SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1656 (18), Wednesday, May 18, 2011
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TITLE: Incinerator Deal Alarms Residents
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: By inking a deal with the Greek company Helector S.A.-Aktor Concession S.A. to build an incineration facility in the village of Yanino on the outskirts of the city, City Hall has agreed to what local environmentalists have branded as “thirty years of garbage slavery.” The agreement was signed on Monday.
The Greek holding, which is investing around 300 million rubles ($10.6 million) in the project, will begin construction work on the site later this year. It is expected that the plant will start operating in May 2015. After 30 years, the plant, which has the capacity to process at least 350,000 tons of garbage per year, will become the property of City Hall.
“The plant in Yanino is of the utmost importance for St. Petersburg as a fine example of a partnership between the state and foreign investors,” City Governor Valentina Matviyenko told reporters Monday. “In this respect, the Yanino mill is a test project: In the future, the city government is considering the construction of four more similar plants.”
Igor Babanin of Greenpeace Russia says that the term “garbage slavery” is no exaggeration. “Every deal has its conditions; under the terms of this deal, St. Petersburg is obliged to provide the factory with work for the next 30 years,” Babanin said. “Furthermore, if City Hall fails to provide enough garbage to keep the mill busy or to guarantee payment for waste processing, the local authorities will face hefty fines.”
Greenpeace argues that the technology used at the plant will contribute to air pollution.
“Burning silt, for example, discharges 24 different pollutants into the atmosphere, including benzopyrene as well as dangerous dioxins that cause cancer,” Babanin said.
Local ecologists have accused City Hall of cynicism. “Essentially, what is going to happen is that City Hall will increase payments for communal services to raise money to cover the costs of the incineration plant; so essentially, the authorities want residents to pay for damage to their own health,” said Alexei Kiselyov, head of Greenpeace’s toxic program.
Environmentalists who have visited the area around the incineration factory say local residents are alarmed by the environmental risks posed by the waste-burning business.
“Some people have already sold their houses because they are afraid that in the future prices will drop significantly,” said Maria Musatova, a spokeswoman for the local branch of Greenpeace.
TITLE: Dialogue Disappoints Preservationists
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: City Hall’s six-month flirtation with local preservationists turned sour last week when negotiators issued a statement after their sixth monthly meeting with St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko on Thursday in which they expressed doubts about continuing the talks and presented Matviyenko with a list of key issues that have not been resolved despite her promises.
On Friday, Matviyenko responded by saying that the dialogue with the preservationists was developing “quite positively” and fulfilled one of the preservationists’ demands by dissolving the Expert Construction Commission, also known as the Grinberg Commission after Vadim Grinberg, who has chaired it since its establishment in 2001.
“We have brought our positions closer together on many issues, and we have reached a single point of view on some,” Matviyenko was quoted as telling reporters on Friday.
Matviyenko also said she had put a halt on demolition on as many as 250 buildings in the center and ordered previously issued demolition permits to be revised. She did not, however, produce a list of the buildings or give any examples. Matviyenko’s words came as a surprise to the preservationists, who said they did not know that so many buildings in the center were planned to be demolished.
Formed by City Hall in 2001, the Grinberg Expert Construction Commission, according to preservationists, has issued expert reports declaring historic buildings to be in “irreversibly poor condition,” thus allowing developers to demolish them. By law, this is the only condition that allows the demolition of buildings in the city center.
The Grinberg Commission issued an expert report allowing the 19th-century Literary House at 68 Nevsky Prospekt to be demolished in January, despite the fact that the building was in no poorer a state than the other buildings on Nevsky, preservationists say.
Meetings between Matviyenko and preservationists started in November at the initiative of film director Alexander Sokurov, who was concerned about the continuing destruction of historic St. Petersburg.
In addition to the film director, negotiators include the director of the Naturalists Society’s Expert Center (ECOM) Alexander Karpov, local deputy chair of the All-Russian Society for Historical Preservation and Cultural Organizations (VOOPIIK) Alexander Kononov, Living City preservationist group coordinator Yulia Minutina and Yabloko Democratic Party local leader Maxim Reznik.
Matviyenko, who has been in office since 2003, has come under heavy criticism for her planning policies, including the destruction of scores of historic buildings in the city center and the incongruous business centers that replaced them, as well as for bulldozing city gardens and for now-discarded plans to build a 403-meter-tall skyscraper for Gazprom Neft across the River Neva from Smolny Cathedral.
The negotiations with the preservationists, whom Matviyenko had previously dismissed as seeking publicity for themselves, were seen by critics as an attempt by the governor to improve her public image in order to be reappointed by President Dmitry Medvedev in December 2011. Gubernatorial elections were abolished by then-president Vladimir Putin in 2005.
In their statement last week, the negotiators admitted that the six-month talks with Matviyenko had yielded little result — something for which they had been criticized in the first place.
“Most decisions on fundamental issues still have not been implemented, despite theoretical approval from the governor,” they wrote.
“This has been the situation for a long time, which largely defeats the purpose of meetings and calls the usefulness of their continuation into question.”
The preservationists said they presented Matviyenko with a “plan of urgent measures” to improve the situation by June 10.
Although the preservationists involved in the talks have softened their criticism of Matviyenko as a result of her changed attitude — to the extent that two deputy governors were invited to speak at the rally for the preservation of St. Petersburg in March — in last week’s statement, they listed ten key problems that persist despite the meetings.
Since the negotiations began, a number of buildings in the center have been demolished despite Matviyenko’s promises, the latest being the remaining buildings of the former Preobrazhensky Regiment Barracks that were destroyed earlier this month to make way for a planned office and residential complex.
“The State Construction Supervision Analysis Service (Gosstroinadzor) is constantly inventing new interpretations of the law to allow demolition,” the negotiators said in the statement.
TITLE: Police Protect LGBT Activists
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Rainbow Flash Mob — an extremely rare authorized LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights event — took place without incident due to heavy police presence Tuesday, despite threats from nationalists and the arrival of tough-looking opponents at the site.
More than 100 participants holding rainbow flags and posters with slogans such as “Homosexuality Is Not an Illness” and “Different Love, Equal Rights” released 300 balloons into the sky to mark the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia.
The event was organized by the local LGBT rights group Vykhod (Coming Out). The International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia is marked on May 17 because it was on this day in 1990 that the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
Around 50 counterdemonstrators came, but were prevented by the police from entering the fenced parking lot at Park Aviatorov in the south of the city, where the event was held, and stood outside waiting for the rally to finish.
But after the event, which lasted about half an hour, participants were put onto two buses — one rented by the organizers and another provided by the police, as the activists did not fit into one bus — and taken away from the location under police protection.
A nationalist group called the Russian Imperial Movement had urged its supporters to stop the “perverts” in a statement on its web site Monday.
Although the Russian Imperial Movement held its own authorized event “against pedophiles and sodomites” in the Nekrasov Gardens in the city center at the same time, they called on supporters to “demonstrate civic consciousness and come to the LGBT event instead of our event to counter the profaners of the city of St. Peter.”
“Death to pedophiles, sodomites and molesters!” they wrote on their site.
This was the second authorized LGBT rights event to be held in St. Petersburg. The first, smaller rally held in November was brought to a premature halt due to counter-protesters who came waving Orthodox Christian church banners and icons, singing prayers and throwing eggs at the participants. Ten were detained and charged with disorderly conduct.
City Hall and district administrations routinely refuse to authorize such events, usually on the grounds that some other group has already been authorized to hold a rally at the same place and at the same time.
When checking the location at the proposed time, however, activists usually find that there are no events being held there.
Most recently, City Hall denied LGBT activists permission to participate in May Day marches on Nevsky Prospekt, telling them to demonstrate in a deserted location outside the city next to a forest, a lake and two cemeteries, according to activists.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Infanticide Sentence
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A local drug addict who murdered his wife and two young children has been sentenced to 17 years in jail.
St. Petersburg’s City Court found Yevgeny Ryzhkov, 32, guilty of killing his wife and assisting her in the murder of their two children.
In March 2010, Ryzhkov filled four syringes with a homemade morphine substance. His wife then injected their two sons with the mixture, resulting in their death from morphine poisoning.
Ryzhkov then complied with his wife’s wishes to inject her with the same mixture. She died on the spot. Ryzhkov then administered himself with the mixture but as a result only lost consciousness, failing in his attempt to commit suicide.
The prosecution stated that the couple committed the acts as a result of their desperation to resolve accommodation and personal problems, Interfax reported.
Miniature Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Almost all of St. Petersburg’s historic center will be replicated in the Alexandrovsky Park on May 30, albeit in miniature. All the models will be built to scale and visitors will be able to walk around bronze miniatures of the St. Isaac’s and Kazan cathedrals, the Winter Palace and the Alexander Column and to stroll along the embankments of the Neva and Fontanka rivers. There will also be a mini labyrinth built next to the center.
The organizers aim to complete the project by May 20.
Rare Weapons on Show
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Antique guns from foreign countries and devices employed by spies will be on display at a new exhibition to open in the city’s Artillery Museum on May 20.
Comprising 300 items, the new exhibition will showcase historical and modern weapons dating back to the 19th and 20th centuries that have up until now been inaccessible to the public, Interfax reported.
Visitors will have the opportunity to see weaponry such as a Belgium Barracuda revolver, a Brazilian Taurus revolver and dirks used by Thai officers. Some of the guns from countries such as Israel, Germany, the U.S., France and Switzerland are still in working order.
The exhibition will also feature examples of handmade guns confiscated from terrorists from the North Caucasus.
Quadruple Triplets
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Four sets of triplets were born in St. Petersburg last month. In contrast, only the same number of triplets were born in Moscow during the whole of 2010, Interfax reported.
The number of boys being born in St. Petersburg currently exceeds the number of girls, according to the Russian Social Insurance Foundation. According to the foundation, every year, there are 1,000 more boys born than girls.
A recent survey found that the number of families with two children in Russia grew from 33 percent to 36 percent during the last five years.
TITLE: Web Site Warned Over Video Showing Abuse
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A video of four teens sexually assaulting a schoolboy over 10 rubles (35 cents) he owed them got local news web site Fontanka.ru slapped with an official warning last week, the first step toward shutting down a media outlet.
The video of the incident, which took place in St. Petersburg in late April, was shot on a cell phone camera by the teens, who used a shovel handle to rape the 12-year-old boy. All but one attacker were aged under 14.
The story hit local media on Tuesday, but only the local news portal Fontanka.ru posted an uncensored version of the video along with its report of the attack.
This prompted the Federal IT and Mass Media Inspection Service on Wednesday to order the video be deleted as it “promoted a cult of violence and cruelty” and thus violated the media law. The watchdog also said that it issued Fontanka.ru with a formal warning, two of which allow authorities to close a media outlet.
Fontanka.ru took down the video but its editor-in-chief, Alexander Gorshkov, said it would appeal in court. In an editorial, the site said it was seeking “to attract public attention” to the problem of bullying.
“The prosecution considers that we have violated the child’s rights. I respect the opinion of the prosecution but I insist that we took all necessary measures and efforts not to violate the boy’s rights. From the nine-second video it was impossible to determine the identity of the incident’s participants. It was not even possible to tell that it was children,” Gorshkov was cited as saying by Interfax.
Gorshkov said a full version of the video had been circulating for 10 days around the school where the teenagers studied.
Gorshkov said the web site would consider the prosecution’s demand to discipline those who allowed the publication of the video.
Prosecutors have opened a case into the assault, but only the attacker aged over 14 is old enough to be tried under Russian law.
Fontanka’s publication of the video caused a lot of discussion on the Internet, where opinions ranged from sharply negative reactions to praise of the site for honest journalism and voicing problems existing in modern society.
The incident occurred when a group of five schoolchildren gathered at a waste plot of land near the village of Lisy Nos outside St. Petersburg on April 28. They gave 60 rubles ($2) to the youngest boy and sent him to buy beer. On his return the boy told them that he had asked a homeless person to buy beer for them and given him the money, but that the homeless man had not bought any beer and had given back only 50 rubles ($1.70).
For the loss of the 10 rubles, the other teenagers wanted to punish the boy by fining him a further 100 rubles ($3.50). But when he did not have that money, they offered him an “alternative.” The boy agreed to the punishment under pressure from the elder teenagers.
Later the teenagers showed the video to their schoolmates.
TITLE: Aeroflot SuperJet Debut Moved Back
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The first of 30 Sukhoi SuperJet 100s will be delivered to Aeroflot by the end of May and will make the initial commercial flight with the airline in June, a Sukhoi Civil Aircraft spokeswoman told The St. Petersburg Times on Friday.
Earlier it was reported that Aeroflot had scheduled the aircraft for its Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod route starting this past Sunday.
An Aeroflot spokeswoman reached by telephone last week refused to comment on plans for the aircraft.
Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline, ordered 30 of the 98-seater regional airliners produced by the United Aircraft Corporation, which includes Sukhoi, in 2005. The first planes were originally scheduled to be delivered in 2008.
In April, Transportation Minister Igor Levitin said Aeroflot’s management could fine Sukhoi Civil Aircraft over repeated delays and complaints that the aircraft turned out to be heavier and less fuel-efficient than advertised.
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft delivered its first SSJ-100s to Armenian airline Armavia in April.
United Aircraft said it intends to quadruple production of civilian aircraft this year to 30 units, Interfax reported Friday.
The company is looking to produce 14 SuperJets, eight An-148s, one cargo-hauling Il-96-400T, two Tu-204-300s, and up to five Tu-214/Tu-204 SM aircraft.
The company produced just seven civilian aircraft in all of last year.
TITLE: President Speaks On Power Vertical
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev made a series of statements Friday that could be construed as jabs at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, although the phrasing was vague enough to pass for an ordinary pre-election speech.
The country should avoid concentrating too much power in the hands of a single person, future presidents will have to become aligned with a political party, and state officials should not hold office for too long, Medvedev said, naming tenets of Putin’s power vertical at a meeting with young lawmakers in Kostroma.
All of these attributes also fit Putin, Medvedev’s predecessor and political patron who remains the country’s supreme power broker after 11 years and heads the ruling United Russia party without being a member.
“A person who thinks he can stay in power indefinitely is a danger to society,” Medvedev said.
Putin kept silent on Medvedev’s remarks over the weekend, and his newest political tool, the All-Russia People’s Front, pledged its support Friday for “the president” — but without naming him by name, thus allowing for the possibility of Putin returning to presidency in the upcoming March election.
“Excessive concentration of power is a dangerous thing,” Medvedev said in response to a question from Grigory Fandeyev, a Karelia lawmaker with A Just Russia, according to a partial transcript of the visit on the Kremlin’s web site.
Russian history shows that monopolizing power “leads to stagnation or civil war,” which “must not be allowed,” the president said.
But he also said a presidential republic is the only form of government fit for the country, even while conceding that the role of legislature and political parties must be increased.
To do this, the president should become a party member, something that has never before happened in the country’s post-Soviet history, said Medvedev, who himself does not belong to any party.
But “this will happen when it happens,” Medvedev said.
He said political heavyweights should not stay in office for years on end.
Any official, “from a village headman to the president, should think about who he can delegate his powers to,” Medvedev said.
The political system in the country is evolving to accommodate change while abstaining from radical moves that could destroy it, he said. “You can’t shake the system like a pear tree,” he said. “It won’t withstand it.”
Friday’s speech echoes Medvedev’s earlier statements promising more competition in State Duma elections, which will be held in December. He also called the All-Russia People’s Front a “political tool” last week, prompting speculation about a rift in his “ruling tandem” with Putin.
Analysts were divided on whether the Kostroma speech was another indication of a rift or a smokescreen to cover their pre-election plans. Putin and Medvedev have said one of them might run for the presidency in 2012.
“Medvedev is trying to demonstrate his independence with those cautious remarks,” Alexei Makarkin, a political analyst with the Center for Political Technologies, said Sunday. “And it looks like the number of similar remarks will be growing soon.”
But independent political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky said both members of the tandem were acting in accord.
“Like before, Putin and Medvedev tend to occupy different political niches,” Belkovsky said. Both continue “to serve their common cause.”
Meanwhile, United Russia released on Friday a manifest for the All-Russia People’s Front, which is intended to unite all public groups under United Russia’s aegis.
Members aim to “support the initiatives of our leader Putin and implement the policies of Russia’s president,” the manifest said.
The document never mentions Medvedev by name, but lists as its tasks several of his policy goals, including “a strong democracy” and modernization.
The emblem of the group, which was published last week by the pro-Kremlin youth movement Young Guard, depicts Putin’s stern face with the Russian flag as the background and invites Russians to “Plug In” to the group.
Medvedev is not included in the emblem.
TITLE: Ban Sought for Nazi-Era School Book
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Public Chamber urged the Prosecutor General’s Office to ban an anti-Semitic publication favored by Adolf Hitler on Friday, weeks after Moscow prosecutors found it to be of “historical and educational” value.
The chamber’s secretary, Yevgeny Velikhov, asked Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to open an investigation into the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the rights watchdog said.
The book, first released in 1903 by a tsarist-era anti-Semitic newspaper and taught in schools in Nazi Germany, details the Jewry’s purported plans of world domination. The book has since been exposed as a forgery based on a 19th-century political pamphlet by French political satirist Maurice Joly, but has nevertheless become a staple of anti-Semitic literature.
Chaika’s office did not comment on the request over the weekend. But his subordinates ruled in March that “Protocols” did not fan ethnic hatred, and its content was “politically and historically educational,” the Public Chamber said.
The ruling was passed by Moscow’s Northern Administrative District Prosecutor’s Office and later upheld by the City Prosecutor’s Office, it said. Both refused to place “Protocols” on a federal list of extremist materials, citing an unspecified “psychological examination” of the book, it said.
The Public Chamber based its own request on an appeal by two prominent members of the Academy of Sciences, Yury Pivovarov and Valery Tishkov, who criticized the ready availability of “Protocols” in Russia, including at the prominent Books of Russia fair this year.
“This book is often called the banner of anti-Semitism,” Vera Alperovich, an analyst with the Sova anti-xenophobia watchdog, said by telephone Friday.
TITLE: Browder Given 11 Hours to Fly to Moscow
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Accusing investigators of a political crackdown, Hermitage Capital said its head, William Browder, was given 11 hours’ notice to travel from London to Moscow for questioning — even though he has been banned from Russia.
The summons is a clumsy attempt to create a pretext for issuing an arrest warrant for Browder, the fund said in a letter published online Monday.
Browder was banned from entering Russia in 2005 on unexplained “security grounds,” which means he could not travel to Moscow for questioning, said the letter, which is dated Sunday and addressed to top officials, including Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Naryshkin, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Moreover, Browder was given less than half a day to make travel arrangements to arrive for a first round of questioning Thursday, followed by a second round Monday, the letter said.
Interior Ministry spokeswoman Irina Dudukina said Thursday that failure to meet with investigators might result in an arrest warrant being issued for Browder.
Dudukina denied the allegations in Hermitage’s letter Monday, saying there are no visa restrictions in place for Browder, Interfax reported. She added that investigators discussed the matter of Browder’s summons with his lawyers Monday, but refused to elaborate.
Browder was earlier placed on an international wanted list in connection with a tax evasion case that he says is revenge from officials involved in a $230 million tax fraud that Hermitage was trying to expose.
Browder’s colleague Sergei Magnitsky was arrested in connection with the same case in 2008 and died from health problems 11 months later in detention. Hermitage says Magnitsky was intentionally denied medical help.
TITLE: Belarus Politician Sentenced
AUTHOR: By Yuras Karmanau
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MINSK, Belarus — A Belarusian presidential candidate was sentenced to five years in prison Saturday following a trial that he denounced as political punishment for challenging the nation’s authoritarian ruler.
A district court in the Belarusian capital handed out the sentence to Andrei Sannikov after convicting him on charges of staging riots following December’s presidential election.
Sannikov called the charges “absurd” in a statement before the verdict, which was condemned by the U.S. and Britain.
“This is a political punishment for me as a presidential candidate who has formed a strong team of professionals and declared readiness to take charge of the country,” he said.
Sannikov, a 57-year-old former deputy foreign minister, said that he was tortured by the secret police and that its chief personally threatened harsh reprisals against his wife and their 4-year-old son.
Sannikov’s wife, Irina Khalip, who is an independent journalist, is facing a trial, and authorities threatened earlier this year to put their son in an orphanage.
Another four opposition activists were also given prison terms of 3 and 3 1/2 years in the same trial.
Sannikov’s trial was the latest move in an ongoing crackdown on dissent unleashed by the government of President Alexander Lukashenko, who was declared the winner of the December’s election with nearly 80 percent of the vote. International observers strongly criticized the election.
Police violently dispersed a rally that drew tens of thousands of protesters on the election night. Some 700 people were arrested, including seven presidential candidates.
Dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” by the West, Lukashenko has run Belarus with an iron fist for nearly 17 years, retaining Soviet-style controls over the economy and cracking down on opposition and independent media. However, his authority has been shaken recently by a worsening financial crisis and a subway bombing.
The exchange rate of the national currency of cash-strapped Belarus plunged by 30 percent this week after the government completed its devaluation, a move that will eat into people’s salaries and cause price hikes. Hard currency reserves have plummeted to less than $4 billion, and staples such as vegetable oil and sugar began vanishing from stores.
“A severe economic crisis has prompted Lukashenko to tighten repression to prevent the opposition from forming the core of protests,” said Alexander Klaskovsky, an independent political analyst.
Belarus was further destabilized by last month’s subway bombing that killed 14 people and wounded more than 200. It was the first deadly bombing in the tightly-controlled nation without any significant separatist or religious militant groups and where the opposition is largely peaceful, leaving anti-terrorism experts puzzled over who might be behind it.
Prosecutors have brought terrorism charges against two blue-collar workers accused of carrying out the April 11 attack.
Last month, the government shut two leading independent dailies after issuing a reprimand for their coverage of the subway attack, adding to fears that the bombing is being used as a pretext to stamp out the last vestiges of political pluralism and dissent.
The U.S. and European Union have imposed sanctions, including a travel ban on Lukashenko and his officials, in response to the crackdown on the opposition.
TITLE: Billionaire Prokhorov Looks to Revamp Party
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov said Monday that he would lead Right Cause, the only party that has supported a second term for President Dmitry Medvedev, but observers expressed doubt that he would be able to salvage it from political limbo.
The 46-year-old owner of the New Jersey Jets, named Russia’s third-richest businessman with a fortune of $18 billion by Forbes in April, was tipped to join the pro-business Right Cause party last month but dismissed it as an April Fool’s joke at the time.
His appointment would spell the return of big money to national politics after almost a decade of separation under an unwritten contract between big business and the Kremlin. But whether the party will be able to win seats in State Duma elections in December remains to be seen, analysts said.
“I confirm, the information is correct,” Prokhorov replied curtly at a news conference in Kaluga when asked about news reports that he planned to head the party.
“I’ve addressed my proposal to the Right Cause party bosses,” he said, Interfax reported.
He refused to elaborate until his candidacy is approved, but said he would propose a new party platform and a new name to better cater to the still-politically neglected middle class.
Prokhorov’s confirmation appears to be a matter of time. Right Cause co-founder and co-chairman Leonid Gozman confirmed to The St. Petersburg Times that the party backed Prokhorov as able to challenge the supremacy of the ruling United Russia party.
“The party wishes to destroy United Russia’s monopoly on power,” Gozman said in a telephone interview.
A public figure can currently “either join United Russia or stay neutral,” Gozman said. “But we would like to see part of the elite joining a different party.”
Neither Medvedev nor Putin commented on Prokhorov’s remarks.
Prokhorov explained his motives in an e-mail to employees of his Onexim holding that was leaked to the press, appearing in Komsomolskaya Pravda on Monday.
“I got flooded with calls from my colleagues, friends and close ones — the many of you who didn’t understand my refusal,” Prokhorov wrote.
Even his sister, who “can’t stand politics,” told him: “Misha, you should go, you can change something,” the newspaper said.
Prokhorov, a co-owner of Norilsk Nickel who has invested tens of millions of dollars into projects in line with Medvedev’s modernization campaign, has cut a controversial figure in years past. He once threw posh parties at the French ski resort of Courchevel and in 2007 was accused by local police in connection with a prostitution case. He was never convicted of wrongdoing, and the murky case fizzled out the next year.
Prokhorov also co-runs with his sister Irina a prominent charity that sponsors the Nos literary prize.
Prokhorov is a welcome face in government circles, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin personally taking his Yo-Mobile, the country’s first hybrid car, for a test drive in front of cameras last month. But he angered many Russians that same month by proposing that the workweek be expanded from 40 to 60 hours, and other employer-friendly amendments to the Labor Code.
Right Cause, the youngest of the country’s seven registered parties, has achieved little since it was created in 2009 from the merger of the Union of Right Forces, Civil Force and Russia’s Democratic Party.
Right Cause’s inception was sanctioned by the Kremlin, which was looking for a loyal party to unite liberal voters. On Monday, Gozman described the party as a “political compromise” with the authorities.
But the party has won only 14 seats in regional legislatures nationwide since 2009 and failed to make a survey of party popularity conducted last month by Levada Center, the independent pollster. A recent poll by state-run VTsIOM put its public support at 2.9 percent, far below the 7 percent threshold for the State Duma elections.
Analysts blamed the party’s poor performance mainly on the lack of a charismatic leader. It is co-headed by Gozman, journalist Georgy Bovt and Delovaya Rossia head Boris Titov.
To the party’s credit, it has spent quite some time looking for a frontman. Candidates recently named by the media have included First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, Kremlin economic aide Arkady Dvorkovich and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
TITLE: Shoigu Driver’s Rage Captured On Video
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The personal driver of Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu was fined and reprimanded for threatening to shoot in the head a motorist who refused to give way, news web site Infox.ru reported Sunday.
A video posted on YouTube on Saturday showed Shoigu’s Mercedes sedan, identified by its license plates, trying to pass other cars in a traffic jam on the Moscow Ring Road but making slow progress despite its siren and flashing blue lights, which give officials’ cars priority on the road.
At one point when a driver refuses to give way, the Mercedes’ driver is heard barking through a loudspeaker: “You moron, do you need a shot to the head, you dope?”
Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova told Infox.ru that Shoigu was not present in the car at the time of the incident. She added that the driver, whose name was withheld, was issued an official reprimand over the incident.
TITLE: VTB Capital Seeks To Attract Finance
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva and Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: VTB Capital, together with Aeroexpress, will create a design company to attract financing for the construction of terminals at Pulkovo Airport and at Baltiisky Railway Station, according to Alexei Chichkanov, chairman of the city’s committee for investment and strategic projects (CISP).
Aeroexpress works in passenger rail transport from the center of Moscow to the Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports. According to SPARK-Interfax, 50 percent of the company belongs to Russian Railways, and 25 percent belongs to the co-owners of one of Russia’s leading rail companies, Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev.
Russian Railways will invest 8 billion rubles ($284 million) in the construction of the rail track and viaducts leading from the airport to the station, and VTB, in partnership with Aeroexpress, will work on the terminals, which will cost 1 billion rubles ($35.45), Chichkanov said.
Previously, CISP representatives had said that the new rail facility would cost 13 billion rubles ($461 million), but the cost of the project has now been optimized to 9 billion rubles, CISP press secretary Zarina Gubayeva said.
“We’re assessing the possibility of participating and being partners in this project,” said Oleg Pankratovport, head of the financial infrastructure department at VTB Capital.
TITLE: Stricter Laws for Taxi Drivers
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Taxi drivers will have to carry licenses beginning Sept. 1 and will face fines for not giving receipts from January, under amendments to existing traffic laws.
“From Sept. 1, legal entities and individual entrepreneurs active in transport of passengers and baggage in taxis will be obliged to carry a current permit,” Vladimir Kuzin, deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s Department for Enforcement of Road Safety, said in comments posted on the department’s web site Saturday.
The permits, introduced as one of several amendments to current law passed on April 21, will be valid only in the region where they are issued unless interregional agreements make them valid in more than one region, Kuzin said.
He did not specify how much a license would cost or where taxi drivers could apply for one.
Yanush Pinter, a manager at Moscow firm Formula Taxi, said by telephone that he had not yet received any detailed information about how or where to apply for licenses.
Repeated calls to the Department for Enforcement of Road Safety went unanswered Monday.
Amendments to the Code on Administrative Violations will see the introduction of stricter rules for taxi drivers on Jan. 1, including liability for working without a lighted “Taxi” sign, or failing to issue cash receipts.
The new rules will also require taxis to have a light, display checkered panels on the side of the vehicle and display “sufficient information” — including the permit and a meter — inside the cab.
Fines for violating the rules will be set at 1,000 to 5,000 rubles ($35 to $175) for drivers, 10,000 to 50,000 for taxi company officials, and 30,000 to 200,000 rubles for legal entities, Kuzin said.
Illegally displaying taxi markings will result in similar fines.
It is unclear how the measures will be enforced or what impact they will have on the vast number of unlicensed taxi drivers already working illegally.
Mikhail Blinkin, a traffic expert at the state-run TII Roads and Transport, said the new laws would do little to help licensed drivers and professional taxi companies in the perpetual battle with gypsy cab drivers.
“More fines won’t change anything. The first step is to give legal taxi drivers priority at places like airports and railway stations. In that regard, much has been promised, but nothing has changed,” he said by telephone.
Meanwhile, all drivers will face an increased fine of 1,000 rubles for running a red light or “blocking the box” — entering an intersection where there is already a traffic jam.
The current fine for running a light is 300 rubles, while someone who “aggravates the situation” at an already congested intersection gets off with a warning or a 100 ruble fine.
TITLE: Hotel Rates Set to Rocket
During Economic Forum
AUTHOR: By Nadezhda Zaitseva
and Maria Buravtseva
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: For participants in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), which will take place on June 16-18, 1,000 hotel rooms have been set aside — a 20 percent rise on last year, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko has said via her press service. This year, the forum’s budget will amount to 880 million rubles ($31.2 million), as opposed to 790 million rubles ($28 million) in 2010, the head of the Economic Development Ministry Elvira Nabiullina informed Prime-TASS.
Almost all rooms in the key hotels in the city have already been booked up for the SPIEF dates, experts in the local hotel market say. A member of staff at the Park Inn Hotel Nevsky said that the hotel is booked out for the forum, and that single rooms had been priced at 12,900 rubles per day ($457). From June 20 the same rooms are priced at 7,650 rubles ($271).
At the Park Inn Pribaltiiskaya only standard rooms priced at 9,800 rubles ($347) remain available for the SPIEF dates, and prices will fall to 5,500 rubles ($195) immediately afterwards.
The Courtyard by Marriott on Vasilyevsky Island, according to a member of staff there, also has just a few remaining rooms available for the forum dates. A standard room on June 16 costs 19,000 rubles ($67), whilst three days later the price for the same room will fall to 8,000 rubles ($284), he said. “The SPIEF dates are a period of heightened demand for hotel services in St. Petersburg, and we offer rooms at open prices,” a Marriott spokesperson said.
At the Sokos Hotel Vasilievsky the price of a standard room on June 15-18 is 13,000 rubles ($46), while it is 8,400 ($300) after the SPIEF. A member of staff at the bookings department said, however, that reservations had to be made for the full four days of the event. A spokesperson for the marketing department at Sokos declined to comment on the reasons for the price hike.
For St. Petersburg hotels, hiking prices during the forum is standard practice, complains a top manager from a major federal company. Apart from prices, however, there is another catch — the hotels force guests to book for at least three or four days, he said. Members of City Hall’s Investment Committee met last week with representatives from 15 of the city’s largest hotels, including the Astoria, Sokos and Park Inn, as well as representatives of the Russian Consumer Watchdog and the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, committee representative Zarina Gubayeva said. The hoteliers were asked to follow basic business ethics and not raise their prices during the forum, as it has a negative impact on the image of St. Petersburg as a tourist and business center, she said.
The hotels have no grounds for such price hikes, and the city is monitoring the issue with the Anti-Monopoly Service and the business community, Matviyenko said.
The city authorities cannot ban price rises and the hotels are operating within the law, Gubayeva said. Last year, hotels suspected of price-fixing by the Anti-Monopoly Service managed to clear their names in court.
The organizers of the forum are offering accommodation on two motor yachts: The Utopia (72 meters in length) and The Northern Light (45 meters), according to the forum site. The minimum rental period is five days. The yachts can accommodate up to 12 guests and can be used to host corporate events. The cost of renting The Utopia is 3.6 million rubles per day ($128,000) or 18.45 million rubles ($654,000) for the week, while The Northern Light will cost 1.25 million rubles ($44,300) or $6.3 million rubles ($223,360) for the same periods.
TITLE: Deal Between BP And Rosneft Still Unresolved
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The fate of the $16 billion “deal of the century” between BP and Rosneft hung in the balance late Monday night as four-way talks between the two companies, BP’s oligarch partners and the Russian government ended in a game of brinkmanship.
The oligarchs, widely considered to be purely financial investors in TNK-BP, have pitted their maneuvering for the highest price tag possible in any buyout against Rosneft and BP’s scruples over how much they are prepared to pay.
TNK-BP is a highly profitable enterprise, said a banking source in Moscow, but its assets will mature. “What a better point than today [for AAR] to find an exit?”
AAR — Alfa, Access and Renova Group — represents billionaires Viktor Vekselberg, German Khan, Len Blavatnik and Mikhail Fridman.
A May 16 deadline — already extended by a month at BP’s request — expired at midnight London time, or 3 a.m. in Moscow, with apparently no agreement reached between the parties. Talks may continue between BP, Rosneft and AAR, even after the deadline, two sources close to the deal said, Bloomberg reported.
TNK-BP’s share price jumped 3.4 percent Monday — the most in a month — on rumors that AAR might accept an offer by BP and Rosneft for its 50 percent stake.
Reuters reported late Monday that AAR had agreed on a $30 billion price tag, but a consensus over the equity stakes that BP and Rosneft were willing to cede to AAR had become the sticking point between the parties.
BP shares fell to 438.45 pence in London, while Rosneft closed up for the first time in four days.
AAR rejected a $27 billion offer from BP in April, the Financial Times reported, insisting that its stake in TNK-BP was worth $35 billion to $40 billion.
A source close to the negotiations told Interfax on Monday that AAR had rejected offers from BP and Rosneft that “ought to have met AAR’s aspirations.” AAR had instead proposed “enslaving conditions that are impossible for either company,” the source said.
However, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin distanced himself from the wrangling Monday. “Putin did not take part in the BP-Rosneft deal and is not going to take part in it,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters. “It is a deal between the two companies.”
Analysts said Putin’s involvement in the deal was limited, even though he gave his public blessing when it was announced in January and was photographed with BP chief executive Robert Dudley and then-Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin
“So far the state has played a small role,” said Valery Nesterov, an analyst at Troika Dialog. “And in certain respects this had been disappointing because it makes the rules of the game opaque.”
The deal between state-owned Rosneft and BP, struck on Jan. 14, gave BP unprecedented access to explore Russia’s Arctic shelf and stipulated that Rosneft receive a 5 percent stake worth $7.8 billion in BP in return for about 9.5 percent in Rosneft.
BP hoped to find a recovery strategy following the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year in the landmark agreement, while for Rosneft it represented an important step in its aspiration to become a global oil player.
However, the tie-up — dubbed a “strategic partnership” at its unveiling — was quickly challenged by AAR, which argued that it violated a TNK-BP shareholder agreement because BP’s cooperation with Rosneft would damage the company’s long-term growth potential.
AAR’s arguments were upheld by a London-based arbitration tribunal ruling on May 6 that said Rosneft must partner with TNK-BP instead of BP and that the share swap could only go ahead if the holdings were managed by trustees.
Rosneft, however, has said repeatedly that it does not want to work with TNK-BP, and many experts saw an acceptance of the tribunal’s ruling by Rosneft as unlikely.
“BP and Rosneft will cooperate in any case,” Nesterov said. “I doubt that TNK-BP is a durable construction that will last many years.”
Rosneft will dedicate 84.8 percent of its net profit from 2010 for investment, Interfax reported, citing materials prepared for the company’s annual general meeting.
About 166.7 billion rubles ($5.79 billion) will be plowed into production and social development. The remaining 15.2 percent will be earmarked for dividends to be paid at a rate 20 percent above that of 2009, the board of directors recommended.
Sergei Bogdanchikov, who was replaced by Eduard Khuidainatov as president of Rosneft in 2010 but remains on the board of directors, will receive 14,021 shares in the company worth 3.2 million rubles in recognition of his work. Bogdanchikov sold all the shares he held in the company in September after he stepped down.
TITLE: Gas Agreement Likely by Start of Forum
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia and China are likely to sign an agreement on natural gas supplies during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June, presidential economic aide Arkady Dvorkovich said Thursday.
Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation hope to complete talks in the next weeks, he said. Gas is due to start flowing from Russia to China in 2015.
“As far as the agreement with China is concerned, the work on it is under way. Of course we would like this work to be completed before the start of the forum,” Dvorkovich said at a news conference devoted to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.
The two countries have been negotiating the final price of the gas since 2006, with China asking for a discount on the price that Russia charges European countries.
Chinese leader Hu Jintao will participate in the forum’s opening ceremony together with President Dmitry Medvedev, who will be at the event for three days, from June 16 to June 18. Medvedev will join some sessions and hold bilateral meetings, said the Kremlin adviser, adding that the president will also chair a meeting of the consultative board he created to advise on making Moscow an international financial center.
Among other high-ranking guests expected to attend the event are Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Finnish president Tarja Halonen, who also attended the forum in 2009, Dvorkovich said.
Last year French President Nicolas Sarkozy attended the forum as a special guest.
TITLE: Russian Energy Agency Teams With IFC for Efficiency
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A new partnership between the Russian Energy Agency and the International Financial Corporation could open up credit lines and provide broad support system for investors in renewable energy.
The non-binding memorandum of understanding signed on Thursday by IFC director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Snezana Stoiljkovic and Energy Agency director Timur Ivanov commits the sides to information sharing, developing pilot projects, and promoting public awareness of energy efficiency and renewables.
IFC, part of the World Bank Group, has channeled funding to energy efficiency projects in Russia since 2005 and launched a renewable energy program last December. It estimates it has invested almost $400 million in the two sectors since 2005.
The Energy Agency was set up under the Energy Ministry in 2008 to implement the government’s energy saving policies.
Provided the two groups can find common ground, the IFC will draft a formal cooperation agreement defining partnership terms and conditions.
Russia is estimated to annually waste as much energy as France consumes. A 2008 World Bank Report estimated it would cost $380 billion in investment to eliminate the problem.
In 2008 the government set a target of reducing the country’s GDP energy intensity by 40 percent and increasing renewable energy’s share of total electricity generation to 4.5 percent by 2020.
The government’s public commitment to energy efficiency programs has attracted major foreign corporations anticipating a boom in demand for power saving technologies, including E.On, Fortum and Enel.
But both Stoiljkovic and Ivanov said few existing projects are currently “bankable.”
“The current regulatory framework is such that it does not facilitate such projects,” said Stoiljkovic.
TITLE: A Quiet Revolution in the Kremlin
AUTHOR: By Alexander Golts
TEXT: Revolutions happen silently in bureaucratic circles, without a single shot from enemy forces. One fine day, the head of the government simply signs a document that changes the entire structure of authority. At first, nobody understands exactly what has happened. But during an emergency, when bureaucrats do their best to avoid making decisions, it suddenly becomes clear that one person has appeared who has the power to give orders and is willing to assume responsibility.
A quiet revolution has been taking place under the shadow of the Kremlin administration, even as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has rapidly created his All-Russia People’s Front to rally Russians around his re-election effort. President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree inconspicuously named “Security Council Questions” that suddenly and unexpectedly grants unprecedented powers to the Security Council secretary.
It should be noted that the people who previously held the secretarial post sometimes played very significant roles in state affairs. Former Security Council Secretary Andrei Kokoshin used his position to plan military reforms, and Putin himself, as secretary, prepared to lead the country. But the relative influence of the secretary has always been a function of how closely connected he was to the man at the top. Within the bureaucratic hierarchy itself, the Security Council secretary has always been more of an organizational post. The secretary was responsible for making preparations for Security Council meetings, drafting decisions and writing up pointless doctrines and policy papers.
Now Medvedev’s decree endows the post with an importance almost rivaling the authority of the ruling tandem of him and Putin. Judge for yourself. From now on, the Security Council secretary will be responsible for “the control of Russia’s armed forces, other forces, military formations and bodies,” according to Medvedev’s decree. That is to say the secretary will control not only the armed forces, but also law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Moreover, Medvedev’s decree stipulates that the Security Council secretary will “participate in formulating and implementing foreign policy.” The secretary will also “make proposals to the Security Council for coordinating the work of federal and regional executive bodies in national emergencies.” In effect, the country’s siloviki, who previously answered only to the president, now have their own “tsar.”
I will hazard to guess that even in the ultra-centralized Soviet state no official held that degree of power. True, certain administrative departments of the Communist Party Central Committee carried a great deal of weight in supervising what are now called the siloviki. But their superiors were Politburo members who in turn answered to Central Committee members. But now the Security Council secretary is a member of the unofficial consultative body consisting of the defense minister, foreign minister and director of the Federal Security Service — all of whose functions the secretary now controls. In effect, he is the first among equals.
In addition, the Security Council itself is now empowered to monitor budgetary spending for defense, national security and law enforcement — fully one-fourth of the national budget. What’s more, the Security Council is charged with controlling the government, in part by analyzing a consolidated annual report on its main activities and results. In short, the Security Council will now run the government.
I hate conspiracy theories, but we can only guess at the motives lurking behind this development. It seems highly unlikely that all of this new-found power will be invested in current Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, who was given the post as a sort of honorable discharge from his previous job as FSB director. Recall that then-President Putin sent him to that post exactly three years ago after Patrushev became locked in a public conflict with then-Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Cherkesov. At the time, FSB officials worried about whom Putin would name as his successor. And in his role as Security Council secretary, Patrushev gained notoriety for having made ill-advised statements that Russia’s military doctrine would spell out rules for using nuclear weapons in local conflicts and that Moscow was prepared to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike if necessary. That major gaffe was quietly disavowed by officialdom soon afterward.
Obviously, it would be unwise to hand so much power to a moderately competent political outcast who probably harbors less than tender feelings for the ruling tandem.
People well versed in Kremlin intrigues are convinced that somebody else will soon be appointed Security Council secretary. And that choice will reveal a great deal. It is entirely possible that strengthening the Security Council is part of Putin’s election campaign strategy — that he wants a trustworthy person in control of the siloviki to make sure there will be no more political infighting like he had with Patrushev and Cherkesov. But it is difficult to imagine that the national leader, given his obsessive suspicion of everyone around him, would risk giving so much authority to any single person.
It is also possible that Medvedev gave new powers to the Security Council in response to Putin’s maneuver of forming the people’s front, as a way to score points before his decisive conversation with the prime minister. It is also telling that, having signed the new decree, Medvedev found the courage to threaten the siloviki responsible for failed defense contracts. He essentially told them, “You should understand that at another time half of the people present would have been sent to the labor camps.” That gave Putin appointees something to think about.
Finally, it is entirely possible that the post of Security Council secretary is being prepared as a springboard for a new successor. Recall how Putin himself was appointed prime minister in 1999 as a means for demonstrating himself to the people. But that job happens to be occupied at the moment.
With slightly less than a year remaining before the presidential election, the power vertical is becoming a little wobbly. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get through the next year without a small, winnable war or apartment building bombings.
Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal.
TITLE: Medvedev’s Digital Split Personality
AUTHOR: By Alexei Pankin
TEXT: Sometimes I think President Dmitry Medvedev has a split personality. On one hand, he stubbornly fights legal nihilism in public and official life. Many still recall the public dressing down he gave in February to the heads of the Federal Security Service and Investigative Committee for announcing that the Domodedovo bombing had been solved “before carrying out all investigative procedures.” On the other hand, he sometimes displays an astonishing level of legal nihilism himself, despite the fact that he does not have to pursue insurgents in the Caucasus mountains or storm their strongholds.
The most recent example of this doublethink came last week when in a single day Medvedev commemorated the 20th anniversary of the founding of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, or VGTRK, and signed a decree designating eight mandatory channels for nationwide broadcasting that will be given away free of charge as part of the transition to digital broadcasting that the government is slated to complete by 2015.
To begin with, no separate law has been adopted during the 20 years of post-Soviet Russian history that would create at least a parliamentary if not an independent public entity for the oversight of television and radio — a singularly important area of the country’s social, political and economic life. Medvedev’s decision is an unprecedented step for any country claiming to be a democracy.
In Russia, the executive branch of government regulates broadcasting. Broadcasting licenses are handled by the Federal Supervisory Agency for Information Technologies and Communications, known as Roskomnadzor, part of the Communications and Press Ministry. It forms the Federal Competition Commission, consisting of five government officials and four members of the public. I recently asked two of the public members — Mikhail Fedotov, secretary of the Journalists Union, and Henrikh Yushkyavichus, counselor to UNESCO’s director-general — whether they were aware of any formal criteria used in selecting them for the job. Both answered independently that they were not.
Be that as it may, the licensing process is conducted on a competitive basis, commission members frequently argue, and decisions are not always made unanimously. In other words, some form of procedural structure has taken shape so that, despite being under full government control, the commission does have some autonomy.
President Dmitry Medvedev should have availed himself of that procedure to stage a competition between the 19 companies holding federal broadcasting status for the right to the eight most lucrative digital frequencies designated for “creating the conditions for the population to receive socially significant information.” This would be especially beneficial because a contest would involve the discussion of planned programming. Both the Federal Competition Commission and the public are ready for such consultations. The hundreds of posts on the presidential blog testify to this. They underscore strong public discontent with information disseminated over federal channels.
But instead of “carrying out all necessary licensing procedures,” to paraphrase the lawyer-president’s own words to the siloviki, Medvedev went and signed a decree giving away those frequencies to the four state-owned channels belonging to VGTRK, state-controlled Channel One, Gazprom-controlled NTV and Channel 5, owned by oligarch Yury Kovalchuk.
The fate of terrestrial television — which will continue to be Russians’ main source of information for at least another 10 years — has thereby been sealed. Now Medvedev can continue his fight against legal nihilism by the Russian people.
Alexei Pankin is editor of WAN-IFRA-GIPP Magazine for publishing business professionals.
TITLE: Who’s your granddaddy?
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: When Dusche, a music club owned by members of St. Petersburg bands Leningrad and Spitfire, opened in December with a gig by Leningrad, few came — out of disbelief, musician and co-owner Andrei Kurayev says.
Billed as an “open rehearsal” by Leningrad, the club’s opening on Dec. 7 featured a live set by the band, three days before a comeback stadium show in St. Petersburg marking its reformation after a two-year hiatus.
Leningrad fans seemingly thought there must be a catch, and did not come, Kurayev says.
Dusche’s forte is that it is one of few local clubs that are actually owned by musicians, meaning it understands the needs of both the bands and the public.
The club’s other co-owners are Leningrad frontman Sergei Shnurov (who previously launched the bar Siny Pushkin) and saxophone player Grigory Zontov, who — like Kurayev — plays with both Spitfire and Leningrad.
Known as Ded (Grandpa) on the local music scene, Kurayev, 38, has been the bassist with Spitfire since 1996 and also with Leningrad since 2001.
“In the beginning I thought there would be more all-night events with occasional concerts, but practice showed that if there is a fully-fledged stage, primarily, there should be concerts,” said Kurayev.
Dusche is a rare medium-sized venue on the St. Petersburg scene that can hold up to 300 people at a popular gig. Concerts by bands like Spitfire and Narkotiki have drawn up to 250, according to Kurayev.
“We don’t have so many venues like this [in St. Petersburg]; we have either large concert venues that hold 700 to 1,000 people, or small clubs that can hold 100 to 150 people maximum,” he says.
“The rest are bars, of which huge numbers have appeared recently. Many bands perform at bars, because they have been opened by the same generation as me.
“Having opened bars, they realize that they need something to attract the public, i.e., musicians. So they have started holding concerts in addition to night parties. But our place is specifically a music club; it has been designed for bands to play there.”
Dusche is housed in a former warehouse next to the railroad. The premises, located in an industrial courtyard off Ligovsky Prospekt, were formerly used by the Moscow Railway Station and were off limits to the general public.
“I had never been here, I was brought here for the first time last year, in the summer,” Kurayev said.
“I came here and was very surprised to find such a place. It turned out that there is a whole new world, teeming with life, inside these courtyards.”
Now opened for commercial use, the courtyard is home to a number of stores, repair shops, bars, rehearsal rooms and a dance studio. V-Club, the city’s only vegan club, operates in the same area, hosting punk concerts and other events, and it is to this spot that Datscha bar owner Anna-Christin Albers recently moved her Dunes, a summer bar that resembles a stretch of beach.
Although the area currently looks rather neglected, the location has its advantages, Kurayev says.
“The territory is in the center, but at the same time, you have no neighbors. Any other club is either located in a residential area or at least faces out onto the street. You leave the club and that’s it, while here, you exit and you’re still in some other space.”
According to Kurayev, there are plans to launch a summer terrace as well.
The club’s interiors have been largely defined by the 19th-century building’s original look — sturdy wooden ceiling beams and red brick walls, which have been washed down.
“There were only four walls in the beginning, the rest has been all done by us,” Kurayev says.
“We had a man in a space suit working here, sandblasting because of all the dust.”
A small mezzanine area has been created to enable spectators to get a better view of concerts.
“We haven’t made a VIP area in the club so far; we consider that those who come here are all VIPs,” Kurayev says.
The bar offers averagely priced drinks, snacks and hot panini sandwiches. The rectangular room is divided into two, leaving an area in which to relax or play table football.
Having toured extensively and played at many Western European underground clubs, Kurayev said he took the idea from there.
“I see it as an authentic typical European alternative club that hosts different concerts, from small bands to big ones, and all kinds of evening events,” he says.
Dusche’s repertoire is stylistically broad, from punk and ska to hip-hop. U.S. rappers The Alchemist and CunninLynguists have played here, while every Tuesday the club hosts an open mike night, when young rappers come to rap against pre-recorded discs.
Rock-wise, upcoming dates include the Moscow indie rock band Sakura (May 26), the local veteran comedy rock band NOM (May 28), Zorge, the band formed by ex-Tequilajazzz frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov (June 2), and U.S. sledge metal duo Jucifer (June 3).
According to Kurayev, occasional drama performances such as “Tales of Ordinary Madness” — a one-man production by Semyon Alexandrovsky based on Charles Bukowski’s short stories and poems and on music by Tom Waits — draw crowds to Dusche. The next drama performance is due on Wednesday, May 25.
Doors open at 8 p.m., except for Monday. Depending on attendance, the club operates until 6 a.m. on Friday and Saturday and until midnight or 1 a.m. during the rest of the week.
The name stems from the Russian word “dush” (shower).
“It’s because we want to make something fresh and invigorative,” says Kurayev.
“The idea was that we wanted to rejuvenate the current club and bar scene, which had got a little stale. We wanted to do something new.”
Dusche is located at 50 Ligovsky Prospekt (building 6). M: Ligovsky Prospekt. Enter the arch, take the first left turn, then turn left again and look for the sign on the left side.
Tel. +7 (960) 2464 550.
www.dusche.ru
TITLE: CHERNOV’S CHOICE
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Deep Purple, the British band that President Dmitry Medvedev claims is his favorite, has made waves in Israel, criticizing artists who joined the cultural boycott of the country in protest of its treatment of Palestinians, Haaretz reported.
According to the Israeli newspaper, the band said at a press conference ahead of their third Israeli tour last week that artists should not take sides in political conflicts, with drummer Ian Paice calling the musicians who have boycotted the country “real wimps.”
Last year, artists such as Elvis Costello and Gil Scott-Heron canceled their concerts in Israel.
Deep Purple’s vocalist, Ian Gillan, said that musicians should remain impartial in political disputes, Haaretz wrote.
Guitarist Steve Morse said that Deep Purple doesn’t respect politicians in its native England, and questioned why the group’s attitude would be any different in other countries, according to the newspaper.
Deep Purple’s bold statements contradict their behavior in Russia. In March, the band made a visit to Medvedev’s official dacha in Gorki, exchanging compliments and jokes with him and letting his 15-year-old son Ilya play guitar with the band. Photos from the meeting were duly distributed by the pro-Kremlin media to improve Medvedev’s “reformist” image.
Meanwhile, Bob Dylan — another artist who seems to have finally gone over to Deep Purple’s “don’t-take-sides, just-grab-the-money” concept — denied reports about the Chinese authorities censoring his choice of songs for his concerts there and imposing a ban on his protest anthems such as “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
Indeed, these songs are not part of Dylan’s main concert set now, although he performed “Blowin’ in the Wind” as an encore in Taipei, Taiwan, just before entering the People’s Republic of China. In Beijing he chose not to.
“As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing,” Dylan wrote on his web site.
“There’s no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous three months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play.”
That apparently means that the Chinese government studied the set lists that the artist duly sent them… and liked them.
Dylan did not comment on the other criticism being voiced in the press: His refusal to comment on the human rights situation in China and on the arrest of dissident artist Ai Weiwei three days before his show in Beijing.
Dylan’s Beijing concert took place on April 6. Published on May 13, more than a month after the controversy, his disavowal appears a little belated.
Could it have anything to do with the slow Chinese censorship?
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: The gateway to another realm
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It took a year of deliberation and discussion before a vague notion crystallized into a major exhibition at the Russian Museum dedicated to the subject of gates and doors that combines installations from the last two years with items from the museum’s permanent collection.
According to Alexander Borovsky, head of the Russian Museum’s Contemporary Russian Artistic Trends department, the idea for the exhibition, which introduces visitors to 90 works by 80 living artists, emerged a year ago.
The exhibition begins in the courtyard of the Marble Palace, where visitors are greeted by “White Rotunda” by the Perm artist Alexander Brodsky. An elegant garden pavilion invites spectators to enter, relax, and have a cup of tea over a quiet conversation. It is as though time here has stopped.
Once inside the Marble Palace, the exhibition continues through a lengthy enfilade of the palace’s former state rooms, and ends leaving visitors face to face with “Masks of Death” by Ivan Plushch and Irina Drozd. There are a total of seven masks, each hidden behind one another, revealing only their mocking and all-seeing eyes.
The authors are to be congratulated on the staging of the exhibition, which makes clever use of the space. Thanks to their efforts, the familiar halls of the palace appear in a totally new light. The temporary installations do not detract from their splendor, but on the contrary, have enriched the palace’s interior with a new sense of history.
The topic “Gates and Doors” generates a lot of meaning, and this has not gone unnoticed by the authors. An entrance to a football stadium serves as a world of modern expectations: An entrance to a religious temple, a school, a soul, to Heaven or Hell, to a house, war, work and death.
The latter theme is the subject of an installation in the first hall titled “Farewell” that produces an unforgettable impression. Several long black wardrobes with white labels bearing the names of deceased miners convey a strong feeling of restrained grief. The authors are Ilya Gaponov and Kirill Koteshov.
Iconic realist paintings done by 19th-century Russian artists blend in well with installations created just last year. The same can be said of the 16th-century Russian icons and church doors in the exhibition, which add relief to a collection of dirty doors and faded photographs.
The contrast between the gates, calling for something spiritual, and doors, returning viewers to the trivial, is obvious. They complement each other and enhance each other’s meaning, making it hard for them to exist separately.
Modern bronze doors based on stories from the Old Testament are of particular interest. They were commissioned and executed for a private church in Malye Izory in the vicinity of St Petersburg. Works such as this one make the exhibition interesting from a historical as well as aesthetic point of view. Next to this gate is Mikhail Roginsky’s “Red Door,” which takes the viewer back to the country’s communist past, when people’s fates were resolved behind such doors.
The exhibition introduces visitors to new masters who are sure to please the public with their original ideas and with a new approach to traditional values. It is worth noting that three quarters of the new works are being shown for the first time, and some of the installations will be dismantled after the show is over.
“Oil Heart of Russia” is an inventive installation consisting of an old fridge that it is both open and switched on. Upon looking inside, spectators are greeted by endless reflections and the noise of an oil rig.
There is however a large difference between self-expression via innovative installations and creating a painting or sculpture in keeping with all the traditional rules of the trade. In this respect, the exhibition is rich in fantasy, but there is less to celebrate in terms of execution skills.
Ultimately, notwithstanding its wit, the show is saved by the Russian Museum’s collection of traditional art. Despite itself, it confirms the stability and lasting qualities of classic art.
In 1929, Pavel Filonov painted “Narvskiye Gates,” in which a crowd of demonstrators serves as a reminder of the past or a prediction of the future, and the individual figures seem to be naturalized objects of collective memory.
Against the background of this variety of works, Alexander Laktionov’s painting “A letter from the Front Line” and Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky’s “At the Entrance to a School” sparkle with mastery and their devotion to their subjects.
It is particularly commendable that the organizers have taken famous masterpieces down from the walls where many have known them from childhood, and put them in different surroundings, where they shine anew. This is especially true of Vasily Vereshchagin’s work “At the Entrance to the Mosque.”
“Gates and Doors” runs through June 20 at the Marble Palace of the Russian Museum.
TITLE: Johnny Depp Pulls the Crowds in Moscow
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, Johnny Depp came to Moscow to promote the latest installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” prompting Depp-mania. Even journalists attending his news conference at the Ritz-Carlton hotel got sprinkled with a little of his glamour. “Go on, tell us, is Johnny Depp cool? You saw him!” one girl shouted afterward. Later, a terrifyingly huge crowd before the premiere at Oktyabr cinema spilled out into the highway, plaintively begging for spare tickets.
Depp apparently visited Moscow a few years ago while researching the role of Polonium victim Alexander Litvinenko, and was spotted by a sharp-eyed journalist at Coffee Mania, possibly ordering a pot of tea and sushi. But this was his first visit to Russia in an official capacity, and as the MC gushed at the news conference, the hotel had never before seen such a concentration of star power.
Depp was dressed in a cowboy hat and short-sleeved T-shirt that showed off surprisingly profuse tattoos, while his co-star Penelope Cruz looked glowingly beautiful, her long hair tied into a complicated pigtail.
Cruz, even though her English seems good, stuck with conventional phrases about how incredibly talented and inspiring her co-stars were, while Depp seemed relaxed and comfortable with the madness, replying deadpan to even the most ludicrous questions.
Does Depp prefer brunettes or blondes, one blonde journalist asked. “I like all types of hair, dark hair, light hair, straight hair, curly hair, long hair, short hair, I even like animal hair,” Depp said.
Had he noticed the Ritz-Carlton’s huge (and hideous) chandeliers, and would he like to swing on one, another woman asked. “Congratulations, because I have actually never been asked that question before,” he said. “Can we have it washed up and sent to my room?”
I also liked his answer about how he would direct the fifth episode of “Pirates of the Caribbean” — a film based on a ride at the Disneyland theme park. He said he would just film his character on the ride for 52 minutes in a single shot.
He was a bit cagey when asked in the nicest possible way why he has gone from quirky, complex roles to mainstream commercial cinema, including the critically panned film “The Tourist.”
“It’s kind of depressing walking around in a depressing body for three or four months at a time,” he said in an apparent reference to Method acting. “I prefer having fun — and even better if you’re being paid for the fun.”
He talked about a previous plan to play the hero of “Crime and Punishment,” effortlessly remembering Raskolnikov’s name, and said he would be interested in acting in a film version of Mikhail Bulgakov’s book “The Master and Margarita,” which he called “beautiful.” Perhaps he should check out the 1990s Russian film version, now in cinemas, with its wobbly special effects and wall-to-wall nudity. Or then again, maybe not.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, another Hollywood star, albeit a much less bright one, visited Moscow last week and prompted a rare kiss-and-tell story in Tvoi Den tabloid.
Vin Diesel, the star of the “Fast & Furious” films, came to present the fifth episode of the saga. An “enchanting blonde” identified as Maria, 21, claimed Diesel, 43, met her at a nightclub and took her back to his hotel room.
It’s still virtually unknown for Russian tabloids to run kiss-and-tell stories of the kind that are bread-and-butter to the British tabloids. But Tvoi Den’s creator, Aram Gabrelyanov, is a Rupert Murdoch in the making, with his tabloid based slavishly on The Sun. Like Murdoch, he is bidding for broadsheet respectability by taking over Izvestia.
Without going into too much detail, Tvoi Den’s front page headline was “I have seen bigger.”
TITLE: A taste of Hollywood at the Mariinsky
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Guiseppe Verdi’s “Aida” in an unorthodox rendition by Switzerland’s Daniele Finzi Pasca — the name behind Cirque du Soleil’s globe-trotting show “Corteo” — is one of the two biggest catches in the program of the 19th international Stars of the White Nights festival that kicks off on May 23 and will run for nine weeks.
“Aida” will be shown at the Mariinsky Concert Hall just twice, on June 11 and 14.
“Aida was conceived especially for the concert hall of the Mariinsky Theater as a vivid and most accessible production that can be performed frequently,” Valery Gergiev, the company’s artistic director, told reporters at a news conference last week. “It is not the sort of show that we produce with one season of performance in mind or with the aim of leasing it out. We expect the production to repeat the success of Alain Maratrat’s rendition of Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ that has been shown more than 100 times since it was premiered in December 2007.”
Another unmissable event is Benjamin Britten’s opera “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” staged by Claudia Solti and featuring world-renowned bass Willard White in one of the main roles (July 21 and 27). According to Gergiev, “these opera premieres will embellish the festival.” Claudia Solti is the daughter of the late renowned conductor Sir Georg Solti, and has an extensive background in cinema. As Gergiev stressed, Claudia Solti “will be staging an opera that her father loved very much.”
On June 20, the festival will present the Russian premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s “A Sea of Dreams Did Breathe on Me... Songs of Reverie and Nostalgia,” a cycle of twenty-one songs for soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra set to verse by Polish poets.
“Krzysztof Penderecki and I are friends and have worked together for a long time, including on the world premiere of this work which I conducted in Warsaw,” said Gergiev.
The festival opens on May 23 with the glamorous soprano Anna Netrebko singing the lead role of Adina in Gaetano Donizetti’s sparkling opera “L’Elisir d’Amore” that premiered at the Mariinsky Theater in January this year to become essentially a one-soprano show that won sour reviews owing to a devastating lack of ensemble.
The festival’s program this year incorporates about 115 performances of some of the world’s most sought after artists, including actor John Malkovich, pianist Rudolph Buchbinder, conductor Paavo Jarvi, violinists Vadim Repin and Leonidas Kavakos and conductor Kurt Masur, along with Willard White.
Hollywood star Malkovich will be back in town for one performance on July 10 of “The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer,” in which he portrays the charming Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger. Written and directed by Michael Sturminger, “The Infernal Comedy” brings together Malkovich, several sopranos and a baroque orchestra to tell the story of Unterweger, who killed 11 prostitutes in Europe and the U.S. by strangling them with their own bras.
On July 11 and 13, the Malkovich and Sturminger duo will present a new show, “Giacomo Variations,” about the escapades of Giacomo Casanova, again involving a baroque orchestra under the baton of Martin Haselbock, but this time featuring popular film actress Ingeborga Dapkunaite.
“The Giacomo Variations was billed as an opera play but scarcely served the needs of either music or theater,” read a review of the production in The Sydney Morning Herald. The show was performed in Sydney in January this year as part of a theater festival.
“The idea was harmless enough — mixing conquests and confessions from the memoirs of the 18th-century libertine Giacomo Casanova with the love stories from the three great operas Mozart wrote with the comparably flamboyant librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, ‘The Marriage of Figaro,’ ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘Cosi fan tutte.’ But the concept of the director, Michael Sturminger, was more the material of cabaret and revue than a work for festival star billing,” the critic wrote.
On June 13, the Mariinsky company will travel to Veliky Novgorod for a one-off open-air performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s classic opera “Sadko” inside the town’s ancient Kremlin.
The theater began talks about the production several years ago at an early stage of collaboration with the regions around St Petersburg. Gergiev believes that “Sadko” should be performed in other Russian towns, thus fulfilling the demands of the Mariinsky Theater’s regional program of concerts. The theater also plans to perform in Pskov, Petrozavodsk, Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Kaliningrad.
A full schedule of the Stars of the White Nights festival is available at www.mariinsky.ru
TITLE: Secret Garden
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With the White Nights rapidly approaching, a new eatery has taken the concept of a panoramic restaurant to a whole new level. Teplitsa, which means greenhouse, is indeed entirely made of glass, and is housed in a new extension on top of the former Stereo Kino movie theater. Instead of offering views of the city’s fabled skyline, however, it looks out onto a courtyard. Not just any old courtyard, though: This is Nevsky 88, home to an extensive labyrinth of smart, clean yards, with elegant lampposts and small islands of garden. There are no rotting Ladas here, only clean, expensive cars. The courtyard is home to a mini-hotel and several renovated apartments available for short-term rent, hence the care that obviously goes into maintaining it. There is also a dodgy-looking nightclub named Night Flight, a sex shop, and the usual litter of adorable stray kittens to keep things interesting.
The entrance to Teplitsa is through the old ticket offices of the movie theater, past an old grand piano, through a dimly lit but attractive hall and up a staircase with stucco molding on its white walls. Downstairs, in the former hall of the movie theater, renovation work is still being carried out on a nightclub due to open later this month, where clubbers will apparently come to worship at the shrine of the male form. After the dim lighting downstairs, it is a contrast to break out into the light and airy glass extension that houses the restaurant, or restoranchik, as Teplitsa calls itself.
The interior is in fact disguised as an exterior, with fake grass covering the floor, peppered with the occasional artificial flower. Potted plants are arranged in the corners, and ivy plants trail from freestanding shelves. The summery atmosphere is enhanced by the bright white chair covers and tablecloths. The shelves, also painted white, are loaded with wine bottles, stuffed toys, books and eclectic objects such as watering cans.
Teplitsa’s menu is predominantly Italian, and is very reasonably priced, with prices ranging from 150 rubles ($5.30) for a soup or hot snack to 950 rubles ($34) for the menu’s most expensive offering — black cod. Teplitsa only opened on May 7, and does not yet serve alcohol other than cider and excellent ice-cold unfiltered Blanche de Namur beer (200 rubles, $7 for half a liter).
The meal itself got off to a disastrous start when the tomato soup (180 rubles, $6.40) innocently ordered by an ichthyophobe in our party arrived with chunks of an unidentified white fish in it. The waitress offered to bring another one, giving rise to fears that the fish would simply be removed and the dish brought back — such things have been known to happen! — but such cynicism thankfully proved unfounded. The replacement bowl, which, the waitress announced generously, we would not be charged for, was felicitously fish-free, but nothing special in the flavor department.
Pumpkin soup (150 rubles, $5.30), also arrived with an unexpected maritime twist, this time in the form of squid rings. Nor was the thick, sweet concoction any more impressive than its tomato counterpart.
The salads at Teplitsa may well be a better bet — at least, salad with roast beef and chicken fillet (250 rubles, $8.90) was a resounding success. Arugula, lettuce, red and yellow bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and gherkins topped with tender meat and drizzled with a pesto sauce amounted to a generous portion, and the dish was as fresh and green as the season and setting.
Of the three lasagnas offered at Teplitsa (meat, vegetable and fish, all priced at 250 rubles or $8.90), the vegetable option was satisfactory, though no more exciting than the tomato soup. The proportion of grated carrot in the mixture of roast yellow peppers, mushrooms and bechamel sauce seemed excessive, and the crisp top layer of pasta suggested the dish had been reheated.
Likewise, beef Stroganoff “in a new style” (330 rubles, $11.75) did not really set a new precedent for the classic dish. While the beef was lean and tender enough, the mysterious sauce in which it was cooked, which appeared to contain sea kale, bore little resemblance to Stroganoff. The dish was decorated with a quartered gherkin.
While Teplitsa cannot be described as a gourmet establishment, nor does it appear to be marketing or pricing itself as such, and its unusual setting, laid-back atmosphere and democratic prices make it an engaging option for flaneurs seeking an alternative to the packed, overpriced tourist traps on Nevsky Prospekt.
In the Courtyard
Behind the stately renovated facades of the city’s streets lies a whole other world: The courtyards are often home to some of the city’s most fascinating clubs, bars, galleries and eateries.
Teplo
A very popular restaurant serving European and Russian food in a homely environment, complete with guest slippers and an open log fire (“teplo” means “warm” in Russian). In the summer, tables are set up outdoors in the renovated, flower-strewn courtyard.
45 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa
Tel: 570 1974
Glyanets (Gloss)
A swanky restaurant housed in a glass structure erected in the courtyard of the Stroganov Palace, serving Vietnamese, Italian and French dishes as well as sushi and seafood. The interior is dominated by red and black tones, and by a glass lift leading to the upper floor of the open kitchen station.
17 Nevsky Prospekt
Tel: 315 2315
Odin
This compact restaurant on the Petrograd Side is entered through the courtyard. Odin’s Viking theme is emphasized by its dark wooden interior. One table is housed in a longboat set in a small pond containing live fish. The cuisine is, predictably, Scandinavian and, less predictably, Japanese.
28 Ulitsa Kuibysheva
Tel: 498 6000
TITLE: As Cool as Putin and a Boiled Egg
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: If you ever have occasion to talk with a native Russian speaker under the legal drinking age, you’re going to hear the adjective êðóòîé a lot, along with the adverb êðóòî and comparative form êðó÷å. In fact, I’ve come to think of êðóòîé as the quintessential Russian word for the 21st century. But what the heck does êðóòîé mean?
The primary meaning in literary and standard language is steep or twisted. For example:  òåõ ìåñòàõ, ãäå ñïóñê ñòàíîâèëñÿ êðó÷å, îí îñòàíàâëèâàëñÿ è ïîäàâàë åé ðóêó (In places where the slope grew steeper, he would stop and give her a hand). With regard to roads, êðóòîé means sharply crooked: Îñòîðîæíî! Âïåðåäè êðóòîé ïîâîðîò íàïðàâî (Watch out! Up ahead the road makes a sharp turn to the right).
Then there are several one-offs — particular meanings of êðóòîé for very particular cases. With regard to waves, êðóòîé means huge, as in this lyrical description of a storm: Ïðûãàÿ ïî êðóòûì âîëíàì, óðàãàí äîñòèã áåðåãà (The hurricane leapt along high waves to reach the shore). With regard to foreheads and chins, it means protuberant: Ó íåãî êðóòîé ëîá (His forehead juts out). With regard to water, it means boiling hot, as in this recipe: Â êðóòîé êèïÿòîê ñïóñêàòü êóñêè ñûðîãî ìÿñà (Drop pieces of raw meat into water brought to a rolling boil). Logically — inasmuch as language is logical — êðóòîå ÿéöî is a hard-boiled egg.
Figuratively, êðóòîé can refer to actions that are major and affect the essence of something. So you can talk about êðóòûå ïåðåìåíû (major changes) or êðóòîé ïåðåëîì â æèçíè (a huge turning point in life).
With regard to actions, êðóòîé can mean severe, like êðóòûå ìåðû (drastic measures). With regard to people, in literary Russian êðóòîé or êðóòîé íðàâ (character) means severe, decisive and stubborn. Today this is a bit dated, but you can still hear it. For example, the headline of a newspaper article read: Ðîäîì èç Áåðåçíèêîâ: èñòîêè êðóòîãî íðàâà Åëüöèíà (Born in Berezniki: The source of Yeltsin’s resolute character).
But that’s literary language. It’s slang where êðóòî has made its real mark. After slogging through blogs and talking to teens, I’ve concluded that êðóòî and êðóòîé refer to people, actions and things that are extraordinary and powerful in some way. The power might lie in beauty, success, wealth, some kind of extreme or ruthlessness, and there is no moral judgment. It’s not good or bad — just êðóòî. For example, when Dr. House is told that his patient has just suffered his fourth organ shut-down, is turning orange and bleeding from his ears, and says, “Cool!” I’ve mentally translated this as Êðóòî!
When stores, nightclubs, restaurants, houses and cars are deemed êðóòûå, this means they are expensive, exclusive, terrific, beautiful, popular and either visited or purchased by rich and famous people. Êëóá áûë òàêîé êðóòîé! (The club was really hot!) Magazines, work, music, films, books, clothes etc. that are êðóòûå, are really successful, well-paid, great or desirable. Îí ñ÷èòàåò, ÷òî ó íå¸ êðóòàÿ ðàáîòà, à ÿ òèïà ñåêðåòàðÿ (He thinks that she’s got some fabulous job, but I’m like a secretary).
When people are êðóòûå, they are everything from hot to brutal, depending on context and the speaker. Êðóòîé ïàðåíü might be a hard-ass or cool guy. Êðóòàÿ äåâóøêà is a looker, a tease or a rich chick. Êðóòàÿ æåíùèíà is a successful and powerful woman. Êðóòàÿ áàáà sometimes is a tough broad, sometimes a rich and no-nonsense woman. Êðóòîé áèçíåñìåí might be major player (that is, super-rich), but he also be a guy who plays hardball (that is, sends his competitors to sleep with the fishes).
Confused? Here’s a good way to look at it: In today’s slang, Putin is êðóòîé, Medvedev is not.
Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.
TITLE: City Museums Prepare for Crowds of Night Owls
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Space is the central theme of this year’s Museum Night, an annual overnight treat for culture vultures in which dozens of local museums, exhibition halls and galleries stay open long after dark to welcome nocturnal visitors.
This year, from 6 p.m. on Saturday until 6 a.m. on Sunday, more than 60 local museums will greet guests at odd hours and treat them to special displays inspired by a cosmic theme and the 50th anniversary of Yury Gagarin’s historic achievement of becoming the first man in space.
Seventeen museums are taking part in the event for the first time this year, including the Loft Rizzoli Art Foundation, a new exhibition space located in the former premises of the Stepan Razin brewery at 49 Kurlyandskaya Ulitsa. The venue will host a festival of visual street art, fusing graffiti, video art, music, and light installations.
“The smell of kvas being brewed will spice up the atmosphere of the new venue,” joked Anton Gubankov, head of City Hall’s Culture Committee.
Museum Night is an international project with a scope of more than 2,000 museums and galleries in 42 European countries. The event arrived in St. Petersburg in 2008, and has become an annual happening.
“This year, we have decided to introduce a special theme to the whole event: The theme of space, in a universal sense,” Gubankov said. “We hope that this mysterious event will help to penetrate the soul of St. Petersburg and the essence of our city, which makes it so special.”
One of the most diverse and entertaining visual feasts will take place in the courtyard of the Fontanny Dom, located off Liteiny Prospekt.
“We will take the performance space literally above ground —there will be performances on balconies and in windows; videos will be projected onto the walls,” said Nina Popova, director of the Anna Akhmatova Museum in the Fontanny Dom. “We are setting up an outdoor summer cafe of the likes of the [legendary Silver Age establishment] Stray Dog Cafe.”
The suburban town of Gatchina is organizing its own Museum Night, with 12 venues involved in the all-night party.
The event is an excellent opportunity to see the austere castle, including its crumbling halls that are usually closed while the castle waits to be repaired, along with its chilly, eerie basements and legendary underground passage.
All participants of the excursion at Gatchina will be provided with a pocket torch.
The town of Peterhof is also opening three of its museums to late night visitors, including the Royal Bicycle Museum, the Playing Card Museum and the Benois Family Museum.
The industrial town of Vsevolozhsk will offer residents the chance to spend an evening at the Cat Museum.
Unlike the evening in Gatchina, that looks set to take a mysterious and otherworldly note, the Mitki artists will try to make the cosmic theme somewhat cozier. The iconic local art group’s headquarters will be decorated with Soviet-era television sets and VCR players showing recordings of Gagarin’s flight and the first samples of science fiction films inspired by space travel. Visitors will be offered the opportunity to join forces and paint their own painting together with the artists.
Every year, more and more locals leap at the chance to spend a night traveling between the city’s diverse collection of museums and galleries. In 2008, the project attracted around 24,000 people, while last year, more than 75,000 residents showed an interest.
To help intrepid museum-goers get around, 40 buses will be operating every 20 minutes between the venues.
There will be six different routes, all of which intersect outside St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
When planning routes between the venues, culture hunters should bear in mind two important things. One is that the bridges schedule remains unchanged, and the other is that the Museums Night buses will only start operating from 11 p.m., as other public transport stops for the night.
A unified ticket granting the right to enter all participating museums is a bargain at 300 rubles ($10.70). Tickets can be purchased at every venue.
In light of previous years’ experience, the Culture Committee’s Gubankov warned that crowds and time lost in waiting would be an inevitable part of the evening.
Last year, the event attracted more than 64,000 participants. As a result, many of the venues were overcrowded, and there were lines for both the buses and the museums.