SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1700 (11), Wednesday, March 21, 2012
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TITLE: Luzhkov Says He May Join Sistema
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov said Thursday that he has received a job offer from long-time friend and AFK Sistema head Vladimir Yevtushkenov, Interfax reported.

Luzhkov, 74, said he would give his answer to the offer in the near future.

"I have received an offer from Vladimir Yevtushenkov, and it seems interesting to me," the former mayor told Interfax.

An unnamed source told the news agency that Luzhkov, who worked in the Soviet chemical industry for three decades before going into politics, could become the head of Sistema's petrochemicals division.

Yevtushenkov and Luzhkov have been close family friends since at least the early 1990s. Yevtushenkov said last year that he had offered Luzhkov a position at Sistema, whose holdings include oil major Bashneft and telecommunications giant Mobile TeleSystems, or MTS, but Luzhkov refused.

Luzhkov served as the city's top official from 1992 to 2010. He was fired from his post by President Dmitry Medvedev in September 2010 after a series of disputes between the two. Soon after his exit from City Hall, Luzhkov took a job as a professor at International University in Moscow.

There was speculation following Luzhkov's firing that he would leave Russia to avoid possible prosecution on corruption charges, but he has insisted he will not flee. He was questioned last year by investigators in a criminal case involving his wife Yelena Baturina's former company Inteko and formerly city-owned Bank of Moscow. Baturina reportedly lives in London with the couple's two daughters, who attend university in England.


TITLE: Journalist Deported From Uzbekistan 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Former Novaya Gazeta columnist Victoria Ivleva was deported from Uzbekistan in an incident the journalist says is connected with her professional activities.

Ivleva flew to Tashkent for a photo workshop Friday, but was not allowed to leave the airport, she told Gazeta.ru. She was refused a meeting with the Russian consul and put on a flight back to Russia.

Ivleva said she was confident the deportation was connected to an article she wrote about Uzbekistan called "The Country of Fish," which was published in Novaya Gazeta nearly five years ago.

She thought another reason for her deportation could have been her participation in a picket of the Uzbek Embassy in support of photographer Umida Akhmedova, who was persecuted by the authorities for a photo album called "Women and Men: From Dawn to Dusk," which the photographer used to draw attention to gender inequality in Uzbek traditions. The authorities felt the album created a negative image of Uzbekistan.



TITLE: Patriarch Slams Female Punk Activists 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill had harsh comments Saturday as he spoke for the first time about the all-female punk group that created a scandal with an impromptu performance at a Moscow cathedral last month.

"There are people who justify this abomination, who minimize it, who try to imagine it as some kind of a funny joke, and sadly, bitterly, it breaks my heart that among these people, there are those who call themselves Orthodox," the Patriarch said in a speech posted on his website.

Three members of the all-female punk group Pussy Riot have been arrested in the wake of an unsanctioned performance of a politically charged song at the Christ the Savior Cathedral, dividing public opinion about what should happen to the women, who could face up to seven years in prison.

Prominent opposition members have argued for their release and others have held rallies to show support.



TITLE: Anti-Narcotics Chief Says Russian Heroin Market Worth $6 Billion
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The black market for heroin in Russia, fueled by large-scale production in Afghanistan, is worth $6 billion dollars, said Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov on Friday.
Ivanov said the marijuana market is worth $1.5 billion, the market for synthetic drugs $1 billion. and the cocaine market much less at $80 million, Interfax reported.

Earlier this month, the drug control service said there are five million regular drug users in Russia.

Over the weekend, anti-narcotics forces seized a huge haul of Afghan heroin, over 40 kilograms, from the home of two Tajik natives in St. Petersburg, Ivanov also said Friday. The pair is believed to be part of a larger drug-trafficking group, the members of which are currently being sought by authorities, Ivanov said.


TITLE: NGO Appeals For Sight-Saving Cure
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Are you willing to spend ten minutes to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has almost lost the ability to see? This was the question faced by lawmakers from the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, March 14, when volunteers from the local non-governmental organization Society Against Blindness greeted the parliamentarians before the start of their morning session. To guarantee the exact sensation experienced by the “nearly blind” condition, members of the NGO presented deputies with special glasses tailored specifically to create such an effect.
Wearing the glasses feels like swimming through murky water with your eyes open.
The campaign outside the city parliament was a cry for help to represent the needs of more than 10,000 local residents who suffer from the wet form of macular degeneration, an age-related eye disease which, if untreated, can lead to blindness within a year or two. If treatment is started during the early stages of the illness, normal eyesight can be restored, but even treatment during the late stages can work not only to prevent complete blindness but to recover a good level of eyesight, doctors say. 
Very few parliamentarians agreed to try the glasses on, but the volunteers managed to collect a handful of business cards of lawmakers who offered to discuss the issue. Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness among people over 55 years old, not only in Russia but also in Europe and the U.S.
An early symptom of wet macular degeneration is when straight lines begin to appear wavy. Without treatment, permanent gray or black spots will later form in the center of vision and grow bigger and bigger until they block vision almost completely.
Wet macular degeneration results from abnormal blood vessel growth under the retina. As a result, blood leakage occurs and destroys central vision.
Although the illness can be treated, the treatment consists of eye injections of the Swiss-made medicine Lucentis, which is not covered by compulsory medical insurance. Only about 120 Petersburgers are lucky enough to be included in the quota and have their treatment paid for by the state. On average, the cost of the treatment amounts to 300,000 rubles ($10,000), although the number of injections needed to ease the condition and stop degeneration varies for every patient. The sum is unthinkable for most people who require the treatment, say activists from the Society Against Blindness.
Campaign participants are asking the parliament to consider allocating funds for the treatment, at least partially, or initiate a law that would encourage incorporating the treatment into insurance policies.
“I am 60 years old and I am disabled; my pension is around 7,000 rubles ($240),” said Yelena, a local retired engineer who suffers from the illness. 
“This shameful pension is impossible to even live on, let alone pay for any treatment. My therapy is paid for by my daughter, who has several jobs in order to cover it. If she were not earning enough I would have been blind by now. That is scary.”
Patients less fortunate than Yelena go through the ordeal of gradually — and in most cases, quite rapidly — losing their eyesight and falling into darkness.
“Losing the ability to see is a tragedy; it is one of the most frightening things that can happen to a human being, and this particular illness can be successfully treated,” activists said. “In European countries, this treatment is covered by state insurance. Can’t St. Petersburg do the same for its residents?” 
More than 10,000 local residents are waiting for the city parliament to answer this plea.

TITLE: Britain Celebrates Paralympics in City
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Students from three of the city’s regular primary and middle schools took part in sports competitions together with students from three schools for disabled and visually impaired children on March 14.
The event was part of a joint Russian-British project titled Paralympic Values that was launched in September and runs through April.
The project, organized by the British Consulate General in St. Petersburg, was timed to coincide with the run-up to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games due to begin in London in July, as well as preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games to be held in the southern Russian city of Sochi. City Hall and Russia’s Paralympic Committee lent their support to the project. 
There are more than 13 million people in Russia with special needs, comprising 9.2 percent of the population. About 4 percent of handicapped people are children. Only 2.5 percent of Russian schools are accessible for children with special needs.
One of the current tasks of a program developed by the Ministry of Social Development is “getting rid of barriers and forming a friendly social atmosphere for people with special needs.”

TITLE: Dissenters Plan New Wave of Protest Rallies
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Protests against the flawed presidential election will continue in St. Petersburg this weekend. City Hall has authorized a march due on Saturday and a stationary rally due on Sunday.
The Yabloko Democratic Party, The Other Russia party, the Solidarity democratic movement, the Party of People’s Freedom (Parnas) and National Democrats party will spearhead the march — officially titled “For Citizen’s Rights and Freedoms” — starting near Gorkovskaya metro station at 2 p.m. Saturday. The protesters will cross the Neva River and walk to the Field of Mars, where they will hold a stationary rally.
According to Andrei Pivovarov, the local leader of Parnas, the protesters’ main demand is the annulment of the elections results on the basis of widespread violations conducted by the state and state-controlled bodies in favor of Vladimir Putin throughout the election campaign and the March 4 vote.
Pivovarov said that the protesters would continue to insist on six demands made at the largest anti-electoral fraud protest, held on Bolotnaya Ploshchad in Moscow on Dec. 10 in the wake of the Dec. 4 State Duma elections. 
Those demands are the immediate release of political prisoners, the annulment of the election results, the resignation of the Central Elections Commission chairman Vladimir Churov, investigations into all reported cases of fraud at the polling stations, the registration of opposition parties and holding of fair elections.
According to Pivovarov, the opposition parties that hold seats in the Legislative Assembly declined to participate, with the exception of Yabloko. 
“The Communist Party (KPRF) said they held their own protest on March 17 and were not ready to rally every week, but its members could always go as individuals, and we did not get an answer from A Just Russia, I don’t know why,” he said.
Pivovarov said the organizers chose the route because they knew in advance that a march along Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, would not be authorized by City Hall.
“There have been no authorized rallies since the elections, so we chose a route that is difficult to ban, but still in the center of the city,” he said.
“Many are not prepared to attend street protests after the arrests on St. Isaac’s Square, so it was crucial to hold an authorized rally.”
The route has also a symbolic meaning, as it passes by the Peter and Paul Fortress, where political prisoners were held in tsarist Russia, and ends on the Field of Mars, where 184 people who were killed during the February 1917 revolution were buried.
“It’s a slightly debatable analogy, but it invites itself, because the people who took part in the February 1917 bourgeois revolution were buried there, and their slogans were ‘Down with Autocracy’ and ‘Down with the Tsar,’” Pivovarov said.
The other protest will be held as a stationary rally on Konyushennaya Ploshchad at 3 p.m. on Sunday. It is organized by the dwindling Citizens’ Committee, which features the United Civil Front (OGF) and the nationalist Russian Party, the Russian Help Foundation, nationalist group Volnitsa and “a group of concerned citizens,” according to the rally’s official community on the Internet.
Meanwhile, dozens are awaiting trial after being arrested during unauthorized protests on St. Isaac’s Square on March 5 and near Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro station on March 10. Many of those arrested and later charged with both violating the rules of holding a rally and failing to obey a police officer’s orders deny any guilt.
At the protests, the OMON riot police surrounded large groups of people and arrested everybody inside the circle. Most did not object and allowed themselves be escorted to police buses, where the detained were held. This did not, however, prevent the police from charging them with failure to obey police orders.
A typical case was that of journalist Fyodor Gavrilov, who was arrested along with dozens of other people as he stood near the Institute of Plant-Growing on St. Isaac’s Square, and spent 24 hours in custody. 
The police wrote in reports abounding with grammatical mistakes that Gavrilov stood near the Mariinsky Palace (home to the city elections commission) and shouted “Russia without Putin!” and “continued rallying” despite police orders. His case will be heard in court on March 29, he said.
According to the OGF’s local chair Olga Kurnosova, who spent three days in custody, she was said in police reports to have carried “Impale Putin paraphernalia.” 
“Did they mean I was carrying a wooden stake or something?” she said.
Last week, the prosecutor’s office admitted in a statement that more than 400 were detained and charged during the St. Isaac’s Square rally — despite previous police claims that only 280 had been detained — but insisted that the arrests were legal.
Earlier this month, St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko also said the arrests were legal.
“They were detained not for the truth but for breaking the law,” Poltavchenko wrote on Twitter “They could express their opinions in authorized places, such as Pionerskaya Ploshchad and Konyushennaya Ploshchad.”

TITLE: ITB Expert Offers City Advice on Tourism Policy
AUTHOR: By Nikita Savoyarov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia presented a new-look stand at the ITB Berlin travel trade show on March 7, where ITB head David Ruetz offered some advice to Russia and St. Petersburg as to how to successfully market themselves as international travel destinations.
“Russia has been exhibiting for a very long time at ITB,” said Ruetz. 
“Even in the 1970s, we had some first tour operators from Russia. That was the time of the Cold War and it was a pioneer project to facilitate traveling to Russia. Now we have Russia 2.0, and of course the goals of the exhibitors are different.”
Ruetz suggested that Russia needed to find a way of distinguishing itself from other countries.
“We consider that ITB consists of 187 nations, and Russia is one of them. It is a great destination, but one of 187. It’s like an orchestra, and you have just two ways to be heard in an orchestra: Either you play very loudly (like Egypt) or you are a soloist. We proposed that Russia become a soloist next year, with us — ITB — as an Olympic partner. 
“It is a chance to really market what they have and tell the ITB convention and Olympic Forum about the strategy for the use of stadiums,” he said. 
“They could do some sporting events and bring an Olympic team of kids from Russia here and play in the summer garden against kids from other countries. It is a very creative thing and I think it is very positive for Russia to be a soloist finally, and not to sit behind the stand and wait for business to come to them.”
Ruetz added that he had received positive signals from Rostourism, the country’s federal tourism agency, who he said was planning a complete relaunch of Russia’s marketing as a travel destination.  
The industry expert recommended that St. Petersburg could diversify its image, to incorporate film tourism, for example. 
“If you think about ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ it gave New Zealand a big boost in visitor numbers,” he said. “I would advise St. Petersburg to focus on two things: So many films [featuring St. Petersburg] have been made in recent times, great films, international films, and it could be promoted through them. 
“Recently I bought a DVD with a film adaptation of a Jane Austen novel shot in British palaces and castles. When I opened the DVD, I found a ‘Visit Britain’ tourism label, advertising the fact that you can visit those exact castles where the film was shot. It was a point of sale, a distribution channel, and I think the tourism council of the St. Petersburg administration could look for [similar] channels.”
The second point Ruetz advised the city to focus on is culture. 
“If there is anything in Russia that European travelers associate with culture, then it is the beautiful city of St. Petersburg,” he said.
Ruetz admitted that he had never been to St. Petersburg, but said that as a boy he had always dreamed of visiting the city of Peter the Great. 
      Several moves have been made to simplify the rules for foreign tourists in recent years. According to amendments to Russia’s immigration law, foreigners can enter St. Petersburg (as well as Kaliningrad and Sochi) as a tourist on board a ferry or cruise ship without a visa, as long as they stay in the city no more than 72 hours. These amendments were introduced two years ago. This year, the St. Peter Line ferry operator, which provides a regular connection between St. Petersburg and Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn, had a stand at ITB near that of St. Petersburg. 
      The head of ITB gave a personal forecast for the development of the global tourism industry.
“The general trend will be that people will travel for shorter periods of time, they will travel cheaper and more locally,” he said. “Nevertheless, traveling is linked with the question of how the price of oil will develop. There could be a scenario in which traveling will get very expensive, when families will save money their whole lifetime in order to travel once in their life, because resources are so scarce. 
“There could be a second scenario called ‘doomsday’ tourism when people will travel to see the last glaciers in order to see last things before they disappear. This is already happening with Cuba and North Korea. There are some people who say, ‘Let’s go there before those last two pure communist countries collapse and capitalism enters.’” 
Ruetz said he was also seeing a trend of the individualization of travel. 
“If you look at tour operators, 10 or 20 years ago they just had a travel catalog with hotels and trips. Now they have a catalog for gay travel, a catalog for families looking for hotels with waterslides, adventure catalogs, for instance. 
“Greenland has a stand at ITB for the first time. Greenland has no beach or sun, no culture or art, just snow and ice and mountains. So it is an adventure destination,” he concluded.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>SKA Skates to Victory</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — SKA St. Petersburg took a 3-1 lead in the KHL Western Conference semi-finals Monday night with a crushing 5-1 win over Atlant Moscow Oblast at the Mytishchi arena in the Moscow region. 
SKA dominated game 4, jumping to an early lead with goals from Dmitry Kalinin and Alexander Kucheryavenko in the first period. Igor Makarov, Viktor Tikhanov and Patrick Thoresen rounded out the scoring for SKA. 
Patrick Zackrisson scored Atlant’s consolation goal with 3:06 left in regulation, stealing the shut out from SKA netminder Jakub Stepanek. Stepanek has allowed just four goals in four games, though two of those goals were in SKA’s 2-1 overtime loss to Atlant in game 3 on Saturday. 
SKA finds itself in exactly the same place it was last year, leading the Western Conference semi-finals 3-1 against Atlant. Last year the Moscow region team, then coached by current SKA head coach Milos Riha, managed to fight back and win the last three games of the series and advance to the Western Conference finals. 
SKA has so far demolished Atlant in this year’s rematch with humiliating 4-0, 7-1, and 5-1 victories and looks poised to advance to the conference finals. 
Game 5 is scheduled at St. Petersburg’s Ice Palace on Wednesday at 7 p.m. 

<b>Japanese Extravaganza</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The 12th Japanese Spring festival opened in St. Petersburg on March 16 and will run through June 1.
More than 20 events will be held in the city as a part of the festival, Interfax reported. One of them will present Japanese martial arts including kendo (fencing), kudo (archery) and aikido (wrestling) to the public.
The festival of Japanese culture will also feature an anime festival, origami classes and tea ceremonies.
St. Petersburg students and schoolchildren will take part in a Japanese speech-making competition. At least four of the city’s schools teach Japanese.

<b>Autographs on Display</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A collection of autographs of French writers from Russian collectors comprise part of an exhibition dedicated to the centenary of the Russian ballerina Natalya Dudinskaya’s birth. 
The exhibition opened at the city’s National Library on Friday.
Among the autographs are those of Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac and Marie-Henri Stendhal.
The Dudinskaya exhibition features the ballerina’s unpublished diaries, school exercise books, letters and photos.

TITLE: NTV Pro-Kremlin Film Provokes Opposition Fury
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova and Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Dozens of people were detained over the weekend in a series of Moscow protests fueled by a pro-Kremlin documentary on state-run NTV television that suggested protesters have been paid to take part in opposition rallies.
Hundreds of angry people rallied outside Moscow’s Ostankino television tower on Sunday, with police detaining about 100.
The quick and unsanctioned demonstration was spurred by the 36-minute NTV documentary titled “Anatomy of Protest,” which premiered on the channel on Thursday night and was rebroadcast during primetime Sunday. The program claims that key opposition rally organizers had to hire people to participate during the unprecedented recent demonstrations of tens of thousands of people that have called for fair elections and the resignation of President-elect Vladimir Putin.
Some 1,000 people came to the Ostankino tower on Sunday, and about 100 were detained, Gazeta.ru reported. The anti-NTV rally also attracted some pro-Kremlin youth activists, who rallied against the opposition.
Many of the opposition activists brought cookies and posters reading, “NTV Lies” — a reference to a claim in the documentary that the protesters were “driven by hearts, money or cookies.” Some also placed flowers in front of Ostankino in a mock funeral for the channel, which is part of the state-controlled Gazprom-Media holding.
Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov was among the detained, Udaltsov’s wife wrote on Twitter. Udaltsov was only freed on Friday after a Moscow court reversed a ruling on his 10-day arrest for participating in another unsanctioned rally.
“I brought cookies for NTV journalists to pay back ‘the debt,’” Udaltsov told RIA-Novosti after his detention. He was taken into police custody with the cookies and released later in the day.
Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was also detained, Gazeta.ru reported.
On Saturday, a smaller protest was held on Ploshchad Revolyutsii, near the Kremlin walls, by activists demonstrating against the arrest of fellow activist and environmentalist Suren Gazaryan in the Krasnodar region. It wasn’t sanctioned, and more than 20 people were detained.
Separately, some 300 people rallied on Pushkin Square on Saturday, in part to protest the NTV documentary.
The gathering — which was billed as a meeting with State Duma Deputies Gennady and Dmitry Gudkov of A Just Russia to avoid a police crackdown — was initially called to protest last week’s arrest of Udaltsov and imprisonment of businessman Alexei Kozlov. His five-year sentence, handed down Thursday, is widely seen as revenge for the protest activities of his wife, prominent journalist Olga Romanova.
But the NTV documentary sparked a new wave of discontent, making it another point of contention for protesters. Police said two people were detained for chanting slogans, which is not allowed at unauthorized rallies.
Demonstrators at recent pro-Putin rallies have told The St. Petersburg Times that they were paid to attend.
NTV entered the top 10 worldwide trends on Twitter on Thursday evening, after drawing the ire of bloggers who slammed the channel for airing the documentary.
The broadcast also speculated that the demonstrations were funded by the United States to undermine the rule of Putin, who won the presidency with a large margin on March 4.
After the program aired, bloggers took to LiveJournal and Twitter en masse, with the hashtag “NTVlzhyot,” or “NTV lies,” becoming one of the top trending topics on Twitter.
“NTV, what kind of professional journalists are you? Lies, nonsense,” Twitter user @Dimich_O wrote.
Pro-Kremlin bloggers snapped back that the program had simply exposed rally organizers.
“Watched the sensational NTV program that I appeared in myself. Very cute: [U.S. Ambassador Michael] McFaul’s liberals and office workers are outraged that they were caught red-handed,” tweeted Putin-friendly blogger and author Eduard Bagirov.
Valery Fadeyev, editor-in-chief of Expert magazine, who was interviewed for the film, said his quotes were used out of context. “I gave NTV commentary for an analytical program, not for propaganda,” Fadeyev said. He pledged not to speak to NTV journalists again, while the magazine’s parent company, Expert holding, announced that it would not work with the channel.
A former co-chairman of the Right Cause party, Boris Nadezhdin, wrote in his blog Sunday that he had filed a defamation lawsuit against NTV and called on more people to follow his lead. He said he felt libeled because the documentary uses the word “opposition” to describe the leaders of the protests without specifying their names, and he considers himself to be an opposition leader.
NTV is notorious for its political documentaries, which have included mudslinging at Golos, the country’s only independent elections watchdog, ahead of December’s Duma elections, a show suggesting that Washington was attempting to influence Russia’s political situation, and programs criticizing former Mayor Yury Luzhkov and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny declared that the protest group behind the recent rallies, For Fair Elections, will no longer work with City Hall in planning anti-government protests, Kommersant reported Friday. “I no longer see any point in discussions with the mayor’s office,” he said.
Navalny, Udaltsov and several other opposition activists earlier voiced their readiness for more radical steps in their protests, even though they would face a harsh reaction from the authorities.
At the Pushkin Square rally on Saturday, the opposition decided that the next mass rally, dubbed “March of a Million,” will be held on May 6 in Moscow.

TITLE: U.S. Plans $50M ‘Civil Society Fund’ for Russia
AUTHOR: By Jonathan Earle
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A United Russia Duma deputy accused the United States of “fighting our country,” after the Obama administration said it would boost funding for civil society and democracy in Russia.
Irina Yarovaya wrote that U.S. plans to create a $50 million “civil society fund” are an attempt to meddle in Russia’s internal politics and exert destabilizing pressure.
“The money … is being spent on fighting our country,” she wrote in a statement posted on the ruling party’s website Friday.
The Obama administration has asked Congress to create a “civil society fund” with money from a decades-old program initially designed to promote market economies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul said last week in Washington.
The announcement drew a mixed response from the human rights leaders and the opposition.
“We are forced to exist on foreign money,” veteran human rights leader Lyudmila Alexeyeva said, The New York Times reported, citing an Interfax report. “Our government does not consider it necessary to spend money on maintaining the nongovernmental human rights community.”
Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the liberal Yabloko party, said the money would hurt the opposition, which has experienced a resurgence after the Duma and presidential elections that were marred by allegations of fraud.
“It’s very easy to present this as a kind of subversive activity. … Unfortunately, yes, this initiative would rather harm civil society and the opposition in Russia more than it would help,” he said, The New York Times reported.
Kremlin-linked analysts said the additional funds were a mixed blessing for Russia, adding that $50 million wasn’t enough to tip the political scales one way or the other.
Vyacheslav Nikonov, a Duma deputy from United Russia and head of the Kremlin-linked Politika Foundation, even warned the proposal could prompt authorities to further restrict the flow of foreign money to domestic NGOs.
Vladimir Putin cracked down on NGOs during his 2000 to 2008 tenure as president. And in the run-up to his return to the Kremlin, several organizations were portrayed as agents of the West.
Whether the funds will be used to discredit the regime or build genuine civil society will depend on who administers the funds, said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-linked analyst and vice president of the Plekhanov Institute of Economics.
“Who will distribute the funds, an idealist or a Russophobe?” he asked.
Iosif Diskin, an analyst and member of the Public Chamber, said the announcement had more to do with internal American politics than democracy in Russia.
“The Obama administration is trying to please critics who say he’s not doing enough to promote democracy and civil society in Russia,” Diskin said.
Although he decried “politicized” grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the entity that will likely distribute the grants, he said Russia benefits from most of what USAID provides saying, “Ninety percent of their funding is positive.”

TITLE: Duma Hurries Bill On Political Parties
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Opposition leaders are bracing themselves for a new law that many expect will lead to a mushrooming of political parties in the country.
On Friday, the State Duma’s public organizations committee decided to send the bill to the floor for a second reading Tuesday without changing its key ingredient: lowering the membership threshold for a party from 40,000 to 500.
Committee chairman Alexei Ostrovsky told Interfax that the draft, announced by President Dmitry Medvedev in December, might well become law before Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as president, which is planned for May 7.
A third reading could be completed Friday. Based on that time frame, the Federation Council could approve the bill as soon as March 28.
“If senators approve it, the president will sign swiftly and the bill becomes law [immediately],” Ostrovsky told Kommersant.
The hurdles to register political parties have long been identified as a key ingredient in the Kremlin’s policy to stifle competition for Putin’s United Russia party.
And while the sudden turnaround has been seen as one of the concessions made following protests that broke out after December’s Duma elections, experts warn that the goal might actually be in line with the strategy of keeping the opposition weak.
“Clearly, the Kremlin has decided to make registering new parties as easy as possible so as to strongly fracture the party landscape into a multitude of minor players,” Tatyana Stanovaya, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies, wrote on the Politcom.ru website. 
Stanovaya’s view was echoed by Gennady Gudkov, a senior Duma deputy for A Just Russia.
Gudkov, who has participated in the recent anti-government protests, told RIA-Novosti last week that the new law will lead to “spoiler parties” and “mini parties” that will garner less than 0.5 percent in elections.
Currently, just seven parties are registered by the Justice Ministry, four of which have Duma seats. 
The ministry has already received 68 applications to form new parties, United Russia Duma deputy Vladimir Pligin said last week.
The new rules could pose a test for the People’s Freedom Party, or Parnas, which was formed two years ago as a coalition of disparate opposition leaders whose main unifying motive was to confront the Kremlin.
The opposition coalition announced last week that it was leaving a working group on political reform with the Kremlin because the Duma committee would not consider its suggestions for making party registration easier. 
Two of Parnas’ co-leaders, Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Ryzhkov, head their own unregistered parties. The third, Boris Nemtsov, is co-leader of another opposition coalition, the Solidarity movement.
Ryzhkov announced Friday that he would revive his Republican Party after the Justice Ministry signaled that it would no longer hinder its registration.
The move follows a decision by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which ruled last year that a 2007 Supreme Court decision to abolish the party was illegal.
The Supreme Court consequently annulled its decision, but this was challenged by a formal complaint from the Justice Ministry.
Ryzhkov said Friday that the Republican Party would take part in regional elections this fall and that he won’t leave Parnas. Instead, he will aim to merge his party into the opposition coalition.
“Success will only come to those who gather the most political forces around themselves,” he told Kommersant.
But while Parnas might hold, numerous other opposition forces are already promising competition. Vladimir Milov, a former deputy energy minister, said he would register his Democratic Choice Party once the rules were eased.
Speaking with The St. Petersburg Times, he dismissed fears of marginalization by arguing that free-market theory should also hold for parties.
“The more competition, the better for consumers [of politics],” he said.
Milov was a founding member of Solidarity and Parnas, but he quit both after sparring with the other leaders.
Another potential entrant on the liberal right is the Union of Right Forces, the country’s long-standing pro-business party, which foundered in 2008 when some of its leaders joined the Kremlin-supported Right Cause party.
Leonid Gozman and Boris Nadezhdin, who left Right Cause after what they said was a Kremlin-inspired coup, have recently started to revive the Union of Right Forces. Gozman told The St. Petersburg Times that a decision whether to reregister the party would be made in the coming weeks.
In addition, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and industry lobbyist Boris Titov have announced their own parties, all of which would be right of center on the political spectrum.
Kudrin has said he will discuss joining forces with Prokhorov, whose campaign team says the yet-unnamed party has received more than 80,000 membership applications. 
But the political left could splinter as well as a result of the new law.
Sergei Udaltsov, one of the most prominent leaders of the recent anti-government protests, has suggested forming a new social-democratic party that would combine his unregistered Left Front with the liberal Yabloko party and the formerly Kremlin-friendly A Just Russia party.
While that prospect might threaten the Communists, who finished second with 20.5 percent in the Duma elections, it has only increased speculation of an imminent breakup of A Just Russia, which finished third with 14 percent.
Opposition representatives interviewed for this article agreed that the most important thing will be whether parties will be allowed to form blocs before elections so that they can appear as one on ballots.
Sergei Markov, a former Duma deputy, said A Just Russia had failed to live up to its promise.
“It is not possible to be popular and loyal [to the Kremlin] at the same time,” he said.
But he added that it was hard to predict what would happen to the party because the Kremlin has probably not found a final strategy.

TITLE: Belarus Unmoved Despite Criticism
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Kremlin on Monday hosted controversial Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko for talks about deeper economic integration amid growing calls for tougher sanctions against Belarus for the execution of two convicted bombers.
Lukashenko took part in a summit of the Eurasian Economic Community, which Prime Minister and President-elect Vladimir Putin wants to develop into a union of former Soviet states that would rival the European Union.
Belarussian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Rumas said after the talks that participants had agreed on working out concrete steps to counter any sanctions. “All sides agree that no group of states should put pressure on any member state,” Rumas was quoted as saying by Interfax.
EU officials talked of introducing broader economic sanctions against Minsk because of the executions of Vladislav Kovalyov and Dmitry Konovalov, who were convicted of carrying out a bomb attack in the Minsk metro that killed 15 people and wounded more than 300 in April 2010.
Belarussian state television said over the weekend that the two had been executed, prompting horror and outrage in the West.
Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper called Lukashenko a “merciless barbarian” in an editorial published Monday.
Human rights activists say that the trial against the two had raised suspicion about their guilt. The doubts were fueled by a Belarussian High Court decision in January ordering the destruction of all material evidence against them.
Critics also said the seemingly hurried execution could be part of an official cover-up.
“An opinion has also been expressed that the death sentence was executed so fast because the two men knew something about the real organizers of the terrorist attack,” Estonian lawmaker Andres Herkel said on his website. 
Jacek Protasiewicz, a Polish member of the European Parliament, said the 27-country union would probably slap new sanctions against Minsk and withdraw its ambassadors permanently from Belarus, leaving its diplomatic relations at consular level.
“Lukashenko’s tragic, shocking and incomprehensible decision showed that he is not interested in cooperation with the West,” Protasiewicz told Polish radio station RMF FM, the Naviny.by website reported.
Last month, the EU recalled its ambassadors from Belarus after Minsk kicked out the Polish and EU envoys in retaliation for Brussels’ decision to ostracize more Belarussian officials.
Dubbed “Europe’s last dictator,” Lukashenko has seen his ties with the West worsen dramatically since his December 2010 re-election.
He launched a violent crackdown on opposition activists who complained about vote-rigging.
Brussels has so far focused on sanctions against individual officials but is facing louder demands for extending the penalties further.
Dmitry Uss, who ran against Lukashenko in the election and was arrested along with most other candidates after the vote, called for tougher European sanctions.
“I beg you to show wisdom, toughness and decisiveness and impose economic sanctions against Belarus in order to save the country from further decline,” he wrote in an open letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, the Belapan news agency reported. 
The European Parliament said in a resolution last week that the EU should impose broad economic sanctions.
Europe is Belarus’ major trade partner after Russia, and the country sells large quantities of potash, petroleum products and oil to several EU members.
Moscow has already signaled that it would not approve of sanctions against Minsk.
“We won’t allow any harm to our Belarussian colleagues,” deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said last week. 
Most experts agreed Monday that both Lukashenko and Moscow will continue to ignore Western public opinion.
“It can’t get much worse than it is right now,” Belarussian analyst and opposition politician Yaroslav Romanchuk said.
He said outrage about the death sentence is not shared by most people in Belarus and that the backlash could actually boost Lukashenko’s popularity.
“He will just say that he is not bowing to outside interference,” Romanchuk said.
He added that economic sanctions would likely miss their mark because Minsk could easily circumvent them by redirecting exports through Russia.
Konstantin Zatulin, a former United Russia State Duma deputy who heads the influential Commonwealth of Independent States Institute think tank, said Moscow would not and should not change tack.
“Russia and Belarus have lived over hundreds of years together through wars and revolutions. We won’t change relations just because of an execution,” he said.
Zatulin scoffed at Western criticism of Belarus, which he said is too narrow because it considers only the death penalty and economic difficulties, both of which can be found elsewhere.
“What about the death penalty in the United States?” he asked, adding that Belarus’ financial troubles were less severe than those of Greece.
Others pointed out that the latest spat with Europe would only boost Russia’s influence over its western neighbor.
“The more isolated Lukashenko is from the rest of the world, the more dependent he is on Moscow,” political commentator Konstantin Eggert said on Kommersant FM.

TITLE: Official Bashes Use of Meds In U.S. Military
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Defense Ministry official took a swipe at the U.S. practice of treating soldiers with anti-depressants, noting that the Russian military, in contrast, does not use medication to treat psychological health issues. 
The comments come in the wake of an incident in which an American soldier who may have been suffering from mental health issues killed 16 civilians in Afghanistan. 
“The fact that Americans have big moral and psychological problems is written about widely. And then they treat them (soldiers) with anti-depressants. In fact, of course, they don’t reach desired outcomes by doing this,” Defense Ministry medical official Anatoly Kalmykov said during an interview, RIA-Novosti reported. 
Kalmykov acknowledged psychological problems exist among Russian soldiers but downplayed their effect because they do not occur on a mass scale.

TITLE: Rare Whale Heads Home to Mother Russia
AUTHOR: By Dan Joling
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An endangered western Pacific gray whale tracked from Russia to Alaska and along the West Coast to Baja Mexico is on the move again, apparently preparing to cross the Pacific Ocean again.
The 9-year-old western gray whale dubbed Varvara, the Russian version for Barbara, had passed California, Oregon and Washington and was off northwest Vancouver Island, as of Saturday. She is moving about 100 miles per day.
She is expected to turn left to head back to feeding grounds off Russia’s Sakhalin Island, said Bruce Mate, director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University.
“That’s going to be real exciting soon,” he said by phone. “One of the big questions is, will she retrace the route she came on, or will she take a different route home?”
If she backtracks, Mate said, she will reinforce scientists’ theory that gray whales learn migration routes from their mothers as they move from a calving area to the mother’s foraging area.
“But if she takes some other route,” he said, “then we’re going to have to attribute even more navigational skill to her than we’ve done in the past.”
Varvara and two other western gray whales have already changed what scientists thought they knew about the migration routes, with their deep-water crossing of the Pacific.
“We used to think of gray whales as near-shore oriented animals in the eastern North Pacific because that’s how they moved along,” Mate said. “It may be that that’s largely an attribute of trying to stay as clear of killer whales as possible. That’s certainly a strategy that mothers with calves use that we see in places where killer whales are abundant — moving to shore and defending toward the deep water is easier for moms with calves.”
Another question that remains unanswered is whether whales off Sakhalin Island are a distinct population from eastern Pacific gray whales or an extension of the range of the latter, Mate said.
Western Pacific gray whales were hunted, and by the 1970s, were thought to be extinct until a population was spotted off Sakhalin. Just 130 animals remain but they face threats from shipping and offshore petroleum development. Whales have been killed by fishing nets set off Japan.
In contrast, California gray whales, also called eastern Pacific gray whales, are a recovery success story. Their numbers were decimated by whalers but are now estimated at 18,000. They were taken off the endangered species list in 1994.
Mate is part of an international research team that includes the National Marine Fisheries Service, the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Kronotsky State Nature Biosphere Reserve and the Kamchatka Branch of the Pacific Institute of Geography.
The team in September 2010 attached a satellite tag to a 13-year-old male whale named Flex to find out where western grays spend winters. The whale shocked researchers by swimming east across the Bering Sea through Alaska waters and then south off central Oregon, where the tag was lost.
Researchers last September attached tags to six whales. Four quit working before whales left Sakhalin Island, but in late November, Varvara and another female, named Agent, crossed the Sea of Okhotsk. Traveling separately, they headed east across the Bering Sea toward Alaska, and both crossed the Aleutian Islands into the Gulf of Alaska in late December. Agent’s tag stopped transmitting during the first week of January when she was two-thirds of the way across the gulf.
Varvara is the first western Pacific gray whale documented all the way to Baja Mexico, where most California gray whales breed and give birth. Scientists know Varvara did not give birth because she would have stayed in one place for four to eight weeks as the calf gained strength.
She was, however, tracked to all three major breeding and calving areas for eastern gray whales, and she may have found a partner. The whale’s gestation period is about one year.
“In good years, females are alternately calving and breeding,” Mate said. “Every-other-year-calving is a normal calving interval for healthy adult females when the environment is doing well for them.”
The satellite tags average 123 days on a gray whale and the longest documented is more than 380 days. Varvara’s has been in place for 200 days. Mate hopes it will last for the crossing of the Pacific.
The Sea of Okhotsk is frozen and scientists would like to see if Varvara heads for the Kamchatka Peninsula or for waters off Japan to approach Sakhalin Island from the south, Mate said.
Either way, he marvels at the voyage.
“Keep in mind that Varvara hasn’t fed since she basically left Russia,” Mate said. “So several months crossing to get over here, a month in the reproductive areas, several months back — she’ll be five months without food, so she’s having to do all this on whatever she put in her gas tank, so to speak, before she left Russia.”

TITLE: Ex-Stripper Tries to Kill Husband
AUTHOR: By Peter Spinella
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Tatarstan’s top court has sentenced a former stripper to five years in prison for hiring a hit man to kill her husband and his mother for their property, investigators said.
But the husband and his mother told the Supreme Court that they forgave her and begged that she receive the lightest-possible punishment.
The wife, Albina Sharipova, 24, met Alexei Guzhov, 37, over the Internet last year while she was working as a striptease dancer, the court heard.
“He spent about 160,000 rubles [$5,500] on her over two or three months. She liked that life” and proposed marriage, chief investigator Pavel Serov told Channel One.
But after Guzhov lost his job, Sharipova decided to kill him and his mother immediately after the marriage in order to inherit the family’s three apartments and SUV, the TV report said. She asked a friend to put her in contact with a hit man, but the friend went to the police.
Investigators sent the friend and a bogus hit man to meet with Sharipova, who offered her VAZ-2114 car and provided $100, 100 euros and 2,100 rubles upfront as payment, the local Investigative Committee said in a statement. The plan was that the man would break into Guzhov’s home and pretend to rob it but fatally shoot him and his 61-year-old mother.
Police informed a stunned Guzhov about the plot and, after seeing the evidence, he and his mother agreed to fake their own deaths in a sting operation. On Nov. 6, the stand-in killer brought Sharipova pictures of her supposedly deceased new relatives — by that time, the couple had already been wed.
When she handed over the deed to her car, police swooped in and arrested her. She was charged with “preparing the organization of murder by contract.” She confessed to the crime.
It was that complete confession as well as pleas by her relatives that led to the especially light sentencing of five years in prison, plus one year probation, on Friday, Channel One reported.
“The devil led me astray,” Sharipova said in her final words to the court. “I beg you not to take away my opportunity to be of use to my family.”
“He really loves her. He knew, when he entered the marriage, who she is,” prosecutor Ildar Mukhamedzynov told Channel One.

TITLE: Minister Declares Push For Standards of Milk
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Agriculture Ministry has begun a dairy crackdown in an effort to wipe out unfair competition in the industry led by America’s PepsiCo and France’s Danone.
Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik urged regional governors in a recent letter to do away with sales of substandard milk, she said Monday.
A lot of small dairy producers compete on the market by adding cheap palm oil to their milk instead of using the expensive butterfat prescribed by the state dairy standard.
“The use of tropical oils is unacceptable,” Skrynnik said at a meeting with industry representatives. “The ministry will regularly monitor the situation.”
Governors tend to look the other way in an effort to support local dairy producers from their competition outside the region, said Marina Balabanova, director for communications and government relations at Danone’s Russia arm, Danone Unimilk.
“We sometimes face unfair competition from the smaller players,” she said at the meeting. “We have been losing our market share.”
The law-abiding producers took an especially painful blow last year when butterfat rose in price on the back of the heatwave of summer 2010, while palm oil continued to cost little.
“There haven’t been any positive dynamics since then,” Balabanova said.
PepsiCo and Danone now account for 45 percent of the country’s dairy market in terms of volume. It wasn’t clear Monday how that proportion could rise if competition were fair.
Andrei Danilenko, chief of the National Union of Dairy Producers, sounded indignant about the producers of substandard milk.
“The time when they could get away with it is over,” he said at the meeting. “We will clean the fakes off the store shelves.”
Things could be looking up for the big-league dairy producers as milk prices are heading for a slump, providing for an easier cost-cutting exercise.
Andrei Yarovoi, chairman of the Meleuzovsky Dairy Plant, predicted that Russian milk production would grow by 1 million tons, or about 3 percent. Combined with an increase in imports from the European Union — a very likely development, according to Pawel Redzisz, country head for Singapore’s OLAM that is investing in Russian dairy production — the greater supply will put downward pressure on prices and butterfat will become more inexpensive along with milk.
Skrynnik stated that milk production indeed rose about 4 percent in January and February, compared with the same period last year. Imports, on the other hand, declined in January and February by almost 18 percent from the same months last year, she said.

TITLE: Strategy Targets Middle Class
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — An independent group of advisers, tasked by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to recommend policies that the government should follow for the next eight years, revealed its findings on Friday, proposing social and economic programs targeting the emerging middle class as a driver for the country’s development.
The recommendations are outlined in an 800-page document called Strategy-2020, which highlights major steps to be made in modernizing health care, education, the tax and pension systems, and calls for a new model for Russia’s economic growth.
But it remains unclear whether the proposed measures will be taken into account by President-elect Putin and the new Cabinet to be formed after his inauguration in May.
“We based our work on the fact that the country … has come to the stage when creating a new model of economic growth is needed,” said Vladimir Mau, rector of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and one of the contributors to the strategy.
Developed economies won’t be drivers of economic growth in the future, Mau said. This means that Russia should focus on economic cooperation with Asian countries, as Europe currently accounts for 60 percent of its external trade, he told a news conference.
Among the major challenges facing Russia is ensuring stable economic growth of at least 5 percent a year and reducing the annual inflation rate to 5 percent, according to the document.
But growing oil prices are unlikely to remain the main source of the country’s budget revenue for years to come, with social sectors like health care and education expected to drive economic growth, the document said.
“Tomorrow’s economy is not based on tanks and pipes, not even on natural resources, but on post-industrial technologies — the service industries focused on human resources development,” the experts said in the thesis provided to journalists before the news conference.
Unlike the social policy pursued by the government in the past, largely based on supporting the most vulnerable social groups, a new economic model should take into account the interests of the middle class, the strategy said.
According to the document, the middle class — highly educated people earning more than 30,000 rubles ($1,000) a month — accounts for more than 27 percent of the country’s population and could ensure an additional flow of funds to the state budget.
“The middle class not only makes new demands on economic and social policies, but it’s ready to provide support,” said Lev Yakobson, first deputy rector of the Higher School of Economics and one of the authors of the strategy.
People are ready to pay more taxes, but they expect a “rational approach” from the government, requiring an improvement in governance and efficient use of funds, which could be spent on modernizing the health-care and education systems, he said at the conference.
Among other measures outlined in the strategy are a significant reduction in the government’s presence in the economy by speeding up the privatization of state assets and creating a balanced pension system.
Meanwhile, the experts pointed out that the recommendations outlined in the documents can’t yet be considered a policy program for Putin and current President Dmitry Medvedev, who is widely expected to chair the new Cabinet.
The strategy provides a number of options, but the two leaders will have to decide how to proceed with the reforms, Mau said.
The government approved the initial version of the document in 2008, but Putin requested to update it after Russia faced new challenges during the global economic crisis of 2008 and 2009.
A total of 21 working groups provided recommendations on reforms to the country’s social and economic policy for the updated version.
The recommendations provided in Strategy-2020 are reasonable, but previous experience shows that the final decisions by the government often contradict the experts’ guidelines, said Alexei Devyatov, chief economist at UralSib Capital.
The document, for one, suggests increasing budget spending on road construction, the development of health care and education by 4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product by 2020 and cutting expenditures on the army, law enforcement and government agencies, which would result in saving 2 percent of GDP.
But the priorities of the current budget policy are different from what is being proposed. This year’s budget and the drafts for 2013 and 2014, involve increasing military expenses and cutting social spending, Devyatov said by telephone.
He added, however, that there might be a shift in priorities toward increasing social spending, since many state employees had voted for Putin in the March 4 election.
“Putin is likely to try to preserve this electorate, and for this reason increasing social spending is needed,” said Devyatov, who didn’t participate in the work on the strategy.
The major discrepancy between the strategy and Putin’s views on future economic policy, outlined in one of his articles published in the Russian media last month, concerns pension reform, said Yaroslav Kuzminov, rector of the Higher School of Economics and a contributor to Strategy-2020.
The experts propose increasing the length of employment necessary to qualify for a pension and raise the pension age to 63 years for both men and women from 60 years old and 55 years old, respectively, while Putin has promised that the pension age won’t be increased.
Kuzminov also said Putin’s social policy is largely focused on the problems of the vast majority of the population, not only the middle class.
He also expressed hope that the new government would bring the strategy to life, as both Putin and Medvedev had demonstrated “a clear commitment” to enforce the reforms.

TITLE: My Evaluation of the Presidential Election
AUTHOR: By Tiny Kox
TEXT: During the March 4 presidential election, I along with the observers for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitored more than 1,000 polling stations. This is a considerable number, but in the whole country there were nearly 100,000. Much more important was the role that the domestic observers played this time around. Following the problems in the December State Duma elections and the mass protest demonstrations that followed, many new people volunteered as observers. On election day, representatives of the candidates in the race were present in 95 percent of polling stations and many of them proved to be attentive, active and informed.
Voting on election day was assessed by our observers as “good” and “very good” in 95 percent of polling stations visited. Minor delays in opening were noted in 20 percent of polling stations observed. But the process deteriorated during the counting of the ballots, which was assessed negatively in almost one-third of polling stations observed — mainly due to procedural irregularities.
Of 98 counts observed, 29 were assessed as “bad” and “very bad.” There were a few instances of ballot box-stuffing and some indications of buses transporting groups of voters to vote at multiple polling stations. In 21 polling stations where we observed the count, completed protocol results were not shown to web cameras as required, and results were not read out loud in 18 cases. The signed protocol was not posted in 31 polling stations observed. The tabulation was observed in over 70 territorial elections commissions, and the process in 11 of them was assessed as “bad” and “very bad.” In these cases, we saw poor organization of data entry, overcrowding, insufficient transparency and instances of changing in protocols by territorial elections commissions. Formal complaints were filed in 4 percent of polling stations observed.
International observers are not interested in who wins but the process in which candidates are elected. The election of Vladimir Putin was no surprise nor seriously challenged. Most domestic observers concluded that in any case, Putin got the support of the majority of the citizens who cast their vote on March 4. But the fact that the winner is not disputed does not make the election indisputable. On election day, the vote count often did not correspond to protocols.
Mistakes are always possible, but manipulation is never pardonable and is an insult to the voters. When I read a comment from our former colleague Sergei Markov, a former Duma deputy from United Russia who is now a political analyst, that “Putin is clearly supported by the majority, and only about 2 percentage points may have been added to Putin’s vote count by overzealous officials in the regions,” it must be clear that this is, in any case, 2 percent too much and completely unacceptable in democratic elections. Other comments mention far higher percentages and cast doubt on the real election result.
More important, the electoral process did not meet the standards of a fair and transparent competition. The choice for the voters was limited, some candidates had been excluded because of overly rigid rules, and the playing field for the candidates was by no means level. Putin received a much larger share of the media attention, and administrative resources were used to his electoral benefit. Not to mention an impartial election referee was sorely missed. The way in which chairman Central Elections Commission chief Vladimir Churov operates is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Without a trusted impartial elections commission, every election’s result will be disputed.
The good news is that improvements were also made on March 4 and before. For example, there were transparent ballot boxes in many polling stations and web cameras in all voting stations on election day. There was better media access for all candidates in the weeks before, as well as freedom of assembly for those who demanded fair elections. Many mass rallies took place in a peaceful atmosphere. Furthermore, participation in parliamentary and presidential elections will become easier in the future if the Duma agrees on the laws proposed by President Dmitry Medvedev. The recent agreement on the restoration of the Republican Party after the 2011 verdict of the European Court of Human Rights is also good news. Introduction of a new public television network could further improve media access to participants and help to develop a more level playing field.
But more is needed, including a thorough reform of all the local and central elections commissions, and strict rules on the use of administrative resources in campaign periods. As for now, one of the main positive results of Russia’s elections is the far greater involvement of citizens and their demand that elections should be transparent and fair. This is a clear enrichment of Russian democracy. Maintaining this level of citizen involvement should be a priority for everyone who plays a role in Russian politics.

<i>Tiny Kox is head of PACE’s elections observation mission.</i>

TITLE: regional dimensions: Putin Won’t Liberalize Anything
AUTHOR: By Nikolai Petrov
TEXT: Politics in Russia are like the weather in that they are both full of wild fluctuations. The country is now in a political light frost, but that will hopefully soon be followed by much warmer temperatures.
Following the March 4 election, the Kremlin began tightening the screws with crackdowns on mass rallies and protesters, and taking a hard line on the criminal cases against Alexei Kozlov and Pussy Riot. The authorities have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of liberalizing anything. They intend to put the millions of Internet “hamsters” back in their cages, leaving radical “professional revolutionaries” as the primary public face of the opposition.
The only bright spot in this otherwise gloomy picture has been the announcement that the authorities are willing to register the Republican Party led by Vladimir Ryzhkov. This is part of a larger tactic of dividing and marginalizing the opposition.
As President-elect Vladimir Putin begins his next term as national leader, we are witnessing an accelerating kaleidoscope of activity that was previously hidden from public view — political infighting punctuated by plaintive cries and angry roars as the bloody scraps of political battles are bandied about.
A few recent examples are the dismissal of St. Petersburg police chief Mikhail Sukhodolsky, who until recently was an influential first deputy of the Interior Ministry; investigations in the criminal case against Renova founder Viktor Vekselberg and his contentious departure from the RusAl board of directors; the public scandal concerning Federal Space Agency director Vladimir Popovkin, whose head was bashed with a bottle during a drunken brawl in his office; and the publication of incriminating material on First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and his wife, who reportedly received tens of millions of dollars in compensation from billionaires Yevgeny Shvidler and Alisher Usmanov in exchange for huge state loans and other preferential treatment.
Putin is in a sticky situation. His uncertain political position makes him a hostage to the major business and political clans, thus greatly limiting his flexibility in making political and staffing appointments.
Moreover, Putin lacks the political strength to radically improve his image as the “bad cop” spouting tough anti-Western rhetoric. Putin must now rely on outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev, who may serve as prime minister for most of Putin’s six-year term, to provide a democratic face to the government. Oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov may also be able to provide Putin’s administration with a modern, Western face if he accepts an official, or unofficial, role in government.
From 2000 to 2007, Putin managed to ride the wave of economic growth and prosperity. During the subsequent economic downturn, he funded his populist policies with the large budgetary reserves built up during the boom years.
But now that the election is over and the time has come to backtrack from costly populist policies, Putin is unable to persuade the country that the huge airplane flying Russia’s passengers is headed for a sharp fall. It is very possible that somebody else will have to manage this rough landing in a couple of years, when the state’s financial reserves have been depleted and no other options remain.

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

TITLE: Father of punk
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia’s pioneering punk rocker Andrei Panov, better known as Svin or Svinya (The Pig or Swine) will be paid tribute to this week with a memorial event at the bunker club Griboyedov.
Timed to be held on the eve of what would have been Panov’s 52nd birthday, the event will include screenings of video footage and a documentary film, a photo exhibition and a concert by bands whose members were either Panov’s peers or performed with him in different lineups of his band, Avtomaticheskiye Udovletvoriteli (Automatic Satisfiers), also known by its acronym in Russian, “AU,” which means something like “halloo!” or “yo!”
Called AU Jamboree 6, the event will be held both in the club’s underground area and in the Griboyedov Hill upstairs room on Thursday, March 22.
“It’s no secret for anybody that Andrei is everybody’s favorite, he was very charming,” said Olga Korol-Borodyuk, Panov’s widow and the event’s promoter.
“With his human qualities, talent and charm, he brought a certain aura or atmosphere that people needed in life badly. He’s the only one who was like that. That’s why when he went, people had a colossal feeling of loss — everybody, even those who were not very close to him. The first spontaneous response was to do something for him, but what can musicians do? They can come and play in his memory.”
The first memorial event was organized by the musicians themselves and held soon after Panov’s death from peritonitis at the age of 38 on Aug. 20, 1998. Korol-Borodyuk picked up the tradition the following year.
“Because there were a lot of musicians who have passed, unfortunately, and there were a lot of concerts like that — dedicated to the memories of Maik, Bashlachyov and Tsoi and those who followed later — by 2004 I wanted to do something special, rather than the usual memorial concert,” she said.
Korol-Borodyuk said she wanted to steer clear of the kind of memorial concerts where the musicians get drunk and forget in whose memory they have gathered by the end of the event.
“To avoid this, I wanted to do something vivid, to recreate the atmosphere and create the effect of presence — as if Andrei were still around,” she said. 
“That’s why we screen video footage and hold photo exhibitions; it’s not necessarily to play music. Some people read poetry or say a few words from the stage. The invitations read, ‘Everything about Andrei — on the eve of his birthday… Spend this evening with him.’ That’s the key phrase.”
Panov formed Automatic Satisfiers in 1979 when he was 19. In an early samizdat interview, he said that he became a punk after reading a Soviet newspaper article that criticized punk rock as a “bourgeois fashion” and unfavorably described a Sex Pistols gig in a “dark London cellar” —before even hearing the actual music.
“He was an artistic character, just imagine how emotionally he reacted to that!” Korol-Borodyuk said.
The band made its debut at underground producer Andrei Tropillo’s birthday party at the Brig restaurant on Ulitsa Chaikovskogo on March 22, 1981. The then 19-year-old Viktor Tsoi, the future rock legend and Kino frontman, played bass with the band at that concert.
Both Panov and Tsoi, who was killed in a car crash in 1990 when he was a national rock star, came from the Moskovsky district in the south of St. Petersburg. Panov lived in a Brezhnev-era nine-story building on the corner of Prospekt Kosmonavtov and Ulitsa Tipanova.
“Andrei epitomized the 1980s underground aesthetics, he’s the man who embodies the best that that epoch had — brotherhood, altruism, the things that we desperately need now. Many say he was the last honest musician.
“He was endlessly positive, never saying a bad word about anybody, and never arguing with anybody. That’s why we wanted to recreate the atmosphere, to immerse people into the 1980s, in a good sense. Because many have such a touching and reverent attitude to him, we had many people who wanted to help, including artists and film-makers.”
Panov was born on March 23, 1960 into a family of two Kirov ballet dancers, Valery and Liya Panov. His father emigrated to Israel — after a two-year campaign that included harassment, imprisonment, hunger strike, open letters and an appeal from Laurence Olivier — in 1974, which reportedly caused problems for his family.
However, Andrei’s mother’s contacts within the artistic establishment helped to prevent her son from being thrown in prison for his “anti-Soviet” frame of mind and “dubious” music activities.
“Makhmud Esambayev rocked him on his knee as a child,” Korol-Borodyuk said, referring to one of the most famous dancers of the Soviet Union and a Supreme Congress deputy.
According to Korol-Borodyuk, Panov became involved in music when his &#233;migr&#233; father gave him music equipment for his 17th birthday.
“I don’t know whether he sent the equipment itself, or sent money to buy it,” she said.
“Andrei used to say, ‘Everybody wants to be at the top, they form bands to become popular. But I’ll form a band that will be the worst.”
Hailing from an artistic family, Panov was a far cry from the stereotype of a mindless, beer-drinking punk. “He had a profound knowledge of history and history of art; he especially liked modernism, and knew the artists,” Korol-Borodyuk said. “He went to museums a lot with his mother as a child. He was very well educated.”
According to Korol-Borodyuk, Panov retained a child-like interest in everything around him.
“Once I told him that there was a binary number system as well as the decimal system, and he said ‘Please tell me.’ We spent the whole night converting decimal numbers into binary numbers. He was interested in almost any sphere of knowledge.”
Korol-Borodyuk first met Panov in the early 1980s at Lenfilm studios, where she was a costume designer. Many punk musicians, including Panov, did odd jobs at the studio.
According to her, Panov’s generation is departing without leaving any movement to inherit the tradition.
“Here in St. Petersburg, something unique emerged,” she said. “It was punk, but it was intellectual punk. All the punk forefathers were from very well educated families, some of them had two degrees.
“Punk was their internal protest against platitude, bigotry; it was a very sophisticated protest — mohawks? Such silliness didn’t even occur to them. They didn’t even call themselves ‘punks’; they called themselves ‘anarchists.’”
According to Korol-Borodyuk, Soviet punk — which emerged in international semi-isolation — was different to its Western counterpart.
“It was ‘Woe from Wit,’” she said, citing the title of the 19th-century play by Alexander Griboyedov. “There was nothing primitive about it. Quite the opposite; it was based on a more sophisticated, more profound perception of life and expression of interior protest.”
Panov is remembered as an uncompromising person who dropped out of a prestigious theatrical college — he studied under the eminent actor Igor Gorbachev — at the end of his first year of studies reportedly because he did not want to perform the role of a Komsomol (Communist youth organization) activist in a Soviet propaganda play.
“He was very demanding of himself,” Korol-Borodyuk said.
“He used to say, ‘Either I am a genius actor and dictate what roles I want to play, or I am not a genius and will be dictated what roles to play. I am not that genius.’ So he quit.”
Despite his external frailty, delicacy and politeness, Panov had a very strong core, she said.
“Our daughter is a copy of Andrei,” she said.
“She will listen to every argument, but do everything her own way, because she is confident about it. I ask her, ‘Katya, why did you do that?’ She says, ‘Because I know this is the right way.’ That’s the end of her explanations. Andrei always did as he thought was right.”
Later, Panov refused to polish his act — which frequently included baring his buttocks or similar pranks — in order to be admitted to the Leningrad Rock Club, the organization formed in 1981 that issued permits for so-called “amateur” rock bands such as Akvarium and Kino to perform occasionally. As a result, Panov’s concerts were illegal until Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalization went far enough in the late 1980s.
Nevertheless, his band’s first official concert at the Leningrad Rock Club’s competition at the Palace of Youth in 1987 landed him in prison for 10 days when fans seized the microphone that Panov had poked into the audience from the stage and uttered some invectives. The police charged the singer with the offense.
Although some of Panov’s peers became more famous than him — such as Tsoi, who started out playing bass with Automatic Satisfiers before forming Kino — Korol-Borodyuk sees him among seminal rockers such as the late Zoopark frontman Mikhail “Maik” Naumenko and, to some extent, Akvarium’s Boris Grebenshchikov.
“They were the earth, the rest are sprouts,” she said.
But despite the release of recordings, articles and a book, the history of Panov and Automatic Satisfiers remained shrouded in myth.
“Recently, I was asked: ‘Olga, please tell us whether AU emerged simultaneously with The Sex Pistols,’” Korol-Borodyuk said.
“I was speechless. Isn’t it obvious that the very name Automatic Satisfiers is a paraphrase of The Sex Pistols?”
The AU Jamboree — complete with designs made by artist Kirill Miller and reminiscent of an underground apartment concert at a Soviet communal apartment or kitchen — was first held at the now-defunct club PORT in March 2004, and has since then been held in various venues before landing at Griboyedov this year. 
Miller, who continues to create designs for the regular gathering, also painted a life-size portrait of Panov, which is put on stage during the events.
“It’s done from a photograph in which he’s sitting in a chair, looking so touching, and it’s become the symbol of the AU Jamboree, and is always on stage: Andrei is with us,” Korol-Borodyuk said.

<i>AU Jamboree 6 will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 22 at Griboyedov, 
2A Voronezhskaya Ulitsa. Tel. 764 4355, 973 7273. M. Ligovsky Prospekt. 
See Andrei Panov’s memorial website, www.svinpanov.ru, for more details.</i>

TITLE: The sound of silence — and of J. S. Bach
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Sochiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Nacho Duato’s new ballet, which premieres at the Mikhailovsky Theater this week, strives to convey the idea of the immortality of genius and depict its creative process through dance. 
“Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness,” which will be shown on March 21, 22 and 24 and on May 15, 17, is a combination of classical music and modern choreography devoted to the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach. The ballet’s main characters consist of Bach, dressed in a justaucorps and a powdered wig, a woman — probably his wife or muse — and Death, portrayed by a figure in a white mask. 
“Multiplicity” consists of excerpts from 22 of Bach’s compositions, encompassing a variety of genres. The live musical accompaniment to the show includes clavier and organ music, choral works, simple melodies and notoriously difficult compositions.
Duato created “Multiplicity” in 1999 to pay tribute to the city of Weimar, which was that year declared a cultural capital of Europe. The fact that Bach had lived and worked there for several years inspired the choreographer to create a theatrical interpretation of the composer’s music. The ballet has become known as a masterpiece, winning its creator the prestigious Benois de la Dance prize. 
Before its arrival in St. Petersburg “Multiplicity” was included in the repertoire of only two ballet companies — the National Spanish Dance Company and the Bavarian State Ballet. In 2010, the ballet was performed in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theater as a part of the Chekhov International Theater festival. The production at the Mikhailovsky Theater will be the first performance of the ballet in St. Petersburg.
The scenery and costumes will remain the same, but for the first time in its history, the ballet will be accompanied by live music.
The ballet’s author, the Spanish ballet choreographer Duato, has been the artistic director of ballet at the city’s Mikhailovsky Theater since 2011. 

<i>“Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness” will premiere on March 21 at the Mikhailovsky Theater, 1 Ploshchad Iskusstv. M. Gostiny Dvor / Nevsky Prospekt. Tel. 595 4305. www.mikhailovsky.ru</i>

TITLE: Ads reflect life
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “I want to marry a millionaire.” “I will give driving lessons to an 18-year-old girl.” “I’d like to trade my washing machine for a portable TV.” These are examples of classifieds placed in newspapers in the early 1990s, when advertising began to take its first steps in Russia, a country that back then knew little about marketing. 
The entire collection of the first ads published in one of St. Petersburg’s first advertising newspapers, Reklama Shans, is now on display as part of an exhibition titled “The History of New Russia through Classifieds” at Loft Project Etagi through March 28.
In the 1990s, Russia was undergoing dramatic changes, and these have become historic milestones, like the cheap Royal spirit — 96-percent alcohol — that sold like hot cakes when other kinds of alcohol were unavailable, and the disastrous MMM financial pyramid scheme in which thousands lost their life savings, say the exhibition’s organizers.
The diverse subjects of the advertisements range from household items, real estate and businesses to services, personal ads and entertainment, and reflect how the country and the needs and desires of its citizens changed from 1991 to 2011.
It was a time when people rushed to explore all aspects of life from new angles. 
It was also the moment when a sexual revolution hit the country, and people suddenly allowed themselves to do things that they could never even have voiced in the past. Advertising newspapers became flooded with blunt, to-the-point partner searches.
“I’m looking for a girl no older than 23 years old for love making. I’m a bodybuilder,” one young man wrote in his ad. “An athletic and gentle but poor young man is looking to meet a wealthy woman,” wrote another. “A young couple is looking forward to unusual sex offers,” read another ad.
Others wanted to meet a female “doctor or artist,” “a bride for a businessman from the U.S.” or “a nice girlfriend with big breasts.” Some did not hesitate to inform readers that they were married, but still “looking for a girlfriend to relax and have sex with.” The “girlfriend” was also to have an apartment where they could meet.
Illegal personal service firms also tried to tempt readers, publishing messages such as “Nice girls are waiting for you” or “Call us if you’re bored.” 
Gay people, who had been forced to lead very secretive intimate lives in the Soviet Union under pain of prosecution (male homosexuality was not decriminalized until 1993), also used advertising to help in the search for “a gay friend no older than 30 and no shorter than 180 centimeters” or for “a friend interested in self-flagellation.”
The unstable economic situation in the country caused people to be careful with their money and savings, however, and many of them preferred to simply exchange goods. The classifieds were bursting with all kinds of exchange offers, such as trading “a vacuum cleaner for a food processor,” “a Kamaz truck for an apartment,” “a box of 100 millimeter nails for a box of 50 millimeter nails,” “a Russian-English dictionary for an English-Russian dictionary,” “Finnish ground meat for babies for foreign-made squash for babies,” “moose antlers for a rifle” or even “an invitation to Israel for a Dnepr-brand bike.”
In turn, emerging entrepreneurs hurried to offer their goods and services, including the “infertility treatment via massage,” “learning English under hypnosis in 10 days,” “lessons in how to make a million rubles by baking doughnuts,” or even “sending Madonna’s exact address.”
“If you feel like you’re really missing something, ask yourself if it’s a carpet!” reads one of the ads on display, presumably placed by a carpet dealer. 
Maxim Kuzakhmetov, deputy head of Shans publishing house in the 1990s, said that back then, Reklama Shans published as many as 10,000 ads in just one issue.
“Many people couldn’t believe that we really received so many ads,” Kuzakhmentov reveals in an interview about the display shown on screens at the exhibit. “They thought we were making them up, and thought the biggest mystery was how we invented so many phone numbers for the classifieds.”
When from time to time, the newspaper editors would accidentally make typos in an ad’s phone number, causing people to call the wrong number, the owner of the number printed would get quite a hard time.
“It was lucky if they got calls from people who had read someone’s ad for juice sales. It was much worse if it was some kind of sexual ad,” Kuzakhmetov said.
Sergei Stillavin, a Russian radio host who once worked at Reklama Shans, said some sections of the newspaper represented the origins of future social networks, where people simply published greetings and messages for their friends.
Russian history has been dominated by highs and lows, but since 1991, St. Petersburg residents have published 30 million classifieds in Reklama Shans, more than one million people have found a job thanks to the ads, two million have found a place to live and people have purchased more than four million vehicles, the exhibit’s organizers said.
Anna Borisova, a 45-year-old visitor to the exhibition, said she even felt some nostalgia for the early 1990s when looking at the ads.
“I’d say they’re mixed feelings,” she said. “On the one hand these classifieds remind us of the time when we were young and when the things featured in the ads were indeed parts of our life. On the other hand, now we can see how primitive and naive people were about business in Russia at that time, how much they had to learn about it to make it civilized — and look civilized,” Borisova said.

<i>“The History of New Russia Through Classifieds” exhibit runs through March 28 at Loft Project Etagi, 74 Ligovsky Prospekt. M. Ligovsky Prospekt. 
Tel. 458 5005. www.loftprojectetagi.ru.</i>

TITLE: the word’s worth: Speaking with your hands and eyes
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ùóðèòü ãëàçà: to squint, to narrow one’s eyes

When I read 18th- and 19th-century American and British literature, I’m taken by how nonverbal language has changed. In old novels, people wring their hands, clasp their hands to their breasts, hold their hand to their forehead, recoil, cringe and clap their hands in joy. Those folks didn’t need aerobics classes. They got a full-body workout just gossiping with the neighbors.
Of course, those descriptions of gestures might have just been markers of emotion that were no longer expressed physically. In any case, today I think most Americans are fairly staid, body language-wise. I am certainly more likely to express distress with a good, loud expletive than a hand raised delicately to my brow.
Russians use a lot of gestures, some familiar, some not. Take ùóðèòü ãëàçà (to narrow one’s eyes, to squint). Sometimes people squint to see better: Íåðåäêî áëèçîðóêèå ìàëûøè&#8239;ùóðÿò ãëàçà (Myopic children often squint). Or to see in bright sunlight: Îí&#8239;ùóðèë ãëàçà îò ñîëíöà (He squinted in the sunlight).
When Americans narrow their eyes, it is usually a marker of suspicion, evil intent, dislike or determination. Sometimes Russians do the same: Îí&#8239;ìñòèòåëüíî&#8239;ùóðèë ãëàçà, îáåùàÿ óáèòü å¸ (He viciously narrowed his eyes and threatened to kill her).
But often when Russians narrow their eyes, it means they are concentrating or lost in thought. Here you probably need to describe the gesture differently so you don’t mix up the nonverbal message. Îí ùóðèë ãëàçà, âãëÿäûâàëñÿ, ïîòîì ïîäíÿë ãëàçà è ãëÿíóë êóäà-òî âäàëü (He half-closed his eyes, stared and then lifted his gaze to look off into the distance).
When Russian women narrow their eyes, it can be flirtatious, although today it’s rather affected: Îíà áûëà î÷åíü êîêåòëèâà, ïîäæèìàëà ãóáû,&#8239;ùóðèëà ãëàçà (She was very flirtatious. She pouted a little and looked up through half-open eyes).
Russians also do a lot of arm-waving. I asked a highly amused group of Russians to demonstrate some native gestures. Âñïëåñíóòü ðóêàìè (to fling one’s arms up) was a rapid flinging of their arms upward that ended with their hands by their ears, facing forward. Sometimes this was accompanied by a step back. This means: I’m startled, amazed, shocked, or taken aback. The request to show ðàçâåñòè ðóêàìè (to spread one’s arms open) produced two versions. In one variant, my nonverbal informants shrugged their shoulders, raised their hands and flattened them with the palms up so they were almost parallel to the floor. Others opened their arms wide and cocked their heads. Almost all of them automatically said: ×òî äåëàòü? (What are you going to do?) Îïóñêàòü ðóêè (to drop one’s arms) was a two-handed or, less commonly, one-handed sweep downward. This means: I give up, forget it, let it go.
Translating these gestures is tricky. If you’re not careful, a couple of Russian guys drinking beer and shooting the breeze come off in translation like two upper-class twits chatting in Jane Austen’s drawing room. Ìåõàíèê âñïëåñíóë ðóêàìè isn’t going to be “the mechanic flung his arms up in amazement.” Instead, he recoiled, he was taken aback, he was startled.
When he tells you the problem with your car is so bad “òîëüêî ðóêàìè ðàçâåä¸øü” (literally, “you can only open your arms”), you translate his words as “there ain’t nothing nobody can do about it.”
Îïóñêàþ ðóêè (I give up).

<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: Leaps and bounds
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Dance talent from the Bolshoi Theater, London’s Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, the Wiener Staatsoper, Het Nationale Ballet and the B&#233;jart Ballet Lausanne will join the Mariinsky Theater’s top soloists at the 12th International Mariinsky Ballet Festival. 
The festivities kick off March 22 with a revival of Roland Petit’s poignant 1946 masterpiece “Le Jeune Homme et la Mort.”
The event, launched by the Mariinsky’s artistic director Valery Gergiev in 2001 as a counterweight to the maestro’s other brainchild, the “Stars of the White Nights” festival that runs every year from mid-May through mid-July, assembles a pantheon of ballet stars from the world’s finest ballet companies. While operatic and symphonic programs reign at the “Stars of the White Nights” festival, making some balletomanes feel hard done by, the spring event is a sweet consolation.
The festival celebrates choreographic diversity, with ballets choreographed by Marius Petipa, August Bournonville, George Balanchine, Roland Petit, Maurice B&#233;jart, Angelin Preljocaj and Alexei Ratmansky fused in its programs.
“Le Jeune Homme et la Mort,” which originally brought Roland Petit to European fame, was influenced by Jean Cocteau, who learned the story from the legendary impresario Sergei Diaghilev and then inspired Petit to turn the plot into a ballet. Since the ballet’s world premiere in 1946, the title roles have remained among the most desired in the ballet repertoire. Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov both performed the part of the young man to great acclaim. 
The Mariinsky Theater first staged the ballet for Farukh Ruzimatov and Ulyana Lopatkina in the late 1990s, but the production did not last, as Petit was critical of the company’s rendition of his work. This time, Lopatkina will partner Mariinsky soloist Vladimir Shklyarov. 
The same evening will see a performance of George Balanchine’s ballet “The Prodigal Son” set to music by Sergei Prokofiev, and originally created for Diaghilev’s Saisons Russes in 1929, when it was performed by Teresa Reichlen and Daniel Ulbricht, soloists with the New York City Ballet. 
The festival offers rare opportunities to see Western ballet stars in classical Russian ballets as well as in their signature roles in works by foreign choreographers.
Covent Garden’s Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, who made their debut at the Mariinsky during the ballet festival in 2003, have since become regulars at the festival and have attended it almost every year since then. 
This year, Cojocaru will appear alongside Kobborg in Bournonville’s “La Sylphide” on March 25 in a not-to-be-missed performance.
Cojocaru, a 30-year-old dancer with a low-key manner and a Thumbelina-like appearance, who often says that she feels her life has much in common with the story of Cinderella, is one of the festival’s most eye-catching names. The Bucharest-born ballerina is often described as the world’s most moving dancer, thrilling audiences with her vibrant portrayals of emotionally fragile heroines.
Born into a family of market-stall holders, Cojocaru expressed an early interest in gymnastics, but quickly switched her attention to dance. At the age of nine, she was invited to the Kiev Ballet School, where she studied for seven years. In 1997, Cojocaru’s career took its first rapid leap forward when the dancer, then 16, won the prestigious Prix de Lausanne, and subsequently undertook a six-month scholarship at the Royal Ballet as part of the prize. When the course finished, she had two drastically different options open to her: Stay with the Royal Ballet — in the corps de ballet — or return to the Kiev Opera and Ballet Theater as a principal dancer. It was a difficult choice, and the gap between standards of living in the U.K. and in Ukraine notwithstanding, Cojocaru returned to Kiev to dance an array of top roles — including Cinderella — in a single season. 
By the end of the 1998-1999 season, she felt it was time for a change, and moved to London to join Covent Garden’s corps de ballet. The speed of Cojocaru’s rise to the top in London — she made the transition from corps-de-ballet member to first soloist in just one season — shocked even the dancer herself. 
She is now famous for her lead roles in Kenneth MacMillan’s “Manon” and “Romeo and Juliet” as well as Marius Petipa classics such as “Giselle” and “Don Quixote.” 
Representing the Bolshoi Theater, Svetlana Zakharova and Alexander Volchkov will join Anastasia Matvienko to form the love triangle in “La Bayad&#232;re” on March 24. 
The festival will reach its apogee with performances by the world-renowned Bejart Ballet Lausanne on March 27 and 28. The company, founded by the late legendary 20th-century choreographer Maurice B&#233;jart, is now directed by Gil Roman. The ballet troupe will bring four of the ballet-master’s works to St. Petersburg, including “Bol&#233;ro,” “Ce que l’amour me dit,” “Cantate 51” and the pas de deux of H&#233;l&#232;ne and Euphorion from the ballet “Notre Faust,” as well as Roman’s ballet “L&#224; o&#249; sont les oiseaux.” 
The visit by the B&#233;jart Ballet Lausanne will be accompanied by an exhibition of unique photographs by Valentin Baranovsky. The display will showcase images of B&#233;jart himself, dancer Jorge Donn and artists of the Kirov Ballet Company when the choreographer first visited Leningrad in the late 1980s. 
Viktoria Tereshkina and Alexander Sergeyev will appear in Angelin Preljocaj’s ballet “Le Parc” (March 26); Diana Vishneva will take to the stage in a ballet evening featuring “Errand into the Maze” by Martha Graham, “Subject to Change” by Paul Lightfoot and “Pierrot Lunaire” by Alexei Ratmansky (March 30); and Lopatkina and Andrei Yermakov will perform Ratmansky’s ballet “Anna Karenina” on March 31. 
The festival ends on April 1 with a gala performance featuring the festival’s guest stars. 

<i>For a full program, visit www.mariinsky.ru</i>

TITLE: in the spotlight: Sex and the City, Russian-style
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, Channel One began showing “A Short Course in Happy Life,” a much-anticipated new drama from Valeria Gai Germanika, the director of the hugely controversial and popular “School” series.
That Channel One series in 2010 made school a hot topic, showing sex, violence, alcopops and alienation. It horrified some, but got a lot of praise for its fresh approach.
Gai Germanika’s next television project was announced a long time ago, but has apparently been delayed. 
“A Short Course in Happy Life” tells the story of four women who work together in a sleek office and seem to be doing well in their careers, but whose personal lives are all at a crisis point.
Sasha is a single mother sleeping with her married boss. Lyuba tolerates her tipsy, though attractive husband, but he’s failing to support her plans for fertility treatment. Katya is utterly taken for granted by her husband and is secretly jealous of her 14-year-old daughter’s sex life. And Anna is a sweet singleton naively wandering into encounters with unsuitable men — including Sasha’s ex-husband.
The concept has been compared with the U.S. show “Sex and the City,” but while Carrie and Co. are buoyant about ultimately finding the “one,” this late-night show is much darker. Its title comes from a self-help course in female empowerment that Sasha attends — until her resentful mother comes along and tells a confessional session that her daughter is a “slut.”
The show has the same choppy camera angles as “School” and some of the shock value — it’s not often Channel One airs a masturbation in the shower scene or a teenager telling his 14-year-old girlfriend: “Next time, I want to try using my tongue to make you come.” But somehow with a story line about adults, it felt less daring.
Some of the details seemed just right, such as Katya’s claustrophobic apartment where the dog hovers constantly, needing to be walked, and music throbs from her daughter’s room. And Lyuba makes a recognizably horrible visit to her wealthy friends’ newly built country house, where she has to admire the free-standing glass fireplace and everyone politely ignores the fact that one of their friends is drinking herself to death.
The female owner manically wipes fingerprints off the mansion’s shiny surfaces.
“You’re like a robot, you just wipe things constantly,” Lyuba upbraids her.
I also liked Svetlana Khodenkova as Sasha, with her witchy eyes and wild hair. She recently starred in a disappointing remake of the Soviet classic “Office Romance” as the confirmed spinster boss who finds love with a colleague, where she was far too demure and weepy for someone who had apparently climbed the career ladder. In this show, she plays a similar role much more convincingly, moaning about PMS and terrifyingly putting down a man who complains about her parking.
But some of the scenes were a little bit too close to Russian television’s standard depiction of women — spending a lot of time taking off their tops and crying about men. The downbeat mood also reminded me of late Soviet cinema with its constant theme of hardy, intelligent women desperate to get married to any man whatsoever. Each episode even opens with a quote from Joseph Heller about how women are sadder and less cute after the age of 25.
So far, the male characters are pretty interchangeable, with uselessness and unreliability being their main characteristics. To underscore this, three of the husbands and lovers even look a lot like each other physically.
“You’re all bitches,” Sasha sneers at her lover.

TITLE: THE DISH: Nordsee
AUTHOR: By Ronan Loughney
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Shipshape</b>
Despite being situated inside an upscale boutique gallery, the branch of the German fast-food restaurant Nordsee that opened in St. Petersburg late last year has its own identity. There is an abiding sense of the sea in every aspect of the eatery, resulting in a wholly cohesive culinary experience.
Inside, the place is more akin to a ship’s canteen than a restaurant. Splashes of vivid red and blue stand out, cartoon-like, against the teak interior, while faux wooden struts appear to bear the weight of this pretend vessel. Sea plants and empty shells are scattered on the tables, while the sounds of aqueous electronic music echo gently around the room. Circular bulbs hang like portholes from the ceiling, seeming to sway slightly in an unfelt sea breeze, no doubt blowing from the giant beach-view photo covering the entire back wall.
From the shipshape messdeck, a long wood-paneled corridor leads up to the buffet counter, lit by rows of little blinking lights, as if on some promenade out to sea. Here the server lovingly went through the ingredients and cooking techniques behind the cornucopia of fish on offer, ensuring a distinctly homely feel to proceedings. The choice comprises fish-themed soups, sandwiches and salads, all displayed pristinely behind a glass counter, and the expertise of the staff certainly helps in deciding what to have. It is strange, given the evident freshness of the fish on show, that behind the same counter sweet pastries lie forlornly on their plates, their once puffed-up forms now flat and slightly stale looking, while the ready-poured glasses of wine on display leave no option but to go for a bottle.
In light of the chilly weather, coupled with the abiding sense of being outdoors, it seemed fitting to begin with soup a la mer (260 rubles, $8.90), to warm the cockles. Although the soup itself was a little thin, it was still substantial, containing plenty of fresh, meaty fish, and was also unexpectedly hot, considering it appeared to have been standing in a pot all day.
The salmon kebab (250 rubles; $8.55) was also fresh, though slightly overcooked and in need of something extra, as it was a little bland. The Gielo Pinot Grigio (900 rubles, $30.80) worked well in this regard, its refreshing, slightly fruity taste giving the salmon a much needed kick.
Dishes were brought simultaneously for both diners, which was a welcome change, though unfortunately what seemed to be the main dish — the fish and chips (175 rubles, $6) — came first, making the salmon seem like a rather pointless afterthought. This feeling was enhanced by the quality of the dish though: The cod was encased in deliciously crunchy batter, with warm and crispy chips (though they were more akin to English pub chips than those of a real ‘chippie’). Still, authenticity was retained by the charming newspaper cone-wrap in which they were served.
The name of the XXL sandwich was completely baffling, as it barely even required the use of two hands to wolf down. While the price (180 rubles, $6.15) reflected this, it was still the biggest disappointment of the savory options: The bread was over-toasted and the fish insipid and mushy, with a watery Tartar sauce accompaniment offering little in the way of a rescue mission.
Fears for the freshness of the pastries were confirmed by the apple pie (160 rubles, $5.50), which was foamy in consistency and completely bland, and would have required a significantly thicker base to give it both solidity and sweetness. Fortunately, there were no such problems with the cheesecake (180 rubles, $6.15), in which the extreme sweetness of the strawberry and vanilla flavor was offset by the more savory cheese, all served on a rich, buttery biscuit base.
Prices at Nordsee are modest, and as an extra bonus, the eatery offers a buy-one-get-one-half-price discount on the fish baguette (200 rubles, $6.85 for two). While the quality of the dishes is variable, if you know what to choose, Nordsee offers an immersive maritime experience without having to push the boat out.

TITLE: Man’s Best Friend Offers New Lease on Life
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: For several months now, Dostoyevskaya metro station has closed for two hours one evening a week. During this time, the usual crowds of people hurrying about their journey are replaced by animals, as guide dogs practice using the escalator, accompanied by their owners. 
Training began at the end of last year, when the metro authorities decided that guide dogs could use the metro without causing harm to themselves, their owners or others around them. Guide dogs in St. Petersburg can officially use the city subway free of charge. They must, however, be wearing a muzzle, a leash and a sign identifying them as a guide dog. Their owner must also have documents testifying that the animal is a trained guide dog. Of the 18 guide dogs in St. Petersburg, just four are learning to travel by metro.  
“Teaching dogs to use the escalator is very difficult, as the animal has to jump when getting on and off the escalator. Traditionally, however, they are not taught to jump, as it is against all the rules of working with blind people,” said Oleg Isaenko, general director of Russia’s only guide dog school.
“It is the responsibility of the dog owner to lift the dog up a little to help it get on and off of the escalator,” said Isaenko. 
Vyacheslav Rudakov attends training classes with his four-year-old Labrador Retriever and a volunteer instructor. 
“At first, I used to lift my Labrador Utan to help him get on the escalator, but now he has learned the order ‘hop’ and jumps when necessary,” said Rudakov.
“We often travel by metro. The people around us are very kind, they give us their seats when we get on the train. Utan also likes going on the metro, it is very interesting for him,” he said.
The Russian guide dog school is currently planning to include a moving staircase in the dogs’ training course. Based in Kupavna in the Moscow Oblast, it is the only place in Russia where guide dogs are trained. Every year, 60 to 65 dogs graduate from the school and find new homes all over the country. In the future, the school’s instructors plan to increase this number to 100 dogs per year. In total, there are currently 560 guide dogs in Russia.
The first guide dogs appeared during the First World War to help veterans who had been blinded during the war. The oldest existing guide dog school in the world — The Seeing Eye — was founded in the U.S. in 1929. In the Soviet Union, such animals were required after World War II when many people returned disabled from the front. Former military men began teaching dogs and finally, in 1960, the Russian guide dog school was established in Kupavna. Russian trainers developed their own methods based on international standards. As time passed, however, military personnel were replaced by civilians who often had no special education in dog training. 
“Military men have to re-teach themselves [to interact in a non-war environment] and remember that they’re not taking part in intense military training,” said Isaenko. “It is often far better to recruit people who simply love animals and know how to work with them. The result will be much better.” 
Many dogs have been used as assistance dogs, but those most suited for the job are Labradors and German Shepherds. The latter tend to require an owner who is physically and mentally strong and more of a leader. Labradors, on the other hand, are kinder and calmer, as well as good-natured, communicative and playful, and need more affection and personal contact.  
Guide dogs can completely change the lives of blind people.
“Although I have lost my sight, with the help of the angel that walks on my left, I have regained my vision,” The Seeing Eye website quotes one of its dog owners as saying. 
“She has guided not only my footsteps, but my heart, my mind and my spirit.” 
“[Getting a guide dog] is a big responsibility for a visually impaired person,” said Isaenko. “It is like adopting a child and owners should realize this. Some people just don’t want to change anything and cannot commit to taking on a dog, while for others it is a necessary step. They became more active and can even find a job [after getting a guide dog].” 
The infrastructure for disabled people is not well developed in Russia. The cost of feeding and looking after a guide dog often discourages people from getting them, but the government now supports those with assistance dogs by providing them with a stipend of 17,420 rubles ($600) per year.
In order to adopt a four-legged helper, several processes must be completed. First, a potential owner must undergo a medical examination to prove that a guide dog is necessary. Then the person should apply to the local branch of the All Russian Society for the Blind and send their personal information to the Kupavna school, where each dog is trained with a specific individual in mind. Finally, the living conditions of the future dog owner are checked. If everything is in order, the person’s name is put on a waiting list for guide dogs.
“I waited for a guide dog for nine months and I was lucky, as people often wait for two to three years,” said Rudakov.
There are currently 120 people on the list, according to the school’s data. The school aims to provide applicants with dogs within two years of their names being put on the list. The school has its own kennel, and breeders also bring puppies as gifts or sell them to the school.
“New puppies must pass both physical and mental tests. Once they do they can start their training. We pay close attention to the health and nutrition of the dogs in order to prevent their owners from having to take them to the vet,” said Isaenko.
It’s important to determine whether or not the dog is fit for guide work as early as possible, as training is an expensive process costing between 710,000 and 720,000 rubles (about $24,500), which is provided by the government.
During the first three months of its life the puppy is socialized with tutors. By the age of 10 months, it has spent six months with a training specialist. Then the dog has to pass three exams. After doing so, the owner-to-be is called in for a 12-day induction course. It is important for the applicant to answer the questionnaire honestly in order to prevent mistakes in choosing the best dog to meet the individual’s needs.
“Once a man requested a German Shepherd, but when he came in he was afraid of everything as the result of a car accident he had been in. He had difficulty orienting himself and couldn’t remember how to get places. It would have been difficult for him to have a German Shepherd,” said Isaenko.
“We trained a Labrador for him, but didn’t end up giving him the dog until the man had passed a rehabilitation course.”
During induction training, the owner and the dog adjust to each other. The person is taught to interact and create routes with the dog. After this process there is an exam to test cooperation between the owner and animal. 
“To achieve cooperation with the dog, you have to work hard every day. Sometimes the adaptation period can last up to half a year. The dog needs to understand the owner and adjust to his character and demands,” said Isaenko. 
“The dog cannot change its owner’s eyes, it can just help, give some signs and prevent something bad from happening. Nothing in the world can replace the guide dog.”
Utan’s owner Rudakov firmly believes that in addition to the training courses provided by the school, the dog owner should work with the animal themselves. Utan has already learned 16 different routes and waits for the order “Post,” for example, before setting off to lead his owner to the post office.
“After three or four times he remembers the route and then we have no problems getting there,” said Rudakov. “It is necessary for the owner to practice all the skills learned during the training course with the guide dog at home. With Utan I have become more active, go everywhere I want and have developed more interests.”
Rudakov and Utan represented the St. Petersburg branch of the All Russian Society for the Blind in the national competition of guide dogs and their owners and won second prize.
“Utan helps me a lot in my life; he barks when the telephone rings, and tells me when the cycle on the washing machine has finished even before it beeps. When I open the door to someone, he never lets in people I don’t know. He brings me what I need and even barks to say ‘Thank you,’” said Rudakov.
“At the same time he is quiet on the street, as he knows that he is working then.”
The average guide dog serves its owner for about eight years, but when the animal is old, people often do not return the dogs to the school, but rather keep them at home as their pets and best friends.
Cautious attitudes toward guide dogs remain in Russian society, however. Sometimes they are not permitted to stay with their owners in hotels, even though denying owners this right is illegal. 
“Once in Petrozavodsk a blind woman was told she couldn’t attend a concert with her guide dog, but when she insisted, they were given seats in the front row and everyone was surprised at how well behaved the guide dog was,” said Isaenko.
Guide dogs now have competitors in their field of work, however. Miniature horses or small ponies are becoming an alternative option for visually impaired people. Horse lovers, people allergic to or scared of dogs, the physically disabled (guide horses are stronger than dogs), Muslims (for whom the dog is an unclean animal) and those who want a guide animal with a longer lifespan can choose a miniature horse up to 86 centimeters tall instead. The first guide horses appeared in the U.S., and this year the miniature pony was recognized as a guide animal in the Czech Republic.

TITLE: Putin Tiger Photo Staged?
AUTHOR: By Natalya Vasilyeva
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A tiger can’t change its stripes — which is leading Russians to wonder if Vladimir Putin needs to change his story about which one he shot.
In one of the macho photo moments the Russian leader often indulges in, he was shown on an expedition in the Far East in 2008 with preservationists tracking wild Amur tigers. According to the video footage, Putin shot one of the rare beasts with a tranquilizer gun so Russian scientists could put a GPS collar on the tiger.
Putin’s website later showed photos of what it claimed to be the same tiger, back in the wild.
But environmentalist Dmitry Molodtsov, who runs a website about the big cats, posted an investigation this month indicating that the tiger shot by Putin isn’t the same one shown later on Putin’s video.
That leads him to suggest the tiger that Putin shot wasn’t a wild specimen at all but a comparatively docile animal from a zoo.
Putin is known for stage-managed media appearances in an array of manly pursuits — petting a polar bear, riding a horse bare-chested and hanging out with leather-clad bikers. The images have endeared him to many Russians and provoked scorn among others — in particular last year’s video footage of him finding ancient Greek artifacts while scuba diving, which his spokesman Dmitry Peskov later admitted had been planted on the seabed.
Peskov could not be reached for comment Friday about the tiger encounter. But Natalya Remennikova, project coordinator at the government-funded Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Moscow, which is in charge of the Amur tiger preservation program, dismissed Molodtsov’s claim as untrue.
“Somebody made it up or they thought they saw something suspicious,” she said, adding that the report could be aimed to smear Putin, the current prime minister and president-elect.
Photos on Putin’s website do show tigers with different coat patterns during the encounter with Putin and afterward in the wild.
Vladimir Krever of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund agreed.
“What I have seen online are two different animals,” said Vladimir Krever, the WWF’s biodiversity coordinator. But he said he cannot vouch for the authenticity of the photograph and suggested that the camera might have captured another tiger.
Molodtsov insisted there can be no doubt about the authenticity of the photographs he was comparing because they were posted on Putin’s website.
He alleged that the tigress Putin shot with a tranquilizer had been taken from a zoo and had never lived in the wild. He said photographs of a tiger in the Khabarovsk Zoo made him “99 percent certain it was the tiger pictured with Putin.”
Molodtsov said he felt obligated to publish his investigation.
“I thought this to be my civil duty to report this,” he said. “I want to live in a country where a politician will know that he can improve his declining ratings only with real deeds.”
Putin served as president in from 2000 to 2008 before shifting into the prime minister’s seat because of term limits. He won a third term in the March 4 election with 64 percent of the vote despite a wave of massive protests in Moscow against his rule.
Putin has long been a strong advocate of tiger conservation efforts. Fewer than 400 Ussuri tigers — also known as Siberian, Amur or Manchurian tigers — are believed to survive in the wild, most of them in Russia and some in China. They are the largest tiger species, weighing up to 272 kilograms.

TITLE: Exotic Animals Find a Home Near St. Petersburg
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: You don’t need to travel far to find giant rabbits, miniature horses or African ostriches. All of these exotic animals, which might be expected to be foreign to the Russian climate, live on farms in the Vsevolozhsky district of the Leningrad Oblast. 
The breeding of rare animals is becoming increasingly popular in Russia, following in the footsteps of Europe, where there are entire associations and clubs devoted to breeding exotic species.
 “After the revolution in Russia, all prosperous farmers were forced to give up their land to the state, preventing people from breeding rare poultry or animals,” said Vyacheslav Komov, the owner of a farm near Lembolovo railway station, about 20 kilometers to the north of the city, where dwarf goats and sheep are kept, together with pigs covered in thick fur and mini pigs. 
One of five pioneers who brought mini pigs to Russia, Komov also helped to bring back the old Russian breed of Pavlovskiye hens. 
“Running a farm like this is a hobby for me,” said Komov. “It is like having a collection — there are exhibitions, other farmers that have their own collections trade their animals or buy ones they need. But in Germany, for example, between 25,000 and 30,000 rabbits are brought to exhibitions, whereas in Russia we have only 10 to 15 participants.” 
Giant rabbits that weigh up to 10 kilos are raised in Europe for showing at exhibitions. In Russia, they were first bred for meat, but it turned out to be unprofitable. Now the rabbits are mainly kept as pets, although some are also shown at exhibitions.
“Giant rabbits are rather difficult pets to keep,” said Komov. “They are strong, and if they are angry, they can scratch or bite you. They are not good pets for those who live in apartments, as they’re the same size as a medium-sized dog. In Germany, for example, they are usually kept outside in people’s yards,” he added.
“Now a class of people has emerged that lives out-of-town. They lead a country lifestyle with a garden,” he said.
Among other exotic pets kept at country houses are miniature horses, which are much friendlier than giant rabbits, and are between 55 and 86 centimeters tall. The only miniature horse farm near St. Petersburg is based in the village of  Skotnoye about 10 kilometers to the north of the city.  
“Our story began in 2001 when I bought Paulina, a miniature horse, for my two-year old daughter when we were in Holland,” said Yelena Chistyakova. “When I saw these mini ponies, I fell in love.” 
“They were so friendly and had such a nice, friendly character, so we decided to start this trend. Now we have horses that have won many prizes at different European exhibitions,” she said.
There is a belief in Russia that ponies are usually aggressive, and tend to bite and kick. This is true, according to Chistyakova, because of the way in which small horses are bred.
“When a pony bites, is disobedient and does not allow people to ride it, it is usually sent to a breeding farm,” said Chistyakova. “This bad character is then inherited by its offspring. This has been going on for many years in Russia and now ponies rarely have a nice nature. In Europe, horses that behave badly are separated from the others and not used for breeding,” she said.
Miniature horses, on the other hand, are friendly and affectionate and can be an ideal pet, especially for children. They are intelligent, easily taught and trained, get along with other animals and are easy to look after. The most important thing is to feed them correctly and allow them to walk around. In the winter, miniature horses’ fur becomes thicker, enabling them to weather outdoor temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius. They can also pull small carts carrying an adult, while children up to six years old can try mini-horseback riding.
“Although it is sometimes written in the media that these animals can be kept in apartments, this is incorrect,” said Chistyakova. “There isn’t enough space for a horse in an apartment. It is ideal for them to live in a small barn or stall near a cottage.
“Miniature horses are very clean animals. They graze on grass and don’t even step on the flowers,” she added.
Although Chistyakova’s farm is a pioneering project in Russia, in the West mini horses are far more popular. They are used as guides for the blind and are often brought to hospitals to cheer up sick people. Wealthy owners sometimes keep them for exhibitions.
The most expensive horses are American miniatures, which are judged to be the most attractive and have the same proportions as Arabian horses. 
The price of the animals vary, costing upwards of $6,000. Chistyakova’s farm has 30 small horses that have been brought from the U.S., Poland, Holland, Belgium and Germany. The origin of American miniature horses is, however, unknown. According to legend, one of the breeds has its roots in Argentina.
Mini horses are not the only southern animals that have adapted to living in cold climates. Black African ostriches appear to be at home in both summer and winter on a farm in the village of Beloostrov about 15 kilometers to the north of the city. 
“They’re used to temperature changes, as their native countries are hot during the day and cold at night,” said Anastasia Ippolitova, a farm employee.
The ostrich is the largest flightless bird in the world, with an average height of 2.7 meters and a weight of 150 kilograms. Ostriches are so strong that they can kill a lion with a kick of their leg. They are not, however, known for their intelligence.
“They only have a 30-second memory,” said Ippolitova. “For example, if you are feeding them and then stop, after 30 seconds they will forget about it and walk away. They remember their keeper only after four years of constant contact and only if the keeper always wears the same clothes.” 
“Sometimes they stick their flexible necks in a hole somewhere and then forget how they did it, and need help getting it back out,” she said.
The idea that when in danger, ostriches bury their heads in the sand is a myth.
“They do not hide anything, but run very fast — up to 70 kilometers per hour,” said Ippolitova. “They can run for about half an hour, after which they get tired and fall over.” 
Care must be exercised around the animals, due to their powerful kick. 
“There was an incident when we had to move ostriches from one enclosure to another,” Ippolitova recalled. “We built barriers, but one ostrich got frightened, escaped and started to run around. The men in charge of the move were then forced to hide and climb onto the roof to protect themselves.”
The ostriches are raised for their meat, which is cholesterol-free and contains nine times less fat than beef. The average price of their meat is from 950 to 1,100 rubles ($32 to $38) per kilo. 

<i>For more information visit: 
www.komovdvor.spb.ru
(goat, sheep and pig farm); 
http://mini-pony.ru (mini pony farm); www.straus-spb.ru/ (ostrich farm).</i>