SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1674 (36), Wednesday, September 14, 2011
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TITLE: Governor Shakes Up City Hall
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Tyomkin
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: New St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko has finalized his new cabinet team, proposing three new additions, while deputy governors Alla Manilova and Alexei Sergeyev are set to leave City Hall. 
Poltavchenko nominated his candidates for the positions of deputy governor to the Legislative Assembly on Friday, according to a member of the assembly. They are due to be confirmed by the assembly on Wednesday, Sept. 14, which would increase the number of deputy governors from eight to nine, he said. 
One of the new deputy governors will reportedly be Sergei Vyazalov, who is currently deputy head of the Russian presidential office for foreign policy, who will be put in charge of City Hall’s financial-economic bloc, according to three deputies. The bloc is currently led by Mikhail Oseyevsky, head of the governor’s administration, who will remain in that position. City Hall’s press office declined to comment on the reshuffle. 
For the position of deputy governor in charge of housing and municipal services, Poltavchenko nominated Sergey Kozyrev, a deputy governor and supervisor for the governor’s administration and government of the Leningrad Oblast since 2005. He will replace Alexei Sergeyev. Kozyrev’s move to City Hall is known to an official of the regional government. According to him, Kozyrev has no background in municipal services. This year the committees on redevelopment, energy and housing have been allocated 60 billion rubles ($2 billion) out of the city’s 432 billion-ruble ($14.3 billion) budget.
Kozyrev, 46, studied at the military academy in the city of Ordzhonikidze, the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow and the Northwest Academy of Governmental Service, serving in the army until 2000. He became a deputy of the regional legislative assembly in 2001. According to an energy specialist familiar with the official, Kozyrev was supervisor for the regional gasification program. It was not possible to reach Kozyrev for comment. 
The outgoing deputy governor Sergeyev has been criticized for the city’s failure to clear the streets of snow adequately during the winter. In early September, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak stated that St. Petersburg “had successfully overcome the challenge of cold temperatures, but not the challenge of snow.” Sergeyev said via a representative that for now he “would rest.” He may enter one of the city structures of Gazprom, said one of its employees. 
Alla Manilova has also vacated her place in City Hall, having previously been in charge of education, culture and the administration’s press service. She resigned last week. In her place, the governor has proposed 57-year-old Vasily Kichedzhi. Kichedzhi graduated from the Institute of Soviet Trade and National Economy, after which he was involved in the meat industry and the gambling business, and was the co-owner of the Chelyabinsk Pipe Plant. From 2000 to 2003 he was deputy to Poltavchenko when the latter was envoy to the Central Federal District. Later he became the general director of Dorinvest, the State Unitary Enterprise of the city of Moscow for the Maintenance of Roads and Public Works.
Deputy governors Yury Molchanov (investment and transportation), Roman Filimonov (construction), Igor Metelsky (property), Lyudmila Kostkina (social policy), and Valery Tikhonov (legal affairs) will keep their jobs. 
The financial-economic bloc is the most important, says a former City Hall official, and so new governors typically start with it when initiating change. 

TITLE: Matviyenko Critic Says He Has Been Blacklisted 
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Television presenter and journalist Dmitry Gubin, once the editor of the local English-Russian-language publication Pulse St. Petersburg, says he has been blacklisted by Russia’s state-controlled national television at the demand of former St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko. 
Last week, Gubin wrote in his blog on Livejournal.com that he found out “by pure chance” that he had been fired and replaced as the co-host of the program “Vremenno Dostupen” (Temporarily Available) on the Tsentr Television channel (TVTs), which he presented alongside Dmitry Dibrov. 
He said that no one from the channel’s management has called him to tell him the news.
Gubin wrote that he learned that he had been put on a blacklist when he tried to find out via an unnamed influential source why he had been fired.
“Don’t even go near the federal television channels,” Gubin quoted his source as saying.
“There’s a total ban on you; Auntie Valya (one of Matviyenko’s nicknames) did her best. And everybody on television knows this.”
Gubin revealed that earlier this year, he was booted off another show he used to host, and edited out of three already completed shows on RTR Television channel.
Alongside actor Dmitry Kharatyan, Gubin was a co-host of RTR’s 90-minute talk show “Bolshaya Semya” (Large Family).
Ekho Moskvy journalist Ksenia Larina wrote about Gubin being edited out of the show in her blog on the station’s web site back in June, after the program editor wrote to her that the “Bolshaya Semya” program featuring her had still not been aired after several months because the channel was “busy editing out the presenter.”
When Larina asked why, the reply she received was: “Surely you understand.” On her blog, Larina described the situation as “crude, outrageous savagery.” 
Gubin claims that he was told unofficially that he was edited out on the orders of “the state’s second person.” Speaking on Tuesday, he said he had no idea whether Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or President Dmitry Medvedev was meant, but that he was sure that he came under fire because of his criticism of Matviyenko.
Matviyenko reportedly had the support of Putin, who endorsed her for the post of St. Petersburg governor in 2003 and reappointed her to the job in 2006 after scrapping gubernatorial elections.
According to Gubin, his current problems with television began after one of his programs on Vesti FM radio station in February, in which he criticized Matviyenko’s failure to manage the city during the winter, comparing the situation to the Siege of Leningrad during World War II and likening Matviyenko to Hitler.
In the program, he said that Matviyenko had in no time at all turned St. Petersburg, “one of Europe’s most magnificent cities,” into “the hole of a village outhouse” and then addressed her directly with the words, “Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko! You’ve turned the city into a stinking rotten garbage heap.” 
Gubin wrote that he had been fired two hours after the program aired for an alleged “breach of contract,” but that he assumed it had been done on the orders of the authorities.
The lengthy process of editing him out of RTR’s recorded “Bolshaya Semya” shows apparently began soon after, as both Vesti FM and RTR Television belong to the same holding.
Matviyenko vacated the seat of governor last month after being offered the position of Speaker of the Federation Council in Moscow by Medvedev. Analysts say the move was a result of her unpopularity with St. Petersburg residents caused by failures to clear the roads of snow and ice during the past two winters, among other reasons.
The authorities and television managers officially deny that blacklists exist. Unofficially, however, their existence has been confirmed by television journalists and opposition figures such as Garry Kasparov and Eduard Limonov, who say they are barred from taking part in television programs.
RTR, TV Tsentr and ATV Company that produces “Vremenno Dostupen” did not reply to questions when contacted by The St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Navy HQ Will Move</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The headquarters of the Russian navy are scheduled to move to St. Petersburg by 2012 according to Nikolai Makarov, current Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia and First Deputy Minister of Defense.
The announcement came Monday after years of controversy over the plan, with several top Russian military commanders against the idea for reasons of cost and efficiency.
“The main headquarters of the navy will be moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg by the end of 2011 or the first quarter of 2012,” RIA-Novosti cited Deputy Defense Minister Grigory Naginsky as saying.

<b>Tsoi Commemorated</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A competition to create a memorial portrait of the late Kino frontman Viktor Tsoi has been announced in time for what would have been the musician’s 50th birthday, Interfax reported Tuesday. 
The winning work will be showcased on the wall of the Kamchatka club and museum, which is housed in the former boiler room where Tsoi worked.
“The work can take any form, be it graphic or monumental, two or three-dimensional, glass or ceramics,” said Viktoria Semyonova, head of the city’s department of urban design. “This is a pilot project, so we are calling on everyone to use their creativity.”
The competition opens on Sept. 15, and will continue until February, with the opening ceremony scheduled to be held on June 21, 2012, which would have been Tsoi’s 50th birthday.
Tsoi was killed in a car crash in Latvia in 1990. His rock group Kino was hugely popular in the 1980s and retains its cult status in Russia to this day.

<b>Young Runner Dies</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A young female athlete died during a ten-kilometer competitive run in St. Petersburg on Saturday, Interfax reported.
The athlete, who was not named in the report, was a student at one of the city’s universities who also practiced field athletics at a professional level. She was taking part in the run for the sixth time.
The 21-year-old woman collapsed and died in the vicinity of the city’s Palace Bridge, near the race’s starting and finishing point.

<b>Mushroom Pickers Lost</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — More than 340 people have gotten lost in the forests of the Leningrad Oblast since the beginning of the mushroom picking season, regional emergency services said last week.
Most calls that the emergency services receive at this time of year are to locate people who have gone astray, they said. Similar situations occur regularly every year. During the week it is mostly elderly people who lose their way. On weekends it’s both children and adults.
While it is still warm outside, people are able to spend the night in the forest but soon the freezing temperatures will begin, the emergency services warned.
The majority of people get lost on the Karelian isthmus, and in the Volosovo and Luga regions. Representatives of the emergency services recommend that people take a cell phone with an extra battery and matches with them when heading out into the forest. 

TITLE: Siege Survivor Remembers the Struggle for Survival 
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As St. Petersburg marked the 70th anniversary of the start of the devastating Siege of Leningrad last week, siege survivor Nina Dmitriyeva, a tiny but lively 80-year-old woman, recalled the most difficult moments of the siege in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times.
On Sept. 8, 1941, when the Nazis closed the circle they had formed around Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known, Dmitriyeva was nine years old and already confined to bed after sustaining a serious head injury during one of the first German bombardments of the city in June.
At that time, the city’s residents had no idea what awaited them, or that during the next 872 days, about a million of them would die from starvation and bombing. They could not imagine that in a few months’ time, their daily food ration would be just 125 to 250 grams of bread, made using every imaginable ingredient to make the mixture go further, that frozen corpses in the street would cease to shock them, or that they would burn all of the furniture in their apartments to keep themselves warm when the heating system failed, along with other utilities.
“I think in our family, the worst experience was endured by my elder sister Lidiya, whose two-year-old son died during the siege from starvation,” Dmitriyeva said.
“While my sister was at work, her neighbor looked after the little boy. One day, when my sister was due to go to work, the neighbor told her not to go because it seemed as though the boy would die. But Lidiya, my sister, still had to go to work out of duty. It turned out to be a lucky day at work, because her team was given some extra bread. Lidiya ran home, so happy because she finally had more food to give to her son. But it was too late. The child had already died. My sister could not eat that bread, and buried it along with her little son.”
Dmitriyeva’s own experience of the siege was, for a child, just as much of an ordeal. On a hot day at the end of June 1941, she was walking along Zagorodny Prospekt when she noticed a mass of Nazi planes in the sky. 
“The sky turned dark, there were so many planes,” Dmitriyeva recalled.
Like all the other people in the street, she tried to run away, but a few minutes later was trapped under a huge pile of broken bricks when the neighboring building was hit by a bomb.  
Dmitriyeva survived by mere chance, thanks to one of the firemen who arrived at the spot and noticed a piece of red fabric sticking out from under the rubble. It was a piece of the girl’s sundress. The firemen pulled her out and took her to the hospital. Dmitriyeva suffered a serious brain contusion and concussion.
The contusion was so bad that for the entire first year of the siege, the young girl had to stay in bed. She became dizzy every time she tried to get up.
Dmitriyeva said she was so weak after her injury that she could not chew properly and lost her appetite. The basic food that she and her mother had at that time was a small portion of bread and carpenters’ glue, which they used to make soup.
“I remember it seeming absolutely delicious at the time,” Dmitriyeva said.
Dmitriyeva said that there were both bad and good moments during the war. Once, when she was collecting her family’s daily bread ration in a store, two girls grabbed the food out of her hands and ran away. Dmitriyeva was frustrated and upset, but when she came home and told the story, the family’s neighbor in their communal apartment gave them a beetroot and a bit of flour.
“You know, surprisingly I still can’t blame those girls, because I understand the kind of despair that made them do it,” Dmitriyeva said.
Dmitriyeva said she clearly remembers the taste of American canned sausage, canned fish and bacon, a little of which her family received, like many Leningrad residents, through the lend-lease program in 1943 when British and American convoys delivered supplies to northern Russia.
“I loved that bacon so much, and ever since then — even now — I have tried to find something similar, but have never succeeded,” Dmitriyeva said.
Dmitriyeva, who is often invited by schools to tell her stories of the siege to younger generations, said that she was once left unsettled by a question about cannibalism during the siege.
“We didn’t eat anyone,” Dmitriyeva said, with a note of offense still audible in her voice. “There were such cases, but those were isolated ones. It happened to people who went completely crazy from hunger,” she said.
Dmitriyeva admitted that 40 years after the end of the war, when she was working as a hospital nurse, she was witness to a case in which a patient lost her mind, clearly affected by memories of cannibalism.
“The woman suddenly started hiding hospital food under her pillow, crying in her sleep and calling out someone’s name,” said Dmitriyeva. “Shortly afterward, the doctors diagnosed her with mental health problems, and she was sent to an asylum. Later, an acquaintance of the woman explained that during the siege the woman had lived in the city with her four children. They were all on the verge of starvation, so when the three-year-old child died, she had used his body to feed the others, saving them in doing so.”
When in January 1944, the Soviet troops finally managed to liberate Leningrad from the Germans, Dmitriyeva’s family decided to move to one of the city’s suburbs, Pavlovsk, where her sister got a job at a printing house. Dmitriyeva, who was only 13, joined her sister and worked there as well. 
This was at the time when a few simple food items became available to buy without ration cards, so when Dmitriyeva received her first wage, she bought a spoonful of flour, some nettles and a potato. The family made a soup using these ingredients. People had to buy nettles at that time rather than pick them themselves because much of the land was mined, she explained.
“So we made the soup and it was so unbelievably delicious that I thought that when I grew up and got married I would cook such a soup every day!” Dmitriyeva remembered.
Of course, the quantity and variety of food available to Dmitriyeva’s future family turned out to be far better than that of the war and immediate post-war years. But to this day, like most of the people who survived the siege, she treats food with great care and respect to avoid wasting anything.
Despite having lived through such difficult times, Dmitriyeva, who worked as a nurse for all of her working life, has never lost her optimism or vivacious attitude to life. Even now, she makes home visits to elderly patients who need injections but are too old to wait in line for hours at a clinic. She accepts no payment for this service, and says that the siege taught her to help others selflessly.

TITLE: Survivor of Lokomotiv Plane Crash Dies of Injuries
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: YAROSLAVL — Alexander Galimov, the sole surviving player from the Yak-42 crash that wiped out the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team last week, died on Monday after five days in the hospital.
His death brings the death toll from the incident to 44. But doctors said the last survivor, flight attendant Alexander Sizov, released from an intensive care ward Monday, was expected to pull through.
Meanwhile, officials continued to rule out various technical malfunctions as the cause of the crash but offered no alternative explanations.
The Yak-42, chartered to take Lokomotiv to Minsk for the opening game of the Kontinental Hockey League, hit a navigation beacon at the end of the runway on takeoff Wednesday and slammed into the ground, falling apart and bursting into flames.
Galimov, 26, was thrown out of the plane and into the small Tunoshonka River nearby, his first coach, Nikolai Kazakevich, told the Sovietsky Sport daily on Friday.
The winger actually jumped back into the water, trying to save the others, Kazakevich said, citing the rescuers. He added that Galimov stayed conscious in the ambulance.
But the player sustained burns to 90 percent of his body and numerous other injuries, one of which required a trachea transplant.
The country rooted for him, with the doors of Moscow’s Vishnevsky Surgical Institute plastered with posters reading, “Hang in there, Sasha.” But on Monday morning, the institute’s blog announced that he had died of “fatal burns.”
Galimov, a Muslim, was due to be buried in the Islamic custom at a cemetery outside Yaroslavl on Tuesday, Yaroslavl-based Imam Ramzan-Khazrat Rashidov said, Interfax reported.
Galimov had played for Lokomotiv, previously known as Torpedo, since he was 5. He won the 2005 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in the United States with the Russian squad, and was a two-time runner-up for the KHL title with Lokomotiv. He is survived by a wife and young daughter.
The other survivor, Sizov, has numerous broken bones and burns to 15 percent of his body. His life is not in danger, and he was moved into a regular ward, Interfax said.
The Investigative Committee plans to question him about the accident as soon as doctors allow, a spokesman said Monday. No time frame was given.
Nineteen Yaroslavl-born players killed in the crash were laid to rest in the city on Saturday after a funeral attended by 100,000 people, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The team’s roster included players from Belarus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia, Sweden and Ukraine, as well as Canadian coach Brad McCrimmon. Their bodies were sent for funerals to their home countries.
Two of the 44 victims remained unidentified Monday, pending DNA tests.
President Dmitry Medvedev personally took up the matter of refilling the ranks of three-time Russian champions Lokomotiv at a Monday meeting with government members and club officials.
The team, which has a strong junior squad, will miss the 2011-12 season of the Kontinental Hockey League and will be guaranteed a slot in the play-offs next season, Interfax reported. It will also boost its ranks with volunteers from other teams and be exempt from the draft until 2017, sparing it from losing players to other clubs.
The cause of the crash remained unclear Monday. Flight recorders, recovered last week, were still being analyzed, and the Interstate Aviation Committee was preparing a simulation of the incident, committee chairwoman Tatyana Anodina said. She did not elaborate.
The flight recorders have yielded no information pointing to any malfunctions, Anodina told Putin at a meeting on aviation safety Monday.
“The plane’s load was within acceptable limits, a pre-flight check by the crew of all controls showed all functions were normal, and the [plane’s] elevator also worked fine,” Anodina said, according to a transcript on the prime minister’s web site.
Putin asked investigators to find out why the pilot did not use the emergency brakes when the plane had rolled off the end of the runway.
Officials also sought to disprove once more a persistent rumor that the plane had failed to gain enough speed because it did not have enough runway. Most of the takeoff strip was occupied by private jets bringing guests to the Global Political Forum that took place in Yaroslavl last Wednesday and Thursday.
The plane used 2.8 kilometers of the three-kilometer runway for takeoff, Oleg Kochanov, head of Yaroslavl’s Tunoshna Airport, told Interfax.
The three-engine jet, built in 1993, underwent repairs, including an engine replacement, at Kazan’s Tulpar Tekhnik hangers last month, but no “irregularities” were reported during or after the repair work, prosecutors said Monday.
Albert Safin, a senior official with the Federal Air Transportation Agency, described Tulpar as one of the best jet maintenance companies in the business, Interfax said.

TITLE: Officer Fined for Feeding Troops Dog Food
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: VLADIVOSTOK — An army officer who fed dog food instead of canned beef to conscripts in the Far East was ordered to pay a fine of 202,000 rubles ($6,600) on Monday, Interfax reported.
By contrast, the former officer who exposed the story was jailed last Friday for four years by a Vladivostok military court on unrelated charges that he claimed were retaliation for his whistleblowing.
A garrison court in the Primorye region found warrant officer Vyacheslav Gerzog guilty of neglect and abuse of office, the Investigative Committee’s military department said in a statement.
Food supplies worth more than 1 million rubles, mostly canned beef but also canned fish and milk, butter, cookies and frozen meat, went missing from a warehouse managed by Gerzog, who distributed them on demand to unspecified recipients without any paperwork, the statement said.
In February, Gerzog learned about an upcoming inspection and tried to cover up for the missing supplies by slapping labels reading “quality beef” on cans of dog food. 
Some of the dog food was served to conscripts, Major Igor Matveyev said in a 10-minute YouTube appeal exposing this and other cases of abuse at Gerzog’s military unit.
The investigators said the fraud was exposed during the inspection, but the story first caught the public eye only after Matveyev posted the video in May.

TITLE: Sokurov Wins Prize for ‘Faust’
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VENICE, Italy — Russian director Alexander Sokurov’s “Faust,” a new take on the German legend about the quest for knowledge at all cost, won the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.
“Faust” tells the tale of a professor, played by Johannes Zeiler, who craves knowledge and sells his soul for the love of Margarete, played by Isolda Dychauk. The Mephistopheles character is played by Anton Adasinsky.
Dense and difficult to watch, “Faust” was nevertheless one of the critics’ top choices among the 23 films in competition at Venice this year. It marks the final chapter in Sokurov’s four-film look at the relationship between man and power that began with “Moloch” in 1999 about Hitler, “Taurus” a year later about Lenin and the 2005 film “The Sun” about Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
At a post-award news conference, Sokurov made an impassioned plea for governments to continue supporting culture with state funds.
“Culture is not a luxury! It is the basis for the development of the society,” he said, adding that he had even raised the issue with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a phone call just after he won.
“And so I am making an appeal to the Italian minister of culture: Thank you for existing! Insist with all methods you have on keeping culture.”
Sokurov said working with the German cast was one of the most impressive experiences he has had in years, even if he still wonders whether a German director would have been better suited for the task.
“German culture is a fundamental one in Europe,” he said.
Venice’s best actor award went to Michael Fassbender for his portrayal as a sex addict in Steve McQueen’s “Shame,” while the best actress award went to Deanie Ip, who plays an aging domestic servant opposite her master in Hong Kong director Ann Hui’s “A Simple Life.”
The Silver Lion prize for best director went to this year’s surprise entry at the Lido, Beijing-based Shangjun Cai for “People Mountain People Sea.” And the special jury prize went to the Italian-French production “Terraferma,” about the influx of migrants to a tiny Italian island, by Emanuele Crialese.
All contenders at the world’s oldest film festival were world premieres.

TITLE: Engine Failure Blamed for Soyuz  Malfunction
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The crash of an unmanned supply ship bound for the International Space Station last month was caused by a manufacturing flaw, the Federal Space Agency said.
The flaw led to the failure of a gas generator of the Soyuz rocket’s third-stage engine minutes after launch, the agency said late last week. A government panel investigating the Aug. 24 crash concluded that the manufacturing flaw was “accidental.”
The space agency added that all similar rocket engines would be checked and further Soyuz launches would proceed depending on the engines’ condition. It gave no specific schedule. 
With NASA’s space shuttles retired as of July, Soyuz is the only means of getting astronauts to and from the space station. 
NASA said the space station would need to be abandoned temporarily if a new crew cannot be launched before the last of the station’s six residents fly back to Earth in mid-November. 

TITLE: Trade Deals Help to Solve Differences With U.K.
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel  and Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron arrived in Moscow this week for the first direct top-level Russian-British talks in the country in six years. 
Cameron is leading a delegation including Foreign Secretary William Hague and BP chief executive Robert Dudley to meet President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in hopes of boosting economic ties and perhaps mending some fences.
Relations between the two countries have been strained since the death of dissident and former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko after being poisoned by radioactive polonium in London in November 2006, following a deathbed statement in which he accused Vladimir Putin, who then was president, of authorizing his killing. 
Cameron brushed aside questions about the Litvinenko case Monday and denied that he was putting trade before human rights.
“The [Litvinenko] issue has not been parked. The fact is that the two governments don’t agree. … It remains an issue between Britain and Russia … but that does not mean that we freeze the entire relationship,” Cameron said at a joint televised news conference with President Dmitry Medvedev in the Kremlin.
The murder prompted a chill in ties between both countries not seen since the end of the Cold War, as Moscow refused to extradite the prime suspect, State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi.
Moscow has also bristled over London’s refusal to extradite some Russian businessmen, first and foremost former oligarch and Kremlin power broker Boris Berezovsky.
Cameron said Foreign Secretary William Hague had spoken to Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, prior to the delegation’s departure for Moscow and was adamant that “difficult issues” would not be ignored: “We can’t pretend these don’t exist. We must continue to have frank discussions about them as we’ve had today,” he said. 
The British Prime Minister also signaled that human rights remained a key element in his Russia policy by meeting a small group of activists Monday afternoon.
Medvedev agreed that remaining differences should not hinder rebuilding relations.
“You can tell by our faces that our relations with David are not cold — actually they are quite warm,” he said.
The president downplayed the Litvinenko case by arguing that it was dependent on two different legal systems and that Moscow would never hand over Lugovoi because the Constitution prohibits the extradition of Russian citizens.
“This will never happen, no matter what the circumstances. We all have to learn to respect our legal frameworks,” he said.
Medvedev also said both countries have more things that unite them than keep them apart, and that differences should not be “overdramatized.”
In an effort to demonstrate a relaxed atmosphere, both leaders cordially addressed each other by their first names and joked about what Cameron believes was a KGB attempt to recruit him during a 1985 trip to Soviet Russia.
“I’m sure David would have been a very good KGB agent. But then he would have never become prime minister of Britain,” Medvedev said.
Cameron, who oversaw the signing of business deals worth some $340 million, said strengthening ties was good for both countries. “We both need to see growth in trade and investment and jobs. We both want to see progress and stability in the Middle East. We both want to deal with issues like nuclear proliferation and the danger of arms getting into the wrong hands,” he said.
The prime minister also told Medvedev that oil giant BP, which failed to consummate a deal with state-owned Rosneft earlier this year, is still interested in actively continuing its work in Russia, Interfax reported, citing Medvedev’s aide Sergei Prikhodko.
Later in the afternoon Cameron met Prime Minister Putin for talks in the White House.
The meeting was behind closed doors, but reporters were allowed to follow the beginning of the talks with Putin on a live screen in the Cabinet building.
Putin did not wear a cordial smile when he welcomed his British counterpart, and Cameron also looked reserved as the two exchanged ritual pleasantries.
“It’s a good opportunity for Britain and Russia to try to build a stronger relationship,” Cameron said.
He added that their discussion could cover Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization, the role of both countries as Olympic hosts, and technology cooperation.
Putin mentioned that as they spoke, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov was meeting British business leaders.
“I hope that meeting will be successful,” he said. 
Hours earlier, state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom and British industrial giant Rolls-Royce signed a memorandum of understanding about the joint production of computerized control systems for power reactors, part of Moscow’s efforts to capture a greater share of the global civilian nuclear power market.
Another British company, the Kingfisher do-it-yourself chain, announced Monday that it would invest $182 million to open nine more Castorama outlets over the coming two years, bringing the overall number of stores in Russia to 26. 
Both Rolls-Royce chairman Simon Robertson and Kingfisher CEO Ian Cheshire were among a 24-member business delegation accompanying Cameron.
British exports to Russia increased 63 percent to &#163;2.1 billion ($3.3 billion) in the first half of this year. Bilateral trade stands at almost $19 billion and is accelerating, Cameron said. 
Prior to seeing Putin, Cameron met with five human rights activists and Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov in the Sakharov Center. The purpose of the closed meeting was “to hear directly from Russian NGOs about their work and their assessment of the current human rights situation in Russia,” the British Embassy said in an e-mailed statement. 
Among the attendees was Anna Sevortian, head of Human Rights Watch’s Moscow office. 
Speaking by telephone afterward, Sevortian said the talks covered the majority of issues that worry activists most, including the trials of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the prison death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
She said that while she could not reveal any of Cameron’s comments, she was positive about the meeting. It was an important signal of his attention to these questions in that he found the time to stop by at the Sakharov House between meeting with Medvedev and Putin, she said.
In a speech at Moscow State University earlier Monday, Cameron argued strongly for reforming the country’s justice system. Foreign businesses, he said, “need to know that they can go to a court confident that a contract will be enforced objectively and that their assets and premises won’t be unlawfully taken away from them.” 
BP’s local office was searched by court marshals earlier this month, on the orders of a Tyumen region arbitration court looking at a suit filed against BP by minority shareholders in TNK-BP. 
With reference to the Litvinenko case, Cameron suggested that the government needs to ensure the courts’ impartiality. “The accused has a right to a fair trial, the victim and their family have a right to justice — it is the job of governments to help courts do their work and that will continue to be our approach,” he said, according to a transcript on his web site.

TITLE: Yavlinsky Returns To Lead Yabloko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Yabloko party co-founder Grigory Yavlinsky will come out of political retirement to head the party’s list in the State Duma elections, the party announced Sunday.
Yavlinsky, 59, handed over the reins of Yabloko, which he co-founded in 1993, to Sergei Mitrokhin in 2008 but kept a seat on the party’s political committee. Now the duo will occupy the top two spots on the party’s federal list in the December vote, Interfax reported.
The third spot will go to Alexei Yablokov, a noted environmentalist and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The party, which has had no faction in the last two Dumas, will field 380 candidates. A quarter of them are women, two-thirds have higher education, and 15 percent hold academic titles, said spokesman Igor Yakovlev.

TITLE: Russian Slaves Set Free 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: LEIGHTON BUZZARD, U.K. –— British police freed 24 slaves, including two Russians, in a weekend raid on a traveler’s camp 60 kilometers from central London, news reports said Monday.
More than 200 police officers converged Sunday morning on the Green Acres caravan site in Leighton Buzzard, where they discovered men held in dog kennels, sheds and horse boxes, some too emaciated to eat normally.
“There were up to four men living in tiny and filthy caravans, which were unheated and old. They had no access to running water, no toilet and no washing facilities,” said Jo Hobbs, a spokeswoman for Bedfordshire police, the Guardian reported.
The slaves — two Russians, two Romanians, three Poles, and 17 British — were allegedly forced to do grueling work, such as asphalting, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They were between 17 and 50 years old, and at least one of them had been living there for 15 years.
“They were told by the people who had brought them here, ‘you have no family now, we are your family.’ If they wanted to leave they were threatened,” detective chief inspector Sean O’Neil said, the Guardian reported. He added that the men received no received payment or clothes and minimal food, and were beaten if they complained.
Fifteen of the victims are receiving medical treatment, and nine have refused to cooperate with the police, the BBC reported Monday.
Four men and a woman were arrested on suspicion of running the site, which police say might have been the center of a multimillion-dollar slavery network, the Daily Mirror reported.
According to British law, holding a person in servitude is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, while exacting forced labor is punishable by up to seven years.

TITLE: 1/3 of Consumer Goods Are Counterfeit 
AUTHOR: By Khristina Narizhnaya 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Knockoff Chinese cigarettes from Kaliningrad, Italian wines actually made in the CIS and Bavarian car parts made in Podolsk imply a certain geographic schizophrenia for Russian consumers. 
But the harsh reality is a market for counterfeit goods that some experts estimate to be worth between $3 billion and $6 billion per year. 
Jin Ling cigarettes are produced especially for smuggling and have flooded Europe in the last several years. The cigarettes’ packaging resembles the American brand Camel and claims to use “U.S.A. blend” tobacco. The cigarettes have been found to contain asbestos, the Daily Mail reported earlier this year.
Large quantities of the cigarettes, also produced in Ukraine and Moldova, are frequently seized in the Baltic republics. Last month at least three smugglers attempted to move more than 27,000 cartons of Jin Ling cigarettes in separate incidents across the Latvian and Lithuanian borders, according to news reports. 
Counterfeit alcohol has been a problem in Russia for decades. Earlier this year Italian sparkling wine consortium Asti D.O.C.G. introduced special stickers with a government-issued code, located on the top of each bottle to certify the authenticity of its wines. 
Police in Chukotka last week confiscated a batch of illegally manufactured booze — 915 liters of grain alcohol, 706 liters of vodka and 454 liters of cognac, according to a report posted on the Interior Ministry web site. It was the largest batch of counterfeit liquor the area has seen in several years. 
Four tons of illicit alcohol was confiscated in the Krasnodar region in June, the Interior Ministry reported. An illegal sausage factory, operating out of a railroad car repair shop, was shut down in Moscow earlier this year. 
Media reports last week, citing Interior Ministry investigations, said up to a third of all consumer items, including clothes, perfume, cigarettes, household chemicals and food, are counterfeit.
A fake Yves Rocher store is still in operation in the Siberian republic of Tuva, even after the company complained to the local office of the Federal Consumer Protection Service, Marker business newspaper reported last week. 
Fake cosmetics stores are somewhat rarer. Usually individual brands are made illegally, with the most popular items for counterfeiting being perfumes by Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan and Nina Ricci, police spokesman Andrei Pilipchuk told Marker. 
Several fraudulent grocery stores are still operating in Moscow. Activists reported imitations of popular discount chain Pyatyorochka and luxury supermarket Aliye Parusa to the Federal Consumer Protection Service, Marker reported. 
The stores have not been shut down because it is difficult to prove that the counterfeiters broke the law, Consumer Protection Service chair Mikhail Anshakov told Marker.
Consumer products are not the only things being copied. Often mechanics fixing cars or planes use illegally manufactured parts, said Mikhail Blinkin, head of research for the Scientific Research Institute of Transport and Road Maintenance. 
Instead of using certified parts, leviye — the Russian word for “left,” which in slang means “fake” — parts are often used,” Blinkin said. 
For example, a mechanic could tell a client that he is getting a real BMW part from Bavaria, but in reality it was made in Podolsk, a town just south of Moscow. 
“It happens in aviation all the time,” Blinkin said.
The Federal Air Transportation Agency thinks that the problem has gone away. Counterfeiting plane parts was widespread in the 1990s, but now there are no uncertified parts used in aviation, agency spokesman Sergei Kazansky said. 

TITLE: MTS Lodges Complaint
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The shuffling of frequencies necessary to create a nationwide 4G network, outlined in plans approved by the Communications and Press Ministry on Thursday, will cost MTS its 70,000 WiMAX subscribers.
In a letter to Igor Artemev of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, MTS President Andrei Dubovskov expressed his dissatisfaction that rival providers will benefit by poaching MTS customers, who will be forced to find an alternative wireless Internet provider, Vedomosti reported.
As a result of last Thursday’s decision, MTS is obliged to surrender its WiMAX frequencies in Moscow and the Moscow region by Sept. 1, 2012, before it will be assigned new frequencies needed to build a 4G network. MTS’s WiMAX network, in which the company invested 1.5 billion rubles ($51 million) so far, was only set up in 2009. 
Dubovskov accused the Communications and Press Ministry of abusing its power and has requested the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service to block the decision. He claimed that the ministry’s resolution restricts competition discriminates against MTS.
According to Vedomosti, Deputy Communications and Press Minister Naum Marder rejected Dubovskov’s complaints, saying he believed that the current plans are fair.

TITLE: Putin Pledges Billions to Uralvagonzavod 
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A fan of military hardware, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin climbed inside a battle tank at a weapons exhibition in Nizhny Tagil last Friday, before promising 64 billion rubles ($2.2 billion) to state-owned Uralvagonzavod — the country’s largest producer of railcars and armored vehicles. 
The promised investment is up from the 55 billion rubles that Putin discussed in June.
The government is earmarking the funds as it plans to sell a stake in the company over the next few years.
Uralvagonzavod wants to upgrade its technology and boost capacity in order to compete with other domestic producers of railway hardware, many of which have foreign partners. 
Its general director Oleg Siyenko said recently that the money would pay for construction of a new production unit, and that the company would invest $600 million of its own money alongside the government’s. Construction will start next year, he said.
It was not clear Friday whether the investment was exclusively for railcar production or would also affect battle tanks.
At the exhibition, Putin stopped by the latest Russian tank, a T-90C, and listened for a while as an Uralvagonzavod executive lauded the weapon. Putin then took off his suit jacket and — wearing a white shirt and a necktie — slipped inside the vehicle through an open hatch.
The Cabinet press service said he took the commander’s seat and “tried the controls.”
Putin also watched through binoculars as a tank support vehicle, code-named Terminator, fired away at multiple targets on the range. Uralvagonzavod designed the vehicle based on combat lessons that the armed forces learned during the war in Chechnya.
Putin also opened a new line at Uralvagonzavod to produce train trucks — the set of wheels and their suspension frame underneath a rail car. The company purchased equipment for the new line from Czech engineering company Alta, its longtime partner in modernization. The Czech Export Bank has been a major source of funding for Uralvagonzavod.
The Economic Development Ministry proposes that the government sell a stake in Uralvagonzavod, equal to 25 percent minus one share, in 2013 or 2014, a ministry official said Friday. The sale would be part of the broader privatization program ordered by President Dmitry Medvedev.
Uralvagonzavod earned a profit of 6.2 billion rubles last year, according to Russian accounting standards. It said it has enough contracts to work at full capacity for three years.
Putin said another partner company in building the truck line was from Germany, but he did not identify it by name. The line’s capacity is 45,000 trucks per year, and Putin ordered the government to develop new technical requirements for this type of product in order to eliminate cheaper, low-quality competition.
Uralvagonzavod has also been expanding abroad. It has built up a 75 percent stake in French railway equipment maker Sambre et Meuse since last year.

TITLE: McDonald’s Celebrates 15 Years  
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The first McDonald’s restaurant to open in St. Petersburg marks its 15th anniversary this month. 
The first branch of the American fast food chain was located on Kammennoostrovsky Prospekt on the Petrograd Side. There are currently 46 McDonald’s restaurants in Russia’s northwest, including 38 in St. Petersburg, five in the Leningrad Oblast, two in Veliky Novgorod, and one in Kaliningrad. Before the end of the year the company plans to open seven more restaurants in the region. All tolled, the fast food giant’s restaurants serve more than 85,000 consumers across the region daily.  
The first McDonald’s outlet opened in Moscow 20 years ago, serving a record-breaking 35,000 customers on its first day. Since then the company has gone on to open a whopping 278 McDonald’s restaurants across the country that serve about a million patrons a day.

TITLE: ‘Useful Idiots’ Back Medvedev’s Re-Election
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Ryzhkov 
TEXT: It was really pointless for observers to have spent the last three years asking the question: “Who is better, Medvedev or Putin?” and to have worked themselves up over the conundrum even more during the run-up to elections each fall.
Make no mistake: Dmitry Medvedev is not an alternative to Vladimir Putin, and vice versa. In practical terms, they are just flip sides of the same coin.
It makes no difference whether Putin or Medvedev is the next president. Moreover, if Putin decides that it is more advantageous for him to have Medvedev stay in office, it might only further delay urgently needed reforms to Russia’s institutions and political and economic systems.
As recently as three years, two years and even one year ago, we could still hold out hope that Medvedev would decisively put Russia’s house in order by dismissing ineffective ministers, cracking down on corruption and implementing reforms. Many people earnestly responded to his rousing calls for modernization, the fight against corruption and even Skolkovo. Now those people look like first-class fools, to put it mildly.
Medvedev himself has gone silent regarding modernization, corruption and Skolkovo and has quietly been backing into the shadows. And yet those fools continue their raptures over his modernization message and call zealously for Medvedev to run for a second term. Of course, even these would-be modernizers have not forgotten to keep one foot solidly in the camp of United Russia and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as well — just in case.
The past three years of Medvedev’s presidency have shown that he completely lacks the qualities that his foolish admirers — the so-called “modernizers” — ascribe to him. (Vladimir Lenin derogatorily referred to such public figures in tsarist Russia as “useful idiots.”)
And despite all his wordy promises of political reform and modernization, not a single thing has resulted from them. Only a faint echo remains of the four I’s — innovation, institutions, investment and infrastructure — that he first proclaimed loudly near the start of his presidency. When tested, it turned out that Medvedev was not a leader, a take-charge man or even a real president. For almost four years he has uttered eloquent words without making a single independent decision. He has remained a loyal subordinate and junior partner to Putin.
The more than three years of tandemocracy have given Russia no positive change.
Ahead lies the clear prospect of the authoritarian regime and the monopoly on power held by Putin and his inner circle, United Russia and the siloviki. The real opposition parties will continue to be denied the right to register for elections, and the government’s strict censorship of the media will remain in place. Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev will be slapped with new charges leading to still more prison terms. Moscow will continue appointing governors and denying the residents of ever more cities the right to directly elect their regional and municipal leaders. Corruption will flourish, from the highest ranks of government down. The authorities will continue to falsify the results of so-called elections. (Medvedev made no objections to the absurd way in which former St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko’s candidacy for the Federation Council was put forward, or to the disgraceful charade masquerading as elections in his native city.)
This lawyer-president watches indifferently as Russia’s court system, prosecutor’s office and police force deteriorate with alarming speed, while false charges are leveled against thousands of businesspeople to satisfy their political enemies and competitors. At the same time, Gazprom assets continue to be siphoned off, ever more oil fields are handed out to Putin’s friends, endless delays occur in bringing those responsible for Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky’s prison death to justice, and millions upon millions of dollars are stolen from the national budget through graft and murky schemes.
In fact, the situation in Russia has actually grown worse because the ballooning state bureaucracy and the uncontrolled personal enrichment of its privileged members have become more difficult to distinguish owing to the rustle and sheen of the silky smooth modernization ruse created by Medvedev.
And yet those “useful idiots” continue to urge: “Just give him another presidential term — and then he will really start to work!” They suggest that a country that has already lost 3 1/2 years to fruitless expectations and failed hopes should now wait at least another six.
These halfwit “modernizers” write about the need for deep reforms to Russia’s institutions and political and economic systems. And they are correct in writing that. But their hero — Medvedev — is far from being up to the task. He has knowingly aligned himself with Putin and has made a mockery of the drive for modernization.
Medvedev has a chance of getting re-elected to the Kremlin for the next six years. An ongoing and aggressive campaign by Putin might actually be aimed at giving United Russia and his All-Russia People’s Front a stronger hand in the State Duma. He might retain Medvedev as useful window dressing, as a false ray of hope to a society hungry for real change.
Medvedev has already proved his loyalty and obedience to his patron. Putin might keep him for that reason, and to please a pragmatic West that will pretend it sees significant liberal differences between Medvedev and Putin. And finally, Medvedev would satisfy the professional class clamoring for modernization. No doubt these hapless souls will spend the next six years buttonholing us into corners, winking, whispering and gasping in delight: “Now he’ll start! Get ready! Believe me ol’ fellow — now it’s really going to happen!”

<i>Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio and is a co-founder of the opposition Party of People’s Freedom.</i>

TITLE: First the Reshuffle, Then the Kremlin Vote
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: 
In a normal democracy, a reshuffling of personnel occurs only after a new administration is voted into office. But in Russia’s “managed democracy,” elections serve more as the final chord in the highly orchestrated show rather than the prelude. For that reason, an increasing number of personnel changes are taking place in the run-up to the presidential election in March. Part of the reshuffle can be explained by the fact that rivalries are heating up between clans within the ruling elite. But at the same time, the power structure is going through a reconfiguration in anticipation of the next presidential term.
Georgy Poltavchenko — the longest-serving presidential envoy of former President Vladimir Putin’s appointments — was confirmed as governor of St. Petersburg on Aug. 31, replacing Valentina Matviyenko, who was moved to the Federation Council. Shortly afterward, two more presidential envoys were replaced. The presidential envoy to the Northwestern Federal District, Ilya Klebanov, was relieved of his duties amid charges of ineffectiveness, corruption and causing conflicts, and was replaced by Nikolai Vinnichenko, a former university classmate and trusted associate of President Dmitry Medvedev. Vinnichenko, who most recently served as the presidential envoy to the Urals Federal District, had been nominated for a series of senior government posts in the past, from prosecutor general to head of the presidential administration.
The newly vacated envoy post in the Urals was filled by Yevgeny Kuyvashev, a protege, close colleague and, according to some sources, relative of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Kuyvashev also served as mayor of Tyumen for a short time and as deputy presidential envoy to the Urals Federal District for the past several months.
This promotion is something of a novelty because, previously, presidential envoys were not rotated before elections, and their replacements typically came from outside the region, not from their own staffs. This might be an indication that presidential envoys are becoming a more normal and functional part of the administrative bureaucracy.
There was some edge to Klebanov’s dismissal because it coincided almost exactly with Prime Minister Putin’s arrival in St. Petersburg for a United Russia conference. Conversely, when he was first named to the post in 2003, it appeared to be an honorable discharge from his previous position and a temporary step toward retirement — but he ended up staying in the job.
In short, the staffing changes reveal a relatively new tradition of making horizontal appointments when rotating presidential envoys into their new posts, while upholding the older tradition of giving the envoy post to officials who have been dismissed from their jobs.
Incidentally, the reshuffling has even affected the presidential administration: Oleg Govorun — a key member of presidential deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov’s team — has resigned on the eve of the election. The real significance of his resignation will become clearer once Govorun’s replacement in the Kremlin is announced. For now, it seems certain that the replacement of Matviyenko with Poltavchenko was only the start, and that many more high-level changes lie ahead.

<i>Nikolai Petrov is a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.</i>

TITLE: CHERNOV’S CHOICE
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s newly-restored Estonian church, which sports a state-of-the-art concert hall, will host a promising concert this week featuring the cream of Russian rock and avant-garde musicians. 
Due to be held on Thursday, Sept. 15, the concert, called “Territory of New Music,” celebrates the release of a DVD of a concert held in Tel Aviv, Israel earlier this year.
Most intriguingly, the concert will feature the musician and composer Vyacheslav Ganelin, who has been a rare sight in Russia since he emigrated to Israel in 1987.
Ganelin became famous in the 1970s as the leader and keyboard player of the Soviet Union’s leading New Music / avant-garde band that also featured saxophone player Vladimir Chekasin and drummer Vladimir Tarasov.
Unlike any Soviet band, the Ganelin Trio, also known as GTCh, which was based in Vilnius, Lithuania, became a sensation in the Western improvised music scene, drawing rave reviews from leading publications in the field. More of the trio’s records were released in the U.K. — on Leo Records, founded by the Soviet emigre Leo Feigin — than in the Soviet Union. 
“We took incredible pride in the trio’s success in the West, which, we realized, was based first and foremost on the originality and profundity of their music,” recalled music critic Alexander Kan in linear notes to a Leo Records’ Ganelin Trio anthology.
“Thanks to Western recognition, they were about the only avant-garde jazz band that were actually allowed to make it out of the underground into official Soviet recognition. Like Andrei Tarkovsky’s films or Yury Lyubimov’s Taganka theater, they were isolated spots of quality and freshness in the otherwise dull socialist realism landscape of official art.”
Thursday’s concert is expected to be based on the Israeli concert, which took place at the opening of an international book fair in Tel Aviv back in February.
According to a press release, the concert will be opened by the contemporary minimalist composer, pianist and synthesizer player Vladimir Martynov, to be followed by the duo of Ganelin and bass player Vladimir Volkov. Ganelin and Volkov released a studio album called “Ne Slyshno” in Israel in 2007, and are reported to be putting together a follow-up. Their set will be based on both albums.
Volkov will then be joined by Leonid Fyodorov, the founder of the St. Petersburg veteran art-rock band Auctyon. The two, who have frequently performed together, are said to have prepared a special set for the evening. 
After a solo set by violinist Tatyana Grindenko the show will conclude with a joint set by Martynov, Grindenko, Volkov and Fyodorov, who will perform variations of Auctyon songs.
The concert will take place in Jaani Kirik (St. John’s Church) at 54a Ulitsa Dekabristov, not far from the Mariinsky Theater.
This week’s highlights also include American singer-songwriter Chris Pureka (Manhattan, Friday, Sept. 16) and new generation local rockers Padla Bear Outfit (Fish Fabrique Nouvelle, Saturday, Sept. 17).


TITLE: This is not a love song
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Simon Patterson, the New Zealand-born, St. Petersburg-based singer/songwriter, has lived in the city for many years, but only started performing his own songs — characterized by interesting English-language lyrics and a touch of punk — in public in the last couple of years.
With local acoustic bassist and background singer Stanislav Manchinsky, Patterson, 36, who plays guitar and sings, can be found performing at local underground clubs like Fish Fabrique and the No Orchids piano bar several times a month.
“I’ve always wanted to do this, but perhaps I was too scared in the beginning,” he says, speaking over a Baltika beer at an outdoor bar in Park Pobedy.
According to Patterson, he wrote a lot in his home country between the ages of 19 and 21, and during his early years in Russia in the 1990s, but later got distracted by marriage, the birth of his son and the necessity of working to make a living.
Patterson, who works as a translator and who also spent a stint as an arts editor at The St. Petersburg Times some 10 years ago, could be heard singing his early songs at house parties back then, but never at a public gig. 
It’s not that people here weren’t ready back in 1997, when Patterson first came to St. Petersburg, but it was difficult to find musicians who would want to play his type of music, especially with lyrics in English, he says.
“There was a 10-year break, but at some point I realized that I should return to it,” he says.
He was prompted to start writing songs again and performing concerts by his wife bringing home a piano. “I didn’t really touch it for a year, but then it all began, step by step,” Patterson says.
Two years ago, he formed a duo with a Russian friend, Alexander Kozyrev, who had plenty of free time on his hands while waiting for his U.S. qualifications to be approved so that he could work as a pilot in Russia. They played a number of concerts at home before starting to play at small local clubs.
The duo’s current bassist Manchinsky has played with a number of local bands, including Rave Ticket Sellers.
Patterson’s songs are far from being escapist; he does not hesitate to make an angry comment on society. Some songs are critical of the corporate lifestyle (“I come from that kind of background myself, my father is a lawyer,” Patterson points out), some deal with paranoia in present-day Russia.
“It’s difficult to write about nothing, I write about what annoys me — it’s very easy to find a subject,” Patterson says.
“Not that it’s deliberate, it just happens this way. You can’t sing about love all the time. Actually, I have no love songs at all.”
Some of Patterson’s finest songs could be qualified as poetry, though he says his words should go together with music.
“I used to write a lot of poetry, but who reads poetry in the English-speaking world now? Nobody,” he says.
“The lyrics don’t stand on their own, you can’t read them as poetry, it would look silly.”
Last year, however, when Patterson and Manchinsky performed at Anglia bookstore, the printed lyrics were distributed to the audience of mostly Russian Anglophiles to make it easier for them to follow the songs.
Despite the years spent in Russia, his love of Russian literature (he cites Alexander Herzen’s “My Past and Thoughts” as one of his favorites) and of Yanka, the talented Novosibirsk singer-songwriter who died at the age 24 in 1991 (“She was unusual,” he says), Patterson denies any Russian influence on his music.
“This is the tradition of English songwriting, of English poetry,” he says.
“To live in the English-speaking world is simply boring to me. I can’t stay in New Zealand or England. They tell me, ‘Your songs are very strange,’ while people are more open here. 
“It’s a bit like The Tiger Lillies: I read in an interview that they are more popular in countries where people don’t speak English. But when they play in the English-speaking world, people take offense or think it’s absolute nonsense. I understand that.”
According to Patterson, who was born in Auckland, he finds more freedom to express himself in his songs here than in New Zealand, where people, in his opinion, approach frank discussion cautiously.
“When I was in New Zealand, I gave some lyrics to poetry connoisseurs there, and they told me, ‘This is racist, this is sexist,’” he says.
“One band in New Zealand recorded a cover of a song that I wrote maybe 15 years ago without asking me, which is OK. I even got royalties — about $20. 
“They played it on the radio, and there was an interview, and this guy said, ‘This man is very strange, he is from New Zealand but lives in Russia. I’ve heard his songs, and they are all sort of very anti-New Zealand.’ People simply don’t understand satire there, that’s why their songs turn out to be about nothing. To sing about love is very boring.”
Patterson started playing classical piano at the age of six in New Zealand, and has now resumed his studies, taking lessons in classical music.
He has been playing guitar and writing songs from the age of 14.
“We formed a band in school and even recorded an album on a 4-track; I still perform some of the songs that I wrote when I was 16,” he says, citing Pixies, They Might Be Giants and Elvis Costello as early influences.
Elements of everyday Russian life do turn up in Patterson’s songs, but usually with a twist, as in a song called “Kupchino” after the district on St. Petersburg’s outskirts.
“A friend moved to Kupchino and invited me to a party there,” he says.
“I’d never been there and it was interesting to me because of its bad reputation. It was in winter, I got there late in the evening and left in the morning, and so it happened that I didn’t see Kupchino at all, so I wanted to create my own Kupchino in my head. So the song is not exactly about Kupchino.”
Another song, “Irkutsk,” refers to Patterson’s first visit to Russia in 1995, when he was 19. 
“I met some businessmen in New Zealand from Novosibirsk who invited us students to go there to teach English,” he says.
“When we got there, we had an idea of going to Irkutsk to see Lake Baikal, but then it turned out that it was another 36 hours away by train… Sometimes I get inspired by a name or word in the beginning, but the final song may have nothing to do with that word.”
He says performing at local clubs serves as self-development and is a good hobby.
“I realized that I don’t like going to clubs because I don’t like the music. I could go to classical concerts, like Wagner, Schumann and Schubert, but the atmosphere is very prim there and these people died a long time ago so it gets boring, and I’d like to be somewhere and have fun. I can do both by playing at clubs,” Patterson says.

<i>Simon Patterson will perform on Friday, Sept. 16 as a special guest at the Man Bites Dog concert at Fish Fabrique (old room), located at 53 Ligovsky Prospekt, Tel. 764 4857; and will give a full-length concert on Thursday, Sept. 22 at PirO.G.I. on the Fontanka, located at 40 Nab. Reki Fontanki, tel. 275 3558.</i>

TITLE: The art of being yourself
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Consulates of the U.K., the Netherlands and Sweden are supporting a major gay rights cultural event that opens in St. Petersburg this week, as national statistics show that homophobic attitudes are on the rise in Russia. 
Called Queerfest, the ten-day festival, featuring music, dance, art, lectures and debates, was launched by Vykhod (Coming Out), the local LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights group in 2009.
“I am looking forward to visiting this year’s St. Petersburg Queerfest because I believe that gay people should be able to live without fear of discrimination or criminalization,” said British Consul General Gareth Ward in an email this week.
“Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people make a big contribution to British cultural life — St. Petersburg’s sister city Manchester has a famous gay pride event. This can be an important and fun way of celebrating diversity and tolerance in Russia as well.”
Homophobia is a problem in many countries, Ward went on.
“The U.K. is a world leader in supporting LGBT equality, but we are not complacent,” he said.
“Last year the U.K. government passed an ambitious program to tackle prejudices. In Russia, homosexuality was decriminalized in the 1990s, but there is a long way to go to remove social stigmatization and hate crime. Civil society groups such as Vykhod are leading the way.”
Ward will speak at the opening of Queerfest on Thursday, Sept. 15, along with the Netherlands Consul General Yennes de Mol.
The Swedish Consulate has also backed the event by sending a letter of support, which can be read on Queerfest’s web site.
The motto of this year’s festival is the “Art of Being Yourself.”
“It’s dedicated to the subject of self-expression through art by different people, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity,” Vykhod director Igor Kochetkov said.
“We want to approach this subject both through works and speeches of artists and through discussing the issues of the freedom of expression and its borders with human rights activists, representatives of public and religious organizations, and journalists.”
The festival’s diverse program includes photo exhibitions by World Press Photo award-winning Italian photographer Mattia Insolera and the Moscow-based contemporary artist Serge Golovach.
The festival will open at the KvARTira gallery at 130 Nevsky Prospekt, where Queerography, an exhibition of work by various photographers, will be held, as well as several other events.
One day of the festival will be devoted to feminism, while another will concentrate on human rights issues.
Queerfest will end with a rock concert called Stop Homophobia! at the Avrora Concert Hall on Sept. 25. Headlined by Moldovan folk-punk band Zdob Si Zdub, it will feature Cuibul (also from Moldova), the Moscow band FiLLiN and St. Petersburg’s own Iva Nova, Monoliza and Snega.
Last year, the festival came under pressure from the authorities when the state-owned House of Artists canceled a photography exhibition — and the festival’s planned opening — at the last minute, allegedly after getting a telephone call from City Hall’s Culture Committee.
The exhibition and the opening were hastily moved to a new location, the underground vegan establishment V-Club, and journalists were asked not to disclose the site until a specific time in case the authorities attempted to shut it down there as well.
“The cancelation caused a big stir in the press and eventually the Culture Committee was forced to speak on behalf of tolerance,” Kochetkov said.
Although the Culture Committee has never admitted to issuing a ban on the festival, Kochetkov said he was told about the order by the House of Artists’ director himself.
Kochetkov said that this year, the festival’s organizers invited representatives of the Culture Committee to the opening. “They asked us, ‘Is the venue state-owned?’ We said, ‘No.’”
As of Tuesday, this year’s preparations had gone smoothly, though Kochetkov said that last year the problems did not start until two days before the opening.
According to Kochetkov, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church flatly refused to participate in debates, although local television presenter Valery Tatarov, who has been criticized for making homophobic statements, readily agreed.
Kochetkov welcomes Tatarov’s participation in the debates, emphasizing that the presenter has not called for violence against homosexuals.
“We wouldn’t invite people who incite violence, because they should be dealt with by the law, first and foremost,” he said.
On Saturday, the Orthodox Church described homosexuality as “a sinful distortion of human nature” on its web site, calling gays and lesbians “spiritually unhealthy.”
Queerfest’s organizers cite a Levada Center poll that showed that homophobia is on the rise in Russia. 
Compared to a 2005 poll, the 2010 poll showed that the number of people who think that gays and lesbians should be “let be” dropped 5 percent during the past five years, while the number of people who think that gays and lesbians should be given medical treatment or isolated from society increased by 4 and 6 percent, respectively.
Seventy-four percent of the respondents said that homosexuals are morally corrupt or mentally handicapped people, 24 percent suggested that they should get psychological help, 39 percent think that they should be forced to undergo medical treatment or be isolated from society, while 4 percent believe that such people should be “liquidated.”
“These figures show that society has grown less indifferent to the very fact of the existence of people of different orientations, and that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people have to fight for their right to be themselves,” Kochetkov said.
“To fight, above all, ignorance and cruelty — things that are dangerous for everybody. This means that we are fighting not for our narrow interests, but for the common cause, to make our society more human and free.”

<i>All Queerfest events are open to the public, except for the opening, which is invitation-only. For a full program, see www.queerfest.ru.</i>

TITLE: the word’s worth: Russians Like to Call Things as They Are
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: 
Ïîëèòêîððåêòíîñòü: literally, “political correctness”; commonly, idiocy

If you read Russian newspapers or blogs, you’ll see the word ïîëèòêîððåêòíîñòü (political correctness) constantly. But the more you read, the less you understand what it means in Russian.
Ïîëèòêîððåêòíîñòü and its variants – the adjective ïîëèòêîððåêòíûé and adverb ïîëèòêîððåêòíî – come from English. The words aren’t yet in standard Russian dictionaries, so I began to look for examples of usage. Sometimes the usage is like in English. For example, someone said: Ýòî íå ïîëèòêîððåêòíî, íî… (It’s not politically correct, but…) when citing a fact that seemed to support a negative ethnic stereotype.
In specialized dictionaries, ïîëèòêîððåêòíîñòü is defined as a Western or American phenomenon. In a dictionary of political terminology, the definition reads in part: òàêòè÷íîå, îáùåñòâåííî ïðèåìëåìîå îòíîøåíèå ê ðàçëè÷íûì ïîëèòè÷åñêèì è îáùåñòâåííûì ãðóïïàì (a tactful, socially acceptable attitude towards various political and social groups).
But the definition in a dictionary of foreign words begins: óòâåðäèâøååñÿ â ÑØÀ ïîíÿòèå-ëîçóíã, äåìîíñòðèðóþùåå ëèáåðàëüíóþ íàïðàâëåííîñòü ñîâðåìåííîé àìåðèêàíñêîé ïîëèòèêè.  íà÷àëå 90-õ ãîäîâ XX â. êðàõ ðàâíîâåñèÿ ìèðîâûõ èäåéíî-ïîëèòè÷åñêèõ ñèñòåì ñïîñîáñòâîâàë ïîÿâëåíèþ èäåîëîãè÷åñêèõ ýðçàöåâ (a firmly established concept-slogan in the United States demonstrating the liberal trend in modern American politics. In the early 1990s the dissolution of the balance of the world’s ideological and political system facilitated the appearance of ersatz ideologies). A fake ideology that appeared as a result of the break up of the U.S.S.R.? That would be a surprise to Americans who used the term in the 1970s.
Another dictionary calls it ðàçíîâèäíîñòü íåîôèöèàëüíîé íåîáúÿâëåííîé öåíçóðû (a type of unofficial, undeclared censorship) and further clarifies: ïîëèòêîððåêòíîñòü — ýòî îäèí èç ìåòîäîâ ìàíèïóëÿöèè îáùåñòâåííûì ìíåíèåì (political correctness is a method of manipulating public opinion).
These people have got to stop watching Fox News. They also have to get a sense of humor. Many people seem to think that “follicly challenged” is now the legally mandated way to say “bald.”
Among the blogging crowd, where they apparently have taken at face value all the parodies of political correctness, the proclaimed definitions are negative. Ïîëèòêîððåêòíîñòü — äèêòàòóðà ìåíüøèíñòâ&#8239;… (political correctness is the dictatorship of the minority) … âðàã äåìîêðàòèè (the enemy of democracy) … ðàñèçì íàîáîðîò (racism in reverse) … íîâàÿ, çëåéøàÿ âåðñèÿ ìàðêñèçìà (a new, evil version of Marxism) … ýòî íå òîëüêî ìåðçîñòü, íî åù¸ è ìàðàçì (it’s not only revolting, it’s demented).
The underlying complaint seems to be this: Ïîëèòêîððåêòíîñòü: ýòî íåâîçìîæíîñòü ñêàçàòü ïîääîíêó, ÷òî îí – ïîääîíîê, äàáû íå çàäåòü åãî (Political correctness is the inability to tell a creep that he’s a creep&#8239;for fear of hurting his feelings.) But the problem is really that all those creeps are, well, not Russian: íàäî íàçûâàòü âåùè ñâîèìè èìåíàìè: ýòà ñâîëî÷ü ïîíàåõàëà â Ðîññèþ (you have to call a spade a spade: that scum has overrun Russia).
Of course, the worst elements in any society tend to be exaggerated on the Internet. But the foggy notion of what Western political correctness is wreaks havoc with translation: Ïàòðèàðõ Ìîñêîâñêèé è âñåÿ Ðóñè Êèðèëë ñ÷èòàåò íåñîâìåñòèìûìè ïðàâîñëàâèå è ïîëèòêîððåêòíîñòü â ñîâðåìåííîì çàïàäíîì ïîíèìàíèè (Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, considers Orthodoxy to be incompatible with political correctness in the modern Western understanding).
That’s what he says, but in this Westerner’s understanding, I’m sure it’s not what he means.

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

TITLE: The lure of Bella Italia
AUTHOR: By Olga Panova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A little corner of Italy has been brought to the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress this week for the “Italia Comes to You” festival that aims to showcase Italian art, culture, fashion and music.
The event, which attracted 24,000 visitors when it was shown in Moscow earlier this month, has been organized by ENIT, Italy’s national tourism agency, whose declared aim is to promote the “excellence of Italy, showing the very best of Italian lifestyle” all over the world but with particular focus on the rapidly developing BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). 
“What we have tried to do is to make you experience and breathe the Italian lifestyle,” said Marco Bruschini, president of ENIT in Russia. 
“I hope we will manage to have the same spirit we have had in Moscow: Come here, spend an hour or two inside a piece of Italy, see cultural aspects and eat in an Italian way, experience the taste of real Italian coffee, and then go home with a desire and curiosity to come and see the real Italy.”
Each day of the exhibition has a different theme ranging from tourism, sport and leisure activities, gastronomy, wine, fashion and nature. Exhibitions and events are being held in a specially constructed pavilion on the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
A standout aspect of the event’s cultural side is Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s 15th-century painting “Madonna and Child on a Throne with Angels and Saints,” which has been brought from Sienna to St. Petersburg especially for the event and has never before been exhibited in Russia.  
Another highlight is an exhibition of photographs taken by Rino Barillari, the “King of the Paparazzi,” dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Federico Fellini’s iconic movie “La Dolce Vita.” The exhibition comprises 50 photographs showing the fascination and magnetism of Italy alongside celebrities who have come to Italy, primarily focusing on its capital, Rome. 
“War is war” is the battle cry of Barillari — the prototype for the indefatigable paparazzo featured in Fellini’s masterpiece — who has broken 76 cameras and 11 ribs and been to the emergency room 162 times during his career. 
Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Fellini himself are just a few of the heroes of Barillari’s famous photographs, which capture the spirit of a constantly changing society with a simple message to switch from the “dolce vita” (“sweet life” in its hedonistic sense) to the “vita dolce,” the simple joy of living.  
“Italia Comes to You” also includes an exhibition of work by Russian artists who were invited to travel all over Italy, from north to south, including the country’s islands. The artists’ gained experience and emotions are reflected in the works of art presented in the exhibition.
The last piece of art presented in the pavilion is a work by artist Roberto Bertazzon in cooperation with Venini, one of the most famous Italian brands specializing in Murano glass — another example of Italian excellence. The work depicts nine species of trees that are in danger of complete extinction. 
“It is incredible to think that every vital organism depends on another vital organism to live and survive together,” says Bertazzon. 
“Within the framework of the event, we have aimed to protect the natural environment, while promoting a new kind of tourism that respects the environment with a focus on eco sustainability as the main feature of travelling in a modern society,” said Bruschini.
Visitors to the “Italia Comes to You” festival can also learn about the country’s 20 regions, starting from Lombardy in the north to Sicily in the south. Stands set up in the pavilion proudly demonstrate Italy’s most famous sights and treasures, from art collections, entertainment parks and ski resorts to lakes, thermal spas and sites of pilgrimage. 
No event with a “made in Italy” theme would be complete, of course, without showcasing la moda Italiana, or Italian fashion. On Wednesday, Sept. 14, a fashion show will take place titled “Stars of Italian Fashion” featuring historic outfits from the 1950s to 1990s made by celebrated fashion houses such as Sorelle Fontana, Laura Biagiotti, Renato Balestra, Gai and Mattiolo. Rafaella Curiel’s show is a presentation of precious historic garments, including pieces inspired by uniforms designed for the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. 
“The value of the whole collection that will be shown is about two million euros,” said Bruschini.
The synthesis of Italian and Russian beauty is “a very strong mix that will allow Russia as well as Italy to carry the flag of beauty and tradition,” he added. “Not just in 2011, the year of Italy-Russia, but throughout the future.”

<i>“Italia Comes to You” runs through Sept. 17 on the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress. For more information, see: http://www.italiacomestoyou.com/</i>


TITLE: in the spotlight: Dramatic ambition
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, actor Ivan Okhlobystin, who plays an irascible doctor in TNT’s medical comedy “Interns,” announced his plans to run for president. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, pop diva Alla Pugachyova spoke out on her political views, backing billionaire turned politician Mikhail Prokhorov, whom she praised as a “real man.”
Okhlobystin’s role in “Interns” is a doctor with a hair-trigger temper who likes to spring unexpected night shifts on his students. The series has become really popular, thanks to an appealing cast of oddball characters.
“After long thought, we have decided that I will run for president,” Okhlobystin said at a news conference at Interfax.
Okhlobystin, 45, is a pretty colorful character, a biker who used to serve as a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, until he was temporarily banned from wearing a cassock or holding services last year after he requested to return to acting. Slightly oddly, priests are not allowed to take part in “mummery.”
I’m wary of actors becoming politicians, unless they have great speechwriters, and Okhlobystin seems to have some pretty wacky ideas. He told Komsomolskaya Pravda that his first act would be to dissolve the Duma and invest all the money saved in the arms industry. He also called for the president to hold office for 14 years and admitted that “I don’t like democracy.” He has spoken out against gay marriage and called for a union of Slavic nations. Worst of all, he writes incessantly on Twitter.
He told KP that he needs 1.5 billion rubles ($50.7 million) for his presidential campaign. He has already released an incomprehensible election video where he is dressed as a circus ringmaster and intones things about storms and ruby-colored comets.
Posters around Moscow advertized his Sept. 10 show at Luzhniki Stadium, called “Doctrine 77,” where he was due to stand on top of a white pyramid. He told KP that he planned to lecture the audience in the stadium for 77 minutes and described it as a “literary evening.”
Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, said Tuesday that Okhlobystin would only be able to run while a priest with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill — implying strongly that he would get nothing of the kind. He said there is a ban on priests running for official posts, although it seems that no one has tested this rule with a presidential campaign yet.
Patriarch Kirill responded by cautioning that priests could alienate people from the church by their actions and even by what car they drive (although he himself has a car with flashing blue lights), and saying priests had a different role.
Meanwhile, Pugachyova told KP that she had not taken an interest in politics for a long time but had been tempted back by Prokhorov.
“Finally a real man has appeared who is prepared to do something for the country,” she said.
Kommersant wrote that Pugachyova has never formally joined any political party, although in 1996 she took part in Boris Yeltsin’s election campaign and in the last State Duma elections backed the ruling United Russia party.
Prokhorov said he was delighted and offered her a post dealing with women’s affairs for his Right Cause movement, calling her “strong, independent and unusually gifted.”
“She understands the problems of our women very well,” he gushed.
Prokhorov gave an online interview to KP readers, too, where he was asked the vital question: Why is a fine, up-standing billionaire still single? “I really believe in love, but I just haven’t met my other half yet,” he said. “I hope I will meet her, and I’m sure that if I do, it will be love at first sight.”

TITLE: THE DISH: Vinaigrette
AUTHOR: By Emma Rawcliffe
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Seaside sustenance</b><br />This cute and quirky dacha-style restaurant stands out in the concrete jungle that is this part of town, dominated by improbably huge Soviet-era residential buildings and student hostels. Vinaigrette’s interior is very colorful and welcoming, with bright green and red walls, multi-colored curtains, modern pine tables and incredibly comfortable stone-colored armchairs. The restaurant is neatly divided into two levels; the upper floor is however rather dingy, as it lacks the light provided by the large windows downstairs. 
Vinaigrette’s location right on the shore of the Gulf of Finland is not as fortunate as it may sound. Firstly, a rather long journey is required to reach it. From Primorskaya metro station, it is about a 30-minute walk, though mashrutkas can be taken from Ulitsa Odoyevskogo. Secondly, the sea breeze can be felt distinctly inside the restaurant, and rather worryingly, the walls can be heard shaking, giving the impression that the flimsy building may fall down or be blown away at any moment. Fortunately, however, cozy shawls are provided by the establishment, and our waitress assured us that heating was due to be installed on Sept. 12.
Despite the fact that the restaurant is named after a classic Russian beetroot salad, and that four types of cuisine (Russian, Italian, Uzbek and Thai) are advertised on the web site, there is a distinct lack of choice on the menu. The limited selection does, however, boast an interesting mixture of flavors to suit all taste buds, and all the dishes are very neatly presented. Furthermore, our waitress was more than happy to make recommendations.
The non-alcoholic pina colada (300 rubles, $10.40) was divine and incredibly fruity. Unfortunately, the strawberry milkshake (also 300 rubles) was rather tasteless in comparison. Milkshakes can be made from any fruit listed on the menu. Advertised as a “chef’s special,” the tomato soup with chestnuts (190 rubles, $6.60) was delectable and the pesto topping perfect, though there was unfortunately a distinct lack of chestnuts. The mixed salad with Camembert, strawberries and berry sauce (260 rubles, $9) was very interesting and certainly worth trying, though the mixture of sweet and savory may not be to everyone’s liking. Unfortunately, the balance of ingredients was not perfect: There was a definite lack of cheese and strawberries, but more than enough berry sauce, which was very rich and sickly after a while.
Sadly, the main courses were also a mixed bag. The pork in sweet and sour sauce (280 rubles, $9.70) was excellent: Lean, not too rich and accompanied with plentiful stir-fry vegetables. The egg noodles (100 rubles, $3.45) were unusually thick, but made a winning combination with the pork all the same. By contrast, the “homemade special” marbled beef Stroganoff with cep mushrooms and mashed potato (370 rubles, $12.80) turned out to be anything but special. The meat was very chewy, and, quite frankly, inedible. Our otherwise very efficient waitress had a Western style of asking “How is your food?” during every course, but when my companion complained about the beef and the waitress promised to take up the matter with the chef, it was not mentioned again. The item therefore remained on the bill, and nothing was offered in exchange.
Fortunately for those with a sweet tooth, the selection of desserts is ample, and the previous dishes are not so filling as to preclude sampling something. Another bonus is the fact that there is a 30-percent discount on all desserts when ordering them to take out. The lemon tart (190 rubles, $6.60) was truly scrumptious: The lemon flavor was not too sharp, and there was plenty of crust. The cranberry mousse (150 rubles, $5.20) was tasteless, but light and fluffy all the same. Its accompanying scoop of blackberry sorbet however, with a thin piece of shortbread neatly placed underneath, was bursting with fruity flavor and more than made up for the disappointing mousse. 
Vinaigrette is pricey considering the small size of the portions, but is worth trying if you happen to be in the area. Moreover, the friendly atmosphere and cozy decor make lazing around there very tempting.

TITLE: Russian Rugby Team Set to Make World Cup Debut 
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Most people within Russian rugby can agree on two things. While Russia’s debut in the Rugby World Cup is a landmark moment for a sport first introduced by foreigners building the Trans-Siberian Railroad in the 19th century, there is also little hope that the team will progress beyond the pool stages.
The Bears will play what is likely to be a closely fought match against the United States in their opening game in New Zealand on Sept. 15, but then the side’s odds become steeper as they take on Italy and championship contenders Australia and Ireland.
“We are afraid that our lack of experience might have a psychological effect on the players,” head coach Nikolai Nerush said. “But we have to show people that the Russian team didn’t end up at the World Cup by chance.”
To progress to the quarterfinals of the competition, the team would need to be ranked in the top two spots in their pool.
“Above all, it is our spirit that should make us stand out,” Nerush added.
British-based betting agency William Hill has the odds of Russia being crowned overall victors in New Zealand at 5,000 to 1.
But the team’s captain, Vladislav Korshunov, said that whatever their results, the Bears might offer some entertaining rugby. All games will be shown on Russian national television. The side favors a fast, attacking style of play, Korshunov said.   
Since the 1960s, Russian rugby’s spiritual home has been almost 5,000 kilometers east of Moscow, in Krasnoyarsk. Even in low winter temperatures, clashes between the city’s top teams can draw crowds in the tens of thousands. Seven of the 30 players in the Russian national squad play for Siberian clubs.
Support for the game is less strong outside Krasnoyarsk, but there are currently eight top-flight teams in Russia. The professional league was founded in 2005.
Thirteen members of the Bears come from VVA-Podmoskovye, the 2010 Russian league winners and formerly part of the Yury Gagarin Air Force Academy. Gagarin, the first man in space, was a keen rugby player.   
The Russian side’s team director Kingsley Jones, a Welshman and former coach at Manchester-based club the Sale Sharks, said the current state of rugby in Russia reminded him of British semi-professional rugby in the 1990s.
Jones was brought in to prepare the side before the World Cup. He said one of his principal concerns had been to eliminate sloppiness in the defensive game. Russian players, he added, suffer from a lack of high-level competition and his training regime had been a wake-up call.
“It’s a massive culture shock for the players, making them work from 8 in the morning to 8 at night and finishing the day with yoga,” Jones said.
Winger Vasily Artyemyev, who speaks fluent English with an Irish accent picked up during seven years studying and playing rugby in Ireland, concurred that the standard of the game in Russia differed sharply to that in other countries.
“The main difference is probably in the intensity. … It’s really difficult for players to keep improving [in Russia],” he said.
Artyemyev has just finished a two-year stint with VVA-Podmoskovye and signed for Northampton Saints this summer. He said the World Cup could prove a catalyst for foreign teams to snap up Russian players — a tendency that would strengthen the national side.
Although highly unlikely to meet them on the pitch in New Zealand, Russia’s nemesis in the rugby world, Georgia, has dozens of players who belong to professional French sides.
The Bears began their preparation for their World Cup debut in June. They have since spent three weeks at a training camp in Sochi where the facilities, Jones said, were on a par with the best in the world.
The side also completed a tour of England, where they lost all four of their matches against professional British sides — the Ospreys, Northampton, Gloucester and the Newport Gwent Dragons.
But even if victories remain scarce for Russia in New Zealand, the team’s very presence at the competition is a boost to the sport in the country.  
Frowned on under the tsars, who considered rugby conducive to rioting, the sport was also not encouraged in the Soviet Union.
Perhaps the most renowned Russian rugby player of all time was Prince Alexander Obolensky, who scored two tries for the first English side ever to beat New Zealand’s All Blacks in 1936. Obolensky’s aristocratic family fled Russia after the 1917 Revolution.
Russia’s debut at the World Cup is an important milestone. After the conclusion of the Bears’ glorious or inglorious tournament, the international rugby spotlight will turn to Russia, which will host the 2013 Rugby Sevens World Cup. The country’s sporting authorities are also planning a bid for the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
Kingsley Jones has no intention of returning permanently to Britain once the team’s New Zealand campaign is over.
“Russian rugby is in the healthiest state it’s ever been,” he said.

TITLE: Active House Sets New Standard in Sustainability
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A little blonde girl in a short-sleeved green and blue dress appeared on the staircase of a massive wooden house with a red ribbon stretched across a big glass sliding door.
She pulled on the ribbon, swinging her white stuffed sheep on it and paying no attention to reporters and cameramen across the narrow road or the high-profile officials crowded at the house’s entrance.
Four-year-old Polina Kronhaus is one of the residents of the newly constructed energy-efficient house outside Moscow, which she and her family moved into last week. 
Kremlin economic aide Arkady Dvorkovich and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark handed over the keys.
The house, completed earlier this month, is located in a housing development 20 kilometers southwest of the capital.
It was built in line with the international Active House concept, using energy-efficient technologies to provide a healthy climate indoors while reducing the impact on the environment. It is considered a breakthrough in the country’s residential construction.
A collaboration of Russian, French and Danish companies, the house cost 28.5 million rubles (almost $1 million) to build. Including interior and landscape design costs, the total outlay reached some 40 million rubles, said Oleg Panitkov, head of development at Velux, a Moscow-based unit of Danish skylight maker Velux Group, which participated in the construction.
The project was expensive, said Dmitry Aksyonov, owner of developer Zagorodny Proyekt, which built the house. But maintenance costs were the key concern, he said, because the home is a trial project.
“We didn’t count the money here. It’s like a concept car with all the high technologies used, and the construction costs were the last thing we were interested in,” he told a news conference ahead of the opening.
According to Panitkov, the house, whose overall area is 230 square meters, will require lower maintenance expenses than traditional homes.
The annual cost of hot water and heating is expected to be 12,556 rubles — compared with 24,000 rubles in a house using gas and 217,000 rubles in a house heated with electricity.
The lower maintenance costs are achieved via solar panels and a geothermal pump using the Earth’s natural heat to provide heating.
This will make it possible to reduce annual energy consumption for heating by almost 75 percent, compared with an ordinary home, to 38 kilowatt hours per square meter, according to a statement by Velux and Zagorodny Proyekt. The house, whose interior, including furniture, was designed in white to provide more light, is also equipped with a special system to control the inside temperature and air circulation.
The house might be sold in a couple of years, “if someone buys it,” Aksyonov said. He declined to specify the possible price, saying only that such a residence should be affordable. The price for other Zagorodny Proyekt cottages in the settlement where the Active House is located start at 10 million rubles.
While 28.5 million rubles is the highest possible construction cost on the property market around Moscow, costs would be 20 percent to 25 percent lower if mass construction of similar homes started, said Dmitry Khalin, managing partner at IntermarkSavills.
If the property is put up for sale, a price of about $1 million is realistic, given its size and location, he said by telephone, adding that a buyer is unlikely to see a return on investments from lower maintenance costs alone.
But the property has good prospects from the economic point of view, as utility tariffs are likely to grow in the future because of Russia’s impending accession to the World Trade Organization.
“The house is a bit ahead of its time. But in five to seven years, maintenance costs will be a significant factor,” Khalin said.
Energy-efficient homes could also be popular among expats. Foreigners who are already familiar with energy-efficiency technologies in housing construction might be the best target audience to rent such properties in Russia, he said.
Similar projects are being implemented in a number of European countries, including Denmark, Britain and Germany.
Meanwhile, the Active House is not the only energy-efficient home in Russia. Construction on a similar house in Nazaryevo, in the Moscow region’s northwest, was completed last year.
The property, called Green Balance, will allow a savings of 32,850 rubles in heating costs per year, according to estimates by Rockwool, a producer of construction materials that contributed to the project.
Building the Active House could be the first step toward creating principles of sustainable construction in the country, said Andrei Bokov, president of the Union of Architects of Russia.
Russia needs to develop its own sustainable construction principles taking into account world practices and specific local conditions, Bokov said, adding that there are no such norms in the current legislation.
His union, along with other nongovernmental organizations, plans to draft sustainable construction standards for Russia in the next several years to allow for the development of construction projects that preserve the environment and create comfortable living conditions, he told reporters last week.
The technologies used to build the house will be subsequently applied to develop similar projects at a lower price, Aksyonov said.
“It will be much more affordable in three years,” he said, adding that people will be ready to pay for the light and comfort.
He also said similar homes could be built in the regions.
Meanwhile, Polina Kronhaus, the little girl, was not the only one excited about her new home.
“I like the house very much, it exceeded all my expectations,” said her mother, Asya Dunayevskaya. “The windows are huge, there’s a lot of space, and it has a feeling of freedom,” she said in a short interview after the ceremony.
The family will be testing the house for a year, sharing their impressions with the companies involved.
Dunayevskaya, a 30-year-old journalist, said she and her husband found the project’s organizers themselves and proposed to test the property.
“I’m a bit scared of what the children will make it look like, but so far it’s great,” she said, smiling.

TITLE: Two Russian-Speaking Families Recall Their 9/11 Losses
AUTHOR: By Nikola Krastev 
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: NEW YORK — At 21, Vladimir Savinkin was one of the youngest employees at Cantor Fitzgerald, a global financial company whose U.S. headquarters were located on the top floors of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
Having emigrated at 16 with his family from the Ukrainian port of Odessa, Savinkin had already made big strides in America. He started as a pizza-delivery boy in Brooklyn, excelled as a student at Pace University in Manhattan, held stints at various accounting firms, and finally landed a desk on the 101st floor of the trade center’s North Tower.
“For him, the beginning was particularly difficult,” said his father, Valery Savinkin.
The young Savinkin left his first love back in Odessa and was so homesick that immediately upon setting foot in the United States, he decided to start saving money for the trip back.
That trip in 1997 lasted all of two weeks. Savinkin’s love interest had long since found another suitor, and he no longer felt a sense of camaraderie with his old buddies back in Odessa. “It was a wake-up journey,” his father said. “Vladik realized that there was no more Odessa and that his new life was in America. He became extremely focused and never looked back.”
Savinkin, 56, met a reporter in the living room of his family’s ground-floor apartment in Brighton Beach, the Russian enclave in Brooklyn on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. In tradition with Russian hospitality, he puts on the table bagels, ham, cream cheese, butter, jam, coffee and juice for an impromptu late breakfast.
A visitor wouldn’t instantly feel the connection to the fateful events of Sept. 11, 2001, but a detour to Vladimir Savinkin’s bedroom quickly reveals the horror of those last hours when his heartbroken father desperately tried to reach him by phone. Photographs of Vladimir’s life cover a wall, and his old, dusted computer still sits on his desk.
Sept. 11, 2001, began as a gorgeous, sun-drenched morning in New York. Savinkin’s father, a computer programmer, had just begun his work shift in Jersey City. The windows of his office provided a clear view of the two glimmering towers soaring in the sky across the Hudson River. Minutes before 9 a.m., he heard on the news that a plane had struck the North Tower.
“I could see the smoke billowing from it,” he said, “but couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of the devastation because the plane had hit it from the other side.”
He rushed toward the train station, one stop away from his son, but by that time transportation officials had already closed the entrance. While trying to negotiate with them, he saw a flash and heard a roar. Initially he thought that it might have been the chopper flying nearby and only later did he realize that it was the second hijacked Boeing 767 approaching the South Tower.
Savinkin spent the next 90 minutes, the hardest minutes of his life, glued to the phone at his office, desperately hoping that his son might call. That call never came. Eventually an order to vacate the premises was broadcast over the emergency notification system.
“As we exited the building,” Savinkin said in a choking voice, “I saw it with my own eyes — the tower collapsed, the tower where my son was working.”
The next day Valery Savinkin and his wife, Valentina, went to Manhattan with photos of their son to post in squares, on street light poles and other public places.
In the weeks following the tragedy, passers-by in Manhattan could see thousands of these “missing persons” posters hurriedly made by relatives.
Police refused to touch them, even though their distribution was a violation of city regulations.
The relatives waited in hope for months after the tragedy, even though only six people were eventually pulled out alive from the rubble of the towers.

Five floors above Vladimir Savinkin’s office in the North Tower, a business breakfast was scheduled that morning at Windows of the World, the posh restaurant atop the World Trade Center.
Alexander Braginsky, a 38-year-old manager at Reuters financial services, was about to give a lecture on job education at the breakfast to newcomers from the Association of New Americans.
Braginsky was filling in for a colleague who couldn’t make it that day. Braginsky also came to the United States from Odessa, but in 1979 as a 16-year-old with his mother, Nelly Braginsky. He quickly established himself on a path to success.
Braginsky’s educational excellence and career growth earned him a spot on host Vladimir Molchanov’s popular Russian television show “Do i Posle Polunochi” (Before and After Midnight) in early 1991. He was featured in a segment devoted to new Russian-Americans.
Braginsky was happily married and lived with his wife in the affluent town of Stamford, Connecticut. His mother and stepfather simply called him “Alik.”
As millions of people across the world were glued to their television sets and watched in disbelief the scenes of horror unfolding at the World Trade Center, Nelly Braginsky was initially unaware that her son was in the North Tower.
After she found out, Braginsky and her husband, Mikhail Khazmats, attempted to get close to the site but were turned back by the police. On the morning of Sept. 12, they started searching in the hospitals in New Jersey, where bodies from the carnage were being transported. The same day she learned that Alex’s wallet has been found — smashed and warped.
“I realized then that Alex had probably thrown himself out the window,” Nelly Braginsky said. “That’s how I feel. He was not the kind of person who would have waited to get suffocated by smoke and slowly die.”

While tragedy and grief know no ethnic and national boundaries, people of similar backgrounds naturally gravitate toward one another. Soon after the attacks, Valery Savinkin found out that his son was working at Cantor Fitzgerald with Marina Gertsberg, 25, another expatriate from Odessa. In a cruel twist of fate, Marina had joined the company exactly a week before Sept. 11. She also perished that day.
The two families, the Savinkins and Gertsbergs, grew closer and in 2002 helped establish the September 11 Family Group, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization comprised of family members of Russian-speaking victims.
The Family Group collected funds and with a nod from the local authorities created 11 September Memorial Square in a small park near the ocean promenade in Brighton Beach. A weeping willow tree hangs above a memorial plaque that displays the names of 18 Russian-speaking Americans who lost their lives that day.
Every year, and usually every few months, the families gather at this place to honor their loved ones. They often sing two songs that group members composed for the occasion.
“Those who were brought together by grief after Sept. 11, 2001, 10 years ago are now brought together by the memory of that tragedy — but most of all by the memory of their loved ones and their desire to nurture that memory, to make it permanent for all those with whom we share the tragedy,” Savinkin’s father said.
There is no definite count on the number of Russian-speaking victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The ABC television network in its initial news reports put the number at 16.
Other unofficial reports estimate the number of ethnic Russians at 25 to as many as 75. The higher figure includes all those from the former Soviet Union who may have used Russian as their native tongue.

TITLE: Taliban Launches New Assault in Kabul
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and assault rifles at the U.S. Embassy, NATO headquarters and other buildings in the heart of the capital Tuesday while suicide bombers struck police buildings in an attack blitz that displayed the ability of militants to bring their fight to the doorsteps of Western power in Afghanistan.
The coordinated assaults — coming two days after the United States marked the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks — carried an unsettling message to Western leaders and their Afghan allies about the resilience and reach of the Taliban network.
It was the third major attack in Kabul since late June, casting fresh doubts on the ability of Afghans to secure their own country as the U.S. and other foreign troops prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014.
The American Embassy and NATO both said no staff were wounded. Afghan officials said the violence around Kabul resulted in the deaths of four police officers and two civilians. Another 12 people were wounded, including at least four caught up in suicide bombings in the western part of the capital.
Four Afghans were wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the original U.S. embassy building next to the new embassy, CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Among them was a small girl who was with a group waiting for visas outside the embassy, he said.
The surge of violence was a stark reminder of the instability that continues to plague Afghanistan nearly a decade after the U.S. invasion that ousted the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida, which carried out the 9/11 plane hijackings.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. will do everything it can to combat those who committed the “cowardly attack.”
Clinton said the U.S. was moving to secure the area and “ensure that those who perpetrated this attack are dealt with.” She said the U.S. would assist Afghans injured in the attack.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the “enemies of Afghanistan” were trying to disrupt the handing over of security responsibility to the Afghan army and police.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and said that it would not deter Afghan security forces from taking full responsibility for the country’s security by the time the international community withdraws all its combat troops at the end of 2014.
“By carrying out such attacks terrorists cannot stop the transition of security from international to Afghan forces,” Karzai said in a statement.
Gunfire and explosions resounded across Kabul well into the afternoon. At least two insurgents were still on the top floors of a nine-story building by late evening, police said.
Earlier, plumes of smoke rose from the area near the embassy, and U.S. Army helicopters buzzed overhead. The American Embassy is on the edge of the Wazir Akbar Khan area, which is home to a number of other foreign missions.
Gunmen fired from the nine-story office building that is under construction at Abdul Haq Square, which is about 300 meters from the U.S. Embassy. Afghan official said the attack began when about half a dozen insurgents took over the building and began firing toward the embassy and the adjacent NATO headquarters.
Thee military coalition, also known as ISAF, said the insurgents were firing rocket propelled grenades and small arms.
“An Afghan-led response is under way against the attack near the U.S. Embassy and ISAF HQ,” NATO said in a statement.
As part of the attempt to secure the building, an Afghan army MI-35 attack helicopter opened fire on the top floors with its heavy 12.7 mm gatling gun.
Explosions in areas located nearly a kilometer from the building indicated that the insurgents had heavy weaponry. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed the Taliban fighters were equipped with an 82 mm mortar, heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, AK-47 assault rifles and that all were wearing suicide vests.

TITLE: Iran Sets Bail for American Hikers Accused of Spying 
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian court Tuesday set bail of $500,000 each for two American men arrested more than two years ago and convicted on spy-related charges, clearing the way for their release a year after a similar bail-for-freedom arrangement was made for the third member of the group, their defense attorney said.
Lawyer Masoud Shafiei said the court would begin the process of freeing Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal after payment of the bail, which must be arranged through third parties because of U.S. economic sanctions on Iran. But the timing of the court’s decision is similar to last year’s bail deal mediated by the Gulf state of Oman that freed the third American, Sarah Shourd.
“They agreed to set bail to release,” Shafiei told The Associated Press after leaving the court. “The amount is the same for Sarah.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in an interview aired on NBC’s “Today” show, predicted the Americans could be freed “in a couple of days.” He described the bail offer as a “humanitarian gesture” and repeated complaints about attention for Iranians held in U.S. prisons.
The Americans were arrested in July 2009 along the Iran-Iraq border and accused by Iran of espionage. The trio have denied the charges and say they may have mistakenly crossed into Iran when they stepped off a dirt road while hiking near a waterfall in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Last month, Bauer and Fattal, both 29, were sentenced to three years each for illegal entry into Iran and five years each for spying for the United States. They appealed the verdicts. Shourd’s case remains open.
Shafiei said he has passed along details of the court’s decision to the Swiss Embassy, which represent U.S. interests in Iran since there are no diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said officials were in touch with Swiss envoys “to get more details from the Iranian authorities.”
Iran may have timed the court decision to coincide with Ahmadinejad’s visit later this month to New York for the general assembly of the United Nations. Last year, Shourd was released on bail just as Ahmadinejad was heading for the annual gathering of world leaders.
But Ahmadinejad was not likely involved in any decisions on the case. Iran’s judiciary is controlled by the country’s ruling clerics, who have been waging relentless pressure on Ahmadinejad and his allies as part of an internal power struggle.

TITLE: Fears Of Greek Default Mount
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATHENS, Greece — German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to calm market fears that Greece is heading for a chaotic default on its debts as Europe struggles to contain a crippling financial crisis.
Her comments Tuesday come a day after her deputy raised the possibility of a default, and come ahead of another telephone discussion between Greece’s finance minister and his German counterpart.
Fears of an imminent Greek default pushed interest rates on the country’s 10-year government bonds up further Tuesday to more than 24 percent, even though Merkel sounded a note of optimism regarding Greece’s chances of getting the next batch of bailout cash from the so-called troika — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Representatives from the three organizations are due back in Athens this week.
“Everything that I hear from Greece is that the Greek government has hopefully understood the signs of the time and is now doing the things that are on the daily agenda,” Merkel said on rbb-Inforadio. “The fact that the troika is returning means that Greece has started doing some of the things that need to be done.”
Merkel also warned of the perils of an “uncontrolled” Greek bankruptcy.
“I have said ‘if the euro fails, Europe fails’ — that applies here and therefore everyone should very carefully weigh their words,” she said. “What we don’t need is unrest in the finance markets — the uncertainties are already big enough.”
Greece is relying on international rescue loans to remain solvent. But lagging efforts to tame a bloated budget deficit and enforce reforms are now threatening that lifeline, which is conditional on fiscal progress.
Greece is trying to convince international creditors that it deserves to get the next tranche of money due from a bailout fund .
The latest bout of jitters in the markets have been partly stoked by comments from Vice-Chancellor Philipp Roesler on Monday that there should be “no bans on thinking” in how to resolve the euro crisis. By raising the specter of an “orderly insolvency,” Roesler’s comments reinforced concerns that Greece will end up defaulting.
Despite over 20 months of austerity and two international bailouts each worth about 110 billion euros ($150 billion) — although the second faces considerable implementation delays — Greece’s finances remain in a parlous state.

TITLE: Labor Party Wins in Norway
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: OSLO, Norway — Norway’s ruling Labor Party won its best local election result in more than two decades and the anti-immigrant Progress Party plummeted in support two months after attacks by a right-wing fanatic killed 77 people.
Riding a wave of sympathy, Labor won 33.2 percent of the vote while the Conservatives jumped to second place with 27.7 percent, with 99 percent of the votes counted Tuesday in county and municipal elections. The right-wing Progress Party sunk to 11.8 percent from 18.5 percent in the 2007 election.
The Sunday-Monday election came seven weeks after an anti-Muslim extremist slaughtered 69 people at a Labor Party youth camp and set off a car bomb outside government offices killing another eight people. Anders Behring Breivik confessed to the July 22 killings but denies criminal responsibility, saying he’s in a state of war against Norway’s immigration policies, which he largely blames on the Labor Party.
Analysts said although the Progress Party’s support had started to wane in polls a few years ago, its election result was definitely impacted by the terror attacks.
“The party feared it would become associated with Breivik,” said Anders Todal Jenssen, professor in political science at the Trondheim University. “The drop in their support is partly a result of July 22.”
Breivik belonged to the Progress Party from 1999 to 2006 but said he grew disillusioned with the party and concluded that the only way to stop what he called the “Islamization” of Norway and Europe was through armed struggle.
After the terror attacks, the Progress Party moderated its anti-immigrant stance, which had been one of its major election themes.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s Labor Party gained from his deft handling of the terror crisis, which was praised by supporters and critics alike.
“Labor gained from a sympathy effect, but also the way Stoltenberg handled the terror tragedy,” Todal Jenssen said.
Stoltenberg told jubilant supporters that Labor won because it persevered through difficult times.
“We have been victorious because we have risen up and finished the race,” Stoltenberg said.
Labor’s traditional rival, the Conservative Party, increased its support the most, gaining nine percentage points to push ahead of the right-wing Progressive Party, which had eclipsed the Conservatives in parliamentary elections two years ago.
Turnout was almost 63 percent — the highest since the 1995 municipal elections.
All parties had agreed to hold short, low-key campaigns after the July terror attacks rocked the Scandinavian nation, a prosperous and generally tolerant society which enjoys the benefits of oil wealth, a thriving economy and cradle-to-grave social services.