SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1577 (38), Friday, May 28, 2010
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TITLE: Chubais Courts U.S. Fund Managers
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A group of visiting U.S. fund managers heard a pitch Wednesday from Rusnano chief Anatoly Chubais, who sought to convince them that he could turn nanotechnology into a $30 billion industry by 2015.
Russian officials have been wooing foreign investment as part of their drive to modernize the economy through the development of new industries and innovative technologies. On Tuesday, President Dmitry Medvedev addressed the same group, saying Russia was ripe for investment because of its liberal financial regulation.
Chubais — an economic liberal best known in the West for his work on the country’s privatizations — won polite endorsement from the delegation, which described the target of $30 billion in revenue as ambitious.
Reaching the figure is “our major task,” Chubais said, adding that there are currently no official statistics on the industry’s size. “It’s definitely less than $1 billion.”
The industry’s revenue will reach $1.4 billion in 2011 and increase more than 10-fold to $14.5 billion by 2013, Chubais said in his presentation. By 2014, Russian nanotechnology enterprises will be bringing in $22.5 billion per year.
The state corporation, formed in 2007, has come under fire for its sluggish investment, including from Medvedev, who in May 2009 called it “a large structure that has a lot of money and that still has to understand how to correctly spend it.”
Rusnano was also to be among the first of the state corporations to become a regular state-owned company. Medvedev has been critical of the state corporation model, which was created by then-President Vladimir Putin to combine commercial and regulatory functions.
But Chubais said the transformation would come by Jan. 1, 2011, a deadline he called “tough, but realistic” in a meeting with Medvedev in March.
The corporation is considering a number of options for its future development, including an initial public offering, Chubais told reporters.
“We’re thinking of ways to raise additional investments, to increase the inflow of smart money to be invested in the Russian nanotech industry,” he said, adding that an IPO would not be before 2013 or 2014.
Wednesday’s meeting came as the Federation Council approved a bill enabling Rusnano to issue bonds and take loans under the state guaranties, which Chubais said was very important.
“We will have a lot of money. We don’t know what to do with it,” he said jokingly, drawing laughter among the delegation.
Rusnano received approval for 160 billion rubles ($5.1 billion) in state guarantees, he told reporters after the meeting.
Chubais said in February that Rusnano might issue bonds for as much as 40 billion rubles this year.
There’s no comprehensive plan for making Russia’s economy innovative, but the government has “a deep understanding” that modernization is a challenge for the coming decade, Chubais said.
With an investment stash of 130 billion rubles, Rusnano has already made some successful steps toward its $30 billion goal, he said. The corporation has 76 nanotechnology projects in 27 regions, with total investment of $8 billion, including $3.5 billion from Rusnano.
Rusnano also could co-invest in nanotechnology projects with U.S. funds.
“The first meeting is unlikely to finish with the contracts signed, but at the same time, I hope that it will finish with agreements on signing such contracts,” he said.
The corporation invests as little as $10 million in some projects, Chubais said in response to a question from one of the executives.
Speaking after Chubais’ presentation, the fund managers were positive on possible cooperation, although many noted that Rusnano’s $30 billion target might take more than five years to achieve.
“When you’re going in big opportunities like this, things will get done but not always on the time schedule that you predict. There are lots of risks and challenges along the way,” said Brian Dovey, a partner with Domain Associates, which has $2.5 billion of capital under management.
The goal is “very ambitious but possible,” he said.
“Russia is on its way to becoming a very interesting geography for foreign investors. … Rusnano is really developing the best practices for successful venture capital in Russia,” said Peter Loukianoff, managing partner at Almaz Capital Partners, which has offices in Moscow and Silicon Valley.
“We’re looking for very large returns … and we look forward to further cooperation,” he said.
Analysts cautioned that Rusnano could have a tougher ride if financial markets begin to tighten again.
“It will be harder for nanotechnology companies to raise investments, since it’s a capital-intensive industry,” said Vladislav Kochetkov, an analyst at Finam.
“The [revenue] forecast looks realistic enough. There are already a number of companies that use nanotechnology in their production and demonstrate positive financial results,” he told The St. Petersburg Times. “The infrastructure for nanotech firms to raise capital will gradually develop.”
TITLE: Lavrov Dismissive of Iran’s Criticism
AUTHOR: By Jim Heintz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday brushed off Iran’s recent criticism as an emotional outburst and expressed frustration with Tehran in the standoff over its nuclear program.
The comments indicated growing dismay with Iran in Russia, whose support had somewhat buffered Tehran against calls in the West for tougher action.
After long resistance, Russia is now supporting possible new sanctions against Iran over concern that its is developing nuclear weapons. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took Russia to task for this on Wednesday, saying it was difficult to gauge whether the Kremlin was a friend or an enemy.
“This statement is being interpreted as emotional,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference.
He lamented that, despite Russia’s years of efforts to resolve the dispute, “the response from the Iranian side has been unsatisfactory.”
Russia and Iran have cultivated close relations for years, including Russia’s construction of the Bushehr nuclear plant that many critics say is connected to Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons. Russia also signed a contract in 2007 to sell S-300 air-defense missiles to Iran, which would substantially increase Iran’s defense capacities, though none have been delivered.
Despite the ties, Russia has been able to exert little visible leverage on Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and its frustration is clearly growing.
Lavrov appeared to hint that Moscow is concerned that Iran’s lack of cooperation could be undermining Russia’s image as a major force in the international community.
“All the decisions that we make on all questions of external policy are based on national interests and on our responsibility as a great state which is involved in an array of international efforts to resolve difficult situations. And Iran is one of these,” he said.
Aside from Ahmadinejad’s criticism, Iran in turn has shown other signs this week of growing irritation with Moscow. The Iranian ambassador this week said pointedly that Iran expects Russia to fulfill the S-300 contract.
Lavrov has suggested the delay in delivery is due to concerns about aggravating regional tensions. Israel vehemently opposes delivery of the missiles.
Despite the sparring between Tehran and Moscow, Lavrov said Russia supports a proposed nuclear fuel swap deal that advocates say could break the standoff, but which the United States has dismissed as a ploy.
The swap offer was negotiated last week by Brazil and Turkey, which are opposed to new UN sanctions on Iran. It would commit Iran to shipping 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium for storage abroad — in this case to Turkey. In exchange, Iran would get fuel rods made from 20-percent enriched uranium; that level of enrichment is high enough for use in research reactors but too low for nuclear weapons.
“A lot will depend on how the Iranian side approaches its obligations. If it observes them strictly, then Russia will actively support the realization of the plan proposed by Brazil and Turkey,” Lavrov said. “This plan serves the interests of peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear program.”
Ahmadinejad, in the same speech in which he criticized Russia, warned the United States that it will miss a historic opportunity for cooperation if it turns down the nuclear fuel swap deal.
TITLE: Sobchak Honored Ahead of City Day Celebrations
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This year, St. Petersburg’s City Day celebrations will last for four days, with City Hall promising a “grandiose, theatrical celebration.”
The festive events began Thursday, the official City Day, but St. Petersburg will continue to celebrate its 307th birthday during the weekend.
City Governor Valentina Matviyenko and First Lady Svetlana Medvedeva kicked off the celebrations by laying flowers at the Bronze Horseman monument to Peter the Great, the founder of St. Petersburg.
Later the governor awarded certificates to newly elected Honored Citizens of St. Petersburg. This year’s recipients included Anatoly Sobchak, who was the first person to hold the title of mayor of St. Petersburg and who died in 2000, and Ludwig Fadyeyev, an academic in the math department of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
On the same day, a bust to Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of Russia Artur Chilingarov was unveiled in the Alley of Heroes at Park Pobedy. According to tradition, people who are awarded the title of national hero twice have busts erected to them in their home city.
Chilingarov, an eminent polar researcher, received the country’s highest award first for a successful recue expedition undertaken in 1985 to free the research ship the Mikhail Somov from its ice-bound location in the Antarctic, and again for heroism in extreme conditions during an Arctic expedition on the Academic Fyordorov ship in 2008. He is one of just four Russians to bear the title of both Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of Russia.
Also Thursday, two international music festivals opened in the city: “White Nights of Romantic Music” and “Palaces of St. Petersburg.” A fireworks display was held at the Peter and Paul Fortress in celebration of the anniversary on Thursday night.
On Saturday, City Day celebrations will continue in full force with the hosting of an unprecedented theater marathon, in which dozens of international street theaters and music groups are due to take part. The city will host street theaters from countries including Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Australia, the U.S. and Spain.
The theater procession, which replaces the traditional carnival held on City Day since 2001, will travel from the Fontanka River along Nevsky Prospekt to the city’s central Palace Square to launch the two-day marathon. Theater, dance, music and entertainment programs will take place at eight locations along the street, as a result of which traffic along Nevsky will be closed for most of the day.
Solyanoi Pereulok will play host to a traditional arts and handicraft fair Saturday. From 11 a.m to 7 p.m., city residents and guests will be able to see various exhibitions on student life, ecology and art, as well as try their hand at ceramics, metalworking and making mosaics. Children will have the chance to paint toys, T-shirts and balloons, and do other crafts.
At 10 a.m. Saturday, an ice-cream festival will open on Ploshchad Ostrovskogo. Visitors will be able to sample brands including Inmarko, Talosto, Chistaya Liniya, Petrokholod, and Iceberry at 130 stalls set up on the square. Each ice-cream producer has prepared its own program. The Talosto stand will resemble a corner of Paris, with performances by actors and prizes on offer, while Petrokholod will offer guests retro ice-cream flavors.
As part of the international sailing regatta, the city will see a parade of trimarans sail along the Neva River between Dvortsovy and Troitsky bridges.
Another regatta — for the Russian Presidential Rowing Cup, which marks the sport’s 150th anniversary in Russia — will begin on Saturday on the Fontanka River, and continue at the Strela boat club on Krestovsky Island on Sunday.
Other sporting events of the day will include water polo, urban orienteering, roller-skate races, and an international wheelchair basketball tournament.
The Mikhailovsky Theater will host a charity party titled ‘The Little Prince’ for the Podari Zhizn (Give Life) foundation, to raise money for medicine for children suffering from cancer.
Saturday’s official festivities will conclude at 8 p.m. with an open-air jazz concert on Palace Square.
On Sunday, the theater and musical marathon will continue at different locations around the city. The four-day celebrations will end with another big concert on Palace Square.
Security measures in the city will be heightened during the celebrations.
St. Petersburg’s birthday is celebrated on May 27, which according to legend was the day when city founder Peter the Great laid the first foundation stone of the Peter and Paul Fortress on Zaichy Island in the Neva River. He named his new city, which was capital of the Russian Empire from 1712 to 1918, in honor of St. Peter.
TITLE: Saakashvili Targets Russia During Parade
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili celebrated his country’s independence day Wednesday with the first military parade since Russia routed Georgia in a brief 2008 war and a new round of verbal cannonade against Moscow.
Saakashvili, speaking outside the parliament in Tbilisi before the parade and surrounded by young boys dressed in military fatigues, indirectly accused Russia of a continued plot to subjugate his country.
“Our independence today is confronted by the empire. There are forces that … spare no efforts to defeat us in this great battle for freedom,” he said, according to the Civil.ge web site. Georgia was privileged to have had “the pleasure to fight for independence.”
Russia and Georgia went to war over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia in the summer of 2008, and relations between both countries have been frozen ever since.
Saakashvili also fired a barrage against criticism from the Georgian opposition against his government’s stance on Moscow, calling them “followers of the empire.”
“They say that submission is the only way for our survival … but we will never submit to the empire,” he said.
In an interview with Georgian television late Tuesday, he referred to those advocating rapprochement as wanting “to kiss someone’s boot night and day.” He said a policy of appeasing Moscow does not work, explaining that Moldova had “given everything possible to Russia” without getting anything in return, Civil.ge reported.
In a less saber-rattling tone, he added that Georgia would continue its fight for independence by building a strong, economically advanced state.
After the speech, tanks rolled and more than 4,300 troops marched past the parliament building on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue.
Last year, the government canceled the parade in the face of widespread opposition protests in the capital and an attempted mutiny in a tank battalion outside Tbilisi.
After Wednesday’s parade, Saakashvili unveiled a monument to Georgians who died fighting for their homeland’s independence.
“There would be no Georgian capital and our flags would not be flying proudly if Vladimir Putin had implemented his plans in 2008,” Saakashvili said.
The monument, described in news reports to be 30 to 40 meters high, bears the names of about 3,500 victims, including soldiers who died in the fighting in South Ossetia two years ago. Its unveiling comes less than six months after Saakashvili caused outrage in Moscow by ordering the razing of a Soviet war monument near the Georgian city of Kutaisi.
Georgian officials maintain that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin planned to occupy Tbilisi and topple Saakashvili’s government after routing the country’s armed forces in South Ossetia.
Giorgi Kandelaki, deputy head of the parliament’s international relations committee and a close ally of Saakashvili, told The St. Petersburg Times that he considered the invasion to be ongoing so long as Russian soldiers continued to occupy 20 percent of his country’s territory.
After the war, Moscow recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent and stationed troops there.
Kandelaki said only U.S. support prevented the Russians from occupying Tbilisi.
“They were hoping the government would fall, but they did not advance after President [George W.] Bush made it clear that he would not accept that,” Kandelaki said by phone.
But Andrei Klimov, a deputy chairman of the State Duma’s International Relations Committee and a member of the ruling United Russia party, said President Dmitry Medvedev had made a clear political decision at the time not to invade further into Georgia.
“We stood a few kilometers outside Tbilisi and had all the means to take the capital,” he said.
“But Medvedev decided against capturing Mr. Saakashvili and taking him to court because this is for the Georgian people to decide.”
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Cocaine Haul Seized
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russian officials in St. Petersburg seized 120 kilograms of cocaine on a boat arriving from Ecuador, RIA Novosti reported.
The seizure is one of the largest of cocaine in Russia in recent memory, the state-run news service said Thursday, citing an unidentified customs official.
Raided Firm Gets Award
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — EGO Translating, which was subject to a dramatic tax raid by police a month ago, was awarded a diploma Thursday from the city governor for its contribution to the social and economic development of the city.
The translation company, whose head office is located in St. Petersburg, received the award on its 20th birthday.
The company’s office was raided on April 29, when about 180 employees were prevented from leaving the building by masked police, a company representative told The St. Petersburg Times on the day of the raid. No tax violations have been found, the company said Thursday.
Radical Group Banned
MOSCOW (SPT) — The Supreme Court has banned the National-Socialist Society, a radical group accused of numerous hate crimes, including dozens of racially motivated murders, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The organization was banned at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, which said it was planning a coup d’etat to legalize racial discrimination, Itar-Tass reported. Thirteen members are currently on trial in the Moscow District Military Court.
Deputies Criticized
MOSCOW (SPT) — Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov accused State Duma deputies of slacking off after a television station showed two of them casting votes for dozens of missing colleagues, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Mironov said this was “a dishonor” that was typical of the Duma, adding that Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov was “ashamed” of the deputies and planned “certain measures.”
TITLE: British Council Will Not Take Part in Nashi Camp
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The British Council said Thursday that it had turned down a proposal by the Federal Youth Agency to participate in a summer camp for pro-Kremlin youth.
The agency is headed by Vasily Yakemenko, former leader of the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth group, which harassed then-British Ambassador Anthony Brenton in 2006 and 2007 for attending a meeting of The Other Russia opposition coalition.
The British Council, the cultural arm of the British Embassy, saw two of its three Russian offices closed by Russian authorities in January 2008, and it is fighting back tax claims in Russian courts.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has linked the British Council’s problems to poor diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The British Council said it had received an invitation from the Federal Youth Agency to organize at the Seliger camp in July a so-called Future City Game, which, according to the council’s web site, is a two-day activity that helps players to generate ideas for improving quality of life in cities.
“As we are already delivering a Future City Game in Moscow on May 29, we decided not to deliver another one,” the British Council’s deputy head for Russia, Christian Duncumb, said in an e-mailed statement.
Yakemenko’s spokeswoman Kristina Potupchik did not answer repeated calls to her cell phone.
At Nashi’s national congress in mid-April, Yakemenko reiterated his support for Nashi’s activities, which are overseen by Kremlin first deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov.
Ilya Kostunov, director of the Seliger camp, told The St. Petersburg Times that Nashi, the former organizers and current participants of the camp, had changed their position toward Britain.
“The ambassador has been replaced, and the new ambassador doesn’t make extremist statements,” he said. “Besides, as I understand it, bilateral relations are relatively good now.”
Nashi had accused Brenton of consorting with “extremists” by meeting with the Russian opposition.
The camp, held annually since 2005 at Lake Seliger in the Tver region, initially included training sessions to help prevent a popular uprising like Ukraine’s Orange Revolution but has gradually turned toward business.
TITLE: Polish President’s Mother Told Of Son’s Death 6 Weeks After Tragedy
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WARSAW — For six weeks, the mother of the late president, Lech Kaczynski, lay critically ill in a Warsaw hospital with no idea that her son died in a plane crash in Russia.
But the late president’s twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, finally broke the news to her on Tuesday, a blow that came as a huge shock to the 83-year-old woman, according to Elzbieta Jakubiak, a close aide to Jaroslaw.
“This was the most difficult moment in Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s life,” Jakubiak said in an interview late Tuesday on the all-news station TVN24. “I really feel for him today. And yet at the same time, I also think this is a relief for him.”
Jaroslaw Kaczynski did not speak publicly himself about the matter, and Jakubiak said she didn’t have many more details because the family was spending time together in private.
Though Jaroslaw, 60, is now running for the presidency in his brother’s place, he remains deep in mourning and has made only rare public appearances since declaring his candidacy in late April. Voting is to take place on June 20.
The news was reported in Polish papers on Wednesday, which is Mother’s Day in Poland.
Jadwiga Kaczynska has been critically ill for many weeks, and just after Kaczynski was killed in the plane crash, doctors advised the family to spare her the news until she was better.
Kaczynski died April 10 along with his wife and 94 others, many of them some of the country’s highest civilian and military leaders, as he flew to a ceremony in the Katyn forest in the Smolensk region to commemorate the World War II killings of 20,000 Poles by Soviet forces.
TITLE: Marble Hall Revealed to Public
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s reputation as a center of Baroque art and architecture received a notable boost last Friday with the official opening of the newly renovated Marble Hall in the Marble Palace.
Sergei Lyubimov, director of two of the Russian Museum’s properties, revealed a spectacular room restored to its 18th-century glory after two years of painstaking work by specialized teams of local restorers. Lyubimov presented the artisans with awards and bouquets of flowers for their work on the room’s parquet floors, marble surfaces, plafond paintings, chandeliers and fireplaces.
The Marble Palace was built at the behest of Catherine the Great for her then-favorite, Grigory Orlov, but the count never occupied the elegant residence; he died two years before work was completed in 1785. The palace remained the property of the imperial family until the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Marble Palace impressed contemporaries with its magnificent decoration, particularly the Marble Hall, which from the day of its creation was declared to be one of the most beautiful rooms in the city. The architect was Antonio Rinaldi, an Italian master of the baroque style who spent the last 40 years of his life working in Russia.
For the decoration of the Marble Hall, Rinaldi made extensive use of marble brought from different parts of Russia, Greece and Italy in the pilasters, fireplaces and walls. Such lavish application was unusual, even in royal palaces. Other natural stones such as lapis lazuli were also used. The ceiling was adorned with Torelli’s canvas of “The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche,” while crystal and bronze chandeliers illuminated the room and richly ornamented furniture and wall reliefs enhanced the beauty of the interior. But the most impressive feature was the combination of marble walls and magnificently designed parquet floor, for which exotic wood was purchased from as far away as Central America.
The Marble Hall completes the northeast suite of rooms and is adjacent to the main dining room. Rows of windows running the full width of the hall offer magnificent views onto the River Neva.
During the 225 years it has existed, the palace and Marble Hall have twice undergone substantial reconstruction. In the middle of the 19th century when it became obvious that the palace needed renovation work, Nicholas I invited the eminent architect and adherent of Classicism Alexander Brullov to undertake the work.
Brullov preserved many features, but eliminated the partition between the two floors in the Marble Hall, thereby doubling its height. This added substantially to the feeling of space and airiness of the hall.
The second period of renovation took place in 1992, when the building was turned over to the Russian Museum for management and the decision was taken to undo a great many changes introduced during the decades of Soviet rule.
The restoration of the Marble Hall was carried out on the basis of watercolors, late 19th-century photos and other extant original materials. The parquet floors were assembled on the spot to recreate the intricate 18th-century design.
Now that the Marble Hall is open, the restorers will continue working on the other halls of the suite in which it is framed. Visitors can see parts of open walls where beneath the stucco, wooden panes, arches and other 18th-century elements are exposed. According to Lyubimov, there is a chance that the entire suite will be ready and open to the public in time for the 120th anniversary of the Russian Museum in 2015.
TITLE: More Lenient Rules Proposed for Ill Suspects
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Stung by the high-profile deaths of two ill prisoners in pretrial detention, prison officials have proposed that suspects diagnosed with one of 40 illnesses remain at liberty while investigators build cases against them.
Vladislav Tsaturov, who oversees detention facilities for the Federal Prison Service, said in an interview published Wednesday that his agency has drafted legislation that would allow judges to grant freedom to seriously ill suspects.
The 40 illnesses that would qualify a detainee for freedom include tuberculosis and advanced AIDS and cancer, he told Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Current law allows judges to set free seriously ill convicts, while jailed suspects are easy targets for corrupt law enforcement officials, who withhold medical treatment while pressing for confessions.
Maria Kannabikh, a member of the Public Chamber and head of the Federal Prison Service’s Public Council, praised the initiative but voiced disappointment that it had taken the death of two ill suspects, Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and businesswoman Vera Trifonova, to bring it about.
“We paid an expensive price for those proposals,” Kannabikh told The St. Petersburg Times.
Magnitsky, 37, who had acute pancreatitis, died in a Moscow pretrial detention center in November after reportedly being denied medical assistance. President Dmitry Medvedev reacted by firing 20 senior prison officials.
Trifonova, 53, who had a severe form of diabetes and other ailments, died of heart failure in a Moscow detention facility last month after prison officials, the lead investigator in her case and a judge denied her access to medical assistance.
A senior investigator fired in connection with Trifonova’s death returned to work Wednesday, Interfax reported. But the official, Valery Ivarlak, a department head with the Moscow regional branch of the Investigative Committee, remains under investigation, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax.
A Moscow regional court ruled Wednesday that Trifonova should have been released because of her poor health, Interfax reported.
In another instance of an ill suspect being denied freedom, it took two years of court hearings and fierce international pressure before authorities agreed to release former Yukos vice president Vasily Alexanyan in December 2008 on bail of 50 million rubles ($1.6 million). Alexanyan had cancer and AIDS.
Human rights campaigners have called for legislation allowing freedom for ill suspects since 2002, said Andrei Babushkin, who regularly visits detention facilities as head of the Committee for Civil Rights, a public watchdog.
“It only became clear to the authorities that something had to be done after the cases of Magnitsky and Trifonova,” he said.
He said earlier stages of cancer also should be included in the proposed legislation. “You shouldn’t wait until the last stage of cancer. The speed at which the cancer spreads should be the key factor,” he said.
Several hundred suspects currently being held in detention facilities meet the criteria for release under the proposed legislation, he said. About 130,000 people are locked up in pretrial detention facilities around the country, according to the Federal Prison Service.
TITLE: Sovkomflot to Ship Oil Across Arctic
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: NOVO-OGARYOVO, Moscow Region — Russia’s biggest shipping company, state-owned Sovkomflot, has agreed to carry oil to China across the Arctic Ocean, an unusual route for such cargo, a senior government banker said Wednesday.
Vladimir Dmitriyev, chief of the state development bank VEB, made the statement after the lender’s board, chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, convened earlier in the day to approve a 240 million euro ($293 million) purchase of two ice-breaking tankers from a St. Petersburg shipyard for subsequent leasing to the shipping company.
Sovkomflot ordered the vessels to take oil from Gazprom’s offshore Prirazlomnoye field in the Arctic, whose development has fallen much behind schedule. Gazprom is now planning to send a drilling rig to the field next year.
The delay prompted Sovkomflot to line up a contract to use the Finnish-designed tankers for oil supplies from the Arctic port of Murmansk to China, Dmitriyev said.
“The ships are meant for work in icy conditions,” he told reporters at Putin’s residence of Novo-Ogaryovo, adding that they could carry oil, oil products and gas condensate to Southeast Asia as well.
Sovkomflot has taken delivery of one of the tankers. The Admiralty Shipyard will complete the other vessel later this year, Dmitriyev said.
He referred further questions from The St. Petersburg Times to Sovkomflot.
A receptionist at Sovkomflot said she could not put a spokesman on the line when called for comment after normal working hours. Sovkomflot deputy chief Yevgeny Ambrosov said at a conference in Murmansk in October that the company would send east-bound oil shipments along Russia’s northern coast in 2010.
Compared with other sea routes, an Arctic line would pose greater risk to the ships’ crews and the region’s largely pristine environment because of the lack of sufficient search-and-rescue and disaster-relief facilities in the area.
Even as global warming makes the Arctic ice cover thinner, the tankers will likely be able to navigate the harsh waters only during the warmest months of the year, said Alexei Kokin, an oil analyst at investment company Metropol. The longer western route from Murmansk to China would make crude deliveries prohibitively expensive, he said.
“It’s an exotic plan,” he said of sea-borne supplies to China, adding that it would likely only suit minor fields close to the Arctic shore.
Russia’s second-largest gas producer, Novatek, could be interested in sending its Siberian gas condensate through the polar line, Kokin said. The fuel, which trades at a large premium to oil, now travels by tankers that take it around the Cape of Good Hope, making an extremely long trip.
A call to Novatek went unanswered Wednesday evening.
VEB’s board also agreed to lend 250 million euros to a project to build a timber processing plant in the far eastern port of Vanino, Dmitriyev said.
The bank earned 31 billion rubles ($995 million) in net income last year, which made it Russia’s most profitable bank, he said.
TITLE: Ignatiev: Euro Crisis No Threat to Russia
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Russia’s banks and the ruble can withstand shocks triggered by the euro area’s sovereign debt crisis, central bank chairman Sergei Ignatiev said.
“I don’t think all these events will have a strongly negative effect on the Russian economy,” Ignatiev said at a conference in St. Petersburg on Thursday. “The Russian banking system is better prepared for external shocks than it was in 2008.”
The economy is protected by sufficient liquidity, a “much more flexible ruble,” and large international reserves, the world’s third biggest after China and Japan, according to Ignatiev. While the Russian currency reflects external volatility, it can better withstand external shocks than it did before the global financial crisis, he said.
“For now” dumping euro assets in favor of emerging markets “isn’t happening,” Ignatiev told reporters on Thursday. “Right now, there is probably an opposite process at work, probably there will be a small capital outflow in May.”
The foreign currency and gold reserves declined $4.8 billion to $453.4 billion in the week ended May 21, the biggest seven-day decline in four months, the bank said Thursday.
The central bank may re-impose tougher reserve requirements on foreign loans if Russia faces a “threat of huge capital inflow,” he said. “I doubt it will.”
The ruble advanced for the second day against the dollar, gaining 1.2% to 30.8284 at 2:21pm in Moscow on Thursday.
TITLE: State Plans to Woo Foreign Investors With Simpler Rules
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The government on Tuesday outlined a plan to lure foreign money for a faster economic recovery by stamping out the hurdles — such as obtaining endless business permits — that investors have stumbled over.
Voiced by an Economic Development Ministry official in charge of investment, the proposals focus on improving the customs services, cutting red tape, taming taxmen, reducing corruption and opening wide the doors for skilled foreign executives.
The efforts to make Russia a foreign capital magnet stem from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s frequent mantras that the government must compete for investors with the other developing countries after the global economic debacle wiped out much of the money supply.
Looking back, the Economic Development Ministry figured that speculative capital dominated pre-crisis foreign investment because the risks of doing business in Russia outside of its stock exchanges were too high, said Sergei Belyakov, director of the ministry’s investment policy department.
“Something has to be done about this,” he said at an investor conference organized by the Association of European Businesses in Russia, a lobby group that brings together companies like Siemens and IKEA. “You can and must come to us with the problems you encounter.”
One of the measures that the government planned to encourage foreign investment, the introduction of simpler visa rules for high-paid white-collar staff from outside Russia, has already materialized in a law due to take effect July 1.
Belyakov did not say what other specific changes were in the pipeline, just naming the broad areas where federal officials would look to clean up their act.
Some international corporations have ridiculed the requirement for numerous construction permits.
“A low-level customs official at Sheremetyevo can bring all operations of a large multinational company to a halt,” said Oleg Babinov, director of Risk Advisory Group on Tuesday, referring to Moscow’s biggest airport.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: U.S. Poultry Deal Close
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia and the U.S. have reached a preliminary agreement on deliveries of American poultry, Interfax reported, citing Gennady Onishchenko, Russia’s public health chief.
Onishchenko said he met with U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle last week, and the two men agreed on ‘four positions’ that meet the demands of Russian law and allow the U.S. not to compromise its political principles, the Moscow-based news service reported.
If the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Russia’s consumer rights watchdog exchange the relevant letters, U.S. shipments of poultry not treated with chlorine could resume, Interfax said, citing Onishchenko.
Mortgages Doubled
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russian banks doubled the number of mortgages issued in the first four months of the year compared with the same period of 2009, central bank Chairman Sergei Ignatiev said Thursday, without being more specific.
Ignatiev was speaking at a banking conference in St. Petersburg.
Inflation on Target
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russia’s annual inflation rate was 5.7 percent as of May 24, central bank chairman Sergei Ignatiev said in St. Petersburg on Thursday. Bank Rossii aims to keep inflation at 7 percent or below next year. The current rate of money supply growth poses inflation risks, he also said.
Clunkers Plan Ends
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia has issued 160,000 certificates to participants in its ‘cash-for-clunkers’ program, Deputy Industry Minister Andrei Dementiev told reporters Thursday in Lappeenranta, Finland.
The government plans to wrap up the program by the end of the summer and has no plans to extend it, Dementiev said.
TITLE: Alrosa Considers ‘People’s IPO’ to Pay Off Debt
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — State-run diamond miner Alrosa said Tuesday that it might become a “people’s company” by raising funds through a share issue to the public, although analysts cautioned that previous state IPOs may have soured retail investors to the idea.
Alrosa will change its legal status, becoming a joint-stock company, and may sell shares to individual investors in the Siberian republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia, where its mines are located, president Fyodor Andreyev said.
“The crisis is not over, a second wave is expected. In these conditions, the company needs to be able to raise capital, which is only possible after creating a joint-stock company,” he told local lawmakers, according to a transcript on the parliament’s web site.
“It’s easier for a joint-stock company with a transparent management system to raise cheap loans,” Andreyev said, adding that an initial public offering could also provide funds needed to develop a number of iron-ore fields in southern Sakha.
The company’s outstanding debt of 106 billion rubles ($3.4 billion) currently costs an annual 15 billion rubles ($474 million) to service, Andreyev said. The company’s debt grew during the crisis because Alrosa was focused on maintaining jobs and production, he said.
The company, which has not yet announced 2009 results, posted a loss of 32.6 billion rubles ($1 billion) in 2008, compared with a profit of 16 billion rubles ($515 million) the preceding year, Interfax reported last year. Alrosa said in December that it expected net income of 3.18 billion rubles.
Still, opening the state diamond giant comes with risks and must be done gradually, Andreyev said.
“The first step is simply opening Alrosa without discussing the issue of a public offering. Attracting more shareholders and raising additional capital can become the second step,” he said.
No timeline has been set for Alrosa’s IPO, but preparatory work has started, a spokeswoman told The St. Petersburg Times.
Changing Alrosa’s legal status would benefit minority shareholders, who want to sell their shares but cannot do so at the moment, Andreyev said.
The Federal Property Management Agency owns 50 percent plus one share. The Sakha regional government holds 32 percent, and diamond-mining regional districts own 8 percent. The remaining 10 percent belong to smaller investors.
“Ideally, we want to turn Alrosa into a people’s company. A public offering will allow the company’s staff and residents of the republic to acquire shares,” Andreyev said.
A wave of so-called people’s IPOs began in Russia in 2006 after Rosneft, the state-controlled oil company, raised $10.4 billion for 14.9 percent of its shares on Moscow and London exchanges.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in 2006 that Rosneft had attracted 115,000 retail investors.
In March 2007, Sberbank followed suit, raising $9 billion for 3.5 million of its shares in a secondary public offering targeting retail investors.
But the VTB offering in May 2007, which attracted $8 billion, was called the worst people’s IPO after the bank’s stock underperformed the market, causing more than 130,000 retail investors to lose money.
Negative results of such people’s IPOs may make retail investors reluctant to buy Alrosa’s stocks, said Vladimir Savov, an equities analyst with Otkritie.
Investors may also be discouraged by the overall decline of the stock market during the crisis, he said, adding that the IPO’s success would largely depend on the quality of its marketing campaign and the offering price.
The first people’s IPOs may be considered successful in terms of the funds they raised, but further relationships of the companies’ management with shareholders were “disappointing,” said Alexei Navalny, a lawyer who campaigns for the rights of minority shareholders.
Alrosa’s IPO will be successful only if the company’s management takes these mistakes into account and cooperates with shareholders, he said.
But Alrosa’s shares are unlikely to be in high demand with retail investors, Navalny said.
“The diamond business is a very closed [industry] and does not match with the idea of a joint-stock company very well,” he said.
TITLE: Intourist Considers Venture With U.K.’s Thomas Cook
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: LONDON — Intourist, the travel unit of billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s Sistema holding company, is considering a venture with tour operator Thomas Cook Group, Sistema chief executive Leonid Melamed said Tuesday.
A partnership with London-based Thomas Cook, Europe’s second-biggest tour operator, fits with Sistema’s “intentions to buy, merge, sell” as well as develop its current assets, Melamed said in an interview. Thomas Cook had no immediate comment, a spokesman said.
Intourist, the former tourism monopoly of the Soviet Union, provides travel services, hotel accommodation and transportation. The unit’s sales declined 35 percent to $399.7 million last year, according to Sistema’s annual report.
Russia’s consumption “trend is positive,” Melamed said, and market conditions for Intourist are “favorable.” The country’s retail sales rose for a fourth month in April, jumping 4.2 percent, while real wages gained 6 percent, the most since October 2008, the State Statistics Service said Friday.
Thomas Cook would provide investment and technology, while Intourist would hold a controlling stake in the venture, Kommersant reported in November, citing a source familiar with the negotiations.
Sistema, with holdings ranging from telecoms to energy, banking and technology, does not plan an initial public offering for Detsky Mir, its chain of children’s stores, Melamed said. The retailer, which runs 128 outlets in Russia, is looking for “potential partnership-creating deals,” the CEO said.
Sistema’s Comstar United TeleSystems said Friday that it agreed to sell its 25 percent stake in Svyazinvest, Russia’s holding company for fixed-line telephone operators, to long-distance provider Rostelecom for 26 billion rubles ($823 million).
Rostelecom agreed to borrow 30 billion rubles ($963 million) from Sberbank to buy the stake, said Oleg Rumyantsev, a Rostelecom spokesman.
Sistema’s last acquisition was the purchase of a 49 percent stake in oil producer Russneft, which Melamed said might be merged with Bashneft.
“Russneft is in difficult condition; it’s overburdened with debt,” Melamed said. Sistema will seek to restructure the Moscow-based oil producer’s nearly $7 billion in debt and improve operations before deciding whether to merge the assets, he said.
Sistema agreed last year to pay $2.5 billion to gain control of Bashneft and three refineries in Bashkortostan. Last month, it bought 49 percent of Russneft for less than $100 million.
Russneft founder Mikhail Gutseriyev had fled Russia and sought to sell the company to fellow billionaire Oleg Deripaska in 2007 during a tax fraud probe.
Sistema has sold or ceded some assets to repay borrowing. Its net debt rose 42 percent last year to $12.3 billion.
Sistema could boost Russneft output 10 percent to 15 percent, as it has with Bashneft, said Alexei Kokin, an oil and gas analyst at IFC Metropol. Under the current tax regime, Russneft will benefit from access to refining capacity, while giving the Bashkir refineries a backup source of crude, he said.
Bashneft produces about 275,000 barrels per day, while Russneft produces about 245,000 bpd.
TITLE: Gazprom Downgraded on Shale Threat
AUTHOR: By Eduard Gismatullin and Stephen Kirkland
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom was downgraded to “sell” from “hold” by ING Groep as the world’s biggest natural-gas producer may have to lower prices on increased competition from U.S. shale gas and liquefied natural gas.
Gazprom, which supplies about a quarter of Europe’s gas, is facing growing competition from increasing global LNG infrastructure and production from unconventional sources such as shale rock in the U.S. and coal-bed methane in Australia, Igor Kurinnyy, a London-based analyst at ING, said in a report.
“The emergence of unconventional gas poses a serious risk for Gazprom’s oil-linked export prices in Europe,” Kurinnyy wrote in a report dated Wednesday. “The volumes of gas traded on the spot market will increase substantially to the point where the gas spot price will become more relevant than the current oil-based price.”
Moscow-based Gazprom links most of its export gas to oil prices with a six to nine month lag. Brent oil averaged about $79 a barrel so far this year, compared with a U.K. front-month gas price of 34 pence a therm, or about $27 a barrel of oil equivalent.
An “abnormal” gap between spot fuel prices and long-term contracts is threatening investments in new fields and pipelines, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alexander Medvedev said in April.
“As Gazprom’s customers start to switch to buying cheaper gas from alternative supplies on the spot market, we believe Gazprom will have no choice but to offer further price concessions until the differential between the spot and contract prices disappears,” Kurinnyy wrote.
ING lowered its forecast for Gazprom’s long-term spot price in Europe by 12 percent to $285 a thousand cubic meters.
“Lower gas export price assumptions lead to a corresponding decline in our assumptions for Russian domestic gas prices,” Kurinnyy wrote.
“The speed of domestic gas price deregulation and Gazprom’s ability to maintain its advantageous gas pricing on its European exports are company-specific risks.”
The state-controlled gas monopoly has delayed some investments as it waits for global demand to recover. It pushed back production from the Shtokman field by three years. With partners Total and Statoil, Gazprom planned to ship 90 percent of Shtokman to North America.
TITLE: Kingfisher Plans to Invest ‘Aggressively’ in Russia
AUTHOR: By Maria Ermakova
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Kingfisher, Europe’s largest home-improvement retailer, will invest “aggressively” in Russia, where the market is set to return to growth in the second half, Chief Executive Officer Ian Cheshire said.
The London-based retailer, which has 13 Castorama stores in Russia, plans to open a smaller outlet in Moscow “within the next 18 months,” Cheshire said in an interview in the Russian capital Thursday. Kingfisher may use small-format stores as a test prior to openings in other European countries, he said.
“There is clearly an opportunity to open more stores” in Russia and Poland than the four and six per year now targeted respectively for the two countries, the CEO said. “We expect Russia to be one of the highest growth markets in the world” over the next five years, he said.
The Russian home-improvement market may expand between 10 percent and 15 percent this year after being “difficult” over the last 12 months, Cheshire told reporters at a press conference.
The retailer spends 30 million pounds ($44 million) to 50 million pounds a year in the country and may invest more “if there are opportunities,” the executive said in the interview.
Kingfisher doesn’t rule out possible purchases in Russia “if there is an opportunity to acquire an interesting site through an acquisition,” the CEO said.
The smaller format being tested will have about 60 percent of the retail space of the chain’s normal outlets, with a full range of products but less stock.
If successful, the new format may be used in other countries, particularly in Poland, Peter Hogsted, Kingfisher’s international director, said in July.
The retailer plans to open a distribution center in Poland in the second half, which will allow it “to bring in more group-sourced products” and improve margins, Cheshire said Thursday. “It’s a big three to five year opportunity,” he said.
TITLE: The Gambler of North Korea
AUTHOR: By Yoon Young-kwan
TEXT: After a painstaking investigation, South Korea is pointing the finger of blame at North Korea for the sinking of its warship, the Cheonan, on March 26. The debate about how to respond is complicated by the fact that the Cheonan’s sinking does not seem to be a stand-alone event, but was, instead, part of a change in North Korea’s general pattern of behavior. Indeed, North Korea has become increasingly bold and impetuous ever since Kim Jong Il became ill — probably from a stroke — in August 2008.
In the past, top North Korean leaders tended to calculate carefully the costs and benefits when they acted to put pressure on the outside world. And they were inclined to play only one of their “threat” cards at a time. But in April and May 2009, they threw diplomatic caution to the wind, launching a long-range missile and conducting a second nuclear test — all in the space of several weeks.
As soon as the international community reacted, by adopting United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874, North Korea quickly shifted to a charm offensive aimed at the United States and South Korea. The authorities released two U.S. journalists and a South Korean worker whom they had seized in August 2009 on charges of violating North Korean law.
But when the North Korean regime realized that “smile diplomacy” did not achieve whatever it was they wanted, the country’s rulers shifted back to hostility. This time, the authorities froze South Korean real estate in the Geumgang Mountain tourist zone and, most seriously of all, attacked the Cheonan. The regime even dispatched two spies to Seoul to assassinate Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-level North Korean official ever to defect to South Korea.
I believe that this change in North Korea’s pattern of behavior is profoundly related to recent fundamental changes there. First, Kim and his third son, Kim Jong Un, may have become much more confident as a result of North Korea’s emergence as a de facto nuclear state. They seem to believe that possession of nuclear weapons provides them with far wider room for strategic and tactical boldness. After all, they achieved what they wanted in defiance of enormous international pressure and even succeeded in transferring nuclear technology to Syria several years ago without being punished. Given such a run of successful gambles, why be timid?
The second change concerns Kim Jong Il’s successor. North Korea’s new boldness may reflect Kim’s wish to polish the image of 26-year-old Kim Jong Un as a strong and decisive leader. Or, it may be that all of the provocations that have followed Kim Jong Il’s illness may be the work of Kim Jong Un himself. In other words, the process of power transfer may be progressing much faster than anyone outside of North Korea has guessed.
Finally, long-term mismanagement and international sanctions have pushed the North Korean economy to the brink of collapse. As a result, the regime may be trying to divert people’s attention from internal difficulties and push them to unite behind the emerging new leader.
The attack on the Cheonan may have been particularly useful in cementing the regime’s hold on the military, which felt disgraced by North Korea’s inept performance in a confrontation with the South Korean navy near the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea in November 2009. But, I believe that this is probably a secondary motive for the attack on the Cheonan.
The problem is that all three factors — nuclear-armed boldness, the succession and economic malaise — will continue to influence North Korea’s behavior for the time being. Without a strong and internationally coordinated response to the sinking of the Cheonan, such reckless provocations are not only likely to continue, but they may become more frequent.
Thus, South Korea and the international community must respond firmly. The planned joint South Korea-U.S. military exercise near the Demilitarized Zone and joint anti-submarine exercise at the Northern Limit Line should be carried out as soon as possible. The UN Security Council should remain firm in condemning North Korea’s brutal attack on the Cheonan. Making North Korea pay a high economic cost for its rash behavior should be considered as well.
All of these options are, however, short-term responses and will likely be insufficient to bringing about any serious change in North Korea. A more fundamental, long-term strategy is needed to face the new reality and achieve lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
One of the messages that Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered to Kim Jong Il at their bilateral summit on May 5 — concerning North Korea’s need to launch serious economic reform and open up to the world — has provided a clue as to how to move forward. So far, the international community has focused mainly on the immediate concern of denuclearizing North Korea. But this merely addresses the symptom, not the disease. It is time for the international community — particularly China, Russia, the United States, Japan and South Korea — to devote similar diplomatic effort to persuading and pressuring North Korea to reform and open its economy.
The world must develop a more carefully calibrated policy toward North Korea, one aimed at simultaneously implementing denuclearization and economic reform. The added benefit of such an approach is that it is far more likely to gain Chinese support than today’s single-minded focus on denuclearization.
Yoon Young-kwan is a former foreign minister of South Korea. © Project Syndicate
TITLE: Time to Let the North Caucasus Go
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Is Russia losing the North Caucasus? To answer this question, we must answer another question: What are the terrorists trying to achieve by detonating bombs in the Moscow metro?
Answer: They want Allah, not Russia, to rule the North Caucasus. They hate the West and despise both Putin’s rule and democracy. The Constitution states that the people rule, but Muslim fundamentalists insist that only Allah should rule, and they condone murder and kidnapping to achieve their goals. That they kill non-Muslim infidels is a given, but they also kill Muslims whom the fundamentalists consider infidels.
As an ideology, the Wahhabi movement is just as widespread in the 21st century as socialism was in the early 20th century. But would it be correct to say Russia and the United States are suffering from the same infectious disease?
Absolutely not. In the United States, terrorist attacks occur about once every five years, but in the North Caucasus they occur every five minutes. Under former President Boris Yeltsin, political Islam was a relatively marginal phenomenon, but after 10 years of Vladimir Putin’s power vertical, the situation has changed radically. For example, Dagestan’s Wahhabis were only a marginal force in 1999, but they have become so powerful now that Russia’s law enforcement agencies are afraid to go after them.
In the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, business owners pay protection money to the Wahhabis. When Ruslan Aushev was president of Ingushetia, the republic did not join the war on the side of Chechnya. But during the years of Putin’s power vertical, Ingushetia was transformed into a safe haven for the mujahedin. Even the new Ingush president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, is powerless to improve the situation. It was Putin’s autocratic rule that prompted the militant fundamentalists to grow from a marginalized group to the main power center in the North Caucasus.
If Russia were to liberalize, the situation in the North Caucasus would get even worse. Experience shows that extremists — whether they be social revolutionaries in the early 1900s, members of the Communist Internationals of the 1930s or Wahhabis in the Caucasus — view concessions as an excuse to step up their attacks.
It seems that Russia will be forced to part with the North Caucasus in the same way that France was forced to leave Algeria. This will not lead to peace and tranquility in the region. Either chaos will break out in the North Caucasus or a Taliban-type government will come to power — or both. After that, a new Islamist state will attempt to spread its radical ideology to the neighboring Krasnodar and Stavropol regions, the historical homelands of the Circassians.
Russia will experience the same problems with an independent North Caucasus that Israel now has with the Palestinians.
If Russia does not leave the North Caucasus, one of three scenarios will occur:
A third war in the North Caucasus will break out.
Russia will pour an endless stream of money into the North Caucasus, while extremists extort as much as half of the funds.
Moscow will have to create regimes along the lines of that of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Although Kadyrov has been successful in crushing the Wahhabis, the Kremlin, by financing Kadyrov, has created a host of other problems at home and abroad.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Back in the U.S.S.R.
AUTHOR: By Sasha de Vogel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Mikhail Odnoralov was the wunderkind of the non-conformist art movement of the 1960s to 1980s, until his emigration. Thirty years later, the Russian Museum in conjunction with the Ludwig Museum is presenting the first major retrospective of his work in St. Petersburg, as part of a series of upcoming shows at the Marble Palace on non-conformist art, focusing on artists currently living and working in the West.
At a young age, Odnoralov fell in with the group Left MOSKh, comprised of artists who were frustrated by the limits of official art. By the 1960s, he was known as an organizer of kvartirniki, non-conformist art exhibits held in private apartments. Famously, he helped to assemble an exhibition of non-conformist art in Moscow’s Belyaevskaya Park in 1974; this incident became known as the Bulldozer Exhibition when authorities turned to heavy machinery to silence the voice of the avant-garde.
In 1975, Odnoralov, together with Oscar Rabin and Mikhail Roginsky, caused a stir when they hung a black coat with a bottle of kefir in the pocket and a red scarf on the wall at Moscow’s VDNKh exposition center. Dubbed “Odnoralov’s Coat,” it was reportedly only the second coat to be displayed in a Russian museum — the first belonging to Lenin. A replica is on display at the retrospective at the Marble Palace.
Despite his efforts to push the boundaries of Soviet art, Odnoralov did not completely reject the official system and became a member of the Artists Union in 1968. This dual role allowed him to act as a sort of mediator between the art establishment and the non-conformist movement. Visually, his work is relatively conservative, lacking the aggression of some non-conformists. Photos documenting outdoor exhibits in the mid 1970s on view at the retrospective reveal a short, calm-looking man with playful eyes and a full beard, apparently smiling even as bulldozers roll through the frame behind him. By the end of the 1970s, he had become frustrated by the lack of progress toward reform, and in 1980 he emigrated to the United States.
The retrospective begins with Odnoralov’s earliest works — still lifes rendered in broad strokes from as early as 1961 — then leaps forward to the “Alice from the Lower East Side” series, begun in the 1990s and still in progress. This series shows the artist at the peak of his craft. Each of these works features a fully nude prepubescent girl painted in a gray palette, or a Victorian doll. These figures are set against a refracted field of blues, olive greens and yellows.
At the top of the canvas, a panel shows a scene of 19th-century city architecture that could just as easily be from Moscow as from New York. A quotidian object — cucumber sandwiches or tarot cards — completes the composition.
Odnoralov has said that in each picture, the girl refers to Alice from Lewis Carrol’s novel, “Through the Looking Glass,” and that the vintage dolls and other antique artifacts are meant to recall the tension between the outward appearance and inner emotional turmoil that marked Victorian culture. The nudity of the young girls also activates taboos that are still very much alive in today’s culture. The girls are often shown sleeping supine or wandering further into the picture plane; their eyes are unseen and their gaze never meets that of the viewer. They seem at once frighteningly defenseless in their nakedness and comfortingly safe, insulated from the urban world in their own plane of the painting’s visual reality.
Odnoralov’s theory of “equivalent space” creates this effect. According to this theory, which he developed fully in the 1970s, each object represented in the still life occupies its own separate dimension. Objects do not touch or overlap, but maintain a relationship based on the juxtaposition of their planes, as if on different sides of a die. The effect is a sense of isolation and instability. Many of Odnoralov’s works show traces of Cubism, Conceptualism and the work of Paul Cezanne and Kasimir Malevich.
Following the “Alice” series, the retrospective presents the artist’s pre-emigration work. These still lifes are grayer, smaller and less well-defined. “Still Life with Palace of the Soviets” from 1972 poses a dressmaker’s form with a shoe-shaped piggy bank and an image of the never-constructed Stalinist mega-building, against a background of blues. The contrast of everyday objects with “high” or official art, as well as the use of a “picture within a picture” are hallmarks of Odnoralov’s work from this time.
“Retrospective of Mikhail Odnoralov” runs through July 12 at the Marble Palace, Millionnaya ulitsa 5/1. Tel: 312-90-54 www.rusmuseum.ru. M: Gorkovksaya/Nevsky Prospekt.
TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: During the build-up to Victory Day, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko banned all strip shows in the city as well as the name of a pub, which had the misfortune — five years ago — to give itself a German name.
The governor of the Belgorod Oblast in Russia’s south, Yevgeny Savchenko, has gone even further.
In his region, St. Valentine’s Day and Halloween have been declared un-Russian holidays, while heavy metal was almost banned as a “Satanic activity.” The decision had nothing to do with Victory Day, however, but was taken as part of Savchenko’s official plan to ensure “spiritual security” in the Belgorod Oblast.
The plan, which has been “blessed” by a local archbishop, comprises 30 points, from the creation of a “spiritual security Internet forum” to holding a “festival of young Orthodox Christian families.”
One of the plan’s paragraphs bans the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day and Halloween at educational, cultural and other institutions, and orders officials to “conduct educational work via the media about the aspects of the said holidays, which contradict traditional Russian culture.”
In accordance with the plan, Belgorod official Vladimir Shatilo sent a letter to clubs and restaurants ordering them not to host heavy metal concerts. “We were only fulfilling the orders we receive from the oblast’s administration,” Kommersant quoted Shatilo as saying.
“I don’t know much about such music, but they asked us to assist them in preventing Satanic activities.”
After a nationwide media uproar however, the Belgorod Oblast authorities thought better of it and dismissed the ban as a “mistake.”
On Monday, Savchenko’s press service released a statement saying that Shatilo had “had the mistake he committed pointed out to him and offered to withdraw the letter.” Good for the Belgorod Oblast.
Meanwhile, Akvarium frontman Boris Grebenshchikov, an ardent Kremlin supporter during the last decade, unexpectedly criticized the Russian authorities in public last week.
Performing in Vladivostok, he spoke on behalf of the Mezhdurechensk miners, whose protest about the Kremlin’s uncaring response to the mining disaster that claimed at least 67 lives was thwarted by OMON police.
“Just as a shepherd is responsible for his herd, everybody who has power is responsible for every person to whom they are guardian,” said Grebenshchikov.
There appears to be some progress in his views, but there is still something strange about his language and ideas.
His speech was archaic, priestly, pompous and vague, while comparing the authorities to a shepherd and the people to sheep is unworthy of the rock legend that Grebenshchikov is.
This week, don’t miss Enter Shikari. The British alt-rockers will perform at Glavclub on Saturday.
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Revival of a labor of love
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “The Mystery of Paul the Apostle,” one of the new productions featured in this year’s Stars of the White Nights festival at the Mariinsky Theater, is the first full staging of a key work by the controversial Moscow-based composer Nikolai Karetnikov.
Karetnikov, who died in 1994, was successful and well known in his day as the composer of music for many films and theater productions. “The Mystery” captures a less appreciated, serious aspect of his work: In the 1950s, Karetnikov embraced the Viennese music school, becoming a follower of Schoenberg and his atonal system; at the same time, he embraced Orthodoxy and joined the church school of the eminent priest and philosopher Alexander Men.
The theme of “The Mystery of Paul the Apostle” was suggested to Karetnikov by Men and dominated 30 years of the composer’s life. He was convinced that he would never see it on the stage, and he was right. The first concert performance of “The Mystery” took place in Hannover in 1995, and a year later it was sung in St. Petersburg. Both times the work was conducted by Valery Gergiev. This time, in his capacity as artistic director of the Mariinsky, Gergiev has been more audacious and commissioned a staged version of “The Mystery” to be conducted by him and others.
The staged opera, which saw its world premiere on April 14, comprises 10 scenes, which flow without interruption. It has three protagonists: The Apostle Paul, Emperor Nero and his Minister of the Interior Tigellin, a historical figure. The events take place in Rome at a time of violent confrontation between the polytheistic state religion and rising Christianity. The different mentalities and behavior are personified by the protagonists. Their clash is expressed and heightened by the score and the role assigned to the chorus, or rather the two choruses: The Christians and the Romans. “The Apostle” may be described as a choral opera, as the choruses feature in nine of the ten scenes.
Stage director Alexei Stepanyuk makes both pagan and Christian Rome attractive in their own ways. The Romans enjoy life. Everything is available to them: Love, wine, entertainment. All that is demanded of them is to sing the praises of Nero. The Emperor encourages every kind of excess, participating fully himself. The Christians are a strong but officially “invisible” force occupying their own space.
The opera opens with an orgy scene in the spirit of Fellini. The Christians appear from nowhere to spoil the fun, advancing so resolutely that the Romans retreat. The Apostle Paul is arrested and brought to face Nero. This is their first meeting. Their final confrontation at the opera’s close is fatal to both, and the psychological tension is clearly delineated in these lead personalities.
The staging is a logical complement to Karetnikov’s music and the libretto. Stepanyuk has used a technique currently used in many opera houses across Europe, in which TV monitors are placed around the stage as part of the d?cor and show images which clarify and enrich the live action. In “The Mystery,” the audience sees Il Duce giving speeches to the masses in fascist Italy, followed by the reading of the Epistles to the Corinthians and the burning of Rome.
The music Karetnikov assigned to Paul is solemn, ponderous and momentous, while Nero’s part is peppered with short, abrupt motifs and jumps in range into falsetto, highlighting his volatility and imbalance. The Christians’ choral score is based on religious psalms, while that of the Romans is far more vigorous, loud and march-like. One particularly interesting feature is the tango motif performed on an acoustic piano heard at the moment of Nero’s death.
The stage director positioned the choruses on the second dress circle, and the Christians’ chorus at the conclusion of the opera sounded as though it were coming from the sky. Winged cherubs help the murdered Christians back to their feet and lead them to the other world at the conclusion of the opera as the strains of a Hallelujah gradually fade away.
Stepanyuk’s restrained and ascetic staging is aided substantially by some interesting scenery from set designer Semyon Pastukh. The main props on the stage are columns, whose significance varies according to the action, representing Nero’s palace, a Roman temple or church, or a street in Rome. At certain moments they scintillate, darken or burn red. The stage designs and costumes are dominated by deep red and blue and lashings of gold. The Christians, in contrast, wear somber gray tunics.
The performances of the lead singers at the premiere deserved the highest praise. Artyom Melnikhov as Nero rightfully drew the most vigorous audience approval for both vocal accomplishment and impressive acting, despite the fact that he is still a student at the Conservatory. His adversary Paul, played by Oleg Sychev, and Tigellin, by Yadgarbek Yuldashev, also demonstrated high talent by mastering what is a very complex score. The production proves that a new generation of Russian singers has arrived which is ready to meet the challenges posed by late 20th-century composers, as well as by our contemporaries.
The youthfulness of the production also extends to the conductor Pavel Petrenko, who drew a fine sound from the pit in the first performances. For his part, the chorus master did an excellent job preparing his team for what was a very demanding supporting role.
The Mariinsky is to be commended for offering St. Petersburg audiences an overdue homage to Nikolai Karetnikov.
The next performance of “The Mystery of Paul the Apostle” is on June 5 at the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall.
TITLE: Hidden delight
AUTHOR: By Dominique Mosbergen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Geogian restaurant Kinza, which opened almost a year ago, is unfortunately located in the glass-and-metal ensemble that is LenExpo, the sprawling multi-building complex of offices and convention halls situated on the northwestern edge of Vasilyevsky Island in the Primorskaya neighborhood.
In keeping with the location beside the old Passenger Port, a branch of the Central Naval Museum is also located on the premises. So when heading to Kinza, don’t be too surprised when you come face to face with an enormous submarine — a Soviet relic from WWII — which sits rather nonchalantly in the LenExpo parking lot. Continue past the gargantuan watercraft and you will soon find yourself standing by a quiet marina, complete with burnished catamarans and yachts. And there, facing out onto the sparkling water, is Kinza.
Unlike the stark, futuristic architecture of the building it is housed in, Kinza’s interior — bedecked with wood-paneled ceilings and floors, exposed brick walls and picture windows — is at once both inviting and elegant. The classic d?cor, which comfortably mixes rustic touches with modern fixtures, is fitting for the polished business crowd that frequents the restaurant.
While the ambience of the place will impress, it is the quality of service that will probably first catch your attention, for the service at Kinza is quite impeccable. Vigilant but not intrusive, the waiters are attentive, friendly and exceedingly helpful.
Though the bilingual menu generally has clear descriptions of each food item, the waiter will cheerfully answer your questions about some of the more unfamiliar dishes — such as chikhirtma (300 rubles, $10), a traditional Georgian spicy soup, complete with melt-in-the-mouth hunks of lamb, or tobacco chicken (580 rubles, $18), which the waiter will tell you is very delicious, not cooked in tobacco and involves a very simple preparation of frying chicken in butter, salt and pepper.
For wine lovers, Kinza has a respectable wine list. A glass of house red or white costs 110 rubles ($3.50), while a bottle of the most expensive red (Tignanello Toscana) could set you back 9,200 rubles ($295) and a bottle of the cheapest white (Petit Chablis Regnard) will cost you 1,600 rubles ($50).
But if wine is not your cup of tea, there is also a sizeable selection of spirits and liqueurs to choose from, as well as a small offering of beers.
The food menu is not extensive, but substantial — with a decent selection of cold and hot starters (including three spicy meat-based traditional soups (300-350 rubles, $10-$12), which come complete with a special soup bib), entr?es and desserts. Unfortunately for vegetarians, there are no vegetarian entr?es.
However, even for vegetarians, it may be worth the trek to LenExpo to sample (or devour, more likely) Kinza’s mouth-watering khachapuri (300-500 rubles, $10-$16), a traditional Georgian stuffed bread. Golden brown and oozing with melted cheese, the khachapuri proved to be the perfect complement to the Georgian salad (200 rubles, $6), served with a mildly-spiced light cream vinaigrette reminiscent of coconut chutney. Other than a few other salad options, vegetarians may also enjoy the stuffed tomatoes (200 rubles, $6) and the Salhino mushrooms (300 rubles, $10), champignons stewed with pot-herbs and spices.
However, at Kinza (whose name means ‘coriander’), the carnivore is clearly king. There is a wide range of shashlik, including lamb (750 rubles, $24) and veal (650 rubles, $20). You could also get the shashlik assortment — a hearty portion of lamb, pork and veal for two (1,400 rubles, $45). There is also a variety of traditional dishes to choose from, such as the lamb Chakapuli (500 rubles, $16) — a rich combination of succulent, but gamey, hunks of lamb and a lightly-spiced spinach-leek-onion broth.
For the more adventurous, there is the cheekily named Clever Mushrooms (400 rubles, $13) — a combination of beef brains and champignons — or the koochmachi (300 rubles), which sees the unlikely union of chicken liver and pomegranate.
Try to keep some space for dessert, for the Napoleon (200 rubles. $6) will undoubtedly be a treat to remember. A misnomer, for Kinza’s Napoleon is not the mille-feuille/custard slice that one would expect, this Napoleon was a gigantic mass of perfectly flaky puff pastry stuffed with creamy cold custard.
TITLE: Talk of the town
TEXT: Back by popular request, our Talk of the Town section will be giving you regular updates on the places to go for some great food, and the places where food poisoning is a genuine threat; the places where you can expect a great atmosphere, and the places best cordoned off, marked hazardous and patrolled by the OMON’s finest.
The Borsalino Restaurant at the Angleterre Hotel may be well worth a visit in June. Firstly, it still has a cracking view onto St. Isaac’s Sqaure, and secondly the restaurant’s new head chef, Antonio Voci, is currently taking diners on a culinary excursion through the regions of his native Italy. Each month will see ingredients, recipes and culinary traditions from a different region.
In May, Voci took us on a brisk jaunt to Liguria, an area that apparently “is often described as the most picturesque and beautiful stretch of Europe’s coast.” Have these people never been to the Baltic?
Being a coastal region, Liguria is strong on seafood (apparently, the locals refer to many of the dishes served there as “welcome home food,” being prepared by those left on shore for when their fisher-folk return). On our May trip we tried Grilled striped mullet and Ligurian-style dried cod stuffed with zucchini, both of which were excellent, and Trofie pasta made by Voci himself, which will long be remembered.
If truth be told, however, the real hit was the focaccia bread with cheese. This staple of Italian cuisine actually hails from Genoa, the capital of Liguria. The flat, oven-baked bread with olive oil we tried has only one real competitor in the cheese-bread stakes, and that’s khachapuri from Georgia. That, alas, is a subject for another column.
June, however, brings a new region — Lombardia — and a new menu. This mountainous area lies in the north of Italy, and again geography has played an important role in the formation of the local cuisine, the PR puff tells us. Apparently, meat dishes, dairy products and freshwater fish are popular in the hillier part of the region, while in the flatter south corn, asparagus and rice are grown, with rice dishes being key to the local recipes. In a word, this means risotto, and that means in June, at Borsalino, there’s marinated eel ceviche, Risotto alla Milanese, buckwheat flour pizzoccheri, Milan-style Ossobucco and stewed Strocotto beef with celery and Gorgonzola cheese to look forward to.
The boys and girls from Ginza Project, who recently scored another palpable hit with Capuletti on Bolshoi Prospekt on the Petrograd Side, have some more news for us. June 3 will see the launch of their long-awaited restaurant boat, the Volga-Volga, which seats 120, is into karaoke and has an open deck on which to dance the night away. Just in time for the White Nights.
To share news about the local
restaurant/bar scene in Talk Of the Town, send information to tot@sptimes.ru
TITLE: North, South Step Up Tension in Korean Waters
AUTHOR: By Kelly Olsen
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEOUL — South Korean warships fired guns and dropped anti-submarine bombs in a large-scale military exercise Thursday, a week after Seoul accused North Korea of shooting a torpedo that sank a navy frigate in March.
The military pushed ahead with the show of force despite warnings from the North that the exercise would bring the peninsula to the brink of war.
North Korean reaction was swift. It declared it would scrap an accord with the South designed to prevent armed clashes at their maritime border, and warned of “immediate physical strikes” if any South Korean ships enter its waters.
A multinational team of investigators announced May 20 that a North Korean torpedo brought down the Cheonan, killing 46 sailors. Seoul announced a series of punitive measures, including slashing trade and resuming anti-Pyongyang propaganda over radio and loudspeakers aimed at the North.
North Korea has denied attacking the Cheonan on March 26 and said it would abandon a 2004 accord that covered disputed western waters where the Koreas have fought three bloody sea battles since 1999 and near where the Cheonan sank.
Inter-Korean political and economic ties have been steadily deteriorating since the February 2008 inauguration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who vowed a tougher line on the North and its nuclear program. The sinking of the Cheonan has returned military tensions — and the prospect of armed conflict — to the fore.
Off the west coast, 10 warships, including a 3,500-ton destroyer, fired artillery and other guns and dropped anti-submarine bombs during a one-day exercise to boost readiness, the navy said.
South Korea also is planning two major military drills with the U.S. by July in a display of force intended to deter future aggression by North Korea, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
General Walter Sharp, chief of the 28,500 American troops in South Korea, said the United States, South Korea and other members of the UN Command “call on North Korea to cease all acts of provocation and to live up to the terms of past agreements, including the armistice agreement.”
TITLE: Gulf Oil Spill Now Worst In History
AUTHOR: By Ben Nuckols and Greg Bluestein
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROBERT, Louisiana — BP hoped to find out on Thursday afternoon if a stream of mud will finally end its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a five-week disaster that was putting other U.S. offshore drilling projects on hold as far away as Alaska.
President Barack Obama was due to announce Thursday that a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling permits will be continued for six months while a presidential commission investigates, a White House aide said.
Controversial lease sales off the coast of Alaska would be delayed pending the results of the commission’s investigation, and lease sales planned in the Western Gulf and off the coast of Virginia would be canceled, the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an Obama news conference.
Those steps, along with new oversight and safety standards also to be announced, are the results of a 30-day safety review of offshore drilling conducted by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Obama’s direction. Salazar briefed Obama on its conclusions Wednesday night in the Oval Office, the aide said.
With the moves, Obama is escalating his administration’s response to the BP spill amid growing criticism about leadership from the White House.
It comes as British-based BP, the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf, was in the middle of its latest effort to plug the blown-out seafloor well by pumping in heavy mud.
If the risky procedure, known as a top kill, stops the flow, BP would then inject cement into the well to seal it. The top kill has worked above ground but has never before been tried 5,000 feet beneath the sea. BP pegged its chance of success at 60 to 70 percent.
The gusher off the coast of Louisiana has spilled at least 7 million gallons of crude into the sea since an oilrig explosion April 20 that killed 11 workers. Dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command aboard the rig impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster.
A BP executive said early Thursday it was too soon to say if the top kill was working and described the maneuver as an arm-wrestling match between two equal forces: the pressure of oil shooting out of the earth and the force of mud being injected into the well.
“It’s quite a titanic struggle of forces, and it’s going to go slow,” BP managing director Bob Dudley told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said engineers would not know until at least Thursday afternoon whether the latest remedy was having some success.
“The absence of any news is good news,” said Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the operation. He added: “It’s a wait and see game here right now, so far nothing unfavorable.”
Some 100 miles of Louisiana coastline had been hit by the oil, the Coast Guard said.
TITLE: Dunkirk Re-enactment Held
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: DUNKIRK, France — A ragtag band of boats that helped rescue Allied soldiers from northern France in 1940 was due in Dunkirk on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the evacuation, a pivotal World War II moment.
The flotilla of about 60 “little ships” that sailed across the North Sea from southern England included boats from the original rescue mission.
Pushed back across northern France by the invading Germans, some 338,000 British and French soldiers were rescued from the beaches of northern France during the evacuation — known as Operation Dynamo — between May 27 and June 4, 1940.
It enabled the British to fight another day and provided their country with a source of pride in the face of extreme adversity.
For Britons, the phrase “Dunkirk spirit” still sums up defiant courage.
Brian de Mattos’s father Basil was part of the rescue mission, and he was on board one of the ships that set sail amid light rain from Ramsgate in southern England.
“It’s quite an emotional day to be following in my father’s footsteps 70 years after he went out there — obviously in slightly different conditions both in terms of weather and enemy action,” he told the BBC.
Perfecto Palacio’s pleasure boat, which took part in the evacuation under a different owner, was already docked in Dunkirk on Thursday morning.
He had sailed from his home in Spain at the start of the month and was to join the flotilla when it arrived.
He bought the boat about a decade ago and this year marks his second time participating in the re-enactment of the evacuation. “It’s a way to give my thanks to those people that died,” the 76-year-old said.
According to the history of the boat passed down to him, the vessel ferried several groups of soldiers to larger ships before finally leaving Dunkirk. When it sailed for Britain, the 16-meter vessel had 150 on board, he said.
“Can you imagine? With all their ammunition, their arms? It’s incredible,” said Palacio.
The hastily arranged fleet of about 700 vessels, ranging from pleasure craft to fishing boats and paddle steamers and lifeboats, worked under a hail of German bombs to take the troops off the beaches and ferry them to larger ships.
Wartime prime minister Winston Churchill called it a “miracle of deliverance” and the evacuation is seen as one of several events in 1940 that determined the outcome of the war.
Current Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday, “The heroism and valour shown by the people who went to the rescue of the thousands of troops stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk 70 years ago is a testament to the courage and endeavour of British people.”
He added: “Our country should always be grateful to and remember all those who were involved in the evacuation and our thoughts go to all those who didn’t make it home.
“We can all be very proud of the ‘Little Ships’ of Dunkirk and the commemorative events this week are a fitting reminder,” he added.
But Dunkirk residents also have bitter memories of the tragedy they lived through at the time.
Maurice Lemiere, 80, was at the port on Thursday morning to view a collection of memorabilia from the World War II era, part of the 70th anniversary commemorations.
He saw none of the evacuation in 1940, with families having taken cover wherever they could instead in the face of the German onslaught.
The flotilla will return to England on May 31.
TITLE: Poland Welcomes Arrival of U.S. Soldiers Bearing Patriot Missiles
AUTHOR: By Monika Scislowska
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MORAG, Poland — Polish and U.S. officials hailed the arrival in Poland of an American Patriot missile battery, saying Wednesday that the hardware and soldiers close to the Russian border enhance Polish security but pose no threat to Russia.
The Patriot battery arrived Sunday at a base in Morag, a town in northeastern Poland 37 miles (60 kilometers) from Russia’s westernmost point, the Kaliningrad exclave.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the military activity on its doorstep does not promote security or “develop a relationship of trust and predictability in the region.”
Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich countered that “we do not share that opinion.”
“You don’t need to be a specialist to know that this kind of defense weapon cannot be turned into an offensive weapon,” Klich told reporters on a tour of the base, set on the edge of Morag — a small town set amid a rolling green landscape dotted by lakes.
“This kind of weapon does not pose any threat to anybody. It serves the enhancement of Poland’s security and the construction of cooperation and trust between Poland and the United States.”
The Patriot launcher battery — both equipment and soldiers — will be rotated in and out of Poland over the next two years from its permanent station in Germany, accompanied each time by 100 to 150 U.S. soldiers.
Warsaw’s aim is to upgrade its air defense system, part of a larger project of military modernization it embarked on when it broke away from Moscow’s influence 20 years ago. Poland has since joined NATO and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For now, the U.S. has brought six mobile launchers for medium- to high-range Patriot missiles to Poland, but not the missiles themselves — similar to having a gun but no ammunition.
The U.S. ambassador to Poland, Lee Feinstein, said missiles might arrive later. He, too, stressed that the equipment is only meant for training the Polish military and that Russia is not threatened.
“This is an entirely defensive weapons system and they pose no threat to any country,” Feinstein said.
Klich said the Patriot battery has political and symbolic importance for Poland — “political because it’s tied to Poland’s security. Symbolic because American soldiers for the first time will be stationed on Polish soil for a longer period of time.”
Klich also urged U.S. soldiers to respect Poland’s laws and customs, noting they had arrived in a proud country with a 1,000-year history and democratic traditions going back to the 15th century.