SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1513 (75), Tuesday, September 29, 2009
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TITLE: Tension High As Trial Draws To Close
AUTHOR: By Kristina Mikulova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A man in a black mask pumped five bullets into Rasul Khalilov, an 18-year-old Azeri student, as he left his apartment building in northern Moscow earlier this month, killing him on the spot.
But this was no ordinary racist attack.
Khalilov, an economics student at the Moscow Institute of Economics and Culture, was exiting his apartment building near the Otradnoye metro station on the morning of Sept. 3 to go to court. He was on trial on charges of carrying out racially motivated attacks on white Russian youth as part of a group that the media and rights activists have dubbed the Black Hawks.
The trial, which is expected to end this week in the Dorogomilovsky District Court, marks an unusual twist in a city where racist violence occurs all too often against people from the Caucasus, as well as from Central Asia, Asia and Africa. The case could cause simmering tensions to erupt.
Khalilov was on trial with six other Caucasus natives accused of badly injuring two Russian teenagers, 16-year-old Pavel Novitsky and 19-year-old Fyodor Markov, in an attack that carries the hallmarks of skinhead violence against minorities. The attackers jumped Novitsky and Markov in the Moscow metro on May 6, 2008, beating the two and stabbing them repeatedly with knifes. One attacker shot Markov in the head with a pneumatic gun. During the assault, the attackers bellowed “Allah Akbar!” (Allah is great!) and “Death to the Russian swine!”
Prosecutors say Khalilov filmed the attack on his cell phone camera and posted the video on the Internet.
The seven suspects, who have admitted that they were involved in the attack but deny that it was racially motivated, were swiftly detained several days after the assault. Two are in custody, while the others, including Khalilov, were released after signing a pledge not to leave Moscow during the investigation and trial. The defendants have been charged with hooliganism and inflicting grave injuries and face up to 15 years in prison.
Prosecutors decided to drop a charge that the attack was racially motivated, angering ultranationalists who call the trial a showcase of how authorities give lax treatment to aggressive ethnic minorities. Incidentally, prosecutors often refuse to press the same charge against ultranationalists accused of assaulting minorities.
Qualifying an attack as racially motivated increases the maximum punishment.
Defense lawyer Sergei Loginov said he expected his clients to be sentenced to two to five years in prison, much less than the maximum 15 years that they face, and he insisted that they did not belong to a group called the Black Hawks.
“I have said it before and I’ll say it again: There is no such thing as an organized group popularized by the media as the Black Hawks that planned and carried out attacks. The defendants came together on a single occasion,” he told The St. Petersburg Times.
Lawyers for the victims of the attack could not be reached for comment.
It remains unclear whether the victims were skinheads, although senior members of the Caucasus community say the two teens belonged to a nationalist group.
Police have detained no suspects in Khalilov’s murder, and a nationalist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The trial started in May amid a heated public debate about hooliganism and xenophobia across the country.
In the meantime, dozens of members of nationalist groups have gathered outside the courtroom for every hearing. Ultranationalists have warned in Internet forums that a mild sentence would provoke a new wave of urban violence, this time perpetrated by aggressive Caucasus youth against ethnic Russians.
With Khalilov’s murder, the tension among the nationalists reached a climax.
News of the murder broke on the web site of the radical Movement Against Illegal Immigration, or DPNI, hours before it was reported by news agencies. Alexander Belov, DPNI’s former leader, who was recently convicted of inciting ethnic hatred and sentenced to six months of probation, denied any connection to the killing in a telephone interview.
The group that has claimed responsibility, the Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists, said it did not expect a fair verdict in the trial and had acted to punish the “Caucasus gang” that “sold narcotics in Moscow’s universities and attacked Russian youth.”
“Now we have become judges in our country: No power structure can forbid us to defend the Russian nation,” it said in a statement posted on a nationalist web site a week after the killing.
In addition to Khalilov’s murder, the group has claimed responsibility for several racially motivated killings in Moscow over the past two years, including the shooting deaths of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova in January. The group said its members also killed two natives of Tajikistan, tossing the severed head of one of the victims into a garbage container near the administration offices for Moscow’s Mozhaisky district. No suspects have been detained in any of these cases.
Contact information could not be found for the group.
Dmitry Dyomushkin, head of the Slavyansky Soyuz, an umbrella organization for nationalists, was evasive when asked whether the Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists had any link to Khalilov’s killing.
“There are dozens of these combat groups in Russia. Maybe the Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists did it, maybe not,” he said. “For these groups, it is key to operate in secret. Even if I knew what had happened, I couldn’t tell you.”
But Alexander Verkhovsky, who tracks nationalism and ethnic violence at the Sova think tank, voiced doubt about the claim. “It is suspicious that their statement went public so late, a week after the murder,” he told The St. Petersburg Times.
At least 87 people were killed and 378 were wounded last year in racially motivated attacks across the country, according to Sova figures. Eighty-six people were killed in 2007.
Alexander Brod, a human rights activist and member of the Public Chamber, said the government bears blame for the violence. “The state, or rather, the government is doing very little to uproot these attitudes. It simply isn’t the issue of the day,” he said.
Brod also pointed to moderate nationalism advocated by President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, saying that at times, Russian national interests are advanced at the expense of non-Russian ethnic groups.
Even before last year’s military conflict with Georgia, Moscow was rocked by anti-Georgian hysteria, marked by official crackdowns on Georgian businesses and Georgian migrants working in the capital. Strong anti-migrant sentiments also loomed in the closure last summer of Cherkizovsky Market, which provided jobs for thousands of people from the Caucasus, Central Asia, China and Vietnam.
Politicians often ride on a wave of nationalism, which provides an easy source of political capital, analysts say. “Politicians seeking to boost their popularity ratings are creating tension by blaming immigrants for the surge in unemployment and crime, especially in times of crisis,” said Shamil Osmanov, a member of the Russian Congress of the Caucasus Peoples, a public group that protects the rights of the Caucasus community.
He said the identity of Khalilov’s killers was anybody’s guess. “Khalilov could have been slain by security services who sought to provoke and then crack down on neo-Nazis,” he said.
Caucasus natives seem to be bearing the brunt of ethnically motivated hatred. A poll last month indicated that 29 percent of Russians dislike Caucasus natives, while Central Asians placed second, with 6 percent of respondents voicing dislike for them. The national poll of 1,600 Russians had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points and was carried out by state-run VTsIOM.
Some human rights activists, like Semen Charny of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, believe that the Caucasus defendants on trial were driven by a desire to fight skinheads.
One suspect’s testimony in court gives leverage to this explanation.
Before the defendants jumped the two students, one of them — Grant Arutyunov — contacted them on the social networking web site Vkontakte.ru pretending to be a white Russian named Sergei Kazakov, another suspect, Chingiz Arifullin, told the court last week. He arranged to meet on the pretext that he needed help against a group of Caucasus natives who were harassing him, Arifullin said.
Belov, of the DPNI, dismissed the notion that the defendants were carrying out a vendetta against neo-Nazis and skinheads as a poor excuse for the attack. “If this is true, we might as well say that Osama bin Laden is fighting American imperialism and fascism,” he said.
Though dismissing Belov’s comment, Osmanov said the defendants did deserve punishment. “A hooligan is a hooligan, whether he is a Caucasus native or a Russian,” he said.

TITLE: Medvedev Bristles at Iran’s New Plant
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev expressed serious concern about Iran’s construction of a new uranium enrichment plant and urged the country to prove it didn’t seek to build a nuclear bomb, in a statement that brings Moscow closer to the West in assessing the threat.
Medvedev spoke after Iran confirmed Friday that it had for years been building an underground plant to enrich uranium near the city of Qom, even as the United Nations Security Council demands that Iran stop enriching uranium at the country’s first plant.
In what may increase tensions over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the country fired short-range missiles Sunday during a military exercise and was planning to fire medium-range and long-range missiles later Sunday and Monday.
Western nations have been trying to rein in Iran’s nuclear program, but Russia, which is building a nuclear power plant in Iran, has been reluctant to support imposing more sanctions on the country, instead calling for more talks.
In a shift of approach, Medvedev said Friday that Iran must urgently deliver proof of its peaceful intentions, suggesting that sanctions might not be a long way off if Iran doesn’t comply.
“The transpiring information that Iran has been building a new enrichment plant only strengthens our determination to achieve concrete and verifiable results in the near future,” Medvedev said in a statement.
The statement also called for international talks on Iran’s nuclear program. But Medvedev told reporters during a G20 summit in Pittsburg that should the negotiations fail, it would open the way for “other mechanisms.” He hinted earlier in the week that more sanctions might be “inevitable” for Iran under certain circumstances.
The Security Council has so far levied three sets of sanctions on Iran to punish it for refusing to freeze enrichment at its previously single, publicly known enrichment plant in Natanz, which is being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Russia, a permanent Security Council member with veto power, has resisted further measures, saying it has seen no evidence to support U.S. assertions that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. China, another permanent Security Council member, has taken a stance similar to Russia’s.
In light of the new plant, Iranian negotiators will face tough questions when they meet with Security Council members on Wednesday in Geneva.
Iran’s construction of a second enrichment plant is proof that it is planning to use the fuel for military purposes, said Vladimir Yevseyev, a security analyst with the Institute of Global Economy and International Affairs.
“Having another enrichment facility raises the survivability of its nuclear infrastructure,” he said Sunday. “It has no other justification apart from a military one.”
The Kremlin must be disappointed by the news of the plant construction, Yevseyev said. “It brought it home once again that you can’t deal normally with Iran,” he said. “It turns out that the Americans were right.”
Iran’s nuclear expertise has already reached outside the country’s boundaries in a challenge to the nonproliferation cause.
Venezuelan Mining and Basic Industries Minister Rodolfo Sanz said Friday that Iran was helping his country search for uranium, and that initial evaluations suggest reserves are significant, The Associated Press reported.
Venezuela Science and Technology Minister Jesse Chacon denied that same day that Venezuela was working with Iran to search for uranium deposits, saying the partner was Russia. But he withdrew the denial on Saturday, AP said.
Asked about how Venezuela would use its uranium reserves, Chacon said they would be exploited to develop “nuclear energy for medicinal purposes, for peaceful purposes.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking in an interview with Larry King on CNN on Thursday, said his country did not want to develop atomic weapons and would work with Russia on nuclear energy projects as part of a plan to diversify its energy needs.
Both Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are well known for their anti-U.S. rhetoric and have forged ties in everything from finance to factories, provoking concerns in Washington.

TITLE: Stars Write Fairytales to Provide ‘Lifeline’ to Children
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A whole host of celebrities is traveling across Russia this week with books of fairytales that they themselves have written, helping to raise funds for a charity project targeting children with heart conditions.
The popular television presenter Darya Subbotina will be representing the “alliance of stars” at the city’s Children’s Hospital No. 1 on Tuesday. 
Actresses Viktoria Tolstoganova, Alyona Babenko, Olga Prokofieva and Yevvelina Bledans, runner Svetlana Masterkova, artistic gymnast-turned-politician Svetlana Khorkina, rhythmic gymnast Lyaisan Utyasheva, television presenter Dana Borisova and others have contributed their fairytales to a book published by the Russian charity foundation Liniya Zhizni (Life Line), which runs a series of projects aimed at helping severely ill children who require expensive treatment that cannot be covered by state insurance programs.
The book is being distributed free of charge among young patients in hospitals across Russia, including cardiology clinics in St. Petersburg, Kazan, Volgograd, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnoyarsk, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg and Moscow. 
Film stars and other celebrities taking part in the projects will visit cardiology clinics in various parts of the country to raise children’s spirits and help publicize the charity’s work. This year, celebrities have teamed up with the charity to promote a fundraising program titled “Laundry To Help Children.” Any Russian who purchases  Ariel, Tide or Mif washing powders or Lenor and Fairy fabric conditioners from Oct. 1 to Nov. 30 will automatically be making a donation to the Life Line, which has signed a deal with the detergent manufacturers whereby a percentage from their sales will go to the charity.
“We are linking our campaign to something as basic and trivial as washing for a reason: It is high time that the terrible stereotype that only wealthy people can donate and help others be broken,” said Faina Zakharova, the president of the Life Line foundation. “With this campaign we want to show that it can be done during a routine shopping trip, when buying washing powder.”
Every year in Russia over 10,000 children find themselves in desperate need of complex and expensive medical operations. The Life Line charity aims to find funding for these operations, which are not covered by state insurance programs. The organization helps children of up to 15 years of age who suffer from congenital heart conditions. The condition can be cured, but the equipment and medication required come at a high price: The average cost of treatment for each patient amounts to 180,000 rubles ($6,000), and the operation itself involves expensive and innovative technologies.
Since 2006, the project specifically aimed at treating heart conditions of this nature has raised over 15 million rubles ($500,000) and saved 89 lives. In total, the organization has saved the lives of 2,800 children through its various activities and raised over $13 million.
The book of fairytales that will be distributed at Children’s Hospital No. 1 on Tuesday is not the first one created for the charity. During the course of the project, which started in 2004, fairytales have been written by actress Nonna Grishayeva, champion swimmer Maria Kisselyova, actor Andrei Noskov, radio presenter Olga Shelest, MTV host Tutta Larsen, singer Zhasmin, actress Yulia Menshova and television presenters Yekaterina Strizhenova, Tatyana Arno, Yulia Bordovskikh and Svetlana Sorokina.
The project’s curators include, among others, the prominent actors Sergei Shakurov, Vera Vasilyeva and Yevgeny Mironov, theater designer Oksana Yarmolnik, journalist Svetlana Sorokina, heart surgeon and TV presenter Yakov Brand, human rights advocate Lyudmila Alexeyeva, cartoonist Andrei Bilzho and influential businessman Yury Kobaladze, managing director of X5 Retail Group.
“We are trying to make sure that the necessary medical assistance — however expensive it might be — is available to children in all regions of Russia,” Alexeyeva said.
Hospital facilities and the quality of medical care vary widely across Russia, not only in different regions but also within big cities depending on the clinic.
“When you look a sick child in the eyes, it gives you a terrible fright: you see such a fear of life — life turned into a great pain — that you really want to make use of every opportunity you have to help,” Vasilyeva said.

Links: http://www.life-line.ru

TITLE: City’s First Shostakovich Statue Unveiled by Son
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A statue of Dmitry Shostakovich, thought to be the first to be erected in his hometown, was unveiled by the composer’s son Maxim on Friday near the Grand Canyon shopping mall in the north of St. Petersburg. 
“It’s a difficult job to please the relatives of great people but this [has happened in this] case,” conductor Maxim Shostakovich told ITAR TASS at the gala ceremony.
“The monument has pleased my soul,” he said. The composer’s grandchildren were also in attendance.
Mussa Ekzekov, whose idea it was to build the city’s first major monument to one of its most famous sons, told ITAR TASS he would like it to become “a center of gravity for the city’s residents.” 
Music by the composer will be piped quietly through speakers in the small landscaped park near the statue from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Ekzekov, who is the general director of property developer Solomon, which manages the nearby Grand Canyon mall, told ITAR TASS that he hopes that live music concerts will be given in the park in future.
The two-meter tall bronze monument, on the corner of Ulitsa Shostakovicha and Prospekt Engelsa between Prospekt Prosveshcheniya metro station and Grand Canyon, was revealed to the public on Friday — the 103rd anniversary of the composer’s birth. 
The statue, which was sculpted by Konstantin Garapach, depicts the composer seated in contemplation surrounded by sheet music.
 “You can feel at once it shows [my] father listening to music and thinking about his native city, homeland and countrymen,” Maxim Shostakovich said.
One of the 20th century’s greatest composers, Shostakovich lived through the siege of Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known, during World War II. It was during the 900-day siege that he wrote the morale-boosting “Leningrad Symphony” in honor of the city.

TITLE: Home Birth Midwife Sentenced to 5 1/2 Years
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s Primorsky court on Friday sentenced midwife and home birth proponent Yelena Yermakova to five and a half years in an open prison.
Yermakova’s husband, Alexei Yermakov, who was also a co-owner of Kolybelka, or Cradle, a parental culture center, was sentenced to probation for the same period, the RBK news agency reported.
The Yermakovs were on trial for their role in a series of home births that ended tragically, with six babies dying during or shortly after birth and two being born with severe health problems.
The Yermakovs had entered pleas of not guilty.
The couple founded the Kolybelka center about 10 years ago to offer prenatal classes, while also unofficially helping women to give birth at home.  
At her lectures, Yermakova would discuss the advantages of home births, telling expectant mothers that home births, usually performed in water, were far easier and more natural than giving birth at state maternity wards.
Eight women went to court after two suffered severe complications during home childbirths and the other six lost their babies between 2001 and 2006.
In 2006, the Yermakovs were charged with unlicensed private medical practice that had resulted in bodily harm and death. 
Yermakova, 41, was detained in March after missing several court hearings on what she said were health grounds. At the time of her detention, Yermakova had five children and was six months pregnant with her sixth child.
Yermakova’s husband then posted letters online in which she wrote that she felt suicidal in prison. Supporters petitioned the St. Petersburg human rights ombudsman and President Dmitry Medvedev.
Yermakov also told The St. Petersburg Times at the time that the couple had conducted home births since 1992 with very low complication rates.
Of 1,500 births, only about 10 have required hospitalization, Yermakov said.
The first woman to initiate legal proceedings against Yermakova, in 2006, was Olga Vasilyeva, whose baby was stillborn after a breech delivery,.
According to Vasilyeva, the baby had brain injuries and a fractured skull. The baby had been delivered by Yermakova.
Vasilyeva blamed Yermakova for the baby’s death, saying tests had found that the baby was otherwise healthy. 
Yermakova removed all her equipment after the birth and left before emergency services arrived, telling Vasilyeva not to mention that she had been present. 
When Vasilyeva initially avoided mentioning the subject, doctors began to suspect the mother herself of causing the baby’s death.

TITLE: Wives Seek Return of Sailors
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel and Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The wives of four sailors who have lived on the Arctic Sea for the past two months have appealed for their return to Russia after Spanish authorities refused to let the cargo ship dock for a handover to its owners.
The wives said in an open letter late last week that they have not had any contact with their husbands, including the ship’s captain, since Sept. 18 and were worried about their health.
“We four desperate women and our children are appealing to all organizations designed to defend human rights to help our families return our innocent husbands,” said the letter, published Friday on Odin.tc, the web site of maritime expert Mikhail Voitenko.
The Arkhangelsk-based wives said they had learned during brief phone conversations earlier that their spouses were in poor health and needed a doctor.
They said the crew members could not just leave the ship because they did not have passports, and a new crew has been formed in Arkhangelsk and was ready to replace them at any time.
“The situation is in a deadlock,” the women wrote.
The letter represents a rare public statement from the families of the sailors caught up in the mystery surrounding the Arctic Sea, which disappeared for three weeks last summer while carrying a cargo of timber from Finland to Algeria.
Voitenko, whose web site posted the letter, was the first to point out inconsistencies in the authorities’ account of the ship’s saga, and he fled Russia this month after receiving threats. He has said the ship probably was carrying a secret cargo in addition to the timber.
Russian authorities have denied any secret cargo, including media reports that the Arctic Sea was carrying missiles for Iran, and said the ship was seized by eight hijackers, who are now in custody in Moscow.
The Arctic Sea has been in the hands of the Russian Navy since mid-August, when the Navy boarded it off western Africa.
The Navy frigate, the Ladny, escorted the ship toward the Canary Islands for a handover to its owners, but Spanish authorities refused to let it dock for the exchange. “Russia requested from Spanish authorities a technical stop in Las Palmas. Spain denied this request,” a spokesman for the Spanish Embassy in Moscow told The Moscow Times on Friday.
The spokesman, who requested anonymity, would not say why the ship was refused entry.
The ship’s owner, the Finnish-registered shipping company Solchart Ltd., said Spain had objected to the presence of armed foreign military personnel on board. The “vessel is in custody of Russian Navy units. … We do not consider the Arctic Sea like a merchant vessel but like a floating object taken by [a] foreign navy,” Canary Island authorities said in a statement posted on Solchart’s web site.
Solchart CEO Viktor Matveyev said the planned handover had failed for no obvious reason and accused the Investigative Committee of stealing the ship and its timber. “Russia has stolen the ship from us and stolen the cargo from the timber industry. And now they are towing it again to nowhere,” he said in comments posted Friday on Tradewinds.no, a shipping news service.
He said the ship was heading northward from the Canary Islands.
Matveyev said he had received a “laughable” response from the Investigative Committee about why it continued to occupy the ship. “They told me they are there to secure the ship again from further hijackings from Spain and Africa,” he said.
He said earlier that the subsidiary of his company that directly owns the Arctic Sea had gone bankrupt.
Meanwhile Malta, under whose flag the Arctic Sea is registered, warned that the ship needed inspections before it could be allowed to sail further. The owner has been instructed “that the ship cannot proceed to sea until any necessary repairs, surveys and certification are carried out and it is ensured that the ship is in a seaworthy condition,” the Malta Maritime Authority said in a statement on its web site.
Eleven other crew members from the Arctic Sea have been allowed to return home to Arkhangelsk.

TITLE: Polls on Popularity of Tower Offer Widely Varying Results
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Most St. Petersburg residents object to the controversial Okhta Center skyscraper, also known as the Gazprom Tower, a poll presented on Monday showed. The poll, which was commissioned by the tower’s opponents, produced vastly different results from the Gazprom-commissioned poll presented last week.
The skyscraper is planned to be built close to the city center, as part of the Okhta Center complex designed to house Gazprom Neft’s headquarters, and its opponents say it will destroy St. Petersburg’s historic views.
Commissioned by the preservationist group Living City and ECOM Center of Expertise, the poll was conducted by TOY-Opinion, a local subsidiary of the Finnish market researcher Taloustutkimus Oy. One thousand and five residents over the age of 16 were asked a number of questions by phone between Sept. 7 and 17.
Out of 66 percent who said they were opposed to the tower, 40 percent said they were “categorically against” and 26 percent said they were “somewhat against” when asked: “Do you support the construction of a 400-meter skyscraper at the mouth of the Okhta River opposite Smolny Cathedral?”
In addition, 65.3 percent agreed that the officials who formally approved the construction of the skyscraper should be held responsible for their actions. Governor Valentina Matviyenko and City Hall approved the exemption of the Okhta Center from the law on height regulations last week.
Seven percent said they supported the project “entirely” and 13 percent said they were “fairly” supportive of it. Fourteen percent found it difficult to answer the question.
Speaking at a press presentation on Monday, representatives of the Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPIK), Living City and ECOM dismissed the Gazprom poll as biased.
Commissioned by ODTs Okhta, the Gazprom daughter company in charge of the Okhta Center project, the poll was conducted among 2,000 residents by the Agency of Social Information St. Petersburg (ASI) market researcher in August.
Presented on Thursday, the ASI’s poll said that 46 percent had a positive attitude toward the Okhta Center (21 percent “positive” and 25 percent “fairly positive”) and 33 percent were “negative” (10 percent “negative” and 23 percent “fairly negative”.)
Roman Mogilevsky, the head of the ASI, said that the number of Okhta Center’s supporters was steadily growing and could reach up to 50 percent by the end of the year, Interfax reported.
But preservationists argue that the ASI has reached those conclusions because the question was phrased in an extremely vague manner. In the company’s official presentation, the question cited was, “What’s your overall attitude to the project?” 
It does not specify the Okhta Center’s location, its proximity to the city’s cultural heritage objects, the planned skyscraper and its height.
VOOPIK’s Alexander Margolis dismissed the ASI’s methodology as “careless, to put it mildly,” while Living City protested Mogilevsky’s claims that the group had wanted to conduct a joint poll with the AGI but was rejected.
“Almost every question” that Living City was going to ask “contained a negative connotation,” Mogilevsky was quoted by Metro newspaper as saying on Friday.
“We’ve never approached or even considered approaching Mogilevsky, because we think that what he is doing is not sociological research; it’s biased,” Antonina Yeliseyeva of Living City said by phone on Monday.
“The question they asked was, ‘What’s your attitude toward the Okhta Center project?’ But nobody has a negative attitude toward the Okhta Center if it does not include the tower!”

TITLE: Kaspersky, 27 Others Join Public Chamber
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev appointed an illustrious list of figures to the Public Chamber late last week, including Kaspersky Lab founder Yevgeny Kaspersky and television host Tina Kandelaki, in a move that analysts said could be aimed at increasing the political weight of the body.
Medvedev has appointed the first 42 members, or one-third, of the new Public Chamber, which will convene for the first meeting of its two-year term in January, a spokesman for the body told The St. Petersburg Times on Friday on a customary condition of anonymity.
Medvedev’s list includes 28 new members, among them Kandelaki; Kaspersky; Marat Guelman, director of a prominent Moscow art gallery; film director Pavel Lungin; and Soviet writer and public activist Daniil Granin, who is a descendant of the 19th-century writer Leo Tolstoy.
By replacing so many of the chamber’s members, Medvedev has bred “expectations that the status of the Public Chamber will rise,” Mikhail Vinogradov, a political analyst with the St. Petersburg Politics Fund, said in a telephone interview.
“But real steps are needed to change the status of the chamber,” he added.
Medvedev’s choice of the chamber’s new members, like the appointment of Kaspersky and “a big number of lawyers,” showed his priorities for the country’s development, said Dmitry Badovsky, deputy head of the Institute of Social Systems at Moscow State University and a current member of the Public Chamber.
The list of new members also includes the rector of the Higher School of Economics, Yaroslav Kuzminov; a former lawyer for jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yelena Lukyanova; Channel One television host Alexei Pimanov; and Yelena Nikolayeva, deputy head of the Delovaya Rossia business lobbying group.
The Public Chamber, created in 2005 and largely seen as a body set up by the federal authorities to create an appearance of democracy in the country, consists of 126 members, one-third of whom are appointed by the president while the other two-thirds are nominated by nongovernmental organizations and selected by the president’s appointees. Putin formed the chamber as part of his response to the Beslan hostage-crisis in September 2004 that killed more than 300 people.

TITLE: Memorial Chief Blames Kadyrov Again
AUTHOR: By Mansur Mirovalev
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Oleg Orlov, chairman of the Memorial rights group who is on trial over a defamation claim filed by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, said Friday that he stood by his statements blaming Kadyrov for the slaying of activist Natalya Estemirova in July.
Orlov has never said he had evidence of Kadyrov’s direct involvement but has repeatedly blamed Kadyrov for her killing, citing an atmosphere of lawlessness and impunity he said the powerful leader has fostered.
“There is no doubt of the political guilt of Ramzan Kadyrov in the murder of … Estemirova,” Orlov told reporters outside Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court where the defamation trial got under way.
Estemirova was a staunch critic of Kadyrov who led Memorial’s branch in Chechnya and reported on human rights abuses there. She was abducted July 15 outside her home in the Chechen capital, Grozny. Her bullet-riddled body was found by an Ingush roadside hours after she was kidnapped.
Kadyrov denies involvement in her killing. He filed suit against Orlov, seeking 10 million rubles ($330,000) for damages to his “honor and dignity.”
Kadyrov did not appear in court Friday. His lawyer, Andrei Krasnenkov, claimed Orlov’s comments were part of a Western effort to weaken Russia and were destabilizing the situation in Chechnya.
“Odious groups such as Memorial are financed by Western sponsors, and they need to justify their funding,” Krasnenkov said.
He claimed that Estemirova was “somehow used in a dirty game” against Kadyrov and the Kremlin.
Orlov, meanwhile, said he rejected what he said was Kadyrov’s offer of an out-of-court settlement in which he would drop the monetary damage demand if Orlov issued a public retraction. Orlov called the offer “strange.”
Orlov also said Kadyrov put activists in Chechnya in peril, claiming Kadyrov had “directly, publicly, on television equated rights defenders with terrorists, bandits and criminals.”
Kadyrov and his security forces have led a violent crackdown on the insurgency that persists after two separatist wars in Chechnya. Critics have accused Kadyrov of using the Kremlin-backed fight against militants to frighten local civilians with the threat of repercussions for anyone who crosses him.
Orlov said Kadyrov and forces under his control target everyone who acts or even thinks critically about his rule and policies. “Today’s Chechnya is … George Orwell’s ‘1984’ where people are threatened with punishment for ‘mind crimes,’” he said.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch called on Kadyrov to drop the suit and urged authorities to identify the masterminds of Estemirova’s killing.
Orlov said he was “pretty satisfied” with the first session of the trial, which will continue Oct. 6.
The slaying of Estemirova, a 50-year old single mother and former schoolteacher, followed a string of killings of Kadyrov’s critics and political rivals.
Estemirova worked with Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who accused Kadyrov of atrocities and gross human rights violations and was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building in 2006.
Estemirova also helped Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer involved in Chechen rights abuse cases who was shot dead on a Moscow street in January, along with a Novaya Gazeta reporter.

TITLE: Senior Dagestani Official Gunned Down in Moscow
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A senior Dagestan official who survived three assassination attempts at home has been shot dead by gunmen in southwestern Moscow, investigators said Monday.
One suspect, a 32-year-old Dagestani resident, was detained while driving a getaway car.
Two gunmen fired at least 20 rounds at Alim-Sultan Alkhmatov, head of Dagestan’s Khasavyurt district, from automatic rifles as he and two bodyguards got out a car at about 8:15 p.m. Sunday at 21/1 Novocheryomushkinskaya Ulitsa, the Investigative Committee said.
One bodyguard was wounded in the attack. 
Alkhmatov, 44, died from his injuries while being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.
“The actions of the group of criminals were very well-planned,” Anatoly Bagmet, chief of the Moscow branch of the Investigative Committee, said in remarks from the crime scene broadcast on Vesti-24 state television.
According to a preliminary investigation, the two gunmen approached Alkhmatov with guns blazing while a third man waited for them in a car.
The gunmen fled the scene in two cars, a Mercedes 350 and a Mitsubishi Pajero.
Police stopped the Mercedes at the intersection of Nakhimovsky Prospekt and Ulitsa Profsoyuznaya and detained the driver, Khabir Budaikhanov, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

TITLE: H&M Set to Open First Local Store Next Month
AUTHOR: By Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The first Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) store in St. Petersburg will open in November in Mega Dybenko.
The Swedish retailer has rented about 2,300 square meters in the shopping mall and plans to open on Nov. 5, H&M’s press service announced. A representative of IKEA, which owns Mega, confirmed the opening. 
In 2010 a store with an area of more than 2,000 square meters is planned to open in the Stockmann Nevsky Center retail complex, said Yekaterina Prosvirkina, a representative for H&M in Russia. The Stockmann center is currently under construction on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Ulitsa Vosstaniya. Prosvirkina said that H&M is also holding talks with other proprietors, but declined to name them before negotiations have been concluded.
The arrival of such a popular brand will increase competition, as other market players will begin to promote their labels more actively, said Irina Staroverova, a representative for Melon Fashion Group, which includes the Zarina and Be Free stores. Now is a good time to enter the market, according to Philip Kapchits, commercial director of Avgust (Oggi label), since rental rates have decreased, and quite a lot of retailers have left the market.
Renting premises in Mega could total six percent of the company’s turnover, said Roman Yevstratov, deputy director of the retail real estate department of Colliers International. He estimated H&M’s turnover at $8,000 to $10,000 per square meter per year, and rent at $600 per square meter per year. There are five or six retail centers that still attract many passers-by, but only Mega’s premises are big enough, he said.
According to Kapchits, demand in the economy retail sector has not decreased; only the percentage of impulse buys, which before the onset of the crisis comprised 30 to 50 percent of purchases.

TITLE: Matviyenko Urges Fitness With 20 New Public Pools
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Twenty new swimming pools will be built in St. Petersburg during the next three years, City Governor Valentina Matviyenko said on Saturday, Gazeta. Ru reported.
“We have succeeded in making businesses interested in sport,” said Matviyenko. “Many companies want to build sports facilities in St. Petersburg at their own expense.”
The company Basseiny, founded by the sportswear manufacturer Red Fox, will open 20 new swimming pools during the next three years.  
Investment into the project will total five billion rubles, she said.
Each of the new pools will be able to cope with two thousand visitors a day, Sobstvennik magazine reported, meaning that when they are complete, about 45,000 city residents per day will be able to go swimming.
Matviyenko was present at a ceremony dedicated to the start of the construction program that took place at Ulitsa Bukharestskaya, 22, where the foundation stone for the first pool to be built as part of the program was laid. The center will be built in a year, and will include three swimming pools of various sizes, Sobstvennik reported.
Matviyenko on Saturday also visited a construction site at Ulitsa Johna Rida, where the city’s biggest planned water sports complex has been under construction since 2007. The complex will contain two swimming pools for swimming competitions, water polo, diving and synchronized swimming.
The complex, which is due to be completed by 2010, is being constructed using funds from the city budget.
Matviyenko said that the sports infrastructure of St. Petersburg is gradually reaching European levels.
“I’m seriously worried by the health of our children and teenagers,” she said. “Our young people simply can’t find ways to occupy themselves, and then we get problems. Therefore I’m planning to go ahead with this program despite certain resistance,” she added.

TITLE: Finns Protest Russian Products
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Finnish customers of the popular Nokian Tyres brand are worried about the origin of the Finnish company’s tires being sold in Finland, and are unwilling to buy tires produced in Russia, Fontanka.ru reported on Monday.
A number of Finnish customers expressed dissatisfaction after they discovered that Nokian tires produced in Russia were being sold in Finland, which has its own production line for the product, the news portal reported.
The popular Finnish newspaper Aamulehti appealed to Kim Gran, president of Nokian, with the question of whether customers have the right to know in which country a product is made.
The newspaper expressed interest as to why the company had preferred not to advertise the Russian origins of its product.
Gran said that the origin of the tires did not matter, since the brand guarantees the quality of its production regardless of the location of its plants, Fontanka reported.
However, the Finns were not seemingly satisfied with Gran’s response.  On Internet forums, Finnish customers indicated two major reasons for their dissatisfaction.
Firstly, they expressed doubt over Russian quality, saying that the quality of Russian goods could not be higher than that of Finnish products.
They also expressed sentiments of  national solidarity, saying that when buying Finnish-made products, Finns would be paying for the labor of Finnish workers.
As a result, Finnish trade centers received a number of applications from their clients demanding proof that the tires they had bought were made in Finland, or that the stores exchange them for Finnish ones, or the return of their money, Fontanka reported.
The Nokian Tyres brand appeared in Finland in 1925, when a small factory in the Finnish town of Nokia, near Tampere, began producing bicycle tires. In 1932, it began to produce car tires. After World War II, the brand adopted the brand name Nokian Tyres, which earned a reputation for producing very high quality products.
In 2005, Nokian built a tire plant in the town of Vsevolozhsk in the Leningrad Oblast. Currently the plant has six production lines, each of which has a capacity of one million tires a year. The Russian plant employs about 600 workers.
Finnish trade unions began to worry about the Nokia plant when the Russian plant was still under construction. Their concerns peaked this spring when reports circulated that the production of tires in Finland might be halted, Fontanka reported.
Nokian’s authorities tried to soothe the public at that time, saying that the tires produced in Russia would be sold only in Russia and other CIS countries.
??Workers at the Nokian Tyres factory in Nokia are also worried about their future. According to Petri Sorvali, chief foreman at the factory, last week the workers planned to protest the company’s restructuring program, Tire Review reported.
The company has been transferring manufacturing operations to Russia, and further restructuring was still under consideration following the elimination of 265 jobs and the temporary laying off of more than 700 workers in Finland. Sorvali said that another aggravating factor behind the planned walkout was Nokian management's cancellation of a meeting regarding the company’s plans for next year, Tire Review reported.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <strong>Cell Phone Sales Down</strong>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russians bought 32 percent fewer mobile telephones in the third quarter than in the same period last year, according to Yevroset, the country’s biggest handset retailer.
Sales fell to about 7.1 million in the period, Yevroset said in a statement Monday, without giving year-earlier figures. Yevroset, part-owned by mobile provider VimpelCom, expects full-year sales to decline about 28 percent to 26 million.
Yevroset said it expects handset sales to reach 27 million next year and 36 million in 2011, about the same as in 2008.

<strong>Banking System 'Weak'</strong>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s banking system is “structurally weak” and faces increasing risks, Standard & Poor’s said.
“The heavy burden of accumulated problem loans will make recovery lengthy and painful, increasing banks’ vulnerability to any new shocks,” the ratings company said in a statement from Moscow on Monday. “Problematic assets” including restructured credits and “repossessed collateral” may reach 40 percent of total loans, it said.
Russia’s faltering banking industry threatens to prolong an economic decline in the world’s biggest energy exporter after oil, gas and metals prices slumped, sending gross domestic product plunging a record 10.9 percent last quarter. 

<strong>RusAl Planning IPO</strong>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — United Co. RusAl’s directors will this week approve an initial public offering, valuing the Russian aluminum company controlled by billionaire Oleg Deripaska at $30 billion, the Sunday Times reported, without saying how it obtained the information.
RusAl will probably opt to list its stock in Hong Kong, selling 10 percent of its shares, the newspaper said. The company’s banks have agreed to restructure its $16 billion of debt, spreading payments over four years in exchange for 5 percent of its equity, according to the Sunday Times.

TITLE: Sberbank Acquires Priority Share in 'Strategic' Yandex
AUTHOR: By Anastasia Golitsyna and Maxim Glikin
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — Sberbank has acquired a “golden share” in search engine Yandex, a move assuring the government that control over the strategic asset won’t be gained by someone who shouldn’t have it. 
Yandex and Sberbank said Wednesday that the search engine’s parent company, Dutch-registered Yandex N.V., issued a priority share. Yandex held a tender among several state companies, and Sberbank won because it is “state-run, public and doesn’t have direct interest in the Internet and media.” The bank got the share for a symbolic 1 euro. 
The share gives only one right: veto power on the sale of more than 25 percent of Yandex’s shares. If a shareholder accumulates a significant stake in the company and decides to sell it, the issue must be discussed among the board of directors. The board will, in turn, inform Sberbank, which will render a verdict on whether to allow the sale or block it, Yandex spokesman Mikhail Ushakov said. 
Sberbank won’t have a seat on the board of directors or participate in the management of the company. 
And Sberbank cannot sell the priority share without the consent of Yandex’s board of directors. 
The mechanism is similar to that introduced by Rosgosstrakh recently. The president took the company off the state’s list of strategic enterprises, and in return it received a “golden share,” giving it veto power on strategic issues. 
Giving the share to a state bank was Yandex’s idea, Ushakov said. Such a procedure will allow the company to preserve the principles of management outlined by the company’s founders: That no single group of shareholders can make a decision on the development of the company alone. 
A source close to Yandex shareholders said that, on the one hand, the move will save Yandex from hostile takeovers, but on the other hand, it guarantees that there won’t be a co-investor that does not see eye to eye with the government. 
“Yandex shareholders made this decision to provide transparency in the event of a change in shareholders as the company prepares for an initial public offering,” the company said in a press release. Yandex would not comment on plans for an IPO. 
The company intended to place shares on NASDAQ last fall, but the plan was interrupted by the crisis. 
The authorities became interested in Yandex last year. Kremlin officials expressed concern that foreign investment funds that held stakes might sooner or later want to sell them, and then the question would arise of who would get such an important Russian asset. 
Last fall, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service blocked Google from buying online advertising firm Begun. Despite the formal reasons given for the refusal, Google didn’t make a second attempt. In April, President Dmitry Medvedev said the state should control foreign investment in Internet companies. 
“The arrival of foreign investors in search engines, in large social networks, is unavoidable, of course. On the other hand, lest my words sound too conservative, we need to watch out for this. This is a question of security,” he said. 
Yandex is an infrastructure company and the state is not indifferent to who controls it, said an official familiar with the terms of the deal. 
Sberbank will become a de facto representative of the state and will be able to stave off foreigners wishing to gain control of the search engine, the official said. 
Asked if the Russian Internet had any other infrastructure companies, he said that there were only three or four of them, including Mail.ru, which already has a co-investor on the same page as the government. Alisher Usmanov owns about 30 percent of Digital Sky Technologies, the founding owner of Mail.ru. Last year he held talks on the purchase of Yandex, but didn’t reach a deal. 
State Duma Deputy Robert Shlegel, who is in the Duma’s working group for media legislation, said Yandex’s actions amounted to a gesture of good will, adding that the president or other officials cannot tell Internet entrepreneurs who they can partner with.

TITLE: Number of Funds Grows During Challenging Year
AUTHOR: By Daniil Zhelobanov
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — The number of mutual funds and asset management companies is on the rise, even in the aftermath of the financial crisis. 
Since last September, the Federal Financial Markets Service has annulled a record number of management company licenses — 45 in all, or almost one per week, according to statistics from the National League of Management Companies. The number stands in sharp contrast to the period from September 2007 to September 2008, when only three licenses were annulled. 
But even as funds and asset management companies went out of business at a record rate, new companies were quick to take their place — 59 new licenses were given out in the same period. And while the rate of licensing is down by at least 50 percent compared with pre-crisis times, the total number of asset management companies has grown from 519 to 532 in the last 12 months, while the number of companies that work with mutual funds has grown from 298 to 325. 
Now could be the right time to start an asset management company, as a newly hatched enterprise wouldn’t have to look for excuses to justify its poor performance during the crisis, said Natalya Plugar, director of VTB Asset Management. 
This year appeared to be a period of utter devastation for all forms of collective investment — since last September, mutual funds alone have lost 140 billion rubles ($4.7 billion), not including assets held in trusts. This, however, did not stop the number of registered mutual funds from growing by 10 percent in the same period — from 1,081 to 1,188, while the number of open-ended mutual funds shrank by 62 and the number of closed-end funds rose by 101, National League of Management Companies data showed. Funds might have lost a share of their assets to more conservative investments, but there is no doubt that the sector will survive, Plugar said. 
While retail mutual funds may have lost their attractiveness to some investors, the industry has been growing because of the success of other funds, namely, closed-end funds and funds for qualified investors. Over 40 bond funds have appeared on the market since the spring of 2008, when the law on mutual funds underwent several key amendments, said National League of Management Companies president Dmitry Alexandrov. The crisis has shifted perceptions of mutual funds as well — while they were once viewed as an investment “for grannies,” they are now more often seen as a well-regulated form of property with a comfortable tax load. The sector’s growth will continue, especially now that banks have taken an interest, Alexandrov said.

TITLE: Russia Can Help the U.S. in Afghanistan
AUTHOR: By Richard Weitz
TEXT: Preoccupation with Afghanistan’s disputed presidential election is understandable. Ending the country’s violence will require a government with both the legitimacy and capacity to tackle the underlying sources of the Taliban insurgency.
But achieving success in Afghanistan — defined as achieving a sustainable democratic regime able to contain political violence, prevent the reconstruction of a terrorist base with global reach and dampen a narcotics-funded insurgency that threatens neighboring countries — requires greater policy harmonization among the world powers that have a stake in the outcome.
Much recent attention has focused on how NATO, Afghan and Pakistani security forces can collaborate to defeat the insurgency and prevent the country from becoming a terrorist haven again. But the past few years have underscored NATO’s inability to achieve sustained political, economic and security improvements in Afghanistan without more effective international collaboration, particularly with China and Russia.
For several years, representatives of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose dominant members are China and Russia, have identified narcotics trafficking from Afghanistan as a major regional insecurity. NATO should use these concerns to explore potential collaboration on Afghan security issues. Securing additional assistance from China and Russia — to supplement the support already provided by the SCO’s Central Asian members, as well as SCO observers Pakistan and India — is imperative.
Afghanistan is an area of vital interest to the SCO. Its members are eager to assist the Afghan government to counter regional narcotics trafficking and terrorism. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been a regular guest at SCO summits since 2004 and has called on the SCO to make combating narcotics trafficking a priority. The members have established an SCO-Afghan Working Group to provide a coordinating mechanism for the large number of SCO initiatives that concern Afghanistan.
The convening of a special conference under SCO auspices in March further confirmed the unique status Afghanistan has obtained. The SCO and Afghan governments adopted a joint statement that expressed support for the efforts of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, to counter regional narcotics trafficking.
SCO members showed no interest in contributing troops to the ISAF, but the declaration did encourage “other countries … to participate in the collective efforts” to combat regional terrorism and to “consider taking part in transiting nonmilitary cargoes needed by ISAF.” Several SCO members are already assisting NATO countries to deliver supplies into Afghanistan, while Russia is allowing the United States to transport military items across its border into Central Asia and onward to Afghanistan.
This collaboration should be expanded because China and Russia, perhaps more than any other countries, share common interests with the West in Afghanistan. A major drug route passes from Afghanistan through Central Asia and into Russia and Europe. The lax regimes on Russia’s borders with the former Soviet republics of Central Asia facilitate the smuggling of narcotics and other contraband. The Taliban, and especially al-Qaida, have also used their positions in Afghanistan to support other Eurasian terrorist movements, especially the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and its various offshoots.
Although China is not situated along the “Northern Route” through which Afghan narcotics traditionally enter Central Asia and Europe, new trafficking networks have developed since 2005 that transport illicit drugs from Afghanistan through Pakistan and Central Asia into China. In addition, Chinese officials remain concerned about the Taliban’s ties with Islamic extremist groups advocating independence for China’s restive Xinjiang region.
Moreover, China has become a major economic stakeholder in Afghanistan. According to Chinese government figures, as of last year, 33 projects in Afghanistan involved Chinese companies. In May 2008, China obtained a major economic stake in Afghanistan when Chinese firms won a $3.5 billion contract to develop Afghanistan’s huge Aynak copper field. The contract also involves the construction of a power plant and a railroad connecting the mines to China through Pakistan. It represents the largest foreign direct investment project in Afghanistan’s history and creates hundreds of jobs.
Yet Chinese entrepreneurs are reluctant to invest in Afghanistan because of the widespread violence there. Insurgent attacks have killed 11 Chinese workers since 2004. Chinese investors would presumably eagerly acquire additional natural resources in Afghanistan if the security situation improved.
Since SCO members have stated that they are not prepared to provide combat troops to the NATO-led ISAF, closer collaboration should first concentrate on revitalizing the Afghan economy and providing alternative livelihoods to those involved in narcotics. Afghanistan’s long-term economic viability depends on the development of improved transportation, communication and other networks to better integrate the country into the regional economy.
China and Russia could provide economic assistance and investment to Afghanistan, creating more projects that provide Afghanistan with badly needed jobs and revenue. In turn, NATO and Afghan forces could assign troops to protect these projects from further attacks, ideally with some kind of Chinese and Russian financial assistance to blunt objections that Western soldiers are dying to enrich foreign companies. China’s close ties to Pakistan could also prove useful in assisting European and American efforts to keep the Pakistani military and intelligence services allied against the Taliban.
Meanwhile, all these international actors could help fund and train the Afghan army and national police. In the end, Afghans themselves will need to sustain the economic and security progress that foreign allies can only help to jump-start.

Richard Weitz is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute in Washington. © Project Syndicate

TITLE: Building a Normal Nation
AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer
TEXT: The footage from the sprawling Cherkizovsky Market that inundated Russian television after the authorities shut it down makes hair-raising viewing. But it is also part of a distressing story of how Russia is being savagely exploited. Millions of temporary migrants from China, Vietnam and the former Soviet republics are leading shadowy makeshift existence on its territory.
Of course, all wealthy countries attract guest workers, refugees and other transients. But Russia is probably the poorest country with such a huge influx of foreigners. This, coupled with widespread prejudice and police harassment, accounts for the absence of communities of assimilating newcomers who would regard Russia as their home rather than a place to make a few bucks and depart.
Stories about Cherkizovsky also feature its owner, Telman Ismailov, living it up among sickening nouveau-riche appurtenances in Turkey. But he is only the most conspicuous among carpetbagger oligarchs who seem to see Russia the same way Cherkizovsky peddlers do. This has nothing to do with ethnicity or place of birth, of course. Plenty of ethic Russian businessmen share this attitude, while some immigrants try to build viable businesses here against all odds.
Moreover, Russian government officials seem concerned only with stuffing their own pockets, even though corruption undermines the economy and destroys productive jobs. Their rhetoric may be nationalistic and even xenophobic, but their actions damage Russian national interests. They typically send their kids to study abroad and obtain foreign residency permits — just in case the joyride comes to an end.
The problem goes back to the Bolsheviks, who thought Russia would inspire a global revolution. The Soviet Union became the only country in the world to be called by a string of political terms, without a reference to an actual place. Even though it became a socialism-in-one-country project, Soviet leaders still saw it less as a nation and more as a target for social experimentation.
After the collapse of communism, early oligarchs displayed a Soviet-era attitude, milking their newly acquired properties and shifting assets abroad. But by the late 1990s they grew more confident. Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky became the first citizen-oligarch who tried to improve the country in which he genuinely intended to live and raise his children.
Most Russians still doubt his intentions and believe that his only goal was to make himself rich. Similarly, extensive philanthropy by billionaire George Soros is considered in Russia a ploy to promote his business interests. Unlike Americans, who respect their rich as captains of industry, Russians can’t conceive of a businessman as being anything but a thief and a carpetbagger.
Khodorkovsky’s arrest and the government seizure of Yukos brought back Soviet-era attitudes. Russian business leaders nod obsequiously whenever the Kremlin talks of social responsibility, but most couldn’t care less about Russia’s well-being and are ready to decamp at a moment’s notice.
But a change may now be brewing at the very top. The siloviki clans have been in power for a decade. At first they were busy grabbing assets, but now they have consolidated their position, and with the election of President Dmitry Medvedev they have established continuity. Once they start thinking of their future here, they can’t help wishing Russia to be a “normal” nation.
Medvedev’s recent statements, including his September article “Go Russia!” may be the first step toward such normalization.

Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.

TITLE: Kremlin ‘Forced’ Yeltsin to Live in a ‘Golden Cage’
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Boris Yeltsin spent his retirement in a “golden cage,” his phone tapped and the Kremlin controlling his visitors, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said in excerpts from a forthcoming book. 
Vladimir Putin, who replaced Yeltsin as president in 2000, forced Yeltsin to celebrate his 75th birthday in the Kremlin and controlled the guest list, Kasyanov wrote in his memoir, excerpts of which were published in the opposition weekly The New Times this week. 
“Yeltsin was very upset that they forced him to celebrate his birthday in the Kremlin and not as he wanted, freely, informally,” Kasyanov wrote in the book. 
“I think he then finally understood that he was living as a prisoner in a golden cage. To accept this fact was of course a tragedy for him,” he said. 
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had not read the excerpts and was unable to comment. 
Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly on Dec. 31, 1999, making Putin acting president. 
Kasyanov said he befriended Yeltsin in 2000, visiting him at his dacha and going on hunting trips. Yeltsin took an active interest in government affairs until Putin told Kasyanov to put an end to ministers’ visits because of the retired president’s “weak heart,” according to the excerpts. 
“It was polite, but in essence a command: no one should visit Yeltsin any more,” Kasyanov said. 
Yeltsin spent his retirement in a luxurious government-owned mansion and was often seen at major sports events. But he remained out of public politics even after Putin began to reverse his democratic reforms. 
Kasyanov served as prime minister during Putin’s first term as president until he was fired in February 2004, shortly before the election in which Putin won a second term in office. Kasyanov soon entered the opposition and heads the Russian Popular Democratic Union. He was barred from running in the 2008 presidential election. 
Yeltsin backed Kasyanov’s decision to go into the opposition, according to the book. While he opposed some of Putin’s decisions, such as abolishing direct gubernatorial elections, he kept quiet to protect his family, Kasyanov said. 
Kasyanov’s visits ended after Putin decided to celebrate Yeltsin’s 75th birthday in the Kremlin, according to the book. Kasyanov said that when he called to offer his congratulations, Yeltsin complained that his phone was bugged. 
“It’s hard to see how all this is happening around me,” Kasyanov cites Yeltsin as saying. 
Yeltsin ended his life in luxury when he died in 2007 at the age of 76, but much of his political legacy had been erased. 
Kasyanov said he and Yeltsin met for the final time in 2006, when Yeltsin had to intervene so that Kasyanov would be allowed to visit him in the hospital with a broken hip. Kasyanov said Yeltsin advised him to buy a lot of cheap mobile phones that he could easily dispose of to avoid being bugged. 
“You have to recognize that the first Russian president himself consented to this lack of freedom,” Kasyanov said. “He paid for it with a great feeling of unease.”  
(SPT, Bloomberg)

TITLE: Iran Tests Longest-Range Missiles
AUTHOR: By Ali Akbar Dareini
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran — Iran tested its longest-range missiles Monday, capping two days of war games aimed at showing that the country is ready for any military threat at a time when it is under intense international pressure to fully disclose its nuclear activities.
State television said the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which controls Iran’s missile program, successfully tested upgraded versions of the medium-range Shahab-3 and Sajjil missiles. Both can carry warheads and reach up to 2,000 kilometers, putting Israel, U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and parts of Europe within striking distance.
“Iranian missiles are able to target any place that threatens Iran,” said Abdollah Araqi, a top Revolutionary Guard commander, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
The missile tests began Sunday, two days after the U.S. and its allies disclosed that Iran had been secretly developing an underground uranium enrichment facility and warned the country it must open the site to international inspection or face harsher international sanctions.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi said the missile tests had nothing to do with the tension over the site, saying it was part of routine, long-planned military exercises.
The newly revealed nuclear site has given greater urgency to a key meeting on Thursday in Geneva between Iran and six major powers trying to stop its suspected nuclear weapons program.
Alex Vatanka, a senior Middle East analyst at IHS Jane’s, said Tehran was conducting missile tests now “to show some muscle, show some strength, and say the game is not over for Iran yet.” He noted the upcoming meeting in Geneva.
“They felt going into these meetings ... that they needed to have something else to bolster their position, and I think that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard showing a bit of military muscle here is part of that,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she doesn’t believe Iran can convince the U.S. and other world powers at the upcoming meeting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, as Tehran has long claimed. That puts Tehran on a course for tougher economic penalties beyond the current “leaky sanctions,” she said.
The nuclear site is located in the arid mountains near the holy city of Qom and is believed to be inside a heavily guarded, underground facility belonging to the Revolutionary Guard, according to a document sent by President Barack Obama’s administration to lawmakers.
Qashqavi, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, identified the site as Fordo, a village located 180 kilometers south of the capital Tehran. The site is 100 kilometers away from Natanz, Iran’s known industrial-scale uranium enrichment plant.
After strong condemnations from the U.S. and its allies, Iran said Saturday it will allow UN nuclear inspectors to examine the site.

TITLE: France, Poland Want Polanski Out on Bail
AUTHOR: By Bradley Klapper and Onna Coray
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ZURICH — The international tug-of-war over Roman Polanski escalated Monday as France and Poland urged Switzerland to free the 76-year-old director on bail and pressed U.S. officials all the way up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the case.
Polanski was in his third day of detention after Swiss police arrested him Saturday on an international warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival.
A complicated legal process awaited all sides as the United States sought to secure his extradition for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl and fleeing to France a year later.
The Swiss Justice Ministry on Monday did not rule out the possibility that Polanski, director of such classic films as “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” could be released on bail under very strict conditions that he doesn’t flee Switzerland.
Justice spokesman Guido Balmer said such an arrangement is “not entirely excluded” under Swiss law and that Polanski could file a motion on bail.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he hoped Polanski could be freed quickly by the Swiss, calling the apprehension a “bit sinister.” He also told France-Inter radio that he and his Polish counterpart Radek Sikorski wrote to Clinton, and said there could be a decision as early as Monday if a Swiss court accepts bail.
Polanski was “thrown to the lions,” said French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand. “In the same way that there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America that has just shown its face.”
Polanski, who has dual French-Polish citizenship, has hired Swiss attorney Lorenz Erni to represent him in Switzerland, according to the law firm Eschmann & Erni.
Polanski seems most likely to spend several months in detention, unless he agrees to forgo any challenge to his extradition to the United States. Under a 1990 accord between Switzerland and the U.S., Washington has 60 days to submit a formal request for his transfer. Rulings in a similar dispute four years ago over Russia’s former atomic energy minister Yevgeny Adamov confirmed that subjects should be held in custody throughout the procedure.
That means the procedure for extradition could also be lengthy for the United States. Its request for Polanski’s transfer must first be examined by the Swiss Justice Ministry, and once approved it can be appealed at a number of courts.
The 2005 saga over Adamov’s extradition, eventually to Russia and not the U.S., took seven months. The case also sets a possible precedent for France, which may wish to try one of its own nationals in a domestic court rather than in Los Angeles.
For now, Polanski is living in a Zurich cell where he receives three meals a day and is allowed outside for one hour of daily exercise.
Rebecca de Silva, spokeswoman for the Zurich prison authorities, refused to say exactly where Polanski was being held for security reasons, but said cells are usually single or double occupancy and that each room contains a table, storage compartment, sink, toilet and television.
Family and friends can only see Polanski for an hour each week, but that does not include official visits from lawyers and consular diplomats, de Silva said.

TITLE: Business Education Adapts to Recession
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Management is a flexible industry. The development of business in the regions and changes in the global economy have had an impact on all companies, from the smallest to the largest international firms. Consequently, management as a science is changing to adapt to the new conditions, and business education programs cannot therefore fail to do the same.
“It is wrong for specialists to teach management without reference to new concepts and theories,” said Sergei Fyodorov, CEO of the Open Business School in St. Petersburg. “So it is quite normal when educational programs are fully updated, including not only references to experts, but the whole method of presenting the material.”
The extent of the changes depends on the resources of the school. The Open Business School offers British programs that are updated every five years. Its courses are attended by 1,500 students per year. 
“It is obvious that with such numbers of students, investment in the quality of education can be very significant,” said Fyodorov.
There are, however, programs that do not depend on the economic situation and cannot be changed. Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School experts cite financial accounting among such unshakable disciplines. It will remain the same at any time, since it is a standard language of business. 
There is currently a strong globalization trend on the business education market, though just a few years ago the idea of a Russian approach to management was very widespread. 
“Today everyone understands that the notion of management is the same for everybody, and that CEOs should share a general view of the situation,” said Fyodorov.
“Of course, there are cultural peculiarities, and the stage the company is at and its economic development may play a role, but the intelligent leader sees all opportunities and makes a decision within that context.”
The general trend in business education is the use of international management experience in creating programs.
“People have changed their attitude to business education,” said Igor Baranov, first deputy dean of the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg State University. “They regard studying for MBA programs as a long-term investment in their future and in the development of their skills.” 
The economic crisis has brought with it a global trend of reduction in the number of people whose MBA is paid for by their employer, with many leading business schools having observed such a trend. Cuts in spending on employees’ development are noticeable in many fields, especially those connected to education. Whether it is an MBA or language course, today’s employees are increasingly having to sponsor their own studies.
When people are paying for their own education, they generally become more discerning when selecting courses and tend to have many demands. 
“In this case it is not the company who chooses the school and pays,” said Baranov. “People make the decision themselves, taking into account a whole range of factors.”
The quality of education is just one of them. Another deciding factor is the other people on the course — it is important for students to develop useful contacts.
An MBA is not just an opportunity to improve one’s career outlook, according to Vlerick’s specialists. Instead, it is a high-level networking opportunity, in which participants can learn from the experience of their classmates, systematize existing knowledge obtained from their professional life and improve their leadership and management skills.
Business education, according to Vlerick’s specialists, is also a chance to look at things from a different point of view and rejuvenate oneself; to give one’s personal development a boost.
“The most significant factors in choosing the school and program are the format of study, the convenience of the conditions, and the technical support that allows students to spend their non-contact time efficiently,” said the Graduate School of Management’s Baranov.
As the majority of MBA students are self-sponsors, demand for an effective education structure has also emerged as a new trend. Schools understand such trends and try to satisfy demand. They now offer many distance-learning options and set more tasks that can be done in groups using the Internet.
“All changes that help to use the out-of-class time efficiently are very valuable,” said Baranov.
“The most popular MBA programs are still those that are taught in formats convenient for busy people,” said the Open Business School’s Fyodorov. “These are modular, combined, part-time or distance-learning educational formats.”
“During the 20 years that business education has existed in Russia, it is still impossible to talk about steady demand for full-time MBA programs,” he added.
Demand for business education generally comes from adults who have felt the need to study the basic elements of management or get an MBA degree during their career growth. 
“In most cases, these people do not have the chance to take a break from their career for a year or two,” said Fyodorov. “They have to continue to develop professionally, combining their education with work.”
Vlerick’s experts are however observing increasing demand around the world for full-time MBAs, as many professionals take a conscious break from their career in order to evaluate past experience and study in order to improve their future prospects. Vlerick is seeing huge growth in demand for the full-time format, and student numbers have doubled this year.
A different motivation from the basic MBA can be discerned in executive education, which appeals to experienced executives in senior positions in business. Most executive MBA students pay for their own education, and their main aim is not only to get a particular diploma, but to obtain firm knowledge of different subjects and gain useful new contacts. According to Vlerick’s analysts, executive MBA students need to acquire more skills and tools for doing business in a new economic situation and in order to solidify their position at the top in a changing environment.

TITLE: Foreign Programs Still Appeal
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Martyanova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: St. Petersburg State University’s Graduate School of Management, Sistema and Sberbank will bring to Russia a pan-European Master’s International Business CEMS program. While the program and other top competitors will raise the standards of Russian business education, they won’t be able to stem the tide of students leaving to study abroad.
Heidi Ohman, a 27-year-old from Finland, is your average young European who has decided to build a career in business. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in international business in 2005, she began working in logistics and then moved to a technology company.
“But I soon realized that I had neither the degree nor the knowledge that would give me an advantage in business,” Ohman said. Last year she enrolled in a two-year master’s program in management at the Helsinki School of Economics, and in September she continued her studies at St. Petersburg State University’s Graduate School of Management.
Ohman and another 19 graduate students were the first to come to St. Petersburg for a one-year CEMS MIM program (ranked third in the Financial Times’ 2008 ratings). This semester they will study with 65 second-year students from the Graduate School of Management’s master’s program, and next semester they will be in another country.
When the program ends, Ohman and another 700 young people studying the same course in various countries will receive degrees from their national management school and from the CEMS MIM program. “The Russian experience should help me build a good career as an expert on Russia,” she said.
The Community of European Management Schools — CEMS — was created more than 20 years ago specially for the Master’s in International Management, or MIM, course of study.
It was something of an experiment at the time. Unlike the U.S. model, the program was designed for people with no work experience, although a minimum 10-week internship at one of the companies in the alliance is a mandatory part of the program.
MIM programs have become popular in recent years, and the Financial Times has begun rating them, said Della Bradshaw, the newspaper’s business education editor. The newspaper has always found that graduates of the CEMS MIM program get better jobs and higher salaries than students who received regular degrees from CEMS universities. The diploma is better received by companies that do international business than one from a national university, said professor Stefano Caselli, academic director of the CEMS MIM program at Bocconi University.
Only one university per country can join the CEMS MIM program, and it is required to bring in two major, local employers. St. Petersburg’s Graduate School of Management became a full-fledged member in December 2008, while Sistema and Sberbank are expected to be chosen as corporate partners by the end of the year.
Sistema spokeswoman Yulia Belous said the company was interested in joining CEMS because it wants to have a team of world-class managers, and the CEMS program gives students a chance to learn the best global management practices. Sberbank was not able to comment on the matter.
Russian management programs are approaching the European level, said Nikolai Filinov, dean of the management department at the Higher School of Economics, a state university. He pointed to their inclusion in dual-degree programs with some of the world’s best business schools and participation in groups like the CEMS MIM.
The department, which has 202 students in 2009, has five dual-degree programs, and about 15 percent of students — or 31, this year — study abroad.
Dual-degree master’s programs are still a rarity in Russia. Demand for them is stable at the Institute of Business Studies, said Yevgenia Pashkevich, director of the master’s program. The school has an average of six or seven students — one-quarter of the class — who choose dual-diploma programs as  part of the international IBSA alliance, while three to five people from alliance schools study each semester in Moscow.
Moscow State University’s Graduate School of Business Administration is planning to open a similar program, which will allow the school to meet students’ interest in opportunities abroad, said Tatyana Kireyeva, director of the master’s program there.
Legal obstacles have made it difficult to attract foreign students, however. “Some of our classes are taught in English, but we are not legally allowed to do everything in English like they are in St. Petersburg,” she said.
St. Petersburg State University received special permission for its program. In two years, the school expects to have about 40 to 50 students from Europe each semester, said Dmitry Volkov, director of the master’s program.
Those numbers are out of reach for other schools, said Alla Zhavoronkova, head of Begin Group, a company that works with business schools.
Valery Katkalo, dean of St. Petersburg’s Graduate School of Management, said the school had been building its business according to international standards since its creation in 1993.
The European mainstream expects a school to have an international brand, classes taught in English and a group of students and professors from around the world, said Jean-Pierre Helfer, dean of the Audencia business school in Nantes (ranked 11th by the FT in 2008).
At HEC Paris — which for four years has led the FT list for best master’s programs — the number of international students has doubled in the past five years to 25 percent, or 121 of 488, said Bernard Ramanantsoa, the school’s dean and CEMS president.
Some 30,000 people from the Commonwealth of Independent States go abroad annually for graduate studies, according to UNESCO.
Zhavoronkova, of Begin Group, said it was hard to break down those figures but that most were on exchange programs. Those who go abroad for their degrees are planning to stay, she said. 
Modern programs won’t be able to reduce the outflow of students, but they will create new standards, which is important for the Russian market, where not all business schools even have a career center, she said.

TITLE: Languages Remain in Fashion
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Crisis or no crisis, studying foreign languages does not seem to wax and wane in popularity in Russia. St. Petersburg’s thriving language schools are ample evidence of this.
“In Soviet times there was the myth of ‘abroad,’ wonderful countries that everyone dreamed of going to,” said Stanislav Chernyshov, director of Extra Class Language Center. “Ever since then, intelligent, educated Russians have strived to achieve that aim.”
“When the country is prospering, people study languages in order to travel, as such knowledge gives them the opportunity to get the most enjoyment out of fulfilling this dream,” he said. “In difficult times, they continue their education with the aim of moving abroad or looking for a job at a Western company.”
Whatever people’s reasons may be for learning languages, the conclusion remains the same: The crisis is the best time for studying foreign languages, according to many experts.
“Studying languages has great potential,” said Natalya Moroz, head of the Swiss Center international language school. “In times of crisis it is logical to pay attention to education.” 
Language schools agree that the economic crisis has not dulled Russians’ appetites for studying foreign languages. A large percentage of students resumed their courses in the autumn, and the number of applications has not decreased. 
The demand from foreigners wishing to study Russian has, however, declined. 
“There are many students who wanted to learn Russian but then cancelled their courses,” said Chernyshov. “They explained honestly that they had lost their job, or, quite the opposite, had found a new one and could not leave it to come to Russia.” 
Among the foreigners who are not afraid of the crisis are students from Eastern Europe and Croatia – countries in which Russian is spoken as a native language by some of the population. 
“These countries – the new members of the EU – are intermediaries between Russia and Western Europe,” said Chernyshov. “Large international companies regard, for example, Poles as insiders, but at the same time they are close to Russia, Russian traditions, culture and language.”
Students from these countries often represent large companies in Russia, and they need language skills to do business. Another category of learners consists of professionals from the tourism industry, such as ski instructors from the elite European resorts that have become extremely popular among wealthy Russians.
Despite the lower student numbers, demand for the Russian language has saved several language schools. 
Russians themselves, however, are demonstrating increased interest in more unusual languages. 
“There are many Greek expatriates in St. Petersburg, and there is a high demand for Modern Greek,” said Moroz. 
The popularity of different languages, even English, can vary from year to year.
“English is not so popular now,” said Moroz. “Perhaps it is just the beginning of the season and there will be more students later, but in September demand was low. There are however many students who have lived in France and can speak French, but simply want to add structure to their language.” 
A few years ago, northern European languages were highly popular among Russians. Later, however, this trend began to decline in favor of English, and only a few such groups remained in the city. 
“We had many students with a good knowledge of English who wished to improve their skills,” said Chernyshov. “People felt like citizens of the world, like a part of the West.
“But now they mostly choose the languages of countries with a strong economy, like Norway, Holland or Sweden. Without wishing to offend these countries, it is clear that students prefer their languages not due to an interest in their culture or for traveling – it would be enough to know English if they simply wanted to visit these places as a tourist.”
The Norwegian group at Extra Class Language Centre consists mostly of unmarried women, along with a handful of qualified computer specialists who probably plan to move abroad, Chernyshov said.
An important sector for most language schools is corporate programs. Here, the situation may differ from the general trends recorded among individual students. 
Foreign companies sometimes send their employees abroad to learn a language. Employers cannot afford to wait for months, so they usually choose intensive courses of 40 hours per week. As a result, the employee learns a lot in a short period of time before returning to work.
Several years ago there was similar demand from native companies working on the international market, but in difficult times, corporate courses are not as popular.  
“Investment in employees’ language education is not vital, so it becomes an area that can be reduced,” said Chernyshov. “Fortunately, there are people who are willing to pay for their studies themselves.”
Such trends have brought about changes in language school programs as they try to follow the demands of the market. 
“Our education center focuses on short-term courses and training in particular,” said Yelena Yarovaya, director of EgoRound educational center. “People don’t just want to study a general course of English, but to get specific ‘business English’ skills too.”
“Such programs are aimed at developing aspects such as telephone conversations, cross-cultural communication, and business correspondence,” she said.
There are of course many programs that are unaffected by the crisis, such as programs focusing on pronunciation.
Although reduced numbers of students can incur higher costs for the school, most language centers are trying not to raise prices for their courses for the time being. 
“Of course it results in additional expenses for the company, with general prices increasing and high rent, but we have chosen the strategy of retaining our clients,” said Yarovaya.
Heads of language schools advise potential linguists to avoid courses that seem suspiciously cheap, because it is likely to mean that the teachers are paid lower salaries, and therefore may be less qualified, if they are prepared to work for less than the going rate. A second important factor in deciding the fee is the location. Less expensive schools are generally situated far from the city center, and in premises that are not suitable for holding lessons. 
“Many clients search for a language school as if it were a cell phone - when people choose the model they like and look around for the cheapest price,” said Chernyshov. “But language school models differ from one another.” 
By trying to save money, students can not only waste time and money; they may even develop a complex about their lack of ability to learn a foreign language. Often, experts say, paying a bit more can help to save both time and money, as in just a few months, the students should feel that they are making progress.

TITLE: Days of MBA Are Numbered
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Martyanova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Former IMD president Peter Lorange sparked a revolution in the world of MBAs, turning a commercial business school into one of the best by contrasting it with universities’ programs. Now he thinks it’s time to get rid of diplomas altogether.
It took Professor Lorange’s ancient ancestors, the vikings, more than three centuries to conquer Europe and leave their mark on its history. A viking, according to famed researcher Fritz Askeberg, is above all a person who has broken from the traditional way of life and left his home. Lorange has had a dizzying career in the traditional world of university business schools, and in just 15 years he managed to surpass many of them in the global ratings.
Now he wants to turn their world upside down and take the lead for good. Peter Lorange explained in an interview with Vedomosti how this will happen and how long it will take.
<em>When you stepped down as IMD president [in the spring of 2008], you were planning to do research work. Recently, you were in Moscow on business for your school and the global alliance of management schools you’ve created. What’s changed since then?</em>
Later this year Cambridge University Press will release my new book, “Shipping Strategy,” which is about how to manage companies during a crisis. So, I’m still busy with research. I want this book to help people understand that there isn’t any crisis, and that business is cyclical. Indeed, this is the best time for innovation, which is why I accepted an offer to buy GSBA Zurich from its founder and owner, Albert Stahli, when I left IMD.
<em>The future of business education has been one of the hottest topics of discussion during the crisis. What sort of changes are needed?</em>
All businesses need constant renewal, and you can’t find a much more conservative sector than universities. Many teachers have gotten out of the habit of listening and have locked themselves up with their research. First and foremost, it’s time to ask companies about their problems and then find the right professors. As a rule, clients are now offered a course of study, which is formed from the list of classes and teachers the business school already has.
<em>When you bought GSBA Zurich, a relatively unknown management school, you wanted to turn it into a world leader like you once did with IMD. How?</em>
My fundamental idea is that the future belongs to modular and evening programs for adults, both nondegree executive education and with degrees [EMBA, Global MBA]. The past few years, more and more people who pass the GMAT are choosing things other than full-time MBA programs. I’m certain that the days of the full-time MBA are numbered. No one really needs academic knowledge or diplomas anymore. Experience is much more important.
A small management school like GSBA Zurich has all the prerequisites to become a world leader in corporate education and training programs. It’s an unusual school, with 65 professors — all without tenure — giving lectures and doing research through the living case method. The system involves students solving the real problems of companies, which need help from a consultant. The solution is defended in front of the company’s top managers.
<em>How far along is the World Executive Education Alliance?</em>
Last December, five management schools from different continents united under the program, which is tentatively being called the World Exec. MBA. They are national leaders in the market of short-term programs for managers. From Russia, we have the Moscow International Higher Business School, or Mirbis, one of the oldest and most established business schools. Students at any of the partners will receive a World Exec. MBA degree from their school by taking two-week courses on various subjects and doing “live case” work at all of the alliance’s schools. IMD uses a similar modular scheme, where top managers can choose one course, and then choose several more, ultimately converting them into an EMBA degree.
The project is still at the experimental stage. We’re in talks with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Wharton. It’s important that we find partners in the United States and Asia. For now, the alliance is discussing admissions policy, professors and topics for live cases.
The alliance seems similar to Duke University’s global partnership.
Duke’s main partner is Duke. Life has made me a dedicated minimalist when it comes to organizational structure. Firms with horizontal, network structures see the best growth. There is very little hierarchy at IMD, and there will be even less in the alliance we’re creating. For us, everyone is equal.
<em>GBSA Zurich and several other members of the alliance do not have the highest accreditation level. Will that be an obstacle to the project?</em>
Two of the alliance’s five schools have the accreditation, including the Russian business school, Mirbis. We need to receive accreditation, and we will. I’m using all of my influence, including with the accrediting organizations at which I’m in the management. Though personally, I think the accreditation system was out-of-date 15 years ago. American universities’ business schools think they’re the only ones setting trends, and that the rest of the world should copy them. The experience of IMD and Insead, both independent, shows that business schools aren’t such a select club anymore. My ideas are a threat to the American schools. But they can’t get in my way — I have six honorary doctorate degrees from various business schools.
The biggest problem is skepticism from alliance members. It’s really a matter of understanding that only a global partnership can push the Americans out of the driver’s seat. Wait three or four years.

TITLE: Public Lectures Are All the Rage
AUTHOR: By Ksenia Galouchko and Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Nightlife in St. Petersburg and Moscow has changed during the last year. You can still find alcohol-drenched debauchery, if that is what you want. But now you can also increasingly opt to go and hear a lecture on constructivism or art history.
“The financial crisis has made people reconsider their values and use of time, and people have begun searching for alternative ways of spending their free time,” said Danil Perushev, of the web site Theoryandpractice.ru, which was created to help people find upcoming lectures and talks in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
“Moscow has always offered many lecture options, but the only way people could find out about them was through word of mouth or through professional circles. We — four friends — decided to create a web site where people could share lecture information with other users,” Perushev said.
The web site is a good tool for finding out what is happening lecture-wise in the two capitals. A glance shows information on a dozen or so lectures in Moscow, including a talk by Vladimir Dolgov, head of Google Russia, how to photograph nature by Chris Jones, a National Geographic photographer and a lecture on the Christianization of England.
Before, lectures were mainly limited to museums. The Hermitage Museum and State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Tretyakov Gallery and Pushkin Museum in Moscow have long held lectures on art history, but now talks can be found on fashion, literature, ecology and economics, and increasingly at trendy restaurants and modern art centers like St. Petersburg’s Academy of Photography and Masterskiye T&V, as well as Moscow’s Winzavod and Garage.
On Oct. 21, the Dutch Culture Institute in St. Petersburg is hosting a lecture by Mieke Bal, a top-flight Dutch culturologist and critic. Titled “Intercultural Narrative,” the lecture begins at 6.30 p.m., and can be attended free of charge, although accreditation with the Dutch Culture Institute is necessary.
Mieke Bal is a professor of Theory of Literature and a founding director of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA). 
Born in 1946, Professor Bal has been awarded an Academy Professorship for her original contributions to narratology and her application of the principles of literary theory to the visual arts. Her work has won her international respect and recognition. One example of her highly praised scientific work is her trilogy on the bible from a feminist perspective. Her application of the principles of literary theory to the visual arts is highly innovative, bold and imaginative. 
“Even as a child, my siblings teased me that I was always teaching,” Bal wrote on her web site, www.miekebal.org. “It’s something I was born to do. But teaching, in my experience, is nothing like lecturing ‘at’ people. It is communicative; sharing the excitement of discovering how things work. Also, disagreeing seemed almost a hobby; discussion a favorite pastime. Hence, I started to teach as soon as I could, and have done so at all levels, from middle school to high school, college, university, BA, MA and PhD.”
On Sept. 29, Anna Gryazeva will deliver a lecture titled “New Journalism: Text on the Net” at Masterskiye T&V. A journalist and teacher at T&V, Gryazeva will speak about contemporary media trends, issues and phenomena such as the social media boom, the much-debated “death of print publications,” emerging civic journalism and bloggers vs professional journalists, as well as touching upon other topics.
On Oct. 9, the St. Petersburg Academy of Photography will play host to Dmitry Bulgakov’s master-class on portrait photography and the use of available light.
“Master classes are a great opportunity for working people to get up to speed on their interests or discover a new hobby over the course of a week instead of spending money and time on a second higher degree,” said Irina Chebutar, a student at the British School of Design in Moscow.
“Until recent times, cultural knowledge was unfashionable in this city,” said Dmitry Barsenkov, who attended a lecture on photography at Bubbles caf? in Moscow. “To attract young people to cultural events, you need to combine them with quality marketing, such as hosting them at trendy cafes.”
Large crowds have attended many of the lectures, which cover topics such as Soviet workers’ clubs and their architecture, and  organizers recommend coming at least 40 minutes before a lecture in order to get a seat.

The St. Petersburg Academy of Photography. 31, Furshtatskaya Ulitsa. Tel.:(812) 244-05-46. www.photoacademy.ru

Masterskiye T&V. 24, Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt (Bankirsky Dom building. The entrance is through the arch, under the “Zlatoust Teaching Center” sign), office 25. Tel.: +7-911-955-54-09. Email: masterskie.tnv@gmail.com

The Dutch Culture Institute in St. Petersburg. 3, Kaluzhsky Pereulok.Tel.: (812) 327-08-87. www.nispb.ru

www.theoryandpractice.ru

TITLE: Internet User Slowdown Attributed to Crisis
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Virtually no Russians have become new Internet users in the past year, state pollster VTsIOM said Thursday.
Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they never use the Internet, the same number VTsIOM found when it conducted a similar survey a year ago. The poll was conducted earlier this month among 1,600 people in 42 regions and republics.
Seventy-six percent of respondents said they were not Internet users when polled in September 2006.
“We attribute the slowdown … to the financial crisis,” VTsIOM spokeswoman Olga Kamenchuk said. “People chose to save on getting connected to the Internet or don’t buy computers at all.”
Russia has one of the smallest percentages of Internet users among developed nations. Eighty percent of Americans are online, according to the Digital Future study.
As few as 2 percent of Russians use the Internet to shop, while 23 percent use it for work. Fourteen percent said they follow the news online, and 12 percent use it for educational purposes, the poll showed. Thirty-eight percent use the Internet to socialize. Of those who do use the Internet, 76 percent said they were members of social networks.
Thirty-six percent of people aged 18 to 24 use the Internet, while just 3 percent of Russians aged 60 or older go online. Forty percent of Americans older than 66 go online, Digital Future found.