SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1694 (5), Wednesday, February 8, 2012
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TITLE: City Police Chief Fired, Riot Police Seal Off Police Headquarters 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg police chief Mikhail Sukhodolsky was removed from his position Friday amid drama at the city’s police headquarters.

Armed OMON special task force officers blocked the entrance and exit to the headquarters of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police, located at 50-52 Suvorovsky Prospekt, on Friday afternoon, Fontanka.ru news site reported.

The former police chief later left the building, Fontanka reported.

Earlier Friday, it was announced that President Dmitry Medvedev had signed an order relieving Sokhodolsky of his duties as head of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police force.

At a press conference swiftly arranged on Friday afternoon, Sukhodolsky said that under his leadership, the city’s police officers had begun to be proud of their work, Fontanka reported. 

The news service quoted him as saying that he did not know the reason for his dismissal, since the president had not included a reason in the document confirming his decision.
 
The dismissal follows reports of infighting and rivalry between Sukhodolsky and his deputy, Sergei Umnov, as well as between Sukhodolsky and Internal Affairs Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev. Some analysts had speculated that Sukhodolsky could replace Nurgaliyev after the March 4 presidential elections.

The dismissal also follows the death of Nikita Leontyev, a 15-year-old boy who died in late January after being taken into police custody in the Nevsky district of St. Petersburg. 

Denis Ivanov, a 24-year-old policeman, later confessed to having beaten the boy while he was in custody, though the police at first denied any role in the death. 

Two of Ivanov’s superiors were fired over the incident, and one of them, Alexei Malykh, died of a heart attack on Feb. 5.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the Ministry of Internal Affairs had sent a group of 30 specialists to St. Petersburg to investigate the case. 

At that time, Sukhodolsky said his team was not afraid of the inspection, but that he was surprised that such an inspection had been ordered, as he considered St. Petersburg police to have reacted appropriately to the case.

As of Friday afternoon, it remained unclear whether the OMON raid at police headquarters was connected to the Leontyev case or not.

TITLE: Gazprom Expects to Increase Exports for 2012
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Gazprom expects to increase its 2012 exports to Europe by 154 billion cubic meters with an average export price higher by 3.2 percent at $415 per thousand cubic meters, a press release for investors said, RIA-Novosti reported.

Gazprom forecasted in June that the average price for last year would reach $402 per thousand cubic meters, versus $305.40 for 2010.

Last year Gazprom exported 150 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe.

The largest buyers of gas in 2011 were Germany and Turkey, which purchased 34 billion (up 0.1 percent) and 26 billion cubic meters (up 44.3 percent) respectively. Supplies to Italy surged nearly 30 percent, while deliveries to Central Europe declined by about five percent.

Revenue for 2011 is projected to be $150 billion, a 27 percent increase over 2010.

Earlier this year, ExxonMobil edged out Gazprom to become the world's most profitable publicly traded energy company with profits of $41.1 billion, versus Gazprom's $40 billion.


TITLE: Oil Prices Up on Greek Debt Deal
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: World oil prices rose Monday on news of parliament's approval of a deal that will allow Greece to escape default on its $360 billion debt.

The price of March futures of benchmark crude oil West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose 0.93 percent to $99.59 per barrel, while the March futures for Brent crude rose 0.82 percent to $118.27 per barrel, RIA Novosti reported.

199 of the Greek parliament's 300 deputies voted in favor of the deal. "This suggests that Greece is indeed ready to undertake all necessary reforms," chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney Ric Spooner said, Bloomberg reported.

The underlying driver of price dynamics remains the situation in Iran and the status of its nuclear program, which prompted the European Union to impose an embargo on Iranian oil.


TITLE: Lavrov in Syria to Strongly Back Assad
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Tuesday, sending a clear message that Russia intends to stand by its strongest ally in the Middle East amid an international outcry over the country's response to a civil revolt.

Lavrov and foreign intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov were given a royal welcome by thousands of pro-Assad supporters, who rallied in the streets waving Russian flags in thanks to Russia's veto over the weekend of a UN resolution calling for tough sanctions on the Syrian regime. Syrian state television declared that 1 million people came out to greet Lavrov.

"Efforts to stop violence have to be met with dialogue by all the political forces," Lavrov said after the meeting, Interfax reported. "Today we received confirmation of the readiness of the president of Syria for this work."

The visit by Russia's most senior diplomat came as several countries — including the United States and Britain — pulled their ambassadors out of Damascus and pressure mounted on Assad over a bloody crackdown on an armed insurrection against his authoritarian rule.

"Today was a disappointing one for all those who aspire to build a new kind of relationship between the United States and Russia. Great powers have great responsibilities," U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul wrote on his Facebook page. "[I am] Hoping for new progress in coming hours and days before it's too late in Syria."

Syria's opposition had earlier turned down Moscow's offer to organize negotiations in Russia between them and government leaders.

The United Nations has reported that the violence in Syria has left at least 5,400 civilians dead. Syrian officials say 2,000 soldiers have died while fighting what they claim are foreign-backed rebels.

While Lavrov said Assad promised to open up dialogue with opposition leaders, violence continued to escalate in the country as government forces resumed the bombardment of the city of  Homs, an opposition stronghold, Reuters reported.

Analysts said the presence of Russia's intelligence chief on the trip indicated that Russia will continue its military support to Syria, a major ally dating back to Soviet times.

On Saturday, Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution calling for increased pressure on Assad. Both Moscow and Beijing said they were worried foreign powers would use the resolution as a basis for a military intervention similar to that in Libya, where rebels — largely helped by a NATO bombing campaign — overthrew and killed Colonel Moammar Gadhafi last year.

Lavrov earlier said "regime change is not our occupation" and stated that the resolution put all the blame on the Assad government's side and none on the opposition.

"There is not one single, but many sources of violence," Lavrov said.

Lavrov's sentiments were backed by some Russian Middle East experts who believe that the struggle against Assad's secular regime could unleash radical Islamist forces in the country.

While fears over the increased radicalization of the Middle East are real, experts say Russia's main concern is to keep Syria as its only dependable ally in the Middle East.

"The loss of Syria would be catastrophic, and we should hold on to it at any price," said Igor Korotchenko, a military expert and an editor of the Natsionalnaya Oborona magazine.

He said Fradkov's presence shows that Russia is serious in defending the interests of its old ally.

"Russia can provide Assad intelligence information that foreign countries might be behind the opposition" he said.
"Primakov was Fradkov's master, if you will, regarding the Middle East," Theodor Karasik, a senior expert with the Enigma think tank in Dubai, told the Moscow Times.

"Fradkov's travel to Syria is important because this trip fits into other reporting about GRU assistance to defend Damascus in a Western-Arab coalition military response," Karasik said.
Military expert Alexander Perenzhiyev called Syria Russia's "last frontier" in the Middle East.

"If it is lost, we will be valued as a second-class state," he said, adding that Russia might even deploy military advisers to counter the threat of foreign intervention.

His position was echoed by presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party.

"Let's hope that Russia will not leave Syria alone," he said, according to Interfax. "We have to support all countries which resist the United States."

Another presidential candidate, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, said Russia should continue efforts to force dialogue between the opposition and the government.

"But the opposition should be looked at carefully to make sure who are criminals sent by the West to topple a legitimate power," he said.

Billionaire presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov said Tuesday that while he understands the criticism of Assad, he does not support the radical opposition. He said Russian business and military interests in Syria — which amount to $20 billion — should be taken into account.

Syria is among the largest buyers of Russian weapons, and contracts signed with the country amount to $3.5 billion, Vyachaslav Dzirkaln, deputy head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said in November.

The country is also home to a small Russian naval base built during Soviet times, which functions as a Russian-only port beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union.

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of political magazine Russia in Global Affairs, told Reuters on Tuesday that Lavrov's visit was an indication to Assad that Russia did "everything possible" by vetoing the UN resolution.

"Now the main task for Lavrov is to tell Assad that if there is no visible change in Syria, then regardless of the Russian position he should be bracing for external military measures," Lukyanov said.

TITLE: United Russia to Undergo Rebranding
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: United Russia is searching for a way to reinvent itself, considering options ranging from a name change to dissolving the party and creating new factions, several high-placed party officials told newspaper Izvestiya on Friday.

As the leadership of United Russia has begun to doubt the survivability of its brand, officials are beginning serious discussions about the future of the country's dominant political party.

Political analyst and party member Olga Kryshtanovskaya said she was confident the rebranding would take place.

"We need to work on our mistakes, develop a coherent ideology, and also find a leader. We have to find a way out of this jelly, when we have neither Putin, Medvedev, nor Gryzlov at the helm," she said.

Senior United Russia official Yury Shuvalov said that while the idea of renewing the party has been brought forward before, "those at the top are no longer allergic to these discussions."

In January, Shuvalov suggested splitting the party into liberal, social and patriotic factions.

One unnamed official said the idea of liquidating the party was not out of the question. "The option of creating new parties is being discussed," he said.


TITLE: Putin Proposes Shortening Winter Vacation
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday proposed shortening the length of the 10-day New Year holidays and adding extra vacation days later in the year.

"I propose limiting all of these Christmas holidays until exactly Jan. 7, Christmas, and the rest of these free days can be moved to, say, May," the prime minister said, RIA-Novosti reported.

The 2011-2012 New Year holidays spanned 10 days, from Dec. 31 to Jan. 9, while the Russian labor code stipulates only Jan. 1 to 5 and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated Jan. 7, as official holidays.

Russia's other official holidays are Defender of the Fatherland Day (Feb. 23), International Women's Day (March 8), May Day (May 1), Victory Day (May 9), Russia Day (June 12), and Unity Day (Nov. 4).


TITLE: U.S. Travel Agency Accuses Aeroflot of Extortion
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A Los Angeles-based travel agency has filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court against Russian airline Aeroflot and two of its representatives, alleging that the pair demanded bribes for each ticket sold by the U.S. tour agency.

In the lawsuit filed Feb. 2, LA Riviera Travel & Tours is seeking damages in the amount of $3.4 million dollars, alleging that Aeroflot representatives Andrei Novokshonov and Aleksei Aleksandrov sought to systematically extort bribes from the travel company, Vedomosti reported Thursday.

The tourist agency also claimed that the representatives made good on a threat of retaliation for non-payment of the bribes. Passengers who had purchased tickets with Riveria were barred from boarding flights, and managers at Aeroflot demanded the passengers purchase new tickets.

Aeroflot responded with allegations of its own, stating that the agency's complaints were a reaction to accusations first brought by Aeroflot and that the airline's accusations were more serious and provable. According to Aeroflot, Riviera Travel & Tours was engaged in a scheme to charge inflated prices but to report sales at a lower price.

Igor Sokolov, a senior lawyer with CMS, a law firm specializing in resolving international disputes, told Vedomosti that he sees the potential damage for Aeroflot's reputation as much more consequential than financial penalties if the airline is found to be in violation of the law.


TITLE: Rogozin Says Population Goal Should Be 500 Million
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Federal authorities have for years been pushing measures to encourage population growth, in an attempt to reverse the country's demographic downturn.

But Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin set the bar a whole lot higher Thursday, saying the country's goal should be a population of 500 million — more than triple its current size.
"140 million people—that's [too] little. The solution is either to complain that we have those Chinese people, or not to point to our neighbor but to have children. Without children Russia will not have a population of 500 million, which we absolutely need," Rogozin said in a speech to university students in Novosibirsk, RIA-Novosti reported.

Rogozin called for measures that authorities have advocated before, including cash incentives to promote large families and assistance to families in securing housing.

He also suggested creating new population centers across the country, including one that would help to develop eastern Russia.

"Incentives need to be created for developing the eastern part of the country. First, we have all the necessary resources for this, and secondly, the human 'gulf stream' washing people away from these regions needs to be stopped," Rogozin said.


TITLE: 43 Soldiers Fall Ill With Pneumonia in Krasnoyarsk
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: One soldier died and 42 have been hospitalized with pneumonia in the Krasnoyarsk region, prompting speculation that the temperature inside the soldiers' barracks was kept too low.
Eighteen-year-old Ivan Permitin, a private stationed in the Krasnoyarsk region town of Uzhur, died of septic shock Tuesday after being hospitalized with the illness, RIA-Novosti reported. Forty-two others in the unit have been hospitalized, Kommersant-FM reported Wednesday.

A Defense Ministry spokesperson told Kommersant-FM that the outbreak is due to a virus, citing doctors' evaluations of the afflicted military men.

But a Krasnoyarsk region deputy told the radio station there was reason to believe the conditions in the soldiers' barracks were to blame for the flare-up.

"I have a friend, and his son recently left that military unit and says that the temperature in the barrack where he served was 13 to 15 C. The fact remains: one serviceman has died, unfortunately," Krasnoyarsk assemblyman Yury Shvytkin said.

In September, 40 conscripts fell ill with pneumonia in the Voronezh region, and in January 2011 one soldier died of meningitis and 63 were hospitalized with pneumonia in the Chelyabinsk region. In the Chelyabinsk region case, an investigation discovered that a barrack's boiler had been destroyed, causing the inside temperature to drop to outdoor levels, Kommersant reported.


TITLE: Officer on Atomic Submarine Commits Suicide
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A senior lieutenant serving on the Gepard atomic submarine, part of the Northern Fleet, hanged himself in his cabin, Northern Fleet Investigative Committee spokesperson Alexander Kuratov said Monday, RIA-Novosti reported.
Maxim Galkin was found dead by his cabin mate late Saturday. No suicide note was found by investigators, Kuratov said.

Last month the Gepard submarine caught fire during a technical inspection while stationed at Northern Fleet submarine headquarters in the Murmansk region. No one was injured in the incident.


TITLE: Political Groups Unite to Express Anger at Putin
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The city saw its biggest protest rally in 20 years on Saturday, when thousands took to the streets to take part in political protest against electoral fraud and the current government. 
Estimates of the number of participants varied from 5,000 to 30,000 people, who marched 2.5 kilometers from Ligovsky Prospekt to Konyushennaya Ploshchad in the city center, despite temperatures of lower than 20 degrees Celcius.
Held as part of the For Honest Elections campaign of rallies across Russia one month before the presidential elections scheduled for March 4, slogans and banners at the local rally were mostly directed against would-be president Vladimir Putin. Protesters condemned both last year’s State Duma elections as being rigged, as well as violations in favor of Putin reported during the current presidential campaign.
The protesters were visibly annoyed by Putin’s declared intention to return to the presidency after having served two terms as the president and four years as the prime minister, totaling 12 years in power. “The third term will be a prison one,” read one sign. “Putin, St. Petersburg is ashamed of you,” read the other.
Although the marchers included political groups with flags and party symbols — ranging from communists to nationalists — most protesters appeared to be unaffiliated to any political group.
Many marchers did not stay for the stationary rally held on Konyushennaya Ploshchad, but dispersed to nearby cafes or went home.
The stationary rally — which featured speeches by authors Andrei Bitov and German Sadulayev, actress Larisa Dmitriyeva and historian and television presenter Lev Lurie – was marred by controversy when the nationalist Nikolai Bondarik, who spoke after Igor Kochetkov of the Coming Out LGBT rights organization, made homophobic remarks. 
He was soon forced off the stage, but a group of liberal organizers made a statement Monday claiming they would hold the next rally “without nationalist and radical left-wing organizations.” Bondarik was later criticized by some other nationalists, who described his behavior as “ugly.”
The protesters originally planned to march along Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, but City Hall opposed the route, offering a less central location instead. The authorities agreed to a protest in the city center days ahead of the event on the condition it didn’t take place on Nevsky, but on a number of parallel streets.
City Hall referred to “construction and roadwork” on Nevsky as the grounds for its position, but the organizers said it was keen to hide the protest from public view.
Unlike in Moscow, where a pro-Putin rally was organized to coincide with the protest, St. Petersburg authorities held a naval celebration near the Admiralty, luring people with free snacks and performances by pop singers such as Tatyana Bulanova, which took place at the same time as the march.
At one point in the stationary rally, the police blocked the embankment of the Griboyedov Canal, preventing people from exiting the rally onto Nevsky Prospekt. Additional police forces and police buses were located nearby, on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa, but no arrests were made.
Andrei Dmitriyev, the local chair of The Other Russia party, was prevented from attending the march due to what he described as a “police provocation.” Summoned to see investigator Vladimir Ronitsyn at 11 a.m., he was held at the offices of the Investigative Committee on the Moika River for hours while being told that the investigator was late due to heavy traffic, Dmitriyev said.
He attempted to get to the march by escaping the building through the mail-delivery window in the basement, but was detained by plainclothes policemen on St. Isaac’s Square and brought back, Dmitriyev said. He said that the investigator arrived 10 minutes after the rally had finished.
Speaking this week, Olga Kurnosova of the United Civil Front coalition described the march as “overwhelming” and said that future rallies should also be united civil events, rather than divided separate protests.
She added that speeches by political activists should be “kept to a minimum.”
“Political activists have already said everything they had to say,” Kurnosova said.
“There should be more new people; first and foremost, publicists, authors and musicians talking.”
Political protests were held in dozens of cities across Russia on Saturday. The Moscow protest was the largest, with numbers estimated at 38,000 by Moscow city officials and 208,000 by opposition organizations.
According to the web site Kasparov.ru, smaller solidarity protests were held in almost 30 cities abroad, from London to Berlin.
The next national anti-Putin protest is due to be held on Feb. 26, a week ahead of the presidential elections.

TITLE: Major in Teen Death Dies of Heart Attack
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Police Major Alexei Malykh, former acting deputy head of the criminal department where 15-year-old Nikita Leontiev died on Jan. 22 after being interrogated, died of a heart attack on Feb. 5, according to preliminary reports, local news site Fontanka.ru reported.
When the inspection into the boy’s death began, Malykh and Oleg Prokhorenko, the superiors of Denis Ivanov — the policeman arrested for brutally beating the teen — were fired, citing violation of service discipline.
On the night of the incident, Malykh and Prokhorenko were with Ivanov but neglected to stop him and did not provide Leontiev with first aid. 
Leontiev was detained by the policemen under suspicion of the attempted robbery of a 46-year-old woman. While being questioned at the police department, Leontiev was allegedly beaten by the 24-year-old Ivanov. Ivanov admitted hitting the boy once on the back with a broom and punching him in the head several times, Fontanka reported. 
The case concerning the boy’s death has become so high-profile that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has sent a group of 30 specialists to St. Petersburg to investigate the case, Interfax reported.
Mikhail Sukhodolsky, head of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast police, said his team were not afraid of the inspection, but that he was surprised that such an inspection had been ordered as he considered St. Petersburg police to have reacted appropriately to the case.

TITLE: Hospitalized Activist Blames Center E for Surprise Attack
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A local social activist says he was badly beaten in an attempt to prevent him from taking part in Saturday’s anti-Putin rally. 
Filipp Kostenko, who works at the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center, was on his way to work on Friday morning when he was attacked in a dark deserted park in the southwest of the city. 
Two athletically built men attacked him, knocked him to the ground and started beating and kicking him, he said, adding that he was not robbed. “What’s your name?” was the only phrase uttered by the attackers.
Kostenko, who was hospitalized with a concussion and a double leg fracture, said he suspected the attack was conducted or planned by counter-extremism Center E officers 
“I have received threats from both Center E officers and unknown people more than once,” Kostenko said in a statement after the attack.
“After I was released in January, I received a threat that people would find me and break my legs,” Kostenko said.
Kostenko was sentenced to 15 days in custody for taking part in an anti-electoral fraud protest on Dec. 6, but was not released as scheduled on Dec. 21. Instead he was rearrested right in the pre-detention center in which he was being held and was sentenced to another 15 days for allegedly insulting police officers back in October.
Then, early last month, Center E attempted to have Kostenko kept in the pre-trial center over a criminal case opened against him after a protest against police lawfulness held in March. On that occasion, however, the court ruled that there were no sufficient grounds for keeping him in custody.
“Center E has chosen an open terror tactic,” Kostenko said.
“They failed to imprison me and decided to scare me using force. But they won’t succeed.”
“The unknown men who attacked Kostenko attempted to break his legs and inflict head injuries, thus removing the activist from any protest activities during the pre-election period,” the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center  said in a statement.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Measles Outbreak</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg is facing a measles outbreak, with almost 90 cases having been registered in the city by Tuesday afternoon, RIA-Novosti reported.
The majority of those affected are children. Out of the 87 reported cases, 67 are children under 14 years old.
Cases have been registered in 10 city districts, primarily in the Krasnoselsky and Kirovsky districts. At least 92 percent of those infected had not been vaccinated against measles, RIA-Novosti reported.
The measles outbreak began in Children’s Hospital #1. The first reported case was a 15-year-old boy hospitalized in mid-January with a suspected case of viral pneumonia, which later turned out to be measles.
The city’s Health Committee has given the order to vaccinate all unvaccinated medical personnel and has asked hospital pediatricians to raise awareness among parents about how important it is for children to get the vaccine.
In Russia, most infants are first vaccinated when they turn one year old, and get a booster at age six.
<b>Finns Admit Mistake</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Finnish ombudsman Jussi Pajuoja has acknowledged that Finnish authorities acted illegally when they took Russian citizen Inga Rantala’s son Robert into care, Interfax reported.
Rantala’s son was taken from her after he told people at school that his mother spanked him. 
Social services in the Finnish town of Turku removed Robert from his family and placed him in a shelter. They also stripped his mother and Finnish father Veli-Pekka Rantala of their parental rights.
Social services cited conditions in the family as being “a danger to the child.” 
Following this, Robert’s parents left for St. Petersburg with the boy and now live in the city. However, in December of last year the Finnish Prosecutor demanded that Russia extradite the boy’s mother to attend a court hearing for allegedly beating her son.
Pajuoja said he believes that the situation with the child is very complicated and that his being taken from his family was unnecessary and against the boy’s interests, as well as a violation of Finnish law, Interfax reported.

TITLE: Local Queen of Fashion Releases Her Second Book
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: For some people, pink is the color of shyness, the shade of blushing cheeks. To others, it is the color of escapism and illusions, and even happiness — but of a particular kind, when you are wearing rose-tinted glasses.
St. Petersburg’s ironic fashion designer Tatyana Parfyonova has used pink as the title — and the color of the cover — of her second book, which explores the emotional sides of colors and tones.
In the book’s opening story, titled Pink, a teenage girl goes back to school after the summer vacation one chilly autumn morning, and leaves on her pink pajama shirt under her school uniform. In class, she drops a textbook and as she leans to pick it up, a tiny bit of her pajama top is revealed to the boy sitting behind her. “She is pink inside (underneath),” he announces, making the poor girl the laughing stock of the entire class. The girl slaps him on the face, thus sharing the color pink. Years later, as a university graduate with an arts degree under her belt, she works in a museum and travels the world. On a visit abroad, she is leaving a plane together with the crew. A young man in a pilot’s uniform looks up at her and asks, almost whispering, “What color are you inside?”
“Pink,” the young woman whispers back.
The book is essentially a selection of short stories, or, rather sketches, with a tangible fairytale feel to them. These miniature parables are as much about love, hope, timidity and other human emotions as they are about fashion and other material things. Although the author admits to having inserted a tiny autobiographical element into the stories — generally in the form of minor details — the book should be read as pure fiction. Parfyonova artfully, and sometimes ironically, bridges the two worlds — the spiritual and the material — that are so often in conflict. Fashionistas, for instance, are often wrongly seen as hopelessly materialist by their supposedly more spiritual critics, who in fact often turn out to be snobs.
“Pink” is a touching book, and not only because of the stories themselves. Half of the book consists of drawings by Parfyonova that are arranged to be used as a coloring book. Taken as a whole, “Pink” appeals directly to the curious, the creative and the romantic part of our ego, what psychologists would call the “inner child.”
In light of the coloring book element, it seems appropriate to ask the designer her thoughts on dressing children. There are many adults who develop a rigid black and white dress code as a form of ascesis in response to being laughed at or ridiculed as a child or teenager.
“One thing that is worth remembering is that children are not dolls,” says the designer. “Your main motivation when you choose clothes for your child should be love. You just need to care.”
Parfyonova’s first impressions of fashion came from her own family. “My mother had two sisters, and they were all very beautiful women,” she recalls. “They all had expansive and sophisticated wardrobes.”
She remembers opening a large wardrobe as a child and admiring the pretty dresses of her mother. “I admired the fabrics, and thought, if I cut a small bit of every dress, it probably won’t be a big deal,” she recalls. What she did with the fabric samples or what the mother did with the damaged dresses, Parfyonova does not remember. The main thing is that there was seemingly no punishment. “My sister and I were brought up with love,” the designer said. “We were never treated harshly or bitterly.”
With a degree from St. Petersburg’s Serov Arts College (now the Roerich Arts College) and a serious interest in the arts, Parfyonova once applied for a job as an interior designer in a fashion studio. She accompanied her application with a series of drawings showing a range of dresses and clothes that she would have wanted to buy for herself in the store. And from that point, there was no way out: She was begged to take a job as the studio’s fashion designer. 
Since 1995 Parfyonova has run her own fashion house, and has built an international reputation for herself. Her designs are favored by some of Russia’s finest artists, including Mariinsky Theater star soloist Diana Vishneva.
Unlike some of her colleagues, who have even furnished their offices with a comfortable coach of the kind that can be found at a psychoanalyst’s, Parfyonova talks to her visitors sitting at a large wooden table at the heart of her flagship store on Nevsky Prospekt.
The designer observes distance carefully and tactfully. She protects her privacy and respects the privacy of her clients. “I distinguish between doing my job and socializing,” she said. “And I offer fashion to my clients, not psychoanalysis.”
Talking to clients, however, can often be an emotional matter, even when the conversation is limited to discussing the order. “My first client was an elderly woman who needed a coat,” Parfyonova recalls. “She put her order very simply; she said, ‘this is going to be the last coat in my life.’ This may sound dramatic, but the woman was actually being painfully practical.” 
She then told the designer that she had had her previous coat for 20 years. The resulting coat was a straight gray one with which both the designer and the client were happy.
“Fashion is not art,” Parfyonova says, pointing to the wall of her dining room to illustrate her approach. The bookcase on the left is occupied by books about fashion, while the other, in the right-hand corner, is devoted to art. For the designer, fashion is rather a tool that people can use to express themselves. After all, it is not unknown for people to successfully achieve their social goals by using fashion intelligently and working with their image.
“A new look can seriously change your life,” the designer says. “A new look can attract new people to you, and sometimes people of a very particular kind, and, at the same time, other people might drift away. You need to acknowledge the power [of fashion].”

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Head of Health Leaves</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The head of the city’s Health Committee, Yury Scherbuk, left his position last week, Interfax reported.
His duties are currently being carried out by Vladimir Zholobov who was Scherbuk’s deputy.
Scherbuk became head of the committee in 2003. Before that he worked as the deputy head of St. Petersburg’s Military Medical Academy.

<b>MMM Ads Banned</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The city’s Legislative Assembly has approved deputy Alexei Timofeyev’s appeal to St. Petersburg governor Georgy Poltavchenko to take down advertisements for Sergei Mavrodi’s new financial structure “MMM-2011” from city streets, Interfax reported. 
Timofeyev argues that Mavrodi developed his new financial pyramid to con people out of their money. In Timofeyev’s opinion, Mavrodi was spending about a million dollars a month on outdoor advertising. 
“The massive introduction of these ads into people’s minds might provoke a social crisis and public disorders,” Timofeyev said in his appeal.
Mavrodi was the organizer of the biggest financial pyramid in Russia in the 1990s. He was sentenced to several years in jail for fraud after tens of thousands of investors lost a total of $4.3 million. 
After being released, Mavrodi organized another financial pyramid.

<b>Salty Streets</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg governor Georgy Poltavchenko visited Helsinki last week, taking note of how the city handles municipal services, including how snow is cleared from streets, Interfax reported.
Every winter, Helsinki municipal services use about 12,000 tons of salt and 40,000 tons of crushed granite to keep Helsinki’s streets free of ice, Poltavchenko’s press secretary Andrei Kibitov said.
Kibitov said St. Petersburg would launch a pilot project using crushed granite to protect against ice in one of the city’s regions.

TITLE: Campaign Begins With Testy Debate
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Communist Gennady Zyuganov and businessman Mikhail Prokhorov kicked off the presidential campaign season on Monday with a testy TV debate that centered on Zyuganov’s political accomplishments and Prokhorov’s connection to the chaotic 1990s.
The candidates repeated familiar promises and accusations, with Zyuganov pledging to bring “justice and socialism” and warning that a vote for his billionaire opponent was a vote for plutocracy. Prokhorov boasted about his business record and said Zyuganov had little to show for his almost 20 years in the State Duma.
The debate was tense from the beginning, as the candidates frequently interrupted and spoke over each other. The ugliest moments came when Zyuganov twice invoked Hitler to criticize Prokhorov, and Prokhorov called Zyuganov the successor to Soviet-era Communist leaders, whom he blamed for the deaths of millions.
“What moral right do you have to rule after what the Communists did?” Prokhorov said, prompting Zyuganov to later accuse him of disrespecting the accomplishments of the Soviet Union.
Though a more experienced debater, Zyuganov appeared to stumble when asked to list concrete proposals for strengthening Russia’s economy, and he vacillated on whether the Communists would confiscate private property if returned to power, reiterating a pledge to nationalize natural resource extraction companies.
Even before Channel One broadcast the debate — which was taped earlier — the candidates struck notes of disappointment publicly.
“Of course, debates are a completely new form of ‘dialogue’ for me: a brouhaha,” Prokhorov said on Twitter. “In short, we shouted to our heart’s content. Say ‘hello’ to ‘trial by fire.’”
Zyuganov, who repeatedly called Prokhorov a “boor,” wrote on Twitter: “Unfortunately, Prokhorov and I were not able to have a normal conversation. He didn’t discuss anything; he simply repeated worn-out phrases.”
Zyuganov and Prokhorov trail far behind Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in opinion polls ahead of the March 4 presidential vote. Putin is polling at 52 percent, Zyuganov and Liberal Democrat Vladimir Zhirinovsky at 8 percent, and A Just Russia’s Sergei Mironov and Prokhorov at 4 percent, according to the results of a Jan. 28 poll by state-run VsTIOM.
Campaigning was technically forbidden before Saturday, though Prokhorov and Zyuganov held their first one-on-one TV debate on Jan. 19 on a program mediated by veteran journalist Vladimir Solovyov, prompting complaints from Zhirinovsky and others that were dismissed by the Central Elections Commission.
The five candidates are allotted nine hours of free airtime on federal TV channels and radio stations before campaigning ends at midnight on March 3, and all — excluding Putin — are scheduled to participate in about a dozen televised debates.
Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the prime minister is too busy to participate in debates but might send a proxy on his behalf.

TITLE: Putin Writes Again
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin published the fourth in a series of newspaper articles Monday, and in it, the odds-on favorite to win the presidency addresses the middle class and calls for “true democracy.”
Putin’s new 4,000-word article is titled “Democracy and the Quality of State.” It appeared on the front page of the influential Kommersant daily.
According to Putin, in the 1990s the country brought in from the West new democratic models, which soon “were occupied by local and central elites of oligarchs.”
As a result, Putin says, instead of freedoms the country got “behind-the-scenes fights between clans” that made the majority distrust democratic values. In addition, people at that time had a lot of illusions and “were used to waiting for mercies from the state.”
“A true democracy can’t be established at one stroke, can’t be copied from a foreign model,” Putin says at the beginning of the article.
He was clearly addressing the burgeoning middle class, which has been increasingly vibrant at the mass opposition protests. Although he never mentions the rallies in the article, he hints that his rule laid the groundwork for them by saying they are “the result of our efforts.”
“Today our society is very different from that of the early 2000s,” Putin wrote. “Many people are becoming more well-off, more educated and more demanding.”
On Saturday, tens of thousands of people took part in an opposition demonstration calling for reforms and fair elections.
One of the key specific measures introduced in the article is a requirement that the State Duma discuss initiatives backed by at least 100,000 people in Internet petitions, acknowledging the importance of open online discussions.
Nevertheless, he didn’t mention that his party, United Russia, holds a majority of seats and can easily reject an initiative unfavorable to the authorities.
In the article, he speaks about the importance of “Internet democracy,” though Putin himself repeatedly said he does not use the Internet very much, indicating that he doesn’t care much about criticism of his policy there.
He continues by touching on one of the most crucial issues: corruption. “The fight against corruption should become a national cause, not a subject of political speculations,” Putin says.
But he insinuated that he would resist calls to clean house, and he didn’t specify his strategy for combating corruption.
Putin proposed an initiative to establish administrative courts that would deal with disputes involving state officials, as well as online broadcasts and publicly available transcripts of court hearings.
He also said Russia should reform the selection of the chairman and auditors of the Russian Audit Chamber to boost transparency. He suggested that they should not be appointed by the president but by the State Duma Council with the consent of all factions.
Senior United Russia member Andrei Isayev called the article “a manifesto for the development of true democracy,” the party reported on its official website.
Putin’s previous articles in the series were similarly wide-ranging. The first one was published in Izvestia and dealt with Russia’s challenges. The second appeared in Nezavisimaya Gazeta and was about the nationality issue. And the third one, in Vedomosti, concerned the country’s economy.
Last week, independent elections watchdog Golos said Putin had broken electoral laws by publishing the articles, which it said were part of Putin’s campaign platform.
But the Central Elections Commission later stated that Putin’s articles are information materials, not campaigning.
The presidential election is scheduled for March 4, and Putin is expected to win in the first round, according to polling.
Alexei Makarkin, a political analyst for the Center of Political Technologies, said the new article proves that Putin recognizes the importance of the middle class and has to make concessions.
“The article mentions a bunch of good initiatives, but the question remains: Will they be fulfilled?” Makarkin said in a telephone interview. “To succeed, the state needs an influential mass media and independent courts.”
The fact that Putin has recognized the importance of the Internet community means that “the outcome of the election seriously bothers him,” political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told Kommersant FM radio station.

TITLE: Opposition to Putin Overcomes Distance
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Dozens of cities around the globe saw mini versions of Saturday’s For Honest Elections rally over the weekend as opposition-minded Russian expats gathered to show solidarity, educate locals and network in an extension of Russia’s remarkable winter of political activism.
Gatherings in London, New York and other centers of the Russian diaspora drew between 100 and 200, a faint echo of the tens of thousands who marched to Bolotnaya Ploshchad in central Moscow to demand political reform, while thousands more attended a rally several kilometers away to support Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s presidential campaign.
The expat protesters waved handmade signs, shouted slogans and sang songs, their demands by now familiar: fair elections and political liberalization. They staked out public squares and stood outside Russian consulates, excoriating the officials inside while chatting with curious passersby.
In London, self-exiled businessman Yevgeny Chichvarkin joined about 100 protesters across from Prime Minister David Cameron’s official residence at 10 Downing Street. The gathering concluded with the delivery of a written appeal urging Cameron to reject “illegitimate” elections and help muster the international community behind the opposition.
“My friends in Russia tell me that our protests make a difference. … They can feel our support,” Andrei Sidelnikov, an organizer of the London rally, said by telephone. Sidelnikov said he left Russia against his will and would like to return — something he doesn’t think is possible as long as Putin is in power.
Maria Gaidar, daughter of Yeltsin-era reformer Yegor Gaidar, and dozens of others protested outside the Russian consulate in New York, where they held white balloons and neatly printed signs with slogans such as “Russians demand fair elections.”
Protesters said it was difficult to influence events in Russia from abroad, but they maintained the importance of taking to the streets, even in small numbers.
The organizers of a dozen-person rally in Kansas City, Kansas, wrote on their Facebook page that by demonstrating in Middle America, they were emboldening protesters back home and reminding those responsible for alleged vote fraud during the Dec. 4 State Duma elections that “around the world, wherever they go, there are people who hate them.”
Facebook played a prominent role in the diaspora protests, as it has domestically. Local organizers created dedicated pages for each event.
And as the political season has brought new organizations, such as the League of Voters, to mobilize opposition-minded voters, so have diaspora Russians jumped to harness what they perceive as widespread discontent with the prospect of Putin’s widely expected victory in the March 4 presidential election.
But despite the appearance of organizations with names like Raise Your Voice! and WakeUpRussia! the movement is still self-consciously amateur.
“We’re doing everything by intuition and learning on the fly,” wrote the co-organizer of Saturday’s Paris rally on the event’s Facebook page. “We’re hoping and counting on our human values and laws.”

TITLE: Protest Fever Stays High Despite the Cold Weather
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Bone-chilling cold did little to lessen the spirit of protesters calling for political reform as tens of thousands took to the streets of Moscow on Saturday in a show of strength that does not appear to have diminished.
But for the first time the Kremlin fought back with a counter-rally, mustering tens of thousands of its own supporters to rally behind Putin — although many were government workers who said they had been bused in for the event.
The counterprotests quickly became a battle of numbers, with city officials claiming as many as 140,000 people had come out in support of Putin, while just 38,000 had marched against him. Opposition organizers, meanwhile, insisted that they had turned out 120,000 anti-Putin protesters.
Reporters for The St. Petersburg Times estimated the crowd at the opposition march and rally at roughly 50,000 and the Putin loyalists closer to 25,000.
That the opposition forces — which originally found their voice following the disputed Dec. 4 State Duma elections — managed to keep up the pressure in the face of temperatures as low as minus 19 degrees Celsius was impressive.
Dressed head-to-toe in clothing appropriate for a polar expedition, thousands marched from the Oktyabrskaya metro station to Bolotnaya Ploshchad in the third protest of its kind, holding up signs demanding Putin “Go away” and calling “For clean elections,” as ice formed on the scarves wrapped around their faces.
“Let the elections be honest, and even if Putin were to win, he should understand that we are watching over him,” said 27-year-old Alexei, an IT specialist who declined to give his last name.
Demanding democratic reform, the release of the country’s political prisoners and free and fair elections, the protesters marched under many banners — from Communist supporters, to nationalists, to liberals — but all for one cause.
“We came to show how many of us are here, that we are not alone, that a friend’s shoulder is near. Yes we are all different, but we are of one color — the color of the Russian flag,” said Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko party.
Alexei agreed.
“I didn’t want to go because of the nationalists and Communists,” Alexei insisted. “I have decided to attend to express my rights.”
But the main focus was anger at Putin as he aims to return to the presidency for the third time after a four-year stint as prime minister.
“I don’t like the fact that in a country with such a vast amount of natural resources everything belongs to the oligarchs,” said Valery, a 38-year-old company manager who also declined to give his last name.
Meanwhile, across town at Poklonnaya Gora, pro-Putin forces pulled out all the stops to match the volume of the opposition march and rally, gathering a motley crowd of pensioners, Cossacks dressed in fatigues and members of the pro-Putin youth movement Nashi.
Holding signs like “West, get your hands off Russia,” organizers said the event was a challenge to the “Orange threat,” a reference to the Ukrainian Orange Revolution that overturned the disputed 2004 election of pro-Russian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, which his supporters said was driven by Western powers.
“We need Russia, but there are enemies who want to destroy it so we are against the ‘Orange threat,’” said Sergei Kurginyan, a political scientist who attended the rally.
How much real enthusiasm there was for the event remained in question. While organizers insisted participants came voluntarily, many were brought by bus and were provided with food, Lenta.ru reported.
One young demonstrator told The St. Petersburg Times on condition of anonymity that he had been paid to attend the event, although he would not say by whom.
Putin said Saturday that while government resources may have been used to bring people to the rally, it wouldn’t be possible to bring such a large crowd with “administrative resources” alone.
He even said that he would be willing to pay part of the fine that the protest would incur for surpassing the number of people the city rally permit allowed for.
Members of Putin’s United Russia party did not officially take part in the rally.
Moscow police said they had deployed 9,000 officers to maintain order during the rallies, but no arrests were made.
Despite the cold, a cheerful mood swept over the anti-Putin crowd with some marchers dressed as hamsters in reference to a popular nickname for the Internet-savvy crowd that has largely driven the protests.
As the march arrived at Bolotnaya Ploshchad, there was a short program of speeches, followed by a performance by a rock band made up of retired paratroopers and a rendition of the ballad “Motherland” by the opposition bard Yury Shevchuk.
Billionaire presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov participated in the march, but he did not address the crowd. Just Russia party head Sergei Mironov had said he would attend, although he also declined to address the protesters, but in the end he did not go.
A senior party official, Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov, did speak at the meeting and criticized his boss for not coming, signaling a possible rift within the party.
Protests demanding honest elections were also held in several other Russian cities including St. Petersburg, where 5,000 people reportedly joined a protest.
Organizers of both rallies said they would hold another on Feb. 26. Several opposition leaders also announced that on Feb. 12 they would begin a tour of several Russian cities by train to organize supporters to demand clean elections.

TITLE: Investigators Accuse U.S. Of ‘Editing’ Fraud Tapes
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Most of the videos purportedly showing violations committed during the December parliamentary elections were “edited” and distributed online from the United States, investigators said Saturday, once again heating up anti-American rhetoric.
Federal investigators examined online videos posted to bolster complaints of fraud at polling stations Dec. 4.
They concluded that “most of them have elements of editing,” the Investigative Committee’s spokesman, Vladimir Markin, said in his official remarks.
“Notably, all the edited videos were distributed from a single server based in the United States, California,” Markin said, adding that Russian law enforcement is searching for those responsible.
YouTube and blogs were flooded with footage shot by people who said the images were eyewitness accounts exposing numerous cases of election fraud all over Russia during the Dec. 4 vote.
But widespread suspicion about the accuracy of the elction results with United Russia taking 45 percent of the vote and a majority of seats in the State Duma sparked public discontent and demands for new elections.
Protesters in several Russian cities turned out by the thousands Saturday to repeat those demands.
Many videos shot at polling stations were uploaded to YouTube, but Markin’s announcement was short on specifics. The examined videos were filmed in numerous parts of the country, including the Moscow, Kemerovo, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Tula, Krasnoyarsk and Saint. Petersburg regions; the republics of Chuvashia and North Ossetia; and the cities of Moscow and Yekaterinburg, the investigators said in a statement.
Markin didn’t mention how much footage was checked but said some of the images had been doctored.
He mentioned only one example, however, saying a video allegedly featuring vote-rigging at polling station No. 2943, located at Moscow’s lyceum No. 7560, doesn’t show the authentic interior of the premises and real members of the elections commission.
The investigators are not the first to question the credibility of the videos. In December, the head of the Central Elections Commission, Vladimir Churov, also questioned the credibility of the videos saying the scenes were “movies” filmed by unknown camera operators at fake polling stations.
Lilia Shibanova, leader of the independent watchdog Golos, which reported the violations, called the investigators’ statement part of the Kremlin’s misleading campaign.
The officials “are trying to make people believe that the elections were fair, with minor violations, while all the accusations are provocation from the United States,” Shibanova told The St. Petersburg Times.
Amid the post-election outcry, Russian officials at all levels have intensified the vigor of their claims that the State Department sponsored the massive protests that followed the December elections.
U.S. officials have repeatedly dismissed the accusations.

TITLE: John McCain Taunts Putin Over Protests
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — U.S. Senator John McCain has again angered supporters of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin by describing Russia’s nascent protest movement as an extension of the Arab Spring uprisings that have shaken and toppled governments across the Middle East.
“Dear Vlad, the ArabSpring has arrived at a neighborhood near you,” the Arizona Republican and former presidential candidate tweeted Sunday. He included a link to a New York Times article about Saturday’s opposition protest, which drew tens of thousands.
The tweet provoked a sharp response from at least two senior United Russia officials including Andrei Vorobyov, the leader of the party’s Duma faction, who described it as a “provocation,” and called on Russians to resist foreign “meddling” from American officials he said were trying to incite revolution.
In a separate commentary on the ruling party’s website, Deputy Irina Yarovaya wrote that McCain’s tweet was a de facto admission that the United States is exporting “Orange Revolutions.”
McCain has directed provocative remarks at Putin in the past. In 2007, he said he saw “K-G-B” in Putin’s eyes, and after the first large Duma protest in December, he tweeted to Putin that “the Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you,” leading Putin to publicly suggest that McCain was “nuts” after fighting in the Vietnam War.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, McCain called for Russia’s expulsion from the Group of Eight industrial nations.

TITLE: Scientists Break the Ice Sheet
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Scientists on Thursday breached the ice sheet that has sealed sub-glacial Lake Vostok for more than 20 million years, reaching a critical stage in a decades-long drilling project, RIA-Novosti reported. 
Lake Vostok is the largest of a network of hidden sub-glacial Antarctic lakes discovered in the 1990s, capturing the attention of scientists around the world. It is also one of the largest lakes in the world. 
Scientists believe that a hydrostatic seal created by the surrounding ice cap has kept the lakes completely separated from external contaminants. Potential applications of the recent breakthrough could include the discovery of new life, hints about pre-ice age evolution, and give a glimpse of how life exists in extreme conditions.

TITLE: Boob Tube Advertising Still Outdoing Internet
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Although the number of Russia’s Internet users is steadily growing, television is likely to remain more important for advertisers, who are expected to spend half of their ad budgets on TV commercials over the next decade, a leading ad seller said Saturday.
Major companies have spent about 50 percent of their annual advertising budgets on TV commercials over the last couple of years, and “there’s every reason to believe that the situation won’t change till 2020,” said Alexander Liger, deputy chief executive of Video International, whose clients include Channel One, Ren-TV and St. Petersburg’s Channel 5.
The Internet is expected to gradually eat into the advertising pie, but the biggest advertisers — represented by fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies — are still likely to place their bets on television, which provides access to a broader audience, Liger said at an investment forum organized by Sberbank and Troika Dialog.
“It’s important for FMCG companies to cover the territory of the whole country, and television is the best way to do so,” he told a panel session.
The share of ad budgets earmarked for the Internet is expected to reach 20 percent by 2020 compared with 11 percent in 2010, according to a presentation by Video International.
Preliminary estimates show that expenditures on television ads reached nearly 130 billion rubles ($4.2 billion) last year, excluding value-added tax, while the size of the country’s overall advertising market is likely to grow by about 17 percent from 2010 to reach 250 billion rubles, Liger said after the session.

TITLE: Liquidity Murky, Rates Steady
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Central Bank held back from cutting interest rates Friday and again stressed its commitment to fighting inflation that is at a record low, ahead of the presidential election in March.
The one-day repo auction rate remains at 6.25 percent, the refinancing rate at 8 percent and the one-day deposit rate at 4 percent. “We have taken the most convenient decision,” First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Alexei Ulyukayev said at an investment forum. “We have decided to do nothing.”
The Central Bank said it would ensure a balance between controlling inflation and growth risks. Rates were cut in December in line with other emerging economies as global growth appeared to be threatened by the debt crisis in Europe.
Inflation was at 4.1 percent as of Jan. 30, according to a statement from the Central Bank, and the aim is to keep the year’s figure between 5 percent and 6 percent. Inflation in 2011 was 6.1 percent.
But Ulyukayev said it would be hard to keep inflation below 6 percent in 2012. Utility tariff hikes have been delayed until after the March 4 presidential election. The International Monetary Fund predicted on Jan. 26 that the 2012 inflation figure would be 6.4 percent.
The Central Bank is also resisting calls from the country’s lending giants, VTB and Sberbank, to address what they characterize as a dearth of liquidity in the financial sector.
U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs identified the possible inability “of the [Central Bank] to stick to its monetary policy strategy against opposition from Russia’s large state-owned banks” as a key threat to its bullish view on the ruble last month. “With the [Central Bank] not even being legally independent,” the bank wrote, “this risk is real.”
Both VTB’s Andrei Kostin and Sberbank’s German Gref have said there is a lack of liquidity. Their banks are expanding their loan books at a faster rate than the growth of deposits, increasing funding costs.
Not all banks, however, concur with the country’s biggest lenders. “[State-owned banks] always cry that the Central Bank needs to increase liquidity,” chairman of MDM Bank Oleg Vyugin told The St. Petersburg Times on Friday. “But in actual fact the situation with liquidity is fine.”
“If a bank does not know how to manage liquidity, then it will say the Central Bank is working badly,” he said.

TITLE: Investors Send $237M to Russia in Late Jan.
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — The last seven days in January saw foreign investors putting $414 million into investment funds that have Russian portfolios — the highest inflow seen since April of 2011.
Of that inflow, $237 million was specifically targeted to Russia. This represents a change in the direction of capital flows, since the last half of 2011 saw continuous flight from domestic markets.
Russia was the global champion for capital flight by institutional investors, with the average weekly outflow reaching about $200 million, starting last spring, said Sergei Yezimov, a portfolio manager at Wermuth Asset Management.
Investor reactions in December were excessive against the background of political risks, Verno Capital portfolio manager Bruce Bower said. “The MSCI Emerging Markets index then dropped 1.3 percent, versus a 10 percent drop on the Russian market,” Bower added.
In Russia, investors are concluding that the political situation is still stable, Bower said. He expects inflows to continue.
Investors are including into their equity evaluations a victory for Vladimir Putin in the upcoming presidential elections and a return of stability, which, it seems, they lost in December of last year, said Vladimir Bril, head of equity market operations at JPMorgan. But, he adds, the positive mood is very fragile — “doom and gloom” can return, leading to a market turn around.

TITLE: Cabinet Promises $645M Fuel Discount for Farmers
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A company half-owned by BP and several other major oil companies will sacrifice more profits to support farmers this year thanks to a Cabinet decree published Friday.
The decree brings discounts to 30 percent on some fuels used for spring sowing. Signed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the regulation is likely to increase the number of voters thankful to him in rural areas.
The discount that companies like Rosneft, LUKoil and TNK-BP have committed to in past years was 10 percent of the retail price. It cost them 17 billion rubles ($548 million) last year, according to Interfax.
The tripling of the discount takes place on the background of recent public protests that are making it more of a challenge for Putin to win the presidential election next month. In addition, the discount will apply to wholesale rather than retail prices, thus deepening the losses of the oil companies.
On top of that, the volume of discounted sales will grow 10 percent, Putin said when he first mentioned the measure earlier last week.
“We treat this news as negative for the oil sector as we see the government continuing to increase pressure on oil producers,” Alfa Bank said in a note to investors last week. “However, we expect this trend to reverse in the post-election period.”
While Rosneft is state-controlled, about 15 percent of it is privately held. The government does not own any part of LUKoil or TNK-BP, which are the No. 2 and No. 3 oil companies in Russia, respectively.
Some other companies that refine oil to produce fuel suitable for farming equipment will also wind up subsidizing agriculture as a result of Friday’s decree.
Putin said last week that farmers would save 12.2 billion rubles due to the lower prices, which the decree will put in place for the first half of this year. Alfa Bank estimated that the subsidies could come to 20 billion rubles.
Putin said the Cabinet would consider discounts for the rest of the year at a later time. A LUKoil spokesman reserved judgment on the measure, saying, “That’s how we help our agriculture.” He added that LUKoil lost 2 billion rubles on such supplies last year.
A Rosneft spokesman declined to comment Friday. A spokeswoman for TNK-BP requested questions in writing, but didn’t respond Friday.
Putin last week thanked the oil companies for agreeing to the discounts despite their hefty tax burden that wipes away about 80 percent of the revenues.
“Nevertheless, they show a sense of responsibility,” he said at a farming meeting.

TITLE: Why Electoral Fraud Is the Better of Two Evils
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: On Saturday, we saw a new wave of protest rallies. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets despite the bitter cold. Braving temperatures of minus 19 degree Celsius, as many as 200,000 people turned out in Moscow alone. At Bolotnaya Ploshchad, protesters called for political liberalization and for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to resign, while others at Poklonnaya Gora demonstrated their support for the country’s leadership.
Besides Moscow, demonstrations were staged in Russia’s regions. The reasons for the protests were varied. In Perm, the people were upset with the governor and his policies. In Krasnoyarsk, people protested against the increase in pollution from toxic plants in the region. In other cities, protesters focused on the increase in utility fees. These complaints are nothing new, but they have increased in intensity after the State Duma elections. Those elections triggered the release of pent-up anger over the corruption and the authorities’ open disdain for the people.
The largest rallies outside of Moscow have been held in St. Petersburg and other cities with a million or more residents. In many of those cities, such as Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Omsk, United Russia placed second to the Communist Party or A Just Russia, and in St. Petersburg it fared exceedingly badly.
Now that Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky has been denied the right to register as a candidate, the presidential election has been shorn of any trace of legitimacy. Putin’s rivals are nothing more than hand-picked sparring partners with no chance of being elected president. All of them except Mikhail Prokhorov are experienced hands who have repeatedly proven their loyalty to Putin in past elections. As for Prokhorov, he only asks that his multibillion-dollar fortune be safeguarded in return for toeing the Kremlin line.
Why did Putin prefer Prokhorov over Yavlinsky? Many in the West consider Prokhorov to be an independent candidate because of his enormous wealth. But actually the opposite is true. The larger a Russian’s wealth, the more he depends on the Kremlin to preserve that wealth.
In addition, Yavlinsky would probably have been less manageable as a presidential candidate than Prokhorov. Moreover, Yavlinsky could have attracted more protest votes than Prokhorov — from 5 percent or 7 percent — making it that much more difficult for Putin to win in the first round of voting.
Putin can’t afford a second round. He needs to demonstrate to the political elite and the people that he is still the uncontested national leader and can win in the first round. Faced with the choice of having to falsify a certain percentage of the vote to win in the first round or face a second round, Putin would probably pick falsification as the “lesser of two evils.”
Meanwhile, many analysts claim that the Kremlin has no plans to commit electoral fraud for the simple reason that Putin — with popularity ratings that exceed 50 percent, according to some polls — doesn’t need to falsify results to win the first round.
But this argument doesn’t hold water. In a system in which a governor’s effectiveness is measured by his ability to secure votes for United Russia and Putin, electoral fraud is inevitable, even if the leader publicly calls for honest elections. The governors understand that their jobs depend on their ability to produce good results for Putin. So their main goal is to protect their own skins. This means that they will manipulate the vote when necessary to secure a victory for Putin in the regions — and, most important, not be caught at it. The big lesson from the Duma elections is to improve the “technology” of electoral fraud and not leave a trail for election monitors.
It has been said the internal bickering among protest leaders will discredit the movement and give victory to the authorities and that the protests will fade away without producing any positive results.
But this is unlikely for two reasons. First, the protest movement has grassroots appeal, and it is extremely unlikely that any of its leaders would discredit themselves by selling out to the authorities.
Second, the protests have already stripped the authorities of their thin veneer of legitimacy and have significantly weakened Putin’s hold on power.
Even if the protests were to unexpectedly stop, the genie is already out of the bottle. The process of chipping away at Putin’s regime has been set in motion, and this could conceivably lead to Putin’s ouster within one or two years’ time.

<i>Nikolai Petrov is a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.</i>

TITLE: C O M M E N T: Putin’s Empty Promise of Honest Elections
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: At a meeting with a group of young lawyers last week, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised that the upcoming presidential election would be honest and that the results would not be manipulated. Prior to that, Vyacheslav Volodin, first deputy chief of staff of the presidential administration, called on governors to guard against electoral violations in the presidential contest.
Should we put faith in Putin’s promise? Will governors follow Volodin’s instructions? Are fair and honest elections even possible in the current political system?
The March 4 election will be held under the old rules and is being organized by the same Central Elections Commission that has been accused of fostering electoral fraud in the December State Duma elections. Neither Central Elections Commission head Vladimir Churov nor any of his direct reports have been investigated, while the courts have thrown out most lawsuits from citizens and monitoring groups that presented evidence of fraud.
Thus, the Kremlin is essentially sending the elections commission a clear message: “You did an excellent job during the December elections. Keep up the good work.”
Meanwhile, governors have been receiving mixed messages from the federal center. On the one hand, they have been publicly warned against committing or sanctioning election fraud. But at the same time, several governors in regions where United Russia performed badly in the December Duma elections have been dismissed.
What message did this send to current governors who want to keep their jobs by pleasing the Kremlin? Given this deeply ingrained system, fair elections are simply impossible, particularly considering the current relationship between the federal center and the governors.
When Putin uses the term “fair elections,” how much meaning can this have in a vertical power structure that demands and rewards servile obedience to the Moscow leadership? The main goal of such a system is to satisfy the Kremlin, not the public. Governors and local party bosses are held accountable for the number of meetings they organize in support of the ruling party, the number of advertising campaigns they conduct and the final tally of votes United Russia wins in their regions.
The manner in which the pro-Putin rallies on Saturday were organized sheds light on how the upcoming election will be held. According to many media reports, thousands of state employees were instructed to participate in pro-Putin rallies. Some were promised money to attend, while others were threatened with layoffs and the loss of benefits if they didn’t attend. Only a few days ago, United Russia warned its regional offices against committing administrative excesses when organizing pro-Putin rallies. But on the very same day, a Dozhd TV report showed how organizers of the pro-Putin rally in Moscow admitted to forcing people to participate — but dismissed those violations as “isolated incidents.”
These types of abuses will only grow because the problem is systemic, not “isolated.” There can be no free and fair elections until governors are elected directly by the people and political parties are allowed to register without any limitations or restrictions. In addition, the government must carry out true judicial reforms in which subservient judges are replaced with a court system that is truly independent of the political leadership. The question is whether these changes are possible while Putin is in power.

<i>This comment appeared as an editorial in Vedomosti.</i>

TITLE: CHERNOV’S CHOICE
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This week’s main music event appears to be a local visit by <b>Lyapis Trubetskoy</b>, as the Belarus ska-punk starts its concert tour from St. Petersburg.
The band’s web site reported early Tuesday that the concert at Kosmonavt due to take place Saturday, Feb. 11 is sold out, but there could be a chance to catch them at Yubileiny Sports Complex on Friday, Feb. 10, when Lyapis Trubetskoy is scheduled to perform as part of Chart Dozen, an annual music event featuring a number of rock bands of varying quality.
Lyapis Trubetskoy chose St. Petersburg as the first city on its upcoming “Don’t Be Cattle” (Ne Byts Skotam) tour. The title song is written to a poem by the classic Belarussian poet Yanka Kupala (1882-1942) and is a strong statement against dictatorship. Kupala wrote the poem in 1908.
 “I could not approach this poem for a long time because the epic legacy and history of the entire nation is compressed into several lines here,” Mikhalok said on the band’s web site.
“I was astonished that a poem that was written many years ago was relevant and focused on real life sounds that are up-to-date today. It’s amusing that Kupala can prompt all Belarussians concerning what to do and how to live here and now — and does it better than any speeches by contemporary politicians at that.”
The video, released on Nov. 7 — the anniversary of the Russian revolution — features revolutionary images such as a young man with his face hidden by a black scarf as he throws a Molotov cocktail.
“To me, the main motto is to avoid being a creature that can’t speak, a ruminant animal indifferent to everything happening around it and simply content with the contents of its trough,” Mikhalok said.
“I even got a tattoo with this phrase — on my stomach.”
Interestingly, the poem’s title is reminiscent of “We’re Not Cattle, We’re Not Sheep,” the motto and rap song of the Ukrainian protesters during the Orange Revolution in Kiev in December 2004 and January 2005, when demonstrators managed to override the election results faked by then President Leonid Kuchma and install Viktor Yushchenko, who had in reality won the most votes.
This week’s Internet music hit, however, is something altogether different. Strangely, bloggers are busy sharing links to the video of a song praising Putin sung by Tajik crooner <b>Tolibdzhon Kurbankhanov.</b> 
Kurbankhanov, who poses in the video against the background of the Kremlin, describes Putin as “God-sent.”
Called “VVP” (after “Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin”), the song’s chorus goes: “VVP saved the country / VVP is a defender / VVP raised Russia / And is developing it even more.”
Due to its overall silliness, the video and the song have already been described as the “most effective anti-Putin propaganda device ever made.” Or was it intended to be one?

TITLE: 21st-century Dadaism
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: One of the most recent additions to the local club scene, Dada sets music above partying. Having opened just over three months ago, the club is the brainchild of Leonid Novikov, frontman of the goth-rock band Para Bellvm, once an editor at the now-defunct Fuzz music magazine and the Russian edition of Rolling Stone, and art director of a number of clubs, most recently Shum.
Launched on Oct. 20 with a concert featuring the underground dance troupe Stigma Show, Dada is set to have a broad music repertoire, excluding anything in poor taste, according to Novikov.
“We would even book a heavy metal band if it met our high standards — but heavy metal bands from the Arctica club should stay there,” he said this week, referring to the local rock venue.
“We welcome hipsters, rockers and reggae people, but not rappers. From my observations during the past six years, the rap crowd is the most loathsome public in St. Petersburg.”
Dada took its name from the anti-bourgeois cultural movement that emerged in Zurich, Switzerland during World War I, though there are no immediately visible references to this other than the club’s logo. 
The venue consists of one large yet cozy, well-equipped room, with a stage and a long bar – behind which Novikov can be seen helping bartenders to pour the drinks.
“We were reproached that it’s too bourgeois here, not as Dada as it should be — sure, they were against such forms, but on the other hand, that did not prevent them from spending time in their own club, Cabaret Voltaire,” Novikov said.
“I believe the very fact that we’re spending time here in such a ‘bourgeois’ manner is a slap in the face of public taste, which simply follows the latest music fashion and brand new names, which are mostly good for nothing. 
“I know a few hipster-type bands who are scared of finding themselves on our stage because they know they would look stupid. It’s more convenient for them to play at some nice music bars where the deliberately low-fi setting disguises their inability to play or even to draw the public.”
According to Novikov, trendy bars attract people whose main aim is to have a good time over drinks, rather than by the quality of the bands that play there.
“I know perfectly well that the drinks are the main star of such establishments — who cares what kind of music you play?” he said.
“I think the local rockabilly movement has ended up just like this. They all moved into one joint and drowned themselves there. I worry that new St. Petersburg trends will drown themselves in music bars, if they don’t perform in different venues and seek out their audiences, etc. This must be changed; it’s time for this era to end.”
When the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review performed at Dada on Friday — the first time it had premiered its new singer to local audiences — it drew 350 people, the club’s maximum capacity.
“The Ska-Jazz Review played with great success, I think they’re having a renaissance now,” Novikov said.
“I am far from such music, but I was impressed by how those guys play live. They’re mature professionals who know how to extract the right sound from a guitar and leave the public exhausted. They’re really powerful, I was absolutely amazed. A full house!”
Dada’s all-time record was 500 visitors for its Halloween party. “When there are 500, it’s clear immediately because coat racks start to collapse in the cloakroom,” Novikov said. “But of course, 500 could not cram in; there were still 350, while the rest were struggling to enter. Such situations should be avoided, because we are not after money, we’re after indisputable quality.”
As well as the St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review, Novikov cited an avant-rock duo of Auctyon singer/guitarist Leonid Fyodorov and double bass player Vladimir Volkov among Dada’s finest concerts during the first three months. But the main repertoire consists of younger talents.
“Despite the current total collapse [in music], you can still find the occasional pearl,” he said.
Before Dada, Novikov was art director at the short-lived Shum club, which existed from Sept. 2010 to June 2011.
“It was an experiment that gave me a lot of experience and understanding, as co-founder, but I’d prefer to bury those memories,” Novikov said. “It was good for its time, but we’ve made a better club here.”
Shum was larger and had a separate barroom and a corridor, but Dada has its own advantages. Located in the premises known to local clubgoers as the now-defunct club Tantsy, just off Sennaya Ploshchad in the city center, it has use of the adjacent courtyard edged with picturesque semi-ruined walls and buildings, where Dada is planning to hold open-air festivals and concerts once the weather gets warmer. 
“We’re considering holding several very diverse festivals here; we’re planning on building a stage, putting in more entrances and having live music until at least 11 p.m. and then an afterparty inside, with the doors open,” said Novikov.
Although the premises would seem to be an attractive piece of real estate right in the city center, he said there were no plans to renovate the territory in the near future.
“There is a certain investment project that is supposed to start in three years – but it probably won’t be, if you know Russia,” he said.
“The premises were abandoned for about 12 months, there was nobody who wished to rent it,” Novikov said. “Any club can be changed beyond recognition with just a few touches, to make it cozy and comfortable.”
According to him, Dada is set to have cheaper prices than most clubs. “We’d like to make some money, but why go over the top?” he said.
“We don’t pour drinks from canisters here, everything is licensed. You can’t make a lot of money with prices like these. But that’s not the point.”
According to Novikov, the most important thing about clubs is their atmosphere. “The atmosphere is created by the people who work at the club, the club’s team,” he said. “I think we have such a team. Everybody who works at the club has known each other for a long time.”
He is proud of the friendliness cultivated at Dada.
“I have seen how they harass visitors at some other clubs, and am still shocked by it. For instance, they’ve been beating people’s faces in at the city’s notorious rockabilly joint for the past 15 years,” Novikov said.
“They say things have improved there lately, but previously, if there was no fight between members of public, the bouncers would initiate one. Many clubs on the outskirts are still famous for their skill at organizing a brawl.
“That’s why we don’t want to hold any aggressive concerts on the brink of poor taste — what’s the point?”

<i>Dada is located at 47 Gorokhovaya Ulitsa. Tel. 983 7050. M. Sennaya Ploshchad / Sadovaya. 
www.dadaclub.ru</i>

TITLE: The art of respect
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Sochiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Works by nine leading comic artists from Russia and Europe are on display at Loft Project Etagi this month as part of a traveling exhibition created by the “Respect. Comics From Different Countries” project.  
The exhibit is devoted to the clash of cultures and represents graphic narratives that were made during a five-day workshop at the KomMissia international comic festival. The social concept brings together an array of comics that vary dramatically in terms of genres, subject and the style of drawing. 
The authors have chosen to depict subjects ranging from a battleship, a fascist chicken, a black woman within a white city, a man who has lost all his hair and many other unusual characters. But the drawings have one thing in common: Sad, funny, even absurd, the tales explore the origins of nationalist movements and other aggressive trends in society, their fatuity and dangers to both individuals and entire peoples. 
The exhibit opened on Feb. 4 with a discussion about solving the problem of xenophobia. During the discussion, the goals and ideas of the exhibit were expressed by project coordinators Nastya Galashina and Sergei Simonov. The project’s informal slogans are: “You don’t have to love your neighbor, but you must respect them,” and “I respect your right to have a different culture to my own.” The emphasis on respect is no coincidence — the organizers have deliberately chosen it over the less well defined term “tolerance,” which they fear is too vague.
The project is aimed first and foremost at young people, for whom tolerance lessons at school have become a compulsory — and therefore not always welcome — part of the curriculum. The exhibit’s organizers hope that expressing ideas through the medium of comic art will attract teenagers’ attention and promote their understanding of the issue. 

<i>The exhibit “Respect. Comics From Different Countries” runs from Feb. 4 through Feb. 23 at Loft Project Etagi, 74 Ligovsky Prospekt. Tel. 458 5005. M. Ligovsky Prospekt. www.respect.com.mx.</i>

TITLE: Eternal art
AUTHOR: By Kristina Alexandrova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: All roads lead to the Hermitage this month, where a contemporary Italian photographer has captured an unexpected side to the eternal city.
In the “Imaginary Theaters in Rome,” exhibit Carlo Gavazzeni Ricordi presents 30 views and panoramic images of the city, enhanced by a 3D-effect. 
Most of the photos were taken at the Villa Torlonia Theater with an old camera and photographic film. The modern 3D-effect was achieved by the superimposition of two reversed images and by using the contrast between light and shadow. 
The exhibit was welcomed by Russia’s largest museum. 
“The works by Mr. Ricordi intertwine with many Petersburg contexts,” said Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum. 
Indeed, the photographer was even inspired by Russia when devising the project. Gavazzeni said that he decided to create the exhibit while listening to Russian vinyl records and looking through photos taken by Russian artists. 
Gavazzeni’s trip to St. Petersburg to open his exhibit last week was not his first time in Russia. About 20 years ago he came here with his grandfather, who was a conductor at Milan’s legendary La Scala Theater. Gavazzeni professed to be fascinated by Russian culture, particularly literature and music. 
“The Hermitage is something magical for me,” the photographer said during the opening ceremony, adding that when he heard about the opportunity to exhibit his work at the museum, he thought it was a joke.
Gavazzeni, who is based in Milan, used to specialize in portraits. According to Valentina Monkada, the exhibit’s Italian curator, she encouraged him to try his hand at open-air pieces. Gavazzeni was hesitant at first, but after some time began successfully capturing striking images that have made him popular in Europe. 
The images of the interior of Villa Torlonia tell a sad story of desolation. The theater was built in the 19th century, and was later abandoned for many years. The building is characterized by damaged sculptures and columns, cracked walls covered with old posters and even graffiti and garbage — but it is not an ugly world. It attracts visitors with its old and romantic atmosphere, and is at times reminiscent of St. Petersburg, where many historical artifacts require major restoration. The exhibit’s organizers hope that Russian artists will take example from Italian experience: After Gavazenni’s pictures were shown for the first time, the issue was brought to officials’ attention and Villa Torlonia was finally restored.
Covered by vegetable fiber and transparent acryl, all of the photographs resemble paintings. According to Monkada, this similarity helps to raise photography to the level of art. She said that nowadays the majority of people simply associate photography with advertising; therefore it was of great importance for the exhibition to be held in the Hermitage.
Gavazzeni uses traditional Italian art motifs, and Piotrovsky compared to the artist to Gaspare Vanvitelli, Francesco Guardi and Giovanni Piranesi, whose engravings can also be seen at the Hermitage.
According to the artist, his favorite place is the Villa Medici. One of the most powerful images on show is that of a statue of Mercury — an exact copy of Giovanni da Bologna’s sculpture  — in the grounds of the Villa Medici. It seems that this bronze god is ascending into heaven against the background of the garden and celebrated villa. 
According to the photographer, in order to create the views of Rome that he does, he needs to be a little “absentminded.” For example, one of his works, “The Gates of Rome,” is a cold, dark image capable of plunging anyone into a state of mind close to oblivion. But due to the technique employed and the large size of all of the images on display, many more details become visible. The image may consist of mere windows, doors and walls, but observant visitors will notice all of the small defects and rough surfaces and imagine a time when Italian noblemen walked down the corridors that are now covered by a thick layer of dust.

<i>The exhibition “Imaginary Theaters in Rome” by Carlo Gavazzeni Ricordi is on display now until Mar. 30 at the State Hermitage Museum at 2 Dvortsovaya Ploshchad. Metro Admiralteiskaya. Tel. 710-9079. 
www.hermitagemuseum.org.</i>

TITLE: the word’s worth: When being an American is a diagnosis
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Íàöèîíàëüíîñòü: ethnicity (or not)

What is íàöèîíàëüíîñòü?
Dictionaries tell you that it’s ethnicity: ïðèíàäëåæíîñòü ÷åëîâåêà ê ýòíè÷åñêîé îáùíîñòè, îòëè÷àþùåéñÿ îñîáåííîñòÿìè ÿçûêà, êóëüòóðû, ïñèõîëîãèè, òðàäèöèé, îáû÷àåâ, îáðàçà æèçíè (a person’s identification with an ethnic group that is distinguished by a distinctive language, culture, psychology, traditions, customs and way of life).
When one native Russian speaker asks another, Êòî òû ïî íàöèîíàëüíîñòè? (What’s your ethnic background?), they are talking about origins. The reply might be: Ïàïà — ðóññêèé, à ìàìà — òàòàðêà (My father’s Russian, while my mother’s Tatar.)
So when I’m asked, Êòî òû ïî íàöèîíàëüíîñòè?, I say: Ìàìà — óêðàèíêà, à ïàïà — ëåìêî (My mother was Ukrainian and my father was a Lemko), often adding: Ýòî — çàêàðïàòñêàÿ íàðîäíîñòü (That’s a Trans-Carpathian ethnic group).
But no one likes that reply. So they usually rephrase the question: Íî îòêóäà òû ðîäîì? (But where were you born?)
Another American friend reports that when he is asked about his íàöèîíàëüíîñòü and says ÿ àìåðèêàíåö (I’m an American), he gets the opposite protest: Ïîíÿòíî. Íî êòî òû ïî íàöèîíàëüíîñòè? (Right. But what’s your ethnic background?) Jeez, it’s so hard to make inquisitive Russians happy.
What’s the problem? Is the meaning of the word íàöèîíàëüíîñòü changing?
After reading hundreds of examples, I’ve come to the conclusion that most Russians understand íàöèîíàëüíîñòü as ýòíè÷åñêàÿ îáùíîñòü (ethnic group). But sometimes they confuse it with citizenship. For example, one person writes: Åñëè ÿïîíöû ïðèåçæàþò âî Ôðàíöèþ è òàì ðîæäàåòñÿ ñûí — îí ôðàíöóç, ÷òî ëè? (If a Japanese couple moves to France and have a son, what is he — a Frenchman?)
Perhaps the issue is that many Russians are used to nations of one ethnic group. Îí ôðàíöóç (He’s French) means that he’s ethnically French and, if not otherwise noted, a French citizen.But they’ll also say Îí áåëüãèåö (He’s Belgian), regardless of whether he’s ethnically French, Flemish or German.
But for some reason, àìåðèêàíåö (American) is not considered íàöèîíàëüíîñòü the way áåëüãèåö is. In fact, the Russian Internet is filled with clarifications — from comical to crude — on what exactly “àìåðèêàíåö” is: Àìåðèêàíåö — íå íàöèîíàëüíîñòü. Àìåðèêàíåö — ýòî òîò, ó êîãî àìåðèêàíñêèé ïàñïîðò. (“American” isn’t a nationality. An American is someone with an American passport).&#8239;Àìåðèêàíåö — ýòî íå íàöèîíàëüíîñòü, ýòî äèàãíîç (“American” isn’t a nationality, it’s a diagnosis.) Àìåðèêàíåö — ýòî íå íàöèîíàëüíîñòü, ýòî ôèëîñîôèÿ (“American” isn’t a nationality. It’s a philosophy.) Àìåðèêàíåö — ýòî ñïåöèàëüíîñòü (“American” is a profession). Àìåðèêàíåö — ýòî ðåëèãèÿ (“American” is a religion).
Sometimes an explanation of why “American” isn’t a nationality uses terms that make it, on the contrary, a dictionary-perfect definition of íàöèîíàëüíîñòü: Àìåðèêàíåö — ýòî íå íàöèîíàëüíîñòü, à ÷óâñòâî ïðèíàäëåæíîñòè ê àìåðèêàíñêîé öèâèëèçàöèè, ê àìåðèêàíñêîé çåìëå (“American” isn’t a nationality, but rather a feeling of belonging to American civilization and attachment to American land).
But wait! That sense of belonging to a civilization and land is pretty much how Vladimit Putin described ñàìîèäåíòè÷íîñòü ðóññêîãî íàðîäà (the self-identity of the Russian people) in his essay about íàöèîíàëüíûé âîïðîñ (the national problem).
So I give up. When someone asks me, Êòî òû ïî íàöèîíàëüíîñòè? I’m going to say: ×òî òû èìååøü â âèäó? (What do you mean?)

<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: Dizzy heights
AUTHOR: By Olga Khrustaleva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s rooftops have become an iconic element of 21st-century sightseeing in the city. In addition to climbing up the towers of Smolny or St. Isaac’s cathedrals, informal rooftop tours have become popular, while for adventurous diners, romantic dinners for two on a rooftop overlooking the city center can be arranged. 
Hiking up a real rooftop, however, generally involves both courage and determination. This winter, even those who suffer from vertigo will have the opportunity to enjoy spectacular panoramic views of the city as the exhibit “High-Altitude St. Petersburg” opens at the Russian Geographical Society.
“Our aim is to show beautiful photographs,” Andrei Strelnikov, the exhibit’s curator, told The St. Petersburg Times. “Something that people walking, riding the metro or a bus wouldn’t normally see. Sun, air, sunrises and sunsets and, of course, the unusual spots from which the photos were taken.”
Seventeen local photographers — both professionals and amateurs — took part in the exhibit, which comprises 44 works. Looking at some of the breathtaking works, it is at times difficult to recognize the city. The play of light, beautiful architecture, even old and quite rundown buildings look authentic and inspiring, evoking a feeling of romance and not unpleasant melancholia.
A background for the photographs has been provided by the young artist Yelena Kovaleva, whose graphic ink-painted works frame the images. 
“We hope it will become another push to immerse the audience in the atmosphere of height, rooftops and contemplation,” said Strelnikov.
There are many aspects of St. Petersburg that inspire poets, songwriters and artists, and roofs are certainly among them. They have been depicted in many films about the city, and despite the fact that walking on them has been forbidden by the police, roof-walking is still one of the most popular means of entertainment for young locals and their guests from other cities. Finding an apartment with roof access is considered to be truly lucky, and those who venture up onto a rooftop in the middle of summer may be surprised by how many other people have had the same idea of going up there to sunbathe, paint, or simply hang around doing little other than admire the view.
In order to select the photographs to be shown, Strelnikov read blogs and visited various Internet communities dedicated to the city’s rooftops. While small and short-term rooftop exhibits have previously been held in the city, this is the first relatively large-scale project of its kind, and is likely to thrill sky-gazers. 
  
<i>“High-Altitude St. Petersburg” runs through Feb. 21 at the Russian Geographical Society, 10 Pereulok Grivtsova. Tel. 8 800 700 1845. Metro Sennaya Ploshchad / Sadovaya. Entrance is free. http://spb.rgo.ru</i>

TITLE: Fire and ice
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: For an exhibition titled “Arctic Hysteria,” the atmosphere at the Russian Center of Photography (Rosphoto), where the work of 14 Finnish artists is currently on display, is surprisingly pacific. It is also remarkably expansive. The sprawling show, which comprises photography, film, video and sound installation, takes up all three of the center’s gallery spaces, as well as its shop, cafe and entrance halls.
“Arctic Hysteria” — which is named after Finnish novelist Marko Tapio’s attempt to describe abberant behavior brought on by environmental extremes — first appeared at New York City’s P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in 2008, traveling to several cities before finally landing in St. Petersburg. Along the way, the selection of artwork was changed or supplemented depending on the space, making each manifestation slightly different to its predecessor. 
For this iteration, a large-scale installation by Marcus Copper devoted to the sinking of Russia’s Kursk submarine and gargantuan pencil drawings by Stiina Saaristo have remained in Finland due to space restrictions. Nonetheless, there is still plenty to see.
Setting out to expose how stereotypes shape our perceptions and often cause us to discard new or unexpected information, the show picks apart the conventional view that the Finns are a cool, taciturn nation intimately connected to nature. 
 While acknowledging that, inexact as they may be, stereotypes often contain at least a degree of truth, curators Alanna Heiss and Marketta Sepp&#228;l&#228; set out to reveal currents of passion and artifice running through the work on view — the hysteria of the exhibition’s title.
“We ended up taking these traditional clich&#233;s as a starting point, and somehow questioning them too. And also showing that there is some sense in them,” said curator Sepp&#228;l&#228;. “We cannot help that the concept of nature is so strongly involved, or that the human / animal relationship appears in almost every work.” 
The questions that the curators ask about the particularities of Finnish art produce a cacophony of eccentric answers, which is precisely the point. Moving inexorably from the stereotypical to the unique, the dialogue that arises between nature and culture — in both subject matter and process — gives the lie to many a popular myth about the Finns. 
As a result of this transformation, the work of Finnish artists can be seen within a global context as extracting universal themes from specific local circumstances. 
Possibly the most interesting issue the exhibition raises is that of in-groups versus out-groups, or ethnocentrism, in the art world. While it is hard to say just how “Finnish” contemporary Finnish art can be in a post-national world, the curators allow that outsiders are still judged in terms of their relation to the dominant culture. 
“We cannot avoid the fact that people coming from afar are always looked at to see if they can show something that is original, or if it’s only imitation,” said Sepp&#228;l&#228;. 
No doubt the answer to that question, despite Finland’s proximity, will be much the same here in St. Petersburg as it was in New York and Salamanca.

<i>“Arctic Hysteria: Contemporary Art From Finland” runs through April 1 at Rosphoto, 35 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 314 1214. M. Admiralteiskaya. www.rosphoto.org</i>

TITLE: THE DISH: Elardzhi
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: On the local culinary landscape, Georgian food has been offering Russian diners access to the exotic since long before the sushi revolution. From small local caf&#233;s that serve as banqueting halls for the diaspora to over-the-top palaces of kitsch that draw in the tourists, Central Asian cooks have done more to introduce complex spicing and such unusual ingredients as pomegranate seeds, eggplant and cilantro into Russia’s gastronomic vernacular than just about any other force. That they are generally family-run and stupendously welcoming makes them an agreeable destination as much as a place to tuck into a first-rate meal. 
A new restaurant on Ulitsa Lomonosova is no exception. Occupying a soaring, romantically lit space a stone’s throw from the Fontanka River, Elardzhi takes Georgian dining to thrilling heights while remaining sufficiently affordable and egalitarian. 
Thankfully, the owners have resisted the temptation to overdo things. The elegantly minimal dining rooms feature lots of exposed brick and are decorated in a comfortably muted palette of browns and beige, with stylish antiques scattered throughout. An entire corner of the main dining room is given over to a bakery from which the restaurant’s bread emerges warm and chewy.
The menu describes a good mix of evergreen Georgian favorites alongside some more unusual offerings. “Clever mushrooms” (because they are made with veal brains) provoked a chuckle but didn’t much appeal, and so we settled on satsivi (250 rubles, $8), a dish of cold, poached chicken drenched in a walnut yogurt sauce. A plate of grilled eggplant slices beneath a chunky walnut paste studded with glossy red pomegranate seeds (250 rubles, $8), and bazha (300 rubles, $10) — a flash-fried fish version of the satsivi — rounded out the feast of small plates. 
The house-special Megrelian khachapuri cheese bread (200 rubles, $6.50) was sinfully buttery and paired perfectly with the satsivi. And while all the dishes were delicately flavored, beautifully presented and extremely fresh, the bazha was the most exciting; the slight crunch of the warm salmon chunks played nicely against the cool silkiness of the sauce.
A selection of soups offers deeply warming winter fare, from the ubiquitous mutton-based kharcho to the more unusual chichirtma (both 250 rubles, $8), a thickened chicken broth chock-full of chopped herbs. Deciding on a bowl of the latter, giggles from a nearby table heralded the arrival of a steaming saucepan and a white linen bib for the more slovenly. It is a mystery as to why the soup was more deserving of this precaution than any of the other dishes. But the silly drama of it all and the gentle, almost maternal, tenderness with which the waiter tied on the bib more than made up for the soup’s lack of any real complexity. Interestingly, the soup’s creamy texture was provided by cornmeal, rather than by any dairy product. But beyond a nicely acidic blast of lemon juice, its timidity was a slight disappointment after the hoopla surrounding its presentation.
Among the various main dishes competing for attention, skewers of grilled meat that promised a fragrant reminder of sultry days and backyard barbeques took hold of our sun-starved imagination and wouldn’t let go. Arriving grilled to perfection, the veal (500 rubles, $16) and lamb (600 rubles, $20) were both extremely tender. Sadly, the lamb was agonizingly over seasoned but a nearby glass of the house red, a Chilean Carmenere (180 rubles, $6), came to the rescue. Easy drinking, if not very complex, it is one of two house wines offered by the glass. The only surprise came at the end of the meal when it was discovered that the wine is annoyingly sold in “portions,” meaning diners are charged three times the menu price for each glass they drink.
Dessert at Georgian restaurants can usually be given a miss without much regret; the inevitable baklava is a sweetness too far, and a plate of fruit is almost always a let down. Elardzhi, however, offers mazoni (150 rubles, $5) as an alternative. An unpasteurized cows-milk yogurt served in a covered terracotta pot, it is achingly cold, densely creamy and slightly animalistic in flavor. Just be sure to accept the optional honey. It’s a perfect foil for the delicate bitterness of the yogurt and leaves a lingering sweetness on the palate, much like the restaurant as a whole.

TITLE: Heart-Warming Valentine’s Ideas for Any Budget
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Whether your love is just a day old or decades old, a special Valentine’s Day celebration might be just what the doctor ordered for your relationship. After all, as the proverb goes, actions speak louder than words. Luckily, St. Petersburg is home to a range of ways to celebrate the most romantic day of the year — regardless of your budget. The St. Petersburg Times presents a variety of different ways to spend a special St. Valentine’s Day with your loved one, from costs of $1 to $1,000. 

<b>For a wallet 
as bottomless 
as love itself</b>
One of the most thrilling and romantic ways to tell your partner you love them is while you’re flying high above the city in a hot air balloon. Those brave enough to face the elements can take a ride over the former imperial estates of Pushkin and Pavlovsk — some of the most beautiful areas around St. Petersburg. For 29,000 rubles ($960) you can fly for an hour at a height of 300 to 500 meters. A car follows the balloon on the ground for the duration of the trip in order to greet the lovebirds when they land. During the winter, however, balloon trips are available only in the morning. Trips also depend heavily on the weather, and the pilot has the final say on whether or not the weather is appropriate for flying. Trips can be canceled just before they are due to take off. 
Another romantic trip can be taken closer to earth, in a horse-drawn carriage, allowing couples to pretend they are a fairytale prince and princess. For 14,000 rubles ($460) an hour, the horses — or rather, their driver — will take you wherever you wish to go at any time of the day.
If earth and air aren’t your elements, there’s always the option of a romantic voyage on the Princess Maria ferry to Helsinki. You will spend two nights on the ferry and one day in the Finnish capital. Onboard, you can choose a cabin to suit your budget, order a romantic dinner in the onboard restaurant and explore the splendid sights of Helsinki.
Others may wish to simply escape from the daily grind to the luxury world of the city’s finest hotels, taking a romantic mini-break right in the middle of the week. Many hotels offer special Valentine’s Day packages. The Grand Hotel Europe, for example, offers a deluxe room, a candlelit dinner with live music, and a fruit basket, flowers and chocolate in the room as well as breakfast the next morning for 25,000 rubles ($830). For a similar price, couples can take advantage of the Corinthia Hotel St. Petersburg’s offer of a night in a suite, sparkling wine, fruit, sweets and breakfast served in the room.
Another option is to simply enjoy a romantic dinner, for example, at the W Hotel St. Petersburg, with special dishes for him and her at 5,200 rubles ($170) per person with a glass of champagne included. For 16,900 rubles ($564), the hotel will throw in a treatment in its Bliss spa (for the lady only) and a room with chocolate, champagne and other “romantic surprises” in addition to dinner.

<b>Saving for a special occasion</b>
To make Valentine’s Day truly memorable without breaking the bank, lovers can go to a professional photography studio to create a photo album of their love story. Prices vary from 2,000 to 3,000 rubles ($67 to $100) per hour and upwards. Photo sessions can be arranged for outdoor locations, including on St. Petersburg rooftops. Professionals recommend taking some favorite props from home to make the session truly personal.
Among life’s many adventures that can be experienced together, there may be a lesson to be learned from a pottery workshop. Create a unique, handmade item together — what could be more romantic? This costs about 3,000 rubles ($100).
Another option is to explore another city: Vyborg and Novgorod, for example, are not far from St. Petersburg and can be reached by car or bus for between 500 and 1,000 rubles ($17 to $33) for a  roundtrip for two. The average price for a night in a hotel varies from 1,600 to 5,000 rubles ($50 to 165) in both cities. 
If time is limited, you can always go to a restaurant and surprise your Valentine with a romantic dinner. Many of the city’s restaurants have Valentine’s offers. For example, Novotel offers a five-course dinner accompanied by live music, flowers and gifts for female diners for about 2,000 rubles per person. For 9,000 rubles ($300), in addition to dinner, you can also spend a night in a deluxe room, with fruit and champagne provided.

<b>Money 
isn’t everything</b>
The amount of money spent on a romantic weekend shouldn’t matter as much as the most important thing on Valentine’s Day: To say three little — but important — words. Saying “I love you” costs nothing, and there are plenty of other romantic activities that are similarly easy on the wallet. 
Start by making breakfast for your partner. If you don’t live together, give your loved one a wake-up call.
One romantic idea is to recreate your first date together. Where did you go? What were you wearing? What did you talk about? Who made the first move? Spend the evening reminiscing. Traditionally, first dates include a walk and a night at the movies or theater. Plan your own romantic route — St. Petersburg is a city of love and is full of romantic places. Read up on all of the legends and romantic traditions associated with some places and surprise your beloved.
Since the main symbol of Valentine’s Day is the Valentine’s card, you can make one yourself. Here you’re limited only by your skills and imagination. Use any of your favorite photos, write your own greeting or quote some classics, look for tips on the Internet or create your own style. This is guaranteed to be the best present, as it is handmade and comes from the heart.
A romantic walk can be rounded off with a trip to the cinema or theater. This year, the city’s Culture Committee has put on a surprise for Valentine’s Day — theater and cinema tickets will just cost 10 rubles ($0.33). Most St. Petersburg theaters, including the Mikhailovsky, Alexandriinsky, Molodezhny, Lensoveta and others, are participating in this event along with eight movie theaters, including Avrora and Rodina. Tickets will be sold from Feb. 9 to 12 at city box offices and on Feb. 14 in theaters and cinemas. 
A budget Valentine’s Day can end with a homemade dinner and romantic evening spent alone with your sweetheart.

TITLE: Residential Real Estate Market Sees Gradual Recovery
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg residential real estate market is on the road to recovery after the crisis, but the annual launch of residential buildings is still yet to meet levels from 2008.
“The demand for new buildings is increasing, the volume being offered is growing and new, more profitable mortgage programs are emerging,” said Nikolai Kazansky, general director of Colliers International St. Petersburg.
As a result of a decrease in the mortgage interest rate at the beginning of last year, the number of mortgage applications increased in 2011. This year, demand continues to grow, according to Anastasia Razvarzina, head of retail business development at Sviaz Bank in St. Petersburg, which receives between 30 and 60 million mortgage applications every week, Razvarzina said. 
The banks try to support those who have a good credit history by lowering interest rates for them, she said, noting that the interest rate should be no more than 12.5 percent.
According to Razvarzina’s forecast, the percentage of people applying for a mortgage will increase by 30 percent this year.
“The main tendency for 2011 was the launching of large-scale development projects; development will continue in 2012,” said Kazansky.
“Small-sized one and two-room apartments in economy and comfort-class buildings will be launched on the market,” he said.
In 2011, the annual launch of residential buildings increased by 2.3 percent, and totaled 2.7 million square meters, according to data from Colliers International. Although the figures are increasing, they still haven’t reached 2008 levels when the annual launch of residential space was more than 3 million square meters.
In order to meet the market’s demands, about 4 million square meters of residential space should be built every year for the next five to six years, according to data from the Prok group of companies, published by the Big Server of Real Estate (BSN) at www.bsn.ru. Prok specialists, however, predict that the total volume of launched residential space will stay at the same level.

<b>Location, Location, Location</b>
The city’s Primorsky and Vyborgsky districts are considered to be among the leading areas when it comes to newly completed residential space, according to Colliers International specialists.
The overall total of completed projects and those under construction in the Primorsky district is 1.5 million square meters with 57 new buildings and six more projects preparing to be sold, according to NDV-Real Estate data. In the Vyborgsky district, the total area of newly constructed buildings is about 1.1 million square meters. Third place in the ratings goes to the Krasnoselsky district with 747,000 square meters on the market. All of the leading districts are located in the north of the city.
“Promising offers for 2012 to 2014 are expected in the Moskovsky district,” said Kazansky.
The smallest number of construction projects is in the Admiralteisky district where only one building is under construction, according to NDV-Real Estate data. Developers are however preparing five new projects in the district. The highest number of residential buildings are under construction in the Vasileostrovsky and Moskovsky districts, with 12 and 10 projects, respectively, said NDV-Real Estate experts.
Sales in 2011 increased by 13 percent compared with 2010 and totaled 2.2 million square meters overall, according to Colliers International data.
“There is now more demand for more spacious and luxurious apartments, whereas previously small-sized economy-class apartments were the most popular,” said Kazansky.
“In general we do not expect a lull in the construction of new buildings in the near future. The existing demand is met by large-scale development projects,” he said.
“By 2015, two thirds of all residential space is expected to be built within large-scale development projects.”
“There is still a deficit of new high-quality residential projects located within the vicinity of metro stations in the city,” added Kazansky.
Apartments in pre-fabricated buildings usually cost about 79,290 rubles ($2,620) per square meter, according to BSN data from Jan. 31. Newly constructed brick buildings cost 93,480 rubles ($3,090) per square meter and apartments in brick and concrete buildings cost 73,950 rubles ($2,445) per square meter. The most expensive districts are the Vasileostrovsky, Tsentralny and Petrogradsky. During 2011, the price of economy and comfort-class apartments increased by 8 to 10 percent and 15 percent respectively, according to Prok data.

<b>The Cream of the Crop</b>
Elite residential real estate prices increased during the last year by 13 percent and, according to Knight Frank St. Petersburg data for December 2011, range from $8,500 to $48,000 per square meter.
At the end of 2011 and beginning of this year, about 650 new apartments were planned to be built in the elite residential real estate sector, according to Knight Frank data. The number has decreased from previous years, since in 2011 developers exercised caution and were in no hurry to launch new projects on the market. Now there is a lack of high-quality projects on the market, but new projects are expected to be launched this year.
Developers are now looking for original strategies to attract clients. 
“New projects with apartments that are ready to be lived in whose interiors have been designed and furnished with expensive brand-name furniture are being introduced on the market,” said Yelizaveta Konvey, head of the elite residential real estate department at Knight Frank.
“Clients prefer apartments in buildings that have already been completed rather than in those that are still being constructed,” she said. “In spite of the wide variety and appealing offers, continuing construction on neighboring buildings has posed a problem for some seeking to buy an apartment. Potential buyers fear that construction on the neighboring buildings could last three to five years, and therefore opt for another choice,” she said.
Last year also saw increasing interest in elite out-of-town residential real estate. Sales were nevertheless half of what they were in 2010, according to Knight Frank data.  

<b>Escape to the Country</b>
The main influence on the development of the out-of-town market was the completion of some very large transport infrastructure projects, including the tunnel under the Gulf of Finland, whose construction completed the ring road. Construction work was also carried out on the Priozerskoye and Kievskoye highways. Increased access to some areas made possible by transport has had an influence on the out-of-town real estate market, and there is growing demand from those choosing to live out-of-town or in the countryside.
The biggest plans are for the Kurortny district where six cottage settlements are planned, making up 43 percent of all projected developments on the out-of-town market. The Vsevolozhsky and Vyborgsky districts are also popular, according to Knight Frank data. The Lomonosovsky district has the potential to host the most building projects, with more than 9,000 vacant land plots, both with and without buildings. More than 50 percent of all cottages sold the city last year were sold in the Vsevolozhsky district. 
Prices have not changed much during the last year. The average price of an elite cottage at the end of 2011 was a little more than $1.6 million, according to Knight Frank data. A lot of special offers were available, which decreased the total cost slightly, but experts advise buyers to be wary of such offers.
“Price bonuses are not an indication of the developer’s generosity, and they ultimately lead to additional expenses for new owners when it comes to the engineering and infrastructure of the property,” said Tamara Popova, manager of strategic consulting projects at Knight Frank. “Typical extra charges incurred in exchange for discounted land are between 500,000 and 800,000 rubles ($16,520 to $26,430) to set up access, electricity, water and sometimes gas,” she explained.
“The choice for consumers is rather limited,” said Konvey. “Last year, buyers could spend several months looking for a property that met their requirements. Nowadays buyers often involve technical specialists, designers and lawyers in the process of looking for and pricing a property. The availability of transportation, appearance of the property and social and welfare infrastructure development are all important,” she said.
There has also been a trend toward budget residential space that has made developers with experience in the premium segment to develop projects oriented towards a wider audience, said Knight Frank specialists.

<b>Townhouse Aspirations</b>
Buying apartments in townhouses — two or three-story buildings in the suburbs containing several apartments — has become the most recent trend in the Leningrad Oblast. 
“You can buy a three-room apartment for 1.5 million rubles ($49,560) in a townhouse with a parking space on the out-of-town market, while in St. Petersburg for that money you will only get a room in a communal apartment,” said Sergei Budko, commercial director of the Kivennapa group of companies.
The most popular areas in the LenOblast are Kudrovo, Novoe Devyatkino, Murino, Koltushi and Vsevolozhsk, according to Knight Frank data.
“These settlements are interesting for those looking for real estate as they are within close distance of St. Petersburg and are not highly-priced,” said Popova. “Furthermore, such out-of-town buildings don’t have as many stories as residential complexes in the city, fewer people live in the area and the ecology of the area is better [than that of the city],” she added.

TITLE: Jewelry-Maker Celebrates 100 Years of Tradition
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia’s oldest jewelry-maker, Russkiye Samotsvety, which celebrates its centenary this year, has stuck to a somewhat paradoxical survival strategy. After the economic crisis, the Russian jewelry market saw steady growth in the sales of economy-class items, which is natural, as most people’s incomes have been dropping. However, what the St. Petersburg company plans to focus on is its century-old unique techniques, in which handmade work comprises at least 50 percent of every piece, and cannot be replaced by machine work.
“For example, we work by hand at various stages of producing enamel and filigree tableware: The technique, a very laborious and time-consuming one, came to Russia around the time when Christianity came to Kievan Rus,” said Sergei Dokuchayev, general director of Russkiye Samotsvety, at a recent news conference held at the factory.
“We have hardly any competition here at all, while there will always be demand for this skilled work,” the director added.
Another signature product to come from Russkiye Samotsvety is stone figurines carved out of a single piece of natural stone and decorated with gold. The techniques date back to the time of imperial favorite Carl Faberge and his workshop.
Russkiye Samotsvety was established in 1912 by the decree of Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, as the Company for the Development and Perfection of Lapidary and Polishing Handicraft. The factory’s traditions, however, date back to 1721, when Peter the Great founded the Imperial Peterhof Lapidary Mill.
Russkiye Samotsvety today is not only about stone-carving and enamel painting. This year, the company is launching a new production facility to make wedding rings. With the opening of the plant, the company’s management intends to expand its presence in various regions of Russia. Local shops often refuse to sign a contract with a supplier if the agreement concerns only a handful of very expensive pieces of jewelry. The company hopes that some competitive mass market products should help to close deals.
“There are enough clients in these regions who would like to purchase an exclusive piece, a work of art, essentially; these clients are looking first and foremost for an original design and extraordinary quality, while price is a secondary question, but local shops will not have this sort of jewelry,” Dokuchayev explains. “We should be able to solve this problem by offering package deals that have both mass market products and very expensive sophisticated pieces.”
Currently, Russkiye Samotsvety occupies 20 percent of the wedding ring market in St. Petersburg. With the launch of the new facility, the company expects its share to increase to 35 to 40 percent of the market.
The company is investing between 150 and 200 million rubles (5 to 6.6 million dollars) into the new factory. This year, the facility will start producing 50 kilograms of gold items per month, while eventually production is expected to reach 150 kilograms of gold items a month.
Wedding rings and other mass-market jewelry products face fierce competition in Russia today, with the main factor being vast numbers of counterfeit goods. 
According to official statistics, the share of counterfeit jewelry on the Russian market amounts to about 3 to 5 percent; Dokuchayev claims the scale of the problem is much greater. He says stores in Russia are swamped with counterfeit goods. “Visit any of your local jewelry stores, and most of what you find there will be cheap low-quality Chinese stuff that can only remotely be regarded as gold,” he said. “Of course, the shops do not officially acknowledge that they are selling Chinese jewelry: These rings, chains or pendants are typically marked as ‘individual private enterprise by Mr. Ivanov or Mr. Petrov.’ Nobody checks the authenticity of the alloy of these products.”
It does not help that the Russian State Assay Chamber is not on the list of organizations that possess the right to control the quality of goods sold in Russia, Dokuchayev says. And even if the chamber won such a right, the modest numbers of staff there would not allow for any consistent and regular monitoring.
“Put simply, if you go to a small private jewelry store and get yourself an inexpensive piece of jewelry it is highly likely that it is made of some sort of gold mix, rather than genuine gold,” he said.
The Assay Chamber does have the right to check the quality of products directly at factories but, again, shortage of staff is a problem. A specialist can normally visit a factory only about once a year. At the same time, the number of small enterprises is growing.
“It has become relatively easy to buy a machine that makes simple items,” Dokuchayev said. “The goods are cheap and sell quickly. What sort of alloy will turn out, nobody appears to be seriously concerned about: The company gets its profit, the customer gets an affordable ‘gold’ item and the state cannot be bothered.”

TITLE: Families Fear Oil Rig Tragedy Being Swept Away
AUTHOR: By Rina Soloveitchik
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — As the anti-election fraud protest at Prospekt Akademika Sakharova raged around her, Yelena Bogush seemed out of place.
While most of the democracy-hungry crowd held up signs demanding “Fair elections,” or the ouster of “The party of crooks and thieves,” Bogush clutched a sign close to her chest, reading: “My husband died on the Kolskaya platform. The system killed him. Who is next?”
Six days earlier on Dec. 18, her husband, Ilya Kartashov, was one of 53 people who disappeared when the Kolskaya offshore oil-drilling platform sank in the frozen waters of the Sea of Okhotsk some 11,000 kilometers from Moscow.
News of the shocking tragedy has been largely overshadowed by the political turmoil shaking the country since the disputed Dec. 4 State Duma elections sent tens of thousands of protesters into the streets.
But Bogush is determined to keep pressure on the state-run companies involved and to make sure that people hear her belief that the government is guilty of “annihilating its own people.”
“I am nearly certain that it is the management of the companies that is responsible. People on the platform were caught in a trap. At each stage the only thought was, ‘How can more money be saved?’ For the safety of the people there was never enough money,” she said.
It was a brutal winter storm that caused the Kolskaya to sink beneath the waves as it was being towed to Vietnam after a three-month stint out to sea in the Far East.
But the story of the doomed oil rig begins in April 2011, when Gazprom subsidiary Gazflot commissioned state-run, Murmansk-based drilling company Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka, or AMNGR, to drill for oil on a shelf 200 kilometers off the coast of Sakhalin.
The AMNGR platform, the Gazprom Kolskaya, arrived in Magadan in August and was towed into position the following month. Built in 1985 by Finnish company Rauma-Repola, the Kolskaya had already passed the average lifetime of a floating oil rig of about 18 years, experts say.
The aging Kolskaya was plagued with problems before it even arrived, according to documents provided to The Moscow Times (sister newspaper to The St. Petersburg Times) by Natalya Dmitriyeva, daughter of towing operation Captain Mikhail Tersin. He had kept the documents in his personal files, and they have since been handed over to prosecutors.
Dmitriyeva says when her father — a 30-year veteran — was given the assignment to move the Kolskaya, he told her the job was “simply impossible.”
“He was nervous and angry,” Dmitriyeva said.
The earliest document dates back to May 2011, when an insurance company informed AMNGR deputy CEO Vasily Vasetsky that the platform had several cracks in the area of its nose that needed repair.
“Given the successful preliminary repair the platform can be transported on Aug. 31,” an inspection certificate issued by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping stated on Aug. 25. The same document also demanded that a permanent repair be made within a year.
Dmitriyeva says she thinks that during the storm, the cracks opened and caused the platform to sink. Her father did not survive.
“My father worked for this company for years, and they always saved money at the cost of people’s safety,” she said.
In the spirit of her father who, according to Dmitriyeva, was “very truthful and always fair,” she says she wants to make all the information she has public in the hope that those responsible will be punished.
“Father loved his job, he loved the sea. He always wanted his ashes to be spread over the sea,” she said.
Even more telling is a document from the platform’s manufacturer that explicitly stated that “towing is prohibited in the winter, in winter seasonal zones.”
But on Dec. 11, a towing ship, the Neftegaz 55, joined by an icebreaker, the Magadan, arrived to move the platform and its 67 crew members. A week later, the platform sank. Ultimately, 14 people were saved and 17 bodies later found and identified, but 35 remain missing.
Investigators with the far eastern transportation branch of the Prosecutor General’s Office have opened a criminal case after determining that “violations in the towing of the platform” were the main reason for the accident. They say the platform should not have been towed in the winter and there were too many people on it, according to a statement on their website.

<b>Horror on the High Seas</b>
Survivor Alexander Kovalenko, who was in charge of the drilling rig, said he had argued that no one should have been on the platform as it was towed.
“Everybody knows that people should not be left on the platform,” he told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
He says only Gazflot workers were removed despite his request that the AMNGR crew be moved onto the icebreaker Magadan before the operation started.
“We would have to pay for the icebreaker — rent and fuel. So don’t ask that question again,” he says the main engineer of AMNGR, Leonid Bordzilovsky, told him by phone from Murmansk.
Kovalenko said Tersin advised management in Murmansk to take a safer route along the Kuril Islands to hide from the storm, but was instructed to follow the sea because it was shorter.
When the storm began getting severe on Dec. 16, the platform started to move faster and began shaking, survivors said. On Dec. 17, part of the Magadan’s tow rope broke. AMNGR Murmansk was informed and asked to send another ship, Kovalenko said, but he told Komsomolskaya Pravda that the request was ignored.
On the night of Dec. 18, the nose of the Kolskaya platform started to go under water. Water flooded through the portholes and into the galley, knocking out walls between the cabins.
In the morning, Kovalenko said he was yelling on the phone with AMNGR in Murmansk: “We will drown with the platform and will all die!”
At 9:24 a.m. that morning, the SOS signal was given. The platform crew was told that helicopters were on the way.
But rescue pilot Vasily Khristoradov told the far eastern news site Sakhalin.info that the first choppers were not dispatched for nearly 4 1/2 hours following a squabble over who would pay for the operation.
According to survivors, those who waited on the platform for helicopters all died, like Andrei Dmitriyev.
“His friend who survived told me that my brother was waiting for the helicopters to come, whereas he himself decided to jump,” Dmitriyev’s sister Natalya Pankratova said.
Her brother was only a 25-year-old drilling assistant, who had just started his job. He had no experience coping with such a deadly situation.
“As soon as he started working for AMNGR, he started complaining about how horrible and careless the attitude toward employees was,” she said.
In no time, the Kolskaya slipped into the water. Some, like Kovalenko and survivor Sergei Grauman, an assistant driller, jumped off early enough to be saved.
“Then the real horror started,” Grauman told Komsomolskaya Pravda. “The Magadan was not saving, but killing people.”
Both he and Kovalenko said the giant ice-breaking ship was ill equipped for a rescue operation and that neither of them had the strength to climb up the net that was lowered by its crew. They were ultimately saved by the crew of the Neftegaz.
Chillingly, they watched as their fellow crewmen floundered in the water and then got sucked under the nose of the Magadan.
Survivors, relatives and maritime experts believe that the crew could have been saved during many different stages of the towing operation.
“Why were people left on board during towing? Why did they not save anyone when problems occurred?” asked Dmitry Svistunov, the son of Nikolai Svistunov, the rig’s doctor who remains missing.
Maritime expert Mikhail Voitenko told The St. Petersburg Times that he thinks an honest investigation into the disaster would reveal a great number of errors. He also suspects that the platform suffered from greater technical problems than have already been revealed, as the “very experienced” owners of the Magadan would not have agreed to a potentially dangerous operation otherwise.
Voitenko says anyone with experience in seafaring would expect a storm of that kind during that time of the year in the Sea of Okhotsk.
“I think someone really wants to prohibit an objective investigation into what led to the death of the Kolskaya platform,” he said.

<b>An Unpredictable Tragedy</b>
The companies involved deny they are to blame for the accident. In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, AMNGR’s acting general director Yury Melekhov said it was not too late in the year for towing. He said the platform was designed to carry up to 100 people and that it was Captain Tersin who gave the order for people to stay onboard.
In a news conference on Dec. 19, he acknowledged that there were three cracks in the platform, but insisted that “they were already fixed in Magadan. The repair took 20 days and was finished Aug. 31.”
The icebreaker Magadan and ship Neftegaz were “fully prepared for the operation,” he insisted.
“The evacuation of the platform was carried out in an organized manner. All the men were dressed in hydro costumes,” or dry suits designed for extreme temperatures, he added.
Voitenko says by law the main responsibility lies with AMNGR, but Gazprom is not off the hook as they requested drilling in December, knowing that the platform needed to be transported back.
Long before the accident, local environmental activists filed a suit against Gazprom. Their main concern was that the rig was located in an area that is home to a very rare species of fish. In October the environmentalists appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev with their concerns. Neither the company, nor the president responded.
The active search for survivors ended on Dec. 22. Experts say that even in a hydro costume, a person can survive no longer than 10 hours in such conditions.
“Everyone is broken or still in hope,” Bogush said.
Her seven-year-old daughter Valya “grew up suddenly,” her mother said. She thinks that Valya understands what is happening.
“I think she was used to him being there and then not being there. But now she asks me, ‘Will you get married again?’ ‘No,’ I say,” Bogush said.
“The other relatives all pity one another — that is the wrong approach. I want those responsible for the accident to be found and punished,” she said.
Bogush, Svistunov, Pankratova and Dmitriyeva were informed that their loved ones were insured by the company for $30,000.
“When I read that the insurance was $30,000 — that the life of my husband costs that little — I was amazed.” Bogush said.
Tersin’s daughter Dmitriyeva wants to believe that those responsible will be prosecuted.
“I want to believe that the country I live in cares about its people,” she said.
The relatives of the victims are organizing a lawsuit against AMNGR. They also sent a letter to Medvedev asking for the creation of a government commission to investigate the accident.
“The country seems to have forgotten about the tragedy entirely,” one relative who requested anonymity said.
“I just can’t believe that my husband died so that some oil managers can buy themselves another car,” Bogush said, finally in tears.

TITLE: Investigators seek answers to Houston's death
AUTHOR: by ANTHONY MCCARTNEY
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES  — Investigators worked Sunday to piece together what killed Whitney Houston as the music industry's biggest names gathered for a Grammy Awards show that felt as much like a memorial as a celebration.

Coroner's officials say they will not release any information on an autopsy performed Sunday at the request of police detectives investigating the singer's death. The singer was found in the bathtub of her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, but Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter declined to say anything more about the room's condition or any evidence investigators recovered.
He said there were no obvious signs of trauma on Houston's body, but that officials were not ruling out any causes of death until they have toxicology results, which will take weeks to obtain.
Beverly Hills Police Lt. Mark Rosen said that his agency may release more details Monday about Houston's death, but it will depend on whether detectives feel comfortable releasing any information.

A member of Houston's entourage found the 48-year-old singer unresponsive in her hotel room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday, just hours before she was supposed to appear at a pre-Grammy gala.
Rosen said there were no signs of foul play when Houston was found by a member of her entourage. Paramedics worked to revive Houston, but were unsuccessful and the singer was pronounced dead shortly before 4 p.m. He said he could not comment on the condition of Houston's room or where she had been found.

Meanwhile, Houston's daughter was transported by ambulance to a Los Angeles hospital Sunday morning and later released. A source close to the family who did not want to speak given the sensitivity of the matter said she was treated and released for stress and anxiety. Bobbi Kristina Brown, 18, who is Houston's daughter from her marriage to singer Bobby Brown, had accompanied her mother to several pre-Grammy Awards events last week.

"At this time, we ask for privacy, especially for my daughter, Bobbi Kristina," Bobby Brown wrote in a statement released about an hour after she was transported from the hotel. "I appreciate all of the condolences that have been directed towards my family and I at this most difficult time."
Sunday's Grammys were to feature a musical tribute to Houston by Jennifer Hudson, and early on LL Cool J introduced a clip of a glowing Houston singing one of her best-known songs, "I Will Always Love You." LL Cool J then said: "Whitney, we will always love you."
Houston herself won six Grammys and had been expected to perform at the pre-awards gala Saturday night thrown by music impresario Clive Davis, her longtime mentor.
Davis went ahead with his annual party and concert, which were held at the same hotel where Houston's body was found — and where it remained for most of Saturday night. He dedicated the evening to her and asked for a moment of silence.
Houston had been at rehearsals for the Davis concert on Thursday, coaching singers Brandy and Monica, according to a person who was at the event but was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

The person said Houston looked disheveled, was sweating profusely and liquor and cigarettes could be smelled on her breath. It was the latest of countless stories about the decline of a uniquely gifted and beautiful artist, once the golden girl of the music industry.
The Rev. Al Sharpton remembered Houston while preaching Sunday morning at the Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles.
"Yes, she had an outstanding range," he said. "Yes, she could hit notes no one else could reach. But what made her different was she was born and bred in the bosom of the black church."
The congregation applauded and answered him with shouts of "Amen" and "Tell it!"
"A lot of artists can hit notes but they don't hit us. Say words but they have no meaning. Have gifts and talent but no anointing. Something about Whitney that would reach in you and make you feel," Sharpton said.

A sensation from her very first album, she was one of the world's best-selling artists from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. She awed millions with soaring, but disciplined vocals rooted in gospel and polished for the masses, a bridge between the earthy passion of her godmother, Aretha Franklin, and the bouncy pop of her cousin, Dionne Warwick.
Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she became a rare black actress with box office appeal, starring in such hits as "The Bodyguard" and "Waiting to Exhale." Bishop T.D. Jakes, a Texas minister and producer on Houston's final film project, a re-make of the 1970s release "Sparkle," said he saw no signs she was having any substance issues. He said Houston was a complete professional and moved the cast and crew to tears two months ago when she sang the gospel hymn "Her Eyes on the Sparrow" for a scene shot in Detroit.
"There was no evidence in working with her on 'Sparkle' that there was any struggle in her life," Jakes said Sunday. "She just left a deep impression on everybody."
She had the perfect voice and the perfect image: gorgeous, but wholesome; grounded, but un-loving. And she influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out, sounded so much like Houston that many couldn't tell the difference.
But by the end of her career, Houston had become a stunning and heartbreaking cautionary tale. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances.

She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her precious voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes of her prime.
"The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy," Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.
In her teens, Houston sang backup for Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson and others, in addition to modeling. Clive Davis, who as head of Arista Records had already signed up Warwick and Franklin, was instantly smitten by the statuesque young singer.
"The time that I first saw her singing in her mother's act in a club ... it was such a stunning impact," Davis told "Good Morning America."
"To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine," he added.

Before long, the rest of the country would feel it, too. Houston made her album debut in 1985 with "Whitney Houston," which sold millions and spawned hit after hit. "Saving All My Love for You" brought the singer her first Grammy, for best female pop vocal. "How Will I Know," ''You Give Good Love" and "The Greatest Love of All" also became hit singles.
Another multiplatinum album, "Whitney," came out in 1987 and included "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."
Some saw her 1992 marriage to Brown, the former New Edition member and soul crooner, as an attempt to toughen her image. It seemed to be an odd union; she was seen as pop's pure princess while he had a bad-boy image and already had children of his own. (The couple had one daughter, Bobbi Kristina, born in 1993.) Over the years, he would be arrested several times, on charges including DUI and failure to pay child support.