SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1669 (31), Wednesday, August 10, 2011
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TITLE: Olympic Bear Kept Caged on Old Bus 
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: For two years, a 36-year-old bear who performed during the 1980 Moscow Olympics has been kept with other retired circus animals in a rusty old bus parked on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.
Animal rights activists say they receive only minimal care in their cramped and stinking cages.
Katya the bear was a longtime star of the Bolshoi St. Petersburg State Circus on the Fontanka, where night after night she and another bear delighted children by riding motorcycles around the ring.
During the 1980 Summer Games, the bears were applauded by thousands at a ceremony opening the football competition in St. Petersburg, then called Leningrad. Katya also performed in two movies released in the 1980s.
Since her retirement in 2009, Katya and the painted bus on which she once toured with the circus have not left a parking lot near a busy highway. The aging bear spends the long hours jumping up and down in her cage and trying to crack the rusty metal railings with her chipped and yellowed teeth.
Dozens of other retired circus animals also live in the smelly cages placed inside the bus and a minivan parked nearby.
Some occasionally are taken out to accompany photographers to downtown St. Petersburg to have their pictures taken with children and tourists. Others never get washed or examined by veterinarians, animal rights activists say.
“They can’t move normally and start going crazy,” Zoya Afanasyeva of the Vita animal rights group said as she stood by Katya’s sweltering bus on a hot summer day.
“Apparently they are being taken care of, but not more often than once a day, and this care is perfunctory because the smell here in the parking lot is unbearable,” Afanasyeva said.
Klava the bear shares a small cage with Pasha the boar. Birds with atrophied muscles live next to cats that do not meow and stare straight ahead with pus-covered eyes.
Circus director Viktor Savrasov said the animals are cared for and Katya’s fate would have been worse if her trainer had agreed to have the bear put to sleep.
“Whatever happened, she did not leave her,” he said of retired trainer Natalya Arkhipova, who still visits Katya to feed her. 

¦?Ukraine’s Environment Minister Mykola Zlochevsky vowed last week to free all bears kept in restaurants for entertainment purposes and often forced to drink alcohol, Interfax reported. 
Captured and tamed bears were often used for entertainment in the Russian Empire, which included Ukraine, turning the animal into a national symbol. 
The practice appears to have also survived Ukraine’s emergence from Soviet rule, but Zlochevsky last Wednesday said it was inhumane and unacceptable. 
“On television, they keep showing bears suffering in restaurants and roadside hotels,” Interfax quoted him as saying. “How long can we tolerate animal torture in restaurants where drunken guests make bears drink vodka for laughs?” 
Zlochevsky said his ministry was building a large enclosure in a wildlife sanctuary where it would place about 80 bears it planned to liberate.

TITLE: Mariinsky II Delay Rumors Are Denied 
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Mariinsky Theater artistic director Valery Gergiev dismissed rumors that the opening of the theater’s second stage would be delayed until 2015 at a news conference last week.
Responding to media speculation that the new venue, which is currently due to open in a year’s time, will not open its doors to spectators until 2013 or even 2015, Gergiev said that although the deadline for the end of the construction is currently being finalized, the maestro will personally make sure that no procrastination occurs.
“Do not believe the nonsense about the 2015 deadline; work is in full swing and we are keeping a close eye on the construction process to ensure that nobody works half-heartedly,” Gergiev said. 
“The troupe needs the new stage like every living creature needs oxygen. It is shameful that in the 21st century, the Mariinsky Theater has to close for at least five days to mount the sets for Andrei Konchalovsky’s staging of Prokofiev’s opera ‘War and Peace’.”
The Mariinsky’s 228th season ended in July with soul-searching and experimenting, in the form of a premiere of Claudia Solti’s mesmerizing take on Britten’s opera “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“We had a most productive season, with more than 500 performances both on home soil and abroad,” Gergiev told reporters at the news conference. 
“At this stage, it is crucially important for the company to try new artistic ground and be involved in experiments that offer both the company and audiences daring new angles. That is why we have chosen to work with directors such as Daniele Finzi Pasca, whose productions for Cirque du Soleil have gained international recognition, and Claudia Solti, who has an extensive background in filmmaking.
“Finzi Pasca, who staged Verdi’s ‘Aida’ for the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall, is renowned for his unique way of communicating with audiences, regardless of their cultural background or country of origin, and we very much hope that his production will become a bestselling hit,” Gergiev added.
The theater’s next season opens on Sept. 26 with Finzi Pasca’s “Aida.” The next day will see a concert by the eminent pianist Denis Matsuev alongside the Urals Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Gergiev at the Mariinsky Concert Hall. 
Opera premieres to look out for in the coming season include the musical “My Fair Lady” by Loewe, originally produced by Robert Carson for the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris, and Graham Vick’s take on Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” (a joint project with the Baden-Baden Opera Theater). Another operatic treat looks set to be Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande” which will be staged by Daniel Kramer, who was responsible for the production of Bartok’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” for the Mariinsky last year.
In June, St. Petersburg co-hosted the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition for the first time in the history of the contest, which until now had only been held in Moscow. In the new season, the Mariinsky Concert Hall will organize a series of concerts by the competition’s winners and finalists, especially by pianists and cellists, who competed in Moscow and could not therefore be heard by local audiences.
Ahead of the start of the new season, the company’s opera and ballet companies and its orchestra have embarked on extensive tours abroad. Upcoming engagements include performances at the Rotterdam International Festival on Sept 8 and 9 of two operas — Wagner’s “Parsifal” and Berlioz’s “Les Troyens” — after which the company will appear at the International Music Festival in Bucharest on Sept. 11 and 12. 
In the meantime, the Mariinsky ballet troupe is heading to Brazil for a tour from the end of August through the first half of September, before the dancers move on to perform in Singapore and Bangkok from Sept. 16.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Lenta Feud Resolved</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The long-running corporate feud at Lenta has ended after the U.S. private equity firm TPG secured control of the local retailer, Reuters reported Tuesday.
TPG, Russian bank VTB Capital and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development together acquired 44 percent of Lenta for $1.1 billion, buying 40.6 percent from the retailer’s founder, August Meyer, and about 3 percent from his business partners, Reuters reported, citing three sources close to the deal.
The news agency cited a financial market source as saying that TPG had increased its stake to more than 50 percent as a result of the deal. Together with VTB Capital, it now owns 65 percent of Lenta, while the EBRD saw its stake rise to 20 percent from 11 percent.
The TPG/VTB Capital alliance had held 30.8 percent of Lenta prior to the deal.
“The agreement has been signed; the company is valued at $2.6 billion,” Reuters cited one of the sources close to the deal as saying.
Lenta, which had been touted as a possible takeover target for Wal-Mart and Carrefour, has been at the center of a shareholder dispute over strategy that even sparked a fistfight at its headquarters last September when the owners clashed over who should serve as chief executive, Reuters reported.
The company, which generated nearly $2.5 billion in sales last year, has 39 hypermarkets, of which 14 are in St. Petersburg.

<b>Fireman Killed in Blaze</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A fireman was killed while extinguishing a fire in a workshop at the Svetlana factory in St. Petersburg on Monday, Interfax reported, citing the emergency services. 
The firefighter was named as Mikhail Avdeyev, born in 1980 and a member of the 53rd St. Petersburg Firefighting Division.
The fire destroyed part of the factory’s first floor, which houses the production of plastic, and has a total area of 800 square meters. 
“Due to the building’s complex layout, very strong smoke and heat was released during combustion, which meant that it took the firefighters some time to extinguish the fire,” the fire department said in a statement, Interfax reported. 

<b>Car Plants Rest, Work</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The local Hyundai plant has resumed work after its summer break, while the Toyota plant has temporarily stopped work, Interfax reported Monday.
The Hyundai plant resumed work on Monday following a two-week collective vacation, the company told Interfax. Employees of the local Toyota factory plant began their two-week vacation on Monday, and will resume work on Aug. 22.
The Hyundai plant, which started producing the Solaris sedan in January, will launch its third production shift on Aug. 15. The company intends to increase its production capacity from a current 10,000 units up to to 13,000 cars a month by September. With the launch of the third shift, the total number of employees at the plant will total 2,100 people. The company plans to reach full capacity — up to 200,000 cars per year — at the end of this year, Interfax reported.

<b>Post Office Targeted</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Thieves attempted to steal 7 million rubles ($235,000) intended for the payment of pensions and social benefits from a St. Petersburg post office, Interfax cited city police as saying Monday.
Two men entered the post office on Prospekt Koroleva on Monday and seized 7.2 million rubles, threatening workers with a knife and a rubber-bullet gun.
One criminal was arrested and the money and gun seized, while the other robber managed to escape. The identity of the second offender has been established and measures are being taken to arrest him, the police said Monday. 
A criminal investigation into the post office robbery has been opened.

<b>Robbery in Church</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Police are searching for criminals who stole icons and a church plate from a cathedral in the Petrodvorets district of St. Petersburg, a law enforcement source told Interfax on Monday. 
The theft was reported to the police by the assistant rector of the Church of Saint Spiridon Tremithus. “On Friday night an unknown offender entered the cathedral and took the Icon to the Mother of God of Jerusalem in a silver frame, several silver crosses, including the patron saint and cross reliquary, the great gospel, and about two dozen wedding rings,” the source reported. 
He added that the cathedral has been under restoration since 2010.

<b>A Palace in Pictures</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Photographs depicting the Konstantinovsky Palace went on show at the restored state residence Monday.
The exhibition is based on an event titled “One day in the life of Konstantinovsky,” the press service of the former imperial palace, which is now used as a state congress center, told Interfax.
The exhibition includes about 80 works depicting the daily life of the state residence. The images include sightseers strolling around the park, as well as the estate’s fountains and bridges.
“Each photo reflects the most scenic views of the palace and park complex,” the congress center said in a press release. “As well as invited models, the palace staff have also become the heroes of photo shoots.” 
The Konstantinovsky Palace opened its doors to selected photographers on Aug. 2.
The winner will be awarded a cash prize of 50,000 rubles ($1,688).

TITLE: Lavrov Derides Saakashvili on Anniversary of War
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia’s top diplomat called Georgia’s president “a pathological case” who was “very badly brought up” on Monday, signaling no easing of tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi on the third anniversary of the brief 2008 war over South Ossetia.
As a token gesture of goodwill, a Russian air carrier started regular flights between Moscow and Georgia’s city of Kutaisi. But Georgian diplomats faced expulsion from offices in downtown Moscow where electricity was cut off last week.
President Dmitry Medvedev visited an Interior Ministry special forces brigade that fought in the 2008 war, praising the troops for resisting the “aggressor” and decorating 77 soldiers with awards, including one posthumously, the Kremlin said on its web site.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili responded by laying flowers on the graves of Georgians killed in the war and meeting with their relatives, local Rustavi-2 television said.
Medvedev also asked the State Duma to ratify an agreement to place a Russian military base in another breakaway Georgian province, Abkhazia. The deal, signed last year, will not be approved until after the legislature reconvenes in the fall.
The five-day war, which began with a Georgian offensive on South Ossetia after months of provocation by Russia, resulted in Moscow moving its forces into the separatist region and repelling the attack. Moscow recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia weeks after the clash, which was ended with France’s mediation.
“Tension is growing again between Russia and Georgia,” the International Crisis Group, an influential Brussels-based think tank, said Monday. It called on the countries, which severed formal diplomatic ties following the war, to begin a direct dialogue.
But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia would never deal with Saakashvili.
“We will have no dealings with a man who gave the criminal order to kill peacekeepers and ordered the death of peaceful civilians, including Russian citizens,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
“Saakashvili is, of course, a pathological case and an anomaly among the Georgian people. He is clearly very badly brought up,” he said.
He also accused Saakashvili of “dreaming up fairy tales” about what caused the war, which Moscow and Tbilisi each say the other started.
His remarks echoed Medvedev, who told Georgian media in a rare interview last week that he would “never forgive” Saakashvili for purportedly starting the war.
The Investigative Committee, which is conducting a probe into the conflict, reiterated on Monday allegations of war crimes committed in South Ossetia by the Georgian military, which Moscow said were what prompted it to intervene in 2008.
The Georgian attack amounted to attempted genocide against the South Ossetian population, the committee said in a statement that also accused Georgian investigators of refusing to cooperate in the inquiry.
The committee said it has reviewed some 600 complaints by Georgian citizens who accused the Russian military of war crimes and found them all groundless.
Georgia did not respond immediately to the Russian investigation.
But the speaker for the country’s parliament, David Bakradze, said that “sooner or later Russia will definitely stop its occupation” of the breakaway regions, which Georgia considers part of its territory.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said, meanwhile, that Russia was planning a new war, citing as proof several attacks in Georgia in recent months that it blames on Russian secret services.
“It’s evident that the Russian Federation has not abandoned its plans to conduct a new full-scale military attack against Georgia,” the ministry said in a statement carried by Interfax.
The ministry added that Georgia was still looking for a peaceful solution to the conflict and was ready for talks without any preconditions.
The countries also appeared no nearer to resolving a related dispute on Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which Georgia, already a member, has to approve. Tbilisi demands control over customs on the Abkhaz and South Ossetian borders, and reiterated its stance Monday.
“It’s up to Russia to agree on transparency over customs checkpoints in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and then it will become a member of the WTO,” Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergi Kapanadze told Bloomberg.
Russia and Georgia will meet in Switzerland next month to discuss Russia’s WTO membership.
In a rare improvement in economic ties, Russia’s S7 airline began regular charter flights between Moscow and Kutaisi, a route suspended in August 2008. The airline resumed its flights to Tbilisi last fall.
The Georgian interests section at the Swiss Embassy in Moscow was also able on Monday to resume operations, interrupted last Thursday over electricity being cut off to its offices in the downtown Ostozhenka business center, RIA-Novosti said. After the severance of diplomatic ties, Swiss embassies handle Georgia’s affairs in Moscow and Russia’s affairs in Tbilisi.
Ostozhenka’s owner, RusInvestProyekt, said had it turned off the power because of unpaid bills but backtracked because unpaid bills “should not affect the issuance of visas to citizens.” But the section is to be evicted from Ostozhenka within a month because it occupies the premises without a lease, said Oleg Anikiyev, head of RusInvestProyekt. He did not comment on the disruption to visas that the eviction might cause.

TITLE: 2nd An-24 Plane Crashes in Month 
AUTHOR: By Andrew McChesney

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — An An-24 plane carrying 36 passengers and a crew of five crash-landed Monday in stormy weather in the capital of the Amur region on China’s border, injuring 12 people, emergency officials said.
The accident could cause the Kremlin to increase pressure on airlines to phase out the aging twin-engine turboprop, which President Dmitry Medvedev said last month should be grounded after a July 11 crash-landing killed seven.
In the most recent incident, an An-24 operated by IrAero airline skidded off the runway and broke apart while landing at the Blagoveshchensk airport, according to the Amur region branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry.
Low visibility, strong winds and heavy rain contributed to the accident, it said.
An investigation has been opened.
Eight of the 12 people injured in the crash remained in hospital Monday night with non-life-threatening injuries like cuts, bruises and glass splinters, Interfax said. Among those hospitalized was a boy of about 3, with bad bruises, and his father, who suffered a fractured knee, it said.
“No other injuries have been identified on the child: no head injuries or damage to the internal organs,” a local hospital said in a statement carried by Interfax. The boy’s mother was expected to arrive Tuesday from the family’s home in Ekimchan, a village in the Amur region.
Also injured in the crash were the plane’s pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer, emergency officials said.
Medvedev called for the grounding of all An-24s after an Angara Airlines plane crash-landed in the Ob River on July 11, killing seven of the 37 people on board. The pilots attempted an emergency landing after an engine caught fire during a flight from Tomsk to Surgut.
But the An-24, which entered production in 1959, continues to fly. The plane is a mainstay for cash-strapped airlines that serve hard-to-reach areas of Siberia and the Far East, and its grounding would cut off hundreds of remote communities from the rest of Russia.
Medvedev has also ordered the phaseout of another aging regional plane, the Tu-134 twin jet, after an aircraft operated by RusAir crashed and exploded as it landed in thick fog in Karelia’s capital, Petrozavodsk, on June 20. Five of the 52 people on the flight from Moscow survived.
In Monday’s crash, the An-24 was on a multi-stop trip through the Far East, flying from Irkutsk to Chita before crash-landing in Blagoveshchensk. The plane was to have finished its journey in Khabarovsk.
Irkutsk-based IrAero, founded in 1999, operates a fleet of about a dozen planes, including Bombardier CRJ200 regional jets, according to its web site.
Blagoveshchensk, a city of 214,400, is on the Amur River, which separates Russia from China, and is located opposite the Chinese city of Heihe.

TITLE: Azeri Leader Returns From 19-Year Exile
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAKU, Azerbaijan — Azerbaijan’s first post-Soviet leader, Ayaz Mutallibov, has returned to his home country for the first time after 19 years in exile to attend his son’s funeral.
Araz Alizade, who co-founded Azerbaijan’s Social Democratic Party, said Tuesday that Mutallibov’s son died of cancer and is to be buried at the family plot in the capital, Baku.
Mutallibov was elected Azerbaijan’s Communist Party boss and led the Caspian Sea nation when it gained independence in the December 1991 Soviet collapse. He was ousted from office a few months later and fled to Russia.
Mutalibov is facing criminal charges in Azerbaijan for his role in a Soviet troop crackdown on protesters in Baku in 1990, but Alizade says the government has granted Mutallibov immunity out of respect for his son’s death.

TITLE: Russians Could Buy Libyan Oil Tankers 
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Libyan oil tanker fleet could soon be sold to Russian investors, as speculation swirled Tuesday about a reported $300 million deal with the Gadhafi regime, which is under economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.
Libya’s General National Maritime Transportation Company, or GNMTC, could sell a portion of its fleet to unspecified Russian investors that include state-owned shipping corporation Sovcomflot, sources told industry journal The Petroleum Economist.
A spokeswoman for Sovcomflot told The St. Petersburg Times that she had no official information on her company’s interest in Libyan oil tankers. “It’s rumors and we don’t comment on rumors,” she said.
GNMTC lists a fleet of 15 vessels on its web site that, before civil war erupted in February and halted crude shipments, were involved in the export of the 1.6 million barrels of oil Libya produced daily.
Libya’s shipping industry is believed to have close ties to the Gadhafi family. A U.S. embassy cable from Tripoli in 2008, released by WikiLeaks, identified Moammar Gadhafi’s son, Hannibal, as the key figure behind GNMTC. Hannibal Gadhafi had also been linked to the company during a Libya-Switzerland spat in 2008 when he was briefly arrested in the alpine country for joining his pregnant wife in a violent assault on their servants.
Reached by phone in Tripoli, GNMTC’s spokesman declined to comment.
GNMTC is not a Libyan-registered company subject to economic sanctions, but Hannibal Gadhafi is on a United Nations blacklist of figures associated with the North African regime. Assets controlled by blacklisted individuals are subject to sanctions.
In June the European Union added six Libyan ports to a list of frozen assets — Tripoli, Al Khums, Zuara and the oil terminals of Brega, Ras Lanuf and Zawiyah.
President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree that signaled Russia’s observance of the UN embargo on arms, ammunition and military shipments to Libya shortly after the start of the conflict. Russia was set to lose $4 billion in export earnings as a result of the ban, Sergei Chemezov, head of Russian Technologies, said at the time.
Though GNMTC’s fleet was valued at $300 million for the alleged deal with Russian investors, before the outbreak of Libyan hostilities its book value was $1.3 billion, The Petroleum Economist reported, adding that Hannibal Gadhafi may be seeking to raise cash as a part of an exit strategy for his family.
Moscow has sought to position itself in the role of an international mediator in the Libyan conflict, hosting Moammar Gadhafi’s foreign secretary for talks last month.

TITLE: Prokhorov Blames Officials For Removing His Billboards
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Right Cause’s billionaire leader Mikhail Prokhorov accused United Russia officials on Tuesday of orchestrating the removal of more than 200 billboards bearing his portrait in three cities.
Campaign advertising for the State Duma elections in December is not allowed until the fall, but Prokhorov has financed hundreds of billboards, nominally to promote his web site, made-in-russia.ru.
Fifty billboards were taken down by local authorities in Yekaterinburg last week, and another 180 in Novosibirsk, Prokhorov wrote on his blog. This week, the removals reached Moscow, where two billboards were taken down, a Right Cause spokesman said Tuesday.
The street advertising company that handled installation and removal of billboards has provided no explanation for the move and may face “economic sanctions” if it fails to do so, the spokesman told Interfax.
Prokhorov blamed the removal on local authorities loyal to the ruling United Russia party. “They’re afraid we’ll not let United Russia get its planned percent” of votes in the elections, he said, adding that his party would fight back in courts and media.
Prokhorov became the leader of Right Cause in June and has promised to give the party, widely seen as a Kremlin project to sweep liberal voters, the second-biggest faction in the new Duma with 15 percent of the vote.
His unceremonious campaigning may indeed have irked United Russia, which is starting to see Right Cause as a serious rival, not a “friendly sponsor,” said Alexei Makarkin, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies.
“United Russia would like him to speak about an increase in working hours and deference to company bosses, but he has started to touch on other topics,” Makarkin said by telephone.
Prokhorov, roundly criticized by ordinary Russians last year for proposals to tighten labor legislation in favor of employers, has cautiously courted moderate nationalists lately. 

TITLE: Poteyev Treason Verdict Upheld 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Supreme Court upheld on Tuesday the verdict for a former intelligence colonel sentenced in absentia on charges of betraying U.S.-based Russian sleeper agents last year, RIA-Novosti reported.
Alexander Poteyev was given 25 years in prison on treason and desertion charges by a Moscow district military court in June. He was also stripped of his rank and his state awards.
Poteyev is accused of identifying 10 agents of the Foreign Intelligence Service to the Americans. The agents pleaded guilty and were returned to Russia last summer in a spy swap. 
Lawyers for Poteyev, who investigators say fled to the United States not long before the agents were exposed, contested the June ruling, admitting that “proof of his guilt was undeniable” but asking to slash the sentence and return his medals, RIA-Novosti reported.

TITLE: Medical School Denies ‘Ghosts’ Were Frauds
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A top medical school in Moscow is deeply mired in a scandal over this year’s new students — three-quarters of whom either don’t exist or never applied for enrollment.
The Prosecutor General’s Office on Friday began a check into the Russian State Medical University, which struggled to fend off allegations that its enrollment scheme was a large-scale scam.
At least 536 out of 709 students recommended for state-funded enrollment at the college never took the required exams, the Federal Inspection Service for Education and Science reported Thursday.
The “ghost applicants” occupied the places that would otherwise have gone to real applicants — who then had to enter other colleges. However, places reserved for fake students could later be quietly offered to those with lower grades — but bigger wallets.
Alexei Krapukhin, deputy chairman of the Russian Students Union, said parents of some applicants complained that “they had been asked to pay between 350,000 and 400,000 rubles [$12,300 to $14,100] for enrollment” in state-funded spots at the Russian State Medical University.
“It would be cheaper than six years’ worth of tuition fees, which amount to 170,000 rubles per year on average,” Krapukhin told The Moscow Times by telephone Friday. He did not name any names.
In Russian colleges, the state usually funds the education of a fixed number of students who are selected based on their exam grades. The rest are charged tuition.
The “ghost applicants” were exposed by computer programmer Viktor Semak, who said he “wanted to help his friend” enter a medical college.
In a post on the college’s online forum on July 30, Semak noted several implausible similarities shared by successful applicants. Most of them scored upward of 270 out of 300 on their Unified State Exams — a very hard-to-achieve performance; all had some entitlement, such as a disability, prioritizing them for enrollment over regular applicants; all applied close to the deadline; and none applied to any other medical college.
Education authorities looking into Semak’s report soon discovered that the  statistically unlikely applications were fakes. Their places were handed over to real students, the Federal Inspection Service for Education and Science said.
The university’s rector, Nikolai Volodin, said Thursday that he was surprised by what he referred to as “a technical failure,” Itar-Tass reported.
On Friday, Volodin said several members of the exam commission who were responsible for the incident were removed from the commission. He didn’t specify their names or their alleged fault. He also said he had no plans to resign.
The education watchdog’s head, Lyubov Glebova, also said “dead souls” were enrolled as a result of the commission’s neglect. She did not say whether it was viewed as deliberate fraud or an honest mistake.
The Health and Social Development Ministry, with which the Russian State Medical University is affiliated, has not commented on the incident. Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko threatened “tough measures,” but did not elaborate.
The Prosecutor General’s Office reported on its web site that it had invited Volodin in “for explanations,” but did not say whether he or the school faced any penalties.
Numerous reports from applicants and students, available on blogs and web forums, indicated that the scheme could have been operating last year as well but went unnoticed by officials.
If fraud allegations are confirmed, that would make the scheme the biggest examination scam since the 2009 nationwide introduction of the State Unified Exam, a standardized type of high school graduation testing aimed at curbing corruption.
“There have been a lot of violations linked to the Unified State Exam, but it’s the first time such a big scheme has been disclosed,” said Krapukhin of the Russian Students Union.

TITLE: Belgian Held in Child Sex Investigation in Moscow
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Belgian national and a Muscovite were detained in the capital over the weekend on suspicion of having sex with three boy prostitutes in public, news reports said Monday.
The Belgian, identified in Russian as Bruno Vas, 32, and Yaroslav Yermolayev, 41, were detained after police received a tip from a witness and placed in custody in western Moscow, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
The statement did not identify the witness, but Itar-Tass said it was a rowing coach who told police that he saw the two suspects having sex with the boys outdoors near the Krylatskoye rowing canal and prevented them from fleeing while he waited for the police to arrive.
The three boys, aged 11 to 13, had sold their bodies for sex before, Itar-Tass said. Investigators believe that they were also paid by the two suspects, news site Baltinfo.ru said, citing an unidentified law enforcement official.
An Investigative Committee spokeswoman told Itar-Tass that the Belgian, who works as a computer programmer, had previously been convicted for child abuse in Belgium. Baltinfo.ru said he arrived in Russia a week ago and stayed at the apartment of the other suspect on Ulitsa Demyana Bednogo.
The Investigative Committee statement said the suspects are believed to have abused underage boys from July 31 to Aug. 6 and faced a maximum prison sentence of 20 years if convicted.
While law enforcement agencies have regularly reported detentions of suspected child molesters, Russian media attention was limited until last month when the Kremlin introduced in the State Duma a bill on voluntary chemical castration for convicted offenders. Some observers say the new attention is a Kremlin-orchestrated attempt to secure public support for the castration bill.

TITLE: Court Won’t Free Tymoshenko
AUTHOR: Combined reports

TEXT: A Ukrainian court on Monday rejected lawyers’ requests to free former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from jail during her abuse of office trial, a case the West has condemned as selective justice.
Thousands of supporters and opponents — some claiming they had been paid to show up — broke a police chain outside the security-heavy hearing for the country’s top opposition leader.
She has criticized the trial as an attempt by President Viktor Yanukovych to bar her from future elections, refusing to rise when addressing the court and routinely insulting the judge. She was arrested Friday for contempt of court and violation of procedures.
She is accused of abusing her powers by signing a natural gas deal with Russia in 2009 that prosecutors claim was disadvantageous to Ukraine.
Opposition activists and rights groups say Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president is trying to sideline his political opponents and muzzle critical media in a rollback on freedoms championed by his pro-Western predecessor.
In Washington on Monday, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner urged Ukraine’s government to review Tymoshenko’s arrest and consider releasing her. “Her arrest raises questions about the application of the rule of law in Ukraine, and continues to contribute to the appearance of politically motivated prosecutions by the government,” said Toner.
The court has banned cameras from the trial, but some media broadcast footage of Tymoshenko in the courtroom apparently made by a cell phone. Wearing her signature braided hairdo, she appeared energetic and determined, thanking the West and Russia for their support.
Despite longterm enmity between Tymoshenko and Moscow, the Russian government has joined her supporters since she was put behind bars. Yanukovych has lately hinted that he wants to revise the 2009 gas deal, and Moscow’s backing of his sworn rival Tymoshenko indicates Russia’s mounting disappointment in his policies — even though he was the Kremlin’s bet during the Orange Revolution in 2004.
The judge on Monday turned down three defense appeals for Tymoshenko’s release. Her husband told reporters that Tymoshenko, a nonsmoker, was feeling OK but suffering badly because one of her cellmates smokes.
Surrounded by riot police, several thousand Tymoshenko supporters gathered outside the court, opposite a similar number of Yanukovych supporters, some of them waving his party’s blue and white flags. After learning that the third defense appeal was turned down, the opposition crowd broke a police chain and marched down the central Kiev street shouting “Shame!”
One of the participants in the pro-government rally, student Yelisey Leroy, said he joined because the organizers promised to pay an equivalent of some $20 a day to every participant.
Tymoshenko insists she is innocent, arguing that the 2009 deal ended weeks of natural gas disruptions to Ukrainian and European consumers and that she was authorized to sign the deal as prime minister. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said the 2009 gas deal did not break any Russian or international laws.
Many observers in Ukraine and abroad believe the real motive for Tymoshenko’s trial is to disqualify her from upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections by convicting her as a felon.
Vadym Karasyov, a Kiev-based independent political analyst, said that Tymoshenko’s arrest may bolster support for the charismatic opposition leader and help consolidate Ukraine’s weakened and fractured opposition. “The authorities have made, with their own hands, an image, a symbol of struggle for all those who are unhappy with the current regime,” he said.
Tymoshenko was the central figure in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution mass protests that threw out Yanukovych’s fraud-tainted victory in a presidential election and helped bring a pro-Western government to power.
She became prime minister, but lost to Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election after Ukrainians had grown frustrated by economic hardships, slow reforms and endless bickering in the Orange camp.
Despite the defeat, Tymoshenko has remained widely popular, thanks to her glamorous style and fiery rhetoric.
“Tymoshenko is our last hope,” said Viktor Voytko, one of her supporters who gathered Monday outside the court. “Now people are still sleeping, but they will rise soon.”
Former Russian Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, who served as an adviser to Yanukovych’s predecessor Viktor Yushchenko, said he does not see “anything criminal” in the gas deal.
Nemtsov, who was once in Tymoshenko’s shoes, having supervised the Russian oil and gas industry in the late 1990s, said Tymoshenko hoped that the deal — which preserved the gas discount for Ukraine for 2009 — would help her win the presidential elections of 2010. She lost the vote to Yanukovych.
He also agreed that the real motives behind her arrest were political.
“The most popular opposition politician … was put behind bars not because she was a corrupt crook, but because she might become a real competitor in the elections,” Nemtsov said.
<br>
(AP, MT)

TITLE: Ruble Drops to 6-Month Low Amid Market Plunge
AUTHOR: Combined reports

TEXT: The ruble lost more than 3 percent of its value against the dollar, while Russian markets fell in a frantic sell-off on Tuesday triggered by the U.S. debt downgrade and a sharp fall in oil prices.
High oil prices through most of the year helped the government post an unexpected budget surplus, which analysts say could help Russia weather the turmoil as long as it’s brief.
The trouble will come if oil prices remain low, making it difficult for the government to meet its social spending obligations ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections.
The Russian currency dropped to a six-month low on Tuesday, shedding more than one ruble, to settle at 29.6 rubles against the U.S. dollar in midday trading.
The ruble lost 2.9 percent against the euro. The rates were even lower at street exchange points.
The benchmark MICEX index was down 1.5 percent to 1,477 points, its lowest point since October of last year, recovering somewhat from a drop of 7 percent earlier in the session. The day before, the MICEX lost 5.5 percent in its biggest drop since 2009.

<b>U.S. Fallout</b>
The U.S. debt downgrade has hit Russian markets particularly hard as it also caused a severe drop in prices for oil, which is the backbone of the Russian economy. Oil prices tumbled to their lowest in nearly a year to below $78 a barrel on Tuesday.
Ivan Tchakarov, chief economist at Moscow-based investment bank Renaissance Capital, said the Russian market right now is governed by “fears and unexplainable psychology.”
A slowdown in the U.S. economy could have major repercussions in Russia, Tchakarov warned. Renaissance Capital has calculated that Russia’s economic growth would be dented by 2 percent if the U.S. economy dropped by 1 percent.
Strong oil prices this year have helped to prop up a budget that the government had expected to run a deficit. Instead, the government reported a 2.7 percent surplus in January-June. This good performance could provide the necessary buffer, but only if the turmoil is brief, analysts said.

<b>Differences From 2008</b>
“Unlike the crisis in 2008, Russia does not enter this crisis with a strong fiscal position,” Tchakarov said.
Russia was able to afford bailouts and social spending during the 2008 downturn thanks to a huge budget surplus and billions of dollars from a rainy-day fund. The government ran budget deficits in 2009 and 2010 for the first time in a decade.
Shares in other emerging European markets were equally panicky. The WSE index in Poland was down 4.2 percent, the Prague Stock Exchange index in the Czech Republic lost 5.6 percent, and the Budapest Stock Exchange index was down by 4.9 percent.
The scale of the declines, which began accelerating in the second half of last week on the back of lackluster U.S. growth figures, has prompted comparisons with events leading up to the 2008 economic crisis.
“We’re maybe not talking about a repetition of the 2008 scenario, but the memory of it is alive and well,” said Pavel Demetchik, a trader with ING Bank in Moscow. “Everybody is very aware that you’re better off getting through any crisis with cash rather than some sort of asset which can lose its value in a moment.”
The ruble’s decline against the dollar may seem paradoxical in light of Standard & Poor’s decision to cut the United States’ credit rating a notch to AA+, a move highlighting weakness in the greenback. But analysts explained the development as a flight from risk in a global economy widely considered to be heading toward recession.
“When there’s a crisis, people go to the stronger economies and the stronger currencies,” said James Cook, founder of private equity fund Aurora Russia. “The U.S. is still considered the lesser of many evils.”
Another factor pushing down the ruble was the tumbling price of oil. Despite unrest in the Middle East and emerging market demand, WTI crude fell as much as 5 percent in New York in early trading Monday, sinking to $82.98 after a high of $114.80 on May 2.
If the price of oil continues to fall on the basis that a recession could slash demand in developed economies, there is an expectation that the ruble will also continue to drop.

<b>Credit Rating Complaint</b>
While the MICEX and RTS nose-dived Monday, the Finance Ministry released a report asserting that Russia was underrated by credit rating agencies.
“Low rates of state debt ensure Russia stands out significantly from a large majority of developed countries and emerging markets,” the report read.
Though the 48-page report added that Russia might be forced to triple its debt holdings by 2014 by raising about 2 trillion rubles ($69 billion) annually to cover the budget deficit, it argued that its debt-to-GDP ratio of 9.3 percent warranted a more positive recognition from credit rating agencies.
S&P, the credit rating agency that downgraded the United States on Saturday, has placed Russia at the BBB investment grade level, one notch from the lowest possible. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last month that the country’s credit rating was an “outrage.”
Fellow BRIC member India was upgraded by investment bank Goldman Sachs on Monday, offsetting early morning losses on local stock exchanges.
Charles Robertson, chief global economist at Renaissance Capital, said that in the event of a recession, he would advise investors to look to emerging market government bonds, particularly in “liquid, low debt economies.”
But, he added, “when the markets are plunging, there are no safe havens.”

<b>More to Come</b>
Cook, at Aurora Russia, said market volatility should dampen in the coming days as “panic selling” falls off, the positions of institutional investors become clear and governments around the world start taking positive action.
In the case of another crisis emerging and sustained falls in the oil price, however, Russia is likely to suffer more than other emerging markets.
“If you look at the 2009 crisis, you see that Russia slumped more significantly than other countries,” said Natalya Volchkova, macro-economic professor at the New Economic School.
<br>
(AP, MT)

TITLE: Russian Railways to Sell Freight One Subsidiary 
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian Railways hopes to complete the share sale of its Freight One cargo subsidiary this year, company president Vladimir Yakunin said Friday.
“We hope to get a new valuation soon and complete the sale by Sept. 29,” he told reporters at a press briefing Friday.
The company hopes to sell off 75 percent minus two shares in Freight One, which operates about 21 percent of Russia’s freight rolling stock.
But Yakunin called “unacceptable” attempts to get the company to sell 50 percent — twice the size of the stake originally planned — in its cargo container operator Transcontainer.
“Frankly, I sometimes don’t understand,” he said. “Last year the decision to sell 25 percent was made. … It’s unacceptable to try to revise this decision. We have no need to sell these [extra] shares.” He did not say who was pressing to increase the amount of the company to be sold.
He added that the Transcontainer package should have been sold “yesterday” for Russian Railways to be able to include the proceeds in its budget for 2011.
Transcontainer runs containers for road and rail transportation as well as a terminal processing and customs clearance service.
Russian Railways is one of several state-owned companies that the government wants to wholly or partially privatize by 2017.
Yakunin repeated his position that “our owners” — that is, the government — will decide what and when to sell, but said the sale of a majority stake in Russian Railways itself was unlikely and cautioned against a breakup of the monopoly.
“They tried that in Great Britain, and look what happened there,” he said in reference to the controversial privatization of British Rail in the early 1990s, which many blame for a decline in service levels.
Yakunin had previously backed the sale of a 10 to 15 percent stake to a “strategic investor,” but wants to hold off valuing the company until 2013, when he believes that the country’s economy will have fully recovered from the post-crisis slump.
President Dmitry Medvedev has called for the privatization process to accelerate, leading analysts to speculate that a railways sale could occur as early as next year.
Yakunin also revealed that the company is interested in a $2.5 billion railway building project in Indonesia, but did not elaborate.
The Jakarta Post reported earlier this year that Russia may invest in a 185-kilometer railway to carry coal, linking the provinces of Central and Eastern Kalimantan.
But the paper reported Thursday that the governor of Central Kalimantan had rejected the Russian plan because it would damage protected forests.

TITLE: Tymoshenko’s Trial and Ukraine’s Future
AUTHOR: By Carl Bildt

TEXT: There is little doubt that the embarrassing spectacle of the trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko — and her recent arrest on contempt charges during the proceedings — is causing great damage to Ukraine. And there is little doubt that how Ukraine develops will be of great importance for Europe’s future.
Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 ignited the hope of a new wave of democratic reforms in the countries to the east of the European Union — a period of so-called color revolutions. Soon, however, those forces that feared losing power in this vast and important region began a determined counteroffensive.
Nonetheless, Ukraine continued to stumble in a European direction, preserving important parts of the gains made in 2004. The 2010 comeback of President Viktor Yanukovych was essentially the result of a free and fair election.
It took some time, but Yanukovych’s determination to press on with the European integration efforts begun by his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, has become increasingly clear — in the face of repeated calls (and sometimes thinly veiled threats) by Russia to join its customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Indeed, tension with Russia could well escalate toward the end of the year because Ukraine’s foreign policy orientation is of clear consequence to the Kremlin. A democratic Ukraine with an open economy and close ties with the European Union could not fail to influence Russia’s future path as well.
Negotiations for an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which includes far-reaching provisions for trade and regulatory integration, are well advanced and could even be concluded this year. The agreement could become a model for similar agreements with other countries belonging to the EU’s Eastern Partnership. Georgia and Moldova are lined up to start similar negotiations.
Ukraine, reasonably enough, wants this agreement to be accompanied by an acknowledgment of its European destiny and by clear steps toward reciprocal visa-free travel. Such an acknowledgement could be seen as formal recognition of the fact that EU membership remains a long-term option for Ukraine.
All of that has been put in profound jeopardy by Tymoshenko’s trial. Of course, few saints grace Ukrainian politics. Indeed, large-scale corruption has become entrenched in the country’s political system. The corruption networks surrounding the old Soviet pipeline system carrying gas from Siberia to Western Europe have obviously impeded Ukraine’s political development. But whether saint or sinner, everyone deserves a fair hearing, not a show trial.
The rule of law must apply to all, but very few believe that any of the charges against Tymoshenko would stand the slightest chance of being upheld in a Western court. It all smacks of a politically directed attempt by Yanukovych and his supporters to rid themselves of a powerful opponent before the next election.
Together with other similar cases, these trials raise serious questions about Ukraine’s judicial system and law enforcement agencies. They provide the clearest indication yet that Ukraine, despite assurances by Yanukovych’s government, is developing in the wrong direction.
Negotiations on the EU association agreement should proceed — this is an issue of strategic importance to Europe — but subsequent steps will inevitably depend on Ukraine’s commitment to the values and principles underpinning European integration. If the bizarre scenes now being witnessed in Kiev continue, even Ukraine’s closest friends in Europe will find it very difficult to make the case for a deepening of relations. Tymoshenko’s trial and how she is treated by the Ukrainian authorities must not only be fair, but also must be seen to be fair.
Ukraine’s moves in the direction of the EU reflect its efforts to modernize and reform its economy. Indeed, the country could develop into a mini-China, placing massive manufacturing capacity immediately adjacent to the global economy’s largest integrated market. And Ukraine’s potential as an agricultural producer is equally impressive.
Yet Ukraine currently is struggling to meet the conditions of its International Monetary Fund assistance program. Parliament watered down a proposal for far-reaching pension reform to the point that it borders on useless, and repeated promises to stop subsidizing wasteful energy consumption through low gas prices have not been honored.
Determined reform policies could overcome these obstacles. But if Ukraine wants to proceed on the EU path, it must understand that the rule of law is a precondition for substantial integration. Yanukovych’s government must take stock of its behavior.
Freedom House concluded earlier this year that since Yanukovych came to power in 2010, Ukraine “has become less democratic and, if current trends are left unchecked, may head down a path toward autocracy and kleptocracy.” But its assessment also noted that “political and cultural diversity is a bulwark against any one force dominating political space throughout the country.”
So Ukraine’s future remains open. It is a great country that deserves a secure and prosperous future as a member of Europe’s family. The show trial of Tymoshenko, unfortunately, risks turning it into an estranged cousin.

Carl Bildt is foreign minister of Sweden. © Project Syndicate

TITLE: Russian unorthodox: A Rare Happy Ending
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova

TEXT: I rarely tell happy stories in this column. Indeed, quite a few of them can be regarded as the obituaries of those who suffered the effects of Russia’s heartless bureaucracy or the country’s unjust social system. This time I am relieved to relate a tale that I had had little hope would end happily, because so many similar cases have ended badly.
For two weeks the media in St. Petersburg tried to draw the attention of city officials to what seemed like a hopeless situation. Russia’s tallest man, 52-year-old Alexander Sizonenko, who once appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest basketball player in history, was gravely ill. 
After taking a fall, Sizonenko, who suffers from osteoporosis and acromegaly, a condition causing excess growth of bone and other tissue, became confined to bed in his humble room in a communal apartment in central St. Petersburg. But it took almost a week for him to be seen by doctors. And he suffered further delays in treatment when he was moved from pillar to post.
Finally, he ended up in his own bed and then developed bedsores. With no relatives apart from a teenage son, and with a pension of 7,000 rubles ($255) per month, Sizonenko could not think of hiring a private nurse. And local officials appeared to be in no rush to provide a social worker or a state-funded nurse to help him.
Born in Kherson in 1959, Sizonenko played basketball from 1976 until 1986 for various clubs in Russia until his health deteriorated.
I remember meeting him around seven years ago, when I was making a feature for the BBC about how the Guinness book hero and former sportsman was living in utter poverty. He struck me as a person with a big heart and a great sense of humor, and indeed a lot of stamina. He was very touched by any attention he received. When I brought fruit and cake to him, he smiled and said he had diabetes but that he would be happy to give the cake to his son.
“Unfortunately, with my pension, I can’t treat him to anything nice very often,” Sizonenko told me then.
Sizonenko, who weighs 150 kilograms and stands nearly 2 1/2 meters in height, is so tall that it’s said he cannot even straighten his back in his cramped room. But when local residents heard of his fall and his illness they started a campaign. They pleaded with officials in St. Petersburg, all the way up to Governor Valentina Matviyenko, to come to the man’s aid. Without a helping hand, he was going downhill rapidly. Then his only friend contacted the media.
Reports of his plight spread far beyond St. Petersburg, and media web sites received many touching letters from people of all ages.
Many local people signed letters and petitions that were sent to a number of city and district governments, but all in vain. The sports committee, as well as the governor, failed to help. It seemed the district authorities were pretending Sizonenko did not exist.
And then a journalist I know rang up a government official — a person with no links to social care, medicine or sports — and described the problem. “Is there a single official in town who has a heart big enough to help the man?” the journalist wondered.
And this official suggested that my friend contact another bureaucrat. “He’s not very senior but he’s very kind,” said my friend’s contact. “Because it’s not quite his field of work, he will need a petition from the public to allow him to intervene officially.” The journalist sent the petition, and within two days, the problem was solved.
City Hall, which had been deaf and blind to the problem for days, proudly reported that a daily nurse, plus an orthopedic mattress and bed, have now been supplied to the former sportsman. And medicines, officials said, will be provided as necessary. I stared at the news release relating this happy ending with disbelief, because other campaigns like this ended in the public collecting money for a funeral.
What I find encouraging in the Sizonenko story, and what my journalist colleagues and friends who campaigned for Sizonenko still cannot quite believe, is that at least some government officials in my country have it within them to show compassion, and to step in and force their indifferent colleagues to do their job.
As for the role of the media, the huge splash around the desperately ill sportsman did help in the end. And the Sizonenko story tells us we should never give up, however hopeless things may look.  

A full version of this commentary is available at Transitions Online, an award-winning analytical online magazine covering Eastern Europe and CIS countries, at www.tol.org.

TITLE: It’s a man’s world
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “An urgent desire to take a long shower is an appropriate response to watching ‘The Devil’s Double,’ so unsavory is the experience of being immersed in the world of Saddam Hussein’s Caligula-like son Uday and his double, Latif Yahia,” is how Todd McCarthy, a film reviewer with the respected Hollywood Reporter, felt after watching Lee Tamahori’s latest film, which received a special prize at the St. Petersburg International Kinoforum last month.
Tamahori, the director of “Die Another Day,” “The Edge” and “Mulholland Falls,” is full of surprises. At the beginning of an interview during his recent visit to the city, the filmmaker announced that he had just been to visit the Siege of Leningrad Museum, having chosen a war museum over the treasures of the Hermitage. The external appearance of this agile, sporty man, with a penetrating look and cropped graying hair, generates associations with canoeing, parachuting or mountaineering, rather than with the fine arts. Tamahori’s revelation about visiting the somber Siege Museum seems even more surprising in light of his films, which are renowned for their graphic scenes of violence.
“Yes, you are right, museums are not quite my cup of tea,” the director responds to my look of surprise. “The point is that they can be a valuable source of information.”
Tamahori says he is intrigued by the presentation of World War II in modern Russia, which he said had a strong aftertaste of Soviet-era propaganda, although not in an entirely negative sense. “In the U.S. and Europe, historical displays, regardless of the period that they cover, are dispassionate,” he said. “The St. Petersburg museum, by contrast, has a very emotional feel.”  
“I really wanted to see the exhibition because I have always admired the courage and the stamina of the Siege survivors, and I wanted to hear their stories,” he added. “I was amazed by the photograph of a female sniper who killed 145 German soldiers and trained more than 100 young snipers. And she was only 35. Unbelievable.”
Courage and stamina are the human qualities that Tamahori values most in life. It is largely for that reason that the main characters in his movies are tough guys in tough circumstances, people going through the most brutal tests and challenges.
“If I were to collate my films into some sort of group, the unifying factor would be that these are films about survivors,” Tamahori said. “People behave very differently under extreme stress: Some give up at once, some panic or run around chaotically, and some mobilize, resist and fight on.”
“It was huge fun filming ‘The Edge’ with Anthony Hopkins; it is a story of two guys who find themselves in the middle of nowhere after a plane crash, and they have to survive like in prehistoric times, defending themselves from wild animals and cooking their meals on open fires in the forest,” the filmmaker recalls. 
Survival is also the dominant theme of Tamahori’s “Mulholland Falls,” in which the main character is a successful Los Angeles cop for whom a random affair with a beautiful woman ends in personal disaster, complete with blackmail, threats and all sorts of catastrophes.
Tamahori’s new film, “The Devil’s Double,” tells the story of Lieutenant Latif Yahya, who is forced to work as the double of Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday. The character of Latif is dignity personified, and his moral code would do honor to a knight or warrior of any epoch. Latif carries out his own personal resistance to the regime that he despises but is forced to be part of.
“Some critics call my portrayal of Latif one-dimensional because I made him a sort of classic American Western character, very stubborn, with trained muscles and a lot of nerve, who tells himself  ‘I can do it!’” Tamahori explains. “Some people would like to see a more sensitive and complicated character here, but it was my choice to make Latif the way I made him. A sensitive man would never survive in circumstances like that.”
Tamahori enjoys trying on the hats of heroes himself and imagining what he would have done under the same pressure. The question of how an ordinary person becomes a hero has long been of special interest to the director.
“I have asked myself that question many many times, and, having read and heard many facts and opinions on the subject, I can say that heroism is not a quality that one can train or rehearse, even at the best military academy or spy school — otherwise soldiers would not desert,” Tamahori said. “At some stage, life suddenly throws you a challenge, and there is no time to weigh up any pros and cons; you simply act according to your instincts. Heroism is when you are prepared to save another man’s life without hesitation. In a sense, I would call it an instinct.”
When working with Pierce Brosnan on “Die Another Day,” part of the James Bond series, the biggest challenge for Tamahori was to create a fresh take on the much-loved hero while preserving his essence. 
“I chose not to make Brosnan’s Bond go through the typical classic ‘Bondian’ situations, but instead made him undergo ultra-stressful, shocking experiences: He is kidnapped, taken to North Korea, thrown in jail, tortured…  If I had had a choice, I would have preferred to shoot one of the new Bond series, but I was invited to do the last one from the old Bonds. This means that I was facing the task of keeping all those death rays from space and making the film realistic nonetheless!”
The central characters of Tamahori’s films are virtually never women, which is no accident. 
“I understand men much more than I understand women; women I simply admire,” the director smiles. “All in all, women are much more complicated creatures than us men. One important thing that a woman should remember — and this is often neglected — is that a man normally has a difficulty doing several things at once. Nagging a guy when he is busy doing something is the best way to make him go nuts, too. 
“On the positive side, men are simply made and easily predictable. There is plenty of opportunity to take advantage of them!”

<i>“The Devil’s Double” is showing at local movie theaters from Thursday.</i>

TITLE: Raising money for Downside Up
AUTHOR: By Nicholas M. Burdman

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Imagine yourself riding a bicycle into Moscow’s Red Square amid a throng of cheering fans with your hands held high in the air. Local charity Downside Up is offering anyone that chance with its annual Charity Red Square Bike Ride.
The 16th annual ride runs Aug. 26 to 28 and — after a 166-kilometer journey through the Kaluga region — ends with a final stretch of six kilometers along the Moscow embankment and into Red Square.
Downside Up raises money for children born with Down syndrome. Each year nearly 2,500 children are born with the syndrome in Russia. Nearly 85 percent of those children, due to a general misunderstanding of the condition in the country, are rejected by their parents and never given a chance to fully flourish.
The entry cost for each adult in the race is 1,000 euros ($1,400). Even better, the price drops to only 3,000 euros when entering as a four-person team. The price includes accommodation, food, translation, bikes and helmets, as well as 24/7 support for the three-day affair. It also includes transportation both to and from the airport and to and from the venues.
Many of those who take part are backed by their work places. Others raise the money through sponsors.
“Not everyone has 1,000 euros for participation, but everyone has at least 100 friends on Facebook,” said Ksenia Chernyavskaya, fundraising manager at Downside Up.
The charity’s goal is to raise 11 million rubles ($395,000) from the ride. Since its inception 16 years ago, the Charity Red Square Bike Ride has raised more than 60 million rubles, boasting an alumni list of nearly 1,600 participants from more than 200 companies.
Many participants compete annually.
“It is great to see the faces of the children who are directly aided by Downside Up. It benefits our company as a vehicle for team building, but it is also fun,” said Denis van Diemen, who will take part in the race for the sixth time. “It is important, as well, to help those less fortunate than ourselves. It helps put our problems into perspective.”
Besides creating and disseminating literature concerned with how families can cope with a child suffering from Down syndrome, Downside Up also prepares children to successfully enter preschool, organizes group learning sessions, offers individual speech therapy sessions and provides psychological consultations aimed at arming parents with the tools they will need to maximize their child’s potential.
“Roughly 2,500 kids are connected in some way to the charity right now, and every month between 100 and 200 new families become involved,” Chernyavskaya said.
More than 150 people have already committed to participate.
Registration forms and a deposit of 10,000 rubles ($350) must be submitted no later than Aug. 8 for those wanting to take part.

<i>Charity Red Square Bike Ride takes place Aug. 26 to 28. To register, contact the Downside Up Charitable Fund, 14a 3rd Parkovaya Ulitsa, Moscow. Metro Izmailovskaya. 
Tel. (499) 367-0333, 
www.downsideup.org.</i>

TITLE: the word’s worth: Knocking on Wood and People
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ñòó÷àòü: knock, hit, bang, pound

Now that Awful August has begun, you’re likely to see a lot of people surreptitiously spitting over their left shoulder or knocking on wood to ward off the evil that tends to befall Russia this month. Being a good wood-knocker myself, I got interested in the word ñòó÷àòü (knock, pound, bang). With a few prefixes, you can give someone a good and varied pounding.
The unadorned ñòó÷àòü is what you use for superstitious rituals: ñòó÷àòü ïî äåðåâó (knock on or touch wood). Or what you do on a door, figuratively or literally: ß çíàþ, ÷òî åñëè ñòó÷àòü âî âñå âîçìîæíûå äâåðè, òåáå ãäå-òî îòêðîþò è ïîìîãóò (I know that if you knock on every possible door, somewhere someone will open it and help you). It’s also what rain does: Äîæäü ñòó÷èò â îêíî (Rain pounds against the window). Or what your heart and blood do when you are tense or upset: Êðîâü ñòó÷àëà â âèñêàõ (Blood pounded in his temple). ?
Ñòó÷àòü is also what wheels and heels do. Ãäå-òî î÷åíü äàëåêî ñòó÷àëè êîë¸ñà ýëåêòðè÷êè (The wheels of a train clanked far in the distance). Îí õîäèë ñî ìíîé ïî Ìîñêâå, ñòó÷à ïî òðîòóàðàì íîâûìè áîòèíêàìè (He walked around Moscow with me, the heels of his new boots clicking along the sidewalks). Now that Moscow’s sidewalks have been set with paving stones, clicking heels will be followed by curses as stilettos sink into mortar.
Ñòó÷àòü can also be used to indicate that someone is a snitch (ñòóêà÷ — literally “knocker”). The acting of denouncing someone is íàñòó÷àòü: Òû äàâàé êîí÷àé ñ ýòîé âðàæäåáíîé ïðîïàãàíäîé, à òî ÿ íà òåáÿ â îðãàíû íàñòó÷ó (Come on — shut up with the enemy propaganda, or I’ll rat on you to the authorities).
Çàñòóêàòü (stress on the second syllable) can mean to begin to knock, but it’s common to hear it in the sense of catching someone in an illicit or illegal act. Çàñòóêàòü ñâîþ íåâåñòó ñ äðóãèì è ðàçîðâàòü ïîìîëâêó — ýòî óæàñíî (Catching your fiancee with someone else and breaking off your engagement is a terrible thing). The deceived lover might çàñòóêàòü ðþìî÷êó (throw back a shot) — a rare expression yet a common instinct. ?
Ïðèñòóêèâàòü is the verb used for rapping an object against something or clicking one’s heels. Ïàðòí¸ðîì îí áûë çàâèäíûì: ïëÿñàë ëåãêî, ïðèñòóêèâàë êàáëó÷êàìè è íèêîìó íå íàñòóïàë íà íîãè (He was an enviable partner: He danced lightly, clicked his heels and didn’t step on anyone’s toes).
The adjective ïðèñòóêíóòûé can be used to refer to anything that has been pounded to death or almost to death, like ïðèñòóêíóòûé ïàëåö or òàðàêàí (smashed finger or cockroach). But in reference to people, ïðèñòóêíóòûé and ñòóêíóòûé mean weird or a little nuts. Òðåòèé äåíü õîæó êàê ïðèñòóêíóòûé. Ìîÿ æåíà áåðåìåííà! (For three days I’ve been walking around in a daze. My wife is pregnant!)
If someone is really strange, you can say he is ïûëüíûì ìåøêîì èç-çà óãëà ñòóêíóòûé (literally, “banged over the head with a dusty sack from around the corner”). The origin of this expression is odd. Since flour was once believed to have healing powers, a healer would put a dusty flour sack over an ill person’s head and rap on it to chase out evil spirits. Someone truly nutty endured this healing ritual with no apparent effect.
I wonder if we could find a flour sack big enough to cover Russia.

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

TITLE: They are what they eat
AUTHOR: By Janine Balekdjian
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Moscow may not be considered the culinary capital of the world, but recently 20 of the world’s best chefs met here to exchange recipes and tips on what to serve world leaders.
The gathering was the annual meeting of the Club des Chefs des Chefs, or Club of Leaders’ Chefs, the most exclusive culinary club in the world. Members must be the personal chef of a head of state or organizer of official banquets in countries where the head of state has no full-time chef. Only one chef per country is accepted, with the exception of China and Italy, which each maintain two top chefs. Currently, the club has just over 30 members.
The Club des Chefs des Chefs meets every year in a different country. This year’s meeting, the club’s first in Russia, was organized by Jerome Rigaud, executive chef of the Kremlin.
Gilles Bragard, the designer who founded the club in 1977, was on hand as the group of chefs, which he referred to as the “C-20,” met at the Ararat Park Hyatt hotel to take questions. In addition to Rigaud and Bragard, high-profile guests included Cristeta Comerford, chef to U.S. President Barack Obama, and Mark Flanagan, chef to Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.
“It is a big responsibility” to cook for the head of state, Bragard explained. The job consists not only of keeping the leader happy and well-nourished, but also keeping an eye on food security and cooking state dinners, where all parties’ dietary restrictions and preferences must be taken into account. A head chef “is in that way the ambassador of local cuisine and products.” Bragard summed up the importance of the position with a quote from 19th-century French diplomat Charles de Talleyrand: “Give me good chefs, and I will make good treaties.”
All the chefs are regularly asked: “What is your boss’s favorite food?” But that is their most closely guarded secret. Christian Garcia, chef to Prince Albert II of Monaco, said the prince enjoys Mediterranean food, but added that if any chef were to divulge the favorite dish of a head of state, that leader would be served that dish everywhere he or she travels. The other chefs kept mum even on a favorite type of cuisine.
Attention focused on specific dietary and preparation practices for various leaders. Comerford said the lessons of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign are taught at home as well. “One of our main roles as a chef is to make sure anything we stand for, any initiatives we promote, are something we do on the home front. Having a healthy meal at home is not that hard to do,” she said.
Comerford began working in the U.S. White House under President Bill Clinton and also served as head chef to President George W. Bush, making her position one of the few that does not change along party lines. One party is not more difficult to cook for than the other, she assures, nor has any of the presidents she has worked for been particularly picky. “They’re just regular people” who enjoy simple, nourishing foods “from your own pantry,” or, in the first lady’s case, from the kitchen garden, she said.
Rigaud said security around food at the Kremlin is high. All ingredients are analyzed in a lab for safety before they are used in food preparation. “Are they still fresh?” one reporter asked. They are, Rigaud replied.
Rigaud, a Frenchman who learned the trade in his home country, came to Russia nine years ago to work at El Dorado, a Mexican restaurant in Moscow. He has served as the official Kremlin chef under President Dmitry Medvedev for the past three years and has also cooked for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during that time.

TITLE: in the spotlight: King Crooner Stas Mikhailov
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Last week, Forbes magazine published its list of the highest-earning Russian stars in entertainment and sports, and the top place went to chanson singer-songwriter Stas Mikhailov — who was not even in last year’s rating.
Mikhailov earned $20 million last year, and his name was entered an amazing 14.4 million times on the Yandex search engine, Forbes wrote of the rating, which takes into account both earnings and perceived popularity.
He came ahead of tennis player Maria Sharapova in second place, and in third place Alla Pugachyova, queen of Russian pop.
Mikhailov, a slightly portly man with a cross hanging prominently on his chest above an unbuttoned shirt, tends to horrify music critics.
“Mikhailov just has nothing. All his songs are done with a flat restaurant-singer sound, all the tunes are similar, and all the lyrics have schoolboy errors of speech,” hipster magazine Afisha wrote in April, wrinkling its nose.
Originality may not be his strong point. Three of his hits are called “You,” “Without You”’ and “Everything for You.” It’s easy to scoff, but then again, one of his songs has been watched more than 12 million times on YouTube.
Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote that his rates for playing at a private party start at $100,000 — high even by Russian standards — and he lives in a Swiss chalet-style mansion on Rublyovskoye Shosse.
His genre, chanson, is big on songs about lives that went wrong, bad boys who want to go straight and the love of a good woman. It has little to do with French torch songs, despite the name. But Mikhailov is different from many chanson singers in that he does not sing about jail experiences and seems to be popular mainly among women.
“Mikhailov’s audience is women of a certain age,” Forbes wrote. “Songs about broken hearts, burning candles and the pain of infidelity gather full houses around the whole country.”
What makes Mikhailov stand out is that he does not belong to the old guard of pop stars. Until recently, he was rarely shown on television or mentioned in the press, and — like it or not — his popularity must be real.
Channel One is going to show one of his concerts on Aug. 14, prompting ecstatic comments on the channel’s web site. “I’m sick of those pop singers who all look the same. Stas Mikhailov is a personality. He has something to say,” wrote Inna from Moscow.
“Stanislav Vladimirovich’s songs are understandable to anyone. They bring light and joy to our life,” wrote Nelya from Samara.
I guess some of the snobbery comes from the fact that he comes from provincial Sochi and dropped out of music college in Tambov, according to Forbes. But lately he has received official recognition, being awarded the Honored Artist of Russia title last year by President Dmitry Medvedev. It’s an absurdity, but still the stamp of having made it in show business.
In an interview he gave to the 7 Dnei mass market television listings magazine, there are tear-jerking stories about how he gave up drinking after praying to an icon and how he took his sick baby son to a church where he was miraculously cured. Although somewhat incongruously, it also mentions that he is divorced and has had two children out of wedlock.
His partner Inna is the former wife of footballer Andrei Kanchelskis. They met in a restaurant after she went to a concert. “At that time Inna had divorced her husband and was a very wealthy woman, while Stas lived in a rented flat on the edge of the city,” 7 Dnei writes.
Komsomolskaya Pravda speculated whether she contributed to Mikhailov’s wealth. “People say he managed to become a millionaire with the help of his common-law wife, who invested the large sums she received from her divorce in promoting him,” it wrote.

TITLE: THE DISH: Ribeye
AUTHOR: By Elizabeth H. Stern
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>High Steaks</b><br />Ginza Project’s enormous and diverse restaurant empire now boasts a steakhouse. Ribeye opened in June on the first floor of the upscale former Vanity boutique on Kazanskaya Ulitsa whose top floor houses Ginza’s ever-popular Terrassa. The location, smack in the center of Petersburg, with terrace views of the Kazan Cathedral and nearby garden, can certainly not be faulted.
For Ginza’s trademark steep prices, and for a restaurant feigning Southern hospitality, the service on a recent visit was mediocre (at one point our waiter entirely disappeared), and the staff unwelcoming and unknowledgeable of their menu — especially considering that there were more waiters loitering around than patrons being served. 
Designed by Andrei Tsygankov, designer of the exclusive Moscow night club Diaghilev, Ribeye is a rather maladroit simulacrum of a Texan steakhouse — big, brash, but lacking in the kind of cheeky charm that makes these American-style institutions palatable. (Some more genuine, though unintended gun-slinging, lone star state-style was added by the presence of a bodyguard — apparently accompanying a glamorous young Russian couple — who sauntered around the terrace with a pistol tucked into the front of his jeans.) 
The interior and general atmosphere is a Russian reimagining of American kitsch for the so-called New Russians. The result is a tasteless amalgam of a restaurant: Oversized plaid couches meant to give a homey touch; canvas-stitched, rainbow-striped stuffed cowheads mounted on the walls; and a bar stretching the length of two sides of the cavernous dining hall, which can hold 350 patrons. The terrace is a more pleasant and intimate option in the summer. 
It is hard to find a proper steak in St Petersburg (the most obvious exception being the hallowed Stroganoff Steak House). The mains we tried — ribeye steak and grilled salmon — were both skillfully prepared and attractively, if simply, presented. The steak was succulent, flavorful and lean — everything you want in a good steak. At 1,340 rubles ($45), the ribeye is not cheap, but also not outrageous for a high quality steak, even in Texas (from where Ribeye’s steaks hail). Ribeye’s chef, while Russian, supposedly trained in the U.S., which accounts for the menu not being tailored to Russian tastes.
As its name suggests, Ribeye is a restaurant for meat-lovers, as even the salads (averaging 600 rubles, $20) are meat-heavy. Several cuts of steak are offered beside ribeye, such as filet mignon (1,640 rubles or $55 per 250 grams) and New York striploin (1,280 rubles or $43 per 400 grams). Ribeye also boasts New Zealand lamb (990 rubles, $33), Norwegian salmon (590 rubles, $20), pork steak cooked in orange-mustard sauce (650 rubles, $22) and American beef filet with spicy chocolate sauce (1,190 rubles, $40). 
The bill runs high very quickly by the time extras have been added, such as potatoes — with either cheese or truffle oil — for 150 to 220 rubles ($4 to $7), a steak sauce (which our waiter insisted was necessary) for an additional 120 rubles, or $4, a glass of red wine (the cheapest option an unexceptional French wine at 360 rubles, $12, for a 150-milliliter glass), and perhaps a dessert (the plum pie is a fresh choice after steak, priced at 350 rubles, or $12). 
Ribeye also offers its own “original” cocktails, priced at about 500 rubles ($16) a drink, along with a selection of fresh squeezed juices including cabbage juice, beetroot and strawberry, ranging from 200 to 950 rubles per glass ($7 to $32). 
A foreigner would find Ribeye a comfortable enough choice. Menus are offered in both English and Russian, and English-speaking staff are allegedly available. 
As bizarre the clientele, mediocre the service, incomprehensible the atmosphere, and high the prices, none of these, thankfully, affected the food, which comes highly recommended. Ribeye is a restaurant with a bit of an identity crisis in its regurgitation of American “culture” and cuisine for rich Russians, but it is surely a unique establishment on the Petersburg culinary landscape, and one of few places to satisfy where steak cravings can be satisfied. 
With a bit of imagination (or after a half bottle of Jim Beam) and a deep wallet, Ribeye might indeed offer some comfort to the homesick American ex-pat.

TITLE: Samara: Birthplace of Russian Beer
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky

PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Most Russians know Samara as the country’s aeronautics manufacturing capital. Far fewer would think of it as the birthplace of the nation’s beer industry — yet the local brand, whose history is a metaphor for the town as a whole, has become synonymous with beer itself.
At the height of its popularity, Zhigulyovskoye beer was produced by 735 factories across the Soviet Union. But the original, with its “inimitable taste,” is only made at the 130-year-old facility in Samara, said brewery president Yury Saprunov.
It was a long road full of ups and downs. Established in 1881 by Austrian businessman Alfred von Vacano, the facility was one of the first modern breweries in Europe at the time.
But Vacano was deported after Russian and Austrian soldiers found themselves in opposing foxholes during World War I, and in 1917, the Bolsheviks were quick to nationalize the brewery, along with the rest of the country’s privately owned industrial enterprises.
The original recipe, renamed from the “bourgeois”-sounding Venskoye (referring to the city of Vienna) to Zhigulyovskoye (a local range of hills), still brings a nostalgic smile to the faces of those old enough to drink in Soviet times. But the beer, often consumed with vodka, is valued for its ubiquitousness and price, not taste.
Now Samara brewers are trying to revive Vacano’s traditions, with their produce available for evaluation right next to the brewery at the Na Dne (On the Bottom) bar, where, according to former Deputy Mayor Mark Feigin, “you can feel the real spirit of Samara and hear the latest political gossip.”
The story of Zhigulyovskoye’s pedigree tells something about Samara in general. Born as a small frontier fort in 1586, the city grew into a transit center of national importance, did a brief stint as the country’s capital (one of many) during the Revolution, and finally evolved into an industrial center — thanks to World War II.
You can still see it in the streets, where pre-revolutionary buildings crowd next to hallmarks of the Soviet Union’s industrial might. It’s not always good for sightseeing but definitely benefits the economy, which, unlike the situation in many other old industrial strongholds, is still in good shape.
The city hosts several leading space industry companies, including Progress, which manufactures the Soyuz rocket — the only way to reach the International Space Station, now that U.S. space shuttles have been retired. There is also Aviakor aviation plant, controlled by Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element, which once produced Il-2 fighters for the Red Army and now cranks out civilian Tu-154M jets.
“Samara was a city of merchants that was turned into an industrial center when factories were evacuated here during World War II,” local political analyst Dmitry Loboiko said. The Soviet government relocated several thousand enterprises to the country’s eastern regions to prevent Nazi Germany from capturing them in 1941.
The locals are still watchful of the city’s heritage and how it is treated. When Samara authorities installed a hideous orange monument of an astronaut resembling a giant plastic toy downtown to mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight in April, it did not last a month before unidentified hooligans had a go at it. The sculpture was removed for repairs, and the perpetrators were never found.
<b>What to do if you have two hours</b>
Take a walk on the five-kilometer-long Samara embankment, a prime spot for weekend strolls, full of cozy cafes and terraces and surrounded with greenery that gives it a park-like vibe. “Here you can find respite from the summer heat, spend an evening or promenade with your girlfriend,” a local web site informs.
It was not always that way. The famous writer Maxim Gorky, who visited Samara as a newspaper reporter, was unimpressed: “A sign should be placed on Samara’s embankment, and the sign should read: ‘Anyone coming to Samara and hoping to find some culture, turn back, as the city is rude and poor.’”
But that was before the mid-1930s, when the modern embankment was built, so perhaps some time on a bench under a shady tree would have elicited a better write-up from him now.
No trip to Samara can be considered complete without a visit to the famous Iversky Convent. Built in 1850, it is an architectural treasure, with its fame further boosted by the nuns’ sewing skills.

<b>What to do if you have two days</b>
Samara’s Space Museum, named after Sergei Korolev, father of the Russian space program, is surely worth a visit. Exhibitions feature models of satellites and rockets, many produced at Samara’s factories, along with rare documents on space history (21 Prospekt Lenina, +7 846-263-39-35, +7 846-263-39-36).
One unusual museum is the so-called Stalin’s bunker — a larger-than-life piece of real estate located 37 meters below the ground. The bunker was built in 1942 as a reserve hideout for the Soviet leader in case the government ever had to evacuate from Moscow, though Stalin never really stayed here. If he had, he could have enjoyed sitting at a mammoth table covered with green cloth or napped on his personal sofa, both relics of the Soviet bureaucracy’s idea of comfort and prestige. (167 Ulitsa Frunze, +7 846-33-44-33, +7 846-33-49-68. Visits need to be booked in advance.)

<b>Nightlife</b>
LUST is Samara’s premium nightclub, a popular getaway for the city’s rich and famous. The club has a high-tech interior and live music (2 Dachnaya Ulitsa, +7 846-266-89-99).
Rock lovers are advised to descend into Podval (Cellar), which often hosts concerts of local and foreign rock bands (46 Galaktionovskaya Ulitsa, +7 846-332-92-83). If you want to both dine and dance, visit the Jam restaurant and dancing club (17 Ulitsa Bratyev Korostelyovykh, +7 846-247-62-00, jam-club.ru).
The Gorky Drama Theater is one of Russia’s best. Company member Vera Yershova in 1995 became the first actress not from the twin capitals to receive the prestigious Golden Mask award (1 Chapayev Square, +7 846-333-33-48, dramtheatre.ru).

<b>Where to eat</b>
The Yar restaurant, located inside a wooden building that also houses a hotel of the same name, offers a mix of European and traditional Russian dishes. It is popular with the local elite and celebrity guests coming to town, including pop star Vera Brezhneva, who praised the place. (23 Ulitsa Lesnaya, +7 846-277-90-09, +7 846-265-51-16, yar-samara.ru)
U Palycha, a chain spreading through the country, originated in Samara. It focuses on Russian cuisine so do not miss the trademark pelmeni and blini, made from handed-down recipes. The impressive list of patrons ranges from pop diva Alla Pugachyova to the British hard rock greats of old, Uriah Heep. (4 Proyezd Maltseva, +7 846 276-72-76, palich.ru).
If you like Georgian food, visit U Khanumi. A decent place with a cozy interior, it’s deservedly popular with the locals. (7 Ulitsa Zoi Kosmodemyanskoi, +7 846-952-64-66).

<b>Where to stay</b>
Renaissance Samara-Marriott, the first international hotel in the Samara region, is situated in a strategic location downtown. Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov stayed there during his first visit to Samara as an opposition politician. Prices range from 5,000 to 22,000 rubles ($180 to $790), depending on the size and the class of the room. (162 Ulitsa Bolshaya Novo-Sadovaya, +7 846-277-83-40, renaissancesamarahotel.ru).
If you want to stay away from the sacramental hustle and bustle of a big city, try the Troi residence hotel, a two-story building that also houses a restaurant with its own bakery. Prices range from 2,600 to 4,500 rubles ($93 to $160) per night. (17 Srednyaya Sadovaya Ulitsa, +7 846-997-08-08).

<b>Conversation starters</b>
Football is a good one, as the local Krylya Sovetov, who play in the Premier League, are a source of pride and joy for many Samara residents. Samara also made the shortlist of cities to host games of the 2018 football World Cup. But please don’t mention the popular Russian folk song “Samara the little town” — here, it’s a cliche and bad taste.
How to get there
Trains from St. Petersburg to Samara depart every other day from the Moscow Train Station. The journey takes 31 hours and costs 4,300 rubles one way. Samara’s own railway station, built in 2001, looks very modern and adds to the city’s pride by being the tallest railway station building in Europe.
There are daily flights to Samara from Pulkovo I airport. A one-way economy-class ticket on Aeroflot costs 4,800 rubles, and the flight lasts two hours 35 minutes. 
<hr>
<b>Samara</b>

Population: 1.16 million 
(sixth biggest city in Russia)

Main industries: space and aviation, metallurgy, oil refining, food processing

Founded: 1568

Interesting Fact 1: Samara’s metro, built in 1980, has only nine stations.

Interesting Fact 2: In June 1918, Samara was proclaimed capital of the Russian Republic by anti-Bolshevik forces but held the title for a mere three years. In 1935, it was rechristened Kuibyshev after prominent Bolshevik Valerian Kuibyshev. It kept that name until 1991.

Helpful contacts: Mayor Dmitry Azarov (+7 846-332-20-68). 
• Deputy Mayor Alexander Karpushkin, head of the economic development department 
(+7 846-332-65-48).

Sister cities: Vitebsk, Belarus; 
St. Louis, United States; Stuttgart, Germany; Stara Zagora, Bulgaria; Palermo, Italy.

<b>Major Businesses</b>

• Progress (18 Ulitsa Zemetsa 
+7 846-955-13-61, 
samspace.ru). 
The company manufactures satellites and Soyuz space rockets. It is also currently designing a new rocket to launch satellites from the Kuru launching pad in Guiana.

• Samarsky metallurgical plant 
(29 Ulitsa Alma-Atinskaya, 
+7 846-958-94-82). 
The company, founded in mid-1940s, was one of the biggest aluminum makers in the Soviet Union. It became part of U.S.-based Alcoa in 2005. 

• Samara Elektroshield (Krasnaya Gorka, +7 846-373-50-06, 
+7 846-276-28-08). The company, which produces electrical equipment products, has recently entered into a joint partnership with France’s Schneider Electric. The French company said the partnership would help Electroshield enter the global market while strengthening Schneider Electric’s position in Russia. 

• Samara chocolate factory 
(257 Prospekt Kirova, 
+7 846-999-05-20). 
The factory, which produced some of the best Soviet-era chocolate brands, was purchased 
by Nestle in 1994 and carries on the trade.
<hr>
<b><i>Dmitry Azarov, Samara mayor</i></b>

<b><i>Q: How is Samara attractive to foreign investors? </i></b>
A: We’ve always had a strong economic position, both in the Volga Federal District and on a national level. Samara has a very convenient geographical location, significant scientific and technological potential, a developed market infrastructure and a lot of business activity.
We are currently drafting a strategic plan of city development through 2025, to be completed next year, and I believe this document will give a significant boost to the investment climate in Samara.
Our city is also competing to be a host city for matches of the 2018 football World Cup. If we make it, it would lead to drastic transformation of the city infrastructure, so we expect investors in various areas, including the hotel industry, transportation and real estate. Besides, we have big plans for preservation and renovation of the old part of the city with its unique architecture.

<b><i>Q: How can Samara attract more tourists? </i></b>
A: Admittedly, Samara throughout its history never was a tourist destination; it was even a “closed city” in Soviet times, due to space industry enterprises being located here. But our rocket industry is itself a hallmark of the city, and there are more. Samara has a rich past that gave us many things to be proud of: Our Volga embankment, our beaches, our historical monuments and the annual Grushinsky festival of bard songs, which takes place near the city. We hope to promote these things to make the city more open and attractive to tourists.


TITLE: Nuclear Vote Not Option In Exclave 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Kaliningrad residents won’t get a chance to vote on whether they want a nulcear power plant in their backyard.
The Baltic exclave’s legislature has blocked a public referendum on the construction of a nuclear power plant, Interfax reported Monday.
Deputies agreed that a regional referendum was “impossible” because nuclear policy is the prerogative of the federal government, the report said, citing the legislature’s press service.
A representative for the group opposing construction of the Baltic Nuclear Power Plant told Interfax that it would challenge the lawmakers’ decision in court.
Rosatom began work on the plant, which will serve the Kaliningrad region and neighboring Baltic states, in February 2010.
Local opposition to the construction has been pushing for a referendum on the project since April. A campaign group sent the regional legislature a request to name the date of the referendum in July.
Lithuanian Foreign Minster Audronius Azubalis called for public consultations on construction of the power plant in line with the Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment, to which Russia is a signatory, during a meeting with Kaliningrad Governor Nikolai Tsukanov on Sunday.

TITLE: Bushehr Nuclear Plant Sees More Delays
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian lawmaker said the country’s first nuclear power plant will not be on line by late August as planned and blamed the delay on Russia, which is building the facility, local media reported Monday.
The disclosure by Asgar Jalalian, a member of a special parliamentary committee for the Bushehr nuclear plant, reflects the continued difficulties Iran has faced in moving forward with its controversial nuclear program.
The 1,000-megawatt plant, being built in the southern port city of Bushehr, has experienced repeated delays and pressure by the United States and its allies, which are convinced that the program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful uses such as power generation.
The plant is being built by Russia’s Rosatom and was to be finished by 1999, four years after the state corporation began construction of the $1 billion facility.
Jalalian, in comments carried by the reformist daily Aftab, blamed his country’s Russian partner for the latest delays. He said the committee on which he serves has determined that the late August startup deadline will be missed and said they had handed over a report dealing with the issue to the Iranian parliament.
“We believe the Russians are not being honest … about the plant,” Jalalian said. He urged Iranian officials to clarify the terms of the deal through “transparent and firm talks, without any ‘buts’ or ‘ifs.’”
Jalalian said Iran had already paid at least twice more than the planned construction costs on the project, and additional funds are being demanded.
The contracts with the Russians have no “clear financial ceiling, timetable and end date,” he said, also claiming that the Russian partner had reneged on a promise to transfer technology to Iran, as promised in the deal.
Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said the company had no comment.
It was unclear when the full parliament would review the committee’s report on the delay or what steps they might take. But the report is the first issued at such a high level to be circulated among Iranian officials.
The Bushehr project dates back to 1974, when Iran’s U.S.-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi contracted with the German company Siemens to build the reactor. The company withdrew from the project after the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought hard-line clerics to power.
In 1992, Iran signed a $1 billion deal with Russia to complete the project, and work began in 1995. Since then, the project has been beset by problems linked to construction and supply glitches.
Iranian officials have acknowledged that a malicious computer worm infected laptops belonging to Bushehr employees last year, but denied that the Stuxnet worm had affected the facility. Tehran later blamed the United States and Israel for being behind the malicious software, saying it was part of a covert plan by Iran’s enemies to sabotage its nuclear program.
Western nations have imposed sanctions on Iran over its uranium enrichment program.
Russia delivered 82 metric tons of fuel for the reactor in eight shipments in 2007-08. That amount is enough for one year of operations in Bushehr’s light-water reactor. But in February, Russia ordered the removal of that fuel due to concerns that metal particles might be contaminating fuel assemblies. Reloading began in April.
The delays at Bushehr have hurt relations with Moscow and prompted Iranian officials to describe Russia as an “unreliable partner.”

TITLE: FSB Releases New Information on Raoul Wallenberg
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: AMSTERDAM — Federal Security Service archivists have published new material from a German officer imprisoned after World War II who shared a cell with Raoul Wallenberg, the missing Swedish diplomat credited with rescuing tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews.
Publication of the statements from Willy Roedel came as a surprise since the Russians had previously denied they existed, two independent scholars who have researched the Wallenberg mystery for decades said in a paper released last week.
That raises suspicions that Moscow may be withholding information that could help solve the 66-year-old puzzle of Wallenberg’s arrest and disappearance in the gulag, the vast Soviet network of prisons, labor camps and mental asylums, said German researcher Susanne Berger and Russian scholar Vadim Birstein, who were members of the Swedish-Russian Working Group that conducted a 10-year investigation during the 1990s.
Wallenberg, hailed as one of the great heroes of the Holocaust, would turn 99 this month and is almost certainly dead. But a determined group of relatives, scholars and admirers continue to search for any clue about his path through an opaque prison system that still remains largely hidden 20 years after the Soviet collapse.
The Russians maintain that Wallenberg was executed July 17, 1947, but the working group said in its 2000 report there is strong evidence suggesting he lived many years as a prisoner under a different identity or known only by a number, perhaps as late as the 1980s.
From the start, researchers sought information about his known cellmates, including Roedel, a former political adviser to the German ambassador to Romania, but with little success.
Now, Roedel’s statements are included in a book, “Secrets of the Third Reich Diplomacy,” containing interrogation transcripts or protocols from about two dozen imprisoned German diplomats. It was published this year by archivists of the Federal Security Service, or FSB.
The statements predated Roedel’s two years as Wallenberg’s cellmate from March 1945 to March 1947, and their content sheds little new light on the Swede’s fate. But their mere existence is important, the researchers said.
During the working group’s investigation, Russian officials “routinely insisted that no records of Roedel’s interrogations had been preserved. Therefore, we were enormously surprised when we came across a new book,” they said.
These statements “are the clearest sign yet that Russian archives still contain critically important documents in the Wallenberg case that have not been released,” the researchers said. Roedel died under questionable circumstances in October 1947.
In the statements, Roedel describes the activities of Gustav Richter, a German police attache who worked with the Romanian government on “the Jewish question,” Berger and Birstein said. When Wallenberg was arrested, he was put in a cell with Richter for six weeks.
“Of course, it was intentional,” Berger said by e-mail. Richter would later be interrogated about Wallenberg, she said.
Roedel’s two statements, comprising about seven pages, were drawn from an unpublished 549-page investigative file, and their page numbers point to the possible existence of 57 more pages that the Russians have not released.
“These pages may include information about R.W.’s time in prison and possibly his future fate,” Berger said. “Ultimately, this shows that Russian officials cannot be believed when they say that they have no further documentation.”
The Federal Security Service did not immediately respond to questions submitted in writing on July 27 about the existence of the 57 pages that appear to be missing or about its decision to publish the Roedel transcripts now.
No official reason was ever given for Wallenberg’s arrest in January 1945 in Budapest by the Soviet Red Army.
During the previous six months, Wallenberg had distributed Swedish travel documents to about 20,000 Jews threatened with deportation to death camps, and dissuaded the Germans from their plan to obliterate the Budapest ghetto with 70,000 Jews.
The book was the second recent revelation related to Wallenberg from the FSB.
Last year, the agency’s archivists told Berger and Birstein that a man identified only as Prisoner No. 7, who was interrogated six days after Wallenberg’s reported death, was “with great likelihood” the Swedish diplomat. That report supported the long-held belief that the official account of Wallenberg’s death was false.
Wallenberg’s defiance of the Nazis, his disappearance and purported “sightings” of him in the gulag have made him a folk hero and the subject of dozens of books and documentaries.
The mystery deepened after the CIA acknowledged in the 1990s that he had been recruited for his rescue mission by the CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services, and that much of his operating funds came from the United States, including money from a discretionary fund of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

TITLE: 560 Arrested in London As Riots Rock U.K. Capital
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Britons swept up, patched up and feared further violence Tuesday, demanding police do more to protect them after three nights of rioting left looted stores, torched cars and blackened buildings across London and several other U.K. cities.
Police said they were working full-tilt, but found themselves under attack — from rioters roaming the streets, from a scared and worried public, and from politicians whose cost-cutting is squeezing police numbers ahead of next year’s Olympic Games.
London’s Metropolitan Police force vowed an unprecedented operation to stop more rioting, flooding the streets Tuesday with 16,000 officers, nearly three times Monday’s total.
Although the riots started Saturday with a protest over a police shooting, they have morphed into a general lawlessness that police have struggled to halt with ordinary tactics. Police in Britain generally avoid tear gas, water cannons or other strong-arm riot measures. Many shops targeted by looters had goods that youths would want anyway — sneakers, bikes, electronics, leather goods — while other buildings were torched apparently just for the fun of seeing something burn.
Police said plastic bullets were “one of the tactics” being considered to stop the looting. The bullets were common in Northern Ireland durings its years of unrest but have never before been used in mainland Britain.
But police acknowledged they could not guarantee there would be no more violence. Stores, offices and nursery schools in several parts of London closed early amid fears of fresh rioting Tuesday night.
“We have lots of information to suggest that there may be similar disturbances tonight,” Commander Simon Foy told the BBC. “That’s exactly the reason why the Met (police force) has chosen to now actually really ‘up the game’ and put a significant number of officers on the streets.”
The riots and looting caused heartache for Londoners whose businesses and homes were torched or looted, and a crisis for police and politicians already staggering from a spluttering economy and a scandal over illegal phone hacking by a tabloid newspaper that has dragged in senior politicians and police.
“The public wanted to see tough action. They wanted to see it sooner and there is a degree of frustration,” said Andrew Silke, head of criminology at the University of East London.
London’s beleaguered police force called the violence the worst in memory, noting they received more than 20,000 emergency calls on Monday — four times the normal number. Scotland Yard has called in reinforcements from around the country and asked all volunteer special constables to report for duty.
Police launched a murder inquiry after a man found with a gunshot wound during riots in the south London suburb of Croydon died of his injuries Tuesday. Police said 44 officers and 14 members of the public were hurt, including a man in his 60s with life-threatening injuries.
So far over 560 people have been arrested in London and over 100 charged, and the capital’s prison cells were overflowing. Several dozen more were arrested in other cities.
Prime Minister David Cameron — who cut short a holiday in Italy to deal with the crisis — recalled Parliament from its summer recess for an emergency debate on the riots and looting that have spread from the deprived London neighborhood of Tottenham to districts across the capital, and the cities of Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol.
Cameron described the scenes of burning buildings and smashed windows as “sickening,” but refrained from tougher measures such as calling in the military to help police restore order.
“People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain’s streets and to make them safe for the law-abiding,” Cameron told reporters after a crisis meeting at his Downing Street office.
Parliament will return to duty on Thursday, as the political fallout from the rampage takes hold. The crisis is a major test for Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition government.
A soccer match scheduled for Wednesday between England and the Netherlands at London’s Wembley stadium was canceled to free up police officers for riot duty.
A wave of violence and looting raged across London on Monday night, as authorities struggled to contain the country’s worst unrest since race riots set the capital ablaze in the 1980s. Groups of young people rampaged for a third straight night, setting buildings, vehicles and garbage dumps alight, looting stores and pelting police officers with bottles and fireworks.
Rioters, able to move quickly and regroup to avoid the police, were left virtually unchallenged in several neighborhoods, plundering stores at will.
Silke said until police were seen arresting large numbers of rioters, it will be hard to control the rioting.
“People are seeing images of lines of police literally running away from rioters,” he said. “For young people that is incredibly empowering. They are breaking the rules, they are getting away with it, no one is able to stop them.”
Politicians visited riot sites Tuesday — but for many residents it was too little, too late.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was booed by crowds who shouted “Go home!” during a walkabout in Birmingham, while London mayor Boris Johnson — who flew back overnight from his summer vacation — was heckled on a shattered shopping street in Clapham, south London.
Johnson said the riots would not stop London “welcoming the world to our city” for the Olympics.
“We have time in the next 12 months to rebuild, to repair the damage that has been done,” he said. “I’m not saying it will be done overnight, but this is what we are going to do.”
Violence first broke out late Saturday in the low-income, multiethnic district of Tottenham in north London, after a protest against the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four who was gunned down in disputed circumstances Thursday.
Police said Duggan was shot dead when officers from Operation Trident — the unit that investigates gun crime in the black community — stopped a cab he was riding in.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating the shooting, said a “non-police firearm” was recovered at the scene. But the Guardian newspaper reported that a bullet in the officer’s radio was police-issue, indicating Duggan may not have fired at the officer.
On Tuesday, as Londoners emerged with brooms to help sweep the streets of broken glass, many called for police to use water cannons, tear gas or rubber bullets to disperse rioters, or bring out the military for support. Although security forces in Northern Ireland regularly use all those methods, they have not been seen on the mainland in decades.
Conservative lawmaker Patrick Mercer said that policy should be reconsidered.
“They should have the tools available and they should use them if the commander on the ground thinks it’s necessary,” he said.
But the government rejected the calls, for now.
“The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon,” Home Secretary Theresa May told Sky News. “The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.”
The riots could not have come at a worse time for police, a year before the Olympic Games, which Scotland Yard says will be the biggest challenge in its 182-year history.

TITLE: 22 Left Dead by New Syrian Army Raids 
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIRUT — The Syrian army launched raids on restive areas Tuesday, defying growing international reproach over the regime’s deadly crackdown on a 5-month-old uprising as Turkey’s foreign minister met with President Bashar Assad to express his concern.
Envoys from India, Brazil and South Africa also headed to Damascus to press for an end to the violence, which activists say killed 22 people Tuesday and some 1,700 since March.
The visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is significant because Ankara until recently had close ties to Damascus. But Turkey has become increasingly critical of its neighbor over the bloodshed. Assad and Davutoglu talked for a little more than two hours, according to Turkey’s state-run news agency. Neither leader spoke after the meeting.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said Assad told Davutoglu the Syrian government will be relentless in its pursuit of “terrorist groups” to safeguard stability and security in the country. He also pledged to press ahead with reforms.
Syrian authorities blame the unrest on extremist and terrorist groups seeking to destabilize the country, as opposed to true-reform seekers. The largely peaceful demonstrations started out with demands for reforms, but now protesters say they want nothing less than the downfall of the regime.
Assad’s promises of reform have rung hollow, especially since they have been coupled with a bloody campaign against unarmed protesters, and opposition leaders say they have lost confidence in the regime and are demanding an end to the military crackdown before anything else.
Human rights groups said Tuesday that at least 22 people, including several children, were killed across Syria Tuesday.
Tanks stormed villages outside the besieged city of Hama and two towns in Idlib province, which borders Turkey, activists said.
A rights activist near Hama said military operations in the town of Tibet el-Imam just north of the city killed at least five children, four of them from the same family.
“They were playing in the fields when they were struck by gunfire,” the activist said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
There was heavy machine-gun fire and reports of at least three deaths in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, which also has been a flashpoint in recent days. Four people were also killed in the town of Binnish in the north, and several others in the central city of Homs.
The reports were confirmed by the activist network the Local Coordination Committees and the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syria has blocked nearly all outside witnesses to the violence by banning foreign media and restricting local coverage that strays from the party line that the regime is fighting thugs and religious extremists who are acting out a foreign conspiracy.

TITLE: U.S. Rep Attends Memorial For Nagasaki For First Time
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO — The United States sent a representative for the first time Tuesday to the annual memorial service for victims of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, one of two nuclear attacks that led Japan to surrender in World War II.
The U.S. bombing of Nagasaki 66 years ago killed some 80,000 people. Three days earlier, the U.S. had dropped another atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing up to 140,000.
U.S. Charge d’Affaires James P. Zumwalt, the first American representative to attend the Nagasaki memorial service, said in a statement that President Barack Obama hoped to work with Japan toward his goal “of realizing a world without nuclear weapons” — a commitment Japan has made repeatedly since the war.
Obama last year sent Ambassador John Roos to the 65th anniversary of the bombing in Hiroshima, and Roos visited Nagasaki twice last year on other dates, according to the U.S. Embassy in Japan.
Zumwalt joined Nagasaki’s residents and mayor on Tuesday in observing a moment of silence at 11:02 a.m. — the moment the bomb dropped on the city on Aug. 9, 1945, in the closing days of the war. Six days later Japan surrendered.
As in past years, a bell rang out in a prayer for peace, and bomb victims who were children during the attack sang a song called “Never Again.”
Mayor Tomihisa Taue called on Japan to change its nuclear policy and reject not just atomic weapons but also nuclear power.