SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1685 (47), Wednesday, November 30, 2011
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TITLE: Business Community Criticizes Smoking Bill
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Sochiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A new smoking law threatens to severely damage small businesses throughout Russia, campaigners say. 
The draft law aims to reduce tobacco use and improve the health of the nation, yet could prove to be harmful in other ways, according to its opponents. However inconvenient these new conditions might seem to smokers, they are not the only ones affected by the new ordinance — the effects are much more global. Experts believe that the adoption of the law will first of all affect small restaurant and retail businesses. 
The project includes a number of radical measures including a 50-percent increase in proportional excise tax on tobacco products, resulting in an increase in the cost to the buyer, a ban on smoking in many public places such as hotels, cafes, nightclubs and on long-distance trains and a ban on selling cigarettes in retail premises smaller than 50 square meters.
Some experts believe the bill doesn’t meet its stated aims and could moreover cause substantial damage in social and economic spheres. These opinions were expressed on Nov. 24 at a roundtable discussion in St. Petersburg devoted to the effects of the new law on small businesses and society.
The U.K. is proof of this hypothesis, participants argued. Before a similar smoking law was put into effect, between 70 and 80 pubs went bankrupt every year in the U.K. After the introduction of a ban on smoking in public places, the number skyrocketed to between 1,500 and 1,600 per year. According to Maxim Makshanov, general manager of the Coffeeshop Company chain, the law itself has not been well thought through.
Participants of the roundtable insisted that smaller trade businesses are threatened by this draft law, and that it could result in the development of a monopoly. 
“The law violates the fundamental rights of the constitution and pursues not the public good, but individual interests,” said Alexander Tretyakov of the St. Petersburg Association of Small Consumer-Based Businesses.  
Others went as far as to question whether or not it is right to protect the rights of non-smokers at the expense of smokers. Vasily Govorov, a representative of the St. Petersburg cigar club, said that a good compromise for the situation would be to create designated areas where smokers can smoke and implement additional taxes on establishments that allow smoking. 
Konstantin Bely, general manager of the Association of Food Establishments, posed another question: How can people be made to follow the law? “Most people who go to bars are smokers. What should be done if one of them begins to smoke?  Call the police?  By the time they get there, the person will have already finished their cigarette.”
Other opponents of the proposed law said that a law aimed at improving citizens’ health shouldn’t require people to smoke outdoors, exposed to the elements of the Russian winter. They also argued that because smoking will be forbidden in other places, parents will be forced to smoke at home, setting a bad example for their children. 
This summer, the Ministry of Health and Social Development prepared a federal draft law on the protection of public health from the effects of tobacco use.
According to various estimates, between 300,000 and 400,000 Russian citizens die from smoking-related diseases each year. In addition to this, smoking is considered to be one of the reasons for the demographic crisis in Russia. The bill’s supporters, therefore, argue that passing this law is a logical and necessary step.

TITLE: Zenit Needs Porto Victory to Qualify
AUTHOR: By Daniel Kozin
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Zenit St. Petersburg has complicated its chances of entering the Champions League knock-out stages after a frustrating 0-0 draw at Petrovsky stadium last Wednesday to Cypriot champions APOEL.
The game’s outcome was to decide which of the two teams would move forward into the last 16 of the competition before the final group games on Dec. 6 and 7, with nothing less than victory needed by the home team, and a draw sufficient for group leader’s APOEL.
Having recorded eight successive home victories in the European competition, Zenit went into the game as match favorite, but it was group underdog APOEL that was left celebrating a remarkable unbeaten campaign at the final whistle with its fans.
Despite recording as many as two dozen shots on APOEL’s goal and restricting the away team to one shot in return, Zenit was left ruing a vicious yet ultimately fruitless attacking display. 
The match was mired by the pyrotechnic display of St. Petersburg’s ever-enthusiastic ultras who twice set off a barrage of flares that engulfed the stadium in smoke, causing the referee to pause the game until the smoke-screens subsided. While the fan’s apparent intent was to rile up the home side for the win, a third pause threatened the cancellation of the match, forcing team coach Luciano Spalletti to cross the field and personally appeal to fan sectors to check their fervor. 
While agonizingly close to entering the draw against the 16 best clubs in Europe, Zenit now faces the difficult task of avoiding defeat against Porto next Tuesday in the intimidating Dragao stadium in Portugal. 
Spalletti remained upbeat about the team’s prospects. 
“We will go to Porto with the same attitude and mentality that we have in every game now, and I am certain that we will play a very good match, because the team is healthy, on a good run and in great form,” he said.
Zenit extended its lead at the top of the Russian Premier League to six points in the last game before the winter break with a 2-1 win over Lokomotiv Moscow on Sunday.

TITLE: Residents Call on Governor To Restore Historical Street Names
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: About 1,500 city residents have appealed to St. Petersburg City Governor Georgy Poltavchenko requesting that a number of St. Petersburg streets and squares be given back the names they had before the 1917 Revolution, and that the names of streets named after those who took part in criminal activities be changed as well.
“It would be better to call the streets even by numbers than by the names of classic bombers such as Khalturin, Perovskaya and Zhelyabov,” said Daniil Petrov, vice president of the Historical Traditions Support Foundation. 
“Terrorists shouldn’t be forgotten, but what they’ve done should be remembered only in textbooks. Streets should have different names.” 
The group of city residents also asked for the names of streets named after Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionists Pavel Dybenko, Nikolai Krylenko and notorious secret police chief Felix Dzerzhinsky and a number of others to be changed.

TITLE: Britain Rules To Let ‘Spy’ Remain
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — A special immigration tribunal ruled Tuesday that a Russian former lawmaker’s aide who was accused of being a spy can stay in Britain.
The tribunal concluded that Ekaterina Zatuliveter — who had an affair with her boss, a British lawmaker — was not a threat to national security despite government claims.
The commission’s 28-page ruling left open the small possibility that Zatuliveter, who studied at the international relations faculty of St. Petersburg State University, might be a Russian agent.
“We cannot exclude the possibility that we have been gulled,” the report from judge John Mitting states. “But, if we have been, it has been by a supremely competent and rigorously trained operative.”
The three-person panel concluded this was highly unlikely based on her education and training.
The 26-year-old Russian woman was arrested in December on suspicion of using her job in the office of legislator Mike Hancock to pass information to Russian intelligence. Zatuliveter admitted she had a four-year affair with her boss, a Liberal Demcocrat who served on the sensitive Defense Committee, but said she was not a secret agent.
She has not been charged with spying but British authorities wanted to deport her as a threat to national security. Much of the evidence was heard in secret, so the details of the case against her have not been made public.
A Home Office spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy said officials are disappointed by the ruling and stand by the decision to seek Zatuliveter’s deportation.
“The court ruled that there were ample grounds for suspicion, we are therefore very disappointed by the court’s judgment and stand by our decision to pursue deportation on national security grounds,” the spokesman said.
Hancock has stepped down from the Defense Committee but has not commented publicly on the allegations.

TITLE: Spanish Architect Visits City to Monitor Project
AUTHOR: By Yelena Minenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill visited the city earlier this month to check on his first creation in St. Petersburg, an elite business center and apartment complex on Novgorodskaya Ulitsa.
Bofill, or “Maestro” as he was referred to at a press conference organized in honor of his visit to the city, has designed more than 1,000 projects for more than 50 countries and owns the Taller de Architectura workshop in Barcelona. Together with his team of architects, Bofill has created Barcelona Airport and the National Theater of Catalonia, the head offices of Cartier and Christian Dior in Paris, the Shiseido Building in Tokyo and the Dearborn Center in Chicago, the latter two of which are both skyscrapers. 
Although St. Petersburg was designed with the participation of many foreign architects, nowadays it is rare to find an architect from abroad working in the city. The primary reason for this lies in the architectural standstill that took place in the second half of the 90s, a period in which all buildings and apartments were designed to essentially look the same. 
Another reason for the lack of foreign architectural projects in St. Petersburg, analysts say, is that it is difficult for foreign architects to adapt their projects to Russian standards — in particular, safety standards — which drastically differ from those in Europe. Therefore, the work done by Bofill — a Spanish post-modernist architect — and developed by RBI Holding looks set to stand out in St. Petersburg.
“It was both an honor and a challenge for me at the same time to receive an offer to create a project in the historical part of St. Petersburg,” said Bofill. “St. Petersburg is a unique city that for 300 years has been developed according to a single plan. It’s really lucky for us to be able to design a complex right in the center of this area.”
Despite the project’s central location on Novgorodskaya Ulitsa between the Alexander Nevsky Monastery and Smolny Cathedral, the neighboring buildings are not so appealing: The red-brick Document Center complex on one side, and a few non-functioning industrial enterprises adorned with numerous pipes on the other. A distant view of Smolny Cathedral can however be caught from some of the apartment windows. 
“We adapted our project a bit to match the architectural style of the surrounding buildings,” said Bofill. “Our philosophy is that if a site isn’t yet at the same level as that of our architectural structure, it’s up to us to bring it up to par. We have to create a turning point for the future development of the area so that the whole historical center can reach its architectural potential.” 
“We expect that in ten years this area will be fully transformed,” added Eduard Tiktinsky, president of the developer company RBI. According to Tiktinsky, 30 percent of the apartments have already been sold, along with 20 percent of the business space. 
The finished complex, which is currently 70 percent complete, will consist of an apartment building and a business center, and is described by Tiktinsky as being of neoclassical style with between nine and 12 stories, brightly colored and with columns decorating the central facade.
“The complex combines different styles of the past and present, and it is a vivid example of modern classicism,” said Bofill. “It matches St. Petersburg’s atmosphere and its citizens, who are self-confident, ambitious, pragmatic and romantic at the same time.” 
“I have a lot of experience and don’t need to do something too bold in order to prove myself. It is more important for me to understand the city. I don’t want to create something that won’t blend in,” he added. “We don’t like luxurious architecture — we like it to be elegant and sophisticated. Every building has to be a piece of art, but with a human face.”

TITLE: Deputy: Gays Shouldn’t Be Seen
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A deputy of St. Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly and one of the supporters of the ruling United Russia party’s controversial “gay propaganda” bill introducing fines for “promoting sodomy and lesbianism … to minors” effectively suggested that gays should go back in the closet last week. 
Rights organizations warn that if passed, the law could lead to mass human rights violations.
Yelena Babich, who co-authored “Under the Sign of Love,” a collection of short stories co-written with author Ella Samoilenko, made the comments during a presentation of the book at a Bukvoyed bookstore on Nevsky Prospekt on Thursday, where she was confronted by LGBT activists who started to ask questions about previous statements made by Babich.
Babich, who alleges that homosexuality adds to Russia’s demographic crisis, attacked the use of the rainbow as a symbol of the LGBT movement during a Legislative Assembly session on Nov. 16.
“We have the face of Peter the Great next to a bright rainbow posted all over St. Petersburg for City Day,” Babich was quoted as saying.
“What kind of rainbow is it when it is the international symbol of gays? We have it all over the city — the Rainbow kindergarten here and the Rainbow pharmacy there. We’re all happy about it. Soon we’ll be so happy that we’ll all die out!” 
Stricter punishments and bans are needed, rather than small fines, she argued. “We have invited such a flow of propaganda by the gay movement and pedophilia… Did you watch television yesterday? It’s on every channel… It’s not [about] the struggle against it, it’s additional propaganda,” she said.
The name of Babich, as well as that of Vitaly Milonov, the United Russia deputy who chairs the Legislative Assembly’s legislation committee and who initiated the bill, were written on the posters of activists during a protest on Palace Square earlier this month. “Babich, don’t be afraid of me,” read some of the posters.
Answering questions at the event, which was attended by many gay activists, Babich said she accepted all forms of love, but it should not be manifested. “Love between two people is always something sacred, something that one doesn’t make a show about,” she said. “If there’s a show, then it’s false.”
Bukvoyed’s moderator attempted to dismiss further questions posed by activists as not related to the event’s subject and because of children present in the audience, but as they kept lining up to ask Babich questions, closed the Q&A session abruptly.
The bill, which imposes fines for “promoting sodomy” was greeted with protests and petitions both in Russia and abroad, and was criticized by Amnesty International, joined last week by the U.S. State Department and the U.K. Foreign Office.
Amid protests, the Legislative Assembly passed the bill in its first reading on Nov. 16. But despite expectations, it did not pass in its second reading at the following session on Nov. 23, and was postponed, officially due to its clumsy wording. 
Although the bill was introduced by United Russia, Babich belongs to controversial politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), chairing the party’s five-strong faction in the United Russia-dominated Legislative Assembly.
Ironically, the LDPR was known as the “only party that supports gays” in the 1990s. Zhirinovsky devoted one of his pre-election televised addresses entirely to the rights of gays and lesbians in 1993, paid publicized visits to gay clubs and had his party sponsor “Gay Storm,” a massive gay pride festival held at Yubileiny Sports Complex in St. Petersburg in 1999. Earlier this year, Zhirinovsky spoke against banning a gay pride event in Moscow.
The anti-promotion bill is widely seen as a pre-election stunt ahead of the State Duma elections due on Dec. 4, as United Russia sees its support shrink. This theory was indirectly confirmed by author Milonov in an interview. 
“Now everybody can see: Those who are against homos are for United Russia, and those who are for homos are against us,” Milonov was quoted as saying by local weekly magazine Gorod-812 on Monday.
As well as the amendment banning the “promotion of sodomy,” United Russia has suggested another that bans “promoting pedophilia.” As pedophilia is already a crime in Russia, mentioning it in the same amendments was designed to confuse the public and stigmatize homosexuality, the bill’s opponents say.
Speaking at length to LGBT activists after the book presentation, Babich said the bill needs to be reworked, but she voted for it in the first reading. “If you don’t vote for this law, it means that you’re against sparing children from this filth,” she said.
Although 27 deputies voted for the bill, with one voting against it and one abstaining, Babich said it was supported unanimously.
“Maybe somebody did not push [the button] by chance or pushed the wrong one, it’s a permissible error,” she said.
When asked to give examples of “promoting pedophilia,” Babich failed to give any. Instead, she promptly said that Vladimir Nabokov’s classic novel “Lolita” was not. “It depicts an emotional experience, and the ending is so sad, so quite the opposite, it’s perhaps good propaganda,” she said. “Propaganda can be good. I believe there should be propaganda of a healthy way of life.”
Babich disagreed that informing teenagers about sexuality could prevent a number of teenage suicides. “In the Soviet Union we had no sexual information at all, but we didn’t commit suicide. We didn’t even know what a condom was,” she replied.
Babich said she had “very many” friends who are gay, but all of them led “covert” lifestyles, and advised that LGBT people should act so as not to be visible to the public. She then compared them to the Jewish community.
“It’s very important not to draw attention to oneself too much,” she said.
“One of the books that I have starts like this: The issue of same-sex love is somewhat like the Jewish problem. When there are too many Jews — in every field of management, on television, in the arts, everywhere — it ends badly for Jews themselves. They [Jews] always make efforts to regulate this aspect.”

TITLE: Two Parachutists Jump From Peter and Paul Fortress Spire
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A wild video was posted on YouTube showing two base jumpers parachuting off the bell tower of the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, although authorities claim the high-flying stunt never occurred.
The amateur video shows the two mystery parachutists leap from the 123-meter tower one after the other, and slowly drift to the ground within the confines of the fortress surrounding the cathedral.
The spectacular jump took place last Sunday and was witnessed by several visitors, NTV.ru reported. The parachutists had taken the keys from the receptionist.
The video claims that it was the first time anyone had ever jumped from the spire. The footage ends as security guards run toward the jumpers as they land a few hundred yards from the cathedral. What happened next is unclear, as authorities deny that the incident even occurred.
“The entrance to the cathedral bell tower is guarded by the police. … The video that has been uploaded on the Internet is a falsification,” said the press service of the State Museum of St. Petersburg, which resides in the fortress.
Base-jumping is a sport that involves parachuting off low-level, fixed structures, often landmarks. The jumps are usually illegal, particularly in urban areas, and planning for them is done in secret.

TITLE: Report: Capital Lawyer Beaten to Death
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — New evidence released Monday added weight to suspicions that Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by prison guards in 2009 and did not die from health problems as previously claimed by the authorities.
A report by Hermitage Capital, once Russia’s largest foreign investment fund, found that the 37-year-old lawyer was left to die on a cell floor after suffering a brain trauma in the beating apparently ordered by prison officials.
The report, which runs at 75 pages in English and 100 pages in Russian, offers gruesome photos from the morgue that depict bad bruises on what it says are Magnitsky’s wrists and legs.
The Kremlin’s human rights council backed the report, but government officials maintained a stony silence, fueling long-running suspicions of a cover-up in the death of Magnitsky, who was arrested by officials whom he had accused of stealing $230 million in government money. He died in November 2009, 11 months after his arrest on dubious tax charges.
The Kremlin’s human rights council announced in its own report in July that Magnitsky was beaten before his death, but offered few details.
Monday’s report, published at Russian-untouchables.com, reproduces what it says is a photocopied order from Fikhret Tagiyev, head of the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial facility, to handcuff Magnitsky and beat him with a rubber baton.
Magnitsky had been sent that day to Matrosskaya Tishina, which has a prison hospital, from another pretrial detention center to receive treatment for “acute pancreatitis, cholecystitis and gallstones,” the report said.
But “instead of hospitalizing him, a team of eight prison guards placed him in an isolation cell, handcuffed him to a bed and beat him with rubber batons,” the Russian version says.
Prison officials have explained that they needed to use handcuffs because Magnitsky was “swearing, waving his hands and threatened to kill or harm himself,” rights activist Valery Borshchyov told reporters Monday, Interfax reported.
But the self-harm allegations are lies, said Borshchyov, who headed the Kremlin human rights council’s investigation into the death, at a news conference in Moscow also attended by rights veterans Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Kirill Kabanov and Mikhail Fedotov.
It also remained unclear how a suicide threat mandated the need for the rubber baton.
Then there is also the matter of Magnitsky’s death certificate, which has been released in two versions, a Hermitage spokesman said by telephone.
The first, presented in court during a check into his death in late 2009, identified a traumatic brain injury as the cause of death, he said. But this conclusion was doctored out of a 2011 version of the same document, also presented in court, he said.
Prison officials also have said Magnitsky died on the resuscitation table, but Hermitage reiterated Monday suspicions that he was left in his cell after the beating and died before help arrived.
An ambulance from a civil psychiatric hospital was inexplicably summoned to examine Magnitsky, and the paramedics found him in his cell with the handcuffs beside him, dead for at least 15 minutes, according to a transcript of a paramedic’s statement not found in the report but provided by Hermitage by e-mail.
The report indicates that Magnitsky died 63 minutes after the beating.
Hermitage also released a copy of a 2009 report by a district investigator who said a criminal case should be opened into the death. The report was apparently ignored at the time.
Newly released records of Magnitsky’s court proceedings also show that he repeatedly complained to the judge of health problems. Law enforcement officials involved in the case have, on the contrary, claimed that he never spoke about his health in the courtroom.
True to his lawyer’s calling, Magnitsky actually filed more than 450 complaints from behind bars, his colleagues said in an obituary published in 2009 in Vedomosti.
The Hermitage report was presented to Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin last week, prior to its public release, rights activist Borshchyov said by telephone.
Bastrykin promised to look into the report, Borshchyov said.
Bastrykin made no comment on the issue Monday.
The Magnitsky case has marred the Kremlin’s image like no other in recent years, prompting accusations that corrupt officials enjoy a de facto immunity from prosecution.
Indeed, although President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a check into Magnitsky’s death in 2009, it produced few visible results. Only two prison doctors have been charged in connection with the death, and several police officials whom he accused of involvement in the $230 million theft have received promotions.
Hermitage has released a string of exposes detailing multimillion-dollar assets owned by midlevel officials linked to the embezzlement case. No investigations have followed.
Hermitage has also drawn up a list of 60 officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death, urging countries nationwide to introduce sanctions against them.
Legislators in Canada and several European countries are considering the sanctions, while the U.S. State Department has blacklisted dozens of officials, prompting the Russian Foreign Ministry to ban unidentified American officials from Russia in retaliation. Russian diplomats said at first that their list is longer than the U.S. one, but admitted this month that it only has 11 names.

TITLE: Dzhioyeva Victorious In Election
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The situation in South Ossetia was tense Monday after authorities declared opposition candidate Alla Dzhioyeva the winner in a presidential runoff, a result that her Kremlin-supported opponent Anatoly Bibilov loudly disputed.
Dzhioyeva won 56.7 percent of Sunday’s vote, while Bibilov took just 40 percent, according to preliminary results based on 74 of the 85 electoral districts published on the breakaway Georgian region’s official news site.
If confirmed, Dzhioyeva, a former education minister, would become the first female president in the patriarchal Caucasus.
But Bibilov’s supporters insisted early Monday morning that he had won the election. Bibilov later told reporters that the vote was illegitimate because of “numerous violations” by Dzhioyeva’s team, including attempts to intimidate elections commission members.
He said he had filed an official complaint to the South Ossetian Supreme Court.
The court postponed a hearing over the complaint until Tuesday because it said it needed more information, Interfax reported.
Earlier, court chairman Atsamaz Bichenov imposed a ban on publishing electoral results, arguing that publications could not go forward before Bibilov’s complaint has been heard.
The South Ossetian central elections commission, however, ignored the order and published preliminary results shortly after the ban was announced Monday morning. Commission chairwoman Bella Pliyeva explained that she had not been officially informed and heard the court’s decision only through other media, Interfax reported.
Dzhioyeva, meanwhile, rejected accusations of intimidation and called on the population to remain calm.
“To claim that there were any systematic violations is simply unfit,” she said, adding that the blame for any unrest would lie at Bibilov’s feet. “The responsibility for any destabilization lies fully with our opponents.”
Bibilov himself has in the past warned of a civil war, arguing that many in South Ossetia were prepared for armed resistance if Dzhioyeva comes to power.
Experts warned that the risk was considerable since the region was politically split in roughly equal halves.
“In such a small society that is widely armed, the danger of violence is real,” said Alexander Krylov, an analyst with the Academy of Science’s International Relations Institute.
The presidential race in the tiny mountainous region has been marred from the beginning by accusations of foul play.
In the first round of the election held on Nov. 13, Bibilov and Dzhioyeva both finished with 24 percent of the votes.

TITLE: U.K. Prince Comes To Rescue of Russian Sailors
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — In a dramatic rescue, a team of British coast guards, including Prince William, plucked two Russian sailors from the Irish Sea after their freighter sank in foul weather Sunday. But at least one sailor died, and five others from the all-Russian crew remain missing.
The Cook Islands-registered Swanland was carrying about 3,000 tons of limestone from Wales to the Isle of Wight when it encountered gale-force winds and giant waves and sank early Sunday morning about 30 kilometers off the coast of Wales.
Responding to a 2 a.m. mayday call, the British coastguard sent four helicopters and seven ships to the scene. Prince William, a Royal Air Force search and rescue pilot and second-in-line to the British throne, co-piloted the helicopter that hoisted sailors Roman Savina and Vitaly Kornenko to safety.
The body of Leonid Sapunov was also recovered.
“Let me express to you and your colleagues my deepest gratitude for saving the lives of Russian citizens,” Moscow’s ambassador to Great Britain, Alexander Yakovenko, wrote in a letter addressed to Prince William and his colleagues that was published on the Russian Embassy’s web site.
Rescuers continued to search until sundown amid harsh weather off the Lleyn Peninsula. Efforts continued on Monday, sweeping a 160-square-kilometer search area, the Guardian reported. 
The search was later called off as the average person can survive for only six hours in 13 degree Celsius water — the current temperature of water in the area — Interfax reported.

TITLE: United Russia Nominates Putin as Candidate
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — In a show of unity amid sagging ratings and growing public dissatisfaction, United Russia on Sunday nominated its leader Vladimir Putin as its presidential candidate Soviet-style — with 614 of 614 ballots cast in his favor.
The somewhat raucous party convention at the packed Luzhniki sports complex, which also kicked off the campaign for the March presidential election, was largely a Putin lovefest.
But the ostentatious, sports stadium-like atmosphere left observers wondering whether it were staged to counter embarrassing reports last week that fans greeted Putin with boos and catcalls at a mixed martial arts fight at the city’s Olimpiisky stadium.
The convention came as two leading pollsters announced that United Russia would lose its constitutional majority in the next State Duma. Perhaps in reaction to this, Putin reverted to old alarmist rhetoric, accusing Western powers of meddling in Russian elections.
In a speech held before the vote on Sunday, Putin called upon some 11,000 supporters at Luzhniki to ensure that United Russia — the party he chairs although he is not a member — wins next Sunday’s Duma elections.
Putin argued that under his party’s leadership the country had largely weathered the 2008-09 economic crisis.
“I therefore reckon that every thinking, objective and serious person who wants the best for himself, his children and Russia, will support United Russia at the Dec. 4 Duma elections, where Dmitry Medvedev leads the [party] list,” he said.
The event was officially part two of a party convention that began on Sept. 24 when President Dmitry Medvedev announced that he would not stand for re-election and instead endorsed Putin, who already served two presidential terms between 2000 and 2008.
Medvedev has said he was ready to become prime minister after his term ends next May, but to the surprise of many, Putin did not say anything about Medvedev’s political future this time.
Speaking before his mentor this Sunday, Medvedev praised United Russia by claiming that the country’s improved standard of living since 2000, including a seven- to eightfold rise in salaries, is a result of the party’s work.
But he also made some trademark criticism of the government, saying “everybody is fed up with corruption and with the system’s stupidity.”
Medvedev — who is also not a party member — had an ambiguous relationship with United Russia before Putin announced in September that the outgoing president would head the party’s ticket for the Duma elections.
But this time, Medvedev made an effort to lash out at the opposition: “Our opponents have been saying empty words and bulldozing the ruling party for the past years,” while “failing” to succeed in their own jobs, he said.
Both leaders’ speeches were received with enthusiasm by flag-waving crowds made up of activists of the party’s youth wing, the Young Guard, who repeatedly burst into chants of “People-Medvedev-Putin,” “Putin-Putin” and “Russia-Russia.”
This formed a sharp contrast to the recent Olimpiisky embarrassment, when Putin, who came to the stage to congratulate a Russian champion on his victory — and arguably bask in his reflected glory — had to speak over a hail of jeers.
Putin showed himself in good form, announcing further benefits to voters such as increasing taxes on luxury goods and “excess consumption” and criticizing businessmen who funnel assets offshore or evade social obligations.
He also accused the West of trying to influence the elections.
“We know that in the run-up to elections certain foreign states pay money to so-called grant receivers and instruct them to do their work so that it influences the election campaign,” he said, adding that this was wasteful spending.
He compared those who take foreign grants to Judas, noting that “he isn’t the most respected biblical figure among us, and it is better to use this money to reduce government debt.”
The rousing speech was followed with delegates unanimously confirming Putin as the ruling party’s presidential candidate in a secret ballot.
United Russia officials said the convention kicked off the presidential election campaign, two days after the Federation Council set the official date for the vote — March 4.
But to many observers the convention looked like a desperate show of force one week before a crucial vote for the Duma, which could result in a painful blow for United Russia.
According to surveys released by the independent Levada Center and state-owned VTsIOM pollster Friday, the party is set to lose its huge majority in next Sunday’s elections, winning just 53 percent of the vote.
That result would translate into 252 or 253 places in the 450-seat lower house of parliament, down from the current 315, Levada said. 
But the Kremlin has already accepted that United Russia won’t play in the same league as it does now, a media report said Friday.
Still, the Levada survey found that almost half of those who responded — 46 percent — expect that the elections will be manipulated.

TITLE: Electoral Mutiny Ensues In TV Commercial Ban
AUTHOR: By Alexey Eremenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Campaign ads by opposition parties have been banned on state television by order of the head of the Central Elections Commission, who has no authority to do so, Vedomosti reported Monday.
Vladimir Churov’s actions prompted a mutiny among the commission’s working group, whose job is to review such videos, but which was only asked to do so after they were banned, the newspaper said.
State-owned broadcaster VGTRK announced last week that it was banning videos by Yabloko, A Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats following a letter from Churov, who said he suspected the ads promoted extremism and targeted other parties.
But only police or prosecutors can ban a video, while all the Central Elections Commission is authorized to do is request that a questionable campaign ad be examined, said the Communist Party’s head lawyer, Vadim Solovyov.
Elections officials also only asked the working group — which consists of unspecified media figures and elections experts — to review the videos slated for a ban last Thursday, after they were already de facto banned.
In protest, members of the group refused to make any ruling on the videos, robbing the ban of any expert backing, Vedomosti reported.
Attempts to clarify the matter failed Monday. VGTRK deputy head Dmitry Kiselyov, who oversaw the videos’ removal, was not available for comment, his press office said. 
Anonymous Kremlin sources and election officials told Vedomosti that the ban had been arranged by the Office for Presidential Affairs. The office had no comment on the allegations.

TITLE: Olympic Building on Track
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SOCHI — International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge praised Russian organizers for making significant progress in preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Rogge was given a tour of the venues last week by Dmitry Chernyshenko, head of Sochi’s local organizing committee.
Rogge said he had witnessed remarkable changes to the venues since his previous visit to Sochi 18 months ago.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said construction of all facilities at Sochi’s mountain cluster will be completed this year and will host international ski, freestyle, snowboard and biathlon events next February and March.
“These national and international competitions will allow us to taste the greatness of the future grandiose event and at the same time test the personnel and main Olympic facilities,” he said.

TITLE: Baltic Pearl Construction Pushes Forward
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: An inauguration ceremony dedicated to the opening and sale of the premium-class residential property Duderhof Club, part of the Baltic Pearl multi-functional complex, was held in St. Petersburg last week.
“Duderhof Club is the third residential and first premium-class structure in the Baltic Pearl project,” said Lee Bo, first deputy director general of Baltic Pearl company. 
“The construction of the first building, Pearl Premiere, was completed last year and 97 percent of the apartments have already been rented and are currently being lived in.  Pearl Symphony, the second building whose construction is planned to be finished next year, has already sold 30 percent of its apartments. 
“Duderhof Club will only enhance the market prospects of the Baltic Pearl project,” he added. 
The construction of residential areas in the Duderhof Club is to be conducted in two stages. Within the first stage, which will be completed in the third quarter of 2013, the building of nine low-rise sections of 98 apartments and four townhouses will be completed. The second stage of construction is planned to start next year. The total area of the Duderhof Club residential premises will be 63,000 square meters.
According to Baltic Pearl executives, the Duderhof Club will be built in a Scandinavian style and with the use of high technology and innovative building materials. 
Baltic Pearl company, the creator of the project, is an affiliate of Shanghai Overseas United Investment Company.
As a result of a tender to find a contractor for the project in which Russian companies also participated, Shanghai Construction Group — a state-owned company — was named the main contractor.
According to Sergei Dobrodeyev, assistant director general of Baltic Pearl, the company was looking for a contractor with the ability to take complete control of construction and the JIT (Just in Time) building material supply process in which no storage room is needed for the materials, as they are used and new ones brought as and when they are needed.
The general planner of the Duderhof Club is the St. Petersburg-based firm Tsytsin Architectural Studio.
Cooperation with Sberbank on loan financing for the project is also planned to continue. 
“In 2010, the amount of loans was some 300 million rubles ($9.6 million), this year the amount exceeded this sum,” said Sergei Shamkov, director of the Krasnoselsky district division of Sberbank Northwest.  
“One of the main competitive advantages of Duderhof Club is the reasonable price for premium class real estate,” said Lee.
“The prices are some 110,000 rubles ($3,500) for a square meter in apartments and 90,000 ($2,880) in townhouses,” said Dobrodeyev. “We haven’t calculated the payback period precisely yet, but we hope it will be about five years,” he added.
“The economic crisis didn’t influence the implementation of the project because the budget to fund the project was planned in advance,” said Dobrodeyev.  “The primary requirement for the project investor was the ability to maintain a balanced budget and monitor it.” 
“The essential amount of investment for the first stage of construction has been completely arranged,” Lee added.
Baltic Pearl is a multi-functional complex of residential, commercial and public areas located on the southwestern  shore of the Gulf of Finland, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. 
The Pearl Plaza trade and entertainment complex is planned to open as part of the Baltic Pearl in 2013. 
Schools and kindergartens built on Baltic Pearl territory will become city property. The first kindergarten was opened on the Baltic Pearl territory in 2010. The area is planned to contain all of the necessary facilities for various levels of society and to significantly improve the infrastructure of the district.

TITLE: Gazprom Deal Gives $2 Billion In Savings
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom on Friday agreed to slash its gas price for Belarus as the two neighbors prepare to move their economies closer next year.
Gazprom will charge Belarus $165.60 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas next year, down from $244 this quarter, according to Gazprom and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
This benevolence could cost the company at least $2 billion in potential earnings, Putin said. The average price for Gazprom’s other European customers will amount to $400 next year, he said. “Belarus will receive a so-called integrational discount.” 
The pricing agreement will come into force with the Single Economic Space, an economic integration effort of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Building on the current customs union of these states, the economic space opens their markets for each other  even more.
Under Friday’s agreement, Gazprom, as of 2014, will link the price for Belarus to what it will charge in one of its key producing regions, the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region. The government regulates Russia’s domestic prices.
The final price for Belarus will incorporate the Yamalo-Nenets retail price, transportation costs from the region to Belarus, the cost of storage in Russia and a retail margin in Belarus. Gazprom will index it to inflation.
The retail markup in Belarus will amount to $15.95 for 1,000 cubic meters of gas next year and increase every year on par with inflation through 2031. Afterward, Belarus will regulate the markup itself, but will make it economically “reasonable,” but keeping it above $11.09 in any event.
Russia also allowed Belarus to pay this year’s gas bill through the course of next year because of the economic meltdown in that country, Putin said.
To return the favor, Belarus agreed Friday to allow Gazprom to buy the remaining half of its national gas transit system for $2.5 billion, so the company could make an additional profit from retail sales of the fuel.
Belarus agreed to buy about 23 billion cubic meters of gas from Gazprom annually, for the next three years.
Full control of the Belarussian pipelines will eliminate the risk of any politically motivated disruptions of Gazprom’s deliveries further westward, Putin said.
Gazprom paid $2.5 billion for the first half of Beltransgaz, the Belarussian gas pipelines operator in 2007.
In order to further compensate itself for the discount, Gazprom could demand tax breaks from the Russian government, Rye, Man & Gor Securities said.

TITLE: Road Repairs Made Priority By Transportation Ministry
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Transportation Ministry determined it needs to concentrate on repairing existing roads and constructing toll roads as it lacks funds for anything else.
Transportation costs account for 15 to 20 percent of production in Russia, as opposed to 7 to 8 percent in developed countries, and population mobility in Russia is half that of the developed countries. Only 8 percent of Russian roads are multi-lane, and almost a third of federal highways are overcrowded.
To solve these problems, 4 to 4.5 percent of gross domestic product has to be invested in the transportation system annually, instead of the current 2 to 2.2 percent, according to the ministry.
Since funds are limited, the ministry will concentrate on “not allowing further degradation of transportation infrastructure and developing the segment of the transportation system that enjoys effective demand,” the ministry said.
Under the program, 7.1 trillion rubles ($227.5 billion) from the federal budget will be spent on transportation in the next eight years. 
1.7 trillion rubles will go to the repair and maintenance of federal highways, making that the largest part of the program budget.
The federal roads fund will contain 385 billion rubles in 2012, and there will be about 400 billion rubles in regional funds. That money can be spent on the construction of new roads, a Rosavtodor spokesman said, but the volume of funds is calculated on the basis of repair and maintenance projections.
In recent years, 35 to 42 percent of projected expenses have been provided, but full financing is expected to begin in 2014, the spokesman added.
Under the program, Rosavtodor will build 979 kilometers of federal roads and repair about 8,000 kilometers of road. The Avtodor state company will build more than 1,900 kilometers of roads.
That is an extremely small volume of construction. By comparison, China builds more than 5,000 kilometers of wide-lane highway per year, said Mikhail Blinkin, a transport expert and the scientific director at the Scientific Research Institute of Transportation and Road Maintenance.
In Russia, infrastructure will develop differently. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said 46,000 villages do not have year-round access to roads and the government will pay 130 billion rubles to provide that access.
Blinkin said the program is right to admit that the government doesn’t have the money to build roads. It’s time to reject another myth as well — that private investors will build roads, he said, noting they are not doing so. Loans from government banks will instead. 
The first section of the paid highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg is expected to cost about 60 billion rubles ($1.9 billion), 23 billion rubles of which will come from the investment fund, 29.2 billion rubles from Sberbank and VEB and 8 billion rubles will be invested by the concessionaire.

TITLE: Vladimir Putin Announces Foreign Investment Has Reached $36 Bln
AUTHOR: By Khristina Narizhnaya
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Foreign direct investment in Russia reached $36 billion in the first 10 months of the year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday during a meeting of the government’s commission on foreign investment, citing the Central Bank.
Last year the amount of foreign investment for the same period was $32.2 billion, Putin said.
During its final meeting of the year, the commission approved eight foreign investment requests, Federal Anti-Monopoly Service deputy director Andrei Tsyganov said.
French IT company Atos gained approval to provide services for the 2014 Olympics and the 2018 football World Cup. Atos will invest more than 1.5 billion rubles ($48 million) in the Russian economy by 2014.
Putin said it was a “smart” decision by Atos, adding that the nation needs more of such investments.
The commission approved an investment from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, or EBRD, in Moscow firm Belaya Dacha Trading to develop existing and new facilities for packaged salad processing. The EBRD’s purchase of shares in several Russian financial services companies was also approved.
Other smaller deals blessed by the commission include foreign investment in cobalt mining and the tire industry. A review of Polyus Gold’s plan to change its registration to Britain was delayed and will be conducted next year, Tsyganov said.
Polyus, part-owned by Mikhail Prokhorov, is seeking a premium listing on London’s prestigious FTSE Index, but it must first register as a legal entity in Britain before it can qualify.
Several amendments to federal laws that ease foreign investment will come into effect in 2012.
Amendments include lifting government control from investment deals where international organizations such as the EBRD and the International Finance Corporation are investors. Another amendment exempts foreign companies from getting government permission to buy stocks in Russian oil, gas or mining companies if the total share remains under 25 percent.
The government’s objective is to create a favorable environment for foreign companies to invest in Russia, in areas such as food, medicine, banking and mining, Tsyganov said.
The liberalization in investment will be good for competition, he added.
“Russian markets have always been open in some way for international investment,” Tsyganov said. “For more than a decade we have lived in strict competition with foreign entrepreneurs who either invest in Russia or sell their services and products on the Russian market.”
Business will work under the new laws starting next year. The commission has approved 128 of 136 investment proposals since its creation in 2008, Tsyganov said.

TITLE: Climate Change in Russia’s Court
AUTHOR: By Adnan Vatansever
TEXT: There is one boat only, and we are all in it. Science is clear on what needs to be done to avoid rocking the boat: The world needs to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius to prevent catastrophic climatic events.
But not much time is left to ensure that the next generations sail as safely as we have. The International Energy Agency, in its recently released annual report, has a stark warning: We have about five years for enacting drastic carbon emission cuts before getting “locked in” to a global temperature increase that could be excessive. Despite ongoing financial strains around the globe, delaying action is economically unreasonable. And yet, leaders convening in Durban to look for a global solution remain locked in a game of “passing the buck.” No one nation is willing on its own to take the first step and commit to a drastic new path of decarbonization. Waiting for a collective buy-in remains the first choice politically.
The time to act is now because the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. The world’s leading carbon emitters must assume leadership. With most of the attention centered on the United States and China, expectations have been far lower for another major emitter — Russia. Recently overtaken by a narrow margin by India, Russia ranks fourth in carbon emissions, and it has a lot to offer to global negotiations. Indeed, Russia played a critical role in global climate talks in the past when, by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty went into effect in 2005. But since then, Russian leaders have shied away from any further commitments that could constitute a potential economic burden.
Such a stance is not surprising. Russia remains a land of skeptics about climate change, where policymakers face little public pressure to act. Furthermore, Russian officials feel that their country has already outperformed others in cutting carbon emissions. They proudly boast that in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2009, Russia’s emissions were almost 40 percent below their 1990 levels. And, as the argument goes, Russia has been a leader in improving its energy efficiency as well: The energy intensity of its economy dropped 34 percent in the 2000-08 period.
These numbers are not false. But when officials from Moscow base their international climate policy on them, they miss the point. Leadership is about surmounting big challenges. When targets are perceived as too easy to meet, claims for being a leader in decarbonization lay on weak foundations. By selecting 1990 as the base year for carbon reduction targets, the Kyoto Protocol never posed a real challenge for Russia to start with. The country’s economic collapse in the 1990s brought a drastic drop in carbon emissions. Thus far, Russia has needed no additional efforts to meet its commitment not to exceed the emission levels of 1990. This has been true even for the 15 percent to 25 percent emission cut target promised by President Dmitry Medvedev following the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.
Likewise, improvements in Russia’s energy efficiency look remarkable at first sight, but it was primarily an outcome of the post-Soviet economic restructuring rather than a deliberate effort aimed at cutting energy consumption. Also, the declining energy intensity in the past decade came against the backdrop of a more than 20 percent rise in the preceding decade, when the economy contracted much faster than the fall in energy demand.
Yet, energy efficiency remains one area where Russia has the opportunity to truly demonstrate its leadership in the upcoming decade. This may well be the best and most cost-effective path toward a lower carbon future for the country.
The opportunity for change is enormous. Russia remains one of the least energy-efficient economies in the world. It is much less efficient than any other G8 member and the other so-called BRICS countries. The IEA estimates Russia’s annual energy saving potential is about the size of Britain’s energy consumption in a year.
As a step in the right direction, two years ago Medvedev signed legislation that called for a 40 percent reduction in energy intensity by 2020. A long list of proposed measures leaves no major sector of the economy untouched.
But the perennial concern is still there: Will the new law be implemented successfully? An order from above is rarely enough, as proved by numerous energy efficiency laws in the past. What Russia needs is to create the right incentives for cutting energy consumption. Limited financing for energy efficiency projects, slow progress in retrofitting buildings, a growing gap in transportation policy in Europe and Russia, and the uncertainty that a domestic emission trading system will ever be set up in the near future indicate that the right incentives are not there yet. Energy efficiency is Russia’s low hanging fruit. It should not be left rotting again. If not now, when?

<i>Adnan Vatansever is a senior associate in the energy and climate program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.</i>

TITLE: An Obedient Duma
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: The fifth convocation of the State Duma ended its work last week with a final session devoted to the giving and receiving of awards and congratulations. Even the opposition members’ refusal to stand up when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin entered the room did not ruin the celebration of unity among the executive and legislative branches of government.
The prime minister thanked the Duma deputies for their accommodating work. Referring to the fact that this Duma had approved the vast majority of bills presented to it, Putin said it demonstrated “the great advantage of our country in comparison with other countries in this time of crisis.” Indeed, the composition and functioning of this Duma has been unique. Elected exclusively based on party lists, the current Duma has enabled the Kremlin and the presidential administration to cull out undesirable candidates through the party bureaucracy.
As a result, the fifth Duma was even more obedient than the fourth. The 315-seat constitutional majority held by United Russia, multiplied by the party discipline factor, deprived the Duma of the very reason for which parliaments exists in developed democracies — to thoroughly examine and make corrections to the laws by which the citizens of that country must live. The Russian parliament has been transformed into a legislative conveyor belt for quickly rubber-stamping legislative initiatives from the president and government.
The parliamentary busy bees apparently do not realize that constantly changing the law tends to destabilize the legal system, worsen the business environment and discourage foreign investment in Russia. It also makes public control over the lawmaking process more difficult. Most ordinary citizens and businesspeople prefer finding ways to avoid the laws altogether than trying to keep up with all of the latest changes.
However, before the Duma deputies closed out their current terms, they not only passed more initiatives handed to them by the government but also hurried to approve bills presented by lobbyists. In particular, they agreed to “fix” a law requiring companies competing in road construction tenders to submit their bids electronically. Now, the bids will only be accepted in traditional paper form, thereby making it easier for state officials to disqualify undesirable bids on subjective grounds or to claim that certain submissions were accidentally lost. And it is important that deputies do this work now. After all, not all of them will be members of the sixth State Duma.

<i>This comment appeared as an editorial in Vedomosti.</i>

TITLE: FROM A SAFE DISTANCE: Misplaced Hopes for Political Change
AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer
TEXT: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was booed at a wrestling match a week ago, and Russia’s liberal intelligentsia felt encouraged. When Putin announced that he would seek another presidential term, disgust around the country was palpable. Over the past two months, it has been reinforced by the buffoonish behavior of the ruling Medvedev-Putin duo, Soviet-style electioneering methods used by the governing United Russia party and heavy-handedness of the police in dispersing peaceful protesters, including Moscow University students.
The web now brims with criticism of the government, from thoughtful analysis to angry and often obscene taunts. The whistles at the wrestling match, a common way for Russians to show displeasure, suggested that criticism may be reaching even wrestling fans, previously considered Putin’s supporters.
If enough people heed the calls by the opposition to stay home on Dec. 4 or spoil their ballots, the carefully stage-managed elections to the State Duma could turn into a fiasco for the government.
It is a false hope. The government will do the counting and, given its lukewarm enthusiasm for democracy and disregard for the law, any outcome except the prearranged one is unlikely.
There is an even bigger problem: Russia has genuine opposition parties and several prominent leaders who could have stood against Putin in the presidential election. But even if the voting were free and fair, and the voters resoundingly repudiated both United Russia and Putin, little would change in Russia’s political landscape.
I come to this conclusion by observing at close range the workings of American democracy. The American political system is built from the bottom up. Local citizens put themselves forward as candidates for school boards, city councils, judges, small town mayors and the like. Many have no higher political ambitions and often serve without pay. Local governments operate openly, important decisions are made after public discussions and are even put to a referendum. This is the foundation of democracy, and politics at the state and national level rely on such grassroots structures.
Nothing of the kind exists in Russia. Whatever systems were in place a century ago, they were eradicated after the Bolshevik takeover, and party hacks and bureaucrats have been lording over the cowed populace. After the fall of communism, Russians never demanded self-rule at the local level, leaving Soviet-era officials in charge of their lives and letting them control the political process.
Neither elected nor appointed officials in Russia are accountable to voters who elect them or taxpayers who supposedly pay their salaries. Their loyalties lie with their superiors, making officialdom a separate caste, dedicated to its own enrichment and perpetuation of its dominant position. It is very much like the feudal system, except the feudal lord was tied to his estate and had dynastic responsibilities. Instead, Russian bureaucrats have a carpetbagger mentality. It is telling that an extraordinary number of Duma deputies, sent to Moscow to represent their regions, settle in the capital and never go home. Their children do one better: They go abroad.
Putin made matters worse by entrenching this system and allowing officials to steal with impunity, resisting all efforts to introduce openness and transparency into Russia’s political and economic system. He also stifled dissent and promoted his former colleagues in the security apparatus. Nevertheless, to hope that a better or more intelligent man, someone more dedicated to the well-being of Russia, could fundamentally change this system is futile. Democracy is the kind of tree that grows from the bottom up, not imposed from the crown down.

<i>Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.</i>

TITLE: Dancing with bears
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Jenia Lubich, a St. Petersburg indie pop singer-songwriter whose voice can be heard on Nouvelle Vague’s most recent albums and whose star is in the ascendant in Russia, will launch her debut album with a concert in St. Petersburg this weekend. Called “C’est la vie,” the CD was recorded with French musicians in Paris and contains 11 songs that she wrote in Russian, French and English.
Lubich, whose songs include the ironic “Russian Girl” (who has “vodka in her blood” and “dances with brown bears,”), frantic “Crisis of the Moment (With a Question to the President)” and love song “Galaxy,” has been on the scene for a while, but made a name for herself through her collaboration with Nouvelle Vague, the French band that performs unlikely bossa nova covers of 1970s and 1980s new wave and punk hits sung by various female singers.
Her local breakthrough came somewhat unexpectedly at a Nouvelle Vague concert at Zal Ozhidaniya club in October 2009. The band had asked her to perform as a guest singer, but she ended up singing virtually the entire show when both the band’s vocalists were unable to come at short notice.
“Usually they have two female singers on stage, but both had to pull out for different reasons one or two days before the concert. As a result, [French musician and singer] Gerald Toto sang three or four songs, and the remaining 23 or 24 songs were sung by me.”
“I realized that it could be a complete disaster, because people were expecting French singers, while I had only been working with them for about six months by then, and it was not an established fact for the Russian public that there was a Russian singer working with them. So I was a new face in every sense — because the posters featured the two vocalists who were supposed to come but didn’t.”
Somewhat at a loss, five minutes before the show started, Lubich came up with the idea of speaking in French when addressing the musicians or introducing songs during the show.
“Then, after the ninth or tenth song, which happened to be [Dead Kennedys’] ‘Too Drunk to Fuck,’ I was lying on stage in semi-ecstasy and heard myself saying ‘Zharko u vas’ (‘It’s hot in here’ in Russian). Everybody was stunned, and I heard somebody whispering ‘Wow, she speaks with no accent.’ So I went on through the rest of the show speaking mostly in Russian. But I’d won the audience over by that time and managed to avoid the negative reaction that I was afraid of.”
Before joining Nouvelle Vague and then embarking on a solo career, Lubich took part in a number of projects including Vinyl Underground, a club music collective performing in St. Petersburg. 
“We played at the Office pub on Kazanskaya Ulitsa; we had a DJ, a guitarist, a keyboard player and Duser [Tequilajazzz’s drummer Alexander Voronov], who played congas and bongos — and I laid some quatrains, which I mostly composed as I went along, over that,” she said.
“It was quite interesting, but to me it lacked some unity, because at the same time I was writing songs that had concrete structures, harmonies, melodies, lyrics, subjects and titles.”
Lubich says at that time, she mostly sang her own songs in the kitchen for friends. “I was not sure that anybody else would be interested,” she says.
“Of course, I wanted to do my own thing, but somehow an opportunity hadn’t turned up.”
The opportunity came when she attended a concert by Nouvelle Vague at the now-defunct club A2 in 2008.
“I was really impressed, and after the show, rightly or wrongly I snuck into the dressing room and handed a disc for producer Marc Collin — the disc was badly recorded but it had my songs on it,” she says.
“A week later, I got a message from him saying that the recording was horrible, everything was horrible, impossible to understand — but there was something about it and could you come to Paris for a recording session.”
Lubich, who has an MA from the city’s Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, a collaboration project between St. Petersburg State University and Bard College in the U.S., says studying in the U.S. helped to form her as a singer.
She started to write songs in English while spending nearly a year at Bard College, a liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, when she was 16.  
“I met students from music departments there, and we started to play and sing jazz,” Lubich says.
 There she took part in a musical about the 20th-century history of Germany, created by Bard College’s German department. “I had a song [in German] called “Hunger,” which was originally a march, but we remade it into kind of erotic spy blues with pianist Betsy Wright, who used to say, ‘Jazz is everything, and everything’s possible in it.’”
“It was there that I found out what ‘open mike’ is,” she said. “It’s when you can take the microphone in a club and do something, and the public decides whether it’s decent. If people are bored, it’s a sign that it’s time to leave, and if they start to sing along, wink, clap or snap their fingers, you can go on. It was there that I saw that some people might like what I do.”
One of her first English-language songs, written in the U.S., was “The Rain,” of which she later also made a Russian version.
Born into the family of a professor of foreign and Russian literature and a psychologist in St. Petersburg, Lubich started performing at an early age. 
“It seems to me that I’ve been performing all my life,” Lubich says. “Even as a child, I went with my grandmother on holiday to a sanatorium, and they had an entertainment club there, and they spotted me — I was either dancing outside or singing some children’s song… The stage didn’t pass me by even as a child. But it was nothing serious, an innocent experience.”
When she was about 12, Lubich began training in classical singing, performing with her class in Hungary and Finland and winning local contests. “Then I started writing my own songs, and I realized that my classical voice training was hindering me, so I found another teacher to train me in a modern singing style.”
Nouvelle Vague was formed as a musical project by French producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. The name means “new wave” in French and also refers to the concept of bossa nova, which is “new trend” in Portuguese.
“People who don’t have material of their own don’t get invited to this project on principle; maybe that’s why the songs performed by Nouvelle Vague sound so original and people get the impression that it’s an original band — I know that many people have no idea that it performs covers,” Lubich said.
With Lubich, Nouvelle Vague, whose vocalists mostly sing in English with a French accent, incorporated more French songs into its repertoire.
“One of the aspects of the concept was having a slight accent — as though the singer is discovering new meanings to the words as she utters them,” she said.
“The CD that I gave to Collin included ‘Ville de France,’ a song that I wrote set to a French poem when I was in the fifth form, and he liked how my voice sounded in French. The band’s fourth album was almost entirely in French.”
Lubich, who toured with Nouvelle Vague in a number of countries including France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Italy, Turkey and Finland, features on the band’s albums “3” (2009) and “Couleurs sur Paris” (2010).
Her own album, which was previewed by her five-song EP “Russian Girl” in December 2010, features Marc Collin on keyboards, Olivier Libaux on guitar and Thibaut Barbillon on bass, all of whom are musicians with Nouvelle Vague. It also features Jean Pierre Bottiau and Bruno Ralle.
French singer Nicolas Comment is featured on “Blanc Dance,” a song for which he also helped to write the lyrics, while Lubich sang backing vocals on Comment’s 2010 album “Nous etions dieu.”
Back in St. Petersburg, Lubich formed her own band in December 2010 to make their debut at the local branch of the Moscow-based club Chinese Pilot Jao Da the following month. 
With ex-Splean guitarist Stas Berezovsky as the only remaining member of that early lineup, Lubich’s band also features Billy’s Band drummer Andrei Ivanov, keyboard player Denis Kirillov and bassist Dmitry Turyev.
Lubich follows the contemporary French music scene, and says she likes the U.S.-born, Paris-based singer-songwriter Birdpaula and Franco-Moroccan singer Hindi Zahra. She also mentions Nouvelle Vague’s Australian singer Phoebe Killdeer, who now performs as Phoebe Killdeer & The Short Straws, and the London band Dark Captain Light Captain as some of her favorites.
Of older international artists, she says she repeatedly listens to and finds inspiration in Joni Mitchell.
“Of course, the school of Nouvelle Vague can be heard in what I do now, but it’s all different,” she says.
Lubich does not remember when she wrote the English-language song “Russian Girl,” but suggests it was probably conceived on a flight between Russia and France.
“It’s both a myth and reality,” she says.
“Perhaps there are no such Russians that I sing about and there are no such bears. But at the same time all this exists. It’s a collection of typical things that are usually associated with Russia. But such spiritual impulses do exist. By and large, it’s a song about the Russian soul, which is a mystery.”
Curiously, the St. Petersburg club crowd reacts to Lubich’s songs written in French and English with the same enthusiasm as to her Russian songs.
“I hope they don’t sound mindless and that people don’t think that I sing in English because I have nothing to say — as I lived for some time in New York and have a lot of connections with France, I think I have the moral right to present them to the public,” she says. 
“I use English not to cover up a lack of substance, but because I hear some music of my own in that language. 
“If I start writing a song from a melody, sometimes I feel that it should be in English, rather than in any other language. It stems from musical phrases and melodic patterns. I feel that English lyrics will be the most organic for it. Or French lyrics. Or Russian lyrics. Every language has its own notes and rhythms.
Seen as very much a St. Petersburg artist despite her international connections, Lubich describes her song “Chyornoye” (Black) as some sketches of St. Petersburg images and impressions.
“When we perform outside St. Petersburg, people often approach me after the concert and ask ‘Aren’t you from Piter?’” she says. 
“I think that this is the song that people can work that out from. I wrote it in St. Petersburg, I was walking over Palace Bridge in the rain, cars were speeding by, and it was cold and dark. It’s true, ‘in this black city only the night is white,’ that’s what I felt.”

<i>Jenia Lubich will perform at 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 2 at The Place, located at 47 Ul. Marshala Govorova. Tel. 331 9631. Metro: Baltiiskaya / Narvskaya.</i>

TITLE: TALK OF THE TOWN
TEXT: It’s <b>Scotland Week</b> at the Hotel Astoria, and the hotel has gone all out to bring a bit of Celtic charm to the city, culminating in the annual <b>St. Andrew’s Ball</b>, which takes place on Saturday evening at the hotel.
Now in its 14th year, this year’s ball will as usual feature traditional country dancing and a Scottish feast prepared by Jeff Bland, head chef at <b>The Balmoral Hotel</b> in Edinburgh, who has been flown in to supervise the menu of both the week-long festival and the ball itself. Haggis will no doubt feature in there somewhere.
On the drinks menu is, inevitably, whisky, from the Balblair single malt distillery in Ross-shire.
<b>The Midgies</b>, a ceilidh band “from deepest, darkest Scotland” — according to the ball’s organizers — will return to the city for the third consecutive year to keep revelers twirling and dosey doeing around the dance floor all night long. So if you like the sound of bagpipes or want to try your hand at doing the Sausage Machine, the Packhorse Rant or the Gay Gordons, the Astoria is the place to be.  
Tickets for the ball cost 5,500 rubles ($176). 
Other recent foreign cultural delegations to the city include five renowned Italian interior designers — Luisa Bocchietto, president of ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale), Marco Piva, Sergio Fabio Rotella, Daniela Rossi and Alessandro Pierandrei — who attended the opening of the new <b>Eurodomus</b> salon at 113/4 Nevsky Prospekt last week. 
Eurodomus represents some of the most fashionable European furniture-makers and interior design studios. The philosophy of the salon’s ideologists and founders is that an interior should not attempt to imitate a standard home, but rather seek to recreate the atmosphere of a traditional St. Petersburg apartment, where historical details and retro elements fuse with post-modernist art and cutting-edge design ideas.  
Some of the novelties on sale at the new boutique include Provasi and ErnestoMeda kitchens, which are certainly a far cry from the shared kitchen of traditional Soviet-era communal apartments.
Some things, however, have not changed so much since the days of the Soviet Union. According to a popular Soviet-era saying, the best present is a book. While many contemporary sociologists fret that the spiritual values of Russians have fallen since the breakup of the Soviet Union, a love of books remains alive and well in St. Petersburg, as evidenced by the small but steady stream of independent bookstores continuing to open in the city, proving that desire and demand for good books are thankfully not a thing of the past. Culture vultures will appreciate the latest arrival on the scene: <b>Books and Gifts</b>, located at 10 Kolokolnaya Ulitsa.
This cozy combination book and gift store is anything but boring. It sells rare editions from small yet creative publishing houses such as Antibooki, Krasivoye Steklo (Beautiful Glass) and the Meshcheryakov Publishing House. 
The newly opened shop will regularly host book presentations, master classes and other events for interested audiences.

TITLE: Art without color
AUTHOR: Olga Panova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Color is starkly absent from the “Expression Beyond” exhibit that opens Dec. 1 in an ex-factory building now used by the Rizzordi Art Foundation. 
For the “Expression Beyond” project, the curators of the Rizzordi Art Foundation Loft exposition area, which recently opened on Kurlyandskaya Ulitsa in the former industrial area near the city’s port, have selected 10 artists from all over the world whose work is characterized by their use of black and white. The project program will also include interactive master classes with the artists and the broadcasting of black and white art house videos. 
A wide array of unusual projects will be on display, including mirror cubes designed by Numen for Use (Croatia/Austria), portrait street-art graffiti paintings by Hendrik ECB Beikirch (Germany) and work by the photographer and video artist Elis Kampinski (Russia). Other projects include a study of traces of other civilizations in sculptures made of “meteorites” by Vitaly Pushnitsky and a project focusing on symbols and archetypes in the art of artist Ilya Gaponov (both from Russia).
The “Light Membrane” light installation by the Numen for Use art group looks set to attract the attention of visitors to the exhibit. The art group, which experiments with different ways of using space, will present the result of their experiment in the field of light perception and perspective in St. Petersburg. Three of six sides of the Light Membrane cube are made from a flexible material, and are bent into either a convex or concave form. The black cube is lit from within by light reflecting off of the cube’s planes, creating the illusion of infinite space.
Homegrown artists will represent both of Russia’s capitals at the exhibit, which features projects by Stas Dange and Natasha Floksy (St. Petersburg) and Alexei Kio and Gennady Beryozkin (Moscow). Their work makes up part of the core exposition, and will also serve as a topic of discussion during the interactive master classes. The artists will talk about the techniques used in developing the project and act as curators of the creative classes, where visitors themselves can create their own artwork.
The Loft Rizzordi Art Foundation exposition area has already hosted two projects: The street art festival “Cosmos as…” and the first night of “Total Contemporary,” which brought together elements from the collections of 11 galleries in one expo space.  

<i>“Expression Beyond” runs from Dec. 1 through Dec. 20 at the Loft Rizzordi Art Foundation, 49 Kurlyandskaya Ulitsa. M. Baltiiskaya, Narvskaya.</i>

TITLE: the word’s worth: Putin’s PR boo-boo
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: <i>Îñâèñòûâàòü</i>: to boo, shout catcalls

The political buzz this week in Moscow was: Did they or didn’t they? Boo Vladimir Putin at the boxing match, that is.
But I was buzzing about the verb used to describe the audience reaction: <i>îñâèñòàòü</i>, which comes from the root word <i>ñâèñò</i> (whistle). So did they whistle or boo?
It turns out that whistling in Russian is a tricky business.
Let’s start with the basics. The imperfective verb <i>ñâèñòåòü</i> (to whistle) can refer to any whistling sound, produced either by nature, machine or man. <i>Çà îêíîì øóìÿò äåðåâüÿ, ñâèñòèò âåòåð.</i> (Outside the tree branches are rustling and the wind is whistling.) <i> ò¸ìíîé õàòå, ãäå ñâåæî è òîíêî ïàõëî ñåíîì, îí ñâèñòåë ÷èñòî è ñèëüíî.</i> (In the dark hut, scented lightly with fresh hay, his whistling was pure and strong.)
In slang, <i>ñâèñòåòü</i> means to lie or fib. <i>Íå ñâèñòè ìíå! Òû íå ñèäåë íà ðàáîòå äîïîçäíà!</i> (Don’t fib to me! You didn’t stay late at work!)
<i>Ñâèñòíóòü</i>, the perfective verb in the pair, can refer to a single whistle: <i>Îí ñâèñòíóë ñâîåìó òåðüåðó</i> (He gave a short whistle to his terrier.) In slang, it can mean to call (out) to someone: <i>Ëåíà, åñëè òåáÿ îòïóñòÿò ñ ðàáîòû — ñðàçó ñâèñòíè ìíå íà ìîáèëüíûé.</i> (Lena, call me right away on my cell if they let you off work.)
<i>Ñâèñòíóòü</i> in slang can also mean to strike someone or something — perhaps like the sound of a fist whistling through the air: <i>Îí ñâèñòíóë ìåíÿ ïî óõó.</i> (He cuffed me on the ear.) It can also be a slangy way of describing a theft — perhaps like the sound of your property being whisked off: <i>Ó ìåíÿ ñâèñòíóëè ÷àñû.</i> (Somebody snatched my watch.)
And what about the curious case of the whistling crab? The expression <i>êîãäà ðàê íà ãîðå ñâèñòíåò</i> (literally “when a crab whistles on a mountain”) is the Russian version of “when pigs fly” — something that won’t ever happen.
The tricky bit is that <i>ñâèñòåòü</i> and <i>ñâèñòíóòü</i> can be used to describe any loud noise produced by people, either jeering (usually) or cheering (less commonly). This sound is not really a whistle. It can be hooting, shouting, roaring, or otherwise making a racket. When the buzz is positive, <i>ñâèñòåòü</i> is usually modified: <i>Çàë ñâèñòåë îò âîñòîðãà</i> (The audience roared with delight.) When it’s negative, the verb usually stands alone: <i>Îíè ñâèñòåëè íà Ïóòèíà.</i> (They booed Putin.)
The related verb pair <i>îñâèñòûâàòü/îñâèñòàòü</i> is not ambiguous. It is used for booing or hissing someone off the stage. One newspaper wrote: <i>Ïðåìüåð-ìèíèñòð Âëàäèìèð Ïóòèí âïåðâûå çà ñâîþ ïîëèòè÷åñêóþ êàðüåðó áûë îñâèñòàí íà ïóáëèêå.</i> (For the first time in his political career, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was booed in public.) This is nothing new for politicians and an old tradition in Russia: <i> Äóìå âñå áîëüøåâèêè îñâèñòûâàëè íåóãîäíûõ èì îðàòîðîâ.</i> (In the Duma, all the Bolsheviks booed the speakers they didn’t like.)
So was Putin booed? It sure sounded like it to me. But so what? All politicians get booed. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the TV stations hadn’t cut the sound, and if the spin doctors hadn’t come up with ludicrous explanations, like the story about beer-guzzling fans anxious to use the bathrooms.
When will politicians learn that it’s the cover-up that gets them in trouble? <i>Êîãäà ðàê íà ãîðå ñâèñòíåò?</i>

<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: New Israeli cinema
AUTHOR: By Elmira Delorme
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Modern Israeli cinematgraphy is making a strong impression on the international market — Israeli documentaries have already become a well-known brand, and feature films are catching up, claim the organizers of the Israeli Film Festival that takes place in the city from Dec. 1 through 5.
“During the last 20 years, Israeli cinematography has made an important breakthrough,” said the organizers.
“Before, Israeli filmmaking was largely devoted to violent political and social conflicts, and this cinema was interesting mostly for the internal audience,” said Sasha Akhmadshina, PR-director of the Tour de Film international festival agency.
“Contemporary Israeli cinematography is more personal, a person with their own problems has become the subject of the films, and this has made new Israeli films more captivating for international audiences,” she said.
The festival’s aim in St. Petersburg is to introduce Russians to new trends in Israeli cinema and demonstrate its genre diversity. 
“We tried to choose very different Israeli films,” said Akhmadshina. “The program includes a sensual romantic comedy ‘Salsa Tel Aviv,’ a sarcastic comedy ‘This is Sodom!’ a documentary about a Warsaw ghetto and more serious and dramatic films by Joseph Cedar and Joseph Madmony.”
The Israeli Film Festival program consists of eight feature films and one documentary, all made in 2010 and 2011. Most of the films have already received good reviews from cinema experts at international festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Locarno.
The film “Footnote” by Joseph Cedar will open the festival. The story focuses on the rivalry between two professors: A father and son both doing research into Talmudic Studies. When the son learns that his father will receive an award for his work, their complicated relationship reaches a new peak. The film won the prize for best screenplay at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and it received a 2012 Oscar nomination for the best foreign-language film.
Describing Israeli cinema in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Joseph Cedar said: “When you see a Chinese film, you often feel it is rooted in some kind of ancient Chinese tradition… The Talmud is our primary text, our tradition. It’s something I want to deal with if I am making movies in Israel.”
Israeli director Avi Nesher, who returned to Israel after a successful Hollywood career, and actor Henry David, considered to be a sex symbol of new Israeli cinema, will attend the festival in St. Petersburg.
“There are several reasons for the success of new Israeli cinema,” said the festival’s organizers. “These are the freedom in the choice of topic by film directors, important financial aid from the state, and the creation and use of innovative new methods of education in film schools. Because of this, the Sam Spiegel Film and Television school in Jerusalem has become one of the most prestigious in the world.”
The festival program includes two films directed by Sam Spiegel school graduates — Yael Hersonski and Joseph Madmony.
The term “new Israeli cinema” is being used more and more often by world cinema critics, according to the festival’s organizers. 
“Israeli cinema is an excellent example of how cinematography must develop,” said Akhmadshina. “The state supports film production and at the same time gives the director absolute creative freedom, which encourages those who work in the Israeli film industry to return to Israel from Europe and Hollywood. As a result, there has been a huge cinema boom in Israel,” she added.
The festival is being held to mark the 20th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Russia and Israel as well as the opening of the General Consulate of Israel in St. Petersburg. The new Israeli Consulate is among the festival’s sponsors.
The films will be shown in their original language with Russian subtitles.

<i>The Israeli Film Festival runs from Dec. 1 through 5 at the Avrora movie theater, 60 Nevsky Prospekt. M. Nevsky Prospekt, Mayakovskaya. Tel. 942 80 20. http://avrora.spb.ru, www.israelfilm-festival.ru.</i>

TITLE: in the spotlight: Lips you can see from a distance
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: This week, Britain’s Daily Mail highlighted the case of Kristina Rei from St. Petersburg, who has enormous lips springing out of her face, created with what it said was &#163;4,000 ($6,215) worth of silicone injections.
You can always trust the Daily Mail to give an absolutely balanced picture of life in Russia. One of its recent stories was about a woman who kept an alien in her fridge. But you can’t fault it for being quick to pick up juicy stories, and what could be juicier than Rei, whose lips are the world’s biggest, the paper said.
I had a look into Rei and found myself in a mysterious parallel world of women who actually want to have “trout pouts.”
In the mainstream, it’s mainly pop stars who go for this look. Singers Masha Rasputina and Masha Malinovskaya, whose upper lip has a weird notch in it, come to mind, as well as a pretty contestant on talent show “Fabrika Zvyozd,” Alexa, who suffered side effects when she injected her lips, making them unintentionally huge.
Russian media has looked into the lip phenomenon, calling such women “devushki-mukly” after Mooqla dolls, creepy plastic figures with big lips that are made in Russia. If you look up “mukly” on the Internet, there are a lot of pictures of women who hang out at night clubs aimed at rich men as well as soft porn images, since a lot of mukly seem to get their breasts done, too. The women who have had a lot of work done are said to be “tuned,” like cars.
It almost goes without saying that Rei fleetingly appeared on TNT’s “Dom-2,” a reality show that’s a haven for exhibitionists. She was planning to make a play for the heart of “black wizard” Vlad Kadoni. In stories about “Dom-2,” I found the photos used by the Daily Mail and even a copy of her passport, saying she’s from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in far eastern Russia and is 22.
She is listed on a dating site on mail.ru, where she says she is interested in both men and women and is into drawing and getting nail extensions. Her form says frankly that she wants to “find a sponsor.” It says she has had serious gay and straight relationships. But it doesn’t look as if she visits the site often.
Her page on social-networking site Vkontakte has lots of stream-of-consciousness babbling and describes her as an “artist, outsider, bi.” Perhaps she injects her lips as an extreme experiment on her body, rather than just seeing them as sexy.
This month, Vesti Moskva television interviewed another mukla, called Olesya Malibu, although her real surname is the more prosaic Kovalenko.
She said she maintains her lips with eight injections of gel, applied every three months. And she didn’t stop at the lips, also expanding her breasts from a B cup to an E. She looked oddly wholesome, playing with some adorable kittens.
Moskovsky Komsomolets sounded the alarm last month on women who “grow their lips to unbelievable sizes and stuff their breasts with silicone.” It warned that: “People have become mukly.”
It also interviewed Malibu, who seems to be the go-to mukla. She said she naturally had plump lips but made them bigger to even them out. “I increased them to the maximum, so they could be seen from far away,” she said. “I like everything big: lips, boobs, cars.” She told the paper that injections into each lip cost 25,000 rubles ($795).
Malibu also appeared on “Dom-2,” but only for a day. She just wanted to prove she could get through the auditions, she told MK. She recently took part in Channel One’s prime-time dating show “Let’s Get Married.” But that didn’t work out, she said, and she is now dating a man she didn’t want to name. “He is too famous and what’s more, he’s married.”

TITLE: THE DISH: La Maråe restaurant and fish boutique
AUTHOR: By Daniel Beer
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Tipping the scales</b>
Building on the success of their three restaurants in Moscow headed by Tunisian brand chef Zitouni Abdessatar, La Maree company, the largest importers of luxury seafood products into Russia, opened a restaurant in St. Petersburg back in July 2010. More than a mere restaurant, La Mar&#233;e on Suvorovsky Prospekt is also a “fish boutique” in which clients can either enter the fishmongers and select their own fish to be prepared in a range of different ways or simply purchase food to take away. The boutique itself is something of a spectacle: Aquaria boasting enormous lobsters and giant Kamchatka crabs frame large fish counters with a range of exotic fish and shellfish from Groupers to Red Snappers and oysters. All are flown in to St. Petersburg, the waiter confidently assured us, within hours of being caught.
The restaurant is divided into a non-smoking and a smoking room. The latter adjoins the boutique, giving the room something of a stripped-down feel, in which diners are able to observe and select their dinner in the adjacent shop. The visibility of the fish counters and the bountiful aquatic images adorning the walls conjure up impressions of sitting quayside somewhere in France or Spain.
The atmosphere in the non-smoking room is more like a conventional high-end restaurant. Most restaurants of this caliber avoid having the atmosphere painted on the walls, but La Maree has chosen a different approach, with a giant mosaic-style image of Poseidon riding a chariot through the sea covering the entirety of one wall. The lighting and interior generated a relaxed, if slightly subdued, atmosphere on a slow-moving Monday evening. Slightly incongruous were the large flat screen TVs displaying footage of fish of all descriptions carving through the waters of the Red Sea. A little unnerving, given that many of them feature on the menu. 
The menu is extensive, almost bewilderingly so. The &#224; la carte menu ranges widely across carpaccio, tempura, soups, pastas, fish and shellfish and an impressive range of meat dishes from Spanish jamon to French steaks. But for those not content with these meager offerings, the boutique has its own, separate menu. Here, clients can select dishes ranging from oysters costing between 180 rubles ($6) and 320 rubles ($11) each, steamed crab phalange (550 rubles, $18/100 grams) to clams (350 rubles, $12/100 grams) and monk fish fillet (650 rubles, $22/100 grams). Whole fish such as sea robin (240 rubles, $8/100 grams) are also available to be prepared in a variety of different ways.
We opted for the more modest dishes from the &#224; la carte menu. As a starter, the mussels &#224; la Proven&#231;ale (850 rubles, $28) were plentiful, if a little on the small side, but the thick sauce was an excellent balance between garlic and robust, oily tomatoes.
The fish soup with saffron and garlic toast (980 rubles, $32) proved to be a disappointment, however. The saffron was as lost in a featureless set of generic salty tomato flavors, as were the random pieces of fish and shellfish that floated rather forlornly in the red-brown liquid.
Between courses we were presented with an excellent complimentary lemon and champagne sorbet to prepare our palettes for the main courses. We opted for the stir-fried Chilean sea bass and crispy vegetables (1,570 rubles, $52) and the black truffle spaghetti with pecorino romano (1,050 rubles, $35). The sea bass was superb; the teriyaki and ginger flavors of the sauce enveloping the succulent notes in the fish without blasting them into anonymity. The vegetables were crunchy and the fennel, in particular, complimented the fish perfectly. The spaghetti was also delicious in a thick and creamy sauce.
Of the desserts, honey cake with caramel ice-cream (450 rubles, $15) was a very good combination of textures and temperatures, while the fresh berries in Barolo and panna cotta sauce for 650 rubles ($22) were decent enough but perhaps a little too bitter for many palettes. We ordered Chablis from the very foothills of the wine list at 650 rubles ($22) per glass (the cheapest bottles here weigh in at a hefty 3,000 to 3,500 rubles, or $100 to $117).
Our bill came to just over 8,000 rubles ($267) and our excellent waiter, who was happy to chat about the restaurant, informed us that the bill for two often scales the dizzying heights of 60,000 rubles ($2,000) if a couple of bottles of the best wine and the more expensive items from the boutique are ordered. Quite whether the quality of the food justifies such an astronomical price tag is very much open to debate.

TITLE: Culture and Smiles Transplanted to Novosibirsk
AUTHOR: By Justin Varilek
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Strangers are apt to approach you and strike up a conversation, a grandfatherly voice wishes you well on the metro intercom “vsego vam dobrogo,” and the ruddiness of people’s cheeks is due primarily to the cold.
Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia and the country’s third-largest city, offers a welcome contrast of warmth and immediate friendliness — possibly explained by its location as a waypoint for travelers moving between east and west.
The first bridge across the north-flowing Ob acted as the lifeblood of the city and helped form its character as a layover for travelers. In 1905, Novosibirsk’s position as a trade center was strengthened by the opening of a train station along the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
“In its day, the station was the largest in the Soviet Union — prior to World War II,” said Olga Molchanova, director of economics, strategy and investment policy for the city.
Striving to ease modern traffic problems and further develop the city, municipal authorities are getting ready to build a third vehicular bridge across the Ob. During a visit to Novosibirsk on Nov. 8, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the federal government would co-finance the project, which is expected to cost 14.8 billion rubles ($477 million).
World War II also played a major role in shaping the city’s character. As the western portion of Russia was being overrun, factories were evacuated to the left bank of the Ob River. About 50 enterprises, including the Sestroretsky Instrument Factory from Leningrad, restarted their operations there in just a few short years. These plants made almost 27 percent of all the ammunitions used by Soviet forces and just under 16,000 planes.
The fall of the Soviet Union and ensuing economic crises meant an end to much of the city’s heavy industry, already hampered by its remote location and severe weather. “Winter is seven months long. We need thick walls, heating and more lighting. And that all adds to expenses,” Molchanova said. The city’s isolation is one of the main reasons why officials are supporting the production of high-tech goods, which are more easily transported than heavy machinery, she said.
Along with industry, culture spread to this isolated region during the war — including a taste for fine arts that accompanied the 120,000 Leningrad natives who moved to Novosibirsk because of the blockade. Many of them decided not to return to their ravaged hometown, and instead stayed and helped form a cultural and intellectual oasis in the frozen wilderness.
In 1945, the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater debuted. Federally funded, the massive cupola-shaped building in the city’s central square is larger than Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater. Nine other theaters, 88 libraries and numerous movie theaters are spread throughout the city. The Pobeda Theater hosts 12 international film festivals every year.
The artistic passions of the city are now stoked by the staff and students of the 25 institutes of higher learning located throughout the city, and the famous Akademgorodok — a satellite suburb now home to about 127,000 people that was founded in 1957 as a center of research and engineering, thanks to the initiative of the famous academician Mikhail Lavrentyev and the Academy of Sciences.
Due to the strength of its intellectual reputation and current academic spirit, the federal government has started a technopark at Akademgorodok. Ilya Ponomaryov, a State Duma representative for Novosibirsk and head of the regional branch of A Just Russia, told The St. Petersburg Times that the government hopes to recreate Boston in the steppe — where entrepreneurial initiatives are able to capitalize on the high-level of education around them. The government has allocated 21.7 billion rubles ($690 million) for the project. The nanotechnology and biotechnology facilities are complete and three towers for information technology are under construction.
Even political promotion is done with hospitality and warmth.
“When you smile, almost 90 percent of the time, people smile back,” said Etibar, a student at the Siberian Academy for Civil Service, while handing out flyers for A Just Russia. “And the girls, they smile and their eyes beam.”
<b>What to see if you have two hours</b>
Any local would advise going to the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater (36 Krasny Prospekt; +7 383-22-715-37; opera-novosibirsk.ru). It’s necessary to plan ahead because many shows are sold out weeks in advance. Tickets can be purchased online, over the phone or at the ticket office. If you are feeling lucky, show up at the box office early on the day of the show, and you may be fortunate enough secure a ticket someone returned.
<b>What to see if you have two days</b>
Novosibirsk is great for the whole family. Assuming you’ve already seen a show at the opera, there is no better activity than simply enjoying the pure ecological setting that you are in. Unfortunately Novosibirsk’s architecture is nothing to boast about — most of its development took place during the Soviet period — but if you are there in the summer, go for a walk around Akademgorodok and stop in to see current projects. Whether it happens to be the nuclear collider (Institute of Nuclear Physics, 11 Prospekt Akademika Lavrentyeva; +7 383?329-47-60; www.inp.nsk.su) or genetically domesticated foxes (Institute of Cytology and Genetics, 10 Prospekt Akademika Lavrentyeva; +7 383-363-49-80; www.bionet.nsc.ru/public) there will always be lively conversation with an academic on this campus. Finally, no trip to Novosibirsk is complete without a trip to the zoo (71/1 Ulitsa Timiryazeva; +7 383-220-97-79, zoonovosib.ru). Director Rostislav Shilo proudly says his zoo is one of three in the world, along with Singapore and San Diego, which are self-funded. The zoo has extensive botanical exhibits —142 different types of trees and just more than 100,000 flowers in bloom each year, and an array of about 10,000 animals — 702 different types in all. The zoo breeds yellow-throated martens, which they then loan to only 17 other zoos in the world. A 3-year-old liger — a combination of a lion and tiger — named Zita, is also one of the rarities at this zoo. In the past three years, a new aviary, primates pavilion and penguin enclosure have been built, and the zoo expects to complete a dolphinarium by the end of 2012.

<b>Cultural tips</b>
Despite Novosibirsk’s young age, the Regional Studies Museum (23 Krasny Prospekt; +7 383-227-15-43, museum.nsk.ru) provides an extensive insight into the history of Siberia’s capital. If you crave art, the Novosibirsk art museum is a great source (5 Krasny Prospekt; +7 383-222-33-516, nsartmuseum.ru). Toward the end of the ’50s, many works were transported to the museum from the Tretyakov Gallery, Russian State Museum and the Hermitage.
If you are looking to party, Rock City (37 Krasny Prospekt; +7 383-22-70-108, rockcity.ru) is the place to go. With standing space for 800, this concert hall is a favorite for the city’s younger crowd when they venture away from Akademgorodok.

<b>Where to eat</b>
One location the locals are very fond of is Ekspeditsia (12/1 Zheleznodorozhnaya Ulitsa; +7 383-363-01-01, expedicia-nsk.ru). The rustic atmosphere envelopes its patrons with a homely dacha feel. Tired after a hard day? At Ekspeditsia you can relax in one of two different banyas, receive a fir branch massage from one of their banshchiki and have cold milk poured on your skin for a total exfoliation experience. Following such rejuvenation, customers enjoy their meal with live guitar music and bard singers who visit weekly from various surrounding towns. An average meal including a main course, soup and northern fish will cost from 900 rubles to 1,800 rubles ($30 to $60).
If you are looking for a fancier option, La Maison (25 Sovietskaya Ulitsa; +7 383-209-00-10) presents a delightful assortment of French cuisine prepared by Francois Fournier, who worked as a chef in five-star hotels in Switzerland before moving to Russia. Fournier has been known to prepare an entire evening event where each meal is paired with a specific wine from different regions of France. Meals, depending on your choice of wine, can range from 900 rubles to 3,600 rubles.
Any traveler passing through must also try the local pelmeni — the universal Russian delicacy allegedly born in Siberia. Beerman & Pelmeni (7 Kamenskaya Ulitsa; +7 383-362-12-62) offers 18 different types of pelmeni from salmon to reindeer. Nestled on the ground floor of the Doubletree Hilton, many foreign businesspeople will mix with local families to frequent this establishment. An average meals cost 750 rubles ($24) including a tea or beer.

<b>Where to stay</b>
Congress-Hotel (1 Vokzalnaya Magistral; +7 383-220-11-20; hotel-novosibirsk.ru) is a three-star hotel with a view that pans over the surrounding landscape. The 23-story building is the tallest in central Russia, and its interior offers space for business and educational seminars. Rooms range from 3,800 rubles to 11,000 rubles ($120 to $350).
Azimut Hotel (21 Ulitsa Lenina; +7 383-223-12-15; hotel-sibir.ru) is recognized as one of Novosibirsk’s premier hotels. Previous guests include internationally acclaimed baritone Dmitry Khvorostovsky, composer Vladimir Shainsky and Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho. Room rates start at 3,000 rubles per night and can reach as much as 9,000 rubles for an apartment-style room.
<b>Conversation starters</b>
As per the international norm, the weather is always a good topic. Locals say, “A Siberian is not a person who is afraid of the cold, but one who dresses warmly.” Temperatures dipped to minus 51.1 degrees Celsius in the winter of 1915. However, thanks to global warming, the average range, depending on the season, is between minus 15 and plus 19 degrees Celsius.

<b>How to get there</b>
Rossiya and Aeroflot airlines provide flights between St. Petersburg and Tolmachyovo International Airport (+7 383-216-98-41 en.tolmachevo.ru/customers/schedule).  Roundtrip tickets cost about 14,600 rubles ($465) and the journey lasts four and a half hours.
If time is not an issue, a second option is to participate in a 56-hour train marathon from St. Petersburg and view the countryside as you pass through the Urals. A one-way ticket will set you back 4,800 rubles to 11,700 rubles ($150-370), depending on your desired level of comfort.
<hr />
<b>Novosibirsk</b>

Population: 1,409,100
Main Industries: metallurgy, oil pipes, machine-part manufacturing, electricity, airplanes
Mayor: Vladimir Gorodetsky
Founded in: 1893
Interesting fact: Novosibirsk is home to the Institute for Cytology and Genetics, which has spent the past 50 years breeding a unique population of domesticated foxes that behave very similar to dogs in order to observe the effects of evolutionary selection.
Helpful contacts: • Mayor Vladimir Gorodetsky (+7 383-227-40-10; novo-sibirsk.ru); • Olga Nezavayeva, president of the Novosibirsk Small and Medium-Sized Business Association Opora (+7 383-218-84-81; novosibirsk.opora.ru); • Pavel Mityakin, director for the Novosibirsk Innovation-Investment Corporation (+7 383-227-43-84; novinkor.com)
Sister cities: Varna, Bulgaria; Mianyang, China; Sapporo, Japan; Osh, Kyrgyzstan; Daejeon, South Korea; Kharkiv, Ukraine; Minneapolis and St. Paul, United States;
<b>Major Businesses</b>
• NAPO Chkalova (15 Ulitsa Polzunova; +7 383 278-85-01; sukhoi.org), one of the largest airplane factories in Russia, which produces commercial and military fighter jets. The factory is owned by Sukhoi, the third-largest global producer of fighter aircraft.
• Liotech (Selo Tolmachevo, Dom 16/1; +7 383 354-54-99; liotech.ru) is a new joint project between Chinese company Thunder Sky and Rusnano, producing green energy lithium-ion batteries to be used in electric cars and other forms of transportation. Rusnano invested $30 million into the factory. 
• Alawar Entertainment 
(41 Russkaya Ulitsa; 
+7 383-363-71-47; www.alawar.ru) is Russia’s leading video game developer, producing games for Mac, PC, PlayStation and Nintendo. Its products are offered in 28 languages and are sold in more than 60 countries.
<hr />

<i><b>Vladimir Gorodetsky, 
Mayor for the past 11 years</b></i>

<i><b>Q:</b></i> What Novosibirsk industries are attractive to investors? 
<i><b>A:</b></i> I think that there are multi-faceted segments in the city that should interest foreign investors. We have proposals [to investors] in Moscow in spheres that are lagging [here]. 
For example, we were looking at water parks. There was a proposal and we showed our readiness to Russian and foreign investors, and they were ready to sign a deal, but then the last crisis came. 
I think the hotel sector is generally covered, but there are some niches left. Construction of multi-functional sports complexes is more promising. We suggest foreign investors go in that direction.
<i><b>Q:</b></i> What are you doing to encourage investment? 
<i><b>A:</b></i> We understand the current scale for development of industry for foreign investors in Novosibirsk, along with Russian businesses. We are currently supporting the completion of construction of the lithium battery plant of Rusnano and its Chinese partner. We analyze and understand the interests of many countries in order to propose well thought-out incentives. The battle for investments is real between cities and territories and this is normal; therefore, about a year and a half ago, we created a special organization under Deputy Mayor Vladimir Znatkov to deal with investments and study the conditions to increase incentives for investors to enter our territory. I think that there is interest today and we are developing proposals for further investment. We are moving in that direction.
<hr />

<i><b>Rostislav Shilo, 
Director of the Novosibirsk Zoo since 1969</b></i>

<i><b>Q:</b></i> What sets your zoo apart from others? 
<i><b>A:</b></i> The liger. She is an interesting object and in general presents value to science. Will the liger produce offspring and continue or not? These are some questions that need to be answered and the very fact that such a liger exists is interesting. I believe another liger lived in India about two or four years before it died there. Ours is three years old already.
<i><b>Q:</b></i> Will she be able to give birth? 
<i><b>A:</b></i> We [briefly] placed a young lion with her this year. What does the future hold? Probably something will happen. If she becomes pregnant, this would also be interesting. We’ll see … I don’t like to make predictions early. When something is, it will be, as they say.
<i><b>Q:</b></i> Where would you recommend a visitor to eat? 
<i><b>A:</b></i> Restaurant Beryozovka. The best in Siberia. They feed you there. There’s hunter’s trophies, you can get a first course, second course, third. Eat up and drink good beer.
<i><b>Q:</b></i> What should happen to improve the tourism industry?
<i><b>A:</b></i> First of all, tourist agencies should do their job. It depends on them more than anything. Then the image of Novosibirsk needs to increase; thirdly, infrastructure should be [improved]. We don’t have a single five-star hotel, or if I remember correctly, not a single four-star one. Hotels and all services should run well. And that is what we need to develop.
<i><b>Q:</b></i> How is investment in the zoo going? 
<i><b>A:</b></i> We have signed a 500-million ruble ($16 million) deal to build a dolphinarium. There will be dolphin shows. And it should be finished by the end of next year. There will also be pavilions for giraffes, small apes and penguins. The pavilion for small apes and penguins should be built next year. It’s not that big of a project, about 100 million rubles.
<i><b>Q:</b></i> What part of the city is your favorite? 
<i><b>A:</b></i> The zoo.

TITLE: Josef Stalin’s Daughter Dies in Wisconsin at Age 85
AUTHOR: By Scott Bauer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MADISON, Wisconsin — Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s daughter, whose defection to the West during the Cold War embarrassed the ruling communists and made her a best-selling author, has died. She was 85.
Lana Peters — who was known internationally by her previous name, Svetlana Alliluyeva — died of colon cancer Nov. 22 in Wisconsin, U.S. where she lived off and on after becoming a U.S. citizen, Richland County Coroner Mary Turner said Monday.
Her defection in 1967 — which she said was partly motivated by the poor treatment of her late husband, Brijesh Singh, by Soviet authorities — caused an international furor and was a public relations coup for the U.S. But Peters, who left behind two children, said her identity involved more than just switching from one side to the other in the Cold War. She even moved back to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, only to return to the U.S. more than a year later.
When she left the Soviet Union in 1966 for India, she planned to leave the ashes of her late third husband, an Indian citizen, and return. Instead, she walked unannounced into the U.S. embassy in New Delhi and asked for political asylum. After a brief stay in Switzerland, she flew to the U.S.
Peters carried with her a memoir she had written in 1963 about her life in Russia. “Twenty Letters to a Friend” was published within months of her arrival in the U.S. and became a best-seller.
Upon her arrival in New York City in 1967, the 41-year-old said, “I have come here to seek the self-expression that has been denied me for so long in Russia.” She said she had come to doubt the communism she was taught growing up and believed there weren’t capitalists or communists, just good and bad human beings. She had also found religion and believed “it was impossible to exist without God in one’s heart.”
In the book, she recalled her father, who died in 1953 after ruling the nation for 29 years, as a distant and paranoid man.
“He was a very simple man. Very rude. Very cruel,” Peters told the Wisconsin State Journal in a rare interview in 2010. “There was nothing in him that was complicated. He was very simple with us. He loved me and he wanted me to be with him and become an educated Marxist.”
Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin denounced Peters as a “morally unstable” and “sick person.”
“I switched camps from the Marxists to the capitalists,” she recalled in a 2007 interview for the documentary “Svetlana About Svetlana.” But she said her identity was far more complex than that and never completely understood.
“People say, ‘Stalin’s daughter, Stalin’s daughter,’ meaning I’m supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans. Or they say, ‘No, she came here. She is an American citizen.’ That means I’m with a bomb against the others. No, I’m neither one. I’m somewhere in between. That ‘somewhere in between’ they can’t understand.”
Peters’ defection came at a high personal cost. She left two children behind in Russia — Josef and Yekaterina — from previous marriages. Both were upset by her departure, and she was never close to either again.
Raised by a nanny with whom she grew close after her mother’s death in 1932, Peters was Stalin’s only daughter. She had two brothers, Vasily and Jacob. Jacob was captured by the Nazis in 1941 and died in a concentration camp. Vasily died an alcoholic at age 40.
Peters graduated from Moscow University in 1949, worked as a teacher and translator and traveled in Moscow’s literary circles before leaving the Soviet Union. She was married four times — the last time to William Wesley Peters, an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. They were married from 1970 to 1973 and had one daughter.
Peters wrote three more books, including “Only One Year,” an autobiography published in 1969.
Her father’s legacy appeared to haunt her throughout her life, though she tried to live outside of the shadow of her father. She denounced his policies, which included sending millions into labor camps, but often said other Communist Party leaders shared the blame.
“I wish people could see what I’ve seen,” Lana Parshina, who interviewed Peters for “Svetlana About Svetlana,” said Monday. “She was very gracious and she was a great hostess. She was sensitive and could quote poetry and talk about various subjects. She was interested in what was going on in the world.”
Charles E. Townsend, who was on faculty at Princeton University’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literature when Peters arrived in Princeton in 1967, said she wasn’t very politically active.
“She was very pleasant,” Townsend said. “Unassuming would be the word for her.”
After living in Britain for two years, Peters returned to the Soviet Union with her daughter Olga in 1984 at age 58, saying she wanted to be reunited with her children. Her Soviet citizenship was restored, and she denounced her time in the U.S. and Britain, saying she never really had freedom. But more than a year later, she asked for and was given permission to leave after feuding with relatives. She returned to the U.S. and vowed never to go back to Russia.
She went into seclusion in the last decades of her life. Her survivors include her daughter Olga, who now goes by Chrese Evans and lives in Portland, Oregon. A son, Josef, died in 2008 at age 63 in Moscow, according to media reports in Russia. Yekaterina (born in 1950), who goes by Katya, is a scientist who studies an active volcano in eastern Siberia.
“She was my only family,” Evans, 40, told The Oregonian. “We were very close. It was a huge loss; I thought she was going to outlive me. She had a lot of friends, and a lot of people who really loved her.”
Evans, who manages a boutique in Portland, said she grew up “kind of a normal kid” although she and her mother moved around the U.S. often.
She said in an email that her mother died at a Richland Center nursing home surrounded by loved ones.
Tom Stafford, owner of the funeral home in Richland Center, Wisconsin, handling the arrangements, said no services were planned at this time, though one might be scheduled later.

TITLE: Tomaso Trussardi on Using Fashion to Show Values
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Smart opinionated chic: This is what Trussardi women are all about, according to Tomaso Trussardi, general director for development of the Trussardi fashion house, who was in St. Petersburg last week for the Russian premiere of the Trussardi Spring/Summer-2012 Women’s Collection.
The collection was designed by Umit Benah Sahin as part of Elle Fashion Days and celebrations of the brand’s 100th anniversary.
Put simply, if you have nothing to say, you are unlikely to make a fashion statement. In Trussardi’s opinion, what makes a woman beautiful and appealing is not so much her physiognomy or figure, but rather a bit of spice in her personality. 
“When we design our collections, we give less thought to things like, say, the hair color, height or weight of our customers — we definitely do not work for some fairies with ideal shapes, but rather for women made of flesh and blood — but seek to penetrate their minds instead,” he said. ‘We even sponsor sociological research into contemporary women’s values, life goals and attitudes.”
Trussardi’s philosophy on fashion and beauty echoes the sentiments of his compatriot, the film actress Stefania Sandrelli, who was in town for the International Film Festival in July. For Sandrelli, a beautiful woman is simply, “a woman who smiles,” while fashion “is a wonderful tool to express your personality and daily mood.”
Intriguingly, these attitudes are somewhat at odds with the stereotypes that reign in Russian society today. In the multiple fashion-related shows that have mushroomed on the country’s television channels, young men pull faces at photographs of women who wear little makeup and lack glamour, accusing them of “not being done up” or “not being polished.” Sociological polls held among women also show that looking well-groomed opens almost all doors, is synonymous with success, and, most importantly, makes you irresistible when it comes to catching Mr. Right. The older you get, the bigger your size, the further you move away from fashion: In Russia, it is seen as the domain of the young, slim and wealthy.
Trussardi is on a crusade to change all that. While most of his Russian clients who shop for Trussardi items in Italy fall into the above-described category of the privileged, he is campaigning among Russian women here to adopt the Italian, less stereotype-focused views on dressing, meaning using fashion to show some spiritual values, rather than demonstrate purchasing power.
“A boring person cannot really be attractive,” Trussardi said. “Your character always kind of fills up your looks, and fashion is a wonderful instrument to emphasize whatever you seek to express.”
One truly damaging way of looking at fashion is isolating oneself from it, indulging in an inferiority complex and seeing it exclusively as the monopoly of the elite, he stressed.
According to Trussardi, just as people are born with a sense for the arts or an ear for music, taste in fashion is something that is inculcated in the family. “A child learns from the older members of the family, and later on, if you take an interest, if you are curious and willing to experiment, your taste will evolve, mature and develop. A lack of taste is not synonymous with contradictions — they can be rather tasteful — bad taste has to do with excess, when one does not know where to stop.”
As for the Trussardi style of dress, balance, spontaneity and grace are key to the brand’s philosophy, which was demonstrated in full in the new collection, which took travel as its main theme and began with the sound of an airplane taking off.
The waist is the object of focus, and the color range is dominated by the brand’s favorites — white, shades of blue and grey — with terracotta, mustard and sienna thrown in.
One of Italy’s most venerable fashion houses, and the oldest family dynasty in fashion, Trussardi remains faithful to the Italian nature of the brand. 
“It is important to remember that in Italy, as probably nowhere else, fashion is inseparable from art and history of art,” said Trussardi. “This connection has always been precious for Trussardi, and we consider it one of the brand’s signature qualities.”
Trussardi, whose hobbies include philosophy and driving fast, spends most of his spare time inspecting the brand’s shops and making incognito peaks into the stores and ranges of his rivals. He is well aware of the fact that fashion as perhaps no other business requires its managers to sense even the slightest fluctuations in the interests, desires and tastes of people. Outgoing as he may sound, Trussardi offers an unorthodox answer as to where the best places are to feel the pulse of fashion.
“In order for your collections to sell, you need to be aware which ranges sell better, what sort of ideas fascinate audiences and what makes them idiosyncratic,” he began. “Yet, however paradoxical it may sound, when we make a decision about the theme, the tone, the flair of the next collection, what sort of direction we are going to take, this discussion always takes place at home. The decision is made at a family meeting. This is where we can listen to our intuition best, have an open discussion, and then make the right choices.”
Reflecting on the Trussardi Fashion House’s incredible 100 years of being managed by the same family, Trussardi said that the survival of a brand depends directly on choosing the right person to succeed you, and the right time to bring them in. “We have been lucky that we have been able to find all that within our family,” he said. “It is crucial that the manager who comes after you shares your core values and will not betray your ethical code, and is able to take the brand further.”

TITLE: UN: Syria Killed and Tortured 256 Kids
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIRUT — A UN investigation has concluded that Syrian forces committed crimes against humanity by killing and torturing hundreds of children, including a two-year-old girl reportedly shot to death so she wouldn’t grow up to be a demonstrator.
The results of the inquiry, released on Monday, added to mounting international pressure on President Bashar Assad, a day after the Arab League approved sweeping sanctions to push his embattled regime to end the violence. Syria’s foreign minister called the Arab move “a declaration of economic war” and warned of retaliation.
The report by a UN Human Rights Council panel found that at least 256 children were killed by government forces between mid-March and early November, some of them tortured to death.
“Torture was applied equally to adults and children,” said the assessment, released in Geneva. “Numerous testimonies indicated that boys were subjected to sexual torture in places of detention in front of adult men.”
The UN defines a child as anyone under the age of 18. The report was compiled by a panel of independent experts who were not allowed into Syria. However, the commission interviewed 223 victims and witnesses, including defectors from Syria’s military and security forces.
The panel said government forces were given “shoot to kill” orders to crush demonstrations. Some troops “shot indiscriminately at unarmed protesters,” while snipers targeted others in the upper body or head, it said.
It quoted one former soldier who said he decided to defect after witnessing an officer shoot a two-year-old girl in Latakia, then claim he killed her so she wouldn’t grow up to be a demonstrator.
The list of alleged crimes committed by Syrian forces “include murder, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence,” said the panel’s chairman, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, a Brazilian professor. “We have a very solid body of evidence.”
At least 3,500 people have been killed since March in Syria, according to the UN — the bloodiest regime response against the Arab Spring protests sweeping the Middle East. Deaths in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen have numbered in the hundreds; while Libya’s toll is unknown and likely higher, the conflict there differs from Syria’s because it descended into outright civil war between two armed sides.
The U.N. investigation is the latest in a growing wave of international measures pressuring Damascus to end its crackdown, and comes on the heels of sweeping sanctions approved Sunday by the Arab League.
Syrian officials did not comment directly on the U.N. findings. However, the regime reacted sharply to the Arab sanctions, betraying a deep concern over the economic impact and warning that Syria could strike back.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem called the Arab League action “a declaration of economic war” and said Syria had withdrawn 95 percent of its assets in Arab countries.
Economy Minister Mohammed Nidal al-Shaar said “sources of foreign currency would be affected” by the sanctions, reflecting concerns that Arab investment in Syria will fall off and transfers from Syrians living in other Arab countries will drop.
Al-Moallem said Syria had means to retaliate.
“Sanctions are a two-way street,” he warned in a televised news conference.
“We don’t want to threaten anyone, but we will defend the interests of our people,” he added, suggesting Syria might use its position as a geographical keystone in the heart of the Middle East to disrupt trade between Arab countries.
Iraq and Lebanon, which abstained from the Arab League vote, may continue to be markets for Syrian goods, in defiance of the sanctions. Syria shares long borders with both countries and moving goods in and out would be easy.
The economic troubles threaten the business community and prosperous merchant classes that are key to propping up the regime. An influential bloc, the business leaders have long traded political freedoms for economic privileges.
The opposition has tried to rally these largely silent, but hugely important, sectors of society. But Assad’s opponents have failed so far to galvanize support in Damascus and Aleppo — the two economic centers in Syria.
The Arab sanctions, however, could chip away at their resolve.
Since the revolt began, the Assad regime has blamed the bloodshed on terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to divide and undermine Syria. Until recently, most deaths appeared to be caused by security forces firing on mainly peaceful protests. But lately, there have been growing reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting Assad’s forces — a development that some say plays into the regime’s hands by giving government troops a pretext to crack down with overwhelming force.
The Assad regime has responded to the street protests by sheer brutal force while at the same time announcing reforms largely dismissed by the opposition as too little too late.
On Monday, a spokesman for a committee tasked with drawing up a new constitution said it would recommend the abolishment of Article 8 which states that the ruling Baath Party is the leader of the state and society.
The article’s abolishment was once a key demand of the protest movement. However, such overtures are now unlikely to satisfy opposition leaders who say they will accept nothing more than the downfall of the regime.

TITLE: Elections In Egypt Bring Big Crowd
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO — The head of Egypt’s election commission said turnout was “massive and unexpected” for the first elections since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, with millions participating peacefully in a spirit of hopefulness that surprised many after new protests broke out in the days leading up to the vote.
Long lines formed again Tuesday at polling centers around the capital Cairo and other cities on the second and final day of the first round of parliamentary elections. The historic election - which promises to be the country’s fairest and cleanest in living memory - will indicate whether one of America’s most important Middle East allies will turn down a more Islamic path with powerful religious parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood expected to dominate.
“I am voting for this country’s sake. We want a new beginning,” said Zeinab Saad, 50, who brought her young daughter to a polling station in Cairo. “It’s a great thing to feel like your vote matters.”
The head of the High Election Commission, Abdel-Mooaez Ibrahim, said late Monday night that the turnout on the first day was surprisingly strong. He did not give any figures.
There were numerous reports of election violations by party activists, most over campaigning close to polling sites while voting was under way.
“It is a crime punishable by law,” Ibrahim said of such violations. He also said some polling centers witnessed delays and three were closed following scuffles. He said one polling center was closed after the commission found a policeman forging ballots for a candidate in the southern city of Luxor.
The huge turnout Monday - some voters waited in line for seven hours or more - was the biggest surprise so far in these elections. On the eve of the vote, the country was in turmoil, deeply divided and confused after 10 days of new protests and clashes involving young activists demanding the country’s military rulers hand power immediately to a civilian authority. Among other problems, the unrest raised fears of violence at the polling stations, which never came to pass.
Instead, Egyptians showed a fierce determination to exercise the right to vote freely for the first time ever in their lives. Past elections had been heavily rigged and turnout was tepid, sometimes in the single digits.
This time around, some hoped their votes would help push the military from power, while others were trying to keep the rising Islamist parties in check.
A good number of Egyptians harbor deep doubts about the legitimacy and the relevance of the parliament that will emerge from an electoral process conducted entirely under military rule.
The military will sharply limit the powers of the parliament that emerges and it may only serve for several months. Remnants of Mubarak’s old regime, except the few who are in jail or on trial, were allowed to run freely in these elections, something that for the youthful activists behind Mubarak’s ouster detracts from the legitimacy of the vote.
However, others saw it as a historic turning point, if for no other reason than they were finally getting a chance to be heard. There was a glimmer of hope that this could be the beginning of a real political transformation.

TITLE: Mass Killer Undergoes Psychiatric Evaluation
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: OSLO, Norway — The forensic psychiatrists who evaluated the mental state of confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik handed over their assessment to a Norwegian court on Tuesday.
One of the psychiatrists, Torgeir Husby, told The Associated Press that the report draws a “clear conclusion” about Breivik’s mental health, but declined to give details.
The report will help determine whether the 32-year-old right-wing extremist can be held criminally liable for a bomb-and-shooting massacre in which 77 people were killed on July 22.
Key findings from the report were expected Tuesday evening.
Breivik has confessed to carrying out the attacks but denies criminal guilt, saying he’s a commander of a Norwegian resistance movement opposed to multiculturalism.
Investigators have found no sign of such a movement and say Breivik most likely plotted and carried out the attacks on his own.
The psychiatrists spent a total of 36 hours talking to Breivik and also watched recordings of police interrogations with him, Husby said, adding Breivik was cooperative.
The 243-page report will be reviewed by a panel from the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine, which could ask for additional information, Husby said.
The head of that panel told AP in July that it was unlikely that Breivik would be declared legally insane because the attacks were so carefully planned and executed.
In Norway, an insanity defense requires that a defendant be in a state of psychosis while committing the crime with which he or she is charged. That means the defendant has lost contact with reality to the point that he’s no longer in control of his own actions.
If tried and convicted of terrorism, Breivik will face up to 21 years in prison or an alternative custody arrangement that could keep him behind bars indefinitely.

TITLE: Pakistan Upset by NATO
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD — Pakistan said Tuesday it would boycott an upcoming meeting in Germany on Afghanistan to protest the deadly weekend attack by U.S.-led forces on its troops, widening the fallout from an incident that has sent ties between Washington and Islamabad into a tailspin.
The strike Saturday on the Afghan-Pakistani border killed 24 Pakistani troops and triggered fury in Islamabad.
Hours after the incident, Islamabad closed its western border to trucks delivering supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan and said it will review all cooperation with NATO and the United States.
The decision to boycott the Bonn conference was taken during a Pakistani Cabinet meeting in Lahore, said three officials who attended the meeting. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media ahead of an official announcement.
The Dec. 5 meeting was to bring together Western and regional leaders to forge a strategy to stabilize Afghanistan and smooth the planned American withdrawal from the country in 2014. Pakistan is perhaps the most important regional country because of it influence on Afghan Taliban factions on its soil, and U.S. and Pakistani officials had been urging Islamabad to attend.
Given the general pessimism about the future of Afghanistan, few had high expectations the conference would result in significant progress. But the absence of Pakistan will make even minor achievements much more difficult.
There have been conflicting versions of what led to the attack by NATO aircraft on Saturday, though most accounts say it was likely friendly fire, launched after a joint Afghan and U.S. special forces team received fire from the Pakistan side of the border.
NATO and the U.S. are investigating the incident, and have expressed regret at the loss of Pakistani lives.
The incident pushed deeply troubled ties between Pakistan and the United States closer to breakdown.