SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1579 (40), Friday, June 4, 2010
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TITLE: Euro MP Visits City To Support Protesters
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Finnish politician Heidi Hautala, who has been referred as the Grand Lady of Finnish Human Rights politics, came to St. Petersburg to support Monday’s rallies in defense of the right of assembly on behalf of the European Parliament, where she chairs the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
Known as Strategy 31 after Article 31 of the Constitution that guarantees the right to freedom of assembly, the rallies were conceived by oppositional politician and author Eduard Limonov and draw more and more participants as time passes. The first was held on July 31, 2009 in Moscow.
In St. Petersburg, two rallies were held on Monday, one of which was violently thwarted by the police, with more than 100 participants arrested and some beaten, while the other group, including Hautala, was allowed to march from Palace Square to Senate Square.
Hautala spoke to The St. Petersburg Times in the afternoon, before the rallies took place.

<em><strong>What are the reasons for your visit to St. Petersburg?</strong></em>
I often come to St. Petersburg because it’s Helsinki’s neighbor, but I also have political friends here. The particular reason this time is that our friends in Moscow wrote a letter to the European Parliament asking us to come to participate in these peaceful actions, [Strategy] 31. It was not difficult to convince me to come. The European Parliament has many times already voiced its support of these peaceful actions defending the freedom of assembly and Article 31 of the Russian Constitution.
I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry, but I saw that in Rostov-on-Don, where the EU-Russia summit [is being held] today, the reason for banning the Strategy 31 action was that today is the international day against tobacco. It’s a very important day, but it should not be a reason to ban free gatherings. Freedom of assembly is vital; it’s one of the three basic freedoms, all of which are denied by the Russian Federation today to its citizens.
Is there anybody from the EU at the Moscow rallies today?
As far as I know there’s nobody, but I can’t be absolutely sure. You may know that Amnesty and the Greens — I’m from the Greens — are organizing a solidarity demonstration in front of the Russian embassy in Brussels today. I already organized with Amnesty another, very small event in Helsinki last time — I think it was March 31 — and I heard that there’s something in Prague, so it’s really our common cause, and I think all of us from the EU must be very determined to give our full support to our Russian friends in this important struggle.
As you may know, after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya I took the initiative in Finland to establish a network, an association for cooperation with civil society and human rights associations in Russia. It’s called Finnish-Russian Civic Forum, and we have already successfully organized three big events in Finland. 
I have many friends in the Russian democratic opposition and human rights circles. When I was elected back to the European Parliament last summer, I got the wonderful privilege of chairing the Subcommittee for Human Rights. I knew immediately what I wanted to do with our Russian friends and how to support them. We have been very active in the European Parliament, and I must say it’s also been very pleasant to see that the President of the European Parliament [Jerzy Buzek] has at least twice already condemned the oppression of these Strategy 31 demonstrations. So at the highest level, the European Parliament is very supportive of the democratic movement and human rights groups here.

<em><strong>How do you see the situation in Russia — is it changing for better or worse?</strong></em>
I think one positive change that I understand exists now is that there is a little bit more free debate in the media. It’s not just one or two [media outlets], not just your paper, Novaya Gazeta and Ekho Moskvy. I have this feeling that there are simply too many Russians already who want to debate freely. I don’t think that you can stop that. There will be some backlashes, punishments, harassment, intimidation, but I see this as a positive change — more free debate in the media and in the society. 
But then I can give my observations on the negative side. I’ve been particularly concerned about prisoners. I mean firstly political prisoners, people who are convicted on the grounds of their opinions and for being in the opposition. I’ve been closely following two cases in Yekaterinburg — Alexei Sokolov and Alexei Nikiforov. I visited [Nikiforov] in prison in December. I wanted to visit both, but I was not allowed to visit Sokolov. 
This young man Nikiforov is, as far as I know, the first person who has been put in prison on the grounds of the anti-extremism law. This law is very dangerous for freedom of expression.
The Sokolov case for me is a landmark. This young man exposed abuses of powers and corruption and torture in Russian prisons, [things that] should not exist, and then somehow, it seems to me, a criminal case was fabricated against him. 
And I’ll mention a third case, the lawyer [Sergei] Magnitsky. I’ve been in close cooperation with William Browder, whose lawyer Magnitsky was. It’s incredible that a person didn’t agree that their property should be confiscated by state officials, and then the same officials make a case against him and he dies in pretrial detention. I’ve joined everybody who has called for a full investigation into the case. For me, this is a case that could open up how the Russian prison system works. 
I’m not saying that in other countries there are no problems — there are problems — but still the penitentiary system [in Russia] is a big human rights problem.

<em><strong>There were a lot of hopes about democracy in Russia — when did it start to go wrong?</strong></em>
In the West we were all very naive. I was here in St. Petersburg in 1992 because my Finnish and Russian friends organized a big international conference on environmental protection. It seemed that everything would go very smoothly, but then around 1996 I started to hear about people who were convicted for treason and revealing state secrets.
So I perceived a change around ’96. For me the case of Alexander Nikitin [the former naval officer charged with treason through espionage after he contributed to a damning report on nuclear safety within Russia’s northern fleet] was a sign that something was changing. 
Around that same time there was the First Chechen War. I know that many people who belong to the democratic opposition now actually supported the war then, but it seems to me that that was one of the biggest mistakes that has ever been made in this country.
I’ve been very involved with the question of the North Caucasus crisis, and I know many people who work there in human rights organizations.
1999 was a kind of confirmation of that trend, because then Putin took power. I’m very familiar with the story of the need to put stability in place instead of chaos, but I think there is a kind of mythology around this whole issue of how chaos was turned into stability. I think Russia would really be able to speak about modernization if it had allowed more civil freedoms at that time already. Because it’s very difficult to modernize if you don’t allow people to be creative and innovative. 

<em><strong>How did you get interested in Russia?</strong></em>
It started back in the Soviet times. I was very young, and I was the leader of the Finnish Green party, and in 1987 I was invited to the First All-Union Human Rights Conference in Moscow. It was the time of glasnost and perestroika, and so I got to know some of those dignified old dissidents. I could observe how they thought and how they were working. That was also the time when people started to collect signatures in the streets for a monument to the victims of Stalin. So it was a very exciting time. Then, when revolutions in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe started, I was very interested to see what would come out of that. I have a long-time interest in Russia.
One obvious turning point was when the Finnish parliament celebrated its 100th anniversary in June 2006. There was a big celebration in the parliament with guests from all kinds of countries, including the Russian Duma. All the political groups were allowed to speak for three minutes. I made my speech on behalf of the Greens. I mentioned that it was interesting to note that the Finnish parliament, as we know it now, and the Russian Duma had the same origin: The first Russian revolution in 1905, when the tsar had to make concessions. 
But then I said, “If we continue the story, we cannot help but notice that the powers of the Russian Duma have been degraded to the level they were at before the revolution.” And that was a big shock [to the audience].
Finland has this cautious attitude toward Russia. People think that we should not irritate our big neighbor. So the only thing that was reported from the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Finnish parliament was what I said about the Russian Duma. 
The result was that the deputy speaker of the Russian Duma, Oleg Morozov, invited me to see how wonderful democracy was in Russia — and of course, I went! 

<em><strong>What is your book about?</strong></em>
It’s called “Theses on Russia: Stability or Freedom.” Two years ago [when the book came out] it was plain to me what was going on in the North Caucasus. In the book, I asked whether the war in Chechnya was over. My answer was no: It was spreading to other republics around Chechnya, and a lot of very bad things were happening there. And, of course, now — after the attacks in the Moscow metro — everybody has seen that there is real chaos and crisis in the North Caucasus, and to me it seems that this is very much the result of Kremlin policies.
I also asked whether it is true that Russia has to choose between stability and freedom. My thesis is that no, stability is only possible when there are freedoms. And Russia should choose freedom so that it can really be stable.

<em><strong>The photo on the front cover shows National Bolsheviks throwing a portrait of Putin out of the window of the Ministry of Health during a protest against the monetization of the benefits law in 2004.</strong></em>
The reason I chose this photo was that the story of this man, Maxim Gromov, who participated in this action moved me deeply. I was told they bought this picture in a shop: They didn’t take it from the wall and throw it out. He got three years in prison. I met him right after he was released, that must have been about two years ago. 
In any Western European capital, if people did something like they did in the Ministry of Health, it would be considered a normal nonviolent action, and maybe they would get a little fine or something. No one would ever be imprisoned for three years for such a thing.
I saw how those three years sort of broke his life. It’s very tragic to see what the prisons are like, how hard they are on people. But he survived.
I only wanted to show some solidarity. Some people asked me why I chose a National Bolshevik. It’s only because I think it’s such a dramatic example of what the consequences can be for such a normal political action.
I have followed the fate of some National Bolsheviks, and it’s very tragic to me. I’m not their supporter, but I think there’s no reason to ban the party.

<em><strong>Many Western political leaders have been accused of taking a “pragmatic” approach to Russia, buying oil and gas without caring about democracy and human rights in Russia. Do you think that is true?</strong></em>
I think it’s true, but I see a little change in the European Union now. For instance, last week, before this EU summit which is being held today and tomorrow, the Commissioner on Home Affairs, the Swede Cecilia Malmstrom, met with her colleagues from the [Russian] Interior and Justice Ministries. She raised individual cases, like that of Magnitsky — the European Union really wants to see a proper investigation of the case.
I do see that the contacts between human rights organizations and the European Parliament are in some way causing some pressure on our top leaders, who meet at these summits. It is not acceptable anymore that there’s some kind of third-level discussion between officials on human rights two weeks or a month before the summit, and then when the actual summit comes, there’s one sentence and we go on with business as usual. 
The parliament has not spoken anymore of a strategic partnership between Russia and the EU because it sees that strategic partnership is only possible if it is based on common values, and values are not words, they are deeds.
I hope that we can move things forward, and for that we need the support of the Russian democratic opposition and human rights movement. Because if our officials in Brussels see that they are deeply dissatisfied and our actions aren’t helping them, they must change their policies. That’s what we are trying to do.

<em><strong>* When asked on Wednesday to comment about Monday’s rallies, Hautala replied by email:</strong></em>
I was of course shocked by the police brutality, and by the total cynicism of the authorities as they keep on flagrantly denying people their legitimate rights. I agree with Ombudsman Lukin that the oppression of these demonstrations demands an investigation. In normal countries the police are bound by law, and the Constitution is above everything!
But I am greatly encouraged by seeing so many citizens come to defend their right of freedom of assembly. I am convinced that next time there will be many more of them. I feel privileged that I have been able to participate, and will make sure that the European Parliament continues to express its support to the democracy movement of Russia.

TITLE: ‘Productive’ Funds Flowing to Russia
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia rose through the ranks of European countries in which foreign direct investment produced the most jobs and facilities last year, edging up two rungs to fifth place, a survey said Wednesday.
At the same time, fewer executives polled in January and February said they saw the country as an investment haven, according to the global survey by consultants Ernst & Young.
“Russia is climbing the league table,” the annual European Attractiveness Survey said. “Investors appear to favor Russia’s industrial sector, which creates products for the rapidly expanding Russian middle class.”
Britain preserved its top spot in the ranking, followed by France, Germany and Spain.
The survey appeared to count investment projects that got under way to capitalize on Russia’s swelling oil wealth and that continued despite the economic slowdown that hit the country in the second half of 2008 and much of last year. Ernst & Young tracked 170 foreign investment projects in Russia resulting in new jobs and facilities last year, up from 143 in the year before, the report said.
In an effort to present an accurate picture, the figure excludes portfolio investments, mergers and acquisitions, it said.
Despite leading the way, Britain attracted slightly fewer investment projects last year than it did in 2008, with the number falling to 678 from 686, the survey said. Spain also suffered a decline.
Of the 20 countries surveyed, Germany showed the biggest increase, boasting 418 cases of foreign expansion, or 28 more than the previous year, slightly edging out Russia.
Most foreign investors didn’t freeze their plans for Russia, because it offered a stable economic outlook, Mikhail An, who is in charge of investment climate at the Economic Development Ministry, told The St. Petersburg Times.
“Plants continue to open,” he said, referring, among other things, to Wednesday’s opening of a $170 million Kimberly-Clark unit to produce personal care products. “Giant plants are beginning to draw their suppliers into the country.”
Also on Wednesday, Japan’s truck maker Komatsu held a ceremony to inaugurate a plant in Yaroslavl.
Earlier this year, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Mitsubishi launched a $630 million car assembly plant in Kaluga, which will employ 3,000 people when it reaches full capacity in 2012, officials said.
Ernst & Young said the latest survey, which counted 2009 investments, included an “automotive manufacturing facility that created 3,000 new jobs,” in an apparent reference to the Kaluga plant. Work on the facility began in June 2008, but it was officially opened in April of this year.
Ernst & Young spokesman Pyotr Yudin referred questions to 
two company executives, who were not available to comment Wednesday.
The survey did not give an absolute measure of foreign direct investment.
Although having increased in number, foreign projects did not improve the perception of Russia by the foreign business community, the survey showed.
Of 814 executives polled, 14 percent named Russia as one of the world’s three strongest investment magnets, it said. Last year’s survey showed that 16 percent of executives made the choice.
Still, Russia remained the sixth-best target globally for investors, according to the latest survey. The executives, who represented various parts of the world and economic sectors, were also polled in January and February.
China bagged the first prize, with 39 percent of the vote. Western Europe came in second, lagging by one percentage point, while Central and Eastern Europe took the next spot, winning the hearts of 22 percent of corporate decision makers.
North America and India also ranked higher than Russia, which outdid only Brazil in the list of the top seven regions in terms of image, investor confidence and most competitive benefits for foreign direct investment.
Respondents selected three possible answers from the list. Over the next three years, Russia may slip to last place among the regions in the poll, the survey found.

TITLE: Romanov Buried in City
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Grand Duchess Leonida Romanova, who died in Madrid on May 23 aged 95, was buried at the Grand Duke necropolis of the Peter and Paul Fortress on Thursday. Romanova was the oldest and one of the last representatives of the Romanov dynasty, Russia’s last imperial family.
Born in Tbilisi in 1914, Romanova fled Soviet Russia in 1931 with the protection of the prominent writer Maxim Gorky. She first traveled back in 1989 at the age of 75, in the wake of perestroika, and since then had made more than 30 trips to the country as she sought to support a number of charitable and cultural initiatives, many of them organized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Romanova was buried next to her late husband, Grand Duke Vladimir Romanov, the great-grandson of Alexander II.
The memorial lithurgy at the Ss. Peter and Paul Cathedral was led by the Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg and Ladoga. 
More than 100 people attended the funeral, including Romanova’s daughter Maria, the new head of the Romanov Imperial House, along with Maria’s son Georgy, a number of foreign diplomats, representatives of royal families of European countries and members of monarchist and Cossack organizations.
The ceremony was however boycotted by the Romanov Family Members Association, who denied the very right of Leonida Romanova to hold the title of the head of the Romanov Imperial House. In his interviews to the Russian media, Ivan Artsishevsky, the Russian representative of the Romanov Family Members Association, called Romanova a self-proclaimed empress. The association argued that although Romanova was a respected member of the imperial family, her status as the head of the house was illegitimate.
Alexander Zakatov, the official spokesman of the Romanov Imperial House, stressed that while being a strong and convinced monarchist and a dedicated Russian Orthodox believer, Leonida Romanova showed laudable tolerance to people of other political persuasions and religious orientation, refraining from any sorts of political campaigns.
“Since her very first trip to Russia in 1989, she asserted the simple truth that she was not seeking any political power or retributions,” Zakatov told reporters Thursday. “On her last visit to Russia, the Grand Duchess took part in a consecration ceremony of a monument to unknown Soviet soldiers in Smolensk.”
Zakatov said the funding for the funeral came entirely from private sources. “Not a kopeck of state money was spent,” he stressed, describing the funeral as solemn yet modest. “According to Romanova’s last will, the burial ceremony was conducted in the Orthodox tradition.”

TITLE: EU to ‘Study’ Visa Proposal, Quick Changes Unlikely
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The European Union will “study” a Kremlin proposal on introducing visa-free travel, but no changes to tough border restrictions are planned, a senior diplomat said Wednesday.
“A draft agreement was presented by the Russian side [at the EU-Russia summit] and we will study it,” Michael Webb, deputy head of the EU delegation to Moscow, told reporters.
There is no consensus on the issue among EU states, meaning that there can only be a “step-by-step approach” to changing visa rules, he said, adding that the next move would be discussions at the “senior official level.”
President Dmitry Medvedev surprised EU leaders at Tuesday’s summit in Rostov-on-Don by handing them a finished draft agreement for visa-free travel between Russia and the so-called Schengen group of European countries.
The draft, based on a 2008 agreement with Israel, enables government officials to enquire about its fate at future talks, forcing Brussels to regularly explain its position, Kommersant reported Wednesday, quoting a Foreign Ministry source.
Webb admitted that the move was unexpected but denied that it gave extra leverage to Moscow.
“We know very well that they will regularly raise [the subject], but we will respond as we did in Rostov,” he said.
Medvedev said at the summit that the reservations among EU member states had nothing to do with reality and that it was up to the 27-member bloc to decide when to lift restrictions. Russia, he said, was ready to do it immediately.
Several EU members are against giving visa privileges to Moscow before a group of six post-Soviet states with whom the EU launched the so-called Eastern Partnership last year.
They also have raised concerns about Russia’s border security.

TITLE: Advertisements Using Medvedev’s Likeness Investigated
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Anti-monopoly officials have opened a probe into an advertising campaign in the Kirov region that used images resembling President Dmitry Medvedev to hawk garden supplies and construction equipment.
The company, Stroibat Trading House, has posted at least six different billboards around Kirov and placed television spots on local channels depicting a man who bears a striking resemblance to the president, although with a slightly receding hairline.
In the billboards, the look-alike is shown in a hard hat, proffering a chain saw, or sprawled out in the grass with a weed whacker — but always in a black suit with a red tie. The campaign’s slogan is: “In charge of the tools.”
Pictures of the campaign and the video, which features a voice-over mimicking Medvedev’s intonation, are available on Stroibat’s web site.
The regional branch of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service will examine the campaign on June 17 for a possible violation of advertising laws, which ban companies from using images of state officials, a spokeswoman for the service’s Kirov branch, Albina Sozinova, told The St. Petersburg Times.
If found in violation, an entrepreneur linked to Stroibat could face a fine of 4,000 rubles to 20,000 rubles ($130 to $640) and would also have to remove the billboards, Sozinova said, declining to identify the entrepreneur.
Stroibat director Mikhail Malygin said by phone Wednesday that he was the focus of the anti-monopoly service’s check. He declined to comment on why the company used an image resembling Medvedev.
Malygin said, however, that the advertising agency that his company hired to design the campaign convinced them that it was not in violation of the law.
A Kremlin spokeswoman said she was unaware of the campaign and could not comment.
The Civil Code bans the public use of people’s images without their consent, said Yekaterina Malinina, a lawyer at Yukov, Khrenov & Partners. Advertising laws ban commercials that damage a person’s reputation, she said.
While unusual, the probe is not the first time that an ad campaign using famous people has caused a stir.
In February, officials in Omsk hastily removed a poster for a children’s theatrical production reading “We Await You, Merry Gnome,” ahead of a visit by Medvedev to the Siberian city. Local media reported that officials were concerned that the president — whose height has been estimated at 162 centimeters in the Russian press — might be offended.
In March 2009, an advertising agency in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg used an image resembling U.S. President Barack Obama to promote a new chocolate-and-vanilla ice cream, drawing the ire of human rights groups. The poster featured a computer-generated caricature of a broadly smiling figure resembling Obama standing in front of the U.S. Congress.
Several years ago, advertising agency Olimp promoted its own services by placing billboards around the Moscow metro depicting a man resembling jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky flying in a Superman suit above the slogan “Super possibilities.”

TITLE: Water Taxis Offer Way to Beat Traffic
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Water taxis began operating in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
The water taxis may become an alternative to other forms of public transport, which are subject to traffic jams, and to tourist boats, which are 10 times more expensive.
The water taxis are operating along two routes: The Primorsky line from Arsenalnaya Embankment to Staraya Derevnya, and the Central Line from Ploshchad Alexandra Nevskogo to LenExpo on Vasilyevsky Island, passing the Hermitage, Peter and Paul Fortress and the Bronze Horseman.
The trips last from 12 to 15 minutes. Boats depart every 15 minutes during the day, and every half hour in the evenings.
Tickets cost 50 rubles for adults and 25 rubles for children — considerably less than regular tourist boat trips, which cost 500 rubles an hour.
There are also boat services from St. Petersburg to the towns of Kronshtadt and Lomonosov just outside the city.

TITLE: Poland Publishes Records From Tragic Katyn Crash
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WARSAW, Poland — Poland has published cockpit conversations of the final minutes before the April plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski, revealing that pilots decided to land in heavy fog despite warnings from air traffic controllers about poor visibility.
A transcript of the last 39 minutes of the flight also shows that a Foreign Ministry official, Mariusz Kazana, entered the cockpit and made remarks indicating that the president was involved in deciding whether to make the difficult landing.
There have been suspicions in Poland that Kaczynski might have pressured the pilot and co-pilot to risk a dangerous landing to keep from being late to a memorial ceremony for Poles massacred by the Soviet Union in Katyn 70 years ago.
The black boxes, which contain some indecipherable information, do not settle that matter definitively, but they do suggest that the pilots might have been distracted by the presence in the cockpit of noncrew members.
According to the transcript published Tuesday, the dangers became clear about 25 minutes before landing, when an air traffic official told the Polish crew: “The conditions for landing do not exist.”
Later, Kazana, chief of diplomatic protocol, entered the cockpit and Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk told him: “Sir, the fog is increasing. At the moment, under these conditions that we have now, we will not manage to land.”
Kazana is quoted as answering: “Well, then we have a problem.”
“We can hover around for half an hour and then fly off to a backup” airport, the captain replies, later naming Minsk and Vitebsk, two cities in Belarus, as backup options. The crew was also told by the Russian control tower that a Russian Ilyushin plane had abandoned two landing attempts and had flown to another airport.
It is not clear whether Kazana left the cockpit and then returned, but a few minutes later he says: “There isn’t a decision from the president yet about what to do next.”
Polish and Russian investigators have not yet drawn final conclusions about what caused the crash that killed Kaczynski and 95 others, many of them top civilian and military leaders, but evidence has so far pointed to pilot error and bad weather, and the black box recordings seem to further support that theory.
The government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk was eager to publish the report to quell suspicions about the cause of the crash and conspiracy theories that have surfaced in the tabloids. Some Polish tabloids have suggested that Russia has something to hide, even though Polish officials have repeatedly praised how Russians have responded and helped investigate the tragedy.
The 40-page transcript, released in Russian and Polish, showed that the plane’s warning system told pilots in the two minutes before the crash outside Smolensk that terrain was ahead and urged them eight times in the final 16 seconds of the flight to “pull up, pull up” — instructions the pilots did not heed until it was too late.
When one wing clipped a tree, which caused the plane to flip and crash, voices in the cockpit screamed and cursed. That was the last information recorded on the black boxes, which then fall silent.
The pilots were warned several times by air traffic control officials that visibility in the fog was limited to about 400 meters.
The transcript also shows that the pilots were communicating with the crew of a plane carrying Polish reporters that landed at the airport earlier that morning. They mainly discussed the thick fog, with the crew that landed earlier saying the situation has worsened, but also saying the plane carrying the president could try to land.
Edmund Klich, Poland’s envoy to the investigation, confirmed last week that one of two voices in the cockpit not belonging to a crew member was that of the Polish Air Force commander, General Andrzej Blasik. The transcript refers to the presence of Blasik in the cockpit but does not attribute any words to him.
Klich said Blasik spent a few minutes in the cockpit and remained there until the end. “He wanted to know what the situation was,” Klich said.
Klich said psychologists were trying to determine whether Blasik’s presence in the cockpit pressured the pilots to attempt a risky landing.

TITLE: Practice Mission to Mars Begins
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Isachenkov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — An international team of researchers on Thursday launched a grueling simulation of a flight to Mars that will keep them locked in a cascade of windowless modules for 520 days — the amount of time required for a return trip to the Red Planet.
While the experiment will not involve weightlessness, the six-member, all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese will face conditions aimed to simulate stress, claustrophobia and fatigue that real astronauts would face during interplanetary travel.
“For me, it will be mainly my family, and the sun and fresh air,” French participant Romain Charles said when asked what he will miss most during the long confinement.
The Mars-500 experiment is conducted by the Moscow-based Institute for Medical and Biological Problems in cooperation with the European Space Agency and China’s space training center.
Psychologists said long confinement would put the team under stress as they grow tired of each other. Psychological conditions can be even more challenging than a real flight because the crew won’t experience any of the euphoria or dangers of actual space travel.
Well aware of this hazard, crew members equipped themselves accordingly. For instance, French participant Romain Charles said he was bringing along a guitar to warm the atmosphere. Others said they would bring along books, movies and pictures of their relatives.
The crew spoke about their mission with pride and said they were confident of success. Diego Urbina, the Italian-Colombian member, told a news conference it would mean “accomplishing dreams about the future, doing something that no human has done before.”
As part of efforts to keep the crew in good spirits, they will play a match with former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov at some point during their mission.
The facility for the experiment is located in Russia’s premier space medicine center in western Moscow. It is comprised of several interconnected modules with a total volume of 550 cubic meters (about 20,000 cubic feet) and a separate built-in imitator of the Red Planet’s surface for a mock landing.
The researchers will communicate with the outside world via Internet — delayed and occasionally disrupted to imitate the effects of space travel. They will eat canned food similar to that currently offered on the International Space Station and take a shower once every 10 days or so — mimicking space conditions. The crew will have two days off in a week, except when emergencies are simulated.
The mission director, cosmonaut Boris Morukov, said the experiment could be disrupted for medical or technical reasons or a personal demand from one of the participants.
“Each crew member has the right to end the experiment and walk out,” he said at a news conference. “We have had such negative experience in the past, and I hope it won’t happen during this experiment.”
A similar experiment in 1999-2000 at the same Moscow institute went awry when a Canadian woman complained of being forcibly kissed by a Russian team captain. She also said that two Russian crew members had a fist fight that left blood splattered on the walls. Russian officials downplayed the incidents, attributing it to cultural gaps and stress.
Morukov said the organizers had considered some female candidates for the current experiment, but they hadn’t been selected for various reasons. “Selecting an all-man crew wasn’t our goal,” he said.
Other crew members include Sukhrob Kamolov, 32, Alexander Smoleyevsky, 33 and Alexei Sitev, 38 — all Russians — and Wang Yue, 26, from China.
The organizers said each crew member will be paid about $97,000 for taking part in the experiment.

TITLE: Putin, United Russia Ignore Rally Crackdown
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — United Russia has prevented lawmakers from debating police violence at a Moscow opposition rally this week, a Communist State Duma deputy said Thursday.
City police detained more than 150 people at an unsanctioned rally Monday on Triumfalnaya Ploshchad, and about two dozen people claimed that they were beaten or attacked as law enforcement officials tried to break up the event.
Sergei Obukhov, a Duma deputy with the Communist Party, tried to discuss the rally at the chamber’s session on Wednesday, he told The St. Petersburg Times.
But his microphone was switched off by Duma Deputy Speaker Oleg Morozov, a United Russia deputy, because the issue was not on the formal agenda, Obukhov said.
“I congratulated United Russia on the victory for sovereign democracy at Monday’s rally and suggested that the deputies should request information from [federal human rights ombudsman Vladimir] Lukin,” he said in a telephone interview.
Lukin, who attended the rally, told Interfax on Thursday that he was nearly finished with a report on the incident for President Dmitry Medvedev. The document will discuss Article 31 of the Constitution, which grants freedom of assembly.
“I expect explanations and apologies to the people from the police,” he said, Interfax reported.
Protesters have been gathering in Moscow and St. Petersburg on the 31st of most months to demonstrate in support of the right to assemble.
Several deputies have requested that Lukin report to the Duma on the May 31 crackdown and explain what measures he plans to take to guarantee the freedom of assembly, according to a draft order posted Wednesday on the Communist Party’s web site. 
The deputies submitted the draft to the Duma, but a date for its consideration had not been set as of Thursday.
Obukhov refused to speculate on whether United Russia, which dominates the 450-seat Duma, would turn down the request for debate. The Communists will not abandon the issue if this happens, he said.
Meanwhile, the government also appears to be steering clear of the issue.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Gazeta.ru that Putin was aware of the beatings Monday but did not plan to respond. He refused to comment on what Putin thought of the police work, saying only that the rally was not staged in the authorized place.
Lifenews.ru also quoted Peskov as saying Putin had read a folder of complaints from various public organizations handed to him over the weekend by rock musician Yury Shevchuk.
Putin is not planning to act on them because they were not “questions but a simple statement of facts, which does not require a reaction,” Peskov was quoted as saying.
Shevchuk seemed surprised over Putin’s decision to dismiss the complaints, telling GZT.ru on Thursday that these were “real issues” and “a job for the government.”
He has said the complaints dealt with issues such as the environment, mortgages, corruption and even “golden toilets” bought with state money.
Peskov was unavailable on his cell phone Thursday.

TITLE: Foreign Investment Soars on Lending
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Foreign investors contributed $1.1 billion to St. Petersburg’s economy during the first three months of this year — 1.7 times more than during the same period last year.
According to Petrostat, the regional branch of the state-run statistics service, about 88 percent of the foreign capital investment was loans. The volume of bank loans has increased by 3.8 times in comparison to the first quarter of the last year, and 98 percent of loans are issued for periods of more than 180 days. The growth of lending is a sign of economic revival, said Sergei Fiveisky, deputy chairman of the Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade Committee.
About one third of loans ($399 million) are retail loans. Almost 85 percent of the trade turnover is made by large retail chains, which receive goods from producers and pay for them later, said Alexander Khodachek, director of the St. Petersburg branch of the State Graduate School of Economics.
On the other hand, the volume of direct foreign investment into the city’s economy has fallen by 36.7 percent to $133.4 billion, while capital contributions increased by 20 percent to $90.5 million. At the same time, foreign shareholders’ loans fell by 70 percent compared to the first quarter of last year to $42.1 million. Last year the economy was in shock after the crisis; this year banks have got money, but investors are in no hurry to put it into manufacturing, especially in Russia — the risks associated with loans are lower than with direct investment, said Khodachek.
In the years before the crisis, foreign investments in St. Petersburg were rising by 6 to 20 percent a year, and in 2006 they tripled. In 2009 they decreased by 7 percent to $5.5 billion.
About 35 percent of foreign investments ($401 million) in the first quarter went into the manufacturing of food, transport and equipment. Svetlana Palyanova, director general of Advanced Research, explains interest in the food industry as being due to the high expectations for substituting imports.
The most investment — $337.9 million — came from companies from Belgium. $161.7 million came from Belarus, $124.9 million from Cyprus and $108.8 million from Sweden. About $100 million was invested by Korean companies. In September this year, Hyundai Motor Company is planning to launch its car factory at a cost of 500 million euros. A vehicle parts workshop, in which 25 million euros has been invested, has been working on a trial basis since last week.
Bosch Siemens Hausgeraete is planning to open a washing machine factory in July worth 25 million euros. The plant was due to open back in 2009, but the company decided to expand an existing refrigerator plant, the company’s press service said.

TITLE: LUKoil Q1 Net Doubles on Oil Price
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — LUKoil said Wednesday that it more than doubled profit in the first quarter from a year earlier after rising crude prices offset falling production from western Siberian fields.
Net income rose to $2.05 billion from $905 million, the company said in a statement.
The rise in crude prices more than compensated for a drop in LUKoil’s oil output, while the company reined in some spending. Urals for northwest Europe averaged $75.30 a barrel in the first quarter, up 71 percent from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The profit numbers were a “surprise,” Svetlana Grizan, an oil analyst at VTB Capital, said by telephone. “LUKoil exercised more efficient control over costs.”
LUKoil shares advanced 2.6 percent to 1,549.87 rubles in Moscow, their highest close since May 18.
Sales rose 62 percent to $23.9 billion, while oil output fell 0.3 percent to 24.1 million tons (1.96 million barrels a day) on flagging western Siberian fields.
“Production in west Siberia has fallen and will be falling for all companies,” LUKoil vice president Leonid Fedun said at a presentation to investors and reporters.  
LUKoil expects its oil and gas output to increase by 1 percent to 2 percent this year, with crude figures largely depending on tax breaks and the use of technology to shore up production at western Siberian fields, Fedun said.
The producer with the most overseas assets among Russian oil companies has looked abroad for profit and expansion because of Russia’s tax burden and the preference state companies enjoy in gaining new projects.
“We focused on investments outside Russia which are more interesting by profit and productivity,” Fedun said. “Any limitation of access to fields is archaic.”

TITLE: VW Unveils Vehicle Tailored To Russian Market, Roads
AUTHOR: By Olga Razumovskaya
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Volkswagen said Wednesday that it would start taking orders this week for a new budget car designed exclusively for the Russian market.
The car, based on the German carmaker’s Polo model, will be produced in Volkswagen’s Kaluga factory and its retail price will start at 399,000 rubles ($12,500), Volkswagen board member Ulrich Hackenberg said at a news conference, Interfax reported.
To successfully navigate Russia’s famously potholed roads, the new car will be equipped with a chassis with a higher clearance, said Dmitry Fyodorov, deputy editor of trade magazine Za Rulyom.
The vehicle will be equipped with a 1.6-liter engine, producing 105 horsepower, and will be the only budget car in Russia featuring a six-speed transmission.
But the car’s main advantage on the Russian market will be its price, making it eligible for a government program granting subsidized loans to customers purchasing cars for less than 600,000 rubles ($19,200), which has been in effect since last summer.
The automobile will also be eligible for the cash-for-clunkers program, which offers a 50,000 ruble rebate on selected models produced in Russia for consumers who trade in cars that are at least 10 years old.
Volkswagen hopes that the model will make for some stiff competition for other Russian-produced budget cars, including the Chevrolet Aveo, Renault Logan and Ford Focus. The company is even hoping that the bigger engine and European look and feel will allow Volkswagen to compete for customers with the Kalina, which starts at 250,000 rubles.
Volkswagen plans to sell 10,000 automobiles this year and 30,000 next year, Volkswagen’s Russia director Dietmar Korzekwa told reporters Wednesday.
So far, the carmaker’s factory in Kaluga has been used to produce Volkswagen Tiguans and Skoda Octavias, which are assembled from complete knockdown kits.
Car sales began to recover in April after the market sharply contracted throughout 2009. Light vehicle sales grew 20 percent year on year, according to data from the Association of European Businesses, the first increase since October 2008.

TITLE: Kimberly-Clark Opens Diaper Plant
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Kimberly-Clark opened its first factory in Russia and Eastern Europe on Wednesday after investing $170 million in what it hopes will be a launchpad for expansion in the region.
The facility, located in Stupino, a small town in the south of the Moscow region, is one of Kimberly-Clark’s largest capital investments in the last two years, Jonathan Tarr, the company’s managing director in Russia, said in a statement.
The U.S.-based producer of personal care products began construction on the facility, which will initially produce Huggies-brand diapers, in 2009.
Total investment in the project, including infrastructure, amounted to $170 million, but the company plans to increase investment to expand output at the site, chief executive Thomas Falk said.
“Obviously, this site is expandable, so we have a great ambition for the growth of our business in Russia and Eastern Europe, and investment made in Stupino will be an important part of this investment strategy,” he said at a news conference.
Kimberly-Clark launched two manufacturing lines for Huggies diapers and plans to launch additional lines for other personal care brands.
Given the company’s experience in Russia, Kimberly-Clark hopes that its new facility will become profitable “almost immediately,” Falk said, declining to provide a timeline.
The company has seen 10 years of consecutive sales increases, the statement said, and posted sales of $19.1 billion last year, according to its web site.
Taking into account the sustained demand Russia has produced, Kimberly-Clark plans to continue its expansion, Falk said. “We have aggressive plans to grow our business and to invest in building our brands and expanding our franchises across Russia.”
Kimberly-Clark products are currently imported from the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Turkey and Korea, the company said.
The 400,000-square-meter factory will manufacture diapers and personal care products for 12 countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan.
An improving economic environment has bolstered consumers, as declining unemployment and rising wages boost retail sales figures.
In April, the jobless rate fell for a third consecutive month to 8.2 percent, according to State Statistics Service data released last month, while real wages gained 6 percent year on year to their highest level since October 2008. Retail sales figures responded in kind, rising 4.2 percent year on year, up from March’s growth of 2.9 percent.
Demand for personal care products, however, is unlikely to show a big increase by the end of the year, said Filipp Lysenko, a consumer analyst at Financial Bridge.
These products have become a traditional part of the consumer basket in most big cities of Russia, and the demand for them remains stable, he said.

TITLE: Mystery Woman Is Main Sberbank Shareholder
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — A woman “nobody knows” has become the largest shareholder of state-run Sberbank after doubling her stake in a year, deputy chief executive Bella Zlatkis said Wednesday.
Her name is Oksana Ozornina “and it looks like she’s a wealthy woman,” Zlatkis said. Ozornina’s 0.9 percent stake is worth about 15 billion rubles ($481 million), Zlatkis said. “She is not revealing her identity publicly and doesn’t live in Moscow, as far as I understand.”
Nikolai Maximov, founder of scrap-metal processor Maxi-Group, has a wife named Oksana Ozornina, according to Ura.ru news service. In March, Vedomosti reported that Maximov and an unidentified partner used an $800 million credit line from VTB Group to boost their combined stake in Sberbank to 4 percent through investment companies.

TITLE: Government Expects 3.4 Percent GDP Growth on Crude Prices Next Year
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Economic Development Ministry expects gross domestic product to expand 3.4 percent next year as the price of crude oil averages $75 a barrel, a ministry official said Wednesday.
The ministry sees growth accelerating to 3.5 percent in 2012 and 4.2 percent in 2013 as the average price of oil rises to $78 and $79, respectively, the official told reporters, declining to be identified before the Cabinet discusses the recommendations.
The ruble will probably average 29.3 per dollar next year and then strengthen to 28.4 and 27.9 in 2012 and 2013, under the ministry’s most likely scenario, the official said. Consumer prices will probably rise between 5 percent and 6 percent in each of the next two years and between 4.5 percent and 5.5 percent in 2013, according to the official.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said last month that the budget for the next three years should be based on oil averaging $70 a barrel.
Russia maintained oil output near a post-Soviet record last month as TNK-BP raised production and Surgutneftegaz began reversing a decline, according to Energy Ministry data.

TITLE: A Farewell to Nuclear Arms
AUTHOR: By Klaus Naumann
TEXT: As the recent United Nations and Washington summits have demonstrated, nuclear arms control and disarmament are among the top issues on the world’s political agenda. They are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Indeed, 2010 will determine whether U.S. President Barack Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free world will remain a distant but achievable hope, or must be abandoned.
No one should be under any illusions. Even if all of the world’s nuclear-weapon states embrace the vision of a world free of the threat of nuclear conflict, nuclear weapons will remain with us for two decades at least, and even that would require the most favorable conditions for disarmament.
This year is crucially important. The New START agreement signed in early April in Prague between Russia and the United States was accompanied by the publication of the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, identifying the nuclear capabilities that Obama’s administration wishes to preserve for the next four years. Many policymakers hope that 2010 will bring clarity on the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs.
There are roughly 23,000 nuclear weapons today, which is 40,000 fewer than at the Cold War’s height. These weapons’ total yield is greater than 150,000 Hiroshima-size nuclear explosions. Nuclear disarmament is therefore still urgently needed, and prominent politicians in the United States and Germany have produced the U.S.-led Global Zero initiative and created the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, sponsored by Australia and Japan.
The United States, Russia, France, Britain and China — all signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — possess nine-tenths of the world’s nuclear weapons, while India, Pakistan and probably Israel possess about 1,000. North Korea presumably has a few, and Iran is most likely pursuing a nuclear-weapons program. Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev have agreed to reduce their strategic arsenals to 1,550 weapons each — far more than the 1,000 that Obama had in mind, but nonetheless a huge step that could bring about further cuts.
But the road to global nuclear disarmament will be long and bumpy. To begin with, the capacity to dismantle and destroy nuclear warheads is limited, and likely to remain so.
Second, there is the risk that other countries, particularly in the Middle East, will follow the example of North Korea and Iran. The International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament’s report “Eliminating Nuclear Threats,” released late last year, proposes meeting these challenges with a comprehensive agenda for reducing nuclear risks. As the German International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament commissioner, I believe that this report is the first and only one so far to suggest precise and feasible steps toward a nuclear-free world.
The report consists of 20 proposals to be decided on during the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May and ends with proposed decisions to be taken after 2025. It leaves no room for doubt that a nuclear-free world is achievable without any risk to the security of individual states, provided that for the next 20 years or so there is sustained political will around the world, particularly in the nuclear-weapon states. In addition, the report proposes a declaration by these states that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter others from their use, coupled with an obligation not to increase their stockpiles.
For the 2025 time frame, the aim is to reduce the global nuclear stockpile to 2,000, or less than 10 percent of today’s total. A “No First Use” declaration should be collectively agreed upon, in conjunction with corresponding verifiable force structures, deployments and readiness status. As supplementary steps, the report suggests negotiating limitations on missiles, strategic missile defense, space-based weapons and biological weapons, as well as holding talks on eliminating conventional weapons imbalances.
Achieving this ambitious agenda by 2025 would usher in the last phase in the quest for a nuclear-free world, and requires, first and foremost, political conditions that reliably rule out regional or global wars of aggression. Nuclear weapons would thus become superfluous.
Only then could they be banned and their total elimination begin. In parallel, mandatory measures would penalize any states attempting to circumvent the ban, as well as individuals involved in producing nuclear weapons.
Obama’s vision could thus become reality 20 years from now, provided that the United States and Russia take the first steps this year. Immediate further cuts must include tactical weapons, with the few remaining U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe withdrawn in exchange for the elimination of the still substantial Russian stockpile.
But the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe is by no means the first step toward nuclear disarmament. To suggest it as an opening move could damage European security and jeopardize trans-Atlantic cohesion, so the message has to be “no” to unilateral withdrawal, but “yes” to including these weapons in future arms-control negotiations. Withdrawal of these weapons would not mean the end of nuclear deterrence for Europe, as deterrence will remain necessary until the last nuclear weapon is dismantled. But the sole purpose of retaining some degree of deterrence will be to deter the use of nuclear weapons.
Europe perhaps benefited more than any other part of the world from nuclear deterrence because it helped preserve peace during the Cold War and prevented nuclear proliferation. But the time has now come to join Obama and Medvedev in bringing about disarmament. Indeed, without the U.S. and Russian examples, the world would see more, not fewer, nuclear-weapon states.

Klaus Naumann was chairman of the NATO Military Committee and chief of staff of the Bundeswehr. 
© Project Syndicate

TITLE: Would My Flotilla to Khodorkovsky Be Shot?
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Israeli defense forces intercepted a flotilla with humanitarian aid headed for blockaded Gaza, killing at least nine people and causing an international scandal. The activists knew long in advance that their flotilla would be intercepted. In fact, that is how they planned it from the start.
Now I have a question.
Consider former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a man whom I believe the authorities imprisoned unjustly. What would happen if I announced that on a certain day I would crawl into Khodorkovsky’s prison cell to deliver humanitarian aid — and then I actually did it? I would be shot, of course.
What would have been my motivation for breaking into prison? To deliver humanitarian aid? Of course not. I would have done it to provoke an attack and, if I were lucky, to be shot in the process.
If the goal of the flotilla was to deliver humanitarian aid, why didn’t the organizers agree to dock in the Israeli port of Ashdod, which was offered for that purpose? For that matter, why didn’t they dock in Egypt, a sympathetic Arab country that shares a border with Gaza? I’ll tell you why: Egypt didn’t want them, either.
The goal of the activists was not to deliver aid to the people of Gaza but to rack up dead bodies. From the standpoint of the organizers, the ideal ending would have been if the Israeli navy had sunk the entire flotilla.
There is a very good reason why Israel is blockading Gaza. The territory is governed by Hamas, which has the professed goal of destroying Israel and is recognized by some Western governments as a terrorist organization. If activists had wanted to send a flotilla to Osama bin Laden carrying “humanitarian aid” of suspect content, would the authorities be obliged to let it pass unchecked?
Unfortunately, in Gaza we are dealing not only with militants but with a bloodthirsty strategy that long ago abandoned the goal of achieving the maximum possible number of enemy dead. Now Hamas strives to maximize the number of their own women and children killed as human shields in order to win support from the gullible element of world opinion.
The old method was simple: Palestinian militants lobbed missiles into Israeli territory. The new tactic is for militants to place a rocket launcher on the roof of one of their own schools — or better yet, a kindergarten. If the missile finds its target, then, God willing, two Israelis will die. But if all goes well, the Israeli missile fired in retaliation will give the militants the bodies of 10 innocent children to display to reporters.
The organizers of the flotilla are cut from the same cloth. Would it ever enter your head to feel sorry for a man who bypassed airport security, forced his way onto an airplane and then cried “Executioners!” while shooting at the police sent to apprehend him?
But even that is not the most shocking aspect of the flotilla incident. There were 700 people aboard that flotilla. Of course, many were supporters of Hamas. But there were also Europeans. In a world where terrorists destroy the World Trade Center and bomb the London metro — and where Hamas is dead-set on destroying Israel — it is amazing how many idiots can be found who are ready to defend anyone who whines, “The world owes me.”
And this is the scariest part: The flotilla was essentially designed to exploit the misplaced sympathies of gullible rights activists. The militants have mastered a new strategy, and the myopic do-gooders of the world are their willing pawns.

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

TITLE: Wind in the pines
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The biggest exhibition of Korean art that Russia has ever seen opened Tuesday at the State Hermitage Museum.
“Wind in the Pines. 5000 Years of Korean Art” brings to Russia some of the most prized works of art and artifacts from the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, ranging from pots dating back to 3000 BC to early 20th-century drawings on silk.
“We agreed about this exhibition 20 years ago, but it so happened that it’s only opening now, when we are celebrating 20 years of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea,” said Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage, at the opening ceremony Tuesday.
“There has never been such an exhibition in Russia; it will open people’s eyes to one of the greatest cultures in the world,” he said. 
Piotrovsky’s counterpart at the National Museum of Korea, Choe Kwang-shik, traveled to St. Petersburg for the exhibition’s opening, where he explained the genesis of the project. 
“In 1991, an exhibition titled ‘Scythian Gold’ [from Russia] was held in Seoul [at the National Museum],” he said. “The current exhibition was conceived of as a response to that exhibition of Russian masterpieces, and today we are seeing that response.”
The 354 exhibits brought from Seoul to create “Wind in the Pines,” which takes its name from a traditional Korean melody, include 12 items that hold the status of Treasure or National Treasure. The artifacts include finds from archaeological excavations of royal burial mounds, jewelry, sculptures, books, prints, portraits and even furniture.
The exposition is chronologically arranged, opening with pots dating from 3000 BC, and Bronze-Age stone daggers and  horse-shaped belt hooks.
The era of Korean history known as the Three Kingdoms Period, which saw three states coexist on the Korean peninsula from the 1st century BC to 668 AD, is represented by objects including a gold dagger sheath inset with agate.
One of the highlights of the show is a selection of gold jewelry found in the burial mounds of Silla, which emerged from the Three Kingdoms Period as the ruling dynasty of Korea until the late 9th century. The celebrated finds included six gold-leaf crowns, one of which has been brought to the Hermitage, along with a phoenix ornament from a crown, and some spectacularly long, intricate earrings, rings and bracelets. Other jewelry on display includes necklaces made out of glass and jade and curved jade pendants. 
In the center of the exhibition hall, mounted atop a small square staircase, stands a granite lantern for a tomb, illuminated with flickering electric candles. 

At the end of the 4th century, Buddhism came to Korea from China. Its influence on art is illustrated at the exhibition by numerous Buddhist images, ranging from a granite Buddha statue to bronze bodhisattva figures and a bronze Buddhist bell decorated with dragons. 
Several glass cases present the fine white pottery glazed with cobalt decoration that was made in Korea from the 15th to 19th centuries, while the development of portrait and landscape painting is reflected in works ranging thematically from a ferocious tiger depicted in ink-on-paper to humorous sketches of wrestling lessons, both dating from the 18th century. 
A scholar’s corner of the exhibition contains 18th-century books and a metal printing block dating from the 17th to 18th centuries, as well as a large folding screen decorated with images of scholar’s tools.
The more modern items also include exquisite wooden boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl and beautiful ox-horn boxes decorated with animal images, as well as items of wooden furniture.
The only present-day art from the Republic of Korea is easily missed: The entrance to the exhibition, which is located in the cavernous Nikolaevsky Hall of the Winter Palace, is flanked by two large black and white photographs depicting — appropriately — forests. They are the work of an eminent contemporary South Korean photographer.
The exhibition is being billed as a diplomatic project between Russia and its southeastern neighbor as much as an art exposition. Both the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism of the Republic of Korea and the Consulate of the Republic of Korea in St. Petersburg have been involved in organizing the event, and the republic’s ambassador came from Moscow to attend the opening. The theme of culture as a bridge between Russian and Korean people was a dominant theme at the opening, with the ambassador describing the exhibition as a “blessing to the Russian people from the people of Korea.”
The celebrations of 20 years of diplomatic relations between the two neighbors will continue this month and throughout the year, with a performance by the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall on June 11, and a performance of the opera “Iolenta” starring South Korean singers at the Conservatory on June 17.
 The Republic of Korea’s second city, Busan, which is twinned with St. Petersburg, will send its orchestra to the city to perform at the Presidential Library in September. St. Petersburg residents can get a glimpse of life in the city of Busan at a photography exhibition later this year that will be mirrored in a collection of photographs of St. Petersburg sent to its twin. 
“Wind in the Pines. 5000 Years 
of Korean Art” runs through Sept. 5 at the State Hermitage Museum, 2 Palace Square. Tel: 571 3420. www.hermitagemuseum.org. M: Nevsky Prospekt.

TITLE: Word’s worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ðîã: horn
Maybe this is a girl thing, but I’ve always been a bit confused by horn imagery and expressions. I get why the horn (ðîã) is a symbol of both masculine strength (visual image) and feminine fertility (it’s hollow). So kings and even biblical prophets have been depicted wearing horns, and after a harvest, tables are decorated with ðîã èçîáèëèÿ (the horn of plenty, cornucopia). But I’ve never quite understood why a cuckold is depicted in horns in many cultures, including Russian. Shouldn’t his horns be shorn?
Etymological explanations cite ancient cultures in which women put horned helmets on their husbands, sent them off to war, and then stayed home to fool around with … whom? “Yippee, Bronwyn, the men are gone! Let’s hit on that 12-year-old kid or that 64-year-old neighbor!” Color me skeptical.
In any case, Russian has a number of horned expressions that are handy to know. Ðîã refers to any kind of horn, antler or spur. It also refers to a musical horn and a horn for tobacco (òàáà÷íûé ðîã) or gunpowder (ïîðîõîâîé ðîã). In geography, it can mean a spur of land, like Àôðèêàíñêèé Ðîã (the Horn of Africa). You might also hear the mysterious expression ó ÷¸ðòà íà ðîãàõ (literally, “by the devil on horns”), which is a variant of the equally mysterious expression ó ÷¸ðòà íà êóëè÷êàõ. Êóëè÷è are swampy places in the woods, where, according to one explanation, evil spirits are thought to abide. Both expressions mean “some godforsaken place.”
Other expressions play on the image of horns and heads. Ñîãíóòü (or sometimes ñêðóòèòü, ñâåðíóòü) â áàðàíèé ðîã (literally, “to twist someone into a ram’s horn”) is to bend someone to one’s will. Çà÷åì æåíå ñêðó÷èâàòü ìóæà â áàðàíèé ðîã? (Why should a wife wrap her husband around her little finger?) Similarly, îáëîìàòü (or ñëîìàòü) ðîãà (literally, “to break someone’s horns”) is to force someone to submit to one’s will or to beat someone. You may come across this in articles about sports and war: Ðîññèÿ îáëîìàëà ðîãà ãðóçèíñêîé àðìèè. (Russia trounced the Georgian army.) Logically, äàòü â ðîã (literally, “to hit someone in the horn”) is to beat or punish someone, and ïîëó÷èòü ïî ðîãàì (literally “to take it in the horns”) is to be beaten or punished. But áûòü íà ðîãàõ (literally “to be on horns”) is to be drunk.
And if you hang around with guys with nicknames like Áàíäèò (Bandit) or Ðûáêà (Fishy), you might hear the expression çàìî÷èòü ðîãà (literally “to get one’s horns wet”), which means to be involved in some crime. Íàñòàâèòü ðîãà (literally “to put horns on someone”) is to cheat on one’s spouse or to sleep with someone’s else spouse. Âàì æåíà íàñòàâèëà ðîãà! (Your wife is cheating on you!) Îíà ðîäèëà ñûíà, êîòîðîãî îòåö íå ïðèçíàë, ñ÷èòàÿ, ÷òî åìó íàñòàâèë ðîãà íåêèé Ïåòðîâ. (She gave birth to a son whom her husband didn’t accept, believing that she had cuckolded him with a certain Petrov.)
In English, of course, we’d probably say Petrov was a horny devil.

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

TITLE: A new platform for modern art
AUTHOR: By Katharine Helmore
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The first private art museum of its kind opened in St. Petersburg on Thursday, housing a permanent collection of exciting contemporary works from Russia’s most prominent avant-garde artists.  
Despite its unprepossessing location above a coffee shop and neon sex shop sign opposite the entrance to Vasileostrovskaya metro, Novy Muzei (New Museum) is an extraordinary space dedicated to showcasing some big names in the emerging contemporary art scene. 
Two floors are filled with a staggering range of work by Russian artists, mainly from the mid to late 20th century, that are only now being recognized as big names. The owner, Aslan Chekhoyev, has quietly been collecting art for years, and bought the building well before he had the idea for the museum. As his collection grew he realized he could house a museum, which he describes as his “dream.” When asked if he can paint himself, Chekhoyev responds with a hearty chuckle. He is a connoisseur, not an artist. 
Chekhoyev is eager to emphasize that the museum is unique to St. Petersburg, insisting that it is the first private collection to openly celebrate the achievements of 20th-century art in Russia — talent that was formerly “forbidden art.” 
“The concept of a gallery just did not exist,” he said last week during an interview at his gallery, suggesting that the reason contemporary Russian artists have taken so long to reach Western radars is simply because “nobody knew about them.” 
The inaccessibility of art from the Soviet period is part of the allure for Chekhoyev. He considers his role important in safeguarding these works from near obliteration, and believes it is a “very important period, which needs further study.” 
An in-depth tour of the two floors reveals a compelling variety, confirming that despite the harsh restrictions of creativity during the Soviet Union, Russia was still producing extraordinary talent to rival the rest of the art world. The 1950s and ’60s were a prolific time in Russia, when new ideology was merging with existing academic realist styles.  The post-Stalin years saw a generation of artists who felt liberated, keen to broaden their experimentation and expand their ideas. 
A painting named the “The Three Mannequins” by Boris Turetsky was produced during this period. According to the museum’s curator, Sergei Popov, the artist was largely regarded as one of the founders of the Russian contemporary art movement of the ’60s. The work — which was only recently discovered by the artist’s descendants, hidden in a run-down apartment block in Moscow, rolled up and discarded in a corner — was almost thrown away. Popov said that Chekhoyev bought it in 2008 for “a pretty serious sum” and went on to spend more than $10,000 on its museum-grade restoration.
It is an impressive piece, painted in gouache, of three outsized figures; the women dressed in bold, Twiggy-like mini-dresses, with haircuts to match. Other works by Turetsky are displayed in Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery.
In the same room hangs “Yalta conference: Judgment of Paris,” a surrealistically stylized piece by Russian-born artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, depicting Stalin, Roosevelt and Hitler — in the nude. Undeniably controversial, both of the work’s creators have lived in America for the past 30 years, and according to Popov now “consider themselves American,” able to record Russia’s history with “irony and attitude towards socialist works.” 
Komar and Melamid have been working together since 1973. Both had works exhibited in 1974, when the Soviet authorities bulldozed the open-air gallery in Moscow’s Belyaevskaya Park, destroying their works along with other non-conformist pieces. Celebrated for their collaborative conceptual works, they have exhibited internationally, including at New York’s Guggenheim. 
Chekhoyev is keen to talk about the first piece he bought, which ignited his passion to collect. “Tyubiki” (1956), by Yevgeny Mikhnov-Voitenko, is a large white canvas filled with a complex array of abstract symbols, some of which to the untrained eye wouldn’t look out of place on the fa?ade of an ancient Egyptian tomb. The work is defined by its abstract content, which is similar to American and European 1950s Abstraction. It is an insightful piece, which evokes a sense of fighting spirit and resilience, even as Russia’s access to the West remained restricted. 
By contrast, a more recent work by Moscow-based Alexei Belyayev-Gintovt depicts the silhouette of a man with a gun underneath an oversized image of a bell, imagery reflecting the Kosovo War conflict. Belyayev is no stranger to controversy, and was awarded the Kandinsky prize in 2008 by the Louise Blouin Foundation for a work from the same series. He remains a rare species in the art world, openly supporting the current Russian government and causing outrage with his depictions of symbols associated with neo-Stalinist ideology. For the non-ideologically minded, his works also holds appeal, with its liberal use of lustrous gold leaf, and bold images using black printing ink. 
Russia has come a long way since the infamous bulldozing incident of 1974. There is more to be done in raising the profile of Russian art worldwide, but recognizing the talent is the first step. Chekhoyev understands that “teaching in Russian Academies is still very classical …. the way of thinking remains limited of course.” But, he says, “if a person is filled with a talent, they will see everything for themselves.”
Whilst many artists in Russia today seek to forget the past and start from scratch, the gallery owner believes that “classical training using the very best techniques of Russian classical painting” remain imperative to the future of Russian art. 
One last question to Chekhoyev elicits another deep hearty chuckle — does he have a favorite painting? 
“It is not right to choose,” he smiles. “It’s like children — you cannot pick one.”
Novy Muzei is located at 29, 6th Liniya of Vasilyevsky Island. Tel: 323 50 90. 
www.novymuseum.ru. M: Vasileostrovskaya. Entrance costs 200 rubles, with 
concessions for young children, students, artists and the disabled.

TITLE: Find the plumber
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The recent arrival of Super Mario, a new Italian trattoria located on Maly Prospekt on the Petrograd Side, marks what will hopfully become the long-awaited expansion of good eateries from the historic city center a little further afield. 
The owners of city restaurants are yet to venture far beyond 
the limits of downtown addresses, with the exception of glam suburban venues of the caliber of Chaliapin in Repino and Podvorye in Pavlovsk.
The restaurant was packed and its hosts even had to turn away some customers owing to a shortage of tables on the Saturday night when my dining companion and I visited the place — a good indication that Super Mario is rapidly earning high marks. We were relieved we had been prudent enough to book a table. Reserved tables are marked with a large green apple, which is removed upon the arrival of the guests. 
Super Mario is owned by the Retseptoria restaurant group, the company behind a string of very successful eateries, including the gourmet French restaurant Retseptoria and meat restaurant Casa del Myaso.
The restaurant consists of one spacious room painted in soft pastel shades, enhanced by subdued lounge music and a relaxed, laid-back atmosphere. The tables 
are placed sparingly, so that even when it is fully booked, the venue does not get noisy and you do not find that you are hostage to the sound of other people’s conversations.
The restaurant’s wine list is balanced between high and low-cost options but is rather modest, with only a handful of wines available by the glass.
The restaurant’s chef clearly favors basil, zucchini, seafood and egg plant, and the menu features traditional, simple and substantial dishes. The menu features a tempting choice of pastas, priced at up to 450 rubles ($15), risottos, a selection of meat and fish dishes and an impressive list of pizzas.
The restaurant’s name is misleading in the sense that there is nothing in the venue’s interior or menu that would play around the theme of the once-popular iconic Super Mario computer game, in which the central character is the short and pudgy plumber Mario, arguably the most popular computer character ever created. Having carefully scanned the restaurant’s walls, tables and other premises, we found no traces of the jolly plumber hero.
To start with, we opted for cream of pumpkin soup (260 rubles, $8.40), which had a tender and delicate flavor and was topped with prawns, and a zucchini pudding (280 rubles, $9), which was a gentle and fragrant dish served in the shape of two soft cupcakes and was rich on the cheese.
The osso buco (550 rubles, $18), a Milanese recipe, was a highlight. Osso buco means “bone with a hole” in Italian. It’s a stew traditionally made with veal shanks including the bone and marrow, which give the stew body and unctuousness. Ours arrived not at all overcooked or oily; the juicy and aromatic dish had a distinct 
and lingering veal and bone marrow taste attuned by fragrant and salty notes of rosemary and tomatoes.
Riccioli with walnuts and four-cheese sauce (430 rubles, $14) was a generous portion in a wealth of rich, thick, creamy sauce, and proved a rewarding choice. The dish, made with fresh homemade pasta, received winning marks at Super Mario. 
The dessert menu features a traditional choice for Italian restaurants, with the obligatory tiramisu topping the list, but we decided to explore this section on another occasion.
Just like its title plumber character, the restaurant starts the day early, serving breakfast until midday. The offer appears to be primarily targeting guests of the new Sharf apartment hotel located in the upper stories of the same building, so bookings are recommended.

TITLE: Rural England Rocked by Shooting Spree
AUTHOR: By Scott Heppell and Jill Lawless
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEASCALE, England — A taxi driver drove his vehicle on a shooting spree across a tranquil stretch of northwest England on Wednesday, methodically killing 12 people and wounding 25 others before turning the gun on himself, officials said. The rampage in the county of Cumbria was Britain’s deadliest mass shooting since 1996 and it jolted a country where handguns are banned and multiple shootings rare.
The body of the suspected gunman, 52-year-old Derrick Bird, was found in woods near Boot, a hamlet popular with hikers and vacationers in England’s hilly, scenic Lake District. Police said two weapons were recovered from the scene.
Eight of the wounded were in hospital, with three of them in critical condition. In a sign of the scale of the tragedy, Queen Elizabeth II issued a message saying she was “deeply shocked” and shared in “the grief and horror of the whole country.” She passed on her sympathy to the families of the victims.
The shootings had “shocked the people of Cumbria and around the country to the core,” Police Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Hyde said.
Police said it was too early to say what the killer’s motive was, or whether the shootings had been random. Some reports said Bird had quarreled with fellow cab drivers the night before the killings.
Peter Leder, a taxi driver who knew Bird, said he had seen the gunman Tuesday and didn’t notice anything that was obviously amiss. But he was struck by Bird’s departing words.
“When he left he said, ‘See you Peter, but I won’t see you again,’” Leder told Channel 4 News.
The first shootings were reported in the coastal town of Whitehaven, about 350 miles (560 kilometers) northwest of London. Witnesses said the dead there included two of Bird’s fellow cabbies.
Police warned residents to stay indoors as they tracked the gunman’s progress across the county. Witnesses described seeing the gunman driving around shooting from the window of his car.
Victims died in Seascale and Egremont, near Whitehaven, and in Gosforth, where a farmer’s son was shot dead in a field. Workers at the nearby Sellafield nuclear processing plant were ordered to stay inside while the gunman was on the loose.
Hyde said there were 30 separate crime scenes. Many bodies remained on the ground late Wednesday, covered with sheets, awaiting the region’s small and overstretched force of forensic officers.
Police would not discuss the identity of those killed, but local reports said Bird killed a 66-year-old woman near her home and a retired man who was out cycling.
A spokesman for the local health authority denied reports that Bird had tried to seek medical assistance Tuesday and said he was not known to their mental health services.
Barrie Walker, a doctor in Seascale who certified one of the deaths, told the BBC that victims had been shot in the face, apparently with a shotgun.
Lyn Edwards, 59, a youth worker in Seascale, said she saw a man who had been shot in his car.
“I could see a man screaming and I could see blood and there were two ladies helping him at the time,” she said.
Deadly shootings are rare in Britain, where gun ownership is tightly restricted. In recent years, there have been fewer than 100 gun murders annually across the country.
Rules on gun ownership were tightened after two massacres in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1987, gun enthusiast Michael Ryan killed 16 people in the English town of Hungerford. In 1996, Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and a teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. 
About 600,000 people in Britain legally own a shotgun, most of them farmers and hunters in rural areas. Witnesses described Bird as using a shotgun or a rifle. 
Prime Minister David Cameron said the government would do everything it could to help the affected region. 
“When lives and communities are suddenly shattered in this way, our thoughts should be with all those caught up in these tragic events, especially the families and friends of those killed or injured,” he told lawmakers in the House of Commons. 
Local lawmaker Jamie Reed said people in the quiet area were in shock. 
“This kind of thing doesn’t happen in our part of the world,” he told the BBC.

TITLE: Turkey Mourns Murdered Activists
AUTHOR: By Selcan Hacaoglu and David Rising
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISTANBUL — Mourners in Istanbul hoisted coffins above their heads to cheers of “God is great!” Thursday to honor activists slain during an Israel commando raid, as Israel rejected demands for an international panel to investigate its deadly seizure of an Gaza-bound aid ship.
Some 10,000 people turned out for the funeral of eight of the nine activists killed in Monday’s pre-dawn military takeover of six aid ships — eight Turks and an American of Turkish origin. The funeral came after thousands jammed Istanbul’s main square overnight to welcome home hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists plucked from the aid boats then expelled by Israel.
The crowd prayed before eight Turkish and Palestinian flag-draped coffins lined up in a row outside Istanbul’s Fatih mosque in a traditional service for the dead.
“Our friends have been massacred,” Bulent Yildirim, the head of the Islamic charity group IHH that organized the flotilla, told the crowd.
“We became martyrs,” he said, to shouts of “God is great!” from the mourners, who then carried the coffins through the crowd to cars to be taken for burial.
A ninth victim, a Turkish man, was to have a separate service on Friday.
Earlier, Turks flooded Istanbul’s main Taksim Square in the middle of the night before moving to Istanbul airport to welcome home the activists. One large banner read “Murderous Israelis: Take your hands off our ships” while others in the crowd held signs reading “From now on, nothing will be the same” and “Intifada is everywhere — at land and at sea” — in reference to the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
All of the nine activists died from gunshot wounds — some from close range — according to initial forensic examinations done in Turkey after the bodies were returned, NTV television reported, citing unidentified medical sources.
Israeli officials have insisted that their military already is investigating the raid and the country is capable of conducting a credible review.
“It is our standard practice after military operations, especially operations in which there have been fatalities, to conduct a prompt, professional, transparent and objective investigation in accordance with the highest international standards,” government spokesman Mark Regev said.
Another official in the Israeli prime minister’s office said there would be no separate international investigation. He spoke on condition of anonymity pending an official decision.
Israel maintains that the commandos only used their pistols as a last resort after they were attacked, and released a video showing soldiers in riot gear descending from a helicopter into a crowd of men with sticks and clubs. Three or four activists overpowered each soldier as he landed.

TITLE: Catholic Bishop Stabbed to Death in Turkey
AUTHOR: By Suzan Fraser
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ANKARA, Turkey — A Roman Catholic bishop was stabbed to death in southern Turkey on Thursday, a day before he was scheduled to leave for Cyprus to meet with the pope, officials and reports said.
Luigi Padovese, the pope’s apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was attacked outside his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun. Dogan news agency video footage of the scene showed the bishop lying dead in front of a building.
Mehmet Celalettin Lekesiz, the governor for the province of Hatay, said police immediately caught the suspected killer.
He said the man, identified only as Murat A., was Padovese’s driver for the last four and a half years and was mentally unstable.
“The initial investigation shows that the incident is not politically motivated,” Lekesiz said. “We have learned that the suspect had psychological problems and was receiving treatment.”
Padovese, who is the equivalent of the bishop for the Anatolia region, was scheduled to leave for Cyprus on Friday to meet with the pope, who is visiting the island, and fellow bishops from around the region for preparations before the church’s synod of bishops on the Middle East. The Synod is scheduled for October.
No one answered phones at his church in Iskenderun.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told The Associated Press in Rome that the Vatican felt “immense pain, consternation, bewilderment and stupor” over the death and noted that it showed the “difficult conditions” that the Catholic community in the region lives in.
He said the pope’s upcoming visit to Cyprus and the upcoming synod of bishops on the Middle East showed “how the universal church is in solidarity with this community.”
The killing is the latest in a string of attacks in recent years on Christians in Turkey, where Christians make up less than 1 percent of the 70 million population.
In 2007, a Roman Catholic priest in the western city of Izmir, Adriano Franchini, was stabbed and slightly wounded in the stomach by a 19-year-old man after Sunday Mass. The man was arrested.
The same year, a group of men entered a Bible-publishing house in the central Anatolian city of Malatya and killed three Christians, including a German national. The five alleged killers are now standing trial for murder.
The killings — in which the victims were tied up and had their throats slit — drew international condemnation and added to Western concerns about whether Turkey can protect its religious minorities.
In 2006, amid widespread anger in Islamic countries over the publication in European newspapers of caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, a 16-year-old boy shot dead a Catholic priest, Father Andrea Santoro, as he prayed in his church in the Black Sea city of Trabzon. The boy was convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
In a 2006 telephone interview with The Associated Press, following another knife attack that injured another priest, Padovese expressed concern over the safety of Catholics priests in Turkey.
“The climate has changed,” he said. “It is the Catholic priests that are being targeted.”

TITLE: Gunman Kills 2 In Brussels Court
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS — A lone gunman killed a magistrate and a clerk in a Brussels courthouse Thursday then fled on foot, setting off a manhunt in the center of the Belgian capital.
Officials were unable to give any details about the gunman’s identity or a possible motive for the slayings, which took place at 11:23 a.m. as the gunman attended a morning hearing.
“He was present at the outset of the hearing,” said Jean-Marc Meilleur, the spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor’s office. “Toward the end of the session, he pulled a gun. Shots were fired, after which the killer fled.”
Meilleur told a news conference that “the gunman did not speak” during the hearing. Belgian media identified the dead magistrate as Isabelle Brandon and her clerk as Andre Bellemans, a justice of the peace, who hears minor civil cases often involving quarreling neighbors or rent and credit disputes under 1,860 euros ($2,280).
The slayings showed the need for much stricter security in Belgian courthouses, Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck said.