SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1707 (18), Thursday, May 10, 2012
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TITLE: Jailed Opposition Leader Could Face More Serious Charges
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Demonstrators in Moscow continued their non-stop marathon protest overnight, gathering as many as 1,500 people after two prominent opposition leaders were given 15-day jail sentences, but anti-corruption bloggerAlexei Navalnycould end up facing even more serious charges.

Navalny's lawyer Vadim Kobzev wrote in Twitter that the opposition activist would be questioned in connection with criminal charges for inciting a riot during the May 6 protest on Bolotnaya Ploshchad.

The Investigative Committee said Monday it was opening a criminal investigation under criminal codes for inciting a riot and harming a law enforcement officer, charges that carry a maximum penalty of three and five years in jail, respectively.

Both Navalny and Left-Front leader Sergei Udaltsov were given 15 days in jail on charges of disobeying a police officer Wednesday, sparking outrage among opposition activists.

After a rally on Lubyanskaya Ploshchad in front of the headquarters of the Federal Security Service on Wednesday, protesters began gathering at Chistiye Prudy and the Alexander Garden in a continuation of the mobile protests that have been ongoing since PresidentVladimir Putin's inauguration Monday.

The numbers at Chistiye Prudy grew as high as 1,500 people, and about 50 protesters made it through the night to outlast even police buses, the last of which rolled away mid-morning Thursday, Interfax reported. Protesters cheered as the last police bus left.

A group of writers and musicians, including prominent opposition figures Boris Akunin and Dmitry Bykov, has also announced they will take part in an opposition "writers' walk" to take place in downtown Moscow on Sunday. The format mirrors the "people's walk," which is the name given by opposition figures to their protest processions. Demonstrators have said they do not need permission from city authorities to walk in groups around the city since they do not chant slogans or carry signs.

Meanwhile, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said the number of police officers injured at Monday's protest where about 300 were arrested has been raised to more than 30, Interfax reported.


TITLE: Missing Superjet Slammed Into Volcano, No Survivors Found
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Rescuers have found several bodies but no survivors on the Indonesian mountainside where a Sukhoi Superjet 100 crashed on Wednesday.

"We haven't found survivors," Gagah Prakoso, spokesman of the search and rescue team, told Indonesia's Metro TV, Reuters reported.

About 47 people were onboard the passenger jet when it went missing on Wednesday about 40 miles (64 km) from Jakarta, including representatives of the several Indonesian airlines and local journalists who had been invited to join the demonstration flight.

The wreckage was found at an altitude of about 5,800 feet on the slopes of the volcanic Mount Salak on Thursday morning. The plane slammed into the side of the mountain, not clearing the sheer face of the volcano only by several dozen meters. The plane apparently broke into several pieces.

However, a Russian blogger on the scene said that no one had yet reached the crash site, casting confusion over the progress of the rescue attempts.

“For especially hasty media: Not one person has been to the crash site yet,” Sergei Dolya, who has published photographs of the plane and its wreckage on his Twitter account, on Thursday afternoon.


Earlier he said paratroopers had descended from helicopter to reach debris at the crash site. He later tweeted from the operations center that the parachutists had been unable to jump, but 350 people were trying to climb an 80 degree slope from below.

“Every ten minutes there is completely contradictory information. No exact info at all,” he tweeted.

Both Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono have ordered the formation of special groups to ascertain the cause of the crash.


TITLE: Putin to Skip G8 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin will not participate in the G8 summit to be held at Camp David later this month, choosing to send newly-minted Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in his stead.

Putin gave Obama the news by telephone, the White House said in a statement, RIA-Novosti reported.

"Noting his responsibilities to finalize cabinet appointments in the new Russian government, President Putin expressed his regret that he would be unable to attend the G-8 Summit at Camp David on May 18-19," the statement said.

It said Obama "expressed his understanding of President Putin's decision" and "welcomed" Medvedev's participation.

During the telephone call, the two leaders also affirmed a commitment to continue the "reset" in relations and continue high-level dialogue on key issues.

The White House said Putin and Obama would meet next month at the G20 meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico.

The decision comes after an election campaign season in which Putin frequently used anti-American rhetoric, calling into question how the new presidential administration will proceed.

The G8 summit was earlier moved to Camp David from Chicago, a move seen as a goodwill gesture made to Putin so that he would not need to ostentatiously leave the city to avoid attending the NATO conference that was to follow. White House officials denied the speculation.

"The president supported moving the summit to Camp David because he preferred having a more relaxed atmosphere to facilitate a candid discussion among world leaders," Benjamin Rhodes, the director for strategic communications at the National Security Council said.


TITLE: 12 bodies found at Russian jet crash in Indonesia
AUTHOR: By ANDI JATMIKO 
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOUNT SALAK, Indonesia 	— Search teams found at least 12 bodies Friday on the steep slope of an Indonesian volcano where a Russian-made jetliner crashed while demonstrating the plane for potential buyers from airlines, an official said.

All 45 aboard the Sukhoi Superjet-100 that crashed Wednesday are feared dead.

"Today we have discovered 12 victims, all dead," Rear Marshal Daryatmo, head of the national search and rescue agency, told reporters Friday.

The search team used ropes to climb up to the wreckage through jungle on the near-vertical slopes of Mount Salak, search and rescue agency spokesman Gagah Prakoso said by telephone.

Thick fog and the jagged mountain's slopes are still keeping helicopters from landing, so the bodies remain at the crash site, said Daryatmo. He added that the soldiers, police and volunteers on the rescue team were cutting down trees to fashion a landing area for helicopters.

Local television showed what appeared to be the plane's tail with the blue-and-white Sukhoi logo, part of a wing and bits of twisted metal scattered along the slope like confetti.

The jetliner slammed into the dormant volcano at nearly 800 kph (480 mph) during drizzle. Russian and French investigators have joined the investigation into the cause.

The Superjet-100 is Russia's first new model of passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago and was intended to help resurrect its aerospace industry.

The ill-fated Superjet was carrying representatives from local airlines and journalists on what was supposed to be a 50-minute demonstration flight. Just 21 minutes after takeoff from a Jakarta airfield, the Russian pilot and co-pilot asked for permission to drop from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet (3,000 meters to 1,800 meters). They gave no explanation, disappearing from the radar immediately afterward.

It was not clear why the crew asked to shift course, especially since they were so close to the 7,000-foot (2,200-meter) volcano, or whether they got an OK, officials have said.

Communication tapes will be reviewed as part of the investigation, but it's unlikely they will be released to the public any time soon.

TITLE: FSB 'Foils' Terrorist Plot in Sochi 
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: FSB agents have foiled a terrorist plot on Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Olympics, authorities said Thursday, accusing Chechen separatists and Georgia of jointly masterminding the plans.

Georgian authorities and security experts, however, called the accusations "paranoid" and "hard to believe."

The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the Federal Security Service had discovered 10 caches of weapons and ammunition on May 4 to 5 in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia, which lies just kilometers from Sochi.

The arms seized included portable surface-to-air missiles, grenade launchers, flame throwers, grenades, rifles, explosives and maps, it said.

The terrorists were planning to smuggle the explosives and arms into Sochi "between 2012 and 2014 to use them during the preparations and during the games," it said, without elaborating on how it came to this conclusion. 

It said Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov, whom it alleges has close ties to Georgia's secret service, coordinated the delivery of the weapons and ammunition to Abkhazia and arranged caches for them.

Shota Khizanishvili, the chief of staff at Georgia's Interior Ministry, denied any links between Georgia and Umarov.

"I can only say that the National Anti-Terrorist Committee is staffed with people with peculiar fantasies," Khizanishvili said. "They're always trying to accuse Georgia and its secret services of everything in any situation and without any grounds. This is a sign of severe paranoia."

A regional security expert agreed that the accusations were "hard to believe."

The Georgian authorities “can hardly side with separatists and organize diversions," said Akhmet Yarlykapov of the Moscow-based Ethnology and Anthropology Institute.

The International Olympic Committee would not comment on the specific security case at Sochi but said in a statement that "security is a top priority for the IOC.”

"Security at the games is the responsibility of the local authorities, and we have no doubt that the Russians will be up to the task," the statement said.


TITLE: Putin’s Return Prompts Local Demos
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: An estimated 1,000 St. Petersburg activists and election observers went to Moscow to join the March of Millions to protest Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as president Sunday, while small-scale protests were held in St. Petersburg on the following days.
The Moscow protests have been marked by police violence and hundreds of daily arrests, starting with the March of Millions on Sunday.
The St. Petersburg activists carried a large banner reading “St. Petersburg against Putin” and the city’s flags, while many wore white T-shirts with “Piter against Putin” printed on them.
Andrei Pivovarov, the local leader of the Party of People’s Freedom (Parnas) and one of the organizers of the St. Petersburg activists’ trip to the Moscow rally, said the clashes with the police were the result of provocative moves on the authorities’ part.
“Despite the fact that the rally was authorized, the entrance to the site was blocked and people were not allowed to enter the square,” he said.
“People said they would sit on the ground and wait. The police started to make preventive arrests of those who were sitting, and because there were many people who were agitated, it grew into a conflict. When the first clashes began, the people could not take [the police aggression] anymore.”
Pivovarov said that people who did not want to take part in clashes had a chance to leave the scene, while there were some “militant young people” who were ready for a confrontation with the OMON riot police.
 “Some have expressed the opinion that if the rally had gone ahead as planned, with speeches and so on, it would have been the end of the protest movement,” he said.
“But the fact that the authorities chose to act totally lawlessly by trying to crush an authorized rally and escalated the conflict will bring a new wave [of protests]. Because people have realized that there’s no place left to retreat to. I think it will bring about a rise in the protest mood.”
The confrontation resulted in a number of injuries and many bruises, mainly sustained by the protesters, who were beaten with truncheons and kicked, as well as exposed to tear gas and electric shocks.
“Some people say that blood was spilled and that is bad,” Pivovarov said.
“Of course it’s bad, but it’s not our fault; it’s the fault of those who threw the OMON at us.”
Out of eight buses that the protesters hired for the trip to Moscow, only two managed to leave St. Petersburg. The rest of the bus hire companies were intimidated by law-enforcement officers into canceling their commitments, according to Pivovarov.
“At first we ordered three buses via a mediator, but two days later he was paid a visit by [counter-extremism] Center E officers or some other agency, who explained what would happen to him if he didn’t refuse to help us, so he refused,” he said.
“Then we ordered three other buses, but only one of the three arrived, so after that we ordered another two and only one came.” 
Both buses started to experience problems with the police near Tver, 168 kilometers from Moscow. 
One of the bus drivers, Ramaz Lomidze, now faces deportation from Russia, Pivovarov said.
“He is Georgian and has been driving along this route for years with no problem,” Pivovarov said. “Now he is in a detention center on Zakharyevskaya Ulitsa [in St. Petersburg] waiting to be deported.”
About 25 St. Petersburg activists were arrested in Moscow on Sunday and Monday and charged with violating the law on holding public assemblies, Pivovarov said.
Olga Kurnosova said Wednesday she had been arrested while urging people to shout “Shame” at the OMON police officers who surrounded her group and started making arrests. “But after I was detained, people who were standing still were also arrested,” she said.
Activists who had stayed in the city began to hold solidarity events with protesters in Moscow on Monday.
Igor Chepkasov, a former activist of The Other Russia opposition movement who describes himself as a national syndicalist, was arrested alongside three other activists on Monday morning while on their way to stage a protest by raising a 24-meter banner reading “Putin is not our president” on the top of a building in the city center.
The eight-man police patrol that made the arrests told the activists that they fit the description of criminals who had committed a robbery nearby, but when put onto a police bus, they were told that they would be taken to the counter-extremist Center E, Chepkasov said in an email. 
They were released after six hours with no charges. The banner, which was being carried inside a bag, was confiscated.
On Monday evening, 200 to 300 people gathered on St. Isaac’s Square opposite the Hotel Astoria to show solidarity with the hundreds arrested in Moscow, despite a massive police presence (more than 20 police vehicles were parked on the square, while a police helicopter circled above the square). Some people wore white ribbons in protest of electoral fraud.
Arrests started as The Other Russia activist Sergei Chekunov unfolded a placard comparing Sunday’s police violence in Moscow to Khodynka, the mass panic and stampede that occurred during the festivities for the coronation of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II. The disaster resulted in the deaths of about 1,500 people in May 1896.
“He who began his reign with Khodynka will end it by mounting the scaffold,” the placard read, quoting a poem written by Russian poet Konstantin Balmont in 1905. 
Within seconds, Chekunov was arrested by OMON police officers. A young woman who was holding a page torn out of a notebook with the words “You can’t imprison everyone” was arrested soon after. As the arrests started, somebody discharged a smoke bomb in apparent protest.
One young man was detained for putting on a colored balaclava, apparently in reference to the three imprisoned women suspected of being members of the feminist punk group Pussy Riot. Another man was arrested for inquiring on what grounds the detention of the balaclava-wearing man had been made. 
The eight people detained were charged with violating the law on holding public assemblies and failure to obey police officers’ orders. They were held in a police precinct overnight.
About 50 gathered in the gardens on St. Isaac’s Square on Tuesday. They sang songs to the accompaniment of a guitar, played word games and discussed the flawed elections and the protests in Moscow. Some stayed at the site overnight and left in the morning as other people started to arrive. The police did not interfere.
On Wednesday, small groups began to gather in the gardens on St. Isaac’s Square and in front of the Admiralty to continue protesting.

TITLE: ‘Indecent Proposal’ Slammed by Thesps
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The city’s drama community is seething. At stake is a tough proposal made by City Hall to local theater director Yury Butusov. At the end of April, Dmitry Meskhiyev, head of the Culture Committee of the St. Petersburg government, offered Butusov the job of artistic director of the Lensoviet Theater — on one condition. The proviso was that Butusov stop all kind of other work in any shape or form outside this engagement. The director left City Hall flabbergasted. The proposal, he argues, is nothing short of serfdom, and his view has received widespread support among his counterparts, far beyond the walls of the Lensoviet Theater, where he has staged award-winning productions since 1997 and served as principal director since February 2011.
City Hall provides funding for dozens of local museums, theaters, libraries, concert organizers and cultural institutions. The list includes the Lensoviet Theater. 
“Serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861; indeed, the authorities do not have the right, legal or moral, to impose such restrictions on an artist,” reads an open letter written by the Guild of Russia’s Theater Directors. The letter was sent to St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko in the first week of May, and was signed by some of the country’s most respected theater talent, including directors Valery Fokin, Sergei Zhenovach, Andrei Moguchy, Yevgeny Marchelli and Mindaugas Karbauskis. 
“The offer made to our colleague is not only unethical, it reveals the completely unacceptable arbitrary attitude of an official toward an artist. One even wonders whether such proposals are part of a cunning plan aimed to provoke an outburst and the prompt departure [of the recipient of such a proposal],” the letter continues.
Meskhiyev, however, dismissed the allegation that he deliberately insulted Butusov because he wanted the director to leave and vacate the prestigious position.
“Nonsense,” the official replied when asked to comment on the accusations. “Of course nobody is forcing the director out.”
“I will be very happy if Butusov stays,” Meskhiyev told reporters on Friday, May 4. “All that is required of him is that he work for the benefit of our city.” 
However, Meskhiyev stopped short of withdrawing his request that Butusov, should he become the theater’s artistic director, end any side engagements. He declined to comment on the legitimacy of such requests.
Butusov’s counterparts from other theater companies are worried that City Hall intends to exert similar pressure on other directors.
Perhaps Butusov’s conflict would have remained the personal matter of one director and would never have had such strong resonance if the local cultural community had not already become disappointed with the performance of the new city government.
While St. Petersburg’s new governor Georgy Poltavchenko, who replaced Valentina Matviyenko in August 2011, was quick to criticize his predecessor’s cultural policy for what he branded as overspending and investment in street festivals of questionable quality, his cabinet failed to offer an alternative policy. What followed could simply be described as brutal cost cutting, and the victims were not only grand-scale cultural events such as the St. Petersburg Film Festival and Aurora Fashion Week. City Hall has cut the funding of the St. Petersburg Theater Art Magazine, the Cultural Capital project of the Internet resource Fontanka.ru and also halved the salaries of all the city’s theater managers.
As of this year, City Hall also plans to introduce a new system for hiring artistic directors, executive directors and top managers of cultural organizations that get funding from the city. Instead of a permanent employment contract, they will be offered one-year contracts that will be reviewed at the end of the year — and then potentially replaced by three-year contracts — thus greatly increasing the dependency of employees on the state. 
“Local arts circles have for some time been wondering what is really behind this openly indifferent if not aloof attitude of the government toward culture,” said prominent local theater critic Zhanna Zaretskaya, who is also head of Fontanka.ru’s Cultural Capital project. “Quite a few people actually find it insulting, and at the least a sign of disrespect.”
As some of the more outspoken critics of City Hall have put it, the local authorities appear to be treating Russia’s northern capital — and Europe’s fourth-largest city, after London, Paris and Moscow — like a small backwater in the middle of nowhere, where the tasks facing the government are mostly limited to cleaning the place and maintaining a power connection to the outside world.
“Art is not a sphere in which orders, restrictions, pressure and subordination work well,” reads the letter of the Guild of Russia’s Theater Directors. “On the contrary, this is what ultimately kills creative spirit. Instead of artistic freedom, under such conditions, a climate of obedience, fear and hopelessness emerges.”
It is not yet clear whether Butusov will leave the Lensoviet Theater or continue to negotiate his contract with the city government.
“The most important thing for me is to be able to stage productions, and it is from this perspective that I am going to think over the possibility of me staying with the company or moving on,” Butusov said on Friday, May 4.
The director said he would make a decision in mid-May.

TITLE: First Fine Under Gay Law Issued by Court
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A St. Petersburg court handed down the city’s first conviction under its notorious anti-gay law by fining a gay activist for the “promotion of sodomy to minors” last Friday. The ruling attracted criticism from both international and Russian human rights organizations.
Magistrate judge Maya Yakovleva ordered Moscow LGBT rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev to pay a 5,000-ruble ($165) fine for holding a poster with the words “Homosexuality is not a perversion; field hockey and ballet on ice are” during a one-man demo near City Hall on April 12.
The phrase is an abridged quote from famed Soviet actress Faina Ranevskaya (1896-1984) taken from the book “Faina Ranevskaya. Stories. Jokes. Aphorisms,” published in Moscow and available in libraries and bookstores across Russia.
Alexeyev said by email Tuesday that he would hold another one-man demo in St. Petersburg and would write another Ranevskaya aphorism for his poster. 
“This time I am planning to come to the demo with a poster reading ‘My God, it’s a miserable country where a man isn’t even allowed to do what he’d like with his own ass,’” he said. 
According to the book, Ranevskaya came up with the phrase during one of her troupe’s meetings at which an actor was criticized for his homosexuality.
Alexeyev, the founder of the Moscow Gay Pride movement, said he would appeal Friday’s fine and take his case to the Constitutional Court and, if necessary, the European Court of Human Rights.
In October 2010, Alexeyev won the first-ever case on LGBT human rights violations in Russia at the European Court of Human Rights. 
The Strasbourg-based court unanimously ruled that by banning three Moscow gay pride events in 2006, 2007 and 2008, Russia had breached three articles of the European Convention.
Reacting to Friday’s court ruling in St. Petersburg, Freedom House called for its “immediate reversal.” 
“The Russian authorities should immediately remove vague prohibitions on ‘homosexual propaganda’ and ensure that all Russian citizens have equal rights before the law, including advocates for the rights of LGBT people,” the U.S.-based non-governmental organization said in a statement Friday.
“The ban on ‘homosexual propaganda’ in St. Petersburg followed bans in several other Russian cities, and is especially worrying as it appears to specifically target rights advocates and their ability to campaign on behalf of the fundamental rights of LGBT people in Russia.”
Veteran Soviet human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, who chairs the group Civic Assistance, also criticized the court ruling. 
“It’s shameful for the so-called ‘cultural capital of Russia,’” she was quoted by Interfax as saying Friday.
“Everything that is happening now to those with a non-traditional sexual orientation in Russia is horrible and outrageous.”
The bill against “promoting sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism to minors” was proposed by United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov in November and signed into law by Governor Georgy Poltavchenko on March 7.
The law stipulates fines for offenders, set at 5,000 rubles ($165) for individuals, 50,000 rubles ($1,650) for officials and 250,000 to 500,000 rubles ($8,230-16,460) for businesses.
After the law came into effect, a number of LGBT activists were detained for protesting, but until Friday’s ruling, judges had seemed reluctant to punish activists under the anti-gay law, postponing the hearings.
Seventeen activists were arrested on May Day for attempts to unfurl rainbow flags and hold up posters condemning state homophobia.
In March 2012, the Novosibirsk Oblast’s Legislative Assembly brought a bill similar to the St. Petersburg law to the State Duma to ban “the promotion of homosexuality” across Russia.
“Promotion of homosexuality has become widespread in Russia,” the deputies wrote in an explanatory note.
“Such promotion is conducted through the media as well as through holding public events promoting homosexuality as a norm of behavior.”

TITLE: Zoo Invites Locals to Name Bear Cub
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A six-month-old male polar bear cub, the newest member of the Leningrad Zoo’s bear family, was presented to the public on May 5. 
The active and curious fluffy white cub was born in November to the zoo’s bears Uslada and Menshikov. Until Saturday, he lived in a den with his mother, supervised by zookeepers with the use of cameras. Last week, the outdoor enclosure was finally ready, with the ice fully melted and the swimming pool filled with clean water, and the new zoo inhabitant saw the outside world for the first time. He spends his time exploring his new environment and constantly pestering his mother to play with him.
“Uslada is a very attentive mother and raises all of her cubs by herself,” said Anastasia Arsenyeva, a member of the zoo’s PR department. “That’s why zookeepers try hard to minimize the contact they have with her cub and observe its behavior under conditions close to those of their natural habitat. It can also be dangerous for zoo workers to get too close to the tiny bear, as he is quite strong and could hurt people by accident,” she added.
The birth of a polar bear at the zoo is particularly significant, as it is the symbol of the Leningrad Zoo and is even depicted in its emblem.
“It is the symbol because the Leningrad Zoo has been the leader in polar bear breeding since the 1930s,” said Arsenyeva. “Uslada and Menshikov reproduce every two years. This cub is especially celebrated because it is the 15th.” 
The fate of the new polar bear is still unknown. Most of the polar bear cubs born in St. Petersburg have been sent to other zoos around the world. Cubs born at the Leningrad Zoo can currently be found in Japan, China, Australia, Estonia and the Czech Republic. 
For zoos across the world, the birth of a new polar bear is a special event. Cubs often become famous all over the world. One such example was the Berlin Zoo’s Knut, whose popularity even spawned its own term — “Knutmania.” Before his unexpected death in 2011, the bear inspired toys, souvenirs, TV documentaries, books and DVDs. Tourists visited the zoo to catch a glimpse of the tiny bear. 
Knut’s successor was Siku — a polar bear taken into care by keepers at the Scandinavian Wildlife Park when his mother couldn’t produce enough milk to feed him. A video posted on the Internet made the bear an international celebrity overnight with 1.5 million hits. Zoo staff, however, have kept Siku from becoming a media character who simply brings the zoo fame. Instead he acts as an ambassador for his wild relatives who live in the Arctic. 
Siku serves as a symbol and reminder to people to reduce their carbon footprint and save energy. As global warming continues, polar bears are losing more and more of the Arctic Ocean ice they depend on to hunt and breed. If the ice disappears, polar bears will simply die of starvation, a process that scientists say is already happening at an alarming rate. It is estimated that if the ice continues to melt at its current rate, polar bears could be extinct within the next 40 years.
In order to gain fame and play an important role in the hearts and lives of many, the young Leningrad Zoo polar bear cub first needs a name. Zookeepers have entrusted this task to St. Petersburg residents. Anyone can suggest a name by writing down their suggestion and posting it in the designated box near the polar bear enclosure at the zoo. The winning name will be announced to the public May 13.

TITLE: Lacrosse Teams to Do Battle in Petersburg
AUTHOR: By Jack Stubbs
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg will gain yet another historical accolade Sunday when it hosts its first-ever official lacrosse match. 
The St. Petersburg White Knights have played the Moscow Rebels on three previous occasions, but this will be only the second time in Russian history that both teams have fielded a full side of ten men. 
As the only two lacrosse clubs in the country, a lot is at stake for both teams. Having narrowly lost out on the national title in October of last year, the White Knights are out to reassert themselves with a home win. 
“Both teams are looking forward to the day when serious competition will be available within their respective cities,” said David Diamonon, founder of the Moscow Rebels lacrosse club. “But until then, we will enjoy battling it out between ourselves for who can be called first in Russian lacrosse. There can be only one.”
Originating from Native American war games, lacrosse is traditionally played in North America with small but dedicated followings in the U.K., Australia and central Europe. The sport requires two teams of ten players who pass, catch and shoot a rubber ball with netted sticks in order to score in the opposition’s 1.8-square-meter goal.
Dmitry Petrov, 22, a physics student and captain of the St. Petersburg White Knights, founded the local club in 2008. While at first the team consisted only of Russian students, Petrov said they soon found foreign students who wanted to play and make the most of their time in Russia. The team is currently a mixture of Russian, Ukrainian, American and British students.
Although lacrosse has been played in Russia since 2007, only recently have significant steps forward been taken in the game’s development.
Petrov said Sunday’s match would be about a lot more than just winning.
“This is really about the development of lacrosse in Russia,” Petrov said. “We need more teams and more people playing.
“Students in particular really want to get involved, we just need to get the word out there.”
Since the inaugural Capitals’ Cup last October, the Russian lacrosse movement has gained a worldwide following. Both the Federation of International Lacrosse and sport support group Lacrosse Without Borders plan to hold development sessions in Moscow this summer and the Moscow Rebels are to play a demonstration game at the American Chamber of Commerce’s U.S. Independence Day picnic in July.
“I want to play in Europe and show them what we can do here,” Petrov said. “We can make something out of nothing and the world needs to know that.”
Speaking about the development of Russian lacrosse, Diamonon said, “With each game that St. Petersburg and Moscow play, we continue to establish lacrosse rival history that, frankly, has been waiting to be made.
“As a nation full of sports fans, Russia is ripe for introducing new games,” he added. “Compared to sports long since entrenched in Russia such as soccer, ice hockey and basketball, lacrosse offers opportunities for athletes interested in exploring something new, something different, something cooler.”

<i>The 2012 Capitals’ Cup will take place at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 13 in St. Petersburg. For more information, including the venue, visit www.lacrosserussia.ru.</i>

TITLE: Putin Sworn In for Third Presidential Term
AUTHOR: By Ezekiel Pfeifer
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin on Monday said the country was entering a fundamentally new stage of development as he was sworn into office for a third term as president, amid street protests against his rule in central Moscow.
After a change in the constitution initiated by his predecessor Dmitry Medvedev, Putin will be president for six years instead of the previously instituted term of four years. Putin, who served as president from 2000 to 2008, was prime minister during Medvedev’s presidency and served in that post until his inauguration Monday.
Putin was sworn into office just after noon by Constitutional Court head Valery Zorkin in a brief ceremony in the Kremlin.
After taking the oath of office, Putin gave a 5-minute speech in which he said the country faced problems of “a new nature and scale,” referring indirectly to areas of concern and ambition he has touched on frequently in recent months, including Russia’s oil-based economy, demographic problems, development of the Far East and the country’s role as a regional leader.
“And we all must understand that the lives of future generations, the historical prospects of government and our nation, depend now on us, on actual successes in the creation of a new economy and modern standards of living, on our efforts to care for people and support Russian families, on our persistence in developing the enormous Russian expanses from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, on our ability to become leaders and a center of attraction in all of Eurasia,” Putin said.
As he has in the past, Putin expressed his commitment to democratic principles and said Russia should be “successful” and respected in the world.
“We want and will live in a democratic country, where everyone has the freedom and space to contribute talent and labor, his efforts,” Putin said. The country should be a “reliable, open, honest and predictable partner,” he said.
Speaking before Putin was sworn in, Medvedev said he thought it was important to continue in the direction he had tried to take the country as president.
“Only in that way will we build a strong democratic government, where the law and social justice triumph, where security is ensured, where opportunities are created for a person’s self-actualization, of his entrepreneurial, civil and creative initiatives,” Medvedev said, according to a transcript of the speech posted on the Kremlin website.
He said he worked as president “openly and honestly, in the interests of people, doing everything so that people are free.”
Around 3,000 government leaders and prominent figures filled multiple halls of the Grand Kremlin Palace for the ceremony, including runner-up presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov, Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill, and former Italian Prime Minister and Putin’s personal friend Silvio Berlusconi. Federation Council speaker Valentina Matviyenko and State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin stood on stage with Putin and Medvedev during the swearing-in ceremony. 
At the conclusion of Putin’s speech, the newly sworn-in president kissed his rarely seen wife, Lyudmila, and Medvedev’s wife, Svetlana, seated next to each other in the front row with Patriarch Kirill, and walked down a winding red carpet through the Grand Kremlin Palace. About halfway down the path, guests standing on both sides of the carpet began reaching out to shake hands with Putin, who paused awkwardly to greet as many as 100 people. He then exited with Medvedev to greet the elite Presidential Regiment military unit assembled in Cathedral Square within the Kremlin walls.
Later Monday, Putin signed his first order as president, issuing one-time payments to World War II veterans ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 rubles ($33 to $167) each, ahead of Wednesday’s Victory Day celebrations that mark the 67th anniversary of the end of the war. On Monday he also ordered the as-yet-unformed government to draw up a plan for social and economic development of the country to 2030 by Dec. 1.
Before, during and after Putin’s inauguration ceremony, demonstrators in support of and opposed to his rule congregated on Nikitsky Bulvar and Tverskoi Bulvar just blocks from the Kremlin.
Opposition protesters had planned to demonstrate on Manezh Square adjacent to the Kremlin, but police blocked off access to the area. Instead, demonstrators gathered in part outside the restaurant Jean-Jacques on Nikitsky Bulvar, where they were met by riot police, who cleared the area of demonstrators and made arrests.
Demonstrators, from both opposition groups and pro-Kremlin youth organizations, were detained after moving north to Tverskoi Bulvar. A total of around 120 people were arrested and taken to police stations, Interfax reported. At least 10 more demonstrators were arrested at Chistoprudny Bulvar.

TITLE: Hundreds Arrested In Putin Protests
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — As Moscow geared up to celebrate its victory in World War II, the shadow of political conflict shrouded the capital as hundreds of arrests clouded Victory Day festivities. 
Police said over 200 arrests were made Tuesday and overnight Wednesday on the eve of the anniversary, including repeat detentions for Left-Front leader Sergei Udaltsov and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who was arrested twice in a single evening, Interfax reported. Socialite Kseniya Sobchak and State Duma Deputy Dmitry Gudkov were also among those arrested during protests against President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration, though they were later released. 
Sobchak called her arrest illegal. “It was an absolutely illegal arrest. We weren’t chanting, we weren’t standing with signs. I walked around town with a group of people that didn’t want to separate,” she wrote on Twitter. 
Sobchak and Gudkov later met with about 50 supporters near the Barrikadnaya metro station to speak about the opposition movement. Police broke up the meeting and arrested several demonstrators, including Navalny, who came to attend the meeting just hours after he had been detained at another location. Navalny’s lawyer said via Twitter that he was being kept in a truck outside the detention center. 
Udaltsov and Navalny were both sentenced to 15 days in prison later Wednesday.
The arrests came as demonstrators continued a second night of round-the-clock mobile protest of Putin’s inauguration Monday. About 300 were arrested Monday. 
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department expressed concern about reports of violence in Moscow during the protests and arrests. 
“We are troubled by reports of violence in Moscow during the protests on May 6th and by the arrests that have been carried out over the last three days,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said, Bloomberg reported. “We are disturbed by images of police mistreatment of peaceful protesters, both during the protests and after detentions … We want Russia to fulfill its own potential, and that means giving people the chance to freely express themselves,” he said. 
Opposition activists began calling Wednesday morning for demonstrators to converge at Pushkin Square at 11 a.m. Opposition organizers clarified on Facebook that they did not want to join the communist rally, but use it as a way to gather legally for a march down Tverskaya Ulitsa toward the Kremlin.

TITLE: Sarkisian Party Sees Support
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: YEREVAN, Armenia — President Serge Sarkisian’s party has won a majority of seats in a parliamentary election that international observers said Monday was competitive and peaceful, but undermined by organizational problems and some interference by political parties.
The elections were seen as a test of Sarkisian’s support ahead of next year’s presidential election in which he is expected to seek a second term.
The results showed the president’s Republican Party won at least 68 of the parliament’s 131 seats. In the outgoing parliament, the party was a few seats shy of a majority and formed a coalition with the Prosperous Armenia party, which finished second in Sunday’s election.
“Armenia deserves recognition for its electoral reforms and its open and peaceful campaign environment, but, in this race, several stakeholders too often failed to comply with the law and election commissions too often failed to enforce it,” said Francois-Xavier de Donnea, a member of the Belgian parliament who headed the observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The OSCE urged the Armenian government to address the problems before the presidential election.
The opposition Armenian National Congress, led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, finished a distant third but did well enough to enter parliament for the first time. The party will get up to eight seats.
Ter-Petrosian has not yet said whether he will accept the results of the parliamentary election or call his supporters out onto the street.
Following the February 2008 presidential election, his supporters rallied in Yerevan, claiming the vote won by Sarkisian was flawed. The protests turned violent in early March, when clashes with police left 10 people dead and more than 250 injured.
Sarkisian’s government has close ties both with Russia, which has a military base in Armenia, and the West, in part because of its large diaspora. Millions of Armenians live abroad, with the largest numbers in Russia, the United States, Georgia and France.
Armenia has tense relations with neighboring Turkey and Azerbaijan, and its borders with both countries remain closed.

TITLE: Putin Strikes Back at Critical Lawmakers
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin had no trouble getting the Kremlin-controlled parliament to approve former President Dmitry Medvedev as his prime minister Tuesday, but he did not much like the startlingly critical questions Medvedev faced from lawmakers before the vote.
Communists and leftists challenged Medvedev over his failed reforms and the lack of progress on modernizing Russia’s economy, the stated priority of his four years as president.
In characteristically colorful language, Putin struck back by blaming the economic difficulties on the Communists who ruled the Soviet Union until 1991. The Soviet economy was based on heavy industry and produced shoddy consumer goods.
“Yes, my dears, there’s no need to discuss this,” Putin said. “The point is that what we produced — and no need to wave your arms — no one needed. No one bought our galoshes except for Africans who had to walk on hot sand.”
Putin, who had just exited the prime minister’s office, began a third presidential term on Monday and immediately fulfilled his promise to nominate Medvedev for his old job.
The job switch, which was announced in September, offended many Russians by its implication that their votes were no more than a formality in the highly controlled political system that Putin created after coming to power in 2000. This anger helped galvanize a protest movement that brought tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets of Moscow for a series of unprecedented demonstrations.
Parliament, where the Kremlin party has a majority, approved Medvedev’s appointment on Tuesday with a vote of 299-144.
But before the vote, lawmakers from all four factions were allowed to question Medvedev.
The harshest criticism came from Just Russia, a leftist party created by the Kremlin, which has become more critical in recent months as some of its members have joined the anti-Putin protest movement.
Just Russia lawmaker Nikolai Levichev reminded Medvedev of his promise in 2008 to promote innovation, investment, institutions and infrastructure as part of a program called “the four ‘I’s.”
“These did not become the bases of the economic development of the country,” Levichev said. “Instead of this, a fifth ‘I’ appeared: The imitation of all these reforms.”
The Communists also have become more willing to oppose the Kremlin, although the party has maintained its distance from the protesters.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, who ran a distant second to Putin in the presidential race, told Medvedev that it had become more profitable for people in Russia to “drink, steal and speculate” than to work or study.
After the vote, the mild-mannered Medvedev thanked the parliament members for their support. He said his first thought was to address the criticism, but then decided that would not be “humane.” The lawmakers responded with laughter and applause.

TITLE: 50 Aboard Missing Russian Airplane
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A new generation Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 has gone missing during a demonstration flight in Indonesia, dropping off radar with no immediate explanation. 
Helicopters were sent to search for the aircraft, and authorities did not know what happened to the plane as of Wednesday evening. 
“We are still looking for it and we are uncertain whether it crashed,” Gagah Prakoso, spokesman for Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency, said, AFP reported. 
After descending from 10,000 to 6,000 feet, air traffic controllers lost contact and the plane disappeared from radar in a mountainous area about 40 nautical miles from the airport. 
The plane should have had just enough fuel to complete its planned flight, RIA Novosti reported. 
The 44 passengers on board were invited to fly on the demonstration flight, which was to last only 30 minutes. The passengers included eight Russians, RIA-Novosti reported. 
Before the demonstration in Indonesia, the plane had made demonstration flights in Kazakhstan, Myanmar and Pakistan as part of a six-country tour aimed at wooing potential buyers. 
The 100-seat Superjet is the first commercial plane designed by military producer Sukhoi, which is best known for producing fighter jets. The plane was created by a joint venture majority-owned by Sukhoi with the participation of Italy’s Fimeccanica and a number of other international firms.

TITLE: Rain Dampens Putin’s Victory Day Parade in Moscow
AUTHOR: By Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The usual sunny weather was absent and fewer soldiers than last year took part Wednesday in the annual Victory Day parade on Red Square, where President Vladimir Putin spoke about Russia’s role in the world.
To ensure a fine day, military aircraft traditionally seed the clouds in advance of the event with silver and liquid nitrogen, but they apparently failed in their task despite early morning promises to clear the leaden skies above Moscow.
About 14,000 servicemen from all branches of the armed forces participated in the meticulously rehearsed parade, a fall from a record 20,000 in 2011.
In his speech to the assembled audience of soldiers, veterans and visiting dignitaries, President Vladimir Putin warned against violations of national sovereignty and spoke of Russia’s role on the international stage.
“A strict observation of international norms, a respect for state sovereignty and the independent choice of the people of each nation are some of the absolute guarantees that the tragedy of the last war never repeats itself,” Putin said.
“Russia will, therefore, act politically to strengthen security in the world,” he said.
Putin stood alongside Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov as goose-stepping soldiers and a 1.5-kilometer train of military vehicles paraded past. Putin and Medvedev were criticized last year for remaining seated during the parade.
This may be Serdyukov’s last parade. He is widely expected to be removed from his post in the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle.
The military equipment on show included T-90 tanks, Tigr and Rys armored vehicles, anti-aircraft rockets, artillery pieces and Iskander-M and Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile launchers. All the machines were fitted with special tracks to minimize damage to Moscow’s roads and the stones of Red Square.
Helicopters carrying huge flags took part in a flypast at the end of the ceremony, but, following a precedent set in 2011, there were no jets.
Parades and demonstrations to mark 67 years since the end of World War II also took place in other cities across Russia.

TITLE: Tymoshenko Sent to Hospital
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KHARKIV, Ukraine — Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s imprisoned former prime minister, was moved Wednesday from jail to a hospital for treatment of a severe back condition under the supervision of a German doctor.
The move was likely to allay at least some Western concerns over Tymoshenko’s health and handling in prison. Top EU officials and some EU governments have vowed to boycott the European football championship matches co-hosted by Ukraine in June, and Ukraine had to cancel a regional cooperation summit this weekend after most heads of central and eastern European states canceled their visits over the Tymoshenko case.
Tymoshenko, 51, the country’s top opposition leader, has been on a hunger strike for more than two weeks to protest alleged abuse, and Ukraine’s government has come under intense Western pressure to provide Tymoshenko with suitable medical care.
Deputy Health Minister Raisa Moiseyenko said Tymoshenko was moved from her prison in Kharkiv to a local clinic Wednesday morning. Dr. Lutz Harms, a neurologist with Berlin’s Charite clinic, will supervise her treatment because Tymoshenko does not trust government-controlled doctors.

TITLE: Stalingrad Veteran Remembers, Celebrates WWII Victory
AUTHOR: By Alexander Winning
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: VOLGOGRAD — Every May 9, Alexander Ivanovich Kolotushkin dusts off his best suit, gets out his medals from the cabinet and heads to Volgograd’s main square with fellow veterans.
“There used to be more of us. I remember that 10 years ago there were at least 70 veterans in the city; now there are only 17,” he said, holding out a list of names and phone numbers, many of which have been crossed out.
A retired colonel in the Soviet Red Army, Kolotushkin volunteered to serve on the western front with his father and two brothers and went on to take part in the Battle of Kursk and the race to Berlin.
He was later awarded the Order of the Red Star and several medals for bravery in battle.
Despite the trauma of his time at the front, the diminutive 85-year-old insists that the sweet smell of victory is what has stayed with him after all these years.
With a jubilant smile, he tells of the time his division entered Konigsberg, modern-day Kaliningrad, chanting “Hitler kaput” as they passed a statue of Immanuel Kant that was missing an arm.
“And then there was our reception in Moscow. Stalin ordered the whole division to be given 100 grams [of vodka], and we were showered with flowers,” he said.
Sixty-seven years since the war ended, the exploits of veterans such as Kolotushkin are still remembered countrywide at Victory Day celebrations, which the southern city of Volgograd in particular prides itself on.
This time around, the city hosted more than 100 events over the extended May holidays. Concerts, exhibitions and dance performances lent the center a celebratory mood, with locals and guests mixing freely and visiting open-air events side by side.
A delegation of Ukrainian veterans watching the military parade Wednesday morning said they were left speechless by what they saw, standing for the Russian national anthem before embracing their former brothers in arms.
In a more unusual tribute, earlier that day local motorists roared through the city, which stretches more than 80 kilometers along the Volga River, deafening passersby with patriotic honking and car radios cranked up to full volume.
A three-dimensional, 1 1/2-hour video show called “Pages of History Come Alive,” which was projected onto the New Experimental Theater daily on May 6 to 8 at a reported cost of 8 million rubles ($270,000), provided a spectacular visual highlight, telling a stirring story of the trials Russia has faced since the tsarist period.
May 9 festivities have traditionally held a special significance in Volgograd — better known under its former name, Stalingrad — for the role the city’s defenders played in turning the tide of the war against Hitler’s invading forces.
In one of the bloodiest battles of the 20th century, roughly half a million Soviet soldiers and civilians perished defending the western bank of the Volga, which held strategic importance for the Axis army driving southward to secure supplies of oil from the fields surrounding Baku.
National pride in Stalingrad’s heroic resistance and recognition of its significance abroad have meant that previous May holidays have drawn high-profile guests here, most notably from within the walls of the Kremlin.
In 2010, then-President Dmitry Medvedev flew in to check on Victory Day preparations and distribute medals to local war heroes; last year, his mentor and then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made a similar trip in early May.
Although neither Putin nor Medvedev made the 900-kilometer trip Wednesday, military attaches from Britain, France and Germany were in attendance, laying wreaths to commemorate those who died in the war.
Lieutenant Colonel Adrian Coghill, an assistant naval attach&#233; with the British Embassy in Moscow, said he had been “struck by the tragedy of the city’s history.” German air force Colonel Thorsten Koehler said he felt “touched by the warmth of the reception, which as a German visitor is not always taken as a given.”
Completing the list of attendees, national political parties and local politicians were also out in force over the holiday period, with the flags of the parties they represent never far behind.

TITLE: ATMs See Rise in Skimming
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Banks are reporting a sharp increase in ATM skimming, a fraud in which perpetrators steal information from bank cards to make fake cards.
A total of 362 cases of skimming were registered in the first three months of this year, compared to just 40 cases in the same period last year and 397 cases for all of 2011, Kommersant reported late last week, citing data from the Russian Europay Members’ Association.
The data on ATM fraud is based on information obtained about the association’s 20 largest banks, which account for about 90 percent of all ATMs in Russia.
In the scam, the perpetrator typically puts a device over an ATM’s card slot that reads the magnetic strip as the user passes his card through it. Often a small camera is inconspicuously attached to the ATM that allows the fraudster to record the pin.
The fraudster then uses the information to make fake cards and use them.
Banking insiders believe the increase in fraud is connected to growth in the number of ATMs in Russia and the fact that skimming is relatively inexpensive and easy to carry out and perpetrators are rarely caught.
There were 184,000 ATMs in Russia as of Jan. 1, Interfax reported, citing information from the Central Bank.
While skimming is on the rise, the situation remains far better in Russia than in Europe.

TITLE: Nike Expands Franchisee Base in Russian Capitals
AUTHOR: Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Global sportswear giant Nike plans to sign a franchising agreement with re:Store Retail Group — which operates a chain of Apple branded stores in Russia and Europe — to open 15 local outlets in the next three years, the retailer said.
The agreement will be signed “in the near future,” with three to four branded Nike stores to be opened this year, Tikhon Smykov, chief executive of re:Store Retail Group, said Saturday.
Smykov said his company is looking primarily at the biggest shopping centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg to set up the 300- to 400-square-meter outlets.
“We are considering a few locations simultaneously, and it’s hard to say which of the shopping centers will make it first,” he said in e-mailed comments, adding that the shopping centers where re:Store Retail Group already has stores will be prioritized.
The retailer is already present — among other shopping centers — at GUM, Atrium, MEGA and Tsvetnoi Central Market in Moscow, as well as Nevsky and Leto in St. Petersburg.
Re:Store Retail Group, which operates more than 60 Apple stores in Russia, also runs chains of single-branded stores for Nokia, Sony and Samsung, as well as toy maker LEGO.
But Smykov said the company has no intention to focus primarily on selling electronic goods.
“For historical reasons most of our portfolio is represented by the chains for electronics. [But] we’re considering any brands that are leaders in their segment,” he said. “Nike, undoubtedly, is one such company.”
A spokeswoman for Nike in Russia couldn’t be reached for comment Saturday, but the company’s representative confirmed to Vedomosti that the sportswear maker had chosen re:Store Retail Group as a franchisee.  
Nike has good potential for growth in Russia because it’s a well-recognized brand with a long presence in the market, said Anush Gasparyan, commercial director of Fashion Consulting Group.
The company is outdoing its biggest rival Adidas globally but lags behind in Russia, having only 100 stores compared with almost 800 Adidas outlets, she said in e-mailed comments.
However, Nike has a chance to catch up, as the demand for sports apparel is expected to grow due to the rising interest in athletics among Russian youth.
“There’s no doubt that this trend will grow in the future, allowing sports shops to increase revenues.” Gasparyan said.
Re:Store Retail Group declined to comment on the expected revenue in the new stores.
Annual sales in a single-branded store of 300 square meters in a shopping center with a high attendance might reach $6,000 to $8,500 per square meter, Gasparyan said.
“But it will take a while to happen,” she added.

TITLE: Carlsberg Sales in Russia Take Hit in Q1
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danish brewer Carlsberg reported a first-quarter net loss of 76 million kroner ($13.3 million) as earnings were impacted by lower sales in Russia and eastern Europe.
The loss, reported Wednesday, contrasts with a 173 million kroner profit in the same period last year. However, revenue in the period was up slightly at 12.9 billion kroner ($2.3 billion) from 12.5 billion kroner a year earlier.
Carlsberg CEO Joergen Buhl Rasmussen says the result was in line with expectations during a “traditionally small quarter,” when overall beer sales declined by 4 percent.
The Carlsberg group said beer shipments in eastern Europe fell by 22 percent as Russian distributors cut inventories by the amount they stocked in the previous quarter, ahead of new regulations in Russia.
Net revenue in the region was also down 15 percent at 3 billion kroner from a year earlier.
Rasmussen said the Copenhagen-based company will improve efficiency and focus on core brands, including Tuborg, and push into new growth markets such as China.
“We are putting significant resources behind the Euro 2012 sponsorship, which will be a key driver behind the support of the repositioning and the growth of the Carlsberg brand in 2012,” Rasmussen said, referring to next month’s European football tournament.
Carlsberg reaffirmed its outlook, with “low decline” in northern and Western Europe and the Russian market “reverting to modest growth.”

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Gas Prices Increase</b>
MOSCOW (SPT) — Russian drivers paid 0.7 percent more at the pump last month, the first time prices had risen since last November, Interfax reported Friday, citing the State Statistics Service.
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said in January an agreement was reached to “freeze” their fuel prices at the end-2011 level. Apparently, that agreement expired last month. Compared with April of last year, gasoline prices were up 12.1 percent.
<b>Change in Power Rules</b>
MOSCOW (SPT) — The government approved new rules for the retail electricity market, Vladimir Putin said at a meeting devoted to the issue, Interfax reported Friday.
The new rules, Putin said, “govern relations between suppliers and consumers of electricity and contain several major innovations.” The rules introduce fines of three times the cost of electricity for unmetered consumption and lift restrictions when changing suppliers.

TITLE: Illegitimate President
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: The brutality used by police to detain protesters at Sunday’s rally in Moscow — sealing off Bolotnaya Ploshchad where protesters had a right to gather before beating women with batons and using tear gas against the crowds — effectively denied President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration any legitimacy.
Putin is an illegitimate president.
A legitimate president does not resort to such practices as carousel voting in which the authorities pay busloads of people to vote at multiple polling places.
A legitimately elected president does not order thousands of OMON riot police officers to cordon off access to Bolotnaya Ploshchad and close metro stations in the city center to prevent demonstrators from gathering.
A legitimate president does not stage a Byzantine inaugural ceremony for a roomful of handpicked guests. He receives congratulations from voters, not a blessing from Patriarch Kirill.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the police should have been even tougher with protesters. But if they had been, it might have ended in another Bloody Sunday, the 1905 massacre in St. Petersburg that paved the way for the Bolshevik Revolution.
Some have suggested that demonstrators ought to adopt the nonviolent resistance championed by Mahatma Gandhi, who was able to peacefully force the British to leave India. But while the British might be persuaded by such measures, Gandhi would not have gotten very far if he tried those tactics against Putin’s riot police.
The violent events on Sunday have set an irreversible process in motion. They mark the clash of two opposing historical trajectories. It comes in waves, with each wave stronger than the previous one. And this process has nothing to do with gubernatorial elections — which the authorities have rejected — or the liberalization of political parties — which has no meaning in the absence of real elections.
It is as if 21st-century Russia is still locked in the Middle Ages. The murder rate in today’s Russia is the same as it was in 16th-century England. Moscow officials are just as servile and obsequious as they were in the Korean kingdom of Silla over 1,000 years ago. Russia’s bigwigs wave their iPhones and iPads about while running over pedestrians with impunity, just as the French aristocracy did during the time of the Ancien Regime.
Moscow’s streets are even governed by the same imperial rules: The two outside lanes are for opposing traffic, while the central lane is reserved for the national leader and members of his privileged inner circle.
Citizens of the 21st century cannot be made to live as people did in the 15th. It is impossible to persuade the progressive and informed members of society that violence, abuse of power and bribery are national customs. Whatever shortcomings modern Europe might have, British Prime Minister David Cameron cannot lop off his wife’s head and say that he is acting in accordance with national customs from the time of Henry VIII.
As the authorities’ crimes and abuses of power increase, so does the people’s anger. What’s worse, Putin has no control over either of them. When he should have allowed the people to let off steam on Sunday and Monday, Putin instead tightened the screws on the pressure cooker. Now it is only a matter of time before the steam blows the lid right off.
There will be no Orange Revolution in Russia. An Orange Revolution is when the opposition wins the elections and the incumbent authorities hesitate, and finally concede. In the case of Russia, there will be no elections, nor will the authorities vacillate. That is why Russia’s next revolution will be the ordinary type — not pink or orange, but just the plain old bloody type that Russian history knows all too well.
As a piece of steel is formed by blows from the blacksmith’s hammer, the oppression of the authorities at each successive rally will forge the leaders of this revolution. Whether we like them or not, opposition leaders Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov and Ilya Ponomaryov are emerging as the men who will lead this charge.

<i>Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.</i>

TITLE: C O M M E N T: Opposition Needs to Appeal to the ‘Real Russia’
AUTHOR: By Daniel Treisman
TEXT: The real conundrum for liberal opponents of President Vladimir Putin is not so much how to revive and prolong the now faltering wave of urban protests that broke out this winter. The demonstrations have made their point. The members of the angry middle class can be counted on to reoccupy the streets as new acts of official arrogance reignite their outrage. Putin’s inauguration on Monday should prompt some fireworks.
But the real challenge for the opposition is how to put together a coalition that could beat Putin or his stand-in in a free and fair election. 
Amid the excitement of the sudden awakening of the middle class, this point has been largely lost. But the political arithmetic is inescapable.
Western-style democrats and economic liberals cannot win by themselves.
In 19 years of post-Soviet parliamentary elections, some of which were free and fair, liberal parties such as the Union of Right Forces have never received even modest results.
The iPhone-toting, LiveJournal-blogging sophisticates from Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities are a new political phenomenon whose importance is bound to grow. But they do not constitute at present more than 15 percent of the Russian population.
To win the presidency in some future ballot, the liberal opposition will need to join forces with the Russia heartland — that is, the provinces, where basic, bread and- butter economic issues are the driving factor in political affiliation.
Both former President Boris Yeltsin and Putin during his first two presidential terms managed to combine a respect for markets and modernity with a feel for provincial sensibilities. Yeltsin turned balancing between the two into an art form, with his rhetoric of freedom and his Santa Claus jaunts to the regions, doling out cash and promises.
In the easier setting of an economic boom, Putin also paired macroeconomic orthodoxy with fiscal courtship of the hinterland. The $160 billion worth of pre-election promises he made last winter recall the frenetic generosity of Yeltsin’s 1996 campaign.
And Putin will need to do the same. For at least the next five to 10 years, large territories and social groups will depend on financial assistance from the state.
Inequality is built into Russia’s economic geography. Eight of the country’s 83 federal subjects produce more than half of the country’s gross domestic product. Forty-one of the subjects received more in federal transfers in 2010 than the total of all profits minus losses earned by local enterprises.
If you add the 32 million Russians who are pensioners, it is obvious why Russians have such a desire for a welfare state. In most polls on the subject, Russians consistently place high values on the right to free education, health care and support for the elderly and sick.
If it wants to end up more than a fringe party, the liberal opposition will need to reckon with this reality. A rhetoric of fiscal austerity and equal opportunity does not resonate with those who see little opportunity in their depressed and desolate cities, towns and villages.
In forging a coalition similar to Yeltsin’s during the 1990s, the liberal opposition faces two hurdles. First, most Russians associate it with the images of a cutthroat, crony capitalism and a pampered elite.
Second, the social agenda of the professional urbanites, a core contingent of the liberal opposition, does not always click with the more traditional ethos of the provinces. That is why the authorities pounced with such enthusiasm on the Pussy Riot girls. It also explains the endless efforts to combat a largely mythical gay rights movement. The Kremlin would like nothing better than to portray the opposition as a cabal of degenerate feminist punks, church desecrators and proselytizing homosexuals.
How can a liberal movement overcome these obstacles and win the trust of disgruntled steel workers in Cherepovets or coal miners in the Kemerovo region?
The easiest way would be to find a leader who can speak the language of the provinces and can personally convince Russians in depressed regions that he or she will not abandon them.
The opposition needs to move on from simply berating Putin to developing a real program to develop and modernize the country. While attacking current state leaders, it is not enough to propose the dismantling of the state. For example, the opposition needs to create a health system in which the elderly do not have to bribe their ambulance drivers and an education system in which the young cannot slip money to their college admissions officers and professors to gain admittance and graduate with honors.
In speeches, opposition leaders might talk less about freedom — important as it is — and more about fairness and solidarity. Instead of concentrating on a few big cities, they might focus their campaign on the hundreds of grassroots cases of community activism in which ordinary people band together to fight forest fires, protest a corrupt police chief or block an environmentally harmful development project. A leader who makes ordinary Russians feel hopeful, proud and united will win against the cynically divisive strategies of the incumbents.
All this might appear premature, however. At this point, defeating Putin still seems more urgent than replacing him. But history shows that when regimes with weak institutions collapse, the end can come suddenly. Less than two years before street protests ousted Indonesian President Suharto, analysts saw him as more entrenched than ever.
And when Putin falls, the winner in a presidential election will be the leader who can appeal to a broad coalition. The time to build that coalition is now.

<i>Daniel Treisman is professor of political science at UCLA and author of “The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev.</i>

TITLE: Northern conquest
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: It now takes just a few hours by train to get to St. Petersburg from Helsinki, but the history of Finnish bands performing in St. Petersburg is relatively recent and somewhat mixed. Many suggest that Russians and Finns have a kindred spirit, and local audiences are sure to find something they like in the wealth of Finnish rock music, which covers everything from psychedelic rock to ska, but often with a touch of Finnish tradition and mentality. But the city’s appetite for live Finnish music is not yet sated.
The first contact between Finnish music and St. Petersburg (then known as Leningrad) audiences in 1989 was a truly shameful flop. 
For unknown reasons, pop band Beat found itself performing at an old Soviet palace of culture at a concert marking John Lennon’s birthday, a regular local underground rock event at which Russian bands traditionally performed Beatles and Lennon songs.
The audience, consisting mostly of young Russian hippies, was clearly shocked by the band’s upbeat Euro pop tunes, and by the end of the opening number, most were sitting on the backs of the chairs with their backs to the stage in protest.
Perhaps Beat could have found more welcoming audiences in St. Petersburg if only the promoter had had a better understanding of the local scene. At any rate, when representing Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest the following year, Beat came last of the 22 contestants, scoring just 8 points.
Unlike St. Petersburg, Moscow was introduced to Finnish rock in a more appropriate way.  
The first Finnish rock band to play in the Soviet Union is believed to be Sielun Veljet, a postpunk band led by singer-guitarist Ismo Alanko, whose concert was organized by music critic and promoter Artemy Troitsky in Moscow in 1987.
Although Alanko visited St. Petersburg a couple of times as a tourist, he did not perform in the city until 2010, when he played with percussionist Teho Majamaki as Ismo Alanko Teholla at the now-defunct club Tantsy in October 2010. The concert was part of the Start Finland program launched by local promotion agency Light Music in 2009 with the goal of introducing Finnish music to St. Petersburg residents.
The first taste of Finnish rock in St. Petersburg arrived in the early 1990s, but had little to do with the music. All of a sudden, every kiosk in the city was selling cans of Leningrad Cowboys-themed Koff beer inspired by the tongue-in-cheek Finnish band. The cans bore the band’s Lenin-with-a- quiff logo, were more expensive than Russian beer and stayed on display for months.
The Leningrad Cowboys themselves did not come to St. Petersburg until July 2006, when they drew a measly 30 fans to an otherwise great and fun concert at the now-defunct Port club.
The situation did not improve until 1997, when the Finnish all-girl punk band Grumps performed a proper gig at Fish Fabrique’s old rooms at 10 Pushkinskaya Ulitsa, opening the way for others to follow. But this history is largely unwritten, and blank spaces remain. For instance, Jarmo “Toppo” Koponen of the band El&#228;kel&#228;iset recalled that his other band Kumikameli performed in Leningrad in 1988 or 1989, but could not remember the name of the venue. No other memory of this event could be found.
Klub Sputnik, the cultural exchange initiative launched by the St. Petersburg-born, Helsinki-based Sergei Mitrofanov with funding from Finland, played an important part in raising mutual knowledge by bringing Finnish bands to St. Petersburg and vice versa between 2001 and 2003.
But even now, St. Petersburg lags behind Moscow, where promoters seem to find a constant stream of interesting bands to bring to the capital’s clubs. El&#228;kel&#228;iset, a band famous for its traditional Finnish humppa dance music versions of international pop and rock hits, first came to Moscow in May 2001 and played four concerts in clubs there, but did not come to St. Petersburg for another decade, making its local debut at Zal Ozhidaniya in May 2011. It will return to the city to perform at Kosmonavt on May 26.
Far from smoke-filled basement clubs, music professionals from Russia, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Latvia sat in the comfortable surroundings of the Consulate General of Finland in St. Petersburg late last month to discuss music export from Nordic countries to St. Petersburg and the other cities of northwest Russia. Called “Music Industry Operators in Northwest Russia,” the seminar was organized by the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture (NDPC), a European initiative that focuses on cultural co-operation in the Northern Dimension area.
“The geographic closeness of Europe and, in particular, Finland inspires a certain interest in and better awareness of Nordic music among younger music consumers,” wrote Greg Goldenzwaig in a research report called “Mapping the Music Industry in Northwest Russia,” which he presented at the seminar. Goldenzwaig, who started out as a music journalist in Russia, now runs Goldenzwaig Creative Solutions agency from Stockholm, Sweden.
The existence of a cult following of Finnish music in St. Petersburg is confirmed by groups dedicated to Finnish music on Russian social networks and the number of fans who come to concerts by Finnish bands, but their number is still not sufficient to make tours of Finnish artists profitable if the band is not very well-known among the Russian public.
“Despite the fact that the connections were created quite early, development has been slow; Finnish artists haven’t been flown to Russia in numbers,” said Tuomo T&#228;htinen, acting executive director of Music Finland, a broad-based organization representing the entire Finnish music industry.
The import of Finnish music was hindered by a lack of contact with the very few local promoters who existed back then and by a lack of knowledge about the Russian market, while the Finnish recording industry has been appalled by rampant digital and physical piracy here.
“Despite the long history of cooperation and enhanced connections between key industry figures, the majority of the Finnish music industry still considers the Russian market to be the ‘great unknown,’” T&#228;htinen said.
“For many, fear of insecurities and lack of door-opening connections remain barriers to market entry.”
According to research undertaken by Music Finland, Finnish companies now consider Russia to be the sixth most interesting country to which to export Finnish music, T&#228;htinen said. 
While Moscow remains the most important hub for the industry, St. Petersburg and Russia’s northwest have become important for Finnish artists, not least because of the convenient location and the increasing number of venues, promoters and festivals, he said.
Since 2006, Finland has held a Finland-Russia music exchange showcase in Moscow called News from Helsinki. There are plans to hold it in both Moscow and St. Petersburg this autumn, according to T&#228;htinen.
Internationally popular bands such as Finland’s HIM or The Rasmus have plenty of fans in St. Petersburg, but it’s artistically conscious, experimental bands that local fans have little chance of seeing.
Local promoter Ilya Bortnyuk, whose agency Light Music is behind St. Petersburg’s major music festival Stereoleto as well as regular concerts by international acts, said such concerts could not be commercially profitable and needed funding from cultural organizations.
A small percentage, maybe 10 percent of expenses, are covered by tickets, said Bortnyuk, who has been promoting Start Finland events introducing Finnish music to St. Petersburg fans since 2009.  
“You can’t count on ticket sales at all,” he said.
“Even if the band performs for free, it has to be brought here, accommodated, fed and so on. It’s clear that only 10 or 50 tickets will be sold for an unknown or little known band, which will cover only a small fraction [of the costs].”
Start Finland was launched with a concert by Risto and Pintandwefall at Sochi club in April 2009, and continued with a concert by Ismo Alanko Teholla and Lapko at Tantsy in October 2010, followed by the Tampere-based folk-punk duo Jaakko & Jay, who performed at Griboyedov club  in October 2011. There are plans to hold a similar event this autumn.
“For a couple of years we had a festival called Nordbeat with artists from Finland, Denmark and Norway, but because the event was dependent on the money we received from foundations, as soon as we ran out of money, we had to discontinue it,” Bortnyuk said.
Bortnyuk acknowledged the existence of a Finnish music cult in St. Petersburg, but said that people tended to follow certain bands they liked rather than like Finnish music as such.
“There’s no interest in music from Finland for the sake of it. Perhaps there’s a bigger percentage of people here than in Moscow who like Finland and are interested in what happens there — that’s true, even our Helsinkibar proves that,” he said.
“But it doesn’t mean that they like just any music from Finland.”
He said there is no knowledge of even famous Finnish acts among St. Petersburg fans, which was demonstrated, for instance, by the Ismo Alanko Teholla concert in 2010. The band that packs venues in Finland drew about a hundred people when playing at Tantsy, with the audience dominated by Finns.
“It’s the same story with Russian bands in Finland,” Bortnyuk said.
“Take Animal Jazz — they can draw 5,000 fans and you might not even be able to get into a concert here, but if you bring them to Imatra, maybe five people will come to the show.”
Despite having been attracting attention to Nordic and Finnish bands for years, Bortnyuk is doubtful that interesting bands from Finland or the other Nordic countries could suddenly become household names in St. Petersburg exclusively on their own artistic merit, though he admitted that with enough money, “everything can be done.” 
“For instance, the biggest Australian band that draws 20,000 there but is totally unknown here can be made popular in Russia,” said Bortnyuk. 
“To do so, there has to be somebody who would give you a million dollars or $500,000 and say, ‘Make this band popular.’ You can buy spots on Channel One, cover everything with their posters and so on. The solution is well-known.”
Cultural expansion is only possible bit by bit, with the help of cultural foundations in the respective countries. Exceptions are rare, but they do exist.
“We’re doing El&#228;kel&#228;iset without any support, because it so happens that they’re quite well-known [in Russia] themselves,” Bortnyuk said.
“There are bands that have some local notoriety simply because they’re good. We bring a Finnish band to Stereoleto every year, and a lot of people know this band.”
This year’s Stereoleto will bring to the city Finland’s electro-dance band LCMDF and soul band The Northern Governors, as well as Norway’s electronic duo R&#246;yksopp.

TITLE: ‘Gluttony is not a sin’
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With 21 Michelin stars under his belt, French chef Alain Ducasse, the man behind miX restaurant at the city’s W Hotel, is not after numbers. In many ways an exceptional figure — the owner of the highest number of Michelin stars earned throughout a single career and the sole survivor of a plane crash — Ducasse knows how to enjoy life through the art of gastronomy.
Several years ago, the chef wrote a letter to the Pope in what seemed to many to be a doomed effort to remove gluttony from the list of mortal sins. During a visit to St. Petersburg for the celebration of W Hotel’s first anniversary at the end of April, the internationally renowned chef spoke to The St. Petersburg Times.
“Indulging in fine food is not a harmful thing in any way; rather, it is a way of enjoying life — which, in my opinion, is hardly a sin,” said Ducasse. Perhaps predictably, no reaction ever followed from the Vatican. This, however, did not discourage the chef. It was important for Ducasse to share his opinion and provoke at least some discussion on the subject. “It is not gourmandize that is a sin; it is gorging and crapulence that are truly bad things.” 
“I can just see it so easily in my mind’s eye, how, some few hundred years from now, a historian or an archivist will accidentally stumble upon my letter and, shaking his head over it will think, ‘God, what an escapade of a French lunatic…’” Ducasse smiles. Gastronomy, however, has never been a laughing matter for the world-renowned chef, who boasts 24 restaurants in his Alain Ducasse group across the globe from Tokyo to Las Vegas, writes best-selling cookbooks and devotes some of his time to creating more sophisticated dishes for cosmonauts, thanks to a contract with the European Space Agency.  
“I got involved with the ESA after I was contacted by a space engineer friend of mine who had just returned from Baikonur [cosmodrome] where he had been working,” Ducasse recalls. “He complained to me that everyone dreaded the thought of the bland and boring space food. He said that just about every cosmonaut was complaining about it.” Ducasse accepted the challenge thrown at him — and emerged triumphant. 
“The hard part was to make all the dishes bacteria-free while flavorsome and savory,” Ducasse said. The chef has already created several menu sets tailored to meet space travel requirements. An example of a typical lunch includes charcoal-grilled beef cheeks with mandarin sauce, swordfish served with a citrus sauce and flourless tarte tatin.
A big admirer of his compatriot pianist Helene Grimaud, whose recordings are among his favorites, Ducasse is inclined to compare the art of cooking with composing in the sense that it is impossible to run out of ideas if you are thoroughly familiar with all of the possibilities and the power of the instruments at your disposal. Just as a composer chooses a solo instrument for concertos, a skilled chef chooses cooking ingredients, toying with flavors, textures and contrasts.
Ducasse is most inspired by fresh produce and green vegetables. The dishes that he feels best express his personality are vegetable dishes including “legumes de jardin de Provence” (Provencal vegetables), which he originally created and has been making for many years in Monaco from seasonal local green vegetables. Created 25 years ago, it became Ducasse’s first-ever vegetarian dish that he feels “celebrates the generosity of Monaco’s nature.”
“This dish is really simple to cook; essentially all it needs is a touch of salt, some old vinegar and olive oil and a variety of local vegetables found in Monaco — with its exuberance of nature and mild climate, there is never a shortage or a lack of choice,” Ducasse said. “The charm of it is that it can only be prepared in Monaco because it uses local produce found only there. It cannot be replicated anywhere else.”
Vegetarian dishes make up an important part of Ducasse’s menus. His second wife, Gw&#233;na&#235;lle, whom he met at an airport traveling from Paris to New York and married in 2007, is a vegetarian. In the kitchen at home, the couple produce a variety of vegetarian fare — largely made with home-grown fruits and vegetables — with Ducasse humbly serving as his wife’s assistant.
The chef’s preferences in gastronomy are deeply rooted in the tastes of his childhood. Ducasse grew up on his parents’ farm in Castelsarrasin in the southwest of France. Tempted by the aromas of his grandmother’s cooking, the young boy could not resist the charms of the kitchen. Watching and not being able to help — as cooking was always grandma’s solo show — was tantalizing. His formal arrival into the world of gastronomy started at the age of 15 when he joined a culinary college, and a year later began working as a waiter in a local restaurant. It did not take long, however, before his ambition and skills propelled him further.
A few decades on, and Ducasse is confident enough to contact the Pope with a humble request to consider removing the sin of gluttony from the list of the seven mortal sins, where it sits next to greed, sloth, pride and envy.
Ducasse’s philosophical, somewhat nonchalant yet humorous attitude toward life is not something he was born with or developed gradually. The chef acquired it following a near-fatal airplane crash in 1984 that took place when he was traveling to the fashionable French Alpine resort of Courchevel. He was the sole survivor of the crash. Ahead of him were months in a wheelchair and at least a dozen operations on various parts of his body. The ordeal, the pain, the limbo and the uncertainty of the degree to which he would be able to recover gave Ducasse a lot of time to think about his future as both a man and a chef.
It was hard to resist asking Ducasse, as someone for whom gastronomy is both a life-long passion and an enviable international career, about his views on the addictive habit of stress eating. Of course reaching for a bag of chips every 10 minutes is not compatible with a healthy or philosophical attitude toward eating, but can food really have a soothing effect on one’s spirits? Does such a phenomenon exist?
It seems so. Ducasse believes that the most comforting food of all is that which a person associates with their childhood, as it takes a person back to the happiest, most secure and carefree moments of their life, filling them with confidence.
“Usually, the food that many people consume in large quantities when they are stressed can be compared to a drug — you constantly want more, and you just see your hand reaching for more unhealthy snacks,” Ducasse said. “But what can really reduce stress is a simple, homemade dish, preferably one that a person has loved since they were young — for instance, baked potato pudding with lots of fried onion and bacon. This is a very enjoyable and risk-free journey away from the noise, quarrels and injustice present in the world around you — a temporary gastronomic refuge.”

TITLE: the word’s worth: Misers need not apply
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ïðèæèìèñòûé: tight-fisted, stingy

In the Russian pantheon of virtues, ùåäðîñòü (generosity) must be near the top of the highest column.
For Russians, the epitome of an admirable person is a generous friend, someone who is ready to spend time listening, helping and doling out advice as well as clothing, jewelry and loans.
Or someone who is a generous host, with an open door and a heavy hand for serving food and pouring drinks.
Or being generous in spirit, giving people the benefit of the doubt. This is even true in the Moscow-that-is-not-Russia, although you might need to ask for help before you see Russians at their generous best.
It follows, then, that ñêóïîñòü (stinginess) is at the bottom of the basement of Russian vices. Being cheap is more than an unattractive character trait. It’s a moral failing. And a lot of the words to describe a cheapskate evoke unpleasant images or are produced with grimaces and pursed lips. Ew.
Ñêóïîé (stingy) is probably the most neutral of the Russian cheap adjectives, and even that is defined as áåðåæëèâûé äî æàäíîñòè (thrifty to the point of avarice). Since it’s hard to figure out where thrift crosses the line into greed, it’s better to spend lavishly than save avariciously.
Ñêóïîé can also be used to describe anything that is scant, like ñêóïîé ïåéçàæ (desolate landscape) or ñêóïîå ñîîáùåíèå (terse message). You can also use it with the preposition íà to specify in what way someone is cheap. Ïðîôåññîð õîðîøèé, íî êðàéíå ñêóïîé íà ïîõâàëó (The professor is very good, but he’s short on praise).
Slightly worse in the cheapskate parade is ïðèæèìèñòûé (tight-fisted), which comes from the verb ïðèæèìàòü (to clasp). You’ll often find that in Russia, some rich people and many foreigners are often thought to be tightwads. Êàê âñÿêèé áîãà÷, îí áûë ïðèæèìèñò (Like all rich folk, he was tight-fisted). Àíãëè÷àíå äîñòàòî÷íî ïðèæèìèñòûå, èëè, åñëè óæ áûòü êîððåêòíîé, ýêîíîìíûå (English people are quite tight with money, or, to be polite, they’re thrifty). &#8239;
You see how tricky it is to find that line where admirable thriftiness crosses over to become despicable penny-pinching?
The grimace-making word ñêðÿãà (skinflint) is used to describe a very cheap person. Ó íàñ íà ÷åëîâåêà, êîòîðûé æèâ¸ò òîëüêî íà ñâîè äîõîäû, ñìîòðÿò êàê íà ÷óäîâèùíîãî ñêðÿãó (Here people regard someone who lives on his income alone as a monstrous miser).
Æìîò, which is probably from the verb æàòü (to squeeze), pinches pennies. Êðîõîáîð is so cheap he gathers up (ñîáèðàòü) crumbs (êðîõè) after dinner. Ñ ñîñåäÿìè ó íàñ õîðîøèå îòíîøåíèÿ, õîòÿ îíè æìîòû è êðîõîáîðû (We’re on good terms with our neighbors, even though they pinch pennies and sweep up the bread crumbs).
These stingy folks äðîæàò íàä êàæäîé êîïåéêîé (literally, quake over every kopek).&#8239; Åñëè áû îí íå äðîæàë íàä êàæäîé êîïåéêîé, îí ìîã áû ñòàòü õîðîøèì äðóãîì (If he didn’t count every penny, he could have become a good friend).
Sometimes people are choked by toads — åãî æàáà äóøèò (literally, the toad chokes him). According to some, perhaps not fully authoritative sources, this phrase originated as ãðóäíàÿ æàáà (literally, a chest toad) to describe the feeling of clammy pressure on the chest that precedes a heart attack. In cheapskates, the same feeling of intense stress could be brought on by the need to lay out a good chunk of cash. Îí íå ïîåäåò äîìîé íà òàêñè — æàáà äóøèò! (He won’t take a cab home — he’s too chintzy!)
I’m not quite sure of that derivation, but çà ÷òî êóïèëà, çà òî è ïðîäàþ (for what it’s worth). Skinflint etymology.

<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: Rebirth of the poet
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With little more remaining than the walls of the apartment building at 61 Sadovaya Ulitsa where Mikhail Lermontov, one of Russia’s most revered poets, lived in 1837, City Hall has thrown down a challenge to potential investors, asking them to renovate the building, while providing an opportunity for the local authorities to organize a Lermontov museum in one of the apartments. 
It was while living in this building that the young Lermontov, who was at the time serving in the Life Guards of the Imperial Hussar Regiment in Tsarskoye Selo, wrote one of his most famous poems, “Death of the Poet,” dedicated to the death of Alexander Pushkin, who was killed in a duel in 1937. The poem essentially launched Lermontov’s own literary career.
Although the building on Sadovaya is officially listed as a site of historical value and is as such protected by the state, it has not been restored for many decades. The last residents were moved out of the dilapidated building more than a year ago, but no restoration work ever began. Neighbors complained that illegal immigrants were quick to move in the crumbling premises.
The city’s cultural community has expressed grave concern, as it is clear that the building’s days are numbered if renovation work does not begin immediately.
St. Petersburg has never had a Lermontov museum, although the Romantic poet, writer and painter lived at various addresses in the city and wrote some of his most famous verse here. The only local building in which the poet lived to have survived until now is the apartment building at 61 Sadovaya. The house used to bear a memorial plaque, but it was removed in 2006 because the building was in such poor condition that there was a serious risk of the plaque falling off. According to Vladimir Timofeyev, director of the St. Petersburg Urban Sculpture Museum, the plaque will be returned to its place after the building is restored.
Local poet Zoya Bobkova has been campaigning among city officials and the literary community to open a Lermontov museum for many years. Although the poet has managed to attract many supporters of the idea, their efforts have so far led nowhere.
“This is not an easy issue; the Culture Committee’s archives contain many volumes of letters and documents related to the discussion,” said a spokesman for the Culture Committee. The officials declined to estimate the cost of renovating the building or setting up an apartment museum there. No investors have yet publicly expressed an interest in the project.
On an official level, the idea of turning Lermontov’s former home into a museum was first voiced by the ex-governor of St. Petersburg, Valentina Matvyienko, now speaker of the Federation Council, during celebrations of the poet’s 190th anniversary in October 2004.
The building at 61 Sadovaya Ulitsa was already in a dangerous state back then. Matviyenko gave orders to the city’s Culture Committee to restore the apartment and look for an investor who would renovate the building, while preserving the Lermontov apartment as a museum. 
In the meantime, the very idea of a Lermontov apartment museum has come under fire from St. Petersburg’s Institute of Russian Literature. The reason behind this seemingly contradictory stance is that the institute’s Lermontov Hall houses a series of precious exhibits that would potentially be moved to the Lermontov apartment museum, should it be created.
At stake are a series of valuable portraits of the poet painted during his lifetime, as well as the poet’s own paintings and drawings, including an impressive series of self-portraits. Also housed in the Lermontov Hall are a selection of manuscripts and sketches, and a collection of the poet’s personal belongings, including a dagger, saber, Caucasian belt, Lermontov’s first officer’s epaulets and a pencil found in the poet’s pocket after he was killed in a duel in Pyatigorsk in the Caucasus in 1841.
“Under no circumstances can these exhibits leave the walls of the institute,” was how the institute’s management reacted to City Hall’s proposal of creating a memorial museum at 61 Sadovaya Ulitsa.
During a meeting with Dmitry Meskhiyev, head of the city’s Culture Committee, the institute’s director, Vsevolod Bagno, was adamant that creating a new museum when the Lermontov Hall already exists would be nothing but a waste of money.
“It would make much more sense to support the already existing Lermontov Hall than to create a brand new museum,” Bagno said.
 “The Lermontov hall is visited by thousands of locals and city visitors alike every year,” he added.
In the meantime, the Culture Committee apparently does not have the heart to give away entirely the last existing apartment building directly connected with Lermontov into the hands of investors and out of the city’s control.
Meskhiyev said a Lermontov Cultural Center could be created in the building. In any event, the city will have to decide soon — and not just because the building is falling to pieces. In 2014, Russia will mark the 200th anniversary of Lermontov’s birth.
The authorities may neglect the condition of historic buildings, but they find it hard to ignore important anniversaries, which in this case may prove to be a blessing.

TITLE: in the spotlight: Crooners with criminal connections
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, crooner Iosif Kobzon had to cancel his tour of the United States after yet another refusal of a visa, based on his alleged links to organized crime and drug trafficking. That did not stop Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin from dropping into his son’s beer joint on Novy Arbat.
As if that were not confusing enough, Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov, one of the world’s most wanted fugitives or smiley patrons of the arts, depending on which publication you read, made his acting debut in a detective drama on Rossia television — as a criminal boss.
The story of the United States refusing visas to Kobzon, 74, a kind of Russian Frank Sinatra, has been around so long that I thought it might be an urban myth. But no. The Foreign Ministry issued an indignant statement last week and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a television interview that he had taken the case right up to discussions with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after Kobzon was refused a visa for concerts in the United States over the Victory Day holidays.
Kobzon sang one of the best Soviet popular songs ever, “Moments,” the theme tune to the 17 Moments of Spring spy series. He’s an old-school pro who wears an improbable toupee. He doesn’t mime and has made numerous “final” tours without being able to kick the singing habit. And he is a tough Jewish kid from the streets of Dnipropetrovsk, who on one television documentary rolled up his sleeves to show his tattoos. On the down side, he is a United Russia deputy.
Lavrov said the U.S. documents cited Kobzon’s involvement in “organized crime” and even possibly drug trafficking, without providing any proof. He said Kobzon has been refused a visa three or four times.
The United States obviously has what it considers pretty good reasons to so consistently deny a visa to one of Russia’s best-known singers, and a legislator to boot. And it would be strange if it made these public. On the other hand, Kobzon has made repeated attempts to get a visa, showing that he feels he has been wronged. And it does seem extraordinary that Kobzon at 74 could be a threat.
Kobzon has said his more than five decades as a singer have put him in contact and friendship with some shady characters, but his links with crime go no further than that. A convincing argument, although the same would surely go for most Russian veteran pop stars — Alla Pugachyova, Valery Leontyev — who have set up a colony in Miami untroubled by the State Department.
Kobzon’s son Andrei appeared in front of the cameras on Monday — defiantly bald — as Putin and Medvedev tucked into beer, potatoes and fish at his basement Zhiguli restaurant on Novy Arbat. It’s hard to imagine that Kobzon’s visa question did not come into the choice of venue.
The visa ban came at the same time as the Russian state channel was airing “Mur,” a prewar detective drama, with Tokhtakhunov playing a small role as a flat-capped gangster called Kitayets, or Chinese. “We’re criminals but not traitors,” he says at one point.
Tokhtakhunov is listed by Interpol as wanted by the United States for fraud. Last year, Forbes magazine featured him in its top 10 most-wanted fugitive list. His nickname is said to be Taivanets, or Taiwanese. In 2002, the U.S. government accused him of bribing Olympic figure-skating judges to fix the Salt Lake City event, a somewhat ludicrous crime that he denies. He is something of a socialite and told Ksenia Sobchak in GQ last year that his friends include — naturally — one Iosif Kobzon.

TITLE: THE DISH: Adzhabsandal
AUTHOR: By Daniel Kozin
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Caucasian comfort</b>
Located on Ulitsa Belinskogo, the short street between the Fontanka River and Liteiny Prospekt famous for its never-ending barrage of conceptually interesting but short-lived restaurants, Georgian restaurant Adzhabsandal looks to have found the recipe to success and longevity. 
Impeccable fresh food and vegetables — check, homely yet exotic interior — check, unrivalled hospitality — check. It is this latter feature that marks the restaurant out as something special, with the service outstandingly friendly from the call to book a table till being shown the door. 
Most impressive is Marina, the chef, owner, and Georgian mother that most of us never had. Cheery, helpful, sincere and warm, she makes the place feel less like a restaurant than a Georgian cottage.
This was made evident upon our entrance into the busy but confusingly smoke-filled main room, as she came out herself for a personal introduction to the restaurant and an apology for the smoke. Some bread had apparently gotten stuck in the tandir oven, a short-lived inconvenience as the air conditioners cleared the air rapidly, and also the first hint of the restaurant’s emphasis on dishes made from scratch.
As the smoke cleared, we were greeted by an elegant room illuminated by a dim light that accentuated the dark wooden panels and shutters but was brightened by the spotless wine glasses and vases of fresh flowers at every table, as well as a striking view of a spectacular St. Petersburg sunset over the Fontanka.
Marina did her utmost to live up to the most famous characteristic of her nation — hospitality, as she spent at least a quarter of an hour going over the menu in meticulous detail, describing the history and intricacies of each dish as well as answering the questions of our curious party. We ended up handing ourselves over to her expertise, and she gamely set out a gastronomic battle plan that would leave stomachs full and imaginations sated, tailoring a personalized lesson plan to a diverse group composed of foreigners, vegetarians, non-red meat eaters and newcomers to Georgian cuisine. 
The Bakinsky (Baku) salad for 480 rubles ($16) set expectations sky high, containing the freshest vegetables that this writer has ever had in St. Petersburg. A simple concoction of tomatoes, cucumbers and red onions in oil and vinegar, it was infinitely more than the sum of its parts, with each bit tasting like it had just come off of the orchard in the sunny Caucasus. The tomatoes are flown in directly from Azerbaijan and can be bought in the gourmet store in the back for 500 rubles ($17) a kilogram.
Next up were khachapuri at 410 rubles ($14) and satsivi for 450 ($14.80), quintessential Georgian appetizers that are the litmus test for a Georgian kitchen. The first was a freshly baked thin pie filled with hot and sharp Mengrelski cheese, and wasn’t in the least greasy, as is all too common for the dish. The second contained pieces of turkey in a creamy walnut sauce, the meat soft and fresh and the sauce so appetizing that every last drop of it was scraped from the plate.
The house specialty, chef’s adzhabsandal (400 rubles, $13) — the vegetable ratatouille after which the restaurant is named — was perhaps the most impressive dish of the already flawless meal, and again it proved that fresh ingredients prepared simply can excite the taste buds like nothing else. Green, yellow and red bell peppers, eggplant, and zucchini prepared al dente were soft on the outside but crunchy and bursting with natural flavor on the inside.
 Other exquisitely prepared dishes included khinkali (380 rubles, $12.50), piping hot dumplings filled with a juicy minced lamb and beef mixture — better than those sampled by one member of our party at the foot of Mount Kazbek, the birthplace of the dish — and freshly baked Georgian baklava (200 rubles, $6.60) that was well worth the additional wait: A moist, nutty mixture in layers of soft dough that melted in the mouth with each crumb a perfect world in itself, unlike its honey-drenched Arabic cousin. 
For a taste of authentic Georgian cuisine, if you cannot get to Tbilisi, take the short trip to Ulitsa Belinskogo.

TITLE: New Venues Offer Fresh Approach to Working Space
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Benjamin Franklin’s saying “Time is money” has found a new application in a caf&#233; business model. At the Tsiferblat (Clock face) “free space,” people pay not for food and drinks, but for time spent there. The business model has proved hugely popular and is already changing the way in which some of the city’s professionals work.
“Soon the idea of Tsiferblat will conquer the world — all restaurants will be selling time and people will be opening creative spaces everywhere,” the project’s ideologist and founder Ivan Mitin said, sitting by a cupboard filled with old alarm clocks in the city’s second Tsiferblat caf&#233;, at 81 Nevsky Prospekt. “But that’s a fantasy really,” he added. 
The first Tsiferblat opened in Moscow at the end of September, and soon became one of the capital’s most popular hangouts. After the caf&#233;’s surprising success, Mitin and several others opened similar places in St. Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Kiev during the next few months. 
When visitors arrive at Tsiferblat, they are given an alarm clock and the time when they arrived is written down. When leaving, they pay two rubles per minute for the first hour spent there, and then one ruble per minute for every following hour. Coffee, tea, cookies and candies are provided free of charge. Bringing your own food is also allowed. The main focus of Tsiferblat is not on food, but on a creative space where people are free to meet with friends, work, study and participate in organized events in a relaxed and friendly environment.
The idea is derived from another of Mitin’s projects, “Dom Na Dereve” (Treehouse).
“The idea for Dom Na Dereve came from needing such a place,” said Mitin. 
“I always liked welcoming atmospheres, but the cafes that existed at the time didn’t meet this requirement at all. You come to a place that is supposed to invite everyone in, but in reality you feel like you’re under the constant monitoring of video cameras, everyone is watching you and no one is really pleased to see you. Paying more for tea than it really cost also irritated me,” Mitin said.
“Dom Na Dereve is the heart of Tsiferblat — it is the place where all of the founders met and where all of the people we are working with now in Tsiferblat grew up.”
The concept of Dom Na Dereve was even simpler than that of Tsiferblat: Upon leaving Dom Na Dereve, each visitor had to leave some money, but there was no fixed price.
“We wanted to make Tsiferblat a lot more like Dom Na Dereve, but with a more specific method of payment, making things easier to control. Even though no one expected to make a large profit from it, we thought it would be a bit more profitable. We could never have guessed that it would turn into such a big project and that lots of people would copy the idea,” Mitin said.
When Tsiferblat opened in Moscow, many said that the project’s concept was more inherent to St. Petersburg than to Moscow.  Some didn’t even believe that the idea first appeared in Moscow at all. 
“St. Petersburg is traditionally seen as a more relaxed city, with lots of intellectual and creative people who look pensively into the distance and wander along the streets. They walk because they have no place to go,” Mitin joked. 
“When compared to the city, Tsiferblat in Moscow is a more contemplative place because people take off their masks; the frantic Moscow pace and aggression disappear completely when people get to Tsiferblat.”
Mikhail Avduyevsky, who knows Mitin from Dom Na Dereve and started helping him with the Moscow project, is now one of Tsiferblat’s managers in St. Petersburg. 
“Every city has its own mood. Completely different people live in different cities; this also has an influence on Tsiferblat’s atmosphere,” said Avduyevsky. “The idea of having a welcoming place in the city center is, however, a common one.” 
Having been open for just two months, Tsiferblat in St. Petersburg has already acquired a distinctive feature. “There are a large number of people who come here to study and have settled in at Tsiferblat. In Moscow not so many people come to Tsiferblat to study,” said Avduyevsky.
The organizers decided to encourage people to come for just that reason, providing them with one free hour there.
It was initially planned that every Tsiferblat would hold various cultural events. As the St. Petersburg Tsiferblats are still quite young, their cultural program has not yet been determined. Events that are already offered include poetry evenings, trivia testing people’s knowledge of St. Petersburg’s history, playing the piano, games of mafia and more. Visitors are also welcome to propose and organize their own events. 
“To a large extent, Tsiferblat is a free space also because people are welcome to organize different events. The majority of events — about 80 percent — are organized by visitors,” said Mitin.
The caf&#233;’s founders insist that the cultural function of Tsiferblat is not confined to events alone, but is concealed in its internal concept as a place where people can spend time without alcohol and cigarettes, and simply listen to good music. “Even though this concept still doesn’t work perfectly, there is a good chance of encountering it, as the whole idea of the place is aimed at developing the creative potential in people,” said Avduyevsky.
The space and idea of Tsiferblat aim to provide each person with plenty of private space. The founders still believe however, that the caf&#233; as a whole can still be seen as a co-working area for those who want to work in groups. Avduyevsky said that in St. Petersburg, people involved in creative spheres come to work at Tsiferblat, and sometimes groups of people come to conduct brainstorming sessions.  
The founders have already taken a little step abroad by opening a branch of Tsiferblat in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. According to Mitin, the founders plan to open another cafe in Israel at the beginning of the summer, and after that, in Germany, Austria and other countries.

TITLE: How to Keep a Cool Head in a Stressful Profession
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Many consider those who work in the emergency services, medicine and law enforcement to experience the highest levels of stress while at work due to the high level of responsibility and physical and emotional demands. Office workers, however, may experience just as much stress while at work.
 “Among office employees, the most stressful positions are those in the finance, legal and human resources departments,” said Natalya Schegoleva, from the FMCG sales and marketing department at Ancor recruitment company. “Economists are responsible for the financial state of the company and lawyers should ensure that the company follows the law and abides by contractual relationships that are in the best interests of the company.” 
“HR specialists work with people and the human factor can often be unpredictable,” she added.
Stress encountered at work can have a major effect on everyday life. Little by little it influences health, relationships and people’s moods and often has a negative effect on work efficiency. According to psychologists, people can also experience stress in positive situations that demand physical, intellectual or emotional effort. Stress is not always bad, however, and can cause people to rally both physically and morally.
“But if we are stressed every day for years, it leads to exhaustion and physical and emotional illness,” said psychologist Natalya Meleshkova. “Even when this stressful period has come to an end, the toll it takes on a person’s health can still be present for many years.” 
Large companies often offer employees training courses to help them to deal with the stress they may encounter at work. Various corporate events also aim to help workers deal with work-related problems.
“Companies hold team-building workshops to help develop friendly relationships between members of staff,” said Schegoleva. “It is much easier to deal with stress in a friendly atmosphere.”
Psychologists also believe that people often overreact to problems, exaggerating them and therefore making an already stressful situation worse. That is why teaching people to deal with stress in an appropriate manner is so important. 
“We live not only in the world of real facts, but mostly in our own inner world of the interpretation of these events,” said Meleshkova. “We create this inner world according to our own evaluation of what is good and what is bad. We control the situation and can exacerbate events with our thoughts or try not to do so,” she explained.
Sometimes employees devise their own ways of dealing with stress. 
“Some people leave their desk for 10 or 15 minutes and do some exercise to get away from their problems,” said Schegoleva. “For others it is enough to go outside and get a breath of fresh air. One way or another, every employee finds their own way to deal with emotional stress.”
Psychologists recommend not bringing stress home or involving other people in solving problems. 
“Looking for people to help, sympathize and give advice often leads to a problem being left unsolved,” said Meleshkova. “We do not end up really doing anything, but emotionally involve ourselves even more in the problem by complaining.”
This is why people look for alternative ways of overcoming stress, such as playing squash. Swedish squash coach Lars Varady recently opened a squash club in St. Petersburg mainly geared toward business people.
“When we do physical training, our body produces dopamine,” said Varady. “Dopamine plays a major role in the nervous system, which is responsible for reward-driven learning. Every type of reward that has been studied increases the level of dopamine. We feel happy and get rid of negative stress hormones,” he explained.
Varady and his wife Tatyana have also opened a dance club. People don’t need to be professional dancers, but just feel the music and attend classes after work to wind down and relax with music, dancing and friendly people, said Tatyana Varady. 
“We dance balboa — a swing dance. It is jazz music and style, and women can wear things they can’t at work — such as red lipstick and flowers in their hair. We create and exchange positive emotions,” she said.
“People get tired at work, and how can they relax? They can go to a caf&#233; and have a cup of coffee, but they have coffee breaks every day at work,” said Tatyana Varady. “After work they can go work out or dance. It is a very good energy boost.”  
A more relaxed way to conquer stress is through painting. It is with that goal in mind that The Oil Factory studio came about.
“I worked as an EMBA director and had a lot of tasks that had to be solved quickly,” said Svetlana Rakutina, general director of The Oil Factory. “The students — heads of companies and business owners — were very demanding and active. So there was more stress than I wanted. For some reason I started painting to try to help deal with the high amount of pressure.” 
“One of my friends, a painter, started to teach me how to paint,” said Rakutina. “Creative lessons helped me not only deal with stress, but brought me a great number of new and varied ideas. So Ruben (the painter) and I thought that if the painting lessons had helped one senior manager beat stress, it could help others,” she said.
The Oil Factory is geared toward business people, usually CEOs and owners of businesses. Most of those who attend classes have not painted since childhood. During the workshop they get only a five- to seven-minute explanation on how to mix paints, use a palette and brushes and then start creating. The studio also offers painting vacations; the last one took place in Tuscany, Italy. Art, nature, food and friendly communication do a lot to beat stress. 
“Paint what you like and what you are interested in,” said Rakutina. “Take the colors that encourage you and paint with them. With oil paints you can always make changes in the picture and — more importantly — they last for a long time. Your grandchildren and their children will be able to admire your work,” she said.
From a psychological point of view, being able to switch between work and a hobby helps a lot in dealing with stress. 
The relationships people have with their work are the same as those they have with other people.
“Just imagine you have someone nice sitting next to you during a long flight and you talk to them for many hours until you arrive. How will you feel at the end of the journey?” asks Meleshkova.
“And imagine that on the way back you also have a nice neighbor. You talk, then they fall asleep, you read a magazine, you chat again and then take a rest from each other. And in the end something will be revealed. What happens to the interest in your companion?”
Walking, dancing, playing squash or painting — psychologists say it does not matter how people cope with stress, only that they find something that makes them happy and relax and that they do it regularly. This helps to ensure both physical and mental health, even in a stress-filled world.

TITLE: Mystery Photo Album Reveals an Unseen WWII
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — After the end of World War II, Paul Sadler returned home to Chicago with three German books and a photo album from the Dachau concentration camp.
It was the photo album that caught his son’s attention about 60 years later. And he began to piece together the story behind the wartime pictures, many of which were taken in the Soviet Union.
It was about three years ago that the son, Bruce Sadler, noticed the photo album, abandoned and falling apart, in the attic of his home in Evansville, Indiana.
“I delicately took the photos out of the album, scanned them and realized that there were writings on the back,” Sadler, 56, said by telephone from the United States.
Since that time he has been investigating the mystery behind each of those 200 photos. He believes the pictures were taken by a well-placed German, possibly a Nazi soldier and definitely a spy on Soviet soil.
The photo album was discovered by his father in the liberated concentration camp in Dachau, which his military unit helped guard. Together with the album, he brought home three hardcover books published by a cigarette company in 1936: Two about the 1936 Olympics and the third about the life of Adolf Hitler. All were forgotten in the attic for decades.
With the help of the German writing on the back of some photos in the album, Bruce Sadler has identified about 20 of them and gained insight into previously unknown pages of World War II.
“I’ve found a lot that hasn’t been taught to us in schools here in the States,” Sadler said. “It’s just shocking. … Josef Stalin was just as vicious as Hitler in killing people — in killing Russian citizens.”
Two of the pictures in the album were taken inside a crowded church in the Tver region town of Rzhev and dated Dec. 10, 1941.
“I found out that in January — maybe three or four weeks after the picture was taken — Stalin ordered that town destroyed so that it wouldn’t fall into the enemy’s hands,” Sadler said.
He contacted a Russian author who had written a book about the battle in Rzhev and learned that Soviet soldiers had nearly destroyed everything in the town, located 150 kilometers west of Moscow, in their eagerness to prevent it from being seized by Nazi troops.
The author also told him about a Rzhev “church that had all these people inside of it with explosives. They were going to blow up all these people, but for some reason they [the explosives] did not go off,” Sadler said. “Maybe it was that church where the picture was taken.”
During his research, Sadler determined that the pictures had been taken by a German with close ties to the Nazi military, including senior officers. Apparently the photographer was not an amateur.
“The pictures were definitely taken by a professional,” Sadler said, explaining that an ordinary soldier would not have had the equipment to produce such high-quality pictures. “I was told that the quality of paper is the best one could get at that time … [and] was also used by Nazis at that time.”
The occasional scratches in German on the back of the photos reveal that the photographer started taking them in France back in 1933 and continued though France’s surrender in 1940. Others show Minsk and a radio factory there, while several feature Russian peasants and villages.
But many of the rest are unsigned and difficult to place.
The pictures include battle scenes as well as Nazi soldiers marching, resting in the shade, or joyfully dining. A few carry official stamps reading “not censored by the military and political departments.”
Sadler said he would like family members of those pictured to find and identify their loved ones and receive copies of the photos. That is why he has scanned and uploaded the pictures onto the Internet.
“I know the photos of this war as well as any historian, and I hadn’t seen these before,” Robert Citino, a historian with the University of North Texas, wrote about the album on Historynet.com.
Once Sadler wrote to Dachau to ask about identifying the possible photographer, but he received a letter back saying the turnover of soldiers in the camp had been high and it would be impossible nowadays to determine which one it was.
A few of the photos have gone on display in the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Copies of those from Rzhev can be seen at a local museum.
“I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished. My dad would have been thrilled to see all the work that I’ve done,” Sadler said.
Sadler, a caregiver by profession, said the reason why so many years passed before he picked up the photo album was mainly because his father had found it painful to recall Dachau.
Dachau was the Nazis’ first concentration camp, established in 1933. U.S. forces liberated the Bavarian town of Dachau in April 1945. When they arrived, they found dozens of train cars filled with the bodies of dead prisoners abandoned on the tracks. To avoid the mass liberation of prisoners from other camps, the Nazis had been moving them to Dachau, often without food or water.
“He could not talk about it,” Sadler said of his father. “He was able to talk about the training going on in the army, going to France, etc. But when it got to Dachau, he would stop. He would break down and cry and wouldn’t go any further.”
Only about a year before his death in January 2011, Paul Sadler was able to tell his family that the photo album in the attic had come from Dachau.