SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1714 (25), Friday, June 22, 2012
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TITLE: Designer of Live Children Statues Responds to Criticism
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The creator of an art exhibit featuring young girls made to pose as statues at a reception in St. Petersburg has responded to criticism that the children were mistreated, saying the girls were never in any kind of danger.
"The children were in comfortable silver displays and wanted to go back," art exhibit designer Viktor Kramer told the Dozhd Internet channel Sunday.
Kramer said he was ready to bear any responsibility for the event, since there was never any harm in the first place.
St. Petersburg's children's rights ombudsman Svetlana Agapitova backed Kramer up, saying there was no violation, RIA-Novosti reported.
"There were no kinds of violations at all, this is a common performance by a children's group at an event. This story has been blown out of proportion from nothing," Agapitova, said.
She added that the parents knew about their children's participation, which resulted from an agreement between a dance studio and event organizers, and that the children themselves enjoyed it.
Kramer suggested the governor who posted a photo of the children to Twitter, Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh, was manipulating the situation for political benefit.
"I'm not interested in politics, but in my opinion, Mr. Belykh is making cheap PR," Kramer said. Kramer added that "there was just a small news conference with parents, children and leadership of the team, where they were all indignant regarding the nonsense this gentleman created."
Belykh published a photo of the girls on Twitter after the event Thursday, writing "In St. Petersburg, this is how they torture children. … Where is @Rfdeti?" referring to the Twitter account of Russia's children's rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov.
At a reception for guests of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last week, four girls about nine and 10 years old posed as goddesses blowing wind across a silvery reflective lake. The girls also wore silver outfits and makeup, which Kramer pointed out was safe for children.
Several guests expressed surprise and outrage that children had been used for the display, writing messages in on social media sites.
A software company executive eventually pulled the girls out of the exhibit, outraged that the girls where made to stand with the sun reflecting brightly into their eyes.
The event was hosted by the governor of St. Petersburg, though the governor's office denied responsibility for the treatment of the children.
"The city only gave the financing. The responsibility lies with the victor in the tender," spokesman Andrei Kibitov told Interfax.
TITLE: Berlin Gay Parade Targets Russia
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Organizers of a gay parade in Germany attended by more than half a million people targeted Russia for its laws aimed at "homosexual propaganda" with caricatures, costumes and even a confetti cannon.
Organizers said more than 700,000 people took part in the event on central Berlin streets Saturday, with a number of people carrying signs or wearing costumes caricaturing Russian authorities, AFP reported.
As the parade passed the Russian Embassy, a cannon loaded with confetti unloaded a blast of the colorful paper aimed at the building, marking participants' dissatisfaction with recent broadly defined laws that have banned the promotion of homosexuality to minors in several cities and regions in Russia.
Some participants bore giant portraits of President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev retouched in the flamboyant style of gay French artists Pierre and Gilles.
Others donned Orthodox religious icons and colorful clothing resembling that worn by members of the Pussy Riot rock group, three of whom are currently under arrest and face up to seven years in prison in a case that has outraged human rights groups.
Saturday's parade was Berlin's 34th Christopher Street Day tribute to the so-called Stonewall uprising on June 28, 1969, when police harassment at a New York gay bar prompted days of rioting and contributed to the emergence of the gay rights movement in the United States.
The event was opened by Berlin's openly gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit.
TITLE: Privatization Promised, But Little Understood
AUTHOR: Howard Amos
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG — Privatization was a hot topic at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last week with President Vladimir Putin devoting a significant part of his keynote address to the issue and a new government decree updating existing plans.
But confusion over the government's intentions reigned.
Ministers gave different signals about the ambitious program of sell-offs slated to continue through 2018. The heads of some of Russia's biggest companies, with assets due to be offered to the market, openly expressed their misgivings.
Despite having been an official priority for years, no pure privatizations of major state companies have yet taken place — prompting suggestions that there is entrenched opposition from sections of Russia's ruling elite.
Putin appeared to try and put some of the doubts to rest in his Thursday speech to an audience of foreign investors, top businessmen, diplomats and politicians.
"State capitalism is not our aim," Putin said. "The federal property privatization plan has been confirmed and will be carried out."
The clear message was, however, hedged with a number of qualifications. Putin said the new wave of privatizations should have nothing in common with the notoriously corrupt privatizations of the 1990s and should not generate private monopolies.
Selling off state assets at excessively cheap prices because of unfavorable market conditions is also not an option. In a pre-election article, Putin wrote that to do this would be "stupid."
Many express skepticism that an outright rejection of state capitalism, the ideology of government control of a country's economy, is actually in the cards.
In his doctoral thesis about strategic planning in the mining sector published in the 1990s, Putin argued that state-owned "national champions" could eventually rival Western international giants — and under Putin's 12 years at the top of Russian politics, the power of the state has grown in industries from energy to banking.
According to the plan confirmed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the Cabinet earlier this month and updated in a decree published Friday, within 18 months Russia "plans to realize the privatization" of 50 percent of shipping giant Sovkomflot, 7.58 percent of Sberbank, 25.2 percent of VTB, all of grain trader United Grain Company, 49.9 percent of Rosagroleasing, 10 percent of nanotechnology holding Rusnano and 25 percent of Russian Railways.
By the end of 2016, the state should have exited fully from national firms including hydroelectric giant RusHydro, Sheremetyevo Airport, Aeroflot and the country's biggest oil producer, Rosneft.
Just a day after Putin's speech, however, top businessmen were already expressing their doubts.
"Honestly speaking, I don't yet understand this opportunity to directly privatize shares of Russian Railways," said company head Vladimir Yakunin, Interfax reported. He added that the scheduled privatization of 25 percent, which is planned to be completed by 2013, was "absolutely unrealistic" and would only create a "headache" for the company.
The plans were "very ambitious," warned Andrei Kostin, head of VTB, Russia's second largest bank, Bloomberg reported.
The price at which the state will allow sell-offs is also key. Russia's biggest lender, Sberbank, has long been expected to be first under the hammer — but its sale has been repeatedly delayed because of market turbulence.
The state's price expectations are "too high," said the head of one Moscow brokerage who requested anonymity to speak freely. And the government will be unlikely to find enough investors either at home or abroad unless they are more realistic, he added.
Ministers signaled in St. Petersburg that the slipping oil price may make revenue from privatizations even more significant for the government. There is a target to earn $10 billion from asset sales this year.
"We are looking at [privatization] as a source for covering the federal budget deficit," Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in an interview with Rossia 24 during the forum.
Shuvalov also said the state-owned National Welfare Fund, which holds oil wealth as a future crisis-fighting tool, could take part in privatization as an investor.
But he had apparently not consulted with Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. "I need to talk with [Shuvalov]," Siluanov said when asked about the initiative, Interfax reported. "It's not very clear why it's necessary for the state to buy from the state."
Others were even more outspoken. "It's a nightmare, it's pseudo-privatization," said former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin when asked about the role of the National Welfare Fund, RIA-Novosti reported.
Shuvalov's words are the second major indication that government vehicles could take part in "privatizations" of state-controlled companies.
According to a decree signed by Putin last month, state-owned Rosneftegaz, which already controls 75.16 percent of Rosneft and 10.74 percent of Gazprom, has been given powers to take part in sell-offs of major companies in the energy industry.
Rosneftegaz is chaired by Igor Sechin, a long-time associate of Putin who is known to be opposed to some of the sweeping privatizations championed by Kremlin liberals.
Designating companies as "strategic" is another way to circumscribe the impact of privatization. On May 21, Putin signed a decree including RusHydro, the Federal Grid Company, Sistema, MRSK and Rosneft on a list of strategic companies.
Head of Sberbank and former Economic Development Minister German Gref, however, warned Thursday during a breakfast with government ministers and foreign investors that this tactic was being taken too far.
"You could call any little shop on the way to the White House 'strategic' to stop it from being privatized," he said. "Where there is the word 'strategic,' there you find strategic commercial interests."
TITLE: Creative Transport Offers Options to Beat Traffic
AUTHOR: By Ciara Bartlam
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Every year, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum sees thousands of participants flood into the city from Russia and abroad, and this year’s forum is no exception. For those eager to escape the inevitable traffic jams, or simply try something new, The St. Petersburg Times has compiled a guide to alternative ways of getting around town.
Aquabuses
For those preferring to take a more scenic route, there are a number of waterbuses that operate along the River Neva. The Central Line service runs between Smolnaya Embankment (opposite 6 Ulitsa Smolnogo) and Universitetskaya Embankment on Vasilyevsky Island (the closest stop to Lenexpo, the main SPIEF venue), stopping at locations including the Summer Gardens and Bronze Horseman along the way. The service operates at 15-minute intervals daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and costs 100 rubles ($3) for adults. For more information about aquabus routes and boat tours, visit http://gov.spb.ru/gov/admin/otrasl/c_transport/routes/aquabus
Bike Rental
Although there are no bike lanes in St. Petersburg, cycling around the city is an exhilarating way to see its sights and beat the traffic jams. Rentbike.org, located at 10 Stolyarny Pereulok, is one rental service in the city that will deliver bikes to people interested in renting. Prices range from 150 rubles ($4.60) for an hour to 600 rubles ($18.40) for a 24-hour period and bikes can be rented online, over the phone or via text. A deposit of 4,000 rubles ($122.70) is required, or a passport and 2,000 rubles ($61.30).
Segway
For an eco-friendly, fun experience, a Segway PT is compact, fast and easy to operate.
Segway Piter has a rental point on Palace Square as well as two more outside the city, in Pushkin and Peterhof. Ten minutes’ rent on Palace Square costs 450 rubles ($13.80), while 2,000 rubles ($61.30) buys an hour and 8,000 rubles ($245) a day.
Segway Piter also offers individual tours of the city center, taking in St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Hermitage, the Church on the Spilled Blood and other landmarks. Riding a Segway around Pushkin almost certainly represents a more laid-back experience, however.
Segway Piter is open daily on Palace Square from 12 p.m. – 11 p.m. (with additional night tours), in Pushkin from 9:30 a.m. – 7 p.m., and in Peterhof from 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
During the SPIEF, it is best to book tours in advance either by phone (tel. 992 2851) or email at SegwayPiter@gmail.com. For more information, visit www.SegwayPiter.com.
Velotaxis
Running from mid-April to mid-October, another possible mode of transport relatively new to St. Petersburg is the velotaxi. Velocab has been operating in St. Petersburg since 2006 and offers both tours around the city center’s main sites and taxi trips from place to place. Fares start from 200 rubles per person ($6.15) and are negotiated according to the time of day, duration and distance. Routes can be negotiated in advance, taking into consideration a number of factors including traffic jams: Perfect for the SPIEF. Velocab operates around the clock during white nights.
Velotaxis can simply be hailed on the street or hired (there are always several at any one time on Palace Square), but tours are best booked in advance by phoning Velocab on 913 26 69.
Shuttle Buses
If all else fails or the weather puts a dampener on alternative forms of transport, a free shuttle service will be provided during the forum between Lenexpo, the main hotels in the city, and cultural program event locations. A full list of participating hotels is included in the appendices of the participant handbook and on the official SPIEF website, 2012.forumspb.com.
On June 22 and 23, shuttles run between the hotels and Lenexpo from
8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and return from
3.30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
TITLE: East Steals Spotlight at Forum
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russia’s relations with the European Union usually earn the spotlight at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, but the dialogue skidded eastward Thursday as the Kremlin’s vision of a Eurasian Union predominated.
Russian officials trumpeted free-trade speech to investors at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Spontaneous clapping broke out when Putin announced that a former associate of Mikhail Prokhorov, business lobbyist and sparkling wine producer Boris Titov, would be appointed ombudsman for entrepreneurs.
The new position will represent both foreign and domestic companies and enjoy a special relationship with the Prosecutor General’s Office, Putin said.
In a 52-minute speech that identified corruption as the biggest threat to Russia and conceded that the country’s oil price dependence was its Achilles’ heel, Putin also lambasted European democracies for an inability to make effective political decisions and said Russia was leading the world in responsible economic stewardship.
Putin promised to lead a reform-minded Kremlin and ticked off a list of areas where he said improvements would take place, including the law enforcement system, the judicial system, education, healthcare and housing.
Amid repetitions of previously made promises to improve Russia’s business climate, concrete commitments included an undertaking to create a special entrepreneurial commission and revise anti-monopoly legislation.
Putin said the ombudsman would be able to represent foreign and Russian investors in court and go to court to block officials whose actions were harming their interests. He said the necessary decree to create the post would be signed soon and Titov would start working within weeks.
Titov was a high-profile member of the Right Cause party briefly headed by Prokhorov, who quit in disgust, complaining of Kremlin interference. Titov, a member of Putin’s All-Russia People’s Front, also heads the business lobbying group Delovaya Rossiya and runs several companies, including the sparkling wine maker Abrau-Durso.
Putin re-affirmed the government’s long-awaited privatization program and said foreign investors would also have the opportunity to take part.
“State capitalism is not our goal,” Putin said. “But at the same time privatization should not lead to the emergence of private monopolies in place of state monopolies.”
He said successful participants in privatization should invest in their new assets, not sell them on to third parties. Putin’s Kremlin drew criticism in 2004 when state-owned Rosneft became the country’s second-largest oil company by engineering a deal similar to the one condemned by Putin on Thursday. Rosneft acquired prime Yukos assets by purchasing a murky company that had bought them three days earlier at an auction.
Audience members told The St. Petersburg Times that they welcomed the sentiments expressed, but that everything depended on implementation.
The speech showed a “clear path to reform,” said KPMG global chairman Michael Andrew, adding that investors would be watching with interest to see if it was carried out.
Putin lauded Russia’s national strengths, boasting that Russia was doing better than many major economies. The official unemployment rate has dropped to 5.4 percent, to a level lower than before the 2008 crisis, he said, adding that in Europe it is 11 percent — “the highest in 16 years.”
He also emphasized the level of debt shouldered by developed economies. “The state debt of Russia — the minimum among the G8 and G20 and the BRICS — is 9.2 percent as of May 1,” he said.
“He was signalling further reforms,” former European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said. “With the right commitment, this will further change Russia for the better.”
Russia is aiming to become part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe by 2014, said Putin, and added that the country looked forward to its imminent accession to the World Trade Organization. But he lambasted European states that have struggled to cope with the continent’s fiscal problems.
“Unrestrained financial speculation and the populism of politicians are equally dangerous,” Putin told an audience that included diplomats.
Dropping in on a discussion between former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov later in the day, Putin said that a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama during the G20 summit was “thorough and positive,” Interfax reported.
Russia will lead the G20 next year, and Putin invited its members to gather in St. Petersburg in 2013. He said one of his priorities during Russia’s leadership year would be instituting “real reform” at the International Monetary Fund.
But most participants at the forum, a showcase for Russia in the international business world, concentrated on promises of improvements to the domestic business environment.
“I think Putin is very focused on the necessary reforms,” said Philipp Missfelder, a German lawmaker. “He knows that it’s important for him to implement these reforms, because otherwise he will not convince investors to be active in Russia.”
While Putin did not mention the major street protests staged by the opposition after disputed December parliamentary elections, he acknowledged that the authorities should protect the interests of minorities.
“The state is obliged to take steps to meet society halfway and be open for dialogue,” he said.
He noted that a law on easing party registration was signed in April and reiterated an earlier promise that public initiatives that garner 100,000 authorized signatures will be reviewed by the Duma.
Putin warned, however, that Russia’s political stability would not be affected by dissent and stressed that no one was above the law. “A thirst for change is an indisputable driver of progress, but it becomes counterproductive and even dangerous if it leads to the destruction of civil society or the state itself,” he said.
TITLE: Russia’s Allure for Foreigners Shows No Sign of Paling
AUTHOR: By Ciara Bartlam
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “Why Russia?” is a question often asked to, and more often feared by, foreigners intending to move to Russia, and countless more already here. A country famed for riches in oil, vodka, spies and red tape, it’s a wonder to some — including many Russians — why anybody would ever move here, whatever their love for Dostoevsky or Russian women. Yet the number of foreign professionals adding their CVs to Russia’s HeadHunter site increased last year by 11 percent on the year before, Kommersant newspaper reported at the end of May, citing the recruitment website.
According to the Federal Migration Service for St. Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad Oblast, 225 work permits for “highly qualified employees” — as foreigners earning over 2 million rubles annually ($62,000) are classified — were issued in the first three months of this year.
The main areas in which expats work are construction, wholesale and retail trade, and real estate, according to Olga Kapralova, leading marketing and PR manager for Intercomp Global Services CIS.
Yury Mikhailov, a managing partner at Consort Petersburg recruitment company, has seen an increase in foreigners seeking jobs in Russia during the last six to eight months. He cites different reasons for this, including the recession in Europe, the rebranding of Russia in the media as a land of opportunity, and the desire of foreign businessmen to either change their career path or to simply keep things interesting.
However, while the number of foreign projects in the rest of Russia is on the rise, Mikhailov says that it is difficult to assess the situation in St. Petersburg. One thing that is abundantly clear is that there is a lot to be gained from working in Russia, but that it requires more than just good intentions and a strong track record.
“A broad outlook and very often worldwide exposure to running a profitable, efficient business in different environments and business cultures combined with an open mindset and functional expertise is often a key to success in being offered a promising career opportunity in Russia,” he said.
Luc Jones, a senior partner at recruitment company Antal Russia, told The St. Petersburg Times that the main asset of any Westerner coming to Russia is that they grew up in a capitalist society.
“Russians are intelligent and they are well-read, but where a lot of them tend to fall down is sales,” said Jones, a British and Canadian citizen currently based in Moscow. “A generation ago, buying something at one price and selling it at a profit would have landed you in jail.”
“They [expats] have the same mentality and business style as their colleagues, which is very important for effective cooperation,” said Kapralova.
Expats eager to set up their own businesses in Russia inevitably encounter numerous difficulties. The bureaucracy entailed in opening a business here is tricky, as Jones puts it, but once overcome, opens the way to a thousand gains — one of which is the lack of competition in Russia.
“I think that doing business in Russia is nowhere near as difficult as some people would have you believe,” he said.
“I think that Russia could do with a good PR lesson. One of my friends told me, ‘I think that Russia is a great place to make money, but it’s a lousy place to do business.’ A lot of people say that, and the reason is that back home, whatever it is you’re doing, there’ll be 10 or 100,000 people doing the same thing, whereas in Russia there are not.”
As to the differences between expat experiences in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Jones warns that: “Moscow, by nature, is a much brasher city... I would say that a lot of the expats in Petersburg are there for the lifestyle rather than just for making money. If you want to make money, come to Moscow.”
Wherever it is that expats are based, there is help at hand to make them feel at home in the shape of InterNations.org, a social network that aims to help expats to acclimatize with more ease. In the St. Petersburg community, there are members of more than 25 different nationalities, covering five continents.
“Being an expat means learning everything from zero: It involves a new workplace, new house, new friends, new food, new climate and new rules,” said Emilio Alegre, one of two InterNations St. Petersburg ambassadors.
Mikhailov said expats contine to have a crucial role in Russian business.
“Foreigners have always played a part in the Russian economy — ever since Peter the Great — and they will continue to be required in certain circumstances,” he said.
“They will go on being viewed as people with integral roles in running business structures in Russia to safeguard their Western companies’ best interests.”
expat profiles
Christian Courbois
from the U.S. is general director and owner of Westpost mail and courier company and has lived in Russia for 18 years.
“Happy accidents do happen. I started the business without much thought — just to do something and make some money, but it caught on and grew quite quickly in the heady days of the mid-nineties. I was never a Russophile or particularly interested in Russia. Many of the expats in the nineties came here with some kind of passion that came from reading Dostoevsky for the first time or something like that; I did not. What attracted me to Russia was the sense of history of the 90s. Really fantastic energy comes from that kind of thing.
The difference in the understanding of a service mentality is one of the hardest [to get used to] here. A good service mentality is almost impossible to introduce into a Russian ‘collective.’ I get tired of repeating myself, instructing how to do simple things like answer a phone ‘correctly.’ There are always great advantages in being able to see things differently than everyone else.”
Jennifer Gaspar
from the U.S. is a registered entrepreneur in Russia and consultant for the Oak Foundation, and has lived in Russia for almost nine years.
“The work I do here is essentially that of a program officer for a philanthropic organization. I’ve almost always been in the non-profit or government sector, but I started working with the Oak Foundation two years ago after conducting a study that they commissioned essentially looking at the landscape of human rights in Russia.
If you want to do things right here, you have to do them by the book. Doing it by the book requires an extraordinary attention to detail, and also a certain amount of tolerance for bureaucracy that I think is really beyond the pale of bureaucracy in other places, at least as far as I’ve experienced. I guess I can speak for this personally in setting up my own business here: It’s mind-boggling the hoops that you have to jump through, the amount of information that you have to give up. I’ve registered a company in the U.S. as well, so I can actually compare the ease of the two processes and I can say that there’s really no comparison.
Thinking back to when I first started working here, one of the advantages and disadvantages was actually one and the same: I wasn’t taken very seriously: 1) because I was younger 2) also a woman and 3) a foreigner who smiled more often than maybe I should have. So I wasn’t taken very seriously… but I was able to work it to my advantage because I think that people decrease their expectations of you and in that way it’s almost easier to gain their respect when you demonstrate that you actually can be nice, you can be young, you can be female, and you can be effective and successful.”
Rick Macy
from the U.S. is vice president of sales and leasing for Jensen Group and has lived in Russia for 13 years.
“I think one advantage of being a foreigner who speaks Russian is that I always feel safe no matter what part of town I am in or the time of day. In some American cities there are areas I would not feel safe in day or night. Southeast Washington D.C. would be a good example. Also, for many foreigners, the Russian tax rate of 13 percent or 6 percent is a huge advantage over the higher Western tax rates.
I have lived in Kemerovo (Kuzbass) and Moscow. Living in Siberia was quieter but not unpleasant. Moscow, of course, is quite busy. If we compare St. Petersburg and Moscow to coffee, St. Petersburg is a cappucino while Moscow is a double espresso. And sometimes you want a cappucino, and sometimes you want a double espresso. I am more of a cappucino kind of guy though mostly...”
Jasminka Bach
from Sweden is a division/buying manager in fashion retail and has lived in Russia for two-and-a-half years.
“Russia is a country that has — in my eyes — great opportunities to create something great if you are willing to work hard. It is a thriving, constantly growing country. But I also think the stakes are high, so as big a chance as you have to gain, the risk is also higher in Russia.
The disadvantage is that I always struggle with a lack of information — but I think mostly it depends on my lack of the Russian language, and that extends outside the office as well. You have to learn to fight for everything and learn that a “no” is not actually a no. If you ask five times or insist it usually turns into a “yes” and this can take a lot of energy.
I really love this city, winter and summer. Russia is always surprising me — you never get bored.”
Walter Denz
from Switzerland is the owner of Liden & Denz language school and has lived in Russia for 20 years.
“Teaching Russian seemed to be the right thing, because the country had been isolated for so long and nobody spoke English at the time, and still only a few people today, so it’s absolutely essential for any company that is considering investing in Russia to find people on the ground who speak the language.
St. Petersburg is really the gateway for everything that’s not connected to business, it’s an easier city. If you don’t know Russian, if you’ve never been to Russia, it has a better image than Moscow. The beauty of St. Petersburg affects the whole city as a site of UNESCO world heritage.
We’re expats here so we have to make a positive contribution to the development of the country. It’s very easy to complain (and there are lots of things to complain about, no doubt) but if you only complain this is definitely the wrong place to come to. I think Russia is a good management school: It toughens you up; it forces you to remain flexible, to take a different approach. You always have to be on your toes in order to achieve your goals.
Russia does have a very macho culture and it’s not very easy for female expats to make themselves heard and understood here. It’s a good point though because Russian women play a huge role in the economy here and, in theory, it shouldn’t actually be a problem for women, particularly if they’re well-educated, but obviously there is an issue.”
Kathleen Bull
from the U.K. is academic director of Carfax Private Tutors, St. Petersburg, and has lived in Russia for almost two years.
“I lived in Russia as a child in the late ’90s, and ever since have been fascinated by the country and the language. This led me to study Russian at university, which consequently brought me here.
I don’t know if there are necessarily ‘more’ opportunities for foreigners in Russia, but there are better opportunities, especially in the early stages of your career. The Russian market is constantly evolving, which opens up a wealth of opportunities to foreigners, which one might not experience back home. It gives you the opportunity to be creative and to come up with your own initiatives and to see them through, whether they succeed or not. It gives you the opportunity to make of your career what you will.
You need to be a very open person, open to different scenarios. You can make it work and, if you open yourself up to the huge wealth of opportunities and new experiences, it can be incredibly rewarding, but you do have to be open: The biggest thing in Russia is that you just don’t know what’s around the corner.”
TITLE: City Projects Focus on Investment and Development
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With all eyes on the city during the
St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, The St. Petersburg Times presents an overview of the biggest current investment and development projects in the city.
While the ongoing economic crisis and more cautious new local government have combined to bring about the cancelation of some of the city’s major investment projects such as the Orlov Tunnel under the Neva and the Novo-Admiralteisky Bridge, the majority of planned projects continue to take shape.
St. Petersburg’s modern investment policy is currently focused on developing transport and logistics, automobiles and pharmaceuticals.
The development catalyst in transport and logistics consists of large local projects such as the expansion of the city’s Pulkovo Airport and its neighboring areas along with the construction of the Western High-Speed Diameter toll road.
St. Petersburg’s automobile cluster, which already includes four major car-making plants — General Motors, Nissan, Toyota and Hyundai — and has given rise to the city’s moniker of the Russian Detroit, continues to grow.
Other leading investment and development projects, both private and public, include the redevelopment of the historical New Holland district, the construction of the European Embankment project on the Petrograd Side of the city and the development of the out-of-town Baltic Pearl complex and Yuzhny satellite town residential areas, as well as the Morozova Industrial Park, also located outside of the city. Land reclamation projects on Vasilyevsky Island and near the town of Sestroretsk, the building of the new Zenit soccer stadium and a second stage for the Mariinsky Theater are also on the list.
PULKOVO HUB
The city accepted that Pulkovo Airport needed to be expanded when the airport could no longer accommodate travelers during peak times. Pulkovo Airport is expected to process more than 17.3 million passengers by 2025 and has the potential to reach 40 million passengers by 2039.
The existing terminal setup, however, serves as an obstacle for long-term growth. This is due to a lack of a physical connection between Terminals 1 and 2, as Pulkovo 1 serves domestic flights some six kilometers away from the international terminal, Pulkovo 2.
A new combined international and domestic terminal is now under construction in between the two separate runways. The development will see the integration of the existing Pulkovo 1 terminal into the new terminal complex, so that sufficient facilities for all domestic and international operations can be accessed under one roof. The existing international terminal is expected to become a private airport.
Pulkovo’s management says that having separate operations between the two terminals is inefficient. Currently, neither of the existing Pulkovo terminals are able to accommodate the increasing demands regarding aviation security and handling procedures due to their outdated design. In addition, the current apron layout provides only 47 operating aircraft stands, as opposed to the 100 stands that are required for future operations. Terminal capacity is limited by having 43 registration desks in both terminals as opposed to the 98 required.
As the only international airport in northwest Russia, Pulkovo Airport hopes to become an international hub by 2025, capable of competing with the Moscow airports.
The strategy to achieve hub status involves attracting new airlines able to operate regular long-haul flights to St. Petersburg from the U.S., Japan, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
The project’s budget totals 47 billion rubles ($1.5 billion), and the construction of the new terminal is planned to be completed by 2014, according to the city’s Investment and Strategic
Projects Committee.
Another transport project planned in connection with Pulkovo is the launching of a direct railway connection from the airport to the city’s Baltiiskaya metro station. The railway is expected to start running in 2015. The project will cost about 10 billion rubles ($308 million), Delovoi Peterburg newspaper reported.
WESTERN HIGH-SPEED DIAMETER
Other ongoing transport projects include the Western High-Speed Diameter, a 47-kilometer toll highway currently under construction and due to be completed in 2013 or 2014. The road will connect different sections of the city to the Ring Road to ease the traffic flow. A small section of the highway is already open to traffic.
AUTOMOBILE CLUSTER
Meanwhile, the city’s car cluster shows no sign of falling back. GM, Toyota and Nissan plan to expand their existing facilities, and next year another car-making plant is due to open to produce the Russian-made Yo-mobile hybrid electric car. The vehicle is a joint venture between Yarovit, a St. Petersburg based truck producer, and Onexim Group, headed by oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, the project’s financer. Prokhorov plans to invest about 150 million euros ($190 million) in a venture he hopes will “break the stereotype saying Russia can’t produce good cars.”
Fiat-Chrysler is also planning to build a plant in St. Petersburg’s Pushkinsky district. Its investment could total up to 32 billion rubles ($985 million), according to Regnum information agency.
NEW HOLLAND
New Holland, an eight-hectare triangular island bordered by two canals and a river in the heart of St. Petersburg, is undergoing a seven-year redevelopment project that will turn the historical island into a multifunctional center. Located within a 20-minute walk from the Hermitage and other major cultural city sites, the island was conceived by Peter the Great in 1719, and became Russia’s first military port in 1721. Until recently the island belonged to the military, and was closed to the general public for almost 300 years.
The winner of the competition to design the architectural concept was American architectural firm WORKac, which presented a proposal to create “a city within the city,” with three zones of activity: One for art, another for film and fashion and the last one for food. According to the architects’ concept, New Holland should become a microcosm of the big city, a cultural center that will support a wide variety of programs and public space.
A new project is now underway, under the control of oligarch Roman Abramovich. Abramovich’s Millhouse investment company is ploughing $400 million into the revitalization of the island.
THE EUROPEAN EMBANKMENT
The European Embankment project, which is being realized between the Birzhevoi and Tuchkov bridges on the Petrograd Side, will include a pedestrian area, a complex including a dance theater, residential buildings, a retail and office center and a five-star hotel.
VTB Bank, the main investor and company in charge of the European Embankment development project, claims to be constructing a new attractive area in the city in place of the chemically contaminated lands that used to house the State Institute of Applied Chemistry and now require huge recultivation.
VTB plans to invest 47 billion rubles ($1.5 billion) in the project. It is estimated to be completed by 2017. The Boris Eifman Dance Palace is to be finished by 2016.
BALTIC PEARL
The Baltic Pearl, St. Petersburg’s Chinese-built urban zone, is another major city project. The housing development project boasts some of the most modern apartments in the city. The million-square-meter project, once fully developed, will provide housing for 35,000 people, as well as several schools, a mall and two hospitals. The ambitious plan was financed by a Chinese consortium.
Shanghai Industry Group has invested five years and $1.3 billion in the Baltic Pearl development project. Along the way they have faced local protest and regulation, but completed the first phase at the end of last year with support from both the Russian and Chinese governments.
YUZHNY SATELLITE
Yuzhny Satellite City development project was launched as the largest-scale integrated land use project in St. Petersburg right now. Upon its completion it will be a self-sufficient city conglomerate with a social infrastructure, workplaces and recreation areas.
According to Andrei Nazarov, general director of the Start Development Management company, which is in charge of the project, the city will be home to up to 170,000 people and will have a social infrastructure (58 kindergartens, 27 schools, 10 sports and entertainment centers and 12 medical clinics). The total volume of investment during the period of the project’s realization will total no less than 179 billion rubles ($5.5 billion).
Construction of the city, to be located in the Pushkinsky district on both sides of the recently-widened M20 federal highway, will start in 2013.
Morozova Industrial Park
Morozova Industrial Park, to be constructed by Finnish company Industry Park East Management, is designed to house small and medium-sized Finnish companies that work in metal processing and other types of production.
At the end of May, the company and the administration of the Leningrad Oblast’s Vsevolozhsk district signed a lease agreement on 20.5 hectares of land to be used for the project in the village of Morozova, 35 kilometers from St. Petersburg.
In addition to their manufacturing capacities and infrastructure development, the companies will provide clients with services ranging from helping people open businesses in Russia to providing support for projects that have already been launched.
Industry Park East Management will invest about 15 million euros ($18.8 million) in the park, whose first stage is scheduled to be completed in 2014 and the second in 2015.
TITLE: Commercial Sector Sees Boom
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The general volume of investment in commercial real estate in Russia will total $6.5 billion in 2012, according to a forecast from Jones Lang LaSalle commercial real estate company. The majority of investments in the first quarter of 2012 were split between the office and retail sectors at 40 and 34 percent respectively.
Developers have increased their activity this year on the St. Petersburg office real estate market. There were 650,000 square meters of office real estate under construction at the beginning of the year compared to 800,000 square meters at the beginning of the summer, according to data from Maris real estate company. Developers claim these spaces will be ready by the end of 2014, but in practice, deadlines are almost always postponed by a year. With this in mind, approximately 800,000 square meters of business center space will be opening at the end of 2015. Fifty-nine percent of this space will be class A premises and the rest will be class B, according to Maris research. Developers have announced that 190,000 square meters of commercial business space will be launched by the end of 2012.
“The contemporary office market is represented by small restored buildings with fewer than 10,000 to 15,000 square meters,” said Natalya Kireyeva, a senior analyst at Maris’ consulting and valuation department.
“Large office sites are still a rare thing and are under construction. Small office spaces under 100 square meters are always in demand and have made up 68 percent of all rental requests in 2012.”
The most in-demand areas and those with the most potential are the Moskovsky, Tsentralny and Petrogradsky districts. The less popular districts — Krasnoselsky and Kalininsky — are located further from the city center. Interest in Vasilyevsky Island has decreased due to inconvenient public transport links to the island.
The average rental rate per square meter of class A office space per month is between 1,400 and 1,700 rubles ($43-$52). The price for class B space is between 900 and 1,200 rubles ($27-$37), according to Maris data.
Both retail turnover and individual income continued to grow in the second quarter of this year. More than 60 percent of all retail space announced for this year has been occupied by two new projects: Rio and Piterland retail and entertainment complexes, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. Previously, these centers were only in partial operation, with only the water park at Piterland and an O’Key supermarket in Rio open. The emergence of these two large complexes won’t lead to serious changes in the market, experts believe.
“The new complexes opened at different ends of the city, so they will serve different areas,” said Igor Kokorev, project manager of Knight Frank St. Petersburg’s strategic consulting department. “The market is fairly big, so these openings won’t increase it significantly. Large sites don’t come up in the city often and launching just one or two won’t lead to a serious redistribution of the market,” he added.
Piterland, located in the Primorsky district, is notable for its large scale and water park. Rio is part of the Frunzensky district market, which is an area with relatively few shopping centers. Analysts believe the scale of Rio will attract customers from the neighboring Moskovsky and Nevsky districts.
“There will be competition for Rio,” said Kokorev.
“Two big complexes are going to be launched in the near future and will be situated in the same building as the planned [Bukharestsky and Mezhdunarodny] metro stations. The latter will have more customers due to people who live within a 10- to 15-minute walk, while Rio is far from residential buildings.”
The most active retail operators expanding and looking for new spaces are cafes and restaurants. According to Knight Frank research, the most popular area among food establishments was the street retail sector. Many other operators however, find street retail unappealing and tend to choose shopping centers, which they consider to have more potential. This trend can be seen on Nevsky Prospekt with the openings of Stockmann Nevsky Center and Galeria shopping centers.
The most popular areas for retail construction projects remain the Primorsky, Vyborgsky and Moskovsky districts, according to Colliers International, a commercial real estate firm.
“The market still has a lack of new brands expanding their operations to St. Petersburg,” said Veronika Lezhneva, head of research in St. Petersburg at Jones Lang LaSalle Russia & CIS. “In fact, most retail complexes are very alike in their structure of food and fashion tenants, which limits the originality and attractiveness of the projects.
“A great location and unique original tenants who attract customers play a significant role in making the project successful,” she added.
The market continues to develop among retailers who already operate in the city, causing the number of empty premises in upscale shopping centers to decrease at the beginning of this year.
“In 2013 we expect a further decrease in vacant premises, in spite of the high volume of new project launches,” said Lezhneva.
This year both Russian and foreign FMCG operators announced they would start work on new projects.
“We see that there is a high level of interest from retail operators and developers to expand and grow in St. Petersburg,” said Tamara Popova, head of the real estate research department at Knight Frank St. Petersburg.
“Active development, however, is restrained by the limited number of land plots suitable for the realization of retail projects.”
TITLE: Economy-Class Segment Leads Residential Market
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Studios and small one-room apartments are the most in demand on the St. Petersburg residential real estate market.
According to data from Maris real estate company, part of the CBRE network, about 65 percent of all residential real estate that was launched on the market in 2011 were economy-class apartments.
“The demand is explained by the fact that with an income of about 29,500 rubles ($900) per month, the average St. Petersburg resident can buy a studio in a newly constructed building only after five or six years of hard work,” said Konstantin Mamykin, director of Maris’ residential real estate department.
The average price of one square meter in a newly constructed building in St. Petersburg is 79,620 rubles ($2,420), according to data from BSN real estate analysis site from June 19. The price varies depending on the quality of the building, so apartments in pre-fabricated buildings cost about 81,050 rubles ($2,465). Apartments in new brick buildings are sold for about 102,640 rubles ($3,120) per square meter. In apartment buildings made of both brick and concrete, the cost is 76,630 rubles ($2,330).
However, even if a St. Petersburg resident earning the average salary saves every kopeck of their income, after six years they will have earned only 2.1 million rubles ($63,870). With inflation, that sum is hardly enough to buy a one-room apartment.
As a result, newly constructed buildings in the Leningrad Oblast outside the city are gaining popularity. Properties in outlying districts such as Kudrovo, Ukki, Vsevolozhsk and Sertolovo are generally much cheaper than those in St. Petersburg. Prices can be as low as 42,000 rubles ($1,280) per square meter or 1.3 million rubles ($39,500) for a 28-square-meter studio apartment, according to the BSN website.
“There are also some projects with modest prices in the city suburbs, including in Shushary, Slavyanka, Bugri, Devyatkino and Murino,” said Dmitry Speransky, an analyst at BSN website. “Some of these towns are located within the administrative borders of St. Petersburg, while others fall outside the city and are part of the LenOblast.”
But when price is the determining factor, it can become dangerous, as the price may become a priority over the reliability of the developer.
“When the price of the apartment is right for the potential customer, risk evaluation consists of only two or three questions to the developers. Customers often ask whether the developers follow federal law 214 FZ and what they built before and where,” said Mamykin.
Federal law 214 FZ regulates the rules and protects the customer in construction projects in which buyers pay in advance to finance the construction of the building. The law holds developers responsible before buyers and obliges the company to compensate any material losses incurred by the buyers.
“But even if the developer offers a preliminary sales agreement or an advance construction financing agreement, the low price tips the scales in favor of the purchase,” Mamykin explained.
“Only 10 to 15 percent of customers make an attempt to check permits and other documents. Also, about 30 percent of potential buyers will never buy an apartment that has not yet been built, as they want an absolute guarantee that the contract will be realized,” he added.
The current economic situation and high prices mean people are forced to take out a mortgage. In St. Petersburg last year, 20,923 mortgages were issued, worth a total of 28.9 billion rubles ($879 million). The average amount of the loan was 2 million rubles ($60,830), according to Maris data. Sixty-eight percent of banks on the mortgage market are state banks.
“The relatively low sum of the mortgage loan shows that buyers use mortgages to gradually improve their living conditions or use this money along with their own savings,” said Natalya Kireyeva, a senior analyst at Maris’ consulting and valuation department.
In 2011, the typical mortgage borrowers were men in their thirties with a university degree and an officially declared income. Thirty-two percent of them worked in retail, 18 percent in education and 14 percent in medicine. The usual co-borrowers were wives. Borrowing couples usually had a child and a total income of 80,000 rubles ($2,430) per month. They bought two-room apartments and took out a 2.2-million-ruble ($66,900) loan to be returned over a period of 15 to 20 years, according to Maris research.
Maris expects that without any serious changes in the economy, there will be between 550,000 and 680,000 mortgages issued in 2012, worth a total of between 800 billion and 1 trillion rubles ($24.3 to 30.4 billion).
Executive apartments occupied 30 percent of all residential real estate launched on the local market last year, according to Maris data. Such apartments are situated in prestigious locations, and generally have one room, with total areas of between 40 and 55 square meters, and parking space. The average price of one square meter in the first quarter of this year was $3,600, according to Knight Frank real estate consultancy data. The improving quality of newly constructed buildings allows developers to charge high prices and focus on customers with high demands. Buildings with fewer apartments are the most in demand, as residents believe they can find privacy and neighbors of a similar social class.
Such buildings are also popular in the elite residential real estate sector, which totals only 5 percent of the local residential market. This sector is stable, but with the sale of exclusive properties, rates could easily increase. By the first quarter of 2012, the price for one square meter in an elite apartment was $9,020 in newly built housing, according to Knight Frank data.
“The demand for housing has moved from existing apartments to newly built ones, as many potential customers have realized that infrastructure problems often encountered in old buildings are not up to their modern-day requirements. This includes, for example, existing apartment buildings that house communal apartments in the neighboring entrance or square ‘kolodets’ courtyards,” said Igor Onokov, general director of Leontievsky Mis elite residential complex.
The most expensive residential real estate project at the moment is the “Building near Tavrichesky Garden,” where one square meter costs more than $21,000. According to Knight Frank research, Russia holds eighth place on the list of growing residential real estate prices in the world.
The historical center sees the most demand, but housing here is limited, partly due to the fact that the construction of new buildings is strictly limited by governmental laws, according to Knight Frank specialists.
TITLE: Experts Warn Hotels Against Dangerous Price Hikes
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) brings with it a 20-percent increase in St. Petersburg hotel room rates. As a result, say analysts, the city loses tourists and gains the reputation of a city that is extremely expensive to visit.
“When the first forums were held, hotels suggested moving the event to another time of year when there is lower tourist occupancy, since in June there are many city guests and visitors staying in hotels. Unfortunately, the hotels’ suggestion was not heeded,” said Natalya Minina, general manager of the city’s Helvetia Hotel.
The high season for hotels starts in the middle of May and lasts until the end of June. From April to mid-May and from July to September is the shoulder season, while the low season is from October to mid-April. The average price for a hotel room reserved at the hotel reception desk during the low season ranges from 2,550 rubles to 11,000 rubles ($78-$340). During the shoulder season, rooms are available from 3,500 rubles to 15,300 rubles ($108-$470) per night. The high season is the most expensive, during which a three-star hotel room costs approximately 4,500 rubles ($138) and a five-star hotel room 19,500 rubles ($600), according to data from Maris real estate company, part of the CBRE network. Some hotels also increase their high season prices for significant dates and events such as forums.
“In general, hotel room rates in St. Petersburg are quite comparable with other European cities — 5,000 to 10,000 rubles ($150 to $300) per standard double room is an average price for a four- or five-star hotel,” said Walter Spaltenstein, head of the SwissAm Hospitality Business School.
“But when it becomes 12,000 rubles ($365), 14,000 rubles ($426) or 16,000 rubles ($486), that’s too high.”
After the 2008 forum, the Federal Antimonopoly Service claimed 11 local hotels had increased their rates by 80 to 100 percent during the event. These hotels were consequently fined for violating a law forbidding companies from conspiring or acting to limit competition. This decision was, however, challenged in court and the hotels were not required to pay.
“The room rates are decided by hotel owners,” said Sergei Korneyev, vice president of the Russian Tourism Industry Union.
“Often when the demand is greater than the supply, the hotels try to regulate the situation themselves by increasing prices. Seasonal increases are a market practice all over the world. Many hotels in Ukraine and Poland, for example, increased room rates to take advantage of those visiting the Euro 2012. However, just how much hotels decide to hike their prices can vary,” he said.
“Increasing prices for a certain period is quite a common thing; even airlines do it,” said Spaltenstein. “Seasonal price changes are well-known and people are prepared for it. But if hotels start doubling the room rate just for a week, it’s not very clever. People get the wrong impression about high prices in the city,” he added.
“We do not increase rates especially for the forum, but with such high demand, we offer rooms for the maximum seasonal price,” said Minina. “During these dates, room rates don’t increase by more than 20 percent of the average June price for a room.”
Some hotels offer guests lower rates for booking in advance, or extra services during special events.
“We greet guests with a welcome letter and a gift and put complimentary gifts in their room every day. We also organize a showing of forum sessions to be projected on a big screen in the conference hall,” said Minina.
Korneyev believes there should be a gradual growth in room rates in order to avoid damaging St. Petersburg’s reputation and making it known as a city of expensive hotels.
“Hotels should understand what is more important for them: Short-term profit or making a good impression in order to have a long-term effect,” said Korneyev.
“When hotel prices double or even triple, this serves as an anti-advertisement for St. Petersburg. It creates a myth about high accommodation prices in the city, when nowadays there are really lots of economy class hotels with a European standard of service. Visitors can find these hotels during the summer season, but because of the hotels that drastically increase their rates, it seems to many that such high prices are everywhere,” he said.
In St. Petersburg, there are currently a total of 69 three-, four- and five-star hotels with up to 50 rooms, according to Maris data. This figure consists mostly of three- and four-star hotels, however, it is still a common complaint that there are not enough three-star hotels, especially close to the city center.
Despite the lack of three-star accommodation, developers are continuing to build more expensive hotels such as the five-star Domina Prestige that opened this year on the Moika embankment, just off St. Isaac’s Square. Most tourist accommodation is traditionally situated in the central districts, namely Tsentralny, Admiralteisky, Petrogradsky and Vasileostrovsky. The Moskovsky district has also become a popular area to build hotels due to its close proximity to the airport. Next year a Marriott hotel is planned to open in the district, along with two Hilton hotels in 2014, according to Maris specialists.
“Something new has recently emerged on the St. Petersburg hotel market — the boutique hotel,” said Natalya Kireyeva, a senior analyst in Maris’ consulting and valuation department. “These are usually relatively small hotels with a unique style and atmosphere. Such hotels often pride themselves on being particularly attentive to each and every guest. There are currently three boutique hotels in the city and another is preparing to open.”
There are currently 14 international hotel operators in St. Petersburg, who manage 50 percent of all rooms in the city. According to Maris data, Russian hotel chains are also developing.
The duration of the economic forum and white nights season is the only time of year when it is difficult to find accommodation in the city. Throughout the rest of the year, there are far more rooms than tourists. In the first quarter of 2012, for example, hotel capacity was only at 40 to 50 percent, according to Maris data. In order to attract guests during the low season, hotels often offer discounts and specials.
Experts expect tourism to the city this year to increase by ten percent compared to last year, when about 5.5 million people visited St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Direct to Dubai: New Emirates Route to Sunshine
AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: From November of last year, Emirates Airline has been flying direct from St. Petersburg to Dubai daily, providing yet another good reason to travel to this unique destination. After some turbulence in the wake of the economic crisis, Dubai is again developing at a dizzying pace, with the truly outlandish scale of construction in itself providing one of the city’s main attractions. Dubai is the most open of the Emirates, and a city that is prepared to go to some extraordinary lengths to attract tourists and visitors on business.
What to See
You’d have to try very hard not to see the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building at 830 meters — it can be seen from almost any point in the city, and it’s well worth taking a trip up to its viewing platform. After a frenetic high-speed journey in a lift, complete with flashing colored strobes and pumping music, the doors open and you walk out into the clarity and light of the platform itself, from where you can look down on all the other immense skyscrapers in the city: From this height — and bear in mind that you’re only about two-thirds of the way up the tower — those other buildings look like dwarfish structures constructed by lesser beings.
The tower is in fact part of a much larger development called Downtown Dubai, which covers two square kilometers and came at a total price tag of $20 billion. The actual tower itself came in at a mere $1.5 billion.
At the foot of the tower is the Dubai Fountain (that’ll be about another $220 million), the world’s largest, comprising thousands of lights and powerful music. Visit the fountain in the evening to see the mesmerizing displays, which always attract a crowd.
Next to the fountain is an impressive mall — shopping in Dubai is one of the major pastimes among locals and visitors to the city, the fact that there is no value added tax on the goods makes for some bargains, especially on higher end items.
The malls in Dubai, however, have a deeper significance, embodying man’s mastery of nature. When it’s a parched 50 degrees Celsius outside, stepping into the cool, air-conditioned serenity of the malls, with their soothing fountains and water features and the sound of gentle splashing, makes remaining there for the whole day a fairly tempting prospect.
A particularly bold slap in the face of nature is Ski Dubai at the Mall of the Emirates — an artificial ski slope and tobogganing run with authentic snow and real cold. Stepping in off the street in T-shirt and shorts to see groups of kids practicing their downhilling in full ski suits and thick gloves is a somewhat surreal experience.
The heat and glorious sunshine are best experienced on the beach or by your hotel pool — elsewhere you’ll find some ingenious ways to avoid them around the city, such as special air-conditioned pods at the bus stops and a high-tech air-conditioned metro system that makes Blade Runner look retro (the metro trains even feature first-class compartments). Taking a Dhow Dinner Cruise up and down the Dubai Creek is also a good way to take a fresh look at the city in the cool of the evening.
The desert doesn’t have to be avoided entirely. Head off on a Dune Dinner Safari run by Arabian Adventures, a subsidiary of Emirates Airline that organizes excursions and services for tourists. Dozens of luxury off-road vehicles sail over the desert’s undulating dunes, taking you on a thrilling ride to a falconry display and a starlit dinner of local cuisine at a Bedouin camp. The display of traditional belly-dancing is also impressive … especially when it emerges that the exotic dancer is called Olga and hails all the way from Moscow. Dubai, it appears, is never short of surprises.
When to Go
It’s easy to see why Emirates Airline is focusing on its Petersburg-Dubai direct route — with a flight time of just six hours, this is a perfect destination for Russians searching for a winter break in the sun. Dubai in the summer can be oppressively hot for some, but from November to March the temperatures are more moderate, at about 25 degrees Celsius — just what people pine for at that time of year in cold and dark Petersburg.
Where to Stay
Dubai boasts an incredible treasure chest of hotels, all of them struggling furiously to stand out from the crowd. That means that when it says five-star on the door, it really is, with larger than average rooms for the star-ranking, excellent services and a wealth of luxurious facilities. We stayed courtesy of the Grand Hyatt Dubai (dubai.grand.hyatt.com), which proved to be a taste of Dubai’s international, hospitable atmosphere and futuristic luxury in microcosm. Acres of landscaped gardens, 14 restaurants and bars featuring varied international cuisines (the brilliant Peppercrab restaurant, which serves Singaporean cuisine and focuses on seafood, is particularly highly recommended), a first-rate wellness and fitness center, just a short hop from the airport — all this makes for an excellent choice for tourists. Nevertheless, the Grand is also renowned for its comprehensive conference and business facilities, which are onsite but manage not to intrude on the holiday mood in the rest of the hotel.
How to Get There
We flew courtesy of Emirates Airline (emirates.ru), which now has a daily direct flight from Petersburg and two daily direct flights from Moscow. Emirates is renowned for the wow factor that’s experienced by business and first-class travelers, with excellent cuisine and astounding in-flight entertainment. A visit to the airlines’ training college in the city is also an eye-opener — in Dubai, it appears, everything has to be on a bigger scale and demonstrably better. Here, they use scale models of planes on vast hydraulic arms in swimming pools to simulate emergency situations and practice safety procedures. No surprise then, that other airlines pay to use the Emirates training facilities in the global transport hub that is Dubai.
TITLE: Something Old, Something New: Weekend Ideas
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Peter’s Walking Tours
In Russia’s self-proclaimed cultural capital there is no shortage of tour guides to sell visitors the city. For those after more of an experience than an excursion, the best bet is Peter’s Walking Tours, founded by globe-trotting traveler Peter Kozyrev, which offers exciting alternatives to the standard tourist fare. Think nighttime bike rides, or tours focusing on popular themes such as the Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist Legacy, the Siege of Leningrad and Dostoevsky and his novels — a tour that includes the hugely popular Dostoevsky “Murder Route Pub Crawl” starting at the doorstep of Raskolnikov’s apartment building and ending at the doorway of pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna’s home.
Tour guides blend history, gossip, rumor and myth to draw detailed portraits of some of the city’s most thrilling historic personages such as Grigory Rasputin, the mysterious and powerful monk who gained enough influence to manipulate Russia’s final tsar, Nicholas II.
For details visit: www.peterswalk.com
Imperial Porcelain
Porcelain is one of the most popular gifts that people take from St. Petersburg. A visit to the city’s Lomonosov Porcelain Factory Museum makes it easy to understand why. There are 600 masterpieces on display from more than 265 years of Russian porcelain making — from luxurious ceremonial dinner sets ordered by Catherine the Great to Bolshevik propaganda chess sets pitting nobles against Soviet workers and peasants.
Russia’s oldest porcelain producer and one of the first in Europe, the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory was established in 1744, following a decree from Peter the Great’s daughter, Elizabeth. Known in tsarist times as the Imperial Porcelain Manufactury, the factory was an exclusive supplier to the Romanov family and its noble relatives. The museum was founded a century later by Emperor Nicholas I, with the help of donations from the Winter Palace and other royal residences.
After the 1917 Revolution, the Imperial Porcelain Manufactury was nationalized and dedicated to Soviet propaganda. In the tireless struggle for the hearts and minds of ordinary people, no object was considered too insignificant. Factory workers made ink pots in the shape of a woman reading Stalin’s historical works or embroidering a Soviet flag. Tea sets were stamped with heroic revolutionary leaders. Dishes were emblazoned with scenes from epic Communist projects such as the Baikal-Amur Main Line railroad.
Today, modern designers take inspiration both from the city’s history and contemporary art. The display gives precious insight into Russian culture, history and traditions.
The Lomonosov Porcelain
Factory Museum
151 Prospekt Obukhovskoi Oborony
Tel. 326 1743
For details visit:
www.lomonosovporcelain.ru
The Hygiene Museum
Tuberculosis-ridden lungs and cancerous tissue emphasize the benefits of a healthy way of life at the city’s Hygiene Museum, launched in 1919 by Anatoly Lunacharsky, who was overseeing the country’s public education system at the time. “While in the forest, don’t touch the squirrels, as they may have the encephalitis tick virus in their blood,” is the sort of advice that a museum’s guide is likely to give you.
Colored maps illustrate the differences between edible and poisonous mushrooms, as well as between a regular mosquito and one infected with malaria.
The museum’s extensive collection of internal parasites is more effective than any scary cartoon or repetitive parental nagging to get children to wash their hands before mealtime.
A genuine highlight of the display is a model of a mechanical stuffed dog — based on one of Ivan Pavlov’s dogs — and equipped with two funnels through which saliva and gastric juice can flow. The apparatus illustrates Pavlov’s theory on reflexes.
The museum is also home to two mummies, buried in the middle of the 18th century on the outskirts of the city and removed from their burial vault during the Soviet-era anti-religion campaign. This was apparently done in an effort to demonstrate the “real afterlife.” The man and woman were naturally mummified due to the extreme dryness of the soil.
The Hygiene Museum
25 Italyanskaya Ulitsa, second floor
Tel. 595 8908. Visitors must book ahead.
New Holland Island
This small triangular island with a diverse system of canals and bridges, and industrial brick buildings that echo Amsterdam, dates back to 1720. Originally used by Peter the Great as a shipyard and arsenal, the island today is part of UNESCO’s World Heritage Monuments list and one of the city’s most distinctly European spots with a thriving art and leisure scene.
On weekends the island hosts an antique and vintage market as well as art master classes from some of the city’s entertaining bohemians. Every day, New Holland visitors can relax on the grass, catch some sun while relaxing in deck chairs and enjoy organic snacks from local producers that have stalls on the island. People are also invited to play table tennis and try out the area’s bike ramps.
The island’s first art gallery is currently showcasing an exhibition by Alexei Kiselyov entitled “Nothing Special,” while another artist, Nastya Bukina has used the fence surrounding New Holland as a canvas for her illustrated fairy tale. Popular local bands present their music with open-air gigs on weekend evenings.
All events, as well as entrance to the island, are free of charge. New Holland is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday through Sunday, and from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
For details visit: www.newhollandsp.com
Museum of the Political History of Russia
This St. Petersburg museum is the only one in the country to address Russian political history after 1917, besides the nation’s only gulag museum — a remote former prison camp in the Perm region.
The museum documents Russia’s political history starting in the late 18th century and follows the evolution of political repression and arbitrary rule from 1917 to the present. A large section of the display is devoted to Stalin’s repressions. Many photographs document mass repression, including the forced exile of the intelligentsia in 1922.
A typical barrack room, as well as a typical kitchen in a communal apartment, have been reconstructed as part of the display. In a separate section that tells the story of forced collectivization is a hand-written pencil report of a collective farm member betraying 26 colleagues to the NKVD secret police. One member, he writes, is religious, while another took part in an anti-Soviet meeting in 1918. A few more, he is convinced, were against collective farming.
A separate area is devoted to the repression within Stalin’s closest circle. Sergei Kirov’s field glasses, Iona Yakir’s inkpot, Kliment Voroshilov’s cavalry sword, and Sergei Ordzhonikidze’s telephone are displayed alongside sentences, verdicts and horrifying NKVD reports.
A fascinating part of the collection is devoted to the evolution of propaganda techniques and the involvement of artists in creating propaganda art. Graphic, bright and compelling, Soviet posters are often viewed as the quintessence of an epoch, reflecting the way that the country’s rulers addressed the governed. Through the images of posters, audiences can see how the state encouraged people, and what it did to make them feel optimistic about their future.
Museum of the Political History
of Russia
2-4 Ulitsa Kuibysheva
Tel. 233 7052
www.polithistory.ru
The Summer Gardens
Founded by Peter the Great in 1704, the Summer Gardens reopened last month after having been restored to their historic splendor. The reconstruction work, which took almost two years to complete, has completely changed the face of the magnificent gardens. Peter meant for them to be regular gardens, and the restoration was intended to emphasize this concept.
Landscapers meticulously examined historical documents, prints and sketches to plant trees and bushes as conceived in the tsar’s original plan. Four fountains are now located on the gardens’ main alley, while three more are situated inside boskets, and one under a glass cupola. The ornate railings — one of the most popular postcard views of St. Petersburg — have also been fully renovated.
The Communist Legacy
Back in the Communist era, Soviet guides presented St. Petersburg to visitors as “the cradle of three revolutions.” Those uprisings are in the distant past, but their long-term consequences can still be felt. The city’s revolutionary legacy reveals itself in many different ways, from the city’s architecture to the Russian mentality.
The city is home to the Museum of the Political History of Russia, where the social upheavals of the past 150 years are documented and displayed through engaging collections of propaganda art, spy paraphernalia and biographical material relating to prominent political figures.
One captivating museum allowing the visitor to plunge back into the era of the Red Terror is the apartment of Leningrad Communist Party head Sergei Kirov. It was his unsolved murder in 1936 that marked the beginning of Stalin’s purges.
These days a number of Soviet icons serve commercial purposes. One such icon is the Krasin icebreaker, which was built in the year of the revolution and led Arctic convoys during World War II.
Soviet culture is still very much alive. In an ironic twist, some of the businesses that spearheaded the return to capitalism — namely privately owned restaurants and bars such as Dachniki and USSR — exploit images from Communist times. Some adorn their walls with Soviet memorabilia to bring in the customers, and others even re-hash Soviet era dishes for their diners. Judging by the booming business some are enjoying, the service must be a lot faster than it was before 1991.
Palace Concerts
Russia’s former imperial capital is reviving classical concerts in its magnificent palaces and royal summer residences. More and more often performers are leaving the conventional concert halls to move into more spectacular surroundings.
The luxurious mansions that once belonged to the nobility have gained a new lease of life through musicians and their audiences. A whole array of events, including the summer’s Palaces of St. Petersburg, Musical Olympus and Stars of the White Nights festivals, attract classical performers from around the world to make music in some of the most exquisite spaces in Europe. The new trend comes naturally to the city as it fuses its refined architectural landscape and classical music legacy.
Performers are not the only ones interested in such venues. Diplomatic missions, large corporations, flamboyant oligarchs and ministers in the Russian government rent out imperial summer residences and aristocratic mansions to impress and enthrall their guests.
These concerts, festivities and balls help to revive Russia’s musical, cultural and historical traditions and bring people back to the reign of Peter the Great, when aristocrats employed their own chamber orchestras to perform in their family palaces. Today the palaces are open for modern entertainment — and not only during the celebrated white nights — when the sun hardly sets on St. Petersburg.
TITLE: British Journalist Issues Chilling Warning on Russia
AUTHOR: By Matthew Brown
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The shapely figure of Anna Chapman isn’t at first glance the likely subject of scrutiny by one of the world’s weightier analysts of international affairs.
But in a new book, Edward Lucas has looked beyond Chapman’s image as a cartoon Bond girl for the reality TV age to identify a yet more grubby and sinister phenomenon.
In “Deception,” Chapman and the nine other Russian spies working undercover in the United States who were sensationally flushed out in June 2010 are shown to be emblematic of nothing less than a deepening existential threat to the West and its entire way of life. At first glance, the claim seems overblown.
But with the explosive thoroughness and persuasiveness he brought to “The New Cold War” (2008), a previous book-length warning about the intents and discontents of Russia’s rulers, Lucas convincingly builds a case.
The one-word, above-the-fold title of the book, and its racy tagline (“Spies, lies and how Russia dupes the West”), together with the film poster look of its cover, is unnecessarily Hitchcockian. The stark polemic within needs no Hollywood touches. While an unrecognizable photo of Chapman lurks in the corner, the larger image is of the unmistakably demonic eye of Vladimir Putin.
This again belies the content within. Far from delivering an easy pop-psychological screed against Russia’s accidental president and his kleptocracy, “Deception” reveals the cogs and wheels of a deeper and more troubling malady: That of how Russia’s ruling class hungers for, needs and maintains the machinery of espionage for its very survival.
To supply context, Lucas turns to the convoluted tragedy of Sergei Magnitsky. The sorry story of the demise in custody in 2009 of a lawyer who had attempted to show how Russian government officials were colluding in corporate wrongdoing, explained here with refreshing clarity, ostensibly has little to do with the picture of post-Cold War spy games that the book purports to deliver. But Lucas chooses the planks of his platform carefully. As his argument develops, it becomes clearer why Magnitsky matters.
Magnitsky matters, Lucas argues, because the normal functions in a nation state vis-a-vis its citizenry of such entities as the government, business and the judiciary have in Russia been perverted into instruments of thievery, chicanery and, in Magnitsky’s case, all that plus death.
In this picture, the organs of the Russian state, including its intelligence apparatus, operate solely as an extra-judicial racket aimed at the enrichment of its members — but not only for the domestic monetary enrichment that those familiar with Russian corruption would expect from rigged auctions, dubious expropriations and everyday bribery. Rather, Lucas argues that Russia’s intelligence services are in the business of enriching themselves by stealing foreign secrets in a deep-rooted and chauvinistic attack. The argument is at times densely articulated, but ultimately plausible.
In later parts of the book, Lucas delineates the history of spying between Russia and the West before, during and after its Soviet-era heyday to show how intractable the grudge match is. In this analysis, the West nearly always comes off worse. Indeed, Lucas aims his sharpest barbs at the West’s inability, through naivety, incompetence and wishful thinking, to effectively counter the threat that the Russian state has posed and poses. Such complacency, he argues, created the possibility of Chapman and her ilk. With well-paced outrage, Lucas never fails to question this complacency.
The frontline of the struggle takes place in the Baltic nations, which Lucas calls the “cockpit of Europe.” After an occasionally confusing summary of the 20th-century history of East-West spying in the Baltics, intrinsically tied to the shifting priorities of that complex era, we arrive at the key story of the Estonian traitor Herman Simm. With it, Lucas is able to demonstrate why the problem of Russia’s ability to deceive the West is an emergency.
Simm was a top-ranking policeman during the Soviet occupation who, not exceptionally, was recruited in 1985 as a low-level spy by the Soviet KGB. After Estonia’s independence, Simm, still being managed by handlers in the KGB’s successor agency in Russia, rose spotlessly through the ranks of Estonia’s defense establishment to land a plum role at NATO headquarters in Brussels after Estonia joined the Western military alliance in 2004.
Lucas shows that inadequate checks and a trusting, starry-eyed “post-collapse” attitude on the part of officials from NATO — as well as nonchalant flat-out lies on the part of the man himself — failed to flag Simm’s KGB link. With Russia’s special antipathy to NATO reaching obsessive, hysterical proportions in the legions of Putin’s siloviki in the 2000s, the placement in its heart of an asset such as Simm, and possibly not only Simm, showed how lax the West had — or has — become. For pay, Simm was passing secrets to Moscow until the CIA sniffed a mole and assisted in his arrest. The Estonian authorities subsequently tried Simm, and, in an exclusive, Lucas was able to interview the now-incarcerated spy for this book.
Deep-cover operatives, Simm, Chapman, other spies, new types hiding in plain sight (obviously so if they are exposed, not at all if they are not), and lots of them, hint at a deep imbalance between the capability of contemporary Russia to at least undermine the West with the deployment of such agents, as opposed to the other way around, Lucas writes.
It is a thought likely to disturb anybody from the West who ever fell in love with a Russian, like the hapless Alex Chapman.
The whirlwind, short-lived marriage of the young Englishman to the daughter of a top KGB general enabled Anna to easily obtain British citizenship in her early 20s (since revoked), and move to the U.S., while working in semi-sensitive roles in banks and hedge funds. At the time she was also involved in shadowy entities in Zimbabwe and Ireland, all along as part of a seeming international criminal scam that not only encompassed the trading of secrets but also the looting of money. These are new strands to the story that Lucas diligently unpicks. Anna, the failed spy, has since become a celebrity in Russia.
Like a legendary litigator in a courtroom drama, the author skillfully sketches context, identifies the accused, mines admissible evidence, brings alive forgotten victims, espouses expert historical critique and eventually delivers a withering verdict that it would be remiss of anybody living through this entangled story to ignore. That means all of us. An important and urgent book.
“Deception” by Edward Lucas was published in the U.S. by Walker & Company on June 19. The U.K. edition, published by Bloomsbury, is out now.
Q & A
For years the name of British journalist Edward Lucas was unfamiliar to even the most ardent Russia-watchers in the West. That is because the writer, who has made a two-decade career reporting on Central Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, works for The Economist, a conservative U.K. weekly newspaper that makes a point of removing its reporters’ names from its articles to present a seamless, egoless account of world affairs.
But in 2008, Lucas, now international editor of The Economist, published under his own name “The New Cold War,” a book that examined in polemical form Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy. The book — given currency by Russia’s war with Georgia — and its alarmist tone was considered overstated by some, especially in the light of the election that year of the apparent moderate reformer Dmitry Medvedev to the Russian presidency. However, we all know how that turned out and “The New Cold War” has become a classic of cool analysis and, indeed, prescience. In the meantime, Lucas’s stock rose steadily.
The publication in the U.K. earlier this year of “Deception,” Lucas’s second book, was therefore hotly anticipated. A detailed analysis of Russia-West espionage given fresh urgency by the exposure of Anna Chapman and her cohorts in 2010, the book was published in the U.S. this week. Lucas spoke to The St. Petersburg Times about his new book and some of the topics it raises.
Q: “Deception” is broadly a warning to the West not to be complacent about Russia’s will and ability to spy on it. If they read it, how do you think ordinary Russian readers would view the thrust of your argument?
A: Spies traditionally have a good image inside Russia, as I point out — from Stirlitz to Anna Chapman. But I think that this is vulnerable now for several reasons. One is that Russians are increasingly receptive to the idea that the regime is not making the country strong, but is in fact looting it. Another is that the regime’s anti-Westernism is resonating less. The reputation of the “organs” themselves is bad. The FSB [Russia’s domestic intelligence service] in particular plays a despicable role inside Russia and nepotism and corruption are rife inside the SVR [Russia’s foreign intelligence service].
So I think my argument, that the Russian regime is bad for Russia and for the West, and that espionage is an underestimated threat, may gain some agreement — perhaps grudging in some quarters — even inside Russia.
Q: How do you think those in power in Russia, i.e. in the Kremlin and in Russia’s various intelligence outfits, view your book and its central thesis?
A: I don’t know. I praise Soviet intelligence triumphs in the book and highlight Western blunders, so from an academic and historical point of view I think they would find the book fair. They won’t like being called a “pirate state” but that’s their problem. If you steal billions of dollars from your own people and jail or kill those who get in your way, people will notice, even in the West.
Q: In the book you describe in detail the means and motives of the Russian power structure to spy on an unsuspecting, even vulnerable “enemy,” the West, while at the same time noting a certain degradation in the bureaucratic and technical adroitness of its contemporary intelligence services. Which trend, in your view, has the upper hand?
A: For now I think that the vulnerabilities in the West mean that even in their current, degraded state, Russian intelligence services find penetration and other operations quite easy.
Q: You have recently been targeted by “tchaykovsky,” a mystery blogger posting in English and French, as a “pathological Russophobe.” You have made it clear that you are happy to appear alongside figures such as Russian writer Masha Gessen, the Guardian’s Moscow reporter Miriam Elder and the late investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, that this person is tagging as Russophobic. What do you think of the charge?
A: I am not Russophobic in the least. I speak and read Russian with great pleasure. I love Russian literature and have many Russian friends. Like them I detest the way that the regime has behaved both at home and abroad. I am honored to be placed alongside Anna Politkovskaya, even by an Internet troll.
Q: What are your hopes for your new book? What reaction has it elicited so far?
A: I have had excellent reviews in The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and other media, with more coming, I hope — the American edition is launched this week. “The New Cold War” was translated into 20 languages, so I am hoping to match or beat that with this book.
TITLE: Antiquity-Inspired Style Blooms at Tsarskoye Selo
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Nymphs, fauns, archers, gymnasts, cavalry maidens and decadent classical beauties riding in open carriages abounded in the alleys, galleries and even fountains of the Tsarskoye Selo former imperial estate’s Catherine Park on Saturday, June 16 as six premier St. Petersburg fashion designers indulged in a game called “Playing at Antiquity.”
The event was part of the annual Association project, which was being held for the fourth time this year. Every year, the show celebrates an epoch or style in art — as seen through fashion — and is put together by the finest fashion talent from Russia’s cultural capital. The theme is proposed to interested designers by the management of Tsarskoye Selo, the host of the beautiful event. Previous events were dedicated to baroque, art nouveau and military styles.
“As the Catherine Park was stylistically conceived as a Greco-Roman rhapsody, so to say, we felt it would be fair to make antiquity this year’s subject,” said Olga Taratynova, director of the Tsarskoye Selo palace and park ensemble.
Six designers — Tatyana Parfyonova, Tatyana Kotegova, Lilia Kisselenko, Ianis Chamalidy, Stas Lopatkin and Yelena Badmayeva — created collections especially for the occasion and presented them in an original, performance-style manner, with the helping hand of St. Petersburg director Viktor Kramer.
“Initially I was a bit suspicious of this enterprise, as I thought that fashion designers were probably totally conservative about the way in which they present their collections,” Kramer admitted. “What I have learned is that these designers thrive on the spirit of adventure just as much as stage directors do. My job was really to push the designer to do an unorthodox twist, a departure from what they would normally do.”
Each show was presented three times on Saturday. All park visitors were given a list of venues and a schedule upon entrance, which cost 200 rubles ($6) — double the standard price — that day.
A nymph served as designer Stas Lopatkin’s muse for his collection “Insomnia.” The designer sent both forest and water nymphs dancing gracefully across the grass and around the fountain. With their flowing silhouettes, floral patterns, sophisticated ornate jewelry and languid sensual movements that looked as if they had been borrowed from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes seasons in France, Lopatkin’s models appeared as crucial and natural to the historic park as the sculptures that grace its alleys. The models’ hairstyle bore a tangible reverence to Gustav Klimt — an artist from a very different era — and this note fit beautifully into the context of ancient mythology.
Lilia Kisselenko celebrated the Olympic spirit of antiquity in her show, which took place in the estate’s Cameron Gallery. The promenade featured athletic-looking models dressed in stunning black and white silks — ascetic and laconic, yet dizzyingly feminine — and incorporated balls, ribbons and longbows into the presentation. This was a show in which the genre of the performance respected the theme of antiquity as much as the designs themselves.
Ianis Chamalidy built a bridge between the worlds of pagan antiquity and monotheistic Christianity. His collection, entitled “Bird in a Cage,” offered a journey into a person’s soul, exploring the gods and demons that abound there. The catwalk in the Cameron Gallery had a breezy, somewhat chilly spirit — only natural for such a journey — showcasing a curious spirituality that contrasts courage and escapism. Silks, chiffon and organza reigned over the designs that showcased Chamalidy’s signature sensual draping. The models’ heads, wrapped in nets, hinted at restraint and came across as both firm and tender.
A true highlight was a divine grayish green stormy-sea-colored dress with a silhouette that resembled a pillar of salt or a high, frozen wave.
“When designers create haute couture collections, they feel like they are soaring — there is no need to weigh, calculate and count the pros, cons and market demands, and whether or not the collection will sell, as we have to with prêt-a-porter,” Chamalidy said. “In my collection, I sought to explore the issue of freedom that the human soul is constantly seeking and the physical limitations that the body creates for it.”
Tatyana Parfyonova chose a playful take on the subject, with her “Russian Empire” show being inspired by the story of famous Russian cavalry maiden Nadezhda Durova, the country’s first-ever female officer and 1812 Napoleonic War heroine. Flat-soled, knee-high leather boots contrasted with cheerful cotton sarafans (traditional long Russian pinafores) and transparent silk tunics, embroidered with stitched satin swans, mermaids and bees. The eight designs artfully captured the essence of the Russian Empire style, while the performance served as a beautiful fashion portrait of Durova as a heroine, whose character is a fusion of girlish romanticism, rebel spirit and panache.
Designer Yelena Badmayeva, who presented a collection of pastel-colored square silk scarves with imperial patterns, dressed her models in modest white cottons that emphasized the fine elegance of the scarves. The collection was created for Tsarskoye Selo’s 300th anniversary in 2010, and was presented for the first time to the general public on Saturday.
Tatyana Kotegova arranged for her seven models to ride in open carriages and dance in the fields while artist Kirill Miller played a vintage red barrel organ. Kotegova’s rusted brown silk maxi dresses had streaming lines, and were complemented by bright blue and green scarves that flowed in the wind.
“I feel that antiquity can easily be applied to modern fashion, and it was a delight for me to work on the collection,” the designer said.
The finale saw all models parade across the front of the Cameron Gallery for a feast of styles and colors.
TITLE: Q & A
AUTHOR: By Matthew Brown
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: For years the name of British journalist Edward Lucas was unfamiliar to even the most ardent Russia-watchers in the West. That is because the writer, who has made a two-decade career reporting on Central Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, works for The Economist, a conservative U.K. weekly newspaper that makes a point of removing its reporters’ names from its articles to present a seamless, egoless account of world affairs.
But in 2008, Lucas, now international editor of The Economist, published under his own name “The New Cold War,” a book that examined in polemical form Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy. The book — given currency by Russia’s war with Georgia — and its alarmist tone was considered overstated by some, especially in the light of the election that year of the apparent moderate reformer Dmitry Medvedev to the Russian presidency. However, we all know how that turned out and “The New Cold War” has become a classic of cool analysis and, indeed, prescience. In the meantime, Lucas’s stock rose steadily.
The publication in the U.K. earlier this year of “Deception,” Lucas’s second book, was therefore hotly anticipated. A detailed analysis of Russia-West espionage given fresh urgency by the exposure of Anna Chapman and her cohorts in 2010, the book was published in the U.S. this week. Lucas spoke to The St. Petersburg Times about his new book and some of the topics it raises.
Q: “Deception” is broadly a warning to the West not to be complacent about Russia’s will and ability to spy on it. If they read it, how do you think ordinary Russian readers would view the thrust of your argument?
A: Spies traditionally have a good image inside Russia, as I point out — from Stirlitz to Anna Chapman. But I think that this is vulnerable now for several reasons. One is that Russians are increasingly receptive to the idea that the regime is not making the country strong, but is in fact looting it. Another is that the regime’s anti-Westernism is resonating less. The reputation of the “organs” themselves is bad. The FSB [Russia’s domestic intelligence service] in particular plays a despicable role inside Russia and nepotism and corruption are rife inside the SVR [Russia’s foreign intelligence service].
So I think my argument, that the Russian regime is bad for Russia and for the West, and that espionage is an underestimated threat, may gain some agreement — perhaps grudging in some quarters — even inside Russia.
Q: How do you think those in power in Russia, i.e. in the Kremlin and in Russia’s various intelligence outfits, view your book and its central thesis?
A: I don’t know. I praise Soviet intelligence triumphs in the book and highlight Western blunders, so from an academic and historical point of view I think they would find the book fair. They won’t like being called a “pirate state” but that’s their problem. If you steal billions of dollars from your own people and jail or kill those who get in your way, people will notice, even in the West.
Q: In the book you describe in detail the means and motives of the Russian power structure to spy on an unsuspecting, even vulnerable “enemy,” the West, while at the same time noting a certain degradation in the bureaucratic and technical adroitness of its contemporary intelligence services. Which trend, in your view, has the upper hand?
A: For now I think that the vulnerabilities in the West mean that even in their current, degraded state, Russian intelligence services find penetration and other operations quite easy.
Q: You have recently been targeted by “tchaykovsky,” a mystery blogger posting in English and French, as a “pathological Russophobe.” You have made it clear that you are happy to appear alongside figures such as Russian writer Masha Gessen, the Guardian’s Moscow reporter Miriam Elder and the late investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, that this person is tagging as Russophobic. What do you think of the charge?
A: I am not Russophobic in the least. I speak and read Russian with great pleasure. I love Russian literature and have many Russian friends. Like them I detest the way that the regime has behaved both at home and abroad. I am honored to be placed alongside Anna Politkovskaya, even by an Internet troll.
Q: What are your hopes for your new book? What reaction has it elicited so far?
A: I have had excellent reviews in The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and other media, with more coming, I hope — the American edition is launched this week. “The New Cold War” was translated into 20 languages, so I am hoping to match or beat that with this book.