SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1673 (35), Wednesday, September 7, 2011
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TITLE: Police Allegedly Involved in Attack at Gay Bar
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Visitors to a gay club in the center of St. Petersburg were allegedly attacked by plainclothes policemen at the weekend.  
Three of the victims have reported the incident to the police, while a fourth is in the process of doing so, according to one of the victims.
Three men entered the Golubaya Ustritsa club, located at 1 Ulitsa Lomonosova, in the early hours of Sunday morning, reportedly presenting police ID to the club’s security, and proceeded to attack visitors to the club who were dancing on the dancefloor and standing near the bar. 
The club’s management later passed surveillance camera videos and photographs to the media.
“It looked as though it’s simply a form of leisure for these three people who came to the club —fighting with whomever they can,” one of the victims, Ignat Fialkovsky, said to The St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday.
“But because nobody in the club wanted to fight them, they’d attack one person after another, hoping that somebody would fight back.” He added that five people were beaten up in the process.
The most aggressive attacker shouted “VDV,” Fialkovsky said. The acronym VDV stands for the Russian Airborne Troops, who have a reputation for being particularly macho.
Fialkovsky said, however, that the attackers did not shout any homophobic insults.
“My impression is that it was not a homophobic attack, but rather simply violent behavior by drunk policemen who think they can get away with anything,” he said.
The video from the dance floor shows a crowd of people dancing, then hurrying to the corners or out of the room as the attackers start beating people.
According to Fialkovsky, the attackers were part of a larger group of 10 or 11 men, but the other members of the group went to two bars next door.
Fialkovsky said that the local media had exaggerated the injuries sustained, reporting hospitalized victims. 
“Luckily, the incident passed without serious injuries; no ambulance was called, nor was anybody hospitalized,” he said.
He said that four or five people had been beaten, while five more received passing blows to the face.
“Counting them, there were 10 victims,” Fialkovsky said.
The club’s management called the police as soon as the men attacked the clubbers, but no police officers arrived at the scene. 
The attackers seemingly had no fear of the police. After the attack they did not leave, but stood outside the club smoking.
The video from outside the club shows the men attacking another man in the street after leaving the club, punching and kicking him and then holding up their fists after the man managed to sneak inside the club and its security apparently locked the door.
Fialkovsky added that the police had identified the attackers and unofficially confirmed they were police officers.
“The investigators told me they know these people,” he said. “I saw these people myself yesterday — near police precinct no. 28.”
The police said Tuesday that a preliminary inquiry into the incident was underway, while a criminal case is being considered.

TITLE: Professors Go On Trial for Espionage
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg City Court is due to start hearing what is going to become one of the most resonant treason and espionage cases in the city since the 1996-1999 saga of the environmentalist Alexander Nikitin, a researcher for the Norwegian ecological organization Bellona who was accused of passing classified information to Norway’s secret service. 
Yevgeny Afanasiev and Svyatoslav Bobyshev are professors at the city’s State Military Mechanical University who both spent several months in China in 2009, lecturing at the Polytechnical University in Harbin. Prosecutors now allege that in April and May 2009, both professors passed classified information and revealed state secrets to the Chinese secret service. The General Prosecutor’s Office approved the charges on Sept. 2, and officially forwarded the case to court.
The trial will be closed to the public. The date of the first hearing has not yet been announced.
Both professors deny their involvement in any criminal activity. They maintain they were only giving lectures at a university in Harbin, and stress that all aspects of the teaching process, including the contents of their lectures, had been approved and kept under control by the administration of the Military Mechanical University.
The scientists, who were arrested in March this year, are charged with treason in the form of espionage (Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code). The charges carry lengthy jail terms, and Afanasiev and Bobyshev have been kept in custody since their arrest.
The eminent human rights lawyer Yury Schmidt, who also represented jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said that if convicted, the scientists will face between 12 and 20 years in jail. 
“During the past decade, similar charges have been brought with success against a number of scholars and researchers across Russia,” Schmidt said. “There is a tendency to make the punishment tougher: Those sentenced now are receiving more substantial prison terms compared to similar cases 10 years ago.”
The most recent espionage scandal involving a Russian scientist occurred in 2007, when Moscow academic Igor Reshetin, general director of the Central Machinery Construction Research Institution, was sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in a penal colony for passing technology to China. Reshetin admitted sharing the technology with his Chinese counterparts, but argued that the materials were not classified, but on the contrary were allowed to be exported and discussed with foreign partners.
In 2003, Krasnoyarsk physicist Valentin Danilov was sentenced to 13 years in a colony on espionage charges. The prosecution claimed that the scholar passed state secrets to China.
From 1996 to 2000, Schmidt successfully defended the researcher and ecologist Alexander Nikitin, who remains the only person to have won a treason or espionage case against the country’s security services in the history of the U.S.S.R. and modern Russia.
Until 1985, Alexander Nikitin served as a naval captain in the Soviet Northern Fleet, where he worked as a chief engineer on nuclear powered submarines. In 1995, Nikitin wrote an analytical report for Bellona on the potential environmental hazards of radioactive waste and decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines, specifically, in northern Russia. The report resulted in him being charged with high treason.

TITLE: Twittering Official Resigns From Post 
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Konstantin Zheludkov, head of the city’s Petrogradsky district, has become the first government official to leave his position since the new St. Petersburg governor Georgy Poltavchenko took office.
Zheludkov, who was known as the city district head most open to interacting with the media, regularly communicating with both journalists and local residents via his Twitter account, left his post unexpectedly on Sept. 1., the same day that Poltavchenko took office. There is no evidence that Poltavchenko had anything to do with Zheludkov’s decision to quit.
“It was a tough move for me,” Zheludkov wrote on Twitter in explanation of his resignation. “However, it’s a conscious step. Those who know will understand; those who don’t will condemn…I was putting my heart and soul into everything,” he wrote.
The new governor in turn answered a question about Zheludkov’s resignation via his Twitter account, saying “it was not his way to hinder people who believed they had found a more interesting occupation.”
On Monday, the news broke that Zheludkov had begun working at the federal construction agency Spetzstroi to supervise construction in Russia’s northwestern federal region, Business New Agency (ABN) reported.
Zheludkov, 40, took over as head of the Petrogradsky district just six months ago, on March 1, replacing former head Alexei Delyukin, who was redeployed to the city’s Energy Committee. 
Delyukin reportedly had to resign because of failures in the district regarding the clearing of snow during the winter. The eminent St. Petersburg doctor Irina Ganelina, mother of the celebrated city historian Lev Lurie, was killed by a snowplow last winter on the Petrograd Side of the city.
Zheludkov regularly discussed the district’s problems with residents via Twitter, and went to inspect the attics of old buildings in the area with reporters, earning him popularity among some residents, who also reported that it was easy to get an appointment with him in order to discuss their problems. 
Zheludkov also made his deputies open Twitter accounts and report on the work they were doing.
His brief reign was not entirely scandal-free, however. The Petrovsky municipal district where controversial elections took place on Aug. 21, in which Valentina Matviyeko garnered an unusually high percentage of votes, is also located in his district.
Zheludkov became embroiled in another scandal on Aug. 18 when he accused a group of St. Petersburg reporters of vandalism and of setting fire to a monument to Peter the Great located in front of the district’s administration building. Activists of The Other Russia political party had that day held a protest near the bust of Peter the Great during which a flare had been set off. It was unclear what prompted Zheludkov to accuse the reporters present at the event of vandalism via his Twitter account.
The unexpected departure of Zheludkov divided many of the district’s residents, some of whom began a campaign on Twitter calling for his return.
Zheludkov called on them to halt their campaign, saying he had quit his job of his own accord, Novaya Gazeta reported.

TITLE: Dogs Attacked at Military Base
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova 
TEXT: Seven dogs were killed and three wounded in what appears to be one of the most shocking cases of violence against animals in the region in recent years.
During the night of Aug. 26, residents of a village in Toksovo, a residential area 20 kilometers to the north of St. Petersburg, heard what they described as alarming sounds resembling gun shots coming from the vicinity of a nearby army base, military detachment no. 42289. A few hours later, the scene that they discovered, together with Andrei Volkov, head of the “Drug” (Friend) charitable foundation devoted to protecting animal rights, and Svetlana Los, head of the “The Right To Live” non-governmental organization, was horrifying.
“The empty cages where the dogs were once kept were covered in blood, and some soldiers were busy cleaning up and washing the blood away,” Los said. “There were two wounded dogs lying there. Apparently, one of the dogs had run away. We knew from local residents that there had been 10 dogs at the detachment. The locals would often come and feed the pets.”
Nora and Bely, the two dogs that survived the massacre, are now undergoing medical treatment and rehabilitation at a veterinary clinic in St. Petersburg. Bely underwent an operation to remove a bullet from his jaw.
“Both dogs have lost a lot of weight; when we found them, one of the poor creatures, Nora, was almost bald: apparently, all her fur had been cut off,” Volkov said. “Bely cannot eat unassisted because of the wound in his jaw.”
The killings of the dogs at the army base has sent shockwaves through the local community far beyond animal rights advocates.
Human rights advocates have sent a petition to Russia’s Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office asking it to take the investigation of the killings under its control, Volkov said, adding that he had received information about the alleged killing of 16 dogs at a military base in the village of Kirillovskoye in the Leningrad Oblast. 
“This brutal and senseless crime does not even have an apparent motive: Dogs do not make for dangerous witnesses as they can’t communicate,” reads the petition, signed by Volkov and Los. 
A preliminary investigation into the incident has so far yielded mixed results. Speaking to reporters on Sept. 1, Andrei Bobrun, the press secretary of the western military district, denied any involvement by the district’s officers or soldiers in the killings. He maintained that the dogs were simply moved to another detachment. A day later, the military investigations department of the Russian Investigative Committee in St. Petersburg concluded that the dog massacre in Toksovo did take place, and on Tuesday, the committee opened a criminal case under the laws governing the treatment of animals.
The Investigative Committee is also looking into the allegations of dog killings in Kirillovskoye.
Volkov and Los filmed the empty, bloodstained cages and a wounded dog, and submitted the video to Russia’s Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office. 

TITLE: Queen Margrethe II Makes Official Visit
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II and other members of the Danish royal family will visit St. Petersburg and Moscow this week.
The queen will make her first official visit to Russia in the company of her French-born husband Prince Henrik and their eldest son Crown Prince Frederik, City Hall’s press service said.
After spending two days in Moscow, the royals will come to St. Petersburg to take part in a number of official events, including an official dinner given by the city governor, as well as their own reception.
They will also attend the signing of several contracts between the Danish shipping company Maersk and a number of Russian companies. The signing of the documents will take place on board the royal yacht Dannebrog, which arrived in the city on Tuesday. The yacht will serve as the queen’s royal residence during her stay in the city.
Queen Margrethe is also set to visit the Baltika brewery, a center for cancer patients and the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where the Danish Princess Dagmar, known in Russia as Empress Maria Fyodorovna, was reburied several years ago. 
Empress Maria Fyodorovna was the wife of Russia’s Tsar Alexander III and the mother of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II. She left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and was buried in Denmark after her death. In 2005, the Russian and Danish governments agreed to bring her remains back to St. Petersburg to rebury her next to her husband, with whom she had wished to be buried.
Queen Margrethe will dedicate a large part of her program in St. Petersburg to visiting places connected with her ancestor.
The Danish royals’ visit follows President Dmitry Medvedev’s state visit to Denmark in 2010, which eased relations between the countries that had soured in 2002 when then-president Vladimir Putin canceled a state visit after Danish courts ruled against extraditing Chechen envoy Akhmed Zakayev. The royal family will leave the city on Sept. 10.

TITLE: City Marks 70th Anniversary  Of Start of Siege of Leningrad
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg will mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Siege of Leningrad on Thursday with a range of events. 
From 11.35 a.m. through 11.45 a.m., a system of public loudspeakers all around St. Petersburg will be switched on to broadcast a message dedicated to the fateful day the siege began, from the sounds of the Leningrad metronome that was broadcast during the siege to the sound of the air-raid warnings. Local radio and TV stations will also broadcast these sounds.
In keeping with tradition, the city authorities and residents will lay flowers at the monument in the Piskaryovskoye cemetery where most of the siege victims are buried, on the memorial board on Nevsky Prospekt with a sign reading “This side of the street is more dangerous during shelling,” and at other monuments dedicated to victims of World War II.
Concerts will also be held around the city.
The Siege of Leningrad lasted for 872 days from Sept. 8, 1941 to Jan. 27, 1944. During the siege, about a million city residents died from starvation and from German bombing.

TITLE: Activists Await Trial Following Protest
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Many of the more than 60 activists detained in St. Petersburg last week are awaiting trial charged with participating in an unauthorized rally and failure to follow a policeman’s orders in the aftermath of the Aug. 31 pro-constitution sit-in demo, while three activists were released on Saturday and Sunday after serving brief terms in custody. 
Many more were released after spending a night in police precincts last week.
A psychology lecturer at St. Petersburg State University, Vladimir Volokhonsky, was detained by the riot police 40 seconds after he sat down on the ground and opened a copy of the constitution near Gostiny Dvor, the regular site for the Strategy 31 rallies held in St. Petersburg since Jan. 31, 2010. He claims he was then held for 48 hours at a police precinct, deprived of food and sleep.
The campaign was originally launched in Moscow and demands that the authorities respect Article 31 of the Russian constitution that guarantees the right of assembly. No Strategy 31 rally in St. Petersburg has been authorized by City Hall.
Volokhonsky’s case was heard by Judge Alexei Kuznetsov, who frequently hears cases of detained activists in court and whom many oppositionists claim is known for accepting false statements from police officers and handing down harsh punishments.
Speaking on Tuesday, Volokhonsky said that the policemen testified that he was shouting “Down with Putin,” despite the fact that he was silent during the protest.
“In the Sept. 2 hearing, the policeman said that I was shouting slogans, that I was walking around the area and that I was one of the most active agitators,” he said.
According to Volokhonsky, all the police reports were identical, because they copied the same prepared report.
Sergei Grebnev, an activist with The Other Russia party who was wearing a bear costume (the bear is the symbol of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party United Russia) and was trampling a model of the historic center of St. Petersburg, was shouting “Heil Putin” when he was detained, but he was also accused of shouting “Down with Putin,” Volokhonsky pointed out.
“I wanted to conduct a little experiment to check whether or not people who come to the site and sit down there really are seized and put behind bars without any formalities being observed, without the police issuing any orders or identifying themselves,” he said.
“I sat down and was immediately seized by several policemen, who carried me into the bus without saying a word, elbowing me in the face on their way.”
Volokhonsky, whose case will be heard again by Kuznetsov on Sept. 20, said he was preparing complaints against the unlawfully poor conditions in police precincts. He added that according to a European law that Russia has agreed to adhere to, the deprival of food and sleep is regarded as torture.
Three Other Russia activists were sentenced to brief prison terms for taking part in the rally. Roman Khrenov and Sergei Chepiga were both sentenced to four days, while Nikolai Kuznetsov was sentenced to three days in custody.
In a news release, The Other Russia suggested that Judge Kuznetsov might have been taking revenge for private photos taken by activists from his account on Vkontakte (the Russian equivalent of Facebook) and reposted widely on the web in April.
The photos showed the relaxing Kuznetsov posing either bare-chested with a large dragon tattoo on his right arm or wearing T-shirts. One T-shirt said (in English) “F**k the Revolution,” while the other read “Imprisoned for article 203” (exceeding authority by a private security firm employee or by a private detective).
On some photos, Kuznetsov was holding a beer bottle or sitting behind a table with a glass of beer or bottle of vodka with his arm around women.
According to Chepiga, who was sentenced by Kuznetsov to four days in custody, Kuznetsov asked him to delete the photos from the Internet.
“He even asked me twice, as I was brought to him [for the hearings] twice,” Chepiga said Tuesday. 
“He said I would probably get some possible bonuses in the future. He said that it was a request from a fellow human being, between him and me.”

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>German Found Dead</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A German citizen was found dead near the Rostral Columns in St. Petersburg on Monday night. 
The 53-year-old man had arrived in the city from Germany on a tourist visa on Sept. 1.
The man’s body did not show any signs of violence. It was taken to a morgue for the cause of death to be identified, Interfax reported.

<b>Palace Tunnel Mooted</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Local authorities have no projects underway regarding the construction of a tunnel underneath the city’s Palace Bridge, RIA Novosti cited the city’s Transport Infrastructure Committee as saying Tuesday, despite earlier reports. 
On Monday, Alexei Chichkanov, head of the city’s Investment and Strategic Projects Committee, told reporters that the tunnel-building equipment made by Herrenknecht for the construction of the Orlov Tunnel underneath the River Neva may be used to create other similar projects in the city.
One such “possible variant could be the construction of a tunnel under Palace Bridge,” Chichkanov said.
Chichkanov said that such a project would make it possible to “ease the load of the most beautiful bridge in St. Petersburg and maybe even make it possible to create a pedestrian zone connecting Palace Square and Vasilyevsky Island.”

TITLE: Tula’s Ex-Governor Charged With Graft
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Troubles were piling up for former Tula Governor Vyacheslav Dudka on Monday as he was charged with accepting a bribe and placed under house arrest.
Cases against officials of his caliber, acting or former, are rare. An analyst said Dudka was a scapegoat in an anti-corruption campaign, and that any of Russia’s other 82 regional leaders could have ended up under arrest.
Dudka was summoned Monday to the Investigative Committee’s Moscow office, where he was formally charged with accepting a bribe of 40 million rubles ($1.3 million), Interfax said. The charge carries a maximum punishment of 12 years in prison.
Investigators decided not to place Dudka in custody, citing his good record in state service and the fact that he has cooperated with them. His lawyers said they would appeal the house arrest.
Dudka denied all charges.
Dudka is accused of taking the money from the Grinn hypermarket chain, which sought to obtain land in Tula for an outlet. A former subordinate and the chain’s chief executive are also under investigation in the case.
As governor, Dudka was first questioned by the Federal Security Service in March, shortly after his subordinate, Viktor Volkov, who is charged with accepting the money, told investigators that he was only a middleman who was supposed to hand the money to Dudka.
At the time, Dudka’s press office said in a statement that the accusations were actually a counterattack from local officials whom the governor had targeted in his own anti-corruption campaign.
But the case proceeded, and Dudka resigned in July. He never publicly specified the reason for stepping down.
Last month, the ruling United Russia party expelled Dudka after he demanded severance pay. A golden parachute is authorized by regional legislation, but party bosses ruled that his request to collect the money “discredited” United Russia, which is struggling to combat its image as the “party of bureaucracy” ahead of State Duma elections in December.
Alexei Titkov, an analyst with the Institute for Regional Politics, said Dudka might have fallen victim to a government effort to show it is fighting corruption ahead of the Duma vote and the presidential election in March.
“They need to show that fighting graft means a lot for the authorities, and the crackdown on Dudka comes in handy here,” Titkov said by telephone.
“Any governor could have been targeted. Dudka was just the unlucky one,” Titkov added.
Mikhail Vinogradov, an analyst with the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, said the charge against Dudka might also be an attempt by law enforcement agencies to show their clout to governors.
A convoluted political crisis has been simmering in Tula since last year. In March, the Tula city legislature, controlled by United Russia, sacked Mayor Alisa Tolkachyova, a move endorsed by Dudka.
Dudka, 51, in power since 2005 and reappointed by the Kremlin in 2010, has been accused by the local edition of Moskovsky Komsomolets of nepotism and failure to curb rising unemployment in the region.
Governors are rarely linked to corruption investigations, but cases are not unheard of. Oryol Governor Yegor Stroyev was questioned by investigators in 2009, and Volgograd Governor Nikolai Maksyuta and Arkhangelsk Governor Nikolai Kiselyov felt compelled to comment on separate corruption cases in 2007. None were charged.
The federal government was more strict in the mid-2000s, when then-President Vladimir Putin was building his “power vertical.” Tver Governor Vladimir Platov was jailed in 2005 for abuse of office, and Yaroslavl Governor Anatoly Lisitsyn and Saratov Governor Dmitry Ayatskov faced separate criminal charges in 2004, although those cases were later dropped.

TITLE: Suspect ‘Names’ Mastermind in Politkovskaya Deal
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A key witness-turned-suspect in the 2006 killing of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya has struck a plea bargain with investigators and identified the murder’s mastermind, Kommersant reported Saturday, citing unidentified sources.
The sources did not name the mastermind but said he is living abroad.
As part of the plea bargain, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, who was detained in connection with the killing last week, has admitted involvement but said he was only a middleman, not the organizer of the crime, the newspaper said.
Pavlyuchenkov, who worked as a senior police investigator at the time of the killing, said he ordered his subordinates to map Politkovskaya’s daily routines. He also admitted to having procured the weapon with which she was shot.
He named Chechen businessman Lom-Ali Gaitukayev as an organizer but not mastermind of the shooting. 

TITLE: Libyan Rebel Forces Detain Ukrainians
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TRIPOLI, Libya — Armed rebels detained 19 Ukrainian cooks and oil workers for several days on unsupported claims that they were really snipers for Moammar Gadhafi.
They are among thousands of foreigners caught in a web of suspicion as rebel fighters pursue the remnants of Gadhafi’s forces. Gadhafi hired some foreigners as mercenaries, but many others held ordinary jobs in Libya, and the rebels who ousted the Gadhafi regime from most of Tripoli last month often seem to make little effort to tell them apart.
“How can we be snipers?” cook Maxim Shadrov asked angrily at a training center for oil workers in Tripoli where he, his wife and 17 other Ukrainians were being held.
“They are old. She is a woman. We are not snipers,” he said, pointing to some members of his group. Even a rebel commander conceded that he had no evidence to the contrary, but held them nonetheless, despite a diplomat’s efforts to free them.
There have been widespread arrests and frequent abuse of migrant workers since the rebels seized Tripoli late last month, Human Rights Watch said Sunday, but did not give an estimate of the number of detainees. The group said the clampdown created “a grave sense of fear among the city’s African population.”
A rebel official estimated that some 5,000 people have been detained since rebels seized Tripoli. At one makeshift detention camp, conditions for Libyan detainees were acceptable, but sub-Saharan Africans were held in overcrowded cells with a putrid stench, Human Rights Watch said. The detainees complained of a lack of water and poor sanitation.
The detentions have created an image problem for the rebel leadership, which relies heavily on Western support and has pledged to build a new Libya based on the rule of law, in contrast to Gadhafi’s brutal regime.
Some workers said they had not been harassed by either side in the war. Others, including some of the Ukrainian detainees, planned to stay in Libya despite receiving rough treatment.
“As you know, life in Ukraine is bad,” said Shadrov, the cook. “We came here to earn money for our family.”
The Ukrainians, hired by the Russian-Libyan oil company Dakara, arrived in Tripoli in July. After the rebels entered the capital on Aug. 21, the Ukrainians were detained by rebel fighters, handcuffed and moved to various locations, Shadrov said.
“They took everything from us,” he said. “Money, passports, computers, everything.”
Othman bin Othman, the rebel commander in charge of the oil workers’ training center, initially said the Ukrainians were armed and trained as snipers, but changed his account after reporters interviewed the detainees.
“To be very honest, we didn’t find any weapons in their houses or on them, but they arrived into the country illegally and during a very sensitive time — after the war,” he said. “This led us to believe they were working for the enemy.”
Diplomats from Russia and Ukraine visited the group, and Shadrov’s father, a Russian citizen, was able to leave.
At a meeting with the rebels, the Ukrainian consul was asked to bring back a written promise that if the Ukrainians were allowed to leave the detention center, they would stay in their homes and not leave the country without proper documentation.

TITLE: Student Pilots Will Fly Less, Graduate With Licenses Faster
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A new school year always brings change, but flight schools are observing a landmark moment: Student pilots will fly less and graduate faster under a new state-backed program.
The shortened — and cheaper — flight lessons should help curb a deficit of pilots amid an explosion in air traffic, state aviation officials said in interviews.
But independent aviation experts fear that the new program might churn out poorly trained pilots and increase flight safety risks.
The new international training program, named the Multi-Crew Pilot License, is being taught from Thursday at the two Russian flight schools offering higher education for pilots, in St. Petersburg and Ulyanovsk, said Alexander Timokhin, a senior official with the Federal Air Transportation Agency.
The program, which is an alternative to the current training course for the Commercial Pilot License, slashes college time for pilots from five years to four, Timokhin said in a telephone interview.
It also increases the number of training hours in flight simulators at the expense of actual flight time, although the combined training time in flight simulators and planes will be longer than in the previous program, he said.
“The cost declines and the quality grows because of more flight hours,” Timokhin said.
But Magomed Tolboyev, a veteran test pilot and honorary president of MAKS, Russia’s top air show, darkly joked about the change, saying, “Then they should also reseat passengers from planes to flight simulators.”
“This is blatant money laundering at the expense of passenger safety,” Tolboyev said by telephone.
Flight schools, largely state-run, produced a surplus of pilots back in the 1990s, but the amount of air traffic at the time was much lower than over the past decade, which ended with the growing aviation industry suffering from a shortage of trained staff, Transportation Ministry spokesman Timur Khikmatov said.
The new training course will limit pilots’ skills by preparing them to only fly one certain type of plane — big, modern jets, said Miroslav Boichuk, president of the Cockpit Personnel Association of Russia, a trade union. “That’s a disadvantage,” Boichuk said.
That, however, also fixes a flaw in the current system in which students train on outdated planes and have to take advanced courses after graduation to land a piloting job with an airline, Timokhin said.
Still, the current state training produces better-qualified pilots, said Yury Polepishin, head of a state-run Urals training center for civil aviation pilots.
To get the old qualification a holder of the new Multi-Crew Pilot License will have to fly another 1,500 hours and then pass an exam for the old program, Polepishin said.

TITLE: Film Star Makes Bid For Kremlin
AUTHOR: By Alexey Eremenko 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The upcoming presidential race took a distinctly eccentric twist Monday, when a movie star and ex-priest who moonlights as a creative director for mobile phone retail chain Yevroset announced his decision to run.
“It’s true. I am dead serious,” Ivan Okhlobystin, 45, said at a news conference in Moscow.
“I want to give the fatherland a certain philosophical and ideological strategy that it is lacking — that which we lack to become a nation,” he said, Interfax reported.
Okhlobystin, a self-proclaimed monarchist, said he would propose to extend the presidential term from six to 14 years.
He also said restoring the prestige of the army was a crucial task. He has no such plans for the State Duma, which he called “a pointless institution.”
Okhlobystin promised more details at an upcoming six-hour talk show-style meeting, to take place at the 87,000-seat Luzhniki stadium on Saturday.
The announcement boosted Okhlobystin to the top five of global Twitter trends for Monday.
The Russian Orthodox Church, which suspended Okhlobystin from the priesthood last year because he was starring in movies while serving in the church, did not take kindly to his presidential ambitions.
The clergy is banned from running for any office, which includes the presidency, church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin told RIA-Novosti.
He did not comment on the church’s own decision in February that priests may, in fact, run for office if authorized by the holy synod.
Opposition leader Eduard Limonov and political analyst Mark Urnov said Okhlobystin had no chance of winning the election, expected to be swept by President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or a third candidate supported by the two.
Okhlobystin is the third candidate to announce a bid, after Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and the Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Right Cause leader Mikhail Prokhorov said he may also run. As an independent, Okhlobystin needs to collect 2 million signatures to support his bid.
Okhlobystin, known for his trademark round glasses and flamboyant attire, including leather jackets, has starred in 42 movies and television shows since 1983, including “Down House” (2001), a psychedelic take on Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,” and Pavel Lungin’s 2009 “Tsar,” a Cannes entry. He also has written screenplays for 21 films and shows.
A born-again Christian, Okhlobystin was ordained into the priesthood in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, in 2001.

TITLE: 2 Duma Lawmakers Desert United Russia
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel  and Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — In a sign of growing discord in the run-up to parliamentary elections, State Duma Deputy Alexei Lebed left United Russia on Friday and accused the party of crushing dissent among members.
“I quit because I understand that every person should live honestly [and] have the right to speak their mind independently from the party’s directives,” Lebed, a former Khakasia governor, told reporters in the republic’s capital, Abakan, RIA-Novosti reported.
Lebed, a retired general like his older brother Alexander, a political heavyweight killed in a helicopter crash in 1998, is the second Duma lawmaker to leave the ruling party within a week.
Last Tuesday, Igor Isakov, who represents the Krasnoyarsk region, quit United Russia after scoring poorly in recent Duma primaries, a much-touted event fraught with allegations of vote rigging.
Speculation swirled Friday that the two lawmakers might run in the Dec. 4 elections on the tickets of other parties, including the rival pro-Kremlin A Just Russia and the Kremlin-linked Right Cause.
Isakov did not comment publicly on his decision, but his spokesman told RIA-Novosti that his boss might run with the pro-business Right Cause.
A Just Russia founder Sergei Mironov rushed ahead by saying Lebed planned to join his party. “Alexei Lebed is a well-known general, a former governor … and also a paratrooper. We are in talks about including him in A Just Russia,” he told Interfax.
However, in an interview with Izvestia published online late Friday, Lebed suggested that he was far from having made up his mind. “I’d easily join the Liberal Democratic Party,” he said about the party headed by nationalist populist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Asked whether he would join A Just Russia, he merely replied that Mironov “has his own nuances,” and that the only party he would never join is the Communist Party.
Lebed joined United Russia in 2005 and became a Duma deputy in January 2009, after President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed him as Khakasia governor in December 2008 following 13 years in office.
United Russia officials said Friday that they considered the deputy no loss for the party.
Lebed “almost never attended” meetings of the regional party leadership and refused to take part in the Duma primaries, which ended last month, said the head of the party’s Khakasia branch, Sergei Mozharov, RIA-Novosti reported.
Lebed told Izvestia that he had decided against taking part in the primaries because he considered the intraparty votes to be a sham.
“I immediately understood that I would be right at the end of the list. The primaries’ supposed transparency has not been achieved in the republic,” he said.
Lingering hostility between the two pro-Kremlin parties burst into the open recently as United Russia functionaries said senior members were deserting A Just Russia after polls showed that the party’s chances to take the Duma’s 7 percent hurdle were slim.
“Only those who lost in the primaries or did not take part in them and those who have no chance to make it into the next Duma are leaving United Russia,” said Alexei Chesnyakov, a senior United Russia official, Interfax reported.

TITLE: Putin’s Father Blamed For Estonian Strife
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Estonian farmers betrayed the father of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to the Nazis during World War II — and this is what is fueling tensions between Moscow and Tallinn 60 years on, according to new U.S. cables leaked by WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks released last week the final portion of an archive of U.S. diplomatic cables that it obtained in 2010.
The batch numbers 251,287 cables, including about 4,000 pertaining to Russia, but one in particular started making rounds in the Russian blogosphere after being published by Kommersant on Monday.
A cable dating back to December 2009 cites the Estonian Foreign Ministry’s undersecretary and ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Harri Tiido, as saying that “Estonia seeks pragmatic relations with Russia and has managed a number of productive working level meetings over 2008.”
But relations remained “difficult at the political level” because of Putin, who alone decides the policy toward Estonia even after trading the presidency for the prime minister’s post in 2008, Tiido said.
“Putin has a personal gripe with Estonia,” Tiido is quoted as saying.
Putin’s father, also Vladimir, fought in the Red Army during the war and parachuted into Estonia for an unspecified operation. But locals, still disgruntled with the country’s occupation by the Soviet Union in 1940 — a year before the Germans invaded Estonia — handed him over to the Nazi forces, Tiido said. 

TITLE: Ukraine Tells EU Not  To Worry About Gas
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has sought to allay fears that the increasingly tense discourse on gas trade between Moscow and Kiev will lead to yet another breakdown in supplies across Europe.
Ukraine will honor the existing contract to buy what it describes as overly expensive Russian gas until the countries sign a new deal, he said in comments that became widely known Monday.
“I want to say firmly and absolutely unequivocally to everyone that no one will ever see any kind of war, including a gas war with our strategic partner, with Russia,” he said in a television interview late Sunday.
Tension has been building between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies, with the presidents of both countries stepping into the fray over the weekend with abrasive statements. Similar frictions led Gazprom to cut off deliveries to Ukraine several times over the past decade, in moves that ultimately caused companies and households further west to suffer shortages.
Kiev has been increasingly intent on altering the gas contract in recent weeks. It said Moscow should reduce the price of gas under the contract or face legal action in an international court. In another possible ploy, Ukraine said it wanted to break up its state energy firm, Naftogaz, and therefore the Russian gas contract would have to come under revision.
Ukraine’s prosecutors are also questioning the agreement as they press charges against the country’s former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is now incarcerated while standing trial.
President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that the Kremlin would not budge, and warned that any breach of contract would spell trouble for Ukraine.
“Russia is ready to defend its position on the contract in any court,” the Kremlin said in a statement after Medvedev briefly met his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych on the sidelines of a summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Changes regarding Naftogaz should not interfere with the gas supply deal, the statement said. “Otherwise, it may entail grave consequences for Ukraine’s economy,” it said.
The Kremlin also noted that the proposed incentives from Ukraine for Russia to review the deal — which Kiev handed over to the Cabinet — were not sufficiently concrete. The statement did not elaborate on the proposals.
Azarov told reporters Monday that his government invited Gazprom to produce gas in Ukraine, offering a license to pump 1 trillion cubic meters of the fuel.
Moscow has, in exchange, indicated that Ukraine could count on a lower price, should it accede to the customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Alternatively, another long-standing offer from Moscow was for Naftogaz to merge with Gazprom.
Ukraine brushed these proposals aside again in recent days. As one reason against joining the customs union, Azarov said doing so would require a revision of Ukraine’s agreements as a member of the World Trade Organization.
“It’s absolutely unrealistic,” he said last week.
In a comment on the possible court action, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko said Monday that the government would do “everything possible” to avoid suing Russia. Yanukovych also said Saturday after meeting with Medvedev that legal action was the last resort.
Under the gas supply agreement, Gazprom and Naftogaz are to take disputes to the arbitration court of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, the same court where the Russian-born billionaire co-owners of oil producer TNK-BP derailed the Arctic deal between their partner BP and Rosneft.

TITLE: Agency Sees Related-Party Lending
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The high level of related-party lending engaged in by Russian and CIS banks is indicative of poor corporate governance and lax underwriting standards — and is a structural weakness of the entire banking sector, according to a report released by Moody’s credit rating agency.
Although Russian banks saw a small decline in related-party lending in 2010, the average amount of related-party loans issued by banks across the region was 10 percent of gross loans and 50 percent of shareholders’ equity.
The report, released Thursday, said this rate of related-party lending was five times higher than in Central and Eastern Europe and twice as high as in the Middle East.
Moody’s cited Bank of Moscow, which required the largest state bailout in modern Russian history after a July announcement of a $14 billion hole in its finances, as an example of the danger of a lender working with customers with whom it has an organizational, political or personal relationship.
Bank of Moscow was closely tied to City Hall under the former mayor of Moscow, Yury Luzhkov, and had links with the sprawling business empire of his wife, Yelena Baturina. The Central Bank said at the time of the scandal that almost a third of Bank of Moscow’s loans were “problematic.”
Moody’s made a direct correlation between high instances of related-party lending and significant levels of problem loans. Banks that engage heavily in this practice “cannot enforce or obtain extra collateral due to the special nature of their relationship with related borrowers and inherent conflicts of interest,” the report said.
In 2010, Russian, Kazakh, Ukrainian and Armenian banks decreased their related-party exposures as a percentage of capital. Exposure increased for Belarussian, Azeri and Uzbek banks.
Related-party loans are more prevalent in small and midsized regional banks with assets below $10 billion that tend to have established shareholder-linked client bases and operate in geographically restricted areas of low business diversification.
The report also warned that the level of related-party lending was likely to be significantly more than can be identified through official records and publicly available statistics.
Though based on 116 banks in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States that together represent 70 percent to 80 percent of banking system assets, the report warns that because of regulatory weakness and opaque holding structures, much remains hidden from the eye of the observer.
Moody’s did not include related-party exposure through securities (bonds and equities), interbank and off-balance sheet credit commitments in the survey.

Russian banks increased their lending to non-financial companies by 2.5 percent in August, bringing the annual increase to 19 percent, said Mikhail Sukhov, head of the Central Bank’s licensing department, Bloomberg reported. 
Speaking at a banking conference in Sochi, Sukhov said retail lending had grown 28 percent on the same period last year and 3.3 percent in August.

TITLE: Gazprom Sprang a 2009 Leak of $1 Billion
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The Audit Chamber estimates that Gazprom managed to lose 28 billion rubles (nearly $1 billion) of funds and property — about 4 percent of total funds spent — through its subsidiaries’ implementation of the gas giant’s 2009 capital expenditure program.
The company is trying to combat such losses, the auditors say, but anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny says the estimate is actually low.
In January 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev said he cared about how state companies’ huge resources are spent, and ordered the Audit Chamber to check the efficiency of state companies’ investment programs. The first results of their effort were announced late last week.
The biggest spender in the country, Gazprom, in 2009 alone lost more than 28 billion rubles, according to the Audit Chamber report. That is the amount of “unreasonable expenses, financial losses, and missing money and material possessions” that was discovered by a Gazprom internal audit of its subsidiaries.
The total investment program for that year was 745.5 billion rubles, indicating that nearly 4 percent was lost. The audit does not reveal the way in which this was lost — only via purchases or also through contracted services — or in which subsidiaries. The report noted that Gazprom did not ignore the situation. “Several employees” were subjected to “material and disciplinary accountability. Some were given reprimands; others lost their bonuses, were demoted, or fired.”
Measures were taken to repair the damage caused by the violations and prevent them from occurring in the future. Efforts were made to return assets and seek the “return of overpayments.”

TITLE: Yanukovych’s Gamble Could Backfire
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Kiselyov 
TEXT: The trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is approaching its final stages in Kiev. Amazingly, just 18 months ago, Tymoshenko was only a few percentage points away from winning the presidential election, and today the leader of Ukraine’s largest opposition party, Fatherland, is sitting behind bars in pretrial detention.
According to the prosecution, Tymoshenko unlawfully signed a secret gas import contract with Russia in 2009, when she was prime minister, forcing state-owned Naftogaz to sign the gas deal with Gazprom. Prosecutors claim she agreed to the 10-year contract to buy natural gas from Russia at exceedingly high prices without getting approval from the government. Gas prices could reach an incredible price of $500 per thousand cubic meters by the end of this year — a boon for Gazprom but crippling for Ukraine’s teetering economy. In addition, Tymoshenko is charged with illegally using carbon credit funds that were meant to be used for pensions.
Yet many Western commentators have a superficial and naive understanding of the Tymoshenko case. They believe that she is being punished for her political views. I can’t help but smile when I hear these comments. After all, what exactly are her political views? Nobody knows. They are a hodge podge of nationalistic, left-wing, right-wing, liberal and, at times, even Communist rhetoric.
A typical example was during the last presidential election campaign when Tymoshenko dodged a question that was particularly controversial for the highly splintered Ukrainian electorate: Does she consider Stepan Bandera, leader of the armed Ukrainian nationalist movement from the 1930s through the 1950s, a hero? Tymoshenko could not answer yes or no because, for some of her supporters in the western part of the country, Bandera is an icon, a person who fought his whole life for an independent Ukraine and who was ultimately killed by a KGB assassin who had infiltrated his organization. Meanwhile, other Ukrainians, particularly in eastern Ukraine, view Bandera as a terrorist who collaborated with the Nazis and was complicit in war crimes.
Today, Tymoshenko condemns President Viktor Yanukovych and calls the current government criminal. But many remember very clearly that as recently as summer 2009, Tymoshenko negotiated with Yanukovych to form a political alliance. Had those talks succeeded, it is entirely possible that Tymoshenko could have become prime minister under Yanukovych’s current administration. Or Yanukovych could have become prime minister and Tymoshenko president. Both options were considered and discussed in 2009. Thus, many Ukrainians don’t buy Tymoshenko’s claim that she is an ideological opponent of Yanukovych.
But this does not explain why the government seems to be determined to put her behind bars. It might seem that the authorities simply want to silence the leader of the opposition. If convicted of current charges, Tymoshenko could face up to 10 years in prison. Even a suspended sentence would disqualify her from running for parliamentary or presidential elections.
Nonetheless, polls show that if Tymoshenko were to run against Yanukovych in another presidential race, he would likely win because voters view Yanukovych as the lesser of two evils. If a more popular and less-tainted candidate were to run against Yanukovych, however, it would be much more difficult for him to win. Thus, if the goal of the current Tymoshenko trial is to eliminate a competitor, then either somebody is feeding Yanukovych bad advice or else he is unwittingly putting himself into a trap.
At the same time, however, elections are still a long way off, and Ukraine’s economy is already collapsing under the weight of low growth and high gas prices. Something must be done urgently, but Moscow’s only response has been to propose to Kiev that it join a customs union with Russia; let Russia buy up shares in Ukraine’s gas transportation companies, much like Belarus did; and Russia would receive large discounts on gas in return, just as Belarus did. Ironically, President Dmitry Medvedev made this proposal on Aug. 24, the day Ukraine celebrated 20 years of independence from Russia.
It is clear, though, that Ukraine will never enter into a customs union with Russia. That would kill Ukraine’s plans for membership in the World Trade Organization and for signing a free-trade zone agreement with the European Union. It would also eliminate any Ukrainian hopes of ever becoming an EU member state.
Meanwhile, tensions between Russia and Ukraine are getting worse. Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov and presidential administration head Sergei Levochkin announced that Kiev might appeal to an international arbitration court to cancel its current gas agreements with Moscow.  
This offers another explanation as to why Tymoshenko is on trial. If Kiev can prove in an independent court that Tymoshenko violated the law in signing the gas agreement with Russia, it will reinforce Ukraine’s case to revoke the deal.
Moscow is clearly nervous about the trial. Senior Russian officials have repeatedly made statements defending Tymoshenko and condemning the case against her. This is hypocritical, of course, considering that former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been locked up for eight years on politically driven charges.
In the end, Yanukovych may have backed himself into a corner. In part, the Tymoshenko case is being used to defeat Russia’s attempts to use one-sided gas contracts, a customs union and other tricks to keep Kiev within the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. But  this could very well provoke strong protests from European leaders if, in the event of a ruling against Tymoshenko, they conclude that Yanukovych violated Western democratic values and that the ruling was politically driven. This could ultimately undermine his efforts to integrate more closely with the EU.
If so, Yanukovych will receive exactly what he was trying to avoid in the first place. If he is unable to retain the EU as a strategic ally, Ukraine will be forced back into a subservient role with regard to Moscow.

Yevgeny Kiselyov is a political analyst and hosts a political talk show on Inter television in Ukraine.

TITLE: between the lines: The Prokhorov-Khodorkovsky Tandem
AUTHOR: By Alexei Pankin 
TEXT: Soviet communism was ultimately buried by two of its most prominent native sons — Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and Moscow Communist Party chief Boris Yeltsin. Now it seems that Russia’s neoliberal capitalism will also fail thanks to two of its greatest beneficiaries — former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and billionaire Right Cause leader Mikhail Prokhorov.
I came to the first conclusion after reading an enormous number of articles published in recent weeks on the August 1991 coup that resulted in the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union. It was Gorbachev who, without any pressure whatsoever from below, took the country along the path of democratic and market reforms, thereby paving the way for Yeltsin’s political career. And it was probably the personal conflict between these two party chiefs that explains why subsequent events were more counterrevolutionary than evolutionary. After Yeltsin won and the counterrevolutionary excitement faded, the popularity of his neoliberal ideology began a steady decline — to the point where liberalism today has become a bad word.
The second conclusion occurred to me several months ago after reading an issue of Forbes magazine online that ran a selection of quotations showing Khodorkovsky’s ideological evolution. The list began with his “The Man with a Ruble” essay co-authored in 1992 with his future Yukos colleague Leonid Nevzlin and ended with his prison writings that can best be described in modern terminology as left-wing social democracy.
 Ekho Moskvy radio recently aired a program titled “The Left-Wing Manifesto of Right Cause,” referring to Prokhorov’s party. Many of the points made in the manifesto seem to come from the Bolsheviks in 1917. Prokhorov’s promise to give out free land to people willing to work it is a repeat of the Bolshevik slogan “Land to the Peasants.” The call for “universal military duty with voluntary enlistment” is essentially a militia system of manning the armed forces that existed in the Soviet Union until the early 1930s.
The media seized upon these and many other parallels and emphasized how far removed Prokhorov’s ideology was from the usual neoliberal Gaidar-Chubais line of thinking. But it is not important how dissimilar Prokhorov’s manifesto is to the principles of the young economists who tried to liberalize the Russian economy in the early 1990s. What counts is the extent it answers the needs of the present day. In my opinion, it answers those needs quite well.
It does so all the more because the old labels lose their meaning in modern life. The militia principle — that is, universally arming the people — is how the army is built in Switzerland, the most bourgeois country of the world. The promise to give land to the peasants is an update of the U.S. Homestead Act of the 19th century, and Prokhorov’s call for the state and society to focus their efforts on developing this country’s vast, untouched stretches of land is the Russian version of the U.S. drive to settle the Western frontier.
It is even more interesting that both Khodorkovsky and Prokhorov achieved remarkable success and wealth in the post-Soviet system. Despite the very different circumstances in which they now live, both have come to the conclusion that the country must move toward a more socialistic future. The two make an interesting tandem.

Alexei Pankin is editor of WAN-IFRA-GIPP Magazine for publishing business professionals.

TITLE: Autumn consolation
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Things do not generally start happening on the local music club scene after the sleepy summer until Fish Fabrique celebrates its birthday, which falls on Sept. 2.
This year, Fish Fabrique’s management said it chose to celebrate the occasion in a modest way, reserving a large-scale celebration for its coming of age next year, when it turns 18.
Until last year, the annual parties celebrated the birthday of both the club and of the group Tequilajazzz, which played its first concert at TaMtAm in September 1993, but the band split last year.
Performing instead was Jenia Lubich, the up-and-coming local indie-pop singer who spent a stint as a vocalist with the French band Nouvelle Vague, known for transforming rock and punk hits into bossa nova and pop songs sung by silken female voices.
Despite the absence of frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov, the spirit of Tequilajazzz was still somehow present. The band’s 1990s clubbing anthem “Nalivaya” — featuring the line “First Griboyedov, then Fish Fabrique,” describing the route of a local clubgoer — was played after Jenia Lubich finished her set, while the band’s ex-drummer Alexander “Duser” Voronov was DJing at the club’s older, smaller bar after midnight.
Pavel Zaporozhtsev, who co-founded Fish Fabrique with Oleg “Fish” Labetsky (the club was named after the latter’s nickname and the Berlin club Fabrique), recalled how together with the founder of the rockabilly club Money Honey, he used to visit construction sites around the city to buy materials from the construction managers, because in 1994 nothing was sold in the stores.
When, with American friends, the club threw the city’s first Halloween party on Oct. 31, 1994, the public had little idea of what it was about. The party flyers given away beforehand carried a warning that nobody would be allowed to enter without a costume, and the organizers were shocked when visitors wearing suits and ties started to arrive (the Russian word kostyum is used to mean both costume and suit).
The suit-clad pundits were sent to a nearby store to buy something crazy to wear.
Hinting at the changed times, the T-shirts printed by the club for its 17th birthday featured a double-headed fish: A tongue-in-cheek reference to both the Russian coat of arms and the present-day political rule of the duumvirate. 
Griboyedov, which will celebrate its 15th anniversary on Oct. 18, is another classic St. Petersburg club and is still going strong.
Housed in a Cold War-era bunker, it expanded in 2006 when a glass extension built above ground opened known as Griboyedov Hill, where concerts are also held.
Griboyedov’s birthday parties feature performances by many of the best local bands.
Zoccolo, the direct successor of the legendary club Moloko, which was closed in October 2005, is another seminal local club located within walking distance of Fish Fabrique.
Chinese Pilot Jao Da, a local branch of the eminent Moscow club of the same name, boasts an increasingly interesting music program, having hosted a concert by avant-rock Finnish singer and musician Ville Leinonen last week and expecting ex-Henry Cow musician Tim Hodgkinson to perform on Sept. 25.
“A great club for small indie concerts like this,” Leinonen commented after the show.
Moving the bar from the concert room to the room closer to the entrance was a great idea. If the club removes the tables from near the stage, it would no doubt be welcomed by the public, as it would allow more people to enjoy gigs.
Dusche, the most recent addition to the local music club scene, has drawn the public to a previously closed warehouse area on Ligovsky Prospekt.
Launched by members of the local bands Leningrad and Spitfire in December, Dusche’s forte is that it is one of few local clubs that are actually owned by musicians, meaning it understands the needs of both the bands and the public.
Mod, in its second and bigger location just off Nevsky Prospekt on the embankment of the Griboyedov Canal, is another must for alternative clubgoers.
Sadly, Mod’s rooftop summer terrace — a great place for concerts or low-key relaxation — is officially closing for the cold season on Saturday, Sept. 10, though owner Denis Cherevichny said it might reopen occasionally on warm evenings.
Mod will celebrate its fifth birthday on Sept. 23 with a garage-rock concert by bands Yellow Pillow and Garage Monsters and a DJ party.
The large venues intended exclusively for larger concerts with capacities of between 1,000 and 1,200 that opened in the city during the past few years were closed or barely functioned during the summer. Now, having reopened after the holidays, they promise some electrifying acts in the next few months.
Kosmonavt, which underwent renovation work during the summer, Glavclub and Zal Ozhidaniya will all have something to offer. Check the Gigs section of The St. Petersburg Times every week or the venues’ web sites for names and dates.
DJ bars Datscha, Fidel and Stirka continue to draw the crowds, while the summer “beach” bar Dunes will go on operating at its second location on Ligovsky Prospekt until the weather turns cold.
At least one music club did not survive the summer. Closed, officially for repairs, since the second week of June, the club Shum — originally launched in Sept. 2010 — failed to reopen in September.
“The building’s owner has already dismantled the stage and the walls, and wants to let the premises as office space,” Shum’s former art director Leonid Novikov said.
“This is Russian showbiz; it’s all like that.”
<hr />
<b>Addresses:</b>

<b>Chinese Pilot Jao Da</b>, 7 Ulitsa Pestelya. Metro Gostiny Dvor/Chernyshevskaya. Tel. 273 7487, 
+7 (911) 751 8339. 
www.spb.jao-da.com

<b>Datscha and Fidel</b>, 9 Dumskaya Ulitsa. Metro Nevsky Prospekt.

<b>Dusche</b>, 50 Ligovsky Prospekt (Korpus 6). Metro Ligovsky Prospekt. 
Tel. 610 1990. 
www.dusche.ru

<b>Fish Fabrique</b>, 53 Ligovsky Prospekt. Metro Ploshchad Vosstaniya. Tel. 764 4857. 
www.fishfabrique.spb.ru

<b>Glavclub</b>, 2 Kremenchugskaya Ulitsa. Metro Ploshchad Vosstaniya. Tel. 905 7555. 
www.glavclub.com

<b>Griboyedov</b>, 2a Voronezhskaya Ulitsa. Metro Ligovsky Prospekt. 
Tel. 764 4355, 973 7273. 
www.griboedovclub.ru

<b>Kosmonavt</b>, 24 Bronnitskaya Ulitsa. Metro Tekhnologichesky Institut. 
Tel. 922 1300. 
www.kosmonavt.su

<b>Mod</b>, 7 Naberezhnaya Kanala Griboyedova. Metro Nevsky Prospekt. 
Tel. 712 0734. 
www.modclub.info

<b>Stirka</b>, 26 Kazanskaya Ulitsa. Metro Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 314 5371. www.40gradusov.ru

<b>Zal Ozhidaniya</b>, 118 Naberezhnaya Obvodnogo Kanala. 
Metro Baltiiskaya. Tel. 333 1069. 
www.clubzal.com

<b>Zoccolo</b>, 2/3 3aya Sovietskaya Ulitsa. Metro Ploshchad Vosstaniya. 
Tel. 274 9467. 
www.zoccolo.ru

TITLE: CHERNOV’S CHOICE
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Local favorites Pep-See will perform their first big concert in the city in a while this week, with new songs, a new lineup and a new VJ. 
Fronted by three flamboyant singers — Anna Kipyatkova, Inessa Mikhailova and Maria Volkova — the band now features Denis Medvedev, 2 Samaliota’s bass player, who is also known as DJ Re-Disco.
“We have plenty of new songs, which are no less brilliant than [the band’s early hits] ‘Vovochka’ and ‘Lyzhniki’ (Skiers),” Kipyatkova said by phone Tuesday.
On Monday, the band returned from a Siberian tour, where they performed the new set of songs. 
Another addition is VJ Serge. “It’ll be for the first time, but we’ve seen what he does and we like it,” Kipyatkova said.
Formed in 1992, the band, which describes its style as “extreme disco,” attracted attention with its kitschy image, uplifting disco rhythms and (occasionally pretty dark) lyrics, dealing with subjects such as sex, drugs and death.
Apart from Kipyatkova, Mikhailova and Volkova, the original lineup included guitarist Kesha Spechinsky, who wrote some of Pep-See’s best-known songs and now continues to work with his own band Vnezapny Sych, and Denis Sladkevich, currently the drummer with the instrumental avant-rock band Volkovtrio.
The band, whose most recent album was “The Tantsy / Ze Dances” in 2002, does not plan to record albums in the future, according to Kipyatkova.
“This format is now obsolete; we’d rather upload tracks and videos onto the web,” she said.
Pep-See will perform at Kosmonavt at 8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 9.
In Moscow, <b>Vasily Shumov</b> of the band Center, who organized a concert in support of music critic <b>Artyom Troitsky</b> in June, released an album called “Za Troitskogo” (For Troitsky) on Monday.
In what appeared to be a coordinated campaign to clamp down on critics of the Kremlin and of state officials, Troitsky has found himself facing a number of lawsuits for making critical remarks, and faces substantial fines and even a prison sentence if found guilty. Troitsky has described the lawsuits as “ridiculous.”
Last year, Troitsky also irritated the authorities by co-organizing a widely publicized open-air concert in defense of the endangered Khimki forest in Moscow, which went ahead despite the fact that the police attempted to stop the bands from playing and prevented the PA system and a number of musicians from entering the event’s site. 
Ecologists and many members of the public object to the Kremlin-approved toll highway project through the forest.
Twenty-three music acts have donated tracks for the “Za Troitskogo” album, with the proceeds going to Troitsky to help him pay any fines and damages.
The acts include Shumov’s own band Center, Televizor, Mumiy Troll, Lyapis Trubetsoy, NOM and Noize MC. The Spain-based band Brazzaville and Polish pop singer Ramona Rey have also donated tracks.
The album is out now on Soyuz Music and is priced at 217 rubles ($7.50).

TITLE: TALK OF THE TOWN
TEXT: A new branch of the chain of cheerful <b>Jean-Jacques Rousseau</b> bistros has opened at 166 Nevsky Prospekt to liven up the dining scene around the Alexander Nevsky monastery area. Jean-Jacques is a pleasant hybrid of a wine bar and a caf&#233;, designed in a traditional Parisian style, though the service can be distinctly Russian. The new Jean-Jacques, which can seat up to 50 people, is the third branch in St. Petersburg, following in the footsteps of the cafes on the Petrograd Side and Ulitsa Marata. Its owners say the wine list has expanded with the opening of the new venue. 
Greek cosmetics brand <b>Korres</b>, which has gained global fame for its skincare products, has opened its first boutique in Russia. The company’s best known range is its anti-aging Quercitin & Oak products, developed jointly by Korres Laboratories with the National Hellenic Research Foundation following the recent Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the ubiquitin-proteasome system. The proteasome acts as a catalyst within cells, breaking down and removing damaged skin proteins. The Korres store can be found on the first floor of the Leto shopping mall at 25 Pulkovskoye Shosse.
The brand’s founder, George Korres, who started his career at the first homeopathic pharmacy in Athens, enjoys respect in his native Greece for his involvement in promoting tourism in the country and for his diverse and unorthodox social responsibility projects, which include providing jobs for socially vulnerable groups such as mentally disabled people and prisoners.
One of the hottest dining venues in town, the <b>22.13</b> restaurant (2 Konyushennaya Ploshchad), has introduced an intriguing new menu titled “Autumn in New York” and created by a visiting chef imported directly from the Big Apple. <b>Jenna Kistner</b> counts celebrated names such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) and the Rockefeller Foundation among her clients. “Autumn in New York” essentially focuses on brunch, Kistner’s favorite meal. For 22.13, Kistner has prepared a selection of her hits, including a fish curry with a twist and duck leg served on a sweet Belgian wafer: These are the kinds of dishes she enjoys cooking for her friends on a Sunday afternoon. There are also brightly colored cupcakes galore, guaranteed to brighten up a rainy autumn day. “Autumn in New York” can be sampled until mid-October. The glamorous cupcakes will, thankfully, stay on.
On Sept. 9, the restaurant welcomes <b>Louie Austen</b> — the Austrian-born vocalist with several years in Las Vegas clubs behind his belt — for a one-off concert that starts at 9 p.m.
Austen, the possessor of a velvety voice, year-round tan and a retro, somewhat decadent charm, has sung jazz and electronic music alike to eventually develop his own style that is both mysterious and chic.

TITLE: Leading lady
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Of the many things that have gradually made going to the cinema a proposition of diminishing returns — multiplexing, cell phones and plain bad manners foremost among them — possibly nothing is as disagreeable as being required to don a pair of filthy, greasy 3D goggles lately pulled from the head of a stranger. That the film itself will probably be just as unpleasant an experience usually goes without saying. It is a joy, then, to find that with Wim Wender’s new film “Pina,” the technology actually serves the material and makes the trauma that is contemporary cinema going at least a bit more palatable.
A homage to the late German choreographer Pina Bausch, “Pina” is one of only a handful of European 3D film productions, and is the world’s first art house film made using the new technology. Known for her intricate collaboration with her dancers in the creation of a piece, Bausch died suddenly in 2009 in the midst of pre-production on the film, leaving cast and director at a loss as to how to continue. The resulting film ends up capturing some of the strange excitement of seeing her dance troupe perform live, while also giving its members a chance to mourn and reminisce about the choreographer’s influence through short interviews and solo danced memories of the artist. 
Shot during the course of a year in Wuppertal, Germany, the film combines works staged for the camera, filmed theater performances and brief talking-head interviews with fragments of archival footage of Bausch herself unfortunately framed by some eye-wateringly bad 3D graphics. But for the most part the film is stunningly successful. Using large fragments from four ensemble works, as well as more intimate pieces with one or two dancers, Wenders assembles an extremely dazzling collage.
Perhaps afraid of boring an audience unused to contemporary dance, the director cuts away when any hint of monotony looms, selecting only the most intense moments from each piece. There is both humor and pathos in the work he has chosen, and the extreme high-definition of the 3D technology give Bausch’s already powerful work an added edge. And what work it is. “Not theater, nor pantomime, nor ballet and not at all opera,” according to Wenders, Bausch took dance from the stage to the streets and back again, negotiating the terrain between life and art, and bringing everyday movements onto the stage — albeit in a ritualized shape — to create a new art form. 
Holding the film together is a smiling chorus that runs throughout the film and takes the form of a typically quirky conga line set to a 1930s jazz soundtrack. Many in the ensemble have been with the troupe for decades, and in addition to being superb dancers they are also impressive actors. Possibly the most revealing aspect of the entire film is that the close-ups allow this quality, which is all but hidden in stage performance, to emerge magnificently.
Wenders uses images of the dancers performing at various locations throughout the city to show precisely how engaged Bausch was with the world outside the theater, preserving one of its most important aspects and neatly demonstrating just how radical a choreographer she was. The director’s use of Wuppertal’s floating tramway, a light rail system that dangles above the city from an overhead track, is used as a kind of visual shorthand for the vertiginous freedom of Bausch’s movements. A woman wearing a long, diaphanous summer gown with a leaf blower strapped to her back chasing leaves around a park perfectly encapsulates Bausch’s idiosyncratic, often physically and psychologically intense work. This is contemporary dance taken to extremes and, like most of the work, is both delightful and melancholy at the same time. 
With the future of the group uncertain (the city of Wuppertal’s administration having agreed only to fund the troupe through 2012, when it will perform a retrospective of Bausch’s choreography in London during the Olympic Games), Wender’s document is all the more valuable. And while it is shown here in German dubbed into Russian, talk accounts for only about ten minutes of the total running time and is more than made up for by the stunning visuals that need no translation. 

<i>“Pina” is now playing at Avrora movie theater, 60 Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 064, 315 52 54. www.avrora.spb.ru. Daily screenings at 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.</i>

TITLE: the word’s worth: The Sound of Silence
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Close to the top of my list of Russian words I wish we had in English is ìîë÷àòü, which conveys so succinctly in two little syllables what we need a dozen for in English: to not say anything, to be silent. I don’t begrudge adopting sputnik or perestroika, but why can’t we borrow ìîë÷àòü as well?
Russian has two ways of expressing silence: òèøèíà, which more or less describes the silence of things, and ìîë÷àíèå, which more or less describes the silence of living creatures. But the key here is “more or less.” In poetic and colloquial language alike, these two words happily cross over from animate to inanimate and convey a plethora of meanings beyond silence.
Òèøèíà, the adjective òèõèé, or adverb òèõî often have the connotation of being peaceful or peaceable, calm and slow-moving. Ìû ñåëè óæèíàòü, ïîãðóæ¸ííûå â ìÿãêóþ òèøèíó è ïðèãëóø¸ííûé ñâåò ïàðèæñêîé ñòîëîâîé (We sat down to dinner, submerged in the relaxing hush and intimate lighting of a Parisian cafe). Òèõèé and òèõî can mean quiet(ly). Ìóçûêàíòû òèõî ïåëè ðîìàíñû (Musicians quietly sang chansons). Or they can mean that something is moving slowly — or should be: Òèõî åäåøü, äàëüøå áóäåøü (slow and steady wins the race).
Òèõèé ÷àñ is nap time or quiet time: Tuck in the kids, put your feet up and doze. Òèõèé ÷åëîâåê is not only a quiet person but someone who is nonconfrontational and modest. The phrase ïîòèõîíüêó describes any action that is slow and easy, and is a good answer to the question, Êàê äåëà? (How are things?)
The verb pair óòèõàòü/óòèõíóòü refers to anything or anyone who falls silent, calms down, slows down or quiets down. While you’re in that Parisian cafe, äîæäü óòèõàåò (the rain is letting up) and ñòðàñòè óòèõëè (passions died down).
I suppose that if you wanted to announce your engagement in that cafe, you might stand up and shout: Òèøèíà! (Silence!). This kind of silence covers chattering diners and clanking silverware. But you probably wouldn’t shout: Ìîë÷àòü! (Shut up!). As a command, ìîë÷àòü is pretty harsh.
When used in reference to some kind of machine, ìîë÷àòü means that it’s broken or not turned on. Ðàäèîïðè¸ìíèê ìîë÷èò (My radio doesn’t work).
When used to describe a person’s actions, ìîë÷àòü can mean either that he isn’t saying anything or that in general he’s been out of touch or keeping a low profile. Îí òðè ìåñÿöà ìîë÷àë, à â÷åðà îí, íàêîíåö-òî, îáúÿâèëñÿ (He was totally out of touch for three months, but yesterday he finally reappeared). Or that a person is keeping a secret or not divulging some specific information. Î åãî ïðîáëåìàõ ëó÷øå ìîë÷àòü (It’s better to keep mum about his problems).
It can even mean to refrain from complaining or criticizing: Ïðî êà÷åñòâî åãî ðàáîòû ÿ ïðîñòî ìîë÷ó (I’m not even going to get into the quality of his work). And when used with a negative and unadorned, “not not speaking” is better rendered in English as a strong positive. Áîëüøå íå ìîãó ìîë÷àòü! (I have to speak out!) It worked for Tolstoy — it’s the name of his tract against capital punishment — and it will work for anyone filled with righteousness.
If someone swears you to silence, you can agree with the slangy ìîë÷îê (I’ve got it zipped). Because, of course: Ìîë÷àíèå — çîëîòî (Silence is golden).

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

TITLE: Recreating history
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: Mikhail Messerer is one of the world’s most celebrated ballet teachers. Born into a eminent ballet family, he danced with the Bolshoi Theater, defecting in 1980 while on tour in Japan.
In the West, he is known as a teacher who mixes Russian and Western traditions. He has given master classes at major ballets around the world, has been the company guest teacher with The Royal Ballet at London’s Royal Opera House for over 25 years and was appointed ballet master in chief at St. Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theater in 2009.
He gave the following interview to Vedomosti.
<i><b>How far is Russian ballet, behind the iron curtain for most of the 20th century, incorporated into the international ballet scene?</b></i>
Russian artists successfully work in companies all over the world and easily absorb the most difficult lexis of Western choreographers. Look at the number of Russian, or Russian-speaking artists, in European dance companies and the American Ballet Theater in New York or San Francisco. Ideally, I would like to see that our artists are able to communicate in all dance languages without, at the same time, losing the ability to use their mother tongue.
<i><b>Is the common view that graduates from our schools cannot dance modern choreography groundless?</b></i>
For some reason, as soon as they arrive in the West they are immediately able to do it.
<i><b>What helps you rate the purity of a style?</b></i>
There is no absolutely pure school. Everything has changed in the last decades and even centuries. If we take an old school like the Danish, what was it like under [19th-century choreographer August] Bournonville? How do you compare? There is no transcript of the choreography or style of performance, just some characteristic strokes. Of course, there are some national characteristics that we can use to find out … but even then everything is so mixed up now. The ballet world is ruled by YouTube; Russian performers are watching French performers and the other way around, and they take bits from each other, sometimes good and occasionally bad. This makes the ballet master’s teaching harder.
Your “Swan Lake” at the Mikhailovsky Theater, a revival of the production that brought such acclaim to Russian ballet in the 1950s, provoked discussion on the topic: To what extent is ballet for historians as well as for an audience?
If it is not a new interpretation but a reconstruction of an old one, it has to match the archived exactness of the play together with enthralling the spectators in the room. The argument over whether old [work] should be untouchable or whether we are allowed to change things is an eternal one. Moreover, we cannot even be sure what is supposed to be untouchable: For a long time there was no common method of writing things down like notes in music. Not even video footage gives the full picture that is needed. I think that each time you have to take an individual approach, it is a question of knowledge and the taste of the director. I, within my modest capacities, tried to make the performances that we created at the Mikhailovsky Theater interesting for today’s audience.
<i><b>What is more important in a dancer, technique or artistry?</b></i>
Again, it is important to have both. Virtuosity can sometimes come later for an artist, but if he does not understand the role he is performing and cannot create an image on the stage — that is bad.
<i><b>Sometimes a dancer dances smartly but is a fool in real life. How does this work?</b></i>
As is commonly said, the stage highlights the fool, but it is also true that a human can be reborn on stage. And if he has a rare acting gift, do not ask of him that he should also be able to be part of an intellectual discussion. Another can splendidly talk at the table and be the smartest human being, but on stage he cannot express anything. These are different gifts, although sometimes they are combined in one person.

TITLE: in the spotlight: When Temptation is Too Great
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker went to Moscow and dodged a kiss from a Bolshoi Theater security guard, who was overwhelmed by the chance to get close to his idol.
Oleg Dontsov, a guard at the Bolshoi construction site, got the chance to lunge at Parker as she had a personal tour with her people, Lifenews.ru wrote.
“So close to the enchanting star, the guard completely lost his head,” it gushed. “Oleg expressed the emotions that filled him to the brim in the form of a kiss.”
The video on the newspaper’s web site shows Dontsov standing next to Parker for a photo and then leaning in for a kiss. Parker, dressed casually in a gray T-shirt and jeans, lets out a little scream.
Her bodyguard grabbed her in time and pulled her away from the guard, Lifenews.ru reported.
The web site quoted an assistant of Parker as saying: “He forcibly took her by the shoulders and placed her beside him to get a photo on his cell phone. Sarah tried to turn it into a joke, saying ‘Thank you,’ but the man got overexcited and leaned in to kiss her.”
“Luck came my way. Sarah is a great actress, and as a woman I could not but like her,” Dontsov, a sturdy man with a lived-in face and 1980s hair, told the newspaper. “All of that just poured out.”
The newspaper’s web site was full of approving comments, saying he acted like a real Russian man, or maybe a Ukrainian. Although some thought he let the side down with a “dumb” gesture.
The guard’s bosses told the newspaper that they were considering whether to sack him.
Apparently Parker wasn’t too upset by the incident, as Lifenews.ru also filmed her signing Dontsov’s bare chest after he unbuttoned his black work shirt.
It’s true that “Sex and the City” really took off in Russia, perhaps because it also has plenty of glamorous unmarried women who are not too thrilled by the men on offer. But it is a little surprising that a burly security guard should be swept away by Carrie Bradshaw and her dating woes.
Parker was in Moscow to present a trailer for her latest film, “I Don’t Know How She Does It” at the Ritz-Carlton, ahead of the premiere later this month.
Vesti television downplayed the glamour of the event. “She walked along a red carpet leading from the toilet to the conference room of the hotel,” it said, adding a grumpy note that the journalists had to wait four hours for her to turn up. Which is a long time, even by Hollywood star standards.
Parker told journalists that she tried vodka before the news conference, although she does not usually drink, and even expressed a great love for Russian cooking.
She also talked of reading “Anna Karenina” and “Crime and Punishment” — only for the Utro newspaper to sniff that these weighty tomes are just what every Russian child studies at school. You can never win.
As part of her sightseeing, she went in the metro and stroked the lucky dog statue’s nose at the Ploshchad Revolyutsii station. She also visited the Manolo Blahnik store and signed the sole of a pair of blue satin shoes.
Her visit came soon after actor Chris Noth, who played her love interest in the series, Mr. Big, came to Moscow in July for those star-studded Federation Fund charity concerts at Vorobyovy Gory. He left a good feeling among journalists by chatting to them in the bar in a surprisingly non-showbizzy way.

TITLE: THE DISH: J. Walker
AUTHOR: By Emma Rawcliffe
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>The Dark Side</b><br />This cosmopolitan establishment located near the griffin-adorned Bankovsky Bridge over the Griboyedov Canal houses a cafe on the first floor and a club-restaurant upstairs, the latter offering nightly concerts (mainly of the jazz and blues genre). 
The interior of the dimly-lit cafe may not be to everyone’s taste, with its golden wallpaper, lamps and mirrors. There are also a few vintage-style paintings of old whisky bottles, and black and white photographs tucked into a corner by the modern bar of the main room. A separate room, with very similar decor and described on J. Walker’s web site as a “cigar/ karaoke room,” is also available for private parties and other events. 
Somewhat disturbingly, the same web site describes the main room as “the light room” and the other as “the dark room.” However, despite the dingy atmosphere, the cozy black leather sofas and armchairs, complete with stone-colored cushions, are very welcoming, and it is an agreeable place in which to seek refuge during a rainy afternoon. The quiet, soothing background music added to this ambience, but the huge TV by the entrance showing muted MTV proved to be somewhat off-putting.
The service was very attentive and efficient, though the lack of a drinks menu in English led to some awkward translations from the wait staff. Nevertheless, the fresh pineapple juice (280 rubles, $9.70) was incredibly invigorating, though minute in size. The non-alcoholic strawberry mojito (200 rubles, $6.90) — a perfect blend of strawberry and mint — was also very refreshing, and, thankfully, was not overloaded with ice. 
Apart from the vast list of options available as part of business lunch combinations (all priced at 200 rubles, $6.95), the range of the menu is fairly limited. There is a 20-percent discount on all items on the menu from 4 to 6 p.m. every day, an offer aptly named “Happy Walker.”  
Of the appetizers, the potato pancakes (210 rubles, $7.30) were excellent and freshly made, though the accompanying sour cream was thicker and had a sharper taste than usual, which may not suit everyone’s taste buds. The creamy wild mushroom soup (250 rubles, $8.65) was, alas, very disappointing. It tasted like an instant soup made from powder, and there was only one solitary chunk of mushroom at the bottom. 
The entrees were also somewhat of a mixed bag. The duck breast (610 rubles, $21.10) was very lean and neatly presented with pear and apple flavored rice (with slices of fresh apple underneath) and chutney. The combination of meat with sweet flavors is generally an acquired taste, but this interesting mixture of ingredients is certainly worth trying. The spaghetti Carbonara (320 rubles, $11) was very average: Despite the plentiful ham, Parmesan and sauce, the spaghetti was unusually thick and thus turned out to be a challenging eat. 
Sadly, the desserts were also disappointing. The homemade Napoleon cake (280 rubles, $9.70) was very dry and lacked any real flavor. The apples in the apple strudel (250 rubles, $8.65) were warm and delectable with a subtle taste of cinnamon, but the pastry was very cold and tasted rather stale. Fortunately, the accompanying chocolate ice cream was rich and devilishly good, and the slices of star fruit were a nice finishing touch. 
All the dishes were impeccably presented — so much so that diners may well feel guilty for spilling so much as a drop of soup or sauce, especially under the stern scrutiny of the wait staff.
J. Walker’s business lunch seems to be popular, and smartly dressed businessmen can be seen engaged in discussions at the better-lit window tables. Casual diners may therefore feel out of place, and would be better off skipping the limited selection of food and instead visiting the club upstairs to enjoy the dangerously good cocktails and regular concerts in a more light-hearted atmosphere. 

TITLE: Vologda: A Destiny Changed by a Simple Brick
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: VOLOGDA — Last weekend’s lavish celebrations to mark Moscow’s 864th birthday left no doubt where Russia’s capital is located. But 460 kilometers away, another city also recently celebrated 864 years — and its residents remembered that instead of St. Basil’s Cathedral and Red Square, the trademarks of Russia’s capital could have been a tub of butter and a wooden house with a carved fence.
A favorite of Ivan the Terrible, Vologda had all the makings to become the Russian capital. The tsar lived in the northern city for almost four years and proposed moving the capital there because it was on a key trade route and closer to the West than Moscow.
But in the end, Moscow cinched its place in history thanks to an ordinary brick. Legend has it that a brick fell on Ivan the Terrible while he was visiting the construction site of St. Sophia Cathedral. The tsar got mad and was never seen in Vologda again.
Although its hopes of becoming the capital were in ruins, Vologda continued to develop as a cultural and manufacturing gateway to the Russian north.
The city is instantly recognizable for its facade of wooden houses with a “reznoi palisad” (carved fence), which was sung about across the country in a popular 1970s song. About 80 of the houses, built for merchants in the 19th century, are preserved to this day, and city authorities are trying to build even more carved fences to keep Vologda’s old feel.
Vologda’s wooden houses and numerous churches give its visitors a chance to immerse themselves in quiet provincial life, but the city is also a growing economic center. It hosts major lumber, automobile, food and textile companies.
The food companies account for a third of the production in the city. Vologda Governor Vyacheslav Pozgalev said the city is now working on strengthening its branding, one of the key components of which is the nationally famous Vologda butter.
Tourists can be seen plowing through Vologda’s train station with souvenir wooden barrels and ceramic jugs of butter that they then have to dangle out of train windows to make sure that the delicacy doesn’t melt. The governor insists that there is nothing better.
“If you ever taste Vologda butter, you will always be able to tell the difference between this butter and any other — even with your eyes closed,” he said.
Besides butter, visitors hunt the city for linen and lace. Vologda officials expect to see continued growth in linen production as prices and demand continue to rise. Already Vologda’s linen has attracted the interest of Russian designers Valentin Yudashkin and Slava Zaitsev, who have designed entire collections from the fabric.
The enthusiasm of Vologda residents for lacemaking knows no bounds. The city set a Russian record for simultaneous lacemaking in June when 570 lacemakers converged on the central Kremlin Square as part of the International Linen Festival. Participants ranged from three-year-old Lyuba Tikhomirova to 74-year-old Galina Suslova, who has more than 60 years of experience in the craft.
Kapitalina Lobacheva, a retired music teacher who helped Vologda set the record, said she has tried sewing and knitting but found them less enjoyable than lacemaking.
“Lacemaking is my life,” Lobacheva said. “I’d like to do nothing but make lace.
“It’s just like a fairy tale,” she added, looking down at a masquerade mask she was working on.
Vologda has sent a number of its talented residents to Moscow — and beyond — over the years. Vologda-born writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky became an iconic figure in Moscow, while Pavel Belyaev was the 10th man in space and directed the first spacewalk.
But even when the opportunity to live elsewhere is tempting, many Vologda natives who leave choose to return. Retired seamstress Valentina Shukina said she had an offer to move to the Caucusus when she was young but quickly found out that she couldn’t live anywhere except Vologda.
“I am proud of everything here. Everything,” Shukina said. “I like it here. I don’t want live in any other place.”
Lilia Lobintseva left the city when she got married about 10 years ago, but the Belgorod region where she settled with her husband disappointed her with its lack of rivers and more mundane life, she said. After 10 years, Lobintseva could no longer stand to be apart from her hometown.
“It is as if I felt something was wrong. Something called me back,” she said. “I wanted to go back so badly that I couldn’t bear it.”
The city had changed a lot in the decade that Lobintseva was away. Many wooden houses have been dismantled or burned, she said. The landscape has also become less wild as city officials put in neat flowerbeds and redesign parks.
“Roads are being asphalted, the flowers in the courtyards are blooming and new houses are being built,” Governor Pozgalev said in his address to city residents during Vologda’s 864-year birthday celebrations in June. “There is no shortage of good things being done in Vologda.”
Pozgalev also said residents’ opinions about Vologda are changing for the better.
Indeed, it is rare to hear them say anything bad about their city. Shukina said it is the “good and responsive” people who make Vologda a fine place to live and visit.
“We always live with goodness in our hearts,” she said. “It is the best traveling companion in life.”

<b>What to see if you have two hours</b>
First lady Svetlana Medvedeva told Vologda’s governor during her June trip that she did not manage to see even a tenth of what was on show in the city’s Kremlin Square. To do better than Medvedeva, start by climbing the spiraling wooden stairs to the top of St. Sophia Cathedral. The balcony offers a great panoramic view of the square and the city.
Opposite the cathedral is the newly opened Museum of Lace, which showcases intricate works by artists from Vologda and Europe. The two floors in the museum are a fairly quick visit, which will leave you time to walk along the embankment near the kremlin walls.
For those with a keen interest in politics, a visit to the Vologda Exile Museum is a must. The museum is located in the wooden house where Josef Stalin lived in 1911 and 1912. Vologda was a popular exile destination in pre-revolutionary times, with prominent Soviet leaders, including Lenin’s sister and a future Soviet foreign minister, serving out their sentences in the provincial town.

<b>What to do if you have two days</b>
An extra day in Vologda warrants a trip to the old monasteries around the city. The Ferapontov Monastery houses frescoes that Moscow artist Dionisy painted in 1502 in an area that poet Nikolai Rubtsov called “the most holy place on Earth.”
The Kirillovo-Belozersky Male Monastery, which is located 129 kilometers from Vologda, is home to six monks as well as the local cat Tsilya. The monastery has a large collection of icons, some of which are on now display at the Tretyakov Gallery as part of its “Holy Russia” exhibition. Tour guide Marina Travnikova said a visiting Muscovite was so impressed with the icons that he told her, “‘You have a provincial town, but the museum is not provincial.”
The lake beside the monastery is said to be holy and to have the power to make people younger, which could explain why the site has been a popular destination for Russian leaders from Mikhail Romanov to Vladimir Putin.
If you choose to stay in the city, take time to explore some of the places where the locals like to go. The monument to the 800th anniversary of Vologda is a popular meeting place for young and older residents alike. A stroll across the bridge and through Zarechye, the territory on the left side of Vologda River, gives a taste of the most historic part of the city.

<b>What to do with the kids</b>
Children will enjoy coming to Vologda in the winter. Sleds start rolling down the embankments near Kremlin Square as soon as the first snow falls. When the winter sets in, kids don’t even bother to run home to get good sleds and will just use anything that rolls down the hill, Lobintseva said.

<b>Nightlife</b>
Vologda is considered to be a cultural center of northern Russia, and there is no shortage of activities to do there even when night falls. The city has several theaters, of which the Vologda Drama Theater is the oldest (1/23 Sovietsky Prospekt; +7 8172-72-61-66; dramtheater.ru). Established in 1849, the theater continues to treat Vologda residents and visitors with productions of Russian and foreign classics.
The Vologda Teremok Theater of Dolls (21 Ulitsa Lenina; +7 8172-72-45-40; teremok.vologda.ru) is also worth a visit. The theater troupe has gone on tours to the United States, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland, but if you cannot get to watch a show, at least walk by the theater’s building to admire its bright-red castle-like structure.
For those wishing to explore Vologda’s clubs, head to X.O. Partyclub (107 Zosimovskaya Ulitsa; +7 8172-75-06-75), which boasts the city’s best dance floor and has even drawn the likes of Grammy-winning artist David Guetta.

<b>Where to eat</b>
While Vologda shops are a good place to stock up on souvenir buckets of butter, city restaurateurs are ready to offer a wider assortment of food to visitors. The Italian food and posh interiors of Bellagio (4a Ulitsa Sergeya Orlova; +7 8172-26-55-91) drew in French director Pierre Richard when he was filming a documentary about the region last winter.
For those wishing to sample Russian cuisine, a stop at the Nikolaevskiy (14 Ulitsa Kostromskaya; +7 8172-53-22-99; nikolaevskiy.ru/foodandbeverage) is in order. The restaurant is line with classic Russian tastes and specializes in salmon, pork and other meat dish grilled over an open fire. A meal for one without alcohol costs about 1,000 rubles.
Restaurant Atrium (27 Ulitsa Gertsena; +7 8172-78-78-33; atrium-vologda.ru/res) is a good place for a business lunch. It is conveniently located in the Atrium Hotel in the city center and has an easy atmosphere. A lunch of caviar on ice, salmon salad with avocado and fresh vegetables, perch fried in bacon with peanut sauce and ice cream covered in balsamic sauce costs 780 rubles.

<b>Where to stay</b>
Vologda’s governor remembers with pride how far the local hotel business has come in recent years. Until recently, Vologda visitors had a choice of just one hotel, but can now choose among 29.
To save the trouble of choosing the best one, celebrities have already tested the options. Hotel Atrium (27 Ulitsa Gertzena; +7 8172-78-78-25; atrium-vologda.ru) is considered the best in the city, and rooms cost 3,900 rubles to 5,000 rubles ($130 to $170) a night. This summer, the hotel welcomed designer Valentin Yudashkin and first lady Svetlana Medvedeva, who came to the city for its linen festival. Designer Slava Zaitsev opted for Hotel Angliter (23 Ulitsa Lermontova; +7 8172-76-24-36; angliter.ru), where rooms start at 1,700 rubles a night.
Many other Russian celebrities flock to the Nikolaevskiy Hotel Club (14 Ulitsa Kostromskaya; +7 8172-51-22-99; nikolaevskiy.ru), one of the most luxurious hotels in the city with rooms priced from 2,700 rubles to 11,000 rubles per night. The Nikolaevskiy has accommodated a number of pop stars, including Laima Vaikule, Chai Vdvoyom, Alla Pugachyova and Valery Leontyev.  

<b>Conversation starters</b>
Like other cities, Vologda underwent a campaign in the 1990s to restore pre-revolutionary names for its streets. The campaign received a generally positive response. You can bring up a variation of the topic by asking Volodga residents whether they would like to put up a monument to Ivan the Terrible. Making the suggestion will show people your knowledge of their city. Plus, since Vologda currently has about 224 monuments of architectural importance, the locals likely won’t be averse to the suggestion.
Vologda residents are very proud of their city and will rarely speak ill of it, but they might be willing to discuss ways to improve it. You can echo local talk of putting more garbage cans in the city or suggest installing an ice rink on Kremlin Square, like the one on Moscow’s Red Square in the winter. The locals are big fans of winter sports but will be torn in deciding whether the recreation is worth changing the look of the historic city center.

<b>How to get there</b>
Vologda is located 544 kilometers to the southeast of St. Petersburg. Several trains leave St. Petersburg for Vologda every day from the city’s Ladozhsky Train Station, including one that terminates in Vologda. The journey takes about 12 hours, and a one-way ticket costs about 990 rubles in a third-class platzkart carriage.
<hr />
<b>Vologda</b>

Population: 309,000

Main industries: machine building, food, textiles, lumber

Founded: 1147

Interesting fact: The city is sometimes called the “holy land” because more than 100 Vologda residents have been canonized as saints

Helpful contacts: Vologda City Hall spokeswoman Svetlana Zolotilova (+7 8172-72-23-48; ssolot@mail.ru) 

Sister cities: Kouvola, Finland; Miskolc, Hungary; Zwolle, Netherlands; Londonderry, Vermont, U.S.

<b>Major companies</b>
• Nestle (4a Ulitsa Mikhaila Popovicha; +7 8172-25-78-20; nestle.ru) purchased a children’s food factory in Vologda in 2003 and has been producing children’s cereals there since 2005. Production lines for instant cereals were added to the factory in 2010. The factory now produces 18 brands of children’s cereals under the Nestle tag and 18 instant cereals under the Bistroff tag.

• The 70-year-old Vologda Machine-Tool Plant 
(22 Zalineinaya Ulitsa; 
+7 8172-21-83-59; vsz.ru) initially specialized in making wood-processing equipment, but now also produces equipment for the metallurgy, transportation and agriculture industries. The plant works with many enterprises in the Vologda region and has also started to develop stronger relations with its Western partners.

• The Vologda Ball-Bearing Factory (13 Okruzhnoe Shosse; 
+7 8172-53-66-09; vbf.ru) is one of the largest of its kind in Russia. It produces more than 1,700 standard types of ball and roller bearings as well as other products, including those made to custom design.
<hr />
<i>Philippe Fehrenbach, 
Director of Nestle Russia’s branch in Vologda</i>

Q: Why did Nestle choose to build its factory in Vologda?
A: Vologda was chosen due to its convenient geographical location and cooperative local people.
Q: What are the benefits and difficulties of working in Vologda?
A: The benefits of working in Vologda are good cooperation and support from the local authorities.
Q: What opportunities for growth does Vologda offer?
A: Vologda is considered a promising region for development. In 2010, Bistroff cereals production was transferred to Vologda. More than 200 million rubles was invested into expanding production at the Vologda factory. Nestle constantly invests in developing the Vologda factory in order to offer consumers new tastes and new products. In 2011 and 2012, we plan to invest in further development of the factory and upgrade our product lineup.

TITLE: London’s Russians Thwart Attempts to Generalize
AUTHOR: By Tobias Kuehne
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russian patter in the tube. Cyrillic characters on street corner cafes. Russian newspapers advertising “Russian Yoga” in Hyde Park. It is not hard to see (or hear) why London merits the nickname “Londongrad.” Statistics vary, but it is surmised that some 300,000 Russians are currently living in Western Europe’s biggest metropolitan center, home to the likes of billionaire Roman Abramovich, and setting to espionage dramas such as the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning. London is teeming with Russians, but they are far from a homogenous community.

<b>Secretive</b>
Dmitry, is rather hesitant to elaborate on what he is doing in London. He is only here on a short business trip, but he has a sister who lives in London. “But she has a baby, so she won’t be interested in anything that’s not about the baby.” Noted. A more fruitful approach might be to chat to some Russian youths with the vestiges of Russian retained from college. “Are you a police officer?” they ask in perfect English. The Russian in London is a hard nut to crack.
Whence London Russians’ secretiveness? 
“It’s the typical story,” says Donald Rayfield, Professor of Russian at Queen Mary University of London and a long-standing instructor to Russian ESL students. “We have a large illegal Russian community. Britain is one of the easiest places to be a major criminal.” This rings somewhat accurate, as a typical personal message received on the network RussiansinUK.com is: “Buy counterfeit forged fake diplomatic passport of Italian.”
But a community of 300,000 major criminals? That seems hard to believe. And many of them are undoubtedly gainfully employed: As Prof. Rayfield points out, “Many of the big, expensive stores employ Russian assistants, since there is a critical mass of Russian corporate millions in London.” 
At Harrods, the most exquisite department store in the world, famous for its boundless selection of luxury goods and for such quirky episodes as concealing a whole helicopter in red wrapping paper, it doesn’t take long to find one such assistant.
Alla has a small Russian flag printed on her name tag, wears her makeup just a wee bit thicker than her customers, and sports heels half an inch taller than her British coworkers. 
Alla started at Harrods two years ago, during which time she has risen to become a department manager. “Things move fast here in London.” She was the first in her family to go abroad, left without any English, and spent time in Ireland and Scotland before launching her career in the world’s number one department store. “Basically, the money you get paid where I’m from is crap, so I came to London.”
Alla’s story is a small-scale resemblance of what many ambitious Russians come to London for: To make it big. While Alla is working her way up at Harrods, other Russians succeed as businessmen, lawyers, scientists or doctors. Many Russian immigrants are highly trained specialists and come to start a career under more promising auspices than in their home country. What is missing in Alla’s story, though, is the shadiness that Prof. Rayfield described. 

<b>A Personal Audience</b>
In the interests of journalism, an imaginary lady friend who needs a personal shopping assistant, as she plans to fly in tomorrow to spend “a small fortune,” is conjured up. It is amazing to see how effective the word “fortune” can be. For example, it gets you a private audience with Guzel Portnik, personal shopping assistant from Moscow. Portnik lays out the various service options she can offer “Lena”: Everything Lena desires will be delivered up to a personal room, which she can use all day to try on whatever she likes. Someone will be constantly available to cater to Lena’s needs. 
“Russians love our service, even though they are very particular. Sometimes they come and say they will leave half a million here, and then spend only 1,000 pounds,” Portnik says. Lena will spend even less than 1,000 pounds tomorrow.

<b>‘Russians’ in London?</b>
The reason that Russians in London are so difficult to pin down is rooted in the inherently false assumption that they can be pinned down. Sergei Pavlenko is a distinguished portrait painter from the ranks of the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, and a mortal enemy of all varieties of stereotypes. 
“What do you mean by ‘Russians’?” Pavlenko asks, deeply ensconced in the throne-like olive-colored chair at his studio. “There are Lithuanians, Chechens, Ukrainians, Belarussians and Kyrgyz in London, and they are all called ‘Russians.’ People tend to lump them together without knowing what they are talking about.” He bares a friendly golden front tooth as he flashes a disarming smile. 
Pavlenko emphasizes that Russians are individualists who don’t stick together. “Being Russian is not a sufficient reason for being an acquaintance.” Professional networking events may be an exception — hundreds of Russians usually attend those — but social events do not see a huge turnout. Pavlenko, for one, is a maverick. Disillusioned with his prospects as an artist in St. Petersburg, he left Russia in 1989. Restless like many of the other Russian expatriates, he moved to London and then to San Francisco for several years. A divorce and a few other disenchantments later, he found his way back to London, where he has now firmly settled down. “It is not what I expected, and foreigners do get treated differently here. But I won’t complain, it is still fairer here than in Russia. It’s just that there, you sort of expect it, but here you don’t.”

<b>Russians ‘in London’?</b>
Andrei, who also moved to London after a divorce, would beg to differ. Having worked his way up from minimum wage as a waiter, Andrei found a job with the Pushkin House, a Russian cultural center in the middle of London. When asked whether he has found happiness here, he says: “I like it here, Londoners are much more polite. I have become less aggressive here than in Moscow, where they push you out of the way everywhere you go.” 
London must have worked wonders on him, as it is hard to imagine this jolly, gregarious man being aggressive to anyone. Incidentally, he too had spent time in America before he came to London. 
“America was not for me. All people ever talked about was food, clothes, and how to sue each other. In Russia, we talked about music, books.” So does he get to do more of this with other Russians at the Pushkin House? “Not really. Russians don’t really hang out here, they come for events, or maybe to buy a book.” Russians really are scattered in London. Russian individualists are both defiant of stereotypes and resistant to conglomerating.
Yet one feature does seem to connect London Russians: They move around. Their elusiveness is as much a part of the “Russian community” as is their restlessness. Oksana Morgunova is another example. She comes to London for academic work every now and then and thus admittedly does not really count as a “Russian in London.” Morgunova was involved in setting up a rehab clinic in Cyprus before she moved to Scotland, where she works as a research fellow at the University of Hull. She has also written a book on Russians in Britain. 
“If you ask me where I am at home, I am at home here in Britain and in Moscow, and I am happy. No nostalgic narratives for me.” So is there nothing she misses about Russia? Morgunova pauses for a moment and fixes her eyes on a distant corner of the cafe. 
“One thing I am nostalgic about: Before my exams in school, I would put a big bright five-kopeck coin under my heel, for good luck. And I miss ponchiki, the way they used to make them. People in Russia don’t eat them any more.” 

TITLE: Ski Resorts of the North Caucasus Bring Hope and Doubt
AUTHOR: By Khristina Narizhnaya 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The North Caucasus region is a new multibillon-dollar frontier in the development of tourism and real estate.
Driving down the well-paved highway from Mineralniye Vody Airport to the mountains of the Arkhyz valley, cattle and horses are a more common sight than rest stops.
Mountains stretch for hundreds of kilometers, interrupted every so often by blue rivers and smatterings of village houses.
But that is about to change soon. Or at least that is the government’s plan.
Four ski villages with hotels, cottages, shops and restaurants will dot the green, craggy mountains of Arkhyz in southern Russia, said Alexei Nevsky, general director of North Caucasus Resorts, the state-owned company that is overseeing the project. By the end of the year, the Arkhyz valley will have a completed ski lift and three small-scale hotels. Over the next two decades, the Arkhyz ski resort will grow to 263 kilometers of ski routes and accommodate up to 45,000 tourists daily, he said.
Arkhyz is the site of the biggest of the five new ski resorts the Kremlin plans to build in the North Caucasus, a mountainous region that, for now, is as desolate as it is beautiful. The other four will be located in Lagonaki, Adygeya republic; Matlas, Dagestan; Elbrus-Berengi, Kabardino-Balkaria; and Mamison, North Ossetia.
The resorts will have a total of 898 kilometers of ski routes and 179 ski lifts, and will be able to accommodate 150,500 guests per day.
The Kremlin will invest about $2 billion in the $15.4 billion project. The French state financial holding Caisse des Depots et Consignations has agreed to invest up to $1 billion.
Construction of the first ski lift started in August in the Arkhyz valley, which has until now been barely touched by man. The only inhabitants besides a village of about 600 people are wild animals — including wolves and mountain goats. Locals talk of vultures whose wings span three to four meters.
The Arkhyz valley ski resort will consist of small cottages, three- to five-star hotels and guest apartments and suites, which will be built according to ecological standards and will have similar decor, Nevsky said.
“They will be built in a world-class style of ski resorts” that will resemble those in France and Italy, Nevsky said.
Tourism is not a totally new concept in the region. The nearby ski resorts at Dombai and Mount Elbrus are packed during the winter. Locals said reservations must be made at least two months in advance to ski at Dombai.
The four cities near Arkhyz, including Kislovodsk, have attracted tourists since Soviet times for the health benefits of their mineral pools and mountain air.
The Adiyukh Palace resort hotel, built seven years ago, features a luxury spa with enriched mineral pools against a backdrop of mountains and an ancient fortress, also called Adiyukh.
The ski resort will bring economic development and soon the area will be unrecognizable, Nevsky said. Small businesses connected with tourism, such as restaurants and shops, will appear along the roads.
The Karachayev-Cherkessia republic, like many in the North Caucasus, is one of the poorest regions in Russia. The local average monthly income is 5,000 rubles (about $170) per month, though food prices do not differ much from Moscow.
In the last five years the economy has improved and the region has experienced a construction boom. The local airport added a modern blue and white terminal and new runways opened earlier this year.
New shopping centers, mosques and housing have been built in the cities of Karachayevsk and Cherkesk. Construction will continue to grow, Nevsky said, and prices for real estate will climb as the resorts are completed.
The biggest problem for resorts in the North Caucasus is attracting tourists. The region’s image as a dangerous place keeps visitors away.
Violence is indeed commonplace.
In March, three tourists from Moscow were killed in the Kabardino-Balkaria republic on their way to Mount Elbrus, where an explosion also damaged new ski lifts. Last week, suicide bombers killed 9 people in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, which is about 200 kilometers from the planned resort site in Dagestan.
North Caucasus Resorts is consulting with Israel and France on making the area safer. To change their image and attract more tourists, the company is commissioning a film about the region. It will most likely be a comedy set in the North Caucasus, Nevsky said.
Many locals are eager to see the resorts open. They say they believe that the development will bring jobs and progress to the region, as well as improve security.
Kaplan Tebuyev, 31, who heads the administration of Uchkan, an aul — a local term for “village” — 150 kilometers from Arkhyz, said the resorts would bring money to the region.
“Industry is good, jobs are good,” Tebuyev said.
Marat Gadzhayev, 33, a government clerk in Stanitsa Zelenchuk, a neighboring village about 100 kilometers east of Arkhyz, agrees.
“It would only be good, 100 percent good,” Gadzhayev said.
But some locals are doubtful the resorts will benefit them.
Lyuba, a 27-year-old nurse from Stanitsa Zelenchuk, does not believe that the Arkhyz ski resort will even be built. And if it is, it will not help the village in any way, said Lyuba, who makes 4,000 rubles ($136) a month.
“They invest money here, put money into that project, but we haven’t seen anything yet,” Lyuba said. “People don’t live here, they survive.”