SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1594 (55), Friday, July 23, 2010
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TITLE: Record $250M Fine In Copyright Lawsuit
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Moscow court has ordered a leading publishing house to pay an unprecedented 7.6 billion rubles ($249.6 million) in damages to a smaller rival for copyright infringement in a lawsuit that lawyers said highlights the shortcomings of Russia’s intellectual property rights laws.
Effective enforcement of intellectual property rights is a key issue blocking Russia’s 17-year bid to enter the World Trade Organization.
The Moscow Arbitration Court ruled Tuesday that Astrel, a subsidiary of AST, had violated a copyright held by the Terra publishing house by publishing books written by renowned science fiction writer Alexander Belyayev (1884-1942), whose novels “Amphibian Man” and “Professor Dowell’s Head” enjoyed immense popularity in Soviet times and still have a devoted following.
The 7.6 billion rubles in damages — a sum that matches AST’s annual turnover — was calculated by multiplying the number of Belyayev books published by AST by the price of a luxury six-volume leather-bound edition of Belyayev books that Terra printed in Italy. AST’s books sold for 160 rubles ($5.20) apiece, while the luxury set cost 114,650 rubles ($3,760). The luxury set had a print run of 620 copies.
Terra praised the ruling as a signal that Russia would honor authors’ rights.
“A musician makes a disc and sells it for $100, but pirates sell it for $2. The real damage is still $100,” Terra lawyer Viktor Abdurakhmanov told The St. Petersburg Times.
But AST lawyer Oleg Bartenyev complained that the ruling was unfair, noting that Terra also published Belyayev books in regular editions priced significantly less than the luxury set, RIA-Novosti reported.
An AST spokeswoman said the publisher would appeal but refused to elaborate, saying paperwork for the appeal had to be prepared first.
Whether Terra has any claim to the rights to Belyayev’s works might be a matter for another lawsuit. The publishing house, which specializes in historical literature, dictionaries and classics, says it obtained the rights through a contact with the writer’s daughter Svetlana in 2001.
But AST says the works passed into the public domain in 1992, 50 years after Belyayev’s death.
Terra based its lawsuit on a clause in the Civil Code that allows copyrights for authors who worked during World World II to be extended to 70 years after their death.
But Irina Tulubyeva, a property rights lawyer, said the clause was introduced in 1993 and could not apply retroactively to Belyayev’s writings.
She also said the size of the fine was unrealistic. “First of all, claims should be reasonable,” Tulubyeva said, adding that 5 million rubles ($164,000) was the maximum compensation awarded in most copyright cases.
Tulubyeva said Terra’s suit appeared to be the latest volley in a long-running battle between the two publishers.
AST claims to have won several property rights lawsuits against the Terra Book Club, an independent company previously headed by Sergei Kondratov, head of the Terra publishing house, and is demanding 11 million rubles ($361,000) in compensation, the Marker.ru online business news magazine reported in May.
The web site of the Moscow Arbitration Court indicates that Terra Book Club was put under bankruptcy receivership in May as the result of a lawsuit by Astrel.
But Terra’s lawyer Abdurakhmanov said neither AST nor its subsidiary Astrel “have won a single suit against Terra.”
TITLE: Gunmen Attack Power Station, Kill Two
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A daring terrorist attack on a hydropower station in the southern republic of Kabardino-Balkaria on Wednesday killed two police guards and stirred fears that Islamist militants, emboldened by a first success, might start pursuing other economic targets.
The attack, which saw three to five gunmen break into the 25-megawatt station and plant five bombs on the premises, marks a milestone for Islamist militants, who have threatened to attack economic targets across Russia since at least 2009 but never before succeeded.
The Baksan station, located 24 kilometers northwest of the regional capital, Nalchik, will be closed for six to eight weeks for repairs, Ali Sottayev, director of RusHydro’s unit in Kabardino-Balkaria, said on NTV television.
No power outages resulted from the attack, Vesti state television reported.
The unidentified attackers entered the station at about 4:20 a.m., shooting the two guards to death, the station’s owner, state-controlled RusHydro, said in a statement.
The attackers then captured and tortured two employees to find out the location of the generators, which are the core of the station, a RusHydro official told Gazeta.ru. The station has an alarm button, but the employees failed to react quickly enough to activate it, the report said.
The attackers struck one employee with the butts of their guns and slashed the other with a knife, but left them both alive, the official said. No other people were present at the station.
Moving on to the room housing the station’s three generators, the assailants planted five bombs, four of which went off at about 5:25 a.m., RusHydro said. The fifth bomb was defused later by the Federal Security Service.
The resulting explosions destroyed two of the generators and sparked a fire that took 3 1/2 hours to put out, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
But the station has no dam, which means that the neighboring area faced no danger of flooding, Channel One television reported.
A bomb exploded near a police station in the town of Baksan an hour before the attack in what investigators said was likely an attempt to distract the police. The bomb damaged several buildings but caused no injuries, the regional branch of the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
The power station bombs were planted in areas that inflicted the greatest possible damage, possibly indicating that former station employees were among the attackers, Vesti said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but a law enforcement source told RIA-Novosti that the attackers had been identified. “They are members of a gang led by a well-known rebel,” the source said, without elaborating.
Lifenews.ru said the chief suspect was Asker Dzhappuyev, also known as Emir Abdullakh, who declared himself leader of Kabardino-Balkaria’s militants after the previous leader, Anzor Astemirov, was shot dead by law enforcement officers in March.
Dzhappuyev has been blamed for a drastic increase in attacks in Kabardino-Balkaria in recent months, the report said.
Twenty-one explosions have occurred in the republic since June 1, and 13 others have been foiled, the news web site Kavkazsky Uzel said Wednesday.
President Dmitry Medvedev, who was on an official visit to Finland on Wednesday, was briefed about the attack by FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov and Kabardino-Balkaria President Arsen Kanokov, whose term expires in September, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to ensure that the station be rebuilt “in the shortest time.” The station was opened in 1936, making it one of Russia’s oldest.
RusHydro said security had been stepped up at its all power stations across the country, especially in the North Caucasus.
“An order has been given for a high alert at all sites in the fuel and energy sector to prevent terrorist attacks,” Sechin said, Channel One reported.
This is the first officially confirmed terrorist attack on a power station in Russia.
Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for the disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower station in Siberia that killed 75 people last August and threatened to target other strategic sites in the future.
But the authorities have dismissed Umarov’s claim, saying the disaster was the result of negligence and human error. No traces of explosives have been reported at Sayano-Shushenskaya.
Umarov also claimed responsibility for the March suicide bombings that killed at least 40 passengers in Moscow’s metro.
Andrei Soldatov, an analyst on Agentura.ru who tracks the security services, said law enforcement agencies shared some of the blame for Wednesday’s attack because they had not beefed up security at strategic sites.
“The rebels have openly showed their interest in these sites, and it’s absolutely unclear why law enforcement agencies have not improved security measures there,” Soldatov told The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Environmentalists Give Warning About Tap Water
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Environmentalists from the local branch of the international pressure group Greenpeace are warning residents of the Moskovsky, Frunzensky, Kirovsky, Pushkinsky and Nevsky districts not to consume tap water during the next few days.
The ecologists on Wednesday night identified a massive discharge of varnish and paint into the waters of Slavyanka River.
According to Greenpeace, the discharge comes from the Rybatskoye industrial zone to the south of the city. The toxic blow-out, which was originally detected by residents of Petro-Slavyanka village who informed ecologists and the Emergency Situations Ministry, marked the third such discharge during the past two months, environmentalists say.
The first discharge in the series occured in the early hours of June 4 and resulted in local fish dying in large numbers. Dead fish could be observed on the surface of the river across a vast territory stretching up to a kilometer in length.
Testing of the water showed that toxic pollution was at a level five times higher than acceptable.
“A total of seven state organizations were involved in the investigation of that accident, but their work is yet to yield results,” said Dmitry Artamonov, head of the local branch of Greenpeeace. “The Nature Protection Prosecutor’s Office has stated that ‘the materials on the accident have been sent for investigation in order for the possibility of a criminal case to be assessed.”
The ecologists accuse the state nature protection and monitoring agencies of being toothless and demonstrating a hands-off approach.
“As we can see, similar discharges are happening with some frequency, even through the very same pipe,” Artamonov said. “This is a vivid illustration of the complete helplessess and uselessness of state environmental control. Every time there is a discharge it is identified and documented, with water test results being provided, making it possible for the enterprise responsible to be established. There are sufficient resources, but there appears to be a lack of a political will to get anything done.”
Ecologists warn that local rivers contain large quantities of dyes, oils and a variety of chemicals, all illegally discharged from industrial plants.
“Even if the water looks clean, with no obvious oily patches, don’t trust your eyes. They just don’t give you the whole picture,” Artamonov said. “The Neva, for instance, is fast-flowing, so if you throw something into it at night it’ll be far away by morning.”
“It is an open secret that in most cases, illegal industrial discharges happen at night,” Artamonov said. “Everyone knows this, including both the managers of the companies responsible for the discharges, and the state organizations that have to make sure these discharges do not happen. This implies that everyone is happy with the status quo, except for environmental enthusiasts like us.”
Greenpeace said their volunteers often find themselves filming and documenting illegal discharges during the night in the total absence of any environmental specialists from state organizations.
City Hall says there are currently 375 drains channeling untreated industrial discharge within the city limits, and more than 1,000 sewage dumping points. Most of these are located in tributaries of the Neva. The Okhta River is the most polluted.
“The likeliest reason behind growing volumes of industrial waste is corruption,” Artamonov said. “Since 2000, the amount of unauthorized industrial discharge has grown despite the fact that this is illegal and could lead to the temporary suspension of all operations by the company responsible, until they stop or install a proper filtration system.”
Ecologists also complain about the frustratingly slow pace of official investigations and accuse the state environmental watchdog organizations of turning a blind eye to illegal industrial discharges.
“Naturally, if you start looking into an oil discharge several weeks after it happened, finding the responsible company will be very difficult,” the ecologist said.
“We often file a complaint, providing comprehensive evidence of substantial environmental pollution, and yet nobody is punished,” Artamonov said. “Then the prosecutor’s office and other controlling organizations talk about the high level of pollution in nearby territories and try to justify their helplessness by stressing that there are so many industrial sites on the banks of local rivers and canals that establishing the guilty party is almost impossible.”
According to ecologists, for the situation to improve, environmental prosecutors have to start working closely with official monitoring organizations and provide regular and consistent control of local waters. It is extremely alarming, they say, that it is always pressure groups who identify the polluted areas, while the official organizations never report anything.
TITLE: State Sells Grain From Stockpile
AUTHOR: By Olga Razumovskaya
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The state will begin unloading grain from its stockpiles on Aug. 4 to help relief efforts in drought-stricken regions, Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said Wednesday, ending two years of stockpiling meant to support prices.
The government has also said it hopes to help farmers and is considering five-year subsidized loans to purchase grain from stockpiles, among other bailout measures drawn up with the intention of lessening the impact of the drought.
TITLE: City Prepares to Mark Navy Day Holiday
AUTHOR: By Kristina Aleksandrova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg will celebrate the annual Navy Day holiday on Sunday.
A naval parade will open the celebrations, featuring 11 ships and boats belonging to the Leningrad and Baltiisk naval bases. Some of the vessels are new and have not been seen by the public before. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore the ships.
Among the vessels on parade will be the multi-purpose corvette the Steregushchy, which was designed and built in St. Petersburg by Severnaya Verf shipyard. It was launched three years ago.
Another participant will be the fourth generation submarine the Saint Petersburg, which was launched this year and is remarkable for its compact size and low-level noise. Designed to destroy enemies’ ships, it is equipped with torpedo striking power.
This year, the Russian Navy’s collection will be supplemented with the minesweeper the Grachonok, which was built in Tatarstan. Such types of boats haven’t been produced for 30 years. Today the vessel’s main task is to look for mines left over from World War II in the area of the Nord Stream pipeline construction.
On Sunday evening, a concert will be held on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island featuring the Admiralteisky Orchestra of the Leningrad Naval Base, and opera soloists singing modern adaptations of naval hits.
“The performance will feature ballroom dancers, and then break-dancers from Top 9 will take to the stage,” said the organizers of the entertainment program from Oasis company. “We have also made up a quiz game for the audience. Naturally, the theme is the sea, and the prizes will be sailor’s vests.”
The concert will be headlined by Vladimir Markin and Oleg Gazmanov, whose repertoire features a lot of sea songs. The celebration will end with a fireworks display.
Navy Day is celebrated every year on the fourth Sunday of July.
TITLE: U.S. Puts Russian Porn On Child Labor Blacklist
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Contractors must now prove that any Russian pornography used in fulfilling U.S. government orders was made without children.
That’s the bizarre message that U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration sent out this week when its Labor Department placed Russian pornography on a blacklist of products that “might have been mined, produced or manufactured by forced or indentured child labor.”
The 29-item list, published on the Labor Department’s web site on Monday, “is designed to make sure that federal agencies do not buy products made with forced or indentured child labor,” according to a fact sheet on the department’s web site.
Countries named on the black list do not face any trade sanctions or penalties, and the listed products are not prohibited, it said.
“Instead, it [the blacklist] requires federal contractors who furnish such a product to make certifications designed to help ensure that forced or indentured child labor was not, in fact, used to make the product,” the fact sheet says.
It was not clear Tuesday when and why the U.S. government might require contractors to provide pornography from Russia or any other country.
A Labor Department spokeswoman asked that questions be submitted by e-mail but had not responded by late Tuesday.
The list also includes products like cotton from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, rice from India and toys and electronics from China.
Each country’s entry is accompanied by a list of articles and research materials as an explanation for why its products were blacklisted. The bibliographical list for Russia contains articles on child trafficking and commercial sex exploitation.
Children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, who had not heard of the U.S. decision, said it was clearly an effort to crack down on child porn by labeling all Russian porn as suspect.
“That’s why they gave such a broad definition — so nothing will be able to go through,” Astakhov said by telephone.
He added that both Russia and the United States are “world leaders” in producing child porn.
About 5,500 web sites with child porn were shut down in the first six months of this year, largely because of alerts from Internet users, the Interior Ministry said Monday. Most of the sites were based in Russia, it said.
Child pornography cases accounted for 6 percent of the 14,000 Internet crimes registered last year, the ministry said earlier.
The production and distribution of pornographic materials containing images of minors is punishable by two to 10 years imprisonment — a penalty that Astakhov called “too small.”
“This is a highly criminal business, and people who are involved in it are not just distributing films but actively involved in molesting children,” he said.
Last week, President Dmitry Medvedev introduced amendments to the Labor Code prohibiting people convicted of child sex crimes from working with children.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Fatal Swan Lake
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A man drowned as a result of a swan attack in Riga, Interfax reported.
Inese Veisa, a representative of the fire rescue department, told news agencies that the man was swimming with his pregnant wife not far from the island of Kundzinsala when a swan attacked his wife. In his efforts to save his spouse, he became the target of the angered swan. His wife made it to the shore, but the man drowned.
Local ornithologist Kaspars Funts said that the swan is a large and strong bird, and may have been protecting its nest when the swimmers intruded on its territory.
Pilot in Drugs Case
MOSCOW (SPT) — Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, detained in May in Liberia and sent to the United States, is accused of transporting four metric tons of cocaine for $5.7 million, Kommersant reported Wednesday.
U.S. prosecutors believe that Yaroshenko has trafficked illegal drugs since 2007, the report said.
The Russian Embassy in Washington has complained to the U.S. State Department that Yaroshenko was arrested and brought to U.S. soil without Moscow receiving proper notification.
Kommersant said Yaroshenko agreed at a meeting in Kiev in March to transport the cocaine from South America to Liberia and Ghana, which are used as transit points in a roundabout route to the United States.
Yaroshenko and five other suspects face up to 40 years in prison if convicted on drug trafficking charges.
TITLE: Okhta Center Appeals to UNESCO
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Okhta Center, the firm in charge of the construction of Gazprom’s controversial skyscraper in central St. Petersburg, has sent a letter to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee setting out its arguments in favor of the completion of the project.
The international body had previously warned that St. Petersburg’s historic center could be struck off the World Heritage list if the skyscraper was built.
“The historic center of St. Petersburg should be freed from business activities which are not characteristic for it. The transport flow and offices of many companies should be taken out of the historic center of the city,” the letter reads.
Okhta Center also supplied UNESCO with a list of materials which it claims prove that the future construction is located outside the city’s historic center and will only affect the skyline of St. Petersburg to a very limited extent.
Alexander Bobkov, executive director of Okhta Center, said that the controversy concerning the building’s construction is the result of the improper placing of the boundaries of the city’s historic center, and that at present those boundaries contain too much territory.
“This cultural heritage site — the historic center of St. Petersburg — is very large,” Bobkov said at a press conference Thursday. “Our project is outside the historic center, but due to the inaccuracy of the placing of its borders, it’s not clear if it’s part of the protected area or not.”
“In 1989, the city sent an application to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee and included territory that was too large to be eligible for protection on the list. In fact, it obviously did that back then, when the country was going through troubled times politically and economically, in the hope of getting more financial support,” Bobkov said.
The territory in St. Petersburg protected by World Heritage status amounts to 4,000 hectares, which is 25 times more than in Paris and 20 times more than in Rome. About 140 kilometers of the city’s embankments, including those of the Neva River and Lake Ladoga, are on the list of protected areas, he said.
The Russian Federation is now completing work on the establishment of the real boundaries of the historic center, Bobkov said. When this work has been completed, it will be clear how far the future Okhta Center is from those boundaries, he said.
Bobkov said that the planned changes to the boundaries of St. Petersburg’s historic center would be key issues under consideration at the next two sessions of the World Heritage Committee.
The next session of the international body is scheduled to begin on July 25 in Brazil, with Vera Dementyeva, head of the city’s Committee for the Protection of Monuments, due to attend.
Bobkov said that finds made by archaeologists working on the site of the future skyscraper are insufficient to warrant the creation of a museum.
“There is a myth that maintains that the finds at the site are so incredible that they require the opening of a special archaeological museum. The finds indicate that people were there, but that they did not reside there,” he said.
Vladimir Gronsky, communications coordinator for Gazprom Neft in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, said there was no way that the design for the building or the overall height of the tower could be changed.
“There can’t be any compromises. It’s a well-developed plan created by the finest architects and we can’t disfigure it,” said Gronsky. “I hope that over the course of time the design will come to be appreciated.”
TITLE: Medvedev ‘Not Ill’ From Finnish Milk
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev expressed confidence Wednesday that a looming ban on Finnish meat and dairy goods would be lifted within two weeks and won support from Finland’s president for visa-free travel for Russians.
Medvedev and Finnish President Tarja Halonen also discussed the rights of Russians living in Finland as they wrapped up a two-day visit in Naantali, a popular tourist town 14 kilometers west of Turku, and the Kremlin leader went swimming in the Gulf of Finland.
Medvedev said a ban on meat and dairy products from 14 Finnish producers, which is to take effect Friday, was “technical” and stemmed from Finland’s failure to comply with new customs rules.
“I do not think that this is a serious problem,” Medvedev told reporters, adding that he had eaten a lot of “good, fine” Finnish products while living in his native St. Petersburg “and haven’t fallen ill yet.”
“But we have changed the rules some time ago, and we told our Finnish friends already a year ago that they needed to change how they trade with Russia,” Medvedev said, Interfax reported. “These are technical points: all kinds of forms and regulations that need to be filled out a little differently.”
The Agriculture Ministry’s safety watchdog banned animal-based products from 14 plants effective July 9 for unspecified violations of sanitation norms, but last week it lifted the ban until July 23. Among the companies caught in the ban is dairy producer Valio, which has four factories on the blacklist.
Medvedev called the ban an “absolutely normal trade issue” and said it should not be politicized.
“I hope that this matter will be closed within the next two weeks,” he said.
Medvedev, making his case again for visa-free travel for Russians to the European Union, pressed Halonen to “convince” countries that are “hesitant” to open their borders, RIA-Novosti reported.
Halonen, speaking at the same news conference, said Finland would do “everything possible” to promote the visa-free travel of Russians to the EU.
Halonen also said Finnish laws were being changed to allow Russian nationals living in Finland to obtain residence permits for their elderly parents. The amendments were triggered by an outcry over the deportation last month of Irina Antonova, 82, who had lived with her daughter in Helsinki for two years.
Addressing mixed Russian-Finnish marriages, Halonen said Finland might negotiate a bilateral treaty regulating the rights of the parents in those marriages. “It is very important that authorities in Russia and Finland treat mixed families equally, without discriminating against anyone,” she said.
Turku authorities in February removed a 7-year-old boy from a Russian-Finnish family and sought to strip the parents of their guardian rights after the boy told his classmates that his mother had hit him and that he might move to Russia, RIA-Novosti reported.
Medvedev and Halonen also discussed European security and trade relations, the Kremlin web site reported, calling Finland “a priority business partner.” Bilateral trade has swelled by more than five times over the past decade, according to the Kremlin web site.
TITLE: Parasailing Donkey and Owner Disappear
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Investigators on Wednesday were looking for a donkey that parasailed over the Sea of Azov for 30 terrifying minutes last week.
The donkey’s owner faces charges of animal abuse, which are punishable by up to two years in prison, but a veterinarian needs to examine the animal to confirm that it was hurt before the charges can be filed, RIA-Novosti reported, citing police.
The owner, who has been identified, has disappeared together with the animal, police said.
Outraged beachgoers said the donkey, which was attached to a parachute and pulled by a motorboat, screamed in fear for most of the flight, which ended with the animal being dragged “half-dead” several meters across the water’s surface.
Animal rights activists said the donkey was certainly injured in the incident, which took place last Thursday in the village of Temryuk in the Krasnodar region.
The incident was reported to be an advertising stunt for a local parasailing business.
But the business’s owner denied this, telling RIA-Novosti that the donkey’s owner had requested that the animal be sent aloft for an unspecified purpose.
TITLE: City Hall to Foot Bill for Legislative Assembly’s Car Fleet
AUTHOR: By Maria Buravtseva and Alla Tokareva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: City Hall will buy 50 cars worth up to 65 million rubles ($2.1 million) for members of St. Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly. Only the Toyota Camry corresponds to the requirements stipulated by the tender documentation.
City Hall announced a tender this week for the purchase of 50 vehicles for the government company Smolninskoye. The starting price of the contract is 65 million rubles, meaning each vehicle is estimated at 1.3 million rubles ($42,600). The cars should have an engine capacity of 250 horsepower and should have been made in Russia this year. They should be no less than 4,800 millimeters long, 1,800 millimeters wide and have a ground clearance of 160 millimeters. Applications will be accepted until Aug. 9, while the tender is scheduled for Aug. 12. The winner must deliver the cars by Sept. 20.
Only the Lux model of the Toyota Camry, with a 277 horsepower engine, meets the requirements. The Nissan Teana is not eligible for the tender because it lacks one horsepower and five millimeters in width. The press office of Deputy Governor Mikhail Oseyevsky, who signed off on the documents Friday, declined to comment on the conditions of the tender.
“If we are talking about the Toyota, it’s for us,” said one assembly deputy. According to him, the decision to update the deputies’ fleet of automobiles was taken a long time ago. The specific use of the new cars was discussed with employees of the vehicle maintenance department at an event devoted to the end of the spring session of parliament, the official said. According to him, the Volvo S60s that are currently in use were purchased about six years ago and are now obsolete — his car has been in the garage for repairs five times in the last year alone, he said.
City Hall has previously bought the Toyota Camry for officials. The question of a new tender was not put to the vote and it was not discussed at council meetings, according to Oleg Nilov, leader of the A Just Russia faction, who opposes the purchase of the Toyotas for officials. According to him, 250 horsepower is too much for urban conditions. The model is unnecessarily glamorous and chic, the official said. He said he would try to keep his old car or transfer to a more modest car than the Toyota Camry. The tax on this model is about 40,000 rubles ($1,300) a year, while for a car with a lesser capacity of about 150-200 horsepower, it is several times lower. The vehicle tax for cars with a capacity of 150-200 horsepower is 50 rubles per 1 horsepower per year, 75 rubles from 200 to 250 horsepower, or 150 rubles per 1 horsepower for more powerful vehicles.
The winner of the May tender, Autocenter Nevsky, is ready to offer its services once again. The company is very interested in this order, said its general director, Oleg Charkov. The manager of another Toyota dealership said he would prepare a bid for the tender. Fifty cars represents 30 percent of the monthly sales of a center; the authorities rarely buy so many cars at once, he said. Nevsky Autocenter sells about 100 cars a month, Charkov said.
The Toyota plant produces 62 cars a day, and according to Charkov, the manufacturer has already promised to support the winner of the tender with additional deliveries. A representative of Toyota Motor Rus declined to comment.
According to ASM Holding, in the first five months this year, Toyota produced 6,134 Camry vehicles in St. Petersburg. Nissan is interested in participating in major tenders with equal conditions for all participants; the Toyota Camry and Nissan Teana belong to the same category and are direct competitors, said Tatyana Natarova, a representative of Nissan Motor Rus.
However, the Nissan Teana is the most expensive car in terms of service costs, according to a July survey carried out by Auto-dealer.ru — Petersburg. Servicing a Nissan Teana costs an average of 33,800 rubles ($1,107) over two years, while the Toyota Camry costs 19,829 rubles ($650). The cheapest vehicle to maintain is a Ford Mondeo, at 11,989 rubles ($393).
TITLE: Heat Wave Leads to Massive Rise In Consumption of Deka’s Kvas
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Deka, Russia’s second-largest maker of the traditional soft drink kvas, said it is selling three times the amount of the beverage in July as the worst heat wave in almost 40 years spreads across the country.
“We are selling triple the amounts of kvas this year compared with July sales in previous years,” Deka said in an e-mailed response to questions. Russian kvas sales will rise between 45 percent and 50 percent this year, compared with a 9 percent increase in 2009, it said.
A heat wave in the western part of Russia, the worst since 1972, will last another 10 days, the country’s chief forecaster said Tuesday. Temperatures have broken July records in dozens of cities in the region, including Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara, while Moscow may break the all-time record of 36.8 degrees centigrade (98.2 degrees) this weekend.
Kvas is made from bread or malt and can be flavored with sugar, birch sap and fruit. It’s naturally bubbly and contains negligible amounts of alcohol.
Prices for rye and barley, used to make kvas, are rising as the drought curbs supply, Deka said.
TITLE: Pulkovo Airport Developers Set Interest Fees on Loan
AUTHOR: By Karen Eeuwens
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Banks funding a project to upgrade and expand Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg will receive interest of 425 basis points to 475 basis points more than benchmark rates for the 12-year financing, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corporation said Monday they had arranged the 200 million euro ($257 million) loan for the public-private partnership, which was syndicated to eight commercial banks.
The project, managed by Northern Capital Gateway, a consortium including VTB Capital, Fraport and Greece’s Copelouzos Group, is the first public-private partnership for Russia’s airport sector to meet international standards, according to the EBRD.
Lenders get an interest margin of 425 basis points during the first four years of the loan, increasing to 450 basis points in years five to eight and 475 basis points in the final four years of the deal, said the people, who declined to be identified because terms are private.
Banks also get a commitment fee of 150 basis points and an upfront fee of 225 basis points to 280 basis points, depending on the amount they agreed to lend, one of the people said.
UniCredit, Standard Bank Group, Espirito Santo Investment, Nordea Bank, DZ Bank, Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau IPEX-Bank, Mediobanca and Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich were the lenders on the deal, according to the statement that the EBRD issued on Monday.
The financing brings the overall amount raised by the EBRD and IFC for the Pulkovo project to 370 million euros ($478 million), the EBRD said.
TITLE: Sales of Passenger Cars May Reach 1.6M for 2010
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Sales of passenger cars may reach 1.6 million by the end of the year, making for an annual increase of 15 percent, according to a report released Wednesday.
Although sales dropped 50 percent in 2009 after the onset of the global financial crisis, the flagging passenger car market kicked into overdrive this year with the introduction of the cash-for-clunkers program, which allows consumers to trade in an old car for a 50,000 ruble ($1,640) voucher toward a new one.
Sales may reach 1.3 million to 1.6 million cars this year, possibly exceeding the pre-crisis record of 1.5 million, said the report, by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The Industry and Trade Ministry has projected that the second stage of the cash-for-clunkers program would boost the market by an additional 5 percent.
The number of passenger cars sold jumped by 3 percent in the first six months of the year on average, with sales of domestically assembled foreign brands increasing by as much as 49 percent, the report said. Total sales in ruble terms grew 9 percent on average in the first half due in large part to a 7 percent increase in the average car price.
With the launch of the cash-for-clunkers program and an increase in import tariffs, sales of domestically produced foreign brands have grown 32 percent, while sales of imported cars have fallen 23 percent.
A program subsidizing auto loans has resulted in more loans being given out in the first half of 2010 than throughout 2009. About 76,000 subsidized loans have been approved this year, the report said.
TITLE: Kazakhstan Withdraws Approval From Polyus Gold
TEXT: MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Kazakhstan’s Antitrust Agency suspended the approval it gave in 2008 for Russia’s Polyus Gold to acquire a controlling stake in KazakhGold Group, threatening Polyus’s plans for a U.K. share listing.
“The Antitrust Agency decided to suspend the approval it had granted,” the watchdog said Wednesday on its web site.
KazakhGold shareholders were due to vote July 27 for a so-called reverse takeover improving parent Polyus’s access to the London share market. Kazakh financial police began probing share dealings in KazakhGold on July 14 and the planned takeover may be delayed, Vedomosti said Thursday, citing unidentified officials.
The Industry and New Technologies Ministry on July 12 also annulled approval for the sale of KazakhGold shares to Polyus.
“It was the former management of KazakhGold, headed by Kanat Assaubayev, who received all necessary approvals for the 2009 deal on the Kazakh side and any claims should be addressed to them,” Polyus said in an e-mailed response to questions.
The Assaubayev family said in a statement on July 16 that it understood Kazakh authorities had begun proceedings against the management of KazakhGold, including Chairman Yevgeny Ivanov, who is also chief executive officer of Polyus Gold.
TITLE: Transport Tax to Stay, Fuel Excises to Be Increased
AUTHOR: By Alyona Chechel, Dmitry Kazmin and Filipp Sterkin
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — The government has decided to continue charging a reduced transportation tax while raising excises on gasoline by 3 rubles (10 cents) per liter over the next three years, Vedomosti has learned.
During a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Sunday, it was decided that excise taxes on gasoline will rise by 1 ruble per year in 2011, 2012 and 2013, a source in the government administration and an official familiar with the results of the meeting told Vedomosti.
The Finance Ministry proposed raising the tax by 2 rubles next year and 1 ruble in 2012, but since it was decided to keep the transportation tax, the fuel increases will be gradual, one of the sources said.
Putin requested that the government consider keeping the transportation tax, a Finance Ministry official said, adding that the tax should be reduced to prevent a sharp rise in costs for car owners.
So far, there are two options: reducing the transportation tax’s base rate or introducing breaks for certain groups of people, the Finance Ministry official said. The ministry is preparing calculations based on both scenarios and will present them to Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev soon.
Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed that the meeting had been held, but declined to comment on its results. The government administration source said a final decision would be made at a Presidium meeting July 29.
Deputy Prime Ministers Sergei Ivanov and Alexei Kudrin, who also heads the Finance Ministry, supported the cancellation of the transportation tax starting next year to compensate for higher excise taxes on fuel.
Some drivers are rarely behind the wheel, but the transportation tax is paid by all car owners, Ivanov said. After the reform, however, the cost would be based on the amount of fuel consumed. The Transportation Ministry also supported the proposal, but asked that revenue from the excise tax be added to dedicated road funds to finance construction work and renovations.
Medvedev, however, recommended that the government reconsider canceling the transportation tax.
The excise tax per metric ton of 92-octane and 95-octane gasoline is identical — 3,992 rubles ($128.70), given the average refinery prices on June 23 of 23,842 rubles and 26,306 rubles, respectively, according to research firm Kortes.
For a liter of gasoline — which weighs about 750 grams — the tax works out to about 3 rubles to 3.5 rubles. Thus, raising the tax by 3 rubles over three years would essentially double the tax burden, said Mikhail Turukalov, an analyst at Kortes.
Doubling the current excise on diesel fuel, now 1,188 rubles per ton, would add about 1 ruble to the cost per liter, he said.
If the excise were increased by just 1 ruble, it could be included in the fuel’s price, said a source at an oil company, but if the excise tax is doubled, that would be harder to pass on to consumers, he said. Demand could fall and the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service could take issue, the source said.
Fuel prices will definitely increase because there is no way to hide 3 rubles given the margins between wholesale and retail prices, said a source at a second oil company. He also said he was concerned about the anti-monopoly service’s reaction.
A spokesperson for Rosneft said the company would act on market conditions. Spokespeople for TNK-BP, LUKoil and Gazprom Neft declined comment.
Raising fuel excise taxes and keeping the transportation tax is a politically risky decision ahead of elections, said Vyacheslav Lysakov, who heads the car owners’ movement Svoboda Vybora, or Freedom of Choice.
“It would have been better not to make any public promises than to go back on their word now and look for justifications,” he said.
Producers’ rising costs are being offset by the low growth rates of people’s income, said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog. In years past, when salaries were rising quickly, cost growth — including for fuel — was immediately visible in retail prices. Now, that is no longer the case, he said.
According to Transportation Ministry calculations, boosting the fuel excise tax by 3 rubles will bring transportation costs to between 10.4 percent and 15.6 percent of goods’ total cost, compared with 10 percent to 15 percent now.
TITLE: VTB-24 Considers Sale of Auto Loan Bonds
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — VTB Group’s retail arm is considering the country’s first sale of bonds backed by auto loans since 2006 after June car sales increased 45 percent.
VTB-24 is likely to offer securities tied to vehicle debt next year as a way of providing credit for car buyers, said Alexei Tokarev, head of the bank’s auto loan unit. Toyota Bank, the Russian lending unit of the world’s largest auto manufacturer, also may issue the notes in the future, president Alexander Koloshenko said.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is deploying 11 billion rubles ($360 million) of the government’s economic stimulus package this year to revive Russia’s car market from a slump the Association of European Business says sent car sales plunging 49 percent last year. Russia surpassed Germany in the first half of 2008 as Europe’s biggest auto market, before the global credit crisis and the ruble’s 35 percent tumble between August and January 2009 choked demand.
“The car loan market is experiencing a kind of resurrection,” said Martin Jahn, managing director of Volkswagen’s sales operations. “The auto loan market was the engine of the Russian car market growth up to the year 2008.”
Russians bought 1.65 million cars in the first half of 2008, a 41 percent increase from the same period a year earlier, according to data from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Sales totaled 174,838 in June, an increase of 45 percent from the year before, according to a report this month from the Association of European Business.
The last Russian securities backed by auto loans were sold four years ago, according to Stanislav Ponomarenko, a fixed-income analyst at ING Group. Securities linked to vehicle debt in the U.S. represent about $34 billion of the $55 billion in bonds tied to consumer and business lending this year, according to data compiled by Bank of America.
VTB-24 sold 15 billion rubles of bonds backed by mortgage loans in its most recent asset-backed transaction in December. The bonds due in 2014, with a put option for redemption in 2011, have rallied since their issue, cutting the yield to 6.85 percent on Tuesday from 9.7 percent at the time of the sale, data compiled by Bloomberg show. VTB is rated Baa1 by Moody’s Investors Service and BBB by Standard & Poor’s, in line with the government.
Loans will be used to finance between 45 percent and 50 percent of all car purchases in Russia this year, according to UniCredit and Toyota’s consumer finance unit. About 35 percent of sales are currently financed with loans, according to Volkswagen and car dealership Rolf Group.
Bonds backed by auto loans will probably be used to fund a third of total car loans, or about 150 billion rubles, VTB’s Tokarev said in the July 19 interview.
While Toyota Bank “hopes very much” to issue bonds backed by auto loans, issuing such securities is now too costly, Koloshenko said.
Bonds tied to auto lending are “an interesting and promising instrument, but in practice auto lending is funded directly by means of deposits and bank loans,” said Ivan Syskov, head of car lending development at UniCredit.
Sberbank has no plans to issue bonds backed by auto loans because it has “no difficulties financing the planned lending volumes,” said Natalya Karaseva, the bank’s head of consumer lending.
“I wouldn’t touch it,” said Hakem Saidi, a fund manager at Pioneer Investments Kapitalanlagegesellschaft, which holds VTB’s bonds. “People come out with packaging of this type of loan to enhance the yield. We’ve seen this before in the years of 2003, 2007, and everybody knows it ended up in tears.”
Sales of asset-backed securities will allow banks to keep expanding credit to car buyers without using up their capital, VTB’s Tokarev said.
“The lack of a market for such bonds inhibits loan growth,” Tokarev said. “Many market players will consider” issuing securities tied to auto lending next year, including VTB-24, he said.
Increases in employment and consumer spending rekindled auto purchases this year. Retail sales rose for a sixth month in June, jumping an annual 5.8 percent, while the jobless rate fell to 6.8 percent, the lowest level in 20 months.
The total amount of Russian car loans will probably increase 19 percent to 500 billion rubles by the end of this year, Tokarev said.
“The global risk appetite will start to improve, and demand should follow,” ING’s Ponomarenko said. “There could be few deals just to satisfy particular demand for that kind of instrument.”
TITLE: Inspections of Small Businesses Decrease
AUTHOR: By Peter France
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The number of unplanned inspections of businesses has significantly decreased since new rules went into effect limiting the regulatory burden on enterprises, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said Tuesday.
In the first quarter of 2010, there were only 405,000 inspections carried out on small businesses, excluding those by tax authorities and law enforcement, Nabiullina said at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to comments posted on the government web site. That figure is down from 595,000 inspections in the third quarter of 2009 and 613,000 in the fourth quarter.
In May 2009, Kremlin-backed changes took effect requiring most state regulators to get permission for unscheduled inspections from local prosecutors. The new rules came in response to a call from President Dmitry Medvedev for the government to stop “causing nightmares” for small businesses.
Nabiullina said Tuesday that the measures had worked, as only 54 percent of the total number of inspections were carried out on small businesses.
“This figure seems high, but small businesses make up 68 percent of the total number of enterprises, meaning that the frequency of inspections on small businesses became smaller,” she said.
But despite the decreased burden on small businesses, Nabiullina said only 3.8 percent of the inspections that are carried out go through the process of gaining consent from the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“There are two reasons for this. First, the regulations requiring prosecutorial consent were taken out for certain agencies, including tax, customs, budget, transport and anti-monopoly authorities. … Second, other agencies simply aren’t following the law, unfortunately,” she said.
About 80 percent of the inspections are carried out by just five regulators: The Emergency Situations Ministry, the Federal Consumer Protection Agency, the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Atomic Inspection, the Federal Migration Service and the Federal Labor and Employment Service.
Putin asked Nabiullina to present proposals to reduce the number of agencies excepted from the rules and to create a system of monitoring to reduce the number of violations.
Also at the meeting, Nabiullina told Putin that new rules allowing entrepreneurs to start certain kinds of businesses without waiting for permission from the authorities has allowed 33,000 organizations to get their start without being burdened by regulators.
Under the new rules, which streamline the startup process in 20 sectors, 97 percent of those starting business in those respective fields say they have had no problems with regulators, Nabiullina said, citing a survey from small-business lobby group Opora.
“So, starting a business here, we can say, has been liberalized to a significant degree,” Putin said.
“But only in 20 spheres of activity,” Nabiullina added.
TITLE: Russia’s Lost Opportunity With Japan
AUTHOR: By Yuriko Koike
TEXT: The recent smooth exchange of spies between Russia and the United States appears to demonstrate that the “reset” in relations between the two countries has worked. But Russia has so far done little to reset its relations with Japan. This is a lost opportunity, given Russia’s need to modernize its economy. In addition, it is a grave strategic error in view of the Kremlin’s increasing worries about China’s ambitions in Asia, which includes Russia’s lightly populated Siberian provinces.
In April, China’s navy carried out military exercises near Japan, conducting a live-fire exercise in the East China Sea off the coast of the Zhejiang province, including missile-interception training with new vessels. China’s objectives appear to have been to enhance its navy’s operational capacity, particularly in terms of jamming and electronic warfare, and to test its joint capabilities with the Chinese air force.
Perhaps more important, the Chinese seem to have intended to send a warning signal to U.S. and South Korean naval forces as their joint maneuvers in the Yellow Sea approach. But the Chinese also sent a powerful signal to Japan and Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia is only now beginning to realize that it must be proactive in protecting its national security interests in the Pacific region. The problem is that Russia’s focus is misguided. At the same time that China carried out its naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, Russia carried out part of its Vostok 2010 exercises, which involved 1,500 troops, on Etorofu, the largest island among the Russian-occupied Northern Territories of Japan. The entire Vostok 2010 exercise involved more than 20,000 troops.
Russia’s illegal occupation of these islands began on Aug. 18, 1945, three days after Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration, which defined the Japanese surrender and ended the Pacific War. Stalin took advantage of its surrender and ordered the Red Army to invade the Chishima Islands. Russia has occupied Chishima, Southern Karafuto (or Southern Sakhalin) and the islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai — which had never been part of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union at any point in history — ever since.
Indeed, the State Duma recently passed a resolution designating Sept. 2 (instead of Aug. 18) as the anniversary of the “real” end of World War II, effectively making it a day to commemorate the Soviet Union’s victory over Japan — and thus an attempt to undermine Japan’s claim that the occupation of the islands came after the end of the war.
On a recent trip to Vladivostok, President Dmitry Medvedev declared that the social and economic development of the Far East is a national priority. By continuing to maintain its illegal occupation of Japanese territory, however, Russia precludes Japanese involvement in this effort, effectively leaving the Chinese to dominate the region’s development.
Russia’s persistence in this self-defeating occupation is surprising. Indeed, former President Boris Yeltsin came close to recognizing the need to return the Northern Territories to Japan. But a nationalist backlash doomed Yeltsin’s efforts.
There are rumors that Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s administration is planning to break the logjam in the Japanese-Russian relationship by appointing Yukio Hatoyama, his predecessor as prime minister, as ambassador to Russia. Hatoyama is the grandson of then-Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama, who signed the Japanese-Soviet Joint Declaration on Oct. 19, 1956, which formally restored diplomatic relations between the two countries and also enabled Japan’s entry into the United Nations. That treaty, however, did not settle the territorial dispute, resolution of which was put off until the conclusion of a permanent peace treaty between Tokyo and Moscow.
In the 1956 declaration, the two countries agreed to negotiate a treaty, according to which the Soviet Union was to hand over Shikotan and Habomai islands to Japan, while the status of the larger Etorofu and Kunashiri islands would remain unresolved and subject to negotiation.
Japanese public opinion has remained adamant for decades that all four islands belong to Japan, and that no real peace can exist until they are returned. As a result, sending Hatoyama as ambassador may elicit harsh criticism, since his grandfather once agreed to a peace process that returned only two of the four islands. Many Japanese fear that the grandson may also be prepared to cut another unequal deal.
Fortunately, Japanese voters sense their government’s irresolute nature, delivering it a sharp rebuke in the recent elections to the upper house of Japan’s Diet. But it is not only Japan that needs a government that takes regional security issues seriously. Russia should recognize that it has neglected its position in Asia for too long, and that only when it returns Japan’s Northern Territories can Japanese expertise be brought seriously to bear in developing the Far East.
Only normal bilateral relations will allow the two countries to work together to forge a lasting Asian balance of power. Given his record, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would not face the type of nationalist backlash Yeltsin confronted if he sought to reach an agreement that restored Japan’s sovereignty over its Northern Territories. Will he have the strategic vision to do so?
Yuriko Koike, former Japanese defense minister and national security adviser, is a member of the opposition in Japan’s Diet. © Project Syndicate
TITLE: The Samurai FSB Warriors
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Last Friday, the State Duma, just before it closed down for the summer recess, quickly passed a bill in a third reading allowing the Federal Security Service to issue warnings to people whose actions “create the conditions for a crime.” The bill allows for 15-day sentences or fines of 500 rubles ($16) to 1,000 rubles ($33) for citizens who “obstruct the work” of an FSB agent.
Although the bill is vague on what measures FSB agents could use to enforce the warnings, a brief look at some of the more recent examples of blatant FSB lawlessness offers a good idea of what may be in store for Russia.
On May 10 in a Moscow metro train car, a passenger was unhappy with an FSB agent, who was singing and shouting while visibly drunk. The agent pulled his gun and started firing. Before firing, the agent probably said, “Hey, you dirty bastard, go to hell!” Needless to say, the passenger did not do as instructed. According to official FSB training, disobedient citizens should be held fully accountable.
On Aug. 24 in the Moscow region, an FSB agent used an automatic weapon to shoot a policeman who had taken his parking space. According to the new legislation, the victim should be held responsible.
On May 15, the senior FSB officer for the entire Moscow region got into a taxi driven by a Nigerian man, Mbamar Etelbert. The agent put a knife to the driver’s throat and demanded to be taken to Zhulebino in southern Moscow. Later, the agent justified his behavior by explaining that he had been drunk at the time. Under the new legislation, Etelbert should be held responsible because the FSB officer never made it to Zhulebino.
On May 1, a drunken FSB agent broke the nose of a traffic police officer who had stopped him for driving under the influence. The new legislation would require the cop to spend a minimum of 15 days in jail for refusing what must have been the FSB agent’s command of “Shove it where the sun don’t shine!”
Unlike police officer Denis Yevsyukov, who went on a shooting spree in a Moscow supermarket in April 2009, the names of FSB agents who shoot people at random generally remain unknown. One of the few exceptions occurred on Aug. 14. A group of drunken individuals used air pistols to shoot at passers-by. After more than 30 shots were fired, six people were injured, including two young women. One of the victims was hit by eight bullets. The authorities categorically refused to open a case against the assailants. One of the attackers dropped his I.D. card during the melee — which had FSB agent Sergei Prozorov written on it.
In keeping with sacred tradition, no charges were filed against FSB officials. According to the new legislation, all six of the wounded should be detained because they were so insolent as to refuse the direct order of an FSB officer.
There are many historical precedents for this kind of lawlessness — from Mongol princes, who held the right to commit a crime which carried the death sentence when committed by a common person, to Japanese samurai warriors, who had the right to kill ordinary people simply to check the sharpness of their swords.
But in modern states, there are no legal precedents empowering a particular class of people to do whatever they want with mere mortals.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Calling it quits
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Tequilajazzz’s recent announcement that St. Petersburg’s prime alt-rock band would split after 17 years has been a shock to fans, but not, according to frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov, to people who knew the band well.
“My closest friends understand me very well and applaud me over this,” he said in an interview this week, revealing that the band, which appeared from the outside to be closely-knit, was in reality being torn apart by inner conflict.
“Many say that it should have been done 15 years ago, and that’s true,” said Fyodorov, 44. “It was simply a hard moment then. It was a time when I singlehandedly posted our posters, bought [blank] tapes…
“Nobody except my closest friends knows how it really was. I don’t want to disillusion anybody, because it was different all the time. But only I know how it was in its entirety and let it remain like that.”
While remaining tightlipped about the other band members, Fyodorov admitted the split was influenced by differences in views on music and, as he put it, the place that art occupies in life.
“For me it’s first and foremost,” he said.
“We were often lucky enough to make art for art’s sake profitable, so we could make a decent living from it.
“We are different people, we have absolutely different music tastes, and we have diametrically opposite political views, which couldn’t help having its effect. For instance, someone is for Putin, another person is categorically against Putin. It doesn’t have an immediate effect on work, but it defines many other things.”
“Basically, it was just impossible to go on with this lineup. To our credit, we managed to preserve the image of a tightly clenched fist and a single organism for so many years — despite the complete absence of such a thing — even if some good things suddenly happened now and then.”
Tequilajazzz formed in 1993 — one of the last bands to emerge from the seminal TaMtAm club — and retained its core musicians over the years. Fyodorov, who sings and plays bass, guitarist Konstantin Fyodorov (no relation) and drummer Alexander “Duser” Voronov were all members of the original lineup, which made its stage debut at TaMtAm on Sept. 4, 1993. Guitarist Oleg Baranov joined in 1999.
In a statement made last weekend, the band, whose most recent concert was at local underground club Zoccolo on March 25, said it had cancelled a scheduled gig at Kubana music festival in the south of Russia in mid-August.
Although Fyodorov had another job as a composer of film and TV series soundtrack music, he said he does not have any work at the moment due to the recession.
“I am absolutely without work now; I have no other jobs. Unlike my colleagues, I am in a far worse situation financially, which gives me the right to do what I want. Nobody can say that I split up the band because I am fine without it. That’s not the case.”
According to him, Konstantin Fyodorov has formed his own project, which also features Voronov, his friend from school.
Fyodorov said he reached the final decision to disband Tequilajazzz in late November, when touring in support of the band’s sixth studio album, “Dnevnik Zhivogo” (The Journal of a Live Man” — a pun on Livejournal.com).
“It was my decision and it was not an easy one; I have lived with it for six months. It came in the middle of the tour, during a flight from Paris to Toronto,” he said.
“For me it was important to leave when we’re on a high — after releasing an album, rather than during a creative crisis, when it’s difficult to write and so on. Although the album was not a big critical success, it was noticed and we did a lengthy tour with this material — throughout Russia, in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. When we stopped, we still had a huge number of concert offers — we were asked to tour in Russia, Ukraine and even Latin America.”
After the March concert, Fyodorov, who was wearing a “Free Tibet” T-shirt during the interview, spent three months traveling.
“I went through almost the whole of Southeast Asia and spent the last month in the Himalayas,” he said.
“I go to the Himalayas all the time, visiting places sacred to Tibetan Buddhists and to various beautiful places in the region. I spent the last week in Dharamsala.
“And of course, all this time I couldn’t help thinking about what was awaiting our band, what was happening and what would happen.”
Fyodorov said he was looking to form a new band. “I am starting to look for people with whom I will play,” he said.
“I have a lot of new music, and I am not going to stop playing the old songs. I don’t see any reason not to play them, because I wrote 99 percent of them, along with Alexander Voronov, who promised to help me in every possible way. He will help the drummer, explaining certain things to him.”
Although Tequilajazzz was famous for its definitive sound, Fyodorov said there was nothing to prevent him from performing its songs with other musicians.
“I know its secret. Really. I know where everything comes from,” he said.
“I can say that I had my hand in this sound and this style as well, during the course of endless rehearsals and endless quarrelling at the sessions.”
“I like a great number of Tequilajazzz songs and they’re relevant for me all the same; I only hope they’ll start to sound even better with new musicians, in a new form. Nothing prevented Sting from performing ‘Roxanne’ from the very first day of his solo career. No one said a word against it.”
Although Voronov is busy rehearsing with another band, Fyodorov said he would like the drummer to rejoin him in a new band at some point.
“To change the lineup at least partially, I had to disband the group, so that I could form it again. I had to reset to start again, like in a computer game,” he said.
“I couldn’t turn up and say ‘you’re fired, and you’re staying,’ like our rock stars do; it goes against the original principle of our existence.”
Fyodorov does not exclude that he might start using the name Tequilajazzz in the future.
“Absolutely! I came up with the name, I saw it in my sleep, and it’s registered as my creative pseudonym with the Russian Authors’ Society (RAO), which was done to avoid too much paperwork,” he said.
“It says Tequilajazzz is (in brackets) Yevgeny Fyodorov. Which is true, except where notified specially, because these songs were written, mainly by me, in cooperation with, as a rule, Duser. I always indicate that he is a co-writer. But this doesn’t matter; I am free to use the name, I just haven’t done so yet.”
Fyodorov, who is known for his perfectionism, said he wanted to form a quality band, record a new album and perform extensively.
“I am eager to play, and there is no creative crisis,” he said.
“Quite the opposite; the decision came when working on the material for the next album. It was gathering flesh fast and the record was not far off. But then something went wrong, as with the previous album, and I decided that I’d had enough. It could carry on like this for years.”
Fydorov said he did not expect his other band, Optymistica Orchestra — an occasional supergroup formed with local musicians from other bands — to become his main occupation.
“It’s a kind of mischief, something to have fun with,” he said. “It happens very rarely, which is understandable; it’s difficult to get everybody together, because everyone is constantly on tour.”
Disbanding Tequilajazzz proved a hard thing to do, Fyodorov admitted.
“I’ve survived three divorces — real ones — in my life, but this divorce with the band turned out to be far more serious than my previous divorces with women and children. It’s a sort of suicide, a creative, virtual one.”
TITLE: Word’s worth
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ðàçâåä÷èê: an intelligence officer, prospector, scout, explorer
I’m sure glad the “øïèîíñêèé ñêàíäàë” (“spy scandal”) is over and the Russians are home. I was tired of hearing myself mutter at the news. I mean, how many times can you say, “They weren’t charged with spying” in your kitchen before someone pays attention to you? And my friends were probably tired of my e-mail reminders to delete from their social media accounts any photos they wouldn’t want to see plastered on the front page of tabloids.
Although this subject is unlikely to come up again — because countries will stop spying on each other, right? — you might like some help breaking the spy word codes if you’re following the post-scandal punditry.
For example, you might hear: Ó âàñ — øïèîíû; ó íàñ — ðàçâåä÷èêè. (You have spies; we have intelligence officers.) In Russian, like in English, spying is not a good thing. Øïèîí (spy), øïèîíàæ (espionage) and øïèîíèòü (to spy) all have strongly negative connotations. Espionage is unpleasantly clandestine, and the spy’s intentions toward the spied upon are not benign.
In contrast, ðàçâåäûâàòü/ðàçâåäàòü is a more neutral verb pair that can be used in several different contexts. It can mean “to find something out”: ß ïîïûòàëñÿ ðàçâåäàòü êîå-êàêèå ïîäðîáíîñòè î íîâîé òåëåïåðåäà÷å (I tried to ferret out some details on the new television show). It can mean “to scope out” a situation: Ïîéäó çàïèñûâàòü ñûíà íà êóðñû è ðàçâåäàòü îáñòàíîâêó èçíóòðè (I’m going to go sign my son up for courses and scope out the situation from the inside). It also can mean “to prospect” for minerals or other resources: Ìû ïîåõàëè ðàçâåäûâàòü êðóïíîå ìåñòîðîæäåíèå ïëàòèíû (We went to prospect for a major deposit of platinum). In the context of a military operation or surveying, it can mean to reconnoiter: Íåîáõîäèìî áûëî ðàçâåäàòü ìåñòíîñòü (We needed to reconnoiter the territory).
Ðàçâåäêà is the act of exploring, gathering intelligence, or searching. In the context of recent events, ðàçâåäêà can be used informally to describe intelligence gathering services and personnel. For example, a journalist writes: “Øïèîíñêèé ñêàíäàë” ïîêàçàë íàøó ðàçâåäêó â ñòðàííîì ñâåòå (The “spy scandal” showed our intelligence service in a strange light). More formally, the intelligence service is called Ñëóæáà âíåøíåé ðàçâåäêè (Foreign Intelligence Service).
Ðàçâåäûâàòåëüíàÿ äåÿòåëüíîñòü is intelligence gathering and doesn’t have the bad connotation of all the sneaking and skulking of øïèîíàæ. The idea is that when we do it, our intentions are honorable. Consequently, ðàçâåä÷èê is one of the good guys, an intelligence officer or agent on our side. For this reason, “øïèîíñêèé ñêàíäàë” virtually always appears in the Russian press in quotes, not only because it’s a citation from the English, but because our folks can’t be øïèîíû.
This is where I start muttering, “But I told you they weren’t charged with espionage.”
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.
TITLE: A reason to start wearing purple
AUTHOR: By Miriam Elder
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: There are two words that have come to embody the mad, vodka-soaked, apocalyptic passions that rise up every so often in the heart of every Russophile: Gogol Bordello.
The gypsy-punk freak show has the power to make the tamest wallflower dance like a madman, the strictest teetotaler douse himself in liquor, the sweetest orator shout obscenities from the rooftops.
The nine-person band plays the outdoor Telebashnya Stadium on the Petrograd Side on Friday, in what looks set to be the hottest concert of the summer.
Gogol Bordello built a reputation as one of New York’s wildest acts earlier this decade, tirelessly playing its way to a massive cult following (namely through shows at New York’s delicately named Pizdetz art space and Mehanata, a Bulgarian bar that was the height of sweaty dance fury in its heyday). The band’s recognition in Russia has been slower to come, despite the group’s ex-Soviet roots.
The band released its first album — “Voi-La Intruder,” which featured “Start Wearing Purple,” one of the group’s catchiest and best-known songs — in 1999, but only played its first show in Moscow in January 2007. The group managed to get an earlier gig in Kiev, which a Ukrainian newspaper welcomed with the headline: “Ukrainian Nightmare Accomplishes American Dream.”
That’s because the band is fronted by the furiously charismatic Eugene Hutz — who might very well be the sole man to blame for the rise of the ironic mustache fad. Hutz, 37, left his native Ukraine as the Soviet Union began to crumble and by 1991 was living in the United States. As for many Soviet immigrants, the motherland was out of sight, but not out of mind, and Hutz soon began channeling the 18 years he spent soaking up the absurdities of Gogol’s writing, the music of his homeland and his mother’s half-Roma ancestry into the band that would become Gogol Bordello.
On Friday, the group will be promoting its latest album, “Trans-Continental Hustle,” which was released in April and produced by music industry legend Rick Rubin. It’s the band’s fifth studio album, but its first for a major label since signing with American Records, a Sony affiliate. It’s also its first since Hutz moved from New York to Brazil, extending the reach of the band’s global caravan. Gogol Bordello’s lineup changes often and now includes a Russian accordion player, an Ecuadorian percussionist and an Ethiopian bassist, among others. It’s an internationalism that’s part of their founding aesthetic. As Hutz told music web site Spinner earlier this month: “The band basically became a gang of people who also feel at home when traveling. It’s one of those big things that keeps us together: love for music and love for traveling.”
Gogol Bordello plays Friday at the Telebashnya Stadium,
16 Aptekarsky Prospekt. Tel: 234 6543.
M: Petrogradskaya.
TITLE: Second coming
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In Soviet times, Metropole restaurant was one of the most fashionable places in the city. One of the few respectable places to dine that was not located inside a hotel, it was popular with Leningrad’s intelligentsia as well as with foreigners. Visitors were greeted by a uniformed doorman, and the place was never empty. Its history dates back even earlier, to imperial Russia — a drunken Rasputin is rumored to have hurled empty wine bottles from his table, while Nicholas II reportedly dined in the private dining room.
For ten years, Metropole stood deserted and empty, but in May it opened its historic doors once again. Perhaps wisely, the new management has not attempted to recreate the exclusivity of the original. Instead, the newly branded Brasserie de Metropole bases its appeal on a Belgian microbrewery and reasonably-priced brasserie fare. Nor is the new incarnation milking its history and reputation — there is no forward to the menu explaining its significance in the city, no black and white photos on the walls showing it in its pre-Perestoika grandeur. On the contrary, the menu doubles as a disposable placemat.
One thing that has not changed is Metropole’s size. While the majestic interior of the main room is conducive to a rendez-vous, romancers should be warned that it would be quite easy to fail to find your date at all in the cavernous depths of the restaurant. The main room is still dominated by eight vast pearly pillars and a large glass ceiling, surrounded by celestial depictions and ornate cornices. The stage — that fundamental part of the Soviet dining experience — remains, as does a free-standing bar near to the entrance to the room. Comfortable booths are arranged around the edges of the expansive hall, which can seat about 120, while more tables are arranged in the middle.
On our visit, the main room had been booked by an army of tourists, and we were offered seats in the second, smaller room. (The top floor is a VIP banqueting room that can seat 50 people.) Here, the Belgian brasserie theme has been taken fairly seriously. An unappealing mural depicts medieval peasants guzzling gruel in a chaotic tavern, and more medieval scenes of dubious taste hang in frames on the other exposed brick walls. Continuing the same theme, the unfortunate waitresses are dressed in unflattering sackcloth with rope belts — no leggy model-types of the kind seen in so many fashionable Petersburg dining spots here then, perhaps making it a safe option to take a husband with a roving eye.
The renovation has been done to a high standard, however, with solid brass fittings, sturdy wooden doors and a dark parquet floor. Those left indifferent by the soccer matches being relayed on two flat-screen TVs can enjoy the excellent people-watching offered by the view out onto the arches of Gostiny Dvor.
The small but original menu features Belgian dishes, including several mussel creations, seemingly selected to accompany the restaurant’s range of house beers. The warm Liege salad “for gourmands” (190 rubles, $6.20) — too tempting a challenge to resist — consisted of bacon, green beans, marinated red onion, fried white onion and croutons. The combination of ingredients was a success, but may prove too acidic for any but the most hardened vinegar fanatics — this was presumably a side effect of the marinated onion.
The Belgian onion soup (190 rubles) was paler in color than its French counterpart but no less satisfying for being so, and was delicately flavored with herbs.
The sackcloth-clad service is friendly enough, though there was a shockingly long delay between courses. Having put it down to the assumed arrival of 120 tourists, we were then surprised to see when leaving that the main room was still empty, meaning we could have avoided being subjected to the medieval room after all.
Baked Brie (280 rubles, $9.10) turned out to be fully melted into a sauce covering potato slices, topped in turn by a blanket of fresh chives. Unsurprisingly, it was rich and filling, though the flavor benefited from some liberal condiment application.
The highlight of the meal was undoubtedly the steak (750 rubles, $24.60), a thick, tender hunk of meat grilled to perfection and accompanied by chunky, salty French fries served in a Kilner jar, and an excellent crisp garden salad.
The dishes were complemented (or vice versa, depending on one’s priorities) by Metropole’s excellent range of house beers, which includes something for everyone: Blanche de Metropole, Metropole Blond, Kriek de Metropole, Metropole Brun and Metropole Chataigne, which range from 160 rubles to 210 rubles ($5.25 to $6.90) per half liter.
TITLE: Haiti’s Debt of $268 Million Canceled by IMF
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — The IMF says it has canceled Haiti’s $268 million debt and will lend the earthquake-devastated country another $60 million to help it with reconstruction plans.
The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday the decision is part of a plan for long-term reconstruction after the Jan. 12 magnitude-7 quake, which killed as many as 300,000 people.
The three-year loan carries a zero interest rate until 2011 which then rises to no more than 0.5 percent.
The Washington-based fund says its moves should encourage aid contributions to the impoverished country.
“Donors must start delivering on their promises to Haiti quickly, so reconstruction can be accelerated, living standards quickly improved and social tensions soothed,” IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a statement.
In Haiti more than six months after the quake, rubble and collapsed buildings still dominate the landscape.
The number of people in relief camps has nearly doubled since the initial reaction to the quake to 1.6 million, while the amount of transitional housing built is minuscule. Crime is more prevalent since the quake, with attacks in camps terrorizing thousands, especially women and girls.
Most of the $3.1 billion pledged for humanitarian aid has paid for field hospitals, plastic tarps, bandages, and food, plus salaries, transportation and upkeep of relief workers.
At a March conference, donors pledged a total of $9.9 billion — money that is separate from the humanitarian aid — to help Haiti recover.
But less than 2 percent of it has been delivered. The rest is mired in bureaucracy and politics of the more than 60 countries and organizations that pledged to help.
TITLE: Ships Ready to Leave Leaky Well as Storm Brews
AUTHOR: By Harry Weber and Colleen Long
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GULF OF MEXICO — Crew members aboard dozens of ships in the Gulf of Mexico prepared Thursday to evacuate as a tropical rainstorm brewing in the Caribbean brought the deep-sea effort to plug BP’s ruptured oil well to a near standstill.
Though the rough weather was hundreds of miles from the spill site and wouldn’t enter the Gulf for at least a few more days, officials ordered technicians trying to plug BP’s well to stand down because they needed several days to clear the area.
Anxiety built among the 75-member crew aboard the cutter Decisive, the Coast Guard’s primary search and rescue vessel that would be the last of about 65 ships to leave in the event of an evacuation.
“It’s a controlled chaos out there,” Lieutenant Patrick Montgomery told an Associated Press reporter aboard the cutter heading from Pascagoula, Mississippi, to the spill site.
Just days before the expected completion of a relief well designed to permanently throttle the free-flowing crude, the government’s spill chief said Wednesday that work was suspended.
Worse yet, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said foul weather could require reopening the cap that has contained the oil for nearly a week, allowing oil to gush into the sea again for days while engineers wait out the storm.
“This is necessarily going to be a judgment call,” said Allen, who was waiting to see how the storm developed before deciding whether to order any of the ships and crews stationed some 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico to head for safety.
The cluster of thunderstorms passed over Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, and forecasters said the system would probably move into the Gulf over the weekend. They gave it a 40 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression or a tropical storm by Friday.
Crews had planned to spend Wednesday and Thursday reinforcing with cement the last few feet of the relief tunnel that will be used to pump mud into the gusher and kill it once and for all. But BP put the task on hold and instead placed a temporary plug called a storm packer deep inside the tunnel, in case it has to be abandoned until the storm passes.
“What we didn’t want to do is be in the middle of an operation and potentially put the relief well at some risk,” BP vice president Kent Wells said.
If the work crews are evacuated, it could be two weeks before they can resume the effort to kill the well. That would upset BP’s timetable, which called for finishing the relief tunnel by the end of July and plugging the blown-out well by early August.
Scientists have been scrutinizing underwater video and pressure data for days, trying to determine whether the capped well is holding tight or in danger of rupturing and causing an even bigger disaster. If the storm prevents BP from monitoring the well, the cap may simply be reopened, allowing oil to spill into the water, Allen said.
BP and government scientists were meeting to discuss whether the cap could be monitored from shore.
As the storm drew closer, boat captains hired by BP for skimming duty were sent home and told they wouldn’t be going back out for five or six days, said Tom Ard, president of the Orange Beach Fishing Association in Alabama.
In Florida, crews removed booms intended to protect waterways in the Panhandle from oil. High winds and storm surge could carry the booms into sensitive wetlands.
Also, Shell Oil began evacuating employees who are out in the Gulf.
Even if the storm does not hit the area directly, it could affect the effort to contain the oil and clean it up. Hurricane Alex stayed 500 miles away last month, yet skimming in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida was curtailed for nearly a week.
The relief tunnel extends about two miles under the seabed and about 15 to 18 meters vertically and 1 meter horizontally from the ruptured well. BP plans to insert a final string of casing, or drilling pipe, cement it into place, and give it up to a week to set, before attempting to punch through to the blown-out well and kill it.
BP’s broken well spewed somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons into the Gulf before the cap was attached. The crisis — the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history — unfolded after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.
The cause of the blast is still under investigation, but there have been repeated questions raised by rig workers over the equipment and safety conditions aboard the rig.
The New York Times reported early Thursday that rig workers said in a confidential survey before the April 20 explosion that they were concerned about safety and the condition of some equipment on board.
The Times reported that another report conducted for Transocean by Lloyd’s Register Group found that several pieces of equipment — including the rams in the failed blowout preventer on the well head — had not been inspected since 2000, despite guidelines calling for inspection every three to five years. Transocean said most of the equipment in question was minor and the blowout preventer was inspected according to manufacturer guidelines.
A spokesman for Transocean, the owner of the rig leased by BP, confirmed the existence of the reports.
TITLE: Another Ancient Structure Found Near Stonehenge
AUTHOR: By Raphael Satter
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Scientists scouring the area around Stonehenge said Thursday they have uncovered the foundations of a second circular structure only a few hundred meters from the world famous monument.
Like Stonehenge itself, the structure’s precise purpose remains a mystery. But it’s one of an expanding number of discoveries being made around the site — something experts say is helping to show that Stonehenge was once much more than just a cluster of sandstone blocks standing in an empty field.
“In its day Stonehenge was at the center of the largest ceremonial center in Europe,” said archaeologist Tim Darvill, who helped lead a recent excavation at Stonehenge but wasn’t involved with this find. He said the discovery “really shows how much there is still to learn and how extensive the site really was.”
The foundations — a ring of holes surrounding a cluster of deep pits — are facing Stonehenge from about 900 meters away, according to a ground mapping project led by University of Birmingham archaeology professor Vince Gaffney.
The pits, long since filled with earth, were probably dug to secure a circle of wooden poles, Gaffney said.
“It’s a timber equivalent to Stonehenge,” he told the BBC, saying it was the “first major ceremonial monument” found in the area in 50 years.
What kind of ceremonies went on there is unclear. The new find joins a growing complex of tombs and mysterious Neolithic structures found across the area.
TITLE: Court To Rule On Status Of Kosovo
AUTHOR: By Mike Corder
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The United Nations’ highest court was weighing in Thursday on whether Kosovo’s independence is legal — possibly setting a precedent for separatist regions across the globe.
Kosovo sparked sharp debate worldwide when it seceded from Serbia in 2008, following a bloody 1998-99 war and nearly a decade of international administration. Kosovo’s statehood has been recognized by 69 countries, including the United States and most European Union nations, while Russia leads a handful of others in staunchly condemning it.
The International Court of Justice will issue an opinion Thursday that is nonbinding, but that is expected to lead to fresh efforts to reach a settlement between Belgrade and Pristina about Kosovo’s status.
Kosovo’s Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni has said, however, that reopening negotiations is “inconceivable” and that a ruling in favor of Serbia’s claim could spark a new conflict in the region. He said Thursday that he was confident the court would rule in favor of Kosovo’s independence.
But Serbia continues to demand Kosovo be returned, arguing it has been the cradle of their civilization and national identity since 1389, when a Christian army led by Serbian Prince Lazar lost an epic battle to invading Ottoman forces.
In 1989, Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic delivered a speech from the Kosovo battle site that whipped up Serb nationalism and helped lead to the disintegration of former Yugoslavia.
If Thursday’s court ruling backs Koasovo’s independence as legal, more countries are expected to follow. Kosovo needs recognition by 100 countries for full statehood to be established.
The United States urged the court to leave Kosovo as it is.
“Serbia now seeks an opinion by this court that would turn back time ... (and) undermine the progress and stability that Kosovo’s Declaration has brought to the region,” U.S. State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh said.
Leading the other side of the argument is Serbia’s traditional ally Russia, which has fought its own separatist movement in Chechnya. Moscow has demanded Kosovo’s independence be annulled, and last year was joined in its opposition by Spain and China — each also facing a major secessionist movement.
“Today, Serbia is waging one of the biggest battles in its history to protect its soul and the holy land of Kosovo,” Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irinej said.