SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times DATE: Issue #1689 (51), Wednesday, December 28, 2011 ************************************************************************** TITLE: Numbers Down, Rallies Meet With Mixed Results AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: The Moscow anti-electoral fraud rally held as part of national campaign of protests on Saturday, was reported as having attracted even more people than the Dec. 10 demo estimated as more than 100,000, but the St. Petersburg demo split into three smaller protests resulting in a number of controversies. Still, thousands showed up to demand the annulment of the falsified elections and punishment for the falsifiers at rallies on Pionerskaya Ploshchad and Ploshchad Sakharova, while a group of The Other Russia activists got arrested while attempting to submit the protesters’ demands to City Hall. Co-organizers from Solidarity and other oppositional groups say that the A Just Russia party hijacked the Pionerskaya Ploshchad rally, turning it into its own demo, rather than a civic protest, despite agreements. A Just Russia’s local chair Oksana Dmitriyeva did not permit the banner “For Honest Elections” (A Just Russia party banner was used as the backdrop instead) and rejected the allegedly agreed list of speakers, while party anthems blared from the loudspeakers instead of the protest songs that the other group of organizers thought it had been agreed. The group of democratic organizers, who said they had reached an agreement with A Just Russia’s representative Igor Lysenko about the rally’s character and speakers during the organizational meetings, and tried to protest shouting “Shame on A Just Russia,” were dismissed as “United Russia’s provocateurs” and turned over to the police. Later, they were released from police buses by A Just Russia’s chair Sergei Mironov who reportedly promised that they would be allowed to speak at the rally. However, some of them were not allowed to speak after Mironov had left. Igor Kochetkov, the chair of the gay rights organization Vykhod (Coming Out), was asked to leave the stage when Dmitriyeva asked him what organization he represented. “Our party doesn’t support your movement,” Dmitriyeva told him, according to Coming Out’s statement. In a statement on her official web site on Monday, Dmitriyeva said that the rally was organized and financed solely by A Just Russia, while the activists who invited people to a civic rally misinformed them. She went as far as comparing the activists to the pro-Kremlin youth movements Young Guard and Nashi. Solidarity’s Vladimir Volokhonsky disagreed. “We wouldn’t go to an A Just Russia rally, and, definitely, I wouldn’t be distributing leaflets inviting people to such a rally for four hours in the frost,” he said in an email Tuesday. “I am not a member of this party and have never voted for them. I can’t say that I don’t share their convictions, because I don’t know about existence of such among them.” Suggesting that the situation must have been caused by miscommunication within the party, Volokhonsky said A Just Russia had damaged its reputation as the result of the rally. “If before this they had chance to join civic activities of a huge number of different organizations that exist in this city, they ruined this chance with their actions on Saturday,” he said. Alongside two other newly elected deputies, Dmitriyeva was booed at the Dec. 18 rally for refusal to reject her mandate as proof that she was serious about her demand to annul the elections. She was quick to dismiss the protesters as “provocateurs.” While the Pionerskaya Ploshchad rally drew between 4,000 and 6,000, according to different estimates, 2,000 to 3,000 came to the rally/concert on Ploshchad Sakharova — making the total number of protesters less than the 10,000 that attended the Dec. 10 and Dec. 18 protests in St. Petersburg. Musician Mikhail Borzykin, who performed on Ploshchad Sakarova, said that the Pionerskaya Ploshchad rally was turned into a pre-election rally for Mironov, who applied to register as a presidential candidate last week. “It’s a pity that such a division took place,” Borzykin said. “On one hand, the ‘non-systemic’ opposition doesn’t want to be associated with those who didn’t reject their mandates, while the parliamentary opposition tried to block the unregistered parties. Such a division is natural, but it looks unconvincing in comparison with what’s happening in Moscow.” The United Civil Front’s local chair Olga Kurnosova, who organized the rally on Ploshchad Sakharova, said that the opposition should unite on the grounds of the principal demands. “The main demands include the new State Duma elections, registration of all the political parties, and postponement of the presidential elections so they would be held under the new legislation, with all the oppositional candidates permitted to participate,” Kurnosova said. “If the parliamentary opposition agrees to unite with us on these conditions, they are welcome. If not, we’re sorry. It’s the demands of the rallies both in Moscow and St. Petersburg which we can’t abandon.” As Governor Georgy Poltavchenko did not react to the resolutions of the Dec. 10 and Dec. 18 rallies. A group of The Other Russia activists came to City Hall to deliver the demands, but were stopped by riot police at the gates. Twelve were detained including three preventively arrested activists, two of whom were arrested while walking toward City Hall, and the third close to his house. The eleven were held in a police precinct for two days, before being taken to court on Monday. “Any protests should have development,” The Other Russia’s local chair Andrei Dmitriyev said Tuesday. “It’s meaningless to hold rallies every weekend and demand the same things, because the authorities haven’t even regarded answering our ultimatum as being necessary. “The protests should be moved closer to the authorities, both in Moscow and in St. Petersburg. Two thousand outside City Hall are more dangerous for them than 20,000 on Pionerskaya Ploshchad.” TITLE: ‘Pearl Ensign’ Avoids Time in Prison AUTHOR: By Rina Soloveitchik PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: A former police officer was given a suspended sentence for beating up and insulting political protesters on camera last year, Interfax reported Monday. The defense and plaintiffs both promised to appeal, but Solidarity activist Alexei Ivanov, who testified in the hearings, called the verdict fair — a significant victory, given that the country’s courts are widely alleged to be biased toward law enforcement. Video from an unsanctioned street protest in July 2010 showed police ensign Vadim Boiko beating one participant with a truncheon to the head, dragging another by the hair and shouting at protesters, calling them “ferrets.” The video earned Boiko the nickname “Pearl Ensign” because of a pearl bracelet he is seen wearing. The story caused uproar after the footage appeared online. But the investigation became drawn out, sparking allegations of an attempted cover-up. Boiko, who retired after the incident, and his lawyer sustained separate street beatings over the time of the inquiry. The attackers were never found. The prosecution at the trial asked to sentence Boiko to four years in prison on charges of abuse of office. But the Kuibyshev District Court only gave him a 3 1/2-year suspended sentence, citing the fact that he supports an underage son and an elderly mother. He was also banned from police service for another two years. Boiko celebrated the ruling in an Italian restaurant across the street from the court, Gazeta.ru said. But his lawyer promised to appeal, as did one of his victims, Dmitry Semyonov, the report said. Radical opposition activist Eduard Limonov, who staged the unsanctioned rally for which Boiko was punished, called the verdict “inappropriate,” Interfax reported. But Solidarity activist Ivanov said the case was already a clear message to the police, who earned praise lately for their restrained handling of two huge political rallies in Moscow this month. The verdict was “a fair outcome of a competition between prosecutors and the defense,” Ivanov added by telephone Monday. TITLE: Kremlin Keeps Silent on New Massive Protest AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: MOSCOW — Organizers of last weekend’s anti-Kremlin rally in Moscow, allegedly the biggest street protest since 1993, were divided on whether they could press authorities into cooperating. Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny wrote on his LiveJournal blog that “inhabitants of the Kremlin declared readiness to evolve for the sake of survival.” “For now, this readiness appears to be a ruse and a con game, but that’s normal. Everyone wants to save face,” Navalny wrote Sunday. But liberal opposition leader Garry Kasparov said a new prison sentence for radical protester Sergei Udaltsov, passed Monday, indicated that the Kremlin plans no compromise. A new 10-day incarceration for Udaltsov over his past protest activity “shows that authorities are not going to fulfill a main demand of both rallies — to free political prisoners,” Kasparov wrote on his own LiveJournal. Between 29,000 and 120,000, by various estimates, rallied on Prospekt Akademika Sakharova on Saturday to protest alleged violations at the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections, won by the ruling United Russia party, as well as the Kremlin’s overall tight control of the country’s political life. The grassroots protest, the second of its kind and size in as many weeks, came after a near-decade of public apathy and apparently left the authorities confused. The Kremlin earlier this month proposed to liberalize political legislation and restore direct gubernatorial elections, but only after the presidential election, which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is poised to win. It also showed no indication of accepting the protesters’ demands for a repeat State Duma vote and firing of Vladimir Churov, head of the Central Elections Commission, as well as the release of Udaltsov. Medvedev did not comment on the Saturday rally, while Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted on Ekho Moskvy on Sunday that opposition to his patron is still in the minority. Putin’s approval rating stood at 51 percent this month, down 10 percent from the previous poll in November, Levada Center reported. In a sign that authorities may be ready to slacken the reins a bit, the firmly pro-Kremlin television channels NTV and Channel One lifted their tacit ban on covering opposition activities, reporting Saturday’s rally in their news. At the same time, state news agency RIA-Novosti covered the protests under a headline that read: “The rally on Sakharova failed to transform the quantity of people into the quality of ideas,” which sparked allegations of bias in the blogosphere. Admittedly, domestic coverage was more accurate than reports aired in neighboring authoritarian Belarus, where local television put attendance at the Saturday’s rally in Moscow at several hundred people. No consensus was to be had about the real attendance, but even the most conservative estimate, provided by the city police, put the number of participants at 29,000. That number needs to be taken with a grain of salt, given that police said back in April that a pro-Kremlin rally on Prospekt Akademika Sakharova attracted 50,000 activists — even though photos comparing both events that circulated in the blogosphere showed the Saturday rally being packed far more tightly than the pro-Kremlin one. Organizers said that up to 120,000 attended Saturday. Novaya Gazeta’s volunteers who counted the people at the entrance spoke about 102,000, while RIA-Novosti estimated their numbers at about 45,000. The Moscow Times reporters at the event put the figure at between 60,000 and 80,000. “It’s not about the numbers, but about the fact that the participants who have voiced their simple and legal demands will not back down, will not grow bored and will not be stopped by the weather,” Navalny said on his blog. The Saturday rally had a prequel on Dec. 10, when between 30,000 and 60,000 gathered on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Ploshchad to protest the Duma vote and demand a repeat election. Speakers at Prospekt Akademika Sakharova said a new event would take place in January or February, when the presidential race will be picking up steam. Prime Minister Putin is still expected to win the vote on March 4, though the opposition says this is because no independent candidates will be allowed to compete against him. The event attracted a wide array of speakers, ranging from Navalny and liberal politician Boris Nemtsov to writer Boris Akunin, ultranationalist leader Vladimir Tor, Kremlin-connected socialite Ksenia Sobchak and even former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. “The slyest rats are deserting the sinking ship,” Tor said of Kudrin and Sobchak, both of whom voiced solidarity with the protesters but also urged for caution and promoted dialogue with authorities. On the rally’s eve, Kudrin also said he is willing to lend a hand in creating a new political party to represent the middle class, which forms the backbone of the protests. Judging by the Saturday rally, discontent with Putin, who has been seen as a de-facto leader of the country since 2000, has spread to people of all ages, from high school students to pensioners. Liza, a 17-year-old schoolgirl who carried a life-size cutout of Soviet-era rights activist Andrei Sakharov, for whom the rally’s venue is named, said she was “for clean elections.” She declined to give her last name, possibly to avoid problems with teachers. IT specialist Konstantin Ivanov — at 28, a representative of the rally’s dominant age group — sported several badges reimagining Edward Munch’s “The Scream,” with the words “Putin. Again?” attributed to the screamer. Ivanov said he came to the rally because he “didn’t like the hypocrisy of the authorities … and the future that they are preparing for me.” He added that he was at both protest rallies in December and posted stickers and participated in flashmobs around the city to promote the event on Prospekt Akademika Sakharova. “We will keep going until our complaints are addressed,” said Yulia, 35, a television worker, who declined to give her last name for fear of reprisal from her employer. Nikolai Sayunov, 57, an unemployed resident of the Pskov region who had come to Moscow to visit friends, said he took part in public protests in the 1990s and attended Saturday because he believed that power should be in the hands of the people. “They wiped their feet on me,” Sayunov said of the authorities. “I don’t want to live in such a country.” Valentina Legonkova, 67, employed in the publishing business, said she was “glad that the people have bucked up.” Legonkova, who attended protest rallies in the late 1980s that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, said she wanted “freedom” and “democracy” for Russia. Some well-known figures were also spotted in the crowd but not on stage, among them billionaire and presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov; Marina Khodorkovskaya, mother of jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky; Kommersant reporter Oleg Kashin; and Viktor Anpilov, a radical Communist leader from the 1990s. TITLE: Kostenko Loses Release Appeal AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: The appeal court on Monday refused to free Filipp Kostenko, who — after serving 15 days in prison — was sentenced to another 15 days last week in what his lawyer describes as a “political reprisal.” Originally, Kostenko, an activist and employee of the human rights organization Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center, was arrested amid spontaneous protests against the electoral fraud near Gostiny Dvor on Dec. 6. The following day, the court sentenced him to 15 days imprisonment for an alleged failure to follow a police officer’s orders, the maximum punishment for such an offence. On Dec. 21, Kostenko was not released after serving his term. As around 20 friends were waiting for him outside the prison on Zakharyevskaya Ulitsa, upon leaving his cell he was detained again by the counter-extremism agency Center E officers, who took him to a police precinct, his lawyer Olga Tseitlina said. Kostenko’s political views have been described as anarchist and anti-fascist, which puts him in the sphere of interests of Center E. The arrest was made on the basis of the fact that Kostenko did not appear in the court for a prior alleged offence, although at the time he was actually in custody. This other case dealt with charges of Kostenko allegedly using foul language when bringing food parcels to his arrested friends on Oct. 16. During the hearing on the following day, Judge Yelena Yermolina did not agree to the summoning of the police officers on whose reports the sentence was based, to testify as witnesses and to be cross-examined, according to Tseitlina. The testimonies of defense witnesses were dismissed by Yermolina who said that she trusted the police officers’ reports. In doing so, Yermolina deprived Kostenko of the right to a fair court hearing, which is a fundamental violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, signed by Russia, Tseitlina said. “The entire prosecution is based on the policemen’s reports,” she said. “If the punishment can be a prison sentence, one of the fundamental rights is to interview witnesses who testify against you.” Tseitlina described the charges as “absurd.” “Why should Kostenko come to a police precinct and swear in public?” she asked. “Also, it was 11 p.m., with nobody around, so how could he break public order? If we look at court practice, such an offense is never punished that strictly; usually it is punished with a fine.” TITLE: Udaltsov Given New Jail Term AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: MOSCOW — Radical opposition activist Sergei Udaltsov will meet the new year in a Moscow prison, a city judge decreed in a ruling that sparked protests outside the courtroom. The new 10-day jail term for Udaltsov appeared to be a bad political move, fueling anti-Kremlin sentiment that is still riding high after a record protest rally on Prospekt Akademika Sakharova last weekend. The Kremlin, which earlier made token concessions to protesters, had no comment on Udaltsov’s plight. Meanwhile, bloggers launched a campaign against the judge who jailed him, and about 1,500 signed up on Facebook for a rally to demand his release. Judge Olga Borovkova passed sentence on Udaltsov late Sunday, shortly after he was released from nearly month-long detention, part of which he spent in the hospital. It was his 14th arrest in 2011. Borovkova found Udaltsov guilty of resisting police during a one-man picket near the office of the Central Elections Commission in October. She dismissed the defense’s claim that such pickets require no permission from authorities, as well as video footage that showed Udaltsov offering no resistance during arrest. Several hundreds of protesters rallied outside the court building on Sunday. Inside, dozens of reporters and Udaltsov’s supporters protested the judge’s decision to expel them from the courtroom, unsuccessfully trying to force their way in past security guards. Protesters chanted “Borovkova is a servant of Satan,” “Freedom to Seryoga” and “Shame on the corrupt court,” a video uploaded on YouTube showed. The police only detained one protester, environmental activist Yaroslav Nikitenko, who was also slapped with 10 days in jail for participating in an unsanctioned rally. Udaltsov has repeatedly staged hunger strikes over his recent detentions, ending up in intensive care earlier this month. He said Monday that doctors have convinced him to start taking food again to avoid possibly life-threatening health problems. TITLE: Ferrero’s Spanish Director Leads With the Heart AUTHOR: By Andrew McChesney PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: MOSCOW — Arturo Cardelus has spent hundreds of hours on Russian lessons in the eight years since he moved to Moscow to build up the local operations of Ferrero, the Italian family-owned chocolate giant. The 69-year-old Spaniard admits that learning Russian — his sixth language after Spanish, English, Italian, French and Portuguese — is an obsession. “I have a Russian lesson every single day,” Cardelus said in an interview. “Some people do not consider it totally essential. But I find it very important because the people in the sales force only speak Russian. The people on the production line only speak Russian. “If you want to motivate them, if you want to be close to them, if you want to guide them, you had better do it in their language. So this has become an obsession for me.” Weekdays at 1 p.m., Cardelus pulls out his home-packed lunch — usually buckwheat and tomatoes or a can of sardines — and listens for 10 minutes as his instructor summarizes the day’s news in Russian. After that, the two converse and read for at least an hour. When Cardelus’ wife is out of town, the lessons extend into the weekend: intensive five-hour sessions on Saturday and Sunday evenings. “I find speaking Russian is absolutely fundamental,” Cardelus said. “I find it respectful. You know, you’re in Russia, you have to respect where you are. It’s a question of closeness to the people.” The people with whom Cardelus particularly wants to be close are the more than 2,000 Russians he oversees at Ferrero, the maker of Ferrero Rocher, Nutella, Confetteria Raffaello, Tic Tac and Kinder Surprise. As Cardelus ushered a reporter from the front desk to his office on a recent afternoon, he greeted members of his team, patting some on the arm and affectionately poking one young man in the side. The warm words and physical contact are part of a philosophy of “leading with the heart,” he explained. But the idea, gleaned from the “Five Dimensions of Leadership” by Bill George, a Harvard professor and former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, is not just a philosophy, he said. It’s a way of life. “This is not someone with a soft heart talking. This comes from a huge businessman teaching at Harvard Business School,” he said. “Leading with the heart — this is something fundamental,” he said. “The leader of the 21st century empowers people. It’s not this idiotic approach of: ‘No, I decide it, I said it, you do it.’ That’s not the way. You have to empower people. You should share objectives along the way, but the key is empowerment.” Cardelus sat down with The Moscow Times to share his vision of leadership, including how a Harvard class provided a breakthrough moment, why he works on Dec. 25, and how his success is rooted in his grandfather, the prominent Spanish comic playwright Pedro Munoz Seca, who was killed in 1936 by a firing squad during the Spanish Civil War. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Q: Why did you come to Russia, and why have you stayed? A: When I was working for Ferrero in Frankfurt in the early 2000s, I oversaw this entire area, which included Poland, Hungary, Austria, the Balkans, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia. I realized — and you don’t have to go to Harvard to understand this — that the future lay here in Russia and this country would go forward. I was coming here quite often and I could see it, I could feel it. So I spoke to Giovanni Ferraro, my boss. I told him: “Look, Giovanni, the future is Russia, and the best thing I can do for Ferrero is develop that country. So I would like to go there.” He asked me, “How would your wife feel?” I said: “No problem. I’ll go there. I’ll live there. But there’s one deal that you and I must make. You trust me, and I trust you. So give me a blank check.” He said, “Arturo, you’re right.” And that was it. Giovanni gave me the firepower to really move forward. He gets full credit for Russia. We only had about 150 people here at the time, and now we have more than 2,000. We’ve grown very fast because we advertised, we hired and we motivated people. That was my commitment. I fulfilled my commitment, and Giovanni fulfilled his. That was the basis for this fantastic growth. We built a huge factory in the Vladimir region. Why have I stayed eight years? Because I needed to make the factory happen and grow. We built the factory only three years ago, and we obviously have to justify the investment and carry on growing the people. We believe in growing people. Q: What is your secret to successfully managing people and business in Russia? A: Managing people is the same everywhere in the world. Don’t believe any of this talk about it being different here. The advantage I have is that I like people. I love people. And I can learn from everyone — that is my belief. When I ask the cleaning lady, “How is everything?” I’m sure I’m going to get something out of that. I’ve always been this way, and it has always worked in every country where I’ve lived. I talk to the heart of the people. I’m very close to people. By the way, I don’t have a secretary. No, no. I have two cell phones, and people call me directly. We have two ladies who handle things like reservations, but I don’t have a person who says: “Oh no, Mr. Cardelus has a meeting at 2 o’clock. You cannot see him.” Values are very important. Look at all the stars there. [Cardelus points to a collection of paper silver stars affixed to the ceiling above his desk.] You see all the stars have words on them: “encouragement,” “creativity,” “openness,” “humanity,” “fairness” and “trust.” These are the values that we push in this company. [Cardelus points to a row of silver-star trophies beside his desk.] I will be giving these stars to the people who represent these characteristics best. Q: How else do you promote values? A: The most important way is by example. You have to give a good example. Always. That’s the key. If you fail — if you fail once — that’s it. Your credibility is gone. I have never failed once. I have never dreamed of failing, of not being honest or trustworthy or credible. Never, never, never. It’s part of my core being. This is the way I’ve always been. This is the way I’ve always run companies, and it has always worked. Here’s an example: When I travel, it’s very important for me to arrive back in Moscow on a Sunday, so I’m here in the office on Monday morning. That is very important, so people see you and they don’t say, “Oh, he’s traveling.” ? Here’s another example — this you will enjoy. I’m here in the office on Dec. 25. I won’t be here this coming 25th because it’s a Sunday, but on the 26th, I’ll be here. Two years ago, the 25th was not on a weekend, and I was at work in Novosibirsk. Why? This is Russia, and I like to say, “Hey, here we are Orthodox.” So on the 25th, I’m here. Yes, I’ll go to church, but I am here because this is where the people are. I want the people to know that I’m here with them. It’s respect. But I do take off Jan. 1 to 11 — absolutely, no question. Q: Where did you learn your values? A: My grandfather, Pedro Munoz Seca, was assassinated in the Spanish Civil War. He could have saved his life by writing in favor of the opposite side when he was in prison. But he didn’t. That’s honor, and I can never betray that. My mother and my uncles were always telling us about my grandfather when we were growing up. So this tremendous sense of honor was really instilled in us. I try to transmit these values to our people. Q: Who or what inspires you? A: First, my grandfather, my parents, wife and children. Another tremendous source of inspiration for me are my people. I just want to grow them. People are like the biblical parable of the talents. I have to leave them better than when I got them. I have to, or what the hell are we here for? You have to leave things richer, better. You know, when you go upstairs, our friend is going to ask: “OK, what did you do in life?” What am I going to say: “Oh yes, we made the budget every year, I never missed an appointment, I went to every meeting on time”? Q: What advice would you offer a foreigner who wants to invest or expand in Russia? A: It’s very simple: Look at the long term. Come with a strategy, but don’t think for a second that Russia is a country where you can enter and then leave. Q: Could you describe a problem that you’ve resolved in Russia, and what you learned from it? A: I have never had a problem in Russia. I give you my word of honor. Furthermore, in all these years, I have never had a disagreeable moment in Russia. Q: How do you deal with corruption? A: Never, ever, ever. When we decided to build a factory, we chose — I chose — the region of Vladimir. Vladimir is a fantastic region to invest in: very pro-business, very pro-investment, very pro-everything. I’ve never been approached for a bribe. But let me tell you something. I worked for about four years in a state company in Italy. When I left, I told my boss: “You know something? I’ve heard so many stories about bribery, but I was never approached.” He replied, “Well, they knew that with you they couldn’t get anything.” It’s the same thing here. No one has ever approached me with any kind of offer. Never. You have my word of honor. Actually, there are many companies that work without corruption, and there are several regions in this country that have zero corruption and are absolutely clean. No, I am not exaggerating. Now I cannot say this region or that region is clean, but I’ve heard that this is the case. I chose Vladimir for this reason. Q: How did Harvard affect your leadership style? A: Harvard offered a fabulous course called Interpersonal Behavior that really opened me up. The class was very restricted — there were only about 35 people — and run by a British professor. With the first case, the class just didn’t click. The second case — this was 40 years ago, but I remember it like today — was about Gracia Hernandez, a Chilean lady who came to the United States and what she went through. The class just didn’t get it. So I raised my hand and for the following 35 minutes I spoke. I spoke about feelings. I spoke about everything I had inside and what that little lady was going through. [Cardelus’ voice breaks.] I still get emotional, because the class suddenly came together. I was a talker in the class, and when the others saw me speaking this way — so deeply, so earnestly, so emotionally — that made the change. From then on, every single class was a huge success because everybody could talk. People cried, people got emotional, and it was like a catharsis. It was really unbelievable. At that point I realized the enormous value of emotion, of clarity and of feelings, and the whole class did as well. It was fantastic. I know what people feel, I know what they have inside because I’m very open. As you can see, I’m extraordinarily open, totally transparent, and they respond to me. Q: It sounds like a key part of leadership is the ability to be transparent. A: To be — not the ability to be. It is to be transparent. I’m not putting on a show. No. I’m always very clear, very transparent, very open. I never try to play games. And emotions? Yes, I always show emotion. I hug people. I know most of the people who work here and I know if they have a problem, if their mother is ill. I’m very close to them. I’m also a very physical person, so I hug and I kiss — both men and women. It doesn’t matter. That’s my nature, and people understand that. As a matter of fact, when I took over here, I spoke with the two top ladies, directors, and I said, “Look, you know me, you know how I am, how I love people and I hug them and I kiss them. Is this something that bothers you?” And they said, “Coming from you, no.” This is the same thing two ladies told me in 1975 when I put the same question to them at the American company Johnson Wax in Spain. I asked them right away, “Is it a problem because I am quite a physical person and I touch?” And they said, “Coming from you, not at all.” There is nothing wrong with showing emotion. Lead with the heart. TITLE: Putin’s Halcyon Days Are Over AUTHOR: By Michael Bohm TEXT: In 2007, right before he stepped down after his second term in office, then-President Vladimir Putin was at the height of his political career, enjoying ratings of 80 percent. Since then, however, Putin’s popularity has dropped significantly. But you wouldn’t know it judging by his cool, confident behavior in the past few weeks, despite the widespread protests. It’s as if Putin is stuck in time — stuck in the halycon days of 2007. This happens when absolute power not only corrupts leaders, but also distorts their sense of reality. In 2007, Putin had become the epitome of a “strong hand” that so many Russians admired. He was a leader who “soaked” not only terrorists and certain oligarchs, but also bashed the United States and NATO when necessary. According to his army of supporters, Putin was precisely the strong man Russia needed to bring at least a modicum of order to a country that seems to be historically doomed to permanent chaos. But now, Putin’s strong arm isn’t performing the same wonders that it used to. Russians are placing new demands on him and his government. After millions witnessed blatant election fraud on Dec. 4, tens of thousands of people across the country demonstrated under the slogans “We are not cattle!” “Stop lying to us!” and “We demand respect!” But the anger goes much deeper than election falsifications. Many people are fed up with an arrogant, corrupt government that blatantly lies to them. In the good old days, Putin got away with the traditional principle, “the tsar is good, the boyars are bad.” But this trick, too, is not working anymore. On the contrary, an increasing number of people believe that “the fish rots from the head” and are holding Putin personally responsible for the systemic abuses of power under his rule. This is truly a tectonic shift in how many people relate to their national leader. Thus, it is not surprising that in December, Putin’s approval rating has slid to a record low — 51 percent, according to VTsIOM. What’s more, his trust rating has plummeted to an unprecedented 25 percent. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this drop is only a temporary phenomenon, that people have just gotten worked up emotionally after the elections. Peskov is confident that Putin’s popularity will soon return to its previous levels when the people see once again how much the government is doing for them. But this appears to be wishful thinking. Another example of how Putin seems to be in a state of denial and out of touch with reality was when he claimed during his call-in show a week ago that he didn’t hear how the crowd catcalled him last month in the ring at the Olimpiisky stadium. The millions who watched and listened to the tape on the Internet would find this hard to believe. It is no wonder that Putin also didn’t hear the even louder catcalls against him at the protests. Putin believes that there is only one explanation for the protests: Tens of thousands of “Bandar-log” monkeys across Russia acted at the bidding of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, we were told, paid them to show up and shout anti-Putin and anti-government slogans. At the same time, however, Putin tried to show that he is not too worried about it. “Let the guys earn a little money,” Putin said condescendingly during the call-in show. According to Putin’s version of events, the U.S. State Department and CIA are trying again to make an Orange Revolution in Russia, and they are doing so through locally hired “Judases” and other agent provocateurs. Putin is trying to warn Russians that the enemies are not only at the gate, that they have also formed a powerful internal fifth column that is trying to destroy the country with the help of the West. After all, they already destroyed the Soviet Union in 1991. As journalist Leonid Parfyonov said during his speech at the Bolotnaya Ploshchad protest, all of this talk of internal and external enemies and Western plots is “shameless rubbish.” U.S. President Barack Obama put it a bit more mildly two years ago when he said that Putin “has one foot in the old ways.” It is hard not to agree with him. It seemed as if Putin went out of his way during his call-in show to insult the majority of Russians who were angered by the vote-rigging. Putin said he thought that the demonstrators on Bolotnaya Ploshchad had condoms pinned to their chests and had gathered in a campaign to fight AIDS. After all, why would 50,000 people possibly demonstrate against election fraud when, as Putin said, the elections were carried out honestly and objectively, and their results reflected the opinions of the people? It is strange that he even noticed the Bolotnaya protests. After all, Putin was unaware of a Dec. 5 protest on Chistiye Prudy because, by his own admission, he was too busy attending hockey lessons. Of course, Putin has the right to express himself any way he likes — that U.S. Senator John McCain is crazy and bloodthirsty, that Russian Judases and jackals who take Western money are trying to destroy Russia; that it is necessary to strengthen the punishment for Russians who “carry out the orders of foreign states”; and that U.S. foreign policy is similar to that of the Third Reich. The problem is that Putin wants to have his cake and eat it, too. On the one hand, he has said repeatedly that Russia subscribes to democratic values and believes that the country is a legitimate part of the Western world. At same time, however, his provocative words and actions, such as allowing election fraud, alienates Russia even further from the West and brings Putin down to the level of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. Unfortunately, global reputation is usually not a constraining factor for autocrats — and particularly so if the autocrat rules a nuclear-armed country rich in oil and gas. Putin often points to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected U.S. president four times, to justify his own time in office. But Putin should listen to a much more modest man from his own circle — Boris Gryzlov, who last week resigned as speaker of the State Duma, saying, “It is not right to serve more than two terms.” When referring to Roosevelt, however, Putin conveniently ignores the fact that after Roosevelt’s presidency, the United States concluded that more than two presidential terms is not only wrong, but it is also potentially dangerous and harmful to the country. That is why in 1951, the United States ratified the 22nd amendment to the Constitution to limit future presidents to two terms in total. Former President Boris Yeltsin made a big mistake when he did not pay attention to three small but important words in Article 81 of the Constitution that limits the president to two terms — “in a row.” As a result, Russia now has a leader who will likely appropriate what amounts to a life term in office. Putin did an amazing snow job on everyone thanks not only to the Constitution that allowed him to leave the presidency and come back, but by constructing a power vertical that gave him virtual monopoly political control. And if you ask Putin about it, he would surely answer with his trademark complacent grin and a spark in his eyes that it was all done in complete accordance with the Constitution. Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times. TITLE: always a dissident: Why Russia No Longer Emulates the U.S. AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer TEXT: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has declared that those who participated in the recent wave of protests against rigged State Duma elections were encouraged and paid for by the United States. I don’t know whether Putin was misinformed or misled others, but there is not an iota of truth in these assertions, just as it is patently untrue that the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine was engineered by former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose influence on U.S. foreign policy Russians tend to greatly overestimate. The United States had very little to do with anti-government protests in Russia — unfortunately so. Russians don’t need money from Washington to fund their rallies. Putin clearly underestimates the financial resources of the country’s middle class, just as he underestimates the scope and seriousness of popular disaffection with his regime. In the run-up to the Dec. 24 rally, protest organizers collected about 3 million rubles ($96,000) in just a few days, much of which came from individual contributions of from 100 rubles to 500 rubles. Nor would the protesters have accepted money from the United States. Unlike in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the United States was very popular in Russia and was seen as a model for building the country’s future democracy, America has become a dirty word for many Russians. This has nothing to do with official Kremlin propaganda and is the result of Washington’s own actions. Over the past decade, the United States has completely squandered its moral authority. It started a war of aggression against Iraq, and — much like the Soviet Union — the United States has become overly self-righteous, nationalistic and ideological, and it often considers itself above international law. For more than a decade and spanning two presidents in the White House, it has operated a legally dubious jail in Guantanamo, where prisoners are still held for years without trial. Government officials who gave orders to ignore the Geneva Convention, run secret prisons, torture detainees and spy on Americans have gotten off scot-free. When Russians contemplate their political future after Putin, few look to Washington’s dysfunctional government as a model, nor do they want to emulate its mean-spirited, buffoonish politicians. Moreover, the Third World-like gap between rich and poor in the United States is hardly inspiring, particularly since Russia has had plenty of the same at home over the past 12 years of Putin’s rule. It is a shame, really, because much of U.S. democracy is directly relevant to Russia. For example, the U.S. concept of separation of powers is crucial in reining in the country’s traditionally strong executive. Soviet and post-Soviet Russian rulers have all too often looked and acted like tsars, not elected leaders. The U.S. Constitution was devised specifically to make sure that no president becomes an autocrat. U.S. respect for rule of law can also be crucial in a country that tends to suffer from periodic personality cults. Finally, the U.S. tradition of tolerance and acceptance of different religions, nationalities and races should also be useful for Russia as it rapidly becomes a melting pot and a country of immigrants. The United States is going through a crisis. It is, above all, a crisis of democracy. It currently does not present a particularly appealing face to the rest of the world. But I hope that the rising, democratic Russia will not give up on it. Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist. TITLE: Girls on top AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: Iva Nova, a local all-women band that blends Slavic folk, punk and avant-rock into a wild, danceable mix, is preparing to perform its traditional New Year concert on January 1. This passing year brought a number of new songs and a video. Directed by the Akhe Theater’s Pavel Semchenko, the improvised video is to the song “Yaga” and will be available on YouTube early next year. “Yaga” is one of the more radio-friendly songs of “K Sebe Nezhno” (Treat Tenderly), Iva Nova’s second full-length studio album, released on Moscow label Geometriya – whose releases include those by such sophisticated art rock bands as Auktyon and Vezhlivy Otkaz – last year. “On the album, we grew a little heavier – we had started to use more metal objects in concerts by then, and our new songs are in a similar vein,” says Katya Fyodorova, the band’s drummer and founder. “On earlier records, we were more folk, we had more traditional stuff, and it seemed more like pop to me. Now, when we start experimenting with noise and stuff, it’s more interesting to me as a musician. It’s more complex.” Iva Nova, which tends to sound raw and high-energy live, comes across sounding cleaner on record. “The records tend to sound more pop, more polished, clean,” Fyodorova says. “That’s why we started to mix everything at [experimental musician] Nikolai Sudnik’s workshop. So that he could make it rawer, more punk.” According to Fyodorova, arrangements get more complex on record. “It’s more interesting for us – because we write for ourselves, first and foremost. But we don’t invent complicated measures, intentionally. One can always hear when something is made complex deliberately. Our songs are simply born like this, in a natural way. “Drive is crucial for our performance, but we lack it on record. That’s why we try to compensate for it by adding more instruments, such as saxophones, all kind of percussion, overdubs when we have not one accordion, but three or four. More different layers, so that it won’t sound flat.” Saying that “Yaga” is “radio-friendly” does not mean the song is in heavy rotation. In fact, bands such as Iva Nova are seldom on air anywhere. “Both Auktyon and [our band] are ‘non-format,’ even to Nashe Radio [which specializes in Russian rock],” Fyodorova says. “They choose one song which more or less fits, ask us to cut it so it would fit a 2-minute 30-second slot, we do it and then they might take it. It can be shorter but not longer, so we have to edit out an instrumental break or a solo. “It’s a vicious circle; the provinces don’t invite us because we are not on the radio. A small percentage hears about us on the Internet or through the grapevine, but it’s not enough to come and play a big concert.” In Moscow, Iva Nova occasionally gets invited by producer and presenter Mikhail Kozyrev to Serebryany Dozhd radio/cable television channel, which also features acts such as Moscow-based world music singer Inna Zhelannaya, Fyodorova says. Iva Nova has traveled to Western Europe since 2004, after the release of its eponymous debut album, performing in clubs and at festivals. Its next tour, with gigs mostly in Germany, is due in March. Formed in 2002 on the ashes of their former band Babslei, the band made its debut at now-defunct seminal underground rock club Moloko on Sept. 7 of the same year. The core of Iva Nova consists of Fyodorova, Inna Lishenkevich, who also played with Babslei, and singer Nastya Postnikova, who has been with the band since Jan. 2005. Accordion player Natalya Potapenko and bassist Natalya Nazarova joined in May 2008 and Oct. 2010, respectively. “There’s nothing you can do about it, a person either changes her lifestyle and leaves, or it’s down to family reasons – there’re no other reasons, as a rule,” Fyodorova says. Iva Nova’s original musicians, vocalist Vera Ogaryova and bassist Yelena Novikova, who both quit in 1994/95, formed the folktronica duo Velena, which made its debut in Sept. 2009. “We played with them once, at Iva Nova’s birthday concert last year,” Fyodorova says. “It was sad to part with Vera, we formed the band together, she had a very colorful voice, but she gave birth to two children, one after another, and said, ‘I can’t tour.’ Now the kids have grown up a little and she formed Velena.” Turning ten next year, Iva Nova is preparing to perform a long rap poem, written by Lishenkevich, about the band’s history. “It’s about the entire ten years of Iva Nova’s existence, with all the characters, anecdotes, tours – it’s quite challenging for us to do a rap, but we’re getting ready to do it, maybe with quotes from the songs, plus a video taken from all kinds of footage made over those ten years,” Fyodorova says. “We listen to rap now, and maybe we’ll hang out with a local rap band so they can teach us a little.” Apart from Iva Nova, Fyodorova performs with Sudnik’s avant-garde/industrial project ZGA, and FIGS, the drum ‘n’ bass trio that also features drummers Alexei Ivanov of Soyuz Kommercheskogo Avangarda and The Noise of Time’s Marcus Godwyn. Fyodorova met Ogaryova again on ZGA’s upcoming recording, dedicated to 100 Years of Futurism. “It’s mostly strange metal objects because it’s about futurism, but the previous one was an ambitious work, all sung in Latin, sounding very grand,” she says. “We played some pieces in concert, but it was difficult to balance between ten classical musicians and my drums. “I had to play very quietly, because a violin player would go deaf, if I’d bang on something. They were chamber concerts. But on record it’s for real, with metal and marches.” Despite its unconventional set of instruments, Fyodorova describes FIGS as “dance music.” “It was more avant-garde in the beginning, when we had Sudnik, but he switched to other projects after the first album,” she says. “It was much more difficult to travel, because he had twenty trunks of metal pieces and rainwater pipes. “Yes, it’s loud, but it’s highly rhythmicised, highly structured – improvisation is allowed only within a structure. It’s quite pop.” Iva Nova will perform at 9 p.m. on Sunday, January 31 at Fish Fabrique Nouvelle, located at 53 Ligovsky Prospekt. Tel. 764 4857. TITLE: Vysotsky Recreated for First Biopic AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: MOSCOW — Thirty-one years after Vysotsky’s death during the Moscow Olympics, the first-ever biopic has made it to the screen, drawing crowds, controversy and some displeasure from fans of one of the most revered artists in the Soviet Union. Singer, theater and film actor Vysotsky was a hero to millions around the Soviet Union and especially loved for his songs, whether his husky voice was singing satirical sketches on Soviet life or war songs. Finding an actor to play such a charismatic man and getting the audience to accept him in the role was impossible, so filmmakers decided to recreate Vysotsky. The actor who plays Vysotsky was made up for five hours every day before filming. He does look like Vysotsky, but many are not convinced by the double, complaining of something unreal about the creation. “If I could play the role with my own face, it would distract the viewer,” said the anonymous actor who plays Vysotsky in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, “This is an actor who played this and that. Here is Vysotsky and nothing else.” Filmmakers have refused to say who plays Vysotsky, but many suspect that it is actor Sergei Bezrukov, who plays a minor role in the film. Bezrukov has denied it, but that could be a PR stunt. “Vysotsky: Grateful for Being Alive” focuses on one episode a year before his death, when he was on a concert tour to the Uzbek republic and collapsed, suffering clinical death. The script for the film was written by Vysotsky’s son, Nikita. In a rare television interview, Vysotsky once modestly described himself as just a singer, but in a country where rock music was banned and show business didn’t exist the country’s most beloved bard lived a rock star life. “Vysotsky let himself do what not even Brezhnev would do,” said former Liberal Democrat Alexei Mitrofanov, who knew Vysotsky when he was alive. He famously had one of the few Mercedes in the country — the car company sponsors the film — and an expensive drug habit. His girlfriend in the film is shown bringing him drugs to Uzbekistan. However, the film is as much about the characters who surround Vysotsky as about the singer, the hangers-on, the privileged life of party secretaries and KGB sympathizers. The agency spied on Vysotsky, but he also had powerful fans in high circles, which is believed to have saved him from trouble. “Vysotsky in the film is an object, not a subject: He is openly used and, if they are worried about his health, then it is about the health of a chicken that lays the golden egg,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta wrote. One of the highlights of the film is Andrei Smelyakov, who plays a KGB officer watching over Vysotsky as he investigates the organizers of his Tashkent concert. Smelyakov’s character is shown hearing the news of Vysotsky’s clinical death, and his eyes tear up in one of the strongest scenes in the movie. The film has had mixed reviews but has been a hit with Russian viewers, with $21 million at the box office since it opened two weeks ago. “People want to see such a hero. Today we live in a time without heroes,” said the anonymous actor who plays Vysotsky. TITLE: in the spotlight: Back to the Grindstone AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas TEXT: This week, the State Duma opened for business with the new deputies including actress Maria Kozhevnikova, 27, who once posed for Playboy and this year was voted Russia’s sexiest woman by the readers of men’s magazine Maxim. The actress is best known for playing a dumb blonde called Allochka in the student comedy series “Univer,” with the catchphrase “pipets” (“fiddlesticks”). She also presents a dating show on Muz-TV and once dabbled in pop, joining a girl group called Lyubovniye Istorii (Love Stories). None of which are obvious qualifications for becoming a member of parliament. But then again, she is joining an eclectic lineup, including the giant boxer Nikolai Valuyev, hunky tennis player Marat Safin and the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova. “Maybe thanks to Allochka, our young people will get more interested in serious politics,” Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote optimistically. Recently Kozhevnikova became one of the figureheads of the Young Guard youth movement on its public council, regularly issuing anodyne statements about motherhood and children’s issues. And maybe she always had it in her: Even her Playboy interview had a hint of head girl primness about it. She told the magazine that “I’m probably not a 21st-century girl” as it unsuccessfully grilled her on her love life. “I’ve never had sex. I think people should make love,” she said, while posing in nothing but Christian Louboutin heels on the leather seats of a Mercedes. She later told Moskovsky Komsomolets in March that she regretted doing the shoot. “I didn’t have the courage just to turn around and leave,” she said. Her selection as a candidate certainly raised eyebrows and it-girl and media personality Ksenia Sobchak laid into her on Twitter, posting photographs of Kozhevnikova sitting down in barely-there skirts that revealed hints of her underwear. “Maria, how did you manage to become a Duma deputy?” “Women have their secrets,” she wrote in one of her more printable comments. It was not clear when the photographs were taken, and no doubt Kozhevnikova will dress more soberly in the Duma. She told Moskovsky Komsomolets in March that her style icon was designer Victoria Beckham, and that she tried to dress “femininely in a classic style.” Sobchak linked Kozhevnikova’s swift rise to power to her father, Alexander Kozhevnikov, a famous Soviet-era ice hockey player-turned-commentator. “Daddy plays hockey with Shoigu,” Sobchak commented acidly, referring to Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu. In fact the actress’s father even played hockey with Putin last month at a charity event covered on the prime minister’s web site. “I wonder who Maria Kozhevnikova is working under?” Sobchak mused in an unsubtle double entendre. She even expressed the hope that the actress would leave off her panties at a meeting with Vladimir Putin and do a Sharon Stone-style move while asking him a question. The reason for the personal attacks was unclear, but tabloids said Sobchak was bitter about Kozhevnikova stealing one of her boyfriends. Kozhevnikova is certainly not going to be manning the barricades at election protests, unlike Sobchak, who made an appearance at the Dec. 10 rally. She warned people against going to a “dubious political scrum” in a statement on the United Russia web site, accusing the opposition of “trying to do all that it can to split us apart and stop us from getting on. To make Russia weak and controlled from outside.” She also spoke recently at President Dmitry Medvedev’s much criticized appearance at Moscow State University’s journalism faculty, when the more radical journalism students were not allowed in. She breathily told Medvedev that she hoped he’d seen her in “Univer,” adding plaintively that “I understand if you haven’t. You have very little free time.” In November, she was given a jeweled crown and a Mazda car in a ceremony organized by Maxim, after its readers voted her the sexiest woman. Afterward, she told RIA-Novosti modestly: “I don’t make any effort to be seductive. I was born like this. It’s my parents I should thank.” Her love life is a mystery. A fellow television presenter Viktoria Bonya, who was a long-running contestant on the trashy reality show “Dom-2,” hinted on her blog that she has a wealthy protector. Her account is hardly impartial since the two appear to have fallen out after once being photographed kissing at a party. Bonya has even claimed that Kozhevnikova’s Maxim-sexiest title was plagued by vote-rigging (she came in third). Kozhevnikova commented cryptically in a March interview with the Vechernyaya Moskva newspaper that “I try to combine work and my personal life. And so far it is working out. So I am warmed by love.” Not exactly a radical feminist, she told the newspaper that “if you want a man to be with you, stop trying to overtake him on the bends. A woman should fulfill herself professionally, but should never forget that our main purpose is to be a mother and wife.” TITLE: THE DISH: Magnolia AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: Gorgeous Georgia It should immediately be admitted that our attempt to get a feel for this relatively new Georgian on the Petrograd Side was hampered by one of those horrific events that assails Petersburg at this time of year. Yes, on the evening that we dined at Magnolia, the restaurant had been booked for that most fearsome of things, a korporativ. For those not familiar with this particular form of torture, this is a corporate event held for staff, with the sort of audience participation fun and games that have native personnel beaming smiles of joy, and the rest of us weeping in the toilet, our head in our hands, distraught at the crushing levels of social embarrassment that we have sunken to. Magnolia is a large, two-story restaurant with seating for about a 150 and vast glass floor-to-ceiling windows on its ground floor. As we arrived, through those vast glass panels, we could see the staff attending this particular, all twelve of them, being led on a festive conga through the expanses of this otherwise deserted eatery. Once inside, the grotesquely amplified voice of the evening’s host and master of ceremonies simply wouldn’t let up. We sort refuge in a distant corner on the upper level. This was unfortunate, as it was clearly not in keeping with the general vibe at Magnolia, which is muted, minimalist, stylish and understated. Those are not words that you would usually associate with a Georgian restaurant, but Magnolia has its own approach and much to recommend it. It also differed in that whilst a lot of the Georgian food served in the city can be excessively heavy, and loaded down with oil, here there was a lightness that almost had you believing you were eating tasty health food. The satsivi starter (480 rubles, $15) was a good example of this — fried chicken in a spicy, nutty yoghurt sauce, with none of the oil-slick risks that this dish can sometimes bring. The spinach phalli (480 rubles, $15) was also something of a revelation. Inaccurately described in the English-language menu as “meatballs of spinach,” it was in fact more like a large healthy cottage cheese and spinach dip, great on bread (a freshly baked basket is a snip at 60 rubles, $2). When asked about the “Jewish khachapuri” (320 rubles, $10), our helpful waitress told us that it was something of a specialty of the restaurant’s head chef, who is of Georgian-Jewish descent. It was well worth trying — khachapuri, a Georgian cheese bread, is always a winner, and this large flaky-pastry variant, with melted cheese on the inside, didn’t disappoint. These starters slightly put our main courses in the shade. The khinkali (420 rubles, $13,50) — large meat dumplings — were good, if nothing out of the ordinary, and the very healthy lamb chakapuli (600 rubles, $19) — large chunks of lamb in a clear, salty broth — left you slightly missing the more traditional Georgian approach, with lashings of richness, oil and spices. As the party host on the floor below us entered into an ear-splitting introduction to a bawdy round of truth-or-dare with his captive korporativ audience, we couldn’t help making plans for further investigation of Magnolia in the post-party season. TITLE: Journeying to Father Frost’s Hometown AUTHOR: By Alexander Winning PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: The Russian north has always held a fairy-tale appeal for its wooden architecture, historical monuments and expanses of forest, marshland and lakes. Nestled in the northeastern corner of the Vologda region, the town of Veliky Ustyug is no exception. Though a small settlement of some 30,000 people, it boasts a venerable historical pedigree and enjoys a special cachet among tourists after being designated the “hometown” of Ded Moroz in 1998. A figure akin to Santa Claus in the West, Ded Moroz (or Father Frost) traditionally brings presents to children on New Year’s Eve. Snegurochka (or Snow Maiden), his granddaughter, typically accompanies him at Russian Christmas celebrations. After being originally declared “an ally of the priest and kulak” following the 1917 Revolution, Ded Moroz made something of a comeback from the 1930s onward, though donning a blue coat so as not to be mistaken with the bourgeois Santa Claus or detract from the revolutionary importance of the color red. It is fair to say that the decision to name the town Ded Moroz’s official residence, taken by former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and the Vologda regional administration, has had a dramatic impact on Veliky Ustyug — not least by injecting a new lease of life into its flagging tourist industry and by making its post office one of the busiest in the world. It has also put the town in direct competition with the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, Finland, which boasts an equally impressive number of visitors and a 50-year plus history. Despite this, there appears to be little friction between the two towns — a delegation from Finland amiably visited Veliky Ustyug to take part in a tourism conference earlier this year. Between 1998 and 2000, the number of tourists visiting the region rose from 2,000 to 32,000 a year and has kept on growing. By 2009, more than 200,000 people had visited Ded Moroz’s Votchina (Russian for “estate”). Similarly, Veliky Ustyug’s post office claims to have answered more than 1.2 million letters addressed to the blue-coated gift-giver. The Ded Moroz legend now exerts such an influence over town life that the imaginary figure even makes a prominent public appearance in the summer months, typically taking to a float as part of celebrations in the town’s annual parade. But scratch the surface, and you will find that there is much more to Veliky Ustyug than seasonal tours and Christmas cheer. The town is blessed with one of the finest architectural ensembles in all of the Russian north — all the more impressive since uncontrollable fires successively wiped out many of the town’s oldest wooden buildings, necessitating repeated reconstruction efforts. In particular, Veliky Ustyug prides itself on its centuries-old Orthodox Christian churches, of which there are more than a dozen dating to the 16th and 17th centuries in the center alone. Among the most memorable are the 1648 Church of the Ascension, the late 17th-century Church of St. Nicholas and the 1760s Church of St. Simeon the Stylite. The town’s Cathedral Court houses the 17th-century Assumption Cathedral — the first such stone construction in the Russian north, notable for its needle-like bell tower — and six other churches dedicated to local saints that occupy a prominent position on the left embankment of the Sukhona River. Nearby, the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsky and Trinity-Gleden monasteries complete Veliky Ustyug’s religious heritage, and the 19th-century mansions of Alaskan explorer Mikhail Buldakov and merchant Grigory Usov add a sense of grandeur and history to the town center. Aside from the town’s architectural monuments, Veliky Ustyug stands out for its folk traditions and local craftsmen, who practice techniques pioneered by their fathers and grandfathers before them. Historically, the town is known for its leather and enamel work — but it is the town’s silversmiths who really made a name for themselves, earning commissions from Russia’s imperial capital St. Petersburg. Their chosen technique, niello work on silver, lives on to this day, with the Severnaya Chern company still a major local employer, selling finished silver goods at home and abroad. Today, Veliky Ustyug retains a quiet, peaceful charm. While its population has been in decline since 1980, its sleepy streets lined with 18th- and 19th-century houses have been well preserved and make for excellent viewing as part of a picturesque walking tour. Located on the confluence of the Sukhona and Yug rivers — both tributaries of the Severnaya Dvina River and the last of which gives the town its name, which translates as “mouth of the Yug” — Veliky Ustyug also enjoys a scenic location, relatively far from large cities and surrounded by unspoiled landscape. In this way, whether visiting in search of an authentic Christmas experience, to marvel at the town’s religious architecture or to enjoy a spot of peace and quiet, Veliky Ustyug makes for a great destination all year round. What to see if you have two hours If other commitments are likely to whisk you away, head to the Cathedral Court, the perfect place to start a brief walking tour of Veliky Ustyug. Take in the churches that surround you before strolling along the town’s embankment, where the Buldakov and Usov mansions are located. Turning your back to the Sukhona River and heading north, you should cross Sovietsky Prospekt until you reach Krasnaya Ulitsa. The town’s principal street, it offers views of the Smolnikovskoye Lake and the chance to pause before yet more sightseeing. Running parallel, Ulitsa Pokrovskogo should be your final stop — here you’ll find another cluster of religious buildings, including the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsky Monastery, alongside Krasnoarmeiskaya Ulitsa, which will lead you back to the Cathedral Court where you set off. What to do if you have two days For the more leisurely visitor, a visit to the Veliky Ustyug State Historical Art and Architecture Museum (62 Naberezhnaya Ulitsa; +7 81738-2-35-76; ustjug.museum.ru) is a must. The museum’s exhibits chart the development of Veliky Ustyug and the surrounding area through local archaeological artifacts and more recent historical documents. True to the town’s traditions, its main collection includes an especially impressive collection of niello work on silver, enamel objects and carvings on birch bark. If you long for a change of scene, then a short excursion to the nearby village of Dymkovo may be the solution. Although its attractions are similar to those of its better-known neighbor, its wooden houses and 18th-century churches are set in a still sleepier setting. Dymkovo also offers excellent views of Veliky Ustyug and the Cathedral Court in particular from the right bank of the Sukhona River. How to organize a trip to see Ded Moroz The Ded Moroz tourist business (85 Sovietsky Prospekt; +7 81738-2-23-04; oao-dedmoroz.ru) specializes in arranging excursions to the Votchina complex, some 12 kilometers from Veliky Ustyug. The company offers a range of tours, each with different prices depending on the length of your stay and time of year you choose to visit. Day trips include all meals, transfers and activities and cost about 3,000 rubles ($100) before Dec. 15, rising to 4,000 rubles for adults between Dec. 15 and 31. Longer trips can last as long as three days and include overnights stays in Votchina, with the company’s flagship tour stretching over New Year’s Eve and incorporating ice skating, snowmobiling, folk traditions, staff performances, a tour of Veliky Ustyug, all meals, accommodation and transportation. This package costs about 20,000 rubles per person for adults and children alike. Where to eat Given its size, Veliky Ustyug is unlikely to be a major hit with gourmands. But locals recommend Restoran na Uspenskoi (72 Sovietsky Prospekt; +7 81738-2-20-64), a Soviet-style restaurant offering affordable, tasty fare on the town’s main street. Here a meal for three people, excluding alcohol, comes to about 1,000 rubles ($32). Where to stay Since being named the “hometown” of Ded Moroz, the town’s accommodation infrastructure has expanded remarkably. Now, the pick of the lot is probably Hotel Dvina (104 Krasnaya Ulitsa; +7 81738-2-03-48; hotel-dvina.ru), owing to its comfortable rooms and central location near many of the town’s architectural sites. Here rooms can cost between 1,100 rubles ($35) for a single and 2,300 rubles for a double. Another option close by is Hotel Sukhona (12 Krasny Pereulok; +7 81738-2-15-13; hotelsuhona@vologda.ru), set in a 1970s building. Rooms start at 1,300 rubles for a single to 3,400 rubles for a double.