SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1399 (63), Friday, August 15, 2008
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TITLE: Saakashvili’s Russia Claims Questioned
AUTHOR: By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — It was a claim that could have provoked a dangerous Kremlin response: The United States is readying to take over airports and ports in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
The claim, by U.S.-backed Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili on Wednesday was swiftly shot down by officials in Washington, who denied any such designs on Georgian soil.
Yet, it was the latest in a string of overstated pronouncements by the American-educated Georgian leader that are further fueling tensions with Moscow.
His comments — along with a stream of biased, conflicting and often false information coming from both Russian and Georgian officials — have made it hard to figure out what is really happening in the world’s latest hotspot.
Fighting between the Russian and Georgian armies raged for days, leaving hundreds dead and some 100,000 forced from their homes. The U.S. government and world diplomats are scrambling for a way to cool the tensions.
Warfare erupted when Georgia sought to retake control over the breakaway province of South Ossetia last Thursday and Russia responded with overwhelming military force.
Saakashvili has been conducting daily interviews in his fluent English on international television networks and making frequent televised speeches at home.
On Wednesday, he said in an interview on CNN that Russian troops were “closing on the capital, circling,” and planning to install their own government in Tbilisi.
Reporters in the area saw no sign of an impending coup. An AP reporter saw dozens of Russian trucks and armored vehicles heading south from the central city of Gori in the direction of Tbilisi, but they later turned away.
Saakashvili said Russian troops moving deeper into Georgia “even steal toilet seats.”
He later said on Georgian national television that the U.S. arrival of a military cargo plane with humanitarian aid “means that Georgia’s ports and airports will be taken under the control of the U.S. Defense Department.”
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell responded, “We have no need, nor do we intend to take over any Georgian air or seaport to deliver humanitarian aid. ... We have no designs on taking control of any Georgian facility.”
Saakashvili has repeatedly compared the Russian incursions to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, to the Soviet crackdown in Prague in 1968 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
In his Wednesday TV address, he said, “Russia has lost more airplanes than in any conflict of this scale since 1939.” 
While such figures are not publicly available, the calculation seemed unlikely given how brief the fighting has been and how uneven the two countries’ forces are.
He also cited rumors that Russia was planning to bomb a rally in Tbilisi on Tuesday. 
The rally, organized by the Georgian government, ended peacefully.

TITLE: Russia: ‘Forget’ Territorial Integrity
AUTHOR: By Christopher Torchia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GORI, Georgia — Russia’s foreign minister declared Thursday that the world “can forget about” Georgia’s territorial integrity, and American and Georgian officials said Russia appeared to be targeting military infrastructure — including radars and patrol boats at a Black Sea naval base and oil hub.
An AP Television News crew in the oil port city of Poti saw one destroyed Georgian military boat, and two Russian armored vehicles and two Russian transport trucks. Soldiers who identified themselves as Russian peacekeepers blocked the crew from going further.
Russia’s president met in the Kremlin with the leaders of Georgia’s two separatist provinces — a clear sign that Moscow could absorb the regions. The comments from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared to come as a challenge to the United States, where President Bush has called for Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia.”
The Russian refusal to withdraw from Georgia presents a challenge to the cease-fire agreement designed to end seven days of fighting. The EU-sponsored accord had envisioned Russian and Georgian forces returning to their original positions.
In Washington, an American official said Russia appears to be sabotaging airfields and other military infrastructure as its forces pull back. The U.S. official described eyewitnesses accounts on condition of anonymity. The official said the Russian strategy seems like a deliberate attempt to cripple the already battered Georgian military.
The United States poured aid into the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Thursday and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched emergency talks in France aimed at heading off a wider conflict.
Russia’s deputy chief of General Staff Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said he was not sure that the U.S. planes carried exclusively humanitarian cargo. “It causes our concern,” he said.
At least 20 explosions were heard near Gori, along with small-arms fire. It could not immediately be determined if the blasts were a renewal of fighting between Georgian and Russian forces, but they sounded similar to mortar shells and occurred after a tense confrontation between Russian and Georgian troops on the edge of the city.
The strategically located city is 15 miles south of South Ossetia, the Russian-backed separatist region where Russian and Georgian forces fought a five-day battle. Russian troops entered Gori on Wednesday, after the two sides signed the cease-fire.
In Washington, a Pentagon official said U.S. intelligence had assessed that the number of Russians in Gori was small — about 100 to 200 troops. But the Russian presence in Gori, only 60 miles west of Tbilisi, was viewed as a demonstration of the vulnerability of the capital.
Nogovitsyn said Russian troops went to Gori to establish contact with local civilian administration and take control over military depots left behind by the Georgian forces. “The abandoned weapons needed protection,” he said.
Georgian government officials who went into the city for the possible handover left unexpectedly around midday, followed by a checkpoint confrontation outside Gori which ended when Russian tanks sped toward the area and Georgian police quickly retreated.
A Russian general in Gori had said Wednesday it would take at least two days to leave the city.
Besides the hundreds killed since hostilities broke out, the United Nations estimates 100,000 Georgians have been uprooted; Russia says some 30,000 residents of South Ossetia fled into the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia.
Russian troops also appeared to be settling in elsewhere in Georgia outside the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
“One can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity because, I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state,” Lavrov told reporters.
The White House bluntly rejected Lavrov’s message.
“Our position on Georgia’s territorial integrity is not going to change no matter what anybody says,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said Thursday. “And so I would consider that to be bluster from the foreign minister of Russia. We will ignore it.”
Georgia’s coast guard said Russian troops had burned patrol boats and destroyed radars and other equipment at the port city of Poti, home to Georgia’s main naval base and a major hub for oil exports to Europe. The APTN crew saw one destroyed boat, about 60 feet long.
On Poti’s outskirts, the APTN crew followed a different convoy of Russian troops as they searched a forest for Georgian military equipment.
Nogovitsyn avoided comment on the Russian presence in Poti, saying only that Russian forces were operating within their “area of responsibility.”
Another APTN camera crew saw Russian soldiers and military vehicles parked Thursday inside the Georgian government’s elegant, heavily-gated residence in the western town of Zugdidi. Some of the soldiers wore blue peacekeeping helmets, others wore green camouflage helmets, all were heavily armed. The scene underlined how closely the soldiers Russia calls peacekeepers are allied with its military.
“The Russian troops are here. They are occupying,” Ygor Gegenava, an elderly Zugdidi resident told the APTN crew. “We don’t want them here. What we need is friendship and good relations with the Russian people.”
Georgia, bordering the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
A steady, dejected trickle of Georgian refugees fled the front line in overloaded cars, trucks and tractor-pulled wagons, heading to Tbilisi on the road from Gori. One Soviet-era car carried eight people, including a mother and a baby in the front seat. The open back door of a small blue van revealed at least a dozen people crowded inside.
The Russian General Prosecutor’s office on Thursday said it has formally opened a genocide probe into Georgian treatment of South Ossetians. For its part, Georgia this week filed a suit against Russia in the International Court of Justice, alleging murder, rape and mass expulsions in both provinces.
More homes in deserted ethnic Georgian villages were apparently set ablaze Wednesday, sending clouds of smoke over the foothills north of Tskhinvali, capital of breakaway South Ossetia.
One Russian colonel, who refused to give his name, blamed the fires on looters.
Those with ethnic Georgian backgrounds who have stayed behind — like 70-year-old retired teacher Vinera Chebataryeva — seem increasingly unwelcome in South Ossetia.
As she stood sobbing in her wrecked apartment near the center of Tskhinvali, Chebataryeva said a skirmish between Ossetian soldiers and a Georgian tank had gouged the two gaping shell holes in her wall, bashing in her piano and destroying her furniture.
Janna Kuzayeva, an ethnic Ossetian neighbor, claimed the Georgian tank fired the shell at Chebataryeva’s apartment.
“We know for sure her brother spied for Georgians,” said Kuzayeva. “We let her stay here, and now she’s blaming everything on us.”
North of Tskhinvali, a number of former Georgian communities have been abandoned in the last few days. “There isn’t a single Georgian left in those villages,” said Robert Kochi, a 45-year-old South Ossetian.
But he had little sympathy for his former Georgian neighbors. “They wanted to physically uproot us all,” he said. “What other definition is there for genocide?”

TITLE: Aid Floods In for Ossetian Conflict Victims
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s School No. 197 is piled high with hundreds of packages bearing labels such as “Female Warm Clothes,” “Teenager Clothes,” “Towels,” and “Baby Clothes.” 
The school at 29 Ulitsa Furshtadskaya has been designated as a collection point for items to be donated to South Ossetia, the region at the center of the military conflict that erupted between Russia and Georgia last week.
“It’s only the third day we’ve been operating but we’ve gathered tons of things,” said Igor, one of the volunteers working at the center. 
“On Tuesday we had about one thousand people come along.  Now we’ve already stopped counting,” he said.
On Thursday, city residents continued to bring warm clothes, footwear, linen, toys and other items to the center.
“I came here because I survived World War II, and because I know what hunger and cold is, and what it’s like to be hiding from fascists,” said Olga Fyodorova, 72, her eyes full of tears.
“Fascists also gathered children and women in a house and set it on fire,” Fyodorova said referring to atrocities allegedly committed by Georgian troops and reported as fact on government-controlled television.
Fyodorova took her winter coat to the collection point.
“It is in good condition.  Unfortunately, I can’t buy new clothes to send there,” she said.
Nikolai Sonin, 50, a former policeman, brought a leather jacket, new sweaters, and other good clothes to the center.
“What happened to South Ossetia is such a tragedy. I know what it’s like, and I know they need help,” Sonin said.
Andrei Korotayev, 25, said he brought clothes for women and children.
“I just imagined myself in their shoes, and hurried here,” Korotyayev said.
Fatima Aldatova-Tuayeva, an Ossetian by origin, who has been running the center since it opened on Tuesday, said she has been staying there overnight.
“We stay here 24-hours a day to sort out the things that people bring,” Aldatova-Tuayeva said, adding that on Thursday the social workers who do the work were joined by 20 men from Russia’s Emergency Service.
“People come, some cry, and then we just hug each other and cry together,” she said.
Aldatova-Tuayeva said that it was important that people bring new items and that clothes should be in a good condition and clean.
“People in South Ossetia don’t have much opportunity to wash things there.  At the same time we don’t want to give them any extra infections,” Aldatova-Tulayeva said.
Aldatova-Tuayeva said that when she called South Ossetia on Thursday they said that beds and bed linen are needed. Personal hygiene products such as soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, and detergent are also in demand.
“We are very grateful to St. Petersburg residents who come and bring help.  I’ve been living in this city for 36 years, and love this city and its people very much,” she said.
Aldatova-Tuayeva said the humanitarian aid centers would stay open until August 22.
There are 10 humanitarian aid centers in St. Petersburg including those at the following addresses:
Admiralteisky district:38 Ulitsa Mozhaiskogo; 57 Ulitsa Dekabristov (Tel: 713 8790)
Vasileostrovsky district: 28 13th Liniya, Vasilyevsky Ostrov (Tel. 321 1055)
Vyborgsky district: 37 Lesnoi Prospekt, liter K (Tel: 295 4883)
Nevsky district: 11 Ulitsa Ivanovskaya (Tel: 560 0034)
Tsentralnyi district: 29  Ulitsa Furshtadskaya (11 a.m. – 8 p.m.)

TITLE: Experts: Hacker Attacks Preceded Fighting
AUTHOR: By Tai Adelaja
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Hackers knocked down Georgian government web sites days before Russian tanks rolled into the country’s territory, in what experts said Wednesday was an ominous sign that cyber-attacks might foreshadow future armed conflicts.
Major Internet security firms reported massive attacks on Georgian web sites by hackers using botnets, a network of “zombie” computers that can be used to overwhelm servers with millions of unsolicited requests.
“Cyber-attacks are part of the information war,” said Alexander Denezhkin, editor of Cybersecurity.ru, an online journal. “Making your enemy shut up is a potent weapon of modern warfare.”
The so-called distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks began in the weeks running up to the outbreak of the Russia-Georgia conflict and continued after the Kremlin announced that it had ceased hostilities Tuesday, said Tom Burling, an executive of Tulip Systems, a U.S. Internet firm. Tulip Systems, which took over hosting of the web sites for Georgia’s presidency and a major television network on Saturday, said its experts had worked frantically to curtail the damage from the hackers. “They have been attacking Georgia from a cyber standpoint since July,” Burling said, AFP reported. 
“They are still doing it now. Our poor technician here has gotten three hours sleep in the past four days,” he said.
Georgia has blamed Russia for the attacks.
Burling said Russia could be behind the attacks, which mirror attacks on Estonian web sites amid a dispute between Moscow and Tallinn last year. 
Access to the Georgian president’s web site remain closed Wednesday, and attempts to reach government officials by telephone for comment were unsuccessful.
Shadowserver.org, a U.S.-based foundation that monitors network activities, said it had no hard evidence to prove Russians were behind the attacks. 
The organization said, however, that the HTTP-based botnet server responsible for the attacks “is a MachBot controller, which is a tool that is frequently used by Russian bot herders.”

TITLE: Anti-War Protestors Gather in Central St. Petersburg
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: An anti-war rally drew dozens of protesters to central St. Petersburg on Tuesday despite government-controlled media presenting Russians as unanimous in supporting the invasion of Georgia.
Russian media has been waging an anti-Georgian campaign since hostilities between Georgia and Russia began last week.
Around 60 people gathered on Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa, next to a statue of writer Nikolai Gogol, with about 40 holding banners, on Tuesday evening.
One of the posters criticized the Russian media's response to the conflict with the slogan, "We Need Information, Not Propaganda."
Others read, "Stop the War" and "Human Life Is Priceless."
Organized by the youth wing of the democratic party Yabloko, the rally called for the "cessation of military action and the establishment of peace in the South Ossetian conflict zone."
"The organizers will refrain from apportioning blame about who started the war," a news release about the rally stated.
"There will be neither words of support nor words of condemnation directed to the conflict's participants. The action's participants intend to call both sides to stop killing peaceful citizens and to sit down at the negotiating table."
The organizers brought blank sheets of paper and markers to allow participants who had no posters to create their own on the spot. People squatted on the ground to write such slogans as "All People Are Brothers, War Is a Crime," and "We Are With Those Who Are Being Killed, Not With Those Who Are Killing."
Although the protesters had secured permission from the authorities, there was a police van and an OMON special-task police force truck parked close to the site on nearby Nevsky Prospekt. But the police did not interfere.
Nevertheless, one police officer recorded protesters on a video camera, while another copied down what was written on the posters in a notebook.
Olga Kurnosova, the local leader of Garry Kasparov's United Civil Front, part of pro-democracy coalition The Other Russia, took part in the rally and held aloft a handwritten poster that said, "No to War!"
The United Civil Front issued a statement blaming President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for violating the Constitution by starting military action without the necessary sanction from the Federation Council and called for immediate negotiations, troop withdrawal and an end to the war.
The war in Georgia will also be addressed by musicians and speakers at a United Civil Front-promoted outdoor concert, "Rock for Freedom," due to take place on Ploshchad Sakharova on Aug. 22, the movement's spokesman said on Thursday.
Televizor, SP Babai and other bands have been scheduled to perform in the concert, which marks the anniversary of the failed 1991 coup d'etat by Soviet hardliners.
Meanwhile, Alexei Nikonov, the frontman of local punk band Posledniye Tanki v Parizhe (Last Tanks in Paris), also known as PTVP, announced that his band's next concert, at Mod on Aug. 27, would be against the war in Georgia.
"This is war," he said in a statement this week.
"The crisis was inevitable. They need a small victorious war... Oil pipes, imperial hallucinations, but the main thing is the money, it's always the same... Inflation? Poverty? The power of the oligarchy? The war for them is a solution to every problem. This is how the state acts. Imperialism hypnotizes through aggression. We are responding the only way we know how."

TITLE: Police Vow to Tackle Xenophobic Attacks
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Responding to the concerns of foreign students who are regularly attacked by skinheads and radical youth groups, the Vyborgsky District Police Department is introducing two patrol routes that cover the areas where most of the incidents occur, according to police statistics.
“According to police reports that we have collected since January 2008, most of the crimes and attacks on foreigners and members of antifascist organizations in the Vyborgsky district have occurred on weekends in areas surrounding the Udelnaya and Ozerki metro stations,” reads a police statement posted on the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office web site. “Two special routes have been developed for the police officers  to keep a close eye on.”
Students have been appealing to the police for more protection for at least five years, asking that patrol be assigned to monitor areas that are known for frequent attacks, especially around some of the student hostels.
Instead, they were regularly presented with leaflets — updated annually — encouraging them to train their sprinting abilities and to rely on self-defense. 
Vyborgsky District Prosecutor’s Office has also asked the police to create a detailed database of potentially dangerous locations where foreign students and antifascists often gather or live and are exposed to nationalists.
According to statistics collected by the Moscow-based SOVA Center, a nongovernmental organization that monitors ethnic intolerance and tracks hate crimes, in 2007, 69 people died and more than 600 were injured in xenophobic attacks in Russia. Racially motivated crimes were registered in 39 of Russia’s 84 regions. 
Most of the incidents were registered in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tolyatti, and Voronezh. Galina Kozhevnikova, deputy head of the SOVA Center, said xenophobia in Russia is developing quickly, with apparent hate crimes having been recorded in at least seven regions of Russia since the beginning of the year.
The victims have included citizens of Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Mauritius, Syria, Kenya, Libya, and other countries, almost half of them foreign students at Russian universities.
In the context of other recent trials for hate crimes in Russia, a disturbing pattern is emerging. The victim is typically attacked by a group of assailants but in the end they either escape punishment, are charged with the lesser crime of hooliganism or the blame is placed upon the attacker responsible for the lethal wound, while the accomplices get off with light sentences.
In October 2006, the St. Petersburg City Court acquitted a group of young people suspected of the murder of Vietnamese student Vu An Tuan, who was stabbed to death in October 2004 during an attack by a group of drunken youths. Also in 2006, another group — suspected of the murder of 9-year-old Tajik girl Khursheda Sultanova — was cleared of murder charges and convicted of hooliganism.

TITLE: Editor Jailed For Eight Years On Extortion, Drugs Charges
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — In an unusually harsh ruling, a Moscow court has sentenced a deputy editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta to eight years in prison in a lawsuit initiated by a deputy agriculture minister. 
The Meshchansky District Court sentenced Boris Zemtsov to a maximum-security prison after convicting him of extortion and drug charges, Moscow City Court spokeswoman Anna Usachyova said Tuesday. 
“Zemtsov has been found guilty of all the charges against him: extortion and the illegal purchase and storage of drugs,” Usachyova said. 
She said she had no further details of the charges. The court handed down the decision Monday but only announced it Tuesday. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, an independent-minded daily, rejected the verdict, calling it “an attempt to restrict the criticism of state agencies,” and said it would appeal. 
The editors said the investigation into Zemtsov was opened after Deputy Agriculture Minister Alexander Kozlov complained to the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee over an article published in the newspaper. 
According to the complaint, published by the newspaper Tuesday, Kozlov said the article contained “incorrect information” that “damages the honor and dignity” of Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev and his ministry. Zemtsov did not write the article. 
The Investigative Committee said in a statement that Zemtsov had used Nezavisimaya Gazeta articles to blackmail Agriculture Ministry officials. 
“Zemtsov, as a deputy editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, had ... access to stories by the newspaper’s reporters [and] for personal profit collected data that cast doubt on the business and moral qualities of senior officials,” the statement said, Interfax reported. 
The editors rejected the charges in an editorial Tuesday, saying Zemtsov had been “trying to talk over mutually profitable cooperation in the advertising and information spheres” with Agriculture Ministry officials.

TITLE: Dudley Barred For Two Years
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A court in the Russian capital Thursday barred the chief executive officer of troubled Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, from office for two years.
BP said it was disappointed by the court’s decision on Thursday, adding that Robert Dudley will retain his position until completion of an appeal process.
“We will appeal with the Moscow Appelate Court within 10 days,” TNK-BP spokeswoman Marina Dracheva said. The decision is not final until the appeal is filed and considered, she said.
Dudley will remain CEO of TNK-BP pending completion of an appeal process, BP confirmed.
Moscow’s Presnensky district court disqualified Dudley for failure to obey instructions of the labor watchdog, TNK-BP said.
American-born Dudley left Russia last month when his work permit was not renewed, but has been continuing to work as CEO from outside the country.
BP has been battling Russian shareholders for control of the company for months.
A consortium of Russian shareholders in the 50-50 joint venture with BP have repeatedly called for Dudley’s removal, saying he has mismanaged the company in favor of BP’s interests.

TITLE: Small Businesses Stage Appeal to Ministry
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Owners and staff of small businesses from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Lipetsk, Tambov and other Russian cities held a “meeting of empty baskets” outside the headquarters of Russia’s Ministry for Economic Development on Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Ploshchad on Wednesday in an effort to attract attention to the plight of small businesses in the country.
Huddling together around a handful of empty baskets borrowed from local supermarkets, the protesters called for the protection of medium and small businesses against corruption, monopolist policies and bureaucracy.
“Stop creating nightmares for business,” “Stop ripping us off,” “Shame on those who take bribes” and “Save the middle class,” read some of the posters at the meeting.
“When we were planning this meeting, we thought it would coincide with the Olympic Games but sadly, our event has coincided with Russia’s military campaign in South Ossietia — which Russian officials say is meant to save the Ossetian people from genocide,” said Grigory Solominsky, an entrepreneur from St. Petersburg. “Genocide, in fact, is the perfect word to describe the stifling policies of the Russian bureaucrats toward small businesses.”
According to the St. Petersburg Association of Small and Medium Business, as many as 5,000 small enterprises have ceased to exist in the city over the past three years as a result of government corruption and bureaucracy.
“Bribes and rackets flourish,” said Solominsky. “The encouraging words and soothing promises of President Medvedev about the importance of and benefits for small businesses are just a smoke-screen behind which a major wipe-out operation is taking place.”
As Yury Korgunyuk, a leading analyst with the Moscow-based anti-corruption think tank INDEM points out, in Russia small businesses account for just 10 to 15 percent of the Russian economy, while in the rest of Eastern Europe they form the essential core of the economy, at between 50 and 70 percent. 
“As a result, a substantial proportion of Russians feel dependent on the state, hence a continuing degree of support for the parties advertising social benefits and promising state support, including United Russia, Just Russia and the Communists,” Korgunyuk explained, adding that the main reason for the vast difference between the support of small businesses in Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe is that Russia still maintains huge spending on defense, which other Eastern European countries do not. 
“Russia’s Ministry for Economic Development has been incapable of coping with inflation; it never occurred to them that the main formula for Russia’s high inflation is very simple — a combination of corruption and monopolies,” Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin said at the meeting.

TITLE: Local Auto Factory Hub Threatened by City Hall
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Rozhkov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s aspirations to become a Russian Detroit and car-making economic cluster have been thrown into doubt after City Hall’s Department of Economics, Industry and Trade passed new legislation to bring in ecological limitations for the Shushary industrial zone, where car plants have already been built by Toyota and General Motors. Suzuki is also set to open a plant in the area. According to the regulations, maximum production rates should not exceed 500,000 vehicles a year, to reduce any negative effects on the environment. 
 Experts are now wondering whether City Hall, which has so far eagerly welcomed foreign investment, is still interested in touting St. Petersburg as a Russian Detroit because if the new ecological standards are implemented, Shushary will be unable to accommodate all the planned carmakers.
Toyota intends to reach production rates of 110,000 cars by 2010, and later increase production to 300,000 once its second Russian plant opens. General Motors is planning annual rates of 70,000 cars plus a second automobile plant, while Suzuki will enter the Russian market with 50,000 crossovers a year. 
Igor Morzharetto, the deputy editor of Za Rulyom (At the Wheel) car magazine, told Business FM radio that all projects in St. Petersburg are related to politics rather than economics. 
“When it comes to economic issues, the St. Petersburg region is unsuitable for large-scale automobile manufacturing for several reasons. It does not make sense to locate car plants with a total capacity of around one million vehicles a year close to the city,” said Morzharetto, citing logistical difficulties and changing regulations.
Sergei Fiveisky, First Deputy Head of the St. Petersburg Department of Economics, Industry and Trade, sees four major and urgent problems facing large investors. 
“An update on ecological safety standards along with the lack of land plots in industrial zones, inexperienced personnel and dependence on natural energy monopolists’ networks should be dealt with as soon as possible,” said Fiveisky. 
St. Petersburg’s International Green Cross environmental organization said that the new regulations would help to protect the environment. 
“If they [carmakers] adhere to the regulations, their activity will not harm the environment,” said Yury Shevchuk, head of the Green Cross in St. Petersburg, in an interview with Avtonews.ru. 
GM and Toyota declined to comment, but sources at the companies said the executives are now wary, as they believe the sudden ecological limitations are merely a pretext. 
Some experts believe that Russian carmakers have lobbied City Hall to pass the regulations on ecological standards in order to eliminate competitors from the market. 
City Hall doubts that the limitations will prevent investors from expanding the car production facilities. The prospective Shushary automobile trio — Toyota, Suzuki and General Motors — will manufacture about 330,000 vehicles a year according to current plans. But production rates are expected to at least double, as carmakers view the Russian market as one of the fastest growing in the world.

TITLE: Mechel Ordered to Cut Tariffs, Faces Fine
AUTHOR: By Maria Kolesnikova
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Mechel, attacked by Vladimir Putin for inflating Russian coking-coal prices, was ordered to cut tariffs for domestic steelmakers “considerably” after an antitrust probe found the company violated competition law.
The company faces a fine at the “lower end” of a 1-to-15 percent range of the previous year’s coking-coal sales, Igor Artemyev, head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, told reporters in Moscow on Thursday. Company revenue from the market was $869 million last year, according to Marat Gabitov, an analyst at UniCredit SpA. The FAS will set the penalty early next week.
Mechel lost half its value in New York trading in the week after Prime Minister Putin said July 24 that the company avoided taxes and sold coal to a Swiss unit at a quarter of the price charged domestically. The investigation, five years after the state’s assault on Yukos Oil, helped undermine investor confidence in Russian stocks this quarter.
Mechel discriminated against Russian consumers, “unreasonably refused contracts” and maintained a monopoly in the coal market, the FAS said. Putin had said the company’s actions contributed to a coal shortage and higher steel prices in Russia. The watchdog is also probing competing coal producer Raspadskaya and steelmaker Evraz Group over the price of the steelmaking raw material.
Mechel charged domestic clients less than export customers in only two of the past six months, according to Anatoly Golozmin, deputy chief of the antitrust body.
The company, controlled by billionaire Igor Zyuzin, may have to pay the equivalent of 7 to 8 percent of domestic coal revenue and may agree to lower prices in Russia by 30 percent, Kommersant reported earlier Thursday, citing unidentified people familiar with the results of Wednesday’s hearing. Mechel spokesman Ilya Zhitomirsky declined to comment.
Mechel rallied 13 percent in New York on Wednesday on expectations that the company wouldn’t receive the maximum fine and that the political campaign would end.
“Investors discounted a worst-case scenario,” Alfa Bank chief strategist Ronald Smith said in a note to investors Thursday.
Investors from Firebird Management to Wermuth Asset Management are avoiding Russian shares following the country’s invasion of Georgia and on concern that the government is interfering in business.
Russia’s RTS stock index has fallen 22 percent since June 30, the worst performance of the world’s 20 biggest equity markets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
While the rebuke of Mechel was the biggest since Putin led a campaign against Yukos, Zyuzin’s company is unlikely to share the same fate as the now-bankrupt oil producer, according to Troika Dialog.
“We believe that the attack on Mechel will have neither scale nor the significance of the attack on Yukos,” strategists Kingsmill Bond and Andrey Kuznetsov wrote in a note to investors last Thursday.
Yukos was broken up and sold by the state after it was hit with more than $30 billion in tax claims.

TITLE: War Casts Doubts On Pipeline
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Any plans to use Georgia as a bridge for more energy supplies to Europe are likely set to gather dust now that the tiny country’s fierce armed conflict with Russia has exposed the insecurity of the route, analysts said.
Georgia has been a key conduit of oil and gas from Central Asia to the West that bypasses Russia, and Europe has been hoping to build another pipeline to bring more gas from the area.
That pipeline project, called Nabucco, has long been on the drawing board, but potential investors had trouble contracting enough gas for it from Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan. 
Shipping the gas from Turkmenistan would require building a separate pipeline across the Caspian Sea bed, which has yet to be divided by the sea’s five littoral states, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran. 
Now, Georgia’s vulnerability may have dealt a lethal blow to Nabucco and plans for a trans-Caspian pipeline.
“A trans-Caspian gas pipeline can be considered a forever buried chimera,” said Pavel Baev, an energy expert at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo. “It became clear for all the participants of these energy games that nothing will go through the Caspian Sea.”
Europe was “shocked” by the instability and realized that “hardly anyone would invest money in new projects” associated with Georgia, said Konstantin Simonov, director of the Fund for National Energy Security.
When asked about the impact of the war on Nabucco prospects, European Commission energy spokesman, Martin Selmayr, said none of the pipelines going through Georgia were affected. The commission was in regular contact with energy companies in the region, he said.
Russian air strikes did not hit any of the three international oil and gas pipelines crossing the country or any oil ports, but they forced BP, which is an operator of Azerbaijan’s two biggest energy projects, to stop oil and gas shipments through Georgia as a precautionary measure Tuesday.
The BP-operated Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries oil from Azerbaijan to the Turkish Mediterranean, was already out of commission because of an explosion in Turkey last week that Kurdish separatists claimed responsibility for.
Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov on Monday ordered KazMunaiGaz, the national energy company, to study whether it could absorb domestically the exports envisaged for transit via Georgia. 
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet patrolled Georgia’s coast, potentially making it harder to transport the crude from ports to international markets.
The war with Georgia could backfire on Russia by creating difficulties for its own project to supply Europe with gas, South Stream. The project’s partners, Gazprom and Italy’s Eni, have enlisted the support of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece as transit countries for their route.
The initial stretch of the pipeline would cross the Black Sea, leaving Russia the task of winning approval from NATO member Turkey or Western-leaning Ukraine.
These countries could deny permission for the pipeline to cross their territory in an attempt to punish Russia for its military campaign in Georgia, Baev said. “One could expect movements in that direction,” he said.

TITLE: NLMK Set to Buy U.S. Steel Giant JMC for $3.5 Billion
AUTHOR: By Nadia Popova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Novolipetsk Steel said Wednesday that it agreed to buy John Maneely Company, the United States’ largest independent steel pipe and tube manufacturer, for $3.5 billion in the biggest North American purchase ever by a Russian metals company.
Novolipetsk, also known as NLMK, said it would acquire 100 percent of JMC from Carlyle Group, the world’s second-largest private-equity firm, and the Zekelman family, as Russia’s metals giants continue to buy up the continent’s steel assets.
The deal, which is to be approved by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, is expected to be closed in the fourth quarter of 2008 and create synergies worth $35 million per year, NLMK said in a statement on its web site.
“We are delighted to have secured entry into the highly attractive U.S. pipe and tube market,” NLMK chairman Vladimir Lisin, who owns an 85 percent stake in the company, said in the statement.
JMC produces pipes and tubes used in construction, infrastructure and utilities at its 11 plants in the United States and Canada. For the 12 months ending June 30, it shipped 2.1 million tons of pipe and had earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization of $485 million. 
“The acquisition of JMC fits with NLMK’s stated strategy of portfolio diversification and downstream integration in the core markets of the company. It strengthens NLMK’s position in North America and provides an entry point into an important and high-margin end market,” the statement said. 
The transaction will be funded by a $1.6 billion pre-export finance loan and a $2 billion bridge loan organized by Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale. 
The steelmaker already operates two U.S. manufacturing facilities, Sharon Coating and Duferco Farrell, as part of its $1.6 billion joint venture with Swiss steel producer Duferco Group. One of the group’s facilities supplies JMC with hot-rolled coil and is located near JMC subsidiary Wheatland Tube. 
“Our strategy is aimed at a further vertical integration of the company’s assets in key markets, including North America,” NLMK said in an e-mailed response to questions. “We’re looking for highly effective steel-roll assets abroad, as they allow us to explore new prospective markets, diversify our business and decrease risk.” 
It said it was particularly interested in North America because nonresidential construction had been increasing in recent years and it expects the sector to grow by 4.4 percent annually over the next five years.
U.S. steel-sheet prices rose to a record $1,068 per ton in July after producers took advantage of lower imports and inventories to pass on higher raw-material costs, Purchasing magazine said July 31.
Maxim Semenovykh, a metals and mining analyst at Alfa Bank, said the deal was logical, as JMC’s products will remain in demand and NLMK was buying a debt-free asset. 
“The price is good. ... Infrastructure in the United States is underdeveloped and will be actively growing in the next 10 to 20 years,” Semenovykh said. 
“The Russian market is quite consolidated, and there is not very much left to buy in the metals sector,” he said.

TITLE: Medvedev’s Toughest Presidential Test
AUTHOR: By Georgy Bovt
TEXT: It was bound to happen at some point — President Dmitry Medvedev would have to face the difficult test of responding to a serious crisis. It came last week, when Georgia attacked South Ossetia with a barrage of Grad truck-fired missiles.
His first official battle as president was not a very original one — the fight against corruption. Every president takes this on, and the anti-corruption measures usually end up being a lot of window-dressing. Nonetheless, all eyes were on Medvedev. They wanted to know how he would wage the battle, what weapons he would use and how they would differ from those used by his predecessors. Since Medvedev was a relative unknown, the people and the political elite both wanted to know what his exact leadership style would be — and how much it would differ from Vladimir Putin’s style when he was president.
Then came the scandal with Mechel, the coal and steel company. Putin publicly chastised the company’s owner for what he considered illegal attempts to avoid tax obligations. Medvedev remained silent for a long time after that, although many observers expected some kind of reaction from him. Finally, Medvedev, copying Putin’s colloquial language, announced that it was time for the government to stop “creating nightmares” for businesses.
Now, the big test for Medvedev has become Georgia. From the outset, Medvedev had no choice but to send armed forces into the region. 
Since his inauguration in May, Medvedev has demonstrated a soft leadership style, but Russians don’t care much for that kind of president. Medvedev is the total opposite of Putin, whose abrupt and forceful manner impresses voters. That is the style they associate with “getting Russia up off its knees” and returning the country to its superpower status.
Once military operations began in South Ossetia, Russians — having been fed a continual diet of patriotic propaganda — expected decisive action by the Kremlin to “protect Russian citizens” in South Ossetia. 
But at the most critical moment, when it had just become widely known to the public that Georgia had invaded South Ossetia, the first to make a statement regarding the conflict was not the commander-in-chief but the prime minister. It was Putin who labeled it an act of aggression while still at the Beijing Games, and it was Putin who discussed developments in a series of meetings with world leaders. Medvedev, meanwhile, seemed a bit confused, and he was clearly uncomfortable ruling the country solo during such a heated crisis.
Russia’s 58th Army entered the battle one full day after Georgia began its artillery bombardment of South Ossetia. By that time, the capital city of Tskhinvali had been almost completely destroyed, most of its territory occupied by Georgian forces and as many as 2,000 civilians had been killed. What caused Russia’s delay in responding to Georgia’s initial attack? Were the authorities in the Kremlin and the White House deliberating about the possible reaction of the world community? Or was the military’s top brass trying to figure out whether Putin or Medvedev was giving the orders? 
It is clear, however, that Medvedev now finds himself in a very difficult situation. He has no choice but to maintain a touch stance against Georgia because any other reaction would be poorly received by domestic public opinion — especially since official propaganda has portrayed Georgia’s unjustified aggression against civilians as being supported by the West, primarily the United States. The people remember all too well how Putin behaved in a similar situation, when the second Chechen war began in 1999. They expect the same from Medvedev; otherwise, people would begin to call into question his ability to run the country and accuse him being spineless.
The situation looks even more complex when viewed from a global context. It would seem that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili won the first days of the war thanks to some heavy doses of propaganda. The West surely helped Saakashvili out when it did not condemn his ruthless attack and civilian casualties. Instead, almost all of the Western news agencies began their reports from South Ossetia with the words, “Russian tanks invade Georgia.” 
Saakashvili remains a poster child for the West’s struggle against Russian imperialism, a process begun by East European countries at the end of the 1980s. Further, Saakashvili has insisted that he is complying with international law because it is a battle for the territorial integrity of his country against separatists. He claims that he resorted to a military solution only after 15 years of fruitless negotiations and after Georgia became convinced of the inability of Russian peacekeepers to regulate the situation impartially and effectively. 
How will Medvedev emerge from this military conflict? If he handles it poorly, it could mean the beginning of the end of his presidency. And that would mean that Putin’s return to the Kremlin is all but guaranteed.

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

TITLE: Georgia’s Big Democracy Lie
AUTHOR: By Vasily Likhachev
TEXT: The missile attacks on South Ossetian towns that Tbilisi started on Aug. 7 have had catastrophic consequences. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili showed the entire world his ruthless aggression and violence against the Ossetians. The Georgian government committed acts of genocide against civilians in South Ossetia, and it violated fundamental principles of human rights and international law.
This conflict is truly a tragedy — not only for Ossetians but also for Georgia itself, which is desperately trying to find its place in the world. It has become clear from this war that Georgia is prepared to undertake any — even illegitimate and illegal — actions, as long as it has the moral and political support of those Western powers that see Georgia as one of their key outposts in the 21st-century Great Game for energy resources and geopolitical influence. 
In addition, it is a tragedy for global cooperation on important issues, such as nuclear nonproliferation, the struggle against global terrorism, the environment, energy, industrial security and the fight against AIDS and infectious diseases. To effectively address these pressing issues, there must be an atmosphere of trust and cooperation. Tbilisi’s unprovoked aggression last week is not conducive to this. 
This war is also a tragedy for the international legal system. While Georgia declares its adherence to democratic values in words, it violates international law by its destructive and aggressive conduct. And this is contributing to the increasingly negative reaction in global capitals against Georgia, although Tbilisi blinds itself to this reality. It strives to be a member of the Western bloc by parroting U.S. catchwords, such as “democratic solidarity” or “a club of democracies,” that have no relevance whatsoever to Georgia.
The West has spent a lot of time, energy and money to teach Georgia the tricks of the trade in global public relations and to make the country look like a democracy. But we and many other nations see through this deceit. We understand that the seditious tactics of the so-called color revolutions are a real threat to international law and the source of global legal nihilism. Russia will always speak out against these destabilizing trends because it defends international law, as demonstrated by the country’s peacekeeping operations in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We also support bringing the United Nations into the region to make the peacekeeping effort truly global. 
President Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal to introduce a legally binding European security treaty, which he first introduced in a speech he gave in Berlin in early June, and to convene a pan-European summit make more sense now than ever before. To turn Medvedev’s ideas into reality, Russia must work with politicians, lawmakers, diplomats, the general public and the media. We can reach mutual understanding only if the whole truth about events in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone becomes clear and if the global community censures Georgia’s acts of aggression and genocide.
Russia must be able to work constructively with other nations, even those that have Russophobic tendencies. The Federation Council must contribute to this process. Among other things, we must clearly articulate our position on Georgia, regional security in the Caucasus and peacekeeping in the region. We need to turn to our partners — the United States, France, Germany and other European Union members, as well as NATO — with an appeal to act impartially, rationally and for the welfare of the common interest of building peace.

Vasily Likhachev, formerly Russia’s ambassador and permanent representative to the European Union in Brussels, is the deputy chairman of the International Affairs Committee in the Federation Council.

TITLE: Loud and proud
AUTHOR: By Katya Panferova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: “The Vagina Monologues,” Eve Ensler’s controversial Off-Broadway play that became a global sensation in the late 1990s, first appeared in Russian translation in 2005.
Now it has been revived by Teatro Di Capua, an Italian company under the auspices of director Juliano Di Capua, for a run at St. Petersburg’s Music Hall. However its form and subject matter — women talking sincerely and loudly about physical, psychological, and social phenomena of the vagina — has caused a stir.
Di Capua, the director of the St. Petersburg version, vigorously defends the play against charges of vulgarity.
“The vagina is a temple, the most dignified place on earth,” Di Capua said. “How can people make it taboo?” 
A year ago, when the title of the play was written in Russian on posters advertizing a previous run, the city’s consultative Public Ethics Committee, headed by singer and actor Mikhail Boyarsky, considered the title to be vulgar and had it painted over on billboards around the city.
Keeping the name of the play, written without irrelevant censure, is crucial for Di Capua. He’s trying to get permission from the Ministry of Culture and the city administration to use the Russian (Cyrillic) spelling (Ìîíîëîãè Âàãèíû) instead of the Cyrillic/Latin compromise (Ìîíîëîãè  Vagini) currently used on posters to get round the ban.
“Support for and preservation of love, family, beauty, the hearth and home, is the mission of the play,” Di Capua said. 
“The sexual revolution took place many years ago, why should I fight in today’s free and democratic society with old fears and prejudices? The [Russian government] called 2008 ‘The Year of the Family’ and at the same time it despises the word vagina — the symbol of childbearing and life.” 
The Year of the Family campaign used posters of famous families, including Boyarsky and his family, to encourage Russians to have more children. 
“Today’s culture, especially in Russia, is concentrated on suffering,” Di Capua said. “It cultivates pain, reflects and multiplies the darkest sides of life. But why is there so little place for joy, light, satisfaction, directness?” 
The play is about enlightening audiences, Di Capua said.
One of the monologues takes the form of an interview with Bosnian refugees who were the victims of rape and violence, and highlights the scourge of cruelty toward women and mothers. In the U.S., this part of the play created the V-Day movement to stop violence against women.
“The Vagina Monologues” is made up of more than 200 monologues, gathered by its author. The heartbreaking testimonials from young women are at turns funny, tragic and thought provoking. Each monologue is somehow connected to the vagina, reflecting different motifs: sex, love, menstruation, the orgasm, gynecology, rape, masturbation, and birth among them. 
The feminine soul, not physiology, is the main theme of the play, Di Capua said.
“The theater is the best place to talk about the soul,” he said, adding that the play expresses a woman’s sense of herself through her body.
In life, people use metaphors and euphemisms to replace “vagina” as if it was something indecent. The play begins with the variety of its names: medical, social, slangy, territorial, rude and humorous. 
The actresses in Di Capua’s production, dressed in striking red costumes, cry out the names in different languages in a deriding manner. The shock tactic works. After the first monologue, no uneasiness is left; the audience gets used to the “horrible word” and is ready to absorb information. 
Although the play is wise, sincere, and sometimes pretentious, it is also witty. Examples include the “Down There Monologue” of an old woman who refuses to acknowledge the existence of her vagina following an embarrassing situation on a date, and “The Pubes Monologue” about the conflict between a wife and her husband that says, “You can’t love only some parts of the body while despising others.” 
“My Angry Vagina Monologue” humorously describes all injustices inflicted against the vagina, such as tampons, douches and instruments used by gynecologists. Menstruation is presented from different points of view — one is happy, another is shocked, yet another is bewildered about it. Women’s self-discovery and intimacy — whether it’s heterosexual or homosexual — are presented with a brilliant sense of humor. “The Little Coochie Snorcher Monologue” recalls traumatic memories of a first sexual experience.
 “What would your vagina wear if she could choose? What would she like to drink? What does she smell like?” Several outspoken questions provide a series of daring poetic answers, without platitudes or vulgarity. 
“My vagina would wear a pink neckpiece, hat, stiletto heels, diamonds.”
A lesbian monologue, in which the speaker humorously emulates different types of orgasmic moans, makes the audience laugh until they cry. But the audience’s real tears come during the “My Vagina was My Village Monologue,” the testimony of a Bosnian rape victim. 
The final “I Was There in the Room Monologue,” describing the birth of a child, leaves no one indifferent. 

“The Vagina Monologues” is playing at the Music Hall theater on Friday and again on Aug. 20 and Aug. 27.

TITLE: Word’s  worth
TEXT: As someone who is always looking forward to my next snack or meal, I’m very happy in Russia. Russians are good eaters. They like good food, they like a lot of good food and they like to make every meal a celebration, be it a pot of <i>óõà</i> (fish soup) prepared on a bonfire by a lakeshore, or <i>êóõíÿ ôüþæí</i> (fusion cuisine) at a restaurant so trendy there is face control for shoes. 
Alas, as one of my friends says: <i>âñ¸ â ìåðó</i> (everything in moderation). Otherwise, you risk falling prey to one of the <i>ñåìü ãðåõîâ</i> (seven sins): <i>îáæîðñòâî</i> (gluttony). <i>Îáæîðñòâî</i> is defined in Russian as <i>íåóìåðåííîñòü è æàäíîñòü â åäå</i> (immoderation and overindulgence in food). This isn’t just packing it in at Christmas. It’s when thoughts of food and eating take over your life. This kind of gluttony, say the pious, <i>äîâîäèò ÷åëîâåêà äî ñêîòñêîãî ñîñòîÿíèÿ</i> (reduces a person to the level of an animal). 
In everyday life, you’re likely to hear <i>îáæîðñòâî</i> and its derivatives bandied about without the apocalyptic overtones. <i>Îáæîðñòâî</i> can refer to any serious bout of overeating. <i>Íà ñàìîì äåëå Íîâûé ãîä — ýòî ïðàçäíèê îáæîðñòâà</i> (New Years is really a holiday of overindulgence). <i>Îáæîðà</i> (overeater) can be said either with love or disdain. You might say to a child: <i>Êàêàÿ òû îáæîðà! Ñúåëà òðè êóñêà òîðòà!</i> (What a little pig you are! You ate three pieces of cake!) But you might also use the word less kindly: <i>Ñâàðþ íà îáåä ïîáîëüøå êàðòîøêè — ìîé Âàñÿ òàêîé îáæîðà</i> (I’m boiling a lot of potatoes for dinner. My Vasya really packs it in).
<i>Ïðîæîðëèâûé</i> (voracious) can be neutral when describing animal behavior, but is generally pejorative for people. <i>Ïðîæîðëèâûé ìóæ — áåäà â ñåìüå</i> (A husband with a huge appetite is trouble in a family). Cars can have voracious appetites, too. <i>Ïðîæîðëèâàÿ ìàøèíà</i> is what we call a gas-guzzler.
You can describe various levels of overindulgence by adding prefixes to the verb åñòü (to eat). <i>Ïåðååñòü</i> can mean eating too much of something. <i> àðìèè ÿ ïåðååë êàøè. Òåïåðü ñìîòðåòü íà íå¸ íå ìîãó</i> (In the army, I ate too much porridge. Now I can’t stand to even look at it). Less commonly, it can mean “to out-eat” someone. <i>Ýòîò îáæîðà âñåõ ïåðååñò</i> (That pig will eat more than anyone else). <i>Íàåñòü</i> is usually used to describe eating a certain amount of something. <i>Íàåëè â ðåñòîðàíå íà òðè òûñÿ÷è ðóáëåé</i> (We put away three thousand rubles of food in the restaurant). Less frequently, but more vividly, it can be used to describe the signs of the good life. <i>Îí íàåë áðþøêî</i> (He’s developed a pot belly; literally, “eaten himself a belly”). 
When <i>íàåñòü</i> gets turned into a reflexive verb, it means eating to one’s fill. <i>Íàåñòüñÿ</i> is a good word to use when your in-laws are trying to foist a third piece of cake on you. <i>×åñòíîå ñëîâî — íå ìîãó. Íàåëñÿ</i> (Honestly, I really can’t. I’m full). 
<i>Îáúåñòü</i> has one meaning that doesn’t come up much in daily life: to eat something in a circle, the way a methodical goat might eat the leaves off a shrub. More commonly it is used to describe gobbling something up. <i>Òû ïðèãëàñèë Âàñþ?! Îí æå íàñ îáúåñò!</i> (You invited Vasya?! He’ll eat us out of house and home!)
The reflexive verb îáúåñòüñÿ is the word to use when you haven’t just eaten your fill — you’re so packed, you can barely move. When your hostess asks: <i>Íàåëñÿ?</i> (Have you had enough?), you sigh: <i>Íå òî ñëîâî! ß îáúåëñÿ</i> (That’s an understatement! I’m stuffed). 

<i>— Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
 Sergey Chernov is on vacation.</i>

TITLE: The Starbucks effect
AUTHOR: By James Kilner
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — A frothy cappuccino or fresh mozzarella salad is no longer enough. Russia’s growing middle classes now want service with a smile.
With much of Europe and North America saturated, the newly affluent among Russia’s 143 million people are an attractive target for Western coffee shop chains eager for growth, and Starbucks and Costa Coffee are among brands now found in Moscow.
But where once any alternative to Soviet-style fried meats and dill-laced boiled vegetables was a thrill, increased competition now means superior service is important to attract and retain customers.
This is a challenge, says Ian Zilberkweit, an American part-owner of the Russian franchise for the Belgian coffee shop chain Le Pain Quotidien.
He and his Armenian-American business partner have drawn up bonus schemes and share plans to persuade staff to shake off Soviet habits and instill loyalty in a typically casual sector.
“The Soviet system meant there was no system for treating people nicely,” said Zilberkweit, who has just opened his fifth store. “It was all about shifting products.”
Cash from energy and commodity exports has boosted Russia’s economy since a crisis in 1998. The World Bank estimates real incomes rose by 80 percent between 1998 and 2007 to nearly $8,000 per person — roughly level with Mexico and Lithuania.
Data from Moscow-based Business Analytica shows the number of bars, cafes and restaurants in Moscow rose by a third between 2004 and 2007 to 6,600, with the fastest growth at the mid-priced level. Big chains now own around a third of the outlets in Moscow, double the proportion in 2004.
Starbucks Corporation, which is closing shops in North America, opened its first branch in Moscow in 2007 and now has five, and Costa Coffee opened in March through a joint venture. Starbucks declined to give details of its plans but Costa aims to open at least 200 cafes in Russia.
“All companies are focusing on the Russian market in all leisure sectors, not just coffee. It’s a country that Costa has to be in,” said UBS analyst Stamatis Draziotis.
Le Pain Quotidien’s Zilberkweit said the potential in Russia was just too great to miss out on.
“In Europe, real incomes are not going up due to rising prices, but in Russia it’s different,” he said, wearing a grey London Business School sailing club shirt. “Because the domestic economy is growing like crazy, incomes are still going up like crazy.”
By the end of this year, Le Pain Quotidien aims for eight outlets in Moscow, rising to 50 within four years. Sales now stand at about $5 million but are targeted to rise to $20 million by 2009, said Zilberkweit.
A former investment banker at HSBC bank, he said competing in Russia’s lucrative dining market is further complicated for foreign firms because spending patterns and business costs differ from those in the West.
Le Pain Quotidien projects itself as part-bakery, part-cafe, part-restaurant.
The interiors are wooden, a counter sells freshly baked bread and pastries — supplied by a bakery which Zilberkweit part-owns — and the menus are based mainly around soups, salads and light main meals.
But Russian customers spend their money differently from people in other countries. 
About 50 percent of Le Pain Quotidien’s sales are from food in Russia compared with 35 percent in Britain, for example. Rent is by far the biggest expense in Russia while staff salaries are the main expense in Europe.
Its prices in Russia are similar to the rest of Europe — $3 for a croissant, $7 for a bowl of soup and $17 for a fish pie — and diners usually add on a tip of around 10 percent.
With prices high and rising, Russian customers are no longer willing to stomach slow, erratic and surly Soviet service.
“If I see a new place which I want to go into, I do worry what the service will be like,” said Natalya Miloserdova, 27, puffing on a cigarette outside the tour agency where she works. 
“You pick a place to eat where you know the service will be good.”
Zilberkweit said service has been a neglected aspect of retail in Russia as most staff grew up without experiencing any.
“We were unbelievably frustrated two years ago because we would get these people in and we would just want them to smile and they wouldn’t even know why,” he said.
Smiling staff can make the difference in Russia’s increasingly crowded cafe sector.
“The customer, five years ago, in Russia would have been only too happy if within five minutes’ walk there was a place to have a coffee latte,” he said.
 “Now, he has 10 choices and demands much more.”
Another Soviet hangover Zilberkweit has had to confront was a drop in an employee’s work ethic after promotion.
“In Russia, the moment you give somebody a title they stop working,” he said. “Now, we give people more money and more responsibility but not a new title.”

TITLE: Salon
AUTHOR: By Victor Sonkin
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The month of August marks the middle stage in the process of choosing the winner of The Big Book, Russia’s biggest literary award worth 3 million rubles ($130,000). The shortlist, containing 10 titles, was announced in May, and the winner will be selected in November.
There are several things worth mentioning about this season’s list. First, the traditional hegemony of the novel seems to be a thing of the past: There are several collections of short stories on the list and two nonfiction books. Second, a fashionable trend seems to be the foray of literary critics into literature. After the success of Lev Danilkin’s “The Man with an Egg” and Alexander Arkhangelsky’s “Cut-off Price,” the critic Pavel Basinsky also made his fiction debut with “Russian Novel, or The Life and Adventures of John Polovinkin,” a picaresque work set in the 1990s. Finally, the award committee decided to make all the contenders’ work available online and even set up a separate Internet voting, which would produce its decision independently of the jury. With ever-rising book prices, this decision is a godsend to anyone wishing to keep abreast of modern literature, especially far from the big cities, where most of the shortlisted books are unavailable.
One of the favorites for The Big Book is Lyudmila Saraskina’s biography, “Alexander Solzhenitsyn.” Now, after Solzhenitsyn’s death, the result seems almost inevitable. It would create an interesting trend, because the first ever Big Book prize went to Dmitry Bykov for his biography of Boris Pasternak, published in the same series by Molodaya Gvardia.
Saraskina, a Dostoevsky scholar, has written a detailed and extensive biography of Solzhenitsyn. She worked closely with the writer and his family, and the overall result was approved by him. It is seen by many as a mixed blessing: Some claim that the genre of the book crosses the boundary between biography and hagiography. 
A previous extensive Solzhenitsyn biography, written in English by Michael Scammell, contained views and opinions of people who did not wholeheartedly share Solzhenitsyn’s views, which led the writer to cut off his collaboration with the biographer. The book is out of print, does not cover the last 15 years of Solzhenitsyn’s life, and many people who could have provided materials for an updated biography are no longer alive. It looks like we will never have a complete and multidimensional literary portrait of Solzhenitsyn. 
A pity.

TITLE: Imperfect harmony
AUTHOR: By George Loomis
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: How would you deal with having more serfs than you knew what to do with? Count Nicholas Sheremetev had to cope with this question for most of his life. In 1795, approximately 1.5 percent of Russia’s 360,000 male nobles owned more than 1,000 serfs. As the head of the Sheremetev family, Nicholas at his death in 1809 owned 210,000 serfs. One way he kept so many men and women occupied was to have them give ballet and opera performances. Serf theater flourished in late 18th-century Russia, but none rivaled that of Nicholas, just as no other Russian family rivaled the Sheremetevs in terms of wealth. 
Their might was well established at Nicholas’ birth in 1751. The family had helped launch the Romanov dynasty with the election of Mikhail, a blood relative, in 1613. Nicholas’ grandfather Boris was the field marshal who defeated Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava. And his father, Peter, augmented the family’s enormous wealth by marrying Princess Varvara, daughter of the similarly wealthy Prince Alexei Cherkassky. If Nicholas himself brought glory to the family, it was in the artistic realm. As a youngster growing up around the corner from the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, he showed an aptitude for music, and his keenness for opera and ballet was cemented during an extended Paris sojourn as a young man. 
Returning to Russia, he gravitated toward the theater maintained by his father at the estate of Kuskovo, outside Moscow. But Douglas Smith’s new book, “The Pearl,” does not simply chronicle a private theater. Its raison d’etre is the theater’s star singer, the serf Praskovia Kovalyova, a soprano of apparently prodigious vocal and dramatic gifts who so captivated her master, Nicholas, that she became the main woman in his life and eventually — in defiance of societal norms — his wife. 
Their story resembles the plots of certain comic operas in which Praskovia starred, where romance between a low-born girl and a well-to-do aristocrat blossoms into marriage, thanks to the timely discovery that the girl is of noble birth, after all. Praskovia was born the daughter of an alcoholic blacksmith in 1768 and grew up at Kuskovo after her family was relocated there. Her exceptional nature must have been recognized early, for at the age of eight she was removed from her family and brought to live in Kuskovo’s so-called Big House with the Sheremetevs themselves. At 12 she sang her first leading operatic role. As her career grew, so did the scope of the theater. A permanent indoor theater was completed in the late 1770s, but Nicholas was dissatisfied with its technical capacity and ordered a new one, designed by Charles de Wailly, who worked on the theater at Versailles and was one of several accomplished Europeans who lent their expertise to the Sheremetevs. The new theater opened in 1787 with Andre-Modeste Gretry’s “Les Mariages Samnites,” one of Praskovia’s favorite vehicles, and with Catherine the Great in attendance. Catherine was captivated by Praskovia, who was known as “the Pearl” (other singers were similarly named after gems). In the 1790s, Nicholas built still another theater at the Sheremetevs’ Ostankino estate, but Praskovia sang only one opera there before her untimely retirement. 
Unfortunately, as Smith is the first to admit, there is a dearth of surviving material about what sort of person Praskovia was. No letters from her survive. But her life’s main events are clear enough, and Smith develops them into an engaging narrative, animated by frequent speculation about what must have gone through her head at key moments. “The atmosphere in the dressing rooms [before the Gretry performance] was thick with nervous anticipation,” Smith writes. “Praskovia sensed this would be the biggest night of her professional life.” Lacking, too, are meaningful accounts of Praskovia’s performing skills. Smith is at least as interested in the unorthodox love story between her and Nicholas as in her artistry, but he could have done more with the musical side. 
If Smith is correct that the Sheremetev theater “at its high point [in the mid-1780s] rivaled the opera companies of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris” (an extravagant claim!), it would have been good to set the theater within the larger context of what was, after all, an extremely early period in Russia’s musical history — along the lines of Smith’s fine chapter on serf theater and its grotesque elements. As for the operas in which Praskovia performed, which drew largely from the French opera comique repertoire and to a lesser extent Italian comic operas, Smith sometimes gives plot summaries without mentioning where or when the operas originated. He gives opera titles only in English, which is standard for Russian works but odd for those in Italian or French. He refers to the opera in which Praskovia first sang a leading role simply as Antonio Sacchini’s “The Colony,” but the work in question was presumably “La colonie,” a 1775 French adaptation by Nicolas Etienne Framery of Sacchini’s 1766 “L’isola d’amore.”
Otherwise, scrupulous research underlies this fascinating picture of life at Russia’s top social echelon. It is not a picture to inspire envy, however. Of course, in addition to the theater, there were the fabulous balls, but they were an ordeal to put on, and the host perpetually worried about whether royalty in attendance were impressed. In addition, Nicholas and Praskovia had frequent bouts of ill health, which were countered by medical procedures (described in detail) that sound worse than the disease. An ailment in 1797 apparently damaged Praskovia’s lungs and, tragically, she never sang again. 
Nor could the theater have provided unalloyed joy at a time when Enlightenment ideas were surfacing in Russia. As French Ambassador Count Louis-Philippe de Segur put it, Nicholas “had caused the [serf performers] to be educated with the greatest care; they were indebted to him for their acquirements; why were they not also indebted to him for their freedom? To enlighten those whom we still hold in slavery is to inform them of their misfortune.” After the troupe was disbanded because of Praskovia’s health, its performers returned to mundane jobs. But Nicholas, too, had his share of menial tasks. When Paul I became tsar in 1796, he appointed Nicholas chief marshal of court, necessitating that he and Praskovia move to St. Petersburg, where he became a glorified majordomo, responsible for every aspect of court life. 
At least he had the companionship of his beloved Praskovia until her death in 1803, soon after giving birth to their only child, a son. Smith conjectures that Nicholas and Praskovia might have been intimate when she was only 13. Girls in her position could hardly resist, but, though a notorious womanizer, Nicholas developed a deep love for Praskovia and never recovered from the devastating blow of her loss. The extent to which his love was reciprocated is uncertain, but Praskovia, a devout Christian, was surely troubled by her life of sin. To his credit, Nicholas married her in 1801, having granted her freedom three years before. But in connection with the marriage, which remained largely secret, Nicholas sent an emissary on a fruitless mission to obtain documentation (however bogus) that Praskovia descended from Polish nobility. Nicholas maintained the fiction of Praskovia’s noble birth in a letter to Tsar Alexander I, informing him, when Praskovia was near death, of the marriage. The truth eventually won out, and the story of the rich aristocrat and his serf wife became the stuff of legend. Scorned by other Sheremetevs and aristocrats, their relationship may even have played a role, however modest, in ending serfdom. 
George Loomis writes about classical music from Moscow and New York.

TITLE: Defending a family name
AUTHOR: By Douglas Birch
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Yulia Khrushcheva sat in the afternoon shadows of her Moscow kitchen, her delicate fingers brushing back her silver blond hair, talking of the anguish of seeing her family’s reputation under attack.
The 68-year-old granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev has filed a series of lawsuits against a state-owned TV network for airing a docudrama that, she says, falsely depicts her father, Leonid, as having been shot as a traitor in World War II.
These allegations of her father’s treachery, which historians dismiss, have been published more than a dozen times in books, magazine articles and newspapers in the post-Soviet era, and sometimes she cannot bring herself to read them. “I am not that brave,” she says.
Some members of the Khrushchev family and others say the persistent rumor is part of a quiet battle of political symbols, in which the champions of a strengthened state have tried to weaken democratic institutions.
The aim, they say, is to burnish the reputation of strong leaders, such as former President Vladimir Putin and Stalin, by tarnishing that of Khrushchev — who denounced Stalin’s mass arrests, executions and deportations in a secret 1956 speech to the Communist Party leadership that later became public.
The tactic, they say, is to smear the son with a bogus charge in order to defame his famous father, and then to claim Khrushchev’s celebrated speech was actually motivated by a desire for revenge.
“This is not about Khrushchev or Stalin, it’s about the future of Russia,” said Sergei Khrushchev, Leonid’s half brother and a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.
Irina Shcherbakova of the Memorial, a human rights group, said authorities “undoubtedly” help spread the rumors of Leonid Khrushchev’s alleged execution, as part of Russia’s epic struggle between authoritarianism and reform — of which Stalin and Khrushchev are the two icons.
“The reason these rumors persist ... is rooted in the fate of the country, when reformers are considered to be weak and tyrants strong,” she said.
In an effort to rewrite history after a period of reform, she said, Russian autocrats have traditionally resorted to “banal myths, tabloid stories, loud TV talk shows.”
However, some political analysts see in the attacks on Khrushchev’s memory a settling of scores among the descendants of Soviet-era elites rather than any state-orchestrated campaign to undermine reform.
“I don’t think Khrushchev is of any interest to today’s Russian government,” said Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, who has often been critical of the Kremlin.
Still, the celebration of state power has been a major theme in Russian arts and education in recent years. The country’s film industry, largely state-subsidized, has produced thrillers showing Russia under siege from the West, protected only by decisive tsars, steely Communist Party first secretaries and vigorous modern presidents — essentially, Putin.
New textbooks praise Putin’s concentration of power and laud Stalin as a successful if brutal leader. Last year, Putin told history teachers that no one could make Russians feel guilty about Stalin’s crimes because “in other countries even worse things happened.”
Russian television, which is mostly state-owned or controlled, seems split over how to depict Stalin. Some recent entertainment programs, including a dramatization of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “First Circle,” have been critical of the dictator. But viewers of a mini-series improbably titled “Stalin Lite” say it depicted Stalin as a hero.
In June, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, another Soviet-era reformer, urged the creation of a memorial to victims of Stalin’s gulag, lamenting those who think of him as a “brilliant manager” rather than a murderous dictator.
Khrushchev is generally recalled in the West as the shoe-banging Soviet leader who confronted a youthful President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis. But in Russia, he may be best remembered for the 1956 speech.
To those who defend Stalin’s memory, the story of Leonid’s supposed treachery suggests the speech was an act of vengeance.
According to official accounts, Senior Lieutenant Leonid N. Khrushchev, a fighter pilot, disappeared during an air battle near the town of Zhizdra southwest of Moscow on March 11, 1943. Leonid’s fellow pilots presumed that the 26-year-old’s plane had been shot down and had been killed. Neither he nor his aircraft was ever found.
His death certificate says he died on the day of the air battle. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War.
William C. Taubman of Amherst College, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2003 biography of Nikita Khrushchev, flatly rejects stories of Leonid’s alleged defection and execution. “I’m convinced Leonid was shot down and killed in the war, and that he was neither a captive nor collaborator of the Germans,” he wrote in an e-mail.
However, a small but persistent group of authors have reasserted the claim repeatedly since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
In a 2004 encyclopedia titled “The Epoch of Stalin: The People and the Events,” Vladimir Sukhodeyev wrote that Nikita Khrushchev fell to his knees and begged Stalin to spare Leonid’s life. “Stalin asked him to stand up and get a hold of himself,” Sukhodeyev wrote.
The author declined a request for an interview. “I have said everything in my book, there is nothing to add,” he said.
Khrushchev, who died in 1971, did not mention the rumors about the circumstances of Leonid’s death in his memoirs.
According to the Khrushchev family, the KGB spread rumors of Leonid Khrushchev’s execution as part of an effort in the 1960s to rehabilitate Stalin following Nikita Khrushchev’s ouster and the rollback of his reforms. Khrushcheva said she first heard the tales when they resurfaced in the late 1980s, presumably as part of a campaign against Gorbachev’s reforms.
“It’s not the truth. It is rumor,” she said. “But then it became widespread.”
Sergei Khrushchev said he believes the tales are likely to have at least the tacit endorsement of the authorities. “Nothing happens in Russia without the support of the government,” he said.
Putin’s office — he is now prime minister — did not respond to a request for comment. Alexei Pavlov, a spokesman for President Dmitry Medvedev, said the Kremlin had no connection with the First Channel broadcast and could not comment.
For Yulia Khrushcheva, the May 2006 miniseries “Stars of the Era,” was the last straw. She filed a lawsuit against broadcaster First Channel accusing it of “degrading the honor, dignity and good name of Khrushchev, L. N.” The suit sought unspecified damages.
Russian courts have so far refused to hear the case, ruling that broadcasters have a right to air fictional accounts of historical figures. The mini-series was rebroadcast as recently as May on a different nationwide network.
First Channel repeatedly promised a response to The Associated Press’ requests for comment, but none was received.
Yulia Khrushcheva has taken her case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.


The court so far has not agreed to hear “Khrushchev vs. Russia.”

TITLE: Fat of the land
AUTHOR: By Anne Waller
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Korchma Salo // 36 Liteiny Prospekt. Tel: 579 2402 // Open daily from 11 a.m. until midnight // Menu in English, Russian and Ukrainian // Dinner for two without alcohol 1,333 rubles ($55) // Credit cards accepted
Korchma Salo means “Lard Tavern” in Ukrainian, after the traditional source of fat in national cuisine. Lard (salo) is reputedly the way to a Ukrainian’s heart, but those for whom pork fat is out of bounds will still be faced with a myriad of inticing choices at this new restaurant on Liteiny Prospekt.   
Promising home comforts, Korchma Salo recreates the soul of a Ukrainian country inn. Dark wooden floors, solid heavy chairs and tables contrast with starched white tablecloths and hanging ceiling lamps edged with folk embroidery. Flowers and vines dance busily around the walls, painted directly onto the rough white clay or blooming on tapestries in bright scarlet and mauve against black. Windows onto street level alleviate what might have felt like a dark cellar, but instead is a cosy and inviting space lit by metal lamps in the corners.
Vying for attention all through the evening, the environment is full of playful attention to detail.  Endless dolls, bells, pots, a bottle of the much-loved 40-percent proof Gorilka (which can also be ordered from the menu), a metal samovar, and decorated plates tempt diners to get up and explore. 
Taras Shevchenko, the iconic Ukrainian poet and fighter for independence who spent part of his life in St. Petersburg, is recreated in stitches, along with one of his verses, on a wall hanging. In the middle room, a non-smoking area, is a stove with firewood, illuminated with red and yellow painted cockerels. The clean and well ventilated toilets are lovingly adorned with painted pink flowers, a tin washing tub serves as a hand basin and an old fashioned cooking ladle as a toilet flush pull.
Though aiming at authenticity, the atmosphere is unpretentious: the prices will not inhibit those curious to try a range of Ukrainian cuisine, and a waiter took the time to answer a vegan diner’s detailed questions about ingredients.
Classic Ukrainian dishes are what Korchma Salo does best. The vareniki with blueberries (170 rubles), tart and juicy with a dipping pot of wonderfully thick smetana, were so stodgy and satisfying that they could make an alternative to blini as a refuelling snack during a day about town, since the restaurant is only ten minutes walk from Nevsky Prospekt.
Hearty and filling, the Odessky Borshch (110 rubles, $4.50) had a Ukrainian twist: a surprising variety of vegetables; eggplants, courgettes, and peppers. Served in a terracotta pot, it exuded the inviting scent of paprika.
The Kerchensky salad (178 rubles, $7.30) was fresh and welcoming with avocado and feta cheese melting in the mouth, and cherry tomatoes dotted across a bed of lettuce.
A waiter, jauntily dressed as a Ukrainian cossack dancer, delivered the second course quickly: too quickly, before the borshch was finished. The mains were a little disappointing after the starters, both in size and taste. The peppers stuffed with vegetables and cheese (260 rubles, $10.70) looked suspiciously re-heated. The steamed salmon fillet stuffed with spinach and cheese (275 rubles, $11.30) was better, with mature, tangy cheese complementing the fish nicely, although it was nothing especially spectacular. 
The only ice cream flavor available was vanilla, but on request it was livened up with strawberry sauce and chunks of pineapple (140 rubles, $5.70). It was refreshing and uplifting at the end of the meal with a sweet and unexpectedly homemade taste, and a texture that was a cross between ice cream and sorbet. 
Choosy diners might quibble over some of the less than perfect dishes, but overall would be hard pressed to find more tempting vareniki and better value for money in a fun, original and attractive setting to boot. 
By 9 p.m. on a Saturday, the three adjoining rooms were almost full and we were glad to have booked in advance. During our stay, several visitors came and went in casual clothes and then a more formal celebration materialised in the back room, one wall of which is dominated by an artificial tree, another by a mural in high, almost gaudy sunset tones, of a cottage in the Ukrainian steppe. Some of the fast-paced Ukrainian pop music on the stereo would have sounded more at home in a cafe than a restaurant, but the folk music played later in the evening harmonised better with the surroundings.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: It has been a slow week for the tabloids, which perhaps explains why they have been giving a lot of space to the distinctly untabloid story of the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Mind you, even the British tabloid The Sun covered that, distilling his life and career into the pithy phrase that he “exposed Stalin’s Soviet evil.” The best truly tabloid story this week has been the bizarre legal case going on in Ukraine over an alleged attempt to murder last year’s Eurovision star, the drag act Verka Serdyuchka. It wasn’t a wedding compere, pushed over the edge by the 10,000th request for “Dancing Lasha Tumbai.” It wasn’t even one of the many Verka Serdyuchka impersonators with a crazy dream to kill the queen and take her place. No, rather disappointingly, it was all about money, of which Verka has rather a lot.
Strictly speaking, it’s not a new story, since the attempt took place in May, when Tvoi Den broke the story. Verka was due to perform at a Ukrainian song competition and suddenly found herself surrounded by armed guards. According to Zhizn, the star’s manager, Igor Klinkov, only told her the reason after the concert. It turned out that one of the star’s friends had huge gambling debts, even losing his apartment. Moskovsky Komsomolets put the total sum of debts at $125,000. The man’s creditors found out that he knew Andrei Danilko, the quiet man behind the colorful drag star. For a reason that remains rather unclear, the creditors told the debtor that he could have his apartment back if he killed Danilko. “I could have expected many surprises in life, but never something like this,” Danilko told Tvoi Den. He said he was grateful for the security operation and glad that he hadn’t known about the murderer while he was singing. The scenario seems to have been that the murder was going to take place while Danilko was performing. What a YouTube video that would have been. But sadly, the tabloids don’t give any more details.
On Aug. 3, Tvoi Den reported that Ukrainian investigators were about to arrest the suspect. An unnamed source from the singer’s entourage said a criminal case had been opened and the police were about to charge a suspect. Amazingly, Danilko told the paper that he had now forgiven the “friend” who had planned his murder. “I don’t hold a grudge against the guy who decided to kill me because of a debt at cards,” he said. 
Moskovsky Komsolets wrote on Aug. 4 that the suspect, whom it named as Oleg, had financial dealings with Danilko. Apparently, he helped organize concerts at corporate parties and used to pocket a few griven for his trouble. Strangely, the tabloid wrote that the man would be charged with attempting to commit a terrorist act, rather than with attempted murder. It described the suspect as a “simple pawn in a complex game organized by bandits with the aim of taking over the substantial fortune of the Eurovision 2007 star.” Danilko has apartments in Kiev and the surrounding area and bank accounts in his and other people’s names, MK wrote.
Intriguingly, the tabloid even said investigators were looking into a political motive, since Danilko announced his intentions to become a Rada deputy last year and founded a party called “For Our Own.” The singer received plenty of anonymous phone calls ordering him to pull out of politics, and he eventually ended his campaign, MK wrote.
The slightly suspicious thing about this story is that MK only quotes Danilko and his manager, not any police sources. And the online readers weren’t slow to put it down as a PR stunt. Especially since the singer does have a new album coming out.

TITLE: Turkey Negotiates Nuclear Ties With Iran
AUTHOR: By Nicolas Cheviron
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: ISTANBUL — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began talks here Thursday on closer ties with Turkey and Tehran’s controversial nuclear program on his first ever bilateral visit to a NATO-member country.
Heavy security measures were in place for Ahmadinejad’s arrival in Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city, with snipers placed on rooftops around the Ataturk airport and police closing off the road leading into the city.
Shortly after his arrival, the Iranian president went into a closed-door meeting with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul after which the two leaders were expected to hold a news conference.
He was due to meet Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and address a businessmen’s meeting on Friday before leaving.
Ahmadinejad’s two-day visit comes amid mounting tension over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear drive, which the West suspects is a cover for a secret nuclear weapons program.
Iran is refusing to halt its uranium enrichment activities even though it is facing a fresh round of sanctions after failing to give a clear response to an incentives package offered by six world powers.
It has however agreed to continue talks with the European Union aimed at resolving the dispute.
Turkey, which has significantly improved relations with Iran in recent years, believes it can help resolve the stand-off through its close ties with both its eastern neighbor and western powers.
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said last month that Ankara was taking on a role “of consolidating and facilitating” the talks rather than formal mediation.
In a joint television interview with Turkey’s NTV and CNN-Turk news channels on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad sounded an upbeat note on the talks with the six powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
“We think that the question of nuclear power is going in the right direction,” he said. “The negotiations are good negotiations and that is going to continue.”
Tehran also appreciated Ankara’s “efforts to reduce the tensions and establish a constructive dialogue,” he added.
Turkey, which itself is seeking to build its first nuclear power plant, says Iran has the right to possess nuclear power for peaceful purposes, but opposes nuclear weapons in the region.
Ahmadinejad’s visit, however, has drawn the ire of Turkey’s ally Israel which has warned Ankara against “giving legitimacy” to a leader who has called for the destruction of the Jewish state and questioned the Holocaust.
In Wednesday’s interview, Ahmadinejad launched his usual attack on Israel, describing it as an illegitimate state based on a lie.
“It is an illegitimate regime... The Zionist regime is based on a lie,” he charged. “They (Israelis) do not belong to this region. They should go.”
Non-Arab and secular Turkey has been Israel’s main regional ally since 1996, when the two signed a military cooperation accord, much to the anger of Arab countries and Iran.
It is currently acting as mediator in indirect talks between Israel and its arch-foe Syria.
Turkey and Iran used to have stormy ties, clouded by Turkish accusations that Tehran was seeking to undermine Ankara’s secular regime and turning a blind eye to separatist Kurdish rebels active in the region.
But the two countries have boosted security cooperation in the past decade and in 2001 Turkey began buying Iranian gas via a pipeline between the two countries, overriding U.S. discontent.

TITLE: Asian Nations Shine at Olympic Games
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BEIJING — Japanese swimmer Kosuke Kitajima and Chinese gymnast Yang Wei led a golden day for Asia on Thursday that showcased the continent’s growing sports might.
Kitajima, Asia’s greatest swimmer, stole the spotlight from Michael Phelps with an unprecedented “double-double” in the Olympics breaststroke, adding the 200 meters gold to earlier victory in the 100, after wins in both events in Athens 2004.
Then hosts China, who led the overall medals table on the Games’ day six with 21 golds, scored a shock 1-2 in the pool.
Nineteen-year-old Liu Zige destroyed the world record in the women’s 200 butterfly. Compatriot Jiao Liuyang relegated Australian world champion Jessica Schipper to third.
There were sweet victories too for Chinese gymnast Yang Wei, who ended eight years of hurt in the men’s individual all-round event, and for shooter Du Li, who had broken down in tears after failing to win the first gold of the Games on day one.
China even took an unexpected gold in women’s archery thanks to Zhang Juan Juan. That ended South Korea’s streak of winning every women’s Olympic archery gold medal since 1984.
Asian nations have won nearly half of the golds awarded so far. America is second to China with 10 golds — five of those thanks to swimmer Phelps — but will expect to make a comeback when track-and-field events start on Friday.
South Korea, Italy and Germany are third with six golds.
China’s Communist Party newspaper hailed a resurgent Asia’s medals’ success as proof of historical and economic trends that were overturning “the old disparities” in sports competition.
“The traditional sporting powers face stronger and stronger challengers,” the People’s Daily said.
Replacing old Cold War rival Russia as America’s main challenger in the Olympics, China came second in Athens 2004 and could go one better at home.
The world’s most populous nation has shown their new wealth, confidence and technological ability with a dazzling opening ceremony, a record Games spending of $43 billion, some architecturally astonishing venues, and meticulous organization.
The sports events have now eclipsed pre-Games pressure from the West over China’s rights record and rule in Tibet.
Plenty more of Thursday’s excitement was in the Water Cube.
France’s Alain Bernard won swimming’s blue riband event, the men’s 100 freestyle, by a whisker from Australia’s Eamon Sullivan, after trailing at the half-way stage.
For Bernard, it made up for the agony of being overhauled in the last lap of the 4x100 freestyle relay final by the Americans.
Sullivan’s former girlfriend Stephanie Rice, the glamor girl of Australian swimming, had a better day than him, taking her third gold of the Games in the 4x200m freestyle relay.
The Australian team screamed and hugged each other after chopping nearly six seconds off the world record.
China did even better in the women’s 200m butterfly, scoring a rare gold and silver with their fast-improving swimmers.
“I just took it easy,” winner Liu told state television, brushing off the pressure of the home crowd to maintain a Phelps-like calm. “I am always like this,” she said.
In the men’s 200m breaststroke, Kitajima led all the way for his second gold of the Games, and his fourth in all. “I was not thinking about winning two gold medals at two consecutive Olympics ... I was just focused on doing my best in Beijing.”
After becoming the all-time most successful Olympian with 11 career golds, American swimming phenomenon Phelps had a quieter day, sailing through a semi-final in the 200 individual medley.
China have dominated gymnastic in these Games, and Yang, unbeaten on the international stage since 2006, followed team gold with another in the men’s individual all-round round event.

TITLE: Syria Agrees To Border Discussions
AUTHOR: By Albert Aji
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria agreed Thursday to a longtime Lebanese demand to negotiate the demarcation of their border a day after the countries said they would establish full diplomatic relations for the first time.
The agreements are a victory for Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, who traveled to Syria on Wednesday in a landmark visit — the first by a Lebanese head of state to Syria in more than three years.
“This announcement is a historic step toward rectifying relations,” said Saad Hariri, who heads the Western-backed, anti-Syrian majority in parliament. “It is time ... for (Syrian) tutelage to end once and for all,” said Hariri, son of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a 2005 bomb attack that many in Lebanon blamed on Syria.
The border has been poorly defined since the two countries became independent from French rule in the 1940s. Lebanon’s anti-Syrian factions have long demanded demarcation along with diplomatic ties as recognition by Syria of Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence.
Syria controlled Lebanon for nearly 30 years, after sending its army in as peacekeepers during the 1975-90 civil war. Its direct hold was broken in 2005, after international pressure over the slaying of Hariri.
Even after the withdrawal, some Lebanese accused Damascus of trying to maintain its influence, saying it was encouraging its ally Hezbollah to topple the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. They also accused Syria of being behind a string of assassinations of anti-Syria figures since 2005 to intimidate Beirut and destabilize the country. Syria denies any role in the Hariri killing or the other attacks.
Syria, however, only agreed to relations after its influence in Lebanon was guaranteed by the creation on Tuesday of a unity government in Beirut that gives Damascus-allied Hezbollah a strong say in Lebanese decision-making.
Still, the agreement — along with the unity government — could go a long way to easing three years of continuous crisis in Lebanon, where the power struggle between pro-Western and pro-Syrian factions brought the country to the brink of a new civil war. But the rivalry remains uneasy, and any attempt by either to dominate could spark new unrest.
There have not been any official attempts to define the border before and it was not clear when action would be taken on the agreements. No date was set for the opening of embassies or for a joint committee to begin work on the border.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said on Thursday that one disputed area under Israeli control would not be demarcated while it remains under Israeli occupation.
Israel seized the area, known as Chebaa Farms, from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Lebanon and Syria claim it is Lebanese territory. But a UN-drawn border between Israel and Lebanon marks it as Syrian land under Israeli occupation.
A joint statement from the Lebanese and Syrian presidents said both sides agreed to review all bilateral agreements in an “objective” way.

TITLE: Tantrum Disrupts  Ceremony
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BEIJING — Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian threw down his Olympic bronze medal in protest on Thursday after his bid for greco-roman gold was ended by a decision denounced by the Swedish coach as “politics.”
Abrahamian took the bronze from around his neck during the medal ceremony, stepped from the podium and dropped it in the middle of the wrestling mat, then walked off.
“I don’t care about this medal. I wanted gold,” he said.
A bitter Abrahamian, silver medalist at Athens 2004 who had high hopes of top honors in the 84kg competition in Beijing, announced he was quitting the sport.
“This will be my last match. I wanted to take gold, so I consider this Olympics a failure,” the 33-year-old said.
The Swedish wrestler had to be restrained by teammates earlier when a row erupted with judges over the decision in a semi-final bout at the Chinese Agricultural University Gym with Andrea Minguzzi of Italy, who went on the take gold.
Abrahamian shouted at the referee and judges then went over to their seats to speak to them up close. He angrily threw off the restraining arm of a team official then turned and left.
Swedish fans booed loudly as the judges filed out of the arena. Abrahamian said nothing to waiting reporters but whacked an aluminum barricade with his fist as he left the hall.
The gold medalist, who kissed the Chinese medal bearer after receiving his gold, said Abrahamian’s walkout “did in a way spoil the victory ceremony for me.”
“Certainly one can always question decisions made in the course of refereeing, but in sports it is appropriate to show sportsmanship and accept the results,” Minguzzi said.
Hungary’s Zoltan Fodor, an outsider who said he “never dreamed of reaching the final” won the silver.
The International Olympic Committee said it was investigating the dispute with the wrestling federation FILA, which Abrahamian said “does not play fair.”
“We are in contact with the wrestling federation to establish the exact facts,” IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said.
Abrahamian later said he believed his loss to the eventual gold medalist Minguzzi was “totally unjustified.” The wrestler said his friends “called me just 20 minutes before the (bronze) competition, begging me to compete.”
“I decided that I had come this far and didn’t want to let them down, so I wrestled,” he said.
Swedish coach Leo Myllari said: “It’s all politics.”
Myllari did not say if he intended to lodge a formal protest over the decision by referee Jean-Marc Petoud of Switzerland, judge Lee Ronald Mackay of Canada, and mat chairman Guillermo Orestes Molina of Cuba.

TITLE: Champion Swimmer Phelps Boosts Gambling on Games
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BEIJING — He’s the hero of the Beijing Olympics — but Michael Phelps has become the bane of bookmakers.
Gamblers have joined Phelps’s winning streak with online betting sites reporting a spike in money riding on the U.S. swimmer and higher interest overall from gamblers in the Games.
Phelps has been the favorite in all of his races in the August 8-24 Games on various online betting sites, with odds for his victories down to about 5/2 on — paying out about $40 on a $100 bet.
“Although he has been at short odds to win he has been doing the right thing by the punters who are getting back more than they get on bank interest,” said Phil Hannah, general manager at Australia-based online betting site SportsBet.
“He really has become a thorn in the bookmakers’ side.”
Most gamblers are betting Phelps will beat compatriot Mark Spitz’s record of winning seven gold medals at one Olympics, with the 23-year-old already snapping up five golds from Beijing, making him the most decorated Olympian of all time with 11 golds.
He was due to swim the 200 meter individual medley on Friday, the 100 meter butterfly on Saturday and the 4x100 meter medley relay on Sunday.
Online site Sky Bet is also paying 5/2 on for Phelps to beat Spitz’s record.
The Olympics is not traditionally a major event for gamblers but Hannah said interest had picked up for the 2008 Games particularly in Asia as the events were televised during the day.
Swimming is the sport attracting the most bets but weightlifting, table tennis, judo and soccer are also getting some interest.
U.S-based Betsonline.com has also experienced an increase in Olympic wagers although spokesman Tommy Allen said the Olympics still lagged far behind sports such as basketball and baseball.
U.S. television network NBC, which paid almost $900 million for the exclusive broadcasting rights to the Olympics, has been delaying showing the Games to hit prime-time viewers in the United States which could impact gambling interest.

TITLE: Tsvangirai Unable to Attend Summit After Passport Held
AUTHOR: By Nelson Banya
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: HARARE — Zimbabwean authorities confiscated opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s passport on Thursday, preventing him from leaving the country to attend a regional summit in South Africa, an MDC official said.
Tsvangirai said he had been invited to attend the weekend Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit, to be hosted by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating power-sharing talks between Zimbabwe’s opposition and President Robert Mugabe.
The talks stalled this week after Mugabe and Tsvangirai failed to agree on top leadership posts, a sensitive issue for the long-time political rivals.
“We can’t travel without passports. There’s no point. In any case the plane has left and Tsvangirai has already gone back. He has no patience for this,” Movement for Democratic Change Secretary-General Tendai Biti told Reuters.
“This is a loud message to SADC. We have been trying to tell President Mbeki about things like this, and people wouldn’t believe us. But now here it is ... for all to see.”
The incident is likely to raise tensions between Mugabe and Tsvangirai and embarrass Mbeki, who has dismissed criticism that he is too soft on Zimbabwe’s defiant president, saying pressure will only aggravate the country’s problems.
Zimbabwe’s political stalemate has worsened the country’s already dire economic crisis. Zimbabwe has the world’s highest inflation rate, 80 percent unemployment and widespread shortages of basic goods.
Tsvangirai told reporters earlier at the airport he was sure power-sharing talks with Mugabe’s government would resume. He said negotiations cannot be judged on a deadlock over one issue, adding that there will always be people to break that deadlock.
Asked by reporters if he was still optimistic on a deal, Tsvangirai said: “Oh, yes, of course, we got our independence after how many talks? Hundreds and tens of meetings had been held.”
Talks on power-sharing began last month after Mugabe’s unopposed re-election in a June vote that was condemned around the world and boycotted by Tsvangirai because of attacks on his supporters. But three days of meetings in Harare failed to reach an overall deal.
Tsvangirai has said Zimbabwe’s post-election government should be based on the March 29 first-round presidential election — which he won, but not by a clear majority.
Mugabe says the MDC should accept the result of the June 27 run-off in which he was re-elected unopposed after Tsvangirai withdrew.
“I am there (at the talks) to protect the will of the people and we are taking a principled stand. I maintain a principled stand to defend the will of the people,” Tsvangirai said on Thursday.

TITLE: Kashmir Muslims Call for Sovereignty
AUTHOR: By Aijaz Hussain
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SRINAGAR, India — Thousands of Muslims poured into the streets of Kashmir on Thursday, demanding independence from India hours after archival Pakistan called on the United Nations to stop what it characterized as gross human rights violations in the divided Himalayan region.
Pakistan’s statement drew a sharp rebuke from India, which called the comments “deeply objectionable.”
More than six weeks of unrest in India’s part of Kashmir have pitted the region’s Muslim majority against its Hindu minority and left at least 34 people dead, many of them protesters shot during violent clashes with police and soldiers. Villages have been attacked, police stations torched and, in at least one town, security forces have been ordered to shoot on sight any protesters violating a curfew.
The latest death came Thursday when police opened fire on protesters in Srinagar, Kashmir’s main city, killing at least one and wounding three others, police and hospital officials said.
The trouble grew out of a dispute over a government plan to transfer land to a Hindu shrine in Kashmir.
Another man, a Hindu, committed suicide Thursday in Jammu, Kashmir’s only Hindu-majority city, to protest the scrapping of the land transfer. He was the second Hindu to kill himself in protest.
The spiraling unrest has unleashed pent up tensions between Kashmir’s Muslims and Hindus and threatened to snap the bonds between India and its only Muslim-majority state. There are also growing fears that the violence could drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims in other parts of India, where Hindu nationalist political parties have been organizing rival protests and calling for the government to give the land back to the shrine.
The latest protests, which began overnight in Srinagar and continued Thursday, were sparked by a rumor that security forces were breaking into houses and beating up women and children.
“This is a question of our honor, come out of your homes,” said announcements played over the public address systems at various mosques in Srinagar.
People in Srinagar — a mountain town once famed for its cool summer weather and the houseboats that ply the lake in its center — responded by the thousands, pouring into the streets and chanting “Long Live Pakistan!” and “We Want Independence!”
Perhaps more than anything seen in the last six weeks, it is those sentiments that are most worrying to India.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1948, and is at the center of their six-decade rivalry.
There is also a long history of separatist movements in New Delhi’s part of the region. Most were peaceful until 1989 when a bloody Islamic insurgency began. The insurgents want to see India’s part of the region merged with Pakistan or given independence.
The rebellion that has so far killed an estimated 68,000 people still festers, and India accuses Pakistan of aiding the insurgents — a charge Pakistan denies.
On Wednesday, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry called for the United Nations to step in and curb “the gross violation of human rights” in Kashmir.

TITLE: Romany Boxer Undeterred by Defeat
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BEIJING — Teenage welterweight Billy Joe Saunders lost to Cuba’s Carlos Banteaux in the second round of the Olympic boxing competition on Thursday and immediately set his sights on London in four years’ time.
“I’m already thinking about 2012,” the 18-year-old Saunders said after Banteaux beat him 13-6 to advance to the quarter-finals.
Saunders, who had impressed in the first round by outboxing world championship bronze medallist Adem Kilicci of Turkey, struggled against a fast and clever opponent.
Banteaux, who had lost to Saunders on the countback earlier this year, took a 4-1 lead after the first round. Saunders fought his way back and trailed just 5-4 after the second round but the Cuban then took control.
“I’m a bit surprised with the score,” said Saunders, a Romany living on a travellers’ site on the outskirts of London whose great-grandfather was a bare-knuckle prize fighter in boxing booths around the showgrounds of England.
“The body blows were not scoring,” Saunders added after failing in his bid to emulate compatriot Amir Khan, who was 17 when he won the lightweight silver medal in 2004 in Athens.
Coach Terry Edwards, who had already criticized the judging earlier in the tournament, said he, too, had found the scoring bizarre.
“I’m not sour grapes, Billy lost, but there were some inconsistencies in the scoring,” he said.
Edwards, who guided Khan to his silver medal in Athens and super-heavyweight Audley Harrison to the gold in 2000 in Sydney, paid tribute to his fighter.
“Billy acted in a very mature, professional way,” Edwards said. “He got beaten by the top act, the guy who will probably win the gold medal.
“I really hope Billy carries on until 2012,” Edwards added. “His talent is exceptional. He is very mature for his age but he will be even more then and he will be able to deal with situations like the one he faced today. He’s going to be awesome.”