blaxploitation, wah pedal, stabby horns, Public Enemy kind of stuff and Double Dutch chants. Early girl groups and funk, all that kind of stuff. So I’ve always thought those are two worlds that are normally separate: we have the “white” art rock world which is all about wearing shades and being into the Velvet Underground; black music is normally about letting go and getting down, that kind of stuff. I was kind of interested how those two things could combine.
Q: In an interview you mentioned that Sonic Youth is your favorite band, which is very interesting. And you toured with them, didn’t you? But the music is still very different.
A: Yeah, it’s not an obvious comparison. It maybe becomes clearer when we play live. It’s a bit more “guitary” and thrashy live. I’ve never really wanted to be like them or anything, because I think there’s too many bands doing that. Everyone has to make their own sound. I’m always interested in imagining what Jackson 5 would sound like being played by Sonic Youth or something. Or “Sesame Street” played by Sonic Youth, you know. Mixing kind of sweet things with quite angry things. People describe our music as kind of “violent joy,” which I go along with, you know. I always like to distort things and fuck things up. I never like things to be too clean and nice. And I think the energy — if you watch Sonic Youth play (maybe not so much now, but in their prime), you know, they were really energetic. It was almost as if they were going to explode.
Q: The Go! Team’s songs sound very different as if they could have been played by several different bands, perhaps. Is that true?
A: I guess there’s a lot of different sides to The Go! Team’s sound, but hopefully whenever you hear a Go! Team song you can tell it’s us. But there’s a lot of different sides, there’s the Mo Tucker side to us as well. You know, Mo Tucker, the drummer with the Velvet Underground, she did her own cute little songs. I like that kind of stuff, like Daniel Johnson kind of stuff. I like things that make you imagine journeys, like “Midnight Cowboy” or even like “The Waltons” or something, that TV show. I like that warm American “banjo-ey” feel as well. That’s another side. And then you have the “car chase” side, and you have a kind of Charlie Brown “piano-ey” kind of side. And then you have the girl gang, screaming girls, as well.
Q: What are the lyrics about?
A: Well, Ninja writes her own lyrics for the live show. I’ve never really analyzed them. I don’t really tell her what to write or anything.
But from my point of view I consider us to be more in the vein of My Bloody Valentine and how they think about lyrics, you know, as an instrument. We haven’t really got a Bob Dylan-style attention to lyric writing, you know. We’re not message-based music, we’re more to do with ideas. Its more of a sonic thing, really, than “we are gonna sing a love song” or anything.
I’m interested in voices and accents, delivery and things like that more than lyrics.
Q: What exactly did you do in documentaries? What was your job?
A: I used to be a researcher and a director and I actually came to Russia once and filmed a program about Siberian ice mummies. They found mummified remains in Siberia in the permafrost, so I made a program about it.
Q: Are the 2000s good time for music?
A: Mainstream is always shit, I think it always has been. I think it’s a healthy thing to hate mainstream. I never listen to daytime radio or anything. I mean there’s lots of opportunities and there’s lots of good little bands around. I don’t really want to diss the whole music scene or anything. I think it’s definitely an interesting time for music, but it’s more of a technological thing, than an industry thing.
But I don’t really think about the industry, I just think about the music.
In theory I like the idea of what the Internet can allow. It is freeing bands up and making them more independent in theory, but you don’t really know how it will work in the future.
The Go! Team performs as part of the Stereoleto music event starting at 10 p.m. on Saturday at LenExpo, 103 Bolshoi Pr. Vasilyevsky Ostrov. Metro Primorskaya. www.thegoteam.co.uk, www.myspace.com/thegoteam
TITLE: Arshavin Sends Russia into Quarterfinals
AUTHOR: By Mitch Phillips
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: INNSBRUCK — The return of playmaker Andrei Arshavin on Wednesday transformed Russia from a pedestrian and predictable Euro 2008 team into a slick-passing unit able to overwhelm Sweden with two superb goals.
Few believed coach Guus Hiddink when he said he might not start with his deep-lying attacker due to a lack of match fitness after the inspirational Arshavin was forced to sit out the first two Group D games through suspension.
But nobody could have envisaged what an impact the midfield schemer would make within minutes of joining the party as Russia beat Sweden 2-0 to set up a quarterfinal with Netherlands.
Operating in a productive no-man’s land between Sweden’s midfield and defense, Arshavin roamed left, right and center, collecting the ball from deep, probing, passing and driving into the box with menace.
His team mates, who looked flat in their first two games, seemed to be lifted by his presence and suddenly passes were zipping in and around the Swedish box with hitherto unseen zest.
Midfielder Konstantin Zyryanov was everywhere while striker Roman Pavlyuchenko rediscovered the touch and confidence that destroyed England in qualifying but then deserted him to the point that Hiddink threatened to leave him at home. Both were involved in the first goal after 24 minutes, one of the best here so far, when Zyryanov and Alexander Anyukov neatly set up Pavlyuchenko to fire in a crisp first-time shot.
Arshavin got the second just after the break when he ran 50 meters to finish off another sweeping move and, along with several of his team mates, should have scored again in the final quarter as Sweden’s defense was punctured time and again.
Suddenly, from looking like tournament makeweights, Russia was transformed into a team who look capable of giving any defense a grilling and the return of the number 10 was key.
“Arshavin is a player who can decide very, very fast where he can create danger... he can turn left, right, he knows where an opponent is so he is a very smart player,” Hiddink said.
“You can see he can make the difference, not for himself by the goal but for the other guys on the field.
“We tried to play with him between their defensive line and their two defensive midfielders and he’s very smart to play in that area because we knew from the analysis that the Swedish team was not covering there.”
The Dutch, who have been reveling in their own attacking performances, might pay now more attention to their defense in the next few days because Arshavin’s presence means Saturday’s showdown in Basel suddenly looks a lot more interesting.
“The way we play we get respect, we like to play in this concept of the way football should be played and I think they [Netherlands] do the same,” Hiddink told a news conference.
Wednesday’s performance was a far cry from the woeful defending in last week’s opener against Spain, when a tendency to throw players forward and leave just a couple of defenders back was punished by a 4-1 hammering.
Hiddink lambasted his players’ naivety and conducted some tough training sessions. The result was a much-improved performance in a 1-0 win over Greece where they looked in control at the back and should have scored more goals.
“I’m very proud...of the progress made in a few hours, in a few days,” Hiddink said.
“We were not very alert to the danger which can occur in a team and now in the last two games we were.”
Hiddink’s one criticism was the failure to convert more of their chances.
“I think we should have scored one more goal in each half,” he said. “That is the only small criticism but they executed very well what we talked about in training.”
TITLE: Injury Puts Woods Out For 2008
AUTHOR: By Mark Lamport-Stokes
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LOS ANGELES — Tiger Woods will have reconstructive surgery on his left knee that will sideline him for the rest of the 2008 season, the American world number one said on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old defied jabbing pain all week before clinching his 14th major title at the U.S. Open on Monday, winning a 19-hole playoff against compatriot Rocco Mediate.
It was his first tournament in two months since having surgery to clean out cartilage in the knee two days after the U.S. Masters in mid-April.
Woods outlined that he would have reconstructive surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament, which he tore 11 months ago after last year’s British Open at Carnoustie.
He also said he would require time off to rehabilitate a double stress fracture of his left tibia that was found last month and attributed to his intense rehabilitation and preparation for the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego.
“I know much was made of my knee throughout the last week, and it was important to me that I disclose my condition publicly at an appropriate time,” Woods said in a statement on his official web site (http://www.tigerwoods.com).
“I wanted to be very respectful of the USGA (United States Golf Association) and their incredibly hard work, and make sure the focus was on the U.S. Open.
“Now, it is clear that the right thing to do is to listen to my doctors, follow through with this surgery and focus my attention on rehabilitating my knee.”
Woods, who has already had three previous surgeries on his left knee, refused to disclose much detail of the pain he clearly suffered at Torrey Pines last week.
However, he rated his major triumph as the most meaningful of his career given the obstacles he faced, an opinion echoed by his swing coach Hank Haney.
“I certainly think it’s the greatest win he’s ever had,” Haney told reporters on Monday. “He had only played 27 practice holes since the Masters and he never hit more than 50 balls a day on the range.”
Moments after securing his 14th major title and his 65th career victory on the PGA Tour, Woods admitted he had defied doctor’s orders to compete at Torrey Pines.
“As far as future ramifications, I’m not really good at listening to doctor’s orders too well,” he added. “Hey, I won this week, so it is what it is.”
On Wednesday, he conceded he had to follow medical advice for the sake of his career, ending a remarkable 2008 campaign that featured five victories worldwide in just seven starts.
“While I am obviously disappointed to have to miss the remainder of the season, I have to do the right thing for my long-term health,” said Woods, who initially had surgery on his left knee in 1994, to remove a benign tumor, followed by arthroscopic surgery in December 2002.
“I look forward to returning to competitive golf when my doctors agree that my knee is sufficiently healthy. My doctors assure me with the proper rehabilitation, the knee will be strong and there will be no long-term effects.”
TITLE: UEFA General Secretary Praises Sporting Attitudes
AUTHOR: By Mike Collett
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BASEL — UEFA general secretary David Taylor praised the players and coaches for their sporting attitude in Euro 2008 on Thursday despite the fiercely competitive nature of their group phase matches.
Only three players have been red carded in the opening 24 matches, although German coach Joachim Loew and his Austrian counterpart Josef Hickersberger were both sent to the stands for their behaviour when their sides met in Vienna on Monday.
“I have been very pleased to see the way the players have been fiercely competitive but there have been no really major incidents of any significance and the general approach of players and coaches has been first class,” Taylor said at a news conference on Thursday.
“We are having a great tournament. We have seen some great games. We have had 24 matches and only one 0-0 draw. The football really has been entertaining.
“First and foremost this is due to the attitude of the players. In high level competition the stakes are high but the players have shown respect for each other, the game and the referees.
“Now there are always going to be incidents, we are never going to be clear and perfect in all of this but this tournament has been marked by a much better attitude all around.
“We have to show the best of football, not just in terms of the quality of the game but in the way the game is played.
“This is a special tournament and any of the last eight national teams can win it, and this is what gives this tournament its special appeal.”
Taylor also said the fan zones were continuing to be a great success and UEFA was delighted with the number of fans from eastern Europe who have travelled to Switzerland and Austria for the event.
“The fans are mingling with each other, and perhaps this is something the club game could learn from. It is a very noticeable and a very welcome trend. Seeing signs like ‘Sweden loves Russia,’ ‘Sweden loves Greece,’ these sorts of banners are very positive.
“The numbers of fans coming from Eastern Europe is a new development and a very positive one too.”
TITLE: Borg Rates Federer as Third
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Former Wimbledon great Bjorn Borg believes world number one Roger Federer is only third favorite to win the grasscourt grand slam this year.
Federer is aiming for a sixth consecutive Wimbledon title but Borg, champion five times in a row from 1976-1980, thinks the Swiss will have his work cut out.
The Swede also said he will not be surprised if Federer chooses to retire next year.
“I pick Rafael Nadal as winner and my second choice is Novak Djokovic, my third is Roger,” Borg was quoted in British media on Thursday.
“For (Roger) to beat those guys at Wimbledon he needs to play much better than he did last summer. He knows he will have to play some unbelievable tennis to win again. This is the most open Wimbledon for years.”
Borg, who retired in his mid-twenties, thinks Federer can overhaul Pete Sampras’s record of 14 grand slam titles — if he keeps playing.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Roger came out next year and said: ‘I’m not going to play tennis any more’,” Borg added.
“It probably won’t happen but if Roger decides to retire that wouldn’t shock me at all. People expect him to win all the time and that is mentally and physically tiring.
“It’s not going to be like before when he used to win nearly every match he played. That time has gone.”
Federer, beaten in the semi-final at this year’s Australian Open by Djokovic and in the French Open final by Nadal, has won 12 grand slam titles.
“He wants to break the Sampras record and I think he will if he wants to continue playing tennis,” Borg said.
Meanwhile, Russian tennis ace Dmitry Tursunov has been kicked out of the Nottingham Open grasscourt tournament after storming off court in a doubles match.
Men’s tennis governing body the ATP confirmed on Wednesday that sixth seed Tursunov had been withdrawn from his scheduled second round singles match against Swede Thomas Johansson.
Tursunov was defaulted from the doubles on Tuesday when he and South African partner Chris Haggard were trailing 6-4 3-1 to Italian pairing Simone Bolelli and Andreas Seppi.
The Russian had disputed a line call and then walked off court, breaking ATP rules which state no player can leave the court without the consent of the umpire.