SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1712 (23), Wednesday, June 13, 2012
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TITLE: Russia Moves to Defend Syria Base, Report Says 
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia is preparing to send marines to defend its naval base in Syria, amid continued unrest in the Arab state, Interfax reported Monday, citing a Navy source.

Two large troop transport vessels and a rescue tugboat will defend Russian civilians and infrastructure in the port city of Tartus and also evacuate equipment if necessary, the source said.

Tartus is home to Russia's only naval base outside the former Soviet Union.

The report did not say when the ships would arrive, or how many marines would accompany them.

Syria's close relationship with Moscow dates back to the Cold War, and Russia has helped block stronger international sanctions against the Syrian government.

The West accuses President Bashar Assad's forces, often armed with Russian-made weapons, of killing thousands of civilians in an effort to suppress a civilian uprising that began last year.



TITLE: State of Emergency Declared Due to Fires in Eastern Regions
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Authorities on Monday declared a state of emergency in seven federal subjects in Russia's eastern and far eastern territories as forest fires continue to rage.

Emergency restrictions are now in place in the whole of the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district and Tyva republic, as well as parts of the Sakha republic and the Kransoyarsk, Amur, Zabaikalsky and Sakhalin regions, the Federal Forestry Agency's press service told Interfax.

"The main cause of forest fires in these regions is grass burning for agricultural purposes, as well as storms and irresponsible handling of fires by citizens visiting forests," the press service said, adding that special fire-prevention regimes, which prohibit visiting wooded areas, have been imposed throughout a further 11 federal subjects.

As of Monday morning, there were 198 forest fires burning across Russia. The active fires don't yet threaten any populated areas or economically significant projects, Interfax reported, citing forestry agency data.

In terms of land ravaged by fires, this year has already been more severe than 2010, when drought in western Russia caused wildfires that brought choking smog to Moscow, Grigory Kuksin, head of Greenpeace Russia's wildfire program, said last week.

This year, areas closer to Europe have had plenty of rain, while Siberia has been dry because of an anti-cyclone, Kuksin said.



TITLE: Opposition Leaders Questioned for Third Day
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Investigators continued for a third day Wednesday to question opposition leaders and search their homes and offices in connection with clashes between police and protesters during an anti-Kremlin rally May 6.
Investigative Committee officials resumed interrogating anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov after a pause late Tuesday.
In response, Udaltsov called on his supporters to start an “Occupy”-style protest outside the Investigative Committee’s offices, he wrote on Twitter.
A crowd later gathered outside the building to protest committee head Alexander Bastrykin’s alleged threats against a Novaya Gazeta editor, and several journalists were detained, Interfax reported.
Further searches were carried out Wednesday at the offices of Navalny’s Fund for Fighting Corruption, which runs Rospil, a website that seeks to expose official corruption.
Investigators discovered 570 rubles ($18), record books listing his employees and Navalny’s tax declaration within the fund’s safe, but they did not confiscate anything.
Investigators asked Navalny on Wednesday to provide a sample of his writing, but he refused, he wrote on Twitter.
The round of questioning began with surprise raids Monday morning at the homes of several leading opposition figures and their relatives. They were all summoned to appear for questioning early Tuesday, forcing them to miss a highly anticipated, large-scale rally in Moscow.
Investigators seized documents, computer databases and more than $1.7 million in a variety of currencies from the home of TV-personality-turned-opposition-figurehead Ksenia Sobchak.
Late Tuesday, investigators searched the apartment and office of Solidarity co-leader Boris Nemtsov, confiscating “all electronics, computers and other things,” Nemtsov told Interfax.
He was ordered to appear before the Investigative Committee for questioning in the next few days, he said.
Also Wednesday, former Astrakhan mayoral candidate Oleg Shein, of the A Just Russia party, was released from police detention on charges of organizing an unsanctioned gathering, Interfax reported. He had been detained Tuesday while walking with a pack of several dozen people in Astrakhan.
The day of the rally, websites of opposition-leaning media outlets Ekho Moskvy and Dozhd TV were shut down by denial of service attacks, employees said. The websites of privately owned news outlets have come under similar DDoS attacks in recent months on the days of major opposition protests.
Several opposition leaders who were targets of the raids, including Nemtsov, Navalny, Udaltsov and Solidarity co-head Ilya Yashin, will file complaints against investigators in court, their lawyers told Interfax.
Navalny appealed to the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg to review rulings by Moscow courts that require him to refute public accusations of corruption against officials linked to the tax probe into the late Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Interfax reported

TITLE: Investigator Denies Threatening Journalist in Forest
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin on Thursday denied driving the deputy editor of a prominent liberal-leaning newspaper into the woods and threatening his life over critical coverage.
"I haven't been in a forest in I don't know how long. My work is so pressured that I'm not able to take trips into nature," Bastrykin told Izvestia.
Also on Thursday, the country's top investigator agreed to meet with Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov, Interfax reported. Muratov claimed in an open letter published Wednesday that Bastrykin had intimidated his deputy editor, Sergei Sokolov, in a Moscow region forest and that several attempts to arrange a meeting had failed.
In the interview with Izvestia, Bastrykin admitted that he reacted angrily to Sokolov's article on investigators' handling of the case of Sergei Tsepovyaz, a reputed member of the notorious Kushchyovskaya gang, which murdered 12 people, including small children, in 2011.
Tsepovyaz was let off with a 150,000 ruble ($4,600) fine for covering up the crime.
"I was simply offended — not so much for myself, but for my investigators who risk their lives to do their work," Bastrykin said.
Bastrykin referred to his conversation with Sokolov, who was accompanying the investigator on a trip to Nalchik at the time the threats were reportedly made, as "emotional" and "in raised tones."
The Investigative Committee head also painted Novaya Gazeta in an unflattering light, saying the newspaper acted "in a base and disgusting manner" by accusing investigators of selling out to the Kushchyovskaya gang.

TITLE: What Euro Crisis? Russia Seeks Single Currency
AUTHOR: Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is calling attention to the introduction of a common currency for the Eurasian Union of former Soviet countries as a hedge against growing volatility in global financial markets.

Although he noted that creating such a currency is a long-term project — the Eurasian Union is expected to start functioning in 2015 — he said it's time "to think ahead."

"It's not a matter of concern for today, but we should think about it," Medvedev told a business forum in St. Petersburg on Friday, adding that he expects the business communities of member states to participate in the discussions.

The idea of the Eurasian Union was first voiced by then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in October 2011.

In an article in Izvestia, Putin said the Eurasian Union would further integrate existing customs-union members Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. It would be expanded later to include more former Soviet republics, perhaps Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Introducing a single currency for the member states of the Eurasian Union would ease trade and financial relations between the countries, reduce currency exchange expenses and simplify individuals' transfer across the borders, but it's a very long-term prospect, said Alexei Portansky, a professor in the global economy and policy department at the Higher School of Economics.

"There is no sufficient economic background within the customs union to introduce the common currency over the next few years," he said.

Discussion of a single currency in Europe began in the mid-1970s, when the domestic market accounted for at least 65 percent of the region's trade, and it took more than 20 years for the euro to be introduced as the EU's single currency in 1999, Portansky said.

Russia has yet to reach those trade volumes with its customs-union peers. They accounted for less than 8 percent of its external trade in 2010, he said, citing figures from the Economic Development Ministry.

Portansky said wooing Ukraine into the customs union would bring the introduction of the common currency closer because it would significantly boost Russia's mutual trade with other bloc members.

Creating a single currency will mark the final stage of forming the Eurasian Union and help strengthen the bloc, Stanislav Bogdankevich, former chairman of the National Bank of Belarus, told RIA-Novosti on Friday.

He added that determining which country's currency becomes the basis for the bloc's monetary system will depend on the union's ultimate structure.

"If it's a broader Eurasian Union of five to six states, it's better to create a new currency," he said.

But regardless of the currency adopted, member states should learn a lesson from the eurozone, now mired in a severe debt crisis.

The first thing to do when creating a single-currency union is establish a common central authority overseeing the fiscal policy in each of the bloc's countries, something eurozone countries don't have, said Alexei Devyatov, chief economist at UralSib Capital.

"If we first create the common-currency union, leaving the tight political integration for later, as it happened in Europe, we run the risk of repeating the destiny of the European Union when small countries expand their budget deficits," he said.

But Leonid Slutsky, head of the State Duma's CIS committee, said the Eurasian Union wouldn't be "a copy of the European Union, but it could borrow the main positive factors."

Having supported Medvedev's proposal to start discussions on the common currency, Slutsky said it could be introduced shortly after 2015, when the union's structure becomes clear.

"Only then will it be clear whether it makes sense to issue a new supranational currency like the euro or probably use the Russian ruble for the common Eurasian economic space," he said.


TITLE: Activist Appeals local Anti-Gay Bill in European Court
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A gay-rights leader on Wednesday lodged an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights over a controversial St. Petersburg law introducing fines for promoting homosexuality.
“This will hasten our struggle to repeal discriminatory and homophobic laws,” activist Nikolai Alexeyev told GayRussia.ru. In articles posted on his LiveJournal page, Alexeyev said the controversial legislation violated articles 10 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which concern freedom of expression and prohibition of discrimination.
Alexeyev is seeking 50,000 euros ($63,000) in compensation after a St. Petersburg district court ruled April 12 that he had violated the law by holding a one-man protest with a sign reading “Homosexuality is not a perversion.” He was the first person to be tried under the legislation passed in March.
Critics have called the law draconian, saying it effectively bans gay-pride parades and other public displays.

TITLE: Poland and Russia Insist Hooligans Won't Hurt Ties
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Moscow and Warsaw tried to assuage fears Wednesday that bloody clashes between football hooligans in the Polish capital will negatively affect Russo-Polish ties.
President Vladimir Putin's human rights ombudsman Mikhail Fedotov told reporters in Warsaw that both sides agreed to avoid such scenes in the future.
"We feel it is extremely important not to deepen the conflict but to do everything to make this a thing of the past," he was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass.
Putin had dispatched the ombudsman after the clashes began ahead of Tuesday's football match against Russia. In the worst violence in the European championship so far, police detained 184 people, including 156 Poles and 24 Russians.
Fedotov was speaking after talks with Poland's Interior Minister Jacek Cichocki, who said in separate comments that he hoped the courts would severely punish the Polish hooligans and that Russian participants would be banned from the country.
"When it comes to our hooligans, I hope the prosecutors, and especially the courts, will be strict and these people will fully feel the consequences of their antics," Cichocki was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The minister said the detained Russians would face accelerated court proceedings and would likely be expelled from Poland and banned from returning to Europe's border-free Schengen zone for five years.
The Foreign Ministry blamed Polish provocateurs for the clashes and called upon Warsaw to provide for the safety of all fans.
"We sincerely hope that … Polish authorities take all necessary means and that the remaining matches will be a real feast for all football fans," the ministry said in a statement on its website. 
Fedotov said that apart from hooligans, Polish "politicians who make themselves a name for confrontation with Russia" were also to blame.
Relations with Poland have been complicated by centuries of conflict and the Soviet domination of Poland for more than four decades after World War II.
The clashes coincided with Russia's national holiday, and Fedotov suggested marking June 12 with a friendly match between both countries' teams in the future. "Let this day become a sporting holiday," he said. It was unclear if the Polish side had taken up the suggestion.

TITLE: Apartment Repair Costs Could Pass to Owners
AUTHOR: By Rachel Nielsen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The cost of replacing a leaking roof, installing new pipes and making other major repairs could be transferred from the municipal companies managing apartment buildings to individual apartment owners if a United Russia-backed bill in the State Duma becomes law.
Such a measure would affect most of the country: Roughly 70 percent of the country's citizens own their apartments, said Sergei Smirnov, director of the Institute of Social Policy and Socio-Economic Programs at the Higher School of Economics. In Moscow, the city with the biggest population, that ownership figure is even higher, he said.
The proposed legislation, which passed in its first reading Friday, is aimed at changing the process of financing major repair projects in apartment buildings. It calls for introducing an obligatory payment by individual apartment owners for such work, as opposed to being funded out of government coffers as it is now.
The new fee would be added to the monthly payment that apartment holders already make, Vedomosti reported on Saturday. That fee, called ZhKoKh, currently includes only general maintenance and repair of the premises, some utilities and common services.
Apartment building management companies can be municipal companies or private ones.
United Russia is putting forth its bill to "correct the situation in which citizens wait for years for promised capital repairs but don't undertake any action themselves," the party said in a statement on its Duma website.
"It is widely held that the deterioration of the housing stock has reached the point that [facilitating] capital repairs for ... multi-apartment buildings requires an urgent fix to the system," it said.
Smirnov echoed that idea, saying there are buildings in Moscow that haven't seen a major renovation in decades, though those cases are rare.
He said in a telephone interview that the bill would fix the problem of the country's dilapidated housing stock, saying "it isn't clear who or what" pays for capital improvements now.
The additional charge for major repairs would be half to 1 1/2 times cost estimates set by federal law, Vedomosti reported. Currently, rates for such work are set at 6 rubles (20 cents) per square meter for 2012, 6 1/2 rubles for next year and 7 rubles for 2014.

TITLE: Homeless Won't Be Expelled for St. Petersburg Forum, Police Chief Says
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Rumors that homeless St. Petersburg residents will be expelled from the city before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum next week are unfounded, city police chief Sergei Umnov said Thursday.
Police have never undertaken this practice, Umnov said.
"Major international events being held in St. Petersburg cannot serve as an excuse for this," Umnov said in remarks cited by the city's human rights ombudsman, Alexander Shishlov, according to Interfax.
Last month, St. Petersburg-based homeless rights organization Nochlezhka sent letters to Shishlov, national human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin and Economic Development Minister Andrei Belousov asking them to ensure that the rights of homeless people were defended during the forum.
"Many official events of such stature in Russia are accompanied by a so-called 'purging' of the city of socially excluded citizens," Nochlezhka said in a statement.
The 2012 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which will run from June 21 to 23, will feature the participation of President Vladimir Putin and a range of international business and political leaders, including such figures as Siemens CEO Peter L&#246;scher, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and American diplomat Henry Kissinger.

TITLE: City Residents Celebrate ‘Russia Day Without Putin’
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Thousands of St. Petersburg residents and visitors gathered Tuesday in protest of Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency amid outcry about electoral fraud, raids on opposition leaders’ homes and continued arrests of protesters.
The police gave their permission for a peaceful march and stationary rally, organized by two different opposition groups, to take place. They stopped the marchers several hundred meters before the march’s designated end point, however, and ordered them to disperse for allegedly exceeding the authorized time limit, briefly detaining the protest’s leaders.
The protests coincided with the state Russia Day holiday and were dubbed “Russia Day Without Putin.” The march was smaller in size than previous protest marches that followed the same route — from Ligovsky Prospekt to Konyushennaya Ploshchad — and gathered about 2,500 people. The stationary rally drew between 5,000 and 7,000.
The flags and banners included those of Olga Kurnosova and Nikolai Bondarik’s Civic Committee, the Left Front, various nationalist groups, St. Petersburg’s Observers and Ingermanland. The activists also carried a 30-meter Russian national flag. The marchers shouted slogans such as “Russia Without Putin,” “Putin Is a Thief” and “Free Political Prisoners.”
According to Kurnosova, she was detained alongside Bondarik as they were folding flags and banners between the Summer Gardens and the Field of Mars.
The two activists were taken to a bus where Alexei Smyatsky, the head of the police’s public safety department, accused them of exceeding the march’s time limit by 10 minutes, which was authorized by City Hall to be held from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Kurnosova said they were released 10 minutes later, after managing to persuade Smyatsky that his charges were “ridiculous” and that arresting them could “make things worse for him.”
Most marchers, however, walked to Konyushennaya Ploshchad and joined the stationary rally that was due to be held there at 4 p.m. by united opposition groups featuring Yabloko Democratic Party, Solidarity Democratic Movement, The Other Russia, Parnas, ROT Front, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) and the National Democrats, among others.
Ten dozen LGBT activists were present at the site, with two rainbow flags, a large rainbow umbrella and several signs. The police paid no attention to their presence, in contrast to the May 1 May Day rally during which 17 activists were arrested for attempting to unfurl rainbow flags and for carrying signs.
The rally was opened by the local leader of The Other Russia, Andrei Dmitriyev, the main defendant in the Trial of Twelve, which is seen by some as the most prominent case of persecution for political dissent in St. Petersburg right now (see story, this page).
Summing up the rally’s demands, The Other Russia activist Ksenia Mikheyeva criticized the new laws on rallies and gubernatorial elections as violating basic constitutional rights of citizens of the Russian Federation — the right to peaceful assembly and the right to be elected.
She said that the protesters see both the State Duma and the president as “illegitimate,” having come to power as the result of “grossly falsified” elections. They demand early Duma and presidential elections, in addition to early St. Petersburg gubernatorial and legislative ones.
“We urge our compatriots to get involved in the struggle against the legalization of lawlessness,” Mikheyeva concluded, and began chanting “Russia will be free,” one of the main opposition slogans. The rally, which lasted for about 40 minutes, finished at 5 p.m.
According to Dmitriyev, a group of The Other Russia activists then went to Palace Square, where a Russia Day pop concert was being held, and distributed a number of anti-Putin leaflets.
“To their surprise, they were not detained and people were greedily grabbing the leaflets,” Dmitriyev said by phone Tuesday evening.
“By the time police realized what was happening, it was too late, so they started taking the leaflets away from people.”
Meanwhile, the LGBT rights organization Vykhod (Coming Out) reported that a group of LGBT activists were attacked by 10 to 15 young “nationalistically-minded” men who were armed with cans of pepper spray, but who ran away when they met with resistance. 
However, one LGBT activist suffered facial injuries and another had their video camera smashed. Vykhod noted that the police did nothing to stop the attack.

TITLE: New Holland Set to Reopen To Public for Summer Fun
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: New Holland island, which opened to the public for the first time last summer, kicks off its new summer season this weekend. 
New Holland is currently undergoing a seven-year redevelopment project that will turn the historic island, formed by canals created under Peter the Great in the early 18th century, into a multi-functional cultural center.
From Saturday, visitors to the island can relax on the grass and in deck chairs, browse a flea market and warm up by a fire pit. There will also be a parkour zone and bike ramp, a food market and a community garden with fresh food for sale by LavkaLavka company. 
The island’s first art gallery will open this year, with an exhibition by Alexei Kiselyov entitled “Nothing Special.” Visitors will also have the chance to see a project by St. Petersburg-based artist Nastya Bukina, who has covered the fence around the island with text and illustrations from her fairy tale.
On June 16 and 17, New Holland will be open to visitors from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Admission to the island, as well as to all its events, is free. 
On Saturday from noon to 3:30 p.m., New Holland will offer workshops for children at the Family Center. One workshop, entitled “Christopher Columbus, discoverer of America,” includes a practical art class in which participants will learn about Native American homes and build their own. 
From 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., the island will host a Kind House charity event during which children from a Pavlovsk children’s home will paint the houses in bright colors together with St. Petersburg artists, creating a cardboard village. Everyone is invited to take part in the event and buy a house painted by an artist or other handicrafts made by the children. All proceeds will go to support projects of the Shag Navstrechu charity organization.
At 8 p.m. visitors will be able to enjoy performances by bands Motorama and Electra Monsterz.
On Sunday, New Holland will offer another workshop for children called “Vasco da Gama and the discovery of India,” in which participants will learn about Indian mythology and make toy figures of the many-armed god Shiva. The workshop will continue with a hands-on class during which children will learn how to extract natural dyes from plants and then tie-dye T-shirts.
The event will be followed by a table tennis tournament.
All through the weekend and upcoming weekends, a gourmet market will set up shop on the island and a selection of the city’s restaurants will give guests the chance to sample food from the far reaches of world cuisine. Visitors can also check out the antique flea market, where, in addition to vintage couture, shoppers will have their pick of new collections from St. Petersburg and Moscow designers.
The weekend will also see this year’s launch of the LavkaLavka community garden. Guests interested in the garden community will have the opportunity to become a member. 
During the summer, New Holland will be open from Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and from Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. 

TITLE: Trial of 12 Hits Technical Problems
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Trial of Twelve, in which 12 opposition activists are on trial as “extremists” belonging to the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP) and described as “farcical” by the defense and human rights activists, hit a new low Friday when surveillance tapes were demonstrated at the Vyborgsky District Court. 
The first video of the 27 discs and 40 hours of surveillance footage recorded during the meetings of The Other Russia activists in 2009 and 2010 were shot on one poor-quality black-and-white hidden camera installed over the apartment’s door.
There was no camera in the main room, where the group’s meetings allegedly took place. 
Only silhouettes of the alleged activists in the entrance hall were visible, while their words were mostly inaudible when the first video was played on a DVD player via two television sets in the courtroom.
A web camera was put in front of one of them to broadcast the video from the TV screen to a secret prosecution witness identified as Anatoly Sokolov, hidden in a separate room from the defendants, their lawyers and the public.
The defense objected to the showing of the video, arguing that the materials are not valid, because of the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights that forbids the use of evidence received as the result of a police provocation.
The defendants say — and a police document in the criminal case’s materials supports their claim — that the apartment was rented and equipped with a camera by the counter-extremism Center E agency to “create an artificial concentration of NBP members with the aim of proving their criminal activities,” and then was offered to them for meetings by Mikhail Sazonov, an undercover Center E agent.
Sazonov, the second secret witness in the trial, was unable to attend the hearing, according to Judge Sergei Yakovlev.
Public prosecutor Nadezhda Filimonova requested that Sokolov — described as a former NBP member who grew disillusioned with the party and started to collaborate with law enforcers — identify the people on the video, which was allegedly shot on Oct. 4, 2009. He identified only one as Vladislav Ivakhnik, saying that the other people on the video were “blurry.”
When asked by The Other Russia local leader Andrei Dmitriyev’s lawyer Gleb Lavrentyev by what features he identified Ivakhnik, Sokolov — whose voice was altered by an electronic device — replied that he did so by his haircut, the way he dressed and walked and by his face. The activist was however shown from behind as he entered the apartment, and only his silhouette was discernable.
Watching further, the prosecutor pointed to a moment when a black NBP flag was allegedly brought by an activist, but at the request of the defense, the courtroom clerk documented that only a dark piece of cloth could be seen, with no image or letters detectable on it.
The defense also pointed out that the video had no time code and asked the judge to check the properties of the file. 
Despite the protests of the prosecutor, who argued that the video had been obtained during an undercover criminal investigation which made the file properties a state secret, the defense said that the evidence should be examined in the courtroom and the disc was passed to the judge’s assistants. 
One assistant said that her computer failed to read the disc and passed it to the other who checked it and said that the file had “no properties.”
Because of Sokolov’s continuing failure to identify people by their appearance or voices on the video, the prosecutor asked for one of the two television sets to be carried into Sokolov’s room, but the courtroom staff failed to do so within the 30-minute break given by the judge for this purpose.
Eventually the judge closed the session, saying that he would “try to organize everything in the right way” by the next session due on Friday, June 15.

TITLE: Observatory Resists Plan To Move It to Far North
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly on Wednesday will discuss the fate of the Pulkovo Observatory, an internationally recognized institution that has recently found itself at risk of being moved to the Kola Peninsula as a group of deep-pocketed investors is lobbying to seize the choice plot of land occupied by the astronomers.
Founded in 1839 by the order of Tsar Nicholas I, the Pulkovo Observatory is the oldest in Russia and is internationally renowned as an astronomy center, alongside its counterparts in Greenwich, London and Paris. In the days before the Greenwich Meridian was adopted as the international standard, the Pulkovo Observatory marked out a strip of land that was considered zero longitude in Russia — the point from which all national geographic calculations were computed.
In Russia, the Pulkovo Observatory it is nicknamed the country’s astronomic capital. In 1945, a local law established a three-kilometer protected zone around the observatory and stipulated that no industrial or residential construction be allowed in the area. In 1990, the observatory received additional patronage from UNESCO, which included it on its World Heritage List. In 1997, the Russian government also included the observatory on its list of the most valuable sites of the country’s cultural heritage.
Wednesday’s discussion has been instigated by the parliament’s Yabloko Democratic Party faction, which is crying foul at the plans to move the observatory out of St. Petersburg to vacate space for lucrative upmarket summer cottages and transport infrastructure.
“The siege around the Pulkovo observatory is getting tighter as we speak,’ said Vyacheslav Notyag, a lawmaker with the Yabloko faction in the city parliament. 
“It will be a real shame if we lose Pulkovo Heights in 2012, especially after our fathers and grandfathers resisted the Nazi invasion during World War II. The only difference is that this time, the enemy with a voracious appetite for this land is driven by financial motives, rather than fascist ideology.”
“Incidentally, if the cottage complex gets built, it will partly cover the memorial burial site from World War II,” the parliamentarian added. “That would be nothing but sacrilege.”
The idea of moving the St. Petersburg observatory to the Kola Peninsula was first voiced in 2011 during a debate over updates to the city development plan. The Tatyana Slavina architectural bureau was commissioned by City Hall to conduct a professional survey of the area surrounding Pulkovo Airport. The experts, considering the potential of the airport’s fast-paced development, including the construction of a third terminal, suggested that the surrounding area would be best used to create additional transport infrastructure and host commercially profitable projects.
“Owing to urban development reasons, the observatory, which has to provide precise astronomic research and monitoring, should be relocated to a more favorable area, for example, in the mountainous area of the Kola Peninsula,” reads the completed survey. 
Notyag said that despite the construction ban and UNESCO protected status, the land occupied by the observatory has been divided by the authorities into plots that are already being offered to investors. 
“The city’s development plan involves potentially dividing the land between investors who would use the plots to build luxury cottages, business centers or commercial centers in the area,” he said. 
The parliamentarian wants to launch an investigation into how this scenario has become possible, despite the legal limitations that protect the area around the observatory. During Wednesday’s discussion, Yabloko will confront members of the city government, including Igor Metelsky, the deputy governor in charge of property and land issues, over this question.
Alexander Stepanov, director of the Pulkovo Observatory, said that the St. Petersburg station — the only large center operating in its longitude — has for decades focused on monitoring the southern sector of the sky, and the move would entail a change of focus, which the scientist regards as senseless.
Speaking at a recent roundtable at Rosbalt news agency, Stepanov said that the weather on the Kola Peninsula is unsuitable much of the time for a certain range of astronomic observations, which would limit its possibilities.
In addition, if the move to the Kola Peninsula goes ahead, the observatory there is likely to experience a shortage of professionals. The St. Petersburg scientists have said they will not leave the city, and would rather seek alternative employment at home. This would essentially mean a significant setback in the scientific research area.

TITLE: Boy Drowns at City Water Park
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg police are investigating the death of seven-year-old Grigory Kiriyenko, who drowned at St. Petersburg’s Waterville water park last Thursday.
The boy was visiting the water park on Ulitsa Korablestroitelei with his mother. Rosbalt news agency on Saturday cited the boy’s mother as saying he could not swim. 
The news agency reported that the mother was taking her son to the toilet when her flip-flop broke, and she went to the changing room to change her footwear, telling the boy to wait for her outside the toilets. When she returned, however, he was nowhere to be seen.
The mother reportedly searched for her son for 15-20 minutes before finding his flip-flops on the side of the pool in the area where they had been swimming. On appealing to the lifeguard for help, she was told that the body of a boy had just been pulled from the water, Rosbalt reported.
Other local news agencies reported that around 5 p.m. when the family was preparing to leave, the boy left the locker room where his mother was dressing his younger brother and went down one of the slides one more time.
According to witness reports, the boy climbed to the top of the slide and some speculated he must have then injured himself on his way down. 
Despite the presence of lifeguards, no one in the water park, which was reportedly busy that day, noticed that the boy was in trouble. Once the lifeguards realized the boy needed help and tried to resuscitate him, it was too late and he had already drowned.

TITLE: Gamer Stabs Mom to Death
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A local 17-year-old gamer killed his mother for disturbing him while he was playing a shooter game on his computer last Friday. After stabbing his mother four times with a large kitchen knife, the teenager went back to playing his game.
The boy, identified only as Maxim, did not stop playing even once police and an ambulance arrived, Fontanka reported.
When policemen asked him why he had killed his mother, the teenager replied that he did it because she “was bothering him.”
On June 8, the gamer’s mother, Olga Abramova, reportedly entered her son’s room and demanded he stop playing his game. The young man did not react, so she switched off the computer, made her son leave the room and suggested he do some chores around the house. She then locked herself in the room with the computer. 
A few minutes later, the teenager took a large knife from the kitchen, kicked open the door to the room and stabbed his mother four times in the chest. He then proceeded to switch the computer back on and continue playing his game. The boy’s sick grandmother witnessed the scene, but could not do anything because of her condition. 
Abramova then crawled to the kitchen, called a neighbor and dragged herself to the door to let her in. The neighbor then called another neighbor for help, as well as the police and an ambulance. Despite their efforts, the mother died as a result of her injuries, Fontanka reported.
The police who arrived at the scene reportedly had to use physical force to pull the boy away from his computer. He was arrested and is being charged of murder. 
The Abramov family did not reportedly have a history of social problems; the young man had a stepfather and worked part-time at McDonald’s. Maxim was, however, prosecuted for theft at 15 years old for stealing from a store. Later he skipped classes and was detained several times for petty theft, Fontanka reported.

TITLE: ‘March of Millions’ Takes Over Moscow
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of Russians flooded Moscow’s tree-lined boulevards Tuesday in the first massive protest against President Vladimir Putin’s rule since his inauguration in May — a rally that came even as police interrogated key opposition leaders.
Since embarking on his third presidential term, Putin has taken a stern stance toward the opposition, including signing a repressive new bill last week introducing heavy penalties for taking part in unauthorized rallies.
Police on Monday searched opposition leaders’ apartments, carting away computers, cell phones and other personal items. They also demanded that opposition leaders come in for questioning Tuesday just an hour before the rally began — widely seen as a crude attempt by the government to scare the protesters.
The march was being held on Russia Day, a national holiday that honors June 12, 1990, when Russian lawmakers decided that Russian laws should take priority over Soviet Union laws. The Soviet Union then collapsed in 1991.
Leftist politician Sergei Udaltsov snubbed the summons, saying he considered it his duty to lead the protest as one of its organizers. Russia’s Investigative Committee said it wouldn’t immediately seek his arrest but would interrogate him later.
Udaltsov said he and another opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, were handed summons by police right at the rally.
Anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navaly, liberal activist Ilya Yashin and TV host Ksenia Sobchak showed up for the interrogations that prevented them from attending the demonstration.
“It’s horrible to sit here while you are having fun,” Navalny tweeted from the Investigative Committee headquarters.
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said authorities had found more than 1 million euros ($1.25 million) and $480,000 in cash at Sobchak’s apartment and would initiate a check to see whether she had paid her taxes.
Sobchak insisted that she had done nothing wrong and was keeping her savings at home because she doesn’t trust banks. The authorities are likely to use the piles of cash to paint the opposition as a bunch of spoiled rich kids at odds with the majority of Russia’s population.
Sobchak, the only daughter of St. Petersburg’s late mayor, a man who was Putin’s mentor, had been spared reprisals until Monday’s raid. “I never thought that we would slide back to such repressions,” she tweeted.
Braving a brief thunderstorm, protesters showed up on the landmark Pushkin Square ahead of the planned march and their numbers grew as they began marching down boulevards to a broad downtown avenue where a rally was being held. Despite fears following a violent police crackdown on a previous protest last month, the demonstration went on peacefully.
Speaking at the rally, Udaltsov reaffirmed a call for early presidential and parliamentary elections. He put the number of protesters at 100,000, while police estimated that about 20,000 showed up.
“Those in power should feel this pressure. We will protest by any means, peacefully or not,” said Anton Maryasov, a 25-year-old postgraduate student. “If they ignore us, that would mean that bloodshed is inevitable.”
Another protester, 20-year-old statistics student Anatoly Ivanyukov, said attempts by authorities to disrupt the rally would only fuel more protest. “It’s like when you forbid children from doing something, it makes them even more eager to do it,” he said.
The police investigators’ action follows the quick passage last week of a new bill that raises fines 150-fold on those who take part in unauthorized protests — fines that are nearly the average annual salary in Russia.
“I can’t predict whether I’ll leave here freely or in handcuffs,” Yashin told reporters before entering the Investigative Committee headquarters for the interrogation. “The government is doing everything possible so that I don’t end up there [at the protest].”
The top Twitter hashtag in Russia on Monday was “Welcome to the Year ’37,” a reference to the height of the purges under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Tuesday’s protest had city approval, but any shift from the location and time could give police a pretext for a crackdown.
Udaltsov urged protesters to march across town after the rally to the Investigative Committee’s headquarters to demand the release of political prisoners — an action that would likely trigger a harsh police response.
Many in the crowd, however, seemed reluctant to risk defying the authorities. Alexei Moiseyev, a student, said he wouldn’t risk attending Tuesday’s rally if it was unsanctioned.
“I’m not ready to enter into conflict with the law, even if these laws are questionable,” he said.
Opposition leader Nemtsov, speaking after Udaltsov, urged the demonstrators to act within the law. “We must act in a responsible way, peacefully and calmly,” he said.
Sergei Parkhomenko, a leading journalist who helped organize Tuesday’s protest, said the authorities would like to see unrest to back their criticism of the opposition.
“They would be happy to stage some kind of provocation to prove that the people are just a herd of animals and the animals are always out of control,” he said.
A big opposition rally a day before Putin’s inauguration in May ended in fierce clashes between police and protesters, and some opposition activists said the violence was provoked by pro-Kremlin thugs. The raids of the opposition leaders’ homes and their questioning were connected to that May 6 protest.

TITLE: Culture Minister Thinks Lenin Should Be Buried
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky told radio listeners last Saturday that Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin should be laid to rest and his mausoleum turned into a museum.
“I have always though that his body should be returned to the earth. I would observe all the essential rituals,” the minister told Ekho Moskvy host Ksenia Larina on air.
“Since he was a senior public figure, if the decision were made, the burial should be accompanied by all the appropriate state rituals, distinctions and a military salute, in a worthy place.”
But leaving Lenin’s body in a state of “suspension” was “absurd,” he said.
As a museum, the mausoleum would be a popular tourist destination, and tickets could be expensive, he added.
Medinsky explained that a decision had not been taken on the matter earlier because the burial would have cost the authorities votes in the elections.
Popular support for burying the founding Soviet leader has been on the rise, though it still stands at just over half the population. A poll in mid-April by the Public Opinion Foundation, or FOM, found that 56 percent of Russians were in favor, versus 46 percent six years ago. In the April poll, 28 percent of respondents said Lenin should remain in his mausoleum on Red Square.
Lenin’s embalmed body, treated by highly-trained specialists to prevent decomposition, was interred in a mausoleum in the center of Red Square shortly after his death in 1924. Encased in glass and covered to the waist with a blanket, Lenin’s body is still on display for members of the public, who shuffle through a dark underground chamber in the mausoleum illuminated by dim red-tinged lights.

TITLE: Putin Raises Judges’ Salaries, Orders Hearings Aired Live
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin conducted a small reform of the nation’s judicial system late last week, raising judges’ salaries, easing requirements for appointing justices and ordering court hearings to be broadcast live.
Many federal judges will get a 6 percent raise on Oct. 1, the Kremlin announced last Friday. Their retirement packages are also set to rise.
Such salaries had not gone up since 2004, the president told law enforcement officials assembled for the grand opening of a new city court in St. Petersburg.
Remuneration for jurors and arbitration court assessors are also slated for an increase. The raises take into account inflation rates, Interfax reported.
Putin spoke in favor of publishing all court rulings in the near future and, eventually, streaming court proceedings on the Internet.
“Such transparency of court procedures will undoubtedly raise the responsibility of judges,” Putin said, Interfax reported.
Putin also signed into law amendments easing requirements for appointing the Supreme Court chief justice and his deputies, Kremlin.ru reported. One of the amendments eliminates the age limit for justices.
The president added that conditions for journalists working with the court system should be improved, with accreditation and court materials provided “quickly,” Interfax reported.
The new court building where the president spoke is designed in such a way as to eliminate communication between judges and visitors outside of the courtroom in order to reduce corruption risks, Rosbalt reported, citing city court chairwoman Valentina Yepifanova.
Friday’s meeting included Constitutional Court chairman Valery Zorkin, Supreme Court chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev, Supreme Arbitration Court chairman Anton Ivanov, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov and presidential aide Larisa Brychyova, Interfax reported.

TITLE: EU Envoys Travel to Ukraine To Study Tymoshenko Case
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV, Ukraine — Two high-profile EU representatives arrived in Kiev on Monday to observe the legal proceedings against jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Former European Parliament President Pat Cox and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski will be monitoring legal proceedings against Tymoshenko, who has been sentenced to seven years for abuse of office and also faces a number of other charges.
The West has condemned the prosecution of Tymoshenko, the country’s top opposition leader, as politically motivated and has called for her release. Senior EU officials are boycotting European Championship soccer matches hosted by Ukraine to protest the case. Tymoshenko says President Viktor Yanukovych, her longtime foe, threw her in jail to bar her from the parliamentary election in October.
Cox and Kwasniewski met Yanukovych and other top officials Monday. They also hope to visit Tymoshenko, who is being treated for a spinal condition in a hospital, and attend an appeal hearing in her case in late June.
Tymoshenko’s supporters hope the visit by the EU envoys will pressure Ukrainian leaders into finding a compromise in the case.
“The aim of this mission is very clear: It’s to restore justice,” Tymoshenko’s daughter Eugenia said Monday.
A group of Tymoshenko supporters attempted to hold a rally outside the Olympic stadium in Kiev on Monday evening as fans were gathering to watch the Sweden vs. Ukraine soccer match, but the protesters were blocked by riot police, her party said in a statement.

TITLE: Russia Appeals for Respect From Fans at Euro 2012
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WARSAW, Poland — Russia’s soccer federation warned its fans Sunday that hooliganism could cost the team vital points at Euro 2012 after UEFA opened disciplinary proceedings into reports of violence by supporters at the team’s first match.
Video emerged Saturday of Russia fans fighting with stadium security officers in Wroclaw and UEFA also says it is investigating reports by anti-racism experts of abuse directed at Czech players during Russia’s 4-1 victory.
In a statement posted on its website, the Football Union of Russia called on its large contingent of traveling fans to “Respect yourself, your home and your team.”
The statement praised the majority of its fans for their boisterous support of the team but said political statements “have no place in the stands” and told supporters to cooperate fully with match organizers.”
Friday’s incidents flared before Russia took on Poland in a highly charged Group A match in Warsaw on Tuesday. Results of the match were not known when this newspaper went to press.
The head of the Russian soccer union and the team’s coach placed a wreath Sunday in Warsaw to honor the Polish president and 95 others killed in a 2010 plane crash in Russia.
The symbolic gesture came amid ongoing tensions between Poland and Russia based on a difficult history of war and occupation as well as new distrust that has emerged in the aftermath of the crash.
Sergei Fursenko and Dick Advocaat placed a wreath of pale pink roses at a plaque at the presidential palace in the Polish capital.
Anti-racist experts appointed by UEFA to monitor matches reported Saturday that fans verbally abused Czech defender Theodor Gebre Selassie, who is black.
UEFA’s disciplinary panel will review the case against Russia — using “security reports and available images” — on Wednesday.
The alleged improper conduct relates to “crowd disturbances, the setting off and throwing of fireworks and the display of illicit banners,” UEFA said.
Russia warned its fans not to throw fireworks, after the Czech Republic match was briefly held up while a stadium security officer removed a firework from the pitch.
“We understand your strong feelings and emotions in supporting the team and appreciate that you are so strongly rooting for us in the European Championship, but if this happens again the team could expect serious sanctions from UEFA, including the halting of the match and a technical defeat,” the Russian soccer union said in a statement addressed to supporters.
It cited the example of Serbia, which missed a playoff spot in qualifying for Euro 2012 by a single point. Serbia’s qualifier against Italy in Genoa was called off when fans threw flares and fireworks onto the pitch with the score at 0-0 and then clashed with police outside the stadium. UEFA awarded Italy a 3-0 win.
In Friday’s incident, four stadium security officers were hospitalized and later discharged after being attacked by Russia fans, city police said.
Online footage showed fans punching the security staff in a stadium concourse area. One stadium security officer was punched to the ground and then kicked before the fans walked away.
Police and a witness who took video footage said the Russia fans became aggressive when stadium security officers tried to capture a man who had thrown firecrackers toward the field.
Monitors from the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) fans’ network reported to UEFA that Russia fans also displayed a nationalist “Russian Empire” flag.
The symbol was one “we take as evidence of far-right sensibilities,” FARE executive director Piara Powar told The Associated Press.
Russian authorities urged fans to “realize that the success of the team is more important than any political or personal ambitions.”
It also told them: “Don’t succumb to provocations and help maintain order in the stadium. Root for us and not against someone. Help Russia win the tournament.”
Friday’s incidents are not the only ones to involve fans at Euro 2012.
Polish police said they had arrested 14 supporters involved in a brawl that broke out overnight ahead of Sunday’s Group C match between Ireland and Croatia.
The fighting, which involved glass bottles and chairs being thrown, took place in the early hours of Sunday on the main square of Poznan.
Police detained 10 Poles, three Irish fans and one Croat, and were still trying to determine what role they had in the fight.

TITLE: Ukrainian Charged With Distributing Child Porn
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEWARK, New Jersey — A Ukrainian man federal prosecutors said may be the most significant distributor of child pornography ever prosecuted in the United States was charged Monday with operating a network of websites.
Maksim Shinkarenko, a 33-year-old from Kharkiv, founded and operated a Ukraine-based child pornography website that had customers around the world and has resulted in 560 convictions in the United States alone, prosecutors said.
A 32-count indictment against Shinkarenko says he traded in tens of thousands of hard-core pornographic images and videos that depicted children ranging from infants to toddlers and teenagers being graphically sexually assaulted or abused, in most cases by adults.
Operating a network of websites with names such as “Illegal.CP,” ‘’The Sick Child Room,” ‘’Hottest Childporn Garden,” and “Pedo Heaven,” Shinkarenko allegedly made hundreds of thousands of dollars “effectively selling tickets to the exploitation of children” from 2003 until 2008, said the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Paul Fishman.
“Maksim Shinkarenko profited from the unspeakable abuse of thousands of innocent children by selling access to their suffering through his website,” Fishman said. “Distributors and consumers of child pornography create a market for sexual assaults on children, where the victimization of those children is refreshed with every download.”
Shinkarenko is charged with child exploitation enterprise, advertising child pornography, transporting and shipping child pornography, money laundering and other counts.
Prosecutors say Shinkarenko and two co-conspirators from Ukraine and one from Russia advertised and operated numerous child porn websites and sold access to them to clients worldwide.
They allegedly concealed the transactions with innocuous business names such as “Ad Soft,” which concealed them from credit card companies.
The site warned users that it was “considered illegal in all countries.” It advised users that if they were ever questioned by police, they should say that someone had stolen their credit card information and used it.
Authorities extradited Shinkarenko over the weekend from Thailand, where he had been in custody since his 2009 arrest during a vacation to that country. Fishman said Shinkarenko had been fighting extradition, which delayed the process.
People have been convicted in other countries besides the U.S., federal authorities said. Canada is the only other country prosecutors would name.
Federal authorities say those convicted included teachers, clergy, doctors, coaches and others who came in regular contact with minors.
Despite the money prosecutors allege that Shinkarenko earned from his enterprise, U.S. District Judge Joseph Dickson determined Monday that he qualified for a public defender.
Although a Ukrainian interpreter was sworn in to assist him, Shinkarenko answered a judge’s questions in English and affirmed that he understood his rights and the charges against him. He could face up to life in prison if convicted on all counts.

TITLE: VTB Bank Defends European Embankment
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: VTB Bank, the main investor and company in charge of the European Embankment development project, held a press conference last week to defend its project, saying it would create a new attractive area in the city.
“It will be a lively, interesting and significant part of the city,” Sergei Choban, the project’s head architect said at a meeting of the project’s representatives with media last week.
The European Embankment project, located between the Birzhevoi and Tuchkov bridges on the Petrograd Side, will see the embankment turned into a pedestrian zone, with a complex including a dance theater, residential buildings, a retail and office center and a five-star hotel to be built.
VTB said it held the meeting in order to give the public more detailed information about the advantages of the project after St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko received a letter last month criticizing the project and suggesting a park be built on the property instead. 
The letter was from the now former head of the city’s Economic Development Committee, Yevgeny Yelin, who recently became deputy governor of the Leningrad Oblast. Yelin’s letter attracted some support from the public, but Poltavchenko continued to support the original project.
“Of course it’s an appealing idea to build a park on the embankment, but we keep in mind the fact that the park and garden situation in that part of the city is not so bad: The Alexandrovsky Garden, Krestovsky Island and other green zones are all close to the area,” Poltavchenko was quoted by RBC daily as saying.
Poltavchenko said there were no architectural masterpieces on the territory in question. On the contrary, there were “plain buildings that, to tell the truth, ruined the view, especially of the spit of Vasilyevsky Island,” he said.
Poltavchenko said the European Embankment project had the right to be realized not only because its investors have already invested a significant sum of money into the project, but “because the city needs the project, and needs the new theater.”
A day before the press conference, a group of activists from the Zhivoi Gorod (Living City) conservation organization held a demonstration in favor of constructing a park where the State Institute of Applied Chemistry (GIPKh) building once stood, Delovoi Peterburg daily reported.
Choban defended the project, saying “it would become an impressive public space featuring [Boris Eifman’s] Dance Palace instead of an industrial zone in the center of the city.” 
“It will provide new tourist views of the city, St. Isaac’s Cathedral and Vladimirsky Cathedral and become the first pedestrian embankment in the city,” he said.
Alexander Olkhovsky, vice president of VTB Bank, said it was important for city residents to know that 50 percent of European Embankment territory would consist of public space, including its dance theater, square, paths and the first floors of all of the residential buildings to be constructed on the territory.
Boris Eifman, head of the Boris Eifman Ballet Theater, which will have its own theater building once the project is complete, said the GIPKh building that was located in the area before was a terrible sight.
“The entire Periodic Table of Elements poured directly into the Neva River there,” said Eifman. “It was a chemical zone in the very center of St. Petersburg.” 
Eifman said the city needed a theater that would showcase all types of dance, ranging from classical to modern.
“I don’t want the theater to be a center for professional dance groups only, but for all groups of society as well,” Eifman said.
Olkhovsky said the recultivation of the zone’s severely contaminated land will cost 2.5 billion rubles ($77.6 million) and will take 18 months, to be completed by the end of 2013. To complete the process, the top six meters of soil on the plant’s former territory will need to be removed and replaced with concrete. Until that time, entrance to the site will require the use of protective clothing, Olkhovsky said.
VTB plans to invest 47 billion rubles ($1.5 billion) in the project. It is estimated to be completed by 2017. The Boris Eifman Dance Palace is to be finished by 2016.

TITLE: Country’s Confused Self-Image Yields Negative Effect on Tourism
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The heavy gates of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower were swung open more than 50 times to film a 30-second promotional clip for the Sochi Olympics.
Although Kremlin security was aghast at the endeavor, the effort was deemed essential to improving Russia’s image in the world, said Denis Yershov, regional projects director at Media Arts, which was responsible for the Olympic city’s marketing campaign.
The clip, called “Russia Open the Door,” was meant to show a country ready to open its doors to visitors, but it appears that foreigners and Russians alike are still mystified by what may be lurking inside. As Russia prepared to celebrate its national holiday Tuesday, the country’s brand remains a jumbled enigma and often a detriment to its tourism potential.
Historic sites, orthodox culture and enduring staples — vodka, caviar and matryoshka nesting dolls — are the most common associations foreigners hold about Russia, according to a study that the Federal Tourism Agency commissioned from the Higher School of Economics this year.
The agency wants to broaden these perceptions.
“Our country must have an image in the world. If it’s positive, if people in the world see the country as democratic, free, civilized, safe and interesting in terms of history, nature and hospitality, this will attract them here,” Grigory Sarishvili, the agency’s deputy head, told The St. Petersburg Times.
The federal government is trying to increase the number of foreign and domestic tourists by spending 96 billion rubles ($2.9 billion) on facilities, transportation and utilities infrastructure as part of the 2011-2018 Federal Target Program on tourism. Regional authorities will contribute another 25 billion rubles and private investors who win tenders for specific projects will chip in 211 billion rubles — and also receive some state subsidies to ease financing burdens.
Procurement and project tenders are likely to be published on the government’s purchasing website, though with the reshuffle following Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s Cabinet appointments last month, the participation process is not entirely clear.
But marketing experts say all these efforts will be a waste of money if the agency doesn’t create and communicate a solid “Russian brand” to actually attract visitors.
Authorities can’t make up their mind about whether Russia should be marketed as a bridge between Europe and Asia, a European cultural center or an innovation hub.
“Russia is...what?” Yershov asked, waving his hands in frustration.
Souvenir kiosks provide a plethora of ideas of “what” that national image could be; refrigerator magnets depicting old Russian churches lie side by side with Soviet pins and military hats.
The fact that tourists can’t decide which souvenir best represents the place they visited shows the weakness of the local brand, said Sergei Mitrofanov, general director of Brandflight Moscow, which rebranded Tbilisi and Batumi and is currently working on a post-New Year image for Veliky Ustyug, the officially approved home of Grandfather Frost.
It is not only the foreigners who are baffled by Russian symbolism. Natives themselves know little about their motherland, Mitrofanov said.
“We don’t know our own country,” he said. “We know that we have these cities, but we don’t know or we don’t understand how long it takes to fly from Moscow to Baikal, or where Chelyabinsk is.”
The Federal Tourism Agency is trying to help travelers navigate Russia and has turned its attention east, to China.
The agency is organizing over 100 activities as part of the 2012 Year of Russian Tourism in China, including a visit by Chinese celebrities and an auto rally that took off from Beijing last Tuesday and will reach Moscow’s Red Square on July 5.
“Red tourism” that highlights Soviet communist sites and landmarks, as well as places of significance to the Chinese Revolution, are particularly popular among Chinese tourists. This approach targets mostly the older crowd. Classical music shows and sporting events will be held to portray Russia to Chinese youth, Sarishvili said.
Over 840,000 Chinese tourists came to Russia in 2011, and the agency hopes to double this amount by the end of this year, with no expenses spared for organizing China-specific themed events to attract them. In comparison, over two million Russians visited China last year.
“We can’t be frugal with the Chinese,” Sarishvili said. “It’s not helpful to us and our Chinese colleagues wouldn’t let us do that.”
But the focus on China, which takes up more than 50 percent of the agency’s marketing resources, means that not much is left to market Russia in other countries, Sarishvili said. The agency has enough money left over to participate in a European road show, but there are no funds left to promote the country in North America.
The agency hopes to start promoting Russia on the North American market as early as next year, and eventually launching marketing efforts in Argentina and Brazil as well, Sarishvili said. Also, at the CIS Tourism Council meeting, which opened in Minsk late last week, Russian officials discussed creating a partnership to increase regional tourism, including collectively developing tourist itineraries through former Soviet republics.
In addition to “red tourism,” the federal agency plans to focus on promoting Russia’s historical landmarks. As a symbolic nod to this, the agency was moved under the authority of the Culture Ministry following the cabinet reshuffle last month. It was previously part of the ministry dealing with sports and youth issues.
This focus on historical landmarks risks making Russia look even more antiquated, Mitrofanov said. The people drawn mostly by this marketing campaign would be older tourists and not the youth Russia needs to create a modern image.
“We are digging deeper into the past and not looking forward,” Mitrofanov said. “Frequently, when I talk to members of municipal administrations that relay a lot of historical facts about their cities, I feel like asking the question, ‘Are you planning to make your city into a museum?’”
One of the biggest obstacles to creating a strong Russian brand is that regions tend to develop their own brands without any central coordination. An example of this is how many cities have “capital-mania,” Mitrofanov said.
“There is this obsession now, everyone wants to be the capital [of something]. I think that’s the stupidest decision a region can take is to declare it is the capital of something,” Mitrofanov said.
Among these self-crowned capitals, Yaroslavl recently declared itself the capital of the Golden Ring. Perm planned to be the capital of culture, but realizing that St. Petersburg beat it to the title, it has switched to calling itself the capital of modern culture.
Some regions are working to develop independent brands. St. Petersburg, Sochi and the Volga and Baikal regions show the most success with these efforts.
In prepping Sochi for its Olympic bid, Yershov said that his company always tied it to the promotion of Russia as a whole to show that the country is ready to host the big sporting event.
Failure to use the Olympic Games as an impulse to boost the national brand will be a tragedy, he said.
“I would call Sochi a very expensive method of drawing attention to the regions,” Yershov said. “Sochi and the World Cup, these very global events, are our chance.”
Sarishvili seems ready to shift at least some of the responsibility for promoting the Russian brand back to the sports authorities to which the Federal Tourism Agency was attached. The success of the brand depends on how successful Russian athletes are, Sarishvili said.
“I want our country to have the brand of a victor,” Sarishvili said. “Each of these victories goes into the country’s piggy bank, so if Russia has a lot of champions, tourism will flourish. We need to win.”

TITLE: Duma Reviews Bill To Ban Alcohol Ads
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The latest move in a legal crusade to crack down on Russians’ love of alcohol could see beer advertising banished from the Internet.
A new law on advertising that comes into force July 23 will ban all alcohol advertising on television and radio, on the front and back pages of newspapers and magazines, and from outdoor advertising.
A separate law that went to its second reading in the Duma last Friday would ban beer advertising on websites registered as “media.”
But some deputies are pushing to turn that into a blanket ban on advertising of alcohol products anywhere on the Internet.
Igor Rudinsky, a United Russia Duma deputy backing the bill, told Vedomosti that the amendment was targeted at advertising on social media sites, which are heavily used by young people but not registered as media.
Questions abound about whether the law will be enforceable, however.
Andrei Kashevarov, deputy head of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, told Vedomosti that monitoring the whole Internet would be “impossible” for the service in its current state.
“We couldn’t exert total control, just a sample,” he said.
A Duma deputy rejected complaints that the flurry of new laws aimed at cracking down on sales and advertising of alcohol and tobacco was draconian.
“Lots of the points in [the tobacco bill] under development were initiated by tobacco corporations, so when the media say this is draconian it is a myth,” Sergei Furgal, chairman of the Duma sub-committee on healthy lifestyles said at a conference on the Russian food industry.

TITLE: Anti-Corruption Campaign Gets Support, Not Popularity
AUTHOR: By Rachel Nielsen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Speaking after legal experts listed anti-corruption laws that companies must follow on Russian soil, Yelena Panfilova, general director of Transparency International Russia, had the opposite message: A list of globally accepted anti-corruption standards lacking in Russian law.
Though a legal and cultural framework has been evolving since the 2008 launch of then-President Dmitry Medvedev’s anti-corruption campaign, and even since the mid-2000s, building blocks are still missing in the country’s transparency framework, Panfilova and other anti-corruption analysts are saying.
In her presentation to corporate compliance officers at the Association of European Businesses last week, Panfilova said whistleblower protections and centralized law enforcement need to be added to the legal system, while the concept of conflict of interest has yet to take hold among businesspeople.
What’s more, many Russian companies setting up anti-corruption standards and compliance programs are doing so quietly because the domestic business community looks down on such measures, Panfilova said in a telephone interview.
A great deal of the domestic companies working to keep a clean house “don’t like to publicize their successes,” Panfilova said.
Yet, because some Russian corporations have operations in or tied to the United States, Britain or both, the anti-corruption acts in those countries are having far-reaching effects. With companies vulnerable to a “triple” set of laws — Russian anti-corruption laws, the U.K. Bribery Act and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — some see financial value in enforcing strict rules against extortions and kickbacks.
Across various business sectors, “there is the understanding that this investment, in the long run, pays [itself] back,” Panfilova said.

TITLE: Need for Vitamin Standards Stressed
AUTHOR: By Lena Smirnova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Manufacturers of vitamins and dietary supplements will be regulated in an effort to ensure quality in an industry where up to 50 percent of products are falsified, federal authorities said last week at an international conference on trends in the Russian food industry.
Mislabeling products and using poor ingredients are some of the common problems in the industry.
The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs is planning to create a working group that will include representatives from relevant government agencies to draft an industry standard for the production and circulation of health products.
“[Falsification] is really starting to compromise the industry and, as a consequence, stalls its development,” State Duma Deputy Alexander Prokopyev told The St. Petersburg Times.
In addition to his political duties, Prokopyev serves as development director of Evalar, Russia’s largest manufacturer of natural preparations, which his mother founded. He got into politics partly as a result of the frustration he felt while competing with unscrupulous entrepreneurs.
He has since led the movement for standardization and will participate in drafting the new rules.
The new document will include points from similar documents drafted by the International Alliance of Dietary and Food Supplement Associations and will also align with standards set by the World Trade Organization, according to the union’s press release.
In the future, it could also become the basis for regulations used by the Belarus-Kazakhstan-Russia customs union. 
Prokopyev said he does not want to blindly copy international documents. His proposal is to raise requirements gradually, such as annually increasing the number of inspections at manufacturing facilities.
Federal officials are advocating high fines for producers who falsify products, but they rejected the option of criminally charging offenders.
“Based on our data, irregularities between the product and its label are, depending on different criteria, 1 to 50 percent,” said Alexander Zazhigalkin, deputy head of the Federal Agency on Technical Regulation and Metrology. “We can arrest everyone, but how will we live then?”
Currently, there is no single regulating document for the vitamins industry, much less a concrete definition of what products it includes, said Anatoly Kutishenko, deputy head of the union’s health committee.
An entrepreneur has to flip through 50 documents, 10 letters and recommendations from the Federal Consumer Protection Service to get to some information on the industry, and even then it is frequently implicit.
Another obstacle is the declining quality of standard inspectors and initiative from businesses, Zazhigalkin said.
The Russian market for vitamins and dietary supplements grew by 13 percent in 2011 to reach 42 billion rubles ($1.2 billion), according to a study by Euromonitor International.
Experts predict that the market will continue to grow by 5 percent on average for the next five years and will total 54.7 billion rubles in 2016.

TITLE: Poor Job Prospects Deter Ecological Engineers
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Graduates of Russia’s environmental science faculties are struggling to find employment in their sphere despite a global trend toward demand for their expertise, a survey has found.
In a survey of dozens of jobseekers in the environmental sector, only 15 percent of qualified graduates were working in the profession, a survey by Superjob.ru found.
The remainder, daunted by low starting salaries and poor career prospects, wind up in white-collar sectors like sales and advertising.
Environmental engineers are responsible for ensuring that businesses comply with relevant legislation and minimizing the ecological impact of commercial activities — a role requiring knowledge of specialist software, environmental law and guidelines for businesses.
Superjob.ru predicted a steady increase in demand for such professionals in the medium term, citing a KPMG report published in February that said the hidden costs to businesses from environmental damage were likely to double over a 14-year period, based on trends over the last decade.
But after surveying jobseekers in the sectors that KPMG expects to be hit hardest by the changes, including oil and gas, metals, food and drink and automobile manufacturing, Superjob’s researchers found that current pay is so low that new graduates are essentially performing a labor of love, the report writers said.
Entry-level salaries start from 20,000 to 25,000 rubles per month ($600 to $757) in Moscow, and fall to 9,000 to 12,000 rubles in regional capitals like Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod.
Of those who stay in the trade, poor working conditions and high demand mean many are constantly on the lookout for a new employer. About 69 percent of ecologists looking for jobs in the auto, oil and gas and metals industries that participated in the survey were already employed in the sector, the report writers said.
“That means environmental engineers are in demand — they are not left unemployed — but the conditions on offer are not very attractive, and there are relatively few entry-level jobseekers,” said the report writers.
In polluting industries, which face stringent regulation and have the money to pay for expertise, the profession can pay relatively handsomely. An environmental engineer can command an average wage of 41,000 rubles per month in the oil and gas sector, and almost as much in the automotive, power generation and beverage industries. Top performers in large companies can earn up to 100,000 rubles per month, Superjob.ru said.
Sergei Sitnikov, a lawyer at Baker and McKenzie who specializes in environmental consulting, said no client had ever asked for advice on hiring specialized staff to ensure ecological compliance.
“I’d say the environment for such jobs is not that friendly, although there are some separate signs of potential room for growth,” he said.
A draft law on environmental auditing currently under consideration in the Duma could boost that demand, he said, but it is unclear when it will be adopted.

TITLE: Hello, 1937
AUTHOR: By Victor Davidoff
TEXT: All week, one of the most popular images in the Russian blogosphere has been a photograph of an old coin issued in 1937, the year that marked the peak of the Stalinist purges. The caption reads: “In circulation once again.” The joke was carried further when the darkly humorous Twitter hashtag #privet37god (hello, 1937) topped the trending charts.
There is a basis for this black humor. Moscow hasn’t seen such a flurry of activity of the political police since the collapse of the Soviet Union. On Saturday, six people were detained, suspected of involvement in the violence on May 6, bringing the total arrested in this case to 12. On the same day, eight people were detained in front of the Moscow police headquarters on Ulitsa Petrovka for protesting the earlier arrests.
Monday was a banner day for the political police in Center E, the Center for the Prevention of Extremism. Early in the morning, they began to search the homes of opposition activists. “Cool,” Alexei Navalny managed to joke on Twitter. “My home is being searched. They almost sawed through the door. Actually, they did.”
That was his last tweet before the police took his phone away. The police searched seven apartments, including those belonging to opposition leaders Sergei Udaltsov and Ilya Yashin. The apartments of Maria Baronova, an aide to State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomaryov from the Just Russia party, and Alexei Sakhnin, a leader in the Left Front opposition movement, were also searched. The police climbed through balcony windows to get into Sakhnin’s apartment.
All the searches were carried out like in a Hollywood movie. The building entrances were guarded by police with automatic weapons at the ready. No one was permitted to enter the apartments, including lawyers. Photographs taken in Navalny’s apartment after the 13-hour search show that authorities left his home in total chaos, with books and children’s toys strewn all over the floor.
The search of socialite and opposition activist Ksenia Sobchak’s apartment was characterized on the Russian blogosphere as “Putin blowing a kiss to her.” At one time, President Vladimir Putin was a close friend of her father, the late Anatoly Sobchak, former mayor of St. Petersburg. Putin is her godfather. The police scored the biggest haul in her apartment: more than 1 million euros in cash stuffed in envelopes, which they confiscated. At the apartment of Sergei Udaltsov, who lives a much more modest lifestyle, they didn’t take money, but they did take “a large amount of literature with anti-governmental slogans,” according to a statement issued by the Investigative Committee, as well as “a list of people supporting his views.” These formulaic statements are very familiar to anyone who lived in the Soviet Union. They read verbatim like KGB protocols.
Just Russia Duma deputies Ponomaryov and the father-son duo Gennady and Dmitry Gudkov harshly criticized the police actions. “We believe that this might provoke an irreversible rise in tension in society and close the door on the evolution of the Russian political system,” Dmitry Gudkov wrote on his LiveJournal blog.
The deputies do not believe that the searches had anything to do with the events of May 6. The goal was clearly to isolate the organizers of Tuesday’s rally and scare off potential demonstrators. But both opposition supporters and opponents are, oddly enough, in agreement that these actions are counterproductive.
Even loyal Putin supporter and United Russia Deputy Alexander Khinshtein tweeted: “I don’t support methods like searches and other similar scare tactics. The authorities are turning these people into martyrs.”
For what is surely the first time in his political career, opposition leader Vladimir Ryzhkov agreed with Khinshtein. “Searching the apartments of opposition activists will lead to more people on the street and will radicalize them,” he told Ekho Moskvy radio.
The movement against the Putin regime is certainly becoming radicalized at a fast pace. Six months ago, the opposition called only for honest elections. Now the list of demands has grown exponentially. At the top of the list is a call for the immediate resignation of Putin. There are already a dozen groups on social networks that have the ultimate goal of overthrowing the authorities and revolution. Soviet dissident Nikolai Ivlyushkin wrote on Facebook: “Maybe the revolution has already begun. Regime change is the endpoint of revolution. No one ever notices how it begins. Egyptian newspapers didn’t run headlines ‘The Revolution Has Begun!’ the day after a group of people gathered on Tahrir Square.”
But the Kremlin doesn’t share this view. The leaders seem to view the opposition as something between a natural disaster and a terrorist attack. In any case, Putin seems to be guided by the same principle he used with the terrorists during the Dubrovka theater and Beslan school hostage crises: Never negotiate with the enemy.
There will never be a new “liberal” version of Putin. He isn’t going to follow former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s path of liberal reforms. He seems more likely to follow the path that combines the worst elements of Leonid Brezhnev and Yury Andropov. And everyone knows where that leads.

<i>Victor Davidoff is a Moscow-based writer and journalist whose blog is chaadaev56.livejournal.com</i>

TITLE: inside russia: President Putin, You Are No Stalin
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is devoted to freedom of religion, speech and assembly. In particular, it states, “Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Freedom of assembly is an inalienable human right and political freedom. It is also codified in Article 20 of the Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and in dozens of countries’ constitutions.
But freedom of assembly no longer exists in Russia. State Duma deputies from United Russia passed a law last week that contradicts not only the country’s Constitution but also violates international agreements that Russia has signed.
I have no doubt that United Russia passed the law on the personal orders of President Vladimir Putin, who is turning this country into a police state. Putin is seeking revenge for, among other things, the way demonstrators spoiled his May 7 inauguration by staging mass protests in Moscow the day before he took the oath of office.
Unsuccessful attempts at revolution are always followed by even harsher measures from the authorities. That is what we see happening now in Russia. No doubt a number of Putin’s henchmen are already planning to eliminate elements that Putin finds most frightening and threatening to his monopoly rule: Independent media outlets, protest rallies, the Internet and individuals who finance the opposition.
The Putin regime is serious about its war against the people. One sign of this: The number of OMON riot police has more than doubled since 2003, exceeding 25,000 men.
Of course, the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement will never be subject to Putin’s new law, even if one of its rallies turns violent again. Nor will Eduard Bagirov, a Putin loyalist and author, pay a price for having written about Russians: “You are all swine, dumb, dirty swine. … You bastards, I will beat the stuffing out of you and burn you to ashes.” But if gossip columnist Bozhena Rynska were to write that she’d like to rip out the eyes of the riot policeman who broke her arm, she would risk even greater injury at the hands of pro-government thugs. Putin’s friends can insult Russians openly, but nobody else can so much as clear their throat if it somehow tarnishes the image of the national leader.
Although Putin is taking revenge against protesters, whom he once called “Bandar-log monkeys,” his punishments are not very formidable. Those daring to participate in unsanctioned protest rallies or commit an “illegal act” at a sanctioned protest now face fines of 300,000 rubles ($9,000) for individuals and 1 million rubles for organizers. Such measures might be extreme and unheard of in free societies, but they come off as rather comic for an authoritarian regime. Can you imagine Josef Stalin dealing with his enemies by levying fines on them instead of purging them or sending them to the gulag?
That is exactly the main problem for Putin and his ruling elite. As much as they would like to, they simply can’t treat their enemies like Stalin did or like Syrian President Bashar Assad is doing now. Unlike Stalin and Assad, Putin’s clan holds a significant portion of their assets in the West. Putin would love to thumb his nose at the West and clamp down on the protesters once and for all, but he simply can’t afford to do so.

<i>Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.</i>

TITLE: Finnish festivals
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Finland’s summer music schedule boasts a wealth of festivals with big international and domestic names to offer, something Russia is lacking. A number of Petersburgers lucky enough to live near the border have already made it a habit to take the trip and visit some of them, with more travelers joining the trend every year.
Some of the festivals, held all across  Finland, date back to as early as 1970, like Ruisrock in Turku, while others are newer, like the brand new Kuudes Aisti Festival, which will be launched in Helsinki next month.
But one event with both a great reputation and history is located quite far from St. Petersburg. It opens this week, launching the Finnish festival season. 
Aptly called Provinssirock, the festival is based in Sein&#228;joki, Southern Ostrobothnia, Western Finland. The city is 508 kilometers from St. Petersburg and 360 kilometers from Helsinki.


<b>Provinssirock</b>
<i>Sein&#228;joki, June 15-17
www.provinssirock.fi</i>

One of the biggest international rock festivals in Finland, the three-day Provinssirock has been held every June since 1979 and draws tens of thousands to enjoy all kinds of music from electronic and death metal to alternative rock, folk music and hip-hop on the event’s four stages — each roughly devoted to one particular style of music.
Held in the park on T&#246;rn&#228;v&#228; Island on the Sein&#228;joki River, this year’s Provinssirock will feature bands from all around Finland as well as from the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Denmark and Estonia.
The lineup this year includes the American bands Slayer, Mastodon, Rise Against and OFF!, the French bands Justice Live and M83 and the British bands Example and Snow Patrol.
The Finnish music scene is represented by acts such as internationally popular symphonic metal band Nightwish, the alt-rockers Poets of the Fall,  and Michael Monroe of the Hanoi Rocks fame, as well as humppa folk punk rockers El&#228;kel&#228;iset.
From Estonia come the Baltic country’s leading indie-rock band Ewert and the Two Dragons and singer-songwriter Iiris, who released her debut album “The Magic Gift Box” on EMI Finland earlier this year.
Provinssirock can be reached by plane or train from Helsinki. Traditionally an extra train to the event is put on from the Finnish capital.
Last year, the festival drew 84,000 fans.


<b>Ruisrock</b> 
<i>Turku, July 6-8
www.ruisrock.fi</i>

Ruisrock is held in Turku, Finland’s oldest city and former capital, located on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It set its record of attendance in 1971, a year after the first festival took place, when 100,000 came to hear the diverse music it offered. Since that time the festival has moved from its original site (now occupied by Turku City Camping) to Ruissalo National Park.
This year’s event will feature Pulp, the Britpop legend that finally came back from its nine-year “sabbatical” last year, American rapper Snoop Dogg, The Cardigans, Bloc Party, The Mars Volta, Suicidal Tendencies and Explosions in the Sky, among many others. 
Finnish rock music will be represented by the likes of Nightwish and Michael Monroe.


<b>Pori Jazz</b>
<i>Pori, July 14-22
www.porijazz.fi</i>

American singer-songwriter Norah Jones will feature at this year’s Pori Jazz, the international festival held annually in the coastal city of Pori.
Founded in 1966, it is one of the oldest and best-known jazz festivals in Europe, offering a broad spectrum of music from jazz, blues, soul, funk, hip hop, Afro-Cuban and world music to pop.
The festival’s main venue is Kirjurinluoto Arena (also known as Pori Delta Arena), a concert park designed specially for open-air events. 
Emeli Sande, Janelle Monae, D’Angelo, Paloma Faith, Estelle, Sam Sparro, Hidden Orchestra, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Monty Alexander, Sly & Robbie, and Jools Holland with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra will perform during the nine days of the festival which will see more than 100 concerts at 11 different venues. A special Pori Jazz Kids Festival will also be organized for children.


<b>Kuudes Aisti</b>
<i>Helsinki, July 27-29
www.kuudesaisti.org</i>
A new festival, which features both some of the most respected international underground heroes and newcomers in genres from techno to punk and from rap to metal and dubstep to indie, will make its debut in the Kallio neighborhood of Helsinki. 
The district is the former home of a match factory, the biggest bakery in Finland and a plant that made metal bed frames, as well as workers’ accommodation. The area is now occupied by students, artists and musicians and reputed as “bohemian” as it houses three clubs and an art school. 
Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth will play a special set with No Wave legend Ikue Mori, while The Avengers, a band that opened for the Sex Pistols on their fateful U.S. tour, will bring some seminal American punk.
The best of today’s American music is represented by modern psychedelic rocker Ty Segall and low-fi indie singer/songwriter Kurt Vile. From Atlanta, Georgia comes the garage-punk band Black Lips, while indie rockers Veronica Falls come from London, England. Finnish underground is well-represented by the Helsinki-based psychedelic metal band Tombstoned and the melodic punk rockers P&#228;&#228; Kii, the folk rock band Eetu Floor, a new crop of singers-songwriters such Tiiu Helin&#228; and Sarah Kivi, as well as the new indie bands, such as Big Wave Riders, Black Twig, Splits and Death Laser. Established Finnish acts and legends to perform at Kuudes Aisti, which is the Finnish for the “Sixth Sense,” include Rubik, Circle, PK Ker&#228;nen of 22 Pistepirkko and Pekka Airaksinen.


<b>Ilosaarirock</b> 
<i>Joensuu, July 13-15
www.ilosaarirock.fi</i>

Ilosaarirock Festival is in its 42nd consecutive year of running since it was held on Ilosaari Island (literally, “Fun Island”) on the Pielisjoki River in 1971.
Informally known as “Rokki,” the first event was called Rock Rieha (Rock Rave). There are a total of five stages at the festival, in addition to the club events held on Friday at the festival site.
“Ilosaarirock was originally created to be a great party for the public, not as a profit-making scheme for the organizers,” according to its website.
This year’s event will feature the U.S. “baroque-pop” band Antony and the Johnsons, which will perform with Joensuu City Orchestra, Swedish rockers The Hives, the new generation London indie pop band The xx, the American blues rockers Rival Sons from Los Angeles and the hip-hop duo Black Star from Brooklyn, New York City. Denmark’s seminal glam rock band D-A-D (previously known as “Disneyland After Dark”) will also perform.
Finnish bands include indie rockers Lapko and psychedelic black metallers Oranssi Pazuzu.


<b>Flow Festival</b> 
<i>Helsinki, August 8-12
www.flowfestival.com</i>

Flow Festival, a music and arts festival in Helsinki, has taken place in the historic Suvilahti former power plant area in Helsinki since 2007. Headlined by Bj&#246;rk this year, it boasts an impressive selection of both new and established artists in diverse genres ranging from indie rock and folk to soul, jazz and contemporary club music. Feist, The Black Keys, St. Vincent, The War on Drugs and Jason Moran and the Bandwagon will perform along with dozens of others.

TITLE: Century of smiles
AUTHOR: By Ciara Bartlam
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In the 1860s, a Scottish-Russian photographer, William Carrick, became one of the first artists to go out onto the streets of Russia and capture images of everyday life. One hundred and fifty years later and in the same gallery where Carrick’s work was exhibited at the start of last year, Danish photographer Keen Heick-Abildhauge presents his take on Russian people through the same medium.
Aiming to dispel the stereotype of Russian people as “sullen and unfriendly,” Heick-Abildhauge, who is based in St. Petersburg, took to the streets and captured the faces, smiles and dreams of Russians born in 50 different cities, aged 1-100, to create an exhibit titled “One Hundred Years. The Russian Portrait.” Almost exactly a year ago, Rosphoto hosted “Terry O’Neill and His Shining Stars,” showcasing the dizzying heights of celebdom. Now, hanging in the same exhibition hall, are a host of newborn celebrities: The real faces of the Russian people, radiant and untouched.
In an interview with The St. Petersburg Times, Heick-Abildhauge explained where the inspiration for the project came from.
“I had some friends who asked ‘Why Russia?’ and they came up with all the stereotypical things, and I thought, ‘How can I show it?’ I’m terrible at writing, I’m terrible at speaking, but I like to take pictures, so I thought this could be my way of telling what I see when I go out on the street.”
Walking through the halls of the exhibit, visitors get a glimpse of the Russian nation. The image is one of hope and diversity and it’s captured not just by the images themselves but also by the captions that accompany them. Heick-Abildhauge outlined the process as a very simple one: A snapshot and three questions: Where were you born? What do you do? What do you dream of? 
According to Heick-Abildhauge, the last one was a difficult question for some. 
“Especially the older people. They thought a lot about what they were saying and one of the ladies — she was very beautiful — she started crying afterward because, first of all, I had taken her picture and she’d just got married, and was so proud. I wished the best for her and her new husband, and she’s 80 plus, which is so cool. But it’s not a normal question to ask, and it’s a big question, so sometimes it was a moment of ‘Wow!’”
The project aims to present Russians not as the cold, indifferent people that stereotype holds them to be, but as warm, friendly and hopeful. 
“Simply, I want people to leave the exhibit with a smile,” said Heick-Abildhauge. 
“That’s extremely important for me because there is barely one picture in which people are not smiling, even though I didn’t really do anything [to make them smile].”
The photographer found people by word-of-mouth, social networking sites and advertising in St Petersburg In Your Pocket magazine. 
“I was very impolite for at least a year because every time I met anyone I said, ‘So are you Russian?’ and, if so, ‘How old are you?’ and this was with girls, women, men, boys, everybody. My wife said, ‘You can’t ask that as the first question!’ but I needed to know how old they were... Suddenly the news spread and people would call me up and say, ‘Are you still looking for this person?’” 
Out of 240 pictures taken, only 100 could be used in the exhibit. The process of selecting the final photos was agonising, according to Heick-Abildhauge. 
“Every time we had guests I would ask, ‘I have a question: Which do you like best, this one or this one?’ I sat up many, many nights looking at all of these pictures… [The other 140] are in the back of the book [that accompanies the exhibit] and I haven’t decided what to do yet because I actually want to tell their story.”
Heick-Abildhauge has already published one book of photographs titled “Street Walk,” and is currently working on another project under the working title of “The Big Russian Book,” which he said may later be called “Spasibo” (Thank You) on account of the gratitude he feels for being able to live in Russia, and especially for the project. 
“I was so honored, but [the participants] said, ‘No, we’re honored.’ But I was like, ‘No, I’m honored,’ so we were just discussing who was more honored!” he laughed.
Anastasia Mironova, number 26 in the exhibition, met Heick-Abildhauge at a party, where he took her photograph. “[The project] shows that life can be so long, and it doesn’t stop at any age,” she said. “It’s an amazing thing to be part of.”
When asked what he has gained from the project, Heick-Abildhauge replied, “I’m not afraid of getting old anymore. I’m always afraid of dying, but when you talk to these people and they talk about getting married and living until they’re 100, you ask them why they’re not scared and they say, ‘When the end is there, it’s there — you’ve got to live your life.’”

<i>“One Hundred Years. The Russian Portrait” is on show through June 30 at Rosphoto, 35 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa. Tel. 314 1214. www.rosphoto.org</i>

TITLE: Dom Kino celebrates Peter Greenaway
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Maverick British film director Peter Greenaway will be honored with a retrospective to be held at the city’s Dom Kino movie theater from June 15-18. The survey will present a number of Greenaway’s feature-length films alongside early, lesser-known short films. The director will also take part in a benefit auction on June 18, where his paintings will be sold to aid a local charity.
Greenaway began his studies as a painter before turning to film. His first efforts were “mocumentary” in style — fictional films engaging the trappings of the documentary — and played with ideas of authenticity and authority, winning him a loyal following in art house cinemas around the world.
During the course of a career spanning more than 40 years, Greenaway has released a succession of highly stylized films that blend mystery, dark comedy and a recurring cast of characters to tell stories that address the age-old human concerns of love, sex and death — often in disconcerting proximity. Elegantly mannered, endlessly thought provoking, and frequently scored by long-time collaborator Michael Nyman, the films are sophisticated feasts of intellectual and visual pleasure.
The filmmaker will attend the opening of the retrospective at Dom Kino on June 15 and will present a screening of “Prospero’s Books,” his multilayered take on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” From 1991, the groundbreaking film stars John Gielgud as Prospero and features an intoxicating blend of opera, dance and digital animation.
“Seeing his movies on the big screen and hearing him speak live are extremely important for anyone interested in the history of cinema,” said Dmitry Panov, one of the festival organizers, talking to The St. Petersburg Times.
During the next three evenings, Dom Kino will screen “The Baby of Macon,” “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover,” “Nightwatching,” “The Draughtsman’s Contract,” “The Pillow Book,” “Drowning by Numbers” and a program of shorts.
The director is probably most familiar to audiences for “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover” (June 16). The film scandalized contemporary cinemagoers on its release with a brutal amalgamation of murder, adultery, cannibalism and gourmet dining — its painterly compositions and haunting score the perfect foil for the malevolence of its characters. 
Greenaway’s visit to St. Petersburg will culminate in a charity auction of his work at the Kempinski Moika 22 hotel to benefit the Pantelemonovsky Medical Foundation. For the event, Greenaway’s paintings will be hung alongside the work of notable painters and sculptors from St. Petersburg, which will also go up on the block. 
“Greenaway wants to show his paintings, and also to see first-hand the work that charities are doing here in St. Petersburg,” said Panov. 
The proceeds from the auction will be used to support the efforts of the foundation, which helps children from Russia’s northwest receive vital health care.

<i>For an interview with Peter Greenaway, see the next issue of The St. Petersburg Times, out on Thursday, June 21.
The Peter Greenaway Retrospective runs from June 15-18 at Dom Kino, 12 Karavannaya Ulitsa. Tel. 314 5614. www.domkino.spb.ru</i> 

TITLE: the word’s worth: An appetizing menu of bad translations
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ñàëàò: salad, lettuce

Not long ago a friend of mine asked why I’d never written a column on Russian menus — or rather their idiosyncratic (read: hilarious, impenetrable, bizarre) translation into English. I told him it was like shooting fish in a barrel. What’s there to say except “Don’t give your menu to a machine or your wife’s sister’s best friend’s daughter to translate”?
But then he sent me such a spectacularly mistranslated menu that I reconsidered the topic.
Besides, I just had to share.
On this menu, your first choice is: Cold Collations. Say what? Chilled collated papers? Actually, it’s õîëîäíûå çàêóñêè — what we call cold appetizers or starters. If you were a very devout Christian or spent your weekends time-traveling to a monastery circa 1459, you might recognize the word collation to mean a light meal on a fast day.
Then you may choose from a subcategory of collations: branded cool snacks, which sound like amazing tidbits seared with a cow brand. They are really ôèðìåííûå õîëîäíûå çàêóñêè. Ôèðìåííûé is a troublesome word to translate. In restaurants, it’s what we call house or chef’s specialty. So these cold appetizers are the specialties of the house.
Russian grammar causes no end of problems when mechanically transposed into English. Çàêóñêè ïîä âîäî÷êó is not snack under vodka. They are appetizers for vodka drinkers. And you shouldn’t translate îñåòðèíà ãîðÿ÷åãî êîï÷åíèÿ as sturgeon of hot smoking. That should be hot-smoked sturgeon.
On this menu, you will find all kinds of interesting food: paprika, greens assorts, a cheese table, ruletiki from language, calad rukkola, gentile chicken, tried tomatoes, bahed apples, and “song” sauce. They are really serving ïåðåö (pepper), çåëåíü àññîðòè (mixed greens), ñûðíàÿ òàðåëêà (cheese plate), ðóëåòèêè èç ÿçûêà (rolls of tongue), ñàëàò ðóêêîëà (rugula/rocket/arugula), íåæíàÿ êóðèöà (tender chicken), æàðåíûå ïîìèäîðû (fried tomatoes), ïå÷¸íûå ÿáëîêè (baked apples), and ñîóñ Ïåñòî (pesto sauce). Calad, er, ñàëàò might be a salad, or might just mean arugula leaves.
For this menu, if the translator or machine couldn’t find an exact match, it went with the closest word. It also didn’t know what do with the word ïîäà¸òñÿ (served with), so it gave us  àññîðòè (assortment) of options. As a result, we might order such delectable dishes as punishment lamb moved with baked by potatoes. That is, êàðå ÿãí¸íêà, ïîäà¸òñÿ ñ çàïå÷¸ííûì êàðòîôåëåì (rack of lamb served with baked potatoes). I don’t think the little lamb suffered êàðà (punishment).
You might prefer roast beef, moved with stalemate from broccoli, which is really ðîñòáèô, ïîäà¸òñÿ ñ ïàòå èç áðîêêîëè (roast beef served with broccoli pate). Here the culprit, of course, is ïàò (chess stalemate).
Or perhaps you’d enjoy fillet a fish dorado (submits with baked by an eggplant). You’d actually be eating ôèëå ðûáû Äîðàäî, ïîäà¸òñÿ ñ ïå÷¸íûì áàêëàæàíîì (Dorado fillet garnished with baked eggplant). Or you may wish to try the acrobatic fillet fried move with air by an omelette. They forgot to tell you what kind of fish is going to levitate on your plate. It is ôèëå ïàëòóñà æàðåíîå, ïîäà¸òñÿ ñ âîçäóøíûì áåëêîâûì îìëåòîì (sauteed fillet of halibut served with a light, airy egg-white omelet).
The sad thing about this is that the Russian menu sounds pretty interesting, but English-speakers are going to stick to borshch and pelmeni.
Restaurant owners and chefs, hear my plea: Don’t give your menu to a machine or your wife’s sister’s best friend’s daughter to translate.

<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: Sensual sculpture: Rodin
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The art of Auguste Rodin, arguably the most sensual sculptor of all times, whose works emphasize the connection between the physicality and the spirituality of mankind, will take center stage at a vast display that opens at the Peter and Paul Fortress on June 15. 
Titled  “Rodin. From St. Petersburg to Moscow,” the ambitious project, which brings bronze casts of some of the sculptor’s finest works such as “The Kiss,” “The Burghers of Calais” and “The Age of Bronze” to the banks of the Neva River, was conceived by the French art dealer and art historian Patrick Carpentier, founder of the Carpentier Art Gallery.
The French sculptor and artist Fran&#231;ois Auguste Ren&#233; Rodin was born on November 12, 1840 in Paris. He is often regarded as the founder of the Impressionist style in the art of sculpture. Rodin’s big break came in 1876 with “The Age of Bronze,” also known as “The Vanquished.” The piece took a year and a half to complete. Rodin’s model was a young soldier whom the sculptor described as “a fine noble-hearted boy, full of fire and valor.” The sculptor made a point of not using a professional model, as he sought to avoid exaggeration and artificial expression and strived to achieve natural harmony.
The exhibit, which showcases 42 sculptures and a series of drawings, will stay in town until the middle of August before traveling to Moscow, which is not likely to be the show’s final destination. Art galleries in Kazakhstan have recently expressed an interest in hosting the exhibit, and negotiations are currently in progress.
Several works by Rodin will be displayed in the courtyard of the fortress, while most of the collection will be housed indoors, in the Atrium.
All the sculptures are second bronze casts, and are certified as original Rodin works. Carpentier collected the gypsum sculpture molds that Rodin produced, and then used them to make the second casts, with which he is now traveling the world. The project has been shown extensively across France and other European countries, and recently went to China. The authenticity of each sculpture in the Carpentier collection has been certified by the Rodin Examination Committee in France. Under French law, a number of copies are allowed to be made of an original work of art, and their authenticity must be validated by a panel of experts authorized to issue authenticity certificates.
According to Carpentier, choosing a location for the St. Petersburg exhibit was a tough task. The grand-scale “Burghers of Calais” alone weighs about three tons, and requires an appropriate setting.
On display will also be a series of Rodin’s drawings, known as the “Fenaille Album” or the “Goupil Album.” The book is a collection of Rodin’s drawings originally published in a limited print run of just 125 copies in 1897 with a preface by Octave Mirbeau. The Fenaille name of the album refers to the collector Maurice Fenaille, who initially commissioned a group of photoengravers from the Maison Goupil to print this anthology, bringing together 142 of Rodin’s color wash drawings. The majority of the drawings were inspired by Dante’s Inferno, and they are generally known as the “black drawings.”
The Dante connection is essential to understanding Rodin’s art. The iconic sculpture “The Kiss” — which looks set to become the focal point of the exhibit — was influenced and inspired by the poet’s seminal work, “Divine Comedy.” The sculpture “The Kiss” depicts the tragic love story of Paolo and Francesca, described in Canto V of the Inferno, in which Dante and Virgil meet the illicitly enamored couple in the Second Circle of Hell, where carnal sinners, or those who subordinate reason to desire, are punished.
The story of Paolo and Francesca has a historical background, and it is believed that Dante, as a young man, was deeply moved by the story of the couple. As the historical account has it, in 1275, Francesca, daughter of Guida Vecchio da Polenta of Ravenna, was married to Giovanni Malatesta, son and heir of the Lord of Rimini. This was a marriage of convenience that was arranged for political reasons. Francesca found it impossible to become emotionally attached to her husband, who was physically disfigured, and she soon fell hopelessly in love with his extraordinarily attractive younger brother Paolo. The doomed lovers were killed by Giovanni in a fit of jealousy in 1285, when Dante was 17 years old. The story received significant resonance, and seemingly had a major impact on the young poet.
According to Svetlana Risunova, the event’s Russian co-organizer, the project’s ideologists are considering presenting a gift to the State Hermitage Museum in the form of one of the sculptures from the exhibition.

<i>“Rodin. From St. Petersburg to Moscow” runs from June 15 through August 15 at the Peter and Paul Fortress. Tel. 230 6431. www.rodininrussia.ru</i>

TITLE: in the spotlight: Pop star wars
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, pop star Filipp Kirkorov and Putin-loving rapper Timati had a mild disagreement on Twitter over who won gongs at an award ceremony, which swiftly deteriorated into a slanging match over who is gay and brought up bad blood over bad debts.
Timati, whose spelling is not his strong point, started with an apparently inoffensive message saying he didn’t agree with the judges at Muz-TV’s ill-starred awards bash last week — who knew anyone cared about those blatantly ridiculous prizes from Russia’s second music channel?
But Kirkorov immediately upbraided him with a message in the familiar “ty” form, saying: “You think you’re the most honest one? I didn’t ask questions last year.” That charmingly referred to Timati sweeping the board last year at Muz-TV. “There is such a thing as professional etiquette. OK! Try and remember it.”
Then Timati got back to him with an X-rated message, with his eloquence unable to be contained in 140 symbols. It’s fairly unquotable, but he questioned Kirkorov’s own professional etiquette given his run-in with a journalist whom he called a “c---” and a shocking scene when Kirkorov attacked a minion at a rehearsal. Interestingly, he wrote that Kirkorov called “my bosses” to get off the hook for that offense. I’m not sure who Timati’s bosses are, but he was a prominent supporter during Vladimir Putin’s election campaign and they even exchanged awkward hand gestures.
To cap it off nicely, Timati ended with a homophobic insult, using the slang term petukh, or cockerel. “I’m not from your cockerel hoop, remember that!” he wrote. Kirkorov was married to pop diva Alla Pugachyova but rumors have always swirled about his sexual orientation. He recently had a baby daughter through a U.S. surrogate mother.
Kicking Kirkorov when he was down, pop producer Iosif Prigozhin unexpectedly joined the Twitter battle, saying that Kirkorov’s assistant hadn’t paid back a debt in seven years. He also added to Kirkorov that he had “a very interesting document signed personally by you. And so I suggest you don’t touch me, and your assistant pays back the debt.” Truly the language of mafia dons, and I sometimes wonder if Russia’s pop elite realizes that other people can read their tweets. Fair enough, Timati enhances his street cred, if he has any, with four-letter words, but Prigozhin markets his family image with his wife and protege Valeria.
The spat even made it onto Channel One’s late-night comedy show, Evening Urgant, which seems to be getting funnier. Ivan Urgant announced that: “From now on, June 5 will enter history as the beginning of the great standoff between two poles of Russian pop music: Filipp Kirkorov and Timati.” He then read out their messages, deliberately paraphrasing them in a softened-up Channel One style.
He also made fun of another Russian pop legend, ex-opera star Nikolai Baskov, whose new video is a ludicrous cross of Spartacus and Gladiator, with Baskov wielding a sword in a skirt as he discovers his wife’s infidelity. Urgant did a sketch where he was allegedly dancing to the video in his dressing room in his boxer shorts and then couldn’t find the off-switch on the television when caught in the act.
Meanwhile, Ksenia Sobchak, It Girl and reality show host turned opposition activist, did a “Legally Blonde” style expos&#233; of the recently reshuffled ex-agriculture minister, Yelena Skrynnik, and her very expensive handbag. Sobchak revealed on Twitter that the bag was a crocodile-skin Hermes Birkin bag that costs “20,000 euros.”
Grilled over whether the bag could be a cheap Tverskaya underpass knockoff, she answered with the wisdom of experience: “It’ s not a fake. It’s a real Birkin. If I know anything, it’s that. My whole youth was just one big Birkin bag.”

TITLE: THE DISH: Le Cristal
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Tuscan terrace</b>
A slow, leisurely Saturday lunch on a sunlit terrace by the water — isn’t that what most St. Petersburgers, deprived of sun and overwhelmed by months of bone-chilling winds, long for most of the year? The location alone is more than enough to justify a trip to Le Cristal, one of the city’s most glamorous and relaxed venues. Located next to the yacht club on Krestovsky Island, the restaurant even offers “how to get there” instructions for those arriving by yachts, rather than by car.
Le Cristal had high expectations to meet and outdid itself, offering much more than simply a nice view. Considered one of the city’s most enjoyable terrace dining options — with sliding glass walls that transform into doors and large, soft chunky sofas — Le Cristal can be found nestled into the serene, quiet end of Krestovsky Island, just steps from the Srednaya Nevka river, with a view over the blossoming Yelagin Island park. 
The restaurant boasts a new menu from Italian chef Filippo Licata, who enjoys the favor of the cr&#232;me de la cr&#232;me of European bohemians and politicians alike. Licata, a favorite with fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana and pop singer Mylene Farmer, joined the restaurant in March.
The chef, who has worked in London’s Cipriani (now known as C London) and Brussels’ Michelin-starred Bruneau, has created a menu that blends Mediterranean and European culinary traditions. Tuscan dishes comprise the core of the menu.
Glamour is key to Le Cristal, which regularly hosts parties and hipster gigs. 
The crowd here is fashionable, laid-back and has money to spare. During the course of lunch, at least two millionaire newsmakers were spotted. Incidentally, both of them spent more time pacing back and forth along the terrace talking on the phone than at the table, but this was no reflection on the chef’s efforts. 
Partying and dining at Le Cristal is about being a glamour girl.
Athletic muscular young men accompanied by seriously tanned ladies wearing ultra-mini skirts were in abundance. The presence of our party — a pair of women in their mid-thirties dressed in demure maxis — provided a bit of a visual contrast to most of the clientele, but did not elicit the slightest sign of a sneer, a situation encountered at nine out of ten glamorous venues in St. Petersburg.
A first quick scan of the menu suggested that the fare is light and healthy, and the dining experience that followed proved the guess right. The orange and fennel salad (210 rubles, $7) that kicked off the meal consisted of a dozen peeled orange slices resting on a weightless heap of shaved fennel soaked in olive oil. A handful of marinated olive halves provided a contrast to the zesty orange. The other appetizer — scallop, avocado and grapefruit salad (320 rubles, $10.60) — was even more flavorful than the first, and was declared a success. The scallops were meaty, fresh and juicy, the arugula crisp, the avocado creamy, and the whole combination proved utterly indulgent.
Licata likes his ingredients thin, on the brink of transparent, chooses olive oil over complicated spicy sauces and does not fool his clients by over-seasoning his dishes. Everything sampled was an intelligent alliance of flavor and texture.
The main courses include a tempting range of pastas and risottos, costing between 290 and 990 rubles ($9.60 to $33) as well as Catalan-style shellfish (1,550 rubles, $51) and tuna tagliata with a mixed salad (590 rubles, $19.60). The most expensive item on the menu is cacciucco lobster soup (2,900 rubles, $96.60), which is always cooked by Licata himself.
It was difficult to select just one risotto from the menu and after a moment of indecision, the pear and Taleggio cheese (350 rubles, $11.60) won out over the strawberry and Prosecco risotto (350 rubles, $11.60). It was perhaps the most calorie-charged item on the list and the aromatic dish was appreciated to the full. Taleggio was added generously, to the effect of a sauce. The other entr&#233;e, saffron and Grana Padano risotto (350 rubles, $11.60), was equally satisfying, with the emphasis on the saffron. 
Le Cristal’s beach area is now open, where diners can call ahead and book themselves a brightly-colored pillow or hammock chair from which to enjoy a relaxing meal.

TITLE: Hospitals Running Low on Tuberculosis Medication
AUTHOR: By Alexander Winning
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Natasha takes a whole handful of pills every day — about 25 in total — as part of her treatment course at a tuberculosis clinic in St. Petersburg.
Her battle with the disease has been an uphill struggle, partly because the costly anti-TB medicines she needs have always been hard to come by. This is despite the fact that Russian law requires all patients to have access to high-quality, uninterrupted TB treatment for free.
“Shortages have been a common event in the 1 1/2 years since I was diagnosed,” said Natasha, who asked that only her first name be printed because of the sensitivity of the issue. “They are always lacking some sort of medicine. My treatment schedule has been interrupted.”
Medicine shortages have become particularly acute recently, with national media reports drawing attention to low stocks in the city after activists chained themselves to the railings outside a local health ministry building to protest the scarcity of anti-TB drugs.
The protests were justified, 33-year-old Natasha said, as “in the last few months there have been practically no medicines at all.”
When state stocks run dry, Natasha is forced to rely on friends and charities to scrape by, as her illness prevents her from working and her meager state pension only covers eight days’ worth of the drug cocktail she takes — isoniazid, ofloxacin, cycloserine and protionamide.
Apart from the financial difficulties caused by the regular shortages, the emotional drag is equally wearing.
“You feel morally uncomfortable. The doctors keep telling me that the medicines will arrive tomorrow. You feel like they’re lying to you,” she said in a telephone interview.
Although TB patients are repeatedly palmed off with promises that the much-needed medicine will arrive, they are scared to write formal complaints, “because the doctors will hound you,” Natasha said.
“They can’t admit that there aren’t sufficient stocks in their clinics,” she added. “Doctors are forced to tick boxes and say everything is in order.”
This troubling tale stands in stark contrast to the rosy picture painted by Russian health authorities, who point to declining infection and mortality rates as a sign that the spread of TB has been effectively brought under control.
According to data provided by the Health Ministry, TB cases declined by about 14 percent from 2008 to 2011 — down to 73 new cases per 100,000 people each year. TB mortality rates have also decreased 22 percent over the same period to a rate of 14 deaths per 100,000 people last year.
Falling numbers of new cases and deaths, however, appear to mask the true extent of the country’s current disease burden.
Despite an 11 percent drop since 2008, Russia’s TB prevalence remains uncharacteristically high for a developed country, with as many as 240,000 people suffering from the airborne infection last year. It remains among the top 22 countries in the world by TB infection.
In addition, cases of multidrug-resistant TB and combined cases of HIV/AIDS and TB are on the rise. Last year, these indicators jumped 7.6 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively.
Russia currently ranks third by the number of multidrug-resistant TB cases worldwide after China and India, countries with vastly larger populations.
These worrying statistics come amid increased federal outlays that have added bite to the national push to eradicate the disease in the country.
State spending on TB has risen dramatically in recent years and is expected to top 2.8 billion rubles ($100 million) in 2012. That includes 2.2 billion rubles for purchasing medicines as part of the priority national health project unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in 2005.
The government has also opened a number of new health centers, made efforts to bring diagnostic equipment up to date and reformed research institutes specializing in TB.
However despite the modernization effort, health experts and local nongovernmental organizations say the authorities have been unresponsive to the difficulties faced by TB sufferers, failing to end recurring medicine shortages and clinging to outdated treatment methods.
State treatment facilities also appear reluctant to disclose information. A request from The St. Petersburg Times to visit a local TB hospital was turned down by the institution’s staff, who claimed ministry rules bar such a visit.

<b>Medicine Shortages</b>
Shortages of essential drugs have long been a problem plaguing Russia’s TB response and have not been met with an effective, coordinated response from the Health Ministry, NGOs argue.
The website Pereboi.ru, which allows TB and HIV/AIDS patients to anonymously report drug shortages, shows that frequent shortages occur countrywide.
The situation recently sparked a protest in St. Petersburg, where seven TB activists from a group called Patient Control took to the streets on Feb. 28 to speak out against what they saw as the ministry’s irresponsible attitude to local patients’ health and well-being.
“The lack of TB medicines continues, and local health authorities haven’t responded to our written statements,” said Alexandra Volgina, a member of Patient Control and manager of St. Petersburg nongovernmental advocacy group EVA.
“So we took part in a demonstration outside the local health ministry building,” she said. “They promised us that the medicines would arrive, it would all pass and everything would be OK. But later we saw that this was not true.”
“We are now looking at drug tenders for violations,” she continued.
When it became clear that the ministry was denying the problem, EVA turned to a major pharmaceutical company for help, asking them to donate a free stock of anti-TB drugs to patients that had been left high and dry.
But the St. Petersburg TB hospital rejected the company’s offer. Volgina said that showed “it is more important for health authorities to uphold the official line — which claims that there are no shortages — than help people.”
The reason for such shortages, health experts agree, lies not in insufficient funding, but rather in poor planning and logistical issues.
“Last year patients were battling for second-line anti-TB medication, which was severely lacking in the regions. Again, the problem now appears not to be a lack of funds, for the ministry genuinely does have enough,” said Anya Sarang, president of the Andrei Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice, a Moscow-based NGO.
“The problem is that health authorities seem incapable of organizing a modern mechanism of drug purchases and deliveries,” she said.
Not only does drug scarcity affect patient’s health — Natasha says her temperature soars and symptoms reoccur when she doesn’t take her medicine — but it can also spur the spread of multidrug-resistant TB, which requires costly treatments with more damaging side effects.
“Stopping and starting treatment is a sure way of relapsing and perhaps developing drug resistance,” Peter Davies, secretary of British charity TB Alert, said by e-mail.

<b>Outdated and Inflexible Treatment</b>
Officially, the Health Ministry embraces the World Health Organization’s TB guidelines and has adopted internationally recommended strategies to improve the efficiency of treatment.
The quality of care in the country, however, lags behind Western standards and is at times outdated, health experts say.
“Programs providing medical help for TB patients in Russia simply aren’t in keeping with today’s world,” Sarang said.
A major concern for local health-care professionals is authorities’ preference for in-patient TB treatment — at times lasting several months. This practice has been long abandoned in Western medical circles, except for multidrug-resistant cases where it is recommended to isolate the patient to prevent further spread of infection.
“This disease is usually treated at home, under the supervision of medical and social workers, … [but] in our country, the whole system has been focused on in-patient care since Soviet times,” she said.
Davies agreed that “in-patient care is very outdated.”
“It destroys the economic viability of the patient and their relationships. It has to do with politics, often a doctor will be paid by the number of beds he looks after, rather than the number of patients he treats,” he said.
Another shortcoming of national treatment strategies is that they are inflexible, NGOs say. Russian health authorities are accused of failing to take on innovative approaches or new treatment models.
In treating TB patients also suffering from drug addiction, for instance, doctors in health-care institutions apply the same standardized approach, even when a patient’s treatment course is jeopardized by their habit, which makes long stays in hospital wards near impossible.
“The question of how to treat drug-addicted patients has not yet been solved — among such patients many are infected with tuberculosis, and often multidrug-resistant forms,” said Sergei Dugin, a member of the Public Chamber and director of Humanitarian Action, a St. Petersburg NGO that specializes in medical and social programs for high-risk groups.
“The issue is that drug-addicted patients often continue to use drugs on the wards, and they are naturally discharged for breaking the rules,” he said. “In many countries this problem is solved with the help of opioid replacement therapy — but in Russia it is banned.”
“For such patients, we need a special, multidisciplinary approach, which at present is not applied on a systemic level in national health-care institutions.”

<b>A Future Crisis?</b>
Multidrug-resistant TB is a threat on the horizon for many underdeveloped countries, but it’s also likely to have an impact on the epidemiological situation in Russia as the number of cases continues to grow.
The Health Ministry puts the current multidrug-resistant TB rate at about 24 cases per 100,000 people, or 14 percent of total TB cases. Although the ministry would not give an estimate of the total number of cases, a simple calculation reveals that as many as 34,000 Russians could be affected.
Rising rates of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB, both of which require more extensive treatment with medication that can be 10 times as expensive “can be explained by inadequate and incomplete treatment — mainly in the 1990s, but also now — and by improved laboratory diagnosis, which allows for better detection of drug-resistant cases,” the World Health Organization said in a statement.
“The WHO believes that the further strengthening of evidence-based TB control interventions and the efficient use of resources, in particular forecasting drug needs, are required to prevent and control [multidrug-resistant] and [extensively drug-resistant] TB,” the organization wrote.
One particular flashpoint has been in state prisons, where — despite a 300 percent reduction in overall TB prevalence over the past 10 years — drug resistance has been hard to eradicate.
Twenty percent of TB sufferers in the Russian penitentiary system have the multidrug-resistant form and 3.4 percent the extensively drug-resistant form, says Sergei Baryshev, head of the Federal Prison Service’s medical team. He estimated that in all, more than 8,000 inmates have one of the two forms.
For Anya Sarang, president of the Andrei Rylkov Foundation, this reservoir of drug-resistant cases could prove crucial in driving the future spread of infection.
“Government institutions, in particular state prisons, are the main sources of TB infection. The unjustified imprisonment of Russian people, especially drug users, leads to prison overcrowding. And it is this that is producing continued TB infection,” she said.

TITLE: Local Protests Spawn Civil Initiative Groups
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: While Moscow streets and squares during the past six months have become centers of civil protest under the guidance of opposition leaders like Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov and Boris Nemtsov, analysts believe that the low level of such activity in St. Petersburg may be due to the absence of leaders in the city. 
The lack of such figures has, however, had an interesting effect: Civil initiatives have gained support from below, often among people who have no previous involvement in political or social activities. The chaotic gatherings of people provoked by the violations that took place during the State Duma elections in December last year are now transforming into organized communities of people in which social and cultural issues are just as important as political ones. 
St. Petersburg Observers, a group which grew out of another group called St. Petersburg for Fair Elections on the social network Vkontakte, adopted a charter last Saturday, June 9, becoming an official non-profit civil organization.
“I usually say that we [the organization] formed as a result of the December protests,” said Alexandra Krylenkova, head of the council of St. Petersburg Observers. 
“It was a time when lots of people went to observe the Duma elections for themselves. When they saw what they were like, they realized that they needed to do something to change them. When you see it with your own eyes, you can’t live with it in the same way you did before,” she said.
For almost 20 years, Krylenkova, who works in career guidance, volunteered at Memorial, a non-profit research and information center that works in human rights and helps political detainees. At one point the well-to-do, married businesswoman attended a rally and was detained herself, along with many others, and spent a night and day at a police station.
“I was impressed by the people I saw then,” she said. “They were completely different from the ones I had seen at marches and protests that took place before. What I really liked about them was that they understood that they needed to try and do something, and that participating in rallies is not enough,” she said. 
The idea of the organization originated then and there.
According to Krylenkova, the group was never planned to be political. 
“We are above the political fight; this means that we don’t care what party or candidate is in power — each of us as an individual does care, but as an organization, we don’t,” she said. 
“We’re interested in state mechanisms that should be working, but for one reason or another aren’t. Our goal is to get them going. This is why we observed the elections. But in order to make [the mechanisms] work, it’s not enough to confine our activity solely to elections, we need to penetrate all spheres and get involved in all types of activities — from environmental protection to holding exhibitions.”
At the end of December, 18 more groups were organized on Vkontakte, one for each of the city’s districts. Yekaterina Ryzhkova, who worked at the call center of the NGO League of Female Voters during the Duma elections and is now a coordinator of the Krasnoselsky district branch and a member of the council of St. Petersburg Observers, said that after the elections, she realized that it would be more effective to organize observers for the next elections on a district level. 
“I just called people in the group to meet; there were around 12 people at the first meeting. It was completely self-organized,” she said. “A little bit later I heard about such activity in other districts. People from these districts got together and decided to help districts that weren’t involved join us.”
During the presidential elections, the St. Petersburg Observers brought together some 3,500 volunteer observers, lawyers and journalists. 
“Even though we had set various goals, we then had neither the time nor strength to prepare for the elections,” said Krylenkova. “When the elections were over, we had time to remember our original goals. Of course, after the elections people’s social campaigning decreased, but now people have had a chance to rest, and with this new energy I think we will be able to [accomplish our original goals].” 
“We all had our own lives: One person was going to do an internship, another was invited to live in America for a while and someone else was planning on completing their degree. Suddenly, for at least a few months, life changed 100 percent,” said Krylenkova.
The first goal of the movement is to monitor local and municipal authorities, starting with the monitoring of all types of elections. 
“When we organize a park clean-up, in addition to cleaning up the area, we are also trying to provide an example of what the local authorities and park management should be doing, because the responsibility of cleaning the territory belongs to them,” Ryzhkova said.
Group activities include forming housing associations, protecting green areas, improving district infrastructure and preparing observers for the next elections. The location and specific factors such as the population of a district influence the group’s main objectives and how the branch develops. 
“We try to develop a civil structure in the district, a civil society; we help create parental committees and councils for people who live in the same building, because they are the basis of self-organization,” said Ryzhkova. 
“The most important thing is to help people understand that community action yields a result and to encourage them to come together and push local authorities and state activity in the right direction for society,” she added.
The idea is to incorporate civil activity into different spheres of daily life and to make it the norm.
“Some of our volunteers take photos of different types of problems they see in the city. Then they write letters of complaint to public prosecutors or the authorities in charge of housing and utilities — to everyone it may involve really,” Krylenkova said. “If that doesn’t work, they collect signatures or organize mini-rallies.” 
“We want to enter to the research sphere as well start analyzing sociological and statistical data,” she continued. “We also plan to put together a photo exhibition in which different spheres of social life and the city will be shown, including the recent rallies on St. Isaac’s Square.”
The St. Petersburg Observers approves of local protest rallies, but does not take part in their organization. 
“Maybe we will organize them in the future, but for now there is too much politics involved,” Krylenkova said.
“We always say we are beyond politics, and if you look at our activity, it’s true, but the authorities don’t see it that way,” she said.
Another example of a recently formed civil group, albeit one with a strong political inclination, is the Civil Relay Race, an organization that transformed from being a group of volunteers who supported Mikhail Prokhorov during the March presidential elections into a social organization on May 26. The group now has branches in 12 regions of Russia. Formed in November 2011, volunteers were engaged in regular activities associated with presidential campaigns such as distributing handouts and holding meetings to promote their candidate.
Now the organization has an official structure, and its activity has been broadening significantly. 
“We didn’t decide to make people active, they became active themselves; they had a desire to act,” said Mikhail Tokarev, a former businessmen and general director of a consulting group who is currently head of Civil Relay Race.
“People who supported then-presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov were among them: 600,000 of them registered their support for him on his website, and tens of thousands of others did so on various social networks. It was a demand from an active part of society. For every demand there is a supply — in the form of organizations such as ours.” 
More than twenty projects organized by Civil Relay Race are currently underway, including anti-drug campaigns, monitoring the authorities in charge of housing and utilities and organizing outdoor clean-ups.
“I started analyzing the situation on how to attract people to our side in order to encourage them to vote for our candidate in the next elections,” said Tokarev. “It was then that I realized that all political parties are involved in such social and cultural activities in order to draw people over to their political views. So we began to choose projects we could organize and help others accomplish. That way they would see that we can do it and afterwards they would begin to do the same thing themselves, not for us or for Prokhorov, but for themselves. They would understand, however, that our political views were what led us to take action.”
Both Krylenko and Tokarev believe that the local authorities are not accustomed to people telling them that something is wrong and should be fixed. This, they say, explains why some concessions have already been made in response to citizens’ complaints. In this sense, civil society can be seen as “social glue,” as Krylenkova calls it, which not only brings people together, but serves as a link between citizens, the authorities and the media.
“I think we’ve already changed society’s attitude toward social activism,” said Krylenkova. “If we think about the state of society a year ago, it was completely different.”

TITLE: Kofi Annan Calls for Pressure on Syria
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GENEVA — UN envoy Kofi Annan has asked governments with influence to “twist arms” to stop escalating violence in Syria, amid few signs that international pressure is having any measurable effect on the fighting.
Syria has intensified its onslaught against the opposition in recent days, ignoring an Annan-brokered ceasefire plan, mounting international condemnation and increasing economic pressure aimed at the government of President Bashar Assad.
On Tuesday, at least 10 people died as Syrian forces hit the eastern city of Deir el-Zour with mortar shells after an anti-government protest, and clashes broke out elsewhere in the country, activists said.
“It is totally unacceptable and it must stop, and that is why Annan has invited governments with influence to raise the bar to another level, to the highest level possible, and twist arms if necessary, to get the parties to implement the plan,” his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told reporters in Geneva.
He didn’t specify the countries that might still have leverage with the Assad regime, but Russia, China and Iran are considered Syria’s closest and strongest allies.
Fawzi said it was up to the government to take the first step to end the violence, which has now claimed over 13,000 lives since the conflict began in March 2011.
“The stronger party should send a strong signal in good faith and stop the violence, and the stronger party in this case is clearly the government of Syria,” he said.
Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, has been working with little success to end the Syrian conflict since he was appointed in February.
Diplomats have discussed the possibility of holding a meeting of all the parties in a neutral venue, to attempt to restore the faltering truce and implement the peace plan brokered by Annan in April.
“We hope that this contact group meeting will take place soon, but a venue and a time and a list of participants has yet to come together,” said Fawzi.
“The objective of creating this group is to give teeth to the plan, to convince the parties to implement the plan in its entirety,” he added.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague on Tuesday played down suggestions that Western powers were seeking a foreign military intervention, despite his warning on Monday that all options must remain open if diplomacy cannot halt the violence in Syria.
“Clearly, we are not looking for any foreign military intervention and we should not think about it in terms of another Libya,” Hague said in Islamabad, during a two-day visit to Pakistan.
In recent days UN observers in Syria have documented heavy fighting in Rastan and Talbiseh, north of Homs, in which artillery, mortars and helicopters were used.
“They also reported that the Free Syrian Army had captured Syrian army soldiers,” he added. “They reported a large number of civilians including women and children trapped inside Khaldiyeh in the city center and they are trying to mediate their evacuation.”
Fawzi said the escalating violence mirrors the spike in fighting that occurred shortly before the ceasefire plan was agreed to, and the increase in sectarian tension is already spreading to neighboring Lebanon.
“The longer this violence continues the more dangerous it becomes not only for the country and the Syrian people but the region,” he said. “It’s dangerous and the red light is flashing.”
The use of helicopters by government forces — a clear breach of the ceasefire — has been documented by the UN observers for the first time, said Fawzi.
“A ceasefire is a ceasefire, whether it’s from the air or from the ground,” he said.

TITLE: Spanish Bailout Concerns Investors
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MADRID — Investors continue to find more questions than answers in Spain’s decision to seek help for its ailing bank sector and tap a 100-billion-euro ($125-billion) area bailout fund.
The country’s borrowing costs rose sharply Tuesday for the second day in a row while stocks seesawed as markets fretted about whether the new 100-billion-euro lifeline is enough to contain the 17-country single currency union’s debt crisis and whether private investors in Spain might not see their debts paid off.
“EU leaders continue to give their best impression of blind men groping around in the dark for a solution to the debt problems afflicting Europe,” said Michael Hewson, senior market analyst with CMC Markets.
The interest rate — or yield — on Spain’s 10-year bond rose to 6.63 percent, close to the 7-percent level that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to ask for more rescues of their public finances, according to financial data provider FactSet.
Stocks slipped early on Madrid’s IBEX-35 index Tuesday, then turned to positive territory and were up 0.9 percent in midday trading.
The bank rescue package was announced Saturday by finance ministers from the 17-country euro area, but no amount has been set for how much Spain’s banks will receive. Investors are also becoming increasingly worried that private bondholders could be placed lower in the pecking order of debt repayments if money from a new eurozone rescue fund is used in the bailout.
It is not yet clear where the euro area bailout loans will come from. If the money comes from the existing eurozone rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, its repayments will have the same priority as all the other private bond investors. However, if the funds are to come from the new bailout facility, the European Stability Mechanism, its bond repayments will be given a higher priority than everyone else’s — which could mean that other debt would be less likely to be paid off. That could make bondholders less willing to buy Spain’s debt or demand a higher interest rate to compensate for the added risk of losses.
Spain will wait for the results of two independent audits of the country’s banking industry before saying how much of the 100 billion it will tap. The bailout loans will be paid into the Spanish government’s Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB), which would then use the money to strengthen the country’s teetering banks.
In a report released late last week, the International Monetary Fund estimated Spain needs around 40 billion euros ($50 billion) to prop up banks hurting from an unprecedented real estate boom that went bust.
Investors also want to know whether Spain will ask for a safety margin of extra money to cushion itself against further shocks, such as a deterioration in the economy.
While Spain’s bailout is designed to prop up its banks, investors are also worried that the Spanish government might eventually be forced into asking for a bailout to help it pay its way.

TITLE: Court Clears Parents — 32 Years After Dingo Took Baby
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CANBERRA, Australia — The dingo really did take the baby.
Thirty-two years after a 9-week-old infant vanished from an Outback campsite in a case that bitterly divided Australians and inspired a Meryl Streep film, the nation overwhelmingly welcomed a ruling that finally closed the mystery.
A coroner in the northern city of Darwin concluded Tuesday that a dingo, or wild dog, had taken Azaria Chamberlain from her parents’ tent near Ayers Rock, the red monolith in the Australian desert now known by its Aboriginal name Uluru.
That is what her parents, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton and Michael Chamberlain, had maintained from the beginning.
The eyes of the parents welled with tears as the findings of the fourth inquest into their daughter’s disappearance were announced, watched by people around Australia on live television.
“We’re relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga,” a tearful but smiling Chamberlain-Creighton, since divorced and remarried, told reporters outside the court.
The first inquest in 1981 had also blamed a dingo. But a second inquest a year later charged Chamberlain-Creighton with murder and her husband with being an accessory after the fact. She was convicted and served more than three years in prison before that decision was overturned. A third inquest in 1995 left the cause of death open.
“The dingo has done it. I’m absolutely thrilled to bits,” said Yvonne Cain, one of the 12 jurors in the 1982 trial that convicted a then-pregnant Chamberlain-Creighton of murder. “I’d always had my doubts and have become certain she’s innocent.”
Cain said she still encounters people who doubt the couple’s innocence, but they inevitably misunderstand what evidence there was against them.
“When people say she’s guilty, I say: ‘You have no idea what they’re talking about — I was there,’” she said.
The case became famous internationally through the 1988 movie “A Cry in the Dark,” in which Streep played the mother.
Many Australians initially did not believe that a dingo was strong enough to take away the baby, whose body has never been recovered. Public opinion swayed harshly against the couple; some even spat on Chamberlain-Creighton and howled like dingoes outside her house.
No similar dingo attack had been documented at the time, but in recent years the wild dogs native to Australia have been blamed for three fatal attacks on children. Few doubt the couple’s story today, but the latest inquest — which the family had fought to get — made it official that Azaria was killed in a dingo attack.
An expert on dingo behavior, Brad Purcell, said he was not surprised that a dingo would enter a tent and take a baby while older siblings slept.

TITLE: Chavez Launches Re-Election Bid With Display of Vivacity
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez sang, danced and gave a marathon speech at the launch of his re-election bid, offering a preview of a campaign in which he is likely to push his limits trying to show Venezuelans he is emerging from cancer’s shadow.
Chavez appeared tired, bloated and pale when he walked into the National Electoral Council to register his candidacy Monday. But later he exuded energy while singing along with a band playing a folk tune, and he seemed in his element as he delivered a fiery speech that lasted nearly three hours.
“We’re just warming up our engines,” Chavez said.
Then he took a jab at his rival, saying opposition candidate Henrique Capriles would “run out of gasoline.”
The 57-year-old president has limited his recent public appearances after undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba, and he arrived at the elections office riding atop a truck.
Capriles, in contrast, flaunted his youthful energy Sunday by leading a huge crowd of supporters to the same elections office, working up a sweat as he walked and jogged six miles (10 kilometers) across the city.
Chavez said that despite his yearlong battle with cancer, he’s ready to campaign and win by a “knockout” in the Oct. 7 election.
“We came from miracle to miracle, and I’m sure that with God’s help we’ll continue living and we’ll continue triumphing,” he said.
Chavez returned from Cuba on May 11 after what he said was a difficult round of radiation therapy. He has not disclosed details about his illness, including the type of cancer or the precise location of the two tumors that were surgically removed from his pelvic region during the past year.
“It was a difficult year,” Chavez told the cheering crowd, which filled a plaza outside the elections office.
Some political analysts say Chavez has adroitly handled the issue of his illness ahead of the presidential campaign, which formally begins in July.
Carlos Blanco, a professor of Latin American affairs at Boston University, said Chavez has successfully manipulated public opinion to avoid being perceived as a moribund leader unfit to govern for another six-year term.
“Chavez has managed his illness with skill. He’s gone from being the ‘sick president’ to the ‘martyr president,’ which allows him to maintain significant support,” said Blanco, who served as Venezuela’s minister for state reform from 1989 to 1992.
Polls say Chavez is leading Capriles. But Capriles has been actively campaigning and traveling across the country for several months seeking to drum up support.