SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1567 (28), Friday, April 23, 2010
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TITLE: Top Cop Held Over Prostitution Allegations
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A senior police officer was arrested on suspicion of covering up a network of brothels in central St. Petersburg this week, the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office revealed Wednesday.
Major Vladimir Artamonov, 28, the head of police precinct 76, is suspected of abusing his official powers and organizing a business involving prostitution. The latter — the more serious offense of the two — carries a maximum jail term of six years.
The investigation claims that Artamonov was providing protection services to Sergei Ulyanov, 35, whom the police press release describes as the organizer of a chain of brothels. Ulyanov has previously been prosecuted for the organization of a business involving prostitution.
According to the investigative committee, Artamonov did not prevent or stop Ulyanov’s criminal activities, for which he received money from Ulyanov in return. Artamanov was detained on Tuesday.
According to the news release, the question of whether Artamonov would be held in custody or released until the court hearing and whether charges would be pressed against him were still being considered.
Police precinct 76 is located at 3 Mytninskaya Ulitsa in the center of St. Petersburg. Opposition and anarchist activists, who are frequently taken there after detentions at demonstrations, have often complained about the arbitrariness and rude behavior of the policemen working at the precinct.
The news of the arrest came amid public outcry over crimes committed by policemen — and their chiefs’ attempts to conceal them.
“I know Vladimir Artamonov personally; I’ve been to his precinct on several occasions when I’ve been detained for participating in so-called ‘unsanctioned rallies,’” Maxim Reznik, the local chair of the Yabloko Democratic Party, said Thursday.
“I was in his office in November 2007, when I was detained illegally, since I was a candidate for the State Duma at the time. I can’t say anything bad about Artamonov, he didn’t do anything bad to me personally.
Reznik said that the police have become uncontrollable, because they are used for political ends.
“It’s probably no accident that such things happen in precincts where the police feel they are very much needed by the current authorities to suppress those who disagree with those authorities. It leads to arbitrariness, impunity and lawlessness,” he said.
Despite the current debate over police reform, Reznik said the police could not be reformed in isolation.
“To solve the problem of corruption in the police force you need three things — an independent court system, independent media and an independent parliament,” he said.
“That’s because corruption is a systemic problem. In my view, more democracy means less corruption, and vice versa.”
The St. Petersburg police spokesman was not available for comment Thursday.
TITLE: Deal Struck on Gas, Black Sea Fleet
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia agreed to sacrifice $40 billion in state revenues by selling cheaper gas to economically hamstrung Ukraine in exchange for a longer lease of a naval base in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, the presidents of both countries said Wednesday.
President Dmitry Medvedev announced after a meeting with Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych that Russia would give a 30 percent discount for most of Ukraine’s gas imports. Ukraine will record the savings as an increase in Russia’s lease payment for the naval base, Medvedev said.
“These issues are directly and unequivocally linked in the agreement,” Medvedev said at a news conference that the two presidents gave in Kharkiv, the biggest Ukrainian city near the Russian border.
The gas deal — a revision of the stringent gas trade contract signed with Ukraine’s previous government last year — and permission for the Russian Black Sea Fleet to rent the Sevastopol base through 2042, are the first major steps toward an improvement of bilateral ties that deteriorated after former President Viktor Yushchenko swept to power in Kiev five years ago.
“It’s really a step by true partners, both for Russia and Ukraine,” Medvedev said. “It’s a step that we have long been waiting for.”
Gazprom, the state-controlled gas export monopoly, said the government would remove a 30 percent export duty to achieve the price cut. The discount will apply to 30 billion cubic meters of gas sold this year and 40 bcm of gas annually until the contract expires in 2019, Gazprom said in a statement.
Ukraine will save close to $40 billion in payments over this time period, Yanukovych said.
Staying in Sevastopol, which Russia sees as the most convenient base for the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, beyond the end of previous lease term in 2017 had been a key policy goal for Moscow — and a perpetual irritant in bilateral ties over the past five years. Yushchenko had insisted that the Russian base, used in the blitz war with Georgia, threatened regional security.
The countries have settled the dispute within six weeks since Medvedev first met Yanukovych in early March. Yanukovych said Wednesday that the Russian Navy represented a stabilizing force in the region.
“We moved forward the solution for this matter,” Yanukovych said at the news conference. “Our Russian colleagues, our friends, needed certainty on this issue.”
Under the previous lease agreement signed in 1997, Russia had to pay $98 million in rent every year. Ukraine has collected no cash, however, deducting the money from its debts to Russia for gas imports.
Ukraine’s and Russia’s parliaments have to approve the agreement before it becomes effective.
Negotiators from Moscow and Kiev, lead by Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Mykola Azarov, respectively, carried out talks into the wee hours of Wednesday, ironing out the last details of the deal, Medvedev said. “I met some of the representatives present here and their Russian colleagues at 1:30 a.m.,” he told reporters. “They did a good job.”
Despite bearing the brunt of the talks, Putin did not comment on the Ukraine agreements Wednesday. Instead, he dealt with issues such as the state registration of private country houses and tourism near Lake Baikal.
The gas trade amendment will erase $100 for every 1,000 cubic meters of gas until Ukraine’s imports reach the set ceiling, Gazprom said in the statement. This should almost comply with Kiev’s hopes to pay an average of no more than $230 per 1,000 cubic meters this year.
If it weren’t for the deal, Ukraine would have paid $334 on average, according to its tentative budget for this year.
“The new price will no doubt help Ukraine’s economic recovery,” said Mikhail Korchemkin, director of East European Gas Analysis, a U.S.-based consultancy. “It’s first of all useful for Russia, as it sells a lot of goods and services to Ukraine.”
He suggested that Russia could reverse the deal if it disagrees with Ukraine over anything in the future.
On Wednesday, Ukraine also agreed to increase its gas imports by 10 percent this year, to 36.5 bcm from 33.75 bcm, Gazprom said. The world’s biggest gas producer also agreed to tear out a contractual clause that allowed it to levy penalties on Ukraine’s national energy company Naftogaz Ukrainy if it buys less gas than it initially asked for.
TITLE: Drivers Fight Flashing Lights, Officials With Buckets
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — From a distance, Alexei Dozorov’s blue Toyota hatchback looks like the car of a low-level security officer equipped with a flashing blue light.
But up close, the light — which gives drivers, usually high-level officials and emergency services, the right to ignore traffic regulations — turns out to be a blue toy bucket fixed on the roof with a magnet.
“This idea was born as a joke, but the truth is that we regular drivers are treated like second-class citizens compared to authorities,” Dozorov said in an interview Wednesday. “In the sauna and on the roads, people should be equal.”
Dozorov, head of the Moscow branch of the public Committee to Protect Drivers’ Rights, came up with the idea of a blue bucket “light” four years ago. He wanted to poke fun at the country’s elite who abuse the flashing lights, seeing them as a status symbol, he said.
The idea picked up steam in early April, after liberal Ekho Moskvy radio host and publisher Sergei Parkhomenko learned about it and called on other motorists to follow Dozorov’s lead.
On Tuesday, Moscow police blocked several dozen cars with blue buckets on their roofs from driving down Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a thoroughfare frequently used by officials who turn on their flashing blue lights to cut through traffic jams on their way to upmarket gated communities to the west of the city.
Both Parkhomenko and Dozorov took part in Tuesday’s procession. Several participants were fined for various traffic violations, and some were detained for several hours, said Sergei Kanayev, the head of the Moscow branch of the Russian Federation of Car Owners, another public watchdog.
In November 2009, Vedomosti and the Silver Rain radio station launched a campaign to count the real number of flashing lights, which is officially lim ited to 964 for the whole country.
In two months, photos of 1,201 flashing light-equipped cars were collected for the media outlets by their readers and listeners. Vedomosti asked the Interior Ministry earlier this month to explain the mismatch between the numbers.
Viktor Kiryanov, chief of Russia’s traffic police, has promised that his department will check on whether some of the cars use the lights illegally. He did not specify how many cars tracked by Vedomosti belong to security services, calling the figure a state secret.
Dozorov, who calls his bucket “a fight with traffic police and defense of drivers’ rights,” has often been stopped by traffic policemen because of the toy. He has even filmed a video of puzzled traffic cops trying and failing to find a legal reason to demand the removal of the blue bucket from the roof of his car.
An engineer for a mobile phone network, Dozorov is getting a second degree in civil law to fight legal battles for drivers’ rights.
He said traffic cops often share his resentment over the driving habits of senior officials and express their support in private talks. But he said traffic police officers who guard Kutuzovsky Prospekt and Rublevskoye Shosse, often used by officials and powerful businessmen, were his “ideological enemies.”
Dozorov has a sizable number of followers who have started online “Blue Bucket” communities at Sineevedro.ru and Community.livejournal.com/ru_vederko.
“Flashing lights for emergency services only, not for the mighty and powerful, because they don’t have any privileges over the people,” reads a statement posted on Sineevedro.ru. It also calls for monthly bucket-on-a-roof processions, the next of which is scheduled for Thursday in St. Petersburg.
Public anger against flashing light abuse has found sympathy from several high-level bureaucrats, including Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov and Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who has proposed cutting the number of flashing lights to three — one for the president, one for the prime minister and one for the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
On Tuesday, United Russia Deputy Anatoly Ivanov introduced legislation setting fines of up to $850 for using flashing lights without an urgent need to do so, Kommersant reported.
Dozorov’s actions are supported by another acclaimed motorist, Moscow businessman Andrei Hartley, who recently became well-known in the Russian blogosphere for not giving way to the car of Kremlin adviser Vladimir Shevchenko and filming Shevchenko’s reaction on video.
“I think this is an original and funny way to address pressing issues,” Hartley said of the blue buckets. He called the traffic police action against the bucket drivers “inappropriate.”
TITLE: Man, 24, On Trial For Impersonating City’s Police Chief
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s Nevsky district court began hearing the case on Thursday of Artyom Kopolev, 24, who is accused of impersonating the head of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police force Vladislav Piotrovsky on the popular social networking site VKontakte.
Kopolev allegedly used a photo of Piotrovsky in uniform on the site as his profile picture and offered a wide range of services and solutions to problems, including issuing loans on advantageous terms, offering employment opportunities with the police, returning driving licenses confiscated for drunk driving, and helping people to pass examinations and obtain military service record cards, Fontanka.ru reported. In 19th place on his list of services, the alleged “false Piotrovsky” simply wrote “the organization of personal happiness.”
Kopolev is alleged to have used a very simple technique to defraud his victims. People would write to him with their requests for assistance, and Kopolev would arrange to meet them. He would arrive at meetings wearing expensive clothes and gold jewelry, and driving an expensive foreign car.
Kopolev would then take an advance payment for his assistance, before going on to give various excuses for not having fulfilled his promises and continuing to receive additional payments. He would then disappear, according to the charges filed, Fontanka reported.
Police were alerted when the alleged victims began taking their complaints about the profile page to the police.
In order to detain Kopolev, a policewoman impersonated a jealous wife who wanted printouts of her husband’s mobile phone calls and his text messages. On Feb. 11, Kopolev met the woman and was detained.
Twenty charges of fraud have been brought against Kopolev. According to the police, the majority of the requests received by Kopolev whilst impersonating the city police chief were for the return of driving licenses lost for drunk driving, for which people are alleged to have paid up to 40,000 rubles ($1,370). Kopolev also managed to sell a fake military service record card for 75,000 rubles ($2,575).
Kopolev has pled not guilty and claims that he was acting under duress as his girlfriend had put him under pressure by maintaining that a man should make at least $1,000 a day, Fontanka reported.
Kopolev is currently being held in Kresty prison.
TITLE: Suspected Morgue Gang Leader Burykin Convicted
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A former St. Petersburg pathologist was convicted Thursday of ordering several murders as the leader of a gang of morgue workers who went into business hiding the bodies of people killed in organized crime disputes.
Valery Burykin was found guilty of three murders and organized crime, for which he could face up to life in prison. The court will hear arguments from prosecutors and the defense during the sentencing phase on Monday.
A jury found that Burykin began recruiting colleagues at the City Pathological Bureau in May 1995 to help him take over the city’s morgues to profit from disposing of bodies, St. Petersburg prosecutors said in a statement.
At the time, mob violence was rife in St. Petersburg, with contract killings a regular occurrence.
The group managed to remain in the shadows until September 2001, when Burykin ordered the killing of pathologist and co-conspirator Sergei Yefimov. He was gunned down in the entryway of his apartment building for trying to leave the group, prosecutors said.
Shortly before his death, however, Yefimov made a recording detailing the group’s activities, claiming that they had killed at least 10 people while building their morgue empire, the local Fontanka.ru news portal reported. Yefimov identified Burykin — known among the group as Vasilich — as its leader.
The majority of the group’s members were arrested after another morgue worker, Larisa Artyukovskaya, was killed in a bomb blast in her apartment’s entryway in August 2004. Burykin fled abroad.
Five of his co-conspirators received sentences of up to 15 years in prison in October 2006. Burykin was detained a year later in Hungary and subsequently was extradited to Russia.
“On the main points, the jury found Burykin guilty, and agreed that he did not deserve leniency,” city prosecutors said in a statement.
A lawyer for Burykin said he would appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court, citing unspecified procedural violations, Fontanka.ru reported.
TITLE: Putin Promises $16 Billion for Healthcare
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday announced $16 billion in new spending on health care over the next two years in a plan that may boost his popularity ahead of the next presidential election.
The government will raise the extra funding from higher payroll taxes that will take effect next year, Putin said in his second annual report to the State Duma. The health care tax will increase to 5.1 percent of the payroll from the current 3.1 percent.
It has been characteristic of Putin to announce generous state spending even after he stepped down as president in 2008. He has spent much time touting a major increase in retirement pensions due this year, another landmark decision that he is taking credit for.
Putin’s latest fiscal statement, however, has a powerful enemy. In a rare public display of disagreement in the government, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who had backed a delay of the tax hike, said he was “disappointed” and indicated that there was a chance Putin would reconsider the plan.
“I think we will have to hold serious discussions,” he said, referring to the Cabinet, Interfax reported.
During the 80-minute speech, Putin also defended his government’s record of grappling with the economic downturn, fielded 12 questions from Duma deputies and listened to verbal attacks from the Communists and shrill demands by Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky to fire Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
Putin indicated that he remained unswayed by criticism of the planned increase of the health care tax, which some economists have described as a threat to the rebounding economy that might cause companies to conceal much of their payments to employees. Initially scheduled to kick in this year, the increase was delayed because of the global economic meltdown.
“There is no sense in backtracking on a decision that has been made,” Putin told the deputies. “Improvement of living standards and people’s health is our key goal. It’s something that we all ultimately are working for. It’s something that we are developing the economy for.”
Collected by the Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund, the health care tax will bring in an additional 460 billion rubles ($15.7 billion) in the two years after the hike, Putin said. The fund’s tentative budget for the period already shows a sharp increase in its size.
Putin’s estimate of the additional spending, however, appears to exceed those figures. The fund’s spending for this year amounts to 111 billion rubles, growing to 269 billion rubles next year and to 298 billion rubles in 2012.
Putin’s announcement suggested that the tax’s extra 2 percent alone would boost the spending by 230 billion rubles in each of these years.
Additionally, Putin proposed that the new money go to a separate fund to be created within the Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund.
Regional authorities will bid to use the new funding for a comprehensive upgrade of hospitals and clinics and their equipment, purchases of drugs and better hospital food and salary raises for doctors, Putin said.
The country’s health care system remains in a deplorable state even after several years of receiving increased spending as one of the four national projects, Putin said.
Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova said during a break in the session that the Cabinet would draft amendments to set up the new fund and send them to the Duma in May or June.
Looking back on the last year, Putin said he took pride in the efforts of his government to pull the economy out of a free-fall.
“Russia reacted to the crisis as befits a strong state,” he said. “It didn’t wait for things to settle down by themselves but acted decisively and rigorously.”
He took a dig at red tape, promising changes for the better as the government takes steps to reduce bureaucratic pressure on the economy, such as the abolition of licensing for several types of business earlier this year.
“They quibble at little things but don’t see the real problems,” Putin said of officials, recalling the deadly accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower station and the fire that killed 156 people in a Perm nightclub last year.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyganov, who wore a red necktie and a casually unbuttoned jacket, complained that Russia posted the biggest contraction of gross domestic product among the world’s 20 most developed countries and suggested reintroducing a progressive income tax. He also urged the replication of the Soviet practice of charging higher taxes on vodka and the timber industry.
Putin responded that Russia’s economy owed its dramatic drop to its commodity-based nature, which the government is trying to change.
Zhirinovsky, in his flamboyant manner of a showman, accused Luzhkov of running a corrupt City Hall and demanded that he leave his post. At one point, he began yelling at Communist Deputy Gennady Kulik, who apparently had made an offhand, critical comment about Zhirinovsky’s speech.
“You belong in a prison cell, Kulik,” Zhirinovsky yelled, prompting a reproof from Speaker Boris Gryzlov.
Gryzlov, when he took the floor, said United Russia applauded the work of the prime minister, who is the party leader, albeit not a member.
“There are and can be no differences between us because we are one party. We are United Russia,” Gryzlov said theatrically.
TITLE: New Ferry Service Launched Between Petersburg, Helsinki
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Princess Maria passenger ferry began operating between St. Petersburg and Helsinki on Wednesday.
The ferry will depart from St. Petersburg on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 8 p.m., arriving in Helsinki at 9 a.m. the following day. On Monday, Thursday and Saturday evenings the ferry will travel from Helsinki.
The St. Petersburg authorities hope the ferry will prove popular, particularly with the support of a ruling by the Russian government allowing ferry passengers to remain in Russia for three days without a visa.
St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said at the opening ceremony for the service that “the ferry line creates new opportunities for transport links between St. Petersburg and Helsinki.”
Matviyenko said that 70 percent of Russian tourists visiting Finland come from St. Petersburg and its neighboring towns.
“Finland is our closest neighbor and one of our most active business partners,” Matviyenko was reported by BaltInfo as saying.
The governor said that the new visa rules for ferry passengers could make the development of similar links with Sweden, Germany and Estonia viable.
“Our new Morskoi Fasad (Marine Facade) passenger port is ready to receive any ferries and ships,” she said.
The Princess Maria can carry more than 1,600 passengers and almost 400 cars. It has 605 cabins of various classes. The cost of a one-way ticket for the cheapest cabin will be 1,255 rubles ($42). A double cabin for the same one-way trip will cost 6,273 rubles ($215), Rosbalt said.
A spokesperson for St. Peter Line, the ferry’s operator, said that it plans to transport about 500,000 passengers per year.
TITLE: Science Academy Scorns Petrik’s Work
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Russian Academy of Sciences offered its verdict on Wednesday about the work of controversial St. Petersburg inventor Viktor Petrik: “It has nothing to do with science.”
Petrik is set to benefit from a tap water purification program called Clean Water, backed by the United Russia party and worth billions of dollars.
A public backlash against Petrik led the Academy of Sciences to create a special commission in February to analyze his patents and alleged inventions, which range from the treatment of radioactive water and the separation of platinum metals to alpha-ray radiators for nuclear medicine.
The commission, which includes 11 academy members, concluded Wednesday that Petrik, who claims to have been nominated for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has never published a paper on chemistry in a scientific journal.
Petrik’s 38 Russian patents repeat technical solutions previously registered by local and foreign inventors, the commission said in a statement published on the academy’s web site.
A filter for purifying radioactive water, patented jointly by Petrik and United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov in 2007, does not work because it is based on an “erroneous perception” of the nature of hydrogen isotopes, the commission said.
TITLE: Chechen President Accused in 2 Murders
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov personally ordered the killing of his two powerful rivals Ruslan and Sulim Yamadayev and offered $1 million for shooting their younger brother Isa, Isa’s former bodyguard said.
Kadyrov denied the claim.
Ex-bodyguard Khavazhi Yusupov made the accusations while speaking to investigators probing an apparent attempt to kill Isa Yamadayev in his Moscow apartment last July, Moskovsky Komsomolyets reported Wednesday.
During questioning, a video of which was posted on the paper’s web site, Yusupov explains that he was brought to Kadyrov’s residence in the village of Tsentoroi, Chechnya, earlier in July.
Kadyrov boasted that Ruslan and Sulim Yamadayev were killed “by my personal order … and I will kill their family,” Yusupov said.
Yusupov said Kadyrov ordered him to shoot Isa and that a Kadyrov aide in Moscow handed him a PSS pistol with a silencer. He said Kadyrov threatened to kill his family if he did not obey.
He went on to say that he visited Isa in his apartment, went into the kitchen to drink some water and then shot at the host in the hallway. “But I missed, and Isa overpowered me and took the gun,” he said.
The July 28 incident has been shrouded in mystery. Police initially denied any attack after Isa Yamadayev first mentioned it in an interview with the Rosbalt news agency.
The Investigative Committee said July 29 that a suspect accused of shooting at Isa had been detained on suspicion of an attempted contract killing.
The Kadyrovs and the Yamadayevs once commanded pro-Moscow forces in eastern Chechnya, but the two clans had a falling out.
Former State Duma Deputy Ruslan Yamadayev was killed in an apparent contract hit on a central Moscow street in September 2008. His elder brother Sulim was shot in Dubai the following March.
Isa, who is one of three surviving brothers, has long accused Kadyrov of masterminding the attacks.
He also maintains that Sulim is alive, but Dubai authorities have denied this. A local court last week handed down life sentences to two suspects, one of whom is Kadyrov’s former horse trainer. Dubai police have accused Duma Deputy Adam Delimkhanov, a cousin of Kadyrov, of plotting Sulim’s death.
Kadyrov called the revelations a new provocation in an old story.
“Khavazhi Yusupov was never in Ramzan Kadyrov’s house, never drove with him in a car and never could have discussed any matters regarding the Yamadayevs with him,” he said in a statement released on his web site Wednesday.
The statement also voiced doubt about the video’s authenticity, saying that nobody appeared in it but Yusupov and that it was unclear where it had been recorded.
TITLE: Finns to Make Sausages in LenOblast
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Finnish concern Atria opened a 70-million euro meat-processing plant 20 kilometers southwest of St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
The capacity of the new plant, located in the village of Gorelovo in the Leningrad Oblast, will be 90 tons of sausages per day, Sergei Ivanchenko, executive director of Atria Russia, said at the opening ceremony of the plant.
The products produced at the plant, which has its own logistics center and will employ 550 people, will be sold under the Pit Product label. Sales of the plant’s products will begin in May.
Matti Tikkakoski, president and general director of Atria, said the Gorelovo plant would be “the most up-to-date meat-processing plant in Russia.”
“It is nice that Finnish companies are now paying more and more attention to the development of the food industry in Russia, and no longer just concentrating on timber-processing,” said Valery Serdyukov, Governor of the Leningrad Oblast.
Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, who was expected at the ceremony but failed to arrive due to the absence of a flight connection with Finland because of the Icelandic volcano eruption, said in a video message that “the plant in Gorelovo is another example of close business cooperation between Finland and Russia.”
“Finnish direct investment occupies the leading position in investment in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, while Russia is one of our main export partners,” Vanhanen said.
The payback period for Atria’s new plant is estimated at five to 10 years, depending on negotiations with the LenOblast government on certain privileges that Atria hopes to receive, said Ivanchenko, who is also the general director of the Pit Product and KampoMos brands.
“In fact, Atria decided to build the plant here in particular because of the privileges it expected. However, we are still negotiating those issues,” he said.
The Gorelovo plant was due to open in 2008, but the opening was delayed due to difficulties setting up the water supply system. It took Atria several years to solve the problem, Ivanchenko said.
Gorelovo’s plant is Atria’s third enterprise on the territory of Russia, following a plant in the village of Sinyavino in the LenOblast and the KampoMos plant near Moscow. All the plants produce meat products under the brands of Pit Product and KampoMos. The company also owns the Sibylla fast food brand.
Atria bought St. Petersburg’s Pit Product company in 2005, and KampoMos, which was previously owned by Spain’s Campofrio Alimentacion, in 2008.
Juha Ryohola, vice president of Atria, said the company, which currently occupies 25 percent of the meat product market in St. Petersburg and is one of the top-ten meat-processing companies in Russia, plans to become the leading producer of meat products in Russia, where Atria employs 2,000 people.
To this end, Atria has invested 40 million euros into two pig farms in the Tambov and Krasnodar regions, which produce a combined total of 180,000 pigs a year. The company also owns a farm in the Moscow region.
Atria buys chicken both in Russia and abroad, but buys Russian chicken wherever possible, Ivanchenko said. The company buys its beef abroad, because there is very little high quality beef in Russia, he added.
TITLE: Russia Prices $5.5 Billion of Bonds
AUTHOR: By Denis Maternovsky, Sonja Cheung and Caroline Hyde
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia priced $5.5 billion of bonds, the second biggest emerging-market dollar debt offering on record, as the country seized on all-time low yields to return to world capital markets for the first time since defaulting in 1998.
The government priced $2 billion of five-year bonds at a yield of 3.741 percent, or 1.25 percentage points above similar-maturity U.S. Treasuries, and $3.5 billion of 10-year notes at 5.082 percent, or a 1.35 percentage-point spread. The five-year yield is below the rate of 4.5 percent on bonds with the same credit ratings sold by European Union member Lithuania.
Russia is luring investors as a rebound in commodity prices helps the economy recover from its worst recession since the fall of the Soviet Union. The nation last borrowed abroad in July 1998, less than a month before its $40 billion domestic debt default and ruble devaluation sent yields as high as 80 percent and world markets tumbling as hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management LP collapsed.
“Nobody would have believed that Russia could sell debt at these levels,” said Vladimir Gersamia, senior portfolio manager at Fortis Investments, who helps manage $3 billion of emerging-market debt in London. “Eighteen months ago everyone thought that emerging markets was a dead asset class.”
Russia’s sale is the second-largest public offering of dollar debt in emerging markets after Qatar’s $7 billion issue in November, Bloomberg data show.
The government is unlikely to return to the Eurobond market this year, Konstantin Vyshkovsky, head of the Finance Ministry’s debt department, said in a telephone interview Thursday. The country “has no substantial need” to sell more foreign currency bonds in 2010, he said.
The price of the new five-year bonds was quoted lower before the start of official trading, suggesting the spread was “too tight,” said Sergey Dergachev, a Frankfurt-based money manager at Union Investment, which oversees about $220 billion worldwide and bought some of the bonds. “The Ministry of Finance already knew there would be good demand for the issue, allowing for an aggressive pricing with the yield at the lowest possible level they could achieve.”
Prices dropped about 0.5 cents on the dollar in the so-called grey market, Dergachev said.
The ruble strengthened 0.3 percent to 38.8900 per euro and the yield on Russia’s dollar bonds due 2018 fell 2 basis points, heading for an all-time low of 4.662 percent, according to Bloomberg prices at 3:46 p.m. Thursday in London. The yield has tumbled from 9.769 percent in November 2008 as a surge in oil prices to $83.90 a barrel from as little as $33.87 revived the world’s biggest energy exporting economy.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this week the country’s recession “is over” and the economy is likely to expand more than the government’s 3.1 percent forecast for this year after a record 7.9 percent contraction in 2009. Higher wages and slowing inflation are fueling domestic demand, spurring growth in retail sales and industrial output.
Russia last sold five-year bonds in June 1998 yielding 6.5 percentage points more than U.S. Treasuries and 20-year notes the next month at a 9.4 percentage-point spread, Bloomberg data show. The government defaulted a month later, on Aug. 17, and devalued the ruble, triggering the collapse of LTCM and its bailout by more than a dozen banks.
TITLE: Foreign Firms Sign Anti-Graft Initiative
AUTHOR: By Alex Anishyuk
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Foreign companies, including several involved in recent bribery probes in their home countries, signed an anti-corruption pact Wednesday in what they hope will be a step toward curtailing illegal business practices in Russia.
A total of 56 members of the Russian-German Foreign Trade Chamber were slated to sign the document on Wednesday, but only 40 managed to do so, as some executives were stuck in airports across the globe because of the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland that grounded flights across Europe, said Michael Harms, chairman of the nonprofit organization, which unites 680 German, Russian, Austrian, American and British companies operating in Russia.
Among the signatories of the agreement, spearheaded by the German business group, were Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Bank and MAN Avtomobili Rossiya, a local distributor of MAN cars. Also signing on were Mercedes-Benz Russia, a local subsidiary of Daimler, and Siemens, both of which have been involved in large-scale bribery cases in Russia.
A Munich court on Tuesday found that Siemens executives had spent 1.3 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in bribes from 2000 to 2006. Last month, German carmaker Daimler was fined by the U.S. Justice Department for paying more than $4 million to secure the sale of its cars to government agencies in several countries, including Russia.
“This declaration sends a strong political signal to the authorities,” Harms said, adding that the signing was attended by presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich.
The agreement obliges signatories to prohibit bribery in their operations, both directly and through intermediaries, and to encourage their suppliers and local counterparts to do so as well. Signatories also must refrain from covert forms of bribery, such as donations and the support of political parties.
The main challenge behind the principles outlined will be their implementation, Harms said.
“All companies that signed the documents have even stricter internal rules of compliance, so these [anti-corruption] principles are a strong initiative to stimulate them and their partners to stick to these,” he said.
To encourage compliance, companies that are found to be in breach of their obligations will be expelled from the agreement — hurting their public image — and could even be taken to arbitration court in Switzerland, as the initiative will be regulated under Swiss law.
The document is an important step, said Brook Horowitz, executive director of the International Business Leaders Forum, which also signed on to the project along with the American Chamber of Commerce and the Association of European Businesses.
“It’s just the beginning of a long path toward moving away from corruption,” he said. “It is a lot more than just a declaration. Companies can exchange practices and experience about how to encourage compliance.”
TITLE: The Cruelty of Chance
AUTHOR: By Nina Khrushcheva
TEXT: In Russia, somewhere behind every event lurks the question: Who is to blame? In the tragedy that claimed the lives of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 other Polish leaders, we can answer that question with certainty in at least one respect: History is to blame.
The event is so hideous that it seems like a bad joke, or an evil KGB plot, a mad conspiracy out of James Bond — or a combination of all three. Yet the crash that has sent all of Poland into mourning was none of these things. A tragedy that defies any logical explanation confirms only one thing: the cruelty of chance.
What if no fog prevented the safe landing at Smolensk airport? What if the plane was not a 20-year-old, Soviet-made Tu-154, but a newer and safer model? What if the Polish pilot had obeyed the Russian air traffic controller who tried to divert the plane to Moscow or Minsk?
Unfortunately, the cruelty of chance also lies at the heart of the centuries of mistrust between Poland and Russia. The irony — if there is an irony at all — is that this tragedy came at a time when mistrust seemed, at long last, to be giving way to better, more businesslike relations and greater understanding between the two countries.
After 70 years of denial, Russia’s leadership — if not yet ordinary Russians — were ready to admit that Josef Stalin’s NKVD slaughtered more than 20,000 Polish officers, intellectuals, and clergy in the Katyn forest in 1940. Indeed, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer himself, and his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, commemorated that tragedy together two weeks ago at the Katyn memorial near Smolensk.
But Kaczynski, a member of Solidarity in the 1980s who was eager to overthrow the Communist regime, was more mistrustful of the Kremlin than Tusk. He put together his own delegation to visit Katyn, and wondered aloud if the Russians would give him a visa. Certainly, no Russians were invited.
When the pilot of the presidential plane was advised not to land in the thick fog, either he, or perhaps even the president himself, may have mistrusted the Russians’ willingness to give honest advice. Indeed, they may well have wondered if the cunning ex-KGB men around Putin simply wanted to make Kaczynski’s Katyn commemoration a mockery?
Suspicions and disagreements between Poland and Russia date back to the 16th century, when Poland was the far greater power. Indeed, the Grand Duchy of Moscow was a backwater. Across the centuries, there have been wars, started by both sides, and partitions of Poland executed by the Russians, followed by attempts at “Russification,” with the Russian Christian Orthodox Empire trying to control the “deceptive,” West European-oriented Catholic Poland.
Then there was the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which the Poles refused to join, and Marshal Jozef Pilsudski’s miraculous victory over the Red Army at the gates of Warsaw in 1920. Throughout most of the interwar years, Poland and the nascent Soviet regime had their daggers drawn.
When Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany in 1939, it gave him an opportunity to invade Poland. The Katyn massacre was a direct result, with Stalin ordering the mass murder of Poland’s elite in order to decapitate Polish society and thus make it more pliable.
Although the Nazi-Soviet pact did not last long — Germany invaded Russia in 1941 —there was no way out for Poland. With Adolf Hitler’s defeat, it once again became part of the Russian sphere, this time of Soviet Russia.
But Poland never stopped striding — and striking — for independence. The rise of the Solidarity independence movement in the 1980s was the earliest and most severe blow to the stagnating Soviet system. The Polish-born Pope John Paul II crystallized the anti-Communist “threat” that Poland now posed to the Soviet Union. The pope’s call for religious freedom around the world, including in socialist countries, rubbed the atheistic Soviets — and Orthodox Russians — the wrong way.
Indeed, throughout the 20th century, animosity between Poland and Russia remained at fever pitch, manifested not only in politics but also culturally. This, of course, continued an old pattern, too. Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Fyodor Dostoyevsky were all suspicious of the Poles, calling them “cold,” “distant” and “manipulative.” They saw Poland as always on the side of the West, rather than standing with its Slavic brothers. Indeed, Pushkin’s friendship with Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz ended in acrimony over the 1830 Polish insurrection against tsarist rule.
In fact, this animosity ran so deep that when both countries were no longer Communist and Russia was looking to replace its Nov. 7 Bolshevik Revolution holiday, it came up with Nov. 4, the anniversary of the Russian boyars’ victory in 1612 over Polish King Sigismund’s short-lived occupation of Moscow.
Now there is talk, in both Warsaw and Moscow, that the second tragedy of Katyn might usher in a new era in bilateral relations. Perhaps so, but as the Polish essayist Stanislaw Jerzy Lec said: “You can close your eyes to reality, but not to memories.”
Nina Khrushcheva, author of “Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics,” teaches international affairs at The New School and is senior fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York. © Project Syndicate
TITLE: Putin’s Midas Touch
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: During his visit to Murmansk last Saturday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin demonstrated his concern for the people by “spontaneously” popping into a pharmacy unannounced to see if Arbidol flu medicine was available and at what price.
Putin’s Arbidol visit was broadcast throughout the day and evening on national television news programs, which will surely boost the product’s sales more than the best advertising campaign could ever do.
Arbidol is made by Pharmstandard, with headquarters in the Moscow region. Why did Putin act as an advertising agency for the company, going out of his way in Murmansk to mention Arbidol by name?
Here is a short chronology of events behind Arbidol’s miraculous success:
On March 16, 2007, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences demanded that Arbidol be removed from the list of drugs that are purchased by the government in large quantities based on its conclusion that it is “an obsolete drug with unproven effectiveness.”
On Sept. 24, 2007, Tatyana Golikova was appointed health and social development minister.
In 2008, Arbidol became the best-selling medicine in the country, with sales of 2.4 billion rubles ($82 million), representing 1.3 percent of Russia’s pharmaceuticals market.
In 2009, Russian television and the government helped fuel an unprecedented panic over the risk of contracting swine flu. This turned into a real bonanza for Arbidol. Even Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Federal Consumer Protection Service, joined in the efforts, recommending on national television that Russians take Arbidol as a defense against swine flu.
As a result, Arbidol sales soared by 102 percent, earning the manufacturer 5.5 billion rubles ($188 million) in 2009. The government bought up Arbidol for its federal stockpile of drugs without taking any competitive bids from other drug makers. The Emergency Situations Ministry sent a chartered flight to Kiev with 200,000 packages of Arbidol at a cost of 22 million rubles ($756,000) to Russian taxpayers.
At the same time, no genuine clinical trials of Arbidol have been conducted. MEDLINE, the database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, contains four publications citing three separate randomized clinical trials of Arbidol, all of which were conducted on small groups that provided inconclusive evidence.
Rumors have been circulating in the media in recent months that Vladimir Khristenko — the son of Golikova and Viktor Khristenko, who is industry and energy minister — might take over as chief of Pharmstandard.
The U.S. Congress recently approved President Barack Obama’s huge packet of health care reforms. I seriously doubt that these reforms call for federal funds to stockpile medicines produced by a company run by a close relative of the surgeon general. It seems equally impossible that Obama would pay a visit to pharmacy to conduct a personal ad campaign for his favorite drug. If he did, he would be certainly impeached.
French kings were able to cure scrofula with a single touch of their hands. Had they conducted randomized clinical trials at the time, the kings’ hands would have proven just as successful at curing scrofula as Putin’s Arbidol has been at curing the flu.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Saints and sinners
AUTHOR: By Elmira Alieva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: How have attitudes to women been characterized during different epochs? Were women honored or despised? And how have various religions altered the image of woman? To answer these questions, the State Museum of the History of Religion has organized an exhibition with the intriguing title “And God Created Woman.”
More than 100 exhibits from the museum’s collection are on display, including sculptures, paintings, graphic works, examples of decorative and applied arts, jewelry, orthodox icons and Buddhist thangkas that reveal different perceptions of women in world religions.
“The aim of our exhibition is to create a retrospective, to review the development of the female image throughout the centuries,” said Marina Ptichenko, curator of the exhibition. “The role of women is changing in modern society. So we wanted to show how different religions through different ages perceived women, and what female deities they worshipped,” she added.
The exhibition starts with high quality copies of famous Paleolithic figurines of Venus dating back to the 24th to 22nd centuries B.C. These prehistoric statuettes of women with crude female shapes and the absence of a face or legs are believed to be the first images of female goddesses. A mother-goddess was a central image in archaic beliefs.
“It is difficult to say what exactly these statuettes symbolized and how they were used,” said Ptichenko. “Perhaps they embodied the female keepers of a family’s hearth or somehow personified fertility. Different interpretations exist.”
With the passing of time, the image of a mother-goddess transformed into a patron-goddess like the Greek goddess Demeter, Phrygian goddess Kibela or Taoist immortal woman He Xiangu.
The exhibition does not avoid the biblical story of the Fall. The sin committed by Eve overthrew the image of a mother-goddess, and a new interpretation of the female image is represented by the icons “The expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise” and “Six days,” and by other exhibits, including the engraving “The expulsion from Eden.”
“When we consider the female image, an important issue arises — that of the family and marriage,” said Ptichenko. “This is in fact a topic that is intrinsically associated with women, so we devoted one section of the exhibition to the role of woman as a mother and a wife.”
The exhibits in this section include various engravings, lithographs, icons, jewelry, paintings and statuettes of family patron spirits from the Priamurye region and Western Siberia, as well as colorful Russian folk lubok prints.
The central female image in Christianity, the image of the Virgin Mary, is illustrated through paintings, icons and sculptures. “An interesting sculpture — a bust of the Madonna — is being exhibited for the first time in our museum,” said Ptichenko.
Another section of the exhibition is devoted to female patron saints, who play an essential role in most religions of the world. This section illustrates images of Christian, Hindu and Buddhist saints and goddesses, such as Mary Magdalene, Saint Catherine, Saint Lucia, Saint Tatiana, Green Tara and others.
The curator said the organizers had tried to present a selection of interesting objects from every confession, and not only from Christianity. “For instance, there is an interesting Jewish marriage contract, and some amazing Islamic watercolors and lithographs,” said Ptichenko. “There is even an object being exhibited for the first time — an Indian wedding costume that was acquired by the museum recently.”
The curator recommended that visitors pay attention to the silver items on display. “Usually we do not show silver objects at our temporary exhibitions, but this time we made an exception. Silver items feature heavily in this exhibition,” she said.
The mystery of the dual perception of women is the subject of another section of the exhibition titled, “Woman: Virtue and Vice.” What is woman — the devil incarnate or the virtuous lynchpin of the family home? The lubok images depicting Baba Yaga — the witch from Russian fairy tales — along with allegorical prints by Francisco Goya from the Caprichos series (1799), a William Hogarth lithograph titled “Credulity, superstition and fanaticism” (1762) and other exhibits depict the darker side of the female image, while icon images of Mary of Egypt and Saint Mary embody the positive perceptions of female nature.
“I think that after visiting the exhibition, people might see that women, and the image of woman have always been honored,” said Ptichenko. “Indeed, we can see that thousands of years ago, ancient man made statuettes of women, not of men. Archaeologists don’t find male statuettes. Female goddesses were worshipped, but the attitude to real, terrestrial women has always been different.
“A person might worship the Virgin Mary, but have completely the opposite attitude to ordinary women, considering them to be the embodiment of all human vices,” concluded Ptichenko.
The State Museum of the History of Religion has also organized a series of lectures to discuss and explore the role of women in world religions. The next lectures will be devoted to female Slavic deities (April 29), the role of women in Islam (May 13), witchcraft in history (May 20), and female images in Hinduism (May 27).
“And God Created Woman” runs through June 26 at the State Museum of the History of Religion, Pochtamtskaya Ulitsa 14/5. Tel: 315 3080. M: Sadovaya/Sennaya Ploshchad. www.gmir.ru
TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: Dissident satirist Viktor Shenderovich was after all able to give a literary reading in St. Petersburg on Sunday as scheduled, though it had to be moved to a different venue after strange things started happening at the Estrada Theater, where the concert was originally planned to be held.
Despite a signed agreement, the theater cancelled the concert earlier this month, referring to a commission coming from Moscow on the weekend of the concert to establish whether the premises were in need of urgent repair work.
The organizers found the explanation suspicious, not only because the theater had advertized a program for the rest of the month and beyond, but particularly in light of the fact that the director had previously requested a written guarantee that the concert would not be turned into a political event. She also asked to see the texts that Shenderovich was planning to read.
The organizers, who found that the requests contradicted the Russian constitution, which forbids censorship, nevertheless submitted written letters stating that the concert would not be a political event and that Shenderovich would read from his book published in 2004.
When the controversy, which led to a small demo near the Estrada Theater, arose, City Hall’s culture committee issued a press release saying that the concert had been moved to the smaller Litsedei Theater, but the organizers said they hadn’t agreed to the venue. It then emerged that the Litsedei Theater had been booked by Russian Railways for a corporate party on that date.
In the end, the promoters moved the event to the conference room of the Park Inn Pulkovskaya hotel, a venue over which the culture committee appears to have no influence.
Opening the concert before a packed room, with people sitting in the aisles, Shenderovich thanked the show’s “sponsors” — Estrada Theater director Aliki Usubiani, culture committee chair Anton Gubankov and St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko — who “helped” the show with “free advertizing.”
According to the Moscow-based Shenderovich, his concerts in the Russian regions started being cancelled for all kinds of “technical reasons” in 2000, when he created a program in the Kukly series (the now-defunct political satire puppet show) lampooning then-freshly appointed President Vladimir Putin. Now banned from Russian television, Shenderovich runs a show on Ekho Moskvy radio and gives literary readings.
This week will see the premiere of a new local band fronted by Slava Shalygin, the frontman of La Minor. But while La Minor mostly performs underground Soviet urban folk songs, VIA Molodost will perform rearranged Soviet-era pop songs. “VIA” stands for “vocal instrumental ensemble” — the Soviet euphemism for a pop band.
VIA Molodost will perform at Tantsy at 8 p.m. on Thursday.
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Femme fatale
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The prominent Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky premiered a new ballet loosely based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina” at the Mariinsky Theater last week, giving center stage to psychological drama.
Ratmansky’s choreographic rendition of the celebrated 1877 literary work — which recently topped the bestseller list in the U.S. after it was endorsed by TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey — explores the drama of a sentimental yet profound woman overwhelmed by her feelings.
Composer Rodion Shchedrin originally created the score for “Anna Karenina” back in 1972 specifically for his wife, the legendary ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who choreographed the ballet herself at the Bolshoi Theater and appeared in the title role.
Since then, a number of choreographers including Boris Eifman have turned their hand to the Russian literary classic.
Ratmansky’s rendition of “Anna Karenina,” which saw its world premiere at the Danish Royal Ballet in Copenhagen in 2004 and has since been staged in Finland, Lithuania and Poland, presents the audience with a psychological account of the heroine’s passions. His ballet lacks nothing in depth, intensity and fervor. The production’s short, dynamically changing scenes emerge as painful memories in the mind.
Ratmansky’s representation of Anna’s drama is sweeping, capturing the evolution of her story in its spontaneity, and leaving no space for reflection or meditation. The ballet begins very deliberately with a static scene of Vronsky silently lamenting over Anna’s dead body laid out on a table, with a large video image of her projected onto the back of the stage, as if seen in his mind’s eye. Then the story jumps back to the beginning, with the heroine, tenderness personified, clinging ecstatically to her lover as she jumps off the train.
In this sense, it would be fair to say that the audience sees the story through the eyes of this handsome, passionate yet shallow officer, who is altogether incapable of reflection.
The otherwise minimalist sets feature a full-scale train carriage, which appears not only in the finale but also in Act One, when it revolves around itself, showing Anna on her way to see Vronsky.
Unfortunately, on the opening night, the train disaster happened far earlier than intended in the plot, when the carriage suddenly emitted a loud screech and stalled, ruining the stage carpeting. Much to the distress of all, both on and off-stage, the curtain came down and a lengthy interval ensued in which the surface was replaced. On the second night, all the train scenes thankfully went smoothly.
The impressive video projections created by Wedall Harrington that envelope the entire stage with views of wintry St. Petersburg, gardens in blossom and the vast library in the Karenins’ house work strongly to the show’s advantage.
For Diana Vishneva, the Mariinsky prima ballerina who danced the lead role on the opening night on April 15, the key to Tolstoy’s novel is Anna’s emotional and sensual dependence on Vronsky. The love triangle between Anna, Vronsky and Karenin became the focus of the dancer’s work. Vishneva’s tormented heroine, torn between ecstasy and despair, commits suicide to end her painful, unbearable relationship with her lover, to sever the ties she was unable to do anything about in life.
Vishneva created the image of an impulsive, idealistic and vulnerable yet amazingly mature Anna, isolated in her drama and trapped by her tragic circumstances. Emotionally fragile, she is discovering herself as much as she is experiencing a new feeling. The up-and-coming Mariinsky dancer Konstantin Zverev, dancing Vronsky in one of his first major roles, was convincing as the courteous, ardent yet superficial officer, whose lack of maturity and responsibility prove to be more than Anna can bear.
The pairings of Anna and Vronsky, and Anna and Karenin (performed by Islom Baimuradov) were emotional and elaborate, providing striking contrast to the rather stationary pantomime parts created by the main characters’ entourage. The ballet is in no way judgmental or moralistic, appearing as an almost documentary-style account of the tragic events — an impression enhanced by the large black and white photo projections.
Ratmansky’s short ballet, with a running time of less than two hours, is a drastically condensed version of Tolstoy’s epic novel. It breaks no choreographic ground and demands no technical feats from the soloists. That said, its dramatic intensity, high energy and emotional range are magically truthful to the prose — which is exactly what makes it a success.
“Anna Karenina” will be shown next on May 1 and then again during the Stars of the White Nights festival on May 24 and June 24.
TITLE: Kooky kompot
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Nothing at the evening opening of Kompot last November hinted at the treat that was in store for the city. The opening party was a typical event of its kind, with vaguely glamorous types flitting around the small self-described caf?-bar and smoking slender cigarettes.
Four months later, and in the cold light of day, Kompot is barely recognizable. Located at the top of a short iron staircase on the corner of Ulitsa Zhukovskogo and Ulitsa Chekhova, the caf? is light, airy and cheerful. This effect is strongly accentuated by the d?cor — light green walls and tablecloths, bright red stenciled patterns on the windows, ’70s-style brightly-colored lampshades, and some Dali-esque paintings (which are for sale) adorning the walls.
The funky, hippy, European student caf? effect is completed by some weird and wonderful furnishings, such as old traveling cases in the windows, an old iron sewing table that has been turned into a coat rail, a crazy lamp made of plastic fruit and vegetables, and clocks in the form of giant bottle tops and records.
A beaded curtain leads to a second, equally cozy and quirky, but slightly more private room, with a hammock hanging from the ceiling. This room and the small bar are smoking areas, while the first room is not. Kompot appears to have some advanced ventilation system, however, since all areas of the caf? are unusually smoke-free.
The overall effect is in fact most un-Russian. With the quirky background music, vegetarian-friendly menu and cool interior, you could be in a hip U.K. city like Brighton or a cosmopolitan capital like New York — anywhere but Russia.
The menu only heightens this feeling, with its wealth of international dishes virtually unknown on the local market, such as hummous, falafel, goat’s cheese, curry, and proper sandwiches — as opposed to Russian buterbrody — as well as a range of smoothies, no less. All these culinary rarities on one menu? And a breakfast menu, available all day long? Whatever next?
The rare opportunity to enjoy some hummous (120 rubles, $4) was too tempting to resist. Expectations were high — and they were not disappointed. The dip was fiendishly good — garlicky, fresh and tangy, with a sprinkling of chili powder — and was served on fresh warm pitta bread.
Our discreetly helpful waiter went as far as to enquire in the kitchen as to the secret of the hummous, which was in a different league to the shop-bought stuff. He duly reported back to us the recipe and secret herb mix, in case we wished to recreate the magic at home. He also valiantly attempted to dissuade us from ordering a bottle of Spanish Atalaya red wine (750 rubles, $26), which was admittedly dubious upon opening, but improved significantly upon standing for a while.
Attraversiamo warm salad (280 rubles, $9.60) was an unusual but delightful summery mix of salad leaves, crunchy red bell pepper, shredded leek, quail eggs and warm, tender beef, and extracted an unusually enthusiastic response from my critically-minded guest.
Caucasian buglama soup (250 rubles, $8.50) was a thick concoction, rich with the flavors of mutton, egg plant, tomatoes, baked potatoes and herbs. Despite the wide-ranging menu of Kompot, this dish was better here than at many of the city’s specialist Caucasian restaurants, with the flavor of every ingredient making itself felt.
The same could not quite be said of the vegetarian curry (190 rubles, $6.50), which consisted of chickpeas, spinach and other vegetables. Although it didn’t really taste like something served on the subcontinent and initially seemed a little bland due to a lack of spice and sauce, by the time the accompanying orange syrup and yoghurt-and-mint sauce had been added, it was perfectly palatable.
The desserts — a dark, decadent chocolate cake (160 rubles, $5.50) that is not for the faint-hearted, and a slightly pastry-centric apple pie (140 rubles, $4.80), both served with ice-cream — topped off an original and extremely enjoyable meal.
If the mountain of incentives above, plus freebies — a glass of compot (dried fruit infusion), Wi-Fi and guaranteed good mood — weren’t already enough, Kompot boasts an intriguing “Lunch in 5 minutes for 200 rubles,” which this reviewer, for one, will certainly be back to try.
TITLE: Greek Crisis Worsens as EU Revises Figures
AUTHOR: By Derek Gatopoulos
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATHENS, Greece — Civil servants staged a 24-hour strike Thursday against austerity measures and expected job cuts by Greece’s crisis-plagued government, and the EU’s statistics agency said the country’s budget was even worse than previously thought.
The strike disrupted public services, shut down schools and left state hospitals working with emergency staff. Protesters from a Communist-backed trade union blockaded Athens’ main port of Piraeus, disrupting ferry services.
Eurostat, meanwhile raised Greece’s budget deficit in 2009 to 13.6 percent of gross domestic product from its earlier prediction of 12.9 percent, while the ratio of government debt to GDP stood at 115.1 percent, the second highest in the European Union after Italy.
In comments that are sure to rattle markets, the statistics agency also expressed “a reservation on the quality of the data reported by Greece.” It also said Greek’s 2009 figures could be revised further, to the tune of 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points of GDP for the deficit and 5 to 7 percentage points of GDP for the debt.
Markets were shocked last fall when the government announced that the previous conservative Greek government had issued misleading financial data for years.
About 3,000-4,000 protesters marched through central Athens, carrying banners reading “tax the rich” and “Don’t take the bread from our table.” Scuffles broke out when about 150 demonstrators challenged police lines near the city’s central Syntagma Square, and police responded with tear gas.
Greek airports remained open, however, after air traffic controllers suspended their participation in the strike because of the travel chaos caused by Iceland’s volcanic ash cloud.
Labor unions fear deeper cuts after the Socialist government began talks this week with the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission for a three-year rescue package aimed at easing the country’s acute debt crisis.
“The IMF has the same cookie-cutter solution for different economies ... Now they are making a European cookie cutter,” said Spyros Papaspyros, head of the civil servants umbrella union, ADEDY.
News of the revised figures sent Greece’s borrowing costs shooting up to new record highs. The interest rate gap, or spread, between Greek 10-year bonds and German ones — considered a benchmark of stability — widened to 5.29 percentage points minutes after the announcement, from 5.03 percentage points earlier in the morning. The spreads translate into prohibitively high interest rates of more than 8 percent, more than twice those of Germany’s.
Athens said its target of reducing its deficit by at least 4 percentage points in 2010 remained unchanged despite the revision.
“The government has already adopted all the necessary measures in excess of 6 percent of GDP to ensure the achievement of this objective,” the Finance Ministry said.
It said the new figures showed the scale of Greece’s financial troubles, which it blamed on mishandling by the previous, conservative government.
Greece is struggling to cope with a debt of 300 billion euros ($406 billion) and needs to borrow about euro54 billion this year alone. It has a projected public debt of more than 120 percent of gross domestic product through 2011.
On Tuesday, the government shaved its May borrowing requirement by raising 95 billion euros ($2.62 billion) in a 13-week treasury bill auction that was oversubscribed. The public debt management agency said Thursday it had accepted an additional 450 million euros in noncompetitive bids for the treasury bill auction, which has a settlement date of April 23.
TITLE: Obama Pushes For Overhaul
AUTHOR: By Darlene Superville
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is taking his argument for stronger oversight of the financial industry to the place where the economic meltdown began. Without change on Wall Street, he says, America is doomed to repeat past mistakes.
In a speech Thursday at New York’s Cooper Union college, in the shadow of Wall Street, Obama was outlining the need for legislation imposing new financial regulations and explaining the risks of doing nothing.
The president also was called Wall Street to join — not fight — the overhaul effort.
Obama spoke at Cooper Union as a presidential candidate in March 2008 and decried practices that he said too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices.
“I take no satisfaction in noting that my comments have largely been borne out by the events that followed,” Obama said in excerpts of his prepared remarks for Thursday, which the White House released several hours before the speech.
“But I repeat what I said then because it is essential that we learn the lessons of this crisis, so we don’t doom ourselves to repeat it. And make no mistake, that is exactly what will happen if we allow this moment to pass — an outcome that is unacceptable to me and to the American people,” he said.
The sweeping regulation, representing the broadest attempt to overhaul the U.S. financial system since the 1930s, aims to prevent another crisis. Democrats are preparing to bring the Senate version of the bill up for debate, but solid GOP opposition has complicated the effort. The House passed its version of the bill in December.
The bills would create a mechanism for liquidating large, interconnected financial firms that are so big that their sudden collapse could shake the economy. At the height of the crisis in 2008, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve were forced to provide billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up the giant insurer American International Group Inc., several banks and various financial institutions considered too big to fail. The moves were highly unpopular with voters.
The bills also, for the first time, would impose oversight on the market for derivatives — complicated financial instruments whose value is derived from the value of other investments. The measures also would create a council to detect threats to the broader financial system and establish a consumer protection agency to police consumers’ dealings with banks and other financial institutions.
The Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday approved a bill by its chairwoman, Senator Blanche Lincoln (Democrat-Arkansas), to limit banks’ ability to trade derivatives and to make such transactions more open. Lincoln’s proposal is more sweeping than those offered by the Obama administration and the House, but it is expected to become part of the Senate financial overhaul bill.
Both political parties agree that an overhaul is in order, but Senate Republicans are insisting on changes to the bill. our country.”
TITLE: Flights Take Off, But Ash Limits Norway, Sweden
AUTHOR: By Slobodan Lekic and Carlo Piovano
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS — European airports sent thousands of planes into the sky Thursday after a week of unprecedented disruptions, but shifting winds sent a new plume of volcanic ash over Scandinavia, forcing some airports in Norway and Sweden to close again.
The new airspace restrictions applied to northern Scotland and parts of southern Norway, Sweden and Finland, said Kyla Evans, spokeswoman for Eurocontrol, the European air traffic agency.
But nearly all of the continent’s 28,000 other scheduled flights, including more than 300 flights on lucrative trans-Atlantic routes, were going ahead. Every plane was packed, however, as airlines squeezed in some of the hundreds of thousands of travelers who had been stranded for days among passengers with regular Thursday tickets.
Airlines said there was no quick solution to cut down the backlog of passengers, for most flights were nearly full anyway and no other planes were available.
“Quite frankly we don’t have an answer to this,” said David Henderson, spokesman for the Association of European Airlines.
The weeklong airspace closures caused by the ash threat to planes represented the worst breakdown in civil aviation in Europe since World War II. More than 100,000 flights were canceled and airlines are on track to lose over $2 billion.
The aviation crisis that began with the April 14 volcanic eruption in Iceland left millions of passengers in limbo, and the uncoordinated airspace closures by national governments sparked calls for a wholesale reform of Europe’s air traffic management system.
Some travelers got a break. Authorities chartered a luxury cruise ship — the Celebrity Eclipse — to pick up 2,200 tourists in the northern Spanish port of Bilbao on Thursday and bring them back to England. A British Royal Navy ship also arrived in Portsmouth, southern England, carrying 440 troops coming home from Afghanistan and 280 civilians back from Santander, Spain.
Spain arranged for more than 600 special flights — including 316 on Wednesday alone — to help move an estimated 90,000 stranded passengers out over the past three days. Spain has become a magnet for wayward travelers because its airports mostly remained open during the crisis.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and its partner carriers were temporarily expanding capacity on high-traffic routes from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport in the hope of decreasing the backlog. The routes included New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Sao Paolo, Dubai, Cairo, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Osaka.
In Germany, Frankfurt and Munich airports reported that about 90 percent of scheduled flights were operating.
All of British airspace was open and major airports such as London’s Heathrow — Europe’s busiest — were operating nearly full schedules. British Airways said all of its flights from London’s Gatwick and City airports would take off, as well as the “vast majority” from Heathrow.
Many trans-Atlantic planes between the United States and Europe were assigned flight paths above the ash cloud that still covered the area east of Iceland. Flying over 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) high, the planes were well above the current maximum altitude of the ash.
The Swedish aviation authority said airspace was still open over the capital of Stockholm, but closed over the southern city of Goteborg because winds did not disperse the ash cloud as forecast. Meanwhile, new ash clouds were blowing in over western Norway, where Stavanger and Bergen airports were closed.
Scientists at Iceland’s meteorological office said the Eyjafjallajokull volcano produced very little ash Thursday but remained quite active, with magma boiling in the crater. The plume of ash was below 3 kilometers and winds were not expected to take it over 6 kilometers.
TITLE: Iran Begins War Games in Gulf
AUTHOR: By Nasser Karimi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard on Thursday started large-scale war games in the Persian Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz, state television reported.
Iran has been holding military maneuvers in the gulf and the Strait of Hormuz annually since 2006 to show off its military capabilities. The last four editions of the games were held in the summer, but there has been no official explanation why they were brought forward this year.
The war games have routinely heightened tension in the region, but they have more recently taken added significance as the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program grows deeper.
The West suspects the program conceals a nuclear arm production drive.
Iran has in the past signaled that it would close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked by the West, something that makes holding war games there a particularly sensitive move. Some 40 percent of the world’s oil and energy supplies pass through the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell played down the significance of the maneuvers, saying “they don’t seem out of the ordinary” from what Iran’s military has done in the past.