SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1648 (10), Wednesday, March 23, 2011
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TITLE: City Faces Up to Its Ecological Issues
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Recycling practices are taking center stage at the 9th International Ecological Forum, “Ecology in a Megalopolis,” that is being held in the city through March 24. More than 200 companies are sharing their experience treating industrial waste and combating air and water pollution at a vast display at Lenexpo exhibition center.
Dmitry Golubev, head of City Hall’s Committee for the Protection and Management of Natural Resources, told reporters this week that only 4 percent of local air is polluted, and promised that by 2018 the city will be completely cleared of air pollution, owing to the increase of environmentally friendly transport and the enhanced quality of air pollution monitoring.
Water pollution remains a decades-old problem, however. Unlike in most European cities, local tap water is not drinkable.
Several water-treatment plants operate in the city, but 40 percent of the sewage and industrial waste originating in the city goes directly into the Neva River and the Gulf of Finland, owing to a shortage of waste-treatment facilities, according to City Hall’s statistics. That figure does not include illegal discharges which regularly occur.
St. Petersburg has the most polluted rivers in the Volga-Baltic waterway system, according to the results of a research expedition carried out by the international environmental pressure group Greenpeace in 2010. 
Baltika brewery is one of the largest exhibitors at the Lenexpo display. In recent years the company has introduced a range of new eco-friendly methods of dealing with its waste.
“Our facilities in St. Petersburg, Voronezh and Chelyabinsk have recently been equipped with additional industrial beer filtration systems,” said Natalya Umpeleva, a spokeswoman for Baltika brewery. 
Some of the methods do not call for innovative techniques, and require only a rational look at waste-management policies.
“We sent spent brewer’s grains to farms in the countryside, as they make a useful nutritional supplement in dairy and animal farming and may also serve as a soil nutrient,” Umpeleva said.
According to official statistics, St. Petersburg produces at least 10 million cubic meters of garbage per year. 
Independent environmental experts estimate that up to 60 percent of the garbage could be recycled, but the city does not have the resources and equipment to do so.
Even City Hall admits that St. Petersburg lacks the waste-processing facilities needed to treat this refuse, and unless new plants are built, most of the waste will either be sent abroad or piled up and left to decompose at local storage sites.
The process of separating glass, paper, metal and organic waste is common in developed countries. But in St. Petersburg, paper refuse and various other recyclable materials are usually mixed up with non-organic materials, making them impossible to recycle.
Since the collapse of the Soviet system of separating refuse materials such as waste paper or scrap metal at schools and other state organizations for delivery to factories, no other system has been developed to deal with it. The industry has seen very little investment and virtually no competition.


TITLE: Zenit Grieves For Goalkeeper’s Wife 
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Marina Malafeyeva, the wife of the city’s FC Zenit goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeyev, was buried at St. Petersburg’s Smolenskoye cemetery on Saturday. Malafeyeva, 36, was killed in a car accident last Thursday.
Hundreds of city residents, Zenit fans and staff came to pay their respects to Malafeyeva, who was the mother of the Malafeyevs’ two children — seven-year-old daughter Ksenia and five-year-old son Maxim. The children were not present at the funeral.
The accident happened on Primorsky Prospekt at about 5 a.m. last Thursday morning, when Malafeyeva’s Bentley crashed into advertising hoarding at high speed. 
The woman was killed on the spot, while her passenger, Dmitry Rybakov, a soloist in the music group M16 that Malafeyeva produced, suffered severe injuries and was hospitalized with broken ribs and spinal injuries, Interfax reported. On Friday, a spokesman for the group said Rybakov’s life was not in danger. 
Experts said the car swerved and ran into a tall snowdrift on the side of the road, causing the car to fly three meters into the air and hit an advertisement board, before it skidded upside down for 50 meters and crashed into a tree.
Neither Malafeyeva nor her passenger had their seatbelts fastened. A few hours before the accident, Malafeyeva and the music group had celebrated the birthday of another soloist from the group, after which Malafeyeva was driving Rybakov home.
The car accident happened on the day when Zenit was set to play a decisive match with the Dutch soccer club Twente to qualify for the last eight of the Europa League. Malafeyev was due to play in the match, but was substituted by another club goalkeeper, Yury Zhevnov.
Nikolai Panteleyev, a spokesman for Malafeyev, said that when the accident happened, the goalkeeper’s wife was on her way to the Atlantic City shopping mall on Ulitsa Savushkina where she traditionally washed her car before every Zenit match to bring the team good luck, Fontanka.ru news web site reported.
Both Zenit and Twente players came to the match wearing black armbands as a sign of mourning. Malafeyev’s colleagues dedicated the match to their goalkeeper and his wife, and when Zenit players scored goals, the player who scored lifted their shirt to reveal another shirt beneath reading “Slava! [a short version of Vyacheslav]. We are with you!”
Zenit won the match 2:0, but it was not enough for the team to qualify for the league. 
Zenit coach Luciano Spaletti said Malafeyev would decide himself when he was ready to return to training.
“It’s impossible to ever forget what happened on Thursday morning,” Spaletti said last week.
Malafeyev made his return on Monday evening, taking part in a training session and then playing for the duration of a match against FC Anzhi (Makhachkala) in which Zenit scored 2:0, after Zhevnov was injured during the match with Twente and was unable to play in Monday’s match. 
Alexander Anyukov, a Zenit player, said it would be easier for Malafeyev to be with his team during such a difficult time, Fontanka reported.
The St. Petersburg Investigative Department has opened a criminal case into Malafeyeva’s car accident. Pathology reports have shown that Malafeyeva was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident, Panteleyev said.

TITLE: Police Release Stepfather Of Missing 3-Year-Old 
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Roman Polevoi, the common-law husband of the mother of missing three-year-old Alyona Shchipina, was released on Tuesday, local news agencies reported.
Polevoi had been under investigation in connection with the search for the missing girl, who disappeared on Jan. 24. He took a polygraph test, but the test’s results have shed no light on the investigation.
The polygraph did not exclude the possibility that Polevoi may have information about the circumstances of the girl’s disappearance that he has not told anybody about, Fontanka.ru reported.
At the same time, the test did not reveal any reactions that would show Polevoi’s possible involvement in the girl’s disappearance.
No evidence has been found for Polevoi’s involvement in the disappearance of Shchipina, but he reportedly gave mixed evidence when questioned, and was alone with the girl at the time of her disappearance. 
A criminal case into the girl’s murder has already been opened, though no body has yet been found, Fontanka.ru reported.
The girl disappeared from a house outside St. Petersburg, where she lived with her mother and Polevoi, at 6 p.m. after Polevoi reportedly left her at home alone for about 15 to 20 minutes to go and buy cigarettes at a neighboring store. The girl’s mother was at work in the center of St. Petersburg at the time.
The gates to the house’s yard were open, and neighbors have reported hearing Alyona give a loud cry while Polevoi was away.
A large-scale search for the girl was carried out, but with no result, partly due to the large volume of snow that has covered the area since the beginning of the year.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Ice Stops Production</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Ford Motor Company factory located in Vsevolozhsk in the Leningrad Oblast was forced to stop production for a day last Wednesday due to intermissions in the deliveries of car components by sea, Interfax reported.
The intermissions were caused by the unstable work of the St. Petersburg seaport due to thick ice in the Gulf of Finland, which has trapped dozens of ships this month. Icebreakers were enlisted to try to solve the problem, but it still resulted in ships arriving with delays.
The Toyota plant in St. Petersburg also stopped production for a day on March 15 for the same reason, Interfax reported.
Strong winds and repeated freezing have led to the formation of ice up to one meter thick in the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea. Up to 100 ships require the assistance of icebreakers in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland every day.
<br>
<b>Ginger Tarzan Arrives</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Vyacheslav Datsik, a former boxer, nationalist and patient of a local psychiatric hospital, from where he escaped to Norway, was transported to a solitary cell at St. Petersburg’s notorious detention center Kresty on Saturday.
Datsik, whose nickname is ‘Ginger Tarzan,’ was handed over to Russian policemen by their Finnish colleagues at the Russian-Finnish border. Datsik was reportedly earlier restrained by 15 Norwegian policemen with the help of medication after a scuffle during the journey from Norway, which extradited the former boxer after rejecting his request for political asylum.
Police said Datsik was in good spirits and had expressed willingness to cooperate, having offered information about addresses and apartments.
Datsik, an activist with a nationalist organization and a participant in so-called “ultimate fighting” matches, was arrested in 2007 for a series of robberies.
The court declared him to be mentally incompetent and he was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment in a specialist hospital. In the summer of 2010, Datsik was transferred to a regular psychiatric hospital in the Leningrad Oblast, from where he escaped before reportedly robbing a cell phone store.
Later Datsik escaped to Norway and applied for political asylum, but was refused and detained.
An Oslo regional court ruled to extradite Datsik in February this year.
<br>
<b>Ice Strikes Again</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Another person has been injured in the city by a chunk of ice falling from a roof. The ice fell from the roof of a business center in the city’s Petrogradsky district onto a young woman’s head. The woman sustained injuries to the head and neck.
Dozens of people have been injured in similar incidents in St. Petersburg this winter, including a six-year-old boy who was killed by falling ice. 


TITLE: Residents Reach Out to Japan
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg residents have organized several events in support of the people of Japan affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami there.
St. Petersburg State University and BOLT, a union of the city’s young poets, have announced a concert in support of victims of the disaster, in which an estimated 18,000 people were killed and thousands of others left homeless.
The concert will take place in the Scholars’ Hall of St. Petersburg State University’s Twelve Colleges building at 7 p.m. on March 27.
Many of the city’s eminent actors, poets and musicians have agreed to participate in the concert. Among them will be opera singer Yelena Obraztsova, actors Oleg Basilashvilli, Andrei Urgant and Anvar Libabov, and poet Artyom Suslov. 
The program will conclude with a screening of “Eastern Elegy,” a film by the well-known St. Petersburg director Alexander Sokurov. 
Entrance to the event will be free but by prior registration.
The organizers of the web site www.helpingjapan.ru have called on city residents to take part in a charity event titled “Russia’s Hour for Japan.” The drive calls for Russian citizens to stay up until 2 a.m. on March 27 — when Russia changes its clocks to summer time for the last time — and to light a candle in memory of those who died in the Japanese tragedy. The drive’s aim is that people refrain from using electricity at that time out of respect for those in Japan who need it more.
Finally, St. Petersburg’s Center of Humanitarian Programs has organized short-term stays in the city for Japanese children to help them to recover from the trauma of the catastrophe.
Vitaly Vasiliyev, head of the center, said they hope for different cultural and educational organizations or workshops to be able to receive up to 150 to 200 seven to 14-year-old children for periods ranging from ten days to a month. The details are available at www.artvita.spb.ru.
The organization has worked with different cultural organizations located in Japan since 2005, Vasiliyev said.


TITLE: Youth Launch Campaign to ‘Stop Guzzling’
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Rampant alcoholism is a centuries-old problem for Russia, but the younger generation is bucking the trend, as more and more activists team up to urge compatriots to “stop guzzling.” 
Nationalists are attempting to spearhead the grass-roots campaign, seeing it as a matter of “survival of the Russian nation,” but the call for a healthy lifestyle reaches beyond the radicals. 
Alcohol is the cause of one-fifth of all deaths in Russia, according to this year’s World Health Organization survey. But a joint study by the State Statistics Service and UNICEF in January also showed alcoholism among young people has dropped 15 percent since 2005. 
“We are not fighting against drinking, we are fighting for sobriety,” activist Alexander Suvorov, 20, told The St. Petersburg Times on Thursday. 
Suvorov and his friends can often be spotted in the metro, placing small stickers on the walls. The practice — actually a minor infraction — is popular among small shady businesses offering cheap credits or forged sick leave documents, but this time, the stickers simply show a crossed-out bottle with the pithy call: “Stop Guzzling.” 
Suvorov said he gave up booze after his heavily inebriated friend assaulted him with a knife at a party a year ago. “I told myself I had to stop drinking and tell everyone about it,” he said. 
He said he places some 100 stickers a day, mostly on the way to and from his Moscow college, where he studies economics. 
Some other sobriety promoters opt for more radical methods. Rostov-on-Don bloggers reported last year that young men hiding faces behind medical masks jumped people who drank alcohol in the streets, beating them up while screaming “Russians don’t guzzle!” 
No one took responsibility for the attacks, but nationalists are believed to be likely suspects, as many of them oppose drinking, while the radical part of the movement is also known for street violence. 
Nationalists were behind some anti-booze campaigns in social media and attempts to organize jogging rallies aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle. Most runs, however, are dispersed by police, wary of any unsanctioned public activity. The latest such event, staged in Moscow’s Izmailovsky Park in February, ended with most joggers being fined for violating traffic rules. 
But the anti-alcohol movement appears to be a patchwork of unrelated small groups with different beliefs and approaches. 
Suvorov said he and his friends do not subscribe to any particular ideology or religion and do not use violence to achieve their goals. 
But they take a hard-line stance on alcohol — unlike other groups, including the prominent “Stop Guzzling” group on the Vkontakte.ru social networking web site, which tolerates occasional drinking. 
“We don’t drink at all,” Suvorov said. 


TITLE: Moscow’s Rank In Finance Low
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A biannual report compiled by the London-based think tank Z/Yen and released Monday suggests that no one should be holding their breath over Moscow’s transformation into an international financial center.
Moscow ranked 68th out of 75 in the Global Financial Centers Index and did not feature in the 10 centers likely to be most significant in the coming years.
As well as acknowledged financial powerhouses like London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Geneva, Moscow was behind other cities such as Warsaw, Copenhagen and Manila. It even ranked below debt-ravaged Dublin and Lisbon. 
Since the last report in 2010, St. Petersburg has climbed two places and 13 rating points, coming in at 69th place and snapping at Moscow’s heels.
Mark Yeandle, the report’s author and a member of a Moscow-based working group advising on the changes needed in the city’s infrastructure, said, however, that it was “early days” for Moscow.


TITLE: No More Police Fines Over Incorrect Registration Papers
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Police will no longer be allowed to collect fines from foreigners with invalid or missing registration papers, according to a bill aimed at easing registration rules that was approved by the Federation Council on Wednesday. 
Instead, the party that issued the foreigner’s visa invitation will be held responsible for violations.
“The bill stipulates that the inviting party, usually the employer, is responsible for any such violation,” said Vladimir Kobzev, head of the legal department of the Russo-German Chamber of Commerce.
He said employers should inform their foreign staff to always carry valid registration to avoid fines being slapped on the company, which can be as high as 500,000 rubles ($17,500).
The hitherto little-publicized detail in the registration legislation is supposed to reduce extortion, “because a police officer can no longer demand money directly on the street,” Kobzev said.
The main thrust of the bill is to ease registration rules by lengthening the period foreigners can be in the country without notifying authorities, from three to seven working days. It also abolishes a recent reform requiring landlords to register foreign tenants at their factual addresses, reinstating the previous rule of registering at the employers’ address.
The amendment was initiated after foreign businesses complained about the new rules, which came into effect Feb. 15, because many landlords refused to comply with them.
The State Duma swiftly approved the changes last Friday, and a senator’s aide said Wednesday that there was a good chance that the bill would come into effect by the end of the month.
“The bill was passed and sent to the Kremlin today,” said an aide to Federation Council Senator Alexei Alexandrov, who oversaw the vote Wednesday. 
The aide, who refused to give his name, said it was likely that President Dmitry Medvedev would sign the bill into law before March 31.
Asked when Medvedev would sign the law, a Kremlin spokeswoman promised to look into the matter but had not replied as of late Wednesday.
Kobzev said he was impressed by the unusual speed of the bill’s passage. “This is amazing efficiency by our lawmakers,” he said by e-mail. 
Experts said that while immigration authorities in Moscow have shown flexibility in dealing with last month’s registration reform, there has been considerable confusion in the regions.
“We had a lot of problems in St. Petersburg, where authorities demanded landlords’ passports and other unnecessary documents for registration,” said Alexei Filippenkov of the Visa Delight agency, who also chairs the migration committee at the Association of European Businesses.
His frustration was echoed by Christopher Gilbert, head of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce.
“It seems there is a mismatch between the documents demanded centrally from the Federal Migration Service and regional branches,” he said by telephone. “There are many examples where regional authorities ask for documents that are actually not necessary. The further you go from the capital, the less coherent it becomes.”


TITLE: 4 Held in Slaying of Frenchman
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Two Uzbeks are suspected of killing French winemaker Thierry Spinelli, his Russian wife and their 3-year-old daughter after quarreling about remodeling work in April 2009, a news report said Monday.
Police have detained 26-year-old Khurshid Normuradov, who previously served time for robbery, and Rustam Kharisov, each of whom accuses the other of carrying out the killings, Kommersant reported. Uzbek nationals Vakhob Turayev and Dzhurobai Ashirov have been detained as suspected accomplices.
Investigators have established that, while remodeling the apartment above the Spinellis’ at 15/14 3rd Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ulitsa, Normuradov and Kharisov got into a heated argument with Thierry Spinelli over water leaking into his apartment, the report said. As revenge, they planned to steal a Lexus RX 350 belonging to Spinelli’s wife, Olga, and drive it back home to Dzhikaza, Uzbekistan.
They purportedly arranged with Turayev and Ashirov to sell the vehicle.
This is what happened next, according to investigators: Normuradov and Kharisov made a hole in the bathroom floor of the apartment they were working on around midnight on April 20 and sprayed water into the Spinellis’ apartment below. 
When the angry Frenchman came upstairs to complain, the workers lured him into the bathroom, clobbered him in the head with a pipe and, using a bedsheet, strangled him to death. They rummaged through his pockets to locate his apartment keys, stormed into the family’s home, tied up the wife and demanded the Lexus.
Olga responded that the car was in the repair shop, and the robbers proceeded to ransack the apartment. Upon discovering numerous bottles of wine and cognac, they started drinking heavily, raped Olga and strangled her to death. When they heard the young daughter crying in another room, they gagged her, then set fire to the apartment. The daughter died from asphyxiation.
The duo made off with 2.6 million rubles ($92,000) in cash and valuables. In the morning they went with Ashirov, the only one with a passport and Moscow registration, to sell the loot at pawnshops.
The next day at Kazansky Station, they bribed a Moscow-Tashkent train conductor to let them travel without a passport back to Uzbekistan for 12,000 rubles. They were discovered by passport control officials at the Kazakh border.
The case was sent to the Moscow City Court last week. Normuradov and Kharisov are charged with murder, theft and rape and could face up to life in prison if convicted. Ashirov and Turayev face up to 10 years in prison on charges of grand theft and accessory to murder.

TITLE: Two Bills Compete In Oil Regulation
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Two competing bills are adding to the confusion around regulation of Russia’s burgeoning offshore oil industry, to the frustration of both oil companies and environmentalists.
The rival drafts are a response to calls from industry and environmentalists for clearer legal guidance following the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year.
After consultations with environmentalists and major oil companies, a group of State Duma deputies led by environment committee head Yevgeny Tugolukov have nearly finished drafting a bill based on the U.S. Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
The bill, which is due to be distributed to deputies by the end of March, would oblige Russian oil companies to contribute to a contingency fund to prevent and clean up oil spills at sea.
But Kommersant reported Monday that the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry has drafted a rival bill that it will submit to the government for inspection in the near future, before it is passed to the Duma. 
The ministry’s bill would give companies involved in drilling the choice of using a bank guarantee, taking out insurance or creating their own contingency funds reflecting the scale and nature of their offshore work.
Environmentalists are quite clear which one they prefer. 
“The government has offered simply a series of amendments to current legislation. The amendments are minor, impact on nothing, and do not imply the creation of a fund or other financial mechanisms,” Vitaly Gorokhov of the Ecojuris environmental law institute said in e-mailed comments.
In contrast, the deputies’ bill was developed from a concept authored by World Wildlife Fund, and the group has worked in close consultation with the deputies who developed the draft, Yekaterina Khmeleva, environmental law program officer at WWF Russia, told The St. Petersburg Times. 
“That doesn’t mean we think it’s ideal. But in principle it is comprehensive, it covers much more than simply dealing with the result of oil spills and, most of all, it requires the creation of a contingency fund to use in emergencies,” she said.
The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry says there’s no need for a fund. “According to the law on subsoil resource use, only two state-owned companies [Gazprom and Rosneft] can work on the Russian shelf,” Svetlana Radchenko, head of the ministry’s legal department told Kommersant. 
But Khmeleva insists that the ministry’s draft “doesn’t resolve any problems at all,” and she even claims that WWF and big oil are, for once, on the same side. 
“It is in the industry’s interest to have a single law that comprehensively regulates procedure during oil spills,” Khmeleva said. 

TITLE: Gates Assures Moscow on U.S. Missile Defense
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday took a final personal shot at easing Moscow’s worries over a missile defense shield in Europe and to expand a military relationship that has grown dramatically since his Cold War days at the helm of the CIA. 
Gates, who is expected to retire this summer, told reporters traveling with him to Russia that Russian cooperation in the Afghanistan war and support of UN Security Council resolutions against North Korea and Iran underscore cooperation that has dramatically evolved in recent years. Russia also abstained in the recent United Nations vote for military intervention in Libya, effectively allowing the allied assault to go forward. 
“We have now had under way, for more than 40 years, the kind of dialogue with Russia that I’m just trying to get started with China,” Gates told reporters traveling with him shortly before landing Monday in St. Petersburg. 
Speaking to Kuznetsov Naval Academy midlevel officers during a stop at the Central Naval Museum, Gates said 21st-century security terror threats have created new opportunities for the United States and Russia to cooperate. 
Both nations recognize, he said, that “allowing terrorism that weakens one nation does not provide opportunity for another, but rather ultimately increases the danger to all.” 
Gates, a Russian scholar, spent much of his career as an officer and later director of the CIA, focused on the threat posed by the former Soviet Union. He has made four trips to Russia as defense secretary, but said he was last in St. Petersburg in 1992, making the first trip to the city by a CIA chief. 
His latest visit comes as the United States and Russia continue to joust over details and coordination of the European missile shield that is aimed at countering future Iranian threats. Russia has raised strong objections to the plan, which is already under way and begins with ship-based, anti-missile interceptors and radars. It would add land-based radars in southern Europe later this year. 
The four-phase plan would put land- and sea-based radars and interceptors in several European locations over the next decade. 
Gates was due to meet with top Russian leaders, including President Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who said last month that the missile shield could undermine Russian nuclear deterrent forces. 
Moscow remains skeptical of U.S. insistence that the system is not aimed at Russian missiles or that it could be used against Russia’s security interests. 
Reflecting on the changes in U.S-Russian relations over his career, Gates suggested that they have moved from what was once a fierce rivalry to a bureaucratic brotherhood. Now, he said, the United States and Russia have a common enemy — the battle to modernize their militaries amid rising costs for weapons and elusive contract deadlines that are never met. 
He said that while the two nations’ interests will differ, they have learned one critical lesson from the past: to avoid the mistrust and lack of transparency that can trigger dangerous consequences. 
Acknowledging that Russia still has uncertainties about the defense shield, Gates told the young officers that both are committed to resolving the differences and eventually collaborating, including on launch information, a data fusion center and conducting joint analysis. 


TITLE: Scandal-Mired Charity to Shell Out $6 Million To 3 Hospitals
AUTHOR: By Alexey Eremenko

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A scandal-mired charity for which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sang “Blueberry Hill” has promised to donate $6 million in equipment to three hospitals in an effort to end the controversy. 
But Vladimir Kiselyov, a former Kremlin official whose ties with Putin apparently convinced the prime minister to sing at a private party in December, stirred more controversy Friday by making nationalist remarks at a news conference meant to smooth matters over. 
Kiselyov is a board member of the St. Petersburg-based Federation charity, which staged the party attended by Putin and Hollywood stars like Sharon Stone and Kevin Costner. 
A mother of a child with cancer complained to President Dmitry Medvedev earlier this month that the charity had promised to raise funds for ill children but failed to send any money or equipment to hospitals. 
Kiselyov released a letter Friday pledging $6 million worth of equipment to three unspecified hospitals “as a result of the fact that guests, including … Vladimir Putin, participated in our event,” Interfax reported. 
Kiselyov’s letter did not specify a time frame for shipping the equipment, nor did it explicitly say where the money to acquire the equipment would come from. 
But Kiselyov told reporters on Friday that the money was not raised at the December event. 
Federation representatives have denied that the private party was a fundraiser, saying it only aimed to raise awareness of ill Russian children. 

TITLE: United Russia Pundit Calls State TV Biased
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — An influential United Russia pundit has appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev to create public councils to prevent bias on state television and to raise its overall standards. 
The appeal by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a United Russia member and head of the Institute of Applied Policy, could mark the start of a drive for public television, but some politicians dismissed it as a populist stunt ahead of State Duma elections. 
While stopping short of criticizing political programming on state television, Kryshtanovskaya described it as biased and trite and complained that it promotes immorality and violence. 
“Everyone is fed up watching armed, unshaven men running around … or people hysterically screaming or begging for mercy,” she wrote in an appeal published on her Facebook page late last week. 
The country’s three main television channels, Channel One, Rossia and NTV, are all state-controlled and remain the main source of news for most Russians, despite the rapid growth of Internet use. 
Other prominent figures have also complained about programming, but their criticism has largely gone nowhere. Notably, television host Leonid Parfyonov harshly criticized the news coverage on state television during an event organized by Channel One last November, but his remarks were not broadcast by any of the three main channels. 
Kryshtanovskaya urged her Facebook friends to sign a petition to Medvedev to create councils comprised of citizens who would participate in forming the broadcasting policy for the state television channels. 
Hundreds of Facebook users have signed Kryshtanovskaya’s appeal, including teachers, social workers and journalists. “Let’s say no to the wave of violence and alcohol-related fights,” wrote one signatory, Sergei Rublev. 
Andrei Richter, who teaches media law at Moscow State University’s school of journalism, said Kryshtanovskaya’s proposal might be a “half-step” toward the creation of public television. “This idea has been cooking for many years, but social media has given it a new boost,” he said by telephone. 
In 2006, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and television host Vladimir Pozner appealed to then-President Vladimir Putin to establish public television, but legislation to establish the channel failed to receive Putin’s support. 
Nina Ostanina, a Communist deputy and a member of the Duma’s Family, Women and Children Committee, criticized Kryshtanovskaya’s statement as a populist demand ahead of Duma elections in December. But she said the Communists, who have long complained about being snubbed by state television, might support it if United Russia took it seriously. 
Representatives for the Kremlin and United Russia had no immediate comment on Kryshtanovskaya’s proposal. Kryshtanovskaya was not available for comment Sunday. 


TITLE: Nissan Takes Lead From Russians in Vehicle Sales
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Tyomkin 
and Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s car lovers can again afford foreign-brand cars, with Nissan overtaking Russian-manufacturer AvtoVAZ, maker of the popular Lada brand, in sales volumes. 
In February, 11,519 cars were sold in St. Petersburg, indicating a rise of more than 72 percent on the same month in 2010, according to statistics compiled by Autodealer.ru. In total, in the first two months of the year, the city’s car dealers managed to sell 19,383 vehicles, up 66 percent on last year’s sales. 
The market leader in sales volumes in February was Nissan, which overtook the traditional leader on the Russian market — Lada — selling 10,501 cars. Lada remains the overall leader across Russia, having sold 37,528 vehicles in Russia, according to statistics from the European Business Association.
Lada is losing out to foreign brands in St. Petersburg because of the brisk rate of growth in incomes among the local population, according to Boris Rydayev, chairman of the board of directors at Piter-Lada, an AvtoVAZ distributor in the northwest region and the region’s largest auto dealer. Customers are ready to pay for quality vehicles, and AvtoVAZ as yet has nothing to offer them, he said. 
In February, 1,000 Ladas were sold in St. Petersburg, with Piter-Lada having sold 400, and Intei having sold 200, according to Intei’s general director, Alexei Rumyantsev. A year ago, the auto center sold just 50 cars in the same period. Sales have been supported by the cash-for-clunkers program, although even without that backing, sales would have been at a reasonably high level, Rumyantsev said. Last summer, up to 90 percent of sales were made with cash-for-clunkers rebates; that figure has now fallen to just 50 percent, he said. 
In February of 2010, about 400 Ladas were sold in St. Petersburg. The following month, when the cash-for-clunkers program had been introduced, that figure rose to 900, making the manufacturer the leader in terms of sales, recalls Mikhail Chaplygin, head of the Autodealer.ru project in St. Petersburg. At the cash-for-clunker program’s peak, 1,400 to 1,600 Ladas were being sold a month, but now the program is being wound down, and that means that Lada’s lead is also being reeled in, Chaplygin said. 
The quality of Lada vehicles is being improved, and in view of their low prices the brand will soon regain its lead, as it has in other regions, Rydayev hopes.  
Nissan’s impressive sales in February are the result of six months of planned work by the manufacturer and dealers, said a representative for Nissan Motor Rus, Tatyana Natarova. Natarova said that the firm’s marketing and logistics had been successfully set up and the drop and subsequent increase in production had been correctly calculated to match the demands of the market. 
Nissan took the lead in ratings of foreign-made cars in July of last year. 
In the second half of last year, Nissan for the first time focused on a market that was growing rapidly following the economic crisis, supplying its dealers with sufficient quantities of vehicles, said a manager at one of the federal dealership holdings. Other auto concerns could soon catch up, however, especially those that have their own mass production facilities for the manufacturing of cars, he said, adding that a prime contender would be Hyundai, which has a production capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year at its St. Petersburg factory. 

TITLE: City Hall Releases 2020 Strategy
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Tyomkin 
and Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The Economic Trade, Industrial Policy and Trade Committee last week published a draft of its strategy for the social and economic development of St. Petersburg through 2020. The local economy will grow at a rate of 5 percent to 5.6 percent per year, according to the document. 
The share in the structure of the local economy accounted for by IT technologies, scientific research and financial services will grow from 2 percent to 6.6 percent, while the service sector will expand from 59.4 percent to 65.1 percent, and the transport and communications sectors will rise from 9.9 percent to 12 percent. Processing industries will remain steady at 22 percent. Predictions regarding the deindustrialization of major cities have proved premature, the strategic plan stresses. St. Petersburg will remain an industrial center, although development will come mostly through the development of high-tech industries and research and development activities. Pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, auto manufacturing, machine-building for the energy industry and information technologies are all seen as developing during the next decade. 
Shipbuilding could become one of the key motors driving the economy, according to the general director of the Center for Shipbuilding and Ship-repairs Technologies, Vladimir Gorbach. That will happen if the United Shipbuilding Corporation implements its plan for the construction of a new wharf in Kronshtadt at a projected cost of more than $1 billion by 2018. 
St. Petersburg has a very advantageous location in terms of logistics, and the influx of auto manufacturers is now being followed by component manufacturers, according to a source at one St. Petersburg car factory. The output capacity of the Toyota, Nissan, GM and Hyundai factories amounts to 280,000 cars per year, although in 2010 just 70,000 vehicles were produced at those facilities.
In order for industry to make a significant contribution to the city’s economy, the existing enterprises must also modernize, according to the president of REP-Holding, Gennady Lokotkov. First and foremost, that is dependent on the placing of state orders for shipbuilding and the energy sector, Lokotkov said. 
The number of research and development centers in the city owned by FT-500 companies, according to the forecasts in the strategy plan, is set to double to 10. Opening R&D centers in Russia is far less profitable than opening them in China or India, so it is unlikely that they will appear in St. Petersburg en masse, according to an employee at one of the western developers. 
Microsoft’s efforts are concentrated in Skolkovo, Alexei Palladin, Microsoft’s director for work with the Skolkovo fund, commented through his press service. He added that he hoped that in the future, the experience developed in the new innovation city would be employed in other regions, including St. Petersburg, a city that he believes has a leading scientific and technological base. 
St. Petersburg is the ideal location for research centers working in the pharmaceuticals sector — the city possesses the personnel and infrastructure necessary for small-scale testing production, said a staff member at one of the major foreign pharmaceuticals companies. For full-scale production, however, it lacks territories and sites that have already been sufficiently prepared, he added. 
In a report titled “A survey of the conditions for conducting business in the regions of Russia,” drawn up by the Russian Economic School and Ernst & Young, difficulties in obtaining land is cited as one of the key barriers to doing business in St. Petersburg. The city’s economy has almost used up all the resources that were the basis for its development in recent years, admit the authors of the strategic plan: Ready sites that could be offered to investors are drying up, and the development of new sites is limited by budgetary constraints. According to the forecasts made in the plan, the city’s income will double during the coming 10 years from 315 billion ($11.14  billion).
The city’s main capital, according to the strategic plan, is its human resources. The number of people employed directly in production will fall, while the number of personnel working in research, engineering and technological servicing will rise, according to officials. A total of about 350,000 new jobs will be created. 
Anna Ustiyanets, the director of the St. Petersburg branch of Kelly Services, thinks the prediction is an overestimate. In St. Petersburg, every year, according to her calculations, only a few thousand genuinely new jobs are created. And filling 350,000 newly created jobs would also be problematic, in her view — it is unlikely that such a quantity of qualified personnel will appear in the city in such a limited timeframe, and specialists in the regions are extremely reluctant to relocate to St. Petersburg, she said. 
Yearly growth in the city economy of 6 percent is an optimistic prediction, as the Ministry of Economic Development is predicting an annual growth rate of 4 percent through 2020 for the entire Russian economy, said Vladimir Knyaginin, director of the Northwest Center for Strategic Planning. According to Knyaginin, the city’s advantages in terms of personnel and its geographic location mean that it does have the opportunity to grow at a faster pace than the rest of the country. 

TITLE: VTB Gains Controlling Share of Bank of Moscow
AUTHOR: By Nailya Asker-Zade 
and Maria Rozhkova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — VTB has raised its share in Bank of Moscow to a controlling stake, and Suleiman Kerimov has joined VTB as a shareholder by buying 3.88 percent of its stock from Goldman Sachs.
VTB intends to take over management of Bank of Moscow soon, sources close to bank shareholders told Vedomosti. Mikhail Kuzovlev, VTB first deputy chairman and Bank of Moscow first vice president, should become president of Bank of Moscow. VTB on Monday denied acquiring a controlling stake, Dow Jones reported. 
Until recently, VTB held 49.25 percent of Bank of Moscow shares, having bought 46.48 percent of the bank’s shares from the Moscow city administration (including 25 percent plus one share of Stolichnaya Strakhovaya Gruppa, which owns 17.3 percent of the shares in the bank) for 103 billion rubles ($3.6 billion), and 2.77 percent from Credit Suisse. 
A VTB affiliate also bought 1.7 percent of the bank’s shares from a minority shareholder. The seller was a Swiss fund. 
That is not how VTB had once intended to attain control over Bank of Moscow. Its plans were to obtain 3.88 percent of Bank of Moscow stock from Goldman Sachs. It had reached an agreement with Goldman Sachs on the purchase last month. 
Those shares were frozen after Bank of Moscow challenged the agreement in a London arbitration court. The shares were unfrozen Friday by an appeals court, but VTB did not buy them. Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein reached an agreement with Kerimov on the sale of that share when he was in Moscow last week. 
A source close to Kerimov said he bought the share for 7.1 billion rubles, the same sum that VTB had offered. 

TITLE: Prime Minister Reminisces About Father, Thriftiness 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has exposed more of his personality in a recent interview where he spoke about his father, thriftiness and his penchant for travel. 
When making decisions about the future of the country, he said he thought about how his father used to check their electricity meter on the stairwell outside his apartment. 
“It was life, the real life of an ordinary family, and we must never forget about that,” Putin told state channels Rossia and My Planet. 
The recollection helps him focus on how government decisions can affect ordinary citizens, he said, according to the transcript of the interview posted on his official web site Sunday evening. 
Asked whether he was a thrifty person, Putin replied, “Probably not.” 
He added, however, that he wouldn’t burn through all his money. 
“A man must always think about how to provide for his children. … Simply spending away all you have is irresponsible,” both on the government and the household level, he said. 
Commenting on his busy travel schedule, Putin said it was his desire for self-fulfillment that keeps him on the road for much of his time. He gave the interview in Khakasia early Saturday, during a stopover en route to Sakhalin, where he held energy industry meetings.

TITLE: Tender for $1.6 Bln Scrutinized
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service promised an investigation Monday after a Moscow-based military unit kicked off a tender offering a generous 46 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) to private contractors to maintain its fleet of foreign-built cars and buses.
The first contract in the tender — for maintenance and repairs to 41 Volkswagen cars — was won Monday with a bid of 5.8 billion rubles ($200 million) — or 1,000 times more than actual cost of the automobiles in question.
The unidentified winner beat out four rivals with the bid, which amounted to about half of the starting price, according to the web site of Sberbank’s automated trading system, which handles bids for state tenders on Zakupki.gov.ru.
The state tenders system is under scrutiny after the Kremlin announced in October that the state loses 1 trillion rubles a year to bureaucrats and private contractors who pad their pockets. A Kremlin-ordered overhaul of the system is mired in red tape. Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev over the weekend expressed fears that corruption would swallow a chunk of the $700 billion that the state has earmarked to upgrade the military over the next decade.
Little detail is available on the military unit behind the car maintenance auction other than its number, 28178. A 2006 government decree links a military unit with this number to the Foreign Intelligence Service, but it was unclear Monday whether there is more than one unit with the number.
The state tenders site Zakupki.gov.ru said the unit is registered in southwestern Moscow, while a state tender-tracking web site, Glavsnab.ru, said a unit with this number is actually stationed in the Moscow region.
Repeated calls to the intelligence service’s press office went unanswered Monday. 
The tender on Zakupki.gov.ru seeks bidders to maintain the 41 Volkswagen cars, as well as 73 BMWs and an unspecified number of Scania buses, Fords and Audis. 
A contact person named in the auction’s announcement, Semyon Savinkov, confirmed by telephone Monday that Zakupki.gov.ru cited all prices correctly. He declined further comment on the tender, first reported by LiveJournal blogger Wolfcy.
A new Volkswagen Passat is priced at 1 million rubles on the carmaker’s Russian web site, which means some 5,800 vehicles could be purchased for 5.8 billion rubles, the amount of Monday’s winning bid.
The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service will examine the auction for possible violations of the legislation on state purchases, Mikhail Yevrayev, a department head at the watchdog, said by telephone.
The service has the authority to cancel an auction if violations are uncovered and fine its organizers a total of 50,000 rubles. Officials may also be charged with unfair competition, abuse of authority or bribery.
Anti-corruption experts stopped short of calling the car maintenance auction rigged but agreed it was odd enough to raise fears of corruption.
The auction’s requirements might have been “tailored for a specific supplier,” said Anna Zolotaryova, head of the legal department at Yegor Gaidar’s Economic Policy Institute.
There are plenty of cases where a “customer inflates the price in order to split the stolen money with a supplier,” Zolotaryova said.
But Konstantin Golovshchinsky, a corruption expert with the Higher School of Economics, said current legislation does not require a state agency to “justify the starting price” of a tender, which may imply Monday’s tender did not violate any rules.
The military unit behind the car maintenance tender announced another tender this month — for more than 59,000 packs of ice cream. The starting price stood at a reasonable 370,000 rubles, or some 6 rubles per helping, according to Zakupki.gov.ru.
The unit’s past tenders also seemed to fall within the pricing norms. Tetre.ru, a web site tracking state purchases, indicated that in 2007 the unit sought contractors to build a “residential unit” for 1.5 million rubles in Bryansk region and to supply 11 tons of boneless pork for an unspecified price.

TITLE: Sberbank Aims to Hold Market Share
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Sberbank, the country’s biggest lender, is looking to technological innovation to stabilize its declining share of the retail banking market.
The head of Sberbank’s retail banking arm, Alexander Torbakhov, said Wednesday that the bank is pressing ahead with plans to persuade pensioners to swap their traditional sberknizhki, or savings account books, for plastic bank cards. 
In a pilot project for the scheme conducted in five small towns, only two percent of Sberbank’s pension-age customers refused to use the new card, said Torbakhov, though they were offered financial incentives to switch. 
Toward the end of April, Sberbank is going to begin spreading this technology to the rest of the country, he said. 
Sberbank’s share of the domestic retail banking market was between 47.5 and 48 percent at the end of 2010, down from 80 percent in 1998. Although a drop in the first quarter “is traditional,” Torbakhov said, Sberbank aims to maintain the 48 percent market share at the close of 2011. 
Other developments that illustrated Sberbank’s leading position in high-tech innovation, Torbakhov said, include the 8 million customers who had registered for internet banking — although only half a million people make an average of one transaction or more online each month.
More than 1.5 million people use the service offered by Sberbank that allows customers to pay their mobile telephone bills by SMS, Torbakhov said.


TITLE: Privatization  Of Electric Grid Moves Forward
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Privatization of Russia’s electricity grid moved a step further along Friday when MRSK Holding agreed to give French EDF managerial control of its Tomsk Distribution Company. 
The deal, which is subject to Russian government approval, sets the conditions for a formal contract between IDGC and EDF subsidiary ERDF that will be signed at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in June. 
“I hope that [the agreement] will allow us to arrive in three months’ time at the signing of a contractual agreement on the transfer of management at the Tomsk Distribution Company,” Michelle Bellon of ERDF said in comments carried by Interfax. 
An ERDF subsidiary will be set up in Russia to run the Tomsk Distribution Company. ERDF will be expected to improve financial performance, upgrade technology and improve safety standards. 
The French company will be compensated according to how well it meets these commitments, though the sides did not offer details on either the payment mechanism or the time frame of the agreement. 
The Tomsk Distribution Company is one of dozens of regional grid operators controlled by the state-owned MRSK Holding, which President Dmitry Medvedev has recently hinted could be privatized. 
The current agreement does not envisage EDF buying into the company, but Bellon said she did not rule it out, suggesting that EDF was probably looking to “get its foot in the door” for any future privatization. 
But analysts say it is premature to talk about full-scale privatization, partly because of the need to negotiate different tariffs in different regions. 
Unlike most grid companies, the Tomsk Distribution Company only operates in a single region, making negotiation with regional authorities straightforward. 
“But if you look at regular distribution companies, they’re normally covering something like 8, 9, 10 different regions with specific governors with the necessity to discuss tariff regulation every year with the respective regional authorities,” said Alexander Kornilov, senior utilities analyst at Alfa Bank. “That makes it much more difficult for foreign investors, and it is one more obstacle to full privatization.” 
Meanwhile, confusion about attempts to reform electricity tariffs has left investors in the power generation sector fuming. 
Dominique Fash, the French chairman of Enel OGK-5, told Vedomosti on Friday that he would “not have come [to Russia] if I’d known” how reform in the sector would turn out. 
Investors have complained that reforms meant to liberalize pricing from the beginning of 2011 have been stymied by “mixed messages” from the government. 


TITLE: Resetting on the Libyan Front
AUTHOR: By Dmitry Trenin
TEXT: Russia’s vote Thursday in the United Nations Security Council on Libya Resolution 1973 is more evidence of the changing nature of Moscow’s foreign policy. The trend toward an improved relationship with the United States that has been evident since 2009 has reached a new level. In a nutshell, the Kremlin has dropped its former policy of vetoing anything in the UN Security Council that it doesn’t like. Instead, it appears to be focusing on its truly vital interests only. And Libya, today, is not among them.
This change is another step away from the Kremlin’s inflated self-image as a guardian of the global order — a role that hasn’t fit Russia ever since the Soviet collapse in 1991. Although Moscow couldn’t prevent NATO’s air war against Serbia or the U.S. invasion of Iraq, its UN veto sent a clear message to the West that it opposed unsanctioned military aggression against sovereign states. As a result, in 1999 and 2003 Russia’s relations with NATO and the United States were at record low points.
The image of NATO coalition forces waging their first-ever war in Europe or of former President George W. Bush sending thousands of U.S. troops into Iraq was terrifying and outrageous for most Russians. But not so with Libya. Leader Moammar Gadhafi may have been useful to Moscow in the past, but he was also notoriously mercurial. Moscow did not have much to lose in Libya except for a couple billion dollars’ worth of potential arms contracts that would clearly have been annulled anyway once the Gadhafi regime was replaced.
Even more important, Moscow sees U.S. President Barack Obama differently from both Bush and former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Obama is someone the Kremlin can do business with. He is neither patronizing nor irritating. He doesn’t try to remake Russia in the West’s own image or to encircle it with pro-U.S. client states. Obama’s foreign policy focus is on the issues where there is a sufficient degree of overlap between Russian and U.S. interests — for example, Afghanistan. 
For the first time since the early 1990s, Russia has something resembling a positive foreign policy agenda. This is largely driven by a compelling domestic need to develop technological modernization. For that effort to succeed, Moscow needs good relations with both the European Union and the United States. Russia’s leaders are in no mood to pick battles with those whom they are seeking to engage. 
To be sure, this West-friendly course will not run unopposed. Russia’s anti-Americanism has its roots in the Cold War and even more so in the immediate post-Cold War period. In particular, there is a history of strong opposition to U.S.-led military actions, from Kosovo to Iraq. To the born-again cold warriors, President Dmitry Medvedev is far too accommodating to the West, and this was made clear long before Libya. There may be some opposition or at least disagreement with the Kremlin’s course, as the recent abrupt sacking of Russia’s ambassador to Libya seemingly suggests. 
Yet, this course will likely continue. Russia is still wedded to realpolitik as its guide in foreign policy, but this is now becoming post-imperial. Moscow will still be able to speak its mind and say openly what it does not like. It will surely oppose military intervention on humanitarian grounds, but it will not stand in the West’s way. Put plainly, Moscow will mind its own business. 
This is a clear departure from the stance Moscow took in 2008 on the sanctions against Zimbabwe, which the Kremlin effectively blocked. By contrast, where Russia has a more direct interest — for example, in Belarus — the Kremlin would reasonably expect its partners to tacitly recognize its interests and defer to Moscow.
What will happen next in Libya is difficult to predict. Wars can be a tricky business. Even if the war ends quickly in Libya, it will be difficult to establish peace in the country. 
It is well understood that the Libyan intervention is largely accidental, undertaken as much for humanitarian reasons as for the domestic political exigencies of the intervening powers. It is also clear that Obama was highly reluctant to approve the use of force, but the alternative — high carnage at Benghazi while the United States sat idly and helplessly — would have been even worse, especially since Obama is only 20 months away from elections.
The Libya war, by itself, is unlikely to spoil U.S.-Russian relations. The stakes in Libya are minimal, while the stakes elsewhere in the relationship are high. 
The critical question, however, is whether the United States will decide it has to intervene in Iran as well to help the Iranian people topple the country’s tyrannical theocracy. Seen from Moscow, Iran is certainly closer to home than Libya. 
But if Washington and Moscow focus on their new post-reset agenda, which offers opportunities for developing a joint missile defense system in Europe and Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization, the basis for the relationship may expand and solidify. 

Dmitry Trenin is director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

TITLE: A Pact With the Devil
AUTHOR: By Alexei Pankin
TEXT: The Mikhail Khodorkovsky affair is a classic tragedy — a plot unfolding against the backdrop of modern democratic mass culture.  This became clear recently when Ekho Moskvy radio dedicated a full day of coverage to ballerina Anastasia Volochkova’s condemnation of an open letter by 55 signatories. That missive had various public figures speaking out in defense of the Russian judicial system’s handling of the Khodorkovsky case.
Volochkova’s current stance is a shift from 2005, when she signed a letter very similar to the one she now condemns. That is precisely the type of performance we have come to expect from Volochkova, a colorful figure whose exploits frequently grace gossip column headlines. Just before she was poised to become a cover girl for the human rights cause, she posted photos on the Internet of herself lounging nude on a Maldivian beach.
This tragedy has its roots in the so-called wild 1990s, a time when President Boris Yeltsin recklessly handed out the state’s priceless natural resource wealth with a wave of his royal hand, demanding in return unwavering loyalty from the young billionaires he minted with his Midas touch. Many of them, including Khodorkovsky, eagerly sold their souls in what U.S. Vice President Joe Biden termed a “Faustian bargain” during his March 10 speech at Moscow State University. Those deals were written in blood and had no exit clause except in those cases when the devil himself intervenes.
By appointing his own presidential successor, Yeltsin proved that the devil would honor his side of the bargain. Soon after, however, Khodorkovsky began behaving as if he were a self-made oligarch who owed nothing to the devil. Putin was left with no other choice but to send him to hell. But modern democracy had no mechanism for punishing these types of crimes. In effect, Putin should have issued a royal decree stating that:
1. Khodorkovsky had betrayed his trust;
2. His fate should be a lesson for other would-be renegades;
3. Somebody should do time for the crimes of the 1990s; otherwise, the first person to come to power through free elections would imprison those acquired huge assets from the state for kopeks in the 1990s, as well as those who gave it away; and 
4. I don’t much like Khodorkovsky personally. 
All of this would have been logical under a Faustian bargain, but it would be hard to imagine a such a forthright approach from the devil who has to cater to democratic hypocrisy.
This is where it gets really absurd. Can you imagine Mephistopheles filing a lawsuit to put a lien against Faust’s soul? 
There was a lot of noise over this case — the debate over the rulings by Moscow’s Basmanny District Court, Biden, Volochkova, open letters and counter open letters or the recent documentary film by Andrei Karaulov recently posted on the Internet purporting that Khodorkovsky was directly involved in serial killings. But all of this has no bearing on the main story — Khodorkovsky’s belated attempt to gain back his lost soul from Mephistopheles-Putin, who claims he has rightfully inherited it.
Both of the protagonists in this classic tragedy deserve respect: Khodorkovsky for his singular fortitude and Putin for bothering to pretend he observes proper legal procedure.
But the only winner to emerge from this struggle has been Volochkova. The image of her naked breasts lightly sprinkled with sand as she lies on an exotic foreign beach has become the same symbol of Russian freedom as were the exposed breasts of the young goddess-like figure in “Liberty Leading the People,” the famous painting by Eugene Delacroix that symbolized French liberty. 

Alexei Pankin is the editor of WAN-IFRA-GIPP Magazine for publishing business professionals.

TITLE: Revolution rock

AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Televizor, a veteran rock band that was one of the leading forces behind the Russian rock revolution of the 1980s, is planning to highlight its classic “perestroika-rock” album in concert this week.
Called “Otechestvo Illyuzii” (Fatherland of Illusions), the album was released as an underground DIY tape in 1987 and become one of the most iconoclastic and influential recordings of the era, featuring protest anthems such as “Ryba Gniyot S Golovy” (Fish Start Rotting from the Head), “Tvoi Papa — Fashist” (Your Daddy Is a Fascist), “Vyiti Iz Pod Kontrolya” (Get Out of Control) and “Syt Po Gorlo” (Fed Up).
Although posters present the concert as showcasing the reissue, Televizor singer and songwriter Mikhail Borzykin said the actual CD would be late due to extra time required by the record label to collect more archive photographs for the extensive accompanying booklet.
“We’ll play some songs from this album, which we haven’t played for a long time; we’ve relearned them especially for the occasion,” Borzykin said.
“But we play songs like ‘Your Daddy Is a Fascist’ or ‘Fatherland of Illusions’ at almost every concert. Strange as it may seem, they are still relevant and correspond to the current times. Of course, I didn’t suspect that, I hoped for better when I was writing those songs in 1986.”
Articulate and down-to-earth, Televizor stood out from the majority of rock bands at that time. 
“We were a modest minority even among the bands of the Leningrad Rock Club,” Borzykin said. “We were seen as naive romantics who believed in the possibility of change in this country, who thought that Gorbachev was sincere in his desire to reform the country. But we didn’t really care about Gorbachev, we simply felt that it was necessary.
“The conservative rock ‘elite’ thought it was all talk and there would be no change, so Televizor were seen as ‘extremists’ who could cause the Rock Club to be closed. We were criticized by other rock musicians, which was distressing for us, because it was obvious to us then that you have to do something to bring about change. It’s obvious now, too.”
Formed in March 1981 and located at 13 Ulitsa Rubinshteina, the Leningrad Rock Club was a department of the House of Amateur Creativity, the state organization dealing with various aspects of amateur creative work. After it was launched, a number of rock bands got the chance to perform legally — albeit mostly at invitation-only concerts that the Rock Club promoted — but had to submit their work to the censors in exchange.
Televizor first became the subject of censorship in 1986, when the band was told not to perform two songs, “Get Out of Control” and “My Idyom” (We’re Marching). 
“When we came across censorship at the Rock Club, we felt that we should oppose it,” Borzykin said. “When you write a song and rehearse it and then it turns out that this song is not allowed to be performed — we felt it was ridiculous to make such a compromise. We played these songs despite the warning and were banned from performing live for six months.” Both songs were later included in “Fatherland of Illusions.”
General Oleg Kalugin, who was the deputy head of the KGB in Leningrad at that time, and Akvarium frontman Boris Grebenshchikov have since admitted that the Leningrad Rock Club was created by the KGB to make it easier to control underground musicians, although the Rock Club’s former president Nikolai Mikhailov denies it. Similar associations for underground writers and artists were created the same year.
“I think it’s true, although we didn’t think much about it,” Borzykin said. “There were only hints and rumors. But we had no doubts that we were under surveillance. The fact that we had ‘curators’ to whom we brought our lyrics for approval was sufficient enough, and once in a while we were made aware of the lines that those above didn’t like.
“There were also strange people in suits in the audience all the time, who didn’t look at all like rock fans and stood with rather dark faces and watched. 
“It was a distinctive attribute of the Rock Club’s concerts at that time; there were always informers, men at work, and the police and cadets waiting nearby, ready to seize everybody and take them to the police precinct.”
The KGB’s scheme did not work in the long run, according to Borzykin. “My understanding is that it was created with an idea to control things, but then, as everything happens in this country, the situation got out of control,” he said.
He describes 1987 as the breakthrough year. “[In 1986] we were punished a little, while other bands did not perform the songs that they were asked not to perform, but next year everybody sang whatever they liked. The breakthrough in consciousness had happened.
“They couldn’t control everything, it was an illusion. Now Putin’s government has the same illusion, but no single person can control the thoughts and aspirations of a vast nation, it’s impossible in principle. It will get out of control again, and it’ll happen all of a sudden, like it did then.”
In 1988, the authorities attempted to shut down a rock festival at the Zimny Stadium, citing fire safety grounds, but after a spontaneous march — fronted by Borzykin — to the Communist Party’s local headquarters at Smolny, they backed down and allowed the festival to go ahead as planned. The following year saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“Of course, we did not expect change on such a scale so fast,” Borzykin said. “Naturally, we wanted the Iron Curtain to collapse, we wanted to embrace the international music family and stay with it.”
He criticized musicians such as Grebenshchikov and Mashina Vremeni’s Andrei Makarevich, who spoke on behalf of the Kremlin and took part in a meeting between rock musicians and President Dmitry Medvedev at a Moscow rock cafe last year.
“One should simply call a spade a spade,” he said.
“All this talk that ‘we are outside politics’ — it’s quite the opposite! All these Makarevichs are in politics. They’re simply on the side of the United Russia party. By saying ‘Guys, everything’s fine, sit quietly, this country has always been like this’ they justify the bad guys and atrocities. When they urge musicians not to go into politics, it’s hypocrisy and cynicism, in my view. Because you’re over your ears in it: You serve the authorities, for this you get airtime, medals, the chance to perform at big events organized with the money of United Russia. So don’t play the fool, don’t pretend.”
On the other hand, Borzykin sees DDT frontman Yury Shevchuk’s argument with Putin, in which Shevchuk confronted the prime minister over civic freedoms and democracy last year, as historic.
“Yura did a great thing; he said what he thought in the right tone and forced Putin to resort to his KGB tricks and even direct aggression, which showed again who we’re dealing with,” he said.
“Those questions were good when asked directly. This, as well as Shevchuk’s stance in defense of the Khimki forest and his performance with Bono, play their role in changing the consciousness in Russia. All this is part of a historic transformation that is starting to happen right now.”
Borzykin said he sees similarities in the public mood between the early 1980s in the Soviet Union, when Televizor was starting out, and today’s Russia.
“People were laughing at the government, but they did it in their kitchens, like they do now,” he said.
“The level of annoyance is high, but they hesitate to show it in public. But it’ll change soon, it’s a cosmic law, and no Putin can stop it.”
Borzykin said he was planning to join the Dissenters’ March to City Hall due to be held on March 31 to call for the resignation of St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko,.
“I think it’s not songs that matter anymore; everything has been said,” he said.
“Broadly speaking, the medicine has been taken; the question is when the bubble will burst, when the medicine will start working. Just three years ago, I met more and more people who made out that I was mad and who asked me why I got mixed up with the ‘marginal figures.’ Now, using almost the same words that I spoke then, they are trying to convince me that we need a revolution, urgently.”

<i>Televizor will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 26 at Zal Ozhidaniya, 118 Naberezhnaya Obvodnogo Kanala. Tel. 333 1069. Metro Frunzenskaya / Baltiiskaya.</i>

TITLE: The primitive and the divine

AUTHOR: By Olga Khrustaleva

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The notion of music genre is slowly but steadily sinking into oblivion. Musicians continue to experiment, and music critics invent new names for the new trends. “Is it punk or pop or swing or electro or dub step or rock ‘n’ roll? It is everything!” This is how Tobias Jundt, the Swiss leader of the Berlin-based band Bonaparte, defines the group’s music. 
After all, who needs labels? But Jundt, who claims his own label is “emperor,” agrees with German newspaper Tagesspiegel’s vivid definition of “a multi-ethnic group governed by the party king and a trash circus unleashed,” saying, “If 10 people from eight countries and five languages and all possible sexualities count as multi-ethnic, then that’s us.” And “a trash circus unleashed,” according to Jundt, “actually sounds very much like us.” 
Bonaparte is indeed characterized by its weird and wonderful persona, the group’s name being a case in point. “My friends and I had a band for seven years, but we only ever played for our other friends or for ourselves,” said Jundt. But upon being asked to play at a party, they decided they needed a name. “So we voted between Gagarin, Nevsky, Arakcheyev, Gmelin, Bellingshausen and Bonaparte. In the end, it was 4:3 for Bonaparte.” 
It seems to be the right choice; after all, Arakcheyev (a Russian general known for his despotic manner) would hardly have suited the group’s carnival theme and gas masks, heavy make-up, bubbles and other eccentric attributes of Bonaparte shows. 
“We all just throw in what we saw the night before. Someone says, ‘I found this piece of whatever in the street in St. Petersburg,’ and another one goes ‘Ooh, ok... Let’s take it to Yekatarinburg and pretend it’s a butterfly!’” 
Inspired by everyday life with its events, big and not so big, Jundt says his songs are “about the things that happen in the world, in our times, things I criticize, things I am making fun of.” 
“Sometimes I write to have a good time, sometimes I write to get my message across,” he says. “Writing songs is a great medium and an amazing outlet.” 
Jundt claims that he writes “one song before breakfast and one when I come home at night. Every day.” The fruits of his creative efforts are impressive, and, judging by the diversity of the compositions, his life is very eventful too. “When you are yelling then I am spelling” brings to mind Professor Higgins, while “Tekhnologiya da, priroda net” (Technology yes, nature no) could be a mark of rebellion. 
Speaking about the message and the sense of his work, Jundt told The St. Petersburg Times that Bonaparte’s music is more than art for art’s sake: “There is a lot of deeper sense to it! Deeper than Lake Baikal! It is so deep, you would need a linguistic deep-sea diving license to actually understand it. But you can also just have fun and dance and break a leg or two while we play and enjoy the music. Fine with me, but yes, body and mind are always connected; things can be physical and intellectual at the same time. Life needs both the primitive and the divine, all the extremes can exist together. And a band is always a great place to try these sort of concepts.”
The recent tendency within modern art has been to reach out to a range of audiences. The more sophisticated and yet crazy the show is, the better. But even the bacchanal known as contemporary music has its laws, which when ignored can blur the line between original and vulgar. This is not the case with Bonaparte. The group manages to maintain a balance between body and mind, id and intellect. 
“We all create new ideas as we travel and perform,” says Jundt. “Sometimes I might have an overall idea; being the emperor I have to say what road we will be traveling down next. But once we are on the way, we all have our creative sensors and tentacles out!”
Bonaparte’s local concert this weekend is to showcase their new album, “My Horse Likes You.” Ahead of the concert, Jundt has some advice: “You should have at least four copies of it! Give one to a stranger you meet in the street, another one to your babushka, and the last one you should keep for yourself and have a huge party with everyone in your block!”

<i>Bonaparte plays at 8 p.m. on March 26 at Kosmonavt, 24 Bronnitskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 922 1300. www.kosmonavt.su</i>

TITLE: <i>The Word’s Worth</i>  Gutted Chickens Coming Home to Roast

AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy

TEXT: Íîæêè Áóøà:  Bush-era American frozen chicken legs

One of the peculiarities of language acquisition is discovering that you have a pile of words sitting on the Russian shelf in your brain without little strings attaching them to equivalent words on the English shelf. For example, after remodeling my apartment, I have a mental shelf buckling under the weight of Russian construction materials, bottles, cans and tools. Somewhere in the gray attic of my head there might be another dusty shelf with similar junk in English, but the two shelves remain unconnected by translation. Ðåìîíò and repair are totally unrelated.
I’ve also got untranslated mental pantries for Russian and American food. This works fine — I know what I’m eating — until I’m using a Russian recipe in New York or an American recipe in Moscow and looking for equivalents or substitutions. So I’ve started to put together a kind of cook’s translation guide. It’s trickier than I thought: Different traditions make for different ways of talking about food, especially in the meat department.
Take äîìàøíèå ïòèöû (poultry): êóðèöà (chicken), öûïë¸íîê-êîðíèøîí (Cornish hen), èíäåéêà (turkey), ãóñü (goose) and sometimes óòêà (duck) — often called ôåðìåðñêàÿ (farm-raised). You might also be offered áðîéëåð (broiler — that is, a bird up to 12 weeks old) or öûïë¸íîê (a bird that is 8 to 10 weeks old).
In the old days, poultry came whole and the big issue was whether it was ïîòðîø¸íàÿ (gutted), ïîëóïîòðîø¸íàÿ (partially gutted) or íåïîòðîø¸íàÿ (ungutted). Believe me: Back-to-the-land fantasies end the day you gut a chicken. Today, thankfully, poultry comes cleaned and often precut into ãðóäü (breast), êðûëüÿ (wings), ãîëåíü (drumstick), áåäðî (thigh), offered íà êîñòè (on the bone), áåç êîñòåé (boned), or the wildly expensive äèåòè÷åñêèå (skinless, literally “dietetic”).  
Boned breast meat is called ôèëå (fillet). Sometimes, especially with èíäþøàòèíà (turkey meat), you can choose between ìàëîå (small) or áîëüøîå (big) ôèëå. This distinction, which apparently you can find in Europe but not in the United States, is between the (tougher) large outer fillet (áîëüøîå) and the (more tender) smaller inner fillet (ìàëîå).
At the table, an American host or hostess will ask a guest: “White or dark meat?” Russians sometimes speak of áåëîå ìÿñî (white meat), but they usually contrast it with íîæêà (leg). Now the concept of ò¸ìíîå ìÿñî (dark meat) — as, I assume, a calque from English — is used, but it’s unfamiliar enough to require explanation: Ýòî äîêàçàòåëüñòâî òîãî, ÷òî ò¸ìíîå ìÿñî, òî åñòü íîæêè, íå ìåíåå ïîëåçíû äëÿ çäîðîâüÿ, ÷åì êóðèíûå ãðóäêè (This is proof that dark meat, that is, legs, are as good for your health as chicken breasts).
In the 1990s, cheap frozen American chicken legs appeared and were quickly dubbed íîæêè Áóøà (Bush legs). Later the word îêîðî÷êà was coined from îêîðîê (beef or pork leg). A plural noun with stress on the last syllable, îêîðî÷êà first seemed to refer to thighs, but now can refer to whole legs. I thought it was a singular feminine noun and would ask for äâå îêîðî÷êè. Wrong. When I realized it was plural, I tried äâîå îêîðî÷åê. Ridiculous. A literate cook told me to say: Îêîðî÷êà — òðè øòóêè (Thighs — three pieces). But now Russians are saying: îäèí îêîðî÷îê (or îêîðî÷åê), äâà îêîðî÷êà.
What’s right? I don’t know. I wait until the butcher asks “Ñêîëüêî?” (How many?) and reply: Òðè (three). When in doubt, leave it out.

Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.

TITLE: Dead Souls brought back to life

AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Rolling back more than 30 years, the Mariinsky Theater has revived Rodion Shchedrin’s 1978 opera “Dead Souls,” inspired by Nikolai Gogol’s legendary eponymous work. The premiere was held at the Mariinsky on March 18, and looks set to become an instant hit.
Director Vasily Barkhatov and set designer Zinovy Margolin framed the stage with a gigantic pair of wheels connected by a large vertical platform — the symbol of Pavel Chichikov’s travels between provincial estates seeking a good bargain for fictitious serfs (the premise of the novel’s plot is making money by using the names of serfs who have died but remained accounted for in property registers).
Barkhatov deliberately creates an eclectic mixture of styles and epochs in the opera. For example, the new production presents the dreamy Manilov couple as eccentric modern-day beekeepers, causing a good half of the audience to draw parallels with the former Mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov and his wife Yelena Baturina, Russia’s best-known pair of enthusiasts in this sphere. Korobochka (Larisa Dyadkova), in turn, is a classic 19th-century owner of a small sewing business: The only item that she makes is “white slippers” — what dead people get to wear at their funeral, as a popular Russian saying has it. 
The gambler Nozdryov (Sergei Semishkur) is interpreted as a typical Russian nouveau riche at a drunken sauna party that gets out of hand, complete with female models wrapped in towels, picking up their lingerie in a hurry as they desert the place. No less entertaining is the sight of Sobakevich, who speaks to Chichikov from a podium, bearing a striking resemblance in doing so to a Soviet-era Communist party official delivering an address.
Each of the vivid characters invented by Gogol enjoys what the composer describes as a “portrait aria,” and are also given a specific orchestral timbre and musical instrument by the composer. Manilov’s daydreaming is rendered by the flute, while the stingy Korobochka is represented by the bassoon. Nozdryov’s gambling spirit is delivered by the French horn, the pathetic Plyushkin is illustrated by the oboe, and rough Sobakevich by the double bass.
In Shchedrin’s opera, each act ends with an original orchestral episode featuring action but no singing. In keeping with the composer’s idea, the director makes good use of such pantomime throughout the staging.
Barkhatov generously peppers his show with parody and dark humor. The scene in which the main character Pavel Chichikov (Sergei Romanov) seizes a tape measure, as if battling an impulse to strangle Korobochka, is worthy of a decent dramatic thriller.
The three-act opera makes use of the vocal resources of a substantial part of the company’s opera division: “Dead Souls” boasts a total of 32 characters with solo parts. The production has clearly inspired the members of the cast, as there was not a single weak vocal performance on the opening night.
It took the composer almost ten years to complete the opera, which he based on one of his favorite novels. “Dead Souls” had its world premiere at the Mariinsky (which was then still known as the Kirov) Theater, when Yury Temirkanov was the principal conductor there. The opera has since been missing not only from the stage of the Mariinsky, but from the stages of most other Russian theaters, which have shown little appetite for the works of contemporary composers.
There are not many things that can be said with certainty in the world of theater. It appears, however, that Valery Gergiev, the indefatigable artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater, is a fan of the music of Rodion Shchedrin. During the past five years, the company has given premieres of Shchedrin’s opera “The Enchanted Wanderer,” as well as of the ballets “Anna Karenina,” “The Little Humpbacked Horse” and “Carmen Suite.” The theater also offers a season ticket to a series titled Shchedrin that runs both at the theater itself and at the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall, and features the composer’s symphonic works, ballets and operas, including the ballets “Anna Karenina” and “Carmen Suite.” And, of course, the company is now well-rehearsed in Shchedrin’s symphonic works, which it regularly performs both at home and on tour.
While this constantly growing list was already making critics wonder what makes Gergiev repeatedly choose a Shchedrin piece over no less talented living counterparts such as Giya Kancheli or Sofia Gubaidulina, the excellent production of “Dead Souls” — a new addition to the list — did not fan the flames of the desire to count and wonder. It is a must see for anyone who is even casually interested in the arts, be it opera, classical music or literature. It is a celebration of the creative spirit that the Mariinsky will bring to audiences.

“Dead Souls” will next be performed at 7 p.m. on April 5 at the Mariinsky 
Theater, 1 Teatralnaya Ploshchad. 
Tel: 326 4141. www.mariinsky.ru

TITLE: Celebrity Relationships

AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas

TEXT: This week the tabloids have been discussing former Miss Universe Oksana Fyodorova and the end of her very public love affair with blond crooner Nikolai Baskov.
Fyodorova, a luscious former policewoman, was crowned Miss Universe in 2002, but was officially dethroned for failing to carry out engagements. She in turn complained about having to do an off-color interview with U.S. shock jock Howard Stern in which she was asked about anal sex. At the time, she said her career was more important to her, although she has long since hung up her epaulettes. Back home, Fyodorova was hired to spice up the toddlers’ television show “Good Night, Little Ones,” in which she interacts with some disheveled 40-year-old animal puppets. She married a German model, but they were later reported to have separated.
Baskov, who is divorced with a child, is a classically trained Bolshoi opera singer who has turned to syrupy pop, made a success of it and even presents a Saturday-night television light-entertainment show.
The rumors that the two were a couple began about three years ago. They were often photographed in public together, even though Fyodorova towers over Baskov in her heels.
Fyodorova and Baskov have always been rumored to have a strictly for business romance, a common practice among Russian stars, because they can get better publicity and cuddly photo-shoots, while doing whatever they want on the side.
They certainly have a mutual interest in publicity, because Fyodorova is trying to break into pop. They sang a duet called “Love is Right,” whose video shows them passionately kissing in a hotel room while being pursued by paparazzi.
Their romance sounded phony because reports read too much like press releases. Last year we learnt that Baskov spent $100,000 on a ring from Tiffany’s for Fyodorova, while she responded with a $250,000 ring for him. Some bloggers even suggested jewelry firms were giving the stuff away for product placement on “Good Night, Little Ones.”
Russian media reported this month that Baskov and Fyodorova had broken up, making the announcement after singing together at a concert. Baskov’s press service confirmed this to RIA-Novosti.
Then Moskovsky Komsomolets alleged that the reason for the split was that Fyodorova was pregnant and Baskov was not the father, making it increasingly difficult to maintain their relationship. Fyodorova visited a swanky Moscow maternity clinic for a checkup, it reported, while the father was rumored to be a wealthy businessman.
Express Gazeta said rumors linked Fyodorova to the former owner of a Siberian aluminum factory, picking its words carefully since it said he was also the honorary president of the boxing federation.
Fyodorova later denied the pregnancy rumor, telling Komsomolskaya Pravda that she heard of it from newspaper reports. “Nikolai and Oksana talked to the media too often and in too much detail, and it seems over the top to announce a breakup on stage after singing a tacky song,” Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote.
“Maybe all this great love story was blown up especially to go on the cover of glossy magazines and tabloids,” it wrote, reeling in shock, while refusing to admit that it is a tabloid.
“Naturally, there was nothing between them but a relationship of trade and business,” music critic Artemy Troitsky said bluntly on Ekho Moskvy radio. He alleged that Baskov is not interested in women and said he preferred the approach of British pop singer Cliff Richard, who simply never talks about his sex life. “There, they have a custom of telling the truth, more or less. For some reason, it’s not the custom to tell the truth in our country, even when it’s clear to everyone.”


TITLE: Far from Sicily

AUTHOR: By Jacob Gordon

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Most St. Petersburg restaurants that serve European cuisine understandably attempt to create an elegant, “European” atmosphere. Massimo Sicilia — which, as its name suggests, specializes in Italian cooking — tries a little too hard. “Massimo” is certainly the operative word when it comes to this place’s appearance. Even viewed from outside, the restaurant makes a grandiose impression: The entrance is a tall fake mahogany door enclosed in a fake marble facade. Fake mahogany is also featured on the floors, tables, and the cabinets and shelves that line portions of the walls. The dining room lacks a unifying sense of style. Like the entrance, its proportions seem designed to make visitors feel small: It’s large and wide, with lots of empty space. However, various quirky touches — such as the small wall shelves stacked with various bottles — appear to be after a cozier, more intimate feel.
It’s also true that the seats at the two-person tables are much too low; my friend and I were forced to relocate to a four-person table with more normal chairs. Still, despite these caveats, the place does manage to create an atmosphere. The lighting is excellently judged, bright enough to read the menu and make eye contact without squinting, but also dim enough for a feeling of intimacy. The appealingly eclectic soundtrack, which features everything from tastefully understated jazz to Rodgers and Hammerstein to Love’s “Alone Again Or,” is also a plus. Service is impeccably attentive and endearingly eager-to-please.
The food, though, proved frustratingly uneven. We started with rabbit cannelloni (320 rubles, $11.20) and arugula salad with spinach, haricot beans, and red onion (250 rubles, $8.70). The cannelloni suffered from pasta that was a bit too hard and rubbery, but the rabbit itself was succulent, its flavor blending well with the cheese. The dish was among the more expensive appetizers, but the portion size was correspondingly generous. The salad, though, was a total disappointment: The beans were hard and flavorless, and the whole dish, in addition to being drenched in far too much dressing, seemed to have been sitting in the fridge for a little too long.
The main courses were also, at best, a mixed success. In the lamb knuckle, stewed for 48 hours, with beans and leeks (one of the most expensive items on the menu at 720 rubles, $25.10), the meat itself was superb. It was seasoned to just the right degree of saltiness, and wonderfully tender. The beans, though decent enough on their own, had a hard texture that didn’t go well with the softness of the meat, and the leeks advertised as part of the dish on the menu were a no-show. The risotto with ceps and white wine (420 rubles, $14.70) was an interesting case. Much about the dish was excellent: The white wine and cheese complemented each other well, and the ceps were marvelously smooth. But it’s the rice that makes or breaks a risotto, and the rice in this dish was a bust. It was tough and chewy, bearing little resemblance to the smooth, creamy substance that forms the basis of any decent risotto.
Perhaps because we weren’t entirely satisfied with our appetizers and main courses, we held out hope that the restaurant would deliver when it came to dessert, which is often the best part of an Italian meal. We were also eager to give the place one more chance, since our waiter had showered us with complementary hors d’oeuvres during the course of the meal (which were, however, as uneven in quality as the food we paid for). Alas, the desserts were as hit-and-miss as everything else. The panna cotta with vanilla sauce and fresh berries (260 rubles, $9) was very good, its flavor mild but pleasant. The tiramisu (220 rubles, $7.70), though, was an even bigger disappointment than the risotto. The custard was bland, the texture thick and mushy, and, like the salad appetizer, it had clearly come straight from many, many hours in the fridge.
The overall experience, then, was about as mixed as eating out gets. It’s tempting to be generous and emphasize the positives, but it’s difficult to work up much enthusiasm for an Italian restaurant that can’t deliver staples like risotto and tiramisu. We left the place feeling very conscious that we weren’t anywhere close to the Mediterranean.

<div class="divider">&nbsp;</div>
<b><h1>THE GUIDE</h1></b>
<b>Italy’s Finest</b>
One of the world’s most popular cuisines is as well represented in St. Petersburg as is to be expected, though quality varies wildly. Here are three of the best:

<b>Francesco</b> 

An impeccable two-story restaurant with a pleasantly cluttered interior and cheerful, chattering clientele. Everything at Francesco is laudably fresh, and prices at this Ginza Project establishment range from reasonable to redoubtable. There is a pleasant outdoor terrace in the summer. 
<i>47 Suvorovsky Prospekt. Tel: 275 0552</i>

<b>Dolce Amaro</b>

A visit to this industrial area of the Petrograd Side will be more than rewarded by the delectable Italian classics served up at Dolce Amaro. There is no pizza on the menu, and nor is it necessary. The cream of spinach soup and the steak with mushrooms come especially recommended. 
<i>10 Ulitsa Barochnaya. Tel: 380 8040</i>

<b>Borsalino</b>

The restaurant on the first floor of the Angleterre hotel has been serving quality Italian staples prepared by Borsalino’s Italian chef for years now, but changes the menu regularly to avoid going stale. The high standards, great views of St. Isaac’s Square and irresistible desserts make it a favorite with both visiting tourists and locals alike. 
<i>Angleterre Hotel, St. Isaac’s Square/24 Malaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 494 5666</i>

TITLE: Authors Support Jailed Oil Tycoon at Book Launch
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: There are not many factors that will keep an author away from his own book presentation. The absence of disgraced oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky at the presentation of his book in St. Petersburg on March 17 was directly linked to the work’s main topic: The author is in prison.
A sense of injustice abounded in the small, overcrowded hall of the Regional Press Institute that hosted the launch, and injustice was a core topic of every speech made at the event.
The atmosphere of the presentation was reminiscent in that respect of the November 2010 Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony that was held in the absence of the winner, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Liu has been jailed repeatedly by the Chinese authorities for his human rights work and political activity, which is seen as challenging the regime.
The book, published by the Moscow-based EKSMO publishing house, collects speeches and interviews given by Khodorkovsky during his time in prison under the title “Articles, Interviews and Dialogies.” The publication concludes with the businessman’s final statement in court made on Nov. 2, 2010.
The book thus does not offer anything that hasn’t already been published by a number of the country’s privately owned media. Yet the publisher, Sergei Rubis, argues that when put together, the collected works “produce a very wholesome impression of Mikhail Khodorkovsky as a person and give a fair sense of the ordeal that he is going through.”
“One young female reader summed it up perfectly when I asked her what made her buy the book. She said, ‘It tells me so much about a person’s love for life’,” Rubis said.
“A crook is often more successful than a man of honor, but is a crook happier? If they were, the world would consist exclusively of crooks,” Khodorkovsky writes in his dialogues with writer Boris Akunin, first published by Esquire magazine in 2008. 
“If that were true, only might and villainy would rule the world. The reality is very different: Might loses to courage; shiftiness fails against honesty; love wins over hatred. It happens — not immediately, but always, in the end.”
Outspoken journalist Leonid Parfyonov, who wrote a preface for the book, is convinced that the Khodorkovsky trial will be viewed by future generations as one of the most revealing events of the Putin-Medvedev era.
“Just as today’s scientists are able to reconstruct the appearance of a dinosaur based on a small fossilized bone, the historians of the future will be able to make a fair judgement about our political regime if they study the details of the Khodorkovsky trial,” Parfyonov said at the book launch.
“One does not need to share the political persuasions of Russia’s most famous prisoner to admit the simple truth that the Khodorkovsky case is a historic event of the modern era,” reads the book’s laconic preface. “During the course of the six years that it has been dragging on, this case has served as a virtual indicator of the state of the relationship between business and the authorities in Russia; the independence of the country’s courts; the level of the conditions experienced by those in custody; respect for property rights and the possibility of reviewing those rights; the humanity of the penal system; the ability of the media to be objective; the activities of civil society; the weight of public opinion, and so forth.”
The new publication was welcomed by many members of Russia’s literary community. Some of the members of the St. Petersburg PEN Club are even campaigning for Khodorkovsky to be accepted as a member of the organization.
Boris Strugatsky, one of Russia’s most respected and popular writers, whose dialogues with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, originally published in “Novaya Gazeta” in 2009 form one of the chapters of the book, calls the dissident businessman “a man of unique humanity.”


TITLE: ‘Piracy Lair’ Stands Between Russia and WTO Entry 
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — At a casual glance, the Savyolovsky market looks like an ordinary sprawling complex of indoor shops, offering a variety of home appliances, videogames and DVDs with anything from the latest Hollywood flicks to trashy erotica. 
Yet the enormous venue, which occupies six hectares of land just north of the 3rd Transport Ring, is also a crucial barrier to Russia’s much-coveted membership in the World Trade Organization. 
Russia won support in its 18-year WTO bid from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during his visit to Moscow last week. But intellectual property violations have long served as a major hurdle to Russia’s entry, as reputed piracy lairs in Moscow remain standing intact now that Biden has left the country. 
The Savyolovsky market hit the spotlight just days before Biden’s visit when the U.S. government put it on a list of the world’s top hotbeds of piracy. The report, titled “Notorious Markets” and compiled by the U.S. Trade Representative, ranks Savyolovsky alongside the well-known Silk Market in Beijing, San Andresitos in Colombia and the Petrivka open-air market in Kiev. 
“It is reported that pirated goods are widely and openly available at this electronic market in Moscow,” the report said. 
“These notorious markets not only hurt American workers and businesses, but are threats to entrepreneurs and industries around the world,” Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement accompanying the report, an initial version of a more-detailed study that will be released in April. 
Savyolovsky salespeople — dominated by young, nerdy looking males — hardly batted an eyelid at the American criticism. 
“I saw something about it on TV, but we will continue to do business as usual,” said one salesman, who refused to give his name. 
A 20-something vendor behind the next stand, selling classified address and traffic police databases, was more direct: “I fully agree with the report. You yourself know what we sell here.” 
Indeed, merchandise in nearby stores included pirated copies of Hollywood films and television shows both old and new. The 2010 “Burlesque” musical starring Cher was available before its official March 1 release date for 80 rubles ($2.50), while old Gary Cooper Westerns wrapped in shiny plastic cost 10 rubles apiece. 
The trade is not coordinated, and Savyolovsky’s owners said they were doing what they could to weed out pirates. “We can’t take responsibility for every tenant,” a Savyolovsky spokeswoman said. 
She said, though, that Savyolovsky was monitoring the goods offered by vendors and had kicked out 47 last year for offering pirated items. Indeed, stalls selling pirated Wii games and jailbroken Wii consoles, for example, have disappeared over the past two years. 
The U.S. report will not affect business at Savyolovsky because “most tenants do not follow press reports” and so will not act on them, said the spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing company policy. 
But some vendors acknowledged privately that copyright-related business practices in the country have been improving lately, with piracy becoming less rampant and explicit compared with even five years ago. 
They also complained that Savyolovsky had been unfairly singled out from a slew of similar venues, including Moscow’s Mitinsky market and Gorbushkin Dvor, formerly known as Gorbushka. 
“You can go to any market — they are all the same. Actually, it has become more orderly here recently,” said Dmitry, whose small pavilion sells mostly licensed videogame titles like the “Final Fantasy” role-playing series. 
His prices average about 1,800 rubles ($60) — more than in the United States — but Dmitry says he still attracts plenty of customers among gamers who care for quality, not price. 
Bargain-seekers don’t have to go elsewhere, however, as Dmitry also offers a selection of pirated old Sega games being sold cheap. “No one really wants to pay [real] money for games because everyone assumes they should cost kopeks,” he said. 
He and other traders pointed the finger at the legendary Gorbushkin Dvor, once the No. 1 place to obtain pirated films and music, as the reason people didn’t feel inclined to pay for licensed goods. 
Gorbushkin Dvor, which was not included on the U.S. report, has been slowly changing under the pressure of copyright protectors. 
“We are glad to not make the list,” Gorbushkin Dvor marketing manager Mark Berger said. 
The company that owns the venue put a lot of effort into fighting piracy, monitoring goods on sale and providing free training to vendors, he said. 
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry’s cybercrime department, Larisa Zhukova, said illegal activity decreased at Gorbushkin Dvor last year. But she added that it and other markets were still under close surveillance. 
Nevertheless, the markets may not be the main headache anymore thanks to the Internet. Along with Savyolovsky, the “Notorious Markets” report lists the Vkontakte.ru social network and Rutracker.org torrent tracker as piracy havens. Both sites are “notorious for infringing activities” and permit users to obtain pirated content, the report said. 
A representative for Rutracker.org, which is registered in the Seychelles, said the site was cooperating with U.S. content producers and allowing them to delete illegal torrents uploaded to the web site. 
“That kind of statement is political and often doesn’t correspond to reality,” he said of the U.S. report, Gazeta.ru reported. 
Andrei Melnik, a spokesman for Vkontakte.ru, which numbers about 28 million users, also said the report “doesn’t reflect things” done by the company to fight piracy. One move saw some 100,000 copyrighted videos purged from the network after its producer, THT television, was given permission to remove illegally uploaded content, Melnik said. 
An official at the piracy watchdog Russian Shield, Oleg Yashin, said the U.S. report’s findings were outdated and “too vague.” 
“It appears that the people who conducted it are not real experts,” Yashin said, adding that Rutracker.org’s collaboration with legal content providers is a well-known fact. 
He agreed, though, that Savyolovsky was a leading source of pirated content in the capital, while Gorbushkin Dvor has managed to clean up its act and now mostly carries home appliances. 
Sales of pirated software in Moscow actually plummeted 40 percent in 2010 and amounted to about 168 million rubles ($6 million) a month in February, according to Russian Shield data. 
But improved government policies and crackdowns have little to do with the decrease because piracy is simply going online, Yashin said. 
Rampant piracy is especially harmful for software producers, which have no means to compensate for losses caused by illegal downloads. In contrast, musicians and film stars have many ways to capitalize on their fame. 
“Program developers can’t travel and perform concerts like rock stars,” Yashin said. 
More than two-thirds of all software in Russia was pirated in 2009, Yashin said, citing joint estimates by the Business Software Alliance and IDC research. 
If legally purchased, the programs could have brought $2.6 billion to their developers, he said. But so far, developers are fighting an uphill battle against Savyolovsky and the World Wide Web.