SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1649 (11), Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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TITLE: Toilet Brush Awarded to Local Parliament
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
TEXT: The Golden Toilet Brush, an annual anti-prize awarded every year by the local branch of the Yabloko Democratic Party for the most absurd use of state funds by a government official or organization, has once again found a recipient. This year, the sobering prize, cast in the shape of a white plastic toilet brush painted gold, was awarded to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly that approved spending of 600,000 rubles ($21,120) on the production of a booklet about the activities of the city’s Audit Chamber and a memorial medal commemorating the chamber’s 15-year anniversary. 
The award was founded in 2008, and owes its name to Governor Valentina Matviyenko’s infamous renovation of her office at Smolny, which altogether cost a handsome 32 million rubles ($1.1 million). On official documentation listing the expenses, 12,794 rubles ($450) were listed as having been spent on new toilet brushes, causing critics to speculate whether those items were indeed made of gold. A standard plastic toilet brush can generally be purchased for less than 100 rubles ($3.50). Designer items, or those made to order, would of course cost more.
To select their nominees, each year, Yabloko politicians scrutinize web sites listing state spending. Such information is becoming increasingly available, partly thanks to the Kremlin’s effort to make the government and state structures more transparent. It does not, however, seem that the information about astronomical prices paid for all sorts of products and services, from toilet brushes to teeth whitening, actually bothers the country’s audit chambers and other state bodies that should be taking an interest.
However much embarrassment a Golden Toilet Brush may bring to its recipients and nominees, during the prize’s short history, there has not been a single investigation into what the opposition hints was a blatant waste of taxpayers’ money, if not a misappropriation of funds.
This year, the parliament’s main competitor for the prize was the St. Petersburg Malyutka Palace for the Registration of Newborn Babies, which spent a steep 497,970 rubles ($17,540) on a rug and stair carpet, and a further 147,245 rubles ($5,187) on carpet rods. 
The winner was selected on the basis on voting conducted via Yabloko’s web site. More than 500 people took part in the vote, which lasted for three weeks and ended on March 27. The “golden auditors” received almost 30 percent of the votes, with the “golden carpet” coming in second, just ten votes behind the winner.
The other nominees this year included the “golden video film,” a film about budding entrepreneurs sponsored by the Employment Center of the Admiralteisky district administration, which paid half a million rubles ($17,600) to make the film. Another strong entry was the “golden composition,” a set of street decorations depicting a Christmas tree and snowmen, commissioned by the Frunzensky district administration at a cost of 250,000 rubles ($8,807). 
Last but not least was the “golden concept” candidate. City Hall forked out 449,127 and 406,580 rubles respectively for a document titled “Recommendations on Planning, Maintaining and Renovating Roofs of Residential, State and Industrial Buildings” and a book offering “Recommendations on the Use of Paving on the Territory of Residential and State Buildings.”
From the prize’s establishment in 2008, there has been no shortage of nominations. In 2009, the list of nominees featured Igor Metelsky, then head of City Hall’s Property Management Committee, whose health and beauty expenses — all of which are covered by the state and which included treatments such as teeth whitening and colonic irrigation — came to more than 9 million rubles ($317,000).
The enthusiasts behind the prize do not directly accuse the nominees of corruption. Instead, they simply make the nominees’ questionable spending public, and leave it up to the Russian people to make their judgment.
Like the notorious U.S. Golden Raspberry film prize awarded for the worst performance in cinema, it takes a lot of guts to accept the Golden Toilet Brush. 
So far, no official has had the moral strength to do so. “The winners ignore us and go to all lengths to avoid meeting us,” said Alexander Shurshev of the local branch of Yabloko. “On several occasions, we had to leave the prize with security guards, knowing full well that they would promptly dispose of it.”

TITLE: <font color="red">NEW! </font>Antifascist film festival canceled after organizers summoned to prosecutor's office
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Open Your Eyes! Film Festival Against Racism and Xenophobia was called off hours before its planned opening on Wednesday, organizers said. The Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation canceled the event after its director was summoned to the prosecutor’s office and warned that a probe could be launched into the foundation’s activities due to the festival, organizer Yevgeny Konovalov said.

“We were told they didn’t want any problems with the prosecutor’s office, that the prosecutor’s office made it clear to them that it was better not to hold the screenings,” said Konovalov.

According to a report on the Indymedia web site, the venue was warned about the inadmissibility of holding “political events without prior notification.”

The telephone lines of the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation were continuously busy when called on Wednesday afternoon.

Konovalov said that he had also been summoned to the prosecutor’s office. He said he was told about the festival's cancelation at 3 p.m. — four hours before event was due to start. The organizers will look for another venue and hold the festival some time next month, he said.

Earlier this month, two state movie theaters — Dom Kino and Rodina — refused to hold the festival under reported pressure from the authorities.

The festival has been held annually since 2006. It is organized by the Russian Social Democratic Union of Youth (RSDSM).

See earlier story: <a href="/index.php?action_id=2&section=4&story_id=33793">click here</a>

TITLE: Marchers Target Matviyenko
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Moscow-based opposition politician and former deputy minister Boris Nemtsov will spearhead a Dissenter’s March for the Dismissal of St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko on March 31, which will go ahead despite being banned by City Hall, organizers confirmed Tuesday. 
According to co-organizer Olga Kurnosova of the United Civil Front (OGF) and Solidarity Democratic Movement, who met with police chiefs over the planned march on Monday, the authorities object to any posters or slogans against Matviyenko.
“They are very concerned about slogans calling for the dismissal of Matviyenko, they are even more concerned about that than about demands for Article 31 of the constitution to be obeyed,” Kurnosova said Tuesday. The 31 Strategy rallies in defense of the article guaranteeing the right of assembly have been invariably banned and dispersed since their launch in the city in January 2010. 
Earlier this month, organizers said the March 31 event would revive the tradition of the Dissenters’ Marches of 2007-2008, and, while still demanding the right of assembly, its main objective would be Matviyenko’s dismissal.
City Hall has refused to authorize all five of the suggested routes for the march from the planned starting point at Gostiny Dvor to City Hall. According to the organizers, City Hall, which is obliged by law to explain the grounds for refusal, replied with a four-page letter, citing mostly repair work of the buildings along the routes as making the march impossible.
The organizers dismissed City Hall’s reasons as “illegal and ungrounded” and warned the authorities that the march would take place in any event.
“No Strategy 31 event was authorized during more than a year of its history,” Kurnosova said. “The reasons are always the same: The authorities are scared. Moreover, now, when the number of dissenters is increasing, they’re even more scared.”
Nemtsov’s new report “Putin. Corruption,” which looks at the fortunes made by the Russian president-turned-prime minister’s friends and relatives in the 2000s, will be distributed at the march’s starting point near Gostiny Dvor, Kurnosova said.
The OGF and Solidarity joined The Other Russia, Rot Front, Oborona and Mikhail Kasyanov’s People’s Democratic Union (RNDS) as the organizers of the upcoming Dissenters’ March for the Dismissal of Matviyenko earlier this month.
According to The Other Russia local chair Andrei Dmitriyev, the local authorities’ fears are connected to the allegedly insecure position of Matviyenko with the Kremlin.
“Her position is really shaky, and all that is needed by those at the top who want to move her out is images of a crowd on Nevsky Prospekt demanding the dismissal of Matviyenko,” Dmitriyev said.
“If several thousands come to a rally on March 31, you can be sure that Medvedev will sign a decree dismissing Matviyenko the very next day, and it won’t be an April Fools’ Day joke.”
By Dmitriyev’s estimates, up to 90 percent of St. Petersburg residents oppose Matviyenko, largely due to the city authorities’ handling of the snow, icicles and roof leakages that have caused a number of accidents, some lethal.
An unnamed police source said that the stickers advertising the March 31 event, which show Matviyenko being trampled by the Bronze Horseman statue, one of the symbols of St. Petersburg, could be prosecuted under several articles of the Criminal Code dealing with crimes against constitutional order and state security, and can be qualified as “extremist,” Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported Sunday.
Earlier, ten members of The Other Russia in St. Petersburg were charged with “organizing” or “participating in activities of a banned organization,” a fact that Dmitriyev attributes to what he sees as the success of the Strategy 31 events in which they were active.
According to Dmitriyev, an investigator said last week that 17 more activists would be charged as part of the same criminal case, which was filed in October 2010.


TITLE: Racist Fan Lands Zenit In Trouble
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s FC Zenit last week said it would launch an investigation into a racist incident in which one of its fans offered a banana to Brazilian soccer player Roberto Carlos.
“We once again emphasize that any signs of racial intolerance are prohibited. Football unites peoples all over the world, regardless of their social status, color or religion,” Zenit said on its web site last Wednesday.
The club said it would investigate “the unethical action” in conjunction with the police.
An unknown spectator held out a banana to Carlos from one of the grandstands of the city’s stadium right before the national championship between Zenit and FC Anzhi (Makhachkala), of which the Brazilian player is captain, last Monday.
Footage of the incident shows a man wearing a hood holding out a peeled banana to Carlos. The man’s face cannot be seen clearly.
If the involvement of a Zenit fans in the incident is proved, the club may suffer sanctions. 


TITLE: Ferry to Sweden Prepares For Its Maiden Voyage
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Princess Anastasia ferry to Stockholm is scheduled to embark on its first voyage on Thursday, March 31.
The Nordic capitals will become closer to Petersburg with the launch of the new ferry. The Princess Maria already connects St. Petersburg with Helsinki, and the Princess Anastasia will shuttle passengers to the Swedish capital, docking in Stockholm after a 25-hour voyage. 
The launch of the new ferry looks set to be one of the most important events of this year in the development of tourism between Russia and Sweden. According to VisitSweden, the country’s tourism union, the volume of tourists traveling from Russia to Sweden increased by 15 percent in 2010. The most popular Swedish destination among Russians is Stockholm: More than 60 percent of Russians who vacation in Sweden choose to spend their holiday in the capital.
“We think that with the launch of the new ferry line, the growth of interest in Sweden will in turn increase the number of tourists coming from Russia to Sweden by 20 to 25 percent,” said Alexander Panko, head of VisitSweden’s Russian office.
The new ferry will run twice a week. At weekends, it will also stop in Tallinn, where guests will have about six hours to explore the Estonian capital.
According to data from St. Peter Line, the company that operates the ferries to Stockholm and Helsinki, the ferry will be the cheapest and most comfortable way to travel to Stockholm with a car. The Princess Anastasia has 800 cabins, and the cheapest price for a round trip is 300 euros per cabin, or 75 euros per person. 
The ferry is expected to bring about 400,000 more tourists to St. Petersburg in 2011, according to St. Peter Line data. The Princess Maria and Princess Anastasia are together expected to bring one million passengers a year.


TITLE: In Brief - I
TEXT: <h2>Decapitator Was Insane</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg investigators last week announced the end of an investigation into a case in which a Chinese citizen decapitated a 59-year-old female secretary of St. Petersburg’s Pavlov Medical University last fall. 
Psychiatric tests showed that the 28-year-old man was clinically insane when he committed the crime and that he suffered from psychiatric disorders. Investigators sent the case to the prosecution with the recommendation that the man receive mandatory medical treatment.
The body of the decapitated woman was found at the university on Nov. 22 last year. The Chinese man, who had previously studied at the university but was expelled in 2008, was detained on suspicion of committing the crime. He was later charged with the murder.
Divers initially searched for the woman’s head in the Karpovka River because street surveillance cameras had shown the suspect throwing a bag into it. However, the head was only found several days later in the Malaya Nevka River.

<h2>Sapsan Stowaways</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Police detained two young people this week who wanted to travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow by tying themselves to the high-speed Sapsan train.
Transport police detained a young man and young woman who were sitting between two cars of the Sapsan at Navalochnaya railway station on Monday, Interfax reported.
The young people had climbed into the space between the two cars of the train and tied themselves to it with safety belts.
The couple made it to Moscow, albeit accompanied by transport police officers.

<h2>Man Steals Bus Shelter</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City police have detained a man who tried to steal a bus stop shelter on Piskaryovsky Prospekt last week.
The man broke the glass of the shelter and dismantled its aluminum structure.
The man’s action has been preliminary classified as a theft attempt.

<h2>Ships Trapped by Ice</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — At least 121 ships were still waiting in the Gulf of Finland for icebreakers to come and rescue them on Monday, Interfax reported.
Weather conditions have caused continual problems for vessels trying to reach St. Petersburg’s port and leave it during the last few weeks. The ice in the Gulf of Finland has grown up to one meter in thickness.

<h2>Turku’s Day in the Sun</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Finnish city of Turku is gearing up in preparation for its status as the cultural capital of 2011.
This year, the city will host more than 5,000 cultural events, including concerts, exhibitions, performances and educational seminars. Entrance to all events will be free.
The Tourism and Congress Center of Southwestern Finland has prepared special offers for guests from Russia, including discounted prices for hotels in Turku and its surroundings. 

TITLE: In Brief - II
TEXT: <h2>Car Plants Prepared</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Japanese automobile plants based in St. Petersburg that depend on supplies of components from Japan will continue to work according to their regular schedules at least until May or early June.
The plants have enough car parts in their local storehouses to keep working until then without receiving more supplies from Japan, Interfax reported this week.
Earlier reports claimed that the lack of car components caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan may reduce the global volume of car production by 30 percent.

<h2>Fish Imports On Ice</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Russia will not import fish from Japan for the time being, the Russian Federal Fishing Agency said this week.
Russia used to import a small volume of fish from Japan, but will stop doing so in the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan and the ensuing emergency situation at Fukushima nuclear power station, Andrei Krainy, head of the Fishing Agency, was quoted as saying by Interfax.
“We used to import $6.8 million worth of fish and seafood from Japan a year, but that was a small percentage of our fish supply. The main suppliers of fish to the Russian Federation are Iceland, Norway, and to a smaller extent Vietnam and China,” Krainy said.

<h2>Brothel Exposed</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City police this week closed a salon on Ulitsa Yesenina that provided intimate services under the guise of  being a massage parlor, Fontanka reported.
Police found a set of documents and schedules detailing sexual services offered by women at the parlor. The cost of a so-called “erotic massage” was 4,000 rubles ($140). The female employee would receive 1,500 rubles ($52) of that sum.
A criminal case has been opened under article 241 of the Russian Criminal Code (organization of prostitution). 

<h2>Sennaya Facelift</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — By the end of the week, St. Petersburg’s Sennaya Ploshchad is set to be left bare when all the kiosks currently located on it are removed.
City Hall said it was planning no other construction on the square and that the trading pavilions were being closed due to the expiration of their rental agreements, Fontanka reported.

<h2>No Lunch for Russians</h2>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The majority of Russians do not regularly eat a cooked lunch during the working week, according to research done by the Russian Health and Social Development Ministry.
Up to 36 percent of Russians just eat fruit for lunch, 30 percent eat sweets and biscuits, and 27 percent eat sandwiches.
Only 12.8 percent say that they eat at least small portions of cooked food.


TITLE: Census Shows Population Fall of 1.6%
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s population is shrinking, women still outnumber men by millions, and villagers are abandoning their homesteads to move to urban areas, according to preliminary census results released on Mar. 28.
The population stands at 142.9 million, down 1.6 percent, or 2.2 million, from 2002, when the last national census was held, State Statistics Service chief Alexander Surinov said in a report  published by Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
He predicted in November, shortly after the census ended, that the population might actually see a 1 million uptick from 2002, a forecast that now stands debunked.
“The reduction was predictable,” Natalya Zubarevich, a social policy expert with the Moscow State University, said by telephone, adding that Russia is experiencing the same depopulation trend as most developed countries.
The male population is 66.2 million, or 46.3 percent, while female is 76.7 million, or 53.7 percent, the report said.
About 61 percent of the population is concentrated in three of the seven federal districts: the Central, Siberian and Volga districts, Surinov said. The biggest population decrease, at 6 percent, was registered in the Far East district, which Zubarevich said is seeing a steady outflow of people to neighboring countries, including China. 
On a provincial level, 63 regions saw a drop in population, while the other 20 saw a slight increase. The demographic situation improved mostly in ethnic republics, including Altai and the North Caucasus, as well as in the affluent cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. 
In the capital, the population grew 10.9 percent, bringing the number of officially counted Muscovites to 11.5 million.
More surprising was the Belgorod region in central Russia, where the population grew by 1.4 percent even though it dipped in neighboring regions.
This can be credited to a “wise regional migration policy” by Belgorod authorities, who manage to attract immigrants from former Soviet republics, Zubarevich said.
The urbanization trend persisted, though just barely, with 73.7 percent of the population concentrated in cities and towns, marking an increase of 0.4 percent since 2002. The rural population numbered 37.5 million, slightly more than a quarter of all Russians.
The census, carried out in October, cost the state 17 billion rubles ($600 million). Its results will be gradually released over the next three years, with the final report scheduled for 2013.
A 2009 report done jointly by the United Nations and Moscow’s Higher School of Economics predicted that Russia’s population would keep falling, reaching 116 million people by 2050. The trend is borne out by statistics so far.

TITLE: Medvedev Toughens Checks on Graft Among Bureaucrats
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday backed tougher checks on the income declarations of government officials, called for stronger anti-corruption measures in state procurements, and introduced new rules for implementing his orders.
Medvedev’s whirlwind of activity promises to bear fruit. Kremlin officials said the percentage of his orders being implemented is close to the highs seen under Josef Stalin and that Medvedev is far ahead of his tough-talking predecessor, Vladimir Putin, in his early years in power.
Medvedev ordered Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to draft legislation to assist prosecutors in their checks of officials’ income declarations.
“Prepare the legal amendments. I am ready to support them in order to make the checks more clear and effective,” Medvedev said in response to a complaint from Chaika about weak regulations on income checks during a video conference call dedicated to how officials fulfill presidential orders.
Making officials file income declarations was a hallmark of Medvedev’s much-touted efforts to fight corruption. But the campaign has been heavily criticized as toothless and, thus, a publicity stunt.
Medvedev told Chaika to make information about income checks public. “The power of this effort is in [the information]. If we are going to keep it in cold storage, it would be better not to start any checks at all,” he said.
Chaika, whose agency was tasked by Medvedev to check declarations, said the list of officials and the information about their incomes is limited, while government agencies and regional administrations are free to decide their own lists of officials who should file declarations. As a result, Chaika said, “positions prone to possible corruption” don’t make it into the lists. He named the Transportation Ministry, the Federal Agency for Financial Monitoring and the Federal Consumer Protection Service as agencies whose staff did not file income declarations. 
Chaika also said prosecutors don’t have legal tools to investigate whether officials keep assets abroad.
More than 41,000 violations were detected on 2009 income declarations, and 6,000 officials have been reprimanded, he said. 
But, he said, these figures are the tip of the iceberg. He said more than 9,000 Interior Ministry officials have failed to report their incomes and those of close relatives. Of the declarations that were filed, 200 violations were found in the Interior Ministry’s headquarters alone, while another 300 violations were found in the Defense Ministry, he said. Many violations involve hiding information about owning shares in businesses and participating in the companies’ management, Chaika said, adding that several criminal cases have been opened.
So far, the only widely reported case of a senior official punished for falsifying his income declaration dates back to September, when Medvedev fired a military general, Viktor Gaidukov, for failing to report about several bank accounts.
Anti-corruption campaigners have pushed for Medvedev to crack down on officials who fail to file declarations or offer thin declarations that seem to clash with their extravagant lifestyles. Notably, the Yabloko opposition party appealed to Medvedev last year to check the income declarations of several lawmakers. The request went nowhere.
Yelena Panfilova, head of the Russian office of Transparency International, a global anti-corruption watchdog, said existing legislation is sufficient to fight corruption if followed thoroughly. The biggest challenge, she said, is the lack of a qualified task force to deal with the problem.
“Checking the income declarations of officials is not a regular task for professionals working in the prosecutor’s office or, let’s say, in the tax service,” Panfilova said by telephone.
Instead of tweaking the law, Medvedev should order the creation of an agency that unites and trains financial investigators, she said.
Moving to online tenders for state procurement orders, another corruption issue that has increasingly come under public scrutiny, Medvedev demanded on Monday that government officials report to him about what has been done to streamline the orders. 
“Part of the money is effectively getting stolen, and this must not be tolerated,” Medvedev said, adding that officials should explain the initial prices they set for tenders and that the tenders themselves should be better monitored.
Bloggers often catch controversial and apparently corrupt tenders on web sites executing state procurements, such as government agencies ordering goods or services at prices significantly above market value or formulating orders in such a way that only one provider could match them.
Medvedev said last fall that the government loses $30 billion a year to corruption in the tenders and ordered legislation to prevent the graft. Two rival bills — one prepared by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and the other by the Higher School of Economics — are being considered by the government. 
Federal Anti-Monopoly Service head Igor Artemyev said Monday that his agency has developed an online registry mechanism that allows real-time monitoring of every tender and provides access to the tender database for 10 years. Medvedev praised the effort Monday.
The president also signed a decree Monday setting rules for how presidential orders and decrees should be implemented and monitored by his administration. From June 1, presidential orders will become more regulated, with rules requiring officials to explain why they failed to meet a deadline and how to ask to extend the deadline.
Medvedev complained at a meeting last year that government officials were ignoring his orders and deadlines.
Konstantin Chuichenko, head of the presidential administration’s oversight watchdog, said Monday that officials are increasingly obeying Medvedev. He said only 63 percent of Medvedev’s orders were implemented in 2009, but the figure jumped to 90 percent last year. The number of fulfilled orders stood at 1,102 in 2009 and 1,801 in 2010.
Curiously enough, the oversight watchdog reported in 2002 that 81 percent of then-President Putin’s orders had been fulfilled, comparing them with 54 percent in 1999 when Boris Yeltsin kept the government in constant turmoil amid his search for a loyal successor.
All-time highs for fulfilling Kremlin orders were set under leaders such as Stalin. According to Andrei Neshchadin, who worked in the Communist Party’s Central Committee, less than 5 percent of all orders went unfulfilled before Mikhail Gorbachev came to power.


TITLE: Agencies Clash On Gambling Ring Case
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Long-running tensions between prosecutors and investigators flared Thursday after the Prosecutor General’s Office largely rejected Investigative Committee allegations that its officials had broken the law. 
The prosecutor’s office said it had failed to find evidence to back up Investigative Committee claims last month that Ivan Nazarov, a businessman suspected of running an illegal gambling operation in the Moscow region, had paid for overseas trips by regional prosecutors. 
Prosecutors also denied allegations that a district head had underpriced plots of land he rented out to prosecutors and police officials, saying the amount was fair. 
Seven Moscow region prosecutors, however, did violate ethical norms and have been reprimanded, the prosecutor’s office said. 
The office is continuing checks into the activities of three other prosecutors, including the Moscow region’s top prosecutor, Alexander Mokhov, and his deputy Alexander Ignatenko, both of whom have been suspended. 
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin lambasted prosecutors’ findings, saying evidence possessed by investigators “completely refutes” them, Kommersant reported Thursday. 
In particular, investigators have proof that Ignatenko tried to sell land that he was renting from the district head for 30,000 euros per 100 square meters, a source close to investigators told Kommersant. 
The Investigative Committee also will appeal a decision by prosecutors this week to close a second criminal case against Nazarov, Kommersant said. 
On Thursday, the Investigative Committee opened a third criminal case against Nazarov and his associates on charges of violating copyright and illegally accessing computer information, the committee said in a statement. 
In February, prosecutors closed the first criminal case against Nazarov on charges of running an illegal gambling ring, citing insufficient evidence of wrongdoing. 
But investigators immediately opened a new case on related charges and sought Nazarov’s re-arrest before he even stepped out of the pretrial detention center where he remains in custody. 
Six people, including Nazarov and three police officers, were jailed in mid-February. 

TITLE: Confusion Over Biometric Visas
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — While the Russian consulate in London is getting ready for deploying a biometric visa system, its headquarters in Moscow — the Foreign Ministry — denies such a plan is in the works.
“It’s only a question of time,” Jelena Kirilenko, managing director of the Russian Visa Center in London, told The St. Petersburg Times. “We are ready to establish a biometric system as soon as there is a necessity to do so.” 
The use of biometric data would require each visa candidate to submit their application in person — adding a new layer of complication to an application system that was recently streamlined for British citizens.
The imminence of the new process was confirmed by the consular department of the Russian Embassy in London. 
“The consulates of the Russian Federation’s Foreign Ministry will move to biometric visas in the near future,” said Andrei Batmanov, head of the consular section at Russia’s embassy in London.
“Accordingly, in those countries where Russian visa centers are operating, the apparatus for taking biometrics will be installed.” 
Batmanov said he did not know exactly when the biometric system would be introduced — or whether Britain would be the first country where it would be applied. 
The Foreign Ministry in Moscow, however, denied that there were any plans to introduce a biometric requirement for visa applications.
“No biometric visas requiring the essential provision of photos or fingerprints — neither for British citizens nor citizens of another country — will be introduced in the foreseeable future, and there are no plans to introduce them,” a ministry source told The St. Petersburg Times. 
The ministry did not comment on when biometric processing equipment might be installed at passport control points in Russia.
The embassies of the United States and Britain in Moscow both told The St. Petersburg Times that they had no specific information about biometric visas to Russia being an imminent requirement for their citizens.
“But there is a global move in this direction,” said the press secretary of the British Embassy in Moscow, James Barbour, “because it makes travel safer for everyone.” 
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said that “the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has not been informed by the Russian government of any plans to implement biometric Russian visas for Americans.”
 
<h2>Reciprocity</h2>
Applicants for Russian visas at the moment do not need to submit biometric details — however, every applicant for British and American visas the world over, including Russian citizens, must provide biometric data in order for their visa application to be processed. 
The biometric part of the application involves a digital scan, or “enrollment” of all 10 fingers and a digital photograph. Those who receive a visa have their fingerprints checked against their original data on entering the countries. 
Effecting similar changes to the visa system for applicants wanting to obtain a Russian visa would involve substantial alterations to current procedures. 
All requests for Russian visas in the United States are currently mediated through travel agencies, and applicants rarely make personal visits to Russian consulates. 
Many British applicants also do not visit the Russian visa centers in Britain in person, and instead use agencies and courier services. Under a biometric system, however, a personal visit would become necessary in order to provide the fingerprint scan and digital photograph.
Ashley Sherman, although now working in London’s financial sector, used to live in Manchester, a city almost 300 kilometers from the British capital. He makes regular trips to Russia and has always used the postal option — never having visited the visa center or embassy in person.
“You would have thought Russia, a country of such vast dimensions, would have a greater awareness that not everyone lives in London and close to the visa center,” he told The St. Petersburg Times. “A biometric system would be irritating.”

<h2>British Visa Centers</h2>
A biometric requirement implemented in Britain would add an extra layer to an application process that was significantly simplified about two years ago. 
In January 2009, the visa application process for British citizens was outsourced to an India-based company, VFS Global, which manages visa services for the diplomatic missions of 34 countries. 
VFS Global, a subsidiary of the Kuoni Group, is also used by the British Embassy in Russia to provide its visa services. 
Two visa application centers were established in Britain: one in London and another in Edinburgh. The London center alone can process up to 1,000 applicants per day, said Kirilenko, its managing director.
Yury Fedotov, Russia’s ambassador to London until 2010, said creating the new visa centers was one of his main achievements during his five-year tour. 
Previously, visa applications were processed exclusively by the consulates themselves. 
Nathaniel, an MA student at London’s School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies and a frequent traveler to Russia, who declined to give his last name, praised the new system. 
“Before they opened the visa center, I seemed to be permanently setting my alarm extra early,” he said. “[The Russian Embassy’s consular section] was only open for a few hours in the morning and queues would form from about six. Even once you were inside, the atmosphere in that blasted place was unfriendly.”
“I can’t begin to describe how much easier the new center is,” he said. “The people behind the desks are friendlier and, although I may be imagining it, more beautiful.”
The new visa center in London has a spacious, white interior with fact boxes about Russia, Lonely Planet guides for sale and a huge photograph of the Kremlin on a sunny day covering the walls behind the counters where applications are submitted. It employs 20 people. 
A telephone information service was created at the same time as the new visa centers. 
But the convenience of the system has not made any difference to the quantity of Russian visas issued to British citizens, which dropped from more than 115,000 in 2007 to 85,000 in 2009. Last year saw a slight increase to about 90,000. 
Consular head Batmanov attributed the decline since 2007 to the economic crisis. 
Kirilenko was optimistic, however, that the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the FIFA World Cup in 2018 may provide opportunities for the expansion of the Russian Visa Center in London.
“We will try and do everything in our power to ensure that they can come to Russia in time,” Batmanov said.

TITLE: Military
Hazing Rises By  16 Percent
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Hazing in the army rose more than 16 percent last year, with ethnic tensions contributing increasingly, the chief military prosecutor said Friday. 
Sergei Fridinsky did not provide exact statistics but said “thousands” faced abuse, “dozens” were crippled, and some were murdered. More than 50 officers were imprisoned over hazing incidents. 
The trend persisted this year, with 500 hazing cases opened in the first two months of this year, Fridinsky said in a statement carried by his agency’s web site. Two conscripts were killed; 20 were injured. 
The increase in the overall number of conscripts played a part, he said. The military is currently drafting twice the number of young men it had been drafting before 2008, when the service term was halved from two years to one. 
But “obviously lacking work of commanders” is also to blame, he said at a meeting with military top brass and rights groups in Moscow. 
Some officers condone “servicemen of different ethnic groups … attempting to impose their own rules in military communities,” Fridinsky said without elaborating. The claim echoed a popular belief that conscripts from ethnic republics, especially in the North Caucasus, antagonize fellow draftees of different origins. 
The General Staff was said last fall to be considering the idea of creating special “monoethnic” regiments comprised solely of North Caucasus natives, but no follow-up was reported. 
Hazing should be overcome by educational courses for officers, who will be taught to handle subordinates better, as well as better investigation work, Fridinsky said. 


TITLE: Lenin’s Niece Dead 
At 89
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Olga Ulyanova, a niece of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin who wrote several books praising her uncle and family, has died in Moscow. She was 89. 
Lenin never had any children of his own, and Ulyanova was one of his last known living relatives, according to the government in the Ulyanovsk region, which was named after her family. She was the daughter of Dmitry Ulyanov, Lenin’s younger brother and one of the first members of the Bolshevik party. 
Olga Ulyanova, a chemist and a writer, died in Moscow on Friday, the regional government said. The cause of death was not given. 
Her uncle, Vladimir Ulyanov, took Lenin as his nom-de-guerre in 1901 while in exile near the Siberian river of Lena. Sixteen years later, Lenin headed the Bolshevik Revolution. He died in 1924, when Ulyanova was almost 2 years old. 
After Lenin’s’ death, his embalmed body was placed in a mausoleum on Red Square, where it is open to the public. 
Following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, many Soviet critics demanded the removal of his body from the mausoleum, seeing it as a symbol of the Communist past. 
Ulyanova fiercely objected. “Those who want his reburial are just malefactors,” she told Interfax in 2007. 
She had fond memories of growing up in the Kremlin with other children of Bolshevik leaders and said she never abused her status as Lenin’s kin. She worked as a professor of chemistry and physics at various universities and wrote extensively about her uncle. 
She claimed that her uncle disapproved of the 1918 shooting of last Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and five children. 


TITLE: Message in Bottle Found After 24 Years
AUTHOR: The Associated Press
TEXT: Nearly a quarter-century after a German boy tossed a message in a bottle off a ship in the Baltic Sea, he’s received an answer. 
A 13-year-old Russian, Daniil Korotkikh, was walking with his parents on a beach when he saw something glittering lying in the sand. 
“I saw the bottle and it looked interesting,” Korotkikh said Tuesday. “It looked like a German beer bottle with a ceramic plug, and there was a message inside.” 
His father, who knows schoolboy German, translated the letter, carefully wrapped in cellophane and sealed by a medical bandage. 
It said: “My name is Frank, and I’m 5 years old. My dad and I are traveling on a ship to Denmark. If you find this letter, please write back to me, and I will write back to you.”
The letter, dated 1987, included an address in the town of Coesfeld. 
The boy in the letter, Frank Uesbeck, is now 29. His parents still live at the letter’s address. 
“At first I didn’t believe it,” Uesbeck said about getting the response from Korotkikh. In fact, he barely remembered the trip at all; his father actually wrote the letter. 
The Russian boy and the German man met each other earlier this month via an Internet video link. 
Korotkikh showed Uesbeck the bottle where he found the message and the letter that he put in a frame. 
The Russian boy said he does not believe that the bottle actually spent 24 years in the sea. “It would not have survived in the water all that time,” he said. 
He believes it had been hidden under the sand where he found it — on the Curonian Spit, a 100-kilometer stretch of sand in Lithuania and Russia. 
In the web chat earlier this month, Uesbeck gave Korotkikh his new address to write to and promised to write back when he receives his letter. 
“He’ll definitely get another letter from me,” the 29-year-old said. 


TITLE: Duty Free Monopoly at Pulkovo to End
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Tyomkin 
and Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: A second store operator in the duty free section has appeared at Pulkovo Airport, and the German firm Gebr. Heinemann will be breaking up the 20-year old monopoly previously held by Lenrianta. 
Vozdunshie Vorota Severnoi Stolitsy (VVSS) (“The Air Gates to the Northern Capital”) has been managing Pulkovo Airport since April 2010, and on March 9 it concluded an agreement with the German tax-free store operator Gebr. Heinemann. The retailer’s subsidiary, Travel Retail St. Petersburg, will begin trading at the Pulkovo-1 and Pulkovo-2 terminals in the summer of this year, a spokesperson for VVSS said. 
The total sales area for the stores will amount to 500 square meters, although their sites are still being selected. It is possible that at Pulkovo-2, areas not currently being used for retail facilities will be allocated, the spokesperson added. The agreement covers the period running until the new Pulkovo terminal is opened. That terminal is due to open at the end of 2013. 
A spokesperson for Gebr. Heinemann confirmed that an agreement had been reached with VVSS, adding that the new stores will offer all categories of duty free goods: perfumes and cosmetics, alcohol, tobacco goods and clothing and accessories. 
The Russian market is very interesting; the company has worked in Russia for a long time, and already has duty free stores in Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports, Peter Irion, a member of the management team at Gebr. Heinemann, said through the company’s press service. 
According to Irion, St. Petersburg is important to the company as it is the second largest  city in Russia. The details of the agreement are not being disclosed. Since 1972, Gebr. Heinemann has been operating in Frankfurt’s airport, which is managed by Fraport, which in turn owns 35.5 percent of VVSS.
For over 20 years, duty free shopping at Pulkovo has been the preserve of Lenrianta, a subsidiary of Irish  company Aer Rianta. The company was founded in 1989 with the participation of the Pulkovo aviation enterprise, the latter’s share in the company being handed over to the Rossia airline following the reformation of the company. Aer Rianta stores are already operating at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports. 
According to information on Aer Rianta, the area of the main Lenrianta store at Pulkovo-2 occupies 550 square meters, while another outlet at Pulkovo-1 occupies 250 square meters. The company also has several smaller stores and bars at both terminals. The company’s turnover in 2009, according to SPARK, amounted to 1.5 billion rubles ($52.8 million). Lenrianta will remain at Pulkovo, according to a VVSS spokesperson. The general director of Lenrianta, Anatoly Shashin, declined to comment.
When making its application, Gebr. Heinemann knew that a duty free store operator was already working at Pulkovo, Irion said. 
Major airports usually have two or more duty free store operators, creating competition in terms of the range of goods offered and the prices, leading to greater overall proceeds, according to the head of the Aviaport analytical service, Oleg Panteleyev. According to Panteleyev, the main deficiency in the shopping zones in Pulkovo is that they are too small and that prevents the retailers from operating fully-fledged stores. 
Midway through 2010, the general director of VVSS, Sergei Zimin, said that one of the company’s aims was to increase its share of income generated by non-aviational services, which at present amounts to 15 percent of the airport’s turnover. According to SPARK-Interfax, Pulkovo’s income in 2009 amounted to 4.6 billion rubles ($162 million). During the last year, the passenger volumes on international flights passing through Pulkovo grew in comparison with 2010 by 25.4 percent to 3.7 million passengers. Globally, income from non-aviational services at airports can be as high as 50 percent of an airport’s total turnover, Panteleyev said. 


TITLE: ‘Arts Palace’ Tender Declared Invalid With Just One Applicant
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva 
and Anatoly Tyomkin
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: A tender for the implementation, on the basis of a public-private partnership (PPP), of an “Arts Palace on Vasilyevsky Island” project was announced in December. The preliminary selection was concluded on March 15, the Committee for Investment and Strategic Projects (CISP) has announced. Only one application was submitted, coming from Invest-Stroi.
The competition was declared invalid, but as the application filed by Invest-Stroi meets all the requirements of the preliminary selection criteria, according to CISP, a decision on whether or not an agreement will be concluded with the company will be reached by the end of March.
A spokesperson for Invest-Stroi declined to comment on the tender application. 
According to SPARK-Interfax, Invest-Stroi belongs to the Hungarian company Evroinvest. The company submitting the article belongs to the Hungarian developer TriGranit, the CISP press service reported. 
The general director of TriGranit Management Rus, Istvan Lovacz, said that Invest-Stroi is operating in the interests of TriGranit. He refused to give detailed commentary prior to the publication of a decision on the selection of the private partner for the project. 
The project involves the construction on the territory of the former tram park, bounded by Sredny and Maly prospekts and the 19th and 24th lines of Vasilievsky Island, of a concert hall seating 1,500-1,800, an exhibition complex (about 5,300 square meters), a hall for the holding of events (at least 8,500 square meters), a conference block for the holding of congresses and forums (18,000 square meters), a television complex and parking for 750-900 vehicles, according to the tender documentation. 
The volume of investment was to amount to at least 9.5 billion rubles ($330 million), with the time period for the agreement due to last for 11 years. During the course of this period, the investor was to recoup its investment, and if it failed to do so, City Hall guaranteed that it would subsidize the losses incurred. 
In 2007, TriGranit made an agreement with City Hall on the construction on Maly Prospekt of a multi-functional complex entitled Telefabrika. In 2009, the designs for this complex were presented to the Townplanning Council by the St. Petersburg Center for Multi-Media Projects (StPCMMP) Telegrad, TriGranit having reached an agreement with its shareholders on the buying up of its shares on the approval of the designs. 
The design is for an area of about 122,000 square meters, of which 30,000 square meters is to comprise offices, while the rest is to be allocated to hotel facilities. The volume of investment, without taking into account the Arts Palace, is about $122 million, a source close to Telegrad reported. 
Telegrad is linked to Invest-Stroi, according to a source within City Hall. According to SPARK-Interfax, 51 percent of Telegraf belongs to Solo (a former shareholder in St. Petersburg Bank), and 49 percent belongs to American firm Intra Communications.
St. Petersburg lacks suitable concert venues and the Arts Palace, if it has a good concept behind it, could easily recoup its investment, believes Yelena Ignaty, the managing director of GIA Priority. The project no doubt interested the investor by virtue of its lucrative conditions and, in particular, the opportunity to acquire a land plot with targeted designation status, she added. Instead of that quantity of hotel facilities, it would make sense to build apartments, the expert said.


TITLE: Mirilashvili Triumphs In Metro 
Tender
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The high-profile St. Petersburg businessman Mikhail Mirilashvili, who moved to Israel after serving a prison sentence, has won the tender for the construction of a shopping center above the Admiralteiskaya metro station that is currently under construction.
The St. Petersburg Metropolitan state company gave the commission for the construction of the overground part of Admiralteiskaya station to Sovetnik company, which is part of Mirilashvili’s holding Petromir, Delovoi Peterburg newspaper reported this week. 
The cost of the six-story shopping center will be $26 million to $35 million, making it one of the largest in the city center.
“It will be one of the most expensive and attractive shopping centers in the city for tenant stores,” Yury Sergeyev, vice president of the St. Petersburg Real Estate Guild, was cited by Delovoi Peterburg as saying. “The only problem with it will be a lack of parking space,” he said.
It is not yet clear when the new shopping mall will open. The investor is scheduled to complete the entrance to the new station, which will double as the first floor of the shopping center, by December this year. It is expected that the completion of the complex may take up to 22 months.
The new metro station will receive up to 10,000 passengers per hour — half the volume seen by Gostiny Dvor, one of the busiest stations in the city center, DP reported. 
Mirilashvili, who was born in Georgia, studied at the Pediatric Institute of Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was then known). He entered the business world in the 1980s. Mirilashvili and his brother Gabriel (who later changed his name to Konstantin) owned Gostiny Dvor, the city’s oldest and most central shopping center, until his arrest. He was also a co-owner of Russkoye Video Company. 
In 2001, Mirilashvili was arrested and charged with kidnapping two people who had previously kidnapped his father Mikhail Mirilashvili. 
Mirilashvili continued to do business from jail, and in 2003 was the president of the Conti Group Corporation, which consisted of six casinos. He also chaired the directory board of Petromir holding and had connections with other businesses.
Mirilashvili was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but the term was later reduced to eight years.
Mirilashvili was released from prison in 2009. He has headed the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Jewish Congress since the same year.
Mirilashvili’s Petromir already owns part of the Pik shopping center next to Sennaya Ploshchad metro station.


TITLE: Putin Pushes Figure Skating and Services
AUTHOR: By Olga Razumovskaya
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asked his subordinates for more, faster and better efforts in providing government services electronically, and announced Moscow as the new host city for the world figure skating championship during the Cabinet session on March 24.
Electronic government, the universal electronic card and improving the overall quality of services provided by the state to the masses have become key elements of President Dmitry Medvedev’s agenda, as the presidential election draws nearer and increasing popularity ratings of the country’s leadership becomes ever more important.
Many of these improvements are supposed to be completed over the next two years, and it seems that Putin is showing his commitment by pushing hard on the government services agenda.
“There is an impression that whatever is being done, some problems are solved and others pop up,” Putin said.
On Thursday, the prime minister encouraged his colleagues to look for a systematic and constant approach toward providing government services.
Putin said improvements of government services are progressing, with the completion of the government services Internet portal, “so that citizens no longer have to carry paperwork from one state office to another.”
In 2010, more than 3.5 million citizens turned to the so-called multifunctional centers — centralized offices that allow them to use state-provided services through “one window”— and 90 percent of users, according to Putin, were happy with the experience.
According to Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina, the demand for these multifunctional centers has grown, especially in the regions, despite the initial skepticism.
“[Previously], getting a simple government service, a slip or a document resulted in standing in lines and humiliation for people,” Putin said.
This experience, the government hopes, will change as early as July 1, when government administrators will be officially forbidden to require citizens to collect multiple documents from different agencies if those documents can be accessed through a planned universal government database.
Bureaucrats who send citizens on a quest for additional paperwork or take too long to process it will be fined up to 5,000 rubles ($176) for administrators and up to 15,000 rubles for their bosses, Nabiullina said, adding that these fines could increase if the punishment turns out to be too lenient.
“Do not cut back on the tempo,” the prime minister told Communications and Press Minister Igor Shchyogolev. “This work should be completed.”
Also discussed at the Cabinet session was this year’s world’s figure skating championship, which will be held in Moscow from April 24 through May 1.
The championship was to have begun in Tokyo on Monday, but following the 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a tsunami and a set of explosions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Japan decided not to host the event.
Russia competed with six other countries, including Canada, France, Austria and Finland, and won the bid, Putin said, promising that guests of the sporting event beloved by Russians “will feel at home in Moscow.”
For the current Russian team, which is starting to compete with a new generation of athletes, this will be the first opportunity to demonstrate its skills in Moscow, Putin said. The prime minister asked sports minister Vitaly Mutko to create an organization committee to make preparations for the event.

TITLE: Putin Wants to Up Foreign Ownership
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Foreign investors will enjoy more freedom from bureaucracy when buying into strategic natural resource companies under legislation that the government is considering, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday. 
A proposal by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, he said, would allow international investors to buy up to 25 percent of oil, gas and metals producers that own major deposits without having to get permission from the Russian government. 
Currently, the threshold is 10 percent. 
“Worldwide competition for investment has grown considerably,” Putin said in announcing the planned change. 
The proposal is part of the second package of amendments to the law on foreign investment in strategic industries that requires major deals to receive approval from a special government commission chaired by the prime minister. 
Putin, speaking Friday at a session of the commission, didn’t say when the Cabinet would review the package, which has to happen before it is sent to the State Duma for approval. 
Strategic deposits are defined per type of resource and include oil of 70 million metric tons or more, 50 billion cubic meters of gas or 50 metric tons of gold. Other metals, such as uranium, are on the list regardless of the size of the deposit. Gazprom, Rosneft, LUKoil, Novatek and Norilsk Nickel are some of the companies covered by the law. 
Should the amendment become part of the law, France’s Total would not have to ask permission to buy a 20 percent stake in the Novatek-controlled company that wants to develop a huge field in Yamal to produce liquefied natural gas. 
That said, foreign investors tend to seek Putin’s approval anyway in major resource deals. Total and Novatek received his blessing when they agreed on their Yamal LNG partnership earlier this month. 
The State Duma has already given initial approval recently to the first package of amendments to the foreign investment law, which would remove the need for foreign companies to gain government permission to take any size stake of a private bank or participate in additional share issues of any company as long as such a purchase doesn’t change the foreign investor’s overall share. 
Putin said foreigners directly invested $40 billion in Russia last year, referring to PepsiCo and Sanofi-Aventis as examples. He said the figure represented a modest growth over the previous year. 
This figure is at odds with a statement by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin last month that said foreign direct investment, or FDI, fell 50 percent last year from the year before, to $14 billion at best. The State Statistics Service said last month that FDI slid 13 percent to $14 billion last year. 
Gross domestic product rose 4 percent last year, making the country an attractive target for capital, Putin said. The government’s goal is for foreign investment to grow to the pre-crisis level of at least $60 billion in the “near future,” he said. 
The commission on foreign investment approved an acquisition by French engineering giant Alstom of 25 percent plus one share in railcar maker Transmashholding from its owners. 


TITLE: Russia Set to Profit From Crises in Libya and Japan
AUTHOR: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEXT: MOSCOW — Only a year ago, Russia’s dominance as a global energy supplier was threatened by low gas prices and a reputation as an unreliable trade partner. But with the world now shaken by Japan’s natural disasters and uprisings across the Middle East, the country is back at the heart of the market — and cashing in. 
Gazprom rushed to sell extra gas to European nations when their supplies from Libya ran dry during the escalating violence there. It will also gain from selling energy to Japan, where an earthquake and tsunami have shut down 12 gigawatts of nuclear capacity. 
Gazprom said this week that it was willing to ship more gas to Japan and is now in talks with several power-generating companies such as Tokyo Electric to sell them liquefied natural gas. 
Japan’s struggle to keep radiation from leaking at the Fukushima nuclear plant, meanwhile, has caused a deep rethink in the role of nuclear energy, particularly in Europe. 
The upshot of the recent weeks’ events, analysts say, is that fossil fuel producers stand to gain, particularly Russia. 
“There’s every reason to assume that these events are a game changer both for Gazprom and Russia because Russia is viewed as a much more reliable gas supplier, and the customers are more likely to want to lock in supplies,” said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib. 
While its reputation has in the past been tarnished by sudden gas cutoffs due to pricing disputes with Ukraine, Gazprom has always insisted it was reliable. 
With unrest spreading across the Middle East and threatening major new sources of gas like Algeria, that may no longer sound like an exaggeration. 
Russia already provides two-fifths of Europe’s gas imports, a figure that could grow. Libya, by comparison, accounted for about 2 percent before its taps were turned off because of the conflict. 
In Japan, where authorities are trying to avert a nuclear meltdown and find energy supplies to feed the electricity grid, Gazprom has taken the opportunity to try to gain a foothold in a market it has long been trying to crack. 
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia could re-direct Europe-bound liquefied natural gas — which can be transported by ship — to Japan while shipping more piped gas to Europe. 
VTB Capital has estimated that events in Japan and Libya could add an extra 3 to 5 percent to Gazprom’s sales this year.

TITLE: Rice Praises Skolkovo Hub
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsed the Skolkovo innovation hub on March 25 during a visit to the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo. 
“I think that Skolkovo has a major role to play not just in the transformation of Russia — which would be important in its own right — but really in the transformation of the global environment and economy, because Russia is a very important part of that global environment,” Rice said during a round table entitled “modernization in the global historical context.” 
In attendance were students of the Skolkovo management school, Stanford University MBA students, Skolkovo business school president Ruben Vardanyan and Skolkovo Fund president Viktor Vekselberg. 


TITLE: Bad Acting
AUTHOR: By Kirill Kabanov
TEXT: The collapse of corrupt business groups has led to an interesting phenomenon. When wealthy businessmen with close ties to the ruling kleptocracy fall from favor, they start complaining that they are victims of illegal takeovers and that they had actually been engaged in human rights activity and charity. But what they refer to as “charitable” activity is actually the siphoning of funds out of the Russian economy through the use of corrupt mechanisms in democratically successful European countries and the United States.
These countries have formed the opinion that Russia commits systemic human rights violations and has a corrupt judicial system controlled by the authorities. So wealthy businessmen have begun to compare themselves to former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky or former Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky to avoid being charged with fraud, embezzlement or other forms of corruption — despite having profited from the very system that they now claim is oppressing them. Imagine if one year from now Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi announced that he had been persecuted as a champion of human rights and his property had been unlawfully seized. That is roughly what State Duma Deputy Ashot Yegiazaryan is doing now, after having quietly moved himself and perhaps most of his assets to the United States.
In Russia, Yegiazaryan has been charged with abusing his office for personal gain, and the case was greeted positively at home as an end to deputies’ immunity before the law. The case also demonstrates that many wealthy businessmen serving as Duma deputies do not actually perform the functions of elected representatives but receive — or more often purchase — their office and violate the law by continuing to actively pursue their business interests. During any Duma session, two-thirds of the seats are typically vacant because their occupants are too busy making money hand over fist.
Major business players such as former Mayor Yury Luzhkov and his billionaire wife, Yelena Baturina, have portrayed themselves as victims of a regime opposed to their anti-corruption and human rights stance, apparently in order to gain residency in a cozy foreign country that actually believes all of that nonsense.
Yegiazaryan, unlike Luzhkov and Baturina, responded to allegations against him by sending an open letter to The Moscow Times — not to a Russian publication. Unfortunately, many Russians are unfamiliar with this newspaper: It targets English speakers working in Russia and is very likely read by the staff of the U.S. Embassy. Does Yegiazaryan really believe that he can neutralize criticism directed at him by human rights groups through this simplistic approach? He might wonder, “Why should they care if I call myself a defender of human rights? There should be enough room in this party for everyone.”
The answer, Mr. Yegiazaryan, can be summed up in a single word: reputation. Human rights activists earned their reputation over the course of many years. These are people who stood up for their principles at the risk of confrontation with criminals and state authorities, people who fought corruption without making billions of dollars in the process.
My colleagues in President Dmitry Medvedev’s Human Rights Council, headed by Mikhail Fedotov, decided not to enter into polemics with the likes of Yegiazaryan. We simply issued a public statement assessing Yegiazaryan as an individual while not linking him with the human rights movement. But in light of his statements, we have been misled in our understanding. Therefore, I will consult with my nongovernmental National Anti-Corruption Committee to obtain additional information about his activities, and we will share our findings with all pertinent state agencies in Russia and abroad.
As for Yegiazaryan’s alleged charitable activities, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper has exposed these claims as false.
About two months ago, Yelena Panfilova, head of Transparency International in Russia and a fellow member of the Human Rights Council, told me: “The people who pulled billions of dollars out of Russia, some by criminal means, will attempt to retain their money and comfortable lifestyles by beating their chests and claiming to be opponents of the regime, even while sipping a mojito in a Miami villa.”
I don’t think most people are so naive as to believe such a charade. It might be possible to convince Russian society that an alleged criminal is a benign philanthropist, but countries with developed democracies have established systems that protect the public interest from these kinds of acts. Yegiazaryan’s performance is just bad theater.

Kirill Kabanov is head of the nongovernmental National Anti-Corruption Committee and a member of President Dmitry Medvedev’s Human Rights Council.

TITLE: Imperial Temptations
AUTHOR: By Richard Lourie

TEXT: Since 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the Soviet collapse, there will inevitably be a spate of articles viewing those two decades from every possible vantage. In fact, they’ve already started. March 17 was the 20th anniversary of the only free referendum ever held in the Soviet Union.
Mikhail Gorbachev asked the populace whether they favored retaining the basic form of the U.S.S.R. as a union of sovereign republics. Some republics — the Baltic states and Georgia among them — refused to even take part. But of those that did, three-quarters favored retention of the union. The figures were highest in the Central Asian republics, whose support ranged from the high 80s (Kazakhstan 82 percent) to the high 90s (Turkmenistan 97.7 percent). The Baltic states knew they would be better off outside any version of the Soviet Union, whereas the Central Asian states seemed to anticipate misfortune if they were cut off from the Soviet economic grid.
And that exactly has been the case, according to the report “Central Asia: Decay and Decline” issued last month by the International Crisis Group. The report contends that in the past 20 years, the infrastructure built by the Soviets — the health, education, energy and transport systems — has decayed almost irrevocably. There are insufficient newly trained professionals to replace the older generation of engineers, doctors and teachers now passing from the scene. Almost all citizens are affected by these systems. As one Kyrgyz doctor put it, “The rich leave to get health care; the poor die here.”
The infrastructure collapse will result in failed states and social chaos in four of the five “stans,” Kazakhstan being the only possible exception.
Who would fill the power vacuum left by the failed Central Asian states? Competent local figures like interim Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva might emerge, but if not, outside players will enter the picture to prevent Iranian proxies or Taliban-like movements from seizing power.
China, which is bordered on the west by three of these states (including the two most likely to implode, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), wants no turmoil there that could inflame China’s own Islamic western Sinjiang province. China receives much of its energy from or through Central Asia. It has significant investments there, trade having jumped from $527 million in 1992 to $25.9 billion in 2009.
China might be willing to intervene in social conflicts in Central Asia, but it might be just as happy to see Russia shoulder that burden.
If the people of failed Central Asian states had to choose between Chinese and Russian domination, they’d probably opt for the Russian. Many Russians still live in the stans, and much official business is still conducted in Russian.
The figures from the 1991 referendum indicate a sentiment that may not have eroded along with the infrastructure in the 20 years of independence.
If the Kremlin still dreams of regaining some of Russia’s lost imperial grandeur, the collapse of Central Asia would present them that opportunity. Whether it would cost more than it’s worth is another matter.
Alexander Maryasov, Russia’s former ambassador to Iran, says that “as soon as our economy regains its strength, we will re-establish our old relations with Central Asia and the southern Caucasus and reassert our sphere of influence in that region.”
The Crisis Group may, of course, be overly pessimistic about the fate of Central Asia, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned between 9/11 and the Japanese quake, it’s that it’s almost impossible to worry too big.

Richard Lourie is author of “The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin” and “Sakharov: A Biography.”

TITLE: Back on the airwaves
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Radio Chacha, a band formed by Moscow punk band NAIVE frontman Alexander “Chacha” Ivanov, will mark its first anniversary with a concert in St. Petersburg this weekend. 
Having made its debut in April last year, Radio Chacha is described by Ivanov as an attempt to return to the earlier punk ideas of his former band NAIVE, which tended to drift toward classic rock and metal during the last few years before it went on sabbatical in April 2009.
“NAIVE, as a band that has existed for 20 years, developed logically and naturally,” Ivanov said in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times last week.
“But I think it was a bit too early; that’s why I want to express myself in the field that I am used to and in the forms that I started with a long time ago. I see it as a return to roots, in this sense.”
Radio Chacha’s debut album, called “Live Slow. Die Old,” depicts Ivanov on the cover as an old man with a beard, and frequently deals with age.
“I am already 42,” Ivanov said.
“In the Russian mass consciousness, it’s expected that when you get demobilized from the army at 20, you should no longer be involved in nonsensical activities such as playing punk rock. But I continue because I’m still interested in this type of music, in this type of thinking, if you like.
“I would define this record as a ‘man in time:’ Becoming an adult, getting old, understanding oneself in time. We are all involved in this process, unfortunately. Nobody gets younger. And in this sense, it’s establishing this fact, some observations about it and self-irony.”
Interestingly, five out of ten songs on the album are collaborations with 26-year-old Ivan Alexeyev, better known as Noize MC, the rapper who has become increasingly popular during the last year due to his powerful protest songs and a vocal protest against police lawlessness at an open-air concert in Volgograd that landed him in prison there for 10 days in August.
“It’s a revolutionary approach for punk rock,” Ivanov said.
“The public is quite conservative in this country; it includes both punks and hip-hop fans. Everything is very rigidly divided, and many radical young punk rockers see rap almost as a hostile form of music. In this respect, it was important to me to collaborate with a person seen by the public as a rap musician.”
According to Ivanov, at the beginning, the collaboration with Noize MC seemed to him a case of a famous rock musician helping out a young talent, but as time passed, it became less clear “who was helping whom more.”
“In the past two or three years, Noize MC has made a major push as an artist, songwriter and public figure. I’m glad that I was one of the first to pay attention to this artist,” he said, adding that another collaboration track with Noize MC is underway. 
One of the album’s key songs is “Plakaty” (Posters). With lyrics written by Alexeyev, it was inspired by Monsterations, the colorful, non-political marches held by artists and anarchists who carry absurdist posters and banners as part of May 1 demonstrations in Novosibirsk. 
Monsterations became famous nationwide after Artyom Loskutov, one of the events’ organizers, found himself in prison after Center E anti-extremism agency agents detained him and charged him with possession of drugs on May 15, 2009.
The circumstances surrounding the detention and drugs charges were highly suspicious, and a campaign for the release of the Novosibirsk artist was held across the country, including in St. Petersburg, where a group of artists held a 14-day hunger strike in a public garden near City Hall in May 2009.
The protagonists of the song “Posters” paint placards with “incoherent sets of letters” and go to the city’s main square where they are beaten and arrested by the police, after which they try to persuade the officers at the police precinct that they are “happy with the regime,” and that the rally was an “emotional release.” The sets of consonants used in the chorus, however, are a codified verbal assault on the police.
“Posters” caused a small controversy when some interpreted the song as a mockery of civic activists. “I have heard that opinion, it usually comes from intellectuals, especially protest-minded ones,” Ivanov said.
“They think that it mocks people with a civic stance. But I see it totally differently, it’s quite the opposite.
“It’s not a straightforward song, it’s sort of multilayered. There is some irony about people with a civic stance, of course, but in my view it’s irony with kindness, definitely.
“Many centuries of Russian history show the futility of the struggle against the authorities, and all of us who care about civic rights and participate in various activities should always understand that the chances of victory are negligible. But that doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t think or talk about it. The song is about the fact that protest is doomed to misunderstanding and failure, but that it is worth doing all the same.”
Radio Chacha plans to travel to Novosibirsk on May 1 to take part in the upcoming Monsteration and make a documentary music video for “Posters” there.
Ivanov believes it is more “noble” to play rock music in Russia than in the West, because musicians can’t expect to make much profit here.
“In the rest of the world, rock music has become a mass product, while in this country rock is played by people who really need it, believe in it and love it,” he said.
“I think this approach is preferable, because it means that music is not made just for the money. I like things that are unpractical.”
“Live Slow. Die Old” is split between socially-conscious songs and “fun” songs, such as “Vlyublyonny Metallist” (Metaller in Love), which has been picked up by the radio.
“It’s great to sing about injustice that is happening all around us, but life has a much broader specter. There’s always room for a joke. If there’s no place for a joke, it turns into party tediousness, and this is actually what punk rock has always been against.
“But mostly we’re joking about ourselves. The thing is that self-irony is not very popular in Russia, especially among musicians with a fairly lengthy service record. From a certain point, when they reach certain heights, musicians try to position themselves pretty seriously. I’d like to escape this. Self-irony is an important factor in understanding oneself, and I try not to forget that in my work.”

Radio Chacha performs at 8 p.m. 
on Saturday, April 2 at the Avrora Concert Hall in St. Petersburg Hotel, 
5/2 Pirogovskaya Naberezhnaya. 
Tel. 907 1917. Metro Ploshchad Lenina.

TITLE: Chernov’s Choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Whatever happens in Russia, be it another rally dispersal, artists put in prison or a band interrogated by anti-extremism Center E agents over a lyric, it does not excite the international media too much. The biggest scoop appears to be meetings of President Dmitry Medvedev with Deep Purple, a 1970s British hard rock band semi-forgotten in its home country.
Google News shows hundreds of links to English-language articles, including major news agencies that reported that Medvedev played “Child in Time” as a high school DJ in Kupchino on St. Petersburg’s outskirts, while Agence France Presse described last week’s meeting as part of Medvedev’s repeated attempts to “convince Russians of his hip credentials.”
If so, he is working in the wrong direction. 
The band had become something of a joke by the late 1970s or early 1980s even in Russia, where many erased their Deep Purple reel-to-reel tapes to make space for Talking Heads or The Stranglers as punk rock and new wave reached fans in this country.
Deep Purple’s major hit “Smoke on the Water” became synonymous with “dumbness” long before it was spoofed in the Beavis and Butt-head television series.
Reports about the meeting include supposedly “touching” details such as drummer Ian Paice giving Medvedev a set of drumsticks, or Medvedev’s 14-year-old son Ilya playing some songs with the British rockers. 
Similar excitement was shown by the international media in 2008, when Medvedev met Deep Purple for the first time when the band came then to perform at Gazprom’s corporate party. Has anything changed?
“When I started listening to Deep Purple, I could never imagine that one day I would sit at the same table as them,” the Voice of Russia radio station quoted Medvedev as saying to his aged idols.
“You know we had a very restrictive political system then, and as a DJ at school, I had to get disco music playlists approved by the school’s Young Communist League committee.”
The political system under Medvedev might not be so restrictive. The electro-punk band Barto, whose song had been under investigation for months after being performed at an August 2010 rally in defense of the Khimki forest in Moscow, has been told that the Center E has finally decided not to file a criminal case against the band.
According to synthesizer player Yevgeny Kupriyanov, the band received a call from its lawyer, who said that the investigation has been closed. He said that experts hired by Center E initially found signs of extremism in the song lyrics, but another expert probe commissioned by the band’s lawyer did not.
“We were not given any details,” Kupriyanov said this week.
“They searched for extremism in our songs for half a year, but failed to find any.”

— By Sergey Chernov


TITLE: Opening minds
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Open Your Eyes! film festival, an annual event held to confront racism and xenophobia, will be held this week despite opposition from the authorities, organizers said. 
Earlier, two state-owned film theaters — Dom Kino and Rodina — declined to host the festival’s film screenings and discussions, explaining that there were no available slots in their programs for the events, but Dom Kino’s administrator was recorded on tape as saying that the anti-fascist festival “contradicts the ideology” of the city’s culture committee. 
This year’s festival features “From Tajikistan to St. Petersburg” (Iz Tadzhikistana v Sankt-Peterburg), Svetlana Kenetsius’ documentary about Tajik migrant workers in St. Petersburg, “Love Me Please” (Lyubite Menya, Pozhaluista), Valery Balayan’s documentary about Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old journalist and anti-fascist activist who was shot to death alongside human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov in Moscow in January 2009, and “Russia 88,” Pavel Bardin’s faux documentary about a gang of Neo-nazi skinheads. 
A number of international films will also be screened (see schedule).
Days before the festival was due to open on Wednesday, it was relocated to the premises of the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation. Last week, the organizers received a call from Center E, the government’s anti-extremism agency, and were told that agents from the center would be in the room monitoring events.
“I think that if anything happens, it’s most likely to be on the first day, because the film shown will be ‘Russia 88,’ a film that was repeatedly banned and that was always at the center of some controversy or other,” said organizer Yevgeny Konovalov.
“[Any disruption] could come from neo-Nazi groups or from the authorities. To be honest, I have thought about the latter more, because there are always more obstacles from the authorities to the film festival.”
Neo-Nazis attempted to attack anti-fascist activists at the event on the last day of the 2009 festival. The police intervened and arrested 18 people, including both anti-fascists and neo-Nazis. They were charged with “disorderly conduct.”
However, Konovalov does not think that the local cinemas declined to host the festival due to security reasons. 
“In that case, they could simply have said that they cannot provide sufficient security,” he said.
“The most likely reason is that any idea that comes from civic society sends the authorities into panic. Officials are always afraid that something might happen, and it’s easier for them to ban it than to let it go.
“I don’t think they really meant that they had a different ideology — i.e., a xenophobic and racist one. We sometimes come across such ideas with certain police officers — when they detain activists and then raise their arm in a Nazi salute — but I don’t think these ideas are shared by the Culture Ministry.”
The culture committee later denied issuing the ban, but human rights and anti-fascist festivals have seen similar problems during the past few years.
The festival is roughly timed to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, designated by the United Nations General Assembly to commemorate March 21, 1960, the day of the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa when police shot at a crowd of black protesters against racial discrimination, killing around 70 people.

<i>All screenings are free of charge, and take place at the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation, 11 Sadovaya Ulitsa. 
Tel.: 310 2514. Metro: Gostiny Dvor.</i>

<h2>PROGRAM</h2>

<b>Wednesday, March 30</b>

7 p.m. “Russia 88” (2009, Russia) 
Pavel Bardin’s faux documentary drama starring Pyotr Fyodorov, Kazbek Kibizov and Aleksandr Makarov.

8:30 p.m. Discussion: The place of Nazi groups in modern Russia. Mechanisms of their formation, activities and role in society. 

<b>Thursday, March 31</b>

In conjunction with the Side By Side LGBT film festival

7 p.m. “Prayers for Bobby” (2009, U.S.) Russell Mulcahy’s drama starring Sigourney Weaver, Henry Czerny, Ryan Kelley and Dan Butler. 7 p.m.

8:30 p.m. Discussion: How to accept the homosexuality of a family member in a homophobic society.

<b>Friday, April 1</b>

In conjunction with the May 32 Human Rights Film Festival

7 p.m. “Love Me Please” (Lyubite Menya, Pozhaluista. 2010, Russia) 
Valery Balayan’s documentary about Anastasia Baburova.

8:30 p.m. Discussion: What is contemporary fascism and where did it emerge from in this country?

<b>Saturday, April 2</b>

3 p.m. “From Tajikistan to St. Petersburg” (Iz Tadzhikistana v Sankt-Peterburg. 2011, Russia) Svetlana Kenetsius’ documentary about migrant workers in St. Petersburg.

3:30 p.m. Discussion: The life of migrants in Russia.

5 p.m. “The Edge of Heaven” (Auf der anderen Seite. 2007, Germany-Turkey-Italy) Fatih Akin’s drama starring Nurgul Yesilcay, Baki Davrak and Tuncel Kurtiz.  

<b>Sunday, April 3</b>

3 p.m. “Wondrous Oblivion” 
(2003, France-U.K.-Germany) Paul 
Morrison’s comedy-drama starring Yasmin Paige, Philip Whitchurch and Sam Smith.
 
4:30 p.m. Discussion: Predisposition of personalities to accept the ideas of Nazism. Can an ordinary person become a Nazi?


TITLE: Odd as They Come
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Íåàäåêâàòíûé (inappropriate) has become one of those ubiquitous buzzwords that you seem to hear every day in relation to just about everything. It’s a tricky word for us foreigners, partially because of the false-friend factor.
If we look at the root words, both the Russian àäåêâàòíûé and English adequate come from the Latin adaequatus (equalized). In English, the word got the sense of being equal to what is required: sufficient. In Russian, the notion of “equalized” morphed to the sense of corresponding, matching or fitting. So if in English an adequate response is a response that is sufficient or good enough, in Russian àäåêâàòíûé îòâåò is a response that is appropriate or fits the circumstances.
With the negative forms of the adjective, inadequate means insufficient or not enough; íåàäåêâàòíûé means inappropriate, not befitting or not corresponding to something. Here there’s a problem when you are translating from English to Russian. “I felt inadequate” means “I felt unequal to the job at hand.” In Russian, this is íåóâåðåííîñòü (not confident, unsure) or as ÷óâñòâî íåïîëíîöåííîñòè (a feeling of inferiority).
That’s definitely not íåàäåêâàòíûé. In Russian psychological terms, íåàäåêâàòíûé ÷åëîâåê (literally, an “inadequate person”) is someone whose thoughts, behavior or emotions are inappropriate to the situation or are out of touch with reality. This covers a lot of ground and apparently confuses some native Russian speakers. On one grammar blog, people offered their definitions of íåàäåêâàòíûé, which ranged from the pseudoscientific ÷åëîâåê, êîòîðûé ïîñòóïàåò âîïðåêè çàêîíàì ëîãèêè è çäðàâîãî ñìûñëà (someone who acts in contradiction to the rules of logic and common sense) to the slangy ïñèõ (psycho).
Íåàäåêâàòíûé or the adverb íåàäåêâàòíî can refer to a socially unacceptable behavior: Ïðåíåáðåãàòü òðàäèöèÿìè — çíà÷èò áûòü íåàäåêâàòíûì â ãëàçàõ ñîîáùåñòâà (Not observing traditions is inappropriate in the eyes of the community). Or odd behavior: Èâàí ñòàë âåñòè ñåáÿ íåàäåêâàòíî: ïîäîçâàë îôèöèàíòà è çàêàçàë êîôå è ìîðîæåíîå, à çàòåì îòêàçàëñÿ îò íèõ (Ivan began to behave strangely, calling over the waiter to order coffee with ice cream and then refusing them). Or losing your cool: ß áûëà íåïðàâà, íåàäåêâàòíî îòðåàãèðîâàâ (I was wrong to overreact). Or just plain old losing it: Ìóæèêè çà ðóë¸ì ÷àñòî ðåàãèðóþò íåàäåêâàòíî, íå ïðîïóñêàþò, âûñîâûâàþòñÿ èç îêîí è îðóò. (Men often go crazy behind the wheel. They don’t give anyone the right of way, they lean out the window and scream.)
It can mean being weird: Ó ìåíÿ áûëà íåàäåêâàòíàÿ ó÷èòåëüíèöà (I had a nutty teacher). Or being delusional: Ó ñåñòðû ó÷èòåëüíèöà áûëà êëèíè÷åñêè íåàäåêâàòíàÿ (My sister’s teacher was certifiably wacko).
Russians have slangified íåàäåêâàòíûé down to íåàäåêâàò. This can refer to a person: àâòîð íåàäåêâàò, êîòîðîìó ñðî÷íî íóæíî íàéòè êàêèå-òî äðóãèå èíòåðåñû â æèçíè (the blogger is a crackpot who should find some other life interests ASAP). But it can also refer to the inappropriate behavior itself. For example, on a blog a pregnant woman complains of íåàäåêâàò è äåïðåññèÿ (inappropriate feelings and depression), while someone else complained that Äèìà ïðîäåìîíñòðèðîâàë ïîëíûé íåàäåêâàò (Dima acted totally crazy). When someone loses it, he is said “to fall into lunacy” (âïàñòü or ïðîâàëèòüñÿ â íåàäåêâàò).
This was illustrated by a witty little rhyme about Moscow’s former mayor: Êîãäà ïîä êåïêîþ êâàäðàò, íåòðóäíî âïàñòü â íåàäåêâàò (When under a cap is a nitwit, it’s easy to totally lose it).

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

TITLE: Dancing with the stars
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Throwing down a bridge between contemporary ballet and the era of the Imperial Russian Ballet, the International Dance Open Festival comes to town this week for the 10th time, showcasing some of the world’s finest talent. 
As a preview event, the festival is organizing a free film screening in Dom Kino on March 31 at 3 p.m. of “Ballet Russes,” the internationally praised 2005 film by Dan Geller and Dana Goldfine. The film is based on a series of twenty interviews with living members of the legendary troupe, interwoven with rare archive footage of their performances. Spanning more than fifty years, the film encompasses the history of the dance company, beginning with the Diaghilev era in the 1910-1920s through the 1960s, when fierce rivalry led to artistic stagnation that ruined the historic troupe.
The festival’s opening gala on April 2 at the Alexandriinsky Theater brings together exclusively Russian dancers such as the Mariinsky Theater’s Viktoria Teryoshkina, the Mikhailovsky Theater’s Irina Perren and Leonid Sarafanov, the Bolshoi Theater’s Natalya Osipova and Ivan Vasilyev, the Stanislavsky Opera and Ballet Theater’s Kristina Kretova and Semyon Chudin, and Kazan Opera and Ballet Theater’s Nurlan Kenetov, alongside other performers.
“We are not seeking to turn that concert into a showcase of the achievements of every single Russian ballet company,” said Yekaterina Galanova, the festival’s founder. “It is meant as a cascade of stunning performances by amazing artists from across the country. During the ten years of the festival’s history, we have discovered a wealth of dance talent to which we want to introduce audiences. We promise an array of fantastic new names!”
The next day, the same venue will host a gala performance dedicated to the magnificent emigre dancer Natalya Makarova, whom the Russian-French choreographer and dancer Serge Lifar once presented with an abstract painting that he had signed, “To the Stradivarius of Dance,” thus coining a long-lasting title. The performance will feature Alina Cojocaru and Sergei Polunin of the Royal Ballet Covent Garden, Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle of the New York City Ballet, Yurgita Dronina of the Royal Swedish ballet, Diana Vishneva of the Mariinsky Theater, Marcelo Homes of the American Ballet Theater and other dancers. 
This year, Dance Open made the list of the top most attractive arts events in Europe to visit this spring, according to Britain’s The Independent. The newspaper ranked the event alongside Germany’s Liszt festival marking the composer’s bicentenary, the Budapest Spring Festival that traditionally fuses jazz and classics, the Barcelona Guitar Festival, and Britain’s own Birmingham Flatpack Festival that focuses on psychedelic animation and experimental documentary films.  
The Dance Open festival concludes on April 4 at the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall with a gala performance by international stars showcasing Cojocaru, Polunin, Osipova, Vasilyev and Homes, as well as Lucia Lacarra and Marlon Dino (Bavarian State Ballet), Isabelle Ciaravola (Paris Opera Ballet), and Venus Villa and Jonah Acosta (English National Ballet). 
Spicing up the closing gala will be soloists from the internationally famed all-male U.S. ensemble Rock the Ballet, who are noted both for their original performance style — which blends choreography and acrobatics set to pop songs — and for seemingly getting a kick out of shocking the audience.
As one recent critical review put it, “An unashamed pop-ballet, Rock the Ballet throws out the stuffiness of tradition and replaces it with beats and provocative moves.”
Later in the evening, the Russian Ethnography Museum will play host to the Second International Dance Open Award Ceremony. The Grand Prix of the prestigious prize was awarded for the first time last year, when it was won by Lucia Lacarra. The jury, headed by Natalya Makarova, also awarded a number of prizes for expressiveness, technical virtuosity and the best duo.
This year, Makarova will be back in her native city to preside over the jury, which features the heads of some of the world’s most acclaimed ballet companies and ballet historians. Sitting on the jury this year will be Kevin McKenzie, the artistic director of the American Ballet Theater, Vladimir Malakhov, the artistic director of the Berlin Ballet, Ted Brandsen, the artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet, Altynai Asylmuratova, the artistic director of the Vaganova Ballet Academy, and Ivan Liska, the artistic director of the Bavarian State Ballet.  

For a full festival program, visit 
www.danceopen.com

TITLE: Russia’s answer to Ali G
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: In Ren-TV’s new show, “Who’s the Star?”, celebrities are caught off guard as they are interviewed by apparently the world’s least competent journalist. He works for an obscure Russian-language channel in Australia and constantly refers to scribbled notes. And he seems more interested in talking about his cheating wife Scarlett and his brother-in-law, diamond merchant Schwartz, who may have a job for the stars.
Brilliantly, it is in fact a spoof interview show, a bit like Britain’s “Da Ali G Show,” where Sacha Baron Cohen posed as a youth television presenter so he could ask very clever stupid questions.
The interviewer called Igor Poryvayev is played alternately by two actors. He says he left the Soviet Union in 1989 and is Melbourne’s vice kickboxing champion. He talks a lot about his sister, Yoko, who is married to a Belgian diamond merchant called Schwartz, a close friend of Nicole Kidman.
Mousy and vulnerable-looking, he carries a bulging briefcase and asks unexpected questions of soap and pop stars, such as “What do you think of Nietzsche?” The show does not really play for laughs or try to show up the celebrities. It is more about their reactions — impatient, motherly or critical — as they are confident that the interview will end up on the cutting room floor.
Instead it is aired on Ren-TV on Friday nights.
Bizarrely, the men who play Poryvayev have very different day jobs. Grigory Kulagin hosts “Marriage Fiction” (Brachnoye Chtivo) on DTV, where spouses try to catch their other halves out in infidelity. The episode I saw was obviously played by actors and an excuse to show semi-naked women. Vyacheslav Vereshchaka is an editor at Humor FM, a radio station known for hoary jokes.
In any case, neither has a very recognizable face and none of the celebrities smelled a rat.
Mouthy actor Nikita Dzhigurda, known for his love of obscenities and talking about sex, takes it more or less in his stride as Poryvayev rips out pages of his notebook and rubs out penciled questions, complaining they are no good, before asking: “Have you ever seen a human scalp?”
“Maybe you need to ask different questions, not ones written down but the ones from the soul,” Dzhigurda suggests kindly.
Actor Dmitry Nagiyev, who is reputed to be a sex symbol, sneers as the interviewer fumbles. “I’m waiting here while you are poking around,” he says. “You lived abroad a long time. Why did you come back? Are you a loser?”
Hearing of the wealthy Schwartz, he offers to sing for him. “I can only mime but I move beautifully. If you invite me I can sing for you and old man Schwartz, for old man Schwartz’s money, 40 minutes nonstop.”
With blonde sex kitten and sometime Liberal Democratic Party deputy Masha Malinovskaya, Poryvayev really opens up. “You look a lot like my sister. I feel very comfortable with you, like with my sister,” he says, even offering her a job modeling diamonds for Schwartz.
He asks her about voicing a hippopotamus in the animated film “Madagascar” before saying he preferred the penguins because penguins are monogamous. “At least the male ones are, I don’t know about the female ones,” he says bitterly, launching into the story of his wife Scarlett, who left him for a surfer after going to a psychoanalyst.
“I started feeling the psychoanalyst was worth more to her than I was. Then it turned out that the surfer was worth more to her,” he says.
Malinovskaya tells him to get over it. “She was probably with the surfer first anyway,” she tells him. “You’re a man, not a penguin.”
“But it turns out, I am a penguin,” he says inconsolably.


TITLE: Shopping and eating
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Baklazhan is Ginza Project restaurant group’s second outlet to open in a shopping center in recent months, hot on the heels of Moskva, located in the Stockmann Nevsky Center. While the eponymous Finnish department store dominates the Stockmann center, catering to shoppers with a taste for designer clothes and gourmet delicacies (bills of 15,000 rubles — the monthly budget of some families — are not uncommon at the gourmet delicatessen in the center’s basement), the mammoth shopping center Galleria caters to a more mainstream clientele. Situated behind the Moscow Railway Station, the colossal neo-Stalinist building is home to almost every European high-street label imaginable, and the difference in the target audience at Galleria is reflected in Baklazhan.
On the surface, it bears all the hallmarks of a Ginza offering: Comfortable low armchairs and sofas, open kitchen stations, wall displays based around collections of bottles and some eye-catching chandeliers. On the inside, it’s not dissimilar from its sister, Moskva. But the differences are there: Moskva is located on the top floor of the Stockmann Center, and tables have views either out onto Ploshchad Vosstaniya, or inwards to the restaurant’s appealing interior. At Baklazhan, on the other hand, much of the seating looks out directly onto the fourth-floor lift, and therefore onto a constant stream of shoppers, which detracts somewhat from the otherwise refined surroundings. Worse, opposite the restaurant’s inner windows is another cafe, with a huge and singularly unappealing advertising triptych of photos of a woman cramming a sandwich into her mouth: Not exactly the most appetizing sight. 
Nor is the Ginza-standard polish quite up to scratch at Baklazhan. On a recent Saturday night visit, the cloakroom was full (the same could not be said of the restaurant itself, though it was busy). While this was a setback we could certainly have lived with, less forgivable was the Ginza attitude at the door: While explaining that we would have to hang our coats on the back of our armchairs, the hostess made it clear that we could not walk through the restaurant in them (the Russian horror of diners in outdoor clothing entering a place where food is served outweighs, it seems, a lack of anywhere to put them), and waited awkwardly for us to take them off at the door — hardly very convenient for shoppers already weighed down by shopping bags.
While the impression of a slightly bumpy start was only compounded by the service (undeniably wobbly) and music (much too loud), the food is of the standard to be expected from Ginza establishments. Baklazhan is Russian for eggplant, and the vegetable is paid tribute to by the opening page of the menu, which consists of eggplant-based dishes. The rest of the menu is Caucasus and Uzbekistan-inspired. Kharcho soup (200 rubles, $7) was a piping hot concoction thickened with rice and had a rich, spicy flavor. Georgian salad (180 rubles, $6.40) of tomatoes, cucumber, fine slices of red onion and green chilli peppers was not spicy, as promised, unless salt counts — there was certainly plenty of that.
Baklazhan offers both a classic lobio (bean stew) and a rarer version in which the beans are left whole rather than being crushed into a thick paste. The latter variant (190 rubles, $6.70) was a rich, hearty and slightly spicy dish, though the lower half was drowning in a puddle of oil. Lyulya chicken kebab (310 rubles, $11) was served on an improbably long skewer (rather too long for our modest table) on a bed of lavash bread, accompanied by fresh salad, thus pushing side orders of mashed potato and grilled tomatoes (90 rubles, $3.20) each firmly into the realm of greedy. The meat itself was also a generous portion and barbequed for just the right amount of time, and was complemented perfectly by an excellent tomato and herb sauce.  
Inevitably, this all had to be accompanied by khachapuri (290 rubles, $10), which was sadly a little too thin and crispy on top to make it a contender for victory in the vicious khachapuri wars.
While people are unlikely to go out of their way to visit Baklazhan, it is a good pit stop for weary shoppers in need of refuelling, though it might be hard to return to the shops after a feast of heavy Georgian food — and those game enough to do so may at least have to be prepared to compromise and try on clothes a size larger than before lunch.

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>Retail Therapy</b>
The city’s malls have more to offer in the way of sustenance than simply food courts dominated by fast food chains.

<b>Nebo</b>

The glass walls of this cafe-bar located on the  top floor of Pik shopping center on Sennaya Ploshchad offer a great view of the St. Petersburg skyline and the antics going on down below on Sennaya. The European and Asian cuisine on offer is average, but the service has something to be desired. 
2 Sennaya Ploshchad (Pik shopping center). Tel: 449 2488

<b>Lumiere</b>

This exclusive, expensive restaurant on the top floor of the Grand Palace shopping complex has a glass roof and walls, and a view of Arts Square, the Russian Museum and the glittering domes of the Church on the Spilled Blood. The menu features some unforgettable combinations. Lumiere is currently closed for renovation work, but is due to reopen in May. Grand Palace shopping center, 15 Italianskaya Ulitsa. 
Tel: 449 9482

<b>IKEA</b>

As unlikely as it may seem, IKEA’s canteen is a dining destination in its own right in St. Petersburg. Some come here for the excellent supervised children’s room, some for the wildly popular Swedish meatballs, bargainous prices and free drinks refills, and others are simply taking a break from shopping in the adjacent Mega shopping mall. IKEA Dybenko, 12th kilometer of the Murmanskoye Shosse. Tel: 332 006

TITLE: An Insider’s Perspective on the Russian Art Market
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The interest in Russian art shown in recent years by collectors both in Russia and abroad shows no sign of abating. An auction held by Sotheby’s auction house in December saw Russian works of art, including Faberge items and icons, go under the hammer for a total of three million pounds ($4.8 million), and a similar auction held in London in June 2010 raised more than five million pounds. 
Russian collectors in particular have started to actively participate in international auctions and buy works by masters of their native country. This is one of the current market tendencies being observed by Olga Vaigatcheva, head of Russian works of art and the Faberge department at Sotheby’s. 
“The art market is subject to the same influences as other markets,” says Vaigatcheva. “During the crisis there was a small decline, but nowadays the market of art development is gathering pace and the results of the last sales are very good. There will be always demand for and interest in Russian art.” 
An authoritative specialist on art, Vaigatcheva is a key figure of the team behind major sales of Russian art by Sotheby’s, including the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya collection and sales devoted respectively to imperial gifts and Romanov heirlooms.
Vaigatcheva started her professional journey by studying Chinese and economics at the University of London, before going on to continue her education at Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She was attracted by the opportunity not only of obtaining an academic knowledge of East Asian art, but of learning about the art market and the commercial side of the art business. Vaigatcheva had not yet taken her viva when she was invited to join Sotheby’s auction house in 2005. 
“I was born and grew up in St. Petersburg, so ever since childhood I have been surrounded by beautiful things and sights, and a love of art has always been in my blood,” says Vaigatcheva.
Vaigatcheva’s work at Sotheby’s originally focused on Chinese paintings, but with time she moved to the Russian art department, becoming one of Sotheby’s first employees to speak Russian as a native language.
“The Chinese painting market is mostly based in China, while Europe is more interested in applied art,” explained Vaigatcheva. “Working in the Russian department is closer to my heart and more interesting to me.”
It is difficult to separate particular trends in art that are popular among collectors: For every item, there is a collector.
“There can be fashions for some style periods,” says Vaigatcheva. “For example, the best imperial vases were produced during the reign of Nicholas I. The tsar patronized the imperial porcelain factory and introduced a lot of innovations. It was at that time that Russian porcelain became comparable with European pieces.”
There is also a demand for the “propaganda porcelain” that emerged in the 1920s. With its Soviet symbols and slogans, the tea services reflected the spirit of the post-revolutionary years.
“No other country had this culture of avant-garde,” says Vaigatcheva. “It was a fresh stream in art; it thrilled minds, it is unique and recognizable, and greatly influenced the development of the art world. That’s why it piques collectors’ interest nowadays,” she explained.
“It’s always interesting to follow the path of a particular lot. Things come from all over the world and travel to all the corners of the Earth. Last year there was a growth in customers from the East,” she said.
Traditionally, most collections begin with items that are primarily interesting to their owners, according to Vaigatcheva. Then interest grows, a taste develops for the item, collectors gain more knowledge and start to supplement their collection. But the most popular and valuable items among collectors remain those with an interesting provenance, especially those related to the imperial family. Another criterion for the value of an item is novelty. 
“Good things with an interesting provenance always attract interest and are more valuable,” says Vaigatcheva. “The best example is the sale of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna’s jewelry collection, which was one of the most interesting projects I have seen during my career.”
Maria Pavlovna was one of the few members of the imperial Russian family who was able to smuggle jewelry out of revolutionary Russia. In 1918, Professor Richard Bergholz delivered two pillowcases stuffed with cufflinks, cigarette and cigar cases to the Swedish Legation in Petrograd, as Petersburg was then known. Maria Pavlovna escaped abroad and died two years later, without having been able to tell her family about the hidden jewelry. Swedish diplomats took the treasure out of revolutionary Russia to Stockholm, where the items remained in two striped pillowcases for more than 90 years. They had been forgotten entirely when, in 2009, the jewelry was found in the diplomatic archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs during an inventory review. 
“The jewelry was given to the descendants of Maria Pavlovna. But it was difficult to divide it up between members of the family, so they decided to put the items up for public auction,” said Vaigatcheva.
“The auction excited not only collectors, but also museum specialists, which is really a rare thing, that happens only when items appear so suddenly and with such a romantic story. We were lucky to discover unknown items that no one had ever seen or known about.”
The auction of the historic jewelry collection took place at Sotheby’s in London in 2009, and raised a total sum that was seven times bigger than that expected, exceeding seven million pounds. Most of the items sold were made by the fabled Faberge jewelry house. 
“Faberge items are always popular among collectors,” says Vaigatcheva. “It is a trademark that has enjoyed an excellent reputation since the 1860s, and its items are always in demand and very expensive. Carl Faberge combined different colors and precious stones in a unique, harmonious way. A great many items of jewelry were produced by Faberge, and no one knows the exact number. Often, some forgotten pieces turn up at auctions.”
“Although everyone talks about the eggs, for me, one of the most remarkable Faberge products is the violet.”
The violet was a gift from Queen Alexandra, sister of the empress Maria Fyodorovna, to her friend Lady Iveagh and was passed down from generation to generation of one family for years. The tricolor violet has five enameled petals in shades of violet and yellow, and a stem with leaves carved from nephrite. The flower’s stigma features a rose-cut diamond. 
“Faberge flowers are the products that are in most demand on the jewelry market,” said Vaigatcheva. “The biggest collection is owned by the Queen of England. It was a big honor to investigate such a subject.” 
“You can always recognize a true Faberge product,” she says. “If it’s not real, everything might be done professionally, but there will always be something that bothers you, you don’t quite feel the composition, and then it turns out to be a fake,” she said.
Working with antique masterpieces is extremely exciting and emotional, confessed Vaigatcheva. 
“There are always mixed emotions. When you open a box containing an item, you feel impatient and excited. You twirl it in your hands. And every time you take it in your hands, you find something new. You can study it for hours and suddenly the light falls in a different way and you notice something else.”
Every professional dealing with auction lots will always have favorite items that they worry about and hope will end up in good hands. 
“Art is always emotional,” concludes Vaigatcheva. “And this part of my work makes it more interesting and exciting.”


TITLE: ‘Beauty’ Contest Puts Provincial Bachelors on Stage
AUTHOR: By Joy Neumeyer
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Since the country’s first perestroika-era pageant, Russia has welcomed the beauty contest as a stage to showcase the glamour of its women. But in Moscow’s most recent pageant, crew cuts and tuxedos replaced curlers and swimsuits, as 10 finalists fought to be named most eligible bachelor from Russia’s regions.
“The idea of the contest is to show the beauty, courage and talent of these guys who came to Moscow and conquered it,” said Maria Yermakova, spokeswoman for the city’s southeastern district.
Moscow’s Association of Fellow-Countrymen selected 10 out of 200 hopefuls to compete in the event Friday. Participants ranged from the ages of 18 to 27 and hailed from far-flung Russian regions including the Far East, West Siberia and the republic of Kalmykia.
In pursuit of the title, hopefuls were tested on Moscow trivia, sports, home maintenance and dance. All the contestants performed against a backdrop of slideshows featuring their respective cities. Dmitry Luchinin of Kursk barreled through a rap about his hometown set to The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony,” while Alexander Mytnitsky chose to re-enact the World War II defense of Bryansk on stage.
The contest had all the highs and lows of any post-Soviet contest organized by a local authority: a jury made up of minor celebrities (and the head of the district); a grand municipal location — the Ivan Varyagin Wrestling Palace; a dodgy speaker system; and spectators, mainly family and friends, with the patience to sit through an event nearly four hours long.
Bright lights, banners and a spasmodically erupting smoke machine obscured the massive posters of men pinning each other down in the wrestling palace as the contestants were put through their paces.
“It’s not a beauty pageant, that’s female. We present this as a contest of beauty, mind, courage and talent,” Yermakova said, not long before the contestants put on inflatable boots to make free throws at a basketball hoop.
Beauty contests have long been a favorite trick for the predominantly male Russian bureaucracy. There have been contests for female atomic power workers, soldiers, police and many more, but it is a rare occasion that the spotlight falls on the male.
The idea for the contest came after the district first held a beauty contest for women from Russia’s regions. The beauty contest participants suggested the idea, Yermakova said.
Underpinning the contest was a vague idea of harmony and love, a nice idea in a city where Muscovites’ and non-Muscovites’ dislike of one another is often of epic proportion.
Moscow is known for its racial problems — notably the race riots last December on Manezh Square — but there is also nonracial tension in a city that has seen millions of fellow Russians arrive in the last 20 years, between those with longer roots in the city and the new arrivals.
This was talked of in woolly terms with much declaration of “we love Moscow” and “we love Russia,” like an echo of “friendship of the peoples” rhetoric from Soviet days. 
The grand prize went to Vladimir Pak, a Russian of Korean descent, who sang with backup from dancers in traditional Korean dress.
Pak, who took home an iPad for his prize, adopted the gravity befitting his new role as victor, reminding the audience of the evening’s underlying message.
“It’s really, really great when all of Russia joins together as one,” he said.
Unfortunately, by the end of the three-and-a-half-hour event, only a handful of countrymen remained to take heed of his message.