SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1713 (24), Thursday, June 21, 2012
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Prosecutors Play Secret Footage
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The prosecution continued its attempts Tuesday to prove that The Other Russia’s activists on trial in the city were members of the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP). They did so by playing videos of the activists meetings, held at an apartment on Lesnoi Prospekt in 2009.
Andrei Dmitriyev, the local leader of the Other Russia party in St. Petersburg, Andrei Pesotsky and Alexei Marochkin have been charged with organizing activities of a banned organization and face up to four years in prison. Vladislav Ivakhnik, Andrei Milyuk, Oleg Petrov, Vadim Mamedov, Ravil Bashirov, Roman Khrenov, Alexander Yashin, Alexei Zentsov and Igor Boikov have been charged with participating in such activities and face up to two years in prison. 
Dubbed “the Trial of 12,” the proceedings have been criticized as an attempt to silence the opposition.
The prosecution claims that the activists’ meetings were assemblies of the banned NBP, but the videos shown in court so far have given no evidence of that. Shot during seven meetings held in July and August of 2009, they contained mostly the recorded voices of people who could not be seen, as the hidden camera was installed over a door and only the hallway, a window and the door to the room where the meetings were held could be seen.
During the recorded meetings, the unseen speakers discussed author and opposition leader Eduard Limonov’s trips to different Russian cities, protest rallies in Moscow and Gazprom’s controversial Okhta Center skyscraper project, which was abandoned following public protests in December 2010. 
Pesotsky’s lawyer, Olga Tseitlina, repeatedly said in court that such videos could not be taken into account as they were obtained as a result of police provocation. The camera-equipped apartment was offered to the activists by an undercover police agent with the aim of gathering NBP members in one place where they could be spied on, according to counter-extremist Center E officer Dmitry Gryaznov. The voices on the tapes could also not be attributed to the defendants because of a lack of proper analysis equipment and specialists to run the tests. 
“There are no symbols, no signs, no flags [in the video], the voices are behind the scenes, we can’t determine who they belong to at the moment without a witness being interrogated,” Tseitlina said after the session’s last video was played Tuesday.
“Socially important issues are discussed [in the video], in particular the Gazprom skyscraper project and a resistance strategy against this construction project — there is nothing illegal in that.”
She added that the protests discussed during the meetings were not the ones that the defendants were charged with organizing, and that the meetings themselves were not public assemblies. She also added that what was said during the meetings was covered under freedom of speech, which is a guaranteed right under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Russian constitution.

TITLE: Scientists Dished 12-Year Sentence for Espionage
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg City Court on Wednesday sentenced two local scientists to lengthy terms in prison for treason amid protests from the international human rights community.
Yevgeny Afanasiev and Svyatoslav Bobyshev are professors at the city’s State Military Mechanical University. Afanasiev was found guilty of treason in the form of espionage and sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in a penal colony. Bobyshev was sentenced to 12 years in a colony for being an accessory to treason. 
Both men pleaded not guilty and denied their involvement in any criminal activity.
The Afanasiev and Bobyshev case has become one of the most resonant treason and espionage cases in the city since the 1996-1999 saga of the environmentalist Alexander Nikitin, a researcher for the Norwegian ecological organization Bellona who was accused of passing classified information to Norway’s secret service. 
Afanasiev and Bobyshev both spent several months in China in 2009, lecturing at the Polytechnical University in Harbin. Prosecutors have alleged that in April and May 2009, both professors passed classified information and revealed state secrets concerning the Bulava missile complex — specifically underwater missile launch details — to the Chinese secret service. The General Prosecutor’s Office had earlier approved the charges. The scientists were arrested in March 2010, and their case was sent to court in the beginning of September 2011. 
The trial was closed to the public. 
Both professors maintain they only gave lectures at a university in Harbin, and stress that all aspects of the teaching process, including the contents of their lectures, had been approved and monitored by the administration of the Military Mechanical University. 
More than forty scholars and researchers from the Military Mechanical University and other Russian universities who have known the two convicts for a number of years have written a letter of protest to the prosecutors, in which they argued that the trial is nothing but overzealousness on the part of the security services.
“As for the alleged financial or personal motives that drove the two scientists to treason, it would be logical to ask how it is possible to damage the interests of Russia by teaching Chinese students the basics,” the letter’s authors write. 
“The logic of the security services is this: Teaching a competitor means betraying the motherland! If one follows that reason, we must ban our lecturers from teaching foreigners altogether. After all, there is no guarantee that this knowledge will never be used against us. Far be it from us to question the competence of the trial. Yet not a single person out of dozens and dozens of scientists with whom we have discussed this court case could believe even for a moment that Svyatoslav Bobyshev and Yevgeny Afanasiev are indeed guilty of these crimes.”  
The Committee for the Protection of Scientists branded the trial a triumph of espionage mania and witch-hunting, and Yury Vdovin, a human rights advocate with the Citizens’ Watch pressure group, is convinced that the treason case is at the least unsubstantiated.
“It is imaginary secrecy that the prosecutors were talking about,” he said. “Both scientists had their lectures approved by the management of the university, and their contracts were legal. The thing is that the country’s security services have to show that they are catching spies, otherwise the Kremlin would accuse them of not doing anything, and of being inefficient.
The eminent human rights lawyer Yury Schmidt, who represented the environmentalist Alexander Nikitin and jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, predicted the discouraging outcome of the trial.
“The odds are really against the scientists, especially considering the current political context,” he said. “During the past decade, similar charges have been brought with success against a number of scholars and researchers across Russia. There is a tendency to make the punishment tougher: Those sentenced now are receiving longer prison terms compared to similar cases 10 years ago.” 
The most recent espionage scandal involving a Russian scientist occurred in 2007, when Moscow academic Igor Reshetin, general director of the Central Machinery Construction Research Institute, was sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in a penal colony for passing technology to China. Reshetin admitted sharing the technology with his Chinese counterparts, but argued that the materials were not classified, and that on the contrary, they were allowed to be exported and discussed with foreign partners. 
In 2003, Krasnoyarsk physicist Valentin Danilov was sentenced to 13 years in a colony for espionage. The prosecution claimed that the scholar had passed state secrets to China. 
From 1996 to 2000, Schmidt successfully defended the researcher and ecologist Nikitin, who remains the only person to have won a treason or espionage case against the country’s security services in the history of the U.S.S.R. and modern Russia. 
Until 1985, Nikitin served as a naval captain in the Soviet Northern Fleet, where he worked as a chief engineer on nuclear powered submarines. In 1995, Nikitin wrote an analytical report for Bellona on the potential environmental hazards of radioactive waste and decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines, specifically, in northern Russia. The report resulted in him being charged with high treason.

TITLE: U.S. Secretary Clinton Plans Trip to City
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is planning to travel to St. Petersburg next week, a visit that follows recent talks between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Mexico.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that Clinton will attend a meeting of Asia-Pacific foreign ministers in St. Petersburg on June 28. Clinton also will hold private talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that will likely focus on the crisis in Syria and efforts to get Iran to comply with international demands on its nuclear program.
Clinton’s visit was planned before Monday’s Obama-Putin meeting but she and Lavrov were expected to build on that discussion, which ended without apparent agreement on how to end continuing violence in Syria.
Clinton will visit Finland and Latvia before Russia.

TITLE: Local Duma Seeks to Ban Marches in Center of City
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg authorities are seeking to ban opposition rallies in the city center by introducing draft amendments to the local law “On Assemblies, Rallies, Demonstrations, Marches and Pickets in St. Petersburg.” 
Brought up Wednesday by the Legislative Assembly’s Standing Commission on Law and Order, the bill bans all rallies and marches on 15 central squares including Palace Square, St. Isaac’s Square — where the Legislative Assembly is based — and Ploshchad Diktatury Proletariata, where City Hall is located, as well as on the main downtown streets such as Nevsky Prospekt, Liteiny Prospekt, Ligovsky Prospekt and Moskovsky Prospekt.
The bill, which originated in City Hall’s Law and Order Committee, also forbids the holding of rallies closer than 50 meters from buildings occupied by government agencies, specifically prosecutors’ offices, City Hall, the Palace of Congresses, consulates, television studios and churches, among others. 
If the bill is passed, rallies will not be allowed to be held less than 200 meters from railroad and bus stations, seaports and airports.
Instead, the bill says that a number of “specially designated sites” will be created “for collective discussion of socially significant questions and expression of public sentiment on mainly socio-political issues.” Protesters will be given the right to hold assemblies there without applying for authorization, on the condition that the number of those present does not exceed 100. The bill leaves it to City Hall to designate those sites.
The Legislative Assembly’s deputy Alexander Kobrinsky, who is a member of the Standing Commission on Law and Order, said he had spoken out against the bill to his colleagues.
“In particular I asked if they understood that St. Petersburg would become the only city in the civilized world where citizens are forbidden to express protest or support for government offices, be they executive, legislative or judicial,” said Kobrinsky, who is a member of the oppositional Yabloko Democratic Party faction.
“Why do people come to rallies and other events? To demonstrate to the authorities that they have a certain opinion and not another. And this will be banned [in St. Petersburg].”
Kobrinsky confronted the authorities’ and bill supporters’ reasoning that it was needed for the convenience of pedestrians and vehicles.
“The European Court of Human Rights has pointed out repeatedly that any public assembly causes inconvenience for pedestrians and vehicles, but that the right of citizens to public expression of their opinion takes precedence, and it can’t be limited on grounds of practicability or [elimination of] hindrances,” he said.
“If people are forced to go around a rally, it’s inconvenient, but bearable. But if public assemblies are banned, it could lead to a social explosion, it could lead to violence, because people’s indignation will not go away. On the contrary, public assemblies are a way to let off steam.”
Kobrinsky said the bill would not be heard until the fall, because the Legislative Assembly goes on summer vacation after the next session, due June 27, and will resume its work on Sept. 1.
The Other Russia opposition party will not obey the bill if it is passed into law, as it violates the constitution, the party’s local leader Andrei Dmitriyev said. He said his party would continue to participate in Strategy 31, the campaign of rallies held in defense of the right of assembly that have taken place in the city since January 2010. 
“These amendments are illegal because they violate Article 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation [that guarantees the right of assembly],” Dmitriyev said.
“[City Governor Georgy] Poltavchenko and the deputies are wrong to hope that protest activities will decrease; instead, these amendments will result in a bigger outburst.”

TITLE: Entertainment Spices Up Forum
AUTHOR: By Kristen Steagall
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The cultural capital is a city that knows how to put on a show. During this year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), guests and city residents alike will have the chance to experience the finest the city has to offer.  
The 2012 SPIEF, which runs from Thursday, June 21 through Sunday, June 23, offers a rich cultural program geared toward participants and those accompanying them, as well as events that are open to the public. During the forum, participants can enjoy a variety of events ranging from first class ballet and opera to exhibitions of Rodin sculptures and from cooking classes to visiting the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The official cultural program kicked off Wednesday, a day before the forum officially started, with a regatta hosted by the Russian Yachting Federation at the Krestovsky Yacht Club, as well as an opera program entitled “A Bouquet of Opera” on Palace Square featuring Russian baritone Dmitry Khvorostovsky, Korean soprano Sumi Jo and 12-year-old soprano Jackie Evancho, who rose to fame on the TV program “America’s Got Talent.” 
On Thursday, June 21 at 7 p.m., St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko will host a reception called “Reflections” for forum participants and guests at the Peter and Paul Fortress. The reception will include performances and optical illusions that play off the light of the city’s fabled white nights. 
Also Thursday, participants and guests can enjoy opera, symphony and ballet programs. Thursday evening offers a choice between the Mariinsky Theater’s premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem,” the ballet “Sleeping Beauty” at the Mikhailovsky Theater and the chamber opera “Dido and Aeneas” at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory Theater. 
On Friday, June 22, those who missed the opportunity to see Verdi’s “Requiem” on Thursday will have another chance, as well as the option to attend the Montblanc New Voices performance at the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall. The Mikhailovsky Theater presents the opera “La Boh&#232;me,” while the Alexandriinsky Theater stages “Swan Lake.” 
The same classic ballet will be performed on Saturday June 23 at the Mariinsky Theater, while the Mikhailovsky will show “Sleeping Beauty.” 
All weekend, guests and residents of the city can inspect bronze casts of sculptures of Auguste Rodin, the father of modern sculpture and creator of the “The Thinker,” at a new exhibition in the atrium of the Peter and Paul Fortress. 
There are three opportunities throughout the program to tour the collection of Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Indian manuscripts — the largest such collection in Russia — at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace. Those accompanying forum guests will have the chance to tour the recently restored and reopened Summer Gardens, the State Hermitage Museum’s Gold and Diamond Rooms and the nearby suburbs of Pushkin (Tsarskoye Selo), Pavlovsk and Peterhof. 
Like last year, this year’s International Economic Forum falls on the same weekend as the Alye Parusa (Scarlet Sails) festival, a holiday celebrating the end of the academic year and the achievements of Russia’s newly-graduated high school students. The celebration, which takes place on June 23 and starts at 9 p.m., will include a concert on Palace Square, a multimedia-pyrotechnics show on the Neva River (starting at 1:40 a.m.) and the sailing of a scarlet-sailed ship down the Neva. Expect the streets to be teeming with students and parents alike.  

<i>Those accompanying forum participants must register in order to take part in the economic forum’s cultural program. Request forms as well as further information about each event can be found at http://2012.forumspb.com/en#culture_bl_link</i>

TITLE: Investors to Look to Putin At Forum for Orientation
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Nearly 5,000 investors leaned forward in their seats during Dmitry Medvedev’s keynote address at the annual economic forum in St. Petersburg last year, eagerly waiting to hear whether he would run for a second term as president.
But Medvedev refused to spill the beans, saying only that “every story should have intrigue, otherwise it’s not interesting to live.”
He promised, however, to reveal his plans soon.
Indeed, the announcement came three months later at a United Russia convention, when Medvedev said he would step aside for Vladimir Putin.
So it will be Putin, who last month returned to the Kremlin for a third term and immediately reshuffled the government, who welcomes business leaders to this year’s forum Thursday with a keynote speech some hope will clarify the new government’s priorities, particularly the economic modernization policy initiated by Medvedev.
“I would like to better understand the priorities that the government has today in order to see where we as an IT company could be useful,” said Alexander Mikoyan, head of Hewlett-Packard in Russia.
He said an overview of the government’s strategic goals would help investors understand how to further develop business here.
Uwe Kumm, managing partner for Russia, the CIS and the Baltic states for Roland Berger Strategy Consulting, said he would like to understand Putin’s view on Russia’s economic growth.
Specifically, he wants to know how Putin plans to improve the investment climate and develop nonextraction industries like heavy machinery, chemicals production and infrastructure to diversify the economy.
Philippe Pegorier, Russia president and chief executive of French engineering giant Alstom, echoed those thoughts.
“I would very much appreciate the confirmation that the current trend for modernization of the Russian infrastructure and industry will be preserved and that the foreign investors are still welcome in the country,” he said.
The Kremlin has said little about the content of Putin’s speech, but the prepared agenda for the forum, whose theme is “Leadership That Works,” puts an emphasis on the efficiency of governance models.
In addition to his speech, Putin, who last attended the forum as president in 2007, will meet with select foreign investors.
But courting foreign investors might prove challenging this year because many are avoiding riskier markets like Russia amid the global economic turmoil and declining oil prices.
“One of the big differences at the start of Putin’s third term and his previous presidencies is that oil revenues can no longer bail out the economy,” said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Troika Dialog. “The reform agenda is now a lot more urgent, and the consequences of not making progress are a lot more dangerous and clearer.”
High oil prices during Putin’s previous two terms bred complacency, but the current risks for Russia are external.
Oil prices could slide for the next 18 to 30 months due to expected growth in crude supplies and a surge in shale-oil production in the United States, Weafer said.
He added that huge capital outflows from Russia have worsened potential investors’ perception of the country.
In this environment, he said, the aim of this week’s forum should be to draw a line under a difficult few years, during which the perception of investment risk in Russia has increased.
“The main message is likely to be that Russia is open for business and is determined to make whatever changes are necessary to attract a greater volume of foreign company participation in the economy,” he said.
Russian leaders have attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum since 2006, when it was first held in its current format.
Since then, the event has welcomed prominent businesspeople and politicians from all over the world. The number of participants reached a record 4,700 last year, and more are expected this year.
Last year’s forum offered the international audience a surprise when then-U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle announced that visa rules would be significantly eased, although they haven’t been yet.
Beyrle’s announcement was supported by growing optimism about Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization, which was finalized in December.
Although Medvedev acted coy on his presidential ambitions, his speech did offer notable moments, including a call to expand the government’s “too modest” privatization plans.
An initiative to enlarge Moscow’s city limits and move federal government agencies from the gridlocked city center to beyond the Moscow Ring Road sparked the most intense discussion.
Several major announcements and business deals are expected this week, with the main intrigue swirling around the fate of a project to develop the Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea.
Gazprom will explore the field with a consortium of foreign investors consisting of Norway’s Statoil and France’s Total.
The company plans to hold final talks on the project, which stalled after the partners failed to agree on an investment plan.
Meanwhile, Shtokman might get a new investor, Royal Dutch Shell, which is interested in securing a 25 percent stake, Vedomosti reported Tuesday, citing an unidentified source close to Gazprom.
Shell might replace Statoil, which has reportedly failed to agree with Gazprom on an exploration plan.
Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller said Tuesday that the negotiations would yield a new agreement on the terms of the project and that this would replace the current agreement, which expires July 1.
Also at the forum, Transaero is expected to sign deals with Sukhoi to acquire six Superjet 100 aircraft and with Airbus for four A380s, the world’s biggest passenger jets, according to the event’s website.
Last year’s forum netted about 283.5 billion rubles ($8 billion) in signed contracts, according to organizers’ figures.

TITLE: Patriarch Awarded Shoe
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Russian Orthodox Church reacted strongly after Patriarch Kirill was given the Silver Shoe award, handed out each year “for the most dubious achievements in show business.”
At an elaborate award ceremony, the patriarch was given the prize for “the immaculate disappearance of a watch” in the category of “miracles up to the elbows,” RIA-Novosti reported. The award category is a reference to a Photoshop flub in which an expensive watch was digitally removed from the patriarch’s arm but its reflection remained, exposing the alteration attempt.
The presenters also used the name used by the religious leader before he became patriarch — Vladimir Gundyayev.
“If people want to make fun of the church and its leader, the question arises: How do they relate to the life of the church, and do they realize that their jokes on the leader … offend an enormous amount of their countrymen, parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church?” the church’s spokesman Alexander Volkov said Wednesday, RIA-Novosti reported.
Volkov saw traces of an anti-church campaign in the ceremony, saying that in the wake of anti-church events in the past few months, it can be seen as an “event planned by active opponents of the church and its leadership.”
The Silver Shoe award, created by radio station Silver Rain, was given out for the 16th time by socialite and opposition figure host Ksenia Sobchak, who came on stage in the costume of a centaur, complete with the back end of a horse attached.

TITLE: Azarov Gives Take on Euro 2012
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s prime minister says even he saw the ball cross the line.
Mykola Azarov attended the European Championship soccer match between his country and England on Tuesday night, when Ukraine striker Marko Devic’s shot appeared to go over the line before being cleared away by defender John Terry.
“If I saw from the stands that the ball had crossed the goal line, the referee was bound to see that,” Azarov told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.
He called on UEFA to “draw conclusions about this refereeing ... so that such incidents don’t take place in the future.
“These days there are five referees on the pitch, including a referee near the line who was obliged to have registered the goal,” he added.
If the goal had been awarded, Ukraine would have tied the score at 1-1. That wouldn’t have been enough to advance to the quarterfinals, but it would have given the Ukrainians a better chance of achieving the win they needed. Ukraine lost 1-0, eliminating the team from the tournament.
Azarov praised his country’s success in co-hosting Euro 2012 and dismissed a boycott of the tournament by some Western officials as irrelevant. Senior EU officials have refused to attend matches played in Ukraine over the jailing of Azarov’s predecessor, Yulia Tymoshenko, the country’s top opposition leader. Her seven-year jail sentence for abuse of office while conducting gas negotiations with Russia has been condemned by the West as being politically motivated. She also faces a number of other charges.
Ukraine also has been rocked by allegations of racism and a call by a former England star for supporters not to attend matches here because they might return “in a coffin.” Ukrainian officials have angrily denied the claims.
Azarov said the tournament has proceeded without any major glitches so far and the protests over Tymoshenko were merely “a spoon of tar in a sea of jubilation.
“The country has prepared for it with dignity and held this championship in a commendable way,” Azarov said. “Our people are greeting foreigners in a very hospitable and welcoming way. There haven’t been any complaints.”
Azarov said the absence of some EU officials at the matches has not spoiled the sports celebration and made it clear that Ukraine will not be ordered around.
“We didn’t invite anyone by saying ‘please, oh please, come,’” Azarov said. “If you don’t want to come, it’s your business. We are not in first grade to be listening to how others assess us, our behavior and so on.”
Azarov said the 5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) spent on Euro 2012 has helped upgrade the country’s Soviet-era infrastructure.
“The Euro will end, but all those facilities that we built — the renovated roads, the airports — all of this will stay,” Azarov said.
Azarov, 64, a close ally of President Viktor Yanukovych, insisted that Tymoshenko was not being punished for opposing Yanukovych.
“Tymoshenko is prosecuted not at all because of her political convictions but for what she did, for bringing colossal losses to the country, to the people,” Azarov said.
In Kiev, many fans agreed with Azarov’s assessment of the tournament, saying Euro 2012 has been a success.
“It’s a beautiful country, beautiful city, beautiful people,” said Daniel Ekeroos, a 39-year-old carpenter from Linkoping, Sweden. “I don’t have any negative things to say.”
But Stefane Gaertner, a 30-year-old engineer from Strasbourg, France, stopped by a protest camp set up by Tymoshenko’s supporters just outside the Euro 2012 fan zone in the center of Kiev to get a T-shirt that read “Free Yulia.”
“The [French] government has declared that one must show solidarity and it’s true that it’s a strange case, it’s bad,” Gaertner said, adding that he would wear the T-shirt at matches played by France. “One should fight for liberty, human rights and we try to support freedom.”

TITLE: Poll Shows Moscow Disapproves
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Most Muscovites disapprove of new rules hiking protest fines and think the authorities are afraid of a rise in protest activity, a poll released Wednesday showed.
In response to questions from Levada Center pollsters in Moscow, 28 percent of respondents said they strongly disapproved of the new protest rules, while 39 percent broadly disapproved, Kommersant reported.
Sixty-eight percent explained the stiffer fines as being down to the authorities’ fear of a surge in protest activity, while 21 percent believed that the government was concerned with maintaining law and order.
President Vladimir Putin signed the controversial amendments into law on June 8, a few days before the opposition March of Millions protest.
Fines can now stretch to 300,000 rubles ($9,275) for participants and 1 million rubles ($30,775) for organizers of unauthorized or illegal protests.
In the same survey, sociologists found that only 3 percent of Moscow residents felt seriously inconvenienced by recent protests.
Sixty-four percent of respondents saw no problems with holding protests in the city center, including on one of the city’s main squares, and 15 percent agreed that obstacles that prevent protests from being held in the heart of the city were “thought up by the authorities.”
Levada Center deputy director Alexei Grazhdankin told Kommersant that the findings demonstrate that Muscovites expect city authorities to respect their choices.
“Muscovites are involved in politics to a large extent, they have something to defend. These are people who are largely affluent, have a future. They expect the authorities to respect them,” Grazhdankin said.
Kommersant did not report the margin of error or number of respondents in the Levada Center poll.

TITLE: Duma Deputies Appeal To Court About WTO
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Constitutional Court has received a request from 131 State Duma deputies to examine Russia’s accession to the WTO, citing irregularities in its approval process, Kommersant reported Wednesday.
The request was signed by deputies from the Communist Party and A Just Russia, including party heads Gennady Zyuganov and Sergei Mironov. Such requests must be signed by at least 90 deputies to be examined by the court.
In the request, the Duma deputies say that procedures for ratification of treaties were broken, and that neither the government nor the Duma observed “the constitutional requirement for reaching agreement on the protocol with the subjects of the Russian Federation.”
They also identified a number of other violations, including that required time limits related to adoption of the treaty were not observed, that the document was not signed in Russian and that the Duma had only an unofficial translation of the protocol.
The protocol was signed in Geneva on Dec. 16 and must be ratified by the Duma, approved by the Federation Council and signed by the President within 220 days, which would be July 23. The State Duma is expected to take up the matter July 4.
The Constitutional Court told Kommersant that they were unsure whether it would consider the deputies’ request.

TITLE: Officials Charged in 2011 Petrozavodsk Plane Crash
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Three aviation officials were charged Wednesday in connection with a RusAir plane crash in bad weather last year in Petrozavodsk that killed 47 people and injured five others, the Investigative Committee said.
Two airport employees, Vladimir Shkarupa and Vladimir Pronin, are accused of failing to provide proper weather information to the crew of the doomed Tu-134, which crashed short of the runway in foggy weather in June 2011 as it approached from Moscow.
An official with the Federal Air Transportation Agency, Eduard Voitovsky, was also charged with negligence for failing to carry out the necessary inspections of meteorological equipment at the airport, according to an Investigative Committee statement.
All three face up to seven years in prison if convicted.
“Besides the violations made by the crew members while landing, it was determined that ... the officials at the Petrozavodsk airport broke the rules for providing weather data to the aircraft, while certification of the airport’s meteorological station was not done within the requirements,” the committee said.
According to the investigation, the airport’s reorganization in 2009 required officials to re-certify the airport’s meteorological equipment, but it was never done.
Under the law, Voitovsky, who headed the agency’s department for flight support and air communication, was supposed to organize an inspection at the airport and issue legal documentation. Instead, he postponed the inspection from October 2009 until August 2011.
“As a result, meteorological support was being provided at the airport using banned devices and incomplete equipment for visibility control during landings and takeoffs,” the statement said, without specifying how this affected the flight.
Late last year, the Interstate Aviation Committee said that the intoxication of the flight navigator, Aman Atayev, was a factor in the crash.
It also said the crew’s decision not to use certain navigational instruments was a factor in the pilot’s decision to land and that the co-pilot was absent from the cockpit during the landing.

TITLE: Rockers’ Jail Time Extended
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A court ruled Wednesday that three members of a punk band who stormed the pulpit of Moscow’s main Orthodox church and asked for Russia to be freed from Vladimir Putin will remain in jail until late July.
Five members of feminist band Pussy Riot — wearing brightly colored homemade ski masks and miniskirts — briefly seized the pulpit of Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral in February and chanted “Mother Mary, drive Putin away.”
A video of the performance posted on the Internet shows churchgoers gazing on in astonishment as the women chant, high kick and dance around from the pulpit, and then appear to bow and bless themselves as security arrives to remove them.
Three band members were identified and arrested in March and face up to seven years in jail on hooliganism charges.
A Tagansky district court judge ruled Wednesday that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and 29-year-old Yekaterina Samutsevich will remain in detention until July 24, after an investigator petitioned to keep them in prison while the investigation continues.
Their cause and the Russian Orthodox Church’s harsh response have provoked public outcry.
Outside the court building, police detained 20 people as dozens of the band’s supporters whistled in unison, chanted anti-Kremlin slogans and clashed with Orthodox activists who called on the band members “to repent.”
Pussy Riot gained notoriety in January for performing a song taunting Putin — then prime minister — from a spot on Red Square used in tsarist Russia for announcing government decrees. Video of their performances became instant Internet hits.
The band’s unauthorized “punk prayer” took place two weeks before March’s presidential vote in which Putin won a third presidential term despite a wave of massive protests against his rule.
The church says the women deserve to be prosecuted for their “blasphemous” performance from a place near the altar that no lay persons are allowed to enter, although thousands of believers have signed a petition urging the church to forgive the band.

TITLE: Piterland Complex Opens Doors on Finnish Gulf
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Piterland, described by its creators as a new “multifunctional complex with retail elements” opened on Friday, June 15. 
The complex represents the first phase of a project undertaken in the Primorsky district by project developer Stremberg, an investment and construction company, and Tor, the project’s general contractor. 
Piterland, which consists of retail facilities and a water park, occupies 170,000 square meters on Primorsky Prospekt on the coast of the Gulf of Finland; another 300,000 square meters will house a four-star hotel, apartments and a yacht club. Construction on the second phase of the project is planned to start within the next six months and to finish by the end of 2013.
Representatives of Piterland’s management companies believe that the complex will attract residents from other city districts and tourists from other cities, transforming this part of St. Petersburg into a recreational zone with its water park, which is the largest roofed water complex in Europe, according to Alexander Kozhin, president of Stremberg. The park, which occupies 25,000 square meters, opened back in February this year.
Kozhin said the project’s overall investment was $320 million, noting the sum has not changed as construction continues, despite the financial difficulties caused by the 2008 economic crisis. 
“Stremberg has gained two plots of land: 2.2 hectares on which to build a yacht club and 3.8 hectares on which to build an apartment building,” Kozhin said. “Now we are trying not to hurry. The 2008 crisis has taught us not to build everything at once, but to start with something small and move forward only after it is finished,” he added.
 “The crisis forced us to introduce changes to the project, concerning the external appearance of the complex in particular,” said Yevgeny Podgornov, senior architect at Interkolumnium, the architecture firm that designed the complex. He also noted that the original project, which was developed in 2006 and underwent an expert review, differed from the final version. 
Piterland representatives emphasized the difficulties of adjusting large-scale building projects based on the example of foreign countries in both America and Asia to Russian construction and safety standards. 
“We couldn’t build the wooden dome over the water park at first because of fire safety standards; we were required to cover it with plaster and concrete, so we had to negotiate with Moscow a lot to gain permission to construct the cupola and building in general,” Podgornov said.
The main concept of the retail area was to attract new brands to St. Petersburg that are not currently in the city. 
“It’s difficult to close contracts as companies usually don’t consider the St. Petersburg market to be profitable because it has a very individual character and the volume of sales is pretty small,” said Vitaly Kozhin, general director of Stremberg. 
“We are currently negotiating with Starbucks; they liked our concept because it coincides with their concept of wooden interiors,” he added.
Currently the Starbucks coffee shop chain is not represented in St. Petersburg.
According to Vitaly Kozhin, 80 percent of space in the retail area has already been rented. 
“Only the biggest spaces are left, which we plan to rent out to the most prestigious brands,” he said. 
Rental rates for retail space at the complex range from $300 to $8,000 per month.
Independent analysts said the complex’s selling feature would be its water park, as the location is not the most attractive.
“This is a standard retail complex with an element of entertainment,” said Lyudmila Reva, broker services director at Astera real estate company. 
“What distinguishes it from other such complexes is the water park. The project is great because of what the complex has inside. The location is a problem however, because there are plenty of other retail and entertainment complexes in the district,” she added.
Reva said that the fact that the complex has opened with a minimum of tenants open for business is not a problem, and that the majority of its rental agreements have been already signed. 
“The complex will likely be fully occupied in September 2012,” she said.

TITLE: Analysts Don’t See Rate Fluctuation as Danger
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Local financial analysts are encouraging people not to worry about the recent fluctuation in exchange rates caused by the Eurozone crisis. 
“In terms of [financial] safety, it’s better to do nothing now and wait until next year,” said Spartak Sobolev, an analyst from ForexClub. 
“From an investor’s point of view, I would prefer to use the currency basket established by the Central Bank. I would keep rubles in the basket because I believe the ruble rate is likely to climb to between 31.5 and 32 rubles per U.S. dollar,” he said.
The dollar has strengthened against the euro because of fears concerning a potential Eurozone collapse. 
“Investors are taking their money back, selling euros and purchasing U.S. dollars. This leads to the weakening of the euro and the strengthening of the dollar,” said Sobolev. “People will start choosing to buy shares and make deposits in dollars, and will use the dollar as a reserve currency,” he added.
“Concerning the fluctuation in the [ruble to euro and dollar] exchange rates and 10- to 15-percent currency drop, it’s absolutely crucial not to panic and not to run and exchange money,” said Ivan Makarov, press secretary for VTB 24 bank in Russia’s northwest. 
“What people now consider to be a dramatic rise in the exchange rate — if we compare it to [the crises in] 1998 and 2008 — is not. Before, they thought that currency rates doubling was a dramatic increase; now a ten-percent jump is considered to be critical,” Makarov said.
Although the European economy is weaker than that of the U.S., analysts don’t anticipate a steep drop in the euro rate against the ruble. 
“I think we’ve seen the low of 38 to 39 rubles per euro,” said Sobolev. 
“The Central Bank and the Russian Central Bank in particular will keep the euro as a second reserve currency. Thirty-nine to 40 rubles per euro is a normal exchange rate; at this rate it is safe to purchase euros and wait,” he added.
Another issue under consideration amid the global economic recession is oil prices, a critical point for the Russian oil-oriented economy. A proposal to reduce the oil production limit was rejected when OPEC confirmed the limit of 30 million barrels per day at a conference on June 14 in Vienna.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said that the current recession in the European economy poses a greater risk to Russia in terms of a drop in commodity export prices than in the fluctuation in euro rates. Shuvalov also said that oil prices of about $90 per barrel are tolerable for the Russian economy, but that officials are aware that a drop in prices, like that which took place in 2008, is possible.
 Oil currently costs about $96 per barrel. 
“Oil costing less than $100 is a modern reality; we didn’t hike prices in 2008 and 2010, and won’t do it now,” said Sobolev. 
“I think by the end of this year and during the next year, we’ll come to terms with a price range between $70 and $90 per barrel. The price will only dip lower if there is a force majeure caused by what might happen on the stock market in the event of a Eurozone collapse.”

TITLE: How to Improve Special Economic Zones
AUTHOR: By Vladislav Inozemtsev
TEXT: Special economic zones, widely considered a fast track to economic development, will be one of the most important topics of discussion at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday and Friday.
The Shenzhen in China, maquiladoras in Mexico, Jebel Ali in Dubai and the Bataan in the Philippines are good examples of the success stories of economic zones. With the possible exception of Dubai, the standard of living in those zones is three to five times higher than that in other parts of the country.
The formula for success is basically the same in all special economic zones: the abolition of customs duties on imported equipment, a well-established infrastructure, heightened government efforts to minimize corruption in the zone, cheap labor and inexpensive raw materials. It is therefore not surprising that more than 3,000 of these zones have been created worldwide since 1980, and more than 1,000 of them are still functioning.
But as is often the case with global trends, the situation is different in Russia. For example, the special economic zone that operated in Ingushetia from 1994 to 1997 cost the federal budget $1 billion without bringing any benefit to the region. In addition, billionaire Roman Abramovich oversaw a special economic zone in Chukotka from 2001 to 2005, but he did so for the wrong reason: To optimize his own tax liabilities. The project was a large windfall for regional coffers but failed to spur economic growth in the region.
The main problem with Russia’s special economic zones is that they offer few attractions for investors. First, they are too small to host large-scale projects. For example, the zones in Zelenograd and Dubna outside Moscow and the zones in St. Petersburg and Tomsk are confined to 129 to 207 hectares each.
Second, they offer scant advantages in comparison to similar zones abroad. The Lipetsk zone, for example, has cut the profit tax from 20 percent to only 15.5 percent. The social tax on employees’ salaries was cut from 30 percent to only 14 percent effective from 2012 to 2017, but after 2017 the rate will jump back up to 28 percent.
Third, they are all impractical from the standpoint of logistics. In other countries, many zones are created near the coastline to take advantage of modern airports, sea ports and major highways leading to the city. But Russia’s poor transportation infrastructure makes setting up special economic zones in coastline cities less attractive.
From its beginning, the special economic zone in Kaliningrad was created for the wrong reasons. Instead of trying to promote competitive production for export, the Kaliningrad zone was established to promote import substitution — for example, with meat products, televisions and cognac.
It would be helpful if participants at the St. Petersburg forum discussed why the Russian government and State Duma link the gradual closure of the special economic zone in Kaliningrad with the creation of the Customs Union with Belarus. This thinking seems especially odd considering that Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree on June 5 creating an 8,000-hectare Chinese-Belarussian industrial park in the Smolevichi district of the Minsk region. Belarus will surely benefit from this zone, while Russia will be left on the sidelines. Belarus’ zone is the first to appear within the territory of the Customs Union, and it has all the correct elements: The land is sold at a discount, no profit, property or land taxes will be levied for 10 to 20 years and insurance premiums are set at only 9 percent, compared to 30 percent in Russia.
Special economic zones are a standard mechanism to incorporate a newly industrialized country into the global economy. But Russia does not need to reinvent the wheel. For example, there is no need to create exemptions for importing duty-free goods to the domestic market because membership in the World Trade Organization will provide that.
But Russia should concentrate its efforts on creating an export-oriented zone aimed at European investors and the European market. Kaliningrad would be a logical place to start. This could do more to unify Russia and the European Union than a dozen gas pipelines. Technically, this would not be difficult to establish as long as there is political will in the Kremlin. The fact that the region is an exclave makes it ideal for this type of experimental project, one that would eliminate visas and combine Russian tax laws with European anti-trust legislation. It could also include a special gambling zone and focus on developing tourism and hotels and creating a regional center for holding business conventions. Kaliningrad is the ideal place for Russia’s “window to Europe,” and with the correct strategy and investment it could become Russia’s showcase economic center after Moscow.
Russia needs to learn from other countries’ successful experiences with special economic zones. Let’s hope the foreign participants at the St. Petersburg forum will offer their insights and advice during the panel discussions, lunch breaks and receptions and that Russia’s top economic advisers and officials take good notes.

<i>Vladislav Inozemtsev is a professor at the Higher School of Economics and director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies.</i>

TITLE: comment: A Cold but Promising Obama-Putin Meeting
AUTHOR: By Andrei Kortunov
TEXT: Proponents of the “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations have reason to celebrate. The meeting between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of Monday’s Group of 20 summit was not a disaster, as many experts had predicted. Although there may not have been a surplus of warm chemistry between the two, the joint statement suggests that it is too early to write off the reset.
Notably, the joint statement starts with the economic dimension of the U.S.-Russian relationship, not with the traditional security agenda. Although this dimension has been woefully underused over the past 20 years, Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization, which the United States actively lobbied for, will certainly help boost trade between the two countries.
To be sure, the disagreements on security issues, such as missile defense, threaten to derail the reset. But it is significant that the joint statement reconfirms the importance of the New START treaty. Moreover, Russia and the United States confirmed their common positions on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. If potential nuclear proliferators or rogue states were hoping to play Moscow and Washington off of each other, it appears that Obama and Putin’s commitment to nuclear nonproliferation will not give them this opportunity.
At the same time, it is unclear whether Obama and Putin will be able to reconcile their positions on Syria. Nevertheless, the joint statement reflects an intention to look for shared views and overlapping interests, not to emphasize differences in the two countries’ policies and positions.
Finally, both Russia and the United States reaffirmed their commitment to the reset’s key regulating mechanism: the Bilateral Presidential Commission. The bureaucratic continuity in day-to-day interactions between the two sides will be preserved — at least until the U.S. presidential election in November.
In short, the reset is recognized by both the United States and Russia as an asset, not a liability. For Obama, this is self-evident because overall good relations with Russia are one of the White House’s few foreign policy accomplishments over the past four years.
But for Putin, the issue is more complicated. Many hardliners in Moscow would like to see a major revision of former President Dmitry Medvedev’s softer policy toward the United States. Many would prefer that Putin declare the reset null and void and return to his traditional tough line toward Washington.
Can we now assume that U.S.-Russian relations are back on track? Clearly, there is a bumpy road ahead, and a great deal will depend on whether the political declarations can be converted into a practical roadmap covering a broad range of areas for cooperation, including energy, regional conflicts, education and civil society initiatives. A breakthrough in relations is not likely to happen this year, but the two countries should use the next six months to accumulate innovative ideas and unorthodox proposals and challenge outdated concepts.
This ammunition will be much needed to overcome disagreements on several key political and security issues. The next chapter in U.S.-Russian relations is likely to be difficult, but as former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.”

<i>Andrei Kortunov is president of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow.</i>

TITLE: CHERNOV’S CHOICE
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: New York musicians will unite to perform in support of feminist punk group <b>Pussy Riot</b>, as the three women — imprisoned for allegedly performing an anti-Putin “punk prayer” at a Moscow church and labeled “prisoners of conscience” by Amnesty International — have spent more than three months in prison and expect that their detention will be prolonged for another two months this week. 
<b>Frank London & Di Shikere Kapelye</b> featuring Michael Alpert, singer-songwriter <b>Alina Simone</b> and a dozen others will take part in a Pussy Riot benefit event due at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, New York at 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 23.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich deny the charges of criminal mischief or hooliganism motivated by hatred toward Orthodox believers and aggravated, according to the investigators, by the fact that they formed a conspiracy and acted as a group of individuals. They face seven years in prison.
In the indictment of Tolokonnikova that was published on the Internet earlier, investigator Artyom Ranchenkov uses words such as “blasphemy,” “sacrilege” and “profanity,” and employs outdated church terms, which is completely out of place in a state that claims to be secular and in which the Church is separate from the state under the constitution.
Moreover, Ranchenkov goes as far as to describe the Church as the “foundation of the state,” which the defendants allegedly attempted to “diminish.” Such a claim coming from a state agency may well be a crime in itself.
Earlier this month, <b>Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz of Beastie Boys</b> performed as a DJ in support of Pussy Riot at a fundraiser for the Moscow group at Death By Audio Club, also in Brooklyn, on June 12.
Spin magazine described his set as “one of the best-ever riot grrrl DJ sets” featuring tracks such as Bikini Kill’s “Alien She,” Adina Howard’s “Freak Like Me,” Bratmobile’s “The Real Janelle” and Girl Unit’s “Wut.” 
According to Punknews.org, the event was a fundraiser to raise money for Pussy Riot, and high-profile feminist/punk supporters spoke out in support of the band, including Bikini Kill’s Tobi Vail and Alice Bag.
Meanwhile, St. Petersburg musician <b>Mikhail Borzykin</b> may well speak on behalf of Pussy Riot at a concert of three politically-conscious bands at Avrora concert hall on Thursday, June 21. 
He did so when speaking at the second March of Millions protest rally in Moscow on June 12, Borzykin said this week.
Alongside Borzykin’s band <b>Televizor</b>, the local band <b>NOM</b> and <b>Vasily Shumov</b> of the Moscow band <b>Center</b> will perform.
“This is a gathering of people with an active civic attitude,” Borzykin said this week. 
“What unites us is distrust of — and indignation about — the current regime.”
All three bands contributed to the “White Album,” a collection of 238 tracks in support of the Russian protest movement. The album can be downloaded free of charge at http://publicpost.ru/beliy_albom/.

TITLE: Fringe festival
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Now in its 11th year, Stereoleto (Stereo Summer) — an annual series of summer music and dance events that this year will be headlined by Regina Spektor and R&#246;yksopp — has raised a generation of music connoisseurs, while being viewed with suspicion by the establishment, according to the festival’s founder and head of Light Music promotion agency, Ilya Bortnyuk.
In most European countries, Stereoleto would be a mainstream music event — one of many — but in Russia, where mainstream means primitive Russian pop, prison folk and no-frills Russian rock, it is something very different.
“I’ve been told we’re a festival of elitist music, or fringe music,” Bortnyuk said.
“Officials know the Mariinsky Theater, they know about Boris Grebenshchikov [of rock legends Akvarium], but all the rest is highly incomprehensible for them, while for law enforcement, it is something bordering on criminal activities, not unlike drug trafficking or prostitution.”
Backed by foreign cultural institutions and consulates, such as the French Institute and the U.S., Israeli, Finnish and Norwegian consulates, the festival gets no support from the city.
“Traditionally, we submit an application to the Culture Committee every year, and get nothing,” Bortnyuk said.
“But I am not bitter, because I understand why they don’t give me money: They think I’m fine as it is. But I think a festival like Stereoleto should be supported by the city, because first and foremost it’s a cultural phenomenon rather than a commercial one. We’re not doing it to make money, but to have a great festival with great music.”
According to Bortnyuk, this year’s festival has been expensive to promote, because U.S. singer-songwriter Regina Spektor and Norwegian electro-pop duo R&#246;yksopp are full-fledged international stars.
Although international success does not necessarily mean popularity in Russia, Bortnyuk hopes the festival’s headliners will draw several thousands of fans.
“Of course, they are not super stars like Linkin Park or Red Hot Chili Peppers, but as far as good, cool music goes, they are artists who have an audience of between 3,000 and 5,000 in the city,” Bortnyuk said.
“This is very good, considering the fact that the world’s most popular band drew only 19,000 in St. Petersburg. That’s a benchmark. If you manage to get 5,000, it’s a third of what The Rolling Stones got when they played in St. Petersburg [in 2007.]”
Originally, Stereoleto focused on relaxed lounge and electronic dance music styles, with acts such as Italy’s Montefiori Cocktail and Hungary’s Yonderboi performing at the first event in 2002, but since then the festival has expanded to include more diverse music genres.
Over the years, the festival has played host to Sparks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, David Byrne, Massive Attack, Amorphous Androgynous, Asian Dub Foundation, The Orb, Gus Gus and about three hundred other acts.
“When we were starting out, I never imagined that we’d have klezmer/hardcore or ragga/hip-hop bands performing at Stereoleto in 2012,” Bortnyuk said.
“We have no style restrictions now; the only restriction is that we’ll never have any heavy metal or [Russian mainstream rock band] Chaif — any dull music that I don’t understand.”
Bortnyuk believes that diversity has become a strength of Stereoleto, which offers something for everybody, be it jazz, soul and funk as performed by The Northern Governors from Finland, the blend of cumbia and electro funk from Bomba Estereo of Columbia or melodic electro pop from Norwegian electronic duo R&#246;yksopp, all of whom are scheduled to play this year.
This year, for the first time Steroleto will include an afternoon family event on July 14, with diverse activities happening in a children’s zone, play zone, art market and food court. According to Bortnyuk, there will be a discount for two parents coming with a child, and free entrance for children under 10.
“Those who went to the early Stereoleto events already have children,” Bortnyuk said.
“For instance, my daughter is 11; she was born around the time of the first Stereoleto and she keeps asking me to take her along. I can’t take her for a night out, but I’ll be able to take her to the afternoon event.
“Besides, I have started to realize that the night parties have their limitations. That’s why we have an evening event, from 5 p.m. to midnight, on June 24, and an afternoon/evening event, from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on July 14. But we’ll still have one all-night event called Stereo Night, a more traditional club format.”
This summer, Stereoleto will comprise four events: Two at Vozdukh Summer Project, a 2,500 square-meter area on Krestovsky Island, with bars, a swimming pool, a beach and recreation zones, on June 24 and 30, and one — with Regina Spektor on July 14 — on Yelagin Island, in the Stalin-era park named the Kirov Central Park of Culture and Recreation (TsPKiO).
One Stereoleto event will be held at Glavclub’s Summer Stage, located near Vozdukh on Krestovsky Island. Called Stereo Dusk, it will be held on July 21 and is due to be headlined by Zola Jesus, a 23-year-old American singer-songwriter of Russian origin.
July 14 will see the celebration of Bastille Day, with French and Russian bands performing on one of the two stages, complete with French designs and other entertainment. The French national holiday celebration will be held in cooperation with the French Institute in St. Petersburg.
According to Bortnyuk, it is new exciting acts that make Stereoleto different from other music events like Zavtra, the open-air festival that was headlined by French singer Zaz earlier this month.
“There are no discoveries to be made — artists that people don’t know very well yet, that they can come and discover for themselves,” he said.
“They invited acts that are already well-known, though they came up with a very good lineup. But if you take Primavera Sound or even Flow [festivals], half of the artists have emerged only recently. Of course, some people knew about them, some write about them. 
“It’s standard practice: Some artists are famous, some are fashionable right now, some are total unknowns. That’s very important, because otherwise every festival would resemble [Russian rock festivals] Nashestviye or Open Your Windows.
“Stereoleto is the most European festival [in Russia], because we care a lot about the quality of music and its newness and relevance. In this sense, we’re the main preachers of new music, because we have maybe 30 percent of artists who are largely unknown, but very cool, and we make the public discover them.”
Light Music’s other plans for 2012 include a local concert by Dead Can Dance due on October 12, which Bortnyuk describes as a “mega event.”
“They came here seven years ago and haven’t performed since then,” he said.
“They could perform this time and say, ‘We won’t perform anymore.’ Russia is the only country where their tour hasn’t sold out yet. It sold out in two days in Poland, three days in the Czech Republic. Russia is the most inert.”
Why?
“Where do I start? Wages are low, corruption is high. Any reason that you can come up with will explain why people don’t go to concerts much here.”

<i>Stereoleto: Stereo Evening — featuring The Northern Governors, D-Pulse, Bomba Estereo and R&#246;yksopp — will be held at 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 24 at Vozdukh Project, Krestovsky Island, 
6 Yuzhnaya Doroga. M: Krestovsky Ostrov. Tel: 996 1996. Check www.bestfest.ru for full program.</i>

TITLE: An eye for optical theory
AUTHOR: By Chris Gordon
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Handsome, dapper, erudite and charming, you would never know to look at him that Peter Greenaway is one of the most polarizing figures in world cinema. 
Mischievous? Yes. Affected? Sometimes. But at 70 years old, the great British director is nothing if not a supreme gentleman. 
Watch the films, however, and you might be forgiven for thinking him a nasty piece of work — all gnashing teeth and flying fur — with a nose for the louche. But that would be missing the point slightly. A master of the dramatic moment, he is naturally drawn to extremes. 
Greenaway is constantly engaged in a diversity of simultaneous undertakings: Writing, directing, VJ-ing, painting, creating multimedia installations and conducting research into arcane bits of knowledge, his hyperactive intellect synthesizing the varied strands into a cohesive constellation that is as fascinating as it is complex.
This week and last, the director was in St. Petersburg to attend a retrospective of his film work, while also participating in a charity auction of his paintings at the Kempinski Hotel Moika 22 to benefit the Pantelemonovsky Medical Foundation. As if that weren’t plenty, he was also here looking for an actor to play the lead role in a project about the Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s time in Mexico, “Eisenstein in Guanajuato.”
Greenaway, who considers Eisenstein the supreme filmmaker, found it difficult to identify a Russian actor able to play the part. 
“Although our film is about a Russian subject, we might very well in the end choose a character who is not Russian at all. But I think the great problem is, the character has a huge demand because the dialogue that I write is hardly, ‘Pass me the salt, darling.’ It’s full of English wordplay, alliteration, punning and complications of understanding, which I think only prime English speakers would completely understand.”
Curious words for an extremely vocal critic of films that sacrifice visual acuity to the service of text — a practice he disparagingly calls “bookshop cinema.” His films nonetheless fetishize the written word to the point that some might question the sincerity of his pronouncements on the vices of text.
“It’s an ironic contradiction. I thoroughly enjoy text, and I write novels, and I’m reasonably well published. So I’m all for text. But in context, if you like. And I think that there are so many ways in which text can hand down its meaning, not only contemporary forms, but ancient forms of lyric poetry, etc. Why can’t we allow cinema to get on with its own business? Which I think is really about imagery and not about text.”
A walking encyclopedia of visual culture, he is also one of its most eloquent champions. And in an effort to awaken audiences from their complacency, he is not above a jolt of provocation.
“People are lazy. People don’t think. People think sloppily. People are concerned, I suppose, with notions their grandfathers told them and hardly ever question it. I think we need that questioning. Otherwise our situation will never improve.  
“We’ve got to make sure that our curiosity is sharp and hard, and not simply accept homilies and truths because they’ve been around a long, long time. There’s nothing unusual, I don’t think, in this. I think it’s the way we all operate. We all try to convince our grandmothers that god is dead, for example, although she will not listen, god bless her. But I think that it is an inevitable progression; it’s how civilization moves forward.”
Greenaway’s films engage with the whole rich history of visual representation. Approaching them unprepared can often lead to bewilderment. But demanding as they may be, requiring that viewers work to make associations and discover meaning through visual cues, they also offer a lot in return. 
“I’m very, very interested in ideas of visual literacy. I believe most people are visually illiterate. It’s not necessarily their fault, it’s the way we organize our education program. 
“Just because you’ve got eyes doesn’t mean that you can see, in the same way that you don’t drop out of the womb fully speaking, and certainly not fully writing. It’s a huge, massive education which never stops.”
Asked whether he feels duty-bound to administer this education himself, he is characteristically direct. 
“Duty sounds a bit strong. I think it’s an artist’s obligation to open doors and windows. You know that’s what an artist is for: To provide alternatives, and to provoke, and to stimulate. But it’s my, I suppose, particular concern — my bugbear. Maybe it’s totally unreasonable, maybe it’s far too purist, but let me repeat: I believe that cinema is the prime means which we have, heretofore, for being able to express our ideas in visual terms.”
“Champions of the new digital revolution like Umberto Eco would say that we’ve had 8,000 years of the text masters.” Greenaway points out that it’s almost always been masters, hardly ever mistresses, which he finds incredibly unjust. 
“And he would argue that the text masters who created all our holy books — who created all our manuals of behavior, who told us how to tie babies’ nappies and make aircraft carriers, who told us about ethics, who told us how to behave — these people have to move aside now because we have a greater, I suppose, second Guttenberg revolution: The age of information. And he would argue that indeed, even all the notions of what we now play with on our laptops — in a curious, primal way — is far more visual-visual than it is, actually, in terms of text.
“Again, you’ve got to be careful. I always remember my mother saying ‘Come away from that television set and go and read a book!’ Now we all need to be quite, I suppose, literate, to be able to handle the huge amounts of text on our laptops. But I think Umberto’s premise is a good one. One that certainly supports the way that I would like to think.”
Ever since his groundbreaking work with an early analogue form of high-definition on “Prospero’s Books” in 1991, Greenway has engaged the latest technology to expand his vision. He continues to be excited by the possibilities they open up.
“As you might know, in 2016 the whole world is going to celebrate the death of Shakespeare. You can imagine, every single theatrical company is going to put on ‘Macbeth,’ and it has been suggested that maybe I should digitize the original ‘Prospero’s Books.’ And I quite like that idea. 
“You can’t in any way change Gielgud’s performance — and wouldn’t want to — but there are all sorts of extraordinary things that I think we could do now that we couldn’t do then. And also, of course, as I’m never satisfied with an image, it would give me a chance to shorten the film and get rid of the longeurs, and to sharpen the whole thing up. So I would quite like to do that.” 
An abiding concern of his is the way in which any new technology is used in the service of the erotic, which is the subject of his soon-to-be-released film about a late-16th century Dutch maker of naughty etchings, “Goltzius and The Pelican Company.” 
“We can trace the history of visual imagery of the last 700 years to the very first Venetian painting which was related to the new technology of oil painting. This allowed paintings to become very private, so you could take them to your bedroom. Necessarily, all those rich princes from all over Europe began to commission from people like Giovanni Bellini, Titian and Giorgione very privatized and often very erotic pictures — what we would regard now simply as pinups. But the art galleries of Europe are full of reclining nudes whose purposes are pretty self evident, though we try to cloak them in intellectual respectability.”
That idea of the transformation of function, and the changes in meaning the process produces, informs his practice at every step. With one foot planted firmly in the past while the other strides fearlessly into the digital future, Greenaway tramps his own, inimitable path exploring new ways in which to excite the intellect with an art that is fully engaged with its place in the long history of visual representation.

TITLE: the word’s worth: Full of official hot air
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ïàðàäíûé: ceremonial, dress, sham

Russia has always had a powerful, relatively small class of rulers and a weak, relatively large class of rulees. Indulging in a bit of armchair philosophizing, it seems to me that when each new type of Russian officialdom starts out, there is a fairly close relationship between word and deed. But over time, the gap widens. Officialdom says one thing, reality screams the opposite. Meaningful ceremonies become empty rituals. Serious official pronouncements are greeted with laughter. At this point, the game is up. Officialdom starts packing its bags.
The rulees — that is, Russians — are exquisitely sensitive to this moment, and they have a rich and nuanced vocabulary to describe the pretentious, empty statements and behavior of officialdom. &#8239;
Many of the words they use for this are metaphorical. Take the word ïàðàäíûé, which describes something that is formal or ceremonial: ïàðàäíàÿ ëåñòíèöà (formal staircase), ïàðàäíàÿ ôîðìà (dress uniform), ïàðàäíûé âèä (formal or ceremonial dress/appearance).
But ïàðàäíàÿ ðå÷ü is more likely to mean a formal, high-flown and empty speech. In art, ïàðàäíûé ðåàëèçì is “show” realism — that is, sham realism: happy, fat, clean collective farmers.
Another word like this is ïûøíûé, which means airy, round, light or thick: ïûøíûé òîðò (light cake), ïûøíàÿ ôèãóðà (lush figure), ïûøíûå âîëîñû (thick hair).
But ïûøíàÿ ôðàçà is a pretentious, affected or flowery phrase — one filled with hot air. If someone speaks of a ïûøíàÿ öåðåìîíèÿ, you have to listen for tone of voice. They might be speaking positively about a ceremony filled with tradition, pomp and circumstance. Or they might be sneering at an overdone, pompous and ostentatious ceremony. &#8239;
Hint: If Russians are talking about England, it’s positive. If they’re talking about Russia, it’s probably negative.
There are also nonmetaphorical words, like ïîìïåçíûé (pompous), íàïûùåííûé (bombastic) or âûñîêîïàðíûé (high-flown). Ïîìïà (pomp) is also generally derogatory.
Another word you hear in this context is îôèöèîç and îôèöèîçíûé. One of the older meanings of îôèöèîç is an official announcement: Ëîâèë òîëüêî îäíó ïðîãðàììó, ïî êîòîðîé âåñü îôèöèîç ãîíÿåò (I could only get one channel that spouted the official line all day.) Another meaning refers to a group of people close to, but not part of, the government. Â Êàçàíè ïðîõîäèë îôèöèîçíûé ìèòèíã çà Ïóòèíà (In Kazan, a semi-official rally for Putin was held.)
Lately, there seems to be some English influence on îôèöèîçíûé: Âëàäåëåö ãîñòèíèöû áûë ãðóáûì è îôèöèîçíûì (The hotel owner was rude and officious). And some people use it to mean “official” in reference to companies: Ñîñòîÿëñÿ îôèöèîçíûé ðåëèç íîâîãî ñìàðòôîíà (The new smart phone was officially released). But these usages are still nonstandard.
And then îôèöèîç can mean ritual, pompous, pretentious, overly formal and stilted. When your old school chum greets you by name and patronymic with a hearty handshake, you can say: Çà÷åì òàêîé îôèöèîç? (Why so formal?) Or when he invites you to an official reception, you can say: Òàêèå ïðè¸ìû è îôèöèîç òåðïåòü íå ìîãó (I can’t stand those receptions and official glitz).
Most recently, îôèöèîç has become a generic word for state officials and what they do, especially when their actions are for show: Íàø îôèöèîç õîäèò â öåðêîâü “äëÿ ãàëî÷êè,” à âåðà äîëæíà áûòü âíóòðè (The guys at the top go to church for show, while faith should be a private matter).
Officialdom: start packing.

<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: Personality clash
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Loneliness often leads people to the most improbable alliances. This is the case in Avdotya Smirnova’s new film, “Kokoko,” which started screening nationwide on June 14.
At first glance, as they happen to share a cabin on an overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the two thirty-something heroines seem to be antipodes: The energetic, down-to-earth, foxy, foul-mouthed and heavily made-up provincial Vika (Yana Troyanova), and the anti-glamorous St. Petersburg ethnographer Liza (Anna Mikhalkova), ever lost in thought, obsessed with charity, overweight and so neglecting of herself that her former husband (Konstantin Shelestun) cannot resist reprimanding her for not shaving her legs.
After both women are robbed on the train, the kind-hearted Liza offers Vika temporary refuge in her St. Petersburg apartment, her late artist father’s former studio. This becomes the start of a most unlikely friendship, with Vika settling in the apartment on a permanent basis.
On the surface, Smirnova is exploring a social conflict: That of a lack of understanding between the country’s working class and the intelligentsia, a conflict that has been described in Russian classics since the time of writer Ivan Turgenev and appears to be as insurmountable as Russia’s confrontation with natives from the Caucasus.
Indeed, social satire can be found in abundance in the film. Liza’s colleagues, harmless verbose researchers from the Kunstkamera museum, who have apparently read too many books about the crusades, conquests and noble missions, seek a way to do good in the modern world. They stage fierce fights over petitions calling for the release of jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, bravely face the riot police as a small group of protesters huddles together in the wind in a dwarf-sized political protest, they make donations to children’s homes — it all feels immensely noble and useful, yet all of them feel useless. “What do I really want to be doing in life?” is the sort of question that the ethnographers do not ask themselves. Vika, in contrast, is disturbingly specific and enviably explicit about her desires, although that does not help her to find a sense of perspective. For that, the young woman from Yekaterinburg is happy to rely on the more educated Liza, who, conveniently, is always more informed and seems to know better. 
Yet the story that the director is exploring is really a human one. In a sense, it echoes the question posed by the main male character in Smirnova’s previous film, “Two Days:” why can’t two grown up, intelligent people who are in love with each other find peace?
Liza and Vika’s is not a love story, yet it is a story of an alliance that constantly fails because two people who need each other and care for each other deeply repeatedly fail to communicate their feelings. 
“If you have to explain, that means it’s something you shouldn’t have to explain.” This quote from the Russian Silver Age poet Zinaida Gippius is all that Liza, frustrated with Vika’s tactless behavior in her apartment, utters to her flatmate. And she is never able to change this communication pattern, which is, in fact, nothing but arrogance on her part. As a result, the farcical finale, in which Liza attempts to kill Vika at night by suffocating her with a pillow — the final straw was the exasperating sound of water falling from the bronze fountain that Vika bought to celebrate getting a job in a local club, and Liza is a light sleeper — seems all the more natural. 
Both women crave a family, in the sense that they desperately need someone they can trust. “I trusted you; I never trusted a single soul in my entire life but I believed you, I trusted you about anything you told me,” Vika sobs after Liza, deranged by the sight of her ex-husband having sex with the enticing Yekaterinburg girl, throws one insult at her after another. Confidence personified — the quality that Liza is seriously lacking — Vika feels betrayed, and cannot help adding “Aren’t you responsible, forever, for what you have tamed?” This well-worn phrase from “The Little Prince” sounds so utterly helpless, especially coming from the reckless and self-reliant provincial, that even Vika herself cannot suppress a conciliatory giggle.
Liza takes it for granted that Vika has replaced the cleaner — who was no good but Liza paid her because she felt sorry for the woman — and Vika cleans floors, washes dishes and cooks daily, not only for Liza but for their parties. At the same time, the educated ethnographer is unable to tell Vika that she is being tactless and invasive by staging noisy parties without warning — this was Vika’s attempt to find company for the lonely Liza — or by putting a lock on the door of Liza’s bedroom — for Liza’s privacy as “I cannot look after that many guests all the time!”
Sometimes what it takes to reach peace and end a seemingly eternal conflict is to swap roles: For the preacher to shut up and listen to someone else, for the busybody to stop, for the coward to tell the truth, for the introvert to share their feelings. Vika survives the suffocation attempt, and is horrified by the idea of going back to Liza’s apartment. 
“Oh no, please don’t take me back there,” is the plea, repeated at the pace of a rap, that ends the film. Yet strange as it may seem, this may not be the end of this tale of female friendship. The women are simply back to square one.

<i>Kokoko is currently showing at Avrora movie theater. For a full timetable, visit www.avrora.spb.ru</i>

TITLE: in the spotlight: Sobchak’s safe and new hangout
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, television presenter Ksenia Sobchak had both her privacy and her safe invaded, as it turned out that investigators were following her love life pretty carefully.
Protest leader Alexei Navalny posted an Instagram photo that was quite revealing: Ilya Yashin, Sobchak and Anastasia Udaltsova were pictured waiting for questioning at the Investigative Committee on Tuesday. Yashin is shown grinning awkwardly and Sobchak, her arms crossed defiantly, is also smiling grimly. The picture makes them look like a rather joyless Bonnie and Clyde.
By the end of last Tuesday, there wasn’t much that we didn’t know about Sobchak: Where her apartment is located, how much cash she keeps in her safe, and according to Life News, even what kind of panties she wears.
The Investigative Committee seemed to have turned into a gossip column as it stressed that Yashin’s “place of abode” was Sobchak’s apartment. And police lovingly posted photographs of wads of money “stored in more than 100 envelopes” as we learned, much to our amazement, that her restaurant and corporate parties paid cash.
“Sobchak has discovered a new hangout: The Investigative Committee,” NTV television gloated. ?onversely, gossip websites turned into hotbeds of political discussion over the treatment of one of their favorite targets. “What is the world coming to? There’s politics on this website too,” wrote one of the commentators on the bitchy Spletnik.ru website.
Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote that Sobchak’s money compromised the whole opposition movement. “Judging by the dubious contents of the safe of one of the main oppositionists, after the victory of our newly minted fighters with corruption, we can expect something fantastic: A global breakthrough in misappropriation and misuse of state money,” it harrumphed.
Moskovsky Komsomolets was far more sympathetic, saying the raid made a “depressing impression” and that Sobchak had been punished for being a “traitor” to Vladimir Putin.
She told Ekho Moskvy radio station that she saw it as a “political reprisal” against her and that she suspected investigators had picked a time when she would have a particularly large amount of cash at home.
Some of the investigators were “sadistic,” even forcing her to go to the toilet with a man in a mask holding a machine gun, she said. They also read out old love letters in front of her new boyfriend, chuckling and adding expressions, she said. One even told her she should have gone out with an FSB agent instead.
In a questionable scoop, the Life News website published official investigation pictures of Sobchak’s safe before the officials did, she said. Life News did not explain the origin of its photographs, which were identical to the ones posted on the Moscow police’s website Tuesday evening. The Tvoi Den website also gave details of what Sobchak was wearing when she opened the door to police, details that seemed to have come from a leak in the investigation.
Sobchak seemed subdued Wednesday evening as she interviewed Nashi founder Vasily Yakemenko, who has stepped down as head of the state youth agency, on her Sobchak Live show on Dozhd TV. In an earlier incident that is bound to linger on his record, she went up and filmed him on her cell phone eating at a very expensive Italian restaurant back in October. This time, however, the softly spoken Yakemenko ran rings around her as he confounded her expectations by saying he thinks that he has no real supporters from his glory days in Nashi tents — but neither do Navalny and Yashin.

TITLE: THE DISH: Du Nord 1834
AUTHOR: By Emily Beeby
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: <b>Un diner presque parfait</b>
While there are a great many confectionaries in St. Petersburg with French pretensions, few among them actually manage to create an authentic atmosphere or execute the cuisine with that effortless finesse characteristic of France. Du Nord 1834 has a long history of Francophilia: It is so named after one of the first French cafes in St. Petersburg, which was housed in the same building. 
From the outset it oozes Gallic charm, from the striped awning to the wicker chairs placed around small round tables outside and the baguettes that line the windows. The only obvious difference is the location: Instead of a quaint little Parisian street, Du Nord 1834 overlooks the uproarious Ligovsky Prospekt, which rather spoils the image.
Patrons are greeted with a cheery ‘Bonjour, Madame!’ and glancing around the sumptuous yet classical interior (mirrors framed by wood paneling, velvet upholstery and a delectable counter stacked with cakes, pastries and breads) the atmosphere is understatedly — but unmistakably — French. The music playing in the background is charming, but the interior lets itself down slightly with the rather-too-authentically-French toilets, which are clean and serviceable, but could be, and should be, as pretty as the shop floor. 
When questioned, the waiter happily admitted to only knowing one phrase of French, and not understanding it. However, he was very amiable and not only helpful, but showed genuine interest in our party and his job on the whole. 
Du Nord 1834 seemed to improve at every step, and the menu is delightfully original yet very traditionally French, without exception. There are predictable favorites, such as frogs’ legs at 450 rubles ($13.80), or mussels and fries for 490 rubles ($15). The wine list is not cheap, with bottles ranging from 1,600 to 2,800 rubles ($49 to $85.65), and helpfully sized half-liter carafes at 400 rubles ($12.25), but the wine on offer is almost exclusively French AOC and the list also boasts port and dessert wine. Otherwise, there is a range of flavored coffees, but a lack of inspiring soft drinks.
The duck p&#226;t&#233; with wheat toasts, two kinds of marmalade and olives (230 rubles, $7) had a beautiful, rustic presentation — the p&#226;t&#233; was served in a small round dish covered with paper and tied with string. The description ‘marmalade’ was a bit loose, and was in fact closer to cherry and orange flavored jelly cubes, but perfectly complimented the p&#226;t&#233;, which was chunky and succulent. The baked beet salad with goat’s cheese, red grapes and pine nuts (250 rubles, $7.70) was pleasant enough, but could have included more cheese.
The fine French fare continued with pigeon served with grilled mushrooms and snails (490 rubles, $15), which also came with the cherry and orange jellies, which melted to form a delicious — and colorful — sauce. The pigeon was slightly overcooked, but was garnished with roasted fat, which added a rich, guilty pleasure to the dish. The rabbit stew with mashed potatoes (390 rubles, $11.90) had a wholesome, subtle flavor, interspersed with pungent mushrooms. 
The real test came in the dessert. In making the perfect croissant there seems to be a secret that the French are not willing to share with the rest of the world, and it is a true rarity to find one that has a patch on anything found in a French boulangerie. However, Du Nord 1834 passed the final test with flying colors. The croissant (70 rubles, $2.15) was crispy (but not glazed) on the outside, had buttery, soft layers in the center and flaked satisfyingly when devoured — in short, perfect. A less traditionally French option is the poppy seed cupcake with orange cream (80 rubles, $2.45). It was very dainty, decorated with silver balls and set on a pale orange paper to match the cream. The cake was served chilled, which was unusual but proved a pleasant change, and the orange cream was light, not overpowering the flavor of the poppy seeds.
Du Nord 1834 is a true gem for Francophiles and non-Francophiles alike. For the best French food this side of Paris at competitive prices, and perfect for a short coffee break or business lunch, it is an absolute must.

TITLE: Therapy Dogs Walk Patients Down Road to Recovery
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: They hold the title of man’s best friend, are irreplaceable members of the police force, served in World War II, are excellent guards, lead sled teams and serve as shepherds. They assist the deaf and blind and are faithful companions. These talented beings are not humans, but dogs. Now four-legged friends can even be therapists. 
Research has proven that dogs have a positive influence on the human mind and make people happy. 
“We’re born with a feeling of love toward dogs. Dogs have served as guards for people as far back as we can remember, so this is something we don’t forget,” said Maria Maltseva, deputy head of the Association of Support and Development of Canine Therapy. “This love and trust helps serve as the basis of canine therapy,” she added. 
Those who believe in therapy dogs say that another plus is that people are not concerned with what dogs think of them. This helps sick people not to feel embarrassed by their illness or that they are different from or inferior to others. This feeling then helps patients move forward toward active rehabilitation. The good mood and relaxed feeling pets encourage facilitate an effective recovery. 
Dogs may work in children’s homes and homes for the elderly, or help patients overcome their fears. They also help in the treatment of severely handicapped adults and children.
Canine therapy is an officially recognized form of treatment, but in Russia, dogs are not allowed in hospitals. 
“In Europe, the U.S. and Canada, therapy dogs are even allowed to enter the intensive care unit. Such highly trained animals are greatly respected. In Russia we cannot even go on the subway with working dogs,” said Maltseva.
Not every dog, however, can work in therapy. Just like people, animals need to complete a training course. Dogs must be intelligent, patient, good-natured, friendly and have a balanced temperament. The training can last from four to ten months, and to complete the course, the dogs must pass an exam. Three adjudicators mark the exam, including a doctor, an insurance company representative (the dogs might sustain injuries while working and therefore must be insured) and a dog trainer. A fourth judge serves as an observer and is either a veterinarian or a doctor. 
“The training follows an international testing system,” said Maltseva. “The exam is conducted under conditions similar to those of a hospital room. During the exam, someone will run, jump, scream, move around the room in a wheelchair and throw food in order to imitate various stressful situations. Under these conditions, the dog must stay calm, friendly and self-confident and never frighten or cause harm to the patient,” she continued.
Only 20 to 25 percent of dogs pass the exam, and receive an internationally accepted diploma. In St. Petersburg there are 37 certified therapy dogs. According to the association’s data for the last 37 years, in the U.S., for example, only 10,000 out of 120,000 dogs who took the exam passed it and are eligible to work in canine therapy. Due to the stringent selection requirements, breeding such dogs especially for the purpose is impossible.
“Only a beloved pet that has grown up in a family can be used in canine therapy,” said Maltseva. “Moreover, dogs raised in special nurseries by breeders aren’t familiar with irritating things that surround us in everyday life and therefore don’t know how to react to them.” 
Canine therapy depends a lot on the volunteers who donate the therapy dogs. 
“I always wanted to help, and my bull terrier Shkoda always loved children, so we decided she should be used for the common good,” said volunteer Maria Nikultseva.
“Shkoda understands the importance of what she does and is happy to work. Once she got sick and couldn’t work. There were real tears in her eyes when she saw the kids and couldn’t go up to them and spend time with them.”
Previously, four-year-old Shkoda served as a rescue dog, but was forced to find another specialty for health reasons. She is the only certified bull terrier to work in canine therapy.
“Unfortunately, people are used to seeing bull terriers as monsters, but this is not the case,” said Nikultseva. “Children love Shkoda. Parents are sometimes afraid of how a bull terrier will behave with their kids — that Shkoda might attack them, but she is a child’s best friend. She is not only placid and friendly, but makes children feel sure of themselves. The color white is also calming, and kids often choose to spend time with Shkoda over other dogs.”
After a canine therapy course, nine-year-old Eva Oslan, who had a phobia of animals after suffering a serious attack by a cat, lies on a completely unperturbed Shkoda and is not afraid at all. 
“I found information on the Internet about canine therapy,” said Eva’s mother Yana Oslan. “We started out by just approaching dogs and touching them. After the second lesson everything was going well. We got very good results and all of Eva’s fears went away.” 
Dogs can also help adults deal with their fears. After being trapped under the rubble of a house that was destroyed, one woman was afraid of doors and windows and spent all of her time in a room with curtains covering the windows.
“After eight months of [standard] treatment there was no improvement,” Maltseva explained. “After five or six training sessions with a therapy dog, she pulled back the curtain to watch the dog through the window as it left her house. After completing the therapy course, she could even go to the shop with the dog.”
Another example is a girl with severe infantile cerebral palsy. Her arms were rigid, while the rest of her body and legs were limp and uncontrollable.
“She couldn’t sit. But during her third canine therapy training session she started smiling and after the course she could even walk with the help of others,” said Maltseva. 
“Of course, canine therapy is not the solution to everything, it simply helps real doctors. Sometimes it doesn’t help. But it has been really fantastic and effective in some cases,” she said.
Dogs can also inspire and encourage people with their own stories and conditions. Faith, an American dog, has only two hind legs, but doesn’t let this hinder her. Her owner taught Faith to walk like a person — on two legs. For many years, Faith has been visiting hospitals and helping patients to believe that if a dog can walk on its hind legs, people can do something just as incredible. This helps people overcome their own challenges, get back the will to live and proves that people can deal with any situation, regardless of how insurmountable it might seem.  
Faith has helped a lot of people in difficult situations and sends the message that you don’t have to look perfect to be perfect.

TITLE: Art Historian Challenges Gender Stereotypes
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: When we are brave enough to look our mistakes square in the face, we often realize that, although each situation was very different, the key to our failure and subsequent frustration was due to the same thing: Fear. 
A recent essay by a European colleague summarizes the five most common regrets of dying people based on conversations with hospice patients. It showed that almost everyone regrets not being brave enough to express their feelings and not having the courage to act without considering what others will think and say about them. In other words, people regret not being true to their hearts and betraying themselves — out of fear.
The experience of overcoming fears and insecurities is at the heart of Irada Vovnenko’s new book, “The Dress Code of Inspiration,” which has just been published by Moscow’s Astrel publishing house. 
Most contemporary female Russian writers either serve their readers a meager diet of detective stories or “how to ensnare a billionaire” soap-opera-esque, semi-autobiographical sagas. Vovnenko, who recently co-authored the bestseller “Love and Other Dissonances” with Polish writer Janusz Wisniewski, makes female emotionality the focus of her stories.
Thirty-nine-year-old Vovnenko, an art historian by training, works at the St. Isaac’s Cathedral Museum and used to be head of public relations at Ruhrgas oil and gas company in Germany. She started writing only four years ago, her first book being born out of her own frustrating romantic experiences. By contrast, “The Dress Code of Inspiration” was admittedly the product of a happy love story.
It would be far-fetched to call Vovnenko’s book strictly autobiographical, yet the author makes it clear that her personal first-hand emotional experience served as the foundation of the story.
“I wanted to talk about human fears — let’s be honest, we all have them — we are afraid of our own emotional range, of showing affection, of becoming old…we dread our first wrinkles, and being honest often seems like a Herculean task,” Vovnenko said at the presentation of her book at the city’s W Hotel on June 14. “These fears are an obstacle in our lives and, when they take over, they ultimately make us insensitive.”
The way out, according to Vovnenko, is through being inspired and able to get carried away by a spontaneous happy experience.
“The Dress Code of Inspiration” is the story of a woman who had the courage to leave behind her fears— many of which are distinctly Russian.
Russian society is pitiless toward its women, and most ordinary women humbly accept the harsh standards that are imposed on them. 
“If a woman does not have a child by the age of 30, let’s face it, she has failed as a woman.” This phrase, casually dropped by one of the country’s most popular TV presenters, is perceived by thousands of women to be a truth. Another common belief in Russia is that falling in love when you are over 40 is unseemly.
Vovnenko does not argue against the many ridiculous and damaging prejudices. Neither does the writer analyze the paths these misconceptions take. She simply tells the story of a journalist, Yulia, who fights back against them and finds happiness. In a sense, the book is “the diary of a woman in love.” 
“It is common knowledge that loved-up women over 40 look almost indecent; they look as if their feelings have more to do with theatricality or a climacteric hormonal imbalance than genuine deep emotions,” the book reads, sharing the thoughts that race through Yulia’s mind. “In fact, such women look almost repulsive to others, so inappropriate is their state!”
In the nearly 250-page book, Yulia, who was married for almost 20 years (and gets divorced during the course of the story) is feeling bored senseless when the reader first meets her. She has a passionate romance with a person she feels is the love of her life. Alas, this is not how the story ends, and the heroine goes through the bitter realization that, nearing 40, she has fallen victim to a dangerous, manipulative Don Juan type with stunning looks and impeccable speech, peppered with quotations from famous people. 
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” This quote from Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” is key to Vovnenko’s book. 
“Most people try to hide their imperfections and complexities behind lies, or, at the very least, story-like versions [of what their lives are really like],” the writer said. “Things seem easier to bear this way. And our men are afraid of admitting their love for a woman because they perceive it as a sign of weakness. Being a strong-willed man is equal to being a macho guy who goes in and out of relationships as easily as an eagle taking flight.”
Yulia does in fact end up finding the love of her life, although this demure, widowed Afghan war veteran-turned businessman at first seems like a most unlikely partner. 
Perhaps surprisingly, Vovnenko’s prose has attracted the attention of a fair number of male fans, as was evident at her book presentation at W Hotel and a book-signing with her readers at Dom Knigi bookstore. Nikolai Burov, director of the St. Isaac’s Cathedral Museum and the former head of the city’s Culture Committee, is one self-confessed admirer of Vovnenko. 
“Female writers can give us men insights into our own lives we would never even think of and open new perspectives from angles that would otherwise be unthinkable,” Burov said. 
“And these insights, especially when they come at the right time, are incredibly valuable.” 

TITLE: Swiss School Aims to Raise Local Service Standards
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Despite the rapid development of the Russian hospitality industry in recent years, most visitors agree that there is still much to be improved. A large part of the problem is due to a lack of qualified staff who believe in and are willing to work in the industry, says Walter Spaltenstein, head of the SwissAm Hospitality Business School, which opened in St. Petersburg in April. 
“Hotel chains train people, but once these employees have completed their training, they move on to somewhere else where they can earn a higher salary,” Spaltenstein explained. 
“This is understandable, but not good for the hotel. We [SwissAm] hope to help this industry, which is in desperate need of qualified employees. As Switzerland has the reputation of having the best hotel management schools, we now offer the opportunity to get the same type of diploma that graduates receive in Switzerland, but in Russia.” 
SwissAm believes the key to successful courses is to give students a chance to gain practical experience during their training, says Spaltenstein, as when a student whose hospitality training is based only on theory is faced with a real-life situation, they immediately become stressed and provide lower quality service. 
“We’ll teach you how to become a personality in the industry, how you should treat a guest, how to present yourself to the guest without acting like a slave and teach you about the important role ethics plays in business,” said Spaltenstein. “We put you in a stressful situation so that when you actually start working, you do so without encountering problems.” 
The school focuses on paying attention to detail, as it is often the small things that bring guests back — or drive them away. Such details include pouring wine the wrong way — a widespread problem in Russia — or playing loud music in restaurants, which can ruin a person’s impression of a venue.
 “It makes the difference between professional and amateur service,” Spaltenstein said. “That’s not to say that amateur service is always bad. It’s no good if everything is perfect but the waitress is nasty. Cheerfulness and politeness also play a large role in a company’s success. 
“The general manager should notice if something is out of place,” said Spaltenstein. 
“I give students a test — I move the pictures in the dining room so that they’re out of place. Ninety percent of the students never notice because they are too focused only on the table setting. But it’s the room as a whole that creates the atmosphere, the whole combination, and that is what students need to learn in order to become a manager,” he added.
A hotel’s reputation depends a lot on its kitchen, and SwissAm has both culinary arts and restaurant management programs. 
“Good chefs are usually artists, and in general, artists don’t make much money,” said Spaltenstein. 
“They make money when they’re dead, and we don’t want that. We have to teach them that this is a business. Previously, being a chef was not a prestigious position, and we would like to change that. Mostly expats used to do this job, but now more Russians are doing it.
Spaltenstein joined the industry when he was 16 years old. By 25, he was the executive chef at one of Canada’s best hotels with 120 chefs below him. 
He believes that his success is due to hard work and determination.
“Not because I was anyone special or much better than others, but I had the passion, my goal, I knew what I wanted and I worked very hard to achieve these goals.”
After building his career in hotel management in Canada, Spaltenstein moved back to Switzerland, where he first worked in hotel schools before finally opening his own, which was sold last year. Setting up a school in Russia was one of Spaltenstein’s childhood dreams.
“When you’re a child you have dreams, and one of my dreams was to go to Mexico, Canada and Russia. In Mexico I opened up a school with my partner, I lived in Canada for a long time and built a lot of my career there. Now I have come to Russia with this project.”
Spaltenstein believes the hospitality industry is an important part of a country’s economy and uses his native Switzerland, which has made tourism its main industry, as an example. 
“Tourism creates jobs, not only in cities,” he said. “People often want to visit St. Petersburg for several days, but then would like to see other parts of Russia — you have beautiful areas. Tourism brings business to areas where money is most needed. People have nothing to do in these places, but they can develop various branches of tourism. Switzerland became very economically stable because it brought people jobs. Our unemployment rate is only two percent,” he added.
Spaltenstein believes Russians are often very critical of their country, and do not notice the good things about it. 
“If you take an exam and you get 80 percent out of a hundred, you’re happy. This is like life. Nothing is one hundred percent, but don’t make that 20 percent bigger than the 80 percent. Maybe the coffee was not quite hot enough, but that doesn’t mean the whole restaurant is bad. You have to see the good parts.”