SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1514 (76), Friday, October 2, 2009
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TITLE: Reporter Says Criticism Of Soviets Led
To Threats
AUTHOR: By Ben Judah and David Nowak
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A journalist says he has been threatened with physical violence and forced into hiding after posting a web article critical of defenders of Soviet history.
Alexander Podrabinek, 56, a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner, accuses the Russian government of being behind what he calls a campaign of harassment — a charge the government denies.
About 20 red-jacketed activists with the Nashi youth group, which has close ties to top Russian officials, picketed outside Podrabinek’s apartment building Thursday after setting up large protest signs on the sidewalk.
They filtered through the building asking Podrabinek’s neighbors to sign a petition.
The journalist’s wife, Alla, who was at home, told The Associated Press that she, her husband and teenage daughter were the target of “completely disgusting harassment.”
Podrabinek became the focus of nationalist anger after he published an article Sept. 21 criticizing Moscow authorities and military veterans for pressuring a local restaurant to drop the name “Anti-Soviet,” which they claimed insulted Russia’s past.
“They have made psychological threats against my family and threats of physical violence against me,” Podrabinek said in an interview late Wednesday.
Nashi launched a petition drive demanding law enforcement officials charge Podrabinek with defamation for his comments in the online publication Yezhednevny Zhurnal. Nashi also demanded Podrabinek apologize to World War II veterans.
A Nashi spokeswoman denied the harassment charge. “To say we are harassing him — this is all conjured up,” said Kristina Potupchik. “We are not harassing him, we are supporting the veterans that he offended.”
Podrabinek said he had not criticized all veterans, just those who defend the Communist system. “I did insult the veterans of Communism but not the veterans of the war against Nazism,” he said. “My opponents are trying not to notice the distinction I made.”
He accused the government, including “probably the Kremlin administration and Vladimir Putin,” of being behind the campaign against him.
“They want to limit freedom of speech in Russia,” Podrabinek said. “This is why they are doing this. They are gradually taking us back to the Soviet Union.”
Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov said Nashi’s threats against Podrabinek were part of a larger effort to rehabilitate Soviet-era leader Josef Stalin, which he asserted was being orchestrated in part by Prime Minister Putin’s ruling United Russia party.
“The Russian state has developed an alarming pattern of using careerist Russian youths in Nashi, which is controlled by United Russia, to attack its enemies,” Ponomaryov said. “The creeping rehabilitation of Stalin is designed to pave the way for the return of Putin as an autocratic leader.”
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Putin, said the allegation has “no foundation whatsoever.”
Clashes over the interpretation of Russia’s troubled 20th century history have intensified in recent years, as Moscow has dusted off many of the symbols of the Soviet Union, including the music of the Soviet national anthem and the red star symbol of the Soviet military.
Elsa Vidal of Reporters Without Borders called Podrabinek “the victim of a climate of fear and hatred that has been spreading across Russia as nationalism promoted by the Kremlin grows in strength.”
Roman Shleinov, investigative editor at the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which is often critical of Kremlin policy, said Nashi members had come to its Moscow offices looking for Podrabinek, who has written for the paper in the past.
“The whole thing looks like a Soviet witch-hunt to persecute those that think differently,” he said.
Podrabinek said his case is evidence that Russia is building a new totalitarian state.
“In Russia the totalitarian model is being revived and if it is not stopped it will again pose a threat to our citizens of the world,” he said. “I am not the first victim and I won’t be the last.”
TITLE: EU Lays Blame for 2008 War on Georgia
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Georgia bears the brunt of the guilt for starting the war over South Ossetia last summer, but Russia also committed a number of violations of international law, the European Union said in a much anticipated report published Wednesday.
Despite criticism directed at both sides, Moscow and Tbilisi reacted positively to the report, each ostensibly picking the parts that suited its case most.
“In the mission’s view it was Georgia which triggered the war when it attacked Tskhinvali with heavy artillery on the night of 7 to 8 August 2008,” Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, head of an independent fact-finding mission on the conflict, said in e-mailed comments Wednesday.
The 1,150-page report, published online at Ceiig.ch, firmly rejected the main justification for the attack offered by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, saying flatly that “there was no massive Russian military invasion underway, which had to be stopped by Georgian military forces shelling Tskhinvali,” the capital of South Ossetia.
The report, however, also blames Russia for a substantial number of violations of international law. It lists the mass conferral of Russian citizenship to a majority of people living in South Ossetia and Abkhazia as a violation that happened well before the conflict.
Russian passports had been distributed to the local populations for years before 2008, and Moscow justified its large-scale military intervention after the Georgian attack by saying it had a duty to protect its citizens.
The report also charges that Russia’s military action on Georgian territory went “far beyond the needs of a proportionate defense of Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali,” who had come under fire in the Georgian attack.
Additionally, the authors say Moscow’s subsequent recognition of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states “must be considered as being not valid in the context of international law, and as violations of Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
The report also denies Russian allegations that Georgia carried out genocide against the South Ossetian population. “On the other side, there are serious allegations that ethnic cleansing did take place in many instances against ethnic Georgians,” Tagliavini said.
Moscow applauded the report’s findings about the attack on Tskhinvali but said the accusations of rights violations were ambiguous and would not stand up to scrutiny.
“We can only welcome that the commission found that the war was started by Georgia,” Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told reporters.
The Foreign Ministry rejected the report’s allegations of disproportionate use of force. “In the same report, you can find arguments showing the artificial character of this,” the ministry said in a statement on its web site.
It said Russian forces had only attacked the positions that had been used to attack South Ossetia.
“The ambiguous formulations reflect the politicized approach of many EU countries toward the conflict,” the statement said.
Most Western governments criticized Russia during the conflict and no country has followed it in recognizing the two regions’ independence, except Nicaragua and Venezuela. Moscow maintains that Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s split from Georgia cannot be reversed.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also noted gleefully that the report pointed a finger at countries that trained and equipped the Georgian armed forces. The report mentions Washington’s “extensive military aid program” with reportedly more than 100 U.S. military advisers in the Georgian armed forces in August 2008.
It also says “a number of other countries led by Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Israel” provided “considerable military support.
Georgian officials also welcomed the report.
The country’s EU ambassador, Salome Samadashvili, said the question of who fired first on Aug. 7, 2008, was immaterial without considering two decades of friction.
She said the “report gives the full context,” referring to Russia’s invasion of Georgia’s separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, The Associated Press reported from Brussels.
Temur Yakobashvili, the Georgian Cabinet minister responsible for the country’s breakaway regions, said the report proved Moscow had been preparing for conflict all along.
“The report proves that Russia was all the time preparing this war and Aug. 7 and 8 were the culmination,” he told Reuters.
Tagliavini, however, said the report’s basic message was a renewed call to all conflicting sides to comply with basic rules of international law, such as the respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity and the nonuse of force, thus quoting the main violations that Moscow and Tbilisi accuse each other of.
She said she hoped the report would encourage both sides to a fresh and sober assessment of the situation.
She said Georgia’s and Russia’s unwillingness to accept each other’s views was a main obstacle to conflict solution.
“They were never prepared to look at the truth of others,” she said.
TITLE: Marriage to a Foreigner No Longer a Russian Dream
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — For years, the dream of many young Russian women seemed to be to marry a European or American man and move abroad.
Not anymore.
Women have grown more sophisticated as they travel the world and pore over Western women’s magazines like Cosmopolitan, sociologists say. In fact, one new poll indicates that only 9 percent of single women want to marry a foreigner nowadays, compared to 46 percent just four years ago.
“The Russian woman has become more emancipated,” said Olga Makhovskaya, a psychologist and author of the book, “The Seduction of Immigration, or To the Women Flying Off to Paris.”
Makhovskaya said women’s values have changed remarkably in the 18 years since the Soviet collapse. The main “prize” in life for a Soviet woman was marriage, but the prize for the modern Russian woman is a good career, she said.
Women interviewed in the recent survey gave a number of reasons for their reluctance to marry a foreigner, including a different mentality, culture, language, laws and concerns about the future of common children in case of a divorce.
The online survey of 1,800 women aged 18 and older was conducted by Superjob.ru, a leading job recruitment web site. It put the margin of error at 2 percentage points. Superjob.ru conducted a similar poll of 2,100 women in 2005.
Sociologist Vladimir Mukomel, head of the Center for Ethnopolitical and Religious Studies, said the online surveys were not scientific, but the trend that they showed is indirectly confirmed by some official figures.
According to official data, 60,000 to 100,000 people moved to live abroad every year in the early 1990s, while the number has dropped to the thousands in recent years, Mukomel told The St. Petersburg Times.
Mukomel and Makhovskaya, the psychologist, said they were unaware of any statistics on how many Russian women had married Europeans or Americans in the 1990s.
A request for comment to the Justice Ministry department responsible for keeping records of marriages nationwide was not immediately answered.
Mukomel suggested that Russian women’s interest in foreign husbands has decreased because they have increasingly traveled abroad since the Soviet collapse and become better acquainted with other ways of life. “Russia has become more open,” he said.
Makhovskaya, who has appeared on several Russian television talk shows to discuss international marriages, said one of the reasons for the change in attitudes toward marriage is the boom in the production of glossy women’s magazines after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The media have published stories about international marriages ending in disaster in recent years, creating the impression that the unions are “a trap that you won’t be able to get out of,” Makhovskaya said.
Part of this concern is linked to uncertainty about the future of common children in case of a divorce, she said.
In addition, “anti-Western moods” cultivated by official political propaganda contribute to Russian women’s decline in interest in foreign men, Makhovskaya said.
Many foreign marriages involve women from Russia’s regions rather than the wealthier cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, matchmaking agencies said.
In Moscow, city statistics for marriages involving foreign nationals show little sign of a trend, said Yevgenia Smirnova, spokeswoman for the Moscow marriage registry office.
The number of marriages involving foreigners that her office registered was 9,304 in 2005, 8,861 in 2006, 12,633 in 2007, 11,803 in 2008, and 8,248 in the first eight months of 2009, Smirnova said.
The figures include marriages where one partner is Russian and the other foreign and where both are foreign, she said.
No separate statistics on marriages between Russian and foreign nationals are available, Smirnova said.
But the head of a Moscow-based dating agency said he has seen no drop in demand for foreign husbands since opening in 1997. “The number of women who want to marry a foreigner hasn’t become any fewer,” said Andrei Sokolov, head of the Semeiny Uyut, or Family Comfort, dating agency.
Sokolov said his female Russian clients were looking to find a man who would improve their living conditions and wouldn’t abuse alcohol.
Sokolov also stressed the demographic fact that there are more women than men in Russia and a woman living in a small village finds it next to impossible to meet a husband who would support her and not abuse alcohol.
There are 1,160 women for every 1,000 men in Russia, according to the latest figures available from the Federal Statistics Service.
Alcoholism is a common problem in rural areas.
Two Russian women interviewed for this report — one of whom has been married to a Frenchman for several years and another who was preparing to marry an Australian — said they believed that foreign men were more polite and caring about their families, especially more attentive to their children, than Russian men.
“Foreign men have more responsibility for the family, especially for the children and wives,” said the married woman, a 38-year-old former Muscovite who married the Frenchman five years ago and has lived with him in France since. She spoke on condition of anonymity, saying she did not want to draw attention to her marriage.
She said her French husband had become friends with her 16-year-old son, helping him with his homework and taking him and his friends out to the movies, while the boy’s biological Russian father saw his responsibility only in terms of “sometimes” providing money for the boy’s needs when they lived together.
Zhanna, a 41-year-old resident of the Moscow region town of Balashikha, met her Australian fiance through the Semeiny Uyut dating agency, and she praised her future husband for his attentiveness to both her mother and her 22-year-old son.
“Russian men don’t respect their mothers and often abandon their children,” Zhanna said.
Zhanna also said Russian men drank more alcohol and became “unbridled” when they drank, while her Australian fiance behaved decently even after he drank.
TITLE: Death Threats Against Kadyrov Spark Inquiry
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Chechen investigators said Wednesday that they have opened a criminal investigation into hackers’ death threats made against President Ramzan Kadyrov posted on the Chechnya Today web site in late June.
The threats to kill the Chechen president appeared on the home page of Chechnyatoday.com for several hours June 29 after an attack by hackers, said Mariam Nalayeva, a spokeswoman for the Chechen branch of the Investigative Committee.
The investigation was only opened Wednesday because investigators needed to wait for the Federal Security Service to conduct a linguistic analysis of the threats first, Nalayeva said.
TITLE: Paper: President May Fire Putin-Era Speechwriter
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev is considering firing his main speechwriter as he looks to develop a style independent of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Wednesday.
Medvedev has rejected speeches written by Dzhakhan Pollyeva, who served in the Kremlin during Putin’s presidency, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified Kremlin official.
Pollyeva might be replaced by Eva Vasilevskaya, an aide to Medvedev when he was a first deputy prime minister, the report said. Vasilevskaya previously worked in the press office of Gazprom, where Medvedev was chairman before becoming president.
The Kremlin had no comment on the report.
Alexei Mukhin, a political analyst with the Center for Political Information, dismissed the report as an old rumor that also surfaced in the run-up to the president’s state-of-the-nation address last fall.
Medvedev is expected to give his second state of the nation address by early November.
National and international media have been awash with reports recently that Medvedev is trying to distance himself further from Putin.
The speculation received fresh fuel by reports about an upcoming paper from a Kremlin-connected think tank that would discard sovereign democracy, a concept associated with Putin’s presidency.
The influential Institute of Contemporary Development, chaired by Medvedev, will publish a report called “Russia in the 21st Century: Shaping Tomorrow,” and its authors are convinced that the time of sovereign democracy has passed, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Wednesday, citing Nikita Maslennikov, one of the report’s authors.
A spokeswoman for the institute confirmed Wednesday that the report was planned but would not comment on its implications.
A report published Tuesday on the Slon.ru web site said the document would try to shape a new liberal ideology to deal with national problems outlined by Medvedev earlier this month in his 3,000-word essay “Go Russia!” which was published by several media outlets.
But Mukhin said all the talk about a rift between the president and prime minister was unconvincing because both were so interdependent. If one attacks the other, both will fall down, he said.
Slon.ru reported that the Institute of Contemporary Development’s report shares this skepticism by calling Medvedev’s and Putin’s work “City of the Sun,” after the work published in the early 17th century by Italian utopian philosopher Tommaso Campanella.
TITLE: 'Hitler's Skull' Pieces From Woman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: HARTFORD, Connecticut — A piece of skull with a bullet hole through it that Russian officials claimed belonged to Adolf Hitler actually came from a woman, scientists at the University of Connecticut have concluded.
The cranium fragment is part of a collection of Hitler artifacts preserved by Soviet intelligence in the months after Hitler and Eva Braun reportedly committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945.
The collection, now housed in the Russian State Archive in Moscow, also includes bloodstained pieces of the sofa where Hitler reportedly shot himself after taking a cyanide pill. The artifacts were put on display in 2000.
Connecticut archaeologist Nick Bellantoni was asked to examine the skull and blood samples for a History Channel documentary on Hitler’s death that aired this month. He said his initial forensic exam of the skull fragment showed that it did not match what he knew of Hitler’s biology.
“The bone was very small and thin, and normally male bones are much more robust in our species,” Bellantoni said Tuesday. “I thought it probably came from a woman or a younger man.”
Bellantoni then took several pinhead-sized pieces of the skull fragment and swabs of the bloodstains back to the university for analysis.
Linda Strausbaugh, a professor of molecular and cell biology, got help from two former students who work in the New York City medical examiner’s office. They were able to extract enough DNA from the bone pieces to do a forensic study, Strausbaugh said.
She said they determined that the DNA came from a 20- to 40-year-old woman. The skull fragment could have come from Braun, but to know that, the lab would need samples of her DNA. The samples were very degraded, making identification unlikely, Strausbaugh said.
Witnesses never reported Braun being shot in the head, Bellantoni said, and she is thought to have died of cyanide poisoning.
“This person, with a bullet hole coming out the back of the head, would have been shot in the face, in the mouth or underneath the chin,” he said. “It would have been hard for them to miss that.”
DNA from the bloodstain swabs showed at least some of it came from a man, Strausbaugh said.
“The DNA is relatively degraded and we don’t have a full range of markers that we’d like to have,” she said.
Russian officials have said Hitler and Braun’s bodies were removed from a shell crater outside the bunker shortly after they died. An autopsy allegedly showed Hitler’s body was missing part of his cranium. A Soviet team went back to the crater in 1946 and allegedly found the piece of cranium that the UConn scientists examined.
Russian officials have said the rest of Hitler was buried beneath a Soviet army parade ground in the former East German city of Magdeburg. They said his remains were exhumed in 1970 and incinerated, and the ashes were flushed into the city’s sewage system.
Both Strausbaugh and Bellantoni said there was nothing in their findings that significantly challenged the conclusion that Hitler died in the bunker.
“My gut feeling is he did commit suicide there, and maybe the blood sample we found is his,” Bellantoni said.
“What this does is it raises a question: If this is not him who is it?” he later added. “And, two, what really happened there?”
TITLE: First 'Space Clown' Blasts Off
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — A Canadian circus tycoon, a U.S. astronaut and a cosmonaut blasted off in a spacecraft from the Kazakh steppe Wednesday on a journey to the international space station.
Minutes after lifting off from the Baikonur launch facility, the Soyuz capsule shed its rocket stages and entered orbit. On board were Cirque du Soleil founder and space tourist Guy Laliberte along with crew members Jeffrey Williams and Maxim Surayev.
Friends and family on the ground cheered and hugged one another when an announcement that the ship was in orbit came over the loudspeaker. They chanted “Guy! Guy!” and broke out singing Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”
Laliberte, dubbed the first clown in space, donned a bulbous red nose and blew kisses to supporters before the launch. He paid $35 million for the trip he plans to use to publicize the world’s growing shortage of clean water.
“I’m very happy for him. It’s amazing,” said Laliberte’s partner, former model Claudia Barilla, tears streaming down her face as she cradled her young son in her arms. “Now we know he’s up there.”
She wore a yellow clown nose as she watched the launch. Laliberte brought several clown noses for crew mates aboard the station and has impishly warned he would tickle them while they slept.
Footage of the capsule showed crew members Williams and Surayev strapped in, operating the controls and occasionally waving for the camera.
A mission control official communicating with the astronauts said they were in excellent spirits, and a NASA TV announcer said they were “safely in orbit.”
“We were worried, because this has been a tough road — 12 years of hard training,” first-time space traveler Surayev’s wife, Anya, said at Baikonur. “But we are pleased, happy and proud that the liftoff went off without a hitch.”
The Soyuz TMA-16 craft is scheduled to arrive Friday at the international space station, orbiting 355 kilometers above Earth.
Laliberte — who rose from being a street performer to founding the circus arts and theater company Cirque Du Soleil 25 years ago — is to return to Earth after 12 days. The 50-year-old is worth an estimated $2.5 billion and holds a 95 percent stake in the circus company.
Laliberte’s enthusiasm seemed to infect others ahead of the launch preparations. As the crew members climbed up the ladder into the capsule, Surayev began singing the pop song “Mammy Blue,” and Laliberte and Williams joined him.
Among the spectators was Quebec singer Garou, a friend of Laliberte.
“I feel a lot more mesmerized than I ever thought I would be,” Garou said after the launch. “Having your friend rising up that fast and that impressively is beyond what I expected.”
Surayev, 37, and Williams, 51, plan to stay in orbit for 169 days. Williams is on his third space mission and recently became a grandfather.
“I’m glad he’s up there — that’s what he wanted to do,” said the astronaut’s wife, Anna-Marie. “Now all the training is behind us and he will just go up and do the mission.”
Surayev hung a plush toy lion in front of him at the control panel to signal the beginning of weightlessness. He said his preteen daughters had kept the toy under their pillows to “make sure that the lion smells of home for the next six months.”
The Soyuz team is scheduled to help continue construction of the space station, where in-orbit work began in 1998. Recent missions have expanded the station’s capacity to allow six inhabitants, though Surayev and Williams will be alone for about three weeks at year’s end after the station’s current occupants leave.
Six shuttle flights remain to wrap up construction on the station — now Earth’s largest artificial satellite, weighing more than 322,000 kilograms.
TITLE: State to Resettle Some Single-Industry Towns
AUTHOR: By Yevgenia Pismennaya, Yulia Fedorinova and Alexandra Terentyeva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Regional Development Ministry, concerned that the situation in 17 single-industry towns could collapse at any time, will classify such cities as either progressing or depressed as it determines which will get state help and which will eventually fall off the map.
The ministry has prepared a document, a copy of which was obtained by Vedomosti, spelling out how the state will support cities that are overreliant on one industry. The plans include an algorithm for working with the towns, known in Russian as monogorody, said Andrei Neshchadin, a ministry official.
“The problems are very complicated, and every city has its own. This isn’t something we’ll be able to solve in a year,” Neshchadin said.
A town qualifies as a monogorod if it meets one of two criteria. The first is that more than 25 percent of its economically active population works at one business or a group of businesses that are interreliant as part of a “technological chain.” The second is that the output of such an enterprise or group of enterprises is at least 50 percent of the town’s overall production.
There are more than 400 such towns and cities in Russia, according to the ministry. They are home to 24 percent of the country’s urban population, and before the crisis they accounted for 40 percent of gross domestic product.
The Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district and the Sverdlovsk and Irkutsk regions have the highest concentration. And while economic factors, such as falling prices and depleted resources, have caused some of the problems, single-industry towns are also seeing their populations shrink.
The Regional Development Ministry has proposed that 250 to 280 of the cities be monitored, with some possibly receiving support as early as next year. Sixty of them could see their situation worsen in the coming years, while 17 are already in crisis and are being monitored constantly.
“We’ll work with the cities in the main list according to the plans in the document, but the situation in the 17 crisis cities could blow up at any time and requires an urgent response,” Neshchadin said.
The state will help resettle people outside of towns that are classified as depressed. Neshchadin said the ministry had already decided to relocate people from two cities in the republic of Komi that have become economically inviable. The plants are using technology from 30 to 40 years ago and the cities are located far from their markets.
Population centers listed in the progressing category will be diversified. “There’s a chance for four types of cities to survive: those that are near major industrial centers, ones with unique potential, cities near major highways and those that can be redeveloped for farming,” Neshchadin said.
Towns in that list should prepare a stabilization program. If the plan is approved, the city can apply for budget support. The 2010 federal budget has allotted 10 billion rubles ($332 million) for single-industry cities, and the Investment Fund could provide another 10 billion rubles for construction.
Initially, however, the Regional Development Ministry plans to develop a stabilization program, starting with three to five pilot projects, which will be chosen through a competition, Neshchadin said.
All possible means of support will be used in the progressing cities, including financing from state banks, grants from the budget, inviting companies to fulfill state orders, subsidizing electricity costs and restructuring tax arrears.
So far, there are no unified criteria for the programs, although they must be realized within three years and recouped within seven, Neshchadin said. And business owners will be required to take a more active role.
“Owners often see any profit as theirs and any losses as the state’s. We call this phenomenon the Sayano-Shushenskaya syndrome,” he said.
Owners who participate in the programs will be eligible for federal subsidies, according to the ministry.
TITLE: Putin Calls for Less State Intervention
AUTHOR: By Alex Anishyuk
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lent his voice to a growing chorus of officials calling for the state to lessen its interference in the economy, saying it was time to think about privatization now that the country has come out of a recession.
While it is necessary that the government not withdraw its stimulus and that it continue to support faltering firms, the state needs to start focusing on reducing its influence in the economy, Putin said at a VTB investment forum.
“We will keep on supporting the sectors that were most affected during the recession, especially the car industry, however, we intend to decrease the interference of the state in the economy and stimulate privatization,” he said.
The comments echo those made by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov last week on a trip with President Dmitry Medvedev to the United States for meetings at the United Nations and a Group of 20 summit.
Shuvalov said about 5,500 state enterprises could be converted into joint stock companies and sold as early as this year, and that significant stakes in firms that are already publicly traded, such as Rosneft, could be sold.
Putin stopped short of saying that certain key state assets should be privatized, however.
When asked whether the business community could look forward to a privatization of the gas sector, Putin replied, “You’re free to look forward to it,” prompting the audience to burst into laughter.
“We’ll try to liberalize the internal market, but the gas export monopoly will be retained — not for the rest of our lives — but for the time being,” he said.
Putin added that, in principle, the state should try to steer clear of any kind of monopoly.
“Actually, this is not an idle issue. In Russia, as with everywhere, we see negative phenomena connected with excess monopolization, whether in the gas sector or in any other sector,” he said.
The privatization push met with support from Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, also speaking at the forum.
“More than 50 percent of the Russian economy is controlled by the state,” he said. “We intend to decrease our share in a number of stakes in which we previously acquired shares. We will not be able to create a competitive environment capable of generating innovations without doing so.”
Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev jumped on the privatization bandwagon as well, suggesting that the Central Bank could reduce its 60 percent stake in Sberbank.
“We now have the right to decrease our stake to 50 percent plus one share,” he said. “When we see the proper conditions, we will take this step.”
He said the state didn’t intend to take a dominating position in the banking sector, and that a decision to decrease the state’s ownership of major banks, including Sberbank and VTB, was made several years ago.
Despite the privatization push, Kudrin said the state will continue to support socially important enterprises throughout the crisis period.
“The state will keep on supporting low-efficient enterprises only under the condition of their obligatory restructuring,” Kudrin later told reporters.
Kudrin named AvtoVAZ as an example of an enterprise that failed to carry out needed restructuring, however he stressed that the company was socially important for the city of Tolyatti and could therefore count on further support.
“The state should support such enterprises in exclusive cases when they have social importance,” he said. “In other cases, the market should evaluate the inefficient enterprises and bankruptcy could be seen as an option.”
Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina, also speaking at the forum, suggested another option for AvtoVAZ, saying the state could exchange some of the carmaker’s debt for an equity stake.
TITLE: Ministry Puts 4-Year Cost for Games at $33Bln
AUTHOR: By Maxim Tovkailo
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The Regional Development Ministry has calculated that preparations for the Olympics will cost more than 1 trillion rubles ($33 billion) over four years, although analysts said the estimate appeared to be inflated.
The ministry estimated that 1.05 trillion rubles, including 699.3 billion rubles from the federal budget, will be spent in 2009-2012 under the government’s program for Olympics construction and the development of Sochi as a resort. The figures were part of the ministry’s plans through 2012, a copy of which was obtained by Vedomosti. The ministry’s previous plan for the period, sent for approval to other ministries in July, listed the total expenses as 1.88 trillion rubles, which it now says was an error.
Previously, the ministry had never provided a budget for the government’s Olympics program. A request for comment to the ministry went unanswered Monday. The corresponding federal targeted program, which was reformed as a government program last year, had 169.1 billion rubles for 2009-2012 and a total of 314 billion rubles.
As a result, it would appear that the overall expenses rose more than sixfold. Now, building just the 14 main sites (stadiums and the Olympic Park) will cost 195.3 billion rubles, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said at the Sochi investment forum.
Igor Nikolayev, a partner at audit firm FBK, said he thought that the figures were inflated and could be reduced if needed. Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog, agreed.
According to the document, the largest expenses are planned for next year, with 348.7 billion rubles going toward construction, including 228 billion rubles from the federal budget. That figure was also listed in the budget. Expenses will drop to 307 billion rubles in 2011 and 216.5 billion rubles in 2012.
But three sources — one in the Finance Ministry and two in the Regional Development Ministry — said a 2010 figure of 288 billion rubles had come up in discussion. They declined to say where the 60 billion rubles were cut.
A spokesman for Kozak’s office said investors were found to build a small ice arena, the equestrian center and the curling facility. “They dropped a few auxiliary sites, changed the technical details of others and saved on falling prices for building materials,” he said.
TITLE: New Malls Face Half-Empty Dilemma
AUTHOR: By Yelena Nikitina and Svetlana Danilova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — As shoppers return to discount stores and markets, developers of some shopping malls scheduled for completion this year are looking to either push the date back or open at half capacity.
“One-third of Russian food retailers are already using the discounter format, and it is becoming increasingly attractive for clothing and footwear outlets,” said Natalya Davidenko, of consulting company Astera.
The trend has already borne fruit for those retailers, with grocery discounters Magnit, Kopeika and Lenta, as well as the inexpensive clothing chains such as Inditex Group, seeing increases in profit in the first half, said Veronika Mann, director of strategic consulting at Bridge Consulting.
Lending problems and lower demand have led many retailers to call off their development programs or leave the market altogether. Developers with malls under way don’t have many choices: either open the properties with the tenants they already found — and risk having them flee the mall if they don’t get enough shoppers — or freeze a nearly finished project and possibly wind up with an unneeded property.
Murat Gursei, of AFI Development, said that if the number of renters is lower than a certain level, it’s impossible to open the center because it would be considered unsuccessful and the remaining 50 percent of space would have to be rented out for nothing. For AFI Development’s Mall of Russia, that level is 80 percent, he said.
Even so, some shopping complexes are throwing open their doors despite being half full, said Alexander Sharapov, president of Becar Realty Group. For example, the children’s shopping center Aerobus on Varshavskoye Shosse, which is operated by Becar, started working with 55 percent of its space occupied.
The RIO shopping and entertainment complex on Dmitrovskoye Shosse opened in January with a 65 percent occupancy, Davidenko said. Irina Kagramanova, a spokeswoman for Tashir Group, RIO’s developer, said that not all of the renters had time to move in, including Sedmoi Kontinent, which started working there several months after the mall opened. Now no more than 2 percent of the complex is vacant.
“Anchor tenants are beginning to trade at least a month after the official opening of a mall,” analysts from Jones Lang LaSalle wrote in research.
As a result, the real estate market has gained another new term: the working opening. Anzori Khasia, of Otkritie-Nedvizhimost, said this could ultimately become the norm. Shopping malls can always make use of their layouts and close part of the facility, grouping tenants around the anchors, said Andrei Vasyutkin, from real estate firm GVA Sawyer.
The Darya mall, which opened this month in Moscow’s western Strogino district, has kept its third floor closed, but it will eventually have a home appliances store, said Anastasia Balmochnykh, of LCMC, the project’s broker.
“There aren’t many people who can afford to delay an opening when the outlook for demand for commercial real estate is so unclear,” Vasyutkin said. “Of course, not everyone feels comfortable buying things in a half-empty shopping mall, but in some cases, opening on the planned date is unavoidable.”
Often the overriding concern is generating quick cash flow to cover debt payments, he said.
TITLE: Open Sells Business Center
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — Property developer Open Investments is continuing to get rid of assets, most recently selling the Domnikov business center on Prospekt Akademika Sakharova in Moscow to companies close to Interros, one of its main shareholders.
Open Group sold 100 percent of Sakharov Business Plaza, which is building the 132,000-square-meter Domnikov complex, to a group of investors, the developer said in a statement.
A source close to the management of Onexim Group, which owns about 42 percent of Open, said a group of companies linked to Vladimir Potanin’s Interros holding was the buyer. An Interros spokesperson said the investors were not affiliated with the company but were acting in its interests.
The statement said the deal was worth 2.99 billion rubles ($99 million) and the buyer agreed to take over a $250 million loan from Sberbank to build the property. Konstantin Kovalyov, a managing partner at Blackwood, valued the entire property at $330 million, or $2,500 per square meter.
Open had already tried to sell Domnikov. In July, the company had offered to sell it to its shareholders, Onexim and Interros. That offer expired Sept. 10.
In the first half of 2009, the company sold the projects Bolshoye Zavidovo, the Lukino village, the Pavlovo Podvorye shopping center, the Meyerhold business center and the Novotel Moscow Center hotel.
The buyers were partners of Interros, according to an official statement.
TITLE: Report: Baturina Buys Mansion
PUBLISHER: The Moscow Times
TEXT: Russia’s wealthiest woman, Yelena Baturina, has paid ?50 million ($79 million) for the largest private residence in London and will spend another ?50 million adding a cinema and 24-car garage, Britain’s Sunday Times reported.
Baturina, who denied a similar report last year, rejected the latest one as “absurd” on Monday and threatened to sue.
Britain’s Sunday Times said the 3,700-square-meter Witanhurst mansion, dwarfed only by Buckingham Palace, which isn’t a private home, was sold to a British Virgin Islands-based company called Safran Holdings.
“However, sources in north London property circles say the real owner is Yelena Baturina,” the report said.
It said the new owner had sent plans to local authorities over the past few weeks to expand the dilapidated mansion by digging a two-level basement and constructing a new wing complete with a 33-seat movie theater, swimming pool, gymnasium, beauty salon, wine cellar and staff quarters.
An elevator would transport vehicles out of the underground 24-car garage, the report said.
The property’s main house was built in the early 18th century and has been filmed in several period dramas.
Baturina, who is married to Mayor Yury Luzhkov, issued a sharp denial through Inteko, the real estate developer that she controls.
“This information is absurd,” Inteko spokesman Gennady Terebkov said in a statement. “Inteko’s press service has repeatedly officially stated that neither Yelena Baturina nor Inteko nor their authorized representatives have ever bought this house.”
Baturina also denied a British media report in July 2008 that she had bought the 2.8-hectare property in northern London for ?100 million.
Terebkov said the Times faced a lawsuit over the article.
“The Sunday Times will be forced to publish a retraction of this untrue information or
the newspaper will be sued,” he said.
Baturina is ranked by Forbes magazine as Russia’s wealthiest woman with a fortune of $900 million, down from $4.2 billion last year before the economic crisis hit. She has denied allegations that her wealth is linked to her marriage to Moscow’s mayor.
Earlier this year, Baturina won a battle to buy a million-dollar Austrian chalet where she and Luzhkov have been regular vacationers for several years.
Austrian authorities had refused to approve the sale of the mansion in the exclusive ski resort of Kitzb?hel, citing the fact that the buyer was a company registered in Vienna. Baturina won permission in February after she agreed to buy the house personally.
TITLE: The Country Russia Loves to Hate
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Ryzhkov
TEXT: In his speech before the United Nations General Assembly last week, U.S. President Barack Obama said we are entering a new historical era. He declared that the United States would cease taking unilateral actions and called on all people of all nations to join together in combating the challenges facing the world. Obama said we need the “cooperative effort of the whole world.” His foreign policy leitmotif has become the call to cooperate based on shared values. He made similar appeals during visits to Prague, Cairo and Moscow.
In his Moscow speech in July, Obama extended the hand of friendship to Russia, declaring that the United States “needs a powerful, peaceful and prosperous Russia” and called Moscow to a “global partnership.” In recent months, the White House and the Kremlin have taken a series of steps to meet each other halfway as part of what Obama has referred to as the “reset” of U.S.-Russian relations. But if Obama had only extended his hand in friendship directly to the Russian people, he probably would have gotten a firm “nyet” in response. This is because most Russians look at the United States as an enemy. Moreover, this feeling is growing, despite the change in leadership in Washington and Obama’s many efforts to the contrary.
A recent survey by the Levada Center revealed that only 2.1 percent of all Russians consider the United States a friend, but 50.2 percent see Belarus as one, 17.6 see China that way and 17.4 percent consider Germany a friend. By contrast, 61.8 percent of respondents considered Georgia as Russia’s enemy, with the United States in second place at 45.4 percent.
The survey also found that 50.4 percent of Russians had either a “basically bad” or “very bad” attitude toward the United States, with only 1.4 percent holding a “very good” attitude and 34 percent feeling “basically good” toward Washington. What is most surprising to me is that Russians’ attitudes toward the United States have actually worsened during Obama’s first year in office compared with what they were during the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, Russia’s heretofore-favorite whipping boy. Only 24.7 percent of respondents felt Russia should respond to Obama’s call for both sides to reduce the number of nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles in their arsenals, while 56 percent were opposed.
Russian respondents were positive that the United States is to blame for the main problems in the world today. A significant 25.5 percent hold the opinion that it was the United States — not Israel, Hamas, Islamic fundamentalists or terrorists — that is primarily responsible for the bloodshed and instability in the Middle East.
Anti-U.S. sentiment has been steadily rising in Russia over the past few years. Russian public opinion toward the Unites States first swung decidedly toward the negative in 1999, when U.S. President Bill Clinton authorized the bombing of Serbian forces in Yugoslavia. That was followed by Washington’s unilateral actions in Iraq, the expansion of NATO, the courting of Ukraine and Georgia to become new NATO members, U.S. plans to deploy elements of its missile defense batteries in Central Europe, the recognition of Kosovo’s independence and the heated debate over Russia’s recognition of independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. All of that was accompanied by anti-U.S. propaganda by the Kremlin-controlled media, as well as officially sponsored growing nostalgia for the Soviet past and for Josef Stalin, who shortly before his death called the struggle with the United States the main goal of Soviet foreign policy.
Russia’s growing isolation from the West — and the United States in particular — has exacerbated the problem. According to a national survey conducted by Bashkirova and Partners in June, 85 percent of Russians, as well as their friends and relatives, have never been to the United States, and only 9 percent have relatives and friends who have been there at least once. A little more than 2 percent have been to the United States once or twice. This large number of Russians has developed perceptions of the United States from decades of Soviet propaganda or from negative events in recent years. An overwhelming 95 percent of respondents said they had either never had any form of contact with an American, or only a brief encounter. 35 percent of those questioned said that Russia is the United States’ greatest rival, and 22 percent believed that America is trying to undermine Russia’s international influence. As many as 15 percent think the United States would like to destroy Russia.
It is telling that a single Russian television channel broadcasted Obama’s speech in July, leaving most Russians completely unaware of the U.S. leader’s friendly overture to them. Apparently, the Kremlin has no intention of providing at least minimum public support for Washington’s desire to reset U.S.-Russian relations.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio
TITLE: Barbarians Within the Kremlin Gates
AUTHOR: Yulia Latynina
TEXT: A very long time ago, when Europeans began conquering the world, they encountered a number of strange societies. One was the Aztec Empire, located on the territory of modern Mexico. According to Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, Aztec ruler Montezuma II was so powerful that he “made up to 20,000 human sacrifices per year.”
The Europeans encountered another part of that multipolar world on the coastlands of Brazil. This was the Tupi Indian tribe. A traveler named Andrei Teve, who lived among the Tupi people in the mid-16th century, tells of their unpleasant habit of constantly eating their enemies. He relates that even though the Indians had enough land and food, they were constantly at war with each other for the sole purpose of eating their enemies. If time were short, they would cut off their victims’ arms and legs and eat them right on the battlefield. But if possible, they would take the enemy prisoner and fatten him up for a few months, often giving him a woman to produce offspring whom they would also eat.
And now we have a new breed of savages. One of the most obvious examples is probably the people of Saudi Arabia. Since the 19th century, the laws and customs of that country have only grown more savage. Thanks to petrodollars, the ruling dynasty has moved out of its tents and into palaces. But their understanding of the process of government boils down to buying luxury goods in London stores and inexpensive women for their harems. They see themselves as a chosen people with a life mission that is much purer than the one offered by the depraved West.
North Korea is another example of a modern savage society. North Koreans are so starved for food that they have reverted to cannibalism to survive, while their great and powerful leader, Kim Jong Il, lives an indescribable life of luxury.
There is one more country that could be a candidate for the list — Russia. Our historical distinction is that Russia does not produce anything besides oil and gas. Everything else — from cell phones and televisions to toilets and even the video cameras on which we record speeches about the imminent collapse of the depraved West — it imports from that very same depraved West.
True, Russia doesn’t have a rapidly multiplying royal family as in Saudi Arabia, but it has a ruling clan from St. Petersburg. And although the rulers from “Piter” don’t have harems, they can commit just about any crime they want without fear of ever being punished.
The modern barbarian leaders don’t differ all that much from the ancient ones. They have equally strange ways of measuring the state’s power — for instance, counting the number of their sacrificed enemies. In addition, they seize the country’s wealth and send the proceeds to their offshore accounts and sincerely believe their own corruption and depravity to be a sign of superiority.
These modern primitive societies remain more or less the same as they ever were. Only the West has changed. Cortes and his ilk are long gone.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Making it big
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The press say The Tunics are “Catchier than those chilly primates” (The Fly) or “like the Arctic Monkeys with extra oomph” (Vanguard Online), but the British trio that neatly combines thrilling rock and roll and smart lyrics is still working toward a big breakthrough in their homeland.
However, it has happened to some extent in Germany, where the band members, who hail from Croydon, say they are “being pushed at the moment.” The Tunics finished their most recent German tour last week.
“There’s no particular reason, it’s just the way it seems to have worked out,” Joe Costello, The Tunics’ singer and guitarist, said in a recent phone interview. “The German market has picked up on a lot of our music a bit quicker.”
“But we’ve had a lot of exposure in the U.K. It’s just it’s a bit of a tough nut to crack, and we’re just in the middle of doing that at the moment.”
The Tunics spoke to The St. Petersburg Times from a studio in Stafford in the West Midlands region of England, where they were working on some new material. Some of it might end up on the follow-up to “Somewhere in Somebody’s Heart,” the band’s debut album produced by James Lewis (Cajun Dance Party, Wombats, Arctic Monkeys.)
“We’re recording new demos, just for fun really, we’re writing at quite a brilliant rate at the moment,” Costello said.
“We’re looking forward to putting together our second album, but that’s all for the future, really.”
Along with Costello, The Tunics features bassist Scott Shepherd and drummer Joe Blanks. Costello and Shepherd met at school, while Blanks replaced the band’s original drummer Max Karpinski.
“Scott and I went to the same high school together,” Costello said.
“We knew that we both played instruments and so on, but when I was offered a chance to play a gig and accepted it, even though I didn’t have a band or any songs really, I had to think fast on my feet, and this idea that had been going through our minds for a long time about forming a band — this was the catalyst for it.
“Our drummer, Joe, is a fairly recent addition to the band. Scott and I saw him play live on the south coast of England — at a rave, strangely enough — and we were looking for a drummer anyway, and luckily Joe Blanks was happy to join.”
The members say they all listen to different music. Bassist Shepherd likes The Who and Led Zeppelin, while Costello is more interested in singer/songwriters.
“Personally, I’m very interested in lyricists, poets and things like that,” Costello said.
“I’m a big Leonard Cohen fan, and I really like John Lennon and lots of people like that. But I mean that’s just my personal influence on the band, and luckily the other two listen to quite different music to me, so we sort of amalgamate all these influences into one.”
But it is when traveling that the musicians listen to the music that the other members like.
“If we’re in the car, we’ll take it in turns, so I’ll play what I like and the guys will listen, and then Scott will play what he likes, and we’ll listen,” drummer Blanks said.
“We get a feel for the different styles of music we all listen to. So that has a great influence on how we write.”
Rufus Wainwright, Thom Yorke, Leonard Cohen, The Beatles and Pete Doherty are all listed as influences on The Tunics’ MySpace page.
The band feels relaxed about comparisons to the Arctic Monkeys, according to Costello.
“Well, the comparison lies in the fact that we are a rock and roll band with a young singer who’s got multiple lyrics,” he joked.
“To be fair, we have a similar sound,” he said. “The thing is that Arctic Monkeys is obviously a big thing in the U.K. at the moment, and any rock and roll band that comes out is immediately going to be compared to them. I think it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be compared to them, but I think it’s slightly inaccurate.”
Now is not an age of great new things, but The Tunics believe they can change that.
“I think just before bands like Nirvana — like really, really important bands broke — there was dead air for a period of time,” Costello said.
“So because of that, people were desperate for something new and interesting, and that’s exactly what happened with the Britpop thing after Kurt Cobain died. And obviously with The Beatles — it’s a similar situation, it was a breath of fresh air.
“In my opinion, a lot of music that exists right now is fantastic, but it’s not groundbreaking, and I think that what we’re doing IS groundbreaking, and it’s just a matter of time before people realize that.”
The Tunics will perform at 8 p.m. on Sunday at A2. Razyezzhaya Ulitsa 12. Metro Vladimirskaya. Tel.: 922 4510.
TITLE: The word’s worth
TEXT: By Michele A. Berdy
Êîðîâà: cow; a person exhibiting bovine characteristics
Way back in Russian 101, we learned the animal paradigm: êîò (cat) êîò¸íîê (kitten) êîòÿòà (kittens). Then we learned the meat paradigm: ñâèíüÿ (pig) ñâèíèíà (pork). And then we were introduced to the queen of the barnyard, êîðîâà (cow), and the whole system went to hell in a hand basket. Unfortunately for us foreigners, the current Russian words for cows and things bovine came from different root words and now seem to have little in common.
We start with bovine mom and pop: êîðîâà (cow) and áûê (bull). After they meet and fall in love, they have òåëÿòà (calves). A baby bull might be òåë¸íîê or áû÷îê, while a baby cow could be òåëÿ, ò¸ëêà, or ò¸ëî÷êà. These words are related to another kind of bull — the one in the zodiac — Òåëåö (Taurus). But you often hear the words áóð¸íêà or áóð¸íóøêà, affectionate names for áóðàÿ êîðîâà (brown cow), which — since there are a lot of brown cows in Russia — can be a stand-in for cow in general.
And then there’s meat. Òåëÿòà produce òåëÿòèíà (veal), but sadly for us foreigners, êîðîâû do not produce êîðîâèíà. Cows give us ãîâÿäèíà (beef). This puzzle is actually easily explained: ãîâÿäî is the old Russian word for large horned livestock (oxen, cows, bulls).
In Russian folklore and culture, êîðîâà is a symbol of wealth, well-being and maternal care. Cows are thought of as hardy, fat, obedient and lugubrious creatures. Êîðîâà is a good word to have in your special insult pocket, but should be used with care. It can describe any fat, clumsy person, particularly of the female persuasion. Ñèæó ÿ â òðàìâàå, âäðóã êàêàÿ-òî êîðîâà ïëþõàåòñÿ ðÿäîì ñî ìíîé è ïðèæèìàåò ìåíÿ ê ñòåíêå (I was sitting in a tram when this cow suddenly plops down next to me and crams me against the wall.) Somewhat less offensive is the phrase çäîðîâà êàê êîðîâà (literally, healthy as a cow), which describes those hardy and hefty women who, as far as I can tell, actually run the country (don’t tell the bulls).
Of the native Russian cow expressions, I like êàê êîðîâå ñåäëî (like a saddle on a cow), which is something you probably shouldn’t say to someone’s face: Ïëàòüå åé èä¸ò êàê êîðîâå ñåäëî (on her, the dress is as flattering as a saddle on a cow). There are other phrases that depend on a greater intimacy with cow behavior than us city slickers have. For example, êàê êîðîâà ÿçûêîì ñëèçíóëà (literally, like a cow licked it) is used to describe the disappearance of someone or something: One lick of a cow’s rough tongue and it’s gone forever. ß çíàþ, ÷òî ïîëîæèëà íîìåðîê â ñóìêó, íî åãî òàì íåò! Êàê êîðîâà ÿçûêîì ñëèçíóëà! (I know I put the coat check tag in my purse, but now it’s gone — it disappeared into thin air).
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
TITLE: Out with the old
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Seven St. Petersburg museums are participating in the annual Contemporary Art in Traditional Museums festival that kicked off last Saturday and runs through Oct. 18.
The festival will see the most recent creations by Russian and foreign artists go on display at several of the city museums simultaneously, with the aim of promoting closer relations between traditional culture and modern art, modernizing the work of St. Petersburg’s museums and raising their profile.
“This festival is interesting for its non-standard approach to modern art,” said Tatyana Bykovskaya, curator of the festival. “We try to put modern art in the context of museums that are distanced from modern art. In this way, we try to expand the auditorium of modern art, because we don’t like the fact that modern art is often exhibited in isolated places of which people know very little.”
Bykovskaya said the festival’s previous experience showed that people who attended a modern art exhibition in a traditional museum tended to return to the museum in the future.
Many of the festival’s projects have been made especially for a certain museum and are being exhibited for the first time.
Since the year 2000, at least 50 of the city’s museums have taken part in the festival.
This year, the festival presents a whole series of special projects including exhibitions at the PRO ARTE Foundation and Peter and Paul Fortress, cartoons by young Russian animators, lectures, and video shows.
The program includes a project by the American Jurassic Technology Museum titled “Life of Perfect Creatures,” exhibited at the Glushko Space and Rocket Museum in the Ioanovsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
The exhibition is dedicated to the dogs who took part in the Soviet space program, and features portraits of the five space dogs painted by modern American artist M. A. Peers. The name of the exhibition is taken from the words of the famous Russian space scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
Laika the dog became the first live creature to perform an orbital flight on Nov. 3, 1957. The success of the project and tragic fate of Laika, who died a few hours into the journey (it was always known that she would not return to Earth, as the sputnik in which she was launched was not retrievable) attracted the attention of the whole world.
The portrait exhibition is accompanied by the sound of Laika’s gradually fading heartbeat, which is heard along with the radio signals of the first satellite. However, if the satellite signals were heard by the whole world, the heartbeat of Laika, who is thought to have died from overheating, was monitored only by special devices.
The Children’s Museum Center of Historical Education “Bolotnaya, 13” presents a project by Tatyana Goloviznina titled “I Buy, Therefore I Am,” and “Horseman” by Masha Sha and Tatyana Korolyova.
Goloviznina’s project focuses on the consumerism of modern society and on the sense of human existence in such a society.
At a busy urban crossroads, an elderly man shoots bubbles into passing cars with a bubble-gun, demonstrating them in order to sell them. In the bubbles he creates, the faces of people of different races and nationality appear, and speak about what gives their lives meaning.
Visitors to the installation can leave notes about what makes their life important and unique.
The Anna Akhmatova Museum will exhibit a project by the San Donato group called “Reflectum,” while the Rimsky-Korsakov Memorial Museum will host “Jukebox” by Alexander Gurko. The latter reveals the exposed mechanisms of a musical machine made from an old computer. The machine’s repertoire includes compositions by Rimsky-Korsakov and his favorite composers.
An exhibition at the Military Medical Museum features a photo installation by Darya Bruker called “Tabletism,” which includes a series of compositions made of pills, while the PRO ARTE Foundation and Anna Nova gallery host a co-project titled “Russian Beauty” at the former Red Triangle factory, for which more than 30 artists have formed their individual interpretations of the title.
Meanwhile, visitors to the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad museum at Ploshchad Pobedy will experience Igor Potsukailo’s work “I Hear the Siege.” The project includes a sound installation depicting the background of the besieged city from 1941 to 1943.
Several festival exhibitions are being displayed at the Peter and Paul Fortress, including a video installation by the Finnish artist Santeri Tuori titled “Forest (Tree and Pond).” Tuori filmed the same forest on one of the Aland Islands for three years, from the same position at different times of the year. The final piece consists of seven minutes of footage, in which visitors can see the forest changing during the four seasons, creating a special effect in which visitors can simultaneously observe the landscape and feel as though they are inside it.
www.proarte.ru
Anna Akhmatova Museum: Liteiny Prospekt 53, tel. 272 2211
Rimsky-Korsakov Memorial Museum: Zagorodny Prospekt 28, tel. 575 6587
Military Medical Museum: Lazaretny Pereulok 2, tel. 315 5358
Red Triangle: Nab. Obvodnogo Kanala 138, korpus 3, tel. 495 9400
TITLE: Georgian corner
AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Where Georgian restaurants are concerned, there is much afoot in or just outside of St. Petersburg’s “Golden Triangle” — the prime real estate area bordered by Nevsky Prospekt and the Fontanka and Neva rivers. First, there was a knockout new arrival earlier this year on the Moika River, the modest, reasonably priced Rustaveli, boasting some of the finest Georgian food to be found in the city. And now, just a few minutes walk from Nevsky, there is Griboyedov, a plush restaurant that’s surprisingly affordable (demokratichny, as the Russians would have it), and comes at least as some sort of consolation for the loss of the much-loved and ultra-cheap Khachapurnaya round the corner on Gorokhovaya Ulitsa.
The restaurant is named after the writer Alexander Griboyedov who, a plaque on the exterior wall informs us, lived in the building in 1828. Griboyedov’s portrait can be found inside, where the d?cor is plush, in terracotta tones. The single dining room isn’t large, but features four nifty window booths with great views. The opulence of the interior should come as no surprise as the restaurant is owned by next door’s Taleon Club, which boasts one of the most outlandishly lavish renovations in the city. Whereas the Taleon’s magnificence can be a jaw-dropping, Griboyedov’s opulence is understated and tasteful, avoiding the clich?s of Georgian restaurant d?cor — fake vine leaves, gaudy Georgian art and ethnic ceramic pots and pans.
What will come as a surprise, especially in view of that affiliation with the wallet-crunching Taleon, is that the prices on Griboyedov’s menu are so low. By the standards of most Georgian restaurants, the range of dishes on offer is tiny, but they are by no means overpriced, with main courses costing from about 250 rubles ($8.30).
We started with a kharcho soup (240 rubles, $80) and a Batumi-style salad (170 rubles). Be warned that both dishes were very spicy — if you like your food spiced to eye-watering levels of intensity, you will be very happy here. The kharcho — a traditional Georgian soup comprising beef, rice, tomatoes, herbs, spices and tkemali — was prepared with excellent ingredients and packed with taste, although the broth could have been thicker. The Batumi-style salad was served on two large lettuce leaves, comprising excellent, pink, meaty tomatoes with lashings of coriander and cucumber. As well as being heavily spiced, it was perhaps a tad over-salted.
The odzhakhuri — veal with potatoes, herbs, onions and tomatoes at 440 rubles ($14.50) — came piping hot on a metal frying pan. Again, this dish won’t be to everyone’s taste, and certainly isn’t for those on a diet. Essentially a fry-up, very heavy on the oil, with crunchy golden brown potatoes and succulent meat, it will do little for your figure but was irresistibly delicious. The abzhabsandali, a ragout of eggplant, paprika, tomatoes and herbs (180 rubles, $6), unfortunately, was by no means piping hot and was steeped in oil — it got the thumbs down from my vegetarian dining partner.
Any complaints, however, were overshadowed by the towering success of the megrelian khachapuri (260 rubles, $850) — packed with cheese, moist on the inside, a light crunchiness on the outside, it managed to be very rich without being greasy.
As an upmarket but very cheap option, then, Griboyedov has its strengths, but Rustaveli, also on the Moika, needn’t fear the competition just yet.
TITLE: Gergiev Shines at Annual Beethoven Festival in Bonn
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: BONN, Germany — Valery Gergiev, Maurizio Pollini, Kent Nagano, Ingo Metzmacher and John Elion Gardner made a pilgrimage to Bonn this fall to take part in the Beethoven Festival — one of Europe’s most prestigious classical music events, which ran throughout September under the motto “In the Light,” giving center stage to extraordinary artists.
Focusing on captivating artistic personalities, this year the festival paid tribute to the trend that emerged during Beethoven’s time and marked the evolution of a performer from a mere entertainer — or, some would say, executant — into an artist and a musical individual in their own right.
The festival closes on Saturday with a performance by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Nagano in a program comprising Beethoven, Strauss and Brahms.
On Sept. 15, the Mariinsky’s Valery Gergiev conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2, performed by an aspiring Russian talent, Alexei Volodin.
“The LSO is one of the best orchestras in the world,” said Ilona Schmiel, the artistic director of Beethovenfest. “The Bruckner performance was overwhelming: Gergiev led the orchestra magnificently, demonstrating the power that is in the music, while building an architecture of the piece, especially in the last sentence, which is very long, with many repetitions. In Gergiev’s rendition it felt like an organic flow, you could almost breathe it in.”
Many of the artists chosen to shine during the “In the Light” concept were presented with orchestras where they are chief conductors or artistic directors and with whom they have the best rapport — for instance, Gergiev with LSO, Metzmacher with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Krzysztof Penderecki and Sinfonia Varsovia.
“It was a chance for the conductors to demonstrate both their artistic advantages and also for the audiences to see the bond and the chemistry between a particular conductor and a particular orchestra and understand why they perform together,” Schmiel said.
The Beethoven Festival successfully juxtaposes tradition with innovation and thrives on contrasts.
During its history, the festival has built up a dedicated, open-minded and curious audience receptive to new ideas, such as incorporating other musical genres, from jazz to hip-hop, into the programs of some of Europe’s most venerable classical music events.
When Schmiel took charge in 2004 and scheduled some contemporary music, there were noticeably fewer people in the auditoriums. The festival manager and her team were not discouraged however, and their efforts soon began to pay off. Five years later, the Beethovenfest can easily incorporate the world premiere of a new work in an opening concert. The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester under the baton of Metzmacher performed the world premiere of Moritz Eggert’s “Number Nine VIII: Zeitarbeit” for soloist and orchestra, commissioned by the festival. The opening night was packed.
“We live in the 21st century and we cannot just stick to the past, duly repeat old works and pretend that no talented music has emerged since,” said Schmiel. “That would be cowardice, and will not take us anywhere. I always felt obliged to include new music in the programs, indeed, in the name of Beethoven who was always ahead of his time.”
Since she took up the job as the festival’s director six years ago, Schmiel has consistently succeeded in assembling a pantheon of celebrated classical performers at every event. Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic orchestra, Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Paavo Jarvi and Die Deautsche Kammer-philharmonie Bremen, Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra, Krzysztof Penderecki and Sinfonia Varsovia, and the pianists Helene Grimaud, Mikhail Pletnev, Maurizio Pollini and Rudolf Buchbinder are just some of the festival’s most recent participants.
Chamber music comprises a fairly large proportion of the concert programs, with performance venues ranging from the historic Beethoven-haus, where Beethoven was born, to stylish Grandhotel Petersberg in the hillside overlooking the Rhein to Meys Fabrik Hennef, a former industrial factory building in the outskirts of Bonn that has been successfully converted into a concert hall.
This year, the Beethoven-haus played host to an array of sophisticated chamber recitals, including a three-day String Quartet Project. Running from Sept. 18 through 20, the event featured four ensembles — the Australian String Quartet, Kuss Quartet (Germany), Pavel Haas Quartet (Czech Republic) and Pacifica Quartet (U.S.) — performing Beethoven’s string works alongside 20th century masterpieces, including Gyorgy Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1, Metamorphoses nocturnes. Brilliantly rendered by the Pacifica quartet, Ligeti’s cerebral work created a ‘nervous breakdown-come-alive’ atmosphere.
It was courageously played after Beethoven’s String Quartet in B Major op.18/6, and the intelligent juxtaposition worked beautifully to demonstrate the ensemble’s versatility and offer a fresh new perspective on both compositions. As part of the project, the quartets also formed octets to perform together. Shostakovich’s Two Works for String Octet op. 11 and Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E Flat Major op. 20 crowned the event on Sept. 20 to the highest acclaim.
The prestigious festival was first held on what would have been Beethoven’s 75th birthday in 1845 (he died in 1827 aged 57) and had Franz Liszt as its first artistic director.
The city of Bonn perceives Beethoven as its top “brand,” as do the festival’s heavyweight sponsors. That allows the festival to run for a month, featuring sixty concerts by some of the world’s most distinguished musicians.
Patrons of the arts are now taking it even further with their generous sponsorship.
It has been decided that a new venue will be built on the banks of the Rhein River to replace the 50-year-old Beethovenhalle, which has been criticized for its outdated backstage facilities.
“It is a very interesting process,” Schmiel said. “The building will come to the city of Bonn — and to the festival — as a present. Three large German companies — Deutsche Telecom, Deutsche Post and Deutsche Post Bank — have decided to allocate a total of 75 million euros for the construction of the new hall. A competition for an architectural design for the venue is now in its final stage.”
The three sponsors originally invited a number of world-renowned architects to develop their designs. Ten architects accepted the offer, and four of them proceeded to the second stage of the contest. London’s Zaha Hadid Architects and Luxembourg’s Hermann&Valentiny and Partners made the final. The choice will be made early in 2010.
In the meantime, the project’s ideologists are trying to establish the potential maintenance costs of the new hall and develop a funding scheme for it. It is possible that an endowment fund will be created to run the venue, with both government organizations and private companies joining in.
In 2020, the musical world will celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, and, of course, Germany will be proud to celebrate this important date in a new hall — an architecturally iconic building with perfect acoustics.
Links: http://www.beethovenfest.de
TITLE: Indonesian Quake Toll Rises to 531 Dead
AUTHOR: By Irwan Firdaus
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PADANG, Indonesia — Rescue workers used excavators Thursday to pull out victims, some screaming in pain, from the heavy rubble of buildings felled by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 531 people. The death toll was expected to rise.
The brunt of Wednesday’s 7.6-magnitude earthquake, which originated in the sea off Sumatra island, appeared to have been borne by Padang town where 376 people were killed. Four other districts accounted for the remaining deaths.
The region was jolted by another powerful earthquake Thursday morning, causing damage but no reported fatalities.
More than 500 buildings including hotels, schools, hospitals and a mall were destroyed or damaged in Padang. Thousands of people were believed to be trapped in the rubble.
“Oh God, help me! help me!” Friska Yuniwati, a 30-year-old woman, screamed in pain, as she was carried to an ambulance in downtown Padang. She had been pulled out minutes earlier from the rubble of a house, her face covered in bruises and eyes shut.
Padang’s state-run Djamil Hospital was overwhelmed by the influx of victims and families. Dozens of injured people were being treated under tents outside the hospital, which was itself partly damaged.
“Let’s not underestimate (the disaster). Let’s be prepared for the worst. We will do everything we can to help the victims,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in Jakarta before flying to Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 and capital of West Sumatra province.
A total of 531 people were confirmed dead and 440 were seriously injured, the Social Affairs Ministry’s crisis center said. Thousands were believed trapped, said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry’s crisis center.
One focus for emergency workers was a collapsed 4-story concrete building in downtown Padang, where 30 children had been taking classes when the quake struck. Four students were found alive and six bodies were dug from the rubble.
Dozens were missing, said Jamil, a volunteer. “It’s getting very difficult now to find more victims,” he said.
Parents of missing students stayed up all night, waiting for signs of life. “My daughter’s face keeps appearing in my eyes ... my mind. I cannot sleep, I’m waiting here to see her again,” a woman who identified herself only as Imelda said, tears rolling down her face. She said her 12-year-old daughter Yolanda was in the school for science lessons.
“She is a good daughter and very smart. I really love her. Please, God help her,” she said.
In another building, rescue workers passed a plastic bottle of water through an opening in the rubble to a person trapped underneath.
The president ordered the military to deploy emergency response teams from Jakarta, West Sumatra and North Sumatra provinces. He said the military will provide earth-moving equipment to clear the rubble.
SurfAid, a New Zealand-based medical aid group, said its program director David Lange narrowly escaped death when he fled the Ambacang Hotel minutes before it collapsed.
“People are trapped and screaming for help but they are below huge slabs which will take heavy equipment to move,” Lange was quoted as saying in a statement by SurfAid.
“I saw dozens of the biggest buildings collapsed in town. Most of the damage is concentrated in the commercial center market, which was fully packed,” he said.
At least 80 people were missing at the five-story Ambacang Hotel, said Indra, a paramedic who uses only one name like many Indonesians.
Terrified residents who spent a restless night, many sleeping outdoors, were jolted by the new quake Thursday morning.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit about 240 kilometers south of Padang. It damaged 1,100 buildings, including mosques and homes, in the town of Jambi, according to Mayor Hasfiah. He said there were no deaths but dozens of people were injured.
The quake was so powerful that it caused buildings to sway hundreds of kilometers away in Malaysia and Singapore. In Padang, children screamed as thousands of frantic residents fled in cars and motorbikes, honking horns. They feared the quake would trigger a tsunami, but no giant waves struck.
The quake severed roads and cut off power and communications to Padang, and the extent of damage in surrounding areas was still unclear.
Indonesia, a poor, sprawling nation, sits on a major geological fault zone and is frequently hit by earthquakes.
TITLE: IMF Says Economy Recovering Quickly
AUTHOR: By Pan Pylas
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISTANBUL — The International Monetary Fund said the global economy is recovering faster than expected — but that governments should not be hasty in withdrawing the added spending and low interest rates that have helped restore growth.
The positive report card Thursday was likely to feed cautious but widespread relief that — despite a continuing rise in unemployment and worries about credit availability — the downturn has eased and that a 1930s-style depression has been avoided.
According to the twice-yearly World Economic Outlook, the world is poised to grow by 3.1 percent in 2010 with much of the recovery driven by emerging economies such as China and India. That is up from the 2.5 percent in the IMF’s previous set of estimates.
And for 2009, the IMF now expects a 1.1 percent decline of global GDP instead of the 1.4 percent contraction it predicted in July.
But though things may not be as bad as they could have been, the IMF sought to temper any euphoria, especially as unemployment will continue to rise for many months yet.
“The recovery has started in terms of having positive output growth,” Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s economic counselor told The Associated Press in an interview.
He credited the modest improvement to “strong policy responses” around the world but warned against a “premature exit from those policies” — the recovery is too fragile and remains heavily propped up by big stimulus measures and cheap money.
He noted that growth next year is still way below levels before the financial crisis exploded around a year ago, and cautioned there were still risks to the forecast. He said banks are not out of trouble yet and swine flu remained a potential drag.
Blanchard stressed that the more optimistic forecasts “should not fool governments into thinking that the crisis is over.”
In the outlook, the IMF, which has seen its responsibilities and financial resources expand during the crisis, said economic growth has turned positive as concerted efforts by governments and central banks boosted demand and helped ease fears of total collapse of the world’s financial system. Banks have been bailed out, economies stimulated with deficit spending, and interest rates sharply reduced. France, German and Japan are officially out of recession.
Blanchard said it’s inevitable that governments will have to get a grip on their finances but only when recovery is firmly entrenched.
“There is a very delicate balancing act that governments have to succeed in doing,” he said.
When the time comes to deal the debts, which are projected to reach 110 percent of gross domestic product in the advanced economies, governments will have to deal with spiraling pension and health care costs — both are rising as people live longer.
TITLE: U.S., Iran Meet at Nuke Talks
AUTHOR: By George Jahn
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GENTHOD, Switzerland — A senior U.S. official met Iran’s top atomic negotiator for face-to-face talks on Thursday — the first such encounter in years of big-power attempts to persuade Tehran to freeze a program that could create nuclear weapons.
While diplomats and officials disclosed no details of the meeting, they appeared to be concrete proof of President Barack Obama’s commitment to engage Iran directly on nuclear and other issues — a sharp break from previous policy under the Bush administration.
More broadly, the meeting suggested that Obama was putting his concept of U.S. foreign policy into action, with its emphasis on negotiating even with nations that are the most hostile to the United States.
The change in approach may go down well with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who on Wednesday made pointed comments about other nations needing to respect Iran’s rights.
Iran-U.S. bilateral talks have been extremely rare since the two nations broke diplomatic relations nearly 30 years ago, following the Iran’s Islamic revolution and the ensuing U.S. Embassy hostage crisis. U.S. and Iranian negotiators met in Baghdad two years ago to discuss Iraq. But those were three-way talks, hosted by Iraq.
“On the margins of the meeting, Undersecretary (William) Burns, who is heading our delegation, met with his Iranian counterpart,” U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood told reporters Thursday. He did not elaborate.
Two Western diplomats separately told The Associated Press that Burns and top Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili discussed issues during a lunch break at Thursday’s seven-nation talks in Geneva. The diplomats demanded anonymity for discussing the confidential information.
Though held at the same venue, the bilateral talks were formally outside of the main meeting in Geneva — talks where the U.S. and five other world powers hope to persuade Iran to at least consider discussing its nuclear program, and in particular its refusal to freeze its uranium enrichment efforts.
TITLE: China Marks 60 Years of Communism
AUTHOR: By Christopher Bodeen
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING — Tanks and other heavy weaponry rumbled across Beijing behind goose-stepping troops as China celebrated 60 years of communist rule Thursday with its biggest-ever military review — a symbol of its rapidly expanding global might.
The elaborate ceremony commemorating the founding of the People’s Republic unfolded on national television but behind tight security that excluded ordinary people from getting near the parade route through Tiananmen Square.
Precisely choreographed, the two-and-half-hour event kept close to tradition. President Hu Jintao, in a Mao jacket instead of a business suit, rode in an open top Red Flag limousine to review the thousands of troops.
A parade of kitschy floats, flanked by more than 100,000 people, lauded the communist revolution and the Beijing Olympics. Even the weather cooperated, with aggressive cloud-seeding by the government having brought overnight showers to disperse smog and bring in blue skies.
The biggest difference was the weaponry, more than had been shown before and most of which was domestically produced: dozens of fighter jets and hundreds of tanks, artillery and trucks carrying long-range, nuclear-capable missiles.
“On this joyful and solemn occasion, all the peoples across the nation feel extremely proud for the progress and development of the motherland and have full confidence in the bright prospects for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Hu said in a short speech standing atop Tiananmen gate with the rest of the collective leadership looking on.
Behind the celebrations is the tremendous change of fortunes China has experienced. China has gone from being poor and internationally weak when the communists took over on Oct. 1, 1949, to the world’s third-largest economy and a new power whose input the U.S. seeks to solve the global economic crisis and Iran’s nuclear challenge.
Unmentioned during the event and crescendo of state media hype in recent weeks were the ruinous campaigns of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong that left tens of millions dead