SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1474 (36), Friday, May 15, 2009
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TITLE: Visa-Free Trips For Foreigners In Pipeline
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Foreigners arriving in Russia by ferry will be allowed to stay in the country for up to three days without a visa, according to a governmental decree published Wednesday.
Russia’s top tourism official said he hopes that the decree, which mirrors a current law allowing foreigners a three-day stay in Russia with no visa if they arrive on cruise ships, will help mitigate an expected drop in the number of foreign tourists amid the global financial crisis.
St. Petersburg officials also hope that it will give a boost to the northern capital, which is one of seven port cities affected in the decree and where tourism keeps a significant amount of residents employed.
The decree is set to come into force one week after it is published — on May 20 — a government spokesman told The Moscow Times on Tuesday on customary condition of anonymity.
It regulates the arrival of foreign tourists into ports in St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Vladivostok and Sochi, as well as the towns of Vyborg in the Leningrad region, Korsakov in the Sakhalin region and Novorossiisk in the Krasnodar region.
The decree, a copy of which was obtained by The Moscow Times, does not give foreigners complete freedom of movement during the three-day, visa-free period. They are allowed to travel throughout the country but only according to the itinerary of their respective tour groups and together with their fellow travelers.
Federal Tourism Agency head Anatoly Yarochkin said at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week that the new law could lead to a doubling of the number of foreign tourists arriving in Russia by sea through St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad through the end of next year.
“There will be no sharp increase ... but in 2010 there will be an evident, noticeable increase,” Yarochkin said, according to comments posted on the government’s web site.
At the meeting with Putin, Yarochkin called the decree a “real anti-crisis measure,” Interfax reported.
Travel industry lobbyists are skeptical, however. Irina Tyurina, a spokeswoman for the Russian Travel Industry Union, said the effect of the decree would be minimal.
“In the circumstances of the crisis, the financial component will be decisive,” Tyurina said Tuesday. She conceded, however, that the measure would be “convenient” for tourists.
According to the State Statistics Service, 2.3 million foreigners vacationed in Russia last year. The figure for foreigners is contentious, however, because authorities in St. Petersburg, the country’s top tourist destination, recorded 2.3 million foreign tourists last year.
Last year, 500,000 tourists visited St. Petersburg by ferry, Yarochkin said, though he did not indicate how many of those were foreigners.
St. Petersburg, which claims 80 percent of the country’s tourists, expects a 30 percent drop in foreign tourists this summer in the wake of the global economic crisis, Mariana Ordzhonikidze, head of St. Petersburg’s tourism department, told The Moscow Times last month.
Tourism is crucial for St. Petersburg’s economy, employing 18 percent of the city’s working population, or 500,000 people. Should the sector sag, some 10 percent of tourism-related jobs could be cut, Ordzhonikidze said.
St. Petersburg’s tourism budget for 2009 has been slashed to 73 million rubles ($2.2 million), compared with 120 million rubles in 2008, forcing it to cut advertising in the regions and abroad.
The World Tourism Organization expects international tourism to fall by up to 2 percent in 2009, its first decline since the organization began tracking the industry’s growth in 2003.

TITLE: Ruble Roars Back to 4-Month High
AUTHOR: By Ira Iosebashvili
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — After being the source of endless hand-wringing, the battered ruble is mounting a comeback, advancing to a four-month high of 31.93 against the U.S. dollar in trading Wednesday.
But whether its strength can be maintained, and whether a strong ruble is a good thing at all, appears to be anybody’s guess.
The Central Bank set the exchange rate at 31.98 to the dollar for Thursday, a change of almost 1 percent from Wednesday, continuing a rally that has seen the ruble roar back 12 percent from a low of 36.34 in mid-February.
The ruble firmed up to 37.23 versus the Central Bank’s dollar/euro currency basket in Wednesday trading, well beyond the 41 mark that the bank has promised not to let the ruble cross at all costs.
Now, with the currency trading almost 10 percent above the 41 level, Central Bank officials seem to have taken heart.
The bank said Wednesday that it would cut key interest rates by 50 basis points for the second time in less than a month. The bank’s first deputy chairman, Alexei Ulyukayev, cited reduced inflation risk and a stronger ruble as the reasons for the cuts.
“[We cut] for the same reasons as the last time. There is a need to lower the Bank of Russia’s interest rates, as that will reduce the cost of credit for the final borrower, the economic situation could improve,” Ulyukayev told Reuters.
On Tuesday, Ulyukayev said he “could hardly imagine” the currency breaking the 41 level this year and that a move to 35 against the basket — which would represent a 6.5 percent increase from current levels — was “quite reasonable,” Bloomberg reported.
Sergei Shvetsov, head of financial market operations for the Central Bank, was quick to offer his own optimistic assessments, saying Wednesday that Russians selling their foreign-currency holdings, which have reached more than $70 billion since the start of the crisis last fall, will help strengthen the ruble until the end of the year, RIA-Novosti reported.
Wednesday’s ruble gains were fueled by a rise in the price of oil — Russia’s main export — to a six-month high of a little more than $60 per barrel in New York and by the recent weakness in the dollar.
Analysts, however, were divided on whether ruble prices were sustainable and what a strong ruble could mean for the country’s economy.
“Growth in the ruble was unavoidable in the face of higher oil prices,” said Anton Tabakh, an analyst at Troika Dialog. “The situation, however, cannot be making the Central Bank happy.”
A stronger ruble would mean much less taxes from exports and hurt Russian manufacturers selling their products abroad, Tabakh said.
“The weaker the ruble, the worse for the budget,” he said, adding that the government would probably keep the ruble around these levels and try to avoid major price swings.
Natalia Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank, which predicts a 20 percent decline in the price of the ruble, said inflation remains a threat despite statistics showing that it has slowed in the last month.
“High inflation is preventing the decline of the real exchange rate,” Orlova said. “Since inflation in unlikely to go down in the near future,” the Central Bank must let the ruble depreciate, she said.
At least one analyst, however, said the benefits of a strong ruble far outweighed the disadvantages for the government.
“A strong currency attracts investment capital and encourages depositors to leave money in the banking system,” said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib. “High oil prices and a strong ruble are actually an ideal combination for creating stability and confidence and attracting investment.”
He said the government’s top priority at least in the short term was creating an impression of stability.
By cutting interest rates and letting the ruble strengthen, the state is “sending a message that they are taking the first small steps toward creating growth,” Weafer said.
“Of course, they can’t do much more until there’s greater certainty of a global recovery,” he added.

TITLE: Human Rights Group Finally Has Seized Files Returned
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg human rights group Memorial has had all files confiscated during the infamous 4th December raid on its offices — since officially declared illegitimate by the St. Petersburg City Court — returned to its possession.
During the raid, investigators seized the organization’s research material from the past 20 years. The raid provoked outcry far beyond St. Petersburg and Russia. Human Rights lawyer Ivan Pavlov, who has represented Memorial throughout its challenging legal battle, was not even been allowed to visit the search scene.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Irina Flige, head of the organization’s historical branch, said that she and fellow experts were highly concerned about the condition of the archive CDs. “I have no idea of the way they have been handled; the packing that we received them back in suggests the police might well have been rather careless with them,” Flige said. “I am not at all sure all the CDs are now in working order. I also wonder if any of them have been corrupted.”
 “The files contain our research into the Red Terror [during the Russian Civil War in 1918-1922] and the history of Russia’s Gulag [labor camps],” she said. “Clearly, the authorities have had enough of us and are sending warning signals.”
Many of the Memorial’s files contain chilling secrets: amongst their pages one may find that a distant relative or a close friend of the family was a traitor – or informant.  The way this information is used and presented to the people is highly sensitive.
On May 6th, the St. Petersburg City Court turned down a repeated complaint from the city prosecutor’s office that the raid on Memorial was fully legitimate.
According to the Investigative Committee of the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office, the search was part of an investigation into a criminal case involving the publication of “Here Comes the Real Candidate,” an article by Konstantin Chernyayev printed in the Novy Peterburg newspaper in June 2007. 
The prosecutors allege that the article incited social and ethnic hatred.
“While the most crucial issues have thankfully been settled and the researchers are happily going back to their documents and files now, the lawyers will remain busy,” Pavlov said. The lawyer was referring first and foremost to an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against Anvar Azimov, Russia’s representative at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who, speaking at a session on January 18th, claimed the Russian authorities had sufficient reason to believe that Memorial was linked to the funding of extremist materials that were published in the Novy Peterburg newspaper.
 “The very idea of a possible connection between Memorial, an internationally known human rights group, and extremists of any kind, is false; worse, when voiced publicly, it becomes a clear case of libel and an intentional attempt to discredit,” Pavlov said. “The search, and the rough, arbitrary manner in which it was carried out, created suitable grounds for such base speculations and insinuations.”
The raid on Memorial’s office and the allegations about a possible extremist connection sent a shockwave through the international human rights community. 
Ulrika Sundberg, an aide to Thomas Hammarberg, the Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, attended the hearings in St. Petersburg, held a meeting at the Prosecutor General’s Office in Moscow to discuss the issue, and subsequently reported on the trial to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. 
Sundberg did also attempt to secure a meeting with the city prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev but her request was turned down.

TITLE: After Putin, Layoffs Mulled at Amur Plant
AUTHOR: By Nadia Popova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: KOMSOMOLSK-ON-AMUR, Khabarovsk Region — Amurmetal, the only steelmaker in Russia’s Far East, is considering laying off up to 1,600 people, or 25 percent of its staff, until September, Amurmetal Group chief executive Sergei Khokhlov said Wednesday.
The drastic measures are under review, even though Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised millions of dollars in state guarantees during a visit to the plant earlier this week, and are a sign of the desperation faced by some heavily indebted companies amid the crisis.
Production capacity at the Amurmetal plant has fallen to 25 percent this month, down from 60 percent in the first quarter, because of severe shortages in working capital and the need to service its large debt, Khokhlov said.
“We have no problem with demand,” a visibly exhausted Khokhlov told a small group of journalists in his office in the Far East city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. “But we severely need to replenish working capital because we have a huge debt to serve and don’t even have money to buy raw materials.”
In an attempt to optimize production, Amurmetal might lay off up to 1,600 people until September, Khokhlov said.
“We also are advising them to go on unpaid vacations so that we can quickly get them back on the job when we are able to work normally again,” he said.  
Putin promised 3.3 billion rubles ($103 million) in state guarantees when he visited the plant on Monday. Khokhlov said, however, that much more money is needed to keep the plant afloat.
Amurmetal’s debt stands at 16.4 billion rubles after it took out loans to upgrade the plant over the past two years. Eleven billion rubles of the debt comes due this year.
“We are holding negotiations with Gazprombank, Commerzbank and Erste Bank on getting new loans,” Khokhlov said.
With the state guarantees, Sberbank has promised to extend a 3.3 billion ruble loan to Amurmetal, Khokhlov said.
Of the loan, 1.5 billion rubles will be spent replenishing working capital, while the other 1.8 billion rubles will go toward finishing the modernization of the plant. Amurmetal expects to receive the first 1 billion ruble tranche of the loan before the end of the month.
Amurmetal failed to make a profit in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 because it had to pay huge debt-servicing costs as steel prices and demand for the metal plummeted. Khokhlov said Amurmetal worked at 60 percent capacity in the first quarter but reduced capacity to 25 percent this month because it was in dire need of the scrap metal that it uses to make steel. 
However, as Amurmetal gets money from Sberbank, the plant plans to raise production capacity to 90 percent by September. “We have guaranteed demand from traders First Alpina and Stemcor,” Khokhlov said.
At full capacity, Amurmetal can produce 2.1 million tons of steel per year. Amurmetal currently exports 80 percent of what it produces, mainly to South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia.Facing low demand at home, many Russian steelmakers have directed a major part of their production to Southeast Asia this year.
Prices for scrap metal had been going down recently to reach $137 a ton in May, according to UralSib.
Putin has traveled across the country since the crisis struck last fall, meeting with plant directors and workers to offer encouragement and state guarantees.
President Dmitry Medvedev, however, acknowledged Wednesday that one government plan to help companies by providing 300 billion rubles in state guarantees had failed. 
Medvedev told a government meeting that not a single ruble set aside for state guarantees in the form of subsidiary liability had been given out by banks.
“I do not want to blame anyone in particular,” he said. “Most likely the banks themselves should have signaled that such a mechanism would not be convincing for them.”
Medvedev called for a plan to be put together that would offer guarantees with joint liability. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the necessary legislation would be drafted by the end of the week.

TITLE: Eurovision Songs Narrowed to Ten
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — There were tears, rubber hammers and an inflatable pink tank on Tuesday night, as 18 contestants were narrowed down to 10 in the first semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Going through to the final are performers representing Israel, Sweden, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Malta, Armenia, Turkey, Romania, Finland, Portugal and Iceland.
Meanwhile, contestants from Bulgaria, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, Montenegro, Macedonia and Andorra had to part with the dream for another year.
The show featured pop duo t.A.T.u. performing their hit “Not Gonna Get Us” with the deep-voiced Alexandrov army choir filling in the chorus line. The stage was decorated with a inflatable pink tank and military jet. “Don’t tell me that’s not political,” one fan commented.
The Eurovision contest is supposed to be a nonpolitical event. The Georgian entry was disqualified this year for a song that played on the name of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Channel One host Andrei Malakhov and model Natalya Vodianova provided a hyperenthusiastic commentary throughout the night. “I’m all covered in goose bumps,” Malakhov said as they pressed a large button to reveal the names of the finalists. “I’m about to faint,” Vodianova topped him.
The acts also got into the spirit. Portugal’s singer Daniela Varela disintegrated in tears at the end of her act. “I got something in my eye,” she said later.
Israel’s winning song, “There Must Be Another Way,” which is performed by a Jewish singer and a Christian Arab, was greeted by one of the most exuberant group of fans, who waved Israeli flags and inflatable hammers and sang along word-perfect.
“We’re proud of our nation. It was unbelievable,” said one fan, Moshe Melman, who carried a giant hammer with the Star of David. He said about 50 supporters had flown from Tel Aviv.
“We want to show the coexistence of Jewish and non-Jewish people in Israel,” Melman said. “There must be another way, as in the words of the song.”
“We feel our victory is not only for both of us and for our song, but also for what we represent,” Tel-Aviv-born singer Noa told journalists after the show. “We represent hundreds of thousands of people who are moderates, who choose life over death.”
Among the others, Romania was seen as the biggest surprise entry to the final.

TITLE: Kremlin Sees Threats In Economy, Energy
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s security is threatened by economic instability, potential wars over energy resources and foreign spies, the Kremlin said in a key policy paper released Wednesday.
The Kremlin’s long-awaited new national security strategy includes several standard threat assessments — from NATO expansion to a planned U.S. missile defense shield — but it also sets new priorities by addressing nonmilitary issues such as economic stability, science, education, culture and even ecological risks.
President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday signed off on the policy paper, which spells out national security policy through 2020, and it was officially published Wednesday by the Security Council, which is comprised of top politicians and intelligence chiefs.
The 7,300-word document says the country should develop its economy and catch up with the world’s five largest economies “in the medium term.” Last year, the International Monetary Fund ranked Russia’s GDP as the world’s eighth largest.
It also identifies the banking sector and natural resources as vital for national security because of their role in economic stability.
It states that international policy will in the long run be focused on energy resources, including in the Arctic.
“With the ongoing competition for resources, attempts to use military force to solve emerging problems cannot be excluded — and this might destroy the balance of forces on Russia’s and its allies’ borders,” the paper states.
The paper also singles out NATO and the United States as security risks.
“A global security architecture exclusively oriented toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was bound to fail,” it says, adding that Russia “will not cease its vigilance with respect to plans to move NATO’s military infrastructure closer to its borders and efforts to give the alliance a global character.”
In a thinly veiled condemnation of U.S. foreign policy, the document asserts that Russia’s military security is endangered “by efforts of a number of foreign countries to achieve military predominance, especially with nuclear forces.”
Security analyst Andrei Soldatov said one new aspect of the strategy was a section identifying as a key security threat — even more greater than terrorism — “intelligence gathering and other activities of foreign states’ special services and organizations.”
In the jargon of Russia’s security services, Soldatov said, “special services and organizations” also refers to nongovernmental organizations, which senior officials — including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — have often characterized as fifth columns.
Alexander Konovalov, head of the Institute of Strategic Assessments, said the new strategy was actually less precise than its predecessor, adopted in 2000.
The new paper says little about the use of nuclear weapons.

TITLE: Economic Crisis Cuts Into Use of Petersburg Metro
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Passenger traffic in St. Petersburg metro has decreased by 10 percent since last November, said the metro’s press service.
“We haven’t got any sociologic research about the reasons of the drop,” said St. Petersburg metro spokeswoman Yulia Shavel. “However, according to information from our end stations, there are now significantly less people coming to work in St. Petersburg from suburbs.”
The current daily passenger traffic in the metro is about 2.5 million trips. Previously the traffic was 2.8 to three million trips per day, Shavel said. Passenger traffic peaked at three million trips per day before November 2008.
Despite the corresponding loss of income, the St. Petersburg metro has been hiring even more new employees to fill empty positions.
“We always have had lack of people to work in the metro, because it’s not an easy job and we need very healthy people,” Shavel said. “However, after the city suffered from layoffs, many people came to work to the metro.”
Metro passenger traffic went down by seven percent in Moscow and 26 percent in Nizhny Novgorod, the Russian Transport Ministry said on Wednesday, Interfax reported.
The significant drop in Nizhny Novgorod metro traffic was mainly a result of economic difficulties in the city’s industrial sector, according to the report.
According to Dmitry Gayev, the head of the Moscow metro, the daily passenger traffic between April and May fell by 600,000 to 700,000 trips compared to the same period last year.
“We are observing such a decrease in passenger traffic for the first time in the country’s post-war history,” Gayev said. “We didn’t have such drops in 1991 or in 1998,” he added, referring to the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union and the 1998 financial crisis.
As a result of the decrease, the Moscow metro has lost at least one billion rubles of income this year already, Gayev said.
The Transport Ministry said it had also registered a significant decrease of passenger traffic in the country’s suburb commute trains.

TITLE: Russia, Japan Sign Nuclear Deal
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia and Japan agreed on Tuesday to expand their cooperation in the nuclear industry as part of a visit to Tokyo by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who presided over a deal that will open the way for contracts worth billions of dollars between the world’s two leading nuclear technology powers.
In a raft of other deals, Gazprom enlisted the support of two Japanese energy companies to study options for exporting future gas output from the Far East.
The chief of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, and Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone signed a long-awaited, broad agreement on nuclear power cooperation allowing joint uranium mining, nuclear reactor construction and treatment of spent nuclear fuel for a period of at least 25 years.
The new accord, which has to be ratified by both countries’ parliaments to take force, replaces the deal that the Soviet Union signed with Japan in 1991, which mostly provided for joint research. Japan had balked at signing the revised agreement since 2007 because of concerns that its technology might find a way to the Russian defense industry.
Russia has done its homework.
“Over the last two years, we drew a clear divisive line between the civilian and military portions of the nuclear industry,” Kiriyenko said.
The agreement will allow new contracts worth “billions of dollars” to supply uranium fuel for Japanese nuclear power stations, Kiriyenko said. Russia also invited Japanese companies such as Mitsui and Marubeni to mine uranium in Yakutia, he said.
Vladislav Bochkov, a Rosatom spokesman, said the agreement would advance cooperation between Rosatom and Toshiba, which agreed in March to study an option of jointly constructing a uranium-enrichment plant in “Japan or another country” that would use the Russian technology. They also expressed interest last year in a broader cooperation in building nuclear reactors and equipment for them.
Russia found partners in another important industry — gas. Gazprom signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan’s Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry; Itochu Corporation; and Japan Petroleum Exploration Company, or Japex, to study options for handling future gas from the fields off Sakhalin Island and in Yakutia.
Gazprom is building a pipeline to carry some of the gas to the Pacific port of Vladivostok and is entertaining the idea of building a plant there to liquefy the gas in order to ship it by tankers, Putin said.
As another plan, Gazprom is going to study whether it would be more effective to build a gas-processing plant instead and export its products, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

TITLE: MICEX Gets Volume Back From London
AUTHOR: By Courtney Weaver
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The MICEX Stock Exchange is gaining back some of its lost trading volume after a brutal autumn in which market conditions pushed the trading of many Russian securities onto the London Stock Exchange, Federal Service for Financial Market head Vladimir Milovidov said Wednesday.
October represented a nadir for the MICEX, with over half of Russian securities being traded on the LSE, Milovidov said, but since then MICEX has been able to surpass the financial center and now trades a greater volume of domestic securities, not taking into account repurchasing agreements.
By April, 68 percent of Russia’s securities were traded on the local exchange and 32 percent on the LSE, he said, speaking at the MICEX financial forum.
The conference, the first of its kind for MICEX, comes just a week after the ruble-denominated index broke the 1,000-point barrier — the first time it has done so since October 1.
Milovidov acknowledged that much of the lost volume was because of the irregular market closings in the fall, when the exchange was halted over 30 times, helping the exchange lose 50 percent of its value. He called the experience a “serious trial for market participants and regulators.”
Now, he said, there is a “real chance” for MICEX to compete with other foreign exchanges, a sentiment echoed by other forum participants.
VEB deputy chief Sergei Lykov said the market was “located in a new stage of growth.” And MDM-Bank chairman Oleg Vyugin said the index might also benefit from certain indicators suggesting that the economic decline has stabilized.
During his speech, Milovidov defended the index’s ban against short selling and margin trading, saying it was necessary for regulatory purposes. “We are watching to make sure that these rules are adhered to but that liquidity grows all the same,” he said.
He added that the service would be supporting a bill that would extend a tax deduction of at least 1 million rubles ($31,250) to long-term investors, a change that could come into effect by the end of this year.
While forum participants remained bearish on Russia’s competitiveness, some said the market was inhibited by multiple exchanges.
“I don’t understand why a St. Petersburg stock exchange is being created as well,” said Anatoly Aksakov, president of the Russian Association of Regional Banks.
“We have to compete on the international market and consolidate our financial infrastructure to compete successfully in the global arena, he said.”
Milovidov said the question of merging MICEX and its local dollar-denominated competitor, RTS, was still open to discussion.

TITLE: Italian Firm May Make Olympic Investment
AUTHOR: By Maria Antonova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Italian developer Todini Costruzioni Generali has offered to invest in an Olympic project in Sochi for the 2014 Games, Olimpstroi said Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for Olimpstroi, the state corporation tasked with Olympic preparations, said her firm was currently reviewing TCG’s proposal.
She declined to provide details, but Kommersant reported Wednesday that TCG plans to build two housing projects that are to be used as hotels during the games under a public-private program proposed by the government.
One is to be called Little Venice, the other Little Milan, and the total investment will be 600 million to 700 million euros ($815 million to $955 million), the report said, citing an unidentified source.
There are eight hotel projects up for grabs, according to the latest list of Olympic structures.

TITLE: Head of RTS Says Market Running on Sentiment
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: LONDON — Russian stocks may end a rally that has almost doubled values since January, the head of the RTS Stock Exchange said Wednesday.
“There is a kind of euphoria in the market based on the assumption that the global economic crisis is over, but that sentiment has to be backed up by economic factors,” the exchange’s chairman, Roman Goryunov, said in an interview in London. “There may be some correction in the stock market.”
Goryunov joins stock exchange chiefs from Hong Kong to New York who have warned that the global equity rally that sent the MSCI World Index up 36 percent in the past two months isn’t sustainable.
The RTS Index of 50 stocks is the world’s second-best performer this year after Peru, even as Russia faces its first recession in a decade.
“It looks like the market is running on sentiment and not on real fact,” Goryunov said. “You can’t measure whether you’re in recovery or heading to recovery.”
The dollar-denominated RTS slumped 3.3 percent to 947.53 on Wednesday. The index earlier rallied as much as 2.3 percent to 1,002.34, more than double the low in January and crossing the 1,000 level for the first time since -October.
The MICEX Index of ruble-denominated shares dropped 4.9 percent to 1,007.88, still 96 percent higher than the low in October.
It would take a return to growth in Russia’s “macroeconomic indicators” to signal a permanent recovery, in which case the MICEX Index may rise above 1,500 in 2010, Goryunov said.
Russia’s economy will probably shrink 6 percent in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The government’s official forecast for a 2.2 percent contraction will probably be revised down, Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said Tuesday.
The “best-case scenario” for initial public offerings on the RTS this year will be listings from “some small local companies,” Goryunov said.
There were no public offerings on the RTS last year, Goryunov said.
“If you’re looking for a big and significant IPO, it probably can’t be before next year,” Goryunov said. “We’re in contact with some companies, but they aren’t ready to issue the prospectus. Companies are not prepared to do IPO’s at lower prices.”
RTS is “open to constructive dialogue” to buy stakes in or acquire exchanges in Eastern Europe, Goryunov said.
It is not in discussions with other exchanges and won’t look to buy a share in the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which plans to list by the middle of this year, he said.

TITLE: A Good Time to Stop Butting Heads
AUTHOR: By Andrei Kortunov
TEXT: There has always been an acute shortage of optimism in Russia. It could be because of the country’s harsh climate or its troubled history. Nonetheless, optimists do emerge from time to time. If he is a politician, he is traditionally dismissed as a populist. If the optimist is an average citizen, he is suspected of having a few screws loose. Pessimism, on the other hand, is viewed as a sign of a sharp mind and independent thinking.
It is thus no wonder that just as U.S.-Russian relations have started to take a turn for the better, the voices of optimistic enthusiasts have been drowned out by a cacophony of pessimism. Newspaper and television reports warn Russians not to suffer from delusions, not to entertain excessive hopes for a thawing of relations between Moscow and Washington, and not to close their eyes to the fundamental differences on each country’s policies and worldviews.
It is interesting that Russia’s conservative “patriots” and the diametrically opposed liberals are in many respects equally pessimistic. The patriots hold that it is naive to think there could be a new detente with the United States, because those in Washington’s ruling circles always have been and always will be antagonistic toward Russia — no matter who occupies the White House. They believe that Russophobia is deeply ingrained in the American psyche. This explains, for example, why the U.S. media is full of articles, editorials and opinion pieces that are biased against Russia and, more specifically, why NATO military exercises are being held on Russia’s border in Georgia.
The liberals are pessimistic for a completely different reason. They have no faith in the sincerity of the Kremlin leadership. In their opinion, the country’s political elite is simply not ready for a serious dialogue with the United States because it has a vested interest in portraying the United States as an enemy, in encouraging anti-U.S. sentiment and maintaining the “besieged fortress” mentality.
The specter of hostile enemies surrounding Russia has traditionally made it possible to divert attention from domestic problems, give legitimacy to those in authority and provide cover for their mistakes and abuses of power. That is why, according to liberals, Russia will continue to provide support to enemies of the United States, from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It also explains why the Kremlin hawks will fight to control what they consider their “zone of privileged interests” in the former Soviet republics and do everything in their power to drive a wedge between the United States and European countries.
There is an element of truth to both the liberal and patriotic positions. Without going into detail, it is safe to say that there is a tremendous amount of inertia that guarantees that U.S.-Russian relations remain strained, despite brief respites of optimism. The worsening of relations has a history dating back years before the fallout over the Georgia war in August. The breaking point might have been NATO’s war in Yugoslavia in the late 1990s, the war in Iraq or the Kremlin’s bankruptcy of Yukos and the criminal case against the company’s former CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Whatever started it, the negative trend has been gaining momentum for years. For many people in Russia and the United States, confrontation has become a natural state of affairs, despite the fact that both sides repeatedly agree that the Cold War ended in 1991. This confrontational mindset shapes their psychology, habits, personal idiosyncrasies and bureaucratic institutions. It also has an impact on the elite who construct foreign policy in both Moscow and Washington.
But does that mean that no efforts should be made to improve relations? Would it be right to decide beforehand that Russia and the U.S. are doomed forever to butt heads on most global issues?
Antonio Gramsci, co-founder of the Italian Communist Party and member of the parliament in the 1920s, once said, “I am a pessimist because of intelligence but an optimist because of will.” Only political will from both sides is capable of breaking the negative dynamic in U.S.-Russian relations. Efforts by Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama alone are not enough. Coordinated and determined efforts on the part of politicians, corporations, journalists and political analysts on both sides are required. Only by working together can the United States and Russia build relations worthy of two great countries. This is not the time for the clashing of personal ambitions or for picking at each other’s weak spots. The stakes in this game are far too high for this.
Both optimists and pessimists should note that Obama has assembled one of the best “Russia teams” that we have seen in a presidential administration for a long time. The most prominent members are former ambassadors to Russia William J. Burns and Alexander Vershbow, former director of the Carnegie Moscow Center Rose Gottemoeller and Stanford University professor Michael McFaul. These are people who know Russia well, who have dedicated a good part of their lives to improving relations with Russia and who can be considered potentially good partners and allies.
We have not seen such a knowledgeable Russia team in the White House for years, and it is unlikely that a better one will come along in the foreseeable future. What this means is that Obama’s top Russia advisers are people with whom Moscow can establish a dialogue. Now Russia has to be able and willing to talk to them as partners, not as opponents.

Andrei Kortunov is president of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow.

TITLE: The Keystone Coup
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Georgian authorities quelled a planned coup last week, and the purported ringleaders — Giya Gvaladze, Koba Kobaladze and Giya Karkarashvili — have been arrested.
Gvaladze is the former head of Georgia’s Delta special forces unit and a protege of Igor Giorgadze. Giorgadze, the former chief of the Georgian KGB, carried out a failed assassination attempt against then-President Eduard Shevardnadze and then fled to Moscow. Giorgadze has been Moscow’s main trump card for years and the main source of the priceless information that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s regime is collapsing.
Karkarashvili served as Shevardnadze’s defense minister and has said he would sacrifice 100,000 Georgians to eliminate all 100,000 Abkhaz people. After becoming Abkhazia’s national enemy, Karkarashvili went to Moscow to study at the General Staff Academy and was shot on the streets of Moscow. Although he survived the attack, Karkarashvili was severely disabled.
Kobaladze is the former commander of Shevardnadze’s National Guard, whose principal activity was highway robbery.
It seems that the Kremlin does not understand that Georgia has emerged from chaos to become a full-fledged independent nation. Moscow can’t orchestrate a coup in Georgia just by waving its little finger, as it did during the reign of Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
The Kremlin has once again demonstrated its creative talents. The last time it happened was during the gas war with Ukraine. Before the war, there were a number of signals that something was brewing. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he would never forgive Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for helping Georgia. It was hard to believe that Russia would shut off gas supplies to Ukraine — and by extension, to Europe. It was hard to believe because a decision to shut the pipeline valve during an economic crisis would result in multibillion-dollar losses for Gazprom. It would also mean a severe blow to Russia’s reputation as a reliable energy supplier and threaten the future of the huge joint Russian-European Nord Stream and South Stream gas pipeline projects. Nonetheless, Moscow shut the valves and announced over Channel One state television that it was all Ukraine’s fault. Unfortunately for Russia, Europe does not watch Channel One.
Before the recent events in Georgia unfolded, we heard warnings all across the Internet that Georgian opposition would take to the streets and that Saakashvili’s regime would fall on April 9. Meanwhile, Russia once again mobilized its forces along the South Ossetian border, as it had done in the weeks before the August war. Russian sent its tanks to Tskhinvali and dispatched its ships to patrol the Black Sea waters near Georgia.
In short, everything was pointing to an imminent coup. That is what happened in 1978, when Babrak Karmal and the Moscow-backed People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan overthrew the Kabul government. Moscow later installed Karmal as president of Afghanistan. But that scenario seemed unlikely for Georgia. After all, where would the Kremlin find a Georgian version of Karmal? But it did find one — and not just one but three: Kobaladze, Karkarashvili and Gvaladze.
The failed coup certainly looked like something from the “Keystone Cops.” The whole affair was rife with incompetence, if not idiocy, but this is no excuse. When plotting a coup, idiocy is an aggravating circumstance and not a mitigating one — like when an intoxicated driver is guilty of causing a severe accident.

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

TITLE: Euro pioneer
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Soviet Union, despite a glut of pop singers seemingly designed for the contest, never took part in the Eurovision Song Contest.
It took the breakup of the superpower to bring Russian pop to the contest, although it wasn’t until 1994 that Russia entered, sending Masha Kats, a naive, young Jewish girl who had never been abroad, to the final in Dublin.
Now in her mid-30s, she is no longer a household name, although she has made a career in music. A petite redhead, she met for an interview in the studio where she now teaches singing.
Chatty and forthright, she remembers the nerves before the contest vividly: “I stopped eating at all for two weeks. It was real psychosis. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep.”
Kats, 21 at the time, had never been abroad, let alone on a plane, before she went to the final. She was just an “angular rock chick” at the time, she said, who felt the pressure of being Russia’s first contestant.
The Russian delegation reminded her “every second” of her responsibility to do well, she said.
“We are a nation of winners after all, it’s all or nothing. [I knew] no one here would forgive me for a failure.”
She took the contest seriously, spending hours in dance classes, posture exercises and even going to the State Hermitage Museum to look at paintings — her stage act was based on Gustav Klimt’s “Judith” painting. Her group was called Youdipph, a transliterated version of the name Judith.
But it was all for nothing as Ireland won for the third year in a row and the backlash began against her.
“They didn’t forgive ninth place,” she said.
It probably didn’t improve matters that Poland — a historical enemy — came in second.
The reaction to Anastasia Prikhodko becoming Russia’s contestant this year, despite singing in Ukrainian and having Ukrainian citizenship, reminds her of her own situation, she said.
“I experienced this myself, being a Jewish girl,” she said. “I was phoned at night, I was threatened, there were very unpleasant publications about me, written to order.”
Kats almost did not made it to the contest because of the shaky financial situation of the Russian channel that aired the contest, which couldn’t afford to send her to Dublin.
Singer Sergei Krylov came to the rescue after he heard of the financial problems at a news conference, standing up and promising to raise the money. He paid or found sponsorship money for the whole delegation to go, she said.
Back then, Eurovision was a very different contest. It was held between 25 countries — it’s now 42 — and the contestants performed with a live orchestra. They also had to sing in their country’s national language.
The trip allowed the 21-year-old singer to release a single in the West and even meet U2 lead singer Bono. The Russian delegation went into a bar where he was celebrating his birthday, and he invited them over to his table and talked about music, she said.
Back home, though, she found that music industry and television bosses turned their back on her, she said. “People’s attitude here was: ‘Well, I told you so, we shouldn’t have chosen her.’
“After Eurovision, I had difficulties with the media. I didn’t get on camera, and I was cut out. It was considered a bit indecent to talk about me. Because it was considered a failure.”
Russia responded to Kats’ “failure” by sending a line of Russia’s top stars — Filipp Kirkorov and Alla Pugachyova were picked in the next two years. But both did less well, only reaching 17th and 15th place, respectively.
The European public didn’t understand their style, Kats said diplomatically.
Pugachyova, who trained at GITIS acting school, isn’t really a pop singer in the Western sense. Her dramatic, story-telling style is more similar to musicals in the West, while her then-husband Kirkorov is a barnstorming showman.
“She is alien there, people find that a bit embarrassing to watch,” Kats said. “It was the same with Kirkorov.”
After Eurovision, Kats spent years as a backing vocalist and now gives singing lessons on the top floor of a music school near Oktyabrskoye Pole metro station in western Moscow.
She continues to give regular concerts and last year appeared on the television musical contest “Superstar,” which aims to revive the careers of forgotten stars.
“They remembered me and turned me into a veteran of television,” she said, hinting at the bitterness she still feels. “I didn’t go anywhere. I was always here.”

TITLE: Word’s worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: <em>Ïðîøó Âàñ</em>: I request that you ...
All bureaucracies are miserable, but each is miserable in its own way.
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in line, trying to resolve a backlog of bureaucratic bother. Here are a few tips.
First of all, if you are making a request, go with your <em>çàÿâëåíèå</em> (petition) already typed up in duplicate. In the top right corner write: <em>Íà÷àëüíèêó êîíòîðû “Ðîãà è Êîïûòà.”</em> (To the director of Horns and Hoofs, Inc.; this fictitious company from Ilf and Petrov’s “The Golden Calf,” refers to any shady business). This is followed by: îò <em>‘ÈÎ, ïðîæèâàþùåãî (åé) ïî àäðåñó ...</em> (from surname, name, patronymic, residing at the address ... ). Skip down a few lines and position the word Çàÿâëåíèå in the center in a larger font.
Then, if you are an American, you have to forget every boilerplate letter to an official you have ever written. You must adopt a tone of abject supplication mixed with politely veiled threat. This is, on the one hand, more groveling, but on the other hand more threatening than a homegrown American complaint letter.
A petition begins with <em>Ïðîøó Âàñ</em> (I request that you) and then gets straight to the point: <em>Ïðîøó Âàñ ïðèíÿòü ñðî÷íûå ìåðû ïî óñòðàíåíèþ ïðîòå÷êè ñ êðûøè è ïðîèçâåñòè ðåìîíò êîìíàòû</em> (I request that you take urgent measures to stop the roof from leaking and repair the room).
Even though you’ve included the hot-button word ñðî÷íûé (urgent), you might need to ramp up the emergency volume. So you continue: <em>òàê êàê ïîòîëîê íàõîäèòñÿ â àâàðèéíîì ñîñòîÿíèè è ñóùåñòâóåò óãðîçà åãî ïîëíîãî ðàçðóøåíèÿ</em> (since the ceiling is in catastrophic condition and is in danger of collapse).
<em>Àâàðèéíîå ñîñòîÿíèå</em> (literally, state of emergency) and <em>ïîëíîå ðàçðóøåíèå</em> (literally, total destruction) are Code Red words. In the home repair department, other good words are ëèòüñÿ (to pour out) or ñòðóêòóðíîå íàðóøåíèå (structural damage). In the commercial world, citation of laws is not a bad ploy: <em>Â ñîîòâåòñòâèè ñ çàêîíîì “Î çàùèòå ïðàâ ïîòðåáèòåëåé”</em> (In accordance with the Consumer Rights Protection law).
It’s always effective to let them know that your next step is a jump over their heads. <em> ñëó÷àå íåâûïîëíåíèÿ ÿ áóäó âûíóæäåíà îáðàòèòüñÿ â âûøåñòîÿùèå èíñòàíöèè</em> (If this is not carried out, I will have to address authorities at a higher level). 
After all this, you add information about where you live and some background: <em> òå÷åíèå ïÿòè ëåò ÿ îáðàùàëàñü ñ ïðîñüáîé ïî÷èíèòü êðûøó</em> (For five years, I have requested that the roof be fixed).
Once someone has taken your petition, say these important words: <em>Ïîñòàâüòå, ïîæàëóéñòà, ïîäïèñü, äàòó è øòàìï íà ìîåé êîïèè</em> (Please sign, date and stamp my copy). This proves that they accepted your petition. 

Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.

TITLE: Pitching high
AUTHOR: By Olga Sharapova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Mikhailovsky Theater, which has already earned a reputation as a popular venue for hosting varied international projects, is to take part in the Year of France in Russia program. Next Saturday, on May 23, the French ensemble Matheus will be performing a concert entitled “To Farinelli,” commemorating the 18th-century castrato singer.
Early music and the music of the Baroque era is the focus of this renowned orchestra’s repertoire. Matheus was founded in 1991 by Jean-Christophe Spinosi under the name of Quatuor. In those early days, Spinosi doubled as both violinist and conductor, the ensemble only later developing into the large orchestra of baroque musicians that it is today. Matheus has won recognition all over Europe and in the United States for its unique charisma in its concerts and recordings, and the ensemble continues to excite interest throughout the world. It has a distinct advantage over many baroque groups in the combination of instrumental and vocal music in its programs.
Spinosi usually specialises in performing Vivaldi, Mozart, Rossini and Haydn. As Spinosi admitted in an interview for the St. Petersburg concert program, “This will be the first performance of its kind for us. We’ve really been looking forward to this concert at the Mikhailovsky Theater because it is a new style of music for us. It is also the first collaboration for me and for Matheus with Michael Maniaci, an Italian countertenor, who will sing as part of the “To Farinelli” program. The music of Jeminiano Jacomelli, Edjo Duni, Johann Hasse and Nicola Porpora was written in the period between 1750 - 1800 and it appealed to male singers with high voices — the castrati — and Farinelli was a great, legendary singer of that kind of music. One of the special things about our orchestra is our ability to play instruments that are no longer in common use. We use precise copies of the authentic instruments, because they have an unbelievable sound and allow to make a special atmosphere at our concerts. Though early music connected with the name Farinelli represents new territory for us in some ways, performing this repertoire is in fact a very logical step for Ensemble Matheus and for me as conductor. The music of Farinelli’s epoch is not so far removed from our usual Baroque repertoire. I have performed together with such brilliant early-music singers as Veronica Cangemi, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Stefano Ferrari, Simone Kermes, Sara Mingardo, Jennifer Larmore and Philippe Jaroussky, one of the greatest modern countertenors. I hope that the “To Farinelli” concert will not only open a new page in terms of our creative direction, but will also inspire others to perform and appreciate this kind of music in Russia”.
The concert in St. Petersburg will be Spinosi’s first visit to Russia, but the Maestro has already been invited to the to conduct Rossini’s Barber of Seville at the Mikhailovsky Theater next season. And who knows, perphaps the local audience will get the chance to hear Spinosi’s interpretation of Shostakovich in the future: the conductor revealed that Shostakovich is one of his favorite composers, and that he greatly appreciates the soul and fire of Russian music.

TITLE: Here come the brides
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The brides wore white satin and pinstripes Tuesday morning as Irina Shepitko and Irina Fedotova-Fet tried to register the country’s first-ever lesbian marriage.
The two women posed with bouquets of white roses before entering the Tverskoi branch of the State Registry Office on 3rd Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ulitsa with prominent gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev and a throng of foreign journalists.
The chief registrar, Svetlana Potamoshneva, initially refused to consider the women’s request, citing the Family Code, which states that marriage requires the consent of a man and a woman.
She also noted that the official form only has sections for “he” and “she.”
Alexeyev then persuaded her to consider a request written on a plain piece of paper.
All the participants stressed that they expected a refusal of the request.
Casual homophobia is widespread in Russia, and pop star Boris Moiseyev is virtually the only figure in the public eye to have come out as gay.
Gay marriages have been legalized in countries including Canada and Norway and in several U.S. states. Civil partnerships, which are marriages in all but name, have been permitted in many European countries.
Reporters packed into the registrar’s tiny office Tuesday. One climbed up on a desk, which unexpectedly collapsed, scattering pens and dried flowers.
An hour later, Potamoshneva issued an official rejection of their request, citing the Family Code.
“You are now seeing a concrete example of discrimination against sexual minorities in Russia,” Alexeyev said after reading the rejection letter aloud. “It’s exactly what I expected.”
Gay rights activists on several occasions have been beaten by opponents and physically prevented by police from staging gay pride events. Mayor Yury Luzhkov has repeatedly said he will never allow Moscow to have a gay parade, which he has dubbed “satanic.”
Tuesday’s stunt went smoothly, however, and no police were present. In order to avoid information being leaked to anti-gay protesters, only foreign journalists were invited to attend, said Nikolai Bayev, one of the organizers.
City Hall gave permission to a group called United Orthodox Youth to hold a picket Tuesday afternoon against a planned gay pride march on Saturday, the day of the Eurovision Song Contest final.
It was not the first time that gay rights activists have challenged Russia’s marriage laws. In 2005, human rights activist Edvard Murzin - who is straight - attempted to register a marriage with Eduard Mishin, who publishes Kvir magazine. They were refused on the same basis.
Shepitko, 32, and Fedotova-Fet, 30, plan to travel to Toronto, Canada, in the summer to register their marriage there.
Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, including for nonresidents.
Russian legislation has no clause on foreign marriages that would prevent a Canadian gay marriage being recognized in Russia, Alexeyev said, adding that he was “very optimistic” that the plan would work.
The couple said they have lived together for two years in Moscow.
Alexeyev said City Hall had yet to send an official refusal for activists’ request to hold the gay pride march on Saturday.
“The march will go ahead in any case,” Alexeyev said.

TITLE: Holiday woes
AUTHOR: By Alec Luhn
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The one auspicious thing about Russian Holidays is the fitness club that shares its entryway: You’ll need a trot on the treadmill after dining on the restaurant’s rib-sticking, Russified reduction of European cuisine.
Otherwise, everything’s slightly off at the young restaurant. Stranded on the Strelka of Vasilievsky Island, Russian Holidays opened December 1 on the premises of the erstwhile nightclub Plaza and the restaurant-pub Greenwich, both of which went the way of the dodo. According to our energetic, informative waiter, the restaurant is making plans to co-opt the functions of these former establishments by offering live music on weeknights and operating as a disco-club on weekends. But if this gamble doesn’t work out, the restaurant will likely follow its predecessors to extinction, since its view on the island’s red rostral columns and pleasant service just isn’t worth the large price-tag. And as of yet, the restaurant doesn’t offer business lunch.
After a period of initial confusion that almost ended with a gym membership rather than a hot meal, we found the restaurant, which was deserted when we arrived at 7:30 p.m. on a weekday. We had our pick of the restaurant’s four large window tables, with low-slung divans on either side of each table and a wood-paneled bar in the background, but the overalleffect was slightly chintzy due to a misplaced television on the side wall. The view of the columns was pleasant if not spectacular, since the Neva River itself isn’t really visible beneath them. 
The wide drink menu featured everything from mulled wine to Irish draught beer (Guinness and Kilkenny), but the obvious choice was the house French, Italian and Chilean wines, which ranged from 180 to 220 rubles ($5.50-$7) a glass. While the Italian dry red wine was a touch too bitter on its own, the white was excellent, incredibly fruity and sweet for a dry wine and served perfectly chilled. The night seemed to be off to a good start when what appeared to be a complimentary set of three different hot bread rolls arrived (these were later tacked onto the bill for 80 rubles, $2.50).
The three-page food menu was extensive but not overwhelming with sections for salads, hot and cold appetizers, pasta and risotto, soups, and fish, red meat and poultry dishes. The waiter’s first suggestion was foiled when he couldn’t find the item on the menu, which has already been reworked since the opening, so he quickly pointed out the grilled Pork Escalope with Wild Mushroom Sauce (540 rubles, $17). We also ordered the Salmon Steak (620 rubles, $19) and, again on the waiter’s advice, the Meat Salad with Tongue (320 rubles, $10). Since the dinner was looking to be pretty heavy on meat, we ordered a platter of raw cucumber, red pepper and tomato slices on the side, which inexplicably came out to 350 rubles ($11). 
The meat salad — ravishing in patty form on a plate flecked with sweet-and-sour sauce — arrived first, at which point the waiter courteously asked how soon he should bring out the main dishes. Although the appetizer’s mix of beef tongue, roast beef, cucumber, cheese, red pepper, mushroom, Bulgarian pepper and “Provance sauce” looked promising, the dousing of shredded cheese on top and overly mayonnaised, cooked vegetables throughout overpowered any taste of meat and almost concealed the chewier texture of the small strips of tongue.
The pork escalope also disappointed, even though the wild mushrooms saut?ed whole in heavy cream sauce were distinctly more flavorful than their dowdy cousins in the meat salad and won the approval of my mushroom-aficionado dining companion. The sauce, however, couldn’t make up for the meat, which was a seeming contradiction in terms for being simultaneously too fatty, too dry and too dark. Although the side of grilled eggplant, pepper, cucumber and onions was mouth-watering at first, it also quickly wore out its welcome due to the olive oil that seeped from it in increasing amounts. 
The single bright spot was the salmon, which also came in a heavy, slightly sweet creamy mushroom sauce. A light lemony breading and the dish’s bland accompaniments — rice with boiled baby carrots and young sweet peas, again polluted with oil — allowed the rich unadorned flavor of the fish meat to shine.
At this point, we were far too over our budget and our calorie intake to try our luck with other options, such as the Blinchiki Petrovsky (320 rubles, $10), a crepe wrapped around a filling of ham, chicken, mushroom, leek and cheese, or the Thai Chicken Wings with marinated shrimp in a curry-and-ginger sauce (580 rubles, $18).
When the staff dimmed the lights, cranked the music and turned on the disco ball at 9:30 p.m., we beat a hasty retreat, with little desire to return. If dull, expensive food is what you’re after, you can find it with a more spectacular view at Terrassa overlooking Kazansky Cathedral.

TITLE: Wanted: 
Playing Cops & Robbers
AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The black car of non-Russian make was going the wrong way down Pokrovka on Wednesday morning at a speed that said either a pregnant woman’s water had just broken or an idiot bureaucrat was inside and late for a meeting. Tailing it was a black jeep that promptly overtook the car, the two tearing down the road squawking out a constipated “quack, quack, quack” the moment any other car came within a few meters. 

The blue light on top was spinning around despite it being morning and already light out, and a voice growled out of the top of the jeep telling the Red Sea of traffic to part its waves. They parted nervously, and the pair of vehicles sped on.

A few years ago, a group of police officers were arrested for selling licenses that allow you to use one of those blue lights that go on top of your car, called a migalka in Russian, that let you do anything on the road.

Whether anyone has moved into their business is hard to say. Surprisingly, there aren’t that many for sale on the web. In principle, you need a license, but as the campaigns to reduce the numbers over the years have shown, the migalka is one of the last things any bureaucrat/two-bit criminal wants to give up.
It’s an aspirational thing, which is where auto.f12.ru comes in with a lyrical description of the joys of driving a car that quacks. You’re in a traffic jam, it begins, that hasn’t moved since the early ‘90s, and a BMW with tinted windows turns up and beeps for the traffic-police car in front of him to move out of the way so he can get past. The police remonstrate on their loudspeaker until the BMW driver unwinds the window and puts his migalka on the roof, turns up the stroboscope disco lights on the front of the car and humiliates the police into moving out of the way. Lo and behold, there opens up a path for him as he flashes and burps his way into the distance. 

Having a migalka is not enough, though, unless you add in the accessories. The web site offers the kryakalka, or the “quacker,” which does what you expect it to. 

After all, “How often do you want to quack from your quacker at the chainik [driving student] who is crawling in the left lane at 40 kilometers an hour?” There is also a device for sale that gives anyone who touches your car an electric shock. This is called the “electroshock.”

Unfortunately for the migalka buyer, the web site advises people to go to their new site. There are no migalkas to be found there — only knives, medieval armor, sex toys and video equipment to spy on your children’s nanny.

TITLE: Nuggets Advance to Conference Final
AUTHOR: By Arnie Stapleton
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DENVER — The Denver Nuggets are leaving all the animosity with the Dallas Mavericks’ players, fans and owner behind and are heading to their first Western Conference finals since 1985. Behind 30 points from Carmelo Anthony and 28 from Chauncey Billups, the Nuggets beat the Mavericks 124-110 on Wednesday night to wrap up their semifinal series in five feisty games.
The Nuggets, who are 8-2 in the playoffs after tying their franchise record with a 54-win regular season, will face either Los Angeles or Houston for the conference championship.
“It’s special. We worked hard in the offseason and training camp and throughout,” Anthony said. “We stuck to everything, we overcame adversity, we stayed humble and our hard work paid off.
Winners of 16 straight games at the Pepsi Center, where no opponent has won since March 9, the Nuggets would start their next series on the road if the Lakers win, and at home if Houston does. The Lakers lead the series 3-2 with Game 6 Thursday night in Houston.
The Nuggets didn’t dare dream of this type of success when the season began in November following the departures of defensive stalwarts Marcus Camby and Eduardo Najera.
Then came the biggest trade in team history, Allen Iverson to Detroit for Billups, who turned his hometown team from an afterthought into a championship contender after leading the Pistons to six straight Eastern Conference finals and the NBA championship in 2004.
“He’s a leader,” Anthony said of Billups. “He came on this team and he brought a businesslike attitude to our team. He brought a defensive mind-set we were looking for.”
Fired up from the ugliness on and off the court in Dallas in Games 3 and 4, the Nuggets came out in front of their home crowd with a passion and shot 64 percent in the first half while building a 69-55 lead.
The Mavericks wouldn’t go down easily, though, making five straight 3-pointers, three by Jason Kidd, to pull within 79-72.
The Mavericks were within 103-97 with 7 minutes left but Anthony took the inbounds pass and with 2 seconds on the shot clock, hit a turnaround 25-foot jumper at the buzzer. Antoine Wright was assessed a technical and Billups’ free throw made it a 10-point game with 6:35 left.
The Mavs didn’t have another run in them, and their season ground to a halt much sooner than they expected after dispatching San Antonio in five games in the first round.
Dirk Nowitzki had his usual monster game, scoring 32 points — he averaged 34.4 in the series — and Kidd added 19.
“It’s not over, we’re still on the road man,” Billups said. “We are moving on to bigger and better things and hopefully we can remain successful.”
Before the game, the NBA said it wouldn’t punish anybody over the ugly incidents that occurred on and off the court in the games in Dallas, which included Mavs owner Mark Cuban throwing a fit after a non-call helped Denver win Game 3, when he also yelled at Kenyon Martin’s mother.
In Game 4, Anthony shoved Wright to break away from his elbow clamp underneath the basket, resulting in one of a slew of technical fouls.
Cuban wasn’t in Denver to hear from the Nuggets’ fans Wednesday night as he skipped Game 5 to attend an awards ceremony in Las Vegas.
Cuban had written in his blog this week that the Nuggets’ families and friends could sit in his private suite “when the series returns to Dallas.”
There didn’t appear to be any incidents with the crowd surrounding the Mavericks on Wednesday night other than a small giveaway plastic ball that bounced near their bench as the clock ticked off the final seconds.
Notes:@ Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle arrived an hour before tip-off after serving as a pallbearer at Chuck Daly’s funeral in Florida. ... Dallas fell to 3-6 in conference semifinal series. ... Billups improved to 16-4 in closeout games in his career. ... The Nuggets fell to the Lakers in five games in their last trip to the conference finals 24 years ago. ... Denver F Chris Andersen returned from a bout of food poisoning that kept him out of Game 4 but he had a quiet game, failing to score in 14 minutes.

TITLE: Officials Discuss Swine Flu Vaccine
AUTHOR: By Maria Cheng
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — As swine flu cases hit 6,500 worldwide, World Health Organization officials were meeting with vaccine manufacturers and other experts in Geneva on Thursday to discuss making a vaccine to fight the virus.
The meeting focused on the major questions surrounding a possible swine flu vaccine, such as how much should be produced, how it will be distributed and who should get it.
The expert group’s recommendations will be passed to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who will issue advice to vaccine manufacturers and the World Health Assembly next week.
But some experts feel the main decision has already been made.
“It’s a foregone conclusion,” said David Fedson, a vaccines expert and former professor of medicine at the University of Virginia. “If we don’t invest in an H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine, then possibly we could have a reappearance of this virus in a mild, moderate, or catastrophic form and we would have absolutely nothing.”
Flu vaccine companies can only make one vaccine at a time: seasonal flu vaccine or pandemic vaccine. Production takes months and it is impossible to switch halfway through if health officials make a mistake.
Vaccine makers can make limited amounts of both seasonal flu vaccine and pandemic vaccine — though not at the same time — but they cannot make massive quantities of both because that exceeds manufacturing capacity.
Seasonal flu kills up to 500,000 people a year. At the moment, health officials aren’t sure how deadly swine flu is, and whether they will need more seasonal flu vaccine or swine flu vaccine. And if the swine flu mutates, scientists aren’t sure how effective a vaccine made now from the current strain will remain.
WHO estimates that 1 to 2 billion doses of swine flu vaccine could be produced every year, though the first batches wouldn’t be available for 4 to 6 months.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently working on a “seed stock” to make the vaccine, which should be ready in the next couple of weeks. That will be distributed to manufacturers worldwide so they can start producing the vaccine.
WHO is also negotiating with vaccine producers to save some of their swine flu vaccine for poorer nations. Many rich nations like Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Switzerland and the United States signed deals with vaccine makers years ago to guarantee them pandemic vaccines as soon as they’re available.
As of Thursday, at least 33 countries reported nearly 6,500 cases of swine flu worldwide, with 65 deaths. According to WHO’s pandemic alert level, the world is at phase 5 — out of a possible 6 — meaning that a global outbreak is “imminent.”
“It’s a no-brainer,” Fedson said of the decision to make swine flu vaccine. “All that’s being discussed now is the details of how to make sure you have enough seasonal flu vaccine and the logistics of making the switch to H1N1 vaccine production.”

TITLE: Ferrari Demands Removal of Budget Cap
AUTHOR: By Jeremy Inson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MILAN, Italy — The storied Ferrari team threatened to not race in Formula One next season unless the sport’s governing body revokes its new budget cap.
The Italian team, which has been involved in all 60 seasons of F1 competition, said Tuesday the new FIA guidelines were arbitrary and would set a double standard.
“The same rules for all teams, stability of regulations, the continuity of ... endeavors to methodically and progressively reduce costs, and governance of Formula One are priorities for the future,” Ferrari said in a statement after a board meeting.
“If these indispensable principles are not respected, and if the regulations decided for 2010 will not change, Ferrari does not intend to enter its cars in the next Formula One world championship.”
Ferrari said it hoped fans would understand this “painful choice.
FIA president Max Mosley has said the sport could survive without the Italian giant, although Formula One drivers have disagreed. The Formula One Teams Association has asked for urgent talks with the governing body over the budget cap.
Ferrari is one of F1’s richest teams. It is also one of its most successful, with 15 drivers’ and 16 constructors’ championships. Kimi Raikkonnen, in 2007, was the last Ferrari driver to win the title.
This season, Ferrari is off to its worst start. The team has only six points after five races, with Felipe Massa’s sixth-place finish in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix. He trails overall leader Jenson Button of Brawn GP by 38 points.
Ferrari has grown frustrated in recent years with the leadership of Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone and Mosley.
“The board also expressed its disappointment about the methods adopted by the FIA in taking decisions of such a serious nature and its refusal to effectively reach an understanding with constructors and teams,” the team said.
“The rules of governance that have contributed to the development of Formula One over the last 25 years have been disregarded, as have the binding contractual obligations between Ferrari and the FIA itself regarding the stability of the regulations.”
Mosley is leading FIA’s push to curb costs, with a voluntary $60 million budget cap made available to teams. Teams that don’t adhere to the cap will not receive the same technical freedom, something Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has called “fundamentally unfair.”
Ferrari fears the new rules will effectively split F1 into two tiers, those that can live with the cap and enjoy the technical advantages and those that can’t.
In the first quarter of 2009, Ferrari reported turnover of $600 million and a trading profit of $73 million.
Former team boss Eddie Jordan said Ferrari’s reaction is a sign that it fears the new rules would prevent it from returning to the very top of the sport.

TITLE: British PM suspends MP in Expenses Scandal
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday suspended a Labour Party MP over embarrassing expenses claim revelations, in a row rocking all political parties.
The suspension of former agriculture and environment minister Elliot Morley came hours after opposition Conservatives announced the resignation of an aide to leader David Cameron, the first scalp in the expenses controversy.
“Where standards are transgressed and mistakes are made we have got to take action,” Brown said, announcing Morley’s suspension from the parliamentary Labour party.
In the latest details published by the Daily Telegraph, it emerged that Morley claimed over 16,000 pounds for a home loan 18 months after it was paid off.
While all three main parties have been embarrassed by the row, Brown has been forced to play catch-up after the Tory chief ordered all his lawmakers to repay any dubious expenses money.
Earlier the Conservatives announced that Andrew MacKay, an MP, had resigned as an aide to Cameron after it emerged he and his wife, also a Conservative MP, had claimed expenses for two home loans at the same time.
The row has exacerbated Brown’s political troubles as his Labor Party badly trails the Conservatives in polls ahead of elections next year.
After a week of embarrassing revelations about claims for everything from swimming pools to a moat, the Conservatives said Andrew MacKay’s role as parliamentary aide to Cameron was “unacceptable.”
The row has rocked all three main parties, and exacerbated Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s woes as polls indicate the Labor Party faces ouster in elections due within a year.
“I deeply apologize for such sloppy accounting in a very loose and shambolic allowance system but there is nobody to blame but myself and I take full responsibility for this,” he told the Scunthorpe Telegraph.
“I apologize unreservedly.”
But Brown’s Downing Street office said the prime minister was “very concerned” about the allegations, while a lobby group, the Taxpayers’ Alliance, demanded a police investigation.
“If they do not investigate, then the Taxpayers’ Alliance will consider bringing a private prosecution against Mr Morley and any other MPs who appear to have broken the law,” said the group’s chief executive Matthew Elliot.
But the revelations were trumped hours later by the news about MacKay, who quit after voluntarily submitting his expense claims to Conservative party officials.
“That examination of Mr. MacKay’s past allowances revealed an unacceptable situation that would not stand up to reasonable public scrutiny,” said a spokesman for Cameron.
“Although Mr MacKay maintains that those arrangements were agreed by the Fees Office, he resigned this morning with immediate effect,” he added.
MacKay, who is married to another Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed expenses for their joint mortgage on a London home until April last year, at the same time as his wife claimed an allowance on her constituency home.
The expenses revelations have caused outrage in Britain, which is weathering its worst recession in decades, and prompted Brown to promise an independent review of all parliamentary expenses dating back four years.
Cameron, who is hoping to oust Brown in elections due by next June, has sought to make political capital from the expenses row by ordering his lawmakers to repay any sums deemed unacceptable.
Even before the expenses scandal many commentators said Cameron is virtually certain to win the premiership next year, three years after Brown succeeded Tony Blair in Downing Street.
A Populus opinion poll for The Times published Tuesday said Labor was down four points on last month to 26 percent, while the Conservatives were on 39 percent, albeit also down four.

TITLE: Burmese Activist Faces Trial After American Visits
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was charged Thursday with violating the terms of her house arrest after an American man swam across a lake to sneak into her home, her lawyer said.
Suu Kyi, whose detention was set to end May 27, could face a prison term of up to five years if convicted, said lawyer Hla Myo Myint. The trial is scheduled to start Monday at a special court at Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison, where she was arraigned Thursday.
Human rights groups feared the trial would be used to justify an extension of Suu Kyi’s yearslong detention despite international demands for her release.
The 63-year-old Nobel prize laureate has already spent more than 13 of the last 19 years — including the past six — in detention without trial for her nonviolent promotion of democracy, despite international pressure for her release.
The American man, who has been identified as 53-year-old John William Yettaw, was arrested last week for allegedly swimming across a lake to secretly enter Suu Kyi’s home and staying there for two days. His motives remain unclear.
Kyi Win, another lawyer for Suu Kyi, said the opposition leader did not invite the man to her home and in fact told the man to leave.

TITLE: Barcelona Beats Bilbao to Win King's Cup
AUTHOR: By Phil Seery
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: MADRID — Barcelona stayed on course for an historic treble by crushing Athletic Bilbao 4-1 at the Mestalla Stadium on Wednesday to lift the Kings Cup for the first time in over a decade.
Gaizka Toquero headed Bilbao into a ninth-minute lead, but Yaya Toure equalised with a great solo goal and then Barca blitzed their rivals with three goals from Lionel Messi, Bojan Krkic and Xavi in 12 minutes to lift the cup for the first time since 1998.
It was coach Pep Guardiola’s first trophy as a manager and Barcelona’s first piece of silverware in two seasons although the Spanish league title could soon follow with only a point needed at Real Mallorca on Sunday to secure a 19th championship.
“We hope it’s an historic week and we will go for the second title this weekend,” said defender Gerard Pique.
“We just want to enjoy this win first and then concentrate on trying to win more titles.”
The final part of the treble - which no Spanish team has ever achieved - is the Champions League final against Manchester United on May 27.
For Bilbao, who have won the cup 23 times, it was bitter disappointment in their first final since 1985.
Barcelona were without Andres Iniesta and Thierry Henry through injury so the talented Bojan, 18, started the final.
At the back, Carles Puyol switched to left back to replace the suspended Eric Abidal while midfielder Toure was deployed at centre-half.
The last time these two sides met in the final was back in 1984 when Bilbao won 1-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu, although the game was remembered more for the post-match brawl between a number of players, including the great Diego Maradona in what was his final game for Barcelona.
There was little animosity between the two sides 25 years on although Barca were furious at the constant fouling suffered by Messi.
If Barcelona have a weakness it is undoubtedly set-pieces and Bilbao exploited that early on with Toquero heading in a whipped-in corner after just nine minutes.
It was just the start Barcelona didn’t want although Guardiola’s side should have equalised in the 19th minute when Samuel Eto’o, the league’s top-scorer, got the ball caught up between his feet and the chance went begging.
Toure showed Eto’o the way forward after 31 minutes, surging from central defence before beating two Bilbao players and then dispatching a fierce right-footed shot into the corner.
Messi twice went close to scoring early in the second half and finally got his goal in the 54th minute after Bilbao failed to clear their lines.
Barca turned the screw with Bojan netting three minutes later with an immaculate finish after Bilbao got caught out on the counter attack.
Xavi curled in a free-kick in the 64th minute to torment Bilbao further as Barca lifted their 25th Kings Cup.

TITLE: Oldest Human Sculpture Found in Germany
AUTHOR: By Patrick McGroarty
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN — A 35,000-year-old ivory carving of a busty woman found in a German cave was unveiled Wednesday by archaeologists who believe it is the oldest known sculpture of the human form. The carving found in six fragments in Germany’s Hohle Fels cave depicts a woman with a swollen belly, wide-set thighs and large, protruding breasts.
“It’s very sexually charged,” said University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard, whose team discovered the figure in September.
Carbon dating suggests it was carved at least 35,000 years ago, according to the researchers’ findings, which are being published Thursday in the scientific journal Nature.
“It’s the oldest known piece of figurative sculpture in the world,” said Jill Cook, a curator of Paleolithic and Mesolithic material at the British Museum in London.
Stones in Israel and Africa almost twice as old are believed to have been collected by ancient humans because they resembled people, but they were not carved independently.
The Hohle Fels cave discovery suggests the humans, who are believed to have come to Europe around 40,000 years ago, had the intelligence to create symbols and think abstractly in a way that matches the modern human, Conard said.
“It’s 100 percent certain that, by the time we get to 40,000 years ago in Swabia, we’re dealing with people just like you and me,” Conard told The Associated Press, referring to the southern German region where the sculpture was recovered along with other prehistoric artifacts.
Conard believes the 2.4-inch-tall (6-centimeter) figure may have been hung on the end of a string. The left arm is missing, but Conard said he hopes to find it by sifting through material from the cave.
The Hohle Fels sculpture is curvaceous and has neither feet nor a head, like some of the roughly 150 so-called Venus figurines found in a range from the Pyrenees mountains to southern Russia and dating back about 25,000-29,000 years.
But Cook warned against trying to draw any connections between the Venuses and the Hohle Fels figure, saying that would be like comparing Picasso to a classical sculptor — too much time had passed.
“I wonder whether at this point we’re looking at figures which are unique within themselves and unique within the cultures that they’re arising in,” she said.
Archaeologist Paul Mellars, of the University of Cambridge, suggested a clearer continuum.
“We now have evidence of that sort of artistic tradition of Venus figurines going back 6,000 years earlier than anybody ever guessed,” he said.
Neanderthals also lived in Europe around the time the sculpture was carved, and frequented the Hohle Fels cave. But Mellars said layered deposits left by both species over thousands of years prove the sculpture was crafted by humans.
“Nothing within a million miles of this has ever been found in a Neanderthal layer,” Mellars said.
The archaeologists agreed the sculpture’s age and features invite speculation about its purpose and the preoccupations of the culture that produced it.
Cook suggested it could be symbol of fertility, perhaps even portrayed in the act of giving birth.
Mellars suggested a more basic motivation for the carving: “These people were obsessed with sex.”
Conard said the differing opinions reinforced the connection between the ancient artist and modern viewer.
“How we interpret it tells us just as much about ourselves as about people 40,000 years ago,” he said.

TITLE: Sharapova Returns After Shoulder Injury
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: PARIS (AFP) – Maria Sharapova has announced her return to singles action after an eight-month injury layoff in the Warsaw WTA tournament starting on May 18.
The former world No.1 and highest money-earner in women’s sport has been sidelined with a shoulder injury since last summer, missing the Wimbledon and US Opens and this year’s Australian Open.
She has repeatedly postponed her comeback over the last few weeks but did play one losing game in the doubles tournament at Indian Wells in March.
“I am very happy to report that I will make my singles return to the tour in Warsaw, Poland, the week of May 18,” the 22-year-old Russian said on her website.
In her absence, Sharapova has slumped to 65th in the WTA rankings but enjoys from the WTA a special injury ranking of four which she can use for acceptance into tour events.