SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1433 (97), Friday, December 12, 2008
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TITLE: Tensions Mount Over Mass Protest
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: City Hall on Thursday downgraded a major oppositional protest event scheduled for Sunday to a stationary meeting at the Chernyshevsky Gardens, far from the city center, organizers said after meeting with officials. The protest is the latest in a series of actions that are known as Dissenters’ Marches,
Last week, City Hall rejected three routes suggested for the march by the rally organizers, without offering an alternative as they are legally required to do, prompting the applicants to file a lawsuit against the local government on Monday.
Although they have agreed to a stationary meeting at the Chernyshevsky Gardens, the majority of organizers and participants will gather at a previously announced starting point near Gostiny Dvor Metro at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Olga Kurnosova, the local leader of Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front (OGF), said by phone on Thursday.
“[Participants will gather] at Gostiny Dvor and move along sidewalks, in an organized way, toward the Chernyshevsky Gardens,” Kurnosova said. The approximate distance between the two points is 3 kilometers. The gardens will be open to protesters from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Kurnosova said.
Dissenters’ Marches were introduced as the main form of mass protest in 2006 by the Other Russia, a pro-democracy coalition formed by OGF and Eduard Limonov’s banned National Bolshevik Party. Held several times a year, the marches, which have attracted up to 6,000 protesters at a single event, were frequently dispersed by the OMON special forces police, with many arrests and police beatings reported.
Sunday’s march is targeted against changes to the Russian Constitution that will prolong the presidential and State Duma terms from four years to six and five years respectively. The measures were proposed by President Dmitry Medvedev last month and are currently being approved by regional parliaments. The way the Kremlin is dealing with the economic crisis will also come in for criticism according to flyers published by the organizers.
“Change Those in Power, and Not the Constitution” and “Authorities, Take Responsibility for the Crisis,” stickers advertising the rally state.
Oppositionists said City Hall had no right by Russian law to change the form of the rally from a march to a stationary meeting, but agreed to the offer to avoid clashes with the police.
“Unlike the executive authority and law enforcers, first and foremost for us is the safety of civilians, while for them it’s orders from Moscow,” Kurnosova said.
“That’s why, for us at least, having an official document means, morally, that we do everything we could to provide this safety. So the march will take place come rain or shine.”
Earlier this month, Leonid Bogdanov, the head of the city government’s Law, Order and Secutity Committee, rejected the three suggested routes in a three-page letter, stating reasons ranging from repair works to the possible “distraction of drivers’ and pedestrians’ attention from following the traffic rules, which may lead to possible road traffic accidents.”
However, after the oppositionists announced that the Dissenters’ March would go ahead anyhow — the Russian Constitution guarantees the freedom to hold peaceful public gatherings — tensions between the authorities and the oppositionists mounted.
OGF member Mikhail Makarov was visited at his home by police, including the deputy head of the Vasileostrovsky District Police department, at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, Kurnosova said. The officers wanted Makarov to record a video in which he would say he was ceasing to organize the Dissenters’ March, but Makarov considered the demand “unlawful” and declined.
On Thursday morning, Kurnosova’s mother was visited by a district police officer who demanded to know where Kurnosova was, she said.
Late last month, Kurnosova was summoned to the southern Russian town of Astrakhan, where she is a suspect in a criminal case for allegedly smuggling a can of caviar. She was held there for 10 days by investigators. She returned to St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
“I think they will continue to take great pains to complicate my activities in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other places in Russia,” she said.
On Sunday, a Dissenters’ March will also be held in Moscow, despite a ban from the Mayor’s Office, as well as in a number of the other Russian cities.
TITLE: GDP Posts Weakest Growth in 3 Years
AUTHOR: By Maria Levina
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Economic growth fell in the third quarter to its slowest rate in three years, at 6.2 percent, the State Statistics Service reported Tuesday, and economists predict even lower growth for 2009.
Actual GDP growth in the quarter missed the Economic Development Ministry’s forecast of 7.1 percent, driven by significantly slower growth in the construction, retail, transport and communications sectors.
The decline continued a slide from 8.5 percent GDP growth in the first quarter and 7.5 percent in the second. If the trend continues the final number for the year could be in the 6 percent range.
“Next year’s GDP growth could range from negative 5 percent to plus 5 percent, depending on what happens to oil prices and the steps taken by the Russian government,” said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog. “If it continues to throw away currency reserves to defend the ruble, Russia may face a fiscal deficit and zero economic growth.”
He said allowing the ruble to depreciate is one step that could be taken to prop up growth numbers.
“In the past, the Russian economy grew even with oil prices of $30, $40 and $50 per barrel but at a different exchange rate,” he said. “In the current environment, Russia’s goal should be to achieve positive economic growth and avoid a fiscal deficit.”
In year-on-year terms, growth in the fourth quarter could end up at zero, partly as a result of slower production growth and partly because the number was strong in the final quarter of last year, said Yekaterina Malofeyeva, chief economist at Renaissance Capital.
She said she expects growth this year to finish above the 6 percent mark — at 6.2 percent — and that next year’s figure could range from zero to 3 percent.
“If oil prices average $70 a barrel next year and the ruble is allowed to depreciate, GDP growth could reach 3 percent,” Malofeyeva said. “Otherwise, it could be flat.”
Although the Economic Development Ministry has yet to release an official forecast, in recent informal comments it has put the number at 3 percent to 3.5 percent if oil prices average $50 per barrel for the year.
But economists say conditions have been shifting so rapidly that providing anything resembling an accurate forecast for 2009 would be difficult until all the numbers for the final quarter of this year have been released.
The Economic Development Ministry said Monday that it was revising its forecast for manufacturing growth for the year downward, from 5.2 percent to 2.9 percent. The figure for the first 10 months of this year was 4.9 percent, so the ministry’s forecast suggests that it is expecting disastrous results in November and December, with production dropping by over 10 percent.
Gavrilenkov said he believed that a 2.9 percent production forecast was overly pessimistic but, if accurate, would mean that the country is entering a severe depression.
He added that losses on the manufacturing side could be balanced somewhat by growth in the service sector, as consumer spending has remained relatively strong. As such, he said he expected GDP growth of 6.8 percent to 6.9 percent this year.
Natalya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank, said she was surprised by how low the production numbers were.
“Given that the October numbers showed there was essentially no growth (0.6 percent), we originally assumed a drop in production of 2 to 3 percent in November and December, which would still imply a growth rate of around 5 percent for the year,” Orlova said. “But if we are to believe the numbers from [Economic Development Minister] Nabiullina, with a drop of more than 10 percent in November and December, then the situation seems more serious.”
TITLE: A Smooth Transition From Kremlin Critic to Governor
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev, Francesca Mereu
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: MOSCOW — Exactly a year ago, then-President Vladimir Putin warned that the liberal opposition was trying to return to the power it enjoyed in the 1990s by staging street protests and enriching themselves, while bringing the country to its knees.
Now, former Union of Right Forces head Nikita Belykh, one of the leaders of the liberal opposition who was arrested at a Dissenters’ March this spring, will likely become governor of the Kirov region after President Dmitry Medvedev nominated him for the post Monday.
What is going on?
Belykh said he accepted the nomination because the position is “very interesting from a professional point of view.”
“I understand how to do it, and it is interesting because it is a big challenge,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Belykh, 33, who served as deputy governor of the Perm region in 2004 and 2005, said that being part of the Kremlin’s so-called power vertical did not contradict his principles as a liberal-minded reformer.
“I have not said that people should not cooperate with the powers that be,” he said.
He said governors are not political figures in modern Russia, especially during an economic crisis.
Three months ago, Belykh stepped down as the leader of the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, after railing against the Kremlin for three years in a drive that culminated during the State Duma campaign last year. The party won no seats and was disbanded several weeks ago.
SPS has merged with the tiny Democratic Party and the Civil Force party to create the Kremlin-backed Right Cause, a non-opposition liberal party.
Several opposition figures, including former SPS activist Maria Gaidar, have accused Belykh of striking a deal with the Kremlin to destroy SPS. But Belykh has refused to join Right Cause.
“I was against it because it was just an imitation of the opposition and not real opposition,” he said Tuesday.
Belykh praised liberal-minded officials who work in the government, naming among them Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev and Federal Anti-monopoly Service head Igor Artemyev.
“I think that it is right and useful that there are people who think like us in the structures of power,” he said.
Belykh was among more than 50 people briefly detained by riot police before the start of a Dissenters’ March on March 3. The rally, which was unsanctioned by Moscow authorities, was called by the opposition to denounce the presidential election, which had been held a day earlier.
Belykh said Medvedev offered him the job Monday. Several weeks before receiving the offer, he spoke with Medvedev’s first deputy chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s chief strategist for domestic policy.
“I met with Surkov three weeks ago, but we didn’t speak about a specific region; we only discussed my cooperation with the authorities within the executive power,” Belykh said. “I said I was ready, and our contacts stopped with that.”
Asked whether he would allow the opposition to march in Kirov, Belykh said: “If they act according to the law and according to our law, people have the right to assemble.”
It was not clear Tuesday when Kirov lawmakers would confirm Belykh to the post. The term of the incumbent, Nikolai Shaklein, expires in mid-January. The next session of the regional parliament is scheduled for Dec. 18.
Shaklein, elected in 2004 before then-President Vladimir Putin ditched gubernatorial elections, is one of the country’s least-popular governors. The Kremlin might have another reason to see him go: United Russia won only 28.5 percent of the vote in the regional parliament’s last elections in 2006 — one of the party’s poorest results nationally.
SPS co-founder Boris Nemtsov, who with other opposition activists is creating a new opposition group called Solidarity, said Tuesday that he had known for some time that Belykh was talking to the Kremlin about a job.
“We agreed that he had to decide before Solidarity’s congress, and he did,” he said.
Solidarity will hold its founding congress on Saturday. Former chess champion Garry Kasparov and former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov are part of Solidarity.
Nemtsov said Belykh will share blame with those in power by becoming part of the power, including corruption, raiders’ attacks on companies, aggressive domestic and foreign policies, voting falsification and censorship. “In short, the entire power vertical is responsible for Putin’s actions,” Nemtsov said.
He said Belykh has made an ethical mistake by accepting the nomination because he will be working for a Kremlin “that shot at Beslan’s children … and turned a blind eye when Anna Politkovskaya was killed.”
Nemtsov said Belykh was following in the footsteps of SPS co-founder Anatoly Chubais, head of the State Nanotechnology Corporation, and Leonid Gozman, a former SPS leader who now is a co-head of Right Cause.
“From a political point of view, we now belong to two different camps, but our personal relationship will remain unchanged,” Nemtsov added.
Kasyanov, reached Tuesday through his secretary, declined to comment.
Political analysts were divided over the Kremlin’s motivation in selecting Belykh as governor. But they agreed that the decision was not a reward for bringing down SPS, which they said posed no threat to the Kremlin.
“Belykh proved to be an apt administrator in Perm and, at the same time, he did not turn into a liberal icon or a liberal ideologist as the head of SPS,” said Sergei Mikheyev, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies.
As such, Medvedev might view Belykh’s stint at SPS as a career move in line with the requirements of the presidential cadre reserve, which welcomes both managerial and political experience, Mikheyev said.
With the nomination, the Kremlin is sending a signal to liberal-minded Russians that it does not want to marginalize them but might incorporate them in politics, said Dmitry Badovsky, a political scientist at Moscow State University and a member of the Public Chamber.
Belykh, however, may turn into a “poison pill” for liberals. If he fails in Kirov, which has one of Russia’s least-developed regional economies, the Kremlin might use it against the liberals, saying their approaches are of no use in real life, said Alexei Mukhin, head of the Center for Political Information.
TITLE: 8 Arrested at City Parliament
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Eight activists were detained on Wednesday in protests in the city against amendments to the Russian Constitution, already passed by federal legislators, that will prolong presidential and State Duma terms from four to six and five years respectively.
As the amendments were sent to be ratified by the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, activists of Yabloko Democratic Party, Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front (OGF), the Oborona (Defense) youth movement and Mikhail Kasyanov’s People’s Democratic Union held a brief protest in front of the Mariinsky Palace city parliament building on St. Isaac’s Square where the Assembly meets.
City Hall had previously banned the protestors from using the location, providing a number of reasons.
City Hall reasoned that the planned picket could mess with the “safe and unhindered passage of deputies, officials and citizens into the building of the Legislative Assembly” as well as the complex transport situation and the presence of tourists in the area, and suggested that the event is moved to Pionerskaya Ploshchad in front of the Theater for Young Spectators.
In a press release issued on Tuesday, Yabloko said it would go on with the picket at the original location, because “‘young spectators’ do not make amendments to the Constitution,” describing the ban as “unlawful” since it contradicts the Constitution’s guarantee of the right to hold peaceful public gatherings.
The protest began at 9 a.m. when Yabloko member Ksenia Vakhrusheva stood near the building’s entrance holding a poster with a quote by the then President Vladimir Putin from 2007 reading, “Their brains should be changed, and not our Constitution.”
Putin was responding to critics who suggested he would prolong his term in office or overturn term limits by making amendments to the Constitution.
The sidewalk outside the Mariinsky Palace was largely empty when the protest began, although several journalists and policemen were present.
The police checked Vakhrusheva’s passport and filmed her on a video camera, but did not prevent her from standing with the poster, as a single-person protest is not considered a mass event.
But when several minutes later five other activists unveiled a 10-meter banner saying “Hands Off the Constitution,” the policemen rushed to them, tore down the banner and detained the protesters, including the local Yabloko head Maxim Reznik.
The detainees were treated roughly and one protester, Alexander Gudimov of Yabloko’s youth wing, was dragged on the ground for about 20 meters before being thrown into the police van.
All in all, the protests were stopped and the protesters detained in less than two minutes. At least 20 policemen took part in shutting down the rally.
Apart from Reznik and Gudimov, Youth Yabloko’s Yekaterina Alimova and Polina Strongina as well as OGF’s Denis Vasilyev were detained. Charged with conducting an unsanctioned rally and disobeying the police, the five activists spent around nine hours at the police precinct and the court, but were released by 6 p.m. with court hearings postponed or transferred to different courts.
Later on Wednesday, at 10:30 a.m., several activists of Eduard Limonov’s banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP) climbed the scaffolding of a building under repair opposite the Legislative Assembly, unveiled a large banner and threw leaflets in another protest against the Constitutional amendments.
“Change Those in Power, Not the Constitution,” said the banner, which is also the main slogan for Sunday’s Dissenters’ March.
Activists Vladimir Streltsov, Igor Shirokov and Yevgeny Voloshin were detained, charged with conducting an unsanctioned rally, disobeying the police and taken to court after spending three to four hours at the police precinct, the local NBP leader Andrei Dmitriyev said in a phone interview on Thursday.
Court hearings were also moved to the detainees’ respective local courts.
In Wednesday’s session of the Legislative Assembly, which has no oppositionists as a result of Yabloko being thrown out of last year’s elections over allegedly fake voter signatures, voted in the majority for the amendments.
Eight Communists voted against.
TITLE: Ecologists Hold Picket At French Consulate
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Ecologists from the local branch of Bellona, an international environmental pressure group Bellona protested outside the French Consulate General in St. Petersburg on Thursday afternoon as cargo containing toxic uranium derivatives arrived in the city’s port.
The hazardous cargo arrived in St. Petersburg on board the Zamoskvorechiye, a ship belonging to French company Eurodif which is carrying containers holding a total of 2,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride from the Tricastin Nuclear Power Center in Pierrelatte, France. The ship left the French port of Havre on Dec. 4.
For about two hours, six protestors picketed the French consulate one at a time to avoid laws against unplanned free association of people in public places.
The radioactive load onboard the Zamoskvorechiye is due to be sent by rail to Siberia and the Urals — namely to the towns of Novouralsk in the Sverdlovsk region, Seversk in the Tomsk region, Angarsk in the Irkutsk region and Zelenogorsk in the Krasnoyarsk region — for reprocessing and storage.
Tricastin is one of the world’s most important nuclear sites and accommodates four power reactors: the Comhurex uranium conversion facility, the Eurodif enrichment plant and the Pierrelatte weapons facility, all operated by the Atomic Energy Commission.
“Russian legislation forbids the import of spent nuclear fuel or any nuclear waste, but the authorities evade the law by marking uranium hexafluoride as a raw material,” explains Rashid Alimov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Bellona.
“Because neither Russia, nor any other country has any idea of what they can possibly do with uranium hexafluoride — what use they can make of it — the substance clearly qualifies as waste. The world’s storage facilities currently hold several million tons of uranium hexafluoride.”
According to Bellona, Russia is the only country in the world that receives uranium hexafluoride from abroad in industrial quantities.
Russian officials claim that uranium hexafluoride is as safe as toothpaste, while ecologists regard the compound a nuclear waste.
Bellona activists are planning to monitor the travel of the cargo to its final destination in Siberia as they have concerns that a transport accident or a leak may occur during the course of the journey. In the past, environmentalists have detected a number of radiation leaks during the transportation of such cargo.
Environmentalists across the country stress that independent monitoring of nuclear safety is being complicated by officials.
“Independent experts can be denied access to facilities and the very possibility of measuring radiation levels in the proximity of nuclear objects is often a problem,” said Olga Tsepilova, deputy head of the environmental faction of the liberal party Yabloko and an environmental scientist with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Russian officials argue that ordinary Russians are poorly prepared to deal with the subject, and that the release of any relevant information would spark panic among members of the public.
TITLE: Alexy II Buried With Candles and Flowers
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Candles flickered and white-robed elders chanted prayers as the country bade farewell Tuesday to Patriarch Alexy II, who guided the country’s dominant Russian Orthodox Church through its remarkable recovery after decades of Communist-era repression.
Nuns, believers and government officials looked on as prayers filled the soaring Christ the Savior Cathedral at a six-hour funeral service for the Patriarch, who died Friday at age 79. He was buried later Tuesday at the Epiphany Cathedral across town in a ceremony closed to the public and media, the church said.
Chosen as patriarch a year before the 1991 collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union, Alexy II shaped the church’s powerful growth — and a renewal of its traditionally close ties with the Russian state — through the turbulent years that followed.
The Russian Orthodox Church claims about two-thirds of the country’s 142 million people belong to its flock. It also controls Orthodox churches in several former Soviet republics. The number of houses of worship has increased from fewer than 7,000 in 1988 to nearly 30,000, according to the church.
“We are burying a great man, a great son of our nation, a beautiful holy fruit grown by our Russian church,” Reverend Dmitry Smirnov, a Moscow archpriest, said in an address at the funeral, which was broadcast live on state-run television. “Our whole nation has been orphaned.”
Tuesday’s funeral followed nearly three days of around-the-clock viewing of the patriarch’s body, with 80,000 people lining up outside the cathedral and waiting for hours in the rain to file past his coffin and pay their last respects.
Alexy’s body lay in an open casket surrounded by flowers and candles in the cathedral near the Kremlin, his face covered by a white and gold embroidered cloth.
The opulent, hours-long ceremony mirrored services that Alexy himself had led at Christ the Savior: the glittering robes, the incense smoke, the prayers and the upturned faces of the faithful.
It was led by Alexy’s temporary replacement, Metropolitan Kirill, a top contender to become the next patriarch.
Kirill, 62, was led away briefly from the funeral ceremony by aides after apparently feeling unwell.
Kirill returned after a short break to continue participating in the service, which lasted about six hours.
President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended with their wives, arriving at around the midpoint of the ceremony at Christ the Savior. Each took his turn approaching the casket, crossing himself and bending to kiss the covered body of the patriarch.
While raised under communist rule, both leaders have attended services on major holidays of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has settled into something like the deferential role it played in relation to the state under tsarist rule.
Black-robed pallbearers carried the coffin outside and circled the cathedral, while nuns scattered white roses on the rain-soaked pavement. The body was put in a hearse, and police cruisers with blinking lights led a procession of black cars along the darkening streets past the Kremlin to the Epiphany Cathedral for his burial not far from the altar.
(AP, SPT)
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Journalists Attacked
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A TV crew working for Russia’s NTV station was surrounded and attacked by about 50 young protesters armed with Molotov cocktails on Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders reported on Thursday.
The incident occurred outside the Athens Polytechnic Institute in the capital’s Exarchia suburb, and officials believe the youths were drunk.
The protesters grabbed the TV crew’s camera and tried to drag them into the polytechnic, Reporters Without Borders reported. And journalist Vadim Gluskera and cameraman Yevgeny Kovalyov were hurt slightly when they attempted to recover the camera.
The protesters finally calmed down and returned the camera when they realized the journalists were Russians. But they destroyed the videocassette containing all the footage of the rioting that Gluskera and Kovalyov had filmed that evening.
Solzhenitsyn Online
MOSCOW (AP) — A web site dedicated to the late Soviet dissident and Nobel literature laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn was up and running on what would have been his 90th birthday on Thursday. Solzhenitsyn died in August.
The Russian-language site includes biographical information, news and links to many of his works, including short stories and the massive “Gulag Archipelago” trilogy.
It also includes an audio version of “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”
The Interfax news agency quoted the writer’s widow, Nataliya, as saying she hopes to publish all his works on the state-supported site. web address is www.solzhenitsyn.ru.
TITLE: Gradual Devaluation Of Ruble Continues
AUTHOR: By Emma O’Brien
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia devalued the ruble for the fifth time in a month, widening its trading band against the dollar and euro after reserves fell $161 billion defending the exchange rate.
Bank Rossii extended the amount the ruble can decline against a target exchange rate to 7.7 percent, from 6.7 percent on Wednesday and 3.7 percent a month ago. The band was widened by 30 kopeks on Thursday, said a spokesman who declined to be identified on bank policy. The currency weakened 0.7 percent against the basket.
“They don’t have a choice but to let it weaken and the faster they do it the better,” said Beat Siegenthaler, head of emerging markets strategy in London at TD Securities Ltd. “Regular weekly steps are now the most likely scenario.”
Russia has drained 27 percent of its reserves since the start of August to stymie a 16 percent decline in the ruble versus the dollar as tumbling oil prices, the war in Georgia and the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression caused investors to remove almost $200 billion from the country, BNP Paribas data shows.
The ruble fell 4.8 percent against the central bank’s basket in the past month. Goldman Sachs Group predicts the sliding price of oil will force a ruble drop of as much as 25 percent over the next 12 months. Troika Dialog, Russia’s oldest investment bank, is calling for a one-time, 20 percent devaluation in late January, when there is less risk of bank runs during the New Year’s holidays. UniCredit SpA forecasts a 15 percent decline by the end of 2009.
The world’s biggest energy producer is suffering as the price of Urals crude, its main export blend, has dropped 71 percent from a July record to $40.74 a barrel, below the $70 average required to balance the nation’s 2009 budget.
Russians withdrew six percent of their savings accounts in October, the most since Bank Rossii started collating the data two years ago. Deposits in foreign currency, meanwhile, rose 11 percent.
Foreign-exchange reserves decreased by $17.9 billion to $437 billion in the week to Dec. 5, more than the $11.25 billion decline that was the median estimate of five economists surveyed by Bloomberg this week. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pledged last week to use the nation’s reserves stockpile, the world’s third largest, to prevent “sharp” movements in the currency.
The weakest end of the trading band is now about 31.90 versus the basket, from the previous 31.60, said Siegenthaler, who predicts a further 20 percent drop versus the basket should oil prices stay at current levels.
“It seems that they will continue at this pace of small devaluations,” said Elisabeth Andreew, chief currency strategist at Nordea AB in Copenhagen, Scandinavia’s biggest bank. “But we can’t rule out a bigger devaluation.”
TITLE: Russia Set to Cooperate With OPEC
AUTHOR: By Alexander Kwiatkowski
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Crude oil rose on speculation that Russia may coordinate a production cut with OPEC next week to end the five-month slump in prices.
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Russia will announce proposals for reducing output by Dec. 17, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meets, Interfax reported. OPEC, which pumps more than 40 percent of the world’s oil, may reduce its output limit by as much as 2.5 million barrels a day, billionaire hedge-fund manager Boone Pickens said Wednesday.
“It would be a boost to OPEC if they commit something forward,” said Olivier Jakob, managing director of Zug, Switzerland-based PetroMatrix. “The cuts from Russia are already happening, producers are not making money.”
Crude oil futures for January delivery rose as much as $2.65, or 6.3 percent, to $44.72 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $44.10 a barrel at 12:57 a.m. London time on Thursday.
Russia’s Shmatko said he had spoken on the phone to the president of OPEC and that the oil-producers’ group is preparing “significant” production cuts, Interfax said. Russia is the world’s second-largest exporter after Saudi Arabia. Norway, the next biggest non-OPEC exporter, has no plans to cut production, the petroleum ministry said.
Oil also rose as traders bought contracts to close out bets that prices will fall further. Traders who held short positions, or bets prices would fall, are purchasing futures after oil dropped more than 20 percent in the past two weeks. On Wednesday futures fell $1.64, or 3.8 percent, to $42.07 a barrel, capping a 23 percent drop since Nov. 26.
OPEC should make a “substantial” output cut when it meets on Dec. 17 in Algeria, Shokri Ghanem, Libya’s top oil official, said on Dec. 8. Oil has tumbled more than 30 percent since the group announced a 1.5 million-barrel-a-day reduction in supply on Oct. 24.
OPEC will “work it back up to $100,” Pickens said in an interview in New York. “It will all be determined by the global economy. If you get a recovery in the global economy, you will get it back up.”
TITLE: Visa Regulations for Ferry Passengers Eased
AUTHOR: By Natalya Chumarova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Ferry link operators were given some good news last week when the president passed a law allowing foreign tourists who arrive by ferry to stay in Russia for three days without a visa.
President Dmitry Medvedev last week signed a law introducing changes to article 25.11 of the federal law “On leaving and entering the Russian Federation.” As a result of the amendment, foreign tourists who arrive in Russia on passenger ferries will be permitted to stay in the country without a visa for up to 72 hours.
The passing of the amendment is expected to have a positive effect on the ferry industry in St. Petersburg and will simplify procedures for foreign operators, said Igor Glukhov, general director of Inflot Worldwide St. Petersburg.
The ferry connection to St. Petersburg has not proved successful in the past. In 2004, Tallink Grupp opened a route between Tallinn, St. Petersburg and Helsinki, but it lasted for little more than six months. At that time, 70-80 percent of passengers were not Russian, according to Anatoly Zavgorodny, marketing director at Tallink-ru. Silja Line, which since 2006 has been part of the Tallink Grupp, ran a route between Helsinki and St. Petersburg, and another from Rostok to Tallinn and St. Peterburg from 2004, but both routes were closed in 2005.
The most recent ferry connection between St. Petersburg and Helsinki was stopped at the beginning of October after operating for little more than two months. The 1,000-passenger ferry was generally less than 50 percent full, and most passengers were Russian tourists.
In times of economic crisis, people are more likely to travel to nearby places, and ferries are fairly economic and operate all year round, said Sergei Korneev, vice president of the Russian Tourism Industry Union. The crisis will facilitate the development of the ferry link, said Glukhov, whose company is negotiating the possible reintroduction the ferry link to Helsinki.
TITLE: Changes Planned for Okhta Center Skyscraper Financing
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva and Anatoly Tyomkin
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Gazprom and the city will devise a new plan before the end of the year to finance the building of the Okhta Center skyscraper, Gazprom head Alexei Miller announced on Monday. Miller said that the organizational and legal structure of the Okhta Public-Business Center joint stock company, which is in charge of the project, would be qualified. Sergei Kupriyanov, head of Gazprom’s press service, confirmed that the company’s organizational and legal structure could be altered, but declined to comment further. According to Miller, Gazprom has no intention of canceling plans for the construction of the Okhta Center.
“The project has been developed and accepted and will be realized,” he said.
The financing plan, worth a total of about 60 billion rubles ($2.15 billion), originally stipulated that Gazprom Neft would pay 51 percent of the cost of the project, and the remaining 49 percent would be provided by the city’s budget. But in October, the city withdrew its financing plan of 2.9 billion rubles ($104 million) per year from 2009-2011. According to vice-governor Mikhail Oseevsky, these funds will now be spent on the construction of the new stadium on Krestovsky Island.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Russia Top for Bribery
LONDON — A survey of senior business executives from around the world rated companies based in Russia as the most likely to pay bribes to win business in other countries.
Anti-corruption organization Transparency International, which published the survey on Tuesday, said the results showed that companies based in emerging markets were the most likely to engage in bribery when doing business abroad.
Companies based in Belgium and Canada were rated as the least likely to make payoffs.
The survey asked 2,742 executives from 26 countries about the likelihood of foreign companies from countries they have dealings with to pay bribes when operating in the executives’ home countries.
Transparency International then used the executives’ responses to rank 22 of the world’s largest countries on a scale of one to 10, with 10 indicating a country whose companies are the least prone to bribery.
Each country’s ranking was determined by answers from between 114 and 718 executives, depending on the number of executives that had experience with each country.
TITLE: A Transitional Patriarch
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Berezansky, Jr.
TEXT: Patriarch Alexy II’s life was one of patient endurance followed by disorienting change. In November 1991, I interviewed him for an American religious journal. At the time, he seemed overcome by the changes taking place around him and he did not know where to begin.
“For our entire lives, we [clerics] were pariahs, and now we are being called on to do everything: chaplains for the military, ministries to hospitals, orphanages, prisons,” he said.
He even voiced regret about taking the time to travel to the United States. But he had gambled — correctly, as it turned out — that he could do more for his flock by seeking foreign assistance than by staying home to manage the Russian Orthodox Church’s destitution. His plate was full and overflowing, and he seemed keenly aware of the ironies of his situation. The Russian state was returning desecrated, gutted and largely useless ecclesiastical structures to the Orthodox church — a gesture at once desperate, empty and, to some degree, remorseful.
Patriarch Alexy II died last Friday at the age of 79 at his residence outside Moscow.
An ethnic Estonian, born Alexei Rediger, he grew up in an as-yet unoccupied Tallinn, where Russian Orthodoxy was just one tessera in the vibrant mosaic of Baltic religious life. After studying theology in St. Petersburg, he rose swiftly through the ranks of the church, becoming a bishop by the age of 32 and an archbishop by 35.
During and after the chaos of World War II, he probably could have emigrated and been numbered among the millions of so-called “Second Wave” exiles from Soviet Russia. But he chose to remain and serve his church and people in circumstances that could not fail to compromise his own reputation.
“Our choices were cooperation or annihilation,” he told me in 1991.
And, like so many other religious and cultural leaders of his generation, he repeatedly expressed regret and remorse for having accepted that Faustian bargain. Even today we continue to learn of the choices of conscience made by the famous figures of that generation, including Nobel-winning German writer Gunter Grass and Czech novelist Milan Kundera.
Patriarch Alexy’s legacy will undoubtedly include two elements that have been assessed negatively, and one major — indeed, overarching — achievement. In inter-church relations, his refusal to meet Pope John Paul II or his successor, Benedict XVI, was seen as churlish. Whether welcome or not, the patriarch’s position was that specific issues of contention between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches needed to be improved before any “photo op” could take place. But he consistently referred to Roman Catholicism as a “sister” church.
More significantly, however, the patriarch was criticized for permitting the Russian church to develop in a manner that adhered to rather than resisted the mold of the now raucously capitalistic Russia. Under his watch, corruption entered the institution of the Russian church. As millions of Russians were rediscovering their traditional Christian roots, priests were suddenly seen talking into cell phones and behind the wheels of pricey German cars. It was commonly understood that anyone in Russia could be availed of the church’s sacraments — christenings, weddings, funeral rites — for the right price. Financial accountability and transparency of church-affiliated business interests are essentially nonexistent. Unfortunately, this is also part of Alexy’s legacy.
But the patriarch’s crowning achievement — his life’s work, in essence — was overseeing the reunion of the Moscow Patriarchate with the Orthodox Church Outside Russia, whose members fled Russia to escape the Bolshevik Revolution. This 80-year schism was the living incarnation of the rift between the two Russias — the Russia of Vladimir Nabokov, Sergei Rachmaninov and Igor Sikorsky and the Russia of Soviet communism. The 1917 Revolution ushered in an era of two opposing Russian worlds that loathed each other and rarely, if ever, intersected. On May 17, 2007, Alexy presided over the reunion of those two worlds during a triumphant ceremony at the rebuilt Christ the Savior Cathedral — a towering, ornate structure that is a fitting symbol of his work to rebuild the church.
Patriarch Alexy’s gift to Russia was to heal the rift between the motherland and the diaspora. Today there are Russians who live in Russia and Russians who live abroad. But thanks to the late Patriarch Alexy, they are all Russians.
Vladimir Berezansky, Jr. is a U.S. lawyer with more than 15 years of experience in Russia and other CIS republics.
TITLE: When Shooting Is Easier Than Bribing
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Although everyone is now saying that Russia is going through a financial crisis, this seems strange to me. Imagine a drug addict who sells everything he owns to support his addiction, loses his job and his wife, and then says his problem is that he has no money.
The global financial crisis has shown the whole world the extent to which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s verical power model is flawed — both politically and economically.
Over the past eight years, the government apparatus has been used as a mechanism to protect the highest-ranking officials to rule as they saw fit, regardless of how ineffective and incompetent they were. When oil prices were high and the state coffers were overflowing with petrodollars, the cost of running the country poorly was virtually nothing.
But with the crash in oil prices, what is going to happen now? First, let’s look at the financial markets. The amount of corporate debt remains excessively high at a time when companies’ market values have crashed.
This means corporate defaults on debt payments are bound to increase sharply. Any available funds will flee to safe havens outside the country. The only thing that will be left in Russia is a huge pile of debt, which, of course, can’t flee to the West.
What were Russia’s oligarchs doing in the years leading up to the crisis? Using shares in their Russian holdings as collateral, they gorged themselves with cheap credit from Western banks and bought up shares in Western companies. The oligarchs dutifully supported Putin’s regime in words, but their actions — investing outside of Russia — spoke louder.
Putinomics is a distorted combination of socialism and capitalism — production is socialist and consumption is capitalist.
In other words, the state bears all the costs of production and the profits are siphoned off into the personal bank accounts of a small clique with close ties to the Kremlin.
Can this contorted business model hold up for long when petrodollars have stopped flooding the economy?
Even though the market value of Russia’s leading companies has dropped an average of 70 percent this year, the top bureaucrats are trying to maintain the same high standards of living that they enjoyed during the oil boom years.
The only way they can do this is by increasing the price of bribes that they extort from businesses and individuals.
This, of course, will increase the level of corruption even more. It will also mean that general lawlessness will run rampant in society. When there is a total collapse of the state, business owners — especially small business owners — will realize it is easier and more advantageous to simply shoot the government extortionists than to pay them.
Putin’s current model for ruling the country is clearly fundamentally flawed. The few freedoms that were granted to the people when oil prices were high will become a serious threat to the state as soon as that income flow slows to a trickle.
For the last eight years, we have been inundated with propaganda about how the country’s enemies are trying to prevent a resurgent Russia from getting up off its knees.
But when the masses become jobless, hungry and angry, it will be increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to convince the people that all of the country’s problems are the fault of the West.
In the end, however, even a severe crisis probably won’t tarnish Putin’s popularity. After all, poverty has never been a problem for dictators. As U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said: “People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” After Russia’s oil money dries up, it is almost inevitable that Putin will become a dictator.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Festival feast
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Is St. Petersburg the place to be in winter? Internationally renowned conductor Yury Temirkanov offers a confident “yes” with his Arts Square Festival, the annual classical music event that has become St. Petersburg’s premier artistic happening during the winter months.
The festival was launched in 1999 by Yury Temirkanov, the respected artistic director of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra at the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall on Ploshchad Iskusstv — or “Arts Square.”
Temirkanov’s idea was to restore the long-lost pre-Revolutionary tradition of a sparkling winter “season,” with concerts, balls, masquerades and parties sweeping the city during the New Year holiday. During its nine-year history, the festival has become an extensive annual event, and has encompassed celebrations for “Western” Christmas (Dec. 25), New Year, Orthodox Christmas (Jan. 7) and Old New Year (Jan. 14, according to the pre-Revolutionary calendar).
Arts Square, noted for its statue of Russian national poet Alexander Pushkin, is adorned with some of the city’s finest cultural assets. Three of them — the State Russian Museum, the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall and the Mikhailovsky Theater — are at the heart of the Arts Square Festival.
Running a music festival isn’t very difficult, according to Temirkanov.
“A festival is no big deal, really,” he smiles. “In Europe, nearly every village now has its own festival.”
“What does present a challenge is building a symbolic concept of the event in such an historic location as St. Petersburg,” he added. This year’s Arts Square Festival opens on Sunday (Dec. 14), with a concert including world-renowned pianist Evgeny Kissin playing Brahms’ First Piano Concerto.
In addition to Kissin, performers set to appear include pianist Vladimir Feltzman, violinist Viktor Tretyakov, pianist Yefim Bronfman, the Russian National Orchestra under the baton of Mikhail Pletnyov and the Moscow Soloists Ensemble under the baton of Yury Bashmet.
On Dec. 21, the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev will perform Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall.
Works by Johannes Brahms are at the heart of this year’s program.
Renowned violinist Tretyakov performs a program of Brahms’s Third Symphony, Violin Concerto and Hungarian Dances on Tuesday alongside the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.
U.S. pianist Feltzman appears with the same orchestra on Dec. 19 with a program of Mozart’s Concert Rondo in D Major for Piano and Orchestra, Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto and Brahm’s Second Symphony. Internationally renowned pianist Bronfman joins Temirkanov and the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra on Dec. 24, the last event of this year’s festival. The musicians will perform Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto and Fourth Symphony.
As with previous Arts Square Festivals, Temirkanov is introducing a talented newcomer to the city’s concertgoers this year.
The name to watch is the outstanding young violinist Valery Sokolov. Born in Ukraine in 1986, the musician was the winner of the 2005 Enesco Piano Competition. In 1999, aged 13, Sokolov was awarded a scholarship, established by Russia’s Vladimir Spivakov, to study at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in the U.K. at the International Pablo Saraste festival in Spain.
The first of Temirkanov’s proteges, the Chinese pianist Lang Lang, has returned to St. Petersburg on several occasions, including as a special guest at the Arts Square Festival.
“Lang Lang has a fantastic career. He gives more than 100 performances a year around the world,” Temirkanov said. “I keep close tabs on what he is doing, but I’m happy to see that he doesn’t need my help any more.”
On the other side of Arts Square from the Shostakovich Philharmonic, the revitalized Mikhailovsky Theater contributes a dash of ballet to this year’s festival with a performance on Monday of “The Moor’s Pavane: Variations on the theme of Othello.” The ballet was choreographed by Jose Limon in 1949 to music by the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell. The ballet’s four dancers represent The Moor, Desdemona, Iago, and Emilia, with Farukh Ruzimatov as The Moor.
The second half of the evening is composed of “Divertissements” that include Marius Petipa’s “Sleeping Beauty” to music by Tchaikovsky, Alexander Gorsky’s “Ocean and Pearls” to music by Cesare Pugni, “Esmeralde” (Petipa, Pugni), “Le Corsaire” (Petipa, Adam, Pugni, Delibes, Drigo, Oldenburgsky) and Maurice Bejart’s “Bhakti” to Indian classical music.
Over the years, the Arts Square Winter Festival has become popular with tourists and acts like a magnet for foreign visitors.
With the support of City Hall, some of St. Petersburg’s top hotels — the Astoria, the Angleterre, the Grand Hotel Europe, the Radisson SAS and the Corinthia Nevskij Palace — participate in a joint project to promote St. Petersburg during the winter season. The White Days program, billed as a winter version of the already popular White Nights that includes a summer festival at the Mariinsky Theater, was launched in 2001 and offers visitors discounted cultural package deals.
www.artsquarewinterfest.ru
TITLE: Chernov’s
choice
TEXT: The ironic arty band NOM recently produced a hilarious video to a song called “Carefree Russian Tramp” by Boris Grebenshchikov.
Portrayed by artist Viktor Puzo, who closely resembles the founder of the classic Russian band Akvarium, “Grebenshchikov” walks around with a bottle of vodka strumming the guitar and downing a glass with adherants of different religions, from Buddhists to Jews to Russian Orthodox believers, hinting at the singer’s ever-changing religious affliation.
At the end of the video, a KGB officer played by NOM’s Ivan Turist, grabs him, twists his arm and leads him to his office, where, in the light from a table lamp and under a portrait of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the Soviet secret police founder still cherished by the current and former state security officers, the KGB officer asks him to sign a “commitment to cooperate.”
Without hesitation, Puzo as Grebenshchikov signs the paper and quickly produces his vodka bottle, but Turist, as a KGB man, has something better to offer and puts a bottle of cognac and a pair of glasses on the table.
Grebenshchikov has done much to deserve this sarcastic depiction during the past five years, including buddying up to Kremlin’s ideologist Vladislav Surkov up to the point where he reportedly sang a duet with (oh horror!) Soviet pop singer Lev Leshchenko at Surkov’s wedding.
Incidentally, Igor Butman, the jazz saxophonist who was accompanying this legendary duet and revealed the story on the television, has recently applied to become a member of Kremlin-backed party United Russia.
Upon Surkov’s request, Grebenshchikov also brought a number of Russian rock musicians to meet the Kremlin’s gray cardinal and went to great pains to defend the Kremlin’s policies. Earlier this year, it reached the point where he said that Russians basically do not deserve freedom, because they misunderstand it as the “freedom to use bad language,” which should be insulting to many Russians if they were to think about it.
Five years ago, when he turned 50, Grebenshchikov was awarded a medal by the Kremlin, and Valentina Matviyenko, who was then in her pre-governor period acting as a local representative for then-President Vladimir Putin, made the effort to go to Grebenshchikov’s concert at the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall and deliver it personally. She was booed by Akvarium’s fans.
When Grebenshchikov turned 55 late last month he was congratulated by President Dmitry Medvedev. Ironically, Medvedev called Grebenshchikov “one of the first Russian musicians whose work epitomized the freedom that everyone strives for.”
But Grebenshchikov did one good thing last month; he signed a petition demanding freedom for Svetlana Bakhmina, an imprisoned pregnant lawyer who worked for imprisoned Yukos head and Putin’s opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Music therapy
AUTHOR: By Michael Roddy
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — It’s better to tackle tough times with a song in your heart — especially a tune from the classical repertoire, Russian conductor Valery Gergiev says.
Before embarking on a two-week tour of Japan last month leading the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), Gergiev said that while classical music may be expensive, it’s not a luxury.
“We have to talk about when people need culture rather than when people have to worry about the economy,” he said.
“And I think when things are looking less safe, the public and people in general need music ... they may even enjoy it more than before because if they don’t enjoy the economic story, they will certainly have a chance to come and enjoy great music.
“Music doesn’t lose its share price ... it doesn’t lose its value.”
Gergiev made the comments following a press luncheon to discuss the LSO’s Japanese tour, sponsored by Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.
The tour, which began on Nov. 27 in Sapporo and ended on Dec. 10 in Miyazaki, Kyushu Island, is the LSO’s 20th tour of Japan but its first with Gergiev, who became principal conductor in 2007.
A champion of the Russian repertoire, Gergiev treated Japanese audiences to an all-Russian diet of Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, including all seven Prokofiev symphonies, his violin and piano concertos and the children’s piece “Peter and the Wolf.”
“I believe it will be very exciting to play all those symphonies for the audiences in Japan. Yes, this is a very good repertoire,” Gergiev said.
Gergiev makes no secret of his love for his homeland, which informed his decision following the Russian invasion of Georgia to lead a performance of Tchaikovsky in Tskhinvali last August among the bombed-out buildings of South Ossetia.
At that time, he lambasted Georgia for shelling the city and drew a parallel with the attacks on New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
Speaking in London, Gergiev, who was born in Moscow but grew up in North Ossetia, did not mention the invasion but talked about how living in the North Ossetian city of Vladikavkaz shaped his musical tastes.
“There were great artists coming from Moscow, sometimes foreign artists, but mainly I remember ... it was waiting from one visit by [violinist David] Oistrakh to another visit by [pianist Sviatoslav] Richter, to a visit by [cellist Mstislav] Rostropovich...”
Today, Gergiev said the baton is being passed to new countries, particularly to China where he said the phenomenal success of piano wizard Lang Lang has inspired tens of millions of Chinese.
“Some people think it’s only 20 million, some people think it’s 50 million pianists in China, some even say 70 — I cannot be the source of this information,” he joked.
“That is one big country of course...[and] other big countries can follow...Brazil, India, and I think Russia has not spoken its last word.
“...No one is sleeping and waiting for disaster to make a move. Even in difficult times people find a way, so that’s why I think classical music will survive, and I think it will be in good shape.”
TITLE: Fresh ideas
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Just in time for the festive season, one of the city’s culinary institutions, the Italian restaurant Rossi’s at the Grand Hotel Europe, has a new chef and a brand new menu. Filippo Licata, a native Italian who lists one Stefano Gabbana (of Dolce & Gabbana) among his eminent clients, now brings his flair to one of the city’s top hotels.
The elegant blue and gold interior of the restaurant, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, has not changed. Five arched windows at street level look out onto the chic boutiques lining Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa, and the series of Impressionist-style paintings depicting 19th-century St. Petersburg that adorn the walls are for sale. (The artist, Irina Alexandrina, is reportedly a favorite of a certain Vladimir Vladimirovich.) The combination of the marble floor, brass fittings and large aquarium create an ambience of understated sophistication.
At a recent presentation of the menu, Licata revealed some of the dishes that he will be serving up regularly at Rossi’s. Seafood tartare was an exceptionally fresh and light mousse-like blend of shrimps, scallops, onion and herbs (660 rubles, $23). Described by the chef as “exactly what people like to eat in Italy,” the tartare was wonderfully enhanced by a dressing of lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and demi-glace of balsamic vinegar.
Both of the latter adorn every table, allowing guests to dress their dishes to suit individual tastes. They were a welcome accompaniment to the superb fresh focaccia bread, complete with whole olives, served before and during the meal.
A second tartare, this time beef, came with a traditional garnish of caper and gherkin (900 rubles, $32). Not for the squeamish, this classic dish of finely minced raw beef is not strictly an Italian dish, but is sure to be a hit with carnivorously inclined types. The Australian beef had an almost creamy texture to it, along with a subtle kick provided by the inclusion of Tobasco sauce. Explaining his choice, Licata said that he likes to keep cooking to a minimum in order to keep ingredients as fresh as possible.
Vegetarians or those not quite brave enough to take on raw meat also have plenty of options at Rossi’s, including Milanese risotto with saffron, served with Parmesan cheese (500 rubles, $18). Despite its colorful appearance, the flavor of the dish was unfortunately less distinct than the vermillion threads of the precious spice among the rice.
There was nothing disappointing, however, about the tuna fillet lightly fried in lard, which was served on a bed of fried zucchini (1,000 rubles, $36). The combination of the sweet zucchini and the tender, rosy tuna fillet went down a storm. Faced with such mastery, it seemed a hard act to follow — yet the pinnacle of the meal was still to come. It appeared in the form of beef tagliata (1,550 rubles, $56) grilled lightly to a melt-in-the-mouth texture, and served with grilled eggplant, bell peppers and cherry tomatoes. It was almost perfection — except that it was no longer hot when it was served.
Dessert was another Italian classic — tiramisu (350 rubles, $12). Feathery light and as fresh as the rest of the meal, it was a superb end to the feast. It was complemented so well by the fresh strawberry adorning it that more of the latter would have been welcome, but it is very difficult to find fault with Licata’s creations.
TITLE: Village vision
AUTHOR: By Matt Brown
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The vanishing people and way of life in villages in the Vologda and Arkhangelsk provinces of northern Russia are the subject of a new photography exhibition at the Nabokov Museum.
Called “The Russian Village Through British Eyes,” the show features photographs taken by Elizabeth Warner between 2004 and 2007.
“For over a decade I have been researching the spiritual and material culture of these regions with colleagues from the University of St. Petersburg and the Propp Center,” Warner said. “Every year I join their summer expeditions and spend three or four weeks experiencing village conditions and getting to know the local people.”
Before she became an award-winning photographer, Warner was head of the Department of Russian at the University of Durham in northern England. Her specialist field is Russian folklore and ethnography.
“I have always seen the importance of the visual image in documenting the rural population and its culture,” Warner said. “This is particularly important today when far from the big cities Russian village life is clearly dying. Through my photographs I hope to preserve a personal view of this disappearing world and to give an individual ‘face’ to people who are often presented impersonally as a social group or as ‘tradition-bearers.’”
As an English photographer with fluent Russian and professional knowledge of Russia’s rural people, Warner said she has a unique take on the subject.
“With the support of Russian colleagues I have been able to get close to my subjects. I try to capture the essence of an individual and to give the viewer a sense of being present during a fleeting moment of real life,” Warner said.
Warner rejects the criticism that the lush colors, precision focus and classical composition of her photographs present an idealized view of the Russian village.
“This is not my intention,” she said. “However, in a photograph, content should combine with other elements — the organization of forms, light, the gamut of colours, a mood. If positive, rather than negative images emerge during this process it may be partly due to the purely accidental beauty of a captured moment and partly to the ‘internal’ eye of the photographer.”
“The Russian Village Through British Eyes” is being shown at the Nabokov Museum, 47 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa, through Dec. 21.
TITLE: Raul Scores 2 for Real to Demolish Zenit
AUTHOR: By Darren Ennis
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BRUSSELS — A double from Raul helped Juande Ramos secure his first win as Real Madrid coach in the Champions League on Wednesday and extended the Spanish striker’s record as the competition’s all-time top goal scorer.
Raul’s two goals and a third by Arjen Robben gave Real a 3-0 victory over UEFA Cup holders Zenit St. Petersburg in Group H in their first match under Ramos, who replaced the sacked Bernd Schuster on Tuesday.
Holders Manchester United took top spot in Group E despite being held 2-2 at home by Danes AaB Aalborg, who qualify for the UEFA Cup. Villarreal were second in the group after a 2-0 defeat at Celtic and had forward Guille Franco sent off.
A lackluster start to the season by Madrid culminated in a 4-3 defeat to Sevilla on Sunday and Schuster’s dismissal ahead of a crucial La Liga trip to rivals Barcelona this weekend.
“I have seen some positive things and it was good not to concede a goal,” Ramos said after Wednesday’s win.
“The players are keen to turn things round, just like the fans and the board. They want to improve quickly and it is in their hands to do so.”
Raul fired home the opener midway through the first half before adding his 64th goal in European soccer’s top competition in the second half. Robben scored just after halftime.
Nine-times European champions Real finished second in the group on goal difference behind Juventus, who were held 0-0 at home by BATE Borisov. Zenit finished third and earned the chance to defend their UEFA Cup crown.
Dynamo Kiev and Fiorentina also booked berths in the second-tier competition with victory in the final round of group games.
Alberto Gilardino’s header sealed a 1-0 victory for Fiorentina at Steaua Bucharest in Group F while Bayern Munich beat Olympique Lyon 3-2 to finish top of the table ahead of their French opponents.
A Roman Eremenko goal gave Dynamo a 1-0 win over Fenerbahce to earn a UEFA Cup spot alongside Ukrainian rivals Shakhtar Donetsk and Metalist Kharkiv.
“It was a tough game because we needed a positive result to qualify for the UEFA Cup and paid more attention to defense ... luckily we managed to cope and now three Ukrainian teams will play in UEFA Cup,” Dynamo coach Yury Sumin said.
Porto ended top of the table after a 2-0 home win over Arsenal, who finished second, and gained revenge for a 4-0 defeat to the Londoners earlier in the group.
“Our tactics were stronger and we had an excellent second half,” Porto coach Jesualdo Ferreira told Portuguese television.
“I don’t recall any goal opportunity for Arsenal. We deserved to win and the victories in the last three qualifying matches serve to give us confidence for the knockout phase.”
United equaled a Champions League record of 19 games without defeat and became one of four English sides to reach the draw for the knockout stage on Dec. 19 alongside Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. The competition will resume in February.
Meanwhile, Zenit coach Dick Advocaat said striker Andrei Arshavin should be allowed to leave St. Petersburg and pursue his career at a big European club.
The Russian international, one of the top performers at Euro 2008, has been linked with several clubs including Real Madrid.
Arshavin had a disappointing first half Wednesday and Advocaat explained that he had insisted on playing despite suffering from fever and had to be replaced at the break.
Advocaat said if players such as Arshavin wanted to leave Zenit it was better for the team to let them go.
“Sometimes you have to give players of that quality a chance to show themselves in Europe and I think it’s the right time for Andrei to do that,” he said.
Asked whether it was inevitable that the best players would leave successful Russian clubs like Zenit for bigger clubs in Europe, Advocaat said it was the price of success.
Zenit won the UEFA Cup last season and went on to defeat Champions League winners Manchester United in the UEFA Super Cup at the end of August.
“If you can play in Europe and you get a good offer then players will go,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
TITLE: Medal-Winning Miracle Phelps Enjoys Time in Limelight
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — Michael Phelps is thrilled all the attention he received during the Beijing Olympics raised the profile of his sport. Some people, though, were sick of all the coverage.
As he was racking up a record eight gold medals, Phelps reminisced Tuesday, he kept getting joking text messages from friends from high school. They’d say: “Get off the TV. I don’t want to see your face anymore. I’m not turning the TV on until the Olympics are over.”
Plenty of people in the New York area had no such trouble Tuesday; they couldn’t get enough of Phelps.
Fans started lining up outside a midtown Manhattan Barnes & Noble at 12:30 a.m.—12 hours early—to get his book signed on the day it was released.
Then a crowd of about 2,000 turned out for a talk at Adelphi University on Long Island that night. Tickets had sold out in 90 minutes. Donna de Varona, the Olympic swimming gold medalist and broadcaster, chatted with Phelps for about 45 minutes on a variety of topics.
Phelps revealed how competitive games of Risk and Spades would get among members of the U.S. swim team each night in the Olympic Village.
“I can’t tell you how many arguments we got into over Risk, over who knew the right rules,” he said. “It got really intense.”
Another favorite memory from Beijing was seeing other star athletes in the Olympic Village dining hall.
Roger Federer would come in and spend 45 minutes accommodating the dozens of people who asked for his autograph and took pictures with him.
By the time Phelps arrived at the bookstore Tuesday afternoon, the line outside snaked around the corner and down the long block.
TITLE: Strauss Hits Century On Day One
AUTHOR: By Sanjay Rajan
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CHENNAI, India — England opener Andrew Strauss struck his 13th test century before left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan helped India fightback on the first day of the first test on Thursday.
Strauss hit 123 and shared in a 118-run opening stand with Alastair Cook (52) after the touring side elected to bat.
The visitors were 229 for five at the close with Andrew Flintoff on 18 and nightwatchman James Anderson on 2 after Zaheer dismissed Ian Bell for 17 and skipper Kevin Pietersen for four in the final session.
Paul Collingwood (9) was unlucky to be given out caught at short-leg off off-spinner Harbhajan Singh when TV replays showed his bat was nowhere near the point of impact.
Strauss was caught and bowled by leg-spinner Amit Mishra as in-form India clawed their way back into the match.
Heavily-armed policemen patrolled the boundary ropes with the stands largely empty.
England resumed their aborted tour after tight security was promised for the two tests following safety concerns in the wake of last month’s attacks in Mumbai that killed 179 people.
Left-handers Strauss and Cook began cautiously before going on to raise their second straight century partnership following a 123-run stand in the final test against South Africa in August.
The hosts introduced Harbhajan as early as the ninth over, indicating a spin-friendly pitch, but the England openers guided the innings to 63 for no loss at lunch.
The tall and elegant Cook, who scored a century on test debut on England’s previous tour of India two years ago, reached his half-century with a mighty slog-sweep off Mishra to the fence.
However, the 23-year-old Essex batsman fell soon after when he miscued a slog shot against Harbhajan to be caught by Zaheer at mid-on.
Strauss, who had a poor test series against South Africa in July and August, played punishing shots square of the wicket and brought up his century was a steer to the fence off Zaheer. He hit 15 boundaries in his 233-ball effort.
Bell fell leg-before to Zaheer in the first over after tea after putting on 46 for the second wicket with Strauss in a productive session.
Pietersen fell shortly afterwards when he top-edged a hook to be caught and bowled by Zaheer as India dominated the last session taking four wickets for just 65 runs.
England handed off-break bowler Graeme Swann his test debut. India recalled in-form Yuvraj Singh, who scored back-to-back hundreds in the one-day series, to take the middle-order slot vacated by the retirement of Saurav Ganguly.
The players, wearing black arm bands, observed a minute’s silence before the start of the match in memory of the victims of last month’s Mumbai attacks.