SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1629 (90), Friday, November 26, 2010
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TITLE: Medvedev Makes Dig at United Russia
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev has warned the ruling United Russia party that the country risks falling into stagnation without more political competition, the second such call from the Kremlin in a week.
In a video posted to his blog late Tuesday, Medvedev said that under his leadership over the past two years, the political system has slowly reformed toward cleaner elections and greater inclusion of small parties.
All political parties, including United Russia, hailed Medvedev’s assessment of the political situation on Wednesday, though opposition groups and analysts said the president had not done enough to modernize the political system.
“If the opposition hasn’t the slightest chance of winning in an honest fight, it degrades and turns marginal,” Medvedev said. “But if the ruling party has no chances to lose anywhere at anytime, it becomes ‘bronzed’ and ultimately degrades, too.”
The phrase — evoking the image of bronze monuments — suggests that those at the top have grown complacent and irresponsive to others’ needs. And the timing suggests that the Kremlin is preparing to push harder for a more complex political system.
Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of the presidential administration and the Kremlin’s domestic politics architect, predicted on Thursday that United Russia might lose its constitutional majority in the Duma after elections next year.
Speaking during a meeting in Moscow with students from U.S. universities, Surkov said United Russia would grow weaker while opposition will gain strength. Eventually, there will be five parties in the Duma, instead of the current four, he said, without elaborating on when or what the next party might be.
According to a November survey of 1,600 Russians by the Kremlin-friendly VTsIOM polling agency, United Russia will get almost 63 percent of the vote in 2011.
Medvedev’s video blog came on the eve of a meeting Wednesday with the leaders of the four parties that have factions in the State Duma. He invited them to his Gorki residence outside Moscow to contribute ideas for his Nov. 30 state-of-the-nation address.
The president singled out the modernization of the public utilities sector and the 2011 budget.
Without naming United Russia, led by Medvedev’s predecessor and political mentor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the president said in his video blog that the ruling party should not just be an appendix of the executive branch.
Instead, he said, the ruling party should be responsible for forming the executive and must have rights and responsibilities before voters.
Boris Gryzlov, chairman of United Russia’s Supreme Council, told reporters after the closed-door meeting with Medvedev that his comments were a call for the party to rotate its personnel.
“We see this demand as a requirement to work in this direction more effectively,” said Gryzlov, who has been the public face of his party since November 2002.
Andrei Vorobyov, head of United Russia’s Central Executive Committee, told Interfax on Wednesday that the president’s message is “absolutely clear” when he says that “absence of competition is a threat.”
United Russia, since its inception as the party of power in late 2001, has consistently voted to block smaller political parties and groups from active participation in politics. Senior regional officials, many of them United Russia members, have blatantly inflated the party’s results during local and federal elections, sometimes even beyond 100 percent of the votes.
Yury Korgunyuk, a political parties analyst with the Indem think tank, suggested that Medvedev is trying to take over control of United Russia from Putin, by pushing for new blood in the party and for its modernization, even at the expense of a smaller vote that the party — under his measured criticism — would garner in future elections.
“Putin used United Russia to crush everyone in the field of public politics, and that is why it was so fat and heavy. Medvedev feels he may achieve his goals as a leader by subtler ways, and United Russia in its current condition is not a good tool for that,” the analyst said.
Neither Putin nor Medvedev has formally joined United Russia, which describes itself as a center-right party.
After a series of scandals over votes manipulated in favor of United Russia in the regional elections last fall, when three other parties walked out of the State Duma in protest, Medvedev demanded that regional authorities stop rigging elections.
He also submitted a raft of legislation aimed at giving parties equal rights to campaign and to ease entry into regional legislative bodies for parties that cannot make it through punitive barriers that reached 10 percent of the vote in some regions.
“We have supported these initiatives, although they put us in more restrictive conditions,” said Vorobyov, of United Russia.
Medvedev also said in his video address that his initiatives had “minimized risks of manipulations” during elections.
Among the initiatives are tighter regulation of early-vote and absentee ballots; the introduction of electronic ballot-scanners at 5 percent of the country’s polling stations; equal television time for campaigning parties; and allowing parties that collect more than 5 percent of the vote, but less than the 7 percent needed for entry as a faction, to send a representative to a legislative body.
Duma Deputy Speaker Ivan Melnikov, the Communist Party’s No. 2 leader, told reporters that Medvedev’s assessment of the current political stagnation is correct, but he described the presidential legal initiatives as just a “first small step.”
Grigory Golosov, an election analyst with the Geliks human rights think tank, said Medvedev’s initiatives do not prevent election officials from stuffing ballot boxes for the ruling party.
The pledge to provide parties with equal access to television is also a sham, since Putin reigns on screens unchallenged, he said.
Medvedev’s move to slash the number of signatures needed for a party to participate in elections has little practical value because election officials verify the signatures’ authenticity only when they see fit, Golosov said.
“Until there is political pressure on election officials, there will be violations,” he added.

TITLE: Kudrin   Calls For   Privatization Fund
AUTHOR: By Derek Andersen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin proposed creating a reserve fund of proceeds from privatization, interest from which could be used to plug budget gaps, during a finance forum Wednesday.
The minister also announced a potential major deal between VTB and Bank of Moscow.
Speaking at the Financial Forum of Russia, organized by Vedomosti, Kudrin premiered the reserve fund idea, in the context of a trend in international finance, on the heels of the recent economic crisis.
Kudrin said the European Union is now forming a stabilization fund, while the IMF has tripled its lending capacity to $750 billion. The Russian government set up a similar fund in 2006, fed by oil and gas windfall profits. Kudrin praised the role that the fund, now split into two, has played in the economy.
The government will reduce its holdings in most companies slated for privatization to 25 percent plus one share in a second round of sell-offs in three years. In the meantime, the government will retain a controlling package of 50 percent plus one share in those companies.
Finam chief economist Alexander Osin estimated that the proposed new fund could be worth anywhere from $17 billion to twice that amount, and said the plan is a good idea.
“But there are two sides to the question,” Osin added. He said “good companies that earn money” for the government will be privatized, depriving it of future income. The government’s motivation for privatization, he said, is to attract healthy foreign investment into the economy, rather than just generate cash for itself.
The government will encourage regions to sell off assets before appealing to the federal budget for funding, Kudrin said.
Speaking to reporters after the forum, the minister said VTB may buy the 46.48 percent share in Bank of Moscow that is directly owned by the city.
Kudrin, who is chairman of the VTB supervisory council, said: “The issue is being discussed; no decision has been made. We are interested in the entire package of 46 percent.”
The Moscow government indirectly owns another 17.32 percent of Bank of Moscow through subsidiaries of its Capital Insurance Group, according to Kommersant.
City officials had earlier denied rumors of an impending deal.
“There are no grounds for comment on that information,” Moscow Deputy Mayor Yury Roslyak said Tuesday, according to Interfax. “Such questions have not been worked out in relation to the policy on [the city’s] assets.”
Bank of Moscow president Andrei Borodin, who along with his partner Lev Alaluyev owns 20.32 percent of the bank, also did not confirm that a deal was in the works.
“There are all sorts of proposals,” he said. “So far nothing is planned.”
Bank of Moscow responded to a written inquiry from The St. Petersburg Times that “based on the principles of business etiquette, [we are] not commenting on the words of the Russian finance minister.”
According to Reuters, Bank of Moscow has a market capitalization of $5.6 billion. It is ranked fifth in the Interfax-100 listing of Russia’s top banks. VTB is ranked second.
Moody’s Eastern Europe vice president Eugene Tarzimanov said he was surprised by Kudrin’s announcement.
“Why one state bank would buy another is not clear,” he said.
“Bank of Moscow is a large institution,” Tarzimanov said. “The strategy of VTB is to grow organically and through midsize acquisitions. Bank of Moscow is not a perfect fit for that strategy.”
Tarzimanov noted that such large deals typically have ratings implications for at least one of the parties involved.
The Fitch agency changed Bank of Moscow’s rating to negative after the dismissal of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
Tarzimanov also said VTB historically buys controlling ownership in banks.
The Economic Development Ministry published a plan for the sale of state shares in a number of companies Tuesday. That plan includes the reduction of the government share in VTB to a blocking package by 2015 “on the condition that reliable investors are found,” RIA-Novosti reported.

TITLE: Controversial Artists Charged Over Police Car Stunt
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Members of the art group responsible for drawing a giant penis on Liteiny Bridge in the summer and overturning several police cars in downtown St. Petersburg in September have been charged with criminal mischief.
The charges were issued Wednesday against the imprisoned members of the Voina (War) art group, famed for its daring, controversial artistic stunts, which generally have political or social content, while their lawyers appealed pretrial detention.
Artists Leonid Nikolayev and Oleg Vorotnikov, who reportedly took part in a stunt that involved overturning several police cars at night, have been charged with criminal mischief motivated by political, racial, national or religious hatred or hostility, or motivated by hatred or hostility toward a particular social group. 
The offence is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Nikolayev and Vorotnikov were arrested at a Moscow apartment on Nov. 15 and brought to St. Petersburg the next day, where they have since been held in a pretrial detention center.  
According to witnesses, the pair were handcuffed and had bags put over their heads when they were arrested. The police searched the apartment and confiscated computers, hard drives, USB flash drives, cell phones and any papers with information on them.
The police said that the damage inflicted on the police cars during the course of the stunt totaled 98,000 rubles ($3,146). 
Nikolayev and Vorotnikov’s lawyers appealed the artists’ pretrial detention Tuesday, according to the web site Free Voina, which is campaigning for the release of the artists.
Both have refused to speak to investigators, referring to the Constitution, which guarantees the right of accused people not to give evidence against themselves, the site reported.
According to the web site, investigators have expressed their intention to re-arrest another Voina artist, Natalya Sokol, who was briefly detained on Nov. 15 but was released because she has a young son.
In emailed comments to The St. Petersburg Times, Voina’s spokesman Alexei Plutser-Sarno described the charges as “illegal.”
“The criminal case was filed for the artistic stunt ‘Palace Revolution,’ when the artists demanded, metaphorically, the reform of the Interior Ministry and an end to police arbitrariness,” he wrote.
“In response to this demand, the Interior Minister is insisting that prosecutors demand [five] years in prison. Effectively, the artists are charged with ideological hatred against the social group ‘corrupt authorities.’
“Previously, the Interior Ministry’s official representative was talking about 500 rubles ($16) of damage — one broken mirror and a flashing light. Now the cost of the used mirror of the police Lada has increased up to $3,000 and continues to grow. Apparently, the mirror was set with diamonds; it’s a pity that the artists didn’t notice that.” 
Earlier this week, a campaign demanding the release of the imprisoned artists and raising funds for them was launched. 
Founded in 2007, Voina’s most high-profile stunts have included having group sex in public, claiming it was in honor of the then Kremlin-backed presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev in February 2008 and painting a 60-meter phallus on Liteiny Bridge next to the headquarters of the FSB in St. Petersburg in June this year.

TITLE: City Home to Most Housing Per Capita
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg has the most housing per citizen in Russia, Fontanka.ru web site reported this week. 
There is an average of 24 square meters of accommodation per city resident, higher than the Russian average (20.5 meters) and in Moscow (20.3 meters). These figures were calculated following the preliminary results of the recent nationwide census, Fontanka reported. 
Overall, residential accommodation in St. Petersburg has increased by 15 percent during the last eight years, and currently totals 110 million square meters — about two million apartments. 
About 261,000 apartments have been built since the last census was carried out in 2002. 
The speed at which new housing is being built has even exceeded the figures from the period of the so-called building boom in the 1970s, when mass-scale housing was built.

TITLE: Missing Head Located
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The head of the woman murdered Monday at St. Petersburg Pavlov State Medical University was found Tuesday, Fontanka.ru web site reported Wednesday, citing the press office of the city’s investigative department. 
Two men walking along the Admirala Lazareva embankment saw a human head floating in the river at about 6 p.m. Tuesday. Police officers and specialists who arrived at the scene retrieved the head from the water. It has been submitted for expert analysis, but the police are confident that it is the head they had been looking for for the last two days.
Local news wires reported earlier this week that a 27-year-old Chinese citizen came to the administration building of the Leningrad Oblast and said he had committed a murder. The same day, police officers from the Petrograd district discovered the headless corpse of the 59-year-old secretary to the university’s head of the hospital therapy department. A search was launched for the head on public transport and in the Karpovka River. 
The suspected killer is reportedly a former student of the Pavlov Medical University who was expelled several years ago. 
A criminal case has been filed and the Chinese citizen arrested.

TITLE: Putin Describes DiCaprio as a ‘Real Man’
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Leonardo DiCaprio braved an aviation gauntlet to get to a summit devoted to saving the world’s tigers, donating $1 million to the cause and earning high praise from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The Hollywood star arrived in St. Petersburg on Tuesday after two flight dramas, Putin said, just managing to make the meeting where officials from the 13 countries where tigers still live in the wild agreed to a program to save the big cats from extinction.
DiCaprio was one of more than 200 people aboard a Moscow-bound Delta flight that had to return to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on Sunday when other pilots reported seeing a flash in one engine of the departing plane. The actor then took a private jet that had to land in Finland early Tuesday for refueling because of strong wind, Putin said.
“Not everyone would be willing to take a plane again after what Mr. DiCaprio experienced, but he did,” he told the audience at a rock concert dedicated to the tiger conservation effort. “Here, in Russia, we call such a person a ‘real man (muzhik).’”
“If wildlife and tiger conservation is in the hands of people with such character, we are destined to succeed,” he said. 
DiCaprio, who watched Putin at St. Petersburg’s historic Mikhailovsky Theater, committed $1 million to World Wildlife Fund to help support anti-poaching efforts and protect tiger habitat, the group said in a statement Tuesday. DiCaprio, 36, has already helped the group raise $20 million for tiger conservation earlier this year, it said.
“Illegal poaching of tigers for their parts and massive habitat loss due to palm oil, timber and paper production are driving this species to extinction,” DiCaprio said. “If we don’t take action now, one of the most iconic animals on our planet could be gone in just a few decades. By saving tigers, we can also protect some of our last remaining ancient forests and improve the lives of indigenous communities.” 
After the concert, Putin met with DiCaprio, who told Putin about his Russian roots. Two of the actor’s grandparents were Russian and had the common Russian surname Smirnov.
DiCaprio said he had always wanted to take his grandmother to St. Petersburg, but did not manage to before she died two years ago.
James Leape, director general of the WWF who also attended the concert in St. Petersburg, said the fund had never imagined how “powerful” its partnership with DiCaprio would be. 
The music concert in support of the tigers featured Malayan rock singer Emma, Chinese rock music stars Wang Feng and Li Hijun and Russia’s rock star Ilya Lagutenko from the rock group Mumiy Trol. Lagutenko hosted the concert together with the supermodel Naomi Campbell, who resides in Moscow with her Russian real estate baron boyfriend, Vladislav Doronin.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <strong>Farm Worker Killed</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A 46-year-old man was killed by a landslide during work being carried out at the Lesosovetsky state farm in the Pushkin district, Interfax reported Tuesday, citing the Emergency Situations Ministry headquarters in St. Petersburg. 
The worker was buried by earth in the landslide, and was dead when emergency services located him.

<strong>City’s Population Grows</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The population of St. Petersburg increased by 16,800 in the first nine months of the year to 4,617,100 people, Fontanka.ru web site reported Tuesday, citing the Petrostat statistics service. 
The number of births per 1,000 people in the city grew by 7 percent compared to the same period last year, while according to Petrostat, the mortality rate increased by 2 percent, making the current mortality rate 1.2 times higher than the birth rate. Migration has increased by 23 percent.
The number of marriages registered did not change compared to last year, while the number of divorces decreased by 5 percent.

<strong>French Oppose Visas</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Jean de Gliniasty, the French ambassador to Russia, said that the French government is willing to abolish visas between Russia and the Schengen states, Fontanka.ru web site reported Wednesday.
“As far as France is concerned, we are doing everything possible to abolish the visa requirements between Russia and the Schengen states as soon as possible,” de Gliniasty said, Interfax reported.

<strong>Businessman Murdered</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A 34-year-old businessman was murdered in southern St. Petersburg this week, Interfax reported Thursday, citing a source at a law enforcement agency. 
The executive director of Konteynernaya Kompaniya (Container Company) Kuskov, whose first name was not given, was found dead on Wednesday morning on Altaiskaya Ulitsa with stab wounds and head injuries, the source said.

TITLE: Governments Commit to Save Tigers
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The International Tiger Summit held this week in St. Petersburg approved a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world’s tiger population in the wild by 2022, backed by governments of the 13 countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia.
Tigers’ habitats are being destroyed by deforestation and construction, and the animals are a valuable trophy for poachers who want their skins and body parts, which are prized in Chinese traditional medicine. Only about 3,200 tigers remain in the wild — a dramatic plunge from an estimated 100,000 a century ago.
The Global Tiger Recovery Program estimates the countries will need about $350 million in outside funding in the first five years of the 12-year plan. The summit was seeking donor commitments to help governments finance conservation measures.
The program aims to protect tiger habitats, eradicate poaching, smuggling, and illegal trade of tigers and their parts, and also create incentives for local communities to engage them in helping protect the big cats.
Leape said that along with a stronger action against poaching, it’s necessary to set up specialized reserves for tigers and restore and conserve forests outside them to let tigers expand.
“And you have to find a way to make it work for the local communities so that they would be partners in tiger conservation and benefit from it,” Leape said.
“To save tigers you need to save the forests, grasslands and lots of other species,” he added. “But at the same time, you are also conserving the foundations of the societies who live there. Their economy depends very much on the food, water and materials they get from those forests.”
About 30 percent of the program’s cost will go toward suppressing the poaching of tigers and of the animals they prey on.
Officials from the 13 countries signed a declaration aimed at saving the iconic big cats from extinction.
The accord, signed Monday, states that the nations will strive to double the world’s tiger population by 2022. They will also preserve and enhance their habitats and crack down on poaching and illicit trade in tiger pelts and body parts.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who hosted the summit, called the situation that the tigers have found themselves in “catastrophic.”
“The natural habitat of those animals is now just seven percent of what it was previously. Their number has fallen by 30 times, and three out of eight kinds of tigers are completely extinct,” Putin said at the forum Tuesday.
“It’s a sign of a disaster that nature is sending to us,” he said.
The forum’s tiger experts said poaching and illegal trade of tigers was the major reason for the animal’s disappearance. 
Vivek Menon, regional director for South Asia at the International Fund for Animal Welfare or IFAW, said the most important measure to restore the number of tigers in the world would be to combat poaching. 
“If we want to double the number of tigers, the first thing we need to do is to stop the bleeding, to stop poaching,” Menon said. 
Menon said one of the most effective means to tackle poaching would be the “frontline staff who provide anti-poaching actions,” and who should be in large numbers and geographically spread.
Yelena Averyanova, communications officer at Moscow’s branch of IFAW, who has repeatedly taken part in anti-poaching raids in Russia’s Far East, told reporters that the scale of poaching of Russia’s tigers and illegal trade of them to China was “really scary.” 
“According to our information, poachers kill up to 50 tigers a year in Russia’s Far East in order to ship them to China,” Averyanova said. “Each tiger is worth $50,000,” she said. 
Averyanova said poachers invent more and more new methods for catching and killing tigers. Recently, they started catching tigers by hanging a piece of meat on a tree with a grenade attached to it. As soon as a tiger bites the meat, the grenade explodes inside the animal, she said. 
On the illegal tiger market in China, all parts of tigers are used, including their skins, meat, and bones, she said. 
Averyanova said the IFAW was very alarmed to see how well-equipped the tiger poachers were. 
“They have high quality weapons, night vision equipment, motorcycles, ATVs and snowmobiles,” she said. 
IFAW has organized a very strong anti-poaching brigade in the Far East which works very effectively, she said. 
“However, the threat of tigers’ extinction is so severe that a lot of extra measures should be taken to save them. It is so bad that we even needed to organize an international forum on the matter,” Averyanova said. 
“At this point, countries need to greatly toughen the punishment for poaching,” she said.
Anatoly Belov, senior state inspector for protection at the Kedrovaya Pat nature reserve in the Primorsky Region, said another major reason for the decline of the tiger population was the violation of their habitats.
In the last two or three years, deforestation, particularly of cedar forests, has caused the extinction of many tigers in the Primorsky Region, Belov said. 
About 100 tigers are killed or die in Russia’s Far East every year, Belov said. He said the current population of adult tigers in Russia is 400 to 450. 
“Deforestation causes the migration of ungulate mammals, which tigers feed on. Then tigers are forced to look for food in local villages, killing dogs and cattle. Consequently the villagers kill the tigers to defend themselves from their activities,” Belov said at a press conference during the final day of the forum. 
The punishment for those who kill tigers is also very ineffective, Belov said. In reality, poachers and people who kill tigers are not seriously punished, he said. 
“There are many papers written on the problem, but in reality, nobody is currently helping tigers effectively in the country,” he said. 
At the same time, Belov said that people who patrol the areas and protect the animals, and who risk their lives daily chasing poachers, are ridiculously underpaid in Russia. The salary of a ranger is $250 to $300 a month.

TITLE: Progress Made in Gas Question With China
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia and China had progressed in the negotiations on supplies of natural gas, though a final pricing agreement is not expected until next year.
“The talks between Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation on the prospects of supplies of Russian natural gas to China are going successfully,” Putin told reporters after a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao.
The two leaders met in Strelna, a suburb of St. Petersburg, to discuss mutual trade and the price of gas that will be supplied to China.
According to an agreement signed during President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to China earlier this year, Russia will supply a total of 30 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually starting in 2015 via the Altai gas pipeline, which connects Siberia and China’s western border with Russia.
The two countries have been negotiating the final price of the gas since 2006, with China asking for a discount on the price that Russia charges European countries.
The sides will agree on the gas price no earlier than mid-2011, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said, reiterating the position announced earlier this year.
“The work is going in accordance with the plan, which stipulates signing certain accords and considering certain proposals as soon as in the middle of next year,” said Sechin, who also participated in the meeting.
The price gap between the Russian offer and what China wants is about $100 per 1,000 cubic meters, Gu Jun, deputy director-general of the international department at China’s National Energy Administration, said earlier this month.
Economic ties between Russia and China have become even stronger this year, Putin said.
“I have no doubts that we’ll show results not worse than those before the crisis at the end of this year already,” he said.
Mutual trade between the two countries increased by 56 percent in the first nine months of the year to reach $42 billion, Putin said.
He also said Russia and China intended to develop business ties creating favorable conditions for mutual investments, adding that using national currencies in trade would facilitate the process.
The Bank of China and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China began ruble trading on Monday, with yuan trading on MICEX scheduled to start in December.
“It’s a very serious step forward — from my point of view — in creating better conditions for development of trade and economic ties without any losses,” Putin said.
The sides are successfully partnering in a number of areas, including energy and nuclear power.
Putin reminded that construction of the Skovorodino-Daqing oil pipeline had been finished, with supplies starting on Jan. 1.
In the meantime, the cornerstone for an oil refinery plant in Tianjin, a joint enterprise between Rosneft and CNPC, has been laid, Putin said.
Russia and China signed a total of 11 documents during Putin’s meeting with Wen, including an agreement to build the third and fourth units of the Tianwan nuclear power plant.
Atomstroiexport, a unit of Russia’s nuclear power company Rosatom, will build the reactors, with a capacity of 1,060 megawatts each, Atomstroiexport said in a statement.
China’s Jiangsu Nuclear Power Corporation will design the facility and supply part of the equipment, the statement said.
The sides declined to provide the investment cost of the project, but Interfax reported that it may be about 1.3 billion euros ($1.75 billion), citing a source.
A banking deal between Sberbank and Export-Import Bank of China, in which China opens a credit line of $2 billion for Russia, will be signed, Putin said.
The funds will be spent on “financing big joint economic projects,” Putin said, without elaborating.
Sberbank said in an e-mailed comment that it could not disclose any details before the contract was officially signed.
China agreed earlier this year to lend Russia about $6 billion in exchange for increased coal supplies over the next 20 years.

TITLE: British Business Secretary Arrives With 38 Top Execs
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The U.K. Business Secretary Vince Cable arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for a three-day visit that will include talks with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin in what is being billed as Britain’s biggest-ever trade mission to Russia.
Cable is accompanied by 38 senior figures from top British companies including Barclays Capital, Royal Dutch Shell, AstraZeneca, Rolls-Royce, Rio Tinto and British Airways, the British Embassy said.
On Friday, Cable and Kudrin will chair the Intergovernmental Steering Committee, a body that meets annually in Britain and Russia to address economic and cultural issues. This week’s meeting will focus on the international business environment, small and medium-size enterprises, financial services, high-tech industries, Olympic legacy, energy and energy efficiency, the embassy said in a statement.
Since the inauguration of Britain’s new coalition government in May, Cable is the second high-level British minister to visit Russia following Foreign Secretary William Hague in October. The visit takes place less than a month after President Dmitry Medvedev met British Prime Minister David Cameron at the Seoul G20 summit on Nov. 11 and invited him to Russia next year.
Despite political disagreements, Russia and Britain have strong economic ties. More than 600 British businesses already have a base in Russia, and Britain’s investment in Russia stands at about ?11 billion ($17 billion), some 15 percent of total foreign investment, making Britain the biggest foreign investor in Russia.

TITLE: Mammoth Mall Opens in City Center
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The giant new retail center Galeria in the center of St. Petersburg opened its doors to its first customers Thursday. 
Galeria’s location on Ligovsky Prospekt was originally set to house a railway complex of high-speed lines. For this purpose, two historic buildings were demolished in the 90s. But at this point, work stopped and the site became known locally as “the pit behind Moscow Railway Station.” Eventually, the city decided not to give the plot to the railways, but to transfer it to business and build a large shopping center.
“We have won a victory in this never-ending project,” St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said at the official opening ceremony Wednesday. “A modern shopping center has opened on the site of the notorious ‘pit’ near Moscow Railway Station. The city has been waiting for this event for more than 15 years.”
The governor said that the new center blended harmoniously with the old buildings in this area, and thanked investors for treating the city’s architecture with care and building the mall in a “classical style.”
“Nowadays, most of the facades on Ligovsky Prospekt have been renovated, and there is a separate zone for public vehicles,” Matviyenko said. “There are lots of shops and cafes, modern hotels and business centers. The new complex will decorate Ligovsky,” she added.
The new mall is one of the biggest shopping centers in Eastern Europe, with about 250 shops, 10 cinema screens, a bowling alley, restaurants and children’s facilities spread across five floors covering a total area of 192,000 square meters. The complex is situated at the junction of two major thoroughfares, Nevsky and Ligovsky prospects. 
Analysts predict that the project will be a success, citing the examples of large Moscow complexes based near major railway stations.
“The inhabitants of all city districts and of the nearest districts of the LenOblast — especially those that are connected by train with the Moscow Railway station — will visit the complex,” said Igor Kokorev, a project manager at Knight Frank real estate consultancy in St. Petersburg.
“Among the customers, there will be city residents who work or study in the center, and the project will also attract people who come into the center at weekends. And some of the visitors will include tourists, attracted by the ‘biggest shopping complex in the city center,’” he added.
Just two weeks ago, another major shopping center opened near Galeria at 114 Nevsky Prospekt — the Stockmann Nevsky Center, which occupies 100,000 square meters. Experts agree that there could be competition between the two malls, as the projects have a similar price range and some retailers even opened outlets in both shopping centers, such as M.video electronics retailer. The close proximity of the two malls could, however, prove to be an advantage, experts agree, saying it is a normal situation for big cities, and that competition only makes the centers develop and constantly offer something new to customers.
“Some customers will go to these two centers just because they can visit the maximum number of shops in a short time,” said Kokorev. “The advantage of Galeria is that it has a larger volume of shops, a developed entertainment section, a variety of food halls, and an overall bigger size.” 
Moreover, the projects differ from each other in their basic functions, said Kokorev.
“If Stockmann is, first and foremost, a store, at Galeria the main element is entertainment and food facilities,” he said.
As both complexes are targeted at people who regularly visit the city center, there won’t be a critical deterioration of the transport situation in this area, experts say.
“Quite the opposite; during the rush hour when people leave the center, there might be less dense traffic flows because of people visiting the shopping centers after work,” said Kokorev.
On weekends, however, the traffic volume in this district may increase, and there is a high risk of more traffic jams. Another traffic problem, experts predict, will be caused by the line of cars waiting to enter the mall’s parking lot, which will make traffic on Ligovsky Prospekt worse. According to City Hall, Galeria has the largest underground parking lot in Russia, with a capacity of 1,500 vehicles.

TITLE: Putin Attends Start Of Pulkovo Project
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took part in the groundbreaking ceremony for Pulkovo Airport’s new terminal Wednesday. 
The new terminal is set to make the airport into the biggest airport in the Baltic region and an international hub. 
The first stage of construction is due to be completed by the end of 2013, and will enable passenger volumes to be doubled from seven to 14 million people. By 2025, it is planned to increase passenger numbers up to 22 million people, the airport’s press service said. 
“The reconstruction project stipulates compliance with international standards of passenger service, safety and technical equipment,” said Sergei Edmin, general director of the Vosdushniye Vorota Severnoi Stolitsy consortium that is in charge of the project. 
“It will also introduce modern registration procedures, customs and passport control,” Edmin said, Pulkovo’s press service reported. 
A significant increase in passenger volumes at the airport last summer showed that the airport was out of date and needed modernizing, Edmin said.
The project envisages widening parts of the airport, as some areas of the current airport make it difficult to move planes with large fuselages, Interfax reported. 
Multiple parking lots, each for several hundred cars, and a four-star hotel will also be built. 
All the airport buildings will be connected by covered passages, allowing passengers to move around the airport without having to go outside. 
Putin said this particular change would be very important for St. Petersburg due to the city’s changeable weather, Interfax reported. 
During the second stage of construction and after the new terminal opens, the reconstruction of Pulkovo One — currently the city’s domestic terminal — will begin. After its reconstruction, it will be connected to the new terminal to unite the domestic and international flights, and international flights will arrive and depart from both terminals. 
The city is simulatenously developing a project for the construction of an overland express train from the city’s Moscow Railway Station to the airport by 2014.
The modernization and reconstruction project of Pulkovo Airport is the first large infrastructure project to be carried out in the format of a public-private-partnership (PPP) in Russia, with international financial organizations replacing state subsidies and guarantees.
Andrei Kostin, president of VTB Bank, said the Pulkovo project would be the first example of a PPP in the transport sphere of the Russian market.
“The total amount of financing in the project is 1.2 billion euros from 2010 to 2013,” Kostin said.
The Vosdushnye Vorota Severnoi Stolitsy consortium in charge of the project includes VTB Bank Europe (57.5 percent of shares), Germany’s Fraport Group (the operator of Frankfurt-Am-Main airport, with 35.5 percent of shares) and Horizon Air Investments, which is a structure of Greece’s Copelouzos Group and has 7 percent of shares. 
At the end of April this year, the consortium signed a credit agreement with several banks to attract financing of 716 million euros. Funding is coming from Vnesheconombank (VEB), the state-owned development bank; the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Northern Investment Bank; Eurasia Development Bank; and Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, Interfax reported. 
The rest of the necessary investment will be put up by the members of the consortium, who will invest sums relative to their shares in the company. 
The new airport is being designed by the British architectural firm Grimshaw Architects. 
Pulkovo currently has the fourth largest passenger flows in Russia. Regular flights to and from Pulkovo are operated by 31 foreign airlines, 29 Russian carriers and another 11 from CIS countries. The airport serves a daily average of about 18,500 people.

TITLE: Resetting NATO-Russian Relations
AUTHOR: By Adam Daniel Rotfeld
TEXT: Earlier this year, a group led by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, which included myself, issued a report on a new strategic concept called “NATO 2020.” The report recommended that NATO open its doors to new members while seeking a more constructive relationship with Russia. We outlined a dual strategy of reassuring the NATO allies that their interests would be defended while engaging with the Kremlin in a manner consistent with the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act and the 2002 Rome Declaration on the NATO-Russian relationship.
NATO needs Russia, and Russia needs NATO. The U.S. shift away from unilateralism has restored the importance of multilateral security institutions while giving NATO the chance to establish new partnerships with the European Union and Russia. In February, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the alliance’s Strategic Concept seminar in Washington that, “while Russia faces challenges to its security, NATO is not among them. We want a cooperative NATO-Russian relationship that produces concrete results and draws NATO and Russia closer together.”
Visiting Moscow that month, our NATO expert group sought to promote a rethinking of mutual perceptions. The main problem in the NATO-Russian relationship is not a lack of institutions, documents or procedures, but a lack of transparency, confidence and mutual trust. U.S. security analyst Charles Kupchan raised a pertinent question when he asked whether Russia should eventually join the alliance, pointing out that the settlements concluded after the Napoleonic wars and World War II show that alliances between former adversaries can be critical to the consolidation of great-power peace.
In other words, NATO’s strategy toward Russia must be guided by a spirit of inclusiveness. But such a strategy requires that Russia clearly demonstrate its political will to cooperate with NATO. Russia must make a choice.
In weighing that choice, Russia must not cling to Cold War rhetoric. The military doctrine that it unveiled in February this year lists both internal and external threats, but its primary emphasis was on portraying the United States and NATO as a danger. Whether the doctrine’s authors really believe that NATO poses a threat to Russia is not clear, as the country has not had such peaceable neighbors on its Western borders for more than 300 years.
Russia and NATO must jointly develop a new security agenda and a more cooperative methodology based on common working groups and joint papers. The old way of negotiating — via proposals and counterproposals with Russia and NATO perceiving each other as adversaries — should be abandoned. The kind of approach that we need is exemplified by the work of the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative, which is co-chaired by former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, former Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently urged that all parties involved focus more on practical steps. That means that we must think about how to broaden the application of our commitments to reciprocal transparency to all military forces in Europe — including conventional and nuclear forces, and missile defense installations. The time is ripe to again explore limitations on conventional forces and to adjust them to current rather than past needs.
We must also redefine common threats, and the common security agenda of confidence building and transparency must be based on the indivisibility of security in Europe and the trans-Atlantic area as a whole, including respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity — not just for alliance members, but for all countries that belong to the broader trans-Atlantic security community.
The interdependence of all states — large or small, weak or powerful, democratic or authoritarian — has become the organizing principle of today’s international security system. But interdependence does not in itself ensure control of the way relations develop between states, much less developments within them.
The tasks confronting NATO require redefining the essence of trans-Atlantic relations to answer some fundamental questions. What role should the alliance play in the future? Should it undergo further simultaneous transformation and enlargement? What kind of relations should NATO have with its partners?
The Albright report tries to address these questions in a balanced way. It endorses policies that accurately capture the relationship between “out of area operations” and members’ commitment to their mutual self-defense under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. It further rightly suggests that NATO’s strategic political and military objectives could be achieved jointly with Russia through greater stability, mutual transparency, predictability and arms reduction verified by nonproliferation and arms control agreements.
The revived importance of multilateral security institutions is creating a new climate and new prospects for a security system that can meet the needs of the 21st century. Last weekend’s NATO summit in Lisbon and the upcoming Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit in Astana on Dec. 1-2 offer a unique opportunity to move the Euro-Atlantic alliance and Russia toward an inclusive, cooperative and effective security community.

Adam Daniel Rotfeld is former foreign minister of Poland. © Project Syndicate

TITLE: Fursenko Is Education’s No. 1 Enemy
AUTHOR: By Boris Kagarlitsky
TEXT: The Russian educational system has many problems but only one real enemy. It would take hours to list all of the problems but only a moment to name the No. 1 enemy: Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko.
Perhaps Fursenko’s biggest claim to fame was his idea of forcing university-bound students to take unified state exams against the strong objections of educators, students and parents.
Recent polls show that Fursenko is by far the most unpopular government official in Russia. But it seems that even these signals aren’t stopping him. Last week, he introduced a new initiative, which will clearly outdo his unified state exam idea.
 “There is no evidence that smaller classes provide a better education,” Fursenko said. It follows that the limit to class size should be eliminated. “If a teacher can properly organize instruction for 27 students,” the minister added, “it would be wrong to stop him.”
Fursenko is not talking about simply raising the maximum class size by one or two people but about abolishing the limit completely. At the same time, his ministry has threatened to sharply reduce the number of teachers and their salaries, and to cut both the number of schools and the funding they receive.
Russia has striven for several decades to reduce the number of students, first from 45 to 30 per class and then down to the current level of roughly 25. The goal in doing so was not only to improve health and living conditions by reducing crowding — and the spread of infections — in the classrooms but also to enable teachers to give more individualized attention to each student.
The standards that Fursenko intends to abolish are based on years of both domestic and international experience. If he is unaware of that fact, it shows that he is far too incompetent to run the country’s educational system. But the real tragedy is not the ill-considered remarks made by an incompetent official, but that those remarks reflect a systematic campaign aimed at downsizing public education as if it were a noncore, unprofitable business sector within a large company.
Fursenko’s policy is in complete accord with the proposals made by Russia’s business elite. For example, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, a leader of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP, complained during a meeting with senior government officials that there are too many educated people in Russia. The problem is that they can’t find professional jobs suited to match their specialization. Recall that Prokhorov also proposed that Russia switch from a 40-hour to a 60-hour workweek.
Senior government officials should have denounced Prokhorov’s and Fursenko’s initiatives — if for no other reason than they will derail President Dmitry Medvedev’s modernization plans. Instead, they nodded their heads and promised to support the initiatives, which will mean a mass closure of schools and a sharp increase in the number of students per teacher.
A country that makes its living by exporting raw materials evidently feels that it doesn’t need an educated work force to drive and diversify its economy.
In addition, it appears that the country’s incompetent and insecure political elite are threatened by a population that is too educated. After replacing standard incandescent light bulbs with more energy-efficient fluorescent ones, we should try a similar move with the ruling elite — replacing the old, antiquated and highly inefficient ones with a modernized generation of new leaders.

Boris Kagarlitsky is director of the Institute of Globalization Studies.

TITLE: Weighty words
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: At a concert at Tantsy premiering their new album in St. Petersburg last month, Barto did not have a single retail copy of their new CD — instead, they were handing away self-made CDRs. The Moscow-St. Petersburg electro-punk band’s CD print run was delayed by their label when one of the songs found itself under investigation by the anti-extremism Center E, which was busy finding “signs of extremism” in its lyrics.
The song, called “Ready” (Gotov), is a story of love, to some extent influenced by Bonnie and Clyde, according to singer Maria Lyubicheva. The song is however about young revolutionaries, rather than criminals, who first meet each other at a rally. “I am ready — and are you ready to set cops’ cars on fire at night?” goes the chorus.
To avoid possible legal repercussions, the Moscow-based label Soyuz first considered taking the song off the album entirely, but the booklets with track listings had already been printed. Eventually, the vocal track was cut short just before the chorus, and followed by an instrumental that the band had to record separately in order to make the track last the 4 minutes and 39 seconds listed in the booklet. The debacle caused the album to be delayed for weeks.
When Lyubicheva was asked to go to Center E back in September, she was informed that two experts had already come to the “preliminary conclusion” that the line was “extremist.” The musicians believe, however, that the whole investigation was simply to get revenge on the band for performing at an August rally in Moscow in defense of the Khimki forest that seemingly annoyed the authorities.
“It is obvious that they are looking for a scapegoat for the rally,” keyboard player Yevgeny Kupriyanov said. “The main questions they asked Maria were: ‘Who’s the organizer [of the rally]? Last names, first names… They didn’t have much to go on.”
The rally was one in a series of protests against the planned toll highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg to be built through the Khimki Forest, backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The rally was held after workers had already begun felling trees.
The Moscow authorities authorized the rally, at which speeches were due to alternate with performances by bands, but as the date approached, said that they had not authorized the concert. The police surrounded the site on Pushkinskaya Square with cordons and metal detectors, seized the truck carrying the PA system, saying it had dirty license plates, and refused to let in musicians with musical instruments.
Only Barto and Yury Shevchuk of DDT managed to smuggle in guitars. To do so, the band had to scale the fence where it was not guarded by the OMON special task police. “The OMON stood where they were told to, but left parts of the fence unguarded,” Kupriyanov said.
Lyubicheva, whose views have frequently been described as “left-wing,” insists that Barto is “not a political group.”
“It was interesting to participate in the rally, because it was society, a social movement,” she says.
“To make the authorities think a little, to pay attention, because the authorities don’t give a damn about people; they doesn’t respect us, for them, we are not the electorate. It was interesting for us to see how they would react.
“So many people came. It was not a political rally with slogans like ‘Putin, Resign.’ It was only a concert — and for a good cause, ecology. But it still turned out like this. All the organizers were arrested early on, in the afternoon. It was not clear how to get to the rally; the policemen were shouting: ‘No entrance here! No entrance here!’”
“I think the authorities discredited themselves by doing this, it was stupid not to let people in. People came anyway, and it was such a farce — the story with the PA system, and the exits from the metro being closed. If we had simply come and played a concert, I think the impact would have been smaller. We say as a joke that it was all organized by the opposition itself.”
Barto performed two songs with a guitar and two megaphones before Lyubicheva recited the song “Ready” into a megaphone — it cannot be played on a guitar due to its dub rhythm.
“This is a song loved by our listeners, because many identify themselves with it — but not in the sense that they will start setting cars on fire right away,” Lyubicheva said.
“But they have their kind of romanticism, they know this kind of lifestyle. We always play the song in concert, and we’re always asked to play it.”
After the protests, President Dmitry Medvedev put a temporary halt to work in the Khimki forest, but that did not prevent Barto from being investigated, along with other Khimki forest defenders.
First interrogated at Center E in September, Lyubicheva was interrogated at the Prosecutor’s Office late last month.
“It’s not clear, they haven’t filed a criminal case, but at the same time, they didn’t say that there wouldn’t be one. Everything has stalled, the expert probe is underway, and where it will all lead is not clear,” said Barto’s lyricist and director Alexei Otradnov.
“It’s difficult to comment, it’s not clear why it is all lasting for months, what the expert is actually doing with the lyric. I don’t know what someone can do with one line for 90 days.”
Persecution of musicians and artists dealing with politics for alleged extremism is a recent tendency in Russia. The most recent case is the Voina (War) art group, two of whose members were arrested in Moscow and are now being held in a pretrial detention center in St. Petersburg.
The Voina artists have been imprisoned for a stunt they called “Palace Revolution” — dedicated to the upcoming police reform announced by Medvedev earlier this year — when they overturned several police cars in September. According to Otradnov, the police are seeking a link between Voina’s case and the Barto song.
“As far as I know, [the arrested Voina members] were asked if they knew us, if their overturning of cars was connected to the song and so on,” he said.
“There’s an agenda to link all this into some conspiracy, which alarms us. It looks that there are some movements going on that we don’t yet understand.”
Barto started out in Moscow in 2006 as a duo of singer Maria Lyubicheva and lyricist Alexei Otradnov, which has since expanded to include guitarist Ivan Deryabin and keyboard player Yevgeny Kupriyanov, who both live in St. Petersburg.
From the beginning, Barto has been about ideology, according to Lyubicheva.
“We’re simply concerned about certain things, and we wanted to bring these issues to our friends and people around us,” she said.
“When we started out, everything was relatively good. There were years of stability and nobody cared about anything much. Even rock bands and some topical, non-commercial artists sang music without much content anyway. It was as if ‘everything is good, what can we sing about?’
“At the same time, we saw people descending into consumerism, because loans were available, people had high salaries, everybody had a job and was buying things for themselves. We had had enough of it, and we did ‘Barto’ [the eponymous debut album].
“It dealt mainly with the consumer society on the one hand, and with the office theme on the other hand, because both Alexei and I were managers and knew it inside out. We didn’t like what was happening at all, how people plotted against each other to get a better job, how money was changing people cardinally. And how a boss who is paid $30,000 a month doesn’t treat everybody else as people, and is too mean to pay an extra 100 euros to an employee as a bonus.
“It was a completely crazy system, that kind of capitalism, which was totally unhealthy. It had no human face at all.”
Barto’s latest album is called “Intelligence, Conscience and Honor.”  Journalist and promoter Artyom Troitsky, who released the album on Voskhod, Soyuz’s sub-label that he runs, described it as “The best recording in Russian in the past few years.”

Barto will perform on Friday, December 3 at Money Honey, 28 Sadovaya Ulitsa. Tel 310 05 49

TITLE: Word’s  worth
AUTHOR: By Michele Berdy
TEXT: ×åñòü èìåþ: I have the honor of; goodbye

A while back, when everyone was debating the fate of Mayor Yury Luzhkov, I remembered a phrase in Luzhkov’s letter to President Dmitry Medvedev. The letter, posted online, ended with: ×åñòü èìåþ (literally, “I have honor”). Some Russian speakers thought it was a polite closing. Others thought it was meant as an insult. After wishing for the nth time that Russian speakers could come to a consensus about their language, I decided to do some research. 
Dictionaries are helpful here — up to a point. They make it clear that ÷åñòü èìåþ was once part of Russia’s polite daily lexicon, similar to what “I have the honor of … ” is among English speakers. ×åñòü èìåþ ïîçäðàâèòü âàñ ñ ïðàçäíèêîì Ðîæäåñòâà Õðèñòîâà (I have the honor of wishing you a merry Christmas). ×åñòü èìåþ ïðîâîäèòü âàñ (I have the honor of escorting you).
In correspondence and communication with state dignitaries, stressing honor was always de rigueur. Some of it was a little over the top: ×åñòü èìåþ äîëîæèòü âàøåìó ïðåâîñõîäèòåëüñòâó: ïîåçä èä¸ò ÷åðåç ñîðîê ìèíóò! (I have the honor of informing Your Excellency that the train leaves in 40 minutes!) 
Honor was a key concept among pre-revolutionary officers. When reporting to a superior, an officer might have said: ×åñòü èìåþ ÿâèòüñÿ (I have the honor of reporting for duty). When departing, an officer said simply: ×åñòü èìåþ. The verb îòêëàíÿòüñÿ (to take your leave) was left out but understood. A friend who is a descendent of a White and Red Army officers recalls that her father and grandfather always ended telephone conversations with ×åñòü èìåþ — a respectful, proper way to say “goodbye.”
With all this honor being bandied about, exactly who is honoring whom gets a bit confusing. On the one hand, the person who utters a “÷åñòü èìåþ + verb” phrase is showing deference and respect to another person. On the other hand, uttering the phrase indicates a certain dignity and allegiance to a code of behavior and honor. So both the honorer and the honoree are seen to be, well, honorable.
Lately however, some Russian speakers seem to have forgotten about this elaborate dance of honor and the verb — implied or explicit — after the phrase èìåþ ÷åñòü. They understand the bare phrase ÷åñòü èìåþ to be one of assertion: I am an honorable person. Or they understand it as a kind of challenge, as if the next phrase might be a call to a duel.
So what did Luzhkov have in mind? Was it an old-fashioned form of goodbye, an assertion of personal honor or a challenge? Or was it meant to be ambiguous?
Judging by the tone of the letter as a whole, I’d vote for a mix of personal promotion with a dash of challenge: “I have the honor to remain … Yury Luzhkov.”

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

TITLE: Reaching out to those in need
AUTHOR: By Anastasia Larionova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This weekend sees a duo of notable charity events taking place in the city, with a master class on sculpting the fabled Murano glass being given for foster children by an Italian master on Saturday, and the St. Petersburg International Women’s Club annual Winter Charity Bazaar taking place Sunday at the Astoria Hotel.
On Saturday, the eminent Murano glass sculptor Alessandro Mandruzzato will hold a master class for children from the SOS Children’s Village in Pushkin. The idea for holding the master class and involving the children in it is was inspired by the fact that 2011 has been declared the Year of Italy in Russia.
Next year, a solo exhibition by the sculptor will be held at St. Petersburg’s Erarta Museum. The artist plans to make about three works designed on the children’s sketches. These works will later be sold at a charity auction, from which all the funds will go to the SOS Children’s Village in Pushkin. 
SOS Children’s Village in Pushkin is a long-term form of care for orphaned and abandoned children. A similar model of childcare exists in 132 countries. SOS Children’s Village in Pushkin was founded in 2000, and was funded by philanthropists from eight European countries. Children aged 3 to 20 live in 12 family houses in the village, whose main source of funding is charitable donations.
The next day, Sunday, sees the eagerly anticipated IFC’s annual Winter Charity Bazaar. The proceeds raised from this event will be allocated by the club’s charity committee to support the IWC’s various charity projects. Charity organizations helped by the IWC during the last year include the St. Basil’s Youth Offenders Program, Everychild, the ACCR Union of Christians, Sunflower Parents’ Center, Upsala Circus, Perspektivy and various orphanages. 
The participants of the bazaar are mainly companies and organizations from various European and Asia countries, who will have stalls selling a range of wares from national cuisine to Christmas gifts. Good quality second-hand clothes for adults and children will also be on sale.
The first Winter Bazaar was held more than ten years ago, and has since become something of a tradition. One of the highlights of the annual event is a raffle, whose prizes this year include vacations in Turkey and Finland, plane tickets, gift certificates for meals and hotel accommodation, and other prizes donated by sponsors.
As usual, there will be a children’s corner for younger visitors. According to the IWC management, the key purpose of the event is to engage the local and international population of St. Petersburg in raising funds for charitable purposes to help those in need.
Admission to the event is free of charge.
        
The IWC Winter Charity Bazaar runs from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Astoria Hotel, 39 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 494 5757

For more information about Saturday’s event at the Children’s Village SOS in Pushkin, see www.sos-dd.ru or call 451 6877.

TITLE: God Save the Queen
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It’s Rule Britannia in more than just name at 99 Pounds, the new English pub/restaurant on Ulitsa Marata. The Russians’ perception of their beloved misty Albion is in evidence in the open umbrella light fittings, while the lamps are crowned with furry “Beefeater” helmets. Black-and-white photos of Beefeater guards also grace the placemats. One armchair is upholstered with the Union Jack, while the northern part of the kingdom is given a nod by one wall covered in tartan fabric, and by the tartan sashes worn by the waitresses over their black shirt-dresses. The air conditioner unit — whose functioning on a chilly autumnal evening was clearly superfluous — is also painted in the form of the British flag. 
Slightly more subtle are the hints of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” that classic British children’s book as popular in Russia as anywhere else. The surreal world at the other end of the rabbit hole is alluded to in the velvet top hat that serves as a lampshade, in a trio of angular, high-backed, dark red velvet thrones, and in the black-and-red checked restroom interiors that call to mind the Queen of Hearts. 
Traditional and literary Blighty meet 1970s punk-rock culture with The Clash posters hanging on the walls, exposed structural girders and images of cogs printed on the stone walls, which in turn contrast with the smart upholstered armchairs, quality varnished floor and fresh daisies on the tables. 
If all that isn’t enough to make you feel like you’ve landed in London, then a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale or refreshing cider (160 rubles, $5.10) or bottle of Harrogate spa water (100 rubles, $3.20 for 330 milliliters) might help you on your way. If all else fails,visitors can pretend they’re in an unusually smart English pub watching the footie, and enjoy the matches shown on the pub-sized flat screens.
The menu is not quite so quintessentially British. There are no fish ‘n’ chips or toad-in-the-hole to be found here (though the menu does favor fish and seafood); rather the fare on offer is typical Petersburg pub grub and beer snacks. It was from this category that fried Camembert in batter in wine sauce and strawberries (320 rubles, $10.20) was selected. Sadly, it was a disappointing start to the meal, since it was barely warm when it arrived, and certainly had never been hot enough for the cheese — which was the hard, Russian “Camembert,” not the delectably soft real deal — to have melted. Only one lone strawberry was in evidence.
Two dishes from the menu’s range of soups were more successful. Solyanka (320 rubles, $10.20) was a perfect blend of a variety of finely chopped meat and vegetables that together created a good, non-greasy incarnation of the traditional Russian recipe. A welcome touch was the provision of separate smetana, olives, herbs and a rather artistic strip of bacon, enabling diners to customize the dish to their own personal taste. 
Piquant three-cheese soup with fried bacon (260 rubles, $8.30) was unsurprisingly extremely rich and viscous, the heavy texture of the cheese offset by a drizzle of tart balsamic sauce. 
The tartan-clad serving lasses proved extremely effective at clearing dishes from the table, whipping them away while the last mouthful was still being chewed. Sadly, they were less quick taking orders and bringing them, failing entirely to bring bread to go with the soup.
Of the meaty meals (vegetarian options are, alas, few and far between at 99 Pounds), veal carpaccio (390 rubles, $12.40) was a generous portion served on iceberg and ruccola. Along with the usual Parmesan flakes, a sprinkling of pine nuts added an original touch, and the slightly sweet dressing was excellent. 
Chicken cutlets (270 rubles, $8.60), on the other hand, were very average, regrettably dry and only partially saved by a portion of Pacceto potatoes baked in foil with garlic (80 rubles, $2.50), bringing an end to a meal of two halves. 
Those energized enough by the food served in the two upstairs rooms can move downstairs to the club part of 99 Pounds, which was empty on a recent weekday evening, but may yet prove popular with Anglophiles and pub grub aficionados.

TITLE: S. Korean Minister Resigns After Attack
AUTHOR: By Hyung-Jin Kim and Kwang-Tae Kim
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea — South Korea’s defense minister resigned Thursday amid intense criticism two days after a North Korean artillery attack killed four people on a small island near the Koreas’ disputed frontier.
The move came as President Lee Myung-bak vowed to send more troops to the front-line South Korean island and as residents tried to salvage belongings from the blackened wreckage of their homes. Pyongyang warned of additional attacks if provoked.
Hours before Defense Minister Kim Tae-young’s resignation, lawmakers had lashed out at the government, claiming officials were unprepared for Tuesday’s attack and that the military response to the North’s barrage was too slow. Even those in Lee’s ruling party demanded Kim’s dismissal as well as those of military leaders and some presidential aides.
Lee accepted Kim’s resignation and a new defense chief will be announced Friday, presidential chief of staff Yim Tae-hee said.
Skirmishes between the Korean militaries are not uncommon, but North Korea’s heavy bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island was the first on a civilian area, raising fears of an escalation that could lead to a new war on the Korean peninsula. South Korean troops had returned fire and scrambled fighter jets in response.
Seoul and Washington ratcheted up pressure on China to rein in its ally North Korea, and China on Thursday urged both sides to show restraint.
Reporters allowed for the first time onto the island found streets strewn with broken glass and charred debris. Blackened beer bottles lay beside what was left of a supermarket as coast guard officers patrolled in pairs past deserted offices and schools used by relief workers for meetings and meals.
Many residents fled as quickly as they could, but restaurant owner Lee In-ku, 46, joined a handful of villagers trying to salvage belongings from half-destroyed homes.
“It was a sea of fire,” Lee said of Tuesday’s attack. “Many houses were burning and many people were just running around in confusion. It was real chaos.”
At an emergency meeting in Seoul on Thursday, President Lee ordered top-level weapons for troops manning the tense Yellow Sea, a presidential aide said.
“We should not ease our sense of crisis in preparation for the possibility of another provocation by North Korea,” presidential spokesman Hong Sang-pyo quoted Lee as saying. “A provocation like this can recur any time.”
Hong said South Korea will sharply raise the number of ground troops on Yeonpyeong and four other islands, reversing a 2006 decision to draw down forces. He declined to discuss specifics but said troops there currently are about 4,000.
He also said the military would change its rules of engagement to better counter North Korean provocations.
The defense minister’s resignation came hours after he visited Yeonpyeong, home to military bases as well as a fishing community of 1,300 residents. It lies about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from South Korea’s western port of Incheon, and just 7 miles (11 kilometers) from North Korean shores
Two marines and two civilians were killed in Tuesday’s exchange, and at least 18 people — most of them troops — were wounded.
Marine Lieutenant Colonel Joo Jong-wha acknowledged that the island is acutely short of artillery, saying it has only six pieces, the howitzers used in Tuesday’s skirmish.
“In artillery, you’re supposed to move on after firing to mask your location so that they don’t strike right back at you. But we have too few artillery,” he said on Yeonpyeong.
Military officials analyzing debris have not ruled out North Korea’s use of thermobaric bombs, which burn more violently and increase casualties and property destruction, a Joint Chiefs of Staff official said. He asked not to be identified. 
The two Koreas are required to abide by an armistice signed at the close of their three-year war, but the North does not recognize the maritime line drawn by U.N. forces in 1953 and considers South Korean maneuvers near Yeonpyeong island a violation of its territory. South Korea was conducting firing drills, though not in North Korea’s direction, when the North Korean artillery barrage came Tuesday. 
The attack added to animosity from the March sinking of a South Korean warship in nearby waters that killed 46 sailors in the worst military attack on the nation since the Korean War. 
The defense minister also offered to resign following that incident, but the president refused. 
The shelling occurred as North Korea is undergoing a delicate transition of power from leader Kim Jong Il to his young son Kim Jong Un. The son, who is in late 20s, was made a four-star general and nominated to high-ranking Workers’ Party posts in the first steps toward eventually succeeding his father.

TITLE: Iraqi PM Calls On Country For Unity
AUTHOR: By Bushra Juhi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister appealed to the country’s warring political factions for unity after formally accepting on Thursday a request by the president to form the next government, part of a deal to end an eight-month deadlock over who would lead the country the next four years.
The long-awaited request from President Jalal Talabani sets in motion a 30-day timeline to accomplish the daunting task of finding a team that includes all of Iraq’s rival factions and will oversee the country during the departure of American troops.
“I know and you know well that the responsibility I am undertaking is not an easy task especially in the current circumstances that our country is passing through,” al-Maliki said.
The new government is expected to include all the major factions, including the Kurds, Shiite political parties aligned with Iran and a Sunni-backed bloc that believes it should have been the one leading the next government.
Many of the politicians were in the room with al-Maliki and Talabani when the announcement was made in a show of unity that belies the country’s often divisive politics.
Al-Maliki, a contentious figure in Iraqi politics who rose from obscurity to lead the government in 2006, called upon Iraqis and fellow politicians — many who view him with distrust and animosity — to support him in the task ahead.
“I call upon the great Iraqi people in all its sects, religions and ethnicities and I call upon my brothers the politicians to work to overcome all differences and to put these differences behind us,” said the prime minister designate.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James F. Jeffrey said al-Maliki has “a long to-do list” over the next 30 days in selecting a broadly supported Cabinet that must be approved by a majority in parliament.
“He’s in a strong position,” Jeffery said. “But it isn’t over until it’s over, and it’s essentially 325 members of the parliament that have the final say.”
Both Jeffery and General Lloyd Austin, top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said they expected democracy to prevail in Iraq despite doubt some may have about its survival.
“You will hear episodes of, witness episodes of people having doubt about the future in terms of democracy,” Austin said. “By the same token, you’ll witness a number of people who feel good about the prospects of democracy. It’s what people want, it will mature as time goes along.”
Al-Maliki will have to find substantial roles for all of those factions or risk having them leave his government, a possibly destabilizing blow for Iraq’s still fragile democracy that is struggling to overcome years of violence and economic sanctions.
The president’s request Thursday was largely a formality, coming after Talabani was elected on Nov. 11 and at the time publicly asked al-Maliki to form the next government.

TITLE: Cambodia Mourns Victims Of Monsoon Stampede Tragedy
AUTHOR: By Sopheng Cheang
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia’s prime minister cried as he lit candles and incense to mourn the hundreds of festival-goers who were trampled to death this week in a riverside stampede.
Flags flew at half-staff across the country, and bars, karaoke parlors and nightclubs shut on the official day of mourning for the tragedy, in which at least 347 people were killed and hundreds more injured. 
A government investigation has found that thousands of revelers cramming a suspension bridge over the Bassac River Monday night panicked as it began to sway under their weight. Some shouted that the structure was going to collapse, and the crowd pushed and heaved, setting off the stampede.
“People became panicked when they saw other people fall down, and they started running when they heard cries that the bridge was going to collapse,” city police chief Touch Naroth said Wednesday.
Om Yentieng, a member of the government’s investigating committee, said there were no signs that any of the dead had been electrocuted as some earlier reports suggested.
The committee is expected to release its final report next week, said Om Yentieng.
There has been confusion over the death toll. The latest official casualty tally was 347 dead and 395 injured, down from earlier official figures.
Om Yentieng said earlier casualty figures were not correct due to overlapping of counts by various institutions.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has described the stampede as the biggest tragedy since the communist Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, which killed an estimated 1.7 million people in the late 1970s.
The stampede happened during celebrations of a three-day holiday marking the end of the monsoon season, when as many as two million people are believed to have come to the capital. As festivities wrapped up Monday night, tens of thousands flocked to a free concert on an island in the Bassac River.

TITLE: 17 Killed in Yemen Suicide Bomb
AUTHOR: By Ahmed Al-Haj
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SANAA, Yemen — A suicide car bomber struck a convoy of Yemeni Shiites on their way to a religious ceremony on Wednesday, killing 17 and wounding more than 15 people, a security official said.
The official said authorities suspected al-Qaida was behind the attack, though it would be the extremist organization’s first reported direct assault on the country’s Shiite minority.
Yemen’s local of branch of al-Qaida has been increasingly active over the past year, assaulting government targets inside the country as well carrying high profile attacks abroad such as last month’s attempt to ship parcel bombs to the U.S. through cargo planes.
While the militants have always been rhetorically extremely hostile to Yemen’s Shiite community, they have not attacked them directly in Yemen, unlike in Iraq where the sectarian warfare is more pronounced.
Like many Arab countries throughout the region, Yemen’s Muslim population is split between the majority Sunnis sect and Shiites, whom hardliners often describe as heretics.
The Yemeni official said the attack took place in al-Jawf province, 109 miles northeast of the capital, Sanaa and those killed were supporters of the Shiite Hawthi rebels, a tribal group who have waged an on-and-off uprising against the government.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
A Hawthi spokesman confirmed the casualties and added that the rebels also suspected al-Qaida involvement. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.
The attack comes two months after al-Qaida accused the Hawthis of nabbing two of its members and handing them over to the security chief of Saada province.
Since January 2009, when al-Qaida’s battered Saudi and Yemeni branches merged to form al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group has become increasingly emboldened, directing attacks in the capital and across the countryside against officials and foreigners.