SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1616 (77), Friday, October 8, 2010
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TITLE: Luzhkov Lashes Out At President On CNN
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov lashed out at President Dmitry Medvedev on CNN television, accusing the president of not fulfilling any of his promises and of negligence in connection with terrorist attacks and this summer’s drought.
Luzhkov was fired by Medvedev last week for “loss of confidence” after facing accusations of negligence for remaining on vacation while Moscow choked on toxic smog this summer. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin accused him on Wednesday of being a poor manager.
Luzhkov, dressed casually in a black polo shirt with stripes, told CNN that Medvedev had not taken charge as “calamities, terrorist acts and bad harvests” unfolded during his two-year presidency.
“When he fires or reshuffles officials, proposes projects on paper, those things are being taken quite skeptically,” Luzhkov said. “Any initiative is good, but it must lead to actual results, which has not been happening so far.”
A Kremlin spokeswoman declined to comment on Luzhkov’s interview Thursday. CNN said the Kremlin did not reply to its request for comment.
Meanwhile, Vedomosti reported Thursday that acting Mayor Vladimir Resin might stay at the city’s helm until 2013 to secure votes for United Russia in the 2011 State Duma elections and for the Kremlin-sponsored candidate in the 2012 presidential vote, as well as to redistribute the assets of Luzhkov’s billionaire wife, Yelena Baturina. The report cited a source close to the Kremlin.
Resin, after meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, seemingly confirmed that he would remain, hinting to his colleagues that he might stay until 2013, a source in United Russia’s Moscow branch told Vedomosti.
Resin could then become “chairman” of the city government in 2013, after city laws are amended to create the position, a source close to City Hall told Vedomosti.
Before his ouster by Medvedev on Sept. 28, Luzhkov signed off on a two-year privatization program for the city’s property that puts on sale City Hall-held stakes in companies that control two luxury hotels, a chain of drugstores and the plane maintenance service at Vnukovo Airport, Kommersant reported Thursday.
Also Thursday, the Public Chamber called on Resin or whoever succeeds him to ban “Genplan,” a much-criticized plan for Moscow’s development from 2010 through 2025.
But the Moscow City Court ruled that Genplan was legitimate Thursday, dismissing a lawsuit filed by liberal 
opposition party Yabloko, which said the plan would worsen the city’s traffic problems, ruin green zones and destroy historic buildings, Interfax reported.
Public Chamber member and prominent art figure Marat Gelman said it was “important that Genplan’s work be suspended and a new Genplan drafted,” the report said.
Meanwhile, writer and opposition leader Eduard Limonov appealed on his blog to Resin to “remove the fence” from Triumfalnaya Ploshchad, which City Hall erected in late August for the construction of an underground parking garage, leaving a popular venue for opposition rallies inaccessible for the next two to three years.

TITLE: State Duma Deputy Yegiazaryan Goes Missing
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — State Duma Deputy Ashot Yegiazaryan has disappeared without trace, the leader of his party’s parliamentary faction said Wednesday, fueling speculation that the Liberal Democrat lawmaker might have fled the country.
Igor Lebedev, head of the Liberal Democrats’ Duma faction, said he and his colleagues had no idea about Yegizaryan’s whereabouts.
“We have no contact — calls to all his telephones are redirected to his [Duma] office,” Lebedev said, Interfax reported. Yegiazaryan, who has been a Duma deputy since 2000, left the country in early summer and has not appeared at parliamentary hearings since the summer recess ended last month, the Tvoi Den tabloid reported Wednesday.
The report added, citing unidentified Duma officials, that Yegiazaryan might not return to Russia at risk of losing his parliamentary immunity and might face criminal charges.
Asked whether he believed that Yegiazaryan might not come back, Lebedev said that “so far this is speculation and rumors.”
If he decides to remain abroad, it would be the first time in years that a sitting Duma deputy had fled the country.
Staff in Yegiazaryan’s Duma office on Wednesday refused to provide information about the deputy’s whereabouts. An aide who declined to give her name promised that a call from The St. Petersburg Times would be returned “if Ashot Gevorkovich [Yegiazaryan] decides to do so.”
Yegiazaryan’s absence comes amid a flurry of media reports suggesting that the deputy was pursuing personal shadowy business interests rather than his Duma duties and concealing his wealth. One report even claimed that he had obtained a U.S. residency permit, which would be illegal for Russian lawmakers.
Yegiazaryan, who is a member of the Duma’s Budget and Taxes Committee, is believed to control a key stake in Hotel Moskva, a prime chunk of real estate under construction next to the Kremlin.
He has denied any direct ownership or being engaged in business activities that would lead to a conflict of interests with his parliamentary activities. 
Instead, he said, he was overseeing construction as a deputy representing Moscow.
But according to court documents published last month, Yegiazaryan claims that billionaire Suleiman Kerimov forced him to relinquish a 25.5 percent stake in Hotel Moskva.
The deputy filed a request for $2 billion in damages at the London Court of International Arbitration on Sept. 13, according to court documents in Cyprus.
Three days later, Yegiazaryan won a court order in Cyprus that froze assets worth $6 billion, much of them belonging to Kerimov.
His official declaration of income and wealth on the Duma’s web site does not mention assets clearly linked to the hotel.
The hotel stake ended up in Kerimov’s hands after Deutsche Bank in late 2008 demanded repayment of a $87.5 million loan and City Hall transferred the money by taking assets from Yegiazaryan’s company Dekorum, national media reported in January.
Dekorum together with City Hall owns DekMos, the developer engaged in building the hotel. Yegiazaryan’s case in Cyprus is also directed against former Mayor Yury Luzhkov and his wife, Yelena Baturina, who owns Moscow developer Inteko, Vedomosti reported last month.
Analysts have linked the lawsuit to political pressure on Luzhkov, who was fired last week. Law enforcement agencies have said they do not plan to check corruption allegations against him and Baturina.
Yegiazaryan also owns a villa in Nice, France, and a house outside Los Angeles, Tvoi Den reported last month. The tabloid reprinted a scan from a U.S. real estate register showing that Yegiazaryan had bought a $355,000 house in the outskirts of Los Angeles.
In his 2009 income declaration published on the Duma web site, Yegiazaryan claimed a standard deputy’s annual salary of 1.9 million rubles ($63,700) plus 9.1 million rubles ($305,000) for his wife. The declaration mentions no real estate abroad.
Together with their four children, the couple also owns two large plots of land, nine apartments and four cars, including a Mercedes and a Porsche Cayenne.

TITLE: Lawmakers Fear Arrival of Peter the Great Statue
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Deputies of the St. Petersburg parliament have voiced their opposition to a suggestion that Moscow’s controversial 98-meter tall monument to Peter the Great be moved to St. Petersburg.
The statue, which has found itself under fire since Yury Luzhkov, under whom it was erected, was fired from his position as mayor of Moscow last week, was offered to St. Petersburg on Monday by acting Mayor Vladimir Resin.
The deputies appealed to the speaker of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, after the speaker suggested that the giant sculpture could be erected in the middle of the Gulf of Finland near the approach to St. Petersburg.
Vyacheslav Makarov, leader of the United Russia faction in the city’s Legislative Assembly, said that the deputies, “based on the opinion of the electorate, had strongly objected both the idea and any plans to transfer the monument to St. Petersburg at all,” Fontanka.ru web site reported.
“We are sure that the use of openly disputable architectural decisions that did not suit Moscow would be an insult to the northern capital of St. Petersburg,” the deputies wrote in their appeal.
St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said that the city does not need a new monument to Peter the Great, because it already has an iconic monument to the founder of St. Petersburg in the form of Falconet’s Bronze Horseman.
“We have a very deserving monument to Peter the Great — the unique masterpiece of the Bronze Horseman,” Matviyenko was cited by Interfax as saying.
“I think it’s enough for St. Petersburg,” she said.
Earlier, Mironov said that the monument to the founder of St. Petersburg “would look great in the middle of the Gulf of Finland, at the entrance to the city.”
“When I went to Moscow and saw the monument, my first thought was that it would look good and natural in exactly that place, and I still think so,” Mironov said.
Svyatoslav Gaikovich, vice president of the St. Petersburg Architects Union, said it “would not hurt St. Petersburg if the monument was placed in the area of the city’s flood protection barrier,” not far from the naval suburb of Kronshtadt on the Gulf of Finland.
“Then it would become something like the Statue of Liberty in New York City,” Gaikovich said.
“The monument was originally made to be placed on a large-scale body of water, so the Gulf of Finland could be a natural location for it,” he said.
“In general, I’d say the monument is not that terrible and could even serve as a decoration for a certain area. It certainly doesn’t deserve recasting,” Gaikovich said, adding that he was expressing his personal opinion and not that of the union.
The monument’s creator, Zurab Tsereteli, told Kommersant daily that he was surprised to hear about plans to transfer the monument.
“At the time, Yury Luzhkov and Vladimir Resin suggested that place in Moscow for the monument themselves,” Tsereteli said.
Talk of demolishing or moving Tsereteli’s monument to Peter the Great, currently located in the Moscow River, exploded immediately after Luzhkov was fired from the post of Moscow Mayor last week after “losing the trust” of President Dmitry Medvedev.
Luzhkov promoted Tsereteli’s sculptures and their erection around Moscow, often despite opposition from city residents. Immediately after Luzhkov’s firing, many experts and representatives of the city authorities spoke out against the monument, accusing it of being unattractive and appearing unnatural for the area in which it is situated.
Popular legend has it that the monument initially depicted Christopher Columbus, but that when it was delivered as a gift to the U.S., the American side did not accept it. Tsereteli is said to have simply changed the head of Columbus for the head of Peter the Great. 
The monument was eventually erected in the Moscow River in 1997 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Russian Navy. 
On Wednesday, representatives of the cities of Oryol, Petrozavodsk, Voronezh and Transdnestr said they would gladly take the towering Peter the Great statue.
The legislature of Karelia’s capital, Petrozavodsk, said Wednesday that it would like the statue to commemorate Peter the Great’s founding of the city in 1703.
Oryol Mayor Viktor Safyanov also said his city would accept the statue, but he offered no explanation for why.
Voronezh youth groups said the monument should be moved to their city because Peter the Great used its shipyards to build Russia’s naval fleet.
The People’s Will party in Moldova’s breakaway province of Transdnestr said the statue could be placed near the bridge over Dnestr, a river near the sites of some of Peter the Great’s battles.
Relocation of the statue would cost $6 million to $10 million — enough to build one or two kindergartens in Moscow, a construction industry source told Interfax.
But prominent art curator Marat Guelman said Monday that he would find private sponsors to finance the removal of the statue, RIA-Novosti reported.
Meanwhile, Zurab Tsereteli, the sculptor who made the Peter the Great statue, announced Wednesday that he would “definitely” make a statue of Luzhkov.
“There will be a Luzhkov monument in Moscow,” he said, Interfax reported. “If no one else wants to make one, I will.”
Tsereteli’s private collection in Moscow already contains two statues of Luzhkov.

TITLE: Hunger Strikers Hospitalized As Authorities Fail to React
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It has been a week since a group of ten cheated investors in off-plan residential property developments began an indefinite hunger strike in a desperate effort to attract the attention of the authorities, and the outcome has so far been disheartening. 
While the city authorities have repeatedly argued that this form of protest is not a solution, Tamara Mikhailova, a participant in the hunger strike, was sent to hospital on Monday suffering from hypertension, while Venera Minosyan, another hunger striker, was taken to hospital on Thursday with severe abdominal pains and suspected biliary colic. A third participant, Roza Zhachkina, was hospitalized on Thursday evening. 
The hunger strike is being held at the local headquarters of the democratic party Yabloko on Shpalernaya Ulitsa. The protest’s participants have only one demand: A face-to-face meeting with Governor Valentina Matviyenko. They have also sent petitions to President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The only reaction that has followed from the authorities so far has been a comment from Roman Filimonov, a deputy governor of St. Petersburg, who accused the strike’s participants of “playing politics.”
“This hunger strike is nothing but a political gesture,” Filimonov told reporters Thursday.
Most of those on strike had invested their money in apartments in a residential building at 13 Prospekt Pyatiletok, but never received their homes, having fallen victim to a scam.  “For Venera Minosyan, who survives on a modest salary and works in a state company, the hunger strike is really the only way to attract attention,” said Natalya Dunayeva, a participant in the hunger strike. “This woman, who had been saving money for many years, spent the last 17 years renting an apartment because she does not have her own place.”
“Going to courts and paying lawyers does not always help,” said Dunayeva. “In many cases, there are so many falsifications used and tricks played that even the best lawyers and best judges simply cannot get to the bottom of things.”

TITLE: Investigators See Progress On Politkovskaya Murder
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Investigators have located the underground workshop that made the gun used to kill journalist Anna Politkovskaya, pushing forward their inquiry into her 2006 death, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported Wednesday.
But Politkovskaya’s editor expressed skepticism over the report, which appeared ahead of the four-year anniversary of her death Thursday.
The workshop, located in a tramcar plant in an unspecified Moscow suburb and run by a local locksmith, rebuilt air guns into actual firearms, a law enforcement official told the newspaper.
Police investigators have confirmed that the gun used in Politkovskaya’s murder was made in the workshop and have also linked the workshop to a gun silencer used in the 2004 killing of reputed mafia boss Mikhail “Monya” Pishchik, the unidentified official said. He said both hits might have been carried out by the same person.
One of four suspects in the Politkovskaya case, former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, was connected to the workshop, the report said.
Khadzhikurbanov, who is currently serving an eight-year sentence for extortion, was recently brought to Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina jail from his prison in Mordovia for questioning. Investigators think that he might know who ordered the firearms used in the killings of Politkovskaya and Pishchik.
But Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper where Politkovskaya worked, criticized the investigation, saying it “has lost its tempo,” Interfax reported.

TITLE: FBI Busts 11 Russian ‘Hackers’
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Eleven Russian students are among 20 people detained in the United States on suspicion of working for an international group of hackers that stole at least $70 million from bank accounts worldwide.
The FBI called the hacker ring “one of the largest cyber criminal cases we have ever investigated,” but news reports said the Russian detainees were only underlings looking for easy cash.
Six Russian suspects were detained Tuesday, following an FBI announcement last week that five others had been charged, Rossia One state television reported, citing the Russian consulate in New York.
The consulate’s third secretary, Alexander Otchaynov, told Kommersant in a story published Monday that one suspect, Margarita Pakhomova, was detained aboard a plane as she prepared to leave the United States on Sept. 16.
Another of the 11 suspects, Sofia Dikova, was detained in January at Newark’s Liberty Airport with a pile of fake documents that the hackers used to open bank accounts, Otchaynov said.
The suspects were students who had arrived in the United States to work on a J-1 visa, Otchaynov said. The FBI said all of them were aged 20 to 26, Rossia One reported.
The FBI said Friday that the ring managed to steal $70 million and tried to steal another $150 million, mostly from accounts of medium-sized companies, towns and even churches.
The hackers e-mailed their victims a Zeus Trojan virus, sometimes disguised as an invitation to the LinkedIn social network, the FBI said. The virus stole passwords to users’ bank accounts, allowing the criminals to transfer the money to their own accounts, opened under fake names.
Among other suspects are citizens of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan. Photos and names of many of the suspects have been posted on the FBI’s web site.
The Russian detainees were middlemen who transferred stolen money to the still-unidentified masterminds of the ring in Eastern Europe, Kommersant said.
The suspects face up to 30 years in jail and a fine of up to $500,000 on a variety of charges, including money laundering, bank fraud and identity theft, Rossia One said. But actual sentences in such cases rarely exceed three years, Kommersant said.
Maria, a Russian student from Irkutsk who went to work in the United States this summer, told The St. Petersburg Times that Russian expatriates in the United States asked her and her friends to open accounts in various U.S. banks, promising to pay for it, but they refused.
The New York Times reported Aug. 21 about cyber criminals who earned more than $10 million by placing fictitious charges of less than $10 on U.S. consumers’ bank cards and moving the money to bank accounts in Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a civil suit against the scammers, whose scheme involved more than 1 million people, in Chicago in March, the report said.

TITLE: ‘Alien’ Cult Leader Held on Sex Charges
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Taranova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A self-proclaimed alien from the star Sirius has been arrested in Novosibirsk on charges of organizing a nationwide totalitarian sect that brainwashed and sexually abused members, police said Tuesday.
A local court on Saturday approved the arrest of Konstantin Rudnev, 43, leader of the Ashram Shambala religious group, a Novosibirsk police spokeswoman said by phone.
Rudnev was detained in a cottage owned by the group in Novosibirsk on Sept. 30 along with 38 followers, all citizens of Russia and Ukraine. Among them were four teenage girls whose parents had reported them as missing, police said in a statement.
A package containing 4 grams of heroin was found in the pocket of Rudnev’s shirt, the statement said.
Ashram Shambala, established more than 20 years ago, grew into a powerful cult with branches in many cities across Russia in the late 1990s, the local branch of the Investigative Committee said in a statement posted on its web site Tuesday.
Rudnev, who claimed to be an alien sent to Earth to enlighten mankind, combined Oriental esoterica and the writings of Carlos Castaneda with elements of yoga and shamanism in his teaching, investigators said. The group also offered yoga courses and self-help camps that attracted thousands of people.
Members were forced to turn over their property to Rudnev, and young female members had to participate in regular sexual orgies with him and other senior members, investigators said.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <strong>Woman Left Legless</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A woman lost a leg after falling under a train at Ladozhskaya metro station on Wednesday evening, Interfax reported Thursday, citing the press service of the St. Petersburg Metropolitan. 
The woman, who was reportedly inebriated, fell off the platform under the wheels of a train. 
Following the accident, the trains stopped running for half an hour between Ploshchad Alexandra Nevskogo and Ulitsa Dybenko stations. 
This was the second such incident to take place in the St. Petersburg metro this week. On Monday, a man committed suicide by throwing himself under a train at Prospekt Bolshevikov station, Interfax reported.

<strong>‘Fake Cop’ Heist</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Criminals dressed in police uniforms stole two trucks loaded with office equipment worth a total of 62 million rubles ($2.08 million), Interfax reported Thursday, citing a source at the law enforcement agencies. 
Unknown men dressed in traffic police uniforms and rapid response unit uniforms stopped the two trucks in the Krasnogvardeisky district, the source said. They threatened the two Belarussian drivers and the guard escorting them with guns before handcuffing them. 
The three men were then taken to a forest in the Vyborg district, where they were kept hostage for ten hours before being released. 

<strong>Police Seize Hash</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Thirty kilos of hashish were seized from garages in the Kirov district of St. Petersburg, Interfax reported Thursday.
The hash was discovered packed into 10 separate bricks. Two St. Petersburg residents born in 1982, one of whom has a history of drug trafficking, were detained during the operation.
“Those detained were organizers of an extensive inter-regional drug trafficking ring,” the Federal Drugs Control Service said in a statement Thursday. The statement said that the biggest help in apprehending the criminals came from the traffic police.

<strong>Gay Pride Ban Illegal</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Admiralteisky district court in St. Petersburg has ruled that City Hall’s ban of a gay pride last summer was illegal, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing Nikolai Alexeyev, the leader of Russia’s gay movement.  
Alexeyev said that the ruling was “the first in the history of Russia.” 
“I hope that this precedent will make it possible to hold the next gay pride event in St. Petersburg, which is planned for June 2011,” he added.
The activist said he also hoped that the ruling would have an influence on other court decisions. A Moscow court will examine a complaint on Oct. 14 about a similar interdiction by Moscow authorities. 
Alexeyev did not however rule out that the City Hall would appeal the ruling during the next few days.

<strong>Baby Drowns in Bath</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A one-year old girl drowned in the bathtub in an apartment on Ulitsa Olga Forsh in St. Petersburg on Tuesday while her mother was talking on the phone, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing the public prosecutor’s investigative committee.
The 33-year old mother, who works as a kindergarten teacher, said that she had been distracted by a phone call while bathing her daughter, according to the prosecutor’s office. When she returned to the bathroom, she discovered that her child had drowned.
A criminal case for causing death by negligence has been opened against the mother.

TITLE: Exchange Memories Hard to Shake
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A dark booth. A hole in the wall. Or just a window next to a casino door.
It was inside these currency exchange booths where Russians first traded rubles for American dollars in post-Soviet days. Now, as the government carries out its long-time plan to shut the last of the standalone booths, with the Central Bank making them illegal this past Friday, Muscovites have mixed feelings about their disappearance.
The booths have offered convenience and competitive rates. But with dirty interiors, snarling clerks and the occasional con artist, obmenniki, or exchangers, also have offered a customer experience that’s hard to forget.
Even a famous face won’t help you there. Alexander Zbruyev, a renowned Russian actor, had an unpleasant encounter a few years ago at a booth on Tverskaya Ulitsa, where fellow customers urged him to the front of the line, only to watch the cashier slam down the teller window. Customers begged her to let the popular star change his money, but to no avail. She took her lunch break.
“As a person who is well aware of security measures, I was often reluctant to visit them, so I have done all my exchanges through the bank, using a telephone,” recalled Iosif Prigozhin, a major producer for recording artists. He recalled that many of the exchange booths operating in 1990s Moscow were “surrounded by petty criminals,” men who were “hanging around.”
Prigozhin’s brother was a victim of lomshchiki, criminals who con people into forking over their cash in return for banknotes covering a pile of scrap paper.
It was a common swindle. In 1999, Justin Lifflander, who’s now the deputy business editor for The Moscow Times, changed money with the help of a man who offered to buy his dollars at a good rate.
“What was supposed to be about 2,500 rubles was really three 100 ruble notes, wrapped around a wad of a dozen 10 ruble notes. It was the worst rate I had ever gotten,” Lifflander said.
The booths’ workers themselves often were victims of criminals and sometimes were robbed in broad daylight. According to Moscow police, one exchange booth on Leninsky Prospekt was robbed 12 times in the course of just a few years.
While booths sometimes have been tied to criminal activity, they also have played an important role for consumers and the economy. “They have made the majority of Russians follow the currency rate and understand the process of valuation and devaluation,” Ivan Starikov, a deputy economic minister for agriculture under President Boris Yeltsin, told The St. Petersburg Times.
Cropping up after the Soviet Union’s end, the standalone booths mushroomed into the thousands in the late 1990s, as Russians avoided the unstable ruble and sought to preserve their earning power by converting cash into dollars.
In the past 10 years, however, the government has made retail in dollars illegal, the banking system has strengthened and Russians have regained faith in their currency, making the gypsy exchangers less necessary. The Central Bank stated its plans to close down the standalone booths earlier this year, citing the need to protect consumers, but it was following the curve.
Just 700 foreign currency exchange booths remained nationwide in February, the Central Bank said at the time, as it detailed plans to close exchangers not associated with banks. Last week, there were just 140 of them, Interfax reported, citing the national bank.
“The exchange booths played the role of a shadow forex market,” said Mark Rubinstein, a senior banking analyst with Metropol. During the 1990s, the exchange booths provided an alternative to the few existing banks, he added.
“Today, those two factors are not important anymore,” Rubinstein said. He said he himself was often reluctant to exchange money in the booths. “I like facilities that have enough light,” he said.
His feelings are shared. In a survey released last week by jobs portal Superjob.ru, about 40 percent of the 1,800 Russians polled welcomed the closure of the exchange booths.
But 18 percent of respondents disagreed with the idea of shutting down the free-standing booths. They said exchange booths are more convenient than banks, since there are more of them and they have longer working hours.
The scene at many of Moscow’s exchange booths was unchanged Monday despite the ban, as the businesses found creative ways to adapt.
But some customers and workers were still upset by the Central Bank’s move. “This is a terrible decision. Where will I change money at night?” Yekaterina, 22, asked on Friday as she stood with her boyfriend near a booth at Moscow’s Savyolovsky train station. The clerk behind the window told The St. Petersburg Times to address all questions to her superiors.
“I won’t say anything except what people should be left without a job?” she said through tears.
Standing nearby, the owner of another booth said he runs “an operational cash office, not an exchange office,” though the nameplate on his booth said otherwise.
The owner was referring to the fact that the Central Bank will allow standalone booths to stay in business if they offer banking services. More precisely, booths need to become subdivisions of a bank to stay open, Interfax reported.
Today, bank branches number 24,500 nationwide, Interfax said.
Mikhail Delyagin, a noted economist, welcomed the government’s decision to “civilize” the currency trade.
Novelist Sergei Shargunov said exchange booths agreed with the 1990s, but he welcomed their close. “It is like buying homemade pies on the street. You can be filled up or be poisoned,” he said of the swindle-prone exchanges.
“Those booths looked like some kind of hole, both delightful and ominous, but it is good that they have been walled over,” he said.

Alexandra Taranova contributed to this report.

TITLE: Government Proposes Ban On Cigarette Ads by 2012
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Tobacco advertising in Russia, where more than half of adults smoke, should be outlawed by 2012, and smoking in public places banned by 2015, the government press service said Monday, Reuters reported.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin approved the anti-smoking program on Sept. 23, Reuters cited his press service as saying, which aims to cut the number of adult smokers by a quarter between 2010 and 2015, and reduce smoking-related diseases and deaths.
Up to half a million people die from smoking-related causes a year in Russia, whose population, the United Nations says, could shrink to 116 million by 2050 from 142 million now.
Tobacco advertising — currently only allowed in some printed and in-door media — would be banned by 2012, according to a lengthy document published on the official Government.ru web site. Tobacco ads on outdoor billboards were banned in 2007.
The program also proposes a ban on smoking in public places such as offices, theaters and public transportation, including long-distance trains, by 2015.
Though a total ban on closed spaces is proposed, the document says restaurants and bars — most of which currently do not have nonsmoking areas — could be excluded.
About 80 percent of Russians are exposed to passive smoking daily, and 40 percent of female smokers continue the habit through pregnancy, Reuters reported the document as saying.
Russia’s love affair with tobacco will be hard to break. In 1990, a shortage of domestic cigarettes led to a “tobacco rebellion” on the streets of the biggest cities, forcing the Soviet government to appeal for an international emergency shipment.
In June, the Health and Social Development Ministry forced manufacturers to put anti-smoking messages on cigarette packs, warning of lung cancer, wrinkles and impotence, adopting standards similar to those in the European Union.

TITLE: RusAl Bid Opposed
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — European minority shareholders are unlikely to support United Company RusAl’s initiative to re-elect Norilsk Nickel’s board of directors at an emergency shareholders meeting scheduled for Oct. 21, one of the investors said Wednesday.
An investment fund based in Western Europe that owns a minority stake in Norilsk Nickel does not support RusAl’s initiative to re-elect the board and will vote against it, said a fund representative, who did not want the fund’s name mentioned because of the sensitivity of the issue.
“Minority shareholders are interested in finishing the feud between RusAl and Norilsk Nickel,” the fund’s representative told The St. Petersburg Times on the sidelines of a VTB Capital investment forum, adding that “corporate wars usually reduce the value of shares.”
She said there was a conflict of interest between Norilsk Nickel’s major and minority shareholders and that there were only two options to resolve the conflict.
“Either the minority shareholders win in this situation and Norilsk starts … concentrating on production, on cost management, on the business, or the company loses its profitability,” she said.
RusAl and Interros, which each control 25 percent stakes in Norilsk, have been battling intermittently since RusAl became a shareholder in 2008. RusAl lost its parity with Interros after a contested board election earlier this year.
Another minority shareholder of Norilsk Nickel, Prosperity Capital Management, plans to vote in favor of re-electing the company’s board.
“We will vote to re-elect the board of directors, and we plan to support the independent directors,” said Denis Yevstratenko, associate director at Prosperity Capital Management.
“We’ll take an attentive look at the list of candidates proposed by both RusAl and Interros and then vote,” he said, adding that the current board of directors was not balanced enough, with Interros having too much influence in it.
A Norilsk Nickel shareholders meeting held in June saw Interros re-elect four directors to the 13-member board, compared with RusAl’s three.
The company’s management also won three seats, which RusAl said was the result of voting manipulations using Norilsk shares controlled by subsidiaries of the company.
RusAl board member Artyom Volynets said Wednesday that the aluminum giant would support four independent directors for Norilsk Nickel’s board, including former board chairman Alexander Voloshin.
“At least we’ll have the real people who will be able to look at the interests of two shareholders from the point of view of what is good for the company and what is bad,” he told journalists at VTB Capital’s forum. “And we are ready to support them, all four independent directors.”
He also said there was no need to argue over how the company is managed, referring to a recent report by ISS Proxy Advisory Services that recommended terminating the powers of Norilsk’s current board.

TITLE: Cyprus Calls Medvedev’s Arrival an Historic Event
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: NICOSIA, Cyprus — President Dmitry Medvedev’s first-ever visit to ethnically divided Cyprus will be an “historic” event underscoring the two countries’ very close ties, the island’s president said Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.
Medvedev’s visit will also help boost slow-moving talks aimed at reunifying the east Mediterranean island, Dimitris Christofias said.
“[The visit] will mean much for the Cyprus issue, but also for the existence of the Cyprus Republic, which will be stressed repeatedly,” Christofias told reporters. The Greek Cypriot government has long counted on Russian backing in past failed peace efforts. Bilateral ties have strengthened during the tenure of Christofias, a Soviet-educated former leader of the island’s communist-rooted party.

TITLE: IKEA to Focus on Existing Investments
AUTHOR: By Derek Andersen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — IKEA is changing its strategy in Russia to focus on existing stores rather than expansion to more sites, new IKEA CEO for Russia Per Wendschlag said Wednesday.
No new sites will be opened in the next three to five years, he said.
“We put in the tenants who were waiting,” Wendschlag said of the company’s Mega malls. Now more attention will be paid to the mix of tenants and to upgrading and expanding the facilities. There are 12 malls currently in operation in Russia.
Investment will continue, Wendschlag said, but it will be funneled “into other things.” 
“We will take a break and work with what we have,” he told reporters.
Wendschlag replaces Per Kaufmann, who was dismissed in February after failing to intervene in the plans of a company contractor to pay a bribe. The bribe was connected with attempts to ensure the power supply to the Mega-Parnas mall outside St. Petersburg.
IKEA has been a vocal opponent of corruption worldwide.
Wendschlag inherits a number of problems from Kaufmann, including shopping complexes in the regional cities of Samara and Ufa that are two years behind schedule in opening.
Wendschlag said he spent a day at the Samara site and met with Samara region Governor Vladimir Artyakov and local building inspectors. The opening of the complex is being held up because of safety code violations.
“We are doing the things we have to do to open. I won’t take any chances with opening a store that is not safe. We learned from our mistakes. It was very costly learning,” Wendschlag said, maintaining the conciliatory tone that the company has adopted since Kaufmann’s departure.
Wendschlag said he will travel to Ufa soon. Construction of the Ufa mall was delayed after inspectors found problems with the contractor’s building permit and foreign labor force in 2008.
The company has also experienced difficulties with Moscow regional officials in its plans to expand near Moscow.
“We could grow much faster’’ near Moscow, Wendschlag said.
Renaissance Capital analyst Natalia Zagvozdina is sympathetic with the company’s problems on the Moscow market.
“The Moscow region is shooting itself in the foot. IKEA is a great employer and has very good, adequately designed products that the local market cannot produce,” she said.
“The market is not saturated for IKEA or for furniture,” Zagvozdina said, but “IKEA has built quite a lot already.”
IKEA has invested $4 billion in Russia since opening its first store in 2000.
Kaufmann canceled plans for 30 new projects and declared an investment freeze in the heat of the conflict with Samara regional officials in 2009.

TITLE: Prosecutor Jailed For 15 Years In Yevroset Case
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Moscow region prosecutor was sentenced to 15 years in prison Tuesday for ordering the destruction of 50,000 mobile phones belonging to Yevroset and seized by police in April 2006.
The phones, worth $1.5 million, were seized on smuggling and safety charges after arriving at Sheremetyevo Airport from Pakistan.
Moscow’s Golovinsky District Court ruled Tuesday that Moscow region prosecutor Dmitry Latyshev, who gave the order to destroy the shipment, had exceeded his authority, Interfax reported.
The Interior Ministry said at the time that the radiation level on the Motorola C-115 phones, made in Brazil, China and Singapore, exceeded maximum permissible norms by 2.5 times.
Former Yevroset owner Yevgeny Chichvarkin, who moved to Britain in 2008 and has requested asylum, says the seizure was part of a campaign organized by corrupt police officials looking to take control of his business.

TITLE: How to Become Dollar-Free
AUTHOR: By Adrian Pabst
TEXT: While the global recovery is stalling, renewed concerns over sovereign debt and bank liabilities are adding to the gloom of sluggish growth and high unemployment. This is exacerbated by a looming currency and trade war between surplus countries such as China and deficit countries like the United States.
When financial leaders gather at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting in Washington on Friday, there are three global players in particular — Russia, Brazil and the European Union — that need to act in concert to avert an escalation and help create a new global currency arrangement that promotes sustained growth.
With growth slowing, governments are quickly running out of options. Neither monetary expansion nor the fiscal stimulus has secured stable, strong growth. Much of the additional liquidity injected into the financial system has been abused by investment banks for speculative purposes and a new bonus bonanza instead of being channeled into cash-strapped businesses and households.
With global imbalances between deficit and surplus countries once again rising, Beijing has continued to hold down the value of its currency to boost exports. In retaliation, Washington has imposed trade barriers to shield its domestic market from cheap imports. As such, both are manipulating their currencies and distorting free trade.
The United States has depreciated the value of the dollar, the world currency reserve, by printing more money. Countries with large dollar holdings like China, Taiwan and South Korea have responded by intervening to limit currency appreciation. Currency intervention is Beijing’s preferred policy of propping up the value of its vast dollar reserves and promoting cheap exports on which strong domestic growth depends. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation enabling U.S. companies to apply for duties to be levied on imports from countries manipulating their currencies — that is, China.
Countries like Russia and Brazil that rely on trade with the United States and China are caught between both sides. They are seeing the value of their dollar reserves decline and that of their currencies rise. That is why last Friday, Guido Mantega, the Brazilian finance minister, said the world was in an “international currency war” that threatens global growth and endangers emerging markets like Brazil and Russia.
Evidence of growing currency manipulation abounds. Since January 2009, Beijing has accumulated almost $600 billion, which represents 40 percent of new global currency reserves. Total Chinese holdings of dollars now stand at $2.45 trillion, more than half of the country’s overall national output. This accumulation fuels global imbalances between surplus and deficit countries by providing China with a permanent export subsidy. No wonder that U.S. lawmakers have resorted to new trade barriers.
Washington wants to limit cheap imports from China and the rest of Asia while at the same time expanding U.S. exports. Unless something gives, the risk of escalation is real and growing. A full-fledged currency and trade war would almost certainly plunge the world economy back into recession.
With U.S. deficit and debt levels at unprecedented levels, Washington can’t afford to antagonize Beijing. After all, China can only buy U.S. Treasury bonds because of strong growth based on a cheap labor force and a cheap currency.
By contrast, Russia, Brazil and the EU have greater room to maneuver. They could launch a common initiative aimed at creating a new global currency arrangement. First, they could support French President Nicolas Sarkozy — whose country will soon take over the Group of 20 chairmanship for one year — in his efforts to reform the Bretton Woods institutions. This includes ideas for a new global currency mechanism — possibly some form of managed system — and over time the creation of a world reserve currency based in part on IMF special drawing rights.
Second, Russia, Brazil and the EU can lead the way in trading much more in their respective currencies instead of relying primarily on the dollar. That would diversify their own currency holdings and make them less vulnerable to U.S. attempts to depreciate the value of the dollar.
Third, they could pioneer limits on speculative practices in terms of both financial instruments and commodity trading to reconnect finance to productive activities and the trade of goods. That would go a long way toward diversifying the global economy and supporting industry and manufacturing on which sustained economic growth depends.

Adrian Pabst is a lecturer in politics at the University of Kent and a visiting professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lille (Sciences Po).

TITLE: United Russia Is No Party of Power
AUTHOR: By Konstantin Sonin
TEXT: Reading tea leaves — or coffee grounds if you happen to be in Russia — won’t help anyone guess who the next mayor of Moscow will be. My prediction is that our leaders will opt for the candidate who is least likely to make a play for the Kremlin in the future.
But Yury Luzhkov’s firing has made one thing very clear: United Russia is not a political party at all. In reality, it is little more than a superficial label or a badge worn by the overwhelming majority of high-ranking, opportunistic state employees. Examples of genuine parties include the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in Mexico; the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; the Communist Party of China and the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan.
For all of the major differences among those parties, they all once held — or in China’s case, still hold — control over the agencies of state power. Those parties first make decisions within the party structure, and then those decisions are carried out by the party functionaries.
If the decision to remove Luzhkov, who was a founding member and one of the most important leaders of United Russia, was not made within the party structure, it indicates that the party, as such, does not exist.
This means that it would be impossible for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to use United Russia to defend against an attack by President Dmitry Medvedev if, hypothetically, he tried to invoke his presidential powers to fire the prime minister. Similarly, there is no United Russia faction in the State Duma that could ever be used for the purpose of impeaching the president, if such a mission were ever to be attempted. In other words, United Russia is a hollow trophy awarded to whoever wins the political struggle, not one of the sides in that struggle.
University of Wisconsin political science professor Scott Gehlbach and I once wrote a commentary regarding the appointment of First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov. I held that Zubkov’s appointment was one more step in Putin’s attempt to maintain sole power over the political system. Gehlbach saw it as a signal that the Kremlin was trying to build an institutionalized ruling party after the manner of Mexico’s PRI. We got so caught up in this analogy that we accidentally made the embarrassing mistake of referring to the PRI as the Institutionalized Ruling Party rather than by its proper name, the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
It was an amusing slip of the pen, but in essence, I was right about the future of United Russia. It might not be a bad thing after all that Russia has a party of power. As the lesser of two evils, a party-based dictatorship is better than a personality-based dictatorship, such as former Turkmen leader Saparmurat Niyazov — aka Turkmenbashi, “the leader of all Turkmen.”
There is no better evidence of the fact that there is no party of power in Russia than the highly unprofessional way that Luzhkov was fired after being smeared on government-controlled television.

Konstantin Sonin is a professor at the New Economic School in Moscow and a columnist for Vedomosti.

TITLE: All around the world: Ethnofest
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Jimi Tenor, an innovative and multi-faceted Finnish saxophone player, will headline the annual Ethno Mechanics music festival, dedicated to world music and held at the Sergei Kuryokhin Modern Art Center this weekend. Appropriately, he will bring some intense rhythms to the event, coming with Kabu Kabu, a group featuring a West African rhythm section, with whom he has worked for several years.
Speaking to The St. Petersburg Times by phone recently, Tenor said he met the musicians six or seven years ago when he was looking for an African percussionist to use on a track. At that time, Tenor — born Lassi Lehto in Lahti, Finland in 1965 — was renowned for his ironic electronic music projects, although his interest in African music stems from his teenage years, when he became a lifetime Fela Kuti fan.
Tenor, who released a collaboration album with afrobeat drumming legend Tony Allen last year, said he had a track on which he wanted to have some Latin-American or African percussion, and somebody suggested an African band in Berlin to him who could do the job. “We went to the studio to do a couple of tracks, and pretty soon we started playing live,” he said.
Kabu Kabu, now featuring seven to eight players, got its current name only after meeting Tenor. “They had an idea that they could be a band that people could hire for different productions and they used to be called Rhythm Taxi, in the sense that they could be hired from the street — you pay and they play,” Tenor said. The lineup has also undergone minor changes. 
Kabu Kabu debuted on Tenor’s 2007 album “Joystone.” Jimi Tenor and Kabu Kabu’s most recent album, which will be featured in Saturday’s concert, is the acclaimed “4th Dimension” from 2008.
Now based in Helsinki, Tenor resettled in Finland five years ago after spending 15 years in Berlin, New York, London and Barcelona.
“It was very difficult to make underground, alternative music in Finland,” he said.
“You can do four or five gigs a year, unless you play in some kind of pizzeria. It’s a small place, and you can’t play many gigs if you play alternative music. The only option is to go abroad, which I still do — I just fly from here. I play two or three gigs a year in Finland, and the rest I do somewhere else.”
In music school in Lahti, Tenor learned the flute. “I was like 10 years old,” he said.
“There was a big band in the school, they had many instruments, and I picked an alto saxophone, because for a flute player it’s quite easy to play saxophone. Then I quickly changed to tenor sax because I’m not a big fan of alto saxophone.”
“Later on, I played baritone for quite a long time, but my baritone saxophone broke.”
Tenor cited Joy Division, Japan, the Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop as artists he had listened to in his early years. 
“Then Fela Kuti was pretty big,” he said. “Also, because I went to Cuba when I was about 17, I brought some Irakere records from Cuba and I listened to them a lot. And because I played flute, I listened to Hubert Laws quite a lot.
“I didn’t listen to many sax players — only when I was older. I went to see Sun Ra in New York a couple of times. Then I found some music that had some connection with Sun Ra, so I discovered Pharoah Sanders, Lonnie Liston Smith and Alice Coltrane. For about ten years, I was fanatic about Pharoah Sanders. I still am. Sun Ra and Pharoah Sanders were the only things I listened to for a long time.”
In his 20s, Tenor played industrial rock music with Tony Tenor & His Shamans. “I also played self-made instruments — I still do,” he said. “We started just playing scrap metal pieces, found objects, and self-made drum machines. That was fun.”
Some of the electro-mechanic instruments built by Tenor and designer Matti Knappi ended up as art objects at exhibitions, according to Tenor’s web site.
Tenor spent most of the 1990s as an electronic music artist, performing “more arty-farty” solo shows notorious for his self-designed costumes and bizarre noise-producing devices.
“It was strictly electronic music, except that I always play saxophone and flute in my music, but I was doing gigs alone,” he said.
“I got a little bit tired of playing and traveling alone. I thought that maybe it would be more fun playing with a band. Even if with a band, things get more complicated — you have to organize rehearsals, and logistically it’s terrible — it’s more fun. I never liked being in an airport alone.”
With Kabu Kabu, Tenor has retained some of his experimental approach. “I try. I’d like to be more experimental, but there are a lot of people and people have different tastes,” he said. “Some people would prefer more a commercial thing, and I just say no. But it’s more of a group effort, not just me, me, me. People have their say.”

Jimi Tenor and Kabu Kabu perform at 9.45 p.m. on Saturday at the Ethno Mechanics Festival, held at the Sergei Kuryokhin Modern Art Center, 93 Sredny Pr., Vasilyevsky Island. Tel. 322 4223. www.kuryokhin.net

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: <strong>Barto</strong>, the Moscow electro-punk band whose song has been under investigation for “extremism” after being performed at a rally, will showcase its new album with a concert at Tantsy on Saturday.
For the album, which is called “Intelligence, Conscience and Honor,” the band recorded a new version of the song, featuring <strong>Alexei Nikonov</strong> of the St. Petersburg band <strong>P.T.V.P.</strong> reciting his poetry, but the track will not be released on CD. Instead, it will only be available on the Internet version of the album, Barto vocalist Maria Lyubicheva said Thursday.
According to Lyubicheva, it was the label that took the decision to exclude the song — called “Ready” (“Gotov”) — from the finished album. “I can understand them; it’s not that they’re afraid of criminal prosecution, but some inspectors could be sent to them who would want money,” she said.
The song, which features the lyrics “Are you ready to set fire to police cars at night” became the subject of attention from Center E, the law-enforcement agency that was created by Putin to “counter extremism,” after Lyubicheva recited it into a megaphone at a rally in defense of the Khimki Forest in Moscow in August. 
Lyubicheva said the investigation is now over, with experts employed by Center E having found “extremism” in the song. 
“I will have to go to the prosecutor’s office in mid-October; I was called by my lawyer who said that they were deciding whether to open a criminal case or not,” she said.
She said she received calls from several prominent philologists who said they were ready to produce their own independent analyses of the song’s lyrics in defense of the band.
Lyubicheva described the new album, whose title has been culled from Lenin’s quote “The Party is our era’s intelligence, honor, and conscience,” as more “lyrical” than previous work.  
She said that Barto invited Nikonov to recite his poetry on “Ready” because they felt that the work of his politically-conscious band PTVP was close to what Barto did.
Meanwhile, St. Petersburg’s very own rally — to protest the destruction of the historic center and city gardens, infill construction and plans to build a 403-meter-tall skyscraper for Gazprom that would dominate the city’s protected skyline — has been supported by a number of musicians including DDT frontman <strong>Yury Shevchuk</strong>, who is expected to take part.
<strong>Vadim Kurylyov</strong>, the frontman of the rock band Electric Guerillas, and <strong>Mikhail Novitsky</strong> of <strong>SP Babai</strong> will also perform.
<strong>The Rally for the Preservation of St. Petersburg</strong> will be held on Pionerskaya Ploshchad, near the Theater of Young Spectators (TYuZ), at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Kurylyov, who wrote a song titled “Be Against the Skyscraper,” will perform with his full band at Orlandina on Thursday.

<em>— By Sergey Chernov</em>

TITLE: Rachmaninov’s little-known masterpiece
AUTHOR: By Jacob Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Mention Sergei Rachmaninov to your average concertgoer, and one of the long-breathed, sentimental melodies from the Second Piano Concerto is sure to enter their head instantaneously. If you ask what other pieces they know, though, you risk a blank stare in response. Rachmaninov’s “hits” — the piano concertos, the Second Symphony, and “Vocalise” — dominate programs to such an extent that much of his other music remains relatively obscure. Since his most famous pieces are also among his least adventurous and interesting, his reputation has suffered accordingly. For most of the 20th century, Rachmaninov has been viewed by many as a dull holdover from the Romantic era, treading mournfully — and not very imaginatively — in the footsteps of his predecessor Tchaikovsky. But a look at his lesser known works reveals a more multifaceted composer than that stereotype would suggest.  
The symphonic poem “The Isle of the Dead,” the highlight of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic’s Friday evening program, is a case in point. True, it’s hardly undiscovered — it shows up on programs with some regularity, even outside Russia — but it’s certainly not an audience favorite, and it shows Rachmaninov in a very different light than his most popular music.  
“The Isle of the Dead” is based on a painting of the same name by the Swiss painter Arnold Boecklin; the painting depicts a small boat heading toward a massive, forbidding rock at twilight. Rachmaninov’s piece begins quietly with an ominous, undulating string figure depicting waves. As the music progresses and gets gradually louder, several secondary motives are introduced, but the opening figure never lets up, loudly reasserting itself about halfway through the piece. (One of the secondary motives is the Dies irae, a dirge-like melody from the Catholic mass for the dead that Rachmaninov used in many works, but never more menacingly than here). At this point, we get some respite: The waves cease, and Rachmaninov introduces a soaring, yearning theme in the upper strings.  He builds a tremendous climax out of this material, after which the Dies irae and then the undulating figure heard at the beginning quietly reassert themselves, and death triumphs.  
The big Tchaikovskian tunes Rachmaninov is so famous for are not here. Tchaikovsky’s influence is completely absent in “The Isle of the Dead;” in fact, the piece’s relatively advanced chromaticism and the fervor of the upper string theme are more reminiscent of Rachmaninov’s contemporary Alexander Scriabin, though its dark fatalism is all Rachmaninov’s own. Just how far Rachmaninov pushed himself in this piece can be gleaned by comparing it to the Five Symphonic Fragments from the Opera “Aleko,” the other Rachmaninov item on Friday night’s program. “Aleko” is a student work based on Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies.” Rachmaninov apparently thought highly enough of it to re-work some of its music into these short pieces, but it’s nowhere near as powerful as “The Isle of the Dead.”
Two works by German composers from roughly the same period (the turn of the 20th century) fill out the program. One of them — Richard Strauss’s “Don Juan” — is well known, the other — Max Bruch’s Concerto for Violin and Viola — obscure. Both are very different from anything written in Russia at the time, and make for an interesting contrast with Rachmaninov’s pieces. The performers — conductor Fabio Mastrangelo, violinist Alexander Shustin and violist Daniil Meyerovich — are not superstars, but have been acclaimed within Russia.

The St. Petersburg Philharmonic will perform Richard Strauss’s “Don Juan,” Max Bruch’s Concerto for Violin and Viola and Rachmaninov’s “The Isle of the Dead” and Five Symphonic Fragments from the Opera “Aleko” at 7 p.m. Friday at the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall, Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa 2. Tel: 710 4290

TITLE: Past imperfect
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: If history is a continuing dialogue between the present and the past, then a meal at the recently opened Istoria (History) is in need of serious revision. Nothing is quite what it seems and confusion and unevenness are the defining characteristics. 
Stepping down into the restaurant from the bustling street is a bit like entering a shabby-chic gift shop. It’s all white painted furniture, raw linens, gauzy curtains and silk floral arrangements. While a bit too like granny’s house, the space is at least filled with light and doesn’t feel at all subterranean.
The French countryside atmosphere the place is going for was belied, on our visit at least, by the jarring strains of a pop radio station blaring Donna Summer which, eventually, morphed into smooth jazz renditions of standards from the 80s — sadly, not much better. 
For a dining spot that describes itself as a “casual restaurant” yet charges prices that place it firmly at the upper end of the market, it was a bit disconcerting to be handed color xeroxed menus that would also serve as our placemats and featured unappetizingly smeary pictures of seafood. And unlike the promise of French country cooking suggested by the interior, the restaurant offers a disappointing mix of Italian and Asian-influenced dishes.
The bar menu, which was printed and bound, offers a decent wine selection, including several by the glass, as well as various cocktails and fresh juices. The least expensive bottle of wine is 1,400 rubles ($47) although if you’re feeling flush, you could spend up to 15,000 ($506).
The menu relies heavily on seafood — oysters, clams, crab and cod — all of which is delivered throughout the week from the north and east of Russia. Quickly skipping over that part of the menu, which averaged 2,000 rubles ($67) for a plate of a dozen oysters, we settled instead on the Istoria salad (480 rubles, $16) and a bowl of corn soup (290, $10) to start. 
The salad turned out to be half-a-dozen perfectly spiced grilled shrimp surrounding a mix of greens, avocado, pine nuts and shavings of Parmesan that made a pleasantly astringent pairing with the briny sweetness of the shrimp. The corn soup was just as successful. A luscious pale yellow cream, it conveyed a bright, fresh corn flavor that was perfectly balanced by a sprinkling of caramelized bacon shards and tender baby asparagus tips. It was as comforting as the restaurant’s interior is homey and decidedly moreish. 
By this point we were pleasantly impressed, despite the rather nasty shock received when confronted by an exceptionally creepy doll dressed like an ageing turn-of-the-century prostitute lurking in the loo. 
After an inexplicably long wait, the main courses finally arrived and disappointment set in. The presentation of the dishes was markedly less inspired than that of the starters and, once we tucked in, it seemed as if the chef had lost interest or been called away between courses. 
We had decided on a miso and ginger-glazed black cod (980 rubles, $33) and veal medallions in a mushroom cream sauce (660 rubles, $22) accompanied by roast potatoes and what can only be described as Russian risotto — buckwheat mixed with Parmesan and tomatoes (both at 140 rubles, $5). 
The cod turned out to be both flavorless and underdone, without a hint of the ginger or miso flavors that were promised. The veal, on the other hand, suffered from being overcooked. It was tough and blanketed with a viscous white sauce lacking any finesse, with the mushrooms coming off as a slightly thicker, more gelatinous part of the sauce. The sides were no better, with the potatoes being dry and stony, and the buckwheat, while an interesting idea, bearing too much resemblance to curiously salted breakfast porridge. 
At this point, we decided to cut our losses and skip dessert, which is an unfocused and uninspired choice of cheesecake, panna cotta, blini or ice cream — most offered with a dousing of strawberry sauce. 
Just before leaving, the waitress gave the rather charming explanation that the name of the restaurant refers to personal stories — perhaps that of friends meeting over a good meal or a life history. Unfortunately, the story that emerges isn’t one we’d want to re-read anytime soon.

TITLE: Russia Revisited: William Christie at the Mariinsky
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Standing in the middle of a penthouse suite overlooking Lincoln Center in New York, William Christie seems comfortable, relaxed and satisfied. And why shouldn’t he? The 66 year-old musician is at the top of his game. He is inarguably the world’s foremost conductor of baroque music, is celebrating three decades’ worth of triumphs on the world’s greatest stages and is seeing his many years of labor spent championing early music bear fruit. Life is good.
Christie is credited with reigniting interest in French music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Since his breakthrough staging of Lully’s “Atys” at the Opera Comique in the mid-1980s, Christie and Les Arts Florissants have been helping listeners discover the sublime pleasures of what, until they came along, was thought of as a rather obscure period in musical history. That is, if it was thought of at all.
Now, Christie is returning to Russia after an absence of many years with new productions of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s “Acteon” — the company’s first operatic triumph — and Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” which were seen on a double-bill at the Brooklyn Academy of Music earlier this year.
This is not the first time that Christie has revisited either of these masterpieces. There have been numerous stagings and recordings of the works over the years. Asked what is it about these operas that fascinates him and why he keeps returning to them, his reply is characteristically direct. “Well, why do people replay Beethoven’s sonatas or Goldberg Variations? Or sing Schubert song cycles all their lives? That’s what it’s all about. There are pieces that you love and obviously they can say different things at different times. They’re also open to interpretation and interpretation changes, which means the Dido you’ve done 25 years ago is not going to be the same Dido that you do 25 years later. And certain pieces hold up to that wonderfully well because they’re so strong.”
Part of the reason Christie has been so successful is because he makes this extremely rarefied music remarkably accessible. In a world where most renditions of baroque music seem stiff with age, Christie has a flair for getting the blood flowing again by foregrounding the emotive qualities of the music. “That has to do with a philosophy of performance and with a desire, a very strong desire, to communicate.” 
Bringing the past to life in so vital a way is the result of long hours spent on research — asking questions and taking nothing for granted — something Christie wishes he had more time for. It is an indispensable part of his practice and distinguishes him from many of his peers. 
“Essentially there are two ways of looking at music. There’s the ‘me, me, me’ — the big conductor conducting Wagner or Verdi who doesn’t pose the question about editions. He’s inherited something that he doesn’t question and he infuses it with his own personality. And then there’s the conductor who has a bit more intellectual curiosity.” 
Christie’s respect for the composer is absolute and his quest for the best edition of a work sometimes ends up revealing as many problems at it solves. He has little time for those who don’t ask questions. “Obviously a problem can be easy to solve or difficult to solve. Problems of instrumentation seem to be now settling themselves out. It’s still a problem for modern orchestras and that kind of dig-your-heels-in, ‘I hate the early music’ personality, but it’s not a problem for lots of people who years ago had to be convinced. I like music with problems. It means that you’ve got to think, and you’ve got to think collectively as well. Music without problems is an arrogant conductor who thinks that by sheer dint of his great personality and his force in his conducting he can bring anything off.”
As an iconoclast when it comes to received knowledge, his eagerness to discover solutions for himself marks Christie as truly unique. “I’ve got this funny idea — maybe it’s an old fashioned idea — and in a sense it’s playing ostrich with my head in the ground. I want my way of doing something to be fresh. I don’t want to go off and listen to others to get ideas. I had this feeling very strongly about twenty years ago, when I started working seriously on Mozart. And I said [to myself] that it would be easy to just collect four or five recordings of a Figaro or a Zauberflote and decide which version you like the best and start from there, as a number of my colleagues did — do, still. I didn’t do that. Whether people like my Mozart or not, at least it doesn’t sound like anybody else’s. And that seems to me important.”
That’s a perfect description of Christie and a telling understatement. His time spent in the archives may have dwindled and the amount of material may be finite, but he is still excited by the possibility of new breakthroughs. 
“Finding a score that hasn’t been used or discovering a composer who hasn’t been loved in a very long time, that’s a major discovery. And of course that was easier to do years ago when the baroque movement was just starting out. There was less scholarship in terms of minor masters, discovering them and their work, now of course a lot more people are playing the minor masters and their works — you’re hearing Campra operas being performed all around the world and you’re hearing <i>airs de cour</i> sung in big concert halls and I think there are very few Handel operas that haven’t been aired over the last ten to fifteen years. Those are the biggest discoveries.”
While performances from the baroque repertoire are often more accessible in the west than in Russia, Christie sees it more as a matter of history than neglect. 
“The weight of Russian romantic tradition and 20th-century tradition is enormous. If you’ve got that extraordinary, powerful tradition, of course everything pales around it. Saying this, you can’t generalize. There is interest in early music and there’s a public as well. We know that because we’ve been told and certainly twenty years ago that was the case as well. It’s just, as I say, that perhaps it isn’t thriving as well as it could be because people want to listen to Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich and what have you.”
As to a question about his listening habits, Christie seems a bit wistful. 
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t listen to music other than my own an awful lot. And that’s just because I don’t have time. I’m sad to say this — it’s not with any pride that I say this — but oftentimes you finish six or seven or eight hours of rehearsal in an evening and the idea of going off to another concert… Yes, if it’s a friend, or if it’s repertoire that I really, really want to hear. But that’s rare, you see. Now is there any justification for this other than tiredness or [sighing] just not being available? I don’t listen to much of the kind of music that I play, yet I am curious about the way the new generation are playing. Oftentimes they come to play for me. Am I inquisitive in the sense that I ask questions about who’s doing this or who’s doing that? Not really.”
Since early in his career, nurturing young musicians has been an important part of Christie’s practice. He taught for years at the Paris conservatory and also taught at the Moscow conservatory before Perestroika. And he continues to cultivate new talent to this day with a variety of programs. This idea of nurture informs everything he does: From the name of the ensemble, which translates as “the flourishing arts,” to his own academy for young singers, which he calls “Le Jardin des Voix” (“the garden of voices”), to the much loved garden at his home in the west of France where he spends all his free time and is creating a foundation to encourage and support musicians. His green thumb and metaphors of growth, renewal and abundance appear everywhere. 
In the spirit of rebirth and rejuvenation, Christie has recently begun turning over the baton at selected concert performances to his talented young proteges Jonathan Cohen and long-time Arts Florissant associate Paul Agnew. On one hand this enables him to work with other orchestras — next month he will conduct Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” in his Metropolitan Opera debut — but also plays a part in ensuring that the seeds he planted many years ago will continue to thrive. 

William Christie and Les Arts Florissants perform Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s “Acteon” and Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” at 8 p.m. on Sunday at the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall, Ulitsa Dekabristov 37. Tel: 326 4141. www.mariinsky.ru

TITLE: Taliban Attacks Destroy Over 40 NATO Vehicles
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — More than 40 NATO vehicles were destroyed in two separate Taliban attacks in Pakistan Wednesday as the militants stepped up their efforts to disrupt supply routes into Afghanistan.
In the latest attack at least 26 NATO oil tankers were torched when militants opened fire on a convoy of dozens of vehicles parked in Nowshera in northwestern Pakistan, police said.
Earlier militants attacked a depot housing 40 NATO oil tankers on the outskirts of the southwestern city of Quetta, killing a member of staff and destroying at least 18 vehicles.
In Islamabad, meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador apologized for the deaths of two Pakistani soldiers in a helicopter strike last week which led to the main border crossing into Afghanistan for NATO trucks being closed, causing more disruption to supplies.
The Nowshera incident was the fifth  in a week, with around 100 vehicles torched and four people killed so far.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for both of Wednesday’s attacks, along with the previous raids.
They vowed more attacks to disrupt NATO’s supply route through Pakistan and to avenge a new wave of US drone strikes targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants linked to an alleged terror plot against European cities.
“We will further intensify attacks with the intensification of U.S. drone strikes on us,” Tehreek-e-Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq said.
Two U.S. missile strikes Wednesday killed eight people in Pakistan’s tribal northwest — home to the alleged European plot.
A security official said two missiles hit a militant compound in Miranshah, the main town in tribal North Waziristan, where foreign militants are believed to have hatched the plan to launch Mumbai-style attacks on European cities.
Hours later at least three militants were killed in a drone strike on a house in Mir Ali, in the same area, security officials said.
The United States has massively ramped up its drone campaign in Pakistan’s lawless northwest tribal region on the Afghan border, which it calls the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda.
Pakistani authorities have reported 26 attacks since September 3, which have killed around 150 people in the region, a hub for homegrown and foreign militants fighting in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, Hussein Haqqani, told the BBC that the increase in strikes in North Waziristan came after intelligence agencies uncovered the plot to “attack multiple targets in Europe.”
He also said that a drone strike on Monday in the district, which killed eight militants, including five Germans, was linked to the plot.
The Al-Qaeda plot reportedly targets Britain, France and Germany with a wave of commando-style attacks on key landmarks including Paris’s Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral and Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.
French police on Tuesday arrested 12 people and seized guns in a series of anti-terror raids.
The United States does not as a rule confirm drone attacks, but its military and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the pilotless aircraft in the region. 
The tanker attacks came as the main land route for NATO supplies crossing from Pakistan to Afghanistan remained closed for a seventh day running.

TITLE: Hungary Toxic Sludge  Spill Reaches Danube
AUTHOR: Geza Molnar
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: BUDAPEST — Hungary’s toxic sludge spill, which has killed four people, reached the Danube River on Thursday, threatening to contaminate the waterway’s entire ecosystem, officials said
“The red mud pollution has reached the Danube — its so-called Mosoni Branch, about 10 kilometers from the main branch of the river — this morning,” said Tibor Dobson, the local head of the disaster relief services.
“At 09:27 am (0727 GMT), the pH level stood at 9.3. The experts are still measuring the pollution levels and the pH levels are descending.”
Water authority official Jozsef Toth said earlier that samples taken at the confluence of the Raba River and the Danube showed “alkalinity slightly above normal, with a pH value of 8.96-9.07,” against a normal tally of 8.0.
On a scale of 1-14, pH values of 1-6 are acidic, between 6 and 8 are neutral, and readings of 8-14 are alkaline.
A wave of toxic mud was unleashed Monday from the reservoir of an alumina plant at Ajka, 160 kilometers west of Budapest.
The red mud traveled down the Raba and reached the Danube’s waters at around 0630 GMT at Gyor.
The industrial accident triggered by the collapse of walls at the factory reservoir on Monday has been described as an ecological disaster and is now threatening the entire ecosystem of the Danube, Europe’s second longest river which runs from Hungary through Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine before flowing into the Black Sea.
Three adults and a child died when the tidal wave of mud smashed into surrounding villages on Monday. More than 120 people were injured, suffering from burns, and three people are still missing.
At two of the hardest hit villages, Devecser and Kolontar, water samples from the river Torna, which flows into the Raba, showed pH levels of around 10 on Thursday, but these were falling, Dobson said.
On Monday, after the accident happened, the reading was pH 13.5.
Dobson said neutralizing efforts, using acid and gypsum, were helping to bring the pH levels down.
Groundwater in the wells in the region showed neutral readings of pH 7.5.
Earlier, Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Kolontar — where all four victims died — to see the extent of the destruction.

TITLE: British Embassy Car Attacked in Yemen
AUTHOR: By Hammoud Mounassar
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: SANAA, Yemen — A British embassy car came under rocket attack in Yemen on Wednesday and a Frenchman working for an Austrian oil firm was shot dead, highlighting the growing dangers in the Arabian peninsula’s poorest nation.
The Yemeni government pointed the figure at Al-Qaeda.
Police in Sanaa said a rocket-propelled grenade targeted the car about three kilometers from the British embassy, the second attack on a British diplomatic vehicle in the city in six months.
“A British embassy vehicle was attacked at approximately 0815 local time,” a British Foreign Office statement said.
“The vehicle was on its way to the British embassy, with five embassy staff on board. One member of staff suffered minor injuries and is undergoing treatment, all others were unhurt,” it added.
A diplomat said the vehicle was carrying Fiona Gibb, the deputy head of mission, but that she was unhurt.
The Foreign Office would not confirm the identities of those in the car.
Foreign Secretary William Hague called the attack shameful.
“This morning’s attack on staff of the British embassy in Sanaa highlights the risks our diplomats face working for Britain’s interests abroad,” he said in a statement.
“This shameful attack on British diplomats will only redouble Britain’s determination to work with the government of Yemen to help address the challenges that country faces.”
Yemen said the attack “carries the fingerprints of Al-Qaeda.”
“Security services are carrying out their investigations to arrest those involved in this terrorist crime,” said a statement on the defense ministry’s 26sep.net web site.
Meanwhile, a Frenchman working for Austrian energy group OMV in Yemen was shot dead and a British colleague injured by a guard at the firm’s Sanaa compound on Wednesday, OMV and security officials said.
One official said that an armed guard opened fire, crying “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest). He was unable to say if the guard was motivated by personal or other reasons.
Police investigators named the shooter as Hisham al-Wafi, a 19-year-old they described as “religious” who had been working as a security guard for OMV for three months.
OMV confirmed the death of a French contractor, and that a British national, described as an expert who worked at the company’s branch office, was also wounded in the attack.
The company said it saw “no political background for the action taken by the Yemeni security guard.”
It has about 300 employees in the country, including 55 expatriates, it said. 
Following Wednesday’s rocket attack, the travel advice section of the British embassy’s website warned against “all but essential travel” to Yemen “due to the threat of terrorism, kidnapping and tribal violence.” 
On April 26, a suicide bomber hurled himself at the British ambassador’s two-car motorcade in a Sanaa street as it neared the embassy compound. 
The suicide bomber wounded three bystanders and damaged a police escort car as he threw himself at the convoy and detonated his explosive belt. Ambassador Timothy Torlot escaped unharmed. 
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group’s local branch, later claimed the attack, which saw the embassy closed for two weeks. 
Britain’s embassy in Sanaa also closed for three days in January due to the threat of an attack by Al-Qaeda, the mission said. 
Britain, along with Yemen and Saudi Arabia, co-chaired a September 24 meeting in New York City of the “Friends of Yemen” international support group. 
At the meeting, Britain warned of “massive dangers” to world security should Yemen become a failed state.

TITLE: Mario Vargas Llosa Wins Nobel Prize For Literature
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: STOCKHOLM — Peruvian-Spanish author Mario Vargas Llosa won the 2010 Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, the Swedish Academy said.
The 74-year-old author, a one-time presidential candidate, is best known for works such as “Conversation in the Cathedral” and “The Feast of the Goat” but is also a prolific journalist.
Announcing the award, the academy hailed “his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”
Vargas Llosa has won a string of major literary awards, including the most prestigious of all for a Spanish-language author, the Cervantes Prize, and had often been tipped to win the Nobel.
Born in Arequipa, Peru, Vargas Llosa grew up with his mother and grandfather in the city of Cochabama in Bolivia before moving back to Peru in 1946.
He then became a journalist, moving to France in 1959 where he worked as a language teacher and as a journalist for Agence France Presse as well as for French television before establishing his reputation as an author.
His first major success came with the novel “The Green House” which appeared in English in 1966.