SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1715 (26), Wednesday, June 27, 2012
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TITLE: Putin Calls for Popular Vote for Senators
AUTHOR: Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday proposed that Federation Council senators be elected through a popular vote — but only after being nominated by gubernatorial candidates.
He put forward legislation that would require politicians running for governor in regional elections to nominate three senators for the public to vote on.
The potential senator with the most votes would serve in the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament. The other two would be possible replacements in case the elected senator resigned or was deemed unfit to rule.
"The Federation Council should be more democratic," Putin told the upper house, run by his close ally, Valentina Matviyenko.
"We have to make the procedures more open," Putin said. "All decisions by ruling officials should go through a public audit."
The proposal follows the instatement of gubernatorial elections as part of political reforms meant to appease the public after a spate of mass protests.
If passed, the legislation may strengthen the public's view of the body, long seen as a cushy job for retired regional officials.
Putin stressed that senators should have lived for five years in the regions they are representing.
He said the legislation would also prohibit regional governors from firing their respective senators, who could only be recalled by a popular vote.
He added that the procedure does not violate the Constitution, which says the Federation Council should not be formed directly by a popular vote.
Any change to the Constitution could be problematic for the Kremlin, since the ruling United Russia party does not have a constitutional majority and would need to cooperate with other parties to amend the document.
But the Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition-minded A Just Russia have been known to vote in line with the Kremlin in the past.
The new legislation also lower senators' minimum age from 35 to 21, the same as in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
In response to questions from senators, Putin admitted that he "shares concerns" that elected governors might include candidates who would serve the interests of business clans.
But, he said, gubernatorial candidates would be concerned for their reputation.
"I doubt that a governor, during that critical moment of being elected, would allow a person with low authority to run alongside him, even with a lot of money," Putin said.
Putin fielded a question from Senator Lyudmila Narusova, widow of Putin's mentor Anatoly Sobchak and mother of Ksenia Sobchak, a television personality-turned-opposition activist.
Narusova, whose senatorial seat representing the Bryansk region would be voted on in October, said the rules for selecting candidates were "not written clearly."
She was the only senator whom Putin did not address by first name and patronymic, a sign that relations between them may have been strained due to her daughter's political activity.
In a recent interview with Novaya Gazeta, Sobchak said Putin "might feel that I have betrayed him" for supporting the opposition.
When Bryansk Governor Nikolai Denin runs for re-election, he may choose not to nominate Narusova because she lacks strong personal ties to the region.
The Novgorod, Belgorod and Amur regions will also soon hold gubernatorial elections, in which opposition candidates are unlikely to fare well.
Numerous obstacles, such as a mandatory number of signatures from municipal deputies, drastically reduce the opposition's chances of securing a foothold.
Nevertheless, Senator Alexander Torshin told The St. Petersburg Times that the proposal to bring popular elections to the Federation Council was a product of changing political sentiment.
TITLE: Fighter Jet Crashes in Karelia
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A Su-27 fighter jet crashed near a village in the northern republic of Karelia on Thursday morning.
Both pilots managed to safely eject from the plane, which went down at 9:50 a.m. three kilometers outside of Besovets, RIA-Novosti reported.
The pilots were found by a search team shortly after the incident and were given a clean bill of health after a medical evaluation in Petrozavodsk, 14 kilometers from Besovets.
Interfax reported that the fighter was most likely part of the 159th Guards Regiment and flew out of Air Base 6169 in Besovets.
The Defense Ministry confirmed the crash, whose cause was not immediately apparent, and said the plane was unarmed.
A source in the Western Military District said there was reason to believe that a bird got jammed inside an engine, disabling it.
Investigators are also considering the possibility that an onboard flight system may have failed.
Both of the flight recorders have been found and will be sent to the Defense Ministry to be decoded.
The last crash of a Su-27 took place in April 2011, when a fighter crashed while attempting to land near Vladivostok.
The cause of that crash was the failure of its control system.
TITLE: Russian Billionaires Backing 'Jewish Nobel Prize'
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The billionaire founder of one of Russia's largest privately owned investment groups is helping fund a $1 million "Jewish Nobel Prize" together with the Israeli government.
Mikhail Fridman, head of Alfa Group and a partner in Russia's third-largest oil company TNK-BP, will fund the Genesis prize through the Genesis Philanthropy Group, which he co-founded along with a string of other billionaires including TNK-BP executive director German Khan, Bloomberg reported.
The Genesis prize will be awarded for significant achievements in arts, sciences and beyond and will highlight Jews' contribution to global milestones.
The timing of the award is set to coincide with the Passover holiday, a seven- or eight-day festival falling in spring.
"The prize symbolizes Jews' great contribution in human development and will be a source of pride for young Jews around the world," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, according to the news agency. Netanyahu has been involved in the Genesis project for several years.
The announcement of the prize comes just a day after President Vladimir Putin met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
More than 1 million Russian speakers live in Israel after rules prohibiting emigration from the Soviet Union were relaxed.
But Stan Polovets, who also co-founded Genesis, denied the prize has anything to do with cementing political ties between Russia and Israel, instead stressing the involvement of the Israeli government.
"It's only appropriate that the prize to recognize outstanding Jewish achievement is awarded by the head of state of Israel," Polovets said by e-mail, Bloomberg reported.
TITLE: UNESCO Welcomes City Development Plan
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: UNESCO will review the program for the reconstruction and restoration of the historical center of St. Petersburg after it is finalized, Kishore Rao, the director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center, said Monday.
Speaking at the 36th session of the World Heritage Committee that is currently being held in St. Petersburg’s Tavrichesky Palace, Rao said UNESCO’s experts would consider contributing their recommendations and judgments to the program in cases that involve the city’s world heritage sites.
The program for the reconstruction and restoration of the historical center of St. Petersburg that is still being formulated will cover the period from 2013 to 2018, and will require up to one trillion rubles ($30.4 billion), according to preliminary estimates.
The city’s historical center has been divided into zones, and open competitions for the reconstruction and development of each zone are now in progress. The results of the competition will be announced this September.
Eleonora Mitrofanova, chairwoman of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee and Russia’s permanent representative in UNESCO, welcomed the idea of the reconstruction plan in general, as its declared goal is improving the quality of life in the city. The plan envisages not only the reconstruction of dilapidated historical buildings, but also the creation of parking spaces, improvement of pedestrian areas and introduction of elements of landscape design.
“In general, I think the reconstruction plan is a good thing because people’s quality of life should always come first,” Mitrofanova said. “It is worth remembering that not every building in the historical center of St. Petersburg is a world heritage site. You really need to distinguish between a situation in which a precious cultural item is being destroyed, and when we are talking about an old building that is beyond repair and needs to be demolished. From the point of view of heritage preservation, these are not comparable.
“The confrontation between the concepts of conservation and development dates back centuries, and it does not have a universal solution,” Mitrofanova added.
During the course of the session, which will end on July 6, experts will review the proposals of more than 35 sites that are being considered for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
The proposals include: the Lena Pillars nature reserve in far eastern Siberia (Russia), Western Ghats mountains (India), Lakes of Ounianga (Chad), Mediterranean landscapes in Plasencia-Monfrague-Trujillo (Spain), the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth (Germany), archeological monuments in Al Zubara (Qatar), the farmhouses of Halsingland (Sweden), the historical center of Rabat (Morocco) and Rajasthan fortress (India).
The World Heritage List currently comprises 936 cultural and natural sites.
This year, UNESCO celebrates the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention that has since been ratified by 189 countries, making it one of the most universally ratified legal instruments worldwide.
“Behind the important document is the simple but revolutionary idea that there are places of ‘outstanding universal value’ we must protect together,” said Irina Bokova, UNESCO director-general, in her opening speech at the session on June 24.
Bokova warned local authorities against viewing the list as a beauty contest or a sports competition.
“As we meet, an ever greater number of sites are threatened. In May, an earthquake in northern Italy struck Ferrara — a vibrant city, one of the birthplaces of the European Renaissance. Violence in Syria is threatening lives and destroying the memory of those who created cultural World Heritage sites there,” she said.
Perhaps even more frustratingly, World Heritage sites are threatened by ill-conceived construction policies, when priceless historical buildings and places fall victim to the interests of deep-pocketed investors. It is for these policies that St. Petersburg’s heritage preservation pressure groups are asking UNESCO experts to watch out.
From June 22 to 24, just before the start of the UNESCO session, the first international forum of non-governmental organizations on the preservation of world heritage sites was held in St. Petersburg. Its participants — more than 100 delegates from pressure groups representing 24 countries from Finland to Australia — issued a warning statement about Russia’s industrial policies, which threaten dozens of world heritage sites across the country.
According to Oksana Karavaiko, spokeswoman for the Russian branch of the international environmental organization Greenpeace, the list of hotspots includes the Virgin Komi Forests, where a large open-cast gold mine is being planned and illegal logging is rampant; Lake Baikal, where the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill continues to operate and dump industrial waste into the water, and where metals mining is planned to be launched; the Western Caucasus nature reserve, in particular the Lago-Naki plateau, where a ski resort is due to be built, as well as an important highway leading to the “Moonlight Valley” government residence; and the Kronotsky nature reserve on the Kamchatka peninsula, where two hydro-electric power stations are being planned.
This is not to mention Gazprom’s preparations to build a pipeline from its Arctic Yamal gas fields through the Sacred Lands territory in the Altai mountains.
“Importantly, these are cases in which large financial interests clash with a lack of transparency,” Karavaiko added.
“It is extremely difficult to get any information about them, which makes it very difficult to give publicity to them and encourage a public discussion.”
TITLE: Russian Business Reluctant to Donate
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Being forced to donate kills the pleasure of sharing. This was the sentiment expressed by Russian businessmen Friday at a panel discussion on the peculiarities of Russia’s attitude to charity at the 16th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The country’s businesses may be seeing their profits soar, but bosses have shown little inclination to share their increasing wealth with the country’s poorest, weakest and most vulnerable.
“Perhaps the number one challenge for entrepreneurs in Russia is that the government finds it acceptable to dictate who we should give money to, when we should do it, and how much,” said Ruben Vardanyan, president of Troika Dialog Group. “This makes businessmen a bit uneasy. After all, they pay taxes, and the thing is, are they really obliged to do anything else?”
Why can’t the government give them a fair deal on charity? This was the question that appeared to bother the businessmen the most during the debate, which brought together prominent artists, heads of charity foundations and successful entrepreneurs from Russia and abroad.
It is still difficult for most Russian businessmen to stop looking at charity as something that could potentially bring in a profit, and many still have a long way to go before being able to look at it in any other light.
“At the moment, doing charity is not profitable; the government needs to make it attractive for companies if it wants them to be seriously involved,” said Stanislav Kuznetsov, senior vice-president of Sberbank Russia.
The foreign panelists tried to help their Russian counterparts view charity from a different perspective.
“Doing good is part of your image, the impression that you produce,” said David Jones, global CEO of Havas, a communications group and the co-founder of the One Young World foundation. “A good image is a reasonable enough investment, isn’t it?”
Dennis Nally, president of PricewaterhouseCoopers professional services, said charity is not so much about a company as it is about a person.
“In Russia, each person spends an average of $20 on charity, while in the U.S. this figure is $1,000 per person — this difference is worth thinking about,” he said. “ In Russia, about 20 percent of people have participated in a charitable project, while in the U.S., the figure is 62 percent. In the U.S. most money for charitable programs is collected through fundraising programs from individuals.”
Comparing charitable organizations in Russia and the U.S., Nally mentioned the issue of transparency.
“It is not enough to make a prominent actress the face of a charity in order to make the organization successful; if its work is not visible, this charity does not have a great future,” he said. “If you are not prepared to account for every penny that you spend and disburse, your project will go under.”
Kamran Elahian, chairman and co-founder of Global Catalyst Partners, a technology-focused venture capital company, said that recipients should always be involved in charity projects.
“If you sponsor a computer class, get the school involved — even if it’s only by contributing furniture,” he said. “When they themselves invest in it, even if the proportion is less than 1 percent, they will relate to it personally and will nurture it,” Elahian said.
Still, a fundamental issue for Russia remains that entrepreneurs need a reason or motivation to donate.
Elahian recalled a personal experience of visiting a refugee family in Palestine near the Gaza Strip to illustrate people who are capable of sharing and being generous.
“There were about 25 people living in one room and their poverty was shocking, but their smiles were genuine, their enthusiasm for overcoming hardships was admirable and their desire to offer me a meal was a most touching experience,” he recalled. “I couldn’t help comparing their hearts to that of a billionaire I know. This guy could only talk about ways to earn another billion bucks. And I thought, what a miser, what a deprived person, what a wretch. Really, the world is not what is in your pocket, the world is what is in your heart.”
TITLE: New Pulkovo Terminal on Track
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Kravtsova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Construction of the new terminal at the city’s Pulkovo Airport is going ahead according to schedule and should be completed at the end of next year, airport representatives said Monday.
Pulkovo currently consists of two terminals, one for domestic flights and another for international routes. According to the airport’s operator, the Northern Capital Gateway consortium, the frame of the new building, located near Terminal 1, is 90-percent complete and the roof is 30 percent done.
“The building has got a distinct shape; we can see now what it will look like at the end of construction,” said Sergei Emdin, general director of the Northern Capital Gateway consortium, which has operated Pulkovo Airport since April 2010.
“Construction has been carried out according to plan so far and we are becoming more and more confident that the new building will be completed in 2013,” he added.
The new terminal occupies a total area of 94,600 square meters. The first floor will be used for arrivals, the second for immigration control and domestic transfers, and the third for departures. The new terminal was designed by British architect Nicholas Grimshaw, who worked on the construction of various parts of London’s Heathrow Airport, Zurich Airport and the Incheon International Airport in Seoul.
Jochen Herter, the project manager for the new terminal, said Grimshaw was behind the project’s design.
According to Herter, the design reflects St. Petersburg’s islands, canals and bridges. This will be reflected in the construction of several separate zones that will be connected to each other by walkways. Another aim is to reflect the image of traditional Russian churches in the terminal by constructing metal-paneled ceilings that are gold and metallic in color.
The project’s general contractor is Turkish construction firm Ictas Insaat.
An 11,000-square-meter Northern Landing Gallery, which will be used for international flights, will be built where the Rossiya Airlines building, which was demolished in April this year, once stood, and will become part of the new terminal. Northern Capital Gateway also plans to collaborate more actively with Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, and is considering making Aeroflot Pulkovo’s main carrier. But Emdin noted that even though the discussion with Aeroflot is underway, they are in no hurry to decide the question and strategies will be further discussed after construction of the terminal is complete.
Other new facilities to be built as part of the new terminal will include a covered multistory car park, a business center and a hotel.
A railway line connecting Pulkovo Airport and Baltiisky Railway Station was originally planned to be launched for the opening of the new terminal in 2013. Emdin said that the airport hasn’t canceled the project, but its construction is likely to be delayed until 2014.
After the new terminal is complete, the large-scale reconstruction of the Pulkovo 1 terminal will be launched, and is planned to be finished in 2014.
“We are now trying to increase the number of gates, check-in desks and inspection points, but nevertheless it’s impossible to force something new out of the old terminals,” said Emdin.
Volker Wendefeuer, senior operations director of the Northern Capital Gateway consortium, said that the number of passengers at Pulkovo is constantly increasing and the airport’s capacity problem will continue until the new terminal opens.
“We want the updated Pulkovo to become one of the largest airline hubs in Northern Europe,” Emdin said. He noted that in order to achieve this, it is necessary to take certain steps to liberalize legislation concerning the licensing of air carriers and facilitating visa regimes. Emdin discussed these matters with Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov when the latter visited Pulkovo during last week’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
After the construction of the new terminal and reconstruction of Pulkovo 1, Pulkovo Airport’s total area will increase to 146,000 square meters — 3.5 times bigger than its current size. The number of check-in desks will be doubled, there will be 102 immigration control desks, and more jet bridges (the tunnel-like chutes that lead directly from airport gates onto the plane) will be used instead of buses to take passengers to planes.
“The new terminal has been designed to start new traditions within Pulkovo,” Emdin said. “It will be equipped with new technologies from leading providers; as a result we’ll have to retrain most of the staff and hire new employees with specialties in new areas,” he added.
Investment in the reconstruction project and the new terminal totals more than $1.5 billion. The project is being implemented and operated by Northern Capital Gateway consortium without state investment. Northern Gateway Capital is an international syndicate consisting of Russia’s VTB Bank, German transport company Fraport and the Greek development organization Copelouzos Group. Thirty-three percent of investment in the airport project has come from shareholders, seven percent from the airport itself and 60 percent from international institutions.
Emdin estimated the project’s payback period at ten years.
TITLE: Police Arrest Jackson Fan for Holding Rally
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The police dispersed Michael Jackson fans near the U.S. consulate and arrested one for holding “an unsanctioned rally” in St. Petersburg on Monday.
The remaining 20 to 30 fans, who were carrying a tape recorder playing Jackson songs and a sign reading “We remember, we grieve,” were told to disperse.
The shrine of photos and flowers that they assembled outside the consulate was dismantled.
A report on local television channel 100TV shows a young man identified by his first name, Andrei, being told by a police officer that he has violated a local law by treading on the grass.
But after Andrei, wearing a Jackson-style white hat, was taken to a police precinct, he was charged with violating the rules on holding a public assembly.
“I don’t recall that people can be prosecuted for walking on the grass,” a police spokesman said Tuesday.
“If you trampled on the grass — especially if there were flowers planted there — that’s a different matter. [But the detention] was for organizing a rally; there were posters and sound-amplifying equipment.”
Fans who came to the site Monday denied that they were an organized group, BaltInfo reported.
Local fans have come to the U.S. consulate every year to pay homage to their idol since Jackson died on June 25, 2009.
According to amendments to the law “On Assemblies, Rallies, Demonstrations, Marches and Pickets” that came into force on June 9, Andrei faces a 10,000- to 30,000-ruble fine ($300 to $910) or 50 hours of community service.
The incident involving the Michael Jackson fans was the latest in a series of recent non-political arrests and dispersals of people who took to the streets of St. Petersburg for various reasons.
On June 10, about ten young people were detained and charged with violating the rules of holding a public assembly for participating in a pillow-fighting flash mob on the Field of Mars.
This month also saw several young people arrested near the Mariinsky Palace, the seat of the Legislative Assembly on St. Isaac’s Square, for attempting to draw on the asphalt with colored chalk.
Some media have attributed the recent unwarranted arrests and dispersals to the new law. It was passed in the aftermath of the May 6 March of Millions in Moscow, which ended in violent clashes after the police blocked the path of participants of the authorized demonstration and then broke up the rally altogether.
But non-political arrests had been seen in the city many times before the law introducing stiff fines was adopted early this month.
One of the most notorious episodes was the April 2010 bubble-blowing flash mob near Gorkovskaya metro station, which was first attacked by extreme nationalists, who threw a flare at and beat several participants, having mistaken them for gay rights protesters.
The police then dispersed participants, who were mostly teenagers, arresting about 30. They ended up in police precincts and were released after about five hours and charged with walking on the grass.
Some attribute the tightening of the authorities’ reaction to any unsanctioned outdoor events to the Kremlin’s fear of events such as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004-2005, when massive protests against electoral fraud led to new presidential elections and the loss of the candidate — Viktor Yanukovych — in whose favor the first election results had been rigged.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: City Hosts Marathon
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The St. Petersburg White Nights Ergo Marathon will take place this weekend, beginning at 9 a.m. on Sunday on Palace Square. The event is expected to attract around 1,000 competitors and follows a route that takes in the main sights in the historical center of the city.
The event will be the 23rd White Nights Marathon to have been held in the city and the race is being sponsored by the Ergo insurance company.
The route runs from Palace Square to Vasilyevsky Island and then onto the Petrograd Side, before returning to the south side of the river and heading on as far south as the Hotel Moscow. The race ends back on Palace Square.
Grad Killed by Car
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — One girl was killed and her friend seriously injured when they were struck by a car while crossing the Lieutenant Schmidt embankment at 5.30 p.m. Thursday.
The two friends, Yekaterina Soboleva and Veronika Sokolovskaya, were on their way to celebrate the end of the school year with their class at the Osobnyak na Ostrov recreation and entertainment center, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported.
They were crossing the street at a crosswalk when an Audi A6, reportedly driven by a 31-year-old employee of a construction company, hit them.
The driver of the vehicle stopped. He said that the traffic light was green when he drove through it, Fontanka reported.
According to witnesses, the car was traveling at more than 100 kmph.
As a result of the impact, one of the girls was thrown onto a parked car. Soboleva died on the spot while Sokolovskaya was taken to the hospital in critical condition. She has been moved from the intensive care unit to a regular room.
TITLE: Russia, U.S. Talk Nuclear Plan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The United States and Russia are planning to enhance cooperation in nuclear reactor design, while maintaining joint efforts to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the wrong hands, officials said Tuesday.
U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said after a nuclear energy security working group meeting between the two countries that both nations have developed a “strong partnership” in the field.
Despite disagreements over the Syrian crisis and a rift over U.S.-led missile defense plans for Europe, Moscow and Washington have cooperated on key global issues such as the war in Afghanistan, counter-terrorism and nuclear security.
Under a 2005 agreement, they have both been closely cooperating in returning fuel from Soviet-designed reactors built overseas for reprocessing to reduce the danger of highly enriched uranium falling into the wrong hands.
“We are talking about the situation in which a matter of kilograms of this material is highly dangerous and could be used for terrorist purposes, and we have repatriated many multiples of that quantity,” Poneman told reporters after the talks.
Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko said it has already removed a total of more than 2,000 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from research reactors in six former Soviet republics and Soviet bloc nations.
“We are talking about hundreds of potential `dirty bombs’ that could have fallen into the hands of terrorists,” Kiriyenko said. “Russia and the U.S. have taken responsibility for security in all the countries which we have supplied with highly enriched uranium.”
Poneman said that the effort envisages the replacement of highly enriched uranium for low enriched, allowing the countries to continue operations for scientific applications.
Poneman and Kiriyenko also signed a statement Tuesday confirming Russia’s intention to begin conversion of its own research reactors from highly enriched to low enriched.
They added that U.S. and Russian officials are finalizing the text of a bilateral agreement on research and development in nuclear energy that is expected to be ready for signing in September. The agreement is intended to set the framework for shared efforts in designing prospective nuclear reactors and fuel.
“We continue to believe that the proposed activities will give additional momentum to establishing long-term and large-scale cooperation between Russia and the United States in civil nuclear energy and in nuclear security,” Poneman said.
TITLE: Navalny’s Twitter Account Gets Hacked
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Hackers broke into a prominent Russian opposition leader’s Twitter and email accounts, sending his followers abusive messages.
Alexei Navalny’s spokeswoman, Anna Veduta, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Navalny is not going to create new accounts, and warned his quarter of a million Twitter followers that the stream of abuse is fake.
Among the many changes, hackers wrote “Alexei Navalny is a crook and thief 2.0” in his profile.
“I’m disbanding my sect, but I’m not going to give you your money back because I need it to party in Mexico, so you can all go to hell,” one tweet read.
Veduta said Navalny “hopes to regain access to his accounts” eventually.
The 36-year-old opposition leader has been at the forefront of protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin. His home and office were raided and he was interrogated several times as part of a probe into violence at a May 6 opposition rally.
Navalny linked the hackings to his personal computer and iPad being seized by police in a raid on his apartment on June 11.
The Investigative Committee on Tuesday brushed off Navalny’s accusations of being instrumental in the hacking, describing them as “an attempt to discredit the investigators.”
Navalny reiterated in a message posted on Facebook, verified by the AP, that he is “sure that the hacking was performed with the help of seized hardware” and pledged to demand that the hackers be found and charged.
Faced with a choice of unfollowing the opposition leader or putting up with a flood of abusive tweets, Navalny’s followers seem to be opting for the former. Their number dwindled from over 258,000 early Tuesday morning to under 254,000 late afternoon Moscow time.
The hacking of Navalny’s account follows the lawyer’s election to the board of directors of Russia’s largest airline, Aeroflot, on Monday.
See story, page 8.
TITLE: Russia Aiming for Bronze at London Olympics
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko thinks the Russian team will take third place at the London 2012 Olympic Games in the face of stiff competition from other frontrunners.
“We will fight for a place in the top three, but we won’t be able to catch the Americans or the Chinese,” Mutko said at a news conference Tuesday, Interfax reported.
“Our main competitor for third place will be the United Kingdom,” Mutko said. He said that the entire Russian team will consist of 440 to 445 athletes, with the final list to be confirmed by July 11. The athletes will begin to head to London on July 21, and the Russian flag will officially be raised in the Olympic Village on July 25.
Mutko also said he might resign if the team fares poorly at the games.
“I’m ready [to resign], if it turns out that I didn’t work hard enough,” he said, stressing that both he and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak had “done everything for a successful outcome.”
Earlier, Russian Tennis Federation president Shamil Tarpishchev said that tennis star Maria Sharapova will be the standard bearer of the Russian national team at the opening ceremony of the London games.
TITLE: New Egyptian President Poses Challenge for Putin
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin, traveling in Israel on Monday in a bid to revive ties with the Middle East, said that he hoped for a “constructive relationship” with newly elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
The election puts the Kremlin in somewhat of an awkward position, forcing it to start from scratch in its efforts to build ties with Morsi. Unlike overthrown President Hosni Mubarak, who trained to be a pilot in the Soviet Union, Morsi has no ties to Russia.
In addition, Morsi is a longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Russia’s Supreme Court has declared a terrorist organization.
“The Russian head of state has expressed hope for constructive cooperation with Egypt’s new leadership in the development of Russian-Egyptian relations and safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East,” the Kremlin said in a terse one-sentence statement on its website Monday.
The news of Morsi’s election came on the eve of Putin’s visit to the Middle East. Putin arrived in Israel on Monday for talks that focused on Syria and Iran.
Russia needs to treat Morsi’s victory carefully because the Muslim Brotherhood is supporting forces battling Russia’s ally, Syrian leader Bashar Assad, said Theodor Karasik, a senior expert with the Dubai-based Institute for Near East & Gulf Military Analysis.
“Morsi’s win will bring vigor to the Syrian opposition and place the Kremlin in a more precarious position regarding Syria,” he said.
Even before Morsi’s victory, the Kremlin was watching Egypt in fear that something similar to the Arab Spring, which toppled Mubarak after 30 years and authoritarian regimes in other Arab countries, might unfold in Russia, said Alexander Shumilin, a Middle East analyst at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies. “For Russia, it was a direct analogy,” Shumilin said.
It is unclear whether the victory of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Morsi might force Russia to reconsider its attitude toward the organization, declared a terrorist group by Russia’s Supreme Court in 2003. The court ruling said the Muslim Brotherhood was actively involved in recruiting supporters for its radical cause against non-Islamist governments within Russia and other former Soviet republics.
Morsi has said, however, that he would leave the Muslim Brotherhood to become president.
Still, the U.S.-educated Morsi faces a struggle to mend fences with supporters of his rival, Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, who got 47.5 percent of the vote in comparison to his 51.7 percent. Without a functioning parliament in Egypt for now, Morsi also holds little real power and is in the “position of a British queen,” political analyst Andrei Murtazin wrote in a RIA-Novosti column.
The political turmoil in Egypt has affected the flow of Russian tourists to the country, seen as an affordable vacation destination for many Russians. In 2011, the number of Russian tourists declined 40 percent, according to the Association of Russian Tourism Operators.
Morsi’s election also brings a headache to Israel because he has said he would reconsider Egypt’s existing peace treaty with Israel, signed in 1979.
Morsi told the Iranian Fars news agency on Monday that the new treaty should be based on the principle of “equality.”
Although Morsi’s election did not catch Russia by surprise, Moscow should rethink its Middle East policy in general, experts said.
“Russia has supported failing figures,” said Shumilin, of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies.
Ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Syria’s current government, entrenched in Western sanctions, received support from Russia.
“There is a need to create new policy, but it will be built from a losing position,” Shumilin said.
Independent Middle East expert Ernest Sultanov said the Islamist victory in Egypt and a possible change of the Syrian regime will force Russia to groom new specialists in Arab studies to replace staff trained during the Soviet era.
“In this situation it will be staff that will be the main thing,” he said.
Israeli President Shimon Peres told Putin that he had arrived in Israel “in time,” and said the Jewish state expects Russia to take part in efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, referring to the West’s disagreements with Syria and Iran.
The visit to Israel, Putin’s first in seven years, is intended to further strengthen ties with the country, populated by more than 900,000 Russian Jews.
Putin and Peres unveiled a monument to honor Red Army soldiers who liberated Nazi death camps during World War II.
TITLE: Nationalists Want Rights
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian nationalists are seeking inclusion in the presidential human rights council in the same week that several prominent rights defenders quit the advisory body.
“We are definitively seeking our place in the human rights council. In contrast to many others, we have something to say,” Slavic Union leader Dmitry Demushkin told Izvestia on Tuesday.
Demushkin added that he had sent a letter making his case to council chairman Mikhail Fedotov.
“We work not in human rights circles, not in Duma circles, but on the street. All these commissions, congresses and councils are made up of aging aqsaqals [elders] and elderly rights defenders,” Demushkin said. “They are not only detached from youth issues and problems on the street, but also from normal people.”
Three more council members quit Monday and Tuesday, including Igor Yurgens, a liberal expert who heads the Institute of Contemporary Development, bringing to 17 the number of people who have left the council since President Vladimir Putin was elected to a new six-year term in March.
Veteran rights defender Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, left the council Friday, citing new Kremlin rules that would determine council members with the use of an online poll.
Fedotov said he too would leave the organization if fewer than 20 members — the minimum number necessary to reach a quorum — remain on the council.
TITLE: Putin Visits West Bank, Tours Key Christian Shrine
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his Palestinian counterpart Tuesday for what he said was a “responsible” position in negotiations with Israel, frozen for nearly four years, and said Russia has no problem recognizing a Palestinian state.
Putin also offered veiled criticism of Israel, saying unilateral actions — an apparent reference to continued Israeli settlement expansion on war-won land — is not constructive.
Putin spoke at the end of a visit to the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by his side. Putin inaugurated a Russian cultural and language center in Bethlehem and toured the church built over the traditional birth grotto of Jesus.
Israeli-Palestinian talks on the terms of Palestinian statehood broke off in 2008. Repeated efforts to restart them have failed because of wide gaps between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas.
Netanyahu says he is ready to resume talks any time, but refuses to halt construction in Jewish settlements on lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Abbas says there’s no point negotiating as long as Israel keeps building for Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, occupied territories the Palestinians want for a state, along with the Gaza Strip. Israel has moved half a million settlers to the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the 1967 war.
“We talked about ways of overcoming the dilemma of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process,” Putin said Tuesday. “I point out here the responsible position of President Abbas and his endeavor to reach a peaceful settlement based on a two-state settlement.”
“I am sure that all unilateral actions are not constructive,” he added.
Russia is an important Mideast player, in part because it is a member of the so-called Quartet of mediators that also includes the United States, the European Union and the United Nations. Of the four, Russia is seen as the most sympathetic to the Palestinians but has little sway over the group because the United States has traditionally claimed the dominant role in mediating between Israelis and the Palestinians.
With negotiations frozen, Abbas has sought to increase Palestinian leverage by seeking UN recognition of a state of Palestine according to the pre-1967 war frontiers. Palestinian diplomats have also toured the world in search of recognition of Palestine by individual countries.
Dozens of countries, including the former Soviet Union, did so after a 1988 statehood declaration by the Palestine Liberation Organization. Putin said Tuesday that Russia sticks by that decision. The United States and Israel have urged Abbas to halt all attempts to seek recognition of a Palestinian state and wait for a border deal with Israel.
Abbas reiterated Tuesday that negotiations with Israel remain his key goal. He said he asked Putin for help in persuading Israel to release veteran Palestinian prisoners who’ve been in jail since before the interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals of the mid-1990s.
On Monday, Putin met with Netanyahu who urged Russia to step up pressure on Iran to curb its suspect nuclear program. Putin said his talks with Netanyahu covered the situation in Iran and the bloody uprising in Syria, but added that he saw negotiations as the only solution for such matters.
At a state dinner later Monday, Israeli President Shimon Peres pressed Putin further, asking that he “raise his voice” against a nuclear Iran. Putin responded by saying that Russia has a “national interest” to secure peace and quiet in Israel but did not elaborate further.
With close ties to Iran and a vote on the powerful UN Security Council, Russia is seen as an important player who could influence Tehran, though it has in the past watered down international pressure on the Islamic Republic.
Russia is also one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s closest allies. Assad has drawn international condemnations for his bloody crackdown on the country’s armed uprising.
TITLE: Duma to Vote on U.S. Visa Deal Next Month
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The State Duma is to vote early next month on a far-reaching visa facilitation agreement with the United States, a senior lawmaker said Friday.
The vote is scheduled for July 6, said Leonid Kalashnikov, a first deputy chairman of the foreign relations committee and member of the Communist party.
Kalashnikov said the bill was approved by his committee earlier in the week, and he does not expect serious obstacles in parliament. “There is agreement among all parties that everybody will benefit from this,” he said by telephone.
The deputy also said that the draft law would go through only one reading in parliament, instead of the usual three.
The bill, a copy of which is published on the Duma website, stipulates that Russians and Americans traveling to each other’s country will get three-year multi-entry visas as a rule, provided that their visa applications are successful.
Originally stated to go into effect last summer, the agreement has been held up in the government’s bureaucracy for practically a year. It will become law in Russia after it has been approved by the Federation Council and signed by President Vladimir Putin.
Once the law is published in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the government newspaper, diplomats from both countries need to exchange another set of notes for the agreement to come into force 30 days later. U.S. law does not require ratification for it.
TITLE: Posting Could Incur Fines
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Authorities are proposing to introduce fines and short prison stays for those placing hyperlinks to “extremist content” on the Internet, media reports said Tuesday.
According to a copy of the proposed amendments on the Communications and Press Ministry website, penalties for including links to extremist content could stretch to 3,000 rubles ($90) or a 15-day administrative sentence, Vedomosti reported.
In another amendment, mass media outlets accused of extremist activity could be fined up to 300,000 rubles ($9,000). Fines for outlets judged to promote terrorism could reach 1 million rubles ($30,370).
Authorities consider content “extremist” after the Prosecutor General’s Office files a complaint and the Justice Ministry includes the item in the federal list of extremist materials.
There are currently 1,256 items on the list of extremist materials. For the most part, leaflets, songs, video clips by nationalists, separatists and radical Islamist groups make up the list.
But bloggers and experts consulted by Vedomosti considered the latest amendments absurd and ineffective.
“This is beyond my understanding, we’re heading toward dictatorship,” said Rustem Adagamov, a well-known blogger who writes under the name drugoi.
TITLE: Railways, Govt Dispute Value
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The 25-percent stake in the country’s rail monopoly that the government wants to privatize by 2013 is worth about 260 billion rubles ($7.83 billion), Russian Railways’ managers said.
The estimate is considerably lower than the government’s own figures, however. A Finance Ministry official put a 25-percent share in the company at 700 billion rubles, Vedomosti reported.
That would make the entire company, which employs almost a million people and operates the second-longest stretches of track in the world, worth about 2.8 trillion rubles ($85 billion), compared with the company’s 1.04 trillion-ruble valuation of its worth.
The sale of a 25-percent minus one share stake in Russian Railways by 2013 is one of several sales of state assets included in a privatization plan confirmed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the Cabinet last month and updated in a decree published Friday.
Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin, who has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the wisdom of privatizing national rail services, has called the deadline “unrealistic.”
“Honestly speaking, I don’t yet understand this opportunity to directly privatize shares of Russian Railways,” he told Interfax over the weekend.
Russian Railways’ estimate values the company lower than similar firms, experts say. Union Pacific in the United States is valued at $54.14 billion.
TITLE: Moscow Hits Rock-Bottom on Business Rating
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky and Andrew McChesney
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A new World Bank survey ranks Moscow the worst of 30 Russian cities in which to do business.
The ranking is a major embarrassment for Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who has promised that companies would face fewer hassles.
“This is a serious negative signal for us to change the situation, and that’s what we are trying to do,” Deputy Mayor Andrei Sharonov said in an interview on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, where the survey was released.
The global version of the Doing Business survey for Russia in general is significantly skewed because it uses Moscow as a basis for its conclusions about the entire country.
The latest worldwide Doing Business report was released in October. It rated countries across 10 indicators.
Out of 183 economies, Russia was ranked 120th on the ease of doing business.
But Russia is also among the 30 national economies that has improved the most since 2005 by making regulations more business-friendly.
On the domestic front, Ulyanovsk, Saransk and Vladikavkaz won the top three spots, respectively, in the Doing Business in Russia 2012 survey.
The researchers judged cities in four areas: Starting a business, registering property, obtaining construction permits and connecting to the electrical grid.
Moscow did make changes for the better, but it still lags behind many other cities in the report.
Since the previous measurement in 2008, the time required to get construction permits in the city dropped from “almost two years” to 392 days last year, the World Bank said.
The national average, however, went down to 269 days from 520 days, or by almost 40 percent, the bank said.
Part of the reason Moscow takes longer to issue construction permits is its sprawling subway system.
To comply with requirements for building a warehouse and connecting it to utilities, businesses need to go through as few as 16 steps in Murmansk but 47 in Moscow, the World Bank found.
Another area where Moscow especially stands out is the huge cost of getting hooked up to the electrical grid, which exceeded even the notoriously expensive levels of Vietnam and Nigeria.
Connection charges, which typically consist of payments to distribution utilities and private firms that do connection design and work, run as high as 1,852 percent of income per capita, or $183,575. Samara is just a tiny notch below.
Vietnamese businesses pay an average of 1,342 percent of income per capita, and Nigerian counterparts pay 1,056 percent.
The average for Russia is 661.5 percent, about the same as in Turkey and China but much more than in Brazil, where the rate is 130 percent.
Sharonov, the deputy mayor, acknowledged that obtaining construction permits and getting electricity are indeed “much more difficult” in Moscow than in many other Russian cities.
He said City Hall is reconsidering the regulations for both areas, trying to eliminate some phases and compress the rest.
The ultimate goal, he said, is to make it possible for business owners to submit a single application rather than have to make trips to the offices of multiple city authorities.
“We are trying to create a one-stop shop where the applicant could submit a request, and the rest would be the city’s problem rather than the problem of the applicant,” Sharonov said.
Also, City Hall has made progress since the World Bank did its analysis for the survey, he said.
The city created a central office for protecting business rights and interests, which then reduced the time for getting construction permits by 50 percent.
Retail kiosks have since been able to get electricity in 15 days, down from at least three months.
Russian cities ranked very high on the global scale in two other factors.
“Registering property is easy and cheap in Russia,” the survey said. “Registration fees are among the lowest in the world.”
The average start-up cost of 2.3 percent of income per capita places Russia among the 30 cheapest economies worldwide to start a business, the World Bank said.
No single domestic city outperformed the others in all areas.
It is easiest to start a business in St. Petersburg, deal with construction permits in Surgut, connect to electricity in Saransk and register property in Kaluga, the World Bank said.
The first Doing Business in Russia survey gauged conditions in 2008 and came out the next year. It covered 10 cities based on four criteria.
TITLE: Film, TV Battle Piracy
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Film and Television Producers Association wants social networks to be responsible for the content that users upload, and the association is pressing for legislation to reflect that view.
“To produce [movies and TV content] we need to earn money. But how can we do this without help from the state?” Anna Krutova, adviser to the association’s management board, told The St. Petersburg Times on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.
The State Duma is considering a raft of potential Civil Code amendments on intellectual property, and the association wants the text to be altered to make social networks liable for pirated content.
Opponents insist that such a revision would censor the Internet, a key source of expressive freedom in Russia.
Currently, social networks and hosting services are not obliged to discourage illegal file sharing on their platforms.
The Film and Television Producers Association sent an open letter to the State Duma, the president and the prime minister in April asking to change the draft amendments. But, so far, there has been no response.
Dmitry Grishin, general director of Mail.Ru Group, agreed that “a compromise is needed” regarding the file-sharing issue, but he warned that legal actions should not be made in haste.
“Modern technologies are changing very fast, so before introducing legal regulations, it’s necessary to let the situation settle down,” Grishin told the St. Petersburg forum.
He also noted that while Russians are increasingly using the Internet, there is still a lack of locally available online resources that offer quality legal content.
As a result, people have to use pirated products, he said.
“Five years ago people were not ready to pay for Internet content in Russia. Now they are ready, but there is no [such resource],” Grishin said.
Alexander Akopov, president of television show producer Amedia, said a Russian resource offering Western movies and TV series as they are released abroad should be launched by Jan. 1. He declined to reveal details.
The lack of legal protection against piracy only makes it harder for the domestic film industry to compete with Hollywood, said Krutova of the Film and Television Producers Association.
TITLE: Opposition Leader Navalny Elected To Aeroflot Board
AUTHOR: By Roland Oliphant
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Alexei Navalny, the bane of both the Kremlin and state corporations, found himself elected to the board of state-owned Aeroflot on Monday — and immediately promised to create an anonymous complaint system to improve governance at the flagship airline.
Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger and opposition leader, was installed as an independent member of the board after winning more than 787 million votes at the airline’s annual shareholder conference.
He announced his victory on Twitter with a euphoric: “Fly Aeroflot!”
Earlier this month his home and the offices of his Rospil anti-corruption campaign group were raided by police investigating violence at an opposition rally on May 6.
“Aeroflot will help me escape investigators. I’ll live on an airplane, like the teacher in ‘The Adventures of the Italians,’” he joked on Twitter, referencing the 1974 Soviet comedy “The Unbelievable Adventures of Italians in Russia.”
Aeroflot is 51.17 percent owned by the state. Its authorized capital consists of 1.11 billion shares.
Navalny was nominated in February by billionaire banker Alexander Lebedev, who owns a 15-percent stake in Aeroflot through his National Reserve Bank.
Lebedev split his votes between Navalny and Sergei Alexashenko, a Higher School of Economics professor who was also elected as an independent board member, Navalny told Forbes.ru.
Analysts said the move was positive for Aeroflot, as they expected Navalny to push minority shareholders interests and improve corporate governance to make the company more sustainable over the long term.
This will be the first time that Navalny has had an opportunity to improve governance from the inside of one of Russia’s state corporations.
Navalny said he planned to introduce a six-step plan for corporate governance at the airline.
“It’s a complex of measures, starting from the creation of a system under which all reports of abuse will go to an auditing committee, and independent directors on that committee will be responsible for checking the signal, and ending with the publication of quasi-secret documents to all shareholders,” he told Forbes.ru.
Aeroflot remains one of the few high-profile state-controlled firms that Navalny has not crossed swords with in his career as an activist investor, and he reiterated his faith that it “is not a particularly sinister company; it’s not Gazprom or Rosneft.”
The relative respect seems mutual. Aeroflot chief Vitaly Savelyev has said that Navalny’s corruption-fighting experience could be a boon for the airline.
Navalny will replace National Reserve Bank’s previous independent director, so his arrival is not revolutionary, said Andrei Rozhkov, transportation analyst at IFC Metropol.
“But he is more ambitious and, I think, likely to pursue minority shareholder interests and the improvement of corporate governance more vigorously,” he said.
Specifically, Navalny could ask the board and management to announce their dividend payout ratio and ask for quarterly dividends, which would encourage minority shareholders to invest in the airline, he said. Currently, Aeroflot only issues annual dividends.
Other analysts were more circumspect.
“I’d say it is neutral for the company,” said Vladimir Dorogov, an aviation analyst at Alfa Bank. “Aeroflot has managed to improve its corporate governance over the past three years quite substantially, I don’t see any specific opportunities for Navalny to improve things — just marginal stuff.”
Commenting on the job at the time of his nomination in February, Navalny told The St. Petersburg Times that Lebedev had approached him for his “professional skills.”
“I have a clear, understandable program to improve corporate governance in state-owned or controlled companies, which applies to Aeroflot,” he said.
Dorogov, at Alfa Bank, speculated that the airline may be seeking to capitalize on Navalny’s anti-corruption reputation.
TITLE: Criminalizing the Right to Assembly
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Ryzhkov
TEXT: All of the predictions that the authorities would tighten the screws on opposition leaders and on the protest movement after President Vladimir Putin’s May 7 inauguration are proving true. The May 6 protests have become the Kremlin’s “cause celebre” for the new crackdown, and the authorities are attempting to manipulate Article 212 of the Criminal Code on mass riots to jail protesters for up to 10 years and to intimidate the entire anti-Putin movement.
Thirteen people connected with the May 6 rally are in custody, including several who were not even at the demonstration that day. A team of investigators has been formed to question dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other activists and search their property. If convicted, they would join the ranks of about 40 political prisoners already serving terms in Russia today.
According to a June 18 article in Vlast magazine that cited unnamed sources, Putin has ordered the Investigative Committee, headed by his close ally Alexander Bastrykin, to identify and punish the perpetrators of the May 6 protest like the British authorities did after the August 2011 riots in London. Using Britain’s anti-riot laws, more than 1,500 rioters were charged, several of whom received prison sentences of 18 months to eight years.
But there is nothing in common between the events in London, which were truly riots, and the protests in Moscow on May 6. The unrest in London erupted among the lower classes in response to police violence. The rioters looted, set fire to homes, shops, cars and other property and attacked policemen with weapons. Five people died in the violence, and the government had great difficulty bringing the situation under control. The British authorities prosecuted people against whom there was strong and convincing evidence that they were involved in rioting and other acts of violence against police and others.
During the May rally in Moscow, however, there was nothing that would fall under the legal definition of mass riots used in the West or Russia. The “rioters” were, in fact, peaceful protesters, roughly 70 percent of whom had a higher education, according to polls taken at the rally. In an act of clear provocation, riot police left only a narrow corridor to Bolotnaya Ploshchad, the location approved by City Hall for the sanctioned demonstration, causing chaos and panic among hundreds of protesters as they were pushed back by police. It was this artificial bottleneck that led to isolated clashes between several unarmed protesters and riot police, but there was no riot, even under the most liberal definition of the word.
Article 212 of the Criminal Code on mass riots, which the authorities are trying to invoke against protesters, gives a clear definition of what a riot must entail: “Violence, pogroms, arson, the destruction of property, the use of firearms, explosives or explosive devices, and also armed resistance to government representatives.”
The authorities’ decision to apply Article 212 against participants of the May 6 rally has set a dangerous precedent. It is also an underhanded trap. Now, peaceful protesters at a rally who are victims of unprovoked violence by police or provocateurs planted in the crowd could face prison terms of up to 10 years. The Kremlin has turned Article 31 of the Constitution completely on its head, effectively criminalizing citizens’ constitutional right to assembly.
Another way to tighten the screws against the protest movement is manipulating Article 318 of the Criminal Code regarding the use of violence against the police. Riot police clad in heavy armor and helmets and armed with truncheons and steel-toed boots attacked protesters in T-shirts, shorts and sandals, who were later charged under Article 318. Meanwhile, judges refuse to view videos that prove the innocence of those detained. Instead, they accept the testimony of the riot police on blind faith and rubber-stamp one conviction after another.
It is clear that Putin is moving toward an even harsher form of authoritarianism. He is increasing the use of illegal arrests and searches, the cynical and unlawful interpretation of what constitutes a riot and violence against the police, and the reclassification of petty, administrative violations into criminal offenses. By doing so, he is coming into greater conflict not only with the people but also with the norms and obligations Russia must uphold as a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio and is a co-founder of the opposition Party of People’s Freedom.
TITLE: between the lines: Putin’s Split Personality
AUTHOR: By Alexei Pankin
TEXT: Paul the Octopus correctly predicted the outcomes of a surprising number of games in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Likewise, the weekly magazine Odnako — whose editor-in chief is Mikhail Leontyev, an outspoken conservative who supports a strong Russian state — has made some very accurate predictions concerning events in Russia.
The May issue of the magazine was devoted to the government’s policy on culture and featured an interview with historian and United Russia member Vladimir Medinsky. The heading, “A unified approach to history is either defined by the state or by whoever is handy,” gives an idea of the substance of that piece. After reading it, I correctly guessed that these were the words of the country’s next culture minister. In this capacity, Medinsky last week asked NTV management not to show what he considers a highly controversial film, “I Serve the Soviet Union,” on June 22 — the day marking the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 — because it might offend veterans.
This is important for two reasons: One, because the state took such a strong public position on an issue so central to Russia’s self-identity, and two, because Medinsky’s position is in line with the historical and moral sentiments of most Russians.
For proof of this, consider “The Historical Process” program on Rossia-1 that aired on May 16 and was devoted to the Great Patriotic War. Viewers were asked to vote for either liberal television host Nikolai Svanidze, who emphasized the mistakes and crimes committed by Josef Stalin, or for Dmitry Kiselyov, a colleague of Medinsky’s who argued that it was a great victory achieved by both the state and society at a huge cost and sacrifice. Kiselyov received more than four times as many votes as Svanidze. Similarly, more than 90 percent of the posts on Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s blog on the media call for introducing morality-based censorship of television programming.
Another example was the April issue of Odnako, which argued that Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization was in direct contradiction of President Vladimir Putin’s stated goal of re-industrialization. The reason given was that every example of successful industrialization — from the victory of the Union states over the Confederate states in the U.S. Civil War to the economic miracles in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan — resulted from a country’s policy of strict protectionism and an active state role in developing and controlling key sectors. Odnako’s editors correctly point out that it would be awkward to decline on membership in the WTO after nearly 20 years of negotiations, but this can’t be ruled out.
Then on June 20, State Duma deputies from the Communist Party and A Just Russia sent a formal request to the Constitutional Court to review on procedural grounds the legality of Russia’s accession to the WTO. Both parties believe that WTO accession would be detrimental to Russia’s economy.
If Putin does not go too far in opposing the initiative, he might even reach agreement with the Communist Party and A Just Russia, both of which could be key allies for his policy of re-industrialization and greater economic and political integration with the former Soviet republics. Political analyst Boris Kagarlitsky once remarked that Putin is similar to a Hamlet-like split personality in that his electorate is mostly left-leaning and socially conservative, while he pursues liberal economic and social policies.
Can the new Putin make a historical choice in favor of his electorate? Follow the predictions in Odnako magazine for the answer.
Alexei Pankin is the editor of WAN-IFRA-GIPP Magazine for publishing business professionals.
TITLE: Rockers of the world unite
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Soviet punk rock becomes relevant again when human rights are challenged, according to New York promoter Bryan Swirsky, who is currently working on a compilation of Soviet and Eastern European punk. Last week, he promoted a Pussy Riot benefit in Brooklyn to support the three imprisoned members of the Russian feminist punk group, whose pretrial detention was last week prolonged until July 27 in Moscow.
The women — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 — were arrested in March and charged with “hooliganism motivated by hatred toward a religious group” for performing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow church. The offense is punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Held at The Knitting Factory on Saturday, the benefit featured diverse music from klezmer, as performed by Frank London & Di Shikere Kapelye (The Inebriated Orchestra) featuring Michael Alpert, to alt-rock from artists such as singer-songwriter Alina Simone.
“I was raised in an era when punk rock was a viable form of protest, when political theater and satire and making bold statements to protest against the government was considered a normal thing to do,” Swirsky said by phone Sunday.
“It all comes out of free expression movements like the beatniks and the early hippies, and the punks were an extension of that. So when I caught wind of what Pussy Riot were doing, I got to thinking about how it relates to what was happening in America and England in the 1970s and the 1980s.
“And it also reminded me of what was happening in Russia and the Soviet Union when rock bands were first starting to germinate in the 1970s, especially bands like The Plastic People of the Universe from the Czech Republic, who were notoriously thrown in jail repeatedly and considered enemies of the state during the ‘normalization’ [period in Czechoslovakia between 1969 and 1987].”
The Soviet punk artists that Swirsky referred to and included in his compilation were Siberian musicians Yegor Letov and Yanka.
Letov, who gained underground fame in the 1980s as a singer-songwriter and the frontman of his band Grazhdanskaya Oborona, was persecuted by the authorities to the extent of being sent to a mental hospital — a notorious Soviet practice for treating dissidents — where he spent four months and was injected with neuroleptic drugs.
“Anyway, when I heard that these women were being persecuted by the authorities, I thought that something needed to be done,” Swirsky said.
“The idea to organize a concert actually came from a friend of mine, a client of mine in the Czech Republic who works with Plastic People and Uz jsme doma. Plastic People and Uz jsme doma organized a benefit for Pussy Riot [in Lucerna Music Bar in Prague in May], and the leader of Uz jsme doma called me up and said, ‘You need to do something because it’s a very serious issue; you need to get the Americans on board.’ That’s how the idea started.”
Some big names in rock were duly approached, but were unable to participate at such short notice, according to Swirsky.
“We reached out to a lot of famous musicians in America like Patti Smith and Lou Reed to Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Wayne Kramer of MC5. [If these artists had been able to participate] we would have organized a big concert that would have made the situation probably more global,” he said.
“Unfortunately, all those artists had to turn us down because of previous commitments on their tour schedules, so we ended up having to reinvent the concert to a pretty intense degree. I ended up contacting a Russian rock promoter here in Brooklyn by the name of David Gross, and David basically knew any decent talent in the Brooklyn area and hired them to put the concert together. So if anything, this is my idea, but David really added immeasurably to the situation. He had a lot of talent as a promoter and drew quite a lot of people in as the result of his efforts.”
According to Swirsky, the show did well in terms of the quality of music and expression of solidarity, but it did not break through to the general New York music-going public as he’d hoped it would.
“Musically, the show was outstanding, every musician that performed yesterday was an amazing talent and they all deserve a lot of credit for donating their talents to the cause,” Swirsky said.
“Attendance-wise, we didn’t do as well as we’d thought we would because we didn’t have an attraction for the American side of the community. The people who showed up were basically Russian Americans who were aware of the situation. But on the positive side, the Russian media was there in full force. There were a lot of people there writing about the situation — I gave probably four or five interviews in two hours — and there was general understanding in the room that these women need support, even if it’s coming from 8,000 miles away. So in this sense I consider the show a success, even if we didn’t have a slam dunk attendance.”
The concert at The Knitting Factory was New York’s third Pussy Riot benefit. Last Thursday, Shondes, Making Friendz, Ritz Riot, Bachslider and DJ Maura Johnston performed to support the imprisoned women at 285 Kent Ave in a series of concerts curated by Permanent Wave, a network of feminist artists and activists founded by Amy Klein of the feminist alt-rock duo Hilly Eye.
The first Pussy Riot benefit — which Permanent Wave was also behind — was at Death by Audio with Heliotropes and the Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock who performed a DJ set, making his first public appearance since bandmate Adam Yauch’s death in May.
Last week, support for the band expanded when Anti-Flag, a veteran punk rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, covered the song that so enraged the Kremlin (the one performed in the Moscow church) and released it on the Internet under the English title “Virgin Mary, redeem us of Putin.”
“Pussy Riot embody the spirit of punk rock which speaks truth to power that inspired the members of Anti-Flag to start our band and dedicate ourselves to the punk rock community and the planet,” the band wrote in a statement.
“The Russian authority’s [sic] actions against Pussy Riot are clearly an attack on freedom of thought, opinion and artistic expression which must be protected for any society to be free. Anti-Flag calls for the immediate release of Pussy Riot and all prisoners of conscience. Whether it be trumped up charges levied by police against Occupy protesters, or the trumped up charges levied by the Russian authorities against the members of Pussy Riot, there is no difference in the police-state tactics that those in power will stoop to in order to oppress those who are willing fight [sic] for equality and justice for all, not just the wealthy few.”
According to Swirsky, awareness about the Pussy Riot situation is growing in the U.S.
“I think consciousness is growing, I think people’s attitudes — especially among young American people who really care about free speech and human rights — I think they are very concerned on a very positive level,” he said.
“The other folks that were doing the other Pussy Riot benefit in Brooklyn, they organized things very quickly and, to their credit, they did a very good job. I think the timing between our concerts was a little weird because we both had concerts the same week, and I think this was a bit of a bad move on everybody’s part; we should have combined efforts. But this is what happens at the stage of communication — sometimes people don’t communicate. Everybody’s got an idea, everybody’s got to run with it. Unfortunately sometimes points don’t connect.
“I think what would make the most sense is if there was one unified effort in New York as opposed to having all these small events that compete against each other — to make a strong show of the movement by organizing in a collective manner, as opposed to lots of little things going on simultaneously.”
Swirsky hopes that another, bigger Pussy Riot benefit will be held in New York in the near future.
“I would like to stay involved in this cause; I think it’s very important as a free speech issue, as a human rights issue,” Swirsky said.
“Our efforts are not to condemn Putin’s government or the church, but basically to make it clear that having church and state collude and suppress dissenting opinion is a very dangerous precedent that harkens back to the darkest Soviet era.”
Swirsky is a 46-year-old native New Yorker with Soviet roots, having being born to a Lithuanian father and a Ukrainian mother.
“I grew up in the punk era, that’s when I came of age,” he said.
“I grew up just after the Vietnam War had started to decline, so I was witness to a lot of protest at a young age and I always understood that being an activist is a very important part of one’s life and that one has to stand up against injustice as the result of government action as one sees fit. One has to respond and react and hopefully cause a change — even if it’s on a small level.”
Swirsky partly attributed the Soviet and Eastern Bloc punk compilation that he is working on to his Soviet roots. Even though the music dates back to 25 years ago and many of the artists presented on it, including Letov, Yanka and Automatic Satisfiers’ Andrei “Svin” Panov, have since passed away, the recent events both in Russia and the U.S. have made what could otherwise be an archive effort relevant, he said.
“How artists were treated in the 1970s and 1980s and the Pussy Riot situation have a very strong parallel,” he said.
“There are also some interesting parallels between Russia and the United States, because of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has been pretty suppressed politically and legally. They are making it very hard for people to assemble en masse like that. There’s a crackdown happening. The people don’t want to see dissent in the streets like that, it makes them uncomfortable, it makes people scared. And people who are scared are going to react in violent ways and they will hire politicians to basically express their will.”
The compilation album, which does not yet have an official title, is due out on Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label within the next 12 months.
TITLE: Kino: The lost chronicles
AUTHOR: By Marina Ivankiva
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: As St. Petersburg — and the world of rock — marked what would have been the 50th birthday of Viktor Tsoi, frontman of the legendary rock band Kino, last Thursday, photographer Natasha Vassilieva-Hull presented her new book, “Kinokhroniki iz Podpolya” (“Kinochronicles from the Underground.”)
Among recent events dedicated to the musician, who was killed in a car crash in 1990 at the age of 28, the release of Vassilieva-Hull’s new book — her third — stands out, firstly because this is the biggest collection of Kino photos that has ever been published. Secondly, it is the first time a Russian publishing house, Eksmo, has agreed to collaborate with a designer from the U.K., which Vassilieva-Hull called “a psychological breakthrough for the Russian market.”
In an hour-long light-hearted presentation in the Bukvoyed bookstore on Nevsky Prospekt, Vassilieva-Hull answered questions and told the audience about her life now and back in the 1980s, her first meeting and further meetings with Tsoi, and the influence it had on her life and career.
Vassilieva-Hull first met Tsoi in 1983 at a mutual friend’s birthday party. She photographed him for the first time soon afterwards, and they became good friends.
A teen idol and heralded as the number one rock star in the late Soviet Union, Tsoi started his band Kino in 1982. According to legend, Boris Grebenshchikov, frontman of Akvarium, then Russia’s most popular rock band, saw Tsoi singing on a train and went on to produce the latter’s new album. Gradually Kino became one of the most famous guitar-based bands. The real breakthrough for the group came in 1987, with the success of their album “Gruppa Krovi” (Blood Group) and two cult films, “Assa” (1987) and “Igla” (The Needle) (1988). Tsoi remained unchanged by fame, however, and according to music journalist and critic Artemy Troitsky, was always a “silent loner, an almost Byronic but modern day romantic soul and rock ’n’ roll drive, something like a cross between James Dean and Bruce Lee.”
Vassilieva-Hull’s story is as turbulent as the history of Russian rock music itself. She started her career in 1974, was the founder and first editor of underground magazine Rocksy and for many years worked for the Leningrad Rock Club, which, apart from the excitement, freedom and feeling of brotherhood it brought with it, also meant trips to the police station after every concert, no permanent job, no money (she was once paid with a jar of honey and a pair of white jeans) and pressure from the authorities. This clash with the Soviet regime prompted her to leave the country in 1994 when she was offered a job in the U.K. In the same year, at a concert by The Rolling Stones at Wembley arena, she became the first Russian photographer to shoot the group.
Although her life has changed since those days, it still revolves around photography, music and Russian rock music. Vassilieva-Hull said that the time she doesn’t spend with her granddaughter or on the beach is spent scanning old negatives and converting them into digital format. She still comes to Russia regularly to open exhibitions, launch new projects and meet old friends. She says that her current aim is to find sponsors who will be interested in funding her numerous projects.
In her new book, Vassilieva-Hull has compiled pictures of Kino taken with her Zenit camera during a period of nine years, from 1982 to 1990. The book is a treasure trove of unique photographs taken at rehearsals, backstage and at house parties. Kept from the public for more than 20 years, and coupled with Vassilieva-Hull’s informal, witty comments, the collection elicits an impression of intimacy, as though readers are looking through their own family album.
Tsoi died in 1990 when Russia was about to face great change and dramatic upheaval in its history with the collapse of the Soviet Union the following year. But legions of fans — including many born after Tsoi’s untimely death — still say, “Tsoi zhiv” (Tsoi lives), and the relevance of Kino songs to contemporary Russians cannot be overestimated. Street corners and underpasses all around the former Soviet Union still reverberate with the sound of young buskers playing much loved Kino hits. The song “Peremen,” (Changes), which ended the film “Assa” and brought one generation of Russians to the barricades in 1991, is a popular anthem at the protest marches that the country has seen since last December’s disputed State Duma elections.
“Kinokhroniki iz Podpolya” by Natasha Vassilieva-Hull (118 pages) is out now, published by Eksmo and available at local bookstores for about 550 rubles ($16.50).
TITLE: the word’s worth: Hats off to all things disgusting and dull
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Øëÿïà: hat; something bad, unpleasant, disgusting, worthless (slang)
It’s time for our weekly language pop quiz: What do the Russian words for hat and dullness have in common? No idea? Let me put it another way: Have you talked to a teenager lately?
If you have, you’ve definitely heard øëÿïà (hat) and òóïî (dully) a lot. But you might have been confused. In standard literary Russian — that is, the Russian that is described in dictionaries — hats do not usually appear on plates and dully is generally not used four times in a sentence before every verb.
Welcome to the new crop of slang.
Let’s start with hats. Øëÿïà is any kind of brimmed hat. Ñíèìàòü øëÿïó (to take off your hat) is what you do metaphorically before someone you admire. Äåëî â øëÿïå (it’s in the bag) is what you say when you clinch a deal. If you are an older or bookish sort of person, you might use øëÿïà to describe a weak-willed and slow-moving person.
Today, øëÿïà is used to describe a variety of situations and things that are unpleasant or not worthy of attention. When you place a plate of fried liver in front of your child, she might announce: ß íå áóäó åñòü ýòó øëÿïó! (I’m not going to eat that yucky stuff; literally “I’m not going to eat that hat”).
When you leave a movie theater, your teen might say derisively: Ýòî íå êèíî, à øëÿïà êàêàÿ-òî (What a waste of money!)
When your teen borrows his father’s camera without permission and drops it, he might exclaim: Âîò ýòî øëÿïà! (Now I’m in trouble!).
Or when the smartphone he saved up for turns out to be defective, he might growl: Íó è øëÿïà (What a piece of crap!)
In literary Russian, the noun òóïîñòü, adjective òóïîé and adverb òóïî describe something that is dull or someone who is dim-witted — someone who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
You might use òóïîé to describe a cutting edge that has dulled, like òóïàÿ ïèëà (dull saw) or the noncutting edge of something, like òóïàÿ ñòîðîíà íîæà (the spine of a knife).
When applied to people and their actions, it is a particularly contemptuous accusation of stupidity. Äî ÷åãî îí òóïîé (Can you believe how dumb he is?)
You might use òóïîé or òóïî to describe some action that is done without comprehension: Îí òóïî ñìîòðåë íà ðàçáèòóþ âàçó (He stared dumbly at the broken vase).
Or to mean something done mechanically, unthinkingly: Îíà òóïî ïåðåâåëà äîñëîâíî (She mechanically translated it word for word).
Or you might use it to describe total submission, something done seemingly without individual will: Îí å¸ òóïî ëþáèë (He loved her blindly).
Today everything is òóïî. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for ïðîñòî (simply): ß òóïî õîòåë åñòü (I just wanted something to eat). Òóïî ïîçâîíè åìó (Just call him). But most of the time, it’s just another one of those parasitic words that occasionally sweep in and take over Russian. It doesn’t seem to be an intensifier or qualifier. It’s just a verbal tick. Ìíå òóïî íå÷åãî äåëàòü (I, like, don’t have anything to do.) Ìû òóïî ïîøëè â êèíî (We, like, went to the movies.) Òóïî áëèí! (Real bad!)
All I can say is: Êàêàÿ øëÿïà!
Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas), a collection of her columns.
TITLE: Sidewalk masterpieces
AUTHOR: By Kristen Steagall
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This weekend will see street art take over the city’s Krestovsky Island for the holding of a new festival.
The Colors of St. Petersburg international street art festival began in 2009 as a student project. While studying popular art trends at St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation for a competition, Yelizaveta Belova and Viktoria Alexeyeva came across a street art festival — in which artists create temporary art in a public space — being held in Italy. The festival was in its 37th year, while a festival of its kind had never been held in Russia. Belova and Alexeyeva then made it their mission to organize Russia’s first street art festival.
For the better part of the next three years, they sought sponsors to finance the festival, but were time and again faced with empty hands and closed doors. By the beginning of 2010, Belova, chairman of the Colors of St. Petersburg festival, said she felt distraught and ready to give up, and looked to the street artists she had met during her research for encouragement. Their reactions, coupled with an invigorating four months spent in New York City, helped to renew her passion for the project and her commitment to finding sponsors. She soon found financial support from the Russian Union of Youth of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast and began planning Russia’s first international street art festival.
The festival, which runs from Saturday, June 30 through Sunday, July 1, will feature an impressive array of artists and projects, with more than 80 artists from all over Russia and abroad participating. The festival will also feature several internationally-renowned street artists: Tracy Lee Stum from the U.S., who currently holds the Guinness World Record for the largest chalk drawing by an individual, Dutch artist Peter Westerink and Mexican artist Adriana del Rocio Garcia Hernandez.
Visitors to Krestovsky Island will begin to see artists lay the foundations of their exhibits days in advance, using chalk, dry pastels, pigments, pressed charcoal and tempora paint.
“Street art takes three to seven days to create,” said Belova. “It depends on the subject matter and how many artists are working on the project, as well as many other factors.”
The term street art (or post-graffiti art) refers to art drawn on a public space (such as sidewalks) that moves beyond its roots of graffiti and vandalism to include both sanctioned and non-sanctioned public displays that aim to engage the public. They often carry a social message, like those by the iconic U.K. street artist Banksy. The themes for this year’s drawings were left to the discretion of the artists, and will not be revealed until the works are being created.
Part of street art’s appeal is due to the fact that it is accessible. Accordingly, interaction and participation have become important factors for Belova and her planning team. One of their key goals is to involve the St. Petersburg public in dialogue about contemporary culture and creative expression.
“Anyone who wants can look at the finished work of an artist, but artists usually create their masterpieces at home, away from the eyes of others,” said Belova. “This is an opportunity to be present during the birth of a masterpiece.”
To capitalize on this creative interaction, the Colors of St. Petersburg festival will also comprise various street games on June 30, parkour demonstrations on July 1, and master classes and a children’s zone where younger visitors will be able to create their own masterpieces throughout the duration of the festival.
Belova hopes that the festival will convince sponsors to help her organize more events in Russia.
“Nowadays, many people spend most of their time on the Internet, sitting at a computer,” said Belova.
“We need to pull our young people out of their virtual reality and into the reality of life. Here, in real life, there are opportunities to learn something new, set goals and achieve them. Art brings people together.”
The Colors of St. Petersburg festival runs on Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to
8 p.m. near Divo Ostrov amusement park on Krestovsky Island. M. Krestovsky Ostrov.
TITLE: in the spotlight:United they stand: Ksenia and Chulpan
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week the acclaimed actress Chulpan Khamatova and It Girl and media personality Ksenia Sobchak in a rare mood of unity both criticized the jailing for another month of the outrageous anti-Putin punks Pussy Riot.
Khamatova even attended the Tagansky district court where the case was being heard Wednesday and told journalists she wanted to defend the women and thought they should be allowed to go home to their children. Novaya Gazeta reported that she was in tears.
That was a pretty brave and unexpected act from Khamatova, who spoke in a video supporting Vladimir Putin’s reelection campaign, citing his help to her children’s medical aid charity. Whereas Pussy Riot are awaiting trial after they tried to perform a strident song with the chorus: “Virgin Mary, drive out Putin!” in the shiny-marbled Christ the Savior Cathedral.
Sobchak more predictably wrote on Twitter that the women’s repeat detentions for a further month reeked of “injustice.”
She herself has been sailing pretty close to the wind lately, what with being arrested and then having her apartment raided, turning up the early-morning presence of protest coordinator Ilya Yashin.
This week she took another risk by handing a spoof media award to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. Given out by Silver Rain radio station, the “Silver Galosh” prizes are for PR disasters. In this case, it was for the “immaculate disappearance” of his flashy watch. An overly zealous member of staff used Photoshop to remove a watch in a photo on his website — while leaving its reflection clearly visible on a table. The Church leader was in absentia.
On Wednesday, Life News website reported that pop diva Alla Pugachyova had performed a new song specially for Sobchak, giving her a motherly warning to turn down her act.
Life News published a video of Pugachyova — who supported Mikhail Prokhorov against Putin in the presidential polls — singing a song dedicated to Sobchak at a friend’s birthday in a fairly ravaged deep voice. Her lyrics include the lines: “Don’t stick your neck out, girl. You’d better sit in the corner. A lot of words means little gets done,” the website reported.
“Alla Pugachyova dedicated a song to me. When I was little, how could I ever have imagined that?” Sobchak responded in starstruck style on Twitter.
“The next thing will be a Tsereteli statue,” she joked, referring to Zurab Tsereteli, a grandiose sculptor to bureaucrats.
Pugachyova earlier in April appeared on Sobchak’s talk show on Dozhd TV. There was definitely no question of Pugachyova ever turning out in support of Pussy Riot, though. On the show, she dismissed the women arrested as “three absolutely untalented idiots.”
Sobchak wrote on Twitter that she believed Khamatova turned out for Pussy Riot because of her, although there has seemed to be little love lost between the two.
In April, Sobchak used her role co-hosting a white tie television awards ceremony to ask the actress why she appeared in the pro-Putin video. Khamatova declined to answer.
Speaking more frankly on Sobchak’s Dozhd TV talk show, Khamatova admitted that she was pressed to make the video but she refused to tell Sobchak which official called her with the request.
“Of course I would not have come knocking saying ‘Please let me record this video’,” she said.
“I said I would vote for Putin because for me there were concrete results from his work,” Khamatova said in a prickly encounter.
But while speaking to Sobchak back then, Khamatova told her she would follow the Pussy Riot court hearings.
“I’m glad that Chulpan kept her word, given to me during the Sobchak Live interview, and came to the Pussy court hearing,” Sobchak wrote on Twitter.
TITLE: THE DISH: A bone to pick
AUTHOR: By Emily Beeby
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Eating out in Russia can be a stressful experience for foreigners — especially for those who speak limited Russian. It is not uncommon to encounter slow service or unhelpful servers in restaurants and neither are ever a welcome addition to a meal out, particularly as standards are, on the whole, improving.
Unfortunately, the service at Obormot is typically Russian. The waiter seemed eager to leave the table as quickly as possible, and had to be called back twice before the order was placed completely. The two-course meal took three hours to execute and the idea of splitting the bill appeared altogether alien to the staff and was declared impossible, despite the fact that separate bills had been asked for — and agreed to — before the meal began. To add insult to injury, the advertised 20-percent discount between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. from Monday to Friday was not possible, we were told, because by the time the meal was finished, it was past 4.
Dumskaya Ulitsa’s reputation for seedy, grubby bars makes it an unlikely place for a restaurant, and one gets the impression that a great deal of effort has been made to make the inside of Obormot classy and tasteful: The walls are covered with a pattern of tulips, and the sofas are equally pretty, although perhaps not the most convenient for eating at a table. However, the vague smell of paint, the lack of other customers and the eclectic background music — which started off well with some funky jazz and slowly deteriorated to ear-grating pop — somewhat detracted from the pleasant aesthetic, resulting in an overall lack of atmosphere rather than the creation of an upmarket one.
To give credit where credit is due, the restaurant redeems itself slightly with its menus. There is a broad selection of sushi, sashimi and rolls, and for the more conservative diner, an interesting European menu. From simple salads, to somewhat overpriced pastas, to a salmon fillet with white wine and kiwi sauce at a very reasonable 340 rubles ($10.40), there is something for everyone.
The adjoining bar, Baikonur, offers a very extensive drink menu, offering just about every spirit and cocktail, with European wines at 200 rubles ($6.10) a glass and a nice range of soft drinks. Here, however, the service fell down once again. After ordering a ginger ale (100 rubles, $3) and a ginger lemonade (150 rubles, $4.60), two drinks very similar in both appearance and taste arrived. It was only upon questioning that the waiter admitted the ginger ale was out of stock and that he had brought two lemonades instead. The drink was, fortunately, very satisfying, as were the spicy shrimp rolls (190 rubles, $5.80) and the crab, tuna and salmon yaki (70 rubles each, $2.15). The promising-sounding beef medallions in a cranberry, juniper berry and honey sauce (410 rubles, $12.50) were a disappointment, though: The presentation was careless, the meat overcooked and the sauce, in which only juniper was distinguishable, gelatinous.
The dessert menu is limited and uninspiring, and even more so when the cappuccino, pistachio, vanilla and strawberry ice creams are all out of stock (which only became apparent after attempting to order them), leaving only chocolate available. Nevertheless, the New York cheesecake (240 rubles, $7.30) was a success, if a little rich. Again, the more ambitious dish, a “drunk” pear with a sparkling wine and cream sauce, pine nuts and ice cream (190 rubles, $5.80), was an unmitigated disaster. The pear was sliced, poached and covered in sauce, giving it the appearance of a gratin dauphinois. It was sickly sweet and the pine nuts did nothing to compliment the dish.
All in all, the experience at Obormot was not one to be repeated. Be it the pine nuts or the poor service, this customer left with a sour taste in her mouth.
TITLE: A Corner of Tatarstan Is Open for Business
AUTHOR: By Rachel Nielsen
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: YELABUGA, Tatarstan — Watching over the point where the Kama and Toima rivers meet in European Russia, the city of Yelabuga is a confluence of many types.
Its suburbs boast a Special Economic Zone with tax incentives, brand-new factories and high-end manufacturing that co-exist with state-supported industry. Centuries-old architecture and house-museums mix with modern restaurants and retail outlets. The Tatar and Russian languages combine on restaurant menus, building signs and in people’s speech. In fact, the city, located 215 kilometers east of Kazan, has two separate but similar names: It is called Yelabuga in Russian and Alabuga in Tatar.
Yelabuga (ye-LA’-bu-ga) is also typical of Tatarstan because of its investor-friendly business environment. Tatarstan is praised by both foreign financial institutions and individual companies for its uncommonly helpful officials, attractive tax rates and aggressive recruitment of Russian and foreign manufacturers, which build state-of-the-art factories and add jobs in the republic.
The regional government set up the Special Economic Zone outside the city limits in 2006 and, together with corporate players, has invested more than $2.5 billion since in the special zone. Companies there include U.S.-Russian car-making joint venture Ford-Sollers, French industrial chemical giant Air Liquide, and Danish insulation maker Rockwool, which opened its largest plant worldwide at the industrial park earlier this year.
In addition to its business ties and manufacturing strengths, the city has numerous historic spots. Settled in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Bulgars, the forefathers of the Kazan Tatars, the area was a trading and army outpost. Russian culture and religion advanced into the region, leading to the construction of churches in what would officially become Yelabuga in the 1700s. In the following years, the city was a merchant town.
Soviet poet Marina Tsvetayeva relocated from the Moscow region to Yelabuga as part of a wartime evacuation in 1941, living in the town with her son. A literary great who bridged the tsarist and Soviet eras, Tsvetayeva achieved fame as a lyrical poet and the status of a major Russian writer of the 20th century — but mostly after her death, as she was forced into exile in Europe and then hounded by the NKVD upon her return. She took her own life in August 1941 in Yelabuga and is buried here.
A memorial museum marks the place where she spent her final days, and it includes a library dedicated to the Silver Age of Russian and Soviet literature, a period that included Tsvetayeva, novelist Boris Pasternak and poet Anna Akhmatova.
The city also was home to landscape painter Ivan Shishkin, who was born into a Yelabuga merchant family in 1832 and left the region to study art in Moscow and then St. Petersburg in 1852. As with Tsvetayeva, there is a museum for the artist, a reconstructed version of the house where Shishkin spent part of his childhood.
His painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” can be found in Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery and on the light-blue wrappers of Krasny Oktyabr’s Mishka Kosolapy chocolate.
What to do if you have two hours
Head to the Savior Cathedral, or Spassky Sobor, constructed on a site where churches have been torn down and built up at least five times in the past 400 years. Blue-green cupolas top the cathedral’s five main domes and its skinny bell-tower, while its white walls make for a plain canvas. A colorful approach to the cathedral is a stroll down Spasskaya Ulitsa, lined with pink buildings on the right and yellow walls on the left.
From there, head west on Naberezhnaya Ulitsa to reach building No. 12, the Ivan Shishkin House-Museum (elabuga.com/shishk/sch.html). It is a reconstructed version of the house in which the famed landscape painter spent much of his youth, with re-imagined interiors suggesting the comfortable life of his family. A tour lasts about half an hour.
From here, wind your way around the back to the main part of the city and take a peek at its serene streets. Because entrance doors aren’t separated from the sidewalk by stairs, many buildings look like they have pushed out of the ground. Most are just one or two stories, and the Savior Cathedral blooms from the edge of the city like a giant blue-and-white flower, dominating the landscape for kilometers on end. A typical street is Kazanskaya Ulitsa, with red-and-gray checkered sidewalks, turquoise buildings and yellow walls.
What to do if you have two days
Take a walk to Yelabuzhskoye Gorodishche, a squat stone tower that is a vestige of the region’s Bulgar heritage. The two-story structure stands on the city’s riverbanks and can be reached by a 15-minute stroll from the city center. Also called Chyortovo Gorodishche, it is the oldest architecture in Yelabuga, dating to the first centuries of its 1007 settlement, according to Regina Khabibullina, a research associate at the local tourist center. It was part of a fortress-mosque and was used as both a place of worship and a defense post, she said.
Also worth a visit is the Tsvetayeva museum (20 Malaya Pokrovskaya Ulitsa), where her belongings, including the notebook purportedly found in the pocket of her apron after she died, are on display.
For another major figure in Russian history, stop by a museum dedicated to Nadezhda Durova (123 Moskovskaya Ulitsa, elabuga.com/durov/durova_02.html). Durova is considered the first female officer of the Russian army, taking part in the campaigns to beat back Napoleon in the 1812 conflict, and she gained a legacy as a cavalry woman. The museum showcases ornate military uniforms from the era and mementoes from her life.
What to do with the kids
For meals and fun, try the Shishka Family Cafe (21 Prospekt Neftyanikov, +7 (85557) 3-21-64.) Decorated with a woodsy scene like a Shishkin painting, it serves Tatar and Russian fare like stuffed blini, with a typical tab of about 200 rubles ($6) per person. There is a children’s menu and a playground across the street. It is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Nightlife
Manhattan (16a Internatsionalnaya Ulitsa, +7 (85557) 3-15-71) combines a nightclub, restaurant, bar, cafe, billiards and bowling under one roof. Open until 1 a.m. on weeknights and 3 a.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it draws about 60 people per night. Nightclub entrance costs 150 rubles ($4.50) on Friday and Saturday. Men can get away with sneakers if paired with a smart jacket and jeans. Women should wear a skirt or dress to the restaurant. Reserve a table ahead of time.
If you want to catch a flick, try Brooklyn, a multi-screen movie theater located in the same complex. The cinema shows films until 11:30 p.m. Reservations can be made at +7 (85557) 4-66-11. Tickets start at 120 rubles, and the snack bar serves shwarma, blini and desserts.
For simple drinks with friends, there is a bar in the lobby of the Alabuga City Hotel, which is open 24 hours a day and has a small array of tables. There are also eight television screens watchable from the bar itself.
Where to eat
Alabuga City Hotel offers Gurman Hall (4a Kazanskaya Ulitsa, +7 (85557) 2-60-00; alabuga-?cityhotel.ru), a simple restaurant with a tree-filled view and a Russian, Tatar and European menu that includes smoked beef with fresh vegetables and a Kazan Salad of boiled beef, pickles, eggs, cheese, garlic and mayonnaise. The average bill for a dinner for one is 600 rubles ($18) without alcohol.
Yelabuga, the restaurant, is a local favorite (7 Ulitsa Stakheyevykh, +7 (85557) 7-52-30, elabuga-restoran.ru/index.html). With Russian and European fare, you can find classic fish soup, mutton and vegetable dishes there. The price per person is about 600 rubles minus liquor.
You can find European and Armenian cuisine in the wood-covered interior of Ararat (26 Prospekt Neftyanikov, +7 (85557) 2-57-01, tatararat.ru/elabuga). Try the house shashlik. The typical bill comes to about 400 rubles ($12) without alcohol. Reservations are required.
Where to stay
Alabuga City Hotel (see contact information under “Where to eat”), located about a kilometer from the Savior Cathedral, is widely considered to provide the best lodging available, and the service and cleanliness match the reputation. Expect to find piles of pillows, modern brown-and-white decor and an oversized bathroom in your room. A standard room with one double bed costs 3,500 rubles ($105), while an apartment with a Jacuzzi and a kitchenette goes for 7,700 rubles ($230) per night.
In the middle of Yelabuga itself is the Toima Hotel (4 Ulitsa Govorova, +7 (85557) 7-54-73, grc_toyma@mail.ru). A standard room goes for 1,950 rubles ($60), while high-end rooms are about 3,000 rubles ($90) per night. Another option is the Vizit (4 Ulitsa Tazi Gizzata, +7 (85557) 5-12-84), which is ranked as a three-star hotel by a regional hotel website. Its rooms cost from 2,000 rubles to 3,000 rubles per night.
Other helpful hints
If you are calling a business or person from a city landline, you can skip the city code (which is 85557) and just dial the last five digits. In orienting yourself, keep in mind that what locals call the “upper” part of the city is the western half along the Kama River, while the “lower” part is the eastern half along the Toima River.
How to get there
There are no direct flights from St. Petersburg to Yelabuga. Four airlines however — Aeroflot, Ak Bars Aero, Tatarstan and UTair — make the two-hour flight every day from Moscow’s Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports to the Begishevo Airport in Nizhnekamsk, a city south of the Kama River and about a 45-minute drive from the edge of Yelabuga. Taxis wait at the airport; there is no mass transit. Plane tickets start at about 7,000 rubles for a round trip.
Yelabuga
Population: 70,000
Mayor: Gennady Yemelyanov
Founded: 1007
Interesting fact: “Cavalryman-Maiden” Nadezhda Durova, a heroine of the 1812 war against Napoleon,
is buried in the city and remembered with a museum here.
Helpful contacts: Yelabuga Mayor Gennady Yemelyanov (+7 (85557) 3-11-76; alabuga@tatar.ru; elabugacity.ru); Alabuga Special Economic Zone investor contact Dilyara Minibayeva, who speaks English (+7 (85557) 5-90-30, +7 (927) 480-0221,invest@sezalabuga.ru; www.alabuga.ru/en/index.php);
• Yelabuga tourist center, which is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (9 Ulitsa Gassara, +7 (85557) 7-86-68; elmuseum@mail.ru; www.elabuga.com/turizm/tur01.html).
Sister cities: Alexin, Tula region, Russia; Safranbolu, Turkey.
Major Businesses
•Started in 1985 as a tractor factory, the Yelabuga Automotive Factory (1 Prospekt Neftyanikov;
+7 (85557) 5-57-75; elaz.ru) converted just three years later into a car factory. Today it supplies specialized vehicles and other equipment to oil and gas companies, both regional service firms and national giants such as Tatneft, Gazprom, Rosneft, LUKoil and Gazpromneft. Known as ElAZ, it is located in Yelabuga proper.
•Alabuga-Sote (104 Kazanskaya Ulitsa; +7 (85557) 7-56-01; alabuga-sote.ru) makes an array of dairy products, from sour cream to yogurt to kefir. It is one of the biggest production companies in the city.
•Prikamneft, the local arm of regional oil powerhouse Tatneft, provides equipment services and drilling (32 Prospekt Neftyanikov, +7 (85557) 25-0-25; www.ngdu.tatneft.ru/wps/wcm/connect/tatneft/ngdu/prikamneft/ob_upravlenii). It operates in segments as varied as information technology and energy.
Timur Shagivaleyev, General director, Alabuga Special Economic Zone
Q: Why should companies work in the Alabuga zone?
A: We aren’t promising infrastructure sometime in the future — it is already physically in place today. Also, we offer a unique package of customs and tax reductions. Third, we have strong administrative support for all resident companies. All equipment can be brought in without value-added tax. Those are really big savings, up to 50 percent. Apart from that, companies in our economic zone don’t pay income tax for the first five years. For the following five years, it’s 5 percent income tax. That’s a very favorable rate. In addition, you don’t pay property tax.
Q: What would you say to convince someone to build facilities in this zone?
A: Russia has sufficiently advantageous costs for raw materials: Electricity, gas, metal, plastics, etc. In choosing among special zones in Russia, China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, companies look at which ones have the most competitive prices for raw materials, customs and tax benefits and infrastructure advantages, and they choose the site that is best for them.
It happens that we are not only one of the best sites in Russia, but we have also become competitive in the global arena.
Q: What types of developments or changes do you expect in the zone in the next two years?
A: It is quite straightforward. The amount of money invested into our zone by private investors stands at $1 billion, and the amount of promised investment is $3 billion. Accordingly, in two years, we will receive a minimum of $2 billion in investment, and more likely an amount closer to $3 billion to $4 billion. There will be another 30 new major factories.
Q: What places in Yelabuga do you recommend to visitors?
A: I recommend the Yelabuga restaurant. It’s a very good restaurant. For those who want to eat dishes based on upper-class Russian cuisine from the 19th and early 20th centuries, it’s the best place to go.
— Rachel Nielsen
TITLE: Cultural Capital Urged to Bring Arts to People
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The term “cultural capital” is one that some view to be a kind of consolation prize for impressive cities that do not hold the title of real capitals. Others see them as cities recognized for their bustling artistic life. The idea of cultural capitals was the focus of a special discussion at the 16th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum held in the city from June 21 through 23.
While every state can technically have only one official capital, there is virtually no limit to how many cultural capitals a country can have.
What does a city need to have to deserve such a flattering status? This question is a sensitive one for St. Petersburg, Russia’s self-proclaimed and internationally recognized cultural capital. The city is often criticized for its absence of cultural events that demonstrate the city’s vitality, and is accused of comfortably living off its priceless cultural heritage.
Although, according to sociological polls, St. Petersburg holds a firm spot on the list of places travelers most want to visit, many people put off their trip to Russia’s northern capital, preferring to first visit places that host exciting events people feel they cannot miss, whereas the Hermitage will still be around in years to come.
Irina Antonova, director of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, believes that smaller European towns and cities like Germany’s Bayreuth and Austria’s Salzburg, which play host to world-renowned classical music events, deserve the title of cultural capital for these efforts alone.
“Bayreuth’s Wagner Festival is known around the globe, and this is a beautiful example of how contemporary creative spirit can make the most of an artistic legacy,” she said. “Today a cultural capital is one that can make its art — whether it be experimental pieces or priceless masterpieces — relate to people’s lives today.”
For filmmaker Alexander Sokurov, winner of the Golden Lion, the Grand Prix of the prestigious international Venice Film Festival, the term “cultural capital” is sooner a warning sign than praise. In the director’s opinion, it speaks of inequality.
“What really holds a state together is its cultural diversity and preserved cultural heritage,” Sokurov said. “It is alarming that the artistic and cultural resources of such a vast country as Russia are concentrated in two big cities. What about the provinces? There is no state policy that involves theaters and museums partaking in government-sponsored tours across Russia. People crave this. The current situation is shameful and dangerous because it leaves most people deprived of the arts in a country that possesses an immense cultural legacy.”
Valery Gergiev, artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater and founder of the International Stars of the White Nights festival, believes that to really deserve the title “cultural capital,” a city needs to first and foremost make the arts accessible to all residents. Even in Moscow and St. Petersburg where such events can be found, not everyone can afford to attend them.
Mariinsky Theater artists give free performances at St. Petersburg State University and Moscow’s Lomonosov University, as well as organizing charitable concerts — always at the company’s own initiative.
One of Gergiev’s ideas is that the local government should consider co-sponsoring events during which children could visit city theaters and museums.
“In St. Petersburg we could easily make it possible for every child to see, for example, ‘The Nutcracker,’ one of the most beautiful ballets ever created,” he said. “It is very simple. Why do so many St. Petersburgers have to wait until they grow up and start earning money to go to the Mariinsky Theater when, if the city joined forces with theaters and created a culture-friendly policy, children could see the shows when they are six or seven years old? I really want this to happen, but the authorities need to share this vision.”
Vladimir Medinsky, the newly appointed Culture Minister, in turn, would like to change the role of his institution from sponsor to strategist.
“We are working on creating a legal framework that would make it attractive for businesses to become patrons of the arts,” the minister said, although he stopped short of explaining what specific advantages the legal amendments would involve and how soon they could be introduced. Still, the minister said he is finalizing a proposal to the government to relieve the country’s state-funded arts and culture institutions of income and land taxes.
Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, president of the Onexim Group, has called for the government to help businesses out if the state expects them to contribute.
“The state has to simplify the process of donations and sponsorship for private companies,” he said. “Also, federal law no. 83 [which allows public schools to charge students for things such as special courses and other services like security and maintenance work] and law no. 94 on state tenders must be repealed,” Prokhorov said.
Alexei Kudrin, former finance minister and the dean of the liberal arts and sciences department at St. Petersburg State University, said he always begins his exploration of a town or city with a visit to one of its galleries or theaters.
“It gives me a sense of the place, a taste of it — and an original taste at that,” he said. “Yet a gallery that is a mere collection of artifacts does not give a town spirit. There needs to be nourished soil, creative ground for new works of art to emerge and an atmosphere that encourages experimentation.”
Kudrin used a creative analogy between an iPhone and a theater company to explain the importance of education in developing a thriving arts scene.
“An iPhone is a product; it took its current shape owing to the work of a number of innovative scientific laboratories, big and small. Similarly, say, the Mariinsky Theater is also a product, and for this company to be able to function as efficiently as an iPhone — and produce moving works of art — it needs to employ talented and skilled musicians, directors, dancers, singers and costume designers, who all grew up in a place that nurtures the arts.”
Under Kudrin as finance minister, Russia saw a staggering increase in its culture spending from less than 10 billion rubles ($300 million) per year when he accepted the position in 2001 to the 100 billion rubles ($3 billion) earmarked for culture in 2012.
Vicente Gonzalez Loscertales, director of the Bureau International des Expositions, stressed the importance of large-scale events for city development.
“Hosting a World Expo can transform a city; I’m not exaggerating,” he said. “The city of Seville is the setting for so many operas, yet the city did not have its own opera house until it received the Expo. Ever since, the theater has been packed every single night. This is a stunning example of how an event can accelerate the cultural process in a city. Do not underestimate it.”
TITLE: Turkey Threatens Syria With Retaliation
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey warned Tuesday that any Syrian military unit approaching its border will be treated as a direct threat, a serious escalation in tensions days after Syria shot a Turkish military plane out of the sky.
Turkey’s NATO allies expressed solidarity with Ankara and condemned the Syrian attack but made no mention of any retaliatory action against Syria.
“The rules of engagement of the Turkish Armed Forces have changed,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech. “Any military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria and poses a security risk and danger will be regarded as a threat and treated as a military target.”
“No one should be deceived by our cool-headed stance,” Erdogan added. “Our acting with common sense should not be perceived as a weakness.”
Syria insists the Turkish military plane violated its air space on Friday. Turkey says although the RF-4E reconnaissance jet had unintentionally strayed into Syria’s air space, it was inside international airspace when it was brought down over the Mediterranean by Syria. Its two pilots are still missing.
The head of the NATO military alliance called the downing of the jet unacceptable Tuesday after Turkey briefed NATO’s North Atlantic Council on the incident. The talks were held under Article 4 of NATO’s founding treaty, which allows a NATO member to request consultations if its security has been threatened.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance condemned the Syrian attack “in the strongest terms” and expressed solidarity with Turkey but did not speak of any possible armed action against Syria.
The Syrian opposition says Syrian President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on an increasingly armed popular uprising has killed some 14,000 people since it began in March 2011.
“It’s my clear expectation that the situation won’t continue to escalate,” Fogh Rasmussen told reporters after Tuesday’s meeting. “What we have seen is a completely unacceptable act and I would expect Syria to take all necessary steps to avoid such events in the future.”
Erdogan said Syria shot down the unarmed plane in international airspace without warning in a ‘deliberate’ and ‘hostile’ act. He said border violations in the region were not uncommon and Syrian helicopters had violated Turkish airspace five times recently without a Turkish response. The two countries share a 566-mile (910-kilometer) border.
Syria said the downing was an accident caused by the “automatic response” of an officer commanding an anti-aircraft position who saw an unidentified jet flying at high speed and low altitude.
Erdogan said Syrian forces also fired on a CASA-type search-and-rescue plane on Friday following the downing of the jet. It was not clear if the second plane was hit.
The downing of the jet has aggravated tense ties between the two neighbors.
Turkey has repeatedly called on Assad to step down as 33,000 Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey, fleeing a government crackdown on a popular uprising. The country is also hosting civilian opposition groups as well as members of the Free Syrian Army, which is fighting against the Syrian regime.
“We will continue to support the struggle of our brothers in Syria at any cost,” Erdogan said. Turkey, however, denies harboring armed Syrian rebels.
The public anger in Turkey is largely muted and Huseyin Celik, a senior member of Erdogan’s ruling party, said party members are against going to war.
Fogh Rasmussen declined to answer a question about how long the Turkish jet loitered in Syrian air space before heading out to sea again, saying he didn’t want to discuss details.
Fogh Rasmussen has repeatedly said NATO would need a clear international mandate and regional support before it embarked on a mission in Syria. Last year, NATO launched air attacks on Libyan government targets only after receiving such a mandate from the UN Security Council, along with backing from the Arab League.
But in Syria’s case, the Arab League hasn’t been able to agree on the need for military intervention. And Russia and China — both veto-wielding members of the Security Council — have consistently shielded Assad’s regime from international sanctions over its violent crackdown on protests. They have called on neighboring countries to refrain from provocative actions that could spark a wider war.
TITLE: Markets Stutter on EU Summit Pessimism
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Concerns over the ability of Europe’s leaders to agree a package of measures to deal with their debt crisis kept stock markets in check Tuesday, a day after Cyprus became the fifth euro country to ask for financial assistance from its partners in the currency zone.
On Thursday, European Union leaders meet in Brussels for another summit, and expectations of a significant change in policy are low, even after top European officials, including European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, touted the benefits of jointly-issued eurobonds, which have been backed by France, Spain and Italy, among others.
In a document published on Tuesday, they proposed issuing medium-term debt backed by all countries and a banking union with a single authority that would insure banking deposits and have the power to recapitalize banks directly.
However, Germany remains reluctant to accept the idea of eurobonds or a banking union since such moves would expose it more to the debt risks of weaker countries. Germany also worries that Europe’s indebted countries would have less reason to fix their public finances.
On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that she wasn’t planning to change her position.
“She did not mince her words, and if anyone had previously doubted her resolve to stick to her course then those doubts may well have been removed,” said Gary Jenkins, managing director at Swordfish Research. “One would imagine that any optimism amongst officials that this week could see short-term measures introduced to help calm the market disappeared with every word Merkel spoke.”
After suffering heavy losses on Monday, European indexes failed to rebound significantly. Germany’s DAX was up 0.1 percent at 6,143, while the CAC-40 in France was down 0.3 percent at 3,014. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.1 percent higher at 5,456.
The euro also was lackluster, trading 0.2 percent lower at $1.2484.
Wall Street failed to change the mood, especially after a downbeat consumer confidence survey. The Conference Board’s main confidence index fell to 62 in June from a downwardly-revised 64.4 the month before. That was the fourth straight decline and provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is faltering.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.1 percent at 12,493 while the broader S&P 500 index was 0.1 percent higher at 1,315.
Also limiting any market recovery was the news that Spain had to pay substantially higher rates to borrow 3.1 billion euros ($3.9 billion) after Moody’s downgraded 28 of the country’s banks.
Meanwhile, Cyprus made an official request to tap Europe’s bailout fund for money to support its banks. Cyprus has not yet asked for a specific amount, but analysts estimate it will be between 5 billion and 10 billion euros.
“After three days of negative trading, European sentiment is stopping any major rally from happening,” said Simon Furlong, a trader at Spreadex.
Earlier, Asian markets mostly closed lower amid worries over Europe’s debt crisis.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.8 percent to close at 8,663.99, while South Korea’s Kospi was 0.4 percent lower at 1,817.81. But Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.5 percent to 18,981.84.
Oil markets were subdued, too, with benchmark crude up 14 cents at $79.35 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
TITLE: Greek Govt Hit By Second Resignation
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATHENS, Greece — A second Greek Cabinet member has resigned in two days, the latest casualty for the financially struggling country’s new conservative-led government.
Giorgos Vernicos, deputy minister for Greece’s merchant marine ministry, announced his resignation Tuesday and it was accepted by the government.
He did not immediately give a reason for his departure. But the main opposition Syriza party had accused him of maintaining an offshore company in what appeared to be a conflict of interest for a member of government.
On Monday, the designated finance minister resigned due to illness. And new Prime Minister Antonis Samaras himself is recovering from a weekend eye operation and will be unable to attend a European Union leaders’ summit later this week.
Greece is surviving on rescue loans from other EU countries and the International Monetary Fund.
TITLE: Koreas Hit By Worst Drought In Century
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KOHYON-RI, North Korea — North Korea dispatched soldiers to pour buckets of water on parched fields and South Korean officials scrambled to save a rare mollusk threatened by the heat as the worst dry spell in a century gripped the Korean peninsula.
Parts of North Korea are experiencing the most severe drought since record keeping began nearly 105 years ago, meteorological officials in Pyongyang and Seoul said Tuesday.
The protracted drought is heightening worries about North Korea’s ability to feed its people.
Two-thirds of North Korea’s 24 million people faced chronic food shortages, the United Nations said earlier this month while asking donors for $198 million in humanitarian aid for the country.
Even in South Phyongan and North and South Hwanghae provinces, which are traditionally North Korea’s “breadbasket,” thousands of hectares of crops are withering away despite good irrigation systems, local officials said.
Reservoirs are drying up, creating irrigation problems for farmers, said Ri Sun Pom, chairman of the Rural Economy Committee of Hwangju County.
A group of female soldiers with yellow towels tied around their heads fanned out across a farm in Kohyon-ri, Hwangju county, North Hwanghae province, with buckets to help water the fields. An ox pulled a cart loaded with a barrel of water while fire engines and oil tankers were mobilized to help transport water.
The North Korean villages of Kohyon-ri and Ryongchon-ri were among several areas that journalists visited in recent days.
Pak Tok Gwan, management board chairman of the Ryongchon Cooperative Farm in North Korea, said late last week that the farm could lose half its corn without early rain.
Mountainous North Korea, where less than 20 percent of the land is arable, has relied on outside food aid to help make up for a chronic shortage since a series of natural disasters and outmoded agricultural practices led to a famine in the 1990s.
North Korean farmers still face a shortage of fuel, tractors, quality seeds and fertilizer, the UN said in a report earlier this month. Many irrigation systems rely on electrically powered pumping stations in a country with unstable power supplies, the report noted.
On Tuesday, North Korean state media reported record-high temperatures in Pyongyang and other cities in the southwest.
South Korean officials also reported the worst drought in more than a century in some areas after nearly two months without significant rainfall, raising worries about damage to crops and a dangerous drop in water levels in the nation’s reservoirs.
“The worst drought in 104 years is causing damage to our agricultural and livestock industries, resulting in price hikes in some farm products,” Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan told a crisis management meeting Tuesday.
Officials blamed high atmospheric pressure over the Korean peninsula for the drought.