SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1525 (87), Tuesday, November 10, 2009
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Policeman Appeals Via YouTube
To President
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev ordered an investigation Sunday of the Novorossiisk police after a local officer made a personal appeal to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin complaining of bad working conditions and being ordered to arrest innocent people.
Nurgaliyev also ordered that the officer be suspended pending the investigation, while the Krasnodar region police chief fired him for slander, Interior Ministry spokesman Valery Gribakin said Sunday, Interfax reported.
“Nurgaliyev will report on the results of the check to the president and prime minister,” Gribakin said.
The incident is the latest embarrassment for Nurgaliyev, who has been struggling to reign in corruption in his ministry and deal with fallout from a police officer’s shooting rampage this spring that left three people dead.
Alexei Dymovsky, a police major in the Krasnodar region city of Novorossiisk, said Sunday on Ekho Moskvy radio that he feared for his life and his family after his video addresses to Putin became an Internet sensation.
In the apparently unscripted and at times stumbling speeches, Dymovsky criticized his superiors for ordering him to arrest innocent people or be faced with unpaid overtime. He also said they told doctors not to give him paperwork for sick leave.
“I’m sick and tired of it all, and I want to resign,” Dymovsky said.
Two videos — both approximately six minutes long — were posted late Thursday on his web site,
Dymovskiy.ru. The clips, filled with patriotic language and homage to state service, were later reposted on YouTube and quickly spread around the Russian blogosphere.
By Sunday evening, the two clips had more than 400,000 combined viewings on YouTube, and the number was steadily rising.
Dymovsky, 32, works in the city’s department against drug trafficking and has served in the Novorossiisk police since 2004. Before that, he worked in the Amur region city of Svobodny, according to a biography on his site.
In the videos, Dymovsky complained that his monthly salary was only 14,000 rubles ($480) but that he had to work 30 days per month. He said he was on sick leave because his left arm was becoming numb from an injury and that he had been denied medical attention at local facilities for not solving enough crimes.
During his 10 years as a police officer, Dymovsky said, two wives left him because of his tough work schedule. Now he fears for the safety of his new wife, who is six months pregnant.
He told Ekho Moskvy that he was planning to send her to Moscow for safety reasons and that he had to hire a security guard and a car because he suspected that he was being followed.
Novorossiisk police met Saturday and condemned Dymovsky’s actions, spokeswoman Polina Gerasimova told Interfax. “People become investigators not to get rich, but because it’s their calling,” she said.
“We disagree with our colleague, whom we can hardly call a colleague, since the major hasn’t showed up for work since August,” the police said in a statement.
As of Sunday evening, there was no reaction from Putin. The Public Chamber, a government oversight body, said Dymovsky’s allegations would be seriously examined.
“In case of an emergency, we’re ready to take the police officer under protection to avoid sanctions and persecution,” said lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, head of the chamber’s committee to oversee the activities of law enforcement agencies.
Human rights advocates in Novorossiisk met with the acting city police chief, Vladimir Grebenyuk, and regional officials. Police chief Vladimir Chernositov, among those whom Dymovsky criticized by name, has also been on sick leave, Interfax reported.
“Dymovsky said what nearly every police worker feels in Russia,” Mikhail Pashkin, chairman of the Moscow police union’s coordinating committee, said Saturday on Ekho Moskvy. “We have the same happening in Moscow.”
In his appeal, Dymovsky also offered to recruit for Putin a team of good police officers to carry out a nationwide investigation of law enforcement agencies.
“Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], I appeal to you with a request. Let’s carry out an independent investigation all around our Russia. And I’m ready to take on such responsibilities,” he said.
The offer coincides with Interior Ministry plans to root out corruption. Most notably, Nurgaliyev said in August that he planned to stamp out corruption in his ministry within a month.
In an interview to Der Spiegel magazine, President Dmitry Medvedev played down Nurgaliyev’s pledge, but he also sounded a note of frustration.
“I hope, anyway, that the interior minister has a realistic idea of how to fight corruption. Of course, you can’t defeat corruption in a month. As I understood Nurgaliyev, he was talking about getting rid of the most serious abuses in the Interior Ministry,” Medvedev said, according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin web site.
Problems of the law enforcement system have been a subject of intense discussion since police Major Denis Yevsyukov killed three and wounded six people in a Moscow supermarket on April 27.
Medvedev fired Moscow’s police chief several days later.
In October, the republic of Buryatia’s top police official and his deputy were arrested in connection with a contraband case. Also last month, Medvedev fired the Tuva region’s police chief after an officer there shot two traffic cops, killing one and injuring the other, before shooting himself.
After that incident, Nurgaliyev called on the federal, regional and local police to discuss ways of reinforcing work discipline.
The scandal with Dymovsky comes at a particularly unfortunate time for the Interior Ministry, which celebrates the national Police Day holiday on Tuesday.

TITLE: RusAl Accused of Waging ‘Terror’ Campaign
AUTHOR: By Alex Anishyuk
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — As deeply indebted United Company RusAl sweet-talks foreign investors ahead of a planned initial public offering, it has launched a “terror” campaign at home against a business newspaper.
Vedomosti said RusAl and its lawyers were bombarding its journalists with threatening cell phone calls and e-mails after it published a front-page article on Oct. 26 that contained information from a closed-door investors meeting where RusAl announced its 2008 results.
The article, titled “$6 Billion Found Missing,” revealed that RusAl had posted a net loss of $5.98 billion for last year and a $720 million loss for the first quarter of 2009. Vedomosti cited a presentation from the meeting as its source, without saying how it was obtained.
Vedomosti editor-in-chief Elizaveta Osetinskaya said RusAl accused the newspaper of breaking the law by publishing commercial secrets and was now waging a “war” to force it to reveal its source and prevent it from writing about the company again.
“UC RusAl and its lawyers from Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev & Partners have triggered an information terror [campaign] against Vedomosti,” Osetinskaya wrote in an unusually sharp post on her LiveJournal blog late last week. “Their goal is to make us stop writing fairly and objectively about one of the most closed companies in Russia, as we have done for the past 10 years.”
Vedomosti is a joint venture between The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Independent Media Sanoma Magazines, which is the parent company of The St. Petersburg Times and The Moscow Times.
RusAl refused to comment for this article. The company’s press office has rejected requests for comment from The Moscow Times since April, when the newspaper bypassed the press office to talk to RusAl workers about conditions at their plant.
Dmitry Afanasiev, chairman of Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev & Partners, said Vedomosti was in breach of the law for publishing financial data from the RusAl presentation in three separate articles, even though it had been warned that the information was a commercial secret.
“We have a number of legal options open to us against the newspaper and its editors, and we are currently reviewing these,” he said Sunday in e-mailed comments.
He did not address Vedomosti’s complaints of intimidation.
Osetinskaya said Vedomosti had no obligation to check with sources whether information it received was a commercial secret. She stressed that Russian media legislation gives journalists the right to gather and publish any information, unless proven that they knew about the confidentiality and still decided to make it public.
“[RusAl and its lawyers] are trying to force us to stop writing stories about RusAl’s business,” Osetinskaya wrote. “This is a real legal terror: They call the mobile phones of our staff from early morning until late at night, warning them, ‘Are you sure you should write about this?’”
The lawyers, she wrote, have flooded staff’s e-mail boxes and even tried to convince the journalists that the phone calls and e-mails fell under the category of confidential information, too.
They “are threatening journalists with consequences” such as possible criminal charges, she said.
Osetinskaya wrote that the real goal was most likely to find out the identity of the source.
“In unofficial conversations, lawyers have made it clear what they indeed want from us,” she wrote. “They need the source of the information.”
She said such a demand was in violation of a company policy that requires journalists to shield the identities of sources from third parties except when ordered by a court.
The whole affair, Osetinskaya wrote, is most likely orchestrated by RusAl owner Oleg Deripaska himself.
“I’m almost sure that Deripaska is dissatisfied personally with the fact that unsanctioned information about his brainchild and about himself has surfaced,” she wrote. “A person who assembled a large empire under his control is trying to control us — genuinely independent journalists.”
Alexander Nadmitov, a lawyer with Nadmitov & Partners not connected to the RusAl-Vedomosti affair, said Vedomosti had no obligation to refrain from publishing the RusAl report unless its source had said the information was a commercial secret.
At the same time, he said, RusAl would be hard-pressed to make the commercial secrets claim stick in court if it had not required the investors at the closed-door meeting to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
“If there was no written agreement between the company and its counteragents, no information provided can be regarded as confidential,” he said.
He said a lot of red tape goes into classifying something as a commercial secret.
“If a company lists certain information as a commercial secret, it should be documented and a list should be made of the people who have access to it,” Nadmitov said. “If a company gives certain information in the form of leaflets to conference participants, the leaflets should bear a disclaimer mentioning that this data should not be disclosed to a third party.”
The RusAl presentation was marked confidential on each page and was prepared for a small group of investment bankers under a confidentiality agreement, Afanasiev said.
Nadmitov agreed with Vedomosti’s assessment that RusAl was probably more interested in finding the source of the leak than going after Vedomosti.
RusAl, which has long been sensitive about how its activities are portrayed in the media, has a lot at stake as it prepares for a possible IPO next month that could raise $2 billion in Hong Kong and Paris. RusAl would use the earnings to reduce its massive debts of about $16.8 billion.
Companies often threaten the media with lawsuits, but the courts are unlikely to be persuaded by an argument based on the commercial secrets law, said Leonid Bershidsky, editor-in-chief of the Slon.ru business portal and a former editor-in-chief of Vedomosti.
“However, if you bribe a judge you can win such a case, well, you can probably win any case then,” he said.
Bershidsky said companies can be aggressive when they lack the ability to work well with the media, investors, analysts and consumers. Journalists, in turn, often find it easier to give in to a big company “that tries to reach its goals by threats or bribes rather than to do their jobs honestly,” he said. “Vedomosti, however, looks for the fair rather than the easy way. This is what Liza Osetinskaya’s blog post is about.”
RusAl has a reputation of being a closed company when it comes to dealing with journalists, said Maxim Kashulinsky, editor-in-chief of Forbes Russia magazine.
“We haven’t experienced any pressure from RusAl so far, but I wouldn’t call their approach a friendly one,” he said. “We ran an article about Deripaska’s business a year ago, and RusAl’s press office declined to comment for it.”
He said some companies try to pressure journalists into not publishing certain information, but this rarely results in lawsuits.
“Companies don’t use such threats on a systematic basis,” he said. “This scandal is an alarming signal for journalists, and I hope Vedomosti comes off victorious, which would benefit all journalists working in Russia.”
A receptionist at RusAl’s press office said no spokespeople were available to comment when called several times Friday. Sergei Babichenko, a spokesman for Basic Element, Deripaska’s holding company that has a controlling stake in RusAl, forwarded all questions to RusAl.
RusAl has used similar tactics against The Moscow Times. In an article in April titled “RusAl Saves $554M On Costs, Production,” The Moscow Times asked workers in one of RusAl’s mines how cost cuts were affecting them. One miner’s response, that the drop in spending was forcing workers to cut corners on safety, drew an angry reaction from RusAl’s press office, which said the newspaper could only publish information about the company that had been cleared by the press office.
Representatives of the mining giant also threatened to sue the newspaper, but no lawsuit materialized. The company has since refused to reply to inquiries from The Moscow Times.

TITLE: Charity Gears Up to Help Homeless in Winter Months
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With the coldest days of winter yet to arrive, anticipation is in the air — and perhaps nowhere more so than at 112B Borovaya Ulitsa, where a large heated tent has opened designed specifically to warm the city’s homeless as average daily temperatures drop below zero.
The spacious army-style tent with heaters can accommodate up to 50 to 60 overnight guests and is open from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. The shelter — which is so far the only one of its kind in town — will be open until the spring thaw. Those with nowhere to go will get a roof, a hot meal and, if necessary, new clothes. The project is funded jointly by the Nochlezhka (Night Shelter) charity and the Maltese Charity Service. At night, there is a social worker on duty, and a nurse comes every morning to offer basic medical assistance.
For hot meals, help for the homeless is offered by the Night Bus service, which distributes meals every day from 7 p.m. through midnight between the metro stations Lesnaya, Prospekt Prosveshchenia and Chernaya Rechka and a location by the Smolenskoye cemetery. The secound route covers the southern districts of the city. Owing to a lack of funds, however, volunteers have been forced to reduce the size of portions. It is also unclear whether the buses will continue to operate after New Year, since no grants have yet been received.
Nochlezhka has been operating in Russia for more than 17 years, helping the city’s most vulnerable people who live in extreme poverty and are deprived of access to housing, medical help and employment. The charity regularly organizes campaigns aimed at changing the attitude of the public, media and government toward homelessness and housing issues.
In June 2009, Nochlezhka organized a flash mob, “Queuing Ladies” on Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa, in an attempt to draw attention to the plight of the city’s female homeless. Dozens of volunteers pushed each other roughly to compete for a place on the only bed available to them. The city’s shelters provide just 46 beds for women, and there are at least 200 people competing for each place. Nochlezhka has appealed to City Hall to open a shelter specifically for women, but the request was turned down.
City police do not issue figures on the number of homeless people who freeze to death every year on the streets of St. Petersburg, but local charities say hundreds of people die or become seriously ill from hypothermia from October to April.
Volunteers are appealing to St. Petersburg residents to donate money for a second heated tent. The cost of operating the tent for one day is 4,000 rubles. The cost of running an overnight shelter during the whole winter season comes to more than 600,000 rubles.
In 2008, the tent helped more than 100 local homeless people to survive the winter.
Statistics on the numbers of homeless people in the city vary drastically. Official records usually include those who used to be registered in the city and then lost their housing registration for various reasons. The government-run City Homeless Registration Center lists 6,500 homeless individuals in St. Petersburg, while City Hall’s Social Affairs and Labor Committee has reported that there are more than 25,000 homeless people in the city. Maxim Yegorov, head of Nochlezhka estimates that there are at least 54,000 homeless people living in St. Petersburg.
Yegorov said St. Petersburg’s homeless can be divided into three main groups: Former prisoners who have lost their housing registration; people who have been swindled or coerced out of their apartments; and others who for various reasons have left or run away from their original homes.
There are many more people who live in the city but are not registered here, such as people from other regions of Russia who are looking for work but cannot afford a permanent residence.
Many homeless people seek refuge in the basements and attics of the city’s apartment buildings, but the installation of code locks and intercom access is making this increasingly difficult.
The city’s night shelters can only accommodate about 200 people. Governor Valentina Matviyenko has promised to encourage the opening of shelters in every neighborhood in the city, but progress has been slow.

TITLE: Yandex to Close List That Annoyed State
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Yandex, the country’s leading search engine, has announced plans to stop ranking popular blog posts after several entries exposed problems that embarrassed government officials.
The looming change stirred fears Thursday about a crackdown on free speech on the country’s No. 1 search engine.
Yandex explained in a statement that the rating service, dubbed Top Yandex, had stopped reflecting the situation in the Russian blogosphere and instead become a “media tool” aimed at influencing the public and the mass media. Unscrupulous parties charge fees to boost blog posts to the top of the top 10 list, the statement said.
“The rating was created as a mirror of the blogosphere … but it has become a tool of influence,” Anton Volnukhin, the head of Yandex’s blog search service, said in e-mailed comments.
Bloggers often have used Top Yandex, which reflects the most quoted and discussed topics in the Russian blogosphere, to decry social problems and appeal to the public and mass media for help. Bloggers ask one another to repost messages in order to climb up the Top Yandex list, which is found on the search engine’s homepage.
The rating system has helped to expose stories that have embarrassed the government and forced it into action. The most recent example involved a Pskov region nursing home where employees neglected the elderly residents. A group of volunteers working there complained on LiveJournal, prompting widespread media coverage and a public outcry that caused regional authorities to dismiss the director and close the nursing home. President Dmitry Medvedev mentioned the nursing home this week at a meeting on social services.
Top Yandex is also used by charity groups to collect money for urgent operations, while nationalist and extremist issues have surfaced there as well.
Some Internet insiders said Yandex’s statement contained a hint that the decision to close the rating system was politically motivated.
“If you don’t want to be manipulated, you have no choice but to shut down,” said Anton Nosik, a pioneer of the Russian Internet and the former president of No. 2 search engine Rambler.ru.
“This is the usual fate of independent media,” he said.

TITLE: Official: Flu Outbreak Not Yet Epidemic
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Seasonal flu has not yet reached epidemic levels in St. Petersburg, the city’s chief public health physician, Igor Rakitin, said on Monday, Interfax reported. 
Rakitin described the situation as “under control,” but noted that 15 of St. Petersburg’s 760 schools have been placed under quarantine since Oct. 17.
“The rate of illness has been rising since Sept. 14. It is particularly high among children between the ages of 7 and 14,” Rakitin explained. Overall, instances of the flu have increased by 20 percent. According to Rakitin, the disease will not be considered an epidemic until 9,000 new cases are reported daily. If the rate reaches 13,000 to 14,000, the city will take quarantine measures, he said.
Meanwhile, seasonal flu vaccines are still being administered to the city’s residents. Sixteen percent of the population, or 700,000 people, have already been vaccinated, Rakitin said.
As a vaccination campaign against H1N1 flu began across Russia on Monday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko said Ukraine’s flu epidemic is abating.
The number of new cases dropped to 32,448 yesterday from 127,252 on Nov. 4, Timoshenko said at a meeting with representatives of the World Health Organization in Kiev.
The WHO this month sent a team of experts to the country to investigate the outbreak of respiratory disease that had struck 969,247 and killed 155 people as of Nov. 8. It’s too early to report on final findings, said Jukka Pukkila, the head of the Geneva-based WHO mission in the country, at a joint briefing with Timoshenko today. 
The situation in Ukraine is “similar to what we see in other countries,” he said. The national epidemic may “go on for several weeks or maybe even couple of months,” he said.
“All eyes are on Ukraine now,” Pukkila said. “WHO stands ready to support Ukraine on getting pandemic vaccination as soon as possible.”
Ukraine is counting on the WHO to help promote flu vaccination in the country and to obtain the pandemic shot, Timoshenko said. Pukkila said Ukrainians should continue with vaccination against seasonal virus and start pandemic vaccination as soon as the shot is available.
Ukraine will register the pandemic vaccine within a month, First Deputy Health Ministry Vasyl Lazoryshynets said. Swine flu was confirmed by Ukrainian laboratories in 65 cases, 14 of which were fatal.
In Russia, sales of Tamiflu and other antiviral drugs have jumped, and demand for protective masks has outpaced supply after the country's first swine flu-related deaths, drugstore chains said.
"Over the past days of active demand for flu medicines, drugstores are selling out in two hours the amounts that previously took a week to sell," said Andrei Gusev, chief executive officer of Rigla, Russia's No. 2 drugstore chain.
Rigla, the retail unit of drug wholesaler Protek, said Tamiflu revenue jumped fourfold between Oct. 24 and Oct. 30. Sales of Arbidol, an antiviral medicine produced in Russia, doubled in the period.
Pharmacy Chain 36.6, Russia's largest drugstore chain, said Tamiflu revenue more than doubled in October, compared with the year-earlier period. Arbidol sales rose 40 percent.
Russia reported its first swine flu deaths two weeks ago, with the toll rising to 19 people as of Nov. 2, the country's public health watchdog said Friday. More than 3,100 people were infected with swine flu.
Supplies of protective masks are dwindling, 36.6 and Protek said. Demand for the masks grew tenfold compared with August, 36.6 said.
Meanwhile, a one-week school holiday that began on Nov. 2 was extended until Nov. 15 because of the seasonal flu epidemic, and authorities may decide to keep schools closed even longer if the public-health situation doesn't improve, Deputy Mayor Lyudmila Shvetsova said Friday. In the week to Nov. 1, 166,129 Muscovites fell ill with flu and acute respiratory viral infection, 105,746 of them children, RIA-Novosti said. This was an increase of 57.2 percent from a week earlier and 2.6 times higher than the year-earlier period.

(Bloomberg, SPT)

TITLE: Medevedev Upbeat On U.S. Nuclear Pact
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia and the United States have a good chance of reaching a new nuclear arms reduction deal before year’s end, but other nuclear powers must join disarmament efforts, President Dmitry Medvedev said in remarks released Saturday.
Medvedev also told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine he has been working well with his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, and predictions of a rift between him and Putin are overblown. The Kremlin released a transcript of the comments.
“No one must have any doubts that our ‘tandem’ has been working quite harmoniously,” Medvedev said. “As you can see, predictions that we will have a falling out so far have failed to materialize.”
The U.S.-Russian arms control talks are moving at a good pace, Medvedev said. “We have every chance to agree on a new treaty, determine new [weapons] levels and control measures and sign a legally binding document by the end of the year,” he said.
Russia and the United States both say they are committed to negotiating a successor deal to their 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. That arms reduction treaty has gradually slashed both sides’ arsenals but is set to expire Dec. 5.
He sounded less upbeat about the prospect of the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.
“A nuclear-free world is our shared ideal for which we must aspire, but a road to that is difficult,” he said. “It takes not just the United States and Russia renouncing nuclear weapons, but other countries as well.”
Putin said in September that he and Medvedev would “come to an agreement” on who would run for president in the 2012 election, leading to speculation that the two would decide on a predetermined winner.
Medvedev maintained that Putin meant to say they would discuss who should run for president to “avoid elbowing each other.” 
“He did not say that we would decide between us who will be the next president,” Medvedev said. “This would be ridiculous.”
“I do not wish to one day find myself and Vladimir Putin resembling the aged leaders from the Soviet Communist Party Politburo standing on Lenin’s Mausoleum in similar coats and hats.”
Medvedev has championed the rule of law and civil rights, but critics say he has remained in Putin’s shadow and failed to add substance to his pledges.
Medvedev told Der Spiegel that Russia could back sanctions against Iran if it fails to take a constructive stance in international talks over its nuclear program. The statement echoed Medvedev’s earlier comments, but Putin has warned that the threat of sanctions could thwart talks. But Putin also has said there is no real difference between him and Medvedev on the subject.
Asked to comment on Putin’s remark that the Soviet collapse represented “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” Medvedev challenged his mentor. He said the collapse was “serious, dramatic” but added that World War II and the 1917 Revolution were real catastrophes.
Medvedev also set himself apart from Putin by sharply criticizing the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. “From the point of view of the law, killing of a huge number of compatriots for political or unsubstantiated economic motives is a crime,” he said. 
“The rehabilitation of those involved in these crimes is impossible, no matter what economic achievements were made then and how well the state mechanism was built.”

TITLE: Britain's Haye Takes World Title From Valuev
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: LONDON — New world heavyweight champion David Haye said his title defence against John Ruiz would be like another cruiserweight contest after he took the WBA title off the giant Nikolai Valuev.
The 29-year-old Briton scored a majority decision verdict after taking the 2.13m tall, 143kg Russian the full twelve-round distance, using his superior speed to stay away from his opponent’s punches in Nuremberg on Saturday.
Former cruiserweight champion Haye has long sought a fight with either IBF and WBO champion Wladimir Klitschko or his brother Vitali, the WBC champion.
But under World Boxing Association (WBA) rules he must first defend his title against two-time former champion Ruiz, the mandatory challenger who “stepped aside” to allow him a fight against Valuev.
But Haye, speaking at a news conference here on Monday, said he did not expect the American to pose anything like the same problems as Valuev.
“I feel I will knockout John Ruiz after beating someone 7ft 2in tall. Someone who is a foot shorter and the same weight as me, it will feel like another cruiserweight fight.”
Reflecting on the bout, Haye said: “I’ll always be landing punches, he (Valuev) was missing aimlessly. It was like shadow boxing, he couldn’t hit me. He didn’t know how to do it.
“We knew he could get frustrated and miss. I wanted to put on a master-class. I have knocked out 21 out of 22 opponents, this time I showed a different side of myself. People didn’t know I could stick to gameplan for 12 rounds.
“There wasn’t a doubt in my mind (about the result) until one judge gave it 114-114. I thought ‘what the hell was going on?’.”
Boot added: “Having belief in David’s natural ability against all the nay-sayers ... that came to fruition on Saturday. There’s immense pride, pride in David and pride in the job we’ve done collectively.”
Haye injured his right hand early in the fight with Valuev and said he would now need medical attention.
“The right hand is pretty bad, I’m going for an X-ray. I hit Valuev on the chin, that's like hitting someone on the top of the head.
“Then he licked his lips. I had to be sparing with my right hand after that. But I was technically and tactically sound.”

TITLE: Spy With 'Twisted Biography' Laid to Rest in Tel Aviv
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Shabtai Kalmanovich, a patron of the arts and sports, a wealthy businessman and a double agent who worked for the KGB and Israel’s Shin Bet, was laid to rest at a cemetery in Petakh Tikva, near Tel Aviv, on Thursday.
Kalmanovich, 60, was gunned down in central Moscow last Monday in an apparent contract hit that authorities said might be connected to a debt deal gone bad or an ongoing gangster turf war.
“Having a man with such a twisted biography, everything is possible,” Gennady Gudkov, a member of the State Duma’s Security Committee, told The St. Petersburg Times.
Gudkov speculated that Kalmanovich might have asked a debtor for repayment and the debtor decided to kill him instead.
“I know of several such cases, and I think this practice is coming back during the crisis,” said Gudkov, a former KGB official.
A sports promoter, a show business producer and a spy for Soviet intelligence, Kalmanovich had the reputation of a smooth operator and was a friend to many people, from comedians to politicians.
“He was a very joyful and a very touching person,” pop singer Lev Leshchenko told Vedomosti.
Unknown gunmen opened fire on Kalmanovich’s Mercedes from a passing silver Lada on Monday on Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya. Kalmanovich, who was heading to a business meeting, was hit 10 times and died on the spot. His driver tried to chase the Lada but was forced to stop the car because of serious injuries that he had sustained in the attack.
No arrests have been announced in the killing.
Law enforcement officials said the death might be linked to a gangland war that broke out after notorious gangster Vyacheslav Ivankov died last month of injuries sustained in a July shooting. Kalmanovich was a friend of Ivankov and supported his attempts to dominate rival gangs, national media reported this week.
Hundreds of people paid their respects at his funeral, including his daughter and former business partners.
“I want you to know that I am proud and always will be proud of being your daughter,” his daughter, Liat, said in her eulogy, Israel’s Ynetnews agency reported. “You did not put me to shame. You were a spirited Jew and an ardent Zionist.”
Born in Soviet Lithuania, Kalmanovich immigrated to Israel in 1971 and, after graduating from Jerusalem University, worked at several construction projects in South Africa.
In 1988, he was arrested in Israel on charges of spying for the Soviet Union and spent five years in prison. Kalmanovich repeatedly said in interviews that he was not ashamed of working for Soviet intelligence but that he had been “brainwashed” by Soviet propaganda into offering his services.
Both the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff and the Foreign Intelligence Service used Kalmanovich’s connections among the Israeli elite to gather information on Israeli politics, said Alexander Gurinovich, a former senior military intelligence official, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
Kalmanovich returned to Russia in 1993 after receiving a pardon from Israeli President Chaim Herzog on medical reasons.
Crooner Iosif Kobzon and then-Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoi were actively involved in lobbying the Israeli authorities to pardon Kalmanovich, former Russian Ambassador to Israel Alexander Bovin recalled in his memoirs.
Upon his return to Moscow, Kalmanovich became involved in various ventures, including outdoor markets, show business and drug stores. 
Together with Kobzon and show producer Alexander Dostman, Kalmanovich founded the now-defunct Liat-Natali entertainment group, which organized concerts featuring foreign stars. Kalmanovich brought to Moscow top performers like Michael Jackson, Tom Jones, Liza Minnelli and the Gipsy Kings.
Kalmanovich said he made most of his money in South Africa, where he had befriended Kgosi Lucas Manyane Mangope, the ruler of Bophuthatswana, a black homeland that apartheid-era South Africa recognized as a sovereign nation but the rest of the world viewed as a puppet state.
“I have made my money there constructing crocodile farms, hotels and apartment blocks,” Kalmanovich said in one interview.
In Moscow and elsewhere, Kalmanovich pursued a luxurious lifestyle and was known to collect Napoleon-era porcelain at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions. His personal wealth was difficult to estimate because his business was mostly closed from the general public and he signed almost no papers, his friends said.
Soon after his return to Moscow, Kalmanovich started to invest heavily in sports, mainly basketball, which was his favorite sport during his childhood years in Lithuania.
In the mid-1990s, he reportedly invested $6.5 million in the Kaunas Zalgiris basketball team. Once a crown jewel of Soviet basketball, the Lithuanian-based team was in deep debt, Kalmanovich said. He later became an owner of the Spartak female basketball team in Vidnoye, the Moscow region.
Both teams flourished under his leadership. Kaunas Zalgiris won the Euroleague basketball championship in 1999, while Spartak won the Euroleague championship last spring for the third year in a row.
The Russian Basketball Federation — whose board includes Russian Technologies head Sergei Chemezov and Federal Customs Service chief Andrei Belyaninov, both former KGB officers — praised Kalmanovich on its web site as the person “connected with the recent successes of female basketball.”
Spartak and Kaunas Zalgiris had no immediate comment on Kalmanovich’s death.
But a former basketball coach said the Spartak club and the entire league faced an uncertain future with Kalmanovich’s death.
“He was a charismatic person, and he was the driving force behind female basketball,” said Alexei Tvorozhnikov, a former CSKA female basketball coach. “It is difficult to predict how both the club and the league will survive this blow.”

TITLE: Markelov Killing Linked to Revenge
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Thursday authorized the arrest of two suspects in the January murder of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov as signs emerged that the killing was motivated by revenge.
The suspected gunman, Nikita Tikhonov, has the same name as a man accused by Markelov in a hate murder three years earlier.
Sova Center, which tracks hate crimes, named a Nikita Tikhonov as one of the suspects in the April 2006 stabbing death of anti-fascist activist Alexander Ryukhin in southern Moscow. Sova, which posted the information on its web site in late 2006, said Tikhonov was a member of the ultranationalist group United Brigade-88, and it cited Markelov, who at the time was the lawyer for Ryukhin’s mother, as the source of the information.
Sova director Galina Kozhevnikova told The St. Petersburg Times on Thursday that she believes that the Tikhonov linked to Ryukhin’s killing and the Tikhonov arrested in Markelov’s killings were the same person.
“That Tikhonov had a serious motive to kill Markelov because he imprisoned his friends,” Kozhevnikova said.
Moscow’s Nagatinsky District Court sentenced three people to prison terms in June 2007 for the attack on Ryukhin, while three other suspects remained at large.
Federal Security Service chief Alexander Bortnikov told President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday that Tikhonov had admitted to shooting Markelov and Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasia Baburova on an icy sidewalk in central Moscow on Jan. 19.
Moscow’s Basmanny District Court authorized the arrest of Tikhonov, 29, and Yevgenia Khasis, 24, on Thursday, Moscow City Court spokeswoman Anna Usachyova said, Interfax reported. She identified Tikhonov as unemployed and Khasis as a manager.
The Investigative Committee has charged Tikhonov and Khasis with the murder, which carries a maximum punishment of life in prison.
Khasis is suspected of following Markelov after he left a news conference and informing Tikhonov of his whereabouts, law enforcement officials told Kommersant.
FSB director Bortnikov said the suspects, who were detained Tuesday, were members of a criminal group that carried out a racially motivated murder in September and was planning a high-profile murder, according to remarks posted on the Kremlin’s web site.
He provided no details about the September killing or the murder plot.
Law enforcement officers have confiscated a large number of firearms from the criminal group, Bortnikov said, without mentioning any other members of the group.
Alexander Belov, former leader of the ultranationalist Movement Against Illegal Immigration, or DPNI, said he knew Tikhonov personally and had “serious doubts” that he was linked to any murders, Interfax reported.
Belov said Tikhonov had served as a public relations consultant in the campaign office of Boris Fyodorov, the founder of the UFG investment bank and a former finance minister, ahead of the State Duma elections in 2003. Fyodorov died in November 2008 after suffering a stroke.
Tikhonov also once worked as a speechwriter for the Interior Ministry, Belov told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Belov said he would help Tikhonov find a lawyer.
Interfax and Kommersant reported that the suspects were former members of the banned ultranationalist group Russian National Unity.
But Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that Tikhonov was a member of United Brigade-88, possibly confirming Sova’s information.
Russian National Unity’s former leader, Alexander Barkashov, said Thursday that he could not say whether Tikhonov and Khasis had ever been members of his group, Interfax reported.
Markelov’s brother, former State Duma Deputy Mikhail Markelov, told Kommersant that his own investigation into the attack had concluded that the two suspects were indeed involved in the January murders.
Stanislav Markelov, who handled high-profile rights cases such as for the family of a Chechen girl who was strangled to death by former army Colonel Yury Budanov, was shot dead by a masked assailant after holding a news conference criticizing Budanov’s early release. Baburova, who was walking with him, was injured in the attack and died hours later in the hospital.
The head of the Moscow branch of the Investigative Committee, Anatoly Bagmet, said shortly after the attack that it might have been organized by ultranationalists.
Ultranationalists had been dismayed by Budanov’s 10-year prison sentence and called for his release, saying he was the victim of a smear campaign.

TITLE: New Cruises Planned For New Year Period
AUTHOR: By Maria Kiselyova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Cruise tours to Finland, Sweden and Estonia will start leaving from the new terminals on Vasilyevsky Island for the first time at the end of this year.
The first of four cruises will depart on Dec. 30, and the last on Jan. 4. Tourists embarking on four-day trips to Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn will be among the first passengers to depart from the new terminals of the Marine Facade port, which is opening in stages. The tourism company Expo Tour, which is organizing the trips, says that the new terminal will offer an increased number of passport checkpoints, which should decrease the time spent going through passport control.
The cruise program has been designed in Russia and will meet the demands and preferences of Russian tourists, said Pavel Kvasnikov, development director of Expo Tour. The ships will be staffed mostly by Russians, and will feature several famous local singers in their entertainment programs. 
There will also be 12 to 15 tour buses with Expo Tour-trained Russian guides on each ship. According to Kvasnikov, tickets for the cruises are selling well, and only tickets for standard cabins, starting from 370 euros per adult, remain. The price includes breakfast, a pre-celebration supper and glass of champagne at celebrations. 
Expo Tour representatives said they saw their main rivals as cruises leaving from Helsinki, which are slightly more expensive and less accessible to Petersburgers.
The Marine Facade port is an ambitious and controversial project. To enable its construction, 450 hectares of reclaimed land is being built off Vasilyevsky Island to house the marine terminal, accommodation and office buildings. Unlike the old port, the new facility will be able to receive ships that are more than 200 meters long. 
Sergei Korneyev, director for the Northwest Russian Tourist Industry Union, said that in the past there have not been enough tourists to fill such large ships in St. Petersburg. He said that previous attempts to organize cruise lines from the St. Petersburg port had failed because they were not promoted enough.
The most recent ferry service to Helsinki was stopped due to a lack of passengers at the beginning of the year after operating for just a few months. 
Potential clients simply didn’t get to know about the tours, and used ones leaving from Finland and Estonia, said Korneyev. Right now the financial climate is particularly good for short cruises, as the economic slowdown has made people look for cheaper tourism options, he said. 
Kvasnikov said that Expo Tour currently only has four cruises scheduled, with no plans for future development of the route. Korneyev predicted however that cruises from St. Petersburg would develop in the future. He said it was likely that a number of other destinations would be introduced, including the Mediterranean.

TITLE: Stroimontage Offices Searched
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Artur Kirilenko, the co-owner of Stroimontage construction company, is suspected of premeditated bankruptcy and siphoning off the company’s assets.
Last Tuesday, employees of the Ministry of Internal affairs searched Stroimontage’s offices as part of an ongoing case opened in September by Baltiisky Bank in accordance with article 196 of the Criminal Code (premeditated bankruptcy), a law enforcement source told Vedomosti. Dmitry Bogolyubov, a representative of Stroimontage, did not confirm or deny this information. Violations of article 196 are punishable with a fine of 200,000 to 500,00 rubles ($6,890 to $17,230) or up to six years in prison.
Baltiisky Bank is demanding that Kirilenko, the principal shareholder and head of Stroimontage, return two loans worth a total of 965 million rubles ($33.2 million). Kirilenko had personally guaranteed the repayment of the loans, which were issued to Stroimontage and its subsidiary company KosMonblan (Mont Blanc) in 2008.
Vedomosti obtained a copy of an official statement (dated Sept. 24) detailing the charges being brought against Kirilenko. According to the document, he and Vladimir Zakharov, the head of KosMonblan, signed credit agreements with Baltiisky Bank, and then transferred their assets once the loans had been obtained. The assets were siphoned off by stripping KosMonblan of its proprietary rights and deliberately selling real estate at below-market prices, which inflicted especially serious damage on Baltiisky Bank, the statement said. Stroimontage won a concession in the courts when the contract according to which KosMonblan had financed construction of the Monblan business center was declared invalid, and now the office center belongs to Stroimontage. 
The Monblan center was offered as security on a 715 million-ruble ($24.6 million) loan issued to KosMonblan, Oleg Shigaev, president of Baltiisky Bank, said in April. In September, Kirilenko offered the center to the bank as repayment of the loan. 
“The bank’s suspicions are confirmed — the management of Stroimontage deliberately created a situation in which a group of companies controlled by Kirilenko was knowingly unable to repay the obligations incurred,” said Yelena Sanarova, a representative of Baltiisky Bank.
Opening a criminal case is the most effective means for a creditor to prove their rights, said Yegor Noskov, a managing partner of the Duvernoix Legal law firm. If the investigation determines that Stroimontage’s bankruptcy was premeditated, the courts may re-examine their ruling that declared the Kosmonblan investment agreement void and invalidated the business complex as collateral, said the lawyer. 
In addition to the 715 million ruble ($24.6 million) warranty and a bonded loan of 1.2 billion rubles ($41.3 million), Stroimontage is saddled with 2.3 billion rubles ($79.2 million) of debt, the company’s press office said in April.

TITLE: Minister: Export Loan Insurer Almost Ready
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The government has almost finished creating an agency to insure export loans in a measure aimed at boosting the country’s trade, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said Friday.
“We have come to the final stage of the creation of an export agency,” Nabiullina told the State Duma, adding that she had already discussed the project with the Finance Ministry.
Nabiullina said the creation of the agency would in part help to increase the number of instruments that support Russian enterprises exporting manufactured products.
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov ordered the Economic Development Ministry in May to prepare proposals on the creation of such an agency.
The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Vneshekonombank proposed creating the new agency on the base of Roseximbank, a subsidiary of VEB.
Nabiullina said the efficiency of Russia’s export policy depends on long-term tariff regulation and must be coordinated with the development strategies of businesses.
She also said the government should continue subsidizing export loans. “The mechanisms used to support the manufacturing sector should be more extensive. There is only 6 billion rubles left of the funds earmarked for providing subsidies for export loans in 2009, and this will only satisfy a third of what is needed,” Nabiullina said.
Earlier this year Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the ministry to hasten its work on the creation of the export agency. Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Slepnyov told a news conference in October that the agency would be capitalized to the tune of $1 billion.

TITLE: Kudrin Considers Exit Tactics
AUTHOR: By Aaron Mulvihill
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Saturday that it was time to begin discussing the eventual withdrawal of economic stimulus packages, after his G20 colleagues pledged to keep their support in place until a global economic recovery is assured.
G20 finance chiefs and central bank governors, meeting in St. Andrews, Scotland, cited concerns over high unemployment and uneven growth in a communique released Saturday after the two-day summit.
“With the currents of growth that have started, we already need to consider the exit strategies,” Kudrin told reporters.
He also said he was concerned that asset price bubbles might materialize because of massive rapid capital inflows. “We need to be very careful with this huge amount of injected liquidity,” he said Saturday.
While Russia, among others, slipped out of recession in the third quarter, the forum warned of “variations in the pace of economic recovery and market conditions across countries” and elected to maintain broad emergency support measures until sustainable growth returns.
“Recovery is uneven and remains dependent on policy support, and high unemployment is a major concern,” G20 ministers said.
At its last summit, held in Pittsburgh, the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging economies agreed to develop a coordinated approach to growth, but agreement beyond broad pledges has proved elusive.
The framework hammered out at this weekend’s meeting allows for continued emergency support while gradually shifting the focus from crisis response to sustained growth. The member states committed to present economic plans for common scrutiny by the end of January.
Kudrin was dismissive of a suggestion by the British hosts that a flat tax be introduced on banking transactions to create a reserve fund for future bailouts. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for debate on the issue, arguing for an “economic and social contract” that would lessen the burden of bank bailouts on taxpayers.
But Kudrin said he was “skeptical of such tactics,” and slammed Brown as a politician who is “well known for always raising taxes.” U.S. and Canadian finance officials also criticized the British proposal.
There was general agreement, however, that the financial sector should somehow “contribute to paying for burdens associated with government interventions to repair the banking system,” according to the communique.
The G20 failed to reach agreement on the financing of environmental programs in the developing world, ahead of a major United Nations meeting on climate change in Copenhagen next month.
Asked whether Russia would contribute to an EU-led fund to curb emissions in developing economies, Kudrin said Moscow might provide technological assistance. “Our CIS neighbors will need help, and we will act to ensure that the CIS countries, those in Central and Eastern Europe, countries with low revenues, get the most help.”
He also cautioned against “piling commitments onto developing countries,” which he said could jeopardize efforts to eradicate poverty.

TITLE: Putin Promises Further Stimulus Measures
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia would continue with its economic stimulus program even though the export-dependent economy has shown signs of having emerged from recession.
Putin told a group of foreign investors that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the outlook for Russia’s economy but that his government would forge ahead with measures aimed at boosting domestic demand, strengthening the banking system and decreasing the budget deficit.
“It’s still too early to say that we’ve overcome the crisis,” he said.
Russia’s economy began to nosedive last year in the wake of the global financial crisis and a slump in oil and gas prices, its biggest exports. Gross domestic product is expected to fall 8.5 percent this year, according to the Economic Development Ministry, but official data show that Russia’s economy grew 0.6 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months, technically lifting it out of recession.
The economy has been more buoyant in recent months thanks to rising crude prices, but analysts have warned that without a revival in consumer demand any economic recovery would be lackluster.
Putin told representatives of the foreign investment advisory group, with whom he meets once a year, that the government would continue to reduce red tape — one of the biggest obstacles to investment in Russia.
“We have certain plans for this. They’re not being carried out as quickly as we’d like, but we’re working in this direction,” the prime minister said.
Putin’s comments come after the Group of 20 leading industrialized and developing economies — which includes Russia — pledged to keep stimulus measures intact until recovery is assured.

TITLE: Beer Duties Increase Passed in First Parliament Reading
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian lawmakers accepted a bill that may triple the excise tax on beer next year in the first of three readings.
The draft law would raise the tax on beer with an alcohol content of 0.5 percent to 9 percent over the next three years, the lower house of parliament said in a statement on its web site Friday. The tax would increase next year to nine rubles a liter from three rubles, followed by an 11 percent increase in 2011 and a 20 percent increase in 2012, according to the draft.
The proposed tax increase “is bad news,” Heineken Chief Executive Officer Jean-Francois van Boxmeer told investors at a meeting in Amsterdam on Monday. “It’s a fierce increase at once. Will it have an impact on consumption and volume? Yes.”
Heineken is Russia’s third-largest beer maker, after Anheuser-Busch Inbev and Carlsberg, which owns the country’s largest brewer.
“Everybody is already thinking about what they can do, including us,” van Boxmeer said. 
The Russian government predicts that the tax increases would average out to 50 percent over three years.

TITLE: Naftogaz Makes ‘Difficult’ Gas Payment
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Naftogaz Ukrainy has paid Gazprom for October gas supplies on time, but the process proved “extremely difficult” because of opposition from the president and Central Bank, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Friday.
Naftogaz later confirmed that it paid the October bill. A Gazprom spokesman declined to comment on whether the payment had been received, saying only that the money was expected by Monday.
Tymoshenko said her rival President Viktor Yushchenko and the Central Bank had thrown obstacles in the way of the payment, the latest public sign of behind-the-scenes struggles ahead of a presidential election planned for Jan. 17.
Her comments in a three-paragraph statement reflect a similar charge made by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who in October warned that Yushchenko risked provoking a fresh crisis over gas supplies. In an interview to Der Spiegel magazine, President Dmitry Medvedev made similar charges.
The payment problem “is linked to the election campaign in Ukraine, where one power harms another in an attempt to score political points,” Medvedev said in an advance copy of the interview released Saturday.
Tymoshenko and former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych are frontrunners in the first presidential election since the 2004 Orange Revolution. Polls show that Yushchenko is unlikely to win.
“Today we paid Russia the next $500 million,” Tymoshenko said in the statement. “Is anyone asking the government how it is paying for gas while there is a full blockade from the side of the Central Bank and the president, and with the fact that local utilities are paying 50 percent to 60 percent of the price of the gas they use?”
The Central Bank and the president’s office have not answered her comments, but both said money from the International Monetary Fund would be used to pay for the gas, giving no indication that they wanted to obstruct the transaction.
Shirvani Abdullayev, a gas analyst at Alfa Bank in Moscow, said he thought it was only a matter of time before Ukraine fails to make a payment.
“Ukraine’s economy is in chaos,” Abdullayev said. “But if someone in Ukraine wanted a reasonable solution, it would be found. But the problem is, none of the Ukrainian political forces is able to come up with a particular agenda for relations with Russia.”
An EU Commission spokesman said Friday that Ukraine had informed the bloc that it has 25 billion cubic meters of gas in storage, enough to avoid disruptions to flows this winter.
In previous gas disputes, Moscow suggested that the payment problems would be settled if Ukraine were to agree to sell its pipeline network to Russia, although the country’s constitution does not allow its sale to foreigners.
But Moscow hasn’t lost hope, analysts said, and it now may be pushing even harder.
“The only thing that could prevent the escalation of this conflict is Ukraine selling or promising to sell the Ukrainian pipeline to Russia,” Abdullayev said. “Russia feels this is about time.”
Naftogaz first deputy CEO Ihor Didenko was in Moscow on Friday to “discuss amendments to the contracts” with Gazprom, spokesman Valentyn Zemlyanskyi said, declining to elaborate. 

(AP, Bloomberg)

TITLE: $100 Bln In Financing Seen by ’11
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian companies and the government may raise as much as $100 billion from sales of stocks and bonds in 2010 and 2011 to shore up balance sheets, refinance debt and help plug the nation’s budget deficit, UralSib said in a report.
Companies will probably seek to sell about $55 billion in equity offerings and the government may offer up to $20 billion of foreign-currency debt, with a “similar amount” of new debt coming from corporations in the next 12 to 18 months, Chris Weafer and Leonid Slipchenko wrote in the report.
Firms are struggling to borrow abroad this year after the global financial crisis cut almost all access to refinancing. The government plans to sell foreign-currency bonds next year for the first time since 1998.
With total debts of $723 billion, including $293 billion to foreign banks, Russian firms “had planned to issue equity to cut that debt in 2008-09, but were unable to do so because of the economic crisis,” Weafer wrote. “Pressure will intensify for many to restructure their balance sheets in 2010 and 2011.”
Companies were considering about $40 billion in equity sales for last year, and with only $2 billion in new offerings and $1.2 billion in secondary placements, the backlog has been building, the report said. Major listed firms will need to refinance more than $20 billion in debt in the first half of 2010, according to UralSib calculations.

TITLE: Russia Pitches Debt at London Meeting
AUTHOR: By Alex Anishyuk
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin led a government delegation Thursday to meet investors in London for a “non-deal road show” to discuss a planned issue of $17.8 billion in sovereign eurobonds, but the presentation left investors wanting for specifics.
The eurobond issue would be Russia’s first since the 1998 default and is key to the government’s plan to narrow its budget deficit next year. But with oil prices well above forecasts made for the budget, the Finance Ministry has been downplaying the significance — and the size — of the issue.
“We did not present a concept of a specific securities issue, no decisions on the maturity period and the currency were made,” Dmitry Pankin, a deputy finance minister, told reporters. The government, he said, will make specific decisions next year at the earliest, and “not even at the beginning of the year.”
Last month, Pankin said Russia could issue up to $17.8 billion in eurobonds, but Tuesday he said the figure could be significantly reduced if oil prices stay high.
“With any price above $58 per barrel, you can start talking about cutting back on borrowing and the use of funds,” Kudrin said Thursday, apparently referring to the Reserve Fund and National Welfare Fund that collect windfall oil revenue.
The budget for 2009 is based on an average price of $58 per barrel for Urals crude, Russia’s main export blend.
According to Central Bank data, Urals averaged $56.3 per barrel for the first nine months of the year, up from $50.5 in the first half of the year. Spot prices for Urals were above $77 on Thursday.
After concerns earlier this year that the budget shortfall could reach as high as 10 percent of gross domestic product amid major spending to prop up banks and industry, the government has signaled that it is far less worried about the deficit spending.
The Finance Ministry is now planning to revise this year’s budget to reallocate funds no longer needed to shore up banks for general crisis spending.
This year’s budget deficit is expected to be between 7.5 percent and 7.7 percent, after some cost cutbacks allowed the government to cut the shortfall by 0.5 percentage points, Kudrin told lawmakers Oct. 21.
The budget deficits are expected to fall to 6.8 percent in 2010 and gradually to 4 percent in 2011, he said.
Kudrin said demand for the eurobonds would show what key buyers really think of the plans by the Russian government. “We will know the reaction of the investors when we place the bonds, the attention and the demand will give the answer.”
Alexei Ulyukayev, a Central Bank first deputy chairman who also attended the meeting, said investors asked him about the instruments used to support the banking sector and the macroeconomic parameters that the Central Bank uses to form its policies.
When asked about investors’ concerns, Ulyukayev said “they had no specific worries.”
Investors, however, countered that they heard very few details — to worry them or otherwise.
“They were very reluctant to give any specifics [on the eurobond issue]. The only specific was that there are no specifics,” Ralph Sueppel, portfolio manager at BlueCrest Capital Management, who attended the discussions, told Reuters.
“I think [the issue] will be received well,” he said.
Another unnamed conference participant told Interfax that he did not hear “anything new” from the officials.
“Russia’s goal in re-entering the sovereign bonds market isn’t primarily attracting cash, this is done to open more opportunities for the economy and strengthen relations with investors,” said Denis Poryvai, a fixed-income analyst at UralSib.
“Russia is unlikely to place eurobonds before February, and the initial issue will not exceed $2 billion to $4 billion.”
He said the demand for the bonds would score high, as investors have a clear understanding that Russia is not going to be an aggressive borrower and high oil prices will give a positive image of the Russian economy to investors.

TITLE: Gazprom Sees 1st Half Profit Plunge By 50 Percent As Demand Plummets
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom saw profit cut in half in the first six months of the year as the cost of natural gas it buys from Central Asia soared and demand plummeted in Europe.
The world’s largest producer of natural gas on Monday reported net profit of 305.8 billion rubles ($10.6 billion) for the period, down from 609.3 billion rubles, according to financial results calculated to international standards.
The state-controlled company’s total sales for the period fell slightly to 1.639 trillion rubles from 1.755 trillion, but the bottom line was hit by a 67 percent increase in the cost of gas that it buys from Central Asian neighbors such as Turkmenistan.
The volume of gas sales to Europe, which buys about 20 percent of its gas from Gazprom, meanwhile fell 24 percent as the global financial crisis slashed demand from large industrial consumers, the company said in a statement. But the value of those sales rose 6 percent thanks to higher prices.

TITLE: Sberbank Faces Anti-Monopoly Service Case
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has opened a case against Sberbank, which is suspected of breaking the law on competition, the service said on its web site Friday.
Following an investigation in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region, the anti-monopoly service found that Sberbank, Russian Post, a local municipal bank and several providers of communal services colluded to limit the number of ways that Odintsovo residents could make payments for communal services to Sberbank, Odinbank and Russian Post.
Residents could not use other banks to pay for communal services because the service providers put a special barcode on the bills instead of the regular bank details, which gave Sberbank, Odinbank and Russian Post “the ability to affect the conditions of banking services” in the district. The watchdog will review the case Dec. 10 along with the Central Bank. Sberbank had no immediate comment.

TITLE: LUKoil Fined by FAS for Raising Gasoline Prices
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service fined LUKoil 6.5 billion rubles ($225 million) on Thursday for breaking anti-monopoly law, the service said on its web site.
The service said last month that the oil major had abused its dominating position in the gasoline market by restricting supplies and artificially raising prices during the first half of 2009. It also accused LUKoil of obstructing the investigation that the service had started.
TNK-BP, Gazprom Neft and Rosneft were also found by the watchdog to have colluded on price setting over the period and have been fined a combined 14 billion rubles.

(SPT, Bloomberg)

TITLE: Russia’s Eternal Military-Industrial Kholkhoz
AUTHOR: By Alexander Golts
TEXT: It seems that professional observers of Russia’s endless political antics have something new to add to their list. People have long ceased to be amazed by the fact that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has a habit of meddling in Russia’s military affairs, national security and foreign policy — all of which belong to the constitutional domain of President Dmitry Medvedev. But the president has unexpectedly stuck his nose into an area that had previously belonged to Putin alone.
Last week, Medvedev visited the NPO Mashinostroyenia missile design bureau in Reutov, located just outside Moscow. Amazingly, the head of state did not limit himself to simply inspecting new missile programs. Nor was he satisfied at being given the chance to sit at the control console of the country’s coastal defense system. Rather than express delight over the experience, the president gave a thorough dressing-down to the titans of the country’s military-industrial complex. It turns out that despite receiving major budgetary funding, the defense sector has done practically nothing to modernize its industrial base. What’s more, in addition to enjoying exclusive manufacturing rights on government orders, the military-industrial complex has had the temerity to jack up prices on its products. And Medvedev exposed the biggest secret of Russia’s military complex: It does not produce any modern equipment but busies itself trying to “modernize” old airplanes, tanks and missiles that were designed way back in the 1970s and 1980s. This highly ineffective practice of updating and upgrading old designs is exactly what the president said needs to be stopped.
Attentive readers might have noticed that the Russian commander-in-chief essentially repeated what several defense analysts — including myself — have been saying for years. Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that our publications had any influence on the president. There is something else that is motivating Medvedev — an open conflict between Defense Ministry brass and leaders of the military-industrial complex. The Defense Ministry has no desire to buy overpriced, outdated military equipment. What’s more, the “Zapad 2009” war games convinced the military leadership that despite claims of possessing weapons “that are unmatched by any other country,” Russia’s military-industrial complex is physically incapable of producing equipment with modern information support.
Moreover, Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin made the extremely harsh statement that the Defense Ministry is not a welfare agency, and its function is not to keep decrepit defense contractors alive. In addition, military leaders announced plans to purchase drone aircraft from Israel and helicopter carriers from France. Military contractors, full of spite, retaliated by publishing “patriotic” texts accusing Defense Ministry leaders of selling out and of even betraying national interests.
By battling for increased effectiveness and productivity in the defense sector, Medvedev stepped on the toes of the multibillion-dollar cash cows that had been fattened for years by Putin loyalists such as former Defense Minister and current Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin and Rosoboronexport chief Sergei Chemezov. Now we will see the degree of Medvedev’s influence and whether the captains of the country’s military industry will heed or ignore his criticisms. After all, the president was referring more to the symptoms of the illness than to the root causes.
The reason for the ineffectiveness of Russia’s military-industrial complex is that it is not an industrial complex at all. It is actually thousands of scattered enterprises that are incorrectly classified as defense contractors — mostly to save jobs. Some of them haven’t produced anything for years. This situation made it impossible to implement full-scale serial production in the defense industry. The best that most contractors can do is to manufacture enough pieces of hardware to fill the piecemeal orders trickling down from the main production plants where the final, antiquated assembly process is carried out. That is why the price for parts continuously increases, but their quality does not.
It is especially amusing when Medvedev vehemently demands that military factories stop merely upgrading old equipment and start manufacturing new hardware to begin re-equipping our armed forces by 2012. The top brass were apparently afraid to inform their commander-in-chief that all of Russia’s so-called “modern” military hardware — the Su-34, Su-35 and MiG-35 military aircraft, the S-400 air-defense system and the short-range Islander missile — are nothing more than slightly upgraded versions of projects that were designed nearly 30 years ago. These projects spent most of the 1990s lying around in dormant military plants. Even the so-called “supermodern” BrahMos cruise missile, a joint venture between India’s Defense Research and Development Organization and NPO Mashinostroyenia, is not built from solid-state electronics but vacuum tubes.
The only way out of this dead end is to stop the senseless attempt to produce everything at once — from missiles, tanks and aircraft to pistols and submachine guns. Military leaders need to set their priorities and create the necessary production chain while keeping in mind that initial overall production costs will be far higher than the individual price tag on this or that particular armament.
But I am not sure how much Putin and his team will like this new approach to reorganizing the military-industrial complex, considering that for the better part of the last decade they have been striving to achieve just the opposite. They tried to corral scores of defense enterprises into a single “military kolkhoz” called Russian Technology that included entities as disparate as aviation construction corporations and shipbuilding companies. And in the manner of a true Soviet collective enterprise, for every profitable and functioning company brought in, 10 more dying or bankrupt firms hitch along for a free ride.
While all of this waste was going on, Kremlin bosses didn’t lift a finger. Then-President Putin’s regime took the losses onto its own books and continued shoveling tens of billions of rubles into the bottomless pit of defense spending. Will they take Medvedev’s angry words seriously? Their response will be a good indication of how much political weight Medvedev really carries.
But the fact that Medvedev has voiced his support for the Defense Ministry by criticizing the country’s traditional sacred cow, the military-industrial complex, as woefully inefficient can in some ways be classified as “modernization” — at least by Russian standards.

Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal.

TITLE: The Wall That Changed Modern History
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Kiselyov
TEXT: Monday marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and this is a good time to look at the lessons we learned from it.
I recall how I walked into work one day about six weeks after the Berlin Wall fell. A co-worker who was always joking around called out to me as I entered the room, “Have you heard the latest news? There was a revolution in Romania.” “Stop trying to play me for a fool,” I snapped back. “I was just in Romania, and there is no way a revolution could take hold there.” My colleague was offended. “I’m serious,” he said. “They really had a revolution. The army switched over to the demonstrators, and Ceausescu fled Bucharest on Dec. 22.”
That left me speechless. I was in Bucharest in the summer of 1989 attending a summit of Warsaw Pact leaders. As it turned out, this was their last gathering. During that summit, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to convince the leaders of the satellite states to finally begin implementing political reforms. Nobody listened to him, especially not Romanian Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu. At that time it seemed that the Romanian dictator’s regime would continue standing for years to come. Not a word of criticism directed at the regime was tolerated. Soldiers toting World War II-era Soviet machine guns stood on every corner, and where once the old neighborhoods of Bucharest had been, now stood gigantic new buildings and enormous vacant public squares. All of this created the impression of a regime standing very solidly on its feet.
Those feet turned out to be made of clay.
Another lesson I grasped at the time was that it is impossible to predict what seemingly trivial factor or incident is capable of sparking a major historical event. When Hungary and Austria opened their borders in 1989, they assumed that a certain number of East Germans would pass from Hungary into Austria and from there into West Germany. But nobody was prepared for the tens of thousands of East Germans who flooded through, causing traffic jams hundreds of kilometers long in their desire to reach West Germany at any cost. The impression created by the mass flight of East Germans from the “socialist paradise” was so strong that East German leader Erich Honecker quickly found himself  on a “well-deserved vacation,” which in Soviet parlance meant forced retirement.
Another lesson was that Moscow was ultimately doomed by its traditionally condescending attitude toward the Warsaw Pact leaders, typically saying, “Where could they possibly go to get away from us? We will pressure them, explain our actions, and they will understand and do everything just as we want.” The challenges and warnings Gorbachev issued went unheeded, East German leaders dug in their heels and steadfastly refused to make the slightest change to their domestic policies until the situation had grown out of their control. And when attempts were finally made to install a more moderate, reform-oriented leadership in East Germany, it was too late. At that point, the East Germans did not want to see another communist in power. The same scenario was repeated soon afterward in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.
Two days before the Berlin Wall fell, while most of the Soviet Union was celebrating the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, an alternative demonstration was held in Moscow by people who wanted to see Gorbachev’s reforms extended and deepened. Gorbachev had no plans to leave the Communist Party, believed that it was possible to build “socialism with a human face” and was therefore ready to celebrate the Nov. 7 holiday under the banner of democratic slogans. My late father loved to recall 1927, when he had only just arrived in Moscow as a boy, and how two separate rallies took place on Nov. 7 — one in support of Josef Stalin, and the other in support of the opposition headed by Leon Trotsky. In 1989, I was so struck by the fact that we were seeing the first such demonstration in Russia to have taken place in the last 60 years that whatever was happening in Europe at the time simply paled in comparison. And yet, how can one compare the significance of a march by several thousand people demonstrating for a “democratic Russia” with the fall of the Berlin Wall — a structure that had symbolized the division of the world into two competing systems, and the demolition of which led to a domino effect that caused one communist regime after another to fall in Eastern Europe?
But the Soviet Union had its own serious problems at the time. It was bogged down in a deep political and economic crisis, and was shocked by the determination shown by Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Georgia to break free from the Soviet Union. In addition, the Kremlin was deeply concerned about the first flare-ups of interethnic conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Soon-to-be President Boris Yeltsin was planning to launch a struggle for power over the Russian Federation, the largest of the 15 Soviet republics. Gorbachev was preparing for yet another confrontation with democratic opposition leader Andrei Sakharov, who spoke out stridently against the Soviet leadership that had grown increasingly slow, wavering and erratic. Nobody knew that Sakharov had only little over one month to live, that Gorbachev’s days in power were numbered, and that with his departure, the Soviet Union would cease to exist.
And certainly not a soul could have known during those fateful days in November 1989 that a fair-haired young man with the obscure surname of Putin — who, pistol in hand, had dispersed a crowd of demonstrators outside the building housing the Dresden branch of the Soviet KGB — would 10 years later become Russia’s second president.

Yevgeny Kiselyov is a political analyst and hosts a political talk show on Inter television in Ukraine.

TITLE: The Moscow Bubble
AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer
TEXT: Friends of mine wanted to buy a house in Tarusa, an old town on the Oka River in the Kaluga region. They sold the husband’s apartment for much less than it had been valued before the crisis and set out for Tarusa confident that house prices would be lower there, too.
They found plenty of picturesque homes, but also discovered that prices in Tarusa had not come down at all. Even though they were the only buyers, homeowners were asking as much as during the recent boom. Tarusa has no real estate market, only individual buyers and sellers. The locals know that their town is fashionable and that Muscovites pay top ruble. Now, no one will take a kopek less, and if they don’t get their price, they will go on living in the same house for several more generations.
Unlike Tarusa, Moscow has a real estate market, and this makes it vulnerable to steep price declines. Even after coming down recently, in desirable neighborhoods prices start above $10,000 per square meter, making an ordinary Soviet-era three-room place worth close to a million bucks. Large apartments, comparable in size to traditional middle-class places in Paris, fetch over $2 million.
Two million bucks may no longer be what it used to, but a mere decade ago Moscow apartments sold for under $100,000. I have heard of a former Soviet citizen now living in Brooklyn who on a whim bought a Moscow pied-a-terre in the 1990s and recently sold it for seven figures even after the crisis hit.
Over the past 20 years, real estate prices have rocketed in many cities around the world, and New York in particular has plenty of stories of 10-fold real estate price increases. As in New York, the real estate boom in Moscow was partly justifiable. In both cities, there has been a tangible improvement in the quality of life and greater stability. But there is also more money. Huge bonuses on Wall Street and easy petrodollars flowing into Russia fed unsustainable bubbles in both cities.
Similarly, in both cities the high cost of construction stoked inflation in real estate prices. New York is notorious for the shady dealings in its construction industry, where unions, civic leaders, organized crime and politicians all have been taking their cut since time immemorial. Kickbacks, bribery and corruption in Moscow may be of more recent vintage, but they are even more virulent.
Both cities are unique. New York is truly cosmopolitan, with thriving theater, music and the arts. Hollywood celebrities and retired physicians from across the United States have been buying both large New York lofts and small studio apartments. With the dollar extremely weak, investors from China, Latin America and elsewhere now purchase New York co-ops at bargain prices.
Similarly, there is nothing like Moscow in Russia. Most money flows into the capital, and migration has boosted its otherwise shrinking population by some 50 percent, to as much as 13 million, over the past decade, while also creating a vibrant rental market.
But few foreign investors take a chance on Moscow. A recent Bloomberg survey of world financial centers put New York, handily, at No. 1, but didn’t even feature the Russian capital. Meanwhile, the local population is relatively poor and mortgage rates are higher, reducing indigenous demand.
In any case, Moscow remains beholden to the Russian economic boom, which in turn directly depends on oil prices. If they fall again in coming months, the Moscow real estate bubble may burst spectacularly.

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

TITLE: In the Spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Boris Moiseyev is Russia’s campest pop star, who makes much of his sexual orientation in interviews and an outrageous stage act. So when he confided to a Moskovsky Komsomolets reporter last week that he’s about to marry his long-term girlfriend, eyebrows were raised and his web site crashed.
A former dancer for pop diva Alla Pugachyova, Moiseyev has carved out a solo career despite the obstacles of being outspokenly gay and, it has to be said, not really having a singing voice. His act involves cross-dressing, full makeup and torch songs about loneliness and alienation, but it goes down a treat with middle-aged couples — reportedly his main audience — and even the Kremlin.
In 2006, then-president Vladimir Putin awarded him the title of Honored Artist of Russia, the second highest title available to musicians. He is a member of Putin’s United Russia party.
His provocative image doesn’t extend to his politics: he has spoken against a gay pride march in Moscow and gay marriage. That makes him pretty unpopular with gay rights campaigners, who say he reinforces stereotypes.
Nevertheless, he has had concerts picketed and even cancelled in the provinces after protests by Orthodox and Muslim groups.
Last week, he told an MK reporter that he is about to marry his girlfriend, an American woman named Adele. In a typically vulgar style, he added that “she has had two abortions from me.”
The interview led to so many people logging on to Moiseyev’s web site that it crashed, Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote on Monday. It quoted his press secretary as saying that the MK story was based on comments to friends at a nightclub — although it doesn’t read that way — and that Moiseyev has been with Adele for 10 years.
A statement posted on Moiseyev’s web site said the singer is going to marry a woman called Adele Mikhalyuk. In an earlier message, he was quoted praising her as “not a bitch — which is rare in our world.”
It’s best to take the rumor with a pinch of salt, since Moiseyev isn’t exactly delicate when it comes to self-promotion. He once invented a son called Amadeus, to promote a single, and later had to kill him off.
The scales fell from my eyes when I read the last paragraph of the KP article, which said that Moiseyev has a new single coming out — “Two Shadows” — and it is dedicated to his “girlfriend.”
When it comes to stories of celebrity romance, it’s always a good idea to check for the product placement.
This week, Eurovision winner Dima Bilan gave an interview to OK! magazine with his girlfriend, model Lena Kuletskaya. Their love affair has provoked some skepticism from journalists, since it seems to be at its most passionate whenever Bilan has something to promote. It took a bit of a battering after Bilan publicly promised to marry Kuletskaya if he won Eurovision in 2008 — and then didn’t.
The article looked sincere enough, with the couple talking about how they understand each other and want to have a child eventually. But I couldn’t help noticing that the magazine also contained a full-page advertisement for Chronotech watches, starring Bilan, and that the photographs accompanying the interview showed both Bilan and Kuletskaya wearing said watches.
The reporter asked Bilan whether the affair is a “smokescreen” — implying that he is hiding his true orientation. An intrusive question, for sure, but then Bilan was using interest in his love life to sell watches.
Bilan answered that journalists “can write whatever they want.” But he did point out that in America “musicians who made it after not having a single penny are respected. Before you write nasty things about an artist, think how hard the person had to work.”

TITLE: Model Soviet School Adapts to 21st-Century Reality
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: On the last day of October, while many city dwellers were preparing for Halloween, a crowd of people of different ages could be observed in front of a yellow building on Ulitsa Tkachei, not far from Yelizarovskaya metro station. The celebration here had nothing to do with Halloween, and for these people it was far more meaningful. One of the oldest schools in St. Petersburg — school No. 327 — was celebrating its 80th anniversary.
Although the school continues to develop rapidly and now has a modern image, old photos, books and newsreels were on display during the celebrations, helping to reconstruct the events of the past, from the very beginning of the school’s history. 
In 1927, the board of city deputies decided to build a school in this district of Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known. The task was entrusted to a leader of the Leningrad school of constructivist architecture, Grigory Simonov. Constructivism emerged in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution, and was popular in the 1920s and ’30s. According to the new avant-garde style of architecture, a social purpose was the most important factor, and the basic aim of the design of new buildings was functionality. 
As a result, a building appeared that is often referred to as an example of the Leningrad avant-garde. The school had a capacity of 1,540 pupils, and consisted of three blocks joined by a gallery, as well as an observatory in a small tower for astronomy lessons. The building was not only functional — the architect paid homage to the Soviet authorities by designing the building so that its shape resembles a hammer and sickle when seen from above.
“We were surprised and even disappointed during our first introduction to the school, but then these feelings were replaced by excitement — what a huge thing! What long corridors — like streets. And how beautiful the original colors of the walls were,” recalled Olga Yakovleva, the school’s first biology teacher, in her memoirs.
The colors were indeed unusual, with emphasis on yellow and pistachio-green. Each classroom had its own color scheme, and even the doorjambs were colored green on one side and orange on the other in keeping with the style of the times. 
Old photos and documents were assiduously collected and kept in the school’s museum, which was founded in 1962 by history teacher Yekaterina Bazarnova, who wanted to show pupils that their school has a long history and many alumni of whom the school can be proud. 
In 1941, a school leavers’ party was held as usual. Soon afterwards, many of the young men left for the front. They contributed to the defense of Leningrad during the war and worked on the Road of Life that helped the city to survive the devastating Siege of Leningrad during the war. The school museum comprises about 2,000 exhibits, many of which are related to the World War II period. 
The founder of the museum also arranged the reburial from Latvia to Russia of 1930 school leaver Viktor Voronov, a Hero of the Soviet Union who was killed in battle in Latvia in 1944, and after whom the museum is named. The collection also contains items relating to the memory of another alumnus, Pyotr Gultyayev, who fought at Nevsky Pyatachok — one of the most important and costly campaigns during the Siege of Leningrad — to reopen land communications with the city. Gultyayev, a medical officer, was also the author of famous poems about the siege.
During the war, a hospital was housed in the school. The museum contains photographs of the nurses, who included some of the school’s pupils. 
When the country began to recover from the war, the school returned to its main purpose — education. For the first 10 years after the war, the school was open only to boys, and was given another number. Igor Shibanov, now an actor at the St. Petersburg Theater of the Young Spectator, remembers his old school under the number 334.
“I am an actor, so most of all I remember the literature lessons and my teacher Svetlana Nikolayevna Yanson,” said Shibanov. “I remember taking part in the school’s amateur drama productions, and especially our concert tours to the town of Ostrov in the Pskov Oblast during the winter holidays. The tours were headed by the pioneer leader Svetlana Pavlovna, in whom I was secretly in love,” he recalled.
“In the words of one of my characters, Bilbo Baggins, evil is forgotten, but kindness remains forever. I have only good memories, and I am very grateful to the teachers and respect their work,” he added.
In the post-war years, construction of a new stadium was begun. But years passed, the stadium fell into disrepair, and for a long time it was no more than a dusty ground where sports lessons were sometimes held, and where dog owners from neighboring buildings walked their pets. Two years ago, the stadium was reconstructed. Now it has artificial turf, a football pitch, basketball and volleyball pitches, racetracks and a sandpit for long jump training. Presents for the anniversary celebrations from one of the school’s most famous alumni, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, included a collection of professional balls for a range of sports. 
The school has not only focused on developing its sports facilities during its long history. In 1967, the Voskhod (Sunrise) movie theater opened, and students dreaming of working in cinema immediately joined the group in order to study movie technician skills. Old documentary films reveal pupils using old movie equipment and preparing to show films. Those who were not tempted by the world of cinema could try their hand at automobile engineering.
While the days of the movie theater are long gone, the school’s large hall, which can seat 600 and has a balcony and a stage, enabled the school to invite hundreds of alumni to the anniversary celebrations. Those who could not fit into the concert hall looked for their old classrooms, and marveled at how much their former classmates had changed. Alumni from as far back as 1952 came to the event, and the teachers were amazed by how many guests came — the bush telegraph proved itself to be alive and well.
An official ceremony marked the occasion, with the participation of many figures of authority. Gryzlov did not attend, but sent gifts and an invitation to members of the school’s parliament to come to Moscow on an excursion to the State Duma. The school’s organization is modeled on the real parliament, and its opinion is valued — the school’s authorities follow its advice.
“I would like to say thank you to the creative people who work at and run this school,” said Marianna Gorina of the St. Petersburg Education Committee. “I know the school has given a lot to the teachers — they are wonderful, and these are people from whom the best lessons in life can be learned.” 
In addition to politicians, the school has many creative alumni who work or have worked at many local theaters, including the Alexandriinsky Theater and Mikhailovsky Theater. Former pupil Olga Borodina is now an artist at the Mariinsky Theater and a recipient of the People's Artist of Russia and State Prize of Russia titles. She has also won prizes at numerous prestigious international competitions. 
The school was decorated with colored balloons and flowers for the event. Each class created a floral composition for the occasion and displayed their work in classrooms and on staircases and windowsills around the school.  
The teachers constantly try to involve students at the school in such practical projects in order to stimulate pupils’ interest in various subjects. As a result, the school was awarded one million rubles ($34,500) from the Education national project. The main condition of the competition is that the prize money should be spent on education.
School No. 327 continues to adapt and develop, and currently plans to open its own publishing house. The school already has experience in publishing a newspaper, but currently only has a black-and-white printer. With the acquisition of modern equipment, the school newspaper hopes to increase its circulation and produce color publications. 
By introducing such innovations, the school is following President Dmitry Medvedev’s initiative “Our New School,” launched in November 2008. The main goals of the program are to develop the skills of pupils in order to ensure that every child is active, to encourage talented children and to devise up-to-date materials and technical resources for study.
In this way, the teachers and pupils of school No. 327 aim to live up to the words of Sergei Sitdikov, head of the Nevsky district administration, who said that the school opened for children from working families had the potential to become the best in the district and one of the best in the city.

TITLE: The Day the Berlin Wall Came Down, Changing History
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN — Twenty years ago Monday, they danced atop the Berlin Wall, feet thudding on the cold concrete, arms raised in victory, hands clasped in friendship and giddy hope. On that cold night, years of separation and anxiety melted into the unbelievable reality of freedom and a future without border guards, secret police, informers and rigid communist control.
This weekend, Germans celebrated with concerts boasting Beethoven and Bon Jovi; a memorial service for the 136 people killed trying to cross over from 1961 to 1989; candle lightings and 1,000 towering plastic foam dominoes placed along the wall’s route to be tipped over.
On Nov. 9, 1989, East Germans came in droves, riding their sputtering Trabants, motorcycles and rickety bicycles. Hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands crossed over the following days.
Stores in West Berlin stayed open late and banks gave out 100 Deutschemarks in “welcome money,” then worth about $50, to each East German visitor.
The party lasted four days and by Nov. 12 more than 3 million of East Germany’s 16.6 million people had visited, nearly a third of them to West Berlin, the rest through gates opening up along the rest of the fenced, mined frontier that cut their country in two.
Sections of the nearly 155 kilometers of wall were pulled down and knocked over. Tourists chiseled off chunks to keep as souvenirs. Tearful families reunited. Bars gave out free drinks. Strangers kissed and toasted each other with champagne.
Klaus-Hubert Fugger, a student at the Free University in West Berlin, was having drinks at a pub when people began coming “who looked a bit different.”
Customers bought the visitors round after round. By midnight, instead of going home, Fugger and three others took a taxi to the Brandenburg Gate, long a no man’s land, and scaled the nearly four-meter wall with hundreds of others.
“There were really like a lot of scenes, like people crying, because they couldn’t get the situation,” said Fugger, now 43. “A lot of people came with bottles” of champagne and sweet German sparkling wine.
Fugger spent the next night on the wall, too. A newsmagazine photo shows him wrapped in a scarf.
“Then the wall was crowded all over, thousands of people, and you couldn’t move … you had to push through the masses of the people,” he said.
Angela Merkel, Germany’s first chancellor from the former communist East, recalled the euphoria in an address last week to the U.S. Congress.
“Where there was once only a dark wall, a door suddenly opened and we all walked through it: onto the streets, into the churches, across the borders,” Merkel said. “Everyone was given the chance to build something new, to make a difference, to venture a new beginning.”
The wall that the communists built at the height of the Cold War and which stood for 28 years is mostly gone. Some parts still stand, at an outdoor art gallery or as part of an open-air museum. Its route through the city is now streets, shopping centers, apartment houses. The only reminder of it is a series of inlaid bricks that traces its path.
Checkpoint Charlie, the prefab that was long the symbol of the Allied presence and of Cold War tension, has been moved to a museum in western Berlin.
Potsdamer Platz, the vibrant square that was destroyed during World War II and became a no man’s land during the Cold War, is full of upscale shops selling everything from iPods to grilled bratwursts.
At a ceremony in Berlin on Oct. 31, Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor who presided over the opening of the wall, stood side by side with the superpower presidents of the time, George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev.
After the decades of shame that followed the Nazi era, Kohl suggested, the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of their country 11 months later gave Germans pride.
“We don’t have many reasons in our history to be proud,” said Kohl, now 79. But as chancellor, “I have nothing better, nothing to be more proud of, than German reunification.”
In an interview in Moscow, Gorbachev said it was a catalyst for peace. “No matter how hard it was, we worked, we found mutual understanding and we moved forward. We started cutting down nuclear weapons, scaling down the armed forces in Europe and resolving other issues,” he said.
It all began with a routine late afternoon news conference. On Nov. 9, 1989, Guenter Schabowski, a member of East Germany’s ruling Politburo, casually declared that East Germans would be free to travel to the West immediately.
Later, he tried to clarify his comments and said the new rules would take hold at midnight, but events moved faster as the word spread.
At a remote crossing in Berlin’s south, Annemarie Reffert and her 15-year-old daughter made history by becoming the first East Germans to cross the border.
Reffert, now 66, remembers the East German soldiers being at a loss when she tried to cross the border.
“I argued that Schabowski said we were allowed to go over,” she said. The border soldiers relented. A customs official was astonished that she had no luggage.
“All we wanted was to see if we really could travel,” Reffert said.
Years later, Schabowski told a TV interviewer that he had gotten mixed up. It was not a decision but a bill that the Politburo was set to discuss. He thought it was a decision that had already been approved.
That night, around midnight, border guards swung open the gates. Through Checkpoint Charlie, down the Invalidenstrasse, across the Glienicke Bridge, scores of people streamed into West Berlin, unabated, unfettered, eyes agog.

Timeline

Key dates in the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe in 1989:

June 4: Solidarity-led opposition sweeps Poland’s first partially free elections in four decades.
August: Tens of thousands of East Germans swamp West German diplomatic missions in East Berlin, Czechoslovakia and Hungary seeking asylum.
Sept. 11: Hungary opens its border with the West to East German refugees.
Oct. 7: During a visit to East Berlin, Mikhail Gorbachev indirectly urges reform; thousands demonstrate against the East German regime in the first of a series of protests that grows to a rally of 1 million on Nov. 4.
Nov. 7-8: East Germany’s ruling Politburo resigns.
Nov. 9: Berlin Wall falls.
Nov. 17: Students clash with police, starting Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution.
Dec. 17: Romanian police fire at protesters; dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife try to flee uprising five days later and are executed Christmas Day.
Dec. 29: Communist rule ends in Czechoslovakia; Vaclav Havel is elected president.
1990:
Oct. 3: Germany is reunited.
Dec. 9: Lech Walesa wins Poland’s first popular presidential election.
 — AP

TITLE: Fort Hood Suspect’s Last Movements Tracked
AUTHOR: By Jeff Carlton and Mike Barker
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: FORT HOOD, Texas — An army psychiatrist suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood cleaned out his apartment and left a phone message saying goodbye to a friend in the days before the rampage that left 13 people dead, neighbors said Friday.
One neighbor, Patricia Villa, said Major Nidal Malik Hasan came over to her apartment Wednesday and Thursday and offered her some items, including a new Quran, saying he was going to be deployed on Friday.
Authorities said the 39-year-old Hasan went on a shooting spree later Thursday at the sprawling Texas post. He was among 30 people wounded in the rampage and remained hospitalized Friday in a coma, attached to a ventilator. All but two of the wounded were still hospitalized and a doctor warned that “everyone is not out of the woods.”
Investigators were trying to piece together how and why Hasan allegedly gunned down his comrades in one of the worst mass shootings ever on an American military base. 
Though his motive wasn’t known, some who knew Hasan said he may have been struggling with a pending deployment to Afghanistan and faced pressure in his work with distressed soldiers.
Hasan’s family said in a statement Friday that his alleged actions were “despicable and deplorable” and don’t reflect how the family was raised.
President Barack Obama ordered the flags at the White House and other federal buildings be flown at half-staff and urged people not to draw conclusions while authorities investigate.
“We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” Obama said in a statement.
A moment of silence was held Friday afternoon at Fort Hood and other U.S. military bases as a show of respect for the victims.
“I’ve asked our leaders around the country to look at their installations, to look at what’s going on and to adjust their force protection measures to deal with it,” Army Chief of Staff George Casey said at a news conference afterward. “I do worry slightly about a backlash” against Muslim soldiers in the Army, he said.
Casey said about 20 different units were affected by the shooting. Secretary of the Army John McHugh singled out the 36th Engineer Brigade as especially hard hit, with four killed and 11 wounded.
McHugh said officials have not determined whether a case would be pursued in federal or military court and that no charges have been filed yet.
The shooting spree began as some 300 soldiers were lined up to get vaccinations and have their eyes tested at a Soldier Readiness Center, where troops who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening. Nearby, others were lining up in commencement robes for a ceremony to celebrate soldiers and families who had recently earned degrees.
Soldiers reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great!” — before opening fire, said Lieutenant General Robert Cone, the base commander. He said officials had not confirmed that Hasan made the comment.
Officials are not ruling out the possibility that some of the casualties may have been victims of “friendly fire,” shot by responding military officials.
When the gunfire subsided, soldiers described a scene that looked like a war zone: too many wounded to count, shells and blood on the floor, and comrades ripping off their clothes to make tourniquets to keep the injured alive. One woman, suffering from a wound to the hip, carried another victim to get help.
“You had people without tops on. You had people ripping their pant legs off,” said Sergeant Andrew Hagerman, a military police officer from Lewisville, Texas.
Hasan reported for duty at Fort Hood in July, after working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for six years. Though he apparently had problems at Walter Reed, Fort Hood officials said they weren’t aware of any issues with his job performance.
One of Hasan’s bosses praised his work ethic and said he provided excellent care for his patients.
“Up to this point I would consider him an asset,” said Colonel Kimberly Kesling, deputy commander of clinical services at Darnall Army Medical Center.

TITLE: Chavez Readies 
For War
AUTHOR: By Christopher Toothaker
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered Venezuela’s military to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Colombia, saying his country’s soldiers should be ready if the United States attempts to provoke a war between the South American neighbors.
Chavez said Venezuela could end up going to war with Colombia as tensions between them rise.
“The best way to avoid war is preparing for it,” Chavez told military officers during his weekly television and radio program. Venezuela’s socialist leader has also cited a recent deal between Bogota and Washington giving U.S. troops greater access to military bases as a threat to regional stability.
The government of Colombian President Alvaro rejected what it called “threats of war from Venezuela’s government,” saying it would protest Chavez’s comments to the the UN Security Council.