SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1625 (86), Friday, November 12, 2010
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TITLE: First Party Supports
2nd Term For Medvedev
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Right Cause, which styles itself as a liberal opposition party, has become the first party to officially support the candidature of President Dmitry Medvedev for a second term in 2012.
Party co-founder Georgy Bovt said Wednesday that the decision, announced late Tuesday, simply reflected the country’s political reality.
“Today there are really only two candidates who can win the presidency: Putin and Medvedev,” he said by telephone.
“We have made our choice,” he added.
Bovt said it was vital that the country continues Medvedev’s policy of modernizing the political and economic systems.
“This course needs to be carried on — and only Medvedev can guarantee that. If he does not stand, his presidency will be a failure,” he said.
His words were echoed by Leonid Gozman, Right Cause’s other co-founder. “There may be no real political life in the country, but there is one real political choice: for modernization or against modernization,” he said in a statement on the party’s web site.
Both Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have left open the question of whether they will run for re-election. Putin handed over the presidency to his close aide Medvedev in 2008 because the Constitution bars him from running for a third consecutive term.
No other party has announced a presidential candidate yet.
The announcement drew scorn from other parties, which told The Moscow Times that it only proved that Right Cause is Kremlin-sponsored.
“This exactly shows what they are. They cannot do anything but support the powers that created them,” said Galina Mikhalyova, a senior Yabloko official.
Right Cause, formed about two years ago by former leaders of the pro-business Union of Right Forces, or SPS, was widely seen as a Kremlin attempt to round out the political spectrum with obedient parties.
Ilya Yashin, a leader of the Solidarity opposition group, said Right Cause was too minuscule a political force to worry about. “They still have not provided any evidence that they can act independently,” he said.
Both Yashin and Mikhalyova said Right Cause’s decision to support Medvedev would have zero influence on their groups’ decisions on nominating a presidential candidate.
Solidarity has teamed up with opposition figures Mikhail Kasyanov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Vladimir Milov to present a single candidate next year.
Yashin said the new movement, dubbed For a Russia Without Arbitrariness and Corruption, will also try to register for the State Duma elections.
Sergei Markov, a State Duma deputy for United Russia, said the decision to support a presidential bid for Medvedev was good publicity for Right Cause but bad news for the president.
“This is a serious blow to Medvedev,” he said, explaining that Right Cause included “radical liberals” like participants at the protests for free assembly held on the 31st of every such month.
TITLE: Gazprom Sees Sales Growth In Korea
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom’s sales to South Korea should pull even with supplies to major European buyers like France by 2017 as the Russian gas export monopoly turns its attention toward burgeoning Asian markets, Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said Wednesday.
“Europe will undoubtedly remain a priority market for Gazprom. It was the No. 1 market and will remain the No. 1 market for years,” he said. “But the volume of Russian gas supplies to the Asian market may reach the volume of gas supplies to Europe in a very short period of time.”
Miller was accompanying President Dmitry Medvedev, who traveled to Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Myung-bak, and a meeting Thursday of the Group of 20 largest economies.
Gazprom could supply at least 10 billion cubic meters of gas annually starting in 2017 as South Korea’s demand for the fuel will grow by at least 15 percent in the next seven years, Miller said in Seoul after a meeting with executives from Kogas, the country’s largest gas company. The companies will decide later on whether the supplies will be by pipeline or as liquefied natural gas, he said.
Gazprom’s first LNG plant, part of the Sakhalin-2 project, began shipping compressed gas in March 2009, including to South Korea. The company has sought to expand in Asia as demand for its pipeline gas in Europe is squeezed by cheaper spot prices for LNG and nontraditional sources like shale gas.
Russia and South Korea will start talks on terms of the supply deal next month, but Gazprom plans to supply the gas under the take-or-pay principle it uses in Europe, Miller said.
The contracts mean that customers must pay for a fixed volume of gas, even if they do not ultimately require all of the fuel. Some European customers have sought more flexible supplies since demand for gas plummeted during the economic downturn last year.
Pricing will also be “the same as in all our other contracts,” Miller said. “Everything will be tied to the Japanese oil products basket,” he said.
South Korea’s gas industry relies heavily on LNG, making more diversified supplies an interesting prospect, said Valery Nesterov, an oil and gas analyst at Troika Dialog.
“The country is heavy populated and demand for gas is high,” he told The Moscow Times.
Consumption in South Korea more than doubled in the past decade to reach 33.8 bcm in 2009, from 16.8 bcm in 1999, Nesterov said. Russia will have to compete with Qatar, Malaysia and Australia for a share of the Korean gas market, he said.
Gazprom’s biggest clients in Europe are Germany and Turkey, with supplies last year of 33.5 bcm and 20 bcm, respectively, according to the company. It also supplied 19 bcm to Italy and 10 bcm to France, while sales to Britain and Poland were 9.7 bcm and 9 bcm.
Demand for gas in the Pacific region is already higher than in Europe, Miller said, and the Asian gas market will likely be as important for Gazprom as Europe soon.
TITLE: Classic Russian Art On Sale at Auction
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: An antiques auction to be held in St. Petersburg on Sunday will offer 244 lots, including paintings by Ivan Aivazovsky and a collection of Faberge items.
The auction will be the first event of such a large scale and significance for the city’s antique sector, the organizers said.
The auction, organized by Russian Seasons, will present objects of Russian and European art including paintings, graphics, decorative and applied arts, furniture, military art works and other items dating back to the 19th and the 20th centuries.
Many items offered at the auction are expected to fetch high prices, including works by renowned Russian artists such as Aivazovsky, Ivan Shishkin, Arkhip Kuindzhi, Konstantin Korovin and Konstantin Makovsky.
The other lots present objects from Faberge, Karl Bolin and Petr Ovchinnikov, as well as items made at the Russian Emperor Porcelain Factory from various periods.
“We’re putting up for auction rare objects such as sculptures by Dmitry Stelletsky, plates from the dinner set of St. Vladimir’s Order, items produced at the Imperial Glass Factory, and a rather large collection from Faberge’s firm,” said Anna Lebedyeva, general director of the auction.
Among the paintings put up for auction, participants will find “Ukrainian Landscape” by Aivazovsky, dated 1859. The painting’s preliminary valuation is from $176,000 to $215,000.
The lot with the highest starting price is an Aivazovsky painting titled ‘Tall Ship Sailing to the Coast.’ “The bidding will begin at $600,000,” Lebedyeva said.
A work by the famous Russian landscape painter Shishkin titled “The Swamp” and dated 1890 is expected to go for between $127,000 and $137,000.
Among the works from Karl Fabrege’s world famous Russian jewelry firm are a mustache comb made of gold, 12 rose cut diamonds and five sapphires, which is expected to go for between $17,000 and $21,000.
There is also a silver Reamer scale thermometer with gilding and blue enamel for sale at $32,000-$39,000.
Bolin’s works include a golden brooch in the shape of two snakes with a sapphire and four diamonds. The listing price for the brooch is $39,000.
The least expensive item at the auction is a porcelain shoe made at the Popov factory in the middle of the 19th century. Bidding starts at $100.
“The most interesting pieces up for auction are definitely the sketches done by the Russian artist Vasily Surikov in preparation for his murals at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow,” Lebedyeva said.
The two sketches being put up for auction were done in 1876-1878. The Cathedral was destroyed in 1931, and most Surikov’s murals along with it. Only one of the murals remains, kept at the State Religion History Museum in St. Petersburg. As a result, “the sketches going up for auction have a huge historical value,” Lebedyeva said.
Lebedyeva stressed that the auction was not a “leftovers auction,” formed of “objects that can’t find clients on the market, but rather of works that are not widely known of in antique circles and that will attract the interest of clients.”
“We also tried to make the minimum prices more attractive,” she said.
The auction will be held in the Krysha ballroom at the Grand Hotel Europe, the official partner of the event.
Visitors can learn more about the items being offered for auction at a pre-show in the Russian Seasons antique salon at 24 Nab. Reki Fontanki, from Nov. 5 through Nov. 13, or on www.auction-ruseasons.ru.
TITLE: Patients Send Petition Over Confidentiality
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russian patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, cancer, tuberculosis, viral forms of hepatitis and other dangerous illnesses sent a petition to President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday demanding the repeal of a recent decree that essentially breaches patients’ confidentiality.
The decree in question, adopted in September 2010, entitles any pharmaceutical company that holds a clinical trial of a medicine to collect detailed personal information of all patients participating in the tests and send the files to insurance companies.
Until now, the insurance company simply had to sign an agreement with the organization responsible for the trial testing, simply specifying the number of participants in the tests and without disclosing their names, passport information and medical case details, explained Vladimir Osin, the Russian representative of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition for HIV/AIDS patients.
“Before the current scheme was adopted, only one doctor responsible for any particular clinical trial had access to patients’ full personal information,” Osin said. “I think the decree was simply passed as a result of carelessness. We have no doubts it should be promptly nullified.”
The petition says the new decree would damage patients’ interests.
“This is shocking: this means that information about people’s illnesses – despite physician-patient privilege being guaranteed by the Russian Health Law – is put into free circulation, thus violating patients’ rights and making them even more vulnerable,” said Alexandra Volgina, director of the Svecha charity foundation that supports people with HIV/AIDS. “It was already difficult to protect the privacy of such patients, who often lose their jobs and become ostracized when their employers and other people they know find out about their condition. In most foreign countries there is a strict system of protecting patients’ data.”
As activists point out, for many patients, participation in clinical trials of medicines can sometimes be their only chance of survival. This issue concerns not only those infected with HIV/AIDS, but also those suffering from other diseases that are stigmatized in Russian society. “Now, everyone will be facing disclosure, which is what they are so afraid of,” Volgina said. “The situation creates a painful dilemma for the patients. Participating in a tests will essentially mean going public about their conditions.”
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: 147 Fans Arrested
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Some 147 fans were detained over the course of the Zenit vs. CSKA Moscow football match this Wednesday, Interfax reported.
According to the officials, most of those arrested were CSKA fans, mainly for petty hooliganism and disturbing the peace.
Security for the match was tighter than usual, with an increased police presence completely surrounding the fan sections of both teams.
Additionally, the city center was given extra security patrols before and after the match.
At one point, referee Stanislav Sukhina was forced to halt the match because of smoke from numerous flares thrown by both fan sections.
CSKA won the match 3-1.
Academic Database
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — President Dmitry Medvedev has signed off on education-related legislation placing university degree information in the public domai, Fontanka.ru reported.
The Federal Education and Science Supervision Agency is to create a unified record of all state-recognized documents concerning education and academic degrees, including school and university certificates.
Employers will be able to verify the authenticity of potential employees’ credentials by accessing the database.
Census Results
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — According to the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, the 2010 census missed one out of every ten Russians, Fontanka.ru reported
The rate was worse in the North-West Federal District, with one out of every five going unaccounted for.
The majority of Russians (65 percent) took part in the recent October 14-25 census personally, with an additional 22 percent taking part indirectly through their relatives.
This represents a significant drop in participation from the 2002 census, where 76 percent took part personally and only 5 percent went uncovered.
Illegal Export Prevented
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — An attempt was made to pass military equipment illegally through the Yaninsky customs terminal last week in Leningrad Oblast, Fontanka.ru reported.
A diesel engine declared as hardware for a locomotive proved to be designed for a warship, most likely a 1135 Burevestnik, officials said.
According to North-Western Customs Administration, the engine was forwarded by the Moltek firm located in St. Petersburg and was headed for UKRINKHROM located in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.
Unlikely to be used in civilian craft, this engine was probably needed to repair or modernize existing military equipment, customs officials said.
TITLE: Synagogue Prepares For Open Day of Tolerance
AUTHOR: By Sophie Gaitzsch
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s Grand Choral Synagogue located on Lermontovsky Prospekt will hold an open house event on Sunday to mark the International Day of Tolerance.
“The synagogue is a very significant place for Russian and St. Petersburg Jews,” said Anna Brodotskaya, a representative of the synagogue. “As the biggest and oldest synagogue in St. Petersburg, it is a center for the Jewish faith in our country. Even during Soviet times when it was closed and people were not even allowed to approach it, it always remained a symbol.
“On Sunday, our goal will be to show the gentile public that it is an open place. Most people think of it as something closed and mysterious. People tend to believe that only Jews — or even only male Jews — are allowed to go inside. Even some non-practicing members of our community are not aware that it is a place that you can simply enter and that welcomes each visitor,” she added.
From noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday, free guided tours of the synagogue, whose construction was completed at the end of the 19th century, will take place every 30 minutes. Visitors will be shown the Main Prayer Hall, the Marriage Hall and the Small Synagogue, and be told about Jewish prayers and rites, as well as the architecture and the turbulent history of the building. At the end of each tour, participants will be invited to taste Jewish cuisine: They will be offered matzoh, a cracker-like unleavened bread made of plain white flour and water, and forshmak, a dish made of chopped herring. But the minds and stomachs of their guests are not the only concern of their hosts. The sensory exploration of Jewish culture continues at 5 p.m. with a Klezmer music concert by the St. Petersburg trio “Kle-zemer.” The three musicians will perform marriage songs and popular melodies and explain some of the characteristics of traditional Jewish music.
“We want Jewish culture to become comprehensible and close to every inhabitant of St. Petersburg, especially the young among them,” said Mark Grubarg, chairman of the city’s official Jewish community.
“In order to teach tolerance, giving people the opportunity to see the synagogue with their own eyes and to meet members of the Jewish community is more effective than making them listen to 50 lessons or read 100 books about Jewish culture,” he said.
According to Brodotskaya, the organization of a special event on the International Day of Tolerance is not, however, a way of stating that Jewish people lack respect in the city.
“In fact, the date is more of a pretext to invite people,” she said. “In modern-day St. Petersburg, we do not encounter intolerance toward the Jewish community. But sadly, the attitude of some parts of the population toward other groups because of their origin is still problematic. We believe that the more people know about other cultures, the more open-minded they grow. In that regard, this event is our contribution to creating more tolerance in the city of St. Petersburg on a general level.”
TITLE: More Denials in Kashin Case
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Investigative Committee’s top department was assigned on Wednesday to handle the case of the attack on Kommersant reporter Oleg Kashin, who remained in a drug-induced coma, as suspects singled out by the media denied involvement.
The country’s chief investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, held a meeting Wednesday with criminologists and investigators working on the case, the committee said in a statement. It named no suspects.
The probe is headed by “legendary investigator” Irina Kyrchanova, herself a journalist’s daughter, who solved the murder of reputed mafia don Otari Kvantrishvili and nabbed a gang of skinheads who killed 20 migrants in Moscow, a committee spokesman told Kommersant.
Kashin, 30, also a popular blogger, was beaten by two unknown assailants Saturday and remains hospitalized with head trauma and multiple broken bones, including his upper and lower jaws, a leg and several fingers.
Vitaly Frantsuzov, head of the hospital where Kashin is undergoing treatment, denied reports that the journalist had regained consciousness.
The Council of Europe on Wednesday joined the U.S. State Department and Amnesty International in condemning the attack. “I am very encouraged by President Dmitry Medvedev’s strong stance against these attacks,” council Secretary-General Thorbjorn Jagland said in a statement.
Medvedev has promised to punish those responsible for the attack even if they turn out to be high-ranking officials.
TITLE: Officers in Magnitsky Case Get Awards
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Interior Ministry has awarded officers connected to the investigation of a tax evasion case against Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in pretrial detention last year, Magnitsky’s supporters said Wednesday.
Interior Ministry investigator Oleg Silchenko, who was a leading investigator in the Magnitsky case, was named “Best Investigator,” while his superior Natalya Vinogradova was recognized as an “Honored Interior Ministry Official,” Magnitsky’s supporters said in a statement.
Both were handed the awards by Deputy Interior Minister Alexei Anichin, the Interior Ministry reported on its web site.
Artyom Churikanov, who also investigated the Magnitsky case, was commended for his “contribution to the service’s interest.”
Another investigator, Pavel Karpov, whom Magnitsky had implicated in a scheme to embezzle state funds, was also named “Best Investigator.”
Magnitsky, arrested on tax charges, died of health problems, but his supporters said he was denied medical help and the case against him was fabricated.
TITLE: Marlboro Pack Sheds Light on Nuclear Smuggling
AUTHOR: By Desmond Butler
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — Early one morning in March, two Armenians slipped aboard a train in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, unaware that they were being watched. They removed a pack of Marlboro Reds hidden in a maintenance box between two cars. Inside the pack, Georgian authorities say, was nuclear bomb-grade uranium, encased in lead.
Before long, Georgian officials seized the uranium and arrested the men, breaking up a ring they say was willing to sell material for nuclear weapons to any bidder. International officials see the operation as one victory in the effort to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into terrorists’ hands.
The seizure was reported in April, but few details were disclosed. The Associated Press now has obtained more information from Georgian officials about an operation involving international smugglers and undercover agents. Some elements were confirmed by UN and U.S. officials.
For all its apparent success, the investigation highlighted the difficulty of stopping nuclear smuggling in the Caucasus. The region has porous borders, widespread corruption and unknown quantities of unsecured materials left over from the Soviet period.
Though this seizure involved, as in previous cases, a small amount of nuclear material, international nuclear safety officials are not reassured. A terrorist organization could accumulate material from numerous small acquisitions over time. And if small amounts can be smuggled and sold, larger batches could follow similar routes.
It also remains unclear whether the small amount of uranium in the cigarette pack was a sample of a larger stash yet to be found.
“The dangerous thing is that there might be more material out there somewhere,” said Archil Pavlenishvili, chief of Georgia’s nuclear smuggling unit in the Interior Ministry. “This proves that if a criminal or an extremist is wealthy enough, it is possible to obtain material.”
Pavlenishvili, who led the team that carried out the operation, provided rare details of the nuclear smuggling underground in an interview. The case appears to demonstrate that an established network of nuclear smugglers is finding more sophisticated ways to evade international controls.
According to the account he and other Georgian officials gave:
The investigation began with a tip from an informant. The man, an ex-smuggler from a village near the Black Sea coast city of Batumi, was once involved in selling fake radiological materials. He told Georgian authorities he had infiltrated a network of smugglers and had learned of an Armenian man trying to sell “serious” nuclear material.
The Armenian, investigators learned, was Sumbat Tonoyan. Once a dairy factory owner, he had lost a fortune gambling and turned to smuggling. Authorities had photos of him taken at border crossings on trips to Turkey.
An undercover agent contacted Tonoyan about the nuclear material, saying only that he was from “a significant organization.” In a meeting in Tbilisi, Tonoyan wanted more information but was told: “It is not your business. I am not asking you your name, please don’t ask mine. If you want to do business, let’s do business.”
Tonoyan first demanded more than $8 million for 120 grams of uranium — a fraction of the amount needed for a bomb. He did not specify the enrichment level. Uranium has to be highly enriched to be used in a nuclear weapon.
In a second meeting, he came down to about $1.5 million in U.S. bills. Pavlenishvili says smugglers usually settle below $10,000 a gram for bomb-grade material. The mere existence of a typical black-market price is a worrisome sign of the supply and demand in the illicit trading of nuclear materials. Tonoyan suggested that he had even more uranium to sell. The buyer was told to expect him in Tbilisi in early March.
Georgian police were skeptical. They have conducted dozens of operations involving smugglers promising nuclear-grade uranium or plutonium. In almost all cases, the criminals turned up with fake material. Still, they responded after being alerted early on March 11 that Tonoyan and a companion had crossed the border in a taxi. The companion was later identified as Hrant Ohanyan, a retired nuclear physicist from a science institute in Armenia.
Georgian police tailed the taxi. The men got out near a hotel and began casing the deserted street. They appeared concerned they were being watched.
The men then met the train from Yerevan, the Armenian capital, and picked up the cigarette pack containing the uranium. During interrogations, the men would explain they had boarded the train in Yerevan, stashed the uranium and got off before the border crossing.
Authorities had not anticipated the uranium would cross the border separately from the smugglers. So the uranium moved unaccompanied and unsecured for hours until the men picked it up at the station.
Tonoyan switched the meeting place to the hotel he had cased. He met the undercover buyer in a room. When the men pulled out the sample, a radiation detection device hidden on the undercover agent went off. He said a code word. Agents listening in burst in with a commando team.
The uranium was only 18 grams, less than an ounce. But it had been highly enriched, to almost 90 percent, high enough for use in a nuclear weapon. It did not pose a radiological risk to anyone who came upon it in transit.
Georgian officials say Ohanyan and Tonoyan have pleaded guilty after a closed hearing and agreed to cooperate with police. They face at least 10 years in prison. Neither they nor their lawyers were made available.
Radiation detectors on the Georgia-Armenia border under a U.S. program apparently failed to pick up the uranium hidden in the cigarette pack. Pavlenishvili said Ohanyan correctly predicted that the lead casing would conceal the uranium from the detectors. A larger quantity might have been detected.
Georgian and international investigators are trying to determine the origins of the uranium. They have clues. In Ohanyan’s pocket, police discovered records of a bank transfer to Garik Dadayan, an Armenian arrested in 2003 for smuggling 180 grams of similar material to Georgia. Dadayan was released by the previous Georgian government. He later was prosecuted in the case in Armenia and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. Pavlenishvili said he was released within months of his sentencing.
The two men identified Dadayan as the source of the seized uranium and said he had hinted that there might be more for a second sale. Georgian officials say Dadayan is in Armenian custody and hasn’t been cooperating with the investigation.
Armenian Justice Ministry spokesman Lana Mshetsyan confirmed that Dadayan was arrested April 26, 2010, and remains in custody. He is being held in the Kentron prison, a former KGB prison, on charges of smuggling radioactive material.
In an investigation of the 2003 case, Russian authorities provided information that Dadayan had traveled to Georgia from Novosibirsk, Russia, where there is a nuclear fuel manufacturing plant. Several disappearances of material from that plant have been documented.
Georgian officials say they are trying to determine whether the uranium came from the same batch seized in 2003. They say they have sent the material and its packaging to the United States for further forensic analysis and have reported the case to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Agency spokesman Ayhan Evrensel confirmed that his agency is working with Georgia on the case. A spokesman for the U.S. National Nuclear Safety Administration, Damien LaVera, declined to discuss his agency’s role in the investigation.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Roerich Memorial
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A monument to Nikolai Roerich was set up on Tuesday in the Vasileostrovets Garden on Vasilyevsky Island, where the artist, philosopher and public figure spent a great part of his life, Interfax reported.
The statue is 3.5 meters tall and is made of Karelian granite.
Moika Drowning
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A driver was killed when his car plunged into the Moika River after colliding with another vehicle, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing the city’s Emergency Situations Ministry headquarters.
The accident happened near number 18 on the Moika embankment at about 00.40 p.m Wednesday. The submerged car was pulled out of the water at about 4 a.m.
Theater Monitoring
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A tender has been announced for the monitoring of buildings located in a 30-meter area around the construction site of the Mariinsky Theater’s second stage.
The Northwest Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration announced the tender this week. The application deadline is 9 December 2010, and the maximum contract price totals up to about 23.6 million rubles.
The area to be monitored comprises Minsky Pereulok, Ulitsa Soyuza Pechatnikov and Ulitsa Dekabristov. Experts are to determine how the building work has affected the main building of the Mariinsky Theater, the Dekabristov and Torgovy bridges, and the embankments of the Kryukov Canal.
Journalist Convicted
MOSCOW (SPT) — A Khimki journalist who was savagely beaten in 2008 was convicted Wednesday of defaming Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko, AP reported.
A Khimki court issued a 5,000 ruble ($160) fine but said Mikhail Beketov did not have to pay because the statute of limitations had expired, Interfax said. Beketov’s lawyer promised to appeal.
The slander suit was filed by Strelchenko over an interview in which Beketov accused him of involvement in blowing up his car in 2007.
Beketov had a leg amputated and is unable to speak after the 2008 attack that his supporters claim was retaliation for articles criticizing local authorities. No arrests were made. Beketov accused Strelchenko of “political terror.”
At least six journalists and activists who criticized local authorities have been attacked in recent years, BBC Russian Service said.
Two ‘12’ Suspects
MOSCOW (SPT) — Two suspected members of a gang active in the Rostov and Krasnodar regions have been detained in connection with a vicious mass murder that left 12 people dead last week, the Investigative Committee said on its web site Wednesday.
TITLE: World Health Organization: Russians Smoke the Most
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — More adults smoke in Russia than in any other heavy-smoking country, and their average life expectancy is one of the shortest among former Soviet countries, according to two separate but thematically linked reports released Tuesday.
Politicians and analysts said the popularity of smoking, which contributes to worsening demographics by killing up to 500,000 Russians a year, could be stopped through tougher regulations, but tobacco producers have blocked all efforts for years, successfully lobbying their interests with the ruling United Russia party.
With 44 million adults, or almost 40 percent of the population, Russia has the biggest percentage of adult smokers among the 14 countries surveyed by the World Health Organization in a poll presented at a Moscow conference Tuesday.
More than 60 percent of Russian men and almost 22 percent of Russian women smoke, according to the WHO’s Global Adult Tobacco Survey.
The poll also covered Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam — countries that “bear the highest burden of tobacco use,” the survey said.
The survey is “not a document but a call to take action,” Luigi Migliorini, acting head of the WHO’s Russia office, said at a conference where the report was presented Tuesday, RIA-Novosti reported.
Some 400,000 to 500,000 Russians a year die from smoking-related causes, a figure that accounts for 17 percent of the country’s yearly mortality rate, a co-author of the report, Oleg Storozhenko, told the conference, Interfax reported.
Separately, a study the Audit Chamber released on Tuesday said Russia lagged behind most other former Soviet republics in life expectancy.
Only Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have a life expectancy lower than in Russia, the chamber said in an e-mailed statement. It did not provide exact figures for life expectancy in the countries in question. Russia’s average life expectancy was 62 years for men and 74 years for women in 2008, according to the latest figures from the WHO.
The omnipresence of tobacco advertising, as well as the promotion of smoking by movies and television, contributes to the high smoking rate, Alexander Lyakhovich, a public health researcher with the Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy, said by telephone.
Another reason is low income, which means that families cannot afford healthy leisure activities, including sports, said Lyakhovich, who heads a department at the academy’s Research Institute for Public Health and Medical Administration.
To reduce smoking, authorities need to introduce curfews on the sale of cigarettes, ban cigarette sales in easily accessible street kiosks, prohibit smoking in all public places, toughen penalties for selling cigarettes to minors, and promote healthy lifestyle among students, said Igor Lebedev, head of the Liberal Democratic Party’s faction in the State Duma.
Excise duties on tobacco goods are among the lowest in Europe, keeping cigarette prices low. Lebedev told The Moscow Times that some of his colleagues have been campaigning to increase excise duties for 10 years.
Tobacco producers capitalize on the domination of the United Russia party, which controls the Duma, because “it is easier for a cigarette lobby to come to terms with one party,” Lebedev said.
But change may be around the corner after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed off on a state program in September to reduce smoking over the next five years. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in September that higher excise duties would boost the government’s spending on social needs.
The Finance Ministry has drafted a bill to boost excise duties on alcohol and tobacco over 2011 to 2013. The legislation was approved by the Duma in a first reading in October, but no date has been set for a second reading.
Igor Beloborodov, head of the Institute for Demographic Studies, said unhealthy lifestyles, including smoking and drinking, contribute to the less-than-impressive life expectancy in Russia, but he questioned the thesis that most other former Soviet republics have a higher life expectancy.
Europe has better anti-smoking programs than Russia, and Russians drink stronger alcohol than residents of many European countries, especially central and southern ones, Beloborodov said. But the life expectancy in central Russia is still close to that of Europe, while the situation is much more dismal in post-Soviet Central Asian countries, notorious for their poor record on children’s deaths, epidemiological situations and health care resources, he said.
Still, he added, Siberia and ethnic republics such as Kalmykia might spoil the overall statistics for the country because their harsh climate and residents’ lack of access to quality medical care might reduce life expectancy in those regions.
TITLE: Foreigners Send $18.6Bln In Remittances in 2009
AUTHOR: By Derek Andersen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Migrant workers make Russia one of the world’s largest cash exporters, according to a World Bank report released Tuesday.
The Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011 ranked Russia fourth for 2009 among countries whose foreign residents transfer money abroad, with $18.6 billion leaving its borders. The United States came in first, followed by Saudi Arabia and Switzerland. Russia came in 19th among remittance-receiving countries, taking in $5.6 billion.
According to the report, there are currently 12.3 million immigrants working in Russia, representing 8.7 percent of the population. There are 11.1 million Russians, or 7.9 percent of the population, working abroad. Russia ranks second among countries receiving immigrants, following the United States, and third among countries providing emigrants, after Mexico and India.
Former Soviet republics are the largest source of immigrants to Russia and the most popular destinations for Russian emigrants. The exchanges of workers between Russia and Ukraine and between Russia and Kazakhstan are among the most sizeable in the world.
Outflow from Russia increased sharply through most of this decade, rising from $3.23 billion in 2003 to a peak of $26.15 billion in 2008. The decline in 2009 was in line with worldwide trends, as the effects of crisis-related unemployment and new immigration quotas were felt.
Similarly, remittance inflow into Russia rose from $1.5 billion in 2003 to $6 billion in 2008, before falling to $5.4 billion in 2009.
A supplementary brief to the 2011 report predicts that remittance flows into developing countries will rise by 6 percent this year, 6.2 percent next year, and 8.2 percent in 2012, but it cautions that the fragility of economic recovery, fluctuating currency and commodities prices and rising anti-immigrant sentiment could affect that growth.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is rising. “Hundreds of Tajik labor migrants have been the victims of deception by employers,” the Labor Migrants of Tajikistan association states on its web site. “Documents are forged; wages are not paid; civil servants behave rudely.”
“Such cases have become more frequent in the last two years,” the statement says.
The World Bank brief also says remittance outflow from Russia is closely tied to the price of crude oil. The authors conclude that the immigrant population and remittance outflow are expected to rise steadily in Russia in the short term.
TITLE: Chernomyrdin Embodies a Better, Freer Era
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Ryzhkov
TEXT: The national farewell to former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin might lead to consequences unforeseen by the authorities — a re-examination of one of post-Soviet Russia’s most important periods, what Kremlin propagandists consistently refer to as the “wild 1990s” and a time when Chernomyrdin played a critical role.
Chernomyrdin’s death at age 72 last Wednesday evoked a tremendous outpouring from the public. Hundreds of politicians, journalists and political analysts voiced unusually warm and positive comments about his work and his role in modern Russian history. People remembered his unique combination of extraordinary power, kindness and humanity. They point to the key role he played in crucial moments of Russian and international history, his creation of Russia’s first market-oriented business — what eventually became Gazprom — during the Soviet period, his leadership and promotion of reforms for more than five years, his success at saving the lives of more than 1,000 hostages in Budyonnovsk in 1995, his bringing the war in Yugoslavia to a halt and his ability to maintain positive relations with Ukraine while the Kremlin was in the throes of “Orange hysteria.”
Chernomyrdin left an unforgettable imprint on the popular memory with his unusually rich, precise and graphic language, with his hundreds of top-rate aphorisms that combined humor with an ability to capture the essential. For example, he characterized the era of former President Boris Yeltsin by saying, “Those of us who survive will be the ones to laugh.” Regarding the era of then-President and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Chernomyrdin quipped: “Everyone is arguing about who should be at the top and at the bottom. I think the bottom is the calmer place to be now.”
Thousands of people came to pay their last respects at Chernomyrdin’s coffin. Last week, I talked to numerous people in my native Altai republic, and they all spoke of Chernomyrdin as an unusually personal, straight-talking and good person. The media have dubbed him “the people’s prime minister.” It turns out that after a decade of Putin’s power vertical, monopoly on power, strong-arm tactics against political opponents and “waste the terrorists in the outhouse” rhetoric, a great many people see a humane and political alternative in Chernomyrdin.
The reasons are clear as to why Putin, President Dmitry Medvedev and other current leaders are paying the necessary tribute to the former prime minister. First, most of them worked under him and many are personally indebted to him. Second, they could not ignore the groundswell of popular support for Chernomyrdin. But the problem for them is that Chernomyrdin pursued an entirely different political agenda and adhered to a different value system than that dominating Russia today.
Yeltsin chose Chernomyrdin to replace Yegor Gaidar as prime minister during the fall 1992 crisis because he wanted to stabilize the economic and political situation as soon as possible — both of which Chernomyrdin accomplished brilliantly and quickly. Yeltsin also saw in Chernomyrdin a man who was wholly committed to continuing his policy of democratic and market reforms. In fact, Gaidar himself recommended Chernomyrdin as his successor. Chernomyrdin proceeded to accomplish what many at the time considered impossible. Drawing on his vast economic experience and personal authority, he managed to stabilize and pacify the country. And he simultaneously continued the system of economic reforms. The main reformers continued working after he took office, people such as Gaidar, former Economic Minister Yevgeny Yasin, privatization architect Anatoly Chubais, former Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov and many others.
From the perspective of the present, it is evident just how different Russia was in the 1990s compared with today and what a huge role Chernomyrdin played personally in making that difference.
During that decade, the government placed its bets on the development of the private sector, and it was then that today’s most successful and well-known companies — from VimpelCom to Wimm-Bill-Dann — first appeared. The same is true of businesses in the regions. The 1990s were the most productive period for business — to which any businessperson over 40 will attest. The state sector of the economy fell to about 30 percent of gross domestic product, while today, after a decade of an expanding state bureaucracy, it accounts for more than 50 percent of GDP.
The 1990s witnessed little of what came to define the current era: mass raiding (the illegal seizure of businesses) carried out by organized criminal groups comprised of government officials, siloviki, prosecutors, judges and business competitors. As strange as it might seem to many people, property rights were significantly safer in the “wild 1990s” than they are today.
Public and government institutions that are effectively dead today — such as the parliament, the court system, multiparty politics, free elections, and federalism and municipal government — were still functioning, however imperfectly, in the 1990s. Chernomyrdin understood all of that quite well and dedicated a great deal of time to working with the State Duma and Federation Council and constantly meeting with governors and mayors (who were then directly elected by the people). Because democratic institutions began functioning and gathered strength during that period, a foundation was laid for the establishment of a modern market economy and long-term social stability.
Chernomyrdin was a product of a different culture and values than those animating today’s leaders. His was a culture of dialogue and compromise. He could never have conceived that his party, Our Home Is Russia, would rely on coercion and electoral fraud or would seek a monopoly on power as Putin’s United Russia does now. He would never have advocated canceling the direct election of governors and mayors, or of limiting the people’s political and social freedoms. He supported a free press, and many still remember how he once hugged the puppet caricaturing him on “Kukly,” the NTV satire program.
Chernomyrdin was a major and constructive figure in Russia’s modern history. He believed in Russia’s future as a free country and that its main wealth lay in its people, their lives and their fates. Even in death, he has found a way to remind us of the enduring values of freedom and human dignity that we so spinelessly and thoughtlessly reject today.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Who Ordered Kashin’s Beating?
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Perhaps the one positive aspect of the vicious beating of Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin on Saturday is that the list of suspects is confined to a small number of people — just like an Agatha Christie novel.
The first suspect is Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko. (He denies any role in the matter.) Sooner or later, Strelchenko’s enemies get their heads bashed in. Two years ago, Khimkinskaya Pravda editor Mikhail Beketov’s head was beaten so badly that he will probably never recover from the severe brain damage he incurred. On the recent anniversary of that beating, the Khimki leader of the Right Cause party, Konstantin Fetisov, suffered head injuries after he was attacked. Two days later, it was Kashin’s turn.
The second suspect is Vasily Yakemenko, head of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, the spiritual leader of the “Putin-jugend.”
In August, Kashin dug out an unflattering story about Yakemenko. Anastasia Korchevskaya, a minor who attended the 2008 Seliger camp held by the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth group, decided to brag about her personal connections to the organizers by posting a photo of herself with Yakemenko on the Internet. The caption read: “Seliger 2008. Yakemenko still thinks I am madly in love with him.” Yakemenko responded, “Korchevskaya, just because you came over to my tent twice for a couple of nights doesn’t mean that I think you are in love with me.” The blog was deleted shortly thereafter, but before that Kashin had made a screenshot of the interchange and turned the incident into a scandal.
Kashin’s opponents realized that they couldn’t convince Russians that Kashin is an “enemy” based only on his comments about Yakemenko. Something much more incriminating was needed. Then, as luck would have it, Kashin published an interview in Kommersant with an anti-fascist leader who had broken the windows of Khimki City Hall. The interview enraged Young Guard, which responded by posting an article titled “Traitor Journalists Should Be Punished!” on its web site.
There is a third, but less likely, suspect — Pskov Governor Andrei Turchak. Kashin, in one of his blogs, insulted Turchak in an act of carelessness. Turchak, a former head of United Russia’s youth movement, responded by demanding an apology from Kashin — a demand that was worded in such a way that it resembled a threat. Turchak’s office has wished Kashin a speedy recovery and declined to comment on the ongoing criminal inquiry.
There is a list of suspects in the Kashin beating, and there is not the slightest chance that the attack was simply a random act of violence. In a best-case scenario, the beating was the initiative of some fascist organization that was upset with one of Kashin’s Khimki interview. But in all likelihood, a senior official was involved.
President Dmitry Medvedev pledged on Monday to punish those found responsible for the Kashin beating, even if the perpetrators turn out to be senior officials. Since our list of suspects is well-known, asking Medvedev to “take measures” against the attackers without naming a single suspect is cowardly. If we demand nothing more than that the authorities “take measures,” they will respond by saying, “Measures have been taken.”
The real prize for courage should go to Moscow art curator Marat Gelman, who wrote in his blog that he believes Yakemenko ordered the attack. Yakemenko has sued Gelman and is threatening to sue me and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov for linking him to the attack on Kashin.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: British arts fest prepares to land
AUTHOR: By Christopher Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: During the next several days, St. Petersburg may feel more like it lies along the banks of the River Thames than along those of the River Neva. With the arrival of British artists, filmmakers, designers, writers and dancers, a mini British Invasion is taking place that looks set to be as entertaining as it is fascinating.
Uncannily reminiscent of a Best of the British Council cavalcade, the rather unfortunately named St. PetersBall will occupy spaces around town with a selection of lectures, film screenings, recitals and more for the entire weekend.
The brainchild of cultural entrepreneur and impresario Pablo Ganguli, founder of Liberatum and the force behind 2007’s “Jewel of Russia” festival, this year’s event is being hosted by the Corinthia St. Petersburg Hotel, which commissioned this latest incarnation of Ganguli’s successful cultural diplomacy franchise. Having mounted similar affairs around the world during the past nine years, the 27-year old Ganguli is a force to be reckoned with. For all his tender years, he has managed to attract some of British culture’s most august figures to his cause, championing human rights, freedom of speech and awareness of environmental issues while promoting the face of contemporary Britain globally.
In 2007, the activity centered on the State Hermitage Museum and the Mariinsky Theater with the staging of Thomas Ades’ opera “Powder Her Face,” which scandalized more demure audience members, and nearly a week of discussions and debates reflecting upon subjects relating to art, media, fashion, music and literature by the likes of Stephen Frears, Orlando Figes and Jaspar Conran. This time out, the venues include the Academy of Arts, the Rodina and Dom Kino movie theaters, the ballroom of the Corinthia St. Petersburg Hotel and Rosphoto exhibition center.
The diverse lineup of events planned for this weekend includes filmmaker John Hillcoat presenting a screening of his chilling adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road” and Danny Moynihan showing the film version of his novel “Boogie Woogie,” which he also produced. Moynihan’s film is a comedy about the London art world based on observations the author made as part of the “in” crowd. The son of renowned painter Rodrigo Moynihan, Danny grew up with people like the Freuds and Bacon as family friends and is counted as part of the first-generation Young British Artists crowd.
England’s latest art world sensation will also be on hand to discuss her work at RosPhoto. Polly Morgan makes sculpture that has captured the attention of critics in the U.K. and is an updated take on Victorian ideas about life and death explored through the art of taxidermy. By turns macabre and bittersweet, her work is championed by such heavy hitters as Charles Saatchi and Damien Hirst, and her poignant stuffed animals have begun appearing in top galleries and collectors’ homes, offering a bit of morbid chic to dress up more adventurous interiors.
In addition to a fashion brunch in honor of designers Jasper Conran, Ozwald Boateng and Roksanda Ilincic at the Corinthia, a discussion between Danny Moynihan and artist Matt Collishaw on the politics of art will take place at the Academy of Arts.
The highlight of the weekend will undoubtedly be a black-and-white themed ball featuring a dance production led by one of The Royal Ballet’s principal dancers, Slava Samodurov. Including lead dancers from the Mikhailovsky Theater, the evening’s entertainment will also incorporate recitals of music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Rostropovich as performed by members of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
In keeping with the mission of bringing as many people into contact with the latest cultural offerings from Britain as possible, the St. PetersBall festival program is open to the general public and free of charge. With demand predicted to run extremely high for most of the events, those wishing to be sure of finding a seat would do well to roll up early or risk missing out on some of the season’s most hotly anticipated events.
The St. PetersBall by Liberatum runs from Nov. 12 to 14 at various venues around town. The full schedule can be found at www.liberatum.org.uk
TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: This is the last time Andrei Makarevich and the meeting of rock musicians with President Dmitry Medvedev will be mentioned in this column. Hopefully.
For the past few weeks, Mashina Vremeni frontman Makarevich, who drew a wave of criticism last month by hanging around with and performing for President Dmitry Medvedev at his Moscow club, has been busy trying to prove that he is not a “pro-Kremlin musician” and that all the criticism has been intentionally misleading.
He tried it on his website (“To everybody who is attempting to be rude to me or teach me how I should live: Get lost, ladies and gentlemen,” he wrote), in a new song that he uploaded on YouTube (with no comments allowed) and in a letter to The St. Petersburg Times.
The letter speaks for itself, but at least one thing in it is misleading. Makarevich said that his band, Mashina Vremeni, have not taken part in pro-Kremlin concerts.
“We once took part in a concert dedicated to the end of the elections, but I wouldn’t describe this as a ‘pro-Kremlin’ event — elections in any country are, after all, elections,” he wrote.
Makarevich, who was awarded with a state medal by Putin in 2003, should have mentioned that the televised concert that took place at the Red Square on March 2, 2008 was a Kremlin-orchestrated political show, while the so-called presidential election held on that day was not like elections in any country.
The candidate, Dmitry Medvedev, was handpicked by the then President Putin, he received preferential treatment in coverage in the Kremlin-controlled media, independent observers were not allowed to monitor the election process and no genuine oppositional politicians were allowed to register as a candidate.
Andreas Gross, the head of the PACE observation mission, denounced the election, saying “It is still not free and still not fair.”
The “not-pro-Kremlin” concert’s audience was made up exclusively of members of Kremlin-run youth organizations (regular members of the public were not allowed through the cordons), and at its finale both Putin and Medvedev took the stage, looking triumphant.
In fact, it was this concert that first provoked a wave of criticism of Makarevich.
But the fact that Makarevich has put so much effort into denying being pro-Kremlin gives us some hope. Leningrad’s Sergei Shnurov did the same following the release of his dubious song “Khimki Forest,” which accused musicians involved in political protests of self-promotion. Both seem to have realized that the moral climate has changed and it is shameful to be pro-Kremlin.
Catch The Kooks at Glavclub and The Frozen Orchestra with Goodbye Ivan at Shum on Friday. Check gigs for the rest.
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Portrait of a historic neighborhood
AUTHOR: By Thomas Burr
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A multi-location, multi-media art exhibition that has been months in the making is finally opening in the location to which it is dedicated: the Admiralteisky district of St. Petersburg.
Combining photography, painting and film, “Stories from the Admiralteisky District” (Admiralteiskie Istorii) uses a series of interviews and character portraits to celebrate the past, present and future of a historic St. Petersburg neighborhood.
The district, which runs east of the Neva and stretches roughly between the Sennaya Ploshchad and Narvskaya metro stations, was at one time the industrial center of the city.
While St. Petersburg’s inevitable transition away from industry to tourism and commerce could have blighted the area, residents have embraced the locality’s quirks.
The result of the area’s development is a unique mix of buildings, streets and squares that have become home to a diverse set of residential, commercial and cultural tenants who give the district an eclectic and inimitable style.
This history and originality drives “Stories from the Admiralteisky District,” and the organizers have left it up to the residents themselves to tell its tale.
Among these impromptu historians are firefighters, Siege of Leningrad survivors, teachers, factory workers and hairdressers. Each has their own story to tell, and, rather like the district itself, all of the seemingly divergent stories come together to form a cohesive whole.
These stories are the heart of the project, and the interviews put together by documentary film director Mikhail Zheleznikov will be on display twice over the weekend.
These installations, appropriately, will take place at the former Krasny Treugolnik Factory on the Obvodny Canal (Nov. 12, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., building 3, 4th floor) and at the Russian School of Hairdressing (Nov. 15, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Ulitsa Dekabristov 57.)
While these screenings look set to be the highlight of the project, the organizers’ stated goal is not just to bring the art world together in admiration of a creative endeavor, but, more importantly, to embrace the entire community and “help local residents learn about the place where they live and its history and become active members of their community.”
As such, the project also includes two everyday-life installations in stores near the Narvskaya metro station in the south of the neighborhood.
The first is a professional and well-presented installation of the work of photographer Solmaz Guseynova in the gallery of the Yarky Mir camera store located at 5 Stachek Ploshchad (November 8 to 25, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m).
Her work is prominently displayed and clearly explained in the store, working not only as a standalone exhibit, but also as a great advertisement for the project as a whole. Guseynova has captured faces with stories to tell and nooks of the region that beg to be explored, each sure to draw significant interest towards the complete interviews and full exhibit.
The exhibition’s final installation has already passed, but was an interesting experiment in guerilla art. Four paintings by Yevgenya Golant were perched on top of the lockers at the local Pyatorochka grocery store (22 Narvsky Prospekt), almost as if someone had left them up there while doing their weekly shopping.
While a couple of cashiers seemed pretty oblivious and even a bit hostile toward the “exhibit,” there was hardly a passer-by who failed to notice the paintings and linger a while. Whether or not it could be classed as the “engagement” the artists are looking for was hard to tell, but it was certainly a start.
TITLE: Food on Mars
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “Hmm, this is going to be mink-coat territory,” my companion said, gesturing to a Jaguar and a Porsche parked just outside the building as we approached Gastronom restaurant, located on the corner of the Field of Mars. Funnily enough, a few seconds later we caught sight of a woman wearing a mink coat — and sure enough, she was heading for Gastronom.
When we entered the restaurant on a Sunday afternoon, its three rooms were busy and almost all the remaining tables were reserved. We were lucky to get a table in the main room, which is spacious, brightly lit and very homey, with chunky wooden tables, large sofas and wicker chairs with soft cushions. The room’s style was reminiscent of a classic French kitchen, with walls adorned with rows of dusty wine bottles and a long table stretching along one of the walls, half buried under mounds of cheese, freshly baked bread, grapes, honey and citrus fruit.
Beside the main dining area, Gastronom has a small and cosy oriental-style room with colorful carpeting, opulent decor and a good selection of shisha water-pipes, and an additional dining hall with minimalist modern design.
The clientele was mixed and included families, small groups of businessmen and loved-up couples.
We began our meal with a large glass of homemade ginger lemonade (150 rubles, $5) made with grated ginger root, lime and mint — a perfect choice in the colder months of the year, for it has a wonderful spicy overtone to it and is not too sweet. We had expected a bottled ginger lemonade, as is usually served in most local restaurants offering the beverage, so Gastronom’s personal touch was an agreeable surprise.
When our starters arrived, we were pleased to note that at Gastronom, salads come in generous sizes, and could easily replace a main course. It is also true, however, that the salad prices are similar to those for main courses, ranging from about 400 rubles ($13.30) to 700 rubles ($23.30).
Reindeer salad with chocolate balsamico (490 rubles, $15.30) was served warm, with a hearty serving of lightly fried slices of reindeer mixed with sauteed strawberries, cowberries and ruccola salad, generously sprinkled with the sauce. The combination of salty meat and warm sweet strawberries was winning, making an interesting twist to the dish, which is typically served with sour berries such as cranberry.
My guest was equally satisfied by her goat’s cheese and fig salad with honey sauce (490 rubles, $16.30). This vegetarian favorite was rendered flawlessly by the chef.
Some other tempting options on the salad side include an Asian-style Caesar salad (390 rubles, $13), with fresh salmon and tuna replacing the traditional chicken, and crab meat salad with poached eggs — the most expensive option at 690 rubles ($23).
The main courses did not disappoint. The Patagonian toothfish fillet (390 rubles, $13) arrived surrounded by sauteed tomatoes. Fresh and succulent, the dish was not at all heavy, despite the natural fattiness of the fish, which is a rarity in local restaurants. Grilled octopus with salad and truffle sauce (460 rubles, $15.30) turned out to be one entire large tentacle. Soft and meaty, it was served on a thin layer of ruccola salad. There was no visible evidence of the truffle sauce, but our waiter explained that the ruccola leaves had been soaked in the sauce.
We both left the restaurant eager to return, and perhaps try out the homemade pastas — ravioli with pork and pistaccio nuts (390 rubles, $13) or tiger prawns and Amaretto liquor (460 rubles, $15.30).
And next time, we will be sure to book a table.
TITLE: U.K. PM Calls for Prosecutions After Demo
AUTHOR: By Jill Lawless
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday condemned violence that erupted during a demonstration against government plans to triple university fees, and police acknowledged they were unprepared for the mayhem.
Cameron said “the full force of the law” should be used against protesters who smashed windows, lobbed projectiles and stormed a London office tower housing the headquarters of his Conservative Party.
“People long in our history have gone to marches and held banners and made protests and made speeches and that’s part of our democracy,” Cameron said in Seoul, South Korea, where he is attending a G20 summit.
“What is not part of our democracy is that sort of violence and lawbreaking. It’s not right. It’s not acceptable and I hope that the full force of the law will be used.”
More than 50,000 students, lecturers and supporters marched through London Wednesday against plans to raise the cost of studying at a university to up to 9,000 pounds ($14,000) a year — three times the current rate — in the largest street protest yet against the government’s sweeping austerity measures.
Hundreds of demonstrators scuffled with police and burned placards outside Conservative headquarters as dozens stormed the lobby, scattering furniture, spraying graffiti and chanting.
Fourteen people, including seven police officers, were treated for minor injuries. Police said 50 people were arrested and bailed pending further inquiries.
Protest organizers condemned the violence by a minority, but images of masked protesters smashing windows dominated TV news bulletins and newspaper front pages on Thursday.
Metropolitan Police chief Paul Stephenson acknowledged that the force had failed to anticipate the violence, and initially had only 225 officers on duty to handle the crowd.
He said it was “an embarrassment to London and to us.”
“Certainly I am determined to have a thorough investigation into this matter,” Stephenson said.
Cameron’s government plans to triple tuition fees and cut funding to universities as it strives to slash 81 billion pounds ($128 billion) from public expenditure over the next four years.
TITLE: Kurdish Leader Welcomes Iraqi Deal
AUTHOR: By Bushra Juhi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — A top Kurdish leader welcomed on Thursday a tentative deal on a new government keeping Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in his post and breaking an 8-month deadlock. While Sunnis have a role, the deal still thwarts their ambitions for greater political power, raising concerns sectarian violence could persist.
The deal could be a setback for the United States, which was pushing for a strong Sunni role out of fear that the minority community could slide back into support of Iraq’s insurgency if it wasn’t given a real say in power.
Parliament was to meet later Thursday to take the first formal step in creating the new government — electing a parliament speaker. A parliament vote to confirm a new government could take several weeks as the factions work out details of posts. Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, who confirmed the deal early Thursday, said he expected a new government to be in place within a month.
A Sunni-backed coalition led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi won the most seats in the inconclusive March 7 parliament elections, but not the majority needed to form a government. That opened the door for religious Shiite parties to form a coalition and outmaneuver Allawi, thwarting his bids for both the prime minister job and the presidency.
Instead, Allawi will lead a newly created security council, said Barzani. But the council’s powers remain vague: Al-Maliki is unlikely to give up the reins over security issues, and one of his key Shiite partners — the staunchly anti-American Sadrist movement — also appears to be angling for a hand as well.
“I don’t think we got what we wanted. We are the biggest bloc, and we won the election,” said a lawmaker from Allawi’s Iraqiya party, Jaber al-Jaberi, of the Sunni stronghold Ramadi. “We earned the right to form the government. However, there were powerful forces ... and we compromised.”
The Sunnis did get a few consolation prizes, and the United States praised the fact that the new government would have at least some Sunni presence.
“The apparent agreement to form an inclusive government is a big step forward for Iraq,” said Tony Blinken, national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, the administration’s point man for Iraq. “All along we’ve said the best result would be a government that reflects the results of the elections, includes all the major blocs representing Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups, and that does not exclude or marginalize anyone.”
Lawmakers are expected to meet Thursday for a vote to name the speaker of parliament, a post that Barzani said was promised to Allawi’s bloc in the deal. Parliament would then elect the president, who would ask the prime minister candidate — al-Maliki — to form a government.
It was not immediately clear if the vote on the president would take place Thursday.
TITLE: Pessimism Pervades as G20 Leaders Show Split
AUTHOR: By Jean Lee
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SEOUL, South Korea — A strong sense of pessimism shrouded the start of an economic summit of rich and emerging economies Thursday, with President Barack Obama and fellow world leaders arriving in Seoul sharply divided over currency and trade policies.
The Group of 20 summit, held for the first time in Asia, has become the centerpiece of international efforts to revive the global economy and prevent future financial meltdowns.
Failure in Seoul could have severe consequences. The risk is that countries would try to keep their currencies artificially low to give their exporters a competitive edge in global markets. That could lead to a destructive trade war. Countries might throw up barriers to imports — a repeat of policies that worsened the Great Depression.
Hopes had been high that the Group of 20 — encompassing rich nations such as Germany and the U.S. as well as growing giants such as China and Brazil — could be the world forum for hashing out an economic way forward from financial crisis.
But agreement appeared elusive as the summit began, divided between those such as United States that want to get China to allow its currency rise and those irate over U.S. Federal Reserve plans to pump $600 billion of new money into the sluggish American economy, effectively devaluing the dollar.
Obama told fellow leaders that the U.S. cannot remain a profligate consumer using borrowed money and needs other countries to pull their weight to fix the world economy.
“The most important thing that the United States can do for the world economy is to grow, because we continue to be the world’s largest market and a huge engine for all other countries to grow,” Obama said at a news conference.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, warned that such policies would “bankrupt” the world.
“If the rich countries are not consuming and want to grow its economy on exports, the world goes bankrupt because there would be no one to buy,” he told reporters. “Everybody would like to sell.”
Concerns about trade gaps, protectionism and a currency war threatened to overtake momentum for forming global solutions to the financial crisis created at last year’s London summit.
So far, officials can’t even agree on the agenda, much less a draft statement. Government ministers and senior G-20 officials have labored for days without success to come up with a substantive joint statement to be issued Friday, G-20 summit spokesman Kim Yoon-kyung said.
Leaders had a working dinner Thursday at Seoul’s grand National Museum of Korea, greeted by sentries dressed in royal garb and escorted by children in traditional Korean dress. Outside, a few thousand protesters rallied against the G-20 and the South Korean government. Some scuffled with riot police, but the march from Seoul’s main train station was largely peaceful.
“We can put people watching this summit at ease by reaching a concrete agreement that takes a step forward,” South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said. “You, world leaders, know that our global economy can achieve a continuous, balanced growth with international solidarity.”
However, his failure to announce that he and Obama, among the staunchest of allies at the summit, had agreed on a long-stalled free trade accord as expected did not bode well for the mood for compromise.
Besides providing a political boost for both, an agreement could have helped shift the tone for a summit where common ground looks increasingly narrow and nations appeared set to defend their short-term economic interests above all else.
A major issue confronting the G-20 is how to craft a new global economic order to replace one centered on the U.S. running huge trade deficits while countries such as China, Germany and Japan accumulate vast surpluses. The U.S. runs a trade deficit because it consumes more foreign products than it sells to others.
Obama made a pitch for balanced recovery across the globe and pushed for exchange rates based on the market. The message was primarily aimed at China, whose trade surplus with the U.S. is bigger than with any other trading partner. The U.S. contends that China deliberately undervalues its currency, the yuan, which gives it is exports an unfair competitive edge.
Chinese President Hu Jintao assured Obama during talks Thursday that China has an unswerving commitment to pressing ahead with currency reform, said Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman for the Chinese delegation.
TITLE: Brazil Tests Literacy Of Elected Clown
AUTHOR: By Stan Lehman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SAO PAULO — Grumpy the clown won election in a laugher, getting more votes than any other candidate for Brazil’s Congress. Now he has to prove that he can read and write.
The Sao Paulo Electoral Court held a closed-door exam for the clown turned congressman-elect on Thursday to determine if he meets a constitutional mandate that federal lawmakers be literate.
Details of the test were not immediately available from the court’s press office.
Francisco Silva became famous as Tiririca — “Grumpy” in Portuguese — and received about 1.3 million votes, nearly twice as many as the next-highest vote-getter in last month’s congressional elections.
His campaign videos drew millions of viewers on the Internet, with slogans such as “It can’t get any worse” and “What does a federal deputy do? Truly, I don’t know. But vote for me and you’ll find out.”
But a less humorous element emerged during the campaign: Allegations that Silva, like 10 percent of Brazilians, is illiterate.
TITLE: Royal Retreat: Tsarskoye Selo
AUTHOR: By Sophie Gaitzsch
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Winter is slowly setting in, and with it, for many, the envy to escape the grayness and slush of the city for a few hours in order to breathe some fresher air and walk on crisp virgin snow. Tsarskoye Selo, the summer residence of the tsars located 25 kilometers to the south of St. Petersburg in the town of Pushkin, has always been a popular daytrip option among Petersburgers, and with the completion of major renovation work in time for the estate’s 300th anniversary celebrations this year, the “village of the tsars” has become an even more appealing destination, even for seasoned visitors.
The 300-hectare palace-and-park ensemble is composed of two parts: the Catherine Park and the Alexander Park, and more than a hundred historical monuments — palaces, pavilions and bridges — scattered across their grounds. The estate, which was developed as a grand imperial residence during the course of two centuries, has a turbulent history. Turned into a museum after the October Revolution of 1917, it suffered devastating damage during World War II, for a long period of which the premises were occupied by German troops. The daunting task of restoring the estate to its original appearance was decided upon in the 1950s, and reconstruction work has been ongoing ever since.
“The 300th anniversary is an occasion to discuss and think about the historical heritage we represent,” said Olga Taratynova, Tsarskoye Selo’s director. “Tsarskoye Selo is undeniably a very special place. It was the capital of Russia for many summers. Nicholas I, Alexander II and Nicholas II loved spending the warmer months in the residence, and many governmental issues were taken care of here. It is also a unique encyclopedia of park architecture, with examples of English, Dutch and French landscapes, among others, and a catalogue of very diverse architectural influences.
“The celebrations also had a huge impact on renovation work. With that date in sight, we were able to complete the restoration of the church domes, the Arabesque Hall and main courtyard facade of the Catherine Palace, the Hermitage Pavilion, the Turkish Bath, the Lower Bathhouse and the Concert Hall, as well as parts of the Alexander Palace and several bridges,” added Taratynova.
DINING WITH THE TSARS
The highlight of the list of restored items is surely the Baroque mid-18th-century Hermitage Pavilion, opened to the public for the first time this summer. Such pavilions were a regular feature in 18th-century gardens. Generally located far from the main palace, they were designed to offer the owner of the estate a place to relax and dine with a few select guests, without the burden of etiquette entailed by entertaining in the main palace.
The Hermitage Pavilion hosts an intriguing mechanism that allowed Russian rulers and their guests to be served without the presence of waiters. Dishes were raised from the ground floor to the dining room located on the first floor through shafts hidden under each table. The system also made it possible for whole tables to disappear through the floor after dinner, thus leaving the party with plenty of room to dance.
These quiet imperial evenings among friends necessitated the presence of 12 people to operate the lift system and, with the cooking taking place in another pavilion in order to avoid the inconvenience of odors, another 80 to manage the culinary part of the program.
Unfortunately, like all the other pavilions in the grounds, the Hermitage is closed in winter because it is not heated. From October until May, when the weather allows tours to start again, visitors to the park will have to be content with a look at its exterior. But the pavilion’s interesting symmetry and the stunning perspective of the Catherine Palace from this spot are certainly worth it. The Hermitage also represents a good starting point for a stroll around the Catherine Park, its romantic ponds and canals, and its many other monuments, including the lovely salmon-colored Turkish Bath. In winter, the main paths around the grounds are swept of snow, making walks around this fairytale winter wonderland possible. A visit to the grandiose Catherine Palace, the centerpiece of the ensemble and home to the legendary Amber Room, is a good way to warm up after such a promenade.
THE FINAL IMPERIAL REFUGE
Another possibility, in contrast to the Baroque exuberance of Rastrelli’s Catherine Palace, is to head to the Classical Alexander Palace, whose construction was completed by Rossi at the end of the 18th century. The residence was a summer dacha for the imperial family in the 19th century, but it became the home of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his wife Alexandra during the last 13 years of their reign. It was from this palace that the Romanov family was sent into exile after the Revolution.
The moving exhibition “Reminiscences in the Alexander Palace,” housed in the partially preserved interiors of Nicholas II’s private apartments and featuring furnishings and personal belongings, gives a haunting impression of how the last Russian emperor and his family lived. This year, three newly restored staterooms — the Semi-Circular Hall, the Portrait Hall and the Marble Drawing-Room — were opened to the public. Much of the building remains in poor condition and is closed to visitors.
The Alexander Park, which features only a few reconstructed items, including the gaudy, somewhat bizarre Chinese Village, represents a wilder and in some ways more charming alternative to the Catherine Park. More spacious and consequently less crowded than its feminine counterpart, the Alexander Park is the perfect place for those who want to enjoy some quiet time away from tourist coaches. But this might change in the near future, with the park and palace set to regain their past majesty.
“The renovation of the Alexander Park and Palace is our next challenge: About 70 percent of the work is ahead of us, but if we receive all the necessary financial support, it should take six to eight years,” said Taratynova.
Specifically, the next steps to be taken are the continuation of repair work in the Alexander Palace and the White Tower, the renovation of the park’s bridges, and the creation of a World War I museum in the Martial Chamber — a project the museum’s management hopes to complete in 2014, in time for the centenary commemorations of the start of the war.
Tsarskoye Selo also hopes to tackle the Equestrian Complex and the Imperial Farm. Currently under discussion is the establishment of a small zoo as a reminder that in the 19th century, the tsars used to keep animals such as lamas and elephants in part of the park.
And the estate’s director will make certain to bring all these novelties to the attention of the public.
“Some parts of the ensemble are rarely visited, which is a shame,” said Taratynova.
“Tourists often tend to rush straight to the Amber Room and not take the time to see the rest. Focusing on new objects is definitely one of the main directions we want to follow in the coming years.”
TITLE: Fleeing the City to Rural Boltholes
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As the recession appears to abate, the interest of St. Petersburg residents in out-of-town real estate has once again begun to climb.
“Today we can say with certainty that the out-of-town real estate market is recovering,” said Irina Romanova, director of the out-of-town department at Itaka real estate agency. “We are observing delayed demand in both the economy and elite segments.”
“For instance, dachas priced from $16,000 to $32,000 are seeing the highest demand now,” Romanova said.
“Although compared to the peak of 2007 to 2008, sales of out-of-town real estate are still about 20 to 30 percent lower, the sales activity this year was significantly higher than in 2009,” said Tatyana Bondaryeva, head of the out-of-town department of Progal real estate agency.
Alexander Ginovker, head of Nevsky Prostor real estate agency, said that the demands of clients regarding location, infrastructure and quality had significantly increased for all properties, particularly in the elite category.
“As far as gated communities are concerned, clients look more for good management, right from the design stage,” Ginovker said.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
The most popular sites for real estate in St. Petersburg’s suburbs have changed little in recent years.
The Kurortny district located along the Gulf of Finland but still within convenient reach of the city has retained its leading position, particularly in the elite sector. Other popular areas include the city’s historic satellite towns of Pushkin, Pavlovsk and Strelna, along with some parts of the Vsevolozhsk district.
Specific hotspots include the village of Leninskoye next to Repino in the Kurortny district, and the area around Yukki, Osinovaya Roscha and Toksovo, which are located on lakes to the north of St. Petersburg.
“The elite out-of-town real estate market is characterized by a certain set of demands, including a distance of no more than 40 kilometers from the city, neighboring properties of a similar social milieu, and good engineering infrastructure such as electricity, water and gas, as well as proximity to restaurants and recreation zones such as ski resorts,” Bondaryeva said.
Romanova said the demand for out-of-town properties in various districts also depends “on the aim of the purchase.”
Clients planning to live outside of the city center permanently seek to buy real estate in the Vsevolozhsk district, including Vsevolozhsk itself, and the villages of Yukki, Kuzmolovo and Poroshkino because those places offer both beautiful countryside and good transport access, Romanova said.
SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND
Those looking for a weekend and summer getaway prefer to buy to the north of the Vsevolozhsk district, in the Priozyorsky, Vyborgsky, Luzhsky, Tikhvinsky and Gatchinsky districts, because these areas are environmentally clean and are surrounded by picturesque forests and lakes.
Pavel Shishkin, head of the out-of-town department at the city’s Central Real Estate Agency, said that real estate was also in demand in the Vyborgsky district of the Leningrad Oblast, and in Kurortny district towns and villages such as Sestroretsk, Repino and Solnechnoye.
The prices in those areas are accordingly the highest.
“Plots of land in the Kurortny district are the most expensive and can reach $64,000 for 100 square meters,” Ginovker said.
Ginovker said the most expensive cottage the agency had for sale cost $6,400,000.
Outside of the city’s boundaries, not all plots and houses require such deep pockets. The cheapest offers include a house and a plot of land in established villages closer to the Novgorod Oblast for $16,000. In new villages, the prices vary from $97,000 to $113,000 for a plot of land and a house, Ginovker said.
Romanova confirmed that prices for out-of-town real estate vary dramatically in the Leningrad Oblast.
“For instance, in the dacha areas around the village of Sosnovo in the Priozyorsky district, there are plots for sale for $10,000, whereas in Sosnovo itself, there are mansions priced from $162,000 to $194,000,” Romanova said.
In the same district but closer to Lembolovskoye Lake, a similar mansion may cost up to $647,000, Romanova added.
Pavel Pikalyov, director of Penny Lane Realty St. Petersburg, said the average price for plots in the Priozyorsky, Petrodvorets and Vsevolzhsk districts ranges from $9,000 to $13,000 for 100 square meters. In the Kurortny district, the average price ranges from $19,400 to $29,000 for 100 square meters.
Pikalyov said elite out-of-town properties should ideally be located in modern gated community compounds. However, this rule does not necessarily apply to the Kurortny district, where elite real estate can be located on older plots with a certain social environment.
The minimum demands of premium-class villages include good working engineering and communication systems, good roads on the way to and inside the village, modern security systems and a garage, Pikalyov said.
CRITICAL CRITERIA
“The three main criteria for out-of-town real estate are location, the area surrounding the plot and the view from the windows,” said Ginovker.
“Really elite houses should be attractive and equipped with cutting-edge technology, and be surrounded by similar houses,” Ginovker said, adding that the number of such properties around St. Petersburg is limited.
Romanova agreed that the main criteria for an elite house would be its surroundings, such as neighbors of a similar social stratus, an attractive landscape and convenient road access.
Bondaryeva said that in addition to a fortunate location, elite country properties should have large plots of land upward of 2,000 square meters with landscape design and architectural individuality. The total area of the house should be no less than 200 square meters, and preferably 300 to 400 square meters, and be constructed using high-quality, natural materials.
Local real estate experts predict that demand for such property will continue to grow in the near future.
“There are many people who would like to live outside of the city,” said Bondaryeva. “For the moment, the factors impinging on demand are bad roads and the weak development of engineering communications and social infrastructure.”
Romanova said that significant growth in demand for such real estate could be expected in spring 2011.
“In my opinion, the most popular plots will be those of 600 to 1,000 square meters. It is this kind of plot that most buyers currently want to view, while last year they were not even being considered as an option,” Romanova said.
“The most attractive factors for clients will be property rights to the land, the existence of engineering communications, proximity to water and to a bus or railway station, in case the home owner’s car breaks down,” she said.
Pikalyov said that the future of out-of-town real estate would be in gated communities.
“Modern villages can substitute a city residence for many people,” said Pikalyov.
“Out-of-town residences attract people with their good ecology and opportunities to design the house and land according to their taste. In the future, the Kurortny district will be connected by a highway with the southern part of the city, and this will improve its transport access,” he said.
TITLE: LenOblast Calling: Active Leisure
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A new destination has appeared on the world’s tourist map: the Leningrad Oblast. Unlikely as it may at first seem, the area surrounding St. Petersburg is ready to compete with popular destinations among Russian tourists such as Egypt and Turkey, according to experts from the Russian Tourism Industry Union.
“The population of the LenOblast is 1.6 million people, and in 2009 the number of tourists was about 1.85 million people, including 370,000 foreigners,” said Tatyana Gavrilova, executive director of the northwest regional branch of the Russian Tourism Industry Union. “According to global standards, when the number of tourists equals the number of inhabitants, a new destination on the world’s tourist map has emerged.”
In the first half of this year, 900,000 people visited the LenOblast, according to Russian Tourism Industry Union data.
During the last 10 years, all the investment in tourism in the LenOblast has been funneled into specific goals and programs, and it appears to have paid off. Moreover, the LenOblast has its own stable source of tourists — St. Petersburg. This year, the region also became popular among Muscovites, especially when the capital was choked in smog caused by forest fires burning around the city. People also come to the region from Pskov and Murmansk, and from Finland and Estonia.
“Even the changes in the economy have turned out to be advantages for the region,” said Gavrilova. “It is difficult for many people to be away from their business while on holiday, but everyone needs a break sometimes. So holidays in the LenOblast represent a nearby option.”
Demand breeds supply, and more and more new facilities are being launched on the territory of the LenOblast.
“We have the good examples of our neighbors — Finland and Estonia — to follow,” said Gavrilova. “For example, Finland does not have high mountains, but there are a lot of ski resorts. So why shouldn’t we also try this trend? With elevation of 1,000 meters, a good resort can be created.”
TAKE TO THE SLOPES
There are currently nine ski resorts in the LenOblast that are capable of presenting competition to Finland. The first local year-round resort to open was Igora, situated 54 kilometers from St. Petersburg in the Priozyorsky district. Its infrastructure is comparable to resorts in Finland, Sweden and Norway, with a high level of service and broad variety of outdoor activities.
The settlement of Toksovo on Lake Hepiyarvi in the Vsevolozhsky district is home to two resorts: Severny Sklon, with four routes for skiers of various abilities, and Orlinaya Gora.
From the south of St. Petersburg, there is only one ski resort — Tyytari Park — that is situated just 25 kilometers from Moskovskaya metro station. It has an elevation of 70 meters and the length of its slopes is about 400 meters, which allows international competitions to be held here.
The longest slopes are based at Korobitsyno in the Vyborgsky district. There are a trio of ski resorts here: Zolotaya Dolina, which was the first commercial ski resort in this region, followed by the Snezhny resort which has a younger public, and Krasnoye Ozero which has long slopes with a shallow gradient.
The most picturesque surroundings in which to ski are found at Pukhtolova Gora, located a 10-minute ride away from the town of Zelenogorsk. Unlike in most resorts, where trees have been cleared to make way for the resort, here the slopes and cottages are situated in a pine forest.
One of the most suitable places for beginners is Okhta Park in the Vsevolozhsky district.
Among this variety of resorts, enthusiasts can choose the one that is closest or most convenient for them, with other activities such as skating or sledging available.
“Now the resorts have united into one system, as they have roughly the same prices; they cooperate,” said Gavrilova. “In the event that a person does not find at one place what they need, they will be recommended another resort. For every customer — both professional skiers and those who prefer to sit in a caf? and watch — there is a corresponding service.”
MOVE OVER FINLAND
The quality of slopes and equipment at the LenOblast resorts is often in no way inferior to those in Finland, and satisfies all European requirements. Artificial snow machines allow the ski season to continue until spring.
“Those who are really keen on skiing go to the mountains on holiday, but for weekend breaks, until several years ago people went to Finland. Now they don’t need to wait in long lines at the border. There is the same service here in the LenOblast,” said Gavrilova.
Most of the resorts have cottages or hotels where people can stay for a weekend. There are 440 accommodation centers in the LenOblast, according to Russian Tourism Industry Union data.
Spending a weekend at an out-of-town hotel in the LenOblast is becoming more and more popular, as a good way to escape from routine city life. The summer remains the busiest period for out-of-town hotels and accommodation.
“The best time to visit hotels or country clubs outside the city is during summer,” said Kristina Sobinova, marketing and PR manager at Skandinavia Country Club, located in the town of Sestroretsk near St. Petersburg. “Many people crave a calm, relaxing atmosphere, and getting away from the city is the perfect solution in summer.
“People come for relaxation, fresh air and proximity to the sea. Most visitors are from St. Petersburg and Moscow, but more and more foreigners and expats are traveling to see the countryside,” she said.
HOLIDAYS ON HORSEBACK
The region around St. Petersburg is home to hotels offering a range of services.
“Besides regular activities like hiking or biking, many guests enjoy coming out here for the spa treatments, banya complex and swimming pool,” said Sobinova. “A number of hotels offer horse-riding throughout the year.”
Horse-riding is another trend gaining popularity in the LenOblast. Interest in this kind of sport has always been high, but not everyone can afford it. A one-hour individual lesson at Derby, one of the most prestigious competitive equestrian clubs in the LenOblast, costs 1,600 rubles ($52) per adult. Other clubs charge at least 1,000 rubles ($32.50) per individual lesson and from 500 to 1,000 rubles per person for group training. And the conditions are often far from ideal.
The best clubs have covered riding arenas that can accommodate lessons throughout the year. Otherwise, horse-lovers are at the mercy of the weather. The most popular clubs include Derby, Equestrian Agency, Osinovaya Roscha and Perspektiva in the Vsevolozhsky district, Novopolie in Strelna and Komarovo in the Kurortny district.
“The most important aspect here is to find the right trainer,” said Natalya Kirianova, executive secretary of the federation of equestrian sport in the LenOblast. “The external conditions are secondary factors. Everyone is different, and only by trial and error can you find a trainer who suits you. As soon as that happens, you’ll see the results of the training.”
The widespread problem of a lack of government support has also touched equestrian sport. Everything is paid for by the horse-riders themselves.
“Taking part in a competition in another region, for example, is very expensive,” said Kirianova. “It costs from about 50,000 ($1,627) to 100,000 rubles ($3,253), as people have to pay for transporting the horse, and for the stable and accommodation. There is a minimum interest from the government, despite the fact that it could help prospective categories of sportsmen and women.”
Most local horse-riders are female, Kirianova said, and the hobby is particularly popular among mothers and daughters at her club.
“About 20 to 30 percent of riders are men,” she said.
For those who are not looking for serious training, many clubs offer horseback rides. People should be very careful with such offers, however, especially when they do not have any experience, and should only embark on a ride when accompanied by a trainer.
“Many people simply do not understand that it is dangerous,” said Kirianova. “Horse rides are advisable only if the trainer has established your riding skills beforehand and is sure that the rider is capable of going somewhere outside the riding arena.”
TITLE: A Guide to Out-of-Town Eateries
TEXT: Bellevue Brasserie
Scandinavia Hotel, 16 Ulitsa Parkovaya, Sestroretsk. Tel: 434 1100. 11 a.m. to midnight.
Housed in a historic dacha on the Gulf of Finland in one of northwest Russia’s finest hotels, this is a real gem. Apart from the picturesque, romantic setting, the cuisine is excellent — the tuna is not to be missed.
For those really wishing to turn their trip out to the countryside into a thrilling event, the restaurant offers “helicopter brunches” — for a price, you’ll be whizzed from the center of the city to the restaurant for bite to eat and back.
Staraya Bashnya
14 Akademichesky Prospekt, Pushkin. Tel: 466 6698. Noon until 11 p.m.
This compact restaurant located just outside the entrance to the Catherine Park has only four tables, but what size it lacks in its premises is more than made up for in the weighty tome that is its menu, encompassing everything from traditional Russian dishes to French, Chinese and even Thai cuisine. The old-fashioned interior, historical photographs adorning the red brick walls and open fireplace combine to create the impression of visiting an old lady — albeit one with a flair for cooking.
Russkaya Rybalka
452 Primorskoye Shosse, Tel: 640 5232. Noon to midnight weekdays; noon to 1 a.m. at weekends.
Despite the prices being fairly high, this is in many ways the best option for people heading out of town with the kids, not least because of the excellent petting zoo attached, featuring a donkey, bunnies, goats, geese and other critters, and the excellent playroom inside. You can fish out your own meal from the restaurant’s ponds, and the beach is literally a stone’s throw away.
Russkaya Rybalka (“Russian fishing”), unsurprisingly, has a strong emphasis on seafood dishes and freshwater fish, and is a good option for those wishing to treat visitors to Russia to some high quality Russian hospitality.
Ryba na Dache
319A Primorskoye Shosse, Tel: 305 3285. Noon to midnight.
Just past Sestroretsk and next to the most “elitny” gas station in the northwest of Russia (this is the place to fill up on the way to your out-of-town residence), this is the rural version of the Ryba restaurant on the Petrograd Side of the city. It’s a tastefully done-out Finnish-style log cabin, albeit larger than most country mansions, and features Italian and Asian cuisine, although the standard barbecue fare can also be found on the menu. The slightly sinister hunting d?cor (moose heads fashioned out of ironwork) manages not to be too off-putting.
Despite being just off the main highway to Finland, the restaurant has found a quiet spot on the shore of Lake Razliv, although it tends to be popular with those wanting a quick, high quality meal or snack on their way home, rather than those looking for the full dining experience.
Stroganoff Bar & Grill
418 Primorskoe Shosse, Tel: 432 0575. Midday to midnight.
The rural variant of the popular Stroganoff Steak House is as well-stocked in excellent meats as its cosmopolitan cousin, so this place is highly recommended to lovers of fine cuts of beef. With seating on the roof and a terrace at the back and a stylish glassed-off conservatory section, and rooms inside on two floors there are a number of seating options to choose from, as well as an excellent children’s room where the kids can have lessons in cooking. The generously-portioned hamburger is a deal on a menu that tends towards the expensive side, and don’t forget that there’s an excellect delicatessen counter where you can buy high-quality meat and other delicacies to take home.
Podvorye
16 Filtrovskoye Shosse, Tyarlevo village, Pavlovsk. Tel: 465 1399. Noon to 11 p.m.
Podvorye is within close distance of both Tsarskoye Selo/Pushkin and Pavlovsk. Popular with government officials on special occasions, Podvorye serves traditional Russian fare inside premises built in the style of 16th-century Russian wooden architecture (think Kizhi). While adult diners gorge themselves on high-quality Russian classics, kids can try their hand at traditional Russian crafts such as bark painting in the children’s section of the restaurant.
Shalyapin
1a Ulitsa Nagornaya, Repino. Tel: 432 0775. 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
With some of the best Russian cuisine to be had within 50 to 100 kilometers of St. Petersburg, this one is popular with the well-heeled locals. The two sumptuous rooms spread out on top of a supermarket, opposite the Repino railway station, recreate a refined and relaxed, turn-of-the-last-century dacha atmosphere that matches the excellent cuisine. You can even buy take-out food from the restaurant’s own delicatessen section in the supermarket downstairs.