SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1646 (8), Wednesday, March 9, 2011
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Real Drama Behind Reality TV, Stereotypes
AUTHOR: By Philip Parker
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It is a common myth among Russians that all foreigners believe that in Russia, everyone drinks vodka and bears walk the streets. While the former stereotype was damaged recently by the news that Russians are only fourth on the list of worldwide alcohol consumption per capita, the latter got a small boost this week when a woman was attacked by a brown bear in the village of Staro-Panovo in the Krasnoselsky district of St. Petersburg. 
The woman, born in 1937, was reportedly returning home with groceries late last Thursday afternoon when the bear broke out of the garden of a private house and jumped on her, breaking her collarbone and seriously injuring her face and head. The woman eventually managed to run away, and was taken to hospital for treatment, while local police chased the bear back into the house. Fontanka.ru claimed that the house belongs to gypsies, while Ria Novosti reported that the bear had been brought to the village for entertainment at a wedding. 
Soon, representatives of the city’s veterinary service, the Emergency Situations Ministry and the local prosecutor’s office also arrived on the scene, but it took some time to decide the fate of the animal, as the only person in St. Petersburg with a sufficiently powerful tranquilizer gun was reportedly busy on guard at a circus performance. When the bear tried to leave the grounds of the house again, it was shot dead with automatic rifles. 
Members of the OVO — the organization that allows police officers to moonlight as private security guards — reportedly showed almost as much readiness to use firearms when chasing a shoplifter on Friday. When asked by an employee of the Dixy supermarket on Rybatskaya Ulitsa on St. Petersburg’s Petrograd Side to stop a man who had apparently stolen a bottle of shower gel, officers gave chase, the Agency for Journalism Investigations reported. After the man ignored repeated demands to stop, they decided that the only option was to fire a warning shot into the air, at which point the suspect reportedly came to a halt, and was taken to the nearest police station. 
It was also alleged last week that justice of sorts may have caught up with Andrei Kadetov, a former participant in Russia’s long-running and continuously controversial reality show “Dom-2.” Kadetov, who had to leave the show after seven months when it was discovered that he had not disclosed his marital status (the show’s stars have to be single), was stabbed to death when walking his dog on the evening of Dec. 24. Last Wednesday, Yury Zhidkov, a lieutenant of the Emergency Situations Ministry, was arrested for the murder. According to reports on Fontanka.ru, the motive for the murder was revenge for the alleged rape of Zhidkov’s ex-girlfriend, who claimed that Kadetov had raped her at a dacha in the Priozersky Region in November. The woman’s complaint was lodged at a police station in St. Petersburg, then passed to the Priozersk police, who later returned the case to the city on a formality. It was alleged that Kadetov had paid off police officers, while his friends claim that the woman herself had asked for money to withdraw the allegations. According to the investigators, the woman wanted revenge and turned to Zhidkov for help, though she had not allegedly expected him to go so far as to kill. Whatever the truth, the story is certainly more dramatic than anything that has ever happened on Dom-2 itself. 
There may finally be a chance of escape for the ships currently stuck in the ice in the Gulf of Finland. As of yesterday, there were 99 vessels awaiting escort from ice-breakers into and out of port in the waters near St. Petersburg. The situation, caused by unusually low temperatures last month, has been getting gradually worse during the last few weeks and was only partially helped when, on Feb. 26, the atomic ice-breaker the Vaygach arrived from Murmansk to assist. The move prompted an international scandal when Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority complained that it had not been informed of the vessel’s movements, in contravention of international regulations. On Tuesday, it was announced that the Arctic ice-breaker the Kapitan Dranitsyn, an uncontroversial diesel-electric vessel, had also arrived in the gulf to help. 


TITLE: Scandal Erupts Around Star-Studded Charity Gala
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A charity gala concert featuring Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and a string of Hollywood stars including Sharon Stone and Mickey Rourke that was advertized as a fundraising campaign aimed at benefitting sick children has turned into an embarrassment: Three months after the concert took place in St. Petersburg on Dec.10, the frustrated mother of one of the would-be beneficiaries is crying foul and asking where the money is.
On March 3, Olga Kuznetsova, whose 13-year-old daughter Liza suffers from a serious illness, sent a desperate letter to the blog of Matvei Ganapolsky, a commentator with Ekho Moskvy radio station, in the hope that the journalist would help her to get heard and make the case public.
The concert in question was featured in a number of television reports showing Stone and Rourke visiting the city’s Children’s Hospital No. 31, and Vladimir Putin performing an unexpected live rendition of the classic “Blueberry Hill” in English at a concert that evening.
The event was set up by the Federation Foundation — an organization about which there is little information available in the media — and purportedly aimed to raise money for cancer-stricken children undergoing treatment in Hospital No. 31.
“I am the mother of a severely ill child, and we have got nothing to lose,” Kuznetsova wrote in her post to Ganapolsky’s blog. “I would do anything, and bang at any doors to get justice. I have seen reports that said that a seat at a table with Stone or Rourke at the charity dinner cost about one million rubles [$35,500]. Somebody collected that money, didn’t they? What is certain is that whoever took that money did not send it to the clinic.”
The mother succeeded in attracting attention to the issue. Her angry voice stirred a tsunami of negative publicity, and speculation has abounded on the pages of both Russian and international media. 
Speaking to reporters last week, Anatoly Rivkin, the hospital’s chief doctor, confirmed that no money or equipment had yet been sent to his clinic.
Within a week, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, was confronted by Russian news agencies. “Vladimir Putin has been informed that the money raised from the charitable concert, which he attended and took part in together with Hollywood stars, has not yet reached the hospital,” Interfax news agency quoted Peskov as saying Monday. 
While Peskov described Kuznetsova’s concern as “fully justified,” he stressed that Putin “has no connection with the foundation that organized the event, and was but one participant of the charitable evening, along with a number of other high-profile guests.”
The RIA Novosti news agency contacted Kristina Snickers, a spokeswoman for the Federation Foundation, who surprised many with a statement claiming that the foundation “organizes events to promote causes and encourage wealthy people to make donations, but does not engage directly in collecting money from these people.”
Snickers said she was “shocked to read Kuznetsova’s letter” and said her foundation had not sold any tickets to the gala. She also denied that a seat next to the Hollywood stars cost one million rubles.
Ironically, for Liza Kuznetsova, who was shown on television with Sharon Stone and mentioned in connection with the fundraising project, the charity gala has only had a negative effect so far. The girl’s mother said it has now become more difficult for them to get sponsorship from other foundations. “They would always mention Sharon Stone and that gala, and I would have to explain to them over and over again that it was all just a bubble,” Kuznetsova said.
Liza’s treatment costs at least 150,000 rubles ($5,322) per month, her mother said.
Peskov made an encouraging statement Monday.
“We do not know the details, but we will closely follow the situation and investigate what money was raised with the help of that charity gala — and make sure that this money is given to the hospital and spent on purchasing necessary equipment and medication,” Peskov said. 

TITLE: Religious Minorities Build Bridges With Lectures
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In contrast to the Soviet era, when even being seen outside the synagogue could have meant losing your job or being denied the chance to travel abroad, St. Petersburg’s Jewish population today — both ordinary people and high-profile figures — proudly celebrates its most important holidays, and is now welcoming city residents, regardless of their religion, politics or social status.
March 13 sees the first class of the Open Courses on Judaism, a free three-month series of lectures dedicated to a diverse range of subjects, from Jewish festivals and the contents of the Torah to the Judaic approach to the Bible and relationships between Judaism and secular government.
“We would be happy to see philosophers and pragmatics alike, agnostics or religious people, well, anyone really, except for, perhaps, aggressive anti-Semites,” said Menahem Mendel Pevzner, the city’s chief rabbi.
The lectures will all be held on Sundays at the Grand Choral Synagogue and delivered by the synagogue’s rabbis as well as secular specialists on Judaism.
While Russia’s top-level politicians regularly pledge that they will work to ensure cultural diversity in the country, Russia has a disturbingly high level of hate crime, with St. Petersburg one of the worst affected regions of the country.
Human rights advocates say that Russia’s cultural and ethnic diversity, one of the country’s greatest assets, is treated with neglect, and criticize the authorities for their cursory attitude toward the high level of hate crime and widespread ethnic intolerance.
“I remember clearly being here at the synagogue for the first time ever, in 1967,” said Igor Rimmer, a lawmaker with the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. “It was a Hanukkah celebration. Back then, of course, the festivals had a particular flavor. Everyone was well aware that such a visit, if noticed, could cost you a place at the university or a good job, at the very least.”
Rimmer emphasized the relaxed and friendly atmosphere in the synagogue today. 
“I am really pleased to see the changes, and I am proud that my nation has been able to carry and preserve this light through the years of oppression,” he said. “This is just another sign that Russia is truly going in the right direction.”
Several Russian Orthodox churches in the city have Sunday schools, although these are meant primarily for children and target believers, rather than a broad range of potential attendees with a diverse range of motives for joining the courses.
With their Open Courses on Judaism, the synagogue is following in the footsteps of the St. Petersburg Buddhist temple, Datsan Gunzechoinei, which has been holding weekly lectures by the temple’s prior, Buda Badmayev, for at least three years.
“These lectures, which are held on Saturday evenings, are not dusty and boring; they always conclude with a very informal question-and-answer session,” said Alla Namsarayeva, the datsan’s spokeswoman. “At lectures, the prior simply explains what Buddhism is about, providing a peaceful transfer from personal matters to global, abstract issues. Every lecture is devoted to a particular Buddhist idea, concept or term, for example, the Seven Great Treasures — which perfectly suits both a curious newcomer and someone who has become a regular attendee.” 
Lectures cost 35 rubles ($1.24) to attend. There are also meditation sessions at the temple every Sunday evening that are open to everyone. Both the meditation sessions and the lectures alike target not only religious people. 
“We are happy if people who come to the datsan accept just some of the ideas of Buddhism – or simply find it worthwhile to listen,” Namsarayeva said.
Namsarayeva added that Buddhism attracts people who are proactive about changing their lives. “Buddhists don’t believe in fate,” she said. “Karma doesn’t mean fate; karma is about causes and consequences. In short, you can change anything before it happens.”

The program of the Open Courses on Judaism is available at www.jeps.ru. The schedule of lectures on Buddhism can be found at www.dazan.spb.ru

TITLE: More Suspected Of Extremism 
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The “extremism” criminal case launched by prosecutors in November against opposition activists has been revived and expanded, with five more members of The Other Russia named as suspects and charges expected to be brought later this month.
The Other Russia activists Vladislav Ivakhnik, Roman Khrenov, Ravil Bashirov, Alexei Zentsov and Sergei Porokhovoi were named suspects after searches and interrogations Friday. 
Andrei Dmitriyev, chairman of The Other Russia in St. Petersburg, as well as activists Andrei Pesotsky, Alexander Yashin, Igor Boikov and Oleg Petrov were charged back in October with organizing or participating in the activities of a banned organization, punishable by up to three years in prison.
The Other Russia members are active participants in the Strategy 31 rallies in defense of the right of assembly.
Speaking by phone Tuesday, Pesotsky said the expansion of the case had been expected. “Speaking among themselves, the officers said that they have another 26 to 29 addresses to cover, so it will continue.”
The activists say they acted legally representing The Other Russia, a party formed by dissident author Eduard Limonov last year, but the investigators claim they acted as the National Bolshevik Party, banned in 2005.
Despite the persecution of activists, Pesotsky said the next Strategy 31 demo will be held March 31 as planned.


TITLE: Eurovision Song Chosen Without Public Voting
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This year, Channel One has exercised its right to choose Russia’s representative at the Eurovision-2011 song contest, which will be held this May in Dusseldorf, without a qualifying round, Interfax reported.
“Russia will be represented by the song ‘Get You’ performed by Alexei Vorobyov,” Channel One’s public relations director announced on Saturday, according to Interfax. 
“Get You” will be presented to an audience for the first time on March 12 at the premiere of “Star Academy: The Return,” where it will be a special number in the show, Channel One said in a statement.
The Russian participant’s song was written by RedOne — the author of several Lady Gaga hits and of the official anthem of the 2006 World Cup, and a collaborator with Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer Lopez and other international stars, the channel’s press service said.
“It is a great honor and responsibility to represent one’s country at Eurovision,” said Vorobyov, 23. “I will do my best to accomplish this task. I know how to fight for victory and how to love. I am sure the song ‘Get You’ has every chance of success in this competition, because the person who wrote it isn’t just aware of the most current trends in world music; he creates them.”

TITLE: Dapkunaite at the Mariinsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Ingeborga Dapkunaite was due to star in director Michael Sturminger’s new production of Richard Strauss’s opera “Ariadne auf Naxos” on Tuesday at the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall, Interfax reported, citing the theater’s web site.
The actress was set to play the Major-domo, who in this staging turns into a sort of oligarch, according to the theater. The recitatives and dialogue are in Russian, the arias in German.
Valery Gergiev, artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater, was due to conduct. 
“Fans of the Mariinsky Theater are already familiar with Michael Sturminger from his work on the theater’s production of ‘Idomeneo’ and from the play ‘The Infernal Comedy’ with John Malkovich. They know the director’s tendency to immerse classical music in today’s realities,” said a press release from the theater. 
The Mariinsky said that another of Sturminger’s collaborations with the Hollywood actor — “The Giacomo Variations” — would be shown at this year’s “Stars of the White Nights” festival.
The action of “Ariadne auf Naxos” unfolds as “a play within a play.” The first part consists of preparations for an opera performance, while the second is the opera itself. A wealthy patron has commissioned a serious opera, and part one depicts the composer rehearsing with a group of actors. During the rehearsal, the patron invites a troupe of comedians to participate, and demands that the composer integrate them into his opera. Part two is the composer’s melding of the comedians with his original outlining of the Ariadne myth.


TITLE: Biden Meets Halonen On Way to Moscow Meeting
AUTHOR: The Associated Press
TEXT: HELSINKI — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met with Finnish leaders on the first leg of a European tour aimed at building warmer ties between Washington and Moscow.
Biden discussed international issues, including Afghanistan and developments in northern Africa, with Finnish President Tarja Halonen before a working lunch with Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi. Later Tuesday, he was to continue the weeklong tour to Russia and Moldova.
The talks in Moscow are expected to focus on missile defense cooperation and Russia’s efforts to join the World Trade Organization. Biden is also traveling to Moldova to signal support for democratic and economic reforms.
It is his first visit to the region as vice president.


TITLE: Moscow Near Top of Flirt Table
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Maybe Russia really is keeping abreast with state-of-the-art technology, as the Kremlin proposes — at least when it comes to flirting.
“How expensive is the underwear you have on at the moment?” reads a playful message at a dating community on Vkontakte.ru. “I don’t understand girls who like wearing underwear,” runs the coquettish reply.
This is a perfectly typical exchange, to be found everywhere on the pages and in the chatrooms of Russian social networking sites — whose audience numbers in the tens of millions and counting.
The Russian middle class’s love of online flirting was given statistical backing last week when a poll by the Badoo.com social networking site ranked Moscow No. 2 for Internet flirtatiousness among world capitals, second only to Athens.
Research by the World Flirtation League examined 12 million flirtatious online conversations initiated over a month by users from 200 cities across the world and found that Muscovites were more enthusiastic about it than most.
“Moscow’s figure is 25.5, slightly behind Athens,” which has a score of 25.7 online flirtations per average user per month, Badoo.com’s director of marketing Lloyd Price told The St. Petersburg Times on Thursday.
Kuwait City came in third, trailing close behind with 25.4 monthly bouts of flirting per user.
Online flirting is popular throughout the ex-Soviet Union, it seems, as two more post-Soviet cities made the top 10, with the Azerbaijani capital Baku placing fourth at 24.9 flirtations and Ukraine’s Kiev coming sixth, clenched between Tunis and Beirut with a score of 24.5.
Moscow effortlessly out-flirts reputed European capitals of romance such as Rome and Paris, the first of which ranked eighth and the latter a dismal 38th, the study showed.
Social networks, which are all the rage among Russians, especially the young, may be behind Moscow’s high score, Price said.
“One theory why Moscow is ranked second in our global study is that the use of social networks in Russia overall has grown faster than any other European country in the last 12 months,” he said in e-mailed comments.
“Another theory is that Moscow acts as a hub for Russian people, like Paris or London,” Price said. He did not elaborate on why it did not help the French or English capitals score higher.
The reach of social networking sites in Russia jumped 21.5 percent year on year in December — more than in any other European country, Price said, citing data by ComScore, a global Internet marketing research company.
The two most popular Russian social networking sites, Odnoklassniki.ru and Vkontakte.ru, currently boast 30 million and 28 million accounts, respectively, though most people register at both. Privet.ru, which has some 2.1 million users, is also popular with online flirts, Price said.
The actual explanation for the popularity of online flirting, however, may be that Russians simply find it difficult to strike up a real-life conversation with a stranger.
“Abroad, in cities like New York, it’s very easy to come up and start talking to someone because people are more open, and establishing the first contact is just easier there,” said Pavel Frolov, a psychology specialist who teaches “pickup” — the much-touted skill of guaranteed seduction.
“In Russia, people have more barriers for starting the first contact, which can lead to a flirt,” he said.
“It’s easier to overcome the psychological barrier” online, said Alexander, a 24-year-old photographer who is fond of online flirting.
“Not everyone can come up to you in the metro and start talking. It needs at least some pretext,” he said. “If you just come up and say ‘hi, nice to meet you,’ in 90 percent of cases, you will be sent away.”
Alexander asked not to be identified by last name to avoid problems with his steady girlfriend — but he admitted he has met some 20 women in real life after striking up online conversations.
Office workers may be particularly prone to using social networking sites as the primary means for private conversations — including flirting — because many of them fear the regular means of communication, e-mail, may be checked by their bosses, Frolov said.
Anna Artamonova, vice president at Mail.ru, which controls Odnoklassniki.ru, could not specify to what extent the social network’s users indulge in online flirting, but she said their activities are definitely not limited to it.
“On the whole, Russian social network users are the most active in the world,” Artamonova said.
She cited research by ComScore that showed Russians are “the most engaged” social networkers in the world, both by the number of hours spent online and pages visited.
Still, the World Flirtation League may be on to something, as Russians are active not just online, but also in their sexual lives — which is also borne out by hard statistical data.
Russia ranked second in the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey of 26 countries, with 80 percent of the respondents admitting to having sex weekly. Again, only Greece had a better showing, with 87 percent.


TITLE: Election Campaign Kicks Off in Kazakhstan
AUTHOR: The Associated Press
TEXT: ALMATY, Kazakhstan — When Kazakhstan’s long-serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev bids for re-election next month, he will do it safe in the knowledge that his country is unlikely to be roiled by the kind of unrest now spreading across the Middle East.
Buoyed on vast reserves of oil, natural gas and other valuable commodities eagerly sought after by the West and neighboring China, his former Soviet nation is blessed by relative prosperity and is seemingly immune to broad popular discontent.
The presidential election campaign that officially started Thursday for the April 3 vote pits Nazarbayev against three little-known outsiders, but leading opposition politicians have boycotted the vote, which they have called a sham.
One political party, however, is vowing to run the liveliest campaign of all and is urging people stay away from polling stations altogether.
Since authorities strictly monitor public protests, the unregistered Alga, or Forward, party has concentrated its efforts online and has been posting a flood of anti-election videos. Clips include footage of improvised street gatherings of people holding up signs reading “Don’t Go the Elections,” as well as cartoons and satirical montages decrying corruption and infringement of democratic freedoms.
Kazakhstan was not even supposed to have an election this year.
Nazarbayev’s current seven-year term was due to end in 2012, but that plan was derailed by a petition campaign to hold a referendum on abolishing the next two scheduled elections and for the president to remain in office for another decade.
The one-party parliament also supported the referendum idea, but Nazarbayev’s professed objections to the initiative precipitated an apparent impasse.
Other contenders in the election include Gani Kasymov, leader of the Party of Patriots, Communist People’s Party chief Zhambyl Akhmetbekov and environmentalist Mels Yeleusizov, who says he is only running to raise awareness about green issues. Critics deride these candidates as nominal opposition put in place to make the election appear democratic.


TITLE: Policeman Hated by Nationalists Shot in Head in Moscow
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — An Armenian-born Moscow police officer was shot and wounded in an attack possibly staged by ultranationalists who had him on their “firing squad lists,” news reports said Thursday. 
An unidentified assailant fired three shots at Gagik Benyaminyan, 42, late on March 2 when he arrived in his car at a police building on Shchyolkovskoye Shosse in eastern Moscow, a police spokeswoman told Interfax. 
Benyaminyan’s jaw was smashed by a bullet but he managed to drive away, with passers-by calling an ambulance and the attacker fleeing, Lifenews.ru said. The officer remained hospitalized in serious condition Thursday, Interfax said. 
Benyaminyan sparked ultranationalists’ fury last year when he was involved in a communal dispute between a Moscow music teacher and an Uzbek family of five who shared an apartment, Gzt.ru said. 
The Movement Against Illegal Immigration claimed that the Uzbeks tried to force the teacher, Yelena Zhurina, 45, to move out, “terrorizing” her to that effect, Gzt.ru said. She eventually did leave the apartment. 
The ultranationalists said Benyaminyan, who was assigned to resolve the dispute, was a friend of the Uzbek family and sided with them, even opening a case against Zhurina. 
The allegations were never proved but prompted many nationalist bloggers to accuse the officer of intentionally harassing “a Russian teacher.”


TITLE: Lithuania Grants Asylum To Enemy of Baturina
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A former city prefect wanted on suspicion of swindling the billionaire wife of the former Moscow mayor said he was granted political asylum in Lithuania. 
Yury Khardikov — accused of swindling Yelena Baturina of 1 billion rubles ($35 million) in a shady land deal — said prosecution against him in Russia prompted Lithuanian authorities to grant the asylum, Rosbalt news agency reported late Thursday. 
But Vilnius prosecutors are continuing a preliminary probe into Khardikov on suspicion of laundering $39 million that he allegedly transferred to Lithuania from Germany, the Lithuanian web site Litovsky Kuryer said Friday, without elaborating on the origin of the money. 
Russian investigators say Khardikov, a former top manager at Unified Energy Systems who became a Moscow prefect in 2007, has led Baturina’s company, Inteko, to purchase a land plot of unclear ownership in Sochi in 2005. 
But his problems only began in 2009, when then-Mayor Yury Luzhkov fired him from the job of the Northern Administrative District’s prefect, citing his bad performance on repairing apartment blocks. 
Khardikov, who was vacationing abroad at the time, opted not to return to Russia, where a case was opened against him later the same year. 
Khardikov was placed on the international wanted list on large-scale fraud charges, punishable with up to 10 years behind bars, in late 2009. 
He has arrived in Lithuania in 2010 and spent a month under arrest there on suspicion of money laundering, but was later released from detention, Litovsky Kuryer reported. 
Khardikov said at a press conference late January that he expects the Russian case against him to be closed following Luzhkov’s dismissal in September, Rosbalt said. 
But he also complained that Lithuanian authorities were “stifling” his business by freezing his bank accounts and confiscating his passport over the money laundering case. 
Luzhkov requested a residency permit in another Baltic state, Latvia, after his being fired, but authorities of the country he often lambasted on political grounds in the past refused his request in January.

TITLE: Bout’s New York Trial Is Delayed Until October
AUTHOR: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — The conspiracy trial of a former Soviet military officer charged with trying to sell weapons to a terrorist group was delayed until October after his new lawyers asked for additional time to prepare their case last week. 
Viktor Bout will be tried beginning Oct. 11 after U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin decided a series of pretrial motions in which his lawyers will seek to toss out charges or evidence he faces. Bout was originally scheduled to start trial in September. 
The 43-year-old Bout was extradited from Thailand last year and has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges. He was arrested in March 2008 in a Bangkok hotel, where U.S. authorities say he had met with informants who posed as officials of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also known as FARC, in a sting operation run by the Drug Enforcement Administration. 
The U.S. accused him of agreeing to smuggle missiles and rocket launchers to FARC, classified by Washington as a narco-terrorist group, and conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees. If convicted, he could face a mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty. 
After Bout’s extradition, the Russian government complained that it was unlawful and politically motivated. 
His new lawyer, Albert Y. Dayan, declined to discuss his defense strategy outside court last Thursday. 
He said he was pleased Scheindlin had asked prosecutors to report to her within a week on their efforts to persuade prison officials to make it easier for Bout to meet with his attorneys and otherwise was helping to “modify Mr. Bout’s harsh incarceration conditions.” 
Dayan said a sheet of glass separates him from his client, forcing him to hold each page of documents up to the window so Bout can see them. 
Outside court, Bout’s wife, Alla, complained that he was being held in solitary confinement, was being fed poorly and was not receiving all the privileges he was entitled to, such as a monthly 15-minute phone call to relatives. 
“It’s impossible to maintain one’s health under these conditions,” she said, expressing concern that his health will deteriorate before the trial. 
Bout listens to the radio as his “only contact with the outside world” and has begun learning how to draw, she said. 
Andrew Harkuscha, a family consultant who translated Alla Bout’s words for reporters who did not speak Russian, said Alla Bout visited with her husband for several hours each Monday. 
Bout has been accused of supplying weapons that fueled civil wars in South America, the Middle East and Africa, with clients including Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and the Taliban government. He was the inspiration for an arms dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film “Lord of War.”  


TITLE: Russia Remains Drug Capital
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Despite stepped-up government efforts, Russia remains a major consumer of dangerous drugs and a favorite place for laundering drug-trafficking profits, a U.S. government report has found.
“Russia is a major destination country for heroin from Afghanistan and is a user market for opium, hashish, marijuana, synthetics and other dangerous illegal substances,” said the annual report, which was published on the State Department’s web site Thursday.
Among the country’s risk factors are porous borders, its location as a geographic gateway between Europe and Asia, chronic underfunding and a lack of capacity of regulatory and law enforcement agencies, the report said.
This creates “an environment in which corruption and financial crimes flourish,” it finds.


TITLE: Oligarch Buys ‘Putin’s Palace’
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
TEXT: MOSCOW — If you’ve ever felt like picking up a seaside palace for a song, now might be the time.
At least, that’s what reclusive oligarch Alexander Ponomarenko claims to have done.
Acting on the principle “buy on a scandal, sell on good news,” the little-known billionaire claims to have picked up nothing less than the mysterious Italianate mansion dubbed “Putin’s Palace” by the media.
“If you’re not afraid to buy on a scandal, you can make good money,” Ponomarenko told Kommersant on Thursday.
Ponomarenko, who made his fortune controlling the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, said he had acquired the company Idokopas, which owns the palace complex, from Nikolai Shamalov and “two of his partners” the week before last.
Idokopas, Ponomarenko told the business daily, owns around 67 hectares of “recreational” land near the settlement of Praskoveyeka, including a “guesthouse” complex amounting to 26,000 square meters.
He also said he had bought a second company, Yazurnaya Yagoda, which owns 60 hectares of agricultural land near Divnomorsk, a settlement 13 kilometers from Praskoveyevka.
Ponomarenko, who seldom appears in the media but is rumored to be a recluse who nurtures a passion for hunting, said he hasn’t yet decided what to do with the vast property.
The unfinished mansion has been at the center of tabloid controversy since last December, when businessman Sergei Kolesnikov claimed that state funds were being diverted to build a personal palace for the prime minister.
Photographs that appeared on the whistleblowing site RuLeaks.org showed a sumptuous mansion with copious amounts of marble and gold leaf, as well as extensive landscaped gardens.
Last month, Environment Watch North Caucasus, a local green group that says the complex was illegally built on publicly owned forestland, got close enough to the site to take more photos before being detained by the Federal Guard Service.
Shortly afterward, the head of the presidential property service, Vladimir Kozhin, was caught lying about his connection to the building. He had denied having any knowledge of it, but documents made public by Novaya Gazeta last month show he had his deputy authorize the construction, and even personally signed relevant papers.
Ponomarenko refused to discuss the value of the deal, but hinted that he had picked it up for a song when Shamalov and his friends ran out of money to finish the building — and perhaps got fed up with the publicity it was attracting.
He conceded that an estimate the entire property would be worth $350 million when complete “is close to the truth.” Previous rumors have valued the helipad-equipped imitation Versailles at $1 billion.
But skeptics say picking up bargains like that takes more than business acumen and a stroke of luck.
In 2008, Ponomarenko and his long-time business partner Alexander Skorobogatko ceded a 20 percent stake in Kadina, the company through which they controlled Novorossiisk, to Arkady Rotenberg, a childhood friend and former judo partner of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Kadina and the rights to the Novorossiisk port were bought by a Transneft-led consortium in September. Ponomarenko now says he wants to go into property.
But Sergei Kolesnikov, who started the rumor mill rolling in December, suggested that knowing a “friend of the prime minister” like Rotenberg is enough to explain the pricing disparity.
The government position is that Putin himself has never had any connection to the project.
Whatever the truth about the house’s ownership, its apparent sale is the latest bizarre twist in a growing “battle of the dachas” that has seen environmentalists and opposition groups clash with high-profile holiday home owners on the Black Sea coast of Krasnodar.
Environment Watch North Caucasus has targeted a series of grandiose dwellings on the Krasnodar coast that they say have been built on public land and in violation of numerous environmental regulations.
Shortly after inspecting the “palace” in February, Environment Watch visited a church property — listed officially as a spiritual and cultural center — which also turned out to be built on forestland.
Forestland in Russia is publicly owned and freedom of access is guaranteed by law — making attempts to fence it off as private property illegal.


TITLE: Austrian Spy-Soldier Given Sentence
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A German court has given a one-year suspended prison sentence to an Austrian soldier who admitted to spying for Russia, marking the end of a 2007 espionage scandal that strained relations between Vienna and Moscow. 
Harald Sodnikar, a helicopter technician in Austria’s armed forces, accepted Tuesday’s ruling but maintained that he did not divulge any military secrets, local media reported Thursday. 
“The German judiciary was seemingly offended that Austria let go the Russian I had been in contact with, despite their extradition request,” Sodnikar said in an interview with the Oberosterreichische Nachrichten daily. 
The court in Munich ruled that Sodnikar, 54, had helped an agent of the Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, to obtain technical documentation about Eurocopter helicopters. 
But the SVR seemingly failed to get valuable military information like documents about Eurocopter’s Tiger combat helicopter. 
“No military secrets were divulged — but industrial espionage might also harm national interests,” the newspaper quoted Judge Manfred Gotzl as saying. 
The agent, Vladimir Vozhzhov, was based as a trade attache at the Russian Embassy in Vienna in the late 1990s and later worked at the Federal Space Agency. 
In 2007, Austrian police, acting on a German arrest warrant, arrested Vozhzhov in Salzburg. But he was released and returned to Moscow a week later. 
Vozhzhov’s release was officially explained with the fact that a United Nations inquiry found he had diplomatic immunity, but speculation lingered that Moscow had pressured the Austrian government. 
Sodnikar acted as a middleman between Vozhzhov and Werner Greipl, a former Eurocopter engineer, who in 2008 was convicted and given a suspended sentence for selling helicopter plans to a Russian agent. 
Austrian prosecutors dropped their case against Sodnikar but the country’s military might open a disciplinary hearing against the warrant officer, the reports said.

TITLE: City GRP Growing Faster Than GDP
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Tyomkin, Nadezhda Zaitseva and Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s economy grew by more than 5 percent last year, faster than the Russian economy overall. However, the growth was prompted by the low base effect — during the financial crisis, the manufacturing and retail sectors had massively reduced turnover. 
Yevgeny Yelin, chairman of St. Petersburg’s Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade announced last week that the city’s Gross Regional Product (GRP) grew in nominal terms (factoring in inflation) by 5.5 percent in 2010 to 1,662.3 billion rubles ($59 billion). GDP in Russia grew 4 percent last year to 44.49 trillion rubles ($1.58 trillion). In 2009 GRP fell by 5.7 percent (and GDP by 7.9 percent), while in 2008 it increased by 9.3 percent (GDP by 5.2 percent). 
Yelin claimed that the main reasons for growth in GRP were increases in production volume at St. Petersburg’s manufacturing sites and growth in residents’ income, leading in turn to increased retail turnover. 
According to state statistics agency Petrostat, St. Petersburgers’ real cash income increased in 2010 by 9.7 percent in comparison with 2009. Retail turnover increased by 6 percent over the year. Comparable turnover in stores showed consistent growth compared to 2009 throughout the year, said Irina Staroverova, a representative of Melon Fashion Group, a women’s fashion retailer. Computing retail grew by 7 percent in St. Petersburg in 2010, estimates Alexander Khomyakov, marketing director at Key technology retailer. Growth was high at the beginning of 2010 due to the disastrous start to 2009, but evened out toward the end of the year, he said, connecting rising turnover to inflation.
Turnover growth was also the result of increases in the volume of savings, Yelin said. According to him, since 2009 people have been more circumspect about spending compared to 2007 to 2008, and have begun to deposit more in bank accounts, or to buy stocks and foreign currency. In the last two years, the sum of deposits has grown one-and-a-half times in comparison with 2008, estimated Igor Kirillovykh, chairman of the board at Baltinvestbank. During the crisis, people spent less and paid more into bank accounts, as they were uncertain about the future, but now expenditure has begun to rise. Since last summer, the flow of funds to deposit accounts has slightly dropped, he said. 
In 2008, there was a drain of funds from deposit accounts, but in 2009 banks, needing liquidity, offered attractive conditions, which brought a 26 percent rise in savings in deposit accounts. In 2010, some of those offers were still available, and growth in the country overall was at 31 percent, said Olga Belenkaya, an analyst at Sovlink. According to figures from Petrostat, in 2009 11.6 percent of residents’ income was spent on foreign currency, compared to 9.9 percent for the first nine months of 2010. 
The index of industrial production in the city for 2010 was 108.9 percent compared to 2009. Vehicle manufacturing increased 2.4 times over, metallurgy by 26 percent, and the chemical industry by 24 percent. According to Vsevolod Lobov, head of the analytical division at Dohod Asset Management, there are a number of plants where production was dramatically cut in the crisis. As they returned to normal production capacity, the low base effect came into play. The concentration of manufacturing and income levels in St. Petersburg are higher than the national average, he said.
In 2011, GRP will grow in nominal terms by 3 to 4 percent, according to Vladimir Knyaginin, head of the Center for Strategic Research “North-West.” The Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade, meanwhile, expects growth in GRP of 4.8 percent. 

TITLE: Tourism Key to Petersburg Economy 

AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: While St. Petersburg’s City Hall plans to bring the contribution of tourism to the Gross Regional Product of the city up to 20 percent, travel professionals are developing strategies to increase the incoming flow of travelers to the city.
“Today the contribution of tourism to the economy of St. Petersburg is about 11 percent of local GDP. We’d like to increase this figure to 20 percent in the next five years,” Alexei Chichkanov, head of the city’s Committee for Investment and Strategic Planning, said at a meeting of the Senator Club devoted to St. Petersburg’s tourism market held in February.
Chichkanov said St. Petersburg is a city of service, and therefore it’s particularly important to develop tourism.
“The city’s idea to be not an industrial center but a center of services defines the policy of the city,” he was quoted by DP Media business communications agency as saying.
Sergei Korneyev, director of the northwestern regional branch of the Russian Tourism Industry Union, said St. Petersburg had finally turned into a European tourism center with all the corresponding attributes.
“European statistics show that in terms of the number of foreign visitors, St. Petersburg stands somewhere between Vienna and Venice. The city has achieved such results for the last three of four years,” Korneyev said at the same meeting.
However, experts say there are still many things that need to be done in the local tourism market to make the city more attractive for tourists.
One improvement would be the introduction of a tax-free system for shopping done by foreign tourists in Russia, said Andrei Chernykh, head of the Tourism Industry Commission at the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, who spoke at the city’s annual business meeting about the tourism industry last week.
“Unlike Europe, Russia still hasn’t introduced a tax-free system for foreign visitors. I’m sure if guests knew they had the opportunity to make use of a service like that here, they’d be even more willing to come,” Chernykh said.
“Of course, the law could not be drawn up overnight, as it would require the development of an entire system, but I think we’ll have it soon,” he said.
Korneyev, who also spoke at the same conference, said simplification of the visa regime would also have a positive effect on tourism levels.
The introduction of a visa-free regime for tourists arriving in St. Petersburg on the Finnish ferry the Princess Maria and staying in the city for no more than 72 hours had a very positive effect, Korneyev said.
“Currently, a similar offer is being considered for tourists arriving in the city on the new high-speed train Allegro from Finland,” he said.
Chernykh said a 72-hour visa-free regime for Allegro passengers could be introduced as early as this summer.
Korneyev said the introduction of a visa-free regime between Russia and countries such as Israel, Egypt, Hong Kong and Turkey had significantly increased the number of Russian tourists traveling to those countries.
The participants of the Senator Club meeting also discussed a number of other essential measures needed to develop incoming and domestic tourism, which were formulated by Denis Pak, assistant of Viktor Yevtukhov, member of the Russian Federation Council.
One of those measures would involve expansion of the city’s support for the opening of new infrastructure for tourists. 
Practice has shown that the current system of benefits, such as providing real estate for the construction of hotels under special programs, is not sufficient to provide the necessary number of reasonably priced hotels.
Yachting could be another component of local tourism thanks to the city’s location near the Baltic Sea. However, St. Petersburg would need more yachting infrastructure, participants said.
Experts also welcomed the innovative idea of the tourist Guest Card, a new project initiative which has been available through the kiosks of the St. Petersburg Tourist Information Center since last November.
Nana Gvichiya, general director of the City Tourist Information Center said the card would become an essential purchase for tourists in St. Petersburg.
“For us the card is an opportunity to raise the status of tourism in the city. The existence of a product like this indicates that our city is a Mecca for tourists,” Gvichiya said, according to DP media.
The card will provide tourists with the opportunity to visit a number of the city’s major museums without lines or any additional fees, and to get discounts in restaurants, hotels and stores that have signed up for the program. The Guest Card will include a bus excursion and a boat tour along St. Petersburg’s rivers and canals.
Chernykh said that in general the situation for tourism in St. Petersburg was developing favorably.
“What we also need to do to attract more tourists is to provide positive PR for the city and not only speak about the negative things all the time,” Chernykh said.


TITLE: Historic Malt-House Ruins to Be Auctioned
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s Property Fund has put up for auction the ruins of the malt-house of the Novaya Bavariya (“New Bavaria”) brewery on Petrovsky Island. The starting price for the monument of regional significance — which has a floor area of 1,600 square meters and 0.4 hectares of adjoining territory — stands at 130 million rubles ($4.6 million). The auction will be held June 8. 
Some years ago, the building was acquired for development by Zheldorstroyinvest, but the company was unable to meet the planning requirements, and the property was taken back into city ownership, according to a representative of the City Property Management Committee.
The adjacent land and buildings, covering around 40 hectares, belong to Nevsky Capital Partners, founded in 2004 by Lenstroimaterialy and KIT Finance bank. Nevsky Capital Partners has not reconsidered plans to develop the land, where about 800,000 square meters of space could be built, but no time frame has yet been established, said Boris Alexandrov, general director of the company. 
The company has yet to decide if it will bid at the auction for the malt-house. “It’s not a simple property, it’s in an unsatisfactory condition, and it’s not clear how it could be put to use,” said Alexandrov. 
The foundations, walls and roofs of the building are all damaged, according to the auction documents. However, the building is situated in an area where historic buildings cannot be demolished, except in the case of critical emergencies. Even then, the original appearance of the building has to be restored. 
Selling the property will be difficult because of the restrictions connected with its status, said Sergei Fyodorov, general director of Praktis CB.

TITLE: Skolkovo, Microsoft Invest in 1st Start-Up

AUTHOR: By Olga Razumovskaya 
TEXT: MOSCOW — Microsoft gave a $100,000 grant to the anti-piracy startup Pirate Pay last Friday, making it the first company to receive seed funding as a result of cooperation between the IT company and the Skolkovo Foundation, the organization behind the innovation hub near Moscow.
In November, when Microsoft head Steve Ballmer visited Russia to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Skolkovo Foundation, he outlined five major areas of cooperation, including the expansion of funding for Russian IT startups.
Pirate Pay, a Perm-based company that united three entrepreneurs a year and a half ago, beat several dozen IT startups to get the grant.
The company’s name stems from the Pirate Bay, a popular Swedish web site that hosts torrent files, which make unlawful uploading and downloading of copyrighted audio and video material possible with little risk of detection.
The technology invented by Pirate Pay will allow it to block existing torrents and protect the copyright on music and movies that have just been released, potentially putting an end to the uploading and downloading of unlicensed files first in Russia and, at a later stage of the project, globally.
Unlike other technologies that track files, Pirate Pay makes torrents virtually undownloadable, said Alexei Klimenko, technical director of the company.
“But we do not want to be perceived by [Internet] users as a bad company that just blocks everything, instead we want to help create a distribution system that will allow users to download licensed files for a set nominal fee, yet keep copyright holders happy,” he said.
Head of Microsoft Russia Nikolai Pryanishnikov said at a news conference Friday that the company intends to sponsor 100 IT startups in the next 10 years, issuing grants ranging between $30,000 and $500,000.
While the Skolkovo Foundation participates in the council that issues these grants, the money comes from Microsoft. Skolkovo funds projects of its own and has plans to sponsor 30 this year, Alexander Turkot, IT cluster development officer at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, said at the news conference.
Pryanishnikov hinted that the runner-up to Pirate Pay on the short list of five is a company that would soon get another grant from Microsoft and that some companies were advised to apply again after they get their business plans in order.
While Microsoft did not disclose the names of those companies, the projects included corporate messaging, a city infrastructure project, and a project that allows for the making of complex analytical reports with the use of cloud computing.
“IT companies may actually be better off because Skolkovo supports them, Microsoft supports them, and maybe if you write on [President] Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvedev]’s blog, you can get support,” he said, pointing out that IT companies should become an example to other Russian small- and medium-sized businesses.


TITLE: Mobile Communications Giants Invest in Yota for 4G
AUTHOR: By Olga Razumovskaya
TEXT: MOSCOW — The four biggest telecommunications operators and Scartel, which operates under the Yota brand, signed an agreement to build the next generation of mobile networks at a meeting last Thursday hosted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Communications and Press Minister Igor Shchyogolev.
Mobile TeleSystems, MegaFon, VimpelCom and Rostelecom — which became a significant mobile player thanks to its acquisition of SkyLink and merger with Svyazinvest — agreed to create a joint venture to develop a 4G network on the basis of Yota’s initial 4G infrastructure. 
The deal foresees the Yota Group eventually being divided in five parts, giving each stakeholder an equal share in the company.
The participants will be allowed to use Scartel’s 4G Long Term Evolution technology, or LTE, as well as network resources, and will have an option to buy out shares at market value in 2014, Scartel told The St. Petersburg Times in an e-mailed statement following the signing of the document.
Scartel committed to keep investing in network construction and said LTE services will be available in Russia as early as this year, with the network expanding to 180 cities by 2014. Because of the country’s size, the cutting-edge nature of the technology, and the volume of investment required, analysts are skeptical about the timetable — especially in light of the current absence of any LTE handsets.
“I really hope that what has been conceived will be realized with the help of the employees of your companies, with the help of state resources that we are ready to provide,” Putin said.
The fact that Russia’s big four operators joined Yota came as a surprise to market players, some of whom had not viewed it as in the running for the right to develop LTE.
Based on the presence of the ministers, it is clear that the transaction has support from the state, which is a part owner of Yota through the stake held by Russian Technologies, analysts say, but they caution that there are aspects of the deal to be finalized.
“Such calculations are not done on the spot in that way,” said Anna Lepetukhina, a telecoms analyst at Troika Dialog.
“It is too early to talk about the construction of one 4G network,” she said. “If the companies had ironed out all the details, they would have come out of those doors saying exactly that.”
Tele2, the Swedish operator that has invested $2.5 billion in its Russian operation and has 18 million mobile subscribers here, was not involved in Thursday’s agreement. The company, which says it has extensive experience building 4G networks in Europe and has offered to share its experience locally, has not lost hope of being included.
“It is too early to make any kinds of conclusions,” said Alexander Bakhorin, Tele2 Russia spokesman. “But we stick by our position to offer our technological expertise and to chip in for the investments.”
Analysts believe, however, that Thursday’s agreement seems to put a government seal of approval on the final list of 4G market players.


TITLE: Direct Sales Booming in Russia
AUTHOR: By Khristina Narizhnaya
TEXT: MOSCOW — Direct sales, also known as multi-level marketing, is a $3-billion business in Russia and growing fast, with companies like Amway, Avon, and Herbalife showing record sales results in 2010 and solid growth potential this year. 
Amway, an American company that sells beauty, health and home-care products and has recruited an army of 930,000 individuals working as sales distributors, achieved sales of 15.2 billion rubles ($538 million) last year, beating its 2008 record of 14.9 billion. 
“We had a very good year,” Amway general manager Richard Stevens said last week. 
Russia is the company’s biggest European market and is now home to nearly a third of its total worldwide sales force — with most of the sales activity taking place in Moscow.
The State Statistics Service does not track the results of the direct sales industry but, according to the Russia Direct Selling Association, or RDSA, sales in 2009 reached $3.1 billion, rising 12 percent from the previous year. 
The country’s direct sales market holds the seventh spot in the world. The World Federation of Direct Selling Associations, or WFDSA, held its annual conference for the first time in Russia last year.
“Russia is one of the biggest world markets in direct selling, and demonstrates significant potential for further growth of the industry,” WFDSA chairwoman Andrea Jung said in a statement on the RDSA web site. 
A combination of inexpensive pricing and the desire in the Russian mentality to cut out the middleman is behind the industry’s local success, observers say.
Makeup and beauty products lead the market with 78 percent share, while home and health goods represent 13 and 5 percent respectively. 
Last year Oriflame, a Swedish cosmetics giant that uses the direct sales model, opened a second factory and logistics center in Russia. The company’s domestic sales rose by 7 percent in the last quarter of 2010.
Herbalife makes NASDAQ’s list of 10 healthcare stocks with excellent growth prospects. In the last year, the company’s stock has gained more than 100 percent. 
“We are growing internationally, so here business is growing too,” said one Herbalife Russia distributor who did not want to be named because of citizenship problems. He has been a distributor for the company in Moscow for the last 19 years and now makes more than $70,000 per month selling products and recruiting and training new employees. 
Multi-level marketing companies, which gain customers and then turn them into sales people in a pyramid fashion, earned a bad reputation in Russia for overly aggressive advertising and recruiting, but apparently that’s all in the past.
“When the Soviet Union collapsed it was a wild market, nobody understood what it was about. It’s not relevant to our business anymore,” said the Herbalife distributor, who attempted to sell weight-loss products to the reporter during the interview.
The growth of these companies may be in part due to growing acceptance of the entrepreneurial spirit in the country. More than two-thirds of Russians, or 72 percent, view entrepreneurial activity positively, according to an Amway survey. This is greater than in Europe, where 69 percent approve. 
The level of competition has significantly grown, said Maxim Klyagin, an analyst with the investment holding Finam.
Higher School of Economics professor Olga Tretyak recently began to investigate nonstandard shopping trends. The research includes all shopping done outside of a traditional store environment.
“It’s not a very well understood area, but it is clear that it’s growing quickly,” Tretyak said.


TITLE: Gazprom Expands Interests in Far East

AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom outbid another government-controlled contender last week for the right to develop the huge Kovykta field near China’s border, ending years of uncertainty about the prize natural gas asset formerly co-owned by BP. 
TNK-BP, a joint venture between the British oil major and a group of Russian billionaires, had to bankrupt the company that owned the Kovykta rights in an effort to recoup its investment, which went wrong after the government hampered plans for China exports years ago. 
Kovykta could be useful for Gazprom, as it says it is inching closer to its own deal to supply China. 
Gazprom emerged the winner in the Kovykta bidding, where it faced off with a unit of Rosneftegaz, a state-owned holding company that owns 75 percent of the country’s biggest oil producer Rosneft, said bidding manager Oleg Smetanin. TNK-BP chief financial officer Jonathan Muir said the company was happy with the highest bid of 22.3 billion rubles ($777 million). 
Formally, Gazprom bought from bankrupt Rusia Petroleum the property on the field, which excludes the license to develop the rich gas deposits of 1.9 trillion cubic meters. The gas export monopoly can, however, ask the Federal Subsoil Resource Use Agency to reissue the license in its name after the acquisition, said Natural Resources and Environment Ministry spokeswoman Yelena Koverga. 
“The license will then be reissued,” she told The St. Petersburg Times. “The law has stipulations for this type of procedure.” 
Gazprom spokesman Igor Volobuyev declined to comment on the deal last week. 
Gazprom chief Alexei Miller, in his latest statement on Kovykta in October, said Gazprom wouldn’t want to develop the field until 2018. He made the comment even as the company aimed to agree on the price of potential supplies to China this coming July to start sales in 2015. 
Gazprom now plans to use its West Siberian fields to feed a yet-to-be-built pipeline to China. Kovykta lies in East Siberia. 
Gazprom could rethink the future of Kovykta if it finds it cheaper to use the field’s gas in the China deal, if it materializes, said Alexander Nazarov, an analyst at Metropol. It would take three years to produce the first gas at Kovykta, he estimated. 
Artyom Konchin, an analyst at UniCredit Securities, said it made more sense for Gazprom to stick with its current plan for tapping West Siberian reserves for any deliveries to China. 
“I don’t see any advantages,” he said about the option to use Kovykta instead. 
Even if Gazprom has no plans to develop Kovykta in the immediate future, it may have taken pains to acquire the field simply to stave off Rosneftegaz — and Rosneft — from gaining a high-profile natural gas asset, Nazarov said. 
Rosneftegaz, despite also owning 10 percent of Gazprom, is widely believed to have represented Rosneft in the bidding. 
TNK-BP invested at least $700 million in developing Kovykta, but the project stalled after the government designated Gazprom a monopoly to export natural gas, in a 2006 law that was a lethal blow to the TNK-BP plan to pump the fuel from the field to China. 
As a result of the legislative change, TNK-BP failed to raise production at the field as high as the license terms required, prompting threats from the government to revoke the license. The company agreed in 2007 to sell its 63 percent Rusia Petroleum stake to Gazprom for $700 million to $900 million, but the deal fell through without explanation from either side. 
Rusia Petroleum filed for bankruptcy after TNK-BP in May demanded repayment of the loans it provided to develop the field. Rusia’s other shareholders are electricity company OGK-3, with 25 percent, and the Irkutsk regional government, with 11 percent.
Miller also announced last week that Gazprom is looking to build an oil refinery on Sakhalin, where international consortiums have been producing crude for export in multibillion-dollar projects. 
The world’s biggest natural gas producer plans to wrap up by the end of this year the drafting of an investment proposal for the refinery, Miller said in a meeting with Sakhalin Governor Alexander Khoroshavin. 
This would be Gazprom’s first refinery. 
As part of the idea, Gazprom is trying to make sure the refinery will secure sufficient crude supplies, Miller said in a Gazprom statement released Thursday evening. 
A Gazprom spokesman declined to elaborate on the statement Friday. Calls and e-mails to Alexei Bayandin, spokesman for the Sakhalin governor, went unanswered Friday. 
By looking at the refinery option, Gazprom could seek to make better use of the oil it plans to produce from its offshore fields in the Sakhalin-3 area. 
“Sakhalin-3 is Gazprom’s most promising Sakhalin project that could use a refinery,” said Alexander Shtok, an expert with the 2K Audit-Business Consultations firm. 


TITLE: McDonald’s Keeps Direct Ownership
AUTHOR: By Khristina Narizhnaya
TEXT: MOSCOW — McDonald’s, one of the biggest franchisers in the world, will continue to directly own all of its Russian restaurants for the near future, Khamzat Khasbulatov, the corporation’s president in Russia and Eastern Europe, said last week.
“We have a successful operation, we don’t have the motivation to franchise,” Khasbulatov said. 
Khasbulatov touted the company’s franchise model in use worldwide, but said there are some risks involved in applying it to Russia. “There are judicial risks,” he said, without elaborating.
Although the franchise model is widely used in Russian business, the law does not recognize the term. The legal code only has a clause about “commercial concessions.” A new bill is under review in the State Duma that will make franchising official.
Russian Franchise Development Association president Alexander Mailer compared the vague legal situation around franchising to the often quoted talk show when a female citizen maintained that there is no sex in the Soviet Union — meaning the activity was never publicly discussed in the U.S.S.R. 
Franchising requires a healthy small business environment with entrepreneurs who have access to large amounts of startup capital — which is in short supply in Russia. Lack of training and intellectual property protection also stands in the way of successful franchising operations.
Last year, the fast-food giant opened 31 restaurants in the country, mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg and regions surrounding the cities, and has expanded as far south as Belgorod. The total number of McDonald’s outlets in Russia at the end of 2010 was 275. All restaurants are in the European part of the country. Khasbulatov said this is because of logistics and infrastructure challenges.
Local restaurants serve about 700,000 customers a year on average, one of the highest numbers for McDonald’s in the world. In 2010, roughly 200 million people ate at outlets in Russia. 
The company plans to open 40 more restaurants in 2011 — at least half of them in Moscow, St. Petersburg and surrounding regions. A McDonald’s is slated to open in a few weeks in Veliky Novgorod, an ancient city 530 kilometers northwest of the capital. 
The company has invested heavily in building and training its local supply chain — at one point even owning its own factory. Now McDonald’s sources about 80 percent of its ingredients domestically, but said it plans to increase that to 100 percent eventually.
McDonald’s has enough cash flow to finance expansion and improvement of existing facilities, Khasbulatov said. 
Last year, the company invested 5 billion rubles ($176.2 million) to open new restaurants and modernize facilities. This year McDonald’s expects to spend even more, but exact figures are not available.
Russia may not be an ideal franchising landscape, Mailer said, but the main reason for the company’s reluctance is that they are so successful here. The chain attracts a record number of customers and has virtually no competitors.
“What’s the point of sharing profit with an outsider?” Mailer said. 
McDonald’s has successfully franchised in nearby countries including Georgia, Moldova and Latvia. The corporation might come up with a franchise strategy for Russia in about two years, Khasbulatov said.


TITLE: Mine Safety Spending Outlined
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
TEXT: MOSCOW — Coal mining companies might have to set aside as much as a third of their combined profit from last year to increase safety spending, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Thursday.
The plan to force the companies, including Raspadskaya and Evraz, to earmark 24 billion rubles ($820 million) for safety measures over the next two years comes as 10 coal miners have died in shafts so far this year. A total of 135 miners died at work in 22 accidents last year, mostly in the Raspadskaya disaster in May — a shock that triggered the nationwide tightening of the industry’s safety rules.
The country’s coal mining companies, which together operate 168 mines, collectively earned a profit of 73 billion rubles last year, Shmatko said. 
Shmatko made the comments at a government meeting chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that discussed progress in the national campaign to make the industry safer to work in. Other attendees included Severstal chief Alexei Mordashov, Raspadskaya director Gennady Kozovoi and SUEK chief Vladimir Rashevsky.
Ivan Mokhnachuk, chairman of the Independent Union of Coal Mining Workers, said at the meeting that suspected safety violations caused the 10 miners’ deaths this year. He said the situation was especially worrisome at Russky Ugol mines, where most of the deaths occurred.
Nikolai Kutin, head of the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Atomic Inspection, said his subordinates, using new powers, suspended operations at coal mines scores of times last year until safety problems were rectified. The measure didn’t stop the industry from increasing output by 7 percent to 323 million tons because, Kutin said, they were able to catch up.
“That’s unexpected,” Putin responded.
Kozovoi said Raspadskaya was still battling the fire that broke out after the deadly methane explosion.

TITLE: Visas Could Be Scrapped
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia may cancel visas for foreigners, a senior Federal Border Service official said Tuesday, adding that the move would not harm security and might attract more European tourists.
The number of people traveling to Russia from the European Union has been steadily decreasing in recent years, the official, Vyacheslav Dorokhin, said at a news conference in Moscow.
“It’s hard to explain why it is happening,” Dorokhin said, adding that ever more Russians are traveling to the EU, Interfax reported.
“I think the cancellation of the visa regime would help boost the number of people looking to visit our country,” he said, according to RIA-Novosti.
Dorokhin did not specify any timeframe for a cancellation of visas and did not say whether he was referring only to tourist visas or other types as well.
He also did not indicate whether his proposal referred solely to the EU or included other regions as well. 

TITLE: Katyrin Appointed Head 
Of Chamber of Commerce
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation elected Sergei Katyrin as its new president Friday. 
Katyrin, 56, who served as the chamber’s vice president since 1992, replaces long-serving Yevgeny Primakov, who refused to run for the post again. 
The 81-year-old Primakov — who was educated as an orientalist, served as a member of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s presidential council, head of the foreign intelligence service, foreign minister, prime minister and twice as the country’s special envoy to Sadaam Hussein — asked the delegates of the chamber’s convention to vote for Katyrin, saying the nominee had the backing of President Dmitry Medevedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. 
Out of the 437 delegates, 433 voted for Katyrin, while four abstained. The alternative candidate for the post was president of the chamber’s Novorossiisk branch Igor Zharinov, who garnered one vote.
According to its web site, the chamber is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization whose mission is to contribute to the development and large-scale application of innovation, modern technologies and also promote a knowledge-driven economy. It represents and protects the business community’s interests in government agencies and with local authorities, and participates in drafting of laws and other regulatory acts affecting the interests of entrepreneurs, while establishing an efficient system for independent expert analysis of such legislation.

TITLE: A Repeat of Egypt in Central Asia
AUTHOR: By Dmitry Polikanov
TEXT: It seems that everyone is an expert on the Middle East nowadays. Political scientists, bloggers, radical opposition and media are commenting, seeking parallels, admiring the battle spirit of the Arabs and cursing the corrupt regimes. Russia is certainly not an exception. The temptation is too high. Many in the ruling elite are eager to start a new witch hunt against the Orange Revolutionaries. Meanwhile, the majority of the opposition uses the Arab world as a reference point to justify the decade-old mantras about “all is rotten in our kingdom.”
Is there a possibility that the Tunisian, Egyptian or Libyan scenarios may occur in Russia? So far the answer is “no.” On the domestic front, the opposition political field is empty. There is no movement or charismatic figure who can lead such protests. The opposition, as well as the ruling elite, lacks the “conscience of the nation” — a mediator who has moral grounds to defy the current regime and has little or no connection with the abuses of the 1990s or 2000s. Moreover, all opinion polls indicate that only a major socioeconomic collapse may become the driving force for street action. A much-quoted recent poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation in which 49 percent indicated their willingness to participate in protests is largely hypothetical rather than a real desire to hit the streets en masse in the near future. Notably, during the popular campaign against the government’s plan to monetize social benefits in 2005, the figure was more than 60 percent.
Some argue that external factors should not be underestimated when analyzing the risk of mass unrest in Russia. People disseminating instructions on “democratic change” in the Egyptian crowd, mobilization through social networks, foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations, all speak about a U.S. involvement in stoking protests. But it is only natural that Washington eventually engaged all its capabilities in this strategically important region. But Russia does not have this level of importance for U.S. democracy fighters.
When President Dmitry Medvedev in Vladikavkaz on Feb. 22 mentioned some mysterious “forces” that are interested in instability in Russia, he gave political commentators and politicians a lot of food for thought. If these forces are Islamists, they enjoy practically no support and there are not many of them in Russia. If they are nationalists, this is a more serious force, even though their purely fascist slogans are shared by no more than 20 percent of the population, and they are not considered to be a real force to replace the existing authorities since they have no serious political program.
If the forces are Americans, it means that nothing will happen either. It is not in the interests of Washington to have an unstable or disintegrated Russia, especially in view of potential instability in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2014. It is not in the interests of U.S. President Barack Obama to sacrifice his much-prized “reset” with Russia, which seems to be one of the few achievements of his presidency.
The paradox is that even if the United States were to start this type of subversive campaign, the result would be the direct opposite. Anti-Western rhetoric would be a large cementing factor for Russian society. For historical reasons — and perhaps even “genetically” — the Russians have an addiction to conspiracy theories and an inherent need to create external enemies. But people who lived during the Soviet period do not want to revert back to spy mania and xenophobia, and they do not want to lose their country again.
Under these circumstances, Russia and the United States have one common goal. The Middle East scenario is much more probable for the fragile former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Helpless dancing around Andijan or turmoil in Kyrgyzstan — when all external players preferred to sit on the fence rather than intervene — indicates that the leading global powers lacked real tools to influence the situation there. Military bases are not a stabilization factor, and it is impossible to buy out the loyalty of the elites. Moreover, the authoritarian regimes are resistant to any persuasion, and the Islamists live their own life together with the drug mafia.
Therefore, there is an urgent need for a new policy toward Central Asia. Both Russia and the United States should demand more transparency from these countries to protect their interests in the region — whether they be business or simple security. Moscow and Washington should focus on working with the elites — both potential heirs and opposition leaders.
This is the major lesson from the Middle East. Instead of elbowing their way to geopolitical domination, the United States and Russia should play the role of the kind of “forces” Medvedev alluded to in Vladikavkaz. This is the only way that they can succeed.
Dmitry Polikanov is vice president of the PIR Center, the Russian Center for Policy Studies.

TITLE: Serdyukov Four Years On
AUTHOR: By Ruslan Pukhov
TEXT: Last month marked four years since the once little-known Anatoly Serdyukov was unexpectedly named defense minister. At the time, most observers assumed that the former tax official’s main mission would be to put the military’s financial affairs in order. Defense spending had risen continuously in the first half of the 2000s without producing any tangible results, and Serdyukov’s predecessor, Sergei Ivanov, had declared military reforms to have been completed. But within 18 months of becoming defense minister, Serdyukov understood the need for radical reforms, having seen for himself just how far the armed forces had deteriorated — a conclusion that was made even clearer after the army’s disappointing performance in the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008.
In short, Serdyukov’s reforms aim to eliminate the Soviet army and build up a modern one in its place. The new army must be able to meet the new threats to Russia’s security while compensating for the country’s diminished economic and demographic realities. There is a clear unspoken understanding that a large-scale war with NATO or China is not only unlikely for political reasons, but that Russia lacks the resources to fight such a conventional war anyway. All parties concerned know perfectly well that were such a conflict to erupt, Moscow would be forced to rely on its nuclear deterrent.
At the same time, there is a growing danger of local and regional conflicts breaking out. All of the former Soviet republics except the Baltic states face threats of separatism and inter-ethnic conflicts, as well as by unstable and authoritarian regimes. Russia cannot ignore and must become involved in most of these conflicts, as it was forced to do in August 2008.
These are the types of conflicts for which Serdyukov’s army must prepare itself. What’s more, the army is already involved in this type of conflict in the North Caucasus, where ethnic separatist uprisings and almost daily terrorist attacks have turned the region into a virtual war zone.
Serdyukov’s military reforms essentially continue the political and economic reforms of the 1990s while responding to the current leadership’s call for modernization. Those reforms might well be the largest project of the last decade related to matters of state, with the possible exception of the moderately successful attempt to pacify Chechnya. In a wider military and historical context, the reforms being carried out by Serdyukov and Sergei Makarov, chief of the North Caucasus Military District, are the most radical and profound transformation the army has undergone since at least the time of Leo Tolstoy and Bolshevik leader Mikhail Frunze.
What is particularly interesting is how Russia’s leadership has reacted to these military reforms. The Kremlin and White House, which are usually careful to avoid any action that could spark social unrest or upset the status quo bureaucracy, have given strong support to Serdyukov despite widespread criticism and hysterical opposition from members of the military establishment.
That support has been shown in both political and financial form. Even during the most difficult period of the 2009 economic crisis, financing these reforms remained a top budgetary priority. Moreover, judging from recently announced plans to supply the armed forces with modern equipment and to meet the legal obligation of providing apartments to all retiring officers, that support will continue into the future.
The real question is how long that political and financial support will continue. Perhaps it is the fear that the reforms could be undermined or derailed that prompted reformers to push the changes through with such rapidity.
As reformer Sergei Witte, prime minister of imperial Russia in 1905-06, once said: “In Russia, reforms must be carried out quickly and in great haste. Otherwise, most will either fail or falter.”

Ruslan Pukhov is director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies and publisher of the journal Moscow Defense Brief.


TITLE: History repeating
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Musician and artist Vasily Shumov, whose group Center was one of the leading bands of the 1980s Russian rock revolution, remains innovative and subversive at a time when many of his peers appear to have become tired and lost touch. 
Although he spent almost two decades away from Russia, returning for an occasional visit to showcase albums, his work has remained closely connected to what is happening in Russia and touches on issues that some prefer to avoid.
Having returned from Los Angeles, where he had been based since 1990, Shumov has reformed Center with the musicians that he played with in the band’s early years and is set to attempt to bring back to Russian music and art what it has lost since the 1980s explosion — content.
Since 2009, Shumov has been producing an ongoing project called Soderzhaniye (Content) consisting of collaborations with various Russian musicians that deal with some of the country’s most pressing issues, ranging from corruption to poverty, censorship, lawlessness and pensioners’ problems. The second album in the Soderzhaniye series came out and was showcased with a concert in Moscow last week.
Speaking to The St. Petersburg Times last week, Shumov said he went to Moscow in December 2008 to present Center’s new American album, the Los Angeles-recorded “The Past Has No Future” (U Proshlogo Net Budushchego), but his stay turned out to be longer than he expected.
“I found myself in Moscow on New Year’s Eve for the first time in perhaps 20 years, and it so happened that I was near the television for New Year’s Eve 2008-2009 and watched all the music programs they showed during the night,” he said.
“Because I had not been here for a long time, I had no idea who the artists were who were singing, clinking glasses and throwing confetti; I thought they were local artists, television stars, but something moved in me, some energy, I didn’t know then what it was. Then Old New Year is celebrated in this country after a while, and once again, I found myself in front of the television, and they repeated them all, all those New Year music programs. I felt that energy again. I realized that all of this crowd that sings, dances, jokes and kisses one other, they have one thing in common. For all their veneer and glamour, they have no content inside; they’re totally empty songs and empty people. No content.”
Inspired by his reaction to Russian New Year music shows, Shumov formulated a theory that art will regain content that it has lost.
“My concept is that during the entire 20th century, art worked with form — all those ‘isms’ starting with Dadaism; the entire 20th century represented ‘isms,’” he said.
“When ideas ran out, postmodernism appeared, when artists began to work with pre-existing work and rework them in a new way. It is all work with form. But content has stepped aside from artworks, and form has reached the absolute. In my view, you can’t make anything new anymore by working with form, because proper artwork should always have a content aspect, which has disappeared. So I think that art, including music, will be imbued with content during the next ten years.”
With two albums already released, the Soderzhaniye project is planned to total ten albums. “There is a conceptual reason, because the word ‘Soderzhaniye’ is made up of ten letters [in Cyrillic] and we have ten guitar silhouettes in our logo,” Shumov said.
“The first few albums are supposed to draw attention to this idea — that it would be good to fill Russian rock and Russian art in general with content. So that a person who gets up on stage could be asked, ‘Why have you come on stage? Why are you standing there? Do you have anything to say? Or do you just want us to see how you dance, what dance or vocal lessons you have taken, what haircut you’ve got or what boutique you bought your clothes in?’
“I’d like to stress that Soderzhaniye is a purely Russian project, because from a Russian musician, people expect sincerity, rather than virtuosity or whatever. Why do they still like [Vladimir] Vysotsky or Maik Naumenko? Because [they wrote] kind of confessional songs that resonated in the souls of the Russian people. They had honest songs; that’s a good example of content.”
The project’s opening album, which came out in February 2010, was presented live in July that year with a nearly ten-hour outdoor music event, Soderzhaniye Live, held as part of the Pilorama festival at Perm-36, the former Soviet political labor camp that is the only one to have been turned into a museum. The album and live event featured Center, Televizor and Barto, among others.
Shumov, whose band Center made its live debut during Moscow’s Olympic Games in 1980, compares present-day Russia to the pre-perestroika Soviet Union, both in music and life in general.
“If anybody cares to recall, in the U.S.S.R. in the 1970s, which are now known as the ‘stagnation period,’ there were an unbelievable number of servile pop bands who sang songs by Soviet composers about the Komsomol, major Soviet construction projects and love,” he said.
“It is reminiscent of the 2000s, because they were also characterized by stagnation. Musicians frittered themselves away playing corporate parties, making a buck here, a buck there. They turned into servants of the system, just as 1970s pop bands were in the U.S.S.R. They became creatively dead.
“Then, all of a sudden, everything started to happen in the early 1980s, when bands such as Zoopark, Kino and Center emerged who had nothing to do with the past generations of servile pop musicians.
“I feel like we are living in a kind of 1981 now — when something has started to happen in music, and even in all other spheres.”
Last month, Shumov wrote a song called “I Feel Good” (Mne Khorosho), a bitter satire on musicians who are comfortable with the current situation in Russia.
He said the song was a reaction to RenTV television channel’s January program “Notes of Protests” that dealt with the growing protest movement in Russian music. As well as socially conscious musicians such as Shumov, Televizor’s Mikhail Borzykin and DDT’s Yury Shevchuk, the channel spoke to artists who back the authorities.
Making the point that Russians live well under the current political regime, Chaif’s Vladimir Shakhrin said that he was able to go on vacation with his family to Italy, where he rents a car and drives across the country. Mashina Vremeni’s Andrei Makarevich said that the root of problems in Russia were, in reality, the Russian people and the kind of country it was, rather than the Kremlin. Ivanushki International’s Kirill Andreyev went as far as to suggest that those who were not satisfied with things should leave the country, because they were not patriots. 
All these quotes were incorporated in Shumov’s song sung from the perspective of an artist who is happy with everything.
“They are simply lackeys, the ordinary driving belts of this system, which can be called either post-Soviet or neo-Soviet,” Shumov said. 
“They say that rock music is over, that we should all stop resisting and live happily, and that Russia’s problems come not from the authorities but from its own people. That’s how they justify their form of existence as lackeys and toadies.
“It’s not only about musicians, but about all the people who feel good now, who are satisfied with everything and don’t want anything changed, God forbid. Who have adapted themselves to this kind of system.” 
Shumov is critical of President Dmitry Medvedev’s televised meetings with rock musicians, including Makarevich and Shakhrin, and U2’s Bono.
“I don’t know what’s in it for them, what the point is and what result it leads to,” he said.
“To say that somebody loves rock music? Will anybody feel better because of that? We have no free elections in this country. All these people were ‘elected’ or rather appointed at faked elections, became ‘successors’ and then it turns out that they love rock music. Perhaps Gaddafi likes some kinds of music too, but now he is bombing his own people. He even invited somebody to play a concert for him.”
Unlike in the Soviet Union, rock bands may not be banned, but censorship has returned and taken an even nastier, more secretive form in today’s Russia, according to Shnumov.
“It is blossoming now; it exists in some secret blacklists, some hints that you can’t speak about certain things, that you can’t criticize Putin,” he said.
“The face of the system is [television talk show host Vladimir] Pozner. He says ‘I accept the rules of the game,’ that ‘there are certain things I can’t speak about in my program,’ that ‘there are certain people that I can’t invite to appear on my program, because a blacklist exists that I can’t tell you about.’
“So a rotten system is blossoming again due to the Pozners. If the Americans have [journalism hero] Hunter S. Thompson, the Russians have Pozner. The embodiment of servility, decay and complete spiritual failure.”
Reacting to Shevchuk’s televised argument with Putin last year, as well as a high-profile concert in defense of the Khimki forest that the authorities attempted to ban in Moscow, and Noize MC’s confrontation with the police in Volgograd that landed the rapper in prison for ten days, mainstream Russian media outlets have reported on the emergence of a “fashion” or “trend” for protest songs. Shumov disagreed.
“If you live in Moscow, you don’t need any outside motivation to start writing protest songs,” he said.
“You drive across Moscow and you are simply driven off the road like some sort of louse, because some big shot is being driven along the road. You should squeeze up against the roadside and wait for hours until some little tsar passes by. Nobody cares if you have an important meeting or anything else, and that applies to thousands of people. 
“Ask people in Egypt, Libya or Tunisia, what kind of fashion do they have there now? Go ask Egyptians and Libyans why they are rioting there. Ask that vegetable seller who set himself on fire in Tunisia. What was his motivation? Who provoked him?”

<i>Soderzhaniye 2 is out now on Soyuz record label.</i>

TITLE: CHERNOV’S CHOICE
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Rock musicians are among those who protest the trial of imprisoned businessman and Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was given another prison sentence in December, as politically motivated and orchestrated by the Kremlin.
Last week, Khodorkovsky’s supporters got a response from 55 “representatives of the public” who signed an open letter against those who criticized the trial. The letter claimed that “certain activists” manipulated public opinion and put “unprecedented” pressure on the justice system.
Speaking to The St. Petersburg Times, Vasily Shumov of the rock group Center described the letter as a “Soviet atavism,” reminiscent of open letters against dissident authors published in Soviet newspapers. 
Most of the signatories were unknown, but one sent waves throughout the music scene and artistic community: Sergei Bugayev, also known as Afrika. Bugayev was an artist and musician who was active in Leningrad during the 1980s rock explosion. He appeared with Akvarium’s Boris Grebenshchikov, Kino and the late Sergei Kuryokhin’s Pop Mechanics, and also starred in Sergei Solovyov’s perestroika film “Assa” alongside Kino’s late frontman Viktor Tsoi.
Bugayev’s signature probably did not come as so much of a surprise to anyone who had followed his recent public movements. In 2009, he was seen at Seliger camp, lecturing the Kremlin-backed youth organization Nashi, and last year slammed DDT’s Yury Shevchuk for his argument with Putin over human rights and freedoms in Russia.
In an op-ed piece in Izvestia newspaper this week, Bugayev appeared to be a fully-fledged Putinist. “Criticism of the state through art at this stage is a harmful thing,” he said.
“People should understand that all the conquests of freedom are still so unstable that there is a risk of sliding back into totalitarianism. We are not the strong superpower that the U.S.S.R. was. Russia may not survive. Why provoke matters?”
In the same interview, Bugayev mentioned that he was planning to cooperate with the state.
“Cooperating” with the state can be quite profitable, as a recent controversy has shown. It emerged at the weekend that the proceeds of a charity event headlined by Vladimir Putin, who famously sang “Blueberry Hill,” and featuring Western stars from Paul Anka to Sharon Stone and Mickey Rourke were not given to sick children and hospitals as announced, but “disappeared.” (See story, page 2).
According to Agence France Presse, the Kremlin said that it had nothing to do with the charity and that it was the Federatsiya Foundation that was in charge, while a spokeswoman for the foundation — with the improbable sounding name Kristina Snickers — said that Federatsiya did not deal with the money, and does not even have a bank account.

— By Sergey Chernov


TITLE: Dancing their way to Paris
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
TEXT: Dressed in black tights, Natalya, 26, dances in front of a jury. Her dancing is important, but just as vital are her vital statistics. 
A children’s choreographer from Minsk, she was trying last week to become a dancer in the Crazy Horse cabaret, a Parisian-based dance show that has combined striptease and burlesque for the last 60 years.  
“I am looking for a job right now and, frankly speaking, I want to go away to Europe,” Natalya, who declined to give her last name, said after an audition at the Olimpiisky Sports Complex in Moscow last Sunday. 
A tape measure was as essential as good moves at the casting session, as Crazy Horse requirements, stipulated by its founder Alain Bernardin in 1951, dictate very strict body sizes for all the dancers. They must all have dancing experience, too. 
“It was difficult to find girls for selection. Some didn’t have a professional background, some lacked the required parameters,” said Yelena Bedush from the booking agency MMDB.ru, which organized the competition. 
Bernardin not only specified height — dancers must be between 1.68 and 1.72 meters — but dictated the distance between the women’s nipples (27 centimeters), and between the navel and the pubis (13 centimeters). 
The IKEA flatplan approach to dancers was so that all the dancers look alike in shape and size, and become indistinguishable from one another in dances that use creative lighting effects to tease audiences with the degree of nudity on stage. 
Only five of the several hundred applicants made it to the final casting, which was due to take place at the weekend.  
Only one or two of those will join the cabaret, which already has several dancers from the former Soviet Union.  
“When a girl joins Crazy Horse, she joins the best troupe in the world,” said jury member and television host Dmitry Dibrov, a voluble and portly man for whom 27 centimeters between nipples is but a long and distant dream. 
Although the show may not be as famous as Moulin Rouge, it has been seen by more than 8 million people. Elvis Presley, Madonna and John F. Kennedy have been among the guests during the show’s history. 
In recent years, Crazy Horse has invited guest performers such as American burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese. Five special dances were created for her at Crazy Horses.  
“It is nice to be bathed in that mystical Crazy Horse lighting and to be surrounded with those amazing girls,” Von Teese told the IndieLondon web site in 2009. 
A Crazy Horse show titled “Forever Crazy” was showing at a Moscow concert hall through Tuesday, March 8. The show was made as a tribute to its founding father, Bernardin, who died in 1994.  
In a city where striptease bars are a dime a dozen, it is unlikely that any audience was shocked by the nudity on show at Crazy Horse, as former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was when he saw his first cabaret dance on the set of the movie “Can-Can” on a visit to Hollywood in 1959. 
Khrushchev noted that the dancing “cannot be considered quite decent.” 


TITLE: Good Cop, Bad Cop
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ïîëèöåéñêèé: police officer

Ïðèøëà âåñíà è íàðîä ãóëÿåò! (Spring is here, and folks are having fun!) Or: Åù¸ íå ïðèøëà âåñíà è íàðîä ñ óìà ñõîäèò! (Spring still isn’t here and folks are going nuts!) In any case, ðåáðåíäèíã (rebranding) of ìèëèöèÿ (militia) into ïîëèöèÿ (police) has been íàðîäíîå òâîð÷åñòâî (public creativity) of the best kind. Reading the news is like a night at a comedy club.
It all started with an article on how the public should address the newly named cops. A language expert admitted that he didn’t have any idea. Theoretically, we should politely call a cop ãîñïîäèí ïîëèöåéñêèé (Mr. Policeman), but he said: Ñòàòóñ íàøåé áûâøåé ìèëèöèè, à òåïåðü ïîëèöèè êàê-òî î÷åíü ïëîõî âÿæåòñÿ ñî ñòàòóñîì ñëîâà “ãîñïîäèí” (The status of our former militia and now police for some reason really doesn’t fit the status implied by the word “mister”).
On the other hand, he said, “òîâàðèù ïîëèöåéñêèé” — ýòî ñòðàøíîå ïðîòèâîðå÷èå ìåæäó ñîâåòñêèì “òîâàðèù” è çàïàäíûì “ïîëèöåéñêèé” (“comrade policeman” is a horrible contradiction — Soviet “comrade” and Western “policeman”). He suggested opening up the topic for discussion: Ñåé÷àñ ñ ïîìîùüþ èíòåðíåòà ìîæíî ïðèâëå÷ü êó÷ó íàðîäà. … Ìîæåò áûòü, êòî-òî îñòðîóìíûé ÷òî-íèáóäü è ïðèäóìàåò (Now through the Internet you can reach a bunch of people. … Maybe someone witty will come up with something).
And so the floodgates of Russian folk wit were flung open. Someone suggested ïîëèöèîíåð (a mix of ìèëèöèîíåð and ïîëèöåéñêèé) and ãîñïîäèí ïîëèöèîíåð (Mr. Policerman). Someone else was sure people would call a Russian cop “ïîëèï” (polyp) or “ïîëèöàé” (polizei), with all the nasty associations of Nazi Germany. Writer and opposition activist Eduard Limonov thought that the people, in their wit and wisdom, would call a cop “ïîö” (putz). Another commentator was adamant: Êàê áûëè “ìåíòàìè,” òàê è îñòàíóòñÿ (They were called “ment,” and “ment” they’ll remain).
Others had a blast with the abbreviated names of police units. Ïîëèöåéñêèå èíñïåêòîðû äîðîæíîãî ðåãóëèðîâàíèÿ (police inspectors of traffic regulation) become ÏÈÄÐû, an abbreviation that sounds like a derogatory slang word for homosexual. Another writer realized that æåëåçíîäîðîæíûé îòäåë ìèëèöèè (the railway unit of the militia) would now be æåëåçíîäîðîæíûé îòäåë ïîëèöèè (the railway unit of the police), with the snappy abbreviation ÆÎÏ — something like BUM (what you sit on).
The writer imagined the process of firing about 20 percent of the police as “îòëîâ è îòñòðåë 200 òûñÿ÷ óâîëåííûõ ìóæèêîâ, óìåþùèõ îáðàùàòüñÿ ñ îðóæèåì” (catching and shooting 200,000 laid-off men who know how to handle weapons).
But then, he suggested: “Óæå â 2012 ãîäó íà óëèöàõ áóäóò îïðÿòíûå, ïîäòÿíóòûå è êðèñòàëüíî ÷åñòíûå ïîëèñìåíû, êîòîðûå ñìîãóò çà÷èòàòü âàì ïðàâà íà òð¸õ ÿçûêàõ, âêëþ÷àÿ ôàðñè. Îò íèõ áóäåò ïàõíóòü ïàðèæñêèì ïàðôþìîì, íà ôîðìå îò Þäàøêèíà íå áóäåò íè îäíîé ìîðùèíêè, åñëè íå ñ÷èòàòü åñòåñòâåííî âûïèðàþùèõ ðåëüåôíûõ ìûøö.” (By 2012 the streets will be patrolled by tidy, fine-figured, purely honest policemen, who will be able to read you your rights in three languages, including Persian. They will be scented with Parisian perfume, wear uniforms by Yudashkin, and there won’t be a wrinkle on them, except for natural bulges of their muscles.)
In this utopia, the cop will ask: “×åì ÿ ìîãó âàì ïîìî÷ü, ìèëîñòèâûé ãîñóäàðü?” (How can I help you, kind sir?) You’ll reply: “Âèäèòå ëè, ñóäàðü, â ÷¸ì äåëî … ” (You see, sir, here’s the problem … ).
And then you wake up.

Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.

TITLE: Make art, not war
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Being a radical artist, even an internationally famous one, is pretty risky these days. The members of art group Voina, two of whom were released on bail late last month after spending more than three months in prison, were attacked along with a couple of their friends in the center of St. Petersburg after appearing at a press conference last week by men who the artists allege are officers from Center E, an “anti-extremism” task-force.
Speaking by phone soon after the attack, Voina’s Oleg Vorotnikov said the attack took place near Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro station after the artists noticed that they were being followed by six or seven men, who proceeded to attack them and try to seize fellow member Natalya Sokol’s camera after she took photos of them.
The men forced the artists to the ground and started kicking them in the head, having pushed to one side a stroller containing Vorotnikov and Sokol’s two-year-old son Kasper Nenaglyadny, who was left with a bruised face following the incident. Throughout the attack, an unknown old woman who happened to be passing by guarded the stroller containing the child, Vorotnikov said.
Voina’s Leonid Nikolayev was left with his face covered in blood after being beaten.
The attack took place at one of the city’s busiest intersections and when a crowd started to gather, the attackers announced that they were police officers apprehending thieves. “When they realized that people’s sympathies were not on their side, they began to move away quickly into a side street, jumped into a Renault Logan with no plates and drove away,” Vorotnikov said.
After the attack, the artists filed a statement with the police and documented their bruises at a hospital in order to take legal action. On photos uploaded onto the Internet the next day, bruises can be seen on the faces of Kasper Nenaglyadny and Sokol.
Talking to the public two days after their release, Vorotnikov and Nikolayev said that far from breaking their will, prison had only made them more convinced of what they were doing and that they were considering enacting more of the daring artistic stunts for which Voina is famous.
“In prison, your convictions only become stronger, you understand that you’re paying a certain price for these convictions and then you cannot simply reject them,” Vorotnikov said. “On the contrary, being sent to prison means that the state has recognized your ideas as worthy of existing.”
Vorotnikov and Nikolayev were held at pretrial detention facility #4 on Ulitsa Akademika Lebedeva, the prison known as Lebedyovka.
Vorotnikov, who brought handwritten letters from his former fellow prisoners to the press conference with him, said he felt obliged to fight for human rights, in addition to his activities as an artist. According to him, every basic prison regulation is violated at Lebedyovka.
For Voina, art is closely tied to politics.
The group’s most famous stunt, “A Dick Captured by the KGB” — a 65-meter penis painted on Liteiny Bridge moments before it was raised near the offices of the FSB (formerly the KGB) — poked fun at the Russian secret services, while several stunts, including the one for which they were arrested, were ironic digs at the police.
“I’ve always felt solidarity with everybody who challenges an authoritarian regime,” Nikolayev said.
“We’ve chosen one way, someone else might behave another way. Every way is good. When I found myself in prison, I experienced very strong psychological support from people of different views on the outside.
“We set a goal to inspire people, to persuade them that they should not be afraid of anything. Even if they haven’t broken or changed the system yet, it will happen because there is no alternative. It is simply a shame to see the current conditions under which we live, what kind of authorities we have, it’s a shame to tolerate it.”
Vorotnikov stressed that Voina was a nonpartisan group. “It’s more important to me that people come from the grassroots, on the principles of direct democracy — so that you don’t need to persuade them of anything, because they understand everything themselves,” he said.
Nikolayev, Vorotnikov and Sokol are Voina’s principal members, but they invite volunteers to take part in their stunts. Another Voina member is author Alexei Plutser-Sarno, who lives abroad and publishes illustrated reports about Voina’s stunts on his Livejournal.com blog. His job, according to Vorotnikov, is to “annoy and confuse” the public.
According to the defense, the entire criminal case currently faced by Nikolayev and Vorotnikov is based on Plutser-Sarno’s report about the Palace Revolution stunt, in which Voina allegedly overturned several police cars near the Mikhailovsky Castle one night in September. The St. Petersburg police claimed 98,000 rubles ($3,477) of damage was inflicted.
Both Vorotnikov and Nikolayev, who face five to seven years in prison, have refused to cooperate with investigators and do not answer questions. 
The artists were released on bail Feb. 24, paying 300,000 rubles ($10,645) each. The release came as a surprise for both the artists and those present in court. “Nobody expected it, except those who had known in advance,” said Vorotnikov. 
According to Vorotnikov, Center E officers told his lawyer that the artists would be released on bail even before the hearing. The artists, who had previously been denied bail, attributed the change of heart to public support and Russian and international media attention.
Voina members choose not to make money from their art on principle, and they would not have been able to pay their bail without outside help, primarily from British graffiti artist Banksy, who donated the proceeds from the sale of some prints to Voina after hearing about the arrests on the BBC. The 175 prints in Banksy’s “Choose Your Weapon” series were sold in December, reportedly generating 4.5 million rubles ($147,000) for the artists and their families. Vorotnikov said Voina plans to use it to help prisoners. 
Vorotnikov and Nikolayev were arrested in Moscow by Center E officers who burst into the apartment where they and Sokol were staying in November. They say bags were put over their heads and they were thrown in a police bus and driven in that state to St. Petersburg, where a criminal case against them had been opened.
Center E is dealing with the artists because their criminal mischief charges are aggravated by an “extremist” element; the investigators claim that the artists overturned the police cars not for fun, but out of hatred for a particular social group, namely the police. 
The artists’ supporters argue that to apply the term “social group” to the police is absurd, because inclusion of the term was meant to protect minority social groups rather than police officers, who enjoy extended rights and protection.
Last month, Voina was nominated for the state “Innovation” award for “A Dick Captured by the KGB,” but was eliminated from the contest a couple of weeks later after organizers claimed the artists had not confirmed their participation properly. Several members of the jury and other nominees then said that they would walk out if the nomination were not restored. Some believe that the elimination was prompted by a call from the Kremlin.
“It’s a strange situation,” Vorotnikov said last week.
“It wasn’t us who nominated ourselves for the award, we were nominated by an expert panel consisting of the supreme experts in contemporary art in this country, and now we are asked to give some sort of preliminary agreement.
“It looks like if we agree with and are loyal to the award, then our Dick has an artistic quality, and if we’re not, it disappears. Like it [the artistic quality] is washed off by water, just as our Dick was washed off. No, we won’t be signing anything.”


TITLE: Art attack
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, a group of female anarchists grabbed policewomen in the Moscow metro and forcibly kissed them on the lips, in an artistic happening apparently claimed by Voina, or War, the group that painted a giant penis on Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg. 
Then, confusingly, the “ideologue” of Voina, Alexei Plutser-Sarno, complained that the anarchists who did the kissing — and posted a video on LiveJournal calling themselves Voina — were not real members of the protest group.  
The performance was organized by a “provocateur” who was booted out of Voina because he turned police informer, Plutser-Sarno said in his blog. He called it a second-rate and “glamorous” flash mob, although he conceded that the kissing idea was “not lacking in irony.” 
If I were a female anarchist, I would feel quite annoyed to find out that I had been puckering up with unwilling, tired women in drab uniforms, all for the wrong side. Although it’s true, the protest had a certain obviousness to it that was not typical of Voina’s surreal and witty style.  
I suppose I should feel sorry for the metro policewomen, too, but I once saw one administer “first aid” to an unconscious young man — searching through his pockets, taking out his passport and writing down his details very slowly. 
Voina had previously overturned police cars in St. Petersburg in a September protest called “Palace Revolution.” It was a basically funny concept — a bit like tipping cows — although the policemen who were reportedly sleeping inside the cars understandably felt differently. Two activists are currently awaiting trial for hooliganism prompted by political hatred, an offense that could lead to jail sentences. 
The artists first came to many people’s attention back in 2008 when they staged a real orgy in Moscow’s dusty State Biological Museum. They stripped and had sex next to a stuffed bear that symbolized President Dmitry Medvedev, in a performance called “Fuck for the Bear Cub Heir.” The session was recorded in dozens of photographs that certainly made the heart beat faster than the museum’s usual displays of African violets. 
Voina’s defining moment came last summer when they hastily painted an enormous phallus on a bridge across the Neva, just before it was due to lift up for the night. The painting was a bit lopsided, but they made it, and police watched helplessly as the penis rose up into the sky, floodlit, right opposite the headquarters of the FSB. 
The giant penis instantly beamed its way round the world in blogs, and people took it, if you excuse the expression, into their hearts. Sadly the original was soon scrubbed off by the St. Petersburg authorities, who had earlier been only too happy to approve erecting the far more phallic Gazprom tower nearby. 
The performance was titled “A Dick Captured by the KGB.” As political street art, it was nominated for a prestigious state prize for contemporary art, called Innovation. Then the work was mysteriously removed from the shortlist, prompting several jury members to walk out. 
On Wednesday, the jury issued a statement, rather amusingly asking the anarchists to make up their mind between two versions of the work’s title, the only difference being the use of “dick” or “member.” It also said they had to give their consent to the nomination and had to submit the names of all the participants, most of whom act anonymously. On Thursday, as the deadline was due to run out, one of the artists, Oleg Vorotnikov, said they would not be signing anything. 


TITLE: Voyage of discovery
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
TEXT: After marching for almost fifteen minutes through the slush, the eclectic mix of colorful Moroccan floor tiles looked especially inviting upon arrival at 22.13, a new restaurant overlooking Konyushennaya Ploshchad next to the Church on the Spilled Blood.
“Oh, everything here revolves around the travel theme,” the cloakroom assistant replied in response to a question about the origin of the tiles.
Some of the vintage furnishings of this spacious two-floor venue with vaulted ceilings, it later transpired, were handpicked by the restaurant’s well-traveled founders at antique shops and flea markets all around the world.
One aspect of 22.13 that can be sensed before you have even had a chance to scan the menu is that the restaurant is actually as much about glamour as it is about travel. It comes as no surprise to hear that the venerable-looking cream-colored leather sofa in the small private party room came from the Coco Chanel store on Rue Cambon. It was not that the shop’s managers were looking to dispose of the item. Rather, it was the perseverance of one of the restaurant’s founders, who felt a special connection to the sofa when she saw it, that made the deal happen. In all likelihood, it was not cheap.
The owners certainly do not seem to suffer from an inferiority complex. The venue’s name, 22.13, has neither a gastronomic nor geographical or indeed any other significance — they are simply the owners’ “lucky numbers.”
The new restaurant is rapidly gaining popularity. All the window tables were reserved on a Saturday night, which according to our waiter, is already the norm. The place was indeed much busier than its two next-door neighbors — Vesna and Barbaresco. 
The menu has a strong Italian focus, with a choice of ten pizzas and five pastas on offer as well as traditional Italian starters and light meals, such as bruschetta with onion chutney (260 rubles, $8.90), Caprese salad (340 rubles, $11.70), eggplant baked with tomatoes and mozzarella (280 rubles, $9.60) and Neapolitan meatballs in tomato sauce (280 rubles, $9.60). Sicilian or Tuscan olives, Taleggio and Pecorino cheeses, Milanese salami and Prosciutto crudo are also available at 100 to 150 rubles ($3.40 to $5.10) per 50 grams as antipasti.
We started our dinner with Moroccan tomato soup, which arrived in a teapot containing enough to feed two diners. The soup was definitely one of the most successful and original renditions in town, thanks to the use of cumin in addition to the traditional fresh basil. 
Unlike many other local venues, 22.13 makes its tomato soup without the use of canned concentrate, despite its very reasonable price (190 rubles, ($6.50). No tomato concentrate means a slightly lighter color and aroma and that particular texture of freshly mashed tomatoes. 
Somewhat in a tomato mood, my dining companion opted for the Neapolitan meatballs, which were surprisingly delicately cooked. The meatballs themselves were as light as of they had been steamed, which made a winning contrast with the thick salty sauce.
Alas, the Caribbean fishcake with pineapple chutney (300 rubles, $10.30) was not available, and nor was the New York cheeseburger with French fries (390 rubles, $13.40).
The cheeseburger — as well as the Moroccan soup — is listed under the “Favorite Dishes” section of the menu that features two soups and ten mains that most impressed the restaurant’s ideologists during their travels. In the absence of the cheeseburger and the fishcake, consolation was found in what was described as “Indian curry with chicken and spicy rice” (340 rubles, $11.70), which turned out to be the hottest curry I have ever had. “Parisian-style entrecote with baked potatoes and salad,” one of the two most expensive dishes on the list at 890 rubles ($30.60), was worth every ruble — it was an honest 300 grams of steak juicy and tender enough to please the pickiest connoisseur.
Coffee-addicts should take the opportunity to order Raff coffee (200 rubles, $7), which is as expertly made as in a renowned New York establishment. The restaurant also serves daily a la carte breakfasts — sybarites will appreciate it being served from 8 a.m. through 3 p.m. at weekends — and has a tiny yet well-stocked bar that is very strong on cocktails, where the award-winning Moscow Spring Punch (320 rubles, $11) — a fusion of vodka, ginger, raspberry, lemon and honey — reigns supreme.


<b>Eclectic glamour</b>

A range of classic Italian dishes is often the jumping-off point for menus that incorporate several national cuisines.

<b>Teatro</b>

With large windows overlooking the Mariinsky and the Conservatory and a very relaxed, casual interior featuring arched open-brickwork ceilings and deep sofas, Teatro is popular with the artistic crowd who work at the Mariinsky itself. The menu features Italian, Russian and Japanese cuisine, among others, including a truly historic crab lasagna. <i>2 Ulitsa Glinki. Tel: 900 4488</i>

<b>Terrassa</b>

This 400-square meter space at the top of the glass building that formerly housed the Vanity boutique offers a combination of aesthetic and gastronomic delights. The rooftop restaurant offers views out onto Nevsky Prospekt and an astonishing close-up of the golden dome of the Kazan Cathedral, while inside, diners can watch the chefs at work in the open kitchen. The menu features American, French, Italian, Georgian and Asian cuisines. <i>3 Kazanskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 337 6837.</i>

<b>Wine Bar Grand Cru</b>

Molecular cuisine, the highly innovative cooking style that uses science to create previously unthinkable flavors and textures, has found a home in the kitchen of Wine Bar Grand Cru on the Fontanka, where the creative cuisine is sure to delight intrepid diners. Seafood and well-executed, delicate sauces are two of Grand Cru’s specialties, along with, of course, fine wines. <i>52 Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki. Tel: 363 2511</i>


TITLE: Analyst Convicted of Spying for Soviets Dead at 89
AUTHOR: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — She was young and smart and claimed she was in love, and when Judith Coplon was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1949 she became a sensation. 
A 28-year-old Justice Department employee, Coplon had been caught with secret U.S. documents at a meeting with a Russian agent on a Manhattan street. She claimed she was meeting him only because she loved him, but she was found guilty at two trials. 
The convictions were overturned and the cases were eventually dropped. Coplon married one of her lawyers, raised four children in Brooklyn and became an educator and supporter of literacy. 
Coplon, who was arrested while working as an analyst in the Justice Department, died on Feb. 26 at age 89 in a Manhattan hospital, her daughter, Emily Socolov, said Wednesday. 
Americans had just begun hearing about Alger Hiss and Russian espionage when the FBI intercepted Soviet cables between KGB stations in Moscow and New York that made them believe that an agent code-named “Sima” was Coplon, who had won a citizenship award in high school. 
“She had a job right there in the Justice Department, so it became a high priority for the FBI because this was someone in their own shop,” said Cold War historian John Earl Haynes. “This was a time when there was something of a drought in terms of KGB sources, and it turned out she was one of their most productive agents.” 
The FBI arranged for a fake but important-looking document to be fed to her. “She immediately said she had to leave Washington to see her family in New York, and about two dozen FBI men followed her,” said Haynes, co-author of “Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America.” 
The FBI tracked Coplon to a meeting with Russian agent Valentin Gubitchev and found she had the fake document — and some real ones. 
At her first trial, she claimed she was meeting Gubitchev because they were in love and was not planning to give him the documents. But he was married, and prosecutors brought out that she had spent nights in hotels with another man at around the same time. 
Haynes said Coplon’s real motive was ideological. He said she was a member of the Young Communists while at Barnard College — which her family disputes. Emily Socolov said her mother was “completely operating on principle, purely her idealism for peace and justice. She was never self-serving.” 
Coplon was convicted of espionage in packed courtrooms in Washington and New York, but judges eventually threw out the convictions on grounds including lack of a warrant and illegal wiretaps. The FBI had been unwilling to reveal the Soviet cables in public, so the juries never heard about “Sima.” 
One appeals judge said Coplon’s “guilt is plain” even as he overturned her conviction. Haynes said her connection with Soviet spying was further proved with the release of documents in 1995. 
He said Coplon’s was “almost a textbook case of how American criminal justice and counterterrorism don’t mesh well together.” 
The government never retried her but didn’t officially drop the case until 1967, by which time Coplon was Judith Socolov and had four growing children in a Brooklyn brownstone. 
“That was a night of great celebration for us,” Emily Socolov said. “I was in the middle of my high school years.” 
Not that the espionage case was a topic of family discussion. 
“She never talked about it,” Emily Socolov said, except in the context of the causes she supported throughout her long life after the trials: racial equality, women’s rights, “the idea that people would help one another.” 
“We’d be talking about women in prison, and she’d mention something about her time in jail,” the daughter said. “Or she’d mention how an African-American she met in an elevator gave her a dime for her appeal.”

TITLE: Focus on Ex-Western Leaders Working for Despots
AUTHOR: The Associated Press
TEXT: VIENNA — One is in the pay of Kazakhstan’s autocrat. Another endorsed elections held by the man dubbed Europe’s last dictator. A third contradicted his own president by declaring that Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak should stay in power.
What these men have in common: They have all been leaders or senior officials in Western governments sharply critical of the regimes they or their associates now represent.
As leaders in Europe and the United States adopt sanctions against Libya’s Gadhafi clan and pledge support to Mideast pro-democracy movements, such potential conflicts of interest are coming under increasing scrutiny.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has rejected criticism that Britain was too cozy with Moammar Gadhafi while he was in office, arguing that London had a moderating influence. And his office has denied unsubstantiated claims from a Gadhafi son who says that Blair advised the Libyan Investment Authority after stepping down.
But other past leaders and officials work for foreign interests that they may have frowned upon while in office.
In Austria, ex-Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer works as a consultant for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, while former Vice Chancellor Hubert Gorbach, on a recent trip to Belarus sponsored by its government, praised elections there as “up to West European standards.”
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko is widely reviled as a chronic human rights abuser, and often described as “Europe’s last dictator.”
But Gorbach is not alone among former senior European officials to praise Lukashenko. Poland’s Andrzej Lepper, a former deputy prime minister now facilitating business contacts between Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, calls the Belarus elections “in accordance with the principles of democracy.”
Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder is the most prominent example of public outcry over foreign lobbying work.
Schroeder moved almost seamlessly from the chancellorship six years ago to the leadership positions he now holds in firms linked to Russia’s state-owned Gazprom, whose energy chokehold on parts of Europe contributed to gas shortages on the continent twice in the past decade.
While chancellor, Schroeder championed the Kremlin’s Nord Stream pipeline project, meant to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, and secured government backing for the deal. A few months later, he became head of the project’s shareholder committee with the support of Gazprom — the Russian gas consortium whose dispute with transit country Ukraine caused serious gas shortages in Europe in 2006 and 2009.
The press and public expressed outrage — but Schroeder held onto his lucrative posts.
Across the Atlantic, comments by retired diplomat Frank Wisner after completing a U.S. government mission to persuade Mubarak to step down raise questions about past and present loyalties.
President Obama already was urging Mubarak to resign when Wisner stunned administration officials by publicly saying the Egyptian president’s continued leadership was critical. The administration was forced to distance itself from Wisner and point out that he is a private citizen who stopped representing the government when he left Cairo.
The fact that Wisner’s law firm had worked for the Egyptian government was revealed only later and left Wisner’s image skewed — despite assurances by the firm’s head that Wisner never directly worked for Egyptian interests.
Most officials-turned-lobbyists working for foreign governments or causes do so legally. Where local laws call for it, they register with authorities, comply with “cooling-off periods” between government jobs and consultancies and meet other formal requirements.
Still, in Western nations, the idea of former government officials moving to serve clients that may not share democratic values raises questions. Are they betraying their nation’s principles? Are some in public service in the first place for the benefits they anticipate once in the private sector?
“If people anticipate that they can earn some kind of significant windfall once out of office while currying favor with power groups while in office, there are potentials for abuse,” says Stephen Walt, a Harvard professor of international affairs.
Generally, he says, former government officials who turn to representing foreign countries, companies and political parties open themselves up to “potential for conflicts of interest.”
Walt says situations where former government officials use credentials to argue the position of a foreign government without disclosing that they are in its employ are always problematic.
“Someone engaged in lobbying or political commentary ought to simply disclose where the outside income comes from,” he says. “At a minimum, people can discount anything that they might say.”
In Austria, both Gorbach and Gusenbauer told the AP that they dispute suggestions in national media that they have sold out in working for — and praising — autocrats whose commitment to democracy and human rights records are abysmal.
Lukashenko has been in power for more than 16 years, exercising overwhelming control over politics, industry and media in his nation of 10 million. But Gorbach, whose consulting company is seeking to expand in Belarus and other former Soviet republics, questions findings by international observers that Lukashenko’s December re-election was rigged, declaring that what he saw at polling stations on election night showed the nation “progressing toward accepting the basic rules of democracy.”
And while condemning “violence in all of its forms,” Gorbach — who was the guest of the Belarus government as an election observer — said he spent post-election hours in his hotel room and saw and heard nothing of the brutal police crackdown on demonstrators protesting the vote. “What I observed was all above board,” he declares.
Gusenbauer, meanwhile, suggests he is doing Western society a service by promoting democracy and importing Western values through his paid consulting tasks for Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s president for life.
He said some people stand on the sidelines and wring their hands over lack of freedoms, while others jump in and try to change things for the better.
“I definitely belong to the second group,” he said.