SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1571 (32), Friday, May 7, 2010
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TITLE: Crack Troops Free Tanker From Somali Pirate Forces
AUTHOR: By Katharine Houreld
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ABOARD THE SWEDISH WARSHIP CARLSKRONA — Russian special forces rappelled onto a disabled oil tanker taken over by Somali pirates and freed 23 Russian sailors early Thursday, the commander of the EU Naval Force said. Ten pirates were arrested and one was killed.
The raid on the Liberian-flagged ship Moscow University came 24 hours after pirates had taken the ship over and the crew locked itself in a safe room. The vessel is carrying 86,000 tons of crude oil worth about $50 million.
The special forces had been aboard the Russian anti-submarine destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov, which rushed to the scene after Wednesday’s seajacking. A helicopter was dispatched to investigate and was fired on by the pirates, EU Naval Force said. The Russian warship returned fire on the pirates, it said.
Special forces troops on the helicopter rappelled down to the Moscow University, Rear Admiral Jan Thornqvist, force commander of the EU Naval Force, told an Associated Press reporter aboard the warship Carlskrona, which on Thursday was 800 kilometers west of Thursday’s rescue and was sailing toward Somali waters.
Ten pirates were detained and one pirate was killed, the Russian state news agency ITAR-Tass cited Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, as saying. There are wounded pirates, he said without giving details.
Russian officials were preparing for the pirates to be delivered to Moscow to face criminal charges, Markin said.
The crew of the Moscow University had previously told officials they believed the pirates were trying to enter the engine room, Thornqvist said. The ship had been disabled and was not moving. Safe rooms, where crews seek shelter, are typically stocked with food, water and communications equipment and have reinforced doors that can only be opened from the inside.
The ship’s owner, Novoship, said the decision to free the ship was made knowing “that the crew was under safe cover inaccessible to the pirates and that the lives and health of the sailors were not threatened by anything.”
Commander John Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Naval Force, called the rescue “an excellent operation all around.” He said the EU Naval Force had been working at a tactical level with the Russians, and that EU Naval Force personnel talked to the Russian crew by VHF radio. He said the EU had offered support to the Russians.
The attack occurred about 800 kilometers east of the Somali coast as the Moscow University sailed from the Red Sea to China, the ship’s owner said. Novoship is a subsidiary of Sovcomflot, which is owned by the Russian government.
The military intervention follows a trend. International military forces have been more aggressively combating piracy. 
EU Naval Force ships are disrupting pirate groups and destroying their ships at a much higher rate than in previous years. U.S. warships have fired back on pirates and destroyed their boats in several skirmishes in the last several weeks.
In February, Danish special forces prevented the hijacking of a ship after pirates had boarded it. Special forces from the Danish Absalon boarded the Ariella while the crew locked themselves in a secure room.
Still, pirates are holding more than 300 hostages taken from ships off East Africa in the last several months.
On Wednesday, a French prosecutor said a French rescuer was responsible for killing the skipper of a sailboat hijacked by Somali pirates during a rescue operation.

TITLE: Stalin’s Victory Day Posters Split Locals
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The appearance of posters depicting Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on St. Petersburg streets and on local buses this week caused mixed reactions in the city, with most people condemning the posters.
“This campaign is a real insult to people on the eve of Victory Day,” said Maxim Reznik, head of the local Yabloko branch. “It’s unbelievable that its initiators put up the images of that butcher and murderer of millions of people, and in doing so have divided people on the eve of this important holiday.” 
“We’ll do everything possible to get rid of these posters,” Reznik said.
The idea of putting up posters of Stalin around the city belongs to the Communists of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast political organization. On Thursday, they began putting up about 300 small color and black-and white posters of Stalin’s portrait around the city “to commemorate his role in the victory over fascism.” The posters were pasted to fences and drainpipes in the center of the city.
“We decided to do this because the role of Stalin in victory in World War II was undoubtedly great,” said Sergei Malinkovich, head of the organization, which exists separately from the country’s regular Communist Party.
Yulia Murashkina, a spokeswoman for the organization, said that “Stalin had his dark side, but we can’t silence the scale of his personality in history.”
“Soviet soldiers rushed to fight against the fascists for their motherland and for Stalin. His will helped to win the war,” Murashkina said.
Malinkovich said they had to issue their own posters after City Hall turned down the group’s request to place about ten giant portraits of Stalin around the city for the holiday.
City residents were divided over the portraits of Stalin, with some proffering support, though the majority reacted negatively.
“Stalin was the head of the Soviet army during the war, and the country defeated fascism together with him,” said Igor Sergeyev, 65.
Larisa Ostapenko, 47, an accountant, said that she did not like the posters.
“It was precisely because of Stalin and his policies that the war lasted for so long and that we lost so many lives in it,” she said. “Before the war he executed millions of people, including the country’s best military commanders, and left the country unprepared for the war.”
Rimma Ivanova, 76, a pensioner, said she didn’t like the sight of posters of Stalin in the streets.
“We didn’t live very well under Stalin, and he put so many people in prison. I’d say Marshal Zhukov was the one who played the biggest role in the victory,” Ivanova said.
By Thursday afternoon, many of the posters had disappeared from the city’s streets.
The row over the posters was the second scandal concerning Stalin’s image in St. Petersburg in the past two days. On Wednesday, another unaffiliated initiative group took out an advertisement featuring Stalin on one of the city’s privatized bus companies. The group paid for the advertising space on the bus, whose route includes St. Petersburg’s central thoroughfare Nevsky Prospekt, for at least two weeks.
However, the images sparked a negative reaction among many city residents and human rights experts.
The human rights organization Memorial appealed to the city’s authorities to remove the image of Stalin from the bus.
“We’re asking the governor to take measures to stop this political provocation in St. Petersburg,” Irina Flige, head of Memorial’s research department, was quoted by Interfax as saying.
“In our opinion, the public exposure of Stalin’s image with the obvious aim of glorifying that historical figure leads to a split in society,” she said.
Flige said the campaign caused moral damage to victims of political repression, as well as insulting war veterans and survivors of the siege of Leningrad.
On Wednesday night, the bus was covered with spray paint, but members of the organization responsible for the advertisements had cleaned it by Thursday morning.
Representatives of the Communists of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast said they would support those who had organized the bus ads by personally protecting the images from vandalism.
Yury Zinchuk, head of the city’s press and media committee, said the committee could not remove the images since they did not contravene federal laws on advertising, Interfax reported.

TITLE: British, Russian Veterans Recall Arctic Convoys
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Dozens of British and Russian veterans of Arctic convoys that delivered vital aid to the Soviet Union during World War II were reunited at the British Consulate in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
Frank Bond, 87, who came from London accompanied by his daughter Emma, had not been back to Russia since the war until this week. He first came to Russia with a convoy in 1942 as a teenage sailor in the Royal Navy on the HMS Suffolk. 
“I remember Murmansk was so cold, and I thought, who’d want to live here? And why are we taking all this stuff up?” Bond said on Wednesday.
Their cargo was boxed Hurricane fighter aircraft. “We used to carry eight or 10 of them tied down to the deck, covered in tarpaulins, and when we got there, the Russians and RAF assured us they’d be up fighting the Luftwaffe within 48 hours,” he said. 
The Arctic convoys of World War II delivered vital supplies and munitions from the U.K. and the U.S. to the northern Soviet ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk under the Lend-Lease program between 1941 and 1945.  
Bond, who served as both a lookout on the bridge watching for submarine periscopes and as one of a team of gunners, said that at the time, many of the young soldiers hadn’t realized the importance of their mission and the danger of the route — described by Winston Churchill as “the worst journey in the world.” 
“I didn’t realise how serious it was, as a 17-year-old,” said Bond. “The seriousness didn’t really hit me until I came this time.”
“We heard at the time the news about Leningrad, the siege and the numbers of people killed, but it didn’t really hit home until on Monday we went to the [Piskaryovskoye] cemetery and laid a wreath there. It was a very moving experience.”
On Thursday the veterans flew to Murmansk, where they will attend Victory Day ceremonies on Sunday, before going on to Arkhangelsk the next day to pay their respects to those who perished in the perilous convoys and are buried there. 
 Bond said that he was pleased to be able to meet his Russian counterparts now. “It was the most welcome sight, coming round the top at Bear Island, going round to Murmansk and meeting the ships of the Russian Navy, the Arctic escort. Some of those sailors are here today and it’s nice to be able to talk to them, because in those times we didn’t really talk to them. Most of us were kids at the time.” 
Anatoly Livshits, 92, a Hero of the Soviet Union and now a professor of computer science at St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, joined the Northern Fleet immediately upon graduating from a Naval Academy in St. Petersburg, and served as a navigator on the minelayer Gremiashchy. 
Livshits, who served on a total of 23 convoys, witnessed the sinking of the British light cruiser, HMS Edinburgh, which was torpedoed by a German submarine while carrying 4,570 kilograms of gold bullion — part payment from Stalin for the supplies the Allies were carrying to the Soviet Union.
“The Edinburgh was sailing with us in the convoy, carrying gold, which back then of course we didn’t know,” Livshits recalled. “She was attacked and damaged by two submarines, and couldn’t keep a straight course. Along with three other vessels, we protected it, circling it until we ran out of fuel, at which point we were replaced by others. We returned, but by then the British command had decided to scuttle it. I can still picture that ship going down. It was a tragic story.” 
On another occasion, Livshits’ vessel was ordered to find and rescue a lifeboat that a submarine had discovered about 100 kilometers away. 
“We found the boat and those on board, who had been virtually without food and water for seven days. We warmed them up, and gave them food and water. They were taken to hospital in Polyarny, where they recovered.
“More than 50 years later, I told this story to some of the British veterans who come every year to St. Petersburg. Suddenly, two weeks later I received a letter through the post from an Englishman who was one of those whom we saved. He said, ‘Now I know who saved me! Because of you, I’m alive today.’ He told me his story, and I still have the letter. I replied to him and invited him to visit, but he said he was too old.”
Livshits said the Soviet sailors had socialized with their British counterparts during the missions with great pleasure. 
“The friendship between us still exists, despite the varying relations between our governments, which sometimes get on, and sometimes don’t,” he said. 
William Elliott, the British Consul General in St. Petersburg, said it was an honor for him to accompany the group of British veterans of the Arctic convoys during their visit to St. Petersburg, Murmansk and Archangelsk for the Victory Day celebrations. 
“They took remarkable risks to deliver supplies to Russia during the war, witnessed some terrible things, and lost many friends,” he said. “It is moving that they are still warmly remembered and deeply honored in Russia, and have been invited to participate in so many official events with their Russian comrades.”

TITLE: Victory Day Ban Hits Strip Shows, Hande Hoch
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko has banned military-themed strip shows and ordered a pub chain to change its name as part of preparations for large-scale Victory Day celebrations on Sunday.
The pubs, of which one is located in the center and another in the suburb of Kolpino in the south of St. Petersburg, are called Hande Hoch, which means “hands up” in German.
The German phrase was frequently used in Soviet World War II films and children’s games, and sounds somewhat humorous to the post-war Russian ear.
Speaking at a meeting of the Victory Day celebration committee last week, Matviyenko said she was “outraged” by the pubs’ name. 
“I’m asking the heads of district administrations to ask the owner of this company to remove these signs voluntarily,” she was reported by Interfax as saying.
“It should be explained to them where they live, the history of the city — Leningrad survived a 900-day siege. Such signs have no place here.”
The name of the pubs, the first of which was launched at 29 Grechesky Prospekt in October 2005, was chosen because they serve Bavarian beer and cuisine.
“We have kept the name Hande Hoch so far, but removed the signs,” said the chain’s manager Viktor, who requested that his last name be kept out of print.
Viktor said he believed that the controversy was due to rivalry encountered by the company in Kolpino when it opened a pub there earlier this year. 
“We started using this name five years ago, why should we change it now?” he said. “We’ll go to court if necessary.” 
In another move, Matviyenko demanded that nightclubs cancel strip shows or parties using World War II uniforms and St. George’s ribbons on the eve of Victory Day.
“I think such events are an insult to the memory of the Great Patriotic War [as Soviet participation in World War II is officially known in Russia],” she said in a statement last week.
“Nightclub owners who attract young people to these sacrilegious events cause offense to veterans and siege survivors.”
Matviyenko, who described such parties as a “cynical challenge” to Russian society as a whole, demanded that club owners cancel such events. She also ordered City Hall’s law, public order and security committee and the heads of districts to “check on what legal grounds nightclubs are planning to hold entertainment events on May 9.”
Under Russian law, no additional permits are required for public venues to hold entertainment events on public holidays.

TITLE: E-Money Puzzles Regulators
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Veronika Moiseyeva, 24, a broadcast journalist, loses no sleep over holiday gifts because she knows she can always send her friends a virtual bouquet of flowers on Vkontakte.ru, Russia’s leading social network.
“The last time I sent flowers to my friends was on March 8. But there are different occasions. It’s a new way to communicate,” Moiseyeva said.
Vkontakte.ru offers a variety of inexpensive virtual gifts that can be purchased through an instant cell phone message, a credit card or an electronic payments terminal.
Buying virtual gifts is one of the most popular types of electronic payments, major players on the electronic money market said. But legal regulations remain a matter of concern for many operators as the presidential administration considers two versions of a bill to create a new National Payment System aimed at uniting players in the electronic payment market.
The e-money market was worth 40 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) in 2009 and may double this year “if a proper law is approved and the current dynamics remain,” said Viktor Dostov, chairman of the Russian E-Money Association, an industry group.
Industry players said regulation is needed but should be compatible with the current market model. The government, however, is caught in an inner struggle over the legal status of e-money operators.
The Finance Ministry was supposed to prepare the legislation by April 1, but its proposals were rejected by the Central Bank, which is set to be the regulator for e-money operators.
The bank said it would not be entitled to oversee the operators if they retained their current status of payment organizations, and it has drafted its own version of the bill, changing their status to that of credit organizations, which makes them similar to banks.
Extended discussions between the ministry and the Central Bank resulted in them sending two separate versions of the bill to the presidential administration on April 1.
Market players support the Finance Ministry proposal, which defines the status of electronic market operators without turning them into credit organizations.
The industry does not object to being regulated by the Central Bank, but it fears that turning e-money operators into credit organizations would lead to excessive regulations from the Central Bank and might cause commission fees to increase, said Dostov of the Russian E-Money Association.

TITLE: Lithuanian Held in Terror Plot
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VILNIUS, Lithuania — A Lithuanian woman has been detained on suspicion of liaising with radical Islamic groups and plotting a suicide attack against an undisclosed Russian military target, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Egle Kusaite, 20, was arrested in October after Lithuanian police received information about her possible links to terrorists groups in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Britain, prosecutors said.
She was charged with engaging in terrorist activities and could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors waited more than half a year to release information on the case because the probe has been ongoing. They were finally forced to make a statement during a court hearing in which she was ordered to remain in jail during the investigation.
“Egle Kusaite performed illegal actions, and was likely ordered by someone to go to Russia and blow herself up at a military site,” prosecutor Justas Laucius said in court.
Kusaite’s lawyer, Rasa Kucinskaite, argued Tuesday that Kusaite should be released until the start of the trial because there was no risk that she would attempt an escape. The lawyer did not say how the defendant views the charges against her.
Laucius said Kusaite was trained to build and detonate explosive devices and that she received financing from abroad. He also said the woman communicated with her handlers over the Internet.
Prosecutors have denied reports that Kusaite had been designated to take part in the March bombings in Moscow’s metro that killed 40 people and wounded 121.
Kusaite, who was reported missing from her home in Klaipeda, Lithuania, in 2007, tried unsuccessfully to obtain a Russian visa several times, prosecutors said. Eventually, her request was accepted as part of a joint operation by Russian and Lithuanian security services that led to her arrest.

TITLE: Governors Fail to Declare Incomes
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The governors of Kaliningrad and Krasnoyarsk outearned the rest of the country’s 83 governors last year — or at least the half who met a deadline to release their income declarations.
Governors were supposed to file income declarations with the Federal Tax Service and publish them on their official regional web sites by Friday.
But only about half of them met the deadline, Kommersant reported Tuesday.
The declarations, which all top officials were supposed to release for a second year running, are part of a campaign by President Dmitry Medvedev to crack down on corruption by requiring officials and their families to disclose their annual earnings and some assets.
The presidential decree on the declarations does not specify penalties for officials who fail to obey. A Kremlin spokeswoman could not say Tuesday how Medvedev might respond. Medvedev complained at a meeting with governors and other officials in March that his orders were not being obeyed.
Viktor Ilyukhin, a State Duma deputy with the Communist Party, said governors who failed to release their income declarations should face some form of punishment.
“They have failed to fulfill the president’s command,” Ilyukhin said.
“In addition,” he added, “even the submitted declarations should be checked. I’m sure that there are some discrepancies.”
Among the regional leaders who did not publish declarations on their web sites were Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, Tula Governor Vyacheslav Dudka and Yaroslavl Governor Sergei Vakhrukov.
The top earner among those who published their declarations was Krasnoyarsk Governor Lev Kuznetsov, who replaced Alexander Khloponin in February, with an income of 118.75 million rubles ($4.04 million). In Russia, he owns three apartments and a quarter share of a fourth apartment, a house and a land plot covering 14,510 square meters.
Kuznetsov also has an apartment in France, a Ferrari 599 GTB, a Mercedes-Benz A200, a Mercedes-Benz R500, a BMW M5, a ZAZ 965, a BMW K1200LT motorcycle and a Sealine-T47 cutter. Before being appointed governor, Kuznetsov headed the Kolmar coal company from 2008 to 2009.
Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos, the top-earning governor last year, just made the deadline by releasing his declaration Friday. He said his income fell to 86.4 million rubles ($3 million) last year from 122.37 million rubles ($3.8 million) in 2008. Most of his 2009 income, 85.5 million rubles, was earned through business activities, he said, while his official salary as governor was 852,000 rubles ($29,000).
Boos’ property includes two plots of land, two houses, two Volga cars, three motorcycles, a Galleon 530 FLY cutter, a Zodiak Classic yacht, a Yamaha WaveRunner and a snowmobile.
Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who also holds the rank of governor, declared an income of 7.98 million rubles ($272,000) in 2009, about 1 million rubles more than the previous year.
He said his wife, construction mogul Yelena Baturina, earned 30.9 billion rubles ($1.05 billion) last year and owns a 445-square-meter apartment in Russia and a 321-square-meter home in Austria. She also rents houses in Russia, Spain and Britain and has six cars, including three Mercedes-Benzes and a Porsche.
Baturina is ranked as Russia’s wealthiest woman by Forbes’ Russian edition, which estimated her wealth at $2.9 billion last month.

TITLE: Goth Cannibals Given Lengthy Prison Terms
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A St. Petersburg court sentenced two young men who killed a 16-year-old schoolgirl and ate parts of her body to 18 and 19 years of imprisonment on Wednesday.
Maxim Glavatskikh, a 21-year-old florist described as a “goth,” was sentenced to 19 years of imprisonment, while Yury Mozhnov, a 21-year-old unemployed man described as an “emo” was sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment, the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office said.
The verdict was announced following a unanimous verdict of “guilty” reached by the jury last week.
A schoolgirl identified only as Karina disappeared in St. Petersburg on Jan. 19 last year. Two weeks later, parts of her body, including the head, arms, part of a leg and intestines were discovered.  
The investigation ascertained that on Jan. 19, the girl had gone to the apartment of Glavatskikh, with whom she was in love. A large group of young people gathered at the apartment, and after drinking alcohol, most of the guests went home, leaving Glavatskikh and Mozhnov with the girl. They drowned her in the bathtub before proceeding to hack up her body into pieces.  
The killers then put the body parts into plastic bags, which they hid inside a suitcase. They baked some parts of the body in the oven along with potatoes and spices and ate them, the investigation found earlier.
They also stole some of the girl’s belongings, including her cell phone, camera and music player. 
The final stages of the court case became very tense after relatives and witnesses involved in the case were subject to attacks via the Internet a few days before the verdict was announced, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported. A friend of Karina, who was also a witness, received threats via the Internet that she could fall victim to the same fate as Karina. Unknown people also opened a profile on the VKontakte social networking site in the name of the murdered girl, and posted an image of a disfigured female face on it. The victim’s mother then received a message from the networker using her daughter’s name, the newspaper reported.

TITLE: Kremlin Asked to Investigate Kalmyk Leader’s Alien Trip
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A State Duma deputy has called on President Dmitry Medvedev to check whether Kalmyk leader Kirsan Ilyumzhinov might have divulged state secrets to aliens whom he claimed to have met in 1997.
Ilyumzhinov, 48, a flamboyant politician known for throwing expensive chess extravaganzas since becoming president of the Buddhist republic in southern Russia in 1993, will finish his fourth term in office in October, and Medvedev will have to decide whether to appoint him for another five years.
Ilyumzhinov told television host Vladimir Pozner on Channel One on April 26 that he had spent several hours in the company of aliens after they visited his apartment in Moscow in 1997.
He said he was falling asleep when he heard someone calling him from the balcony. When he went there, Ilyumzhinov said, he saw a “semi-transparent half tube” that he entered to meet human-like creatures in yellow spacesuits.
“I am often asked which language I used to talk to them. Perhaps, it was on a level of the exchange of the ideas,” Ilyumzhinov said, speaking solemnly.
He said the aliens gave him a tour of their spaceship.
When he asked them why they had not gone on television to reveal themselves to humans, they replied that they were not yet ready, Ilyumzhinov said.
He said the aliens returned him to his home in the morning — just as his driver and two associates were about to initiate a citywide search for him after not finding him in the locked apartment.

TITLE: Muslim Store Hit in Grenade Attack
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Two unidentified men threw a grenade into a Muslim store in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, injuring two people.
“The men opened the door to the store, threw an explosive device inside and ran away,” said Vyacheslav Stepchenko, spokesman for the St. Petersburg police. Stepchenko said that the police were still investigating whether the device was a grenade or some other kind of explosive.
The store, which sells halal meat, is located about 30 meters from the central gates of the city’s main mosque.
Two people suffered shrapnel injuries. A woman was injured in the arm, while a man sustained a leg wound. Both people were taken to hospital, but their injuries were not serious, Stepchenko said. He said the police were searching for the perpetrators.
The city prosecutor’s office said it was investigating a variety of motives for the crime, including extremism.
A representative of the city’s Islamic Council, who asked not to be identified, said his organization didn’t believe the attack had “any religious motives” against Muslims.
“Trade, including this Muslim store, has nothing to do with spiritual practices. Therefore we think the attack could have commercial motives,” the representative said.
He doubted that the attack could have had any nationalist motives.

TITLE: Immigration Rules to Be Eased
AUTHOR: By Vera Kholmogorova, Anna Peretolchina, Igor Tsukanov and Alexei Nikolsky
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia is ready to simplify its migration legislation to attract foreign specialists — without whom modernization would be impossible.
The State Duma’s Constitution and State Affairs Committee on Tuesday recommended that the legislature pass in its second reading amendments to the law on the legal status of foreigners. The document was submitted by the government and approved in a first reading in February.
The amendments have been substantially modified for the second reading, said Vladimir Pligin, chairman of the committee. The changes concern the rules for admitting highly qualified specialists — this was done by order of President Dmitry Medvedev for the development of innovative projects.
Highly qualified foreigners will receive work permits outside of the Federal Migration Service’s quota system; a written request will be sufficient, according to the legislation, a copy of which was obtained by Vedomosti. The government will confirm the form of the request, which must be reviewed within 14 days. Currently, work permits take from 12 to 23 months to be processed, said a spokesman for the Economic Development Ministry.
The level of qualification of the specialist will be determined by pay. To qualify as such, the pay must exceed 2 million rubles ($67,500) per year. The government would have the right to lower this figure, according to the document. Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina has said lowering the figure would be for those who work in the “innovation city” in Skolkovo, Pligin said.
Work permits for highly qualified specialists will be given out for the entire length of the work contract, but not longer than three years — currently the limit is one year — with no limit on the number of renewals. Simultaneously with the permit, foreign specialists and their families will receive a Russian residence permit.
The tax scheme also will change: Highly qualified nonresidents will be taxed at the same rate as Russians — 13 percent. Currently the level is 30 percent.
The amendments will go into force on Jan. 1, 2011.
The radical simplification of the migration legislation for foreign specialists was proposed by the Economic Development Ministry to improve the country’s investment climate. This was a key requirement, a ministry official said: Modernization is impossible without smart personnel.
The migration service prepared the amendments, a Duma deputy said. The service used the experience of Germany, where highly qualified personnel are separated from other immigrants according to the size of their income, said Konstantin Poltoranin, a spokesman for the service.
Highly qualified specialists make up only 2 percent to 3 percent of all foreigners getting work permits for Russia, and the law is not connected with the “innovation city” in Skolkovo, he said.
Companies unanimously welcomed the changes. Currently, employers have to send lists of future foreign employees to the Federal Migration Service every year, said Anna Aibasheva, a spokeswoman for Vimpelcom. By May 1, companies already had to send a list of employees that they expected to have in 2011. Vimpelcom has 13 foreign executives, Aibasheva said.
A TNK-BP spokesman said the changes are unlikely to have an effect on the company’s operations. The oil firm has a long-term personnel program, and the hiring of highly qualified employees is planned long in advance. In 2008, during a conflict between shareholders of TNK-BP, problems with foreign personnel started with the migration authorities.
The 2 million ruble limit is excessively high, said Alexander Malis, president of Yevroset. Good specialists can be found abroad for 1.5 million rubles a year.
But Yevgeny Reizman, a partner at Baker & McKenzie, said the 2 million ruble limit was optimal. The amendments will positively affect the abilities of foreigners to work in Russia, he said, and their numbers will grow by a few hundred people. But the cultural attitudes and peculiarities of developing a business in Russia will continue to differ from those that the foreigners are accustomed to, he said.

TITLE: Patriotic Video Game May Get State Funds
AUTHOR: By Oleg Salmanov and Natalya Kostenko
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — Software company 1C is asking the state for 500 million rubles ($16.8 million) to create a computer game simulator that will educate youth in patriotism, modernize the economy and rebuff those trying to falsify history.
The Communications and Press Ministry and 1C have jointly prepared a proposal for the creation of a series of military game simulators, a document that was prepared for a meeting of the presidential commission for modernizing the economy on April 29, a ministry official said. It wasn’t presented, but the issue was discussed, he said, adding that 1C chief executive Boris Nuraliyev had demonstrated an aviation simulator to President Dmitry Medvedev.
The project’s cost is 720 million rubles, according to the presentation. The Communications and Press Ministry is asking for 500 million rubles from the government, while 1C will come up with 200 million rubles and 20 million rubles will come from the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district, which is an initiator of the project, the official said.
The development of the core of the simulator will cost $5 million to $10 million, said Sergei Orlovsky, founder of Nival Network. Each game based on that engine will run an additional $1 million to $2 million.
The project needs state financing because it aims to stimulate high-tech production and create a product for export, while at the same time using the groundwork laid by the project to create a simulator for teaching pilots.
The goal of the project is to foster a sense of patriotism in children and shut out falsifications of history, the ministry official said. The project could be approved at the next modernization commission meeting, which will be dedicated to the development of Russian video games, said an official close to the leadership of the presidential commission.
The parameters of the project and state support are still being worked out, said an official in the presidential administration. The project is now being finalized, the ministry official said.
The project is interesting, but it is unclear whether state support is needed, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said.
The project will become profitable within four years, its authors said. Sales are projected at 10 million copies, and the share of Russian games on the domestic market will grow 10 percent.
The secret to the project’s success is 1C’s experience in developing training simulators. The company’s Il-2 Shturmovik game is one of the 25 best games ever, according to Imagine Games Network. It has been translated into 11 languages, and 1.3 million copies have been sold.
Representatives for 1C declined to comment.

TITLE: Inflation Rate for April Falls To Lowest Level in 12 Years
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — The inflation rate dropped to the lowest level in 12 years in April, the State Statistics Service said Wednesday, as the ruble’s longest rally since 2006 kept a lid on prices and a weak economic recovery curbed consumer demand.
The rate fell to an annual 6 percent last month, the slowest since July 1998, from 6.5 percent in March, the service said. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 14 economists was for 6.2 percent. Prices advanced 0.3 percent on the month.
“The weaker euro is at least a net positive for Russia’s inflation rate as most imported food and consumer goods are priced in euros,” Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib, said before the release.
The Central Bank, which has cut the main interest rates 13 times in a year to a record low 8 percent, said last week the pace of inflation remained “favorable” last month. The ruble gained against the dollar in April for a fourth month, the longest stretch since a rally ended in August 2006, and rose against the euro for a seventh month out of eight as the common currency weakened on concern that Europe’s debt crisis is spreading.
The Economic Development Ministry estimates that consumer-price growth may be between 6 percent and 7 percent in 2010 and 2011 and average 6.3 percent this year, the slowest since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Price growth in March fell to 6.5 percent from 14 percent in the same month last year, the fifth biggest inflation-rate differential among 78 economies tracked by Bloomberg.
Even so, the “economic recovery remains unstable,” the Central Bank said in a statement last week, adding that inflation may accelerate in the second half and a “more detailed analysis” would be required before further changes in policy rates.
Banks are unable to take advantage of slowing inflation as loan demand remains weak. Corporate lending was unchanged in March after falling 0.7 percent in February, while retail loans rose 0.3 percent, compared with a decline of 0.6 the previous month, according to Central Bank data published on April 29.
The economy’s quarterly expansion slowed in the first three months of the year to a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent, according to the Economy Ministry. On a seasonally adjusted basis, gross domestic product gained a quarterly 1.7 percent in the fourth quarter and 2 percent in the third.

TITLE: Turning the Loan Spigot On
AUTHOR: By Kim Iskyan
TEXT: The last thing that Russia’s tentative economic recovery needs is for the country’s banking sector to trip it up. Loan growth is flat in 2010 so far, and if banks don’t start lending soon, the economy may continue to struggle to grow as cash-starved companies hold off on investment and consumers defer purchases.  
So when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin forecast in front of the State Duma on April 20 that Russia’s banks would increase lending by as much as 10 percent this year, it wasn’t just an idle prediction. It was a fervent wish, firm order and threat all rolled into one.
The good news is that the Russian banking sector made it through the economic crisis even after it was hit by the powerful double whammy of plummeting commodities prices and the global credit crunch. The Central Bank floated the sector on an ocean of cheap cash and quietly and quickly tackled potential sources of systemic risk.
But while the banking sector has lived to see another day, it hasn’t done any favors for potential borrowers or for the economy as a whole.  
Banks and borrowers are finding themselves in a real conundrum. Banks are understandably hesitant to lend to potentially dodgy borrowers in what is still an uncertain economic environment. They don’t want to add to the mountain of bad loans that has increased nearly fourfold to 6.4 percent of total loans by the end of February, according to Russian accounting standards. Therefore, to be compensated for what they perceive as continued high levels of risk, banks are demanding interest rates that are higher than what potential borrowers can afford.
Until there’s a higher level of confidence among banks and in the economy as a whole, neither banks nor borrowers want to take the first step. Continued high unemployment and slow wage growth is dampening demand for retail loans, which account for just over one-fifth of the total $525 billion in outstanding loans in the country’s banking sector. In the meantime, banks are building up cash cushions and plowing their liquidity into domestic bonds.
What should we do to escape the vicious circle? Borrowing costs have declined. The refinancing rate, an indirect but key determinant of lending rates, has been cut by 500 basis points over the past year, and it reached a historic low of 8 percent on Friday. In theory, this should inspire more borrowers to take the dive. Some may be waiting for a sign that rates have bottomed, but banks don’t often pass these types of cuts on to borrowers.
The government has long been trying to get banks to boost lending. Indeed, the string of rate cuts was kicked off last spring the day after Putin suggested that Central Bank head Sergei Ignatyev consider cutting rates. A few months later, Putin called on the heads of state banks to defer their vacation plans until they increased lending.
More recently, on April 8, the Central Bank announced that it would continue its crisis-driven policy of not requiring banks to increase provisions for restructured loans. The continuation of a liberal provisioning policy flies in the face of global standard industry practices and bodes ill for upgrading regulation later. Most tellingly, in mid-April Sberbank head German Gref — immediately after meeting with Putin — announced an across-the-board cut in rates for loans to retail customers and a reduction in commissions and fees, which will likely hit the bank’s profitability. Since Sberbank accounts for close to one-third of total loans outstanding, other banks will be forced to follow its example or else face sharp deterioration in market share.
The government’s role in the Russian banking sector is already outsized. Research by economist Andrei Vernikov for the Bank of Finland shows that the percentage of banking sector assets controlled by the state has risen from 36 percent in 2001 to 56 percent by mid-2009. Instead of embracing a free-market model for the banking sector, like most other former Soviet republics have done, Russia has been drifting toward the Chinese model of state control of leading banks. Any increased government involvement in the nuts and bolts of bank lending will accelerate this trend.
Is state control over the banking sector such a bad thing? Arguably, state control makes it easier for the government to support banks, which could reduce the likelihood of instability that could be a trigger of future banking crises. But at the same time, an increased government role in the banking sector produces dangerous distortions on the market. Private banks and private investment are the first victims. Increased levels of directed and politically influenced lending are an obvious consequence, invariably leading to higher levels of nonperforming loans and massive government-funded recapitalizations of floundering banks.
In addition, state banks may be forced to support politically motivated projects. The ambitious attempt last year by Sberbank to acquire a large stake in Opel was a good example. The inefficient allocation of capital and the slow but steady crowding out of private capital undercuts healthy and productive market impulses.
In the end, when the government increases its intervention in the banking sector, the largest victim is the country’s sustainable economic growth.

Kim Iskyan is a director at Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm based in Washington.

TITLE: Another Munich Agreement
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: It may seem strange that I am writing about the 2009 report by the European Union fact-finding commission on the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war since it was published a year ago.
But the report is still very important today — in some sense, even more important than the war itself. The report, which was lead by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, is a blatant appeasement to Russia — a new Munich Agreement of sorts.
If you build policy and the economy on lies and self-deception, if you sincerely believe that you are the defender of freedom but out of fear and indifference you appease a dictatorship, and if you sincerely believe that you have a market economy despite having long ago sunk into debt and micromanaging the economy, the eventual consequences will be catastrophic.
To be honest, I was shocked by the report. My first thoughts after reading it were: “Europe has gone into retirement” and “Europe is no more.” Now one year later, Europe is falling apart.
According to the report, the Russia-Georgia war started when Georgia attacked Tskhinvali.
I was immediately reminded of a similar event in history. Before Finland declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941, there was one “small event” that triggered Finland’s declaration: The Red Army bombed dozens of Finnish settlements without ever declaring war. I have a question for Tagliavini: Is she certain that the start of the 1941-44 “Continuation War” between Russia and Finland should be considered from the moment that Finland declared war? What about all of the Russian provocations that preceded the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali?
Tagliavini has created nothing short of a revolution in global politics by introducing a new definition of war. It now turns out that wars are started by those who respond to the actions of aggressors. So, when the Red Army dropped bombs on Helsinki, that wasn’t war. But when Finland responded, it qualified as war.
The Tagliavini report was not complicity. It was cowardice in the face of an international bully. That cowardice by itself would not have been so bad had it not come from someone claiming to act as an arbiter in world affairs and as the voice of global conscience.
It turns out that it doesn’t necessarily take bribes to corrupt someone’s conscience. The prevailing motive in the report was to avoid at all costs spoiling relations with Russia by pointing out the Kremlin’s injustices and to heap most of the blame on Georgia, a country of far less importance to the international community.
The same thing is happening with the European economy. It is not just Greece or the euro that is coming apart at the seams. We are witnessing the unraveling of the whole philosophy of European bureaucratic socialism, which by some unfortunate misunderstanding considers itself a democracy.
Tagliavini, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor-cum-Gazprom PR agent Gerhard Schr?der did not build Europe. It was built by their fathers and grandfathers following the end of World War II. At that time, Western Europe was an alternative to the Soviet Union — an alternative to slavery and tyranny. Post-World War II Europe symbolized the importance of never again signing a Munich Agreement with a dictator.
But it took only a few short years after the collapse of the Soviet Union for European bureaucrats to completely undo the Europe that their predecessors built. In that sense, Tagliavini’s report and the fall of the euro are just two sides of the same coin.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.

TITLE: V for victory: A city remembers
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With St. Petersburg preparing for the biggest parade in its history on Sunday to commemorate 65 years since the victory of the Allied Forces over Nazi Germany in World War II, nearly all of the city’s museums, from art galleries to literary museums, have prepared a rich variety of exhibitions to mark Victory Day.
Everyday life in Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known, during the devastating siege that ravaged the city for almost 900 days from 1941 to 1943 is the focus of “That’s what our city was like during the war” at the Karl Bulla Gallery. The exhibition is based on documentary photographs taken during the siege by eminent local journalists and reporters.
Daily routine and events that took place in Leningrad during the siege and post-siege period are portrayed through the activities of female civil guard brigades, schoolchildren, tram drivers, nurses, the staff of Leningrad Radio, musicians, artists and theater actors, as well as war correspondents, rooftop lookouts, those who helped to plant the Field of Mars and city squares into vegetable gardens — all those who took part in the war, both those who survived and those who gave their lives for victory and peace. 
The exhibition illustrates how people struggled to survive and help each other through the darkest period in the city’s turbulent history. The organizers have tried to show glimpses of life in the city, of people who were not at the front but who suffered no less than those who were.
At the museum-apartment of the poet Anna Akhmatova, who was evacuated to Tashkent during the war, a moving exhibition titled “I write this letter with tears” opens Friday, May 7. The focus of the exhibition is 48 letters written by a young soldier named Yefim Khozumov to his mother and three younger sisters. Khozumov served from 1941, helping to defend Leningrad before he was killed in 1944. Videoart installations attempt to create a visual reconstruction of his world based on the content of his letters, which escaped editing by the censors because they were written in the soldier’s native Mansi language. 
The State Museum of Political History is simultaneously showing two exhibitions devoted to the anniversary. “Not by the might of arms alone” comprises a fascinating array of propaganda posters, leaflets, paintings and photos designed to boost morale and fighting spirit among Soviet military and civilians alike. 
In another room of the museum, the capitulation of Germany in May 1945 is detailed via documents relating to the signing of Germany’s surrender. Photos from the period show how news of the end of the war was celebrated all around Europe. 
Philatelists are sure to appreciate the approach to Victory Day taken by the Popov Museum of Communications, where a collection of postal stamps, postcards and envelopes sent via the military field postal service and civilian service are on display. The exhibits include cards sent from inside besieged Leningrad, as well as patriotic stamps, cards and matchboxes. 
Another exhibition at the same museum is devoted to the important role of signalmen during the war, and displays items including a replica of a RBM-1 field radio station, field telephones and telegraph equipment, as well as a series of drawings depicting Leningrad during the siege. In keeping with the museum’s hi-tech philosophy, many of the archive documents and photos are displayed in electronic format.  
Naturally, the State Russian Museum has also risen to the occasion with “Victory Day!” — an assortment of paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures from the museum’s collection. Many of the works on display were created during the 1960s and ’70s, though some date from the war years. The exhibition explores the theme of historical memory, as well as presenting artists’ reflections on the fate of ordinary soldiers during the war. 
A separate section is devoted to works depicting victory celebrations, including two designs — “Peace” and “Victory” — done by Yevgeny Lansere for Moscow’s Kazan Station. The selected works of art are united by the theme of Victory Day as both a day of remembrance and of celebration. 
Not all of the exhibitions focus solely on the past. Those who fought for victory 65 years ago can be seen as they are today at the Rachmaninov Boutique Hotel Gallery, which is hosting an exhibition of photos of World War II veterans taken by contemporary St. Petersburg photographers, titled “Veterans: Life after the War.”

“That’s what our city was like during the war” runs through May 12 at the Karl Bulla Gallery, Nevsky Prospekt 54. Tel: 571 2912, M: Nevsky Prospekt.

“I write this letter with tears” runs through May 30 at the Anna Akhmatova Museum, Nab. Reki Fontanki 34, (entrance from Liteiny Prospekt 53.) Tel. 272 2211. M: Mayakovskaya.

“Signallers — for Victory!” runs through Aug. 31 and “Memory of the War Years” runs through July 5 at the Popov Museum of Communications, Pochtamtsky Pereulok 4. Tel: 571 0060. M: Sennaya Ploshchad. www.rustelecom-museum.ru 

“Not by the might of arms alone” runs through May 15 and “The Capitulation of Germany. May 1945” runs through Sept. 25 at the Political History Museum, Ulitsa Kuibysheva 2-4. Tel: 233 7052. M: Gorkovskaya. www.polithistory.ru

“Veterans: Life after the war” runs through May 31 at the Rachmaninov Boutique Hotel Gallery, Kazanskaya Ulitsa 5. Tel: 571 7618, M: Nevsky Prospekt.

“Victory Day!” runs through the end of May at the Benois Wing of the Russian Museum. Nab. Kanala Griboyedova 2. Tel: 595 4248. M: Nevsky Prospekt. 
www.rusmuseum.ru

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: After an abrupt end was put to the May Day democratic rally Saturday, the meeting’s music program was also stopped when electricity was suddenly cut off during a performance — bringing back memories of underground rock concerts in the stifling atmosphere of early-1980s Soviet Union.
Musician <strong>Mikhail Borzykin</strong> of the band <strong>Televizor</strong> said he came to Pionerskaya Ploshchad, the planned location of the democrats’ standup meeting and concert, after the march, which was due to start from near Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Ligovsky Prospekt, had been stopped by the authorities, who took offense to a banner calling for the dismissal of St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko. Borzykin was with painter Kirill Miller and several other people.
“About ten of us came there by metro and arrived when <strong>SP Babai</strong> was performing. Then I was asked to say something,” Borzykin said this week.
But the musician only had time to say a few words from the stage when he was approached by one of the organizers. “She said the police were furious, and they’d said they would start to detain people, so we should stop the meeting,” Borzykin said.
“I only had time to add ‘Fire Matviyenko’ before leaving the stage. As far as I understand, the electricity was cut off at that very moment, because Mikhail Novitsky [of SP Babai] wanted to sing one more song, but there was no electricity. He was putting on his guitar to sing one farewell song to close the meeting when they discovered that the generator was not working.”
An estimated 250 gathered at Pionerskaya Ploshchad for a stand-up meeting and concert, while 700 to 1,000 democratic protesters were stopped by police on Ligovsky Prospekt.
Borzykin believes that the orders to stop the anti-Matviyenko rally came from Matviyenko herself.
“It was a massive humiliation; the whole event left me really depressed,” he said.
“It was like being surrounded by local thugs in some remote village and waiting for them to start beating you with their truncheons. The governor’s actions are disgusting, because it’s obvious that it was done on her personal orders, in my opinion.”
While the democrats’ rally was stopped, neo-Nazis and Stalinists were allowed to march freely in the city center.
“It’s shocking cynicism and the meaning is obvious,” Borzykin said.
“‘Discuss Stalin as long as you wish — just don’t mention the name Matviyenko.’ It means the authorities realize where their weak points are. They are afraid of being singled out for criticism.”
No musicians were arrested in St. Petersburg, but in Moscow several members of the St. Petersburg band <strong>Padla Bear Outfit</strong> were detained as soon as they performed at the Moscow May Day rally and charged with using offensive language in public. The police apparently detected offending content in the band’s songs.

<em>— By Sergey Chernov</em>

TITLE: Taking Russian ballet abroad
AUTHOR: By Elmira Alieva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Portraits of the outstanding ballet dancers Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Olga Spesivtseva, Alexandra Danilova, Vera Nemtchinova and Adolph Bolm are among those from the private collection of the eminent fashion historian Alexander Vassiliev that can currently be seen at Rosphoto. 
The photo exposition depicts a period of history when ballet in Europe was nourished on talent raised and trained in Russia. 
“A whole host of Petrograd and Moscow Imperial Ballet stars went into exile to grace the world’s stages with their dazzling talent, superb technique acquired through Russian ballet teaching methods, their profound artistry and bright and arresting images,” wrote Vassiliev in notes to the project.
In 1909, the brilliant impresario Sergei Diaghilev launched his itinerant ballet company, the Ballets Russes, which toured Europe and the U.S. until 1929. Many of the troupe’s dancers had trained at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Ballet, while after the 1917 revolution, younger dancers were trained in Paris within the ?migr? community. The troupe premiered now-legendary works by great choreographers such as Marius Petipa and Michel Fokine.
The talented new generation of choreographers spread the fame of the Russian ballet abroad, while brilliant sets, scenery and costume designs created by Alexander Benois, Leon Bakst, Mstislav Dobujinsky, Nikolai Roerich, Natalya Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov harbingered a new epoch in the art of theater design. 
Vassiliev has chosen about 200 images, little seen in Russia, from his rare collection of photographs dedicated to the history of Russian ballet. Viewers can gain an insight into the lives of last century’s ballet dancers, many of whom became world famous celebrities. Their portraits were published in magazines, handbills, playbills and newspaper articles. 
“I happen to have been personally acquainted with many stars of the Russian ballet in exile, and worked with some of them,” said Vassiliev. “This is reflected in the rare collection of signatures on photographs to be included in the Rosphoto exhibition.” 
Visitors can see the autographs of Diaghilev’s dancers, including Valentina Kashuba, Anatoly Vilzak, Alexandra Danilova, Imperial Mariinsky soloist Alisa Vronskaya, Irina Baronova, Tatyana Ryabushinskaya, Tamara Grigoryeva, Tatyana Leskova and many others. 
“Photographs from the archive of Zhenya Tripolitova, whose memoirs, entitled ‘The Little Ballerina,’ were recently published in Moscow, are a unique addition to this exhibition,” wrote Vassiliev.
After Diaghilev’s death in 1929 in Venice, his fabled company broke up. Only after three years were two new companies founded — Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo and De Basil Russian Ballet. Both companies toured extensively, showing both new performances and reconstructions of Diaghilev’s repertoire, and traveled to half of the world during the 1930s and ’40s. After the end of World War II, interest in the famous Russian ballet companies subsided. 
“I expect audiences to be delighted to see extremely rare portraits of little-known stars of the Russian ballet in exile — Lilya Nikolskaya, Olga Stark, George Skibin, Andrei Yeglevsky and many others,” said Vassiliev. 
Vassiliev said he wanted to dedicate the exhibition to the 100th anniversary of Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons. “I think it will be a great present for aesthetes, ballet lovers and historians,” he said.
   
“Russian Ballet Abroad” runs through June 13 at Rosphoto, 35 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 314 1214. 
www.rosphoto.org

TITLE: Going for a song
AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As temperatures rise, the out-of-town restaurants in the prestigious resort region to the northwest of the city are slowly coming out of hibernation. Chaliapin, located opposite Repino railway station, upped its game last year with a total renovation inside, and has just completed a badly needed external repair job. It’s no longer the artificial green-and-glass eyesore it once was, having been decked out very tastefully in dark, stained woods, and its first floor terrace garden is due to open in the very near future.
The restaurant is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary and it’s already developed a very strong reputation, not least because the (massively overpriced) supermarket attached has a delicatessen section offering all manner of marinated meats to be taken home or straight to the beach to barbeque, and there’s now a inner city branch on Tverskaya Ulitsa.
Unlike the other restaurants in the area, Chaliapin can’t boast of any great proximity to the sea or much in the way of a view. The ceiling-to-floor windows flood the two spacious rooms with light, which makes for a great ambience, but basically you’re looking at a large car park, dual-carriage highway and a suburban railway station. Chaliapin manages to overcome this drawback with a Silver Age interior, taking the great bass Fyodor Chaliapin (1873-1938) as its starting point. The glassed-in staircase leading up to the restaurant on the second floor features period photographs, while large understated murals, a forest of potted plants and enormous embroidered fringed lampshades decorate the dining area. In the center of the main room there’s a vast open, circular fireplace, which, as it spits and crackles, provides a soothing soundtrack to a meal. 
Chaliapin bills itself as a “dacha restaurant,” but again it’s the Silver Age that is key where the cuisine is concerned. Think of Russian food prior to that Modernist era and you think of coarse, plain fare and boyars roasting boar on the spit. After the Silver Age came the delights of communist cooking, with everything slaked in industrial-strength mayonnaise and natural ingredients boiled beyond recognition. At Chaliapin the emphasis is on simplicity combined with great presentation. 
We started with a selection of the Russian classics that dominate the menu. The meat pancakes (280 rubles, $9.30) and potato draniki cakes (310 rubles, $10.20), which both came with smetana, were hardly wild experiments, but they did the trick. The lightly salted herring (340 rubles, $11.20), on the other hand, was excellent, albeit slightly marred by the buttered potatoes having been put through one of those machines that turns them into perfectly spherical pellets, rather than anything recognizably from the animal or vegetable kingdom.
Our fourth starter was studen (380 rubles, $12.50), a dish that divides people into those who adore it and those who regard it as jumped-up cat food. As the rest of our party collectively looked away in horror, our studen-lover relished every morsel of this jellied meat, er, delicacy and gave it top marks. 
The duck breast (760 rubles, $25), served with a tart orange sauce was beautifully presented, though the duck itself perhaps lacked taste. The pork shashlyk (390 rubles, $13) was fresh from the grill and close to historic, covered in crunchy, fatty crackling. The pikeperch and prawn shashlyk (540 rubles, $18) from the specials menu, served on the skewer with vegetable slices between each large chunk of fish, was deemed by our fellow diner to be as fresh as a cool sea breeze on a white night evening. That’s good, apparently. Chebureki meat pies (480 rubles, $16) made for a somewhat strange main course, but they avoided the classic chebureki pitfall — too much oil. Thankfully, these had obviously been cooked almost instantaneously in piping hot, recently changed oil, rather than being allowed to wallow in a fat-fryer that already needed replacing when Chaliapin was treading the boards.
With all four mains, any minor niggles about the taste were more than made up for in their presentation. There is a lot of arty fiddling about with the simple business of putting some food on a plate in many of St. Petersburg’s restaurants, but here it was done, dare we say it, with taste.

TITLE: Role of Heroic Four-Legged Friends in War Celebrated
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Eye-witnesses of the Victory Parade held in Moscow on June 24, 1945, remember a detachment of dog-handlers with their charges parading across Red Square. Among those who had the honor of taking part was Dzhulbars, a dog who was famed at the time. Possessed with an incredible ability to detect explosives with his sense of smell, Dzhulbars saved architectural masterpieces in Prague, Vienna, Hungary and Romania. The dog had been injured and deemed unable to take part in the procession, until Stalin himself ordered that Dzhulbars be carried across Red Square in Stalin’s own overcoat.
Sixty-five years later, it’s difficult to tell whether this tale is historical reality or pure invention. There are few records and documents remaining that bear witness to the deeds of animals devoted to their masters and their services to the state. Nevertheless, their contribution to victory is undoubted. 
Dogs that served at the front delivered messages, laid telegraph wires, detected mines, dug out the injured in bombings and acted as guards or patrol dogs. They battled on despite wounds and in terrifying circumstances to the very limits of their endurance, showing indomitable courage and supreme loyalty to their handlers. 
According to a Soviet dog-breeding manual published in 1973, more than 60,000 dogs served in the Red Army. In the first years of war, 168 individual detachments, battalions and regiments centered around animal-handling were formed. At first, the dogs were trained in special schools and only later were they sent to the front. 
Dogs saved the lives of more than 700,000 wounded soldiers. The specially trained animals carried first-aid kits on their backs and a Red Cross band to allow them to be instantly recognized. 
 “I met lots of intrepid dogs,” wrote the Russian author and journalist Ilya Ehrenburg in his notes on World War II. “A Shetland sheepdog in protective white clothing — it was winter — would find a wounded person and lay down next to him. The dog would have a special basket with food and vodka. Then it would take in its teeth the special leather dog tag that hung from the man’s collar and hurry off to find a medic. The dog would show her that it had found a wounded soldier and then lead the handler to him.” 
A startling ability of these canine medics was to understand whether the soldier was dead or only wounded — a tricky task as many wounded soldiers would not show any clearly visible signs of life. 
“A canine medic that found a wounded soldier would nuzzle his face to revive him and to show him ‘I’m with you’,” said Yekaterina Vasilyeva, a researcher at the Military-History Museum of the Artillery, Engineering and Signals Corps.
In order not to frighten the soldier, the dog would immediately show him its Red Cross symbol and first aid medicines. Often animals would drag soldiers back from the battlefield with special sledges. Under fire, the dogs could do things that were impossible for the medical orderlies.
“Sledge dogs were used for both carrying away wounded soldiers and bringing ammunition,” said Vasilyeva. “During the war, animals hauled 6,000 tons of ammunition and 3,500 tons of other loads.” 
Every sledge was equal to what three or four medical orderlies could carry, and evacuation times were also massively reduced. 
The majority of the dogs — about 9,000 — served as messengers. 
“During the war, dogs carried more than 200,000 reports and laid about 12,000 kilometers of cable,” said Sergei Paskhin, senior researcher at the Military-History Museum of the Artillery, Engineering and Signals Corps.
“The dogs served accurately and reliably,” according to one report from the war. “There were many instances where conditions made it impossible to use other communication tools, but the dogs managed to deliver reports and orders in time. Even wounded dogs would usually crawl to their destination points.”  
“Six messenger dogs could do the work of 10 [human] messengers and the speed of delivery was three or four times faster,” said Vasilyeva.
Archive documents tell the story of Rex, who, under shelling, swam across the cold River Dniepr three times in the space of a day to deliver important military documents. During the Battle of Moscow, animals working on the front line helped to stop the enemy offensive breaking through into the capital. 
“During the offensive undertaken in December, in conditions of a total absence of roads and freezing temperatures, communication with the many army detachments was only provided by dogs and it was reliable,” reads a report written by Lieutenant-General Lelushenko on March 14, 1942. “A dog called Bulba ran more than 10 kilometers under shelling and delivered orders, receiving nine bullet and bomb wounds.” 
Soon after this, a special medal for dogs was established — the equivalent of the Order of Courage issued to soldiers. Nowadays, few remember or know about this award, though the more famous international Dickin Medal was also awarded to animals displaying conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving. The Dickin is a large bronze medallion bearing the words “For Gallantry” and “We Also Serve.” 
Animals and birds were eligible for the Dickin Medal from 1943 to 1949, and recipients included pigeons, dogs, horses and one cat. Their deeds were recorded and information about their heroic exploits can easily be found. Nevertheless, the deeds of Soviet animals are almost forgotten, for the most part only remain as legends. 
The archives have preserved a short report relating to the bombing of a Nazi train in Belarus on Aug. 19, 1943. Ten carriages were destroyed and a large part of the railway line was put out of service. The report has a small postscript: “There were no losses on our side.” The blast was the result of a saboteur — a dog named Dina.
 “It’s no legend,” said Vasilyeva. “[Dina] was a very clever dog. Canine saboteurs had special detachable harnesses. They’d noticed in training that if the harness with the pack fell off, the dog would pick it up in its teeth and carry it to the destination. This is what Dina did. She let an enemy patrol pass and only then carried the pack that had slipped down from her back to the railway line. And then she went away.” 
Dogs revealed some incredible abilities in their military services: History records the deeds of the British Collie Rob who made more than 20 parachute jumps during the war.
Animals often gave their lives for victory. Nazi troops dreaded the Soviet dogs who carried mines to the tanks. There were cases when dogs turned back whole enemy detachments.
Sniffer dogs capable of detecting mines played a crucial role. They discovered and deactivated more than four million enemy charges and landmines. 
“Nazi troops often left booby traps, for the most part in industrial buildings,” said Vasilyeva. “Metal detectors could only find the bombs if they were in metal casings. Many of them, however, were in wooden casings. Only a dog could discover such a mine at a depth of 1.5 meters — they would be able to smell it.
“The dog would indicate the exact place where the explosive was located. Many lives were saved this way, and even after the war the dogs were used for the same purpose.”
Dogs combed and cleared over 15,000 square kilometers, including 300 cities and towns — Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, Kiev and Odessa among them. 
Some tales of the exploits of sniffer dogs exist in a grey area between myth and reality. According to one widely-held story, a collie named Dick saved Pavlovsk Palace — one of the most splendid residences of the Russian imperial family located 30 kilometers south of St. Petersburg. The dog discovered a 2,500 kilogram bomb in the foundations of the palace an hour before it had been set to explode. 
Rare documents drawn up by Pyotr Zavodchikov, the commanding officer who created the first battalion of dogs — a team of sapper-dogs — mention Dick as being a Red Army dog. In 1943, he was taught to sniff out explosives and by the end of 1945 he had deactivated 10,500 devices.
The Pavlovsk Palace press service has no record of the incident, though the palace was undoubtedly mined by the Nazis. The Military-History Museum of the Artillery, Engineering and Signals Corps, however, has managed to prove the story. Several years ago, a woman — a descendant of Dick’s owners — came to research the dog.
“It’s true,” said Vasilyeva. “There was such a dog. We looked for information about this dog in our archives and found some facts.” 
Finding such confirmation, however, is rare. In Europe, animals were treated with greater respect. The Allies not only issued medals but also awarded special ranks to animals. For example, the U.S. Army founded a Pocket Pet detachment for dogs.
“They served as messenger dogs and were given the rank of corporal,” said Vasilyeva. “Soldiers made special dog uniforms and sewed all the dogs’ awards onto them.”
Several years ago a monument in London was unveiled, paying tribute to animals that served intrepidly during World War II.

TITLE: Containment Device Aims to Stem Oil Spill
AUTHOR: By Harry R. Weber and Cain Burdeau
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GULF OF MEXICO — With success uncertain, a boat carrying a 100-ton concrete-and-steel contraption designed to siphon off the oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico arrived at the scene Thursday in an unprecedented attempt to cap a blown-out well spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons a day.
Another boat with a crane would start lowering the box to the seafloor later in the day. Engineers hope it will be the best short-term solution to control the leak that has only worsened since it began two weeks ago.
The waters at the spill site Thursday morning were calm with some clouds in the sky, though visibility was good. Roughly a dozen other ships either surrounded the spill site or could be seen in the distance.
Thick, tar-like oil surrounded the boat for as far as the eye could see. The pungent scent of oil could be smelled even in the bridge of the boat.
The Joe Griffin was expected to meet up with another BP-chartered boat, the Boa Sub C, a Norwegian vessel that will use a crane to lower the contraption to cover the gusher of oil spewing from the seabed — something that has never been tried before at such depths. BP spokesman Bill Salvin said the drop is expected at about noon Thursday.
“We’re even more anxious,” the Joe Griffin’s first mate, Douglas Peake, said. “Hopefully, it will work better than they expect.”
A rapid response team planned to head to the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana’s coast Thursday to look into unconfirmed reports that oil from the spill had arrived there, Coast Guard Petty Officer Erik Swanson said.
The boat hauling the specially built containment box and dome structure pushed off Wednesday evening from the Louisiana coast. The dome-like top of the structure is designed to act like a funnel and siphon the oil up through 5,000 feet of pipe and onto a tanker at the surface. Oil has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of at least 200,000 gallons a day since an offshore drilling rig exploded and sank last month, killing 11 people.
“We’re a little anxious. They’re gonna try everything they can. If it don’t work, they’ll try something else,” Capt. Demi Shaffer told The Associated Press aboard his boat just after it set off. The AP is the only news organization with access to the containment effort.
A 12-man crew aboard a supply boat was carrying the precious cargo. The 280-foot Joe Griffin, owned by Edison Chouest Offshore, also was involved in helping fight the fire that resulted from the oil rig explosion. The vessel is named for a boat captain who worked with company founder Edison Chouest, when Chouest was still in the shrimping business.
The operator of the oil rig, BP PLC, has tried several high-tech undersea tactics to cap the leak. The containment dome endeavor is unprecedented and engineers are fully aware of the risks.
First, crews need to properly position the four-story structure above the well as it sinks deep into the mud at the bottom of the Gulf with the help of a remote-controlled robotic submarine. A steel pipe will be attached to a tanker at the surface and connected to the top of the dome to move the oil.
“It’s very dark down there ... and we will have lights on the (submersibles), and we know exactly where to put this and guide it into place,” said David Clarkson, BP’s vice president for project execution.
That process presents several challenges because of the frigid water temperature. Those conditions could cause the pipe to clog with what are known in the drilling industry as “ice plugs.” To combat that problem, crews plan to continuously pump warm water and methanol down the pipe to dissolve the clogging.

TITLE: UKIP Candidate Survives Air Crash
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: LONDON — Nigel Farage of the U.K. Independence Party, a high-profile candidate in the general election, walked away from a plane crash with minor injuries Thursday soon after voting started, his party said.
Farage, an outspoken Member of the European Parliament, was in a light aircraft which crash-landed at an airfield in Northamptonshire just after 0700 GMT as he toured the constituency of Buckingham.
Unconfirmed reports suggested a party banner being towed by the plane reading “Vote for your country — Vote UKIP” may have become tangled up in the aircraft.
Northamptonshire police at the scene of the plane crash said that both Farage and pilot Justin Adams are lucky to be alive. 
“Looking at the wreckage behind me, I think you can make your own judgment as to how lucky they were,” Detective Chief Inspector Martin Kinchin said. 
Television pictures showed the plane upside down and the cockpit almost obliterated.
“He walked out of the crash bloodied. He has been taken to hospital in Banbury,” a party spokesman told AFP, adding that air accident investigators were trying to establish what caused the crash.
Farage is trying to oust the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, in Buckingham, and become UKIP’s first member of parliament (MP).
“We will continue as before but the campaign in Buckingham has had a bit of a hiatus,” the spokesman said.
The condition of the pilot “is a bit more serious. He was cut out of the craft” before being taken to hospital, he said, adding that the party was “very concerned” about him.
A police spokesman said: “Two people were on board, the pilot and the passenger; both had minor injuries.”
Farage, 46, gained notoriety when he said the European Union’s new president Herman Van Rompuy had the “charisma of a damp rag” and the appearance of a “low-grade bank clerk.”
He was fined almost 3,000 euros (2,500 pounds) for the comments he made in February during Van Rompuy’s first appearance before the European Parliament.
UKIP opposes Britain’s membership of the EU and wants stronger controls on immigration.

TITLE: Grenada Man Takes Bucket Of Heads to Police
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada — A Grenada man with two severed human heads in a bucket walked into a precinct station and presented his haul to horrified police, authorities said Tuesday.
The 32-year-old, whose name wasn’t released, was detained when he entered the Grenville station late Monday. He has yet to be charged, said police spokesman Troy Garvey.
Investigators released few details about the grisly slayings in St. Andrew parish, but said the man is a suspect. Garvey did not say if there were other suspects or a motive for the killings.
Police later found two hacked-up, headless bodies in a rural field, including the owner of a local tavern.
Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, who is also national security minister, called the beheadings an “indescribable act” that underscores the need for a “structured approach to anger management.”
“This is a tragedy not just for the people of St. Andrew but for all of Grenada,” Thomas said Tuesday.
The beheadings have shocked islanders in the Caribbean country of 91,000 who are accustomed to crime reports of robbery and theft.

TITLE: Goodluck Sworn In as Nigerian President
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: ABUJA — Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday took over the reins of power in the oil-rich nation riven by religious and political divisions hours after ailing president Umaru Yar’Adua died.
He was sworn into office at a brief ceremony at the presidential palace where his predecessor Yar’Adua died after a long illness.
Jonathan, 52, pledged to “discharge my duty faithfully and diligently,” as he took the oath administered by the country’s chief justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu.
Yar’Adua died late Wednesday after more than five months battling a heart ailment, a condition that in November took him to a Saudi hospital for treatment.
He stayed there and little was heard from him for more than three months, amid growing concern about the power vacuum at the top until Parliament finally voted into office his deputy, Jonathan, as acting president.
In his acceptance speech after taking oath, Jonathan said his coming to power came under “very sad and unusual circumstances”, describing Yar’Adua as a “man of great personal integrity... and outstanding humility”.
Jonathan will have to complete his predecessor’s term, which expires in April 2011, and nominate a vice president who is to be approved by the two houses of Parliament.
The new president declared seven days of mourning during which flags will fly at half-mast.
Yar’Adua is to be buried in his northern Katsina State next Thursday.
Since his return to Nigeria from Saudi Arabia in February, Yar’Adua, 58, had not been seen in public, nor was any information released as to the state of his health.
But there was constant tension between his supporters, from the Muslim north, and those of Jonathan, from the largely Christian south.
On March 17, Jonathan sacked the entire Yar’Adua-formed cabinet, and then swore in his own team with less than half of its members drawn from the old government.
The new president pledged his “total commitment to good governance, electoral reforms and the fight against corruption.”
“One of the true tests would be to ensure that all votes count and are counted in the upcoming general elections,” he said. Jonathan has said little about his own political plans.
In an agreement designed to defuse the political and religious rivalries between the north and south, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has an arrangement by which Christians and Muslims alternate in the top job.
Under this agreement, the leadership was reserved for a northern Muslim for eight years from 2007: Goodluck Jonathan is a southern Christian. 
Yar’Adua’s death comes at a difficult time for Africa’s most populous nation.
Muslim-Christian violence erupted in central Nigeria earlier this year in which hundreds of people were killed, while in the south there has been renewed unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta. 
Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s third elected civilian president, was recognised for his honesty in this corruption-ridden west African country. 
But his failing health and a perceived lack of charisma prevented him from enacting his reform agenda. 
United States President Barack Obama expressed sadness at the death of Yar’Adua, praising him as a man with a passionate belief in his nation’s future, in a statement issued Wednesday. 
“We remember and honour President Yar’Adua’s profound personal decency and integrity, his deep commitment to public service, and his passionate belief in the vast potential and bright future of Nigeria’s 150 million people,” he said. 
He was committed to creating lasting peace and prosperity within Nigeria’s own borders, and continuing that work will be an important part of honouring his legacy. 
In neighboring Benin, President Boni Yayi paid his own tribute. 
“With the loss of this great statesman... Benin, my country, loses a great friend and I am very upset,” he told AFP.