SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1554 (15), Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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TITLE: Officers Go On Trial For Raping Prisoners
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: High-ranking officers in penal institutions are to go on trial for abusing prisoners in St. Petersburg, the General Prosecutor’s Office said in a press release Friday.
The case of seven officers from the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishment (FSIN), whom investigators say were involved in beatings and rapes, has been sent to the Smolninsky District Court, the press release said.
The officers are charged with abuse of authority committed with the use of violence, which is punishable by three to ten years in prison. Four convicts are charged with “committing violent acts of a sexual nature” as part of the same case.
Although one prisoner is reported to have committed suicide by cutting his throat after being abused, none of the officers is charged with having driven him to suicide.
According to investigators, the officers wanted to punish the prisoner who later killed himself for escaping from an open prison in which he had allegedly been bullied. The prisoner was caught and illegally put in a mental institution, which was part of the FSIN system.
Lieutenant Colonel Vyacheslav Tippel, the head of a department in the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast FSIN, allegedly sent Colonel Rostislav Balabolko, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Beryozkin and Major Vladimir Ignatyev to the hospital to “commit physical and psychological violence as a punishment for escaping.”
Investigators say all three officers beat the prisoner and wrote obscenities on his chest, before Balabolko hired two other prisoners to rape the victim.
Major Yevgeny Petrov, head of a FSIN department, is charged with raping another prisoner. “To punish the prisoner, Petrov raped him, making a video recording of the act at the same time, and also made three convicts commit violent acts of a sexual nature against the victim while recording all this with a camera,” the press release states.
Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Gavrilov, head of detention facility No. 6 in Gorelovo in southwest St. Petersburg, and his deputy Major Alexander Khachikyan have also been charged with the same offence as part of the case.
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, Tippel was sentenced to four years in prison “for similar offences” in St. Petersburg in September. He was also deprived of the right to hold positions of authority within the FSIN system for two years.
Khachikyan has been taken into custody until the court hearing, while the rest are under a written pledge not to leave town, the Prosecutor General’s Office said Friday.
The investigation was accompanied by a high profile public campaign, which broke in October when Yekaterina Ustinova, reportedly a relative of one of the prisoners, wrote an open letter about the abuse to President Dmitry Medvedev.
The video footage and photographs that accompanied the letter showed a man being held by other men and being anally raped with what appears to be a mop handle, which is then forced into his mouth. Then he is shown trying to turn his face away from a penis that one participant is attempting to thrust into his mouth.
Before that, according to Ustinova, he was hit in the genitals with a coat hanger more than ten times.
The other man on the photographs is shown naked, with the word “Petukh” (the Russian prison slang word for a homosexual) written in large letters on his chest. The stills from the video are available on the Union of Prisoners’ web site, which published Ustinova’s letter to Medvedev.
In November, a group of human rights activists, including Lyudmila Alexeyeva who chairs the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Foundation for the Protection of Prisoners’ Rights, and Lev Ponomaryov, leader of the For Human Rights movement, demanded the dismissal of General Vladimir Malenchuk, head of the FSIN in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast.
Malenchuk was dismissed in December, though officially as part of the reorganization of the FSIN, rather than for the crimes committed by his subordinates.
Human rights activists say that rape and beatings are common practice in Russian detention facilities and prisons as a means of controlling the prisoners, and that Tippel’s sentence is “too lenient” for committing such crimes.
TITLE: Crash Drives LUKoil Into PR Nightmare
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — LUKoil, the country’s biggest private oil company, faces a public relations nightmare after one of its vice presidents was involved in a car crash that killed two people and has ignited a storm of protest about a possible police cover-up.
Bloggers are seething over what they interpret as insensitive comments made by the company about the accident, while some have called for a boycott of LUKoil gas stations and a popular rapper has written a song declaring that the vice president, Anatoly Barkov, will go to hell.
Barkov, 62, sustained minor injuries in the accident.
What exactly transpired on Feb. 25 remains a matter of speculation, but this much is undisputed: Barkov’s heavy Mercedes S-500 sedan collided head-on with a Citroen C3 hatchback carrying prominent gynecologist Vera Sidelnikova, 72, and her daughter-in-law Olga Alexandrina, 35, during morning rush hour traffic on Leninsky Prospekt in southern Moscow, killing the two women.
Police immediately blamed the Citroen for the crash, saying it had illegally pulled into the oncoming lane and hit the Mercedes.
The case looked as good as closed until the victims’ relatives appealed to journalists for help after running into a brick wall with the police and LUKoil’s slow and heavy-handed response angered the public.
“The public started to react to this accident when people understood that they had been manipulated,” said Sergei Kanayev, head of the Moscow branch of the Russian Federation of Car Owners, a public group that says it has found three eyewitnesses to the accident.
Kanayev told The St. Petersburg Times that two of the eyewitnesses were driving ahead of the Mercedes and saw it swerve into the opposite lane and hit the Citroen.
He said he would only disclose their names to representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office whom he planned to meet Friday.
“The people have agreed to talk, but they need assurances that they will not be in danger,” he said.
Fear about discussing the accident might be understandable because the police have shown little enthusiasm about pursuing an investigation. Kanayev said that even though two people had died, police only opened an investigation two days after the accident.
The police later explained to reporters that there was no investigation to open because the presumed guilty party had died in the accident and the victim, the LUKoil vice president, had escaped with minor cuts and bruises.
A public outcry began to swell as Moscow radio stations dedicated hours of debate to whether the accident showed that the notoriously corrupt police were little more than a force to protect the country’s strong from ordinary citizens. The crash quickly became the most-discussed topic in the Russian blogosphere.
Fueling the anger, LUKoil spokesman Dmitry Dolgov declared to the Life News news wire on the day of the accident that the oil company would not offer any compensation to the family of the women even if Barkov was found guilty. He added, though, that Barkov might decide to assist the relatives with his own money.
LUKoil had kept tightlipped about the accident. It issued an official statement Tuesday in which Barkov expressed his condolences to the family of the victims and said he was interested in a “full and objective investigation of the accident.”
Barkov also called for eyewitnesses to come forward.
A LUKoil spokesman declined to comment Thursday evening, saying he was not authorized to discuss the issue.
It is unclear whether Barkov or his 51-year-old driver was behind the wheel at the time of the accident. The driver was not injured.
Barkov’s duties as vice president include overseeing LUKoil’s security department, leading observers to believe that he has close contacts with law enforcement agencies and perhaps a background in law enforcement or the security services himself. His official biography on LUKoil’s web site makes no mention of that. It says he has worked at LUKoil since 1993.
Relatives of the victims smelled a police runaround. Several of them rushed to the scene of the accident on Gagarin Square on the day of the crash but said police refused to give them an accident report, which they had a right to obtain by law, the relatives said in an open letter to the media. Attempts to meet with the police officer assigned to the accident the next day failed. It was then that the relatives appealed to journalists for help.
Journalists and bloggers soon began to poke holes into the official version of events, noting that the Citroen had been headed away from the city center on the side of the road nearly devoid of traffic during morning rush hour, and it would be more logical if Barkov’s Mercedes, stuck in the clogged lanes headed toward the city center, had illegally pulled into the empty oncoming lane to beat the traffic.
The seemingly simple way to resolve the question of who was at fault would be to review the videotape from one of the many surveillance cameras lining Leninsky Prospekt, a major thoroughfare that President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials use to travel between the Kremlin and Vnukovo Airport. The Federal Guards Service, which protects the country’s leaders, said there were no cameras pointed at the scene of the accident, RIA-Novosti reported.
But the lawyer for the family of the victims, Igor Trunov, said Thursday that there were three cameras near the crash site — one belonging to the Korchma restaurant, one run by the police and one operated by the Federal Guards Service — and the footage on them would be critical to the case. He said he has not managed to view the footage yet.
He said he was facing an upward battle in his attempts to access documents related to the police investigation.
“This is a violation of legal procedures. They must provide the materials to us,” Trunov said.
A Moscow police investigator told The St. Petersburg Times that the accident was under review and “witnesses are coming to testify.” He refused to provide additional information, citing the ongoing nature of the case.
TITLE: Russian Forces Kill 8, Find Train Attack Clues
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian forces have killed eight suspected rebels and arrested 10 others in a raid that also found clues relating to two bomb attacks on trains in 2007 and 2009, the FSB security service said Saturday.
“Eight terrorists were fatally injured in the firefight,” the FSB said in a statement, adding that one of those killed was alleged guerrilla leader Alexander Tikhomirov, an associate of Chechen separatist chief Doku Umarov.
Umarov has claimed responsibility for an attack on the high-speed Nevsky Express train service last November that killed 28 people and injured some 100 others. A bomb attack on the same service in August 2007 injured 60 people.
Investigators also accuse him of involvement in the 2009 assassination bid against Ingushetia’s President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.
FSB director Alexander Bortnikov told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a televised meeting that the raid took place from March 2 to 3 in a village near the city of Nazran in the volatile southern province of Ingushetia.
“Evidence linked to the train explosion carried out by this rebel group last November was found where the operation took place,” Bortnikov said.
The FSB chief said that bomb material “identical” to what was used in the 2007 train attack had also been uncovered during the raid, adding the investigation was ongoing.
“Work must continue on the evidence that has been found, to add it to the dossier and to carry the investigation until the end,” Medvedev said.
“Results from the operation show that unfortunately, the activities of these clandestine groups continues,” he added.
Tikhomirov, better known by his nickname Said Buryatsky, grew up in the mainly Buddhist region of Buryatya in Siberia before converting to Islam and joining the Chechen separatist cause, news reports said.
Ingushetia leader Yevkurov was quoted earlier Saturday by ITAR-TASS state news agency as confirming that Tikhomirov had been “eliminated.”
Following an initial report on Tikhomirov’s death in Russian media late on Thursday, Chechnya’s pro-Moscow leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Friday that the fighter had been “an agent for the foreign secret services.”
Shootings and bomb attacks are an almost daily occurrence in Russia’s volatile Caucasus region, the site of two wars between separatist forces and Russia’s central government after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Arrest Over $172 M
PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) — A Russian immigrant has been indicted on charges of illegally using shell corporations to move $172 million to 50 countries.
U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday that Victor Kaganov was indicted on a charge of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business that made more than 4,200 wire transactions.
Kaganov is accused of establishing multiple shell corporations in Oregon on behalf of Russian clients, most of them outside the United States.
U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton said transactions like the ones alleged in the indictment could hide millions of dollars overseas and threaten the integrity of the U.S. financial system.
Elections Postaing
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — President Dmitry Medvedev has installed a Kremlin insider as deputy head of the Central Election Commission, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Thursday, citing an unidentified official close to the agency.
The commission created the new position Wednesday for Mikhail Berulava, a Kremlin aide responsible for relations with the State Duma, the newspaper said. Berulava declined to comment on his appointment, it said.
Baikal NGO Probed
MOSCOW (SPT) — Police have opened a criminal investigation into Baikal Environmental Wave, a public group that opposes the reopening of an Oleg Deripaska-owned pulp mill that will dump waste into the Earth’s biggest fresh-water lake.
Irkutsk police said Thursday that they had found pirated software on nine computers seized from the group in January.
TITLE: Putin Suggests Olympic Funds Were Misspent
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Money earmarked for Russia’s Vancouver Olympics preparations might have been misspent, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.
“Maybe the money was spent not on what was needed but instead on what someone wanted to spend it on,” Putin told top sports officials that he summoned for a grilling Friday about Russia’s worst-ever performance at the Winter Games.
Putin, chairing a meeting to analyze the reasons behind the Olympic flop, said the government had spent about 3.5 billion rubles ($117 million) in three years to prepare for the Vancouver Games — a sum that he claimed was comparable with those spent by the nations that won the most medals.
“I have got an impression that the more money we spend, the more modest the results are,” he said, adding that the sum was five times the amount that Russia had spent on preparations for the 2006 Winter Games in Torino.
Putin’s remarks follow President Dmitry Medvedev’s call for sports officials to step down or face dismissal. Russian Olympic Committee chief Leonid Tyagachyov handed in his resignation Thursday.
Putin said the entire system of training athletes now must be changed. He said the work of sports federations must become more transparent and they must produce step-by-step plans. He also urged stronger incentives for promising athletes and better pay for coaches.
“We must take the best from the Soviet system of training athletes and also use modern international experience,” Putin said.
In the nine Winter Olympics held from 1956 to 1988, the Soviet Union failed to top the medal standings only twice, finishing runner-up on those occasions.
“Sochi is our national project, and we will pay the maximum attention to that,” Putin said. “Millions of fans are waiting for our team to become the winner. In any case, it must be among the leaders in Sochi in 2014.”
(SPT, AP)
TITLE: Ukraine, Russia Open ‘New Page’
AUTHOR: By Alexander Osipovich
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: MOSCOW — Ukraine’s new president Viktor Yanukovych vowed Friday to end years of acrimony with Russia, as he paid his first visit to Moscow since taking office last week.
“This five-year period has given us the opportunity to open a new page in our relations,” Yanukovych said, referring to his five-year term, following talks with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev said Moscow and Kiev would work to resolve irritants that had accumulated under Yanukovych’s predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, who angered Russia by seeking to bring Ukraine into the NATO military alliance.
“There are many questions that have been frozen recently in our relations. We have decided to reanimate them,” said Medvedev, seated alongside Yanukovych at a press conference.
Medvedev singled out the hot-button issues of Russian gas exports to Ukraine and the future of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet as subjects for discussion.
The Black Sea Fleet is based in Ukraine’s port of Sevastopol under a lease that expires in 2017 and that the Kremlin is keen to extend. Yanukovych indicated he was open to compromise with Russia on the fleet’s future.
“I think that very soon we will have an answer to this question that will satisfy both Ukraine and Russia,” Yanukovych said. His predecessor, Yushchenko, had insisted the fleet should leave in 2017.
Yanukovych reiterated earlier promises that Ukraine would be “a European, non-aligned state” on his watch — a sign he does not intend to push for NATO membership.
Yanukovych later met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who urged the visiting president to bring Ukraine into a Moscow-backed customs union comprising Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
TITLE: First Leader of Breakaway Abkhaz Region Dead at 64
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SUKHUMI, Georgia — Vladislav Ardzinba, who led the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia to de facto independence through a bloody war and ethnic cleansing, died Thursday, his doctor said. He was 64.
Ardzinba died in a Moscow clinic, Ardzinba’s doctor, Anzor Gooz, said without specifying the cause of death.
The Abkhaz president hailed Ardzinba’s role in the nation’s history. “His service to the Abkhaz people was boundless,” Sergei Bagapsh told Interfax.
Russia recognized Abkhazia after the 2008 war with Georgia over another breakaway province, South Ossetia. The United States and European Union consider both provinces an “integral” part of Georgia.
Ardzinba was a controversial figure criticized for his autocratic policies, poor human rights record and determination to secure Abkhaz independence that led to what Georgian leaders called a “genocide.”
In 1989, Ardzinba, a prominent scholar who specialized in ancient Middle Eastern history and mythology, became a lawmaker in Soviet Union’s first democratically elected parliament.
A year later he was elected chairman of Abkhazia, an autonomous province of ethnically diverse Soviet Georgia. Abkhazia lies on the Black Sea coast. Its subtropical climate and numerous resorts attracted tens of thousands of Soviet tourists.
The 1991 Soviet collapse and the increasingly nationalist policies of the Georgian government led to disagreements between the central government and its autonomous republics that exploded into a civil war.
In 1992, Ardzinba proclaimed Abkhazia’s independence, saying he was “strong enough” to fight Georgia, and actively recruited mercenaries from neighboring Chechnya. One of the recruits was Shamil Basayev, who later led Chechen separatists and was dubbed Russia’s most-wanted terrorist for his leadership in the mass hostage-takings in Moscow’s Dubrovka theater in 2002 and Beslan School No. 1 in 2004.
By late 1993, the Georgian army left Abkhazia, and Ardzinba’s government orchestrated a massive ethnic cleansing campaign that resulted in the expulsion of some 250,000 ethnic Georgians, more than a half of Abkhazia’s population.
In 1994, Abkhaz parliament elected Ardzinba president, and he secured Abkhazia’s de facto independence by establishing close ties with President Boris Yeltsin. Ardzinba was re-elected in 1999 but kept a low profile because of deteriorating health. He resigned in 2005 and divided his time between Moscow and Abkhazia.
He is survived by his wife and daughter, who are also Middle Eastern scholars.
TITLE: Cash-for-Clunkers Draws Scepticism
AUTHOR: By Anastasia Ustinova
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s “cash-for-clunkers” program, which began on Monday, may fall short in its goal of boosting new-car sales because of bureaucratic red tape and corruption, dealers and analysts said.
The government will offer 200,000 vouchers worth 50,000 rubles ($1,677) toward a new Russian-built automobile to people who turn in a car more than 10 years old. More than 10 foreign car companies have factories or joint ventures in Russia, though the main beneficiary of the incentives will probably be AvtoVAZ, the country’s largest carmaker, whose least expensive model retails for about 160,000 rubles.
“If there are bureaucratic delays and corruption in its implementation, the program may not have the same beneficial impact as we have seen in some European markets,” Stanley Root, head of PricewaterhouseCoopers’s automotive group, said in an e-mailed statement last week.
Russia is following countries around the world that have introduced incentive programs to increase slumping car sales during the worst global recession since World War II. The government has allocated 11.5 billion rubles for the program, which runs though Nov. 1. A similar plan in the U.K. generated 330,722 sales between its inception in May and Jan. 24, according to the government.
Some dealers said they’re wary of the program, which requires them to pay owners for their old vehicles, then reclaim the cash from the Industry and Trade Ministry.
“The program is about to start, but there is still no transparency in the process,” Valery Sheromov, head of the Piter-Lada dealership in St. Petersburg, said by e-mail. “The government is expected to cover towing costs, for example, but it’s unclear how to get the rebate.”
Russian car sales plunged 56 percent last year to 1.4 million vehicles and may rise as much as 15 percent this year, PwC said on Jan. 20. Revamping Russia’s automobile industry will require as much as 1.2 trillion rubles of investment through 2020, the government said on March 4.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged Russians to take advantage of the program. “If you are really planning to do this, to purchase a new car, it needs to be done this year, it shouldn’t be postponed,” Putin said Thursday, according to a transcript posted on the government’s web site.
AvtoVAZ dealers have received more than 30,000 orders for new Lada models under the program and plan to sell the cars within a month, Alexander Shmigov, a company spokesman, said Friday by telephone from Tolyatti, where the company is based.
To capitalize on the program, AvtoVAZ is offering a Lada 2105 sedan, first produced in the early 1980s, for 99,000 rubles and a voucher, Shmigov said.
While more than 1,560 dealers across the country will participate in the program, it may have little impact on new-car sales for companies other than AvtoVAZ, said Oleg Datskiv, founder of Auto-Dealer.ru, a Moscow-based industry research group.
“The target audience for this program differs from that in Europe and the United States,” Datskiv said by telephone. “Drivers who will participate are mostly poor and will most likely buy cheap AvtoVAZ models.”
Some dealers may be reluctant to take part, fearing bureaucratic delays and tax probes, he said.
The government has implemented stimulus measures to help the car industry recover from Russia’s worst economic slump in more than a decade, including foreign car import duties and state subsidies.
“This is a challenge and an experiment for us,” Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko said Thursday. “I understand that there may be some difficulties and questions. I promise that we will be absolutely sensitive to all the nuances that may emerge.”
TITLE: Russia Considers Common Currency
AUTHOR: By Maria Levitov and Paul Abelsky
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia may scrap the ruble and introduce a common currency with Belarus and Kazakhstan as the nations broaden their alliance and seek to reduce their dependence on the dollar, a first deputy prime minister said.
“I won’t exclude a transition to a common currency union with these countries in the future,” Igor Shuvalov said at a Moscow conference Friday. The currency alliance will be modeled on the European Union, which created a new unit rather than using an existing one, he said, though no talks have been held.
Russia and two former Soviet neighbors plan to create a single economic market by 2012 after their customs union took effect on Jan. 1. A new currency is “the next logical step” after economic union, Shuvalov said without giving a timeframe.
Russia has sought to promote regional currencies in trade and diversify its reserves, the world’s third-largest stockpile, to reduce risks posed by the dominance of the dollar. President Dmitry Medvedev last year questioned the dollar’s future as a reserve currency and called for a mix of regional currencies to make the world economy more stable. He said a new supranational currency could reduce vulnerability to movements in the dollar.
The world’s biggest energy supplier may eventually begin selling oil in rubles, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Jan. 22.
The ruble strengthened 0.2 percent to 34.6142, a 14-month high, against the central bank’s target euro-dollar basket in Friday’s trading. The currency gained 0.6 percent to 40.4529 per euro, the strongest since Dec. 25, 2008, while slipping 0.3 percent to 29.8394 against the dollar.
The central bank steers the ruble against the basket to limit fluctuations that hurt exporters and used a floating corridor of 35 to 38 against the basket between August and February for its daily foreign-currency moves.
Investors have pared bets that the ruble will weaken, with non-deliverable forwards showing the currency at 30.10 per dollar in three months compared with an NDF of 30.21 on March 4. The contracts are a guide to expectations of currency movements as they allow foreign investors and companies to fix the exchange rate at a particular level in the future.
The three countries will need to gradually increase trade in national currencies before switching to a common exchange unit, Andrei Kostin, head of VTB Group, Russia’s second-largest lender, said at Friday’s conference to mark Russia assuming the rotating chairmanship of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
“This will be a natural step to take since the three countries don’t need visas and share the same language – capital movement would remain the only factor in the way of economic integration,” said Alexei Moisseyev, senior economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. “Forming a new currency would take at least five years, assuming they go ahead with it.”
TITLE: Kudrin Opposes 6.3% Pension Increases
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The government will increase pensions by 6.3 percent next month despite warnings from Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin on Thursday that the budget cannot afford it.
“We have the means, and I think the decision to increase pensions will not affect the macroeconomic conditions,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a Cabinet meeting. The increase signifies “carrying out our responsibilities to our citizens,” Putin added.
The pension fund may see a deficit of up to 170 billion rubles ($5.71 billion) if any increases not indicated in the legislation are made, Kudrin said. By law, pensions can be increased if the Pension Fund makes a profit or if inflation is especially high. The fund’s profits did not increase, nor will they increase in the current year, and inflation is expected at clock in at 5.6 percent to 7.5 percent in 2010. Therefore, the law does not allow for a pension increase, Kudrin said, RIA-Novosti reported.
“We have the money,” Putin replied. “Our ability to lower inflation last year … indicates that we can maintain macroeconomic conditions as planned,” he said.
TITLE: Georgia Hopes for Restoral of Direct Flights to Russia
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: TBILISI — The Georgian Foreign Ministry would “welcome” a resumption of direct air links with Russia after a border crossing was opened between the two countries on March 1 following the 2008 war over a separatist region.
“We would welcome it if Russia agrees to resume direct flights, as we didn’t cut them off in the first place,” Deputy Foreign Minister Nino Kalandadze told reporters in the capital Tbilisi on Monday. “The Upper-Larsi checkpoint opening is a good precedent.”
Russia refused a request from Georgia’s national airline to resume regular direct flights between Moscow and Tbilisi in January, after a brief restoration earlier that month.
The two countries broke off diplomatic relations in September 2008, shortly after conflict broke out over the independence bid of South Ossetia and Abkhasia, which Russia backed.
Even before the war, Russia cut road, rail, air and sea links with Georgia, halted postal services and blocked money transfers in October 2006. That dispute erupted when Georgia arrested four Russian servicemen a month earlier, accusing them of espionage.
Russia has also banned imports of Georgian wine and mineral water. The Larsi checkpoint has been opened, though a Russian trade embargo remains in place, limiting the checkpoint’s economic impact.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: IT Market to Grow
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s information technology market may expand 15 percent this year, helped by higher sales of computers and software, said Nikolai Pryanishnikov, president for Microsoft in Russia.
The Russian market may rebound this year from a decline in 2009, Pryanishnikov said in an interview in Moscow on Thursday, citing figures from research firm IDC. He didn’t specify how much the market fell last year.
“There are still just 30 million personal computers in Russia, which is less than a third of the population,” Pryanishnikov said. “Russia is among the top 10 markets for Microsoft, and my goal is to make it one of the leading markets for the company.”
The Russian software market, whose value is estimated at between $2 billion and $3 billion, is dominated by pirated products, which make up 68 percent of software sales, the executive said.
Poverty Rate Declines
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s poverty rate fell to 14 percent of the population at the end of the third quarter of last year as rising incomes lifted 1.4 million people from below the subsistence level.
The number of poor Russians declined to 19.7 million from 21.1 million, or 15 percent of the country’s population, in the previous three months, Federal Statistics Service data released Friday show. Russia’s subsistence level was set at 5,198 rubles ($174) a month, the service said.
Economy Recovering
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s economy grew last month on an annual basis for the first time since November 2008, an indicator derived from service and manufacturing surveys showed.
The economy of the world’s largest energy exporter expanded 0.5 percent after shrinking 0.3 percent in January, VTB Capital, which compiles the indicator, said in an e-mail Thursday. The slump bottomed in June, when output fell 10.8 percent, according to VTB Capital data.
“The Russian economy is continuing to expand, although at a slower pace than at the end of 2009,” Aleksandra Evtifyeva, senior economist at VTB Capital in Moscow, said in the report. “The greatest cause for concern is the recent weakness in new business orders in both sectors of the economy and the worsening employment conditions in manufacturing.”
Baltic Pipe Progress
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Transneft, Russia’s pipeline operator, said it had welded the first 500 kilometers (311 miles) of the Baltic Pipeline System-2 and may finish building the pipe as early as this year.
The 1,000-kilometer link will “decrease transit risks” by allowing oil currently flowing through Belarus the option to divert to Russia’s Baltic port of Ust-Luga, the Moscow-based company said Friday on its web site.
Lebedev Buys Indie
LONDON (Bloomberg) — Alexander Lebedev, the Russian billionaire owner of the London Evening Standard, has acquired the U.K. national newspaper The Independent, the London-based Times reported, citing people in the publishing industry.
Lebedev may have paid one pound ($1.50) for the newspaper and its sister publication, The Independent on Sunday, which lose a combined 10 million pounds a year, the Times said.
TITLE: In the Spotlight: Winter Olympics
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Last week, even the most sport-phobic person couldn’t avoid hearing that Russia took part in an event involving luge, curling and skeleton. And that, frankly, it needs to try harder.
Channel One turned over its weekend comedy shows “ProjectorParisHilton” and “Multiple Personalities” to a satirical discussion of the Winter Olympics. At least some of the jokes were funny, but the meaning behind them was deadly serious.
After a politically incorrect tirade at the “girly” U.S. male figure skating team, the channel moved on to a brilliant Soviet war movie spoof with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. They caught a Norwegian biathlete in their sniper sights and condemned the local Olympic chief as a “traitor.”
In Saturday’s episode of the improvised comedy show, “ProjectorParisHilton,” the comedians placed the blame firmly on the Russian organizers.
Leonid Tyagachyov, president of the Russian Olympic Committee — who has subsequently resigned — spent too much time partying, they quipped.
“He’s with the sportsmen all the time, 24 hours a day, at the Russian House,” comedian Garik Martirosyan said in a spoof newscast, referring to the Russian team’s party center in Vancouver.
Tyagachyov “took part directly” in the Olympics by organizing competitions in throwing pencils at bottles and counting walnuts by sitting on them, he added.
The head of the International Olympic Committee made several official visits to the Russian House, Martirosyan boasted — to ask them to turn the music down.
Meanwhile, former Olympic figure skater Anton Sikharulidze laid into the organizers for being old stick-in-the-muds.
Responding to a comment by figure skating star Irina Rodnina that Olympic officials in the Soviet era would never have brought their wives and mistresses to a sports event as they do now, he said, “It’s the same functionaries. It’s just that back then they weren’t married.”
Asked if the Russian Olympic officials speak either English and French — the games’ official languages — he answered briefly in English: “No.”
The comedians on the improvised show also focused on U.S. male figure skaters with some very unsubtle gay bashing.
They ridiculed Johnny Weir’s hand gestures and the heart-shaped cushion that he clutched as the marks were read out. Meanwhile, Evan Lysacek was “the only contestant who started crying before his performance,” said Sergei Svetlakov, adding that: “Things have got out of control. We need real men.”
Sikharulidze looked somewhat uncomfortable but responded by saying he might give up his State Duma post as chairman of the Physical Culture and Sport Committee and return to skating.
In Sunday’s episode of “Multiple Personalities,” a satirical animated show, the best sketch saw Medvedev and Putin hiding beside a snowy track, peering through a rifle range finder, as mournful balalaika music played in the style of war films about Belarussian partisans.
“When will this damned Vancouver end?” Medvedev asks. “It’s broken so many lives, crippled them.”
“Sssh, the Germans are coming,” Putin warns, before relaxing. “No, it’s a Norwegian.” They hear gunfire: “Did you hear? They missed. It’s our side,” Putin whispers.
As a panting figure looms into sight, they whisper, “It’s one of us,” and ski up to him with pats on the back and encouragement, before leaving him to ski on alone. “What about you?” the sportsman asks. “We’ll cover your back — we’ll definitely cover you,” Putin reassures him. “And pass on to our side, don’t believe in Tyagachyov — he’s a traitor,” Medvedev flings a parting shot.
After that, they turn around. “Ah, Bjoerndalen,” they exclaim, referring to a Norwegian biathlete. And aim their rifles.
I don’t know if the makers of “Multiple Personalities” have a direct line to the Kremlin — although many people would argue that Channel One does. But the next day, Medvedev said Olympic officials should “resign, or if they can’t, we will help them.”