SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1575 (36), Friday, May 21, 2010
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TITLE: Sun Fails 
To  Keep Russians In Kyrgyzstan
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — If the Soviet Union ever had a Sun Belt like the United States, then this small Central Asian republic would definitely be part of it.
The climate in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, offers moderately hot summers and mild winters. The city is nestled amid green pastures just in front of the towering snow-peaked Tian Shan Mountains.
The sun brought some Russians to Kyrgyzstan during Soviet times. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin exiled many others here as well.
But now some members of the dwindling ethnic Russian community are looking to leave after witnessing two violent uprisings in five years, the most recent last month when anti-government protests turned violent and police opened fire on demonstrators outside the presidential palace. At least 85 people died in the shootings and the violence that followed.
Dasha Goncharova, 26, who works as a waitress in one of the capital’s hotels, said she plans to leave the country of her birth and move with her family to the city of Lipetsk, about 400 kilometers south of Moscow.
“We decided to move because many of my relatives are there already. We feel that it will be safer for us,” she said.
Many other Russians and members of other ethnic minorities interviewed in Bishkek recently expressed worries about the future, including with regard to the 40-day mourning ceremonies held Monday for those killed in the April 7-8 uprising.
While the day passed quietly, with interim Kyrgyz leader Roza Otunbayeva laying flowers at a stone commemorating the uprising’s dead, the country saw a new wave of violence late last week when supporters of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev seized control of government buildings in three southern regions. Bakiyev has fled to Belarus, and the country is now being run by the interim government formed by members of the hitherto divided opposition.
“We all fear that things will get unstable again,” said Tamara, who was selling candy out of a truck from a local confectionery factory.
Tamara, whose parents were Azeri and Meskhetian, a Turkic group deported from Georgia under Stalin, said she had nowhere to go. “I was born here, and I will stay here,” she said. “Hope dies last.”
Despite the widespread unease, this sentiment was shared by others in Bishkek.
Sasha Shmakov, a computer science student, said that while many of his ethnic Russian friends had left or were planning to move, he had no such plans.
“I also wanted to leave, but you need to have a place where you can go to,” he said, adding that he is the only ethnic non-Kyrgyz in his university class.
Speaking to a reporter while waiting for the city’s central department store to open, Shmakov, 18, pointed to the blue sky and birds singing in the sun. “In principle, life is not bad here,” he said.
The number of Russians in Kyrgyzstan dropped from 21.5 percent of the population in 1989 to just 8.4 percent in 2009, according to official statistics. The exodus was strongest during the 1990s but continued through the last decade, when numbers dropped from about 600,000 in 1999 to 440,000 last year.
Yet Bishkek remains a largely Russian-speaking city, and ethnic Russians notably continue to hold most management positions in private-sector companies.
The new constitution proposed by the interim government also grants privileges to the Russian language, making it an “official language,” while Kyrgyz is the state language.
Mikhail Mikhailovich, a businessman who would only give his first name and patronymic, said it was deplorable that no one felt responsible for the country’s ethnic Russians. “All sorts of minute nationalities have their organized community, but the Russians have nothing,” he said.
Speaking in an outdoor cafe in one of Bishkek’s numerous leafy parks, Mikhail said he was not afraid of the future.

TITLE: 10 Percent of Cops Declared Unstable
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A study conducted by the Interior Ministry a year after police Major Denis Yevsyukov went on a supermarket shooting rampage has found that he was not an isolated case and that nearly 10 percent of senior police officers have psychological problems that interfere with their duties.
Law enforcement experts said the overall figure for unfit police officers was much higher, topping 20 percent, and urged the Kremlin to ramp up plans to reform the country’s notoriously corrupt police force.
The study of 21,000 senior police officials found that 1,906 of them have “disorders related to social and psychological adaptation,” according to the new study, which was commissioned last year after Yevsyukov went on an April 2009 drunken spree that killed two people.
The number of police chiefs displaying “inadequate management style” increased to 526 from 367 in 2008, and the number of police academy officials suffering from the same problem quadrupled to 47, according to the study, which was carried out by the Interior Ministry’s recruitment office and published by Noviye Izvestia on Wednesday.
An inquiry about the report sent to the recruitment office went unanswered Wednesday.
The actual number of police officers unsuitable for the job for psychological reasons is likely to be several times higher than the ministry’s figures, experts told The St. Petersburg Times.
In all, the police force boasts 210,000 senior officials, so about 19,000 of them have “disorders related to social and psychological adaptation,” said Mikhail Pashkin, head of the Moscow Professional Union of Police Officers.
“It’s not alright when a mentally ill person has a gun,” Pashkin said.
Dmitry Povarov, head of the Moscow branch of a nationwide police union, voiced surprise at the number of police chiefs deemed “inadequate” and said it was high.
Prominent forensic psychiatrist Mikhail Vinogradov, who works closely with law enforcement agencies, said 20 percent of police officers “should be kicked out” because of psychological problems or low ethical standards, while another 10 percent needed counseling to stem developing psychological problems.
The Soviet system of psychological evaluation used by the police force was destroyed in the early 1990s, allowing police commanders to make hiring decisions based on cronyism, Vinogradov said. He said the change in recruitment methods had brought “money hunters and mentally ill people” to the police force.
Povarov said police chiefs preferred to recruit loyalists regardless of their professional qualities.
Pashkin spoke of unfit officers “getting police jobs through connections or money.” He also said the psychological problem most rampant among officers stems from “pressure to jail innocent people.”
A former Moscow police official agreed. “No police chief is mentally sane because every day they have to make decisions that go against their conscience,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Police staff should be rotated at least every five years to prevent psychological problems, she said.
Replacing all senior police officials is the only sure way of clearing the force of people with psychological issues, Povarov and Vinogradov said.
Attracting better-educated people is another option, but it requires increasing the salaries of rank-and-file police officers, Pashkin said.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a broad reform of the police force in December. In February, he signed a decree ordering the Interior Ministry to develop the legal framework for the reform and submit it to the State Duma by year-end.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said the police force would be reduced by 20 percent in the next two years, but officers who make the cut will get a threefold increase in salary.

TITLE: Krasnodar Town Protests Toxic Fertilizer Spill
AUTHOR: By Maria Antonova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A toxic fertilizer spill in Tuapse, Krasnodar region, has sparked unprecedented protests in the small seaside town, with locals venting their rage at development that they say is putting their lives and health in danger.
About 3,000 residents of Tuapse, located just 110 kilometers north of Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, rallied in protest on Saturday. They called for a fertilizer shipping terminal, owned by fertilizer giant EuroChem, to be shut down. 
In March, a spill at the centrally located terminal, which is still not officially operational, blanketed the town in fertilizer dust, leading to a spike in respiratory problems throughout the town, locals said.
“Since the terminal is not ready for operation, the loading belt broke, and a large quantity of fertilizer fell, creating a cloud that quickly swept over the town,” said Yelena Leonidova, who can see the terminal from her window.
People whose windows face the terminal saw workers dumping fertilizers from the ship into the water, which many cite as the cause of the dead fish and dolphins that washed up on shore in the following weeks, said Anna Tesheva, a biologist who lives about a kilometer from the terminal.
“Usually there are only three dolphins per year that are washed ashore dead, and most of the time they are physically damaged, but since the loading in March, nine dead animals have been found on the coast,” she said.
The dolphins were quickly disposed of, and their cause of death was never made public.
“We are a small town, and everything is controlled,” Tesheva said. “Although clinics were full of people with poisoning symptoms, they were all diagnosed with the common cold and allergies,” she said.
“For two days I suffered from sharp headaches, a sore throat, and constant nausea and thirst,” Leonidova said. “The stadium next to my house was covered with the fertilizer, making it look as though it had just hailed,” she said. “People were afraid to go outside.”
Since 1999, Tuapse has seen an explosion in the construction of various shipping terminals for loading grain, oil, sulphur and other commodities.
For Tuapse residents, the fertilizer spill was the last straw.
“People are at a boiling point now,” said Yevgeny Vitishko, who heads the Tuapse environmental council. “The terminal is not ready, the transport belt gallery is not finished, the main warehouse is not finished. The terminal has not officially begun operation, and yet it is in operation,” he said.
While the company has said the loadings in March were “test loadings,” Vitishko said EuroChem, Russia’s largest fertilizer producer, may have been filling orders that it had agreed to before the company began running behind on its construction schedule.
EuroChem began building the terminal, which can handle 2.3 million tons per year, in 2007 in order to cut transportation costs on its exports.
A woman who answered the phone at the Tuapse Bulk Terminal would not connect a reporter with anyone authorized to comment Tuesday. EuroChem spokesman Vladimir Torin could not be reached for comment. Viktor Koshel, head of the Tuapse district administration, was not available for comment either, his assistant said.
In an interview with news web site Yuga.ru last month, EuroChem logistics director Pavel Yakovlev denied all allegations regarding the spill. “Information about poisoning people is from the realm of fantasy. There couldn’t have been any poisonings, since there was no accident in the first place, and there is not one proven record of our workers seeking medical attention due to some poisoning,” he said.
Many in the community claim that four workers were hospitalized and eventually died after the spill, and others complain of continued nausea.
Protesters on Saturday also called for the town to be reclassified as a municipality, rather than a settlement. In 2007, the town held a referendum on a measure that changed the status of Tuapse, a town of 60,000 people, from a municipality to a settlement and merged it with the Tuapse district.
Since the district has limited oversight ability, the reclassification loosened regulation on the terminal, whose operations would have been more strictly followed by the city authorities, Vitishko said.
The 2007 referendum broadly supported the reclassification, but some say the results were falsified.
Sergei Rozhkov, a local journalist, who wrote about the vote rigging, was charged with assaulting police in February 2008 after six officers arrested him at his house one night, took him to the police department and beat him into a concussion. He was sentenced to three years in prison and was released only last week.
Rozhkov now stays away from protests, he said when contacted by phone Tuesday.

TITLE: Sarkozy to Attend City’s Forum
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, will attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June, a Kremlin aide said Thursday, lending some high-profile star power to the event.
Sarkozy will attend the second day of the forum, held on June 17-19, while Medvedev will be there for two days, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said, adding that Medvedev would chair a meeting of the presidential commission on modernization and economic cooperation on the eve of the visit.
Sarkozy and Medvedev will jointly chair a final plenary session of the forum, meet with business circles from the two countries and hold a series of bilateral talks, Dvorkovich said.
Last year, the two heads of state attending the forum were Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Finnish President Tarja Halonen.
This year’s forum, coming after the country’s economy began to rebound from its deepest recession since 1998, will focus on Russia’s modernization, a Kremlin-backed push to wean Russia off its natural resource dependence and develop an innovation economy, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said Thursday.
The forum’s agenda will consist of three main topics, Nabiullina said: rebuilding the world economy, development of the Russian economy and the influence of technology on economics, business and lifestyles.

TITLE: Khodorkovsky Ends Hunger Strike On 
Second Day
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky ended a two-day hunger strike on Wednesday after the Kremlin confirmed that complaints about his detention had been passed on to President Dmitry Medvedev, Reuters reported.
Khodorkovsky said a judge’s decision last week to extend his stay at a pretrial detention facility during his second trial violated a law signed by Medvedev earlier this year barring the pretrial jailing of suspects in economic crimes. He demanded that the president be informed.
“The aim of my appeal has been achieved. I have ended my hunger strike,” Khodorkovsky said in a statement posted on his web site, Khodorkovsky.ru.

TITLE: U.S. Sends Daimler Materials
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — The U.S. Justice Department has given the Prosecutor General’s Office material about bribes given by carmaker Daimler — meaning that the office has no more excuses to refuse to investigate the case.
Daimler has been accused of giving bribes to officials in 22 countries, including Russia, since 1998 in order to get state contracts.
The prosecutor’s office wouldn’t comment. State Duma Deputy Alexander Kulikov, a member of the body’s Security Committee who made the request to the Justice Department about the investigation, told Vedomosti that he had also received the documents.
Kulikov had petitioned the prosecutor’s office to carry out a check on the Daimler affair, after it was reported in the Russian media, but he didn’t receive an intelligible answer and was forced to make a request to the Justice Department.
“Yesterday in the Duma, I met with representatives of the U.S. Justice Department, and they were planning to visit the Prosecutor General’s Office next,” he said. The U.S. documents don’t have concrete names or numbers, but more detailed information will be provided to law enforcement agencies if they confirm that they are serious about proceeding.
According to an accompanying letter from the Justice Department, all the materials given to the Russian prosecutors are publicly available.
Nevertheless, the handing over of these documents is important from a procedural point of view, a source close to the prosecutor’s office told Vedomosti.

TITLE: Medvedev Has Eyes On Russian-Made Limousine
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev wants to swap his Mercedes Benz for a Russian-made car and has ordered his administration to examine the possibility of renewing the production of limousines at legendary Soviet carmaker ZiL.
“There is a presidential order to explore this. … We are currently discussing this with factories, and I do not exclude that in the medium term we will again see old but modern ZiLs,” Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Presidential Property Department, said on Ekho Moskvy radio late Monday.
Despite the government’s frantic efforts to save the country’s ailing car industry, Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — like much of the country’s political elite — use German-made limousines when being chauffeured to work.  
Even Mayor Yury Luzhkov, a staunch defender of the domestic car industry, gave up his Moskvich in 2001 in favor of an Audi.
Kozhin said the Federal Guards Service, which ferries Russia’s leaders and visiting dignitaries, bought Mercedes cars, while his agency only worked with BMWs.
He said the Russian-made cars sought by Medvedev need not be built by ZiL itself. 
“We are looking at a range of factories that can offer what we need,” he said.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he would welcome the return of the Russian limousine. “If such cars are built, we will gladly use them,” Peskov told The St. Petersburg Times.
Established in 1916, ZiL is Russia’s oldest carmaker, but little is left of its former glory. In 2005, it sold its main plant to pay off debt. The location near the Avtozavodskaya metro station has since been converted into a giant shopping mall. 
ZiL continues to produce trucks, but annual production plummeted from 4,500 in 2008 to 2,200 last year, said Ivan Bonchev, an analyst with Ernst & Young.
The huge gas-guzzling limousines, originally inspired by U.S. Packard models, were used by Kremlin leaders from Stalin to Gorbachev.
The last model, featuring a 7.7 liter V-8 engine and weighing up to 3.5 tons, is still featured on the company’s web site, but only a handful are said to have been built since 1991.
ZiLs made a reappearance at the May 9 Victory Day parade on Red Square when Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and one of his commanders greeted troops while standing in open versions of the limousine.
The cars used at the parade had been specially assembled, Serdyukov told Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Bonchev said that if that was the path for reviving ZiL limousines, it would be very costly. “In principle, everything can be built, but this looks more like a Rolls Royce — built entirely by hand,” he said.
ZiL said Tuesday that the company was ready to build new limousines. “We are always ready for new work,” a spokesman told RIA-Novosti.
But he added that restarting production depended entirely on the amount of investment and on who provided financing.

TITLE: Noncrew in Cockpit Before Crash
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — As Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s plane streaked toward disaster, at least two passengers visited the cockpit, others may have chatted on cellular phones that can obstruct navigation instruments, and an undertrained crew faced heavy fog over challenging terrain.
Those were among the details revealed on Wednesday by Russian and Polish officials investigating the April 10 crash that killed Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others near Smolensk. The preliminary report drew no conclusions about what caused the catastrophe.
The crash had deep diplomatic resonance given the long-troubled relations between Russia and Poland, and releasing an incomplete report may have been intended by both sides to show their determination to be candid and cooperative.
Alexei Morozov, head of the technical commission of the Interstate Aviation Committee, also told reporters that among the questions that need further investigation is whether the rolling terrain around the Smolensk military airport distorted instrument readings.
The plane went down in a ravine some 15 meters below the level of the runway just a kilometer away.
“The presence of this ravine can have a natural influence on the readings of the radio altimeter,” he said. “This is one of the subjects the technical commission is working on.”
He also said the commission was probing whether the use of cell phones aboard the Tu-154 affected its navigation.
The most tantalizing, though inconclusive, detail was that two voices not belonging to crew members showed up on cockpit flight recorders. Officials said it’s not clear who one of the voices belonged to, declined to identify the other and didn’t report what either person said.
But the information could feed persistent speculation in Poland that Kaczynski or someone in his entourage pressured the crew to land despite visibility that had shrunk to about 200 meters. The plane was carrying top political figures on a mission important to constituents — attending a memorial ceremony for thousands of Polish officers who were killed by Soviet secret police in 1940.
Edmund Klich, Poland’s envoy to the investigation, said only that “certain suggestions” were made by the passengers that he believed had no influence on the plane’s fate, though he admitted that he had not heard the recordings. The voices were heard no later than 16 minutes before the crash.
Poland’s PAP news agency said it learned from a source close to the investigation in Moscow that one of the two voices in the cockpit that did not belong to a crew member was that of the air force commander, General Andrzej Blasik.
Morozov also said the Polish air force crew piloting the plane had been assembled only a few days before the flight and they had not been receiving regular training that could have helped them cope with unusual conditions.
About five seconds before the plane hit a tree in the ravine, the captain switched off the autopilot and started to bank around for a second landing attempt, Morozov said. An automated voice warned “pull up” about 18 seconds before the crash, and before that the crew twice heard the phrase “terrain ahead,” Morozov said.
The officials on Wednesday confirmed earlier reports that the Polish plane, though in service for more than 30 years, was in good condition and had undergone proper inspection. Proper radar facilities were in place at the Smolensk airport, which on April 5 was inspected and found to be fit to accept VIP flights.

TITLE: Lavrov Says OSCE Too Easy On Non-Govt Organizations
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ripped into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Wednesday, saying it was “incoherent” and open for manipulation.
Addressing the State Duma, Lavrov complained that the OSCE allowed member states to interfere in one another’s domestic affairs by letting nongovernmental organizations set up field missions under the OSCE’s umbrella.
They can “just notify the OSCE secretariat that Country X is opening in Country Y a center for training journalists to cover orange revolutions — and this needs not even a reply from the secretariat,” he told deputies, Interfax reported.
Lavrov also lamented that Moscow had little support for its criticism among the 57 member states. “The majority of our partners do not want to change anything. They seem happy with the present incoherent state of the OSCE,” he said.
Moscow has long expressed frustration about the OSCE, the sole security and human rights organization that encompasses most European and former Soviet states as well as North America. Western governments have given a cool reception to Russia’s proposals for reforming the organization.
Lavrov also told deputies that he was frustrated about a lack of progress in two cases where foreigners with diplomatic status caused road accidents in Russia.
He said his ministry was still seeking compensation for Alexander Kashin, who was paralyzed in a 1998 crash involving the U.S. consul general in Vladivostok, Douglas Kent.
“I have never failed to raise the issue at every meeting with [former U.S. Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice and at every meeting with [her successor] Hillary Clinton,” Lavrov said.
Kashin has rejected a U.S. offer of $100,000 in compensation as too low and has unsuccessfully filed civil suits in U.S. courts seeking $9 million.
Lavrov also said Moscow might file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for compensation from a German who killed two pedestrians with his car in southern Moscow last year. The driver was granted diplomatic immunity because he worked as a teacher at the German Embassy school.

TITLE: Driver Who Humiliated Traffic Police Busted
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Chelyabinsk driver who humiliated the local traffic police by filming them violating traffic rules was busted for driving without a license, a regional police spokesman said Tuesday.
Chelyabinsk officers stopped the car driven by Vitaly Loboda on May 4 because their database indicated that it belonged to a driver with a revoked license, police spokesman Viktor Khairullin said by phone.
Loboda, who lost his license for drunk driving, tried to flee, but the officers caught and detained him after a half-hour foot chase. A video of Loboda ordering a traffic police officer to show his documents and remove his police car from a pedestrian crossing appeared on YouTube in April.

TITLE: Cannes Test for Mikhalkov, ‘Burnt by the Sun 2’
AUTHOR: By Xenia Prilepskaya
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Cannes jury will get the chance to judge Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Burnt by the Sun 2” this Saturday, as the director attempts to repeat the international success of the original film, but many wonder what the international reaction will be after the film’s mauling at the box office and by the press in Russia.
The jury will get to see a pared-down version of the film, two hours instead of the three hours that failed to inspire Russian moviegoers.
Despite masses of slavish publicity on state television, Mikhalkov’s wartime epic failed to convince local audiences and has made just over $7 million at the box office since its release April 22, meaning that it is unlikely to recoup its cost of close to $50 million.
Mikhalkov defended the film in a news conference last week.
“For me, as an artist, the numbers at the box office don’t matter that much. I think this movie has a long life, as many of my films, and there will be interest in it for a long time.”
The film also got an overwhelming negative reaction in the press from reviewers.
One of the most devastating critiques was by writer Dmitry Bykov in Novaya Gazeta. “Mikhalkov’s cinematography is a weird substance that contains Soviet, Russian and evangelical symbols, Stalin and anti-Stalin cliches, pieces of somebody else’s concepts and quotes from somebody else’s masterpieces,” he wrote. “There is not a hint of solidity and sense. It is purely a disintegration of consciousness that has lost any understanding of the world and of itself.”
Mikhalkov said the film being chosen for the Cannes Film Festival was more important than what critics have said.
“I’m amazed how the fact that a Russian movie has been invited to such a prestigious competition, was missed in the wave of criticism toward ‘Burnt by the Sun 2,’” Mikhalkov told reporters.
“It’s a film that is going to represent Russia, and it is an honor. People seem to completely miss the point and its advantages for the country and Russian cinematography,” he said. “It’s very weird that very few people see poetry in my film. It’s not just a horror movie, I put a lot of poetry into it.”
Newspapers also reported that the reaction of many World War II veterans was negative. One reviewer on Afisha magazine’s web site wrote of how his grandmother, a pilot in the war, reacted during the film at a scene involving pilots.
“She is 88, a very cultured and intellectual woman, and she shouted out loud ‘What Sh**!’ The whole cinema — about 10 people — applauded,” the reviewer wrote.
Supporters of Mikhalkov have pushed his chances at the festival. Vesti called it the “intrigue” of the festival, and others have pointed to the fact that the film is the last one shown in the competition, a scheduling that some consider gives it an advantage because it will be the freshest film in the minds of the jury. Komsomolskaya Pravda tipped the film for a prize.
More cynical critics point to the big PR campaign backing the film.
“Everybody [in Cannes] will go see the movie,” Anton Dolin wrote in Gazeta.ru. “Even those, who will miss other contest movies, will watch Mikhalkov’s … I don’t remember any promo-campaign comparable.”
French newspapers have questioned why the film made it into the competition, with the Liberation newspaper describing the selection as “mysterious,” Variety web site reported.
PR campaign or not, Mikhalkov may not be the Russian-speaking director who leaves the festival with a prize, as Sergei Loznitsa is also in the running.
Loznitsa, who moved to Germany from St. Petersburg in 2001, made the competition with his first feature film. “My Joy,” a Ukrainian-German-Dutch co-production, is a tale of a truck driver who gets lost and ends up in a Russian village where grim adventures begin. Among the actors in the film is Romania’s Vlad Ivanov, who starred in “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days,” winner of the Cannes festival’s Palme d’Or in 2007, and Olga Shuvalova, who was in Valeria Gai Germanica’s much-praised film about young Muscovites entitled “Everybody Dies But Me.”
Jill Jacob, the festival’s president, called the movie one of the most unexpected and interesting films of the festival. The film was set to be shown late Wednesday.

TITLE: A Sharp Ideological Turn Against Stalin
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s leaders have finally rejected the Stalinist legacy in an outspoken and unanimous way. But the sharp ideological turn may just be an attempt to appease the West and may bear little influence on domestic policy, analysts said.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, previously wary of criticizing Josef Stalin, denounced the Soviet dictator’s regime during a visit last month to Katyn, the site of a Stalin-ordered massacre.
The Victory Day parade on May 9 commemorated the achievements of the Soviet army, but Stalin, its commander-in-chief, was denounced by the Kremlin.
The cult of Stalin, who remains a controversial figure in Russia, will not be reinstated in the country, President Dmitry Medvedev said in a recent interview with Izvestia.
“There’s no way we can say that Stalinism will return to our everyday life. … That’s absolutely impossible. This is the current state ideology and my position as the president,” Medvedev said.
“The Great Patriotic War was won by our people, not by Stalin or even military commanders,” he added. “Stalin committed a lot of crimes against his people.”
Medvedev also proposed declassifying and putting online a wealth of documents related to World War II, saying “the people should know the whole truth about the war.”
Putin’s position was notably different from Medvedev’s when he personally picked a question about Stalin’s role in World War II during a call-in television show in December.
“We won the Great Patriotic War. … Even if we look back at the casualties, you know that no one can throw a stone at those who organized and led that victory, because if we had lost that war, the aftermath would have been much more catastrophic,” Putin said.
But last month Putin flew to the Katyn forest to commemorate the nearly 20,000 Polish officers killed by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, in 1940. The memory of the massacre has soured Russian-Polish relations for decades.
“There can be no excuses. In our country there is a clear political, legal and moral evaluation of the totalitarian regime’s atrocities,” Putin said in his speech in the Katyn forest.
Directly before and after Putin’s trip to Katyn, state-run television aired a movie about the massacre directed by Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda. 
In May, Medvedev ordered the declassification of files concerning the mass murder.
The anti-Stalin line is the result of a new pro-West foreign policy, said Alexei Makarenko, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies.
“If Russia wants to build relations with Western countries, then it should adopt the principles of those countries in which Stalin is regarded as an unacceptable figure,” Makarenko said.
Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union at a time when it became a leading industrial power but who also organized mass repressions costing millions of lives, might have served as a useful ideological prop for the Kremlin during the oil-based prosperity of the past decade, Makarenko said.
“Oil prices are dropping,” he said, “and a new innovative approach is needed. But if we praise Stalin, no one will support us.”
Putin, who restored Stalinist symbols during his eight-year presidency, including the Soviet national anthem composed on Stalin’s orders, has long been more shy of criticizing Stalin, said Boris Dubin, a sociologist with the Levada Center, an independent polling agency.
Putin’s historical lack of opposition to Stalin suggests that the anti-Stalin stance might have little affect on domestic policy, he said. “For the population, these are vague signals, and it’s unclear whether they will result in more profound changes,” he said.
The nation remains divided on the role of Stalin, but people are also growing increasingly indifferent about the issue, he said.
Not all officials support an anti-Stalin policy. Mayor Yury Luzhkov promised in March to place billboards of Stalin on Moscow streets to recognize Stalin’s achievements as the commander of the Red Army in World War II. The idea was vehemently criticized by human right groups and dropped shortly before the celebrations, which were attended by about 20 world leaders.
But portraits of Stalin appeared on buses in St. Petersburg.
An ongoing poster campaign celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Moscow metro features an archive photo with a portrait of Stalin clearly visible.
Luzhkov’s support for Stalin was probably a populist ploy aimed at war veterans who voted for the ruling United Russia party during City Duma elections in October, said Makarenko of the Center for Political Technologies.
“Besides, he might have missed the new swift [policy] changes,” he said. “Last year, it would have been hard to predict that Putin would go to Katyn.”

TITLE: Guns N’ Roses to Join Naomi for Charity Event
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day,” supermodel Linda Evangelista famously told Vogue back in 1990. But British supermodel Naomi Campbell will work for free, although she expects Muscovites to cough up 5,000 euros ($6,350), when she makes her debut in the city as hostess of her NEON charity event Monday.
Guns N’ Roses will play the event, which organizers say will be a combination of fashion show, award ceremony and entertainment show, and a host of celebrities are expected attend. Organizers said earlier in the week that Aerosmith might also play, but they denied that on Wednesday.
Individual tickets for the charity auction were still available Wednesday.
“I’m living here … everyone has been very nice to me and welcoming, and I wanted to give back,” Campbell told Reuters in an interview in late April. The money will go to two Russian charities, the Northern Crown, set up by Irina Kudrina, wife of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, and the IRIS Foundation set up by Dasha Zhukova, girlfriend of businessman Roman Abramovich.
Campbell said previously that she hopes that the event will help “a lot of young artists and charities in Russia that are dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged women and children.”
Campbell previously hosted a fashion relief event in 2008 when she raised thousands of dollars for The White Ribbon Alliance.
The event will take place in the Moskva-City complex in a building constructed by Capital Group, which is co-headed by Campbell’s boyfriend, Vladislav Doronin.

TITLE: Bud Beer to Be Sold on Russian Market
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Sun InBev, a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch_InBev, is bringing Bud, the legendary American beer brand, to Russia in what will likely be an uphill battle on the sagging market.
Bud will be a premium brand meeting the highest quality standards and will be produced domestically by Sun InBev, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
“We believe in the potential of this global premium brand on the Russian market and are proud to present the world’s leading Bud beer in Russia,” said Tunc Cerrahoglu, president of Sun InBev. “We hope that the legendary Bud legacy will make its contribution to the culture of beer consumption in Russia.”
The company plans a big marketing campaign that will see the brand promoted on television and the Internet, as well as via outdoor advertising, the statement said.
The brand may face a tough market, however, as statistics released on Wednesday showed a decrease in beer production.
Beer production dropped 3.7 percent in April and 14.8 percent over the first four months of 2010, the State Statistics Service said. Beer makers link the downturn to a price increase they were forced to make after the government hiked the beer tax from 3.3 rubles per liter to 9 rubles per liter beginning Jan. 1, 2010.

TITLE: Duma Passes Bill Setting Privatization Rules
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The State Duma on Wednesday passed in a second reading a bill aimed at regulating state and municipal property privatizations.
The new bill will allow banks and stock exchanges to sell federal property alongside the Federal Property Management Agency, which is currently the only entity authorized by the government, the Duma’s Property Committee said in a statement.
The bill also stipulates the use of electronic trading as a platform for selling state property, it said.
The legislation also lowers the amount of money required upfront to take part in the auctions, allowing small and medium-sized businesses to take part, Deputy Yekaterina Semyonova said in the statement.
Property could also be sold in an initial public offering under the bill.
Under the legislation, auctions of state property will no longer have a minimum or standard price, and the auction’s starting price will be determined by a property estimate report.
The Economic Development Ministry hopes to raise more than 100 billion rubles ($3 billion) by selling off stakes in several state enterprises this year, including Sovkomflot, 13 percent of insurer Rosgosstrakh and 25 percent of power utility TGK-5.
Russia currently owns 3,765 federal state unitary enterprises and is a shareholder in 3,337 joint-stock companies, according to the state property privatization program for 2010 published on the Federal Property Management Agency’s web site.

TITLE: April Sees Huge Rise In Industrial Output
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Industrial output surged in April as the manufacture of cars, steel pipes and freight cars increased, signaling that a rebound from the country’s worst recession may be picking up pace.
Production at factories, mines and utilities rose an annual 10.4 percent after a 5.7 percent advance in March, the State Statistics Service said Wednesday. Nonseasonally adjusted output shrank 3.4 percent from the previous month.
Improving global sales, higher raw material prices and accelerating domestic demand are prompting companies including Chelyabinsk Zinc and carmaker AvtoVAZ to boost output.
“It bodes well for our expectation that GDP growth will pick up again in the second quarter after the disappointingly weak first quarter,” said Anna Zadornova, an economist at Goldman Sachs Group.
Output rose an annual 2.9 percent in the first quarter, below the median forecast of a Bloomberg survey, because the “rapid industrial growth” through March wasn’t translated into final consumption, Alfa Bank economists Natalia Orlova and Dmitry Dolgin wrote in a note.  
The economy may grow more than 5 percent this year, Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said May 14, after a 7.9 percent slump in 2009.
Economic growth in the second quarter will probably accelerate to as much as 6 percent because of “declining inflation and state support of the automotive and real estate sectors, which have shown signs of faster growth in recent weeks,” Orlova and Dolgin said in the May 17 note.  
Manufacturing rose an annual 15.7 percent in April, according to Wednesday’s report. Electricity, gas and water output rose 2.6 percent, while mining and quarrying added 5 percent.
Production of cars last month gained 53 percent year on year, the statistics service said. Steel pipe production rose an annual 47 percent. Output of freight cars more than doubled last month from the same period last year.
Industrial output shrank 10.8 percent in 2009 and capital investment fell 17 percent, the statistics service said. Production began recovering this year, expanding an annual 5.8 percent in the first quarter.

TITLE: Adviser Pledges Support for Euro
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s top economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich said “the euro will survive” and “key” nations including Russia can help it. 
“Europe, with the help of other key countries including Russia, will overcome the problems that have arisen,” he told reporters in Moscow on Thursday. “We will do our part in solving Europe’s problems.”
The euro fell to its lowest level against the dollar in more than four years on Monday and is down 14 percent this year as the fiscal crisis spreading from Greece undermined confidence. 
European leaders this month offered as much as 750 billion euros ($931 billion) to bolster confidence in the currency.
Eurozone economic growth will be “very slow or even zero” in the coming months or years, Dvorkovich said. Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina said Thursday that Europe “got into this difficult situation because of increasing budget deficits,” which should be a “lesson for us.”
Russia’s budget deficit may widen to 6.8 percent of gross domestic product this year from 5.9 percent in 2009, according to the Finance Ministry.
The economy, which contracted a record 7.9 percent last year, may expand more than 5 percent this year, according to Alexei Ulyukayev, the central bank’s first deputy chairman.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Protek to Invest</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Protek, the Russian drug company that raised $400 million in an intitial public offering last month, plans to spend half of that money on acquisitions, including to expand its Rigla chain of stores.
Protek, which has wholesale and retail operations, is looking at acquiring assets in several regions of Russia, Chief Executive Officer Alexei Molchanov said at a conference in St. Petersburg on Thursday.

<b>Wage Arrears Down</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian wage arrears dropped 18.3 percent in April from the previous month after a jump in industrial output, the Federal Statistics Service said. 
Unpaid wages fell to 3.2 billion rubles ($105.6 million) after declining 3.7 percent in February and remaining unchanged in January, the Moscow-based service said Thursday in an e-mail.
Industrial output rose an annual 10.4 percent in April after a 5.7 percent advance in March.

TITLE: Investing in Energy After Yukos
AUTHOR: By Tim Osborne
TEXT: The Kremlin rarely approaches EU-Russia summits with much enthusiasm, but there are signs that this may change in anticipation of the next summit in Rostov-on-Don on May 31. Although this newfound willingness is far from voluntary — caused by a sharp shock provided by the global economic crisis — it is something we should welcome and build upon.
At November’s summit in Stockholm, the European Union and Russia discussed three key areas: trade relations, climate change and energy security.
Russia has in recent weeks confirmed its intention to abandon the customs union with Kazakhstan and Belarus — a factor that delayed Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization — and again pursue solo membership. On climate change, President Dmitry Medvedev said he would be willing to cut carbon emissions by 10 percent to 15 percent of 1990 levels. On energy security, the parties signed a memorandum requiring each to notify the other of any likely disruption to energy supplies and to work together to resolve the problem.
Russia’s desire to maintain a position on the world stage has undoubtedly played a part in its uncharacteristically cooperative mood of late, but the key driving factor is its troubled economy.
Dominated by oil and gas, the economy needs significant foreign investment and expertise to develop new and existing fields to meet projected energy demand. The International Energy Agency estimates that cumulative global investment of more than $5.1 trillion will be required to meet gas market trends to 2030.
But Russia’s formal withdrawal from its application to the Energy Charter Treaty in October has done nothing to encourage that investment. In fact, it has left future investors in the energy sector with no protection for their investments. The treaty, signed by Russia in 1994, was expressly designed to encourage the investment now required by providing enforceable legal protection against expropriation and discriminatory treatment.
In April, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said Russian WTO membership would “give foreign investors the reassurance that they can seek remedy in a court of law if they are not treated fairly.”
Russia’s WTO entry is long overdue and must be given serious consideration during this EU-Russia summit, not least because it will provide a legal framework for state-to-state trade relations with Russia. But it will not offer direct protection to foreign investors seeking relief, as Shuvalov suggests, and they will still need to rely solely on the highly politicized Russian courts.
Russia desperately needs a legal framework   on which foreign investors in the country can rely. They must know that their interests are protected and that their rights will be upheld by an independent judiciary.
The fact that Russia was bound by the Energy Charter Treaty was confirmed by an international tribunal in November, which heard compensation claims against Russia brought by the majority shareholders of the now-nonexistent Yukos Oil. This ruling clears the way for the former shareholders to pursue their multibillion-dollar compensation claim.
Russia’s withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty in October means that new investors must rely on the Russian courts or bilateral investment treaties, where they exist. These treaties vary greatly in the protection offered to investors. Investments existing in October remain protected by the Energy Charter Treaty for another 20 years.
What is at stake in this case is far more important than the compensation to which Yukos’ former majority shareholders may be entitled. What is at stake is the rule of law in Russia. The Yukos affair was and remains characterized by an almost total breakdown in legal process and judicial independence.
Yukos was expropriated through discriminatory and bogus back tax claims, and its assets were frozen to prevent Yukos from even attempting to settle the bogus claims against it or to continue operating. The company was artificially forced into bankruptcy, and its assets were sold at a series of sham auctions. There was so little due process in the whole affair that Dutch courts in 2007 refused to recognize the authority of the Russian court-appointed receiver.
The only way that Russia can encourage new investors to bring desperately needed expertise and investment to its energy sector is if the country agrees to a strong, legally binding and independently enforceable agreement to succeed the Energy Charter Treaty. Only through such an agreement can the EU secure true reciprocity of investment with Russia.
Accepting and adhering to the terms of the WTO would be a strong start. The finalization of a successor partnership and cooperation agreement between the EU and Russia, including the legally binding dispute resolution principles enshrined in the Energy Charter Treaty, would be a further significant step.
At a time when Russia is again in dire need of investment to modernize its energy infrastructure and to deliver on current and future supply commitments, Europe and Russia must make sure that further progress is made toward this end.

Tim Osborne is a director of GML Limited.

TITLE: From Mine Explosions to Social Ones
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: On the night of May 8-9 at the Raspadskaya coal mine in the town of Mezhdurechensk in the Kemerovo region, two huge explosions took the lives of 90 miners. Because the country was celebrating Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s World War II victory that day, few paid any attention to the blasts. While Muscovites enjoyed the grandiose May 9 festivities, poor families in Mezhdurechensk mourned the loss of their loved ones.
After the tragedy, surviving coal miners and their families blocked a Siberian railway and clashed with riot police in Mezhdurechensk. After that incident, Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev declared that they were not real miners, and that “enemies” were behind the protests.
The miners elected Tuleyev, a Communist, as governor during the chaotic years under former President Boris Yeltsin. Back then, when the miners blocked the railways, they were seen as working people protecting their rights. Now, under Putin’s power vertical, Tuleyev brands the miners as enemies of the people.
Miner strikes were common in the early 1990s, but once the mining sector was privatized, starting in 1998, the country had not seen strikes for 12 years. 
But the situation changed as a result of the crisis, and coal mining regions are now faced with problems directly linked to Putinomics.
The problem is that Russian miners earn about 67 percent less than their counterparts in the West and pay double the amount for food.
Why does food cost so much in Russian stores? The high prices reflect the direct cost to the economy caused by extortionists, who have multiplied and earned record profits during the Putin years. Like other large, profitable companies, Evraz must pay Putin’s bureaucrats large bribes and kickbacks to stay in operation, and these heavy “corruption taxes” are built into production costs at Raspadskaya.
The difference between ordinary Russians, who have to pay exorbitant prices for consumer goods, and Evraz, which has to pay exorbitant prices for licences and equipment, is that Evraz owner and billionaire Roman Abramovich can afford to pamper himself every now and then. For example, he just bought another luxurious chateau — the latest one in Nussdorf, near Vienna. It is also worth noting that Putin himself was seen standing on the veranda of that luxurious home during his visit to Austria in April. Just 20 days before the catastrophe in the Raspadskaya mine, we saw a wonderful picture: Putin was grinning from ear to ear on the veranda of a home Abramovich purchased with the money he saved by paying his miners miserly wages.
If your coal is sold for the standard price on world markets and the owner of the mine is forced to pay enormous bribes to state officials — and at the same time he wants to buy a luxurious chateau in Nussdorf — the only way to save money is by cutting the miners’ wages. To earn enough money to feed their families, the miners put wet rags over the methane sensors. Normally, the sensors would automatically shut down the mine when methane levels have reached dangerously high levels. But the wet rags shut down the sensors, not the mine, and as a result the entire mine is blown to pieces.
By dispersing protesters, Putin is placing wet rags on another sensor — the people’s anger.

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

TITLE: Reclaim the streets
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Cycling around St. Petersburg may not be everyone’s dream. The risks are many and varied, ranging from relative irritants, such as protruding tramline rails and uneven roads, to unpleasant surprises, such as cigarette butts flicked casually out of car windows into passing cyclists’ laps, to the downright terrifying: aggressive and even on occasion seemingly homicidal car and lorry drivers.
The traffic-clogged city, which lacks any cycle lanes in the center, can hardly be described as cycle-friendly. But now the Danes are on hand to help St. Petersburg accommodate its visibly growing cycling culture with a project titled “Dreams on Wheels: Danish Cycling Culture for Urban Sustainability,” as part of which the Consul General of Denmark himself will give a master class on cycling in the courtyard of the Loft Project Etazhi arts and cultural center on Friday. 
The main aim of the “Dreams on Wheels” project, according to its organizers, is “to show how bikes can influence the development of a city — how they affect the health of the population and energy conservation, how the city becomes cleaner and more attractive — and what is required for this from city architects.”
An exhibition at Etazhi focuses on Danish cycling culture, and features a section devoted to “urban bikes of Copenhagen.” The exhibition will be accompanied by several seminars, including one devoted to the theme of “Energy conservation. A green and clean city” and another titled “Infrastructure, city planning and sustainable development.”
If any country is in a position to offer advice on encouraging cycling, it’s the green utopia of Denmark. Copenhagen has a comprehensive network of cycle lanes and separate traffic lights for cyclists in order to make cycling a viable alternative to cars and public transport, and it is indisputably effective — in the Danish capital, every third person travels to work by bike.  
 In April, Denmark’s prime minister, Lars Lekke Rasmussen, stunned Russian journalists when he revealed during a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev that he enjoys cycling when on holiday. Medvedev reportedly said that he loved the fact that many Danes prefer bicycles to cars, but described the situation in Russia as “unsatisfactory” due to the “poor general driving culture,” and said that Russia must learn from its European partners’ experience, Itar-Tass reported.
Unlike her London counterpart Boris Johnson, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko is not currently known for cycling to work. She will however soon have no excuse for not swapping her petrol-guzzling official cortege for two-wheeled transport: At the end of the week-long exhibition, fifteen bicycles will be left behind as gifts — including one for Matviyenko and one for Medvedev.  
“Many Danish cities, above all the capital, Copenhagen, are an excellent example for all those interested in introducing ecologically clean transport on a large scale,” wrote the project’s organizers in a press release. 
“But despite the fact that every year, there are more and more cyclists in St. Petersburg, cycling infrastructure is developing extremely slowly.” 
The only cycling tracks in the city are located in parks on the outskirts of the city, which reflects the image of cycling in Russia as a weekend leisure pursuit rather than a means of transport.
“Helsinki, a city with a population of about one million people, has about 2,000 kilometers of cycle lanes, but the most advanced cycling city in Russia — St. Petersburg — has only 1.5 kilometers,” Oleg Pankratyev, the chairman of the Cycling Union public association was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying. 
Perhaps encouragingly, the “Dreams on Wheels” project has been organized with the support of the St. Petersburg government, and the chairmen of both the Committee for Development and Road Maintenance and the Committee for Sport and Exercise are due to attend the opening of the exhibition. 
So far, however, there is only one day a year when priority on the roads of the city’s central district is given not to cars, but to cyclists: At 2 p.m. on Saturday, cyclists will gather at Loft Project Etazhi for the public opening of the exhibition. From there, at 3 p.m., they will ride en masse to Ploshchad Vosstaniya and then along Nevsky Prospekt to Palace Square, before returning to Etazhi via Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa, Gorokhovaya Ulitsa and Razyezzhaya Ulitsa. A concert by the group Segodnyanochyu will be given at Etazhi at 6 p.m. in honor of the cycling event. The organizers call on those who would like to see cycling in St. Petersburg transformed from a dream into reality to take part in the bike ride. 

The “Dreams on Wheels” exhibition runs from Saturday through May 30 at the Chugunny Floor of Loft Project Etazhi, Ligovsky Prospekt 74, 
tel: 458 5005. M: Ligovsky Prospekt. www.loftprojectetagi.ru
To take part in the bike ride on Saturday, send an email with the subject “Dreams on Wheels” to info@loftprojectetagi.ru stating your name, age, occupation and bike model.

TITLE: Word’s worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Êàç¸ííûé: state- or company-owned, bureaucratic in style, banal, lacking individuality
Years ago, I once spilled coffee on a rug in a Moscow office. I apologized, but the secretary brushed it off with a wave of her hand. Íè÷åãî, íè÷åãî. Êîâ¸ð — êàç¸ííûé. I got the first part — “Don’t worry about the rug” — but I didn’t know what êàç¸ííûé meant. Easily cleaned? Synthetic? Not valuable? Wrong on all counts. Êàç¸ííûé is the adjectival form of êàçíà (treasury) and means “state-owned.” 
Today, the word êàç¸ííûé has several meanings related to the government, all of which reflect a particular Russian attitude toward state property and institutions. While Americans often don’t respect state property (graffiti anyone?) or trust the government (read the polls lately?) or welcome state intervention (care to join a Tea Party?), the Russian attitude, shaped over centuries of largely authoritarian rule, is fraught with a deeper contempt and a rebellious disregard. “State-owned” can be a neutral phrase in English (except among the Tea Party crowd), but êàç¸ííûé is often derogatory or dismissive, on the bad side of the fence dividing us from them.
True, before the 1917 Revolution, there was the neutral Êàç¸ííûé ïðèêàç, which took care of the tsar’s property and commercial needs; êàç¸ííûå çàâîäû (the tsar’s factories); and even êàç¸ííûå êðåñòüÿíå, serfs that belonged to the royal family. But there was also the ironic êàç¸ííûé äîì (literally, “state house”), which was state housing of a particular sort: a prison.
Today, the primary meaning of êàç¸ííûé is still “belonging to the state” (or one’s employer), which can mean, as it did to that secretary, “not mine, so you can do with it what you will.” Êàç¸ííûé is contrasted with things that belong to a person and therefore need to be cared for. Íàäîåëî ãðîáèòü æèçíü, îíà æ ó ìåíÿ ñâîÿ, íå êàç¸ííàÿ (I’m sick of messing up my life. It’s my life, not some government issue).
Regarding people, êàç¸ííûé can have the sense of someone in the pocket of the powers that be. Êàç¸ííûé ÷åëîâåê is a creature of the state, not a man of the people. In other contexts, it can refer to something bureaucratic and formal, without a spark of humanity. Îò Íåâñêîãî äî Ëåòíåãî ñàäà öàðèë êàç¸ííûé, îôèöèàëüíûé òîí. (From Nevsky Prospekt to the Summer Gardens, the style was coldly formal and official). 
From here, it’s a short step to the notion of something lacking in individuality, mass-produced, uniform or even store-bought. Îí îáåäàë â ñòîëîâîé, òî áèøü êàç¸ííàÿ êîòëåòà è êàðòîôåëüíîå ïþðå (He ate lunch in the cafeteria — those standard-issue cutlets and mashed potatoes).
So for Russians, êàç¸ííûé means: other, often cold and inhuman, something to be avoided (people) or squandered (property). Who knew they had so much in common with the Tea Party folks?

Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.

TITLE: Faces of the future
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The stages of the city’s theaters and concert halls are once again preparing for the annual Musical Olympus international festival.
The festival, which has been held every year since 1996, brings talented young musicians from all over the world who have recently won prizes at international competitions to perform in St. Petersburg. During its 15-year history, Musical Olympus has put more than 300 young musicians from more than 28 countries in the spotlight.
One of this year’s highlights looks set to be a performance on June 1 by the young Taiwanese-Australian violinist Ray Chen, who will play Venyavsky’s Concerto No. 1 for violin and orchestra at the Bolshoi hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Chen, who was the winner of the Yehudi Menuhin Competition in 2008, will perform on a Stradivarius made in 1708, known as “Huggins” in honor of its former owner, the eminent English astronomer William Huggins (1824-1910). 
Chen, 20, won the right to play the instrument for three years when he was awarded the Grand Prix at the 2009 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Festival in Brussels. He was the competition’s youngest participant.
Since 1997, the Nippon Music Foundation has loaned the violin to winners of the Queen Elisabeth competition. Chen is not the first musician taking part in Musical Olympus to have won the right to play the prized Stradivarius. In 1997, the Danish violinist Nikolaj Znaider won the Queen Elisabeth Grand Prix and went on to perform at the Musical Olympus festival in 1998 and 2000, and in 2005 the internationally renowned Armenian violinist Sergei Khachatryan, who had performed at the 2001 Musical Olympus, won the Queen Elisabeth Grand Prix. Khachatryan described the sound of “Huggins” as “bright and golden.”
A whole host of participants in previous festivals have gone on to win international acclaim, including Znaider, Martin Froest (clarinet), Eldar Nebolsin (piano), Tugan Sokhiev (conductor) and Marina Poplavskaya (soprano).
Since 2007, participants of the Musical Olympus festival have performed in New York on an annual basis. Musical Olympus festival concerts also take place in Zurich and Berlin, as well as in Russia’s cultural capital. This year’s festival concerts will be held at venues that include the Mariinsky Theater concert hall, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Hermitage Theater and the State Cappella.
The festival is supported by leading international artists, many of whom are members of the Musical Olympus honorary committee, including Valery Gergiev, Yury Temirkanov and Placido Domingo.

The Musical Olympus festival runs from Tuesday through June 2 at various venues in St. Petersburg. For a full program, see www.musicalolympus.ru.

TITLE: Tutti frutti
AUTHOR: By Amanda Grossman
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The quaintly named Apple Street near the Sportivnaya metro holds a surprise at the end behind an unassuming fa?ade. From the street, all that is visible of Chernika are the rolled-up red window banners advertising borsch, and the menu outside the door. When we arrived shortly before 8 p.m. on a Sunday, the restaurant was empty except for our party; it only began to fill up after about 9:30. After sampling the menu, it’s hard to understand the lack of a crowd. Chernika (Blackcurrant) seems to be the next undiscovered talent on the city’s stage of New European cuisine. 
The lobby of Chernika is disorientingly dark after the brightness of the street, but it mellows out upstairs. Floral fabric-like wallpaper and long curtains, all the color of the restaurant’s namesake berry, adorn the walls. Banquette seating with throw pillows, low bookcases, and wide windowsills strewn with books combine to make the diner feel at once slightly awed and right at home. (The restaurant also has free Wi-Fi, though they don’t advertise this fact.) With the windows open, the volume from the street does not detract from the dining experience, and the breeze is welcome. The music is lively but not an impediment to conversation, mostly consisting of lounge covers of American pop songs and slow Spanish dance music. Service is efficient and friendly, though the servers do not speak English, and the waitress did tend to hover a bit when the restaurant was still nearly empty.
We began the meal with a warm salad of grilled vegetables and smoked chicken (250 rubles, $8), one of ten salad options, and pasta Carbonara (270 rubles, $8.75), from a list of seven pasta dishes; Chernika also offers soups, though they were out of the soup of the day, and about a dozen cold appetizers. The grilled vegetable salad paired wonderfully smoky tomatoes with thin slices of zucchini, peppers, and grilled pumpkin seeds. The pasta Carbonara was hearty enough to be an entr?e on its own, liberally coated with cheese and garnished with ham and what turned out to be mushrooms, but resembled pieces of fish at the first bite.
Chernika has a large wine card, which was whisked away promptly by the waitress after our original order, so we enjoyed fresh mors and limeade (130 rubles, $4.20 for 400ml) instead of alcohol. 
The kitchen was out of a surprisingly large number of ingredients, but those they did have were presented beautifully, on square plates with attractive vegetable garnishes and artistically drizzled sauces. The grilled salmon with lemon-saffron sauce (440 rubles, $14) was beautifully posed atop a lake of the bright yellow sauce and accompanied by dilled potato wedges, while the chicken piccata (340 rubles, $11) was adorned with sun-dried tomatoes and the sauce on the side. The salmon was moist and slightly mysterious from the saffron; the chicken was a little thick and dry, but the presentation made up for it, especially when combined with the Parmesan mashed potatoes (110 rubles, $3.50). Thankfully, the waitress had no problem with boxing up the leftovers.
Of course, we couldn’t leave without sampling some of the dozen desserts. The menu offerings include a variety of chocolates for 30 rubles ($1), plus more substantial suggestions. Once again, the kitchen was out of some of the ingredients (chocolate cream this time). Thank goodness for that, because it allowed us to try the chocolate lava cake with cherry sauce (or, without cherry sauce and with vanilla ice cream) (210 rubles, $6.80). The apple-cherry strudel, also with cherry sauce, came in two large slices with a scoop of ice cream and a generous swirl of the sauce. This main non-chocolate option on the dessert menu was absolutely exquisite, and this reviewer would return just to order it again.
Chernika deserves much more of a crowd than it pulled in on the night we were there. If the kitchen would plan their shopping a little better, this out-of-the-way little restaurant could become quite the hot spot on the northern Petrograd Side.

TITLE: N. Korea Warns of War If Punished for Sinking
AUTHOR: By Jean H. Lee and Hyung-Jin Kim
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEOUL — North Korea said Thursday that South Korea fabricated evidence implicating the North in a torpedo attack in order to pick on the North and that any attempt at retaliating for the warship’s sinking would be answered with “all-out war.”
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed “stern action” for the attack after a multinational investigation issued its long-awaited results Thursday, concluding that the North fired a torpedo that sank the Cheonan navy ship March 26 near the Koreas’ tense sea border.
“If the (South Korean) enemies try to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us... we will answer to this with all-out war,” Colonel Pak In Ho of North Korea’s navy told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang.
An international civilian-military investigation team said evidence overwhelmingly proves a North Korean submarine fired a homing torpedo that caused a massive underwater blast that tore the Cheonan apart. Fifty-eight sailors were rescued from the frigid Yellow Sea, but 46 perished in the South’s worst military disaster since the Korean War.
Since the 1950-53 war on the Korean peninsula ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, the Koreas remain locked in a state of war and divided by the world’s most heavily armed border.
The truce prevents Seoul from waging a unilateral military attack.
However, South Korea and the U.S., which has 28,500 troops on the peninsula, could hold joint military exercises in a show of force, said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank.
South Korean and U.S. officials also said they are considering a variety of options in response to the warship’s sinking, ranging from UN Security Council action to additional U.S. penalties.
The exchange of war rhetoric raised tensions, but the isolated communist regime — already under international pressure to cease its nuclear weapons program — often warns of dire consequences against South Korea or Washington for any punitive steps against it. Its large but decrepit military would be no match for U.S. and Korean forces. 
The impoverished country is already chafing from international sanctions tightened last year in the wake of widely condemned nuclear and missile tests. UN sanctions currently block funding to certain officials and companies, while North Korea is barred from exporting weapons and countries are authorized to inspect North Korean ships suspected of carrying illicit cargo.
South Korea “will take resolute countermeasures against North Korea and make it admit its wrongdoings through strong international cooperation,” Lee said during a call with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the presidential office said. Lee convened an emergency meeting for Friday.
The White House called the sinking an unacceptable “act of aggression” that violates international law and the 1953 truce. Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama declared his support for South Korea, calling North Korea’s actions “inexcusable.”
China, North Korea’s traditional ally, called the sinking of the naval ship “unfortunate” but stopped short of backing Seoul.

TITLE: Cameron, Clegg Seal Deal On Coalition
AUTHOR: By David Stringer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Britain’s coalition government outlined a joint legislative program Thursday, promising support for the Afghanistan war, a new drive toward Middle East peace and a “close and frank” relationship with the United States.
Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg published details of the agreement struck between their Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties after the country’s inconclusive May 6 election, in which no party won a clear majority to govern.
“Some policies have been lost on both sides, some have been changed and yes — we have had to find ways to deal with the issues where we profoundly disagree,” Cameron told reporters in London as he unveiled the plan.
The deal promises to support enlargement of the UN Security Council, to review an extradition treaty between Britain and the U.S. seen by some as unfair, and to rule out joining — or even preparing for entry into — the European single currency.
Clegg’s party has long favored closer European ties and eventual British entry into the euro, a policy which is an anathema to Cameron’s deeply euroskeptic Conservatives.
Cameron will hold talks in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy later Thursday, and travel to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Friday to discuss European ties and the continent’s fragile economy.
He said Britain would not support closer economic governance in Europe as a response to the debt crisis in Greece, which needed a 110 billion euro ($134.97 billion) three-year rescue loan package from other EU countries and the International Monetary Fund to stave off bankruptcy.
“We don’t believe there should be further transfer of powers in that way,” Cameron said.
The joint agreement says any new attempt by the European Union to expand its powers would need to be approved in Britain by a public referendum.
Clegg and Cameron’s joint government promises to support “concerted international efforts” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon — but does not specify whether the Liberal Democrats will give up their policy to oppose any military action against Tehran.
While the program endorses the previous government’s decision to authorize the 20 billion pound ($32 billion) replacement of Britain’s fleet of nuclear-armed submarines, Clegg’s lawmakers — who oppose the plan — are free to “continue to make the case for alternatives.”

TITLE: Paintings Worth Millions Stolen in Paris
AUTHOR: By Angela Charlton
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — A lone thief stole five paintings possibly worth hundreds of millions of euros, including major works by Picasso and Matisse, in a brazen overnight heist at a Paris modern art museum, police and prosecutors said Thursday.
The paintings disappeared early Thursday from the Paris Museum of Modern Art, across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower. Investigators have cordoned off the museum, in one of the French capital’s most tourist-frequented neighborhoods.
The museum’s security system was disabled, and a single masked intruder was caught on a video surveillance camera, according to Christophe Girard, deputy culture secretary at Paris City Hall.
Investigators are trying to determine whether the intruder was operating alone, Girard told reporters. He said three guards were on duty overnight but “they saw nothing.”
The intruder entered by cutting a padlock on a gate and breaking a museum window, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
The prosecutor’s office initially estimated the five paintings’ total worth at as much as 500 million euros ($613 million).
Girard, however, said the total value was “just under 100 million euros.”
He said “Le pigeon aux petits-pois” (The Pigeon with the Peas) an ochre and brown Cubist oil painting by Pablo Picasso, was worth an estimated 23 million euros, and “La Pastorale” (Pastoral), an oil painting of nudes on a hillside by Henri Matisse, about 15 million euros.
The other paintings stolen were “L’olivier pres de l’Estaque” (Olive Tree near Estaque) by Georges Braque; “La femme a l’eventail” (Woman with a Fan) by Amedeo Modigliani; and “Nature-mort aux chandeliers” (Still Life with Chandeliers) by Fernand Leger.
Alice Farren-Bradley of the Art Loss Registry in London said the Paris theft “appears to be one of the biggest” art heists ever, considering the estimated value, the prominence of the artists and the high profile of the museum.
She added, however, that the value of the paintings would have to be confirmed, as museums and art dealers often value paintings differently.
Interpol did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment on the theft or its possible role in the investigation. The police organization has coordinated international searches for stolen masterpieces in the past.
Red-and-white tape surrounded the museum, where investigators were studying surveillance video. Paper signs on the museum doors said it was closed for technical reasons.
On a cordoned-off balcony behind the museum, police in blue gloves and face masks examined the broken window and empty frames. The paintings appeared to have been carefully removed from the disassembled frames, not sliced out.
A security guard at the museum said the paintings were discovered missing by a night watchman just before 7 a.m. (0500 GMT, 1 a.m. Thursday EDT). The guard was not authorized to be publicly named because of the museum policy.
Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said in a statement that he was “saddened and shocked by this theft, which is an intolerable attack on Paris’ universal cultural heritage.”
The director of the neighboring modern art museum Palais de Tokyo, Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr, called the thief or thieves “fools.”
“You cannot do anything with these paintings. All countries in the world are aware, and no collector is stupid enough to buy a painting that, one, he can’t show to other collectors, and two, risks sending him to prison,” he said on LCI television. 
“In general, you find these paintings,” he said. “These five paintings are un-sellable, so thieves, sirs, you are imbeciles, now return them.”

TITLE: Thai Government Declares Protest Violence Quelled
AUTHOR: By Jocelyn Gecker
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BANGKOK — The Thai government declared Thursday that it had mostly quelled 10 weeks of violent protests in the capital as buildings still smoldered, troops rooted out small pockets of resistance and residents attempted to return to normal life.
But a nighttime curfew was extended in Bangkok and 23 other provinces for three more days. Troops and die-hard anti-government protesters exchanged sporadic fire in parts of the city after the military operation the day before cleared most of a protest encampment in the center of the capital, leaving 15 dead and 96 wounded.
A special police unit on Thursday led more than a thousand people — many of them women and children — away from a Buddhist temple in the heart of the former “Red Shirt” protest zone. Six bodies were found on its grounds.
The police had the approval of the temple’s abbot, but many of the women feared they would be jailed or abused by police and cried or clung to each other as they were led out. Others remained defiant.
“We won. We won. The Red Shirts will rise again,” shouted one woman.