SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1588 (49), Friday, July 2, 2010
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TITLE: Chaos As Customs Union
Kicks Off
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Confusion surrounds the new rules governing the customs union among Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus that went into effect on Thursday, as businesses struggle to understand the new regulations and Belarus waffles over its future role in the grouping.
In November, the three countries agreed to form a customs union, which went into effect on Jan. 1. Under the terms of the union, the members adopted a unified system of tariffs, which utilized more than 90 percent of Russia’s duty structure.
The Unified Customs Code took effect on July 1, according to the November agreement, and will govern the rules for customs clearance and control, bringing all the member states under a unified system.
But the new rules are a source of confusion for many of the country’s small business owners, many of whom met with government officials on Wednesday to voice their concern.
“It’s always frightening when the rules of the game change, especially of such a complicated game as external economic activity,” said Alexander Onishchyuk, a co-chairman of the foreign trade committee at Opora, Russia’s main small business lobby group.
For starters, the bill regulating the enforcement of the new Customs Code has not even got its final approval from the State Duma, which means that the new regulations will be operating for several months before having legal enforcement mechanisms.
The bill has been passed in a first reading, but isn’t expected to be passed in a third and final reading until fall.
In addition, until the bill is signed into law, both the old and the new customs codes will be operational, forcing businesses to look to the Federal Customs Service for guidance on which rules to follow from which code.
The service has published instructions on its web site, explaining how the old Customs Code will be enforced in terms of the new one.
“In order for businesses not to be confused over which norms may be enforced and which may not be enforced, we have prepared instructions,” said Dmitry Kotikov, a spokesman for the service.
The service has also sent instruction letters to all the regional customs bodies, he said.
Ultimately, it’s the businesses’ responsibility to get acquainted with the new rules as the regional customs offices prepare for the change in legislation, he said.
The service was also due to launch a 24-hour hotline on Thursday that will provide information on enforcing customs union rules.
To top it all off, it’s not even clear yet which countries will be abiding by the new rules. Belarus has been giving mixed signals about its intention to ratify.
In May, Russia and Kazakhstan agreed to launch the union without Belarus’ participation after negotiations among the countries broke down when Moscow refused to cancel the export duties it charges on the oil it sells to Minsk.
Since then, Belarus has announced its intention to work through the differences, but the Belarussian parliament declined to ratify the Customs Code on Wednesday as expected, meaning that the union went into force Thursday without it.
Belarus said Wednesday that a decision on the code would be made by July 5.
“You will learn everything on July 4 to 5, maybe later,” Belarus First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said, RIA-Novosti reported. “Everything depends on [Russia’s] decision on oil products duties,” he told reporters.
Semashko said imposing duties on oil products was “absolutely illegal” and that Belarus was ready to wait for Russia to change its position on the fees. “Remove these things, and then we’ll be ready to sign,” he said.
The upshot of all the confusion is that a number of Russian firms don’t plan to import actively over the next two month, Onishchyuk said.
“Such companies have built up their inventories in advance, since they know it’s better not to be involved in foreign trade while the rules are changing,” he told The St. Petersburg Times.
The lack of information about the new rules is among the main problems the business community is facing, said Marina Lyakisheva, a customs law adviser with DLA Piper, who also attended the meeting.
Businessmen demonstrated “an absolute unawareness” of the rules that went into effect on Thursday, she said.
But they weren’t the only ones. Regional customs officers haven’t received any instructions on how to implement the new rules either.
“We’ll work like we did before,” said an officer at a customs post in the Smolensk region, which borders Belarus.
TITLE: On Heels of Spy Case, Clinton Goes East
AUTHOR: By Robert Burns
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — On the heels of a sensational Russian spy scandal, Hillary Rodham Clinton is making her first visit as secretary of state to four post-Soviet states, each with a direct stake in the Obama administration’s campaign to “reset” relations with its former Cold War foe.
Clinton was headed Thursday to Ukraine, to be followed by stops in the south Caucasus states of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia — all once part of the Soviet Union. She is also scheduled to visit Poland, a NATO ally whose ties to Moscow have been marked by tensions throughout history.
Clinton was delaying her departure slightly in order to bid farewell Thursday to Senator Robert C. Byrd in the Senate chamber, where he will lie in state before being flown to West Virginia for a memorial service.
Clinton’s trip was planned long before the Justice Department on Monday announced it had arrested 10 people fingered as covert intelligence agents of the Russian government. The case underscores lingering tensions with Russia at a time when the Obama administration is bragging about the diplomatic payoff from making a fresh start with Moscow 18 months ago.
Even trickier than the spy allegations, however, are the politics of U.S. relations with former Soviet republics like Georgia, which is still smarting from its war with Russia in August 2008.
The Obama administration is trying to strike a balance between pressing Russia to withdraw its forces from the breakaway Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and convincing the Georgian government that building up its military is not the right solution.
“We don’t think that arms sales and military equipment is the path to the situation in Georgia that we’re trying to get to,” said Philip Gordon, the State Department’s top Russia policy official. The best route for Georgia, he said, is to build a stronger, more prosperous democracy.
At the center of the Russia-Georgia tensions is an effort by Moscow to reassert its influence in the region, to preserve what President Dmitry Medvedev calls a Russian zone of “privileged interest.” The U.S. rejects the notion of a Russian sphere of influence.
In taking a friendlier approach to Russia, the Obama administration claims the payoff has been substantial. It cites the recently completed New START nuclear arms reduction treaty as well as Russia’s acceptance of a UN Security Council resolution on sanctions against Iran.
Critics, however, say the administration has exaggerated its achievements.
David J. Kramer, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said recently that the administration is paying too much attention to Moscow and too little to other countries in the region. In so doing, the administration has unwisely given Russia the impression that improving relations means more to Washington than to Moscow, he said.
“It leads to an overselling of successes,” Kramer said.
At her first stop, in Kiev on Friday, Clinton is to meet with Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. His more pro-Western predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, had broken ties with Russia to seek membership in the European Union and NATO, in both cases without success.
Clinton also planned to meet separately with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who lost the February presidential election to Yanukovych and remains his political enemy.
In Poland, Clinton is to deliver a speech Saturday at an international gathering marking the 10th anniversary of the Community of Democracies, an organization founded in 2000 to promote democracy globally.
Relations between Russia and Poland have warmed following an April 10 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others on a flight to visit the Katyn forest in western Russia. Katyn was the site of a 1940 massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals that looms large in Polish memory.
Clinton’s stop in Azerbaijan will accelerate efforts by the Obama administration to strengthen relations. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June became the highest-ranking administration official to visit Azerbaijan; he delivered a letter from President Barack Obama thanking President Ilham Aliyev for allowing the U.S. to move troops and supplies through his airspace en route to Afghanistan.
TITLE: United Russia Stakes Claim to Mayor of Irkutsk
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: IRKUTSK — Three months ago, Viktor Kondrashov’s election as mayor of this sprawling Siberian city was widely seen as a humiliating defeat for United Russia, which backed another candidate.
Today, United Russia says he’s theirs.
United Russia announced on its web site this week that Kondrashov had become a political supporter of the ruling party and was likely to join in six months.
Kondrashov, 48, told The St. Petersburg Times that he was ready to join the party to help solve Irkutsk’s problems.
“If I see that it is important for Irkutsk’s well-being, then I will make my decision on party affiliation,” Kondrashov said in an interview last week in his modest office in Irkutsk, a city of 594,000 people just north of the Chinese border.
Kondrashov, who worked as an engineer, a tailor and even a part-time male model in a local fashion house in the mid-1980s, rose to prominence as the successful owner of the local Takota holding, which included a construction company, a supermarket and a human resources agency, before delving into politics.
He won a mayoral election in March as an independent backed by the local Communists, whom he had financed in the past.
Political commentators said Kondrashov’s victory was largely a protest vote against his rival, Sergei Serebrennikov, an outsider aggressively promoted by United Russia.
Sergei Levchenko, leader of the Irkutsk Communists and a State Duma deputy, said Wednesday that he would not comment on Kondrashov’s decision to join United Russia before he spoke to him in person.
“I cannot comment on rumors, even those posted on United Russia’s web site,” Levchenko said.
The possibility of Kondrashov joining United Russia surprised many of his supporters, but there had been indications that the new mayor would distance himself from the opposition.
Kondrashov stayed away from an opposition-organized rally in Irkutsk in March calling for the closure of a Soviet-era paper mill that critics say is polluting Lake Baikal, the world’s largest fresh water lake and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Irkutsk region.
“He could have come and stayed for five minutes to show his support,” said Yury Kurin, former Irkutsk region deputy governor and the local leader of the Solidarity opposition movement.
The rally was attended by senior Solidarity members, including former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, who flew in from Moscow.
Kondrashov told The St. Petersburg Times that he supports any helpful opposition initiative that does not violate the law.
“Let them come up with solutions to problems,” he said. “But if the problem is recognized by the authorities, then I don’t see any sense in them demanding the same thing day after day.”
Independent-minded officials generally become less tolerant of the opposition once they get involved with United Russia, said Alexei Mukhin, an analyst at the Center for Political Information. “This party doesn’t accept liberalism. You have to follow the party line,” he said.
He said that by joining United Russia, Kondrashov would “easily access the career ladder” as a party bureaucrat.
“He is a businessman, and he is pragmatic. But if a businessman were driven by ideology, his business would collapse,” said Alexander Kynev, a regional policy expert.
In the interview, Kondrashov reiterated his election campaign platform that he wanted to bring more businesspeople into the city administration to make it more effective and less corrupt.
“I faced the situation myself when I was on the other side of the barricades,” he said bitterly. “I came to the conclusion that the administration needs people who haven’t worked with bureaucrats. Those people have horse blinders on their eyes.”
But Kondrashov has made no major reshuffles, limiting himself to two new City Hall appointments: Boris Vinogradov, rector of a local private law school, became his deputy, and Oleg Shandruk, who served under his predecessor, was appointed head of the utilities department.
A source close to the new administration said that firing the old team was not Kondrashov’s style and that he would work with anyone he considered a professional. “They will be given time to adjust to the new rules,” the source said, asking for anonymity to speak candidly about the inner workings of the administration.
Kondrashov and Samara Mayor Viktor Tarkhov are the only mayors of Russia’s 83 regional capitals who are not affiliated with United Russia.
But controlling every city in the country remains challenging for United Russia. Alexander Serov, another independent candidate backed by the Communists, won the mayoral election in the city of Bratsk in the Irkutsk region in May.
Alarmed by the development, United Russia deputies in the region’s legislature have drawn up an initiative to abolish mayoral elections, proposing that mayors be replaced with “city managers” appointed by municipal councils, which are controlled by United Russia.
The move may save the party from possible embarrassment in the next big mayoral election in the Irkutsk region, scheduled for September in Angarsk.
TITLE: Perelman Explains Why He Rejected $1M
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman has decided to refuse the one-million-dollar Millennium Prize that he was awarded by America’s Clay Mathematics Institute for solving the Poincare conjecture.
Perelman informed the institute of his decision a week ago, Interfax reported Thursday.
“I refused the prize. You know, there were many factors to weigh up when making this decision, and that is why it took me so long to decide,” Perelman told Interfax.
Perelman explained that one of the reasons for his refusal is his disapproval of the institutionalized math community.
“Put briefly, the main reason [behind the decision] is my disagreement with the organized math community. I don’t like their decisions, I think they are unfair,” Perelman said.
“I think that the input of American mathematician Richard Hamilton into the solution of that problem (the Poincare conjecture) is no less significant than mine,” he said.
Sergei Kislyakov, head of the Steklov Math Institute where Perelman used to work, said that although “the decision on whether to accept the prize is completely up to Perelman … personally, I regret that the mathematician hasn’t accepted it.”
“I think that such monumental intellectual feats should be rewarded. People are fully entitled to receive a reward,” Kislyakov said.
Kislyakov agreed that Hamilton had played a significant part in solving the Poincare Conjecture, but said that in his opinion Perelman had done the most important part of the work.
“As far as I know, Hamilton defined the foundations of the research, while Perelman did the rest,” he said.
Kislyakov said he believed that the Clay Institute would have considered sharing the award between the two academics.
“Of course, in such situations they can share the prize, and they needn’t even split the prize evenly, but the [Clay] institute’s decision was what it was, and that’s also their right,” he said.
The Clay Institute announced in March that it would be awarding the prize to Perelman.
Previously, the organization had promised a prize of one million dollars for each solution to seven mathematical “millennium problems” that it identified in 2000. The Poincare Conjecture formulated by French mathematician Henri Poincare was one of those seven problems.
It was later widely reported in the media that Perelman had refused the prize, though Perelman himself said at the time that he had yet to take a final decision on whether to accept it or not.
The awards ceremony for the prize took place on June 8-9 at a conference in Paris. Perelman did not attend.
In 2006, Perelman refused another major math award, the Fields Medal, which came with a prize of 15,000 Canadian dollars ($14,100).
TITLE: Police Return 100,000 Copies of Report on Putin’s Results
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg police will return 100,000 copies of a report titled “Putin. Results. 10 Years” written by one of the leaders of the Solidarity opposition movement, Boris Nemtsov, and economist Vladimir Milov.
Olga Kurnosova, head of the city’s branch of the United Civil Front opposition movement, said that police had promised to return the confiscated pamphlets.
“They first said they’d give them back today, on Thursday, but now they’ve moved the date to next Tuesday because of some documentation procedures,” Kurnosova told The St. Petersburg Times.
Kurnosova said that the police had decided to return the pamphlets following an expert examination which ruled that “they contain no extremism.”
Kurnosova said that the copies would be distributed among the city’s residents when returned.
Police confiscated the copies of the report on June 16, on the eve of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, claiming that the documentation for the printed copies was incomplete, and that the truck carrying them had driven into the center of the city without a required pass. The consignment documents also stated the books had been printed in Smolensk, though the books themselves bore the data of a Moscow printer.
The confiscated pamphlets were sent for examination, though opposition representatives, including Nemtsov, continued to distribute the report on the city’s main thoroughfare, Nevsky Prospekt, during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.
Nemtsov and Nilov held a presentation of their joint report at Moscow’s Fifth International Open Book Festival. The print-run of the 48-page research work amounts to about a million copies, Fontanka reported.
“This is the most large-scale information project by Solidarity and all the democratic opposition during all of the ten years of Putin’s rule,” Nemtsov said in his blog.
The project’s main goal is “to tell the truth about the real results of Putin and his team’s work,” Nemtsov wrote in his blog.
“Special attention is paid to the topic of corruption, predominantly among senior authority structures,” he wrote.
TITLE: Human Rights Council Releases Critical Report
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Violations of the right to life and other basic human rights have become routine in St. Petersburg, argues the city’s Human Rights Council in its newly released survey of human rights abuses.
The document, which was released this week, talks about army recruits being beaten to death by senior conscripts, prison inmates tortured by guards, and anti-fascist activists and non-Slavs being stabbed to death in the streets of St. Petersburg.
“The state is unable to protect its people, and the level of the state’s helplessness is as alarming as the ever-increasing scale of the abuses; the right to life, the most important of people’s rights, is no longer guaranteed here,” said Leonid Romankov, a member of the council.
The city’s Human Rights Council was created in 2007, when a group of the city’s leading human rights organizations refused to cooperate with Igor Mikhailov, the St. Petersburg ombudsman at the time. The organizations formed an informal assembly of ombudsmen made up of experts from the city’s nongovernmental organizations and human rights groups.
The group has pursued politically charged cases, compiling its own reports for distribution to the media, Western parliaments and advocacy organizations.
Council member Alexander Vinnikov, head of the Russia Without Racism movement, says that the level of hate crime in the city has escalated to a frightening degree.
“Extremist groups have moved on from individual actions to more serious, well-organized attacks and they now target migrant workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus on a regular basis,” he said. “It does not help that the police makes no distinction between neo-fascists and anti-fascist groups.”
This year, a new section of the report is devoted to the rights of patients of psychiatric clinics. Council member Yury Vdovin, deputy head of the Citizen’s Watch pressure group, has collected horrifying evidence of human rights abuses in the city’s clinics, where patients, regardless of their condition, are not allowed outside for many weeks.
“Another absolutely bewildering aspect of the psychiatric wards is that patients are not allowed to use the phone,” Vdovin said in the report.
“Worst of all, some of the staff in these clinics humiliate already emotionally traumatized patients — for example, those suffering from depression or recovering from suicide attempts — and there is absolutely no external control over what is happening inside the psychiatric hospitals,” Vdovin said.
“It is common for staff to ignore the patients’ complaints and tell the unfortunate people to shut up. No efficient rehabilitation programs are in place in the city, either.”
The council is calling for the creation of an independent body to oversee conditions in the city’s psychiatric clinics and ensure that patients receive adequate medical help, as well as humane treatment and assistance in rehabilitation .
“We are swamped with complaints from those who have survived the horror of treatment in these clinics and from devastated members of their families,” Vdovin said. “An open and thorough investigation and assessment of this system is essential to ensure that patients’ rights are observed. The system clearly needs to be overhauled and put under proper control.”
Natalya Yevdokimova, the council’s secretary, said the number of complaints against the police has recently hit a new high. “We even received a complaint from a group of policemen, who found themselves helpless against threats and bullying from corrupt senior staff, which just shows that the whole system is in its death throes,” she said.
The report is available at the St. Petersburg Human Rights Council homepage at: www.hrcspb.ru
TITLE: Organizers of Dostoyevsky Day Hope to Create Annual Event
AUTHOR: By Olga Gilyova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg will see the introduction of a new tradition on Saturday with the celebration of Dostoyevsky Day.
The aim of the event, according to the city’s culture committee, is to preserve the memory of the great Russian writer and his literary legacy and cement the connection between his name and the city of St. Petersburg, where he spent much of his life. The ceremonies will begin with the laying of flowers at the Dostoyevsky monument in the Alexander Nevsky monastery.
The committee says that the event will soon become an annual affair.
Most of the day’s events will take place at the Fyodor Dostoyevsky Literary Memorial Museum on Kuznechny Pereulok. The street will be turned into an open-air stage, allowing people to get involved in the action and meet famous characters from the writer’s celebrated novels, including “Crime and Punishment,” “The Idiot” and “The Brothers Karamazov.”
Participants in the event can sign up for various walking tours and boat trips that will enable them to discover the Petersburg of Dostoyevsky’s era. In addition, a new exhibition will be opened in the memorial museum devoted to the egocentrism of Dostoyevsky’s characters. The exhibition will run through July 31.
Several movie theaters, including Rodina, Avrora and Druzhba will show cinematic versions of the writer’s novels made at the Lenfilm, Mosfilm and Gosfilmofond film studios.
The day’s program will end with a performance at the Dostoyevsky Museum titled “Metaphysics of Petersburg.” Spectators will see the creation of an authentic text and the birth of Dostoyevsky’s characters to the accompaniment of a double-bass.
For more information, see www.lplib.ru/Dostoevsky or call +7 921 977 43 00 / 571-40-31.
TITLE: Budget Plan Aids Kudrin’s Cause
AUTHOR: By Maria Antonova and Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev broadly sided with the country’s fiscal hawks Tuesday as he unveiled proposals for state spending in the next three years, providing a boost to Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin’s efforts to rein in the federal budget deficit.
But the long-awaited address, delivered to top lawmakers and the full Cabinet, also had a populist flair, promising some salary hikes, and it avoided discussion of raising taxes on the country’s gas industry, which analysts say could be a quick way to mend the state’s finances.
Medvedev said last year that he would personally submit his budget address in 2010, rather than just submitting the list of spending priorities and guidelines.
Anti-crisis measures should be “gradually wrapped up,” since “state support cannot continue for a long time on the same subsidized terms,” he said. Instead, budget policy should focus on co-financing public-private partnership projects that stimulate modernization.
The deficit — which reached 5.9 percent of gross domestic product in 2009 — must be halved by 2013, Medvedev said.
While approving many proposals by Kudrin, the government’s chief austerity proponent, to raise federal revenues and reduce the budget deficit, Medvedev notably skipped the idea of applying a heavier tax on the gas industry, including behemoth export monopoly Gazprom.
“I would have enjoyed seeing such a line about the gas industry,” said Alexandra Suslina, an analyst at the Economic Experts Group, a think tank. “If we are really looking for additional revenues, the gas industry should be the first to look at.”
The government probably has not yet reached a consensus on the issue, she added.
Alexandra Yevtifyeva, senior economist at VTB Capital, said the government might still attempt to raise revenues by increasing the mineral extraction tax on gas companies. Kudrin indicated Tuesday that the proposal was under discussion, with a final decision expected by August.
In another sign of support for the Finance Ministry, Medvedev did not say there was any immediate need to replace the high oil export duties with a tax on excess profits, as oil producers want.
Kudrin said at a Renaissance Capital investment conference Tuesday that the move was possible only in the “medium term,” and only for new fields.
Medvedev also ordered a 6.5 percent salary increase for hundreds of thousands of federal employees and military officers next year, after a pause this year.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has also regularly announced raises to salaries and pensions, which political analysts say is a key issue for many voters. Both Putin and Medvedev have left open the possibility of running for the presidency in 2012.
Employees of federal institutions, as well as military officers and college students, will see their salaries and stipends grow next year, Medvedev said.
Pay for officers will swell as of April 1, while for federal employees — including an army of federal officials such as judges and prosecutors, as well as college teachers — the raise will kick in June 1.
Students will get an increase in their stipends at the start of the next academic year.
Regional governors may take the growth of federal payments as a “signal” and raise salaries for local teachers and doctors, Yevtifyeva said, warning that it was not a good time to be boosting people’s earnings.
The burden of social spending on the budget is already heavy, she said, especially after Putin boosted retirement pensions this year, creating an additional drain on federal coffers. The timing suggests that the announced raises may be a “small present” for voters before they go to polling stations to elect the president in March 2012, she said.
Medvedev’s pledge to boost salaries in 2011 does not preclude possible gains later this year, a possibility Putin recently suggested, Suslina said.
“Such decisions can be of populist character,” she said. “Announcements of pay raises appear whenever there’s a threat of the approval rating going down. It’s unpredictable.”
In a poll released last week by the independent Levada Center, 74 percent of respondents said they supported Medvedev’s politics, down from 77 percent in May. In the same survey, 78 percent said they supported Putin’s work, down from 80 percent a month earlier.
Both movements were within the poll’s 3.4-point margin of error.
The government should present its proposal on cutting the number of federal employees by “about 20 percent” in the next three years, Medvedev said in another show of support for Kudrin.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Children Defenestrated
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A 32-year-old woman threw her two young children out of an 8th floor window in St. Petersburg on Wednesday before jumping herself, Interfax reported.
“Lyubov Kuzmina threw her children Pavel, aged six, and Maria, aged four, from the window of her room on the 8th floor at 22 Zvyozdnaya Ulitsa before jumping herself. She died from her injuries at the scene,” Interfax quoted a police source as saying.
The boy and girl were hospitalized in a serious condition.
“The police found a suicide note, a notebook and a knife at the scene,” the police source said, without disclosing the contents of the note.
“According to preliminary information, the woman was in a mentally unstable condition brought on by being extremely drunk,” a statement released by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in St. Petersburg said.
Cops Busted for Graft
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The internal security branch of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police department detained a police inspector, special constable and police captain in the act of receiving bribes this week, Interfax reported, citing a police source.
Dmitry Kalinnikov, a traffic police inspector at the Office of Internal Affairs on Nevsky Prospekt, and Andrei Androsov, a special constable at the same unit, were detained Tuesday by combat units in the act of receiving money.
They had extorted 3,000 rubles ($96) from an unemployed city resident in exchange for not issuing him with a fine for violating traffic rules,” a police source was quoted by Interfax as saying.
A police captain from the economic crime prevention department was also arrested Tuesday in his office while accepting a sum of 100,000 rubles ($3,200), Interfax reported Wednesday.
TITLE: A Tale of Wireless Transmissions and Invisible Ink
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — They sometimes worked in pairs and pretended to be married so they could blend in as the couple next door while working as spies in a throwback to the Cold War, complete with fake identities, invisible ink, coded radio transmissions and encrypted data to avoid detection, authorities say.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz, speaking Monday in federal court in Manhattan, called the allegations against 10 people living in the northeastern United States “the tip of the iceberg” of a conspiracy of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, to collect inside U.S. information, the biggest such bust in recent years.
Each of the 10 was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison upon conviction. Two criminal complaints outlining the charges were filed in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York.
Nine of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum 20 years in prison upon conviction.
The FBI said it intercepted a message from SVR’s headquarters, Moscow Center, to two of the 10 defendants describing their main mission as “to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in U.S.” Intercepted messages showed that they were asked to learn about a wide range of topics, including nuclear weapons, U.S. arms control positions, Iran, White House rumors, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, Congress and the political parties, prosecutors said.
“The FBI did an extraordinary job in this investigation,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The court papers described a new high-tech spy-to-spy communications system used by the defendants: short-range wireless communications between laptop computers — a modern supplement for the old-style dead drop in a remote area, high-speed burst radio transmission or the hollowed-out nickels used by captured Soviet Colonel Rudolf Abel in the 1950s to conceal and deliver microfilm.
Last Saturday, an undercover FBI agent in New York and another in Washington, both posing as Russian agents, met with two of the defendants, Anna Chapman at a New York restaurant and Mikhail Semenko on a Washington street corner blocks from the White House, prosecutors said. The FBI undercover agents gave each an espionage-related delivery to make. Court papers indicated that Semenko made the delivery as instructed but apparently Chapman didn’t.
Another defendant was a reporter and editor for a prominent Spanish-language newspaper videotaped by the FBI contacting a Russian official in 2000 in Latin America, prosecutors said.
Foreign Policy Intelligence
Intelligence on Obama’s foreign policy, particularly toward Russia, appears to have been a top priority for the Russian agents, prosecutors said.
In spring 2009, court documents say, conspirators Richard and Cynthia Murphy, who lived in New Jersey, were asked for information about Obama’s impending trip to Russia that summer, the U.S. negotiating position on the START arms reduction treaty, Afghanistan and the approach Washington would take in dealing with Iran’s suspect nuclear program. They also were asked to send background on U.S. officials traveling with Obama or involved in foreign policy, the documents say.
“Try to outline their views and most important Obama’s goals (sic) which he expects to achieve during summit in July and how does his team plan to do it (arguments, provisions, means of persuasion to ‘lure’ (Russia) into cooperation in US interests,” Moscow asked, according to the documents.
Moscow wanted reports that “should reflect approaches and ideas of” four sub-Cabinet U.S. foreign policy officials, they say.
One intercepted message said Cynthia Murphy “had several work-related personal meetings with” a man the court papers describe as a prominent New York-based financier active in politics.
In response, Moscow Center described the man as a very interesting target and urged the defendants to “try to build up little by little relations. … Maybe he can provide” Murphy “with remarks re US foreign policy, ‘roumors’ about White house internal ‘kitchen,’ invite her to venues (to major political party HQ in NYC, for instance. … In short, consider carefully all options in regard” to the financier.
The Murphys lived as husband and wife in suburban New Jersey, first Hoboken, then Montclair, with Richard Murphy carrying a fake birth certificate saying he was born in Philadelphia, authorities said.
The papers allege that the defendants’ spying has been going on for years.
One defendant in Massachusetts made contact in 2004 with an unidentified man who worked at a U.S. government research facility.
“He works on issues of strategic planning related to nuclear weapon development,” the defendant’s intelligence report said.
The defendant “had conversations with him about research programs on small yield high penetration nuclear warheads recently authorized by US Congress (nuclear ‘bunker-buster’ warheads),” according to the report.
One message back to Moscow from the defendants focused on turnover at the top level of the CIA and the 2008 U.S. presidential election, prosecutors said. The information was described as having been received in private conversation with, among others, a former legislative counsel for Congress. The court papers deleted the name of the counsel.
In the papers, FBI agents said the defendants communicated with Russian agents using mobile wireless transmissions between laptop computers, which has not previously been described in espionage cases brought in the United States: They established a short-range wireless network between laptop computers of the agents and sent encrypted messages between the computers while they were close to each other.
The Defendants
FBI agents arrested the defendants known as Richard Murphy and Cynthia Murphy at their residence in Montclair, New Jersey.
A neighbor, Louise Shallcross, 44, said she often saw Richard Murphy at the school bus stop.
“We were excited to have a stay-at-home dad move in,” Shallcross said.
Aside from the Murphys, three other defendants also appeared in federal court in Manhattan — Vicky Pelaez and Juan Lazaro, who were arrested at their Yonkers, New York, residence, and Chapman, arrested in Manhattan on Sunday.
A federal magistrate ordered the Murphys, Lazaro, Pelaez and Chapman held without bail. The defendants — most dressed in casual clothes like blue jeans, shorts and T-shirts — answered “Yes,” when asked if they understood the charges. None entered a plea.
“The evidence is truly, truly overwhelming,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz. Another hearing was due to be held Thursday.
Pelaez is a Peruvian-born reporter and editor and worked for several years for El Diario/La Prensa, one of the country’s best-known Spanish-language newspapers. She is best known for her opinion columns, which often criticize the U.S. government.
In January 2000, Pelaez was videotaped meeting with a Russian government official at a public park in the South American nation, where she received a bag from the official, according to one complaint.
Pelaez was born in Cusco, southeast of Lima, and worked as a journalist for the defunct daily La Prensa de Lima and later for a television station, where she gained notoriety among local journalists. On Dec. 8, 1984, Pelaez, who worked for Frecuencia Latina, was kidnapped for a day and interviewed a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. The interview wasn’t broadcast on television, but the following year it appeared in Marka, a newspaper with leftist leanings.
Lazaro and Pelaez discussed plans to pass covert messages with invisible ink to Russian officials during another trip Pelaez took to South America, a complaint said.
The complaint alleges that authorities overheard an unguarded Lazaro once saying in his home, “We moved to Siberia … as soon as the war started.”
Waldo Mariscal, Pelaez’s son, said his mother was innocent.
“This is a farce. We don’t know the other people,” he said, referring to the others who have been accused.
TITLE: Ex-Spy Gordievsky Says 50 Spy Couples in U.S.
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — One of the Cold War’s most famous defectors said Tuesday that Russia may have as many as 50 deep-cover couples spying inside the United States.
Oleg Gordievsky, a former deputy head of the KGB in London who defected in 1985, said President Dmitry Medvedev would know the number of illegal operatives in each target country.
The 71-year-old ex-double agent said that, based on his experience in Russian intelligence, he estimates that Moscow likely has 40 to 50 couples operating undercover in the United States.
“For the KGB, there’s usually 40 to 50 couples, all illegal,” said Gordievsky, who defected to Britain after supplying information during the Cold War to Britain’s MI6 overseas spy agency.
Gordievsky said he spent nine years working in the KGB directorate in charge of illegal spy teams.
“The president will know the number, and in each country how many — but not their names,” Gordievsky said.
The FBI announced Monday the arrests of 10 alleged deep-cover Russian agents after tracking the suspects for years. They are accused of attempting to infiltrate U.S. policymaking circles while posing as ordinary citizens.
Gordievsky said he estimates that there are 400 declared Russian intelligence officers in the United States, and likely 40 to 50 couples charged with covertly cultivating military and diplomat officials as sources of information.
He said the complexity involved in training and running undercover teams means that Russia is unlikely to have significantly more operatives than during his career.
“I understand the resources they have, and how many people they can train and send to other countries,” Gordievsky said. “It is possible there may be more now, but not many more, and no more than 60.”
He said deep-cover spies often fail to deliver better intelligence than their colleagues who work in the open.
“They are supposed to be the vanguard of Russian intelligence,” Gordievsky said. “But what they are really doing is nothing, they just sit at home in Britain, France and the U.S.”
He said that undercover operatives may report to Russia once or twice a year, but otherwise work largely without any support network.
“The illegals don’t have the support of the office behind them, and they are very timid as a result, so they don’t produce a lot,” Gordievsky said.
TITLE: Investors Balk at Plan for Financial Center in Moscow
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev’s goal of making Moscow a global financial hub will take decades to realize as investors balk at a history of corruption and weak property rights, researchers at two top business schools said.
“I can’t see it coming,” said Tom Kirchmaier, who lectures on finance and corporate governance at the London School of Economics. “Nobody believes they have an impartial rule of law, and the institutions are weak, from courts to regulators to central banks, and there’s a lack of trust in the market in respect of property rights.”
Medvedev presented his plan to make Moscow a global financial center and the ruble a world reserve currency at a conference on June 18 attended by some of the biggest names in finance, including Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and chief executives from some of the world’s largest companies.
A proposal by some countries to impose a tax on banks may bolster Russia’s ambitions. Russian policymakers said they would not follow Britain, Germany and France in calling for a bank tax as Medvedev pledged to help build a new economic order from the ruins of the financial crisis.
Russia can benefit from the “harsh” regulatory controls being imposed in other countries, Medvedev said at a May 25 meeting with U.S. venture fund managers. “We invite to Russia everyone who is suffering at home.”
The president on June 17 ordered proposals to ease visa requirements for investors and finance professionals and told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Mayor Yury Luzhkov to improve the transport infrastructure needed to support an international financial center.
Moscow was ranked 68th of 75 cities in the December 2009 Global Financial Centers Index commissioned by the City of London. Emerging centers such as Moscow “have the connectivity to succeed, but lack the necessary sectoral strengths to fulfill their potential as yet,” the survey found. London and New York were tied for the top ranking.
“The chances of Moscow becoming a global financial hub are very slim,” said Kate Phylaktis, a professor of international finance and director of emerging markets at Cass Business School in London. “It will take decades to gain the confidence of international investors. It has a very long way to go even to achieve regional status.”
Medvedev’s critique of Russia’s raw material dependence, which he has called “humiliating,” underpins his drive to diversify and modernize the economy. The president went to California last week to meet with Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, and Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, to attract investment to the world’s biggest energy exporter.
“This initiative could be very helpful for investors as corporate governance should be high on the to-do list,” said Alexander Branis, chief investment officer at Prosperity Capital Management, the biggest Russian equity investor, with $4.7 billion of assets. “It’s a very ambitious target, but it should be good at tackling some real problems.”
Medvedev’s vision “creates a whole set of opportunities,” Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup, said in a June 21 interview. The best environment for business has “good regulation and a lot of transparency,” he said.
Russia last year ranked 146th among 180 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, on a par with Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Cameroon.
It is the 20th riskiest place to do business, according to Maplecroft, a risk-management adviser. The study of 172 countries ranks respect for the rule of law, property rights, access to the legal system, corruption, corporate governance and regulatory frameworks.
Russia’s bid is also hobbled by the lack of a central depositary, or clearing house, for trades and the presence of numerous registrars that maintain records on the owners of securities. The country has two competing depositaries, whereas most markets have one, and about 70 registrars.
The government aims to improve market infrastructure and expand the range of securities traded in Russia, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said June 3 at a government meeting chaired by Medvedev. Russia’s bourses are ready to trade the bonds and currencies of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of post-Soviet nations, Kudrin said.
There are some voices of skepticism inside the government.
Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said Russia can’t become a financial hub unless markets are regulated by British law and English becomes more prevalent, as in Dubai and Hong Kong. The absence of these two features “somewhat worries” him, Storchak told reporters June 24.
TITLE: Potanin Scores Win in Battle for Norilsk
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Norilsk Nickel’s two largest shareholders have cast off the final semblances of a state-brokered truce in their battle for control of Russia’s largest miner, with Vladimir Potanin’s Interros scoring a tactical victory over Oleg Deripaska’s United Company RusAl.
RusAl accused Norilsk’s management of manipulating the company’s treasury shares to dilute its presence on the board of directors.
The actions are “gross violations of corporate governance procedures, the principles of transparency and observance of the interests of all shareholders,” RusAl said in a statement late Monday.
The aluminum giant, which owns 25 percent of Norilsk, said it would convene an extraordinary shareholders meeting to re-elect the board, labeling the vote a “result of manipulation of Norilsk Nickel shares belonging to the company.”
A RusAl spokeswoman said it was unclear when the meeting would be held.
Interros, which also owns a blocking stake, defended the elections and Norilsk management but said it would not oppose a new vote.
Analysts said the conflict could lift Norilsk’s stock price in the short term as the dueling owners bolster their holdings on the open market to gain clout ahead of the vote.
Norilsk shares fell 3.3 percent in Moscow on Tuesday, slightly underperforming the benchmark MICEX Index, which dropped 2.9 percent.
Longtime owner Interros came away with four directors on Monday, while RusAl only got three of its representatives on the board. Company management — led by CEO Vladimir Strzhalkovsky — also won three seats, with the remaining three directors of the 13-member board going to independents.
The results mean that Interros and Norilsk managers hold a majority.
In another surprise twist, former Norilsk chairman Alexander Voloshin — an independent nominated by RusAl to represent its major creditor, VEB — lost his seat.
RusAl skipped the subsequent board meeting in protest, which elected Interros-nominated independent director Vasily Titov as chairman. Titov is first deputy president of VTB, a major creditor of Interros.
Interros “respects the rights of RusAl as a shareholder” and is not opposed to holding the extraordinary shareholders meeting, the company said.
“But that doesn’t mean that we share RusAl’s position on Norilsk Nickel’s management,” Interros’ press office said, adding that the company was satisfied with the outcome of Monday’s meeting.
RusAl said Norilsk had “transferred quasi-treasury shares to offshore companies and voted them against the election of Alexander Voloshin, whose candidacy had been agreed on by RusAl and Interros and supported by the state.”
Norilsk’s management defended its actions, saying “all the company’s shareholders had exercised their rights proportionally to their participation in the company’s stock capital.”
TITLE: Bordeaux Businessmen Attempt to Forge Links
AUTHOR: By Elmira Alieva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A delegation of businessmen from Bordeaux visited the city this week to build contacts with local companies.
The Days of Bordeaux in St. Petersburg have become an annual tradition. The partnership between St. Petersburg and Bordeaux dates back to 1992, since when meetings between representatives of both cities have been held on a regular basis.
This time, the delegation consisted of representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises from the Aquitaine region and officials from the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The delegation was headed by the former French prime minister and current mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppe.
“Apart from the aerospace sector, the Bordeaux market consists mostly of small and medium-sized enterprises, and I think they have the potential for cooperation with St. Petersburg,” said Alain Juppe to representatives of French and Russian companies during a seminar at the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
France is a major partner of St. Petersburg, with about 100 companies with French capital operating in the city.
“There are companies in various areas, including the automotive industry, energy and food sectors,” said Vladimir Katenev, president of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “However, the cooperation between small and medium-sized businesses is underestimated,” he added.
The participants of the delegation represented industries ranging from chocolate manufacturing, cognac production, consultancy for environment and human toxicology, and wedding dress design.
“We appreciate events aimed at promoting business contacts; for us it is a good opportunity for networking,” said Stephan Montalbano, a partner at FR Consulting and participant of the bilateral seminar.
The representatives of both countries agreed that business and tourism cooperation between St. Petersburg and Bordeaux requires a direct air connection. Juppe also remarked on the transport potential of Bordeaux port for cooperation with Russia.
“Recently our economic interests were oriented toward China; now we are reorganizing our priorities toward Russia,” said Bruno Lacoste, vice president of the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
“We are seeking to develop our cooperation and announce our intentions to enter various sectors of the Russian economy in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other regions,” he said.
So far, the most productive results in cooperation between St. Petersburg and Bordeaux have been seen in the aerospace industry, wine-making, pulp and paper industry, chemical technology and tourism. According to experts, the biggest potential for cooperation is in the aerospace industry, which is a key sector of the Bordeaux economy, as well as in medicine and education.
The importance of the educational dimension of the partnership was illustrated by the signing of agreements between St. Petersburg State University and Montesquieu University – Bordeaux IV, the French Institute in St. Petersburg and Alliance Francaise in Bordeaux, and St. Petersburg’s School No. 318 and Cheverus college in Bordeaux.
TITLE: Business Is Driving Us Toward a New Era
AUTHOR: By Klaus Kleinfeld and William Cohen
TEXT: Looking back at the meeting in Washington last week between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, it is rather dizzying to consider how far the U.S.-Russian relationship has progressed in just over a year.
In the summer of 2008, the Russia-Georgia conflict plunged U.S.-Russian relations to their lowest point since the Cold War. Once in office, the Obama administration initiated a “reset” of U.S.-Russian relations. While this generated understandable skepticism from some concerned about objectionable Russian behavior, it nonetheless was the right policy in our view. Every president for the past century has found it necessary and beneficial to U.S. interests to work closely with the Kremlin despite problems or tensions in U.S.-Russian relations. After some early missteps, this reset has borne fruit with progress in the security, trade and commercial spheres.
Last Thursday in Washington, a group of 30 CEOs from prominent U.S. and Russian corporations met with Obama and Medvedev with a mandate to use their collective experiences to promote new paradigms for mutually beneficial trade and investment. This corporate dialogue is the type of constructive private sector cooperation Washington and Moscow need to make sure the reset moves forward.
Strong economic ties breed strong political relationships, and expanded trade and investment will be the foundation upon which security cooperation can be sustained. With the support of both presidents, business has taken the lead in driving the two countries toward a new era of economic cooperation and mutual prosperity.
Thus far, the improvement in security cooperation has been significant — both substantively and symbolically. First, the United States and Russia have signed the New START agreement now being reviewed in the U.S. Senate. Second, both sides agreed to dispose of vast quantities of plutonium, enough to make 17,000 nuclear warheads. Third, they reached consensus on a new United Nations Security Council resolution to tighten sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program. Lastly, they arranged for greater transit through Russia of U.S. military cargo headed to Afghanistan.
On the economic front, the opportunities to enhance cooperation are significant, and the stage has been set for action. Moscow has decided to enter the World Trade Organization on its own, reversing its plan to do so as a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. A few days ago, Obama said the United States remains committed to Russia’s accession and that he hopes to meet his counterpart next summer as a WTO member.
For its part, the U.S. Congress has held recent hearings on repealing the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The Obama administration should now provide leadership to repeal this anachronistic impediment to mutually beneficial trade and to overcome special interests in both countries that prefer the status quo.
Both countries share an interest in more efficient energy and basic materials production in Russia, as well as enhanced energy conservation in Russian industry, offices and homes. Both share an interest in improved health care in Russia, where life expectancy is still below what it was 20 years ago, despite recent progress and substantial increases in health care spending. Such progress can be achieved through enhanced U.S. investment in and export of innovative products to Russia, but this needs to be promoted by Russian actions to enhance the security of investments and intellectual property.
Medvedev’s focus on innovation and modernizing the economy is a welcome development and one that has already contributed to real progress in improving the investment climate. During the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum several weeks ago, Medvedev announced that he would cut capital gains taxes, strengthen the rule of law, privatize state enterprises and cut the red tape that causes delays in processing visas.
More robust bilateral economic ties will benefit U.S. workers and consumers with increased access to Russia’s vibrant economy and abundant resources, while Russia will benefit from U.S. innovation and investment to help diversify its economy. A more diversified Russian economy will be a more stable trading partner to the benefit of U.S. exporters.
While mindful of the serious differences that remain between the United States and Russia, we are more optimistic than ever that the positive momentum developed over the last year can continue to produce beneficial, concrete results in both the economic and security spheres that will endure for years.
Klaus Kleinfeld is chairman and CEO of Alcoa and chairman of the U.S.-Russia Business Council. William Cohen, a former defense secretary and U.S. senator, is chairman and CEO of The Cohen Group, a global business consulting services firm based in Washington.
TITLE: Erasing Borders
AUTHOR: By Konstantin Sonin
TEXT: A unique event took place last week at the European University in St. Petersburg: A conference devoted to the interaction between Russian scholars and scientists living abroad and their colleagues at home. Not once in the past 100 years have scholars of this caliber from so many disciplines gathered in a single room.
The fields of mathematics and physics were represented by world-class scholars of the highest caliber. For those disciplines with a negligible number of outstanding Russian scholars — such as anthropology, history, management, political science, finance and economics — the very best of those available were present. The conference addressed the question of how Russian scientists working abroad can help develop the sciences in the country.
Of course, every scholar has his own understanding of how to best integrate Russian sciences into the rest of the world. Coordinating or “synchronizing” those various viewpoints is one of the objectives of such conferences. There was no need for those assembled to issue a formal statement, however, as the process of harmonizing their differing points of view tends to dilute the substance of such declarations.
But it is very important to know what others think. Each field of science has its own truth and its own difficulties of integration. Theoretical physicists need only a quiet workplace and rooms for seminars where they can interact with colleagues. Work visas and various forms of secrecy characteristic of the Cold War that ended 20 years ago still create barriers to cooperation.
Many historians and linguists rely on an archaic archive system, but they have fewer problems than others in working with their Russian colleagues overseas. Economists, political scientists and financial specialists must not only communicate with their colleagues working abroad, but also need to learn how to build research departments, conduct scholarly seminars and publish reputable scholarly journals. Those who cannot meet normal quality criteria give Russian sciences a reputation for low academic standards.
Biomedical scientists and chemists need more than just visas and office space. They need long-term funding of costly experiments and projects. And it is impossible to select or implement such projects without a system for independent scientific review. But biomedical scientists already have several successes: projects by Rutgers University professor Konstantin Severinov and participation by scientists of the Russian-speaking Academic Science Association in expert panels for state-funded projects.
Many of the speakers expressed concern that Russia is rapidly losing ground. Almost one-half of those present — and all of those working abroad at permanent positions in leading universities of the world — received their higher education abroad. They return to Russia in part because they have either parents or research advisors who are still living here.
If Russia does not make greater efforts to remove the barriers preventing Russian sciences from integrating with the global community, those scholars and scientists will eventually stop coming to Russia entirely. This will be yet another big blow to the country’s attempt to modernize.
Konstantin Sonin is a professor at the New Economic School in Moscow and a columnist for Vedomosti.
TITLE: Back with a vengeance
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review, one of the city’s finest bands, returns after an 18-month hiatus — with a new lineup and a new singer.
The formerly St. Petersburg-based American vocalist Jennifer Davis, who was with the band from 2002 until returning to the U.S. in 2008, will be replaced by local singer Yulia Kogan. The band will comprise founding member Denis Kuptsov on drums plus the full lineup of the respected local Afro-Cuban/ska-influenced band Markscheider Kunst.
Kuptsov, who founded the band, which blends ska and jazz, adding elements of funk, jive and swing in 2001, said the ensemble had reformed due to public demand. “Everyone around wanted it so much, talked about it all the time, wrote to me by email, via our web site and MySpace page, asking me when and where, when and where,”
he said.
During Davis’ most recent visit to the city in December 2008, the band recorded its third studio album, which has been put on the shelf due to a lack of funds. According to Kuptsov, it still needs to be mixed and mastered.
“First everybody started to ask about the album, and then about the band,” he said.
The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review originally started as a spin-off project of Spitfire, the ska-punk band that Kuptsov co-founded in 1993 with two members of Markscheider Kunst. It was primarily an instrumental band during its first year, until Davis joined as singer and lyricist in April 2002.
“To be honest, I’ve always liked this band better [than Spitfire], because of its musical diversity and because I simply like this kind of music more,” said Kuptsov.
Along with the other members of Spitfire, Kuptsov also played with the hugely popular band Leningrad from 2002 until it was disbanded by leader Sergei Shnurov in November 2008. He parted ways with Spitfire in July 2009.
Kuptsov said he first talked about bringing back The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review with the members of Spitfire, but was greeted with a lack of enthusiasm.
“I wanted to revive the band one way or another, even if it meant doing so with different musicians, but to be honest, I don’t know anybody in the city who would play this music better than Spitfire or Markscheider Kunst,” he said.
“There are no musicians here other than them who specialize in Jamaican and Afro-Caribbean music. So I approached Markscheider Kunst, and they reacted positively from the very beginning.”
Kuptsov said his rift with Spitfire occurred after Leningrad, which was the main source of the band’s income and confidence due to its popularity as a stadium and corporate events band, was disbanded.
“Leningrad split up, and everyone started to have problems,” he said.
“The crisis has come — both a monetary crisis, and a middle-age crisis for many.
“It happens. It’s like you live with your wife for 15 years and then you divorce. It sort of expired.”
At that point Kuptsov, who had previously played in five bands, was left with two. While Optimystica Orchestra, a superband formed by Tequilajazzz’s Yevgeny Fyodorov, performed rarely, playing drums with the surf band Messer Chups became his main occupation.
“Thank God I had Messer Chups, and I still have it,” he said. “I’ve been on a big European tour with them recently, and I work with them closely, but I want to have something of my own.”
Leningrad, which packed stadiums in its heyday, was disbanded in November 2008 by Shnurov, who said he was tired and bored of the band and wanted to try something new. He subsequently launched a rock band, Rubl. In December that year, Leningrad played its last Russian concert, and finally split after concerts in Poland in January 2009.
“Leningrad definitely occupied the main position at one point, because it was the most popular, biggest-budget and most in-demand band, when at its peak,” said Kuptsov.
While Davis had experience singing with local jazz bands before joining the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review, new singer Kogan, who sang backing vocals with Leningrad during the band’s last 18 months, has an opera background and continues to sing soprano parts while having a separate career as a jazz and pop/disco singer.
Kogan said she joined the band because she “was invited by Denis, and because it’s good music.”
“I didn’t sing exactly this kind of music before, but I sang jazz, opera and many other genres,” she said.
The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review’s eponymous first album was instrumental, but Davis performed at the album’s launch concerts and in St. Petersburg and Moscow in April 2002. The second album, “Too Good to Be True,” with Davis co-writing many songs including the title number, came out in September 2005.
It was followed in 2007 by the live album “Live at Red Club,” recorded at the now-defunct venue in December 2006 and released on both CD and DVD.
With its records also released in Germany, Spain and Japan, the band had a solid touring career on the European club circuit. “We’re actually very well-known around the world,” said Kuptov.
“There are three names — the New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review and the Rotterdam Ska-Jazz Foundation. Three bands.”
As Markscheider Kunst has a spin-off band, Tres Muchachos y Companeros, which focuses on its own reworkings of original Cuban and Latin songs, the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review has devised a convenient touring arrangement.
“It adds up to three-in-one; we can come to one city and play three nights in a row — the same people, but totally different music,” said Kuptsov.
At its comeback concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the band will be performing its old repertoire, including original songs with Davis’ lyrics and covers such as “Simmer Down” (Bob Marley’s first hit, originally recorded by The Wailers with The Skatalites in 1963), Chet Baker’s “Old Devil Moon” and Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff,” as well as the band’s unlikely version of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Song of India.”
“We haven’t written any new songs yet, and it would be silly to perform a new set under the old name, it should be done step by step,” Kuptsov said.
Markscheider Kunst singer and guitarist Sergei Yefremenko said he joined because he liked the music, and the members of his band had been involved with the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review in the past.
“It was really an excellent project, and Denis is a great guy, so we got together, rehearsed a bit and things got rolling,” said Yefremenko, adding that the sound will differ from the original band due to a different combination of instruments.
The approach is slightly different, too, Yefremenko added.
“They played in a more academic way, if I can put it like that, while we often joke around. There’s humor to it.”
Singer Davis, who also fronted her own jazz-funk band J.D. and the Blenders, left St. Petersburg for a one-year art journalism course at Syracuse University in June 2008.
Having graduated with a masters in journalism in June 2009, she now lives in Boulder, Colorado, contributing as a freelancer to SKI Magazine and the online culture magazine PopMatters. She also has a blog, Beet Salad.
“I think the revival is a good idea; there’s still a large fanbase in Russia and a repertoire of great, original songs. Why not?” she commented this week.
The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review will perform at 9 p.m. on Saturday at Tantsy, located at 49 Gorokhovaya Ulitsa (walk through the archway into the courtyards and look for the signs). M: Sennaya Ploshchad.
Tel: +7 950 001 6506.
TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: Markscheider Kunst, the Afro-Cuban band that emerged from the legendary TaMtAm club and features some of the best musicians in the city, will launch a new album with a concert this week.
Called “Utopia,” the album was released on the new Berlin-based record label Eastblok Music in April, but the Russian edition will come out on Friday and will be available at the show, according to singer and guitarist Sergei Yefremenko.
In May, the album made No. 4 in the World Music Charts Europe (WMCE), a monthly poll taken by world music radio programmers in 23 European countries. Markscheider Kunst went on a European tour, which went “very well,” Yefremenko said — a feat the band is planning to repeat in the autumn, undertaking a U.S. tour in between.
“There are some very different songs on it,” Yefremenko said.
“It’s very diverse, because we’re ten very different people, and this eternal mishmash continues.
“We act on the premise that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but you need to ride the bicycle well. That’s what this record is about — how it is good to ride the bicycle.”
“A huge number of people took part in the recording, and we’re planning to invite them to take part in the concert, plus there’ll be a little surprise, as usual,” he said.
The album, which is released by the Moscow-based record label Soyuz with support from St. Petersburg’s Light Music, took its name from the song “Utopia.”
“It’s turned out to be the main song musically [on the album],” said Yefremenko.
“ It’s an old song, but we didn’t release it until now. We were not sure whether to release the album or just upload it on the web. But then we put it out on CD, which was kind of utopian. Hence the name.”
“We uploaded the song ‘Odnazhdy’ (‘Once’) from the album, and it was downloaded by 100,000 people.”
Zal Ozhidaniya is located in the former building of the Warsaw Train Station, which has been transformed into a retail and entertainment complex named Varshavsky Express. It is located at 118 Nab. Obvodnogo Kanala. Metro Baltiiskaya. Tel.: 333 1069.
Markscheider Kunst will play there at 8 p.m. on Friday.
The band’s full lineup will be performing on Saturday as part of the new incarnation of the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review, which will return to the scene after an 18-month hiatus with a concert at Tantsy on Saturday. See article, pages 5 and 6.
This week’s other music events include American virtuoso guitarist Al Di Meola, who will perform an outdoor concert with his international acoustic sextet World Sinfonia.
The concert will take place at the Mikhailovsky Castle at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Coming of age
AUTHOR: By Kristina Aleksandrova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The legendary Pushkinskaya 10 arts center, whose foundation 21 years ago was the result of a long period of struggle for freedom and independence by artists, kicked off a month of 21st birthday celebrations last weekend.
In the Soviet Union, the prevalence of socialist realism as the dominating art school rendered home exhibitions by nonconformist artists illegal, but despite threats from officials, residents of Leningrad visited forbidden artists’ apartments to see their paintings.
In August 1976, a huge sign appeared on the wall of the Peter and Paul Fortress: “You stifle freedom, but the human soul knows no fetters!” The sign was about 42 meters long and could easily be seen from the opposite bank of the River Neva. Other slogans, such as “The party is the enemy of the people!” and “The U.S.S.R. is a fortress!” appeared all over the city. Under pressure, the artists Yuly Rybakov and Oleg Volkov confessed to the protest action, whereupon they were imprisoned.
When in the slightly more relaxed Perestroika era of the 1980s the city’s administration began to give artists the opportunity to express themselves, the Society of Experimental Visual Art decided to create an independent art center, and began looking for suitable premises.
In 1989, independent artists settled in a condemned building at 10 Pushkinskaya Ulitsa, promoting the philosophy of anarchism. Society members made their own rules, basing the concept of their new Art Center on the Parallelosphere — an irrational object that gives no material benefits and symbolizes freedom.
“At that time, Pushkinskaya 10 was a grass-roots movement,” said Yevgeny Orlov, the president of Pushkinskaya 10. “Artists united and moved to the building. All the galleries and collections appeared later. They developed into the first museum of modern art in St. Petersburg.”
The inhabitants at that time wanted to show their independence. On Nikolai Vasin’s initiative, John Lennon Street was opened as part of The Temple of Love, Peace and Music. This street is not shown on official maps of the city, but many visitors go there to see the bas-reliefs of the Beatles and their celebrated yellow submarine. Every year, the Temple celebrates self-created holidays such as Day of Bone Plates, which refers to the time when western music was prohibited by the Communist Party, and creative Soviet youths used X-ray plates as recording discs, creating a new page in the history of the underground movement.
The resident artists at the center had to work without water, electricity or heating due to their conflicts with the city administration. A way out was found in 1996, when the city’s mayor Anatoly Sobchak was asked about the Pushkinskaya 10 situation while making a speech in the U.S. Congress. Sobchak was reportedly taken aback and promised to give the building to the Society of Experimental Visual Art for the next 49 years. In exchange for the artists vacating many of the premises inside the entrance to Pushkinskaya 10 (entrance to the center is now through Ligovsky Prospekt 73) the city administration carried out major repair work in the building, causing some who remember the center before the renovation work was carried out to lament that it lost the charm it had when it was a squat.
“Of course, after the reconstruction Pushkinskaya 10 became more attractive to visitors,” said Orlov. “We got the opportunity to cooperate with other museums. Living in a squat was a novelty, today we have a more regular life.”
There are currently about 40 studios belonging to painters and musicians on the premises of Pushkinskaya 10, which consists of four wings containing galleries, workshops, Fish Fabrique music club, the Gallery of Experimental Sound (GEZ), the Museum of Nonconformist Art and the Kultprosvet information bureau, devoted to the history of the underground movement.
“Pushkinskaya 10 is a living organism, as opposed to other art spaces,” said Orlov. “Artists live and work here.”
As part of its coming-of-age celebrations, the New Academy of Fine Arts is showcasing work by its founder and first director, the late Timur Novikov. The King of the Underground has finally gained general acceptance, and two years ago an exhibition of his work was held at the Hermitage. The city’s most prestigious museum was won over by his motto: “Down with modernism! Let’s get back to classicism!” This summer, visitors can see Novikov’s works from the New Academy of Fine Arts collection, which popularizes neo-classicism.
An exhibition of modern art titled “Pushkinskaya 21” at the Museum of Nonconformist Art will present the creativity of Petersburg artists who continue to develop the traditions of avant-garde and experimental art.
“At Random,” an installation by Vladimir and Dmitry Igumnov and Maxim Bezliudny, is open in the center’s Parnik section.
“We created the exhibition at random,” said Vladimir Igumnov. “We went to a construction site at night to take some pictures and were surprised. Life was in full swing there! We met people playing paintball, parkour enthusiasts and others.
This year’s celebration, which is supported by the city’s culture committee, is dedicated mostly to new artists, who are always welcome at Pushkinskaya 10. The Society of Worthless Poets and Artists, whose motto is: “Don’t dream of being an artist! You are an artist, just start creating!” will hold a parade titled “The Reverse Side of a Striped Vest” on July 26.
For more detailed information, visit http://en.p-10.ru
TITLE: Well Oiled
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Back in December last year, Kholst Maslo opened, boasting a location inside the arch of the General Staff Building on Palace Square. Upon inspection however, the restaurant turns out to be situated just before the arch of Rossi’s vast classical building, and ironically, most of its windows look out onto Lidval’s drab grey Style Moderne building housing the city’s Rostelecom headquarters.
Unsurprisingly, considering its location across Palace Square to the Hermitage, it seems to be geared toward tourists, with a menu comprising Russian and European dishes. Its proximity to the city’s most celebrated museum is played up on a couple of TV monitors showing paintings from the Hermitage’s epic collection, and indeed in the restaurant’s name, which means “canvas” and “oil” in Russian.
Though considerable effort appears to have been put into Kholst Maslo’s design, it will not be to everyone’s taste. The walls of the small downstairs room are respectively painted black with gold stencilled designs etched into the surface, white with gold stencils, and plain gold, though the gold sections are mercifully broken up by the windows. As well as one black wall, the bars running along part of the room and part of the ceiling are also black, and the black wooden seats are upholstered with black, gray and gold velour. In case that’s just not enough gold, gilded wheels stand in rounded alcoves. The overall effect is dark, loud and heavy, and the oppressive feeling was only partially alleviated when a ceiling light was turned on.
Upstairs, we discovered on our way out, is a far larger, lighter and airier room. Though its blue and gold theme is still on the garish side, it is certainly the more attractive of the two seating areas.
The menu is large without being overwhelming, and included, unusually for Russia, a children’s menu, which could be perceived as further evidence of its focus on tourists, if St. Petersburg was only considered to be more of a child-friendly destination.
The home-baked bread (100 rubles, $3) looked and smelled enticing, but turned out to be frozen in the middle, somewhat undermining its claim to be domashny, or home-baked.
The appetizers are heavy on fish and seafood, but we passed over these for peperonate soup (200 rubles, $6.40), a piquant mixture brimming with thin strips of red, yellow and green bell peppers in a thick, hearty broth, and New Zealand carpaccio (200 rubles), which was improbably finely sliced and served with an outstanding combination of capers, red onion, lettuce, parsley and Parmesan cheese. The flavor of the piquant parsley was slightly disproportionate, but the herb had at least been left in whole sprigs, making it easy to remove, and overall the dish was an instant hit.
Rich borshch with veal 220 rubles ($7) lived up to its name, and came packed with pieces of veal that had considerately been finely chopped, making it easy — and thankfully, not too messy — to eat. It was declared by my guest, an almost professional borshch aficionado, to be everything that traditional borshch should be — rich, flavorsome and filling.
The mains could not quite keep up with the standards set so far, sadly. Inside the large, flat parcels of ravioli with spinach and ricotta (400 rubles, $13), the ricotta was barely in evidence and the spinach was lamentably under-salted. Without any notable accompaniment other than the occasional pine nut, the pasta, drizzled in an oily sauce, was absolutely lacking in taste, and a sharp disappointment after the promising appetizers.
Chicken cutlets alla Milanese (390 rubles, $12.50) turned out to be another name for chicken Kiev, with a layer of cheese and herbs inside the breadcrumbs. Though it was chicken breast, a leg bone had been shoved inside and the other end covered with a mini chef’s hat made out of paper. The droll ensemble was served on what appeared to be potatoes, but in fact transpired to be toast fried in milk, and complemented by a side dish of fried mushrooms and onions (200 rubles).
TITLE: The 10th Music of The Great Hermitage festival
AUTHOR: By Taisiya Kirienko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The 10th Music of The Great Hermitage festival will open its doors Saturday, running through July 14 at the New Hermitage and the Great Courtyard of the Winter Palace.
The annual international festival, which is organized by the State Hermitage Museum and the Hermitage Music Academy, assembles leading musicians from all over the world every year and is unique both for its concert venues — the courtyards and halls of the Hermitage — and for the diversity of musical genres and trends presented at the festival.
This year’s jubilee festival launches a series of cultural events devoted to the coming 250th anniversary of the Hermitage, which will be celebrated in 2014. In addition, as this year’s festival coincides with the year of France in Russia, it will also be marked by an open-air concert in the Great Courtyard of the Winter Palace on July 14, Bastille Day.
Bastille Day has been celebrated in St. Petersburg for 15 years now by the French Institute. This year’s festivities include performances by the Litsedei troupe and dance groups, video installations, a fashion show, and a concert by the French band Lo’Jo, whose music is a unique mixture of French chanson, Arab, Spanish, and African folk music.
The opening concert of the festival at the New Hermitage on Saturday is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio’s death, and will be marked by a performance by the early music band Laus Concentus. The ensemble, whose members play on original instruments and contemporary copies, has a repertoire spanning the late medieval age to Renaissance and Baroque.
Another special guest of the festival, Switzerland’s classical guitar ensemble Meridion Guitar Quartet, will perform at the New Hermitage on Thursday.
The penultimate day of the festival on July 11 will present a jazz-fusion concert by Andrei Kondakov and five-times Grammy laureate trumpeter Randy Brecker from the U.S. Randy Brecker has been shaping the sound of jazz, R&B and rock for more than four decades, and his trumpet and flugelhorn performances have graced hundreds of albums by artists ranging from James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Parliament-Funkadelic to Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan, David Sanborn, Jaco Pastorius, Horace Silver and Frank Zappa.
TITLE: Petersburg Art Week Showcases Talent
AUTHOR: By Kristina Aleksandrova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Art Week, one of Russia’s largest exhibitions and contests, opens to the public Tuesday in the exhibition hall of the St. Petersburg Union of Artists.
The program of this year’s Art Week features some interesting master classes, including a hat design workshop given by one of the city’s most famous fashion designers and hat collector, Marina Sedova. Sedova has been collecting hats for more than 20 years, and now has about 1,500, some of which can be seen in her boutique.
Two days are dedicated to Japanese art, in which participants will be taught calligraphy, ikebana and how to put on a kimono. International participants in the event can take advantage of the opportunity to take part in master classes dedicated to traditional Russian arts such as Zhostovo and lubok painting.
The St. Petersburg Art week extends to a variety of locations, and some of the al fresco activities will be organized in the city’s suburbs. Lecturers will show participants how to use watercolors, crayons, oil and acrylic.
There are five contests in the Art Week program. Artists will compete in painting, graphics, sculpture, photography and crafts. All participants are divided into two categories of students and professionals. Students are artists who have not yet graduated or have no specialized training. Professionals are teachers, organizations and those who create art for a living.
Last year, more than 800 artists took part in the competition, about 30 of whom were from abroad. Entrants can take part either in person by bringing their work with them, or in absentia by sending electronic copies.
The jury is also divided in two parts: national and international, the latter including artists from more than 20 countries. Both groups will be awarded marks out of 10. International jury members will work separately with the aim of composing an unbiased rating. Two lists of winners will be made: The national jury’s choice and the international jury’s choice.
Each participant has the opportunity to exhibit their work at the Art Hall and be published in the “New Faces in Arts & Design” international catalogue, which will be distributed in galleries and organizations in Europe and the U.S., giving every artist the chance to be noticed by potential clients and earn a name for themselves. As well as various bonuses and prizes, the future promotion of the best participants is guaranteed. Their work will take part in future international and Russian exhibitions.
The St. Petersburg Art Week is a part of Russian Art Week, which is in turn a part of the global Art Weeks project held in Ukraine, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other countries.
TITLE: New Chekhov-Themed Film Opens In Russia
AUTHOR: By Kristina Aleksandrova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As Russia celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Anton Chekhov, the writer and playwright is being honored at theaters in St. Petersburg and around Russia. At the Chekhov International Theater Festival in Moscow at the beginning of this year, Daniel Veronese impressed audiences with his expressive performance of “Uncle Vanya,” and director Daniele Finzi Pasca, whose “Corteo” production for Cirque du Soleil is currently in town, struck spectators with the spectacular special effects used in his “Donka (A Letter to Chekhov).”
Now Chekhov is being honored on the big screen. “Death in Pince-Nez or Our Chekhov,” a sequel to Anna Chernakova’s film version of “The Cherry Orchard” opened in film theaters on Thursday. The film was shown during the Moscow International Film Festival, where it was included in two of the festival’s programs: “Chekhovian Motifs” and “Gala Screenings.”
Chernakova, together with co-author Alexander Adabashyan, have produced a detective story to rival those of Agatha Christie. The comic thriller tells the story of a famous theater director, Daniil Sorin, whose staging of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” was a great success in Russia 15 years earlier. Having left Russia for reasons beyond his control, Sorin is unexpectedly invited to Moscow to breathe new life into the play, and he agrees.
Things appear to be going well until a chain of ill-fated events starts happening. Sorin discovers a gravestone with his name on it, sees a catafalque near the theater and receives brochures from a funeral home. After getting a phone call from his friend, he realizes that somebody is out to kill him.
“All Chekhov’s short stories and plays will live forever,” said Chernakova. “They make comments on reality. The times are changing, but people’s characters remain the same.”
Talking about “her Chekhov,” the director said, “It is interesting for me to have a dialogue with him.”
Chernakova was the first Russian director to make a film version of “The Cherry Orchard” in 1993. It wasn’t shown at cinemas, but participated in the Russia’s biggest film festival, “Kinotavr,” and in the Tokyo International Film Festival.
For “Our Chekhov,” Chernakova decided to revive her earlier film. Her new film is skillfully interspersed with shots from “The Cherry Orchard,” which represent Sorin’s recollections of his previous play. The movie focuses on the contrast between the past and present.
Chernakova reunited most of the actors from “The Cherry Orchard” for her latest Chekhov-themed work.
“While we were writing the scenario, we were wondering who would play Daniil Sorin,” said the director.
“We were going through the options when we saw Nikita Mikhalkov’s “12,” and suddenly I realized that I wanted Yury Stoyanov to play Sorin.
“I think he can play both comic and tragic roles,” she explained. “I was afraid the movie would have too much pathos or be too full of fun. But Yury managed to make his character lifelike,” she added.
Sergei Bezrukov, another darling of the Russian silver screen, also appears in the film, playing a glamorous, jewelry-sporting director.
TITLE: Baltic Biennale Gives Artist, Audiences a New Meeting Forum
AUTHOR: By Lyudmila Tsubiks
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The second Baltic Biennale of Contemporary Art opened on June 16 at St. Petersburg’s Derzhavin museum and will run through July and September, bringing together artists from Russia, Germany, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Finland, Sweden and Estonia.
Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum and the president of the Baltic Biennale, promises that the exhibition will be the best in Europe.
The Baltic Biennale was established to give artists and Russian audiences a forum in which to gather. “Each artist from the Baltic and Scandinavian countries brings with them their own emotional and diverse interpretation of the unique stratum of our being,” said Tatyana Yuryeva, the project’s curator and vice president, who described the mood of the cultural event as “generally optimistic.”
The events are taking place at various exhibition halls around the city including the Derzhavin Museum, the Small Manezh gallery, the Diaghilev Art Center, the Modern Art Museum at St. Petersburg State University, the Books and Graphics Center and the World of Water museum.
A Finnish art group unveiled a project titled “Kosmost” at the Small Manezh gallery last month as part of the biennale. The project was worked on by well-known musicians, artists and photographers from Finland including Ossi Kajas, Matti Kahkonen, Sami Mannerheimo, Egle Oddo and St. Petersburg-based Sami Hyrskylahti. On July 16, the next project of the Biennale — a photo festival titled “Horizons” featuring work by German photographers — opens at the same gallery.
A startling installation by Russian artist Alexander Reichstein devoted to Pablo Picasso’s well-known painting “Woman Reading” will be displayed at the World of Water museum. The author invites spectators to transform the picture into a three-dimensional surface created with painted plywood panels, allowing them to “enter” Picasso’s picture and see how it is arranged.
“Here, modernism appears childishly simple, open to an unbiased view,” says Reichstein of his work.
The Derzhavin museum will host paintings, sculpture, graphics, video art, and performances by artists from Russia and the Baltic States.
Both professional artists such as Andrei Krassulin and Natalya Nesterova, as well as new talents are participating in the Baltic Biennale. Young photographer Yekaterina Ivanova is making her debut with a photo exhibition titled “Aquarelle” at the Diaghilev Art Center. The collection is devoted to the image of water.
Yuryeva said that projects such as the Baltic Biennale help young artists to improve their standing on the art market.
“The Baltic Biennial provides a brilliant opportunity to put new names that appeared at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries on the cultural map of the countries of the Baltic region,” she said.
A conference titled “The Image of the Other. The Baltic Circle” will be held within the context of the Biennale, along with a “square table” discussion focusing on topical contemporary art issues in the Baltic region. In the future, organizers plan to hold the Baltic Biennale in the cities of the Baltic States.
For a full program, visit http://baltic-biennale.com/