SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1666 (28), Wednesday, July 20, 2011
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TITLE: Soldiers’ Mothers Delivers Criticism of Spring Draft 
AUTHOR: By Yelena Minenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Numerous violations of human rights and violence used against military conscripts were encountered during this year’s spring draft, which ended a month ago, representatives of the human rights organization Soldiers’ Mothers said at a press conference devoted to the draft last week. 
“In May, about one third of all the military-age men appearing in front of the draft board were brought to the military registration and enlistment office by force,” Yelena Popova, PR-coordinator for Soldiers’ Mothers, said Wednesday. “By June, that figure was a half of all men, and in July, it was more than half, since there were no volunteers left.” 
Those “captured,” as Popova calls young men detained by the police and taken by force to the military office, are not always eligible conscripts — some of them are military-age men who have deferred their military service due to health or education reasons — but they are not given chance to explain before being bundled into police cars and driven away, according to Soldiers’ Mothers. 
“One Saturday morning, policemen knocked on my door on [university] campus and asked me to go with them to the military office,” said one of the “captured,” Shamil Kadiyev. “When we got there, the military office staff told me that everything was in order with my deferment and I could go home.” But the next day, when Kadiyev was about to leave for university to take an exam, he found both representatives of the military office and policemen waiting outside his door. 
“They said that some kind of problem had occurred and I had to appear before a medical board,” said Kadiyev. “Without even examining me properly they declared me fit for military service.” When he tried to leave the office, Kadiyev was told that if he did, he would be violating the law and would be considered a draft dodger. 
“I managed to text my sister, who then got in touch with Soldiers’ Mothers. When representatives of the organization called me, one of the officers tried to take my cell phone, and when he saw that I would offer resistance, started twisting my arms and strangling me. I somehow managed to dial 112 and call the police.” 
When the police arrived, Kadiyev wrote a complaint to the prosecutor’s office. Representatives of the military office in turn wrote a statement accusing Kadiyev of using violence against a military officer. A medical examination showed that Kadiyev had sustained concussion and had his neck constricted. 
Another young man, Demid Azarenko, was “captured” in the metro. Following the same pattern, he was taken to the military office, and only released three days later. 
“When my sister brought documents to the office proving I had been excused from military service on health grounds, I was told that the health certificates were fake,” said Azarenko. “I wrote a complaint about the head of the military office, Vadim Polenitsa, to City Hall, and was extremely surprised when City Hall asked the same Polenitsa to investigate the complaint, to which he said that no violations have taken place.”
“The police have to take part in investigating conscripts, according to Federal Law 53 on military service,” said Alexei Vaskov, deputy head of the legal administration of the St. Petersburg police. “But a new law governing the police says that these functions are unusual for police, and should be removed by 2012.” Vaskov admitted that it is common practice for drafting boards to collaborate with the police while recruiting. 
“In some cases, military offices have to call the police, because many young man react badly when requested to fulfill their military duty,” said Vaskov. “The police are responsible for keeping public order, so that is why they have to step in.”
But the issue contested by Soldiers’ Mothers is how they go about it. Both Kadiyev and Azarenko complained of being subjected to rude treatment, bad language and threats from both military officers and policemen. 
“When we went to the military office to get a call-up paper for my youngest son, who was applying for alternative military service, we were rejected,” said Svetlana Isayeva, the mother of two sons. “When we tried to insist, the police came and arrested both of my sons and held them in a cell for 27 hours.” 
The rights to perform civil service as an alternative to military service is guaranteed by part two, article 57 of the constitution and is governed by the federal law on alternative civil service. The right to choose not to do military training was introduced to accommodate religious and moral views and beliefs. Every young man eligible for military service has the right to apply for civil service instead, but such requests are not always granted. From 2004 to 2010, a total of 5,388 applications for civil service were submitted, but only 4,072 applicants had their military service changed to civil service, according to statistics published by Alternativshik newspaper. During this year’s spring draft, 330 applications were submitted and are currently being considered. 
“I don’t think that this matter needs strict and constant supervision; if a murder had happened, that would be different,” said Vaskov. “The prosecutor’s office should react to each individual case as and when statements are made and complaints to the prosecutor are written. Specific officials should be made answerable.”


TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Murderer Sentenced</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A man from the Leningrad Oblast was sentenced to 19 years in a penal colony for a series of murders and robberies, the prosecutor’s office reported Tuesday. 
A 45-year-old resident of the Gatchinsky district was found guilty of committing six murders involving armed holdups and 4 robberies. From 2006 to 2010, the victims were elderly people, Interfax reported. 
The crimes were committed by a group of men working together. Separate cases have been opened in relation to them.

<b>Stalin’s Interpreter Dies</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Vladimir Yerofeyev, a diplomat and Stalin’s personal interpreter, died in Moscow on Monday at the age of 91. The cause of death was acute heart failure after a long illness, Yerofeyev’s son, the writer Viktor Yerofeyev said on Ekho Moskvy radio station.
Vladimir Yerofeyev started his career in Sweden during World War II. “Then in Moscow he was an assistant to Vyacheslav Molotov, first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., and then he was the personal French-interpreter of Joseph Stalin,” said his son.
He was also an ambassador in Africa, Austria and a vice president of UNESCO. “He was a decent, lively, outstanding man and joyful person,” said Viktor Yerofeyev. 
Vladimir Yerofeyev will be buried at the Vagankovskoye Cemetery in Moscow on Thursday. 

<b>Showers for Kupchino</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — City residents will be able to rent sun loungers and take advantage of cooling showers in various locations around the Frunzensky district from Tuesday, Interfax reported. 
The necessary infrastructure will be set up in the courtyards of Kupchino, the press service of the district administration said Tuesday. The sun loungers will be available free-of-charge, but some form of ID must be presented in order to rent one. 
“We think that a project like this will not only help people to enjoy the summer weather, but also encourage neighbors to communicate with one another,” said representatives of the press service. 
Open-air concerts have been held during the summer in the Frunzensky district since last year, and local libraries have announced a siesta for several hours in the afternoon, the district’s administration said. 

<b>Street Art on Display</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg graffiti artists will take part in an open-air performance, painting several large boards that will later be exhibited in the streets. 
Outdoor art will be on display on Admiralteisky Proezd, Zagorodny Prospekt, the embankment of the Obvodny Canal and other streets until the end of the summer, said organizers. 
The event is timed to coincide with the first St. Petersburg Graffiti Art forum, which will take place in the city in August. 

<b>Illegal Boat Trips</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Transport police have suspended the operations of a boat firm that was violating several laws by transporting tourists along the River Neva, Interfax reported Tuesday. 
An investigation revealed that the firm’s director had allowed the transportation of clients on a water vessel without the license required to do so. 
“Life jackets were located in an obscure place — in a hold closed by a metal lid, hidden under a carpet,” said police transport officials. Boarding and debarkation were also being carried out without the aid of a ramp.
The firm’s operations have been suspended, and the possibility of opening a criminal case is being discussed, Interfax reported. 

<b>Cargo Turnover Rises</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Stevedore companies working on the territory of the St. Petersburg Sea Port processed 28,249,700 tons of cargo during the first half of this year — 7 percent more than during the same period last year, Interfax reported.
A total of 29 stevedore companies work at the port, including the Sea Port St. Petersburg group of companies. More than 3 million tons of processed traffic was bulk cargo, more than 7 million tons was general cargo, and almost 11 million tons was container cargo. The transfer of oil products increased by 2 percent to 6,566,000 tons. 


TITLE: Bronka Port Investor Defends Project
AUTHOR: By Yelena Minenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The territory of the Bronka cargo port that has been under construction since 2007 in the harbor of Lomonosov, formerly known as Oranienbaum, is due to be silted to form reclaimed land after a perimeter of dams made of earth was formed. 
“The idea of building a port in that part of the Neva Bay isn’t new,” said Alexei Shukletsov, CEO of Phoenix investment company that is funding most of the port project, during a trip to the construction site last Thursday. “The spot between Kronstadt and the town of Lomonosov is very favorable for port construction. The Bronka train station is situated at the junction of the St. Petersburg Ring Road (KAD) and railways, plus the territory is not densely built-up,” said Shukletsov. 
Bronka is due to operate as an outer harbor to the city’s main port, the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Port, which is located on islands in the delta of the River Neva to the west of the historic center of the city. The Bronka port project was initiated by Phoenix company, which is providing 43.7 billion rubles ($156 million) in financing to the project, while a further 15.9 billion rubles ($567 million) is being put up by the state. 
The creation of an outer harbor is designed to help the old St. Petersburg Bolshoi Port cope with the flow of cargo ships, as its ability to do so is impeded by its location. 
“It is a problem for new vessels with their large sizes to enter the St. Petersburg port,” said Mikhail Kharyuzov, deputy captain of the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Port. “Bronka will relieve the pressure, because all large vessels will be received there. The level of safety will increase, and winter navigation will also be improved.”
Despite these arguments, the project has also attracted opponents — mainly citizens of Lomonosov, who have expressed their concerns in public meetings and the media. 
“Loaded trucks coming from the port will destroy Lomonosov,” opponents of the Bronka port complain. Phoenix representatives admit that 90 percent of cargo delivery by land will be done by automobiles, and only 10 percent by trains, because the demand for auto transportation is much higher.
“We are going to build a link road from the port to the Ring Road, so no trucks will drive through the historic parts of Lomonosov,” said Shukletsov.
Vladimir Lugovenko, a representative of the Transport Ministry which has given its backing to the port, said that Rosavtonadzor, the state transport watchdog, is already working on an interchange project that would ensure the port’s facilities do not affect the town’s traffic. 
The district’s local authorities spoke in favor of the new port Thursday. 
“Historically, Lomonosov has always been a port; there used to be a military harbor, which was lost together with workplaces. Today we need a substitute structure,” said Yevgeny Motorin, first deputy head of the Petrodvortsovy district in which Lomonosov is located. “Lomonosov has the biggest percentage of unemployed people of all the city’s districts; 10,000 to 12,000 residents drive back and forth to St. Petersburg for work, spend money on transport, and leave their children on their own for the whole day. Bronka port will provide them with workplaces, a decent salary and time for their kids,” he said. 
Another source of complaints has been ecological concerns. Silting the territory to form reclaimed land makes the water in the surrounding area turbid and impedes fish spawning. In order to prevent this, protective dams have been constructed — at the investors’ expense, representatives of Phoenix are quick to point out. 
It is however impossible to implement the project without harming the biosphere, obligating the investment company to pay fines and one-off payments to compensate work to undo negative impact. The St. Petersburg Ecological Company, which has signed an agreement with Phoenix, will monitor the water of the Neva Bay, and the state of the fish, birds and plants, as well as noise levels near the construction site, where some houses are still located. 
“We don’t want to torment residents,” said Shukletzov. “The three areas designated for the port don’t include the territory of the town, we don’t need the land on the Olgin Canal, where some houses are located. But we understand that it may be inconvenient. We have tried to talk with families who live there and want to move away from the port, but we weren’t successful. We’ve resettled three houses, but others are not so willing to negotiate.”
“Bronka is the most attractive spot from a logistics point of view, and containers, which will be the main cargo loaded there, are the most ecologically safe,” said Andrei Karpov, director of the Dorn analytical agency. 
“It is like saying that Peter I caused irreparable harm to the environment when he laid the cornerstone of the Peter and Paul Fortress on Hare Island, which, according to its name, was once upon a time full of hares,” he said.

TITLE: Weather Forecasters Predict More Heat, Thunderstorms  
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The next two weeks could be the hottest of St. Petersburg’s summer this year, according to meteorologists.
From Friday to Sunday, temperatures will soar to 30 degrees Celsius, the city’s senior meteorologist Alexander Kolesov said, Fontanka.ru reported.
In some areas of the Leningrad Oblast, the temperature may rise to 31 to 33 degrees by Thursday. Heavy thunderstorms with strong winds are also expected on Wednesday, July 20.
In August, temperatures will range from 25 to 28 degrees Celsius during the day, and around 24 degrees Celsius at night, meteorologists forecast.
Valery Malinin, a professor at the State Hydrometeorological University, said St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast are currently located between a cyclone covering the European part of Russia and an anti-cyclone above the southern part of the country. Therefore, the dry periods in St. Petersburg will be punctuated by short showers now and then, Fontanka reported.
Weather forecasters said that the main problem of last summer — numerous forest fires that engulfed the capital in smog — should not be repeated this summer. However, specialists again warned that human behavior is the major cause of forest fires.
Malinin also gave city residents advice on what to do during thunderstorms, reminding people not to shelter under solitary trees or stay in open fields. When caught in an exposed place such as a field by a thunderstorm, it’s better to lie down on the ground, he said. He advised people to stay indoors whenever possible during thunderstorms.
Two people were killed on Ulitsa Vosstaniya earlier this month when the tree under which they were sheltering was struck by lightning.
Kolesov said a temperature increase up to 30 degrees is dangerous for people with asthma and elderly people. The extreme heat of last summer increased the mortality rate by 20 percent.


TITLE: Opposition Parties Launch Campaign 
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Three unregistered oppositional parties started what they call a broad campaign of civil disobedience protesting the upcoming State Duma election — which is expected to exclude oppositional parties — with a protest rally on Sunday.
An estimated 200 came to the authorized demo held on Pionerskaya Ploshchad by the local branches of the ROT Front (Russian United Labor Front), The People’s Freedom Party (ParNaS) and The Other Russia, parties that have repeatedly been refused registration by the Justice Ministry during the past 12 months. 
Unregistered parties will not be allowed to participate in the upcoming election.
The protesters objected to the Kremlin’s practices of not allowing the opposition to take part in the election campaign, as well as many other cited violations accompanying elections in contemporary Russia. 
“It was our first joint event,” The Other Russia’s local chair Andrei Dmitriyev said.
“Despite differences in political views, we are planning to go on battling against the election without a choice due in December.”
Earlier, The Other Russia’s leader Eduard Limonov invited voters to boycott the upcoming State Duma election as “unfree.”
“More and more people realize that the issue of power is not solved through elections in this country,” Dmitriyev said.
“Two or a few more people decide it all for us in the Kremlin. It’s insulting and unacceptable.”
The slogans “No to Election Without a Choice” and “Election With No Opposition Is a Crime” will be added to Strategy 31 rallies held in defense of the right of assembly on the 31st day of months that have 31 days, Dmitriyev said.
The parties also invited people to join protests against the expected falsification of the results on the day of the State Duma election, December 4. The protests are due to be held across Russia at 6 p.m. at the same sites where Strategy 31 rallies are traditionally held.
In St. Petersburg, that site is located in front of Gostiny Dvor metro station on Nevsky Prospekt, dubbed by activists “Ploshchad Svobody” (Freedom Square).
“I think that there is a mood of unavoidable defeat in society now, and if people rise up by the beginning of the election season and take to the streets in large numbers, the Russian Winter might overshadow the Arab Spring — the disturbances in the Arab countries that we have seen during the past six months,” Dmitriyev said.
“I think the same scenario could be repeated in Russia. In any event, we’ll be calling on people to take to the streets on election day.”
On Monday, the local Strategy 31 organizers submitted an application to City Hall for the July 31 rally. Dmitriyev said that after receiving the reply, which is most likely to be a rejection, an open letter will be written to the newly appointed St. Petersburg police chief Mikhail Sukhodolsky.
Following an idea put forward by Limonov last month, the upcoming Strategy 31 rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg will be held in the form of sit-ins. 
“Our activists will sit on the ground with their arms locked; as experience has shown that such demos are more difficult to disperse,” Dmitriyev said.
“Those who don’t want to sit will support them with applause, as has been done in Belarus recently.”
None of the rallies — held in St. Petersburg since January 31, 2010 — have been authorized by City Hall, with the police invariably dispersing the events and making scores of arrests.

TITLE: Jail Officials Targeted Over Magnitsky Case
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Investigators said Monday that a criminal case has been opened into two prison officials in connection with the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and that they face possible charges of negligence.
Larisa Litvinova, former medical official at Moscow’s Butyrskaya pretrial prison, faces up to three years in prison if charged and convicted of unintentional manslaughter by breach of professional duty, the Investigative Committee said.
Her former superior, Dmitry Kratov, may be jailed for five years if charged with negligence that resulted in death, committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said, Interfax reported. 
Other prison officials, including those with high ranks, may face charges in the ongoing investigation, Markin said. The investigation is to wrap up within six weeks.
Magnitsky was rushed from Butyrskaya to a prison hospital as his condition deteriorated in November 2009 after 11 months in custody over tax evasion charges. His supporters say the case was fabricated by corrupt officials whom he had accused of defrauding the state of $230 million in tax refunds and that he was intentionally denied medical help.
A U.S. nongovernmental organization, Physicians for Human Rights, echoed these accusations, releasing a report Monday that said Magnitsky “suffered calculated and deliberate neglect and inhumane treatment which ultimately led to his death.” 
Earlier this month, the Kremlin’s human rights council said in a report that eight prison guards severely beat Magnitsky shortly before his death. 
Among those whom Magnitsky accused of stealing companies owned by Hermitage and arranging and embezzling fraudulent tax refunds of $230 million previously paid by those companies were Interior Ministry officers Artyom Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, who proceeded to handle the case against him.
Karpov launched a counterattack on his critics Monday, filing a defamation lawsuit against members of the Kremlin’s human rights council for implicating him in Magnitsky’s death through the July report.
The lawsuit lists Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Kirill Kabanov and Tamara Morshchakova as plaintiffs, Interfax said. 
The human rights council held an independent investigation into the Magnitsky case at the request of President Dmitry Medvedev, who has not commented on the findings and is not mentioned in Karpov’s lawsuit.
Karpov demanded a nominal compensation of 1 ruble (3 cents) and asked the court to confirm that he never was accused by Magnitsky of wrongdoing and was not involved in tax fraud. No date for a hearing has been set.
A separate defamation lawsuit was filed by businessman Vladlen Stepanov against anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who, according to the suit, accused him of purchasing costly assets immediately after Magnitsky exposed the tax fraud. Stepanov was once married to former Moscow tax official Olga Stepanova, who Hermitage has accused of signing off the tax refunds illegally.
Stepanov said he has divorced Olga Stepanova and purchased all his assets with his own money, the RAPSI judicial news agency reported, adding that a court hearing will take place Aug. 2.
Stepanov, who is seeking 1 million rubles ($35,000) in damages, did not comment on the fact that Navalny only reproduced accusations originally made by Hermitage. 
Navalny wrote on his Twitter page that he learned about the lawsuit from media reports.
In April, Hermitage released a protracted expose, complete with documents, that accused the Stepanovs of owning assets worth about $39 million even though their officially declared household income amounted to $38,300 a year.
Stepanov first denied wrongdoing in a May interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.  Magnitsky’s former boss, Jamison Firestone, accused Stepanov in an interview with Business FM radio in June of “lying” and said the divorce was a sham.
Hermitage and Firestone are not mentioned in either defamation lawsuit. 


TITLE: How U.S. Default Would Hit Russia
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — There probably aren’t many things that Sberbank president and former economy minister German Gref tries not to think about. But a U.S. default, which will take place if warring political parties in Washington cannot agree on a deficit reduction plan, is one of them. 
“I don’t even let that thought cross my mind. If it happens, it will have, to put it mildly, catastrophic consequences for the world’s financial system,” Gref said at a news conference Friday.
Republicans and Democrats are currently locked in negotiations ahead of an Aug. 2 deadline for raising the U.S. debt ceiling from its current level of $14.3 trillion. President Barack Obama warned last week that a default was not an “abstract” issue, while ratings agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have threatened to downgrade the United States’ coveted “triple-A” rating. 
Those predicting a global financial cataclysm and economic meltdown as a result of a U.S. default have no difficulty in foreseeing how events would take their course in Russia. 
“It would make 2008 look like a walk in the park,” said a senior Western banker in Moscow, referring to the global recession sparked by bad U.S. housing debt and the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
“Global GDP would plunge, meaning global demand for commodities becomes nonexistent,” said the banker, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about a speculative event. “There would be nobody to buy the oil, the gas, the steel. … Essentially, Russia’s economy would be wiped out.”
Jochen Wermuth, founder and chief investment officer of Wermuth Asset Management, which has overseen more than $1 billion in Russian equity investments, was more cautious but no less apocalyptic.
“I don’t believe anybody knows what will happen — most likely the whole world will lie in ruins for decades,” he said.
Other experts, however, said the consequences of a U.S. default would be similar to the effect that U.S. economic problems had on the international economy in 2008. Russia saw a crisis with significant capital outflows, a sharp drop in the oil price and a 9 percent contraction of GDP. 
“For Russia it would look very similar to 2008, which means that the uncertainty would hit all businesses orientated toward exports,” said Natalya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank. 
She said it would provide temporary relief to some manufacturers for the domestic market but prove “very negative” for people’s purchasing power because it would likely cause the ruble to weaken.
Russia’s exposure to the dollar is significant. The Central Bank holds $250 billion to $300 billion — about half of its foreign currency reserves — in dollars, said Sergei Guriev, president of the New Economic School. 
He said Russia is currently more vulnerable to a global financial shock than it was in 2008, particularly because of a depleted reserve fund and greater budgetary dependence on oil. 

TITLE: MegaFon Left Red-Faced After Text-Message Leak
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Investigative Committee pledged to look into an leak that saw about 8,000 text messages by MegaFon users hit the web Monday.
The veritable trove of messages, accessible at a version of MegaFon’s web site cached by the Yandex search engine, runs the gamut of emotions, ranging from regular “where are you?” exchanges to tender love notes, accusations of cheating complete with obscenities, invitations to watch movies and requests to feed the cat.
Most messages are ridden with typos and, lacking context, are truly mind-boggling. One text message says, “The little bears have all scampered away because the hedgehogs are silent.”
The leaked messages were sent through MegaFon’s web site, not via users’ cell phones, a Yandex representative told Gazeta.ru. 
He blamed MegaFon for the leak, saying the web site’s administration should have configured the portal to prevent messages from being indexed.
Yandex cleared its cache of messages a few hours into the scandal, news site Rusnovosti.ru said.
MegaFon said in a vaguely worded statement that the issue was due to “technical malfunction” and was “quickly fixed.” The online statement linked the leak to “certain Internet services by Yandex” but did not elaborate or explicitly blame the search engine.
MegaFon also downplayed the leak, saying 8,000 messages were nothing compared with the 2 million texts it handles every hour.


TITLE: ‘Depressed’ Ferret Still on Run After Fleeing Siberian Circus
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The hunt continued Sunday for a “depressed” ferret who escaped Disney-style from a Chita circus along with a monkey and a red-breasted parakeet last week.
Hopes were raised Friday that the ferret had been found when Chita resident Ivan Burtsev found a ferret on a city street near the Zabaikalye hotel the night before and brought it to the local zoo.
“He is absolutely tame. He understands how to open doors, and he comes when you tap your leg,” Burtsev told news site Chita.ru, adding that he had been aware of the runaway ferret from news reports.
But circus art director Zhanna Lazerson rejected the ferret after examining it at the zoo.
“It’s not our ferret,” she said, according to Interfax. 
Lazerson said earlier that the circus wasn’t exactly missing its ferret, calling the animal a “terrible glutton, idle to the core.”
She said the ferret, monkey and parakeet fled because they suffered from depression caused by days of nonstop rain in Chita.
The news about the escape has gone viral on the Russian Internet, with many top Russian bloggers offering biting commentary on why the animals fled. 
The monkey was found shortly after the escape in a circus doghouse, cuddling with a dog. Both were sound asleep. The parakeet is still on the run.


TITLE: Bid to Ease Visa Rules Creates a New Hassle
AUTHOR: By Alex Chachkevitch

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSOW — While U.S. and Russian diplomats promised last week to ease visa rules, travelers on the ground have found that attempts to improve the process have resulted in new headaches.
On July 1, the Foreign Ministry opened a new web site for U.S. and British citizens seeking Russian visas. Applicants seeking to avoid paperwork soon discovered, however, that the site is near dysfunctional, often crashing and taking more than an hour to process applications.
“At the moment, we are told the web site is under construction,” Andrei Basmanov, head of the Russian Embassy’s consular division in London, said by telephone Thursday. 
He could not say how long it will take to fix the site, because the task is handled by the Foreign Ministry’s central office in Moscow. The ministry’s press office was not available for comment.
The online form was to become the only method for Americans applying for a Russian visa, but consulate officials in the United States will be accepting paper applications until the problem is resolved, Basmanov said.
A bilateral deal to introduce three-year multiple-entry visas for several categories of travelers, including businesspeople and tourists, was announced as finalized during Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s trip to Washington last Wednesday. It is still expected to be sealed this year, together with a similar agreement on five-year visas between Russia and France that could open the door to Schengen countries for Russians.
As for online visa forms, British citizens have used them since 2009, but the initial system was replaced in July by the same one introduced for Americans — and plagued by the same problems.
With the new form, it takes more than 90 minutes to process a single application, said Iveta Kalvisa, a consultant with the Baltic Travel Company in London, a tour operator that assists clients with visa applications to Eastern European countries and Russia. 
“We’ve been getting a lot of complaints,” Kalvisa said by telephone. “But we can’t help anyone with technical support. We can only suggest that people wait until the web site is functional, and that is frustrating.”
The Russian consulate has had to bring back the old application form, Kalvisa said. Basmanov said it was only temporary.
It remained unclear whether the new form would be introduced for other countries. Russian embassies in Australia and New Zealand say nothing about a new visa application system on their web sites.
“It’s not just our clients who are outraged,” said Gamilia Akhadova, a travel sales executive at the Russian National Group, which provides visa support in Russian consulates in the United States and in the Foreign Ministry in Moscow. “We have to deal with this too.”
On Thursday, the web site worked for most of the day, but on Wednesday it was completely down, Akhadova said.
“There is always something wrong with it,” she said.

TITLE: Cop ‘Bullies’ Pregnant Driver
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Moscow police on Monday promised to look into a complaint that a traffic police officer threatened a pregnant woman with a gun for failing to yield to an unidentified government official’s car.
Ksenia Nozdrachyova was stopped and threatened on Kutuzovsky Prospekt on Friday after she didn’t give way to a vehicle equipped with a flashing blue light, her husband, Alexander, wrote on the LiveJournal blog for Blue Buckets, which fights the abuse of flashing blue lights.
Nozdrachyov said his wife could not yield because the traffic was too heavy.
The unidentified traffic policeman was about to let the woman go with a warning when he received an order by radio to “strip the [expletive] of her license,” said Nozdrachyov, who was not in the car but arrived at the scene after a phone call from his wife.
“My pregnant wife complained of not feeling well, and I wanted to drive her away,” Nozdrachyov said. “But the young uniformed man pulled out his gun and said we were going nowhere.”
The accusation could not be independently confirmed, but the traffic police officer does not explicitly deny it in a video filmed and uploaded to YouTube by Nozdrachyov. The video shows a policeman with a beet-red face stubbornly dodging questions about his name and rank.
Eight more “rude-talking” police arrived later, but all of them left after Nozdrachyov demanded that officers from the police’s internal affairs department be called to the scene, he said.
Blue Buckets leader Alexei Dozorov said his group would provide Nozdrachyov with legal assistance to file a complaint against the traffic police officer on abuse of office, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
“I’ve never heard about a situation like this before,” Dozorov said by telephone Monday.
A police spokesman said “disciplinary actions” would be sought against the officer should his guilt be proved in an inquiry, Itar-Tass reported. 
The pregnant Nozdrachyova will also be placed under investigation and may be slapped with a fine of 500 rubles ($17) or lose her driver’s license for three months for not yielding to the official’s car, the spokesman said.

TITLE: Kazakh Leader in German Hospital
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: HAMBURG — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has been admitted to a hospital in the city of Hamburg, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Mass-circulation Bild said, without identifying its source, that the 71-year-old Kazakh leader had admitted himself to the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany. The report said the reason for his admission to hospital was unknown. 
“There is a celebrity patient being closely guarded in the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf — and according to information obtained by Bild it is Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev who is being secretly treated here,” the report said. “It is not known what he is suffering from.” 

TITLE: Front Fights for Support, Not Votes
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Many Russians remain unexcited about Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s All-Russia People’s Front — but some are willing to vote for it anyway, according to a new poll.
The odd discrepancy was exposed by a nationwide poll held by the state-owned VTsIOM pollster earlier this month and published Thursday.
The poll indicated that only 19 percent of Russians “positively” assess the group’s creation — a figure that has remained virtually unchanged since Putin unveiled the group in early May — while 13 percent, down 1 percentage point from June, have a negative assessment. The rest either do not care or are unaware of the group.
But at the same time, 25 percent of those polled said they were ready to vote for candidates fielded by the group at State Duma elections in December.
The number of Russians who know about the group’s existence grew 5 percent to 55 percent over the last month. Interestingly, the Russians who are most knowledgeable about the group are opposition-minded. The All-Russia People’s Front is known to 69 percent of supporters of non-parliamentary parties and 66 percent of the Communists’ constituency.
Support for the group was higher among those familiar with its existence prior to learning about it from the pollsters. Still, only 33 percent of the previously informed said they would vote for the group’s nominees in the Duma race. The support is highest among United Russia voters, Putin supporters and employees of state agencies, including law enforcement.
The survey polled 1,600 people in 46 regions and had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
Putin created the All-Russia People’s Front to boost support for United Russia by bringing together various nonpolitical groups and organizations and giving them a say in politics. Putin has promised that United Russia, which he leads, will reserve 150 of the 600 places on its Duma party list for members of the group.
The group has been implicated in several scandals after recruiting organizations whose members were not asked whether they wanted to join and accepting online membership registrations without checking them — which resulted in “Winnie-the-Pooh” and “Michelle Obama” joining the group. Its sources of funding have also been questioned, although no investigations have followed.

TITLE: Investor Reveals Potential Designs for New Holland
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Architectural projects for the redevelopment of New Holland island were unveiled to the press Friday, a day before the island was opened to the public for the first time in its 300-year history.
All eight of the design entries, which are now on show to the public at the branch of the Central Naval Museum on the Kryukov Canal, envisage the emergence of the historic island, which was used as a timber-drying facility in the 18th century and later used to test new ship designs, as a new cultural hub of the city.
Four projects have been shortlisted, whose visions include the formal naval prison on the island being transformed into a hotel, the presence of a hot air balloon as a viewing platform, and the creation of a new city park.
All include the preservation of the island’s distinctive 18th-century brick warehouses, which was one of the terms of the tender. 
Under a project by the Russian architecture firm Studio 44, the warehouses would be turned into fifty “flexible boxes” that could be used for a variety of purposes.
“You can play with them like building bricks; they could be transformed into spaces for theater, art, cinema, lofts, studios, even stores,” said Nikita Yavein, an architect with  Studio 44 and a former chief architect of St. Petersburg.
“New Holland is a place where people can — and should — ice-skate in the winter and relax in the summer,” he said. 
Instead of constructing a new building on the island, Studio 44, whose previous projects include the city’s Ladozhsky Train Station, proposes to plant a park there in tribute to the Petrine-era tradition of growing trees on the site to provide timber for shipbuilding.
“We would create a Korobelny Grove like that existing under Peter,” said Yavein. “For us, a park is the greatest luxury in a city; it is dearer than anything else.” 
Studio 44’s project also envisages the creation of a new city square, Triangular Square. 
“Triangular Square will be a theatrical area, something that the city currently lacks,” said Yavein. “It will be the counterbalance to Palace Square, the engine that attracts people.” 
Yavein said it was too early to talk about the potential cost of the project. “This is just an algorithm; it could be made out of gold, or out of steel,” he said.
The U.S. firm WORKac, whose project has also been shortlisted, has experience of working in Russia, having designed two stores in Moscow for fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg. 
WORKac’s vision includes the formation of an artificial hill to create an amphitheater, from which a hot-air balloon would be tethered, offering views over the historic center of the city.
“We want to minimize the new; there’s already so much that you can inhabit in a new way,” said Amale Andraos, who founded WORKac together with Dan Wood.
“We really wanted to use the existing warehouses and bring new life to them, so in the winter, the park becomes an interior park, connecting all of the warehouses,” she said. 
“We also propose to open up some of the warehouses to create bigger spaces for various programs, such as film, an art school, a market. Rather than adding, we feel we could just remove enough in order to be able to occupy the warehouses in a new and exciting way,” said Andraos. 
Like Studio 44, the architects declined to estimate the cost of their project. 
“It’s just the concept stage; the idea was to generate ideas, to fantasize,” said Wood. 
“The preservation of these buildings is going to be a major expense,” he added.
The other two firms to have made the shortlist are the Dutch firm MVRDV, whose project would see the warehouses gradually restored and upgraded, housing temporary galleries or artists’ studios in the meantime, and under whom the entire island would become a “curatable space,” and David Chipperfield Architects (U.K./Germany), who envisage the warehouses being turned into retail and office space, as well as residential real estate, and the former naval prison being turned into a hotel. 
The winning project will be announced at the beginning of August, but will not necessarily be implemented brick for brick on New Holland. 
“These are just concepts; they’re not necessarily what the island will look like in the future,” said John Mann, director of the information policy department at Millhouse, the parent company of New Holland Development (NHD) that is financing the island’s development. “Once a winner is declared at the beginning of August, the project may well be amended,” he said. 
The Iris Foundation, which is acting as creative consultant to NHD, will decide on the winner, together with an expert commission that includes Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum.
The final project must also be approved by Rosokhrankultura, said Studio 44’s Yavein.
New Holland Development, whose parent company Millhouse is owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich, won a tender held by City Hall last November to redevelop New Holland, committing to invest at least 12 billion rubles ($427 million) over a construction period of seven years. 
The Iris Foundation is a non-profit organization devoted to contemporary culture that was set up by Abramovich’s girlfriend, Daria Zhukova. Previous projects developed by Zhukova’s Iris Foundation include the Garage contemporary arts space in Moscow.
New Holland was given over to the city by the Defense Ministry in 2004, having been a closed military facility throughout both its imperial and Soviet history. The first tender for its redevelopment was won by Moscow developer Shalva Chigirinsky’s ST Novaya Gollandiya company in February 2006 with a design by British architect Norman Foster. The $320-million project, which was to include three hotels, a Palace of Festivals and outdoor amphitheater, stalled in 2008 and was abandoned for good in March last year when City Hall terminated the investor’s contract due to internal deadline violations reportedly arising from a lack of funds. Construction of the project was never begun, although preparation work was carried out and several buildings were demolished.  
“We are starting completely from scratch,” said Mann. “The previous project was not popular with local residents.”
NHD does not foresee problems with funding of the kind encountered by the previous investor.  “That’s not a problem we generally have,” said Mann.
“We have seven years to complete the development, and we are seven months into that time period. I think it’s not unlikely that some parts will open before others,” he added. 

“New Ideas for New Holland” runs through July 30 at the Central Naval Museum on the Kryukov Kanal. 
www.newhollandsp.com

TITLE: Medvedev’s Impossible Airplane Ban
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Two fatal plane crashes within weeks have prompted President Dmitry Medvedev to put on his tough face and call for the grounding of the Soviet-made aircraft involved in the accidents.
But Medvedev neglected to say how the planes might be replaced. 
Soviet aircraft — such as the An-24 turboprop and Tu-134 twin-engine jet — provide the only connection to the outside world for hundreds of settlements in Siberia — a region that the Kremlin wants to make sure remains loyal amid fears of weakening ties with the rest of Russia.
Chaos looms in the airline industry anyway because of earlier government orders that will require regional airlines to install expensive safety equipment on their aging aircraft that costs more than the planes themselves. The extra expense threatens to lead to the doubling of ticket prices, all but ensuring that residents are stranded in distant locales.
A Tu-134 operated by RusAir crashed and exploded in what witnesses described as a “pillar of fire” as it attempted to land in thick fog in Karelia’s capital, Petrozavodsk, on a flight from Moscow on June 20. Five of the 52 people on the plane miraculously survived.
An Angara Airlines An-24 crash-landed in the Ob River last Monday after an engine caught fire during a flight from Tomsk to Surgut. Seven of the 37 people on board died.
Medvedev ordered the Transportation Ministry in late June to “prepare for the accelerated decommissioning of Tu-134s” nationwide. Speaking after Monday’s crash, he said the decommission plans should include An-24s as well.
But the Transportation Ministry had to implicitly defy him, explaining Tuesday that only An-24s serving regularly scheduled flights would be grounded. With charter flights accounting for the bulk of air traffic east of the Urals, the impact of the ban will be significantly lessened.
The ministry did not pass up the chance to remind airlines this week that outmoded Soviet-era aircraft such as the Tu-134, An-24, Yak-40 and An-2, as well as Mi-8 helicopters, must be equipped by January with traffic alert and collision avoidance systems, known in the industry as TCAS, and ground proximity warning systems, or GPWS.
The ministry did not comment on the fact that the systems cost more than the planes themselves — a fact that Siberian-based airlines have long complained about.
Valery Fisher, chief executive of the Krasnoyarsk region-based Katekavia airline, said by telephone that he does not plan to install the systems due to the exorbitant costs.
Outfitting one An-24 would cost some 10 million rubles ($350,000), and Katekavia operates 14 An-24s and two Tu-134s, Fisher said in an interview. The total expenses of all Krasnoyarsk-based airlines would top 600 million rubles ($21 million) — a quarter of their annual turnover, he said.
“Where will we find so much money?” Fisher asked.
The answer is obvious, and Fisher admitted as much. “The airlines won’t suffer as much as the passengers,” he said. “We will have to cover the expenses through ticket prices.”
For an airline to remain profitable, a ticket for a Krasnoyarsk-Igarka flight, now priced at 8,000 rubles ($280), will cost 18,000 rubles — “an unaffordable sum for the local population,” Fisher said.
Even before the talk of price hikes, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized the high cost of Siberian plane tickets during a trip through the region last year that was, incidentally, by car. No practical measures to reduce ticket prices followed the trip, which, analysts said at the time, was a reaction to slowly growing Siberian separatism.
Katekavia is among three Siberian airlines that appealed to Medvedev in an open letter last week for a state program to renovate the country’s outmoded aviation fleet.
Obsolete aircraft handle more than 90 percent of flights in Siberia and the Far East, and the new safety regulations will “paralyze the transportation system” in a large swathe of the country where air travel is often the sole viable transportation option, the airlines said in the letter, which went unanswered.
Granted, the new rules are in line with international standards. And yet the new safety systems are no panacea — they did not prevent, for example, the Tu-154 of Polish President Lech Kaczynski from slamming into a Smolensk forest last year, killing all 96 people on board.
A possible solution could be patterned after the cash-for-clunkers program that helped thousands of car owners trade their obsolete vehicles for newer ones with government compensation, the airlines said in their letter.
But no such program is currently in the works, and neither the Kremlin nor the Transportation Ministry has commented on the proposal to start one. The ministry could not be reached for comment Wednesday and Thursday.
The An-24, which can seat 44 passengers, was produced from 1959 to 1979. About 100 of the planes still operate in Russia, mostly in Siberia and the Far East, where the rough climate and unpaved runways offer conditions few other aircraft are sturdy enough to handle.
Magomed Tolboyev, a veteran test pilot and honorary president of MAKS, Russia’s top air show, said most Soviet-built aircraft should have been decommissioned long ago.
“Those planes should have been replaced some 10 years ago,” Tolboyev said by phone. “They are outdated, and airlines are just exploiting them to the edge of their limits.”
But the problem is that there is nothing to replace some of the aircraft with, Tolboyev said. This goes in particular for the An-24, he said.
The planned successor, the An-140, was designed in the 1990s, but only four have been built since 2005. All are operated by the Yakutia airline.
“There are no other planes in Russia at the moment,” Tolboyev said. The situation is similar with two other new models, the An-138 and An-148, which have been in development for years but are still not being mass-produced.
Sukhoi designed the SuperJet 100 to replace the Tu-134, but it has not gone into serial production yet. Only two planes have been delivered so far: to Armavia and Aeroflot earlier this year. But both airlines will have to return the aircraft to the plant for follow-up work after flying 2,000 hours, RBC reported Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Chinese plane makers are ready to fill the void with their MA60 — an updated version of An-24 that Fisher called “the perfect replacement.” His Katekavia is currently holding negotiations to lease the MA60 for eight years at an interest rate of just 2 percent.
“I’m a patriot and I want to use Russian aircraft, but there are none,” Fisher said. 
But the MA60, produced since 2000, has not been certified in Russia, and it is not clear when it might be.

TITLE: New Avianova Chief Lambasts Expat Execs
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Expatriate executives who were locked out of budget airline Avianova’s offices last month as a part of an apparent battle between Russian and U.S. shareholders have been accused of managerial incompetence, flouting Russian law and inflicting severe financial damage on the company.
Andrew Pyne, who ran Avianova until he was physically denied access to the offices in June, said the allegations were “laughable and have no factual basis.” He added that he was considering legal action. 
Avianova, set up in 2009, is 49 percent owned by U.S. venture capital fund Indigo Partners and 51 percent by A1, the investment arm of Mikhail Fridman’s Alfa Group, which was recently involved in a bitter tussle with BP, its partner in Russia’s third-largest oil company, TNK-BP.
In a statement released Wednesday by Avianova, the company’s general director, Vladimir Gorbunov, hired by Pyne after the airline was founded, said Pyne had “demonstrated his unwillingness to work in compliance with Russian laws and emphasized his intention to work solely in accordance with his own rules.”
Regulatory agencies had brought repeated legislative violations to his attention, Gorbunov said, so he had been obliged to remove Pyne, along with other Russian and expatriate executives, from their positions within the company.
Pyne, a British citizen who ran Avianova through an offshore company called Whitefish Aviation because foreigners are forbidden to manage Russian airlines, said his exclusion from the company’s offices was illegal and he could only be fired with the agreement of all the shareholders. 
“This is a shareholder dispute,” Pyne told The St. Petersburg Times. “Gorbunov is clearly working to guidelines and instructions issued by one shareholder [A1] against the interests of the other, American, shareholder.”
Gorbunov, however, maintained that the company’s shareholders were united. “Pyne, removed from cooperation for noncompliance with Russian laws, is misleading the public by misrepresenting his own irresponsibility as conflicts between shareholders,” he said in a statement. Gorbunov did not respond to written requests for elaboration last week.
Reached by telephone, the U.S. shareholders, Indigo Partners, refused to comment on the situation. The Russian partners, A1, told a St. Petersburg Times reporter that everybody had left the office and no one was available. 
Chief safety officer Guy Maclean, chief commercial officer Michael Hayden and a small number of Russian employees were barred from the company’s offices June 29, said Pyne. 
Avianova, which has hired Konstantin Trenin, a Russian airline executive, to take Pyne’s place, also alleged that Hayden was responsible for the company’s loss of 4.5 million rubles ($160,000). 
Hayden, an Irish citizen, told The St. Petersburg Times that these comments were libelous. He said that, since Avianova’s “illegal coup,” he had been advised by his embassy to leave the country for his personal safety. 

TITLE: Sberbank Begins Growth Through Volksbank Int.
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Sberbank head German Gref has said the pioneering acquisition of Austria’s Volksbank International, which has operations in nine European countries, for an estimated $1 billion will give Russia’s biggest lender a platform to establish a global presence. 
Sberbank, which currently has operations in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in addition to Russia, signed a conditional agreement with shareholders for 100 percent of Volksbank International, or VBI, last week.
Legal documents are likely to be finalized in two weeks and the deal closed by the end of the year.
Gref admitted that Sberbank’s move into Europe was premised on the continent’s financial woes. The European Banking Authority announced late Friday that Volksbank was among eight banks — out of 90 tested — that failed a set of exams to gauge whether they would survive another financial crisis. Austria’s fourth largest lender is also struggling to repay a $1.4 billion state loan. 
Gref said that, without the euro zone’s ongoing fiscal problems, “we probably would not have bought anything [in Europe].” 
Volksbank expects the sale of its international arm to cut risk-weighted assets by $9.9 billion, Bloomberg reported. VBI’s Romanian unit, its largest operation, was excluded from the deal with Sberbank, which some analysts linked to high levels of toxic assets. 
Gref, speaking at a news conference Friday, said the VBI deal was “our first significant step in the transformation of Sberbank into a global bank.” 
Five to 7 percent of Sberbank’s revenue by 2014 is likely to come from its foreign operations, Gref added. 
Media reports have valued the deal at $948 million to $1.1 billion, but Gref declined to name the exact price. VBI is present in countries with a combined population of about 90 million. VBI has 311 branches and assets of about $12.7 billion.
Gref, who owns $1.4 million in Sberbank stock, was clear that the company would continue to expand internationally. He said Poland and Turkey were particularly interesting markets and that it was even possible Sberbank would enter Western Europe, though not imminently. 
Analysts remained generally positive about Sberbank — a report by Renaissance Capital on Friday described the company as a “very straightforward and exciting investment thesis” — but some expressed concern that aggressive foreign expansion may distract management from domestic priorities.
As one of the companies scheduled to kick off the government’s huge privatization program in the fall with a secondary public offering, state-owned Sberbank is under intense scrutiny by investors. 
Alfa Bank senior financial analyst Jason Hurwitz said Sberbank’s aggrandizement could be a double-edged sword. 

TITLE: A Sinking Ship
AUTHOR: By Victor Davidoff
TEXT: There may not be a scientific explanation for it, but every Russian knows that August is a month of catastrophe. The sinking of the submarine Kursk, the forest and peat bog fires last year — not to mention the 1991 coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — all took place in August.
This year, however, August began in June. On June 20, a Tu-134 plane crashed in Karelia, killing 44 people. On July 13, an An-24 plane made an emergency landing on water in the Tomsk region, killing seven people. And on July 10, the tourist ship Bulgaria sank not far from Kazan, killing 114 people (15 passengers are still missing and presumed dead).
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rushed to Kazan and asked a group of officials sternly, “How could this have happened?” Actually, citizens are expecting to get an answer to that question from him. Why are citizens of a “great country that has risen off its knees” forced to fly aircraft that were designed before their parents married and to use boats built when their grandmothers were in grade school?
Even well before the disaster, the poor condition of the Bulgaria was ringing alarm bells. It was built in 1955 and had never undergone a complete overhaul. Only one of the two engines was functioning, and that one required major repairs after a recent fire. Last year, the Bulgaria already had an emergency situation: The electrical system went out, leaving the passengers on board without water for several hours. (Then the passengers themselves contacted the Emergency Situations Ministry by cell phone.) According to eyewitnesses, just before the Bulgaria sank, the electrical system failed again. There was no reserve electrical system, which is why the captain couldn’t send out an SOS.
Unfortunately, the Bulgaria wasn’t an exceptional case. As an expert said in an interview with Gazeta.ru, “The word ‘rust-bucket’ can be applied to the entire fleet of river cruise ships.” The “youngest” ship was built in 1992, and all the rest are legacies from the Leonid Brezhnev and Nikita Khrushchev eras. The blogger Maaddi wrote on his LiveJournal blog: “Today, Russia is eating up … the Soviet Union’s material and technical leftovers. The transportation fleet is getting old, planes are falling out of the sky, and wires are rusting. Meanwhile, with a big smile we’re cheerfully and enthusiastically building Skolkovo.”
The specific cause of the ship disaster is unknown and still under investigation. The inspector who approved the Bulgaria for sailing has been arrested, and perhaps the investigators will clarify the role played by a certain Mikhail Antonov, who, through a complicated system of offshore companies, was the owner of the ship and also leased it to himself, Kommersant reported.
But it’s obvious that the ship’s technical problems and high winds on the Volga River are not the main culprits in this tragedy. “The sorry state of the civilian river and air fleets as a whole raises questions about the effectiveness of state policy,” economist Igor Nikolayev wrote on his blog on Ekho Moskvy radio. “Or are the authorities just going to blame this on the 1990s again? The present leadership has been in place for almost 12 years. During this time, we were very lucky with high oil prices. So who is responsible for what is happening?”
The version put forth by officials, including President Dmitry Medvedev, is that there must be tighter oversight to avert tragedies in the future. Well-known blogger Anton Nosik disagreed on his LiveJournal blog: “Unfortunately, in our system of vertical kleptocracy, the number of oversight agencies is growing, and all the money that might be used for modernization is going to feed them.”
Lawyer and whistleblower Alexei Navalny proposed a more proactive approach on his LiveJournal blog: “Instead of spouting hot air, they should investigate and punish the guilty. The people who are directly to blame should go to jail, their bosses should be fired, and the top political leaders of the guilty should bear political responsibility — and resign.”
Navalny’s ideas are nothing new. They are expressed after every major disaster strikes or terrorist act occurs. But since the leaders have never heeded them, there is little hope that the sinking of the Bulgaria will change anything. As the journalist Irek Murtazin wrote on his LiveJournal blog: “Our political system is putting people in greater danger. The sinking of the Bulgaria is hideous proof of this. Yes, people responsible for the disaster will be punished. But will the system change? I seriously doubt it.”

Victor Davidoff is a Moscow-based writer and journalist whose blog is Chaadaev56.livejournal.com.

TITLE: READING THE KREMLIN: Foreign Policy Out of Tandem
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Frolov
TEXT: I have noticed that tandemocracy, while beneficial for Russia’s internal development, may not be such a healthy arrangement for the country’s foreign policy.
Where political pluralism and multiple centers of decision making may be key drivers for progress in domestic affairs in Russia’s super-centralized system, it is always a shortcut to disaster in foreign affairs. It disorients foreign partners and paralyzes the foreign policy bureaucracy in an unhealthy rivalry for allegiance to various leaders.
One big adverse effect is that the inherent rivalry within the tandem produces ill-prepared foreign policy initiatives with little chance of success from the outset. This reflects the desire of each leader to assert primacy in Russia’s external affairs, frustrating its partners abroad.
For example, President Dmitry Medvedev’s 2008 foreign policy initiative — a new pan-European security architecture — was a good idea, but it was so hastily put together that it was not immediately clear whom it was addressed to. Several practical details of the proposal emerged only much later — a year after Medvedev’s proposal was officially announced.
Medvedev’s 2010 proposal to develop a joint sectoral missile defense system with NATO bears the same marks of poor preparation, total disregard for political realities in partner nations and a desire to achieve maximum PR effect at home and abroad.
The same could be said about Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s reckless proposal in 2009 that members of the newly minted customs union would jointly apply for membership to the World Trade Organization. This scuttled an all but complete deal with Washington on Russia’s WTO accession and forced Medvedev to disavow this decision a few months later.
Medvedev’s eagerness to try to claim gains in Russia’s international standing has led to a childishly silent endorsement of NATO’s air war in Libya. Now, four months into the unsuccessful operation, some Western leaders are wondering whether they all would have been better off had Russia’s foreign policy been in Putin’s adult hands. Most likely, Putin would have pushed for a veto of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which was so loosely worded that virtually any military action, except the use of land forces, against the government of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, including his removal by force, could be justified under the resolution’s wording to “protect civilians” in the country.
The other adverse effect is that some foreign players could take advantage of differences within the tandem to play one against the other.
One example is U.S. President Barack Obama’s stake on a highly personalized relationship with Medvedev. Obama has developed specific policies tailored to strengthen Medvedev’s domestic position and increase his chances of re-election in Russia’s March presidential vote. Obama’s belated attempts to open communications channels to Putin through Vice President Joe Biden have failed, auguring a potentially testy relationship between Obama and Putin if both are re-elected as president in 2012.
Like Obama, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is also betting on Medvedev, hoping to secure a better price for Russian gas deliveries. Yanukovych is doing all he can to ignore or publicly humiliate Putin by staging a kangaroo trial against Yulia Tymoshenko for signing a bad 2009 gas agreement with Putin or snubbing Putin’s proposals for Ukraine’s entry into the customs union.
And the strongmen of Belarus and Transdnestr, Alexander Lukashenko and Igor Smirnov, may be looking up to Putin for defense against Medvedev’s pressure to unseat them.
This is turning into Russia’s weakness in foreign affairs. To paraphrase former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, it is hard to know what number to call on foreign policy in the Land of Tandemocracy.

Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government-relations and PR company.


TITLE: Something for a stormy day
AUTHOR: By Yelena Minenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: If the summer weather continues to fluctuate between stiflingly hot and torrential rain, there is no need to despair: The city’s museums and galleries have prepared a whole host of original exhibitions of work by both Russian and foreign artists this summer.
The State Russian Museum has something interesting on show at every one of its branches. The Mikhailovsky (Engineers’) Castle is home to Ana Tzarev’s “The Life of Flowers” through Sept. 5. The exposition introduces works devoted to flowers and executed in the traditions of Van Gogh, postimpressionism, primitivism and fauvism, together with Tzarev’s own distinctive style.
“All my life I have been in love with flowers,” says Tzarev. “They accompany us from birth to death, giving beauty and inspiring us in both joy and sorrow. In every corner of the world, unique species of flowers can be found, and I tirelessly study them by preserving their blossom on my canvases for future generations.”
Bright colors, an energetic style of painting and laconic composition express the diverse flora of exotic countries visited by Tzarev. 
“Her method is first of all modeling, then applying layers, and manual contact with the paint and canvas. She forms the world according to her own standards,” said Alexander Borovsky, curator of the exhibition at the State Russian Museum.
Meanwhile, another branch of the Russian Museum — the Marble Palace on Millionnaya Ulitsa — is showcasing work by Russian artists. “Trace of the Meteor” introduces works created by students of the St. Petersburg Institute of Peoples of the North, which include paintings, sculptures, applied art, graphics and photographs from the 1920s and ’30s. The artists — representatives of the native peoples of the Extreme North, Siberia and the Far East — portray their vivid culture in keeping with the creative philosophy of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Mikhail Matyushin, Pavel Filonov and other masters of the Leningrad avant-garde movement from 1920 to the early 1930s. The exposition runs through Oct. 2.
Another exposition in the Marble Palace presents the work of Viktor Safonkin, a Russian-born artist from the Czech Republic who combines images of the Middle Ages and Renaissance period with the cultural experience and world-view of a contemporary man. The exhibition is on show through July 25.
The last in the trio of expositions at the Marble Palace showcases 65 works by 8 Russian non-conformist artists from the late 20th century and early 21st centuries, gathered under the name “Unofficial Meeting.” The paintings, objects, sculptures and installations on display have been brought to Russia from the Swiss gallery of Nadezhda Brykina, one of the biggest collections of Russian art outside Russia. The exhibition runs through Aug. 1.
Travel photographs by the contemporary Canadian artist Birgit Freybe Bateman are on display in the Stroganov Palace, also a branch of the Russian Museum. Russia, Italy, China, Japan, India and other countries are depicted in Bateman’s pictures through unexpected angles, paying unusual attention to color and texture, which gives the photos the appearance of oil paintings. The exhibition runs through Aug. 29.
More than 150 works by the eminent early 20th-century Russian artist Boris Grigoriev remain on display in the Benois Wing of the Mikhailovsky Palace, the main building of the Russian Museum. Grigoriev attained international fame after creating a series of portraits of famous Russian artists of that time. Maxim Gorky, Fyodor Chaliapin and others are among those presented among the artist’s graphics and paintings assembled from museums and private collections both in Russia and abroad. The exhibition runs through Aug. 15.
Artwork from several decades later is in the spotlight at the Novy Museum gallery on Vasilyevsky Island, where an exhibition of non-conformist art opened Saturday. Works by legendary Moscow and Leningrad artists of the 1950 to ’80s from the collection of the museum’s founder, Aslan Chekhoyev, offer a thorough insight into the artistic process of that time. The exposition includes works by Boris Turetsky, Oskar Rabin, Lev Kropivnitsky and others, including some previously unseen pieces by Vladimir Veysberg and Gennady Ustyugov.
“Personal acquaintance with many artists, from living classics to young people, and communication with leading art critics and art historians helped Chekhoyev to orientate himself in the sphere of modern art,” said Nodar Dzhobava, director of Novy Museum. “Some of the paintings were shown in June at the White Nights Festival in Perm, but many aren’t known to the public at all, and now the museum is taking on this role of enlightener.”
Beside modern art, several historical exhibitions will open to the public this summer, including one at the Pushkin Apartment Museum on the River Moika. The museum itself is closed to the public until Feb. 10 next year in preparation for the 175th anniversary of the poet’s tragic death in a duel in 1837. A temporary exhibition titled “The Last Months of his Life” will open in the Green Hall of the museum’s “Life and Work” section on Wednesday, July 20. 
“The exhibition includes a reconstruction of Alexander Pushkin’s study with the couch on which he died,” said Tatyana Lastkina, excursions organizer at the museum. “All of the authentic belongings of the poet will be gathered together. Previously, all of these things were spread around the museum, and guides had to point out which of them are authentic. Now visitors can look at them all together and see the epoch in which Pushkin lived.”
Decorative art with a difference is the focus of an exhibition of embroidery by Maria Arendt due to open on Thursday, July 21 at the Al Gallery on Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Each piece of the “Shito-Kryto” exposition (shito means embroidered in Russian) is named after the first lines of Russian chastushki (humorous rhymes that start off innocently but end with a vulgar joke), and like these chastushki, they are full of surprises and ready to make a joke of those who judge by first impression. They appear to be laconic, but in fact have hidden depths.
“Maria Arendt has succeeded in uniting opposite poles of culture in quite a laconic form,” said architect and designer Alexander Rappaport in his review of the exhibition on the Al Gallery’s web site. “We might say her needle is as sharp as a bold word can be.” 

TITLE: A lethal dose of melancholia
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Lars von Trier is nothing if not controversial. In the past the Danish filmmaker was content to let his provocations play out in the darkness of the cinema. But with “Melancholia” — an extremely restrained film for the director — he chose to take things a step too far at the Cannes Film Festival with his now infamous Nazi jokes. 
Following 2009’s brutal psychodrama “Antichrist,” which had audiences squirming in their seats at the devastation he wrought onscreen, it was always going to be tough for von Trier to lure viewers back into the cinema. With his ill-advised outburst at the Cannes press conference for his new film, he has reduced his appeal even further. Regrettably, all it has accomplished is to hobble what is arguably one of his most accessible films. But with both a leading actress (Kirsten Dunst) and a genre that play well to the mall crowd, he might just succeed in spite of himself. 
“Melancholia” is an intimate family drama about two sisters that is billed as a sci-fi disaster film. Divided into three parts, it begins with an extended overture of sorts, much like “Antichrist,” set to the keening strains of the love/death theme from Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde.” With its dazzling, hyper-real images, the intro neatly eliminates any doubts about where the film is headed — a gargantuan planet is on a collision course with earth — freeing us to concentrate on the minutiae of life in the face of oblivion.
Set in and around a palatial house in the countryside, there are no crowds of panicked citizens fleeing collapsing skyscrapers, or rioting in the streets for von Trier — just pastoral bourgeois comfort and social convention threatened by impending doom. The film owes more to Andrei Tarkovsky’s cosmic reverie than to the disaster-film genre, and it is the tension between the cosseted life at a country manor and the deep, inexorable mechanics of the universe that gives the film its edge. 
The first half of the film takes place at a wedding party and explores the fraught relationships between the different members of the family. The wedding toasts are a masterful study in excruciating embarrassment, as the bride’s divorced parents rehearse their animosity in front of the cringing guests. A toast by the bride’s boss only makes things worse. Yet despite this, there is also dark comedy afoot. Udo Kier as the fascist wedding planner who blocks the bride from his sight with an upraised hand, and Charlotte Rampling as the shrewish mother-in-law, both offer laugh-out-loud relief.
Dunst’s character Justine — the bride — wanders through the proceedings as if in a fugue state and keeps vanishing at all the wrong moments to have a long soak in a tub, chat with her mother, and sleep with a young colleague who has been given the unhappy task of getting her to work during the party. While clearly less ecstatic than expected of a newlywed, she is certainly not alone. In fact, of the entire cast of characters, each seems isolated and suffering in one way or another. And as the night wears on, things begin to go horribly wrong.
In the second half of the film, the focus moves to Justine’s sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who is having difficulty dealing with her presentiments of disaster while also trying to take care of her sister, now nearly comatose with depression. As the planet hurtles towards earth, the profound changes to the atmosphere send Claire over the edge and her husband (Kiefer Sutherland), despite all his chirpiness, is barely able to allay her fears. Following a moment of giddy excitement over the planet’s magnificent proximity, Claire’s worst nightmares begin to seem more and more like prophecy. The only question that remains is how best to deal with the annihilation to come.
If, as the director himself has said, the film is the result of a clinical breakthrough in his psychotherapy sessions and his realization that depressed people are better able to cope with disaster, it is also much more. His genius is that he manages to cast a deeply pessimistic take on the human condition as a universal calamity. The result is a stunning, poignant film that offers some arresting visuals, distinguished performances, and shows von Trier to be a bit more of a softie than he usually lets on. Where his past few films have been harrowing chamber pieces, “Melancholia” is an overtly operatic paean to the grace and dignity of stoic acceptance. 

<i>“Melancholia” is now playing in English with Russian subtitles at Formula Kino in the Galleria shopping center, 30 Ligovsky Prospekt. Daily screenings at 10:30, 12:45, 14:20, 17:40, 18:50, 20:25, and 22:20.</i>

TITLE: the word’s worth: Just Your Average Ivan Six Pack
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Îáûâàòåëü: average person, pleb
When I told a friend what I was going to write about this week, he complained: Ó òåáÿ ñïëîøíîé íåãàòèâ! ×òî ñ òîáîé? (Everything you write is so negative! What’s up with you?)
What’s up with me? Well, Awful August has arrived early this year. I can’t watch Russian news without three handkerchiefs. I can’t watch Western news without throwing something at the television. Ãäå òóò ïîçèòèâ? (Where’s the bright side?)
So in this gloomy frame of mind, I’ve been investigating Russian words for average folks and wondering why so many of them are so frankly disdainful.
Take îáûâàòåëü. In the old days it simply meant a resident, as in ãîðîäñêîé (urban) or ñåëüñêèé (rural) îáûâàòåëü (dweller).
In the pre- and post-revolutionary period of Russian history, îáûâàòåëü became associated with the merchant class and a lack of proper revolutionary zeal. One dictionary still defines îáûâàòåëü as: ÷åëîâåê, ëèø¸ííûé îáùåñòâåííîãî êðóãîçîðà, ñ êîñíûìè, ìåùàíñêèìè âçãëÿäàìè; ÷åëîâåê, óêëîíèâøèéñÿ îò êëàññîâûõ ïîçèöèé ïðîëåòàðèàòà (a person without broad social vision, with retrograde bourgeois views; a person who has rejected the class positions of the proletariat).
Today îáûâàòåëü can be a neutral term meaning average Ivan — the man or woman on the street. For example, someone asked at a news conference: Íå ìîãëè áû Âû íà ïðîñòîì ïðèìåðå, ïîíÿòíîì îáûâàòåëþ, îáúÿñíèòü, êàê áûëî äîñòèãíóòî ýòî ÷óäî? (Could you give a simple example understandable to the average person to explain how this miracle was achieved?)
In other cases, the word is used to draw a distinction between a specialist and a non-specialist. Ñòàòüÿ áûëà ðàññ÷èòàíà íà îáûâàòåëÿ, è ïðîôåññèîíàëàì àíòèòåððîðà ìàëî ÷òî äàâàëà (The article was written for a popular audience and had little to offer to anti-terrorism specialists). And in certain contexts, îáûâàòåëüñêèé ÿçûê can refer to everyday or popular language.
But people who might describe themselves as îáûâàòåëü in a particular field would not like to be called îáûâàòåëü in general. Marxist notions of class may be passe, but îáûâàòåëü is still perceived to have a low- to middlebrow mentality. This is hard to translate, since in American English the common man and Main Street are still celebrated as the bedrock of common sense, hard work and independent thought. Joe Six Pack might share with the îáûâàòåëü a certain lack of sophistication in his sartorial and alcoholic tastes as well as a definite ignorance of high culture, politics and the workings of high finance — but for all that, he’s a noble fellow.
Whatever îáûâàòåëü is, he’s not noble. Reams of unflattering description have been written about this Russian Everyman. He doesn’t think about anything but himself: Äåÿòåëüíîñòü îáûâàòåëÿ îãðàíè÷åíà ñîáñòâåííûìè èíòåðåñàìè (The average man is only concerned with his own interests). He lives a gray, ordinary, routine life: ß îáûâàòåëü, à ñëåäîâàòåëüíî, ìî¸ ñóùåñòâîâàíèå ïîä÷èíåíî ðèòóàëàì (I’m a pleb and consequently my existence is subordinated to rituals). He’s subservient to power: Ýòî ìîëîäîé ñêó÷íûé îáûâàòåëü, íàäåæäà è îïîðà ðåæèìà (He’s a young, boring pleb — the hope and pillar of the regime). And he is easily manipulated: Ëåãêî îáìàíóòü äîâåð÷èâûõ îáûâàòåëåé, êîòîðûì “ëåíü âíèêàòü” (It’s easy to deceive the trusting hoi polloi who are too lazy to study a subject in depth).
You know, the popular images of Average Ivan and Joe Six Pack have more in common than I thought. Îáûâàòåëè ìèðà, ñîåäèíÿéòåñü! (Everymen of the world, unite!) … and hire a good PR agency.

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

TITLE: Northern dramatics
AUTHOR: By Nick Dowson
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Scotland and Russia may not seem to have much in common, aside from a shared image as countries of terrible winters and heavy drinking, but this August several Russian performers will be making the trip to Edinburgh to perform at the city’s famous festival.
St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Opera and Valery Ponomarev and his Jazz Quintet will make the journey, as will Moscow-based group SSSR, who will be putting on a play at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival for the fourth year running.
“I’ve been to the festival for the last 25 years and love it for the unique blend of arts, the carefree festival spirit, and God’s creation — Edinburgh — as the stage for it all,” Ponomarev said.
Ponomarev learned to play jazz in the Soviet Union when it was looked down upon by the authorities before he fled to the United States in the 1970s.
The Los Angeles Times once wrote of Ponomarev that listening to him without knowing his background, “you could not possibly distinguish him from one of the more inspired and authentic of America’s great black trumpeters in the driving, hard-bop jazz genre that is his chosen idiom.”
He said he hopes that there will be more Russian representation at the festival.
SSSR returns to the festival with its play “Nostalgia for the Present.” Last year’s performance, “The Self-Murderer,” a mistranslation of the Russian word “samoubiitsa,” or suicide, received critical acclaim, including five stars from the British Theatre Guide.
“Last year’s play was about self-destruction. In it there were two characters, one of them was for life, and the other was against, and the play was built on the basis of this,” said Alexei Rubenshtein, the group’s director. “In this year’s play, there will only be the positive, even in loneliness — everything will be in a positive light, even when there are tears.”
Last year’s play was relevant to the country of its creation, Russia, which has the highest rate of suicide among young people in the world, Rubenshtein said, but this year’s play is about more international themes — what he calls “the eternal themes of loss, youth, loneliness, faith and love” — presented through “five characters and five monologues.”
SSSR Productions is the only Russian theater group to be performing at the Fringe this year.
“The Russian school of theater is one of the strongest in the world, therefore at the largest festival of arts there definitely needs to be representatives from Russia,” Rubenshtein said.
He said that being the only Russian group there gives them a certain responsibility, and with the use of plastic dolls, dance and video installations he hopes that the group will live up to all expectations with their new and magical play.
In the future, SSSR Productions plans to put on performances in Edinburgh showcasing Russian authors such as Gogol and Bunin, using the same interactive methods.

<i>The Edinburgh International Fringe Festival runs Aug. 5 to 29. See www.edfringe.com for all listings.</i>

TITLE: wanted: Surveillance
AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn
TEXT: First the back story, and then to catching a car from Kiev to Moscow in eight minutes.
The other day, there were three journalists — two British — in the car heading back from Vorobyovy Gory, but surprisingly the only one secretly recording anything was the young driver of the Ford.
It was his mini video camera that filmed every meter of the journey.
He wasn’t purposefully filming surreptitiously, for the camera, like the driver, was looking out at the road. It was strapped via a metal grip to the rear-view mirror in plain view, so plain that it was almost invisible.
At first glance it looked like a satellite navigation device for the driver who likes to be told where to go, or perhaps a mini version of the DVD player now beloved of the type of taxi driver so confident he needs only to keep one eye on the road.
“Is that recording?” came the question after 10 seconds of staring at the device.
“Uh-huh,” affirmed the driver. Looking closer, the seconds could be seen flickering past on the digital screen as the car moved along the Boulevard Ring.
“I record every journey I go on so if there is an accident, I have proof of what exactly happened,” he said.
“Do you hang it around your neck and film when you go walking, too?” I asked. “You know, just in case.”
No, he said, he didn’t.
I later learned that a colleague has his own camera for the same reason so as to prove his innocence if an accident happens. If you are guilty you don’t have to incriminate yourself. Nevertheless, it still seems a strange idea to volunteer yourself as a mobile CCTV camera.
Insurance wasn’t the only reason young Ford was recording, for he also plays with the resultant videos by turning them into sped-up versions, which after adding a soundtrack he then posts on YouTube where he said he was relatively popular.
That led to an eight-minute Kiev-to-Moscow trip. The 900-kilometer journey was filmed by a like-minded driver, and it is quite hypnotic — a hyperactive Google View, with delays for Russian-Ukrainian customs and Moscow traffic jams for three out of the total eight minutes — but also beautiful, as the birch trees crowd in on the mostly lonely roads between the two cities.
There are numerous other videos that take you around the Moscow center with Mr. Ford and an accompanying beat, or the mother of them all: a view of a drive from Moscow to Vladivostok. There is a 14-minute version — which is nothing much more than a blur especially with the explicit soundtrack — or the more sedate seven-hour version.

TITLE: THE DISH: Barberry
AUTHOR: By Ciara Bartlam
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Berry Season</b><br />If you are looking for something hip and a little off the beaten track, Barberry is the place for you. With a light, cheery veranda downstairs and a darker, more sophisticated bar upstairs where the atmosphere is as chilled as the cocktails being served, Barberry has a lot to offer at any time of day.
On first impression, it does seem somewhat surprising that a bar/restaurant located in a courtyard near Gorkovskaya metro station would have face control. The notice outside the entrance stating the doorman’s right to turn a person away at a glance, although slightly off-putting, seems warranted when, even at 6 p.m. on a Sunday, there is an unconscious man sprawled on the grass outside the veranda. Juxtaposed with the flashy cars parked outside Barberry’s door, the scene would make a dramatic picture. 
On the inside, however, Barberry is elegant, simple and stylish — even if the toilets are a bit of a hike from the outdoor veranda. The menu, created by Alexander Tsvetkov (of Capuletti fame), is in keeping with this theme of simplicity and style.  With starters priced from 250 to 480 rubles ($9 to $17) and main dishes from 320 to 820 rubles ($11 to $21), Barberry is inviting and as wide-ranging as the ages of its clientele. The summer menu is a must, especially the eggplant carpaccio (230 rubles, $8). Strips of lightly fried eggplant served with capers, olives and cherry tomatoes looked great and tasted fantastic with a basket of warm ciabatta fresh from the oven (100 rubles, $3.50). 
Service was professional, helpful and swift. The waitress introduced herself with a smile and readily recommended a series of dishes from the menu. In fact, ordering was made very easy thanks to a key on the menu showing recommendations, filling dishes, light dishes and new dishes. It was also refreshing to note that not only the most expensive dishes were marked as recommended. 
The one thing lacking in the menu was some variation in the meat dishes. Their essence could be summed up quite succinctly in two words: Meat and mushrooms. The only imaginative touch was some homemade tomato ketchup. Chicken breast with mushrooms and almonds “recommended by the chef” (390 rubles, $14) was a good portion and well-cooked but really wasn’t the culinary experience expected: It was just a chicken breast cut in half with a couple of white mushrooms on the side and some cut almonds thrown in.
The meat was unquestionably outshone by the fish, which was beautiful. The cod with avocado sauce and zucchini (350 rubles, $12.50) was colorful and appetizing. However, portion sizes are such that it is worth ordering a side dish with your meal, otherwise you might find yourself still hungry.
Barberry has far more to offer than its food. Its cocktail menu is extensive, if slightly over-priced at 400 rubles ($14) a pop. Its signature cocktail “Barberry” is truly divine and, as one might expect, full to the brim with berries. The desserts were also excellent, especially the carrot cake (200 rubles, $7) and, to make matters even better, everything is homemade, with the exception of the cheesecake.
Barberry is a great place to chill with a glass of something cool. It is spacious, comfortable, and offers a 20-percent discount as well as business lunch deals daily from noon to five p.m. Not somewhere for the kids, it is a classy place for lunch and an ideal place for something a little bit more in the evenings.   

TITLE: The Capital of the Caspian
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ASTRAKHAN — While the Russian word for “tomato” may be masculine, Astrakhan natives tag an “a” on the end, switching the gender. A bizarre sound to Russian ears, perhaps, but Astrakhan’s tomatoes grow to be so enormous, so red and so succulent in the sweltering summer temperatures and the plentiful fresh water of the Volga Delta that the locals cannot resist that little bit of affection.
Indeed, the surrounding region is known as “Russia’s kitchen garden” for the abundance of locally grown fruit and vegetables, from watermelons to eggplants. And the city itself has long been a regional trading hub with links across the Caspian Sea to Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Local authorities are keen to extend their business reach and, if they get their way, Astrakhan’s 14 ports will soon be servicing ships from the Baltic Sea.
Still, Anthony Jenkinson, a 16th-century merchant sent to explore the practicalities of a land route to China by Britain’s Muscovy Company, was not impressed by what he saw.
Arriving in 1558, he wrote that Astrakhan was “most destitute and barren of wood and pasture, and the ground will bear no corn: The air is … most infected, by reason (as I suppose) of much fish, and specially sturgeon, by which only the inhabitants live, having great scarcity of flesh and bread. They hang up their fish in their streets and houses to dry for their provisions, which causeth such abundance of flies.”
Nowadays the smell is not as bad as in Jenkinson’s time, at least outside the fish markets, but wander around the city’s suburbs and you are still likely to spot a catch of fish drying alongside T-shirts, bedsheets and underwear — perhaps on one of the city’s distinctive wrought-iron balconies.
Notoriously you’ll be unlikely to see sturgeon in the same quantity as they once existed — overfishing in the search for prized black caviar has killed off the population almost entirely. Though some entrepreneurs are looking to revive the region’s caviar reputation through farm-raised sturgeon, there are currently only 10, mostly family-based firms, working in this fledgling industry.
Tomatoes may be feminine in Astrakhan, but visitors to the city are usually men. Hunting and fishing in the Volga Delta, with all its great potential for male bonding, has traditionally drawn enthusiasts from across Russia.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has made no secret of his enthusiasm for fishing nor his desire to cultivate his “macho” image, is said to come on regular, unofficial trips to the area to indulge his passion.
“In my personal estimation, the best fishing in the world is in the Murmansk region and in the Volga Delta, near Astrakhan,” Putin told Moskovsky Komsomolets in May. Tour operators in Astrakhan said Putin particularly enjoys underwater fishing — participants are kitted out in wet suits, a mask, snorkel, fins and a speargun before being set loose to stalk their prey in the clear waters of the Volga.
But Astrakhan is not simply a one-night stop-over before an extended fishing trip. Centered on its enormous kremlin and with a smattering of mosques, the city is spread out along the banks of the Volga. International brands that have a presence in the city include McDonald’s, with two outlets, and Metro Cash & Carry, while the road to and from the airport is lined with foreign car dealerships, including Toyota.
The presence of oil and gas in the Caspian has a big impact on the town’s geography, with the offices of LUKoil and Gazprom occupying prominent positions. LUKoil has spent more than 40 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) in the Caspian Sea since exploration got under way in the 1990s and began pumping from the first offshore field in 2010. Experts say Caspian crude is likely to help maintain Russia’s oil production levels in the face of declining West Siberian fields.
Gazprom, which employs about 5,000 Astrakhan citizens who are shuttled in and out of the city each day on distinctive company buses, has an even bigger presence — epitomized by its hulking brown and blue office in the historical center. Money from the state-owned gas giant financed the reconstruction of the waterfront in 2008 in time for the city’s 450th anniversary celebrations.
On balmy summer evenings, the new embankment, which stretches 1.8 kilometers, is packed with strollers of all ages. Rollerbladers weave through the crowds that mix girls in evening dresses and boys in swimming shorts, fresh from a dip in the Volga.
At other times of the year, however, people are less in evidence on the streets. Average temperatures approach 50 degrees Celsius in the shade at the height of the summer and the leaves on the trees turn a uniform burnt yellow. Though temperatures in the winter are relatively mild with lows of minus 10 C, a biting wind often sweeps in off the Caspian. Visitors are advised to avoid a three- to four-week period in June and July when, nurtured by the swampy ground left behind by spring floodwaters, ferocious midges with legendary biting abilities appear in huge clouds.
When it comes to identifying the city’s economic and social trends, what you hear depends who you talk to. There are different currents flowing through Astrakhan’s history: While some see it as a peaceful trading center, others take pride in its status as a wild frontier city with little regard for authority.
The city’s mayor, Sergei Bozhenov, stressed that none of 20th-century Russia’s great upheavals — the 1917 Revolution or World War II — were felt particularly sharply.
Sergei Kulibaba, director of the region’s state-sponsored Folk Culture Center, said the “oasis” principle has functioned in Astrakhan through the ages: In the interest of good business, traders would always lay down their arms.
Even Adolf Hitler intended to stop fighting when he reached Astrakhan, Kulibaba said. Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, was planned to have come to a halt along a line drawn from Arkhangelsk in the north to Astrakhan in the south. German forces never reached the city.
Others emphasize Astrakhan’s rebellious streak, its location on the Russian fringe and the dangerous waters of the Caspian. The editor of the local Volga newspaper, Alexander Shlyakhov, said the city was closely linked to the infamous Cossack rebellions of Stepan Razin and Yemelyan Pugachyov in the 17th and 18th centuries. The genes of the participants in these revolts remain among today’s population, he said with a smile.
The city was also a place of exile. Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the 19th-century radical whose most famous work, “What Is to Be Done?” inspired revolutionaries such as Vladimir Lenin, was banished to Astrakhan by the imperial government in the 1880s.
Though few would take any pride in it, a degree of social unrest continues to this day. In May, security services apprehended a local terrorist cell linked to recent bomb blasts in Volgograd and accused them of plotting a similar atrocity in Astrakhan. During the operation to arrest them, all the bridges across the Volga were temporarily shut down.

<b>What to do if you have two hours</b>
As with almost any Russian city, the first stop for visitors to Astrakhan should be the city’s kremlin (Trediakovskaya Ulitsa), which is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. The green and gold domes rising above the whitewashed and crenellated walls can be glimpsed down streets and alleys from all over the city center, but only close up can their scale be properly appreciated. Built in stone at the end of the 16th century, the kremlin’s walls have been assailed by the forces of Stepan Razin, troops loyal to Peter the Great and Cossack forces fighting the “Reds” in 1918. The bell tower rises 80 meters from the ground.
Inside the kremlin’s walls is the enormous Cathedral of the Assumption (+7 512-22-29-39; astrsobor.ru) and the more diminutive Trinity Cathedral. The upper chapel of the Cathedral of the Assumption is closed unless there is an Orthodox festival — but the lower cathedral is open every day. The other barracks and administrative buildings should not detain you for long and can be seen during a brisk stroll around the grounds.
Another stop for time-pressured visitors is the Local Museum (15 Sovietskaya Ulitsa; +7 512-22-18-22; astrakhan-musei.ru), which was founded in 1857 by a former governor of the region and contains a comprehensive collection ranging from architectural pieces to Astrakhan’s flora and fauna.
Otherwise, take a stroll along the riverside with fishermen, rollerbladers, businessmen and the whole gamut of local life, starting from the statue of Peter the Great erected for Astrakhan’s 450th anniversary and finishing at the blue and white wedding registration “palace” that resembles a ship and is housed next to the site of a former market that sold the best beluga and sturgeon caviar.

<b>What to do if you have two days</b>
Astrakhan is a mecca for fish lovers, and the local fish market (located between Ulitsa Maksakovoi and Ulitsa Dvenadtsatogo Marta to the north of the city center) is a must for those looking to get a sense of the sheer diversity of the Volga Delta. From roach and sturgeon to salmon and carp, the selection and the smell of the dried and fresh fish is likely to send you reeling.
A pleasant afternoon can also be spent soaking up the feel of old Astrakhan by wandering along some of the city’s canals and through streets on the outskirts of town where beautiful, if dilapidated, carved wooden houses crowd the sidewalks and the roads are potholed and flooded. If the city’s administration succeeds with an ambitious program of reconstruction, the days of this wooden architecture are numbered.
Revealing another facet of Astrakhan’s cultural and religious heritage is a cluster of mosques — the black mosque, the white mosque and the red mosque — located a short walk across the Pervogo Maya canal from the kremlin and amid streets of ornate wooden houses. The oldest of the three mosques, the white mosque, was built in the 18th century. Further down the canal toward the Volga is the bustling Tartar market that sells cheap food — from fruit and vegetables to cuttings of meat — as well as other household goods.
Many visitors who have more than one day, however, will be tempted to venture out of Astrakhan and into the Volga Delta. There are hundreds of companies offering trips (mainly to hunting and fishing “bases”), and they can be most effectively accessed through the local travel guild (10/12a Ulitsa Sen-Simona; +7 512-51-21-53, +7 512-524413; turguild.ru). Beware of unlicensed companies that greatly contribute to the depletion of fish stocks, and bear in mind that the delta is particularly beautiful through July to September when its lotus fields are in bloom.
Those with an interest in history may be tempted by the archeological site of Samosdelka, 43 kilometers south of Astrakhan. Believed by some to be the lost site of Itil, the capital of the Jewish Khazar Empire that was destroyed by the expanding Rus Empire in the 10th century, it also contains remains from when the Golden Horde controlled the area in the 14th and 15th centuries.

<b>What to do with the kids</b>
Of all Astrakhan’s museums, children may particularly enjoy the small Sturgeon Museum (13 Akhmatovskaya Ulitsa; +7 512-63-36-08), which has live sturgeon in tanks, pictures of Astrakhan’s fishing industry over the centuries and, best of all, a video of a 30-year-old farm-raised sturgeon being killed and men scooping out her caviar with their bare hands and slopping it into waiting buckets.
Other activities for the kids might include feeding the swans on the city’s “swan lake,” which backs onto the Iranian Consulate, admiring a fountain on the city’s waterfront that “dances” to music blaring out from speakers, or taking a boat trip on the Volga itself. The city also has a puppet theater (12 Ulitsa Fioletova; +7 512-52-40-25; astrpupp.ru).

<b>Nightlife</b>
Unfortunately, anyone looking for a night of musical theater in Astrakhan will be disappointed because the city’s colossal landmark musical theater — which will be one of the biggest in Europe — is still under construction after years of delays. The authorities now promise that it will open this year, but if you’re too early, there is the Concert Hall (3 Ulitsa Molodaya Gvardia; +7 512-22-04-15) and the Drama Theater (28 Sovetskaya Ulitsa; +7 512-52-39-89; astradram.ru), which celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2010.
For those so inclined, the Metro Club (235 Ulitsa Admirala Nakhimova; +7 512-99-90-90; metroltd.ru) is one of city’s most stylish nightclubs.

<b>Where to eat</b>
Astrakhan’s cuisine unsurprisingly revolves around fish, which can be found — and should be tried — in most of the city’s restaurants. If you are looking to rub shoulders with the city’s business and political elite, including the mayor and the governor, Gamlet (6a Ulitsa Lenina; +7 512-51-70-25), just opposite the kremlin and with a nondescript entrance, is a good bet. A meal without alcohol starts from 500 rubles per person.
Other spots for dinner include Akvatoriya (19a Ulitsa Maxima Gorkogo; +7 512-39-12-26), with a wide selection of fish dishes, and the more traditionally European Krem Kafe (5 Ulitsa Uritskogo; +7 512 44-04-00), a stone’s throw from the Volga.
If you are taking a break from sightseeing for lunch, a pleasant spot is Kafe Arbuzov (4a Ulitsa Krasnaya Naberezhnaya; +7 512 70-31-61) on the waterfront and next to the city’s wedding “palace.”
If your aim is more networking, try the Beer House (12 Ulitsa Krasnogo Znameni; +7 512-44-48-00), which has a large, airy hall, a wide selection of beer and a business lunch menu. Unofficially it is known as the dining hall for the regional and city administration, whose offices are just around the corner.

<b>Where to stay</b>
As long as you can stomach the horrific damage it does to the city’s skyline and the almost offensive juxtaposition of its shiny blue glass high-rise against the crumbling wooden houses across the road, the Al Pash Grand Hotel (69 Ulitsa Kuibysheva; +7 512-48-25-25; alpash.ru) is the most luxurious in town with a fashionable bar, restaurant and swimming pool. Single rooms start at 3,300 rubles ($120) a night and go up to 29,300 rubles for an executive suite with Volga views. It counts President Dmitry Medvedev, LUKoil president Vagit Alekperov and German disco legends Boney M among its big-name guests.
The city offers a reasonable selection for those on business trips, but the other two major hotels frequented by businessmen are Seventh Heaven Hotel (27 Krasnaya Naberezhnaya; +7 512-64-08-10; 7nebo-hotel.ru), which is close to the city center and has rooms starting from 2,500 rubles, and Azimut’s Astrakhan branch (4 Kremlyovskaya Ulitsa; +7 512-22-99-12; azimuthotels.ru).
A Park Inn (29 Ulitsa Anri Barbusa; +7 512-29-01-20; parkinn.com/hotel-astrakhan) opened in June 2011.

<b>Conversation Starters</b>
Fish are a sure way to get a local talking. Even those who claim to know nothing about the subject are likely to know more than visitors — while experts can wax lyrical about the best places for fishing on the Volga, the problems facing the industry and the best ukha (fish soup) recipe.
If you want to raise a wry smile, you can ask people whether they play handball. The governor of the Astrakhan region, Alexander Zhilkin, is famously keen on the sport, which, coincidentally, has a high profile in the city.

<b>How to get there</b>
Astrakhan’s Narimanovo Airport (+7 512-39-33-17, airport.astrakhan.ru) is a 15-minute drive from the city center. While there are no direct flights from St. Petersburg, there are four to six daily flights to and from all of Moscow’s three airports as well as to Aktau, Kazakhstan; Yerevan, Armenia; and Baku, Azerbaijan.
Daily trains run between St. Petersburg and Astrakhan and take from 37  to 44 hours. One-way tickets start from 2,500 rubles.
Though some may be put off by the July sinking of the Bulgaria riverboat, in which more than 100 people drowned earlier this month, an alternative for reaching Astrakhan is the ferries that sail into the city. Boats go to Astrakhan from all major centers on the Volga, including Volgograd, Samara, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Uglich. 
<hr>

<b>Astrakhan</b>

Population: 520,700

Main Industries: gas, oil, farming, ship construction

Mayor: Sergei Bozhenov

Founded in 1558

Interesting Fact 1: Lenin’s father, Ilya Ulyanov, was born in Astrakhan. A statue of him stands under the kremlin’s walls.
Interesting Fact 2: Alexandre Dumas, the French author of “The Three Musketeers,” wrote a travel book titled “From Paris to Astrakhan.”

Sister cities: Rasht, Iran; Ahmedabad, India; Atyrau, Kazakhstan; Brest, Belarus; Grand-Popo, Benin; Ljubljana, Slovenia. 
Helpful contacts: Sergei Bozhenov, Astrakhan mayor (+7 512-39-44-35; astrgorod.ru); • Viktor Vinokurov, president of the Astrakhan Chamber of Commerce (+7 512-25-58-44; acci.ru); Adzhimurat Temendarov, chairman of the Caspian Investment Agency (+7 512-44-35-55; caspia-astrobl.ru); Konstantin Rogachev, deputy mayor and head of the economy and investment committee (+7 512-39-07-68; astrgorod.ru).

<b>Major Businesses</b>
Gazprom Extraction Astrakhan (30 Ulitsa Lenina; +7 512-31-63-51; gazprom.ru) is the biggest employer in the city and invests heavily in local social projects. In 2010, the company produced 5.82 million tons of hydrocarbons. 
Electrotechnical Company (+7 512-44-55-66; astrahan.tiu.ru/cs125014-elektrotehnicheskaya-kompaniya) was founded in 1992 for production of building materials in the region.
Olya International Sea Port (1 Ulitsa Kirov; +7 512-44-41-81; mtpo.ru) has its headquarters in Astrakhan but is located 100 kilometers south of the city in the Volga Delta. It currently handles 800,000 tons of cargo annually and is the focus of the city’s drive to increase its role in international trade — including oil and gas — across the Caspian.
<hr>
<i>Sergei Bozhenov, Astrakhan mayor

He moved to the city in 1980, worked in local business in the 1990s and was first elected mayor in 2004. He is a member of United Russia.</i>

<b><i>Q: Why should investors come to Astrakhan?</i></b> 
A: The convenience of Astrakhan’s geographical position. The Silk Road passed through Astrakhan, and today’s transportation corridors through the city and the region — north to south and west to east — have deep historical roots. Rail transportation, road transportation, maritime and river transportation — they come together here. 
There are more than 100 different nationalities in the city. Some people in Russia might be baffled by foreign visitors. But who hasn’t been to Astrakhan? Tartars, Americans, Chinese, Koreans — it doesn’t matter what nationality you are, here everyone’s their own man. 
There is a green light and a positive attitude on the behalf of the governor and myself to any investor — whether it’s someone building a small stall, a drug store, a big business center or a factory producing iron or cement. Incentives offered to those doing business include tax breaks, low rents on land for industrial construction, and administration officials who provide advice and assistance to investors. 
And in Astrakhan there are a lot of beautiful women. The mix of blood — Slavic and Asian — creates something special. No man could resist: you can admire, fall in love, get acquainted and, possibly, get married!

<b><i>Q: What sort of problems does Astrakhan face? </i></b>
A: We have an old problem in the city: There are houses that are 170 to 180 years old and have been unsuitable for a long time. Tsar Alexander I signed an order to move people from bad housing to good housing — that was 200 years ago. A hundred years later, another tsar signed a similar order. But only with the visit of Putin in 2004 did we receive the requisite support for a big resettlement of population — the biggest in 200 years. We have already resettled 7,000 families, and there are more than 20,000 more that could be resettled.

<b><i>Q: How is Astrakhan placed to realize your goal of turning the city into the “Capital of the Caspian”? </i></b>
A: Putin and Medvedev come to Astrakhan every year. The city is an international platform for negotiations. We have consulates from Iran and Kazakhstan here. We are both a transportation hub and have military positions — Astrakhan is on the border. There is the northern capital in St. Petersburg, the Russian capital in Moscow, and, in Astrakhan, we want to create the Caspian capital. We are investing as much strength as we can to ensure that the city looks like a capital.

<b><i>Q: What would you say to investors looking at Astrakhan who have noted the recent links to terrorist activity in the city? </i></b>
A: There is a black sheep in every family. That is, if there are 10 brothers and nine work, one will be lazy or a drunk. Or worse, a drug addict. But these sorts of incidents can happen in any country and in any town. And let’s look at the facts — there was no actual terrorist attack. Instead, we witnessed some excellent work by our intelligence services.

TITLE: Corruption-Fighting Air Force Pilot Loses His Wings
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: LIPETSK — Slim and bare-chested, his jumpsuit half-unzipped, Igor Sulim looks no different from the other parachuters kicking back in the warm summer sun after a jump.
But Sulim, 24, is a thorn in the side of commanders at an elite Air Force base in Lipetsk and an idol to many of his pilot friends.
Sulim, the son of a senior general stationed in Moscow, appears to have sacrificed a promising career to expose corruption at the base, where, he claims, top brass routinely extorted money from subordinates. His whistleblowing efforts have led to him being placed on unpaid leave, but he says he regrets nothing.
“What happens here is pure banditry covered by a romantic love for the sky,” Sulim said in an interview.
“Generals don’t want to listen to me. They think that if I have a lower rank, they can treat me like cattle,” he said, his voice calm and reserved.
An avid parachute jumper, Sulim used a recent weekend jump to keep himself in shape because he cannot fly anymore with the Air Force. His superiors have suspended him from jumping and flying his Su-34 fighter jet due to his “psychological condition.”
No one, though, has really questioned his mental health, including the military prosecutors who are investigating corruption reports at the Lipetsk base, one of the Air Force’s best and located 420 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Pilots from the base fought in the Georgian war in 2008 and are regulars at Victory Day parades on Red Square.
Igor Korotchenko, editor of the National Defense industry magazine, called Lipetsk “a purely criminal case” that is illustrative of the state of affairs in the army.
“When total corruption pervades the country, the armed forces could not be a safe haven from it,” he said.
Sulim outlined his claims in an open letter to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Air Force commander Alexander Zelin, saying senior officers were running a de-facto racket in which they took hefty chunks of pilots’ bonuses for themselves.
The bonus system, introduced by the Defense Ministry in 2008 and revised the next year, aims to reward officers for good performance on the job. The bonuses, which far exceed regular salaries, are intended primarily for some 46,000 highly skilled officers in the Air Force, the Navy, the Space Forces and the Strategic Missile Defense Forces. The system is to be replaced with salary increases starting next year.
Officers implicated in the ongoing Lipetsk investigation include Colonel Eduard Kovalsky, the head of Sulim’s unit; and Sergei Sidorenko, who heads the unit’s disciplinary section. Military investigators said in May that the duo had collected more than 2 million rubles ($71,000) from pilots since 2010. Both face up to four years in prison on charges of abuse of office.
Sulim said Kovalsky ordered him to collect monthly payments of $300 from each pilot in his squadron. The pilots, who were getting monthly bonuses of $2,000, paid the cash to avoid being sent on unpaid leave, he said.
Sharing bonuses with lower-paid subordinates is a common military practice that helps “maintain social justice,” but it has nothing to do with mandatory payments to senior officers, said Korotchenko, of the defense magazine.
Repeated attempts to contact Kovalsky, who has been reshuffled but faced no further penalties so far, failed. But Moskovsky Komsomolets said he threatened to strip pilots of their bonuses altogether if they continued to “blackmail” their commanders with the corruption complaints. Moskovsky Komsomolets obtained an audio recording in which a voice identified as Kovalsky is heard making the threat.
Sulim said the racket was blessed by Kovalsky’s superiors, including Lipetsk base commander Alexander Kharchevsky and Air Force commander Zelin, to whom Sulim nevertheless co-addressed his letter.
Zelin has kept silent on the issue, while Air Force spokesman Vladimir Drik said no comment would be forthcoming while the investigation was ongoing. Reached by phone, the officer who replaced Kovalsky, Sergei Tereshin, said, “I don’t talk to the press,” and hung up.
Zelin’s deputy Viktor Bondarev, who is overseeing the investigation, has confirmed that illegal payments were made by pilots in Sulim’s squadron, but said no one would be fired at the Lipetsk base until the investigation ended. It is unclear when that might be.
The defense minister failed to provide a “decent answer” when asked about the Lipetsk base during a recent visit to the State Duma, Communist Deputy Svetlana Savitskaya said on a talk show on NTV television last month. 
Parallel to the investigation, Air Force deputy chief Bondarev issued an odd order that de-facto bans officers from complaining about corruption in their units to anyone but their superiors. The order said such complaints showed distrust in senior officers and would result in dissenters being stripped of bonuses.
On Friday, President Dmitry Medvedev promoted Bondarev from Air Force deputy commander to Air Force first deputy commander and chief of the Air Force’s General Staff. No explanation was provided.
Sulim said Bondarev accused him of pursuing his own interests during a May conversation. Bondarev purportedly said Sulim could have reported the extortion a year earlier but kept mum until he started seeking a promotion to squadron commander. 
But Sulim told The St. Petersburg Times that he did, in fact, report the extortion to the Lipetsk branch of the Federal Security Service, which never responded. “I even advised them to use marked bills,” Sulim said.
Bondarev also warned Sulim that fellow officers would take revenge because they would be stripped of benefits by senior officers enraged by the exposes, Sulim said. “Your fellow soldiers will kill you for this,” Bondarev said, according to the same audio recording obtained by Moskovsky Komsomolets.
Bondarev said Sulim’s father, General Igor Sulim, who serves in the armed forces General Staff in Moscow, would also face problems over the incident, Sulim said, adding that his father had scolded him for going public with the story.
But other pilots interviewed by The St. Petersburg Times spoke warmly of Sulim, who enjoys a reputation of being a down-to-earth person despite his father’s senior position. His whistleblowing activities also have made him popular beyond his circle of friends and fellow pilots.
“My wife, who doesn’t know him, just called him to wish him well,” said Vyacheslav, a former military pilot in Lipetsk who asked not to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
Sulim’s claims have been supported by the deputy commander of his squadron, Anton Smirnov, who also defended him from allegations of incompetence. “When Sulim went public, he was called a bad pilot. I can say he is a professional,” Smirnov said in an interview at the Lipetsk base.
Smirnov has paid a price for his support. He has been suspended from flying and stripped of his monthly bonus, a decision that he speculated was retaliation from Kovalsky.
But Smirnov said the whistleblowing efforts were an attempt to defend the military’s honor, not his own wallet. “The money is not a question. It’s just a shame to feel like a stupid sheep,” he said. 
Sulim said he has received support from fellow whistleblower Alexei Dymovsky, a former policeman who gained publicity — and trouble from his superiors — after posting a YouTube appeal to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in 2009 about police corruption in Novorossiisk.
But Dymovsky’s anti-government stance does not sit well with Sulim. “If we started a fratricidal war, we would be destroyed,” Sulim said.
A better role model, Sulim said, is former submarine commander Roman Shchury, who got a desk job after a YouTube video went viral in May of him peppering a superior officer with colorful curses for not showing proper respect to his crew after a long voyage.
“To ignore the arrival of a submarine is akin to spitting on the crew,” Sulim said.
When Sulim is not parachuting, he is reading legal textbooks — and not only to wage further battles against his superiors. He expects to be fired and wants to become a lawyer after his military career ends.
“I know they will not allow me to stay. They will get rid of me within six months for sure,” he said.
Kovalsky and the other officers accused by Sulim have not voiced any intention of retiring from the military.